Diablo IV—with its excellent voice performances and stellar art direction—absolutely nails the dark fantasy vibe and aesthetic in ways that only Castlevania and Fromsoft titles exceed.

At times, the narrative is really interesting. At others, plot contrivances and coincidences are nearly distracting.

The gameplay loop is simple and satisfying, but it isn't nearly thrilling enough to encourage me to engage with side content.

Overall: a fun (if flawed) experience that's more than worth checking out on Game Pass.

Yet another game that is just so mid. It's fine. Except for one major flaw that took a game from what could have been a 4 to a 2.5.

First off, it's pretty. Very cute. I love the cat. I love exploring the the world. The puzzles are fun. Being a cat is neat.

Now what could ruin this experience. Controls? Nope. Too long? Nope. Obscure puzzles? Nope. Enemies, bad light combat, failstates? YES!

WHY DEVS? Did someone big wig say, "This game won't do well without combat?" For the life of me I do not know why we had to have bad combat and these stupid little robots that pretty much murder you within seconds. It's not fun. Why?

It would have been a better game if it was a cat just trying to get home after falling. But no, we have to have these annoying little robots and sequences where you have to decipher the matrix before they murder you. If you wanted things to be like you missed the jump and die, fine. Reasonable. It just felt forced. Felt like someone high up forced this on what was a chill vibe of a game.

It's a short mid game. Cute cat. Cute story. Neat world. Ruined by it being gamified. No one will ever convince me that a cute cat game would not have sold well without combat and enemies.

Too short of a game for such a cute cat.

Meowed 100 times before I made it out of the starting area.

Meow.

Extremely gamefied Simulator game. The feedback is there but I feel like they thought it was boring so they added ways to just almost instantly do some repetitive tasks. In the end however, you are still not doing any planning, any ordering.. You order all the stuff, jump off the building, grab 100 planks, lay them down in 15 secs and then grab more. Construction Simulator was more fun to me. You have to plan materials and learn the diverse vehicles to do a job.

The game is still early access, who knows that they working on. It must be somewhat enjoying since I actually finished it but I was more nauseated from jumping and running around than pleased and relaxed. House Flipper is more relaxing and Construction Simulator do construction work better. Hell, even Lumberjack Dynasty has construction more fun than this.

This knows what it is. No pretense, little gamification other than just whittling down time and crashes. It all ties into understanding the environment and its unique sense of control. I was worried going in about the terrain and the camera, how the two might interact, but it's a beautifully contoured design with the slopes emerging naturally and the obstacles never meaningfully obscuring the camera. It's a reminder that games of movement rely heavily on camera work, and here it's more thoughtfully considered than usual. There's a natural tension living in the off-screen space, but the camera is dynamic in revealing at the right time, pushing in for slower passages, pulling back for steeper ones. There's something deliberate and dance-like about it, and it's central to why I enjoyed the game so much.

And the hills themselves are great. No music. They have their own dramatic pace and identity. Flatter areas interspersed with steeper ones, rocky terrain to be progressed over slowly interspersed with speedy ramp-like cliff faces. Most of these are presented as different options through the same area, and are better conquered by different bikes which have their own identities and handle in their own ways. It's all there to bring you into the actual experience of playing, to engage in a game of constant control, and it makes the optional resting spots feel like a reprieve and discovery.

The minimalism, the instant readability of the terrain and player character is great, but I don't care for the bloomy visuals and tilt-shift focus. It combines into a sometimes bleary and approximate aesthetic, and it keeps the look of the game from feeling as immediate and concrete as the control and mechanics. It's a very present, confident game otherwise. Refreshing in the sea of games that are always trying to be more, to be something they're not, and it deserves all the praise it's received for being more than just a curiosity.

What starts out as a nice game about cycling down a series of gorgeous looking mountains turns into a game about chasing the quickest segment times, minimising crashes and getting onto the leaderboards.

Its a really simple premise that is executed very well. The pixel art style is minimalist, non distracting and pretty although there are times when the depth of field is questionable and makes everything blurry. Either Switch related or design choice. Not enough to dock stars, but noticeable on the second mountain in particular.

Gameplay starts off feeling a bit janky, but once you get the hang of it, its tight if not a little unforgiving when you clip a rock. How high you can fall from and survive also sometimes just seems arbitrary.

Its losing half a star because on the Switch the screen occasionally freezes for 1/10th of a second or so which causes stuttering. It doesn’t seem bad until it costs you multiple runs in a row which maybe a try-hard issue but it is frustrating.

Also losing a star for its consistently high price of £20 or so. Its a good game, but 4 years out, thats gotta be coming down. Worth a buy at < £10 or < £15 if you love these types of games at the most.

Almost gained half a star back for the free DLC, but its just an extra track per mountain. A whole new biome/mountain and it would of gained it back.

I've been putting off this review for 2+ weeks because I simply cannot put all of my thoughts about Cassette Beasts in order. As such, I'm just going to break it all down into different pieces.

The Vibe: While there are many, many monster taming games out there—especially in recent years, as the Pokémon Outrage Machine (tm) continues to roll on—it's generally agreed upon that the most successful ones (Pokémon, Dragon Quest Monsters, etc.) capture a very specific sense of adventure, wonder, and self-expression. Cassette Beasts delivers on that in spades. Between Metroidvania-esque overworld abilities, character creation, 100+ exciting monsters, and an energy I can only describe via the 3rd generation of Pokémon, the excitement sets in from the moment the game begins.

Characters/Writing: The greatest compliment I can give Cassette Beasts is that the writing—both in terms of characters and flavor text—is undeniably clever and charming. It immediately introduces an adult-oriented tone, with actual thought and stakes behind everything happening, without ever stepping into the all-too-familiar self-depricating or edgy territory of lesser games. Cassette Beasts proudly declares "Our characters are adults, with adult feelings and adult problems" while tactfully avoiding becoming an Adult Swim parody of the genre it's living in.

Mechanics: This is probably the simplest talking point. Anything you could want from a monster taming game is here—a focus on weaknesses, evolution, capturing a whole horde of creatures, etc., and Cassette Beasts handles those things with complete confidence. Where it becomes its own game, however, is in its unique mechanics and how it layers them, creating a tactically-interesting and, oftentimes, genuinely difficult experience that requires the player to be present and pay attention to every battle.

Narrative: As I've already mentioned, the fact that the writing and world take themselves seriously goes a long way toward making the story enticing. The world building is handled exceptionally well and the overall narrative is a fun, creative, thought-provoking ride that ends with a few well-earned messages and morals.

Presentation: There's not much to say here other than that the music, artstyle, and SFX are stellar. The developers obviously had a well-defined stylistic approach, and they absolutely nailed every aspect of it.

Representation: This is the big one, my friends. This is the aspect that took a great game into a must-play into my favorite game of 2023 so far. The gender, sexuality, and racial representation in Cassette Beasts is among the best handled I've seen in the entire medium. At no point do any of those things become spectacles, at no point does a "wait, what???? You're GAY?!?!?" dialogue option appear. Every character just exists and are given the absolute freedom to just exist, with representational aspects coming up when relevant, in passing, or in even more subtle ways like a decoration in a character's house. They're written like real people, and they're given the respect of real people, especially in the relationship building aspect of the game. When you create your character at the beginning of the game (or change it at any point throughout) the pronouns you choose are represented appropriately in conversations, are never questioned, and are embraced completely by the writing. There are one-on-one moments with characters that are so heartfelt and validating in a way I've never seen in a video game before, especially not toward a player-created avatar. This is a difficult thing to describe without having experienced it, but believe me when I say that Cassette Beasts is inclusive in the purist way—by wanting players to feel represented, to see themselves in characters, and to be themselves among those characters. It's a truly incredible thing, and to me, it's the new standard for the medium.

In case it wasn't already obvious, I think Cassette Beasts is a miracle. It does what every newcomer to a genre should: it takes enough influence from its predecessors to know what works while also doing enough new that it becomes its own fresh, unique piece of art. This is my favorite game of 2023 so far, and it's permanently placed Bytten Studio on my radar. I can't wait to see what they do next.

Forspoken is yet another game that I wanted to like more than I did, since I usually have a knack for loving games that draw the ire of chronically online gamers. I was one of the 5 people who truly enjoyed Saints Row 2022 in fact!

Overall, after spending close to 20 hours with it, I think the reviews Forspoken has received from both critics and the larger gaming public are largely true, if somewhat hyperbole (as usual).

Yes, the dialogue has its rough patches, but outside of the handful of scenes that have made the rounds online, it's largely bland as opposed to being painful. The dialogue we hear from protagonist Frey and the entire supporting cast do feel more like 'written by committee' than by one or more people with a clear vision. You can really tell that this game had issues with there being 'too many cooks' in the writer's room.

Frey herself, despite being well-portrayed by Ella Balinska, is a deeply frustrating and stubborn character. It's understandable that she should have a chip on her shoulder given her being a rough and tumble orphan who falls into an generic Isekai story. But it feels like they forgot to make her likable outside of that. The winning moments of her character come almost exclusively from occasional good bits of banter with her companion Cuff (aka 'we have Wheatley from Portal 2 at home') and the various cats you meet along the way.

That being said, while the narrative is lacking and feels like a speedrun of Joseph Campbell's 'The Hero's Journey', the combat, over-the-top magic effects, parkour, and overabundance of adorable kitties REALLY help hold this game together and secure its status as 'decent' for me. Honestly, the traversal in this game alone is up there with Spider-Man PS4 for me. It just never stopped being fun darting around the world and doing sick flips.

So yes, to summarize:
+ Sick flips
+ Fun combat
+ CATS
+ System-overloading particle effects
- Everything else

6/10