DeVuego

When all is said and done I believe Blasphemous 2 will sit high atop the Metroidvania Pantheon. However, throughout almost my entire time with the game, I couldn’t get the first game out of my mind – thinking how I should go back and play it again or finish off all of the free bonus DLC. The new weapon system with its three separate weapons gives this a good amount of replayability and allows for many different playstyles which is great. As a whole, the sequel is much more approachable for new players to the genre, and while there are plenty of improvements and quality-of-life additions, I can’t help but feel that Blasphemous 2 is the inferior product. Hopefully, the Game Kitchen plans on adding additional content here as they did with the original. I enjoyed my time with the game, but it needs something more to really draw me back in. 

After playing Souldiers for a few dozen hours I can say that it has a ton of potential, despite its issues I continue to want to play the game when I sit down and turn on my Xbox. The Metroidvania side of the gameplay really shines – the abilities, exploration, and world-building – but the game is marred by bugs and problematic design decisions that make the difficult souls-inspired combat feel less rewarding and much more frustrating. If the game was released without many of these issues I could see myself scoring it much higher but as it is, Souldiers needs to head back to basic training before anyone else enlists in their army. 

Treasures of the Aegean has been a joy to play; initially, I thought It might be hard to get this review done. I figured I might get distracted by a certain AAA racing game that released around the same time as this, but every time I played that I just wanted to get back to the mysterious island that popped out of the Aegean sea and parkour my way across the environment, solve puzzles and search for lost treasures.

Nongunz: Doppelganger Edition is one of those games where you feel yourself getting better the more you play, and I usually enjoy games that give me that experience. Once you get an understanding of the gameplay it’s a very rewarding and fun game although getting to that point can be a bit unconventional. Discovering everything on your own can be a fun endeavour but I also understand why some players might abandon the game because of its obtuse nature. It starts out slow, and you have to build up your arsenal and inventory, but overall the journey is very fun. It can feel somewhat grindy at points, especially the end game, and it would be nice if there were one or two more levels and/or some boss variety. In the end, I would definitely recommend this to anyone who is a fan of roguelite platformers, especially if you like shooting tons of Gunz and exploring an exquisitely designed morbid pixel art setting.