Miguel Moran
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Writing For
TheSixthAxisLatest Reviews
DOOM Eternal is one of my favourite games of all time, and easily my favourite entry in the long-running id Software franchise. It’s the only shooter I’ve played where the end of every encounter makes me feel like I just finished jogging up the stairs for an hour. It’s a game that tests all your senses and fires all your synapses and locks you into a gameplay loop where you never. stop. moving. In DOOM: The Dark Ages, you need to stop moving. The game has swapped the jump and dodge action of the last entry with a new combat loop focused more around universal weapon utility, slower and steadier battles, and a melee parry system. It’s a wildly different direction, and while the result is absolute demon-blasting ridiculousness that’ll make anyone smile, it never quite reaches the same constant highs of the last game.
Sometimes a video game is an epic. It’s daunting, and it’s forever, and it’s a slate of marble you slowly chip away at for weeks and months and an entire year. Other times, a video game is lightning and fireworks. It’s an instant flash, and immediate dopamine, and a bag of chips that’s empty before you know it but also maybe empty before you have too much of it. It’s Shotgun Cop Man.
When SNK was bought by the Saudi Arabian Electronic Gaming Development Company back in 2022, they reassured the general public that this would not affect the content of their games at all. It happened during a pretty tumultuous period of foreign investment funds and corporations buying their way into several gaming companies, so people were rightfully pretty concerned about how it would affect the legendary fighting game developer. After playing Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, it feels like that promise from 2022 has been broken, draining away any chance of this game having a cohesive aesthetic or style. Beyond some interesting combat mechanics and a handful of promising new character designs, there isn’t a whole lot to this game that would make it feel like a standout hit, anyway.
It feels like a no-brainer for a collaboration between the creators of the Zero Escape and Danganronpa games to just be the biggest, wildest death-game crossover imaginable. Yet, to the credit of both developers, they’ve spent the last few years instead collaborating on projects that explore refreshingly different genres and mediums while still retaining a lot of the creative charm that made their breakout works so memorable. The Hundred Line Last Defense Academy is by far the magnum opus of their collaborative game works as Too Kyo Games. Blending the wild flowchart-storytelling of Zero Escape with the bombastic and absurd mystery thriller antics of Danganronpa is incredible enough, but doing so within such a different frame of narrative and with such an addictive gameplay loop has resulted in one of the most memorable games I’ve played in ages.
Before nerd culture went mainstream, and everyone was into or aware of anime in all its forms, there was what anime die-hards called The Big Three. It was the three iconic and long-running shonen action manga & anime series that were mainstream titans compared to any other series – Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach. The first two have had a healthy variety of video game adaptations over the years, but Bleach has never truly had its moment in the sun. A number of middling arena fighters have come and gone for the stylish and edgy series, but Bleach: Rebirth of Souls aims to be a breakout hit by combining a reverence for the origins of the series with the sleek underground futurism of it’s recent anime revival seasons, all bundled together in what is easily the most inventive anime arena fighter I’ve played in years.
When you love something a lot, it can be hard to see it change. The Atelier series has held onto a pretty strict and consistent style and vibe for over a decade of yearly entries. Yet, in the opening hours of Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land so much of that has changed. The style is sharper, the vibe is a bit more serious, and the titular alchemist doesn’t even own a giant cauldron! I was shook by these changes at first, since they betrayed that cozy, slice-of-life, Kiki’s Delivery Service-adjacent tone that made me fall in love with the series. Dozens of hours, hundreds of battles, and thousands of alchemy sessions later, I can confidently say that this is an incredible step forward into the exciting unknown for the Atelier franchise.
I’ve only ever known the Suikoden series as the JRPG where you can recruit like a hundred different characters. I always loved the idea of that whenever I heard it, but the closest I came to actually playing them was with being tempted by the recently released spiritual successor Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes. With Konami setting out to revive their entire gaming catalogue, though, it was only a matter of time before Suikoden was brought back into the spotlight. I’m thankful it was, and that this two-for-one HD remaster gave me the kick I needed to finally dive into a pair of unsurprising but thoroughly enjoyable old-school JRPGs.
Tales of Graces f Remastered represents the absolute best of what the Tales series has to offer - and this version is easily the best way to experience such a charming and fun JRPG.
Gestalt: Steam & Cinder is a charming metroidvania with a unique world that's ultimately undone by its overstuffed and underwhelming storytelling.
Anger Foot is loud, gross, punishing, and funny as hell. It's a crime-fueled fever dream sprinkled with moments of genuine silly sincerity, and it's all connected by fast and fun foot-first combat that I couldn't get enough of.