As much as I love writing up games, the new releases I played this month didn’t lend well to full reviews. One is a puzzle game that doesn’t have too much to discuss, and the other two came out last week and I’m not through with them yet. So, they’re getting the anthology treatment as I wrap together my thoughts into one neat post.

Murder By Numbers:

Genre mashups are trendy in the smaller game market, but they’re also a double-edged sword. On one hand, mixing elements from distant types of games can lead to exciting new results. Yet the developers now have to make sure that those ideas play well together. One such mashup that released this month is Murder by Numbers. This game is primarily a picross puzzle game (awesome) fashioned inside a mystery visual novel.

I wish that this game had come to my attention a little earlier, because I really screwed up before playing it. Somehow, I had managed to play a game from both genres in February: Pictoquest on the Switch and Phoenix Wright: Justice for All. It’s no wonder I felt burned out while playing Murder by Numbers.

The main character, Honor, is an actress-turned-amateur detective when there’s a mysterious death on set. That's combined with the appearance of an amnesiac computer monitor, SCOUT. Not content with sitting idly by, the duo takes matters into their own hands by tackling the case and three more malicious murders. That translates into finding evidence by way of picross puzzles!

Unfortunately, picross and investigations do not combine as well as they could have, or at least how I hoped they would. If you’ve ever played a picross game before, you won’t be surprised by what you see here. Other than some forgettable hacking sections and a generally high difficulty curve, the game doesn’t innovate much in its puzzles. This would be forgivable if I had not just played over a hundred of these puzzles in Pictoquest.

The visual novel setting fails to pick up the slack. This is not to say it is bad – especially compared to the worst of the medium. Characters have multiple dimensions even if they are cartoonish in the Ace Attorney tradition. And just like that series, smart use of visual and sound cues hides the lack of animation frames. I even enjoyed the dynamic with SCOUT, who is one of the less annoying robot sidekicks I’ve seen in this type of game. There are no major complaints to speak of with the story.

The problem is the way picross is built into framework. Once you scan the environment for a hotspot, you play a puzzle which reveals the clue. However, harder puzzles can take many minutes to complete. When I finished one, I had often forgotten what was going on in the story. Puzzles pop up so frequently that this problem wounds the game’s pace.

But the experience truly falls apart when you present evidence to accuse another character. In Phoenix Wright, these moments require critical thinking about the situation and are the tensest moments of the game. In Murder by Numbers, the “numbers” were so dominant that I rarely remembered the details of the “murder” part. Most often, I would select whichever puzzles I had most recently solved. If that wasn’t the answer, someone would go, “that doesn’t make sense” and give me another try for free.

In the end, Murder by Numbers is a functional picross game with a serviceable story in the background. It’s not a bad way to scratch the picross itch, but I would recommend Pictoquest over it. As another mashup, Pictoquest more successful in its chosen genre of RPGs. The added elements add tension to the usually chill picross experience.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons:

Things I don’t love about New Horizons:

• Tools breaking. Making them all over again isn’t how I want to be spending my time.
• Villagers being more one-dimensional than ever and not offering anything of substance.
• The dodos only taking me to the shitty islands. What gives, guys.

Things I LOVE about New Horizons:

• General fixing of all the timewasters that bugged me in past games.
• Crafting and customizing, other than the tools.
• Creating the look and feel of the island. VIBES
• Snagging rare fish.
• Tom Nook back in the spotlight where he belongs.
• Improved custom designs.
• I put out a boom box playing Totaka’s song and later my neighbor was whistling it in sync.
• I ran into a neighbor’s house to escape bees and left without talking to her, and she did the confused emote.
• The MUSEUM. Oh my god, the museum is gorgeous! They have the walk-through tunnel in the aquarium, Blathers’s dialogue is more charming than ever, and they got rid of the stupid paintings! This was always my favorite part of the series, and seeing the glorious new version cemented my love for New Horizons.

Doom Eternal:

While jumping into 2016’s Doom was an instantaneous joy, it took a good few hours before I felt the same about the sequel. The new combat tools add complexity, when the simple loop of the previous game is what made it resonate with so many people. For the most diehard shooter fans, the new systems probably form a badass experience. I get the feeling the game was made for those people. But I’m not yet one of them.

At close to halfway through the campaign, I’m now at the point where things are coalescing into something that recaptures the feeling of the last game. Encounters are now varied enough to benefit from full use of the tools. The slayer gates are an especially awesome challenge independent of the reward. On that note, I’m surprisingly into secret hunting as a pace breaker from the action. Adding fast travel and cheat codes was a really strange decision that somehow works out.

But for how fine-tuned the combat is, there are distracting things that don’t sit right. For instance, tutorial popups that spoil an enemy type’s weakness before they even appear on screen. And the story, especially lore pickups, seems like a waste of time. No offense to the writers, but I doubt anyone picked this game up for the intricacies of Doomguy’s world. I don’t think he should bow, either. As far as the setpieces go, they're more bombastic and exciting than ever.

Doom Eternal seems like it gets more rewarding the more time you pump into it. Each level has steadily been getting better from the lukewarm first impression. Maybe they should have began with something bigger, but if they’re saving the best until the end, I'm looking forward to it.