PC Game Reviews

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Our detailed reviews help you make informed decisions about your next PC game purchase. We provide a thorough analysis of gameplay, graphics, story, and more.

Grime II Review: Clay FaceHandsy.

KakuchopureiApr 1

Little Nemo and the Guardians of Slumberland Review: Power NapWalking in your sleep.

KakuchopureiApr 1

Review: Fishbowl Covers COVID Isolation, Grief, and Growing Up Fishbowl is an unusual experience that, on the surface, looks like a life sim, but is more of a brief visual novel where your day-to-day choices for Alo determines what happens next for her. And boy, does she need it. She’s not just dealing with one major life change and type of potential trauma, but three. It’s an examination of a life and how someone moves forward when dealing with different types of stress, as well as an examination of how small actions and interactions can change your life. Aside from a little tedium, it can feel cathartic helping someone move forward and heal. Alo is going through a lot. She’s only 21, so she’s just become an adult. She’s gotten her first major job, which entailed a move to a new city. She doesn’t know anyone there, beyond meeting the landlady. COVID started, resulting in remote work and social distancing. Oh, and her grandmother died, and she wasn’t able to see her right before it happened. And as a result of that and the current cultural situation, her family’s tea shop looks like it might close. She’s uncertain about her position, wants to be home, can’t write like she used to, and experiences nightmares every night. After a shipment from her mom of some of the things her Jaja left her arrives and a small goldfish toy she named Paplet and used to love is in it, it comes to life. Over the next month, her interactions with the toy, her job, the people she can connect to virtually, and items in her home can help shape the course of her life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVyBv_qZ6xs There is so much happening to Alo at once in Fishbowl that it almost seems unbelievable, and it’s absolutely overwhelming. If it had just been a tale about dealing with grief while far from home, that would have been traumatic enough, but we’re also watching a young woman who doesn’t have much faith in herself get accustomed to an incredible job (that she clearly does deserve), adjusting to life on her own, and handling the measures you need to stay safe during a pandemic. Her grief over her family’s loss does feel like the focal point, with imissmyfriends.studio sort of prioritizing that element of the story, but the 30 virtual days do spend a lot of time dealing with all of these combined elements and the way they can weigh on an individual in a way that makes sense. Each day, there will be both scripted and unscripted events for Alo to encounter. Some of them involve Paplet and seeing past members with Jaja and other people important to Alo. Going through the editing minigame, which involves sorting items constantly moving into the right spots and deleting errors, is another and provides a means of seeing her interact with new coworkers. A friend or family member will usually call. There will be packages from Jaja’s home to sort as you go through the things she left behind. Optional activities are also possible, like eating meals, cleaning up, binge watching shows, doom scrolling social media, trying to write, and bathing. All of these can influence Alo’s mental state, which is also represented by bars and visual cues. Some are more neutral, but there are also ones with clouds overhead to suggest depression and a growing plant to signal optimism. Images via imissmyfriends.studio A thing that struck me is, as I started Fishbowl and learned how each kind of action influenced Alo’s current mood, I often felt afraid to do anything. Since her responses to people are tied to that, you can be locked out of selections if she’s too upset. Since you have no idea how different things in her apartment will affect her until you do interact with them, I found myself going out of my way to engage in repetitive (positive) activities to keep her spirits up. Likewise, if you’re hoping for more negative reactions, those can be walled off by her being in too good of a mood. (Though frankly, it seemed easier to bring her down.) It is something you become aware of very early on, since as the game begins Alo isn’t in a good place. However, since many of the positive actions are repetitive ones that can also be tied to quick-time event style interactions, that also can drag things out a bit. While for the most part Fishbowl is a exploration game and visual novel that prioritizes choosing what Alo does and how she responds to people, there are some minigames. The video editing and unpacking ones are both quite pleasant sorting activities that aren’t too tedious. In the former, you move the current item up or down so it is in the correct line, then press a button to quickly drop it into the correct position (or delete it). At most, it lasts a few minutes, and there’s positive reinforcement interactions with pleasant coworkers when it’s done. Unpacking means picking up and shifting things around in boxes to clear a path to a specific item in a method that feels inspired a bit by sliding tile puzzle games. With smaller actions like making food, washing dishes, doing laundry, or even using the toilet, you see a series of a few small images with directions below them. There’s no explanation as to what to do or press, though it’s fairly obvious except for one occasion in which I didn’t catch on that I needed to hold a trigger rather than press or hold a button. (The options do offer an accessibility option tied to those two minigames, but there’s none to eliminate the quicker interactions.) I felt like it helped reinforce a routine for the heroine. Now, that might feel a bit tedious to maintain over the in-game month, but it is there and there are benefits. Images via imissmyfriends.studio But what really is striking about Fishbowl is the artistic direction. For a game set in such a small space, it feels quite detailed. The spritework for Alo’s apartment and the things she finds when unpacking Jaja’s items are delicate and intricate. The character designs for her and her friends are gorgeous and filled with little details that cover their personality and culture. I love that when we see the video calls between her and other people, we also get to see a small video of her in the corner that shows her reactions. It’s quite pretty, and the setpieces and layouts feel meaningful. Fishbowl is a heartfelt story about dealing with many different life changes and traumas at once, all while finding a way forward. How we do so depends on choices we make. Not just responses to people around Alo, but how she chooses to live her life and push forward. While some of that routine might feel a little boring, that too feels like a commentary on life and how difficult it might feel to keep moving forward when seeing tangible results takes time. It’s one of those games where you start to really see how important actions are once you’re a few hours into it. Fishbowl is available on the PS5 and PC. A demo is available. The post Review: Fishbowl Covers COVID Isolation, Grief, and Growing Up appeared first on Siliconera .

PC News Category - SiliconeraMar 31

Darwin's Paradox! ReviewKonami's quirky new platformer brings good times, but occasionally hits a brick wall.

IGN PC ArticlesMar 30

Marathon ReviewThis ruthless, deeply unapproachable extraction shooter is worth every ounce of hell it puts you through.

IGN PC ArticlesMar 30

Darwin’s Paradox! ReviewTenta-could be better The post Darwin’s Paradox! Review appeared first on WellPlayed .

Reviews PC – WellPlayedMar 30

Crimson Desert Review: Sand In Your EyeA wasteland of fun?

KakuchopureiMar 28

Review: Tales of Berseria Remastered Is More Like a Port Tales of Berseria Remastered is a very interesting game in that it feels less like a remaster and more like a straight port—less an indictment of D.A.G. Inc. and more a testament to the stylistic anime art direction of the original game. While this remaster makes the game more available to a wider audience, it’s unfortunate that it does not give the option to see the story as it was originally intended, regardless of the version you play. Before we begin, I would like to state a disclaimer. I like Tales of Berseria a lot. If I had to list my favorite five Tales games, it would be one of them. For reference, so you can have a better idea of my taste, the other four are, in no particular order, Rebirth , Legendia , Abyss , Destiny 2 (NOT Eternia ), and Destiny (the remake). This review and score are specifically about the remaster’s quality, and not the game itself. Image via Bandai Namco To start with: What is Tales of Berseria ? Berseria is a prequel to Zestiria ; it takes place in the same world, uses the same concepts (albeit with different terminology), and lays the foundation for what will eventually become Zestiria ’s world-building. Berseria follows Velvet Crowe, who starts the game as a normal village girl living with her sickly younger brother, Laphicet, and her brother-in-law, Artorius “Arthur” Collbrande. Despite past hardships and her current circumstances, she makes the best of the cards life has dealt her, only for everything to go south in the worst way possible: Arthur kills Laphicet before her eyes and cuts her arm off. Transformed into a daemon that can consume other daemons, Velvet spends three years in prison with only the daemons the guards toss in as her prey to keep her company. This all changes when Seres, Arthur’s malak—a familiar from a race of spiritual beings that the exorcists use as expendable tools and weapons—shows up and sets her free. Thus begins Velvet’s journey to kill Arthur. Along the way, she gathers a ragtag group of “villains,” of both the misunderstood and genuine menace flavors, who can’t live within the defined borders of respectability in the world. Screenshot by Siliconera Now, I personally think Berseria is a very good Tales game, even if you’ve never played one before. It’s a Zestiria prequel, so there are some recurring characters and plot points that might feel random if you’re not familiar with that one, but I don’t think it’s detrimental to the overall experience. It’s easy to pick up the battle system, and it still has a good amount of depth if you want to master it. Battles can become Overstimulation Central, much like Graces , so it can be a lot. However, I personally think that the darker color palette helps a lot to keep it from becoming a literal eyesore. Though I love Berseria , my feelings on this remaster are a lot more conflicted. I don’t like that everyone, even those playing the Japanese version, is subjected to the global version's censorship . Originally, Arthur stabbed Laphicet with his sword. In the global version, Arthur magically impaled him. The effect looks kind of silly, and it’s not always edited properly in other scenes. One of Seres's flashbacks keeps the sword, for example. Plus, the Arthur-stabs-Laphicet-with-his-sword thing is actually important to the story. Berseria doesn’t shy away at all from showing blood, so I must conclude this censorship is because Laphicet is a child. Now, that’s funny for Tales and its history of family-unfriendly violence to children. The boy begging for help and then dying in front of the party in Akzeriuth in Tales of the Abyss easily comes to mind. Screenshot by Siliconera If my only issue with the remaster was the censorship, I probably wouldn’t have been too bothered about it. I already know what the scene was supposed to be, and it’s not as if the game constantly bombards us with Laphicet’s death scene. But there are some bizarre and straight-up distracting audio issues in this game. This is odd because Xillia and Graces didn’t have them at all. Sometimes, it feels like the space between a character’s lines was shortened, making the dialogue sound unnaturally fast. It’s hard to describe this, but sometimes, after a character finishes a voiced line when talking to them on the field, there’s this almost bzzt sound, like someone turning off a mic. Maybe I’m misremembering the PS4 version, and it had those issues. However, there’s one thing I could confirm, and it’s that the remaster does indeed have very bizarre mixing with the menu sound effects. When you’re using items in battle or checking a character’s equipment in the main menu, the blips sound weirdly isolated, like they're simultaneously muffled yet enhanced. They’re very annoying with a headset, since they actually sound like they’re coming from in front of me, in contrast to every other sound being beamed into my ears. Funnily enough, the main menu blips are louder than the other sound effects in the original, so maybe they over-corrected for the remaster. Speaking of the PS4 version, it may not come as a surprise that the remaster and the original look pretty much exactly the same, as mentioned at the beginning. The jump in graphics quality is not as obvious or amazing as Graces or Xillia , which both can look a little busted on the PS3. The soft watercolor art direction of Berseria has a sort of timeless stylistic aesthetic that holds up even a decade later, and Bandai Namco not tweaking it too much was a fantastic choice. On the flip side, it's also another question marked lobbed in the remaster's direction. When I said that Graces held up , I meant that the models and assets don't look dated when the game's in HD thanks to the watercolor-like aesthetic making it look stylistic instead. In Berseria 's case, it's actually so close to what the original is like that it feels less like a remaster and more like a port. Screenshot by Siliconera It's hard for me to say this, because I like Tales of Berseria a lot, but as a remaster, it's not bringing a lot to the table. In fact, between the censorship and the audio mixing issues, I'd go as far as to say that it's taking away from the table. The saving grace here is that it's ten dollars cheaper than the original (at least on Steam), despite it coming with DLC. While I do still recommend playing it if you haven't tried it before and you like JRPGs, people who have already played Berseria might as well just boot up the copy they already own. Tales of Berseria Remastered is readily available on the PS5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, and Windows PC. Windows PC version reviewed. The post Review: Tales of Berseria Remastered Is More Like a Port appeared first on Siliconera .

PC News Category - SiliconeraMar 27

Esoteric Ebb Review: One Of 2026’s Chattiest Role-Playing GamesEbb and flow.

KakuchopureiMar 27

FFXIV CERO Age Rating Goes up in Japan Square Enix announced that the Japanese CERO age rating for FFXIV will change with the upcoming Patch 7.5. The current CERO rating for the game is CERO C, and after the changes in the upcoming patch the rating will change to a CERO D, the second highest in the rating organization. The company specified that the reason for the change in CERO age rating for FFXIV comes from the use of the Group Pose feature. Under the current CERO C rating, the developers would have to add restriction to the feature. In order to keep the freedom currently available with the Group Pose feature, the company decided to accept the change to the CERO D rating. However, Square Enix didn’t specify what would these restrictions entail. Square Enix also confirmed that this change will only affect the age rating of Final Fantasy XIV in Japan, and that the content of Final Fantasy XIV will remain unaffected. However, players under the age of 17 will need their parents or guardians to review the changes to the rating once it arrives with the 7.5 patch. For those unfamiliar with the CERO rating system, players ages 15 and up can play titles with a rating of CERO C. As for the CERO D rating, this means only players aged 17 and up can play, and that some of the CERO D games include adult material. The age rating above CERO D and the highest is CERO Z. It is only used for games that contain strong adult material, such as gore, nudity, and sexual content, and it’s illegal for minors to purchase video games with this rating. Final Fantasy XIV is available for the PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC, and the 7.5 Part 1 patch release date is set for April 28, 2026. The post FFXIV CERO Age Rating Goes up in Japan appeared first on Siliconera .

PC News Category - SiliconeraMar 26