TJ Denzer
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Children of the Sun is an absolutely weird game, but in a lot of good ways. The narrative and aesthetic are intensely gloomy and disorienting, the puzzles of how to dispatch all cultists in any given level are smart and engaging, and the alternate gameplay sections aside the main shooting...
Rise of the Ronin is an incredible open-world action-RPG. Its version of Bakumatsu era Japan is beautiful and delightful to explore, with plenty of activities that don’t fall deep into the open-world genre’s trap of being tedious. Its combat and customization are also incredibly well-refined, allowing you to become the...
Pieces Interactive’s 2024 reboot of Alone in the Dark reminds me in numerous ways of the classic Silent Hill games, for better and worse. Combat is impactful, but not always recommended. The drifts between Derceto and supernatural worlds are unsettling, but also janky. The characters feel compelling and mysterious, but...
Unicorn Overlord might be my favorite game so far this year. I loved Ogre Battle back in the day. March of the Black Queen is one of my favorite old-school games. I never would have expected Vanillaware to capture that feeling so thoroughly and even add its own twists to...
I never would have expected that a roguelike could work so well in a card game before I played Balatro. It’s simple and guides you in so well, but escalates quickly and is happy to crush your run at any moment with the smallest strokes of misfortune. That’s what makes...
Penny’s Big Breakaway is a delightful breath of fresh air for the 3D platforming genre. It doesn’t just feel like a love letter to Sonic, but rather a number of mascot platformers from back in the day that captured our hearts. There are a few issues here and there, but...
Pacific Drive is a mystery that draws you in little by little and rewards you for staying dedicated with both a better vehicle and more ridiculous threats. Every excursion left me wondering just what I’d discover, both from survival and story standpoints, as well as what kind of crazy threats...
Under Night In-Birth 2 Sys:Celes is a great addition to what we had that improves upon previous games in pretty much all the right ways. The new characters are fun, the new attacks for existing characters make new gameplans fun to learn, and there is a nice variety of online...
Tekken 8
Throughout my long hours of playtime with Tekken 8, I struggled to find bad aspects of this game. The online and offline modes are plentiful. The roster is robust and varied. The online plays smooth and crisp under even undesirable conditions (with plenty of options to restrict those conditions). And...
Ultimately, SteamWorld Build was a lot of what I like about the original IP and city simulations. It smartly mixes concepts from throughout the SteamWorld series into your management such as mining and monster control. Between overseeing the mines below and the town above, you’ll have a lot on your...
I cannot stop wondering who Naruto x Boruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Connections is for. It feels too reductive of the source material to pull players into the story beyond a shallow retread. Meanwhile, pretty much every character and their execution play far too similar, so I don’t know what a...
Berzerk: Recharged is on the sleeve about what it is. It’s one of the more influential arcade classics of the 1980s with a fresh coat of paint and a few new bells and whistles. It’s pretty, and it plays smooth as butter, but there isn’t a lot past the surface...
