HIGH A lovingly-animated bestest doge.

LOW Not even David Cage games are this pretentious.

WTF No back button. Why? No really, I want someone to explain this one.

Growing up, I loved puzzle games, but they’re a sort of thrill that I rarely enjoy these days. So, I thought it high time I dive back into the genre to experience how far things have come. And I gotta say, if Lorelei and The Laser Eyes is any indication… something went seriously wrong. 

The player starts as a puzzle-solving woman who is mysteriously summoned by an eccentric director. He tells her that solving various challenges around the hotel he’s staying in will somehow create his next masterpiece thanks to security cameras looming and an ominous computer nestled in the basement. After that, the protagonist is set loose to wander around blindly, poking at various puzzles until something happens. This is somehow even less exciting than it sounds.

Let me make something abundantly clear from the start — Lorelei is not like Simogo’s action-oriented Sayonara Wildhearts. Nor is it leaning into survival horror as the trailers might have one believe. No, instead it ascribes to be Myst, but more archaic and navel-gazing than I thought a game could be — and I’m a guy who enjoyed, >OBSERVER_! Weird titles are my jam, but this? It pushed me to the point I would’ve rather been doing my taxes.

What can the player expect? A typical sequence goes something like find a combination lock, poke around to find a hint to the number combination, tediously enter it. Rotate some symbols until they make out… the numbers for a different combination. Identify the numbers thinly hidden in a wall painting next to a keypad to understand the order to enter them to unlock the door. Do some math to — let me guess, ah yes — solve another combination lock.

Even the cleverest puzzles (like the ones toying with perspective) kept resulting in more glorified numerical passcodes. It’s reductive of what the puzzle-adventure genre is capable of. There’s also no clear difficulty curve, with some sections being bafflingly simple, and others feeling like they were made for those who have nothing but time on their hands and don’t blink at spending a week trying to brute-force a combination.

I’m all for games that want players to break out a notebook or take pictures with their phone, but this is less about solving logic, as it is playing Where’s Waldo with symbology. While the somewhat non-linear nature of the game meant I could take things in any order I desired, this also meant the clue to the solution I actually needed might be anywhere. For instance, I solved an entire series of arrangement puzzles that were clearly giving clues to another room’s association of number values with room shapes, yet figuring out what phone number I needed to dial a hotel room had me going cross-eyed.

Solving each puzzle gave me no pleasure. Instead, they just made me sigh in relief that I was that much closer to being done. There’s a difference between esoteric and frustrating that has been wildly misjudged here, and I’m not just talking about the puzzles — the entire affair feels so self-possessed with its own importance that it feels more like a lecture than a game, and I’m expected to be constantly note-taking over every minute detail. Is it my fault that I didn’t know two algebraic terms were supposed to be angles with no other context? Apparently so, since Simogo made things so opaque!

Adding insult to injury, the controls are genuinely inexplicable. Who designs a puzzle or inventory-based game without a ‘back’ button? Instead, every button or key that isn’t dedicated to basic movement serves the dual purpose of ‘interact’ and bringing up the protagonist’s mind palace of clues and to-do tasks. This means that whenever one gets a puzzle answer wrong, they have to re-enter the puzzle, then navigate back (sometimes five or more steps!) to try again.

At the very least, it’s pretty. The developers have managed to blend classic black-and-white film aesthetics with brutalism and renaissance architecture beautifully. The limited color range and contrast of low-to-high poly assets is wonderfully executed.

Overall, it is genuinely profound for me to be this turned off by an experience. It’s not even the ‘good’ kind of bad where I’d be morbidly curious to see more. My review may be scathing, it may be disapproving, but the tone isn’t one of an angry man yelling — I’m just so damn tired and bored. The fact I was thinking about anything and everything else I could have been doing rather than playing Lorelei spoke volumes to me.

There are glimmers of clever moments caught in a sea of busywork here, but take away the shoddy controls and the obsession with layered math problems, and what are we left with? Someone’s absurdist thriller mystery that is so esoteric that it’s hard to care. Honestly, I can’t recommend Lorelei and the Laser Eyes to anyone other than the most patient and experimentally inclined players in the world. For everyone else, heed my words of warning — sit this one out.

Final Score: 5 out of 10 

Disclosures: This game is developed by Simogo and published by Annapurna Interactive. It is currently available on PC and Switch. This copy of Lorelei and The Laser Eyes was provided via publisher and reviewed on the PC. 6 hours were dedicated to the single-player campaign, and it was not completed.

Parents:  This game is rated T by the ESRB, for Mild Violence, Blood, Language and Alcohol References. Though it’s mild in visual content, there are mature references and allusions made. However, the real dealbreaker for most younger players will be the sheer lack of momentum involved. This is a game made for people who miss the days of obtuse puzzles in things like the original King’s Quest titles. Your average teenager will likely lose interest quickly unless they absolutely love cracking enigmas.

Colorblind modes: There are no colorblind modes available. Everything is either monochromatic black and white, save for the accent of a magenta red accent. The red elements are often highlighted in other ways, ensuring that they stand out regardless of colorblindness.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game features optional subtitles and relies almost entirely on visual prompts for how to proceed. It’s a reasonable experience to play without sound, and I would say that it’s fully accessible.

Remappable controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable, but it does react to any button press as Interact, save for the movement keys/d-pad/either analog stick. However, this does mean repetitive button pressing to solve any of the many door lock combinations.

HIGH The many bosses and mini-bosses!

LOW The world is far too linear for a soulslike.

WTF Why can’t I attack that obvious traitor before it’s too late?!

I believe a certain percentage of the world’s gaming audience will take even a moderately good soulslike over anything from another genre, any day of the week. Aside from the difficulty and bleak tones, soulslikes offer an underlying level of intensity that many action titles struggle to maintain for the length of a campaign. At the same time, they effortlessly establish a ‘beat this, if you can!’ relationship with the player — a unique kind of psychological trick, both alluring and treacherous, making them hard to quit for the right sort of person. However, there are many ways a new soulslike can go wrong, and the scrutiny from fans of the genre can be intense. With all that said, I’m happy to report that Lies of P is the latest noteworthy entry in its ever-expanding genre.

Lies of P’s moment-to-moment mechanics combine several aspects from popular soulslikes that came before — for instance, much success relies on how well we can manage the genre-standard always-dwindling stamina reserves. Attacking, dodging, running, jumping — all of these actions drain a portion of the character’s lung capacity, and if it was to deplete, we’d be open to severe punishment from any opposing force lingering nearby. However, we can block incoming attacks. It won’t completely negate the force of the impact, but striking soon after will restore a portion of lost health back.

Aside from blocking, we can also parry if we block at the particular instant when the enemy’s weapon is about to connect. Unfortunately, there’s a hidden difficulty regarding perfect parries — the English localization of Lies of P isn’t as accurate as it needs to be.

For example, the game ‘explains’ that I can nullify any enemy attack if I tap the block button at just the right time to land a perfect parry, but that’s not exactly how it works. In actuality, to perform a ‘perfect parry’ nullification (followed by a satisfying metal-against-metal clunking noise and the possible breaking of an adversary’s blade) we must not only press the block button at the right moment but also proceed to hold it for the next few milliseconds. Without those extra frames of blocking, the parry won’t happen and the player will simply take damage. 

Needless to say, that is not a harmless ‘misunderstanding’ given how Lies of P practically insists that we master parrying via its generous selection of bosses with entertaining rhythm-based attack patterns. Plus, even regular foes have access to special “fury” attacks that can only be repelled by a perfect parry. Therefore, it’s unfortunate that Lies of P doesn’t spend enough time (in its translation or otherwise) to ensure that players understand how this core mechanic works, but I’m inclined to write that off as an oversight, and not an intentional misrepresentation of the ‘proper’ way to play.

However, once we’ve figured out how parrying works, it’s easy to find tons of enjoyment with it! Lies of P offers a voice different from the average soulslike — it sets a peculiar tempo and everything about it works better and better as the campaign progresses! So yes, this game takes a good while to truly get going. Admittedly, the timing to land a parry gets trickier when more dexterous enemies start popping up, but exploiting the system is well worth it in the end, even if Lies of P enjoys racking up the difficulty up to 11. 

As for the early areas, they are reminiscent of common soulslike scenarios — corners hiding two or three enemies in ambush positions when only one is easily visible, suspiciously barren uphill sections where a rolling ball suddenly makes an appearance with the intent of squashing the player, and so forth. Still, even if I correctly deciphered these challenges on time, dealing with them in Lies of P feels a bit ‘off’ at first.

Part of this, I think, is that the developers opted to lock some basic moves genre fans expect behind a skill tree. As a result, we cannot pull off intuitive things like rolling after an enemy forces us to the ground or being able to string two dodges in a row. That seems like an arbitrary hurdle that might discourage newcomers to the genre far earlier than intended — in a soulslike, such moves should be completely available from the start, and the gameplay in P suffers due to that imposed sluggishness. Luckily, Lies of P manages to outgrow those shortcomings before it’s too late.

The game’s many weapons come in two categories — regular (found as item pick-ups across the world) and special (armaments that require interacting with a merchant and parting with a specific boss soul to obtain). We can utilize them with the usual assortment of light, strong, charged, running, or jumping attacks, but can also perform special attacks that cost no stamina, yet drain the energy bar instead. Filling the energy bar back up is possible by landing hits on an enemy or by using consumables (which are quite effective in Lies of P, especially those of the explosive kind).  

Furthermore, we can break all non-boss weapons apart and produce entirely new weapons by combining whichever handle with whichever blade. By tinkering with this system, I was able to give longer reach to a fire-infused dagger or transfer a defensive weapon art from an axe to a rapier. It’s a neat inclusion that allows for some player agency, though I found the weapons to be effective enough in their original states. We can also change a weapon’s scaling, which actually mitigates the issue of there not being enough dexterity-based weapons prior to the mid-game. Regardless, P has a lot of decisions to make when it comes to his weapon of choice, and many are worth exploring to the fullest. 

But what about P’s left arm? It’s obvious from the trailers and promo art that he looks like a normal human, with the exception of a mechanical left arm. This limb is the biggest tell that we’re playing as a puppet that’s turned against its frenzied brethren and a slew of more ‘organic’ enemy types to save humanity. To combat those odds, P can equip his left arm with choices like a flamethrower, a string that pulls enemies, a shield, and other contraptions that I won’t spoil here. Thus, P‘s left arm becomes a pivotal part of the character build and greatly complements any given offense.

On that note, having the means to dish out damage within a small window of opportunity is important in Lies of P. The enemies are often more resilient than initially anticipated, and the wide selection of bosses and mini-bosses offer truly epic encounters that warrant an analytical approach. The designs of these baddies lie somewhere between the wacky and the grotesque, but I was pleased with both. If there’s any nitpick to be raised, it’s that most of the bosses have a second stage that’s wildly different from the first, despite retaining a reasonable difficulty. These fights are a definite highlight!

Story-wise, P follows beats similar to the classic 19th-century tale of Pinocchio, but also takes inspiration from a myriad of other sources, such as transhumanism, morality, cabaret art, and more. The plot is easy to keep up with due to a plethora of written collectibles and NPC dialogue to engage with, but I found it to be a bit lackluster despite the effort. Without spoilers, the script spreads itself too thin, yet many times when an enemy or an NPC would initiate monologues, I wished that they would cut them short. A part of what makes Dark Souls‘ storytelling such a success is that it evades revealing everything. Lies of P heads boldly in the opposite direction, but I found myself caring less and less as the conclusion drew nearer…   

Another complaint might be that while Lies of P looks pretty at all times and is populated with supremely animated character models, the levels are actually linear and “blocky”, for lack of a better term. While it’s impossible to get lost in them, the game’s levels are not all that memorable either. After revisiting a few of the early areas before facing the (real) end boss, I was surprised at how few of those layouts I remembered. The final gauntlet drags a bit too long as well — in my opinion, an entire third of it could’ve been cut and the experience wouldn’t have suffered one bit.  

Despite those complaints, Lies of P remains a resounding two thumbs up. While not perfect, there are no serious arguments to be made about this ambitious attempt’s quality. In my view, it most definitely is the strongest contender for best soulslike of the year in 2023!

Rating: 8.5 out of 10 

Disclosures: This game is developed by Neowiz Games and Round8 Studio, and published by Neowiz Games. It is currently available on PC, PS4/5, and XBO/S/X. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS4 Pro. Approximately 40 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: This game has received an M rating from the ESRB and contains Blood and Violence. The official summary reads: “This is an action role-playing game in which players assume the role of the puppet Pinocchio in his search to become human. From a third-person perspective, players explore environments, collect items, and battle various enemies (e.g., puppets, mechanoid creatures) in melee-style combat. Players use swords and mechanical arms with ranged attacks (e.g., Puppet String, Flamberge) to kill enemies. Boss battles depict more prolonged combat against larger enemies. Battles are highlighted by slashing sounds, cries of pain, and large blood-splatter effects. Some environments depict bloody corpses and large blood stains on the ground.”

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available. 

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: Every line of dialogue is accompanied by written text, and I personally found the font size to be easily readable. Sound is completely unimportant for playing and enjoying this game since there are no audio-only cues for incoming attacks. I played it for some time with the volume turned fully off and had no problems. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: This game offers a controller diagram and the controls are remappable. The default scheme is similar to other soulslikes, meaning we use the circle button to run/roll/dodge, the shoulder buttons are for light and strong attacks, the square button is for using items, the left stick is for movement and the right stick handles the camera.

HIGH Petting the dog! Players must pet the dog.

LOW Spending too much time getting Chaz to the sax in “Crouching Bassline, Hidden Saxophone”.

WTF Why do these people take their instruments everywhere?

Music, like games, is an individual taste. Some people love metal, some love jazz. Backbeat,
a game about a woman who finds her muse in funk, comes with its own unique gameplay
concept. I wanted to join in on the jam, but for me this mashup of puzzler and stealth-strategy
struck a discordant note.

Having lived through the mid-’90s and experienced the mainstream ascendance of R&B and
rap during that time myself, I was somewhat nonplussed by the focus on funk, and even
moreso in the context here. Funk music is intricate, but it’s not a natural stylistic fit for a
cerebral puzzle (better suited to baroque, perhaps) and its in-your-face attitude seems poorly
suited to a stealth title.

The story of Backbeat – a “Battle of the Bands” tale that wouldn’t be out of place in a late-
century teen comedy – doesn’t seem to connect to anything it asks the player to do, either.
And, with few exceptions, the “stealth” requirements of the levels don’t even make sense in
the context of the immediate plot.

That’s typical story/game conflict, though, and easily forgiven if the gameplay offers
something compelling. Backbeat’s levels ask the player to route different characters (who
mostly have different stride lengths and special abilities) around ‘alert’ zones within a certain
number of moves. The characters travel different numbers of tiles per move and use up
different amounts of a timeline in doing so, producing a puzzle of geometry and time.

The player also has to manage resources, most of which go up or down based on when the
characters mark the timeline by changing directions or taking actions. There’s “stagger”,
which depletes when multiple characters mark the timeline simultaneously, and “align”, which
requires the characters to mark the timeline at certain points. Obviously these are in tension.
This is even more so with “solo”, which requires that only one character at a time use an interaction point in the level, and “assist”, which needs certain pairs of characters to use interaction points simultaneously.

Managing these meters along with the awkward movement of the characters and the alert
zones and the finite timeline provides Backbeat‘s challenge, which ramps up very fast and
stays high until to the end. The difficulty is amplified by the almost pathological resistance to
providing the explicit numbers behind what it’s asking the player to manage. Everything is
displayed as bars and radar graphs, leading to a lot of trial and error due to the lack of clarity.
It also seems like (though because of the above, I can’t be sure) the various resources max
out, so for example, one can’t stock up stagger at the start of the level to balance out
simultaneous marks at the end.

Unfortunately, the result is that each level is a grind. The player has to figure the routes right,
then adjust the timing so the resources don’t get depleted, then readjust the routes for the
timing of other characters. The reward is that one can then, finally exhausted, look at a
disappointing level score before entering an overlong dialogue scene. There’s no moment of
delight to reward a good solve, and almost never any moment of excitement in the course of
it.

What I want out of a puzzler is the moment of revelation when a solution becomes clear. What
the characters are getting out of their adventure here is the joy of playing music together, but
the sloggy grind of actually playing Backbeat doesn’t provide the first and can’t mirror the
second. Although the game makes a respectable effort to connect the resources it’s asking
the player to manage to the mechanics of a successful funk session, it never finds the joy
inherent to the music. This is the right game for someone, surely, but not for me.

Rating: 4 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Ichigoichie.It is currently available on Linux, Mac, PC, PS4/5, Switch and XBO/X/S. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on a home-built Windows X PC equipped with a AMD Ryzen 2700X processor, an ASRock X470 motherboard, 32 GB RAM , and a single GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card using driver 531.68. Approximately 12 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was not completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E. No content warnings are noted. There are references to violence and alcohol but otherwise I noticed nothing objectionable.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available. Interaction points are linked to their outputs by colored symbols (unfortunately, often green, red, and yellow) and some required interaction points are designated solely by colored symbols and outlines (and not mentioned in the level’s starting information). The timelines are color-coded as well.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: All dialogue in the game is in the form of text, although the text cannot be resized. The background of the text can be altered but examples are not shown while choosing. Despite its theme, the game has no essential sound cues, although the level-ending musical overview cannot be skipped.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable. On PC, movement and interaction in Backbeat are primarily controlled with the mouse, although sometimes the shift key must be pressed at the same time as a mouse click, and certain hotkeys (space, q, e, c) control actions in the levels. Sometimes button presses are mandatory in the menus as well.

HIGH Team-focused combat mechanics.

LOW Uninteresting story and characters.

WTF Give orcs a break.

There are some games that are uncompromising in their difficulty. They offer no easy mode and no handholding — they’re all trial and error, with players finding only the occasional success.

Redemption Reapers is one of these games.

It is an unforgiving take on the Strategy-RPG (SRPG), deriding some of the niceties that have become standard in the past two decades, and instead opting for a demanding — sometimes frustrating — experience.

The story is a simple and generic one, based in a grimdark low-fantasy world where an army of orc-like monsters known as the Mort are sweeping the land. The protagonist, Sarah, is a member of the elite Ashen Hawk Brigade, one of the last fighting forces left holding them back… And that’s about it.

Players are given little information either through dialogue or cinematics about the state of the world or its lore. There are supplemental texts to collect, but otherwise the storytelling leaves much to be desired — as do the characters. Built on blasé archetypes like the stoic leader, the jaded spearman, and big guy with an axe, the Hawks struggled to make me care. Sarah, at least, approaches being interesting as she’s regretful of a massacre she was a part of, but SRPGs rarely focus on story or character. No, the tactics are generally the focus and here, at least, Redemption Reapers has some nice toys to play with.

In some ways, it’s cut from the same cloth as older SRPG classics like the early Fire Emblems or even Final Fantasy Tactics. 

Players direct the five members of the Hawks, each with their own weapon type — dagger, sword, spear, axe, and bow (no spellcasters). They’ll  control free movement within a range determined by their stats and abilities determined by available action points that recharge each turn — but not enough to use the most powerful in quick succession.

There are no pesky social mechanics that the kids seem so fond of these days, but instead a series of menus to navigate between engagements regarding equipment, weapon repair, and more. And within the confines of the grid, there are no mulligans or time rewinds — one wrong move and a character will be out of the fight (or at least until a game over or retry). 

All of this is rather standard for the genre, but the defining feature of Redemption Reapers’ combat are the formation follow-ups. When another party member is within range of a targeted enemy, with the press of a key (quick-timed prompts lasting only a few seconds) that second teammate will land an additional blow before the enemy can counter.

This isn’t just a neat trick to deal some extra damage, it’s an absolute necessity since each of the characters are glass cannons, dishing out damage but able to take very little in return. Some are more fragile than others (there is only one true tank) so defensive formations and support buffs are also crucial.

Healing is limited to one-use-per-battle heals that can be restocked at rare waypoints within a mission and some high-cost healing spells unlocked later in the game. As such, players will not win a war of attrition.

When the system works, it sings as a satisfying cavalcade of attacks and positioning, especially since party members can often still move after attacking. Sadly, it doesn’t work all that often. Instead, it just feels limiting — due to the difficulty of encounters, it doesn’t pay to try any fancy flanking or pincer maneuvers. Instead, it’s more about moving into formation, defeating waves of enemies, and then rinse and repeating…

…Well, in most cases anyway, because Redemption Reapers is also a ‘character build’ game meaning you’ll be choosing to specialize in certain skills over others.

Leveling up comes with skill points to be put into various attacks and passives, and more are unlocked through progress. These choices might come back to haunt a player, though, as they did for me when I opted to avoid investing in abilities aimed at making one character operate out of formation, only to later have a mission start with that character isolated from the party.

The mission structure is also lacking. Most missions I played were either ‘eliminate all enemies’ or ‘defeat the commander’, which is essentially the same as ‘eliminate all enemies’ because of the design of the maps, which are generally linear paths through a series of small arena sections rather than a truly open field with multiple approaches.  And don’t get me started on the mindless AI companions that are useless if not detrimental within the missions they do appear, dealing little damage or dashing ahead of the pack to be killed.

Despite strong foundational combat mechanics common to the genre, Redemption Reapers is weak in just about every other aspect. Those flaws in combination with its punishing difficulty make it hard to recommend, and I’d say that it’s likely to produce more groans than thrills for all but the most hardcore SRPG players.

Rating: 6 out of 10

— Stephen Cook

Disclosures: This game is developed by Adglobe and published by Binary Haze Interactive. It is currently available on PS4/Switch/PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 15 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the main storyline was not completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Blood, Mild Language and Violence. This is a strategy role-playing game in which players lead a small band of mercenaries as they battle a rampaging army of goblins. From a 3/4-top-down perspective, players maneuver their mercenaries around grid-based battlefields to fight goblins in turn-based combat. Players use swords, spears, and bows to kill enemy forces. Battles are highlighted by sword slashes, cries of pain, and blood-splatter effects. Cutscenes depict additional acts of violence and blood: a man impaled though the abdomen; a woman slashed across the neck; a corpse lying in a pool of blood. The word “bastard” appears in the game.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available. 

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles cannot be altered and/or resized. There are no audio cues or effects necessary to play. The game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers partially remappable controls. Keyboard controls can be customized but controller controls cannot be changed.

HIGH Stunning a group of enemies with a pistol barrage, then pulling off chain executions.

LOW Wanted: Dead‘s performance on XBX is a dumpster fire.

WTF Umm… where’s the rest of the game?

Sometimes things seem too good to be true. A new intellectual property featuring a badass katana- and rifle-wielding police heroine mowing down bad guys by the hundreds on the streets of an alt-present cyberpunk skewing of Hong Kong inspired by Dominion Tank Police and Cyber City Oedo — and it’s developed by members of the team behind Ninja Gaiden and that game with Tina Armstrong and Christie in it?

With that sort of pedigree, do I even really need to play it before giving it a perfect rating? Probably not, but let’s stick it on for five minutes anyway to perform due diligence and… oh dear.

Oh, no. Oh, my word.

It turns out that Wanted: Dead has some… major… problems.

Taking place in third person, Wanted: Dead is a hybrid shooter/slasher actioner where switching between short and long range weapons on the fly is required to succeed. While main character Hannah Stone only carries a katana for close encounters, she has access to a personalized assault rifle and handgun that can be heavily modified between checkpoints, and she’ll use various subweapons in each level — SMGs, shotguns, LMGs, Chainsaws… the usual selections.

The combat system isn’t as complex as something like Ninja Gaiden, but when all’s working as intended it’s satisfying. Hits feel solid and impactful, even if some of the melee enemies soak up just a little too much damage. There’s also a cool execution mechanic where players stun or dismember some poor bugger and then brutalize them with a selection of execution animations, John Wick style. From hip tosses into headshots or ramming them into a wall before slicing their arms off, Stone’s enemies are undoubtedly in for a bad time.

Stone can gain access to new abilities as she progresses through each level using experience points earned from killing enemies, but these skills should all have been available from the beginning since many of them are what make the combat system shine.

Counter-attack follow ups, more generous parry windows, grenades, and a special move involving a series of handgun blasts that stun nearby enemies and open them up for a barrage of executions — it’s immensely gratifying  to see enemies getting chopped to bits in quick succession as a result of a well-timed super. The balance can be slightly questionable in places, though.

Ranged enemies are usually barely able to scratch Hannah, aside from certain unpredictable attacks — for example, any bastard that can whip out an incendiary grenade and toss it without warning. It does ludicrous damage on higher difficulties, can trap players in flames for its entire duration, and if Hannah’s in the middle of an execution when it lands at her feet she’s basically screwed with no way to cancel out and escape.

Hannah’s own tools can also prove unreliable. The grenade launcher’s a gamble in any fight, as the projected arc shown to the player doesn’t appear to be accurate. Firing it from cover or through narrow gaps, even when the reticule shows a clear path, is as likely to lead to her own death as that of the enemy. Similarly, grenade throws don’t necessarily follow the onscreen trajectory that pops up when they’re primed, often bouncing off doorframes and windows en route to their supposed destination.

These moments stick out like a sore thumb, because otherwise the combat feels pretty dang good thanks to a system that encourages parries and evasive actions with just a little assault rifle and explosive carnage tossed in for good measure. The handgun counter mechanic is an inspired addition, allowing for otherwise-lethal attacks to be neutralized (even at range) and the action heats up nicely as the campaign progresses both in enemy variety and unlocked skills. Checkpoints are spread a little thin, often bookended by much tougher encounters which threaten a chunk of repeated gameplay, but it’s not so bad as to be intrusive.

Outside of combat, the story isn’t up to much. Lieutenant Stone and her comrades in the Zombie Squad are a likable bunch of rogues, but the dialogue and writing is odd, to say the least. Characters with seemingly no purpose are introduced and dropped after a single scene, and while I love some of the accents in attendance, the voice acting is stilted and rarely seems to match what’s happening onscreen — things like battle cries being delivered in conversational tones, or enemies languidly calling Hannah weak and ineffectual while a dozen of their friends are lying in a pile of blood and limbs nearby.

It’s also not a spoiler to say that the storyline just stops at a certain point, and the end credits begin to roll with nothing resolved. It’s a bafflingly abrupt ending, bringing the adventure to a screeching halt just as things should be beginning to build to a climax. Blatant sequel baiting, perhaps, but also an immensely unsatisfying way to wrap things up.

The issue that most damages Wanted: Dead, however, is that its technical performance, at least on the Xbox Series X, is absolutely shambolic. Simply walking along a barren corridor where nothing’s happening can lead to framerate meltdowns, and when it slows down in the middle of a swordfight when timing parries and dodges is key to survival… it’s not great. It’s also very inconsistent. An encounter may run at a locked sixty frames per second initially, then turn into a slideshow upon reloading.

It even affects the ramen eating and karaoke minigames. Ever tried to perform well at a rhythm game when the timing cursor is haphazardly jerking all over the place? Trust me, it doesn’t work. And by the by, whoever decided that tying these minigames into the achievements list and making them unskippable during the story should be facing jail time.

These technical woes are enormously harmful to the overall experience, and they’re topped off beautifully by the game hard-crashing to the desktop every other hour or so. I don’t want to belabor the point, but the lack of quality control on display in Wanted: Dead is far, far below modern videogame standards. Even twenty years ago it would raised eyebrows. It’s effectively unfinished. It’s an absolute shame since I actually like the core experience on offer here, but in its current state only the most determined players will be able to persevere long enough to get enjoyment out of it.

In the end, I still enjoyed it enough to put in more than fifty hours in and still want to play more, despite all its problems. When it’s running as intended, it’s clear that this is the kind of game I’d like to see a lot more of — bloody, unpretentious, and gameplay-focused in a manner that’s eminently replayable thanks to strong core combat. That said, the good stuff in Wanted: Dead is buried under a mountain of problems — and when I say buried, I mean buried deep.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Soleil and published by 110 Industries. It is currently available on XBO, XBX/S/PS4/PS5 and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the XBX. Approximately 50 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed on all difficulty levels. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language and Suggestive Themes. The official ESRB description reads as follows: This is a third-person shooter in which players assume the role of a police squad member (Hannah Stone) engaging in combat missions in a futuristic Hong Kong. Players use machine guns, shotguns, explosives, and melee weapons (e.g., swords, chainsaws) to kill enemy soldiers in frenetic combat. Battles are highlighted by realistic gunfire, explosions, and large blood-splatter effects. Several attacks result in the dismemberment and/or decapitation of enemies; other attacks result in enemies sliced in half or exploding into pieces. Players can perform finishing attacks and trigger slow-motion effects (Bullet-time). The game contains references to suggestive material: a sexual joke referencing four testicles; a character depicted with deep cleavage; dialogue stating,; “A good bowl of soup is better than sex”; “There’s more male nudity in your stories than in a Joaquin Phoenix film”; “…[H]ow does it feel going d*wn on your sister?”). The words “f**k” and “sh*t” are heard in the game.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles can be altered and/or resized. Most audio cues when enemies are about to launch a strong attack have an easily-seen visual indicator, though if the player is facing away from them and the camera angle is too close it won’t be viewable before it lands. Because of this, the game is not fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable, though there are several presets to choose from.

HIGH Nails the classic NES aesthetic.

LOW Also nails the bad aspects of the NES aesthetic.

WTF Enemies that match the color of the background.

DISCLOSURE: One of the developers, John Vanderhoef, is a former staff member of GameCritics.com.

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi Everyone! Eugene Sax here with another review from GameCritics.com.

Orebody: Binder’s Tale puts players in the role of Binder, an orphaned robot in a run-and-gun platformer that will take them across the alien world of Orebody. Players will be able to jump and shoot through each level to obtain power-ups, defeat enemies and end each area with a boss fight. As players defeat bosses, they will unlock more of Binder’s powers to help them proceed — things like a double jump or a slide.

It’s obvious to see some of Orebody‘s inspiration from games like Mega Man or Contra  – the movement of the character, fighting enemies and bosses, shooting chests for powerups, and the pixel art style all remind me of NES classics growing up, and it brings some wonderful nostalgia to the table. But for all the good memories it brings, Orebody also comes with many frustrating elements from the old titles it’s paying homage to. 

Classic NES-style action-platformers require a level of precision with the controls — many old-school gems require absolute mastery and precision to survive, and it’s a wonderful feeling to nail it. However, Binder’s Tale does not have any of that precision. There were multiple occasions where the game wouldn’t recognize a button press, leading me to death. The hitbox for some projectiles are also quite fuzzy, so I couldn’t always be sure that I was safe, and this hitbox seems to be different for the same type of enemy in different areas, so it makes it doubly hard to get a good feel for things.

While I did enjoy the pixel art style, there’s also some serious issues with the color palette. For example, one level is mostly purple cityscape, but there are enemies that fire projectiles of a similar shade, so they tend to get lost in the background. I died several times, not realizing that there was a bullet coming my way. This is even more annoying when in another level, an entire enemy blends in completely with the background.

The most egregious issue, though, is the lack of any type of save system. At the moment, players must play through the entire game in one sitting. If a player loses all their lives on a level, they can continue and start from the beginning of that level. If players quit the game, then they must replay the entire game from level one. There is no password system to jump to a later level, nor save states to start from. While the whole adventure may only be five levels long, the difficulty is steep enough that it’s tough to get through all five levels in one sitting. While it looks like the developers are working on this currently, that point alone makes Binder’s Tale an extremely rough play.

With all that said, there’s an itch that Orebody: Binder’s Tale is scratching for me. I enjoy classic run-and-gun games, even with their old-school difficulty. Unfortunately, the lack of quality-of-life features, imprecise controls and poor color choices mean this one is currently a difficult one to recommend.

For me, Orebody: Binder’s Tale gets a 4 out of 10. 

EDITOR’S NOTE: After this review was completed, the developer contacted GameCritics and informed us that as of January 6, 2023, the game now has save states.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Orebody Inc and John Vanderhoef, and published by Nami Tentou.  It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 8 hours of play were spent playing the game, and the game was not completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: The game doesn’t currently have an ESRB rating. Players will control a robot that fires projectiles at other robot enemies or the occasional alien creature. Enemies disappear into smoke when shot.

Colorblind Modes: There are different color styles, and some visual changes possible, but there are no colorblind modes.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: There is text in game, but text is not resizable. Audio mostly serves aesthetic purposes and is not needed for gameplay. The game is fully accessible.

Remappable controls: Controls are not remappable, and there is not a “great” control scheme reference. There is a manual that can be viewed in the pause menu, but the specific page for basic controls is missing from it. Players use WASD (or keyboard) to move, J to shoot, and K to jump.

HIGH It’s an excellent 2D homage to the Souls series.

LOW The many, many platforming sections leading to an ambush.

WTF Wait, why is this boss suddenly here AGAIN?!

Salt and Sacrifice is a 2D Action-RPG inspired by the Souls series, and it’s also a sequel to 2016’s Salt and Sanctuary, a title I ended up skipping but have heard described as a modern 2D gem.

In Salt and Sacrifice, we pick a starting class and after a short intro, arrive at the hub area. Story-wise, we are tasked with hunting down various mages that roam the land due to an event that birthed their evil.

To find them, we use a portal in the center of the hub, which leads to five other worlds we slowly gain access to as we keep downing bosses. Aside from the portal, the hub area is home to all sorts of shady characters often acting as vendors for rare items, as well as a special monument where we can spend our souls (sorry, I mean salt) to level up. Each time we do so, we also gain one point to spend on a skill tree, unlocking new ways to arm ourselves.

Though I found this setting to be pretty straightforward, it was the combat that prompted me to assume a humble viewpoint and get to getting good. Like many Soulslikes before it, Salt and Sacrifice revolves around a stamina bar, dictating how often we can attack, roll or block. There are also dozens of cool edged, blunt and even ranged weapons (with very limited ammunition) that also come with a built-in special skill available after we fill a separate bar by defeating enemies.

This system will be largely familiar to any Souls fan, but of course, being able to dominate this title will require a prolonged training period. Needless to say, there will be a lot of frustration, too.

For example, besides dealing with groups and groups of enemies who often attack in coordination, we’ll also have to do a ton of platforming with a grappling hook. Later on, we’ll uncover several other ways to get around. Each time we extend our means of traversal, the game teases us to revisit prior areas and dig deeper. As a result, Salt and Sacrifice fulfills the fantasy of a 2D Dark Souls and then some.

Unfortunately, it also managed to find many, many ways to rub me the wrong way.

A prime example of this is how we approach the mages, which serve as the game’s main bosses. Most of these encounters start after we interact with a special object and choose to fight the boss connected to it. Once we press ‘yes’, the game spawns that baddie and also respawns every regular enemy we‘ve defeated so far in the run. Then, we’ll notice a colored ‘wind’ pointing to the location of the boss we’ve just unleashed, on top of many new enemies that the mage raises in its wake.

At those points, the stages quickly transform from places where each enemy position is carefully calculated, to a real flustercluck of opposing groups. It’s such a mess that the number of bodies present on-screen often gets so large that my character’s sprite cannot physically reach the other end of the 2D landscape. After witnessing such a development, all notions of Salt and Sacrifice being a well-tailored experience flew out of the window forever.

Furthermore, once the player makes it to a boss — generally the highlights of any Soulslike — most of them must be chased around the level before we can corner them and give them what for. But strangely, killing them is often not a big deal. The reason? Their sizeable loot pools. Salt and Sacrifice breaks the Souls mold by allowing us to re-beat most of its bosses in order to completely extract their list of rewards dropped upon defeat. On top of that, some bosses don’t even give us a choice — they simply re-appear again, inserting themselves into our current hunt, which only increases the on-screen chaos.

It’s also worth noting that a large majority of the bosses were mere variations or re-skins of two or three basic archetypes. The more memorable fights were bosses that make only a single appearance, and they generally required careful study of their habits in order to find openings in their defense.

Sadly, these kinds of encounters were the minority. For every boss with a genuinely interesting deck of combos to slap me down with, the developers served me twenty bullshit scenarios. These frustrating ordeals often assumed the form of timed platforming trials which would suddenly morph into unfair gauntlets as soon as I’d land amidst a crowd of enemies. In some of these situations, it was just blind luck that got me through.

Similarly, although the game’s areas are not overly long, the checkpoint system and lack of a map make conquering them one heck of a hassle. My biggest issue with it was that not only were there not enough checkpoints, but mid-level checkpoints also don’t allow for leveling up. To do that, players must teleport back to the main hub, but when they go back to the level they just left, they have to start at the beginning!

The lack of a map is just as annoying. While I don’t mind uncovering hidden rooms in a Metroidvania-like manner, 2D games can only get so far in making their levels differentiated enough to be easily memorized. But, if that alone wasn’t enough, Salt and Sacrifice very often blocks our progression by placing magical seals on doors leading to secret areas that must be revisited later. Still, since there is no map reminding me of unexplored locales, I felt little incentive to fully engage with it.

While I found Salt and Sacrifice worth breaking at least one controller over, it’s not for every Souls fan as it commits bizarre mistakes in design and comes with a few baffling omissions — in some ways, the experience is the total opposite of Hidetaka Miyazaki’s teachings. I’m glad I finished it, but it’s not an easy one to recommend.

–– Konstantin Koteski

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Ska Studios. It is currently available on PS4/5 and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS4 Pro. Approximately 25 hours of play were devoted to the game and the game was completed. No amount of time was spent in co-op, and the game allows for PvP also.

Parents: This game has received a “T” rating from the ESRB, and contains Blood, Use of Alcohol, and Violence. Though the action is not hard to stomach, the themes at hand are mature and so are the bleak environments full of horrific creatures. Hence, even if these are all mere 2D sprites, the art direction makes it unsuitable for kids.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: Sound is completely unimportant for finishing this game. I’ve played around 30 mins with it turned off, and didn’t notice any relevant audio cues. Text is provided, but is not able to be resized or changed.

Remappable Controls: This game offers a controller diagram, and the control scheme is entirely changeable.

HIGH Great pixel art and a heartwarming story.

LOW The “recommended” control scheme.

WTF I love having literal trash as a shield.

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi everyone! Eugene Sax here with another review from Gamecritics.com.

Revita is a roguelite twin-stick shooter with some platforming elements. Players take control of a child with amnesia, eager to find their memories at the top of an ominous tower looming ahead of them. Each run will have players shooting their way through floor after floor of enemies, each section of the tower ending with some type of boss fight. Along the way, players will pick up souls from fallen enemies which are used to regain health, relics that will aid the player, or find trapped NPCs that will help unlock new mechanics and story beats.

Combat is dynamic, quick-paced, and fine-tuned to create a satisfying loop on each run. Players have the choice of different main weapons like a pistol, a shotgun, a charge laser, etc., and each affect the combat in their own way. For example, a pistol has good damage, range, and is easy to aim, while a shotgun has a wide spread, less accuracy, and knockback. Weapon choice also plays a part in movement, as players can shoot downward to get extra height or further distance on jumps if timed correctly. Paired with a simple-yet-effective dash, players will need to master both platforming and shooting to succeed when the upper levels increase in difficulty.

Outside of combat, players may stumble across secret rooms or shops where extra relics and power-ups may be purchased. In order to get these boons, players have to sacrifice health, and the only way to restore health is getting lucky and finding a health item, or by using souls collected by defeating enemies. Using souls to regain health while also using health as a currency gives the game a satisfying risk/reward aspect to see how far players can go and how long they can survive, and since each run is just a bit different from the rest, there’s plenty of opportunity to test out different relics to find a combination that will lead players to victory.

On that note, Revita doesn’t pull punches with difficulty. There’s a bit of a learning curve to this game, even for someone who’s played a lot of rougelites like The Binding of Issac or more platforming/shooting games like Cuphead. Personally, it comes down to controls for me. The combat controls in Revita — jumping, dashing, shooting — all live on the switch bumpers, and it took quite a bit of time to get used to the setup, but it starts to be more intuitive after a while since the control sticks are used for moving and aiming. As much as I hated it initially, it grew on me the more I played.

Despite the controls, there’s enough enemy variety to keep things interesting on each run, and there are never too many to be overwhelming. Plus, enemy patterns can be quickly memorized.

I also liked how much control I had over certain aspects of the experience. For example, an extra challenge can be added by talking with an NPC to spawn a miniboss that will give additional bonuses if defeated, and there’s an NPC to help increase the amount of souls obtained when defeating enemies. Is the game going too fast? Slow down the game until it’s easier to manage. Are characters hard to see against the background? Turn on the option for character outlines, both for the player and enemies. These are just a couple of the accessibility options that the game has to offer.

Overall, I enjoyed my time with Revita and the gripes I have against it are minor at best.

While I love the sprite art and retro aesthetic, playing it in handheld mode on the Switch can be rough. The text ends up a bit tiny with all of the things going on screen, and the 8-bit font doesn’t help much. This can be turned off and changed to a high definition standard font, which does help. My other issue is the narrative pace. Context clues and an opening disclaimer about mental health gave me enough info to make me feel fairly confident on the ending, but the journey there is too slow and story chunks that move things forward are few and far between.

With that said, Revita is not one to overlook, especially for fans of this genre. Things feel perfectly balanced, the combat is satisfying and the platforming is smooth, the relics do a lot to keep each run fresh, and using health as currency all come together to make Revita sing.

For me: Revita gets an 8 out of 10.

Disclosures: This game is developed by BenStar, and published by Dear Villagers and Doyoyo Games.  It is currently available on Switch and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the Switch. Approximately 12 hours of play was spent playing the game, and multiple runs were completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E10+ and contains Fantasy Violence. Players will be shooting enemies with soul bullets, where they explode into souls once defeated. A small smoke cloud and a skull pop up on the player character when hit, but there’s no gore to the game.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: There is text in game, but text is not resizable. Audio mostly serves aesthetic purposes and is not needed for gameplay. Pixel and HD version of the text are available for legibility. The game is completely accessible.

Remappable controls: Controls are completely remappable.

HIGH It’s reminiscent of classic 2D action games.

LOW Bland levels ending with super-difficult bosses.

WTF How the heck am I supposed to dodge that?!?

Fallen Knight is a 2.5D action-heavy platformer that freely borrows from older titles, and most obviously inspired by Capcom’s classic Mega Man series — it’s clear as day in its level design and the way we pick which area to tackle next from a grid-like menu depicting bosses we’ll face. It also borrows from recent indie sensation Hollow Knight in the way its upgrade system works and how the moves unlock. However, it falls short in so many key areas that it simply cannot be recommended, even if its heart is in the right place.

Let’s begin with the production values. Fallen Knight is made by a small studio so I never expected ground-breaking visuals or an orchestral score, but given how unevenly it runs with various instances of stuttering and slowdown crippling the animation of the rudimentary graphics, I wondered why they bothered with 3D models in the first place.

Games like this must play ultra-responsively. Every attack and dodge should be instantaneous on the player’s command. The feeling that something was “off” never went away during my time with it, including things like a slow walking speed and a short lag between pressing attack and my knight actually striking.

Another issue lies with Fallen Knight‘s counterattack ability that lies at the heart of its combat – a move that allows almost every enemy punch to be turned against the foe that threw it, if timed correctly. Due to the inherent sluggishness in control, I never got the hang of it, and the times that I did pull it off felt like luck more than anything. Similarly, the character can run up walls to dodge nasty projectiles, but I would often bump into the walls head-first, again thanks to the unpredictability of my inputs being recognized and followed.

I did persevere through such annoyances but other problems kept appearing, most notably the boss battles which are a huge focus, yet they only serve to reinforce that this game is not ready for primetime — the area-of-effect of their attacks take up too much of the screen, and the player’s character has a fairly large hitbox.

Don’t get me wrong — I always revel in puzzling out the correct positioning needed to beat tough bosses, and I’ve delighted in all sorts (including anything found in half a dozen FROM Software titles) but Fallen Knight presents the wrong kind of difficulty – many of the bosses’ assaults are inescapable by taking up 90% of the screen, and what’s worse, they usually chain two or three follow-up strikes. Being caught by one automatically means having to suffer through the rest as punishment, and much like the counterattacks, whenever I’d succeed, it felt like pure luck.

Fallen Knight does offer ways to combat its unwelcoming nature — things like unlocking more hit points, the ability to heal faster and for greater effect, or maneuvers that grant prolonged invincibility periods upon executing. However, there’s a catch — they cost an arm and a leg to unlock, demanding that we grind completed levels for an unreasonable amount of time while accumulating currency, just to amass the needed sum.     

The result of all this is a series of unfortunate circumstances that destroy any possibility of Fallen Knight being something enjoyable. Between the laggy inputs, unfair boss fights and a reliance on grinding as a means of survival, I can’t recommend this one, even to the most fervent fans of the genre.

— Konstantin Koteski

Disclosures: This game is developed by FairPlay Studios and published by PQUBE LTD. It is currently available on XBO, PS4, Steam. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS4 Pro. Approximately 5 hours of play were devoted to the story, and the game was not completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: This game has received an “E” rating by the ESRB, and contains Fantasy Violence. It’s an action-heavy 2.5 D side-scroller with some platforming sections taking place in a futuristic setting. It features 3D characters modeled like toys, with big heads disproportional to the rest of their body who are equipped with swords, shield, rocket launchers, etc. There’s no blood and defeated enemies disappear instantly. The game looks completely kid-friendly, but it’s very, very difficult.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: All dialogue is written – there’s no audio when a character speaks. The size of the text is not able to be altered or resized. Sound is completely unimportant for finishing this game, as all enemy actions are telegraphed visually. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: This game does offer a controller diagram, and the control scheme is not remappable.

HIGH Beating a really difficult section, especially in co-op.

LOW The extreme difficulty and odd slowdown.

WTF The co-op only bugs.

There’s only one thing that the mercenary pirates known as the Golden Force fears — bankruptcy. Unfortunately for them, it’s looming. There can’t be a Golden Force without gold, so the group sets off for the Muscle Archipelago, hoping to bolster their fortunes. Almost immediately, however, the group runs into a giant octopus.

This fight pulls double duty as an introductory boss and a tutorial for this 2D platformer, and it shows off Golden Force’s best assets — its gorgeous pixel art and wonderful soundtrack. Each of the 22 levels is full of incredible sprite work and detailed backgrounds. It’s brightly colored, gorgeously animated, and has excellent sound design.

Golden Force also embodies the “anything goes” visual design of the 16-bit era. There’s always something new around the next corner, whether it’s a dragon with hair out of a JRPG, an enormous robotic shark, a couple dozen jumping cats, a haunted forest, or a maze-like underground cave, and the amount of graphical work on display is impressive.

Unfortunately, Golden Force’s gameplay doesn’t always impress to the same degree.

While there are four members of the Golden Force to choose from, they’re functionally identical, which feels like a missed opportunity. Each one can jump, dash, slide, and perform a short combo. Attacks can also be charged up and they can call in fire support from the team’s pirate ship, which is handy in tight spots.

Players move through side-scrolling levels, killing enemies – who explode in a shower of blood and money – jumping over pits, dodging spikes, and solving simple puzzles while trying to keep their combo multiplier up and finding collectibles. To its credit, Golden Force’s combat is fast, smooth, and satisfying, and it’s doubly so when played in co-op. Dashing through enemies, holding a long combo, and nailing a tricky jump all feel great.

Unfortunately, despite the solid mechanics, my main issue is that Golden Force is exceptionally difficult. I don’t have anything against challenging games, but Golden Force often feels unfair.

Enemies spawn beneath, above, and around the player, often without much warning. Platforming sections require the player to jump to places that aren’t visible. The player is constantly avoiding projectiles which can be fired by enemies off-screen. Certain spikes will kill the player instantly, no matter how much health they have, and so on. This wouldn’t be so bad if there was a way to block attacks, but there isn’t. Instead, players have to maneuver around them, generally by dashing.

Even basic enemies are deadly, requiring at least three hits to take down. Eventually, enemies get shields that can only be broken by power attacks. In its most challenging moments, Golden Force asks the player to fight several basic shielded enemies and one or two larger enemies that can take more than a dozen hits to kill while avoiding projectiles and dodging environmental hazards. Some segments even lock the player in a fixed area and spawn waves of enemies above and below them. Often, it’s necessary to memorize where and when the enemies will spawn in these segments so the player isn’t immediately surrounded and killed.

Golden Force has collectible coins and shells that can be spent to increase characters’ health and attack power, as well as several helpful items that can be bought from the store between levels, but these often feel like necessities, not things that are nice to have. I found myself replaying several old levels just to grab coins and shells I missed, or to farm gold so that I could be better equipped for the level I was currently stuck on. The game does offer a checkpoint system, but it actively punishes the player for using it. Dying after a checkpoint means the player loses any gold, coins, and shells they’ve collected, and any store-bought items they’ve used. The items are very expensive, which only adds insult to injury.

I would be more willing to overlook Golden Force’s often absurd difficulty if it didn’t have so many technical issues. The game suffers some serious slowdown in larger areas or when several things are on-screen, and there are bugs in the co-op mode that spawn the second player in otherwise-inaccessible corners of the screen after transitions. This is especially prevalent in boss battles.

The other major flaw with co-op is the camera. If the players become separated from one another, one will have the benefit of the full screen, while the other will only have a small circular pop-up camera showing their character and little else. The limited view makes both combat and platforming all but impossible, so having both players stay on the same screen is a necessity, which is hard to do during the harder platforming segments.

It’s a shame Golden Force has so many design and technical issues, because a lot of it is good. The boss fights are excellent and appropriately challenging, the production values are fantastic, and combat feels great. Unfortunately, Golden Force lionizes the 16-bit games of yore it seems to be modeled after, but seems to forget that those games were often too difficult for their own good in the days when developers were still figuring out what good design was. And even then, many of them never felt as unfair or mean-spirited as Golden Force does.

Much of Golden Force is very, very good. Any diehard fan of 16-bit games will find a lot to like, but in an age where games like this are common, Golden Force is too technically flawed and too hard to recommended to all but the most dedicated players.

— Will Borger

Disclosures: This game is developed by Storybird Games and published by PixelHeart, No Gravity Games, and VGNYsoft. It is currently available on XBO, PS4, Switch, and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the Switch. Approximately 6 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was not completed. 4 hours of play were spent in co-op mode.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood, Fantasy Violence, and Strong Language. The official ESRB description reads as follows: This is an arcade-style action platformer in which players control mercenaries trying to destroy a demon king. From a sideways perspective, players traverse platforms, collect coins, and use weapons (e.g., swords, mechanized fists) to kill fantasy creatures (e.g., larvae, flying demons, giant insects). Combat can be fast paced, with several enemies attacking at once before exploding into large splatters of blood and coins. The word “f**k” appears in game text.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles cannot be altered and/or resized. Deaf and hard of hearing gamers should be good to go on this one, as almost everything has both an audio and visual cue. In my view, it’s fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable. This game does not offer a controller map diagram, but movement is on the left stick. Jumping is A. Attacking is Y. Dashing is X. Sliding is B. The triggers show the inventory. Clicking down on the left stick uses items.