New Horizons helped keep a sense of normality when the world went crazy four years ago, and coming back to it now on a different platform is like being sent back in time before my dad had the cheek to get sick and pass away. New Horizons doesn't have the same nostalgia factor as Wild World or even New Leaf for me - but my God I can smell our garden in April 2020, I can hear Tiger King on in the background, I can't see my friends but I can tend to a real garden and a virtual island at the same time.

New Horizons is laden with a crafting system that sort of outstays its welcome, an apparent step back in villager interaction where you can start seeing repeating dialogue far quicker than previous entries, and an aggravating Nintendo sense of not being allowed to take things at the pace you WANT to take them. I should be allowed to skip the ridiculously lengthy tutorial section of the game if I previously had a save file on the system. This tutorial legitimately takes about five real life days to complete. I understand the concept of a game you pick up and play for just a bit at a time, but this is a full priced release, not a mobile game.

There is not enough content to justify the absolutely glacial progression and gameplay, especially compared to the offerings from Pocket Camp, a free mobile game. Even simple actions take a small animation to get through and often text that you've read dozens of times before, leading to mashing buttons to skip through them. This is sort of comparable to something like Red Dead Redemption 2's lengthy skinning, looting and cleaning animations - but at least in RDR2 there's something intricate and detailed to look at, while ACNH has a far simpler art style.

All of that in mind, though - there's such a genuine charm and addictiveness to New Horizons that I can't help but really enjoy it, flaws and all. Musically it's bouncy and memorable, the graphics are lovely to look at and the weird mix of realistic bugs and fish contrasted against the cartoony environments and characters works surprisingly well. Once you get out of that first week and the game opens up? It's good. It's very good. Not quite great, but I'm enjoying it nevertheless.

We approach the cave exploring the nearby area. My friend and I swear over our headsets peering into the dark. Not because the absence of light produces the traditional primal instinct of fear, but because we know Ashen is about to be irritating through design.

I unhook my shield to carry the lantern, an item that only works when carried by hand rather than on a belt. It's a mystery why. I'm sure the developers thought the mechanic would provide a fun challenge. They are wrong. My friend proceeds as the vanguard with shield raised as I try to light the way. We progress slowly. Soon enough we stumble upon an enemy we called a wraith who raises her arms to do a charge attack. She dashes forward, I dodge to one side but her lock on tracks me mid jump and hits me anyway. The dodge is often useless.

Whilst pinned my friend comes to help hit her off me. A different enemy crawling along the cavern floor comes running from the darkness at him. His lock on fails for no reason leaving him flailing at the barely visible foe. He puts his shield away to bring his own lantern out hoping to set it on the ground to provide light. This allows the enemy to land the final blows with no defence and slow animations. He dies stumbling to his knees hoping for a chance I may revive him, the odds are slim. The wraith finishes her attack allowing my badly eviscerated character to get up. As this happens the camera spins at an angle leaving me confused as I am killed next to my friend frustrated. The lanterns go out.

There is only silence in the dark, but there is max brightness in the settings.

The developer of this, Joe Richardson (A game by Joe Richardson) has taken renaissance art and classical music available in the public domain and edited it all together to create an incredibly unique looking collaged style. Even the name 'The Procession to Calvary' is a painting from 1564 by artist Pieter Brugel. I'm not an art critic by any means so only recognized a couple of paintings used whilst playing, only one of which I could have named, but the style and stop motion-esque animation really make it stand out to almost any game I've played in some time.

You play the role of...lets call her Bellona from one of Rembrandt's paintings. She is a blood thirsty warrior who is disappointed the holy war is won. She can stop killing! The problem is she likes killing. Bellona manages to convince the newly crowned Immortal John to let her go South on one last mission to kill the leader of the other faction, Heavenly Peter! The game is at no point meant to be taken seriously and I must admit I laughed out loud on several occasions during this bonkers escapade. It's like a mixture of Monty Python and Terry Pratchett and often left me with a smile on my face at some of the witty dialogue or plain daft situations. Though if you're easily offended I would stay away as the humour is often dark with few limits in what it mocks.

Speaking of Terry Pratchett, gameplay wise it's a point and click adventure similar to Discworld, Monkey Island or Broken Sword. Most of the puzzles are fairly logical though at times I got a little stumped in what to do but often there is something to give you a hint unless you are an impatient spanner and skip the dialogue. It's fairly short once you actually figure out what you are doing and by the developers own admission is pretty niche, but it's my type of niche.

Recommended if you want some thing a bit weird, amusing or absurd.

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.

Cyberkitty Oedo 808.

Stray was one of the initial PS5 games Sony revealed before the system launch and I've been looking forward to it ever since. I love both cats, owning one, and cyberpunk as a genre so it's a perfect mix right? Surprisingly so. You play the role of a stray cat that on a perilous jump is separated from their family and finds themselves in a forgotten dystopian cyberpunk city and needs to find their way out meeting a host of odd characters and unraveling the story of its existence as you go.

Far greater writers than I will talk about this game I'm sure, but what I really want to highlight is how great the animations are. You really feel like a cat. The way you scratch objects, jump, crouch, slink is perfect. In one scene the cat stares at something that catches their attention before padding over to it, it's something I've seen my cat do and it's that attention to detail in the game that really brings it to life. That same level of detail is brought to the environments, characters and rest of the world too. Make no mistake this is a very good looking title. Brilliant use of colour, lighting crisp image quality and art design make it a gorgeous world to explore, especially impressive as an indie game on a lower budget.

The actual game plays like an adventure game where you explore, talk, collect items. Being a cat you have in certain places more vertical exploration being able to jump up buildings, shelves, air con units etc especially in the hubs. The jumping itself is more contextual when you are near an object you can jump up the X prompt will come up. While it does make the jumping animations look far smoother and makes all your jumps perfect, with the agility of lets say...a cat, it also can be a little finicky at times.

Overall I had a great time with this little game. I got the platinum in 11 hours in two play throughs but most importantly I can press circle to meow!

+ Fantastic animations.
+ Gorgeous visual design.
+ Interesting world to explore.
+ Meow!

- jumping isn't always the best.

I had read that Valkyria Revolution, a spin off to the excellent Valkyria Chronicles games was bad. What I failed to appreciate is that "bad" is only a word and the reality was simply far worse. It's so excrutiating in fact that trying to describe it goes beyond my capability to get the message across in the medium of text but I will do my best.

I played this game for maybe 2-3 hours and I use the term 'played' loosely. I think saying I watched cardboard cut outs with two animations discuss war situations with all the effort and enthusiasm of a narrator at a milk bottle collecting competition would be more accurate. 90% of this game is cutscenes so boring I feel like my soul was trying to escape my body watching them as my natural body decay simply wasn't fast enough anymore. Monotone bland voices with uninteresting dialogue and utterly forgettable characters with a tone all over the place.

I have never played a game that made me so uninterested in events so quickly as this. I read a review somewhere that stated "The whole time you're playing Valkyria Revolution you're thinking of better games" and I fully agree, simply any game would qualify.

It reminded me of another Sega gem, Sonic 2006. A compliment this is not. A cutscene followed by a loading screen into a cutscene interrupted by a needlessly long loading screen. These can go on for 40 minutes. Like why? It made me question my choices in life that led me to this moment. If the combat made up for this it could possibly make it through but it's just as tepid, vapid, boring and soulless as the writing. It's an action game that also wants to be a little stealth, a little strategy giving you commands and spells.

It's all redundent.

All of it.

Cover is pointless, everything is weak, skills are unneeded, your AI companions don't need direction. Just run up and hit things with the sword is all you need but it's not fun hitting a 3 hit combo into a few brain dead enemies. It has tutorials constantly for different things you'll never use. Even the small hub with a few stores is introduced terribly and the user interface for equipment and skills is baffling.

The visuals occasionally have some ok backdrops but the original 2008 Valkyria Chronicles looks better. That game is almost 10 years older on previous hardware. The animations are especially flat out terrible. It's the only time playing this I laughed simply because they were so wooden it made the cast feel like puppets. Speaking of which there are times where characters seemed to float or not fit in scenes or were missing shadows etc. It's a bizzarely ugly game and the character designs are painfully bland to match their terrible stereotypes.

Honestly I hated this. I would rather cover myself in meat paste and flick the testicles of a sleeping lion then play this again. It feels like a completely unfinished, unoptimized prototype that needed editing, fixing, play testing and pruning just to reach the level of mediocre.

Play literally anything else.

- Terrible writing.
- Laughable animations.
- Long pointless dull cutscenes.
- Long load times.
- Redundent gameplay mechanics.
- Boring combat.
- Boring voice acting.
- Boring dialogue.
- Boring.

"Heroes in a half shell, Turtle Power!"

When the opening animated scene starts playing the theme tune to the 1987 animated show I felt like I had been transported to my childhood again. Whilst Shredder's Revenge leans into that nostalgia bait with aplomb using cameos, some of the original voice cast and influence from Konami's original beat 'em up Turtles in Time, the thing is Shredder's Revenge is just a good game that respects the source material, but doesn't rely solely on it.

This game features 16 stages selected across a Super Mario World styled map you move the Turtle Van onto to select. There are 7 playable characters to play and though their basic move sets are identical in controls the attacks and animations are specific to each character based on their personality. Leonardo is very professional, Michelangelo does a dance yelling "party dude!" for his taunt, April smash's Foot clan in the face with camera equipment etc. There is a lot of love and care put into it. The actual combat is pretty simple with basic attacks, run attacks, a super various jump attacks and a dedicated dodge button. As you beat enemies of find collectables you gain experience and your character levels up gaining new moves or extra health. Though the game itself is fairly easy especially playing multiplayer (I've only tried two player with a friend so far but it goes up to six somehow) there are challenges for each level including some for not taking damage which offer a bit more of a skill based gameplay to aim for.

The thing I love most about this game though is how hard they nailed the aesthetic. The sprite work is wonderful, the art design is spot on and The Original Soundtrack Manages to sound both retro and modern at the same time done by Tee Lopes responsible for the sublime Sonic Mania OST.

This game is basically exactly what I wanted. Roll on the Cowabunga Collection.

+ Great references to the original animated show.
+ Fun game with a lot of heart.
+ Fantastic visual design.
+ Amazing modern/retro soundtrack.

Memories broken
The truth goes unspoken
I’ve even forgotten my name

I don’t know the season
Or what is the reason
I’m standing here holding my blade

A desolate place
Without any trace
It’s only the cold wind I feel

It’s me that I spite
As I stand up and fight
The only thing I know for real

There will be blood-shed
The man in the mirror nods his head

The only one left
Will ride upon the dragon’s back

Because the mountains don’t give back what they take
Oh no
There will be blood-shed
It’s the only thing I’ve ever known

Losing my identity
Wondering have I gone insane
To find the truth in front of me
I must climb this mountain range
Looking downward from this deadly height
And never realizing why I fight