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TMNT Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants wears its age as a nearly-decade-old port, and some of that is to be expected. It’s still hard to understand why any of its elements weren’t modernized to keep in line with beat ‘em ups released over the past five years, let alone the recent Shredder’s Revenge, which remains the conspicuous elephant of comparison in the room.
Not that it isn’t a complete product; it would have been nice, though, to spend more time within the game and its universe. Tales of Kenzera: ZAU is just that inviting even with its heavy subject matter, such that players want to continue to experience heartfelt and responsible stories enveloped by a beautiful world design, memorable soundtrack, and delectable gameplay.
TopSpin 2K25 has the core elements of a good tennis game, and its actual moment-to-moment gameplay has sufficient improvements over anything else on the market to keep tennis fans happy, especially the complexity of options for players with every swing of the racket. Structurally, the game has a few hiccups, with a fluctuation when it comes to just how enjoyable certain parts of the career mode are combined with awkward pacing that seems deliberately structured with potential in-game transactions in mind, although there's still plenty there to enjoy.
Life Eater provides something quite different from anything else available, and will likely live long in the memory. For that reason, even in spite of its faults, it's probably worth a try for anyone with even a cursory interest in horror or new ways for games to tell their stories.
The Planet Crafter truly captures the roleplay feeling of terraforming a strange new planet and offers a rewarding and immersive terraforming experience. It is well-paced, and multiplayer makes it an even better experience, with groups of friends being able to work on solo projects side by side or enjoy focusing together on completing goals. Though it would be nice to be able to have more direct interactions with other players and a chance to customize looks to distinguish one another, the multiplayer is well done in its execution of being able to feel like a team working on common goals.
Anyone who loves spatial puzzles or novelty action games should feel catered to here, and score-chasers will be battling over the leaderboards and sharing video clips of their best clears in the days to come. Overall, Children of the Sun is a great video game idea done well, a darkly beautiful assassin simulator with a worthy and fulfilling hook.
Rise of the Ronin is an immersive open-world title that does a lot of work to value the time of its players, making for a rewarding journey.
No Umbrellas Allowed ports well to the Switch, though some clunkiness in the interface makes for a less-than-perfect experience.
Acolyte of the Altar is a creative deckbuilder.
Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection is the latest addition to Aspyr's lineup of remastered classics, but nostalgia may be all it has to offer.
Alone in the Dark is a fun horror romp with a great cast and a visible love for the original, but the action is stiff and the puzzles are quite easy.
Open Roads has a strong emotional core and great performances from its leads, but simplistic gameplay and some clumsy writing hold it back.
Freedom Planet 2 is fun chaos at every turn.
Overall, the quality of Death Noodle Delivery is a bit inconsistent. Its use of Paperboy as a fun game structure to then have those more introspective moments is a good idea and executed fairly well. However, some clumsiness with themes and plot, as well as some awkward gameplay choices, mean it never quite achieves the potential that it has.
What's here is a shining example of how a studio can find its niche and iterate on it without playing it safe. Shiny Shoe has really made something special here and with season leaderboards and multiplayer adding even more layers of potential competition and metaprogression, it really feels like Inkbound is a must-play for anyone who enjoys the roguelike genre.
Though short, the time players do get to spend in the world is made immersive and engaging through its diverse map, classical soundtrack, and ambient nature sounds. It's definitely one of 2024's most relaxing puzzle games so far, and I found myself thinking about Arabella and her strange plants even after I'd finished the story. Because of its length, some players may wish to wait for a sale to pick up Botany Manor, but it's an undeniably charming title that's great to explore and unwind with.
Spirit City: Lofi Sessions is a focus tool game featuring lofi music to help gamers unwind and complete real-life tasks. Gamers can collect Spirits, customize living spaces, and facilitate real-life tasks.
Honkai: Star Rail is also constantly giving players free pulls through simple login events, so while the magnitude of the rewards in the anniversary event should not come as a surprise, they are still remarkable. Overall, combining the anniversary event’s fun and generosity, alongside the involving depth of the narrative and the superb quality of the new 5-star characters, Honkai: Star Rail 2.1 is possibly the best patch yet. Hopefully, that can be surpassed.
It's hard to determine exactly who Snow Day is meant to be for. The ideal player of South Park: Snow Day has three other friends who are extremely into South Park, to the point of enjoying anything with the character's faces painted on it, and those three friends also enjoy battling waves upon waves of unintelligent NPC fodder with single button mashes while occasionally pressing one of two other buttons to execute an ability. These four friends should also laugh hilariously at the idea of a Taylor Swift album fetching "nearly half a roll" on the toilet paper black market - honestly, if that one joke doesn't snag you, it's all downhill from there.
Princess Peach: Showtime! is never truly challenging and could use a choice of a harder difficulty setting to keep things more interesting. Players will have to replay levels multiple times to get 100% completion, and one drawback is that missing one item will require playing the entire level again rather than being able to backtrack, which can get frustrating. Overall, Princess Peach: Showtime! is an extremely enjoyable game, offers a significant amount of content, and is something that could be enjoyed by anyone.