Francesco De Meo
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WCCFtech Latest Reviews
Despite having been released almost thirty years ago, Final Fantasy Tactics is still remembered as one of the best tactical role-playing games ever released and one of the finest entries in the Square Enix series, thanks to its incredible story, deep gameplay, and the most refined iteration of the series’ Job system, which grants it excellent replayability. I played through the original and the War of the Lions PSP release dozens of times, testing countless strategies, experimenting with wild Job combinations, and finding unusual ways to play—all while continuing to enjoy Ramza's journey through a war-torn land and Delita's efforts to reshape their world, as if experiencing it for the first time.
At a time when the horror genre was thriving, KONAMI’s continued neglect of the Silent Hill series was baffling. While Resident Evil reclaimed its place as one of the greatest survival-horror franchises with its seventh entry and successful remakes, and new IPs blossomed, one of the genre’s cornerstones remained dormant. With KONAMI showing little interest in reviving its legacy franchises, it often felt like we’d never return to that fog-shrouded town. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case: last year, Bloober Team’s excellent Silent Hill 2 remake brought the series back to life.
Assassin's Creed Shadows is hardly going to be remembered as the finest entry in the series or the best open-world game set in Feudal Japan, but the good the game does definitely outweighs the bad, making for an enjoyable experience whose real fault lies in the series' now trademark content bloat and the by-the-book open-world ARPG experience rather than in the bad execution of any of its features.
Following the release of several horror games to a reception ranging from positive to mildly negative, sometimes due to how particular sensitive themes were addressed, Polish developer Bloober Team has risen considerably in the estimation of survival horror fans for the excellent work the studio has done with the Silent Hill 2 remake, a faithful adaptation of the classic Konami game enhanced by some modern features that make it a joy to play. While the Polish studio is set to continue this fruitful collaboration with the development of the remake of the first entry in the series, Bloober Team is also expanding its own properties with new titles, the first of them being Cronos: The New Dawn. Right from the game's reveal, it was made clear how this game would be a threshold release for the studio, moving past the narrative-focused experiences such as the Layers of Fear series and The Medium to delve deeper into the survival horror genre. And while it is definitely a little flawed, there's no denying that Bloober Team created a solid game that becomes rather engaging once things really get going.
Soulike games are truly everywhere nowadays. Back when FromSoftware's Souls series did not have the immense popularity it enjoys nowadays, the release of any game inspired by the series was an event in itself. However, today's increased offerings for hardcore action RPGs have led to some stagnation for the genre. While many Souslike games released in the past few years are solid games, very few of them are true standouts, as the vast majority of these games opt to stay within the boundaries of a tried and true formula that is starting to get a little tiring.
Remedy Entertainment is a development studio that doesn't need any introduction. The Finnish developer has been around for a very long time, and in the long years of activity, it has released some incredible games that have etched themselves in the minds of those who experienced them, like the first two entries in the Max Payne series, the two entries in the Alan Wake series and Control, the game which effectively kickstarted the Remedy Connected Universe that connects the latter two series, and who knows what else in the future.
Since the Souls series formula has become popular among players, countless games have tried to recapture what makes FromSoftware's hardcore action role-playing games so engaging, but only a few have managed to even get close. Among these is NEOWIZ and Round8 Studio's Lies of P, which still stands, a few years since its release, as the game that got the closest to recapturing the haunting atmosphere of the beloved Bloodborne.
The announcement of Elden Ring Nightreign last year was a surprise for most players. Following the release of what has become FromSoftware's most celebrated action RPG to date and its expansion, it has been reiterated multiple times that a sequel was not in development, suggesting that it would be a while until Tarnished could return to the Lands Between, counting teased IP expansions that most thought were a few years away. The doors of the Roundtable Hold, however, could not stay shut for long, and the iconic location is about to be opened up to welcome the Nighfarers and aid them in their difficult battle against the Nightlords to repel the Night Tide and possibly restore the fractured reality of Limveld to the former splendor of its older days.
Spanish game development studio MercurySteam may not be among the most popular video game development studios ever released, but the Spanish team would definitely deserve far better recognition for having contributed much to popular classic series like Konami's Castlevania and Nintendo's Metroid. It's with the latter series that the developer showed its chops the best, creating with Metroid Dread what is, in my opinion, one of the best entries in the entire franchise. Still, MercurySteam has yet to put out that one original game that would put them on most players' radars.
Ever since FromSoftware's Souls series started rising in popularity, the vast majority of action role-playing games developed by smaller and more established studios have been inspired in some capacity by the Japanese developer's franchise. While many of these games are great experiences on their own, they highlighted how the genre is suffering from some homogenization, where very few are the games that try to break from the mould and offer something different. For this reason, I could not help but appreciate Empyreal's approach to the genre when I first tried it in February.