Dominic L
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TheSixthAxis Latest Reviews
If you’ve been gaming for as long as I have, there’s now a period of your gaming life that falls into the ‘classical’ era. The 8-bit and 16-bit consoles forged gaming as we know it today, with 2D sprites and burgeoning 3D techniques transporting us to worlds we’d previously only imagined. Zenovia Interactive want you to remember those days, with their latest title, Neon Inferno, set to revitalise the 2D run ‘n’ gun genre, while leaning on modern technology to make this one of the best-looking side scrollers of recent years.
The original Aaero came out of nowhere, and remains, to this day, one of my favourite rhythm-action games. Merging the classic gunplay of Space Harrier and Panzer Dragoon with musical movement was an inspired creative decision, and Aaero had you riding the rails – called ribbons here – in time with a bass-heavy electronic soundtrack, using your craft to mimic the changing notes. Aaero2: Black Razor Edition sees the Mad Fellows team returning to their signature series, this time boasting a stellar soundtrack from Monstercat, new multiplayer modes, and additional music packs, promising to take players on an even wilder ride through space.
You might wonder how a demon making a pact with the Devil to eat the Moon translates into a game about skateboarding. I’ve played Skate Story and I still can’t entirely answer that. What I can tell you is that Skate Story is a beautiful, surreal, poetic journey through the underworld, emblazoned with neon, crystal, and hellfire. It is unlike anything else you’ve played this year, and about as far from Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater as it’s possible to be, while sharing the same basic mechanics. Somehow, it works. Perhaps developer Sam Eng might also have made a pact of their own.
Role-playing video games have been around almost as long as D&D itself, but for every step they take towards modernity, many of the fundamentals remain the same. Octopath Traveler 0 is a game that’s more aware of that than any other AAA release this year. It readily leans on RPG fundamentals like turn-based combat, grinding for experience and epic storytelling, while aping the 16-bit visuals of classics like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI. It’s also a reworking of the mobile title, Champions of the Continent, but, for all of that, Octopath Traveler 0 looks and feels every inch the modern RPG.
What is Kirby Air Riders? That’s the question I’ve found myself wrestling with throughout my time with it in the past couple of weeks. Is it a kart racer? Well… kind of. Is it a vehicular combat game? Sure, you could say that. Is it a multiplayer platform, designed almost completely to be played with others? Yes. Definitely. Yet there’s still a nagging feeling that Kirby Air Riders is one of those games that exists purely for its own reasons. As the first non-Smash Bros game to be directed by Masahiro Sakurai in over a decade, it carries an odd weight of expectation, only adding to the strange and slightly off-kilter vibes you’ll find when you check in for Kirby Air Riders.
Tetris has Tetrominos. Lumines has blocks. Tetris tasks you with forming lines. Lumines tasks you with forming blocks. They’re two sides of the same block-dropping coin, and while Tetris is instantly recognisable as one of the most iconic, generation-defining games of all time, Lumines can stake a claim to its own equally important place in history.
Time has gone very squiffy in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment. Set during Tears of the Kingdom, and following Zelda’s disappearance into a sinkhole beneath Hyrule Castle, Zelda awakens in a clearing in the forest. This isn’t her Hyrule though, and it soon becomes clear that she’s travelled back in time, all the way to Hyrule’s very beginning. There she meets King Rauru and Queen Sonia, the original founders and rulers of the iconic kingdom, and they take her in, lost as she is.
I’m not really convinced that we, as a species, are capable of learning from our mistakes. Whether that’s because of real-world events making satire completely redundant, or the fact that people keep building theme parks full of monstrous, toothy reptiles and being surprised when they’re found meandering around with the leg of a guest hanging out of their maw, it’s hard to say. Jurassic World Evolution 3 continues as the digital incarnation of that theme, but there’s more emphasis on the wellbeing of these creatures than ever before, while giving you the most advanced customisation tools the series has ever seen. Don’t worry, though, because the dinosaurs still get out, and Jeff Goldblum will continue to berate you for it.
What a crazy crossover event Ball X Pit is! Who could have foreseen the rotund, spherical ball franchise matching up so well with a great big hole IP? Well, golfers, I suppose. In all seriousness, Ball X Pit is a melding of so many genres and games that the titular ball and the pit feel like the nominal components here, with solo developer Kenny Sun having crafted one of the best arcade roguelite crossovers we’ve ever seen.
Codemasters might have the official F1 license, but that hasn’t stopped indie developers from creating their own take on the premier racing class. New Star GP drew on classic Sega arcade racing thrills last year, but speeding toward a fierce braking zone is Formula Legends, the fresh-faced rookie, which has taken the hard-nosed, serious sport and given it a cute, hyper-deformed makeover, all the while attempting to retain the competitive racing action of its inspiration. It’s a pretty successful attempt too.