DeVuego

Denshattack! is a wholly unique experience. It stands out, looking like a wacky anime bus racing game, but calling it a racing game doesn’t even begin to cover its mechanics.

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Perhaps mislabeled as a Soulslike, Blades of Fire is a third-person fantasy action game with RPG elements. Its combat is exemplary. Finding the right weapon and the right place to strike each enemy is a well-thought-out system that feels great. While story is a bit bland, it’s told through an impressive blend of cinematic cutscenes, and a cryptic info drip. I loved the amount of detail in the environments. Like its title, Blades of Fire suffers from aspects that are kind of generic. The visual design and musical score emulate Hollywood fantasy to a fault, and the gameplay is excellent. Fans of action RPGs can safely ignore the Souslike label and enjoy this very accessible game.

Hunt the Night is a love letter to 16-bit era action adventure games. There’s something for fans of almost every genre in this gem of a game. I won’t be surprised if it finds a fairly major audience. It’s a concise synthesis of so many great gameplay and visual ideas. All of my complaints are minor nitpicks. And they’re still just based on my personal preferences. If a physical console version becomes available, I’ll be first in line to buy it.

Curse of the Sea Rats is disappointing. It’s a pretty bland Metroidvania. It has a unique visual style, but its gameplay completely relies on its multiplayer option to hide its shortcomings. The game also needs a bit more polish. I was immediately very excited when I booted up the game, but I quickly soured. If the visual style wasn’t so interesting, and there wasn’t a multiplayer option the score would be a lot lower. Only play Curse of the Sea rats if you love the idea of a simple 4 player Metroidvania.

If the only console you own is a Switch, then Aeterna Noctis is a very good Metroidvania. I’d put it a tier lower than the best of the best in the genre, but still better than most, because of its excellent gameplay. If you own a PS5, Xbox, or PC, then the Switch should be the last version you play. The camera is too zoomed-out for handheld mode, and the framerate is very choppy compared to the other smooth versions. I wish I could also report on how the PS4 and Xbox One versions compared to the next gen versions. They were all planned for the same release day, and ended up taking another year to become available, so I would assume they are all downgrades that had to be quality compromised.