Győző "FairyEmpire" Baki
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XboxEraLatest Reviews
Star Wars: Episode I: Jedi Power Battles is a game with plenty of cons and pros alike. It’s an unashamedly simple and fun brawler, with a lot of content, a good variety of characters, a surprisingly meaty story mode for the genre and various extra content – all of which can be played with your (local) co-op buddy of choice. Do arm yourself with patience, however, as many game mechanics are a bit undercooked and unprecise, with a lot of bizarre level designs and features that didn’t quite receive the polish they needed, and that this remaster hardly really improved upon. As a quite minimal upgrade to a forgotten but solid game, clearly this one’s for the hardcore fans, who can jump back to the similarly flawed but enjoyable prequel trilogy’s beginnings.
SYNDUALITY Echo of Ada is a strange game for sure. It’s an enjoyable enough mecha-based extraction shooter, with serviceable combat and traversal and with the excitement of this genre’s formula. Said gameplay loop does very little to stand out from the crowd, despite a somewhat unique presentation, and the technical woes and limited content and variety thereof, end up limiting its potential. It’s also a paid game with tons of baffling microtransactions, timers to wait out, massive grinds and glacial progress, which could make you lose interest rather quickly. At its core, Bandai Namco’s latest is a solid extraction shooter, make no mistake. If you’re looking for that, jump in; this is certainly a very solid game in a vacuum, mechanically stronger than my score would imply. Arriving this late into the genre, however, it really should be offering more and better content than it does to really stand out – and it should respect players’ time and effort more. I ultimately have to wonder – with these flaws, will the playerbase stay big enough to give enough time for developers to fix what’s wrong, and perhaps make SYNDUALITY Echo of Ada truly one of the greats? As with a...
It’s hard to properly judge a game like The Quite Place: The Road Ahead. In a vacuum, as a horror game, it may appear as a slow, tedious experience, and there certainly are a lot of parts where it feels like it just keeps on throwing roadblocks at the player just for the sake of it. Every action is slow, every path convoluted, every interaction takes longer than it would in any other game. But if you’re familiar with the movies, you know that the whole point is not making any noise, and the nail-biting tension of having to open every door slowly, walking on sand where available or having to take detours because the most logical path would be too noisy are the pillars of the experience. Does it make for a compelling videogame? Despite a few shortcomings, I feel that it does, as the game’s excellent graphics and tense atmosphere put a nice little ribbon on the package. But this isn’t a game for everyone, and not just because of the (optional) microphone gimmick, so beware what you get yourself into. I still think it’s one of the most unique and memorable horror games in recent times, which...
Ultimately, Fear the Spotlight doesn’t really try to reinvent the formula, serving as a smart, respectful and well-designed homage to the PS1-era of horror games and the 90’s aesthetic in general. Lovely visuals, great voice acting and genuinely spooky vibes more than make up for the fairly simplicistic gameplay loop and short length, making this retro horror game one of the better picks for a playthrough in a spooky season.
In the end, I enjoyed the first video game of the Unknown 9 universe, and I sure hope it won’t be the last, as I wanna keep going back to this vast fictional world. And while I want to applaud Reflector Entertainment and Bandai Namco for trying something different, perhaps they stuck a little too close to the action-adventure videogame genre’s tropes, in an attempt to better appeal to the masses. Still, it’s a game that has some good ideas and terrific lore, one expanded upon by all the transmedia products out there. Fans of action-adventure games should take this leap of faith into The Fold and give Unknown 9: Awakening an honest shot, with its budget price that should help with pulling the trigger over such an… Unknown quantity.
Funko Fusion is a simple game, perhaps overly so, following the footsteps of Travellers’ Tales’ iconic LEGO games but with the Funko figurines instead of the brick characters. The IP crossover aspect is sound, and the game is very accessible, but excessive repetition and a baffling lack of any form of co-op at launch, with online co-op but no local co-op coming down the line, surely severely crippling its value in the eyes of much of the target audience. Once co-op is finally added, as long as the online one fits the bill for you, I’d still recommend playing through the storyline at least once, at least to the people who are craving for a new LEGO-style adventure and are looking for a new twist or two on the formula.
Schim is certainly cute, charming, and has a surprisingly emotional look into the themes of depression and midlife crisis. Perhaps it could dig deeper into its arguments, and maybe even dare a bit more with its gamepaly. Similarly, with a length of only about 3 hours and limited replayability, the launch price of 24.99USD/24,99EUR feels a little excessive, and I would absolutely recommend waiting for a sale. But when that sale does arrive, give Schim your consideration: it’s a quite beautiful little game with an intriguing concept and even a good message to give to its players.
The game is just a blast to look and listen to, which pardons some of the less impressive combat encounters and the play-it-safe game design. It’s not a game that reinvents anything, but it sets out to do specific things, all of which it does pretty well. Fans of third person action adventure games should definitely consider playing Kena: Bridge of Spirits, with accessibility options and a story mode difficulty allowing even newcomers to videogames to enjoy this colourful, cartoon-esque journey.
Despite a handful of bizarre small changes from the original games, Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy is still quite a riot. Naughty Dog’s iconic “on-rails” 3D platformers, remade from the ground up by Vicarious Visions, is still a lot of fun, with the main character’s iconic spins making for what is still a quite fresh experience that differentiates itself from other titles in the genre. With tons of content and a massive amount of extremely hard challenges to aim for in the search of that elusive 100% completion (and beyond), this is one of those platformers that could keep you coming back for a while – making this a great addition to Game Pass (also on PC and cloud – the first Activision-published game to be playable via cloud on Game Pass). Lastly, the game was never updated for Xbox Series X, most damningly sticking to 30fps on either Xbox console.
Graven is an old-school dark fantasy first-person shooter that somehow feels like no other, taking cues not only from classics like Hexen but also throwing in elements of RPG, immersive sim, and more, creating a mix that feels unique and engaging. The game’s lengthy campaign does feature some questionable progression at times, with somewhat needless soulslike elements, time-consuming puzzles, and an uneven balance, but none of these flaws could ruin the game for me. Graven is not just a mechanically fun FPS, it’s also a great journey worth experiencing for yourself – but next to spellbooks, metal swords, and medieval armor, do remember to pack a healthy dose of patience, as its often convoluted design can cause some frustration.