Review by Matt S. Rhythm Fighter suffers from excess. In trying to be so many mechanical and structural elments, and then backing it up with so much happening on screen at once, it loses any sense of balance that it might otherwise have had. While it’s a noble and even…
Read MoreVideo by Matt S. Shiren the Wanderer has finally landed on Nintendo Switch, and brought with it the very most classical interpretation of the roguelike genre that you can imagine. It’s turn-based, procedurally-generated, tough-as-nails and unforgiving stuff. I love it. I’ve done this video to look at the expanded way…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. It is appropriate to make the core motif of a Shiren the Wanderer game – a genuine pioneer in the now saturated roguelike genre – that of fate and fortune. The roguelike, after all, depends entirely on the metaphoric roll of the dice, to determine everything…
Read MoreReview by Harvard L. Azurebreak Heroes is a solid little game which proved a formidable distraction to be over the past week. Developed solo by Piotr Powroziewicz and ported to the Switch by Silesia Games, it’s an action RPG with randomly generated elements, and a gameplay loop reminiscent of Risk…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. The Red Lantern is exactly what is wrong with the content-first obsession that the game industry has. What could have been an immensely powerful, evocative, two-hour-long story of survival and finding truths about oneself via a trial by fire within one of the harshest environments humanity knows,…
Read MoreNews by Matt S. One of the darkest, most intense roguelikes ever created is Sting’s Baroque. Originally released on the Sega Saturn, but then remade for the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo Wii, Baroque has never been a mainstream hit, but its raw intensity and creative vision has always earned it…
Read MoreReview by Harvard L. In Warsaw, players take the role of the Polish resistance against the occupying Nazi forces towards the end of World War 2. It’s a tactical role-playing game which is heavily weighted towards combat and resource management. Developers Pixelated Milk set out to make a harrowing game…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. “Great, it’s another action roguelike from a small developer.” That was my immediate reaction to Hades, because while Hades was the latest project by a talent as consistently great as Supergiant Games, and while the screenshots and video footage certainly looked lovely, there have been so…
Read MoreVideo by Matt S. Hades landed on my Switch out of nowhere this week – I had no idea the game was even in development, but I am immediately in love with it. What a beautifully slick, intelligent, refined roguelike it is. This is just my first impressions from the…
Read MoreReview by Harvard L. The survival genre is interesting to write about critically, since many design choices which would feel grating or exhausting in any other genre are, instead, the survival game’s calling card. Things like permadeath, repetition, disempowerment, unsatisfying combat, even at times tedium – normally we don’t value…
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