I’ve never been drawn to Farming Simulator games despite my friends’ constant insistence that the cozier, slower paced design of it all is therapeutic, but with Farming Simulator 25, they got me. An oddly cinematic trailer and the promise of worldwide farming was enough to convince me to dip my toes into the world of virtual farming. And while it’s not the best thing I’ve ever played, I’m absolutely in awe of how much depth and detail is hiding in Farming Simulator 25. It’s an experience that has forever changed how I look at these games.

I admit that’s in part due to my own ignorance, but it is incredible just how much is on offer here. The Farming Simulator games each offer the opportunity for players to step into the role of a farmer – usually through inheriting a farm which they can then develop as they see fit. You’ll expand your crops, harvest and sell them and then use that money to invest in expansion. Later games would add more detailed elements that go well beyond the traditional agriculture you’d expect – including livestock and forestry.

Farming Simulator 25 differs from the other games in a few ways. For one, you can now expand your farm beyond what has been typically provided – both American and European style farms – and begin cultivating Asian style farms too. With that, rice is a new crop that can be harvested, and, with that, many other aspects of the process change too. Other improvements with 2025 are the addition of livestock such as buffalo, which has a flow on effect of allowing you to engage in animal husbandry to make buffalo mozzarella to sell. There are some simple additions here, but it is merely adding to Farming Simulator’s already wide and varied offering.

And that’s really where Farming Simulator 25 really surprised me. It feels incredibly authentic. Not fussed with creating watered down experience for players, Farming Simulator 25 does exactly what it says on the box. While I’m not a farmer myself (in case you didn’t know), every aspect of running a farm, even those that I don’t even think about, is captured pretty authentically here. Whether it be managing crops, the aforementioned animal husbandry, or planting seeds and harvesting crops at the right time. The game feels realistic and, more importantly, when you see a big batch of crops come to fruition, it’s satisfying too.

Though it can take you a while to get there. There are some light tutorials at the beginning of Farming Simulaotr 25 but after that, the game really sends you on your way to do whatever you want. You can get out of the vehicles and go speak to people, who can often run you through the basics of whatever crop or activity you need to work out, but overall the game doesn’t hold your hand too much. This is both a blessing and a curse – it does feel like Farming Simulator 25 isn’t dumming things down for a casual audience, but for people like me, who are just getting into things, the constant trial-and-error approach to some of these crops could be frustrating for players less patient than me.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $89 WITH FREE SHIPPING ON AMAZON

But other improvements can help to remove some of the tediousness of some of the activities on your farm. While I’d argue that the simplicity and tedium of the tasks if some of the appeal with a game like this, you can easily implement AI-drive workers to drive vehicles from one point to another, plow a field of crops ready for harvesting or even delivering cargo for you. Their routines can be set individually or just looped, which helps you to focus on other things and, if you’re good enough, maximise your efficiency.

And that’s an important aspect of the whole experience, because you can really do a lot in Farming Simulator 25. It’s kind of impressive just how much variety there is here in terms of which crops you might choose to grow or where you’ll focus a lot of your time to expand and grow profitable. It feels like a true sandbox in many ways, and I guarantee that no two players will have the same experience, farms or even progression through the game. It’s this confidence in players to build their own farms in a way that they see fit that makes it easy for me to see why Farming Simulator has become the phenomenon that it has over the last fifteen or so years.

There are other aspects, some not even new to Farming Sim 25, that help to make the game feel more expansive, though they ultimately feel a bit like shallow window dressing than anything else. When I first started playing, I was excited to see that there was almost a whole world outside of the farm to explore – though ultimately the world is rather empty and feels more like a means to an end rather than an immersive space to buy, sell and trade in. Still, the ambition is appreciated though I’d love to see this aspect honed and improved upon in future instalments.

From a presentation perspective, Farming Simulator 25 is fairly rudimentary. It looks better than previous games though not by too much. The music is similarly what you’d expect from games like these – either no music at all or ambient tracks that help sell the atmosphere. The voice work is horrendous though, and I really hope that if GIANTS commits to a campaign in newer games that there is a bit more attention paid to this aspect of the games presentation.

Newer to this game are weather effects and improvements to the way water hits and flows off of crops, which sounds like a minor improvement, but it’s all smaller details that contribute greatly to the bigger picture. If you’re lucky (or I should say, unlucky) enough to be caught up in a tornado, one of the newer weather effects, you’ll no doubt notice how good it looks as it tears through your crops and pulls in a swirling mess of cloud and debris as it rips through your map. Other moments, like when you harvest crops as the sun sets, are serene and picturesque and really helps hammer home that cosy, relaxing effect that the Farming Sim games have.

All in all, Farming Simulator 25 is an earnest improvement on the previous Farming Simulator games. And while it doesn’t reinvent the wheel by any stretch, it adds enough new aspects to not only justify it’s existence but bring in new players, like myself without dumming down any of the intricate aspects that make it what it is. And while the onboarding can be fairly tough, especially if you’re completely new to this, sticking with Farming Simulator 25 will (mostly) lead to only fruitful harvests.

The post Farming Simulator 25 Review – Reaping What You Sow appeared first on Press Start.

Square-Enix’s 2D-HD system has been a godsend for traditionally styled Japanese RPGs. After struggling through years of questionable visual updates and smoothing filters, we finally have a visual style that feels respectful to the genre’s forebearers while looking eye-poppingly pretty on modern machines. It all began with Octopath Traveler and it’s fantastic sequel, but since then many games have employed the style, both new and old.

The latest series to get the HD-2D treatment also happens to be a massive blind spot in my personal game experience. Dragon Quest 3 2D-HD Remake, aside from being an absolute mouthful of a title, is a stellar example of how to bring an almost forty-year-old game to the current day. With a gorgeous visual overhaul, a moving orchestral soundtrack and thoughtful quality-of-life features, this 2D-HD remake respectfully allows the original source material to shine.

Our story begins with our protagonist waking up in their single-parent home. We learn that their father left on an adventure some time ago to save the world and never returned. Despite this, our character feels like having a coming-of-age moment and leaving on a similar adventure. Their poor mum must barely make it through the day because of the worry.

You learn of a big bad guy you must defeat and head to the local tavern to assemble an adventuring party to save the world. This is the first moment where you’ll see how free you are to build a party just as you like. You can recruit up to three other party members at a time. You decide their name, appearance, and, most importantly, their vocation. From warrior and priest to more oddball options like gadabout and monster wrangler, you have immense freedom in building out your party.

Here lies one of the aspects of Dragon Quest 3 that impressed me the most. Its job system is incredibly flexible, and with a little thought, it’s easy to build a wildly versatile team with which to take on the world. At a certain point in the game, you’ll get the option to change the classes of your party mates. When you do this, they go back to Level 1, but they keep all the spells and abilities they’ve learned so far, as well as half of their currently built-up stats. Building them back up to level with the rest of the party is pretty painless, and when they get there, they have stats above what they could have had at the same level without re-classing. They also gain all the new abilities of their new class as they grow.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $89.95 WITH FREE SHIPPING ON AMAZON

Normally multi-classing systems put me off a little, I’m afraid I’ll absolutely goose it and end up with a totally useless party member. The way it’s done here means that almost no matter what you do, you’ll end up with better stats than you started with. It made me much more willing to play with the system. In doing so, I went from a pretty standard mage, priest and warrior combo to a party with immensely useful thief and monster-wrangling skills. Each party member became more well-rounded with buffs and heals as well, so if one party member fainted, it was rarely game over. The job system in Dragon Quest 3 is great fun to play with.

The battle system is pretty straightforward and will be familiar to anyone who’s played a turn-based RPG. You’ll take turns to fight with weapons, items, magic spells and special abilities – attacking, defending and manipulating the stats of your party and your enemies to your advantage. Things can be quite difficult to begin with while you’re building out your party’s abilities but I found that if I did a little extra exploring and made judicious use of buffs and debuffs I was usually able to prevail against tough early bosses without too much trouble.

I touched on the 2D-HD overhaul earlier, but it’s worth going into a little more detail. I’m sure it will become old hat at some point, maybe verge on overuse eventually, but for now, I’m still utterly enthralled by the visual style and how it brings NES/SNES-era RPGs to life. Characters and monsters maintain a flat pixel-art look, while the environment around them is rendered in loving 3D detail. A shallow depth of field sells the look even further – it’s like looking into a diorama of little miniatures going about their adventure.

Similarly, the audio has had a respectful revamp that maintains its classic sensibilities while taking advantage of modern hardware. The entire soundtrack is luxuriously orchestrated and feels like a realisation of what was being composed in the NES/SNES era without the shackles of the sound hardware of the time. I’ve enjoyed the soundtrack so much that I’ve gone back to listen to the originals to compare them, and you can hear the distinct flavour of the originals in the new orchestral recordings. Some sound effects have remained from the original, tastefully melding the old and new.

While great effort has been made to keep things traditional, several new quality-of-life additions have made things more palatable to a broader audience. Objective markers can point you to the next major story location to ensure you’re never aimlessly wandering, though wandering is still worthwhile to find little events and items that add flavour to your adventure.

Three difficulty levels are available to tailor your experience to your preference. Dracky stops anyone in your party ever getting below 1HP, and Draconian ramps up the difficulty while reducing EXP gained per battle. Auto-battle options aren’t entirely new to the series, but are an incredibly useful tool when grinding levels or dealing with easier fights that don’t need particular strategies. All of these features are entirely optional, and I didn’t feel they got in the way of playing the game ‘as intended’. Mostly, they just prevented me from looking up a guide when I couldn’t quite recall where to go next.

The post Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake Review – Gaming Comfort Food appeared first on Press Start.

I had hoped LEGO Horizon Adventures would be a reimagining of the now-classic Horizon Zero Dawn with universal appeal. Having grown up with Traveller’s Tales’ LEGO games, I couldn’t be more excited to relive Aloy’s origin story with the charm and whimsy of a LEGO recreation. While Pixar films or Bluey do a great job of entertaining the kids while conscious of the parent in the room, LEGO Horizon Adventures struggles to find the depth that would keep even the uninitiated interested.

No doubt, much of what would have made LEGO Horizon Adventures special rests on the LEGO brick presentation style. The game looks exceptional. Even playing in Performance Mode, the rebuilt post-apocalyptic environment looks incredible in LEGO form. Environmental artists have had a field day adding extra details that don’t go unappreciated; little LEGO skeletons dotted amongst rusted ruined buildings brought a smile to my face. The lighting is also gorgeous, contributing greatly to an impressive presentation that feels more reminiscent of LEGO Builder’s Journey than LEGO Star Wars.

Poking about the nooks and crannies of each level, however, I was left disappointed by a lack of interactivity. It’s hard not to compare LEGO Horizon Adventures to the other PlayStation-exclusive platforming title released this year, ASTRO BOT, which rewarded you for hitting almost everything. Thinking back to past LEGO-based games, I’m accustomed to whacking and breaking almost every little thing. Bar identifiable barrels, there was little to break to collect those studs, the in-game currency.

With no hidden collectibles or easter eggs to be found, it feels like a missed opportunity. Chests containing studs and powerups are never far from the beaten path. Nor are little LEGO builds, which often feel like the same object repeated, with no indication there’s a certain amount to be discovered in the level. Occasionally, some straightforward environmental puzzle-solving is required, mostly with fire or explosive barrels to break through a wall.

The creative creature design, adapting Horizon Zero Dawn’s many memorable robotic dinosaurs into LEGO form is another strength. They have all been given the same quality, LEGO treatment as the Tallneck set that adorns the shelving in my gaming room. Each new enemy encounter comes with the thrill of seeing how they’ve been recreated in LEGO.

The enemy design also emulates the approach taken by the source material. Like the two Horizon games in the series thus far, combat revolves around hitting weak spots on the machine. Each has its weak spots, with enemies like the Shell-Walker proving more of a challenge with a shield to navigate and two clasps keeping a large weak point at bay.

It’s a combat system that worked well in the original games, darting your way about the level to work an angle on the machine. However, its simplified translation into isometric LEGO form requires the player just point the stick in the general direction with your arrow or spear automatically targeting it.

Playing as Aloy or Varl, you get the option of these two ranged attacks, with the other characters Erend and Teersa having a hammer and bombs respectively. The latter two proved effective if less precise and I gravitated towards Aloy and Erend the most.

Adding more variety are the rare weapons and gadgets you can collect throughout levels. Pickups add elemental damage to your chosen weapon, and in the case of Aloy add scattershot or multiple notched arrows for extra damage. Gadgets get a bit more creative, my favourite being a deployable hotdog truck where the vendor tosses explosives in the general direction of enemies. These pickups have limited uses, but bring some welcome variety to the otherwise monotonous combat.

Sadly, the game’s combat never amounts to much. Granted, LEGO games have never been known for their complex combat mechanics, but still, I was left wanting more. Aloy’s spear never appears for close-quarter combat, whereas past LEGO games have dynamically altered the basic attack based on your proximity to an opponent. That and limiting a dodge/dash mechanic to a consumable pickup seems a misstep, particularly when some of the larger bosses have large area-of-effect attacks that ask more of the player.

Stealth is present somewhat. As you do in the core Horizon games, hiding in long grass makes you invisible to enemies, although there are no stealth takedowns or overrides; an upgrade available later in the game rewards some extra damage from a hiding spot but that’s it.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $99 WITH FREE SHIPPING

To make it more approachable to the youngest gamers, I fear Guerilla Games and Studio Gobo have gone too far and lost much of what makes Horizon’s gameplay enjoyable.

That said, the story is decently executed. Elements of what is admittedly a complicated narrative get glossed over as you would perhaps expect given the target audience, but they have done a commendable job distilling it down to its basics whilst doing the original plot justice. Clearly, emphasis was placed on the character arcs of Aloy — and to a lesser extent the supporting characters — making sure to highlight the key themes most important to young newcomers.

The humour synonymous with the LEGO brand is on full display too, with Rost adopting the role of the narrator with a bunch of self-referential jokes that just about bow out before just becoming overdone. Ashly Burch also pivots to a more family-friendly tone commendably, with fun quips injected throughout.

LEGO’s sense of humour translates into the customisation central to the game. Of course, you can change Aloy’s attire (and that of the other characters too) into any number of daft outfits including spacesuits, chicken costumes and Ninjago gis. Customisation extends to different buildings you add to Mother’s Heart, the Nora Village which serves as the overworld where you upgrade your abilities and start challenges.

Upgrades don’t feel terribly consequential. There are two options: upgrades that increase the powers of all characters, and those tied to each character that can be progressed up to level 20. Each new character level increases their damage or health, whilst the overall upgrades increase the amount of XP earned from various takedowns, the damage done whilst hiding or the duration of elemental effects, for example.

Besides levelling up all the characters, completionists ought to seek out all the Gold and Red bricks they can to unlock all the customisations. Gold Bricks are earned by completing Story Mission and Community Challenges — which range from elemental takedowns to exploring a Cauldron in a spacesuit — and Red Bricks are rewarded for completing the Alpha Machine Hunts.

Story Missions blur together but are divided into different subsections within four chapters, each set in a unique biome. Tallnecks and Claudrons are to be found on alternate paths within these levels, which make for a welcome break in pace. The Story wraps up in several hours, with the Alpha Machine Hunts rounding the game out to what I believe is around a 10-12-hour game.

Alpha Machine Hunts become available after completing a chapter, with more unlocked for that region after progressing the story further. Here the challenge steps up, even on the middle difficulty of the five available. Should you want a serious challenge, there is one should you want to make the grind for all the costumes more arduous. Beyond that, the Platinum seems achievable, but little else would entice me to keep playing.

As expected, playing the game co-operatively online or locally makes it more engaging. The co-op play works well; an online friend can join your story back at Mother’s Heart. Locally, another player can drop in any time you like. Your companion will assume the role of one of the remaining three other characters, at whichever level you have progressed them so far, with all progress tied to your save.

The post LEGO Horizon Adventures Review — The Pieces Don’t Quite Connect appeared first on Press Start.

We’ve seen so many IPs benefit from experimenting with ports or sequels specifically crafted for virtual reality headsets, including Half-Life and, of course, Resident Evil. Although I wasn’t an enormous fan of Metro Exodus, which dragged the series in an open zone direction I didn’t care much for, I am a big fan of the original games. Metro, on paper, reads like a title that’d be a natural fit for a format like virtual reality which is so immersive and particularly interactive. I hoped by taking it back to the tunnels, and focusing on the scrappy, survivalist elements of the originals, that Metro Awakening might feel like Metro of old. 

One thing Awakening does to separate itself from the other mainline titles is that it places you in the boots of a new character, setting Artyom aside to help build out the universe’s dense canon. Having been penned in partnership with the novel’s author Dimitri Glukhovsky, there’s an evident care in fleshing out some characters we might not have seen before. You play as Serdar, a medical practitioner who’s surviving like everyone else in post-fallout Moscow. As other Metro games have, Awakening doesn’t shy away from its spiritual and supernatural side as Yana, Serdar’s wife, is tortured by memories and apparitions of their son, who’d passed at the beginning of their life underground, and sets off into the metro chasing ghosts.

This, of course, prompts Serdar to abandon his bedside manner and take up arms against the radiated monsters and raiders of the metro in an effort to save his grieving wife from herself. Metro Awakening’s place in the canon, and what they’re doing with a certain character’s origins, is telegraphed rather early and, due to a few reasons, never ultimately amounts to feeling like the twist in the tale it should be. That said, the story told is full of heart and does well to fill in a few blanks from before our time with Artyom. 

To get it out of the way, and to clarify as it is available on multiple headsets of varying qualities, I did play this game on PlayStation VR2, having plucked it from the underdepths of my bed, like an ancient relic. 

The last time I donned the visor was for Arizona Sunshine 2 which, funnily enough, was developed by the very same team who handled this game, Vertigo Games. With that being the case, there’s a huge similarity between the two in terms of how movement, level progression, and combat is handled, at least on the user-side. It’s also a very different game in so many ways, most obvious is that it’s a hard task to bask in the hot sun when in a nuclear winter.

In terms of combat, I’d say it leans more claustrophobic and tactical. Going from the undead shambling towards you, groaning with arms outstretched, to armed raiders rattling gunfire through windows while mutated dog things nip at your back after flanking you using their makeshift tunnel systems is a huge departure, and in an effort to add grounding and grit to the disparate setting, the gunplay loses its fun a little. 

While using the guns themselves is great, as usual, I found firefights, particularly those at range, to be frustrating. I’d be popping hopeful shots off in the dark, aiming for the muzzle flashes of those who’d wish me dead, only for their perfect aim to tag me time and again, leading to either a retreat on my part or me running out of ammo, which is already scarce to begin with. When dealing with modest numbers, I’d often resort to running in and placing a swift pistol round to the dome—it felt counter to the game’s intent but undoubtedly visceral and effective.

An unfortunate byproduct of this being a VR title, but could be explained away by Serdar not being a militant fighter, is that the resourceful, makeshift nature of modifying guns from past Metro games isn’t present at all. All guns, and their bullets, are found about the metro itself, which does keep things simple, but it does feel like an extraction of something special. 

With the underwhelming gunplay hamstringing the game’s meat and bones, stealth actually felt like the most viable means of working your way through the tunnels. Taking a quiet approach works well enough because there’s plenty of darkness to hide yourself in and the enemies, like their surroundings, aren’t that bright. They’re clearly a rung above the literally brain dead zombies from Arizona Sunshine, though I’d still say they’re easily duped, until they get you in their sights. General sneakiness is only one part of the equation, however, as it begins to fall to pieces when it comes to closing the deal and bopping a bad guy on his head to knock him out. It requires you to get near enough, but not too near, and clumsily punch your arm out in the hopes you’d closed the gap enough. So often I’d misjudge the distance and simply fall short, fortunately their aforementioned stupidity meant they didn’t register my missed punch’s small puff of air on the back of their neck. 

I do like that the scrappy, survivalist aspects of Metro are well enough intact, thanks to Serdar’s all-important backpack, which can be pulled out by reaching over and grabbing behind your left shoulder. Although we never seem to glimpse its contents, all kinds of key items hang off its every corner. In an effort to keep a clean user interface, your objective and ammunition count are scribbled on a board at the top, while a trusty lighter, ever-important gas mask and filters, and crank-handled battery pack that you’ll use repeatedly to generate power for not only your head lamp, but for rusted out fuse boxes in the metro. Every item requires a tactile input that felt earned and kept immersion at the forefront of the experience, even if I would have looked like an idiot going to town cranking it in the lounge room—what?

With its combat not quite hitting the mark, the Metro in VR experience, sadly, feels best in its quieter, less action-packed moments, when you’re able to take in the signature atmosphere the series has long been known for. The sad solitude of the metro tunnels, at least the parts that aren’t teeming with nightmarish horrors, cuts a stark contrast with the stations themselves which, at several points, feel like bustling, relatively happy places. Life, albeit a heavily compromised version of it, does march on here, and the sights of people tending bar and lending their ear to the broken, people strumming guitars around fires, and people simply resting in the homes they’ve fashioned from dilapidated train cars all paint a picture and create the sense of place I’ve adored about Metro forever. 

A format like VR so rarely has wins, and although I’m far from prepared to call Metro Awakening a system seller for any of its platforms, it’s in the upper echelon of experiences available. It tells an earnest story that deserves its place in the world, cleverly uses the technology to blend immersion with atmosphere, and it’s only due to the combat’s inability to nail down the fun that it ultimately falls short of expectations. 

The post Metro Awakening VR Review – Tunnel Vision appeared first on Press Start.

When we all picked up our shiny next-gen console at the end of 2020, we were assuming that we’d be closer to the 4K/60 FPS dream, but with every major AAA release, it became fairly obvious that we were going to be forced to choose between a 4K image and buttery smooth 60 FPS goodness, constantly left wondering what we were missing with the other mode. With the PS5 Pro, that next-gen promise finally feels delivered on, and then some in a number of different ways.

When it comes to the design of the PS5 Pro, it pulls in heavy inspiration from both the original PS5 as well as the PS5 Slim with it being the same height of the original PS5, but the same thickness as the PS5 Slim, and pulling over that same four plate design that the Slim introduced. I really like the racing stripes that break up the faceplates, and whilst it is a tad annoying that the top ones are differently sized to the Slim (it looks so good in black), there’s clearly a different vent design that means this probably wasn’t going to be possible.

There has been a lot of chatter around the PS5 Pro not coming with a disc drive and I’m not going to get into whether this is a good thing, but the disc drive mechanic is super nifty and very easy to put on (if you can get you hands on one). You simply take the faceplate off, and it’s a small connector that the disc drive slips into and then it’s the exact same process to pull it off. Same goes for the empty SSD slot, which is very easy to access and place an SSD into, if the additional 2TB SSD isn’t enough for you.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $1,199 FROM AMAZON WITH FREE DELIVERY

Similarly, there was a bit of controversy about the console not coming with a vertical stand. The console does stand fine on its own without the stand, and it does come with a much improved horizontal stand in the box in the form of two plastic little legs that clip into the racing strips between each faceplates. This is a huge improvement on the stand that came with PS5 and whilst it looks flimsy, I can assure you, it’s super secure and a great solution.

The only other hardware changes of note are Wi-Fi 7 which is great for future proofing (I’m always going to want to be hardwired), and like the Slim there’s 2 USB-C ports on the front and 2 USB-A ports on the back. The great news when it comes to noise and heat is that the PS5 Pro is practically silent. I have had it on for most of the last week testing a variety of games, and I never heard it ramp up even once, and similarly, waving my hand around the console resulted in a normal amount of heat, which is impressive given the performance.

Just like it was with the PS4 Pro during the review period, performance is hard to talk about with the PS5 Pro, as PlayStation has clearly put some stipulations in place in order for a developer to say that a game is ‘PS5 Pro enhanced’ but as far as how they incorporate that into their game, whether that be a new singular graphic mode, additional graphic modes, or replacement graphic modes, it’s totally up to the developer, and it varies greatly between games even with PlayStation’s first-party studio.

Whilst it’s not always immediately obvious how a game is better, it’s very clear after playing through 15-20 games over the last week that the improvements are going to be massive for games in terms of delivering on that next-gen promise.

The biggest new technology in the PS5 Pro is PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) which is similar to NVIDIA’s DLSS which I’ve spoken about time and time again in regards to how much it helps PC performance through the use of AI upscaling. Whilst I’m not Digital Foundry, it’s pretty clear that what PlayStation has done here is pretty fantastic as some of the improvements that I witnessed across games were night and day, and this is only at the beginning of the console.

MORE PS5 PRO COVERAGE:

• Our PS5 Pro Review
• The PS5 Pro Comes With 1.9TB Of Usable Storage
• The PS5 Pro Has An Exclusive Background
• No Man’s Sky Now Runs At 8K On The PS5 Pro
• Star Wars Outlaws Has One Single PS5 Pro Graphics Mode That Is The Best Of Both Worlds
• The PS5 Slim Faceplates Don’t Fit The PS5 Pro But It Seems To Be For Good Reason
• The PS5 Pro Blends The Best Parts Of The OG PS5 And The PS5 Slim Design

For instance Star Wars Outlaws now has just one mode on the PS5 Pro, which is 4K/60 FPS. On the original PS5 it was either 30 FPS in Quality mode or 60 FPS in Performance mode and neither felt great with the Quality mode lacking a smooth framerate and the 60 FPS mode looking quite blurry, but now, you don’t have to choose as it’s the best of both worlds in one mode.

Similarly, Alan Wake 2 has kept its two modes, but performance mode now runs at 60FPS with base PS5 quality level graphics, and there’s a new ray-tracing Quality mode that sticks to 30 FPS, but looks absolutely incredible and in-line with what you’d get out of a very high-end GPU on PC.

Insomniac Games has done much the same with both Spider-Man 2 and Ratchet & Clank where the new Performance Pro modes now run at 60FPS with quality-like visuals and it’s upped the ray-tracing on Quality modes but kept them at 30 FPS. Realistically, I suspect that going with the 60 FPS mode will be a lot easier decision for most now, with there being next to no visual downgrade.

I really liked the way Naughty Dog took advantage of the PS5 Pro, with a new third mode simply called ‘PS5 Pro’ that utilises PSSR to bring 4K/60 FPS to both The Last Of Us Part 1 and Part 2. These games already looked stunning, but to now be able to play them in 60 FPS without feeling like you’re seeing a downgrade on the visuals just makes all the difference.

Probably the biggest difference was Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth which has a new Versatility graphics mode. This is a game that was heavily critiqued for how blurry it was in performance mode, and this game is one that kept all of its original modes, but this new Versatility mode is both super crisp, looking indistinguishable from the original Quality mode and runs at a smooth 60 FPS.

@shannongrixti

The PS5 Pro delivers on the next-gen promise with higher resolutions and more consistent frame rates across the board #PS5Pro #PlayStation5Pro #PS5 #PlayStation5 #PlayStation #Tech #PS5ProUnboxing #Gaming #Tech

? original sound – Shannon Grixti | Gaming & Tech

Just because of some of lack of information about PS5 Pro upgrades and how different developers were handling the new technology, I reached out to a few developers from the likes of Bioware and Hello Games and it was very clear that these teams were excited in the new world of possibilities that the console unlocks. It was always a little bit of a running joke that the original PS5 had an 8K logo on the box, but now that is starting to become a reality.

Whilst F1 has a super stunning ray-tracing mode at 4K/60 FPS, it also has an 8K option for those that have the compatible TV. No Man’s Sky also has a new 8K option for those that want to jump in. I do suspect that this will still be quite a rarity, and I suspect that most people don’t own an 8K TV and have no intention to upgrade, but if anything, it is a good example of how much more headroom developers have to play with when using PSSR.

It’s not only the PS5 Pro enhanced games that see an improvement. There’s Game Boost that basically acts to lift the frame rates or resolution of any game that has uncapped framerates or dynamic resolution. A great example of this is Elden Ring and the Monster Hunter Wilds beta that both perform better on PS5 Pro and also Resident Evil 2’s uncapped ray-tracing mode that ran at 60 FPS on the PS5 Pro and 45ish FPS on the original PS5.

There’s also an ‘Enhanced Image Quality’ option in the system settings that uses AI upscaling to make PS4 games look clearer. I didn’t spend a heap of time with this, but I did try Bloodborne and a few other games, and it wasn’t a night and day difference, but I did notice things like text being a lot less blurry on the PS5 Pro.

Whilst I’ve been pretty positive on the PS5 Pro, I want to be really careful not to oversell it, because you won’t be blown away going from the PS5 to PS5 Pro, at least with what’s on offer so far. It’s more of a consistent, across the board improvement that feels more what I was expecting coming into this generation. This is the closest that console gaming has felt to playing on a PC in terms of playing a game with a fantastic, crisp resolution at 60 FPS.

If you’re somebody that constantly finds yourself flicking between graphics modes or have thought that something doesn’t run at solid enough frames or look like its running at full resolution, this is the console for you, but if you’re not somebody who cares about that then I’d probably wait until something like Grand Theft Auto 6 or the next big PlayStation first-party game comes along.

What’s on offer here from PlayStation is fairly remarkable from a technological standpoint, and yes the PS5 Pro is expensive, but it does offer a fairly high-end experience in line with a PC that would be far more expensive to put together, and AI upscaling systems only improve over time, so this feels like it’s only the beginning in how far the PS5 Pro will be pushed.

The post PS5 Pro Review – Delivering On The Next-Gen Promise appeared first on Press Start.

I can almost guarantee you’ve never played anything quite like Slitterhead. Bizarre name aside, the game is the latest from the mind of Keiichiro Toyama, who was instrumental in bringing us some stellar titles like the original Silent Hill, Gravity Rush and Forbidden Siren. It’s an incredible artistic undertaking, blurring genres to offer a unique experience. And while Slitterhead feels like a game made precisely for people like me, it’s not entirely without its faults, especially from a technical standpoint.

The premise of Slitterhead is fairly simple. You play as a Hyoki, a non-physical spirit who can possess other humans. Affectionately named Night Owl by another character you meet early on, you “wake up” as the spirit and realise that your memories are gone. The only thing you do remember is that your life goal, for some reason, is to eradicate the Slitterheads from the living world. They’ve been let loose on the Hong Kong-but-not city of Kowlong, attacking humans and sucking out their brains through their eye sockets. It’s gross and fantastic and, obviously, goes in some pretty dark places.

All in all, across Slitterheads twelve-hour campaign, I was enthralled by the weird story that Toyama is trying to tell here. While the characters are flat, there were many times when the game would throw me a curveball that I was not expecting. It’s a fairly strong story, anchored in the occult, as you’d expect from a game about a ghost. But it’s the unique spin on typical horror conventions that Slitterhead puts on things that really helps it to stand out. If you’re familiar with how the Siren games tell their stories, you’ll understand what Slitterhead is going for. It’s an incredibly obtuse story that’s equal parts weird and fascinating.

The game is split into chapters, with each chapter having you track and investigate the source of the Slitterheads or other leads in Kowlong as key characters, called Rarities, find them. The missions themselves are semi-open, allowing you to roam the streets of Kowlong before undertaking some kind of platforming challenge or possession puzzle before eventually coming head-to-head with one of the titular creatures. It’s a simple enough premise – though each level is semi-open, the solutions are often linear and, even bizarrely, the game never gives you a map nor regular waypoints if you’ve got multiple objectives to complete.

The crux of the experience is you playing as the Hyoki, holding a shoulder button to leave whoever you’ve possessed and allowing you to float a short distance to another body you can see. There are a few simple rules to keep things fair – you can’t possess bodies that are far away, you can’t possess bodies that you don’t have a line of sight with, and you can’t possess bodies that you “don’t have good sync” with. It’s a fair system with simple rules that keep things from getting too broken as time goes by.

The possession mechanic really comes into play more substantially when combatting the Slitterheads. Essentially, the Hyoki can switch between multiple bodies and harness the blood of each individual to physically conjure weapons. Clubs, katanas and grenades: There are many combat options that you can use as time goes by. The Hyoki can “die” if the body you’re in dies while possessing it. To survive in Slitterhead, you must jump from body to body as regularly as possible. You get better combos and do more damage after moving from one body to another, too, incentivising the need to constantly jump between bodies. It’s a bleak take on things to see how little regard Hyoki has for human life, but a spirit’s gotta do what a spirit’s gotta do.

All civilians share similar abilities, but the crux of the strategising happens in the Rarities system. Throughout Kowlong, you’ll be able to find specific individuals who are “more highly attuned” to Hyoki and thus exhibit greater benefits when possessed. Essentially, these rarities form the main cast of the game and are the characters you’ll speak to between missions to better discuss what’s going on in the story. Even better, all of the Rarities are equipped with unique weapons and abilities compared to regular civilians and do more damage.

The first you acquire, Julee, uses large Wolverine-esque claws to do massive damage to the Slitterheads. The potential second, Alex can conjure a vortex from blood to draw enemies in before finishing them off with a charged bloody projectile from his shotgun. The elderly Betty can even convert fallen pools of blood on the ground into damaging blades. You can take up to two Rarities with you on each mission, so you can find your favourites fairly quickly and create a team that synergises well, as each has individual strengths and weaknesses.

Combat itself occupies a space solely between the more considered heavier mechanics of a Dark Souls game and the more hectic, over-the-top spectacle of character action games like Devil May Cry. It’s a good combat system with all the trimmings you’d expect from a modern action game – blocking, parrying, slowed time for perfect parries and meter management by literally soaking up the blood from the streets as it’s spilt. I was playing the game’s hardest difficulty and still having fun – many games like this often have janky mechanics that feel unfair or downright broken, but Slitterhead’s combat is tighter than you’d expect, especially as you unlock more skills.

But while Slitterhead plays much, much better than its initial trailers would have you believe, the combat does feel incredibly punishing when dealing with more than one enemy at once. You can unlock specific skills that make fighting multiple enemies a lot easier – even some of the Rarity unique abilities, too – but it does feel like there were a few moments where I would get teamed up on and be destroyed almost too quickly.

The other glaring issue I have with Slitterhead is the distinct lack of enemy variety. I can almost excuse the location variety being low – this story is solely the story of Kowlong and helps this smaller team to stretch their budget – but there are not many types of Slitterheads to fight. I adore the designs of what is here, however, once again harkening back to Toriyama’s work on the Siren games. To see a creature inspired by the Blue Ringed Octopus was also uncanny, as an Australian. However, they’ve been popping up more and more in Japan recently. A fun but incredibly irrelevant piece of world news for you.

But enough about cephalopods. Between missions, you’ll be thrown to a menu where you can chat with Rarities to reflect on the story, upgrade your skills or even gain new leads that’ll lead you to new missions. It’s also here where you can replay missions, framed as a time-travelling power used by the Hyoki to unlock new Rarities or complete optional objectives. There’s a lot to do in Slitterhead, both mandatory and optional, including small arena challenges hidden in each world. Additionally, how the story is handled non-linearly across multiple characters’ perspectives feels incredibly reminiscent of the Siren games.

Regardless of its shortcomings, Slitterhead is quite the looker. While character models can look pretty rough – sometimes plasticky, other times generic – the world of Kowlong is brought to life with incredible lighting. Every street and every alley has been drenched with astonishing lighting, shadows and plenty of neon to really sell the idea of this gritty, long-forgotten otherworld. It all pops in HDR, too. Even better, all of this runs at a very solid sixty frames per second. Perhaps a fidelity mode with raytracing would’ve been appreciated, as it would look perfect in this kind of world, but regardless, Slitterhead looks better than you’d expect from a game of this scope and scale from a team this new.

Where scope and scale is a bit more obvious, however, is with the game’s voice work. First, there’s barely any of it – most of the dialogue in the game is text with the odd grunt or giggle to help establish the speaker’s tone. There are some voiced moments in cutscenes, but otherwise, it does feel notably low-budget. On the other hand, Akira Yamaoka’s original soundtrack is excellent here. It’s the same ethereal score featuring dark synths, industrial noise and guitars that you’d expect from a Yamaoka soundtrack, but he especially cooked with Slitterhead.

I said earlier that Slitterhead feels like a game made for me, and I stand by that. It’s an incredibly unique idea with an even more unique combat system anchored to a bizarre but engaging narrative. It’s the kind of game that Japan Studio would be making if they were still around, the kind of ideas-driven adventure that you just don’t see as much anymore. And while there are some bizarre omissions – namely the lack of a map and a combat system that’s great only ninety per cent of the time – Slitterhead is a stellar debut from some incredible minds that excites me to see where Bokeh goes next.

The post Slitterhead Review – Possessed By Greatness appeared first on Press Start.

Treyarch has proven, once again, that they know what makes a Call of Duty multiplayer experience really tick. The return of the classic prestige system, a tight TTK, excellent map variety and the introduction of omnimovement build on the excellent foundations of recent Call of Duty games, making Black Ops 6’s multiplayer experience an absolute delight. It isn’t always perfect, but it’s the best it’s been in many, many years. 

Headlining Black Ops 6’s new additions is the introduction of omnimovement, which completely changes the way you can move in-game. You’re now able to sprint, slide and dive in any direction you want, giving you an endless amount of new opportunities for traversal. Whether you’re dodging and diving away from enemy fire, sprint-sliding into a capture point or simply throwing yourself off a roof into the pool below, omnimovement feels slick, fast and fluid.

While the game’s only been out for around a week, I’ve already seen players making use of the omnimovement system in ways I didn’t even think possible. It’s such a breath of fresh air for the franchise. That said, I can’t help but think it’s a sink or swim moment for some players, as the learning curve is definitely steeper than usual. However, it’s an excellent change to the traditional movement options available in Call of Duty and compliments the chaotic nature of the series.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $89 FROM AMAZON

To compliment the omnimovement system, Treyarch’s also done a great job at creating a more seamless movement experience for those that want it. Intelligent Movement, as they’ve called it, allows you to toggle a range of options to remove the amount of button presses you need to make to get around a map. This includes four options: Sprint Assist, Mantle Assist, Crouch Assist and Corner Slice. Toggling any of these on will essentially tell the game to perform these actions for you when you go up to a relevant obstacle – the game will detect what you’re intending to do and perform the appropriate action. While I only played around with it a couple of times, it’s a great little accessibility feature that does a great job at allowing you to focus primarily on the action rather than getting stuck and losing momentum. 

Another major highlight in Black Ops 6’s multiplayer suite is the new game mode, Kill Order. A 6v6 teamwork-oriented mode, Kill Order has players on either side attempting to defend their high value target (HVT) while trying to kill the enemy team’s HVT, racking up points in the process. The trick here is that HVT’s earn more points than regular operators when getting kills, and earn the most points when killing the other team’s HVT, so there’s a certain element of risk versus reward. HVTs can also be revived, are a bit stronger than regular operators and can see enemies on their minimap. When an HVT is killed another player on the team becomes the HVT, with the mode continuously rotating until the score limit or time limit is reached. 

Unsurprisingly, strong communication plays an important role in winning games of Kill Order, and I’ve had an absolute blast with it. Wrapped up amongst the other beloved modes that Black Ops 6 ships with, Kill Order is easily one of my personal favourites. It feels like one of the strongest new mode additions in some time, and that’s likely due to how easy it is to understand and how it differs from most of the other modes on offer. 

Map variety is strong in this year’s entry, as well. Treyarch’s focused on maps that are generally a bit smaller than what’s been available in recent Call of Duty titles, leaning in on tighter angles and more vertical variety. Most of the maps are small to medium in size, with a couple of larger outliers. My personal standouts so far are Subsonic, a small map nestled within a bomber team’s training facility, and Skyline, a medium-sized map based on a luxury resort rooftop. Of the 16 maps at launch, I’ve only felt aggrieved when a couple make their way into the rotation, those being Red Card and Lowtown. Both maps are just a bit too big and are prime real estate for snipers to camp up the back and make everyone’s life a bit of a misery. Hilariously, a lot of the time these maps appear in the rotation most players will vote to skip so it can’t be just me who isn’t very stoked on either of them. 

The biggest gripe I have with the game so far – and it’ll likely come as no surprise – is the abhorrent spawns. In almost every game I’ll find myself on the wrong side of an enemy’s reset spawn location or I’ll spawn right in the middle of a gunfight, which makes getting back into the momentum of the game difficult. I do wish Treyarch and the team would look into this issue, as it’s been such a prevalent problem for so many years. 

In better news, Treyarch’s brought some of the most requested features from previous entries into Black Ops 6, headlined by the return of the classic prestige system. Once you hit Level 55 you’ll be given the option to prestige, taking you back to level 1 and forcing you to unlock all of your equipment again. There are incentives for doing this, of course, with many customisation options – from calling cards to operator skins – on offer. It’s great to finally have this system return as I found the other prestige relatively boring without any clear incentive. It also feels nostalgic in its own way, which for this veteran Black Ops player is always a good thing. 

There are a variety of other returning and new features, too, like customisable reticles for your optical attachments, the return of theater mode, a fully customisable HUD and the post-match winner’s circle. It feels like Treyarch has really listened to fans since Cold War’s launch in 2020 and have made it a priority to ensure Black Ops 6 looks both forward and backward, celebrating the previous entries while ensuring the game feels fresh, new and exciting in its own way. 

All of these new additions come together to compliment the ever-excellent Call of Duty gunplay to a tee. The game feels brilliant to play, and is made all the better thanks to the well-balanced TTK and a solid array of guns and equipment to experiment with. Streamlining the gunsmith was also an excellent move by Treyarch, as navigating through menus and looking through new attachments and weapon options seems a lot easier this year. 

While perks themselves haven’t seen a reinvention, the addition of the combat speciality perk certainly changes the game a bit. If you match the specialty of your three perks, you’ll be granted a combat speciality. Combat specialities give you a solid advantage in the battlefield, whether it’s being able to see enemies through walls for a brief period of time when you respawn or earning a score bonus for completing an objective or destroying enemy equipment. Playing around with your class and experimenting with what works for your perk specialities is important in this year’s game, and while it’s a small change to the flow of general gameplay I’ve enjoyed figuring out what works best for me and my team. 

Call of Duty Black Ops 6’s multiplayer suite is nothing short of excellent. I’ve had so much fun getting to grips with the new omnimovement system, figuring out the best way to get around the new maps and diving head-first into Kill Order. Returning features like the classic prestige system ensures that I’ll no doubt spend many hours in the game over the course of the year, and while it has some niggling issues that continue to plague the series, it’s the best multiplayer suite in a Call of Duty game in many, many years. 

You can find out more about our thoughts on the game’s campaign here.

The post Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Multiplayer Review – The Best It’s Been appeared first on Press Start.

Upon stepping back into the world of Horizon Zero Dawn for the Remastered edition, I was forced to reflect upon my time with the game, and it’ll absolutely go down as one of my favourite PlayStation games of all time.

Initially I tried to jump into the game at a save point around 75% of the way through and was overwhelmed, but then I decided to start fresh and realised just how much I love this world, and how fun the gameplay immediately is.

Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered doesn’t set the world on fire in terms of how it looks, and that’s mostly due to how fantastic the original already runs on PS5 at 60 FPS, but there are some pretty major differences. Fairly plain and simply, it runs almost identically to Horizon Forbidden West, but there’s a simplicity to the world of the original game that is definitely elevated by the improvements.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $69 WITH FREE SHIPPING

When it comes to graphical modes, I played on the base PS5 (no PS5 Pro just yet) and you’ve got the same three options as you do for Horizon Forbidden West on PS5 with a fidelity 30 FPS mode, a performance 60 FPS mode and third balanced mode if you’re using a 120hz display that allows you to play at 40 FPS which is the sweet spot.

Probably the most immediate noticeable improvement to the core gameplay comes in the way of the improve foliage which has been totally re-worked, and is more similar to that of the PC versions. The world looks fuller, and more overgrown and it does make a big difference to the overall visual impact of the game.

Another huge thing that I noticed going back and forth was the haptic support of the DualSense controller which does a really great job of replicating water and the different types of terrains within the game, and similarly the adaptive triggers go along way to making you feel the intensity of the combat.

The character models have been totally re-done as well, brought over from Horizon Forbidden West, so Aloy looks far closer to that of Horizon Forbidden West, which makes her a little bit older and more mature, and the characters within cutscenes have all been re-done as well which makes each character feel a lot more alive, with the team going to the effort of re-doing new facial animations and improving lighting for the actual performances as well.

The other major improvements comes in the way of lighting. I feel like this era of first-party PS4 games were trying to look realistic, but the lighting wasn’t there to match which often left things too bright, too dark or unnatural looking and that’s been fixed here. Looking into the sky gives you a more realistic sense of the world, and I feel like characters faces are adequately lit allowing you you to see more of the detail.

It’s not just graphical improvements though as the team looked at making the world more lived in, mostly in the villages making sure that there were more NPCs, and there was also over 10 hours of additional mo-cap filmed to bring this more in-line with Horizon Forbidden West. I can’t say these greatly impacted the experience or left me feeling wowed, but I appreciate it nonetheless.

If you haven’t played Horizon Zero Dawn, you’re in for an absolute treat with Horizon Zero Dawn Remaster and if it’s been a while I’d recommend paying the $15 to jump back into this world as it’s very clear that a lot of love and care has been put into this version of the game. I’m eager to jump back in on PS5 Pro and see how that improves the experience.

ORIGINAL REVIEW

When considering Horizon Zero Dawn is developed by Guerrilla Games, it’d be easy to make the assumption that it’s a linear game set in an incredibly dark universe, with the gameplay focused on delivering as many bullets into enemies as humanly possible. But Horizon Zero Dawn is the complete opposite of all of these traditions which have been Guerrilla’s hallmarks for generations.

Moments into the game you’ll quickly realise Horizon Zero Dawn is a breath of fresh air that Guerrilla Games was  ecstatic about creating. Every little detail in the game oozes with the enthusiasm and passion of a studio which has had the ambition to create an experience far beyond what they’ve ever created before.

A core part of this experience is the protagonist Aloy, who Guerrilla obviously spent a long time fleshing out in order to create an encapsulating story. The majority of the game is a quest to discover exactly where Aloy came from, and why she’s a key figure in the world of Horizon. And from the outset, Aloy is an extremely strong and personable character. Right from when she is learning how to survive, all the way through to the later stages of the game, her personality stands out. And here story is an emotional roller-coaster and who you learn to respect and love after seeing her survive everything which is thrown at her. I don’t think I’ve ever been so emotionally attached to a female protagonist, and she’s an important character for many reasons.

Aloy is an outcast of the Nora tribe, a tribe of hunters who worship a goddess of nature, called Al-Mother. The Nora tribe believes they should stick on their own, without exploring the ancient lands of this post-apocalyptic Earth. Quite frankly, they stand for everything that Aloy simple won’t comply with.

There’s multiple plot-points in the world of Horizon Zero Dawn, including learning more about Aloy’s origins, why Earth has turned into a machine-filled wasteland and what lies in the future for this land Aloy calls home. It is a story which for the most part is intriguing, however it does feel like you’re being forced through smaller story-arcs in order to find out the bigger details. Which does get tedious at times, as I’d prefer the option to move on with the main plot which I found the most interesting.

Despite how strong of a character Aloy is, the various characters which you’ll come across in-game can be quite bland without adding much to the overall story. There’s a conversation wheel, but thankfully you’re always able to jump right out of these and proceed with the mission where you choose. I really appreciated this design decision for those times where I wasn’t particularly interested in a certain story arc. When I did want to know more about the situation, I was able to probe until I had all the information that I needed.

Thankfully, regardless of some underwhelming story missions and bland characters, Horizon Zero Dawn’s world is an absolute joy to explore from start to finish. Seriously though, Horizon is probably the best looking game that I’ve played on PlayStation 4 Pro and takes the most advantage of HDR to-date. Everything from the beautiful scenery which constantly amazed through the various elements, weather effects and different times of the day highlights the HDR functionality of the PS4 Pro. This is especially the case in the games’ Cauldrons, which are essentially underground dungeons. These house the secrets of the machines and allow you to gain the ability to override bigger and better machines to join your arsenal.

A lot of open-world games are quite repetitive in their mission design, but I never at any point felt like I was doing the same thing for too long in Horizon. In-fact, it was quite the opposite. I’d constantly forget about main story missions due to the fact that I’d constantly come across an epic herd of machines or somebody that needs my help in the middle of nowhere.

Speaking of the machines, they are the highlights of Horizon Zero Dawn. The way that they look and move as well as their overall design was intriguing and impressive throughout. When I played through four hours of the game a few weeks ago, I was impressed to learn there are over 25 different machines in the game. However, it was around half way through I realised quite a few of them are just slight variations of machines that you’ve seen earlier in the game, which was a little disappointing.

Luckily, despite this slight repetition in design, all the robotic enemies are a pleasure and challenge to fight. Even the Watchers, which are the smaller dinosaur like machines which you’ll meet early in the game, are a ton of fun to fight. This is due to the fact that each machine has its own personality and acts differently depending on the situation and other machines which are in the immediate area. The combat in Horizon Zero Dawn is by far my favourite aspect of Horizon and has made the game possibly the only Action RPG which I’ve been able to truly embrace. The combat is just deep and challenging enough without feeling cheap or like a chore. I lost count with how many times a massive machine would come out of nowhere and one-shot kill me, which was both hilarious and frustrating, but sums up the combat in Horizon.

Further to machines, there’s Corruptors which are machines that are being controlled by a demonic presence. They’re much harder to fight and rely a lot more on skill and careful strategy to succeed in combat. You’ll also be fighting humans in some instances and in my opinion, this is the weakest part of the game. They only get in the way of the amazing enemy design of the machines and are bullet sponges that feel like a way of extending the game length.

Aloy’s greatest asset in combat is her mobility, which allows her to dodge and get around quicker than most machines. Which is a key part of the moment to moment combat and a technique you’ll need to master if you want to survive. Aside from this, you have a number of bows, arrow types, traps, bombs and other heavy weapons at your disposal. Quite frankly, there’s way more than you’d ever need in one game. You’ll end up picking 2-3 weapons based on your play style but each weapon is unique and incredibly fun to fight with. Which gives you the room to mix your battle style up if you’re feeling stuck or become bored with one play style.

If that isn’t enough for you, you’re also able to modify each weapon with items which you’ll receive from machines. And you can modify your outfit to resist melee attacks or certain elemental types. Honestly, I found that the game has the perfect amount of customisation. It allows you to really craft and shape Aloy to your play style and advantage, without overwhelming you with the need to collect a million items and manage a hugely extensive inventory.

The post Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered Review – The Best Way To Play The Game appeared first on Press Start.

I can’t begin to tell you how often I was ready for Dragon Age: The Veilguard to make a colossal misstep. I’d spend hours upon hours completing optional and mandatory quests, expecting cracks to show and BioWare to disappoint again. But that moment never came. The truth is that the more time you spend with The Veilguard, the more obvious it is that things are only getting better. And, despite some incredibly nitpicky issues with some aspects of the game’s design, it’s easily BioWare’s best game in over a decade. In fact, I’d even go as far as to say it’s maybe even the best Dragon Age game, pulling the best of each game into a focused experience that’s nothing short of incredible.

The Veilguard comes to us a decade after Inquisition , mirroring the time that has passed in the game world with the real world. You play as Rook, a customisable protagonist hired by Varric Tethras to track the Dread Wolf, an elven god who reared his unexpected presence towards the end of Inquisition’s final chapters. Veilguard opens quickly, with Varric and Rook meeting with your first companion to stop Dread Wolf’s plan of tearing down the border between the realms. A whole bunch of stuff happens that ostensibly makes things worse, and it’s up to Rook to assemble a team of companions to help him (or her) fix it.

The story is just the start of what The Vanguard gets so right, adding a lot of depth and richness to the already well-realised world of Thedas BioWare started cultivating almost two decades ago. It’s a great adventure so I won’t spoil anything, but just know that it builds up and concludes incredibly satisfyingly, providing answers to theories that fans have exchanged since Inquisition ended. While I will always miss the grimier, darker fantasy vibe that the original Dragon Age employed, The Veilguard strikes a sensible balance. A balance between strong storytelling rooted in mature themes and some much-needed levity between the team during the downtime. It’s the most “alive” story I’ve experienced in a BioWare game, heck, any game, for a long time.

That’s owing to how much your choice matters in Veilguard. Some are minor – a character you might help will appear on the sidelines later to help or hinder you. Others take the story in a slightly different direction, physically altering the world and how others interact with you. This all starts at the beginning of the game, where you can select a custom origin story, class and race for your version of Rook. But the ramifications of your choices and their consequences are felt for the entirety of Veilguard’s runtime. I’d, once again, love to go into more detail about how the game weaves an intricate web of choice and related consequences, but Veilguard’s surprises are best experienced fresh.

Your choices permeate so many aspects of your time with Veilguard, too. After completing a side mission, you’ll hear your companions talking about how that quest played out. Even if a mission happens where said companion wasn’t present, they’ll still ask about it as if they’ve heard it around the home base. You can even see them, sometimes, catching up separately from you whenever you run through your base. It’s a unique aspect of The Veilguard that I really enjoyed – to have the people around me constantly commenting on what’s going on in the past or even in the present in relation to the past is pretty impressive. It really feels like the BioWare formula is hitting its peak here.

But so much of Veilguard’s achievement is in its confidence in itself, drawing from the strengths of the games that came before but still offering up an experience that is its own. While it’s not as open as Inquisition, the worlds you’ll explore are denser, with many things to discover. The sense of time and its effect on each place is similar to Kirkwall from the second game. And finally, how locations are handled for main quests feels incredibly reminiscent of Dragon Age: Origins. It’s an effective and honed mix of each game’s greatest aspects and helps Veilguard stand out from other RPGs.

Where things begin to deviate significantly from the other games is the combat, which veers more into Mass Effect territory than anything else. Veilguard’s combat is fast and snappy, encouraging you to find the perfect synergy between yourself and your teammates. I was concerned that this new combat system’s limitations – namely that you can only take three skills into battle – would make Veilguard feel like a gross oversimplification. But the flow of combat combined with the variety of encounters you come up against more than makes up for it. It’s an understandable concern, given how many spells you could use at any given time in previous games, but the more time I spent with Veilguard, the quicker my concerns would melt away.

That’s partly owing to the fact that each of the three classes you can pick – Warrior, Mage or Rogue – are a joy to play. Each has little quirks that make it unique from its previous iterations, pushing the boundaries of what you’d expect from these typical classes. I spent some time with all of them but ultimately selected the Mage for my playthrough. It’s phenomenal what BioWare has done with the Mage now – employing a clever mix of distant and melee combat that never gets old. Whether you prefer fighting from a distance or getting up close to your enemies, between the three classes and nine specialisations, there’s bound to be something for everyone in Veilguard.

Each class has its own skill tree, with each node having fairly typical stat bonuses and abilities you’d expect from an RPG like this. You have a lot of freedom and flexibility in approaching your build in Veilguard, being able to respect your or your teammate’s skill trees at no cost. It lets you get a feel for each of the three specialisations available for your class without incessantly grinding. That being said, I loved all three Mage specialisations, so I’d have appreciated some kind of loadout system to switch between them quickly without having to redo my entire tree. I guess that’s a testament to my indecisive nature, but it’s one of the very minor issues I have with Veilguard that’s probably only just my own.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $89 WITH FREE SHIPPING ON AMAZON

How the game handles its equipment and gear is much more ingenious. Every item you find in The Veilguard will have several perks attached to it, usually locked. Whenever you find a duplicate piece of equipment in Veilguard, rather than just having two of the same piece of gear, the rarity of that gear you already own will upgrade. Usually, that’ll unlock a perk for that piece of gear, too. It’s an ingenious way to hone the pool of equipment available to you and, when combined with the game’s already robust skill tree AND other optional enchantments, really helps you build a perfect build for yourself.

The other key element in building your perfect build is with your companions. They behave in combat similarly to those in the Mass Effect games, each having three to five unique abilities. You can pull them off with either hotkeys or a pause menu tied to the shoulder buttons, and layering the right combination of skills or spells will lead to a detonation that does more damage. While incredibly Mass Effect-like, it’s a simple but effective system that makes you think about who you’ll take and where. Companions are also levelled up through completing quests or speaking to them in downtime, which is a nice little way to subtly gamify the way you strengthen them, which ties into the narrative realistically too.

And you’ll want to take them all with you on every quest you do, too. The quality of the quests in The Veilguard is consistently strong throughout. Whether playing through a bombastic main story quest or some of the lower-key but still engaging companion or faction quests, they all feel good. There was rarely a moment where anything in Veilguard felt like the typical side content you’d find in an RPG of this size. There are still some minor quests, many of which have you fetching something or moving from A to B, but they aren’t incessantly repeated to the point of tedium and are still engaging.

And that really says something because I never got bored for the entirety of my time with The Veilguard, which well exceeded seventy hours. And while the notion of a game this large might be off-putting to you, know that Veilguard is dense with strong, quality tests that easily eclipse the variety seen in Inquisition. If you’re not keen on doing everything or immersing yourself in the world that BioWare has built here, I’d estimate you could easily get through the story in around thirty to forty hours, which feels well-paced. Given the variety of choices on offer and the sheer difference in combat styles between the three classes, you could also have as much fun on a repeat playthrough.

The game’s presentation is the big fat cherry on top of The Veilguard’s already delectable package. Easily showing off some of the best visuals we’ve seen from the now infamous Frostbite engine, Veilguard, quite simply, looks phenomenal. It’s always exciting to see which exotic locales the team at BioWare will whisk us away to with each Dragon Age game, and Veilguard does not disappoint. I had tangible excitement when moving to a new area for the first time, knowing that it would be a densely packed and lively locale framed by some series-best vistas. This rendition of Thedas is easily the best that Dragon Age has ever looked.

But from a technical standpoint, it’s not as clear-cut a victory for Veilguard. On consoles, the game offers two graphics modes – Fidelity and Performance. Fidelity and Performance both have great framerates, being locked at 30fps and 60fps respectively. But the picture quality in Performance mode is notably softer than in Fidelity, more noticeable than it is usually with games that offer both modes. If you’re playing Veilguard on a PC or even the PS5 Pro next month, this will presumably be a moot point, though it bears mentioning. Regardless, Veilguard is still a looker no matter where you play – the game uses everything it can, whether lighting, HDR, or other visual effects, to present what I’ve already said is Thedas looking at its best.

This is complemented by an incredible soundtrack composed by Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe. All of the tracks throughout Veilguard’s lengthy adventure are perfectly matched and help raise the emotional stakes in key moments. On a similar note, the voice performances from the entirety of the cast are nothing short of excellent. They all turn in some fantastic performances, especially for both types of Rook. They have some great performances and are easily some of BioWare’s best, helping to solidify this cast as one of my favourites from their many games. I can’t remember the last RPG where I liked the entire cast this much.

And that really speaks to the strength of Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Despite my constant insistence that Mass Effect was always the better of their two massive epics, Veilguard is easily one of my favourites from the developer. It’s a perfect and heady mix of fast, frenetic combat paired with an incredible story riddled with equal parts choice and consequence that I cannot fault. It feels so good to say this, but it truly feels like BioWare is finally back. And I couldn’t be happier.

The post Dragon Age: The Veilguard Review – A Densely Captivating Journey appeared first on Press Start.

Bringing back one of Life is Strange’s most beloved characters for a sequel was always going to be a gamble, especially given the way the original wrapped up. That said, Deck Nine’s delivered a worthy sequel that, while stumbling every now and again, makes up for it thanks to great character writing, some brilliant visual flourishes and a story that’s packed to the brim with twists and turns.

Life is Strange: Double Exposure takes place ten years on from the last time we saw Max. After the events of the first Life is Strange, she’s distanced herself from Arcadia Bay and has taken up a job at Caledon University in Lakeport, Vermont as a university lecturer. 

Max has changed a lot over the last ten years, though she’s still haunted by the events of the past. Double Exposure does a great job at exploring Max’s deep rooted trauma from Arcadia Bay in depth, whether that’s through moments in the story, optional collectibles you can find or journal entries that update as you progress. Her character development is one of the best parts of the game and that’s all capped off with Hannah Telle returning to reprise her role, delivering one of the best performances of the year. 

Unsurprisingly, the writing in Double Exposure is very good. The ‘whodunit’ premise that guides Double Exposure’s roughly 15-hour narrative kept me guessing all the way through, with plenty of twists and turns along the way. The game does an excellent job of building up Safi, one of Max’s best friends, as a character ahead of the events that lead to her death, and I felt compelled to continue unraveling the wild mystery all the way through. Just when I thought I’d figured it all out, Deck Nine would pull something else out of their hat that completely changed everything. With that said, the way the story weaves and winds may not be everyone’s cup of tea, however I thoroughly enjoyed the highly unpredictable nature of the game’s narrative. 

Double Exposure doesn’t always stick the landing, though. Some writing can be a bit hit and miss at times, and this filters through moments big and small. That said, most major moments hit in a way that feel meaningful and push the story forward in interesting ways.

The Life is Strange series has always had a strong supporting cast to push the narrative forward, with Deck Nine continuing this trend in Double Exposure. The new cast all have a lot of depth to them, with most interactions building out each character in meaningful ways. Alongside Hannah Telle’s excellent performance, Blu Allen’s Moses and Olivia AbiAssi’s Safi sink their teeth into their roles and add a lot of weight and levity to their characters. I really cared for each of these characters, and it’s a credit to the writing and performances throughout. 

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $79 WITH FREE SHIPPING

Much like other games in the series, choice matters in Double Exposure. There’s an handful of major choices to make throughout the game alongside an array of smaller, less significant moments that shape the way the game’s story unravels. With that said, I found the choices offered in Double Exposure lacked the gravitas of earlier entries. After rolling credits the first time, I didn’t have a strong desire to go back and see what making other choices may do to the game’s story like I did in other Life is Strange games, which was disappointing. There were only a few major choices that popped up that I genuinely had a strong sense of indecision about, which made my decisions feel less difficult than they probably should have been. This was especially apparent in later chapters, where I felt my input didn’t have too much of an impact on the journey I was taking and the inevitable outcome I was about to reach. 

Gameplay in Double Exposure will feel very familiar to anyone who’s played the previous Life is Strange games before, as you explore areas, interact with various objects and people and solve simple puzzles. The major hook comes through Max’s ability to shift between two different timelines – one where Safi is still alive and another where she’s dead. It’s quite an upgrade from Max’s ability from the first game, where she was able to rewind time to alter events. As well as being able to shift between timelines, Max can also ‘pulse’ into a timeline while still being part of the other. This allows her to listen in on the other timeline without actually moving across to it. 

Utilising both of these abilities forms the crux of Double Exposure’s general gameplay. And while it’s simple, it’s effective – as you move in and out of each timeline, you’ll meet the same characters that have relatively different personalities and opinions, opening up the door to further investigate who killed Safi and why. 

You’ll also use Max’s shift ability to get around obstacles in each timeline, like locked doors or blocked off areas. This particular type of puzzle was easily the weakest part of the game for me, as I found these barriers to be momentum breaking for the most part. It felt like they were implemented just to pad out a few extra minutes of game time.

One thing Double Exposure absolutely nails is its attention to detail, though. Of particular note is the game’s animation work, which continued to impress me all the way through. The facial animations, in particular, were terrific – lending a sense of credibility and realism to each major character. Whether it was the way someone reacted to a pivotal plot point or just a casual conversation at the university, Deck Nine’s managed to deliver some of the best facial animation work I’ve seen in a game in a long while. And it’s all through those intricate details – like a slightly raised smile, or the way a character’s eyes would shift to indicate they’re on edge. Those little bits of detail just made them look all the more believable. Paired with the excellent voice acting and writing, this all comes together to form a mostly immersive experience that felt genuine and down to earth. 

Unfortunately it doesn’t always come together, as my time with the game was plagued with bugs. Lighting issues that caused flicker in a variety of locations and misbehaving hair particles continued to rear their ugly head in each chapter, with setting changes on my PC not able to solve the problem. Similarly, characters would seemingly lose detail and almost fall out of focus at times, taking away from the overall experience. While these may sound like relatively small bugs, for a narrative-focussed experience that relies heavily on exploration and conversation, they were frustrating to deal with. 

Even so, I still think Double Exposure is Deck Nine’s best Life is Strange game to date. Barring the bugs, relatively dull puzzle elements and some writing that doesn’t always hit the mark, the game is otherwise excellent – the music is on point, as is the general character writing, which come together to compliment a great story that’ll keep you guessing. It might not hold a torch to the original, but I’ve absolutely loved catching up with Max, her new band of pals and unraveling a timeline-bending mystery. 

The post Life is Strange: Double Exposure Review – An Unpredictable, Wild Mystery appeared first on Press Start.

Given its penchant for science-fiction, the Black Ops canon was always a little tough to follow. Double crosses, government secrets, topped off with divergent story paths led to some of the Call of Duty series’ most enjoyable, if not batshit nonsensical, stories ever told. Black Ops Cold War reintroduced series regulars, CIA operatives Alex Mason and Frank Woods, alongside the debonair Russell Adler, as they pursued Perseus, a Soviet atomic spy, during the turbulent, early 80s. 

In terms of history, Black Ops 6 is placed nearer to the Gulf War and follows a now maimed, wheelchair-bound Woods, alongside his mentee and agency upstart Troy Marshall. When the latter is deployed on a mission to Kuwait to apprehend an Iraqi minister, the operation is turned on its ear by the emergence of Pantheon, a rogue paramilitary force that has access to a terrible bioweapon as well as apparent ties within the CIA.

Although you’ll drift between the perspectives of many over the course of this globetrotting adventure, you play a substantial chunk of Black Ops 6 as William “Case” Calderon, a handpicked member of Woods’ Black Ops faction. The goal, obviously, becomes to save the world for the umpteenth time while rooting out the mole and getting to the bottom of yet another warped, psychological conspiracy worthy of a geopolitical thriller like this.

The story is a lot of fun and dips to some expectedly bonkers places. The government’s research into mind control, MK-Ultra, has long been a lynchpin for the Black Ops narrative, and this sixth iteration is no different. Heavy artillery is, clearly, still an enormous factor in Black Ops 6, however you could make the argument the real war is psychochemical. Legacy players like Woods and Adler are given good stuff to chew on that respects where their weary characters have been, while newcomers like Marshall attack the game’s events with all the hallmarks of a conflicted leader, searching for truth in a world where the truth lies. 

And I won’t lie, seeing Lou Diamond Phillips, star of La Bamba, cameo as the agency’s figurehead got a pop out of me. He isn’t in more than a couple of integral scenes, though his gravitas is undeniable. 

As for the campaign itself, I do think Treyarch deserves a lot of credit for always trying to do new things you might not regularly associate with corridor-shooter Call of Duty. The original Black Ops felt like a revitalisation for what a story could look like within the franchise, while Cold War wasn’t afraid to holster the hardware in favour of tense, slow burn bouts of espionage that really sell the Mission: Impossible-like feel, the mission’s stakes, and the importance of the team. While I felt at points Black Ops 6 had a crisis of identity, with how radically it’d leap between mission structures and concepts, I was never bored. 

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $84 WITH FREE SHIPPING ON AMAZON

Whether I was breaking into a government blacksite beneath a cocktail event held by governor Bill Clinton, or grifting my way into the high rollers lounge at a decadent Italian casino, I felt just as formidable in these moments as I did with gun in hand. Of course, when I did have a gun in hand, I was treated to the industry-leading gunplay the series has built its empire on. It’s as tight as ever, and made only more dynamic thanks to omnidirectional movement, the big new game changing feature of this iteration. Granted, its impact is likely to be felt more across its multiplayer suite, though I certainly felt snappy and fresh during the campaign even though, for reasons I can’t ascertain, the feature received no onboarding at all. 

All of the quiet moments in between took place at The Rook, Adler’s off-grid safehouse in Bulgaria that he cryptically leads the team towards early on. A stunning, picturesque mansion stradling an oceanside cliff, The Rook affords the player with momentary reprieves to chat with the team, solve black light riddles, and upgrade gear and perks in a very multiplayer-coded fashion. In fact, in any other campaign, Treyarch’s ability to pepper in core tenets from both multiplayer and Zombies would have fallen flat. In a game so driven by science-fiction, it manages to fit like a glove while serving as subconscious onboarding for the game’s long-life, evergreen modes.

With nearly countless studios devoting resources to it, it’s never surprising when the Call of Duty games look as good as they do. The cinematics, in particular, are rendered with lifelike fidelity, and although the in-engine action doesn’t necessarily quite measure up, it’s still one of the better looking games on the market every single year. Once again, the environment artists have gone to work creating some of the most detailed play spaces, kicking off the adventure with the stirring image of smoke plumes climbing into the clouds as Iraqi oil wells burn into the night. I can never quite expect the places these Black Ops campaigns will take us, and while photographing Clinton on-stage with bought-off senators or storming Saddam’s palace should be the peak of how buck wild it gets, I do think Black Ops fans will love a few nods to the older games. With a few instances of stuttering and muddied textures in the busier cutscenes, it perhaps isn’t as optimised as it usually is, however I’d say the frame rate held firm in the moments that mattered.  

After the misery that was Modern Warfare III’s launch last year, this campaign felt like a particularly confident foot forward for a franchise under new rule. Not only does it function as the best five-hour onboarding for Call of Duty’s multiplayer ever, it delivers the bonkers twists you’d expect from a Black Ops, a fun cast to rally behind, and it’s rooted in just enough real-world politics to serve as a compelling “what if?”

The post Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Campaign Review – A Mind-Bending Ride appeared first on Press Start.

Last year, Skull Island: Rise of Kong released to a Gollum-like reception, ultimately being deemed a buggy, half-baked mess. The Monsterverse, which has lurched tepidly through a number of films and TV adaptations so far, has turned around and declared that it’s trying again, unconvincingly, with Kong: Survival Instinct. Set shortly after Godzilla vs. Kong, the game deals with the destructive left behind after the titanic battle, similar to how the Monarch series tail ends Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla, told through a boots on the ground Metroidvania-inspired platformer.

Unlike Rise of Kong, which cast you as the greatest ape of all as he battles all kinds of bugs, native to Skull Island and otherwise, Kong: Survival Instinct shelves the titular titan for virtually the entirety of the game’s runtime. Instead, as the stodgy hero, David Martin, you explore the ruins of a decimated city in search of your daughter. 

Due to my eyes glazing over repeatedly while playing, I cannot speak at all to the story’s place within the larger canon of the Monsterverse. I can’t expect it’s going to really excite fans of the series, especially as the oft-spectacular kaiju battles are relegated to set dressing in the background. Although we’d been burned before, I can’t help but feel all of the action happening in between what remains of the city’s skyline would have made for a more spectacular King Kong title. 

Kong: Survival Instinct plays like a bog standard action-platformer that incorporates several elements of Metroidvania-like exploration. Sifting through the wreckage of the razed metropolis gradually grants you more extreme means of digging deeper into the ruins. Whether it’s a sledgehammer to open a passage to lower floors, or a grappling line that can be used as an improvised rope swing or winch cable to pull far-off items nearer, I did find the game’s progression through its stages to be one of its few strengths. 

The map design, however, feels extremely confused. It’s uninspired, largely repetitive, and what’s there feels like a developer’s attempt to slap together map elements, like drop ladders, that are fun without caring whether it’s believable. The game is rife with strange, distracting choices like this that constantly took me out. 

The combat in Survival Instinct is similarly miserable, especially if you’re stuck in encounters with relatively large patrol groups. Defending yourself hand-to-hand feels like a manageable task, it’s when guns enter the question that things can get a bit frustrating. Once you’re surrounded, which can happen quickly as enemies grapple and switch places with you, you open yourself up to a quick death. You can parry and dash to avoid knife jabs and bullets respectively, however the controls are too sluggish and inconsistent to ever feel in total control. You pick up a pistol yourself which can be a difference maker in desperate times, however I do think the game manages to make bullets feel scarce—yet, when you’re in need, it’s always made available in crates nearby to the locked doors and generators that need a well-placed bullet to proceed. 

This, I feel, negates the need to be frugal as the game tends to bail you out, and I feel the same is true of the mechanical parts needed to repair things throughout the world. It’s never really essential to stray far from the critical path, which kind of feels antithetical to the genre. In Survival Instinct, the Metroidvania of it all really only necessitates backtracking rather than genuine exploration. 

As you move from area to area by splicing together compiled audio files to lure titans like Kong and Abaddon, an enormous source of nightmares for arachnophobes everywhere, to the scene for a relatively exciting chase sequence. In a game with slicker controls, I’d remember these encounters for the right reasons. Sadly, they’re often marred by cheap deaths caused by getting snagged on geometry and awful checkpointing.  

As perplexing as the map design choices can be, the environments in Survival Instinct aren’t the worst. By setting up and sticking to everything it sets up early, like the shining glint on items of interest like padlocks and anchor points, there’s a readability to the environment design that’s pretty admirable. I also like how, depending on which titan has dominion over the district you’re in, buildings might be covered in spiderwebs or a viscous, purple sludge which, in turn, feeds into the problem-solving. Survival Instinct mightn’t have the irredeemably bad, wide-eyed, unblinking Kong of last year’s Skull Island, but ugly is as ugly does. It isn’t all bad, of course, the kaiju designs themselves, as sparingly as they appear, are a clear highlight, while the remainder of this world and inhabitants scream ‘generic’.

When you consider Godzilla, who is name dropped in this game several times and never appears, has one of the most iconic, instantly recognisable war cries in cinema, the fact this game’s sound design is so dull is a crying shame. Chatter on either side of battle is repetitive and delivered so wooden, it makes Henry Cavill look like a true Thespian. The primary frustration of dying mid-fight came not from having to start over but from having to hear the dialogue again. 

When I stop to consider why this game exists, it’s hard to land on a single good reason. Monarch proved a good kaiju story can focus on the aftermath, however the story chops here can’t carry what, otherwise, is a listless, uninspired Metroidvania game that inexplicably shelves its key attraction in favour of world-building nobody could say, hand-to-heart, they prefer over two big monsters beating the suitcase out of each other.

The post Kong: Survival Instinct Review – Monkey Business appeared first on Press Start.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This has been republished with the game finally launching physically in Australia this week. It releases on October 25th and the cheapest copy is at Target for $45. 

Time is relentless and unyielding – it’s– crazy to think that twenty-eight years ago we first witnessed Lara Croft and her adventures in the Tomb Raider series. Nobody could have predicted the critical acclaim that would come afterward, nor the discourse around her status as a cultural icon and her appeal to certain audiences. Even further to that is the expansive and muddled legacy that it created – multiple sequels, several reboots, and film adaptations as well.

When Tomb Raider launched in 1996, it was the first time in a long time that gaming had a strong female protagonist, skyrocketing Lara Croft to the same heights as Mario and Sonic, and putting her head-to-head with Sony’s own Crash Bandicoot. While most people were hooked on the wise-cracking Duke Nukem or ultraviolence of Quake and Doom, Tomb Raider made 3D platforming exciting by blending puzzle solving and action with freedom of movement and exploration. With a slew of sequels and expansions, the Tomb Raider franchise quickly became stale – too much of a good thing led to a lack of innovation, and despite continuing to sell games, the series never really moved past its origins (at least before the modern and grittier trilogy).

Having said that, Tomb Raider I-III Remastered helps you slip on the rose-tinted glasses to enjoy exactly what made Lara the icon she was, and to recapture a bit of that atmosphere when the games were first released. These are games that don’t hold your hand or guide you through with hints and suggestions; you’re dropped into an environment and forced to figure things out on your own, with the tools at your disposal. This is both refreshing and jarring – you could be spending hours wandering a level to try and find your next objective, while simultaneously uncovering the level’s secrets to get a perfect score before moving on to the next.

THE CHEAPEST COPY: $45 FROM TARGET

The biggest thing I think this trilogy has going for it is that it is exactly as advertised, with a few quality-of-life improvements over the originals. You have all three Tomb Raider games in their upscaled glory, with an enhanced modern control scheme, and even a photo mode thrown in for good measure. The three games come with their PC-only expansions as well, available for the first time on consoles, so you truly are getting the full versions of each game with more modern graphics. On starting the game for the first time you’re also greeted with an opening card that states:

“The games in this collection contain offensive depictions of people and cultures rooted in racial and ethnic prejudices. These stereotypes are deeply harmful, inexcusable, and do not align with our values at Crystal Dynamics.

“Rather than removing this content, we have chosen to present it here in its original form, unaltered, in the hopes that we may acknowledge its harmful impact and learn from it.”

There’re going to be people who want to take that the wrong way, but personally I think it’s a great addition considering some of the story content of the games. There’s no overt censorship, no cut content, heck even the games’ cheat codes are active (but I couldn’t get them to work.)

One of the major changes here is the addition of “Modern Controls,” allowing you to play Lara in a more free-moving style as opposed to her classic “tank” controls. This comes with its own caveats – the levels were built around Lara’s strafing jumps, shimmying across ledges and shuffling to get a better angle on things, and more often than not she’d be hurtling into walls or off edges leading to a frustrating level restart.

To realise just how much time we spent with tank controls back in the day, perfecting a safety drop just to tap the wrong button and have Lara swan-dive into the ground below ending in a sickening neck snap is really jarring. To be able to do that in a lot less button presses with Modern controls is just annoying. I found myself constantly switching back and forward between Modern and Tank to get through levels, lest I hurl the controller through the screen. I even experimented with plugging in a DualShock for control, and found that Modern controls feel more comfortable with a controller, but Tank controls work better for keyboards.

Switching between control systems wasn’t the only thing to amaze me – the most impressive part of the Remastered trilogy is the work that’s been put into upscaling the graphics. At the press of a button you can instantly switch between classic graphics and modern graphics, and I’m not gonna lie – the modern graphics are identical to what I would have imagined the classic graphics being when I first played Tomb Raider years ago. Aspyr has made great strides in adding little quirks to the modern graphics, allowing proper light sources to shine in from above, or making certain consumables stand out just that little bit more from their classic counterparts, but sometimes this has flaws in itself as well.

The first level of Tomb Raider III is set in a jungle, which has a swamp you can drown in if you’re not careful. Switching between classic and modern graphics, I discovered that the classic graphics’ mud has waves like water, whereas the modern texture is solid and looks like the ground. Another level restart for me on that one after unsuccessfully trying to pull Lara out of the swamp. It’s small changes like this that make you err on the side of caution; whether this was a stylistic choice for Aspyr in developing the games or not remains to be seen. The game’s photo mode allows you to have a bit of fun while playing, and really puts you back in awe at the graphical changes between old and new, though I was a little uncomfortable with the ability to put Lara in a dressing gown in the middle of China.

The audio work goes largely unchanged from the originals, so Lara’s voice is the same as day one, grunts and all. The pre-rendered cutscenes are also unchanged but do get the benefit of upscaling – credit to Aspyr for not trying to reinvent the wheel with that one, The in-game cutscenes have additional facial animation to match the voices which was a nice touch. Nathan McCree’s iconic title theme brings a tear to my eye every time I boot up the Remastered trilogy, and the soundtrack for all three games with its classical influences is still some great atmospheric work.

The post Tomb Raider I-III Remastered Review – A Love Letter To Lara’s Origins appeared first on Press Start.

The thing about the runaway success of the A Quiet Place films (John Krasinski’s now trilogy-spanning horror franchise) is that the premise is absolutely killer. An alien invasion has turned the world upside down and now humanity is being hunted by creatures (Death Angels) with hypersensitive hearing, rendering any noise produced an almost instant and horrible death. It’s exactly the kind of inventive horror schlock that can sustain multiple films, ratcheting up the tension and scenarios that naturally occur from being unable to make a sound in a world that wants to kill you. For 90-odd minutes at a time, it rules. For 8-10 hours though…

A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead does its best to try. In keeping with the staples of the franchise, you play as Alex, a young woman who discovers she’s pregnant just as things in her makeshift commune of survivors start to go pear-shaped. Cobbling together a homemade sonar device to measure sounds and gathering up as many inhalers for her dire asthma as she can manage, Alex sets out into an uncertain world in search of some semblance of safety for her unborn child. It’s about as tropey a premise as you’d imagine for a series more concerned with setting than character, though the ability to play as a pregnant woman is at least fresh for mainstream gaming and it does provide the requisite motivations for the journey ahead. 

From the jump developer Stormind Games correctly identifies what the bones of a successful Quiet Place game would look like. Played from a first-person perspective with a graphical lean on realism/fidelity and polished sound design, The Road Ahead immediately looks to ape the tone and feel of the films. You’ll need to slowly crouch walk over puddles and leaves to avoid making noise, gingerly open and close drawers and doors to avoid making noise, steady your breathing and heart rate with medications to avoid…you get it. 

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $48 WITH FREE SHIPPING

This central tension of noise making is altered somewhat throughout the story as Alex will need to engage in several environment-specific physics “puzzles” or even outright Go Loud moments to break up pacing, but as the hours wear on and the game’s systems wane thinner and thinner, the most celebrated aspect of this franchise, the tension, is all but decimated. As a huge proponent for meticulously paced, even glacial, games (Death Stranding’s walking is good), it’s not that the prospect of a journey taken in halting, precious steps and choices can’t work, even over an extended period. But The Road Ahead is building on a framework designed for short bursts of sustained tension in a theatre, keyly relying on the magic (see technical trickery) of film to suspend disbelief and enable immersion. 

Instead, The Road Ahead’s smoke and mirror show gets in your lungs and eyes all too quickly as its ambitions collide with its scope. Death Angels here aren’t so much active stalkers in the world to be poked and prodded at, but static instant-fail sound triggers, outside of a few missions that let the concept shine. This isn’t a dealbreaker in and of itself but the game’s unreliable detection AI makes the off-screen creatures either far too keenly eared or generously deaf depending on the moment, while the Angels that roam certain levels adhere to fairly predictable pathing and inconsistent awareness. The game’s opening stretch, before these issues reveal themselves, is at least home to some genuine thrills as you accidentally make a sound and freeze in your tracks, senses on edge waiting to clock death coming at you. It’s cool and gets to the heart of what makes A Quiet Place such an effective world.   

Alex’s tools for dealing with the Angels will naturally grow throughout the game as you figure out how to throw objects to cause distraction sounds, pour sand in front of you to move faster over surfaces, and use your reliable phonometer to calculate sound and risk. These systems are fine enough, perfunctory first-person horror tools that are ostensibly elevated by the heightened setting but do little to make the game’s campaign retain any real thrills. Likewise, Alex’s asthma will flare up during physical exertion, regardless of severity, and requires a clumsy QTE to use an inhaler (which in this world are apparently single use) or else her vision will darken and heart rate tick up. Much like the distraction tools and the game’s meticulously placed noise makers (that can over there will get you killed), these systems could have been compelling in a tighter experience but are put under immense strain as the story and levels begin to layer on sillier plot devices and scenarios. 

Along your silent road trip, you’ll see glimpses of day one of the invasion as a means of delivering some much-needed detail to Alex’s character while trudging through the usual assortment of diary notes, scattered documents, and the odd fellow survivor. Like the systems before it, The Road Ahead’s narrative work is largely fine but never truly engaging, outright emulating portions of the films but failing to capture the catharsis of Blunt or Nyong’o’s leading characters. It is at least appropriately dire in keeping with the tone and vague thesis of the movies before it and fans of the franchise will undoubtedly get something out of another run at this world and its ideas. You can even nab yourself a collectible easter egg if that’s your vibe. 

A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead then is perhaps best enjoyed by folks who are clamouring for more of this universe. As an extension of that it at least allows fans to actively engage with its cool premise, provided they have the patience for its glacial pacing and wonky detection systems. But as a game in its own right, The Road Ahead is a largely inoffensive, if overly long, experiment in adaptation that would have been a killer 2-3 hour smaller title instead. Stormind Games is an interesting studio, its work on the criminally underrated Remothered titles (an equally wonky but infinitely more compelling survival horror duology) tells of a team with, again, a keen eye for the bones of a solid horror experience. It’s just a shame that The Road Ahead is more whimper than bang.     

The post A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead Review – Hush Hush appeared first on Press Start.

When Sonic Generations dropped in 2011, it was almost like a reinvigoration of the franchise; taking classic and modern Sonic and pairing them together, experiencing the best of 2D and 3D worlds, and paying homage to the history of the series in a neat little package. Thirteen years on, we finally get an updated version for modern consoles; but with it comes Sega’s push for their edgy, darker counterpart to take the spotlight – putting Shadow the Hedgehog front and centre by re-releasing Sonic Generations as Sonic X Shadow Generations.

The game is split into two components – the first being Sonic Generations, a remaster and update of the 2011 release with sharper graphics, reworked cutscenes and a few gameplay tweaks. At Sonic’s birthday party, a mysterious being known as the Time Eater warps Sonic and his friends into White Space – where past and future collide. Sonic meets himself from the past, and together they travel through their history to save their friends and stop Dr Eggman from teaming up with himself as he tries to erase his failures of the past and rewrite history.

But the Time Eater doesn’t just affect Sonic and his friends; Shadow Generations sees Shadow the Hedgehog also dragged into White Space by the Time Eater, where he is confronted by the imminent return of his greatest foe, Black Doom. The being that helped create Shadow, Black Doom seeks to return from the past and take over the world – so it falls upon Shadow to travel through his history to set things right, while obtaining new dark powers and being reunited with old friends.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $69 WITH FREE SHIPPING

The problem with Sonic X Shadow Generations is that it doesn’t seem to know what game it wants to be. Is it a remaster? Is it a sequel? Is it a wholly new experience? Effectively it is two games in one – a remaster of Sonic Generations, while attempting to do Shadow the Hedgehog justice by tagging Shadow Generations alongside it. Sega are really making a focus on the “Year of Shadow” this year by releasing this game as well as having Shadow star in the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 film, set for release later this year. But in order to do both games their due diligence, you almost have to forget that Sonic’s game was released thirteen years ago, and view it as if it was just released – otherwise Shadow’s game seems like an afterthought.

To that extent, it’s probably better that Sonic Generations is paired up with Shadow Generations, so that you can understand the story behind both titles. Credit where credit is due, SEGA did a great job on remastering Sonic Generations for a new audience who may have missed it the first time around.

With two acts per level, you get the opportunity to play as both Classic Sonic and Modern Sonic through a variety of historic Sonic stages; with Green Hill Zone, Chemical Plant Zone and Sky Sanctuary Zone to name a few. The flip side to this, and something that makes the game that much more enjoyable, is the ability to play as Classic Sonic on levels released well beyond the years of the Sega Mega Drive (or Genesis for you international friends) such as Crisis City and Planet Wisp from more recent instalments where 3D gameplay is king.

As you bring colour back to White Space by finishing the levels and saving Sonic’s friends, you’ll come up against bosses from Sonic’s history, as well as unlocking collectibles and beating challenges such as time trials. This all leads up to the climactic battle against past and future Dr Eggman and the Time Eater, to save the world and restore time and space to normal.

When I say that Sonic Generations does its history justice, it isn’t just looking at things through rose-tinted glasses – Classic Sonic plays exactly like it should, and Modern Sonic is fun and fast. There’s nothing overly complicated about how each Sonic plays, and aside from maybe going a little too fast in certain sections, plenty of care has been taken to make each character play with a degree of familiarity.

Modern Sonic took a while for me to get used to as not only was it a jump from 2D to 3D (or 2.5D in some situations) but you also get lock-on and boost mechanics that extend your jumps and attacks – there is some fun to be had in bouncing from one enemy to another before boosting away to grind on a rail. In true Sonic fashion, going fast is the aim of the game regardless of whether you play as Classic or Modern Sonic, and it almost feels punishing if you aren’t going fast.

If SEGA weren’t pushing the “Year of Shadow” content, then we could end the review there, say that Sonic Generations is a great remaster of a decent Sonic game, and we’d be done with it. But Shadow needs time in the spotlight, and this is where things diverge just a little bit. If you’re not familiar with Shadow the Hedgehog, you’re given a narrative backstory which tells us about how he was engineered to be the Ultimate Life Form, being infused with DNA from the evil alien Black Doom. Created by Gerald Robotnik on the Space Colony ARK, Shadow befriends Robotnik’s daughter Maria, who is plagued with a terminal illness that Gerald seeks to cure through Project Shadow.

When the government becomes concerned about Project Shadow, they send forces from Guardian Units of Nations (G.U.N) to shut the project down; but Maria is killed in the process, and Shadow seeks to enact revenge for losing his friend. Shadow is captured and placed into stasis for over 50 years, and on his release he sought to ruin the world. Remembering Maria’s last words to him, he forced himself to stop – and became the anti-hero we now know today.

We open with Shadow on Space Colony ARK, tracking a strange signal. Rouge the Bat calls him reminding him of Sonic’s birthday party – and at this time the events of Sonic Generations take place, as everyone is dragged into rifts created by the Time Eater. Shadow fights off a being known as Doom’s Eye, later discovered to be Black Doom’s third eye set out to monitor Shadow in an attempt to revive Black Doom. In scenes reminiscent of the mirror dimension from Doctor Strange, the fights with Doom’s Eye are pretty crazy, and usually culminate in Shadow earning a new power if you manage to land a hit.

Shadow then finds himself in a similar White Space to Sonic, being forced to relive elements of his past in order to save the day. Where Sonic Generations’ White Space keeps to a 2D plane, Shadow Generations opens up the White Space to three dimensions, allowing you to practice and test out the Doom powers that Shadow will acquire on his journey. As you encounter Doom’s Eye, Shadow unlocks more dark powers to use on his journey – with the ability to surf across water or unleash devastating attacks on enemies unlocking through progression.

Shadow Generations’ White Space feels very awkward compared to Sonic Generations, and it isn’t just the jump from 2D to 3D in the hub space. In fact I found this was a flaw with the game as a whole – the controls for Shadow feel extremely clunky even though they have clearly taken example from Sonic’s 3D gameplay.

Some moments are too sensitive, others are extremely floaty, and there doesn’t seem to be any middle ground when it comes to controlling Shadow. The game allows you to keep the quick time event controls on screen when they happen, but even then it doesn’t seem to feel natural when attempting to perform it. Just like Sonic Generations, the game wants you to go fast – but sometimes it feels like it’s also a curse, as one wrong button press or slight adjustment to the direction and you’ve sent yourself flying off the side of the course and into the abyss.

Shadow’s Doom powers add an extra layer to playing the character that at times feels very fluid and inventive, and other times just feels like another button sequence to remember without being practical. In moments that feel very ‘blink and you’ll miss it’, you’ll be able to target multiple enemies with Doom Spears – but you may have already rocketed past them by boosting consistently, so it doesn’t really change things.

Filling the Chaos Control gauge makes for strategic moments where you need to pause time to get through a difficult obstacle (like falling or breaking platforms) and the game conveniently hands you everything you need to do that at the right places, but everything feels very on-rails when you’re in a level and so not as necessary to plan ahead. Overall, rather than feeling like a new or a different character, Shadow just plays like Sonic but with extra steps and bonus powers.

The post Sonic X Shadow Generations Review – Classic Sonic And Modern Sonic Together appeared first on Press Start.

This spooky season, which brings with it Fear the Spotlight’s release as the first in a very cool slate out of Blumhouse, feels like quite a culmination of a tremendous year for horror video games. After sampling the game’s horrific opening chapter back at Summer Game Fest, I was left wanting more. Fear the Spotlight really does feel like a tribute to so many of the classic games that paved the way for it, from its lo-fi, dithering graphics that leave enough doubt in your mind to jump at shadows, to its tactile, hands-on puzzle solving. 

Fear the Spotlight, which is an expanded upon iteration of its release only a year ago, begins on a stormy night as Vivian, the player-character, and Amy break into Sunnyside High to perform a seance in the school’s library. Quite predictably, things go haywire as the supernatural descends upon their night, leading to far more trouble than a simple breaking and entering should. Amy is found in a fugue state before she’s drawn in by a powerful light, forcing Vivian to descend deeper into the belly of the school, which has cracked upon a portal to its past which, it seems, has plenty of skeletons in its closet to unearth after a fire decimated the campus in 1991. 

Although they spend relatively no screen time together, it is the burgeoning relationship of the two schoolgirl leads that drives events forward. While I won’t divulge where the game goes, having seen where the original release rolled credits, I do think the direction of the expanded content is a genius move and undeniably builds out other characters within the game’s lore while servicing the story at large. The entire game might only be four hours, however not one, singular second is wasted.

Unlike Crow Country, another low-fi survival horror game that released this year, which gives its player the option to leave combat at the door entirely, Fear the Spotlight sensibly decided against turning Vivian into a super soldier who mows down ghosts and ghouls while trawling the locker bays. Although she’s resourceful, she is young, in over her head, and she’s absolutely terrified, which I think is evident through several of the design choices in the game—particularly the one to not give Vivian any offensive firepower, whatsoever. 

The character’s fear and vulnerability is integral to not only the game’s overarching themes, it also plays into the tense, hide and seek encounters with the fearsome titular antagonist, Spotlight. Leaving embers in his wake, he has sure but uncertain ties to the 1991 fire. He’s a tall, slender figure with an ominous, oscillating light for a head, which strikes a horrifying picture whenever he shows unexpectedly, forcing you to sneak behind and underneath desks toward the nearest door. Seeing the ashen ghouls, who I presume are symbolic of the students lost, peering around corners and watching you is unsettling as it is, but Spotlight’s sudden and heart-pounding appearances teeter at the periphery of being iconic. 

Where other games might equip you with herbs or bandages to patch your cuts up with, Fear the Spotlight once again leans full bodied into Vivian’s anxiety which can spike during these panicked chases. All it takes is a quick puff of her one-and-done inhalers with each hit serving as a calming cure-all for these moments of dread. 

She’s able to make use of her book smarts to solve several of the game’s riddles which, in keeping with genre tropes, often involve scouring the immediate areas for key items before backtracking and piecing the whole picture together. I enjoyed all of the puzzles in Fear the Spotlight, even if they do lean ever-so-slightly towards being too simple, there’s a satisfying flow that sees each problem Vivian faces snowball into the next, and it really helps keeping a great pace up. 

As I mentioned in the opening, there’s a wonderful, tactile feel to this game’s world and its objects. You mightn’t be able to thoroughly examine and turn items in-hand, however there’s an interactivity to everything that kept me locked in throughout. Whether it’s prying nails out of boarded windows, thumbing open the latch on a toolbox, or dialling in a phone number on a pay phone, you’re charged with every input and it’s a cool, albeit simple, touch. 

Despite an obvious, and deliberate, lack of fidelity due to the developer’s pursuit of the in vogue retro, lo-fi aesthetic, everything still has a surprising amount of detail. Obviously it carries with it the warts of the style, with plenty of clipping and blocky textures, however it’s one that lends itself so well to horror. The environment design is excellent, with the school itself getting extra credit for twisting its everyday halls into something dark and worthy of the tragedy that the school faculty swept under the rug. Darkness and shadow is used to great effect, as the dithering, the grain effect that helps cement the dated appearance Fear the Spotlight is shooting for, helps in creating optical illusions. 

Although there’s no real danger through so much of the game, you still second guess what the hard-to-see hallucination at the end of the hall could be. I also love that the game doesn’t resort to jump scares to unsettle its audience, relying solely on a slow, steady build to keep the player on edge. 

Unlike some of its contemporaries, Sunnyside High’s map isn’t an open one. This creates a feeling of linearity throughout, which itself feels like a guiding hand showing the way. By solving small, self-contained zones one at a time, it minimises the laborious, time-consuming backtracking that often plagues games like this, but it certainly shines a spotlight, so to speak, on both the game’s overall lack of difficulty and brevity. 

Fear the Spotlight might only clock in at around four hours, but it’s so well-paced and its puzzles, for the most part, feel as though they make sense in-world, which cements Sunnyside High, in my mind, as a horror spot that read the brief and passed with flying colours. It’s staggering what a team of two has been able to achieve with Fear the Spotlight, it’s a sublime survival-horror title that delivers in story and tone. 

Along with being a tremendous first blow for Blumhouse’s slate of smaller-scoped horror games, Fear the Spotlight could very well be my horror game of the year. I knew there was a reason I kept out of the library when I wasn’t to school, nothing good ever comes of it. 

The post Fear The Spotlight Review – Extracurricular Paranormal Activity appeared first on Press Start.

In a dark, long-forgotten system of caves off the Turkish coast, a small hit squad of hired goons is about to die. An impulsive mission to recover an ancient artifact from an even older tomb has ended in disaster as a young woman’s position was given away and her escape route blocked by men armed with guns and poisoned idealism. From the shadows, she projects herself through the ethereal realm and begins to pull the strings; she positions one goon’s rifle to fire at the head of another, guides yet another’s electric baton to slam into the ground next to a flammable canister, and calmly walks the remaining attacker into the soon to be explosion. She is pulled back to her body just in time to watch the chaos erupt as the world turns in her favour while she watches on, unseen and unknown. 

This is Unknown 9: Awakening at its best– a tightly constructed set of tools and a linear sandbox in which to deploy them, when the game clicks into place, you feel like a minor God. What developer Reflector Entertainment build around these tools is the quintessential AA gaming experience, for mostly better and only rarely worse. 

Unknown 9 seeks to somewhat invert the typical narrative bones of the action-adventure genre by placing us in the shoes of Haroona, a young Indian woman thrown headfirst into a sprawling world of magical intrigue and existential doom. Actively avoiding, and sometimes even interrogating, the staple of “affable bearded white dude blasts through South Asian culture”, Unknown 9 instead uses Haroona’s heritage and characterisation to ground us more thoroughly in these places and cultures, lifting heavily from aesthetics, architecture, and even leading actor Anya Chalotra’s own cultural heritage. 

It’s a successful gambit, the game’s clear appreciation for Indian culture a driving force behind its cast of (relatively) likeable side characters and vibrant litany of levels. It has become disconcertingly easy to dismiss games of this budget and calibre as cheaper imitations of what the AAA space can do, a shortsighted way of engaging with works like Unknown 9. You won’t see the best texture work in the business here but thanks to a killer art direction that feels of a piece with the best action-adventure romps, and smart use of pre-baked lighting and tight-level design, the world of Unknown 9 feels richly sweet.  

And while this cultural inversion lends the game an undeniable uniqueness in the market, its structure adheres much more closely to trends established well over a decade ago in the genre. This will be a make-or-break point for many, as while the likes of Uncharted have largely been able to paper over their mechanical status quo (stagnation if you’re feeling spicy) with breathtaking visual fidelity, Unknown 9 lands firmly in the AA development sphere, leaning more into art direction and vibes than outright AAA quality. In turn, its reliance on the usual flow of stealth in tall grass, clambering up rock textures and vines, crawling between cracks, and a light and heavy combat loop is laid far more bare. Unknown 9 is effectively a 360 game, then, and that kinda rules. 

THE CHEAPEST COPY: $79 WITH FREE SHIPPING FROM AMAZON

The linear narrative action-adventure path is as you might expect with that in mind; Haroona will scramble through just over a dozen chapters, chasing the bad guys around the world and uncovering the secrets of the Unknown 9 in a fairly breezy, pleasant fashion. Many of the game’s major beats you’ll see coming a mile off but Chalotra’s performance is incredibly charming and keeps the central throughline of a young woman coming to terms with a cruel world firmly in hand even as the backend of the game swings into melodrama. The quasi-fictionalised India and surrounding global situation is genuinely compelling though as the game paints a portrait of a people who are actively aware of their impending demise as part of a cyclical destruction that ravages society every X number of years. 

The fallout of this awareness is the forming of the titular Unknown 9, a cabal of immortal beings who seek to stop the cogs of time from churning in an effort that you just know can only end well. The niceties of this set-up are littered throughout dozens of collectibles and notes (Unknown 9 is itself part of a larger transmedia push including books, comics, and audio dramas) but the immediate effect is Haroona’s ability to use Am (magic) and the Fold (a kind of spirit realm) to interact with the game world.

Unknown 9 is equal parts stealth and action game, lifting the fundamentals of each but remixing them brilliantly with Umbric Abilities, skills that Haroona uses Am for. The biggest, and best, of them is the Step, granting Haroona the ability to astral project into the body of most enemies and pilot them around in suspended time, unleashing attacks or positioning them in front of environmental hazards before jumping into the next or recalling back to her body to set her choices in motion.  

Over the course of Unknown 9’s approximately 15-hour campaign, this never gets old. This is partly due to the game’s escalating scenario design in which the Ascendents continue to trot out more elaborate anti-Step machinery and cartoonishly over-designed big boys to deal with (one late-game enemy feels like someone ran Indiana Jones through an Evil Within filter and I clapped). It also helps that Haroona’s skill trees (stealth, Umbral, and combat) are packed full of expressive and fun mechanics that you’re free to chain together in any way you see fit. That cave encounter I mentioned earlier later saw me go loud with abandon, using a shield to parry bullets before double dodging to close the gap and Umbral push a soldier off a cliff while forcing my Am spirit out of my body to punch another in the face.  

Combat sits comfortably in the Arkham tradition of light/heavy, dodge, and parry to build up a stagger meter before delivering a final blow, but it can veer a little sloppy. The camera lock-on in particular fights you at every turn and as the game ramps up enemy numbers, it can begin to feel frustrating keeping track of powerful foes while managing your Am and health. These poorly balanced instances drag on an otherwise solid system, especially once Haroona can start pulling on Am to do AOE attacks and sick-as-shit astral combat abilities that let you close the gap between you and your foe without moving or breaking off of your current action. 

There’s a nice harmony to much of what Unknown 9 sets out to achieve and while its textures can be crunchy and its narrative structure a little flat, the essence of the experience is delightful. This is a text with foundational aspirations; in my preview, I noted that it feels as if we should have had several of these games had they kicked off in the 360/PS3 heyday and I sincerely hope Unknown 9 gets the chance to build off what has been done here. Chalotra’s Haroona is a charismatic lead in her own right and the systems built around her are cohesive and inventive, if in need of some fine-tuning. With time, there’s a killer franchise to be had here, but as far as origin stories go, an Unknown 7.5 ain’t half-bad.

The post Unknown 9: Awakening Review – 360, Party Girl appeared first on Press Start.

Although it’s still something that’s debated, there’s no question in my mind that video games are an art form. Some more than others, of course, however there’s a place that many come to occupy where their job is to kindle imagination and draw emotion from its player as though it were a bloodletting ritual. After Gris, and how it traversed the profound impact of grief, Nomada Studio has gone back to work to ensure their second project, Neva, is as much a doorway to devastation as their first.

Neva is a beautiful story, told primarily through its arresting audiovisual presentation, about the ever-strengthening bond between Alba and the titular wolf cub who journey, protecting one another, in a world on the brink of decay. Princess Mononoke feels like a lay-up in terms of comparison, especially with regards to design, however I feel the Studio Ghibli classic also shares thematic threads with Neva if you care enough to tug on and unpack them. The notion that nature is indifferent, often cruel and that living in total harmony with it might be a pipe dream is something of a through line for both. Neva is a game developed largely throughout the pandemic, so it is no surprise its world is a brutal one on its knees.

While I continue to question whether Neva quite exceeds the emotional summit of its predecessor, I’m at least glad it attempts to gamify its themes and deeper meanings a bit more. While both games are beautiful experiences from front-to-back, Neva folding combat into the formula Gris otherwise perfected on the first try is clearly welcome. On top of wonderfully designed puzzles and eking out microdoses of tension through titanic confrontations with mountainous, metaphoric tokens of Alba’s journey, being able to brandish a sword against the corrupted remnants of your dying world adds a little power to this fantasy.

Seeming to serve the cinematic feel of the game more than anything, Neva’s swordplay never really challenged me throughout the game’s adventurous, albeit modest, five hours. Even more critical, it holds back on its most interesting hooks until it’s too late, resulting in an exciting homestretch that makes the opening feel a bit limp by comparison.

Where others might have overcomplicated things, adding parries, heavy swings, and stamina bars in the pursuit of the oft-fruitful Soulslike tag, Nomada kept things exceedingly simple for their first run at combat. Alba might draw her sword with a flourish worthy of a practised duelist, however, her limited repertoire, which would prove dull in a longer game, leaves a simple, one-note attack, a downward plunge, and a dodge roll on offer for a bulk of proceedings. As the seasons roll by, Neva will mature into a magnificent, powerful wolf who evolves from travel companion to battle mate, as her paranatural abilities service both the game’s combat scenarios and late-game environment puzzles.

For those after a bit of extra credit when combing through Neva’s dying world, there are collectibles that can be found in the form of flower buds that’ll bloom with life once in Alba’s presence. A lot of them are straightforward and only require the player to veer ever so slightly from the expected path, though there are a handful that require a reasonable mastery of Alba’s platforming nous to reach. As in Gris, other hidden achievements task the player with completing small objectives throughout the adventure, whether it’s ensuring Neva, a growing cub, has had her fill of fallen fruit or startling all of the hard-to-spot birds perched upon snowy branches in winter. In a game where the story is largely inferred by the player due to a lack of spoken or written dialogue, these small moments felt like a subtle means of character building to me.

Neva marks the second coming together for artist Conrad Roset, who serves as the game’s creative lead, and fellow Spaniards Berlinist, the band behind the tender, heartrending arrangement that pairs with the game’s action better than fish and chips. As the narrative moves between seasons, Roset is able to experiment with and use specific colours so effectively, as the autumnal fall colours lead to Alba’s struggle, represented by bold, blinding reds that fill the sky before giving way to a blinding, white winter.

And while the world itself is quite beautiful, the designs of Alba, Neva, and the plagued creatures that wander it are incredibly Studio Ghibli-coded, it’s hard not to believe it’s an homage at least in part. The purity of Neva’s white coat, and her magnificent antlers, pop against the frequently colour burst backdrops, and even more so against the tortured, inky abominations that contort and shapeshift before you. So much illustration fences its colour in with bold outlines and, thankfully, that isn’t the case here.

It’s all crafted gorgeously with an express control of water colours and their painterly ways. Without spoiling it, there’s one portion of the game, about three quarters through, where Roset’s breathtaking direction for environment design feeds into both the combat and puzzle craft, it’s one of many incomparable five minute bursts that cemented Neva, in my mind, as a fascinating work of art. I can’t overemphasise how much of the game’s emotional impact stems from the marriage of Roset’s art and Berlinist’s virtuoso score. I’ve spent many hours streaming the Gris soundtrack, and I expect Neva’s will prove to be just as much an ear worm.

Although the game gets in and out pretty quickly, it lasts just long enough that its simple systems don’t get the chance to grow tiresome while its art, evocative music, and bond between Alba and her endearing wolf cub shoulder the burden of wringing out and exhausting everything from the player. By the end, as the credits began to roll, I was a glassy-eyed mess who knew full well I’d just experienced something special.

The post Neva Review – The Wolf In Watercolour appeared first on Press Start.

Metaphor: ReFantazio has come a long way to get where it is today. Initially announced as Project Re:Fantasy, Metaphor was conceived by Katsura Hashino shortly after he departed the Persona team over at ATLUS. Citing a need to explore new ideas untethered from Persona 5’s runaway success, Hashino established his own internal studio within ATLUS named Studio Zero. That all happened almost 10 years ago in 2016. That’s a long time for any game to be in development, but the anticipation for Hashino’s next big creative swing is palpable.

ATLUS is also now in a position where they don’t need to be entertaining creative ideas for new IP. Persona is a worldwide phenomenon that practically prints money, and Shin Megami Tensei is becoming more mainstream as a result. That aspect of Metaphor makes its existence even more impressive, especially when some of ATLUS’ strongest talent is involved in the project. There’s a clear belief in Hashino’s vision to bring something new to ATLUS’ expansive swathe of JRPGs. Though it might not be the gameplay evolution some are looking for, Metaphor is yet another win for ATLUS.

In the dead of night, the United Kingdom of Euchronia’s idealistic and benevolent king is assassinated in his sleep, instigating widespread chaos throughout the land. With his son rendered unconscious by a curse, the throne’s successor has never been more unclear. In his death, the king invokes royal magic, setting the stage for a tournament of kings to to decide who’s fit to take the throne.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $98 WITH FREE SHIPPING 

You play as a young boy of the Elda tribe, a group of people that’ve been ostracised due to their connections to the old world. The Elda are few and far between in Euchronia for a few reasons, but what’s important is that you’re entering the tournament on behalf of the prince, while also searching for a means to lift the curse placed on him so he can take his place as king. It’s a fantastically unique premise that’s ripe with potential and thematic musings.

While ATLUS games always have more going on under the surface narratively – especially in Hashino’s works – Metaphor feels restrained. It maintains a square focus on the tournament, its many players, the core cast, and how it’s all impacting Euchronia. There’s still plenty of great narrative surprises and the way in which it hones in on that central conflict means that it’s always the same themes, ideas, and characters being explored and developed.

Euchronia is not a nice place. It purposefully mirrors our own world, with its people romanticising their own works of fiction and the idealistic worlds found within them. These seemingly perfect worlds also have these problems, tough. It’s these ideas of fiction and imagination that Metaphor is most fascinated with. Hoping for a better world when the status quo seems so deep-rooted in Euchronia’s history that most people live in complete ignorance of the discrimination around them.

In no way is this better explored than through Metaphor’s core cast of characters. Citizens whisper about the presence of an Elda in the capital of Grand Trad, propaganda and misinformation from bodies of authority result in warped perceptions of people and tribes they’ve never even met, and foreign cultures are often considered lesser or under-developed because of their differences. Even the problems faced by the higher classes are explored to some degree through the likes of Strohl, a noble who joins the army after his hometown is razed by monsters known as Humans.

It does feel like Metaphor doesn’t go far enough in its commentary of these themes and ideas in its main plot, though. They’re often only addressed in a manner that’s surface level, claiming that these things are bad and need to be uprooted, but not the deeper effects it has on the people impacted the most. I think this is likely because Metaphor is largely concerned with touching on the many downfalls of our own world, instead of exploring a select few in more intimate detail. It lends the game an ethereal and, for lack of a better word, meta feel to its central ideas and explorations.

It’s also just too long. ATLUS’ tentpole JRPGs often have this problem and it rears its ugly head once again in Metaphor. It isn’t as offensive as the tail-end of Persona 5, but Metaphor feels one dungeon too long. The final sequence in particular has a drawn-out preparation phase that’s great for wrapping up unfinished side content, but the main narrative comes to a screeching halt as a result. It’s made more obvious by how tightly paced the rest of Metaphor is, with a structure that echoes traditional Shonen anime to remarkable effect.

On the spectrum of Shin Megami Tensei and Persona, Metaphor: ReFantazio falls somewhere in the middle when it comes to gameplay. It leans a little heavy of the Persona side (with a dash of Digital Devil Saga), but combines elements of both to differentiate itself from ATLUS’ titanic franchises. If you’re wanting something that’s different from ATLUS’ traditional offerings, Metaphor isn’t quite that. It does bring some new ideas into the fold, but calling it wholly original in how it plays would be overstepping.

That isn’t to say Metaphor is uninspired or overly iterative. ATLUS continue to show they have a fundamental grasp on the systems and gameplay elements that make modern Persona and SMT so engaging. Once the game gets going proper, it operates on a calendar system with deadlines for each major dungeon as you progress the main story. You can spend your time making progress in said dungeons, deepening your bonds with the people of Euchronia, growing your kingly virtues, and more.

The biggest change in the calendar system comes with the Gauntlet Runner. A bipedal vehicle commonly used to traverse the dangerous no man’s lands between Euchronia’s towns, dungeons, and key points of interest. The catch, is that it takes time to make a trip in the Gauntlet Runner. Maybe you get a side quest that requires you to visit a nearby town or deal with a monster lurking in a small dungeon. Not only does it consume a day to explore said dungeon, but also to actually travel there in the Gauntlet Runner.

There are still things to do to fill the time while travelling, but any trip away from whatever town your party is setup at needs to be considered based on your progress in the main dungeon and its impending deadline. It adds another layer to decision making in this tried and true gameplay loop, imploring you to make the most of your time and optimise your dungeon diving. The Gauntlet Runner itself also just adds so much personality to the game and the whole setup of the tournament. Nowhere is this seen more than in the way you can stop at Euchronia’s many natural wonders on the road, all of which are accompanied by reflective conversation from the party. It lends a real sense of journey and exploration, echoing a grand feeling that isn’t often felt in modern RPGs.

Metaphor: ReFantazio also brings with it some of the best Social Links ATLUS has ever penned. Known as Bonds within Metaphor, these smaller side stories that follow people from different walks of life within Euchronia benefit greatly from the dark fantasy setting and themes of this world. It’d be a shame to spoil any of them here, but these stories often have the deeper explorations of Metaphor’s core themes and ideas that are lacking in the main story. They aren’t afraid to dig into the grungy underbelly of this world and the positions its people are forced into, but also highlight how perspective and understanding of someone who’s different from you can make all the difference.

Bonds also tie nicely into the game’s job system, called Archetypes. Each Archetype pertains to a different class, with advanced and elite Archetypes evolving from the base ones to create a Lineage. Each Lineage is directly linked to one of your Bonds, and levelling that Bond up directly benefits its related Archetype. Whether it be unlocking the aforementioned Advanced and Elite Archetypes, increasing the total number of Skill Inheritance slots, or decreasing costs associated with unlocking Archetypes within that lineage, these rewards always feel meaningful and worthwhile.

Part of the reason this all works so well is because the Archetype system is so, so good. It’s a fairly traditional job system where party members can seamlessly switch between Archetypes to fill different roles as needed. Levelling up these Archetypes unlocks new skills that you can inherit onto other Archetypes, granting you access to skill combinations you usually wouldn’t have. You can also use these slots to combat elemental weaknesses or fill holes in an Archetype’s kit. There’re so many different combinations and Archetypes to experiment with here, and it all fits so well into Metaphor’s combat framework.

It should come as no surprise that this battle system is very similar to Shin Megami Tensei’s. It’s closest to the Press Turn system from those games, where striking weaknesses grants you an extra turn, but the same is also true for your enemies. It’s always been strategically rewarding, and remains so in Metaphor, but there’s a few new ideas thrown into the mix that set Metaphor apart.

The most obvious change is Metaphor’s approach to first strikes, or the preamble that happens before turn-based combat actually starts. It’s become commonplace in RPGs today, but Metaphor goes a few steps further in its own interpretation of this modern staple. You can lock-on to roaming overworld enemies and engage them in a simple yet robust third-person action combat system. You’ll jump on enemies with simple combos while dodging their own attacks to stagger them, giving you a significant advantage on the first turn of combat if successful. The same is true for enemies, though, and starting battle with disadvantage feels like an uphill battle.

Weaker enemies can be immediately dispatched with this combat without transitioning into the turn-based mode, and weaknesses even play a part in how fast you stagger enemies. It’s a fun system that helps with combat pacing and cuts down on a lot of unnecessary battling. It’s very reminiscent of Trails Through Daybreak, and that’s a very good thing.

There’s a couple of things inside of the turn-based combat that give Metaphor it’s own flavour as well. There’s a formation system where you can place party members in the front or back line of the party, trading physical offence for defence and can sometimes be used to avoid entire attacks if you read your enemy properly. There’s also Synergy skills, which use two turn icons for suped up skills that often deal more damage or provide more efficient support to the party. The coolest part of these skills is how they also work with the Press Turn system, netting you two extra turns if you strike a weakness with one of these skills.

All of these inclusions are welcome because Metaphor does offer some challenge if you go looking for it. It’s not an overly difficult game on its base difficulty if you’re familiar with ATLUS’ other titles, but some of the optional bosses are real strategic gauntlets that force you to use every element of the combat system to come out on top. It’s a nice shift given ATLUS’ recent RPGs have lost some of their edge due to excessive player power and over tuned mechanics like Persona 3 Reload’s Theurgy.

Another area where Metaphor yields mixed results is in its dungeons. The main ones are almost all great, offering some really unique locales to explore that employ labyrinthine design that’re satisfying to unravel. The optional side dungeons are less impressive, often recycling the same visual motifs and design spaces that leave them feeling largely indistinguishable from one another, and forgettable as a result. You’ll spend a lot of time in these spaces as well, which only serves to hammer in the monotony. They’re better than the likes of Mementos or Tartarus, but still don’t come close to the quality of the main dungeons.

Now to surprise absolutely no one as I gush about Metaphor’s production values for the rest of this review. It’ll surprise no one that ATLUS have done it again, Metaphor is effortlessly stylish in all aspects of its presentation. It’s also done in a way that’s entirely different from recent Persona entries, fully embracing its dark fantasy setting and lofty musings on philosophy to deliver some incredibly striking user interfaces, imagery, character designs, and architecture.

A special shout out should go out to Shigenori Soejima’s excellent character designs. Each one is instantly charismatic, identifiable, and unique amongst a pantheon of other countless designs Soejima has authored over the years. It would’ve been easy enough for him to replicate his work in Persona with a medieval twist, but Soejima goes above and behind to reinforce the difference in these races and tribes with remarkable effect. It’s some of his most varied and high quality work yet, and that’s no small statement.

Shoji Meguro also makes a fantastic impression with Metaphor’s original soundtrack. An ATLUS game isn’t an ATLUS game without their irreplaceable music, and Meguro delivers a score so different from his previous works that still maintains his signature touches. Battle tracks slowly ramp up towards thunderous choruses, overworld tunes are less subdued than what you’d find in Persona, really selling the idea of this larger than life tournament of kings. It’s no surprise that Meguro delivers here, but that doesn’t undermine how fantastic the whole thing is.

Metaphor: ReFantazio is another home run for a seemingly unstoppable ATLUS. It isn’t without some issues, and ATLUS have yet to escape their third-act woes, but it’s refreshing to see a new IP with a setting that’s such a hard pivot from what’s become so successful for the studio. It might not depart as drastically when it comes to overall gameplay, but that isn’t such a bad thing when what’s been established is of such high quality.

The post Metaphor ReFantazio Review – Peak Fiction appeared first on Press Start.

Loosely based around the 16th century Chinese story ‘Journey to the West’, and inspired by Hong Kong martial arts films, there would be very few people who would have foreseen the future popularity and impact that the Dragon Ball manga would have on audiences when it was released forty years ago. And while Akira Toriyama may no longer be with us to continue the story of Son Goku and his friends, his legacy lives on through the franchise’s numerous adaptations – the latest being Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero.

Seventeen years in the making itself, Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero is the ultimate love letter to Dragon Ball fans around the world, as well as those who have been hanging for a true sequel to the Budokai Tenkaichi games not seen since 2007. From Z to Super and even GT, Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero puts the thrill of high-speed and super-powered battles into your hands, between your favourite characters in familiar and highly-destructive environments, allowing you to play through the fights that you’ve always wanted to see.

I could write an entire article just on the story of Dragon Ball alone, but if you’re playing Sparking! Zero, chances are you’re already well-versed on Dragon Ball history. Thankfully, the game gives you the opportunity to play through the story through eight different characters in Episode Battle. With a mix between comic-style panels and in-game cutscenes, the game weaves through the narrative allowing you to take part in iconic fights from Dragon Ball Z and Super. Starting with our main character Goku, you’ll play through the Raditz saga and beyond, unlocking more characters as the narrative progresses – but with the added twist of diverting the narrative if you meet certain battle conditions. For instance, what would happen if Goku beat Raditz without dying?

What would happen if Gohan defeated Cell without allowing him to blow up? These pivotal narrative moments can be changed, branching out into new paths that will take the Dragon Ball story in new and exciting directions. You’ll even have the chance to step into the shoes of familiar foes such as Frieza and Goku Black as they take on our heroes in Vegeta, Piccolo and more. The narrative branching does get a bit frustrating however, as the conditions for changed results aren’t made clear at any point in the fight, and it isn’t until the fight is over that you’ll know if you’re on track or if you’ve branched off.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $99 WITH FREE SHIPPING

As you progress through the Episode Battle you’ll gain proficiency in your characters and raise your player level, as well as earning Zeni which can be used for purchasing customisable unlocks in the shop. You’ll also complete tasks given to you by Zen Oh and Whis, which will give you even more opportunity to unlock Zeni and even characters to be used later in the game. If you want to take a break from Episode Battle, you can take yourself into Custom Battle instead, which allows you to create the scenario you’ve always wanted to see, or play through pre-made custom scenarios.

With over 180 characters to choose from, as well as iconic locations and the ability to set battle conditions, you can create, recreate and share the battles that you’ve always wanted to see. Want to see Cell, Frieza and Buu team up and take revenge on Goku, Vegeta and Trunks? You can make it happen. Want to see Nappa try and join the Frieza Force before teaming up with Vegeta? There’s a scenario for that. There’s almost no limit to your imagination when it comes to creating your own scenarios, as well as playing through some pretty interesting Bonus Episodes that have been created for the game.

Not long after a few rounds in Episode Battle, I found myself heading over to Super Training as my frustration grew and I began mashing buttons instead of being focused and tactical. Whether you’re an experienced player or fresh to the franchise, Super Training is a mode I would recommend you spend your time wisely in; while the game gives you a quick rundown of the controls when you first start it up, the combat flows extremely deep. Learning about techniques like Vanishing Assault, Z-Counter and Z Burst Dash will improve your fighting immensely, and coupling these with assault combos and ki blasts will make you the ultimate fighter.

But learning these things and putting them into practice are two totally different things, so I found myself consistently jumping back to training to re-learn what I’d already learned and why I wasn’t able to put it into practice. There is a classic control style for those who managed to find their PS2s and get back into the rhythm from the Budokai Tenkaichi trilogy, otherwise the standard control system is pretty easy to start with. Sparking! Zero’s frustration in its control system stems from the fact that input sometimes is required to be extremely precise, and one wrongly-timed button input can mean the difference between performing the correct attack and instead throwing ki blasts at random and exhausting your energy.

While keeping an eye on counters, knockbacks, ki blasts and everything else taking place, you also need to ensure you power up your ki enough to perform certain attacks, as well as the obscure number near your avatar that counts upwards as you fight. This allows for character transformations, which you will unlock with character unlocks, and be able to use where available. There’s nothing worse than trying to go Super Saiyan and not having the power or ability to do so. This is why it is important not just to jump online or into gameplay, but give yourself the opportunity to learn all that you can. Overwhelming is a word that keeps coming to mind when I think about the complexities of the game; as not only do you need to memorise so many different ways to dodge and attack, you also need to monitor your HP gauge so that you don’t accidentally go all-out and be pulverised in a fight. I’m sure over time the controls will become second-nature, but sometimes the fights can be a bit too much.

After you’ve had your fill of fighting, either through Episode or Custom Battle, or even through creating your own World Tournament fixture, you can head over to med with Zen Oh and Whis to earn rewards that you’ll accumulate by performing tasks. These can be as simple as battling with one character for a certain number of times, or meeting certain conditions in a battle such as using your Super Attack multiple times. Zen Oh grants your stamp cards which gives you Zeni, outfits and even player card customizations; while Whis can give you other items like Dragon Balls which can be used to summon the immortal Dragons. Be sure to visit them often to receive your rewards and use them to unlock more and more.

There is plenty to unlock when it comes to the Shop and Customise section as well; from classic outfits from the manga and anime, to voice packs and quotes as well as music, and even skill capsules for use in fights. Your Zeni will be used up pretty quickly as you buy up all of the items within the store. You can even unlock characters you may not have earned through gameplay or performing certain conditions in-game, and unlock even more to customise your player card. You can then head to the Come Forth… menu, where you’re given the option to summon one of three Eternal Dragons to grant you a wish that will assist with more unlocks, including characters, additional Zeni and even overall difficulty for the game. Both Whis and Zen Oh’s tasks intertwine with each other, so by unlocking one thing (or a range of things) you can then get a wish from Whis, which then allows you to unlock yet another of Zen Oh’s tasks. It’s the perfect cycle as long as you use as many characters as possible.

As someone who grew up with Dragon Ball Z, it always brings joy to hear the majority of the original cast still performing the voices, and they definitely don’t let down in the performance aspect. Although fans of the more recent Dragon Ball Super will recognise the voices better due to cast changes (Stephanie Nadolny will always be my Kid Goku/Teen Gohan voice, thank you), the voice acting is still top-notch. Should you prefer to have the original Japanese voice cast instead, you can jump into the main menu at any time to flip between them – and sometimes its a breath of fresh air to hear the different voice actors.

It is also great to see that we’ve finally worked out how to have three-dimensional characters still look like they are animated in a traditional sense – using a traditional animation design by Toei animator Naohiro Shintani, the characters look and feel genuine as if they could exist both in a two-dimensional and three-dimensional space. Coupled with colours that absolutely pop when characters are involved in beam struggles or powering up their auras, the game is an absolute treat both visually and aurally. Just don’t expect the Faulconer Productions music score any time soon, as awesome and classic as it would be.

At the time of review, online services were available however I was not able to enter a game. This will be updated over the coming week as services become available.

The post Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero Review – A Return To Form appeared first on Press Start.

Note: I speak about Until Dawn in these remake impressions assuming a bit of prior understanding from the reader.

For a refresher on what the game’s about, and how it plays, read Shannon’s full review originally published in 2015 embedded below.

The latest in PlayStation’s bold strategy to re-release all of their previous generation’s slate in one way or another, at least Until Dawn has been rebuilt from the ground up with all of the PlayStation 5’s advantages in mind. The original was the game that put Supermassive on the map and I believe it’s still their magnum opus almost a decade later, as they managed to perfect the choose your own adventure branching narrative many others had tried.

Although rumours of a Firesprite-led sequel might be swirling, perhaps in an effort to complement the looming film adaptation, this particular remake has been handled by Ballistic Moon. Not content with developing a 1:1 copy of the torch bearing original, the team have taken a number of liberties with certain aspects of the title’s identity, which has led to a bit of ire from fans—perhaps justifiably so.

In an effort to modernise Until Dawn, the team has sacrificed a few of things that felt essential to the tone and atmosphere struck by the first.

While I’m far from being in the camp of people who rally for the preservation of fixed camera angles, it’s undeniable that so much of Until Dawn’s tension could be attributed to them. In fact, being locked into one viewpoint felt like a key deliverable in the game’s thoroughly drummed theme of fearing the unknown and to give that up in favour of a freer, over-the-shoulder perspective feels like a shame. For mine, character handling was the thing that required an overhaul and yet there’s still a sluggish, shopping cart feel to everyone as they slowly trudge their paths across the Blackwood Mountain.

Similar amendments have been made to the game’s presentation at large, which I feel is something of a mixed bag. Although character models and environmental detail are vastly improved, this pursuit for higher fidelity has seen Ballistic Moon cast aside the original’s bluer colour grade in favour of a more realistic, dynamic colour palette. This again feels like a tonal sacrifice, though I’d argue it’s a worthwhile one in this case as the game, from the improved lighting alone, looks beautiful having been rendered in Unreal Engine 5 and is clearly on a bar above the original.

The Cheapest Price: $89 From Amazon With Free Delivery

Many of the cinematics have been completely reworked, and rescored, granting us a much more televisual perspective on certain events in the story’s canon. The prologue, and indeed the prank, that sets the game’s events in motion, for example, has undergone some creative reshoots to help reframe the scene with a more considered context as it switches seamlessly between two planes of action to a haunting remix of La Roux’s “In for the Kill”. It does drill home the vibe of a schlocky, made for TV slasher series on Fox, but that’s in keeping with the cheesy camp that made the original so fun.

The remake doesn’t really capitalise fully on the DualSense’s key features, unfortunately. Although I absolutely appreciate the triggers tensing up during key choices within the narrative, providing enough feedback for me to second guess myself, I felt they could have gone harder with it. For a game that relies so much on cheap jump scares, the implementation of the controller’s speaker to heighten that alert feels underwhelming, in fact I can’t say I noticed it once. For that reason, I’d probably recommend playing with a good pair of headphones.

Ultimately, if this is your first experience with Until Dawn, the game on offer remains a classic, near genre-defining horror title that is still its developers’ best work. However, it’s hard to say it’s the definitive iteration of Until Dawn with its considered, yet perhaps misguided, sacrifices to atmosphere, along that last generation’s Until Dawn is far better optimised now for a fraction of the price.

Original Review

Until Dawn was originally slated to be released on PS3 as a PlayStation Move exclusive game. The general premise of the game surrounds eight friends who have returned to Blackwood Pines on the one year anniversary of twin sisters Hannah and Beth. The twins mysteriously disappeared after being hunted by a crazed serial killer. The beginning of the game is extremely slow paced, which is necessary as the game allows you to learn about each characters personality and relationships with other members of the group.

The story of Until Dawn follows a very familiar trend for fans of horror movies; it’s over the top, incredibly cheesy and full of incredibly gripping scenes that would almost certainly never play out in real life. It’s all of these things and more that make the game’s story a complete success and one that you won’t want to step away from. The characters mostly end up fulfilling an archetypal role, but the freedom of dialogue choices and how your character can end up interacting with others makes the otherwise cliched dialogue quite fun.

The story is broken up by sessions with a psychologist. This sets the tone of the game incredibly early and was one of my favourite parts of the game. Your sessions early on will alter gameplay. Things like picking your biggest fears or phobias or which characters you dislike most which I assume would affect the way that the story plays out. This is very reminiscent of Silent Hills: Shattered Memories in a good way and adds another layer to the story that I wasn’t expecting.

The presentation in Until Dawn is a positive experience for the most part. The environments are incredibly dark, yet all have a lot of detail and interesting areas to explore. The game positions you with a light source whether it be a torch or a lantern, which is controlled by the analogue sticks or motion controls depending on which control scheme you choose. You can use this light source to better focus on the little details that can be found within Blackwood Pines. The acting in the game is close to the best that I’ve seen in a video game with Peter Stormare playing an interesting psychologist, and Hayden Panettiere and Rami Malek rounding out an all-star lineup. The motion-cap and animations are top-tier in the gaming industry and Supermassive Games are to be commended for this.

The music and sound effects within Until Dawn were a highlight for me. The score is brilliantly reminiscent of some of the best horror movies I’ve seen. It provides a lot of atmosphere in building up to key set scenes within the game. The sound effects are equally brilliant with constant birds fluttering, screams from within the woods and other noises that keep you on the edge of your seat.

The game is broken up via a series of chapters (ala Alan Wake) which is interesting yet odd. On one hand, it works perfectly to break the game up into different sections leading up to dawn but I couldn’t help but feel that the game was initially set to be episodic or something similar. At the beginning of each chapter you are presented with a montage of previous scenes leading into the current scene. This is great for those who might play the game over a series of weeks, but it seems over the top for those who will finish the game over the weekend as most chapters are only 30-60 minutes long.

Until Dawn is an extremely interesting mix of gaming and interactive experiences. The first few hours of the game doesn’t feature a whole lot of action which will annoy some gamers who want non-stop action. This really picks up from about 1/3rd into the game and doesn’t disappoint until the ending. Until Dawn features a series of gameplay techniques that are present from the beginning to the ending. The game is seamless mix of cutscenes, quick time events and character controlled sections. I found the balance of gameplay and story telling to be almost perfect.

For the most part, you will be split into a pairing of two or exploring environments by yourself. I wish that the game placed you in larger group settings more often. I found the constant jumping between characters to be a negative experience as it would often pull you from gripping experiences and put you with another character who is in quite a relaxed environment. I understand the need to do this within a horror environment, but I did find that it relieved some of the tension felt from the more crazy set pieces.

There are a bunch of collectibles within the game which help you piece together the story. These range from learning about the killer, to learning more about Hannah and Beth as well as other characters within the game. There are also totem poles which show you possible sequences that will play out sequences that may appears later in the game. It actually surprised me with just how much time that you can spend exploring each environment to find every last clue. It’s definitely a positive and provides a reason to go back to the game.

The most interesting part of Until Dawn is The Butterfly Effect. The theory of this is that minor decisions in life can have multiple effects going forward. Until Dawn plays on this theory quite a bit. Decisions that you make within conversations will effect set pieces and scenarios later in the game which means that no two play throughs will be identical. This also means that not all gamers will have the same characters die in their game. The amount of choices and branching paths in the game is surprisingly deep, and provides endless replay value and entertainment during discussion, as players will have vastly different experiences throughout the game.

Quick time events play a huge part in the game and form the bulk of the action gameplay. When running from the psycho you’re often presented with two options, one will be a quicker escape route but will require you to press the buttons much quicker. All it takes is one wrong button to permanently kill one character which means that you always need to be paying attention.

One of the more playful elements of Until Dawn was the scare-cam. Provided you’ve hooked up your Playstation Camera to your PS4 you can have it automatically record certain ‘jump-scare’ moments which litter the game, which you can then share online. While jumpscares are usually completely rubbish and a terrible cliche of horror conventions, the addition of having your scares recorded actually makes it a fun feature and the feature plays into the craze of ‘Let’s Play’ videos of people obsessing over horror games on YouTube just to watch someone’s reaction.

I played Until Dawn with motions controls and thoroughly enjoyed it. Decisions are made by tilting the controller in either direction and there are certain sections that require you to aim and shoot by moving the controller. There is also use of the trackpad with the copious amount of reading that you will do. The PlayStation Camera is also used for ‘scare cam’ which will take videos of you in the game’s jump scare moments.

The post Until Dawn Remake Review – A New Perspective On A Horror Icon appeared first on Press Start.

Diablo IV felt like something of a much needed course correction – not just for Diablo, but also for Blizzard. While Diablo III has plenty of its own successes, IV’s pivot back to the gothic grunge that underpinned the first two games just felt right. It’s narrative was another lauded high-point, offering up an engrossing tale that left the door open for inevitable follow-ups.

Almost a year and a half later, the first of which is finally here in Vessel of Hatred. For all intents and purposes, Vessel of Hatred is more Diablo IV – but that isn’t a bad thing. It’s an addition to the base game that sports many of the same strengths and even amends some of its weaknesses. It sometimes feels like it plays it a little too safe as a result, but Vessel of Hatred is a worthy expansion to the devilishly enjoyable base game.

Vessel of Hatred picks up right where Diablo IV left off. The Horadrim are no longer the group they used to be, fragmented by innate differences and perceptions on how the threat of hell should be combatted. The ever-optimistic Neyrelle has set off on her own journey in hopes of finding a way to destroy Mephisto once and for all. The choice she made to imprison the Lord of Hatred forces her to endure unbearable suffering and torment. Mephisto taunts and goads Neyrelle within her own mind, planting seeds of self doubt and uncertainty in the process.

It’s in the search for Neyrelle that we journey into the new region of Nahantu. A humid jungle dense with verdant foliage that contrasts to the relatively muted colour palettes of the base game. It’s a peaceful place left untouched by Lilith’s machinations, but one that’s quickly corrupted by Mephisto as he toys with Neyrelle, and also by the Cathedral of Light who hunt her in an indiscriminate frenzy without Inarius to keep them in check.

It can’t be understated how much Vessel of Hatred is benefitted by opting to revisit characters and factions from the base game. There’re still some interesting newcomers like Eru and Maka, but much of the focus is placed on Nayrelle’s internal struggles with Mephisto. This conflict doesn’t just manifest in his attempts to control her, but also through her survivor’s guilt after everything that’s happened to her. It feels like a natural progression of the horrendous experience Nayrelle was put through when trying to save Sanctuary, giving you an immediate reason to buy in to the plot being told here.

Its shorter runtime also means that its overall pacing is much tighter than that of the base game. There is no bloated middle act to pad out runtime or slow down momentum. Vessel of Hatred always feels like it’s squeezing every narrative drop out of its more constrained runtime, and is all the more engrossing for it. It all concludes in a thematically resonant and cathartic conclusion for the party – especially in regards to Nayrelle – and paints a clear picture of what’s to come next in Diablo IV’s second expansion.

Vessel of Hatred’s biggest gameplay addition is the all new Spiritborn class. These are warriors in-tune with Nahantu’s ties to the Spirit Realm, weaponizing animal spirits to push back the forces of hell. It’s very druid-like in concept, but Spiritborn offers a core fantasy that none of Diablo’s prior classes have before.

All of the Spiritborn’s skills channel a different Spirit Guardians with unique elemental affinities and their own kind of gameplay styles. While the Jaguar Guardian focuses on ramping up your attack speed for high action-per-minute play, the Gorilla Guardian opts for slower area of effect skills with a more defensive toolkit. There’s also the Eagle Guardian and Centipede Guardian, the former of which combines the Jaguar’s speed and fury with plenty of skills that can apply Vulnerable to enemies, with the latter focusing more on crowd control and debilitating status effects.

You can definitely slot into one of these archetypes and focus on their strengths, but the best way to play Spiritborn is by combining different skills pertaining to different Guardian Spirits to mix and match their strengths. It enables you to cover areas a particular Guardian Spirit is weak in, or combine abilities that result in lethal combos to get the most bang for your buck. Combining centipede and gorilla skills, for example, results in a kind of crowd control bruiser that dishes out poison and fears enemies to set them up for the gorilla’s less mobile attacks.

There are so many different ways you can take Spiritborn in Vessel of Hatred, and it really feels like a fresh experience amongst a pantheon of already fantastic classes in Diablo IV. No two Spiritborn builds or playstyles are going to be the same, affording a level of flexibility and adaptability that feels unique in Diablo IV’s sandbox. I was constantly shifting between different archetypes thanks the ability to re-spec for free at any time, and I can’t wait to see what kind of deadly combinations the community comes up with when the class is fully explored.

Nahantu is also a great inclusion here. It’s refreshing to explore a more lively and vibrant environment. It still has the same kind of gothic undertones that come through in its colour palettes and overall design, but it stands out against the variety of backdrops found in the base game. You can tell when you transition from Sanctuary into Nahantu, from the clear environmental shift to its Mesoamerican inspired designs in its iconography and structures. It also feels distinct in the broader scope of the franchise, tapping into a more spiritual side of the world and lore.

From a design standpoint, Nahantu isn’t too much different from the regions of Sanctuary. Its flush with side quests, world quests, optional activities, reputation-boosting collectibles, and more. If you enjoyed the loop of exploring the base game’s environments, very little has changed here in Vessel of Hatred. In some ways, this is a bit of a double-edged sword in the sense that it offers the same constant progression, but it really doesn’t feel all that different from the base game. Even the Altars of Lilith have their own parallel within Nahantu, and much of the Renown grind also makes a return here – for better and for worse.

One new feature with Vessel of Hatred that is really neat, is the inclusion of Mercenaries. Initially making their debut in Diablo II, Mercenaries are just as they sound – hireable NPC characters that will accompany you on your adventures through Nahantu and Sanctuary. There’s four launching with Vessel of Hatred, each of which brings their own skill tree and behaviours to complement that of your own class.

It’s a fun system that adds some nice secondary progression that runs alongside your own, and also provides solo players with a method to bulk out their party if the going gets tough. Each mercenary having their own skill tree is a great way to customise them to fit into roles your class typically wouldn’t. Raheir, for example, can act as an aggro drawing tank or a versatile bruiser that gets into the thick of things and inflicts vulnerable on unsuspecting targets. It’s also thematically resonant with Vessel of Hatred’s overall explorations of coming together in times of hardship and finding support in loved ones.

Vessel of Hatred also brings new activities and endgame content, the most enjoyable of which are the new dungeons. There’s a slew on offer here, but the best are undoubtedly The Dark Citadel and Kurast Undercity. These are dungeons specifically curated for Diablo IV’s endgame, with The Dark Citadel bringing challenging new encounters with mechanics that are a bit more involved than what’s found in the base game. It also has a really great loot chase in an earnable currency that can be used to purchase some incredible looking cosmetics – fashion is always the real endgame.

Kurast Undercity is similarly brilliant. It’s a timed dungeon with multiple stages and tweakable challenges that increase the quality of loot rewarded. It feels very similar to Hades in the way you can make runs harder for larger payouts, providing a scaling challenge as you increase your power with new gear. They’re both fantastic additions to Diablo IV’s swathe of endgame content, and will no doubt keep hardcore players busy for some time.

Even if you play Diablo casually, Vessel of Hatred is also introducing a new in-game party finder so you can group up for these endgame activities. It’s a nice way to get solo players or smaller groups into more challenging content where Mercenaries simply won’t do the job. It really streamlines the whole multiplayer process and has loads of filters so you can find like-minded players at difficulties appropriate to your skill level and power.

It feels a bit redundant to mention Nahantu’s beauty yet again, but it can’t be understated how much Diablo IV’s art style and overall aesthetic excels in this kind of setting. The jungles of Nahantu dense mazes of trees and vines, with the forces of hell lurking in the shadows and the Cathedral of Light occupying its winding paths. Despite its alluring and natural appearance, the unsettling feelings you get exploring Sanctuary also permeate throughout Nahantu’s environments.

It isn’t all jungle either, with arid desert regions skirting the natural surroundings so that it seamlessly transitions to and from Diablo IV’s base map. Vessel of Hatred also has its fair share of hellscapes to explore, all of which are as densely detailed and rich with distinct iconography. It continues to be one of Diablo IV’s strongest aspects, and reconfirms that this franchise is at its best when revelling in the dark fantasy undertones of its gothic world.

Vessel of Hatred is an undeniably fantastic addition to Diablo IV. It might play it safe with how it handles world exploration and its open world activities, but it’s hard to complain when the bones of it are already so competent. If you’re looking for an expansion that shakes up Diablo IV at a fundamental level, Vessel of Hatred won’t deliver. But if you’re just looking for more of the excellence that is Diablo IV, Vessel of Hatred is well worth your attention.

The post Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred Review – A Spiritual Success appeared first on Press Start.

The original Silent Hill 2 is held with such reverence amongst players that it is a seemingly impossible task to remake it. It’s one of the most harrowing stories told in games, and when it was released over two decades ago, it broke a lot of ground for the genre and the medium. Its psychological elements informed many of its failed sequels as many external developers scrambled to capture that lightning in a bottle once more. They didn’t. So it only seems fair that fans would be apprehensive about a remake of Silent Hill 2, let alone one developed by a team with a pedigree like Bloober Team’s.

Admittedly, I was one of those fans. Silent Hill 2 is a project well beyond the scope and scale of anything Bloober has ever made. But Bloober has done the improbable and come out swinging. Silent Hill 2’s success is two-pronged. It’s easily Bloober’s best game so far. But more importantly, it’s an incredibly well-put-together remake. It’s equal parts respectful and daring, not afraid to change things up without shitting all over the legacy of the original game.

While Silent Hill 2 is a sequel, you don’t need to have played the other games to appreciate it. There are some loose links to other games in the series, but the story that Silent Hill 2 so effectively tells is self-contained. You play James Sunderland, a man drawn to Silent Hill after receiving a letter from his wife asking him to return. But James’ wife died three years ago of a terminal illness. Hoping to return and find her, James begins a journey into Silent Hill.

Of course, it’s not that simple. This is a psychological thriller at its purest. James’ journey through Silent Hill is similarly structured to the original game, albeit with many liberties taken to expand the adventure. Bloober was not joking when they surmised that the game would take twice as long to complete. I was sceptical as to whether this approach would work, but it does. How Silent Hill 2 has been expanded is carefully considered. The new inclusions don’t mess with the lore; instead, they add an extra sense of texture and flavour to the world, making Silent Hill feel like the living and breathing entity it should’ve always been.

Besides the very short Born From A Wish campaign, nothing has been cut in the translation to remake. The additional scenes, many of which revolve around James and his relationships with the supporting case, humanise the characters and keep them relevant throughout the story so that their big moments hit harder as things come to a close. It’s a genuinely restrained yet clever expansion of the original game’s seemingly untouchable mythos.

The most obvious comparison is Capcom’s stellar reimagining of Resident Evil 2. A remake where the ideas the original game presented are still here but recontextualised to offer a new and novel experience. I appreciate this approach more than a shot-for-shot remake, as it allows for a different Silent Hill 2 to emerge from the minds of its creators. Silent Hill 2, as such, ditches the fixed camera angles for a now-genre-typical over-the-shoulder viewpoint. I’ll always have a soft spot for fixed camera angles for obvious reasons, but such a change dramatically affects Silent Hill 2 in two ways – how it plays and how it scares you.

While there are comparisons to continue to draw to Resident Evil, Silent Hill 2’s combat is much simpler than any of Capcom’s recent reimaginings. You’ll only ever have three weapons and a melee weapon, though the melee weapon is arguably more of a focus in the Silent Hill games. That much is still true for Silent Hill 2, as if you run out of ammo, the dodge and melee system is more than serviceable enough to get you out of a bind. It’s a surprise that the combat is so good, given this is Bloober’s first shot at it, but it’s also encouraging that something so crucial has been nailed down from the get-go.

Continuing with the idea of being respectful but expanding upon the original, the enemy variety in Silent Hill 2 hasn’t seen that much of a change. Every enemy you remember returns in the remake, though some that had smaller roles in the original game are expanded considerably. Given that the game runs for twice as long now, many variants of these enemies are introduced, too. They behave differently, some dramatically so, and do an excellent job of keeping you guessing as you make your journey through Silent Hill. The combat is a tad too simplistic for a game so long, though, so I wish Bloober were more adventurous with their additions.

However, no restraint is shown in how the bosses of the game have been reimagined. And I mean that in a wholly positive way. Where the original game had many boss encounters in a single room, the remake expands every boss encounter into multi-room, multi-phase events that are much more compelling, if not slightly goofy at times. The Abstract Daddy fight, for example, cleverly tells you a story while you chase it down and fight it, providing more emotional weight to the battle itself. The boss battles are all great reworks of the original game that I appreciated the most about this remake.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $99 FROM AMAZON WITH FREE SHIPPING

Silent Hill is not Silent Hill without puzzles, but there’s plenty here. Both newcomers and veterans will appreciate that these puzzles are all brand new and are adjustable with a separate difficulty level, as was the case with the original games. Many of them have an abstract parallel to the main story, too. A few of them stumped me for a bit, especially playing on Hard, but they feel similar in tone to the puzzles you’d come across in the original games. They also come at the right times in the game – offering a nice little moment of downtime, always set to a nice piece of music or ambient sound, making them feel like little set pieces in and of themselves.

These elements combine to create a scarier version of Silent Hill 2. The original game is still at its peak, but I found myself much more tense and frightened when playing through Bloober’s rendition of Silent Hill 2. The game goes to great lengths to use lighting and sound to instil a sense of tangible dread in you as a player, and there were so many times when I would be genuinely upset that a door would be open, forcing me to progress into yet another room of unknowns. It’s a truly tense horror experience and a sense of fear I haven’t felt since Resident Evil 7.

The remake brings everything you remember about the original – including the notorious Dog and UFO endings – but two new endings have been added too. It would be remiss of me to spoil them here, but they are nice “what if” scenarios that I can take or leave. There are collectibles to find, too, though hardly necessary, many of which are “echoes” of the past that hint at items or actions you’d come across in the original game. A nice way to pay tribute to the past without cheapening things. Most players can expect to finish the game in around eighteen to twenty hours, which is a nice length for a game of this ilk. And more importantly, you’ll never feel bored.

And while Silent Hill 2 does so much right as a remake, it could be better. I do feel like the simplicity of the combat can get a bit repetitive as the game plays out, and some of the eeriness and, dare I say it, “texture” is lost with the transition to higher-resolution visuals. While I thought I would be bored of the game essentially doubling itself in length, there was only one area, which relied more on combat, that I honestly didn’t enjoy – the labyrinth. All other additions feel carefully considered and only seek to add to the experience.

And obviously, from a presentation perspective, Silent Hill 2 does looks a whole lot better than the original. The fog is thick, the lighting is perfect, and so many of the original game’s key moments are brought to life in a way that you couldn’t even comprehend when you played the original. The game supports a 30fps and 60fps option, too, though some weird ghosting effect in the 60fps mode left me playing in 30fps for most of the adventure. It’s still a great-looking game, at least on console, and is an excellent example of a game using its visuals, like lighting and fog, to really instil a sense of dread in the player.

But it also helps that these improvements help to sell the world of Silent Hill as a constant. You can see from one apartment to another if you peer out a window while exploring them. You’ll eventually hit the hospital as the sun sets, creating a beautifully calming sunset that washes through its halls from outside as you explore it before the sun disappears and rain hits as you progress deeper and deeper into it against the backdrop of a stormy night. In the original game, you felt like you were moving from level to level, whereas in the remake, the presence of the town is felt even when you’re indoors. It feels like a living and breathing world, in a way.

But even higher praise has to be given to the game’s audio design. Make no mistakes – no game does audio design better than the Silent Hill games, and the remake continues that trend. I’d almost argue it does sound design markedly better than anything that’s come before it. The way that the team have managed to build tension and atmosphere using random noises and effects is to be commended in this remake. Add to that an extensive soundtrack restored and reimagined by the series stalwart Akira Yamaoka, and it’s clear Silent Hill 2 remake is one of the best-sounding games you’ll ever play.

The performances are bound to be divisive, however. And that’s not because they’re bad – the remake’s cast does a phenomenal job of bringing these familiar characters to life. But they are arguably turning in performances that are very different in tone from the original game. The way Maria is played in a mystifying but manipulative way by Salóme Gunnarsdóttir is very well done. It’s a different take on the character, and any attempts to imitate Monica Horgan’s original performance would just fall short or invite unfavourable comparisons. The supporting cast is similarly brought to life – Angela and Eddie are both very different takes on the character that has (arguably) better-realised arcs than in the original. Luke Roberts rounds out a strong cast with a more sombre take on James.

And that’s my most telling and resounding compliment of the Silent Hill 2 remake. While I was very aware of where the story would go and where the game would take me, I never once thought that I wished they’d not changed something when the remake deviated from the original. It’s a spirited remake that captures the essence of what made the original game so great while expanding meaningfully without destroying the DNA of its progenitor. It feels nice to finally put these words to paper, but Silent Hill is finally back.

The post Silent Hill 2 Review – A Tense And Terrifying Affair appeared first on Press Start.

This year’s entry in EA Sports’ FC series has left me feeling indifferent. While the developers have finally introduced a smorgasbord of features I’ve been hoping to see in the game’s Manager Career mode, there’s little to be truly excited about gameplay-wise and across the other modes on offer. That said, why fix what ain’t broke? 

This year’s big new addition is Rush – a fast-paced 5v5 mode reminiscent of the mode of the same name from VOLTA Football. Rather than taking it to the streets, Rush takes you onto a smaller pitch and pits four outfield players and a goalkeeper against one another. Goals remain the same size and most football rules still apply, however the pitch is divided into marked thirds and formations are thrown to the curb. 

Rush is fairly frantic. There are no halves to catch a breather, and the introduction of the blue card as opposed to red cards, alongside the smaller pitch, makes for a nice change to FC 25’s other modes. Players who receive a blue card are sent off the field for a minute (think of it as a sin bin ruling). This puts your team at a significant disadvantage thanks to the condensed pitch, allowing the opposition to outright swarm you in these situations. Resisting the urge to trip up players and get unnecessary bookings plays a big role in winning or losing Rush matches.

THE CHEAPEST COPY: $89 with free shipping from Amazon

The mode has made its way to many of the other main game modes in FC 25, too. Bizarrely, there’s no way to play Rush outside of Kick Off, Ultimate Team, Clubs and Manager Career with your youth academy, though. While this sounds like a lot of options on offer, I’m surprised there isn’t a separate mode that allows you to pop a bunch of teams into a tournament and duke it out with one another.

Those hoping to see VOLTA Football again will be disappointed to hear it’s been completely axed from this year’s entry. It appears Rush was the catalyst for this decision, though I’m confused as to why EA didn’t keep the casual street footy mode – even if it meant it was neglected and received no new features (and let’s be real, this has been the case for years anyway).

On a positive note, Manager Career has seen a noticeable overhaul this year. Chief among the new additions is the introduction of women’s leagues. While there are only five leagues on offer this year – the National Women’s Soccer League in the United States, Spain’s Liga F, France’s Premiere Ligue, the Barclay’s Women’s Super League in England and Germany’s Frauen-Bundesliga – it’s still a huge step in the right direction. An added bonus is that you’re able to accept offers from both men’s and women’s teams throughout your managerial career, which was a potential oversight I was worried about heading into FC 25. 

The women’s game is significantly different from the men’s, both on the field and off it, offering up a different challenge to managing a men’s side. Budgets are highly restricted and expectations are different, however I’ve loved the fact the game challenges you to alleviate these constraints by focusing on the newly revamped youth academy system. 

Rather than assessing a youth player’s value after generating the first scout report like prior entries, FC 25 instead encourages you to look at the player’s potential. You aren’t able to see a player’s value until you’ve generated more reports on them, meaning your youth scouts need to be a fairly good judge of a player if you want to be bringing the best into your academy. There are a handful of other factors to consider too, like their wage, value and position, however the focus on potential is a change I’ve really taken to. It’s taken me out of my comfort zone and challenged me to be more analytical of the players I’m looking for, their potential and how they could fit in my side. It’s made me consider players with high potential as opposed to those with a high initial value. 

The reason potential is such a focal point this year is because it takes center stage in another new addition to Manager Career, youth academy tournaments. As mentioned before, Rush mode makes its way into Manager Career through these tournaments that come about every few months in the season. The glitz and the glamour seen in Ultimate Team and Clubs’ Rush modes are thrown aside for a more academy-like feel. There’s no swanky commentary here, and you’re not playing in front of any fans – youth tournaments are just played on the training ground.

This is where a player’s potential shines. Rather than playing with a bunch of 40-50 rated youngsters, you can use them as if they’ve fulfilled their entire potential. My team had a handful of youngsters who had a possible potential of 85-90, so the majority of them played like that.

It’s very cool to see this as an option (you can opt out and have them play as their current ratings if you wish), as it allows you to get a feel for how the players may end up in the future. It also serves as a nice change from the tried-and-true gameplay that can, at times, feel a little stale in Manager Career.

There’s been an upheaval of Manager Career’s menu design, too. It now resembles something more like Ultimate Team, and I can’t say I’m a fan. It feels clunky to navigate through the many menus and submenus, and there’s been multiple occasions already where my game’s gotten stuck and I’ve had to back out to the main menu and jump back in to resume progress. 

A major sore point in this redesign is the task list, which sits in the home screen. While it may seem like a good idea at first, collating all the various tasks befitting a manager (like player transfers, game preparation and managing team tactics) in one area leads to an overwhelming amount of stuff to read through. This is made worse thanks to the task list only showing three tasks at a time. Leave it to generate for a couple of days in a season and you’ll start to miss important information, as new tasks don’t get sorted to the top of the list. Because of this, I continually missed transfer offers and scout reports. I prefer having a dedicated inbox that I’d be immediately taken to when important information filters through as opposed to having to continually find that information myself. 

Another big change to Manager Career, which can be seen across other modes as well, is the renewed focus on tactics. It’s been a talking point in the lead up to the release of FC 25 and there’s a good reason as to why. You’re now given full control on how your team operates – whether that’s their attacking position when you’re on the ball or off it, how high a defensive line you want to hold or the specific roles of each of your players. You’re given the keys to the castle, really, and can play around to figure out what works for you. 

You can leave this to the generated presets if you like, or you can get really deep into the nitty gritty. The beauty is that either way the game caters for both. As someone who absolutely adores this kind of deep tactical nuance, I’ve loved being able to dissect everything my team does when in and out of possession, as well as being able to fine tune my 4-3-3 to suit my expectations when my team’s out on the pitch. Another neat feature I’ve been getting to grips with is the way you can align a player’s role with what they’re familiar with, which will in turn grant performance bonuses on the field.

I’ve also been particularly surprised by the variety of options on offer to you to fully customise your Manager Career – whether that’s the inclusion of transfer embargoes, determining the seriousness of the board and their leniency on you achieving their objectives, being able to apply for international roles or specifically choosing the positions you’d like your youth scouts to keep an eye out for. It’s great to see these little things make their way into the mode, as while they’re minor they do add a lot to the experience. 

One particular pain point is the way budgets are handled for the men’s and women’s teams, though. It’s something I’m unsure EA can do much about, but a financial takeover of 10 million pounds, for example, would net you very little when managing a men’s team, however it’s a very different story for a women’s team. Most transfer fees range anywhere between 40 to 300 thousand points for the latter, meaning you could amass the best team in the five leagues available with very little effort. Now you don’t have to use a financial takeover of course, but I’m very curious to see how things change as time progresses. Generally, teams continue to get higher budgets as Manager Career goes on into its later seasons, so I’m interested to see how that’ll affect the women’s leagues. I haven’t been able to dig deeper into this but I assume nothing’s really been done to address it. Fantasy football, eh? 

Player Career doesn’t see too much change this year, however there are a couple of notable new additions to inject some much needed energy into the mode. The first of these is being able to play as an icon rather than a regular player. While the selection is fairly limited at just seven icons right now, it’s a neat idea to be able to bring a player like David Beckham or Thierry Henry into the modern era. If you want to kick off as a created pro, you can choose your own origin story, which helps create a bit more of a narrative around your player. While neither of these are groundbreaking by any means, they are nice additions to a mode that tends to fall behind the other major modes in FC. 

After all is said and done on the tactics side and it’s time to actually play the game, FC 25 sticks to the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ mantra. It’s all about smaller, incremental changes as opposed to the wide-sweeping alterations we usually see every three to four years from the series. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though – the gameplay is as good as it’s ever been, however it’s not hugely different from last year. Even so, I’ve particularly enjoyed the swathe of new animations that have been added in, with these shining most prominently while you’re in the final third. Players tend to look a bit more realistic and natural when taking a shot at goal, and general passing play looks fantastic. Sliding in those picture-perfect through balls are a sight to behold, and the game continues to do a great job immersing you in the atmosphere of the game with mostly accurate crowd responses to situations on-field. Unsurprisingly, the game feels relatively slow this early in the release schedule but I expect that to change over time as has been the case in all of the previous entries. 

The return of the full pre-match introduction package is very much welcome, and I appreciate that you can select whether it always plays or you opt-in during the quicker pre-match intro. Other little changes, like being given more than one suggestion for a quick substitution at a time and the substitute allowance/window counter being tucked neatly inside the team management screen, are also welcome additions. A reworked instant replay system is also a nice touch, allowing you to capture moments in-game through photo mode and its variety of filters and effects on offer. And while I thought it may be a little silly ahead of release, the player POV cam has been a breath of fresh air for capturing events in-game. 

I was surprised to see little has changed in Ultimate Team and Clubs modes this year (aside from the addition of Rush in both and the introduction of the clubhouse in the latter), and wonder if keeping VOLTA may have made this feel a bit more like a solid all-round package. The game just seems to be lacking a deeper mode that doesn’t take itself so seriously. 

With that said, Ultimate Team does continue the renewed push on tactics by changing up the way manager cards work. These cards now incorporate manager tactical presets, which echo their real world tactic preferences and can directly influence how your squad plays. Just like Manager Career, player roles and role familiarity also play a big part in Ultimate Team – to get the best out of your squad, you’ll need to dig into your tactics to ensure players are playing in roles they’re familiar with in order to get the most out of them. Other than that, there’s a new FUT stadium to build up with items and a variety of new broadcast elements to keep things feeling relatively fresh throughout the season, alongside cosmetic card evolutions that change the way a player’s card looks visually without influencing their stats.

While it doesn’t reach for the stars, FC 25 is still a great footy sim for fans and newcomers alike. Rush is an enjoyable addition and tactics take centre stage for those that want to dig deep into the systems of the game, while sweeping changes across Manager Career has made it a joy to play. Gameplay changes are slight tweaks more than anything else, however there’s no doubting it’s still the best footy game out there right now. 

The post EA Sports FC 25 Review – Small Steps appeared first on Press Start.

There’s no better way to indicate the rarified air that Epic Mickey finds itself in than there truly being nothing else like it from Disney since its sequel released. While Disney have maintained a relatively strong presence in the console market, few projects have managed to capture the same originality and flavour of the Epic Mickey duology outside of Kingdom Hearts. Combine this with Epic Mickey’s limited availability due to Wii exclusivity, and there couldn’t be a better time to return to Mickey’s platforming adventures in the form of Epic Mickey: Rebrushed.

After entering Yen Sid’s workshop through a magic mirror, Mickey’s curiosity is piqued by a model resembling Disneyland. A well-intentioned expression of art quickly turns into an accident that results in the creation of a monster called the Shadow Blot. Mickey panics as the Shadow Blot attacks, prompting him to hurl paint and paint thinner at the beast in a desperate attempt to clean up the mess he’s made. Having survived Mickey’s onslaught of ink, the Shadow Blot descends into the model world, sowing its own chaos there instead.

Decades later, an unsuspecting Mickey is ambushed by the same monster, abducting and bringing him into to the very world the Shadow Blot was initially banished to, now known as Wasteland. A place where forgotten characters and ideas from Disney’s expansive works reside. Mickey’s previous tangle with the Shadow Blot has resulted in some real damage to the people and places found within Wasteland, encouraging Mickey to help all those he can while he searches for a way to return to his own world.

It’s this setup that gives way to Epic Mickey’s genius setting. It’s a true homage to Disney properties both past and present that thoughtfully characterises Mickey and his adventure, one that places its commentary on IP abandonment right at the forefront of its unsettling atmosphere. This is most intricately explored through Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a character who originally starred in some of Disney’s earliest theatrical shorts before the studio lost rights to Oswald in a contract dispute with Universal Studios.

As the first inhabitant of the Wasteland, Oswald became its ruler in order to help those who’ve been rejected or forgotten by Disney as the wheels of industry continue to turn. He’s seen as something of a hero to those who’ve found new lives in the Wasteland, but he isn’t without faults. He’s short tempered and resents Mickey for taking his spot as Disney’s flagship character. The damage that the Shadow Blot has done to the Wasteland has also left it in a state of disrepair, further complicating the unseen ties between Mickey and Oswald.

Deeper themes and ideas aside, Epic Mickey tells a fundamentally engrossing story. It’s a carefully balanced mix of weaponised nostalgia, trademark Disney hope, and a dash of poignant melancholy. It’s a joy to see Mickey and Oswald grow over the course of the 10-15 hour story, and the way that new personality and character is infused into the world and characters through side quests makes the world feel like real care and attention was put into bringing it to life. Even if you aren’t crazy about Disney history and the titular Mickey Mouse, there’s a lot of value to be found in the story and characters of Epic Mickey.

Playing Epic Mickey in 2024 is a stark reminder of how few 3D platformers there are nowadays in comparison to the 2010s (excluding Astro Bot, of course). It takes inspiration most heavily from classic collectathon platformers like Banjo-Kazooie and Super Mario 64. Large non-linear levels are populated with NPCs who offer sidequests, Gremlins to free, and of course, collectibles to snatch up. Where it differentiates itself the most, is in its painting and thinning mechanics.

THE CHEAPEST COPY: $89 WITH FREE SHIPPING FROM AMAZPN

Equipped with the same magic brush from Yen Sid’s workshop, Mickey can use paint and thinner to interact with different elements of Wasteland. Aside from it being Mickey’s main form of defence against the Shadow Blot’s forces, paint and thinner can be used to create and dissolve different parts of the environment. It’s a straightforward idea, but one that is used in so many different ways throughout the adventure. Unsuspecting walls can be thinned to reveal hidden areas with treasure, puzzles often require apt use of both to reach solutions, and the destruction left in the wake of the Shadow Blot can be painted back into existence.

The best aspect of this mechanic is undoubtedly the way it informs a simple morality system directly tied to how you choose to deal with problems. All boss fights and enemy encounters can be resolved in different ways. Where paint will liberate those under the corrupting influence of the Shadow Blot, thinner will dissolve them into nothing. The people around Mickey react differently according to your decisions and it makes you feel like you have a tangible impact on Wasteland and its inhabitants. It adds an element of roleplay you don’t often see in 3D platformers, and works well to reinforce Epic Mickey’s core themes.

The other aspect that helps to build this feeling of reactivity is Epic Mickey’s aforementioned side quests. The game’s hub levels are absolutely packed with familiar characters who need help with odd jobs and requests that only Mickey is fit to deal with. In a way, Mickey is responsible for the plights of these people due to his creation of the Shadow Blot. It’s worth mentioning that some of these quests aren’t always available, and they’ll eventually expire or be entirely inaccessible if you move on to another area. Leaving these quests as incomplete also changes the way these characters interact with Mickey, and can often make your journey more difficult in certain ways.

As a 3D platformer, Epic Mickey is mostly serviceable. It’s less interested in creating difficult platforming challenges, instead investing in finding ways to weave in painting and thinning the environment to progress forward. It’s largely satisfying, but some aspects of Mickey’s control aren’t quite up to snuff. Jumping brings his momentum to a grinding halt, and it often feels like finding ways to get through areas through smart use of Mickey’s movement set is discouraged and inflexible.

The game also has a slew of 2D platforming sections that serve as stop gaps between Epic Mickey’s major areas. Inspired by some of Disney’s earliest animated shorts, they’re a nice way to break up the pace between all the 3D platforming and combat. They do feel a little on the simple side, though, and often end before they truly get started. One nice change in Rebrush, is the ability to skip these levels if you’ve already completed them, cutting down on time spent backtracking. The camera is also much improved across all aspects of the game thanks to dual stick controls, making the whole experience much more enjoyable.

Rebrushed’s most immediate updates come in the form of its visuals. Now free from the constraints of the Nintendo Wii, Epic Mickey looks fantastic on modern hardware. The game looks great at these higher resolutions, but perhaps most importantly, is that the aesthetic and atmosphere of the original is carefully kept intact here. Wasteland’s painterly visuals are dripping with mood and artistry, with flawless performance to boot on PlayStation 5.

The raw visual upgrade wouldn’t be enough on its own if Wasteland wasn’t already a unique setting. It really sells the idea of abandonment and found family in the characters and places that have fallen to the wayside in light of Disney’s other successes. It’s a side of Disney we simply haven’t seen anywhere else, and is sobering in its presentation and handling of IP abandonment. It’s all in service of building a world that seems antithetical to everything Disney stands for, but peeling back its gnarled surface reveals the same kind of eager happiness and hope that they’re always associated with.

Epic Mickey: Rebrushed is perhaps most valuable in the way that it makes Epic Mickey more accessible to those who’ve yet to experience one of Mickey’s best gaming experiences. It’s setting, narrative, and ideas are just as inspired as they were in 2010, and its paint and thinner mechanic is stretched to a satisfying logical extreme. It isn’t without some issues, but Epic Mickey: Rebrushed is the definitive way to play Epic Mickey today, and is well worth experiencing if you missed out on it more than a decade ago.

The post Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed Review – An Artful Return appeared first on Press Start.

Some brief history – as this review is long – I’ve always been a fan of Grasshopper games. They’ve never been massive-budget blockbusters, but they’ve had some incredible ideas and interesting worlds that I’ve adored visiting in their games. Lollipop Chainsaw is where I’ve always been a bit torn. On one hand, the action is simplistic. On the other hand, the way the story is told is incredible, and the characters themselves are all just so charming. So when a remaster was announced two years ago, I was excited. And now, having played RePOP, I’ve got a greater appreciation for what Lollipop Chainsaw was trying to do all those years ago. But I’m not sure RePOP is currently the right way to experience it.

Lollipop Chainsaw follows Juliet Starling, a cheerleader at San Romero High School who is excited to introduce her boyfriend Nick to her eclectic family on her eighteenth birthday. Unfortunately, as the day begins, a zombie outbreak has occurred. But not just that – an evil goth kid named Swan has summoned five intelligent zombies, called the Dark Purveyors, to take over the world. It’s just as well that Juliet is descended from a long line of zombie hunters, thankfully, and sets off with her trust chainsaw to cut up some rock music-worshipping lords of rock.

At the time, Lollipop Chainsaw was an exciting prospect as it brought together No More Heroes’ Suda51 and James Gunn to create something truly bizarre and out there. Revisiting Lollipop Chainsaw today, the charm is still there. You can see the influences that James Gunn would eventually implement in his tentpole films like Guardians of the Galaxy and Suicide Squad. But Lollipop Chainsaw feels like so much more than the exploitative adventure it initially presents as. It’s a genuinely fun and subversive romp that had the perfect vibes if I could anachronistically use those words back then.

RePOP is a remaster of sorts that brings the game to modern platforms. The original game has been stuck on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 for almost twelve years, so RePOP feels needed. This remaster tweaks the gameplay to be much more accessible, especially to newcomers, and adjusts things so the game puts its best foot forward early. Much effort has been made to ensure players can access many more upgrades and combos earlier, which helps with the flow of combat.

The other enhancements are what you’d come to expect from a modern remaster – a higher framerate in particular – but the newly added RePOP mode doesn’t serve much of a purpose. It replaces the blood effects, which were already pretty cartoonish in the first place, with purplish flourishes instead. I suppose it’s an attempt to get newer players to try the game out, but it feels like a pointless addition and a glorified visual filter. What colour of fluid comes out of a person when you chainsaw them in half isn’t going to convince them to play a game where they otherwise wouldn’t. But that’s just my opinion.

At its core, Lollipop Chainsaw is a hack-and-slash adventure that sees you, as Juliet, mowing through enemies with a combination of attacks from your pom-poms, chainsaw, or both. The game does a pretty good job of introducing new abilities across its modest eight-hour runtime, and using a combination of these abilities is the best way to kill zombies efficiently. In terms of mechanical complexity, as a fan of the genre, I’d say it’s closer to something like Dynasty Warriors or No More Heroes rather than Devil May Cry or Bayonetta. It’s a simplistic combat system that is easy enough to grasp, though RePOP makes it easier to master.

RePOP has been tweaked to run much faster than the original game. Juliet moves quicker, and I could swear that her attacks come out quicker, too. Couple this with adjustments to the in-game shop, which goes as far as halving the cost of some of the better special moves. It’s clear RePOP puts great effort into giving you all the toys to play with early. Later on, you’ll even get a projectile weapon that needed to be cocked after a few shots in the original. Now, in RePOP, it can shoot continuously. It’s a much easier experience, which I’d normally lament, but I welcome it given how Lollipop Chainsaw is structured.

This is something I rarely would praise in a remaster. But despite the vivacious nature of the world and the incredibly tongue-in-cheek humour the game hangs its story on, Lollipop Chainsaw is straightforward. Encounters with enemies, while sometimes erring into the creative, feel they carry on for a smidge too long. It’s made especially worse if you die, as checkpoints are oddly uneven, and you’ll have to repeat a lot of it again. The game is fun in short bursts, and given how simple the combat is, there is just not a whole lot here beyond what you unlock in the first third of the game.

These moments are broken up briefly by sections where you can use your boyfriend Nick to control a zombie and make a path for Juliet. But they’re too few and far between and don’t do anything creatively interesting, though I appreciate the way Nick is used in the story to subvert the typical expectations you’d have for someone like him in a story like this. I can’t say much more without spoiling, so I won’t.

The highlight, like many Suda51 games, is the boss battles. Each of the Dark Purveyors is modelled after a type of rock music – a, once again, incredibly Suda51-like decision. The cast of bosses you’ll battle are all fantastic, taking inspiration from punk rock, Viking metal, psychedelic rock, funk and good old-fashioned rock and roll. They’re great little battles that carry themselves with such a huge visual flair that you almost forget about the key element of Lollipop Chainsaw that RePOP is missing.

And that’s the music. Almost all licensed music that appeared in the original Lollipop Chainsaw has been scrapped for RePOP, replaced with original pieces that quite frankly don’t suit the mood or feel of the original. We’ve all had that moment when we watch an older series on Netflix we love, only to see the music from key scenes changed to generic tracks that fail to capture the feel of the original. That’s RePOP’s problem, and while The Chordette’s iconic Lollipop plays as you shop for upgrades, all of the original music is gone. It’s a huge shame, given how integral these tracks were to the original vibe.

Thankfully, the voicework of the cast is still pretty fantastic, especially the star-studded ones. Michael Rosenbaum does a great job playing Nick, while Linda Cardellini, Michael Rooker and Shawnee Smith round out a great voice cast playing some of the Dark Purveyors. But you can’t discount the incredible work that Tara Strong does in bringing Juliet to life. She nails every line and makes me happy that they didn’t go the recast route like so many remasters sometimes do. Unfortunately, for some reason, all of the audio recordings are incredibly low quality, so this remaster feels especially lo-fi.

However, the missing licensed tracks are only one prong of a larger issue that RePOP carries – the presentation. There was real potential here to revive the original game with a more colourful and vibrant visual style to complement the hyper-sweet Lolita style the original developer was going for. Instead, while the game runs at a much better framerate than the original, many odd visual glitches bring down the experience. Lighting is all over the place, sometimes just filling the screen with a white glow to the point where you can’t see anything. Sometimes zombies disappear, and other times, students disappear but still speak their lines to Juliet after being saved. Heck, sometimes characters don’t speak their lines. I hope these issues will be fixed with patches, but it means RePOP is currently not the best way to play Lollipop Chainsaw.

Outside of the game itself, odd issues persist, too. Menus and load screens are blurry and compressed, looking like low-quality images your weird aunty downloads off Google and then uploads to her Facebook as her profile photo. The menus that let you scroll through your achievements and abilities are also barebones, with some even disappearing after selecting an item on them. It’s, once again, something I’m sure will be fixed with future updates, but it’s a strange choice to have such average-looking assets in a project that’s about bringing the best version of the original game forward.

This is a massive shame because RePOP is only a passable revision of the original game, which is arguably the worst way to play right now. The faster combat system is appreciated, as is the speedier framerate, but the myriad of glitches and missing effects that have reared themselves in place of them are not worth the trade-off. And that’s before we even consider what has been lost due to presumable licensing issues. If the worldview weren’t so damn charming, I’d be reticent to recommend RePOP at all. But there’s something here, and I hope it’ll eventually bloom into the remaster that Lollipop Chainsaw deserves.

The post Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP Review – A Sour Aftertaste appeared first on Press Start.

Almost three decades ago, I was left with a certain sense of wonderment when Pixar proposed the idea that toys adhere to the “when the cat’s away” philosophy and spring to life when nobody is in the room. All Possible Futures, an Australian-based developer, has reframed that concept through picture books, their lesson-full tales of light versus dark, their heroes and villains, and, page-by-page, has left me with that very same sense of childlike astonishment. For me, The Plucky Squire isn’t just a game for kids, it’s a time machine for big kids like me to relive a little bit of that youth.

Jot, the titular squire with a daring disposition, is the hero of his story, and with his ragtag friends Violet and Thrash he frequently bests the nefarious sorcerer Humgrump, saving the good people of Mojo all the while. That tireless loop of gallantry remains the status quo until Humgrump learns to harness the power of metamagic, which ousts Jot out of his colourful tome and into the world that exists on Sam’s desk. 

Within the confines of the page, Jot is a flat, two-dimensional squire who adventures with a sword in hand, not unlike many of the classically-inspired action-adventure titles we grew up with. Out in the “real” world, Jot takes a plump, three-dimensional shape I’ve, in the past, likened to Homer Simpson after he explores the peculiar, rendered space in the nook behind his bookcase. It’s a shame that, thanks to the necessity of advertising, this detail wasn’t able to be kept under wraps, because when Jot is first forced from his papered home it’s a spectacular upending of everything the game had sold us to that point. 

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $58 WITH FREE SHIPPING

As Humgrump desperately tries to keep the trio at arm’s length, and the roadblocks in their path grow greater, the core loop of The Plucky Squire settles into a rhythm of exhausting the problem-solving potential of the tools you do have before having Jot venture outward into the relative danger of the desktop plains to collect the next plot device that’ll help them plough through their obstacle. Said plot devices tend to grant Jot near omnipotent control over the book, though you start by modestly retreating back to prior pages and plucking certain words from their place and giving them new context elsewhere.

That said, by the end you wield all-powerful gauntlets and stamps that let you mess with the book’s properties and physics from above, from freezing items in place to transferring certain items from page-to-page. And with each new ability, it added layers to how you’d need to combine them to meet the increasing complexity of the puzzles. It kept ramping up just enough to remain engaging throughout. 

Make no mistake, the puzzles might be crafty and undeniably wholesome, however they’re definitely designed to be intuitive and the game hand-holds quite a bit, which never took me out when I considered the intended audience. Ultimately, the solutions are one-track and while experimenting with different words can offer moments of levity, punctuated more so by the game’s pleasantly couth, and very British narration, it’s unfortunate the way forward is such a straight line.

No matter the dimension you’re occupying, the game’s swordplay feels simple and accessible. Lunging ground pounds and swirling spin attacks, which can be upgraded at vendors throughout, keep the combat from being entirely one-note though it never quite evolves from its ‘see a creature, whack a creature’ approach. Fortunately, the way the game incorporates Jot’s newfound powers into fights helped supplement what is an ultimately rudimentary attack system. 

The game geniusly subverts expectations over and again over the course of its ten decently-sized chapters. Similar to It Takes Two and its teams willingness to implement a fun, off the wall gameplay idea for a two-minute bit, The Plucky Squire juggles its aforementioned swordplay, which already feels like an homage to Jot’s capped contemporary in Link, with so many neat moments that they feel like carefully composed, copyright-evading love letters to so many other games. I couldn’t help but grin big enjoying the nods to Punch-Out, match-three games, and even Lunar Jetman. What’s great is that, while Jot is the titular hero, the story isn’t solely about him, both Violent and Thrash, through these mini-games, get their small pound of valour on offer. 

Put simply, The Plucky Squire is pretty as a picture book. It’s bold, colourful, and through James Turner’s stint at Game Freak, the similarities to something as instantly recognisable as Pokémon is clear. Creature design is fun, though I love how rich and saturated the art style is, with bold-stroke outlines and full, vibrant colours filling every inch of the page. Jot has all the makings of an instantly iconic mascot, and although the game jokes about The Plucky Squire penetrating other media, I definitely believe it could. With sections that’ll have you fighting top-down, side-view or in three-dimensional space, animation and movement remains crisp regardless of perspective.

I did play the game in full on my ROG Ally, and the game ran smoothly for the most part, I did definitely notice an amount of slowdown during transitions from book-to-desk, which isn’t exactly surprising. Having two separate instances running simultaneously, one still on the page and the other happening all around Jot, feels like magic in its own right. The only other problem I encountered occurred when I managed to break sequence and skip a fight altogether which led to some unfortunate fatal crash errors. To the developer’s credit, their autosave system made it super easy to revert back only a handful of minutes to avoid the same mistakes on a prior save. 

The Plucky Squire is a darling experience that I’m so glad exists. It’s yet another earned feather in the squire’s cap belonging to Devolver Digital, and it’s a wonderful achievement for games development down under. It isn’t quirky or weird like many of the publisher’s other gambles, The Plucky Squire simply answers the call of anyone who has wished for a charming, family-first adventure game that’s oozing with creativity.

The post The Plucky Squire Review – A Book Worth Checking Out appeared first on Press Start.

It’s daunting to think the original Dead Rising is almost twenty years old. When it was first released on the Xbox 360, I remember it being so mind-blowing that so many zombies could be rendered on-screen simultaneously. It felt truly next-gen. But it’s been a long time since then, while I had a chance to revisit the game eight years ago, some aspects haven’t aged well. Now, Capcom has done the seemingly impossible with Dead Rising: Deluxe Remaster. They’ve made Dead Rising a lot more approachable, but without sacrificing the game’s unique identity.

But to get one thing out of the way here – Capcom is underselling themselves by calling this a Deluxe Remaster. From a visual standpoint, it’s closer to a full-blown remake. The game has seen a significant visual upgrade thanks to Capcom’s ever-gorgeous RE Engine, but it has seen numerous gameplay improvements, too. As such, Deluxe Remaster firmly occupies the space between an exhaustive restructure seen in games like Resident Evil 2 and the very barebones remaster treatment the original game received eight years ago.

That said, a lot has stayed the same with how Deluxe Remaster is structured. If you remember the best path through the game, it’ll work here. As such, the story is the same too. You still play as Frank West, a photojournalist investigating strange goings-on at Willamette Parkview Mall, only to discover that the population has been turned to zombies. You have three days to learn why, which equates to around six hours in real-time, and you can use that time in whatever manner you wish.

Back then and still now, Dead Rising is structured uniquely. The main storyline is tied to cases Frank must investigate, which occur in the world at a certain time. If you’re not there when it starts, the storyline ends, and Frank must start over. There are many ways in which the game does a great job of communicating this to you, and the meat of the Dead Rising experience is discovering and planning the best course of action that’ll result in maximum returns for Frank. But if you fail, it’s not to worry because you’ll be able to start over with any upgrades you’ve earned for Frank (and the ever-powerful sense of hindsight) to do better.

It’s more complicated, though. From time to time, Frank will be contacted on radio about scoops. Scoops are essentially side quests that are plopped into Frank’s journal for him to investigate as they get called in. They’ve all got individual timers attached and are at different points throughout the mall, so you’ve really got to prioritise who you’ll save and when. The more people you save, especially at once, the more experience you get. But the challenge comes in the balance – grabbing particular scoops and getting everyone to safety, all while the main story is about to progress somewhere else in the mall, can really be stressful.

It’s excellent news, then, that the Deluxe Remaster does everything possible to make this experience more convenient. Controls have been completely overhauled, with special moves mapped to face buttons instead of strange analogue inputs as in the original. Frank’s dodge roll also feels smooth, performed with a single button press. It may sound like a small change, but it makes Dead Rising feel much more modern. I returned to the original game last month to prepare for this one and it was bizarre how the control scheme was set out – which is still selectable in Deluxe Remaster, mind you – but this newer modern control scheme is a massive step in the right direction.

The other most obvious adjustment is improving the AI driving the survivors. It can still get pretty tense sometimes, especially when you’re escorting a larger group, but they tend to follow Frank closer or move quicker through hordes. This removes much of the frustration that might’ve been present in the original game, as it makes things easier. Some might have an issue with this, but at that point, I have to ask – what are you missing here? Is bad NPC AI really part of what made Dead Rising so special? I really don’t think so.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $69 FROM AMAZON

The way survivors work in Deluxe Remaster has similarly been overhauled. A new affinity system can improve their behaviour and performance in your party. Each survivor now has a set of items and weapons they prefer, and if you give them to them, they’ll be more likely to help Frank. They might become better at attacking, pointing out hidden collectibles or weapons or even helping other survivors. It’s a cool system that, as a series veteran, didn’t have to engage with much, but one that is, once again, making the experience more accessible to newcomers.

But while everything is becoming less challenging, the boss battles feel like they’ve stepped in the opposite direction. The bosses were great in the original, but you’d often stand there, trading blows with them. They were unfortunate victims of the janky control scheme that the original game had. But in Deluxe Remaster, every boss battle has seen some adjustment. There are still some frustrating moments, particularly with one enemy introduced late in the game, but overall, the game flows and plays so much better now.

These improvements are sensible. If you kill a convict driving a car, one of the other two will change seats and continue driving the car now. Cletus, the maniacal gun shop owner, would stand there and take bullets from you, occasionally fighting back. Now, he ducks under the counter and crawls around until you stop firing. They’re small changes that do mean the boss battles take longer now. But given how quickly you can do everything else in Deluxe Remaster compared to the original, it doesn’t dramatically break the game’s balance.

Other smaller improvements all contribute to a better experience for players. Every item you pick up now has a visible deterioration meter, so you know when your trust bat might break. Everybody is also now voiced, which is especially useful when you first walk into an area and hear them screaming out at you. You can now skip through conversations with the shoulder buttons, which might sound like a small change, but it is a huge improvement over the original, where (text-based) conversations would restart if either of you got hit with something mid-conversation. And, of course, at any save point, you can fast-forward time if you’re left with nothing to do, so the game doesn’t drag if you find yourself being efficient.

Of course, the most obvious change is in the game’s presentation. Undeniably slicker than the original game, the world has been overhauled to look richer and denser than in the original. The parks are filled with more trees, and every mall is accented with bright and vibrant neon lights. Rubbish adorns the main concourse of each mall. Hell, even sculptures have been added where they make sense. It all comes together to show off the best version of the Willamette Mall so far.

More contentious is the way nighttime is now handled, as it is particularly dark, but when the moonlight and the storefronts are the only things lighting up each mall, I personally adore it. It is a huge visual jump, and while it is much less colourful than the original, the density and detail of everything make up for it.

But one point where I’m not sure if there is an improvement is in the game’s audio – specifically, the new voice work. Everyone has been recast in Deluxe Remaster, including Frank. And while it’s a bit jarring to hear Frank not be played by TJ Rotolo after so long, he’s not the one I have an issue with here. Most of the new cast for the supporting characters, barring Isabella and Carlito, fall flat. They sound less enthused than the original – perhaps in a bid to suit the more realistic look of Deluxe Remaster’s overhaul. But it lacks the original’s charm or, dare I say it, soul. Barring that, everything else feels epic – the original music used in each boss battle is especially electric.

So, while Deluxe Remaster calls itself a remaster, it does a lot to insist that it’s so much more than that. This is a remake – fair and square – with many improvements. It’ll be up for debate as to whether fans think the quality-of-life improvements make things too easy at the end of the day, but Deluxe Remaster is such a faithful translation of the original Dead Rising experience that I’m firmly in the opposite camp. It’s far and away the best version of Dead Rising we’ve ever had, and I can only hope we’ll be fortunate enough to see the same treatment with Dead Rising 2.

The post Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster Review – More Than A Simple Remaster appeared first on Press Start.

I have to confess. I am a long-reformed Funko Pop! Vinyl addict. Back when you could buy them for a mere $18 a pop (heh) in Australia, I would buy anything and everything. It’s an admission I’m not entirely proud of, but I’ve since done great work in culling my collection. But now, it seems, Pops are back in videogame form with Funko Fusion. And while it’s great fun and a real throwback to the times when LEGO games weren’t bloated and distended, Funko Fusion isn’t without its faults. It’s one hell of a guilty pleasure, albeit rough around the edges.

Funko Fusion opens with an extravagant battle between Freddy Funko, the manager of the Funko Factory, and Eddy Funko, his sludgy evil twin. Eddy is desperate to be recognized, so he steals Freddy’s crown, breaking it into seven pieces and hiding them across the universe. It’s up to you, the player, to retrieve these crown pieces and restore Freddy to his plastic glory. It’s a simple premise that works pretty well, and it’s fun to see how Eddy uses his powers to distort the stories that Funko Fusion immerses you in.

The stories within Funko Fusion are a diverse and quirky mix. With seven worlds, each based on a major film or TV series, the game offers a unique retelling of these narratives in a humorous, LEGO-like fashion. The worlds, inspired by Hot Fuzz, The Thing, Jurassic World, Battlestar Galactica, Umbrella Academy, Masters of the Universe, and Scott Pilgrim, each bring their own distinct flavor to the game. Smaller properties like M3GAN and Jaws also make cameo appearances, adding to the game’s eclectic charm.

The general structure of Funko Fusion is familiar to those who’ve played the early LEGO games. You begin in the Funko factory, each floor themed by one of the previously mentioned seven worlds. You can unlock each floor with crowns collected at the end of each level, with each floor having between five to seven levels to pay through. You can unlock future floors, too, given you’ve got enough crowns, so if you grow tired of one, you can jump between them all.

When you unlock a world, you can play four base characters from that world. Some might move quicker, others have different weapons, and some might even have special abilities for use in exploration and puzzle-solving. There’s a nice mix of abilities here, though each world is clearly designed to be revisited as each area requires abilities from others. You can’t unlock a level in the Hot Fuzz world without bringing a Flamethrower from The Thing, for example. Completing a world unlocks extra characters from that world but also allows you to take those characters to other worlds.

Each world is split into levels that retell major setpieces from whatever it’s based on. Think Hot Fuzz’s final showdown in a village of miniatures or the moment all hell breaks loose in the opening of Jurassic World. Each world has you performing different objectives on a larger map, with each level having a different objective. It’s not as gracefully done as it was in Super Mario 64, but it’s closest to that in terms of how objectives work. Every level has a degree of openness to it, too, with optional missions and collectibles to find within each. And plenty of vinyl to find.

Vinyl is this games version of studs. Everything you hit in the game drops vinyl, and it can be used for a few different things. Each world has ideas that you can “research” by bringing fragments of them back to 3D printer-like stations. Once you’ve fully researched an item, you can mould your vinyl to create said item at these stations. Every item you can make has some use in combat and exploration, and the ones you unlock can be taken back to other worlds to open up optional areas.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $69 FROM AMAZON

The crux of the optional content comes in the form of Cameo Levels and Cameo Quests. The former is usually unlocked by retrieving a keycard hidden behind an ability or item to unlock portals in certain levels. They centre around another film or brand – like Jaws, NOPE or Back To The Future – and are more minor levels that cleverly capture the most iconic moment from whatever they’re based on. Cameo Quests are a bit different; you activate them in a certain level and then must follow up with that character in other levels to unlock them. For example, in the Hot Fuzz world, you can find Chucky and play a game of hide and seek with him to activate his quest. He then hides in other levels and can be found six times to finish the quest.

On the one hand, the Cameo Levels are a great idea. It would be tough to extend the story of a film like Jaws into a full, five-level world, so focusing on a key memorable set piece is an excellent idea without ruining the story’s pacing. The Cameo Quests are a good idea, too, but their execution doesn’t feel as well thought out – it is quite frankly tedious to seek out these characters multiple times and even when you’re done doing so, you’ll probably be done with most of the game.

That said, Funko Fusion feels like an old-school LEGO game in many ways. For one, the levels are replayable, with many things to find within each. Some collectibles unlock new weapons that any of your characters can equip with enough vinyl, while others grant buffs like one that improves the speed of your Pop. The more you complete, the more characters you unlock, though some of them are gated behind 40+ collectibles, including the iconic Colonel Sanders, which does feel like a bit much. People who loved collecting in the LEGO games will be at home here, but by the time I play as the Colonel, I’ll be done with the game.

But while I might sound down on Funko Fusion, there is a delightful game with great potential here. The objective variety is strong, with each level really slotting into the world it’s inspired by pretty well. Combat is a satisfying mix of shooting and melee, and boss battles are clever. There wasn’t a moment where I felt the game dragged or any of the worlds overstayed their welcome, as each employs unique mechanics that make sense for that particular world.

But at the time of writing, the game is incredibly buggy. I’ve had cutscenes skip, my controller stop working, side quests refuse to progress, and even boss AI glitch out. It’s disappointing, making Funko Fusion hard to recommend right now. I have confidence that most of these problems can be solved with a few title updates. But now, Funko Fusion can be a battle to get through.

And that’s not to forget that the game is lacking in the multiplayer department despite feeling like the perfect game for it. Online co-op is coming, which is a cool idea, but it’s being rolled out on a world-by-world basis, which seems a bit odd. The lack of offline co-op is also disappointing, as this game feels almost made for it.

But it’s hard to deny that Funko Fusion is dripping with passion and charisma. There is a huge amount of content in here to get through, especially for a team so new and so small that it harkens back to the days when LEGO games were at their peak. Even better, the worlds have been crafted in a way that pays great homage to the films and shows that have inspired them, but with a distinct sense of humour and charm that isn’t afraid to poke fun at itself. It’s a humourous and engaging journey that I’m convinced will improve over time.

The post Funko Fusion Review – A Promising Pop Culture Potpourri appeared first on Press Start.

The soft pitch for Caravan SandWitch is killer. What happens when you take the smooth brain checkboxing of a Ubisoft open-world title and filter it through a French indie lens? Gingerly sprinkle in some tried and true genre tropes and vaguely cozy aesthetic touchstones and you’ve got the individual components to build something charming and contemporary.

Caravan SandWitch plops you in the Lois Griffin-coded shoes of Sauge, a young woman compelled to return to her backwater home world after receiving a distress call from her older sister. The kicker is that this sister disappeared several years ago and your dad, her ex, and almost everyone in your hometown tells you that a distress call is impossible given that the planet has been effectively annexed by the Consortium, a mega-corp that has a monopoly on every aspect of life in this sci-fi world.

Something of a mining town without a mine, Cigalo is a world in the grips of a glacially paced apocalypse. An ominous energy storm dominates the otherwise cloudy blue skies to the south but nobody seems particularly fussed, instead, the various residents and denizens busy themselves with busted water filters, failing crops, and the thousand other bits of busy work to be found in a place ravaged by industry and left for dead. A striking landscape of jagged cliffs, sporadically defiant greenery, and coastline, Cigalo’s Provence-inspired palette allows Caravan SandWitch to dabble in frontier aesthetics and vertical world design while keeping the game within relatively balmy tonal parameters. 

Shot through with sci-fi trappings and a diverse cast of charming locals, Cigalo practically begs exploration, an impulse Caravan SandWitch struggles to wrangle against its greater narrative ambitions and pacing. Sauge is promptly gifted a 4×4 van, an upgradeable and semi-customisable vehicle that lets you zip along dirt roads and careen into the wilds with (relative) ease. Smartly veering more arcadey than sim, the van (and Sauge) are immune to damage and can Skyrim horse themselves into all manner of positions, only ever amusingly stumped by a small rock that stops you in your tracks. There’s a healthy dose of simple platforming and puzzle-solving to be found in Cigalo too, easily Caravan SandWitch’s best expression of streamlined open-world sensibilities and a small joy I never tired of. 

As you progress the game’s story, as paced through hardline chapter markers, the van will pick up several tools that allow for deeper exploration of the map and points of interest. These upgrades are purchased using scrap found in the world and gifted for completing quests, ranging from common green to rare purple. Toss in some map uncovering via radio tower destruction and a few collectable questlines and you’ve hit all the markers on Ubisoft’s golden path to smooth-brained joy in an open world. 

Only, Caravan SandWitch digs potholes for itself before setting off which frequently turns smooth into bumpy. The world is effectively open in its entirety after the game’s first hour and given how gorgeously inviting it looks, you’d be forgiven for gathering up some small requests for this or that and trekking out to simply vibe in this space. But then you find you can’t pull that door open yet, you can’t hack that elevator, or ride that zipline to a cool point of interest. Your impulse to roam is thoroughly roadblocked by your inability to interact. So, you snap some nice screenshots, hyper-focus on gathering enough scrap for the next upgrade, and head back out only to begin the cycle anew, just truncated sightly. 

It never stopped feeling antithetical to both the genre the game plays with and the breezy sense of openness Caravan SandWitch works overtime to maintain. By pacing the tools needed to enjoy the space out the way the game does, it funnels you into focusing on the main quest and gathering cycles to reach a stage where you feel you could actually venture out and allow your eye line to dictate your course and not your lack of tools. But Caravan SandWitch is also peppered with time-sensitive quests, meaning that if you progress the story (automatically occurring when an upgrade is crafted) without completing your chores you’ll lose the chance to do them, creating a strangled tension between player and game. 

This is a shame because the various comings and goings of Caravan SandWitch’s cast and world are fairly charming if not always compelling. The game’s bigger picture ideas are a rogue’s gallery of indie talking points, from the organic drama of human connection to space capitalism woes, which dabble in momentary depth but largely settle into a comfortably familiar cadence. But in the margins this world comes alive; a race of native frog-creatures observe humans with coy fascination as you help them gather their young and learn about memory as understood through shared consciousness. Or the small family struggling to decide if life in a small, dying town will be existentially better for their kid even if he misses out on big city opportunities. 

You might also be wondering about that big, missing sister neon sign that kicked off the adventure and Caravan SandWitch feels unsure how to handle that. Where Breath of the Wild and its ilk avoid the narrative dissonance of Quest: Save the World and Side Quest: Johnny Needs Six Apples by simply refusing to acknowledge it, Caravan SandWitch frequently points to what should be Sauge’s singular care. Much like the halting use of exploration tools, the game’s competing desires to be both open and focused pull at its edges in strange ways- it’s pleasantly skilled at building a world for you to enjoy at your leisure but unable to edit its ideas down to a point where doing so feels organic.  

Your mileage on Caravan SandWitch’s tensions will vary greatly depending on your relationship to open-world titles and the cloying tropes of cozy indies, but an immacuate eye for aesthetics and some hidden gems at least bring it together to be almost more than the sum of its parts. It helps too that the whole thing hums along with Antyomy’s score, a kind of French-draped “lo-fi beats to roam to” that infuses the game with a sense of place and tone befitting its better intentions and impulses.

But as I trundled out into the wilds to gather up my umpteenth bit of scrap, I couldn’t help but wonder if Caravan SandWitch’s attempted subversion of the open-world genre had been bogged on its otherwise gorgeous dirt roads.

The post Caravan SandWitch Review – Oh Sister Where Art Thou appeared first on Press Start.

You can’t take two steps without stepping on a Capcom collection of some kind, it seems, and Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics is yet another example of Capcom’s strong willingness to honour their history and ensure that the games that made them famous are playable even today. But this one feels especially treasured, as, through the fault of licensing and other mishaps, Marvel vs. Capcom games have been notoriously inconsistent with how regularly accessible they are. So here we are, yet again, with another re-release of the revered fighting game. And thankfully, this is the best way to play all of them so far.

Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics is another collection combining seven titles that Capcom developed and released in arcades between 1993 and 2000. What’s offered here is similar to the last Capcom Fighting Collection – arcade-perfect ports with the addition of other features associated with modern fighting games like spectator modes, exhaustive practice modes and rollback style online support. While the last Capcom Fighting Collection had a lot of games debuting outside of Japan, the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection is a slightly less dramatic debut. Most of these games have been available previously, some recently as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, but have since faded from digital storefronts thanks to the ever-pervasive threat of licensing expirations and renewals.

Others are appearing in a format for the first time since they debuted on home consoles or arcades in the late 90s. Those games are X-Men: Children of the Atom, X-Men vs. Street Fighter and Marvel Superheroes vs. Street Fighter. While all these games (and most others) are versus fighting games similar to Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat, an arcade-perfect port of The Punisher, a beat-em-up, is also included. But more on that later. The package is rounded out by Marvel Super Heroes, Marvel vs. Capcom and Marvel vs. Capcom 2, the latter of which is arguably the cornerstone of this ambitious collection.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $74 WITH FREE SHIPPING FROM AMAZON

The collection is typical of what you’d expect from a Capcom collection. The modern game additions include save states and a simplified Smash Bros-esque control scheme for easy hyper combos or special attacks. Beyond that, a museum mode includes a heap of concept art and design documents from each game. They’re interesting if you’re interested in developing games like these, and like I said for every Capcom collection before it, it’s always fascinating to see how these games come together from simple drawings on a page.

But what of the games themselves? There are not many duds here. While drawing from both Capcom and Marvel’s storied history, each game does its own thing to stand out from its contemporaries. For example, you use Infinity Stones to power yourself up in Marvel Super Heroes. There is something utterly appealing about the earlier games, especially X-Men vs. Street Fighter, where the concern wasn’t about balance and just allowing players to come up with the most batshit insane combos they could. Children of the Atom, a 1v1 X-Men fighting game, is charming in its own right for how simple it is and how it looks and plays just as well as it did in 1993.

Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes is where you can see it all start to come together, though, with Capcom expanding their side of the roster with characters beyond those that appeared in Street Fighter. It’s an interesting game because while you pick two characters, every match allows you to pick a third support character from a separate roster of oddball choices. Think Jubilee from X-Men or Arthur from Ghosts’ n Goblins. It’s an novel mechanic that has never entirely made a return to the series since.

But as I mentioned earlier, the cornerstone is Marvel vs. Capcom 2. It is arguably one of the best fighting games ever made – and while the jump to 3D visuals for many backgrounds loses some of the charm of the games that came before it, there is just no other fighting game (besides Smash) with a roster like it. The roster for Marvel vs. Capcom 2 features 56 playable characters from all stages of both Marvel and Capcom’s history at that time. We’re talking about Street Fighter, Resident Evil, Darkstalkers, and even out-of-pocket picks like Cyberbots and Star Gladiator. And, of course, timeless Marvel characters like Storm, Gambit, Wolverine, Captain America and Iron Man. It’s an amazingly well-rounded roster that I cannot get enough of and will never grow tired of.

Besides the other games, which are all still fantastic, the inclusion of The Punisher game is fascinating. I’ve never played it before, but it’s a beat-em-up similar to games like Street of Rage, Final Fight and Double Dragon. In it, you can play as either Punisher or Nick Fury as they try to take down Kingpin and his criminal enterprise. The game is considered to be one of the better in the genre. I can see why – it’s just as strong as Capcom’s other beat-em-ups but incorporates the trademark violence that you’d expect from a Punisher game in a way that I don’t think was being done back then (besides Mortal Kombat, of course). It’s tough as hell, mind you, but it’s still a great inclusion, and the arcade port included here is much better than the previous home console release on the Sega Genesis. You can play it co-op locally, too, though not online.

Speaking of online, the lobby system works like the previous Capcom Fighting Collection. You can search for ranked or unranked matches through matchmaking or create private lobbies, too. You can even choose whether to play a game offline, enter practice mode or browse the museum mode while waiting for a match to be found, which is appreciated given it’s a key feature Mortal Kombat 1 still doesn’t have. Even better, you can select which of the six fighting games you want to queue for, so your pool of players is always as deep and wide as you pick. I only got to sample a handful of matches online, but like the previous collection, the rollback netcode works like a dream.

From a presentation standpoint, Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classic is slick. Each game utilises sprite work, which still stands the test of time today, though some of the 3D effects seen in Marvel vs. Capcom 2 are getting a bit long in the tooth. The collection has many options to adjust the display – filters that mimic the CRT screens you would’ve played these on back in arcades, options to adjust the aspect ratio and artwork for borders to help fill the screen without ruining the aspect ratio. There are plenty of options and choices here, so I doubt many would be unable to find their own sweet spot with how these games are presented.

But regardless of your taste in presentation, one thing is certain—Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics represents the best way to experience these games and, even more importantly, understand why they were revered as classics in the first place.

The post Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics Review – An Incredible Showcase appeared first on Press Start.

I’d be tempted to call Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland nostalgia bait if it didn’t go ahead and nail exactly what it set out to achieve. Developed and framed from the get go as a throwback to classic, licensed platformers from the nineties, Adventures in Gameland is unequivocally a “made for Gameboy” title through and through. And that right there carries with it a bit of good, and plenty of bad as the game’s beautiful presentation struggles to bear the burden of frustrating, clunky, and dated platforming—not that the game sticks around long enough for it to grate at you.

With just six levels, carefully crafted with an understanding of Tommy, Chuckie, and the twins’ creativity in mind, as well as a keen understanding of Rugrats deep cuts, Adventures in Gameland truly encapsulates a “classic” experience with its truncated runtime of just a couple of hours.

Although I do love how each stage is framed as an episode of the series, complete with the hallmark “ba-baaaa” title treatment, each level is rather formulaic in its construct as you, playing as any of the four babies on offer, carefully crawl and jump through imaginative twists on otherwise mundane settings around the Pickles residence, recover Tommy’s trusty screwdriver, and unlock the baby gate safeguarding the level’s boss. 

There’s nothing that really sets each baby apart aside from their unique jump, and how much lift they get. Based on this, I feel like they do fit into the Super Mario Bros. roles to a degree with Tommy being reliably compact and sturdy as a squat plumber, while Chuckie and all of his trademark trepidation fits into the Luigi archetype. Phil and Lil feel similar, save for the fact that Lil has a floating glide at the tail end of her leap that makes her feel like Peach. 

And it’s not that the babies control badly, although I do feel like the input gets confused if you’re trying to do too much, it’s everything else in Adventures in Gameland that is far more frustrating. The player hit box is the size of California, checkpointing can be pretty punishing in the game’s final stage, and I don’t recall the game explaining anything. For a game where you’re able to butt slam with the crushing force of a night’s full diapie, pick up and stack blocks to climb onto, and crawl, the game really does just let you work it out for yourself.

Fortunately, for as frustrating as the finicky platforming can be, the game does at least offer a few difficulty options, which is a nice modern addition for a game that tries so hard to recreate the Gameboy’s classic sensibilities. After a few cheap deaths, I was glad to be coddled by the simplest newborn mode. 

From a presentation perspective, I don’t think Adventures in Gameland could be much better. As I’ve already touched on, the levels themselves dive deep into the enormity a child’s perspective can grant to pretty humdrum settings—for example, how a relaxing day at a backyard cookout can suddenly become an adventure throughout a tree hollow battling wind-up toys. It’s wildly imaginative and I think pays wonderful homage to some of the situations the babies found themselves in during the show’s run. 

It might not include voiceover performance, and I admit I do miss E. G. Daily’s trademark Tommy Pickles voice cracks, but the game’s scripted dialogue is extremely on point nevertheless. The game’s soundtrack more than makes up for it, not only does it open with the expected, absolutely iconic Rugrats theme tune, we get so many great renditions of the same theme throughout including an aggressive metal one that does slap. 

For those wanting an even more authentic Rugrats on Gameboy experience, you’re able to toggle between a pretty, almost true-to-animation high-definition setting and a classic 8-bit that’s more in line with how the game might have looked a few decades ago. You’re also able to switch between a full screen and bordered view, which restricts the action to a smaller share of the screen, more in keeping with the Gameboy’s original 10:9 aspect ratio. 

As a nineties kid, who absorbed more cartoons than I’d care to admit, likely while white-knuckling a Gameboy, Adventures in Gameland is an extremely nostalgic regression to a simpler time for game design. It bears the warts of the era it’s attempting to emulate, by being a bit clunky and frustrating, however as a Rugrats property it’s as authentic as it gets. In fact, to borrow a bit of the gang’s babble talk, it’s been a worthwhile ‘speriment. 

The post Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland Review – What A Baby’s Gotta Do appeared first on Press Start.

It’s been over a year since Hogwarts Legacy, and despite that game doing such a good job of capturing the essence of being a student at Hogwarts, there was a glaring omission. Despite spending many hours in the castle and its surrounding grounds, you never get to play a game of Quidditch. Quite the phenomenon, apparently in both real life and the world of Harry Potter, it always felt odd that Quidditch wasn’t in Legacy. And while it’s been a hot minute – since 2003 – since we had a new Quidditch experience, Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions has the basics down pat. But while it gets so much of the core experience right, it still feels undercooked.

The game occurs around the same time as the Harry Potter stories. You’ll run into many series stalwarts like the Weasleys, Hermione and most students who make a sizeable appearance in the series. The game’s very loose structure has you building a fully customisable team that must work through the various tourneys to win the Quidditch World Cup. There’s not much of a story here, honestly, and it feels very small scale.

There are multiple ways to play Quidditch Champions, whether with your friends or against them. But you’ll be disappointed if you’re looking for a wealth of single-player content. There is a “campaign” of sorts, which sees you competing in three different cups – a school, interschool and international – but that’s really it. The “story” is a cutscene before each cup, explaining what the cup is and narrated by a low-rent soundalike of your favourite Harry Potter characters. The Seeker of each team, such as Cho Chang or Cedric Diggory, might pop up beforehand to say a sentence or two, but that’s really it.

The campaign really serves as a loose tutorial to teach you the basics of each role and how Quidditch works, especially as a video game. The beginning of the game wastes no time teaching you how to fly your broom, selecting which camera controls you want to use and even showing you how to drift. Each role is also explained to you and has unique controls and mechanics, but that’s really it. It feels more like an extensive prep course to prepare you for multiplayer, though I appreciate that no matter which mode you play in Quidditch Champions, there’s still online functionality with full crossplay available, too.

In this version of Quidditch, two teams of six battle it out until one side reaches a hundred points. A goal is worth ten points. The roles are simple – there are three Chasers, a Keeper, A Beater and a Seeker. Chasers play the leading role in the game, chasing after a ball called a Quaffle, scoring points by throwing it into the opposing team’s goals. Keepers are goalkeepers, but they can lay down rings that other players can fly through to buff or debuff their speed. Beaters are the most interesting, armed with bats and controlling a magical iron ball called a Bludger to knock other players off their brooms, while the single Seeker must look for the Golden Snitch, a fast-moving object on the field.

The most significant change with Quidditch Champions is how the Golden Snitch works. It appears roughly twice in each game’s seven minutes, and the Seeker must boost through rings left behind it to stay close to the Snitch to fill a meter. Once the meter is filled, the Snitch can be caught. Rather than ending the game, however, it gives the team thirty of the required hundred points towards their win. It’s a nerf, but it has a remarkably positive effect on the flow of the game and keeps things fair right up until the very end, as sometimes grabbing the Snitch can be the difference between winning and losing.

The other roles, barring the Keeper, are all just as fun. Something is satisfying (if not slightly macabre) about beating people off their brooms as a Beater or sending your bludger after the opposing Seeker to give your team member a better chance at catching the Snitch. If you want good old-fashioned sports, the Chaser is more of a role for you, coming with the typical functions you’d expect for a player in any sports game – sprinting, tackling and the like. There’s something for everyone here, even if you’re not typically into sports games (like myself).

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $49 FROM AMAZON

And while the AI is pretty average sometimes, most of the magic happens when you’re playing online. The online modes are fairly robust for a game of this scale, offering role-specific queuing or any role queueing to reduce wait times. For the most part, I wouldn’t be waiting for more than two minutes to find a match, so the population seems healthy right now, but it’ll be interesting to see how long it will stay like this. Online performance is great, too – everything works, which is excellent but rare in today’s gaming climate.

Online games work differently from offline. Three players control two roles each, and they can switch between them on the fly as needed. Your roles are assigned to you as you’re put into a game, though you can choose your preference before matchmaking. It’s a great system that keeps things interesting, though, much like any multiplayer game, it can get frustrating when your Seeker doesn’t actually go for the Snitch.

It’s an absolute dream when a team of humans plays their roles correctly in Quidditch Champions. A fast-paced game that has all of the twists and turns to keep things tense and chaotic. But beyond that, Quidditch Champions doesn’t have much more going for it. The primary sense of progression is a Battle Pass-esque system where you unlock cosmetics as you complete matches and earn XP. It’s a tried-and-true system, but it feels empty at this stage and fills pretty slowly.

At first, I assumed this was because the game wanted to sell you all the trimmings that often come with games structured like these – skips, experience boosters and the like. But remarkably, Quidditch Champions doesn’t have any microtransactions. All progression is earned in-game and can’t be purchased with real currency. This is a relief, but at the same time, it also masks something far more telling – there’s just not a lot to earn or do in Quidditch Champions.

Which is a shame, because the core gameplay is solid. Quidditch Champions plays incredibly well. But the other elements surrounding the game, that compelling reason to stick with it and keep playing, just doesn’t exist yet. The game is structured as if it will set up new content drops as future seasons come, but it feels rather barebones for now.

From a visual standpoint, Quidditch Champions looks decent enough. It employs a stylised artistic direction, allowing it to be visually distinct from Hogwarts Legacy and whatever other Wizarding World games are coming. It runs well, too, with no performance hiccups to note in my time with it. Novelly, the game also is the first time we’ve seen both the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons schools realised in a video game (or perhaps ever), which is a nice touch for those deep into the Wizarding World.

However, there is a real gap in the presentation regarding the original score. Harry Potter films have some incredible music that could be used significantly in Quidditch Champions, especially while you’re playing the Seeker. Instead, what’s here is a pale imitation of what came before. It all feels incredibly flat and wooden, especially during the final moments of each match. I thought we’d hear some of John Williams’ soaring music here, but what’s here instead is just unremarkable.

While the actors are soundalikes, which I can handwave away given how expensive the talent would be to get back for recording, the commentary is seriously lacking. Even worse for what is ostensibly a sports game, it’s arduously repetitive, too. There are about one or two lines for each event that might occur in the game, and when you’re playing across seven minutes, it can get incredibly grating to hear “HOGWARTS GAINS POSSESSION” more than ten times in the span of a few minutes.

So, while Quidditch Champions has the potential to grow into something more, right now, it’s too barebones to hold your attention for long. Hopefully, with time, there’ll be a more compelling reason to jump back on the broom, but it needs a little more time to capture the magic it’s missing.

The post Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions Review – A Strong Take-Off With An Iffy Landing appeared first on Press Start.

Despite pre-loading its PS5 consoles with a surprisingly solid, free example of the genre in Astro’s Playroom, I’d honestly thought PlayStation’s days of goofy mascot 3D platformers were numbered as it chased big budget, cinematic blockbusters and shaky live service offerings. Looking at Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart as more of an “action-adventure,” there just hasn’t been anything on a PlayStation console that shows the same sense of rivalry as the company courting the likes of Crash and Spyro in the 90s to challenge Nintendo and Mario’s success. 

That’s why it’s so exciting that Astro Bot, a full-blooded follow up to Playroom helmed by the same folks at Team ASOBI, so firmly lands as a worthy challenger to the portly plumber’s long-held domination.

Like all good 3D platformers, Astro Bot opens with the thinnest possible framing to the ensuing adventure. Blissfully sailing through space in the same PS5-shaped “Mothership” he inhabited in Playroom, Astro’s good times are abruptly upended when a huge, green alien named Nebulax yanks the ship’s core and sends its components and passengers flying across the cosmos. Thus begins a journey to rescue all of his Bot friends, as well as put the major components of the PS5 Mothership back in their rightful places – a journey that’ll take our intrepid little robo-hero across five distinct galaxies and dozens of joyfully unique “planets.”

In overall structure, Astro Bot is decidedly traditional to the platformer mission of giving players a steadily-growing choice of distinct and self-contained levels to play through, gating new ones behind collection goals (rescuing Bots, in this case) and the defeat of major bosses. And so, at least for the main levels, it’s a case of dropping into a stage and making your way to the exit while scooping up as many friends as possible along the way. It’s straightforward then, but the game’s more exciting qualities come in both the designs of the levels and the fact that more than half of the 300+ friends you’re rescuing are Bot versions of characters representing a huge history of PlayStation content, whether first-party franchises or otherwise important to the platform over the last three decades.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $89 WITH FREE SHIPPING FROM AMAZON

Every single level feels absolutely unique, not just in visual theme or gameplay hook but often in their fundamental structure or pace and all are memorable enough that I could easily spend 1000s of words just gushing about each one individually. Plenty of them include nods to PlayStation characters you’ll find within, the stage where Shadow of the Colossus’ Wander can be found just happens to feature a climbable mid-boss encounter, for example, while Joel and Ellie from The Last of Us were fortunate enough to have crash-landed on a planet populated by dancing fungi. Even if you removed all of that though, ASOBI’s own ideas and designs are so wonderfully-realised and remarkable that they well and truly stand on their own and do far more to carry the game than its fandom bait.

The use of technology here, whether it’s the incredibly-impressive physics of environmental debris, destructible objects and liquid physics or the thorough implementation of the DualSense controller’s unique features, is more than just superficial, too. Asobi has put everything in its toolbelt to work to serve gameplay first and foremost, resulting in some truly innovative and delightful interactions, and like its best peers it never overuses any one idea and makes sure to evolve any that it does revisit over time. While Astro’s core moveset hasn’t changed much from Playroom, there are once again plenty of new gadgets for him to find and use through various DualSense interactions, though these are now much better integrated into standard gameplay rather than locked into specific sections, and much more fun overall.

Each galaxy also houses a major boss fight, some of which are reasonably challenging and all of which are visual spectacles with some great mechanics that build on earlier concepts in the regular levels, easily rivaling the best bosses in the business. All of these levels, and the game as a whole, strike a good balance between approachability and challenge, taking on the tried-and-true method of making sure that players of most skill levels should comfortably be able see the game through to its conclusion, while finding every last Bot and collectible and besting the impressive number of hidden/bonus levels will test even seasoned platformer fans – especially a final gauntlet opened to those whose who truly dedicate themselves to 100% completion.

It is worth noting that actual accessibility/approachability options are surprisingly thin for a PlayStation Studios title, at least compared to the likes of a God of War or The Last of Us, but there’s enough here to at least smooth out the experience in some small ways – like being able to switch motion controls to the left thumbstick or have the game automatically complete blow-into-the-controller mechanics when you’ve got the DualSense mic muted.

While the major bosses are all fantastic, the best part is what comes after – each world capped off by a special level designed entirely around a specific game and in which Astro transforms into the stars of those games, and the gameplay shifts to match. I won’t spoil these, but the first one in particular had me screaming as a massive fan of the long-dormant series. No doubt people will have similar reactions to the ones that come after, too, though they’re best kept a surprise. ASOBI has crammed these special stages with so many neat gameplay and visual tributes, genuinely hilarious gags and riffs on iconic moments that they’re definitively the highlight of the whole experience. If we could somehow get more of these as paid DLC, I’d happily indulge.

The fun and fan service doesn’t stop there, either. Your rescued Bot friends need somewhere to go while they await the Mothership’s repair, after all, and that happens to be the very crash site it now rests in. Here, you’re not only able to visit and interact with all of the special Bots you’ve found so far but also win them new props from a gacha machine and put them to work to help you access new areas, and unlock new facilities and features after collecting enough hidden puzzle pieces in levels.

I could literally spend hours here just walking around, inspecting all of the tiny, adorable details that ASOBI has put into each of them and snapping hundreds of screenshots (and to be fair, I’ve already done this). There’s plenty of obvious stuff here, like characters from The Last of Us, God of War, Crash Bandicoot and so on but also tons of deeper cuts that are sure to please PlayStation fans from every corner and era.

Naturally, much of my time putting words to page here has had me thinking about Astro Bot in comparison to the adventures of a certain overalled plumber, and I do think that sticking to a pretty standard format means this doesn’t quite feel as innovative and fresh as something like Super Mario Odyssey. I genuinely can’t recall a moment in the entire 12-13 hours it took for me to 100% complete the game and nab the platinum trophy, though, where I wasn’t grinning from ear-to-hear and having massive amounts of fun. From the second you hit that New Game option to the last lines of the credit roll, there’s simply no point in which you’re not doing something new and interesting, interacting with the world in some big or small way, often with no purpose but to delight in the immeasurable amount of glee and silliness stuffed into every inch.

It also helps that the game looks and sounds a treat. Playroom was already quite sharp for a launch freebie, but Astro Bot ramps the production values up considerably. Every level is absolutely dripping with detail, and ASOBI’s animation work is spectacular in giving it all a real energy that you just don’t normally get outside of Nintendo’s output. Being a PS5 exclusive, it’s also got the advantage of being razor shape and silky smooth while throwing in some astonishing material and effects work along with the aforementioned moments of stupidly fun physics interactions.

And while there’s no voice work to speak of, the audio side of things is just as impressive. Being a first-party PS5 title there’s naturally all manner of impressive audio work including plenty of added embellishment from the DualSense speaker, but easily the biggest success is the soundtrack from returning contributor Kenneth C. M. Young. There’s not one track that isn’t a bonafide bop, and those of us who were (rightfully) enamoured with the synthesised vocals peppered across the score in Astro’s Playroom are very well served here with some fantastic additions including a “secret level” theme punctuated by murmurs of the word “secret” or a giant tree that takes a moment to bust out some bars.

In other hands, this could easily have wound up just as creatively bankrupt as the concept of “game where your core mission is to fix a giant PS5 after it’s destroyed by a green alien” implies, but there’s so much wonderful originality and personality on display here that it never feels anything less than Asobi’s own fantastic creation – even when you’re crossing pits of flowing lava on top of loose DualSense thumbsticks.

The post Astro Bot Review – Out Of This World appeared first on Press Start.

You know those moments in games where spectacle has you thinking; ‘they’re gonna do it, aren’t they?’? Thor jolting Kratos back to life in God of War Ragnarök, facing down the Soul of Cinder in Dark Souls III, embracing the darkness in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. They’re events that always come up when discussing these games, and for good reason. There are so many other examples of this in gaming and other media, almost all of which play a defining part in a title’s legacy.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is full of these moments. 40K fan or not, Space Marine 2 is a rollercoaster of eye-popping spectacle, all of it infused with the utmost reverence and care for the source material it hails from. In some ways, it’s a miracle sequel, delivering on the promise set by the first game all the way back in 2011 in effortless fashion. Even if you aren’t deeply invested in this universe, it’s an unmitigated joy to step into the shoes of Captain Titus once again.

A century after his run in with the forces of Chaos on Graia, Captain Demetrian Titus continues to grapple with the scars left on his reputation thanks to accusations of heresy. Stripped of his former title, Titus joins the Deathwatch as a kind of self-inflicted penance. Despite having conceded that he’s destined to die combating unknown alien threats on the frontlines, Titus is reinstated into the Ultramarines as the unrelenting Tyranid forces begin to overrun the Recidious System. Made to lead a new squad of Ultramarines against the Xenos threat, Titus steps back into the fray as an angel of death.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $89 WITH FREE SHIPPING FROM AMAZON

Things aren’t quite right in the Recidious System, though. Outside of the obviously problematic Tyranid invasion taking place, Titus and his squad also uncover traces of Chaos throughout the system. Furthermore, the Adeptus Mechanicus are in a hurry to protect a weapon under the name Project Aurora, casting suspicion over their intentions and the motivations of the Imperium who seek to protect it. Titus is naturally skeptical about all of this given his role on Graia, but his reputation haunts his convictions and strong moral compass.

You don’t need to be a 40K fan to get drawn into this plot. It makes an incredible first impression with a banger of an opening mission, and doesn’t let up on the gas from there. In a twist I didn’t at all expect, Space Marine 2 also ties back to the first game very nicely. The story being told here feels like a natural extension of what came before it despite the time jump. Titus feels different, but still sports many of the qualities and traits that made him such a great protagonist to begin with. He’s battle-hardened, stoic, but struggling with finding his place in the Ultramarines again.

Titus is accompanied by Chairon and Gadriel. Two Ultramarines at pivotal points in their tenure as willing and rageful weapons of the Imperium. Gadriel is a clear callback to Leandros, who’s blind faith in the Codex Astartes often led to narrow-minded viewpoints when it comes to Chaos, corruption, and the roll Space Marines play in the broader universe. A key difference, though, is that Gadriel isn’t set in his ways just yet, leaving him susceptible to outside influences and perspectives – both positive, and negative.

Chairon feels much more mature than Gadriel by comparison, but his experience is still dwarfed by what Titus has had to endure. He feels more level-headed and often serves as a bridge between Titus and Gadriel when they have a disagreement. They make for a fantastic duo in the story that’s being told here, and most importantly, serve as figures key to the development of Titus and what he goes through.

All of this is as strong as it is because Space Marine 2 is just so well written. Every line feels intentional, delivered with perfect tone, cadence, and emphasis to suit the situation. Tension will rise and fall between the group as they combat the Tyranids and forces of Chaos, testing their bonds and trust in one another. You so desperately want to see this squad succeed despite the odds being stacked against them, and that sentiment rings true right up until the credits roll.

There are also just so many of those aforementioned jaw-dropping moments throughout Space Marine 2’s runtime. Every mission has some kind of spectacle to gawk at, only often times you’ll find yourself right in the middle of it. Whether it’s storming through trenches as Tyranids attempt to overrun your position, or squaring off against a hulking Helbrute, Space Marine 2 has unforgettable moments aplenty. While it certainly helps if you’re a fan of the IP, there’s no denying how absurdly awesome some these moments are.

My only real gripe with the story is that the third act does feel rushed. It’s filled with plenty of fantastic moments, but it doesn’t feel like it has as much room to breathe as the first two thirds of the game. It definitely delivers by the time credits roll, but I wish I got to see and learn more about its key players and components. It certainly doesn’t derail the entire experience, but just feels off given how deftly handled the rest of the campaign is.

That isn’t to say Space Marine 2 is trying to veil anything else by barraging you with its presentation, because the gameplay also kicks ass. It’s the same third-person melee/shooter hybrid as the first game, but presents its power fantasy in a different way. Space Marine, much like the recent DOOM games on lower difficulties, was a pure power fantasy. Few games were able to capture the kind of carnage you can unleash as an Ultramarine, so it was a novel experience for the time.

Space Marine 2 hasn’t lost that luster, but definitely focuses more on being mindful and strategic with moment to moment combat decisions. The power fantasy is still here, but it’s less accessible – you have to work for it. That’s through a few key new additions and shifts in how the game handles resources and enemy types. The big new features mostly come in the form of defensive mechanics; parrying and dodging.

You still dish out light and heavy attacks in an attempt to stun units, opening them up for brutal and satisfying executions. The enemies in Space Marine 2 don’t take hits lying down, though, and will often unleash their own assaults that can be parried and/or dodged to open them up for counterattack. Smaller units are immediately executed on a successful parry, as Titus swats them out of the air before they can get so much as a claw on his armour. Larger units, on the other hand, are stunned and opened up for a critical shot, where the camera pulls right in, and Titus delivers a devastating point-blank shot.

Executions and critical shots both refill Titus’s armour, imploring you to make the most of these new mechanics to keep healthy in combat. Perfectly timed dodges will also leave an enemy open to a critical shot, so mastery over enemy attack patterns and timing is heavily incentivised – especially on higher difficulties. It takes a bit to get used to, but once it clicks, you feel unstoppable. It feels incredible to yank an enemy out of mid air, crush them underfoot, only to parry an incoming attack and deliver a critical shot to whichever unlucky foe dared to challenge you.

The reason that this all works so well is because Space Marine 2 isn’t a game you can auto-pilot. Jumping into a wave of enemies haphazardly is often a recipe for swift death. You’re implored to balance your limited ammo with ample opportunities to unleash melee carnage when favourable opportunities present themselves. The combat sandbox is further deepened by Fury, a rage mode that lets you regenerate health and throw caution to the wind as a result. Jump packs also make their return in some missions, where you to take to the skies and rain death from above.

Speaking of which, the tools of the trade have been much expanded in Space Marine 2. Melee weapons have unique movesets that keep them distinct from one another, there is a swathe of returning and new ranged weapons, and the selection of grenades on offer is also quite sizable. Missions are dotted with resupply points and weapon drops, so you can regularly switch up your loadout if you feel like a change or need something else to get the job done. Each weapon also looks and sounds suitably visceral, especially when you’re hitting headshots.

This campaign is also entirely playable in three player co-op, and if that isn’t enough to satiate your 40K cravings, Operations have you covered. These are additional missions built to be replayed across different difficulty levels in a squad of three. Operations can also be played in co-op, in-fact, I’d go as far as saying the higher difficulties are designed around it. Completing missions will net you experience points for the class and weapons you used in that mission, awarding you with upgrades and cosmetics to use in higher difficulty Operations.

The coolest aspect of Operations by far, is that they’re almost all centered around events that entwine with the campaign. An example is Decapitation, an operation that’s undertaken at the same time as the game’s fifth campaign mission, Voidsong. To clear the Tyranid hordes for Titus and his squad, another group of Ultramarines have been tasked with eradicating a Hive Tyrant, effectively rendering the Xenos threat useless. You hear about the escapades of these supporting squads within missions, but it’s another thing entirely to actually be able to play them.

It is also crazy how high quality some of these are. Some rival the campaign missions in scale, scope, and ambition, offering many moments of spectacle that you don’t get in the campaign. It allows Saber Interactive to explore corners of the 40K universe that don’t get touched on during the campaign. They also aren’t too long as to outstay their welcome, and replaying them on higher difficulties mixes up enemy placement, resource numbers, as well as health and damage values.

Each of the six playable classes bring their own unique skill to use within Operations. Some are more support oriented, like the Tactician, who can make use of the Auspex to mark targets and weaken them for nearby allies. Other classes are much more selfish, like the Vanguard, who’s equipped with a grappling hook to get in and out of the fray quickly. Each is limited in what they can bring in each of their loadouts, so they feel different from one another outside of just their abilities. Each of these weapons has unlockable variants that scale into the higher difficulties, so there’s lots to chase.

It can’t be overstated how much fun this mode is with friends. Ash Wayling of WellPlayed and myself spent many hours getting in the trenches. Slaying out with each other was a complete blast, and finding ways to overcome tough encounters through smart use of class abilities and resources was always rewarding. I can only imagine how crazy some of the higher difficulties get, especially with a party of three, but it’s the kind of action and chaos you’ll absolutely want to revel in.

Space Marine 2’s multiplayer mode, Eternal War, is also a great time. It’s a fairly standard offering as far as competitive multiplayer goes, but it fills a void left by the likes of Gears of War. It uses the same classes from Operations and has a similar degree of flexibility in weapons loadouts. While most classes feel on par with one another, there are a few that feel a bit on the weaker side, especially with the low time to kill in the current sandbox.

Some balancing woes aside, the overall sandbox is fun to play around with and the game modes presented here play to the strengths of the game’s combat. It’d be nice to see something more complex on the mode front, but a slew of great maps and the promise of more on the way means Eternal War is a worthwhile offering at launch. There’s very little not to love here if you enjoy the campaign and Operations, and it’s a fun excuse to spend more time in the world of 40K if you love some simple, no frills attached competition. It’s also just so cool to play as Chaos.

As always, though, fashion is the true endgame. Space Marine 2 is perhaps one of the greatest examples of this trend. Each class can be customised, from armour pieces and decals, right down to individual colours of trimmings and accents on armour. You could spend hours customising one of these classes, let alone six. There are so many different Space Marine Chapter colours available as well, including the ability to customise individual armour pieces separate from one another.

Even if you aren’t a fan of 40K and you don’t know all of the Chapters and what they entail, it is just so damn cool to be able to craft your own Space Marine. If you can think of it, you can likely do it. Some of the coolest cosmetics are restricted to a high number of Operation completions, offering a way to showcase your mastery of a particular class to other players. There’s so much longevity and flexibility in how this can be approached, I can’t wait to see what the internet comes up with, and I suspect the motivation to unlock the best looking gear will drive me to keep playing.

Part of the reason customisation is such a success in Space Marine 2, is thanks to the sublime presentation of this whole package. This game is presenting constant eye candy. It felt like every frame was screenshot worthy no matter where I looked. It’s positively dripping with 40K’s grimdark aesthetic, offering unique visual directions that occupy different corners of this universe. Nowhere is this better seen than in the battle barge, Space Marine 2’s hub area that feels so much bigger than it actually is thanks to all the set dressing and detail on show.

Where Kadaku is a muddy, dense jungle planet packed with Tyranids, Avarax is a once-glorious Hive World that has quickly buckled under the weight of the Xenos invasion. The undefeated standout is Demerium, a blue and purple tinged battlefield of a war long-since passed, its earth shaking again under the rumblings of war. The enemy density is also insane, with Tyranids flooding into arenas in literal waves, clawing to climb up walls as they clamber over each other with little regard for one another.

It all runs so smoothly as well. This game gets so chaotic at times, there can be so much going on at once, it’s impressive that it doesn’t buckle under its own weight. My PC was able to comfortably support the game on high settings with no issues. While I’m not sure how consoles will fair, it has been confirmed they’ll support multiple modes at launch. Even if you opt for the regular performance mode, be sure to check the game out at its highest graphical output – it’s a true technical marvel.

I don’t think it’ll surprise many that Space Marine 2 is good. The first game established a winning formula that would’ve done the job with current production values and some multiplayer modes thrown in for good measure. What is surprising, is that Space Marine 2 goes far beyond that, offering a tightly paced campaign, truck loads of meaningful progression, top-tier production values, and most importantly, a whole lot of superhuman slaying. It’s made for one of 2024’s best games, and an undoubted game of the year candidate.

The post Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 Review – The 40K Game You’ve Always Wanted appeared first on Press Start.

It hasn’t been a year yet, but Capcom still seems fit to grace us with yet another Ace Attorney collection. But this is an exciting time for Ace Attorney. It marks the first time that all the games are available on modern platforms, and with Ace Attorney Investigations Collection, the first time that the second game in the very good spin-off series has been available outside of Japan. But while we’ve been arguably bombarded with regular Ace Attorney releases, the quality has yet to falter. The same can be said with Ace Attorney Investigations Collection, which continues Capcom’s trends of honouring the past while hopefully laying the groundwork for the future.

The Investigations games are different to the other Ace Attorney titles. In Investigations, you play Miles Edgeworth, a rival to Phoenix Wright and one of the best prosecutors in the country. While he’s had a more villainous appearance in the earlier games, the Investigations games do a better of fleshing out his character with more depth than previously seen. They’re also set between the large time gap between the third and fourth Ace Attorney games, leaving a lot of opportunity to bring back characters and see how they interact with Edgeworth. However, the major difference is much more significant – the Investigations games rarely enter the court.

While both games in this collection have unique features, they share a similar structure comprised almost entirely of investigating. However, it’s more involved and interactive than the other Ace Attorney games. You directly control Edgeworth, moving him around crime scenes, gathering evidence and interviewing witnesses and potential suspects. It feels more “playable” than just tapping through menus as you would in an Ace Attorney game, though it is a much more linear experience. There’s nothing wrong with that, to be clear, but there is a different flow of progression compared to other Ace Attorney games.

The more involved investigations are complemented by new mechanics, which only improve the experience. Edgeworth’s assistant, Kay Faraday, can use her gadget, Little Thief, to create crime scenes in real life. In the second game, she can view the same crime scene at different points, adding more depth to the investigations. It’s nonsense technology, of course, but you have to go with it. Including Little Thief is a good way to break up the investigation segments, though, like some other aspects of the second game, I wish it was used more throughout.

But besides investigations, the crux of the drama will come from arguments that you’ll have with the people involved in each case. These segments stand in for the courtroom segments, as you’ll use evidence to point out any contradictions in what people tell you. I have always had concerns about whether these moments might be less exciting, given that there are fewer objections flying around, but thankfully, they’re still just as good. Some of the revelations in both the Investigations games, especially in the final case of each, are some of the most shocking in the series.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $59 FROM AMAZON

But it wouldn’t be a game about Edgeworth without an extra layer of deduction, and that’s where the Logic system comes in.  Designed to perfectly represent Edgeworth’s calm and cool sense of deduction, it lets players piece together information to form conclusions. Said conclusions can then be used as defacto evidence in arguments to make opponents buckle. The Logic system is an excellent addition for a few reasons. For one, it allows Edgeworth (and the player) to keep track of any lingering mysteries discovered. But it also adds an almost endlessly satisfying gameplay loop of connecting information.

The Logic system is built upon in the second game, Prosecutor’s Gambit, with the addition of Mind Chess. When Edgeworth is in a significant argument during a case, the argument is visualised as a game of chess. Similar to cross-examinations from the previous game, you, as a player, must determine the right “move” to make when verbally speaking with an opponent. Sometimes, not making a move (ie. Staying silent) is the better option, too. The timer in these moments makes things especially tense, which might put off some players, but the heightened tension makes them incredibly exciting. Though, like I mentioned before with Little Thief, I’d love to see more of Mind Chess. It can also be too obvious which answers are right.

But while these changes to the formula are obvious, the less obvious question is how these games play. Resoundingly, they are well worth your time. Both games are built around strong stories that grab you from the beginning, standing beside the mainline games with no issue. I adored the first game when it was released for the DS, but replaying it, I can’t deny there are some pacing issues with some of the cases, especially in the final case where the final contraction (while shocking) feels incredibly protracted.

The second game is often talked about as one of the greatest in the series, and, having finally played it, I can see why. The villain is great, the twists are shocking, and the pacing is a considerable step above the original game. Even more so, the overarching narrative is incredibly engaging and easily a step above some mainline games. I’ll obviously not explain much more for the sake of spoilers, but it’s quite frankly criminal that Prosecutor’s Gambit wasn’t officially available to the wide audience until now. It is well worth your time.

Besides the obvious, the collection also includes the typical fare you’d expect from an Ace Attorney collection. A new set of achievements or trophies, a music player, a character viewer, and an art gallery round out an already complete package. The art gallery is particularly cool, allowing you to examine art from the episodes in greater detail. The character viewer feels like a step back from Apollo Justice, lacking the “create your own” mechanics that the collection had. But it’s a nice inclusion that, as always, makes this compilation feel all-encompassing.

Though, easily, the most significant overhaul the games have received is visual. The original game featured a cute pixel-based sprite style, zooming into the better-detailed portraits whenever characters spoke to each other. Ace Attorney Investigations Collection features a new high-definition art style that closely mimics the style of the portraits when in conversations instead. The completely redrawn visuals are great, making the animations look much more lively and consistent with the other Ace Attorney games. That being said, such a dramatic change is bound to upset purists, so the original art style is selectable, too, so both camps are catered for here.

And it’s just as well, too, as, like previous collections, Ace Attorney: Investigations Collections follows in similar footsteps to the previous collections Capcom has been putting out. It’s far and away the best way to experience these games; no deductions needed.

The post Ace Attorney Investigations Collection Review – A Deductive Delight appeared first on Press Start.

RPGs, especially those hailing from Japan, are no strangers to tropes and tradition. Series like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Pokemon and plenty more all have their own recurring ideas, or share ideas with the genre, and some of the most memorable entries do well to play with or even subvert what fans expect going into a new game. Visions of Mana strikes a wonderful balance between the identity it’s inherited from its predecessor and the sheer amount of time between entries that’s seen many shifts in genre sensibilities.

To recycle a little of what I said in my preview, Vision of Mana – like the franchise’s other entries – builds on a lot of familiar themes and motifs (a Mana Tree, a legendary sword and so on) but is its own self-contained story with a new cast of characters on an entirely new adventure. In this particular world, all communities have been built around the nature and geography of eight distinct elements, and all are kept safe and prosperous by the mythical Mana Tree. The upkeep of said tree is reliant on a pilgrimage carried out every four years by an appointed group of “Alms,” each of whom represent a particular element, and under the protection of a Soul Guard. That responsibility now rests on Val, along with a steadily-growing entourage in what is initially the very same pilgrimage but quickly becomes something more as a series of events steers the group toward uncomfortable truths.

Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot more I’m willing to say about the specific beats of Visions of Mana’s story, because it’s all best experienced fresh. What I can say though, is the game does a markedly excellent job at leaning into its history and the stories that came before and inspired it while also posing deeper philosophical questions. Though it eventually veers back into tried-and-true swords and sorcery stuff, the game spends a good portion of its middle act exploring ideas of personal autonomy in the face of dogmatism and systems of faith, and does so in a way that feels completely contextual to the journey.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $94 FROM AMAZON

Said journey is a globetrotting trip of about 30-35 hours for those just wanting to see the key story beats and “save the world,” but there’s plenty more to do besides and a lot more to discover about this curious world and those that live in it. I spent about 60 hours all up getting the absolute most out of the game, which impressively continues to expand all the way up to, and beyond, the credits. Occasionally-heavy narrative moments aside, there’s a degree of whimsy here that’s emblematic of the Mana series and makes existing in this world feel warm and inviting all the way through, and really encourages taking the time.

There’s definitely a huge tendency towards “fetch” style side quests, with most folks you meet seemingly having saved up all their worst errands to ask them of the one group in their entire world that is guaranteed to be doing something much more important. There are some enjoyable arcs off the beaten path though – like an ongoing quest series where you look for spots in the environment matching certain paintings. They’re not complex but they encourage you to really explore and find new angles and views, often taking me to places I wouldn’t have otherwise known were there. They also tend to highlight Visions of Mana’s most annoying adherence to a genre trope – ruining an otherwise very flexible fast travel system by forcing you to manually sail or fly between continents any time you want to leave the one you’re on.

The nuisances of travel aside, there’s an interesting rhythm to progression in this game, a lot of it coming down to the eight elements this world is built on. As you make your way across continents, meeting new Alms and acquiring each legendary “Elemental Vessel,” not only are you give new ways to traverse – like wind-powered platforms or bridges of light – but a wealth of new options to build out your party with Visions of Mana’s unique “class” system. Here, every character is capable of equipping any of the eight Elemental Vessels, essentially offering up eight entirely different classes per character, each with unique abilities, buffs, gear and overall look.

Admittedly, my first handful of hours with Visions of Mana had me concerned that combat was also going to be too repetitive, but as I got deeper in and gained access to all of the classes while also amassing a greater library of abilities it all started to click into place. See, in this game, how you perform in battle is just as much about how you compose your party as it is about the buttons you press in the moment. That might sound obvious for an RPG, but it’s truer here more than a lot of similar games I’ve played. Without the right combinations of characters, elemental vessels, ability seeds and gear it’s possible to be completely eclipsed by enemies even within or below your level range, and vice versa with the right stuff.

And rather than gently locking your party members into particular paths or archetypes, the game actively encourages you to constantly be switching classes around and experimenting with different combinations – on higher difficulties and in tricker fights it almost becomes a puzzle of studying the enemy’s affinities and move set and building the appropriate team around them. For those less inclined toward micromanaging various builds, there’s still plenty of room to “button mash,” especially on lower difficulties, but there’s so much satisfaction in gaming every system for the best possible outcome. Plus, your ultimate reward for mastering all of these classes is a huge amount of power and flexibility to create some truly cracked builds for your New Game+ run, really emphasising this game’s steady and incredibly satisfying power climb.

Simply running around each of the game’s distinct areas is rewarding in itself as well, not just in your efforts to acquire new gear and potential, or for the way it all factors into this economy of elements, but because they all look positively lovely. Visions of Mana has to be one of my favourite examples of art triumphing over technology in a game of this scope. The game doesn’t seem to be pushing a lot of fancy effects or middleware to achieve its lush, vibrant and dynamic environments – instead, it’s simply crafted with a huge amount of effort and care with a clear vision. At almost any point in the game you could stop, look out at your surroundings and see what looks like a gorgeous bit of concept art or something you’d see on the cover of a SNES RPG classic (I’ll let you imagine what that might entail).

It’s a great melding of the kinds of designs Mana fans will be familiar with and want to see in a new entry, with slightly more modern sensibilities and razor-sharp design. Going through all of the main party’s outfit variants for each class is especially delightful with some truly outlandish gear that’s as densely-embellished as the game’s environments. The unfortunate trade-off, at least in the PS5 version’s “Quality” setting, is that performance can suffer in busy scenes and battles. It still seems to be a 60FPS target, but there are moments where it’s far below that, making the “Performance” option worth the trade-off in fidelity.

But while the visual side of things is mostly splendid, the sound design in Visions of Mana is a little less of a success. Musically, it’s decent with some memorable themes and motifs scoring big moments of story, exploration and combat, balancing out a fair few otherwise-average pieces. The voice acting, too, is competent with plenty of well-matched and well-performed scripts, but suffers from a near-total lack of lip syncing to the English audio track. 

The biggest sin though, is the sheer amount of repeated lines when exploring or battling and the frequency in which they’re used. Val, for instance, has exactly two reactions to picking up a bit of Grizzly syrup – and he’ll utter either of them nearly every time you collect one, which is almost constantly. Switching your controlled party member every now and then somewhat mitigates it, but after 50-odd hours you’ll have heard some clips literally hundreds of times. I’m not kidding when I say I started hearing “Grrrizly!!” in my sleep. It’s not an uncommon criticism in these games, but it’s especially egregious here.

The post Visions Of Mana Review – A Dazzling Trip To The Mana Tree appeared first on Press Start.

It’s been almost four years since Game Science revealed Black Myth: Wukong to the world. A lot has happened in the industry in that time, most importantly for Game Science, is the increased success of triple A titles from the East. While Japan has always been a force to be reckoned with in gaming, countries like Korea and China had yet to tap into Western audiences in a big way.

That’s all changed in the last few years, with miHoYo’s live service behemoths shaking up the landscape of free to play experiences and Shift Up’s Stellar Blade also making its long-awaited debut earlier this year. This newfound audience coupled with some pretty impressive showcases painted Black Myth: Wukong as a technical showcase for Unreal Engine 5 with high-octane melee combat. The end result is an enjoyable experience that feels a bit lost in its muddled identity and frustrates in many aspects of its design.

The one thing I cannot fault Black Myth: Wukong for, even if I tried, is in its story, world, and characters. Even as someone who isn’t familiar with Journey to the West, it’s clear that Game Science have a deep appreciation for the source material and its impact on East Asian culture. Each of the game’s five main chapters is thematically rich, dripping with little story details and lore that’s always a joy to uncover. It certainly helps to have familiarity with the original works, but even an outsider can admire the artistry and faith with which its all presented.

Instead of retelling a story that’s been told in many formats over the years, Game Science positions Black Myth: Wukong as its own story supplemental to the original works. Long after Sun Wukong fell to the Celestial Court, a monkey of Mount Huaguo comes to be known as the Destined One. Tasked with collecting six Relics that pertain to each of Wukong’s six-senses, the Destined One sets out on a journey across China to bring the Monkey King back from his incapacitation.

The categorical highlights of the story are the utterly gorgeous animated cutscenes that serve as bookends to each of the game’s chapters. These pieces employ their own distinct animation style, offering a different visual treat as you close out a major portion of the Destined One’s story. From traditional Chinese paintings all the way through to stop-motion animation, Black Myth: Wukong keeps you engaged in its narrative with wildly imaginative and varied presentation. They also provide more context to the events and characters found in the related chapter, expanding the world and story in satisfying fashion.

There’s been a lot of comparisons thrown around to try and describe Black Myth: Wukong. From Dark Souls to the recent God of War games, it’s hard to properly pin down where Wukong fits on the spectrum of action games. I think that the most apt comparison is to Team Ninja’s recent titles, specifically Nioh, and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty.

Much like those games, the Destined One has access to a light attack combo string and heavy attacks. The key difference being that heavy attacks are charged and empowered with Focus, which is generated by successfully landing light attacks. You also have access to three distinct stances that change how the heavy attack behaves, but there’s no substantial evolution from there in terms of combos and weapon attacks. It’s all managed by a stamina system which dictates how often you can attack, roll, run, typical stuff if you’ve played a Souls-like before.

Where a lot of the combat flexibility comes in, is with Spells and core progression. As you move through the early chapters, the Destined One will gain access to a slew of Spells to use in combat. These are governed by a Mana bar separate to Stamina, and also go on cooldown once used. That’s because these effects are quite powerful. From freezing enemies in place for free hits with Immobilize to creating countless clones of yourself to wail on enemy on combat through A Pluck of Many, there are plenty of ways to pull yourself out of tricky situations when the going gets tough.

You also have Spirits and Transformations. The former are very similar to Yokai Skills from Nioh 2, allowing you to absorb enemy spirits, taking their own hard-hitting attacks into your own toolset. Transformations are similar to another Nioh 2 mechanic called Yokai Shift, letting you take the form of another being for a brief window. Not only does this transformation have it’s own health bar, but also has its own attacks that often inflict elemental ailments and are capable of dishing out big damage in fights.

All of these things plug directly into Black Myth: Wukong’s progression system. Levelling up nets you skill points which can be invested into many different trees that provide static and active upgrades to the Destined One. There is so much to choose from here, allowing you to experiment with builds that focus on different stances and build goals even if you’re always doing the same dance in combat. It helps that you can respec these points at any time to trying something new, affording a level of flexibility in how you approach combat that isn’t often seen in these kinds of games.

Another creative stroke that plays into builds is how Black Myth: Wukong handles its healing. Not unlike Souls, the Destined One has a gourd with a set amount of drinks per rest. It can of course be upgraded to increase its capacity, but it can also be customised to change its effect. You can choose what kind of Drink to fill the gourd with, fundamentally altering how each sip heals you. You can go for a Drink with a front-loaded healing burst, or one that offers less on initial consumption, but ultimately heals for more over time. You can also add Soaks into these drinks to improve your stats or resistances upon using a drink, further deepening the customisation.

Because there isn’t much going on beyond weapon combos and dodging in the moment-to-moment combat, there’s a lot riding on enemy variety and encounter design. Black Myth: Wukong is a bit of a mixed bag in this regard. There are a load of unique enemies to contend with here, steadily rolled out across the different chapters. The main issue is that they aren’t really placed with much rhyme or reason. The exploration of areas between bosses often feel phoned in and arbitrary in that regard, leaving much of the focus on those tentpole encounters.

Bosses overall fair much better. They’re incredibly cinematic, awe-inspiring in scale, and some offer some genuine challenge that I got a thrill out of overcoming. There’s also a ludicrous amount of them for a game of this type, even more shocking is just how high quality some of them are given the sheer number of them. Not all are made equal, though. A few have attacks or mechanics that can feel unfair, there’s myriad hitbox issues, and the camera doesn’t like to cooperate at the best of times. It means that chapters constantly bounce between some very high highs, and some frustrating lows.

It’s difficulty is also wildly inconsistent. The first chapter has a pretty steady curve that the game fails to maintain in its subsequent levels, often throwing easy boss after easy boss at you until the challenge suddenly spikes, roadblocking you for the near future. I’m all for a challenge in these kinds of games, but it often feels like Black Myth: Wukong is scared to commit to going full Souls-like. What’s more mind-boggling is that there’s no way to change the difficulty, so those who are less accustomed to Souls-like tendencies are in for a rude awakening if they’re expecting an experience more akin to God of War.

If there’s one Souls-like element that Black Myth: Wukong absolutely nails, it’s exploration and secrets. There are plenty of opportunities to venture off the beaten path, especially in later chapters. These detours are almost always rewarded with boss fights, side quests, gear, upgrade materials, and more. It’s always worthwhile to poke your head around the corner to see what might be hiding in the corners of Black Myth: Wukong’s world. Few games manage to evoke the sense of discovery and elation when you solve the game’s many mysteries.

The only real issue with this stuff, is that the game often struggles to define where level boundaries start and end. Each area looks and feels organic, which is a real treat to look at, but often means you’re met with invisible walls or unclimbable surfaces despite other similar geometry being traversable. Coupled with the lack of a map of any kind, and Black Myth: Wukong can often feel labyrinthian and restrictive in how you explore its environments. The final chapter in particular really suffers due to this, as it adopts a much more non-linear design with nothing to guide you in the right direction.

Being the next big technical showcase for Unreal Engine 5, there’s been a lot of anticipation for Black Myth: Wukong’s production values. I’m happy to report that this game far exceeds many of the expectations set by prior trailers and demos, making incredible use of Unreal Engine 5’s strengths in tandem with an art style that’s all too fitting for this kind of game.

It is consistently packed with detail, from the individual detail of each hair strand on the Destined One to the wildly imaginative design of the creatures you’ll encounter on your journey. Each area brings its own environment, colour palette, enemy designs, and overall visual aesthetic, delivering a swathe of diverse and detailed areas. It feels truly otherworldly in a way that few games do. While I can’t speak to the performance on PlayStation 5, the PC version held a steady framerate, even on my mid-range rig, which is very impressive given the sheer level of visual fidelity on display here.

Black Myth: Wukong might not be the definitive game of the year candidate most were hoping for, but it’s undoubtedly another feather in the cap of triple A games coming out of the East. If this is just the first step for Game Science in a franchise or other games like this, it’s a very solid foundation, and I’d be very excited to see what else they can do if the studio took another crack at this sort of experience.

The post Black Myth: Wukong Review – An Inspired Journey appeared first on Press Start.

Favourable or not, a review is unlikely to change the present discourse around Concord. It may already be too late for the ambitious, PVP first-person shooter — and the debut release from the new PlayStation first-party studio, Firewalk Studios. The internet seems to have already made up its mind.

Concord, as a reminder, is the Guardians of the Galaxy-esque hero shooter first announced at a PlayStation showcase last year. It’s the latest iteration of PlayStation’s live-service push, albeit with an emphasis on narrative with weekly story vignettes. A beta for the game occurred some weeks ago and was met with a middling reception.

Several factors might explain the poor reception. The announcement received backlash for leading with the narrative elements before revealing it was a hero shooter. An understandable scepticism surrounds PlayStation’s much-critiqued shift in strategy towards live-service titles. The $60 price tag attached to the multiplayer-only title stands in stark contrast to the free-to-play model adopted by many of Concord’s competitors.

It’s a shame. Concord is a nicely presented, well-designed and surprisingly unique competitive hero shooter. The decisions holding the game back seem more strategic blunders than the fault of the developers. Speaking to them recently, they tow the party line whilst speaking ever so passionately about the game and world they’ve built.

They should be proud, as any developer should. Spending the majority of the weekend playing the game, I find myself writing this eager to play more even with its shortcomings.

Concord’s design is a unique twist on the hero shooter genre. Rather than pointing players towards a single character — and ‘maining’ said character — you are actively encouraged to flick between a few mid-match.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $49 WITH FREE SHIPPING FROM AMAZON

Different classes of character (or Freegunners, as they’re called) award Crew Bonuses, awarding perks to each you select thereafter. Play as Emari and get increased healing. Then play as Lennox, you’ll keep increased healing and add improved weapon range. Switch to IT-Z and get both bonuses, plus improved mobility. Every character is enjoyable to play and a meaningful addition to a crew.

Assembling a crew and putting a plan into action is immensely rewarding. I often started a match as Roka picking up some quick elims whilst getting a mobility buff, before switching to Haymar and improving my range. That allowed me to play Emari without as significant a penalty to her mobility as a tank, and better range on the minigun.

When it all comes together, combat is super rewarding and produces some tense, competitive matches. Each character’s loadout is varied but equally versatile, the gunplay is tight, the dodge makes for handy last-minute getaways, and the mad dash to a health pickup creates some tense cat-and-mouse moments. Certain the moment-to-moment gameplay is the game’s strong suit.

Been playing a tonne of Concord this weekend and enjoying it thoroughly! Here’s a tidy 7 elimination streak playing as Lennox ?? pic.twitter.com/EDcn96eaHl

— Ewan Roxburgh (@Ewan_Roxburgh) August 25, 2024

For now, the game has six modes grouped into three playlists: Takedown (team deathmatch), Trophy Hunt (kill confirmed), Area Control (domination), Signal Hunt (hardpoint), and the no-respawn modes Cargo Hunt (search and destroy) and Clash Point (king of the hill).

Plotting out which characters you’ll select in different phases of the match, across different modes, adds an interesting layer of strategy that makes the game deeper than it appears at face value. The team at Firewalk are right to compare it to a trading card game in terms of planning out late-game plays by carefully selecting the cards (or characters) you play first.

Frustratingly, the game does a poor job of explaining this mechanic. Those without the attention span to look beyond a Freegunner’s loadout and abilities might miss one of the more interesting elements of the game.

The added tutorial section to the game post-beta doesn’t do enough to explain it but a welcome addition to the game to onboard new players. Concord seems rather approachable for newcomers to the hero shooter genre.

For now, however, the game feels light on content. Granted it’s only the first week, but over a couple of evenings I completed my weekly, seasonal and variant challenges, leaving me with little consequential to progress until the weekly reset.

Of course, you could continue ranking up your Freegunners and your overall Reputation level, but often there’s not much of a carrot being tangled.

Progression feels a little unrewarding. None of the skins or other customisations you could unlock excited me. Even if they did, how you unlock any particular item is not explained. You can only ever see your next unlock and must wait until you complete that to see what’s next.

Uninteresting unlocks seem to be a consequence of character design that prioritises recognisable silhouettes over player expression. Granted, it works well on the battlefield; at a glance, you can see who’s coming at you and adjust your approach accordingly. Comparing it to another hero shooter though, Apex Legends did such a great job of offering interesting character and weapons customisations without confusing.

Concord lacks a little personality. An effort is no doubt made but like an over-enthusiastic guy at a party trying a little too hard to be your friend. There’s a heavy-handedness to the delivery that irks me. Given that you can skip straight past them, I expect these vignettes to do something rather special to earn the view.

An introductory cutscene and the first week’s vignette favour Lennox over the others. It’s early days sure, but there is little to showcase the characters out of the box. The rest of them have a single throwaway voice line repeated upon selecting them in a match and touches of dialogue in-game. The only one I can say is particularly memorable is Roka chanting “Roka, Roka, Roka” after running up a streak.

What the game lacks in charisma, however, it makes up for in art direction. I adore the 70s sci-fi aesthetic; the maps, characters and weapons are all distinctive but fit together. It carries over to the UI and sound design too. Bar a couple of hiccups in the framerate and menus sometimes not loading, it’s a smooth experience with the level of polish you would expect from a first-party release.

PlayStation has been eager to promote the world of Concord in the marketing of this new IP. I hope Firewalk Studios gets the opportunity to explore it further, but for now, it’s not terribly impactful. Presently it feels like a missed opportunity to set up each match with little than some text suggesting “a rival crew is challenging you.”

I’m eager to see more weekly vignettes, for however long Firewalk can justify doing so. Hopefully, surprising stories emerge.

Outside of the vignettes, Concord’s lore is relegated to flavour text and the Galactic Guide. There are some interesting concepts tied up in this. The

Tempest at the far left side of the map is an unexplained phenomenon seemingly gobbling up and distorting parts of the galaxy. Gloom, one of my favourite maps in the game, has an asteroid in the centre that the Galactic Guide reveals was the focus of religious studies by an ancient species that once occupied the planet.

There’s interesting lore embedded in here that may influence how the game shapes and evolves. I foresee a day when The Tempest swallows up sections of the galaxy in an event akin to Fortnite’s major map resets.

Will a community be there to bear witness to these events? Concord wouldn’t be the first live-service game to turn things around should it pull it off, but the odds are stacked against it at this point.

Much has been said about Concord’s pricing. Truthfully, I can rationalise the $60 price tag: all that purchase Concord gets its 6 modes, 12 maps, 16 characters and unlocks, wrapped up in a premium, AAA package. If three-quarters of the unlocks were tied to a Battle Pass, I have little doubt there would be a negative reaction to that too.

It doesn’t differ all that much from Helldivers II where the first Warbond was included in the same $60 price. Given the opportunity, I’m sure Concord will introduce more paid elements too.

What I can’t rationalise regarding the price is the lack of competitive analysis. Going up against the likes of Overwatch, Marvel Rivals and Apex Legends — to name a few — fans of the genre are accustomed to the free-to-play model.

Saw someone do this in Concord and wanted to give it a go myself ? pic.twitter.com/9TuEkOuVGW

— Ewan Roxburgh (@Ewan_Roxburgh) August 26, 2024

Without hype or an overwhelmingly positive word of mouth, it’s hard to imagine many giving the game the time of day. Adding Concord to the Game Catalogue reserved for PlayStation Extra and Premium subscribers seems like a no-brainer to me.

Content brings community, and a community brings content. It’s an almost chicken-and-the-egg scenario, or at least a delicate balancing act.

For a live-service game, I feel like the game lacks a little staying power. The core gameplay is engaging and is the reason I’m coming back for now, but I struggle to see what keeps me coming back long-term if not more modes, ranked lobbies and must-have unlocks.

From there, the full extent of Firewalk Studio’s ambitious vision can come alive.

The post Concord Review – Time To Change Course appeared first on Press Start.

Star Wars Outlaws lives and dies on its most marketed aspect– the scoundrel fantasy. Shifting the perspective character in the galaxy far, far away from sword-wielding monk or Rebel pilot to a humble street rat gifts Outlaws a unique viewpoint and gameplay systems with which to push and pull at the edges of an otherwise familiar universe. This is, we’re told, decidedly not an epic tale of light and dark but a more personal story as we get to put boots on the ground of Star Wars’ seedy underbelly, the syndicate-dominated world of illegal trade, fast lies, and faster Credits.

Clambering her way out from the lowest socioeconomic rung of the opulent Canto Bight, Kay Vess’ ambitions of a new life land her current one squarely in the scope of the emerging crime syndicate Zerek Besh. Having crossed its leader Sliro and landing on the wrong side of a much wider conflict, Kay and her pet bestie Nix commandeer a ship and lightspeed jump into scoundrel on the run before either of them are ready. For all her bluster, Kay is a small-town girl in a big-city world and with a looming Death Mark dogging her every move, she soon finds herself in the employ of the smooth-talking Jaylen and his impossibly hot droid, ND-5.

Structurally speaking Outlaws cribs a lot from classic heist films; a likeable everywoman needs to put together a crew of appropriately quirky specialists while navigating the competing needs of the crime world’s biggest and baddest. This loosely allows developer MASSIVE Entertainment a narrative framework to implement the patented Ubisoft Open-World loop as Kay can freely-ish move between a handful of planets, gathering up resources, taking on odd jobs, raiding bases, and planning the big final heist, you know, the one that’s gonna get them all out of the game for good this time.

THE CHEAPEST COPY: $89 FROM AMAZON WITH FREE SHIPPING

Landing somewhere between the third-person action-adventure structure of Uncharted and the open-zone, immersive Star Wars vibe-extravaganza of Jedi: Survivor, Outlaws plots an uneven path through the galaxy. It is, on paper, exactly the kind of game fans have been clamouring for and will undoubtedly scratch a deep-seated itch for many. It’s also keenly aware of this though and subsequently seeks to craft an experience as frictionless and smooth as possible within the confines of its genre and tropes. Whether or not that gives you a bad feeling about this is up to you.

Outlaws, despite its scope and scale, is strangely hyper-focused. The limited range of action verbs it offers the player as Kay has a flattening effect on the game’s mechanical pacing, the final heist feeling systemically identical to the dozens of repeated Imperial bases you cleared while exploring and the tutorial mission you did way back when this all kicked off. It runs amok on the sense of scale in the galaxy, as everything from syndicate hideout to Imperial garrison to ancient waterways feels functionally indistinguishable thanks to heavy asset reused, linear climbing sections, and endlessly recycled hacking minigames that lose their charm before you’ve left your first planet. 

There is a small escalation of available tools as Kay meets Experts, named characters who exist to abstract traditional skill trees into ostensibly more immersive, free-form gameplay expressions. Say you want Nix’s senses to reach further or your stealth takedowns to impact heavies, instead of investing points in a menu now you’ll run odd jobs for palatable faces and complete arbitrary challenges while exploring. In many ways this is a step in the right direction for Ubisoft, especially given that the skills Experts offer aren’t linear and can be focused at your discretion. But even a glance at the full list of upgrades reveals how little Outlaws will offer you at your best and how much it has stripped from you to do so.

Some of it tracks with conventional modern RPG-lite design; health upgrades and additional inventory slots bolstering additional stealth options like smoke bombs. Others though seem to have been reverse-engineered for the sake of it; your speeder, a BMX hoverbike, is awkward when you first begin exploring but can be “upgraded” to feel like something you’d actually want to use, same with your ship the Trailblazer, which controls like a shopping cart full of rocks until a Glup Shitto says its time for it to start feeling fun. Throttling the player like this feels like an attempt to slow the inevitable realisation of how little Outlaws has to offer beyond its opening hours but it has the opposite effect, rapidly exposing the game’s dated and overly simplistic mechanics.

These rudimentary systems are truly put through their paces in the game’s middling level design and mission structure. Outlaws leans surprisingly hard on stealth, often placing you in instant fail scenarios that expose baseline limitations and odd pain points. Moving through a space, Kay can crouch to ostensibly muffle sounds, crawl through vents to avoid line-of sight detection, and use Nix to distract enemies and so on. You’ve seen these loops before, but Outlaws struggles to make them functional; I would frequently and loudly jog behind guards who remained blissfully unaware, those same guards just as likely to walk over a dead body as they were to react to it, though could clock me from a mile away if they decided it was time to.

This strains on moment-to-moment enjoyment and immersion but has a disastrous impact on segments that will boot you back five minutes if spotted even once. And it cascades from there with Outlaws as missions break requiring hard reloads, level design and garish UI fail to communicate basic directions, and enemy pathing and AI feel absent. It grates more often than it impresses but MASSIVE rightfully has a reputation in the shooter space for its work on the Division titles and there are moments in Outlaws that feel of a piece with this legacy. A stripped-back third-person shooter that forgoes a constant arsenal or cover for an on-the-fly vibe, Kay will wing it in skirmishes by picking up dropped enemy weapons with limited ammo so as to always return to her reliable sidearm. This concept truly thrives during the Empire’s WANTED threat as imperials bring Hell down on Kay in escalating and tense shootouts. 

It’s a nice bit of narrative and mechanical synergy and the blaster, a fully customisable weapon with several alternate firing modes and power modules, feels decent if never truly great. MASSIVE’s pedigree rears its head with some of the stray weapons you’ll find during combat, with a solid range of blaster types and a Star Wars arse shotgun that I would have killed to always have on me if just for how much fun it was to use. Kay can also whip out a thermal detonator or two but doing so is staggeringly clumsy, requiring you to hold left on the D-pad to access a submenu, fully halting movement as you leave the left stick cold in the process.  

So, Outlaws finds itself with two distinct playstyles but no real penchant for either, oscillating between fine and frustrating, basic and busted. For all the mindless vibes of the Far Cry games I could at least rely on their shooting to be consistently enjoyable and stealth systems, however stripped back, reliable. Outlaws offers no such smooth-brained ease, no flow state as Kay trips around scenarios that feel unpolished and fundamentally unengaging. To say nothing of the space combat that places you in some admittedly stunning nebulas but only provides barebones shield and laser management and a whole lot of dead air between where you jump into a system and the planet you’re trying to reach.

Comfort then is to be sought in the gorgeously rendered open-zones, the wheeling and dealing of syndicate powers and the loosely desirable “Star Wars” of it all. Here, at least, MASSIVE’s promise of immersion finds some solid ground as the assorted planets and environments Kay can meander through are universally impressive from both a technical and vibes perspective. The Snowdrop engine puts in the work as spaces feel appropriately dense and gritty, evoking the sights and sounds of Star Wars in ways that lull you into a serene and welcome sense of place, made whole by the game’s excellent emulation of camera lenses from the original trilogy.

Where Outlaws struggles is finding much meaning in this impressive tonal recreation. Not a single explorable hub location feels untouched by care but not a single one I found offers anything markedly different from any other, a series of beautifully crafted theme park attractions where the workers can sell you something and not much else. Kay can’t flip a table in a cantina and fire stray shots, civilian hubs deemed non-combat areas.

Likewise, the lauded Lens Project (MASSIVE’s use of Snowdrop tech to capture the specific lighting and image composition off 70s camera lenses) is a neat trick deployed to no discernible end as the game’s in-engine cutscenes showcase no cinematic flair and the pre-rendered ones move like YouTube fan films. It’s a long way to go to create a world so laboriously dedicated to Star Wars without bothering to understand that it wasn’t the camera or dirt that made those films what they were in the first place.

The syndicate system is ambitiously interesting at least, allowing you to define Kay’s loyalties through a series of choices big and small that impact your standing with any of the four major crime organisations in the game. So, as an ardent Solo: A Star Wars Story defender, I lent toward aiding the rise of Crimson Dawn and its queen Qi’ra, taking every chance I could to steal, frame, and sabotage other syndicates if it helped my CD pals. This raises a reputation bar and unlocks higher level missions (most of which have you doing the same stealth/shooting loop but with a dangerous tag on them for some reason), unique items and cosmetics, and how thugs in the world react to your presence. The syndicates themselves are relatively affable, from your iconic Hutts and Pykes to the strangely coded Ashiga Clan, an Outlaws original creation that leans all the way into Orientalism and has insectoid aliens espousing the “ronin” path and honour codes. 

It also falls apart in the face of Outlaws’ competing priorities as a linear narrative experience. You can spend hours roaming planets running missions for the syndicate of your choice but if the next major story beat requires that same syndicate and Kay to have a falling out, enjoy watching your Reputation decrease and your investment deflate. The final mission of the game jarringly remembers it ostensibly allowed you to align yourself with someone and folds in whichever clan leader you have the highest rating with at the time, which for me meant I went from a rather hardline rejection of a character to playing buddy with them within the space of two hours and no additional context.

It’s not hard to be sympathetic to the balancing act of wanting to allow players to fulfil their fantasy while also wrangling the narrative into a functional shape but Outlaws seems entirely unsure about how to go about this, let alone what it even wants to be by doing so. It’s not just that its composite parts might be incompatible when assembled, it’s a permeating disinterest in its own ideas and world, edges smoothed so nobody could possibly cut themselves and the game becomes incapable of drawing blood.  

Kay Vess is archetypal to a fault, a broad outline of a character whose lines are only beginning to be filled in as the game reaches its goofy narrative conclusions and sidelines her entirely (flowers for Humberly González who does her best to elevate the material). Much ado is made about the relationships that develop between the crew, especially Kay and ND-5, but missions rarely provide more interactivity than idle radio chatter and key moments rely heavily on telling you how much these characters have grown to care about each other rather than showing you in any meaningful way why, or even how, that came to be.

When I first played Outlaws earlier this year, I flagged the potential pitfalls of a game playing with this subject matter trying to remain largely apolitical in its writing, but Outlaws pushes this tension to breaking point with its narrative choices, firmly cementing it as an experience that wants the aesthetics of drama without bearing the weight of perspective or stance. I won’t spoil how things break bad but if you’ve seen any Star Wars media from the past five years you can hazard a pretty likely guess, Outlaws capitulating to fan service in such a convoluted way as to render its already flimsy “scoundrel fantasy” framing and overarching themes mute.

Something you could forgive on a game meant to be this broadly appealing at a scale of production this high if it weren’t for last year’s Jedi: Survivor, a game that Outlaws echoes in a disconcerting number of ways but lacks the perspective and refinement to stand shoulder to shoulder with. The best-case scenario is that this is MASSIVE’s Jedi: Fallen Order, a flawed but relatively ambitious experience that millions will play, and millions more will forgive so that a better version of it might see the light of the twin suns further down the road.

Impressive aesthetic charm and neat ideas aside, Outlaws is simply too unsure of itself to make much of a lasting mark. For a game so keen on living the scoundrel fantasy, Outlaws is oddly afraid to shoot first. 

The post Star Wars Outlaws Review – Far, Far Away From Perfect appeared first on Press Start.

Cat Quest III feels like a game laser-targeted at someone like me – a cat enthusiast and aging gamer whose love for the action RPGs they used to sink dozens of hours into far outweighs the actual time and patience they have for them in the present. It’s a game that understands that players, like cats, often have incredibly short attention spans and just want to explore dank crevices and smash shit up. It kinda rules.

In case you missed the first couple of games in the series, and the previous paragraph didn’t paint a clear enough picture, Cat Quest III presents players with what is essentially an abridged take on an open-world action RPG, distilling what would normally be a weeks or months-long dedication into something that could comfortably be knocked over in a weekend. It’s got all the trimmings – gaining experience and levelling up, finding and equipping new gear and abilities, free exploration of a world full of dungeons, caves, castles and towns and a high-stakes tale of world-ending proportions – neatly nestled into a compact and comfy 8-10 hours.

This time around, your adventure takes you to the Purribean, a collection of islands where reside a number of folk from seafaring cats to “Pi-rats” and the tentacular Spicy Squids, all amid a chase for a legendary artifact known as the North Star Treasure. Accompanied by the ghostly, floating cat head Captain Cappey, you find yourself destined to play a role in all of this, and so starts your journey across land and sea to defeat the Pi-rat King, the metal rocking Meowtallika Crew and more.

In keeping with the abridged RPG feel, Cat Quest III keeps all of this as simple as possible by quickly giving you the keys to a seaworthy vessel (do ships have keys?) and letting you sail the waters of the Purribean at your leisure. There’s a loose thread to follow through the journey, but for the most part you’re welcome to land wherever you wish, see if you’re equipped to tackle the enemies and dungeons in the area, and slowly uncover more quests and mysteries across the map. Like the previous games, it’s really not a huge area in terms of actual play space, but it feels big in scale and is rife with opportunities to explore for hidden goodies.

When it comes time to protect yourself, a very simple system of melee strikes, ranged weapons and magic form the game’s combat – again, you may be pretty familiar from the earlier games – but manages to remain fun and interesting all the way through thanks to constant drops of new gear that greatly augment your options and playstyle in battle. There are some especially fun categories, like shields which deal out huge damage ahead of blocking an enemy advance, or claws which are super fast in attack and increase your overall movement speed while wearing them. With limited capacity to equip buffs and other added abilities, you’ll find yourself constantly tinkering with your build and throwing your quickly-accumulating loot down on upgrades.

One thing this third entry really has going for it over the first two is a heap of variety. Aside from the odd cave, dungeons rarely feel the same and boss fights are always interesting and engaging, but more than that there’s always some kind of new gimmick or throwaway mechanic to contend with. One section takes place in a castle with an entirely different visual style, for example, while another quest has you engaging with a romance novel, choose-your-own-adventure style. Add to that your ship with its own abilities and upgrades for naval combat, and you’ll rarely feel any sense of repetition despite the relative mechanical simplicity of it all.

There’s a lot more visual variety, too, with the islands themselves offering all kinds of sights and a much stronger art direction that includes more camera angles and intimate spaces than we’ve seen in the past. Visiting interior areas is always a treat with the pulled-in, side-scrolling camera angle that really shows off some strong environmental design and great character art.

Above all, there’s just a great sense of fun and discovery here, including plenty of really neat hidden secrets to puzzle out – one especially entertaining map discovery may even lead you to new narrative implications… And the best part? The puns. Oh Lord, the puns. Whoever it is at developer The Gentlebros that’s responsible for the writing in this game, hit me up by email if you need an apprentice because, as something of a punnoisseur, rarely is it that I come across game of this calibre. Every time you think, “There can’t possibly exist more cat puns than this,” you’re hit with more cat puns.

Once the credits roll, there’s still plenty of game as well, with a robust New Game+ system that offers a golden path right to the end game encounter, a challenging tower mode, potential new secrets and an increased challenge with a new level cap to boot. There’s also a great two-player couch co-op option that really suits introducing someone new to RPGs or gaming to an adventure that’s more accessible and digestible than most.

The post Cat Quest 3 Review – It’s A Purr-ates Life For Me appeared first on Press Start.

With digital storefronts quickly aging out of business and retailers literally binning unsellable physical media, the topic of video game preservation is front-of-mind for many in the modern day. Putting aside how you might feel about their business model, one group doing respectable work in the field is Limited Run Games, which has put its mouth where its money is with the Carbon Engine – an internally developed, multi-platform tool designed to bridge the game between emulated classics and modern hardware and interfaces. It aims to offer a best-of-both-worlds outcome, presenting retro games with as much accuracy as possible while also embellishing them with up-to-date features and extras.

We’ve already seen the Carbon Engine in action with games like Shantae and River City Girls Zero, but Tombi! is definitely one (aside from Gex, of course) that I’ve been hanging to finally revel in the nostalgia of.

First released on the PS1 in 1997/98, Tomba! (known as Tomba! or Ore! Tomba in other regions) often goes all-too underrepresented in conversations about classic platformers, despite being a fresh and fairly innovative release at the time. I won’t spend too many words on the quality of the game itself – there’s nearly three decades of material out there on it – but playing it back I’m consistently surprised at how well it’s held up. It is, in a lot of ways, an open-world, mission-based RPG presented as a 2.5D platformer with controls, mechanics and gameplay shifts that seem utterly bizarre for about your first 30 minutes of play and then positively delightful thereafter. It’s scrappy in a way that probably didn’t help it compete with your Marios and Sonics of the time, but that just adds to the charm.

In terms of gameplay updates in this re-release, it’s very minimal, no doubt owing to LRG’s desire to keep the original experience preserved and intact. There are some added menus and in-game overlays with various options, but in the moment it’s pretty much identical to the 90s version. You’ve got the option of using analogue controls to move the titular, pink-haired hero around though, which is nice to have in a game where the foreground and background regularly trade importance.

Easily the most revelatory gameplay change in this version of the game is the ability to save your game at any point, rather than having to inconvenience yourself to go and find a signpost to save the original way. Anyone who’s been around any kind of emulation in the past would already be familiar with the idea of save states, of course, but it’s welcome nonetheless. It’s also particularly neat that using the game’s native save posts brings you to the same menu as the new save function, so you’re not running an “official” and “unofficial” file – it’s all integrated. Having access to a quick rewind is similarly handy for those mistimed jumps or frustrating sections, although Tomba! has always been fairly forgiving.

In terms of how it’s all presented, it’s very much mission accomplished on offering something that’s accurate to the original release (at least as far as my memory and a bit of research takes me) while keeping it nice for modern displays. You’ve got the option of playing a raw, unfiltered display or toggling some aspect ratio/CRT filter stuff to achieve a look more aligned to your tastes. That authenticity does come with some pitfalls, like the frequent, long load screens between areas that are just as disruptive now as they were nearly 30 years ago. All of the pre-rendered cutscenes appear to have had as much upscaling done as is reasonably possible but, expectedly, they still look pretty dated and low-quality.

The game’s soundtrack has probably had the most attention with a full-scale re-recording in its entirety by one of the original composers, Harumi Fujita. Fujita has done a fantastic job of recreating the game’s tunes to be much fuller and more dynamic without losing a lot of the charm – though I did find myself pining for the goofy MIDI voices in some of the OG tracks. Luckily, you can swap between the original and remastered versions at will.

Aside from everything in-game, this Special Edition of Tombi! also packs in a bunch of bonus “Museum” type content including some really early design docs and sketches, high-quality scans of covers, manuals and even some deeply weird Japanese magazine ads. 

There’s also a bit of “development footage” which includes a pre-release promo reel and an extremely short but hilariously disarming cutscene concept, though more interesting are a series of interview snippets with creator Tokuro Fujiwara and composer Harumi Fujita about the conception and creation of the game. These are certainly worth watching, even if the presentation of them is a bit barebones with some Windows Movie Maker-level title cards, and a good way to get some context around the game as it was in the 90s before jumping back in or giving it a go for the first time. 

Overall I wouldn’t say the extra stuff isn’t exactly essential, but it’s a decent enough value add for anyone looking to plonk down $25 on this re-release digitally or a $60-100 for the LRG physical versions – either option a steal compared to the hundreds of dollars for an original copy.

The post Tombi! Special Edition Review – Pixel-Perfect Pig Punting appeared first on Press Start.

It’s a bit of an open secret that Star Wars: Bounty Hunter isn’t exactly a great game. Originally developed for the Nintendo GameCube by LucasArts as a loose prequel to Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, you could tell the game was destined to be a fan favourite from the cover art alone. Jango Fett, the chrome and blue Mandalorian precursor to the iconic Boba Fett, blasting across the box with dual pistols firing and jetpack sparking against a rusted Mandalorian sigil. It was, and remains, cool as fuck. Throw in a lengthy, cutscene filled campaign about the seedy underworld of bounty hunting and a dark lord for good measure and you’ve got the exact kind of game to make an early 2000s Star Wars fan very happy. The only issue being it was kinda jank.

And hey, speaking of Star Wars and jank, Aspyr Media’s had a rough run of it lately. Coming off what felt like a string of successful ports of classic games set in the galaxy far, far away, Aspyr’s relationship with Star Wars soured rapidly around the confounding development of the Knights of the Old Republic remake and subsequent return to ports with the crunchy Battlefront Classic Collection. This was, to my mind, always a tremendous shame as the preservation of older titles is crucially important work for any franchise but especially one as storied as Star Wars. It’s a surprise to be sure but a welcome one then that Bounty Hunter is a return to form for a studio that feels at its best reminding us why we loved these games in the first place. 

Relegated to the wonderful, messy halls of Legends now (the pantheon of stories and lore that Disney no longer considers canon to the Star Wars universe), Bounty Hunter weaves its tale with the exact kind of joyful, reckless abandon you could have only found during its particular era of franchise tie-in materials. Across its six chapters and twenty-odd missions, we follow the eventful life of Jango Fett as he finds himself in the employ of Count Dooku in the waning years of the Republic’s era of peace, war bubbling just below the surface as Fett is tasked with tracking down a rogue Dark Jedi. God, remember when we could call someone a “Dark Jedi” and it wasn’t a whole thing? Jango remembers, and following his journey from hunter to mentor and eventual father is solid pulpy fun. 

Bounty Hunter always had an eye for aesthetics and tone, one of the few things that survived its jump to modern hardware back in 2016, but as we come up on a decade since then, the game’s signature jank is rapidly aging. Working with the original GameCube source code, Aspyr has managed to divine an honest-to-goodness port, allowing a pretty staggering level of spit and shine to be applied. Bounty Hunter looks good and plays even better, the clumsiness of the original level design and encounters still very present but mitigated greatly by the ground-up work done to bring controls and presentation fully in line with modern expectations.

The sweeping changes to camera and control schemes are the true highlight. The original game’s camera could be generously described as deranged, opting to control itself in an attempt to track and adjust to the player’s movements and choices. Cool in concept, disastrous in practice. Aspyr’s port gives the camera back to the player with contemporary control methods like full 360 angles and the use of the triggers for aiming. The aiming speed is still a little too slow for my liking, especially when you can amp up the camera swivel to satisfying levels, but the use of standardised controls is still a welcome change. On the PS5 version at least you’ll also experience a few nifty haptic sensations associated with individual weapons, cute flourishes if you’re still into that kind of thing.

This frees the game from its cumbersome inputs and allows for a flow of mostly successful changes. Weapons can be cycled with the D-Pad, and Jango’s signature Bounty Scanner (which shifts the game into first person to scan NPCs and mark them for bounties) is quick equipped with triangle now. Though you can’t quick equip out of it for some reason, meaning you’ll need to actively reach for the D-pad again to switch back to weapons in a strange oversight. Still, it has a holistically uplifting effect on the game, the verticality and layered levels no longer a chore to physically navigate as the camera works with you now instead of against. Granted, if the pain points of the original game’s enemy health balancing were an issue for you that won’t have changed, but giving players a better toolset to engage these issues goes a long way.

These updates are adorned by Bounty Hunter’s glorious shift to widescreen HD. The original game was no slouch in its presentation, squeezing the most out of the GameCube to craft a visual identity adjacent to the shine of the Prequel films, and in tapping right into that source code, Aspyr has juiced this port. Playing the PS4 re-release and this latest effort side by side it really is a marvel how well-realised the visual upgrades feel, from textures to lighting, it’s coherent and relatively polished. There are still visual bugs present, I was able to recreate some across both versions, but nothing game-breaking or particularly noteworthy that I saw during my mad dash across missions.

The package also houses the additional content found in the PS4 version alongside a smattering of new unlockable goodies including a comic and some digital trading cards. You can even grab a Boba Fett skin if you’re looking to fully break the timeline and play as the iconic hunter. It all comes together to make for not only the definitive way to play Star Wars Bounty Hunter but also a return to form for Aspyr’s remastering efforts. This is the platonic ideal of a port, offering the original controls for posterity but allowing players old and new to experience the best of what the game had to offer while updating it to be not only palatable, but genuinely fun for modern audiences.

The post Star Wars: Bounty Hunter Review – Fetter Late Than Never appeared first on Press Start.

Comedy has always been a tricky prospect in video games. There are plenty of games that have been funny in one way or another, sure. Dialogue-rich titles like the Monkey Island series offer plenty of room for jokes, and there’s slapstick fun to be found in things like Untitled Goose Game and Octodad, but the idea of something interactive having the comedic timing of a TV sketch show or sitcom? I would’ve thought that out of reach before playing Thank Goodness You’re Here – a “slapformer” and follow-up effort to 2019’s gross-em-up, The Good Time Garden, from Yorkshire’s Coal Supper. This might be the funniest game I’ve played since Katamari Damacy.

TGYH opens with a simple enough goal. You, a small and balding white collar chump, have been tasked by your boss to visit the town of Barnsworth (loosely based on the South Yorkshire town of Barnsley where the studio originates from) to sell their mayor… something. The details hardly matter though, because on arrival you’re told there’ll be bit of a wait for your appointment, and rather than sit in an office waiting room for hours you’re free to explore this quaint borough and take in the sights – and the locals.

As it turns out, the folks of Barnsworth are an interesting lot, packed with an unmistakably Yorkshire charm and, more importantly, in dire need of help. Luckily for them, this is a video game, and so we as the player are naturally compelled to assist – and thus forms the adventure. Occupying your time as you wait for your meeting with its mayor, your tour through the town sees you take on a number of core objectives, each beginning with the meeting of another of Barnsworth’s barmy denizens, who’ll exclaim the game’s title and divulge to you the nature of the circumstance they’re in – a circumstance only a tiny visitor on entirely unrelated business can solve. 

You might need to help Ron of Ron’s Big Pies with a meat supply issue, for example, or attempt to calm a fruit and veg shop owner who’s snapped after a few too many comments on his enormous noggin. The solutions to Barnsworth’s problems are never as simple as they seem, and you’ll find going to some strange lengths (and strange locations) in the name of doing favours for a bunch of complete strangers.

Of course, between these core tasks are a multitude of other encounters with, and favours for, other Barnsworthians. You’re wholeheartedly encouraged to slap everything and everyone in sight – in fact it’s your primary means of interaction in a game with but two functional commands, slap and jump. Your little guy doesn’t speak, but a quick biff’ll usually have the other party chatting or, in the case of more inanimate objects, help you figure out how to get wherever it is you need to go. It’s ostensibly a point-and-click-style adventure game peppered with vignettes of side-scrolling platform gameplay, trimmed of inventory faff and with far more hitting.

One thing that this game does wonderfully is keep you on-task and headed in the right direction without any guidance whatsoever. Where the complete lack of any noted objectives or waypointing might spell doom for a similar game, Barnsworth’s stories continue with each repeated lap of its streets, ‘steads and surrounds so that you’re always enticed by a new door opened, a new citizen in strife or a new and mysterious hole to penetrate. Some of the game’s best gags come from these round trips as jokes recur or develop over time, even just from wandering the one area in circles while you look for a crucial interaction, so there’s almost never any downtime. And if all else fails, slapping something that’s gone heretofore un-slapped is usually a good way to go.

There’s a modest bit of replay value if you’re the sort to want to see every possible bit of dialogue or throwaway joke, though after my third(ish) playthrough to nab the game’s platinum trophy I was well and truly tired of traversing the same handful of streets. I can see some players becoming frustrated with the lack of direction as well, and coupled with the fact that there’s no way to revisit earlier sequences or even choose anything other than “New Game” once you’ve rolled credits, it’s certainly a barebones presentation. With a runtime of less than three hours and with how rapidly the game fires out new jokes or absurd scenes though, you really won’t have time to feel down on it.

Crucially, TGYH is consistently hilarious. Anyone who’s grown up on absurdist British comedies like Monty Python will be right at home in Barnsworth from the bustling local chippy to the dankest, bean-strewn alleyways. It’s all incredibly sharp, shamefully gross, frequently illogical and instantly quotable. Thanks to the semi-linear nature of the adventure, Coal Supper has managed to pull off some incredible feats of comedic timing, either in gameplay or the multitude of cutaway scenes, all of which are wonderfully animated and acted.

The game’s art is a triumph all round, making Barnsworth a truly unique and memorable place rendered with crude but gorgeous hand-drawn characters and environments, and backed up by an appropriately-tooty soundtrack and a voice cast that includes the inevitable Matt Berry as a hose-sucking, fertiliser-fucking, tomato-munching gardener besides. The aforementioned lack of any in-game menus or guidance means there’s never any on-screen clutter or anything to take you out of the moment, either – though it does give players the option at the beginning to receive their subtitles and UI in Yorkshire dialect among the other available languages, which is brilliant.

It’s all capped off by a perfect finale, both thematically and artistically, that I won’t get out of my head any time soon, and a secret, alternate ending that’s less rewarding but just as *chef’s kiss* – both of which exemplify the underlying wit of even the most ridiculous and absurd media British sketch comedies.

The post Thank Goodness You’re Here Review – It’s Reyt Good appeared first on Press Start.

At a time where the rise of AI-generated imagery is seeing web destinations and social media platforms crowded with low-effort, high environmental-cost “content,” it feels more important than ever to recognise the parts of genuine artistry that even the most powerful large language models can’t replicate – the human holding the pen, the brush, the camera. The moments and people that inspire. The legacy that art and artists leave behind. 

Playing The Star Named EOS, the latest story-rich puzzle adventure from Behind The Frame’s Silver Lining Studio, not only reminded me of the inherent magic of photography and the way that a photo allows us to capture and preserve a moment in time, but the importance of the hands and eyes guiding that lens, choosing that moment and putting in-frame only the exact piece of our world that we wish to pass along.

Through this story of Dei, a shutterbug following his mother’s photographic journey via a series of letters and polaroids chronicling her time across a number of picturesque-looking locations, the game manages to say a lot with comfortingly little – something about pictures and four-digit word counts, you know? I don’t want to delve too much into the story here as it unfolds quite wonderfully in the game’s brisk, two-hour runtime and I’d hate to ruin any of it. Suffice it to say that there’s more than first meets the eye and the closing scenes elicit a ton of emotions.

In simplest terms, The Star Named EOS sticks closely to the path laid out by the studio’s previous work gameplay-wise, placing players in a number of different beautifully-drawn scenes in which they’ll need to prod, poke and puzzle their way through to a conclusion. In this case, the goal in most scenes is to recreate a photo left to Dei by his mother, revisiting the same scenes and collecting the right objects to frame it just the same. Puzzles are very point-and-click in nature – you’ll need to find objects and clues in your surroundings to open locked containers, complete mechanisms or figure out important details. There’s nothing hugely taxing on the ol’ grey matte here, but it’s all pretty satisfying to solve.

The real highlight is being able to pore over each of the environments, which are all hand-drawn scenes but presented in a panoramic, first-person viewpoint that works to startling effect. It’s particularly impressive whenever you whip your camera out and watch these technically-2D elements go in and out of focus. Some parts of the game are also accompanied by fully-animated sequences complete with voice acting and some slick production values.

Like its previous games, it’s the way in which Silver Lining Studio manages to marry gameplay, visuals and storytelling to bring its core messages to life. Here, it’s those same things I articulated upfront. The Star Named EOS explores how we’re able to filter the world around us through our own lens, and in each photo pass on the things that are important to us and those we share them with – good or bad. It’s not a photography sim by any stretch, but the way the game makes us active participants in inheriting and understanding these moments is extraordinary.

To highlight the tiny but distracting marks on this particular image, I can imagine that some players will be disappointed to find there’s almost nothing in the way of a hint system for the game’s puzzles (at one point I observed an object being highlighted on-screen when I idled for a little too long, but that’ll be small comfort for anyone stuck on deciphering obscure codes opening puzzles boxes). There’s also, curiously, no option to invert the camera when using a controller, which made my time with the game on PS5 initially jarring and disorienting.

It’s worth forgiving any minor flaws though, as the full picture is a true work of art.

The post The Star Named EOS Review – Look At This Photograph appeared first on Press Start.

Nobody Wants To Die is an ambitious debut. I previewed the game last month, and it was obvious that the team behind it was incredibly passionate, working hard to bring their neo-noir adventure to life and pay great tribute to its inspirations, like Max Payne. But I often wish that modern adventure games had more – I’d always prefer to play a part in the game and take advantage of the medium’s interactivity rather than let events unfold before me as I walk through it. Nobody Wants To Die is ambitious; it tries to do so much. But despite some stellar presentation, it falls victim to the many pitfalls that permeate this genre.

The game takes place in a dystopic version of New York. The year is 2329. People can become immortal, transferring their consciousness between other bodies for the right price. Of course, this means that the rich and corrupt tend to live longer while the impoverished die quicker, leading to a myriad of socioeconomic issues. You play a detective, James Karra, who is investigating a rogue serial killer who seems to be targeting the city’s elite. An incredibly intriguing premise set in an even more exciting world, and of course, nothing is as it seems.

As the story forms such a strong part of the experience of Nobody Wants To Die, I won’t spoil it here. But it does build upon this already interesting premise to deliver an intriguing narrative from beginning to end. Multiple threads are intertwining throughout the story at any given point, and it’s impressive that most are tied up by the end of the game’s modest runtime. But even more important is that these threads all come together satisfyingly. So much so that I hope we’ll be able to step into this world once more.

But I can’t say the same about James. He’s a stereotypically gruff detective who’s seen everything and is tired of it all. But so much of his personality and humour fall flat. Carrying all of the charm of your uncle at the family Christmas function, making jibes that aren’t funny and laughing at them himself, he falls flat. Perhaps that’s on purpose, but it makes James fairly unlikeable, especially in contrast to the voice in his ear, Sara. She’s infinitely more interesting and endearing, especially so as her arc develops two-thirds of the way through the story.

Similar to other narrative-driven adventure games like Edith Finch, Firewatch, or the more recent Still Wakes The Deep, Nobody Wants To Die is a linear adventure. You play James as he navigates through the story, discovering how each crime scene has transpired and moving from area to area as the story demands. It’s a straightforward design that serves the story being told, but only to a certain point.

The crux of the investigations involves James’ wrist-mounted reconstruction device. After gathering enough data about a scene, James can use the device to “rewind” the crime scene and explore it as it plays out in real-time in front of him. It’s an incredible feat on a technical level – being able to scrub through and walk through a scene with just the triggers. But the game almost always highlights which section of the replay to progress the story, so you never feel like you’re engaging with the crime scene naturally.

Other tools at James’ disposal are an earnest attempt at mixing things up but fall flat. A portable X-ray device allows James to see within bodies or walls, but the gadget is rarely used for anything beyond following cables from one device to another (usually hidden) power source. An ultraviolet lamp similarly detects trace evidence but is seldom used beyond following a trail of bloodstains from one body to another piece of evidence. They’re fine additions but feel underutilized compared to the rest of the game.

And that’s where my main gripe with Nobody Wants To Die lies. It’s got some really great ideas, at least mechanically, but they’re stretched too thin across an already modest six-to-eight-hour runtime. The reconstruction device is a novel idea that, while not totally original, is used to significant effect here in a way I haven’t seen in a game before. But you use it the same way each time, which becomes somewhat repetitive. The other tools need to do more to alleviate the repetitious nature of the core gameplay loop, too.

The other central gameplay element is the evidence board. You use it about three times throughout the story, allowing James (and the player) to catch up on all the story beats you’ve gathered so far. Mysteries will appear on the board, and you’ll have to drag a piece of evidence you’ve collected to that mystery to create new links and new mysteries to solve. Once you reach the end of a line of thinking, you can summarise the case and move forward.

Once again, it’s not entirely unique and has been done in games as recent as last year’s Alan Wake II. However, the interactivity and the way James and Sara’s dialogue add flavour to the evidence, making it stand out. This is the part of the game where I felt like a detective and that Nobody Wants To Die was making good on its premise.

While the game is linear, there are still different ways in which the story progresses, though these are only surface level. Around two major endings can be unlocked, with two variants of each. All endings are affected by some choices late in the story. But other smaller choices are more interesting. For example, how you speak to Sara will influence how their friendship develops, if at all, and unlock new dialogue options as the game progresses. Same as with James and the other characters in the story. They’re not essential to the big plot but give a sense of permanence to the characters and how they engage with the world.

And that world is easily the highlight here. Nobody Wants To Die has an incredibly strong sense of presentation. While lots of Unreal Engine 5 games are starting to look similar, developing a distinct look that I hope we will step away from, Nobody Wants To Die’s strong artistic direction brings this distorted version of near-future New York to life with great fervour. Whether it’s the busy streets of Manhattan or the quiet now-holographic paths of Central Park, the strong sci-fi flavour marries perfectly with the distinct 1930s-inspired art deco interiors to provide the perfect backdrop for a neo-noir story.

The score leans towards the latter, playing heavily into period-authentic sounds to give the game a broody noir atmosphere. It’s a strong score, riddled with elements of big band, jazz and swing, providing a solid atmosphere for the game’s already breathtaking scenery. Despite this, I’d wish the music would be more subdued during the evidence boards since you spend a bit of time there, and it’s overbearing. The voice work is similarly excellent, with Keaton Talmadge’s Sara being the highlight. James’s performance is decent enough, but the script does his character little favours.

Putting everything aside, it’s evident that Nobody Wants To Die is a real passion project for the creatives that produced it. It’s an awe-inspiring debut from a studio I’ll be forever keeping an eye on. And while it’s yet to quite reach the heights of its potential in my own eyes, there’s some great opportunity to improve upon this already strong foundation.

The post Nobody Wants To Die Review – A Moody And Promising Debut appeared first on Press Start.

KILL. ALL. GODS.

God, what an impression the marketing for Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn made. The latest effort from Ashen developer A44 Games, Flintlock ticks a lot of boxes. A striking art direction and tone established from the jump, a beloved indie studio shifting gears into AA scale with yet another riff on the Soulslike genre, and a cute fox creature with mascot-sized ears by your side. But between ideation and execution, something comes unstuck in Flintlock.

We pick up with the world of Flintlock some ten years after the Door to the Great Below was breached and the Dead spilled forth into the land of Kian, a war-torn country perpetually on the brink of collapse but somehow managing to teeter. The game follows the misadventures of Nor Vanek, a Sapper (some kind of specialist soldier) for the Coalition (some kind of coalition formed to fight the Dead) after she and a small group of mates inadvertently unleash a pantheon of cruel, if incredibly stylish, gods into Kian.

Much of this is clumsily established in the opening half hour, which has a sort of rapid, in medias res feel to its opening that never reverts to an earlier state to help you find your legs. It’s a flurry of proper nouns and character names and relationships that fails to establish a sense of place or even basic emotional investment in the world, before the cut to title card and the game can begin in earnest, as a wounded Nor is rescued by the above-mentioned mascot fox, Enki.

PRE-ORDER THE DELUXE EDITION AT A DISCOUNTED PRICE ON AMAZON

Enki and Nor don’t have much in common, what with one being an immortal God of death and the other a scrappy war orphan hellbent on killing the Gods, but the two quickly form an accord and set forth across Kian to dispose of Enki’s colleagues. It’s a dynamic that is ostensibly ripe for character drama but Flintlock relegates the development of their relationship to off-screen conversations and humdrum walk-and-talk segments, neither of which offer much insight into the two’s unlikely friendship.

It’s unfortunately emblematic of the kind of incuriosity that plagues Flintlock, especially as the actual act of killing all the gods is a fairly homogenised melting pot of systems and beats. Nor is set loose into humble open-zone maps, a crisscross section of mountain paths, caves, and settlements, to hack and slash her way through hordes of the Dead while gathering resources and currencies for her various armaments, skill trees, and collectables. You’ll find colour graded gear for your different equipment slots, magical crystals to change Enki’s passive and active abilities, and just generally feel as if you’re playing a video-game-arse-video-game.

There are flashes of brilliance layered into this pastiche though. Flintlock’s combat loop is overly familiar and sporadically sloppy, Nor’s Sapper training allowing for a flurry of light and heavy blows with the requisite parries, status effects, and ranged pistol options. But overlaying this is the game’s wonderfully spiteful Reputation multiplier, an escalating percentage booster applied to accrued experience that gets higher the longer you avoid damage. But get whacked, even once, and you lose the multiplier and only the baseline exp is added to your pool.

It’s sick, a genuinely fun and thrilling addition to the Souls-adjacent action combat formula that is only truly undone by that sloppiness mentioned earlier. Flintlock’s combat is ultimately best enjoyed on lower difficulties where the game’s loose understanding of parry frames and animation priority can’t hurt as much, but too often you’ll lose your hard-earned Reputation multiplier due to the unpolished and unreliable collision of camera, hitboxes, and poor visual communication.

Elsewhere Flintlock dabbles in verticality with exploration bolstered by Rifts, ethereal portals that Enki can whip you up to in a flash and then project you out of for more Rift hopping or platforming. Nor can also lob some Godly-gunpowder below her to jump higher or propel herself forward, which in tandem with the Rift leaping, can lead to some brief bursts of fun. Combining these tools can lead Nor to hidden treasure spots and the occasional shortcut but despite a considered set of traversal tools, there aren’t many places to actually go in Flintlock.

Kian is frequently gorgeous to behold, a kind of geographically Frankensteined fantasy land of Middle Eastern, New England, and New Zealand influences. This approach gives Flintlock a stunning array of vistas and landscapes to play in, with the mid to late-game offerings particularly of note. Though no matter how fantastical the land is, exploration is never truly enticing as finagling Nor over rooftops and cliffsides is frequently awkward and beyond the stray side quest, there’s not much incentive to get her anywhere other than the golden path.

With the notable exception of Flintlock’s wobbly combat fundamentals, there isn’t much in here that is experience-breaking so much as consistently underwhelming. The cultural touchstones used to give Kian life can lead to some truly inventive visual touches as you explore settlements and discover increasingly gaudy armour sets, but when it all loops back into fairly rote, poorly communicated fantasy storytelling and limited exploration, no amount of aesthetic shine can catch the eye for long enough to sustain investment.

There’s a moment toward the end of Flintlock where Nor and Enki are having it out about the highs and lows of their time together. A half dozen Gods slain along the way, secrets revealed, cool new axes upgraded, and the land of Kian mapped and liberated. The two are heatedly trying to decide who will undertake a risky final step when Nor declares that despite everything, Enki is now a Sapper first and a God second.

But then, and even now, I still don’t fully understand what a Sapper is.

The post Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn Review – Let Sleeping Gods Lie appeared first on Press Start.

Back in the day, when games were cheaper to make and experimentation was rife, Capcom was one of the leaders in that department. It’s easy to forget how much that Japanese powerhouse was putting out during the PlayStation 2 era. While I am inclined to appreciate their output more than anything else these days, I’ve longed for games that experiment a little bit more than experiences like Resident Evil and Monster Hunter. Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess feels like the Capcom of old, in a good way, and while it isn’t perfect, it does earnest work in fusing two genres to offer up something totally different.

In Kunitsu-Gami, you play as Soh. They’re a warrior tasked with protecting a divine maiden named Yoshiro as she works to cleanse the defilement brought to the holy mountain of Kafuku by a demonic presence called the Seethe. It’s a simplistic storyline that helps to give context for why Soh and Yoshiro are making their way down the mountain, but there’s not much surprise to be had here. The story is clearly the lowest priority for the developers here, as most of the story is told through optional collectibles, and while there is some cinematics, they have a minimal presence here.

Despite this, Kunitsu-Gami is still a great game and plays incredibly well. It’s a unique combination of action and strategy, with the gameplay being split into two distinct but obvious halves. Tower defence veterans will understand what’s happening here – during the day, Soh can cleanse the area to earn crystals, which can then be used to assign rescued villagers a combat role. During the day, Yoshiro ritualistically dances towards a demon gate to cleanse it, but during the night, she stops and needs protection from the Seethe.

At first glance, this setup is similar to any tower defence game. But everything else that is unique about Kunitsu-Gami helps it to stand apart. For one, Capcom has drawn on their experience with action games to impart Soh with a complete set of moves and abilities, giving you much more agency in defending Yoshiro. While the goddess is being attacked and villagers protect her, you can use various skills to fill any gaps in your defence. Too many melee villagers? Use Soh’s archery skills to fill that gap. It’s an elegant way to keep things interesting rather than just watching battles play out like you would in other strategy games.

Of course, it’s not just about Soh either. Each stage has a set number of villagers to save, each of which can be specialized into a specific role in exchange for the crystals you earn from cleansing each level.  There’s already a degree of strategy here – choosing how to spend your crystals – but as you progress through the game, there are twelve roles to choose from. Some are as simple as the woodcutters, who act as simple melee attackers. In contrast, others lay down buffs or debuffs to make your defence easier. While some roles are underutilized, there’s a big enough mix to complement your playstyle with Soh in whatever way you wish.

The strategy element comes into play when considering how many choices must be made when preparing your defence. Every choice you make will cost you elsewhere. Whether it be crystals to specialize your villagers or time to repair specific structures with your on-site carpenter. The carpenter can also be directed to rebuild structures that’ll assist in your defence – whether it be towers that expand the range of your ranged units or barriers that’ll slow the flow of the Seethe. Choosing which structures to repair means you won’t fix others, and it can often also be the difference between a successful run and a disastrous one.

The Seethe are more than just your regular demons, though. Around twenty-four different types offer a wide variety of enemies you’ll encounter on your path of cleansing. Each is inspired by and designed after yokai from Japanese folklore, and the variety helps ensure that the action never gets old across the whole campaign. Like the villagers, some are simple melee attackers, but others are more complex, limiting Soh’s abilities to command the villagers or debuff them entirely. While this might seem unremarkable on paper, the unique and eclectic design of the Seethe helps them stand out.

Such a design philosophy dovetails beautifully with the boss encounters that Soh will come up against. They’re all unique and require some degree of strategy or team management to defeat effectively. Most are challenging but not brutally tricky, but others aren’t afraid to change the formula to keep things fresh. For example, one of the bosses doesn’t even let you bring villagers with you, requiring you to battle with Soh in a one-on-one fight. They’re an excellent way to break up an already well-paced campaign.

And I say that with no shred of irony. At first glance, I was sceptical as to whether Kunitsu-Gami might become tiring after a few levels or even the generous demo released earlier this month. However, the campaign continually introduces new elements or gimmicks to keep the formula fresh from beginning to end. Whether introducing a new enemy to a standard encounter or making Soh commandeer a boat through Seethe-occupied, Kunitsu-Gami leverages a substantial degree of enemy variety and objective design to provide a well-paced and enjoyable campaign.

However, other elements of the game may be interpreted differently. With each stage you cleanse, said stage can be revisited as a “base” for your team. When exploring each base, the villagers you’ve saved in the stage prior can be assigned to rebuild structures as needed. These serve as de facto side quests in the game, with the rebuild progressing as you finish missions by either replaying them or pushing forward. Completed structures reward a few things, be it buffing talismans, experience to upgrade, or lore drops or sweets to gift Yoshiro. Only two of these things arguably impact the gameplay, so your mileage may vary regarding whether you’d find value in replaying missions to earn them.

Another issue I’m not even sure is worth bringing up is the challenges system. Each level has three challenges that can be completed to earn extra experience points to upgrade Soh and the villagers. But these challenges aren’t revealed until you have finished the level. If you complete them on your first run, you’ll still be rewarded for them, but it does feel like a way to artificially force replayability rather than providing a fun challenge for those who might want to min-max their first run. However, some of these challenges are clearly unattainable until you revisit the level with better teams, so maybe I’m making a big deal out of nothing.

While I’ve left it to the last thing to speak about, Kunitsu-Gami’s strong presentation further demonstrates the strengths of the ever-versatile RE Engine. While it never quite reaches the photorealistic heights of the Resident Evil games, the solid artistic direction makes up for it. Drawing strong influence from Japanese art styles like Ukiyo-e, Kunitsu-Gami’s creative direction has a great fantasy feel highlighted with bright and vibrant colours. The result is a style that, if you screenshot any frame with a character or enemy, could look like a piece of artwork. And that’s even before considering the game’s strong performance, supported by a buttery smooth aptly named 60fps performance mode.

Such a similarly strong sense of presentation is bolstered by the game’s original score, which employs traditional Japanese instruments to sell the tone the game is going for. Instruments like the shamisen, koto and taiko drums do great work elevating the battles in a way that’s authentic to the time period the game draws from. The quieter tracks that play during the lighter base management moments are nothing short of beautiful, either. An unnecessary but appreciated touch is that your villagers will all dance to the music as they wait for the Seethe to approach them, giving Kunitsu-Gami’s already strong presence a great sense of personality, too.

And that’s what sets Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess apart from other games of this ilk. It takes some pretty typical elements of two very well-trodden genres and spits out something vibrant, colourful and unique with personality. And that’s why, even if you’re not typically a fan of these genres, I’d still recommend Kunitsu-Gami. It’s well worth your time and something we need right now in games – something different.

The post Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess Review – A Divine Fusion appeared first on Press Start.

In the opening levels of SCHiM, you watch a child grow up, and you grow alongside them – you’re playing as their shadow, after all. As they get older, you experience their milestones, moments of joy, sadness, togetherness, loneliness. You learn the game’s basic controls, which allow you to hop into other shadows and trigger an interaction with the objects, people or animals you’re occupying. You also grow attached to the unnamed child – eventually, the unnamed adult – you’re quite literally shadowing.

Following a particularly bad day, this person’s shadow is accidentally detached from them. Your objective across the game, naturally, is to find your way back to your human, and to do so you’ll have to hop your way between shadows across several dozen small levels, interacting with objects and timing your jumps to progress through each area.

When I look back on my time with SCHiM, I remember a handful of cool moments, clever puzzles, and frustrating sections. But mostly, I remember pressing the “X” button on my DualSense over and over to keep jumping between shadows. Jumping is a core, fundamental part of so many games, and SCHiM certainly has a good jump. It’s a long, generous, pleasantly floaty jump, one that feels appropriate for a shadow. But unlike many games in which jumping is a core mechanic, you’re not chaining together moves, or jumping over obstacles, or really doing much more than following the path the game has set out before you, moving between shadows to reach the one that will trigger the end of the level. SCHiM has an interesting premise, but over time it begins to feel quite samey.

SCHiM is largely the work of two developers, Ewoud van der Werf and Nils Slijkerman, and before digging into the review proper it’s worth highlighting that making a functional, original game as a tiny team like this is a massive achievement, especially when the game looks gorgeous and is full of clever ideas. Even when I am not enjoying a game – and there are absolutely stretches of SCHiM that I did not really enjoy – it’s worth keeping in mind the circumstances under which it was made, and SCHiM is certainly an impressive accomplishment.

Visually, SCHiM really stands out. Each level has a different colour palette, with objects rendered in simple detail, making the shadows you’re travelling through feel vital and alive (they frequently are alive, in fact, but they never seem to mind you visiting). I enjoyed checking out each new environment and seeing how the game used colour to indicate different times of day. I wish SCHiM had done more with this, there are a few “night” levels where shadows are hard to come by, but oddly only the first one you encounter really feels like a puzzle that needs to be solved.

You can tap a button to “interact” with objects once you’re in their shadows. Most of them are just for fun – a bin spits out rubbish, a container shakes, a cat meows. Sometimes these interactions are essential for progress. Changing a traffic light might make traffic flow, letting you leap into a car’s shadow to move forward, just to give one example of a thing you’ll have to do several times throughout the game. Every now and then, a shadow will have certain properties – the shadows of powerlines and some other cords are bouncy, and some objects can be stretched to fling you forward. A bird might take flight once you’re in its shadow, and activating an object that lights up at night will give you access to new shadows.

There are moments like these scattered throughout the game, and there were several points when I encountered an exciting mechanic and wondered “Is the game about to really kick off?” But then I’d hit yet another level where progress was dependent on waiting a long time for a car or pedestrian to go past, or one with a lot of fiddly jumps required, or a string of short, samey levels across environments I’d already visited. There’s a lot of sitting and waiting in SCHiM, hoping that you’ll be able to time your jumps when a car finally passes by the road you need to cross, or that an NPC will let you catch a ride with them. Many levels end before they feel like they’ve really begun, giving the game an odd, staccato rhythm.

SCHiM is short, yet it feels padded, like a great two-hour game that has been stretched to four hours. A lot of the levels are simple a series of quick jumps between shadows, whereas it feels like only a handful ask you to be a bit more clever, or to think laterally. There are hidden objects scattered through most levels if you want to explore them, but there’s no real reward for collecting them all aside from an a trophy/achievement.

There’s one detail about SCHiM that absolutely drove me up the wall, and it’s one where I suspect mileage may vary. The game is, ostensibly, about trying to get back to your person, and it doesn’t take long before you spot them in the distance in a level. For most of the game, your human is just slightly out of reach, and often the course you take through the level actively takes you further away from them. As a player, you’re acutely aware that if this was all really happening, you could simply wait outside the building they’ve entered and re-enter the blank void beneath them as they pass by. There are many such moments in the game.

This narrative decision means that the game perpetually feels like it’s about to end, and like you’re repeatedly failing at what should be a pretty simple task. It makes the shadow’s motivations feel unclear. There are multiple cutscenes during the game in which the shadow could have easily reached their person, and the game only engages a little bit with the cost of this human being separated from the player character.  I found it incredibly frustrating feeling like the game was continuing arbitrarily past the point where the two should have reunited. It soured the entire experience for me, but I can imagine other players finding this less frustrating, especially if they know to expect it.

SCHiM is a game with a lot of great ideas – and it ends well with a cool final level – but it also feels like a game that would have benefited from being a bit shorter and sharper, with a greater investment in storytelling and exploring the possibilities of its more clever mechanics. It’s a game that makes the case for its own potential without necessarily delivering on it. Perhaps one day, an improved sequel will emerge from its shadow.

The post SCHiM Review – A Beautiful But Repetitive Puzzle-Platformer appeared first on Press Start.

As a self-proclaimed JRPG fanatic, I’ve covered a lot of ground in this genre over the years. From Final Fantasy to Xenoblade and everything in-between, there are few blind spots in the knowledge I’ve amassed of these oft gargantuan experiences. Still, though, there are blind spots. One such franchise that’s always eluded me despite its rapid growth is the Trails series.

Many of Nihon Falcom’s titles are sprinkled throughout my backlog and have been sitting there for some time, gathering dust in my Steam library. If there’s one thing I can say for sure after taking the plunge into the latest entry in The Legend of Heroes franchise, Trails Through Daybreak, it’s that I’m concerned about how much money and time the rest of this series is going to snatch away from me in the near-future.

For those unfamiliar with the Trails games, the general rule of thumb is that each arc stands separate from the rest of the series, so there’s no real required reading to jump into Trails Through Daybreak. Each one is set in a different region of Zemuria, so some of the world happenings and politics do have some crossover and there’s sure to be a few references to prior events that I didn’t pick up on.

Not having prior experience with the franchise didn’t feel like a detriment in the case of Trails Through Daybreak. Daybreak marks the first Trails arc to be set in the Calvard Republic, and follows the story Van Arkride, a bounty hunter and private detective who takes on gigs that are a bit more morally grey than usual jobs. It’s a unique role to be in given the Calvard Republic’s economic boom and public unrest surrounding immigration and governmental changes.

Van’s work at Arkride Solutions brings in Agnes Claudel, a bright-eyed and energetic high school girl who’s naivety lends a more positive outlook of the world when compared to Van. The two set out to find a type of machine or orbment, as they’re referred to in-universe, called Oct-Genesis. They’re eventually accompanied by many different people from all walks of life in the Calvard Republic as they enter conflict with a terrorist group known as Almata.Í

The thing that surprised me the most about Trails Through Daybreak is its willingness to delve into mature subject matter and themes, exploring them through the numerous perspectives of its characters and their outlooks on life. On the surface, the Calvard Republic is a melting pot of cultures that’s grown in the wake of post-war reparations. The truth of it is that many forms of malice bubble beneath the surface, big and small.

None of this is better explored than through Van Arkride himself. Van is a breath of fresh air in a genre full of prophesied chosen ones and would-be heroes. There’s nothing wrong with a good hero’s journey, but Van’s work leaves him ever skeptical of those around him and the situations he finds himself in. He’s always keen-eyed, is rarely blindsided, and exudes a charm and sense of comedy that makes him an endearing protagonist from start to finish.

Van’s life experience makes Agnes quite the fitting protege. His unwillingness to trust new people is immediately juxtaposed by Agnes’s more bubbly and easy-going nature. It makes for engrossing character development on both fronts and offers a relationship dynamic that remains engaging through Daybreak.

The surrounding cast of characters and the broader plot are similarly engaging. It goes far deeper than simply looking for the Octo-Genesis, pulling numerous groups into the fold as the core plot unravels. It slowly reveals new facets to each of its conflicts and the characters surrounding it, making for quite the rollercoaster ride once its all said and done.

As the first part of this new story arc within the Calvard Republic, Trails Though Daybreak spends a lot of time with its characters and world. A majority of the major plot happenings are in service of Van and the people who fall into his employ at Arkride Solutions. The way that each arc focuses on individual characters as they’re introduced gives them ample room to breathe and develop despite the relatively large size of the overall cast.

Daybreak is also unique in the way it handles combat, employing both real-time and turn-based elements for the first time in a Trails game. In the field, you can engage enemies in fast-paced real-time combat, combining quick combos with nimble dodges and heavy attacks to stun your enemies leading into turn-based combat. This not only damages them, but delays their turns on the battle timeline, giving you a significant edge in proper combat.

Once you’re in combat proper, there’s quite a bit to keep track of. You have standard attack and defend commands, consumable items and most importantly – Crafts and Arts. Crafts and Arts are governed by CP and EP respectively. CP is pretty readily available, so Crafts function as a nice bread and butter option to hit groups of enemies for decent damage. EP is generally harder to come by, which is made up for by the strength of Arts and their ability to exploit elemental weaknesses and dish out buffs.

You also have to think about your party composition and the way that you position characters when using Crafts and Arts to get the most bang for your buck. There’s a lot to think about, and I don’t feel the game does the best job of teaching you how it all works. There’s a good number of tutorials but not much of it shows you how things work when you put it into practice. There was a healthy amount of experimentation before I felt like I had a firm grasp on combat.

Once you get it, though, it becomes immensely rewarding in its complexity and nuances. Understanding how to make the most of your turns while delaying the turns of your opponents, maximising EP consumption, positioning properly and more becomes a puzzle in each battle. It becomes even more in-depth when you dive into character customisation and some of the other RPG elements in Trails Through Daybreak.

You have the usual gear system where different weapons and armour increase different stats, alongside accessories. Where Trails Through Daybreak is most distinguished is in its Quartz system. The Quartz system allows you to slot Quartz across four different lines. Some of these are locked and need to be opened as you progress through the game, some are element-locked to certain Quartz types.

This is arguably going to be the best part of Trails Through Daybreak if you enjoy building out your party and characters. It’s so rewarding to tinker with your party after being stuck by a boss and coming out on top through a careful combination of Quartz and thoughtful combat decisions. This does add onto the initial complexity of combat, though, so getting to grips with everything at once can feel overwhelming in the opening hours.

When you aren’t engaging in combat, you’ll spend a majority of your time exploring the different parts of the Calvard Republic and helping out the general public with their own requests. A good chunk of these are really enjoyable, often exploring the darker elements of Trails Through Daybreak’s world instead of opting for meandering fetch quests. There’s a healthy amount in each chapter, each one building up Van’s moral compass based on your decisions.

While this moral compass doesn’t have any drastic impact on the main plot or ending, it does open up unique dialogue and opportunities to side with certain factions. It goes a long way to characterise Van while also letting you have your own say on certain situations. They’re also often used to expand on side characters, which is nice given each arc of the main plot usually focuses on a few key players.

The only real issue I found with the navigation side of things is the pacing. There’s some pretty lengthy stretches of time where you’re railroaded into main story progression with little-to-no combat to break up the overall flow. It helps a lot that the characters are so multi-faceted and the plot is engaging, but I often found myself itching to get back into exploration and combat when the narrative takes the wheel.

One side system that I really dig is the Gourmet Rank. As a certified foodie and sweets aficionado, Van loves to eat. As you buy, cook, and eat new foods, you’ll gain points towards your Gourmet Rank. Ranking up nets party wide stat increases, imploring you to hunt down as many new foods and beverages as you can when exploring the Calvard Republic’s locales. It’s a neat twist on a system we see in many RPGs today, and feels fitting given Van’s affinity for food.

If there’s one thing that unites many of Falcom’s titles, it’s that they all share a striking visual style that’s immediately identifiable. Trails Through Daybreak is no different, sporting a gorgeously realised anime-like visual aesthetic that pops with colour and detail. The fact that this game released almost three years ago in Japan is testament to the idea that art direction will always trump raw visual fidelity.

While I can’t speak to its place in the broader scope of Trails games, The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak is a great JRPG that surprises and delights in so many ways. It might present itself as unwieldy in its opening hours, but that initial friction gives way to a deeply nuanced gameplay experience coupled with excellent characters and narrative chops. If you’ve yet to dive into Trails, Daybreak might be your best opportunity to do so.

The post The Legend Of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak Review – A Great Time To Jump Into The Series appeared first on Press Start.

The product of a talented bunch in our very own city of Melbourne, Spin Rhythm XD has more than earned its reputation as a fantastic take on arcade rhythm games that’s easy to pick up and fiendishly addictive in the pursuit of mastery. And now, it’s ready for a whole new swathe of players.

While there’s a heap I could say about Spin Rhythm XD that’s already been said as it made its way across other platforms, the focus here is on the newly-launched PS5 version, and the great news upfront is that it’s a stellar way to play a stellar game. If you, like me, can claim most of your rhythm game experience from using a PlayStation controller – games like Parappa the Rapper, Bust-A-Move and Invector as loose examples – it’s great to finally have this banger title come home. Crucially, it also represents the game’s debut as a VR title with PS VR2 support (along with a Steam VR update for the existing PC version of the game).

If you’ve ever played the PC or Switch versions of Spin Rhythm XD, you’ll pretty much know what you’re in for here. The game takes the idea of matching notes on a scrolling “highway” and puts a unique twist on by having you spin a wheel at the bottom of the track to alternate between two colours – rather than just assign them each a button. Add in sections that require you to flick the wheel hard in either direction and special bar notes that introduce a second button, and you’ve got a refreshingly tactile and easy-to-pick-up system that’s incredibly challenging and satisfying to master at a high level.

It’s one of those rare arcade rhythm games that genuinely feels made for a controller, which bodes well for the PlayStation release. It’s also a super customisable experience, allowing players to adjust everything from the control layout, to the inertia of the wheel and even how the wheel is driven – gyro and touch pad are both viable options on the DualShock/DualSense and both have their own unique advantages versus the analogue stick. Drilling down further, you’re able to tweak things like visual guides and feedback, track and menu colours and even how things look after you miss a note. There’s a level of personalisation that I’m yet to experience in a rhythm game and it’s incredibly refreshing.

Of course, a rhythm game is going to live or die by its soundtrack offering and thanks to a couple of years on the market via PC and Nintendo Switch, Spin Rhythm XD is launching on PlayStation with a stacked catalogue. There are some great names here for anyone into EDM and chiptune-adjacent beats, from Anamanaguchi to Hyper Potions, Panda Eyes, Lena Raine, 2 Mello, Tokyo Machine, and a whole heap more. Each track seems carefully-chosen to ensure playing them with the game’s unique controls feels immersive and performative, which is all you can ask for in a game like this. There’s a good ceiling for difficulty, too. I found that “Hard” was the sweet spot for me, though tracks still ramp up in actual challenge based on a numerical rating to give you a more granular indication, and there are two steps up from there.

About the only way that Spin Rhythm XD threatens to fall flat on PlayStation is true of its earlier iterations, and that’s a lack of play modes. There’s really only one option – to pick a track and play it. A game like this doesn’t need a lengthy campaign or anything extravagant, but an option or two to play it any other way (multiplayer, for instance) would have been welcome. There’s definitely enough here for completionists with unlockable tracks and cosmetics to be had, and a decent list for trophy hunters, but it does feel barebones for a console effort.

The other new wrinkle here is VR support, and while I was initially keen to see if transporting myself inside the game would be the ultimate way to play (and improve my skills), the reality isn’t as exciting. The control scheme employed is novel and makes sense in the context, with players also drumming the notes with the Sense controllers as they grab-and-spin the wheel, but I was really hoping for something more free-wheeling and with less emphasis on pointing. It’s a fun distraction if you’re looking for a new way to play and definitely ups the immersion factor considerably, but it’s far from the definitive Spin Rhythm XD experience.

The post Spin Rhythm XD PS5 Review – Addictive And Approachable Arcade Rhythm appeared first on Press Start.

Beyond Good & Evil was one of those games that I just happened to pick up in my youth, looking for fresh new experiences to rent from the Video Ezy around the corner and with my only guidance being the recommendations I’d memorised from flicking through Hyper magazines at my local newsagent. Chucking down a couple of bucks for a weekly hire of this Ubisoft cult classic was a great decision though, and it’s remained one of my favourite gaming experiences from that generation.

I’m not going to spend too much time here talking to what made Beyond Good & Evil a great game 20 years ago – there’s 20 years worth of reading out there that does just that. The important thing is it’s a game and a world that I’ve been dying to revisit, and given that the (still real, apparently) long-gestating sequel is still MIA, the new 20th Anniversary Edition released for modern platforms this week had a lot riding on it for me. This isn’t even the first time that the game has had a re-release, with a “HD” version coming out on the Xbox 360 and PS3 that was pretty much a match for the original version with increased fidelity and fluidity.

This time around though, Ubisoft has actually made considerable effort to rejuvenate this two-decades-old classic with a fresh coat of paint that features a heap of completely redone assets from improved character models to new environmental textures, dynamic lighting and added effects, and it’s quite transformative when you stack the new and old versions side-by-side. Crucially, the art direction remains largely untouched, so going in and retooling everything hasn’t resulted in a game that feels “wrong” or markedly different in aesthetic from the 2004 game.

There is some awkwardness that comes simply from these lovely new assets being layered right on top of the old bones of the game, including the simple geometry and stiff animations. Seeing detailed textures and atmospheric lighting against PS2-era models doesn’t always compute, but the effort is absolutely appreciated and it’s still a handsome-looking game. A decent chunk of the game’s score has been “re-orchestrated” as well, and sounds great.

In terms of gameplay, not much has changed at a fundamental level. You’re still getting the same Zelda-esque progression through a series of linear-ish “dungeons” connected by a small hub world with a bit of wiggle room in how you push the story forward. I was surprised by how well the overall structure of the game holds up, even if the original game’s menus can be unhelpful and its direction vague – as long as you remember that collecting pearls to upgrade your vehicle is central to opening up new areas you’ll mostly be fine.

Like with its visuals, the game tends to show its age quite readily, especially as far as the constant loading screens and room transitions, the awkward camera and the braindead stealth sequences that make up so much of the core missions. The updates are hugely welcome though. Things like an autosave, the ability to skip cutscenes and reworked controls (including the ability to independently invert the X and Y camera axes – a literal game-changer for folks like me) make a big difference to playability and helps smooth over some of those rougher edges.

The 20th Anniversary Edition doesn’t just stop at cosmetic and mechanical differences though, adding in a noticeable amount of new content for fans to look for, both in-game and out. Right from the get-go you’ve got access to the Anniversary Gallery which contains a surprisingly comprehensive collection of screens, concept art and even videos chronicling the game’s inception, development and release. I really appreciate that a lot of the images and videos, including some neat footage of cut content, are also accompanied by text that offers up deeper explanations of what you’re looking at.

There’s a small helping of brand-new content within the actual game too, including new rewards and cosmetics to find. The most exciting bit for fans will be the added “treasure hunt” that unlocks after Jade gets access to the Beluga space ship and explores a bit more of her past while also linking it all into Beyond Good & Evil 2 (or at least what that game is currently, who knows how things might change in the coming years). This part is actually more substantial than what I was expecting based on the pre-release info, and is definitely worth seeking out.

Lastly, you’ve got access to a “Speedrun Mode” for the game, which basically just takes away the ability to save your game and challenges you to complete it all as quickly as possible. This I haven’t tackled yet, but given that one of the new set of trophies/achievements is tied to completing a run, it’s definitely going to be in my future.

Even if you’ve never played Beyond Good & Evil before, and won’t get as much of a kick out of seeing the new threads and experiencing its modernisations, there’s still a very decent 10-ish-hour romp to be had along with a bit of a peek into Ubisoft history for a fairly reasonable price of entry of $30. Jade’s adventure along with Pey’j, Double H and friends is still as memorable as ever.

The post Beyond Good & Evil 20th Anniversary Edition Review – A Pleasing Revival Of A Cult Classic appeared first on Press Start.

Since Amnesia: The Dark Descent graced our screens back in 2010, horror games have had a renewed popularity amongst players. I’d even argue it’s paved the way for heavy hitters to come back in a bigger way than ever, like Resident Evil, but it’s also seen the rise of less involved horror games like Outlast, P.T. and Layers of Fear. Back then, Scottish developer The Chinese Room tried their hand at the Amnesia-like, crafting a sequel in A Machine For Pigs that was released to mixed results. I always saw the potential. But now, eleven years later, The Chinese Room are trying their hand at horror again. Still Wakes The Deep is a game pitched as “The Thing but on an oil rig.” It somewhat makes good on that premise, but it’s not without its faults.

Still Wakes The Deep takes place during Christmas in the 1970s aboard an oil rig in the North Sea. You play as an electrician stationed on the rig, Caz McLeary. The game opens on a typical day, with Caz heading from his room to grab some food from the cafeteria. It’s a stormy day outside, and the crew working on the rig at the time hit something with their drill. What follows is a sequence of events that will eventually see Caz trying his hardest to find safety and escape from the rig. The story is really why you’ll play Still Wakes The Deep, so I won’t delve too much into it, but you can probably see where this is going.

But despite there being a modicum of predictability to the story, Still Wakes The Deep does an admirable job at making you care for its colourful cast of characters. Unfortunately, despite this, I ironically found Caz to be the least interesting of the cast. His done-to-death storyline about his troubles at home did not resonate with me. But I instead found most of the supporting characters to be endearing, and surprisingly, I found myself really invested in getting them off the rig. It’s practical but straightforward writing, which is essential given how much of the experience of the game is carried by the game’s plot and characters.

That being said, Still Wakes The Deep’s design is a masterful gambit for any self-respecting horror creator. The unique setting works wonders in hitting many beats for anyone looking to be scared. When you’re glancing out onto the rough and heavy ocean, you can’t help but feel a sense of vertigo as the oil rig you’re on sways in the wind. When you’re in a room that’s inevitably flooded, there’s a genuine mix of both claustrophobia and thalassophobia as your play space slowly grows smaller. And, of course, a sense of tension and fear arises from the monsters Caz encounters. All macabre distortions of the human form, they’re suggestions of a human being rather than a human, and there’s something incredibly unnerving about that.

Despite this, I didn’t find many of the more in-your-face elements of Still Wakes The Deep to be that frightening. But I would be lying if I said I wasn’t tense playing through some key beats in this six-hour adventure. The horror is well realised with minimal and surprisingly restrained use of cheap jump scares. Instead, the parts where I found the game to be most tense were where nothing was really happening – the strong audio design contributes to an immense sense of atmosphere that does a lot of the heavy lifting in making it all frightening.

AMAZON HAS THE CHEAPEST COPY AT $48 WITH FREE SHIPPING

But there is a game hidden behind all that atmosphere and tension. As a game, Still Wakes The Deep is similar to Layers of Fear or SOMA – you’ll walk from area to area, eventually having to evade monsters stealthily. There is no combat, but these encounters are straightforward with specific paths or solutions. They’re so simple that you’d be forgiven for thinking they were scripted. The game does provide you with hiding spaces, like lockers, but I didn’t need to use them once throughout the entirety of the game. It suggests that Still Wakes The Deep perhaps thinks it’s a deeper experience than it actually is.

The other side of the gameplay coin is the exploration and puzzle solving, though even that is similarly too linear or obvious to provide any meaningful friction to the player. I am reticent to even call them puzzles – most of the time, you’ll have to turn a valve to pass through a hot steam barrier before being on your merry way again. That’s really the extent of how complex these puzzles become. That is, not at all, and to even call them puzzles feels like a misnomer. It’s nice to have something to do, but it’s so simple and repetitious that it borders on tedious as time passes.

Which is unfortunate, because the simplicity and linearity of the entire experience really removes any sense of dread or foreboding. When something scary happens, the threats to the player feel minimal due to their simplistic nature. But when it’s not trying to scare you, it usually is owing to the strong ambience. It’s a bizarre situation. But while it’s not incredibly scary, it feels like the perfect recommendation to make to those who want to play more horror but might find heavier games too disturbing. On top of this, there is even an optional difficulty mode, which makes the stealth segments even easier, which is a nice touch.

That’s not to say Still Wakes The Deep isn’t an enjoyable experience. It is. It feels uneven. It’s just an experience that could’ve used more meat on the bones. There’s a heap of potential here, too – the setting is great, and the general flow of the game makes a lot of sense, even if it’s a little reminiscent of Dead Space’s “go fix this“ sense of progression. But it’s so unwilling to allow its players to wander off the beaten track that it feels too artificial to ever be genuinely terrifying.

But despite my issues, Still Wakes The Deep features some of the strongest artistic direction I think I’ve ever seen in a game. The organism that’s taken over the rig looks equal parts disgusting but beautiful, weaving its fleshy fin-like wings through the harsh artificial metals of the structure to create something that feels like living art. The lighting and weather effects add to the visuals, too, helping to bring the setting to life, making it feel both lived in and as much a character as the humans in the story. Many of the dead crew members you come across are rearranged in a way that they’re horrifying but almost artistic. It’s a phenomenal game that the art team should be really proud of.

Such pride should be found in the game’s original score as well. There’s a typical offering of tracks here from Jason Graves, known for his work on the Dead Space games, that really helps to up the tension. But the other things, the little things, really help make Still Wakes The Deep unnerving. Random sounds of metal hitting metal or laboured and inhuman breathing help to suggest to players that something might be in the room with them, even if they can’t see it. It’s masterfully put together and plays a massive role in building tension.

But we can’t talk about this narratively driven game without highlighting the performances from the cast. The team has gone the extra mile to keep things authentic, recruiting talent from the Isle of Sky, Dundee, Glasgow, and Aberdeen to really bring these characters to life. Such a dedication to authenticity is hard to ignore, as it contributes so much to building this believable world with strong performances that draw you into the game world.

But how much you enjoy Still Wakes The Deep really depends on how much you value the individual components that make up a game. It more than makes up for its gameplay shortcomings with some strong sound design and intensely good art direction. However, its simplicity and linearity can sometimes make it feel a bit too controlled to be truly terrifying.

The post Still Wakes The Deep Review – Beautiful But Grotesque Horror appeared first on Press Start.

In the many years that ATLUS has been releasing definitive versions for their titles, it feels like it’s never landed on a concrete formula for what these newer versions of its titles entail and how it’s all presented. Persona 5 Royal is unmistakably the best version of one of 2017’s greatest games, but asks the player to get through the base game’s content again to reach a good chunk of the new (and fantastic) content. It’s a tall ask for a near-100 hour experience and makes it difficult to recommend Royal to those who’ve already played through the original.

Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance feels like a direct response to that. Redefining how ATLUS approaches re-releasing its biggest, most beloved games by fundamentally altering the game’s approach to narrative. Despite being unable to remedy some faults of the original, Vengeance is the de-facto way to experience Shin Megami Tensei V for newcomers. What’s more notable, though, is that Vengeance is worth a double-dip for those who enjoyed the original, offering a familiar yet fresh JRPG that improves on the original in almost every aspect.

Vengeance is split into two Canons, which are effectively two different narrative routes. One is the Canon of Creation, which is the same story as the original game, where the Canon of Vengeance tells an alternate tale with new characters, areas, boss fights, and much more. While it’s nice to have the original story there for posterity’s sake, the Canon of Vengeance route is far superior. It’s clear that ATLUS recognised the original’s narrative shortcomings were too far rooted in its premise and the way it handles its characters, likely prompting the inclusion of this alternate experience.

The Canon of Vengeance starts almost identically to Canon of Creation. Strange happenings are occurring throughout Tokyo. Rumours of demons and supernatural beings are spreading like wildfire. It’s amidst this climate that our protagonist is pulled into Da’at, a hellish landscape in place of Tokyo. Shortly after arriving, you’ll make contact with a Proto-Fiend named Aogami, fusing together to become a divine being known as a Nahobino. It’s still a brilliant introduction that lures you in with mystery and oppressive atmosphere.

It’s only once you venture deeper into Da’at that things start changing. You’ll encounter Yoko Hiromine, a demon exorcist from Saint Marina’s Academy. Much of the focus in the Canon of Vengeance route is focused on Yoko, whose outlook and perspectives on life often clash with that of the original cast. She sheds new light and moral intricacies onto plot elements returning from the original, and brand new ones brought in with Vengeance.

The other key piece of the puzzle in Canon of Vengeance are the Qadištu. You’ll gradually encounter the members of the Qadištu as you explore Da’at, each one alluding to grander plans for our cast of characters and Tokyo at large. The Qadištu are a much more fascinating force to contend with in comparison to the antagonists of the Canon of Creation. Like Yoko, they provide alternate perspectives on the world of Gods and demons and deeply tie into Vengeance’s broader themes of revenge and rebirth.

While the shift in focus to Yoko and the Qadištu are more than welcome, some of the underwhelming plot elements from the original game are still here. The issue of rapid character development feels exacerbated here in the attempt to share the spotlight between all the moving parts that the Canon of Vengeance brings. Even though I saw these things coming, it still feels like they happen too fast, and are based around events you don’t get to see on-screen.

It ends up making for a narrative where the new stuff is great, but some returning elements retain their flaws. The only area I feel this isn’t the case is in Vengeance’s exploration of morality and the law/chaos/neutral alignments that the series is known for. Shin Megami Tensei V is infamous for its handlings of this idea, boiling down certain alignments to good and evil in underwhelming fashion. This is remedied through Yoko and the Qadištu, who are firmly planted in the moral greys between the agents of heaven and hell. It’s a refreshing change, and one seen frequently given Yoko’s prominence in the Canon of Vengeance route.

While narrative has been substantially reworked in Vengeance as a whole, gameplay is relatively untouched, opting for small iterative changes that build on the strengths of what’s already there. This is a good call for the most part, as Shin Megami Tensei V already has some best-in-class combat and a novel approach to open-world design that keep things engaging. There are a few pain points that haven’t been addressed, though, which stand out a bit more now given other improvements.

Combat is still deliciously challenging on higher difficulties, forcing you to make use of every tool in your arsenal to exploit demon weaknesses to net extra turns in battle. The inclusion of new demons and skills in Vengeance means there are even more ways to build out your Nahobino and team composition. Additionally, characters that accompany you in the story can also be used as party members, which is a fantastic change that gives them more life and a deeper sense of place in the world.

The combat system shines even more inside of the Canon of Vengeance’s new bosses. They are wildly varied in visual and gameplay design, often forcing you to make ample use of items and skills in tandem to come out on top. There’s a few real highlights in the back half of the game that I won’t spoil here, but the way they test your management of different targets and juggling multiple affinities is thrilling and rewarding.

THE BEST SHIPPED PRICE IS AT AMAZON/BIG W FOR $89

The Magatsuhi system also makes a return here. For the unfamiliar, Magatsuhi is charged through combat and by collecting Magatsuhi in the open-world. Once full, you can unleash a powerful Magatsuhi ability that can change the tide of battle very quickly. There are also a bunch of new Magatsuhi abilities exclusive to specific demon or alignment combinations, imploring you further to think deeply about the demons you bring with you into battle.

The only real problem with this system, is that the starting Magatsuhi ability you get is far and away the best one. This was an issue in the original game that rears its head in Vengeance. There is often very little reason to use any other skill, because guaranteed critical hits are so valuable within Shin Megami Tensei’s combat system. If you’re also trying to bring certain demons to gain access to certain Magatsuhi Skills, you often struggle to create a suitable team composition for certain encounters. It’s a shame because some of the new skills are fun, but it’s hard not to feel like you’re hamstringing yourself by using them.

One of the biggest departures that Shin Megami Tensei V made from previous games was pivoting to explorable open-worlds instead of having an overworld map. It’s a change that’s still appreciated in Vengeance thanks to immensely rewarding exploration and fantastic level design made even better through the addition of Magatsuhi Rails that connect parts of levels together for seamless traversal.

Much like the original game, Vengeance is split up into four regions, each pertaining to a different part of Tokyo. A key difference in the Canon of Vengeance, though, is that the Chiyoda region is swapped out for an all new Shinjuku region. Because Shinjuku is part of the angels’ dominion, it’s vastly different from any other area in the game. A pale purple sand covers the ground and abstract structures are dotted throughout, culminating in an entirely new dungeon in place of The Demon King’s Castle from the canon of creation.

The rest of the regions are largely unchanged, but how you approach objectives and the way they’re structured is different. There’s also a load of new sidequests to engage with throughout, most of which are markedly better than what’s present in the base game, providing more nuanced objectives as opposed to simple fetch or kill quests. It feels like no matter how you spend your time in these regions, it always feels like you’re progressing in some fashion.

One simple yet effective addition are Demon Haunts. These small areas accessible from Leyline Founts are areas where you can converse with your demons and accompanying characters to gauge how they feel about current events. They can also gain stats, level up, and give you gifts to use in your journeys. The Nahobino can also converse with Aogami at certain times to gain three skill points as well as his opinions on recent happenings. Its a small inclusion but one that gives more character to demons and your party in general.

All of these things in combination, and you can probably tell that Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance is one hell of a package. You have two story routes, a truck-load of sidequests, a bunch of areas to explore, many demons to recruit, and more. There is so much content jammed in here that it automatically becomes an easy recommend for any JRPG fans – especially if you haven’t played it before.

One aspect Vengeance undeniably nails, is its presentation. When it originally launched on the Switch, Shin Megami Tensei V was dripping with aesthetic and striking visual design that was held back by aging hardware. Playing it now on the PS5 is something like a fever dream. A buttery smooth 60 frames-per-second all the time, in combination with a much bolstered pixel count and overall visual fidelity leaves Shin Megami Tensei V feeling and looking as it always should have.

The final thing I’ll shoutout, which should be to no one’s surprise, is the absolutely phenomenal soundtrack. ATLUS never misses when it comes to music, but so many of Vengeance’s new and reprised tracks are certified bangers in a genre full of musical competition. It’s remarkable that Ryota Kozuka was able to push Shin Megami Tensei V’s musical identity even further with such high quality.

When all is said and done, it’s inarguable that Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance is the definitive version of Shin Megami Tensei V. Even if you dislike the narrative changes and additions in the Canon of Vengeance, the original story is still there for you to play. Some returning flaws aside, Vengeance still offers the same compelling gameplay loop, an intriguing world, and utterly fantastic presentation that heightens so much of the experience.

The post Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance Review – A Divine Package appeared first on Press Start.

A while back there was a running gag about the 2022 video game, Garfield Lasagna Party, and my utter disdain for it despite being among the first in the world to nab its platinum trophy. So, when approached with the opportunity to review The Smurfs – Village Party, well I almost felt obligated to fall on the sword. But while the Monday-hating feline’s take on a party game was a svelte, over-and-done affair, Village Party is a much bigger and more involved title with a lot more ground to cover. This was not good news.

To my surprise, this isn’t just another slapped-together collection of mini-games designed for couch play, but it also includes a decently-sized, pseudo-open-world campaign that has players work their way through a simple Smurfs story while engaging in free exploration, collectible hunts, missions and mini-games along the way. Conceptually, I like this, and it’s something I’d love to see Nintendo try with a future Mario Party game, giving players a little single-player platforming adventure they can knock over in a few hours as an appetiser to the main, multiplayer dish.

Unfortunately, the concept is as good as it gets here because the actual act of playing Village Party’s story mode mostly stinks. The controls are fiddly, the camera misbehaves constantly, the world is garish and bewildering to navigate, the platforming is floaty and frequently broken, the UI and interface are god-awful and interrupt your field of view far too often to be as functionally useless as they are, and the whole thing is riddled with bugs and frequently crashes. It is, unequivocally, a bad time.

I also never want to hear “Ow! There’s a smurf smurfed inside my shoe!” ever again. The intense rate at which the same handful lines are repeated over and over while walking around the game’s map is akin to torture, and it’s exacerbated by the whole replacing every third word with Smurf thing that the franchise is known for.

Even the mini-games themselves, the potential saving grace of the whole experience, are largely uninteresting and tedious. What should be bite-sized bits of fun are often far too long, poorly explained and with wonky controls, and when playing against the CPU opponents in the campaign mode often completely devoid of any balance. The half-baked nature of these games comes through most when they turn out to be blatant rip-offs of Mario Party mini-games, and the gulf in quality becomes fully apparent.

Once you’re done with the campaign, you do have the option of challenging the mini-games again against tougher CPU opponents, or of course playing against your friends – which is about the only time that a lot of them are any fun. I don’t think that part is overly surprising, I’m not sure a lot of other party games would be fun alone, even the good ones, but when there’s been a genuine attempt at a solo experience it’s a weird choice to show your core feature in its worst light.

And for those that might read all of this and think, “Hey my guy, this is a kids game, surely the target audience doesn’t care about half of what you’re saying and is just here to play with Smurfs?”… I would typically agree! Thing is, there are much better party games out there. Loads of them! In fact, I’ve repeatedly named arguably the best one among the bunch and there are two of those on Switch right now. So why go with the far worse option? I’m also not convinced that players who are age-appropriate for this game would even recognise the Smurfs or care enough to pick them over something better.

The post The Smurfs Village Party Review – Party Foul appeared first on Press Start.

Influencing many games that came after it, including the now-legendary BioShock, it’s hard to argue against just how influential System Shock was. Despite this, I’ve always found it inaccessible. Not physically – there were always ways, both legal and not, to play the game. But even if I did, the game was riddled with game design choices that were only acceptable in the era it was first released. Now, Nightdive has above and beyond their usual remaster efforts with a full-blown remake. 

While the remake made its debut last year on PC, its console release has now been a year old, and while there are some improvements, it’s still an authentic-as-hell remake—for better or for worse.

The game’s story remains essentially the same. You play as a hacker whisked away to a space station called The Citadel. It’s a rich sci-fi tapestry that is the perfect backdrop for an adventure like this. While onboard, some story-related beats transpire, and you awaken on the space station six months later. But something has changed – the robotics are all reprogrammed to kill, and the remaining humans have been mutated by an unknown virus being researched at the station. To make matters worse, a megalomaniac AI called SHODAN has spearheaded the whole operation and will do everything in its power to stop you from escaping.

The story’s plot is tried and true, no doubt similar to something you’ve played, watched or read before. But how it’s presented feels unique and, at the time especially, was something you could only experience in a video game. The crux of the story is told through audio logs strewn throughout the station, as well as radio chatter from survivors, and some of it is optional and can be missed if you don’t explore enough. It makes exploration rewarding, finding another piece of the puzzle to slot into place, but it’s a less direct approach to storytelling that not all will appreciate.

In fact, that’s a resounding theme throughout System Shock today. It’s not quite a game that everyone will be able to appreciate, even if its influences are far and wide. The remake is similar to the original formula in that regard, happy with throwing you into The Citadel to solve most problems and let you uncover the mystery on your own. It’s a far cry from today’s waypoint-laden design style, but it also gives players great space to explore The Citadel at a pace that works for them.

For those who want a more modern experience, there are a slew of difficulty modifiers that will change up the experience to better suit your style. Waypoints can be optionally toggled on or off. The number of enemies and how much damage they do can be adjusted either way to your liking. There are even options to independently adjust the difficulty of puzzles if you so wish.

They’re small changes that will significantly impact how the game flows and will no doubt assist many players in experiencing everything that makes System Shock special without the friction of thirty-year-old game design getting in the way. If it means more people get into the series, I’m all for it. Of course, the original experience is still there if you choose the right combination of difficulty modifiers. It’s a win for all, really.

The console update brings with it a few changes, both minor and major. A minor but appreciated change is to switch up the gender of the hacker you play as. It’s a welcome addition, given how little their identity plays into the plot. The significant changes are broader reaching and ironically borrow one aspect BioShock games have always struggled with – the final boss and ending were incredibly anticlimactic. With the console update, that’s been fixed here in System Shock, though I’m not sure the final result will please everyone. But I personally found it to be a step in the right direction.

But if this is your first time playing this remake, this is the best way to do it, even if some of the issues persist. Coincidentally, many of my problems with the remake correspond directly with Brodie’s (always) scintillating and penetrative insights, so I recommend reading his review from last year. And while I adore System Shock for its influence on some of my favourite games, the age of the game is starting to show in some areas, especially the combat and the tedious death animations that play out for a little too long between lives.

I’ve mentioned previously that System Shock is less inclined to hold players’ hands, and that’s especially obvious with the progression. Progression isn’t tied to abilities like other Metroid-esque games but rather with items like keycards and activities you pull off in cyberspace. A psychedelic and deliciously cyberpunk-laden touch, breaking new ground in a physical representation of cyberspace is a joy. At least in the original game, these cyberspace sections were obtuse and unruly, so it’s appreciated that they’ve been touched up in the remake with a distinctly psychedelic and cyberpunk feel.

But of course, System Shock is a remake, so it goes without saying that the visual overhaul the game has received is nothing short of immaculate. It’s seriously impressive how much of a step up from the original game it is, but at the same time, it pays such a strong tribute to the style of the pixelated original. While more modern trimmings like atmospheric lighting and moody fog effects are used to bring The Citadel to life, the texture work here makes System Shock look unique. At a distance, the game looks modern, but up close, it is pixelated, almost like voxels, to create this new-but-old look. It’s a clever way to simultaneously make a game look old and new, and the extent to which it’s used here is unlike anything I’ve seen before.

On the same note, the music and voice work are top-notch. While the original music is painful to listen to, the new soundtrack is eerie, oppressive and ominous. It perfectly encapsulates what the System Shock experience should be. On a similar note, Terri Brosius, who has voiced SHODAN in all games so far, returned to record new lines for the menacing AI and is as sinister as ever. It’s easy to see why she’s so revered as an antagonist with such a powerhouse voice artist behind her.

And that’s the thing about System Shock. It’s everything a remake should be – true to the spirit of the original especially. But despite some earnest improvements in some areas, there’s no changing some of the unavoidable friction that comes with bringing a thirty-year-old game back.

The post System Shock (Console) Review – New Tricks, Old Habits appeared first on Press Start.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when the moment was. Whether it was the opening’s swift cut from a colourful, pixelated arcade minigame to a full 10-minute stint of slowly walking pails of water back and forth from a well, rendered in painstaking detail. Or maybe the section where I had to hold down a dedicated “pray” button to stop the physical space around me from tearing at the seams. Then again, perhaps it was the ascent through a hazy tuna canning factory where I had to cross a cavernous silo while avoiding being smacked over the edge by rows of giant fish while secretly conversing with the devil. It was in at least one of these moments, or maybe another still, that I came to the firm realisation that Indika is something truly special.

I ought to offer a little more context, I suppose. The product of a studio comprised mostly of Russian ex-pats, now working out of Kazakhstan as a result of their opposition to the country’s war on Ukraine, Indika is a artfully-crafted jaunt across an alternate version of 19th-century Russia that stars a displaced nun caught up in an escaped convict’s pilgrimage of faith to have his gangrenous arm blessed by a holy relic. Indika, the titular lead, also happens to be possessed by a sharp-tongued demon, adding another layer to the religiously-charged and frequently unnerving journey which takes clear inspiration from filmmakers like Yorgos Lanthimos, Ari Aster, and Darren Aronofsky.

I’d hate to go into too great detail at all about what makes Indika’s story as compelling as it is for fear of giving too much away, but the best parts of it see developer Odd Meter exploring the many complexities of faith and faith-based cultural systems, and quite directly challenging the Russian Orthodoxy in moments. The game broaches topics from religiously-sanctioned violence to the foils of sexual repression in clergy, at times with almost too little hesitation to stomach, but it manages to do so without getting in the way of itself or the immediate journey. The messages are there, if you’re willing to peer beneath the veil of its arthouse-inspired direction and penchant for nonsense, but you’re just as welcome to simply enjoy the ride.

Indika’s is a journey of the linear, third-person adventure flavour, offering little in agency but a clever degree of variety. In a lot of ways, it reminds me of the fantastic What Remains of Edith Finch, frequently presenting new scenes as conceptually and mechanically-unique vignettes and then turfing those new gameplay ideas as quickly as they arrived. It’s especially true of the occasional interlude where Indika introspects and remembers pieces of her past, which are exhibited as 2D pixel art scenes with their own retro mechanics like isometric racing or simple platforming. There are some inspired puzzles and sequences in the “real” world of the game too, though there are also a couple of comparatively boring box-pushing, lever-pulling type bits peppered in there for good measure.

Everything in the more grounded version of Indika’s reality is rendered in particularly striking detail, which is both impressive given the team of less than 20, but also hugely important to the entire production. The way Indika composes herself around others, the way she holds herself, and retreats into herself in the face of persecution or of cruelty, are as essential to understanding how the world sees Indika as those retro gameplay interludes are to understanding how she sees the world. Over roughly four hours you’re pulled to and fro between atrocity, absurdity and banal lucidity and it works as well as it does because of a studio with a firm grasp of visual and technical language and its filmic inspirations, along with some stellar performances from the main cast.

My only real gripe with the game’s presentation has been the odd few technical issues I encountered when playing on PS5. There were moments where the game’s performance would tank quite drastically, though they’re mercifully few and far between. The impact of a couple of cutscenes was also mitigated somewhat by distracting visual bugs, but again this is an otherwise very impressive effort given the team’s size and resources.

It should also be noted that there are some scenes in Indika which are quite confronting, and it was disappointing to see that there’s no warning given or option to skip (off-screen but heavily implied) moments of sexual violence. There’s a nudity toggle, but the sole scene it applies actually happens to be one of the sweeter and more positive moments of the entire game.

The post Indika Review – Arthouse Of Worship appeared first on Press Start.

Like Tinseltown, trends in gaming are starting to emerge as somewhat cyclical. What’s old is new all over again, and recent years have produced a swathe of retro-inspired titles that capitalise on the nostalgia we all share for the classics from our youth. Signalis springs to mind, along with Dave Oshry’s burgeoning warehouse of boomer shooters. 

The latest to follow the curve is Crow Country, a conventional survival horror game that riffs on all of the tropes popularised by Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and their lesser-evangelised contemporaries. Made in large part by a couple of seemingly tormented souls, what’s evident is that Crow Country cares most about being a love letter to all of the things people love about the genre. That said, it doesn’t shirk its responsibility to deliver an experience that’s true and honest to its nostalgic roots, no matter how hasty it is or how eager the developer is to spell out and spoil his craftiness.

On the surface, the game’s story is a relatively basic premise. It’s 1990 and Crow Country, the once-heaving theme park after which the game is named, has been closed for two years after a sudden and unexpected shutdown. The biggest mystery at the heart of the game is the whereabouts of Edward Crow, the park’s elusive owner and it’s with the goal of finding him that leads Mara Forest to break into the abandoned park in hopes of finding answers. One thing I don’t mention is how the park is overrun with twisted, occasionally humanoid, aberrations that appear to wear their inners on their outer—and that’s not because it’s too spooky to call attention to, it’s because Crow Country can be played as either a traditional survival horror game where danger is an ever-present fact of life, or as an adventure game where solving the mystery is Mara’s one focus. 

While one could easily find value in opting for a more exploratory mode in Crow Country, I threw caution to the wind and approached the squirmy, writhing hell beasts head-on. Being a game clearly rooted in classic ideals, Crow Country does feature the dreaded tank controls—a scheme I have always disliked. Fortunately, in a show of forward thinking, the game also lets you control Mara with more modern controls. In fact, by choosing either the d-pad, which houses the tank controls, or the control stick, you can swap on the fly with great freedom. Unlike older games of this ilk which offer a fixed camera perspective, you maintain full control over the camera here which proves helpful within what is effectively a cramped monster closet. The same cannot be said for the game’s gunplay which can be similarly toggled between classic and modern styles, but is an option confined to the game’s settings. 

I wouldn’t say the differences in the aim styles are staggering, but it’s quite incredible how a simple rebind of keys, such as making the left trigger the gun’s sights, can create a more modern, familiar feel. Whichever the case, Crow Country’s combat rewards close proximity to your target, and that, combined with a stop and prop brand of aiming lead to some very tense close-quarters fights. 

Crow Country itself feels like the perfect little world to create nightmarish traumas. Even taking the monsters lurking around each corner out of the equation, I found it to be atmospheric and unsettling. The park itself is divided into attractions, including Haunted Hilltop with its gloomy crypt and ghostly manor, and Fairytale Town which comes complete with a motorised pond ride driven by decapitated, animatronic swans. What’s beautiful about its positively labyrinthian corridors is how interconnected all of the zones feel, especially once your keen-eyed exploration opens up new routes through the park. 

While it’s incredible that so much of Crow Country is the work of two people, I think that’s made relatively clear at certain points throughout the game. The game reminds me a lot of Ravenlok, which I believe did for action-adventure what Crow Country is aiming to do for survival horror in that its challenges skew on the simpler side in a likely attempt to capture more of an audience. Older gamers like me will adore the nostalgia, while the young adult crowd will revel in the game’s often simple, heavily signposted puzzles. While the memos left behind by the park’s staff do nudge and point you in the right direction a lot of the time, certain solutions are spelled out blatantly with almost fourth-wall-shattering brutality. 

I do wonder if play testing at one point indicated some of the problems were too obtuse and a lack of resources led to what’s in the game. I personally can’t imagine anyone considering these riddles to be Monkey Island-obscure, but there’s no denying that immersion was broken more than once here. 

What I do love about Crow Country is the clear reverence it has for the genre. Despite its modernised offerings, the fact it delivers such an authentic 90s experience is a credit to its team and their attention to detail. The singular moment that sealed it for me came literally after the credits when a clear screen appeared and went on to detail my rank and what I’d unlocked for my trouble. It’s not a new or even outdated idea in terms of survival horror, but it’s an integral part to the experience that felt like the cherry on top. Even how it handles being a 90s game is masterful, with so many subtle nods to the time and place but none more clever than the arcade’s trivia machine that relies on some outdated data, such as a time before Pluto’s status as a planet was revoked or when the planet had just five billion inhabitants, to succeed. 

From its title screen, Crow Country drips with retro chic and it has all of the low-resolution, ugly polygons you’d expect from the PlayStation era of video games. Almost as if it was pulled out of a time capsule, Crow Country exists in a time before the minute detail of characters could be portrayed. Outside of Mara’s purple-dyed hair and white dress, there’s not a lot that separates her from any of the other women who frequent the theme park. There’s a lot of character in the world and creature design, though, and everything is beautifully lit no matter if it’s the spot lighting of the moody, gloomy cardboard standee woods or the refracted light from the aquarium-inspired Seven Seas arm of the park. 

Crow Country’s sound design also takes plenty of inspiration from classic horror games from almost thirty years ago. It’ll come as no surprise that the muddy lo-fi gunfire and creature groans don’t “age” as well as the visuals might, but there’s a definite charm to the game’s score which makes the most of its theme park setting with a creepy, bell-driven suite of themes that resemble a music box. Whether they’re considered source or not isn’t clear, but to think of these tunes droning out over speakers in a long abandoned park gives me the willies. 

If there exists a soft spot in your heart for the early years of survival horror, and the equally-nostalgic Signalis is either too grave or serious, Crow Country is more than worth your time. It makes a special effort to cater to both purists and those with more modern tastes, however, the challenge presented by its puzzles is next to nothing. 

The post Crow Country Review – Fright Nights At Eddie’s appeared first on Press Start.

Character action games are few and far between these days. Though the action genre was built on the backs of industry icons like Dante, Ryu Hayabusa, and Bayonetta, you’d be hard-pressed to find many studios that focus on frenzied action experiences with a charismatic lead lying at the core of it all. While it isn’t strictly classifiable as one, SHIFT UP’s Stellar Blade still feels like a game ripped straight from that era of gaming.

Between an eye-catchingly stylised protagonist, a focus on flashy and execution-heavy combat, and a deliciously old-school approach to level design, Stellar Blade often feels like a crystallised summation of pre-2010s gaming. Though that isn’t to say Stellar Blade is lacking modern sensibilities. It wears its inspirations on its sleeve, borrowing heavily from the sombre hopelessness of NieR: Automata’s post-apocalypse as well as the kinetic clashing of steel you can find in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. While they way Stellar Blade riffs on these titles reaches varying degrees of success, the overall experience is undeniably great.

If you’ve played Stellar Blade’s demo, you already know that the game gets off to a rip-roaring start. Players step into the shoes of Eve, a member of an elite force built to eradicate the monstrous Naytibas from a now-desolate Earth. The dispatch of Eve’s squad from an off-world colony goes horribly wrong, leaving her as a sole survivor with a renewed hatred for the Naytiba. Shortly after meeting with a survivor named Adam, the pair set out to aid humanity’s last surviving city, Xion, while furthering Eve’s own mission to wipe out the Naytibas.

It takes more than a few cues from Yoko Taro’s own NieR: Automata, and can feel a bit predictable as a result. While there’s some initial mystery surrounding the origin of the Naytibas and the hold that the seraphic Mother Sphere has over what’s left of humanity, Stellar Blade shows its hand too early for its major story twists to have much impact. It’s laid on pretty thick at certain points in the story, but doesn’t play with your expectations or dissect themes in the way Automata does.

Despite this, the world SHIFT UP have created here is incredibly well-realised. Right from Stellar Blade’s opening hours, it feels like Earth is fighting a battle it’s already lost. Cities are abandoned, decrepit, and overrun with Naytibas, vast wastelands and deserts are near-devoid of life, and futuristic cities paint a picture of a utopian society brought to its knees in an instant. Nowhere is this feeling more prominent then in Xion itself, where the remnants of humanity struggle with the Naytibas and their faith in the Mother Sphere.

Propaganda claiming that the Mother Sphere is a false icon litters the streets of Xion, Angels like Eve are treated with reverence or dismay – there’s no in-between. This is a miserable and hopeless world. In a way, Eve’s relative naivety serves as a sort of stand-in for the player. She’s exposed to the horrors of this world as we are, making powerful moments of realisation that most fates in this world end cruelly. This widespread suffering also serves to highlight Stellar Blade’s sporadic moments of triumph and hope, a reminder that maybe one day, things will be okay.

When it comes to Eve herself, I suspect that she’ll be quite different from what most expect. Aside from an absolutely killer design, she isn’t positioned as a femme fatale akin to Bayonetta. Eve, like us, is new to this conflict. In this sense, she’s closer to NieR: Automata’s 2B, wanting to understand how the Naytibas impact humanity, Xion, and help them where she can. It helps her to grow and become more independent over the course of the game, able to make her own decisions without the guidance of the Mother Sphere by the end of the game.

If you were surprised by my earlier comparisons to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, it’s easy to understand why. It’s clear Stellar Blade’s combat is somewhat inspired by other character action games, but it straddles a line between flashy juggle combos and the more considered swordplay of FROMSOFTWARE’s 2019 darling. Parrying enemy strikes and knocking them off balance is the clear focus here, incentivising you to play defensively until an opportunity presents itself for Eve to unleash all manner of carnage against her enemies.

It’s hard to make parrying feel satisfying in games when it’s a regular part of every combat interaction. Much like Sekiro, though, Stellar Blade’s combat has an immensely satisfying game feel that never lets up. Sparks fly as Eve’s sword collides with the chitinous limbs of the Naytibas, which is in stark contrast with how easily the rest of their bodies are torn to pieces when an opening presents itself. You’ll quickly learn that throwing out combos is a surefire way to get hit, but getting into the rhythm of reading enemy patterns to knock them off balance quickly feels natural.

If you do find yourself in a pinch, Eve has a few other options you can throw in the mix to get the upper-hand. Burst Skills are what you’ll be using most, which are powerful skills you can throw out or tack onto the end of your combos for some bonus damage. These can only be used if Eve has enough Burst Energy, so you can’t just abuse them when things get hairy. Burst Energy is only replenished through successful defensive maneuvers, which further encourages you to go for those perfect parries and perfect dodges.

You’ll also get the ability to use Adam’s drone as a ranged weapon fairly early on, which is particularly handy for locking down some of the more agile Naytibas. There’s even a few gun-only sections, where Eve is locked out of using her sword. While this sounds counterintuitive to the kind of experience Stellar Blade is, these are ridiculously cathartic and provide a nice break from all the hacking and slashing you’ll be doing. There are a couple of other elements introduced to combat throughout the game, but it’d be a shame to spoil them here, both narratively and in the way they shake up the flow of combat.

THE BEST SHIPPED DEAL IS AT AMAZON FOR $109 WITH FREE RELEASE DAY DELIVERY

While there’s plenty of enemy variety on show here, Stellar Blade’s combat excels most in its myriad boss fights. You’ll often feel outclassed at first – put up against Naytibas that trounce Eve in size and sheer physical force. You can get into a real flow-state with some of the more challenging ones, as you desperately parry, dodge, Blink, and Repulse your way out of danger to launch your own assaults. Proper play culminates in staggering your enemy, opening them up for a flashy Retribution attack which never get old.

Instead of adopting a full open-world design, Stellar Blade opts to focus on separate, smaller locales that can be explored independently. These vary wildly in size and linearity. The Wasteland and the Great Desert, for example, are vast, wide open spaces with plenty of secrets to uncover and requests to complete. Areas like Eidos VII, though, are more linear affairs with occasional opportunity for exploration. It’s a diverse mix of locales, each one offering something different from a visual and design perspective.

You’ll undoubtedly spend most of your time in the larger areas, especially the Wasteland. As it’s connected to Xion directly, many requests you can pick up from the city’s people will take you out into the Naytiba-ridden area. There’s a lot to engage with in these spaces outside of main story progression. You can find Cores to upgrade Eve’s total health and Burst Energy capacity, new outfits, accessories, Gear, Exo-Spines, and crafting materials.

You’ll often need to overcome platforming or combat challenges to reach these rewards, the latter of which is always a blast, the former – not so much. Platforming in Stellar Blade feels quite janky, especially when it requires more precision from the player. While Eve controls like a dream in combat, she simultaneously feels floaty and heavy. Movement often feels jerky which makes it hard to line up jumps in the moment, and it lacks a general consistency that makes it more frustrating than it is fun.

Even though I had irks with traversal, I still found myself exploring these environments and completing requests. Mostly because the side content here really does a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to Stellar Blade’s worldbuilding. I mentioned it earlier, but the way in which the hopelessness and total despair of the situation is conveyed through NPCs and the general happenings of Xion and its surroundings is so engaging.

They almost always boil down to the same stuff when it comes to what you’re actually doing, but they all tell unique stories. An early example is an android, Enya, who’s fallen into disrepair, unable to perform for the bar’s patrons like she used to, much to the dismay of her closest friend. You can go out to get the gear to help repair Enya, leading to a chain of side quests following the two that concludes in a rewarding and heartfelt manner. It’s a rare example of one of the more hopeful beats in Stellar Blade, but it’s one that’ll stick with me for some time.

Another highlight was a relatively late quest where an anonymous tip is given to Eve about a store in the sunken district of Eidos VII. You can gain access to the building with a provided code to drain all the flooding, revealing a room full of deceased humans. It serves an unspoken narrative purpose, implying that the flooding was intentional on behalf of whoever is responsible for the murders – likely the same person who gave Eve the anonymous tip. The game is just packed with this stuff, all of it helping to build an image of what Xion is truly like and how those who live there go about their lives.

This side content regularly contributes to Eve’s progression as well. This is split into a few different facets, some of which are simple attack and health boosts, while others are more customisable. Exo-Spines, for example, are equippable spines that Eve can use to lean into a playstyle. Where one might focus on dealing extra critical strike damage, another focuses on managing Burst Energy. Gears also play into this, which further modify Eve’s stats and capabilities. It adds a touch of flexibility in how you approach combat and accommodate your weaknesses or strengths.

Another area that really serves to help the worldbuilding and overall aesthetic of Stellar Blade, is its visual style. This is a hauntingly beautiful game, brought to life by countless inspired designs and a striking visual exploration of religious iconography and interpretations. The Naytibas echo similar design elements found in Bayonetta’s biblically accurate angels, only far more fleshy and monstrous in their overall presentation. They’re juxtaposed by the slick, sci-fi, futuristic designs of Eve and the surviving humans. It’s incredibly inspired and striking regardless of the visual preset you play on.

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention Stellar Blade’s sublime soundtrack. While just over half of it was composed in-house, the rest was led by Keiichi Okabe of NieR Replicant and Automata fame. His signature style from those titles translates flawlessly here – mesmerising vocals punctuate soft overworld themes that lend a dream-like quality to the world and exploration. SHIFT UP’s own tracks also deliver, with some great high octane tunes that score the game’s myriad set-pieces.

At a glance, it’s easy to write off Stellar Blade’s key inspirations as surface level and imitative. While a few 0f these elements don’t live up to the titles they’re borrowed from, Stellar Blade more than makes up for it so many other ways. It’s a fantastic example of combining tried and true elements to create something that’s new in its totality. Its commitment to the vision of its world coupled with the kind of gameplay we just don’t see enough of these days makes for a stellar experience all-round.

The post Stellar Blade Review – Shooting for the Stars appeared first on Press Start.

To level with you from the jump, I’m not sure how any anime kid born in the 90s could possibly approach Sand Land with any real semblance of objectivity. Akira Toriyama’s work defined generations and genres, a singular point of influence so crucial to the definition of taste, to the fabric of nostalgia, that the pitch of “what if you could play a game set in the pages of his art” is immediately, and understandably, disarming. Sand Land, adapted from the manga and anime series of the same name, delivers on that pitch with varying degrees of success, a charmingly clumsy romp with eyes bigger than its stomach but an admirable appetite all the same.  

Sand Land plops you into the shin-high boots of Beelzebub, Prince of Demons, son of Lucifer, veritable little stinker. Running a Robin Hood adjacent gig in the outskirts of Sand Land, a once thriving continent hardened into a desert wasteland following a devastating war, Beelzebub and his demon gang are lifting what water they can from the far-reaching clutches of the Royal Army. An occupying force of vaguely nationalist shitheads, the army hoards Sand Land’s remaining resources while disparate towns and settlements cling to life under its harsh sun.

Life, and rebellion, find a way though, and soon Beelzebub, along with his curmudgeonly old demon mate Thief, are enlisted by Roa, a local sheriff on a last-ditch journey south in search of the Legendary Spring, a water source said to hold the secret to Sand Land’s potential restoration. Toriyama’s iconic art style contrasts nicely with the simmering bleakness of Sand Land, Beelzebub’s quest taking him through an assortment of striking locales and an affable supporting cast while never failing to chew on the meatier concepts baked into the game’s themes.

To sweeten the pot, Roa gifts Beelzebub a gaming console (much to the chagrin of Lucifer, who despite being king of demons is also a “one hour a day in a well-lit room, kiddo” kind of dad). It’s a cute moment, the promise of a world-altering adventure paling in comparison to the new console he has waiting at home, but it’s also indicative of Sand Land’s approach to design. From the baseline open-world and vehicular combat, it piles mechanics and systems with joyful, messy abandon­ – beat-em-up on foot encounters, perspective-shifting platforming, forced stealth sequences, deep customisation, and a whole bunch of quests. There are even a few old faithful radio towers dotted around the humbly sized but inviting map.

It’s a minor miracle it all feels as breezy as it does, the potential bloat of its systems teetering on the edge of Content but never toppling. This is probably in large part due to Toriyama’s designs running a near-constant interference on even the most banal tasks, but it’s also because Sand Land is forgiving, welcoming, and endlessly warm to the touch. Beyond its aesthetic markers, it’s difficult to say it is the best at any of the hats it wears across its twenty-odd-hour adventure, but the effort feels sincere and the execution almost always in good faith. It badly wants to be like the games that inspired it, and there are worse design impulses to follow.

To get the grit out of the way, the stealth sections are kind of a pain; occasionally a party member will need to sneakily scope out a location or loot supplies using a rudimentary crouch, shuffle, cone of vision-avoiding set of tools. It’s not bad, but it’s not all that fun either, the trigger points for guards and paths often being a little too loose but, at least, rarely punishing. Likewise, the typically smooth UI could be a little more forthcoming in its crafting material information. I once lost a solid ten minutes to roaming settlements looking for a material with nothing but the “occasionally found at workshops” to go by.

It was mildly irritating but if only for how much these pain points stood out against the prevailing Sand Land experience, which is one of ease and small joys. Given the nation’s proclivity for conflict, the land is littered with war machines to pilot and do battle with. Beelzebub’s roughly half a dozen arsenal includes a portly tank, a legs for day jumping bot, and a fierce speedy bike to name a few, each required for different elements of the map. Sinking sands need to be swiftly crossed, large gaps leapt over, you get the idea. Carried in capsules for immediate switching and open-world use, this collection of metallic oddities is Sand Land’s traversal and combat backbone.

And they’re a blast. Controlling the tank feels like piloting a Dalek, top and bottom halves operating independently for goofy but useful manoeuvrability as you cycle through a canon and minigun rotation, each methodical reloading timed to suit the other. The bike blasts the world wide open, whipping along dunes and craggy cliffsides using the overdrive boosters found on all units, on cool down during combat but unlimited while exploring to incentivise pointing in a direction and just letting loose. The other bots are less inspiring, but each can be radically overhauled with customisable parts, each machine broken into component elements in the workshop, those individual pieces themselves are also upgradable, discoverable, and craftable.

Materials and pieces are farmed in the open world, hunting stray packs of colourful dinosaurs and roaming gangs of bandits and army men alike. You’re just as likely to engage these foes, and several other key story moments, on foot though, with Beelzebub’s demonic powers used in flashy, if simple, melee combat. Light and heavy attacks, a nimble dodge, a skill tree to fill out that enables stronger blows and a whole separate one for passive and active companion abilities, Sand Land hits all the notes. Unlike the stealth though, these moments are fun and reliably well-paced, each time a clobbering was required feeling narratively satisfying and mechanically sound.

Sand Land is also not particularly shy about its themes and ideas, happy to smack you around the ears if it feels like you’ve not been paying attention. You can grok it immediately; the tutorial mission for vehicle combat is framed as a sepia-toned flashback to the war that devastated the land, the final horrific act of the conflict serving as your last checklist item to cross out. Sand Land knows its tanks and bikes and mechs are all fun to play with, but it’s also keenly tuned into the story it wants to tell, tethering combat to theme through a series of small cup checks. Characters often exclaim how impressive it is that you cleared a small army without killing anyone, stealth “kills” are actually just scaring the guard into fainting, and Roa’s role in the party is to always remind Beelzebub that all this fun is built on the graves of war.

Is it a bit silly to think your arsenal of missiles didn’t kill someone during that last mission? Sure, but a core part of Sand Land’s appeal is its invitation to enter a world in which that’s possible and even necessary. The end of the world for Sand Land was a mere fifty years ago, lending some surprising weight to Roa and Thief’s occasional bouts of forlorn reminiscing and eventual plot revelations. The story can feel somewhat disjointed at times, its thematic and character strength stumbling over odd pacing and lurching between scenes rather than smoothly flowing, but the thrust of it is frequently engaging or, at the very least, entertaining.

All of this is wrapped in presentation that borders on magical. Toriyama’s art is almost perfectly translated into an explorable space in Sand Land, as if the world just beyond the frames of his books had spilled out and invited you to dick around in it. There’s a smattering of the hard lines and grit lost in the translation from the original work with Sand Land but it’s a minor gripe, the achievement of Sand Land, the place, and the expressive character animations all but papering over any purist complaints. It makes for a game that is striking to look at in trailers but doesn’t reveal the real breadth of its beauty until you’re sitting down with the thing, the ability to swing the camera around and move Beelzebub through these spaces without it breaking the immaculate art and vibes being the crowning achievement for Sand Land.

In the face of this evocative work, the mechanical and pacing fumbles feel distinctly less important, their severity already dulled by the game’s overall quality and likely nullified entirely for some by its relentless charm. It is, to my mind, the quintessential 7/10 video game experience, the kind of good time that makes a man in his 30s ache with warm and, as of recently, bittersweet nostalgia. But in many ways, I’m not sure Sand Land is meant for me, it’s meant for the new anime kid with a PS5 and 30 hours of free time to do the side quests, to build up the towns and track down the collectibles all while becoming slowly enamoured with the work of a man who has left us all too soon.

Or maybe Sand Land is for both of us, the past and present generations, taking a moment over a cool video game to say hey, thank you Akira Toriyama. I can think of no better goodbye than to inhabit one of his boundless, beautiful worlds.

The post Sand Land Review – Mad Mechs appeared first on Press Start.

While everything I’ve seen in the media and in studies to this point has suggested that the dumping of plastic waste in Earth’s oceans is an abhorrent practice that has resulted and will result in the destruction of entire ecosystems, Another Crab’s Treasure posits an alternative. What if, instead of choking on plastic bags and carcinogens, the creatures of the ocean began building cities from discarded boots and boxes and figured out how to expel the microplastics from their bloodstream to use as currency? And more importantly, how long would it take before fish invent taxes?

Unfortunately for our hero, Kril, not long enough. This simple crab finds himself in a desperate situation when his shell is repossessed by a “loan shark” and told he’ll need to make things right financially with a new duchy ruling over his slice of the sea. Before long though, things go even more pear-shaped and Kril becomes wrapped up in a cross-country treasure hunt taking him from the big city of New Carcinia to the deepest depths of the watery West, all in the name of earning back his home.

It’s an absurd premise full of absurd characters and situations, blending The Hero’s Journey with SpongeBob SquarePants and a deft sense of humour that produces belting gags at a steady clip. Kril’s world is one of edgy ideas painted with a soft and warm brush, at least until things steer deeper (literally and figuratively) in the back half, and at the heart of its brisk jaunt across varied aquatic biomes is a reverence for FromSoft’s Souls-adjacent output that’s equal parts parody and earnest imitation. Yes, this cartoony platformer about talking crabs is also a tough-as-you-care “soulslike” with all of the trimmings that that implies.

As Kril explores deeper and deeper into The Sands Between (their joke, not mine), prodding at the flexible “open-linear” structure of the world, he’ll be faced with many a challenge and largely in the form of hostile crustaceans, fish and other wet things all primed to deplete his HP bar with fewer hits than Fergie had on “Double Duchess.” The rhythm of combat in Another Crab’s Treasure should feel instantly familiar to anyone who’s cut their teeth on the “souls” brand of gaming, with a big focus on biding your time, parrying effectively and striking when the moment is right. Progression is very similar too, with collected “Microplastics” used as an all-encompassing currency for buying new gear and improving stats, and of course it’s lost should you die and not make it back to the location of your demise to recollect it. Moon Snail Shells are the stand-in for camps, and so on. You get the idea.

Another Crab’s Treasures most inspired and original mechanic, though, comes via shells. In keeping with Kril’s character and biology, he’s able to pick up a multitude of different objects to bung onto his back and use as a temporary home. Shells help mitigate damage from enemy attacks, and hiding in his them is Kril’s version of guarding, but they break with repeated damage, so ensuring you’re protected and quickly seeking out a new shell when one breaks is essential to survival.

Continuing on the “world built on human trash” theme, Kril’s shell could be anything from a blown-out tennis ball to a printer ink cartridge or one half of a Matryoshka doll, and each different object has its own properties from weight to level of protection and a unique special ability. Finding new shells, figuring out their abilities and amassing a catalogue of new discoveries is one of the best parts of the game, and the added layers of strategy and challenge that come with balancing your own health, your shell’s integrity and where your next home is coming from during tense fights makes for an absolute thrill.

The highlight at the end of all these combat mechanics, this exploration and progression and worldbuilding, is the boss encounters. It would pain me to keep making the comparison if it weren’t so intentional, but these are very much Dark Souls bosses in crab form, and that’s about as incredible as it sounds. Big arenas, big crabs and big difficulty spikes are the order of the day, backed up by some of the most hype soundtrack work in recent memory, and each feels as unique visually as it does mechanically. Some of my favourites have been the ones tucked away in hidden spots around the game’s many regions, but the penultimate fight absolutely takes the crown in badass factor.

And while they’re just one contributor to Another Crab’s Treasure’s hugely Souls-inspired level of challenge, a key difference across the game is a host of accessibility options that can make the whole experience a lot more approachable even for those who don’t relish the punishment. You can opt to take less damage, make enemies weaker, give yourself extra i-frames and parry timing, keep your accrued microplastics on death and even give yourself an actual gun for a shell that wastes enemies in a single shot. Brilliant.

The gun thing is a pretty good example of the level of unhinged charm to expect from this game, all the way from the lighter opening hours to the altogether more grim and existential closing areas. There’s nearly never a moment perfectly punctuated by a visual gag or stupendously unnecessary detail that both delights and surprises. One of my favourite examples is Kril’s idle animation, which starts after you’ve not touched the controller for a bit and sees him physically pull one of his healing “Heartkelp” items out of inventory and start juggling it, and if you pick the controller back up and start moving him he’ll drop it – leaving you to hope that it lands on the ground and not over a cliff or you’ve genuinely just lost it.

One of the best things this game has borrowed from FromSoft’s output is the penchant for inspired, grotesque creature designs – even here where most are variations on a crab. Towards the later areas, where you start seeing skyscraper-sized enemies wandering dark depths and crabs that have a second, disgusting and squishy phase after you destroy their exoskeleton, it’s all especially fucked up cool. But it’s never just wholesale pulling from its inspirations either, there’s always an added context or thematic tie (and usually some form of brilliant crab/fish/ocean pun) that adds so much to the game’s charm.

Unfortunately, my general praise and adoration for the game does need to be capped off on a sour note, because Another Crab’s Treasure as it is now, or as I played it for review on PS5, is saddled with some pretty prominent issues. Performance is a major concern, with certain areas of the game that plummet to obscenely low resolutions and choppy framerates, and frequent points where the game would straight up stall for 5-10 seconds at a time. In a game where dying is a major setback, and given how often these issues occur in moments of immediate danger, it’s a massive problem.

I’m normally the first to admit a skill issue, but I can genuinely say that the overwhelming majority of my deaths in this game were due to a sudden and unexpected freeze, the camera getting stuck inside walls, lock-on targeting picking an enemy miles away instead of the one in front of me or just having to abandon my progress and collected currency because I’d fallen through the environment. Thankfully problems like these can be worked on, as opposed to fundamental design flaws, so I really hope these things are fixed up sooner than later.

The post Another Crab’s Treasure Review – Shell-den Ring appeared first on Press Start.

I feel like I’ve put more time into Top Spin than any other gaming franchise, and whilst I was over the moon to see a new one announced earlier this year, I was equally shocked as the response to tennis games has always been that there’s just not big enough of an audience there to make them profitable.

With 2K seemingly finding a winning formula that’s working across all of its titles, I was really eager to see what a Top Spin in 2024 would look like, and it definitely is a ‘2K’ game from top to bottom for better and for worse.

Starting off with the presentation, I don’t think there’s ever been a Top Spin game that has looked and moved this well. There’s over 50 courts that all have a bunch of detail, and majority of the players have clearly been re-created with a lot of love and care.

It’s worth mentioning though that even though the roster is on the smaller side, some of the players such as Roger Federer and Serena Williams look almost one to one to their real-life counterpart, and have clearly been mo-capped with their smallest mannerisms coming across to the game, but other players such as my personal favourite, Maria Sharapova, look almost nothing like their real-life counterpart which is a little jarring.

Whilst the music in the game is fantastic, I did find it a little odd that there was no commentary which makes for a quiet game during the bulk of it. It’s especially odd as John McEnroe lends his voice to the training session, and he’s a full-time commentator these days.

When it comes to the core gameplay, nobody has done it better than the Top Spin franchise which has successfully found a balance of simulation and arcade tennis gameplay, and this will feel extremely familiar to anyone that has picked up a game before. Your shots accuracy is determined by a meter that you need to time perfectly, whilst the power is determined by how early you get to a ball before holding down.

It still works extremely well, and when you move onto the harder difficulty levels, you get a good sense of risk vs reward which is what tennis is all about. Advanced shots return for serves in which you use the analogue stick, but risky shots that used to be performed using the triggers and required perfect timing don’t make a comeback, which I can live with although they did add a bit of excitement. The other thing that plays a big factor in how each point plays out is stamina, which depletes as the rallies go on, and will result in you being more likely to hit an error as it goes down.

THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $99 FROM AMAZON WITH FREE SHIPPING

An addition to the game that I really liked is the new skills feature, which basically gives your player three different skills that range from being able to hit with more power as the rally goes on, to being a counter hitting specialist. It adds a bit of extra variation to each pro and really allows you to sculpt your own as well.

Outside of the general exhibition mode, the new MyCareer mode is where you’ll spend most of your time. It’s a decent attempt at a tennis mode that will keep you coming back, but it’s not without some issues. Like career modes of Top Spins of old, it basically has you going through seasons month by month which consist of taking on a training course, a special event as well as a tournament with each mode ramping up in difficulty as you level up.

At first, it was fun, but it quickly gets repetitive and does feel like a grind between major milestones in levelling up. For instance, the special events are all comprised of a match that only has you winning points on your own serve, and I’ve done about 10-15 of them so far without it ever varying from that. You also have to manage your stamina between tournaments or risk short-term or long-term injuries, which I did appreciate.

As you go through the mode, you try to get to new statuses which allows you to compete in higher and higher tournaments until you make it to a grand slam, with you levelling up between those rankings with your player getting sill points to spend on attributes. I really liked that the game gives you a handful of presets that you can select which will automatically distribute among the related attributes.

There’s also a coach feature which allows you to assign a coach which will require you to complete a handful of challenges before you can level up and eventually getting some extra skills that are attributed to that coach, but as soon as you change coaches, you lose them and have to start again, which feels a little cheap.

There’s not a heap in the way of story either, with podcasts filling in the blanks of what’s happening around you, but these are essentially glorified audio logs, which are nice to have, but don’t provide a heap of drama off the court. When it all comes down to it, there are things I’d have loved to see here, but it’s still a great first attempt, and it’ll definitely keep me coming back.

Outside of MyCareer, there’s a bunch of outfits and gear that you can purchase and unlock within the Centre Court Pass, and these won’t end when a new season begins, but if you’re not super into customising your character these won’t do a lot for you. There’s also a series of daily, weekly and monthly challenges for you to compete for extra currency.

My other main complaint with the how the game handles progress is that a lot of things need to be unlocked including a bunch of court variants (time of day etc), as well as the two higher difficulty modes, which I don’t have a huge issue with, but it’s more the requirements, for example to unlock the hardest difficulty, you need to play full 6 game sets in the one below it, which just feels a bit odd to me.

All-in-all, TopSpin 2K25 feels like a mostly complete package and I have no doubts that we’ll see 2K build on it over the years to come. I’m glad to have it, even if there’s a few things I’d loved to have seen done differently or added.

The post TopSpin 2K25 Review – Close To A Grand Slam appeared first on Press Start.

Tales of Kenzera: ZAU feels exciting for a number of reasons. For one, it’s the debut video game effort from Surgent Studios, a media company founded by actor Abubakar Salim (Raised by Wolves, Assassin’s Creed Origins) and that emphasises original, multi-medium storytelling and an environment that supports artists and their art. It’s also a project largely inspired by Salim’s own experiences with grief, enriched by a cultural lens that’s still young in the major video game landscape. And as if to play entirely to my own tastes, it’s a colourful, approachable “metroidvania” that’s succinct enough to see its emotionally-charged parable through in a single weekend.

Tales of Kenzera: ZAU doesn’t begin in the titular world of Kenzera, or even with Zau himself, instead framing its story through another character, Zuberi, living in the futuristic city of Amani circa 2089. Zuberi, still in a state of grief, is given a book penned by his recently-passed Baba, in it a story set in a very different and wondrous world and featuring a remarkably familiar protagonist. It’s here, in the world contained in his Baba’s final gift, that Zuberi discovers the story of Zau – a warrior shaman fighting his own battles with loss.

Zau’s own dealings with grief have led him to call on Kalunga, the God of Death, from whom he believes he can earn a favour powerful enough to bring his Baba back from the other side. In return, Zau needs to help three great and restless spirits cross the veil into Kalunga’s care, and thus begins his journey across Kenzera. 

It’s a great little tale that, over the course of the game’s slender runtime of under 10 hours, offers up some simple and accessible emotional beats backed up by great character writing and well-acted dialogue. It’s nothing groundbreaking or complex, but the beautifully-realised world, clear personal stakes and unique perspectives on a phenomenon as universally human as death really help it come together into something special. It all ends on a pitch-perfect note as well, one that closes the book not just on Zau’s story as a proxy of Zuberi, but on Zuberi’s seemingly as a proxy of Salim. While I can’t speak to the true intent, the sense that this world, steeped in spirituality and folklore, is its creator’s own attempt to help a staunchly-material parent cross that proverbial veil feels palpable.

Having this fable-like backdrop also really helps to elevate Tales of Kenzera’s themes, with its fantastical environments, creatures and characters all intentionally crafted to evoke the mood of each part of the story. As Zau moves through his grief, so does he move through physical challenges and changing landscapes that mirror it. With each new tool or power gained, Zau not only surmounts the obstacles in front of him but also within him.

Crucially, as a video game, it all lends itself incredibly to the fun of play. Zau feels great to control and some of the more unique and inventive abilities that he gains along the way lend themselves to some very satisfying platforming sequences. Stringing together hookshots, glides, even the power to assemble or disassemble platforms and walls on the fly, is consistently exciting, even if some overzealous collision detection and a penchant for instant-kill environmental hazards can interrupt the flow quite profoundly.

It’s also unfortunate that, while it’s stunning to behold and feels great to get around, especially once Zau has access to his full suite of abilities, the layout of this world doesn’t quite favour comparison to its genre peers. It’s built on the same principles as the best metroidvanias – with secrets and optional paths to uncover as you gain new means of traversal – but there’s not a lot of crossover between sections of the map which means you spend a good amount of time just running through already-completed areas to find the nearest fast travel point. The map menu itself is also less-than-helpful, as it automatically uncovers an entire area the moment you step into it, making it hard to tell where you have and haven’t already explored.

Similarly to traversal, Tales of Kenzera: ZAU’s combat excels in tight controls and an intoxicating sense of rhythm – here fuelled by the duality of Zau’s inherited Mask of the Moon and Mask of the Sun. The moon represents a more measured approach, good for crowd control and keeping out of harm’s way, while the Sun is all about getting in close and causing maximum destruction. Zau wears one at a time, with the flipside of his palette just a button press away at any moment.

The interplay of the two masks in combat is frequently described in the game as a “dance,” and that’s exactly how it feels. Firing off long-range attacks with the Moon mask before freezing an enemy, quickly switching to the Sun mask and dropping a well-placed aerial assault on them is frequently compelling. As you progress through the game and start facing off against bigger numbers of ground and aerial foes that possess mask-specific shields, you truly start to fall into a “flow state” and move with a grace more than worthy of being compared to dance. It’s all very compelling stuff, and comes along with some pretty exciting and visually arresting boss battles, although towards the back half of the game a general lack of enemy variety and some cheap-feeling fights start to turn it into a chore.

Always a joy though, is the game’s enchanting world and the way it’s presented. ZAU is a gorgeous effort from end-to-end that, like so many of its other parts, is elevated by an attention to theme and an embracing of culture and myth. Despite being a game largely centred on death, it’s hugely colourful – something Salim and the team have previously pointed out is not all that surprising outside of Western tastes. Kenzera, its flora, fauna and inhabitants are all teeming with life and detail, and everything looks vast and rich even with all of the adventuring happening in two dimensions. 

It’s all backed up by a wonderful score from composer Nainita Desai, as well, with each moment perfectly punctuated by a diverse soundtrack that pulls from many cultural influences to create something wholly original and emotionally-rich.

The post Tales Of Kenzera: ZAU Review – Dancing With Death appeared first on Press Start.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants (referred to as Wrath from here out because geez what a mouthful) is a port of a 2017 arcade game from prolific licensed arcade game maker Raw Thrills, that has you picking from one of the four iconic Turtles and mashing through legions of enemies until you finish or run out of continues. Ostensibly inspired by the classic Turtles in Time, Wrath is a mindless trial of repetition that gets stale even within its roughly hour-long runtime.

Things look positive to begin with. Up to four player local co-op play is easy to set up and can make for some fun carnage. You begin by each choosing a turtle – the choice doesn’t matter all that much, the attacks look a little different but they’re all pretty much the same – then choosing a level from the five initially available (with one more unlocked afterwards), and walking from left to right beating up every baddie in your way.

The gameplay is extremely simple; you can move, jump, and attack, though I found myself yearning for a dodge or block button. Avoiding damage requires you to stop attacking and walk away from an enemy about to attack. Compared to an active block or dodge, walking back feels like I’m slowly meandering away from combat rather than participating. More often than not I just found myself mashing attack and accepting the hits. There is some strategy to be found in learning which coloured enemies have which weaponry – dealing with blue enemies first is a good idea because their electric zap attack is incredibly annoying if it hits, for example.

As you land hits you’ll fill a meter under your health, and when it’s full you can unleash a ‘Turtle Power’ attack. Each Turtle’s power looks different, but they’re all functionally the same – a flashy screen-clearing attack. You’ll occasionally find icons in the world that summon friends to do another kind of screen clearing attack with a slightly different animation. Again it adds some modicum of variety, but once you’ve seen them all they’re just another variation on the same.

There is some much-appreciated visual variety in the levels at least. While they’re all populated with mostly the same small selection of enemy types, the backgrounds and hazards in each level help break the tedium a little. You’ve got New York City, a sewer level that apes the neat sewer surfing level from Turtles in Time, Dimension X with its wild, bright pink and white sci-fi setting, among others. Levels have two bosses apiece as well, each with some personality and attack patterns to learn. Even though the actual gameplay is turn-your-brain-off mindless, I still found myself having fun bounding through the levels to see the sights and fight bosses.

Visually the game is pretty unremarkable. We’re well past the time when arcade hardware outclassed what we can have at home. Design wise I don’t find the characters terribly appealing, and technically there are a lot of strange looking low resolution textures to be found. It barrels along at a smooth-seeming 60 frames per second on PS5 even with a lot of chaos on screen which is notable, but overall looks a bit cheap.

Wrath of the Mutants does have some degree of a storyline, but it’s told in uninteresting, unvoiced motion comic style scenes that had me switching off. April O’Neill has been kidnapped, you’ve gotta fight legions of baddies and save her. To be fair, not many people are gonna be playing this for an engrossing story.

Wrath of the Mutants is a thoroughly unremarkable game. Four player local co-op play can elevate even the most mindless of games to be decent fun, but underneath you’ll mostly be moving around and mashing attack until you finish enough levels to hit the end. As an arcade game it’s designed to be easily understood, but even just a little more depth to gameplay would have helped prevent the quick onset of monotony.

The post Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath Of The Mutants Review – A Repetitive Romp appeared first on Press Start.

Despite being a huge fan of RPGs out of Japan, Yoshitaka Murayama’s Suikoden is a blind spot in my knowledge of the legendary genre. It’s a series I’ve always had a passing interest in, but has been kept just out of arms reach as the inexorable marching of time continues. Suikoden’s hardcore fans won’t let it be forgotten, though, funding a Kickstarter campaign for a spiritual sequel to Suikoden within hours of its launch.

Spearheaded by Murayama himself, the Eiyuden Chronicle project kicked off with 2022’s Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising, a prologue to the events of the main attraction – Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes. Hundred Heroes is Suikoden in all but name. Its uncompromisingly old-school design can sometimes feel antiquated and obtuse, but ultimately makes for a nostalgically-classic RPG that exudes charm and a love for the genre.

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is set on the continent of Allraan, a rich melting pot of nations and diverse cultures, each holding unique values and traditions that set their peoples apart. The many races of Allraan form a complex array of alliances and rivalries, fueled by war and the powerful nature of magical objects known as Rune-Lenses. It’s within this setting that the Galdean Empire has found a way to amplify the power of Rune-Lenses, alongside the discovery of a powerful artifact that will bolster their strength further.

The cheapest shipped copy is at Amazon for $64 with free Prime shipping.

This setup is ultimately what unites our core three heroes – Nowa, Seign, and Marisa. While much of the early focus is on Nowa and Seign, Marisa quickly joins afterwards to complete the trio, their fates entwined as a result of the machinations of the Galdean Empire. It’s a narrative that treads familiar ground with some predictable twists, but it’s the way that characters are developed through conflict and the happenings of Allraan that makes Hundred Heroes engaging when it comes to narrative.

As you recruit new members to an army built to fight back against the Galdean Empire, the range of perspectives and opinions also increases. It’s fascinating to see how the different nations of Allraan react to the prospect of war. Where the shark-like Shi’Arcs of Impershi’arc are itching to stick it to the Empire’s malicious advances, the kingdom of Euchrisse is less eager to fight what seems to be a losing battle. It creates a distinct array of situations that the Liberation Army has to contend with in order to build up their forces as much as possible.

These conflicts are best explored through the perspectives of Nowa, Seign, and Marisa. Despite each of them having vastly different outlooks on the coming conflict and what it means to be at war with the Empire, each wants the same thing. Seign is a particular highlight, whose struggle forces him to reconsider where his loyalties lie. There are some really excellent moments that come from this, particularly revolving around his family, but it would be a shame to spoil them here.

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes’s approach to story and characters is also adopted in how it handles gameplay. Its combat is a robust turn-based system, keenly tuned in difficulty to implore you to think strategically about the decisions you make in conflicts and how you form your party. Much like Suikoden, a character’s position in the party effects what they can do in combat. Front row units are likely to take a brunt of the punishment from enemies, where backrow units are kept in safety at the cost of range. This, in combination with the sheer number of heroes you can recruit and use in combat, makes for a staggering amount of choice and flexibility before combat is even initiated.

Hero Combos also encourage you to think about how units can compliment each other. Certain characters with narrative ties to one another often have Hero Combos for big damage at the cost of SP and both of those characters’ turns. The extra layer of strategy and consideration that positioning has, coupled with managing important combat resources like SP and MP offer a deceptively deep turn-based combat system. All of this works so effectively because Hundred Heroes’s difficulty curve feels tightly tuned, especially in its challenging boss fights.

Another part of contending with Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes’s escalating challenge is through making proper use of gear, and more importantly Rune-Lenses. Rune-Lenses can be slotted onto characters a la Final Fantasy VII’s Materia system, letting them access a set of elemental skills, physical skills, or stat boosts in battle. These vary wildly in application, and exploration can net you some pretty powerful ones. Characters are limited in what type they can equip and how many, with more slots being unlocked as they level up. It’s a great system that allows you to be a bit more flexible with unit roles to cover weaknesses and reinforce strengths.

The biggest issue with combat is in the way it’s taught to the player. It’s clear that Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes assumes that the player has a certain level of familiarity with Suikoden’s own combat framework. There were many things that I had to pick up on my own in the opening hours, either by digging through menus or by coming to my own conclusions. While it’s fun to discover some of this on your own, it can also lead to some frustrating roadblocks in the early game as you try to find your bearings against the more difficult encounters.

This initial obtuseness isn’t isolated to Hundred Heroes’ combat. There are certain times in the narrative where you’re let off the leash with no waypoint marker to guide you. While I’m sure many will be relish the prospect of these hands-off moments, they feel too broad in the nudges they give you in the right direction. It often left me trudging about the world map, jumping between different cities and villages, combing through each NPC, only to find out the person I was looking for was in the very same city I started in. These moments are exacerbated by a lack of fast travel in the early game where they rear their heads the most.

It must be said, though, that when you aren’t backtracking to find the next point of progression, Allraan is a joy to explore. It feels adequately sized, dotted with towns both small and large, countless dungeons, and plenty of heroes to recruit for the Liberation Army. It’s fat-free in every way, cutting down on the bloat that plagues many open-worlds today in favour of a more focused offering of locales throughout its many biomes.

Besides engaging with main story and side content, the overworld also offers progression through material gathering. These materials can then be used at the Liberation Army’s very own castle, expanding the range of goods and services on offer in your own home base. It really lends to the feeling of building up an army from nothing in order to fight back against those who have it all. Seeing your castle grow and flourish with new recruits as businesses are rebuilt is always rewarding when you stop back in after an adventure.

This feeling of unity among the Liberation Army also comes through in the War battles you’ll get into over the course of the story. These are few and far between, but serve as a nice pace-breaker between all the turn-based combat and overworld exploration. These large-scale strategic affairs see you commanding legions made up of Liberation Army recruits to take down the advancing Galdean forces. There’s some added strategy in how you approach these battles through the use of powerful one-off commands to gain the upper-hand in battle. They never outstay their welcome and always pop up at just the right time.

The final piece of the gameplay puzzle comes in the form of Duels. While these one-on-one conflicts are mechanically shallow, they’re thematically rich and an absolute blast to watch unfold. Each one is a furiously cinematic clashing of ideals that’s immensely satisfying to watch unfold. These are even more few and far between then the aforementioned War battles, but always serve as poignant set pieces during narrative climaxes.

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundres Heroes is also a joy to take in visually. While it isn’t quite as detailed as some of the other HD-2D/pixel-art titles we’ve seen recently, it has its own flair that hearkens back to the glory days of PS1 RPGs. Character portraits and environments are lovingly created, and the sheer visual variety throughout Allraan is a sight to behold. Special care has been put into combat animations, which always feel impactful and look flashy. Performance is also rock-solid on PS5, but your mileage might vary depending on platform.

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is a nostalgic and effective callback to the days of Suikoden and PS1 RPGs. It doesn’t rival the scale and complexity of modern JRPGs, but it doesn’t need to. There’s plenty of joy and satisfaction to be found in the tried and true trappings of this classic sub-genre. It might stumble over its commitment to that vision, but that doesn’t keep Hundred Heroes from delivering on the promise of a comfy JRPG experience.

The post Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes Review – Comforting Nostalgia appeared first on Press Start.

Editor’s Note: In keeping with our usual DLC reviews, this review is intentionally unscored. We’re aware that OpenCritic has put a 6/10 score on their website, and have made multiple attempts to have this rectified, but have had no response.

After some time away, it’s so very good to be back in the world of Final Fantasy XVI. Last year’s Echoes of the Fallen DLC was a brisk return trip to Valisthea, but with the launch of The Rising Tide, fans are getting a good chunk of brand-new content. With a new open area to explore, a compelling new storyline to follow, some tough-as-nails new endgame content and – of course – the long-awaited arrival of the Lost Eikon Leviathan, this is a proper DLC expansion.

Like Echoes, The Rising Tide’s adventure is inserted neatly into the tail-end of Final Fantasy XVI’s main campaign and sees Clive receive a missive alluding to the whereabouts of the only Eikon unaccounted for at that point, Leviathan. Following the thread, Clive and party wind up meeting Shula – a new face who leads them to a mysterious northern region cleverly hidden from the rest of Valisthea and known as Mysidia. It’s here that we learn of the plight of the Water Motes, a people living in seclusion and with the guilt of the misdeeds of their ancestors, which have resulted in the binding of Leviathan and the eternal torment of its dominant.

What results is a roughly five-hour main questline, with another couple of hours of side content, where Clive, Jill, Joshua, Torgal and new tag-along Shula travel from fields to coasts to ancient ruins in an effort to free Leviathan’s dominant, and ultimately the Eikon itself. Without going into much more detail for fear of spoilers, it’s all a very worthy addition to the game’s overall lore with a lot of historical value and a fresh perspective on the world these new and returning characters inhabit. It’s tied in nicely to the events of the main game, and Shula is easily a favourite character amongst the DLC and base content. Best of all, of course, is that soon into the expansion Clive gains access to a whole new set of Eikonic abilities thanks to Leviathan.

Where the previous DLC was a great reminder of how good Final Fantasy XVI’s combat is, The Rising Tide goes one step further and makes it better. Leviathan’s combat features are an absolute blast to use, with its core feat essentially turning Clive’s off-hand into a gun arm with a Leviathan head that shoots blasts of water. With a focus on swift dodges and long range shots, plus a reload mechanic not unlike Gears of War’s Active Reload, it gives a whole other feel to fights that’s incredibly compelling. Throw in some formidable abilities that go great for crowd control and this winds up being an invaluable addition to your Eikon loadouts. It’s also not the only new twist to combat that’s been added to the game, but that’s something for players to find out on their own.

And in good news for those of us who revelled in the challenge and epic boss fights of Echoes of the Fallen, The Rising Tide ups the ante once again with some seriously impressive fights that really put Clive’s expanded arsenal to work, especially on Final Fantasy difficulty. The new “standard” boss encounters come with some great visual and mechanical variety and put up a decent fight, but the real highlight is the Eikon battle with Leviathan itself, a multi-stage epic that’s up there with the best in the base game – although if you’re playing on FF mode be prepared to retry one phase in particular a good number of times before it sticks.

The rest of the questing in this DLC, outside of the main stuff with all of the big battles and cool new locations, is pretty standard fare for this game. It’s a lot of stiffly-animated NPCs asking Clive to go fetch things or beat up specific groups of monsters, none of which is particularly compelling but usually has some world-building value. The best of it is getting to run into this game’s fresh interpretation of Tonberry enemies, which are cool as hell. There’s also new gear to find with new mineral types to hunt down, so there’s plenty to do if you want more content out of your $30.

And if you really want a challenge, there’s a whole-ass survival gauntlet/roguelike/arcade mode dubbed Kairos Gate that unlocks after you finish the main quests in The Rising Tide, and it’s brutal. Having done everything else on FF difficulty, in the main game and both DLCs, I’m still getting absolutely hammered before I can make it even halfway through its 20 floors of battles. The mode gives Clive set gear but also doles out points every round to spend on permanent and temporary buffs, and offers rewards for the main game for progressing, so it’s definitely worth diving into for the brave.

Of course I can’t leave it at that without talking about Mysidia itself and the visual splendour on display. Given how grim and dark Final Fantasy XVI’s main regions are in the late-game stages of its story, the sudden shift to bright blue skies and lush, green fields is enormously welcome. It’s all stunning to behold, no less because huge temples and sky-scraping waves completely frozen in time paint its backdrop with the promise of what lies within them. 

There’s not a corner of this new region that isn’t brimming with life and wonder (save for the dodgy facial animations), a stark reminder of how gorgeous Final Fantasy XVI has always been. I’m especially fond of the way the colour blue is used throughout, as a symbol of the people of the region and their history, culture and environment, as well as a connection to the overall theme of water and a point-of-difference to the palettes of the rest of Valisthea.

Oh, and the score? *Chef’s kiss*

The post Final Fantasy XVI: The Rising Tide Review – Clive Into The Deep End appeared first on Press Start.

A house is often built of brick and beam, though that isn’t the case for Harold Halibut, whose home, the only one he’s ever known, is a ship made up of steel and supports. A home, however, is more than that. It’s hope, it’s purpose, it’s a feeling, and the pursuit of it serves as perhaps the most pivotal theme at the centre of Slow Bros’ hand-crafted adventure aboard an ark-like spaceship. 

The only home Harold has ever known is the Fedora I, a city in the stars serving as the last vestige for humankind after they fled a waning Earth to colonise the stars. It’s here he was born, and if the great minds aboard the Fedora can’t concoct a way to reignite the ship’s thrusters and continue their voyage out of the alien ocean they’re trapped in, it’s here that he’ll die. While that mission is a catalyst for Harold Halibut’s adventure, it’s his longing for purpose and a place to really call home that carry the emotional burden of the game’s heartfelt plot.

Harold, as a character, struck me as a fairly content and happy-go-lucky guy. He never seems intimidated by the fact his immediate circle aboard the ship are the community’s sharpest minds. He’s a bit of a fixer and follower who sleeps beneath a lab, and at times I got the sense there wasn’t a lot going on behind the eyes of Harold Halibut. Sure, he might log important life moments by drawing them in his diary with the proficiency of a preschooler, but he proves to have complexities in that he’s sensitive, innately caring, and longs for a grand purpose beyond the menial responsibilities he’s given. I think Harold’s journey, by the end, is one of satisfying growth and it was easy to root for him as an underdog. 

The other characters who take refuge within the Fedora are also a largely endearing bunch by the end, even if they seem to take the mickey out of Harold for a bulk of his time in their company. Though they each have baggage, there’s one lad aboard that seems wholly good and that’s the station’s postmaster, Buddy. By the end, he’s really the grounding for Harold to introspect and his is a beautifully crafted story start-to-finish.

The first thing that’ll ensnare you right off the rip is that Harold Halibut’s gorgeously cinematic stop-motion aesthetic, complete with handmade assets from the characters to the sets, is a throwback to a classic era. I cut my teeth on adventure games like The Neverhood growing up and for this claymation style to find a place in video games once again, and to such great effect, is heartwarming. The Fedora itself is expertly realised and feels like a living diorama as you work from set to set, however it’s the oh-so-subtle imperfections on the characters, such as the missed spots of paint on Harold’s hair, that help create an authentic, artful escape. 

In The Neverhood, and even films that use claymation, the illusion of the world is never broken because some poor artist adjusted each and every frame of the animation painstakingly by hand. With Harold Halibut, however, it’s clearer that what we’re dealing with is traditional, modern game animation where a model is scanned in, skinned onto a rig and, to be dangerously reductive, it’s job done. That’s not an issue, of course, work smarter, not harder. But as the team are beholden to the same technical niggles as everyone, the immersion fast shatters as we observe textures pop in, entire scenes render slowly, and the unnatural way that Harold ascends and descends staircases with a stride worthy of the Ministry of Funny Walks.

I suspect this is the downside of developing this game as a relatively freeing, exploratory experience while The Neverhood was more controlled with its point-and-click nature. That said, I never once found myself thinking this could have been done better, what the team has achieved with clay models remains a wonderfully bold feat of design that does separate Harold Halibut from its contemporaries.

Unfortunately, it’s that game that Harold Halibut is beneath its pretty exterior that ends up falling relatively flat. One might think that, with the setting being a multi-storey city under the sea, things might get a little claustrophobic after a time, however it was simply the banality of the tasks you’re given that causes boredom to creep in. Fetching samples, checking in on fellow Fedorans, and delivering mail can get old quickly, even if the latter letters deliver some of the story’s more tender, meaningful beats. It might tie into the game’s themes of purpose and frittered potential though it does not make for a joyful experience. 

So many times when Harold would go to seek help or rope someone in on a plan, they’d simply rebuff his offer and cause the story to pivot and go in an entirely different direction. In this sense, the design is a little odd and didn’t ever achieve a satisfying flow. You’re given a side task early on to find the Fedora captain’s pet bird and I’m convinced it’s not something you can actually seek out to do, rather it’s a scripted scene that simply happens to you. Briskly jogging through the Fedora’s halls from point A to B, off to C and back again, at no point feels rewarding as the novelty of the station’s set up, along with its mode of tubular transport, quickly wears thin.

When the story arrives at its most tender or reflective beats, Harold Halibut’s score is a beautiful arrangement that moves from a soft, lonely piano to a haunting theremin that undoubtedly meets the science-fiction brief. It perhaps isn’t present enough to carry the whole narrative, but the moments it punctuated were certainly memorable. 

From top to bottom, Harold Halibut has the disarming melancholy of a Wes Anderson film, it’s textbook indie, it’s textbook arthouse, too. It’s a wonderfully compact sci-fi tale about the call of home and purpose, however it takes place entirely within one of the most disappointingly sterile games I’ve played in some time. I wish the mechanics were up to standard with the absolutely gorgeous, homespun art that, on its own, justifies a decade of toil.

The post Harold Halibut Review – No Place Like Home appeared first on Press Start.

Sure, the discourse may have been eventually been clouded by arguments over whether or not it could be considered an “indie” game (something the creators have since cleared up), but there’s no denying Dave the Diver made quite the splash last year when it launched for PCs and then eventually the Nintendo Switch. Now, carrying on the inexplicable tradition of well-loved smaller efforts rocking up much later on PlayStation devices, the game is ready to set sail for PS5 and PS4. And unsurprisingly, it’s still very good.

If you’re one of those who’ve been holding out for this release and have not already had the pleasure of the dive (or the Dave), what’s here is a deceptively simple concept. As the titular Dave, you’re called on by the enigmatic but talented Chef Bancho for an important job – help his new waterfront sushi restaurant flourish by diving for fresh marine protein by day and managing the eatery by night. These two distinct types of gameplay form the core loop, with money from the restaurant funding better diving equipment to catch more exotic fish, in turn creating new and increasingly gourmet dishes to raise the profile and income of the restaurant and create new business opportunities like interior renovations and a bigger staff.

The thing that makes Dave the Diver truly special though, is that this, admittedly already-addictive, initial loop is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The deeper you go, literally and figuratively, the more layers you begin to uncover and the weirder things get. There’s more in these seas than just fish, after all, and more to the people you’ll meet above the surface than just hungry patrons looking for the next plate of delicious sushi. I’d hate to give too much away for anyone that’s managed to come in completely fresh, but there’s a reason Dave the Diver can sustain itself for a good 20-30 hour runtime and continue to surprise and delight the entire way through.

This game’s been out a while though, and there are countless other in-depth reviews you can read if you’re looking for more than a surface-level report on just how wacky this game can be, especially in the absurd things that characters say and the sheer detail packed into some of its playable gags. What you’re more likely here for is a few words on how Dave the Diver fares on PlayStation consoles, and after staying up many nights way longer than I should’ve recently, I think I can help with that.

The good, obvious news is, the game still slaps like a wet fish in the face. The experience is intact, and naturally looks and performs wonderfully on the PS5 where I spent my time playing it. Dave’s endearing combination of pixel art character models, simple 3D environments and lots of lovely effects goes down a treat in razor-sharp detail on a big telly, as do all of the incredible one-off retro-animated sequences you’ll discover as you do new things. In any other hands the weird grab bag of different visual elements here could have gone belly-up but it’s all just off-kilter enough to make it wonderfully compelling. The same goes for the soundtrack full of earworms and the Animal Crossing-esque dialogue.

And of course, there are some neat PS5-exclusive embellishments to be found here. At first I wasn’t entirely sure if a game that prides itself on lo-fi visuals and simple moment-to-moment gameplay really needs “immersive” DualSense features, but over time I’ve really grown to appreciate that extra little bit of tactility. Feeling the tug of a harpooned fish adds a bit of a thrill to the catch, and after a few hours you’ll start to notice the subtle difference in feel between different bits of gear that gives it a nice bit of extra (sorry) depth. Phone calls and camera snaps also come through the controller’s speaker, and pouring green tea or beer even offers some weirdly-calming feedback. The loading times between some areas also seem to have been brought under control here, at least on PS5.

It’s also a great fit for the PlayStation Portal, where the tiniest touch of latency and some occasionally tiny fish aren’t total dealbreakers. I’ve spent countless hours sitting in bed or rugged up on the couch on a cold morning just diving for fish and treasures on my Portal and it’s been bloody lovely. It’s no small wonder this game was so popular on Switch and the good ol’, Steam Deck.

The post Dave The Diver PS5 Review – A Worthy Tuna-Up appeared first on Press Start.

The original House Flipper certainly didn’t create the hugely-popular subgenre of games that simulate the mundanity of hands-on labour, but it definitely feels like one of the first to really capture a broad audience of players from all corners of the market. For whatever reason, it just had the right mix of player expression, progression and banal busywork to keep people engaged and even birth dedicated communities of decorators eager to share the fruits of their craft.

There’s no denying there were a few creaks in the boards though, even with the good amount of support and DLC expansions it’s received since. Fast forward five years then, and House Flipper 2 debuted in 2023 on PC, bringing with it renovations across the board from gameplay improvements to an expanded Story mode, more modern and cohesive visuals and an exciting new Sandbox mode. While those with the required rigs have been flipping up a storm for a few months now, it’s finally time for console players to step through the doors, tools in hand and start knocking down some walls.

Playing on PS5, my first impressions of House Flipper 2 were that of familiarity. If you’ve played the original, this isn’t a huge departure, and why would it be? But kicking things off in the game’s Story mode the updates slowly begin to reveal themselves. 

For starters, there’s a little more structure to progression in HF2 that’s backed up by a more intentional story and sense of place. In this game, you’re a returning resident of the town of Pinnacove, a coastal retreat full of folks that need help with everything from cleaning to unpacking, shopfitting and full-on renovations, and of course plenty of houses to flip. Your ultimate goal is to make enough of a name for yourself that the town hands you the keys to the “Ugliest House in Pinnacove” to turn into a dream community centre, which is a far more pleasant thing to be working toward than simply getting rich off of real estate.

The pacing of this core mode has also been updated to offer a better sense of progression. You’ll still get new jobs via email and gradually unlock your full suite of tools as you come up against new challenges, but the way these are designed and the slowly-doled-out Perk Points that let you augment your different tools as you use them more all feel a lot more thoughtfully-paced and better to gradually learn and expand your skill set from. A heap of the jobs also involved unboxing residents’ possessions and decorating with them, Unpacking-style, which gives everything a nice personal touch that fits in with the community-focused vibe of Pinnacove.

The objectives in each job are managed by Quests, which are room-based goals that show you what tools are needed in each part of a property and where you need to use them, whether it’s removing stains and garbage or painting walls or even buying and placing furniture. It’s very guided, but works wonderfully as a way to build your confidence in how everything functions before you start buying properties that you need to fix up without any sort of guidance after you’ve hammered and nailed your way through the 10-15 hour main campaign jobs.

Much like the first game, those few hours will be quickly eclipsed by how much time you’ll spend meticulously building and decorating once you’re let loose and comfortable with the full range of tools. These games go way beyond just painting and polishing, letting you build and break down walls, purchase and customise a huge amount of fixtures and furniture and really just live your dreams of being a contestant on The Block. There are a ton of quality-of-life improvements in this sequel to make things both more manageable and more flexible, and for the most part it all controls wonderfully on console. Fiddly object placement and menus that support both d-pad and cursor-based input but don’t commit fully to either are probably my biggest gripes.

Probably the best addition here though is the Sandbox mode, which finally lets players build and decorate a home entirely from scratch, floor plan and all. This is where dozens upon dozens of hours will truly be lost, and where players will no doubt start to truly appreciate just how intricate you can get with everything and how much more flexible all the systems are. Just the act of carefully placing cutlery in drawers or stocking fridges has had me glued for entire afternoons (and it’s a godsend that you can now move furniture or boxes with other objects in/on them). The PC community has already rallied around this massively, and being able to share your Sandbox creations with others (and even create your own quests) is a huge part of that.

The whole game looks great, too, not just in the sense of the sharp and performant visuals on PS5 but because everything in House Flipper 2 feels much more intentionally designed. Gone are the dull, store-bought and “photorealistic” assets along with barebones interfaces, replaced with a far more cohesive and visually distinct aesthetic, more original catalogue of objects, nicely-rendered materials and an attractive UX that helps sell the whole concept. The only presentational caveat is the music, which should be immediately switched off in favour of your own soundtrack. Or just silence, which would still be better than the grating and repetitive score on offer here.

At the end of the day, the true testament to how good House Flipper 2’s simulation of household work is, is how much of my actual home chores are being done in the meantime. Looking around me right now, I’d say this game has more than nailed the brief. Your tolerance for spending hours painting individual beams and counters is naturally going to have a huge impact on your enjoyment of a game like this, but if the idea speaks to you, it’s all right here.

The post House Flipper 2 PS5 Review – Flip It Good appeared first on Press Start.

The last few years have provided a veritable feast for tactical RPG fans. Between Fire Emblem Engage, Tactics Ogre Reborn, Triangle Strategy, Marvel’s Midnight Suns and more, there’s a smorgasbord of high quality options when it comes to this timeless genre. It’s in this landscape that acclaimed developer Vanillaware brings their own vision of what tactical RPGs can be in Unicorn Overlord.

Anyone familiar with Vanillaware’s catalogue knows that this is a far cry from the studio’s bread and butter, but that doesn’t change the fact that Unicorn Overlord is overflowing with Vanillaware flair. It’s wildly ambitious in its scope and core ideas, building upon genre tropes and expectations in engaging fashion. While all of these things showcase what’s possible in the genre, Vanillaware never loses site of what makes tactical RPGs so appealing to begin with.

Unicorn Overlord takes place in the land of Fevrith, years after a rebellion that led to the establishment of the Zenoiran Empire that now has a suffocating stranglehold over Fevrith’s lands. In the midst of this tyrannical rule is Alain, son of the former Queen Ilenia who was smuggled away from the Cornian Kingdom as his mother fell at the rebellion’s instigation. Raised by the late queen’s personal guard, Josef, Alain takes on the mantle of being leader of the Liberation Army, and sets out to bring an end to Zenoira’s subjugation.

It’s not like this is a setup we haven’t seen before – even with tactical RPGs, but it’s the way in which Unicorn Overlord explores the impact that Zenoira has on Fevrith and its citizens that makes it so captivating. Instead of focusing on the large scale impact of oppression and tyrannical rule, Unicorn Overlord takes a much more intimate approach that puts individual characters, towns, and settlements under the magnifying glass.

Zenoira’s impact on Fevrith is tangible, overbearing, and targeted. Each village, stronghold, and outpost under Zenoiran control is exploited in different ways. Between manufactured plagues and famines, to the blackmailing of former leadership figures and mind control, Zenoira’s depravity knows no bounds. Each new situation presented to the Liberation Army feels believable and urgent, and the way in which they’re explored and resolved through new characters adds an inherent investment into seeing things made better for the local population.

It all helps to make liberating different parts of Fevrith feel worthwhile outside of gameplay rewards and general progression. Many of these conflicts are entirely optional, presented to you on the golden path as you move through the overworld to your next big objective. Still, though, there’s an undeniable sense that these people need help, and after years of oppression, the Liberation Army are the only ones who can provide it. Perhaps most impressive is the way Unicorn Overlord juggles so many characters and arcs related to the core conflict. Not all characters are made equal in complexity, but there’s a surprising level of depth given the sheer number of them.

The state of Fevrith under Zenoiran rule goes hand-in-hand with the kind of gameplay loop that Vanillaware envisions for Unicorn Overlord. Tactical RPGs have often struggled to establish strong pacing. Although attempts have been made with more modern titles like Fire Emblem Engage, the time spent between battles often feels laborious and unfocused. This is undoubtedly the area that Unicorn Overlord seeks to strengthen and cement as a core part of the experience.

Instead of having a home base of operations or a menu where you can configure your army between conflicts, Unicorn Overlord presents an overworld for the Liberation Army to explore and interact with. It allows you to uncover Fevrith with flexibility and independence, you pick and choose the paths that you tread and the people you liberate. The world is full of overworld puzzles, combat challenges, and hidden goodies to uncover that’ll give you the edge in future battles.

These rewards make for a steady flow of progression in Unicorn Overlord regardless of how you choose to spend your time. Nothing here feels superfluous or tacked on, it all contributes to the growth of your army and individual units. The beauty of it is that you can pick and choose what you interact with. There’s no doubt you’ll get more out of Unicorn Overlord the more you put into it, but it never feels excessively complex or incohesive in the totality of its systems.

The depth of this progression and the way elements of it are slowly introduced over its 40 hour runtime means that combat evolves in complexity alongside it. Unicorn Overlord’s real time skirmishes are deceptively simple at first. You’ll maneuver units made up of multiple characters through maps as you combat enemies in an attempt to reach a battle’s victory condition. The outcome of conflict between units is calculated via the Tactics systems, where you can assign skills to characters to be performed in combat. Active and Passive skills will be performed based on AP and PP respectively, limiting the amount of actions a character gets in any given skirmish.

The real complexities of combat are unearthed when you start playing with the conditions built into the Tactics system. The best point of comparison is the Gambit system from Final Fantasy XII. Setting these conditions changes the behaviour of these skills, allowing you to target certain enemy types to exploit weaknesses, set priority on which skills should be used first, if they should be skipped entirely with the absence of a certain unit type, and so much more. The combination of the Tactics system with how you gear your characters makes for immensely satisfying strategy and pseudo-puzzle solving.

You’re constantly configuring the tactics of characters and general units as you get new gear, face new threats, and recruit new members to the Liberation Army. The system itself is fluid and ever-growing, introducing added layers of strategy as characters gain access to new skills and higher AP and PP counts. This is all without even considering class synergy, expanding the total number of characters you can include in a unit, and how the composition of enemy units evolve as the difficulty ramps up.

The only real issue that this sheer amount of flexibility in strategy presents in the amount of organisation that comes with it. As you inevitably expand your collection of accessories, weapons, and the Liberation Army itself, the amount of time you spend in menus as you build out your units grows exponentially. While managing all of this is part of the appeal of a game like Unicorn Overlord, it does get quite excessive in the second half of the game, especially as the enemy units you face become more nuanced and demanding.

Even though the organizational aspects of Unicorn Overlord become unruly with time, battle itself remains a constant thrill. The real time manipulation of units on maps under a time limit means that every decision you make needs to be considered and thoughtful. Thankfully, you can pause the game at any moment to assess the situation, but the flow of time is always passing as units engage in combat and traverse the map. Each unit is also limited by Stamina, which means they can only engage in combat a certain number of times before needing to rest.

Even more layers of complexity are added via terrain, garrisons, outposts, weapons, and Valor Skills. Most of these aren’t foreign to the genre, but the way in which they intertwine with Unicorn Overlord’s unique mechanics are what makes them so interesting. Stationing a unit at a garrison not only provides bonuses in battle, but also prevents the depletion of stamina, for example. Valor Skills are another highlight that let you use skills outside of unit to unit combat. They’re powerful in their myriad applications, from healing and general damage to destroying structures. These all cost valuable SP, though, which is also the resource you use to deploy units to the field.

Winning battles almost always leads to the liberation of towns and forts. These towns have all fallen into disrepair under Zenoiran rule, and only through providing the necessary materials can they be fixed. Restoring a town to its former glory allows you to station a guard there, who will automatically harvest nearby resources to be used in future preparations. It also grants you access to new services in some instances, like town taverns to build up bonds between units as they share Vanillaware’s mouthwateringly-designed food.

All of this stuff also earns the Liberation Army renown, which steadily grows as you journey across Fevrith. Each new renown rank lends you access to meaningful jumps in the way you can customise your army. From expanding the total size of units, your total unit count, the ability to promote classes into advanced classes and more. These feel like real milestones in progression and mark a significant increase in the power of the Liberation Army as their presence grows in Fevrith.

While there are countless HD-2D titles on the market now, there’s still no studio that has a grasp on this style quite like Vanillaware does. Unicorn Overlord is categorically the best showcase of this art style thus far, combining intricate 2D character sprites and gorgeous backgrounds with 3D elements to create a lovingly realized and visually rich world. Everything here is a complete joy to witness in its entirety. Between the pixel art-like 2D overworld sprites to the flashy skill animations in battle, Unicorn Overlord never ceases to be a visual delight.

You can always count on Vanillaware to deliver, but Unicorn Overlord is truly something special. The way that its countless systems coalesce into a thematically cohesive and immensely satisfying strategic experience is endlessly rewarding. The seamless fashion in which it all fits together makes it seem as though Vanillaware are veterans of the genre establishing a new gold standard for tactical RPGs. It’s an absolute triumph in its totality, and one of the best games of the year thus far.

The post Unicorn Overlord Review – A Tactical Triumph appeared first on Press Start.

South Park has been engulfed by a life-threatening and highly dangerous snowstorm; blocking off roads and supplies, and sending the town’s residents into a frenzy over toilet paper. This can only mean one thing – school is cancelled, because it’s a Snow Day! A winter wonderland awaits Cartman, Stan, Kyle and Kenny as you fill the shoes of the New Kid, venturing through the town of South Park as you engage in battle against swarms of kindergarteners and older kids, upgrading your powers and weapons and seeking to save the world from evil.

Combining action-adventure gameplay with some very lite “roguelite” elements, South Park: Snow Day is a departure from the installments that came before it, moving into the realm of 3D and stepping away from the turn-based gameplay of The Stick of Truth and The Fractured but Whole. According to Cartman, you (as the New Kid) got too powerful each time you finished an adventure, and so the kids all had to change the rules and start fresh. With a focus on co-op, you and three other ‘new kids’ can take on the hordes of enemy kindergarteners – but if your friends aren’t able to join in, allied bots will take their place. This co-op aspect has both good and bad results. Your friends can easily jump into sessions to form a strong team, each with their own layouts and powers, but the negative is that the bots can be quite hit and miss, leading to a lot of failed missions depending on difficulty.

South Park: Snow Day’s combat is fairly straightforward. Your loadout can be customised before a mission, consisting of a melee weapon and a ranged attack, as well as two support powers that you can strategically play. These support powers are endless, but powered by a ‘Pissed Off’ meter which grows as you battle enemies, and range from tactical shields and snowball cannons to jet farts and bulldoze farts, each with their own secondary effects as well. A card system forms the basis of upgrading all of your weapons and powers – you’ll meet up with Jimmy at intervals during a mission who will offer you modifier cards which vary from common to ultra-legendary, and can add bonus damage or modifiers to your weapons. My personal favourite was the axe tornado which sucked enemies into your axe spin for massive damage. Once you collect these cards they take place in Butters’ Book of Laws for revision, but they aren’t permanent. Each mission run-through starts fresh, and so no two plays are the same.

Both you and your enemy commander pick “Bullshit” cards before each chapter commences, which act as strengths and weaknesses which can be activated to turn the tide of war. Player Bullshit includes things like summoning extra warriors for a short period of time or using laser eyes to blast your way through opposing forces, whereas enemy Bullshit turns their forces into vampires or forces your weapons to do zero damage. These can be a gift and a curse; forcing you not to rely on one single method of attack or to shift into a different strategy when you’re fighting off reanimated enemies. Enemies also have access to upgrade cards similar to yours, which affect yourself as opposed to their forces, so it is always best to pick a balanced set of cards prior to commencing a chapter.

The game’s roguelite ideas manifest in a number of ways. A scarce commodity in South Park during this crazy blizzard, toilet paper is your most important currency when it comes to upgrades. Found in battling enemies as well as bins, bags and pretty much anything destructible, the more toilet paper you collect, the better of a chance you have at upgrading your modifier cards when you meet up with Jimmy at the end of a stage. While toilet paper is lost should you fail, Dark Matter is more persistent and can be used to unlock perks, making your character stronger or increasing things such as your health meter or Pissed Off meter. Dark Matter can be refunded and shifted into other perks, so each unlock isn’t permanent but will stay with you for each run.

The lack of pre-release availability for online play meant that most of my time was spent playing solo, which clearly isn’t the ideal way to play as the ally bots weren’t always able to support or revive me. This definitely feels like a game that’ll be better enjoyed with a squad of friends on a Saturday night as a bit of fun. With AI allies it’s also harder to tell who has what support options, as there’s no options to customise your bots, they just jump right in to fight. If you’re looking for a good solo experience, you’re not quite going to get it here.

Throughout the game’s chapters the difficulty levels often felt uneven and would spike suddenly, and so often I found I would be scrambling to survive while being swarmed by ranged attacks or heavy opponents. Understandable toward the end of the game for it to get a bit harder, but the way the difficulty ramps up never feels natural. Given its roguelike nature, failing any one segment sends you right back to the start of the chapter, which can be extremely frustrating if you’re already halfway through and have upgraded a fair bit of stuff only to be hit with a huge increase in challenge.

Of course even with so-so gameplay the big draw here is South Park itself. Each chapter starts with an interaction between yourself and your side, and the opposing general, and as you fight through the game you’ll encounter tons of classic South Park characters. Tolkien runs the armoury while Henrietta has her own dark magic card shop and can be found intermittently through different levels. You’ll have to save Randy Marsh from a frozen cavern, or help Jimbo and Ned find their missing stuff before you’re granted access to new powers. You’ll also have plenty of opportunity to kit yourself out with fun cosmetic gear featuring tons of references from the show. The game feels just like a big, playable South Park episode, which is obviously a huge positive and a good enough reason for superfans to get into it.

The post South Park: Snow Day! Review – It Needs More Defrosting appeared first on Press Start.

If you look at the trajectory of Team Ninja’s recent ventures, it becomes clear that a fully-open world title was on the cards. Comparisons to FromSoftware’s own catalogue aside, the success of Elden Ring was always going to spur on more non-linear Souls-likes for better and for worse. There are many pieces to this puzzle, though. It’s no easy feat to rise to the top of this sub-genre, requiring an elaborate combination of meticulously tuned challenge, intuitive world design, and tight combat systems. It’s a difficult balance to strike before even thinking about the countless implications of a more open setting.

These elements, amid countless other comparisons, mean that Team Ninja really had their work cut out for them with Rise of the Ronin. A culmination of their recent titles stretching back to 2017’s Nioh while also looking to appeal to a new audience that are typically averse to the Souls-like label and its trappings. While Rise of the Ronin has sparks of brilliance, its muddled identity, disparate elements and frustrating third act hold it back from reaching the same heights as Team Ninja’s best.

Following Team Ninja’s trend of exploring historical periods of great importance, Rise of the Ronin is set during Japan’s tumultuous Bakumatsu period, famously known as the final years of the Tokugawa Shogunate’s rule after years of isolation while foreigners approach with uncertain intentions. It’s a setting ripe with potential for a game, one we saw relatively recently with last year’s Like A Dragon: Ishin!

You take control of what’s known as a Blade Twin; half of an elite unit warrior unit called the Veiled Edge. Each Veiled Edge is made up of two Blade Twins, and each are trained to dismantle the Shogunate from the inside. After a man in a blue demon mask unexpectedly sabotages an early mission, you’re separated from your Blade Twin and thrust into the conflict-ridden open world. It’s a strong opening that hooks you in with its initial mystery, sowing seeds of anticipation as you get pulled into a power struggle that will decide the fate of a country wrestling with its future.

While storytelling has never been Team Ninja’s strong point, it does feel like Rise of the Ronin places more emphasis on its narrative to varying degrees of success. The explorations of pivotal figures from the time period like Sakamoto Ryoma and Tokugawa Yoshinobu to name a few are endearing and provide a much appreciated level of insight into the motivations and qualities of their real-life counterparts.

The plot itself, though, feels disjointed and unfocused. Between three regions and numerous time periods, Rise of the Ronin is constantly introducing new secondary characters and events to its story. There’s little here that feels like it gets time to breathe as you’re catapulted through battle after battle with antagonists that are swatted way as fast as they’re brought into the fold. The personal plot involving the player character and your Blade Twin also struggles to deliver on the potential it teases, partly due to the sparing use of voicework when it comes to the protagonist.

In terms of how Rise of the Ronin structures its gameplay around narrative, things also start out strong and stay that way for a good chunk of the experience. Key story objectives funnel you into parts of the open world for linear missions most akin to what you’d find in Nioh. While these missions are generally much shorter than what you’d find in Team Ninja’s other games, there’s a nice loop established in the early hours, dipping in and out of the open world as you move through feudal Japan and restore order to different regions of the map.

I mentioned in my hands-on impressions that I was concerned about how this rhythm would lend itself to the widened scope brought in with the open world, and it turns out that my worries weren’t entirely unfounded. While I think Rise of the Ronin holds its own for the first 20 or so hours, the last third really struggles to engage. It slings mission after mission at you, each boiling down to exploring an area, fighting enemies, and eventually taking on a boss. Team Ninja’s previous titles weren’t strangers to repetition in mission design, but enemy variety and combat with a ridiculously high skill ceiling kept things fresh.

There’s no denying that Rise of the Ronin’s combat framework is less layered than the likes of Nioh or Wo Long, but that isn’t inherently a bad thing. The parry mechanic of Countersparking is consistently satisfying, there’s enough options in your toolset for some fun combo expression, and there’s a healthy assortment of weapon types and combat styles to play around with. The grappling hook is also a fun inclusion, letting you hurl explosive barrels and abandoned weapons at enemies. You can also yank goons towards you, and even throw enemies at each other once you start unlocking certain skills.

THE BEST SHIPPED PRICE IS AT AMAZON FOR $109 WITH FREE RELEASE DAY DELIVERY

There are also Combat Styles, which effectively function as stances. Certain styles are better against specific weapon types, yielding more effective Countersparks and dealing more damage to the all important Ki gauge. These are slowly unlocked as you complete main story missions and side content, imploring you to engage with the open world to cover all of your bases. Styles also come with Martial Skills, which are weapon skills you can perform that cost Ki. These are always very effective at pressuring the enemy, but overuse of them can quickly lead to draining your own gauge.

The stealth system, while simple, is remarkably robust. It’s always satisfying to clear an outpost as you stalk from the rooftops and lurk in bushes, getting the drop on unsuspecting enemies and taking out a nearby guard with a chain assassination as he reels from the shock. It provides a lot of flexibility in how you approach enemy encounters – especially in the open world.

The issue, though, is that a combat system like this lives and dies by its enemy variety and thrilling boss fights, both of which Rise of the Ronin fails to deliver on.

Initially, Rise of the Ronin does a decent enough job at rolling out different varieties of enemies. From standard infantry and lumbering brutes, to ranged snipers that attempt to whittle down your health from distant rooftops. It didn’t take long for me to realise that this is mostly what enemy variety boils down to. Bar a few exceptions, every encounter plays out the same way, and doesn’t require you to become intimately familiar with the move sets and capabilities of your adversaries. It becomes all too easy to fall into a muscle memory that feels more mind-numbing than it is rewarding.

Much the same can be said for Rise of the Ronin’s boss fights. They start strong, serving as climax points for the linear missions that test your understanding of the game’s combat mechanics. Eventually, though, Rise of the Ronin starts reusing its older boss fights excessively. Sometimes solo, but often paired with another boss, which are frustratingly difficult in a way that feels cheap. It rarely feels like the experience has any surprises left in store for the player outside of its final boss, which is a real shame.

Aside from the third act difficulty spike, Rise of the Ronin feels appropriately challenging on its normal difficulty. As a Souls veteran, I found it was a good level for my first playthrough out of familiarity with the typical Souls-like design trappings and tendencies. There’s also an easier difficulty, which I found much less overwhelming and is a great fit for newcomers. Then there’s another step up from the standard difficulty, and another tier further which functions as a sort of New Game+ mode, bringing a new loot rarity and better gear drops.

Jumping into the open world does serve as a nice way to step away from the repetition of the golden path. Each region is packed with stuff to do, with different activity types netting you different rewards pertaining to numerous progression systems. Whether it be skill points, new gear, or crafting materials, it always feels like you’re progressing and growing your Ronin. I do think that these activities also eventually wear out their welcome, but can ultimately be ignored once you’ve had your fill.

It really helps that traversing the world itself is a blast. You unlock the glider and grappling hook early on, allowing you to soar over the countryside or zip across the rooftops of Yokohama. Horseback traversal is also quite quick if you find yourself unable to get airborne, and the sheer number of fast travel points on the map makes for seamless transport if you’ve already visited an area.

Even though it’s clear that Rise of the Ronin has its roots in Team Ninja’s action DNA, there are also a significant number of RPG elements present. There’s still a plethora of skills to unlock, but this time they’re separated by play styles. Most of the trees present are to be expected, like Strength and Dexterity, but there’s also more niche skillsets like Charm, which influences how you can approach conversations, allows you to pickpocket civilians, and more. It adds a nice layer of depth to the roleplaying aspect of being your own Ronin in this time period.

The RPG elements also feed into the narrative through dialogue choices. These have varying effects depending on the context, from influencing your relationship with key characters to siding with different factions at certain points in the story. While there are some excitingly dynamic examples of these choices, the big ones ultimately ring hollow. No matter what you do, the story always unfolds and ends the same way.

It’s understandable given the nature of the story being told here, but it leaves some of the choices feeling cosmetic in nature. The same can be said for dialogue options unlocked through skill trees. Conflict that isn’t key to the main story can be dissolved through persuasion or intimidation, but the same options that present themselves on the golden path don’t do much aside from impacting your relationships or fleshing out the context behind certain events or characters. It feels strange given the emphasis placed on the pro-shogunate and anti-shogunate factions and how your decisions align with those perspectives.

Other more standard skills improve your capacity for combat, healing, stealth, and more. While you can opt to focus on one tree, missions at some point will inevitably call for regular combat, so keeping a healthy spread between all of them is the way to go. It does take out some of the individuality and buildcrafting found in Team Ninja’s previous games, but it also allows you to experiment where that flexibility is afforded. The weapon proficiency system is similarly malleable, so wanting to try out a new weapon type never feels like you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage.

Progression is also inherently linked to the Bond system and by extension, side quests. There are many characters you’ll nurture bonds with through the main story and in side missions. While these don’t reinvent the wheel from a gameplay standpoint, they do offer deeper insight into the numerous side characters of Rise of the Ronin’s story and expand the world. It’s a nice way to get more background on a character who might not have much impact on the main plot, and levelling up a Bond can reward you with Combat Styles, skill points, and gear.

Characters you have bonds with can also be brought on missions to cooperate with the protagonist, allowing you to take control of them when you see fit. These two slots are also open to other players, allowing fellow Ronin to jump into missions with you. It’s particularly handy if you’re struggling with a particular boss, but feels a bit restrictive in that it’s exclusive to missions, and the players that join the session unceremoniously get booted back to their own world once all is said and done. It’s especially jarring in the shorter missions, which only last five to ten minutes.

While Rise of the Ronin won’t be dethroning other first-party PS5 games when it comes to visuals, it’s the art style and DualSense features that stand out the most. Team Ninja’s Souls-like ventures have never been graphical powerhouses from a fidelity standpoint, instead excelling in the realisation of their aesthetics while maintaining smooth performance.

Rise of the Ronin is no different in this regard – the setting of feudal Japan is incredibly well-realised. Towns are bustling with people, densely packed with traditional Japanese architecture and flora. The countryside is also a joy to explore, with lands covered in grass and reeds that sway in the wind with Mount Fuji punctuating a vast skybox. If you want to trade off performance for fidelity, Rise of the Ronin also offers a graphics mode and a ray tracing mode, both of which look great, especially during sunrise and sunset.

The DualSense also goes a long way to adding immersion to the whole experience. There’s a load of haptic feedback as you move about the world or ride on horseback. Whether it’s the simple rhythm of your footsteps hitting the ground, or the the clashing of steel as you Counterspark enemy blows, the feedback strikes a nice level of tactility as you explore or engage in combat that I wish more games included. It also makes use of adaptive triggers when using ranged weapons or your grappling hook, which is consistently satisfying.

While Team Ninja have been on a bit of a hot streak recently, Rise of the Ronin does feel like a step back in its totality. It gets off to a strong start with a slick combat system and simple yet effective gameplay loop that both fall victim lacking enemy variety and boss design – especially in the third act. Its RPG elements are simultaneously engaging and undercooked, allowing for a remarkable amount of flexibility in some areas, while feeling surface level in others. It’s still a mostly enjoyable experience, but doesn’t quite match the pedigree of Team Ninja’s other recent outings.

The post Rise of the Ronin Review – Humbled By Ambition appeared first on Press Start.

This is the last time I’ll rattle on about this, but it’s truly wild to think that the first Dragon’s Dogma game was released twelve years ago. The series has long been a cult classic amongst players, with many appreciating its unique take on a popular genre. Now, Dragon’s Dogma II is making an earnest effort to right all the wrongs of its predecessor. While it’s not as immense a step as expected, it does everything the first game promised before its budget was infamously slashed. Even better, it does more.

Dragon’s Dogma II takes place in a parallel world, far removed from the Sicily-inspired realm of Gransys from the original game. You play as an Arisen, somebody who has had their heart taken by a dragon and, in exchange, granted immortality. As lore dictates from the previous game, your immortality comes with a catch – you must slay the dragon who took your heart and subsequently claim the throne of your kingdom for yourself. To complicate matters, somebody has infiltrated the royal family of your kingdom, claiming to be the Arisen themselves, but we both know that’s not the case.

At a glance, the first Dragon’s Dogma had a relatively typical story you’d expect to find in any medieval adjacent, fantasy-tinged game like this. But as the story progressed, the game quickly pivoted to some unexpected places. Dragon’s Dogma II follows a similar story arc. However, I will always argue that the series has always been about the journey rather than the destination. The plot of Dragon’s Dogma II is still easily a step above the original game, but it’s not the reason I find this sequel so compelling.

That’s because the open world presented by Dragon’s Dogma II is rare. It’s not intent on bombarding you with checklists to complete, instead throwing you out into the world with minimal guidance. You’re free to explore and make your own discoveries. This is bound to be contentious, especially amongst less seasoned players, but it does give Dragon’s Dogma II a sense of discovery that we’ve previously seen in the original game, more recent Zeldas or even Elden Ring. There are options to seek guidance for those who need it, but other than that, you’re on your own.

Such a design choice dovetails wonderfully with the strength and conviction of Dragon’s Dogma II’s open-world design. The best open worlds are designed to be distracting in all the right ways, and Dragon’s Dogma II is no exception. While the roads between your objectives are long and winding, there was never a moment where I was genuinely bored while exploring. Every journey felt just like a journey, and seeing what I’d discover next was always exciting. It’s just as well that the open-world design is so strong because while there are fast travel options, they’re expensive and rare opportunities that betray the intention of this rich world.

The Pawn system is undoubtedly the most unique aspect surrounding Dragon’s Dogma II. The pawns return here, and they’re much better implemented. The process is the same. You still design your own pawn, who accompanies you throughout your adventure. You can then recruit two other guest pawns to round out your party of four. Guest pawns are interesting – they are other players’ pawns pulled from online, but they don’t level up as you and your main pawn do. Instead, you’re encouraged to switch them out as you see fit or to better suit your quest.

It’s an interesting system that has a clear benefit to the player in that it allows them to be creative in creating a party that’s to their preference, rather than being forced upon with party members they don’t like. But it feels like a misstep that there’s no cross platform functionality here – especially given that Capcom has their own Capcom ID system and has already implemented the functionality into games like Exoprimal previously.

Besides that, pawns are a stark improvement from what they were in the original game. You can teach them specialisations that alter their behaviour or give them perks they never had before. They can still travel to other players’ worlds to widen their knowledge and use that knowledge to provide tips on quests you’ve yet to complete. They fight better. They interact with players in a much more natural way. They’re an all-around improvement. Though there was an odd moment where the pawns would repeat the same lines to each other early on, the pawn system in Dragon’s Dogma II is a marked improvement from the original game

Of course, the question will be raised. Wouldn’t online co-op be better? Part of me says yes. I’d love to explore this world with my friends. But the pawn system is so unique and untapped that removing them completely would strip Dragon’s Dogma II of such an important and compelling part of its core identity.

The quality of the quests has seen an overall improvement, too. While some vague instructions are communicated to the player, there’s more choice in how you approach some of them. They’re not wide-reaching consequences, but they give a greater sense of weight to how you think about them. That being said, it’s a bit disappointing to see the world lack such reactive force, especially in the face of much more dated games like Bethesda’s output managing to do so, but on the upside to this you’ll rarely find yourself in a situation where you accidentally hit somebody in the face and then get locked out of a quest line because of it.

AMAZON HAS THE CHEAPEST SHIPPED COPY AT $99 WITH FREE SHIPPING

When you’re not exploring or completing quests, you’ll be fighting with your vocation. Vocations are your class – they affect which weapons you use and which abilities you can learn. In the sequel, experience is awarded at a standard rate, but switching vocations adjusts your stats to complement whatever vocation you want. This is a significant change because it allows you to switch up your vocations regularly to find what works for you, without under-leveling others. Once again, this is a great design choice because the vocations are incredibly fun to play.

While some vocations are removed or completely changed from the original game, the newer additions make up for it. The Mystic Spearhand is a snappy melee class that sees your Arisen wielding a double-edged spear. Playing as them feels more like a Devil May Cry game than anything else. Trickster is an oddly passive vocation but offers a nice alternative to the tried-and-true Mage or Sorcerer vocations. Warfarer is the most interesting. It’s only available in the post-game and combines all the vocations, requiring more skill and finesse to handle but offering you all the weapon types. They’re all great fun to play around with, and while some are missing from the previous game, the new additions and changes to existing vocations more than make up for it.

The robust vocation system and improved pawns complement each other to offer a strong foundation for combat in Dragon’s Dogma II. It’s a combat system that’s easy to grasp but difficult to master. More importantly, the flexibility afforded by vocations coupled with the creativity allowed by the pawn system in building your party means that you’ll always be able to find an approach that works for you. There’s no better feeling than climbing the wings of a Griffon to bring it to the ground with a well-placed stab in the face so that your party can have at it. Or even hitting it out of the sky with a precise strike of lightning magick. The combat is fun to play, which is just as well because it forms so much of the experience.

Despite this, series veterans may be disappointed to hear that there isn’t much new regarding the bestiary in the world of Dragon’s Dogma II. While there are over twenty different types of enemies to conquer and variants of many of them, too, only a few here’ll surprise returning players. However, the number of enemies combined with the potential variants and even environmental opportunities in battle still keep things fresh. But those expecting massive surprises with the bestiary beyond what’s already been revealed will be disappointed.

That being said, Dragon’s Dogma II does its best to try and correct the errors of its predecessor in earnest. There’s not much I’m permitted to speak about in terms of post-game content, nor would I want to ruin the surprise, but take my word for it that the post-game content is much more interesting than the Everfall in the original game. Though, before you even get there, there’s much to do in Vermund, Battahl and the areas in between. My first run took around 40 hours, but I could have taken my time to do more and most definitely will in the new game plus mode that unlocks after completion. It’s a big game that’s incredibly inviting but never feels like an arduous chore to explore.

But of course, we have to address the elephant in the room – performance. Dragon’s Dogma II is the first RE Engine game to make the jump to a true open world, and with that comes many performance-related challenges. The game officially runs at an “unlocked” frame rate, but on consoles that commonly means anywhere between 20fps in cities and a more solid 30 fps when exploring the rest of the map. It’s a stark difference from Capcom’s other games and will no doubt put off some players, but the ambition and strong artistic direction more than make up for it.

In my previous preview, I addressed concerns about the voice work being flat, and in some instances, it is. But hearing all of these voices come together in a busy city often means the less interesting ones fade into the background. It’s definitely not the most compelling performance from a cast, but it’s still serviceable. The music, on the other hand, is phenomenal. The slower ambient pieces that play do great work in establishing this vast world, while the biblically-dramatic tracks that play as you hunt down monsters help make every encounter feel suitably epic.

Dragon’s Dogma II feels like what the original Dragon’s Dogma should have been. It’s a sprawling and inviting open world that’s just begging to be explored, peppered with dangerous creatures who owe themselves to delectable encounters. The combat is enjoyable, and the vocations are all great choices, no matter how you play. While there are bound to be some teething issues as you become accustomed to its harsh world, it’s more than worth the endurance to live the heady experience that Dragon’s Dogma II offers.

The post Dragon’s Dogma 2 Review – An Adventure That’ll Take Your Heart appeared first on Press Start.

It’s easy to forget that Alone In The Dark came before and inspired Resident Evil. Despite this, as a series, Alone In The Dark has always struggled to find the level of notoriety in the genre that Resident Evil and even Silent Hill have. It’s not for lack of trying, though – there have been five games, two questionable films and an even more questionable multiplayer spin-off. And yet, it still remains relatively obscure. But Alone In The Dark has always deserved a shot, so it makes sense to go back to where it all began and try to capture the now ravenous horror audience that we know exists. Thankfully, the 2024 remake of Alone In The Dark is perhaps the best the series has ever been, but not without some caveats.

Alone In The Dark follows an in-debt detective, Edward Carnby, played by David Harbour, as he investigates the disappearance of a man named Jeremy Hartwood. He’s been hired by Emily Hartwood, played by Jodie Comer, who happens to be Jeremy’s niece. The two travel to Decerto Manor, a home for the mentally fatigued, where they discover that not everything is as it seems and that a strange journey awaits them both.

Keen fans of the original Alone In The Dark will notice a change to the plot already – Jeremy is missing rather than having committed suicide. This is one of the many changes the Alone In The Dark remake makes in its narrative. At the surface level, it’s a rather typical Lovecraft-inspired story that was more unique in 1992 than now. But with this remake, directed and written by the mind that brought us SOMA, certain aspects have been twisted in an interesting way. I don’t think it’s anything mind-blowing, but it is still at odds with your expectations, especially if you’re intimately familiar with the original.

It’s well documented that the team behind this remake was inspired by the success of Capcom’s much-beloved remakes of Resident Evil 2, which especially shows here. That game is played from an identical viewpoint, inviting you to explore Derceto Manor to solve the mystery of Jeremy’s disappearance. That means finding items and clues to solve puzzles while occasionally fighting strange creatures. The inspiration is liberal, so if you know how a modern Resident Evil game plays, you know how Alone In The Dark plays, too.

A genre staple both then and now, Alone In The Dark allows you to choose Edward or Emily as the playable character at the beginning of your journey. Each character treads the same ground in the opening moments, with some slight divergence as the story ends. But it’s not two sides of one story, but rather just one side of the story flipped to suit whoever you play as. If you play as Edward, then Emily will become the more level-headed companion played against Edward’s more zany sense of investigation. If you play as Emily, the roles are reversed. It’s a weird choice that leaves me unsure which version of events is canon, given that both characters can inhabit either role in the plot.

From a gameplay perspective, Emily feels like the “easier” option between the two. Her pistol is automatic and reloads faster than Edward’s revolver. However, these differences are negligible given how inoffensive the combat can be—more on that later. The other key differences have to do with how the story plays out, but how much you’re invested in this story in the first place will really determine if you see value in playing through the game multiple times.

That’s because the order of events you experience as Edward and Emily are identical up until the final few hours or so. A personal subplot for each character is neatly slotted into the story, but beyond that singular level, everything else in terms of locales you’ll visit and paths you take through the game is identical. There are some interesting subtle differences – characters will treat Emily differently to Edward in conversation, given that Edward is an outsider. Still, these feel relatively superficial in the big scheme of things. However, Emily’s playthrough feels less cryptic (even if it’s still outlandish).

Your time in Decerto harkens back to the original Alone In The Dark. You’ll explore the mansion while solving puzzles, finding keys and piecing together clues. At its core, it’s a rather typical Survival Horror experience. However, exploring Decerto Manor does lack the tension of classic settings like the RPD or Spencer Mansion. On the one hand, I appreciated that Decerto felt like an old-school haunted house, threatening but never truly dangerous. On the other hand, it means that tension dissipates quickly when you realise you’re almost always safe in the manor while exploring.

As you progress, Edward or Emily can use a talisman to transport themselves somewhere outside of Decerto. Sometimes, that’ll be another area, another point in time or sometimes even into physical representations of other characters’ psyche. This is where most of the action happens, and they’re an excellent way to break up the slower-paced exploration when you’re in Decerto. But it’s also where most of the combat happens, and this is, unfortunately, where Alone In The Dark falters.

MIGHTYAPE HAS THE CHEAPEST COPY AT $69 PLUS SHIPPING

While some interesting things happen on a narrative level with Alone In The Dark, the combat leaves much to be desired. The problem is that the enemies lack variety and, more crucially, don’t ever threaten the player much. There are around four enemy types that you’ll fight through the entirety of the campaign, too, with each looking like some kind of oily skeleton with a random appendage attached. There’s a flying enemy and two boss-like enemies, too, but overall, the enemy variety could be more inspired and much better.

This is incredibly disappointing because the combat feels weightless, too. This is owing to the shoddy audio, which is often out-of-sync with your weapons firing. There are “opportunity” weapons peppered throughout the environment as a single-use item, but throwing them lacks the weight and the heft you’d expect. There’s even a wide range of melee weapons to pick up, one at a time, which are also breakable. But hitting enemies feels like so much of a gamble, given how shoddy hit detection can be, that it’s rare to even bother trying.

I don’t know why horror games insist on implementing breakable melee weapons, especially given how many of the horror greats don’t do so, but it is still frustrating rather than what I can only assume developers think will be tension-creating. Even aiming feels off because even when lining up the perfect shot, they’ll sometimes just not hit an enemy for whatever reason. These aspects could be finetuned with some updates, but in its current state, the combat feels like the game’s weakest aspect. It’s a shame, too, because conceptually, there are plenty of options for the player, but none are well-honed.

With the choice of two playable characters and these differences in story and lore, there is a degree of replayability in Alone In The Dark, but it’s very dependent. My first thorough run, where I took my time and explored everything, took around seven to nine hours, give or take. But like any classic survival horror game, on my third run, I could quickly finish it in half of that. In addition, there are collectibles called Lagniappes that unlock other endings if found. Some Lagniappes can only be found as Edward, others as Emily, so if you want the full (and deliciously meta) story, it’s worth replaying to seek these out. But, once again, it depends on how much you value story first in games and whether this plot grabs you in the first place.

From a presentation standpoint, Louisiana is well-realised in Alone In The Dark. The incredible city and all its surroundings are immaculately captured, drawing from the Southern Gothic influences the team was clearly going for. Decerto Manor looks great, but the bayous you’ll trudge around in are incredibly atmospheric. Other urban locales, like shipping yards and even the streets of New Orleans, are also incredibly moody, with fog and dingey streetlights really setting the scenes for these moody locales. Unfortunately, there are some invisible walls that do take away from the immersion, but otherwise, the world of Alone In The Dark is incredible.

On a similar note, the original score is also fantastic. Many of the game’s key moments are supplemented with catchy, sombre jazz that really gives the game a unique feel and ties in directly with its unique setting. The result is admittedly something that’s not scary but still feels unsettling, similar to an episode of Twin Peaks.

The voice work, on the other hand, is less of a surefire hit. David Harbour sounds just like David Harbour, with no range whatsoever. It can be distracting to hear Hopper during some of the more seminal moments of the story. On the other hand, Jodie Comer’s performance can best be described as her sleepwalking through the script, which is a shame. I appreciate that celebrities might bring more attention to the game, but they feel so at odds with the rest of the atmosphere that I’m not sure it was worth it.

Despite its shortcomings, I still enjoyed Alone In The Dark when all is said and done. It’s compelling enough that I played it through three times, even if at no point did I ever feel any sense of fear or terror. It’s short enough to be replayable but significant enough that I didn’t feel shortchanged. However, with clear inspiration taken from Resident Evil 2 comes a clear invitation to compare, and in that regard, it ultimately comes up short. But still, if you’re a fan of horror and games like Resident Evil, or more specifically, psychologically themed horror like The Evil Within, you’ll no doubt find something to love in Alone In The Dark’s uniquely charming setting and atmosphere.

The post Alone In The Dark Review – Good Ol’ Southern Hospitality appeared first on Press Start.

Editor’s Note: While the bulk of this review speaks to the writer’s experience and enjoyment of the Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection’s offline content, and remains indicative of that experience, some readers might be interested in this collection for its online multiplayer component.

For that reason, it’s important to highlight that the game’s online multiplayer has been plagued with issues since launch and, while developer Aspyr is working hard to fix it, is yet to be at an acceptable state. We would advise holding off of a purchase until these issues are rectified if online multiplayer is of importance.

I can deny it all I like, but the fact remains that the original Star Wars: Battlefront was released 20 long years ago. Putting the existential dread aside, I’ve long proclaimed that the 2004 original and its far greater sequel are among the best shooters of all time, exceeding the pair of DICE-developed games that share the same name. It’s an easy claim to make when they’re stuck on old hardware, but the Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection has brought the two titles to the current generation in one tidy package, making it the perfect time to see if the force is still strong with my childhood favourites.

The main selling point for most remasters, collections, and ports is playing beloved older games on current consoles, avoiding that heartbreaking moment when you try to play something on your dusty PS2, only for it to look blown out and awful on your modern TV. The Battlefront Classic Collection does precisely that while also sneaking in a few extras to surprise returning players.

From a technical standpoint, Battlefront I and II look and feel exactly as they did in the mid-2000s. Textures, character models and animations are all largely what they once were and have held up surprisingly well in the two decades that have passed. Importantly, even amidst the most chaotic moments on the largest map, I didn’t encounter any dropped frames, with the action always remaining smooth. Unfortunately, the live-action scenes cut from the films and scattered throughout the campaigns didn’t fare quite as well, with the low-resolution footage stuttering whenever they appeared. Thankfully, they’re short, and you’ve likely seen them countless times by this point.

Both titles are content complete, featuring a full suite of single and multiplayer modes, with online, offline and split-screen options available for the latter. While the Battlefront I campaign is little more than a series of Conquest matches that act only as a fun time capsule, the excellent Rise of the Empire story content from II has aged exceptionally well. Following the Clone’s betrayal of the Jedi and subsequent transition into the Empire’s army, the missions feature varied objectives, different play styles and frequent opportunities to play as Heroes and Villains. Even when I took my rose-tinted training visor off, this campaign still comes close to today’s standards.

Introduced in the original and expanded upon in the sequel, Galactic Conquest is still, to this day, a mode that can’t be beaten. Two players, or one player and an AI opponent, strategise and maneuverer around a map, managing resources, claiming planets and engaging in ground and space battles (in BFII) to conquer the galaxy. Potentially spanning hours of real-time, these mammoth games can be saved and loaded as you wish, and I suspect many will do just that as there’s nothing quite like it on the modern market.

My fondest memories with these games come from the multiplayer, which has returned with the Classic Collection in grand fashion. 64-player online multiplayer is supported, doubling what was possible in the original release. Servers were understandably empty during pre-release, but I played multiple hours with one other player, with our teams filled in with bots. Online performance was strong, and I didn’t run into any technical errors or crashes, but this could change with another 62 players in the mix.

Whether I was capturing control points in Conquest, stealing from the enemy’s base in Capture the Flag, or causing carnage as the various force-wielders in Hero Assault, I was having a blast. With four armies (Clones, CIS, Rebels and Empire), each with an assortment of playable classes, an array of vehicles to pilot and a wealth of well-designed maps to fight across, there’s no shortage of content, with none of it being locked behind microtransactions or slow-moving profile progression.

Some old sensibilities are refreshing, and some are frustrating. Including dedicated online multiplayer is terrific, but navigating your way to a match is tedious. Quick play will get you into the action immediately, but if you’re looking to play with friends, you’ll need to create a private room, add your maps and match types, load in, and then have your mates manually search for the room name. It’s admirable to keep the experience as untouched as possible, but preservation doesn’t need to ignore innovation. The inclusion of a party system, or even an invite option, would be a vast improvement. It’s also worth noting that there’s no option for cross-play, so be sure you’re all on the same system before making a purchase.

In most ways, the Collection has left the two games untouched, for better and worse, but there’s a smattering of new content to be found. Five new maps have been added across the two games, including the claustrophobic Jabba’s Palace and wide-open Bespin: Cloud City. Kit Fisto has been added as a new Hero, with Asajj Ventress joining him as the new Villain. Both sport new abilities not found among the rest of the Hero/Villain roster and are very capable in the chaos that is Hero Assault.

Speaking of which, the mode previously locked to the Mos Eisley map has been set free to all other locations, making it possible to recreate the tear-jerking confrontation between Obi-Wan and Anakin on Mustafar… for those who would want to. While the new content isn’t overly vast, the small changes are positive ones and will be greatly appreciated by returning players.

The post Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection Review – Games For A More Civilised Age appeared first on Press Start.

The newest entry in a series with a spotty past, WayForward is once again taking the lead with the latest Contra game – Contra: Operation Galuga. A thorough re-imagining of the original NES and Arcade Contra game, Galuga keeps the core gameplay and setting of its namesake while modernising the presentation and gameplay systems, adding new characters and throwing in a storyline to tie it all together.

There are a few modes to play with in Galuga, but in all you’ll be running, jumping and shooting your way through eight levels, each with legions of bad dudes and boss encounters to deal with. Story Mode is pretty standard fare, allowing you to run through the game’s levels and continuing from checkpoints when you get a Game Over, eventually seeing through the whole story. Arcade mode is similar, but challenges you to complete as much of the game as possible without hitting a game over. You can still continue, however your score will be higher if you complete more levels without failing.

There’s also a challenge mode which sets you specific parameters to meet in levels as a fun way to eke some more gameplay from the core experience. The action is chaotic with shots from enemies and from your own weaponry routinely all over the screen. Being able to track your own position and move your character around the chaos is a skill you’ll absolutely need to develop for success here.

Thankfully as chaotic as things get, the game controls with fantastic responsiveness so once you have the hang of things you can mostly command your character precisely where you want them to be. You’ve got a fairly straightforward repertoire of jumps, double jumps and a character specific move like Bill’s dash, but keeping it relatively uncomplicated means controls rarely get overwhelming. Given how much else you need to keep track of, it’s good that controls are simple and reliable.

THE CHEAPEST COPY: $69 ON AMAZON

There’s a small but focused supply of special weapons you can collect during missions, all classics from Contra heritage. There’s of course the well-loved Spread Shot which fires multiple projectiles in an arc in front of your character. There’s a flamethrower which has limited range but does high damage, a Homing weapon which launches volleys of missiles around the screen which all home in on whatever target is closest and a few others. Each weapon can be upgraded by picking up a second icon of the same kind, boosting firepower or changing its behaviour slightly. In this Contra you can pick up two special weapons at a time and switch between them at will, a welcome addition compared to the one-weapon-at-a-time limitation in the original game. It adds a welcome layer of strategy and choice without overcomplicating things.

One of the other gameplay additions in this new entry is the addition of special weapon overloads. At any point while you have a special weapon equipped, you can choose to destroy it in exchange for a special attack. The spread shot fills the screen with shots which are fantastic for clearing a busy area, the homing weapon creates a couple of little flying drones that help out with firing at enemies for a while, others give you temporary shields, and so on. The game reminds you regularly to use these, which is good because I often forgot they existed. When I did remember though they came in super handy. You never have to worry too much about losing a special weapon either as they’re generally in regular supply during stages and bosses.

Contra is well known as a series with a high level of challenge, however this new entry has made some changes so that more players might have a good time. You can choose to have multiple hit points per life rather than the old one hit kill, and if you do this you can purchase perks as you play which give you more hits per life. You can play with a boosted amount of lives, purchase other perks to selectively boost characters or weapons according to your preferences, and adjust the overall difficulty. There are also characters you can unlock as you play who will have their own unique moves and even adjusted weapon behaviour. There is still an immense challenge to be found here, but if you’d rather a more casual, fun experience you’ll find something to like here too.

I found I had mixed reactions when considering the game’s presentation. The characters read to me almost like moving action figures, which looks decent enough but I didn’t find them particularly inspired personally. I loved the level designs though. It was always exciting to get to a new level to see the fresh environments I’d be barreling through. Particular highlights for me were later stages, a full bio-mechanical H.R. Giger-style Alien homage full of off-brand face huggers, xenomorphs and other horrifying creatures that look right at home in an alien invasion.

The bosses too are a highlight. It’s awesome to see designs from various Contra classics re-imagined for this new visual style, and they were great fun to learn and overcome. Music to my ears takes a bit of a back seat, given my attention while playing was focused on the chaos of what was going on, but if you find a chance to listen you’ll find some fun renditions of classic tunes. The electric guitar menu intro for example sets the tone brilliantly.

Multiplayer is a massive pull in Contra games, and the same is true here. Up to two players can play the game locally and co-operatively in Story mode, while Arcade mode allows for up to four people to join the fray. Enemy layouts change depending on the amount of players, and it seemed like boss endurance scaled up as well to keep the challenge reasonable against increased firepower. If you’ve got a mate and an afternoon to spare, Operation Galuga would make for an awesome way to spend it.

The post Contra: Operation Galuga Review – Runnin’ And Gunnin’ appeared first on Press Start.

While opinions are divided on them, I’ve always had great fun with the Outlast games. The way they managed to make the found-footage genre of film into a playable experience is to be commended, but I also have always enjoyed how they’ve never shied away from a gory and violent horror experience. Now, you can enjoy that experience with friends in The Outlast Trials. While it’s lacking in some areas, I have enjoyed playing it immensely.

The Outlast Trials is a prequel. You play as a nameless test subject kidnapped by the Murkoff Corporation to participate in mysterious experiments. You and up to three other subjects partake in “therapy”, a set of trials, to assist Murkoff in collecting data on said experiments. It’s a much more barebones plot than previous Outlast games, though there’s some juicy lore to delve into through files you can find if you wish.

Despite this change in direction, The Outlast Trials stays true to the spirit of the original games. Each trial has you exploring a run-down, dilapidated location while evading aggressive stalkers. And while you won’t be filming things with your night-vision equipped camera this time, each test subject has been graciously provided with a set of night-vision goggles for each trial.

The most significant new addition here is the sanity meter. Certain enemies and traps will decrease your sanity meter, eventually causing your character to hallucinate. Non-existent enemies might randomly appear and rush at you – and while they’re predictable at times, they’re always startling. Lose all of your sanity, and you’ll encounter Mr Skinner, a fast stalker who will drain your health if you stay still for too long. It’s a clever twist, requiring you to sprint to get away from him and, without a doubt, alert the real threats in the room or mess up a perfect run.

When you first boot the game, you’ll be in a communal area where you can see other players online. Each player has their own room, which can be decked out with cosmetic upgrades, but you can also upgrade your character here. It’s also here where you’ll decide which trial to go on together. The Outlast Trials has five maps to mess around in, each housing a main trial and two to three smaller challenges. Trials are lengthier, taking anywhere between an hour and an hour and a half to complete. Challenges are smaller, often remixing the map to the point where it feels new anyway, and usually takes between thirty minutes to an hour to finish. There’s a nice variety of objectives on offer here, too.

The main trials themselves are where I had the most fun. They have multiple phases, and they feel like an elongated sequence from films like SAW. In one of them, my group and I had to “bring judgement” upon a judge by infiltrating the courthouse, finding and disposing of evidence exonerating him, and chasing and executing witnesses due to testify against him. All while being chased by a maniacal police officer. It’s one of the many tense but intense moments in The Outlast Trials that I really enjoyed.

Challenges being shorter doesn’t make them an inferior experience, though. The objectives are often simple but twisted to fit the edgier Outlast aesthetic. In one, our group had to track down five bottles of bleach to pour into a soup to feed misbehaving children. In another, we had to feed loud children to a grinder, each child making noise whenever we picked it up, alerting potential stalkers. Mind you, they’re cardboard representations of children, but the twisted and macabre nature of the activities and what they represented still made things unsettling.

Most of the challenge comes from completing these objectives while evading a stalker. There’s a nice variety of other enemies in the game, too. Some will wait in a hiding spot, pouncing on you when you try to hide in the same spot as them. Others are more aggressive, listening for any sound you make and honing in on you when they discover you. You can use their sensitivity to noise to your advantage, distracting them by throwing objects, but doing so often means using an item you might be able to use to defend yourself later.

And while I loved the general gameplay of The Outlast Trials, I did feel there could have been a greater degree of variety in the more prominent psychopaths that headline each of the trials. Everyone who played the previous Outlast games will remember the psychotic groom who wanted to castrate you. The naked twins with the oddly shaped heads. Even Marta from the second game, if only because she looked like she wandered into Temples Gate straight from an Elder Scrolls game. The two significant psychopaths included in The Outlast Trials are great additions to the Outlast canon, but seeing them reused on later trials was a tad disappointing. I recognise these things take time to create, but it removes fear from a situation when your enemy is one you’re already familiar with.

Your performance is ranked at the end of each trial, and it’s incredibly satisfying to replay said trials and see yourself improve as you increase your therapy level and unlock new abilities for your test subject. These improvements come in the form of a rig, prescriptions for your character, tools, skills and medicine.

All of these upgrades assist you in approaching each of the trials. Rigs are a permanent, rechargeable item that might stun an enemy or allow you to see through walls. Prescriptions are perks that allow you to run faster, slide or even hold extra items. Tools are equippable items like slippers, which dampen your footsteps across broken glass. Skills are permanent perks that assist you in-game – such as recharging your stamina quickly while you hide. It’s a robust upgrade system that isn’t needlessly complicated and fun to coordinate with friends so that you have a team that complements each other’s abilities and weaknesses.

And yes, multiplayer is still surprisingly tense. You can team up with three other people to attempt the trials together, with the experience scaling up by increasing the number of objectives or enemies around the map. Multiplayer is easily the most fun to be had here. It can be so fun to explore together, but there are other little tricks that the games play on your team, too. In multiplayer, enemies dress up as your teammates and slowly approach you with a slightly misspelled gamertag above their heads, lulling you into a false sense of security before attacking you and running away. It’s a great little touch that encourages you to stay together and keeps tensions high even when sharing the experience with others.

When you’re done with the first round of trials and challenges, future ones are opened up that increase the difficulty while simultaneously upping the rewards. They’re remixed versions of the levels and encounters you’ve already played, but it can be fun to take your fully upgraded rigs into these and try to overcome them. It’s incredibly satisfying to see how much you’ve grown by even being able to overcome these more complex challenges, too.

In terms of presentation, you already know what to expect if you’ve played an Outlast game before. The environments are dimly lit and run-down, dripping with atmosphere and subtle lighting that helps set the mood. Of course, you can expect all kinds of gore to be peppered around each of the levels. Bodies, limbs, heads and even genitals often can be seen lying around the floor. It’s edgy, but I appreciate that the team held nothing back when designing some of these macabre maps.

The sound design is similarly solid, offering tracks that heighten the tension, especially when hiding from a potential stalker, but also not being afraid to just let the sound of errant footsteps build the tension. I’ve talked about how, in the past, other horror games haven’t been able to read the room when it comes to music, but The Outlast Trials gets it so right. The voices of some of the psychopaths, especially Mother Gooseberry’s abusive puppet, are mainly a standout.

The Outlast Trials is a fun little experiment that enhances the now-typical Outlast formula rather than evolves it. Multiplayer is a hoot, bringing a sense of tension that I was surprised to feel in a group setting. While this new focus inevitably means that solo players will feel shortchanged, The Outlast Trials still feels true to the spirit of the previous Outlast games without a compromise that a multiplayer focus would typically bring. It’s a fun time, and I can only hope it will continue to grow as time goes by.

The post The Outlast Trials Review – For Glory And Gore appeared first on Press Start.

As someone who’d harass my Civic Video clerk on a weekly basis for new wrestling tapes, I grew up entrenched in both the Attitude and Ruthless Aggression eras of professional wrestling. Similar to many others, my interest did wane somewhere in the mid-noughties, after the Invasion angle, and I’ve never really thought I’d look to recapture that formative part of my youth. Though somewhere between the Bloodline’s combustion and Cody’s near-miss in “finishing the story”, which has led to a captivating, year-long crusade to end Roman’s reigns over both his family tree and the WWE Universal Heavyweight Championship once and for all, I found plenty that pulled me back in.

During the lead-up to Wrestlemania 39 last year I did dabble with 2K23, which featured a showcase mode built around John Cena, whose near untouchable career is enjoying its twilight years. As with all sports franchises, this video game is iterative when measured against last year’s. However, with it celebrating forty years of Wrestlemania, which is considered to be the grandest stage of them all, and the countless moments it has given fans, this one does feel special.

Of the few modes in WWE 2K24, none deserve your time more than the Showcase mode that combs through four decades of showstopping bouts to put together a who’s who in a roster of immortals. Of course, due to licensing, the never-ending and seismic shifts in talent, and only having some twenty spaces to fill, there are a few curious omissions but there’s no question that every match showcased here is a banger, to borrow a Sheamus-ism. Each match gives a checklist of objectives to hit that recreate key moments within the bout, using its incredible Slingshot tech to seamlessly blend real footage with gameplay.

It’s an astounding trip down memory lane for people who’ve followed wrestling forever and a valuable history lesson for those who haven’t. The whole thing is presented by a relatively new kid on the commentary block, Corey Graves, and features a lot of behind the curtain stories from the legends themselves, including Hulk Hogan and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, so it’s quite a compelling package for marks and fans alike.

Other modes that people will likely gravitate to are MyFACTION and MyRISE, which won’t feel out of place for people who play other 2K franchises. For those that don’t, they’re analogous to FIFA’s Ultimate Team and ‘The Journey’, which speaks to the breadth of experiences one can have in this game.

MyRISE is a two-pronged story mode where you take a created superstar through a couple of hypothetical futures in the company’s programming. The men’s path, for example, posits a timeline where “The Tribal Chief” Roman Reigns vacates his Universal strap and makes off for Hollywood to follow in the footsteps of his cousin. After being plucked from the Performance Center, you shock the world by overcoming a one-night tournament and being crowned the new champion after Reigns, once again, prolongs the last chapter of Cody’s so-called story. It’s then up to you to navigate locker room life, shield yourself from the barbs of social media, and emerge from Roman’s shadow as a fighting champion. It all sounds rather cool, and it can be, however, it’s scuppered in part by cheesy dialogue, second-rate performances, and eye-watering lip-syncing.

What I cannot get enough of is MyFACTION. So often I’d pass over these often predatory quasi-live-service modes, but this one gets plenty right. Although I am early doors, I get the sense that the game doesn’t actively wall players out and force them down the path of microtransactions. I received enough cards to supplement my faction, as well as plenty of currency, by merely exploring the weekly challenge towers and proving grounds. I expect that once I become a force in the Faction Wars, a more competitive online arm of the mode, my collection of cards will grow even stronger. If history is any indicator, there’ll be great support around premium live events, so it should give us all more than enough reason to log in regularly.

Another small touch that serves as a bridge between all of these modes is the fact some of the rewards you unlock, like the ones you get for finishing the Showcase for example, serve your goals in other modes, like MyFACTION. It makes the whole package feel like the greater whole, rather than something slapped together piecemeal. 

The spectacular implosion after the release of 2K20, which saw the series take a two-year hiatus before returning bigger and better, will surely go down as a stroke of good fortune because it’s arguable that these games have never felt better. As is ever the case, your vitality and momentum are represented by a few hard-to-miss bars at the bottom of the screen alongside a silhouette that signifies any limbic damage received. Finishing moves are earned over time and can be banked, while signature moves are intrinsically tied to the roll you’re on. With this basic concept being perhaps the one constant throughout the decades of wrestling games, it leaves a lot of room to focus on the wrestling itself. 

The core mechanics remain largely unchanged from last year’s outing, which is a choice worthy of the Wise Man himself considering the goodwill 2K23 earned its developer. Of course, being an iterative experience, there have been a few small features tacked on in an attempt to build out a more cinematic experience in-ring. Ending exhaustive bouts with a “super finisher” can lead to wild finishes, even if the visual flair is nauseating, while the trading blows mini-game doesn’t prove to be as frenetic as promised, often grinding the bout’s pace to a halt. And unlike the other timing-focused quicktime events, Trading Blows is a tad unreadable with its elements shaking and moving across the screen like they’re in a Ric Flair promo. With that said, while the iterative changes aren’t groundbreaking or even good a lot of the time, the mat work and wrestling in general feel terrific and it speaks volumes of the work that has gone into reinventing this franchise. 

In terms of letting loose your creative juice, 2K24 features just about the most robust creation suite I’ve ever seen in a wrestling video game. 

From superstars to signs, entrances to match types, championship belts to the moves themselves, this game lets a willing player deep dive through a seemingly endless stream of options to hand-craft just about every facet of their experience. I spent far too long poring over my star’s move set, and even longer knocking together a worthy entrance for the man who’d fast become a megastar. 

This kind of freedom of creativity extends into the game’s Universe mode, which serves as a sort of sandbox for people to book matches, spots, and rivalries at their leisure. As much as we hear about “finishing the story” it turns out that creating your own can be more fun. If there exists a story in your mind, you can practically bring it to life in this mode. It’s big, it’s overwhelming, and it feels kind of like playing God (of sports entertainment). Universe is an unshackled version of the game’s MyGM mode, which thrusts you into the thick of a ratings war against rival brands as you manage talent relations, programming, and a dastardly shoestring budget. As someone whose day job is operations-based, MyGM very much tickled the logistics centre of my brain. 

Post Malone is, unquestionably, a strange cat. If he were any more relaxed he’d be dead, and that shines through in his song choices for the soundtrack he had a hand in curating for this game. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a more eclectic assortment of tunes and, somehow, Colter Wall’s soulful country song “Motorcycle” which seems to wax lyrical about rural hardship feels in step with Turnstile’s hardcore-punk stylings. The original soundtrack is one part of the presentation I do love, even as the visual fidelity feels like a mixed bag. 

I feel like there’s never been a bigger night-and-day departure in graphics within a single game before. It’s almost as if all of the budget has been poured into entrances and ensuring the spectacle itself is lifelike, leaving the in-ring work to look somewhat lesser than. It isn’t a bad-looking game, but painted-on expressions, stiff hair, and some likenesses that don’t get close to the mark should, in this day and age, be a thing of the past.

Though I’m sure not everything on offer in WWE 2K24 is going to please everybody, I’d expect there’s at least something for everyone. As far as grand stages go Wrestlemania is the industry’s summit, and revisiting so many defining junctures felt momentous and I do think a certain level of reverence was achieved. And wrestling, so beautifully, casts such a wide net that it’s easy to offer a breadth of experience like this, even if the polish level ebbs and flows.

The post WWE 2K24 Review – Showcase Of The Immortals appeared first on Press Start.

As someone whose first ever video game console was a hand-me-down SEGA Master System with a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog, I pretty regularly find myself in search of the sweet nectar of nostalgia for those old-school experiences. Usually though, when I happen to sit down to some form of retro collection, classic port or even a loving homage like Sonic Mania, I’m pretty quickly humbled by the unforgiving nature of an early 90s platformer no many how many dimensions it’s in.

Penny’s Big Breakaway, a brand-new 3D platformer from the folks behind Mania (under the new banner of Evening Star), swings freely between modern design and concessions, and those same razor-thin margins for success that cause adult me to wonder how child me ever finished a video game. It’s a noble pursuit, and one that this game very nearly nails with some soaring highs, but it’s held back by frustrating lows.

A bit of context first, though. Penny’s Big Breakaway stars the titular Penny, a spinster yo-yo artist attempting to pull herself up from the busking life by auditioning for the Emperor himself. Before the show though, Penny’s yo-yo becomes powered-up by a “cosmic string” and given sentience, going on to make a mess of things and painting her a wanted fugitive by the Emperor and his army of penguins. This kicks off her adventure through 11 distinct worlds full of obstacles and angry penguins, armed with her toothy new toy.

It mightn’t come as a surprise, but said yo-yo forms the basis of this game’s unique core mechanics and design, giving Penny an acrobatic moveset and a sense of momentum that really manages to capture the feeling of those early 2D and 3D Sonic games, albeit at a more measured pace. Levels are designed specifically to keep Penny moving along, and the game’s somewhat-unorthodox controls exist to service that same goal, encouraging players to hit Tony Hawk-esque lines and keep a combo going as they navigate the 40-odd stages on offer. The penguins who’ll accost and capture you if you let too many of them get near are a neat way to add encouragement to hoof it as well as you can.

Technical mastery of the game is also supported by the tracking of both your time and your skills in each level, with a score at the end as proof of how fast, thorough and cool you were throughout. The team at Evening Star has done a pretty commendable job of making sure that levels still feel fun if you’re taking them at your own pace, but the desire to perform eventually takes hold and that’s when a lot of the design really comes into its own. There’s a heap of replayability that comes with it, as well, with better performance in levels leading to more tokens to spend on bite-sized bonus stages as well as a gallery of unlockable goodies.

Unfortunately there are factors holding back all of that fun. Some, like the consistent bugs where Penny will clip through environments and get stuck or fall to her death, or the player’s controls will lock up unexpectedly, are hopefully part of an update plan. Others, like often-unfair checkpointing and controls that aren’t always up to the task, are more inherent frustrations that definitely dull the experience.

Penny’s controls are nicely set up to allow for some pretty novel traversal mechanics, like hopping aboard her yo-yo and riding it down slopes and across environment hazards or spinning it in mid-air as an anchor to swing from. The trouble starts though, when these interact or the player needs to go from one to another in quick succession. Even after completing the game in its entirety and coming close to nabbing its platinum trophy on PS5, I haven’t gotten the hang of throwing the yo-yo to smack a barrel or enemy without accidentally doing a dash move that sends me flying into the abyss, nor can I get my head around having to press the “ride” button to stop riding my yo-yo before I can use it for any other move.

Yes, some of that could be considered a skill issue and there’s definitely a particular rhythm to it that’s rewarding to master, but some minor tweaks would have made the whole thing flow the way it should with far more grace. Boss encounters, much like those of early-era 3D platformers, veer wildly between excellence and travesty, but that could certainly be written off as homage at a stretch.

Despite all that, there’s something so intoxicating about Penny’s Big Breakaway that keeps me coming back for more. Perhaps it’s the remarkable soundtrack that’s as bop-worthy as some of the 90s’ best, or the visuals which similarly evoke a time forgotten while offering the kind of rock-solid performance on consoles that its platforming requires – developed on the bespoke Star Engine, no less. Whatever it is, it’s nostalgia-fuelled heaven when it works, and only slightly infuriating when it doesn’t.

The post Penny’s Big Breakaway Review – It’s Got Ups And Downs appeared first on Press Start.

Before Josef Fares was a Game Awards-decorated lead on It Takes Two, and long before he ever voiced his displeasure of the Oscars over a hot microphone, he cut his teeth on a little game called Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, which was developed by the now-defunct Starbreeze Studios. Unlike Fares’ later works, including A Way Out and the aforementioned award-winning It Takes Two, which have all been built around cooperative play, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons tasked the player with controlling the siblings in tandem, using a novel twin-stick approach to create a sort of “single-player co-op” experience. 

Your objective is to navigate a solemn fairy-tale world controlling both brothers at once. The left stick and trigger controls the older, stronger brother who can utilise his braun, while the right side of the controls is for the younger, more world-weary brother who’s far nimbler and wily. Much of the game’s design is puzzle driven, with the tasks being regularly designed with a turn-based approach in mind as to not overwhelm the player with over-complicated scenarios, including luring and evading a snarling farm dog and trading off being an anchor point for the other brother as they swing on a hip-attached rope.

In its time, it achieved so much through how it handled interaction and drilling home every thoughtful meaning given to it. Despite being very much together throughout, the particularity of each brother’s own capacity managed to create a believable symbiotic reliance on the other that made the journey utterly engaging and wholly sold their brotherhood. 

Though it’s absolutely viable and, I’d argue, recommended to enjoy Brothers as a single-player experience, local co-op features as a rather special addition in this remake. It’s a lovely story to share with somebody, however once the charm of controlling both brothers at once is gone, A Tale of Two Sons becomes a rather humdrum two-player puzzler that offers little that feels new, especially in a world where Fares has gone on to expand upon Brothers’ foundations in his work with Hazelight. So while options are a fine thing, I do think co-op does rob the game of part of its impact because you no longer feel the kinship of Naia and Naiee through your dual-command. 

I do acknowledge there’ll be people who found, and maybe still find, Brothers’ rather atypical control scheme unplayable or unnecessarily challenging. Even my own lizard brain suffered from occasional misfires where I’d lose track of my thumbs, as silly as that sounds, if the brothers drifted to opposing sides of the screen. Obviously it’s already a test of motor skills and coordination, though there’s definitely an element of spatial awareness that’s tested constantly. And perhaps if all of that feels too much, therein lies the use case for local co-op though I’d encourage players to try and experience the game as originally released first and foremost. 

As a remake, A Tale of Two Sons really does feel like a beat for beat recreation, and if it veers from the established path it’s hidden well enough that it didn’t catch me off-guard as new. As is always the case, it’s a bit of a rose-tinted glasses situation because it feels like the same experience, however Avantgarden’s remake does seem more refined in terms of AI and other physics behaviours that have naturally improved over the last decade. Outside of bringing it up to standard, Brothers is a sterling recreation of an earnest, solemn fairy tale that still, a decade on, has several emotional highs worth exploring. 

An ailing father might serve as the impetus for the boys’ adventure in Brothers, but there are so many stories you’ll encounter along the road that really service the game’s many throughlines including, but not limited to mourning, grief and adversity. For a short game, Brothers makes its shots count and wrings feelings from every microcosmic story that’s pulled into the orbit of a rather simple tale of two boys trying to save their dad. What impresses me the most is how it manages to do all of this through the power of gesture and a handful of disposable lines read in a gibberish blend of dialects. 

Having sampled parts of the original again prior to reviewing the remake, it’s clear that there’s a day and night difference when it comes to the game’s presentation. Though improved, I wouldn’t call it a stellar looking game. The people you encounter throughout are so-so, the beasts of myth that darken your path look fierce and worthy of panic, while the world itself is the clearest improvement in terms of the game’s fidelity. Things like foliage and lighting create a striking backdrop for the journey. Of course, things are a little pared back when opting for performance mode but that’s likely to spare you the pop-in and juddering that can mar the experience in fidelity mode. 

When it comes to delivering on the story’s devastating moments, there’s a huge assist on the soundtrack’s score line. Reimagined and re-recorded by a full orchestra, the arrangement is more than serviceable when it comes to tugging on the heartstrings during the game’s many powerful moments. 

Although there’ll be people hesitant to double dip, there’s no question that this remake of Brothers is the absolute number one course of experiencing this quaint, heart rending fairy tale. As a faithful recreation of the decade-old original, the premise of Brothers still holds up today and, in a lot of ways, feels like a blueprint for Josef’s duology that reinvented what it can mean to be a co-op game. 

The post Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons Remake Review – Sibling Revelry appeared first on Press Start.

While this review contains zero spoilers outside of what’s already been officially revealed in trailers, there are spoilers for Final Fantasy VII Remake, and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII.

There’s a lot riding on the middle chapter of any trilogy. Some of the most beloved games of all time are sequels – Halo 2, Gears of War 2, God of War II, the list goes on. You could argue that there’s even more weight on Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the second part of the ambitious Final Fantasy VII Remake project, not only because of its position as the middle chapter, but also because it pushes the definition of a remake and what the term entails.

The Remake trilogy isn’t just posed as a remaking, it also serves as a pseudo-sequel to the seminal 1997 original. While diverging from source material is always a risky venture for any remake of a beloved piece of media, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth makes the most of the opportunity to great effect, while retaining much of what made the original game, and the first part of the remake so excellent to begin with.

Rebirth wastes no time in kicking its narrative into gear, opening with an enthralling recounting of the eponymous Nibelheim Incident from the perspective of Cloud. While Final Fantasy VII Remake was quite reserved in its use of Sephiroth, Rebirth’s opening hammers home the omnipotent threat that he poses to the planet. It also humanizes Sephiroth and his relationship with Cloud, Tifa and the Shinra company before his inevitable fall.

Shortly after, the party is forced to evacuate the once quaint town of Kalm, as Shinra makes their presence known, kicking off a continent-spanning hunt for Sephiroth before he can enact his plans of world destruction. It’s the kind of journey that evokes the intangible feeling of adventure commonplace in older JRPGs.

A good chunk of this feeling is rooted in the mysteries that Rebirth presents as part of its exploration of the unknown. The destruction of the Arbiters of Fate at the end of FFVII Remake means that the story here is no longer bound by the constraints of the original. Rebirth constantly toys with your expectations. It wants you, much like Cloud, to question your memories of the original game as it bounces between familiar story beats and the treading of unknown waters.

This is best exemplified by the returning Zack Fair, who seems to have survived his fateful encounter with Shinra at the conclusion of Crisis Core. Without getting into spoiler territory, Zack’s inclusion in Rebirth feels considered and more than just fan service. Each new scene with him is a tantalizing tease into the new possibilities that Rebirth presents, culminating in a satisfying conclusion.

Rebirth is still undoubtedly Final Fantasy VII, but the way in which it deftly balances the combination of elements both new and old offers up a fresh and enticing narrative for long-time fans and newcomers.

MIGHTYAPE HAS THE CHEAPEST COPY AT $89 PLUS POSTAGE

Rebirth’s enormous journey concludes at the Forgotten Capital, and largely follows the structure of the original outside of a few exceptions. Even though there’s a honed focus on the events of Rebirth and what it means for the Remake trilogy, Final Fantasy VII’s timeless cast of characters aren’t left to the wayside. Every controllable party member – and I mean every controllable party member gets some time in the spotlight here.

Cloud is still struggling to make sense of his past, and Sephiroth’s hold over him grows stronger by the day. Aerith is trying to understand what it means to be an Ancient, and what exactly her role is in the fight against Sephiroth. Newcomers like Yuffie and Cait Sith also get much more time to shine than in the original, helping them to feel much more integrated into the party overall. Even Vincent and Cid get a healthy dose of characterisation despite not being playable, the former of which is incredibly well realized by Matthew Mercer’s suitably edgy performance.

The highlights of Rebirth’s character work are undoubtedly in Barret and Red XIII. Barret’s return to North Correl is reimagined with poignant results, exploring what makes his character tick and the events that laid the foundations for his hatred for Shinra. Red XIII’s ties to Cosmo Canyon are similarly heart-wrenching, as he undergoes an expanded, more introspective exploration of his family ties and the role he wishes to take on as a protector of his people.

And then of course, there’s Sephiroth, perhaps the most iconic video game villain of all time. Sephiroth takes centre stage in Rebirth, brought to life in scene-stealing fashion by Tyler Hoechlin’s excellent performance. Sephiroth feels like a real threat in Rebirth – always one step ahead, always aware and ready for what’s next, as he strings the party along like an elusive puppet master.

While Remake’s Midgar adopted a linear design with scattered open areas throughout its chapters, Rebirth blows the door off the hinges to a much more non-linear design approach. It feels decidedly fitting as the party breaks free of the claustrophobic industrialism of Midgar and Shinra’s machinations.

Rebirth regularly fluctuates between open-area exploration and more linear sections as you move between the larger regions and go through certain story beats. The linear parts often have forced party compositions, and will let you take control of each unique character at some point in the story. This also means you get to use their exclusive exploration mechanics, like Red XIII’s abilities to climb certain walls or being able to make use of Yuffie’s expanded traversal kit thanks to a grappling hook. Bouncing between these open and closed environments does wonders for the pacing across the 50-plus hour main story beats.

When you aren’t moving through these linear locales, you’ll be exploring Rebirth’s numerous regions. There’s six in total, each offering up distinct topography, colour palettes, and regional flora and fauna to explore and interact with. While they feel less compromised by Shinra’s Mako-draining practices, the planet is still irreparably scarred in many ways.

Costa Del Sol’s neighbouring tropical environments deeply contrast with the other parts of the Corel region. The Gold Saucer, for example, has left the lands surrounding it devoid of the same lush greenery, which is no doubt due to the sheer amount of Mako it would take to power such a large entertainment complex. The verdant outskirts of the Junon region slowly transition into land peppered with craters left behind after the war with Wutai, all of which are overshadowed by Upper Junon’s monolithic Mako Cannon.

The thoughtful design of these regions is more than skin deep. A lot of Rebirth’s open world activities share intrinsic ties to FFVII’s broader themes of life and environmental conservation. Each region is utterly packed with this stuff, and all of it is done in service of Chadley surveying the lands outside of Midgar. Completing these earns you World Intel which can be used to develop powerful Materia with Chadley you aren’t able to get elsewhere.

These open world elements do feel tired and fairly dated by today’s standard, though. Ubisoft-style towers reveal points of interest when activated, from combat assignments and Chocobo excavation sites, to Lifesprings and Sanctuaries dedicated to the summons like Titan and Alexander. They’re all bite-sized in nature but ultimately boil down to either a quick-time event or a short skirmish with wildlife that have some bonus conditions for full completion. There’s also a lot of them, and you’ll no doubt be over the checklist style nature of it all if you’re after 100% completion.

The categoric highlights of these are the Life Springs and Protorelic activities. The former not only provides respite from Shinra’s corruption of the land, but also expands the backgrounds and origins of their regions by providing world history for each. Protorelics, on the other hand, are the absolute cream of the crop.

Each region has its own Protorelic to obtain, each with an activity chain unique to that area. It’d be a shame to talk about any of them here, but all of them are wildly distinct in narrative and gameplay in fun and dynamic ways. They also tie together into a broader side story that’s thoroughly entertaining to unravel, and results in an incredible climax.

As you explore the open world, you’ll also collect materials to be used in item transmutation. This system effectively allows you to create consumables, armour, and accessories on the go. It’s a great inclusion that prevents the need to visit a shop every time you want to stock up, though it is easy enough to do that as fast travel is quick and accessible all over the map, especially if you repair the numerous Chocobo stops in each region.

Speaking of which, every region also has its own Chocobo for you to tame and use as a mount to get around. Where the Grasslands has the most standard of these avian franchise staples, the Chocobos found in Cosmo Canyon can glide through the air to access higher points on the map. It allows for more creative and vertically inclined level design that keeps each region feeling layered and more considered from an exploration perspective.

There’re also Odd Jobs, which serve as Rebirth’s side quests. The quality of these is vastly improved over Remake for the most part, exploring the plights of these side characters and how they relate to the party. Even the ones that don’t have as much emotional depth, often have comedic elements that make them well worth experiencing. A large majority of them also provide more characterisation for an associated party member, which in turn builds up your bond with that character.

Party Bonds further play into the idea of having a larger cast of characters in Rebirth. Through conversation, Odd Jobs, and using Synergy Skills and Abilities, you can deepen Cloud’s relationship with all playable party members bar Cait Sith. It’s nice to see how these characters bounce off of each other as they develop, and it culminates in Cloud being able to share a date with a special someone at the Gold Saucer.

If you’ve played the Intermission expansion for Remake, Rebirth’s combat will feel instantly familiar. It uses the same core structure of executing real-time combos to rack up ATB so you can unleash abilities and spells to build up stagger. Once staggered, the damage bonus you get implores you to go to town on your foes to deal out as much carnage as possible. It’s through strategic use of your ATB, Limit Breaks, and Summons that you’ll prevail Rebirth’s most challenging battles.

The inclusion of Red XIII and Cait Sith as playable party members also freshens up combat and team compositions. Red is based around blocking and counterstrikes to build up his Vengeance Mode gauge, bolstering his attacks and giving him lifesteal properties. Cait Sith is perhaps the most unique character yet, where the name of the game is summoning his Moogle to use more powerful abilities. You can jump on and off the Moogle at will, use it to tank hits, roll dice for random effects, and much more.

New party members aside, the only truly new inclusion is Synergy Skills. These are a widely varied assortment defensive and offensive skills that see two characters working together. Cloud is able to deflect Barret’s bullets off of his sword, and Aerith can use magic to help Tifa pop an enemy up for an aerial combo. Every character has Synergy Skills with everyone, so it keeps things feeling fresh and dynamic no matter who you choose to put into your active three-person party.

These go hand-in-hand with the flashy Synergy Abilities which return from Intermission. These abilities can be performed once you store enough ATB charges between characters, allowing you to unleash powerful attacks with bonus effects like extended stagger windows or a temporary window for MP-free spell casting. They add an extra layer of depth onto an already excellent combat system, and the sheer number of them per character combination offers a lot of flexibility in strategy. All of these combat mechanics come together in Rebirth’s boss fights, which highlight the true depths and strengths of this combat framework.

Progression has seen a large degree of restructuring, especially on the character side which is now primarily handled by the Folio system. Each playable party member has their own Folio which works similar to Final Fantasy X’s Sphere Grid, though, on a much smaller scale and level of complexity. As you earn SP through numerous avenues, you can spend points to unlock nodes that net you passive bonuses, new abilities, Synergy Skills, Synergy Abilities, and much more.

New abilities in the Folios are unlocked as you increase your Party Level, which comes through general story progression and by completing Odd Jobs. There are a number of directions to take characters in with Folios, and they’re quite expansive in total size, extending well into Rebirth’s Hard Mode. You can also reset them at any time if you want to experiment with other branches or try out a new party composition.

The Materia and gear system is a prime example of if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Gear and weapons each have slots for Materia that levels up as you gain AP in combat, further enhancing the capabilities of that Materia. Weapons again bring unique abilities that can be mastered, further expanding the ability set of each character. It’s been further built up with new types of Materia and new weapon abilities that afford you even more customization and flexibility in how you approach combat.

It goes without saying that it simply wouldn’t be a Final Fantasy without some minigames, and Rebirth has minigames in droves. From the Rocket League-like Run Wild and the quick-fire shooting gallery of Pirate’s Rampage, to rounding up Moogles and luring them back to their Mogstools. Rebirth is densely packed with countless distractions that almost always feel worthwhile.

None of these come close to what you can do at the Gold Saucer, which is home to 3D Brawler, Chocobo Racing, G-Bike, Galactic Saviors, its own battle colosseum, and more. It’s absurd how much of this stuff Rebirth has in totality, a bulk of which come with hard modes for additional rewards and added replay value. Some of these feel like games of their own, like Chocobo racing which encompasses many tracks, and even has some light customisation in fitting out your Chocobo with gear for bonuses. Standing tall above them all though, is the brand-new card game, Queen’s Blood.

Kieron was right to worry about Queen’s Blood. It calls back to Triple Triad and Tetra Master from the Final Fantasy titles of old, but offers up an experience all its own. The general gist is that you play cards to gain points in three lanes, the victor being the player with the most points from winning lanes once all positions are exhausted. It gets much more complex than this, with countless card effects introduced as you play, numerous build types, and powerful legendary cards to collect and structure a deck around. It’s easy to learn but hard to master.

Each region is dotted with Queen’s Blood players waiting for a challenge, each one moving you closer to the next Queen’s Blood rank. You’ll always get a new card for beating them, and card shops around the world sell preset boosters, expanding your own deck building potential as you move through the game. Better yet, Queen’s Blood tells its own excellent side story that hooks you in with its mystery and allure, culminating in an immensely satisfying conclusion. There’s also tricky challenges to undertake at the Gold Saucer and in Costa Del Sol that require outside of the box thinking, and always feel rewarding to solve. It’s brilliantly moreish and I sincerely hope to see it return in some form.

Misuto Suzuki and Masashi Hamauzu’s score is also immense in the way it encompasses countless genres, motifs, and emotions. Remixes of classic themes evoke a combination of nostalgia and newness, while some of the more experimental tracks push the franchise forward with more electronic tunes that feel infectiously energetic. The battle theme never fails to pull you into the action as it swells up, and the story’s biggest moments are always underpinned by tracks that fit each moment just right.

Nobuo Uematsu’s composition of Rebirth’s main them, No Promises to Keep, is another masterpiece from one of gaming’s greatest composers, and Rebirth’s take on the Final Fantasy VII main theme, Departure, feels incredibly fitting for the journey Rebirth entails. I’m sure it comes as a surprise to no one, but it’s another unabashed win in terms of Final Fantasy soundtracks.

Rebirth is launching with two graphics modes; Performance, and Graphics. Performance offers a smooth 60 frames per second at a lower resolution, while Graphics presents 30 frames per second at true 4K. While differences in modes like these are usually somewhat minor, Rebirth’s Performance mode is a pretty notable downgrade from the Graphics option even with the recent Day 1 patch. Both modes do suffer from the same issue that Remake did where low quality textures plague a lot of the general environments, and end up standing out like a sore thumb when placed against the hyper-detailed character models.

The Graphics mode fares much better if you’re fine with the trade-off in frames per second, but it can feel detrimental to the more difficult combat encounters towards the end of the game, or in Hard Mode. Despite this, Rebirth looks great in certain areas in both modes. A lot of regions have areas with sweeping views of the surrounding environment with extensive draw distances that are impressive to behold.

Much like in Remake, it’s surreal to see these environments recreated with such scale and attention to detail. They feel lively in a way that Midgar doesn’t, which contributes to a less oppressive and a more freeing atmosphere. Whether it’s the sprawling mountain ranges of Nibelheim or the vast depths of Cosmo Canyon, each region is elegantly brought into Rebirth with the utmost care. While I didn’t experience any in-game bugs, I did have three hard crashes across 100 or so hours of play, which never really got in the way thanks to autosave.

It’s no small feat to follow up the excellence of Final Fantasy VII Remake, let alone the importance of delivering a successful middle part of a trilogy. Rebirth manages this, and then some, creating an experience that feels all its own in comparison to Remake. In some ways, it’s a totally different game, owing to its new approach to world design and the significance of the portion of Final Fantasy VII it’s adapting. A truly worthy sequel and second part to what is shaping up to be an incredible trilogy of games.

The post Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Review – A Stellar Reimagining appeared first on Press Start.

When I was nine years old, the very irresponsible father of a friend took a group of us to see Starship Troopers. Since then, not only have I harboured a deep fear of the impending bug invasion, I’ve also been searching for a game that makes me truly feel like one of Rico’s Roughnecks. The first game to really scratch the Paul Verhoeven itch was the original Helldivers, a top-down twin stick shoot ‘em up with a strong focus on fast paced, tactical co-operative action and a super-sized serving of referential satire. Arrowhead Game Studios is back for another bite of the cherry with Helldivers 2, promising much more than just a shift in perspective as it aims to spread Managed Democracy across the galaxy.

Just in case you’ve missed the Helldivers 2 frenzy that’s currently sweeping the gaming community (and melting servers), you’ll be filling the boots of the exceptionally patriotic and highly expendable titular soldiers. Although the sequel has shifted from a top-down perspective to an over-the-shoulder third person shooter, it still retains much of the identity and narrative of the original. Humanity is locked in a galactic war with the insectoid alien Terminids and the nightmarish robotic Automatons. It’s up to you and your squad of three friends (or strangers) to gear up, strap into your Hellpod and drop down into the frontlines, where you’ll spread Super Earth’s ideals of managed democracy one bullet at a time. It’s a simple story, with very clear inspiration from other popular sci-fi IPs, but the uncomplicated narrative leaves more room for you and your friends to create some truly cinematic moments that you’ll be speaking about for years to come.

AMAZON HAS THE CHEAPEST SHIPPED COPY AT $59

Landing planet-side will see you race against the clock in a variety of missions, ranging from defending a location to hunting giant acid-spitting bugs and even liberating launch codes, which you’ll then use to launch a massive missile at the entrenched enemy position. That’s not all though as most maps also harbour hidden side missions, collectable resources used for upgrades and other optional pursuits. The new third person perspective and vastly improved graphical and audio fidelity creates a much more intimate and visceral atmosphere, where you’ll be revelling in the exploded bug entrails or feeling the suffocating clanking of the Automations surrounding you. As if the ticking clock at the top of your screen wasn’t bad enough, spending more time on the ground will see those enemies become more aggressive and overwhelming until you’ll barely have time to reload your weapons between bad guys.

Speaking of weapons, it’s time we talk about Strategems, another holdover from the original Helldivers. Although death is a very common occurrence, you’re not completely hopeless against the onslaught of alien threats. Alongside the huge arsenal of guns and grenades at your disposal, you’ll also be able to access powerful ordinance from your dropship above, calling it down onto the battlefield by inputting a series of specific button presses. These can range from heavy weapons and ammunition, automatic turrets to watch your back, teammate respawns and even devastating orbital strikes. Caution and a tactical mind are crucial when using these though as they do have significant cooldown times and can just as easily obliterate you and your fellow soldiers, potentially leading to some awkward yet hilarious moments.

Although almost everything in Helldivers 2 is flashy and over the top, it truly shines brightest when you are in the heart of battle with your squad mates. Whether I was surrounded by swarms of bugs in the fungal wastes or spilling the oil of a hundred Automatons, the game effortlessly centred me in some of the most intense video game mayhem I’ve ever played. I constantly felt like an absolute badass, even when I was being torn to shreds by the enemies (or my own turrets). You don’t have to take my word for it though, TikTok and Instagram reels are chock full of thousands of other Helldivers having similar incredible experiences.

Once you’ve completed your mission and valiantly exfiltrated the hot zone, it’s time to return to your orbiting starship. This is where you’ll tally up all the XP, resources and mission rewards you’ve earned. This is also where you’ll spend those resources to unlock things like better weapons with armour-piercing or incendiary rounds, cool looking armour with bonuses to health or equipment, and upgrades to your stratagem pool like bigger bombs or shorter cooldown times. It’s also where you’ll matchmake with other Helldivers and select a mission from the Galaxy Map. Just like the first game, the map itself tracks the war effort live and is constantly shifting as the community either pushes back or gives ground to the enemy forces.

That’s not the only “live” element to the game though as Helldivers 2 also includes some potentially controversial live service elements in the form of two battle pass-style progression systems and a premium currency shop. Although there are four different types of currency that can be used for things like upgrades and battle pass progression, they can all be earned fairly easily in game, including the premium currency (otherwise purchased with real money). The team at Arrowhead has loudly stressed that Helldivers 2 isn’t pay-to-win and so far that seems to be true, though I can definitely see why some people are frustrated by weapons and armour being restricted to a premium battle pass, even if you can earn the currency in-game.

With everything being new and exciting at the moment, I can definitely see myself playing Helldivers 2 well into the future, especially with cross-play between Steam and PlayStation, and the promise of new equipment, mission types and enemies. Arrowhead Game Studios are currently pulling a DJ Khaled and Suffering from Success, as much like my squad mates when I call in an errant air strike, Helldivers 2 has unexpectedly blown up.

This huge influx of players has caused massive problems for the servers and as a result, at the time of writing, matchmaking has been practically non-existent for myself and many, many others. Although the game can be played solo (and it’s still a damn good time), things like progression and balancing are all geared towards a multiplayer experience. Thankfully if you’ve got friends at the ready you can still squad up with them and get to blastin’. While I’m sure this problem will be rectified shortly, I would keep it in mind if you’re planning on playing over the next wee while.

The post Helldivers 2 Review – The Best Co-Op Shooter This Side Of The Galaxy appeared first on Press Start.

If you’ve ever owned a crappy car, I’m sure you know the feeling of constantly trying to keep it running with nothing but duct tape, WD40 and a prayer. Now imagine doing that while fighting for your life in the ever-changing, ever-threatening forests of the American Pacific Northwest and you’ll have a very rough idea of what to expect in Pacific Drive. Ironwood Studios’ debut title is an ambitious intersection of popular genres, but spending several hours behind the wheel of this spooky sci-fi station-wagon simulator has truly been a road trip to remember.

In a scene that is sure to unsettle even the most seasoned Uber employee, Pacific Drive opens with your character following some cryptic delivery instructions down a highway flanked by a dense pine forest and the imposing wall of the mysterious Olympic Exclusion Zone. The solemn beauty of the Pacific Northwest is swiftly interrupted as a massive portal inexplicably appears and unceremoniously sucks you out of your car, dumping you on the wrong side of the wall – the side filled with all manner of otherworldly hazards.

In a mad dash to escape the encroaching spread of radiation, you’ll discover the other hero of this game, a run-down jalopy that’s barely held together by rust and missing several important features, such as a wheel. Beggars can’t be choosers though and after following the instructions of a mysterious voice on the radio, you’ll collect random junk from around the car, fix ‘er up as best you can and narrowly escape to a nearby auto shop, a rare safe zone in the otherwise extremely hostile environment.

After you’ve caught your breath, your new radio friend tells you that the car you found is actually a blessing and a curse. As it happens, the humble looking station wagon is a strange and powerful ‘Remnant’, an object that has been twisted by the paranormal forces of the Olympic Exclusion Zone and one that will eventually drive you mad. On the plus side though, it will allow you to venture deeper into the warped landscape, uncover the mysteries of the zone and maybe even find an escape. So, once you’ve explored the auto shop and your new ride is ready to roll, it’s time to buckle up, set your course and embark on the first of many, many extraordinary expeditions.

The opening act not only establishes the tone and narrative of Pacific Drive, but it also serves as an introduction to the gameplay loop you can expect over the next 20+ hours. Though it’s described as a ‘first person driving survival game’, I’d definitely throw ‘roguelite’ and ‘crafting’ into the mix of tags. From the auto shop, you’ll use a giant map to plan a route to an objective given to you by one of the handful of NPCs coming in via the radio. You’ll then prepare by tinkering with your car, filling up the fuel tank, charging the battery and stocking up on various tools from a basic crowbar to the panel-chewing Scrapper.

Once you’re on the road you’ll pass through several Junctions, which are large, randomised environments with an entry point, an exit point and a whole bunch of hazardous anomalies between them. Things like electrified pylons that shoot lightning at you, pockets of intense radiation and giant buzz-saws that race menacingly across the road, ready to pulverize unwary drivers. Not to mention a whole bunch of pine trees and boulders, both of which are more than capable of ruining your day.

Given that your car is already a piece of crap, it’ll constantly fall to literal pieces under these conditions. Thankfully, you can use the aforementioned tools to exploit the several wrecked vehicles and abandoned buildings dotted around the map to collect resources, which you can then use to mend your wagon in a sort of post-apocalyptic take on roadside assistance. As you pass through the junctions you’ll also learn to be on the lookout for ‘stability anchors’, glowing orbs that are needed to power the teleporting technology in your passenger seat.

You see, a consequence of the shifting nature of the zone is an instability storm will be hot on your heels as you travel, meaning that there is no time to dilly-dally, and your trip is essentially one-way. After collecting enough power and achieving whatever objective you set out for, firing up the teleporter initiates a race to a pillar of light as the stormfront is pulled to your position, making for a final bit of tension as you speed toward your salvation after phoning in your own potential destruction.

Of course, each successful run (hopefully) comes with new resources to repair and upgrade your car, as well as upgrade your own equipment and the amenities of the shop. The amount of progression options on offer is surprisingly massive and varied. Some enhancements will allow you to travel further into the zone in the pursuit of story and resources, some will help you survive longer on your expeditions, and some will make maintaining and repairing your vehicle easier, all in service of your next run.

One of Pacific Drive’s strongest points is its atmosphere. Ironwood Studios has done a sensational job at making you really feel parts of this game. Embarking on expedition after expedition always stays exciting because the environments and anomalous hazards feel so oppressive and otherworldly. I was constantly torn between exploring my surroundings for precious resources and tantalising clues, or just getting the hell out of dodge because my ride is already missing a door and I can see an approaching swarm of sticky, acid-spitting orbs looking for real estate on my car bonnet.

I wouldn’t necessarily say that this is a horror game, but there were many moments that genuinely creeped me out or made me jump. I remember one trip where the howling wind ripped through the trees as I scrambled through the pitch black forest in search of a glowing stability anchor, when I finally had it I turned around and was faced with a horde of explosive but otherwise stationary mannequins that had inexplicably appeared directly behind me. The sound effects, lighting, atmosphere, and anomaly design all coalesced into a moment that honestly made my heart skip a beat, one of many similar experiences throughout the game. The vibes here could easily share a Venn diagram with haunted Pacific Northwest forests of Alan Wake 2 or the unsettling dangers of Control.

The overall narrative of Pacific Drive will play out through handful of characters you’ll ‘meet’ over the radio. The writing and voice acting of these characters is another strong point in the game and they constantly compelled me to head out on another expedition to uncover the mysteries of the exclusion zone and the people within it. The real hero though, is the station wagon.

I’ve never really been a car guy, but I quickly fell in love with my annoying yet endearing companion and I found myself actually feeling quite bad if I ever let it down. I also found myself getting increasingly exasperated when things went wrong with the car, becoming verbally upset when I’d get a puncture in a just-replaced tire or lose a headlight. When you’re fanging it to the pillar while staring down a deadly hurricane though, integrity indicators all flicking to red and doors flying off around you, the feeling of making it back to the shop thanks to my little wagon that could did nothing but solidify our symbiotic relationship more and more each time.

Though I mostly adored Pacific Drive, there are a few frustrating elements that may impact your experience. I think the biggest barrier for some people will be the UI, in particular the lack of clarity and consistency around certain mechanics. Although a recent pre-launch patch has gone a fair way at fixing some particularly confusing UI elements, I still find myself struggling to understand parts that I feel should be easy. For example, I spent a hefty amount of higher tier resources to unlock the ability to skip certain junctions, but it was never explained how to do it and I still haven’t worked it out.

There are also some inconsistencies across different menus, with something like the workshop offering the very handy feature of automatically crafting higher-tier parts for upgrades if you have the base materials on hand, while other screens force you to go and manually craft parts elsewhere before you can proceed.

A mechanic that sees you car develop random ‘quirks’ that can range from doors opening when you start the engine to serious issues like fuel draining much faster when the headlights are on is similarly novel, but let down by a frustrating guessing game where you have to try and match the cause with the issue from a list of hundreds of options, with no easy way of elimination or keeping track.

The most egregious complaint I have with Pacific Drive is how the route selection works, namely the lack of clarity around it and how it impacts your progress further into the game. Progression can sometimes feel overly incremental and needlessly gated by the way that you’re forced back to the shop after unlocking new junctions, rather than just letting you continue forward until you decide the risks outweigh the rewards and head back.

Some routes will also lead through several junctions, only to present you with no option other than to enter a dead end. These dead ends have no means of escape or progression and you simply have to abandon your run from the pause menu to return to the shop, completely destroying your car and forfeiting all of the resources you gathered along the way.

Annoyingly, there doesn’t seem to be a way of avoiding this when you initially set your route other than guess work and I lost several 50+ minute runs and hundreds of rare resources to dead ends. Coupled with the inconsistency and scarcity of resources needed for late-game upgrades, progression in the tail end of Pacific Drive can sometimes feel like a chore.

The post Pacific Drive Review – A Captivating Roadlite appeared first on Press Start.

On Skull and Bones’ title screen – something you may or may not have ever expected to actually see – there’s a small prompt that simply says, “Press any button to rule the seas.” It’s an innocuous game trigger, but something about its phrasing kept echoing through my head as I sunk hours into Ubisoft’s latest outing. This throwaway bit of UI guidance is an inadvertent portent for the experience of Skull and Bones, the promise that what you’re about to experience, no matter how grand in aesthetics or romanticised by a lengthy development cycle, will ultimately be as digestible and disposable as a decently constructed tourist trap.  

I’m ahead of myself here, sorry, it’s been a long week under a blaring sun on salt water-worn decks. Skull and Bones is ostensibly a lot of things. Sometime in the late 17th century, a naval war is being waged in the Indian Ocean between various factions, all of whom envision a different kind of freedom, or control, for or of the world around them. Into this maelstrom you arrive, a nameless little cully tossed against the rocks of fortune and fate as your shipwrecked arse lands in the office of John Scurlock, the pirate kingpin of Sainte-Anne, a stronghold of the craven. Scurlock offers you the keys to the envisioned new kingdom, setting you on a path of scum and villainy in service of riches and power.

Across the game’s opening hours, you’ll hear dozens of phrases and ideas. Talk of capitalism run amok, the overarching threat of the massive trading governmental powers, the plight of the nomadic sea people or the champions of the oppressed making plans in the north seas. It’s a healthy mix of genre cliches, quest hooks, and vague gestures toward socially progressive idealism that have found their way into Ubisoft’s lexicon. Delivered with unimpeachable politeness by a small cast of quest givers and plot figureheads, this pastiche forms the framework for much of what you’ll be asked to do in Skull and Bones, every single element of the game eventually bending back around to completing a small set of objectives in the name of some faction or another.

Before you can set out on the high seas for some swashbuckling though, you’ll need a ship to call your own. Skull and Bones’ customisable ships are a highlight of its main campaign, your pirate’s rise to power is directly reflected by the strength and grandeur of the vessels they can command. As you rise in Infamy, the game’s separate player level, you’ll unlock additional ships that require increasing levels of resources gathered in the open world and during quests. Ships are categorised into small, medium, and large, and while this is technically a variety of choice, the moment-to-moment of Skull and Bones all but requires a consistent push toward the next available model, never giving you much of a reason to revert to an older ship for the sake of speed or manoeuvrability, for example.

This odd bottlenecking of player choice is necessitated by the raw numbers game Skull and Bones needs to play with you. While you may prefer the handling and aesthetics of a medium ship, its baseline speed and defensive capabilities will always be outclassed by a larger ship, even with the somewhat flexible weapon and passive boost systems that raise the ships numerical class ranking. Endgame ships are further classified by standard multiplayer roles like DPS and healer, further fracturing player expression and choice across predetermined, group-dependent requirements. The accompanying visual flourishes that are more directly under your control fare better at least, with a healthy supply of vibrant adornments and customisable components meaning your ship will at least look the way you envisioned.

AMAZON HAS THE CHEAPEST SHIPPED COPY AT $89 WITH FREE DELIVERY

Once on open water, Skull and Bones’ strengths, shortcomings, and potential bob to the surface. With a design backbone as strong as Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, it would have been surprising if the core sailing felt anything other than fantastic. And while Skull and Bones leans a little harder into arcade-control than the hefty realism its art direction implies, the sheer joy I felt when navigating a storm or cresting a wave is undeniable. The game’s first-person camera perspective, while utterly useless in combat, makes for a heightened and immersive experience as its emergent weather and lighting systems play out beautifully across the deck. The ship’s crew is reactive to the world around them, often pointing out local sights or incoming threats too, and my pet lemur’s skittery movements were always welcome company.

The heavily marketed naval combat meant to define the core of Skull and Bones ultimately treads water for much of the game, neither fully sinking or swimming. While bolstered with weather effects and impressive particle and destruction physics, blowouts between ships are only ever overwhelmingly fine, keeping on par with, and occasionally lagging behind, the game’s 2013 blueprint. The concise user-friendliness of Black Flag’s arching aiming has been replaced with contemporary crosshairs in a move seemingly meant to invoke deeper player involvement in things like gravity and momentum. Likewise, boarding has become an inert inventory screen, your pirate rooted to the spot as a short cutscene shows your crew having more fun than you. Neither change is disastrous, but nor are they additive and combined with the arcade-y movement and increasingly large enemy health pools, combat becomes a visually spectacular chore at a base level.

Traversing Skull and Bones’ huge ocean map is similarly peppered with immersive, thrilling moments and lengthy stretches of downtime. As both critic and player, I am categorically in favour of meditative silence while moving through an open world, and there are glimpses of this kind of melancholic peace found in Skull and Bones. Things will inevitably return to live-service adjacent shenanigans though, as infinitely spawning enemy ships and other players cut into your brief respites on open water. But with space comes raw distance and while the scope of this world is admirable, doing battle with headwinds that slow your pace and a fast-travel system that gouges into your quest profits, moving through the game loses its charm far quicker than I would have liked.

From here, Skull and Bones spends a lot of time trying to elevate or obfuscate this core deficiency with varying degrees of success. Endgame content gets closest, kicking things off with fantastical boss encounters like the ghost ship and sea monster, before The Helm begins its earnestly interesting efforts toward establishing an in-game economy. Through control of trade routes and running deliveries via daily quests, you can operate a nifty little side hustle in which you use labour camps to refine materials that are then illegally traded for profit. The majority of this is played out on charts and maps, the only other active engagement possible is more sailing and combat, making for a middling loop.

Elsewhere, you can initiate raids on settlements, a kind of risk/reward enclosed area that sees your ship sailing in circles for minutes at a time while enemy waves spawn and a loot bar fills up. Most of your quests will see you running errands back and forth across the ocean, occasionally hunting down rogue ships or stopping to use the game’s rudimentary harvesting quick-time event. Skull and Bones’ omission of any true on-foot gameplay wreaks havoc on its pacing here, as you are technically free to explore a few islands and locations, but interactivity is severely limited to throwaway dialogue choices with NPCs and clumsy treasure hunts. Sketched maps with big red Xs are a wonderful idea but the game’s lean into realism and dense fidelity means finding the designated spot is often tiring.

Skull and Bones almost always keeps you at arm’s length, its experiential comparison point being closer to the Disneyland flavour of Pirates of the Caribbean than the films. Everything is minutely curated and sanded down for minimal player friction – press any button, rule those seas, it’s not going to stop you. It’s a pervasive tonal and mechanical creep that makes this admittedly gorgeous world into a tourist attraction, animatronic NPCs spouting generic calls to action while lifting empty flagons to plastic mouths as unseen speakers pipe in region-accurate animal sounds. It’s overwhelmingly artificial, whatever efforts made to emulate biomes and ideologies of the time are unfortunately painted over by the kind of passive world live-service titles seemingly require.

And look, I like Disneyland fine. With a couple of good mates and a manageable day plan in mind, you can have a decent time there and much the same could be said of Skull and Bones. There’s a reason our previews were positive; the game’s opening hours are brimming with promise and potential, and perhaps in short bursts its lacklustre elements wouldn’t break the surface as quickly. But here is a game that wants to be played for far longer than it has the systems to properly sustain, its ambitious ideas lapping its raw capabilities. There’s a glimpse of a decent attraction here and there, but I can’t help but wonder if Ubisoft has mistaken the appeal of a day pass for the promise of a yearly membership.

The post Skull And Bones Review – Swashbuckling Under Pressure appeared first on Press Start.

Don’t Nod is in an exciting place, juggling projects that feel lower-key like Life Is Strange but still dabbling in the action genre with games like Vampyr and Remember Me. It’s been six years since Vampyr was released, and while I saw the good in the game, it didn’t resonate with me as much as I’d have liked. Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden feels like a natural continuation of what Don’t Nod was trying with Vampyr and is a delightful surprise in many ways.

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden takes place in the late 1600s. You play as a pair of ghost hunters, or banishers, named Red and Antea. Antea is training Red as an apprentice, but they’re also wildly in love. During the game’s opening mission, Antea is blindsided protecting Red and fatally wounded by a ghost they’re hunting. Now, accompanying Red as a ghost herself, Antea must find a way to defeat the evil that murdered her. It’s more complicated, too, as there are questionable ways to bring Antea back, though not without consequence.

Choice permeates so much of Don’t Nod’s games, and Banishers is no exception. From the get go, Red must swear an oath to Antea over whether he’ll move her spirit on or sacrifice the living to bring her back. That sole underlying choice will represent a dilemma for most players – partly because Red and Antea’s relationship is so well-defined. They have typical but charming banter, significant character development between them, and a strong connection that endears them to the player.

That strength of relationship is why Banisher’s choices can be so hard to make. Every case you investigate gives you a choice on how to bring closure to those involved, giving options to move spirits on peacefully or violently. Other options allow you to sacrifice the living, bringing Antea one step closer to lying with you once more. It’s obviously never as clear-cut as you’d hope, though. While I was keen to uphold the oath I made with Antea, I genuinely felt awful about some of the questionable choices I made along the way.

These choices have obvious ramifications as the story comes to a close, but smaller consequences of them are felt throughout the world. Settlers might snidely remark about a choice you made in a previous quest or might even raise the price of their goods if you killed somebody they were friends with. It’s subtly consistent but not in the forced black-and-white manner that most games use.

THE CHEAPEST COPY: $89 WITH FREE SHIPPING FROM AMAZON

But while choice and story are important to the experience, it’s especially remarkable to discover just how well Banishers plays. If you’ve played Vampyr, it’s obvious this is a spiritual successor to that game in many ways. But Banishers feels bigger and grander in ambition than Vampyr ever was and is better in every way. An open-world adventure at heart, Banishers has you travelling through a haunted America, solving both minor and major hauntings as you journey between settlements. It feels, in many ways, like a road film of sorts. Except that the downtime between the major cases is just as compelling as the conflicts you’ll engage in during the main questlines.

This is because Banishers’ world is densely designed and a joy to explore. Distracting in all the right ways, there were many times when I’d inadvertently take the wrong path and loop around to a settlement I’d just left. Along the way, I’d find various activities to complete and open shortcuts that helped me get around the area quickly. Perhaps that’s one of the greatest compliments I can pay to Banishers – there are fast travel options, but the world is so satisfying to explore, and so inviting that I rarely feel the need to do so. It feels like a meaty, Ye Olde style Metroid, which is a combination of period and gameplay design that I never realised I’d needed until now.

When you’re not investigating, you’ll be fighting. Both Red and Antea can be switched between in combat to rack up massive damage through combos. Red can attack with his sword and rifle, while Antea can attack with supernatural punches and abilities. Combat essentially rewards proper synergy between Red and Antea – freezing someone with Antea and finishing them off with Red will reward you with massive damage, for example. But all the abilities and options contribute to a combat system that flows nicely.

Combat is thus supplemented by a skill tree, which offers a great degree of flexibility to your approach. Each ability or perk provides greater synergy between Red and Antea. Red might be able to recover more energy for Antea to use with his rifle, for example. But each point on the skill tree, once unlocked, can be alternated with another skill, allowing you to change up your build as you go. This flexibility doesn’t feel as cheap as a full respec, and once again features a good sense of choice, as opposed to skill trees in some other games that end up filled out anyway.

Optional content is split into activities and haunting cases. Activities are fairly typical open-world fare – you fight off a wave of enemies, find a spot of treasure to dig up or even find items to remove a curse from a treasure chest. But the haunting cases easily stand out here. They’re smaller stories that focus on the settlers at each settlement. They’re all well-written and nuanced tales that’ll once again have you making difficult choices at the end of each. They don’t feel like side quests either and are just as compelling as the main quests.

That being said, how much you engage with them is up to you. The main story path itself would take most players between twenty to thirty hours to finish, but you can easily double that if you take your time and explore everything that New Eden has to offer. It’s worth mentioning that this isn’t a case of quantity over quality either – the sheer variety of objectives and cases helps keep things fresh. This isn’t as vast as your typical Ubisoft open-world or games like Spider-Man or Horizon. Instead, this is a much smaller but denser world to explore.

Surprisingly, Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is also a looker. The artistic direction is strong, but even the performance is rock solid. There’s a ton of detail in visual density and ambient sound work to help sell this bleak but real world of New Eden.

But nothing rises above as much as the dark ambient original score in Banishers. It employs ominous and gloomy notes to create a melancholic atmosphere. It’s the perfect soundscape for your adventure through a world that’s slowly succumbing to a haunting curse, but also for the depressing fact that Antea is dead, and you might not be bringing her back. The entire adventure is made better by great performances, too – Russ Bain and Amaka Okafor are worth calling out for their often cute and playful chemistry together as Red and Antea, respectively. They really do carry so much of the adventure.

The post Banishers: Ghosts Of New Eden Review – A Hauntingly Beautiful Adventure appeared first on Press Start.

Time is relentless and unyielding – it’s– crazy to think that twenty-eight years ago we first witnessed Lara Croft and her adventures in the Tomb Raider series. Nobody could have predicted the critical acclaim that would come afterward, nor the discourse around her status as a cultural icon and her appeal to certain audiences. Even further to that is the expansive and muddled legacy that it created – multiple sequels, several reboots, and film adaptations as well.

When Tomb Raider launched in 1996, it was the first time in a long time that gaming had a strong female protagonist, skyrocketing Lara Croft to the same heights as Mario and Sonic, and putting her head-to-head with Sony’s own Crash Bandicoot. While most people were hooked on the wise-cracking Duke Nukem or ultraviolence of Quake and Doom, Tomb Raider made 3D platforming exciting by blending puzzle solving and action with freedom of movement and exploration. With a slew of sequels and expansions, the Tomb Raider franchise quickly became stale – too much of a good thing led to a lack of innovation, and despite continuing to sell games, the series never really moved past its origins (at least before the modern and grittier trilogy).

Having said that, Tomb Raider I-III Remastered helps you slip on the rose-tinted glasses to enjoy exactly what made Lara the icon she was, and to recapture a bit of that atmosphere when the games were first released. These are games that don’t hold your hand or guide you through with hints and suggestions; you’re dropped into an environment and forced to figure things out on your own, with the tools at your disposal. This is both refreshing and jarring – you could be spending hours wandering a level to try and find your next objective, while simultaneously uncovering the level’s secrets to get a perfect score before moving on to the next.

The biggest thing I think this trilogy has going for it is that it is exactly as advertised, with a few quality-of-life improvements over the originals. You have all three Tomb Raider games in their upscaled glory, with an enhanced modern control scheme, and even a photo mode thrown in for good measure. The three games come with their PC-only expansions as well, available for the first time on consoles, so you truly are getting the full versions of each game with more modern graphics. On starting the game for the first time you’re also greeted with an opening card that states:

“The games in this collection contain offensive depictions of people and cultures rooted in racial and ethnic prejudices. These stereotypes are deeply harmful, inexcusable, and do not align with our values at Crystal Dynamics.

“Rather than removing this content, we have chosen to present it here in its original form, unaltered, in the hopes that we may acknowledge its harmful impact and learn from it.”

There’re going to be people who want to take that the wrong way, but personally I think it’s a great addition considering some of the story content of the games. There’s no overt censorship, no cut content, heck even the games’ cheat codes are active (but I couldn’t get them to work.)

One of the major changes here is the addition of “Modern Controls,” allowing you to play Lara in a more free-moving style as opposed to her classic “tank” controls. This comes with its own caveats – the levels were built around Lara’s strafing jumps, shimmying across ledges and shuffling to get a better angle on things, and more often than not she’d be hurtling into walls or off edges leading to a frustrating level restart.

To realise just how much time we spent with tank controls back in the day, perfecting a safety drop just to tap the wrong button and have Lara swan-dive into the ground below ending in a sickening neck snap is really jarring. To be able to do that in a lot less button presses with Modern controls is just annoying. I found myself constantly switching back and forward between Modern and Tank to get through levels, lest I hurl the controller through the screen. I even experimented with plugging in a DualShock for control, and found that Modern controls feel more comfortable with a controller, but Tank controls work better for keyboards.

Switching between control systems wasn’t the only thing to amaze me – the most impressive part of the Remastered trilogy is the work that’s been put into upscaling the graphics. At the press of a button you can instantly switch between classic graphics and modern graphics, and I’m not gonna lie – the modern graphics are identical to what I would have imagined the classic graphics being when I first played Tomb Raider years ago. Aspyr has made great strides in adding little quirks to the modern graphics, allowing proper light sources to shine in from above, or making certain consumables stand out just that little bit more from their classic counterparts, but sometimes this has flaws in itself as well.

The first level of Tomb Raider III is set in a jungle, which has a swamp you can drown in if you’re not careful. Switching between classic and modern graphics, I discovered that the classic graphics’ mud has waves like water, whereas the modern texture is solid and looks like the ground. Another level restart for me on that one after unsuccessfully trying to pull Lara out of the swamp. It’s small changes like this that make you err on the side of caution; whether this was a stylistic choice for Aspyr in developing the games or not remains to be seen. The game’s photo mode allows you to have a bit of fun while playing, and really puts you back in awe at the graphical changes between old and new, though I was a little uncomfortable with the ability to put Lara in a dressing gown in the middle of China.

The audio work goes largely unchanged from the originals, so Lara’s voice is the same as day one, grunts and all. The pre-rendered cutscenes are also unchanged but do get the benefit of upscaling – credit to Aspyr for not trying to reinvent the wheel with that one, The in-game cutscenes have additional facial animation to match the voices which was a nice touch. Nathan McCree’s iconic title theme brings a tear to my eye every time I boot up the Remastered trilogy, and the soundtrack for all three games with its classical influences is still some great atmospheric work.

The post Tomb Raider I-III Remastered Review – A Love Letter To Lara’s Origins appeared first on Press Start.

Right on the heels of the Persian Prince’s comeback tour, Ultros is undeniably another in a string of releases that are delivering the metroidvania genre back into the limelight. Although El Huervo’s distinct art is more than enough to capture a player’s attention, the game’s ability to hook them in with its creative, roguelike sensibilities is unparalleled. 

Adrift at the edge of a black hole and set aboard the Sarcophagus, a pulsing, living mess of organic matter, you carve out a path within the vessel, leaving behind a beautiful network of scandent stems that persist even as time resets with each loop. The ship itself serves as a space-uterus for an ancient being called Ultros, whose rebirth threatens the fabric of everything, but it’s shrouded inside a mystery that unfolds piecemeal as you meet the ship’s inhabitants, hostile and friendly, alike. 

What I enjoy most about Ultros’ narrative is how it obfuscates the truth of things, wrapping it up in layers of deep lore that you’ll need to peel back throughout the first fifteen hours in hopes of understanding your role in everything. It’s riveting sci-fi and even after rolling credits on the first ending, I find myself returning to rediscover more deep-planted secrets. 

Along with it being a metroidvania, which brings with it all of the things you’d expect, Ultros has an intimate close-quarters brand of combat that reminds me somewhat of Hollow Knight. While it feels disappointingly one-note for the first hour or two, the combat does begin to open up as you encounter more strategic enemies and explore more branches of your skill tree. It integrates systems that reward precision and offensive variety as the entrails of fallen fodder serve as fuel for both your upgrade tree and as compost for the world’s fertile soil.

And it’s in that fertile soil that you can also plant one of several seeds that can grow into trees, vines, bushes, and so forth. Although they’re not the only means of aiding traversal in Ultros, how these seedlings grow is a large part of the environmental puzzle craft, both in terms of opening up once-locked paths and connecting all things to the ship’s living network which builds towards the true endgame.

Some of the pathing you’re expected to take can be a tad obtuse if you assume that the game is going to hold your hand throughout. It does guide you at first, tutorialising the combat and Ultros’ basic tenets, but very much leaves you to explore its labyrinthian and winding corridors before too long. 

The main loop of Ultros revolves around locating and killing eight stasis-bound shamans who safeguard the continuum and keep the demonic threat bound to its humidicrib. And it’s with each kill that the loop occurs and takes you back to the beginning. Like all good roguelikes, some ideas and mechanics persist, such as gardening and ever-expanding tool sets like your Extractor, creating a great flow of discovery within the world. 

The Extractor is arguably the most important tool in aiding practically all of the game’s mechanics outside of roughhousing. Not only does it include a double-jump by default, it also services the serene gardening aspect of Ultros. Piece by piece, with each shaman slain, it’ll evolve to trim, uproot, and quite literally Frankenstein plants together to birth unique paths through the world. It makes the slow build from novice green thumb to Costa Georgiadis believable and less daunting.  

With upgrades being tied to dormant memories, your skill tree is something that, like everything else, resets with each loop. That is until you uncover special cortex locks that fix the memories in place so that they, too, persist across loops. It’s a cool system that, similar to Dead Cells’ semi-titular cells mechanic, doesn’t make defeat in battle too devastating to bounce back from, not to mention Ultros has a generous save system that lets players climb into orbic bunks to either safely mark progress, purchase skills or, much later in the game, travel to other bunks across the Sarcophagus which are connected to the living network.

It’s all elegantly executed and does make Ultros feel less daunting than other games of its ilk, giving players the freedom to explore its intoxicating, kaleidoscopic vistas and drink up the strangest of fiction. 

As someone who’s an enormous Hotline Miami enthusiast, it’s hard not to adore El Huervo’s beautiful art direction for this game. It’s distinct, it’s alien, and it’s staggeringly rich in terms of its colour use. The world exists in starburst technicolor and feels full to the brim of many-splendoured psychedelics, it does feel like art that’s worthy of its space on the wall. To capture the vibe of a writhing cosmos, Oscar Rydelius’ ethereal score walks hand-in-hand with the game’s artwork to create a vibe that is the centrepiece of a game with so many strings to its bow already. 

For a game of its scale, I was also impressed by the accessibility options Ultros presents. Some soften the backgrounds and dim some of the visual stimuli to make the game’s vibrant visuals more palatable for sensitive players, while you can also tinker with damage sliders to make combat easier if you’re finding it troublesome.

While it’ll ultimately prove fortuitous that the metroidvania has found itself back in the spotlight, Ultros demonstrates that even a few novel ideas can transform the most tried and true concepts into something clever, creatively fertile, and profoundly beautiful.

The post Ultros Review – Savage Gardener appeared first on Press Start.

It’s been nine years since Batman: Arkham Knight graced our screens and I’d been so eager to discover what Rocksteady were making next. They were seemingly unstoppable – sure, Arkham Knight was controversial for how it handled its titular character – but the Arkham games themselves have always been some of my favourites. Now, Rocksteady is flipping the script and pitting you against the Batman you’ve previously spent so much time with. As a merry band of four villains hunting the Justice League, Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League sounds like a good time on paper. But unfortunately, it’s just not that simple.

Five years after Arkham Knight’s events, Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League opens with Brainiac invading Metropolis. He’s brainwashed the inhabitants of Earth, including several key members of the Justice League, and plans to take over the planet in little to no time. Desperate, Amanda Waller brings together a task force of Arkham Asylum inmates, a Suicide Squad, to kill the Justice League and stop Brainiac before he takes over the planet. It sounds like your typical fare, and that’s because it is.

Purely from a story perspective, I enjoyed Suicide Squad more than I thought I would, but for the most part, the story eventually treads familiar steps towards multiverses that just feel so tiring at this point. What I do appreciate about Suicide Squad is that it really nails the tone and comedy that you’d expect from a story like this. The villains are bad guys; they’re not watered down to be anti-heroes; they do bad things to good people and only do good things for selfish reasons. Having the Justice League be the villains and seeing them kill people is an interesting way to portray characters you’d typically see as heroes, although some may find such a choice controversial.

The game is structured like any typical open-world game, borrowing more from the likes of Spider-Man and, of course, the previous Arkham games. There’s a slew of missions to undertake and progress the story with the eventual goal to kill the Justice League and stop Brainiac. You can select one of four characters at launch – Harley Quinn, King Shark, Captain Boomerang or Deadshot – but you can switch among them between mission as you see fit. Some missions offer better XP if you use a specific character, usually if said character has some tie to that mission narratively, but you’re free to play whoever you want from beginning to end.

This freedom and flexibility are welcome, and even if you play solo, the other squad members will still accompany you on missions as bots. This works better than Gotham Knights because it means you’ll still get the banter between all four squad members rather than this disjointed feeling that results from sending one person out to missions at a time. It’s a clever design choice because it means the whole game is designed to have four characters at any given moment, so dropping in and out to play with mates is a breeze, kind of. But more on that later.

Each of the characters plays slightly differently, with unique abilities for both combat and traversal. Mostly, you’ll be travelling through the city from objective to objective. Everyone has their own way of getting around Metropolis, usually from a piece of technology stolen from members of the Justice League. Harley uses Batman’s grapple gun, while Boomerang uses a speed-modulated boomerang to teleport around the place. Each of these abilities is unique, but some are clearly better than others. King Shark’s is the best for covering long distances quickly, leading to him being my primary choice for the brunt of the campaign. Given how vital traversal is for getting around, it’s frustrating that there are clear winners and losers here with each player’s different movement options.

But while the characters are strong and the abilities are mostly well-considered, there is one integral aspect where Suicide Squad falls down, and that’s the flow of gameplay. I could generally come to terms with the fact that this is a game where the loot-heavy, games-as-a-service model has been shoehorned somewhere it doesn’t fit. But the truth is that Suicide Squad suffers from the same pitfalls many of these games have when they first launch – there’s just not enough content here to keep things interesting.

AMAZON HAS THE CHEAPEST SHIPPED COPY AT $89 ($149 DELUXE)

The main storyline is filled with the same objectives, like defending a point, collecting things from one to move them to another or even surviving for a certain amount of time. I kept progressing through the main storyline, hoping it would throw something new at me. Unfortunately, those hopes were never met. This kind of repetitive gameplay loop can be alleviated by playing with friends, as the banter between you will no doubt fill in those slower moments, but at its core, Suicide Squad just feels repetitive. And that’s before considering the fact that the final boss battle is gated behind a grind for one of the game’s five separate resources. Not a great time.

Some moments, especially the boss battles against the titular Justice League, stand out amongst everything else. But these are too few and far between in the grand scheme of things. The monotonous repetition of the same objective types between them made me wonder if it was even worth it at the end of the day. Given the strength of the encounters and scenarios you’d uncover in the Arkham games, especially the first two, it’s an incredibly baffling outcome.

This is all exacerbated by the game’s pacing feeling off. After each mission, you’re shown a results screen displaying what equipment you’ve unlocked and how each player did compared to their friends. Then you’ve got to spend time sifting through different versions of the same weapon, working out which has better stats or suits your playstyle more. I appreciate the flexibility this system affords the player. But on the other hand, I spent more time watching gear unlock and choosing gear than I spent in each mission. And that’s a problem. You can’t even change gear mid-mission, which seems odd.

Thankfully, many of the server issues that players were reporting had been ironed out at the time of writing. I played two of my sessions online with two different friends, and that experience was seamless and worked pretty well. Crossplay works without a hitch, especially if you’ve previously played games from WB together. It’s pretty impressive that four people can free roam around this massive map without limitations, though it’s equally disappointing to discover that my friend’s progress wasn’t saved due to a glitch after a three-hour session. This may be fixed in the future, but that’s the state of the game right now.

One thing I can’t fault Suicide Squad for, however, is the artistic direction and technical achievement that the game represents. While the artistic style separates it squarely from the Arkham games it apparently takes place in the same world as, it’s a bright and vibrant aesthetic that I can’t fault. The character facial animations are especially impressive – sometimes, it’s hard to forget that these zany villains aren’t real people. Besides King Shark, of course. The game doesn’t offer display options, though it does play at 60 frames per second out of the box, which is a nice contrast to Gotham Knights. It’s a good-looking game with some extraordinary-looking characters, but Metropolis just doesn’t feel as vibrant or lived-in as Gotham.

It’s tricky to talk about Suicide Squad without sounding too negative. The truth is that it was engaging enough to hold my interest from beginning to end. But the motivation was the hope that the game would slowly show me something more, and it never does. That being said, it does a great job at bringing some lesser-known DC characters into the mix, and I’m sure that some diehard fans will be keen to see these different takes on characters they’ve come to know and love. Unfortunately, no amount of solid writing, subversive story beats or even sharp comedy can cover up the repetition of the core gameplay loop, which is a shame.

The post Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League Review – A Controversial Closer appeared first on Press Start.

While often overshadowed by its beloved sequels, Persona 3’s impact on modern RPGs is still tangible today. It laid the groundwork for a formula that elegantly blurs the line between gameplay and narrative, entangling seemingly disparate gameplay systems and elements into an elaborate web of enticing feedback loops that keep you coming back for just one more in-game day.

Despite this, to say that Persona 3 is hard to approach for fans of the modern games would be an understatement. Between numerous versions and countless content differences, there is no definitive way to play Persona 3 – until now, that is.

Persona 3 Reload aims to deliver the quintessential way to experience this all-important title. Rebuilt from the ground up with new assets, gameplay elements, expanded dialogue, and a presentation that even Persona 5 would be envious of. While it hasn’t fully escaped some of its archaic trappings, and some new elements don’t feel as carefully thought out as others, Reload is undoubtedly the best way to play this seminal RPG.

Persona 3 Reload stays incredibly faithful to the source material. After transferring into Gekkoukan High, our protagonist finds himself pulled into a mysterious 25th hour in the day known as the Dark Hour. Coffins fill the streets in place of people who can’t freely roam the Dark Hour, the night sky is tinged an eerie green, and Gekkoukan High is transformed into a colossal monument to death known as Tartarus. After being attacked by monstrous beings known as Shadows, the protagonist awakens to the power of their Persona, and the ability to fight back against the Dark Hour by extension.

After being recruited into the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad – otherwise known as SEES – it falls to you and the other members of SEES to explore Tartarus, destroy Shadows, and uncover the grim truth behind the Dark Hour. It’s a simple premise bolstered by its cast of loveable characters and exploration of death, what it means to exist, and the human condition. Persona games have always dealt with heavy subject matter, and 3 can feel particularly weighty at points – but much of it is to its benefit.

Persona 3 Reload has a tangible atmosphere at times, particularly towards the end of the game. It comes through in every aspect of its design from its utterly sublime soundtrack, its contemplative and sombre user interface, and varied Social Links. Reload encompasses a wide gamut of emotional output across its 50-hour runtime.

In true Persona fashion, much of this comes through the game’s many optional Social Links, but that isn’t to say Persona 3 Reload’s main narrative is a snooze. The mystery at the heart of this story is an intriguing one, complete with twists and turns that keeps things fresh as you slowly uncover the truth. It’s all brought together by the way it entwines each member of SEES in a seamless manner, something that Reload really set out to improve in a lot of aspects.

While a lot of the early SEES members haven’t seen many changes in Reload thanks to their deft handling in prior versions of Persona 3, some of the later characters like Ken Amada, Shinjiro Aragaki, and resident best boy Koromaru have been vastly expanded in their backgrounds and motivations for joining SEES. I won’t get into it too much here, but the added character depth implored me to include these characters more often in my party setup, and deepened my appreciation for them to a point that previous iterations of Persona 3 were unable to.

A large part of this is thanks to excellent voice work across the board from a new slew of actors in Reload. Each one brings the same energy as their original iterations with their own twist, paying respect to the original voice actors while making it their own. A special shoutout should go to Aleks Le for his part as the protagonist, Pharos, and Ryoji, whose performance feels dynamic for each of his roles, shifting in subtlety and tone of delivery where needed to help each of these characters land. The original cast of Persona 3 also appear in minor roles peppered throughout the story, which is a nice nod for longtime fans.

It all comes together really nicely in the way that each character’s plight is inextricably linked to the themes Persona 3 Reload embraces so wholly. From Yukari’s determination to uncover the truth behind her father’s death to Aigis trying to work out what her purpose is in life outside of being an anti-Shadow weapon. Everyone’s arc feels purposeful here despite the size of the main cast, and while they aren’t all made equal, each has something unique to offer.

If there’s one part of this that I had to knock, it’s that the game still suffers from pacing issues at different points in the narrative. There’s often long stretches of time with little to no story progression, and the ability to knock out a block of Tartarus in a single night with smart use of resources can make for long stretches of dungeon crawling if you want to optimize how you spend your time. The worst offender is undoubtedly the month of December, where the whole game slams on the brakes right after some big story revelations.

The core gameplay loop of deciding how to spend your time during the day and dungeon crawling at night is here in full force. It’s the kind of “just one more day” decision making that keeps you locked in for hours on end. Picking and choosing who you want to spend time with, which stats you want to increase and how you can most effectively use your time when exploring Tartarus is forever engaging.

Persona 3’s Social Links also remain largely untouched in Reload, apart from the new wrinkle of all of the major ones being fully voiced, and the Aigis Social Link is also present despite its absence in the original game. While some Social Links are undoubtedly better than others, each feels worth experiencing in their totalities. There’s some real highlights here, like Akinari Kamiki who’s coming to terms with the fact that he doesn’t have much time to live due to a genetic disease. Or Maiko Oohashi who finds solace from her argumentative parents in the time she spends playing with you at the local playground.

Even if you’ve seen all that these Social Links have to offer in past iterations, being entirely voiced in Reload adds a lot of emotional depth to each level of each Social Link. It becomes all too easy to find yourself emotionally attached to these characters all over again, and brings a level of freshness to it all that makes it feel brand-new.

There are also new events to partake in with party members separate to their Social Links, where you can cook, garden, or watch movies to improve your stats and gain consumables to use in battle. Hanging out with party members like this also unlocks Characteristics, which are powerful passive abilities that bolster their kits. Things like reducing the SP cost of recovery skills for Yukari or increasing Junpei’s critical hit rate and damage which are always helpful.

You can otherwise choose to spend your time working for a bit of extra cash, eating in at restaurants for stat boosts, or simply studying. There’s also a communal dorm computer you can use to access websites to boost your stats and gain new skills across various facets of the game, from improving your attacks in combat to growing your yield when harvesting the vegetables you grow from gardening.

When you aren’t spending time with friends or improving your own skill sets, you’ll be exploring Tartarus. A monolithic, 200+ floor omen to death at the center of the Dark Hour’s existence. If you aren’t familiar with Tartarus, it’s essentially a mega dungeon split into blocks, with procedurally generated floors and boss encounters peppered throughout. It’s perhaps the most infamous part of Persona 3 due to its mundanity, and is where Reload gets the most liberal with its changes.

It’s still a collection of procedurally generated floors that you’ll ascend as you explore it, but there are countless new inclusions and quality of life changes that make it much more digestible. For starters you can now dash as you move through Tartarus, which sounds like a small thing, but does a lot to cut down on time spent moving through each floor. You’ll also gain access to an ambush attack similar to the one found in Persona 5, letting you get the jump on enemies to gain the upper hand at the start of battle.

Tartarus is also home to Monad Doors and Monad Passages, which offer extra challenging Shadow encounters in exchange for rare rewards. These offer some real difficult battles – especially the Passages – some of which err on the side of true challenge encounters that function more as a puzzle and encourage creative thinking to get past them. The rewards are always worthwhile, which leaves them as a welcome opportunity to test your battle skills and knowledge.

BIG W HAS THE CHEAPEST SHIPPED COPY AT $89

There’s also the Twilight Fragment system, where you can spend Twilight Fragments you find in Tartarus on opening locked chests, or to recover your HP and SP. Greedy Shadows also inhabit Tartarus, which are essentially large-sized rare Shadows that drop a bucket load of experience, cash, and items if you manage to hunt them down. There’s even an experience catch-up mechanic which can help to keep your under-levelled party members up to snuff for battle when you need them most. It all comes together to make Tartarus a more varied experience overall, while also baking in more decision making for you to consider as you explore.

Outside of Tartarus, there’s the monthly Full Moon Operation to engage with where the gang takes on a major boss Shadow during that month’s full moon. These are challenging and visually refreshing encounters that often include unique mechanics that require you engage with combat a bit more cerebrally when you otherwise would. There are very few changes to these encounters in Reload, but offer a welcome break from Tartarus nonetheless.

Speaking of battle, the basis of hitting weaknesses to knock down enemies and gain extra turns is still the name of the game here. You’ll make use of physical and elemental attacks to exploit enemy affinities to gain the upper hand, but there’s some notable improvements to combat that bring it up to modern standards. The new Shift mechanic functions the same as Persona 5’s Baton Pass, letting you tag in another party member upon knocking an enemy down to further exploit weaknesses in the hopes of unleashing an all-out attack.

There’s also the all-new Theurgy skills, which are powerful abilities that need to be charged up before they can be used. Each party member has their own unique Theurgy skills, and the conditions for charging them depends on the party member. Where Yukari fills up her theurgy gauge by healing, the protagonist fills his up by swapping between different Persona in battle.

While these attacks are flashy, and there’s some strategy to using them at the right time when you first unlock them, they can quickly trivialise certain encounters once you understand how to efficiently charge your Theurgy Gauges. All of them ignore resistances, some inflict ailments, provide full healing for your entire party, or even have a decent chance at knocking down enemies. They’re fun to look at and add a new layer of strategy to combat, but feel a little too powerful overall.

Despite all of these improvements and changes to combat, you’ll still being doing a ton of it as you explore Tartarus, which is part of the reason the mega dungeon became such a drag in other iterations of Persona 3. Thankfully, combat has a new level of style and flash to it similar to what you’d see in Persona 5, which helps combat feel fresh, fluid, and responsive all throughout Reload’s runtime.

Gorgeous new UI elements ebb and flow on the screen as unleash Persona across the battlefield in an element haze. Character cut-ins are flashier then ever, shattering in the background as you knock down enemies. Attack animations are needlessly pretty, shifting to another party member has a kinetic energy to it that can only be described as infectious, and all-out attacks culminate in wildly expressive and unique character graphics that hammer home personalities and combat styles. It’s the same kind of next-level presentation that Persona 5 was praised for, but it feels even more elevated in Persona 3 Reload.

Shuffle Time is also slightly changed in Reload, feeling more embedded within your overall progress through Tartarus and the broader narrative. You still pick between a slew of rewards after battle, but you can grow the levels of these rewards by collecting Major Arcana cards in Shuffle Time whenever you visit Tartarus. As you clear Full Moon Operations, you’ll gain more Major Arcana cards, which means it takes more time to get a full deck to boost the level further. It adds another layer to the decision making of Shuffle Time and puts more control in the hands of the player when it comes to levelling up Shuffle Time cards and their rewards.

Shuffle Time is also where you gain new Persona to use in battle, and in Persona Fusion. Fusion is also mostly the same, but includes some nice quality of life features from Persona 5, such as search fusion where you can filter fusions by viewing results as opposed to flicking through each Persona in your stock. Multi-Persona Fusion is also condensed down into Special Fusion, which cuts out some of the in-game waiting for Fusions with four or even five Persona.

The area where Reload is most obviously improved is in its visuals. Everything here has been completely remade from the ground up with truly stunning results. From the numerous locales of Tatsumi Port Island and the harrowing halls of Tartarus, to the expressive character portraits, Persona 3 feels more well realized than ever within Reload. Tartarus in particular has seen quite the face lift, with each block not only emphasizing their unique visual designs, but also varying in architecture and floor layouts. All of this coupled with the aforementioned overhaul of the user interface, and brand new animated and CG cutscenes leave Persona 3 Reload feeling like a true modernization of Persona 3 that retains all of the charm and atmosphere of the original.

The soundtrack is another absolute win in a series that never misses when it comes to music. Atsushi Kitajoh has done a stellar job of composing new original pieces for Reload, while also rearranging iconic tracks from Shoji Meguro’s original score. Mass Destruction in particular feels more rooted in its jazz motifs, with an incredible second verse that cements this remix as something that stands along the original instead of replacing it. Other classics like Iwatodai Dorm and When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars have also been rearranged for Reload with similar changes, keeping things thematically cohesive at all times.

While Mass Destruction makes a glorious return, I’ll be the first to admit that Reload’s new original battle theme, It’s Going Down Now, is a new favourite battle theme in the series for me personally. It’s infectiously energetic and perfectly suited to the turn-based battles and melancholic theming of Persona 3. Similar to Persona 5 Royal’s Take Over, there’s nothing quite like ambushing an enemy, swiftly knocking them down, and initiating an all-out attack as the chorus swells into an incredible crescendo.

Coming hot off the heels of finishing Persona 3 Portable, I didn’t expect Persona 3 Reload to enrapture me as much as it did. It’s clear that this isn’t just a project ATLUS needed to do, but something that they wanted to do. Every aspect of it feels carefully considered to create a modernised version of Persona 3 that doesn’t betray its core theming and messages. A must-play for any Persona fan, new or old, and absolutely worth checking out for series first-timers.

The post Persona 3 Reload Review – Firing On All Cylinders appeared first on Press Start.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon, or Like a Dragon 7 if you’d prefer, was a massive breath of fresh air when it launched in 2020 and brought with it not just a whole new cast of characters and Yokohama’s debut as a playable area but a massive shift in gameplay. Switching from real-time action to a turn-based RPG was certainly a bold move but it worked immensely thanks to strong thematic ties and combat that added depth and strategy but retained (and arguably surpassed) the over-the-top flair of the Kiryu-led titles

Now, after last year’s Like a Dragon: Ishin remake and a brief stint back in the world of beat-em-ups in Like a Dragon Garden: The Man Who Erased His Name, the mainline series is back with both Ichiban Kasuga and Kazuka Kiryu sharing the starring role. Retaining and iterating on the turn-based combat of the previous game, it manages to up the ante once again by introducing yet another entirely new city to explore – one that just so happens to take the party outside of Japan and to the sunny shores of Honolulu. That’s right, we’re going to Hawaii.

The reason for the international holiday is a big one. Kasuga discovers that his biological mother is alive and likely kicking around Hawaii, and is given the opportunity by an old acquaintance to go and unite with her for the first time. Having just found himself suddenly let go from a new calling finding employment for displaced Yakuza after the events of the last game, he jumps on the opportunity and jets off. Of course, this is a Like a Dragon game and things are never that simple. It doesn’t take long before a series of encounters leads Kasuga to not only form new friendships but new enemies, and by the time Kazuma Kiryu appears on the scene and the threads of a greater plot begin to unravel things quickly go from a simple search to a frantic rescue. 

There’s so much to unpack from the events that unfold across Infinite Wealth, and even more I’d be remiss to spoil, but the easiest point to make is that RGG Studio’s storytelling and cinematic flair are in full force once again. Every new character, whether friend or foe, is immensely entertaining – there’s one antagonist in particular that’s going down as a personal favourite in the series – and Kasuga and Kiryu’s continued arcs lean vigorously into what makes each a compelling protagonist. Witnessing the Rock Bottom Dragon continue to pull himself and his friends up from adversity through sheer good-guy-ness is never not inspiring, while watching the Dragon of Dojima come to terms with not being able to fight every battle alone feels like worthy justification of a second go at closure for his character.

Importantly, the trip to Hawaii makes for a hugely impressive new locale to immerse in. It’s easily the largest explorable location the series has seen to date and without sacrificing the attention to detail and authenticity that’s synonymous with Like a Dragon. From packed beaches to multi-level shopping malls and of course bustling international districts, it feels every bit the virtual tourist destination that one could hope for – I’ve not been to Hawaii myself but the team at Ryu ga Gotoku assures they’ve worked with local agencies, consultants and businesses to craft this version of Honolulu City. It’s also just neat to see these familiar characters interacting in a new and largely unfamiliar location and lends itself to brand-new kinds of stories and gameplay in a series that could have been in danger of overworking its most compelling ideas.

Just the act of getting around feels fun and new, with customisable Segway-style electric scooters at your disposal and even a public trolley available if you’d prefer to take things slow and scenic. Or, should you choose to walk, there’s plenty of opportunity for chatting to your party members, doing literal window shopping for gifts and even waving at the locals with a dedicated greeting button, all in service of making hundreds of new friends and further developing Kasuga’s bonds and personality.

Of course, this wouldn’t be a Like a Dragon game without a veritable shitload of things to do, and Infinite Wealth delivers on that promise across three cities. Kasuga’s exploits in Hawaii bear the most fruit here with all-new and incredibly fun minigames like Crazy Delivery along with a whole-arse Pokemon-like experience that expands on the previous game’s “Sujimon” gag by actually allowing you to capture the hundreds of unique enemies in the game and battle them against each other. And yes, there’s a Sujimon League complete with gyms and a “Discrete Four” to conquer. 

The beauty of all of these, as ever, is the way that every bit of optional content you engage with flows into the core combat systems and progression. Mini-games fuel Kasuga or Kiryu’s personal growth to unlock greater combat capabilities, drinking and chatting with your party members boosts their synergy and cooperation in battle, and of course simply making bank and claiming rewards will see you better equipped for the challenges ahead. You’d think that straying from the main objective to goof off would result in a disjointed experience, but it’s absolutely the opposite when the ideas of camaraderie and personal development are just as crucial as the mission ahead.

PRE-ORDER AT AMAZON FOR $99 INCLUDING POSTAGE

And then there’s Dondoko Island, which does break away somewhat from the core of the game to whisk Kasuga away to a dilapidated resort in need of his business acumen and skill with a baseball bat to clear out garbage disposal pirates known as Washbucklers and rebuild the resort’s facilities to attract business. It’s essentially the game’s take on a “cosy” life sim where you’ll spend consecutive days gathering resources, fishing, crafting and chatting with visitors to satisfy a growing number of conditions and secure funding for your resort. It’s honestly kind of janky and ugly, but in a way that only RGG Studio could somehow make compelling. You’ll easily spend hours and hours here just smacking trees and rocks with your bat and erecting cafes and cabaret clubs to satisfy your guests. The great news though is this can absolutely be considered a stand-in for the Ichiban Confections part of the last game, with success in rebuilding Dondoko essily exploited for massive financial gains back in Hawaii.

When you’re done living it up on resort islands and going on scenic tours, and it comes time to throw serious hands, you’ll find things are largely similar to the previous game in the combat stakes, at least initially. Where RGG Studio has iterated here is in giving players more control over positioning. Instead of your currently-controlled party member meandering around the battle of their own accord you’ll have the opportunity to guide them around a set area within their turn, before choosing an action. This has the very immediate and very welcome effect of opening up a whole new layer of strategy where your proximity to enemies or allies and the direction you approach them from is incredibly important.

It means that nearby objects to use as weapons or party members to set up chain attacks can be used with purpose, greatly expanding your options while making fights feel a lot more dynamic and engaging. There’s nothing more satisfying than having spent dozens of hours building a bond with your friends outside of battle to then watch them all work together and lay the smack down on enemies as you execute well-placed combo attacks. The same goes for skills that affect certain areas, whether it’s storming a straight line or using an area-of-effect healing attack. Being more in control of where things are happening is a huge boon.

For fans of Kiryu’s earlier, real-time series exploits the great news is that there’s also a little bit of that sprinkled in here with the Dragon of Dojima gaining the ability to switch between three different Heat Styles with their own benefits in battle, as well as active an ultimate move that gives the player a short window of time to directly control him and beat up baddies like the good ol’ days. It’s a neat way to pay homage and makes Kiryu an exciting inclusion in your party.

Infinite Wealth is actually a tale of two halves though, with Kiryu breaking off from the pack fairly early to return to Japan’s Isezaki Ijincho and Kamurocho districts in his own distinct chapters. While Kiryu’s portions of the game retain the turn-based combat (amusingly explained as Kasuga’s quirks having rubbed off on him), they strike an overall different tone in both gameplay and storytelling. Faced with his own mortality, Kiryu spends a great deal of the game attempting to reconcile with his past while newfound friends from Kamurocho encourage him to embrace selfishness and work through a bucket list of experiences and encounters.

What this means for the game is that these chapters are far less focussed on silly diversions or lengthy substories and more on Kiryu’s assumed-final tour of a number of familiar locations. Here, you’ll be gradually filling out a collection dubbed “Memoirs of a Dragon” where visiting specific spots or rendezvousing with characters from Kiryu’s past will trigger him to recall moments from previous games both mainline and otherwise. Wandering around Kamurocho and Yokohama to find and activate glowing spots on the ground might not seem like a comparable experience at first to building a resort or becoming a legendary Sujimon trainer, but I very quickly started to appreciate the opportunity to just take in how much history there actually is on these virtual streets and the care and attention that RGG Studio has put in for nearly two decades now.

The back half of the game flicks between Kasuga and Kiryu’s sections at a pretty regular pace with each new chapter, but it manages to avoid feeling overly disjointed or jarring in doing so. Items, gear and funds carry across (and automatically convert between yen and USD) and with two distinct parties split across both countries you’ve got plenty of opportunity to mix it up with the Job system. It’s a great narrative device too, switching perspectives when there’s downtime on one side or when new developments have specific impacts at home or abroad. At the end of it all I do think Kiryu feels more like the guest in the story but it’s still a well-executed and impactful means to a proper torch-passing for the two leads.

I really shouldn’t be surprised after so many of these games, but by the closing moments of Infinite Wealth you’ll find that character emotions are running incredibly high, multi-national government conspiracies are being exposed and boss battles have progressed from gang leaders to giant sharks, and all of it makes total sense. That’s the magic of Like a Dragon, after all. Where other games could very well attempt to throw so many creative, richly detailed and tonally diverse elements into the pot, I can’t imagine it ever coming together in quite the sublime way that it does here.

If there’s a notable disappointment, it’s in the game’s pair (or trio, if you’ve forked out for the fancier editions) of optional dungeons. If you played the previous game you’ll be familiar with the Yokohama Underground and Millennium Tower. Neither was particularly awe-inspiring, but the options this time around are somehow worse. With significantly more basic, seemingly-randomised floors made up of cramped, boxy rooms and corridors there’s absolutely nothing going on here mechanically or visually that makes them feel fun – it’s just flinging open doors to find either an enemy encounter, some loot or the path to the next floor down. Thankfully each is only mandatory for a handful of floors, but when you inevitably look toward grinding experience points down the road they’ll be your personal hell for a little while.

The only one that becomes slightly more interesting is The Big Swell, mainly because it comes with some killer boss fights and even some added story bits to break up the monotony. Unfortunately, that one’s locked behind the game’s Deluxe and Ultimate editions. As the only feasible place to encounter truly high-level content, it’s pretty disappointing, as is the decision to lock Infinite Wealth’s New Game+ option behind the same paywall. There’s still a heap of game here besides, but the practice definitely comes off as needlessly grubby.

I feel it’s worth mentioning too, that this series continues to cultivate some very positive attitudes and ideas around underserved groups like the unhoused or sex workers, and even some solid dialogue between its main cast around things like gender roles and positive masculinity, which is great. On the flip side, it makes it all the more jarring to still see enemies with titles like ‘Hungry Hungry Homeless” that can poison your party members with alcoholic breath, or others that are depicted as obese and scoff down their giant pizzas shields to power themselves up. I’m not going to suggest that a game where the main characters are a beloved pair of violent mobsters is bound to have its morals completely in check, but it would be nice to be able to appreciate all of the street brawls with just a few less cheap hits.

The post Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth Review – Two Dragons Are Better Than One appeared first on Press Start.

Spanning thirty years across arcades and multiple console generations, few video game franchises can boast a coherent yet crazy narrative like Tekken does. As the catalyst for the game’s events and the ongoing “King of Iron Fist” tournaments, the Mishima bloodline saga took a huge turn when in its previous instalment, its patriarch Heihachi Mishima was defeated for good by his son Kazuya. But the fight continues in Tekken 8; Kazuya’s aspirations for global domination can only be stopped by the one man who has the power to do so – his son, Jin Kazama. This fight has been years in the making; a rivalry that sees Devil Gene-afflicted Jin struggle to control his power in his efforts to end the cursed bloodline. It’s Devil versus Devil, father versus son – and to use the game’s eponymous tagline, fist meets fate.

Putting Jin at the forefront of the story, he fights two battles; the first an internal conflict with the Devil inside him, and the second an external conflict – Kazuya’s obsession for power and world domination. Jin and Kazuya face off in Times Square in Jin’s efforts to end his father’s reign, only for him to lose control of his Devil powers and be incapacitated. As a threat to the world, Kazuya opens the next King of Iron Fist Tournament to draw out Jin and take his dormant Devil power, adding grave sanctions and consequences to the nations whose fighters lose. Fearing he could lose control again, Jin enters the tournament to square off against his father one last time; to regain the power he has lost and to put an end to the Mishima blood feud for good.

We follow Jin’s journey in a cinematic story mode through Tekken 8, as he takes part in a traditional hero’s journey to control his Devil powers and put a stop to Kazuya’s plans. Old and new faces are woven into the narrative either through the battle between Jin and Kazuya, or as part of the tournament itself – Bandai Namco doesn’t take liberties with including every fighter that it possibly could, so the starting roster of 32 all manage to find a place. Newcomer Victor Chevalier has ties to older characters such as Raven and Dragunov with a heavy military focus, while Reina’s motives are slowly revealed as she joins Jin and his band of brawlers as they seek to end Kazuya’s reign. Without spoiling too much; there’s the long-awaited return of Jin’s mother Jun Kazama, the chaotic return of Tekken 6’s big bad Azazel, and even some moments that would not be out of place from an episode of Dragon Ball Super.

The best part about Tekken 8’s newcomers is that each one has a varying degree of playability – Azucena for instance ia my favourite with her energetic and hype-filled MMA skills, while it took me a while to warm up to Victor who switches between his knife and karambit to the sci-fi sword ‘Take-Ikazuchi’ for some brutal close-quarters hits. Reina is probably the most interesting of the three, fighting with a blend of Taido and Mishima-style karate to hit opponents with power moves and grapples.

Of course once you’ve finished the main story, there’s 32 additional Character Episodes to jump into, blending miniature story modes for each character with a five-fight Arcade Mode, before ending with a character movie. Its the little things like this that allow a nostalgic feeling of slugging through ten fights in Arcade Mode with your favourite character just to get a little bit of story by the end. Arcade Battle still exists (despite the game not receiving an arcade release) but ends after your 8th battle with CPU opponents or character ghosts, so you can still pretend you’re dropping in a dollar and fighting through to the end. The only downside is, from the get-go, all characters are unlocked – so there’s no more challenge of finishing Arcade Mode numerous times over to get all the characters.

In fact Bandai Namco have taken their absence in arcades this time around and crafted their very own mode – Arcade Quest, a great mode to create your own avatar and take on challenges through several different arcades in the world of Tekken. This mode is especially great for those unfamiliar with Tekken or even if you want to hone your skills, as each arcade you battle through teaches you or refreshes you on the game’s mechanics. Think of it as a live practice mode with win conditions, such as dealing a certain amount of damage or performing particular movesets or strategies, that not only allow you to get better at Tekken but also to unlock additional rewards. Once you’ve played enough of Arcade Quest you can also unlock Super Ghost Battle mode, allowing you to create your own ghost characters and have the CPU learn how you play, to replicate your play style with each character. By battling others in Super Ghost Battle you can see how players and developers around the world fight, and use what you’ve learned in Arcade Quest to make yourself the ultimate fighter.

GET IT ON AMAZON FOR $99 WITH FREE SHIPPING.

Tekken 8 not only wants you to be a better fighter, it also doesn’t shy away from continuing to build on the core mechanics that make Tekken one of, if not the best 3D fighters around. Tekken has never strayed from its four-button layout that assigns a left or right punch and kick to each button, but this time around there is an increased focus on offensive gameplay and aggression – improving on the ‘Rage’ system that has been in place since Tekken 6, and including a new limited ‘Heat’ mechanic. It also brings in a Special Style control mode, allowing newer players to get a feel for the game and perform some pretty damaging combos with singular button presses instead of memorising excessive inputs. Special Style can be accessed simply by pressing a trigger, and can be switched back just as easily.

The ‘Heat’ system adds a timed meter that, when activated, boosts your character’s power and opens up new and aggressive options to turn the tide of a match. Heat can be activated through various means such as Heat Burst, which acts as a Power Crush to cancel out an opponent’s attack, or through a Heat Engager, coming from a strong attack in the middle of a combo. Tactically you can only use Heat once per round, but while in a Heat state you can also utilise a Heat Smash to burn the gauge and do some significant damage to your opponent. If your opponent is a defensive type and won’t let you get a hit in, the Heat state also deals chip damage;  a component of your health bar which is recoverable as long as you’re not taking additional damage. Coupled with the return of Rage and Rage Arts, there are numerous ways to deliver a comeback when you’re on the edge of losing, making each match that little bit more exciting.

If you still haven’t had your fill even after all of the modes you’ve played through, Tekken brings back yet another fan favourite from the archives in Tekken Ball. That’s right, Tekken 3’s beach ball mode makes its return in Tekken 8. Power up your moves and slam the beach ball at your opponent, but don’t be caught off-guard otherwise the ball will knock you out if it passes you, or you’ll take damage depending on the incoming hit. You can also head over to the newly improved Practice Mode, going over the basics of combo challenges and moves, as well as learning how to read opponents’ unsafe moves and fighting back to punish them.

Since Tekken 5, customisation of your character has been a big part of the game, and Tekken 8 allows three different variations of customisation – a jukebox mode to change songs throughout the entire game (you can pick from almost every Tekken arcade or console title from years past), an avatar customisation mode for your Arcade Quest and Online presence, and character customisation for each of the 32 characters available. There are some throwback outfits in the character customisation selection, but I have to say I was a little disappointed with the lack of variation. A few classic outfits appeared, but for a game that wears its heart on its sleeve when it comes to history, I would have loved to have seen some Tekken, Tekken 2 or Tekken 3 outfits for characters like Nina Williams or Kazuya Mishima, considering their tenure.

Each character has some unique items to be equipped but a lot of characters share very similar options. For instance, everyone can have a bread helmet, but it’s the same bread helmet for every character. Some items are unlockable only through gameplay, while others use the in-game money system to unlock, which is accrued through general gameplay and quite easy to obtain.

When it comes to online play, it’s harder for me to talk about in this instance. Using the same avatar as Arcade Quest, you jump into a giant wonderland of Tekken arcade machines, meeting up with other players online and challenging them to battles. You can customise characters and avatars here too, as well as joining Tekken Ball sessions or training for the next fight. I was a part of the Closed Network Test and the Closed Beta Test, and had the opportunity to experience the modes in their early days, but the window for online testing in the review period was short, and despite checking the majority of servers, I was unable to get in to any matches. One can only hope that the servers can handle the uptick of players when they go live, though if the early access modes are anything to go by, neither Bandai Namco nor players should worry.

With the move to Unreal Engine 5, Tekken has never looked better. Characters still feel and play the same as previous iterations but with more fluid and human motion. There’s no detail spared, no janky textures, and the game runs extremely smooth. There’s a minor noticeable shift when moving from cutscene to fighting in Story Mode, but otherwise everything is visually stunning. The same can be said for the music – it’s typical Tekken, heavy on the electronica and rolling beats, but with the option to change music back to classic Tekken tracks. Even the game’s cinematic intro gives off flashbacks to Tekken 5. And while we get a treat with Vincent Cassel voicing new character Victor, some of the voice acting could do with a bit of work. It’s true to Tekken though – without the melodrama the game just wouldn’t be the same.

The post Tekken 8 Review – From Strength to Strength appeared first on Press Start.

I will continue saying it. Ace Attorney games are some of my favourites in Capcom’s repertoire. They take what is typically a mundane event from real life and turn the drama up to eleven to create something engaging that draws you in. They are some of the best games in the genre, with a degree of interactivity that adventure games typically eschew. However, three games have yet to receive the remaster treatment that the rest of the series has. That all changes now – and while these aren’t quite the most popular of the series, they’ve received the most care and attention in the jump to newer platforms.

Capcom has previously remastered many Ace Attorney games, including the original Ace Attorney trilogy and the pseudo-spin-off series The Great Ace Attorney. Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy brings the first Apollo Justice game, Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice, to modern platforms. But don’t be fooled – while the first game in this collection is all about series newcomer Apollo Justice, the other games focus on Phoenix and his friends, too.

For the unassuming, the Ace Attorney games have followed the same format for a long time. The general gameplay loop in each game has you split between investigating crimes and fighting for your clients in court. The games are linear affairs, with the story playing out regardless of how well you fight the cases for your clients. I often wonder whether the games would be more compelling if they were more open-ended, but so much of the storytelling is so tight that I can’t fault it for being so linear.

When you’re investigating, you’ll move from area to area, speaking to people and collecting evidence to help build a case for your client. These are pretty typical adventure game fare – you’ll select locations to move between, pose questions to ask and present items to characters to see if you can pick up any leads. They’re essential to establishing the stakes in the stories and highlighting the main conflicts between the characters, often setting up a whodunit situation that’s a joy to follow with the characters, too. These moments are arguably the “slower” part of the experience, but that’s only because the courtroom sections are incredibly compelling.

When you’re in court, witnesses will be called to the stand to testify. Their testimony is broken into smaller chunks of dialogue. Each piece of dialogue can then be “pressed” for further clarification, or you can present evidence that seemingly contradicts what they’ve said. Doing so often unveils further details about the case, leading to an acquittal for your client. It sounds simple on paper, but it’s presented in such a garishly overdramatic way that it’s hard not to build yourself up with hype as you take down a dishonest witness.

The games each introduced a new gimmick that also made the courtroom more enjoyable. Apollo Justice featured a “Perceive” mechanic, which had Apollo study body language in people to pick up nervous tics and establish when someone was lying. Dual Destinies delves more into the psychological side of the witness testimonies, requiring you to pinpoint which emotions are being faked in the “Mood Matrix” mechanic. Finally, Spirit of Justice has you performing seances, showing the final moments of a victim before their death, and picking contradictions in the insights that come from them. It’s a mix of gameplay mechanics that are admittedly a bit gimmicky but add variety to the proceedings.

The question remains whether these games still stand the test of time, especially when compared to those created by the series creator Shu Takumi. These games are worth your time, even if others worked on them. They each have their issues, and there’s ostensibly a case that feels like filler in each of them, but the same can be said for the original games, too.

Each game has been brought over and scrubbed up to feel part of the same era. Visual improvements are apparent, though I’ll touch on those later. But fonts, menus and user interfaces have all been reworked to be consistent across every game. You can even jump straight into a case if it’s your favourite (and skip any that might not be).

Other accessibility options, both new and old, have been implemented too. Autoplay makes a return, allowing the action to play out automatically, pausing only when you have to make a choice or present some evidence. Those who speed read or are slower at reading can adjust how quickly Autoplay spits the text in each case.

The other significant new mode is Story Mode. You’ll automatically progress through the game without pressing anything when playing in this mode. All answers and evidence are automatically presented for you. I mentioned in my preview that I’m sure this will upset some series purists, but if it means more players can experience these clever and humorous stories, then it’s honestly a good thing. It is worth noting that achievements and trophies are disabled in this mode.

The collection also includes a whole bunch of extras that many series fans will appreciate. The Orchestra Hall is a menu containing over 150 tracks from all three games. The Art Library is a collection of artwork from all the games that were almost lost to time. Animation Studio is the most interesting addition here – allowing you to choose characters, their poses and animations to create custom scenes. It’s a great idea on paper, but the lack of flexibility and inability to export your creations feels limited.

This is the first trilogy where the games included were released across multiple generations. As such, the first game in this collection utilizes the sprite-based 2D artwork, as featured in the first three games, while the other two feature the 3D models as seen in The Great Ace Attorney. The difference will always be contentious amongst fans, but the jump to these newer platforms is incredibly crisp, especially for Apollo Justice. Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice look great, too, but the lower-quality texture work on some characters feels at odds with the game’s otherwise crisp presentation. 

The post Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy Review – A Superbly Polished Finale appeared first on Press Start.

The Last of Us Part II was a baffling beast of a video game when it launched just a few years ago. It was the recipient of critical acclaim, ridicule, and several polarising viewpoints that fell in a vast chasm between those two. It’s no secret that I loved the game, we scored it well and even opted to do a spoiler cast on the narrative which isn’t something we frequently do. 

However, despite wanting to rave about and dissect the game in the weeks and months that followed, I wasn’t sure if I was ready to slog through the game again after just three years. It isn’t a bad game, though it demands an emotional tax that I wasn’t sure I’d be good for. That said, replaying The Last of Us Part II in its remastered form has done nothing but cement for me what a masterpiece it is. Its subversion of expectations, its grounded rules of cause and effect, and undeniably hefty character work all set the game on a level above most.

If you never experienced Part II at launch and your only exposure so far to The Last of Us is either the remake of Part I or HBO’s adapted television series, then picking this game up remains a no-brainer. If you’re one of the ten million to have already bought this game, however, it’s a slightly harder sell. Were it not for the fact there exists a generous upgrade path between versions, with this release being accompanied by cut level content and an entirely new roguelike mode, I’d find it hard to recommend Part II Remastered ahead of its pre-existing patch that brought its PlayStation 4 counterpart up to 60fps.

With all that said, it was much easier to enjoy my replay for Part II with all of the benefits of newer hardware. Things like unlocking the frame rate to get nearer to that upscaled 4K and 40 fps setting that has become the norm for other PlayStation first-parties is nice, however I felt the benefits of leaner loading times much more. Of course, there’s wonderful DualSense integration that serves up tensile response on Ellie’s bow, the traps she sets, and how taut her bandages are pulled. Even Shimmer’s gentle gallop through the early Seattle parts can be felt rhythmically in hand, and it all just serves the immersion of what is ultimately a harsh, unforgiving world. 

Where the remaster’s value begins to shine through is when you uncover a lot of the behind-the-scenes extras. I’m a sucker for a commentary, regardless of how self-assured it can all sound after the fact, as it offers up fascinating insight into development and managing expectations. Similarly, the ‘Lost Levels,’ which give us looks at three cut stages at varying degrees of completion, are a rare glimpse behind the curtain and feel like unprecedented access for a game of this profile. I can certainly see why the levels were left on the cutting room floor, it’s just interesting to see the processes of creation and iteration on full display.

The main draw for many returning players will be the game’s No Return mode. Although it doesn’t have the narrative allure of God of War Ragnarok’s Valhalla roguelike that launched recently, it remains a pretty engrossing showcase of the game’s visceral and confronting combat. Even though stealth is a big part of The Last of Us, I am a bit of a run-and-gun player and, as such, don’t think the slow approach translates quite as well to No Return and it felt more fulfilling when opting for a more seek and destroy tactic. That said, having mods that buff and debuff areas of your character’s output keeps it a level playing field, regardless of the setting you play on. 

It’s kind of strange to enjoy a mode like this so shortly after the franchise’s live-service multiplayer game got put on ice. Especially when No Return, with a bit of building out, could have filled that void easily. There’s enough framework here to imagine something more robust, with creative objectives, raid-like dungeons, and cooperative play. 

But I can’t criticise the mode on what it could be. No Return, as it is, is an enjoyable distraction from the game’s enormous campaign that serviceably showcases all of the game’s gritty action. Being able to explore combat as the game’s other characters, like Lev and Dina who weren’t previously playable, is cool as they’ve all got their strengths and weaknesses. Take Abby for example, she’s an absolute brick shithouse in the campaign and that’s no different here as her brutal hand-to-hand output makes short work of most. Plus it’s fun taking on the game’s many factions in so many new contexts. And with things like competitive daily runs and fun outfits to unlock, there’s enough reason to return for at least the time being. Whether the allure remains once the well of unlockable content dries right up remains to be seen. 

I guess the beauty is that even without No Return and all of this extra content, The Last of Us Part II is still a phenomenal title that warrants playing if you haven’t already. However, if you’ve already clocked it once, the generous upgrade path still makes this package a no-brainer as Naughty Dog continues to celebrate the history and myth of these tentpole launches that have made them one of PlayStation’s lynchpin studios.

I originally scored The Last of Us Part II as a 9.5/10 when it launched for the PlayStation 4 stating:

“Though it’s destined to displease those who built Ellie and Joel up as infallible, as an observation of impermanence, tribalism, and the terrible cycle of violence that exists at the centre of what’s left of the human experience in this world. The Last of Us Part II is a spectacular sequel, it’s a brave and unexpected direction for the series, expanding on the world both narratively and mechanically, producing a far sounder and rounded experience that never falters or gets in the way of the game’s clear storytelling strength.”

To read the full original review, click HERE. 

The post The Last Of Us Part 2 Remastered Review – I Would Do It All Over Again appeared first on Press Start.

If I wasn’t already hooked by the promise of a return to the alluring world and intoxicating stylings of Golf Club Wasteland, Demagog Studio would have just as easily caught me with its major marketing beat for The Cub – a challenging parkour platformer inspired by the licensed side-scrollers of the 90s like Aladdin, The Lion King and The Jungle Book. That’s the good stuff right there.

In case it needs an introduction, this world that the studio has established across their previous game and now The Cub is one of a doomed Earth, no longer habitable and with the ultra rich having long since fled to Mars to establish a new society. Stuck down here are only the ruins of cities that once shone with the hubris of mankind, and all of the flora and fauna that deigned to adapt survive in this harsh new world. Including, against all odds, at least one small human child – seemingly able to tolerate the toxic atmosphere and now raised by a pack of wolves. If you have played Golf Club Wasteland, this child will hopefully be familiar to you as the story in The Cub is a direct link to that game.

But without giving away too much, conflict in this game comes by way of some humans from Mars who return to Earth to do a spot of recon before discovering the existence of this living human. Naturally, the response is to hunt and capture the child, and so begins a thrilling trek across a number of hauntingly beautiful post-apocalyptic backdrops. Where GCW had players putt their away around levels, The Cub is a more straightforward platformer and one that lives up to that 90s SEGA inspiration with treacherous environments to navigate where a single misstep means death along with aggressive mutant wildlife and, of course, those pesky humans.

The child is frail and lacking modern concessions like a health bar, so instant failure looms at all times, though checkpoints are much more forgiving than in those rage-inducing Disney classics and the platforming itself feels solid and responsive most of the time. Crucially, the game’s brisk three-hour runtime churns through new ideas and challenges at a decent pace so that you’re never beating your head against the same wall for long. If you’re anything like me and played far too much of the Oddworld games on PS1 you’ll already feel well-versed in staying alive here with plenty of precise jumps and enemies that can only be quietly avoided but never defeated.

Throw in some light collectibles, major encounters with the three main humans that are hunting you down and plenty of incredible views rendered in a distinct style that mixes classic and modern visual techniques, and you’ve already got the recipe for a winning little game. But while the platforming is solid and the core story is intriguing, one of the biggest things that The Cub has going for it is the return of Radio Nostalgia from Mars. 

Just like in Golf Club Wasteland, your entire time with the game is soundtracked by an ongoing radio broadcast from the red planet that features an eclectic mix of late-Earth tunes interspersed with presenter chatter, public service announcements and engrossing “survivor stories.” It worked wonderfully as a backdrop to golf and it works just as well behind your journey as The Cub. There’s just something incredibly grounding about a radio broadcast and Demagog knows how to craft a fictional one that I would absolutely, genuinely listen to at every waking moment in reality. It’s so neatly embedded in the world, too, coming through on a Martian helmet that the child finds on a corpse and proceeds to wear throughout – even cutting out when they go underground or sounding muffled during short swimming sequences.

If Demagog Studio continues to make games like this, set in this world and with this distinct and entrancing vibe while playing around with different gameplay styles, you can bet I’ll be there every time. Though it’s short-lived and there are places it could be improved, like showing missing collectibles in the chapter select screen and tightening some sequences, it’s a fantastic way to spend an afternoon and a great take on those classic platformers it pays homage to.

The post The Cub Review – Video Game Nostalgia From Mars appeared first on Press Start.

It takes a lot to get me interested in an exploration-focused platform game (or Metroidvania, if you prefer). I’ve grown weary of games billing themselves as Metroid-likes that just don’t really get what made the progenitors of the genre great. What a pleasant surprise it was then to have Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown come across my desk.

Not only does it have the considered world design and structure that a game of this genre needs to succeed, it adds fluid movement and combat, well-considered accessibility options and some genuine innovation to the mix, resulting in one of my favourite entries to the genre in a long time.

The Lost Crown has you play as Persian warrior Sargon. After a plot to disrupt the kingdom results in a kidnapping, Sargon follows the perpetrator to the mysterious Mount Qaf, a once-beautiful place that has been taken over by a curse. Alongside a squad of immortal warriors, you’re set on a quest to recover the kidnapped prince and ensure the betrayer comes to justice, with plenty of compelling twists and turns along the way.

Traversing the world in The Lost Crown feels fantastic. Returning to Prince’s side scrolling roots, The Lost Crown presents a fairly huge world to explore filled with some pretty devious puzzles and secret passages. Sargon is an effortless and agile character able to move his way around the world with ease and grace.

Your repertoire of traversal abilities grows gradually over the course of the game, but even early on just the act of running and jumping makes moving around the world as Sargon compelling. When you add in air dashes, double jumps and the like you feel like you can get just about anywhere with smart use of his abilities.

You’ll absolutely need to be smart with those abilities to get past some of the fiendish platforming challenges you’ll be presented with, as well. I was reminded of 2010’s Super Meat Boy at points – demanding platforming situations, lots of sliding, wall jumping and air manoeuvring, one hit deaths if you touch the wrong surface, and near-instant respawns if you biff it.

Between the design of the challenges and the sublime way Sargon moves about the environment, I loved pitting myself against these sections and getting a little closer to success each time. The most demanding of these challenges are for extra collectibles, though there are still some tricky segments along the main story path of the game that will test players.

While I found the challenges utterly rewarding, The Lost Crown has some features up its sleeve to make sure you won’t have to miss out if they’re not your cup of tea. One of the game’s suite of accessibility and difficulty options allows you to skip these sections entirely – turn on the relevant setting and portals will appear at the start and end of challenging platforming sections that are essential to progress in the story. Activate and enter one of these portals and you’ll be whisked straight to the end without penalty.

If you’re like me and enjoy the challenge for its own sake then these portals won’t get in your way, but they’re a fantastic option if you want to engage with everything else great about the game. I also found them super convenient while doing some post-game exploring.

Continuing in this theme, The Lost Crown has several other options to tailor the experience to your preference. There are normal and ‘Guided’ modes for the map screen. Normal just shows areas you’ve seen, while guided adds icons to indicate story-progression related pathways that you’ve come across and shows whether they are open or closed based on the abilities you have.

I started on Normal mode, but when I gave Guided mode a try I kept it on for the rest of the game. For the times you remember coming across an impassable section but can’t quite remember where it was it’s a lifesaver and in a way that I feel didn’t stop me feeling like I was exploring on my own terms.

There’s one exploration-related innovation in The Lost Crown that I immediately wish every other game of its type had – the Memory Shard feature. When you come across something in the world that seems curious but you can’t deal with yet, you can press down on the d-pad to instantly take a screenshot. The game then marks your location on your map and pins the image to it. This way when you come into new abilities later on you can scan your own map and the screenshots you’ve taken and know exactly where it was you saw that breakable wall or strange grapple point. It’s a simple but brilliant feature that I’ll miss in any game without it.

As someone who enjoys character action games with engaging combat, I was surprised to see The Lost Crown incorporate some elements of that genre into its own combat. While it’s no Devil May Cry, you’re encouraged to knock enemies off balance, to launch them into the air and follow up with a flurry of air attacks and to use all of your movement options to get the upper hand in battle.

This makes regular enemies enjoyable to fight, and really comes into its own with bosses. Bosses, at least on the standard difficulty mode I played on, were delightfully challenging. They demand split second reactions and a good understanding of your movement options to avoid damage and deal it back in return. Like a good boss in Metroid Dread they would take me a few attempts, but the challenge usually felt fair and engaging in a way that kept me coming back after each defeat.

Not everyone wants this kind of gameplay though, so The Lost Crown’s myriad difficulty options again let you tailor the game to your liking. There are several built in presets with good explanations of how they affect the game, as well as a fully custom difficulty option that lets you set sliders to precisely adjust aspects of the game.

Exploring Mount Qaf no matter what difficulty options you choose is compelling. As well as the aforementioned platforming challenges you’ll find plenty of puzzles that will test your grey matter and secret entrances you can uncover with subtle environmental cues.

I really missed having an on-screen map, though. It would have been so much easier to confirm I’d taken the right passage, or confirm I’m exploring a new area if I could see a little portion of the map somewhere on screen, Metroid style. As it is, I had to flip to the map screen often to make sure I hadn’t gone off course. It’s a minor annoyance, but one that did bother me somewhat through most of my play time.

The Lost Crown’s visual style has ups and downs. It has a kind of stylised, simple, not-quite-cartoon, not quite clay sort of look that didn’t particularly light my fire – though there are some awesome animations and visual flairs during boss battles that I loved. Performance on PS5 where I played was close to flawless, though. I don’t have the means to test but Ubisoft claims the game runs at 2160p and 120 frames per second, and as someone pretty sensitive to frame rate drops I noticed nothing but buttery smoothness.

The post Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown Review – A Fantastic New Take On A Classic appeared first on Press Start.

The reveal of God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla, a brand new DLC that adds a whole extra mode and story set after the end of the base game, during this year’s The Game Awards was enough of a surprise on its own. Even more shocking though, was the reveal that Santa Monica Studio was releasing this new DLC for free to owners of the game as a thank you for its huge success. Now, after having pumped more hours into it than some full games, I’m genuinely shocked that we’re not being charged for this.

When the news broke that Valhalla was essentially going to be a God of War-flavoured take on “roguelite” gameplay, I instantly thought of the upcoming The Last of Us Part II Remastered and its added No Return mode, which is set to have players take on waves of Infected and other enemies as a roster of iconic TLOU characters. Fundamentally, as far as the idea of randomised encounters and a run-based gameplay loop with both permanent and semi-permanent upgrades goes, the two are similar. God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla takes this a number of steps further though, presenting its own narrative experience clocking in at anywhere from five to ten hours depending on how you play.

Taking place at a point following the end of God of War Ragnarok, this new content sees Kratos and Mimir make their way to Valhalla itself after receiving a mysterious invitation, with Kratos hilariously breaking into the realm of fallen warriors the only way he knows how – forcing it open. Here, the two go on a cyclical journey of self-development that sees Kratos reckon with, and reconcile, his dark past. It’s not exactly new ground for Santa Monica Studio’s version of the character, but it’s a great excuse to bring more of his Greek adventures into the modern era than ever and also ties in well thematically with the core gameplay loop.

If you’re at all familiar with the idea of a roguelite, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what to expect from Valhalla in terms of mechanics. Kratos enters the hallowed realm a near-blank slate in terms of power and progression, pushing as deeply as he can through a series of distinct stages and arenas built with semi-randomised enemy and item placements while growing stronger through one-off currency and upgrades acquired along the way – that are then lost should he fall and find himself sent back to the entrance.

Naturally, there are more permanent upgrades to be purchased with persistent currency at the shores of Valhalla where Kratos and Mimir have downtime to chat to the Valkyries and play around with (purely cosmetic) armour sets, so the more you fall and return the more prepared you’ll be going in each time. As you reach milestones in Valhalla, accompanied by the next bit of the narrative puzzle, your next journeys also increase in difficulty, resulting in a very comfy little difficulty curve that also forces you to continually adapt your combat strategy due to the random nature of the upgrades and challenges it throws at you.

The way everything is doled out and mixed up is really well-considered and means that it’s nearly impossible to ignore Kratos’ entire arsenal whether or not you ignored particular weapons or mechanics in the base game.

Despite time being at a premium, I made the decision to bump the mode up to the second-to-last difficulty setting, extending my journey somewhat as I fell a fair few times but went roaring straight back in. That’s a far cry from my usual style, but it’s a testament to how incredibly fun it’s been to push myself inside Valhalla’s super-satisfying loop.

With a sizeable gap since I last loaded up Ragnarok, it did take me a minute to readjust to the game’s quirks and make sense of a lot of the terms it was throwing at me, but once you get settled back in you’re quickly reminded of how crunchy and exciting God of War’s combat can be. Doubly so when the game uses its existing framework to entice out some really tantalising risk-reward scenarios where the threat of a reset meets the promise of some potentially massive spoils.

There are times where I found myself reminded that this is a free add-on and not a full expansion, like the relatively small pool of arenas that do start to feel repetitive after a while. I absolutely wasn’t expecting the amount of story and character work that’s here, though, especially when it delves into old school God of War territory – especially in its ending which is easily one of Kratos’ better moments among the modern titles.

Kratos is here to contemplate his future purpose and learns to forgive himself for his past deeds while still acknowledging and learning from them, making for a potent mix of the Greek and Norse sides of the franchise with some returning characters, locations and other bits that I wouldn’t want to spoil. It’s a treat for longtime fans as well as a very appreciated bit of history for those who jumped on in recent entries.

God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla can be downloaded for free right here for owners of the base God of War Ragnarok game on both PS5 and PS4.

If you don’t have the game you can get it on the PlayStation Store here or grab a physical copy from Amazon here.

The post I Can’t Believe God Of War Ragnarok: Valhalla Is Free appeared first on Press Start.

Since the very first time I laid eyes on Cookie Cutter, I’ve known it was a game for me. Though I’m not one to jump on every “metroidvania” out there offering me a maze-like world to explore with a steadily-increasing toolbelt, slapping some gorgeous hand-drawn art, a story about a badass queer android and a healthy dose of hyperviolence onto that framework is certainly a way to hook me in.

Cookie Cutter stars Cherry, a “Denzel” (see: android) created by her scientist master as a companion in more ways than one, who finds herself ripped to pieces and left for dead before she’s eventually found by a mechanic named Raz. Learning that her creator has been kidnapped by a Marilyn Manson-coded creep named Salem Garbanzos, Cherry sets off on a mission of rescue and vengeance set against the backdrop of an admittedly-thin bit of worldbuilding about dystopian megacorporations and other sci-fi nonsense.

Aside from its visceral and revenge-fuelled setup, the most immediately striking thing about Cookie Cutter is absolutely its visual identity, which is a patchwork of cuttings from the cloths of Cartoon Network shows, turn-of-the-century flash games and 16/32-bit era video games albeit with a fantastic attention to detail, energetic animations and (often literal) buckets of gore. While I didn’t much care for the tale being told by the end of it all, the presentation is more than enough to latch onto while you make your way through. The game’s various environments feel quite “game-y” and don’t really make a lot of logical sense, but it hardly matters when they serve as a backdrop to Cherry’s wonderfully beautiful trail of carnage.

Cookie Cutter’s sense of humour is very much in keeping with the rest of its tone, so expect some pretty on-the-nose stuff like Cherry’s AI assistant being a robotic vulva named Regina or an eventual ally being a scissor-wielding emo by the name of Puanani. It’s all very grindhouse but also somewhat sincere and along with the cartoonish hyperviolence will no doubt appeal to folks in their 30s who grew up on Mindless Self Indulgence and KMFDM.

Interestingly, gameplay-wise the experience is a lot more, for lack of another term, cookie cutter. Which isn’t a bad thing by any stretch, and I actually rather appreciated the very familiar rhythm of standard metroidvania without any roguelike gimmicks or complex systems. You’ll explore various different themed areas, finding more and more ways to get around or bypass previously-blocked areas and generally just press forward in the hopes you’re heading towards something of importance. There are side objectives as well, though I never felt compelled to go out of my way to pursue them unless I was coming across them organically, which often happened anyway.

Combat is probably where the game shines most. Cherry’s ever-growing repertoire of moves is consistently satisfying and even her most basic attacks remain fun throughout as you juggle enemies both figuratively and literally – smashing them into walls, ceilings and environmental hazards for maximum insult. A novel health system where Cherry can self-repair at the cost of her VOID power, which is built up by attacking but also necessary for using more powerful abilities, is a great twist that makes fights a constant balancing act and really encourages you to fight well and conserve VOID so that those gruesome special attacks can be your reward.

There are frustrations, though. The game’s camera, controls and physics aren’t always polished to the level where fights feel completely fair, and because the map is so sprawling with somewhat-limited checkpoints and fast travel it can feel overly punishing to die and have to hoof it back or go looking for upgrades. The boss fights, while they contain some pretty fucking cool designs, aren’t overly inspired in mechanics either. I don’t think any of the game’s issues are egregious enough that they should steer anyone away from playing the game if the overall package speaks to you, though.

The post Cookie Cutter Review – A Cut Above appeared first on Press Start.

After waiting patiently for news of two promised DLC expansions for this year’s enormous and excellent new mainline series entry, Final Fantasy XVI, news did finally come during last week’s The Game Awards – including a surprise drop of the first one right then and there. Dubbed Echoes of the Fallen, this $15 add-on is available right now and offers a couple more hours of adventure within the game’s absorbing world of Valisthea.

Requiring a substantial degree of progress through the game’s main questline, along with some specific side content, Echoes of the Fallen takes place prior to the game’s final push and invites players to explore a new dungeon/tower behind a previously-inaccessible door in The Dim. It’s here that Clive, Jill, Joshua and Torgal discover an ancient Fallen facility called the Sagespire, with a dark past that goes some way to explaining the fate of the Fallen and the world that came before.

What this new adventure boils down to is a three-ish hour trek side quest that begins with a banal jaunt through some existing locations in pursuit of clues followed by a climb through the sizeable Sagespire, comprised primarily of an assortment of combat encounters both with regular groups of enemies and a handful of boss fights.

Without giving too much away, the Sagespire is easily one of the cooler locations we’ve seen in Final Fantasy XVI so far, perhaps not from a gameplay design perspective given its strict linearity but definitely in terms of its visual design as well as how it escalates the higher you climb.

The meat of this DLC really is a return to Final Fantasy XVI’s excellent combat, pitting players against some fairly tough fights (especially on the Final Fantasy difficulty that’s unlocked in New Game Plus). The final encounter in particular, against a recurring enemy that’s sure to please longtime Final Fantasy fans, is a lengthy and hugely thrilling showdown that ranks among the game’s best, even if it’s missing some of the flash of the tentpole Eikon fights.

Although it’s over a touch too quickly for my liking, the opportunity to learn a bit more about Final Fantasy XVI’s deeper lore and visit a gorgeous new location in the Sagespire feels like a decent enough excuse to jump back into the game. It’s a good way to get a taste for the combat again before starting a New Game Plus playthrough, if you haven’t yet, and there are some genuinely interesting new accessories to pick up along the way that add fun wrinkles to high-level combat strategy.

The post Final Fantasy 16: Echoes Of The Fallen Review – A Short But Welcome Return To Valisthea appeared first on Press Start.

Great videogame adaptations of films are few and far between. There are some obvious successes, but these games rarely stand aside or even rise above the films they’re based on. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora tries to do things differently. While it still takes place in James Cameron’s immensely successful universe and film franchise, it’s released on its own schedule and takes place in its own little corner of Pandora. But while it’s completely separate from the film and undoubtedly a visual feast, the question remains whether the Na’vi experience translates well to a videogame. Even more so is the question of whether Ubisoft can do better than their 2009 prequel. The short answer to both questions is yes, but the long answer is slightly more complicated.

Frontiers of Pandora takes place about a year before the events of the second film. You play as a young Na’vi enrolled in a program to raise Na’vi in the human cultural sphere. The RDA, the human faction running the program, has ulterior motives, and as the relationship between the Na’vi and the RDA sours, the program is abandoned. You escape the twisted academy of sorts and are let loose onto the Western Frontier of Pandora, plunging yourself into a mission to reunite the clans and fight the RDA to prevent them from exploiting the planet’s natural resources.

Unfortunately, while the story is told in a similar ilk to the films, it lacks any significant surprises. I’d hoped that more would be done with the player character in the game, especially given the unique “origin” story that they had, but the way the story progresses in Frontiers of Pandora is pretty unremarkable. If you’ve not seen the films before, you might find the plot here a bit more novel, but it feels like a typical story about colonialism. Those who have seen the films will appreciate some of the nods to those events, though nothing significant ties into the movie, so the game is just as approachable without prior knowledge.

This thread continues with how Frontiers of Pandora plays, too. When first revealed, many understandably compared the game to others from Ubisoft, like Far Cry. While the uniqueness of Pandora’s setting cannot be underestimated, the core gameplay loop hidden within Frontiers of Pandora feels remarkably familiar. The general gist of the world is that it’s been polluted by RDA facilities, which you’ll infiltrate to shut down and restore colour to that area. Activities appear on the map, some optional, and you can complete them at your leisure.

Does this sound familiar? That’s because it is. It’s a quintessential Ubisoft open-world experience, and how much you still enjoy that formula will influence just how much you’ll enjoy Frontiers of Pandora. It’s by no means bad by any stretch, but if this is a formula you’re beginning to tire of, that will influence how much you’ll enjoy this.

Besides the outposts, bigger than a typical Far Cry game, another central point of difference with Frontiers of Pandora is how it handles its crafting systems. Tying in perfectly with the theme of conservation that runs deep within the world of Avatar, you’re encouraged to harvest items from Pandora responsibly. Grabbing roots from the ground is fine, but ripping them out correctly and in the right conditions will lead to a more potent yield. It’s a nice change that feels at home with the game thematically.

Similarly, hunting sees your Na’vi using their abilities to track down particular creatures in the environment. A comprehensive hunter’s guide can show you where each creature you’ve previously encountered is and what parts they yield when hunted. Hitting them only in their weak points and even killing them in one shot will produce better quality materials, too, as the creature didn’t suffer as it died. In a similar fashion to how harvesting works, killing too many animals senselessly will shut off your Na’vi senses, so it’s essential to only take what you need and not overharvest.

Much of the components you’ll find or harvest can be used to craft new gear and weapons, but most will be used in the cooking system. Much like the recent Zelda games, you can mix certain ingredients to create meals that impart special effects on your Na’vi. Being well-fed can give you better health regeneration and provide specific resistance to help you come out on top during more intense firefights. It’s nowhere near as intrusive of a hunger system as your typical survival game, which is a relief given how much typically I’m not too fond of these kinds of systems.

Cooking also plays a part in keeping your Ikran happy. Also called Banshees, you’ll find one to bond with, and it’ll be your main source of transport throughout Pandora. A flying dragon-like predator, the Ikran can cover great distances fast. Feeding the Ikran is important during more extended flights, so having lots of food on hand is essential. While there are other mounts that you’ll come across later in the game, the Ikram is easily the best and helps to make traversing the frontiers so much more fun than it has any right to be.

GET IT ON AMAZON FOR $89 WITH FREE SHIPPING

In fact, one area that Frontiers of Pandora ostensibly nails is the traversal and movement systems in the game. This side of Pandora is dense, so getting through it and around quickly is nice. Owing to the Na’vi’s incredible athleticism, you can jump long and high to move great distances vertically and horizontally. You can mantle up on edges, too, and it’s so incredibly forgiving that there was rarely a time when I found an area I couldn’t climb. The platforming is similarly well done, especially given how this game is a first-person affair, though the option to switch to third-person would be much more appreciated for those who might struggle with the perspective offered.

Combat is similar to what you’d expect from a Far Cry game. Weapons are split into two types – the Na’vi types and the RDA types. Na’vi weapons are primarily primitive and much quieter but still pack a punch when used precisely. RDA weapons are pretty typical fare – assault rifles, shotguns and rocket launchers. Using them in hunting will lead to poorer yields, but they pack an incredible punch against the numerous RDA enemies you’ll find throughout the game. While there is an excellent selection and a reasonable degree of customization here, I still prefer the Na’vi weapons, which are more suited to a stealthier approach than anything else.

Other optional activities can be completed in exchange for clan favour, an invisible currency that can then be exchanged at specific points for equipment and gear. You can even donate your older gear to the communities, again, in exchange for clan favour. There’s not a lot of variety to the extra activities here – though the memory painting is a serene and meditative activity that really stood out for me here – otherwise, it’s the same kind of side quest design that we’ve come to expect from most games.

But without a doubt, Frontiers of Pandora is one of the most remarkable-looking games I’ve ever played. Playing on PC, I was taken aback by just how lush and dense the jungles of Pandora are. How thick the atmosphere is in the Clouded Forest. How serene and peaceful the world makes you feel while exploring the Upper Plains. It’s an incredible achievement, on a technical level, just how much the team at Massive have managed to create a digital copy of Pandora that feels like it’s literally living and breathing. I can’t stress this enough: it’s a beautiful game.

On consoles, the game looks almost as good. There’s some blurring in the distance, especially when playing in the performance favouring 60fps mode, but overall, the experience is similar to playing on a PC, which is a relief given how dense this game is visually. The music is particularly fantastic, too, creating some standout scenes where I felt nothing short of wonder as a soundtrack filled with an intoxicating mix of booming percussion and heavy chanting helped pull me into the world of Pandora.

There is so much going on in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora from a presentation standpoint. It’s an incredibly lush world that washes over you every time you play it, even more so with the more time you spend in it. But something is missing. A spark. Perhaps it’s just that the formula has been done to death at this point, the story is predictable, or even the game takes a little bit to get going. It’s not a bad experience by any means, but it is just one that purely exists.

The post Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora Review – A Lush World With A Familiar Footprint appeared first on Press Start.

Although I’ve played a decent amount of VR throughout my time, I’ve never laid rest to the hordes of undead that troubled players of the original Arizona Sunshine or The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners. With that said, and sticking strictly to videogames, I’m no stranger to rending chunks of viscera from their emaciated frames, though it’s often from a safe distance. 

Once you don the headset, it becomes immediately clear that your jaunt through the sun drenched streets, grim dark sewers, and biosecurity tents of this small Arizona town isn’t likely to offer the comfort of keeping the undead, known colloquially in-game as Freds, at arm’s length. The game’s brand of up and close super violence, which might seem rather naff and safe in a traditional game, comes to life in a rush of immersive ferocity. 

The narrative that plays out might see the return of the crude, nameless survivor from the first Arizona Sunshine, but it certainly isn’t much to crow about. His jokes and one-liners are still ordinary and suit the sewer that a big portion of the game takes place in. The campaign is a flurry of big action set-pieces that serve as the backdrop for the hero’s search for Patient Zero. After learning of their likely extraction by an invested government party, which would in turn ensure the player’s own safety, you’re joined on the rollicking adventure by a German Shepherd you call Buddy. 

Other than serving as the emotional fodder in an otherwise forgettable story, Buddy is an obedient king and an absolute multi-tool in the field. His disarming adorableness is outweighed only by his love for literally disarming Freds. He loves a pet, he can fetch, he’s a pack mule for your many guns, and he can sic ‘em as good as Chopper. Directing your canine friend is linked to the triangle/circle buttons on either controller, meaning it’s a fast and easy option to defend yourself from whichever Fred is bearing down on you as you’re languishing with an empty clip. 

There’s no denying that the combat loop in this game is enormously fun. There’s a heft to melee weapons like the hatchet that makes separating head from shoulders a pretty confronting task, while I found the weapon-aiming to be near to flawless. I particularly loved how every gun has its own reload mechanism, and how remembering that in survival mode can, at first, be panic-inducing before becoming second nature. Whether it’s snapping your wrist across to lock and load the revolver’s barrel or thumbing yet another shell into your shotgun, it feels authentic and powerful. 

I did encounter issues from time to time with detecting and retrieving the guns from my hips. I’d often find myself backing myself into a corner trying to pull a sidearm that simply didn’t want to participate. Fortunately, I had no such issue with replacement ammo or the carried items, like grenades or keys, stored unexplainably in the hero’s gloves. I also appreciated that everything is handled in-game and you basically spend no time at all in menus, which forms the glue that holds together the game’s immersion. 

The one thing that did stump me briefly was the crafting. It’s presented as this obnoxiously big suitcase where you smash ingredients together to make explosives, the mechanic wasn’t apparent to me right away and didn’t seem exactly intuitive once I did realise. Similarly, I don’t know why so many of these VR titles feel the need to remind me of my arms by making climbing a pivotal part of the piece—it’s tired, so let’s move on from it.

Arizona Sunshine II’s six or so hour campaign, as well as the rather unsurprising horde mode, can also be played in full, cross-platform support co-op. It proved to be a pretty stable experience for me as host, though my partner did experience a handful of strange audiovisual glitches that forced a restart or two. That said, it was also a heap of fun, even if seeing another person tends to expose the game’s jank and iffy animations you’d be ignorant to otherwise. I did sadly suffer numerous hard crashes near the game’s end that would occur as I went to load into the subsequent level. Sometimes I’d get lucky and it’d keep my progress but more than once I had to repeat whichever harrowing gauntlet of undead closed the level out, which was a shame. 

These issues aside, it really is a nice looking game. The levels might be linear, but they’re home to some surprising environments that look so good from within the headset, not to mention they’re often capped off by some ludicrous set-piece like riding an airport stair car across the tarmac, or escaping an overrun shopping centre. The game’s lighting is also something of a feature, creating a real believability to the place you’re in. 

Obviously, it’s the gore that really sells the experience though. It’s a pretty bloody game whether you’re dealing death by hand or not, but there’s a case to be made that Arizona Sunshine is home to the most satisfying headshots in the business. The squishy pop that sounds when a head is rendered to pulp is great, too, it really does feel like the area of effort for the audiovisual team. 

There’s iterative improvement to be found in this sequel. Thanks to a team’s upskilling and newer technology, it’s kind of expected. It plays a little smoother and looks a lot nicer, but what’s important is that this Arizona Sunshine sequel takes a concept that’s been long tired and makes it feel fresh and fun through sharp combat, a friendly pup, and that lovely Arizonan sun.

The post Arizona Sunshine 2 Review – Drop Dead Freds appeared first on Press Start.

It’s hard to imagine many people with access to a gaming console or PC of some description having never come across the SteamWorld franchise at one point or another. Since as far back as 2010 it’s established itself as a cohesive, but mechanically-flexible, series with a distinct universe shared across multiple games of varying categories. Between original developer Image & Form and current flag-bearer, The Station, it’s long acted as a gateway for players to explore new genres of games with smaller and more digestible distillations of each.

SteamWorld Build is the latest effort in this long-standing tradition, this time blending up two primary genres with a combination of city builder and dungeon crawler that manages to nail the fundamentals of both within an incredibly fine-tuned gameplay loop.

SteamWorld Build’s loose narrative runs concurrent to that of SteamWorld Dig 2, though you’d be forgiven for not recalling enough of that game to see the parallels or even care all that much. It follows a pair of robots in their effort to jet out from off of a doomed planet by excavating a number of buried parts of a powerful rocket, an endeavour which sees them joining forces with local ‘bots to establish a mining town and grow the operation until they can dig deep enough to recover all six parts. Like other games in the series, it’s a solid tale packing some memorable characters and a sharp finale, though it’s hardly going to take up real estate in your mind long past the credit roll.

What’s important here is that it’s all a setup to facilitate those two distinct gameplay styles, each of which nicely feeds into the other. Above the surface, you’re tasked with managing and expanding your mining town until it becomes a thriving mining metropolis complete with ever-wealthier classes of citizens to collect taxes from and a huge assortment of factories and facilities to generate or refine resources or just entertain the masses. It’s the first thing you’ll do in the game, for just a while, and it’s fundamental to ensuring you’ve got the wealth, the equipment and the supplies to back up your spelunking efforts.

Once you do get to go underground, you’re greeted by a total of three randomised mine floors, each which houses two of the six rocket parts required for your escape. Finding and excavating them requires hiring and housing a handful of different personnel from miners to prospectors, guards and mechanics, all in the name of chipping away at blocks of stone and uncovering minerals, natural deposits and buried treasures. As you delve deeper you’ll also find yourself set upon by nasty things living under the earth and need to protect your staff and structures from being overtaken, with some light tower defence elements coming into play as time goes on.

What’s really special about SteamWorld Build is how these disparate gameplay parts form a whole, with progress above or below ground feeding neatly into the other via a simple system of milestones. There are a fairly impressive number of different things to find and build, and quite a bit to manage by the end, but it’s doled out at just the right pace so that you’re never overwhelmed. It’s also designed in such a way that you regularly reach a natural stopping point in one aspect of gameplay before it becomes necessary to switch to the other, giving things a nice sense of variety. Thankfully, you’re usually quite safe to spend as much time as you want up top or underground without things getting too out of control sans your supervision.

The one unfortunate trade-off to how accessible and well-oiled the various gameplay mechanics are in tandem with one another is that there’s really just one way to play the game properly as far as progressing the campaign goes. With just the one scenario which will take most players around 8-10 hours to complete, though it can be played and replayed on any of five visually and geographically-distinct maps, it doesn’t lend itself as well to replay as I might have hoped. My second playthrough definitely felt worthwhile as I was able to put into use everything I’d learned and craft a glorious capitalist machine of a city even on the game’s satisfyingly tough “Difficult” difficulty option, but in a potential third go around I’d well and truly just be going through the motions.

After I’d played a demo earlier in the year on PC, I had concerns going into the game on PS5 for the review, but it turns out my fears were entirely misplaced. SteamWorld Build plays exceptionally on a controller, no doubt owing in part to a lack of overall complexity, but also thanks to some great design. Flicking between menus and cursor-style movement is intuitive, every single thing you could need is within grasp at all times and the path-placing is flawless. I don’t think I’ve ever played something of this ilk on console where the game always knew exactly what I was trying to do with my path placement even as I flung the cursor around with wild abandon.

The game also looks great no matter what you play on with the series’ trademark simple but charming look translating wonderfully to the squat dimensions of an overhead RTS and with tons of great flourishes and fun details.

The one glaring pain point on the console version, though? Text when playing on a TV is too damned small. Like, egregiously so. Especially in tutorials, which were physically painful for me to try and read on the 50″ telly in my bedroom and only marginally less so on the 65″ OLED in my living room. I can’t begin to fathom how bad it’d be on anything smaller, and it’s a massive accessibility oversight that The Station needs to address if it isn’t working on it already. Outside of text, the readability of the game environment itself can be bad as well with a lot of similar-looking buildings and visual noise occasionally making it hard to spot a specific structure you’re looking for, but the text is definitely the villain of the package.

None of that goes far enough to detract from the overall experience, though, and SteamWorld Build successfully follows in the footsteps of its predecessors by offering up a neatly-abridged take on what would potentially be a daunting genre (or two, in this case) for newcomers. If the idea here was to create a gateway to either city builders, dungeon crawlers, or both, consider it mission accomplished.

The post SteamWorld Build Review – Mining My Business appeared first on Press Start.

I love a good Call of Duty campaign, and always look forward to the yearly release to play through a blockbuster, action-heavy story that makes you feel invincible. Unfortunately, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III’s campaign misses the mark on almost every level. From an uninteresting story that completely downplays Makarov as the series’ big bad to the truly boring Open Combat missions that ruin any sense of momentum, Modern Warfare III’s campaign doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be.

Taking place after the events of Modern Warfare II, Modern Warfare III focuses on the Makarov-led Konni Ultranationalist terrorist group and their aim to cause cataclysmic damage to cities and countries around the world. Due to the nature of the threat, alongside briefly explored past tensions, Task Force 141 are brought into the fold to take down Makarov. 

The four-to-five hour story throws you right into the thick of things but very rarely makes Makarov and the litany of Konni troops feel particularly threatening. It feels like it’s missing several cinematic missions to pad out what’s supposedly a global emergency and Task Force 141’s toughest challenge (and adversary) yet. The writing is fairly lacklustre, alongside middling performances from some of the main cast. Consequently, I just never found myself particularly captivated by anything. 

Similarly, Makarov doesn’t get enough screen time to establish himself as the big bad everyone seems to refer to him as. The game relies too heavily on veteran players remembering the events of Modern Warfare II from 2009, rather than showing off what Makarov’s capable of in this story. It’s all a bit mediocre.

The lack of any weight behind the story is further exacerbated by Modern Warfare III’s Open Combat missions, which are entirely unnecessary. Put together by parts of Warzone and multiplayer modes, Open Combat missions have you running across small maps to accomplish a couple of monotonous objectives before moving on to the next set. You’re free to do your own thing to accomplish the objective, picking up weaponry and gadgets as you explore, but it feels like an entire juxtaposition to what makes Call of Duty campaigns great.

My favourite CoD campaigns have been linear, filled with blockbuster moments that are engaging and entertaining – these are the exact opposite of that. I’m all for experimentation and changing things up where possible, but I’m absolutely bewildered how we ended up with what we did.

The biggest failure of these missions come through the way they halt the story’s momentum, which is made worse by the ridiculous checkpoint system that can be extremely punishing on harder difficulty modes. Ultimately, I can’t help but feel these could have been condensed into a couple of linear missions to make the campaign feel more engaging and fun. 

Speaking of linear missions, there are a handful of really decent ones in the campaign. Sledgehammer Games has managed to conjure up a couple of great moments and set pieces, but they’re far too sporadic to save a campaign that will go down as one of my least favourite in series memory.

It’s clear that Modern Warfare III’s campaign needed a lot more time to cook. It feels underbaked in so many areas, and I’d struggle to ever recommend it to anyone – whether you’re a series veteran or a relative newcomer. Comprised of uninteresting missions, an open zone structure that completely derails any narrative flow and a generally boring story, Modern Warfare III’s campaign is as drab as they come. 

While unrevolutionary by all means, Modern Warfare III’s multiplayer offerings fare a heck of a lot better. 

I couldn’t help but smile at the sight of some of my favourite Call of Duty maps of all time making their return in Modern Warfare III. As someone who spent a ridiculous amount of time ranking up and experiencing the joys of 2009’s Modern Warfare 2, it’s been an absolute delight to go back through and re-experience fan favourites like Terminal and Favela in the new engine. The slight tweaks Sledgehammer’s made are also great, giving most maps a chance to maintain a balance of old meeting new.

These small tweaks go hand in hand with the game’s frenetic movement, which Sledgehammer’s nailed in Modern Warfare III. Much like last year’s entry, the game feels extremely fast paced and takes some getting used to, especially if you haven’t played in some time. That said, this pace works for most of the maps and ensures combat encounters occur frequently and you’re never out of the action too long. 

With that said, serious work needs to be done on the game’s spawn system. Some maps have been rightfully pulled from some playlist rotations due to being completely broken. And even after that, I’ve still fallen victim to a few bad spawn camping situations. This should be at the top of the priority list for Sledgehammer, as it completely ruins any fun. 

If you’re going into the game expecting a swathe of additions and enhancements to the gameplay, you’ll be disappointed. Tac-Stance, one of the big new additions to the game, does very little to change the way Modern Warfare III actually plays. While it’s designed to be the perfect middle ground between aiming down the sights and hip firing your weapon, I found it quite difficult to get used to.

GET IT ON AMAZON FOR $84 WITH FREE SHIPPING

I also found the way armoury unlocks work to be unnecessarily grindy. Rather than unlocking all of your equipment, weapons, gear and killstreaks via levelling up in-game, you now have to select an item you’d like to unlock in the armoury and complete daily challenges to unlock them. Each item requires two daily challenges at the very least to be completed, whereas some require triple that. While I can understand the team wanting to try something different and have players unlock gear in a different way, it feels inherently grindy and an unnecessary way to force players into something they may not want to do. 

Daily challenges often require you to use a particular type of equipment or gear you mightn’t have unlocked yet, either. I’m aware you could use the default loadouts, which should have these items available for when you need them, but it takes away any of the fun in working on your custom loadouts and levelling up your preferred weaponry. Ultimately, it limits the way you play. 

Modern Warfare III’s suite of multiplayer modes don’t offer up anything revolutionary, but they do nail the fundamentals of a good multiplayer experience. I’ve loved going back through some of my favourite maps from the original Modern Warfare 2, and the promise of new maps to come alongside more returning classics is an exciting proposition. The time-to-kill ratio feels better than it’s been in a long time, and the pace of gameplay is as good as it’s been in years. 

The most notable change in Modern Warfare III comes via Modern Warfare Zombies. It’s the first Zombies experience that completely does away with the round-based system and small map. Instead, it favours an open-world map with gameplay challenges littered throughout, for better and for worse. 

I adore the tried-and-true Zombies experience – taking on hordes of zombies in a cramped map filled with looping corridors and new secrets to find brings with it a sense of real urgency. MWZ alters that pacing drastically, never really making you feel that claustrophobia and worry that you would in the smaller, more intricate maps. 

The positive to this is the sheer freedom on offer. MWZ’s story is divided into three acts, and to get through each you need to complete an array of tasks. Each task is different, like completing a certain amount of contracts or getting a particular amount of kills with a special weapon. These offer up a new challenge each time you dive into the sprawling map, which is populated by other players, as well as countless zombies and living enemies. Like Zombies modes from years gone by, MWZ encourages co-operative play more than jumping in solo (though you can do that if you so wish), as the going gets tough fairly quickly. 

The mode’s map is spread out into three separate zones – low threat, medium threat and high threat. All types of enemies roam these zones, with each being a significant step up in difficulty. Levelling up your weapons with pack-a-punch bonuses, getting self-revive kits and armouring up will be your go-to when taking on the harder zones. 

Weapons are defined by rarity in MWZ, as well. Levelling up weapons will give them bonus damage, which becomes integral in the more difficult areas. This is where locating pack-a-punch bonuses and opening up mystery boxes come in handy. That said, exfiling with these weapons will reset them to the ‘common’ rarity, but you’ll keep all of the attachments equipped on the weapon. 

You’re free to explore any of the zones in MWZ as you please, and contracts can be completed whereever you see fit. There’s a lot to do and explore across the map, so it never really felt all that boring or onerous to jump straight back in after being wiped out by the undead masses.

Here’s the kicker, though – if you do meet your demise, weapons you’ve equipped that aren’t part of your set of acquisition items will be lost. The only way you can unlock and keep items you’ve found in the world is to successfully exfil with them. Like last year’s DMZ mode, you’ve got to make a strategic call when the time is right to exfil, and I enjoyed the frantic nature of holding out for a certain amount of time as your rescue chopper comes in to collect you and your squad. The pace can really pick up, and it quickly becomes every person for themselves when the waves of undead start swarming in. 

While it lacks the pace and urgency of Zombies modes from years gone by, I’ve enjoyed jumping into Modern Warfare Zombies regularly. Whether you’re a zombies fan or not, there’s a lot to explore and lots of lore to enjoy – especially if you’d like to complete the story and see what wild direction that might take you. 

Call of Duty Modern Warfare III is a mixed bag. The game’s campaign is one of the worst Call of Duty campaigns I’ve ever played, if not the worst. It’s insultingly boring and does nothing to further a plot that had so much potential. However, the game’s multiplayer is genuinely excellent, aside from a few questionable decisions around how the armoury unlock system works and general map balance for spawns.

Meanwhile, Modern Warfare Zombies offers up an entirely new experience for newcomers and veterans alike, and is a fairly solid swing at something different for the long-running mode, even if it loses a bit of its identity. It’s a package that lacks some quality where it matters most, but will satisfy players looking for a good multiplayer experience. 

The post Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Review – Friendly Fire appeared first on Press Start.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that the rampant success of Persona 5 has resulted in countless spin-offs. It didn’t feel that long ago that a bunch of Phantom Thieves-adjacent projects were leaked as fans wildly speculated as to what they could be. After the utterly sublime Persona 5 Royal, the catharsis of the Musou spin-off in Persona 5 Strikers, and an inevitable dancing game, Persona 5 Tactica is the next entry into the gilded halls of Persona 5.

Much like Strikers, Tactica marks a first for Persona. While Shin Megami Tensei has ventured into turn-based tactics before, we’ve yet to see the immensely popular spin-off series dip its toes into the same waters until now. The end result is an enjoyable Persona-flavoured tactics game that echoes the identity of Persona 5 despite a few stumbles and inconsistent pacing. Furthermore, it boasts another heartfelt story centered around new and returning characters that explores themes linked to those found in Persona 5 and its other spin-offs.

Instead of further muddying up the post-Persona 5 timeline, Tactica takes place during the events of the original game, where the Phantom Thieves are suddenly whisked away from Café LeBlanc into the Metaverse. Instead of finding themselves in a Palace, they quickly discover that they’re in a different Metaverse construct called a Kingdom. After making contact with a freedom fighter group called the Rebel Corps and its leader Erina, the Phantom Thieves promise to help her stage a coup and free the Kingdom from the authoritarian rule of an enemy faction called the Legionnaires and their leader, Marie.

[presto_player id=150280]

Feel more with PS5. Beyond the everyday. Beyond extraordinary. Even beyond imagination. Feel it now.

The Phantom Thieves aren’t the only ones pulled into this alternate world, as young National Diet member Toshiro Kasukabe is found kidnapped and imprisoned within Marie’s castle. Toshiro, Erina, and the Kingdom everyone finds themselves in lie at the core of Tactica’s story. While the early hours struggle to get you to buy into the premise and stakes of what’s going on here, the narrative really picks up steam at about the one third mark. It eventuates in powerful emotional moments and strong character development that feels right in line with Persona 5’s core ideas without feeling like its retreading familiar ground.

Even though you could argue that god-slaying is ubiquitous in Persona, the need to tie Tactica’s broader narrative into a greater threat feels off in the context of the story. Without spoiling too much, Tactica’s strengths lie in the exploration of its characters and their mental states. What it means to rebel, stand up for what’s right, and the cost of fighting against the injustices that plague our world. These poignant and contemporary themes that Persona always has an understanding of feel a bit undermined by the ham-fisted inclusion of divine entities.

In terms of gameplay, Persona 5 Tactica mostly delivers on a turn-based tactics experience with a Persona-style framework. You’ll engage in battles with a party of three Phantom Thieves, each one bringing different strengths and weaknesses to the fight. While someone like Haru has short movement range in comparison to the rest of the party, she more than makes up for it with her area-of-effect grenade launcher and the ability to lure enemies in with her psychic skills. Ann on the other hand is capable of dealing big single-target damage while lacking the same oomph in her gun attacks.

The different applications of skills, map design, and enemy arrangement all encourage you to think about who you bring with you on any given mission. Party-wide progression always means that no one gets left behind, which is nice when you want to change up your strategy if something isn’t working for you.

There are a couple options afforded to you in combat that make for quite a degree of player choice and expression on the whole. Aside from standard melee and ranged attacks, you also have Skills, where you can spend a chunk of SP on an elemental or support skill to inflict ailments or buff your party. You can even choose not to use a combat action, causing your units to enter a charged state for the next turn, netting you worthwhile buffs that put you in a more advantageous position. All of your decisions are made in an effort to knock down enemies, which is right on-brand for Persona.

Knockdowns are what Persona 5 Tactica’s battle system is almost entirely structured around. When an enemy isn’t in cover, or is knocked out of it by a Skill, the next attack they take will knock them down. Knocking down is two-fold in Tactica, not only does it incapacitate the enemy for the rest of your turn, it also grants you a One More, allowing you to act with that character again. It’s through the smart use of the One More system and understanding how you can chain turns together that you’ll find success in Tactica’s battles.

AMAZON HAS THE CHEAPEST SHIPPED COPY AT $79 WITH FREE DELIVERY

These knockdowns can also lead to All-Out Attacks, where you create a triangular area-of-effect based on the positioning of your units. If you get familiar with this system and its intricacies, Persona 5 Tactica can be made quite easy on its baseline difficulty level. Smart party positioning can lead to All-Out Attacks that almost wipe the map clean of enemies, and keeping your own units in cover mitigates much more damage than it probably should. Coupled with the powerful and practical unique skills each party member brings to the table, Tactica rarely challenged me outside of its last few missions.

A lot of the way Tactica keeps you engaged in its combat system is through its enemy types. Each one has something consider when making a move on them. Teleporter type enemies, for example, will swap places with any unit that attacks them while not knocked down, which can lead to potentially disadvantageous situations if you deal with them haphazardly. Revenger type enemies will counter the first attack made against them in a turn, encouraging you to make use of your ranged tools before moving in to down them with another character.

Boss fights on the other hand are a bit of a mixed bag. The first sets a high bar going forward that none of the subsequent ones ever live up to. None of them are particularly bad, but the later ones feel somewhat under-designed, especially given their narrative significance.

The variety and ideas presented here leave Tactica’s battles feeling more puzzle-based than anything else – which absolutely isn’t a bad thing. A vast majority of missions also include optional objectives, incentivising you to optimise the amount of turns you take to complete them while minimising loss of units in exchange for big experience gains. The battle system in its totality is best shown off in Tactica’s optional quests, which are bite-sized challenge missions that encourage you to think outside the box and make the most of the tools available to you.

Outside of battle, Persona 5 Tactica keeps things relatively slim but still meaningful in the things you engage with. Aside from levelling up as you gain experience, you’ll also gain GP that can be spent to upgrade skill trees. Each member has a couple of distinct trees to move down, each focusing on a different aspect of their kit. While there’s a good amount of room for experimentation, there’s some clear winners for each character to make them really efficient.

GP is gathered by general progression and character utilization, but you’ll also gain GP for participating in optional conversations at the hideout. These short character exchanges serve to flesh out the world, characters, and current happenings. Better yet, these conversations can be viewed at any point if you feel like you need catching up on particular details or narrative threads as you move through the roughly 20-hour story.

The other big component outside of battles is the Velvet Room. It simply wouldn’t be a Persona title without it, and the way it’s implemented in Tactica feels fitting. You’ll most often use it for Persona fusion, resulting in more powerful Persona that can then be equipped to your units to bolster their health and provide additional skills. You can also purchase new weapons, and even fuse Persona into weapons to imbue them with elements that add extra utility to your ranged attacks.

It all makes for a healthy degree of player customisation and expression between your units, and allows you to mix and match abilities and elements to further expand your options in combat. Persona can also be swapped between units at will, so you never feel locked-in when choosing where to use your most powerful fusion results. A limit of two abilities per Persona also means that you can’t create a busted build through strategic fusion, and serves as a great compromise between maintaining difficulty and giving you access to series mainstays.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t apprehensive about Persona 5 Tactica’s art style. While it maintains the slick and stylish UI of other Persona 5 projects (albeit on a smaller scale), I initially wasn’t onboard with the Chibi-esque nature of its character designs. I did come around relatively quickly, though, and found it charming and fitting for the type of game Tactica is trying to be. Its bold use of red runs deeper than just its links to Persona 5, tying into its deeper themes and aesthetic. The cutscenes and 2D visual novel-style exchanges are also presented in excellent fashion.

Its environments are also gorgeous, moody, and varied. Marie’s medieval-style Kingdom stands in stark contrast with later environments which explore other kinds of architecture. Perhaps more interesting is that these locations aren’t entirely new to what we’ve seen in the series before – even in Persona 5. Despite this, Tactica still manages to find new ways to bring these motifs to life in a fresh manner. While I can’t speak to other platforms, the Switch version runs remarkably well and serves as a fantastic way to play this kind of experience.

The post Persona 5 Tactica Review – A Tactical Return to the Metaverse appeared first on Press Start.

Revolving around wholesome mindfulness, as well as the core beliefs of karmic law, KarmaZoo is likely to end up this year’s most enlightening game. Within the context of a cooperative platform-puzzle game, it takes your every move and measures them against the Hindu notion that any action, particularly positive ones, creates a memory that sees that energy returned in kind. It’s not as though KarmaZoo is that deep though, it rewards the good without really punishing the bad, so its lessons seem only skin deep in the interest of a good time.

From the moment you’re born into its world as an amorphous yet active little blob, it preaches positivity and encourages kindness like no other game I’ve played. In a world where toxicity and griefing permeate just about every other multiplayer experience, it’s very refreshing that KarmaZoo reinforces and rewards the good in people. 

The whole idea of the game is to grow your karma tree with hearts. To earn these you’ll go through loops with as many as nine others, performing generous or sacrificial acts throughout to earn said hearts. They also serve as the game’s singular form of currency, letting you exchange them for an enormous number of character forms, ranging from animalia to flora, and even quirky inanimate objects brought to life.

[presto_player id=150280]

Feel more with PS5. Beyond the everyday. Beyond extraordinary. Even beyond imagination. Feel it now.

Although there are dozens of forms you can buy and assume, they do each slot into an archetype meaning the abilities they bring to the fold aren’t all unique. Some use their girth to power through walls, and others can perform more acrobatic acts such as gliding or triple-jumping, but it’s through the gradual drip feed of these characters and abilities that the game manages to remain fresh enough considering its lone cooperative mode, Loop, is the bulk of what you’ll be doing. 

KarmaZoo is a super accessible and easy-to-pick-up platformer that juxtaposes its basic controls with its, at times, perplexing raid-like level design that demands collective thought and consideration to push through. When the eureka moment strikes and your squad presses deeper into the level, towards the portal that closes each stage, it can feel pretty rewarding.

Another interesting hook of the game requires players to remain in close proximity to one another, and if a player drifts from the pack without returning to the safety of the group aura they’ll perish, becoming a cute, albeit inert, ghost for the remainder of the stage. And with doors constantly separated from their switches, this is the basis of many of the game’s tense, heart-pounding moments. Beyond that, players can sing out to activate lifts, break musical blocks, and so forth. With a few things to juggle, it’s another fun layer to proceedings that are made even better realising that it adds a layer of personality to each animal, whether it’s the pig’s harsh squeals or the koala’s gloriously melodic pipes. 

In fact, even though they’re a small mass of pixels, each of the creatures whose bodies you inhabit ooze personality through cute idle animations which regularly had me parked in complete disregard for the time pressure each level presents. Though it’s an economical pixel art style that the developer employs, its use of warm, vibrant colour throughout its many trippy levels speaks to a warranted level of flair, culture, and mysticism considering the game’s subject matter. 

Although most will mistake the game’s levels as procedurally generated, there are actually hundreds of curated, hand-crafted stages that are all a part of a pool that the game populates each loop from. It takes things like player numbers and abilities into account to ensure that it’s persistently challenging and evolving as you and your friends gain new critters.

Obviously, the game is going to be best in full groups, any less and the juice might not be worth the squeeze. I found the return on closed loops with smaller groups to be somewhat paltry, considering the hefty sum that’s asked for certain animals within the sanctuary. The game is accessible enough that if people do give it a chance I expect it could become a fixture in weeknight rotations. The handful of sessions I’ve been able to play have been a blast, but I did sense the dread of diminishing returns creep in as the slow grind of unlocking new animals met the monotony of seeing the same levels head-on.

Entirely antithetical to the game’s wholesome message of banding together, Totem is a competitive mode for players to blow off steam. It’s a fun enough distraction that openly defies the game’s peace and love message while giving the player no real reason to participate. The rest of the game hammers home the importance and value of hearts, and for Totem’s reward to be a podium finish over friends feels kind of empty and pointless in the face of the game’s otherwise hefty grind. I’m certainly not suggesting the games aren’t fun because there’s nothing more satisfying than limping in over the line against friends, it’s just hard to consider it a worthwhile aside. 

Although it’d do nothing to compliment the game’s core message, if I were able to wager hearts in friendly competition then I think that’d add a certain level of spice. 

So, at the end of the day, the success of KarmaZoo is going to come down to whether a community forms around it. If it’s impossible to find a loop within a fortnight of launch and your buds go on to the next thing, it’s over. Although I fully understand why it doesn’t exist due to vision and most likely coding, I do wish the game had some option for lone-wolf looping.

Players are not only going to have to band together to close their loops and reach a state of nirvana, but they’re also shouldering the task of keeping KarmaZoo alive and breathing. 

The post KarmaZoo Review – The Feel Good Drag appeared first on Press Start.

Although Teardown has existed on PC for some time, its arrival on consoles is bound to be a welcome one for those who value carefully-planned anarchy. With an exemplary physics engine, made even more stunning through the destruction of itty-bitty voxels, Teardown is both a heist campaign with a bedrock of demolition goodness and a wildly entertaining sandbox that lets players vent their frustrations using a deep tool chest. For all intents and purposes, it’s kind of like Minecraft for grown-ups.

The star of the show is, without doubt, the physics engine that sees players able to pick apart the world brick by brick. The game built around this system is entertaining enough, with a full campaign serving as a several-hour tutorial for what’s possible. There’s a story that tells of an opportunistic demolitionist playing all sides of a nasty feud between greedy, corrupt businessmen, benefitting from a chess battle while seemingly playing as both white and black. The scenarios themselves prove to be a bit more interesting than the narrative as Teardown hurls a huge variety of stages at you throughout a ten-hour campaign.

In this campaign you’ll demolish private property, steal priceless rarities and drive all manner of cars and construction vehicles, all in the name of getting ahead. Each level has a primary objective that, when commenced, will trigger an alarm and start a countdown timer, leaving you finite time to get done what you can and get out of dodge. Each objective completed translates to an increase in rank, and every ten unlocks a new tool. Of course, secondary objectives exist for those wanting to level up faster although completing those will require very careful planning. All in all, there’s a satisfying drip feed of insanely fun ways to break shit.

[presto_player id=150280]

Feel more with PS5. Beyond the everyday. Beyond extraordinary. Even beyond imagination. Feel it now.

All of the fun is funnelled through your email inbox, accessible from the computer in your base of operations. For a game with such a striking visual identity, the fact that its menus and UI are so drab is unfortunate. But whether it’s seeking out missions or upgrades, it’s at least readable and easy to find. The upgrades in question, which can be applied to buff things like the damage output or capacity of your tools, are pretty run of the mill. They’re on the dear side too, considering most valuables you’ll thieve to pad your bankroll with will net you an average of a pineapple. As a result, it kind of falls by the wayside as petty destruction and driving cherry pickers through buildings is unsurprisingly more fun than living in menus.

With ten sandboxes to muck around in, there is no shortage of fun to be had. Whether you’re wanting to raze a chemical plant, hoon around a rich arsehole’s private race track, blow apart a shopping mall, or just relax on an exotic beach, there’s something for whatever flavour of relaxation you want. Each of the areas even has its own trio of challenges that test the player’s cunning and evasive skills as well as their ability to completely flatten everything in sight. 

Beyond these basic challenges, Teardown has a pair of smaller expansions and a heap of curated community mods, ranging from whole levels to cool tools like a vacuum cleaner that regurgitates the voxels it hoovers up, that really do offer even more ways to play Teardown. I’ve had a lot of fun toying with the ‘Drive to Survive’ mod that turns the game into Keanu Reeves’ Speed, where if you can’t complete a circuit in time your car will spectacularly explode. I do hope that support continues and that, in time, more mods are added because that’s where Teardown’s staying power will come from, as cool as Creative Mode seems I don’t think the tools are quite as powerful as its contemporaries.

Teardown, on the heels of games like Cloudpunk, is another success story as far as the emergence of voxel art design goes. These worlds, made up entirely of voxel cubes, are incredibly lit, and have an unexplainable grounded quality despite their deliberate lack of lifelikeness. As I’ve stated, it’s the physics engine that does all of the heavy lifting with the spectacular ways that these worlds can be picked to pieces using some heavy armament. Rocket launchers and pipe bombs leave craters in the sides of buildings, while your trusty default sledgehammer can punch heartily through most things. It’s the small touches, like signage on buildings losing power as you shred through generators and power sources, that make it seem so real at times. But as wild as the engine is, when the destruction scales up to the point that a few of Teardown’s mods can offer, the frames halve and things begin to struggle.

I do adore when games appeal to a player’s creativity, and Teardown absolutely does with the problems it poses throughout its heist-happy campaign. It’s a cleverly designed, spectacular outlet for destructive expressionism and I’m intent on adding many more voxels to the millions I have already left in my wake. 

The post Teardown Review – Break Stuff appeared first on Press Start.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect going into Super Crazy Rhythm Castle. I knew to anticipate rhythm gameplay mixed with some kind of cooperative-focused twists to the challenge across a number of levels, but the deeper workings remained a mystery until I fired it up for myself. Now that I’ve come out from the other side of the experience, I honestly don’t feel like I’ve gained any better understanding than going in. It’s a melting pot of neat ideas, but it’s somehow both undercooked and burned me at the same time.

With an admirably brisk onboarding, Super Crazy Rhythm Castle asks you and up to three friends to pick from four initially-unlocked characters and begin your ascent of the titular castle, run by the current King of Rhythm, Ferdinand I, and filled with his warped challenges as he tries to stop you reaching him and taking the crown for yourself. As you step through each door across the castle to a new stage, you’ll also partake in some light adventuring by exploring its winding halls, picking up items and talking to its inhabitants in order to progress further and further in.

This aspect of the game is actually quite enjoyable, with plenty of opportunity to find hidden secrets, solve light puzzles and generally just get distracted by the constant written and visual gags along the way. If Super Crazy Rhythm Castle has one thing going for it, it’s incredibly funny in a self-aware, fourth-wall-breaking kind of way. It reminds me a lot of some of the irreverent early era Xbox Live Arcade stuff like the Deathspank trilogy, not least because it also sports a similar art style with 2D animated characters traipsing around fixed-camera 3D environments. It’s a really strong, quite amusing and creative presentation throughout.

[presto_player id=150280]

Feel more with PS5. Beyond the everyday. Beyond extraordinary. Even beyond imagination. Feel it now.

And of course, being a rhythm game, it’s stacked with music. The soundtrack here is certainly an eclectic one with everything from orchestral epics to nu metal, EDM, hip hop and demonic ritual chants (frog and hippo style). Aside from some unlockable retro Konami tunes I can’t say I recognised a single song in the campaign, with each track sounding like it’s been pulled from a collection of unsold 2000s CDs found at someone’s garage sale, but it almost feels perfect for the game’s vibe and comes off oddly charming rather than grating. There are some absolute earworms in the mix, too.

Where the cracks start to show in this rhythm game though, is in the levels themselves. It’s clear to see what the folks at Second Impact Games were going for here – stages comprising typical beat-matching rhythm gameplay combined with Overcooked-esque challenges that require an added level of coordination outside of the music part. It’s a novel idea, and for the most part it does offer a series of wacky and entertaining challenges with the kinds of edge-of-your-seat moments usually reserved for other genres. You might have to hit notes to reload a cannon to then fire at a boss, or switch between playing three different tracks to activate different parts of a machine, with later levels offering up quite a bit to juggle at once.

Unfortunately, there are major issues that are either oversight or plain poor design decisions and bring the fun down considerably. For starters, the game very rarely bothers to explain a level’s unique mechanics, leaving players to sort out what they’re meant to be doing on the fly while a dozen different things happen around them. There’s definitely an intentional “puzzle” element to doing so, but having folks work together to figure out how to maximise their success is one thing – flat-out omitting any sort of guidance on how things actually work is just bad design. Too many times, either playing solo or with friends, I’d fail a level over and over just attempting to understand what the actual rules were. Each level also starts with a bit of dialogue and faffing about and some can last up to 15 minutes total, making it even more of a test of your patience.

In keeping with baffling design choices, the note charts that you need to play along to in levels are incredibly unfriendly. Depending on your choice of Regular or Pro difficulty you’ll play on either three or four lanes, mapped to the left bumper, right d-pad button, left face button and right bumper (based on whatever platform you’re playing on). Being a multiplatform game it makes sense that the shapes and colours of the notes aren’t really going to line up all that well, but there’s a lack of customisation that makes it more difficult than need be. For starters there’s absolutely no in-game button remapping – a massive no-no. The two difficulty levels aren’t enough either – Regular is often too simple to be fun and Pro enters Through the Fire and Flames levels of bullshit far too early on.

What this results in, whether you’re playing alone (often with an AI “Hand Dog” which is exactly what it sounds like and also utterly useless as a companion) or with others, you’ll spend more time fighting the game than vibing with it. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of a challenge, for those that want to seek it out, but in a game that’s otherwise very quirky and invites a party game atmosphere it’s criminal there aren’t more ways to sand down the edges and offer up some easy-going good times.

At the end of it all, I did have fun grooving my way through Super Crazy Rhythm Castle’s 6-ish hour campaign and honing my skills, besting its most devious rhythm challenges and puzzling out all of its secrets, but it threatened to undermine that fun at every turn. Hopefully Second Impact Games can tune some of the more egregious difficulty spikes and implement some of the basic, no-brainer settings that are missing to make the experience more approachable, because behind the shockingly high barriers of this castle is a king’s ransom of genuinely great ideas.

The post Super Crazy Rhythm Castle Review – Undercooked Overture appeared first on Press Start.

[While this review contains no spoilers for the Beyond the Dawn story, it does describe events following the end of Tales of Arise.]

Even as a lingering fan of the Tales franchise, I was genuinely surprised and delighted with how good Tales of Arise was when it launched back in 2021. It had everything that made the series iconic among genre fans and redeemed a few years of bang-average entries with a compelling story and characters, great combat and a truly gorgeous painterly presentation that remains one of the most wonderful-looking RPGs around.

That said I wasn’t really sure what to think when it was revealed that, over two years since the game first launched, it’d be getting a very belated expansion DLC in the Beyond the Dawn. More Tales of Arise? Yes, please. But it’s not often we see such a big gap between a game and its DLC releasing, and as anyone who’s ever put down a massive RPG and attempted to pick it up years later will attest, it can be a jarring and confusing experience. Luckily, the time I spent playing through Beyond the Dawn has been nothing short of a reminder of how much I loved Tales of Arise.

Let’s get the crucial stuff out of the way first, though. Beyond the Dawn takes place following the ending of the main game, meaning it’s pretty much a necessity that you’ve played through Tales of Arise already. You don’t have to, as the DLC is self-contained and doesn’t carry across any progress from the main game (outside of offering up bonuses for various levels of completion), but you’d be silly to skip straight to it, not to mention very lost.

It also requires that you own the game already or pick it up in a bundle with the DLC, which would have made more sense on a tighter release schedule but immediately presented me with a problem given I’d played Arise via a physical copy that was since packed away in storage. Given the time between and the fact that you’re forced to create a new save file with pre-determined character builds anyway, the option to buy and play Beyond the Dawn as standalone content definitely would’ve been welcome for some.

The expansion picks up a year after Alphen, Shionne and friends thwarted an ancient and destructive force and merged two worlds into one – uniting an authoritarian and self-superior race with an entire planet of its subjects in the process. It’s an immediately interesting premise, the idea of the band of heroes defeating evil and bringing entire worlds together at the close of a story leaving plenty of room to explore how that would actually play out in the aftermath. As it turns out, it’s not so great, with the Renan planet wiped from existence and its people completely displaced, and the native Dahnans understandably reluctant to help rehome their oppressors of 300 years.

Meanwhile, Alphen finds himself stretched thin as the hero of the hour known around the world as The Blazing Sword, now feeling pressured to keep up the work and help as many folks as possible. A chance meeting with a brand-new character, Nazamil, on the way to reunite with the rest of the main game’s party kicks off a new adventure though, and one that (without giving away anything at all) plays on similar themes to the original story while also delving into some genuinely interesting ideas around identity and the slow, dull-edged toll that masking or shrinking themselves can take on those that are “othered” within a community.

Beyond the Dawn plots this course over a roughly 10-12 hour journey that takes place in select areas of the existing world which, while not as numerous as in the main game, do a great job of revisiting familiar places in a new light. There’s plenty new to look at and discover, including some interesting dungeons integral to the plot, and it’s filled with people to chat to about their life in this new age and of course help out with their problems. As far as side quests and activities goes, the DLC does tend to follow the existing blueprint pretty closely (save for one entertaining quest line that leads up to an event we already knew about), but it’s mostly fine.

Combat, as well, doesn’t really do a whole lot to shake up the established formula aside from some added new skill lists and a new level to everyone’s Boost Attack, but when battles were already as exhilarating and visually impressive as Tales of Arise’s, that’s hardly a complaint. The only real gripe I have in that regard is that going from my main game save where everyone was level 100 and had their full suite of skills unlocked to being level 65 and having to go through the skill trees again made progression feel like more a slog than it should’ve. There’s a bunch of new equipment to chase, at least, along with some streamlining to acquiring the necessary crafting materials.

And that’s really the long and short of it. Beyond the Dawn confidently walks a lot of the same paths as the base game, but succeeds by virtue of how good all of that already was. Its gorgeous, watercolour-esque visuals continue to invoke awe, the writing and exploration of its themes is great and combat is still a thrill. All told, it’s also just a really good way to check back in on a wonderful cast of characters and a genuinely interesting world, even if I had to look up a comprehensive YouTube recap before firing it up.

The post Tales of Arise: Beyond The Dawn Review – A Welcome Return To A Stellar RPG appeared first on Press Start.

I have no doubt that for as long as we’ve had stories and characters, humanity has sat around and argued about which of their favourites would beat the others in a fight. Thankfully, we live in an age where such discussions can be put to the test, not only by pitting our beloved heroes against each other on the battlefield but by actually taking control of them to settle our personal pugilistic pursuits. The crossover fighting genre is nothing new, with Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. franchise being a household name and more recently Warner Bros. MultiVersus garnering a solid cult following (despite the current hiatus).

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 is the animation giant’s latest bite at the cherry, promising new game modes, new game mechanics and, of course, a stacked roster of new and returning fighters, each with upgraded abilities, visuals and voice overs at launch.

Fans of the previous All-Star Brawl game (and indeed brawlers in general) will know what to expect, but for the uninitiated, here are the brass tacks. Up to four players pick their favourite characters and then battle each other, or CPU-controlled opponents on a variety of different, platform-based levels. The objective is to beat up your opponent to decrease their resistance and eventually kick, punch or throw them outside the bounds of the arena, depleting their ’stock’ (lives). 

Each fighter has a unique arsenal of quick light attacks, harder hitting but slower charged attacks and diverse special attacks to exchange with their foes, building up their vulnerability number. The higher the number, the easier they are to fling from the arena. While you duke it out, items can randomly spawn to assist you or your enemies, ranging from restorative bowls of noodles to light pistols that you can use to blast others from afar. Each level has different kinds of platforming layouts, so you’ll need to stay on your toes during the match, lest you fall down an unseen hole or stray too close to the edge, making for an easy knock-out.

That’s all pretty standard fare for this kind of game, but All-Star Brawl 2 isn’t just a shiny new coat of paint, with plenty of new additions to excite returning fans. The first big ticket item is the inclusion of a new single player campaign, which will challenge you to fight your way through the Nickelodeon multiverse in order to stop Danny Phantom villain Vlad Plasmius from conquering all. You’ll begin your quest with Spongebob Squarepants, but as you progress you’ll be freeing other classic heroes, anti-heroes and villains, allowing them to join the fight and save their realms from tyranny.

Get It On Amazon For $59 With Free Shipping

As you fight your way through a series of branching nodes, each with its own challenges and rule sets, any damage you take persists, and running out of stock will send you back to the starting hub world to try again. Surprisingly, there’s something of a roguelite twist to the campaign, to make things a bit fairer when fighting an interdimensional despot. You’ll be able to collect resources and purchase upgrades that carry across each run, such as additional stock and the ability to heal between nodes. That’s not all though, as certain nodes will also grant you temporary power-ups for your current attempt, ranging from classic damage buffs to sacrificing resistance for your attacks to inflict poison damage on each hit. All of this makes for a simple, fun and replayable adventure for solo players.

That’s not all though, because if the campaign doesn’t sound like your kind of thing, the arcade mode gives you the same kind of experience without all the faffing about of unlocking and upgrading things, just straight up brawling against the CPU. If you feel like a break from the biffo, you can also try the mini-game mode where you can compete against the clock in the non-fighting challenges from the campaign. For the truly brave there is also a boss rush mode, where it’s just you versus the titans of All-Star Brawl 2.

From the get-go, there are 25 toons for you to tussle with, drawn from all across the Nickelodeon pantheon. Old favourites like Patrick Star and Nigel Thornberry are joined by newcomers like Jimmy Neutron and Azula (my favourite) from The Last Airbender, all of them with upgraded visuals, upgraded animations and fairly accurate voice acting. Whether you’re returning to All-Star Brawl from the first game or entering the ring as a fresh-faced fighter, there are some new mechanics that you’ll need to learn to reach your full potential, like a new dodge-roll or aerial dodge ability, which can even give you that last little boost to catch the edge of a stage before plummeting to your death. 

There’s also the new ‘Slime’ mechanic, which is a special meter that fills up during combat and allows you to power up attacks, cancel enemy attacks and even unleash a character-specific cinematic super attack.

This is of course a multiplayer game and All-Star Brawl 2, supporting up to four players in local and online play, including cross-platform. You’ll be able to quickly play free-for-all matches, 1v1 matches and 2v2 matches or search for specific lobbies. If you’re feeling extra competitive, there are also ranked matches available, where you can progress through various tiers. Sadly, the lobbies weren’t live during my review period, but having played other brawlers online, I can tell you that it will likely be a lot of fun. Spare me your judgement if you see me soon rise to the highest ranked Azula player, she’s just the best.

While All-Star Brawl 2 is quite a fun fighting game to sink some time into with friends, it’s not without its flaws. If I had to sum it up in a single word, I would say that it’s inconsistent. Some of the characters feel dynamic and quick, while others just feel needlessly slow and heavy, with no noticeable difference in damage output. Some attacks can take you a fair distance across the map, allowing for a fast-paced movement-based playstyle, but you can’t change the direction of a charged attack once the animation starts, you just need to stand there for crucial seconds while your opponent has a free shot at your back. 

Some stages are perfectly balanced in terms of layout and others just feel unfair or riddled with cheap pits. Speaking of the levels, they all look great with some genuinely exciting animation in the background, but the nodes screen during the campaign is a generic space scene with cards up the top to denote “Wilderness” or “Metropolis” with absolutely no other noticeable difference. 

Even the CPU difficulty seems all over the place, with some fights lasting mere seconds as the enemy walks itself off the stage and others having me fighting fruitlessly for my life, all on the same ‘medium’ difficulty. Although the new additions are likely a welcome sight for returning players, I do feel that many of the modes could have used a bit more time in the oven, the boss fights and bonus stages especially can get repetitive in the context of the roguelite approach. 

The load times when installed on an HDD are also pretty atrocious, hilariously leading to several instances where I’d wait over a minute for the next fight to start, only to have it completed in 15 seconds. I eventually re-installed it on my SSD and it cut load times down drastically, but it sticks in my craw that my SSD is now host only to Starfield and Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2.

The post Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 Review – A Flawed But Fun Platform Fighter appeared first on Press Start.