Chris Carter
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Writing For
Destructoid
Screen RantLatest Reviews
I've found that runs can go south very quickly unless every player is on the ball. Death is severely punished in Nightreign because if a teammate doesn't revive you, you'll lose a level and potentially all your currency if you don't run back and grab your stack of souls. Sometimes teammates will run off independently, die, lose levels, and be under-prepped for the Nightlord. This can happen at the start of a run to set the tone, or at the very end. Given how runs can top out at around 45 minutes (boss fights have no time limit), it's an investment.
I was pleasantly surprised by Princess Peach: Showtime, and the aforementioned unpredictability is a huge reason why it will likely remain in my permanent rotation of Mario games going forward. I’d love to see Nintendo give more mascots a showcase like this, with a similar go-for-broke variety format. Keep ’em coming!
Most WarioWare fans will likely want to pull the trigger on this one, but I don’t blame you for being wary. There’s a lot of give and take here, especially with the heavy motion focus.
It’s abundantly clear that this series isn’t over yet, and I hope that Insomniac never really stops working on superhero games. There’s so much of the Spider-Man mythos that’s untapped so far, and you could keep this gravy train running with some crazier ideas once this presumed trilogy is over. As long as Insomniac is on board, I’ll be along for the ride.
As I was playing through Pikmin 4 and things really started to click, I thought to myself (with a smile on my face) – “I just want to play this forever.” It’s a strategically satisfying game if you want it to be, and it’s a chill rainy-day adventure if you’re going for that vibe. This is one of the releases I’m going to set aside time to 100% this year, and like Pikmin 3‘s Bingo Battle (which I still play!), I’ll be jumping into Dandori Battle from time to time with my family.
It’s a bold move to go with a premium package on top of a season pass model with a smaller release like this, but that’s what we have at the moment. It’s hard to predict how Crash Team Rumble ends up in six months, but I hope it’s still around, and the team is able to just facilitate what is working without corporate meddling. Whether or not enough people feel like spending $30 minimum to stick around and find out is up in the air.
Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp is a tough sell to some for a variety of reasons. Straight-up: a lot of folks likely aren’t going to want to pay full price to experience these games all over again, and I get it. But I found myself falling in love with the Advance Wars universe for the second time in my life, despite occasionally going back to my still-working GBA copies. I really hope this leads to a series resurgence, and Nintendo/WayForward both use this opportunity to move the franchise forward from the ground up.
I want to stress that Wo Long is not going to be for everyone. It can be extremely punishing, especially if you’re butting heads with the parry system. But the setting, the aesthetics, and action sensibilities from a learned team made it all worth it to push through and get over that hump. I hope Koei Tecmo has another one of these up their sleeve.
While the community will ultimately decide whether or not Wild Hearts lives on as long as any given Monster Hunter iteration, I hope it does; and that the team delivers on whatever confirmed free content is on the way. It’s not every day a high budget hunter arrives on the scene, and there’s more than enough room for several of them.
After playing Gotham Knights, I couldn’t shake the feeling that a lot of it had the air of an Arkham-verse fan game. While there is something there, you can almost reach out and touch the design-by-committee elements and witness the souls of some of the developers leaving their bodies. If you’re looking for another “Open World: The Game,” this one has you covered.