When it comes to what I look for in a game, it is much easier for me to state what I would avoid over what I like. One recurring thing that I love though is innovation, fresh new takes and great ideas. I would rather a game was inventive than be a shiny blockbuster that doesn’t bring anything new to the table.
Metroidvanias are a genre that has been extremely popular, especially in the “indie space” so seeing any sort of true innovation there is a pleasant surprise.

Invention and innovation are Ultros’ greatest strengths.
At a glance you would maybe first say it’s the stunning art of “ElHuervo” the same artist behind a lot of Hotline Miami’s unique look.
The art is beautiful, the world is full of colour and feels squidgy and organic. The character and monster designs are great, and it is a part that truly does stand out.
However, I cannot say it is the game’s greatest strength because sadly it can cause irritations. The game even admits to this by giving you options to make things in the fore and background look more separate because sometimes the visual splendour is too much to parse.
Many background items and things you can break (with no real gain) look too much like items that can be picked up and whilst the assets are good this causes some friction within the gameplay that does not need to be there.

The organic feel of Ultros ties greatly into its themes and mechanics which is where I find putting the game on a pedestal much easier.
Ultros is a Metroidvania but it is also a time-loop game, it has some sparing roguelite elements with an upgrade system that can be locked to permanent after a time but the real intrigue with the game when a loop happens is how you interact with the world.
In a surprise twist that I didn't see coming when I first booted up Ultros is that the game has gardening mechanics.
Throughout the world there are patches of land where seeds can be planted, different seeds create different plants and these plants can help the protagonist traverse.
Much like in real life though, plants and trees grow over time and when you first experience a time loop you quickly realise that you may have started from zero but the plants have continued to grow. Some of these may be as simple as taller tree-like obstacles that can now be used to reach higher points you couldn’t previously reach, sometimes these plants grow vines that can be swung from or break through barricades that originally blocked your path.
These additions to traversal not only open up more of the game’s world to you but speed up your progress making it simpler to do the earlier parts that you have done before such as obtaining your blade.

Speaking of blades, Ultros is a close quarters combat game. It has an enjoyable dodge and quick strike mechanic and a slew of fun upgrades that allow you to juggle and dive kick your enemies amongst other things.
The combat is smooth and feels good to use but sadly never really hits much of a challenge.
Throughout the game are boss style encounters, a couple of which have some fun gimmicks to them but for the most part play out as you’d expect and sometimes just feel like a lengthy standard fight - they’re good but not so much of a highlight.

One mechanic the fighting does bring though is a great encouragement to change your styles up and not repeat the same combos. In Ultros, in order to heal and upgrade the protagonist eats - sometimes these are fruits of the plants you find and grow but others are meat and morsels of the enemies you’ve slain, to get the most tasty and nutritious parts you must use a plethora of attacks or else spamming the same buttons will give you some red goop.
Having the food tied into an upgrade system is a nice addition because it also means at points there is risk/reward for eating to level up versus saving for survival, while also later the opposite holds true where eating to clear up your inventory and level up doesn’t feel like you’re putting yourself at too much risk.

As I mention the inventory I feel I have to explain one of my biggest issues with Ultros.
Confusion.
I have already mentioned how sometimes the visuals do not help, the presentation of the story is also hard to understand and things such as the inventory do not clear up matters lore or mechanics wise well enough either.
Whilst playing Ultros, understanding the outline of the story it is trying to tell but being confused by its language I thought to myself “is this what Dark Souls is like for some people?”.
Yes, a Dark Souls comparison, the cliché of all video game reviews but one here that felt quite specific.
The obscure and ambiguous nature of Ultros had me struggle with its narrative but at times made the game difficult to play too, with a specific example of something I feel Dark Souls does that this doesn’t and to its detriment.
Item descriptions - planting seeds becomes far more important in the late game and knowing what each seed will grow to be is only really clear from its art. That should maybe be enough and arguably it is, however some things are so similar this isn’t enough.
Each seed has a different name but they aren’t really a clue to what they do, item descriptions here would not only help build the world but aid the player into moving forwards knowing they are doing what they are intending to do - instead each seed has the same “can be planted” description as one another.
Overall there is a line where you want a world to have its own language but not one that is so foreign the player cannot understand and sadly Ultros goes over it.

From this point on I will be spoiling part of Ultros, something that needs to be spoken about because it ties into its greatest strengths and weaknesses.
I will be speaking about endings, not specifically what happens but the journey to them and if you’ve understood the organic, killing, growing and time-looping themes of the game these are probably quite obvious but if not, and you want to discover for yourself, this is the time to leave.

Two words explain your quest in Ultros Destruction and Connection.
As you travel through Ultros you are searching for Shaman, green folk sat in coffin type displays.
Each time one of these is destroyed a new loop is triggered, some things change but your objective is clear, whilst the map may not be filled out where these shaman are is marked very early on so you need to get to all eight you can see.
Throughout these loops you are made aware that you want to sever the ties of these shaman as they tie-in to the summoning of the big interdimensional space monster Ultros themselves.
The simplest way to save the day being the destruction of these eight shaman through your knowledge gained during the loops and the upgrades you get to a small drone called an extractor.
The extractor is, without revealing specifics, where the metroidvania elements truly come in through a whole host of ways, some of which are very exciting and original, allow you to access places you previously couldn’t and tackle obstacles that got in your way - a few of these tied into the gardening.

Not each upgrade to the extractor is equal in terms of excitement but each does give you a great feeling of progress and spark thoughts in your mind of what you can now do.
Sadly though this feeling comes to an end when you’ve got them all and that may be earlier than you’d expect.

If Destruction is one way to end the game through destroying the shaman then it’s probably somewhat clear what Connection is about.
Returning to the point in where you found the shaman you can actually start to connect them to the centre, this is done via a “living network” which if the shaman are the nodes, the plants you have grown along your journey are the connectors.
This completely changes the game into something not combat focused at all. Rather than killing enemies you are encouraged to befriend them, feeding them so that they no longer attack and may also reveal new spots to garden - and this pacifist style extends to all elements of the world.
You’re rewarded for this in some areas as the living network being reconnected can also open doors and whilst it may be simple for you to find your way back to somewhere you have been you need to build this network without gaps and that is where the challenge lies.
A challenge or sadly, a faff.

The alternative “true ending” is something that I really applaud the game for as an idea, it turns the game on its head. It gives the story more interesting purpose and a better moral message than most.
In reality though, it becomes a slog too quickly. Having to start loops to see the consequences of your actions, changing what you have planted in fiddly ways with little help in terms of how things are marked or described. Spending so much time retreading the same ground over and over, it adds length to the game which may be viewed as value, but for me felt like it just outstayed its welcome to show that it was smart.

Metroidvanias at their best have a great flow of progression and sadly because all the major upgrades of the extractor are found when you’ve done the Destruction finish, you’re no longer getting those endorphins for what is 200% more game.

In the simplest terms my feelings on this game peaked at a 4.5 and came crashing down to a 3 as I struggled and grinded to get the last few plants down in the places the game wanted without guidance. As my playtime went from 7-8 hours for one ending to 20+ for the other, I questioned why I was even bothering and if I even liked the game.
Ultimately I do but I resent the game as much as I adore it.

Ultros is a recommendation from me, but purely because it does do so many smart and interesting things that are worth checking out.
The difficulty I find finishing here is giving advice on how someone else should finish the game.
It would be easy to say that if you do not connect with the gardening aspect in a significant way, play to the destruction ending and leave it - I just worry you’re missing not only things the game wants to show you but the things it’s trying to teach you too.

After Tetris you would think that there were only so many tile matching style score-attack puzzle game systems that exist. Whilst it’s a subgenre that hasn’t had the hugest innovations over the years it is a well that has been repeatedly visited by games over and over again and one that I will quite happily take a sip from each time.

Back in 2005 it was Kirby’s dad Masahiro Sakurai’s turn and alongside was the dual screens of Nintendo’s handheld system of the time.
What he came up with was fairly innovative, some good fun but ultimately for me, not one I can see being in my rotation of puzzlers to go back to and relax with.

Meteos like many of its kind before have blocks drop from the top of the screen, you cannot turn them but with the stylus slide a single block up and down columns where you please.
One big difference here is matching does not instantly delete blocks (in most cases), match three vertically and the entire column fires up like a rocket, match horizontally and they become platform lifting all the blocks above them.
Ultimately you are sending the falling blocks, or meteors, back into space and potentially towards an enemy's planet - this being the main theme throughout the game.

Sakurai has stated that the game wasn’t initially targeted for DS but says, and I agree, that use of the stylus made the block sliding and matching feel much more fluid and faster than via a d-pad.
From my perspective I really appreciate sending the meteors off the top of the touchscreen and seeing the explosions and results at the top, but when the game picks up speed and difficulty I find myself not seeing any of it which is a shame.

Meteos interplanetary theme brings in a few other innovations and a surprising amount of variety in what is a well covered genre.
Each planet has different block rates, each has their own rules, be that being faster, slower, vertical or horizontal combinations being more powerful or other slight changes to the feel of play.
As you would expect each planet has its own background and even different block art but however much this fits the theme I found many of these quite ugly to look at, some being more difficult to match at speed than others and when that is your primary objective it isn’t ideal.
Overall I never fell in love with Meteos presentation but I could not call it bad, the menus have a very Smash Bros. feel which isn’t surprising and keeps even the menus feeling exciting yet simple to navigate.

Sending falling blocks directly back up rather than destroying them is definitely an interesting innovation. The feel of lining another horizontal row of blocks as your original struggles to reach the top, causing a small boost, is quite enjoyable but not as snappy and as satisfying late Puyo colour match or a T-spin.

If, like me, you enjoy falling blocks then this is definitely one you should try and the DS is a fantastic way to enjoy the genre. However you’ll probably find your way back to Puyo Puyo, Panel de Pon or the Daddy which is Tetris in no time.

When people speak about Nintendo fans, they tend to assume that their fandom is wrapped up in nostalgia, that these fanatics can’t let go of their love for the SNES, N64 or whichever console they may have grown up with.

I would admit to being a Nintendo fan, however I do not have this history. Whilst I have spent time with those machines I never owned a Nintendo home console until the Wii.
My main adoration for Nintendo comes from, not just their typically high quality but how they approach different genres with their own, usually family friendly, approach and innovate rather than just attempt to make a perfect version of titles that have come before.

Splatoon as a series is that for me. An online shooter that outside of some of its controls and the simple interaction of aiming a target and firing, could not be further away from what most people imagine of when thinking about the genre.

Side Order, to a lesser extent is Nintendo doing the same with roguelites - a genre that has grown in popularity over the past few years and one I find myself playing quite a lot.
The innovations here aren’t as big as a Mario Kart or Pikmin but the approach is different and interesting.
In Side Order you are climbing up a tower floor by floor, picking up power ups along the way, having a different build each run you make and fighting varying versions of the same battle each time, with a selection of bosses and the lite elements of permanent upgrades you can apply to help you reach the peak more efficiently and more often.
This is standard rougelite action.

One change to the approach is a reduction in randomisation.
First come the upgrades, in Side Order known as Colour chips for your Palette.
Each run you pick a Palette for the returning Eight of Octo Expansion, Palettes are your character build - a set weapon, sub and special based upon existing Splatoon regulars such as Callie, Marie, Pearl, Marina and more.
As you rise up the tower you are awarded Colour chips to add to these Palettes, which in game look like a MIDI pad of sorts and can be played like one, depending on your Palette choice certain Colour Chips are more likely to appear. This reduces the randomisation which is one thing that gives Side Order a lighter feel but also means you aren’t frustratingly getting things you do not want.
The Colour Chips themselves are buffs to your weapons and gear in the ways you would expect, more damage, faster firing, more paint, a lot of the things you can do in normal multiplayer and like there these can stack, but to degrees where you can eventually create insanely powerful weapons which you will need to keep away the hordes of enemies.

Randomisation of these chips is further reduced by picking what your reward will be each floor.
This isn’t particularly different from a lot of other games in the genre, but you are also picking in your choice of three, what mission type you are doing and what map and difficulty setting they will be.
As you would expect Easy will pay you less in game currency than Rigorous, the hardest difficulty but knowing the mission type and sometimes the map itself will make runs easier as you get an understanding of not only what your loadout is good for but what you find easier yourself.
These missions come in a few flavours. First are destroying portals, spawn points for the enemies - the Jelletons. Next is an escort style like Tower Control in the main game, except here rather than riding the device you need to constantly fill it with paint to get it to the end of its journey. There are also Splat zones and the two final mission types involve pushing large balls into their goals and chasing down fleeing enemies.
All of these will have Jelletons spawning from portals or drains similar to where Salmonids spawn in Salmon Run.
Much like Salmon Run there is a great variety of enemies, from little jobbers who just rush you to springing enemies and Beyblade-like spinning ones which leave handy devices behind as they are splatted. It doesn’t take long for you to see the entire variety quickly but depending on what enemies are more regular can truly switch up how you will play each mission.

Overall between the different enemies, exciting bosses, varying missions, a great variety of upgrades and more Palettes to unlock as well as “hacks” (the permanent buffs) Side Order gives you many reasons to play through again and again or just have a really enjoyable time getting to those final credits the first time.

However, the praise for variety is deserved but it does feel lacking in one way - especially as a single player campaign when we compare to what has come before.
With this, it’s the levels themselves. It is not the biggest gripe because for the game type to work it cannot diverge too often but the innovation seen in Octo Expansion isn’t quite here.
Many levels are the same place with a different objective and all stages due to the aesthetic look similar. This VR missions vibe is on purpose and goes with the theme, but I would not be able to write this without saying that it was a little disappointing.
Really though Splatoon 3’s Rise of the Mammalians is where level innovation is if you want it so it’s not as if Nintendo has kept us starved. It’s just a shame because outside of the bosses Side Order doesn’t feel as clever as other single player things this series has done before.

If you’re a fan of Splatoon it may be obvious to say that more of the same is going to keep you happy but Side Order really does do that job extremely well.
As a continuation of the series it builds upon the lore, bringing back characters from Splatoon 2 to the forefront and playing with a story that comes off the back of that game’s final Splatfest.
It really does show that Splatoon is its own universe and that has been invested in and planned with, references are not purely Easter Eggs, they are developed characters, world building and more and it’s enjoyable to witness.
Side Order does what Splatoon does best with nailing great music and aesthetic. The monochrome world of the “memverse,” the virtual space you are residing in, strangely feels colourful. It’s exciting even with blacks, white and shades of grey - sure part of this is from the paint you spread yourself but even that being muted it doesn’t matter, the splashes, the sounds, even the shapes and backgrounds of the levels just make everything jump out of the screen.
The music has some playful tunes that become harsher sounding on more difficult levels and the ambient theme inside the lift as your progress up the tower becomes distorted the closer you are to the top, adding to the feel and theme.
The bosses are exciting, the dialogue is interesting and fun and the cutscenes (although not always skippable which is bad) are fairly epic and definitely get you excited especially around the finale.

Side Order is not the very peak of what this series has had to offer but it’s a great, interesting new addition to the series that does feel worthy of being a new separate piece of the Splatoon puzzle just as Salmon Run did before and I hope we see more of this in a Splatoon 4.
Considering the relatively young age of this series it already has its hooks fully in me that seeing the Splatoon 2 characters and the hub again made me feel nostalgic… nostalgic for a console I was actually still playing and a game I still have on my shelf, but that is the power of the world they’ve built.

Side Order for some may be their new favourite mode, others will just want to try it out but I believe all Splatoon fans will at least have a great time ascending to the top of the spire at least once.
For me, I just need to prepare to tell myself enough is enough as I collect every little goodie this DLC has to offer.

This is what you do to yourself when you are a fan of something so deeply, you put money towards something you know is going to be no good. Not on the off chance that it is, but on the off chance it’s fine, “enjoyable enough”.

Transformers: Earthspark - Expedition reaches that low bar.

TFEE is a third-person action adventure with small open-world hubs that you explore as Transformers poster child, Bumblebee.
To briefly explain for the non-transformers marks, Earthspark is the latest TV series which is based in a time after the long war between the Autobots and Decepticons.
In this series, Megatron is a friend of the Autobots and not the big bad villain. Some rebellious Decepticons still exist, either as criminals, having old grudges or whatever - none of that is really relevant to TFEE.
The big spin on things in Earthspark is that the new batch of Transformers this show adds are born on and from Earth, linked to the human protagonists. These are the Terrans.

Post-war Bumblebee, typically the scout and younger member of the crew is the one with seniority and teaches the Terrans everything they need to know about being a Transformer.
The villain of the series is a Dr Meridian also known as Mandroid who uses his smarts and Cybertronian tech for evil.
In TFEE he is believed to be defeated but is somehow about and going to cause some big destructive plan that can only be stopped by the hero Bumblebee collecting three cubes that are part of an Energon Activator from where Mandroid seems to be mining.

In even simpler terms, you play Bumblebee - a yellow robot who becomes a car and you search three different places for magical cubes.

The story is fine, it has some small twists and is written well enough.
I would say the dialogue is good but here are two caveats just to start.
First, the voice acting isn’t bad per-say but it’s based on an existing TV series and the characters do not have the same voice actors and worse still some don’t even sound remotely close to how they do in the show.
Optimus Prime for example sounds nothing like any version of the fatherly figure I am used to hearing, it was so off putting that it caused me to read faster to skip through dialogue as quickly as I could.
The second part is that there are repeated lines. Games used repeated grunts and phrases all the time but the repeated lines are sometimes ones that are particularly long and used again in different levels with large gaps between and it is very jarring - it’s one of many things that feel like this game was cutting as many corners as it could.

The game play is basic, the big positive is the form the game takes - although there is not enough of it.
Bumblebee can drive, jump around and fight enemies across the different small open worlds, finding collectibles, clearly out camps of enemies and doing small side missions for the Terrans who are dotted about each map.
It’s open world gaming boiled down to an early 00’s feel, which isn’t fantastic but is greatly enhanced by unlocking abilities in a Metroidvania style way and encouraging you to dive back for extras… or not. One thing TFEE does well is respect your time, the levels never feel too big, there aren’t hundreds of things to find and it is never too taxing to get to things you can see on the map as long as you have the unlocked abilities to get there.

As a skeleton, the hub leading to a few open worlds with similar missions that add some increasing complexity as you progress is a very good one. Sadly the skin and the insides are of a basic to sometimes rotting quality.

Within these worlds you are doing two main things, fighting and traversing.
Neither of these are offensively bad but they all feel very simple, stripped back and something you’d have expected as a budget game fifteen years ago.

The combat has punch and kick combos, you can unlock more as you progress.
Bumblebee can shoot to fill a stun bar on enemies to get attacks in easier and dodging along with a Witch-Time style upgrade makes you think for all of a nanosecond that this may be as fun to play as Platinum’s Transformers: Devastation.
It is not.
Combos can lock you into odd animations, the feedback from being hit to doing a special attack feels lacking and the special moves you can unlock add virtually nothing, the combos adding a little more than nothing but not enough.

Traversal mostly involves driving which is all done on the left stick, no driving controls or extra buttons outside of a nitro you gain later. It feels acceptable but never good or exciting, it does however feel preferable to the very floaty and imprecise jumping which thankfully the game doesn’t make you do too much of.
Transforming on one button is nice, and the metroidvania-like unlocks are good in their ideas but boring in execution.

A better, further developed game would see things like the one-button conversion be implemented directly into the combat alongside all the bonus abilities, not just the one.
Thankfully the game feels so light and simple that I never felt the combat became completely tedious but I could see many others not feeling the same way and I would totally understand.

Corners don’t feel cut simply in voice acting, combat and exploration.
The graphics are fine, it looks quite basic and I would say “early PS4” but by no means bad.
The sound however, the car hum is unsatisfying, the music outside of the opening menu is virtually non-existent and some of the sounds you have when doing what is meant to be a devastating special attack are pathetic.

Transformers: Earthspark - Expedition is a game with an obviously low budget, aimed at a younger audience with I can only assume the hopes that all is basic gameplay and cut corners won’t go noticed by the kid that just bloody loves them transforming robots.
It is hard for me to call the game terrible, it’s barely bad, really it is just poor - serviceable but lazy.
As a fan you will take things that are less-than if you love the franchise enough. I never once felt bad or annoyed playing the game but thinking about the fact I spent money on this rather than something else makes me regretful.
Looking back on my time with it, it was a fine distraction but to analyse any part of the game is to put it in a bad light.
If you love Transformers, maybe give this game a go but do not spend any “real amount” of money on it because you’ll kick yourself for doing so when there’s so many other much better games out there.

Videoverse is a beautifully written love letter to many things, the early 00’s, the Internet and Video Games themselves.

Taking place during a fictionalised version of 2003, similar to our own, we take some control and see the eyes through the world of 15 year old Emmett or eMMe-T_T as his name presents himself online in a fashion very much of the time.
Born in England but living in Germany, Emmett spends a lot of his time on his gaming machine the Kinmoku Shark - an dual screen, laptop come Wii U type console which he plays his favourite game Feudal Fantasy and engages through an online community via the titular Videoverse.

Although the Shark and the often very similar sounding video games people are playing are fictional, the world itself feels so real and gives a great sense of nostalgia. I’d have been a little older than Emmett in 2003 but I still had similar loves and concerns.
I was a nerd into anime and video games, I had friends online I speak to and see less often than I’d like, really the only difference between then and now is the tech and that I’ve had romantic relationships - something Emmett is clearly interested in and a large potential piece of his story.

The interface of the Shark feels so real, with its own start up theme, advertisement banners around Videoverse, liking, sharing and more with posts. Outside of the machine itself Emmett’s desk has a calendar, a couple of notepads (helpful for the player) and usually food wrappers and a magazine that gives you a greater impression of the greater gaming world outside of Emmett’s desk. I could go on about every little touch, graphic and animation but simply put Videoverse really sells itself as something that has happened and is lived in.

Nostalgia isn’t the only feeling Videoverse has strongly stirred up inside of my soul, at time of writing we’re all probably quite familiar with how Twitter is dying and for some of us, myself included, although not a perfect place - losing it would be a real upset and a hard adjustment to make.
Much like myself with Twitter in real life, Emmett has been on Videoverse for years.
They’re made many friendships there and it is quite possibly their main point of social interaction. This is where the drama comes in, as much like Twitter seems to be going the way of the Dodo the Videoverse site, which again is like a - twitter, discord, Wii U Miiverse-alike, is closing down.
Within the game’s universe, it isn’t because an idiot billionaire has taken it over and run it into the ground but much like the Wii U, a clear inspiration on the game, the Shark is being replaced by a new console - The Dolphin.

Alongside the new generation of console is the closing of Videoverse for “Ocean Online” and that uncertainty of the future, what may be lost with the change due to a whole manner of things, be it financial, general interest or whatever else causes some turmoil in Emmett’s life and many others.

Videoverse’s main view is a group of Miiverse looking communities that people can post words, pictures and which can be liked and replied to. There are four groups that Emmett interacts with, one off-topic and one general but a pair linked to his interests in Feudal Fantasy and art.
These community forums are very reminiscent of what you may see in real life, people clearly making friendships, others being antagonistic to straight up problematic, people airing their drama and people just wanting to have fun and having little idea about what else is going on.
Your control here is liking posts where you see fit, making new posts or replies based on a trio of choices and hitting that report button on what you would like to see less of.

To talk over every scenario would spoil the game, but the game deals extremely realistically with every possible Internet drama you could imagine and although you do not completely shape this world your interactions will directly push you into (or out) of specific scenarios with occasionally heart-wrenching and thought provoking outcomes.

Without spoiling every one of them, one of the other main points of interaction are between Emmett and the wonderfully realised characters from friends to regular posters.
Some of these Emmett will go away from the forum and privately chat, with the Shark having a personal messenger that uses text and a webcam.
Emmett will get conversational choices as the chats move on, sometimes with locked options depending on how your Emmett has acted.
These parts paint great amounts of colour into the world, his friends which you can be as warm or cold to as you like will act differently according to what you’ve said and how you’ve interacted with the public side of Videoverse.

Between these two parts of Videoverse and Emmett’s fandom of art and Feudal Fantasy, he discovers and befriends someone new named ViVi.
Much like any interaction with new people online this sees Emmett faced with many questions, of who they are, where they’re from, their gender, their age, profession and more.
As you’d expect most of these mysteries are quickly answered by befriending ViVi but that leads to the even more grounded feeling of showing yourself, maintaining a friendship, dealing with expectations, your own values and more.

Much like I said the world of Videoverse feels real and lived in, so do these interactions.
There’s a strange nostalgia as although these are Emmett’s experiences they feel much like ones that I have had and I imagine reflect things from the developer Lucy Blundell’s past too (something that could also be delved into more but I already know the word count here is going to be high).

Throughout the game there are twists and turns, all dramatic but realistic, at times I felt truly upset, annoyed, happy, gutted and more and this is all down to how well everyone is written and realised and how grounded this fictional world really is.
The only points where the game really threw some barriers between my connection with (or as) Emmett was when he would say things without choices that I would have left unsaid or not even thought about - an issue that is realistically impossible to fully get over, after all we are playing a role of this 15 year old lad, we are not actually them, but one that does not stop feeling bad when things don’t play out how we’d like.

It is easy to categorise Videoverse as a Visual Novel.
VN’s are a genre that I enjoy but have struggled with when it comes to lack of interaction but Videoverse absolutely nails its pacing and flow in story and gameplay.
Checking the forums each day, liking posts, making replies and responding to interactions feel engrossing in the way any social media platform does when it is at its best.
You gain some endorphins on the way not only from the responses the game gives you but the small themes you unlock on the way and all of this is just tasty filler between deeper private conversations with a whole game wrapped in small cutscenes from Feudal Fantasy that give Emmett’s life more realistic structure and also keeps involved in his universe just that little more.

Peaking at the game's trophies it is wonderful to see that so many decisions can branch off in very different ways. Once I was done however this did make me feel a little torn.
I don’t care so much about checking those lists off but much like looking at my own past it made me wonder about the “what ifs” and whether I would actually change decisions or not and because this is a video game and I can at least see those, I was very tempted to but - will I?

It’s a double edged sword having these types of narratives forks in the road. I love that my Emmett may not be the same as someone else’s, but the tease of the possibilities blocked by the time it would take to see them is a nasty cut to the heart.

In conclusion, I loved Videoverse. This truly deserved to be placed in many people’s top games of 2023. Looking at my own, the nearest thing was Paranormasight and whilst I prefer that game for its spooky themes and presentation, Videoverse made me feel more, kept my attention better and in general is an easier recommendation.

A completely inoffensive little puzzle game that gives The Room vibes (the video game not the Tommy Wiseau joint).
Free on Epic games, I played this over three days but could see mobile being the better format for it by adding a little extra enjoyment to the whole thing with a small sense of tactility.

To sum Doors up, you have little Door based dioramas that you can interact with, pick up items such as levers and keys, find where they are placed, turn or twist and so on until the door opens and you’re done. Each stage has two hidden gems and a scroll to add a little more challenge or replayability to the bitesize puzzles and collecting those gems unlocks extra stages at the end of each chapter for a total of just under sixty “door-o-ramas” to enjoy.

Doors strength outside of being a nice breezy experience is the inventiveness in some of its stages, themes ranging from steampunk to ancient aztec to pirates and more give some interactions you wouldn’t have expected and a somewhat fresh experience each time.
I say somewhat because the level of the puzzles is very simple and also quite similar, matching puzzles, tile sliding etc.

A weakness however in Doors is its attempt at a narrative, unlocked through reading scrolls. It’s all quite vague, “Chaos vs Order” and really just feels unnecessary. I can see the inspiration from The Room here but whilst the plot was never the biggest draw of that series it actually felt intriguing and not like total filler.
Another small annoyance, a specific issue for me and my terrible short term memory is that there is no mark on the screen for whether you’ve found the scroll or either gem.
These tasks are so small there feels like no reason to pass them, but getting through a stage to find that actually, you didn’t get the blue gem, because a lot of it blends together in the mind is truly an irritation that would be overcome by the smallest of UI.
Lastly some interactions via clicking feel either too precise or imprecise, giving you the assumption that you can’t do something you can or whipping you around the diorama because you’ve hit a pixel through a gap to the otherside.
These annoyances are all very small and not deal breakers but they do damage an otherwise extremely relaxed experience.

If you’re a fan of The Room or just want a small puzzly game to fiddle with in bitesize chunks, Doors: Paradox is worth a go.
Free on Epic and free but with in-app purchases on the phone (it may be broken down into three titles on that format) is the best price for it.

For a good while now I have made it evident that I am huge fan of the Zero Escape games, I have persuaded many friends to play, go back to or even stream the game series and it easily sits within the echelon of GOATs for me, including my top 5 games here on backloggd.

AI: The Somnium Files, was a game I was very excited for - bought on launch (or thereabouts) and whilst it didn’t hit quite the right notes for me, I did thoroughly enjoy it.
Since then I’ve been chasing that Zero Escape level of enjoyment.
I started the Danganronpa series, which I feel off of for a combination of reasons. Watched more Japanese and Korean crime tv. The nearest anything has got to it was 2023’s Paranormasight.

So, why has it taken me so long to play nirvanA Initiative? Honestly, I have no good reason.
Sometimes games pass you by and for me wanting to pick it up after launch it took me a while before finding it at a price, I was happy to pay for an “old” game. Told you I had no good reason.

I’ll start here as I speak about the game by saying, I really enjoyed it. The first AI didn’t really stick with me, but this one has me much more excited to spread the good word and I think thanks to Uchikoshi pulling a few more Zero Escape style tricks, this game will be on I think about for a while.

AI 2 takes place in the same universe as the first, a near-future world with many similarities to our own but with some key differences in the jobs and technology our protagonists are involved with.
In this title we get a duo of protagonists in part due to Special Agent Kaname Date from the first title taking his holidays. Instead, we play as Kuroto Ryuki and the Date’s adopted daughter Mizuki. They’re job is the same as Date’s before, they work for “ABIS” the Advanced Brain Investigation Squad - in short they are police but also “Psyncers”.
If like me you enjoyed The Minority Report, with its precrime etc. you’ll enjoy AI’s main gimmick.
To put it simply the Somnium of the games’ title refers to a dreamscape, Somnium being Latin for dream after all. The agents can “psync” with someone to explore their dreams, see things from their past or unveil secrets they may be hiding.

The Somnium as a game device is genius before we even think about it mechanically.
It allows the game to give us very interesting and varied locations to explore that don’t need to make sense as they all follow dream logic.
Secondly, because these are dreams of an individual, we get the narrative device or unreliable narrators throughout as to how things may look or seem are from the dreamer’s perspective.
Without spoiling the plot or the many surprises this game has I can confidently say that these Somnium spaces will go places you do not expect, some fun, some dark, but all entertaining.
Within these different mechanics can be bought in and thrown away and the game itself can even slightly change its own themes and genre due to them.

The other main gimmick of the AI games are the AI-balls themselves.
Date’s partner Aiba returns in the left socket of Mizuki, while we are introduced to Tama - Ryuki’s partner.
These little AI robot-things give our main protagonists skills in the outside world, some things like zooms, video playback, x-ray vision and more to make them better detectives and give a great in-world reason to give the player lots of varied and interesting tools to solve things or simply engage with the story.
Within Somnium is where we control Aiba or Tama as they are the ones to physically (if we can call it that) navigate those dreamscapes.

Outside of the Somnium we also get VR sections, where the AI-ball can fully recreate a crime scene so that the detectives can check things without interference and in-game allow them to recreate what they conclude has happened to better understand it and show it to the person playing.
Where Somnium has its own rules and very strange, sometimes whacky interactions, the VR crime scenes feel a little more grounded and straight-faced… to a degree.

I say to a degree because one thing that I am not the biggest fan of but at times did enjoy is AI’s comedy. There’s a lot of gags, some great comedic dialogue and strange characters but the thing that typically puts me off is the weird-horniness that I have felt creeps far too often into any narrative based Japanese game.

The horniness is still here, you can see it straight off the bat with a lot of the character designs.
In the first title Date had a “porno-power” gag that at best made me smirk, which thankfully is mostly not here but that doesn’t stop many conversations leaning towards people being perverts or being accused of it.
Everyone is going to have a different line with how much of that type of comedy they will be ok with and the fact I mention it shows that I have a line but I would say this game rarely crossed it.
In fact it does many things that I was pleasantly surprised by, that being its handling of romance and also LGTBQ+ people.
I will also state clearly here that I don’t believe the horniness ever gets in the way of the many serious conversations and subject matters the game hits upon - which is a fear I have when playing something like this that I am enjoying.

To step back into speaking about the protagonists, again without any major spoilers, the game has two characters because the main plot involves a story, the HB case, in which Ryuki and a younger Mizuki were involved with and the serial killer seems to return six years later - where we get to investigate as an older Mizuki (with Aiba).
The HB case is the Half Body murders. It is as strange as it sounds and leads you into meeting a vast array of people and friends from the past, including a failing comedian, children from an orphanage, gene-scientists and cult leaders.
If you enjoyed Zero Escape for its, let’s call it education, then you will enjoy this too as this game uses many different ideas, historical happenings and philosophies that you will feel you have to go down a wiki hole about them - thankfully the game itself also contains a file on trivia, a highlight for me as there are multiple pages that explain wrestling moves.

AI 2 isn’t without faults, thankfully most of these sit within the boring technical side of things.
I played this on Switch and had four separate crashes to Home. The game gave saves often and ZR allows you to fast forward so it never took too much time getting back to the point I was at but obviously it’s less than ideal and can really break the immersion.
The other two much smaller technical issues that can break immersion also are the characters, specifically their heads in the lower-third to show who is speaking would sometimes have glitchy things like bouncy or clipping strands of hair. The second is the frame rate, this game isn’t one where that matters greatly but either when showing videos, transitioning in and out of Somnium and sometimes when changing those talking heads - the game visibly chugs.

The other fault for me is that the combat sequences, while kind of fun are more often than expected, narratively play out almost the same every time and the QTEs are just crap.
They’re never too taxing but they also don’t have a great logic to when they do and don’t appear and really don’t add anything to the scenes except a chance to fail and have to repeat.
Admittedly you can change the difficulty but I simply don’t think it’s an element this game even needs.

Overall AI The Somnium Files: nirvanA Initiative is fantastic, especially so if you are Uchikoshi-pilled like me. It’s a great story, with amazing twists, wonderful characters and a believable if sometimes silly world that will make you think about it once you’re done.
It has a decent amount of in-game rewards and achievements if that is something you crave and come in at a reasonable playtime of 20 hours give or take a few depending on how quick you are to solve things and how much you want to dig.

Finally getting around to AI2 makes me feel good, as I look at the past and towards the future.
I look at the past and now consider even more heavily trying some of Kotaro Uchikoshi’s previous VN series, and I look forward to the future as this shows that Zero Escape was not a complete fluke and that we can get more of that same goodness I crave.

As of writing, in recent gaming related news it has been announced the quite excellent video game Until Dawn is getting turned into a film. Even if we are to ignore the relatively poor hit rate of video game adaptations the reason for doing this is extremely lacking.
Until Dawn is an ode to teen slasher movies, but using the medium of video games instead of cinema allows for branching paths specific to the player, turning this thing based on a movie into a movie actually strips out what makes it unique.

Now, you’re probably wondering why you’re reading about a totally different video game but this recent story came to mind when I was thinking about writing about my experience with The Wreck.

For all intents and purposes, The Wreck is a Visual Novel. You are spending most of your time with it simply listening and/or reading while there are some usually static images, well framed and cut but I will return to that.
The interactivity is extremely low, you sometimes click on key words in text to create dialogue choices and in other sections you can fast forward and rewind with the only objective being again, to find words to click on.

I have written time and time again about my love but struggle with VNs, much like the opening argument - it could be argued that if your story is essentially a book then why use the medium of video games?
If the medium needs more than words, but no interactivity then why not pick comics, animation or live-action films?
My struggle here is that I both find this argument to be reductive but partly agree. I find it difficult getting absorbed into a game where as the player I’m not playing.

At first The Wreck was no different, I played it in very small chunks because I’ve got the 2024 attention span - I’m not on TikTok but I do feel the need to be actively doing something and it’s the same reason I struggle to get through TV series, even it is something I love.
However this game, once its emotional beats really started to hit hard (because they were hitting from the start) I had to see it through.

With a game that is 99% story I don’t want to be giving even the slightest spoilers because all I have done is change its medium and like what may (likely) happen with the Until Dawn movie, I will be stripping away a lot of what makes it good.

The Wreck has you follow the protagonist Junon who has been called to hospital because her mother is on death’s door. This alone is something dramatic but the twist and where the intrigue starts is you quickly discover that Junon and Marie, her mother who she speaks about by name, do not have the best relationship and the papers which the hospital believes Junon signed were by her mum - leaving Junon in control and to a degree her mum’s life in her hands.

Understandably this is hard for Junon to process and decides to get in her car and leave, this is where a wreck happens but I will refrain from calling it The Wreck.
During this crash items come flying out of Junon’s handbag and clicking on one sends you into one of her memories.
Within the memory Junon narrates as you fly about scenes of her past and you are then sent through again with the ability to speed through or go back. As mentioned previously, this reveals words which bring out more thoughts and eventually greater realisations for Junon.
Once she remembers and/or realises what she needs to move on, time rewinds.
You and Junon are then pulled back to a previous conversation where a new option appears and helps her move on.

As the game progresses, Junon gets into conversations with many people in her life, decides to leave, crashes, you see another memory, come to a conclusion and zip - the story moves on, and this is how it plays out from beginning to end.

As these scenes build your understanding of Junon, and the people around Her’s lives become deeper but more understandable. Without specifics, this game covers love, hate, regret, pain, trauma and a whole load of difficult things that will make many people weep as they play.
This game doesn’t have difficulty settings, but it is hard in a fulfilling way.

The final reason I started with the Until Dawn chat is that The Wreck too is a love letter to cinema.
Not as directly in terms of trying to emulate a genre specifically, but for a game with very small amounts of animation it is still extremely cinematic. Junon as a character also is a movie lover and speaks about different elements of that passion throughout.
To just read this story would lose the impact of some of the quality voice acting, the great use of sound and inventive types of framing and more used within the memory sequences and more.

Your choices in dialogue are mostly quite restrictive, very few decisions change where things end up and sadly like many VNs you are given more of an illusion of choice than a completely unique experience to anyone else who plays it.
The moving forwards and backwards in memories is interactive by definition but barely feels it, it somewhat keeps you active but sadly feels like a bad version of “Where’s Wally?” at times where Wally is a blurry word on the screen.

Deciding whether or not The Wreck would be better in another medium is tough.
I think it would lose a lot if it were a book not a game, but a film? I’m unsure if you'd lose much outside of a film, other than it would be shorter and probably less repetitive in structure.

Ultimately, I found the story powerful and affecting. The presentation was mostly really nice outside of some character models occasionally looking dead behind the eyes and limited frames for speaking being a little off-putting.
I would have liked more in the way of choices feeling as if they mattered but this game has its story to tell and I can respect it doesn’t want too many deviations.

In truth, you already know if you like this sort of game. If you’re on the fence there is a demo although it does the sinful thing of not allowing you to follow it on if you do decide to purchase the game. Give it a go, just please, read the trigger warnings before you dive into it.
Life can be beautiful but it also harsh.

Right here off the top I feel I need to give a short and lazy explanation of what this game is.
For those with a small working knowledge of indie titles, Cobalt Core = FTL X Slay the Spire.
For those not jamming with that equation, Cobalt Core is a roguelike deck builder where you control a spaceship and have three crew members (at a time) each with their own specialities as you try to head to an end point through branching paths, repairing, upgrading and obtaining new things as you go.

Roguelike deck builders are something I have always enjoyed, with a background in tabletop games, spending years of my life rolling dice, moving miniatures, shuffling cards and more. This genre was laser targeted at my interests.
However the genre is not particularly niche and there are many games under that banner.
It will be a turn off for some, a barrier that you may not be able to get past but I would like to explain why this one in particular is special to me.

To speak more to the fans of the genre, Cobalt Core is neither the deepest or most balanced of these games.
It has a wonderful story but nothing that gets close to being as intriguing as Inscryption.
What it does have over virtually all of the games in this genre I’ve played is that it feels better than all of them.

To explain how a card game could feel better, I will briefly describe the average game of Cobalt Core.
Your ship, which as you progress more unlock but I will get to that later, is at the bottom of the screen. To the left side are the portraits of your three chosen crew mates who have added their cards to a basic deck which will represent their speciality, be it a pilot, an engineer, or a weapons officer.
At the top is the enemy, typically a ship. You draw cards, have energy which is an equivalent to action points, mana or whatever resource is easiest for you to imagine.
Like virtually all card games, the cards cost these resources each turn and it’s your decision how to play these out.

The target isn’t simply just a ship though, you and the enemy both have segments.
Your cannons fire directly in front, ships can also fire missiles or release drones.
Some parts may be weak whilst others are armoured and all these things mean that there isn’t just a strategy to what you’re playing but also about positioning because in Cobalt Core it’s just as much about being in the right place as it is having the right cards.

How this works is you get a heads up of what your enemy will be doing, where they’re firing, if it will cause a negative effect and importantly how much damage you will take if you are right in front of their cannons.
Here is where Cobalt Core differentiates itself from many card games and that movement is a strategic and exciting factor. It isn’t just attack and defend, those are represented but positioning is key and this is how the game feels more involved, even if perhaps simpler, than many others in the genre.

Swaying between cannon fire, positioning the part of your ship which is armoured to take the hit or, further into the game, using and even controlling a mid-row of objects such as meteors or missiles to deal the most, take the least and have the best turn is a lot of fun in each and every battle.

I’m sure there’s an argument that having all these different tools to your disposal can make things too easy, but your enemies get similar things and further into runs and especially on higher difficulties you are managing so much that the wide variety of tools may be great but the wild variety of bad situations you are facing can be greater.

The variety is here. There are eight different characters to unlock and five different ships; that's two-hundred and eighty different combinations before we even start to look at different cards and artifacts picked up along the way.
I’m sure there is much more in others but this is more than enough.
Building a crew that feels powerful is like any great card game, it’s not just the combinations you come up with but how your mind works with them, what sort of play-style you prefer.

As you unlock more ships, completely new strategies appear and you’ll be cursing out a ship for being crap with little understanding before wondering if actually it’s OP and not balanced later and that journey is fun.
Each card you pick up after a fight can later be upgraded, this breeds new strategies. While also collecting artifacts (permanent changes to your ship) will create even more.

I’ve explained the average battle but I should briefly explain the average campaign or run, and what the objective is.
As previously mentioned, the campaign map is much like FTL or even Inscryption (although left to right rather than foreground to background).
You can plan ahead looking down at the locations on each branch, and there are seven different icons (including the exit) you will see.
Three are similar, these are the enemies, elite enemies and all the way to the right is the boss.
This is simple to understand, the elites are harder but give you more rewards and the bosses are less random as you will learn what comes at the end of each sector as it is the same each time - how you plan to prepare for them is up to you.
Between these can be; events, artifacts and repair yards.
Events range from meeting NPCs which may give you new cards, ships in distress or even pirates wanting to steal from you.
Artifacts are simply a choice of a permanent upgrade that can dramatically change your strategies as you move on. Without wanting to spoil all that there is, some of these are as simple as extra energy each turn, better engines meaning you start with more movement or possibly interesting effects such as starting with less cards in hand but getting free draws for taking specific types of actions.
These artifacts come from a pool that are available on all runs, but also one's specific to the crew you have picked and even the ship itself.
Lastly is the repair yard, this is where you can, as you would imagine, get your ship repaired of some damage. However here you also get the opportunity to upgrade cards or remove them.
Removing them is for the classic case of “deck thinning” an important strategy and common knowledge to most card-gamers as having less cards means you’ll see your best cards more often.
Although sometimes you’ll be using the bin to rid yourself of a bad card you may have picked up along the way.
Upgrading is as you imagine, making a card better. Each card has two choices of upgrade, most typically these are the choice of cheaper cost or more powerful effect but as you progress it may be to add more effects or be rid of negative ones such as letting a card that is usually once per battle be more permanent.
As you can imagine, this is just another layer to the variety and strategy the game offers.

A single successful run will take around an hour, typically less as you play more of the game and get quicker at making decisions and fighting bosses.
If you manage to make a successful run you are rewarded with the chance to see a cutscene for one of your crew. I will not dive into the story to deeply but your characters are caught in a time loop, something happened to the titular Cobalt Core and getting to the end of these runs and confronting it allows you start piecing memories together to understand what is really at stake and how the crew ended up here in the first place.
Also if it wasn’t clear before, doing X amount of runs or things at higher difficulties may unlock more and the game politely points you in the direction of what to do if furthering the story isn’t enough.

The story itself I will say is good, heartwarming and funny thanks to the cast. A simple enough tale that is fun to unravel due to how it’s presented.
I feel that maybe they could have dug a deeper hole, but I respect the fun almost Star Fox like animal pals with the silly comedic panels, enemy designs and more along with some quality writing would maybe be at odds with anything too complex.
Really the lightness of it all helps the game feel so moreish. Runs aren’t long, dialogue isn’t too deep. You can pause when you like, come back when you want and it will always be fun.

If I had played it closer to release Cobalt Core would have been in my top five games of 2023 and that is extremely high praise.
There are small elements of the game that are not perfect, even ignoring that is may not be the deepest or most balanced of these games, simple things like the end of sector bosses never changing isn’t the best and maybe the toughest part is although everything an enemy is going to do seems heads up, how they are going to move is not and can really make or break some battles.
Outside of those two minor complaints there was never a moment while I was playing the game I thought the game needed changing. There are small dials that could use twisting and the balance and story not being the peak of what they can be is what keeps this “down”, to “only” being top five of one of the best years in gaming and not the very top.
Essentially what I am saying is as long as you enjoy deck builders you should be going out of your way to get this game and play it.

One of the fun things about the start of a new year is being able to hear everyone’s lists and rankings of their favourite things from the year past and to look out for yourself the things that sound interesting that either you didn’t have time for or weren’t even aware of.

Babbdi is one of those, as I was reading this article on Rock, Paper, Shotgun after already taking some notes of shorter indie titles I may have missed.
Funnily this game wouldn’t fall into my personal “qualifications” as a 2023 game due to it coming out a little more than a week before 2022 ended.

The top line on why you should also check this game out is that it is very short, easily completed in less than an hour and around two if you’re exploring a lot.
Also it is free and the system requirements are quite minimal so it isn’t going to be taxing for your pocket or your computer.

So, what the hell is Babbdi and why such a long introduction? Well, Babbdi is a game where you simply wander around a brutalist location, with twisted looking characters, trying out items one at a time on the simple quest of leaving this walled city.

The characters don’t have much to say, usually just speaking about what they are doing or hinting you towards your exit. Occasionally you’ll have small achievements to get via the denizens of this quite creepy place.
Items you find range from giving you different movement effects, to flashlights and other gadgets to help you search for secrets.
You can only hold one item at a time which on one hand can lead to further experimentation and saves you from getting confused with potential combinations or and inventory.
On the other hand the issue can become you don’t want to be rid of your favourite toy or perhaps you’ve found something that an item you had once before could help but you have no memory or guide to show you where you left it.

The game in its presentation and mechanics are in the politest way, janky.
This is clearly not by accident and the strangeness of the world and everything within creates a lot of intrigue that makes wandering around with what could be perceived as little to do quite fun.
An example item you get right at the start is a baseball bat, in any other game it would simply be for swinging at a ball or people’s heads. In Babbdi it can break some barriers but is actually used in what can be fairly described as a rocket jump.
This furthers adds to the strangeness and intrigue and gives the game huge potential to attempt to break it.
This however is a bit of a “Monkey’s Paw”.

By looking, sounding and feeling janky on purpose to create a feeling you unfortunately create potential barriers but worse within the jankiness can cause a bad time to be had in the game.
More than once I got my character completely stuck, there is only an autosave but I was lucky in closing down the game and returning freed my character of their trap.
More than once my searching for secrets would take me so far out to see absolutely nothing that I had no choice but to slowly go back (opening my phone in the other hand) and waste minutes doing absolutely nothing.
On one of these occasions I managed to get out of bounds, it is difficult to know where you are meant to be able to go when there are so many ways of breaking the traversal and in the case I could even get to a ship which had paintings on it, something that had to be placed by the devs, however trying to return was not only extremely slow but presented me with invisible walls that I had somehow passed through and needed to break back to get into the world or just delete all my progress and start again which sadly, did happen.

Now a game like this losing your progress may not be as bad as an RPG file becoming corrupted, as I stated at the start the game is very short. Still this was over an hour of progress and within the games restarted got rid of all my achievements (something it thankfully doesn’t do if you start another run on completion).
Being short Babbdi has instant replay value just out of curiosity but the game is designed to reward you, if in the most basic way, by giving you achievements and a list to check off that includes speaking to all the characters or even finishing the game within 4 minutes.

I may go back to doing these things as though my time with Babbdi wasn’t the greatest due to some technical problems, and the world feels repressive. It also was kind of fun and, the word I will use again - intriguing.

In a way I am confused as to why this game made the list of the article, I mentioned but, in another way, I can see how, with the right person, this can really dig its claws in and leave a lasting impression.

This is a review of "Keep It Alive" a short game by Daniel Mullins:
link here

With the announcement of Pony Island 2, I thought it was time for me to see if more of Mullin's game jam games were available as I had enjoyed Boba this year and previous entries such as "Sacrifices must be made" which became Inscryption.

I will start with a TLDR and that is whilst I do not think this game is as clever as either of the previous Jam games mentioned it is definitely worth your time and the zero it costs in money to grab a hold of.

Keep It Alive as the title refers to a heart, you’re a train driver in a pixel style quite reminiscent of Mullins other efforts - that has to crank a machine to keep this heart beating while also keeping the train filled with coal and the carriage defended as they all travel from Vancouver to Tijuana.
It’s an oddly fun but creepy premise which is what we’ve come to expect with Daniel Mullins’ games.

The genius of this little game is how it is played, WASD is all that is needed as you move your character left and right to the crank and coal, keeping your eye on the gauges above and occasionally using S to tie-up your laces (wasting time) and W to do something else which I will hold off from spoiling.

As far as a game like this goes, I cannot see it being extended into something large/full price but it does have some legs and would be a very interesting segment in a larger game.
You make some stops and there are some things that make the journey harder including terrain and outside interference which can create some chaos.
I could see this escalating further and even some extra tasks needing to be done still keeping to the simple controls if needed.
Overall it’s a very smart little game, that is well presented and manages to pique the imagination just a little in its extremely short run time and for how much you need to put into the game, it definitely gives you more back.

What a delightful little Holiday gift this was.
My gift to you is that this review will be well under a thousand words because really there is not much to say about Mobile Suit Baba that isn’t quite obvious.

First of all, I love the name. Mobile Suit Baba is brought to you by the creator of the word-pushing puzzle game Baba Is You, starring the same characters from that game and some of its mechanics.
Those unfamiliar, Baba Is You centred around pushing words to create simple sentences that would change the rules of the world. X is Y.
This would allow for many head scratching and chin rubbing moments as you were not just trying to move your character to their goal but changing what the goal was, what its properties may be, what even you are.

Mobile Suit Baba takes these mechanics and characters and places them in a familiar looking place of another Indie standout. Into the Breach.

Into the Breach, for those unfamiliar with that game, is a roguelite strategy game with mechs.
Rather than all out destruction being the mission, the game revolves around protecting cities, outlasting enemy invasions and usually doing so with clever manoeuvring more than death.
A lot of the battles would see your mechs flinging and pushing each other and enemies into advantageous positions and traps, playing keep away or simply some complete misdirection.
A key mechanic was seeing the turn order before you made your moves, this would create much more interesting scenarios than just the one push, and likely cause a chain reaction to create the perfect outcome.

Now simply, think about how both these games work. Take their mechanics and combine them and you have Mobile Suit Baba.
Movement and maps are very much ITB style but turn limits are much more about solving a BIY puzzle than surviving.
Baba and friends are protecting fruits against an evil that as the plot moves on, progresses through the map adding new characters with new mechanics along the way.
The game is a decent size, there are 43 stages in all and most of them allow a decent amount of creativity in getting your solution, even in some cases picking which line up of mechs you want to bring.

The story is fairly basic, silly, fun but the writing is decent and it never really interferes if you’re not interested.

All in, an easier and less stressful time than either BIY or ITB but probably the better for it.
The only real difficulty and perhaps frustration is that there are no hints, this is most likely down to their not typically being one way to solve a puzzle but with the fairly limited branches in stages it does mean if you’re stuck you’ve got little else to do.
Occasionally some death situations are not explained and although the game does involve trial and error, the second of cheapness can hinder what is otherwise a very smooth ride.

Mobile Suit Baba is definitely worth playing, it’s pay what you want and whilst I downloaded it for nothing I gave money afterwards because it had definitely earned it.
It’s good, it’s a clever mash-up of two games that ends up not being quite as good as either but I am certain Hempuli is more than aware of that and it is nice to just see a dev make a game, show their inspiration clearly and exclaim their love for another modern classic.

This title is a masterclass in the subgenre of puzzle-platformers that many indie games live in. The place where it isn’t just about going left to right and solving puzzles, but where it’s all about emotions, feelings, beautiful art, music and essentially just vibes.

Your character, never given a name during your time playing is an unknown red coat and hat wearing person who at first you are simply just moving from left to right with.
You learn, or more so confirm, movement is with the stick, you have a little jump and a button to pick items up. Interacting is simply done by picking up and placing objects or physically pushing your character into buttons or movable objects.
That’s it, except, you can zoom in and out.
A simple addition to a set of simple controls that enables you to feel the scale of what the protagonist is coming across, the vastness of the journey you are heading on and also the fine details and information that maybe can be taken from the world at their level.

Outside of some seagulls and other animals you move by, you are all alone in this world, heading forwards for honestly, an unknown reason. Freedom, back to someone, it is always never completely clear and still you feel things for this character as this journey continues.

I say that you as the protagonist are alone, but truthfully this isn’t quite the case as I see it.
Very early on through some basic puzzle solving you discover what is this game’s main thing: The Okomotive.
To describe the Okomotive as simply a vehicle almost feels reductive. True, it is a tool for your character to travel from A to B, to head towards the unknown in the right direction but over time it feels like so much more.
It feels almost like a companion, you take care of it as you must fuel it, stop fires and fix any potential mishaps.
Along your journey you find new ways to upgrade the Okomotive and each of these feels more fulfilling and more like a real gift than upgrades do in most other games.

I can only imagine the bond you feel with this big wheeled, trash eating, sail using car thing is what it is like to own and love a Classic or Vintage vehicle.
To say that before I even played this myself, watching @nightmaremodego stream this I got emotional about a car, feels wild but this game manages to do this.
The rollercoaster is not just the physical ride it takes but the emotions this game manages to surface along the way.

The art in FAR is beautiful, painterly, fascinating to absorb the worlds as you pass them and the weather changes.
The music is incredible and puts in so much work, you can feel excited, frightened, calm, proud - for such a short journey it would be a crime to explain each or any of these highs but they are there.

Earlier in the year I played a game that was much more of a “limbo clone” and it too had wonderful music and great art but it didn’t have as much soul as FAR, for it couldn’t hold a candle to what this game does. In that review I used words such as cute, nice and slow.
Those could apply to FAR but don’t cover it, instead majestic, fascinating and gentle are what come to mind.
In other version of this type of game I can find myself becoming bored, feeling that it is time for the next thing, in FAR I only ever felt this way when I would leave the Okomotive to find fuel far away and the only criticism I have is really grasping and that is I would like maybe one or two more bits to pick up easier - that’s it.

My advice, whenever you may be reading this, grab this game for the pennies it costs to get now. Stick your headphones in, shut out the rest of the world and play this through, even potentially in one sitting.
I am not expecting you to cry, but if you do play this and do not feel anything I would be shocked.

I have a great appreciation of Scotland, a lot of connection to it but it always feels distant.
Scottish friends, Scottish family, but miles between us although on the same island.

I’ve never roamed the highlands and I’m not sure I ever will but I can fit so much of it together in my mind, between stories I’ve read, tales that have been told to me and my own time living by heathland - I can respect and imagine the glory of it all.

A Highland Song captures the idea of journeying across these paths well, not following roads but paths by others, innovating ways across where nature has returned to block your way.
In a way the game could be seen as a 2D walking simulator, but due to the scale of the walk it very much has platforming elements too.
A brilliant edition is how the game replicates the idea of running through a long stretch of clearer land, hopping over stones and other tripping hazards but never needing to stop and climb. The wind flowing through Moira, the protagonist’s hair as she is inspired by the deer and wildlife. Rather than just holding left or right the B button initiates a sprint which becomes a rhythm game backed by beautiful classical Scottish music, plenty of flutes, that simply involve presses of X and Y where Moira needs to hop.

When the paths aren’t so clear, Moira is climbing, finding items, sheltering in overhangs, caves and preferably buildings from the typically wet weather as the game leads into Spring.
The climbing is simple, there is no stamina gauge you can see, but Moira will sound out of breath, she will eventually need to stop to get it back and when night falls not only will it be nearly impossible to see, even with a torch, but she’ll need somewhere safe to shelter or risk losing health that typically only drops if she’s managed to bump herself on a fall.

During all this climbing and running, your aim is to find peaks, get up high to survey the rest of the land in your grand journey to the sea - a lighthouse in the distant background that guides your way.
As you progress Moira will either have notes she has bought or maps and things she has found to help her journey from one peak to another. It gives the journey a back and forth feel as you may find a new guide but need to get back to the peak to see where this shortcut will be.
Occasionally there will be other things, even people that may help guide the way but a large element of this game is discovery and I don’t want to completely ruin that.

All in this game looks fantastic, the art is lovely, the sights for the peaks are wondrous and there is plenty of colour and emotion conveyed throughout every sight.
The voice acting is brilliant, I have some bias because I have been known to watch the protagonist’s VA on Twitch. In general it is so nice to hear actual Scottish voice actors using Scottish dialect, it adds authenticity to the story and helps you believe in the characters and their tales - I just wish more of it was voice acted than it is.

With my connection with Scotland, minor connection with this game and love for everything it is trying to do, A Highland Song had massive potential to sneak in as a Game of the Year for me.
Unfortunately though there were times where this song for me, was less a beautiful ballad and more similar to hold music with a company you don’t want to be speaking to.

Many elements of the game gave me minor annoyances. The rhythm game at first seemed exciting but when it first introduced a second button the icons were less clear and felt more of a gotcha than an increase in difficulty. This game made me feel incredibly stupid because it never gave me the prompt or tutorial of how to hop down from background to foreground and, not the only time, I felt I was stuck with no way to progress.

Progression can feel irritating. The idea of finding notes, picking out what is being highlighted while on a peak, to then find a shortcut or an item to lead you further down a treasure hunt is, on paper, great. When it works it is genuinely quite fun but the issue is finding these clues, these breadcrumbs as it were in the first place.
They are highlighted in classic video game shiny spot form but if you’re rushing you can easily miss these pop up and more often than not there is nothing else visually to show you there is something of interest to stop at.
Too often the maps lead you back to places you have already been and more often than it should the reason Moira didn’t notice the path when there the first time is extremely contrived.

Throughout this treasure trail are little items, these can be used to progress certain places or as offerings when you are at the peaks. Sadly I am reminded of older, less-good point and clicks too often with these - sometimes there is obvious logic of what you can use or what you need but too often you can just be clicking each option until something works.

The game itself encourages multiple playthroughs, the item finding leans into this as, for example - one time I discovered a stone with a hole in that looked towards the lighthouse but could not use it, on another run I had the correct item to combine and it gave me a short scene and only then did Moira see a path to go forwards.
This sounds like typical game logic, finding the blue door but without the blue key, but because it can be obtuse and backtracking isn’t encouraged as the game is leading you to make this journey in a set amount of time this “blue door” feels like a wall and often then just has you running in circles to either find that key or another exit.
Going around the same peak twice feels fine but beyond that it becomes tedious which is further exacerbated if you are aiming for a quicker time, more peaks found etc. on other playthroughs as the movement is good but not exciting enough to want to do the same thing over and over.

I spoke about moving from the background to foreground and this is another reason that traversal can also be an irritation. Sometimes the painterly art doesn’t make things clear, not being 3D also makes judging distances in a third direction hard to judge and this leads to experimentation which can go wrong, hurt the character, slow you down and once again lead to repetition.

There are other minor things, bits I didn’t love and after my second session with this game, I started to believe I might even hate it but in the end it was more that I was just disappointed.
I wanted to love this game, its art - audibly and visually is fantastic. Its ideas and innovations are great but the actual act of playing the game never felt amazing and the idea of repeating it for just a few drops of more goodness are not enticing to me at all.
It is strange, because when I see others praising something I didn’t enjoy I tend to believe that they must have gotten something out of it that I could not - but A Highland Song ticked so many boxes, I wouldn’t say it was ever like it was designed for me but it definitely falls into my interests and sadly that just made it a bitter pill to swallow.

The main question I have after playing this game is, where the hell is Treasure now?

If, like me, playing the Mega Drive as a child was a major part of why you’re into gaming, you probably love Gunstar Heroes and Treasure, that game’s developer.
I was very pleased to discover after looking this game up recently for a pair of reasons, that this was a Hitmaker/Treasure game as if I hadn’t already believed one source on this game being great that felt like a stamp of quality where I’d definitely enjoy my time at the very least if not have a brand new favourite.

reasons being Samuel Roberts of The Back Page Podcast calling this a GBA all-timer and the recent Pluto anime adaptation on Netflix.

All the hallmarks of what puts Treasure games, Gunstar Heroes and Alien Soldier especially on the map are here.
The pixel art is fantastic, the music is good, the combat mostly feels smooth and the level and boss variety keep the game from ever feeling completely repetitive which is important with simpler genres such as beat ‘em ups.

Really that simplification of genre and the console limitations are the primary cause of my hang-ups with this game. I’m a man who can respect past titles and I don’t need to have the most frames and fanciest lighting - but I am still a man living in 2023 where some features, not even QoL have been removed or at least smoothed out in modern representations and it can make it difficult to go back.
One minor thing is some fiddliness, which I found a lot of can be attributed to the few buttons the GBA has.
As Astro boy pushes through the stages fighting enemy robots and goons along the way, before inevitably fighting a usually quite impressive boss, he can dash using his jets for fast movement and some evasion. As with most games you become more used to the timing as you spend time with Astro but a third button would have made this feel more natural and feel less like you mistimed things due to missed inputs and the like.
Another minor niggle is with the special moves, his butt gun for hitting the entire screen and his big beam cannon are simple enough with using either shoulder button to activate, but the third powerful dash uses both A+B at once and whilst that is one of the easiest button combinations to do in gaming it also suffers from not always registering which can be frustrating as the fights become more difficult and your time against bosses becomes more desperate.

Outside of button limitation the other minor annoyances are things that just feel a little out of date. Whether it’s being hit from something you couldn’t see off screen, bosses becoming impossible to dodge because they take up all the space or similarly your own attacks not counting because they aren’t on screen enough, these things give not a feeling of challenge but a feeling of being cheated.
I appreciate a challenge and this game has it, but I also don’t think any of the above counts.

Where it does count are things like the bosses (sans full screen takeovers) where you are either having to learn spacing to dodge and get hits in best or even learning patterns and what specials are best to use when.
Sometimes Astro Boy is grounded, sometimes he’s floating about and occasionally in a break from that you can be jetting at high speeds in bullet-hell-like combat.

Challenge and variation also comes within variation on these levels, Astro will be on moving levels, low gravity, platforms, dodging traps and more and outside of some frustration due to not “getting good” at later stages I never felt the game was too repetitive even though really it maybe is.
Pacing is always something I come back to in reviews and due to this variety and how the story is given, Omega Factor gets a big thumbs up in that department.

The story itself is good, with some smart elements I did not expect but “your mileage may vary” depending on how invested in Astro Boy and Tezuka’s other works you are because this game boasts 40+ characters but if you’re like me you maybe knew a dozen tops.
Some of the cameos felt to me much like I imagine the many MCU post-credits do to casual fans, to quote the other Back Page Podcast host’ it has very “it’s me Blorko” energy.

One interesting but potentially flawed mechanic ties into meeting these characters and that is the whole “Omega Factor”. Astro meeting folk, getting a new understanding of emotions etc. unlocks this and in game terms gives you a level up.
I call this potentially flawed because although it is interesting and the game does give warning for when “Sensors” need upgrading you have no idea what comes ahead and it isn’t quite an RPG where having different builds is something the game is balanced for.

The other strength in the story I do want to speak about but I do not want to spoil it for those who have no idea so WARNING.

WARNING - for those wanting to go in blind do not read the rest of this review.
Just know that in my humble opinion the story does take this game from good to potentially great.

For me this twist and feature of Astro Boy was half-spoiled but I didn’t know exactly about how it was integrated.
Before the credits hit, it’s bad news for our lad, the villain Sharaku, Prince of the Mu Empire and his third eye have succeeded, the world is on fire and a big spooky skull from space is coming.
Much like Empire Strikes Back though, this is just the beginning of the end for our hero as he is resurrected by the Phoenix and sent back in time.
This allows Astro to redo battles, meet new people and change the past by going back and forth with the new information he gains.

This implementation reminds me of one of my all-time favourite games series; Zero Escape.
Whilst not quite as deep or big-brained using stages like a time-line means the interaction is quite similar and I am here for it.
The issue I have with the game here however is two-fold.
First off, not enough changes, you aren’t just skipping into new dialogue you are once again having to play the entire game with just some occasional boss changes and eventually some new stages and endings. I praise this game’s variety but this is repetition at its core and it is time consuming.
Once again difficulty rears its head here and at this point is where I suffered most because at first it felt easier, in Rebirth you have kept all the levels you’ve obtained and it seemed to trivialise the first stages but slowly it becomes apparent that actually enemies are tougher and stronger - something the game didn’t inform you of and doesn’t really make any sense.
It took until about stage four of the initial seven for this to really kick in but sadly in stage five and six I failed more often than I had in the Birth run-through and it wasn’t too interesting things like the bosses. Also, one final nail in the coffin was that the checkpointing the previous run had was mostly removed - this is a part which has me questioning my own memory but at point I was having to do whole levels before a boss again and again where originally I feel like if I did die the game started me near where I got to.

In the end, I think I rate Astro Boy: Omega Factor lower than most who have played it and I believe “git gud” is part of that story. Maybe I am more of a modern gamer who needs their hand held than I think, but I feel I haven’t typically turned away from challenges in the past and even infamously difficult things I don’t complain are unfair.
I would just leave the point that I am reviewing this game two decades after its launch, I have no history with the Gameboy Advance as I went from GB Light straight to DS Lite with no Nintendo handhelds of my own between, and I also have very little history with Astro Boy as a franchise.

Regardless I think Omega Factor is great, I am going to play more and it has whet my appetite for more Tezuka works as well as Treasure games.