A breezier, simpler game than its clear inspirations, what Curse of the Dead Gods lacks in narrative it makes up for in focused, crunchy gameplay. Combat is interesting, exploration is rewarding and the systems in play are sufficiently diverse to make this a winner. It won't consume you forever, but you'll feel far from short-changed by this game of meaningful, divergent dungeons.
A very pleasant and enjoyable surprise, Blue Fire is an auspicious debut from ROBI Studios. Only the performance issues, mildly sloppy combat and high difficulty are points of contention, and the latter will certainly depend on your point of view. Developed with passion and skill, this is a world you can lose yourself in that'll reward you the more you play and the better you get. It's uncompromising in its difficulty but doesn't resort to cheap tricks and "gotchas". The graphics are appealing and, crucially, clear as day. This is a fantastic experience overall, even if it isn't made up of the most original pieces. It's gameplay first and once you're traversing the infinite space of the Void stages, everything else basically just falls away.
Neoverse Trinity Edition succeeds at being an enjoyable deck builder, but it does so in a way that's seemingly desperate to highlight its limitations. It runs embarrassingly poorly at times, and does almost nothing to ingratiate the player to its many systems, all of which must be puzzled out more or less from scratch. While this is far from ideal, it's not enough to totally kill the game's appeal. Robust strategy is both possible and necessary in order to progress much beyond even the second boss. If you vibe with Neoverse Trinity Edition, it'll last you a while. It's just very, very difficult to get to grips with this bizarre, confusing game.
Little Nightmares II is nothing less than engaging from start to finish, with superb pacing, entertainingly varied level design and excellent graphics and performance. Its only real flaws are based on the imprecision that comes with all games in its sub-genre, as well as a few sections that feel more about trial and error than reactive survival. In our view, though, this doesn't detract from a far superior sequel and one of the best cinematic platformers we've had the privilege of enjoying. A real stylish treat.
With nothing to offer besides some pleasant storytelling, we cannot recommend Sword of the Necromancer on any meaningful level. It's not horrible, but it's bereft of both meaningful content and any manner of unique execution. A sequel or heavily-modified relaunch could salvage the game into something much stronger, as the core idea of resurrecting fallen monsters is a decent one, but its treatment here renders it irrelevant. What a shame. This could have been something special. It's not a complete and total disaster – occasionally, when the screen is a little busier, you might feel a flicker of engagement as you dash between combatants – but overall, we'll be leaving this one for dead.
An odd duck and no mistake, Shadow Gangs is nonetheless an enjoyable Shinobi clone with plenty of level design polish. It's let down by an obnoxiously high difficulty level and some fairly stingy game-saves, but overall has a good amount to recommend it if you're done with the Sega Mega Drive Classics and Sega Ages Shinobi. It's an extremely valiant effort at a truly old-school feel and retro gamers definitely won't regret checking it out – just be prepared to swallow your pride and head for the options menu.
It's disappointing that Golden Force falls down in the areas that it does, because without these fixable issues it would be an easy recommendation – level design is mostly strong, the boss battles marry spectacle with varied and fun-to-learn attack strings nicely, and it feels good to get stronger and play better. Unfortunately, some rookie errors come close to spoiling the fun altogether, but if you're bloody-minded enough to muscle through these frustrations there is undoubtedly a lot to appreciate about Golden Force. Which is a shame, in a sense, because "Golden Farce" would have been a perfect tagline for this review. The one we've had to opt for is rubbish, by comparison. (It's not as easy as you might think, this game-reviewing lark.)
It's rare to see Amiga games surfacing at all, so it's a real treat to have two of the very best available on Switch, along with entirely enjoyable Mega Drive and SNES efforts.
