Frank Wood
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MonsterVine 
KeenGamer Latest Reviews
Killing Floor 3 is fun, frenetic, and a bloody good time. This series has come a long way since its initial entry, and Killing Floor 3 is a very strong entry that innovates on the core loop while delivering all of the gorey, zombie dismembering horde shooting you could want. It feels great to play, but it almost feels like the amount of content it brings to the table is a little bare for a full release.
Killing Floor 3 is fun, frenetic, and a bloody good time. This series has come a long way since its initial entry, and Killing Floor 3 is a very strong entry that innovates on the core loop while delivering all of the gorey, zombie dismembering horde shooting you could want. It feels great to play, but it almost feels like the amount of content it brings to the table is a little bare for a full release.
Dune Awakening is an ambitious survival crafting sandbox set on one of the most famously oppressive places in science fiction, the planet Arrakis, also known as Dune from Frank Herbert’s series of the same name that started in 1965 and spans 6 huge books in the original Dune series. Developer Funcom has games like Conan Exiles under its belt, but is Dune Awakening unique enough to stand out in a genre that is growing more saturated by the day? Short answer: This one is one of the best games...
After Rune Factory 5, which was a bit of a rough transition for the series as it made the jump to 3D, I was a little unsure if they would be able to stick the landing on the second attempt. I am happy to report that Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma might be my favorite entry in this long-standing series yet, bringing a fresh new aesthetic, gameplay innovations, and a far better-performing game on PC.
SaGa Frontier 2 tells an ambitious, generational story that involves two major familial lines over the years and the way a mysterious object intertwines these stories. Originally a little bit of a messier experience, SaGa Frontier 2 Remastered smoothes out some of the rougher edges and adds some greatly appreciated quality of life aspects while also slapping a nice coat of paint on its beautiful watercolor art.
Combat has that serotonin feeding gameplay that I’ve always loved, but with a little bit less going on behind the scenes. Romancing SaGa 2 does a fantastic job of communicating to the player how these systems work and what you can do to influence them. They have added the timeline battle gauge that has been seen in newer SaGa entries so you can further strategize against enemies while you find the perfect party composition with the perfect formation so you can have the most lethal party possible. The feeling of learning a new, powerful skill during a hard battle is something that attracted me to the SaGa series long ago, and this time it is even more detailed than before. You can see if there are still more attacks to learn, which is very helpful when it comes to deciding what skills to keep on your characters and which ones to seal.
Speaking of online, this entry features a much more interesting online system than before. You can join lobbies, meet people while running around as an avatar of your chosen Gunpla, join Clans, do missions together, compete in tournaments, and more. It’s cool to see a bigger focus on trying to recreate the environment presented in the story as well as some of the Gundam anime in this universe. I could see this game becoming really big for me if I found this after discovering Gundam at a young age, and it’s pretty sweet to see the effort made to create something like that.
The other forms are very cool, but they feel a little bit more specific than the lightning one but honestly, that is fine because the main form is the link between them all. With some smart playing, you will be changing forms constantly, pulling off crazy platforming feats, and enemies won’t stand a chance! Speaking of enemies, I do have to say that I think enemy variety is a weak point in this game, I wish we had some more types to put into the puzzle, but I suspect it may be the way it is on purpose. But it doesn’t change that a smidge more, or even just visual redesigns for areas would make it all feel much more fresh, the rooms that spawn a bunch of enemies are the least interesting part of the game once you make it halfway through it.
All of this comes together to truly feel like something special. I laughed, I cried, and I got invested in this world and the characters that inhabit it while being enthralled by this battle system that felt like a fusion of some of my favorites, but elevated. Sabotage Studios has once again managed to elevate a classic favorite from the yesteryear of gaming, and in the process of that created something that feels like a celebration of all of those parts, while still carving out its own unique identity!
I went into this experience excited and positive for some more awesome Cyberpunk worlds, technology, and lore and just quickly found myself frustrated with the game’s inability to stick the landing. There are lots of things to like about this game in a vacuum, but when it all comes together to try and do its thing, it starts to fall short quickly and fails to provide you with many compelling reasons to continue with it.