Short, reasonably polished mystery walking sim, whose biggest weakness is its story. Keeping things as vague as possible, the story the game initially seems to be telling is not the one it ends up telling, and for the latter story to have worked, the protagonists would probably need to have been much more fleshed out than they are. Nice outdoor areas and Scandinavian vibes, at least, and some people will probably like the game's twist(s) better than I did; might at least be worth a try if you can get it on sale or in a bundle.

(this review is for the main Reassemble story campaign only; have not touched the multiplayer or post-release DLC)

pretty good when it remembers to be a proper single-player game and not a glorified tutorial for the multiplayer GAAS nonsense (which is to say, often enough for three stars but not any more than that), with an appealing take on Kamala Khan and Bruce Banner in particular. but besides the more significant gameplay flaws, I gotta ask why you’d make an AAA Avengers game and only include three actual supervillains, one of whom is the main antagonist and final boss, and the other two of whom only appear very early in the campaign.

If Square Enix had let Crystal Dynamics play to their strengths and just make a damn single-player game (or at least just a story-driven co-op campaign), this could have been at least as good as last year’s Guardians of the Galaxy, but nope, they had to chase that live service money.

an absolutely beautiful Zelda-meets-Fez isometric adventure that wonderfully evokes the spirit (if not the actual letter) of what I imagine the experience of playing old-school games without a walkthrough handy on the Internet must have been back in the day. I don't think it's perfect by any means - I do wish that the developer hadn't gone for Soulslike combat (even with the accessibility settings that remove any challenge from combat, it's still annoying) and that there had been more non-meta environmental puzzles; there's also no denying that it can be too cryptic for its own good, and the central late-game puzzle mechanic isn't really to my taste and led me not to bother getting the true ending. But what it does well - the feeling of exploring that beautiful world with its amazing art direction, searching for hidden secrets in nooks and crannies, looking for clues in the manual - is too good for me not to recommend it.

interesting experiment using blink-based controls for a tearjerker narrative game. I don't think it's quite as good as it's been made out to be - I didn't find the story to be as moving as others did, I could only get the blink detection to "acceptable" rather than truly reliable, and I don't think the blink gimmick ends up adding as much to the narrative design as the developers thought it did. having said that, it's still a nicely told, short experience that tries something different, and it's definitely worth a play if the premise intrigues you. I'd wait for a sale or bundle, though

would that as much effort had gone into the narrative as clearly went into the absolutely beautiful audiovisual presentation. it's not much of a spoiler, given the premise, to say that the emotional climax of the story is a cathartic moment of reconciliation between mother and daughter... but for that moment to have the desired weight, I should probably have a clear idea of what exactly their conflict and subsequent estrangement was about in the first place, and it's a major indictment of the storytelling that I don't.

still, it really does look great, and if you're into short, arty narrative games, it's at least worth a play on Game Pass. just be prepared to say "wait, that was it?" when you get to the end

at least in terms of combat mechanics, this arguably does "what if PlatinumGames developed an ARPG" better than NieR Automata did, and that game was actually developed by Platinum.

lacking in level design and enemy variety, and the story is a lot of convoluted anime nonsense, but the flashy, character-action-inspired combat is incredibly fun all the way through and really carries the game. Also enjoyed the hideout interludes and bond episodes as a way of breaking up the pacing, even if there are a few too many of them by the end.

(note: I only played through Yuito's campaign, since I had had my fill of the gameplay at that point and didn't really feel a need to fill in the gaps in the story)

A 3D puzzle-platformer with a time-shifting mechanic and minimalistic storytelling is a pretty good idea, but unfortunately, I think the devs bit off more than they could chew here (their previous game was a free first-person puzzler called Frame of Mind, which seems to have gotten a generally warmer reception). Platformer basics like the feeling of general movement, camera, and pushing blocks around are just horribly janky here, on top of a lack of feedback for puzzle-solving elements (you'll frequently flip a switch and have no idea what exactly it did); it all just feels more like a free student-made game made in a few months than a commercially released product, even one that's currently $5 at full price, and which I think I bought on sale for less than a buck. Enjoyed some of the platforming and puzzle-solving for a bit, but ultimately it's just too unpolished on a basic mechanical level for me to recommend.

A side-scrolling action-RPG consisting of almost nothing but fetch quests. The gameplay loop of trekking into dungeons and collecting items to unlock town upgrades is mindless fun for a couple hours, but wore out its welcome for me before I even unlocked the third playable character; a more involved combat system might have helped, but I'm not sure it'd make up for the repetition of going through the same areas over and over again, even if new parts of those levels do gradually open up. the 3D environments look nice, at least

a major disappointment, after having seen and heard so much praise from many of the game critics I follow. the environmental storytelling might be great, but the photography game/walking simulator built around that storytelling requires putting up with a frankly unacceptable level of jank: basic movement and jumping are painfully clunky; there are major collision detection issues that led to me frequently falling through stairs, being catapulted into the air, or getting stuck on edges; and some of the objectives are particularly tedious and obscure (I could not for the life of me get the "10 solar panels with the telephoto lens" objective on the second level to register as having been completed, which was the straw that broke the camel's back here).

I have no doubt that this game is doing some very interesting and admirable things with its world-building and politics, but frankly, I'd much rather read an essay, watch a YouTube video, or listen to a podcast about those than attempt to actually play this again.