A Stardew Valley-inspired horror safari on its surface, Welcome to Elderfield is in fact a surprisingly crunchy turn-based RPG. There is no deep point to Welcome to Elderfield’s pastiche; it is neither a parody nor sendup of Stardew Valley, but simple mimicry. Welcome to Elderfield is not interested in gesturing at the possible dark underside of a place like StardewValley is. Instead, its horror element is a theme park of mishmashed scares and references, borrowing here from zombie fiction, there from Lovecraftian mythos, everywhere obsessed with 90s-adjacent hauntology divorced from the real material basis of the lives we live.
The town of Elderfield itself is eyerollingly stereotypical without being subversive. There are no cars about, the school is somehow closed for good but the library is still bustling, and the town comes together in shared communal events on a frequent basis. The game lacks a social thesis. It is an idyllic town even with the horror layer; dilapidated services and morose citizens are a result of a dark underground cult, not anything from the real world. It is a place out of time. In that sense, it is quite similar to Stardew Valley, both intertwined with the desire for that holy imparted word, “coziness.”
The search for coziness out of necessity declaws the horror. Early on in the game, my character finished a quest to construct an effigy of a wife for a lonely man. It reanimated, with the construct proclaiming its love for the man. The man returned this love. No twist or bittersweet ending, just a quest completed. Another happy customer in Elderfield, and not the first. The darker and deeper secrets to find are typically just more intimidating health pools for the enemies you encounter.
One of the few interesting lore bits is not at all cozy: the skeletons are strange and horrible. At some point in their lives, undead residents of Elderfield feel the need to dispose of the flesh. Many even migrate into the catacombs, a labyrinth that reminded me of nursing homes with all the neglected promises to loved ones aging out of usefulness to the labor force.
An NPC named Edwin makes one of the more striking remarks of the game, saying he had to put his skin back on since nowhere in Elderfield was hiring skeletons. It was an ominous line, delivered with a shrug of inevitability that gave me one of the few shivers playing the game. The city is replete with attempts at flavor, with some hitting the mark more effectively than others.
Welcome to Elderfield has four long seasons, each with its own holiday celebration, seasonal crops, supernatural events, soundtrack, and so on. I found the seasonal events I participated in to be a bit lackluster. They barely changed my war chest of goods and left no lasting impact on my relationship with NPCs. A special supernatural event occurs every calendar day, which the TV news program will relay to you. Although they do eventually repeat, there is a nice variety. They give the city needed character, but I ignored them as I got deeper into the game.
If the town itself is a bit generic, the radio stations you gain access to on your journey lend it the unsettling air it is almost cringing for. In the end though, you will feel much more connection to your inventory than any named character or place.
Combat is where Welcome to Elderfield shines.
Unlike many of its peers in the genre, Welcome to Elderfield is a feature-complete, turn-based RPG. Like Look Outside from last year, I think this is a brilliant choice for resource management-horror RPGs.
Welcome to Elderfield’s borderline obsession with imparting RNG into every interaction also works to throw a wrench (or an angel) into every bit of planning. Searching the garbage? Roll a d6. Looting a monster’s corpse? Roll a d6. Trying to see what’s up with that haunted ATM? Roll a d6. Gonna go to sleep after a hard day? Roll a d6 and hope rats don’t come to nibble your earlobes. A little bit of time to think is often all you need to begin to panic, to sweat your situation. Will I have enough healing to delve deeper? Should I pick up this item? Should I interact with this random event?
Welcome to Elderfield, in putting battles front and center, also makes the interesting decision to replace almost all time pressure with combat. There is no real “energy” economy as you might know it from other farming sim RPGs. There is no tool or equipment degradation either, and only your ranch animals require much daily handholding. Early on, you acquire a warp spell that takes you to your bed with no MP cost or downside besides monster regeneration. You can reliably even skip sleep, with dire consequences only occurring after more than a couple of days.
The Tax Man is one of Welcome to Elderfield‘s few attempts at adding a time imposition on you. He requires certain crops within 2 weeks, or ELSE (I tested to see what the penalty was and it’s -10% to physical and magic attack until the next tax fog, not insignificant). Welcome to Elderfield mostly wants to add friction in its deep dungeon delves or in acquiring currency for its many money sinks. That being said, combat walls necessitate diving back into the crafting trees to figure out how to accrue more power, whether it be for equipment or more efficient healing items.
Itemization is robust and offers two clear build paths: a focus on less versatile but resource saving melee, or the powerful but sometimes fragile mage. Great items can be painstakingly forged but I mostly discovered them in the world, to the point where by the time I could forge something advanced, I already had something superior.
Every major “dungeon” has a group you have to do tasks for to progress deeper. For example, The Local Joggers Club are the only ones who know the winding paths of the dark woods. I have my problems with Welcome to Elderfield‘s setting, but it is always at pains to marry its quaint take on small town American life to its larger RPG ambitions. Using niche community activities as a way to uncover deep mysteries and occult secrets is just fun.
Speaking of community activities, do not neglect your churchly duties. At one point, only my loyalty to Kaal (one of a dozen old gods you can pledge your mortal soul to in the game) helped me surmount a difficult boss. I was able to access a door only for Kaal followers deep inside a mine I had discovered, and inside was a maul that both upgraded my attack and lowered MP spell requirements. It was exciting serendipity that Welcome to Elderfield’s RNG loot and decision-making allowed.
There’s plenty to decorate with, if you have the coin.
Raising animals goes hand-in-hand with tending to your farm, and it requires significant monetary investment and daily check-ins with your feed troughs and fields. Rather than the game letting you loose from the start, every inch of land you till has to be cleansed with a semi-rare item called Cleansing Balm. Monster infestations are common and lucrative for your business if you have been keeping up with the game’s difficulty curve.
While not a throwaway aspect of Welcome to Elderfield in the slightest, farming and ranching can feel less hands-on than the combat. It is not too difficult to have a thriving estate even with minimal care towards min-maxing, as long as you pay attention to your small deadlines and what crops can be produced in a given season.
As all farm and ranch products go towards the removal of the seal barring the door to the Stone Tower, the game’s central mystery, you will want to keep your thumb green. The money sinks are no joke, including in the late-game dungeon. To descend all the way to the game’s final challenge and see credits, you will have to do everything.
Don’t expect much in socializing beyond this.
As satisfying as smashing sentient pumpkins or evil deer to bits is, navigating Elderfield’s social link system is an unrewarding chore. All of the main human romance options are uniformly uninteresting partners at the beginning and do not evolve at all as you “get to know them” (aka, struggle your way through trial-and-error gift-giving for small incremental increases in the 10-heart gauge). Tasks that might intersect with them do not increase their relationship meter and are never commented upon again.
Perhaps most odd is Welcome to Elderfield’s notion of diversity. Skeletons, ex-skeletons, and goo monsters are all available to woo, but no person of color. In fact, the entire game is devoid of non-white human NPCs throughout its entire runtime. In a game that exalts Lovecraft, that is perhaps a little too darkly ironic.
Welcome to Elderfield will be an interesting case for fans of the genre who flocked to its revival with Stardew Valley. What the hell is cozy? Much of the enemy art has clear inspirations from Junji Ito. The sheer density of the town’s supernatural happenings and resignation also feel akin. However, it never feels as hopeless or helpless as Ito’s most famous works. Welcome to Elderfield is a game where you can summon the unearthly and smash it with a big hammer.
Review by Mark Roddison ·
September 7, 2026 · 2:00 pm
Gather your mercenaries, manage their loadout, and watch your group finances: Veterum follows as much in the wake of fantasy mercenary company RPGs as manyothers, including its own direct precursor. On leaving early access, the unit trait and movement-based strategy systems and a varied world of random events and scenarios do much to keep the mission afloat, even if the core narrative and visual design (as well as a few control foibles) make truly inhabiting the world difficult. Veterum pays well and pays on time, but it’s not a best-in-class employer.
Crasleen Games’ Veterum drops players into a dark fantasy realm teetering on the brink of apocalypse, where ancient wild forces have reawakened and dark cults run rampant. As a commander of the Order of the Gatekeepers—the world’s last line of defense against encroaching chaos—you are charged with venturing across a non-linear open map to rally fragile alliances between distrustful factions like Humans, Dwarves, Elves, and orc-like Turans. Rather than relying on a strictly scripted narrative, the game weaves its story dynamically through procedural world events, weaving in emergent faction tensions and internal mercenary friction as Edward (the commander) scrambles to gather helpful artifacts and halt the end of days. There’s a lot of text to get through to understand Veterum’s world lore, but with no other artwork or visual design elements to sell it, the walls of text struggle to land the core story or side vignettes well, and the small, tight font doesn’t help matters.
Edward leads his company around a static world map, visiting city or location nodes and selecting the missions that appear or events that trigger. These are somewhat randomised for every playthrough, and there is extra dynamism in how settlements can become ravaged by enemy actions or their relationship drops with you to such a point Edward is denied entry or access to services.
For the glory of Edward!
From an art design perspective, Veterum is all about the tactical map battles. The overland map is basic and perfunctory. City tokens and terrain indicators are simple and rooted in pastoral fantasy: there are no Volcano Ruins or Floating Tundra caverns to see here. Tactical maps fare better, with terrain elements, such as impassable terrain, fire, or water, visible and detailed enough to plan around. Character tokens do suffer from generic design, and what’s worse, they can’t be customised in any way, nor are enemy tokens varied.
They’re quite small, given the size of the armies, and even the nicer designs (such as the undead forces and the dwarves) don’t have the chance to ping off the map. Similarly, animations, like damage and spell effects, are low-key. The odd explosion and a few floating status effect markers are the stock and trade. In fairness, the whole setup is comparable to other mercenary RPG games. Still, it feels like a little more pizazz would benefit these elements, especially because tactical maps are the majority of the game. Battle Brothers is a good example: not particularly complex art design or effects, but a very definite sense of character and pawn design. I worry Veterum appears (and is) too generic for some folk who value visuals just as much as tactics. Music and sound effects are similar: the score feels bland, and the simple sound effects for abilities and damage are very old-school.
Once you visit multiple settlements and build sufficient standing, you gain access to an impressive roster of mercenaries, spanning from necromancers and mounted knights to orc-like berserkers. Units come with the standard array of attributes and individual stat affinities, but their true distinctiveness lies in their traits. These traits influence many factors—like salary demands or company morale on the road—ensuring no two hires feel identical. I found that balancing these quirks became a compelling puzzle: a morose, hard-hitting warrior who sours the group’s mood might ultimately prove less desirable than a happy-go-lucky recruit who takes longer to train. When deployed onto hex-based battlefields, your warband must contend with terrain, weather, and morale effects while spending Action Points to move, attack, and execute abilities. The turn structure feels refreshingly intuitive, allowing you to take all your moves at once and freely interleave unit activations to pull off satisfying positional strategies.
Layering unique unit traits and positioning them across the hex map becomes your primary focus. For example, warriors gain defense by standing shoulder-to-shoulder, while mounted knights can trample adjacent foes at the end of their turn. Mission variety spans raids, boss rushes, and frustrating escort quests, but settlement sieges steal the show. Besieging the AI triggers some of the game’s brutal highlights: it aggressively targets your vulnerable mages, adapts to your frontline pushes, and unloads catapult fire with precision. Factor in unit facing and weather effects on Accuracy, and it’s evident Veterum plays far more like a wargame than a traditional strategy RPG.
Enjoyment of the combat hinges on how much you relish working the strategic synergies—pooling unit traits, controlling bottlenecks, and managing unit positions and direction. Veterum brutally punishes sloppy play: squishy wizards melt instantly under pressure, and archers become useless in rainy fog. Because defeated units face a high chance of permanent death, you must find joy in the tactical grit of battle rather than the emotional journey of your warband. By the time I reached the campaign’s end, I struggled to remember a single mercenary besides Edward—I burned through too many along the way.
Time to go on a jolly holiday!
Post-combat experience progression relies strictly on active participation—only units that score kills or provide direct support earn a share. To grow your warband efficiently, you must adopt key tactical habits: feeding low-health enemies to greener recruits and constantly rotating frontline veterans with fresh blood. Earned experience then directly funds improved attributes and specialized combat skills.
Interestingly, a unit’s nominal “level” simply reflects total experience invested rather than providing an automatic stat boost, though it immediately drives up a unit’s salary demands. While I found this a bit unintuitive at first, it heightens the financial tension of managing high-value veterans, making the threat of losing an expensive, heavily-funded warrior feel all the more devastating to your purse.
There’s plenty to do in Veterum; the procedural generation aspect of the scenarios, and the wide range of unit types and open rules for their deployment mean you truly can invoke your ‘army of wizards’ fantasies, presuming you have the coin. The many traits and stat growth permutations multiply this variety tenfold: my own wizard squad were as Peevish as hell, constantly lowering my army’s mood, but they were powerful and blessed with Mana, so I put it with a rogue squad of sorts for many of my battles. On normal, and as intended, it’s a challenging game where every unit hire and combat decision must be considered. It earns its place with the demand and crustiness of its forebears.
Outside of combat, Veterum is bare-bones. Settlements offer brief lore snippets alongside hubs for recruiting mercenaries. Units can remain at a tavern to earn passive experience or grow attitudes, and there are merchants from which to purchase gear. Equipment actively modifies tactical rules—such as burning arrows that allow archers to build bonfires and gain damage bonuses when firing next to them—rather than always boosting raw numbers.
Jonas fancies a pint at the tavern and can gain experience for his attempts!
Despite the simple robustness of the systems, the UI doesn’t always provide a smooth experience. Abilities or actions can be difficult to trigger because they don’t provide enough information for how they react on the map. I found examples like the Knight’s Charge, or even picking up and moving siege ladders, to be a headache of wasted action points and lost units or battles. And for such an important tactic, unit facing is fiddly and expensive to get wrong through wasted action points. Again.
Veterum is a battle-hardened, tactically astute member of the mercenary RPG pantheon, but one not attempting to flatter to deceive, or really care much about the scars or wounds they display. It’s all a bit rough and ready, but the underlying thoughts are as sharp as they come. If graphics, sounds, or narrative aren’t your core driving force for guiding a group of fantasy mercs through various tactical scenarios, there is a lot to love here. Otherwise, you might find a different game is more to your sensibilities. For my part, I’ve got a new idea for an Archer Army…
Review by Audra Bowling ·
September 5, 2026 · 12:00 pm
Following the betrayal of her kingdom’s church, during which she lost everything, a young survivor emerges from the burned ruins of her village only to get a new lease on life by masquerading as a rival country’s prophesied Moon Witch. Can Fiena hold on to her new, cherished sense of security even as political machinations once more threaten to take it all away? LocaGames‘ fantasy otome Volontés is a tale of magic and survival, crafting a compelling visual novel with multiple routes to uncover every secret in its plot.
Similar to LocaGames’ first localized otome title, Yukar From The Abyss, Volontés is a shorter VN focusing less on quantity and more on the quality of its four character routes. The storyline is darker fantasy fare, building on itself with reveals from one route (such as the reason wolves sometimes appear on the periphery of events) that often impact the direction of a later one.
The cast of characters is phenomenal, led by the strong-willed protagonist Fiena, who evolves believably throughout the plot. The four love interests each have distinct personalities and well-developed motivations, and there are many memorable supporting characters, including two standout cast members: Fiena’s aggressive, boisterous lady-in-waiting, Marie, and an understanding, patient magic teacher, Ciara. Narratively, Volontés hits the ground running and spins a successfully engaging yarn that encourages replayabilty, especially since two of the story routes must be unlocked by completing the others first.
Make your decision!
Some might find the story lacking in the romance department, which is surprising considering it is labeled an otome title. Volontés focuses on crafting a believable fantasy world populated with nuanced characters, but as a result, the romance tends to take a back seat to the goings-on at the front and center of the plot. That isn’t to say what’s present isn’t well-written or believably developed, though. Quite the contrary, as I enjoyed the romance subplots greatly once they unfolded. But those who go into Volontés with the expectation of romance as a central theme since it’s usually a key component of an otome might be disappointed to find it takes second-fiddle status here.
Despite Volontés’ shorter game time amongst its four character routes, there’s still a plethora of endings to uncover. A helpful-yet-simplistic story map aids players once they’ve completed a first playthrough, with the usual assortment of extras also unlockable the further along you go. These include a CG gallery, short stories detailing a sweet epilogue for each “happy ending” uncovered, a “listening to music” option, and uncovered character profiles. However, it’s where the music box comes into play that you’ll notice the localization’s oddness.
Who to talk to first, I wonder?
While the English localization for Volontés is flawless from a script and grammar stance, it’s a bit of a journey to actually reach it. The default language for Volontés is Japanese, and, naturally, everything from the controller layout map to the game’s text is written in it. You can change the game script to English via settings, but things such as the default name menu for Fiena or the credits during the opening cinema or ending remain untranslated. It isn’t a game-breaking issue by any means, but it can be distracting at times and makes the English localization seem more of an afterthought even when its quality is top-notch.
Volontés is a gorgeous game with beautiful backdrops, character portraits, and CG illustrations. I honestly wish there’d simply been more variety in backgrounds, given how beautiful they are, since the game relies heavily on “tell, don’t show” during important narrative events that involve supposed action sequences or crowd sizes.
Likewise, the character portraits are great, but not everyone gets one, including some relatively important named characters amongst the mix. Fiena herself has a great design, yet she only appears in certain CG illustrations, which feels like a waste. The UI is simple yet aesthetically pleasing, fitting the story’s fantasy tone. Sound-wise, the voice acting and music are both excellent, though one of the biggest disappointments is that Fiena remains unvoiced. The music, such as the opening theme, definitely helps set the stage for emotional responses and the setting.
The romance is well-written, even if it isn’t the main focus of the narrative.
All in all, I’m rather impressed by Volontés. Aside from the roundabout way to reach the English localization, the story and characters in this VN are wonderfully written and deftly portrayed, even if it sometimes feels as though the romance element is secondary. At around four hours per route, the game’s short-but-ultimately-satisfying length is a boon as well. Like Yukar From The Abyss before it, Volontés is a title that proves LocaGames can deliver high-quality otomes comparable to the genre’s heavyweights. Those who enjoy well-written, choice-heavy VNs would do well to check it out!
Review by Audra Bowling ·
September 3, 2026 · 12:00 pm
Love may be a battlefield, but does throwing kissing willy-nilly into the mix make it more memorable? The remastered version of EXSTETRA (2026), a title originally released on the PlayStation Vita and Nintendo 3DS but never localized into English, reflects on this. While this new HD remaster is a tad messy and comparatively dated now, it contains that inherent oddly likable and charming element found in many of FuRyu’s outings. Whether it’s worth the investment to get to some surprisingly decent moments wholly depends on your personal gaming preferences, though.
Kissing to save two worlds!
EXSTETRA finds a Japanese teenager named Ryouma transported to the fantasy wasteland world of Amazia. He soon encounters Selene, a white-haired priestess wearing what looks like futuristic battle swimwear. She promptly informs the amnesiac Ryouma that he’s the Prisma, the chosen one summoned to Amazia to save it and his own reality from destruction. But the understandably overwhelmed Ryouma isn’t meant to do this alone, as six others from Japan have been summoned to Amazia to aid him. They’re shall become warriors known as the Prisma Knights, but the only way to awaken their transformative warrior powers is through sharing kisses with them. It’s as awkwardly messy as you’d expect. Still, after the initial hesitation and in light of the very real dangers they’re facing, everyone quickly gets on board with the smooching aspect, albeit with the two male party members taking a slightly longer time to warm up to the concept.
To be sure, the kissing mechanic is a central gimmick to this turn-based RPG, with special, devastatingly powerful moves only available once characters lock lips to access them. There’s even an oddly timed button-pressing minigame requiring the perfect overlap of two hearts on the screen while Ryouma and the selected Prisma Knight share a lengthy kiss. However, you have the option of turning the minigame off in normal battles if you prefer. Given how long the turn-based battles run, I actually found the kissing mechanic to be an oddly welcome diversion that I eventually warmed up to, even if it did take some adjusting to.
Rows adds a unique strategic element to the turn-based combat.
At its core, EXSTETRA is a traditional turn-based RPG with its combat setup. Ryouma, alongside Selene and the Prisma Knights, gain access to weapons and armor to equip, as well as specialized orbs that grant them personalized magic. As they gain experience and level up, they also gain uniquely specialized attack and support skills. You can upgrade weapons and armor further through items, strengthening them and maintaining their utility during lengthy dungeon runs. Party members can also add Runes to equipment; these Runes grant characters access to several passive and active skills when maxed out. For example, Add Amnesia increases the likelihood of an attack causing that status effect when landing, while Extra Attack could cause a character to strike an enemy multiple times. By utilizing Runes, you can greatly tailor characters and create powerful fighters that can devastate the battlefield even in the game’s later stages.
The most unique aspect of combat outside of Runes is easily the thorough implementation of rows. A front-range fighter getting pushed into the back row may very well lose their turn in a round, and getting rid of all of the enemies in the front row of the opposing side will result in your shorter-range characters being unable to attack the remaining back row foes until the turn ends. The party moves up rows to get within acceptable range. It’s an interesting system that opens the door to more strategizing. However, the main issue with fights is that they can run incredibly long, as characters either lose turns for a whole round or their Rune sets trigger chained attacks that stretch on indefinitely. This is even worse in the later dungeons when several enemies possess the Blessing skill that causes them to revive several times over after being initially defeated. Fortunately, you can speed up battles with a button press, but even with that feature it still feels like they take forever.
You know, it’s awfully nice of the enemies to wait for the lengthy kissing sessions to get over with before attacking again.
EXSTETRA has an oddly implemented relationship-building mechanic. Generally, fighting in a party together and emerging victorious will increase a character’s affection with Ryouma, especially if the kissing mechanic occurs, though running from combat or having a character get knocked out during combat decreases it. I generally kept the same three party members (Shiho, Jin, and Masaru) in my four-person party because I found their skills the most versatile for my battle strategies, so I rarely had trouble keeping their affection high. However, the other characters’ affection often dropped unless I used a special affection-increasing item on them.
Engaging in the game’s simplified cooking feature can also raise their affection, and I generally found it easy enough to keep the levels high enough for all the Prisma Knights to see their optional story scenes and extra dialogue outside of dungeons. At a certain point during the final dungeon, you’re tasked with choosing between the three Prisma Knights you have the highest affection with, and that ultimately determines whose ending you see. I do give the game credit for being equal opportunity with its male and female characters in that regard, as the endings are quite heavily romantically tinged regardless of your choice, something I noticed when I picked Jin for my first playthrough.
From a story and character standpoint, EXSTETRA has both silly moments and narrative reveals of surprising depth. The quick acceptance of the circumstances that brought everyone to Amazia and the idea that kissing leads to magical transformations is rather amusing if not taken too seriously, and Ryouma generally seems like a good sport about his amnesia. It isn’t until later that Ryouma gets a bit more depth regarding his feelings about being the only one suffering memory loss and what that might mean. The Prisma Knights all have interesting backstories and circumstances if you manage to raise their affections enough to uncover their additional story scenes, though beforehand they largely appear as character archetypes. I genuinely enjoyed most of their plot developments even if I felt they could’ve explored them more. Selene also has some interesting twists later on concerning her role in the story, but reaching these story payoffs is a matter of patience and personal preference.
If I were in Ryouma’s shoes, I’d have about a million follow-up questions here.
The game does show its age, even with HD remastered visuals. I like the anime cutscenes and the character designs in general. Still, the story’s more limited, visual-novel-esque presentation reminds you that this was initially a Vita and 3DS title. There are some optional “voyeur” images of the female characters at times, though I give the game credit for making it easy to opt out of those segments if you wish. Dungeon and enemy designs also tend to be unvaried, making the long treks feel even longer. The UI is effective but ultimately simple in appearance and, while the localization is largely decent, there’s the occasional dialogue spelling or grammatical error. I do love the game’s partial voice acting and the perfectly fitting atmospheric music for the story, though. One of my favorite scenes used one of the more intense battle themes during a predictably comedic outcome to the obligatory hot springs story scene, to great effect!
All in all, I was quite satisfied with my playthrough of EXSTETRA (2026) when the credits rolled and I saw my chosen ending scenes. I’m not sure I’d play the game again anytime soon, given its tendency to drag out fights and long narrative development, especially since I was satisfied with my ending. Yet, it has traces of that inherent potential and charm so often hidden in FuRyu titles. There’s something to enjoy here, at least for a little while, if you can get past the dated visuals and mechanics. I’m glad that EXSTETRA was finally localized, at least as it has me hopeful that later on down the road FuRyu might experiment with another RPG, kissing mechanic or no. If nothing else, EXSTETRA could be a good discount purchase for anyone curious and patient enough.
Review by Pete Leavitt ·
September 2, 2026 · 12:00 pm
Reviewer’s note: This review has been written based on the fan translation by the Valkyria Chronicles 3 Fan Translation Project team. While we appreciate their hard work and recognize the difficulty of the task, the unfortunate reality is that this translation was very poor and riddled with both grammatical and technical problems. As such, we decided to omit the story score from the review and assign scores only to “official” facets. About two months before the finishing of this review, a modder known as Akorov released a much improved version of the translation based on the original effort. Most of the problems have been fixed by this release, and it comes highly recommended.
While Valkyria Chronicles was quite the darling on the PlayStation 3, its PSP exclusive sequel made less of a splash. It’s a shame, because although it was riddled with compromises due to weaker hardware and the story was a little silly, it was worth playing as a fun and earnest tactical RPG, with the same excellent WWII-inspired setting and a great third-person shooter-derived turn-based combat system as the first game.
Valkyria Chronicles 3, for what one could assume are reasons related to the poor fan reception of Valkyria Chronicles II, was never released in the West. You can imagine how series fans felt about this, especially once they discovered that, in many ways, it was the best game in the series to date.
Kurt Irving, having graduated at the top of his class at Lanseal Military Academy and lauded as a prodigious tactical genius, wasted no time earning praise as a young squad leader in the Gallian Regular Army during the Second European War. Soon after, however, he is mysteriously charged with a crime that sends him to a penal unit with other criminals, led by the undisciplined and lecherous commanding officer Lt. Col. Crowe. As the new leader of this expendable unit, Kurt, now stripped of his name and known as “No. 7,” is tasked with carrying out dangerous operations, some conventional, some unconventional, and some of the “war crime” variety.
Young, innocent, heretofore unaccused Kurt Irving receiving instruction.
Talk about a strong start. I would say that, generally, the Valkyria Chronicles series is capable of tackling serious subjects with some success. Still, it tends to veer back into safer territory, which I assess benefits the series by allowing the characters to shine and players to connect with events. Here in Valkyria Chronicles 3, we immediately begin not with the idyllic small town nestled in the countryside like in VC, nor with the excitement of the start of a school year, like in VC II, but falsely branded as criminals by corrupt officials.
The series has always done a good job of shining a light on the more unsavory parts of the Gallian military, avoiding the trap of depicting this tiny, desperate, resource-rich nation as completely unimpeachable in its political and military conduct, but in Valkyria Chronicles 3, from the perspective of the falsely accused, the discrimination and mistreatment of your unit, the willingness of command to make your unit break international law, and the series’ narrative staple of Europan racism toward the Darcsen ethnic minority are constant topics of conversation.
You’ll see a few familiar faces along your journey.
With this in mind, I kept on waiting for actual criminals to join my squad. It seemed that nobody in my unit did anything so horrible that they’d be punished this way. It would have been so narratively stimulating to be forced to work alongside some real scumbags. Fortunately, despite this missed opportunity, many of the characters, especially the main characters, are very well-realized, though most of the supporting characters are one-note (Leila is a particularly unfortunate case).
Again, the series often veers away from serious topics after hinting at them; Valkyria Chronicles 3 has that same tendency, but thankfully to a lesser degree. For example, early on you are tasked with infiltrating enemy territory dressed as civilians. Here’s where the game succeeds in its presentation of this war crime: the characters all show apprehension about committing this act, since, if they’re discovered, it could set a bad precedent for the treatment of civilians in wartime. Here’s where it fails: instead of exploring the consequences of such an act and the moral weight of completing an important mission in this manner, Kurt, in all his genius, goes against command and finds another way to complete it.
On the other hand, a major turning point occurs when a character discovers that command slipped chemical weapons into his inventory, which would have caused him to unwittingly commit a war crime. This event and what follows are emblematic of how this entry can often beautifully follow through with its themes.
This story demands a more thorough exploration of these challenging topics than the first two games, and while it does take things to a darker place than previous entries, often satisfactorily cashing its narrative checks, at times it stops short to wrap up some beats a little too neatly. What we’re left with is still the best story in the entire series to date, the most moving element of which is an excellent, tragic warning on the danger of founding a nation solely on historic ethnic grievances, even if the grievances are well-founded.
Valkyria Chronicles 3 follows a similar structure to all others in the series. You have a map of the operational area laid out before you where you advance the story through cutscenes, receive mission briefings, select your squad, and deploy into missions. New to the series are branching paths, as well as side missions to impose some effect on the main mission, such as disabling artillery bombardments. This is a cool idea, but it isn’t taken very far and is ultimately of little consequence.
In missions, you and the enemy take turns by selecting units on a paper map at the cost of a “Command Point,” a number of which are given at the beginning of every turn. This zooms the camera into the unit and lets you move them around a 3D space as in a third-person action game. You have a certain distance you can move, determined by your AP.
To engage, you shoulder your weapon and use as much time as you need to line up your shot, ideally targeting enemies’ weak points, such as an infantry unit’s head or a tank’s engine, after which you can fire a volley with the press of a button. You can also spend Command Points on “Orders,” as special powers performed by the leader of the team to tilt the battle in their favor, such as healing or buffing units.
Potentials, a series staple and one of the best, most fiddly opportunities for min-maxing for those who want it, return.
Critical to your approach is effective use of unit classes. Scouts have a lot of AP, which allows them to cover a lot of ground, and can be a good way to capture on-map bases (which is important since bases are how you deploy units and control the map); shock troopers are assault units which excel against infantry, and can be great at defending your bases; anti-tank lancers use cool rocket-propelled armor-piercing lances to attack armored units like tanks, snipers snipe, and so on. This system is the crowning feature of this series, and it is an excellent approach to turn-based battles.
At times, you can win most battles with a methodical approach, slowly thinning out enemies and securing bases, gaining ground by clawing forward meter by meter, but the game rewards you with extra experience and money based on your speed, and some objectives impose a turn limit. This encourages or requires, respectively, that you learn some of the illogical tricks this battle system allows.
For example, in every Valkyria Chronicles game, you can spend a Command Point to forcibly withdraw a unit no matter where they are on the map. In Valkyria Chronicles 3, when you deploy a unit from a base, they deploy immediately. This means you can “cheese” this system to, say, disappear your lancer into thin air, only to immediately spawn the same unit directly behind a tank from a newly-captured base. This seemed unbalanced and unsatisfying to me at first, but if you know anything about these games, then you know that they can hit you with some crazy difficulty spikes.
Although the difficulty seemed much more even in this title, it still can be quite a challenge if you choose not to utilize methods such as these. What made me appreciate these shenanigans on a thematic level was the idea that you are supposed to be a guerrilla force, using the terrain and ambushes to overcome a numerical disadvantage. The system doesn’t allow for that kind of guerrilla action in any real way through normal play, so using this minor exploit was, for me, thematically appropriate once a rhythm and knowledge of the battle system was achieved.
This possibility also made me appreciate a handicap brought on by the technical limitation of the PSP, the only platform on which you can play both Valkyria Chronicles II and 3. Since the hardware was so limited, one of the main complaints was that maps were no longer contiguous, but broken up into sections connected by specific bases, which allowed you to move between them. Though unfortunate, this gives the PSP games a very different flavor, as how the map segments connect becomes an added strategic concern. For Valkyria Chronicles 3 in particular, the guerrilla tactics you’re supposed to employ mean that this is a praiseworthy design choice in the face of restrictions.
Gotcha.
Unfortunately, the biggest problem with the PSP’s scanty power is that so many maps are repeated. You will see the same cave systems, cozy villages, desert trenches, and urban blocks many, many times. The map designers did an admirable job of changing base locations, cover locations, objectives, and other map elements to keep it as fresh as possible, but those efforts only helped the lack of variety up to a certain point.
Despite this, Valkyria Chronicles 3 sports visual upgrades over its predecessor, with more detailed character models, more colorful locales, and an overall more artful presentation. Both games do a credible job of presenting the series on the PSP, but this one is further refined. The sounds of battle are what you’d expect from the series, which is to say, often underwhelming and quiet. The music, composed by Hitoshi Sakimoto, is good, with appropriately military-style pieces for the missions and quiet pieces for the quieter parts.
Valkyria Chronicles 3 attempts a darker, more serious story with a unique perspective. For the most part, it pulls it off wonderfully. At times, I was pleasantly surprised with some of the story beats or, more often, how some of the characters communicated their inner beliefs and goals. Not every character is great, and not every story beat will make you ponder the human condition deeply, but the (mostly) likable cast and strong themes carry this game a long way.
All the while, Valkyria Chronicles 3 is driven by one of the more unique and exciting turn-based battle systems to come along in a long time, with few imitators since. This is a special and sometimes thought-provoking game worthy of the time of anybody who reads this publication, and it’s been played by a criminally small number of people so far. Let’s change that.
I hope we never justify a “Life & Suffering-like” sub-genre of adventure games. Enough with the “likes” already. I kid, but I say this because The Life & Suffering of Prince Jerian (LSPJ) is the second game in the series that takes place in the awful, brutal Empire first introduced in The Life & Suffering of Sir Brante, and there’s really quite nothing like these two games. Peak intelligent writing that attempts to dig deep into the nuance of classism, religion, and complex societies under totalitarian rule, LSPJ demands a lot of the player emotionally and strategically, but do the sliding scales enhance the narrative or get in the way for the sake of gamification?
No matter what your feelings are about LSPJ, the quality of the writing is indisputable. Tight yet sufficiently detailed, the sophisticated vocabulary eloquently describes both intimately personal encounters and Empire-altering dilemmas with refined beauty. Initially, the descriptions and introduction to Prince Jerian’s life are easily digestible, but by the third chapter, the several scenarios and robust descriptions are intoxicating. For a game completely text-driven in shades of sepia, I hadn’t encountered an addictive quality like this since Sir Brante’s debut or Roadwarden. Of course, those less inclined toward dry, text-heavy adventures need not apply, but screenshots alone should send that message.
But what are we doing here, anyway? We play as Prince Jerian from age four to his eventual demise, whenever the game decides that happens. The game announces Prince Jerian’s aging almost every year of his life, and the presented snippets match the age and psychology of the young prince appropriately. Filled with wonder and confusion, he takes the world in and must make weighty decisions about listening to adults or sating his curiosity. What appears mundane to adults is significantly profound to a child, and the writers get that. By the mid-game, in which I’m arguing bureaucracy and laws with family and councilors running the country, I sometimes wished for those simple days.
How can you have shattered hopes when I’ve maxed out my relationship with you, Dad?
Every chapter introduces new mechanics, which adds to the complexity. Initially, we have simple events to potentially achieve depending on how we behave, and then we can alter the social standing of commoners and the elite, old and new faith, and the general feeling of justice within society. Even later, we can determine the veritable bill of rights for the Empire.
LSPJ communicates outstanding wisdom about how societal change affects all players. Do not expect the game to preach about a one-sided ideology and guide players in that direction. Rushing toward absolute equality is a surefire way to alienate a powerful demographic and end your life in rebellion. Slow and steady change will keep the good prince off the gallows. Or maybe you want to enjoy the privilege of your birthing as an Arknian has offered you and crush the peasantry beneath your heel? That’s an option, too, and the developers competently write from this perspective as well.
Without going into exhaustive detail, the general landscape within LSPJ is one in which the Arknians—blue people who have kept humans within the yoke for over a millennium—are starting to lose influence as society and technology change. They and the Old Faith desperately and angrily resist this change, oftentimes enjoying brutality as the means of damming the river. Humans, who occasionally earn their way into the nobility, remain slaves to their oppressors, and sometimes seem okay with that. That’s just the way things have always been, and that is the will of The Twins (LSPJ’s two gods). Prince Jerian’s family leans progressive and seeks a utopia in which all people are equal, but you can imagine how that goes over with the elite.
Yeah, they’re going to be so totally embarrassed about their true death, lol.
The devil’s in the details. Little magical and supernatural touches add spice to an otherwise slow, dry narrative, though I use the word “dry” affectionately. If that’s your thing. Expect serious discussions about laws, etiquette, and the appreciation for the unbearable weight of power. On the other hand, Prince Jerian must maintain relations with his family, choose a potential bride, and maintain his own sanity.
Aside from enjoying choice-making from a narrative perspective, LSPJ uses several point-based systems and sliders to determine binary qualities. Will you lean logical or passionate? Adhere to traditional Arknian values or forge your own path? Maintain law, or show mercy and compassion? The society at large hosts a similar sliding scale, with the progressive among us thirsting to max out the Equality slider, but LSPJ makes an excellent case for why absolute equality might not work out. Ideas that may be abstractly appealing may not work in practice, and while benefits may result from this, there will also be costs. Sacrifice, timing, and even compromising your own values are a large part of what this game is about.
If relationships with key people or inner qualities aren’t quite where they need to be to unlock a decision, LSPJ has a Sanity and family point system in which you can cheat and pretend you have those qualities. Sanity is a finite, limited resource that never replenishes. Use up all five Sanity, and you break down. The family points, on the other hand, come and go, though they are hard to earn. Sometimes decisions grant or revoke points, and these points help win over people that Prince Jerian may not be close enough with in conversations.
Did you just call me a monkey, old man? Also, ignore that god stabbing the other god.
From a gameplay perspective, the deliciously torturous decisions are what make LSPJ such a satisfying experience. From a player perspective, I know where I want the game to end up, but it’s not that simple—and it shouldn’t be. So, I have three decisions, and one is absolutely awful and not what I would ever pick. Another is ideal, and the other I would be fine with. Seems simple, right? Well, LSPJ displays all of the numerical wins and losses for each decision. Turns out my ideal choice from a narrative perspective is going to absolutely wreck my relationship with a group of people and barely help my relationship with the desired group of people. The lukewarm decision doesn’t help me where I need it to, but maybe I shouldn’t neglect that skill area too much, as I may need it later. Incidentally, the awful decision has the least blowback and gives me a huge amount of those family points I referenced earlier, of which I currently have none. I loudly exhale and lean back in my chair, considering my options. Do I min-max and forego what I’m trying to accomplish? What are the realistic ramifications in the long run? Lose the battle, win the war, etc. And on and on like this. For over twenty hours. During most presented scenarios in the game. Praise the Twins, I love how difficult this is.
Visually, I have incredibly mixed feelings about LSPJ. While the stills and small animations are stylistically reminiscent of the dark, brooding atmosphere of The Life & Suffering of Sir Brante, LSPJ has an incredibly limited set of illustrations. After a few hours, I got to the point where I was essentially ignoring the right side of the book, as the images sometimes didn’t even accurately represent the text and felt like an afterthought. Musically, LSPJ has fantastic tunes that complement the writing and in no way distract; though, because of how incredible the storytelling is, I didn’t focus on it too much unless I sat back and took it in.
The Life & Suffering of Prince Jerian is a sorrowful tale about managing a society and the surprisingly awful burden being a leader can be. I guess no one wins in the Empire, and that’s how I like my stories. Compared to its predecessor, LSPJ feels weightier and grander simply by virtue of the character you’re playing, but the game feels beefier, as well. Still, this title isn’t for everyone, as the commitment that could lead to a less-than-fortuitous end may frustrate those who disagree with the design choices, but I think these endings teach us something about forcing our will and neglecting the totality of people in society. Creating a harmonious society clearly isn’t as simple as one might expect. Fortunately, we can always reload chapters and fiddle with our decisions until we get the outcome we want.
Time is the one thing none of us can ever get back. We waste it freely when there is nothing to lose, only to realize its value when it runs out. In The Blood of Dawnwalker, time is constantly working against you. It is the most valuable resource, and every moment forces you to decide where it is worth spending.
The protagonist, Coen, has only 30 days and nights to save his family from the vampire lord Brencis, but there is no way to see everything or save everyone along the way. Quests can continue without you, and characters can die while you pursue other goals. Every hour spent helping one person is an hour you can no longer spend somewhere else. For a game where time is running out, The Blood of Dawnwalker asks a deceptively simple question: what are you willing to sacrifice when you know you can never have it all?
I was initially skeptical of The Blood of Dawnwalker’s time mechanic because I tend to explore everything an open-world RPG has to offer. The concept becomes apparent almost immediately in the prologue, where Coen has only a single day to find medicine for his mother. Activities are scattered across the map, but pursuing them quickly eats into that limited time, forcing you to make difficult choices about what is worth doing. You have to pick and choose what you want to do, which completely turns the open-world RPG formula on its head. I am used to completing everything I can find, but The Blood of Dawnwalker forces me to let some things go.
Nearly everything you do in The Blood of Dawnwalker costs time. Side quests and smaller activities all take a portion of your limited days and nights, but even things you would normally think of as part of your character progression can eat into the clock. Spending Skill Points after leveling up, for example, also costs time. This makes the gameplay feel very different from games like The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask or Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, where time continuously passes as you play. Here, time is deducted only when you perform an activity, and the game clearly tells you exactly how much it will cost. Every action has a price.
Daylight savings have a different meaning here.
In contrast, traditional resources like money feel surprisingly insignificant in The Blood of Dawnwalker. You can play through almost the entire game without giving much thought to how much money you have, as weapons and armor found throughout the world quickly outclass what merchants have to offer. The strongest equipment is tied to optional quests, but those quests come with a much more important cost because they require your time. Money is almost never something you need to worry about.
The battle system in The Blood of Dawnwalker is serviceable, but it is clearly not the highlight of the game. The swordplay is basic and similar to Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, with directional blocks and attacks, though it is far less satisfying. You can also equip abilities tied to cooldowns that give you more options during combat. With few exceptions, bosses mostly rely on the same few attack patterns, and the enemy variety is disappointing. There is nothing particularly wrong with the battle system, and it gets the job done, but it never reaches the same level as the game’s other mechanics. I never found myself particularly enjoying any of the fights.
What is more interesting, however, is Coen’s nature as a Dawnwalker, meaning he is human by day and a vampire by night. The activities available to you can change depending on the time of day, which means you need to plan around when certain things are possible. If you need to meet someone at a specific time, for example, you have to think about how to spend the hours in between. In most other games, you could simply wait until the appointed time, but that is not really an option here. Just like in real life, waiting means wasting time, and there is always something else you could be doing instead.
Set in 1347 during the height of the Black Death, The Blood of Dawnwalker takes place in the fictional Vale Sangora in the Carpathian Mountains. The story itself is absolutely phenomenal, with some of the best writing I have ever seen in Western RPGs. In your quest to defeat Brencis and save your family, you have to find allies along the way, but there is never an easy distinction between friend and enemy. Almost everyone has their own motivations, and even the characters you come to trust do things you may not agree with. In fact, there are no purely good or evil characters here.
Who needs stairs?
The quests themselves are absolutely fantastic and represent the very best of the genre. You meet some unforgettable characters along the way, and you can shape what happens to them. Unlike many Western RPGs, there are very few essential characters, meaning you can potentially take out almost anyone if you choose to. Coen can even lose control of himself as a vampire and instantly kill someone if he speaks to them at night while his health is low, including characters that are important to the main story. I avoided doing this whenever I could, but knowing I could accidentally kill someone gave my interactions with these characters more impact.
I wish I could say the same about the open world itself, but I found it extremely stale and bland. It follows the checklist-style structure seen in many Ubisoft games, with random activities scattered across the map that don’t give you much reason to seek them out. You are often just clearing forts or taking on elite enemies that quickly become repetitive, and the battle system is not interesting enough to make these encounters enjoyable. I found myself skipping many of the random activities as I played because they simply were not worth the time.
Perhaps some of this is by design, though. Why spend your limited time on mindless activities when there are far more exciting things to do? The game encourages you to focus on what actually matters to you, which ties back into how exploration works. When you discover new areas through quests, they can be incredible, and I found them far more enjoyable than simply chasing random icons on the map. In that sense, The Blood of Dawnwalker feels almost like an anti-open-world game. It gives you a beautiful world to explore, but it does not expect you to do everything in it.
Friend or foe?
The Blood of Dawnwalker is already an extremely polished game, and it runs very well on PS5 Pro. I played in Balanced mode, and the game looks very clear, with detailed foliage and impressive architecture. I only encountered a few minor hiccups during battles with a large number of enemies on screen, but these were rare and never caused any serious problems. It certainly holds up better than most Western RPGs at launch. A performance mode is also coming with the day-one patch, which should make an already smooth experience even better.
The soundtrack is also fantastic, with a haunting score that makes excellent use of strings to enhance the atmosphere. The music changes depending on whether it is day or night, and I found the nighttime tracks even better, especially when you are in town. Walking through a town at night feels appropriately unsettling while the strings play in the background, and it fits the darker side of Coen’s story perfectly. The music helps sell the transition between day and night even further, giving both sides of the world their own distinct atmosphere.
The Blood of Dawnwalker understands something that most open-world RPGs seem to forget. You cannot experience everything. Time is always moving forward, and how you spend it is important. Having to make those sacrifices initially frustrated me because I wanted to see everything the game had to offer, but eventually it became the reason I enjoyed the journey so much. It also makes The Blood of Dawnwalker highly replayable, because there will always be things you left behind to discover on another playthrough. And with that, I am off to play it all again.
Review by Matt Wardell ·
August 28, 2026 · 12:00 pm
War has swept through the lands of Middle-Earth as the Dark Lord Sauron’s forces march north to reclaim a mysterious Ring with the power to rule the world. An unlikely hero, however, is carrying the Ring south, into the heart of darkness, to the one place the Ring can be destroyed… but you knew all of that. The recently shadow-dropped The Lord of the Rings: War in the North – Legacy Edition dares to ask: what were a few other dudes doing in the background of fantasy’s all-time classic?
On paper, War in the North’s premise is pretty compelling. As the would-be king Aragorn awaits Frodo and co. at the Prancing Pony, running parallel with the start of The Fellowship of the Ring (picture the Peter Jackson movies, as that’s the aesthetic this game pulls heavily from), Aragorn calls on three previously unseen heroes: Farin, a dwarf warrior; Andriel, an elf mage; and Eradan, a human rogue. At Aragorn’s request, the heroes are to travel to the north to distract the orc forces that amass there and put a stop to Sauron’s servant, a powerful human spellcaster named Agandaûr (like the playable heroes, an original character to the game).
As a diehard Tolkien fan since I was about nine years old, I wondered why I missed War in the North when it first released on PS3 in 2011. Oh, right, it came out a mere ten days before The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and was poorly received to boot. With this new Legacy Edition handled by developer Aspyr, War in the North now runs at a smooth 60 fps (though not on the first Nintendo Switch, which also lacks couch co-op), a more detailed UI for other party members, and, most importantly, the ability to swap between the three heroes when in single-player. But is a tune-up enough to justify taking the ride?
Simply put, War in the North is still a bad—sometimes terrible—looter action RPG in single-player… and a goofy beat ‘em up blast in co-op. I was looking forward to playing with my oldest childhood friend, but the initial days of the PS5 release had busted online multiplayer, meaning I played halfway through the 12-hour campaign solo.
The story checks all the boxes of a Middle-Earth adventure, including orcs, goblins, eagles, dragons, and cameos from heroes and their relatives from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Annoyingly, they use a ridiculous amount of dialogue real estate to repeat names of people and places and cover up potential plot holes this game might insert into The Lord of the Rings. Almost every conversation goes something like: “Well, [Person] of [Place], shouldn’t you go help Frodo, the Ring-bearer?” “That’d be wise, [Person] of [Place]! But here’s why I cannot…”
War in the North‘s cast includes an all-star lineup of video game voice actors, including Laura Bailey as Andriel the elf and Nolan North as the human, Eradan. They do their best to elevate the material, though depending on which hero you’re playing, the other heroes act and speak surprisingly tranquil during the dialogue segments, which play out via Mass Effect-like choice wheels. As expected of composer Inon Zur, the original soundtrack is notably strong, evoking but never aping the Howard Shore scores from the films.
They say Viggo Mortensen broke his toe kicking a helmet, so he couldn’t make it to the studio to record his own lines for the game.
Aside from the wax figure faces of movie cameos (please don’t haunt my dreams, pseudo-Aragorn), War in the North looks great for a PS3-era game, especially in its environs and with its seemingly hand-painted skyboxes. Being M-rated, the game does have a strange fixation on black, spurting blood and decapitation, including a post-chapter segment tally of enemy limb dismemberments that I think would send Mr. Tolkien rolling in his grave. That aside, it captures the aesthetic of the Peter Jackson films (in turn inspired by the paintings of Alan Lee) quite well.
The gameplay, then. Hoo boy. I like the combat less than half as well as it deserves, which is to say, it stinks. From the jump, players mash square to chop at orcs and goblins’ sizable but invisible health pools until a yellow indicator says it’s time for a heavy triangle attack. Chaining enough hits puts you in hero mode, in which your momentum from doing heavy damage or decapitating one enemy chains to the next, so you can rack up kills like Legolas and Gimli at Helm’s Deep.
War in the North also has a third-person-shooting bow/crossbow/staff ability, though on Normal difficulty even a standard orc can take upwards of six arrows to fell. You can block (which is mostly useless) and roll, and as you level up, you gain various abilities via a skill tree. Unfortunately, the buttons were often unresponsive, and it felt like I was mostly locking enemies into clunky chains of hitstuns.
Each character is vital to your party, though none so much as Andriel because of her elvish healing magic and projectile-blocking bubbles. Eradan has an interesting sneak ability, and Farin the dwarf, who I spent most of my time as, simply goes berserk and does AoE damage skills. You can build each character with a variety of specialties, though two-handing or dual-wielding for heavy damage output was the obvious choice. I think the game should have granted a few skill points at its start to allow more interesting abilities in the first few hours.
With the single brain cell shared between them, my AI allies spent much of the game standing outside their own healing circles and subsequently crawling around on the floor calling for revives. It made the game far more difficult than it should’ve been in an “enemy stats overtuned” way rather than a skill-based way.
Assuming that’s not a human player, it’s safe to say he’ll miss that shot.
In single-player, it was cumbersome shifting loot between the three characters, especially in mid-chapter shopping breaks, considering every character has their own wallet and picks up plenty of loot that only other classes can use. Thankfully, gifting items to other characters works smoothly.
After about six hours solo, I started to hate the repetitive gameplay and the hordes of damage-sponging orcs the story threw at me. Thankfully, Aspyr patched the PS5’s online, and, like a mighty eagle, my oldest friend Travis swooped in.
War in the North is certainly a game built with co-op in mind. Things clipped along at double the speed they had solo, with us cleaving through the spiders of Mirkwood Forest and clobbering mountain trolls. I think I cried from laughter three times thanks to our braindead AI-controlled Eradan’s misadventures and the way enemies rag-dolled into the sky from our explosive abilities. Inventory management became naturally streamlined, and we shared in my dialogue decision-making, though we laughed through most of that time due to the writing and delivery.
Looks like meat’s back on the menu, boys!
War in the North’s co-op is akin to watching a so-bad-it’s-good movie with friends, something I’d sorely missed for many years of adulthood living abroad. Whether it’s through two-player couch co-op or three-player online, multiplayer is the only way I’d recommend you touch this game. The story is just simple enough to allow your attention to dip in and out as you’re whisked away to the next Tolkieny tunnel of baddies. With the right fellowship, the inane combat becomes plain, dumb fun trussed up in a beloved skin.
I went from wishing War in the North had never come to me, dreading another second of its single-player drudgery, to staying up until three in the morning with my friend on the phone, the two of us laughing and enjoying its co-op. In lieu of a solo five out of ten and a co-op seven out of ten, I’ll score the game something in between. A ten out of ten, of course, goes to my friend. “Mellon!”
The first time I played Elden Ring, I spent a lot of time focusing on its flaws. They were just too easy to see at the end of a quick binge of every FromSoftware Soulsborne games. The boss fights aren’t as consistent and fun as Dark Souls III. The world isn’t as well-connected, dense, and surprising as Dark Souls. It certainly doesn’t have the atmosphere of Bloodborne or the razor-sharp combat of Sekiro.
The problems don’t stop there. Copy-pasted bosses and copy-pasted catacombs. Frankly horrendous platforming. Later maps lacking the grandeur and beauty of earlier places like Limgrave. The increasingly punishing boss design that works against certain builds, a problem the DLC expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree, only doubles down upon. And oh boy, that camera.
Don’t get me wrong. I still absolutely loved most of my time with Elden Ring (as did our initial reviewer, Jerry Williams), and I still played Shadow of the Erdtree the moment it dropped and loved that even more, but I was just worn out by the end.
It’s strange, then, that I decided to review this Tarnished Edition, a new version that packages the base game and Shadow of the Erdtree along with some other goodies for the Switch 2. After all, while I have played a ton of Souls-likes since completing my Elden Ring run, there are still plenty more out there that I could spend my time on. Honestly, I think it was because I was mad I had to change my build for the (unpatched) final boss of Shadows of the Erdtree and I wanted to take him down my way this time.
The sense of scope is still intact, even if it never looks this good on the Switch 2.
This playthrough of Elden RingTarnished Edition turned out to be much more than a revenge tour, though. No, it instead helped bring into full focus what a masterpiece this game really is.
It took me a little while to get there, though, and it’s partially because of how Elden Ring performs on the Switch 2. To be clear, the game runs much better than early impressions suggested it might, but comparing it to the way it runs on a PS5, which I realize is unfair, is almost like looking at two different games. Here’s the thing, though: you pretty much get used to it, and for the most part, the deficiencies don’t interfere when it matters most.
In docked mode, things run at a capped 30 FPS, and that stays relatively consistent outside of chaotic boss fights, but even when meteors are flying at you and the screen stutters a little, it isn’t game-breaking. For me, the most distracting blips are related to everything else—the lighting, the draw distance, and the sharpness all leave a lot to be desired. There’s also a ton of pop-in. When the grandeur and beauty of the world are a huge part of what sets Elden Ring apart, it does have an impact. All of this gets just a little bit worse in the Shadow of the Erdtree areas, too.
I’m actually most impressed by handheld mode, which certainly is softer and performs worse than docked mode, but it’s surprisingly close. I didn’t notice additional frame drops, and I was perfectly capable of taking on some bosses without major problems.
Ultimately, I suspect most people will be pleased with Elden Ring‘s performance on the Switch 2, and if you either don’t have access to it elsewhere or you value taking it on the go, this is a perfectly acceptable way to play it. But make no bones about it: this is vastly inferior to many other versions. The additional add-ons, like two new classes, some armor, and the ability to throw some skins on your trusty steed Torrent (which are purchasable for other versions anyway) don’t do anything to move the needle.
None of that really matters, though, because Elden Ring still shines. I can finally see it. Part of my problem the first time around was that I wanted to play on my terms, in my way. You know, the way an obnoxious Souls player rolls: no summons, no shield, no spells. No, just me and my big ol’ sword. Items don’t fit into that philosophy, but I’m still going to explore every single part of the map, fight every boss, go through every catacomb. I’ll do every side quest, and I’ll look up what I miss. I need to do all the content and I need to do it in one way.
While the lighting and particle effects could use some work, they still do the job.
Of course, most of you reading this know that’s all wrong. My limited playstyle ignores the thing that truly distinguishes Elden Ring: freedom. Sure, a big part of that is the obvious—you have huge open spaces to explore and a variety of ways to access them. This is especially true in Shadow of the Erdtree, with a beautiful, somber, moody space that is vertical and connected in wonderfully surprising ways. But it’s about a lot more than that.
It’s freedom to adjust builds to meet the task, asking you to do more than simply memorize attack patterns. It’s the freedom to experience the story, the side quests and the wonderfully strange people who populate this space in whatever way you choose. And yes, it’s also the freedom not to do everything, not try to uncover every little nook and cranny. Will you be rewarded if you do? Sure. You’ll still have the tools you need if you don’t, though.
That’s what I did this time. I took the world as it came to me. I moved and adapted. I didn’t feel the need to follow up on every single thing. I just explored The Lands Between and used what was available to me. I didn’t get burned out by fighting the same bosses six separate times because I didn’t have to explore every catacomb. I didn’t feel the need to bash my head against a boss with my strength build because that’s my style. I used what I had.
Put simply, I played it as an RPG first and as an action game second. And that’s Elden Ring. It lets you do that, encourages you to do that, better than any other game I’ve played, and so yes, now I see what it’s all about.
This guy still gave me more trouble than I’d like to admit.
It helps that I’ve played a lot of other Souls-likes since that first playthrough. And like the proper Soulsborne titles, some of them do things better than Elden Ring. Maybe they have more varied encounters. Maybe the camera doesn’t fight you at every turn. Maybe jumping isn’t so painful. But, even with all of this game’s flaws (and I stick by them), Elden Ring gives you the widest canvas to play with, it understands mood and scope, and it’s singular and important because of it.
If Switch 2 is your only means of playing Elden Ring, then by all means, it’s time to dive into The Lands Between. It may be best experienced elsewhere, but Tarnished Edition is still the complete experience with few caveats.
Full disclosure: I am a casual Star Wars fan. I like the original trilogy, not a huge fan of the Clone Wars saga, and episodes VII, VIII, and IX are—fine. As such, several of the references and nods probably went completely over my head in Star Wars Zero Company, but I have enough background to enjoy and appreciate this side story in the Star Wars universe. Also, I really, really like this style of strategy RPG, so that helped.
Star Wars Zero Company takes place somewhere in Episode Three during the Clone Wars whilst the Jedi and Republic fight the Separatists. Our protagonist, Hawks, is a former Republic captain who failed a significant mission, getting his comrades killed in action. Or so the story goes. He now leads a ragtag team of mercenaries trying to make ends meet, or at least pay off a debt to a Hutt.
As fortune would have it, a Republic intelligence officer and an ore baroness have decided to take a chance on Hawks and his crew because of his unique background in order to strike at a cult called the Coil. A windfall for Zero Company, Hawks finds himself taking contract after contract with the Republic because the pay is just that good, touchy history be damned. Fortunately, his crew is just as hungry for cash, so they don’t mind cozying up with the Republic for the time being. Kind of.
Circle goes here?
While the plot is enjoyable, yet predictable, enough, the camaraderie amongst the team members is what makes Star Wars Zero Company shine from a story perspective. Boasting about thirty-to-forty hours’ worth of gameplay, Zero Company involves a cycle of: mission, talk to the crew and buff the team, mission, talk to the crew, etc. This is a formula we’ve seen in other strategy RPGs in a similar vein, like the newer Shadowrun and XCOM games.
Similar to those games, Zero Company’s combat involves positioning units across a map with various cover, shooting enemies with a percent chance of missing, and using the occasional grenade or special power to topple foes. Each character has three action points, so use them well or enjoy getting surrounded and pelted by enemy bullets. Although the combat is nothing new, the balance and customization make Star Wars Zero Company a joy to engage with from start to finish.
Talking to the crew—at least initially—is an absolute pleasure, but deciding how best to optimize the team also amplifies the experience. Team members bond as they interact, giving an option to improve damage or other stats incrementally. A black market allows players to outfit the team with unique weapon mods and utility items, and they can use their hard-earned credits to enhance the ship, crew, and weapons.
Circle menu goes here?
Economy’s a big deal in any game, and most modern games throw seemingly limitless cash at the player, making purchases a trivial affair. Star Wars Zero Company has the opposite problem. If I chose to upgrade my ship consistently, I would have no way to make purchases at the black market, and vice versa. I enjoyed the idea that hard decisions have to be made, but I felt pinched to the point where I couldn’t benefit from either system adequately. In this sense, the customization aspect of Zero Company feels half-baked and linear.
Fortunately, the combat matters far more than the customization, which mostly allowed my team to keep pace with increasingly challenging enemies. The developers expertly balanced gameplay from beginning to end, though the enemies and combat objectives begin to feel samey after about fifteen hours. The Coil enemies are infected with a plague, which gives them special powers as Zero Company blasts them, and players have the option to choose which benefit to inhibit over the course of the game; in truth, the decisions don’t feel momentous, and gameplay after the fact is not meaningfully impacted.
Those familiar with efficiency and exploitation will enjoy breaking Star Wars Zero Company in a way they see fit, whether that’s bunging enemies, abusing area-of-effect items and abilities, or however else players want to cheese foes. In this way, Zero Company can make players feel smart, but falling into a habit over time is all too tempting because the game does little to counter these tactics. Despite these minor quibbles, the tight tactical gameplay remained addictive—although decreasingly so—up until the end of the game.
Beige cloth and hand sticking out is SO Jedi.
Back to the crew, this remains the heart of Star Wars Zero Company. For the first ten or so hours, the dialogue, charisma, and unique interactions kept me chuckling and eager to find everyone scattered across the ship after a mission. Unfortunately, the clever writing and unique dialogue slow to a crawl, becoming less frequent as the game goes on. This is a common criticism I find myself making of AAA titles, as the need to push the game out stymies developer creativity and a quality product that remains uniform throughout.
The controls are adequate, but get in the way at times. I never found myself quick saving to save scum, but instead to load in case of a misclick as the camera slowly (or quickly) panned while I was clicking on a place to stand, forcing my character into a disadvantageous position. I also encountered enemies falling through floors or clipping walls on rare occasions, though this never impacted my time with the game. Musically, Zero Company is distinctly Star Wars with the dramatic horns and strings we’ve all grown accustomed to in John Williams’ music, adding to the identity and charm. Graphically, Star Wars Zero Company looks fine, especially for a strategy RPG of this caliber, but nothing wow’d me. If anything, I’d take issue with the lack of optimization, as the slowdown and freezing throughout the entire game added dozens of minutes to my game time and didn’t feel justified given the graphical quality.
Star Wars Zero Company is an enjoyable, almost cookie-cutter strategy RPG. It takes few risks, but what’s here is competent and worth playing, especially for Star Wars fans. I wish what initially impressed me narratively and in terms of gameplay remained fresh throughout, but this is why I appreciate indies so much. If Star Wars isn’t your thing or you’re not that into strategy RPGs like this, then your mileage may certainly vary, but I am glad I got to know Hawks and his crew.
Review by Audra Bowling ·
August 25, 2026 · 12:00 pm
SRPG Ledgerbound is a maturely humorous take on the epic fantasy adventures that permeate the subgenre. Workaholic insurance adjuster Rayna is content with getting overtime and reading smutty novels in the rare instances when she isn’t in the office. She also enjoys “talking” with her best friend, a Hat Rack with a heavy accent. Naturally, Rayna’s not at all prepared for the three legendary heroes of the realm’s quick defeat at the hands of a returning ancient evil, let alone when an investigative visit to the site of their unfortunate demise accidentally imbues her with powerful Elder Magic.
Afterward, Rayna must embark on a world-saving quest, if only to prove that the legendary heroes were insufficiently prepared to battle the aforementioned ancient evil and therefore deny their loved ones’ life insurance claims. Can Rayna manage to save the day when the heroes failed? If it helps, she’s joined by a band of highly eclectic, hapless misfits who include Rayna’s spunky dragon HR rep, the thirty-third feline prince of the realm, an anxious fire mage prone to spontaneous combustion, and a cave-dweller with a bag full of seemingly infinite rats and memory loss issues.
Ledgerbound is a well-rounded, comedic SRPG that those gamers who don’t mind occasionally raunchy humor and the dropping of several f-bombs might be keen to try out, particularly if surprisingly endearing found family stories and a smidgen of romance/relationship-building is up their alley.
The scenarios Rayna and the party get into can be quite amusing.
I laughed loudly throughout my time playing Ledgerbound, largely because of the party’s reactions to the story’s crazy shenanigans. The dialogue is tongue-in-cheek, populated with memorable characters who’ll grow on you past their quirks. I must admit I probably related to Rayna more than I should have at times. She’s a great protagonist with a well-written and well-conveyed personal journey as she adjusts to matters beyond simply existing through work. The narrative is extremely choice-heavy, with a lot of your decisions when interacting with characters, including from a potential romance or hook-up angle, coming back in surprising ways in later scenes.
Because of this, bonding with party members is a narrative highlight of the game. Ledgerbound’s relationship-building aspect is incredibly detailed and surprisingly nuanced, with both mature content and a surprising amount of actual romance and heart should you decide to approach it from that angle. I honestly enjoyed interacting with the characters so much that I had a hard time choosing which love story to pursue. However, the enemies-to-lovers slow burn between Rayna and Cazian ultimately swayed me. Friendship and platonic love amidst the party was also touchingly celebrated.
The relationships Rayna can develop with other characters have surprising depth as you progress.
Since bonding with characters during camp sequences between fights is a key component of the game, I enjoyed the way Ledgerbound implements bureaucracy. Time management during camp is crucial. Most actions, including conversing with characters, cost time and can also raise Rayna’s burnout meter. Fortunately, the game sprinkles ways to mitigate burnout throughout. Rayna can not only converse and bond with party members, but also undergo HR-mandated training and retry story battles to obtain all battle objectives, which in turn pleases “the Shareholders” and unlocks further scenes or rewards.
Depending on how well you do during fights, you gain swag that you can then equip onto party members for extra stat bonuses and effects, as well as liabilities that you sign off on that can also be equipped to provide both passive and active perks/abilities during combat.
Of course, as entertaining as the time management and VN story sequences during camp are, Ledgerbound is first and foremost an SRPG. In battle, Rayna and the rest of her comrades fight on a gridded map where you move the party forward to combat enemies. Depending on job class and skill sets, attack ranges vary. Each character also has an elemental affinity that makes them stronger or weaker against an enemy’s affinities. Certain squares on the battle map are imbued with an element too, and characters with the matching element are strengthened by standing on it or weakened if they’re of an opposing element.
Retry battles have a different, tabletop look about them.
Battle objectives differ from the “defeat every enemy” variety to “move to the designated spot” types. There are also several optional battle objectives that further reward you for conquering them, such as keeping everyone alive or defeating a specific character when they’re standing on a specific element spot. The variety of objectives helps each story battle feel unique. Since Rayna’s an insurance adjuster, should a party member fall in combat, you have to fill out the appropriate injury HR form when back at camp before you’re able to talk to them again.
Graphics-wise, Ledgerbound is a colorful game with expressive, detailed character art in both battles and its VN story scenes. The UI is well-suited not only to the game’s bureaucratic tone but also to the fantasy feel it’s aiming for. The script is well-written and largely error-free, with updates implemented to improve its presentation further. The voice acting is also phenomenal, with the omnipresent narrator and the party members in particular providing stellar deliveries. Ledgerbound‘s music (composed by Diego Chi) and sound effects suitably fit as well.
Battles offer a wide variety of objectives to try and tackle.
There’s no manual saving in Ledgerbound. Instead, the game relies on constant autosaving, so you have to live with your choices in any given playthrough. While I understand the intent behind this, I inadvertently made a mistake that left me unable to go back to see an optional story scene, so I can imagine it might impact a player’s potential enjoyment if they do something similar. Some of the optional objectives can be exceedingly hard to accomplish, while others are quite easy, so a better balance would’ve been ideal. I also think someone’s enjoyment will rely heavily on their individual sense of humor and tolerance for raunchier jokes/curse words.
Ledgerbound is a delight to play if you’re the target audience. The characters are colorfully memorable, with personal stories that develop and grow believably throughout the game’s narrative. I love how well-rounded the SRPG mechanics are, as well as how the time management and relationship-building aspects are implemented throughout. It might not be for everyone, but Ledgerbound can be genuinely entertaining if, like its cast, the game’s allowed to grow on you.
The original Brigandine on the PlayStation stood out from the rest of the tactical titles populating the burgeoning SRPG subgenre on the platform by offering a macro-level strategy layer. The game’s focus on conquering territories across a large map and incorporating detailed preparation before tactical battles aligned more with PC strategy titles of the era than with Final Fantasy Tactics or Vandal Hearts. This combination of free-form map-conquering and hex-grid turn-based battles was undoubtedly niche, but memorable to those who took the chance on it. 20 years later, publisher Happinet surprised diehard fans when they released a long-overdue follow-up, Brigandine Legend of Runersia, on Switch and PS4.
Thankfully, the wait for a new entry in the surprisingly enduring franchise was much shorter this time around, as Happinet and new developer Adglobe (known for Ender Lilies and Ender Magnolia) return with Brigandine Abyss. Brigandine Abyss maintains the core grand strategy and tactical battle fusion that made the previous titles cult classics, yet falters in its presentation and heightened storytelling ambitions compared to its predecessors, delivering an experience that sacrifices some mechanical and narrative depth in its attempt to streamline a hardcore franchise for a broader audience.
Each campaign only features three main characters, limiting the potential for character development.
Brigandine Abyss takes place on the continent of Meltitea, suddenly embroiled in war after the Kingdom of Solginat is taken over by the king’s scheming advisor, corrupted by the dark force known as Abyss. This newly formed Abyssloa Empire begins its conquest of the continent, and you can choose between one of six factions to play as, each with its own starting position, cast of characters, and unique motivations for fighting back against Abyssloa. I chose to play as the Scarlet Will, a mercenary group loyal to the king, forced on the run with the nation’s princess in tow. A familiar narrative foundation for any Fire Emblem fan, though some of the other factions are less conventional, such as a mad scientist and his band of human experiments in Pandemyuon, or Gran Dragnica’s young dragon tamers outraged at Abyssloa’s mistreatment of their kin.
Your faction choice determines your starting position on the continental map, and your initial rivals. Every nation will eventually confront the Abyssloa Empire as you conquer more regions of the map, but each has its own narrative justifications for the conflict. The Scarlet Will’s storyline revolves around a rival mercenary band, called the Ebony Fang, that betrayed their home kingdom in favor of Abyssloa. Each faction has its own Event Battles that advance the story, and Scarlet Will clashes with the Ebony Fang multiple times across their journey to unite the continent against Abyssloa.
Brigandine Abyss differs from most SRPGs in its structure. Rather than a linear series of battles interspersed with story scenes, Abyss takes place over many Seasons, with each Season divided into three phases: the Organization Phase, the Attack Phase, and the Invasion Phase. The Organization Phase is where you will spend most of your time, preparing your units for combat, taking on quests to earn materials, and purchasing items from the Niffrom Market. The Attack Phase is the shortest: each region under your control declares attacks against neighboring regions held by another faction, as you observe which factions may attack your holdings. The Invasion Phase is the final phase; this is where the turn-based tactical battles actually take place as you invade enemy territory or fend off an invasion from a rival.
The flow of conflict between points on the continental map forms the basis of the game’s compelling strategic layer.
This long-term campaign structure bears more resemblance to Grand Strategy titles like Koei’s Nobunaga’s Ambition or 2K’s Sid Meier’s Civilization series than a traditional SRPG. As you invade and gain control over more territories throughout the campaign, you’ll acquire more units to manage, locations to upgrade and defend, and quests to complete. The NPC factions make their own moves during each phase, and a significant portion of each season is spent watching the NPC moves play out across the map as rival kingdoms conquer & fall. The vast majority of the game’s strategic depth lies within the Organization Phase: assigning monster retinues to your human leaders, planning your troop movements to defend an ever-growing number of locations as you expand your territory, and developing conquered (or newly hired) soldiers added to your ranks. I found Brigandine Abyss‘ Grand Strategy component incredibly compelling, requiring me to pay close attention to the map and how rival nations progressed to shore up my defenses. During each season, I would carefully expand my holdings to claim territory for valuable resources and bring rival nations under my banner. The downside, compared to a pure strategy title, is that everything revolves around conflict; there are no options for diplomacy, alliances, or trade, leaving war the only means of interacting with other factions.
Unfortunately, this open-ended, season-based structure also undermines Brigandine Abyss‘ narrative ambitions. Most story content takes place during Event Battles, which are essentially this game’s version of story missions. Because the overall campaign is so open-ended, these Event Battles occur after an arbitrary number of seasons have passed (typically between 10 and 20), and they don’t account for the state of the map. It doesn’t matter if you’ve spent the last 20 seasons invading and expanding your holdings or kept to yourself; the Event Battles play out the same regardless. Furthermore, even a single season can last an hour or more of playtime depending on how many regions you need to manage and how many invasions you embark on or fend off. This completely undermines the narrative stakes: by the time the Ebony Fang were nipping at my heels, I had already captured half the map and amassed an enormous army; meanwhile, the story still treated the Scarlet Will as a ragtag band of green mercenaries.
Brigandine Abyss attempts to heighten the drama with a handful of cutscenes, but they are so few and far between (and cheaply animated, barely more than motion stills) that they did little to invest me in the narrative. The other faction storylines may be more compelling, but I picked the Scarlet Will because I figured their close relationship to the Abyssloa Empire would give them the strongest narrative connection to the game’s core conflict. My complaints with the presentation don’t end there, as I found the character artwork to be a significant step down from Legend of Runersia‘s evocative fantasy designs (done by Raita Kazama), with Abyss‘ character portraits and monster designs coming across as a hodgepodge of generic modern fantasy anime clichés rather than giving the game a unique visual identity. Most of the leader characters don’t get their own character models on the battlefield to match their character portraits, instead inhabiting generic, class-based models. Only the leaders of each faction have a unique on-field model, which is a huge missed opportunity given the diversity in character portraits. One presentational bright spot is the music, composed by Rei Kondoh of Fire Emblem: Three Houses fame, creating a suitably epic and bombastic soundscape befitting the continent-spanning conflict.
The hex-grid tactical combat is serviceable, but let down by boring map design and lackluster enemy AI.
The core combat mechanics are serviceable but lack the depth of the game’s organizational phase and suffer from similar pacing problems. Combat takes place on large maps consisting of many hexagonal grids. Each side may deploy three leader units (human commanders) accompanied by up to six monster companions. Each leader has a command score, and each monster costs a specific number of command points to deploy. In the early game, most leaders can only control two or three weak monsters, but as your leaders level up, their command score rises, as does their potential monstrous retinue. This system works well, and tinkering with each leader and their retinue of monsters is quite addicting. Each monster and leader class fills a different role, and there are upwards of 20 distinct classes with unique abilities. Leaders can Rally a single monster to their side, removing them from the field in exchange for powerful passive bonuses (such as increased movement range, stronger counterattacks, etc). This ensures that even weaker monsters have a role to play on the battlefield if they confer useful bonuses on a leader. I found myself tailoring each platoon of monsters to their chosen leader’s strengths and weaknesses, and upgrading both leaders and monsters across the campaign proved immensely satisfying.
The core issue with Brigandine Abyss‘ combat lies within the game’s structure: success in your campaign across the continent requires fighting battle after repetitive, monotonous battle during Invasion Phases, especially when you’ve captured a lot of territory. During each Invasion Phase, you can choose to invade any neighboring region from an adjacent region you control, while simultaneously fending off invasions from other nations. This means that during a single season, you can end up fighting four or five battles in quick succession, all of which have the same victory condition (either defeating all enemies if you are invading, or defending for 12 turns if you are invaded). Battles are not quick affairs, mostly because the battle maps are large and relatively empty. A handful of memorable maps have unique gimmicks, such as raising and lowering walls to block troop advances or reinforced positions with defensive fortifications, but most maps lack interesting mechanics and take multiple turns to traverse to even reach the enemy force.
Developing monster units and assigning them to leaders to create platoons with different roles is quite satisfying.
Battles are also incredibly easy due to the leader and monster deployment mechanics. Defeating a leader causes their entire monster retinue to flee the map, so the most efficient strategy in every battle is to target the leaders first and ignore the monster units. The game smartly deploys a concept called Zone of Control, which prevents any unit from passing through a hex on the grid if it’s adjacent to an opponent’s unit. This means you can effectively wall off your own leaders from the enemy by using your monster units as human shields. However, the enemy AI rarely utilizes this tactic, eagerly sending their leaders out in front of their monster companions just to get surrounded and slaughtered. The Event Battles rectify this somewhat, employing alternative win conditions such as escaping a map within a certain number of turns or defending friendly NPC units. However, because these Event Battles are so few and far between, you will likely fight as many as 50 extremely repetitive battles during the Invasion Phases before the next mildly interesting Event Battle.
The best strategy RPGs demand consistent mental engagement from the player during each battle, but I found that the vast majority of battles in Brigandine Abyss had me going through the motions. Prior games allowed you to revive fallen units, but made the consumable resurrection items incredibly rare, ensuring every decision in battle carried significant weight. Brigandine Abyss completely neuters the consequences of your tactical decisions by offering plentiful revival items in the shop, such that I never worried about a monster or leader falling in battle.
Thankfully, Brigandine Abyss offers a saving grace for players who want a more demanding experience: Mission Mode. Mission Mode allows you to play any of the 24 factions of Meltitea instead of restricting you to the core six factions found in Story Mode. Each faction has a unique win condition in Mission Mode, with some being fairly conventional: conquering the entire map before 99 seasons pass or completing a series of Event Battles much like in Story Mode. However, some factions have surprisingly esoteric goals, such as amassing a small fortune to pay off a debt, gathering up a specimen from every monster species, restricting you to only a handful of class types or characters, or imposing very strict season limits. Mission Mode gets extremely creative with the core mechanics, forcing you to use bespoke strategies or engage with the core systems in ways that feel fresh and completely unlike the monotony present in Story Mode. If you’re the type of person who fires up a new game of Civilization or Romance of the Three Kingdoms with a series of self-imposed restrictions when you’re bored, then Mission Mode offers hours of remixed content that will strain your strategic muscles.
In attempting to bridge the gap between diehard fans of the cult franchise and newcomers unused to the Grand Strategy setup, Brigandine Abyss ends up watering down the elements that made it unique in the first place. There is still a compelling strategic experience here, particularly in Mission Mode, but the Story Mode becomes so beset by repetition and monotony in its mechanics and cliché pablum in its storytelling that I have no desire to invest another 20 hours to see any of the five remaining story paths. Mission Mode provides the steep, engaging challenge I crave, but it lacks the narrative justification and measured progression loop that makes SRPGs my favorite subgenre of RPG. As a Grand Strategy sandbox with a heavy focus on combat, there is a lot here to enjoy, but Brigandine Abyss ultimately fails to marry these gameplay styles into a satisfying hybrid experience.
Review by Audra Bowling ·
August 18, 2026 · 12:00 pm
The mystical land of Oz has captured the imagination of many and is heralded as one of the earliest portal fantasy series ever penned. Over Requiemz is a decidedly different take on the tale, blending familiar concepts and ideas within a darker fantasy setting to create a choice-heavy VN otome narrative. For the most part, it stands on its own merits as a compelling game about finding purpose, while the narrative explores the development of love and unexpected danger along the way.
Over Requiemz begins with protagonist Yuhiru, after getting caught up in a fierce storm, waking up in a fantastical kingdom dotted with yellow brick roads and strewn with “ancient” and overgrown ruins straight from her homeland of Japan. Because of her black hair and eyes, a rare occurrence in Oz that is said to bring about misfortune, she’s labeled a criminal called a “Bedeviled” and put into a monster-slaying expedition alongside other death row convicts. With no one believing her to be innocent, Yuhiru can only hope to survive the trials that lie ahead, secure a pardon, and find a way to return to Japan. Both frightening and heartwarming new experiences await, so what path will she ultimately take?
The death row convicts that Yuhiru is partnered up with are certainly an interesting bunch.
Over Requiemz is a dark fantasy otome VN with a strong focus on flavoring the story to the player’s preferences. This focus is illustrated by the numerous dialogue choices spliced throughout. These help both shape and flesh out Yuhiru’s responses, allowing players to put themselves firmly in her shoes while still making her a believable, well-rounded character in her own right.
There are no “right or wrong” decisions during these choice segments, so players don’t feel quite as pigeonholed into choosing one response over the other in fear of missing out on a potential scene or ending. As a result, I found those moments of decision rather refreshing. There’s also a detailed flowchart for replayability purposes, and you can jump right to decision points, though it’s probably best to keep a save right before the prologue ends to choose your next route more quickly. None of the routes are gate-locked, helping them all feel equal in the grand scheme.
At certain narrative junctures, Yuhiru faces a clear binary choice that’ll have a notable impact on the plot from that point on. There’s the “Fact” story route, which arguably has more positive/romantic endings as eventual outcomes, and then there’s the “Dark” story route where you’ll see bleaker or more disturbing route endings. While these choices are few and far between, they’re quite important for setting Over Requiemz’s more mature tone.
Again, they’re not really presented as wrong or right: they’re just tailored more to the player’s narrative preference. I give Over Requiemz credit for being choice-heavy without being so rigidly so, given the variety of decisions you can make throughout. There are even some decisions that potentially unlock bonus voice scenes in the game’s extras section.
Not going to lie, picking the “I need to dance.” option is oh-so-very tempting just to see how others would react!
The story itself is quite interesting, given its references and shades of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Over Requiemz’s five love interests are clearly unique interpretations of characters inspired by Oz lore, with interesting personalities and mysterious backstories the game carefully delves into as you progress through their routes. What you learn in one character route ties into another, often shedding light on why a character might act a certain way in a particular scene without stealing focus from the given route’s main plot.
Over Requiemz‘s romances, particularly if leaning towards the more hopeful Fact endings, are quite well written and developed, too. Yuhiru herself starts as a more docile, naive heroine who truly grows into her own as the tale progresses. She isn’t an isekaipower fantasy type of character, but a realistically flawed human who simply comes to grips with her current situation while growing as a result. She relies on others when needed, but can also stand on her own when someone else needs her assistance. I was invested in the dynamic she has with the other characters and how their group of travelers starts to actually bond over the course of the routes despite their various emotional baggage.
The CG illustrations can be quite lovely.
Over Requiemz features a lush, vibrant visual landscape with plenty of gorgeous backgrounds, character art, and CG illustrations to behold. The game’s UI is quite fitting for its aesthetics too. My biggest complaint from a visual standpoint is probably that many secondary characters go without artwork, and that flashbacks are usually left with dark or white screen views and dialogue instead of illustrations. The script’s localization is superb, with nary an error to be seen.
The soundtrack is also lovely, with several memorable BGM tracks and an opening that fits the game’s fantasy setting perfectly. The voice acting is superb throughout, especially when later story reveals have characters breaking down into powerful, emotional performances. Sound effects are used to great effect, though sometimes I wish they weren’t, since some of the squelchier ones could be a tad nauseating. Still, they certainly set the atmosphere certain scenes were going for!
Over Requiemz is a refreshingly creative take on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, giving the story a fresh spin by adding some memorable romance to a beloved classic. I greatly enjoyed my time playing this VN and appreciated that it actually avoids attempting to pigeonhole players into playing in certain ways simply to see a “true” ending. Over Requiemz is one portal fantasy I certainly wouldn’t mind getting lost in again.
Review by Neal Chandran ·
August 15, 2026 · 12:04 pm
Signy & Mino: Against All Gods is a turn-based RPG by AN Productions- the studio behind the Soda Dungeonmobile games. Signy is a girl who lost her parents in a tragic fire when she was a child. Mino is a dog who found Signy when he was a lost puppy and sensed that she needed him as much as he needed her. The girl and her dog became inseparable companions over the years, and their unbreakable bond drives Signy & Mino’s story and gameplay.
AN Productions says Signy & Mino is about seven to nine hours long, and I finished it in about eight. As such, the story is not the deepest out there. Signy is a good-hearted, if stubborn, young lady who’s been raised in her grandmother’s forest cottage with her loyal, if lazy, dog Mino. Life goes on until a combination of machines and angry gods threatens the forest villagers and the game’s world at large. Thus, a simple errand leads Signy and Mino on a quest bigger than they could have ever imagined.
The story tries to be philosophical at times, but those moments can feel long-winded. Conversely, some plot threads and worldbuilding questions remain unanswered. Signy and Mino are decent protagonists, but don’t develop much beyond their surface level. The energetic ending looks really cool, though.
Graphics consist mostly of slick-looking sprites atop hi-res, low-poly backgrounds that look like higher-resolution versions of PlayStation One game environments. The visuals look nice and feature vivid colors, but the detailed sprites, with their fluid animations and multitude of facial expressions, feel mismatched atop the blander, simpler polygon backgrounds.
Well… yes.
In motion, the Paper Mario-esque side-scrolling looks fine when the characters move left and right. However, when moving “up” (away from the player) or “down” (toward the player), Signy’s sprite is still turned sideways. She doesn’t face away from me when moving up or toward me when moving down. With so much effort put into sprites’ animations and facial details, I’m surprised this specific detail wasn’t addressed.
Speaking of animations, the spritework noticeably shines in Signy & Mino’s battles. Combat actions play out similarly to combo attacks in fighting games, and they look flashy and play out smoothly. No hiccups or jerky motions here, especially during higher-level attacks that have a lot going on. There are also a few animated cutscenes that look appropriately cinematic.
Sonically speaking, compositions sound nice and encompass a variety of music styles. My favorite was the piece in an abandoned mine that had a prominent pickstyle bassline. As a bass player myself, I always appreciate cool bass. Voice acting is limited to battle cries, with Signy’s voice actress as the most prominent. She’s quite convincing as Signy, but I would have liked to hear more voice acting, particularly during the cinematic cutscenes.
Even when they grow up, boys generally don’t.
Signy & Mino follows a linear path, albeit with a few sudden difficulty spikes. There is only one difficulty level, and though I was fine with it, more advanced players might find it too simple. Environments aren’t huge, but the game encourages exploration with treasures to find in the nooks and crannies. That said, when Signy was behind walls or obstacles, I couldn’t see her behind them. Jumping is a little floaty, but the platforming is still forgiving enough that I did not get frustrated (as I’m not the best at platforming). The most twiddly section of Signy & Mino was this one puzzle dungeon where some of the mechanics were not obvious; the hint was difficult to find and was cryptic to boot.
Enemies are visible on the field and aren’t too numerous, though they do respawn. This is great because battles, while fun, are often lengthy affairs. The battle system is combo-based: Signy and Mino take turns chaining skills together using timed button presses to create multi-hit attacks reminiscent of fighting games. Button press timing for attacking, dodging, and parrying is quite forgiving. I’m usually terrible at dodging/parrying, but I got into a good groove here and can overlook Signy & Mino’s lack of auto-parry or attack-assist options to take timed button presses out of the equation.
Signy and Mino must work together to take down enemies.
Battles are enjoyable at first, but their lengthy and repetitive nature makes them drag during Signy & Mino’s second half. You engage enemies one at a time, so battles against multiple enemies run long. Some enemies also have defenses that need to be breached via certain combos before they even take damage. To add another wrinkle, I maxed out Signy’s level and skill trees about two-thirds into the game, so I had little reason to fight late-game regular battles since I didn’t need to gain EXP. This is where I badly wanted some kind of auto-battle or battle-skip option to ease the late-game tedium.
A few other design elements also left me scratching my head. Firstly, the only consumable HP recovery item does not restore much HP. Why aren’t there stronger recovery items available? To make things worse, you can’t use recovery items outside of battle. This makes no sense to me. Only being able to use recovery items in battle puts me at a disadvantage. If I have low HP and the enemy gets the jump on me out in the field while also getting the first turn in battle, I get knocked out and have to go back to a prior save. Saving only occurs at save points and, more often than not, my manual save was more recent than the autosave, which didn’t kick in frequently enough.
The skill tree fills out rather quickly.
The long and short of my review is that Signy & Mino: Against All Gods is the RPG equivalent of a sweet little empty-calorie snack. It’s nice, but not substantial. Its short playtime slotted nicely into my busy schedule and was a decent little romp. However, several design choices nagged at me, including no way to pet the dog. Signy & Mino: Against All Gods is not a bad game, but could have been so much more.
When Pokémon Pokopia was released earlier this year, I was blown away. Omega Force and Game Freak crafted an undeniably wholesome and engaging life simulation game that puts Nintendo’s own Animal Crossing to shame, combining the freeform building and quest-based exploration of Dragon Quest Builders 2 with the vibrant personalities and quirky interactions that make an Animal Crossing village worth visiting each day. The game is a huge hit too, and now this dynamic development duo debuts the first part of their DLC, titled Bubbly Basin. While not as expansive as the main game (though two more parts are coming later this year and into 2027, included with the Expansion Pass), Bubbly Basin innovates on the familiar gameplay loop as Ditto dives beneath the ocean waves and befriends a whole host of seafaring Pokémon pals.
The story setup for Bubbly Basin is quite simple: after achieving the main goal in Bleak Beach, Professor Tangrowth sends Ditto out to a mysterious island. On that island, Ditto meets the legendary Pokémon Manaphy washed up on the shore. After feeding the famished Manaphy some seaweed, the diminutive legendary teaches Ditto the Dive transformation (a particularly cute one, as it mimics the Squirtle transformation from the main game, just with a big bubble around Ditto’s head to hold in oxygen). Upon Ditto’s return to town, they befriend Alolan water-type starter Popplio, who asks Ditto to tag along to their underwater town. This town beneath the ocean waves is the titular Bubbly Basin, and Ditto must build habitats to attract residents while also assembling Popplio’s wayward friends.
The humble beginnings of Bubbly Basin.
Revitalizing the town, bringing in new residents, and working towards the overarching goal of constructing a massive central structure (this time the Temple of the Ocean) follows the same tried-and-true gameplay loop that defined the four major story areas in Pokémon Pokopia’s main game. The wrinkle here is that everything is underwater, which significantly changes Ditto’s approach to building and exploration. For starters, you can swim freely horizontally or vertically in the deep blue, and you can also suspend yourself in the middle of the water at any height (no endgame Magnemite transformation needed here). This allows you to build new structures pretty much anywhere under the waves, from the seabed floor to suspended in the drink. To support this more open-ended construction, Bubbly Basin adds buoyant blocks that float wherever you place them, and can serve as a firm foundation for rooting any structure, even those from other regions.
Movement underwater is fast and fluid, so much so that I actually found returning to dry land rather restricting in comparison. Many games struggle to create smooth, intuitive controls in water environments, but in Bubbly Basin I glided through the ocean with ease, sucking up materials as I went. The underwater environment adds new considerations during exploration, since the deepest parts of the ocean are completely dark, requiring Ditto to place light sources to get their bearings in deep trenches or narrow crevasses. Between the smooth swimming mechanics and added tension of the murky depths, I found exploring Bubbly Basin the most rewarding region, with many buried treasures to find. The town also slots effortlessly into the narrative after you complete Bleak Beach, offering more glimpses into what life was like before humans disappeared without requiring knowledge of (or spoiling) the reveals at the end of the game. Uncovering the hidden secrets of Cerulean City’s past while noticing familiar locations like Misty’s Gym or the bike shop tickled my nostalgia in all the right ways.
Crawdaunt and Sharpedo act tough, but their bark is worse than their bite!
The water Pokémon that dominate Bubbly Basin’s roster truly shine, giving well-deserved attention to the fish and crustacean Pokémon that are oft forgotten. Pokopia’s main game was mostly limited to amphibious water types that have no trouble existing on dry land; in Bubbly Basin, you can see Lumineon gracefully glide through the water, or clam-like Shellder and Cloyster propel themselves backwards. The personalities are just as big as ever, from the bubbly and personable Frillish who calls Ditto her “bestie,” to the macho Crawdaunt and Sharpedo who nearly come to blows talking a big game about their respective claws and fangs, yet decide not to duke it out after being intimidated by each other. One of my favorites is the hyperactive Totodile, quickly dragging Ditto from one activity to the next, forgetting what he’s meant to be doing until a bemused Popplio patiently reminds him (relatable to anyone with ADHD). The water-type Pokémon in Bubbly Basin remain the stars of the show, just with a new stage suited to their unique attributes.
The best part is that many of these additions are available without paying for the DLC at all. While the Bubbly Basin location, new Pokémon, and new furniture & prefabricated structure recipes are exclusive to the DLC, the ability to dive underwater, buoyant blocks, and many other quality-of-life updates are available to all players free of charge. Chief among these is the Portal Pod, a familiar device from Bill’s lab that lets you store items in one area and access that same storage in another. One of the biggest headaches in Pokémon Pokopia before this update was ferrying items from one area to another using your limited inventory, so this item alleviates the chore of sitting through numerous loading screens just to take supplies from one location to another. It’s thoughtful inclusions like this that make me confident the best is yet to come as they keep updating the game over time.
While Bubbly Basin’s narrative content isn’t super substantial (significantly shorter than the main game areas), it more than makes up for that by offering a completely new way to experience the world and by providing a place for undersea Pokémon to flourish. If the other two DLC packs can meaningfully expand the world and gameplay loop as Bubbly Basin does, then Pokémon Pokopia fans will be eating well off this fresh catch for quite a while!
I have two distinct perspectives when it comes to remakes and remasters. Firstly, as someone who cares about video game history and preservation, I think it is important to grant access to the original titles. Simultaneously, I believe that it is important to widen access as much as possible and, where appropriate, make older titles accessible to audiences who older mechanics might otherwise turn off. I am immensely grateful for the opportunities that developers have given me in the last couple of years to experience classic games in new ways.
Steins;Gate Re:Boot is a difficult title in this regard. As a visual novel, the mechanics couldn’t be much simpler, so that’s not really a barrier to entry. Furthermore, even though its worldwide release was way back in 2014, the graphics are timeless, and I don’t think there’s been any great demand for them to be updated. On top of that, a remade version entitled Steins;Gate Elite was released in 2019, so this is not its first remake rodeo.
But that title came out seven years ago, and consequently Steins;Gate was far from being at the top of my personal backlog. And yet, the release of this new version felt like receiving a message from a future self who had played this enthralling work and begged me to do the same, thus changing my gaming destiny for the better.
Just another day in the Lab.
To summarise for the uninitiated, Steins;Gate Re:Boot tells the story of Rintaro Okabe, an eccentric student who spends most of his time in a small apartment in Akihabara, which houses the “Future Gadget Laboratory.” As his alter ego, the “insane mad scientist” Kyouma Hououin, Okabe designs scientific inventions which are principally cobbled together out of household items, to dubious effect.
Okabe is joined by his childhood friend, Mayuri Shiina, a carefree girl whose main purpose at the lab is to create cosplay outfits that nobody ever wears. Itaru Hashida, nicknamed Daru, an otaku with a particular interest in the more, ahem, specialist anime material available, provides the computer expertise and hacking proficiency. They are the first “Lab Mems,” but as time goes by, more characters join the fold.
At the start of the game, Okabe attends a conference on time-travel, which ends when he finds the blood-soaked body of Kurisu Makise, who has been murdered by an unknown assailant. He flees the scene and sends a text message to Daru, only to trigger a strange effect that changes the world around him. Shortly afterwards, he goes to another conference on the same subject, but this one is being given by Kurisu herself, who is alive and well. Kurisu is a scientific prodigy who outlines why the very idea of time-travel is ridiculous.
Kurisu is not to be trifled with.
We soon discover that one of the Lab Mem’s inventions, the PhoneWave (name subject to change), has the ability to send data back through time. Not overly prone to caution, Okabe pushes forwards with various experiments, setting us up for an adventure through shifting timelines.
Barring the opening homicide, Steins;Gate Re:Boot has a light and comedic tone for much of its first half, driven by Okabe’s seemingly delusional nature, which is described as being “Chuunibyou,” a Japanese term meaning “eighth grader syndrome.” Okabe acts like a character from a Shonen anime, frequently boasting about his IQ of 170, and warning of a secret society, named “the Organization,” which is out to get him. None of his friends and acquaintances take this seriously, leading to multiple conversations and scenarios that are genuinely funny, something that is often aimed for in video game writing, but which is rarely achieved.
The second half of Steins;Gate Re:Boot takes an extremely dark turn, plunging you into a desperate situation that seems inescapable. The game manages this tonal shift perfectly, and it never feels forced, despite how easy it would be to clash with the earlier material.
In terms of how it plays, we are presented with the standard visual novel formula here, e.g., click a button to proceed. There is an option to autoplay and one to skip forward. You can set the speed of text and the volume of different elements, although I didn’t find these very sensitive, with text speed ranging from extremely fast to just about bearable, and vocal controls likewise being awkward. The autoplay function is welcome though.
There is some interactivity within the game, where you can choose to answer calls and text messages, and in some cases pick your reply. Steins;Gate Re:Boot has multiple endings, and these choices determine which one you receive.
It’s a fluid experience for the most part, but a little more effort in the execution would be welcome here, especially as this is a new iteration of Steins;Gate. You can choose to have the skip function stop playing for phone interactions, but this can be clumsy and interrupt the flow of the game, as it pauses for non-crucial moments as well as key decisions. On autoplay the text speed for phone messages is ridiculously fast, which meant that I needed to go back and manually check the phone after each message came in.
We are past time for an evolution of the skip feature. Here, while you can set it to skip through things you have experienced before, you still have to watch them, albeit at high speed. The ability to instantly skip between moments would improve the experience greatly, especially for replays.
The new graphics have proven somewhat controversial with the established fanbase, with criticism levelled at the new character designs by original designer, Huke. I looked back over the original art, and to an extent I can understand this. The graphics were different, earthier, more intense in some ways. To me though, the current designs are perfect for the story. Mayuri’s innocence and general good nature are epitomised in her open face and brighter, light-blue outfit. Daru’s lack of time for Okabe’s nonsense comes across in his new guise, which seems somewhat fiercer than before. Tech journalist Moeka Kiryu’s update is especially good, hinting more strongly through careful detail as to the role she plays in Steins;Gate Re:Boot.
Every character in Steins;Gate Re:Boot has their own mystery.
Additionally, the E-mote system that Steins;Gate Re:Boot uses to animate its 2D characters revitalises the visual novel format, as you watch thoughts and feelings flicker across the characters’ faces, amplifying key moments in the game.
This wouldn’t be so effective without a cast who could adequately convey those emotions. Steins;Gate Re:Boot brings back the original Japanese voice actors, and it’s almost unbelievable that, so many years later, they can return to playing predominantly teenage characters with such success. It’s almost as if they have time-travelled themselves.
This has to be one of the best ensembles in a visual novel I have ever come across, making it difficult to single anyone out. I will say though that Mamoru Miyano as Okabe is central to this success, as he plays outrageous campness as well as he does pain and trauma, demonstrating an impressive range. Yu Koboyashi as male shrine maiden Luka Urushibara is also a highlight, with more demands being placed on his abilities in the later chapters.
With Luka in mind, I admire the complex examination within the game of this character, a female-presenting boy who wishes he was a girl. It’s not perfect by any means, and not being trans or queer, I can’t give a definitive take on this, but it is notable that Okabe treats Luka with affection and respect at all stages of Luka’s story. We’re never encouraged to ridicule or disdain Luka for being who he is, and Luka is one of the most pure-hearted characters in the drama.
The soundtrack has been remade, although it remains similar. But when you have a score as good as this, why change? Composer Takeshi Abo, who features on many of developer Mages’ titles, opens the game with the piano-driven song “Skyclad Observer,” underpinned by techno beats and the clean vocals of Kanako Ito. The song finishes with Ito sustaining a soulful note, driving you straight into the opening moments of the game, with Mayuri looking at you directly, a foreshadowing of things to come. Abo mixes the traditional with the electronic throughout, suiting the tone of Steins;Gate Re:Boot.
You’ll hear some of the tracks frequently, serving as punctuation to the narrative beats, signalling a mood, and tying to the themes of repetition and inevitability. These are explored in great detail, and Steins;Gate Re:Boot has no sympathy for those who want an easy ride. Detailed scientific theories underpinning the action take centre stage, although they are explained accessibly.
It’s a game that encourages you to think about the possibilities and paradoxes of time-travel, and the different ways in which it can be accomplished. As well as that, it asks you to explore the moral quandaries you are forced to make when you relive the past, and the effect of these decisions is on the individuals involved.
Steins;Gate is quite simply one of the most important visual novels ever made, and Steins;Gate Re:Boot is the perfect way to play it. Unlike games such as The Adventures of Elliot, each of its endings provides a uniquely satisfying conclusion to the tale, and you will want to seek each of them out before you finish. I suggest you fire up the PhoneWave (name subject to change) and send a message telling your past self to pick the game up. Then you will truly be living in the best timeline.
At the crossroads between cyberpunk and fantasy exists Shadowrun. Originally a tabletop RPG from 1989 (currently on its sixth edition, as of 2019), it’s now a franchise sporting multiple campaigns, novels, and video games. The first of which was Shadowrun for the SNES in 1993, a moderately well-received isometric RPG/adventure game. However, it would be 20 years before fans saw another game of its calibre and ambition again: 2013’s Shadowrun Returns, a successfully Kickstarter-backed isometric RPG from indie studio Harebrained Schemes, founded by one of the original creators of the tabletop, that took direct inspiration from the 1993 classic (and even features that game’s protagonist, Jake Armitage, as a key player in its plot).
Following its success, it received a standalone expansion called Shadowrun: Dragonfall in 2014, with a full-fledged sequel Shadowrun: Hong Kong in 2015. Almost a decade later, the Shadowrun Trilogy has at long last received a console port on modern systems; an endeavour that’s equal parts satisfying and deeply frustrating.
In the spirit of fairness, however, I will be breaking down each of the three games and how they fare against each other, before tackling the trilogy port as a whole, detailing its myriad problems.
Shadowrun Returns
Fans of the XCOM series will be right at home with Shadowrun‘s combat systems.
Truthfully, despite it being the “least-good” entry in the trilogy, Shadowrun Returns is of particular significance to me, since it was the first party-based isometric RPG of its kind that I’d ever played, and really the only RPG outside of the triple-A mainstream that I’d played up to that point. Its premise and the broad strokes of its world intrigued me enough to sink my teeth in. Based on that, I can attest to this game being an excellent entry point into both the Shadowrun universe and isometric RPGs as a whole.
Its mechanics are easy to pick up and parse, and you’re never locked into one particular playstyle or class. So no worries about decision paralysis when it comes to building your character; you can always adjust as you play when it comes time to level up. I started as a Street Samurai (your basic gun-toting mercenary class), hoping to spec into melee builds so I can live my katana-wielding cyberpunk fantasies, but drifted more towards ranged skills after playing around with the weapons and my other fellow gun-toting companions’ abilities when controlling them in combat.
The combat in Shadowrun Returns is an approachable facsimile of XCOM‘s: turn-based and with hit percentages that differ based on various factors, including distance from the enemy, the type of weapon that you’re using, and any active buffs, either passive or player-activated, that may affect you. Unfortunately, much like XCOM, there are times when you’ll have to contend with the possibility of an attack with a 99% hit chance that misses completely. It’s an issue that arises across all three games, and while there are ways around it, such as any aforementioned buffs or abilities you may pick up, it doesn’t become any less frustrating.
Really, there’s not much to say about Shadowrun Returns‘ gameplay. It’s all relatively simple, especially when it comes to RPGs of its ilk. That may sound like a major mark against it, but it’s actually quite a boon for the game’s approachability. All told, it’s only 8–10 hours, including its side content. The story is relatively straightforward (at least structurally), and there’s little-to-no deviation outside of it. Though veterans of the genre will no doubt be left wanting with the scraps they’re given here, for newcomers like I was, Shadowrun Returns serves as the perfect entry point into the wider medium.
That being said, where Shadowrun Returns may lack in gameplay depth, it more than makes up for it with its setting and script, both of which drew me in immediately when I first played.
A random message from an old (un)reliable friend kicks off Shadowrun Returns‘ wild plot.
Though I stated at the top that Shadowrun exists at the crossroads between cyberpunk and fantasy, Shadowrun Returns is much more the former, with its cyberpunk world and technology serving as the bulk of the setting and the traditional fantasy elements, like the existence of magic, serving as flavour on top. Your standard fantasy races are here: elves, dwarves, orcs, and trolls, known as “metahumans” in this setting. They look and function the same as they do in D&D and many fantasy stories, with the caveat that every one of them is descended from humans, after a universe-redefining event called “the Awakening” caused mutations in human DNA decades before the events of the main story.
The story of Shadowrun Returns begins when your character inexplicably receives a message from an old friend and partner-in-crime of yours named Sam Watts, who delivers a shocking revelation: he is dead. He explains that the transmission of his message is thanks to a contingency called a “dead man’s switch” sent in the event of his death, along with a sincere plea to help solve his murder (at least that’s his working theory of what happened to him). Though your relationship with him wasn’t the best and you certainly didn’t leave things with him on the best of terms, you’re nevertheless resolute to find out what happened to him. To do that, you venture to his stomping grounds of Seattle.
It’s an intriguing premise; one that certainly caught my attention and had me glued to my PC for the next day or two to see how it would all play out.
What follows from this prologue is a murder mystery that starts grounded and charged with deception and intrigue as you interview every person who had anything whatsoever to do with your old pal Sam. Soon, things spirals into a wider conspiracy that threatens the entire world. Thanks to the relatively short length of the story, the escalation of the mystery can be something of a mixed bag. It really isn’t long before the story goes from grounded cyberpunk thriller into a more fantastical realm, and that shift may be quite jarring depending on how you gel with the story’s setting and themes.
This sci-fi/fantasy tonal balance is something that carries forward with the latter two games, and is handled better with each entry, so even if the execution doesn’t work for you here, don’t write off the rest of the trilogy just yet.
Shadowrun: Dragonfall – Director’s Cut
The Kreuzbasar, your hub throughout Dragonfall, where you can upgrade your equipment, chat with your crew, and patronise the square’s many stores.
Originally released as a DLC campaign for Returns, Shadowrun: Dragonfall received a standalone release in late 2014 with a bevy of improvements to the base game, as well as five new missions. Though it started out as DLC, Dragonfall is certainly not lacking in content compared to Returns. In fact, it runs at more than double the length of the first game, thanks in part to the fact that Dragonfall has fully-fledged side content now, with extra missions that you and your crew can undertake outside the main story.
Speaking of your crew, among Dragonfall‘s many improvements over the first game is that your companions are static and tied to the story now. You can still hire mercenaries the same way you could in the first game, but the optimal experience is to take the same core 4 companions all the way through to the end, hone their abilities along the way, and figure out what configuration works best with your own.
It’s not just how companions are handled that makes Shadowrun: Dragonfall better. Almost every single aspect of the first game is improved here. The story and writing are tighter and better realised—both the scope and stakes are raised in a way that narratively flows better. There are also a lot more skill checks involved in the gameplay now, both in dialogue and when interacting with the environment. Plus smaller, but no less vital quality-of-life additions like the fact that you can manually input codes now, instead of having to hunt down the specific ones.
Really, that’s Dragonfall‘s core strength. Though it’s more of an expansion than a sequel to Returns, the sheer amount of improvements or tweaks that it makes to the base game make all the difference and elevate Dragonfall well above its predecessor. Frankly, it’s to the point where I’d consider suggesting that you skip over Returns and just go to this one, much as I do love the first game all told.
Dragonfall‘s story follows a crack team of mercenaries, led by skilled decker Monika Schäfer, who operate within the free state of Berlin, colloquially known as the “Flux State.” Your character is the team’s newest member: a former colleague of Monika’s, hired for your unique set of skills. You have a lot to prove, and the other members are hesitant to trust you. On your third run with them, while on a routine hacking job at Harfield Mansion, you stumble upon a hidden military compound and are left with a chilling consequence: Monika is dead, killed by the facility’s incredibly advanced cybersecurity.
Before being killed, Monika utters a single word: “Feuerschwinge” (German for Firewing). Armed with this information, you escape and debrief with your handler, Paul Amsel, and after a lengthy argument and much hesitation, it’s decreed that you will now be leading this team. Together, you must investigate exactly what happened at Harfield Mansion, why and how Monika was killed, and just who or what the “Firewing” even is.
The answers to these questions take you all across Berlin, executing dicier and dicier operations, and gradually building up a rapport with your team, along the way uncovering a conspiracy that threatens the entire world and maybe even the one(s) beyond it.
In Dragonfall, I elected to play as a Decker, the Shadowrun universe’s term for a master hacker who has command of “the Matrix,” essentially a worldwide computer network that you can visit in cyberspace by jacking into a nearby port stationed in more or less every level of the game. From here, you’re transported into the Matrix directly, with you now controlling your cyber avatar and navigating the narrow corridors of cyberspace, avoiding or defeating computer programs, and hacking into local systems.
This enables you to access hidden data like passcodes, or even lets you hack nearby turrets and turn them on your enemies. It’s less involved and frankly less cool than it sounds, but it’s a neat alternate avenue of gameplay to pursue if you’re tired of running and gunning and want something a little different for this game’s playthrough (as I certainly did).
As I’ve said, Shadowrun: Dragonfall‘s narrative is fantastic, and by far my favourite of the trilogy, and given the improvements over the already solid Returns, Dragonfall might also feature my favourite gameplay of the trilogy. Still, the next and final game could give it a run for its money.
Shadowrun: Hong Kong – Extended Edition
Shadowrun: Hong Kong is the most expansive entry yet, both in length and the number of locations you and your team visit.
Truthfully, I may have oversold Shadowrun: Hong Kong‘s importance. While, unlike Dragonfall, it is a fully fledged sequel to Returns, signified by its own separate Kickstarter campaign being launched in 2015 to help fund its development and release, it’s more of a side-grade from the first two. Like Dragonfall, smaller but no less vital quality-of-life changes can be seen throughout Hong Kong‘s gameplay that help it stand out and feel overall better to play than its predecessors, but you’re still functionally playing the same game again.
To be clear, I’m not noting that as a mark against it; after all, the consistency and familiarity throughout Shadowrun Trilogy‘s engine, asset, and gameplay reuse is more of a boon than anything. It’s just important that expectations are kept in check here. The changes from game to game are more often narrative and mechanical than technical, and even then, as I’ve said, they’re ancillary.
That said, there are two vital improvements that Shadowrun: Hong Kong introduces that, to me, make it the best in the trilogy to play.
First is the fact that you now have a holster button. Previously, there were instances where the combat state would linger even though all visible enemies had been taken care of, instead of going back into the exploration mode. This proved especially problematic in the (albeit few) instances where the games encouraged stealth. There would always be a narrow window outside of the enemies’ visibility when you could actually slip by them; otherwise you’re launched right into combat.
In Hong Kong, however, you can manually launch into and out of combat whenever you’re exploring, making stealth a viable option. While I still preferred to handle things directly, it was always appreciated to have the option to manually unholster my weapons leading up to an encounter, eliminating a layer of unnecessary jank to the gameplay.
The neon-soaked streets of downtown Hong Kong are beautifully rendered in the game’s engine and art style, with particular care given to the various signs and lights that dot the streets and alleys.
The second most important improvement in Shadowrun: Hong Kong is how Decking works now. In both this game and the Shadowrun universe writ large, the hacker underworld of the Matrix, where the information superhighway resides, is a world unto itself that you can freely visit for business or pleasure. In the previous two games, its depiction and implementation were basic, but effective. You, as your avatar, would explore confined spaces and activate any nodes you see. In Hong Kong, however, you’re given free rein to explore, and are not just restricted to turn-based movement anymore.
There are also pseudo-stealth mechanics involving security drones that roam around the areas, with a visible cone of vision that you must avoid. You also now have to complete puzzle minigames in order to successfully activate any nodes you come across. These involve a sort of number-based Simon Says, followed by a symbol-matching game. Nothing revolutionary, but they do help keep things moderately more interesting while you’re switching back and forth between combat in the real world and your or your Decker companion’s adventures in cyberspace.
As an additional note, I did feel like the way that the hit rates worked in combat were more forgiving overall compared to the previous two games, though this may well have been the placebo effect, as I was unable to find any corroborating information on that in either direction.
For Hong Kong, I elected to build a Phys Adept/monk character. I specialised in melee attacks, particularly cybernetics-based weaponry like the incredibly effective hand razors. I also mixed in magic abilities, mainly of the defensive and support-based variety. I can say that it was a lot more interesting playing that way compared to the previous two games, which were based more in ranged weaponry. I felt like I had more options and versatility to work with in any given encounter and at least had the option to support my team rather than go on an offensive front the entire time.
So yeah, Shadowrun: Hong Kong‘s gameplay is, in many ways, the trilogy at its best to play. But what about the story?
Carter, your police officer brother Duncan’s superior, is one of the first people your character meets when they arrive in Hong Kong.
Shadowrun: Hong Kong‘s story begins with your character returning to Hong Kong at the request of your estranged foster father, Raymond Black, who summons both you and your equally estranged foster brother, Duncan, back with an urgent yet cryptic message. You’ve been away from them and your hometown for eight years, having spent time in a corporate prison for an undetermined crime, so naturally, tensions are high and relations are less than cordial.
However, after arriving and meeting with your foster brother Duncan (now a police officer for a private peacekeeping organization) and his superior officer, Carter, your rendezvous is ambushed by Hong Kong Police, and a few of your contacts (including Carter) are killed. Now wanted, shell-shocked, and on the run, you must venture deep into Hong Kong’s seedy and dangerous underworld to clear your name and establish yourself as a mercenary, while figuring out just what the heck is going on and why exactly you were summoned back after all these years.
The story that follows from here, and the answers that lie within it, are equal parts gritty and grounded in its urban cyberpunk fantasy, while dipping a toe or two into the mystical, with you crossing paths with the concept of qi and beings of the astral plane like the demonic forces of the Yama Kings. It’s a compelling mixture, although quite overstuffed conceptually compared to the leaner, more linear plot of Shadowrun: Dragonfall.
I will say that a huge advantage that Hong Kong has over its predecessor is that your character is far more connected to the narrative this time around. With your foster father and brother being key players in the plot and your choices in dialogue informing your previous relationship with them, the plot is a lot more personally impactful. Your character feels less of a blank canvas or avatar and more of an active contributor to the central plot and backstory.
While I maintain that I preferred the story of Dragonfall, I cannot deny that your character’s personal connection to the people and events of Hong Kong‘s story makes it all the more compelling to play out. Ultimately, it’s a matter of personal preference whether you prefer this game’s narrative to the previous, or even the one before it. They all have separately appealing strengths that are hard to argue, and I truly understand whichever game you prefer.
Shadowrun Trilogy
As complimentary as both my praise and criticisms of each of the games in the Shadowrun Trilogy have been up to now, that unfortunately does not stand when discussing the Shadowrun Trilogy console ports in totality.
You may have noticed that I have yet to talk about the music in the Shadowrun Trilogy, and that’s because I unfortunately scarcely heard it throughout my playthroughs. That’s thanks to a very unfortunate bug of the console version that causes two songs on the soundtrack to play over each other at once, with no way of fixing it outside of loading your most recent save (and even then that’s only until you reach a new area and the next song plays over the previous one).
It’s truly a shame because the scores by Gavin Parker, Marshall Parker, Sam Powell, and Jon Everist are very well done, providing a great dark synthwave soundscape to the gritty world and events of each game. The soundtracks are definitely worth a listen on their own (and are available with the deluxe versions of the trilogy on Steam). It just would have been really nice to hear them when playing their actual games.
The games will also softlock every now and then for no apparent reason. Usually it was at the end of a combat encounter, and while some of the time I was able to save my progress, other times I had to re-do certain sections and hope that it didn’t happen again (which, thankfully, it did not, most of the time anyhow). While the PC versions of each game can softlock on occasion, it’s seemingly exacerbated in the console ports of the trilogy, perhaps due to its unified console UI.
Speaking of the UI, it really is a shame about the ports’ myriad issues, since they’re not without areas to praise. The translation of the UI from the PC versions over to controller is overall solid. It all functions relatively well (when it wants to, anyway), and there was never a moment where I considered that I’d rather be playing it on mouse and keyboard. That may well be the optimal experience for a lot of people, but playing with a controller is still a decent way to play these games.
It’s especially a shame since, due to these ports being developed by Dutch studio Codeglue (now called Behaviour Rotterdam) on behalf of the original developers Harebrained Schemes, the controller UI was never backported over to the PC versions, meaning that if you wish to play the Shadowrun Trilogy with a controller, you’re stuck with the console ports.
The Shadowrun Trilogy console ports are certainly not the optimal way to experience these great games. Don’t get me wrong, they function well enough. They’re still fundamentally the same underneath the hood. But if you lack the tolerance to deal with these ports’ problems as they come, your enjoyment of these great RPGs will be severely neutered.
Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch fills a gap in the strategy RPG landscape that somehow has not been done as competently, yet simply, to date. Sprinkle in some roguelite design that rewards losing, outstanding voice acting, and a short yet engrossing tale, and you have yourself a hidden gem. Released almost a year ago to date, I somehow never heard of this title, but who can blame me? With all the noteworthy, high-profile titles flooding the market in an already saturated field, a game with modest visual design that lacks true innovation is likely to go missing. I hope I can rectify that.
We act as our lead protagonist, Ashe, who washes ashore on a less-than-hospitable beach fighting the undead and Imperial zealots. Fortunately, a couple friends help him out and get him to the one safe bastion on the island, Pelikos. Stricken with amnesia, an otherworldly witch named Sable saves him from death time and time again for reasons unknown to us. Tasked with ending the undead threat on the island, Ashe and his companions charge head-first into danger without concern for their lives. Dying over and over again has to hurt, though, right?
In battle, Lost Eidolons plays like a standard strategy RPG as units move on a square grid, taking turns. Move, then attack, use a combat skill, or cast a spell. Pick your next character of five to do the same. Once all units go, then the enemy does the same. Continue until the mission is complete, which almost always involves beating all enemies or the boss. While this skeleton is tried-and-true, what about the skills and spells? Again, standard stuff here with a good deal of buffing, debuffing, and some elemental tomfoolery depending on the topography a unit stands on. Nothing too exciting here, either, but the balance, interaction, and enemy artificial intelligence make for a tight, intelligent tactical foray. The magic occurs with the roguelike design, though.
That’s some good pentagonal magnifying glass over their heads.
Setting aside dying and accruing buffs for doing so, when a character levels up, they either get to choose one of two stats to increase with various rarities improving the stat bonus; otherwise, they gain a new skill to outfit their arsenal of death. Each character dons a unique class not observed in other games, though expect some degree of healer, tank, bruiser, etc. The active skills vary in rarity, as well, but sometimes the more common skill is what you need for that particular build. Every character has several skills in their bank, and while some seem considerably better than others, a player can’t rely on getting “that one skill” to complete a run. Working with what the game gives you is part of the charm, and while some may bellyache about getting shafted out of a presumably essential skill, I have completed several runs making lemonade out of lemons.
Like most modern roguelikes since Slay the Spire, Lost Eidolons incorporates a pathing system over three acts. Players see what rewards lie in wait down two or three forked paths, with rewards ranging from gold to enhancements for equipment or relics granting persistent passive benefits over the course of the run. If a battle is waiting, the game clearly depicts that with crossed swords beneath the symbol. Battles are pivotal, as that’s how characters gain essential levels before each act’s boss. However, sometimes the timing isn’t right or a preferred reward lies down the other path. In this way, decisions can be chewy, but most of the time opting for the bloody path that can also include additional treasures makes for a more beneficial excursion.
While the act bosses don’t change in terms of who they are, the abilities and buffs they boast change meaningfully across runs, especially after victories, so expect some degree of variety in penultimate fisticuffs. Normal battles have a large pool to choose from, typically housed within acts, but after a few runs, expect to see some repeats since each act has six to nine pitstops. That said, some stability can make a challenging game easier in that players know how to navigate certain challenges better after repeat runs. I love this genre, so the occasional familiar mission didn’t bother me whatsoever, though I imagine some folks might quibble with this.
Mmm, yes, gimme more lit squares in a turn-based tactical RPG.
Dying or tasting victory can yield similar benefits, with death feeling like a shortcut to buffing the heroes as the game ramps in difficulty. Sometimes I felt like I was just trying to match pace, but the game’s various customization options made me feel like I had some control over my fate. In terms of enhancements, characters can be promoted a couple times within their classes, meaning they start with enhanced abilities and have access to new abilities. Players can also use a currency to buff offense, defense, and utility on a web of passive bonuses depending on weapon type and armor. Eventually, the shop can be altered for improved offerings and trinkets can be crafted and equipped to characters to provide additional, limited abilities within runs to create a dependable way out of trouble; trinkets tend to be extremely powerful, so the limited uses within runs is appreciated.
Like other roguelites, you can make the game more difficult with a point system. Players can jack up the price of shops, give enemies passive benefits, remove the ability to predict enemy movement, and so on. Each hurdle has a designated point value, and after reaching certain thresholds, the progression currencies increase over the course of a run, which typically means more and improved trinkets. If promoting characters or building the skill web isn’t interesting to you, eventually you can alchemize currencies into others.
While Lost Eidolons is tight and satisfyingly challenging, what kept me going throughout my several runs is the story and voice acting. An amnesiac protagonist trying to topple a god isn’t anything new, but every character has their own distinct personality and goals. How they interact with each other—supportive or otherwise—is a big draw that’s only enhanced by the superb voice acting. Nearly every actor absolutely nails their lines with power or subtlety, whatever the scene demands. I couldn’t be happier with the cast’s talent in this humble indie title.
Lone Wolf is one of those “character essential” skills.
The music’s adequate with somber drums, horns that call for battle, and rock-infused energy in combat. Nothing showy here, but everything complements the foreground. Visually, the character art and various stills bring Lost Eidolons to life, though the environments and animations aren’t amazing by today’s standards. I say “screw that,” though, because I love this world and the heart that went into the artwork. Not every game needs to be AAA-caliber, and by no means does anything look poorly constructed in Lost Eidolons.
I’m extremely glad I took a chance on Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch. I had never heard of it until recently and chanced my ever-so-valuable time on it. Hidden gem defined, any fan of strategy RPGs and roguelites will find a home here. Come for the toothy combat and customization, stay for the sorrowful tale of Ashe and his family. I only wish there was more, as Lost Eidolons respects players’ time and can be fully completed at around thirty hours, though this number can vary wildly depending on how players fare in combat. For those who can’t get enough of the combat, though, expect several challenges and achievements lying in wait to sate that completionist hunger.
Ave, a young knight in training, hails from the peacefully idyllic Starfall Village. Peaceful, that is, until she finds it threatened by logic-defying, nightmarish creatures. While attempting to protect her home, she’s defeated by one such monster only to be brought back from the brink by Lune, a mysterious being known as a Starfarer. Together, the two embark on a perilous journey to uncover the truth behind what’s going on and hopefully find a way to stop it. Ave and Lune certainly have their work cut out for them in the isometric Soulslike action RPG Lunarium, but their emotional tale is one truly fit for the stars. Can their newly born bond and friendship forged-in-fire save their world?
Lunarium is a stunningly gorgeous game, both visually and narratively. The gameplay is polished and well rounded, though if you aren’t as adept at parrying mechanics in particular, there’s now a Story Mode option included in the game’s settings for those more interested in seeing the compelling tale’s conclusion without facing as much of an arduous challenge. To be honest, I’m not too adept at parrying myself, and it took me several attempts to surpass some of the challenging boss battles spliced throughout. However, learning the exact mechanics and strategies to overcome such harrowing trials is a key aspect of Lunarium, and there’s an inherent sense of satisfaction and accomplishment once accomplished.
Parrying and dodging play great roles in both the regular fights and in the specialized boss battles you encounter.
As Ave, beyond simply slashing away at foes with your sword and dodging and parrying as though your life depended on it (it often does!), Lunarium‘s gameplay relies heavily on your partnership with Lune. Lune not only brings vital, if limited, healing to the table, but she also provides ranged support when needed through her arrow shooting. Properly deflecting and parrying blows helps to quickly raise a foe’s stun meter, at which point Lune can unleash a powerful stun assault, leaving them open for further punishment from Ave. Their partnership dynamic is cleverly woven into how you approach fights.
Ave and Lune can rest and restore health at benches strewn throughout the various realms they travel to, which also allows them to teleport to locales they’ve uncovered. The most important location of this type is the Sanctuary, where you can craft various equipment to help you in your quest, raise plants to gather materials safely, and even unlock new skills on the skill tree, as well as Starfall Village. In this idyllic hamlet, Ave lives with her grandmother alongside her younger twin shopkeeper siblings.
You can purchase new items from the twins when needed, upgrade Ave’s sword Junonia when you have the right materials to do so by visiting Ave’s swordmaster, and see new story events that unlock every so often. Currency, crafting, and skill points share the same pool in Lunarium, so having them in abundance is vital to maintaining gear and keeping Ave and Lune strengthened. Fortunately, you can find abundant enemies that drop the shards needed for all three.
You unlock more and more of the robust and versatile skill tree for both Ave and Lune as you progress.
Ave dons cloaks throughout the game that grant her special advantages in battle, which can be fashioned on the loom in the Sanctuary. Finding the right materials to further upgrade the cloaks also strengthens their effects, giving a unique edge in combat beyond just skill sets. Lune can also add embroidery charms into the cloak that further boost stats or grant passive abilities to the pair, similar to equipment accessories. As you travel Lunarium‘s different areas, you also uncover special shards that increase your health and resonance pools once you acquire the correct amount of them, offering further incentive to explore as much as possible.
From an action RPG standpoint, the gameplay in Lunarium is well implemented and ultimately enjoyable thanks to the robust skills and stat boosts available to uncover and the different attack patterns that the bosses and common enemies possess. Manipulating night and day cycles, traversing through a hellish landscape by racing from safe point to safe point, there’s a unique variety to each area you uncover that’s well-thought-out and makes the journey all the more memorable. Even most branching off paths eventually lead back to safe areas in a truly brilliant display of game/map design.
The biggest critique I have with Lunarium is that I did feel as if Ave moves quite sluggishly, especially before gaining stat boosts and the like. It was almost like fighting in molasses, though I did end up getting the hang of the controls and didn’t notice the slowness as much later on once I was focusing more on simply dodging, parrying, and keeping on my toes.
Ave and Lune travel to all sorts of differing realms over the course of their journey together.
Visually, the hand-drawn 2D graphics that populate Lunarium are truly breathtaking to behold and help it stand out. The character designs and artwork are also equally gorgeous. The UI is easy to navigate, and the game works phenomenally well on the Steam Deck with a controller layout. The story unfolds through visual novel-esque cutscenes and journal entries written by Ave’s own hand and in her delightful character voice. In these scenes, the English localization is decently conveys emotion, and is being updated regularly to further improve its presentation. Then, the soundtrack is emotive and fits the atmospheric, haunting mood brilliantly.
The largest strength of Lunarium is easily the bond between Ave and Lune, both narratively and gameplay-wise. In that regard, I feel this beautiful ARPG largely succeeds in what it sets out to tell. Even with the game being admittedly difficult, especially in light of my inability to effectively parry much of the time, I had genuine fun with it. I felt so much as I uncovered its various story beats and watched the two heroines grow together. For what it does well, Lunarium is a compellingly insightful action RPG with Soulslike elements, and it certainly deserves to be viewed as a shining star of the indie ARPG scene.
I look up. I see a high ledge calling to my RPG instincts; surely, there’s a good item up there. First I leap up to a lower ledge, then I use my hair to make a bridge across to another platform. From there I make a leap of faith, barely making it one ledge higher, where I use my hookshot to move ever further upwards. Eventually, after three more clever uses of Beast of Reincarnation‘s really interesting platforming mechanics, I reach the top. I finally made it!
But there’s nothing there.
No item, no enemy. Just a big fat zero.
This wasn’t the first, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last, time Beast of Reincarnation fooled me. At first blush, this is a game that should absolutely sing to me, bringing together some beautiful musical tracks and environments, plus parry-heavy combat with turn-based moments tossed in to reward engagement with its core mechanics (because I love those, too). Not to mention a story premise that seems like NieR: Automatameets Hayao Miyazaki? Sign me up.
Alas, like those cool platforming ideas which should reward careful exploration and thoughtfulness, Beast of Reincarnation is a set of empty promises and derivative ideas, and while there are things I recommend, the game never lives up to how great it looks on paper.
Of all those promising aspects, Beast of Reincarnation‘s combat is what spoke to me the most, especially after watching the slick combat overview trailer. Everything shown there holds true mechanically. Basically, parry or die. Almost every attack can (and should) be parried, and as you parry, two things happen. First, the stagger gauge builds up, allowing you to kill a regular enemy immediately or to stagger a boss. Parries feel fair too, even if the timing was a bit early for my liking. Nonetheless, it is consistent, which is most important. Plus, it’s nothing you haven’t seen before if you’ve played Sekiro or Lies of P.
This game sure does like giant bosses.
But with every parry, you also fill up your FP (“Florescence Points”), which allows you to slow down time and select a special move for your canine companion Koo to use. This, on the surface, seems fresh. Unfortunately, using Koo’s skills is maddeningly repetitive because the most effective way to utilize them is alternating between two to quickly inflict status effects. Any other method just doesn’t work as well.
All of this, combined with a shocking lack of enemy variety and fighting each boss a minimum of three times (and sometimes six!), makes things really monotonous. As such, the difficulty curve of the Beast of Reincarnation is way off, getting much easier as you progress and figure out how things work, and it just doesn’t change. Sure, there are other systems like food, level gains, and a skill tree, but none of that really matters in the face of parrying and everything that comes with it.
The prevalence of parrying impacts Beast of Reincarnation‘s exploration, too. There are about a dozen zones, and some of them are genuinely beautiful. I’ll admit that every area is full of items, Elite enemies, and a few engaging platforming challenges. But most of them are too linear, all of them are filled with the same few enemy types, and like the rest of the game, the items don’t matter much because of how parrying overwhelms every other system. The myriad invisible walls in places that make absolutely no sense don’t help, either. Unfortunately, everything else feels like useless repetition.
The environments might look good sometimes, but rarely this good.
One of the ways I found this most disappointing is the music. Honestly, going into Beast of Reincarnation, I thought for sure the OST came from MONACA, of Nier and Stellar Blade fame. They like the same soft choral arrangements and ethereal vibe. I quickly realized that must not be true because, par for the course, there just isn’t much variety, with every track evoking the same melancholic mood. And hell, I really like that stuff! But for a game that is going to run you a minimum of 25 hours, I need a change every once in a while no matter how pretty it is.
Speaking of pretty, the game does look pretty good, which is saying something given the body horror Game Freak put on my TV recently. Beast of Reincarnation‘s zones are full of crumbling buildings and environments that range from wide-open greenery to enticing mountains and caves, but they ultimately get a little stale as time goes. Battle and kill animations are very cool. Everything is crisp, especially the character and boss models. Maybe most importantly, it held a mostly stable frame rate throughout, which is pretty important given how significant timing in combat is. I don’t think there’s anything that’s going to wow you here, but the visuals do the job.
Beast of Reincarnation‘s story almost bucks this disappointing trend, but despite actually having an engaging plot, it’s presented so poorly and awkwardly that it fails to hit the emotional highs it goes for. The game starts in medias res with a quick tutorial and area to run through, and then we flash back to find out that the world collapsed 1000 years ago after people decided to eliminate emotions, where the “Blight” infects the souls of the people.
All the while, the ever-present threat of the titular Beast of Reincarnation that threatens the world every 100 years hangs over everyone. Emma, our protagonist, is a “Purifier” who lacks feeling, but she has the unique ability to take on the Blight and continue forward. As a result, she is chosen to pursue the freshly returned Beast of Reincarnation.
You better get used to this expression.
At least I think that’s what they tell you early on? Honestly, the lore is confusing and weirdly withheld throughout, partially because it is told through flashforwards and flashbacks. It’s a classic case of poor narrative design drowning out any potential the story itself might have. Even once we find out what’s going on at the very end—through heavy exposition that happens while you are in combat (a sin Beast of Reincarnation likes to commit a lot)—the story is doing nothing different. In fact, it is so derivative of the games that obviously inspired it that it borders on plagiarism.
The writers want to make a moody character piece. They want us to focus on the growth of the characters as Emma (obviously) starts to develop feelings, a soul. But it takes so long to launch that my boredom made me ignore the story almost entirely, so I didn’t care about the characters, their fates, or even their resolutions. The relatively flat voice acting, both in English and Japanese, does nothing to alleviate these problems.
You’ve likely already looked at the score at the bottom here. It might seem high for a game I’ve spent most of this review ripping apart. The truth is I still had a relatively fun time playing Beast of Reincarnation. After all, even if executed poorly, I love so many of the ideas. It’s by no means a bad game. But ultimately it’s a stale set of broken promises and wasted potential. Like the ledge, I might have had some fun getting to the end point, but there’s no real reward.
Before I get into any nitty-gritty of Gothic 1 Remake, I want to preface and say I am an anti-remake person by nature. One of my biggest gripes with gamers, gaming press, and the discourse around video games over the last few years is the notion that a game can be “outdated,” that video games have been on an objective upward trajectory coinciding with technological advancement.
The idea that games today are inherently better than they used to be, that developers from sometimes less than a decade ago (as the gap between release and remake seems to shrink, with games like Horizon Zero Dawn and The Last of Us remade within a decade) were essentially cavemen bashing rocks together, often making excellent games by accident that would supposedly benefit from “modernization.”
I think this mentality inherently devalues the artfulness of video games by positioning them as fickle, easily replaced or easily improved. It relegates them to a piece of tech, a product, rather than a work created by dozens or hundreds of creative minds. Though not in the RPGFan wheelhouse, I just played Halo: Campaign Evolved and was repulsed by some of the changes and their execution, finding it an extremely cheap simulacrum of the classic, seminal title Halo: Combat Evolved.
You meet dozens of memorable characters, all of whom can meet their potential demise and close off quests.
I won’t get into mudslinging every remake I’ve played that I hold active disdain for (I would probably septuple our target word count). I mention my beliefs to underscore the significance of my point when I say that Gothic 1 Remake is a fantastic game in its own right and an intriguing rework of a beloved cult classic. I have some gripes with it, but overall, it feels like a game made by people who truly understand the appeal and the inner workings of the original, something I don’t encounter very often.
Gothic 1 Remake, in the wake of Piranha Bytes’ closure, was created by a team composed mostly of Gothic 1 modders: people who cherish the original and bring reverence with them rather than commercial potential. People who have had thousands of cumulative hours consumed by a nearly three-decade-old RPG that, on its own merits and without any updates, demonstrates rather definitively that games don’t only get better over time.
Getting into the Castle of the Old Camp is one of the first main progression walls characters face, and there are many ways to enter.
Unlike most modern RPGs, Gothic 1 has a level of indifference built into every aspect of its design. Where many contemporary games are afraid to leave the player alone with their thoughts, or scale the world alongside them so they’re rarely too far from a power fantasy, Gothic 1 is notorious for hurling the player into a hostile world and leaving them to figure it out after only the lightest, often diegetic tutorialization.
This is a game where, instead of taking down armed guards or kitted-out goblins within the first few hours, the player gets put down by comically impish creatures like lizards, mutated chickens, and Rufus from Kim Possible. Where the lowliest jabroni in a camp—a miner armed with nothing but a pickaxe and rags—can one-shot them. The appeal here is that the initial wall provides plenty of contextual paths for the player to pursue to grow stronger, eventually leading them to surmount these challenges through progression, which instills a tremendous sense of satisfaction. That friction lurks in every corner and crevice of Gothic 1, including the remake.
In this way, Gothic 1 Remake is absolutely faithful to the original. The unforgiving nature of the early game remains intact, and in some ways even more deliberate. The team patched the routes players have found over two and a half decades to speed-run the progression wall, such as completely reworking the economy so that vendors have limited funds early on. Even if you cheese your way into rare and expensive items, you can’t break the economy by offloading them. Now, a vendor’s buying power increases only after you advance a chapter. Lockpicking has also changed significantly, which I personally don’t think works in execution, even if I agree with the vision.
In Gothic 1 Remake, you explore a prison colony after being thrown in. It’s dense and hostile, but you can overcome it.
Before, it was trivial to go around pilfering loads of items from unsuspecting denizens and hawking them to the aforementioned vendors for a huge leg up, as success was determined by your lockpicking skill. Now, it’s replaced by a kind of infuriatingly dense minigame that forces the player to find a static solution for each lock, with some requiring as many as 70 steps (which could take minutes) to solve.
Combat also had a major overhaul, and it is likely the change veterans will feel most immediately and intensely. Where fighting was quick and floaty in the original, letting skilled players swing and kite around enemies, it is now a more “modern” system of heavy, weighty, deliberate inputs. However, I think this is a massive success, as it enhances the progression curve by making the player a little weaker at the outset while introducing a system that lets them learn new levels of prowess with each weapon, unlocking faster attacks and even combos as they achieve mastery.
I only have so much time to discuss the changes. You probably just want to know whether Gothic 1 Remake is a good game, yeah? Well, fret not, because Gothic 1 Remake is phenomenal precisely because of how it preserves so much of the DNA that made the original a standout classic for real PC RPG-heads while folding in its revisions. Developer Alkimia Interactive has done something that seems nearly impossible, a feat only truly executed by the likes of Night Dive Studios with System Shock.
They’ve made something that should please even the most scrutinizing fan (me), while making it more palatable for modern audiences through visual and audio updates.
Gothic 1 Remake’s prison colony looks great and contains many biomes, from fields and plains to swamps and snowy mountains.
Instead of looking like Unreal Engine 5 slop, Gothic 1 Remake looks so much like the original, or rather, like how you may have internalized it as looking when you played it years ago. It’s still a dark, grimy, lived-in world, tonally consistent and unmistakably the product of a small studio with a specific vision.
Now, it boasts more detailed visuals, enemy designs that mostly align, and a new voice direction to avoid deterring those who might turn their noses up at the schlocky (if endearing) original English localization. The music is still catchy, if a bit generic fantasy, and the overworld theme and town tracks do undoubtedly worm their way into your head.
The world is still small, handcrafted, and knowable. While you don’t start with a map, you learn your way around simply by traversing. Finding maps that add no markers and force you to read them like real ones only deepens your knowledge of the topography and your immersion in the world.
Your decisions still matter, and you earn your status in the world rather than have it handed to you. NPCs talk down to you, doors are closed to you, and you have to prove yourself and make difficult decisions that shape your entire playthrough. The arc from prey to predator defines Gothic 1 and this remake, which means that the period of frailty and meekness required to become godlike ultimately demands it. Moreover, that “difficulty” is mostly just a knowledge or playtime wall. Getting “better” at Gothic is less about skill and more about simply engaging with its systems, as the increase in power arrives by virtue of experiencing the game.
Even lesser enemies like Lizards pose a threat early on.
The developers resolved to include both a harder difficulty and a simplified mode that makes much of the game quite approachable. However, since the “challenge” here is less about player skill and more about your understanding of the systems and the time you commit, with the zero-to-hero arc being the entire point of the experience, I have a hard time recommending that mode to anyone. If you were going to play on easy, I’d honestly just play something else altogether.
I don’t think Gothic 1 Remake completely replaces the original. In many respects, I still prefer the latter. Yet, I do think there is a growing contingent of gamers who are tired of being patronized by placating RPG design, and that’s reflected in the success of Gothic 1 Remake and other games that don’t hold your hand. For those who might get filtered by the jank of the original, Gothic 1 Remake offers a compelling way to return to a time when RPGs respected the player’s intelligence and abilities, or perhaps to experience it for the first time.
And by proving that a nearly 30-year-old design needed reverence rather than reinvention, Gothic 1 Remake quietly makes the case that the best a “remake” can do is trust that the original was right all along.
When a code for The Relic: First Guardian came across my desk, I was eager to snatch it up. Generic title aside, the game promised “fresh takes on [action RPG] combat” and a gritty spin on Korean folklore wrapped in a somewhat Souls-like bundle. I had hope in Korean devs Project Cloud Games and their ambition and wanted to support their small team of twelve. Yet, for all my respect for the indie hustle, I absolutely hated the many hours I put into The Relic: First Guardian and feel compelled to warn readers that the game is worth neither your time nor your money.
The story in The Relic: First Guardian is set in the medieval world of Arsiltus, protected from ravenous monsters by a device called the Great Relic. When the Great Relic is destroyed, the world is swallowed by a shadowy Void that turns even well-meaning humans into monstrous “Brutals,” who serve as the game’s bosses. Players reawaken as an amnesiac guardian at the hands of a dark maiden who hints at a past relationship. This woman guides players throughout the continent on a vague journey to collect fragments of the Great Relic.
One issue I had with The Relic: First Guardian was the open-world structure. There’s generally no clear marking of which quests are of the main story and which are side stories. You never know if the boss you’ve been throwing yourself at will progress things or simply net you a measly handful of gold and a dead-end. Meanwhile, shimmering fog gates will frequently block progression until you meet some unsaid criteria, meaning the game forces you to wade through every thicket and over every hill, slaying each boss you find while keeping you ignorant of whether it’s worth the effort.
If this looks enticing, get ready to see this exact scene a couple hundred times.
The Relic: First Guardian heavily advertises its near-80 bosses, and for the most part, these are the biggest strength of the game. A fair chunk of these bosses are forgettable bandits and other man-on-man duels, and all but a few bosses feature single phases with only a handful of moves to learn to counter. Like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice or Lies of P, The Relic: First Guardian is designed around parrying, here with a generous window for timing. Your attacks do little damage, so bosses and field enemies alike need to have unseen stagger bars filled with sometimes dozens of parries to knock ‘em out and deal real damage with special attacks mapped to face buttons.
The combat is quick and punchy across the several styles of expected weapons: two-handed longsword, sword and shield, magic battle staff, and so on, each with unlockable skill trees that you can swap at the aforementioned maiden for a cheap item. With most bosses, I got by parrying with the sword and shield, though a couple more monstrous Brutals required me to swap for a more dodge-friendly build. Off the top of my head, the standout fights were a cursed knight that evoked Artorias of the Abyss from the first Dark Souls, a thunder-wielding warlock in a graveyard, and a string of rather noble knights and priests towards the end.
Some bosses, if you can stomach the poor performance, impress.
I’m something of a Souls-like fiend yet by no means high-skilled, but even I could topple most of The Relic: First Guardian‘s bosses on my first try by mostly mashing the parry button and wailing back with special attack skills. Still, certain bosses were very cheaply designed around one-hit-kill moves that gave the game artificial difficulty spikes. An unavoidable crow-controlling witch could curse me in a single hit from a flurry of attacks. Once cursed, a snap from her fingers would end me regardless of my health.
Another curse-wielding Brutal’s fight took place in a field of burning crops, meaning I had to contend with constant parrying, while on fire, while cursed and unable to heal. Still other boss arenas were full of felled trees and other debris that sent my camera wild. Lastly, the final boss was so bugged out for me that half the buttons on my controller did not work from entering the boss arena until I got hit, and even then my healing items never worked. I ended up dying about a hundred and fifty times, but much of it was to a small handful of gimmicks or glitches.
I’ve said about all the nice things I have to say about The Relic: First Guardian. The best bosses here might stand alongside the lesser run-of-the-mill bosses from, say, Lies of P’s base game or Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, but they don’t even scratch FromSoftware’s catalogue.
But players beware: it’s the huge, repetitive, soulless world between these decent bosses that made me truly hate my time playing The Relic: First Guardian, and which inspires me to warn away even the most hopeless of Souls-like addicts like myself.
Firstly, the open world is an endlessly tedious, bloated pile of reused assets. You’ll think you’ve gone insane when you see the fiftieth identical farm village, or when you’ve struck down the same three enemy types per zone for the thousandth time. Thank goodness enemies don’t respawn. Then there’s the way assets like trees and barrels are plunked haphazardly around with what seemed to be no human oversight or quality check. I was unable to access one checkpoint after a major boss battle because it was half-blocked by a boulder in the environment… and nobody thought to check that? It reeks of, dare I say, non-human random placement of assets.
Gee, I hope this chest contains approximately 600 gold!
Everything is foggy, flat, and full of samey foliage, and populated by “rewards” that feel about as rewarding as a spit in the eye. There’s no scale in the rewards, meaning every drop throughout the game will grant 30 to 40 gold for small pickups, 600 gold for larger chests, and 600 magical relic points per found glowing rock.
To level up your weapons by a few measly damage points, you need to spend this gold on stones and gems in town—enemies don’t drop them, and they usually can’t be found in the wild. By the third and final zone, I didn’t even bother with enemy encounters or upgrading my weapons, as everything I’d repeated endlessly for the previous twenty hours had made not a speck of difference.
Besides the 80 bosses, the other crux of The Relic: First Guardian is the writing, said to imbue backstory and pathos in each enemy. Har har. I can’t read the original Korean, so I’ll blame the awful English translation. Weapons, skills, and items are tagged with long, meandering descriptions that read like pseudo-poetic drivel that neither entertain nor inform you what they actually do.
Centering text, Does not automatically make something Sound profound. Hey… maybe it does!
Most quests hinge on finding ghostly mirages that open text boxes, awkwardly read to you by AI voiceovers, same as all the villagers and seemingly most of the NPCs. Truly, no voice at all would’ve been better than the robotic garbage I experienced. Such quests usually begin with NPCs or texts mentioning someone by name, like a “Taylor” or a “Gus” (you know, those characters from rich Korean folklore). You follow the string of texts for a few turns, chop down some zombie soldiers or looters, and then you find *gasp* that Taylor or Gus has transformed into a man-eating Brutal. No joke, the biggest smile this game gave me was the boss healthbar that read “Gus the Accursed.”
Of the many quests and events I did follow through to the end, all reward you with depressingly bleak conclusions that, when combined with the inhuman AI voices, make The Relic: First Guardian’s biggest purported strength—its humanity—decidedly lifeless. Somebody on the dev team saw the understated environmental storytelling beloved in FromSoftware’s games and thought, “This needs more telling and less showing!”
Gee, I hope this chest contains a barrel!
I have not even mentioned the terrible performance and glitches, too numerous to mention. The Relic: First Guardian regularly ran at sub-10 frames per second, about as smooth and fast as a snail in ill-fitting cleats. I often had to quit to the menu and reload, which would cost me a random chunk of time and progress. I soon got used to guessing my parry timing when the game decided to switch over to Microsoft PowerPoint mode.
Then, the buttons and inputs often just decided not to work. Post-boss fight fog walls refused to lower, trapping me and forcing me to fight the boss again. One time a boss’s leap got him stuck outside his own arena, and we just stared at each other like, “Sup?” until I was forced to reload. Voice and text or subtitles didn’t match (at all) around half the time. It’s just an unfinished mess, masquerading in trailers as something players think reminds them of Elden Ring.
I think I could write about 4000 more words of complaining about The Relic: First Guardian, but I’m eager to simply wash my hands clean of this game and forget it ever existed. If you love Souls-likes or action RPGs, there are dozens of other experiences you’re better off playing. This one’s not even worth your curiosity.
Note from the Editor: Please note that this review is based on an early copy supplied to us by the publisher. Hours before publication of this review, we learned a major patch will be released for The Relic: First Guardian prior to its public release on Friday, but after our publication time. While it’s possible it may fix some of the issues discussed in this review, this patch will render existing save files unusable, so the only way to accurately review this updated version in full would be to fully restart and replay the entire game.
Given the poor experience Matt had with this game, we were not going to force him to play it all over again “just in case.” Regardless, doing so would be impossible before our publication time, let alone the game’s release on Friday, with its 20–30-hour runtime. So please keep this in mind, and know this review is an accurate representation of the game supplied to us for review purposes. Hopefully, the release version of the game indeed solves some of the issues discussed here.
While FromSoftware fans like me are rabid for more Souls-likes new and old, it seems they have shifted away from the first-person action RPG King’s Field series that acted as a spiritual predecessor to Demon’s Souls. Enter indie dev Kasur Games with Verho – Curse of Faces. Rarely do I see such open advertising as an homage to another title, yet the first line in Verho’s marketing is very upfront: “a Dark RPG following the tradition of the King’s Field series.” Is this merely mediocrity flattering greatness, or can this imitation revive a style of game lost for a quarter of a century?
Verho takes place in a medieval world centuries after its ravaging by a mysterious curse that wiped out most of the population within hours. This began three hundred years of the Era of Solitude, in which the dregs of humanity survived in sequestered caves, kingdoms, and villages. Only then was the truth of the curse discovered by a man known as the Maker: any human who sees another’s bare face condemns both to death.
Thus, the Maker, taking on a somewhat messianic cultural role, created masks for the remains of humanity to wear, beginning the Era of Masks where the player’s story begins. The player journeys to the ancient kingdom of Yariv, said to be the source of the Curse of Faces, only to be enveloped by a strange mist that saps all who enter the kingdom of their memories. Thus begins your quest to explore Yariv.
Nothing like a campfire to warm these old jagged hands.
I’ll be direct: I loved this game for the entirety of my fifteen-hour run. Verho – Curse of Faces takes the chunky, blotchy-textured polygons of the first three King’s Field games on PS1 and combines them with the complex terrains and verticality of the final King’s Field game, IV, on the PS2. The visual cues are apparent: the foggy, saturated colour scheme of the first half of Verho, the floating compass on the HUD, the VCR-slot buttons on walls, half of the enemy designs.
Verho very much feels like the King’s FieldV (or 3.5?) that never was, so my biggest caveat in recommending it is that if the history or style of that difficult-to-access series is of no immediate interest to you, then Verho will be a tougher sell.
Many criticisms I could make of Verho could equally be written off, depending on my mood—“That’s just the way games were then! It’s authentic to the late ‘90s!” I wonder how a younger Souls-like fan, or one not accustomed to the frustrations of retro gaming, would feel. Namely, the enemy tracking demands a lot of patience. Once you’ve aggroed an enemy in, say, Dark Souls, it’s just as easy to escape their line of sight and have them lose interest. Every enemy you aggro in Verho endlessly hounds you like a young me chasing the sound of the ice cream truck on a summer day.
The flying insect enemies really capture the irritating nature of real-world bugs.
Some enemies will leap (read: teleport) to you, clipping through walls, trapping you, and otherwise ruining your progress. Aerial enemies like bats and bloatflies are especially egregious, phasing through obstacles and bouncing at and away from you with annoying paddle-ball AI. Just when you think you’re safe and listening to an extended dialogue with an NPC, a ghost bat you didn’t know was tailing you may appear through the wall and end your run.
Most environs reuse the same one or two enemy types ad nauseam, give or take some variation in sizes or properties like poison, fire, and so on. Most enemy types have around two quickly read and understood attack animations. Thankfully, there’s a huge number of areas that never overstay their welcome, and enemy patterns become more varied and complex as the game goes on. The challenge of the game, then, comes from staying calm and coolly applying the pattern recognition you’ve mastered.
All that to say, Verho demands patience and precision from players. Death is only ever a few hits away, though once you know where you’re going, death is only a momentary lapse before you rush back into the action from the Maker shrines that serve as bonfires, fast travel waypoints, and places to level up. Then there’s the Nameless Village, a very Souls-like hub for merchants, blacksmiths, and crestfallen warriors alike. I particularly liked the giant snake blacksmith coiled around his forge.
A narrow fellow in the forge you’ll be glad to see each time you return to town.
Verho has no shortage of NPCs who consistently reappear throughout Yariv, each with their own backstory and quest. Like modern Souls-likes, finding and speaking with these NPCs furthers their sidequests, leading to some interesting lore revelations and even some assistance from them in a handful of boss battles and areas. On paper, NPCs have interesting stories (which they will unload on you through lengthy dialogue). However, none of the characters were particularly memorable, considering most of the time we just see them resting between the cool things they’re implied to have done.
There is plenty of platforming as well, and lava, spike traps, poison lakes, and bottomless pits to contend with. Improving on the King’s Field games, movement is buttery smooth. As the game went on, the pace quickened, and the final few hours felt less like Demon’s Souls and more like the first two Doom games, what with the quick traversal and how you must strafe in and out of enemy hitboxes.
I started as a blank slate level one “Forgotten” mask, though there are preset builds for sorcerers, thieves, knights, and so on. I played a strength build, as I’m wont to do in Souls-likes. This went from duel-wielding longswords and torches to eventually two-handing towering greatswords and axes. Sword swings are limited to one button, held between a max of half a second and two seconds depending on weapon size. A green energy bar under your health bar shows the charged power of each swing—anything less than full is practically a waste of time.
As a bonus, if you time the release of your swing perfectly with your bar fully charging, you get a critical hit. Melee combat, then, is about rhythm and timing. Backstep, charge swing, rush in, release.
So many lovely places I can show to my eye-sword!
There is a surprising range of weapons, but a vast number of learnable rune spells for intelligence builds. Throughout Verho, I found a handful of Blank Masks that let me reset my skill points to try out this variety of build, but hey—big sword make big number.
I can’t stress enough that this game does not frontload its best moments. The first few hours and areas are foggy and saturated in colour, like much of the King’s Field series or, say, Boletaria in Demon’s Souls. However, for every haunted barracks or bleak and abandoned temple, there are crimson-soaked swamps and bioluminescent hellscapes that keep things fresh and interesting. The level design is wonderfully varied, blending mazes, open plains, simple puzzles, and consistent combat into layouts that often wrap back into themselves with unlockable shortcuts to Maker shrines.
Bosses are somewhat hit or miss. At times they are barely more complex than standard enemies, just requiring more patience to whittle down their health pools. Elsewhere, they are more epic in scope and ambition, with many patterns and phases. The simple gameplay leads to a unique blend of movement in combat. Unlike many Souls-like bosses, Verho will often demand you jump or crouch below attacks. Combined with timing sword charges and strikes, this means I was constantly engaged. Besides the multi-stage final boss, nothing was ever too complicated or challenging, so don’t go in expecting Sekiro levels of difficulty.
As I said, there is a lot of dialogue expounded from NPCs, all fully voiced. The voice acting is somewhat amateurish and odd-sounding, like a handful of actors whispering line-reads in the strangest voices they can muster. Yet this was another case where an isolated weakness lent to the overall charm and mystique of the game. In fact, given the limits of the polygonal style, the weird voices are the most distinguishable characteristics of NPCs. I just wish the horrific groans and squeals of enemies chasing me were not so omnipresent.
There are also various visual filters for those wanting an even more retro style.
The soundtrack, composed by Valentino Cervini, is a wonderful dance between atmosphere and melody. At times it evokes high fantasy in the vein of Jeremy Soule’s scores for The Elder Scrolls, namely Oblivion and Skyrim, though it just as easily opts for whimsy during exploration (see “Swamp of the Abandoned”). Fingerstyle guitar features prominently, as in “Yariv – Lower City” and the haunting yet soothing hub theme, “Nameless Village.” At three hours, it’s an ambitious soundtrack that excellently complements each area and battle, imbuing the game with a delicately balanced mood of hope and hopelessness.
On the whole, Verho – Curse of Faces relies heavily on the mood and expectations that come with a blatant King’s Field-like. Its retroness is a boon more often than a bane, and its ever-increasing pace and sense of discovery kept me enthralled for a dense weekend of playing. Speaking as someone who has always been curious about King’s Field, Verho truly delivers an experience that felt authentic yet palatable.
Much like its vibrant, cyber-grafted cast, Celestial Return stitches together a disparate collage of cyberpunk influences. The game bleeds the gritty attitude of Cyberpunk and Shadowrun through its dialogue and worldbuilding, echoes the internalized psychology and abstract art of Disco Elysium, and still finds room for a slick anime aesthetic in its character design and futurepunk cityscape, as well as a Citizen Sleeper-esque dice resolution system.
While its branching narrative shifts dynamically around the dice outcomes and personality frameworks, the experience ultimately lives or dies by your tolerance for its core thematic dressing and its lack of overall polish. Strip away the love for the neon veneer, and there are times when Celestial Return feels like less than the sum of its cybernetic parts.
As a narrative-first detective RPG, Celestial Return wastes no time establishing the baggage of its protagonist, Howard. You control this grizzled investigator who once belonged to the PID—a specialist squad formed to protect the citizens of Netherveil against “Abstracts,” nebulous, thought-based manifestations that bleed directly from imagination into reality onto the city streets. Following a brief prologue exploring Howard’s past, a routine investigation into a triple homicide rapidly spirals into a surreal, metaphysical head-trip.
Yet, despite this bizarre backdrop, the detective tropes feel instantly familiar. Howard rigidly embodies the cynical, world-weary lawman who has seen too much and felt too little. Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by Disco Elysium, Zero Parades, or even Anachronox, but Celestial Return‘s opening acts ultimately asks you to sift through a case file you may have read a hundred times before, lit by the flickering neon of a cliché.
The prose is undeniably sharp, though it frequently veers into self-indulgent verbosity. By lifting Disco Elysium’s internal monologue mechanic—here divided into Intelligence, Anger-Management, Foolishness, Perception and Virtue—the writing in Celestial Return showcases a decent stylistic range, but it simultaneously traps the game in a shadow it can’t quite escape. Are we officially entering the era of the “Disco-like”?
The trouble is that Celestial Return lacks its inspiration’s mechanical transparency. Outside of occasionally locked dialogue options, the cause and effect of these personality lenses remain frustratingly opaque. Furthermore, the narrative leans so heavily on bloated, noun-heavy descriptions that crucial information regularly suffocates under the prose. You will frequently find yourself staring at a quest notification, desperately trying to reconcile a dry log entry with whatever absurd fever dream you just witnessed—like a lengthy, high-minded philosophical debate with a talking rose flower. I kid you not.
Not the pizza delivery then.
Despite these flaws, Celestial Return maintains a fiercely earnest tone. The developers clearly want to say something profound about identity and self-determination under the thumb of techno-authoritarianism. In utilizing the Abstracts, they find a genuinely fresh lens through which to examine humanity’s slouch toward cybernetic hybridity. Yet, as noted from the outset, your mileage depends entirely on your appetite for the genre. Perhaps that stagnation is inevitable. Decades after Philip K. Dick et al laid the groundwork, our collective anxieties regarding identity, autonomy, and algorithmic control have ceased to be speculative fiction. They have arguably become our reality, and Celestial Return (and other such works) perhaps now suffer more because of how this arc of human progress has shortened.
Graphically, the city of Netherveil amounts to a simple animated diorama. Howard navigates this map where emerging hotspots trigger self-contained scenes—a pretty set of neon buildings that serve mostly as a delivery system for the narrative. It is within these encounter scenes that the game’s rich anime aesthetic and unsettling character design truly feast. The artistic direction here is immaculate. Utilizing everything from stark, monochrome photography and film clips to Escher-like architectural illustrations, the visual direction embraces a minimalist look while keeping a sense of ambient unease and cosmic weirdness at the absolute forefront.
As a marriage of cyberpunk grime and psychological horror, Celestial Return utterly nails the presentation of these mostly static vignettes. Even the bold, oversized title cards that herald each new chapter work to anchor you within its grander ideas. Ultimately, I never tired of seeing exactly how the developers would stage their next bizarre tableau and how it sharpened the tension inherent in the game and in Howard throughout.
The music score is driven by three key tracks that bookend each chapter and straddle the gamut of post-synth retro, heavier techno, and even a spread of death metal. The music videos accompanying these tracks bring together some of the images used during Howard’s exploration, and they work well to bring everything together in an original way. Outside of this, sparse alerts for different personality choices and a very small but effective use of voice-over complete the auditory catalogue.
Once the narrative gains momentum, Celestial Return introduces personality-driven skill checks. While most of these options simply let Howard explore a specific train of thought, others remain locked behind previous decisions or demand a direct dice roll. Howard begins with a pool of dice that act as a bizarre meta-currency, pulling double duty as both his health and his wealth. While you can collect or purchase more dice as you progress, not all dice are created equal. Some dice inject negative modifiers into your rolls—representing Howard’s unchecked anger, for instance—while others grant positive bonuses, and a rare few guarantee an automatic pass. Regardless of the type used, only four dice can be rolled at any given check.
This is where the high-stakes reality of treating dice as health—or “oxygen,” as the game frames it—crystallizes. Because checks permanently consume your selected dice, risk management becomes paramount. Run out of dice entirely, and Celestial Return effectively soft-locks, leaving you with nothing but a prompt to roll better next time.
Navigating this system demands a sharp learning curve; I quickly learned to actively hold back on non-essential checks, hoarding my negative dice to act as cheap fodder to barter with NPCs or secure key items. Some items grant either permanent passive bonuses to specific personality traits or crucial, one-time boosts. Furthermore, as Howard accumulates experience from his investigation, he unlocks deeper personality insights and hidden revelations that grant permanent bonuses, serving to specialise his focus and make specific tests easier.
But will there be, after my roll?
While the loop becomes second nature after a few conversations, several design hurdles trip up the experience. Inventory management is a finicky chore; scrolling through dozens of dice is a tedious process, and a lack of organization for passive items quickly turns your gear screen into an exhaustive click-fest.
More frustrating is the lack of foresight. Beyond a bare-bones “recommended” dice count for any given dialogue check, the game refuses to telegraph what lies ahead. You never know if throwing your weight behind a massive roll will immediately leave you bankrupt for a gauntlet of subsequent checks. Consequently, in a genre where failure should ideally lead to interesting narrative branches, Celestial Return invites save-scumming simply to keep the game playable. Sometimes, you reload not because you want to see a different path, but because you literally do not have the dice currency to proceed.
All this interplay of personality-locked dialogues, multiple map points, and branching dialogues does mean there’s a healthy number of bugs and non-sequitur moments in the current build of Celestial Return, though the dev seems responsive to reported issues. There are soft-locks on progression when map markers disappear, or won’t interact, and the save/load process does not always register properly. Alongside the inventory issues, there’s a lack of polish to be accepted.
Picture a cyberpunk city: welcome to Netherveil.
If you can make it through these frustrations, Celestial Return does not overstay its welcome for its bargain price. The three books comprising Howard’s story top out around half a dozen hours, depending on reading speed and attention to detail. Clearly, there are alternative paths and points of view to consider on a replay, and discovering all the secret insights and the vast range of items would take some forensic trial and error.
Celestial Return is an enjoyable narrative RPG, where the simple encounter systems work well enough and the cosmic horror feel to its main adversaries displays enough of a point of difference to make its cyberpunk city worth visiting over so many other similar locations. But the familiarity of the main character’s conceit, issues with clunky inventory and verbosity, as well as buggy cohesion, add some acid to the sweet, hard rain slicking the dark streets. It’s for you to decide whether there’re enough viable parts here for you to assemble into a relatively enjoyable whole, or whether the essence cost in time and enjoyment is just too great. Your move, choomba.
In my review of Disgaea 7 last year, I concluded that the series was long overdue for a shakeup. Disgaea 7 addressed many fan demands after the disastrous Disgaea 6, yet in doing so revealed just how stale the series formula had become. After hitting peak mechanical refinement in Disgaea 5, the series has been treading water, removing beloved features to seem different from the last entry without changing the fundamental design template, just to add them back in the next entry and pass that off as meaningful evolution for the franchise. It seems the developers over at Nippon Ichi Software may have felt the same way about the series trajectory as I do. The newest game in the 20+ year old franchise, Disgaea Mayhem, opts for an entirely new genre shift into a hack-and-slash action RPG. Disgaea Mayhem establishes a firm mechanical foundation and adapts the franchise’s most iconic mechanics decently well to a new format, yet ultimately fails to deliver enough variety or depth to justify this new direction.
As far as the presentation, characters, and narrative trappings are concerned, Disgaea Mayhem is a classic Disgaea game through and through. The story follows grizzled mercenary protagonist N.A. (a guy so dark and mysterious his name is literally “Not Applicable”) as he’s hired for a job by the new Overlord of the Netherworld Super Duper, Tichelle. Tichelle explains that Super Duper used to be a Netherworld full of strong and terrible beast demons, who lived by survival of the fittest. However, the previous Overlord, her late father Margraf, united the various warring factions by cooking up the Pristine Gleam Flan, a dessert so delicious it soothed the rage of Super Duper’s inhabitants and turned them into confectionary-loving softies. After Margraf’s death, the various factions (each led by one of six Psychlamates) rebelled against Tichelle, hence why she brought in N.A. to calm them down long enough to feed them her own wacky flan recipes and quiet their rambunctious spirits.
The colorful stages and cool character design for N.A. offer a solid presentation that feels series-appropriate.
The plot is, of course, quite stupid in Disgaea series fashion, though I appreciated the goofy tone. The constant food and calorie-counting/weight-gain jokes related to overconsumption of flan began to grate after the initial hours, but watching as N.A.’s gruff exterior slowly gets broken down by Tichelle’s youthful, saccharine exuberance and his own budding love of her wild flan concoctions proved fairly entertaining. It definitely feels more like a spinoff narrative, even among standard goofy Disgaea stories, but Tichelle and N.A.’s dynamic is cute enough to carry the narrative across its short five-hour runtime.
Initial impressions from the pre-release demo led many (including myself) to believe Disgaea Mayhem was a musou title ala Dynasty Warriors. From a first glance, it’s clear to see why: hack and slash combat focused around executing combo strings by alternating light and heavy attacks, huge swarms of enemies to mow down, and stage-based level design. However, looks can be deceiving; Disgaea Mayhem is not really a musou title, because it lacks the objective-based design that makes those games compelling. There are no troop movements to manage, no bases to protect or capture, no invading enemy captains appearing to upend your strategy nor allies to direct. All of the strategic, battlefield management gameplay that gives a series like Dynasty Warriors its depth is entirely absent. Instead, Disgaea Mayhem is a very straightforward action RPG with small, contained arenas containing waves of fodder enemies to mow down, and a capstone boss encounter. The overall flow of gameplay is more similar to arena-based action RPGs like Croixluer Sigma or Misturugi Kamui Hikae rather than Koei Tecmo’s flagship franchise.
While the story stages are decently large and have varied layouts, most missions are relegated to a small portion of those stages, with monsters spawning in waves of 15 to 20 at a time. Upon defeating those waves, a mini-boss (usually a larger, recolored version of a regular monster with a more complex move set) appears. This makes the variety in stage layouts feels rather pointless. Disgaea Mayhem never really makes use of the layouts in an interesting way, preferring to just ferry you to combat arenas with different backdrops.
The developers seem to have recognized this fact, since entering the Item World grants you stages that are simply tiny arenas without all the pointless traversal fluff of the story stages. Each item category has its own unique arena design (sometimes a flat circular plane, sometimes a narrow ring with a large gap in the center, sometimes a cross shape or one with large pillars) to allay complete monotony, though all of them share the same purple void aesthetic. These more confined stages, despite being visually boring, are actually a much better fit for the combat mechanics, as the small play area means monsters are constantly on top of you, their aggressive behavior keeping you on your toes as you try to mow them down faster than they can spawn and manage your focus on the boss.
Flashy special attacks are great for quickly slaying a swarm of foes…for the umpteenth time.
The core combat feels incredibly tight and fluid; N.A. has a quick dodge with invincibility frames you can chain endlessly to avoid attacks, and the various weapon move sets are satisfying. I grew particularly fond of the twin pistols and fist weapons because weapon types had a wide variety of combo strings to pull off that kept N.A. mobile while attacking, allowing me to mow down the relentless hordes of foes while simultaneously staying out of the way of dangerous attacks from the mini-bosses. You can also equip up to four special skills onto a weapon to clear large groups or do large single-target damage to a key foe.
There’s also the Battle Buddy system, where you can befriend monsters after completing a stage for a nominal Mana fee, then train them up by bringing them into battle with you. Their AI is pretty terrible, but the Magichange mechanic makes them useful. Each monster species corresponds to a particular weapon type, and when you engage Magichange, they will take the form of that weapon, allowing you to switch to a new moveset until the Magichange bar runs out. You can also expend the entire remaining Magichange bar for a unique ultimate attack. Furthermore, the Battle Buddies take center stage in the Chara World, a board-game autobattle where you progress along a linear set of tiles, each one conferring permanent buffs to N.A.’s stats, as your chosen party of Battle Buddies fights off the rival monsters encountered along the way. This is the main way to earn new Evilities (passive abilities like a double jump, increased healing, etc.) for N.A., so you need to have a good stable of monster companions to get the most out of these progression systems.
Series fans might be fooled into thinking from my descriptions of adapting Magichange, the Item World, the Chara World, and monster raising into this new framework that Disgaea Mayhem is a successful genre shift for the franchise. Unfortunately, the devil is in the details, and the game misses the mark in key areas. For starters, there is a ridiculous degree of asset and content reuse in a game this short. You see every single enemy type within the first couple hours of the game, with later stages simply recoloring the same enemy types (with the same movesets) to denote their increased strength. From the story stages to the Item World, you fight the exact same enemies the exact same way over and over again ad nauseum. Disgaea has always been repetitive, but never before has the original content been so paper thin and stretched so far, tearing at the seams as it struggles to cover the modest expanse of about ten hours of unique gameplay concepts (including the postgame).
Did I mention you can counter enemy attacks by using a special skill? Don’t worry about it, you barely need to use it.
Furthermore, the difficulty balance is extremely lopsided. Disgaea players may be used to breaking the game through repeated Item World excursions and building up a carefully crafted team of battle-hardened veterans, but that usually takes a significant time investment and effort. After unlocking the Item World, I spent less than an hour fooling around with it, upgrading some beginner gear, and promptly destroyed the difficulty curve for the remainder of the game. I’m not exaggerating when I say that every single story boss after this point died within about five hits. Disgaea Mayhem employs a simple stagger system for enemies that worked well in the initial hours but was entirely obviated by a weapon that took me only fifteen minutes to upgrade. I demolished everything the game could throw at me (including the final boss) in seconds. This is a shame because the story bosses have the most complex and involved movesets, and would be fun to fight if they didn’t die from so much as a dirty look thrown in their direction.
I would say this is a cautionary tale to avoid the Item World until after you’ve finished the story, but because the Item World is necessary to outfit N.A. with a full kit of combat abilities, doing so would leave you feeling significantly handicapped without the full suite of combat options the game clearly intends you to access. The postgame challenges do require some significant time investment in the Item World to become strong enough to complete, but the journey to get there becomes interminably boring before you even unlock the Postlude content.
It’s a real shame, because there is a diamond buried deep in the rough of Disgaea Mayhem. N.A. feels great to control, and using the musou-influenced movesets to fend off large swarms of monsters you blow up with over-the-top special attacks remains fun throughout. That solid foundation is let down by a significant lack of content, dearth of meaningful objectives in the stage designs, and a difficulty curve that immediately flops like a wet noodle. Disgaea Mayhem feels more like a spin-off proof of concept than an evolution or new direction for the series, and a proverbial monkey’s paw that will make me careful what I wish for in the future.
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