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This review contains spoilers — a lot of spoilers, all of them. Think of a spoiler: it’s in here.
Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright is a crossover as ambitious as it is unexpected, with a complex story that ably mixes the disparate elements of its source materials while crafting its own tale about grief, faith, and collective hatred.
Professor Layton and Phoenix Wright seem an odd mix at first. Excluding their protagonists’ peculiar penchant for pointing forward during climatic moments, there’s little alike between these two series: they each have their own distinct art style and gameplay mechanics, with one focusing on exploration and puzzles, while the other, [...]
Luigi’s Mansion was a launch title for the GameCube back in 2001 and it still holds up today as a great little game: it excels in its whimsy and charm, creating a playful horror atmosphere that is a perfect match for its funny protagonist. However, the whole experience can get a little repetitive by the end, thanks to a stiff structure that has very few surprises in store for us.
After discovering he won a mansion in a contest he didn’t even enter, Luigi follows the directions on the flyer and ends up finding it right in the middle of a spooky forest. Inside the mansion, he’s soon greeted by a professor named E. Gadd, who tells him that the building didn’t exist until a few [...]
Kirby: Planet Robobot is not just the best Kirby game on the 3DS, but one of the best entries in the whole series, telling a surprisingly thoughtful story about rampant capitalist greed, the dangers of technological progress, and imperialism. Its level design is also both complex and varied, never letting the new gimmick interrupt the flow of the action.
The opening cutscene shows Planet Popstar in peace – King Dedede is playing chess, Kirby is sleeping, Meta Knight is looking cool – when suddenly the shadow of a huge alien spacecraft is cast on them. The Access Ark, as it is called, arrives unannounced on Popstar and installs drills on the ground, dropping machines from the [...]
Boasting the series tried and true formula of demon hunting and an engaging combat system, Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey is an excellent dungeon-crawling RPG that successfully builds an oppressive, pessimistic atmosphere while telling a story about humanity’s suicidal greed.
The story is set at the end of the 21st century. Humanity amounts to 7 billion souls and social conflict has been escalating while the planet suffers. There’s war in Eastern Europe, an economic crisis in South America (rampant inflation has led people to raid malls), and the most powerful nations just stand by, accumulating wealth. To make matters worse, a space anomaly appears suddenly at the [...]
Metroid Fusion is a game designed around secrets: as Samus explores a dangerous space station, finding secret passageways and items, she is also uncovering the truth about the place, shedding new light on the hidden agenda of her employer. It’s a tense, suspenseful adventure, packed full of dark corridors, somber music, and a scary double with piercing, empty white eyes that hunts Samus down relentlessly.
Fusion begins with the protagonist, bounty hunter Samus Aran, recounting the general events of the previous games. The Galactic Federation hired her to commit genocide on SR388, killing all surviving metroids on the planet, since they’re dangerous creatures that suck the [...]
Resident Evil: Revelations is a game of two halves: the first one is effective in building a horror atmosphere in a claustrophobic environment, but the second offers mediocre action sequences with endless amounts of similar enemies to be defeated.
The story begins when Jill Valentine and Parker Luciani – agents working for a counter-terrorism group – are tasked to investigate a drifting vessel on the high seas, a luxury ship named “The Queen Zenobia”. Bizarre carcasses carrying a devastating virus have appeared on a nearby beach and their colleagues, Chris and Jessica, have gone missing: their last know location is on the Zenobia. When Jill and Parker arrive on the [...]