A religious, philosophical discussion with cinematography that reminded me of Yorgos Lanthimos. It gets weird at times, but I honestly wish it got a bit weirder. The puzzle design feels quite dated, being somehow both quite simplistic but also frustrating with a lack of feedback at times, but they don't take up too much of the game's short playtime.

I switched the audio language over to Russian early on and really enjoyed the performances. The story had some interesting thoughts, and I never quite felt it becoming pretentious, which is a concern with material like this. A good quick game.

This is a major step up from the original Castlevania Adventure on the Game Boy. It feels great to play this time and feels a lot like playing the original Castlevania on the NES which is honestly impressive for the Original Game Boy.

Slowdown is almost gone and the controls are very responsive. The levels themselves are designed fairly, in the sense where nothing feels cheap (besides the last few levels but we'll get to that). Enemies aren't whip sponges and are easy to take down. Visuals themselves have the sauce and look nice for a Game Boy game.

This time around the structure is more like Mega Man, where you are given the option to play 4 stages with a boss at the end. Once you complete all 4, you go Castlevania which is pretty much the Wily Castle of this game. It works very well for Castlevania and doesn't feel out of place, except for the fact that there really isn't an order advantage like there are in Mega Man games.

I was only soured by the last few levels as the ending bosses felt kinda unfair and some parts of the level were kind bullishit. Almost enjoyed this one all the way through if it weren't for the last few sections.

Overall, still a good solid Portable Castlevania title, and what the original Castlevania Adventure should have been. Mostly enjoyed my time with this one.

What is Mondealy? Think Undertale, but without any of the RPG elements. That means you're left with not much else other than a walking simulator. This wouldn't necessarily be a problem if Mondealy made up for its simplistic 'gameplay' by telling a riveting tale, but it doesn't. It is ultimately hindered by an ATROCIOUS translation. One that honestly feels like it was fed through an A.I. program. There are grammatical errors everywhere. Characters don't converse in a natural way. Prose is stilted, awkward and flat throughout. Any attempt at telling an intriguing story flops right out of the gate because this awful writing is immediately noticeable and it never gets any better.

Mondealy has a short running time of six hours, but it felt like double that at least. Backtracking and fetch quests are the name of the game here. One particularly favourite moment of mine was when you have to meet a gang leader, but the path forward is blocked by a burst pipe. The character tasked with fixing it wants you to get his toolbox, but you can't because a gang member is using it as a chair. So you have to run all the way back to the one of the earliest areas of the game, grab a chair, give the chair to the gang member and then get the toolbox and give it to the plumber so that they can fix the pipe and you can go through the door. I am not making this up. That's how shit the overall design is.

Oddly enough, it's very nice to look at. The pixel art is crisp, colourful and the animation can be quite expressive. The production values are clearly a step up above Undertale. It also has consistently great music. These aren't enough to save Mondealy from being a complete waste of time, but hey, at least it could have been worse.

There's a certain power in dissatisfaction. In giving players bad choices. There are many choice-based crpgs that offer perhaps too much choice in how the world is shaped. In how to influence others. Pentiment wisely pulls back on this to build an aching, intimate yearning. A yearning to make all the right decisions. A yearning to keep everyone safe, to choose a killer that will hurt the fewest people instead of choosing a killer based on evidence. A yearning to protect, and a yearning when we've failed. Our main character is not the hero deciding the fate of the world. He's just a guy, in a place and time. How we all leave our mark on history is subject to so many factors beyond our control.

Mechanically, its hard to say every skill has all the uses it could. Skills mainly make certain investigations easier, but they're always multiple avenues to uncover all the evidence you want. But this also means that every skill choice that does provide a new dialogue path feels all the more rewarding for your commitment. The skill choices in the final act of the game, compared to the others, are much more limited in their scope, but the final act is also much more on the rails than its previous story sections. Less time for choices to matter.

Still. Just kind of a truly banger game with incredible artistic sensibilities.

To be young in the 21st century is to be bombarded with relentless news of war, climate change and pandemics, to be overstimulated with the constant doomscroll feed of everyone everywhere (all at once), and to be then barraged with the question: what do you want to do with your life?

Goodbye Volcano High’s characters may be dinosaurs - and we all know what happened to them - but they’re going through the same end of the world we are. In this game, we ‘play’ as Fang, a non-binary highschooler and leader of promising indie band, Worm Drama, whose everyday balance of friendship and personal music aspirations is put to the test with the impending doom of an asteroid headed for global destruction. Fang’s friends, including Trish the bug fanatic and L&L (like D&D) games-master Reed, all have hobbies and goals which help distract them from a very uncertain future.

The team at KO_OP do a great job writing these kids with vivid traits, flaws and struggles of their own, making each of them compelling, if not fairly likeable. In general, the characters and world itself have that sugary sweetness you’d find in a TV show like Sex Education: Volcano High has no bullies, the 2D world presents itself as ‘pure vibes.’ The lack of harshness would be a big criticism if it didn’t punctuate that one looming detail - it may all come to an end either way.

The atmosphere - the pastel colours, leisurely pacing and irresistible sadcore indie music - certainly has appeal. I did sometimes find the art-style of the characters a little distracting - some really beautiful moments of drama can be undercut by the large dino-faces which don’t quite express as much emotion as you’d want them to. The visual novel format is not usually my cup of tea, so the rhythm-play music sections were the gameplay highlights for me - it makes sense that they’re the best bits, for both us and Fang - but they left me wanting more ‘gameplay’ elements than a lot of the dialogue-choice stuff. I do feel like the drama/conflict could’ve gone a lot further, but I respect the choice of keeping everything more slight in favour of a more realistic and universal experience.

It may not be groundbreaking - I’m sure there are purer ‘visual novels’ that offer similar stories with higher risk - but what it offers is a pleasant and uncynical coming of age routine. The dino gang always seem at the verge of parting ways for different walks of life, but the message of Goodbye Volcano High remains clear: do what you love, and surround yourself with the people that support you in doing so - that is, before it’s all gone.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is a puzzle game unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. Swedish developer Simogo, which has been innovating in the genre since at least 2013’s Year Walk, has crafted an immaculate interactive mystery dripping with style, rich with an enthralling story to unravel, and chock full of masterfully designed puzzles to obsess over. The game’s logic-heavy mechanics will immediately draw parallels to Lucas Pope’s seminal Return of the Obra Dinn. But just as that game’s innovations and influence made it a common point of reference for critics when reviewing games that followed, I can only assume we will start seeing critics drawing comparisons to Lorelei in much the same way. Simogo’s accomplishment is a step forward for not only the puzzle genre but video games as a whole.