Honestly was iffy on yet another Amnesia game after Rebirth, especially given this one seemed to forgo the narrative focus of the series for something akin to an immersive sim style which wasn’t sure if they’d execute well. But while different and smaller scaled I liked this one too, in fact of the three it’s probably the most interesting from a gameplay standpoint

For one it’s actually pretty scary unlike Rebirth. You’re being hunted by a monster with AI akin to the unpredictability seen in Alien: Isolation, and the atmosphere/sound of the WWI bunker as you try and explore is constantly oppressive. On top of that, you need to find fuel in order to keep a single generator running that’s your only source of power, as the bunker goes pitch dark when it’s off and the monster starts roaming more freely. It works well and makes for a tense race to gather what you can before the lights go out

The bunker has various areas to explore in order to find items you’ll need to escape, along with notes that can help you around or gives info on the bunker and its (prior) inhabitants. You’re also free to go where you wish and have various options to get through barriers (like locked doors that can be broken through in different ways). Items are also randomized each playthrough which is a neat way to add more replayability to it

It’s not very lengthy (finished at about 4 hours), but was cool and shows Frictional still has ideas that can help liven up their usual formula going forward. Definitely looking forward to their next project, hopefully it’s a new IP though

Pros:
- It’s amazing how much more vast and full of content the game feels due to its verticality, essentially tripling the map size as you can now seamlessly transition from the surface, the sky and its floating islands, and deep underground in the Depths. There are full sized caves now, far more to explore and more enjoyable ways to get around with the addition of Zonai devices, more quests and lively areas, etc
- The new powers (Ultrahand/Recall/Ascend/Fuse) are brilliant and more interesting to use in general, going hand in hand with immensely impressive physics that I’m honestly unsure how they pulled off. Even enjoyed the shrines a lot here compared to what I remember in BotW
- Good story (keeping a similar structure to BotW pretty much). I adored the ending moments especially though, much improved over its predecessor there
- Towers shooting you into the air to scan instead of making you climb them is an excellent change and makes getting around the map much faster
- Actual dungeons (if fairly short and easy by the time I got to them)
- Fantastic music from start to finish

Cons:
- While visually TotK is held up by its art direction, the hardware unsurprisingly lets it down. Image quality is frankly poor, and there are numerous times where the frame rate drops from being decently stable to the 20s if not lower (mainly in denser areas). Load times are fairly quick though
- Combat is basically the same and just alright, Fuse makes it better but I’m still not a fan of durability and constantly scrolling through menus for items much
- Koroks and that guy holding the same Hudson sign everywhere

Pros:
- Cute little game where you explore a small island trying to collect signatures to save a nature reserve, while taking photos of any animals you find (mostly birds) and cleaning the environment. It’s very short but an enjoyable time for what it is
- Good art style
- Liked Alba’s skip animation

Cons:
- Missing a jump button

Pros:
- Inspired by classic JRPGs, Chained Echoes is a fairly dense game that stands out as a well executed and highly memorable RPG in its own right. Given the amount of content this has and how much effort it must have taken to make, it’s genuinely mind-blowing that it’s mostly done by a single person
- Combat is interesting in that it focuses on an “Overdrive” bar, where you need to manage skills used to balance how effective your attacks are. You also regain all your HP/TP after a fight, which encourages you to always use all your moves since enemies are pretty aggressive to compensate
- I liked that instead of standard leveling, you don’t have XP to gather when fighting normal enemies. You get shards that are used to unlock new skills but only after beating bosses, which means there’s little need to grind in this
- For the most part the early hours are linear, but once you reach Act 2 it opens up in a really cool way. Getting access to Sky Armors as a faster way to travel around (which made revisiting areas more enjoyable), unlocking meaningful side quests, a bigger party, etc
- Great music and pixel artwork!

Cons:
- While the difficulty is manageable with buffs/debuffs, I did feel the balancing was kinda off. On default there were many times where I hit a wall for standard enemies who hit really hard yet I had an easier time with the boss that followed. On the other hand, lowering settings makes it too easy imo, especially as you get stronger abilities
- Crystals felt kinda pointless as a system. Most of the time you can’t combine the ones you actually want, and the ones you did have felt like they made a negligible difference at best
- Feel there’s too many party members to manage by the end, though most are useful (Mikah for instance)
- The lack of a glossary for a world this fleshed out seems like an odd oversight. There is a bestiary though
- Varied expressions for portraits would’ve been appreciated, but that’s a minor gripe
- Kept rearranging my party formation every so often

Pros:
- Superb puzzles and entertaining writing, with one of the best co-op campaigns there is added in as well
- GLaDOS
- Visually hasn’t aged at all and runs perfectly (replayed to try on Steam Deck)

Cons:
- Quite a lot more loading screens than I remember, with one after every test chamber and entering new areas

Pros:
- Cool concept where you control a claustrophobic submarine to take pictures in a blood ocean
- Short but effective atmosphere

Cons:
-,The gameplay’s centered on not being able to see outside, so you need to avoid obstacles with the controls as you drive through the map. But I feel I was mostly focused on trying not to smash into walls the whole time than actually being unnerved by anything
-,Aside for the creepy noises not much happens, and the end was underwhelming. It’s only an hour long or so though

Pros:
- Well written dialogue with good characters who develop as they age alongside your character
- Great sci-fi worldbuilding, much of my enjoyment was just learning more about the alien planet and its ecosystems as you build up the colony
- Large variety of choices to really personalize your character and their traits from age 10 to 20, as well as letting you adjust your appearance and gender/pronouns whenever you like which was much appreciated
- The game’s deck card system is simple but makes for an interesting alternative to standard skill checks, and can adjust its difficulty to your liking
- Calming OST that doesn’t get in the way but greatly adds to the game’s atmosphere
- Incentive to replay due to the mechanic of remembering events from your past playthrough, which can open up even more choices (though I only did two full runs)

Cons:
- As the game nears age 20, it can start to feel a bit aimless as you exhaust most unique events and kinda go through the motions til it ends a bit anticlimactically. But this probably depends on your story choices since there’s quite a few different endings

Pros:
- Story has a lot of heart in how it handles its themes on mental health, with a particularly beautiful ending
- Lovely pixel style and very pleasant soundtrack
- Strong lead characters (Atma and Raya)
- Surreal fantasy in 90s Indonesia made for an interesting setting
- Multitude of small mini-games and (admittedly simple) puzzles helped add some variety to the gameplay
- You can pet and name a bunch of cats

Cons:
- Much of the game is spent running back and forth through the same few areas looking for items to collect, which got a bit repetitive and slowed the pacing down

A short but pleasant game about biking through a small valley, documenting its history and people to preserve for the future before the season ends and everything is swept away in a coming flood. The art style is lovely, and I was really into the meditative atmosphere with its focus on simply taking in the moment with photos and drawings. Tieng Valley is an interesting setting to explore for the time you spend in it, and I enjoyed that you’re free to go wherever you like once you arrive

If there’s one notable flaw it’d be performance since there’s quite a few FPS drops throughout that took me out of it a bit. Hopefully this can be patched but otherwise I really enjoyed it

Been a while since I’ve played through the original Dead Space so may need to go through it again for better comparison here (and thinking of replaying 2 and 3 also), but I will say the remake certainly does an exceptional job living up to it, keeping most of the experience intact from what I can tell and greatly polishing on its strongest aspects, while also making some welcome changes throughout that further amplify this modernized revisit to the Ishimura

On a technical level it’s mostly superb with stunning detail and lighting, greatly enhancing the game’s unsettling atmosphere while revamping the ship to expand on its areas and connect them more seamlessly without load screens. And I don’t recall the original being too scary, but the increased focus on sound design in the remake definitely made me more on edge too

Another big difference from the original is that Isaac actually speaks like he does in the sequels. Initially I was unsure about this as his silence had some appeal given how isolating it made the first game feel, but for the most part that’s still maintained since he only talks when directly spoken to and doesn’t make any quips when alone. Personally I still don’t think the story in Dead Space is especially great, but having Isaac actually engage with the characters is a change for the better in my opinion

In regard to issues, I had a problem where the game would briefly stutter whenever opening a door even with VRR on, and some other launch bugs that occasionally came up. Also I can’t remember exactly if I felt the same with the original, but the back half of the game got weaker as it started to lose its tension and locks you in rooms with waves of the same necromorphs more often. Overall though it’s a really well made remake that, while not being a big departure, more than justifies itself and succeeds in faithfully updating this horror classic

With something completely out of left field from their other titles, Tango decided to reveal and shadow drop a new game on the same day, with no indication on what it was beforehand aside for some misleading leaked concept art. As it turns out, they were quietly making a charming action platformer that stands out with a rhythm style where everything moves and syncs to the beat of the music. And it’s incredibly good!

The cues of the animations, the environments, enemies, bosses, etc, all serve as the basis for the addicting combat where timing with the songs amplify your attacks, giving this a really uniquely executed system that gradually opens up with more mechanics and skills as you progress. The further you get, the more it clicks all the way up to its excellent final levels

And the cel-shaded art style looks amazing! Very well polished and the dynamic animations paired with the clean image quality makes it extremely impressive to look at. I’m honestly shocked Tango was able to make something like this cause I remember The Evil Within 1 and 2 being pretty rough technical wise. In comparison this ran like a dream with not a single slowdown or bug during my playthrough

I even liked the story and characters more than expected. It’s simple and while the dialogue initially didn’t inspire confidence, it’s paced well and the characters quickly become endearing, proving to be an over the top but joyful time

Honestly I don’t have much gripes, I suppose the platforming could be a bit tighter and fighting multiple enemies can get pretty chaotic to follow without lock on. Also this is actually a fairly sizable game and some of the levels can stretch a bit long, but those are minor to me. I really loved it, and for something that’s just $30 or on Game Pass it’s a complete steal for how much effort was clearly poured into it. Awesome start to the year!

The trailers and jokes about this made it seem like a “so bad it’s good” kind of game, but honestly it was pretty enjoyable to me. The story‘s initially all over the place with really bizarre pacing and poor cutscene quality, but it actually gets fairly interesting by the end. Though general dialogue is a mess with much of it reminding me of those edgy PS3 era JRPGs, but it’s clearly self aware so there’s a charm to it

Unfortunately it also looks the part of a PS3/360 game, with blurry visuals, weak lighting, and lackluster environments so it definitely isn’t a technical showcase. Performance is also questionable, as I still noticed occasional drops on Series X with VRR on

That said, since it’s made by Team Ninja what mainly holds the game together is the combat. It’s actually really fun, with plenty of room to experiment with different weapons and skills through its job system and a good parry mechanic with Soul Shield. The level design quickly gets repetitive with their dull corridors to run through, but they’re short enough at least. There are side quests too, but they’re nothing special since they just consist of going backwards through these same levels to kill a random enemy or find an item