Nathan Birch
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WCCFtechLatest Reviews
Xenoblade Chronicles X has long been the black sheep of Nintendo and Monolith Soft’s ambitious JRPG franchise, partly because it opts for a harder sci-fi setting than the rest of the series, partly because it simply had the bad fortune of being released on one of Nintendo’s least successful platforms. Thankfully for hardcore fans, Nintendo is now crossing off one of the final boxes on their “Wii U ports” bingo card with the release of Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition.
The WWE 2K franchise has been in a rebuilding phase for the past few years, culminating in last year’s WWE 2K24, which was one of the best pro grappling games 2K and developer Visual Concepts had delivered in years. But as most seasoned wrestling fans know, it’s one thing to prove you’re championship material; it’s another challenge altogether to stay at that elite level. That’s the test WWE 2K25 now faces.
In recent years, Josef Fares and Hazelight Studios have established themselves as the masters of a certain unique brand of co-op-focused games, including 2018’s prison-escape adventure A Way Out and 2021’s family-drama-infused multi-genre extravaganza It Takes Two. The latter ended up becoming a surprise smash hit, selling over 23 million copies worldwide, so anticipation and expectations are high for Hazelight’s latest co-op venture, Split Fiction.
Nintendo’s Splatoon franchise has been in need of a bit of a touchup for a while now. The first Splatoon made about as big a splash as was possible on the beleaguered Wii U and two years later Splatoon 2 brought the series to new heights on the Switch. The momentum didn’t necessarily continue, though, as Nintendo seemed to temporarily forget the franchise existed after its second entry. Ah, but you can’t keep a good mollusk down, and after a five-year-plus absence the series returns with Splatoon 3 this week.
Extreme sports games are having a bit of a moment right now, partly due to the success of Roll7’s OlliOlli indie skateboarding titles. After proving audiences were still hungry for kickflips and rail grinding back in the early 2010s, the British developer is now looking to answer a new question – what if you added guns to the mix? Enter Rollerdrome, an inventive mashup of skateboarding, roller derby, and arena shooting set in a near-future dystopian world.
For years, Live A Live stood alongside the likes of Mother 3 as one of those lost legends of localization. Spoken of reverently by those in the know, but out of the grasps of the average player. Released by Square in 1994, smack dab in between Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger, the game was every bit as ambitious as the better-known 16-bit JRPGs, but for whatever reason, it was never brought Westward. The game has built a bit of a cult audience via fan translations, influencing the likes of Undertale creator Toby Fox, but now Square Enix is bringing it to the masses via a full HD-2D remake.
Stray is certainly a game that grabs your attention. The core concept of a cat exploring a dark Blade-Runner-esque post-apocalyptic world is intriguing, and the game’s vivid, ultra-detailed presentation is pretty astounding considering this game’s the work of a small first-time studio. It’s no surprise Stray immediately jumped to the top of many people’s “Most Anticipated Indies” list.
I don’t think many folks expected to see a Rage 2. The original Rage was a thoroughly fine experience that didn’t sell all that well, and open world games have come a long way since 2011. You’d think Bethesda and id Software would let this particular sleeping dog lie, and yet, prior to last year’s E3 they announced they were reviving Rage with the help of the open-world specialists at Avalanche Studios.
Mortal Kombat X was a landmark release in the long-running skull-crushing series, selling more than any previous entry and proving NetherRealm’s fighters could stand toe-to-toe with Street Fighter, Tekken and other competitors in terms of depth and polish. NetherRealm then upped their game another notch with the almost shockingly-good DC Comics brawler Injustice 2. Ed Boon and company have gone from the silly blood ‘n’ guts guys to arguably the leading fighting game developers on the scene.
From Software find themselves in a unique position. The Dark Souls creators remain one of the most distinctive developers around, and yet, most of their recent games have followed a similar blueprint. Plenty of fans are happy about that, as there’s still nothing quite like Dark Souls, but others would prefer they try something new. Well, it seems From Software is listening to the folks in the latter camp. Last year they launched the VR adventure Déraciné, and now we have Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.