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5 (2) 4 (6) 3 (3) 2 (1) 1 (0) 3.8 starsAverage score of 12 user reviews
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The Lovers, the Dreamers, and Link 0
I don't think there are any Zelda games with a narrative as emotionally impactful as that of Link's Awakening. While the "it was all a dream" gimmick as a narrative mechanic is often derided as a total copout, and rightfully so, here it works in a way that really toys with your role as hero. Completing your quest (and in turn waking from your dream) means destroying the island you've helped save and erasing the relationships you've forged with the island's many inhabitants (of which there are m...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Galactic Dancing 0
This game felt very much at home among titles like Blazing Star and Alpha Mission II on my brand spankin' new Neo Ge- I mean Nintendo Switch. Though it's sherbet palate and paper craft-adjacent aesthetic set it apart visually from those titles, the gameplay principles are the same: you are going to get assaulted by bug-like enemies and will have to fly all over the joint guns blazing.The boards change between closed off arenas and looping, linear maps (like Ms. Pac-Man gliding through the tunnel...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Far away from mucky muck 0
This remake feels like it should be the template for retro remakes. The core game has problems, sure, owed to the obtuse nature of open world action/adventure games of its era (think of it as a far less impenetrable cousin to Castlevania II: Simon's Quest), but the care that developer Lizardcube put into this game's audio/visual makeover and the work they did to preserve the original release's look and sound should be the benchmark for how these sorts of things are handled.The newly drawn art st...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Hyper Lite Drifter 0
Kamiko gets by on look, sound and value. The three or so hours (max) you'll spend with this game won't offer much if anything in way of depth. You've got three characters (a melee lady, a projectile lady, and a somewhere in between lady), each with one basic attack and a chargeable special. There are four stages, five bosses (that offer little challenge), and little else (aside from some not so hidden secrets). But at the price point of a single Lincoln, it's hard to complain much. The combat is...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Night in the Woods 0
Games don't have settings such as this very often - a brick laden rust belt town with weird goth kids, angry neighbors, drifters, hipsters, and working stiffs. Games don't often have characters this well developed and lovable and occasionally hilarious. Games don't often tackle issues like anxiety, depression (both emotional and economical) and are rarely this nuanced with regards to religion. While I think you could trim the story a bit here and there and the gameplay can feel a tad monotonous,...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Abzu 0
Your enjoyment of Abzu will rely almost entirely on the game's aesthetic. While the gameplay is quite soothing, it is as simple as it gets (swim, then swim more). Its narrative (if you can call it that) is almost non-existent. But if you're okay getting lost at sea for two or three hours with some of the most beautiful art and some of the most pleasant orchestral sounds that the PS4 has to offer, then this is a no-brainer. There's even a "meditate" mechanic if you'd like to stay lost for a bit l...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Inside 0
It seems for every bit Inside gets right, something else feels off. Its oft praised art style rings pretty hollow with me, but there are certain "shots" that are beautifully composed, sometimes breathtakingly so. There are tense, rushed moments of gameplay that are so satisfying to pull off (with regards to near deaths and close calls), but the puzzles never ascend beyond even kinda-clever. THAT moment near the end of the game is a wild and unexpected rush, but (without spoiling anything) it's ...
3 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
DOOM (1993) for XBLA 0
After the glorious fucking triumph that was 2016's DOOM, I thought it only fair to go back to the beginning and visit the original for the first time. Though this year's DOOM played like a dream - a fiery, dub-metal crimson dream - I had no context for how true its aim was when compared to the OG. I had no PC as a kid and somehow never veered into one of the game's countless ports. I figured there would be some wincing on my part when it came to graphics or certain gameplay mechanics (this game ...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap 0
The Minish Cap is a solid if unspectacular entry in the Zelda franchise. It's awfully pretty (especially when it's showing off its smaller, more detail oriented animations), it sounds exactly how you expect a Zelda game to sound (which is to say "great"), and the the game's Hyrule is packed with secrets and fun to explore. But where it really excels is in its pacing. By futzing with the series standard dungeon format and decreasing the number of temples, the game flows like a dream, dispatching ...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds 0
It's easy to understate the freedom this game gives you. At first blush, the idea of tackling temples in any order you want is a big change up. But in a franchise centered around tackling eight or so temples every time out, the order of which you beat them in feels rather meaningless, making the whole "play the temples in any order you want" promise that this game was sold on feels like marketing ploy rather than the revelation it turned out to be. It's with that "any temple, any time" gimmick ...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword 0
I recently played this game concurrently with its same system counterpart Twilight Princess, and I think it's had quite an effect on my opinion of it. Either Twilight Princess makes Skyward Sword look better by comparison, or Skyward Sword makes Twilight Princess look a shitload worse. Or maybe, you know, Skyward Sword is just a damn fine Zelda game. Subject to rave reviews upon its release but a rather tepid response in recent years, Skyward Sword might not hold up to the perfect scores laid at...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD 0
Twilight Princess finds the Zelda series at its low point of the 3-D era. It is a dark and mostly joyless affair with zero of the charm or whimsy of its predecessors. While the game is visually striking at times and leans into a weirdness formerly unknown to the franchise (aside from the polarizing Majora's Mask), none of that translates to the game's characters, locations, or temple design. The tacked on Wolf Link gimmick, seemingly even more dull and tiresome than the first time around with th...
1 out of 3 found this review helpful.
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