Athenian Rhapsody is a fun experience that feels familiar but does stand on its own two feet. The battle system is definitely borrowed from Undertale but is a bit more colourful and boisterous. Going the pacifist route means the battle system is a series of mini-games where the character needs to avoid projectiles that get more ridiculous the further you get into the game.

Much of the enjoyment comes from the interactions between the player character and twelve friends that can be found throughout the world. The humour is cute and well written, though sometimes the toilet jokes come a little too often. Each friend has a neat back story and unique personality that leads to some fun hijinxs.

At the end of the day, there’s no way to avoid bringing up Undertale with all the similarities between the two. If you’ve never played the former, than the comparison is pointless since Athenian Rhapsody works on its own. It’s not really a question of either or, if you’re a fan of that style of RPG, them you already know that you’ll likely enjoy Athenian Rhapsody.

Nintendo has always thrived in creativity, it’s the sole reason I hold them to a much higher standard than the competition. So when that creativity seems to be blatantly ripping off one of its contemporaries, and seems like a placeholder for upcoming new hardware, I get a little disappointed.

Princess Peach Showtime! is in no way a bad game, I don’t think first party Nintendo IPs are even capable of doing such a thing. But, it is very evident that this is just to hold us off while we wait for the inevitable release of a new console. It does almost nothing to differentiate itself from Kirby games, even going as far as copying, ironically, that typical Kirby final boss battle, but done in a much more forgettable way.

Princess Peach truly deserves a standout game like Mario Wonder or Tropical Freeze, its own unique twist on a genre of games with identity. Unfortunately, there’s just none of that there. There’s no true wow factor here, like with most other Nintendo games.

Also I feel like it’s important to note that I exclusively play Switch docked. I have never had issues with frame rates, never seen below 30fps. For some reason, this game dips below, and well below at that, during loading screens and select cutscenes. I’m never one to complain about 1080p 30fps, but if I do, you know that shit’s an actual problem.

When it’s all said and done, this is Nintendo at its most mediocre. Shoveling out its scrapped ideas and spoon feeding it to us like a baby, desperately clinging to a possible silver lining. A new console. 5/10.

This is my pick for greatest JRPG of all-time.






What more needs to be said?

When I think of the “Soulslike” genre, I never get eager. It is a genre full of no fun try-hards claiming to be above the rest of us peasants. What Another Crab’s Treasure does with the genre, is stick a pipe up its ass.

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD

This was my most anticipated game of the year, legitimately. I had just finished Elden Ring when I found out about this, and I loved it. When I saw the… options… in this game, I immediately knew it could be something truly special. Yes, you are an animated crab with a fork as your weapon. If that doesn’t just scream “have fun,” then what does?

The idea of the difficulty setting in the soulslike genre has always sparked heated discourse. I’m all for it personally, but Aggro seems to have a much different approach to this complicated mechanic. While there are a plethora of available settings to increase or decrease difficulty, the main one is very obviously the gun. You have the ability to have a gun as a shell, that kills everything in a single hit.

Now, the gun doesn’t actually save you 100% of the time. The 2nd phase of the 2nd to last boss is an escape test, you don’t actually attack it. A few of the bosses start far away, and are incredibly fast, so the option to shoot immediately sometimes doesn’t pan out. Plus, you still have to do all the platforming, and can still take damage.

The end game gets absolutely ludicrous. There are 3 final bosses with 2 phases, with the first 2 being utterly mind-fucking. You’ll think, “Oh this must be the final boss!” Until you think that again, and then again… The bosses overall are also incredibly entertaining. A wide variety of designs, movesets, unique dialogue, you name it.

Speaking of dialogue, this is not just another goofy heartwarming story because it’s a cartoon style. Characters die, MAIN characters. The story really makes you feel like all of this senseless violence in the end is for nothing, because, well, it practically was. Kril’s entire mission was to just get his shell back, seemingly willing to do anything to retrieve it. Even if “anything” means putting people he cares about amidst a magnitude of harm. In the end, he attacks someone who was never exactly a friend to him, but didn’t deserve his fate, just to get his shell back. Then, the game just kind of ends… It’s an incredibly dark and depressing narrative, capped off with dark undertones through environmental storytelling.

Now, there are some serious bugs. I know that games on Steam are often complete jank, since PC is much different when it comes to developing games for it, but I’ve heard that these bugs occur on console as well. I had to restart the game a few times in the first day, but I can say that I never experienced anything major afterwards. I played for I believe around 20 hours. Keep in mind, this is a MASSIVE game from an indie studio with a single other game under their belt. The scale of this game, how great it looks, how funny it is, how solid the VA can be, I really have to give them credit.

This game has what I believe could be the best soundtrack of the year so far, too. Styles are constantly making drastic shifts from area to area, all fitting the world around them. The city is a cute upbeat sense of vacation, the electrical area is a wobbly synthesized amalgamation, the credits plays a melancholy song with a play on words, all crafted in such a well produced way. it’s, quite literally, music to the ears.

The little details of things like the writing on the “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!” carton, the jokes written on hidden popsicle sticks, the references to things like Taito and CVS, I just can’t believe the scale of this game given the circumstances.

If it wasn’t for some serious camera flaw, or early game bugs, I think this would truly be up there with some of the best games ever. Regardless of my issues, this is still an absolute home run. 9/10.