With a subtle art style and in-depth narrative, Flat Eye manages to tell a dystopian story without feeling preachy. While it is a management sim, you won't find this game as mechanically full or complicated as others in the genre.
How to Say Goodbye explores the afterlife from a more personal point of view, with a focus on healing at your own pace. If you can ignore the sometimes clunky puzzle solving, this is an easy day-length game to play when you want a lighter approach to death.
Honey, I Joined a Cult has multiple components, and they all work well together. Its customization options add a layer of replayability that isn't often found in management sims. However, it the well will run dry for some.
Potionomics combines genres to produce a deck-building game that never get old. It sometimes feels overwhelming, but the end product is satisfying enough to keep you hooked.
Trifox is colorful and humorous with a minimal story, but a surprisingly full gameplay experience. While I had some issues with the mechanics, the game still manages to be a solid 3D platformer and twin-stick shooter.
God of War is a lore heavy game with a seemingly endless supply of pickups, quests, and side dialogue centered around Norse mythology and the relationship between a father, Kratos, and his young son Atreus.
This has been the year of me playing games I’d usually never pick up and going, “Wow, this is a good game!” So let me begin this review with this — Undernauts: Labyrinth of Yomi is a good game that fell completely under my radar. From developer Experience, Undernauts is your typical dungeon RPG, but that doesn’t mean it’s your average DRPG.
Impostor Factory is a surprisingly beautiful game that questions what it means to have a meaningful life. It tells a cyclical narrative that still manages to feel honest and emotionally raw. It works best if you go into it with as little information as possible, so I won’t say much more than that on how the story unfolds.
Here Comes Niko is the exact kind of game that speaks to people who feel intimidated by 60-hour adventures, multi-phase boss levels and narratives that spawn multiple games. Or for people who simply want to relax.
I know this is starting to sound like a piece more dedicated to visual novels than Famicom Detective Club itself, but I promise you it's not. The games' history and their context is just so important. Visual novels aren't new, and they aren't unpopular, but still they end up being categorized as a niche genre for specific people, or as "smaller" or "easier" games. That's wrong, and Famicom Detective Club demonstrates that. These two games take mechanics from visual novels and adventure games of the past to create an immersive, diverse experience.
A comfortable, solo TTRPG experience that's accessible and well written.
Ikenfell is a great game wrapped in a small package. Even with small pacing issues and a battle system that I often wanted to skip, I had a surprisingly good time with this game. Almost every aspect of it shines on its own and put together it’s a great retro-style RPG that takes the commonplace world of teenage magic and proves that it can be an inclusive space full of introspection and growth.
A promising visual novel that just slightly misses the mark.
A classic farming sim with room for improvements.
Overall, Summer in Mara has an incredibly strong narrative with character art and light music that only strengthens it. It’s youthful and vibrant, but it also has more somber notes that aren’t always found in farming sims. The only downside is that music and a character driven plot aren't enough to get through all the tedious parts.
Signs of the Sojourner turns deck-building into a chance at growth.