Author: Lee Jewett

Developers: Idea Factory, Compile Heart Publisher: Idea Factory International Genre: Action RPG/Girls Love Reviewed On: PlayStation 4 Also Available For: PlayStation5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, Nintendo Switch, PC Ahhh… another year, another Neptunia game. Those familiar with the world of medium-budget JRPGs will be familiar with this occurrence by now, as it has been roughly thirteen years since the series debuted and Compile Heart has only not released a yearly entry once in that time. I have recently jokingly taken to referring to Hyperdimension Neptunia as “Call of Duty for Weird Himejoshis”, which is perhaps not totally fair as I…

Developer: Space Lizard Studio Publisher: Thunderful Publishing Genre: Roguelite Reviewed On: PlayStation 5 Also Available For: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X, Nintendo Switch Paper Cut Mansion places you in the shoes of a cop named Toby who finds himself stuck in a papercraft purgatory filled with ghosts, traps, monsters, and the occasional friendly NPC. The game opens with Toby having a slight case of the ol’ amnesia, making it his and the player’s goal to figure out how and why he got stuck in paper hell even while searching for a way out. To this end, the…

Developer: One Up Plus Publisher: Goblinz Publishing, Klabater Genre: Tactical RPG, Tower Defense, Roguelite Reviewed On: PlayStation 4 Also Available For: Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC Defend the Rook is an interesting little twist on the tower defense genre that combines it with a tactical  RPG and throws some roguelite elements in for good measure. You inhabit the role of The Magister, a powerful wizard in control of an equally powerful artifact known as the rook, which allows them to control battles from afar with the aid of the spirits of legendary nameless heroes. Battles take place on a…

Developer: Louis Rigaud Publisher: Klabater Genre: Deck-Building Roguelite Reviewed On: PlayStation 4 Also Available For: PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One For as much as I love indie roguelikes-slash-lites and play as many of them as I can get my gay little hands on, even I have to admit that they can be a bit derivative of each other. Certain mechanics, even beyond just very basic things that it would be difficult to build games in certain genres without, tend to appear again and again, and deck-builders seem to be especially prone to this. Though not necessarily a bad thing (“if…

Developer: Stormind Games Publisher: Team17 Genre: Isometric RPG Reviewed On: PlayStation 5 Also Available For: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X, Nintendo Switch, PC Do you ever spend the whole time you’re playing a game hoping it’ll get better later? That’s how I felt as I was playing Batora: Lost Haven, and not just because it’s a game I’d been looking forward to for quite some time. It is, in many ways, a game that is very close to being good, but falls just short in almost every regard and ends up being slightly below mediocre instead. The biggest…

Developer: Black Forest Games Publisher: THQ Nordic Genre: Open-World Shooter Reviewed On: PlayStation 5 Also Available For: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC Destroy All Humans! 2: Reprobed opens with a disclaimer: Humans of planet Earth, be advised: While the visual experience has been upgraded, the content and historical record of the original invasion of the Furons remains a near-identical clone. The Furon linguistic and cultural experience remains unaltered. The story, words, and images contained within may be shocking to the modern human brain! 2020’s remake of the first Destroy All Humans! had a similar block of text…

Developer: Black Salt Games Publisher: Team17 Genre: Horror/Fishing/Adventure Reviewed On: PlayStation 5 Also Available For: PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC In my opinion, dear reader, the ideal difficulty for games is one wherein you constantly feel as though you are on the cusp of a failstate while rarely, if ever, actually achieving one. You see this in a broad variety of genres: in survival horror games, where health and ammo are so scarce you always feel like you’re about to run out, but a competent player almost never actually will, or a stealth game where…

Developer: Team EARTHWARS, oneoreight Publisher: oneoreight Genre: Souls-like Metroidvania Reviewed On: PlayStation 5 Also Available For: PlayStation 4, PC Lost Epic is a game that simply could not hold my attention. I tried for quite a long time to get through it, but I was hardly ever able to play for very long in one sitting, and I’d constantly find myself distracted during those sessions, until finally, I decided that this must be a sign and I should factor this lack of engagement into my review of the game. This is so odd, because Lost Epic is, from what I…

Developer: Geography of Robots Publisher: Raw Fury Genre: Point-and-Click Adventure Reviewed On: PlayStation 5 Also Available For: PlayStation 4, PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X There is an argument, in certain circles of Americana discourse, that the southern united states function as a cultural “other” to the rest of the nation, at once punching bag and scapegoat to be blamed as the source and pathetic, wretched victims of every structural problem of the United States. This phenomenon is easiest to observe whenever any sort of disaster or tragedy occurs in a southern state, be it natural or manmade – such…

Developer/Publisher: Thunderful Games Genre: Platformer Reviewed On: PlayStation 5 Also Available For: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, PC If I had a nickel for every game that came out in 2022 about exploring the flooded ruins of a city that hit me out of nowhere and very quickly became one of my faves, I’d have two nickels, which – what are the odds, eh? Between Submerged: Hidden Depths and Wavetale, I might almost start to think I might just be biased towards games like this – but I honestly doubt it, because Wavetale, like Submerged, really…