Comprehensive Game Reviews

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From AAA titles to indie games, we cover it all. Our comprehensive reviews provide detailed insights to help you find your next favorite game.

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

IGN PC ReviewsMar 30

This Fun New Puzzle-Platformer Is Limbo, But Not Creepy | Darwin's Paradox ReviewDarwin's Paradox takes the 2D puzzle-platforming sensibilities of a game like Limbo or Inside and makes it distinctly less creepy and unsettling. Whereas those games presented elements of light body horror and spooky high-contrast compositions, Darwin's Paradox evokes classic cartoons starring goofball protagonists in vibrant, colorful settings. The result is a pleasant little gem of a game with loads of variety that makes the most out of its relatively short playtime. There's a core comedic premise to Darwin's Paradox that begins subtly and then slowly becomes more obvious as time goes on. Your eponymous little octopus, Darwin, just wants to get back home to the ocean. But on his journey he haplessly bumbles his way through what is clearly a full-scale alien invasion of Earth. In most games, the hero would steel their resolve to take on the alien menace, but Darwin is just an octopus. For all he knows, this is normal among land-dwellers, and he doesn't really seem to care either way. So he's less of a hero and more of a Mr. Magoo, with his own perception limited to the threats around him as he gets flung around a hostile world and just tries his best to survive. We as the (human) viewers understand what's happening in a different context than he does, and that makes the story work on two levels at once. Though he's not a hero, Darwin certainly has an expansive move set, which makes the game's platforming feel natural and fluid. They all trace back to the behaviors and adaptations of real-life octopi, like suckers to stick to walls, shooting ink to escape predators, and camouflage to blend in with their environment. And like a real octopus, he's most mobile underwater, where you have full 360-degree freedom of movement. Though traversing your way through land environments feels good, going underwater is immediately more natural. It really accentuates the feeling that you're a fish out of water the rest of the time. Continue Reading at GameSpot

GameSpot - Game ReviewsMar 30

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

IGN PC ReviewsMar 30

Darwin's Paradox Review - Passive Prowling Polypus Reviewed on: PlayStation 5 Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, PC Publisher: Konami Developer: ZDT Studio The cinematic platformer was popularized by the 2010 Xbox Live Arcade game, Limbo (though its roots extend from 1991’s Another World), and as a result, the genre has primarily offered dark and moody experiences with thoughtful, but opaque stories. Darwin's Paradox sets itself apart in the genre by being colorful, silly, and narratively transparent – think Pixar animated short as opposed to Brothers Quay animated short . The goofy angle and unexpected production values help Darwin feel different, but frequent design annoyances and over reliance on bland stealth gameplay prevent it from rising to the top.   Darwin’s Paradox follows the exploits of a smart but clumsy octopus who gets caught up in a life-threatening adventure when they get pulled into a seafood factory that would love to sell more tentacles. Escaping the factory, as well as the hungry seagulls outside, feels like an elaborate cartoon that only gets weirder and weirder as you go along. A lot has been packed into a game that only takes a few hours to complete. The wordless story goes in unexpected directions, and the animation is great across the board. The titular Darwin moves with impressive finesse; the frequent pre-rendered cutscenes showcase animation that wouldn’t feel out of place in a popular summer animated family movie. A handful of visually impressive moments also dot the game, like outrunning a horde of rats and crossing a heavily trafficked street during a rainy night. Gameplay relies primarily on stealth, with Darwin avoiding spotlights and sightlines, using his natural camouflage abilities to stay out of would-be predators’ gazes. The act of hiding vacillates between annoying and boring. There are frustrating instances of walking into a room, for example, and before the camera can catch up to show me what to be prepared for, a guard has already seen me. But the other stealth moments, where things go well, and you recognize the appropriate patterns and activate your blending ability at the right moment, are just drab. Waiting for a spotlight to pass or a guard to turn their back is a passive experience, and the light tone (which I do like) means there is little reason to feel truly nervous. This is a Konami-published game, and as a result, Metal Gear sound effects play in certain scenarios when guards catch you, but calling out a reference to a different beloved video game franchise as a highlight of stealth gameplay is damning praise. The platforming, thankfully, fares much better. Darwin can adhere to most surfaces, and though he can be a little too sticky sometimes, making small environments like pipes and air vents a little tricky, he is fun to control. I much preferred the not-too-challenging platforming gauntlets over the stealth sequences. I feel similarly about the puzzles, as well. I much prefer them over stealth, even if they are all fairly simple. It’s unlikely you will ever get stuck in Darwin’s Paradox, which helps keep the pace moving along. It’s the stealth that slows things down. I am a big fan of cinematic platformers. I appreciate this attempt at taking the mechanics and presentational focus of the genre and applying them to a fun cartoon. That part of the game, alongside the platforming and puzzles, works well and is attractive. Unfortunately, the frequent sneaking slows the game down and is a barrier instead of a fun series of challenges to overcome. Score: 7 About Game Informer's review system

Game Informer ReviewsMar 30

Review: Etrange Overlord’s Story Is Its Strongest Element I don’t know if you’ve been keeping up with anime, manga, and light novels lately, but villainess and isekai series are big. Huge . Woman dies. Reincarnates as a villainess. Turns out she’s actually not bad and happens to be one of the nicest people ever, but ends up billed as a “villainess” for reasons. It’s a whole thing. With NIS America, Gemdrops, Superniche, and Broccoli’s Etrange Overlord , we’re seeing that sentiment carry over to a game. While the Musou -style beat’em up element isn’t all that exciting, the ambiance and story is pretty fun. Etrange von Rosenburg is a noblewoman engaged to the prince of Edelstein. (Though royalty, he’s apparently not important enough to get a name.) Instead of a happily ever after, her tale begins with her in a guillotine and him at the side ordering her execution because she “allegedly” attempted to have him killed. She awakes in hell, even though she’s innocent, with three demons trying to torture her. Except Etrange is smart and uses her wits, money, and apparent skill with dark magic to beat them. Fortunately, this is the sort of scenario where defeat means friendship and not death! Because of her kindness and generally upstanding personality, said demons Cackie, Chuckie, and Chortie become her new minions and, with a retinue of her former followers and newfound admirers, she gradually begins to take over hell as its newest overlord. Meanwhile, we get occasional glimpses into what’s actually happening in the kingdom with those left behind and the real villains. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-vzOTp_BsY I adored Etrange Overlord ’s story and characters. Folks at Gemdrops, Superniche, and Broccoli clearly looked into this genre of shojo stories, as they nailed the concept, characterizations, and vibe. It’s over the top, but in an affectionate and silly way that doesn’t actually mock the genre or people who enjoy it. Etrange is a fantastic, strong, genuinely kind heroine! Some of her allies, though a bit more subdued in terms of personality and clever lines, are equally entertaining and memorable. The actual villainess is hilarious in a dastardly way. The localization’s well done. It doesn’t involve any major twists or big drama, but it reminds me of similar villainess series like Tearmoon Empire and My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom . That isn’t the only fun element to Etrange Overlord . Remember Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure ? It was the NIS America comedic RPG with songs littered throughout. Well, Etrange Overlord is exactly like that. There are lots of music numbers with really wonderful singers involved. Since this is a comedy, they’re just as over-the-top as the adventure and delightfully silly. It’s very campy in the best way! Unfortunately, the combat and territory management elements of Etrange Overlord aren’t as captivating. You know how Koei Tecmo and Omega Force’s Musou action-RPGs involve a lot of depth and strategy when it comes to swapping characters, handling situations, and traversing the massive maps? None of that happens here. Characters’ standard attack range and combos tends to fall into the category of fine or finicky, sometimes not having the right range or scope to properly hit enemies. For example, I found Cat-Smith, Cackie, Chuckie, and Erit to be pretty adequate and accurate early allies, but Etrange, Chortie, Scwatrz, and Sweetia’s attack range and style sometimes made it difficult to pin down opponents, even if everyone’s special attacks seemed pretty helpful. Screenshots by Siliconera Especially since the points of stages can get rather repetitive and usually involve beating up X amount of characters or a boss to progress. (Okay, sometimes you’ll also have to do something like get key items, survive, or keep an NPC running around with no regard for their life safe too.) It got to a point at which getting through things as quickly as possible is what mattered at most, so when I could I’d default to someone who would make that possible. Especially since stages are small and aren’t all that varied, and using someone with decent range to sweep through foes is a huge positive. Taking advantage of the RPG crafting staple, which is used here to get more powerful equipment or make food to offer your team of four characters in the fight buffs, helped with that too. Mainly for equipment, however. Since I didn’t find the enemies all that challenging, the meals didn’t matter all that much to me. Especially since there is the lane system. To fit in with the music theme, this looks like the staff used on sheet music. These constantly runs through the area circling about, with power-ups, items that let you perform special attacks, and occasionally platforms or helpful goods on them. Depending on the area and layout, there may be one or multiple ones around. You can also use Land Selection at the start of a stage to set what you’d like to see in each lane, enabling things like attack buffs, healing items, and special support. These need to be invested in with items you’ve found via exploring when wandering the world, going through stages, using the Dispatch feature to send allies to different areas of hell you’ve visited to get new items, or dealing with revolts in past places via Recapture. Though honestly, while I appreciated the “management” element that stemmed from dealing with past areas and the extra materials, it felt like a means of padding out a pretty short game with even more of the same, repetitive fights. Etrange Overlord is packed with personality, with a story and songs that show love for the shojo trope where the villainess is actually the good guy. Etrange herself is a standout, and it’s silly and over-the-top without being ridiculous. But as delightful and refreshing as the narrative and soundtrack can be, the battles get boring fast. It’s incredibly repetitive! But at least those stages tend to be short, so you can race through them and get back to the campy story. Etrange Overlord is available for the Switch, PS4, PS5, and PC . The post Review: Etrange Overlord’s Story Is Its Strongest Element appeared first on Siliconera .

Reviews Articles and News - SiliconeraMar 29

Review: Ariana and the Elder Codex Can Be a Magical Metroidvania There are times when Ariana and the Elder Codex can feel like a fun Metroidvania. We get to customize our Librarian’s magical loadouts, after all. That lets us set up combos how we’d like. It also looks pretty good, and the combat system is generally solid. However, it’s not innovative in any way, and the story is pretty clearly telegraphed. It’s one of those adventures that ends up feeling fun enough, and I think someone who’s relatively new to the genre might find it a helpful way to build skills. But more experienced players familiar with the genre may find themselves a little bored. After establishing the idea that someone gave humanity four Elemental Codices and three Phenomena Codices that granted them magic, then someone else vandalized them and caused that ability to disappear from the world, Ariana and the Elder Codex immediately drops us into the middle of a repair job on the Codex of Water. The Library’s librarians are working on fixing these books, and our heroine Ariana in particular has the gift of being able to go inside these damaged tomes to repair them from the inside by witnessing events from their stories and defeating monsters within them. In so doing, she’ll repair them to varying degrees and gain new abilities. Which in turn affects the Metroidvania of Ariana and the Elder Codex , as gaining magic means she might be able to access areas formerly impassible in previous books to finish repair jobs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0B-WuSTojA Combat in Ariana and the Elder Codex isn’t too different from the active battle systems in other Metroidvania games, with combos possible depending in if you use equip spells with launching capabilities, build up an opponent’s stun gauge, or use enough magic from one element to cause a burst and chain reaction. Three spells at a time can be equipped to your loadout, and you can have two at once set. The Story of the Sword standard, neutral attack can also pick up elemental effects after getting one of the four base elements from an Elemental Advent to assist in those combinations. Add to that the option to eventually strengthen the spells we know at the Library with Divina, and we can end up with quite a few options for how we handle situations. Likewise, we can also strengthen Ariana herself by crafting equipment. The thing about Ariana and the Elder Codex is while there are these options for customizing our builds, it doesn’t feel as complex or challenging as other Metroidvania style games. There are multiple difficulty levels, of course, so you can shift things up to attempt to make bosses feel more difficult. I found the progression didn’t result in it feeling like it ever really tested me. Many of the standard enemies aren’t all that difficult, and there’s not much variety when it comes to the more general minions. The boss fights tend to feature clearly telegraphed moves and easily identifiable patterns, so it doesn’t feels as varied as similar games like the Ender Lilies or Ender Magnolia entries. The Codices we explore also don’t take us too far off beaten paths, so it isn’t like we get maps as inviting as Dracula’s keeps in Castlevania . It’s fine, sometimes even pretty, but I often found myself wishing elements were more like other games in the genre. Images via Idea Factory International Perhaps if the story ended up being a bit more engaging, that might have helped. It isn’t bad! The idea of Ariana being unique when it comes to her repair abilities and the mystery surrounding her parents’ disappearance and the vandalism of the tomes felt like it had potential when I went through the introduction! …But then after finishing the initial Codex of Water repair, we actually meet Library director John Berkeley, who assigned Ariana her task. Dude looks like this and features Ryozaburo Otomo doing his usual intimidating performances like he did as Crocodile in One Piece ,Ghadius in Klonoa , Jiao the Immovable in Tales of Xillia , and Astaroth in Soulcalibur , and I think you can see where I’m going with this. In short, its story is clearly pretty predictable. Screenshots by Siliconera In a way, there’s a charm that comes from starting a Metroidvania like Ariana and the Elder Codex , knowing it’s a fine, solid experience. It’s not earth shattering. It doesn’t redefine the genre. You’ll clearly see what you need to do and know what’s coming. Still, it's entertaining for what it is and while it lasts, and that's okay. Ariana and the Elder Codex is available on the Switch, PS5, and PC, and a demo is available. The post Review: Ariana and the Elder Codex Can Be a Magical Metroidvania appeared first on Siliconera .

Reviews Articles and News - SiliconeraMar 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 .

Reviews Articles and News - SiliconeraMar 27

Marathon Review - Incredible Highs, Painful LowsWe started on Perimeter, the map tuned to provide the "easiest" experience in Marathon , and spent the next 15 minutes trapped in the very first building we entered, fighting every single team of player "Runners" in the match. It was GameSpot senior producer Jean-Luc Seipke's very first match in Bungie's online first-person extraction shooter, and it was nothing if not a trial by fire. Together with our matchmade teammate, we battled down hallways and around corners, flanking and catching opponents out, dying and reviving one another time and again. We came back from near-defeat over and over, hanging on by a thread. At one point, with my guns completely dry, I slipped an opponent by hopping over a railing to a lower floor, only to sneak back up the stairs, find them facing away, and knife them in the back until they died. Another time, an invisible Assassin character lost us in a cloud of smoke, and I jumped through some broken windows into the room where we'd last seen them, hoping to flank--only to find them hiding in a corner, a claymore at the door, ready to ambush my teammates. They never even saw me as I machine-gunned them. Continue Reading at GameSpot

GameSpot - Game ReviewsMar 25

Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection ReviewThe best way to play as the most underrated version of the Blue Bomber.

IGN PC ReviewsMar 25

Screamer Review - Too Many Layers Reviewed on: PlayStation 5 Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC Publisher: Milestone S.r.l. Developer: Milestone S.r.l. Rating: Mature Arcade racers can be a ton of fun, but they’re rarely especially deep or complex. Screamer is one of the exceptions. Unabashed in its embrace of many classic arcade sensibilities, it also gleefully throws new mechanics, concepts, characters, storytelling tropes, and customization options at the player, keeping the action fast and furious while layering in all sorts of twisty complexity. At first, this depth feels rewarding, but as more and more pieces drop into place, it all starts to feel overwrought and fiddly, distracting from the core fun of a fast, intense race. I appreciate the desire to try new things in a frequently stale genre, but the many mechanical pieces just don’t gel together enough for me to offer a full-throated endorsement. Screamer’s Tournament mode is both the central campaign and introduction to the game’s many characters and systems. Playing out through both dialogue-heavy character conversations and several impressively crafted anime cutscenes, Screamer tells the tale of a near-future sci-fi racing tournament and a cast of emotionally damaged drivers who hope to win. Strong voice acting notwithstanding, the pacing and tenor of the storytelling are always cranked to 11. All the characters are angry, despicable, or both, with little room for subtlety, unloading soap-opera levels of melodrama that starts to wear thin after the first few hours. I felt like I had no one to root for. The frenetic beat-heavy soundtrack is equally high-energy, but eventually exhausting in its noisy fervor; it’s the rare game music I was eventually forced to mute. The racing is tight and pretty, featuring fictional supercars blazing down an impressive variety of challenging courses. Everything is vibrant, and the sense of speed is satisfying and intoxicating. Likewise, I’m a tremendous fan of Milestone’s innovative approach to steering and drifting, which uses both sticks in tandem to offer precise control of front and back wheels; it takes time to master, but it feels slick once you grasp what it’s going for. As the tournament progresses, it’s the seemingly endless parade of additional mechanical systems that lead to a breakdown. Boost, sync, entropy, strike, shield, hype, overdrive, character skills – each new bit layers onto the last, and eventually becomes so much that it distracts from the fun of the furious race tempo. Semi-automatic shifting gifts boost, but its visual cues are at the edges of the screen, distracting you from the upcoming turn. Boosting builds strike capability, but in so doing, it forces you to consider firing it off at inopportune moments just to build up the chance to attack. Skills differ from one character to the next, some of which have extremely detrimental effects if you don’t use them in the perfect situation, such as detonating your own car. These problems are exacerbated by several frustrating objectives, like one race that demanded I knock out opponents from behind (forcing me to stay in the back of the pack) while also winning the race – not impossible, but fundamentally unintuitive and illogical. Difficulty is also frequently wildly uneven, with sometimes annoying rubberbanding from the computer opponents and individual races that bounce between way too easy and infuriatingly hard to pass, which can subsequently block story progress. By the time I hit credits on the Tournament, I was happy to be moving on. Thankfully, the arcade mode offers plenty of flexibility to race as you please; even if I was still not in love with all the interlocking mechanics, at least I felt free to focus solely on the race. Several fun challenge modes provide additional paths to engagement, like checkpoint races or explosive overdrive runs where you careen headlong at boosted speeds for as long as you can before blowing up. Car customization is simple yet enjoyable, letting you tweak the visual aesthetics of each of the many playable leads and their vehicles. I also appreciate the wide range of multiplayer options. Four-player splitscreen play was once a staple of the genre, but many other racers have since abandoned it. Screamer significantly boosts replayability through its inclusion, which worked well each time I tried it. Players can also dive into several different online races in larger groups of up to 16 players, where the competition is fierce. I love that Milestone is experimenting with new ideas within the arcade racing formula, and while the story didn’t land for me, I applaud the effort at narrative in a genre that frequently doesn’t even try to add meaningful context to its races. Even so, difficulty spikes and arbitrary objectives combine with overly convoluted mechanics to rob Screamer of some of its fun. It’s worth experiencing to see a developer try something new, but this race track might just have too many turns to be a winner. Score: 7 About Game Informer's review system

Game Informer ReviewsMar 25