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Bandai-Namco released Boomeroad worldwide two days ago as part of a suite of simple and experimental games to train new recruits from their indie developer Gyaar Studio. The concept here combines a standard 3D platformer with boomerang throwing that creates grindable rails that can be chained for extended mid-air traversal. You refresh your energy gauge by passing through rings and landing on platforms, and you can increase the gauge's capacity by collecting optional artifacts. Unfortunately, the gameplay is undercooked. You can't adjust the shape of the boomerang's arc besides flattening the upward curve a little, there's very few interactable objects (switches and fans) that force the player to throw the boomerang at them for activation, and you can in fact avoid most of these elements entirely by throwing two chained boomerang arcs to climb up and walk on top of the level's walls, skipping entire sections of the level while never running out of gauge. While I thought speedrun mode would mitigate most of these shortcomings, I don't find the movement satisfying enough because there's fairly little momentum conserved upon jumping off of rails for speeding up, so the movement itself lacks weightiness and route planning isn't very interesting when you're incentivized to just follow the set path of rings for time bonuses. I suppose there's only so much I can complain about a free game nevertheless, and although I don't see Gyaar Studio returning to this, I do think they've got a solid concept on their hands that could prove to be an interesting 3D puzzle-platformer if thoroughly fleshed out with more committal movement and tighter level design.

I think there is this general thought floating around that when a company does something so well for so long it must be easy to create. In this particular example I am thinking of one of my favourite series Monster Hunter. Several other companies have put their hands into the hunter genre to various success but none have come close to the original's appeal and quality. Wild Hearts however gives a pretty good try and brings some really neat ideas to the table with it.

The most unique thing about Wild Hearts is it's Karakuri system. This allows the player to quick build wooden structures for use in combat as well as other functions. You can equip up to 4 basic ones that can also be used in fusion combinations to make different results. For example you can use a torch which on it's own will give a flame effect on your weapon but combine it with a celestial anchor which helps zip you around the map and it creates an extremely powerful cannon. These abilities create all sorts of effects like fireworks for knocking enemies out of the sky, walls for defence and to knock enemies over, hammers, traps, springboards, healing mist machines etc. The loadout you bring will depend on the weapon you use and enemy you face but are easy enough to switch out as and when is needed.

It is a brilliant system to be honest, they are quick to fire out, mostly nearly always useful and different players with different load outs can work well together. For example there is an enemy called the Kingtusk which is essentially a wild boar the size of a building who likes to charge attack. My friend's load out has a very quick release wall with a spring that only lasts a couple of seconds but will knock the boar on it's back when timed right allowing me to set up my above mentioned celestial cannon which takes some time to make and fire. The usage of these aren't infinite as they use a resource called thread you have a stock of. Depending what Karakuri you summon will effect the amount depleted. You build it back up through armour skills, environmental objects, attacking or jumping on wounded enemies and sucking it out of their wounds in a climbing exercise like shadow of the Colossus. Knowing how much thread you need to make things, how much you have and where to get more are the key loops to beating your enemies.

The Karakuri aren't limited to just combat though as you have another type called Dragon Karakuri which allow you to build permanent structures on each map. These structures are limited by elemental resources for each location you can expand as you play through the game to constantly work on what is available and as you unlock more Karakuri through upgrades. You can build your own camps for fast traveling, zip lines, updraft wind tunnels, giant wheel bikes, armour forges, search towers etc etc. Each player builds their own maps differently so joining online and seeing how they have theirs set up is really interesting. I tend to just have zip lines everywhere from camps to key areas like the worlds coolest assault course. Using a line from a cliff face, dropping off it half way to create a glider mid air to fly to your target before dropping down to attack will always be fun.

Alongside Karakuri you have your own weapon in which there are 8 to choose from; Katana, Nodachi, bow, maul, bladed wagasa, canon, claw blade and karakuri staff. Each weapon handles very differently with some being more simple than others but each having unique abilities. For example the Katana changing into a whip sword, or grappling in the air like an acrobat with the claw blade etc. I really like the weapons selections and some of them do some really interesting things like the Canon and Karakuri staff feeling more technical with a lot of steps to unlock their full potential. Their design is really interesting but honestly I feel they would be better utilised in a different game.

The issue is that the monsters you fight in most cases are so constantly aggressive it makes the Tigrex in Monster hunter look pretty laid back in comparison. They attack, non stop to the point at times it's actually ridiculous. Building up timed combo weapon changes in different rhythm multiple times to unlock the big hit with the Karakuri staff is more than often a laughable prospect. Their art designs are all really gorgeous at least. They are based mostly on fantasy looking corrupt animals like rats with flowers growing out of them, ice wolves, moss crocodiles etc. However there also just isn't enough of them, the game really lacks enemy variety. It plays over 5 chapters and just has the same half a dozen or so enemies over and over but the armour and weapon upgrades just aren't varied or interesting enough to not stop it feeling monotonous before you are even half way through.

I think if the story and characters could hold their own like the developers last attempt in the genre Toukiden then I could forgive that repetition along with the excellent combat system but sadly despite such a surprisingly large focus on characters and story it feels so dry and uninteresting with a terribly vague ending of nothing. It feels like the game needed more time in the oven to fully sculpt it's ideas. There is a lack of armour, weapon skills and build depth, a lack of enemy variety and a pretty uninteresting plot to boot and it's a real shame because some of the mechanics are really fantastic and I loved how it plays with it's gorgeous art design and music wrapping it all together. (I mean check out just the main menu theme.

It's a really good game, but it could have been an amazing one.

+ Karakuri system is utterly brilliant mechanic in and out of combat.
+ Beautiful art design and music.
+ Some seriously cool weapons...

-...some of which aren't worth using because the enemy AI is based around "relentless assault".
- Extremely limited enemy variety.
- Story and characters are uninteresting.
- Playing online due to EA's servers was a nightmare. Wouldn't let us play at all without telling why. Had to sign in with EA account on a PC to register it for this. It took us two days to figure this out. Why are they so terrible at everything they do? why?

One of the central RPGs of my youth. I even loved the crappy original version back then, which dropped such wonderful lines as "I feel like a fried fish" in the German version :D It was a blast.
This game is very crude, the dialogue is sometimes unbearable, but at its core it's a good game with a good story and an interesting, mature world. The combat system is rather lame, more of a rhythm game than anything else, but as a young person I didn't care. The Enhanced Edition has improved a lot, including a completely new voice-over, which really increased the level of immersion for me. I'm looking forward to the remake.

This game was one of my favorites as a kid. I love Star Wars and as a kid I really loved legos and even had a few lego star wars sets, so when i saw this game at Big Lots(Yes that store sells games, im not sure if they still do but i remember getting games from there whenever it wasn't pre owned gamestop games) I knew i wanted it. When i got it, I loved it so much. Playing throughout the prequel and original trilogy was so much fun and I loved freeplay and just playing as different characters throughout the movies was so cool. I loved playing as yoda because i just liked the way he would run around with his lightsaber and the noise he would make when he died, it was so FUNNY i loved it. I loved the cantina being the hub world and loved listening to the band. The comedy in this game is so funny i fucking love it. This game is just so fun, it reminds me so much of my childhood.

Comfortably violet, wacky puzzling maelstrom. Kaleidoscopic and furiously stimulating all at once, behaves like a rubics cube of isometrical slaughterhouses and instakill adrenaline. Beat it 5 times and i'm thinking about a 6th one. ¿Guess who's got two thumbs and likes hurting people?

Whilst in the middle of playing Cult of the Lamb I spoke to a friend who, and I quote said "Isn't that the poop farming simulator?" Apparently when just casually speed skimming through a video about the game that was the core of what he picked up about it. In some ways he isn't wrong though, you see Cult of the Lamb is a weird mixture of base building for your expanding indoctrinated cult and Rogue Like dungeon crawling to get resources to keep them fed, clean and happy as they are mostly incapable of doing that on their own apparently.

It's two games merged together and while certainly fun, neither feels as fleshed out as it needs to be. Your cultists will just dump a poop out anywhere, some food will make them do it faster, they'll leave it, get ill and possibly die from hygiene issues, literally. That means in between dungeon runs I was running around cleaning poop. You can eventually get the ability to build an Outhouse but I had mines and a church before that which seems completely nuts on the village building priority scale for what unlocks. Even then though it's my character, the head of the Cult of the Lamb cleaning out the Outhouses. It's just odd the way it all works, there is no way to automate another character to cook or clean the outhouse I could find, you have to do it all or use a ritual to make them fast. Buildings will break for no reason, like beds and tents specifically just fall apart because "reasons" forcing you to rebuild them. Adding to the headache of cult managing, the layout is in a diagonal grid scheme in which trying to build next to other items in situ is so difficult I actually didn't think you could for about 5 hours. It's terrible. I also barely had to use most of the buildings available. I tried a couple that seemed like they weren't worth the effort, destroyed them and never looked back.

The dungeon crawling is kind of similar in that it feels a bit underbaked. It's a Rogue Like that mixes up the rooms you get going from the start to a boss or mini boss each time in one of 4 different areas. There is so little variety per run though it may as well not bother. Everything just looks and feels the same, there are maybe 4 weapon choices that can have a variety of modifiers based on what you've unlocked like poison etc. but they are much the same. The only other thing you can do is use Curses which feel kind of underpowered or all kind of the same that once again it feels like any would do. Each room is so noisy for things going on and so small in most circumstances simply using your weapon is enough, I beat the game and barely used a curse, it was rarely worth it. There was just a lack of variation or strategy required to get through each level. To add to this each time I was in the dungeon you get messages about your cult members dying of old age, getting angry or sick as it continues to flow whilst you're not there and they are completely incapable of looking after themselves unless you set up rituals to keep you covered.

I also had technical issues playing the PS5 version. Every time a new day came the game freezes as it works things out, moving in the dungeon too fast like rolling to get through fast and it hiccups and jitters. I had one hard crash and once my followers all went and stood in the same location morphing into each other and wouldn't do anything forcing me to turn off the game and restart (I was worried it was a game breaking glitch but did carry on fine after) which all hampered my experience as well.

I've been pretty negative so far but I did actually have a good time with cult of the Lamb. It's got a great atmosphere with these super cute anthropomorphic animal people mixed with this satanic sacrificial dark undertone. Making your dead followers into meals for others, sacrificing them to an eldritch tentacle when old rather than have them die in your village is all entertaining stuff with a really nice art design and soundtrack to boot. It just isn't balanced enough with how the Cult building works and not deep enough or varied enough in combat where it needs to be. It's got a lot of character however which does make up for that somewhat.





As a casual player looking for some silly fun with a friend, Tekken 7 hits the mark. It's accessible and action-packed, with highlights being the arcade bowling and the inclusion of Prince Noctis and the wide roster with joke characters with unique but approachable movesets. The story mode and competitive play isn't really what I came to this game for, but there's definitely a lot of good challenge to be had. Not my favorite fighter but a total crowd-pleaser.

Looking back now, I really, truly understand why Nintendo didn't make a new Mario Kart on Switch and instead opted to simply port the one from the previous gen and make it better, because honestly, how do you even begin to try and top Mario Kart 8? The pure levels of fun, innovation, and creativity present in this one silly Mario Kart game are insane and more than other games could ever even dream of. If Mario Kart 8 was on the brink of perfection, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was the push that got it there.

Starting out with the gameplay, it's the same old tried and true kart racing formula that's worked for the series for many years now, only this time with a few notable inclusions that refine it to feel the best it ever has. The customizable vehicle parts system from Mario Kart 7 returns here and it works tremendously, there's so many interestingly designed vehicles and so many combinations to try. Experimenting with different combinations till you find the one that's just right for you can be a fun process and switching it up every once in a while to try a different playstyle or to impose a challenge upon yourself can be fun too. Then there's the game's main new feature, the anti-gravity racing. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe's tracks almost all have an element of anti-gravity infused into them, allowing you to drive on walls or ceilings of the tracks you're racing on which ultimately just leads to some of the most inspired track designs in the series. Some of my absolute favorite tracks in the entire series originate from this game and its legendary track design, such as Mount Wario, Toad Harbor, Wild Woods, Big Blue, and Shy Guy Falls just to name a few. The game is no slouch in its retro track selection either, choosing just the right amount of fan favorites as well as left field picks that got remakes that completely redeemed them. The base track selection is the biggest in the series as well and yet never at any point feels like it values quantity over quality, each track has the same expert amount of care and details put into it and that's what really sets this game apart.

In terms of content there's nothing really different from any other Mario Kart game here, but when the base gameplay is as fun and distinct as it is, I'd argue that there doesn't really need to be. The main mode is of course Grand Prix mode and there certainly is a lot to tackle here. There are 12 cups worth of races in the base roster of the game (being doubled entirely in the Booster Course Pass but I'll get there momentarily) which means you'll have a lot to do if you want to master them all over the game's five CCs, surprisingly though this process never felt tiresome or drawn out as it might seem to be (I should note that in this playthrough, I didn't go through and do all of this, as I had already done so and didn't feel like starting my file over again, I instead just opted to playthrough every course in the game once and call it a playthrough). The game combines the 50, 100, and 150 CC modes progress into one, meaning if you get the gold trophy on one cup's CC, you get it for all the corresponding CCs as well, meaning you don't have to tediously go through each grand prix three times and have roughly the same experience each time. The other two CCs are Mirror mode and 200cc. Mirror mode, being a staple of the series at this point, has you race through the courses on 150cc just flipped, so it does feel kind of similar but overall offers enough of a different experience to justify its existence I guess. The main event here though is clearly 200cc. 200cc is a blisteringly fast game mode that really captures the chaotic and fun vibes of Mario Kart perfectly. It made me not even care that I was completing the same tracks over again for the third time because the adrenaline pumping speeds made it a blast to play through. Apart from this there's also the online mode, which surprisingly enough for NSO, I've found to work pretty darn well. The online mode places you in a lobby with other players and allows you to choose between three different course selections or just choose random if you don't like any of the selections and honestly I've always been a fan of this system. In Mario Karts past the games online modes would allow you to choose whatever course from the roster that you want, the only problem being that everyone would always choose the same few fan favorite courses and there would be no variety, this system however lends itself to variety every time you play the game and lets you see more of the courses while playing online with people around your skill level and it's honestly just refreshing to see it work so well. In terms of unlockables Mario Kart 8 Deluxe takes a different approach than any other Mario Kart game before it. The game has every character unlocked already, which some might see as a bit of a bummer, and even I'll admit it does take a little bit of the excitement out of things but its also just kind of convenient at the end of the day. Apart from that the only other unlockables you get are car parts which you get by collecting coins in races and hitting certain milestones. While this is a bit disappointing as it doesn't really test your skill at the game, I can see understand why they did it and it doesn't bother me that much.

Finally I get to my last talking point about this game, being it's pretty great DLC in the form of the Booster Course pass. The Booster Course pass took the number of cups from the base game and doubled it in a massive expansion that's main goal was to bring back mostly fan favorite retro tracks from the series' past as well as sprinkling in some surprises like a few entirely new tracks, new characters, and extra game customization modes to really make this game the ultimate Mario Kart. This happened over the course of six waves of DLC, each introducing two new cups worth of tracks to the mix spaced a few months apart. This made the release of each new wave an event to look forward to and I have plenty of fond memories of waking up in the morning and seeing the reveal trailer on Nintendo's YouTube page of what 8 new courses would be in the next wave of DLC, it was a really exciting time to be a Mario Kart fan and one that I'm glad I got to experience as it happened.

Overall, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is just the definitive Mario Kart experience in every way and definitely one that has earned its great reputation and sales figures. The game achieves nearly everything it sets out to do by being just pure unadulterated fun and having so many good ideas that it doesn't know what to do with them. The game's longevity is a testament to its staying power and even in a few years when we have the next Mario Kart in hand (hopefully) I'll still always look back fondly and appreciate everything that this near perfect video game did for the series.

Time travel is not alien to the world of videogames, let alone RPGs. Partners in Time though treats timeline shenanigans in a clever, weirdly somber and mature approach, considering the depressing and oppressive turn the game's story takes: it is now the Shrooms whom act as cruel and memorable villains in this story, having conquered the Toad Kingdom past.

Mario, Luigi, Mario Jr. & Luigi Jr. work well enough together as a team, but it's not as effective as in Super Star Saga: instead of using points to use combo attacks, they are now essentially items you can buy. Since money was never an issue in M&L games, you can see where the issue lies: the game's difficulty takes a nosedive each time a new combo item is introduced, making enemies' health bars just a matter of time, instead of strategic thinking. Platform sections and puzzles are fun enough, but despite having more bros, there's much less to do in terms of combo and exploration. I'll be blunt, the game takes a lot of steps forward in settings, story, characterization, with the four protagonists weirdly well characterized despite never speaking and Prof. E. Gadd stealing every scene he's featured in. The soundtracks also kind of rocks?

At the same time, it takes away a lot of ingenuity and platforming\puzzles from Super Star Saga, not taking real advantage of the dual screen if not for the occasional battle animation. It tries striking a balance between funny and emotional, which doesn't always land. To me it'll always be charming, but there's a lot of things to consider and wade through before getting to the "good stuff". Strong beginning, weak middle, padded ending but satisfactory experience don't make for a game I'd recommend easily.

In terms the average game journalist can understand, it's a A24-produced, genre-redefining, trope-subverting, 40 KB JPG atmospheric, dark and eerie, emotionally draining [...] game.

If there is any game that champions the "short and sweet" mantle, it is Pokemon Snap.

Pokemon Snap is the on-rails phototaking game one would expect from this genre, expect it's way more endearing since you're taking photos of Pokemon in their habitat.

What also puts Pokemon Snap above other games in this genre is the gameplay loop, which also makes it a semi-puzzle game. The gameplay loop will find you replaying levels using tools you've unlocked to uncover new Pokémon you might have missed in your first run, or new poses for existing Pokemon, resulting in a higher score and therefore more tools to uncover more secrets.

While fun, it is sadly short lived and can be fully completed in an hour. It feels like a concept for a much bigger game that would be developed decades later (foreshadowing). Although the replayability factor on this is great like star fox 64 where replaying to get the best scores can become addicting.

I would have been mad if I bought this for full price back in the day, but playing today as part of my NSO subscription service totally makes this game worth your time if you are a fan of Pokemon, and on-rails games.