Comprehensive Game Reviews

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Mewgenics Review: Captivating Combat, Questionable Comedy Reviewed on: PC Platform: PC Publisher: Edmund McMillen, Tyler Glaiel Developer: Edmund McMillen, Tyler Glaiel Release: 2014 Mewgenics is difficult to assess; it executes some ideas incredibly well, while others are clumsy and grating. I adore its combat, which makes for excellent roguelike gameplay and has been well worth my extensive playtime. Simultaneously, the game's humor and breeding mechanics have really brought my opinion down over time, as both elements have gotten old as my playthrough went on. Even so, the combat and breeding are two distinct parts of the game, and the former takes up so much playtime that it's easy for me to push the latter to the side. Mewgenics makes me uncomfortable often enough that I can't ignore it, but man, that combat is incredible. An early combat encounter in the desert biome To complete a playthrough of Mewgenics is a gargantuan task, taking anywhere from 150 to 200 hours of gameplay. Therefore, in order for Mewgenics to do something successfully, it has to remain enjoyable or entertaining for that entire time. Its features need to have a long shelf life to remain fresh for hundreds of hours. In an inspiring feat of game design, its combat achieves this. The battles in question have players control four cats of various classes in turn-based encounters across roguelike runs. Each cat starts with random new abilities, and it's always fun to experiment with new builds and team compositions. There are so many items, moves, passive abilities, and field events that it's impossible to predict how a run will go, and no matter how it varies, it's almost always fun. Even dozens of hours in, I was consistently surprised by new interactions between Mewgenics' varied systems, whether it was in excitement when I had a potentially game-breakingly powerful Fighter cat, or in horror as I realized a negative trait on one cat meant it accidentally permanently killed another of my party members. I facepalmed when I tried to grow grass in a blizzard, only to create a tile of icy spikes. I felt genuine relief when it began to rain in the desert, and I could fill my water bottles. As good or bad as it goes, there's always another run, and that next run is going to feel remarkably different. Even with my criticisms of the game, the thrilling and engaging combat makes up the vast majority of your playtime, for which I'm thankful. A fight in which I somehow spawned in with 22 flies as allies The soundtrack is also stellar, with area-specific tracks that shift dynamically based on the situation. Each song also gets lyrics when you fight the area boss, which almost always improves it. I particularly enjoyed the frenetic jazz in The Crater, and shamelessly admit I journeyed there more times than necessary just to hear the music. On the other hand, Mewgenics' worst feature is its humor. NPCs are stale stereotypes with voice lines that had me rolling my eyes, and the game's insistence on fecal humor is particularly exhausting. I was tired of poop jokes 10 hours in, but there were still countless more hours to go. I enjoy the game's creativity and willingness to send players to bizarre locations (like the moon or the Ice Age), I like some of the meows (one has autotune), and I generally liked the pop culture references. But as the game went on for dozens of hours, the things I did enjoy faded into the background, while the things I didn't enjoy continued to stand out as annoying and gross. One recurring fight begins with a man eating a child, and even though it's quick and cartoony, it only gets more unpleasant over time. An unpleasant encounter, where my option most likely to succeed is to eat a dead cat There's also the subject of the game's name. Between runs, you breed various cats to combine their stats and create genetically superior warriors for the next run. The house the cats gather in is inconveniently designed because all the cats cluster on the floor and run back and forth, making them difficult to click on. I would have appreciated a menu to organize them by stats or age, but instead I have to chase them around with, ironically, my mouse to find the ones I'm interested in. You can decorate the house with furniture, but it's not a very interesting process – it's best to just buy stuff with the best stats and cram it in each room to improve breeding results. Overall, it's a clunky system that I tried not to spend too much time with. Long-term progression happens by completing runs or donating cats to the game's various NPCs. In either case, you rarely keep any cat in your house for very long. Cats die on runs or come home and die of old age. If they live, it's best to donate them to an NPC to unlock more item storage, improve the shop's offerings, or get some other long-term upgrade. Tink, one of the game's NPCs Your pets are disposable, both because you can easily make more and because you're incentivized to get rid of them. Since you churn through cats so quickly, you start putting much higher value on combat viability and vilifying defects and negative quirks, of which the game has many. "Mewgenics" is obviously a pun on the word "eugenics," but I was still taken aback by how ruthless the system feels. In a world defined by combat viability, you're not just breeding to get good stats; you're eliminating cats with disorders and bad stats. I have a room in my house exclusively filled with "star" cats, with each pet marked with a star to indicate they have the best stats. Meanwhile, circle cats have one or more negative stats, so they're pushed into a different room. Other cats are donated or left unmarked in another separate room. Mechanically, it makes perfect sense, but I'd be lying if I said my segregated house didn't make me uneasy. The "star" room in my in-game house Like the excessive poop and cartoon gore, I think these breeding patterns are intended to be funny or shocking. It's another joke; the setup is "what if you had a game where you raise cartoon cats," and the punchline is "and then you segregate them based on genetic strength and breed them for combat." On paper, it's a shockingly dark reversal of what you expect from a game where you raise pets. I actually do think this is funny in isolation. It's absurd! It catches you off guard. But like most jokes, it doesn't stay funny for hours and hours and hours. After a while, it just becomes the status quo. After a while, you're just earnestly doing cat eugenics, and that gets old and uncomfortable. Because the breeding happens in between the game's fantastic runs, it's hard for me to come to a firm consensus on how I feel about Mewgenics. Its combat mechanics truly stand out, and in isolation, might make it one of my favorite games of the year. But even though those hours and hours of combat comprise almost all of my playtime, the odd, upsetting creative decisions stick with me. Despite Mewgenics' best attempts to kill my appetite, dozens and dozens of hours in, I'm still hungry for another run. Score: 8 About Game Informer's review system

Game Informer ReviewsFeb 17

Review: I Want to Reexperience Paranormasight: The Mermaid’s Curse Though I only offered the highest of praise for the first Paranormasight , I began to look at it with more critically since then. I still like it a lot and recommend it to anyone looking for a nice J-horror-inspired visual novel. But there’s certainly room for improvement. And boy, did Square Enix deliver. Paranormasight: The Mermaid’s Curse takes everything that made the first game unique and amps it up to eleven, fixes issues I didn’t even know it had, and delivers a truly touching story that had me crying in bed at 5 AM. It is, without exaggeration, a game everyone should experience. The story is told through the perspectives of four characters. Yuza Minakuchi is an apprentice AMA diver who faces ostracization from the villagers of Kameshima (based on real-life Kamishima). Sato Shiranami is an amnesiac girl who loves to watch TV and is a houseguest of the influential Wakamura family. Yumeko Shiki is a housewife who also works for the police’s Paranormal Affairs Bureau. Arnav “Avi” Barnum is a fantasy writer in his 40s and a self-described "free-spirited lad." These characters find themselves entangled in a complicated web of curses and murders, all of which stem from past grudges stewing in the Ise-Shima area. Sometimes it can get tricky keeping track of all the incidents the game brings up in rapid succession, even with the in-game encyclopedia, so keeping notes is handy and recommended. Screenshot by Siliconera As we saw in the February 2026 Nintendo Direct, there are underwater exploration segments when playing as Yuza. The controls are a lot better than I expected from a mini-game in a visual novel, and you can level him up the more items you collect. Yuza’s not the only character with this kind of involved segment, too. These mini-games all help to break up the usual routine of investigating and chatting, keeping interest fresh. Though the game only ever really brings out these breaks from the norm once or twice per character route, I don’t think that’s a bad idea. It takes a minimum of ten hours to reach the normal ending, so too many would’ve distracted from the main plot. That pacing is something that the development team greatly improved on between the first and second games. I personally prefer how the cast felt smaller and more intertwined in Paranormasight: The Mermaid’s Curse , though that makes sense since they’re in a more rural area than the first game’s Tokyo. The sequel also has a better plot, in my opinion, making for a less jarring mood shifts. I’m going to spoil a bit of the first game, so if you haven’t played it (and you don’t have to to play the second one, by the way), skip the next paragraph. The first game starts at a breakneck pace, with decoy protagonist Shogo going all in on murdering fellow curse bearers to perform the Rite of Resurrection. At the end of his route, the game takes you to the story chart, where you’re prompted to go back to the beginning. You see Shogo dead, and the rest of the game proceeds in this new timeline. Most of the game focuses on the characters solving the mystery of the curses and preventing non-allied curse bearers from going around killing people. The pacing slows down so badly in the middle that even though I still enjoyed the cast and story, it was odd to me why writer Takanari Ishiyama did that. In The Mermaid’s Curse , you start with an introduction of the four main characters, as well as the main setting. The game sets up the main mysteries in investigation segments, and then the “Surprise” equivalent moment happens about a third of the way into the game. I much prefer this more traditional story structure. Ishiyama still loves his non-linear storytelling, though, because The Mermaid’s Curse introduces the Recollection system. Some conversations may trigger a Recollection and, if you’ve met the conditions for them, you can go back to them on the Story Chart to see what the characters were doing earlier in the narrative. This Recollection system works well in a mystery game. You can naturally include scenes about a reveal before the player’s made aware of it, for example. Screenshot by Siliconera The one thing that I find frustrating is the number of hanging plot threads. I'm guessing the true ending will tidy them up. Unfortunately, like the first game, there isn’t a visual hint for which chapter you need to enter for it. I’ve scoured the entire ocean as Yuza. I went into every single chapter to exhaust all the dialogue options, as well as clicked on anything and everything I could see. Nothing. Twice, the game gives hints to it. It’s the same hint both times. As someone who got the true ending in the first game without help, I’m truly lost this time. Fair warning that a satisfying conclusion likely hinges on you getting that golden ending. As a whole, the writing for Paranormasight: The Mermaid’s Curse feels more polished and cohesive than the first game without compromising on the established world or signature quirks. It balances the darker moments out with fun quips and colorful eccentrics, and the deep dives into Japanese history and folklore that serve as the backbone of the plot are really interesting. For me, it's on par with media like Fullmetal Alchemist and Steins;Gate —it's a story I'd like to forget all about and experience again for the first time. It’s a sequel that can proudly stand on its own, and a strong way to kick off what looks like a new franchise or series for Square Enix. Paranormasight: The Mermaid’s Curse will come out on February 19, 2026 for the PC, Switch, Switch 2, and mobile devices. The post Review: I Want to Reexperience Paranormasight: The Mermaid’s Curse appeared first on Siliconera .

Reviews Articles and News - SiliconeraFeb 17

Paranormasight: The Mermaid's Curse Review – A Spine-Tingling Dive Reviewed on: PC Platform: Switch 2, Switch, PC, iOS, Android Publisher: Square Enix Developer: Square Enix Rating: Mature Humanity has always been fascinated by the supernatural. Tall tales and legends persist through the ages, passed down through tradition and storytelling, for many reasons, whether parables, entertainment, or sometimes, bearing shreds of a greater truth. Paranormasight: The Mermaid's Curse is steeped in these concepts, throwing the player into an enthralling rural mystery filled with murder, betrayal, love, and curses. The first game, 2023's Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo, quickly became a cult classic: a horror-thriller with dark themes, lots of dialogue, and strange puzzles that required creative solutions. Paranormasight: The Mermaid's Curse follows in those same footsteps. It's an adventure game where you can hop between events and viewpoints in a timeline, tracking the events surrounding the small island town of Kameshima. Yuza, whose parents died in a disaster at sea years prior, has returned to the town to become a shellfish-gathering ama diver with the help of his friend Azami. A chance encounter with an apparition bearing his face, however, changes everything.   Alongside Yuza, there's a memorable cast of characters who get wrapped up in the events on Kameshima and the nearby mainland. Tsukasa and Sato round out Yuza's hometown friends, alongside several other free divers like Chie, Kikuko, and Yuza's grandmother, Tsuyu. Housewife-investigator Nameko and her psychic assistant Sado form a terrific detective duo, a dynamic that answers the question, what if an unassuming Columbo-esque detective partnered with a jujutsu sorcerer apprentice? Fantasy author Avi and the inquisitive Circe, meanwhile, act as a bit of comedic relief, even when their stories get incredibly heavy. All of them are beautifully illustrated in expressive 2D portraits set against the vibrant panoramas of each area. Paranormasight's brush-stroke aesthetic feels timeless in the best ways. The Mermaid's Curse is built on slowly unspooling and unraveling its threads to uncover the mysteries beneath. It's a slow start compared to most, even its predecessor; the story took a little while to get its hooks in me, but after several shocking revelations in a row, I was feverishly scribbling notes, jaw agape at what was unfolding. Director Takanari Ishiyama should become a household name for adventure fans. Several tragedies are set to befall Kameshima, and by hopping around the events, progressing forward, and then leaping back through Recollections – a specific mechanic that opens up past memories to explore – you'll need to figure out how to resolve all of them. The early parts of the story are a little heavy on Recollections, which can make it tough to keep track of characters and their individual drives. It doesn't take long for Paranormasight: The Mermaid's Curse to shift into higher gears, though. Quiet, peaceful, even mundane island life gives way to supernatural curses and mysterious deaths, and each focal-point character gets wrapped up in their own pursuits. The mysteries are still as wonderfully head-scratching as the first game. Many of them pull off my favorite trick: asking you to name something – a character, place, or subject – without any multiple-choice answers or chance for coin-flipping guesswork. These solutions require scouring the menu's Files and Profiles section, where deeper information about history, cultures, traditions, and more gets filed away for you to peruse like an in-game encyclopedia. The Mermaid's Curse does a better job of directing you towards those answers than its predecessor, but it does typically ask you to deduce an answer. Its solutions are often obfuscated just enough to feel rewarding to uncover, without feeling like you're hitting cognitive brick walls over and over. There are also a few more tactile puzzles and interactive moments than before, too. The Paranormasight team doubles down on the effects of both its 360-degree panoramas and its adventure game format, adding more tangible objects and little UI bits that end up becoming revelatory tools in the right moment. My favorite is a hand mirror, used to great effect during a section where your character is trying to see if something is behind them. It's absolutely spine-tingling, and while The Mermaid's Curse doesn't have quite as many jump-scare moments as The Seven Mysteries of Honjo, it's still a thrill-inducing adventure. Little noises and visual cues shoot ice through your veins, and even some of the mystery solutions involve putting yourself in terrifying positions to elicit new information. Paranormasight: The Mermaid's Curse honors the depth the adventure genre has had over the years. It's easy for some to see a game where you primarily choose dialogue prompts and talk to characters as mechanically simple. However, The Mermaid’s Curse proves the powerful malleability of the adventure format, re-enacting psychic stand-offs and terrifying encounters with the otherworldly through seemingly conventional means. There's a devilish glee in discovering a clue that's been hidden under your nose the entire time, the kind of joy only found when the mundane becomes anything but. And that's where Paranormasight: The Mermaid's Curse hooked me, possibly more than its predecessor. Its lens narrows in to focus on a tighter, more intricately connected crew, but its supernatural tales ultimately become utterly human. What is immortality, truly? Why do we pine after myths and legends? What do the objects of our desires say about us, and what are we willing to do for them? And what do those pursuits turn us into, when the road comes to an end? Paranormasight: The Mermaid's Curse is a brilliant modern adventure game, filled with mysteries, delightful characters, and gorgeous art. Truly, I never thought we'd see a second Paranormasight; its predecessor felt like a one-off flight-of-fancy for Square Enix, destined to be a fond oddity for genre aficionados. Now, I can only hope there's more in store. Score: 9 About Game Informer's review system

Game Informer ReviewsFeb 17

Nioh 3 Review – Taking The Throne Reviewed on: PlayStation 5 Platform: PlayStation 5, PC Publisher: Koei Tecmo Developer: Team Ninja Rating: Mature Just as the original Nioh was one of the first games to emulate Dark Souls to great success, Nioh 3 is among the first major Soulslikes to use an open-world blueprint post-Elden Ring. However, Team Ninja has always excelled at applying its own sensibilities to a now well-worn blueprint, and Nioh 3’s rewarding approach to open-world design is a shining example. Tack on a thrilling new Ninja gameplay style, and this third entry asserts itself as the pinnacle of its series. The newcomer-friendly plot sees the customizable 17th-century hero Tokugawa Takechiyo on the verge of being christened Japan’s next Shogun. Your ascension enrages your jealous older brother, who reasonably responds by surrendering his soul to evil yokai and plunging the land into demonic chaos. This darkness transcends time and space, so stopping him means time-hopping across historical eras, from early antiquity to the 19th century, to remove its influence on corrupted historical figures all vying for the same power. Though the plot becomes repetitive – visit an era, cleanse the corrupted soul of someone who really wants to be shogun, repeat – it is ridiculous fun (as all the best time-travel stories are) with a nice bit of emotional weight in the theme of discovering what it truly means to be a leader.   Nioh 3 doubles the series' intense and mechanically dense action with the new style shift mechanic. A button press instantly swaps between two gameplay styles: Samurai, the traditional Nioh gameplay experience of stance-switches and the Ki Pulse timing mechanic to restore stamina mid-attack, and the entertaining new Ninja. This shinobi-focused class trades defense for speedy evasion and sword stances for a plethora of cool ninja tools and magic. I love the Ninja as someone who generally favors maneuverability over power, and it became my default style. It adds a fresh Ninja Gaiden-inspired twist to Nioh’s action and is a blast to play. Great combat balancing means both styles are equally viable; you can theoretically beat Nioh 3 using only one of them. However, the game provides good incentives to switch things up. I loved mastering Burst Break, a powerful timed counter executed by switching styles right before certain attacks land. More broadly, regularly switching between what’s essentially two completely different characters kept the action feeling fresh throughout the 70+ hours I spent playing. Samurai duels can be combat chess matches defined by precise blocking and parrying while carefully using Ki Pulse to extend more deliberate weapon strikes. Ninja gameplay is a frenetic treat of keeping adversaries off balance with constant movement, chipping at them from afar using tools, while unleashing flurries of acrobatic, combo-heavy strikes. Boasting separate loadouts and flexible progression, including free skill point respec for the dense weapons skill trees, there’s plenty of freedom and incentive to experiment and change things up if gameplay becomes routine. In true Nioh fashion, there’s an overabundance of options for customizing and improving your character. From summoning powerful creatures to aid in battle, like Guardian Spirits and Soul Cores, to unlocking helpful class abilities for each Style, plus multiple methods of improving/recycling the endless amount of loot, there’s a ton of useful systems to dig into. It unfortunately means a lot of time is spent poring over various menus, but the game introduces new features at a good pace. Some major tools don’t unlock until a dozen or so hours into the adventure. I appreciated having plenty of time to grow accustomed before learning yet another mechanic, while still giving me something new to sink my teeth into deep in the adventure. Nioh 3 wisely ditches the previous entries’ linear zones and dated mission selection for various expansive maps that players can freely explore. As proven with Elden Ring, this structure makes coping with Nioh 3’s steep difficulty much more palatable; hit a wall, and simply explore elsewhere to sharpen your skills or find better gear. I found Nioh 3 to be the most approachable entry because of this structure, especially since everything you find – along with the act of wandering itself – improves your character in some way. Killing an optional boss you confront while trekking may reward a new class ability for the Samurai or Ninja styles. Opening a random chest could unlock a new crafting recipe for a powerful weapon. Finding collectibles like hidden Kodama spirits or Jizo statues rewards skill points and permanent passive perks, such as raising the drop rate and effectiveness of healing elixirs. Additionally, tiers of exploration rewards provide small but crucial stat bumps simply for uncovering the world, and fill the initially blank maps with icons revealing goodies you missed while in an area. Passively gaining strength while making it easier to do clean-up later compelled me to turn over every stone like few games of this ilk. This speaks to how impressively each of Nioh 3’s boatload of systems feeds into a gratifying escalation of power. The open worlds may lack mind-boggling emergent moments, but they regularly satisfy my power-hungry and completionist desires to make the numbers go up. Crucibles, challenging corrupted zones that reward powerful yet risky weapons that can hurt you almost as much as the opponent, are great destinations to gain strength. These hellish areas offer nice breaks from the overworld while often acting as a deliciously challenging final test of a region before moving on to the next one. Nioh 3 is a fantastic leap forward for Team Ninja’s generally great but increasingly stagnant take on Soulslikes. I had to stop myself from seeking out the next awesome hidden boss or from learning a cool new weapon to see credits to write this review, and the experience largely manages to maintain its excitement throughout its lengthy runtime. Nioh 3’s hardships are many, and failure is plentiful, but its thrills are bigger and more impressive than ever before. Score: 9 About Game Informer's review system

Game Informer ReviewsFeb 16

Review: Hakuoki SSL Lets the Shinsengumi Live Happily Ever After It’s been over 10 years since Hakuoki SSL: Sweet School Life debuted on the Vita in Japan. 10. Do you know how many times we saw the original game before that? Too many. The PSP version of the PS2 game. The DS release. The mobile adaptations. The PS3, Vita, 3DS, PS4, and Switch entries. But now Hakuoki SSL is here and, while it is a “feel good” otome game, it’s definitely one for the fans . Hakuo Academy used to be a boys-only school. However, right as Chizuru was about to head into high school, Principal Isami Kondo decided to make it co-ed. As a result of the abrupt change, she’s the only young woman attending at the moment. However, she’s adjusting well to her new school life, thanks to her childhood friend and neighbor Heisuke Toudou and friend Soji Okita attending. And while there are some hiccups like the upper classman Kazama Chikage who “decided” she’ll be his bride, she sets out to enjoy her first year of school there and prove herself a success. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzCqxiaS2fw Hakuoki SSL is, for the most part, a visual novel like the original game. We’ll read through moments of Chizuru’s daily life at Hakuo. There are a few more interactive elements. For example, she’ll get texts from love interests and some other cast members that you can respond to. There are also some minigames, which can involve using knowledge of the original series or some quick reflexes. But in general, it’s a fairly typical visual novel experience. Except instead of the Shinsengumi members being supernatural, vampire-like Furies, they’re ordinary humans who can enjoy peaceful lives. Since this did originally appear after the first few Hakuoki releases, we aren’t seeing the additional romance options added in rereleases, like Shinpachi Nagakura, Keisuke Sanan, Susumu Yamazaki , Hachiro Iba, Ryouma Sakamoto, and Kazue Souma . (Yamazaki does sort of get a route, but it isn’t to the extent of the others.) So this means our love interests are Chikage Kazama, Hajime Saito, Heisuke Todo, Sanosuke Harada, Soji Okita, and Toshizou Hijikata. While I am extremely glad Hakuoki SSL: Sweet School Life is here, there are some elements of this release that leave me feeling a little disappointed. There are minigames, they aren’t optional, and they do affect your progress. From what I’ve experienced, it seemed like perfection is a requirement to earn your happiest of endings with the characters. (Can’t deliver Valentine’s chocolates? Too bad! It can feel frustrating. Images via Eastasiasoft Another issue is the way the adaptation works. As I mentioned earlier, the love interests from the mainline Hakuoki games are now Chizuru’s fellow students and teachers. In the case of Heisuke, Kazama, Okita, and Saitou, this feels totally fine. They’re all fellow students alongside her, albeit upperclassmen, but there aren’t uncomfortable age gaps or power dynamics. Harada and Hijikata get a little weird, since they’re in positions of power. Both are teachers, and the former is also her homeroom teacher and latter is the vice principal. I get that it makes sense, and that kind of power dynamic could be considered with Hijikata in the mainline games too. I suppose here it just feels a little more pronounced in a way that might feel a little awkward, considering how much power the latter has and how often we see him acting as an authority figure as vice principal. But I think the main issue I have with Hakuoki SSL: Sweet School Life is that as much as I enjoyed it, it is odd to go from such a meaty and long mainline game to an alternate reality one that’s so short and effortless. The game is quite cute. We get to see the characters in a new way. It’s very lighthearted, and offers opportunities to see different sorts of interactions without worrying about death. But the story and routes are so short that I found myself wishing Otomate had done a bit more. As a result, the romances feel quite rushed and like we don’t actually get to see Chizuru and the character who pursue fall for each other. It’s like it’s assumed that because we knew they could be a potential pair and fall in love from our time with the original Hakuoki , we don’t get that same investment and payoff here. If you are coming to Hakuoki SSL from a previous game like Hakuoki: Chronicles of Wind and Blossom or the anime , then you’re probably in the best place to enjoy this game. There’s an expectation of prior knowledge for sure. It’s absolutely building on the character development from the original Hakuoki otome game and its remakes. And because this did originally appear in 2014, when the series was still massively beloved and about to get its Vita rereleases that added additional love interests and story segments, the characterizations are on-point. If you love these once-warriors, you’ll see elements of what made you adore them in these more peaceful, lighthearted, and fluffy moments. Pleasant and fluffy are great ways to describe Hakuoki SSL: Sweet School Life, as it is a light otome building on the characters we know and love. This does mean that Otomate and Idea Factory go in assuming you know everyone, so some character and relationship development is omitted. But if you do know about this series, it is absolutely worth it to get this missing piece of the puzzle and get to enjoy romances with love interests knowing it isn’t going to go as tragically as the historical Shinsengumi tale did. Hakuoki SSL: Sweet School Life is available on the Switch, and Eastasiasoft also handled the Switch release of . The post Review: Hakuoki SSL Lets the Shinsengumi Live Happily Ever After appeared first on Siliconera .

Reviews Articles and News - SiliconeraFeb 16

Reanimal ReviewThe creator of Little Nightmares returns with more of the dark puzzle platforming it has honed over the last decade.

IGN PC ReviewsFeb 14

High On Life 2 Review - Contact High Reviewed on: Xbox Series X/S Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC Publisher: Squanch Games Developer: Squanch Games Rating: Mature High On Life 2 is right on time. At a moment in time that seems increasingly bleak, Squanch Games’ latest project has dropped in to let you escape for a bit, laughing like an idiot while you do so. The typical Squanch brand of humor – the kind you might see on Adult Swim shows like Rick and Morty and Smiling Friends – runs rampant through dialogue, visual gags, and unexpected story twists. Combat and movement feel terrific thanks to the new skateboard system, the world has enough hidden in its corners to keep you wanting more, and it all fits into a 10 to 12-hour first-person shooter package that, while sometimes long in the tooth, doesn't overstay its welcome. High On Life 2 picks up with the same Bounty Hunter from the first game, but this time, they've gone through a personality shift. They're now The Outlaw, after an early fumbled mission forces them to turn their guns against fellow bounty hunters, breaking the code in the process. The pharmaceutical company that caused the botch, Rhea Pharmaceuticals, once again wants to use humans as drugs for aliens, only this time they want to distribute the goods as prescription medication. Yep, it's time to take on Big Pharma. To do so, you will select and hunt down specific targets involved with Rhea Pharma, including an elite billionaire bankrolling the company, a politician trying to swing legislation beneficial to the company, and more. The social commentary is about as subtle as a hammer to the skull, but the story is well written, which makes that commentary worth experiencing. The Outlaw is once again equipped with Gatlians, talking guns that provide as much commentary as they do combat prowess. Each Gatlian that joins you fulfills a certain firearm archetype: Sweezy is the automatic pistol, Gus is the shotgun, and Sheath is the assault rifle, among others. They all also have special abilities that help you get around in the world, and it helps make them all feel like equal parts of a big team. The banter back and forth between the talking guns and other characters is still as wacky as the first game, too. There's also a new character named Jeppy, a human/Gatlian hybrid who, once his meter is charged, can enter a battle and perform three powerful electrical attacks before disappearing. He can also only say his own name, though he says it with such delight that smiles are inevitable. Unfortunately, Jeppy was also the source of a weird technical error in the Xbox version in which this was reviewed. Any activation of Jeppy would cause the game to crash. No warning, no justification, nothing but the Xbox dashboard's main menu. This began in the first battle after meeting Jeppy, and then continued in subsequent battles. Thankfully, no battles required the use of Jeppy, and one accidental Jeppy summon did bring him into action, but that took place in the final waves of enemies before the final boss, and by then, it was too little, too late. In all, the game crashed about five times during this review, but three of them were Jeppy-related, while the other two were random one-off instances. While the world of High On Life 2 isn't overwhelmingly large, Squanch has made getting around in the city a breeze with a new skateboarding mechanic, frequently turning this first-person shooter into a first-person skater. Moving around the world on this skateboard is quick and easy, with plenty of places to grind a rail or jump onto a higher platform. The platforming is not quite as precise as I hoped, but thankfully, the checkpoint system is forgiving, allowing for quick restarts after falling into a pit. This new movement, in tandem with the varied arsenal, creates a combat system that's incredibly satisfying. Blasting through hordes of colorful and silly enemies is a delight, especially in later missions when you have more combat options to consider. Zooming around a battlefield, dodging enemy attacks, and returning fire makes for the best kind of chaos, all while the Gatlians cheer on the Outlaw as they're blasting away.   That extends to the boss fights as well, which are mostly standard "large arena against massive enemy" style battles, but still offer plenty of good action. In fact, there's one phase of a particular boss fight that's so off-the-wall, I genuinely do not think I have ever seen anything like it before. That is a cliche, yes, but in this case, it is difficult to come up with anything that remotely compares to it from any game in recent memory. In and out of battle, the Gatlians are still very good at making you laugh, though most of the jokes fall into that Adult Swim irreverent style of humor. That style isn't everyone's cup of tea, but swearing and fart jokes do work hand-in-hand with some genuinely funny and clever moments. The shopping area in the hub world has some laugh-out-loud attributes, and you'll also once again be visiting a chain restaurant to have dinner – though this time, it's not Space Applebee's. More than all of that, the biggest high you'll get from High On Life 2 is the sheer creativity on display. It's abundantly clear that Squanch Games asked "what if we did this?" a lot during development, and most of those silly ideas made it into the final game. Wild thoughts like "What if we made a dual-wield weapon that's a married Gatlian couple on the edge of divorce, and explore that dynamic" or, "Hm, we need a voice actor for one NPC, what's John Waters up to?" are executed incredibly well throughout the entire game, and you never really know what's going to come next. High On Life 2 sets out to make you laugh, and it does a good job of it. It also sets out to bring you stylish, fast-paced combat with cool movement, and it does a good job of that, too. This is the kind of game that you can put on, laugh at for a while, and forget what's troubling you, even though reminders might slip in through the pointed social commentary. High On Life 2, despite being a battle against Big Pharma, is just what the doctor ordered. Score: 8.75 About Game Informer's review system

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