Miguel Moran
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TheSixthAxis Latest Reviews
I never got around to playing the original Mortal Shell. At the time, I was content as a Souls-like fan with the games I already had access to, and with
Blue Reflection Quartet is a mixed bag of good remasters and lacking adaptations, but still provides a great way to experience this JRPG series.
I love it when games get weird, wild, and unexplainable. It used to be the norm that, alongside heavy hitters and their straight up sequels, we would also
Echoes of Aincrad promises to let you create your own adventure within the setting of Sword Art Online, but it doesn't let you off the leash.
ZA/UM's second game, ZERO PARADES draws in the familiar gameplay and starting point of Disco Elysium for an excellent spy-filled tale of intrigue.
Luna Abyss immediately declares what kind of game it’s going to be through the opening scene. Haunting music gets louder and louder while a camera pans slowly to show the curvature of the Earth. And then, in an instant, it’s not just the Earth. A blood-red moon appears above it, corrupted static-filled messages flood the screen. The appearance of that red orb triggered some massive, undisclosed change in the world, but you’re thrown right into a grey and dreary civilisation that has already lived through whatever that change was.
I’ve only played one table-top RPG session in my life, and it didn’t go great. Despite the rude DM and a one-shot that haunts me to this day, I’m still enamoured by video games that so faithfully tap into the rulesets and world-building of the pen, the paper and the dice. We’re so familiar with the rules and tropes of video games that have become an implied bare-minimum for every release, but when a game goes out of its way to adapt the Dungeons & Dragons ruleset or mythos into the virtual world, it creates this challenging and unfamiliar box to play in that I adore. Baldur’s Gate 3 took the rules and world of the TTRPG and transformed them into a sweeping RPG epic. Esoteric Ebb, meanwhile, mixes those familiar structures with a unique, yet nostalgic world, creating an unforgettably charming and hilarious narrative adventure as a result.
I’ve been playing the Yakuza games for a long time now, having been drawn into them when they were still niche PS3 action games that needed fan petitions to get localised. Now, the series has become SEGAs biggest property with yearly releases that each manages to be larger and longer than the last. Some of these entries have been spin-offs set outside the main continuity, while others have been entire remakes of the oldest games in the series. Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties manages to be both at one – a two-pack where one game is a modernised remake of Yakuza 3, while the second weaves a prequel adventure around the final protagonist of Yakuza 3, Yoshitaka Mine. Unfortunately, this duo left me scratching my head and wondering who, exactly, they were made for.
Code Vein II is so much more than I expected. As much as I loved the first game, it was pretty plainly “anime Dark Souls” at a time when soulslike competitors were still relatively few in number. It was successful enough to earn a sequel, and so I naturally expected to find something immediately familiar in Code Vein II. By the end of my time with it, though, I was blown away by how original, engaging, and uncompromised the vision for this game is – and how much I loved playing it.
Recently, I’ve been trying to work through some issues I have with the way I approach playing & beating video games. For the longest time, I’ve felt like I need to make sure I see every possible piece of content in a playthrough of a game – and that drive to avoid missing anything often leads to me turning games into a checklist of tasks and a monotonous guide-assisted slog. Sometimes, missing out on an item or a boss in a game can be punishing – but punishment and frustration aren’t bad things to experience when gaming. Like any piece of art, entertainment might not always be the goal. Like real life, you’re always bound to miss out on something, somewhere. Romancing SaGa -Minstrel Song- Remastered has ended up becoming the perfect exposure therapy for me to remind myself of and embrace these qualities, and enjoy this one-of-a-kind open-ended RPG experience with no hesitation or remorse.