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Last reviewed: Mina the Hollower · 7 days ago
Luna Abyss is a AA shooter that holds its own against some of the elite of the genre. Its enticing and ominous sci-fi world is a delight to look at artistically, even if its muddy graphics let it down on closer inspection. Its story is fine, but a slick sense of progression keeps its action and platforming interesting from start to finish.
Planet Zoo is, ironically, a relatively toothless park building game. It doesn't have the delicious chaos of the Jurassic World Evolution games or the thrills of building your own rollercoaster and then hoping it'll stay on the tracks in Planet Coaster. But it's a pleasant and charming game. There's an airy joy in creating a peaceful home for animals to live in, and the earnest conservationist slant of Planet Zoo is hard to fault.
Mutazione is simple, but achieves what it sets out to do: tell an emotional story about community, family, and forgiveness among a memorable ensemble cast. It's relaxing, compelling, and unique. That it also looks and sounds magnificent is just the icing on the cake.
Utawarerumono: Zan is a decent action RPG that doesn't take too long to beat, but at full retail price, it feels like an overly expensive endeavour -- especially for existing fans of the series.
It's not exactly original, but The Sojourn is a solid puzzler with well designed levels and some nice ideas.
There's no denying that Yakuza 3, even in its remastered form, is rough around the edges -- especially if you're coming off the back of Yakuza 6, Kiwami 2, or Judgment -- but this is still one of the series' better instalments, and for our money, the best of the PS3 Yakuza trilogy.
In refusing to dramatically innovate, Borderlands 3 continues to occupy a unique position in the RPG genre. Its blend of looting, shooting, and comedy makes for varied gameplay sequences, deep and meaningful player progression, and a couple of laughs along the way. It's not going to convert anyone who wasn't a fan of previous iterations, but in doing so, Borderlands 3 sticks to what it does best.
A curiously compelling gameplay loop makes Bus Simulator much more entertaining than it has any right to be. The presentation is poor, but the act of actually picking up passengers and taking them to A-to-B in an expanding open world is moreish, and the title has a self-aware sense of humour that's easy to appreciate.
eFootball PES 2020 won't convince any FIFA fans over to Konami's side, but it will certainly appease those who are already enthralled with Master League and myClub. There really isn't too much to write home about this year, but when the gameplay is this enjoyable, there's hardly any reason to complain.
Rebel Cops makes some fun adjustments to an already tense formula. Its conflicts are fraught and exciting, while its meta-game is excellently woven into both the storyline and moment to moment gameplay. You should definitely kick the door down.
AI: The Somnium Files tells an often engrossing tale. It takes a couple of hours to really get going, but when it does, it blossoms into one of the most impressively executed visual novels on PS4. A range of characters, both surprisingly deep and brilliantly stupid, elevate an already intriguing and smartly paced story. It's just a shame that the dream sequences, with their frustratingly obscure puzzle solving, can really put a dampener on the experience.
It's fair to say that Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch didn't really need a remaster at all, but we won't look a gift horse in the mouth, and choice is a good thing. It's undoubtedly nice to have this standout last-generation title running so smoothly on PS4, and it's just so tidy. After all, it's also fair to say that this was and is a truly special game. Far more narratively focused than its sequel, this is a tentpole title for lovers of traditional Japanese role-playing games.
Ultimately, you’ll want to pack some paracetamol for this headache.
Agatha herself is a wonderfully complicated character; we see things from her innocent and skewed perspective, for good or ill. The puzzling is relatively simplistic -- there's nothing here to match the nonsensical item combinations of the genre's luminaries. But this is a game more about story and tone than pixel hunting, and the result is a decent, bizarre experience.
If you’re skilled, you can speed through in a little over ten hours, though exploring every nook and cranny of the map and finding all of the collectables can take upwards of double that, especially considering there are two endings to experience. At any rate, Blasphemous is torturously fun, and one of the best the genre has to offer.
SEGA’s upcoming Olympics game is so much better that a visit to YO! Sushi is the closest it'll be getting to Japan.
Metro Exodus: The Two Colonels is adequate in every sense of the word - it doesn't do anything impressively well nor insultingly bad. It's just okay, and while that might be enough to convince fans of the series to take a short trip underground, it's something that anyone else can safely skip.