In 2023, our staff collaborated to create a comprehensive ranking of the year’s games. Standouts include Alan Wake II and Armored Core VI in the S+ tier, with titles like Dead Space Remastered and Tales of Symphonia Remastered in the S tier. The A tier features games like Cities Skylines 2 and Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty.
Beyond Sunset is a fairly decent retro cyberpunk shooter and a fantastical journey through the story and sound, provided by Karl Vincent of a wild cyberpunk world. The world is bleak but so full of character, embodying the idea of synthwave / cyberpunk aesthetics weaved with a lot of DOOM. This review covers the November 2023 Early Access Build. This is one of the few games where the smooth door animations actually impress me. A world built around a strong cyberpunk theme waits for players to jump and slide their way through its streets and towering mega-skyscrapers. If you’re at all into the music or the gameplay of DOOM, this is a definite purchase. If you need some more details, let’s dig in. What is Beyond Sunset? Built on GZDOOM, Beyond Sunset is a retro DOOM-like FPS with multiple hub maps, a full story driven campaign, inventory, RPG elements, side…
You should play Mondealy if you have the chance to. That’s our review. If you want to know why we say that, read on, but ultimately, we’re going to tell you to play Mondealy. If you don’t like visual novels, that’s fine. If you don’t like pixel art, that’s fine. If you don’t like indie games, that’s fine. Go play it. That’s as high of an honor as a game can get from us and we’ll gladly hand it to this year’s best visual novel adventure game. Mondealy is a journey of friendship in a weird world that exists slightly below our own. The best way to describe is what happens in Undertale if the barrier went down but no one left and classism is at the top of the discussion list. Modern culture weaves through with love and affection as Michael journeys through a world that evokes both nostalgia…
Alterium Shift is an aspirational JPRG designed to follow in the footsteps of Legend of Mana and Chrono Trigger. Still in Early Access, the development so far has shown great promise that we may yet see another breakout hit this generation with the essence from decades ago. Alterium Shift is an aesthetic charm and once a bit more buttoned up will definitely be a competitive player in JRPG arena. We took a deep dive into the game and gave the early access a preview. It’s nice to note the game has a demo, which means if you’re on the fence about what’s available now you can always check it out before you commit. In the developer’s notes on Steam, which are really heartwarming and extremely fair, they even encourage users to. Be sure to give it a read if you’re curious about more details about the game. What is Alterium…
Everspace 2 is a beautifully crafted massive open world first person space shooter action RPG with tight controls and a lot of fast paced action. ROCKFISH Games, a small independent studio, have overdelivered in their sequel to Everspace. This time, instead of being a roguelike, the game follows more along an ARPG path where you’re exploring a vast open world with easily 50+ hours of content. It is easily worth the price of admission at full price but let’s dig a bit deeper into that. To be perfectly clear – Everspace 2 is not a roguelike unlike Everspace, although Everspace 2 is much more like an ARPG, i.e., Diablo in space with an open world like Freelancer. So Much Good Content Everspace 2 has so many areas to visit that it can be overwhelming and all of them have different aesthetics and vibes. That’s important that the content is good,…
Truth is what we’re best known for and I’d like to start this off with an honest one: Testament: The Order of High Human is expected to be perfect and is not. It is a beautiful, gorgeous game with deep lore and very fun puzzles with some decent combat. It has an old school scrappy developer vibe to it that makes a lot of old games endearing with graphics that appeal to the modern eyes. We don’t use numerical rankings because it’s sitting on 6/10 on Steam right now and is at “All Reviews: Mixed” on a sample size of roughly ~20. I don’t think games that have the artistic depth that Testament does deserve to be put on a numerical scale where anything below 8 is a waste of your money. There’s an audience out there for Testament who love this style of game and when it comes to…
Playing together can be a lot of fun and the Internet enables us to play remotely. There are, however, many scenarios where it’s more fun to play together when together in real life. There’s no excuse to try out tons of games together considering Game Pass is an all you can eat buffet of games as long as your subscription is active. We’ll take a look at the best couch co-op games of 2023. In our list below we outline what games we think are worth playing, even if they are C tier, they’re on the list so it might be worth checking out. Our highest recommended are going to be right now: It Takes Two (2 player), Undercooked 2 (4 player), and Fable II (2 player RPG). We’ve got some more options we’ll explore below as well. Best Couch Co-Op Games on Xbox Game Pass To mark the best…
There’s a lot in the world of Final Fantasy. I mean a lot. There are a total of 13 mainstream non-MMO games and a ton of spinoffs like the Crystal Chronicles, Tactics, etc. I’ve recently gone on a binge of replaying some of the older titles and it’s made me go huh – how would you even get started in the series. If you started for instance at FF8, it would be so confusing. I wouldn’t think much of the series. I started with FF1 and FF3 (US) and skipped until 10, 12, and then went back to 7 and 8 which made them all make a lot more sense than if I just started with 7 or 8. So I’ve put together my thoughts on the best order to play and various issues with some of the games. These are my opinions and are not universally shared. For some,…
Hogwarts Legacy, by Avalanche Software, is one of the more fun RPG games of the year but there is a strong stigma around the game. Within that stigma, there are a specific group of militant extremists who believe anyone who purchases the game deserves some kind of retaliation. Sites have popped up, which we will not promote, encouraging communities to search for streamers and users who are playing the game in order to harass them. The issue is that much of the rhetoric is subjective; objectively the game was developed by a diverse team at Avalanche and WB. Playing the game is a choice that each person decides on their own what it means to them and the ability to make that choice is critical to self-autonomy. If you feel you should boycott the game then you should do so; if you do not feel it morally objectionable to play…
Vampire Survivors is a fun game that’s not only inexpensive but it’s also easy to play. Guide a character around in a mix of bullet heck and rpg action as you collect new weapons, upgrade them and much more in Konami inspired world. The fifth level of the game hides the final boss which we’ll be giving you the details on how to get there, how to defeat it and how this gives you infinite power in Vampire Survivors. Reaching / Unlocking the Final Boss First you have to unlock the map (fifth in release) named “Cappella Magna.” Unlocking Cappella Magna Let’s take a moment to talk about even getting to this point in the game. You first have to unlock the first four stages (level 20 in Mad Forest, level 40 in Inlaid Library, level 60 in Dairy Plant) and then defeating the minute 25 boss in each map…