Before getting into the differences and platform-specific details, if you’ve never played Disney Dreamlight Valley in any form or even heard of it, think Animal Crossing meets Disney and Pixar. Yes, that’s reductive since Disney Dreamlight Valley has a ton of quality of life features over Nintendo’s massively popular series, but I’m sure more folks have played Animal Crossing than not by now. If you haven’t, Disney Dreamlight Valley is a life simulation and adventure game that lets you create your own avatar and then jump into the magical world. The core gameplay gives you quite a bit of freedom, and is very relaxing. You can fish, cook, harvest items, decorate your house, use magic, and so much more.

There are enough guides and articles on Disney Dreamlight Valley itself since the game hit early access last year. Instead of going into detail about them, I’m going to focus on whether Disney Dreamlight Valley Arcade Edition is worth your time as an Apple Arcade subscriber, whether it is the game that will push you to try out the subscription, how the Apple Arcade version compares to the premium release, and more. I’m approaching this as someone who isn’t a huge fan of Disney and Pixar, but I know enough about the characters included, and I also love Animal Crossing on 3DS. Animal Crossing New Horizons on the other hand disappointed me, so I was glad to see other life simulation genre games deliver on what I wanted, including Disney Dreamlight Valley.

You can play Disney Dreamlight Valley Arcade Edition offline, but since it supports cross platform play with other non Apple Arcade platforms, I recommend playing with online support. I was curious how it would feel to control with touchscreen controls, and Gameloft did a great job here. After a few minutes, I had no trouble playing it on my iPhone 15 Pro. When using a DualSense controller to test, it also showed PlayStation button prompts. I didn’t try it much on macOS yet with keyboard and mouse controls, but it felt fine.

Being on Apple Arcade, Disney Dreamlight Valley Arcade Edition comes with some huge advantages, but also a few caveats. The good news is there’s no extra purchase needed. This is the full Disney Dreamlight Valley experience with the paid expansion, A Rift in Time, which sells for $30 on other platforms all included for Apple Arcade subscribers. There is no premium shop or star path here, so that means some cosmetic items might not be available yet or at all. I’m not sure how this will be handled, but I imagine we might see some content released slowly through free updates like we do in other Apple Arcade games. Either way, Disney Dreamlight Valley Arcade Edition offers stupidly good value for newcomers. It also supports cross platform play.

The downside is that there is no cross progression outside the Apple Arcade ecosystem. Your progress is on iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and tvOS, but you cannot bring your old progress or take this progress to other platforms. This might not be a big deal for some, but I’m worried that someone’s potentially hundreds of hours long save file might not carry over to something else if Disney Dreamlight Valley Arcade Edition ever leaves the service. Some developers have made it so progress is still usable on non Apple Arcade versions, but this is something to keep in mind before investing a lot of time into a fantastic game, when you might be better off getting it on another platform.

Speaking of another platform, how does Disney Dreamlight Valley Arcade Edition compare with Disney Dreamlight Valley on PS5, Xbox Series X, Steam Deck, and Nintendo Switch? Based on what I’ve played last year and this year, I’d say my favorite version of Disney Dreamlight Valley is the PC version on Steam Deck followed by Disney Dreamlight Valley Arcade Edition. I love playing life simulation games on a portable, and the Steam Deck version of the full game runs and looks excellent. The Switch version is not as good with much longer load times, worse performance, and menu lag. It looks fantastic on my high resolution display when I play the Xbox Series X version, but the cross save means I never lose progress there. I’ve been jumping between Xbox, Switch, and Steam Deck already.

Disney Dreamlight Valley Arcade Edition on iPhone 15 Pro has a few issues. I was surprised to see it not run at 60fps, and I hope this can be added in an update. The only other issue is the text size might be a bit too small for some people in a few menus, and some of the touch targets are too small on the phone screen. These need to be tweaked for touchscreens. It runs at full screen on both iPhone 15 Pro and iPad Pro (2020) thankfully, and progress syncs seamlessly between them and my MacBook Air.

The Apple Arcade version, like the main game, is a bit buggy though. This is in a much better place compared to the early access release, but still worth noting with some things seemingly being stuck in the ground, a character being out of bounds until I reloaded the game, and things like that. Nothing gamebreaking, but keep this in mind.

Disney Dreamlight Valley’s A Rift in Time expansion is pretty amazing so far. I haven’t played much of it on Apple Arcade, but have been checking it out on other platforms. If you enjoy the base game which you bought on other platforms, Disney Dreamlight Valley A Rift in Time is more of the good stuff with some notable upgrades. I would definitely grab the bundle with the expansion if I was looking to buy Disney Dreamlight Valley outside Apple Arcade. The new locations, characters, Royal Hourglass tool, and more just work so well together. I feel like the bar has been raised so much with this expansion that I don’t know if potential future ones will match.

Since Disney Dreamlight Valley Arcade Edition is basically an Apple Arcade Original release, it will get updates, and I hope the bugs and interface issues can be addressed soon. Beyond that, I’d love for high frame rate support on newer devices at least. I’d even opt for turning down some settings to play this at 60fps on iPhone 15 Pro. One other thing I want fixed is with character naming and how it is handled in this release compared to the game on other platforms. I’m not sure how it works exactly, but it seems like you get locked into a name or no name based on whether you agree to play online or not in the start.

If you have Apple Arcade, Disney Dreamlight Valley Arcade Edition is one of the best additions to the service in a long time despite a few issues. The game itself is great, and while I hope some aspects can be tweaked on iPhone and iPad, I have no hesitation in recommending you play it assuming you’re ok with the ecosystem lock in for progress. If you’d like some more flexibility on that front, I recommend buying it on Steam Deck or any other platform you prefer. In an ideal world, I’d be able to bring my progress over to Apple Arcade instead of having to start over, but this won’t be an issue for newcomers. If you’re new to it, Disney Dreamlight Valley Arcade Edition is excellent.

So again I do want to clarify that Dotemu’s Metal Slug 1 ($2.99) was a perfectly fine version for its time. Things were very different in the mobile scene back in 2013 when that game was first released on mobile, especially with regards to screen sizes and aspect ratios. While the app saw occasional updates to maintain compatibility with various versions of iOS, some aspects didn’t get much in the way of reworking. One of the biggest problems with these older Dotemu NEOGEO ports is that the touch screen buttons are too small for modern displays, even at their largest setting in the options. That is also the case here, and it makes the old version very hard to play. You can use an external controller, but compatibility is a bit spotty. There are also a few minor emulation issues.

I’m repeating myself here from other recent reviews, but despite the slightly cheaper price I would caution strongly against buying the older version over the ACA NEOGEO one. I don’t even think SNK should still be selling that version now that this one exists. I doubt it will ever get the necessary updates to make it as playable as it used to be, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it gets retired in the near future. The ACA NEOGEO version isn’t exactly a treat to play with touch controls either, but it’s a lot more comfortable. It also offers many more options and modes, which I think makes it the one to pick all-around. Even if you’re using an external controller, you’ll find the ACA NEOGEO version runs and plays better.

As to the game itself, Metal Slug probably doesn’t need too much introduction if you’re interested enough in NEOGEO games to be reading this review. If SNK’s home/arcade console system is known for one thing, it’s The King of Fighters. But if it’s known for two things, the second one is Metal Slug. Developed by ex-Irem folks at Nazca Corporation, this run-and-gun action game is among the very finest the genre has to offer. It’s not hard to see why it spawned such a long-running and popular series. The graphics are incredibly detailed and lavishly animated, the gameplay is excellent, the pace of the game is zippy, the vehicles are exciting to use, the bosses are ridiculous, and it’s as much fun to play alone as it is with a friend. It’s also silly without pushing things too far, which is welcome in a genre that tends to tilt one way or the other when it comes to humor.

That said, the level of challenge and the fact that you need to pull off some wild moves make this ill-suited for touch controls, though in this ACA NEOGEO version you have access to an infinite number of credits to finish the game with. If you’re going to play the game seriously, you’ll probably want to make use of an external controller. It plays great that way, and it makes this version perhaps the best, most affordable official way to play Metal Slug. Throw in the usual extra modes, which work out quite well for this sort of game, and you have a really nice package here. Will the online leaderboards be populated? You can be part of the solution to that one, my friends.

The Dotemu version of the game had a handful of nice options, but this ACA NEOGEO version offers quite bit more to play around with. You can adjust the various difficulty options, tweak the controls to your liking, and tinker with the video and audio to a decent extent. You also get the usual save and load options, something the previous version was lacking. It’s nice to be able to stop and pick up a game like this anytime you want on mobile. Of course, the usual ACA NEOGEO issue is here in that you can’t play multiplayer very easily. You’ll need a couple of external controllers and must both play off the same device, so unless you have something bigger than your iPhone it’s going to be a bit of a cramped situation.

I think players going the touch screen route will want to carefully consider what they are looking for from ACA NEOGEO Metal Slug. If you don’t mind the fact that you will probably be playing sub-optimally, having trouble hitting angles and doing quick maneuvers, and dying a whole lot, then you can still have a good bit of fun here just touring the game with unlimited credits. It’s certainly no worse than any other virtual button-based run-and-gun game on iOS, and the quality of the original game shines through sufficiently for you to have a nice time with it. Sixteen quarters, people. You can own this game and keep it in your pocket for sixteen quarters. Tell that to the you of 1996. Their mind would be blown.

I’ve said a lot of this before about various other ACA NEOGEO releases, and this perhaps collects many of those points. Better than the previous version? Absolutely. Good game? Friend, it’s so great. Well-suited to mobile? Probably not, especially if you’re using touch controls. Worth picking up anyway? Yes, I think so. It’s feature-rich, gives you all the margin for error you could ask for, and is affordable to boot. A solid pick for fans of arcade classics.

Using questions to end an introductory paragraph is an old habit from my first gig back in the day. It doesn’t make much sense when you can see the score immediately. Well, you know already. If you want a decent 3D Sonic game on your iPhone or iPad, I’m happy to say that this delivers. It leans more into the Boost Sonic style rather than the Adventure style, but I’m sure most would have expected that anyway. There’s a time and a place for that eventual Adventure 3, but I don’t think it’s here and now. There’s a story here, some business about Eggman trying to pervert some mysterious power to use for his ambitions of world conquest, but nothing to get too excited about. You’ll get a lot of cut-scenes, but most of them are just basic stills with text boxes. Also, I can’t believe we have a whole Sonic game set in the world of dreams and NiGHTS isn’t anywhere about. Rude.

Anyhow, the broad structure is familiar. You’ve got four zones that are broken up into three acts, each of which is basically a level incorporating the same theme as the rest of the acts in that zone. In Sonic Dream Team, each of those acts is then broken down into a bunch of challenges, each of which will net you a Dream Orb. The first challenge in each act also has a number of collectibles and other things around for you to hunt for, which will in turn net you more Dream Orbs and other goodies. Dream Orbs are the key to opening up further acts and zones and progressing the story. And of course at the end of each zone, you’ll have a lovely little boss battle. Quick napkin math will tell you that we’ve got twelve acts in total, which seems like a fair amount but ends up feeling too few after you’ve blasted your way through.

Adding some replay value are the additional characters, split in the usual Sonic manner by their abilities. Sonic and Amy go fast, so fast they can zip along trails of rings in the sky. They’re also the default characters. Tails and Cream can fly, as they often do. Then we have Knuckles and Rouge, and they can climb up walls, as they often do. There are some paths that only particular characters can reach, and you might have some fun fully exploring each act to see what you can find. They’re not massive spaces, but there are some interesting things to see if you poke around enough. Some extra weekly Tails’ Challenges give you more reasons to return, though it starts to feel like wringing blood from a stone at a certain point with the small number of acts.

I actually like the level designs a lot. The spaces are clearly built to keep pushing you forward in fun ways, with little breather sections between the breakneck rails and tubes that let you slow down and explore a little. Each zone also offers up some distinct gameplay mechanics, and the difficulty from act to act ramps up nicely as the game gets you comfortable with those mechanics. There are some of the usual 3D Sonic issues, of course. Sometimes you just go flying off of sections to your (only slightly inconvenient) “death". Sometimes the path forward isn’t as clear as it could be. You don’t often need to adjust the camera, but on such occasions it can be a real pig.

This seems like as good a time as any to talk controls. If you have a controller, I recommend you use it. One of those nice Backbone controllers or a Kishi would be a lovely choice. If you do that, you’ll be playing it as you would expect, with movement on the left stick, camera control on the right, a button for jumping, and a button for dashing and boosting. Simple and easy to play. If you’re using touch controls, you’re given some virtual buttons and a virtual stick to mimic those actions. You can just drag the camera around, which is actually better than having on a stick, but trying to keep an eye on those buttons when you’re rolling around at the speed of sound can be bothersome. Still, I won’t say it plays badly with touch controls. It’s fine.

In terms of the presentation, it’s really well-done. The visuals are at a glance as good as the console 3D Sonic games, though the zones themselves are obviously a fair bit less ambitious in scope than most of them. The soundtrack is good, though I don’t think the best tunes in the franchise have much to fear from it. Ah, most of you will be playing with the mute switch on anyway. But if you do leave the sound on, I don’t think you’ll be displeased with what you hear. This game feels like a full-effort affair in virtually all regards, and that’s something I always like to see in a mobile game.

Really, the main way Sonic Dream Team drops the ball, apart from the frankly appalling lack of NiGHTS, is in just how breezy the game is. It only takes a few minutes to blow through one run of each act, and you can pretty much clean the plate on the whole affair in one evening. Nothing in the game is all that difficult, and I’d argue the bosses are almost laughably easy. It’s fine for a game to be short, of course. I like a lot of short games. But it feels like Sonic Dream Team is just starting to cook when it ends. There’s more to say here, I’m sure of it. Maybe the number of zones will be expanded in the promised future updates? It comes off like a warm-up for the real game, but the warm-up is all you get.

Sonic Dream Team gets a lot of things right, and I think anyone with an Apple Arcade subscription will have a really good time running through its various nooks and crannies. Even those who aren’t subscribed might want to pick up a month just to play through the game. The 3D Sonic pantheon definitely has far worse efforts than this. But that’s part of what makes it frustrating. It overcame a lot of the challenges 3D Sonic often struggles to get over, only to retire before the race is finished with a relatively short run-time. This could have been an amazing chapter in Sonic history, but instead it has to settle for being a good one.

Okay, now that I’ve got you in here, I’ll get right to the point. You’re connecting water and electricity to little cities. You have a grid with different colored generators, and you need to use your limited supply of wires and pipes to connect them to all of the same-colored cities on your grid. The generators can take connections from all four cardinal directions, while cities can only be connected from one side. As time passes, more cities and generators will be added to the grid, introducing new colors and adding more complicated things to work around. Of course, you’ll also be given additional tools here and there that will hopefully help you deal with such complications. If you leave a city without its needed utilities for too long, that’s a game over. You’ll get your final score, and that’s that. Care to try again?

The base game of Tiny Connections comes with one country to play in, the United States. It includes a few different maps, and you’ll unlock those as you reach certain score thresholds. Each map varies in its land to water ratio among other things, so you need slightly different strategies for each. By purchasing a $1.99 IAP you’ll gain access to seven more maps spread across four additional countries. To round out the IAP situation here, the game has ads that you can remove with a $1.99 IAP, and there’s also a $2.99 IAP that will give you the new maps and remove ads in one go. I suspect more stages will arrive as new IAP in the future, but for now you can get everything the game has to offer for a few bucks. Or, if you want, you can just play for free on the three American maps and deal with the ads. Your call.

If you’ve been around the block a few times, the basic idea is probably sounding a little familiar here. Yes, this is rather similar to Mini Metro. Like that game, you’re having to manage what starts as a simple network of hubs, nodes, and the pieces that go between them. It gradually becomes more and more complicated, and eventually you’re just not going to be able to sort the spaghetti before the whole thing blows up in your face. Beyond the setting, the main difference here is that you’re dealing with multiple utilities, almost like if Mini Metro and Mini Motorways were smashed together. It’s a bit more strict in some ways and more lax in others. There are also some different special tools to make use of which fit the theme.

But hey, Teeny Tiny Town wasn’t the most original of affairs and I still loved it. I think what is different here is that Mini Metro isn’t quite as old as Triple Town is, and with deep apologies to Spry Fox, the presentation of Mini Metro isn’t as easily improved upon as Triple Town. Tiny Connections has a really slick presentation, and its focus on stylized realism is certainly distinct from the direction Dinosaur Polo Club chose for its games, but I really can’t say it looks and sounds better. Kind of a lateral move at best, depending on one’s tastes.

I suppose that’s the best way to describe Tiny Connections on the whole. It’s a lateral move at best from the games that it follows on from, and depending on how well you like the theme you may like it more or less. For my money, I don’t think there have been a whole ton of well-done games of this style yet, so I’m willing to give Short Circuit Studio a pass for opting to hew fairly closely to the basic idea and simply aiming to do its own take as well as it could. So that’s where I’ll leave that.

Beyond the lack of novelty, I only have some minor bones to pick with the game. The way the UI works makes it awfully easy to misplace pieces, but you can easily fix things up in those cases so it isn’t a huge deal. It’s not always immediately clear where a new problem has cropped up, particularly as things get crowded on the map. I feel like new cities occasionally pop up in places that can’t be addressed with what you have on hand, and that always feels very frustrating since all you can do is watch and wait until it busts. Relatively rare, but it does happen. Don’t waste your tunnels, friends.

I think that’s where I’ll park this one. Tiny Connections is an enjoyable, well-built spin on games like Mini Metro and Mini Motorways. Its less abstract art style and unusual premise might appeal to some players despite its mechanical familiarity, and I think it’s safe to say that if you loved any of the aforementioned titles then you’ll certainly want to give this a look as well. Since you can sample a good portion of the game for free, it’s easy to do just that. If you like what you see, you can open up the rest of the game and send those ads to Pluto for a very reasonable price. Another strong effort from this developer.

I’ll go into my usual rigmarole soon, but I want to deal with the elephant in the room first. The old version of Metal Slug 3 is still on the App Store and it’s a buck cheaper than this one. Why shouldn’t you buy it? Certainly, it has a couple of features that aren’t found in this new one, in particular support for multi-device multiplayer via Bluetooth. It’s a bit difficult to play the mobile ACA NEOGEO games with other players, and that does make a difference for a game like Metal Slug 3. There’s also the Mission Mode feature that allows you to jump to any level you’ve previously reached. It’s a handy feature in a game as long as this, especially given the branching paths that characterize this installment.

But friends, take heed: very old iOS games that haven’t been given regular care come with some serious drawbacks, and Metal Slug 3 is no exception. The biggest issue comes from the virtual controls. The buttons in the old version were the right size for the displays of the era, but eleven years later things have seriously changed. The virtual buttons are now absolutely tiny and barely useable. The stick in particular is a real pain. The old version sported compatibility with the iCade, which was about as much as you could have hoped for at the time. That’s… not so useful now, and its support for modern external controllers is a bit spotty. Metal Slug 3 with touch controls was always dicey, but the ravages of time have made that old version extremely awkward to play in the current year. I wouldn’t recommend it, even if the extra buck might get you a delicious Snickers bar. Well, probably half of one these days.

Okay, that’s out of the way now. Don’t buy that old version. SNK should pull it off the store, frankly. This new ACA NEOGEO version has all the usual features. You can tweak a bunch of options, use some properly-sized touch controls, play with an external controller, use save states, compete on the leaderboards in a few different modes, and use as many continues as your little heart desires. And your little heart will desire many, because this game is a coin-guzzling pig. I think my singular greatest gaming accomplishment was finishing this game with one credit back in 2006. It took me a year of near-daily practice. It just keeps going. Unlimited continues! You’ll want them.

This whole review feels like I’m backing out of a tricky parking spot. So, let’s talk Metal Slug 3. This is my favorite Metal Slug game. Some others prefer one of the first few games, and I can respect that. A few prefer one of the games after this, and I’m not sure how to feel about that. Enjoy, I guess? This was the last game in the series developed by the original team, and in a lot of ways it feels like the developers knew this was the grand finale. It’s a massive game, perhaps too large for some. The last stage is almost as long as some entire games. Most of the stages have branching paths, and often more than one. Each leads to a completely different area, often with unique backgrounds, enemies, and bosses. This is disgusting excess, and I absolutely love it.

The usual four heroes are here, and you can choose whoever you like. It doesn’t matter much. There are tons of different weapons, lots of vehicles to commandeer, and fun transformations in some of the stages and branches. Metal Slug 3 is constantly throwing new things at you, so the run-and-gun action stays exciting from start to finish. This game came out in the year 2000, when things were pretty grim for this genre and 2D games as a whole. Metal Slug 3 had to keep the fires burning, and it brought enough firewood for all. If you haven’t played it before and have any love for the genre at all, you really should.

But is this version the way you should play it? If you have an external controller, that’s an easy choice. Yes, this is a fantastic version. It runs the way it should, and the suite of options fills things out nicely. The only downside is that you can’t play multiplayer unless you have a couple of external controllers and don’t mind crowding around a single display. As a single-player experience, it’s as good as any other option. Connect your controller, drop the necessary four bucks, and have a lovely day going through it all.

If you don’t have an external controller, it’s harder to recommend. This is a very intensive game and it requires a lot of precise movement if you want to avoid dying several hundred times. I’m a fairly deft hand with touch controls, but even for me this is a bit tough to deal with. Can you still have sixteen quarters’ worth of enjoyment? Sure. You’ll die a ton, but you have as many credits as you need. It’s a hefty enough game that you’ll get your value out of it even if you’re just touring it by throwing dead bodies at the bosses. But if you want to play it seriously, I don’t think the touch controls are going to do it for most.

If you’ve never played Metal Slug 3 before, this isn’t a terrible way to dive into it. Throw in an external controller and you’ll have a grand time. It’s also easily worth the upgrade over the old, now sadly outdated Dotemu version. This is one of the crown jewels of the NEOGEO, and I’m glad we have a fresh version on mobile. It’s a poor fit for touch controls, but the game itself is so good that it’s worth putting up with it to see everything it has to offer. Not every SNK mobile game is worth the double-dip, but I think Metal Slug 3 is.

Resident Evil Village has been available since 2021 on consoles and PC platforms, and I’ve played it on PS5, Xbox Series X, and Steam Deck. I ended up liking the game more than Resident Evil 7, but found it was a lot better with the DLC and updates that arrived post-launch. Capcom has pushed out one major update already fixing a crash on specific devices, and I also wanted to try out the public build of the game more. I bought the in-game unlock and all DLC available to make sure it works fine.

On launching Resident Evil Village, you are prompted to download about 7.92GB, and then can view the options like DLC and the full game unlock if you don’t want to just sample the game for free. In terms of DLC, the Winters’ Expansion, full game unlock, and the Extra Content Shop All Access Voucher are available. These are similar to the main PC and console version DLC. Before getting into a new game, I’d recommend going into the options and customizing the touch controls. While I’m not too pleased with how Resident Evil Village controls purely on touch, Capcom has done a good job with the customization options for the on-screen controls as shown in the screenshot below.

Beyond controls, I was surprised to find a full graphics options menu in Resident Evil Village on iPhone 15 Pro. This is like the PC version where it shows you how much graphics memory is being used as you adjust various settings. This menu also lets you enable Apple’s MetalFX upscaling, change the screen resolution, frame rate target (with support for frame rates above 60fps), and the other options found in the PC version of Resident Evil Village. I didn’t pay much attention to the pre-release coverage for Resident Evil Village on iPhone 15 Pro and iPad M1, but I am impressed with how it looks and runs after some tweaking so far on iPhone 15 Pro. It does however run better on iPad M1 than iPhone 15 Pro.

The load times and visuals are great after tweaking, and it even loads quicker than the Xbox Series X version. When comparing Resident Evil Village on iPhone 15 Pro with the Steam Deck version, the latter is definitely comfier unless you have a controller like the Backbone One or something for your iPhone 15 Pro. Load times are a lot better on iPhone 15 Pro though. I hope a future update for Resident Evil Village on Apple silicon eventually gets full DualSense feature support for triggers and haptic feedback like the PS5 version, because I love how Capcom uses that in its PS5 releases. Right now, it only displays Xbox button prompts which is disappointing.

After spending more time with Resident Evil Village post-launch, I remain convinced that the best version of the game is with the DLC included. This is sold as the Gold Edition on consoles and PC, and on iOS requires the base game and the Winters’ Expansion. This expansion adds in the third person mode, Shadows of Rose expansion which is as good as when I first played it on PS5. It feels wild that this is all running natively on an iPhone, but here we are. I didn’t spend too much time with it on iPad, but I was impressed with it using an external Xbox controller.

I hope Capcom can work on improving the touch controls for the game in future updates. Developers like Feral Interactive have been bringing console games to mobile with optimized touch interfaces while also providing great controller support. While they are the gold standard, this is a good first step for Capcom with its AAA games on iPhone and iPad.

In its current state, I absolutely recommend getting Resident Evil Village on iPhone 15 Pro / Pro Max if you have a controller like the Backbone One USB-C edition or use an external bluetooth controller and play on iPad. The touchscreen interface even with its customization options is not good. Capcom has done a fantastic job so far in bringing this AAA survival horror experience to Apple platforms, and I hope we see more RE Engine games make their way in the future after Resident Evil 4 Remake releases next month. Resident Evil Village is a free download with an in app purchase to unlock the full game, so I definitely recommend downloading it if you have a supported device to see how good the conversion is. Right now, it is a great start for Capcom on modern iOS devices, but I hope we see more optimized ports in the future.

Check out the official website for Capcom’s new Apple silicon ports here. Resident Evil Village releases on October 30th for iOS and iPadOS with pre-orders available here.

Resident Evil Village iPhone 15 Pro Review Score: 4/5

Update: Added review score after testing the game on iPhone 15 Pro after its first major update and also impressions from the M1 iPad Pro version.

Baseball Stars 2 released a couple of years after Baseball Stars Professional, which was among the launch titles for the NEOGEO hardware. SNK had clearly learned a lot of lessons in those two years, some of them the hard way. Truth be told, some of the team members from Baseball Stars Professional had already shown some improvements with 1991’s Super Baseball 2020, so it wasn’t just a straight jump from the first Baseball Stars on NEOGEO to this second one. Some of the improvements come from being more comfortable with the hardware, knowing when and where to use things like scaling in service of the game rather than simply to try to wow people with graphical tricks. Some of it was down to some of the team members stepping up to bat for a baseball game for the third time in as many years. I also think the sheer pace at which SNK was churning out games, a necessary pace for a hardware manufacturer in its position, led to a lot of iterative progress in terms of quality.

I’m not saying that SNK in 1992 had everything on the ball, but it was a smarter company with a clearer focus and more experience in delivering punchy arcade hits that pleased the crowds. And indeed, I think that’s what Baseball Stars 2 is. There aren’t a ton of truly great arcade baseball games. Even companies like Midway or Konami couldn’t quite get a proper handle on it the way they did with other sports. SNK pulled it off with Baseball Stars 2. It’s a terrific arcade game, with great graphics and sound, snappy gameplay, and just the right amount of over-the-top silliness to make it feel like a spectacle.

It’s a ton of fun against another human player, but you can also have a rather decent time going up against the CPU. That’s a good thing, because as usual unless you have some extra controllers and a display to crowd around, you won’t be playing multiplayer here. That leaves you with a fifteen-game pennant race against the computer, plus the usual extra modes Hamster puts in the ACA NEOGEO releases, complete with leaderboards. The CPU is still a bit of a rude boy here, as this is still an SNK game. Rubber banding is in full effect, so woe be it to you if you get too far ahead in a game. Still, it’s more manageable here than it was in Professional because it’s a more level playing field.

Specifically, the fielding in this game is a lot better than it was in Professional. The scaling and zooming doesn’t obstruct your view in the same way, so it’s a lot easier to do what you need to. You can also choose automatic fielding if you don’t want to deal with that end of things, but I think the game is lot more enjoyable if you have full control of things. You can beat that silly computer! You have all the coins in the world to buy giant bats with! That fifteen game sprint to the championship offers a fairly meaty challenge for an arcade sports game, and the chase is worth the few bucks you’ll pay for Baseball Stars 2.

Just keep in mind that this is an arcade baseball game. You won’t get anything even remotely resembling sim elements here. No team management, no roster editing, nothing. You step up, you play baseball, you go home. Enjoy the extremely colorful and well-detailed graphics, marvel at all the funny animations, laugh at the repetitive yet charming commentary, and… I don’t know, goggle? Let’s say goggle at the crisp sound effects. I’ll give SNK this: even when the games didn’t play the best they could, they usually looked and sounded fantastic. That was harder and harder to pull off on the NEOGEO hardware as the years passed, but SNK knew how to make that hardware sing. Anyway, this is the best looking baseball game on NEOGEO. Yes, out of all three of them.

Baseball Stars 2 plays a bit better with a controller if you have access to one. The Backbone or Kishi will work a treat, but use your weapon of choice. It was originally designed around physical controls, after all. But the virtual buttons get the job done here quite well thanks to the nature of baseball. It almost helps a little with fielding since it’s less likely you’ll be tilting in any directions when the camera cuts away, ensuring you won’t be marching your little fielder in the wrong direction for a second. These kinds of pick and play sports games usually fare well with touch controls, so I suppose it isn’t a surprise they work well here.

I’ve already gone over the usual ACA NEOGEO bits, but as a quick recap. You can use an external controller. You can only play multiplayer via a single device using extra external controllers, and you both have to look off the same screen. No online or local wireless multiplayer. You can play the Japanese or international version of the game, and there is a score attack and timed Caravan mode available. Each of these modes has its own online leaderboard that will probably have about ten people on it. Good luck and godspeed. You have access to a number of options, including gameplay tweaks and graphical options. You can save your progress whenever and load it later, at least in the main modes. The emulation is top-notch, like having the arcade machine in the palm of your hand. You’re a real hot dog!

If you were waiting for the best NEOGEO baseball game to arrive in the ACA NEOGEO mobile line, congratulations! The wait is over, Baseball Stars 2 is here. This is a very fun arcade baseball game that still holds up really well and has survived the transition to mobile intact. There’s no easy access to multiplayer, and I’m always going to harp on that in these reviews, but otherwise it’s really hard to find much to complain about with this particular release.

In the case of a lot of mobile ports, I’m curious to see how console and PC games transition over with their controls, but Storyteller is a puzzle game about putting together stories with already amazing touch controls on Switch.that already had great touch controls in its original Switch version. I knew it would feel good to play on mobile, but the Netflix release on iOS and Android arrives with the major first content update included from the get go, making it a more interesting release. The Switch and Steam versions were updated alongside the Netflix release so if you already own Storyteller, you can just update your game and play the new content there. If you are interested in the Netflix version and if it is worth your time, this is the right place.

In a lot of ways, Storyteller reminds me of Scribblenauts with its mechanics. Your aim is to put together stories in this puzzle game by completing panels in a book with objects, scenes, and people available for a specific solution. Some puzzles included have alternate paths or challenges, but there isn’t much replay value beyond that. This is where Storyteller might let some people down. The new update, which is what the iOS version ships with, has seen additions to prior chapters, new content, an interesting new character added, and more. I didn’t think Storyteller was too short or incomplete, so this new version feels like an enhanced version. The narrator is a lovely addition (that you can turn off) that elevates the experience, and the changes to some levels are very good. A lot of care has gone into this update, and I’m glad to see the game finally go above its potential thanks to this new version.

Storyteller’s actual narrative and writing are both very good. There’s humor, sorrow, and just a lot of fun as you mess around with possible outcomes here. I spent a lot of time trying to play it wrong or do the opposite just to see how things played out. In my original review, I mentioned how an expansion or update down the road would help Storyteller’s a lot. That’s exactly what happened here. Not only is it easier to recommend to those buying it on Steam or Switch, the game itself on mobile in its debut is really great now.

On mobile, Storyteller has no controller support that I could see, but you don’t need it. If it is included, I’ll update this, but I couldn’t get my DualSense detected on iPad, and the Kishi V2 didn’t work in-game on my iPhone 11. Visually, it seems to use the low quality preset on my iPhone 11 and is crisper on iPad Pro. The Steam version runs without issues at the high quality preset on Steam Deck. The Switch version handheld is similar to iPad, but not as crisp. None of these versions look bad because the aesthetic scales well, but it is worth mentioning for comparison. Load times are fine, and the game is responsive throughout. If I had to pick, I’d go with Netflix followed by Switch in handheld for the best experience. The PC version on Steam Deck does not have touch support and this game very much is best with touch controls.

With the Netflix release, the only caveat for recommending Storyteller is that you need an active Netflix subscription to play it, and can’t buy it outright. That isn’t an issue for most people with a subscription, but it is worth keeping in mind. If you do want to own it, it is discounted right now on Steam for a few days more. As someone with Xbox Game Pass, Apple Arcade, Netflix, and PlayStation Plus, I know a lot of games release on subscription services with time being the limiter these days, but if you do have a Netflix subscription, this is worth downloading to try.

Storyteller remains a short (well not as short as before this update), but great experience that I recommend to anyone looking to experience something only possible through the medium of games. The puzzles or trial and error in some situations may not be for everyone, but this is a great addition to Netflix’s growing games catalog on mobile. If you do own Storyteller on Switch or Steam, this update elevates it quite a bit, and you need to revisit it.

So yes, The Top Hat Club. A fancy place. Too fancy for the likes of you and me. But our little protagonist has a dream, and that dream is to sidle up to that fancy bar and sip some fancy wine with some fancy gentlemen. The problem is that you can’t even set foot in the door without meeting the dress code, and that means you’ve got to have a top hat. It’s right in the name and everything. Fortunately, top hats seem to just be laying around. All you have to do is don the hat and head for the door. So long as you have the hat, they have to let you go inside… right?

Well, anyway. The goal in most of the game’s thirty-plus stages is to pick up the hat from wherever in the stage it’s located and then make your way to the door. It sounds easy, and sometimes it is. The trick is that if you hit your head or otherwise disturb the hat, it will fall off. And wouldn’t you know it, the stages often have obstacles that will knock that hat clean off your head if you don’t approach things carefully. So you need to make sure you’ve planned a route that will take you to the exit without dropping the hat. You really do have to plan too, as many of the stages include disappearing platforms or other temporary elements that make it so that you can only have one crack at it.

You have unlimited lives, of course. It would be gauche these days if you did not. Annoyingly, whenever you die, lose your hat, or fail the stage for any other reason, a Game Over menu will pop up. You’ll have to manually hit that restart option each time, which is a design choice that runs against the current grain in a way I don’t really care for. I haven’t mentioned it yet, but each stage also has five coins to try to collect. Getting to the exit in most of the stages is a relatively simple affair, but getting the coins requires a good eye for the route you should take and precise execution. You will probably fail a lot, and having to hammer that restart instead of instantly respawning gets agitating.

My other bones to pick with this game come from the controls. First of all, you have to use the touch controls. No controller support right now and I see no indications of it being planned. That isn’t the end of the world, but if you’re going to have a mobile platformer that uses touch controls with virtual buttons as the only means of input, you have to make dead certain those controls are spot-on. Regrettably, I found these ones to be a bit lacking. The game would sometimes miss inputs on the virtual buttons, and that proved to be lethal in some stages. The combination of this issue and the lack of an automatic restart had me crawling the walls at times.

I suppose it speaks to the quality of the game itself that I was willing to persevere through these issues no matter how furious I got. The level designs here are quite good, with a nice balance of puzzles and platforming challenges to keep you on your toes. It seeds in some new gimmicks along the way to freshen things up, and there are some unexpected twists in certain levels that force you to apply the skills you’ve learned in new ways. It’s not a terribly long game on the whole, but it doesn’t overstay its welcome by even a minute. Getting all the coins is a good game extender, and there are a few little secrets to round things out nicely. You get a good buck’s worth out of it, to be sure.

The Top Hat Club feels like it fell out of a different era of the App Store, for better or worse. Mostly better, but I sure do wish that “worse" wasn’t there. It’s a fun platformer with clever stage designs and a fair bit of charm, and while it won’t last a long time it will absorb your attention well until the end. Some touch control issues and minor UI scrapes kept it from knocking my socks off completely, but given the highly reasonable price and everything else it has going for it, I think I can recommend this to mobile platformer fans.

If you’ve not followed it, Monster Hunter Now is a free to play game akin to Pokemon GO using Niantic’s AR technology, but it brings the world of Monster Hunter to the real world. Having now played it, Monster Hunter Now feels like it is trying to appeal to Monster Hunter World players more than classic Monster Hunter game fans with its monster selection, weapons, and more. If Capcom and Niantic’s aim with Monster Hunter Now is to bring the essence of Monster Hunter or the brand to more players, it will likely succeed, but how is Monster Hunter Now for a huge fan of the series and someone who plays the games daily? That’s what I’m going to address in this launch week review.

Monster Hunter Now begins with a pretty decent story by franchise standards. I was interested in Qualily’s (new character) dialogue and also learning the ropes of how Monster Hunter Now flows through the Palico who helps you out. You begin only with access to the Sword and Shield weapon, and eventually unlock more like the Great Sword (my favorite weapon in Monster Hunter) at Hunter Rank 14. You then unlock more of the weapon types at the next Hunter Rank. That’s basically the main progression alongside monsters becoming more difficult and the upgrade system.

So how does Monster Hunter Now translate the core gameplay loop of the console games to mobile with Niantic’s AR technology? In Monster Hunter Now, your location decides what is available to you. It encourages you to move around as you’d expect from a game like this, and does things quite nicely early on. You can tap around to collect resources like ore or bones, and have access to small monsters and large monsters. The opening chapters and tutorials force you into a pretty-fixed path to move ahead, and while a lot of this was boring for me, it will help newcomers learn the basics of combat, weapons, items, and more. There are daily quests that unlock early on called Special Quests to earn more Hunter Rank points as well. You also end up having to face “Urgent" monsters that are harder than the ones you’ve faced so far, just like in the console games.

Combat initially is just you tapping the screen to attack a monster and swiping to dodge when it glows red indicating it is planning an attack. I never cared for the Sword and Shield, so I tried getting through these bits quickly. Each weapon also has a separate skill that you can use by tapping and holding the screen. You soon unlock a special ability which charges up as you take down more monsters, and also unlock armor skills and weapon skills. As you hunt more monsters, you need to forge and upgrade armor with the game conveniently notifying you when your equipped gear can be upgraded. This upgrade system is similar to the main console games, but quite a bit simpler early on. Elemental damage and affinities seem to play a larger part here right from the start. You can also enable motion controls for aiming and targeting by tapping the symbol on the top right during battles.

Visually, Monster Hunter Now looks really good. The interface is nice, and the animations all feel faithful to Monster Hunter. Weapon designs, a good resolution even on older iPhone models like the 11, and a 60fps hunting option all add up to make for a pleasant and polished technical experience in Monster Hunter Now.

On the audio side, I’ve been impressed with the new arrangements of classic Monster Hunter tunes, and the remaining sounds from the games that have been perfectly implemented into Monster Hunter Now. This truly feels like the team understood how to make a game feel and sound like Monster Hunter, despite the simplistic nature. Niantic also added haptic feedback which is a nice touch in a game like this. I liked the HD Rumble while playing Monster Hunter Rise on Switch a lot, and it is nice to see some of that make its way here even as simple haptics.

What does Monster Hunter Now include at launch?

Monster Hunter Now only includes six weapon types at launch. You begin with Sword and Shield, then unlock Great Sword, and soon after unlock the other four including Light Bowgun, Bow, Hammer, and Longsword. In terms of monsters, Monster Hunter Now also has a lot of the Monster Hunter World monsters, but not all of them. I imagine major updates will start adding monsters from that game and hopefully from Monster Hunter Rise as well.

Multiplayer is available, and it also supports the adventure sync option for tracking location when the app is closed for paintballs and gathering by your Palico. I can’t even remember how Pokemon GO launched, but Monster Hunter Now feels like it has the potential to do great assuming Niantic supports it properly. Since the developers clearly used a lot from Monster Hunter World, I hope the support it gets post launch is also as good as that and Iceborne rather than Rise.

If you try playing Monster Hunter Now while in a car, it gives you a warning to click to confirm that you aren’t the driver, and then still doesn’t let you play if you move too fast. You need to wait a few seconds in place before it lets you interact with points of interest or hunt again.

In terms of monetization, I didn’t feel the need to spend so far, but we are still about a week into launch only. The in app purchases range from a one time starter pack with consumables and gems to a release celebration pass that gives you gems daily for a month. There are also direct purchases for an item box expansion and a few gem pack options. The big point of contention is in how health potions and first aid meds are handled here. You get the latter daily, but you will need to wait till you have enough health before you can hunt so you might think paying gets over the time barrier for that to replenish. The way I look at this game, if I ran out of health, I’d just wait till the next day and come back. I wouldn’t consider paying for health potions. This could change with updates or when I run into later monsters, but as of today, nothing has felt essential from the in app purchases.

In terms of what I’d like to see come in updates, I don’t really have a frame of reference to other Niantic games right now, but I want Niantic to add more of what makes you actually learn monster patterns, explore, and hopefully bring in large-scale raids sooner than later. Combat is fine for newcomers, but it can be repetitive for veteran players. It is going to be interesting to see the pace of new content and features for Monster Hunter Now.

I definitely recommend checking out Monster Hunter Now if you’ve enjoyed the recent entries in the series or are a newcomer looking to see what Monster Hunter is all about with the lowest barrier of entry. In its current state, it isn’t as deep as proper console and PC Monster Hunter games, but it does its job at giving you bite-sized hunting action on the go when you’re out and about with a lot of love put in for Monster Hunter. I hope the combat gets more depth through updates, but I’m pleased with the launch state of Monster Hunter Now and will be playing it regularly and checking out updates whenever new content is added.

What is Samba de Amigo? Well, it’s a rhythm game that was originally released in arcades in 1999 and on the Dreamcast in the year 2000. This puts it relatively early in the whole rhythm game boom, especially when looking at ones that used plastic instruments. SEGA is always a few years too early to the party, and it’s never a good thing for them. In this case, the plastic instruments were maracas, and they were a lot of fun. You had to hold them at one of three heights and shake along to the beat. Sometimes you would have to make poses, too. Great fun in the arcade and at home, especially if you have spectators there to laugh at you. The soundtrack leaned Latin, but had plenty of classic SEGA tunes and pop hits to round things out. It even had a cover of A-Ha’s Take On Me by ska band Reel Big Fish! Ska! It’s like punk, but with horns and happy!

While the game had a cult following, that was really all it was able to manage. Part of that came down to its home version being on the Dreamcast, part of that came from the cost of the maracas, and part of that was just rudeness. It’s a good game, people. It got a Wii port several years later, but the Wii remotes just couldn’t sub for the maracas. Also, it had Mambo Number 5 on the soundtrack. In 2008. That’s flying too close to the sun, SEGA. This port was developed by Gearbox, the makers of Duke Nukem Forever and Brothers in Arms DS. I get the impression it didn’t do very well, so Amigo went into the vault only to be allowed out to play in SEGA All-Star games.

The monkey has been freed, however. Not just one game, but two. Sort of. Since this is a review of Party-To-Go, I’m going to be focusing on it. I reviewed the Switch version of the other game, Party Central, in the SwitchArcade Round-Up if you want to read about that. In Party-To-Go, you’re given just two modes to play. First is the Rhythm Game mode, where you just pick a song to play and the difficulty you’d like to play it at, then have at it. The other mode is exclusive to this Apple Arcade game. Story Mode takes you through a weird tale of Amigo and the Legendary Maraca trying to bring music back to the Earth. It takes the form of a series of missions that you’ll have to complete. Finish one and you’ll get some story and unlock the next. You’ll also earn coins and levels the same you will in Rhythm Game mode, and can use them to unlock cosmetic items for Amigo.

I like this Story Mode a lot better than the StreamiGo mode in Party Central. There’s less song repetition, and it’s less vague about what you need to do to succeed. The story itself is pretty… banal, to be kind. It makes use of some decent FMV cutscenes now and then, but for the most part it seems to be going for the vibe of an instant message conversation. Which is fine, except the characters are usually face to face. It’s filled with the kind of dialogue you just want to skip through, peppered with the occasional really good line. Well, at least we now have irrefutable evidence the monkey is in a romantic relationship with the puberty-gifted fairy. It’s a fun mode to play through, and I suppose that’s the bottom line.

The soundtrack is mostly similar to Party Central, with a nice mix of classics and contemporary music across a variety of genres. Not many songs from the original return, and it doesn’t seem like the DLC songs from the other game are in the list here. But you do get a few exclusive songs including tracks from PSY and Lady Gaga, and that’s cool. The tunes are definitely more general in their appeal than the first game’s soundtrack, but that’s fine. It means most people should be able to find at least a few songs they know, and will be able to learn some new ones, too. Win-win.

Samba de Amigo: Party-To-Go does not have maracas controllers. It does not attempt to replicate them, and even warns you not to shake or move your device. No, this game is entirely touch-based. The screen is divided into left and right and three different height levels. When the ball enters the circle, tap that side and height. When it tells you to pose, put your fingers in the right place. When it tells you to swing the maracas back and forth, slide your fingers back and forth. It’s certainly more accurate than the maracas or any motion controls would be, but it isn’t as fun. I also find some of the sliding motions and commands to be a bit unintuitive to pull off with touch controls. It feels like SEGA just tried to cram in everything Party Central does gameplay-wise into Party-To-Go, but not all of it works due to the differing input method.

Still, setting aside what it isn’t, Samba de Amigo: Party-To-Go is a decent enough rhythm game with really strong production values for the most part. It’s not quite as good as Apple Arcade stablemate Taiko no Tatsujin, but the music is good, the gameplay mechanics are fairly easy to grasp, and between the Story Mode and unlockables you certainly have a lot to do. At times it feels like something cobbled together with bits of another game, which it probably has been, but it sometimes feels like it’s doing its own thing too. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, there is controller support here. It works like the button controls in Party Central, mapping the positions to the sticks and buttons. I wouldn’t advise it.

I think the Story Mode and extra tunes in Samba de Amigo: Party-To-Go make it worth trying out for fans of the series even if they’ve already grabbed Party Central, but there’s no question this game loses something the further it moves away from the grace of the maracas controllers. If you don’t care about that, and there’s a very good chance you don’t, the only thing you really need to worry about here is that the demands of the note charts seem more tuned for console play than touch. You’ll have to really twist your fingers at times. Otherwise, it’s a decent game for its genre with a solid list of tracks to tap along to. Nothing remarkable, but good enough.

At first, finity carefully holds your hand. It shows you how you can slide rows and columns to match three or more colored blocks vertically or horizontally and clear them. But it soon presents its chief gimmick, which is that each move you make counts down all the pieces in play. The longer they sit there unmatched, the more of a problem they’ll become. First you will only be able to slide them horizontally or vertically, effectively locking the movement of a column or row. Leave them too long and they just won’t be able to be moved at all. You can work around one or two of these kinds of blocks, but each one sends you closer to your demise.

You have some ways of dealing with them, of course. And I don’t just mean by clearing them out, though that is obviously ideal. First, if you match four of one color, the remaining blocks of that color will have their “age" rewound by one turn. This is very, very important. You won’t get far if you aren’t doing this as consistently as you’re able to, though setting up those matches also represents a tough strategic choice. How many turns will it cost you to set up that match? Is it worth the result? Locking two blocks to unlock one would be silly.

Your other means of dealing with these blocks is to use a power-up. In the Classic Mode, each match you make will fill up a bit of a meter. When it fills up, you’ll earn a random power-up. It might allow you to rewind the “age" of a block of your choice, or perhaps paint a block with a different color. These can get you out of a dire situation, but you’ll earn them slowly enough during a game that you shouldn’t even think about relying on them. In the game’s other mode, Tempo, you won’t have access to them at all. The last refuge of the damned, basically.

Just when you think you’re fine with all of this, split color blocks are introduced. They can only be matched by lining up colors on the side that matches that color. After you match them, a block of the remaining color will stay behind. If you have a locked split color block, it’s a major mess to deal with. Every move is critical, and you have to put some serious thought into each of them. Provided you’re playing the mode that gives you time to think, anyway.

Time to talk about those two modes. Classic Mode sees you trying to work your way through an increasingly difficult set of ranks. The general flow sees you making matches until you fill up a bar, which puts you into level-up mode. Here you’ll have to make matches to generate special blocks, then match those blocks to advance to the next level. Doing so will rewind the remaining blocks and send you immediately into the next level, should the rank have one to offer. Finish all the levels for that rank and you’ll earn a nice new skin to play in, unlock new gameplay features, and open up the next rank to play. The first few ranks go really easy on you, but by the time you hit the midway point you’ll either have learned the proper way to play or stall out full-stop. At present, Classic Mode gives you nine ranks to play through.

Next, we’ve got Tempo Mode. Here you’ll choose a tune and then play the game with a few different rules. No power-ups, as mentioned. There’s also a line moving down the screen, and if it reaches the bottom it will age some of your blocks. You have to think fast here. On your initial plays of each song, your aim is to fill up a percentage meter until it hits 100%. Doing so will clear the stage and unlock unlimited play for that tune. In unlimited play, you’re simply trying to get the highest score you can before you fully lock out. While you won’t have power-ups, making consistent matches will fill up three hearts in the middle of the field. If you get completely locked out, one of those hearts will bravely sacrifice itself to get you out of your mess. It takes a while to fill one up, so don’t be too careless. The music builds as you play in this mode, which is pretty cool.

Speaking of the presentation, it’s terrific. The colors are used well, the interface is nice and clean, and everything is where you would expect it to be. It’s all very easy on the eyes but colorful enough to keep your attention. The audio is excellent. Good music to shift piece to in Tempo Mode, and it seems like more songs will be added, so I’m looking forward to hearing those. In Classic Mode, the game leaves it to the sound effects to carry the load. They lend the game the pleasing clicks, clacks, and boops you want to hear in a game like this, and if you get into a groove the effects almost sound musical on their own. The game also makes good use of haptics and vibration, giving the game a bit of a tactile feel without being too in your face.

finity is a slick puzzle game that has some serious bite to it. More casual players might find themselves turned off by that challenge, but I think there’s a lot of merit in the approach the game takes. The Classic Mode gives you all the time in the world to think and sort things out, and hopefully that will train you to better tackle the Tempo Mode and its higher pressure. Despite the difficulty, the rules are easy enough to grasp and make for lively rounds that are different every time. It’s certainly worth checking if you’re an experienced puzzle game fan, and you might enjoy it even if you aren’t.

In Luminaria, we follow the story of a little Bio-Drone who has stumbled across the planet Earth. This green, fertile planet once was host to a species known as humans, but something happened that seemingly drove them to extinction. The drone seeks out biological signatures of the departed and follows their memories of their last moments. It’s your job to guide the drone through this process. You get a few dozen stages spread across a few different mini-tales, with the last one bringing it all together and giving you some closure. While it isn’t the most original of tales, the plot did catch my interest as each little snippet was delivered. I don’t know that I loved the ending, but it was a decent bit of set dressing on the whole for a puzzle game.

So what is that puzzle game? It’s a little vague in some ways, but I’ll try to explain. You don’t control the drone. It just does laps around whatever shape or shadow it’s currently stuck to. By sliding your finger around the screen, you can move and stretch the shadows of the shapes on the screen. You need to manipulate the shadows and shapes to create a little square-shaped cul-de-sac in the right place, then make sure the drone goes into it. It’s pretty simple at first, and I was feeling early on that it was too simple, but as the game goes along it sprinkles in extra mechanics like having to match the drone’s color with the exit, blending lights to produce new colors, and so on. It’s a nice bit of progression that keeps you thinking, though the final mechanic irritated me a little. I’ll talk about that in a bit.

Beyond finding the exit, you can also find some hidden lights on each stage. They form a path, and if you can guide the drone along the path to scoop them up in one go, a word will flash on the screen. You need to do at least some of these to unlock the second and third episodes, though the game is fairly lenient with those restrictions as a whole. They mainly serve as an extra challenge to aim for if you want the game to last a little longer, which is a welcome addition. The words don’t really add much to the story, but some people might get more out of their presence than I did.

Luminaria is at its best when it’s asking you to use your reasoning skills to solve the puzzles in front of you. Which makes sense, as this is puzzle game, after all. How can I pick up the right color for my drone? How do I get from here to there? How do I block one lamp so that I don’t end up with a blended color? I enjoyed sorting these set-ups out and making my way to the properly-colored goal with the properly-colored drone. Most of the game is like this, thankfully.

Luminaria is at its worst when it wants you to react quickly over a series of moves. The bonus words can be vexing at times because the shadows move imprecisely and the drone sometimes just does what it wants when objects graze each other. But those aren’t mandatory for the most part, so you can just move on and come back later if you get frustrated. The final chapter introduces a new mechanic that requires you to haul your rear before things disappear. Its implementation in the final few puzzles is particularly annoying, demanding precision that the control sensitivity isn’t prepared to offer. That said, I’m not going to get too angry at a game for turning up the heat in its final stages. That’s how things go. Just be aware that it’s coming.

Presentation-wise, the game looks and sounds good. It’s pretty and soothing. Not designed to knock off your socks or anything like that. Just put you in the mood for some chill puzzle solving. Sure, you’re exploring a planet scouring the memories of a dead species, but it’s just your job. We’re far enough removed from it that we can relax and enjoy the puzzles, right? Right. And hey, who doesn’t like seeing shadows being cast? That’s just classic gamer soul food, there.

If you’re looking for something to play this weekend that doesn’t require a huge commitment of time or a lot of heavy thinking, Luminaria fits the bill nicely. I don’t know if it’s going to stick with me for very long now that I’ve finished it, but I certainly enjoyed my time with it. It irritated me at times and the story didn’t fully satisfy in the end, but overall it’s an interesting puzzler that will keep you busy on a lazy afternoon.

So, first of all, let’s talk about the roster. It mostly keeps the same characters, but it retires Carol the dodgeball girl and that one kid with the shield. In their place we get Rosa, a cool girl with a katana, and Kim, who wields a staff and has some mad Tae Kwon Do skills. He may or may not be related to the Kim we know and love from more famous SNK fighters. We also have a new final boss who is quite a bit cooler than the previous one. The rest of the bunch are essentially the same, but it’s impressive how swapping out a couple of the odder fighters for a pair of more grounded ones helps the roster feel more consistent overall. The backgrounds have also been reined in, with more thematically appropriate venues that actually feel like they’re from the same setting.

The mechanics have seen some heavy changes. The multi-plane fighting that served as the closest thing to a gimmick Savage Reign had has been tossed out entirely. It’s fully gone. The simple ranged weapon attack mapped to A + B is also gone, nixed in favor of more typical commands and special moves. One button uses your weapon, one button punches, and one button kicks. As to that fourth button, that’s where Kizuna Encounter gets interesting. You see, that fourth button allows you to tag in your partner character.

Let me hit you with a couple of release dates. Kizuna Encounter, released in arcades worldwide by SNK on September 20th, 1996. X-Men vs. Street Fighter, released in arcades in Japan by Capcom on September 25th, 1996. Both of these games introduced a feature that would become very popular in the genre in a hurry: tag team matches. Sure, the idea of having the player choose a team of fighters was well-established by this point, most famously in SNK’s King of Fighters series. But in those games, each character took their turn fighting. You couldn’t swap your characters on the fly mid-round. In Kizuna Encounter and X-Men vs. Street Fighter, you can. Check those dates. Kizuna did it first.

Kizuna Encounter also uses its tag system in a very interesting way. You can tag between your characters whenever you like, but you have to be in your tag zone. It’s basically the area where you begin each round. If you’re outside of that zone, you can’t tag in your partner. Further spice comes from the fact that if either of your fighters has their life bar diminished, the fight is over. No, the other character won’t jump in and continue the fight. So you have two full life bars to work with, but you have to juggle them to get the most out of them. On the other hand, if you can dominate your opponent and keep them away from their tag zone, you only have one life bar to whittle down. This… is a very intriguing hook. Wow, the sequel to Savage Reign has a solid hook!

I wonder if the developers understood at the time how ubiquitous this mechanic would become, albeit with a few tweaks? Probably not. But here we are, looking back almost thirty years later, and this game feels pretty darned good to play. That the tag zone element didn’t catch on serves to give this game a distinct flavor that helps it rise above a lot of its contemporaries. No, it doesn’t have Wolverine in it. I will admit that is a notable disadvantage versus the other tag-team fighter that came out that week. But when you compare it to Savage Reign, it’s frankly incredible how much of a glow-up Kizuna Encounter is.

As a cherry on top of all of this for mobile players, this is actually rather enjoyable to play in single player. The CPU isn’t too nasty, at least until you get to the last boss, so you can enjoy giving them a thrashing with the various characters when you have a spare minute or two. This is important because as usual you are probably not going to have the right set-up to enjoy this mobile version in multiplayer. You’ll need external controllers and some sort of means of displaying the game for both players. You know, unless you want to snuggle up around your iPhone screen. So yes, you’ll probably be flying solo and taking on the CPU opponents.

Time for the rest of the usual comments. As mentioned, you can use an external controller and it’s definitely the way to play. Hook up your Backbone or Kishi and you’ll be whipping out those special moves no problem. The touch controls are a bit harder to deal with, but Kizuna Encounter isn’t a game that relies heavily on fancy chains of moves or combos, so there are worse choices. The usual extra modes are here, along with all of the gameplay, video, and control options we’ve seen in the other ACA NEOGEO releases. The Score Attack and Caravan modes are an alright fit here, allowing you to jostle on the leaderboards if enough other players show up to the party.

With all the usual provisos about ACA NEOGEO mobile versions of fighting games in mind, I kind of dig Kizuna Encounter. I think you’re better off enjoying it on a platform where you can indulge in the multiplayer mode, but taking it for what it is, I can think of worse ways to blow a few bucks on a mobile game. It’s one of those NEOGEO games that I think a lot of people missed, and I would say that it holds up rather well for a game of its vintage thanks to that enjoyable tag team feature. If you don’t mind being essentially locked to single-player in a one-on-one fighter, give Kizuna Encounter a look.

Well, less common than spaceships or military craft, I guess. Fans of the genre will be more than a little familiar with the Touhou Project shooters, which opt for cute characters instead of deadly craft. Bullet Hell Heroes openly admits its inspiration from those games, and it’s not as though it’s alone in that. This game offers up a whopping twenty-five different heroes to use, each with their own shot and special move. Sure, there’s a shrine maiden in there, but you also get more typical RPG-style heroes to round things out. There’s a good variety here, and it’s fun trying to find the heroes that fit your play style best.

But a hero shouldn’t set out alone, right? In this game, you don’t just choose one hero for the quest. At first you can bring three with you, with additional slots available via IAPs. These effectively function as extra lives. If your first hero is shot down, the next one will jump in. Run out of heroes and you fail the quest. It’s up to you how you want to build your team, but there isn’t a whole lot of strategizing since the means of swapping characters is to kill the current one. It mostly comes down to whether you want to put your strongest character first or last. Well, that’s not nothing.

The controls work as you would expect if you’ve played any mobile shooters in the last decade or so. Drag your finger around to move your character, and tap a second finger down to use your character’s special move. You can only do that if you have sufficient MP, of course. Each hero starts off with a full MP bar and the amount consumed depends on the move. You can rebuild MP by grazing shots, nudging you towards that popular mechanic. If you’re bold, you can tee up your special moves at a surprisingly steady pace, and that’s always fun. Since your MP bar caps out, you can’t stockpile too many of these moves, which encourages you to use them instead of just trying to hoard them for the boss battles. Oh, I should also mention that if you have an external controller, the game offers support for that. Either method works fine.

There are more than twenty different quests to play, each one consisting of a short stage followed by a multi-stage boss battle. While the stages aren’t anything special, I do appreciate that the game isn’t just a series of boss fights. I like to have that little warm-up before the main event, so to speak. The boss battles are naturally the stars of the show, and each one of them is a blast to tackle. They all have their own patterns that can often surprise you, keeping you on your toes as you whittle down their life bars. You can play each of the quests at five different difficulty levels, though you’ll have to earn the right to play the two highest ones. There are also Boss Rush stages to challenge if you’re looking for more to do, adding up to a rather substantial amount of content all-up.

Since I’ve briefly mentioned the topic of unlocking, let’s talk about how everything works in that regard here. At the start of the game, you have access to three heroes. The rest of them are all locked, and the means of gaining access to them varies. Some require you to beat a specific number of quests at certain difficulty levels. Some are bought with the money you collect by playing stages and checking off the game’s achievements. Almost half of them are bought with real money via IAPs, selling for a couple of bucks each. If you’re unlocking the non-IAP characters legit, you’ve got a bit of a task ahead of you, but it’s one that gives the game a solid sense of purpose and a pleasing trickle of new things to try. I kind of like that set-up. That said, even once you have the heroes there are lots of ways to spend your in-game cash. Each hero can be upgraded in various ways, and it will take a lot of playing to max out everyone.

Alright, let’s talk about the monetization. Dirty business, but when a game is free to download and play there has to be some way to pay the developer’s air conditioning bills. First up, there are ads. Unskippable ones, and they’re fairly frequent. The game will compensate you for watching them, but they can be annoying. Drop four bucks and they’re gone forever, with an additional hero slot and a coin doubler thrown in for your pleasure. There’s an IAP you can buy for a couple of dollars for an extra hero slot, and it’s available to buy twice. You can pay a couple of bucks for a ton of coins, and that’s available to buy as many times as you like. Finally, there’s an IAP you can pick up for four bucks that unlocks every hero in the game. Don’t buy those individual hero unlocks, in other words.

If you want to fully unlock everything in Bullet Hell Heroes, you’re looking at spending a rather reasonable twelve American dollars. I think the quality of the game supports that price, and you can certainly get by with one or two IAPs if you feel like it. Heck, you can get by with none of them if you don’t mind ads and the idea of missing out on heroes. But I do want to talk about that IAP that unlocks all of the heroes, because I think it’s in a weird place. It really does unlock all of the heroes, including the ones you would normally get by completing certain objectives and spending coins. That takes some of the fun out of the meta progression, in my opinion, so I think you’re almost better off waiting until you’ve unlocked the non-IAP heroes before buying this one. There are a lot of wrong ways to spend your money with this game, and that isn’t something you want to worry about while trying to enjoy a game.

Sigh, two paragraphs on monetization. Well, hopefully that’s all properly explained now. I should stress that the game itself is well-made and a lot of fun. I like that the developer went to the trouble of making backgrounds and pixel art monsters, heroes, and so on to fill things out instead of just going with simple shapes. Not that I mind that kind of thing, but it’s cool to see some non-abstract visuals now and then. I liked experimenting with various “parties" of heroes, and some of the special moves are quite unique and interesting to find a use for. There is a lot of stuff packed in here, and it’s all of very good quality. I think any fan of bullet hell shooters will be more than happy with what Bullet Hell Heroes has to offer. Just make sure you shop responsibly when it comes to those IAPs.

While this review will focus on Remnant 2 on Steam Deck and the PC port, I wanted to also cover why I love Remnant 2 so far. It feels like a huge improvement over the first game and I hope more games take inspiration from its co-op setup. Playing with friends is super simple in Remnant 2, and it is something I hope other developers take inspiration from for their own co-op systems. Remnant 2 itself is a big upgrade visually, in its music, and variety. The post-launch updates are changing up things already, but I can safely recommend Remnant 2 if you enjoyed the first game or if you just want to try a polished blend of third-person shooters and soulslikes. It also keeps things fresh making multiple playthroughs fun with how much changes, and how much customization is available.

I’ve included a screenshot of the Remnant 2 Steam graphics options, but I set everything to low on Steam Deck and opted for Intel XeSS upscaling set to performance. AMD’s FSR in Remnant 2 is not good at all. With everything set to low, 720p (or lower while testing), and Intel XeSS, I could get the game to run at 30fps with some drops. This varies a lot based on the location you’re in. Dense areas aren’t terrible, but things become hard to see. Around launch day, these settings resulted in multiple drops into the low 20s or even below regardless of the location, so the current state is an improvement, albeit a small one. For a Steam Deck Verified game around launch, Remnant 2 needs more optimization. Given how it runs on consoles with a low internal resolution, I’m not surprised though.

While discussing Remnant 2 Steam Deck performance, I want to emphasize how much better the overall experience is right now versus day one. Not only does Steam Cloud work now, the game is actually playable online with friends. I couldn’t get online co-op to work at all until a recent patch. One thing to note about patches is that it takes a while to actually patch the game once said patch downloads. I wanted to see how Remnant 2 on Steam Deck would feel on the SD card, and I installed it to my Sandisk Extreme card. Patches still take an hour or so to install. Keep that in mind.

The more I played Remnant 2, the more I enjoyed it even on Steam Deck. This is a game I see myself replaying for a while thanks to the different builds possible even from the start. It did make me wonder about recommending Remnant 2 specifically to someone on Steam Deck and not something else. When I do Steam Deck reviews, I aim to try and help many potential buyers figure out if something is worth it or not on Steam Deck. In this case, I absolutely recommend Remnant 2 on Steam Deck with the big caveat about its visual cutbacks to get a decent frame rate. As an addition to your main PC where it likely runs better, Remnant 2 will be great to quickly dip in and out for sessions where you do a small area or just play with friends for a bit.

Remnant 2 on Steam Deck offers the ability to use gyro controls thanks to Steam Input. This is not available on either console as far as I’m aware, which is a big advantage for the game on Steam in general. It made going back to the Xbox Series X version harder since aiming is worse there without gyro. Steam Input continues to impress, and after some tweaking and getting used to the visual cutbacks, Remnant 2 feels right at home on Steam Deck. The ability to play on the go is also a bonus for the Steam Deck since there is no Switch port, and I don’t see Remnant 2 hitting the current Switch. It might be a good game for the next Switch though.

Over the last few months games like Sony’s The Last of Us Part I being a mess on PC and not great on Steam Deck even today made me question Valve’s Steam Deck Verified program. When Remnant 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3 got Verified, you’d assume they run fine and don’t have issues. Remnant 2 right now runs a lot better than it did when it was branded Verified by Valve. I think it still shouldn’t be marked as Verified though. Valve should make developers implement a good default graphics preset for Steam Deck for something to be Verified.

A lot of this review talking about compromises reminds me of when I write about demanding games getting Switch ports. I feel like we are getting close to that stage for games that only release on current generation consoles with their own visual cutbacks to run at a good frame rate on those more powerful systems. Remnant 2 definitely got me to think about how certain upcoming games might be on Steam Deck.

Right now, I’d recommend Remnant 2 itself for sure. I love the gameplay, co-op, soundtrack, and improvements over the first game. I do not love the visual downgrade to get it running decently on Steam Deck though. Since it is Steam Deck Verified, Valve likely wants people to buy it to play on Steam Deck, but just be prepared for some tinkering to get it running at an acceptable frame rate. I featured Remnant 2 as one of the best new games to play on Steam Deck in 2023, and I’m expecting it to be on my end of year list as well. While I’ll stick to the Xbox Series X version for my main playthrough, I’m looking forward to checking out the DLC and playing more with friends on Steam Deck in the coming weeks. Hopefully Gunfire Games can optimize it further for Steam Deck soon.

Remnant 2 Steam Deck Score: 4/5

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Just a couple of years before the launch of this epic generation of handhelds, another major event went down. SEGA, having had its latest console’s clock thoroughly cleaned by the PlayStation 2 (a fate it would not suffer alone), decided to drop out of the hardware business and shift to being a third party. A pivotal time for the company, and one that would see a number of its key developers depart the company for various destinations. One such person was Tetsuya Mizuguchi, the producer of games like SEGA Rally Championship, Space Channel 5, and Rez. At the time a relatively young producer, he was fond of sick dance beats and raver culture, aspects that he had increasingly been incorporating in his projects.

When he left SEGA, he decided to start up his own independent company with a number of other former SEGA developers. Named Q Entertainment, its first order of business was to develop a puzzle game for each of the upcoming handhelds. Not the same one, either. Each handheld would get its own unique game from top to bottom. For the PlayStation Portable, Q Entertainment made Lumines, a rhythm-focused falling block puzzler that saw players rotating and placing pieces to match colors as the screen removed them based on the tempo of the constantly-changing music. The Nintendo DS received Meteos, a very unique puzzler designed by Masahiro Sakurai (Kirby and Smash Bros. creator) that used touch controls to manipulate falling blocks to make matches, which would send them rocketing into the sky and, if they had enough lift, clearing them.

Both fine games, and both did quite well. One did a lot better than the other, however, and to the victor go the spoils. Lumines received several sequels and a handful of ports, and can easily be bought on modern platforms today. As for Meteos? A somewhat ill-conceived sequel knocked it off the rails almost immediately, and it received only a couple more releases of any kind before effectively falling off the map from 2010 on. And look, I love Lumines. But I also love Meteos, and I’ve been hoping for it to make a comeback of any kind for a very, very long time. Preferably in a form closer to the original than that sequel.

Well, I don’t know if Meteos is ever coming back. And clearly, I’m not the only one who misses it. Developer Drew Smith has more initiative than I do, because he seems to have gotten tired of waiting and just went out and made his own Meteos. I’m not going to sugar-coat things too much here. Gravitas! wholesale borrows its mechanics from the original Meteos, almost to a tee. Each Phase sees you trying to send a set number of blocks off the top of the screen within a certain amount of time. You can slide pieces up and down each column (and not left and right), and matching three or more of the same pieces either vertically or horizontally will send all affiliated columns into the sky. How high? It depends on the gravity of the phase, whether the match was horizontal or vertical, and how many combos you have rolling.

Blocks will fall in one by one from the top, and sometimes you’ll get some power-ups in the mix. Send them off the top of the screen to activate them. There are also some garbage blocks, but they can be turned into normal pieces, often triggering a match when they change. Horizontal matches don’t get as much lift as vertical ones, and in theory this is your opportunity to make a combo by making further matches on the elevated pieces. This is a staple of Meteos, and it’s one of the ways where Gravitas! doesn’t quite hit the mark. It’s a real pain to make a match on those flying columns, and it ties into perhaps the biggest problem with the game on the whole: the fiddly controls on phones.

I’m not sure what the game can do about it, really. But I’m not here to fix issues, I just point them out. Anyway, the combination of the small blocks, relatively small display, and my chunky fingers means that it’s a little tricky to get the piece I want to go where I want it on iPhone. It often takes a few tries, and that can be fatal in the more difficult stages. It’s also what makes it hard for me to nail those floating combos. If I can’t move pieces accurately on a stable column, I have little hope of doing so on a moving one. Again, I don’t know how the developer could make this better, but I hope they can because I really like the game otherwise. Playing on the iPad is much more comfortable, and the game plays really well with the Pencil if you have it.

Like in Meteos, each Phase has a style of its own. The pieces look different, the background looks different, the music is different, and the gravity also changes. What impresses me here is that the overall look and feel is very “Q Entertainment"-core, if that makes sense. Sometimes more Lumines than Meteos, but always on point. It’s not quite as polished as something we would see from Mizuguchi and company, which is the main giveaway. But it looks and sounds really good, and some of the themed pieces are very amusing if a little hard to distinguish.

The main game consists of 20 Phases, and the difficulty curve is nice and smooth. Sweet at the beginning, very spicy by the end. You can also do a Quick Play, which lets you choose your favorite theme, how many blocks you need to clear and the amount of time you have to do it, and the difficulty level. A Marathon mode challenges you to keep playing as long as you can, with the difficulty rising as you go. Vs Match lets you play against another human player via local wireless or online (Hamster, take notes). That mode is very fun because the blocks you send off your screen end up cluttering theirs. Finally, your prize for beating all of the Phases of the main game is the Grav-Lab mode, which gives you the ability to play with whatever level of gravity you like. Neat.

Apart from the control issues and some minor roughness in the UI, I don’t have a lot of negative things to say about Gravitas!. I did have a crash here and there, which was disappointing, but the games are so quick that it isn’t really a huge loss on the rare occasions it happens. I’d love more Phases to play, but that’s just me wanting more of something I enjoyed a fair bit. If you’re playing on iPhone, it’s really going to come down to whether or not the developer can make those controls work better. As it is, I have to recommend it with the heavy caveat that you might have to deal with the frustration of frequent missed matches, and not being able to do much reliable comboing with the floating pieces due to the lack of accuracy is a bummer. Again, if you’re on iPad you’ll probably be fine.

Gravitas! is heavily inspired by Meteos, there’s no getting around that. But considering how much of Meteos was wrapped up in a very distinct style, it’s amazing just how close this game gets to evoking the same feelings as that classic. Given the low price of entry, anyone who misses Meteos would do well to pick this up on whatever device they own despite the control difficulties. General puzzle fans might want to give it a go too. It’s a couple of solid fixes away from a strong recommendation across the board, but I’m willing to invest in that hope.

There isn’t a whole lot of juicy history behind this game. SNK scored a strong hit with the original King of the Monsters in early 1991, at a time when the company needed all the success it could get. So yes, of course we get a sequel. King of the Monsters 2 arrived in early 1992, and it made a few changes to the gameplay seen in the previous game. The original King of the Monsters was basically a wrestling game with an interesting theme. You would choose one of several monsters and then battle the rest of them, one at a time, in stages set in various Japanese cities. Then you do it again, and that’s the single-player game. Grab a friend for one on one fun and you’ve got a pretty enjoyable bit of arcade diversion.

One of the fun things about the original game was how the arenas were cities that were slowly destroyed over the course of the match. It really made you feel like you were a giant monster, and a person couldn’t help but want more of that. Well, how lucky we are! King of the Monsters 2 gives you some room to stretch your legs, such as they are. Each stage still culminates in a one-on-one battle, but before that match-up you’ll wander through short stages, swatting down airplanes or aliens, smashing bridges and buildings, and collecting power-ups. There are more power-ups this time around, and each of the monsters can level up a couple of times. They get access to more special moves when they do, along with stat and health buffs. It’s in your interest to smash everything and try to find those power-ups, but be careful not to grab the bad ones.

This is a good time to talk about the monsters. The playable roster has been significantly trimmed down this time. There are only three monsters to choose from. The Godzilla-like Geon is here in mutated form, the King Kong-like Woo has powered up into Cyber Woo, and the Ultraman-like Astro Guy is here in a slightly modified suit. These, apparently, are the only survivors of the original monster wars as chronicled in the first game. Yes, there’s a story. That’s half of it right there. The other half is that aliens have invaded so these three remaining kaiju are tasked with stopping it. Let them fight, and all that. Don’t worry about a potential lack of creative creature designs though, as you’ll get to see plenty of other monsters as you make your way through the game.

There are no pin falls this time. There’s still a lot of wrestling DNA in King of the Monsters 2, as you will regularly get involved in grapple fights with the boss creatures. But your goal this time is to whittle their life meter down to zero, at which point they’ll go kaboom. There are no electrical power lines serving as ropes to whip them into this time, and the game broadly feels more like a beat-em-up as a result. A beat-em-up whose stage-to-boss ratio of time spent is very different from most others, but a beat-em-up nonetheless. Some may lament this change, and I do think it’s swings and roundabouts if we’re talking about playing the games in normal conditions.

We’re not, though. This review is about the mobile version, and we have to take a few things into account. First, while players certainly can make use of an external controller, it’s more likely that they’ll be using touch controls. Next, while players technically can play in multiplayer via extra controllers and some sort of decent-sized display, it’s more likely that they’ll be playing alone. I personally find the first game’s more pure wrestling approach to be more fun in multiplayer. It’s less random, the whole tug-of-war of trying to pin the opponent is interesting, and there are more characters to choose from.

But King of the Monsters 2 is, I feel, considerably more satisfying than the first when it comes to single-player. The opponents are more varied in their forms and attacks since the game doesn’t need to consider how a human will control them. Traveling through the stages smashing things and swatting lesser enemies is enjoyable and helps set the stage. Chucking buildings can feel cheap in multiplayer matches, but as a single-player feature it’s awesome. The random power-ups (and power-downs) are more tolerable when they aren’t messing up an otherwise interesting battle between two human players. The locations are a lot more varied in setting, too. That’s important when you’re playing alone, because it helps ward off repetition. There’s a proper final boss here as well, and it’s a real SNK sonofagun.

What I’m trying to say here is that for the purposes of most mobile players, King of the Monsters 2 is a considerably better experience than the first. There’s even a good ending and bad ending, encouraging further replays. It feels less like you’re playing a multiplayer game against the CPU and more like you’re playing a normal game meant for one player to have a good time with first and foremost. Some of the controls can be a little trickier with the virtual buttons so there is still a benefit to using an external controller if you have one. Still, even with touch controls it is a hoot to fire the game up and smash your way through a few aliens and landmarks. You can save whenever you need to, so feel free to break the game down into as many sessions as you need. It’s a cheap game that likes to milk you for as many coins as it can, but you have all you need.

This game is also a good one for the usual extra modes Hamster includes in all of these releases. There are lots of opportunities for variable scoring here, and you can also go faster or slower through the stages to an extent. That means both Score Attack and the timed Caravan modes work very well, provided the leaderboards are active. Even trying to better your own scores adds some value to the game. All the other usual options are here, of course. Game settings, video and audio settings, and control settings are all here. The only thing missing is an option for online or wireless multiplayer, and no I am never letting that particular bone go.

I knew going into this what the result would be, more or less, but I can happily recommend King of the Monsters 2 in its mobile form to anyone looking for some arcade action. For what it is, it holds up really well. The graphics still look good, the game plays well, and there just aren’t a whole ton of good kaiju brawlers out there even now. The single-player mode is enjoyable to bash your way through, and with three characters and lots of variability, it stays surprisingly fresh on multiple playthroughs. All in all, a good addition to the ACA NEOGEO mobile line-up.

As the title says, this game drops you in the role of a gladiator manager. It’s ancient Rome, the days where people would fight ferocious beasts or each other for the entertainment of the masses. You choose your nationality, each conveying a particular benefit, and head into the virtual lion’s den that is the world of gladiator management. You start with some funds and the basic necessities like a training ludus and a couple of slaves to work on your estate. Your first order of business is to head to the market and pick up your first gladiator. Grab him a weapon too, while you’re at it.

Broadly speaking, your goal in this game is to enter your gladiators into tournaments to win fortune and fame, increase your standing, and wipe out your rivals. The game is played week by week, with your actions mainly limited by the number of active gladiators you have on your roster and how much money you have left. You can buy slaves to perform various tasks on your estate, upgrade your facilities, attempt to sabotage your rivals in various ways, and enter your gladiators in whatever tournaments are available. The longer you play, the more your options open up. While it’s initially a very straightforward affair, you’ll soon find yourself having to deal with all manner of matters.

Since you’re just the gladiator manager and not the gladiator, all you can really do during the battles is watch things play out. Before each round, you’ll get some information about how fair of a match-up it is. If things look a little dire, you can always bribe the guards to “forget" to unlock the opponent’s chains, or accidentally leave the door open to the lion cage, and so on. If you’ve got money and influence, you can get away with an awful lot. Victories will grant you money and more influence, while your participating gladiators will gain fame. Lose, and at best you go home with a bruised ego. At worst, your gladiator could be injured or killed. And don’t forget: your rivals can cheat just the same way you can.

Between battles and during the passage of time, random events will pop up. You’ll have to make a choice, with some only available if your status is at a certain level. It’s often a matter of losing resources (money or slaves) or influence, but you’ll also have a chance to earn money, pick up new gladiators, or get more slaves. While these aren’t the most complicated of affairs, their presence reminds me a bit of The King of Dragon Pass. That’s a good thing. When I first fired this game up, I was expecting at best something along the lines of Monster Rancher, but as the strategic layers continued to be revealed I found myself more and more impressed at just how much there was here.

The game does its best to at least get you off on the right foot. It will present you with objectives when you start a new game, and if you follow them you’ll more or less find your feet before long. Completing them can even reward you with gems, which are the only way the game monetizes. Gems can be used to buy a variety of things, including new weapons, tournaments, events, and more. If you manage to finish every achievement in the game, you’ll get enough free gems to buy just about everything on offer. If you want to finish out picking up those remaining things or simply want to get the jump on acquiring things, you can buy gem packs for $3.99 and $7.99. You get a whole lot of game here without dropping a single cent, so you could almost see a gem pack purchase as a tip to the developer if you’re inclined to.

Anyway, that’s how it is. Back to the game. Gladiator Manager is a game of momentum. When you’re winning, it’s a lot easier to keep on winning. You can afford all those upgrades to your compound, opening your options and keeping your gladiators happy, healthy, and well-trained. You can pay for more slaves to increase your income or guard your gladiators. You can afford those bribes during tournaments and weather those random events more easily. Your influence will also keep going up, allowing you to exert your power in other ways. But you’re not invincible. All it takes is one bout of bad luck and the whole operation might shift gears into reverse.

Yes, when you start losing it quickly becomes a downward spiral. Not only will you earn less and see your influence wane, but your gladiators will get injured and their loyalty will decrease. You’ll have less money to fix things, and random events can force you to send injured gladiators into combat, making things worse. You might eventually end up with no gladiators due to death or abandonment, and if you have no money to hire a new one you’ll simply have to drag one of your slaves up to join the active roster. Eventually you’ll run out of funds, then influence, and that’s pretty much it. Head back to the title screen and try again.

But you know what? Even losing is kind of fun in Gladiator Manager. One of the ways it really calls The King of Dragon Pass to mind is in how each playthrough feels like a unique story. There are just enough variables and random happenings in the game that it takes a very long time for any two playthroughs to feel the same. That’s a good thing, because you’ll probably have at least one or two skunky runs while you’re still learning how things work. The amusing series of events that can lead to your end makes it easy to forgive the game and fire up another run right away.

With all that said, there are some rough edges here. The UI has some sloppy bits, and sometimes text will spill out of the boxes. While the game does a decent job of teaching you the basics, some of the more advanced features aren’t as well-explained. There are bugs now and then, with things not activating properly or the flow of events playing out in a weird way. I will say that the developer seems very attentive and has been updating the game very frequently, so I expect the game to keep on improving as time passes. This review is mainly where things are at this very specific point in time. I can’t give bonus points for potential futures, so keep that in mind if you’re reading it after a month or two of updates.

Ultimately, I think Gladiator Manager is pretty neat. It doesn’t cost you anything to download the game and see a great deal of what it has to offer, and if you have any love of management sims or strategy games I think trying it out is a very cheap gamble with a potentially high pay-off. It’s not as simple as it initially seems, and learning how all of its various bits work and how to put them to work for you manages to tickle the ol’ brain muscle just the right way. Give it a shot, but be careful about trusting that Flamma fellow. He’s a rude boy.

SNK wasn’t exactly known for racing games, and I don’t think the NEOGEO ended up changing that perception much. I’m not sure if it was because the hardware was ill-equipped to keep pace with the powerful units SEGA and NAMCO were pushing into the arcade space, or if SNK just felt like they couldn’t really keep up with the competition in a design sense, but we ended up seeing just six racers on the console/arcade hybrid. That’s counting two horse racing games, too. Thrash Rally was the first racer on the system where players controlled cars, and the only top-down one.

The choice to do a top-down racer at this point in time was an interesting one. While this particular branch of the racing genre was still fairly successful on consoles, the more spectacle-heavy arcade scene had long since ditched them in favor of behind-the-back vanishing horizon games. Indeed, we were only a year away from the complete and utter game changer that was SEGA’s Virtua Racing. Even with a bit of scaling thrown in for spice, Thrash Rally looked a bit unimpressive for an arcade game of its vintage.

I guess this kind of gets to the elephant in the corner of the NEOGEO room. As a home console, the NEOGEO was considerably more powerful than anything else you could find at the time. It wasn’t even close. But as arcade hardware went? It was fine, but one of its big selling points for arcade operators was in how affordable it was. It was reasonably priced, generalized hardware that was built to handle a wide variety of experiences. It couldn’t and wouldn’t compete on a power level with more specialized, expensive hardware kits. It had its strengths, of course. When it played to them, the games could have a fair bit of razzle-dazzle. But there was only so much it could do, and each passing year dated the hardware further. The long life of the system must be credited to SNK and its various developers’ art, music, and game design talent. Well, that’s my opinion anyway.

A lot of the games in the early years of the system were trying to puff up its power. The later years came off like SNK was trying to show it could still hang with the competition. But I think if we look at the gooey, delicious middle years, we can find a comfortable groove for its software where it isn’t trying to put up any pretenses and is just enjoying itself. Thrash Rally was an early runner in that field, to me. It looks good for a top-down racer, for whatever that is worth, but it succeeds on its gameplay merits more than anything. I would go so far as to say that it’s a more enjoyable racer than its spiritual follow-up, despite that game having a considerably more gorgeous look.

Thrash Rally is a rally racer where you use your choice of several vehicles and challenge one of two different rally championships. While there aren’t any official licenses in play, everything is very nudge-nudge-wink-wink. That’s particularly the case if you play the Japanese version of the game, where the cars have names like the Toyot GT-Four, Parsche 911, and the Lancian Deleta. The two rally championships are themselves loosely based on the real-life 1992 World Rally Championship and Paris-Cape Town Dakar Rally. You can pick from six cars for the former, which consists of five separate races taking you from Monte Carlo to the United Kingdom. The latter gives you an additional three vehicles to choose from, and it’s just one long race from France to Cape Town.

The game leans more on the arcade side of things to say the least, but you do have to take the terrain into account and learn when to brake and when to gun it. Your choice of car is very important, as each of them have their own parameters that will affect how you have to race. I like the not-Porsche, but I recommend trying them all to see which one fits you best. Unlike a real rally race, there are other drivers on the track with you and you are indeed racing against them. Well, some of them. Some of them are just there to populate the track and get in the way a little. Collision is very loose here, in favor of the player. You’ll often just blaze right through cars in your path, leaving a wreck behind you. You’ll want to aim to get first in every race, but as long as you don’t run out of time you can keep going.

Yes, this is pretty normal as arcade racers go in that you’re up against a clock, an opponent far more nefarious than any competing car. You have to reach each checkpoint before the clock runs out. If at any point you fail to do this, you’re out. You can insert a credit to continue, at least. It’s a solid challenge, especially while you’re getting a feel for the cars and tracks. You can modify the difficulty as usual via the options menu, so you can scale it up or down as needed. Perhaps more useful is the presence of online leaderboards, which allows you to compete with other players’ times. You also get the usual Caravan and Score Attack modes, which are particularly challenging in this game.

You can play the game with an external controller if you have one, but the multiplayer option isn’t available here at all due to it requiring the rarely-used link cable. Touch controls work reasonably well for this game, as it only uses two buttons. Accelerate, brake. Use the virtual stick to steer. Almost as easy as it gets, and it’s more than doable via touch controls. It’s always nice when one of these games plays nicely with touch, and I find myself more encouraged to recommend those that do.

Thrash Rally might not have the graphical sizzle of other racers on the console, but in terms of sheer playability it may well be near the top of the small pack. It fits mobile very well, and whether you’re playing with an external controller or touch controls there is plenty of fun to be had here. It’s kind of funny how top-down racers are probably more acceptable in today’s market than they probably were back in 1991. Well, whatever. If you like top-down racers, pick this one up. You’re not likely to regret it.

I didn’t really drill in on it very much in the Zoo Park Story review because I couldn’t be too sure based on one game, but I feel safe saying this now: Kairosoft games have gotten more complicated, and I’m not sure if they’ve done so in a good way or not. While the overall structure and look of Kairosoft’s simulation games is almost the same as it was over a decade ago, they’re much more cluttered at a granular level. I think I understand the intention. People were getting a little tired of the old formula (formulae, I should probably say – Kairosoft has a few different archetypes it likes to work with), so the developer kept adding more things for players to engage with.

I’m sure if I had come at it little by little over the course of many games, it wouldn’t be as striking. But I didn’t, so all the different currencies, ranks, dialogue boxes, and sub-systems are a lot to take in sometimes. The UI also feels a little busy as a result of having to keep track of all of this. It feels like I have to dive into the menus for ten different things at any given moment, and again I am not sure if it’s a good thing or not. I can at least say it is not as chill of a game to play as, say, Hot Springs Story. You have to keep a lot of plates spinning. Well, I mean, not really. It’s a Kairosoft game. You can’t really lose unless you’re trying to, and even then it’s pretty hard. But if you want to top those rankings and play optimally, there’s a lot to take care of.

All that said, this is still a familiar affair. I’ve always been fond of this particular branch of the Kairosoft sim. You’re building a town, trying to attract residents, tourists, and new businesses. Placing certain buildings next to others can create special synergies, and increase the value of all involved. More value means more money coming in, which means you have more to spend on improvements to your town. Over time you’re able to expand the space you have to work with, and you can actually get a reasonably bustling little place going after a while. Maybe you can even reach the top rankings, if you play your cards right. There are three different starting maps to choose from, and I think replaying the game on each of them offers a reasonable amount of variety.

Part of the game involves developing your citizens, who will come to the town and maybe decide to stay if you have an empty lot and they like what they see. They each have their own stats, and will develop their own interests. They might even befriend each other. As you open businesses, they’ll get jobs there. Some might work out of town if they need more money than the local opportunities provide. As they go about their lives they’ll make you money but also generate some of the other currencies. You’ll need a healthy supply of all of those to fully build out your town. Oh, and they can enter contests too. They might get a rank up if they win. You can drop consumable items of them to improve their stats if you feel like doing things in a less natural way.

Items can also be applied to the various buildings and structures you lay about the town. Those places aren’t available immediately, of course. You’ll have to research for some of them, which costs money. Others will require negotiation, which involves a town person and spending a lot of your different currencies. Successfully woo a business and you’ll get the opportunity to build locations in your town and even buy stock in the company. You can also research other things, like new citizens or special programs. You should always be researching something if you have the means to do so.

Basically, it goes like this. Attract new citizens. Develop your town by placing buildings and other structures. Develop the citizens through those buildings and the items they provide. Use the citizens to bring in new businesses and pass new programs. Place more buildings and structures. Upgrade your citizens enough to win contests, which will rank them up, allowing them to pull in more businesses and such. Oh, and don’t forget to buy stock and grow vegetables and run job interviews and…

I don’t know, it’s all so complicated that it’s actually a bit hard to explain everything properly in a review format. Complicated but not complex. I’d like to say that if you play it, things will all go smoothly, but it can sometimes be just as overwhelming in-game. Luckily, it’s a Kairosoft game so you can sort of take your time doing things, knowing that it’s not going to punish you too harshly for not doing everything just right. And once you get in the groove, it’s certainly quite pleasing to see things growing. The visuals look cute as usual, even if it’s all fairly old hat by this point. I like how all the little buildings look in particular. I will say I’m getting a bit tired of the circa-Windows XP UI, but I suppose if it isn’t broken, why fix it?

Wow, this review seems more negative than I really feel about the game. The reality of it is, despite all of the additional cruft here compared to earlier Kairosoft games, this is still the developer doing its usual shtick. It’s hard to believe that with so many games under its belt, Kairosoft has changed so little. Extra bits bolted and stapled on, but certainly not in an elegant way. This is Oh! Edo Towns with a few new accessories. And yet, I had a really good time playing through it. I think this actually is a case where an extended break has allowed me to enjoy the same old thing. It didn’t work for me with Zoo Park Story, but it seems to have done the trick here.

If, like me, you’ve been off the Kairosoft wagon for a while, you might enjoy the familiar yet expanded take on the developer’s usual town builder formula found in Dream Town Island. If you’ve been on the wagon all along, you probably already bought this and finished it. And, as usual, if you’ve never played a Kairosoft game before, your first one will be amazing. Maybe that will be this one. It’s a bit busy for its own good and I think the design isn’t nearly as tight thanks to all of the added systems, but it’s certainly engaging and pleasant to dig into.

I’ll cut to the chase. Jet Dragon is a horse racing simulator, more or less. You might look at the screenshots and think you’re in for some thrilling aerial races, but let me assure you that the racing in this game is patterned after the usual horse racing games that were really popular in Japan back in the day. Your main job while racing is to tap the screen to make your dragon boost. This uses some of their stamina, and if you’re out of stamina you won’t be able to boost anymore until you replenish it by passing through rings along the course. Frankly, you’ve either got the stats to win or you don’t, but knowing when to boost and when to chill is also of some importance. You can also use abilities if your dragon has them and you’ve got the stamina, though again they’re a matter of knowing when to use them to maximize their value.

So yes, mainly about those stats. Your dragon and rider have levels and stats, and you’re going to have to increase those stats if you want to compete. Participating in races will help them level up, but you can also do training and make use of facilities to increase some stats. Training raises fatigue and consumes your money, so there’s a limit to how much you can do at a time. Time, money, fatigue. I’m not explaining things well, am I? I have a feeling the Monster Rancher fans out there are picking up on it, but I suppose I should come at this from a different angle for the rest of you.

Alright, so Jet Dragon. It’s about dragon racing, but your job is mainly managing a dragon racing team. You start with basic facilities, one rider, and one dragon. By the time you’re out of the tutorial you’ll have another rider and dragon. The game generally follows a calendar of events, and you can choose how you want to spend each week on it. Upkeep costs money, and so does entering races. That means you have to actually get off your duff and win some races or else you’ll end up living in a cardboard box or something, and a dragon is definitely not going to fit in there. As you win races, you’ll gain sponsors and fans, bringing in more resources and unlocking other features. The story, such as it is, will also unfurl.

Outside of the racing, the main challenge comes from managing your finances. Of course it would be great to train a bunch between every race, but that costs money. Upgrading your facilities is of great benefit in the long term, but it costs money now. Expanding your team is awesome, but it also costs more money. Money, money, money is all you need. And the only real way you’ll earn it is by racing, because even sponsors aren’t going to throw their money at you for leaning on a fence post. Every new feature that opens up presents a new way to spend money, so you have to keep it coming in.

As mentioned earlier, your racing performance is largely dependent on your stats. Your actual input during race could best be seen as intervention at key moments. You won’t be doing any steering, just deciding when you want to expend stamina on boosting or using your abilities. Training will raise those stats, to a point. But the effectiveness of training depends on the mood of the dragon and/or rider, and also on how tired they are. A refreshed, perky dragon has a higher chance of seeing better gains from the training sessions, and since they cost money you’ll want to get the most out of them.

Still, even leveling up and training can only take a dragon so far. They will eventually hit their limits, and at that point you’ll want to look into breeding. Breeding your dragons is a nice way of getting a new steed that has higher potential and better abilities, and it’s a key tool in your box for keeping those wins rolling in. Indeed, it’s the only way you’ll be able to stay competitive because Jet Dragon really doesn’t pull its punches when it’s time to race. If you haven’t been doing things right on the management side, it won’t take long before you’re eating dragon dust.

There’s a lot of depth here waiting to be discovered, and Grezzo has clearly done its homework again when it comes to making a game with upfront charms and a surprising amount of complexity hiding behind the veneer. It’s very well-made for what it is, and if you’ve ever enjoyed a horse racing sim or Monster Rancher game, I think you’ll find a lot to like in Jet Dragon. The striking visuals certainly help with the initial attraction. One happy side effect of not needing to be quite so hands-on during races is that you can enjoy the sights of each track. It’s not going to knock you out of your seat or anything, but riding a dragon through pretty locations is a no-lose proposition as far as I’m concerned.

Jet Dragon isn’t going to be for everyone, but those with an open mind and a love of simulation games will likely be pleasantly surprised with what they find here. Those looking for a slick dragon racing game with dragon drifting and such are going to be less pleased, since that aspect of the game aims more at the strategic than the action-packed. If you’re looking for something different that has a lot of meat on its bones and you have an Apple Arcade subscription, I recommend giving this a look.

Hey, I’ve been doing this for twenty-five years now. Coming up with fresh openers is tough. I suppose I could have just gone with an old reliable template that almost everyone can enjoy and apply the topic of the day as needed. I didn’t do that, but you know who did? Alpha Denshi and SNK, back in 1992. They barely even hid it. Just stapled Ninja onto Capcom’s Commando and took an early lunch. Okay, that’s kind of rude. The top-down run-and-gun had been a very popular genre throughout the late 1980s on the back of hits like the aforementioned Commando and SNK’s very own Ikari Warriors. One might even suggest that the very existence of the NEOGEO was built on the backs of such titles. With that in mind, we can surely excuse any indiscretions in terms of creativity with the broad structure of this game.

If Ikari Warriors followed in the wake of Commando, I think it’s safe to say that Ninja Commando treads in the footsteps of Commando‘s follow-up Mercs. Your characters have wider move sets and a more interesting array of attacks, the play area is often wider than the screen, and you’ve got a life bar instead of having to suffer one-hit kills. The story premise here is certainly its own thing, if nothing else. The villainous Spider and his Mars Corporation have developed a time machine and plan to use it to attack the past and control the future. Man, this isn’t even the first SNK game that uses that villain plan. As these things go, the only ones who can stop Spider’s machinations are a trio of ninjas: Joe Tiger, Ryu Eagle, and Rayar Dragon. They chase their foe through seven periods of history, arguably causing more damage to the timeline than Spider and his goons. Hey Joe, I don’t think you’re supposed to murder Nobunaga Oda before his time!

This goofy plot is part of what makes Ninja Commando so fun. Oh, I probably haven’t mentioned that yet. Ninja Commando is a lot of fun. You get to choose your favorite ninja, each with their own weapons and moves, and either go it alone or with a friend on a big stupid adventure through history. There is a big caveman who grabs his fellow cavemen and throws them at you! Yes, you have to fight mummies. World War II? They wouldn’t be Ninja Commandos if they didn’t stop in there, would they? The game has its tongue firmly in its cheek but not so much as to be obnoxious about it, and some of the dialogue really has to be seen to be believed. The pixel art is really strong, and I think it must have been a lot of work to make these areas so distinctive and populate them with period-appropriate enemies of all kinds. It has a lot of personality.

As for the gameplay, it has a few tricks up its sleeve but mostly sticks with what worked in the past. Your characters have their own basic shots that you can only fire ahead of you. They’ll power up the faster you hit the button, oddly enough. You can do a somersault or flip to get out of the way of attacks, and it can be useful if you get the hang of its movement and the game’s collision boxes. You can also fire in multiple directions when flipping, making it one of the few ways to attack enemies beside or behind you. The third button uses your smart bomb-style attack, which can be useful in a pinch. Likely inspired by the fighting game craze going on around it, Ninja Commando also equips each of the three characters with some command based special moves. They are extremely powerful so it’s not a bad idea to get the hang of them, even if it can be a bit tricky using touch controls.

A brilliant segue into the bits where I talk about how it plays on mobile. Of course, you can use an external controller and get the standard console (arcade?) experience, but I’m happy to report that even if you’re limited to the touch controls you’ll still have a relatively good go of it here. The special moves can be a pain to pull off and trying to maintain maximum power on your shot can be troublesome, but by and large the game plays nicely with the on-screen buttons and stick. You won’t be able to bring a buddy without external controllers, but hey, real commandos fight alone. It’s Rambo, not Rambo and Friends. Except for the animated series. But we don’t talk about that! The point is, this is actually a really nice mobile experience.

All the usual Hamster ACA NEOGEO stuff is in play. Two versions of the game, plus the Caravan and Score Attack modes. Those extra modes are quite enjoyable with this game, and the online leaderboards add to the excitement. The options are familiar, extensive, and as welcome as ever, and the emulation is spot-on. By now most of the people reading this probably know what to expect from these ACA NEOGEO releases in terms of extra features and overall presentation, but I have to put it here for those reading this review first. Hi, new reader! Please stay a while! Stay forever!

If you’re looking for a straightforward but fun top-down run-and-gun game, you’ll be well-served by Ninja Commando. It’s not as fancy as the Shock Troopers games but its wild premise and strong execution make it a decent highlight from the NEOGEO’s earlier years. It plays really well on mobile even if you don’t have an external controller handy, and is actually quite good for filling out little pockets of spare time during your day-to-day. A solid addition to the ACA NEOGEO mobile line, and one I can easily recommend.

Crossed Swords came in more or less at the tail end of the NEOGEO’s first year on the market. The system hadn’t had its Fatal Fury moment yet, though that would come scant months later. Street Fighter II: The World Warrior had already come out and was absolutely wreaking havoc on the make-up of most arcades, but the big shift to fighting games was still in the future. There was still room for something weird and interesting, and long-time SNK partner Alpha Denshi (ADK) was more than willing to provide. In these heady times, you still saw a lot of arcade games trying to bring in RPG elements to entice the Dragon Quest-addled minds of Japanese gamers, to varying degrees of success. So what happens if you take the success of SNK’s The Super Spy and try to smash some RPG into it? You get Crossed Swords, I think.

So here’s the deal with this: it’s Punch-Out!!. It’s even more Punch-Out!! than The Super Spy was, even going so far as to place your transparent character on the screen. You’re a brave warrior and you need to stop the demon warlord who threatens the peace of the realm with his army of nasty monsters. You start your journey with a simple sword and shield, but they’re more than up to the job at hand. Your shield can block strikes at two different angles, activated by pressing up or down on the stick. You’ve got two different buttons for your sword strikes, allowing you to slash and thrust, and you’ve even got a bit of magic you can use in emergencies. Blocking is usually better than dodging, but you’re also able to move left and right if you feel the need.

In general, the name of the game here is to guard your opponent’s attack and then counter with your own. The timing is tricky, but particular enemies will use particular patterns and you can take advantage of that with practice. The combat is surprisingly fun for how little there is to it, and while it can get a little repetitive over the course of the game, it holds on longer than you might think. The enemy variety helps with that, and so do the variety of stages you’ll traverse. This isn’t the flashiest NEOGEO game by any means, but it takes good advantage of the hardware and still has an appealing look and sound today. Enemies jump into and out of the background using scaling sprites, and you’ll also get various NPCs using that feature too.

Defeating enemies will reward you with various pick-ups, not the least of which being gold. You can use that gold to upgrade your sword via merchants between the stages, and each sword brings new magic abilities. You can’t buy your way to better shields, but you can find new ones along the way if you choose your routes well. This is about the sum of the game’s RPG elements beyond its fantasy trappings, but it’s more than enough for an experience like this. Finding the optimal route, learning the enemy and boss patterns, and seeing all there is to see makes for at least a handful of engaging playthroughs.

Crossed Swords isn’t quite as reliant on button combinations as The Super Spy, and that means it gets along better with touch controls if you find yourself depending on them. As usual, an external controller is going to work better. It’s what the game is designed for, after all. But if you have to play with touch controls, you’ll really only have a slight hassle with the tiny list of special moves that most players never use anyway. You would also need external controllers if you want to take advantage of the game’s two-player mode, which is probably the most enjoyable co-op Punch-Out!!-inspired game you can find. C’est la vie.

You get the usual array of ACA NEOGEO features here, including game options, display settings, ways to fiddle with the on-screen controls, and so on. You can play the Japanese or Overseas versions of the game, and the two typical extra modes are on offer here. I find this one a little too random for the score attack hustle except in the broadest of strokes, but the extras modes are still a solid addition thanks to the online leaderboards. The emulation is spot-on, as you would expect from Hamster. If you’ve been reading any of these reviews, you’ll know all of this already. But someone is reading this one first, so we have to mention it.

Crossed Swords isn’t a game you’re going to enjoy playing every day. It’s rather substantial for an arcade game from its time and place, but even with all of that its simple block-and-counter gameplay can wear out its welcome after a while. Still, if you find yourself missing that Punch-Out!!-with-swords experience that you used to quench by firing up Infinity Blade here and there, Crossed Swords might be a decent retro substitute. It’s not the first game you might think of when you think of SNK’s long-running console, but if you give it a shot you’ll find it to be a real NEOGEO-core game in all the best ways.

Okay, I know some of you went and read it and some of you didn’t, so I’ll summarize what he said first before I move along. It’s easy to write off Brotato as yet another knock-off of Vampire Survivors (Free), and given that game is free and all you may wonder why such a thing would be needed. But there are indeed some genuine differences here that make for a very distinct experience when compared to its obvious source of inspiration. It’s in that distinct flavor that you will either find Brotato a solid addition to your dinner plate or just some limp fries to be disposed of as soon as possible.

I should briefly go over what this is, just in case you’ve been living under a rock where Vampire Survivors didn’t reach. So, you know those wave-based top-down twin-stick shooters? Imagine one of those, but with auto-fire. And some roguelite elements like perks and level-ups that are wiped out when you die. There are some permanent unlocks you can earn, and they should in theory either help you survive longer or at least give you a different experience on your next run. Well, that’s the gist of it. Go forth and try to live as long as you can by evading your enemies elegantly and picking perks prodigiously.

There’s usually a metagame to things like this, and Brotato certainly has one. You can unlock different potatoes to play as, and each has its own properties that make it surprisingly unique to use. Along with your choice of weapon from the randomly selected bunch presented to you, this will have a dramatic effect on how you will have to play in the current run. There are various difficulty levels to unlock. The potatoes are unlocked through various achievements, and the difficulty levels simply unlock by finishing the previous one. The aim of the metagame then is to unlock everything, but it’s not as big a part of Brotato as it is in Vampire Survivors. You might be able to go the distance with a combination presented to you from the very start, even.

That lesser focus on the unlocking meta is one of the ways Brotato diverges from Vampire Survivors, but I would actually say the biggest difference comes from the arena itself. Vampire Survivors has large, sprawling areas that offer you a lot of room to maneuver in. Optimal strategies in that game often involve herding the incoming enemies as best as you can, and you often have the space to do so. Brotato does not offer such leg room. The play area here is always very, very tight. You can herd the enemies a little, but there really isn’t much space to run away. That makes this less of a defensive or evasive game and more of an offensive one. If you don’t bring the fight to your foes, you won’t last very long.

Aside from handling the action end of things, you’ll also need to carefully pick your perks, gear, and other upgrades. Just about everything you pick up gives you some benefit and some penalty. You need to decide which things are worth keeping and which are going to work against your style of play. There really is quite a bit here, too. You never know which things will come up and when, so you’re often trying to make the best of a suboptimal situation. Level-ups are kinder, just straight up giving you some kind of improvement to your stats. It’s really important to pay attention to what you are choosing.

The same goes for your array of weapons, and I really do mean array here. Your potato can have up to six weapons stuck into him at a time, but once you hit the limit you’ll have to start making some choices. If you have two of the same weapon you can merge them into a more powerful version, or you can recycle a weapon to free up a slot for a new one. So again, you have to think about your strategy and which weapons will suit it. You also need to think about how they will work with each other. Six weapons may seem like a lot, and it is, but you’re soon going to have to choose between one very cool weapon and another.

One knock-on benefit to the little differences that pile up in Brotato is that runs don’t take nearly as long as they tend to get in Vampire Survivors. Don’t get me wrong, I love it when that game turns the gas all the way up and you become like a god carving through throngs of monsters. But when I’m playing a mobile game, there’s a good chance I don’t have an hour to spend on a single session. Brotato runs seem to last just long enough for a good hunker without requiring you to settle in for a full-on butt-freeze. It’s a more direct game that gives you a lot less space to work with, and this is the fruit of that. Maybe that is what you are looking for; maybe it isn’t. But it’s at least a distinguishing factor, and in this climate that is worth its weight in gold.

Brotato isn’t shy about where it’s drawing from, but that game also drew from roots that Brotato kind of brings things back around to. It is probably less epic than Vampire Survivors, and I very much doubt it will have a hundredth of its impact. But there’s an immediacy and focus to it that calls back to a type of game we used to get a-plenty and probably took for granted, and I can’t help but appreciate that. If that sounds good to you, then grab some of these fries to go.

Terra Nil is a very zen-like experience, but one that can get frustrating. Your aim is purifying the soil, creating forests, flowers, and basically creating the best wilderness you can as you balance your resources. There’s a blend of strategy games and puzzlers in Terra Nil, and the difficulty options allow tweaking the experience to your liking almost. I say almost because one specific mechanic involving recycling felt counter intuitive from how it was in the demo. Making me waste time excavating paths and ruining the gorgeous greenery setup I have isn’t fun. After the initial frustration wore off, I planned better for my next attempt in Terra Nil. There definitely is a zen feeling playing it, but resource management and some decisions in later phases might turn some off.

With procedurally generated levels, there’s a lot of replay value, but some might feel like the game shows its hand rather quick. The core gameplay loop clicking with you will mean you come back to this for a while even after the initial six hours you spend to see what it has to offer. While the visuals are gorgeous and I hope we get a physical release that has an artbook alongside the inevitable Switch version, Terra Nil shines with its audio design. I would definitely recommend playing it with a nice pair of headphones for the music and sound effects.

Having sampled the demo initially, I was sure it would control well on mobile. The final game gets almost everything right. There are some things that aren’t intuitive. These require small touch targets on other menus. The UI scale option helps, but even setting it to the highest level isn’t enough to fix two specific buttons. Overall, the team did a great job with the touch controls for Terra Nil on mobile.

In its current state, I’ve run into the same glitch on three different saves across devices. This involves scanning and the phase where you need to recycle. In one case, I managed fixing it by force closing the game and loading again, but the others required redoing the phase or map completely. Barring that, I’ve also noticed my iOS and iPadOS devices getting very warm playing Terra Nil. It isn’t even running at 60fps or offering a high resolution option, and the battery drain needs to be addressed in a future update. There is no progress syncing as well right now even though I used the same Netflix profile and user on two devices.

On Steam Deck, I’ve had a much better experience with Terra Nil when it comes to visuals and performance, but I prefer the interface on iPad. It feels perfect for a large touchscreen. It is worth noting that the game doesn’t have official Steam Deck support yet, and I’ve been using a community layout which works quite well. There is proper touch support on Steam Deck like the iOS version as of this writing. The PC version supports higher frame rates even up to 120fps, but it barely holds that on Steam Deck when docked. It ran better on my laptop, but I wish the iOS version offered a 60fps option.

Visually, it is disappointing that Terra Nil is quite downgraded on two of my iOS devices. This is very noticeable on my iPad Pro (2020) going into later phases of the restoration. On the iPhone 14 Plus, Terra Nil looks and runs a lot better. I don’t know if this runs at 60fps on any mobile device, but it wasn’t even close to that on the three I used. The aesthetic and art direction are gorgeous, and I love the interface, but the technical downgrades that still result in battery drain hold Terra Nil back from being amazing on iOS.

Terra Nil is currently available for $24.99 on Steam here and available to Netflix subscribers on iOS here and Android here. If there were no glitches, Terra Nil would be more than worth the asking price as long as you know what you’re getting. If you aren’t sure and have a Netflix subscription, I’d definitely recommend trying the game to see if you click with it.

Terra Nil isn’t worth subscribing to Netflix to play, and I don’t think a single game exists to push that yet, but it is an essential for anyone who has a subscription. This is exactly the kind of game I want to see Netflix publish on mobile. I just hope the current issues can be addressed soon in updates. I love the concept, and Terra Nil is a few patches away from being one of the best games Devolver Digital has released.

In its current state, Terra Nil is excellent, but it is held back by some bugs and glitches that required me to to replay specific portions of levels. It has a solid base for sure, and I look forward to playing it on and off over the coming weeks and months once patches arrive. I was already impressed with the concept and visuals in the reveal and demo, but I’m glad to see Terra Nil actually deliver in the final release. This is definitely an essential if you have a Netflix subscription despite the issues I ran into.

If you’ve not followed the game at all, Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars is the first entry in the trilogy, and it is a very straightforward turn-based RPG mechanically, but one that is elevated by its tabletop card game aesthetic. This aesthetic made a lot of people think it is a collectible card game. I call it a card RPG because it isn’t really a deck-building game or a traditional card game, but an RPG that has the aesthetic of a tabletop card game with a gamemaster narrating everything. This setting was originally a detriment to the experience with how slow it made things feel, but a post launch update (included in mobile from the start) allows high speed mode which dramatically improved how I felt about the game.

A lot of the interest in Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars was because of the key staff involved that Square Enix promoted. While a lot of interest in general was because Yoko Taro (NieR) was involved, playing through this made me a fan of director Maasa Mimura who directed all three games in this trilogy. The original trailer was great, but experiencing Kimihiko Fujisaka’s (Drakengard) art in game is sublime. I enjoy seeing how different developers try to make traditional turn-based combat stay fresh, and this is definitely one of the best ways to make even small encounters look good.

Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars has its gorgeous card aesthetic, but combat is also where it uses some elements from card games relating to how stats work. The way your resource (gems) generates per turn and how you interact with it feels like the only real element of card games present in the mechanics of the Voice of Cards games. At the default game speed, combat is far too slow with its animations, so I’d recommend using the high speed mode when possible.

Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars has a dragon returning after being defeated a long time ago. The queen is looking for adventurers to take on said dragon, and this is where your adventure begins featuring a standard RPG story, but one with some nice twists. It will take you about 12 or so hours to finish. Don’t expect it to be challenging until one specific boss. It is a very chill experience overall thanks to the music and aesthetic.

When I first played Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars on Nintendo Switch, I was glad to see Square Enix and developer Alim add touchscreen support. It made me wonder when we’d see an iOS version. A year and a half later, Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars has hit mobile, and the iOS version controls great. The touchscreen controls on Switch always felt like a much better experience than the button controls. On iOS, there is no controller support. I tried my DualSense and 8bitDo with no luck during testing. I wouldn’t play this with a controller on iPad, but I wanted to check if Square Enix had added controller support here. Speaking of features not present, Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars does not have iCloud save support. I tried across two different accounts and four devices.

Despite being a paid game, Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars includes paid DLC. These are optional cosmetics and background music options. Considering this is priced at a third nearly of what it costs on other platforms, I don’t see a problem with optional DLC. I even own this DLC on Steam, and find it worth the price, but I really wouldn’t want to change the great soundtrack to Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars even if the DLC lets you use amazing NieR music in the case of this game. The cosmetic DLC looks good as well, but I don’t think it is worth getting. The base game purchase is great on its own.

In terms of visuals, Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars on iOS misses nothing from the other platforms. It looks excellent, especially on iPad, and is one of my favorite card game aesthetics. Performance is where I am let down by Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars on iOS. I was hoping to see it run at 60fps like the PC and PS4 versions, but it isn’t as smooth. It also has slightly longer load times than I expected.

Barring seemingly not having iCloud save support and the lower than expected frame rate, my big issue with the Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars iOS port is the online check on launch. There’s no need for a game like this to have online DRM on iOS. If this has to do with the DLC, Square Enix can implement an offline check. I hope an update in the future can remove this.

The music of Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars is excellent, and feels like a blend of Celtic melodies and NieR. It has vocal tracks, more melancholic songs, more. Just like the game itself, the music from Shotaro Seo, Oliver Good, and Keiichi Okabe is worth your time. While the promotional trailers featured music you’d expect from Keiichi Okabe, I’m very impressed with the songs composed by both Shotaro Seo and Oliver Good at least going by the composer credits on the iTunes soundtrack I bought. Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars features dual audio, and both gamemaster narration options are well done.

If you aren’t sure if you will enjoy Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars or if you’re already sold on it, I’d recommend grabbing the free Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars Chapter 0 Demo on iOS and Android. This serves as not just a free demo, but also a prologue to the events of Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars. On consoles and PC, this is titled Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars Demo. It will give you a good idea of what to expect visually and mechanically. Keep in mind that the high speed option is not present in this demo / Chapter 0 release.

Having now tested Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars on PC, Steam Deck, PS5 (through the PS4 demo) iPhone, iPad, and Nintendo Switch (docked and handheld), my favorite ways to play it are definitely iPad and Switch. Despite both offering a lower frame rate than Steam Deck, proper touch controls and better screens make the decision simple in a game like this. While it does look very nice on the big screen on PS4 or PC, Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars feels like a game book you’re experiencing with lovely narration, and I enjoyed it more as a handheld and portable experience. Some of the text is a bit small on iPhone though, which is why I recommend it more on iPad or a larger screen iPhone if you have that option.

Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars is a polished albeit straightforward RPG with a gorgeous aesthetic and amazing music. Despite a few issues with the port, I definitely recommend checking it out on mobile. It is a bit of a harder sell on iPhone, but the iPad and Switch versions are my favorite ways to experience Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars.

Having only played WWE 2K22 a few months after it launched directly on Xbox Series X, I was impressed with how most aspects were improved over prior games. WWE 2K23 feels like a more confident entry that took learnings from 2K22, but added a lot of polish to actually be a wrestling game I have enjoyed playing from day one. Whether you should grab it right now or wait, is something I will address a bit later in this review. Even the excellent tutorial from Xavier Woods is good. John Cena’s Showcase mode is a nice twist on the formula as well. It is worth playing even if you aren’t a fan of his.

Right off the bat, WWE 2K23 surprised me on Steam Deck. The default graphics options it had selected had WWE 2K23 running perfectly in the first few matches I played on Steam Deck. It almost felt too good to be true with a near flawless 60fps and great visuals with fast loading. Then I decided to start stress testing the game on Steam Deck. The new WarGames mode with eight players was far too much for Steam Deck with the frame rate constantly dropping to the 40s from 60. In a game like this, you want the frame rate to remain at 60fps even if it means playing with worse visuals so the action doesn’t slow down.

I was surprised to see some of the eight man modes run at 60fps without dropping more than a few frames during camera cuts in the five matches I tested specifically before getting back to the normal modes I play. It takes a lot of tweaking in the settings to get the WarGames mode with eight total superstars working at 60fps without issues though. If you’re planning on playing WWE 2K23 on Steam Deck and want to focus on this mode, you’re going to need to try out many settings to see what sticks. If you don’t care about the most demanding matches like that, you can make it look really great and play at 60fps, which isn’t something I expected on Steam Deck at all given how modern AAA games usually run on the system day one.

WWE 2K23 Steam Deck graphics and performance

There is an in-game benchmark, but I’d recommend opting for standard textures, standard models, 60fps action camera, medium or low shadows, medium shaders, FXAA (or TAA if you’re playing less visually demanding matches only), FSR upscaling, and then try to find which of the other settings you want to keep on when it comes to your own taste. If you disable windowed mode, WWE 2K23 even runs at 16:10 during matches with most of the interface and other parts of the game being rendered at 16:9. I used Proton Experimental (bleeding edge) and the default Proton in my testing, and the only major difference I noticed was the entrances and some other camera cuts did run at a higher frame rate when using Proton Experimental.

WWE 2K23 on Steam Deck with Remote Play Together

I was curious to see how WWE 2K23 on Steam Deck would handle Valve’s Remote Play Together, so I invited a friend of mine in another country to join my game on Steam Deck. The experience for him wasn’t great over wireless as expected, but it did run perfectly fine at 60fps on my Steam Deck even in an eight man battle royal. The image quality obviously isn’t perfect, but the 60fps and Steam Deck’s smaller screen make it a fine experience. The only thing to keep in mind is the Steam Deck sometimes reboots when ending a Remote Play Together session. This happens in other games as well, so it isn’t a WWE 2K23 specific issue.

Since this is the first time a full fledged 2K WWE game has been available without feature compromises on a portable, I wanted to see how it would handle suspending as well. I left the game suspended for a few hours to test and it resumed fine on Steam Deck without internet as well. On the battery life side, I usually play with full brightness and the projected battery life indicator when I was playing an eight man ladder match was about 1 hour 50 minutes left when I had around 65% battery left when I did this. I’m not the best judge of this as I always push the Steam Deck for better performance and full brightness, but I wanted to give you a rough idea of what to expect with how I set up the game and play on Steam Deck. I installed it on my SD card from the start where it takes about 81.5GB of storage space.

In its current state, my main issues with WWE 2K23 on Steam Deck also apply to the PC version in general. As of this writing, I don’t have access to the other platforms, but the regular server issues are beyond annoying. Barring that, the modes all worked fine on Steam Deck barring the video portion of the creation suite which crashed every single time regardless of what Proton version I tried. I don’t usually spend time in that mode, but I wanted to test it for this WWE 2K23 Steam Deck review.

WWE 2K23 is shockingly good on Steam Deck despite the few issues I ran into. If you skipped the last few years of WWE games, WWE 2K23 is worth your time. It feels like an enhanced version of WWE 2K22 that improves in all the right ways and brings some long overdue features. Just don’t come into this expecting as much of a jump in quality as you had with WWE 2K22 from prior games. In its current state, WWE 2K23 is an excellent wrestling game with tons of content, but one that is let down by its online servers.

Interested in more Steam Deck coverage? Check out our Steam Deck recommendations!

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Company of Heroes 3 sees the real-time strategy series return after many years. I never played much of Company of Heroes 2, so this is my first real taste of the series following Company of Heroes and its expansions. Company of Heroes 3 launches with two campaign options. The Italian Dynamic Campaign aimed at newcomers with more tutorials is the first campaign option while the North African Operation is a more linear and focused campaign that is aimed at veteran fans of the series. The latter is shorter than I expected. You also have access to multiplayer (co-op vs AI and PvP), skirmishes, custom games, and more from day one.

While Company of Heroes 3 multiplayer was unplayable on Steam Deck around launch, it now works without desyncing for me. Attempting any multiplayer game previously caused it to freeze after a few seconds of the match starting. Company of Heroes 3 is now branded “Playable" on Steam Deck by Valve. The caveats for Valve right now include the game showing non Steam Deck controller icons, requiring players to manually invoke the keyboard, and the text being too small in-game in some cases. The screenshot below shows how the frame rate can drop when you change camera angle and zoom during multiplayer:

My main issue with Company of Heroes 3 on Steam Deck also affects the game in general. It is a bit inconsistent visually. Over the last two weeks, we’ve seen loads of hotfixes released for Company of Heroes 3 on Steam, many of which addressed most of my issues with the visuals. It still doesn’t look as nice as I had hoped even on my laptop, but it is in a much better state right now compared to launch day in general.

With the negatives out of the way, Company of Heroes 3 loads up and runs without issues on the default Proton version on Steam Deck with 16:10 support and good performance. After running the benchmark, I set Company of Heroes 3 to its low presets to see how high the frame rate would go. Depending on the camera angle, 60fps is possible, but it really doesn’t stay remotely close to that when you’re actually playing during battles and movement. Aiming for 30fps with a mix of medium and low seems like the best option right now. Some settings require re-launching the game and cannot be changed in the middle of a battle.

In its current state, Company of Heroes 3 requires you to deal with controls you might not be used to. I’ve been playing a lot of PC-specific keyboard and mouse games on Steam Deck thanks to community layouts, so that aspect wasn’t a huge deal for me. Despite Company of Heroes 3 coming to current generation consoles later this year, it doesn’t have controller support on PC in its current state. Valve has a custom layout for games designed for keyboard and mouse, but I’d recommend using this layout. It has been amazing to see such a well put together community layout right from launch week.

The text size for the interface and some tooltips might be small for some, but I’ve grown used to small text thanks to games like Fire Emblem Three Houses on Nintendo Switch a few years ago, and more recently checking out many PC-exclusives on Steam Deck. This is another thing to keep in mind right now.

With everything I’ve said so far, I clearly ended up enjoying Company of Heroes 3 a lot more than I expected on Steam Deck. I wanted to see if any post-launch updates addressed issues with the campaign and visuals, and we’ve had multiple patches since. As of its most recent patch, I’m very pleased with Company of Heroes 3 on Steam Deck, and you will find a lot to like here assuming you’re ok with the controls.

In its current state, Company of Heroes 3 is an easy recommendation with the caveat about non standard controls. While you could always use a mouse and keyboard to play it on Steam Deck, I’m impressed with the community layouts, and have enjoyed Company of Heroes 3 quite a bit thanks to one specific layout I used. I assume we will get proper controller support when it hits consoles later this year. Until then, Company of Heroes 3 on Steam Deck is a solid base, and I’m glad that it didn’t fall short of my expectations like Age of Empires IV did at launch.

Interested in more Steam Deck coverage? Check out our Steam Deck recommendations!

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Despite Need for Speed Unbound being “unsupported" on Steam Deck by Valve’s labelling, I’ve had almost no issues with it from day one. The only annoyance is the game not booting up when offline. This also affects the Steam version on Windows as I verified. Barring that, it runs well across my laptop and Steam Deck. I even played online races on Steam Deck without issues. The one time the game didn’t boot up, I sorted it by deleting Proton files through the developer menu on Steam Deck.

The blend of a photo-realistic style and anime-esque designs and effects in Need for Speed Unbound isn’t something I thought would work well, but here we are. I enjoy the stylish effects for drifting and boosting, but the character models still look a bit weird given the rest of the game’s aesthetic. It almost reminds me of the visual disconnect from some of the Fortnite character additions from other brands. The rest of the game’s aesthetic is excellent, and the audio design perfectly complements the visual style in the menus.

I was a bit worried about how Need for Speed Unbound would fare on Steam Deck because it is a game only released on PS5 and Xbox Series X on the console side. I figured it might not run and look good enough on Valve’s portable system. Thankfully the low preset with a 30fps cap works well. You could aim for better performance, but I noticed many races or situations where 40hz would not be stable, and wasn’t a fan of lowering the image quality or rendering resolution below native.

When there were rumors of a new Need for Speed, I scoffed at the thought of another entry in the series I used to enjoy a long time ago being more than the middling quality seen in the last few entries. Fast-forward to today and I’ve enjoyed it so much on Steam Deck that I bought the Palace Edition on Xbox Series X to play again. There are quite a few games I’d play on Steam Deck over current consoles, but if visual fidelity is a priority for you, consider getting this on a console or playing on a more powerful PC.

While it wasn’t a priority for me in a new entry, I wouldn’t recommend this purely for its multiplayer. Only get it if you want to experience the campaign and also play multiplayer. The latter feels a bit bare-bones right now. It also has completely separate progression if that matters to you. Hopefully this is built on over time to deliver a full-fledged multiplayer experience that modern racing fans expect.

As someone who played a ton of Need for Speed II SE back in the day and loved Need for Speed Underground, I’m glad to finally have experienced a modern game in the series that has been a joy to play. Even as the first current-generation only entry in the series, Need for Speed Unbound is a joy to play on Steam Deck. It might’ve released too close to the holidays for most, but if you enjoyed older Need for Speed games, you need to grab this one.

Interested in more lists? Check out our other Steam Deck recommendations!

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• The Best New Games
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• The Best JRPGs
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This is a remaster of the PlayStation 2 game, which was itself a remake of the Super Famicom title Romancing SaGa. You never quite know how extensive the changes will be when a game from that era makes a reappearance, but in this case the changes are many and fairly significant. They range from new content (characters, story) to quality of life improvements, and the end result is a game that so greatly outclasses its previous incarnation that it renders it nearly irrelevant. I think it’s frankly as good as it can be without actually ripping the whole thing up and starting from scratch. If for some reason you are trying to decide between the PlayStation 2 version or this one, it’s an easy choice.

While I’m sure not many readers played the previous release (the franchise went dormant for a reason after all), I’ll quickly detail the additions and improvements. Most obviously, the graphics have been enhanced and upscaled. I have mixed feelings about the art direction of this game, but it’s never looked better than it does here. The UI and menus have been redone, which they would obviously need to be for mobile users. It looks good and is as functional as you are going to get when applying touch controls to a game originally designed for a controller. There are some nice quality of life improvements like a high-speed mode, extremely useful mini maps, and a highly welcome New Game + option that fits this game like a glove.

As for new content, there’s actually quite a bit to see. Like with SaGa Frontier‘s remaster, we’ve got a new playable character with their own episode. Aldora the Sorceress, who those familiar with the original will remember as Mirsa’s ally, is now selectable and has her own story about her travels with the Legendary Hero. There are also a handful of new recruitable characters, with Schiele being a highlight. There are some new classes to tinker with, which is always a nice thing to see in remakes and remasters of games with job systems. Additionally, there are a bunch of new super bosses. They’re… something. For those players who found the original game didn’t satisfy their desire for challenging encounters, eat up.

Curiously, part of the intention behind the original Minstrel Song was to go back to a more traditional and approachable format after the decidedly mixed response to Unlimited SaGa. Yes, this is the SaGa team (circa 2005) trying to make an easily digestible game. Does it work? Yes and no. At the end of the day, this is still a SaGa game. It has all the quirky systems you would expect from the series, has a tendency to be opaque and offer few clues about what to do, and focuses more on mechanics than story elements. It revels in its unorthodox nature, though it is rather orthodox in its unorthodoxy if you’re familiar with the series.

That last bit is perhaps the key to it. If you’re looking to get into the SaGa series, this is a decent enough starting point. It will teach you a lot about how the series works, and you may well find yourself able to appreciate the other games more having played through this one. I’m not sure it’s the best starting point anymore, but it’s a good one. But in the grand scheme of RPGs, this is still a game that requires a bit more work on the player’s part. While the original Romancing SaGa was the fourth part of the SaGa series, it was the third game in the series made by the same team. If you’ve played the Game Boy games, the original game followed on from Final Fantasy Legend II, bringing the ideas and philosophy of the series to the 16-bit world. With, you know, all that implies.

I won’t spend too much more time talking about the original 16-bit game though, because the PlayStation 2 game was already a significant remake and this remaster takes it even further. You’ll start this game by choosing from eight different characters at the start, and once you’ve gotten through the first bit for each, you’re more or less on your own to make your way in the world. It’s full of things to do and people to meet, though how much of that you find on any given playthrough is up to you. It wants you to replay it, and if you enjoy what it offers you almost certainly will do so.

That open approach is the calling card of this game, and it demonstrates how in a lot of ways this was a title far ahead of its time. But it can also be daunting to players used to a more guided approach. I recommend taking advantage of all of the tutorials and instructions the game offers, mostly through kids hanging around in the towns. It will leave you better equipped to enjoy what the game has to offer. If you’re feeling uncertain or anxious, I recommend starting with Albert. It will hold your hand as much as this game is willing to. Those who just want to dive into the open scenario goodness should pick Barbara, who is more or less tossed into the fray immediately.

I’m not going to talk too much about the story. Stories? It’s all engaging enough with some truly interesting twists and world-building, but it’s far from the main reason to play the game. No, it’s the mechanics that are the highlight here. The Glimmer (SPARKING) system returns, allowing you to learn new techniques pretty much any time just by using other ones. In true SaGa fashion, your stats will upgrade based on your actions. There are no traditional level-ups here. The class system also requires you to have certain skills leveled among other requirements. In general, tough battles in this game are best dealt with by rethinking your party build and tactics. Grinding is an option, but it’s a very bad idea due to a core part of the mechanics: event rank.

Basically, time passes in the world of Minstrel Song. At certain points enemies will get stronger, new quests will open up, and old quests will disappear. The thing that determines how the time passes is the number of battles you’ve fought, which feeds into something called your event rank. Grind too much and you’ll miss out on a lot and only end up making the enemies stronger. At the same time, you’ll want to move time (and fight battles) at a decent pace lest you reach the end before some quests have a chance to open. Your relationship with your event rank will largely determine what you can and can’t see in this world, and is one of the things that makes this game so replayable.

It’s worth taking your time going through, because completing sub-quests not only adds to the narrative texture of the game but also helps you power up in various ways. You’ll find new characters and other things that are frankly worth seeing. And that’s really who this game is for, I think. While the Final Fantasy games are roller coasters, taking you on a fairly straightforward route with pre-planned surprises and turns, the SaGa games tend to be more for the explorers. The people who like to experiment. The ones who like to poke around and see if they can put one over on the game. If that is you, you’ll find an absolute ton of value in this game.

If you have played any SaGa games in the past and had a good time with them, you’ll almost certainly like Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song. Its presentation is a little odd but the game itself is a fairly safe entry in the oddball brand. On the other side, if you haven’t been able to get into past games like SaGa Scarlet Grace ($8.99) or SaGa Frontier ($12.99), nothing in here is going to change your mind. If you’re somehow fully new to this whole business, this isn’t the worst place to dip your foot in. Those tired of the same old JRPG mechanics or those who generally have an open mind may want to give this one a go.

As for this mobile version in particular, it’s excellent. The aspect ratio means you’re getting bars on the side if you’re playing on iPhone, but the visuals look fantastic and the UI is both functional and attractive. You’ve got full controller support here, thankfully. One never knows with Square Enix releases. Even if you aren’t using a controller, you’ll find the touch controls are more than up to the task. Sure, it’s a little expensive relative to other mobile games, but it’s cheaper than the console versions and every bit as good.

Overall, Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song is a fantastic re-do of a game that had lots of room for improvement, and this mobile port is top-shelf. SaGa fans will eat it up, and even if you’ve played the original you may want to check this out for its new content and additions. There are certainly some awkward carry-overs from its PlayStation 2 origins, like the lack of a player-controlled camera, and that may chafe some. It’s also a SaGa game through and through, and that’s either going to have you jumping with joy or running for the hills. I leave it up to you to make that final decision, but I know which side of the line I’m standing on.

Back when Uncharted 4 was about to release on PS4, I was preparing to check it out by playing through the Uncharted Nathan Drake Collection on PS4, but I got kind of burnt out by the end of it. I never ended up playing Uncharted 4 around launch, and only got into it on PS5 and now on PC through this collection. For this Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection Steam Deck review, I’m going to cover the port, how this collection is on Steam Deck, and whether it is worth your time and money if you’re new to Uncharted or someone who has played these games before.

There are some big caveats to the PC release of Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection that will affect you right from the start. While the PS5 collection is under 70GB, the PC version takes nearly double the storage space at 124GB initially. I say initially because once you boot up the game, it starts compiling shaders for about 20 minutes in each game. Once this is complete, it takes up a massive 138.71GB with no way to only download a single game at a time.

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection arrived verified by Valve for Steam Deck right from the start. This is always a good sign, because it shows developers working with Valve pre-release to ensure a specific game runs fine for Steam Deck owners, and having a big game like this arrive verified is a good sign for future ports which I will be covering on release.

I was initially skeptical of Uncharted on Steam Deck because a lot of the draw of the series is the fantastic visuals, and I thought those would be too compromised on Steam Deck to get it running at an acceptable frame rate. I was wrong, because both Uncharted 4 and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy can look stunning on Steam Deck while running at between 30 and 40fps. One another notable feature is 16:10 support during gameplay which is nice to have on Steam Deck.

If you aren’t interested in spending too much time tweaking and want the smoothest performance possible, I’d recommend going for the medium preset and capping the frame rate to 40fps through the Steam Deck’s limiter. There will be some drops, but nothing too major.

If you’re ok settling for 30fps, you can try the high preset and turn shadows down if you’d like. I spent a bit of time tweaking the image quality to my liking to play at a 30fps target rather than 40fps for the best possible visuals. If you’re ok compromising on image quality for better performance, I’d recommend using the FSR settings.

If you’ve never played an Uncharted game before, both of these are excellent action adventure games with superlative set pieces. It is unfortunate that Sony didn’t release the first three games before this though, but you can play these directly. If you already played them on PS4 or PS5 and are wondering how they are on Steam Deck, I’d wait for a discount before buying them to play on the go. While they hold up well, there are too many caveats to this recommendation at full price if you already played these games before. If you haven’t the price is worth it assuming you’re ok with the storage requirements.

While there’s no denying the value of this collection, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection is one of Sony’s weaker PC conversions so far. Games like Marvel’s Spider-Man and God of War play like a dream on Steam Deck while the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection feels a bit lacking in comparison. Hopefully The Last of Us Part I on PC that likely is out soon will be better out of the box. It would also be great if Sony brought over Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection to PC so that the complete saga will be available on the platform like it is on PS4 and PS5.

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection is out now on PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store.

Interested in more Steam Deck features? Check out our other Steam Deck recommendations!

• The Best Indie Games
• The Best JRPGs
• The Best Accessories
• The Best Fighting Games
• The Best Games to Play on Steam Deck
• The Best Steam Deck Games You Can’t Play on Consoles

I’ve not used prior Razer mobile controllers, and was very interested in the Razer Kishi V2 because it looked like the first real competition for the Backbone One in addition to offering a few notable features that elevate it above the competition. For this review, I’m going to focus on what makes the Razer Kishi V2 worth considering as the only controller for your iPhone, and also the few areas it falls short. These could potentially mean a Kishi V3 for iPhone ticks all my boxes to deliver the best iPhone controller.

When it comes to controllers, the most important aspects barring reliable buttons, are the in-hand feel and comfort. The Razer Kishi V2 is almost there when it comes to perfect in-hand feel. I love the textured grip but feel like it needs to be a bit longer on the bottom for me to get a better grip on it. The d-pad feels great, but the buttons are a bit too close to each other and don’t feel as nice as a PS5/Xbox controller. The analog sticks have a similar feel to the Joy-Con ones which isn’t surprising given the similar size, but this is a lot more comfortable than using a Switch Lite as an example.

One of the highlight features of the Razer Kishi V2, is the multi-function buttons that can be set to do whatever you want through the Razer Nexus (Free) app and also the triggers and shoulder buttons that are nicer than those on the Backbone One. I set them to L3 and R3 (clicking the analog sticks). The second feature that elevates this above the competition, is the ability to use it with a case. When I use the Backbone One, I need to remove my iPhone case. Even the official Apple silicon case doesn’t fit properly with the Backbone. With the official Apple case, my iPhone 11 and 12 fit perfectly for playing with the Razer Kishi V2.

If you do care about a launcher app or a hub, Razer’s Nexus app is bare-bones but functional. It doesn’t look as good as the Backbone app, but does let you launch games, search for other games, and more with no additional cost required. You can access this with the dedicated button on the controller. If Razer works on improving the interface or pulling some information about the games for the app hub, it will be a lot better for those who want a hub-like experience app. If you just care about the controller working as one when playing games, this is not going to be an issue for you.

Speaking of dedicated buttons or features, the Razer Kishi V2 has a lightning port for charging while playing, but it doesn’t have a 3.5mm headphone jack like the Backbone One does. If you want a wired headphone jack, that isn’t an option here directly so keep that in mind. It isn’t a dealbreaker for me, as I value usability with a case a lot more than a 3.5mm jack.

It feels like iOS gamers are spoiled for choice right now with support for all major console controllers, and also having great fit/grip controllers for iPhones like the Razer Kishi V2 and Backbone One. While no controller gets everything right, if you value usability with a case and additional buttons with customization options, the Razer Kishi V2 is for you. I feel like a potential Razer Kishi V3 that builds on this base could potentially be one of the best and most comfortable and best mobile controllers ever. I look forward to testing it more with every game I review going forward.

Amazon Link: Razer Kishi V2

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While the Backbone One has been available for a while, I specifically wanted to cover the Backbone One PlayStation Edition to see if it actually does more than just visually try and fit in with the PS5 ecosystem, and how the controller feels compared to the Razer Kishi V2 and whether it is worth investing into at all versus just getting a clip and a PS5 or Xbox controller.

Right from the start, the Backbone One PlayStation Edition’s in-hand feel was impressive. The shape of it feels perfectly tuned for me, and it felt great right from the start. The one disappointment out of the box is that for a controller that is meant to match PlayStation hardware, the Backbone One PlayStation Edition has asymmetric stick placements when PlayStation controllers always have symmetric sticks.

When it comes to using the Backbone One PlayStation Edition with games, I love how it feels and how games play. I had no issues with the controller in any controller-supported games or Apple Arcade releases. It just works and feels as good as a good traditional console controller albeit one with smaller buttons and sticks.

The shoulder buttons and triggers also feel good (albeit not as nice as the Kishi V2’s buttons), but there’s one problem here. You don’t get the actual PS5 DualSense adaptive triggers here. This is another area that makes the Backbone One PlayStation Edition just feel like a reskinned Backbone One, rather than a controller designed to be the best at offering a modern PlayStation controller experience on the go.

One thing I’ve learned while using the Backbone One PlayStation Edition controller with my iPhone is that the Backbone app (Free) elevates the experience quite a bit, but it isn’t necessary. There is one big issue with this, the subscription service. When you get a Backbone One or a Backbone One PlayStation Edition controller, it includes 1 year of the Backbone+ membership which includes access to the app, and more.

I don’t think locking features included with the hardware behind a subscription is good, but this isn’t my decision to make. I also am not a fan of the capture button not taking screenshots at all unless you set up the app while the Razer Kishi V2 works fine without any app on the 5 iPhones I tested independently. Just keep in mind that you can’t use this wired on other devices, access the app, live-stream to Twitch, and more features detailed here unless you pay up.

With that big caveat about the subscription out of the way, the app itself looks and feels great. The games have proper banners rather than app icons and it feels like it has been designed to be more than just a launcher. You have access to other features like parties and messaging.

As someone who prefers using the DualSense controller even when playing controller-supported games on PC and iPad, the Backbone One PlayStation Edition is close to offering the same experience, but I think a potential second version specifically designed for PlayStation again would be much better.

Right now, my biggest issues with the Backbone One PlayStation Edition are to do with the subscription and also the fact that you can’t use it with a case. If you don’t care about the latter and are content with using this as an MFi controller only and not get the whole Backbone experience, these issues will not affect you, and you will get a superb controller to use with your iPhone.

Amazon Link: Backbone One PlayStation Edition

Disclaimer: TouchArcade may earn a small commission from purchases made using the affiliate links above.

The target audience for this new version of the Ace Attorney Trilogy is split up mostly into two groups. The first, is those who have never played these games before on any platform. They will be wondering if this release is worth getting in general, and whether it is good on iOS. The second group is those who already owned the original Ace Attorney Trilogy HD on iOS, and they are likely wondering if the premium priced purchase is worth it with no upgrade path or save data transfer. The answer to the former is easy, while the latter has some big caveats. Let’s get into it.

The Ace Attorney Trilogy includes Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Justice for All, and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations. This is the complete first trilogy with proper widescreen support, improved audio, and more over the original release on iOS. The individual games are worth playing for the investigations, characters, music, and story. They involve courtroom cases, deductions, some light puzzles, and point and click adventure-like segments. If you enjoy those kinds of games, the quality on offer here is immense, but the port has a few issues right now.

If you’ve never played the Ace Attorney games before and don’t own the console or PC versions, this is worth getting even when the launch discount is over with one caveat. Capcom isn’t the best at supporting iOS releases longterm. If you aren’t concerned with what might happen to the Ace Attorney Trilogy on iOS 17, you can safely buy it now and enjoy dozens of hours you will not regret.

If you do own the original on iOS, there is one notable downgrade. You can’t actually skip to any case of the three games from the start like you could in the original iOS HD version. This is exactly like the console and PC version where you can pick one of the three games, but not skip over cases if you wanted to pick up the iOS or Android version to continue a specific case. The improvements are big though with it looking and running very nice on modern displays albeit without proper fullscreen support. Expect black bars on modern devices with no banners or artwork to fill up the empty space.

If you own the Ace Attorney Trilogy on PS4, Xbox One, Steam, or Nintendo Switch, this is the exact same game without controller support. Yes, this port of a console and PC game has only touchscreen support. This might not matter to most given the genre, but why would Capcom remove a feature that they already added? This makes me recommend the Nintendo Switch version above the rest for offering full controller and full touchscreen support without issues.

Barring not having controller support and not being fullscreen, the one area this port did surprise me is with its cloud save backup feature on iOS that worked well and near instantly moving from my iPhone 11 to iPad Pro and back. Long story-driven games like this definitely are something I don’t want to be stuck on a single device for with a universal iOS release.

In our original review from 2013, we praised the source material, but hoped for more effort into the port. That holds true even for this new 2022 mobile version of the Ace Attorney Trilogy. Even some recent Square Enix games feel like better conversions for mobile than this. The bare-bones conversion of the Ace Attorney Trilogy is carried by the original games and the original console version being great.

While the other platform versions of the Ace Attorney Trilogy will end up costing a bit more than iOS, I’d say the Nintendo Switch version is the best way to experience this trilogy right now. Having played it on Nintendo 3DS, iOS (original), the new iOS release, PS4, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and Steam, the Switch version remains the most feature-complete thanks to offering both touch and button control options with its hybrid nature helping out even more with flexibility in playstyles. I’m hoping controller support and some wallpaper options can be added to fill up the black bars, because a premium priced release shouldn’t feel like bare-bones console to mobile conversion.

How do I even write about this? What can I even say about a game that became a story just by existing? Even now, it’s still hitting headlines. Some countries won’t see a release of the game due to anti-lootbox laws. Does anyone care about the game itself? Or is this just the video game version of a roadside accident everyone slows down to gawk at before driving on? I’ve sunk plenty of hours into Diablo Immortal already, and while I’m sure I can give you some informative details, I doubt the broad strokes will surprise many.

The game is really fun. Like, it’s hard to put it down. Unmistakably streamlined in many ways (bye bye mana, hello cooldowns), but it is still very much Diablo. Defeating enemies, exploring dungeons, gathering loot, and building your character all have enough of the proper essence to give you the experience you would hope for. It’s a full-blown MMO take on the idea, and you’ll see other players running around and chatting as you play. Despite that change it checks most of the boxes that make Diablo such a well-loved series, and it feels like it has been polished to an absolute shine. Whether you’re going it alone or playing with others, it’s an excellent way to pass some time. As expected, really.

But it’s also unsurprisingly leaning pretty hard on a number of monetization tricks, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel their impact immediately and see much more frightening things down the road. I can see the glint of its headlight. I can hear its whistle on the wind. It’s coming. And of course it is. This is a free-to-play mobile game. It has to earn its keep somehow. And it’s going to do that in a lot of well-established ways. Battle passes. “Special" offers. Making resources ever so slightly scarce in a way that gets worse over time. Cosmetics. The end-game in particular looks very much like it’s aimed at the rich. As expected, really.

I have to stress that Diablo Immortal isn’t especially egregious with any of this stuff relative to other similar free-to-play titles. It’s all very much par for the course, and it’s built in that modern style where you can enjoy a rather substantial amount of what the game offers without even thinking about spending money. If you’re used to all of this monetization stuff, your concerns are probably going to rest more on its restrictive server/character structure that makes it so that you basically have to plan ahead if you want to play with your friends. If you’re not on the same server, you can’t play together. If you pay for a Battle Pass, it is tied to a particular character. I think they’re needless restrictions, but there they are.

You can use a controller if you want, but the touch controls may actually work best here. It’s easier to aim your skills and magic, and standard actions like moving and fighting feel natural. You have some control over performance as well, and you may want to fiddle with those options for the sake of your device’s battery. At its best, the game looks and runs great. Even on slightly older devices, it’s still pretty easy on the eyes. The audio side of things perhaps isn’t quite up to what I expect from this series, but it’s fine enough.

Diablo Immortal feels as though a talented development team took a lot of time and effort to make a fantastic mobile MMO that doesn’t tarnish the esteemed brand attached to it, and then applied all the depressing elements one must include in order to make money with this sort of thing. It wouldn’t be fair to punish this particular game for simply dancing to the beat of this broken market of ours, so I won’t. And I’m very sure a lot of people are going to pour tons of hours into it and have a wonderful time while spending far less than the price of the average new premium Diablo game. There’s nothing here in terms of free-to-play monetization that we haven’t seen before, and I imagine many of us have honed our ability to ignore such things. So we will. That’s how it is.

But gosh, I’m a bit tired of this. Sometimes I sit back and look at what we’ve allowed ourselves to get used to, and it makes me sad. This is an excellent game. I want to recommend that people play it, but I know in doing so that some small percentage of the people reading this aren’t going to ignore the siren’s call of those microtransactions, and some small percentage of that small percentage are going to spend more than they can afford. And I can’t feel good about that. I can’t feel good about that at all. I hate that I have this dilemma. I hate that game designers have to build their games this way. I feel like I’m reviewing a pack of smokes. And again, it isn’t on Diablo Immortal to pay for these sins. This is just where I have a chance to rant about it, I suppose.

Obviously, I’m a bit conflicted. But it’s only fair to review Diablo Immortal the way we have reviewed games like this before and the way we will probably review games like this in the future. By those standards, yes, this is a fantastic action-RPG experience. Go clear up the twelve gigabytes or so that you’ll need, download it, and get into it. It’s going to try to sell you things, but it will use a very soft sell approach until you’re in very deep indeed. Perhaps deeper in than many of you will play anyway. Diablo Immortal is here. It is everything we could have hoped for, and everything we have feared.

Sumire is a story about a girl of the same name who keeps dreaming about her late grandmother. After waking from yet another dream, she feels like her grandmother is trying to tell her something. Sumire lives with her mother who seems to be depressed after splitting up with Sumire’s father. Sumire feels alone in this house and wants to make things better. This is where a magical seed comes into the picture. This seed appears in Sumire’s life when someone or something throws it into the house from outside breaking the window. Sumire plants the seed and brings a magical flower into her world.

This magical flower can only survive for one day in the human world, and wants to see as much as it can and experience a wonderful day. If Sumire can help, she might get to meet her grandmother. This is where the emotional story begins. When I first played Sumire, I was not ready for the story to hit that hard right from the get go. I’m not going to spoil the best parts of the narrative, but the highlights are the characters, some of the darker story moments, optional quests with hilarious outcomes, and the various interactions you have as you check items and tasks off the list you have to try and show the magical flower a wonderful day.

Sumire is very much a story-driven experience, so you shouldn’t expect much from the gameplay beyond the usual point and click interactions, free movement, fetch quests, and a mini-game or puzzle here and there. Time passes during the day when you fulfill certain conditions and view some events, but you can spend time exploring and interacting to find coins that you need to either buy random things or specific items to fulfill some quests. Sumire can choose to help or ignore situations and there’s a karma meter that takes note of all these decisions. With only one single day, don’t try and experience everything, because Sumire has challenges that reward replaying it and trying out different things.

Visually, Sumire is gorgeous with its painting aesthetic. Every new location including some during the darker parts of the story are superb. I still hope GameTomo releases a physical artbook for Sumire. Barring the aesthetic, the animation work is also commendable despite some movement feeling a bit awkward. There are aspects of the visuals across the game that are Studio Ghibli-inspired, while others just feel like a love letter to certain aspects of Japanese culture.

There is no voice acting in Sumire, but it makes up for this with one of the best soundtracks in recent years. The music perfectly complements the story and is well-worth listening to even outside the game. The songs are acoustic guitar-driven with some other instruments thrown in depending on the situation. It is hard to listen to the title track even now without getting emotional given the story here. If you decide to skip Sumire for whatever reason, it is definitely worth checking out the soundtrack for some fantastic songs.

For this review, I wanted to compare the iOS version on my iPhone 11 and iPad Pro (2020) to the Nintendo Switch and PC versions to help those new to the game decide where to get it. Despite being a relatively slow game when it comes to pacing and interactions, Sumire had some technical issues on Nintendo Switch like long load times in specific areas and some performance issues. The PC version on the other hand is excellent and runs without issues even on my laptop. On iOS, Sumire targets 30fps seemingly. I was disappointed to see it not be as smooth as the PC version even though it maintains its frame rate target decently well on my iPhone and iPad Pro. I was hoping newer iOS and iPadOS devices would target 60fps or higher. GameTomo confirmed to me that performance will be worked on as the team develops the Android version. Hopefully the frame rate cap can be increased on specific devices at least.

Barring the performance, Sumire looks superb on both my iPhone and iPad. The touch targets are nice and big with the new tweaked interface for mobile. The iOS version lets you use a floating joystick on the left half of the screen to move Sumire, while you can tap on the right to interact with a point of interest. This feels a bit weird since you can’t actually touch the right half of the screen to progress dialogue or an interaction. This aspect needs some work because you can only progress dialogue by tapping a speech bubble when available, or the interaction button. I asked the developers if this can be improved or whether a tap to move option would be added. They confirmed that the latter isn’t planned right now, but they will be looking into the former.

Sumire does have controller support, but it appears to not be fully implemented. I had a few issues with my PS5 DualSense controller, but the Xbox Series X controller worked very well. I didn’t play the entire game with the controller since I wanted to test the new touch controls, but there is some form of controller support right now that works. GameTomo told me that if controller support is requested, they can patch it in but right now using a controller isn’t officially supported. I hope they consider this for a future update.

Despite the few annoyances with the iOS version’s interface, Sumire is a must play for anyone who enjoys narrative adventures and heartwarming stories. A single playthrough should take you just under 3 hours, but the challenges will get you to replay the game to try and see other outcomes or complete certain tasks you couldn’t do in your first playthrough. I hope GameTomo considers fixing some of the interface and controller issues because Sumire on iOS has the potential to be my favorite version of the game.

Sumire is a game I’ve convinced a lot of people to play on Nintendo Switch, and I hope to do the same on iOS. Despite the few issues with the port right now, it is still worth experiencing if you enjoy emotional stories. The highlights initially may seem like the visuals and amazing soundtrack, but Sumire is a game I want to see more of in the future from GameTomo. I look forward to seeing how this version improves through updates, but I’m glad to have been able to play Sumire on another platform and still hope it gets a physical release on Nintendo Switch in the future.

Originally released in early 1992, Last Resort is pretty plainly informed by Irem’s legendary R-Type. It’s a horizontal shooter where the main type of power-up comes in the form of various satellite bits that you can position as you like. This enables you to shoot in multiple directions, fling the satellite out, or guard your vulnerable flanks as needed, and the game expects you to learn how to take advantage of that very quickly. Where R-Type only had one type of bit that you could power-up, Last Resort offers a few different variants, each with their own attack patterns. The setting has a cool post-apocalyptic vibe that is often directly ripped from Akira, and both enemies and bosses have interesting designs and solid attack patterns.

So yes, this is a rather good game. It may not be as celebrated as Blazing Star, but I think it’s certainly worth checking out if you enjoy more strategic shoot-em-ups. It’s not quite as devilish as R-Type, but it’s not that far from it in terms of difficulty. Fans of that game will want to give Last Resort a look if they’ve missed it in the past, as it gives off a lot of the same vibes. There are five stages in total, but you’ll have to play through them twice to see all this game has to offer. When things get tense, there are bouts of slowdown and flicker, but I suppose the game is in good company with that trait in tow. No matter how high you raise the tech ceiling, someone will hit their head on it.

We’ve been through enough of these Arcade Archives releases now that regular readers will probably be familiar with how Hamster has handled this port. It emulates just as it should, and offers both Japanese and International versions to play. You get two extra modes in the form of Score Attack and Caravan Mode, putting your ability to rack up points to the test. This isn’t a great score attack shooter, but extra options are still nice. Speaking of options, you’ve got all of the usual ones for adjusting video, audio, difficulty, controls, and more. There is leaderboard support, and you can make use of external controllers if you have one. This also allows you to play the game’s two-player mode.

While Hamster’s efforts on each of these games are largely identical, not all of these NEOGEO games suit the mobile experience well. That is particularly the case if you aren’t using an external controller and have to rely on the touch controls. Well, I’m happy to report that Last Resort takes to touch gameplay like a fish to water. There are probably better set-ups for this sort of thing than a virtual pad and virtual buttons, but I didn’t have any trouble getting to grips with the game and playing it just like I would on a controller. It’s also a fine single-player experience, so not being able to access that shouldn’t be a major concern for most players either.

Some of you out there are probably buying all of these ACA NEOGEO releases, and at these prices I can’t blame you. Very collectible and all that. But for those who are taking a more pick-and-choose approach to the offerings, Last Resort is one of the games you’ll want to strongly consider. As long as you’re okay with the fact that this is a tremendously challenging shoot-em-up, you’ll probably have a great time with it. The visuals are good, the gameplay is intriguing and enjoyable, the soundtrack is great, and Hamster has wrapped it all up in its usual high-quality package. Certainly worth the price of admission.

Your brother has been selected to be a sacrifice, and that’s not something that sits right with you. In you go after him, without so much as a weapon by your side. Probably not your best plan. Well, at least the dungeon is only… 100 levels deep. And these aren’t like the floors of your local dying shopping mall, either. Each one has at least one way to kill you, and most have a few. Sometimes you’ll be quickly dodging around fireball traps activated by pressure plates. Other times you’ll be doing the combat dance with some goblins. Most monsters can kill you in a single swipe, so you’ll have to be light on your feet. Luckily there are a few traps you can use to your own advantage if you play things right.

Everything is done, in the classic style, by simply moving around. Swipe to hop in any of the four cardinal directions to head that way. Swipe in the direction of an enemy to take a swing at it, once you’ve found a weapon. You’ll find it early, don’t worry. Anyway, that’s how it works. Nudge a switch and you’ll flip it. Nudge a door and you’ll either open it if you have a key or start bashing it down if you don’t. As simple as it gets. It’s a bit finicky depending on your swiping technique, and you’ll sometimes find yourself moving in a different direction than you may have intended. I would love to tell you that won’t cause issues, but that would only be true fairly early in the game.

For as simple as Dungeons of Dreadrock starts, it gets absolutely devious before too long. It’s never unfair about it. There are just enough hints and clues to put together what you need to do, at least the first time you come across a particular type of trap or monster. Knowing what to do is only half of the battle, though. Once you’ve sorted out what you need to do, you’ll have to pull it off. That’s where the sometimes fussy controls can be a pain, but at the very least death has few consequences. You’ll have to start the floor again, but respawns are swift. Each stage is also brief enough that any setbacks are temporary annoyances at worst.

You also get little story bits here and there, and while it’s not the stuff of great literature or anything, the little biscuits of narrative help break up the action. What will the consequences of our young heroine’s rash behavior be? Will she be able to rescue her brother? You might find out if you’re able to kite this freaking orc into the path of those fireballs. The stage designs are the real star of the show, with increasingly vexing demands that somehow always feel within reach. Like a hundred handfuls of buttered dungeon-crawler popcorn, it’s hard to stop until your hand is at the bottom of the bucket.

Dungeons of Dreadrock is free to play with ad support, or you can pay for a one-time $1.99 IAP to remove those ads forever. That means you don’t have to take my word for it at all, because you can just try it yourself. Geez, and I wrote all those words too. Well, if it means some of you give this game a shot, I suppose it was worth it. And that’s just what you should do. It’s a quality game with a very affordable ad removal fee, and we’re not so swimming in dungeon-plunging riches that we should pass that kind of thing up just because of some slightly wonky controls.

Considering the reliable nature of some other SNK series, Samurai Shodown has been remarkably inconsistent. As such, it’s rare to find anyone that loves every entry in the series. Samurai Shodown IV‘s popularity comes from a few improvements over its predecessor. Some characters cut from the third game make their return, the visuals were given a more cartoonish look, air blocking was removed, and a tide-turning Rage Explosion move was implemented. When used, it sacrifices your POW meter for the remainder of the match in exchange for a boost in strength. You can also commit seppuku, which not only denies your opponent the satisfaction of victory but also starts you off the next round with a full POW meter. Oh, and there’s also the Fatal Slash, which can flip the script in one fell swoop.

Compared to other one-on-one fighters, matches in Samurai Showdown games can be swift and brutal. Samurai Showdown IV leans into that, and as a result matches are fast-paced and lively. There’s a particular flavor to this series that few others share, and it’s what keeps players coming back even twenty-five years later. Is it well-suited to mobile? Well, that’s another question. Virtual controls and fighting games don’t always mix well, and some of the motions required in this game are particularly vexing on a virtual pad. To make matters worse, multiplayer is local only and requires you to have an extra external controller.

If you’ve read my review of Metal Slug 5, all of the options and features mentioned there apply here. You can play both the Japanese and Overseas versions of the game, try a one-credit score attack, or go for a Caravan run to see how many points you can rack up in five minutes. You get save states, and a wide array of options for difficulty, button layout, video and audio, and more. There are online leaderboards as well, which is the only real online interaction with other players on offer here.

The game has support for external controllers, and it makes a huge difference for those that use them. Otherwise, you’re stuck with the virtual controls here, and they’re about as good as they can be. There are lots of options for customizing them just the way you like, if nothing else. But unless you have an external controller or two, you’re most likely playing Samurai Shodown IV using virtual controls against the CPU opponent. It just isn’t the best way to go about experiencing this one. The price is reasonable and the package is good, but the transition to mobile hits this game harder than it might some others.

Provided you’re used to playing fighters with virtual controls (or have some external controllers) and don’t mind that you’re most likely going to be confined to single-player battles, you probably won’t find this to be an unpleasant pick-up at all. The game itself is excellent, easily one of the better fighters from a console where that statement really means something. But it’s just difficult enough to experience the game the way it’s meant to be played with this particular version to keep me from recommending it with too much vigor.

Rather than retread old (and surprisingly still functional) ground, the opening salvo from Hamster fills out a few gaps left in some of the more popular series. One of those, and perhaps of most interest, is Metal Slug 5 ($3.99). Dotemu handled ports of Metal Slug, Metal Slug 2, Metal Slug X, and Metal Slug 3 for mobile devices. It was a reasonable stopping point. There’s a whole big story in it, but the long and short of it is that those games were as far as the original developers behind the series went and are generally the most well-liked. Another developer took over for Metal Slug 4 before the series went back to SNK with Metal Slug 5.

As such, Metal Slug 5 can be seen as something of a homecoming for the legendary run-and-gun series after a somewhat tepid chapter. It is not as tight and smartly-paced as Metal Slug. It isn’t as perfectly silly or bombastic as Metal Slug X. It’s not as epic in scale or scope as Metal Slug 3. But it’s a good romp. It has five cool stages, and some really neat boss battles. There are a couple of branches to be found, but nothing on the level of Metal Slug 3. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing is up to you. You get a few new Slug vehicles to go with some returning ones, and a completely bananas final boss. Nothing too revolutionary, but a regular ol’ home-cooked dinner was a fine enough step after Metal Slug 4.

So yes, as a game it is worth plunking sixteen quarters or so into. But how about the package? I won’t say that Hamster is the absolute top of the heap when it comes to retro rereleases, but it’s generally known for doing a good job in terms of both emulation quality and breadth of options. In terms of the former, this release is up to the usual standards. The game runs as it should, and I doubt anyone will find many nits to pick with that end of things. Of course, the same could be said for Dotemu’s NEOGEO releases. NEOGEO emulation isn’t arcane sorcery at this point, so what it really comes down to is what kind of options we’ve been presented with.

The interface used in these mobile releases differs in appearance from that seen in Hamster’s Arcade Archives releases on other platforms, but the basic functions are familiar. You can dive into either the Japanese or Overseas versions of the game and get playing, or you can try the special High Score and Caravan modes. The first challenges you with racking up as high of a score as possible on one credit, while the second sees you doing the same with a five-minute time limit on top. They’re fun, even if they’re not necessarily as well-suited to this style of game compared to, say, a shoot-em-up.

In terms of options within the game itself, you get quite a rich amount. Difficulty options, save states, virtual button configuration and layout, rapid-fire switches, display settings, and more. It has just about everything a person could ask for, and easily blows Dotemu’s offerings out of the water.  The game has support for external controllers, and you’ll probably want to make use of one. While the virtual controls are as good as you could hope, it’s always going to be a little tricky to use such methods with games designed around precise stick-and-button controls. The only way to play multiplayer is by making use of external controllers, as well.

Still, if you’re particularly deft with virtual controls or have access to an external controller you won’t find much to be unhappy with in terms of Hamster’s work here. This is an impressive, feature-rich package. The game itself is an enjoyable slice of action, if not quite up to the level of the Metal Slug games that have seen mobile releases so far. It’s a promising start for Arcade Archives on the platform, and hopefully will lead to seeing some of the more esoteric NEOGEO games make their way over as well.

UPDATE: As pointed out in our forums, these ACA NEOGEO released DO in fact support physical controllers, it’s just not very obvious. With a controller connected to your device, click the icon on the title screen that looks kind of like a USB cable with Wi-Fi signals coming out of it to enable the controller support.

When it rains, it pours. We don’t just get one of the games. All three Final Fantasy Legend games are included in Collection of SaGa FF Legend ($9.99), and that adds up to a whole lot of good times if you can deal with the capricious nature of the series. It’s fairly well-known at this point, but even if you didn’t realize it, the name of the app pulls back the curtain on the true nature of the Final Fantasy Legend series. These were never Final Fantasy games, not in the direct sense. No, it was Akitoshi Kawazu all along! These are in fact the genesis of the SaGa series, which has gotten a lot of love in the last few years from Square Enix. But SaGa is kind of Final Fantasy in the sense that the first two games very much follow on from the controversial Final Fantasy II.

Before we shine a light on each game, let’s talk about the app itself. It is more or less the same as what we saw on the Nintendo Switch, with similar display options and extras. You can play in portrait or landscape, with the game appearing in a smaller window with a fake console complete with working touch buttons filling out the rest of the display. The same alterations have been made to the art and scripts in places as the Switch versions, and the games allow you to speed up the gameplay without messing up the music. You can choose from a variety of skins for your fake game console, which I suppose is a nice touch. The games play well enough with touch controls, and as you can imagine modern smartphones have no problems emulating Game Boy games. Alas, no external controller support. Perhaps it will be added in later.

Let’s look at the games themselves. The first game is The Final Fantasy Legend, or Makaitoushi SaGa in Japan. It was the first handheld RPG video game in history, and was designed to be completed on a flight from Tokyo to Hawaii. As such, it can be a pretty short game if you know what you’re doing. Figuring out what you’re doing is another matter entirely, as it is full of the kind of opaque design that Akitoshi Kawazu would become famous for. Some players love this kind of thing, others hate it. You probably know which of the two you are. There isn’t much to the story beyond a novel premise, but the visual design has a lot of appeal and the soundtrack is superb.

Final Fantasy Legend II takes the basic framework of the first game and both builds on it and refines it. It has a more involved story and an overall better focus. While it still contains a myriad of bizarre mechanics, it’s a bit easier to sort out in this installment. This tends to be the favorite of most players when it comes to this trilogy, as it sands off some of the rough edges of the first game without losing its quirky charms. It’s a much longer game with a smoother difficulty curve, and while the plot isn’t going to win any awards, it’s interesting enough.

Something weird happened on the way to Final Fantasy Legend III. The team responsible for the first two got the call to make a full 16-bit console SaGa game. A relatively new team was tapped to make the final game in the Game Boy trilogy. Many of the people involved in this game would go on to work on Final Fantasy Mystic Quest and Super Mario RPG. Akitoshi Kawazu had little involvement with this installment, and it shows. This is a much more conventional RPG that has a neat time travel plot. There are still some elements of the earlier games here, but I find this one tends to go over better with people that didn’t get on with the first two and worse with those who loved them. Well, it’s nice to have different flavors.

Given that even the newest of these games first released in 1991, you have to put up with some issues that RPGs were still sorting out at the time if you want to get into them. They can be grindy, but grinding without understanding the complicated systems behind the games can be nearly pointless. This is particularly the case with the first two games. You can absolutely paint yourself into a corner in the first game especially if you aren’t careful. Characters will lose a life if they die, and if they run out? Sorry, they’re gone. You can buy more lives, but that’s an expensive life to live. Well, you all probably know what you’re getting into with SaGa games by now. These are even more prototypical and built for a rather low-powered handheld, so add that into your calculations.

Still, there’s a bit of a charm to these games and it feels pretty amusing to play them on an iPhone. There are probably more broadly entertaining Square Enix RPGs you can buy on mobile, especially if you’re looking to splash out a cool twenty. But if you have cozy memories of huddling under your blanket with a flashlight or sneaking a quick bit of grinding at school, Collection of SaGa FF Legend will honor those feelings of nostalgia. If you don’t have those warm fuzzies but happen to have enjoyed the recent SaGa releases, you’ll also want to check these out. They’re not always fun, but they’re certainly interesting.

The big claim to fame for Fantasian is that it’s the latest and possibly last full-on RPG from the man widely recognized as the creator of Final Fantasy, Hironobu Sakaguchi. It is also the latest and possibly last complete game soundtrack from Nobuo Uematsu, the composer behind the first nine Final Fantasy games and many other titles. There are other Final Fantasy veterans on the team, including one who seems to have a great deal of influence on the design of Fantasian. Besides the star power, the game also benefits from a gorgeous, unique look thanks to its extensive use of elaborate dioramas for its backgrounds.

With all of that, you would perhaps expect this game to play out like a Final Fantasy game. And sometimes it does. Turn-based battles, bits of melodrama, and the way it feels to move around and explore. Uematsu’s music has that old familiar ring to it. Even its broad structure, with a heavily linear first part and an open second half, follows the Final Fantasy beats. But sometimes it isn’t Final Fantasy. And the deeper you go into the game, particularly in its second part, the more it diverges from that game in form and feel.

And that, my friends, is what has left me in a real pickle for the last few days since I toppled the final boss with just under sixty hours on the clock. Fantasian is, in a lot of ways, a brilliant game. A lot of careful attention has gone into its design, and in terms of production values you really can’t argue much with it. I mostly had an excellent time with it, and even found myself thrilled at some points in a way that I haven’t been with most other RPGs. It’s amazing. And I think most people will hate it if they actually try to finish it.

Yes, I know. That is an incredibly odd thing to say. Let me explain. Fantasian is, quite simply, one of the most difficult JRPGs I have played in the last couple of decades. It’s not difficult in an opaque way like the SaGa games. It’s difficult in the sense that it is jam-packed full of bosses that are half puzzle, half “Final Boss"-tier tenacious drag-outs. You should always have the tools you need to beat each of them, but you’ll have to figure out which you need and then use them perfectly to succeed. And again, this isn’t just the last boss. It’s most of the back half of the game. You thought that Fire Lizard was a pain in the first part of Fantasian? Buckle up. Every day is Final Exam day in Fantasian‘s second half.

The only way, and I cannot stress that ‘only‘ enough, you will succeed is by doing your homework on the boss’s behavior and respec’ing your characters’ Growth Maps in just the right way to topple your foe. Growth Maps are introduced late in first part of the game, and they work more or less as you would think. They’re skill trees, basically. Luckily, you can respec at no cost. You’ll be doing it a lot. If you think you can fire and forget with your Growth Maps, or that you have any sort of flexibility whatsoever in how to handle these bosses, think again. Each one is a puzzle, and you either figure out its solution and win or keep on failing. Sort out the skills and the party members you need, and when you need to use them. You will need to swap characters out mid-battle for many bosses, too.

If you’re into this kind of thing, it’s exhilarating. I haven’t been bullied this hard by a JRPG in a long while, and I wouldn’t have ever thought it would come from an Apple Arcade game by the father of Final Fantasy. I had to seriously think about all of the tools in my box and devise complicated, custom strategies for each of these boss battles. Trying to play like a meathead will drop you on your rear within a turn or two. Truly, these encounters were built for veterans of the genre. The problem, I suppose, is for those who do not fit in that rather narrow scope. There isn’t much in the entire Final Fantasy series that would have prepared you for the likes of what Fantasian throws out. If that’s your background, it’s like going from go-karts to Formula One racers in terms of challenge.

If I had to guess, this can be laid at the feet of Toshirou Tsuchida, one of those aforementioned veterans of Final Fantasy and Square Enix. He was involved with many games during his time there, but the most relevant may have been his turn as director of Front Mission 2, 3, and 4. He also served as a director on Final Fantasy X, and as the battle director on Final Fantasy XIII. If you’ve played some or all of those games, you can see how he appreciates making puzzle-like battle systems and encounters. I don’t know if he was holding himself back a bit on those games or if someone else was reeling him in, but Fantasian feels like his design theory taken to its most extreme.

Well, how you feel about the difficulty is going to be a deeply personal thing, I think. I’m not trying to pump up the game to give it some hardcore cred or anything. If you don’t like frustratingly difficult games where you may very well have to repeat lengthy battles until you figure out the exact way the designer meant for you to beat them, feel free to play Fantasian until you get your fill and bounce without shame. If you revel in that stuff, hop in. I think it is the most significant factor in whether or not you’ll like this game or hate it.

What can I say about the rest of it? The production values are outstanding. Just a jaw-droppingly lovely game with a soundtrack that proves Uematsu’s still got some fire in his belly. The story has its moments, but surprisingly I found it to be the weakest part of the game. I never really got all that invested in where it was going, and the characters certainly don’t live up to what I would expect from a team with these credentials. Some of the side-quests and vignettes are good, though.

Oh heck, I didn’t even talk about the Dimengeon Battles system. This bit is enormously clever, and I hope it inspires a lot of other JRPGs to do something similar. Basically, once you’ve already fought a type of enemy once, you can stuff subsequent random encounters with it into a pocket dimension. Whenever you feel like it, you can pop into your pocket dimension and take on all of those enemies you stuffed into it in one big slobberknocker of a battle. Special gimmicks are used in these battles to make the idea of fighting thirty enemies at once a little less frightening. It’s also critical for getting underleveled party members back up to speed in the second half of the game. I declare Dimengeons to be both creative and neat, and the game does not fail to explore their possibilities.

Let’s try to pull this all together. Fantasian is an intricately-designed JRPG from a highly experienced team who may have overshot a teeny-tiny bit in terms of what they expect from the average player. It has a lot of interesting ideas, but like the game’s story, they don’t always coalesce in a satisfying way. It is unspeakably beautiful artistically, both in terms of sights and sounds. It is a lengthy adventure, and it changes things up at just the right moments to keep you motivated. It is very difficult, frustrating even. But it’s not generally unfair about that, nor is it mysterious about what you need to do. Fantasian is a very demanding experience, and you really have to be in love with its mechanics to put up with it all. Heaven knows the narrative isn’t going to keep you motivated. Fantasian is an absolute masterpiece in most regards, and yet I find myself struggling to recommend it.

My experience with life simulators before My Time at Portia included Stardew Valley and the Nintendo 3DS entries in the Story of Seasons franchise. Despite enjoying those quite a bit, I found myself addicted to My Time at Portia on console. It felt like a combination of a natural step forward for the genre with its ambition, and also a bit lacking in some areas. My Time at Portia on console was constantly behind the PC version in features and updates. While the situation didn’t get as bad as Forager on Nintendo Switch with crashes and save files being corrupted, I ended up dropping My Time at Portia on console after about 100 hours between the versions I had. That’s where the mobile and more recently PS4 versions of My Time at Portia come into the picture.

If you’ve never played or heard of My Time at Portia before, it starts off similar to games like Stardew Valley and Story of Seasons. You inherit a workshop in a new town and aim to restore it. Instead of a focus on farming like in the aforementioned games, crafting and automation are a bigger focus in My Time at Portia which is set in the town of Portia, in a post-apocalyptic land. You aim to have the best workshop in town and can interact with colourful NPCs, spar with them, and explore vivid landscapes, and even go underground. There is a lot of customization for your home and surroundings here alongside a skill tree. One of the best aspects of the game that I continue to enjoy in new playththroughs is how relaxed everything is. I can see myself launching it and playing a bit daily for a long time now just as I did on Nintendo Switch when that version released.

If you’ve already played or were interested in My Time at Portia and are wondering how the mobile port is, there is mostly good news here for you. Visually, My Time at Portia on iPhone 11 and iPad Pro (2020) is gorgeous. I didn’t think it would look remotely this good after how it looks and runs on PS4 Pro, Xbox One X, and Nintendo Switch but the porting studio has made the game look mostly much better than I expected. I say mostly because the draw distance on the iOS version is much lower than the PS4 Pro and Xbox versions of the game. There are also some lower resolution textures and shadows. Character models and fields look great. The Nintendo Switch version lacked proper grass but the mobile version of My Time at Portia includes grass in the vast fields. Visually, My Time at Portia on iPhone and iPad has exceeded my expectations for sure. If you’re on an older device you might want to check out the graphics options because you can opt for better frame rate at the expense of visuals (still 30fps), a balanced mode, or high graphics mode (which is what I used). Check out the image below with the frame rate mode on the left and the high graphics mode on the right on iPad Pro.

On the performance side of things, the mobile version excels above the console version quite a bit. The PS4 Pro, Xbox One X, and Nintendo Switch versions of My Time at Portia all target 30fps. The mobile version has the same frame rate target. In my testing in both the early and later parts of the game on the devices I use, I had great performance. I was hoping for a 60fps mode with lower quality visuals but as of now, you can play at a 30fps target or less on mobile. The area this port shines is load times. The load times are massively better than the console versions.

To give you a rough idea, I measured the time to load up a save and then leave home to load the area outside your house on PS4 Pro via PS5 backward compatibility, Nintendo Switch, and iPad Pro with all the latest available patches installed. The PS4 Pro version took about 30 seconds to load the save and 12 to load the outside of the house. The Nintendo Switch version took 52 seconds to load the save and then 23 seconds to load the area outside the house. The iOS version on iPad Pro took about 6 seconds to load the save and then about 5 seconds to load the outside of the house. I tested different areas and autosave (which I will get to in a bit) and the iOS version is so much better thanks to this.

Beyond including everything the PC version of My Time at Portia has both for features and content (with one exception), the mobile release has some added quality of life improvements with auto save being the biggest one. In other versions of the game, you can only save when you sleep at home. The mobile version has auto save and I’ve switched to another app and come back with the auto save being very good over the last week. In addition to the save improvements, there are also some new useful tracking options for tasks and items. In terms of feature set, I’m very impressed with the mobile version.

I’ve praised a lot of aspects of My Time at Portia on mobile and while I do think it is a great way to experience the game, there are some issues holding it back. The lack of full controller support is pretty baffling. I’ve used my PS5 DualSense controller on and off when I played on iPad Pro and it works for a lot of basic functions and some parts of the UI, but you will need to use touch controls as well. I’ve seen mentions of no controller support on Reddit, but I confirmed that the PS5 DualSense controller and Xbox One controller have partial support with the public App Store version. The on-screen buttons don’t disappear but there is some controller support right now for movement and attacking. You can also navigate some parts of the UI but not fully play with just a controller right now. Hopefully future updates can bring in full support and hide the on-screen buttons when a controller is detected. As of now, don’t buy this expecting proper controller support.

The other issue is the text size. My Time at Portia’s interface is pretty busy on all platforms and there are some portions with a lot of text. On iPad Pro, I had no issues with the UI, but I had trouble reading certain things on iPhone 11. Since I’ve already played a ton of the game on other platforms, I could adjust pretty quickly though. While it is great to see crisp visuals for the 3D elements and characters, I wish some of the textures for noticeboards and the map view could’ve been improved for higher resolution displays.

Barring that, My Time at Portia on its own still feels a little unpolished in some areas. While having the full PC experience with voice acting included and updated content is great, if you bounced off the game on other platforms because you didn’t stick with or find the core loop interesting, this enhanced version on mobile will not change your mind. If you did enjoy it though, I think you will spend a ton of time with the game on mobile in this excellent conversion.

My Time at Portia was an excellent but flawed experience on consoles and the mobile version is a lot better almost across the board. It is also more accessible for newcomers thanks to the quality of life updates. If you enjoy life simulators and want something meaty to dig into, My Time at Portia is worth your time and money. It is also priced very reasonably compared to the console versions.

If you (like me) bought My Time at Portia on consoles, this mobile version having more features and updates will no doubt annoy you, but the developers are working to release the update on console soon so hopefully everyone can experience the best of My Time at Portia on their platform of choice. In an ideal world, I could just carry my progress across any device and continue playing but I’m going to stick with the mobile version for now. I just hope it gets proper controller support so it can be the definitive version of the game for me. Right now, My Time at Portia on PC is still the best version overall because of the visual and performance boost, but the mobile version is a close second thanks to its new features and up to date content.

I’m assuming many readers will be familiar with the original Final Fantasy through one version or another, so I’ll cover the changes and differences first. This new remake breaks ranks with the others in that it does not use the previous version as its basis. In many respects, this game acts as though it’s the very first remake of the original Final Fantasy. That means a new art direction for the sprites that hits a little closer to the original designs, a Vancian magic system instead of MP, and perhaps most importantly, the absence of any and all dungeons, bosses, and other paraphernalia from the other remakes.

How do I feel about all of this? I kind of dig the new look, even if it’s not as clean or detailed as the PSP style. I have a fondness for those original sprites, and seeing them expressed in a purer fashion here isn’t so bad. The new version of the soundtrack is incredible. I’m actually happy to see the Vancian magic system back, as I feel the original game was designed around the idea of spell charges. You had to carefully ration every spell charge in larger dungeons, and that scarcity made stockpiling and using items vital to your survival. Every version that uses the MP system ends up being far too easy to topple without this component.

I have mixed feelings about the additional content being cut. The original Final Fantasy can be a very brief game compared to its successors, and as a result having any added content was welcome. The bonus dungeon designs incorporated some interesting ideas that can’t be found in the core game, and they are missed. I also enjoyed the monster cameos from later games, even if they made no sense narratively or thematically. The added range of equipment and items was also quite interesting. On the other hand, I think some of that extra content was a bit weak, and I think it would require a complete rework with the shift back to the original magic system. The base content is still the best content, and if we are celebrating the original game then perhaps it’s best to focus on that.

So is this a better version than the existing one? I wish I had a simple answer. In many ways, yes. Even with all of the updates, the original app is 11 years old. In iOS terms it’s practically from the Stone Age, and it really feels like it at times. Whatever you may feel about the new look, it certainly looks sharper on modern displays. The game also feels more comfortable to control, with diagonal movement and more precision on the virtual dpad. I think more of the original experience of Final Fantasy comes through in this version, both in presentation and gameplay terms. It’s actually somewhat challenging in places again! But I’d rather have that extra content than not have it, and I can certainly imagine some people preferring the art style of the PSP/original iOS version.

Unless you really love the original Final Fantasy, you may not see much of a need to buy this new version. Not yet, anyway. But the old version has been sunsetted, and sooner or later it will stop working. This will be the version from now on, and I’m mostly fine with that. If nothing else, it gives the game a chance to show off some of its unique points that were sanded out of subsequent versions. I happily bought the game again and will keep it in the folder with the old version until such time that its ancestor no longer functions, but I also replay the original Final Fantasy every year. I would probably qualify as a heavy user.

There’s an appeal to these early RPGs, after all. There isn’t much in the way of a complex story to follow in the first Final Fantasy, though it was quite competent for its time and place. You get a nice set-up here before the game begins, and then little bits and pieces here and there as you go. The gameplay is also relatively straightforward while still being somewhat strategic, so it’s a nice thing to play when I don’t want to have to strain my brain too much. Being able to build your own party adds a fun element of customization to the game, though you’ll have to be a bit more careful in this version because of how it sticks to the original rules more closely. It’s a solid adventure to run through now and then, and I can usually find new challenges for myself each time if I’m looking for them.

Setting aside the cut content, I do have a few problems with this otherwise solid version. The choice of fonts is baffling, for starters. It’s very narrow and small, making it a little hard to make out at times on phone displays. Even with the bigger real estate of a tablet screen, I feel they could have chosen more wisely. I also wish controller support had been incorporated here. I know this doesn’t matter to some, but in cases where a game exists on other platforms with controller support, I see no reason to leave it out of these mobile versions. More options are good.

If this is your first experience with the game, I think you’ll find the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster version to be quite a worthy purchase. It feels its age in terms of story and themes, but it remains a solid RPG with some great beats. The results of turning in that particular item to Bahamut still gets me pumped to this day, and the initial sequence leading up to the bridge feels like the perfect way to kick off an adventure. There are better games in the series, to be sure, but the relative simplicity of this installment makes it well-suited for players who can’t devote their full attention to a more complex RPG. It’s a strong update to the original game, and I suspect we’ll be enjoying it for many years to come.

What made that smart even more is the fact that the Mana series has a tendency to veer off in wild directions. Those who just wanted another game like Secret of Mana wouldn’t have much luck with many of the sequels and spin-offs. That missing game looked like the closest thing to another Secret of Mana we might ever get. But for literal decades, there was no sign that the game would ever come. The first spark of hope came with the remake of Adventures of Mana in 2016. Perhaps if it was successful, we would see a remake of more of the games, presenting new opportunities for a localization? A long shot, but it ended up paying off. While mobile gamers haven’t yet been privy to a version of the Secret of Mana remake (we’re not missing much, I promise), this spiffy 2019 remake of Trials of Mana is now available on iOS and Android.

Now, it’s obviously going to be hard to evaluate this particular version in terms of how close it is to Secret of Mana. A lot of changes have been made in the transition to 3D, after all. For one thing, the multiplayer element has been removed. There are new abilities, new classes, a New Game Plus, a choice of difficulty levels, and a whole lot of little changes that go beyond the scope of this review. Suffice it to say that this is not exactly the same game as the original, even while it preserves many aspects of it. Probably not a major concern for most readers, but worth mentioning for those who care.

Even with all of those changes, at its core this game still features the same stories and many of the same systems as the 16-bit version. It’s quite ambitious in its storytelling, but its gameplay is surprisingly orthodox when compared even to its immediate successor in the Mana series. You choose a main character from six different protagonists, then choose two companion characters. Each of these potential heroes and heroines has their own motivation and part in the story, and the ones you don’t choose will still appear in various places. You’ll obviously get the full events of your main character’s story before meeting his companions, but you can optionally decide to play through the opening sections of your other party members as well.

You can see early echoes of the kind of storytelling that would become more prominent in the next game. Not every scenario resolves with a happy ending, and the game is sometimes very philosophical. While the basic plot is the same no matter who you choose, you’ll get a different view on that story depending on who you pick. That replay value also extends to the gameplay mechanics, as each character has their own abilities, classes, and skills to unlock and use along the way. You can almost always find something new on each playthrough, and I always appreciate games like that.

The action is considerably improved in this game when compared to the original version. The development team didn’t chain itself to the original design with this one the way they did with the previous two remakes, and the combat system benefits greatly from it. You can dodge, jump, and use two different types of attacks by default. You also have a special move called a class special, and you’ll eventually unlock an assortment of abilities, some of which can be chained with other characters. Each battle is cordoned off into a little mini-arena that you can escape if you need to, and resolving it quickly and with some style will award you with extra experience points. While it’s not the greatest action-RPG system I’ve played with, it’s fun, flashy, and quite robust.

Gathering enough experience will give you a level up, which increases your HP and MP and gives you some stat points to put into whichever stat you want. The game is upfront about what you’ll get at different stat point levels, so you can plan reasonably well. You’ll also be able to choose between classes at a certain point, giving you a fair bit of customizability for each character. You’ll also gain new weapons and other gear as you travel, along with an assortment of items. New to this remake is the appearance of Lil Cactus, who first appeared in Legend of Mana. He’s hiding around many areas, and finding him will reward you in various ways.

This mobile version of the game looks great and runs well, arguably better than the Nintendo Switch version does. Unfortunately, there’s no support for external controllers. You have to use the touch controls that have been implemented. They’re fine as these things go, but it’s a shame that Square Enix keeps leaving out what I feel is now a reasonably expected feature for mobile ports. Still, if you’re used to touch controls in games with 3D movement, you’ll get by just fine here. I can’t really find any other faults with this port of the game. It’s a strong effort, and it’s always nice to see premium console games like this make it to our little ecosystem uncompromised.

Trials of Mana is an enjoyable action-RPG with a lot to offer, and fans of the genre or the Mana series in particular would do well to give it their attention. As is always the case with Square Enix’s titles, the price is relatively high compared to many other mobile games. But this is the full-fat console experience with nothing left out, and in that context I think it’s fair to to pay a little more. I’d especially recommend this game to any Secret of Mana fans who felt turned off by some of the gameplay choices in later Mana games. Even in its remade form, Trials of Mana shares a lot of qualities with Secret of Mana. They quite literally don’t make them like this anymore, so don’t let it pass you by.

I’ve been playing Clap Hanz Golf quite a bit since release and it is absolutely worth your time if you’ve longed for an arcade-style traditional golf experience. Mobile gaming isn’t a stranger to golf games and there’s even the brilliant What The Golf? on Apple Arcade but Clap Hanz Golf fills a gap not just in the service but also on mobile with its gameplay and structure.

Clap Hanz Golf does away with Clap Hanz’s tried and tested three step golf gameplay for a new swipe system. This is playable with both touch controls or with a controller using the right analog stick. Instead of aiming and then pressing buttons to choose speed and accuracy, you now swipe back to choose shot power, hold at the position, and then swipe up quickly to shoot. You can also add some spin here. I was initially a bit skeptical of this but ended up liking it a lot. It does feel much easier on a controller though.

The core gameplay has a nice blend of great tutorials that will even bring those with no golf knowledge at all up to speed with it, RPG-like stats and levels for each character (with their own strengths), and well-designed courses. Despite the initial launch feeling a bit lacking, the current state of Clap Hanz Golf is a polished gameplay experience with a lot of charm.

In terms of game modes, you have a Tour Mode that lets you take your group of characters to unlock more by winning across the globe through a variety of styles, a score attack mode that is a solo mode, local multiplayer, a survival mode with challenges, and a newly added World Tournament mode. The World Tournament mode rules change each week and your aim here is to reach the top of the leaderboards.

Visually, Clap Hanz Golf is a mixed bag. I mostly love the charming aesthetic and unique characters, but there are quite a few low resolution assets that are noticeable when played on a modern iPad. These are less noticeable on my iPhone 11 given the lower resolution display. Performance and load times are great across the board though. Clap Hanz Golf feels like a Hot Shot’s Golf game in everything but name and it definitely has been a lot more fun than the PS4 entry in just about every way.

Clap Hanz Golf even has some voice acting but it can get grating with how repetitive some lines of dialogue are. The music is a good fit for the gameplay and the audio design in general definitely reminds me of arcade golf games from years ago in a good way. If you enjoyed sports games from the PS1 era, you will definitely enjoy the aesthetic and audio design here.

I still think Apple shouldn’t have just dumped a ton of new games into Apple Arcade all on the same day as they did back in early April, and instead staggered things a bit more to let individual releases get their time in the spotlight. The release schedule wouldn’t have been so erratic in the following weeks. Clap Hanz Golf in its current state will feel a bit grindy after you’ve played for a good amount of time and just want to unlock everything that’s left. Despite that, it is definitely worth your time and I hope it continues to get regular updates in the future with maybe even a real-time multiplayer mode.

Now, to backtrack, Dungeon of the Endless, if this is the first you’ve heard of it, is a roguelike tower defense. Players choose a team of two prisoners and an escape pod, and must ascend through twelve floors of a dungeon filled with a variety of overly enthusiastic defense forces, as well as other prisoners (who can be recruited), and merchants (who have a variety of goods to trade). Fortunately, in some glimmer of insight, someone designed the escape pods to include blueprints for both resource generators and turrets, and a mobile power supply to get ’em running. In addition (as if that wasn’t enough), the prisoners themselves are quite capable fighters, and some are even able to operate or repair the buildings as well.

Mixing and matching prisoner skillsets, figuring out how to maximise their effect, as well as managing resources—industry, science, food, as well as dust (power)—are the fundamentals of climbing floors. Some prisoners are great fighters, ranged or melee, while others are much more suited to assisting from the back with group buffs, or simply boosting resource production. While, strategically speaking, managing these characters will take up the bulk of a player’s attention (with opening doors, tracking their health pools, using abilities, and making sure they aren’t getting swarmed), they are actually only the second most important part of most strategies. More important by far, at least in terms of surviving once you grab the crystal, are buildings—or modules.

Modules are what make Dungeon of the Endless a tower defense. They are the resource generators, the defense systems, and a host of other miscellaneous constructs that require industry to build, power to operate, and the right kind of room to support them. They make up the backbone or, if you prefer, the supply train, of your climb to the surface. Figuring out the best rooms to fortify, which rooms are safe enough for generators, and which rooms are best powered and left alone, takes a bit of practice and a lot of error, but makes a big difference not only in clearing a floor, but surviving the onslaught when you try to leave. See, after you grab the crystal, enemies spawn in every unpowered, unoccupied room… constantly. Taking the time to set up a well defended escape route can mean the difference between a clean exit and the end of a run.

It sounds like a lot to manage, and it is, but it isn’t cumbersome in play. Not after the first few runs, anyway. There’s a rather steep learning curve as the tutorial offers only the barest guidance, leaving as much as possible for players to discover on their own. Which is fine, preferable, even. Sometimes. When things that probably could have (and should have) been covered in the tutorial crop up and throw a wrench in the works, though, it’s a royal pain. Despite that, I wouldn’t have it any other way, as the process of discovering interactions, figuring things out, and even googling for meta information, is all part of a roguelike’s charm.

Now, the question is whether it’s better on iOS or… well, anything else. The answer… isn’t actually that clear. It’s a good port, and it plays very well on both iPhone and iPad. The UI is well designed, and the tower defense gameplay lends itself well to a touchscreen. The only real downside, I think, is that it doesn’t have the hotkeys of the PC version, but that isn’t much of a downside really. The other two platforms—console and Switch—each have their own benefits, but the only real competitor is the Switch and, between the two, iOS has the Switch beat as far as I’m concerned. The iPhone is just as portable if not more portable than the Switch, and the iPad has a bigger screen. The only thing it doesn’t have, as far as I can tell, is controller support. That, however, can easily be patched in later.

While the gameplay may be the primary draw and how people evaluate a game, the best part of Dungeon of the Endless in my opinion is, bar none, the art. Simply put, it’s gorgeous. Each panel tells a story, drawing its audience a little deeper into the atmosphere and world of the Endless, pushing them to engage and wonder as to its place in the broader world. While that world isn’t ever fully fleshed out (by design, mind; a full world filled with stories has few mysteries), it is a fascinating place to dwell for a time. However, the art I so appreciate is not fully realised in gameplay, instead used to illustrate backstories, loading screens, and concept art. In game, pixel art is used instead—pixel art that, I must say, is also beautiful—which is somewhat disappointing. Even though it is beautiful, charming, and in line with the genre, it just doesn’t have quite the same flair, the same mystique, as the illustrations.

While I love the art, and I enjoy playing the game… it has flaws. This isn’t the first time I’ve played it, and I doubt it will be the last, but I still can’t sit and play it like I do Dead Cells. The reason, I’ve come to realise, is because it doesn’t have the same feedback loop when you fail a run. When you lose (and you will, many times), that’s it. There usually aren’t new prisoners to start with, or new escape pods that give a run a unique twist, or new weapons, or upgrades or, or, or… or anything. You just start over with two prisoners and the experience you’ve gained as a player, and try again. It’s brutal, and I appreciate it for that, but it’s also very unrewarding to keep playing, trying again and again, and so rarely getting rewarded for your efforts. It’s Dungeon of the Endless’s greatest flaw, and it’s why, despite coming back again and again, I can’t play it for more than three or four runs at a time.

I like Dungeon of the Endless. I enjoy the strategy of managing characters, clearing the dungeon room by room, floor by floor; figuring out which resources are most important this floor, which rooms to power and which to reinforce; and I love the art and sound design. It’s all very well done, and makes for a very enjoyable experience. Because of that, I want to give it a whole hearted recommendation for anyone and everyone who enjoys roguelikes and tower defenses and strategy games. I wish I could—but I can’t. It’s missing something and, without it, I don’t think it is as replayable as it could, maybe even should, be. Without it, it’s a hard roguelike to get into.

To be clear, Dungeon of the Endless is beautiful, fun, and crunchy enough to keep you on your toes. It is also brutally punishing, and utterly impenetrable for anyone who isn’t willing to keep trying after spending hours getting to the brink of success, and failing with little to nothing to show for it because of something entirely out of your control. If that doesn’t deter you… give it a shot. It may be your kind of game; and even if it isn’t, it may still be worth it, in the same way it was for me.

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Following this pattern, it would seem logical to think that Final Fantasy 8 would arrive in 2016. Well, we did get a Final Fantasy game that year, but it was the rather impressive port of Final Fantasy 9. Unlike the previous game, this felt like it was rebuilt for the hardware. Perhaps that was the hold-up with Final Fantasy 8? At the time, I thought we’d see the eighth game arrive in 2017. Instead, we got the original title Final Fantasy Dimensions 2. Hm, maybe in 2018? No, that ended up being Final Fantasy 15 Pocket Edition. Oh, I see! 2019 is the 20th anniversary of Final Fantasy 8! Square Enix, you sly dogs. But no, no such luck on mobile that year. It did come to other platforms. Perhaps it was just a bit behind on mobile?

2020 passes, nothing. I’ll level with you, friends. I thought Square Enix wasn’t going to do it for whatever reason. Then last week, I’m checking the App Store for the new releases and, pow, Final Fantasy 8 Remastered ($9.99) is sitting right there. Well, okay. Better late than never, right? I wonder how long we’ll have to wait for Final Fantasy 10? A question for another time. I had already gone through this remaster when it hit the Nintendo Switch a year and a half ago, so this run through the mobile version was more of a check to see how it made the transition than anything else.

So let’s get to that part right away. Final Fantasy 8 Remastered is more like Final Fantasy 7 mobile than Final Fantasy 9 mobile, I’m afraid. Basically, it feels like the game is running in an emulator shell. You have your button overlays, and everything is done through those virtual buttons. A pause button brings up a menu with a few features you can tweak, including the cheats, the color and opacity of the control overlays, and a choice between an analog stick or eight-directional dpad for your virtual movement. There’s an auto-save feature, and… well, that’s about it.

It’s not that this is a bad thing, but it does feel a bit underwhelming after the extra care put into Final Fantasy 9. The way the virtual buttons are laid out also makes some Final Fantasy 8-specific elements more awkward. Squall’s gunblade involves a well-timed R2 press to deal extra damage. A trifle when it’s on a shoulder button, but less intuitive when it’s a virtual button sitting up in the corner of the screen. Anytime the shoulder buttons come into play, this approach shows its disadvantages. At the moment, you have no choice but to deal with it. Things like controller and iCloud support are apparently on the way, but as of right now you have to use the somewhat careless touch controls.

Otherwise, this port fares well. Indeed, the noticeable difference between the higher-resolution characters and the backgrounds is that much less noticeable on the smaller screens of most mobile devices. It looks good and it runs well, falling somewhere between Final Fantasy 7‘s largely untouched visuals and Final Fantasy 9‘s extensive work. If you got on fine with Final Fantasy 7‘s mobile version in particular, you’ll probably be fine with Final Fantasy 8 Remastered. Given the price being asked, I do wish Square Enix would have handled things a bit more elegantly at launch, regardless of update plans.

Getting beyond the port quality to the game itself, Final Fantasy 8 has found itself as one of the black sheep of the series for a number of reasons. Like the other black sheep (Final Fantasy 2 and Final Fantasy 13), it’s both easy to understand its reputation and nevertheless love the game. It makes some decisions with its plot that I personally don’t really care for, but I could make that argument for most Final Fantasy games. The cast is a bit smaller than the installments sandwiching it, and their more grounded nature (there’s no one like Cait Sith or Quina in this lot) ends up pushing a lot of the character work into pure coming-of-age drama stuff. The main character is intentionally obnoxious in the first half of the game, and that’s an aspect of the plot that often doesn’t sit well with people.

Perhaps more troublesome than its plot is its unusual mechanics, however. Final Fantasy 8 actually has a lot of interesting, quirky systems, but it’s not very good at explaining to players about the best way to use them. Even worse, if you try to play this like any other Final Fantasy game, you’ll have the least-pleasant possible time you could with it. Enemy levels scale with your party’s, so grinding up levels can actually bite you in the hindquarters. You can use your summons quite often, but there are so many better ways to deal damage that don’t involve sitting through unskippable animations. There’s a great card game here that you might be tempted to ignore, but its rewards are tremendously useful.

You can brute force your way through, albeit perhaps not as easily as in other games in the series. But the true joy of Final Fantasy 8 comes in taking advantage of its mechanics (specifically the junction system that boosts your stats) and breaking the thing over your knee. Leveling up should be avoided where possible, but don’t worry too much about that. As long as you’re using and abusing that junction system, things will work out fairly well for you. Oh, and don’t neglect any of your party members. There’s a pretty strong chance you’ll need even your least-favorite of the bunch at a very inconvenient time. Trust me.

I’m wandering into guide-like tips here, but there’s a reason I’m doing that. I used to hate Final Fantasy 8. The characters annoyed me. One of the big plot twists felt stupid to me. Some of the character development came off unearned. But the backdrop behind all of that, and the likely reason why these things annoyed me so much more than usual, is that I failed to understand the game’s mechanics. Once I learned that conventional tactics were not the best way to proceed, that I had to approach the game on its terms rather than my own, I ended up loving it. It takes a bit of work to enjoy Final Fantasy 8 properly. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not, but it’s absolutely something you should know if you’re wading in for the first time.

Final Fantasy 8 Remastered took its time coming to mobile platforms. The port isn’t optimal but it is adequate. Certainly well-done enough that you should be able to enjoy the game for what it is. Now, whether or not that game is going to be to your tastes is another matter entirely. It’s an odd duck, but it has a devoted following for a reason. If you’ve got an open mind for a JRPG that wanders off the beaten path in more ways than one, and not always in a good way, you might end up a fan yourself. I’m not sure it was the right follow-up to Final Fantasy 7‘s blockbuster success, but there’s plenty to love about Final Fantasy 8‘s unique charms.

Fortunately, the talent behind a game is generally more important than any branding. Igarashi wanted to make another Metroidvania, and fans enthusiastically obliged when he went to Kickstarter to find the funding for it. A lot of stories like that have disappointing or even terrible endings, but Igarashi’s Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night ($9.99) seems to have largely gone as everyone hoped. A few bumps on the road, to be sure. It was originally set for a 2017 release but ended up coming in 2019 instead. A few of the planned versions were canceled thanks to the platforms being on their way out. The Switch version launched in a rather miserable state. A few planned features had to be changed.

The most important goal was achieved, however. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a fine game that feels just like the kinds of Castlevania games Igarashi used to make. It certainly helps that many of his collaborators from those games joined him on this one, helping it look and sound right. While it comes off a bit overstuffed in places, I can’t imagine anyone who enjoyed titles like Symphony of the Night or Aria of Sorrow not being pleased with Ritual of the Night. Well, the higher end versions of the game, at least. There’s a world of difference between Bloodstained on the PC and Bloodstained on the Switch, even after a lot of work was put into the latter.

That being said, I suspect we in large part owe the existence of this mobile version to that Switch port. Ritual of the Night on mobile looks more like the version for Nintendo’s system than it does any other. 3D models have the more simplified look, and the visual effects also follow suit. The framerate is also about on pace, which may be a problem for some. Looking closer, the mobile version is actually better in some ways. The input lag on the Switch version is quite poor, but it’s much snappier on mobile. This makes the game much more playable right from the hop. This isn’t the most demanding game, but it’s nice to not miss jumps because of lag.

As for disadvantages, the biggest one for most is likely to be the controls. It’s a bit of a complicated game control-wise that was never meant for mobile play, which translates as it often does to a very cluttered set of virtual buttons. This was something the mobile version of Symphony of the Night also suffered from, and if you couldn’t get on with the touch controls there I can’t imagine you’ll do any better here. Annoyingly, you can’t even customize the locations of the buttons. The button for jumping is to the left of the attack button, and you’re just going to have to get your brain around that. Magic attacks can also be a little complicated to deal with as they often need to be aimed.

You can kind of play with a supported controller, but some of the menu options and actions require you to use the touch screen. On top of that, the UI doesn’t go anywhere even when you’re using the controller. The developers are apparently working on an update that will provide better support for controllers, so this may well not be a problem by the time you read this review. For now, you’re stuck between two non-optimal choices. I was personally able to adapt to the touch controls, but I generally do. Presumably you are aware of your own ability to deal with virtual buttons, so I’ll leave that in your hands.

Setting aside the expected control differences and the technical points, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is an excellent pick-up for those who either haven’t had a chance to play it elsewhere or want a version to take with them. It has just about all of the content of the other versions (I believe the most recent update with a new playable character isn’t in here yet, but I’m sure it will be), and it’s easily the cheapest way to get in on the game. You can look forward to dozens of hours of exploring, crafting, battling, and messing around with alternate modes as you guide Miriam and company through the sprawling castle Hellhold.

Indeed, there’s almost too much here. Like a lot of Kickstarter projects that dramatically overshoot their initial ask, Bloodstained picked up a lot of extra stuff as stretch goals had to be conjured up. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but this is definitely the all-dressed potato chips of Metroidvanias, and some flavors come through better than others. Crafting, collecting, completing quests, a wide assortment of gear and magic, special moves, secret areas, and more are present and accounted for. It feels like there are little threads popping out everywhere on the design, but that oddly makes it work even better as a mobile game. It’s always easy to find something to do, even if you only have a little time to play. It goes without saying that longer sessions can be filled without much worry.

Frankly, outside of a few minor issues with the controls, I think this is as good of a port of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night as we could expect on mobile. It’s a good game, and it fits mobile quite well. I’d probably recommend picking up Castlevania: Symphony of the Night ahead of this game, but there can and should be room in your life for both. And much to my own surprise, I would recommend this version of the game over the Switch port. It just plays better thanks to the reduced input lag, and it feels more stable all-around. The biggest snag here for most is going to be in the controls. You’ve got a choice between imperfect controller support or a non-customizable arrangement of virtual buttons. If that doesn’t bother you, I can heartily recommend this game. It’s great.

The Unfinished Swan has you exploring a storybook-like world as Monroe. Monroe’s mother loved to paint but never finished paintings. She left hundreds of paintings behind after her passing but Monroe was only allowed to keep one of them. He picked his mother’s favourite which is The Unfinished Swan. Monroe wakes up and discovers the swan is missing and this is where the story begins. Monroe, a silver paintbrush, and infinite potential await you beyond a new door.

Barring the narration and dialogue in between areas, Monroe can throw paint at letters of the alphabet that appear across levels as well for some more story or dialogue. While there is some platforming and some basic puzzles here, the core mechanic in The Unfinished Swan is throwing paintballs initially. Monroe uses this to discover where to go next because the world is white and all you have is a paintbrush with black ink. As the story progresses, you get a few more things to work with but this is the core mechanic. You even use this to create shapes and move objects in later levels. I had no idea Ben Esposito (Donut County) was a level designer here until I saw the credits roll. I’ve enjoyed both games involving him now a lot.

As you explore the gorgeous locations in the The Unfinished Swan, there are quite a few balloons hidden all over. You can use these to buy toys and gameplay modifiers. One helps you find more baloons with an alert while another lets you erase paint. This adds some replay value to the short experience. The Unfinished Swan will take you around 2 hours to play. It took me a bit longer because I was having trouble with touch controls and had to redo one area because of a paintball glitch involving paintballs getting stuck in the air. The checkpointing could’ve been better because it saves only when you start a new part of a chapter.

Having originally played a bit of The Unfinished Swan on PS3, PS Vita, and PS4, I’m very impressed by the iOS conversion. I played an hour of it on iPad Air 2 and completed the game on my iPhone 11. On iPhone 11 I had no performance or visual issues at all. Load times were also good. On iPad Air 2, the frame rate isn’t as stable but the rest of the game held up. I did run into one issue where resuming the game after a few hours of it being in the background resulted in the paintballs glitching out and getting stuck in the air. I couldn’t replicate this but it happened twice randomly.

The Unfinished Swan has excellent narration, voice acting, and music. Joel Corelitz’s score is superb. While I definitely regret not experiencing this back when I bought it on PlayStation platforms, I now have a new album to listen to while working. The Unfinished Swan‘s soundtrack is full of memorable melodies and great orchestration.

Despite the App Store page not mentioning anything about controller support or cloud saves, The Unfinished Swan has full controller support and iCloud saves. I played through it with an Xbox One controller on my iPhone and a Nimbus on my iPad without any issues. The on-screen controls also appear and disappear whenever you tap the screen or press a button on the controller. This game was designed for a controller but it works mostly well with touch controls. There is one area towards the end of the game that had some precision requirements that I struggled with initially with touch controls. They were much easier on a controller.

As of the initial release, there’s no way to modify the visible button placements either. The touch controls feel weird given you can the lower part of the left half of the screen for movement and the lower part of the right half of the screen. I wish the whole halves were usable and that the on-screen buttons had an option to vanish when using any part of either side of the screen.

My problems with The Unfinished Swan aren’t dealbreakers by any means. There’s one part of the experience before the finale that I didn’t like involving darkness. Barring this, I enjoyed the actual game a lot. I just hope the iOS port improves with regards to controls. The lack of a headbob during movement will be a problem for some with regards to motion sickness as well. I could deal with it thankfully and it didn’t get as bad as it did like in the original release of The Witness on PS4.

Having finally finished (I couldn’t resist) The Unfinished Swan, I can see why it was originally recommended to me in the first place. While there are some aspects that feel dated, the game itself has aged brilliantly and I hope Annapurna Interactive can address the few issues here so that this is something I can recommend without caveats to anyone looking for a unique but succinct exploration adventure game. I’m glad we finally have a definitive portable version of The Unfinished Swan now with this release.

If you’ve never heard of this franchise before, the mainline games blend exploration, mini games, puzzles, murders, mystery, and great music together with excellent casts of memorable characters. Over time, Danganronpa has shot well above Ace Attorney and Zero Escape for me which are the pinnacles of the genre for many people. Blending visual novel storytelling, exploration, and various genres of puzzles with investigations together is something no franchise has managed doing like this one. While I love Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair is my favourite of the trilogy and it has been an absolute joy replaying it for the fourth time on iPhone and iPad for review.

The basic game flow here is same as the original game which has a bit of story and character interactions that are followed by a murder mystery segment that leads into adrenaline pumping trials which are full of mini games involving courtroom segments and more. Between trials, you get free time to socialise with the cast or just explore the island. In a lot of ways, the mini games in trials here still feel tacked on to the experience but they never get annoying like they do in Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony. These trials are followed by a very unique execution event and you should get ready to see the characters you grow and love getting killed off just like in the first game.

I’m not going to get into spoilers for any Danganronpa game but the cast of Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair is my favourite with the highlights being Ibuki Mioda and Nagito Komaeda. This game has you playing the role of Hajime Hinata and instead of being set in a school, it takes place on a tropical island and has one of the best opening segments ever. I hope anyone interested in playing this manages to go through the opening without having read any spoilers because it is still amazing six years after I first played through the full game on PS Vita and this game remains top games of all time list.

While bringing Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair to iOS and Android, the interface has been overhauled for touchscreens. Movement is very smooth on modern devices like my iPhone 11 and the camera feels awful in prior versions of the game compared to the new mobile port. They did a fantastic job making movement and the camera feel responsive and great overall. There are some issues though. The main menu has you tapping an item and then having to tap again at a “GO" button just like the original game. I thought with the experience of porting the first game, some of the small issues there with the interface would be fixed but this release has a few more issues for many modern iPhones.

When you launch the game, this isn’t apparent but the moment you get to the main menu before loading a save, a part of the interface is behind the notch. The only solution is to rotate your phone so the notch is on the right. This is a bigger problem during the free exploration gameplay and dialogue because the speaker’s name is displayed on the left and it is completely hidden away by the notch if you play it with the notch on the left (default). Hopefully this can be fixed in a future update because it is a problem on modern iPhones.

Trials have a lot of back and forth segments where you go through collected evidence and throw it at characters to contradict or agree with what they are presenting in a case. The mini games here play out well and I had no trouble in any of them thanks to the touch controls being responsive all the way. The rhythm mini game might be difficult for some on a touchscreen though.

As with most late ports on mobile or in this case, a late release with additional content, there are a few groups of people who this will appeal to. Those who already played Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair before will likely want to replay this classic and there’s no better way than this anniversary edition. Those who played only the original game on another platform would also be better off getting this release over playing the PS Vita or PC version given how much this improves when it comes to the interface and performance. I’ve spent time (mostly on iPhone 11) with this on both iPhone 11 and iPad Air 2.

The improvements to Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair on iOS are the same as Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc over the other versions. The Steam version had a performance boost over the PS Vita original but had interface and font issues. The PS4 release that was included in a collection with Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc improved on the PC port but still wasn’t perfect. Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair on iOS is the best looking and feeling version of the game assuming you are ok with touch controls. I’m very disappointed that there is still no controller support for this and the original game on iOS.

Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair was originally designed for 16:9 displays and there are black bars for any pre-rendered cutscenes and CG elements on both iPhone 11 and iPad Air 2. The in engine gameplay looks excellent with its fullscreen display on both the aforementioned devices. There are a few low resolution textures here and there like the Monobeasts who appear in the beginning but the developers of this port did a solid job in making Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair feel and look excellent on iOS.

For performance, I had no issues at all on iPhone 11. Everything was smooth and load times were very fast. Camera movement was also great. It feels perfect on iPhone 11 barring the notch issue. On iPad Air 2, the performance isn’t perfect with multiple instances of frame drops. It isn’t a deal breaker but it is very noticeable compared to the rock solid iPhone 11 experience. Thankfully it does look excellent on iPad Air 2.

In terms of contents, Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair on iOS has everything prior versions have including the new extra gallery with images from the artbook for the game. For language support, it includes both English and Japanese voice options like the first game and it has English, Japanese, and Chinese text support.

The lack of controller and iCloud save support for the first game on iOS have still not been addressed and those blemishes are present in Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair on iOS as well sadly. This release still has the multitasking or home menu bar visible at all times as well. Despite the 3.9GB download size, you still need to download a bit more in-game after you reach a certain point so keep that in mind. There’s no indication of this on the App Store page or in the menus in-game. Keep that in mind if you plan on playing this without the internet on iOS for an extended period of time.

Overall, Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair is a must play on iOS with a few caveats right now. The game itself is superlative but the port leaves some things to be desired. Hopefully the notch issues can be resolved in an update because as of now, you will have to play with the notch on the right so you don’t miss out parts of the interface. The lack of cloud saves remains annoying as well. Just like the first game, Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair Anniversary Edition is the one I will recommend to new players looking at which platform has the best version of Danganronpa 2 to play right now despite its issues as an iOS port. With both the original Danganronpa games now on iOS, I can’t wait to see how the final mainline game feels on iOS when it arrives later this year.

Felix the Reaper is a 3D puzzler in the style of Sokoban. Promising shadowy puzzles, comedy blacker than a city sky at midnight, and a dancing reaper, there are a lot of places it could fall short. Unfortunately, fall short it does… where art, music, and animation are high points, the gameplay itself leaves much to be desired.

Each chapter starts a little before a character’s timely death, and each level therein we guide Felix through shadows, moving barrels here, mirrors there, setting the stage just so for the star of the show to fall. Of course, it wouldn’t be a game, let alone a puzzle game, if all the shadows just aligned perfectly from the get-go. It’s a little more work than that, and frequently requires moving boxes, barrels, bundles of wheat, mirrors, and other miscellaneous items and beings to create a shadowy path to your destination. In addition to rearranging the environment, players also have a measure of control over the sun’s position, almost in a sort of time travel—although that can’t be entirely accurate, because time is explicitly frozen while Felix is around. Whatever the cause, the idea is interesting, and rather fun to play with.

Although playing with shadows is an immediately interesting mechanic, all the steps and juggling positions and going back and forth and back… and forth again can get rather tedious, especially if you’re never entirely sure what to do (although this is somewhat alleviated by the “next step" button in the menu). It’s not a big deal in the early chapters, but by chapter four… you’re really starting to feel the tedium sometimes, and that’s without going back to get three skulls, or playing the hardcore level variants.

Well, it’s a little much for me anyway, but for folks who find the basic puzzles a just right, or even a little easy, and who want a bit of a challenge? Well, you’re who the hardcore levels are for. These levels are slightly altered, have the additional objective of collecting coins, and new limitations—namely, players cannot rewind to the last milestone, or restart the level… and if you want to go back and do them later, you’ll have to replay the base level. And if that wasn’t enough of an extra challenge, there are also “super-achiever", time trials accessible from the level menu for those who meet certain skull requirements. Altogether, there are more than enough levels, at a variety of difficulty levels (although none especially easy), for a great many people.

Felix the Reaper is a fun game, but that’s not really due to the gameplay. No, the gameplay itself is often just there, while the enjoyment is primarily due to our dancing protagonist and his tunes. Watching Felix slide from one point to another, dance in place, or bounce his way into the televator is fun, and one wonders what he is listening to. Fortunately, we know. Probably. It isn’t exactly a stretch to assume that the soundtrack we’re listening to is the very same music our lovable reaper is dancing to. If so, it’s not half bad. As background music, each of the thirteen tracks ever so subtly alters the mood from whimsical, to pensive, to melancholy, to upbeat and happy, and more besides, while always keeping to a certain lightheartedness. It’s almost a perfect fit. Almost.

Why “almost", you ask? Well, it’s a small, petty thing… but some of—well, actually, a great many of—the dancing animations don’t quite line up with the music. This is almost certainly because they are idle animations, and so difficult to line up perfectly, but… I’ve spent a bit of time watching them (it’s hard not to, when you’re trying to figure out where to put a particular puzzle piece goes), and it becomes glaringly obvious pretty quickly that they aren’t synced up to the music. A small thing, to be sure, but when your main character is supposed to be dancing to the music you’re listening to, it’s annoying to see them not actually in sync.

Moving back to gameplay, remember how I said it was fun to play with the shadows? I stand by that. It is not fun, however, to constantly try to correct the camera angle. Nor is it fun to tap a square and not go there, or to try and drag an object to a square and either not have it register, or try to place the object on another nearby square. Each of these is annoying individually, but altogether, they’re really quite a pain. Add in the action and move limits, and the clock, and some of the later levels really start to not be very fun.

That’s not all, though. Part of Felix the Reaper’s appeal is the ridiculously over the top ways each character dies. Deaths like accidentally spearing your brother because you mistook him for a deer; or a dog chasing an extra crispy tenderloin down a well, dragging the blind madman down with him. Haha, Oops. Maybe it’s the gory, close up shots of each death, or maybe it’s that each character is more sad than comedic… but I really don’t see the humour. Which is a shame, because I came in expecting to really enjoy these, and… I’m not.

Right from the start Felix the Reaper makes three promises: There will be dark comedy, there will be shadow puzzles, and there will be dancing skeletons. It delivers on all three. The humour is black, the puzzles are interesting, and Felix’s dance moves are excellent, if somewhat mistimed. This is clearly a labour of love, and that love shows through clearly. Unfortunately, it was not evenly distributed, and the rough patches make themselves known rather quickly. Nevertheless, I would encourage you, oh reader mine, to give it a shot. Watch some gameplay, read a few reviews—it could be just the game for you!

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Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales has you taking on the role of Queen Meve who is the queen of Lyria and Rivia. As queen, you are immediately tasked with dealing with an invasion and are thrown directly into the action. The story is full of well written characters, superb voice acting, and choices you will make that have actual consequences. I already expected the story here to be great but this is one of the few games to actually get decision making down. If you do ever think you want to just experience this for the story and not be interrupted by battles and puzzles, you can always skip battles on the easy mode.

Adventure games are usually fairly short on mobile. Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales on the other hand is around 28 to 30 hours long and can be shorter or longer depending on difficulty. Gwent veterans are better off on higher difficulties while people who aren’t interested in Gwent can even opt for the lowest setting that lets you skip Gwent encounters. It is great to see accessibility options like this in long games.

The core gameplay in Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales involves exploring, gathering resources, talking to people, and both puzzles and combat that involve Gwent. Resources can be gathered by tapping and holding when near a point of interest. There’s also a camp menu that lets you upgrade, work on your deck, recruit, and more. I was very impressed by the locations you explore here. The tap and hold for gathering resources got tiring though. As an introduction to Gwent’s mechanics, this does a decent job with explanations initially but it isn’t great and you will need to spend time learning and practicing on your own. It doesn’t help that the balance is very different across Thronebreaker (solo experience) and Gwent itself (multiplayer balance).

As with other reviews I’ve done for ports that are also on other systems, I’ve tried Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales on Xbox One X and PC in addition to iOS to compare how the game fares across different hardware when it comes to visuals, performance, and control options.

When a game that is consoles and PC arrives on mobile, one would hope that all control options will be supported because mobile is almost as flexible as PC when it comes to inputs. Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales has controller support on PC in addition to keyboard and mouse support. On iOS, it only has touch controls. I tried an Xbox One controller and a Steelseries Nimbus and had no luck with controller support. The touch controls work really well on iPad and almost as well on iPhone but controller support would’ve been good since the game already supports it on other systems. It is great to see haptic feedback supported though.

Being able to sync progress between PC and mobile through both GOG and Steam is something more games need to do but the implementation here leaves a lot to be desired. For GOG, once you sign in, you can sync progress but need to enter your password if you want to sync it again. For Steam, you need to login completely each time you want to sync which is very annoying. I thought this would be as seamless as syncing progress between PC and Nintendo Switch for The Witcher 3 but this is far from as well done.

When it comes to visuals, Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales has a very stylised look. It brings a combination of point and click movement in an isometric setting, visual novel styled segments, cutscenes, and of course Gwent. For a game that brings so many different visual perspectives, it nails the aesthetic. Everything from the interface to the actual card battles and movement look great on my iPhone 11. On iPad Air 2 and iPad Pro, I noticed some assets were much lower resolution than they should be. The loading screens that have cards displayed are noticeably blurry compared to the actual gameplay that is clean.

Performance has been erratic on iPad as well but I’m not surprised about this given the random frame drops I experienced with my time on Xbox One X where it targets 60fps. On iPhone 11 and the two iPads I played on, Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales targets 30fps and mostly holds that. On iPhone 11, my experience has been just about perfect barring some interface elements being a bit too small. On an iPad where everything scales better, performance is less than ideal on both iPad Air 2 (expected) and the first generation iPad Pro (disappointing).

The game has a graphics options menu that you can play around with as well with options for graphics quality, vsync, anti aliasing, and animations for premium cards. This didn’t help me at all with trying to make the game run smooth on the first generation iPad Pro.

Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales has excellent music and superb voice acting. The production values in this release are very high in general but the audio is brilliant across the board. This has more voice acting than many AAA games I’ve played. While there are some familiar tunes from The Witcher 3, the original score for Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales is well worth a listen on its own as well. This is definitely on my list for the best soundtracks of the year on iOS.

In its current state, the biggest issues with Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales on iOS are in its visuals and performance on my iPads, the non seamless cloud save support, and lack of controller support. Depending on how much those aspects impact your experience in games, your overall enjoyment in this excellent story might change. If you’re just looking into this for a card game, I would recommend looking elsewhere though. Gwent is fun but this game is more about the story and the world than just Gwent. I also feel like newcomers to Gwent might have a hard time understanding the mechanics here without some trial and error that might feel annoying. Other card games do a better job with tutorials.

Overall, Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales on iOS is an essential for any fans of The Witcher 3 and Gwent. If you don’t like card games but enjoy the world of CD Projekt Red’s Witcher the storytelling here will more than make up for that. You can even play on a lower difficulty to skip encounters if you just want to experience the story and world. The writing and story are strong enough to even make this worth it for those who don’t know anything about The Witcher since this is a standalone experience. With a few fixes and improvements, the iOS version of Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales can easily be the best way to play it.

Death Come True sees you control Makoto Karaki within a hotel. He wakes up with no memory of how and why he is there. Makoto starts looking around and discovers an unconscious woman in the bathroom and is then interrupted by someone banging on the door. This is where the story begins that sees Makoto experience new deaths, meet new characters, learn more about the hotel, and try and find out why he is in such a predicament.

Without getting into any spoilers, Death Come True‘s narrative plays out really well. It has some interesting twists and, despite the use of some tropes I’ve seen in some popular visual novels and anime, the execution was very good. The only drawback to the way things play out is how annoying it can be to fast forward or rewind a lot. For those who are familiar with the Danganronpa series, don’t expect one of those stories here. I got more Zero Escape vibes from the plot but it definitely feels like its own thing with some bits of tropes you would’ve experienced in mystery visual novels and stories before. It is a bit disappointing that one specific character plays a very small part in the game.

As you complete more endings, you earn death medals that unlock videos in DeathTube. DeathTube is the extras section of Death Come True. Think of it like the bonus disc for a movie box set. While it is great seeing behind the scenes looks at the game, no subtitles is a huge downer. There’s even a whole set of videos featuring Jiro Sato who plays the anchorman Kenichi Mino that I can’t understand because of no subtitles.

Since this is an FMV experience, it is more of an interactive thriller movie with a few choices you make along the way. These choices usually result in you seeing one of the endings before you get the option to continue on your journey to the real ending(s) the game has. Making a choice is implemented very well here. You touch and hold after panning the camera around to make a choice. It feels very polished and well implemented and animated compared to visual novels where you just tap on one button to progress in a boring dialogue box.

Every trailer for Death Come True got me more excited for the cast because everything shown seemed well directed and I wanted to see how each of the actors would gel together. One area I wasn’t expecting to be so impressed by is the interface. The menu in and outside the game is very well designed. It is responsive and looks great. The only area Death Come True falters for the interface is in the extras where it looks like they forgot to add the correct interface elements for the game and left some low resolution assets.

Barring the voice acting and audio design in general, Death Come True‘s soundtrack is exactly what I wanted. Masafumi Takada definitely delivered and it feels great to have him and Kodaka working together on a new project.

Being an FMV experience, I obviously wanted to play Death Come True on iOS. I played it on my iPad Air 2 and replayed a bit on my iPhone 11. On iPad Air 2, the game has black bars on the top and bottom and any interactions have to happen in the video section. You can’t tap at the part of the screen with a black bar to bring up the menu. On iPhone 11, the game has some artwork on the left and right since the videos are all 16:9.

Despite an FMV game being played best with touch, I tried Death Come True with my Nimbus and also with my external keyboard on iPad. I’m pretty surprised at the external keyboard support that lets you pause with the spacebar and go ahead and rewind with A or D (and the directional buttons). I think the game should do a better job of indicating the control options because none of this is mentioned anywhere and I just randomly decided to try them to see if the port had the options.

A simultaneous release means a larger price point usually and Death Come True is at near feature parity on both platforms right now. The only difference I see is that on Switch screenshots are blocked while the iOS version allowed me to take screenshots of everything. The price point of $15.99 is above what normal premium games cost and having a day one simultaneous release justifies a higher price. The lack of subtitles for bonus content and even some dialogue (for the TV) and the message you see on the phone is very disappointing, and these things sour what is otherwise a polished experience.

Overall, Death Come True is one of my favorite FMV experiences for sure. While I was hoping for more polish in the localization with the lack of subtitles for many things, the story was excellent and I enjoyed my time across the game with its multiple endings. Hopefully Izanagi Games can patch in subtitles for the bonus content and some of the in-game text because Death Come True deserves better. While this isn’t a visual novel or adventure game that Danganronpa fans would be hoping for, I’m glad to see Kazutaka Kodaka try out new things in his first released project with Too Kyo Games.

If you’ve never played Slay the Spire before, it blends deckbuilding games with roguelikes. Attempting to bring multiple genres together is something loads of developers try but I was blown away at how well designed Slay the Spire is even months ago when it arrived on consoles. Since then, the game has received multiple updates with new content and the game has finally arrived on mobile through iOS.

Slay the Spire has four playable characters that get unlocked through progression and through fulfilling a few requirements. They play very differently and I’d recommend sticking to one for the time being as you get your bearings of how the game plays and feels across multiple runs. Expect to die often as you learn to be better and you will definitely succeed as is the case with most roguelikes.

The basic flow of the game is you starting out the bottom of the map on the first act and your aim is to slowly climb upwards as you make decisions on which path to take. This allows you some freedom because one path can have a merchant while the other has a surprise unknown node. You decide what to do based on your health and needs at the point in the run. Nodes on the map range from elites (minibosses), enemies, rest points, treasure, merchants, and finally bosses at the end.

After every successful encounter or battle, you are rewarded with a card, gold, and sometimes a potion. The unknown points can result in you earning relics (like accessories in RPGs), battles, or events that give you gold or harm you. Each run is different and the blend of so many things together makes you always have to think on your feet.

The actual combat encounters have you facing off against one or many enemies in turn based card battles. Cards vary by playable character and they are of multiple types ranging from buff ons to defense and attack cards. There are also passive cards like curses and wounds that debuff or damage you as time goes by. Initially, the sheer variety of cards and new terminology might throw you off but the game does a great job with its visible tooltips that remind you what everything is.

The deckbuilding aspect of Slay the Spire is something you will learn only with multiple runs as you familiarize yourself with the mechanics, enemy types, and various possibilities the game throws at you. There’s a strategic element to not just the actual battles but also choosing a path on the map and deciding when to upgrade a card or which card to choose as a reward. As you die or succeed in runs, you will unlock more cards and this is the real draw of the game. Optimising your skills, cards, and abilities to beat the game with as little damage as possible or just succeed in completing one of the three acts will likely be the first goal you work towards here.

In terms of game modes, standard is a regular run as the name suggests where you pick one of the unlocked characters and try to reach the end of the three acts. Daily climb is a daily challenge with its own modifiers that has you competing on leaderboards. Custom mode disables achievements but lets you play around with the modifiers, ascension (challenge modifiers), and more.

Slay the Spire as a game is amazing and one of the best roguelikes I’ve ever played. It will likely join Spelunky and Risk of Rain as one of my favourite roguelikes ever but the iOS version needs some work. As an initial release, it is good on many devices and bad on others. There are some features that I find the absence of pretty baffling right now and others that are understandable for an initial release.

The biggest problem with Slay the Spire on iOS is how the interface touch targets don’t seem to have changed much if at all across devices. This allows for a much more comfortable experience on iPad versus having to get used to very small touch targets on iPhone. Before the game released on Saturday, I spent about a dozen hours playing it on iPhone 11 and have since been playing it on iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone SE (the smaller older one), and iPad Air 2. If you played Slay the Spire on Nintendo Switch in handheld mode with touch controls, you will feel right at home here.

On iPhone 11, touch targets are small but I could manage after a few runs where I got used to the interface. The real problems with the interface are in the potion menu and basically anything on the top of the screen. The touch targets are too small. The touch targets for dialogue options are wide but need to be thicker to be comfortable. Even the touch targets on the map for progressing should be larger. While they might have worked fine on Nintendo Switch with its larger screen, they don’t feel great on iPhone.

Interacting with cards and enemies can be done in two ways. You can drag a card to an enemy or tap on a card and then on an enemy. The card interface has one issue that relates to how it behaves when you tap and hold. If you tap a card, it moves up and lets you see the flavour text and the card. If you tap and hold, your finger covers a part of this. It would’ve been better if the iOS version would behave like Hearthstone here where the card isn’t obfuscated by your finger when you hold. Interactions with cards in your hand need work here. This system works well on PC with a mouse where a mouse over highlights and brings up a card so to speak but your finger is much larger than a mouse pointer and this is where the biggest interface problem for core gameplay arises. I also noticed a minor text wrap issue where one settings screen option had text overflow to the next part of the interface as shown in a screenshot above.

While not a huge issue in a game like this, I expected Slay the Spire to run at a higher frame rate on newer iOS devices. The load times are super fast (even compared to Xbox One X which has some freezing before boss fights) which is appreciated but it is disappointing that the game runs at a lower frame rate almost all the time compared to seemingly everything including Nintendo Switch. Hopefully this can be addressed in future updates. I’m also a bit confused about why controller support wasn’t included in this release. Slay the Spire is fully playable with a great controller interface on consoles already and while touch is no doubt the preferred way of playing a game like this, controller support would’ve been nice to have as an option.

The big deal breaker for many people will be the lack of iCloud save support. For a game like this that involves unlocks and multiple runs, the lack of save syncing across iOS devices is baffling. This almost makes me want to go back to playing Slay the Spire mainly on Nintendo Switch since it syncs using Nintendo Switch Online cloud save backup and it lets me play on TV or on the go with touch or button controls. When this port was initially announced, I was hoping for save sync or a transfer like Stardew Valley to be able to bring PC progress to iOS but the lack of any sync even between iOS devices is disappointing.

Barring the issues I mentioned above, podcast enthusiasts or players who enjoy listening to music while playing games like this will need to manually resume playback of any audio as a workaround because Slay the Spire mutes audio on launching.

Overall, Slay the Spire on iOS is definitely worth getting especially since it is the full experience at less than half the price on other systems, but the lack of iCloud save support and interface changes for smaller screens holds this back. If you only want to play it on iPad, it is excellent but still needs some UI work. On the iPhone the answer is a bit harder because while it plays great on iPhone 11 and even iPhone 7 Plus, I found it nearly unplayable on the small iPhone SE.

If you only have one device and don’t mind some small touch targets for the interface, Slay the Spire will easily be one of the best games you play on your iOS device. Once these issues get addressed, I can see Slay the Spire becoming one of my most played games on iOS after it has already been on that list on Nintendo Switch and Xbox One in recent months.

Despite being almost old enough to drink, the SpongeBob franchise is still as strong as ever. Due to his massive appeal, SpongeBob has jumped into other platforms, such as movies and even video games, including the one we’ll talk about today.

SpongeBob: Patty Pursuit () is the most recent Nickelodeon game on Apple Arcade. Plankton is trying to steal the Krabby Patty’s secret formula, again. But now, instead of just trying to steal the formula, he also kidnaps SpongeBob’s friends. Your job is to hunt down Plankton, rescue your friends, and the secret formula.

Patty Pursuit also uses the same formula that made many platforming games successful, although that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Instead of worlds, you’ll travel to six different parts of Bikini Bottom, and each new place you visit has several levels you need to complete. Additionally there are several coins and spatulas on every level you need to collect.

You’ll use the spatulas to unlock the next levels in an area. The coins and spatulas are surprisingly challenging to get. Most of the time you’ll have to keep an eye on each level to find secret exits that lead to the coins. Also, there are some levels where you’ll need another character to break into a new area, so you’ll have to go back if you want to get every item.

I really enjoyed that Patty Pursuit made you go back and replay some levels to complete it. It shows that, even though this is a game for a younger audience, it also has small challenges for older gamers and completionists. That being said, some levels require you to replay them 2 or 3 times depending on how many hidden areas they have, so it does get a bit repetitive over time.

At the end of each area you’ll have to fight a boss. These bosses are pretty straightforward, and once you know what you have to do, it’ll be a piece of cake to win. Every level is also filled with Plankton’s cousins, who come in different forms and sizes, but they’re mostly a small hurdle that’s easy to take care of.

There are also bonus levels which you unlock after you beat the boss of an area. These levels need more spatulas to be unlocked but you’ll also get more spatulas and coins in them. They’re supposed to be a bit harder than the levels in that area, but they’re mostly easy.

The only thing that makes or breaks a platforming game is its controls and I’m pleased to say Patty Pursuit does a great job in this department. SpongeBob can jump, dash, kick, and ground pound. Plus, you’ll have powerups that’ll help you make progress through a level.

The controls in Patty Pursuit are responsive, and you shouldn’t have a problem, no matter how you’re playing. The only downside is that SpongeBob is extremely overpowered in this game, so regular enemies or bosses don’t feel that threatening.

You’ll mostly control SpongeBob, but once you start rescuing your friends, you’ll have a partner during your levels. You’ll need to select different partners depending on the level you’re on. Each character has a special ability. For instance, Patrick can ground pound really hard, Gary can climb walls, and Mr. Krabs can open vaults. You’ll have to use every character if you want to unlock secret areas.

Visually, Patty Pursuit is really cool looking. At first, the game starts like you’re on some kind of interactive episode. Plus, all the characters and environments will give you a dose of nostalgia if you haven’t seen SpongeBob in quite awhile. You won’t only see the main characters, you’ll also see some iconic fish from the series throughout the levels. They don’t do anything special, but it’s nice to see them doing well.

Speaking of main characters, the cast from the show was also involved in this game, so you’ll listen to the original character voices.

A while back, I got the chance to review another Nickelodeon game about Loud House. At that moment I said the game wasn’t something you want from an Apple Arcade game, and while that was true, I think SpongeBob: Patty Pursuit is a nice improvement. However, there’s still a long way to go.

SpongeBob: Patty Pursuit is a nice casual game for people who love the show, or just enjoy some platforming games. Although it’s on the easy side, Patty Pursuit offers a bunch of fun levels with secrets scattered throughout the level, which makes you want to play it again and again.

NOTE: SpongeBob: Patty Pursuit is available on mobile exclusively as part of Apple Arcade, a premium gaming subscription service from Apple. Without being a subscriber to Apple Arcade you cannot download and play this game. Apple Arcade is $4.99 per month and does come with a free one month trial, you can learn more about it on Apple’s official website or by visiting our dedicated Apple Arcade forum.

Over the last few years, it has been interesting seeing more Japanese developers bring some of their older games to mobile through basic ports and even proper conversions for current mobile devices. Square Enix is no stranger to premium prices for older games, and the company has even gotten better about ports bringing some games day and date with the console and PC releases like SaGa Scarlet Grace: Ambitions that is a must play on iOS.

I discovered Nippon Ichi Software (NIS) through the Disgaea releases on PS Vita and have been a fan ever since. The Disgaea series is easily my favourite tactical RPG series alongside modern Fire Emblem. Disgaea games aren’t your usual grid-based tactical experiences because they push everything to the extreme. I’ve seen the words “statistical playground" thrown around for NIS’ Disgaea series often and that is very accurate. Over the top animations and skills, loads of post game content, more numbers than most Excel sheets, and loads of humor that will be hit or miss for you is basically what Disgaea is all about.

The original Disgaea debuted in North America as Disgaea: Hour of Darkness on PS2. This was then ported to PSP as Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness that added a new Etna Mode that was like a side story along with some quality of life features including widescreen gameplay for the PSP. The PSP port of this served the basis for Disgaea PC that is currently available on PC platforms through Steam. The PC version included higher resolution support. That PC version from 2016 served as a base for Disgaea 1 Complete that was released on PS4 and Nintendo Switch in 2018. Disgaea 1 Complete on those two consoles has a redone interface, higher quality character models, higher quality textures, and basically felt like a game made to let fans who got into the series through Disgaea 5 experience the origins of the series.

This game is not a port of the PS2 original or a “decade old game" like some people are saying. Disgaea 1 Complete ($32.99) on iOS and Android uses the PS4 and Nintendo Switch port from 2018 (that still is priced at $49.99 digitally) as a base and adds a few more very useful features in addition to having support for touch controls and traditional controllers. When I played Disgaea 1 Complete on both consoles, I was pretty disappointed that the Switch version had no touch controls despite the Switch having a nice touchscreen. Thankfully the iOS version rectifies this and I’ve been playing Disgaea 1 Complete on iPhone 11, iPad Air 2, and iPhone 7 Plus since it launched on iOS and have come away impressed for the most part.

If you’ve never played a Disgaea game before or have never played Disgaea 1 before, you play as Laharl who wakes up after a two year slumber thanks to Etna, a castle vassal, who tells Laharl that his father was killed two years ago. The Netherworld is now in turmoil and Laharl sets out to fix everything with the help of Etna and some prinnies initially. A prinny is basically the NIS mascot that keeps saying “dood" while talking. The story is pretty lighthearted and over the top when it comes to dialogue. It serves as a nice breather for the focussed moments you will have during the 40 plus hours of main story here. If you played Final Fantasy Tactics, imagine that but with everything turned not to 11 but 9999 because that’s exactly what Disgaea is going for.

Disgaea 1 Complete on iOS and Android brings everything modern Disgaea fans like into a single package that modernizes the experience with new features exclusive to the mobile version of Disgaea 1. You still get excellent tactical RPG combat and a boatload of optional content, but the new features will ensure the people who spend hundreds of hours in a game like this find it hard to go back to older releases. The auto battle option is something I didn’t think I wanted in Disgaea but something I hope every future game includes. You can even blast through the game with up to 8x the speed in battles.

The Cheat Shop is a great addition to the series that I got to experience with Disgaea 4 on PS Vita. Having it on Disgaea 5 was great and I’m glad that NIS brought it to Disgaea 1 Complete on mobile. This lets you tweak around the experience gain, enemy strength, and more to customize your own experience. A lot of players use this for power leveling and it basically is a dream come true for those who try to reach level caps or get overpowered. The Cheat Shop alongside battle speed and auto battle easily make this the best version of Disgaea 1 on any system.

When it comes to controls, you can play Disgaea 1 Complete with only touch controls, button controls on a controller (I used both an MFi one and an Xbox One controller while playing), or a combination of both. It is worth noting that controller support overall isn’t great and I found no way to change the button assignments. Some menus also didn’t scroll with a controller. Touch controls are great for the most part. You will just need to get used to the hub movement because while you can tap to move, the character tries to go straight to where you tapped and not around any obstacles like staircases in a corner which is annoying. You need to drag to move which ends up working a lot better.

When it comes to visuals, Disgaea 1 Complete looks mostly great and scales well on different aspect ratios. The actual gameplay fully supports the iPhone X screen size and plays well on iPad Air 2 with the 4:3 aspect ratio as well. The cutscenes and story segments sometimes have pre-rendered backgrounds cropped depending on the device though. You can choose between three resolution settings and two frame rate options.

On iPhone 11, I could play at the high setting for resolution and 60fps without issues. The iPad Air 2 struggled to maintain 60fps though at full resolution. Despite already having a great portable version on Switch, the iOS port on iPhone 11 makes it hard to want to ever bother with Disgaea 1 on another system given how good the port is visually and when it comes to performance. The load times on iPhone 11 are instant just like the PS4 compared to Nintendo Switch where it takes a while initially to load up the game before you get into your save file.

One annoying issue I ran into on iPhone 11 is the fact that the swipe bar or home indicator is visible at all times. This wouldn’t be a problem if it dimmed but it is visible at all times and sometimes covers a part of the interface or comes very close to covering some text. The only major patch since launch so far has been to fix a cloud save issue, but I’m hoping swipe bar gets resolved in a future patch too.

On the audio side of things, both English and Japanese voiceovers are supported for event scenes and Tenpei Sato’s great soundtrack has aged like fine wine. There isn’t a ton of voice acting here but having dual audio support is always welcome. This game uses NIS America’s localization from the PS4 and Nintendo Switch versions.

In addition to the controller support not being amazing, the cloud save implementation leaves a lot to be desired. It allows for cross platform saves but if you just own iOS devices, it is needlessly complex. You need to remember a login ID and a password to be able to access your saves which are stored on NIS’ server with a validity of a year seemingly. You can also upload and download only one save at a time.

While I am a big fan of the franchise, Disgaea 1 Complete at $49.99 on PS4 and Nintendo Switch was already not great value when Disgaea 5 was available for less in many places and is a much better game. Disgaea 1 Complete at $32.99 on iOS is worth it if you’ve never played a Disgaea game before and want a superb tactical RPG experience on the go. While it is much higher than the usual Final Fantasy port price, this release makes me think of Civilization VI on iOS and how that cost exactly the same on iOS as PC at the time. Disgaea 1 Complete costs less than other consoles and has more features that will be game changers for many people. If you’ve already played Disgaea 1 on PS4 or Nintendo Switch however, the new features on mobile are not worth the asking price for a double or triple dip. If Disgaea 1 Complete on iOS had the exact same features as the PS4 and Nintendo Switch release, it wouldn’t really be worth the asking price with the aforementioned issues.

Disgaea 1 Complete on mobile with the new features is the best version of the game on any platform now. While I still prefer Disgaea 5 Complete overall, it is good to see NIS continue to refine the original game with every new platform offering better ways to experience the origins of one of my favourite tactical RPG series ever. While I can’t vouch for the post launch support of this release when a new iOS update hits, in its current state (with the cloud save issue fixed), Disgaea 1 Complete on iOS is an easy recommendation for tactical RPG fans.

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Putting a minimalistic spin on the age old and aptly named “sliding box puzzle," Unitied aims to be as simple as its execution. There’s no steep learning curve, the methods for completing each puzzle are slowly introduced, and the difficulty climb never stops directly at a wall. The game itself and its processes are as simple as can be. This is exactly how game developers for quick and easy puzzle games should build apps for iOS. Unitied has the benefit of already being well received when on PC – but it’s naturally made for iOS.

When tackling a game founded in its own simplistic gameplay and style overall and attempting to bring it into a modern world of mobile gaming, it’s expected that there will be some quirks and tweaks added to give the game new life. With Unitied, it starts off with the basic: get a box from its starting point to an outlined destination by swiping it in the four cardinal directions. Luckily, there’s no stress of completing a puzzle in the least amount of swipes or any other achievements – it’s just the game itself. However, things get more difficult as the levels increase.

The twists and turns the game introduces come in the form of hideaway nesting places where the block can go in and come out in the same direction, but not necessarily move up or down – or vice versa. They aren’t problematic simply for existing, but figuring out their role in the puzzle as it’s being solved is when the challenge is introduced.

Then come the even *smaller* blocks. The smaller blocks have designated areas they need to go as well, but the puzzle therein is maneuvering the set of them – which move at the same time in the same direction – and figuring out which moves to make, when to make them, and knowing when an irreversible mistake has been made.

Unitied is a short game; it only features 42 levels of increasing difficulty. However, each one is paired with a soothing, relaxing audio track with no distractions otherwise. What’s presented is exactly what the game encompasses. The middle of the screen shows the puzzle itself, offset by a cream background. The only other markings on the screen are the menu icon in the top right to change the level, the reset icon in the middle, and the level currently being played to the left. The gameplay itself is situated right in the center of the screen and never deviates from that focal point. All of these factors play a key role in what makes Unitied part of a growing list of uber simplistic puzzle games. It doesn’t aim to be more than it is, and what it is is presented immediately with no obstruction.

With shorter games like Unitied, it’s usually assumed that the value is lost because of its playtime. That somehow, the price of admission outweighs the value received from the product itself solely due to how quickly the game can be completed. With Unitied only costing a dollar, that argument flies out the window. However, the value in the game itself is easily far beyond that dollar figure. Short breaks at work, waiting in line at a restaurant, or casually occupying time throughout the day, all of that can be encompassed by games built like this – short, fun, challenging puzzle games made with no filler. There’s no overarching commitment, there’s nothing more to it than the puzzle itself, and because of all of these factors, Unitied excels as a puzzle game. Although it may have started its journey on other platforms, it’s definitely found its place right at home on iOS.

If you’re looking for a game that demands quick reactions, a bit of planning, a dash of luck, and more guns than can be crammed into an escape pod then, well, you’ve come to the right place. End of the Universe delivers on all counts, with a double helping of guns and only half an escape pod. Players wake up on an unknown spacecraft in unknown space with one very clear objective: Survival. It is, of course, quite futile, but that shouldn’t stop anyone from trying! Between the mess of asteroids and space junk, there’s hardly room to breathe let alone avoid the missiles and plasma ejected from all those ships over there. Nevertheless, it must be done. As if a legion of baddies with bullets wasn’t enough, there’s also the bosses to contend with: Space centipedes, advanced starships of unknown design, and cosmic horrors with mind-bending technology. Against these odds, survival was never an option.

It is delightfully difficult, and it owes this difficulty in large part to the tiny health pools and the frequently ridiculous number of bullets on screen. While a single hit, scrape, or close encounter with flying debris only removes a single hit point, it’s a considerable loss when you’ve only three to begin with. Outside of the first three stages or so, enemies seem to multiply like sand, frequently sprouting from asteroids or thin air. Fortunately, stages seem to be quite a bit larger (or simply not have out-of-bound areas), which allows for just enough room to maneuver and not feel quite so cramped by the imminent danger of hitting an asteroid, baddie, or the edge of Bad Space.

Control-wise, the basic one-finger or two-finger options used in Immortal Rogue have made their return, along with a sensitivity slider. Drag to move, swipe to boost, release a swipe (or tap) to fire the heavy weapons; alternatively, move on one side of the screen and use heavy weapons on the other. They work well, although they do require a bit of practice if you haven’t used them before. My biggest grievance, actually, is with the turn animations. The turn rate is rather slow, which makes the animations feel clunky, and it’s a little hard to predict which way the ship will turn at times. That said, it is not out of place for a space ship to take such large turns. Not like a giant hunk o’ metal can turn on a dime, eh?

Not very keen on the starter ship or the smart turret? There’s good news: There are a ton of unlockable weapons and even more ships to find, never mind the skills. Each ship has a certain number of slots that can hold modifications, heavy weapons, or light weapons. Modifications are force multipliers, changing the basic functions of either the ship or any equipped weapons that fit the critera. Examples include movement speed boosts, recharge rate boosts, fire rate boosts, and other, more niche changes. Heavy weapons are the go-to for bosses, featuring heavy hitters like particle cannons, plasma casters, and smart missile launchers, as well as more unique and niche weapons like remote turrets and mines. Light weapons, on the other hand, include the ever useful homing rocket, rocket launcher, and auto cannon. They throw weaker punches, but a whole lot more of them. Add in skills like larger explosions, boosting to recharge heavy weapons, or a skill that causes enemies to throw out debris, and there are more than enough ways to turn good weapon into an incredible weapon, a good build into an incredible build.

Deserted space highways and broken worlds, ancient battlefields and thriving hives, all have been crafted with an eye for minutiae and it shows. The backgrounds are not alone in their detail, however. Tentacled monstrosities, cosmic horrors, advanced spacecraft, missiles, lasers, and other various enemies and projectiles are similarly detailed, although not nearly as much. Despite the detail, the background is not too vibrant, the enemies not too distracting, and bullets and hazards are not too dull. All is precisely as it should be: Clear, playable, and informative, but also pleasing to the eye. Make no mistake, however: This is not a game you play because of the art. It is a rogue-like, and its visuals, excellent though they are, are not beautiful.

If the art conveys the impression of an empty void and an impending doom with enemies on all sides, then the soundtrack instills an urgency to do… something. It is rarely quiet, calm, or relaxed, and certainly never slow, instead favoring fast-paced, high-intensity tracks that lend weight to the air of impending doom that permeates every stage. Thematically, I love it. While it’s really just a hand-wavey excuse to blow up aliens with cool weapons in space, the idea of a last bon voyage, guns blazing, at the edge of charted, or uncharted, space is… well, frankly it’s pretty great. Each and every element of End of the Universe—movement, enemies, environments, soundtrack, and all the rest—reinforces the central feeling of being isolated, alone against hordes of uncaring, unyielding baddies, and that it’s only going to go downhill from here. I, simply put, am a fan.

Overall, End of the Universe feels good to play. While neither music nor sound effects alone stand out, the combined effect, especially with the art, is excellent. The controls are smooth and work well, and the basic gameplay of avoiding obstacles, bullets, and catching baddies with a hail of lasers, missiles, or a black hole (a black hole!) is incredibly satisfying. While it’s certainly not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, fans of Immortal Rogue will not be disappointed. More broadly, anyone interested in pixel art, rogue-likes, pixel art in rogue-likes, or fast-paced games with mild tones of existential dread should give it a shot. It’s worth it.

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I didn’t expect Zen Studios to make the better game either, but here we are.

The story of Dread Nautical takes a Lovecraftian  approach to horror, following the tale of one of four characters as they wake up in the bilge of a cruise ship where most of the passengers and crew have mysteriously transformed into grotesque monstrosities. It’s up to the player to scavenge for food and supplies, recruit a team of untransformed survivors, and find a way to escape the sea-based nightmare.

The story, unfortunately, doesn’t nail down the type of subtlety that a horror story in this vein requires to thrive — a fault that’s apparent from the moment that the game opens up.

Before players even reach the title screen, they’re treated to a somewhat cheesy intro cinematic where an ominous voice implies that you’ve been chosen for some kind of dark purpose and reveals that you’ve been transported into a realm of darkness, despair and dread. While this is all a perfectly acceptable stage on which to set a cosmic horror story, that’s not the kind of info you just blab about right off the bat. As a general rule, the more you know for sure about what you’re up against, the less scary it is.

The mechanics surrounding the game work well for what it’s trying to accomplish, with some interesting ideas that work to keep players on their toes. The combat is fairly standard for a tactical strategy game — move around and attack enemies according to how many action points you have left in your turn — but breakable items and limited inventory space add some interesting calculus to the game. Players have to consider which items are worth carrying with them, whether to use their good or bad weapons in combat, and which equipment is worth repairing with scrap — scrap that could otherwise be spend upgrading stations to improve your chances in harder levels.

Items can be repaired or upgraded at a crafting station, and there’s a clever risk/reward functionality with the repair system – you can spend more scrap for a higher chance of repairing successfully, but can save by going for a lower chance, but risk losing both the item and the scrap if it fails.

The whole set-up means that, on occasion, it’s worthwhile to avoid some combat encounters altogether – especially on harder difficulties where the penalty for dying is much greater.

Some of these decisions are made easier by recruiting more team members, but the game makes growing your team a much more drawn-out process than what you find in most games. Everone onboard the ship is distrustful of you, and you have to slowly gain their trust before they’ll consider joining up with your cause.

Of course, if they do join up, you’ll need to feed them, and food isn’t exactly plentiful onboard. Not feeding party members is always an option, but not one with the happiest results.

It’s a series of well-designed systems that has the benefit of being far more technically proficient and well-designed for its mobile platform than Overland. The UI makes it pretty clear from the star what actions do what, and it has the notable benefit of not immediately sending you somewhere the moment you touch the screen, buttons that work the first time you press them, and some actual drag-and-drop functionality.

It’s a system that’s perfectly set-up for a bleak tale about a hostile and oppressive unknown, which makes its writing failures stand out all the more.

There’s plenty of mystery, danger and ambiguity, with simplified graphics that let your mind fill in the details of the monstrosities you’re fighting. However, when all the characters are such blatant archetypes that revel in cliched dialogue, the facade is broken. You may not be sure what the true nature of your enemies are, but when a caricature of a yokel identifies them right from the get go as being kind of like zombies, they lose the mystique that they would otherwise have.

The thing is, there’s some pretty solid, if not revolutionary, writing on display. There are twists strewn throughout the story that managed to catch me off guard, and I can’t help but wonder if I would have been more caught up in the game world if they had just cut out the intro cinematic, been a bit more coy about what the creatures were, and let people’s minds fill up with gut-wrenching questions all on their own. But now the intro gives you a firm foundation to stand on that sucks all the existential dread that could be there.

The end result is a story that feels like a campier, friendlier version of a traditional Lovecraftian narrative, and I’m not entirely sure that was meant to be the case.  It really hammers home just how difficult subtle horror is to pull off.

If Dread Nautical had nailed its atmosphere, it’d be a truly great game, but as-is, it’s still quite a good one. The fact that the story still stays interesting even though it fails to nail down its horror elements is ultimately a mark in its favor, and the gameplay offers enough interesting choices to make it worth checking out for any fans of tactical RPGs.

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NOTE: Dread Nautical is available on mobile exclusively as part of Apple Arcade, a premium gaming subscription service from Apple. Without being a subscriber to Apple Arcade you cannot download and play this game. Apple Arcade is $4.99 per month and does come with a free one month trial, you can learn more about it on Apple’s official website or by visiting our dedicated Apple Arcade forum.

Not all of those are coming to mobile, but we’re lucky enough to have gotten one of the finest jewels that Square left in Japan back in the 16-bit era: Romancing SaGa 3 ($6.49). This game originally launched on the Super Famicom in 1995, which was right around the same time Square put out Front Mission, Trials of Mana, and Chrono Trigger ($4.99). The year before that it had put out Final Fantasy VI ($14.99) and Live A Live. In short, this was one of Square’s finest eras, a period where the talented developers at the company were cranking out amazing hit after hit in the RPG genre. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that Romancing SaGa 3 is the best game from that time, but it easily hangs with that crowd. But while most of Square’s RPGs were headed down the path of being easier and more friendly to the player, Romancing SaGa 3 is quite happy to beat the stuffing out of anyone who underestimates it.

That hasn’t changed in this remake. If anything, it might be even tougher for today’s audience, who are unaccustomed to conventions of the era. The gorgeous sprites may remind you of Final Fantasy VI and lull you into a false sense of confidence. And you know, the early going is pretty smooth. You choose one of eight characters, and as long as you don’t pick two particularly odd characters, you’ll find that the first hour or two of the game is surprisingly orthodox. Sure, the leveling system is a bit weird, with experience points tossed out in favor of designer Akitoshi Kawazu’s signature style of having random stats go up after battles based on usage. But it’s simple enough that you’ll be able to push through even if you play haphazardly. Even the penalty for a character running out of hit points is more lenient than usual for this series. You do have life points, but characters who run out can be recruited again later, and you can easily restore lost life points along the way.

Once you get into the game a bit, though, things get rough. From all angles, really. This game tells you very little and isn’t particularly interested in guiding you. It’s not going to explain anything. It’s incredibly open and non-linear, leaving it up to you to figure out what you have to do next and how to go about doing it. Sub-quests are all over the place, and towns that seemed to have nothing important in them might suddenly trigger something critical once your stats reach a certain threshold. It’s a confusing, disorienting experience compared to the theme park ride that Final Fantasy had already become by this time. And I love it.

This complexity extends to building your party and fighting battles. There are eight main characters, and each one will offer up a little bit more information on the story if you choose them as your principal lead. You can recruit more than 20 different party members, and each of them has their own talents and quirks. How the characters grow in terms of stats and abilities often comes down to random chance, as new skills pop off randomly in battles and get permanently added to that character’s list. Stats go up in very unpredictable ways, making it very unlikely that any two players will have similar party builds even if they choose the same characters. Somehow, you have to balance all of this and make sure you’re able to handle a variety of enemy types and set-ups. If you don’t, the bosses will make mince-meat of you again and again. This is a very unkind game, and I love it.

The story is really cool, with the set-up throwing around apocalypses and destined children before you’ve even taken your first step. While the main story doesn’t change much no matter who you choose, you’ll get a slightly different take on it depending on the character, giving you incentive to play the game a good eight times at least. Luckily, this remake adds in a New Game+ mode that makes that a lot easier to deal with. All of those random bits I was just talking about also help make replays more fun, as you may end up with a very different party build and have to adjust your tactics appropriately. Does the tale told here stand up to Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6? No, not really. But it’s quite interesting in its own way, and it’s a definite step up from earlier SaGa games.

In terms of presentation, the original game looked and sounded great for a 16-bit game and Square Enix has thankfully left it all largely intact with this new version. There are definite touch-ups here, but they’ve been done artfully and with a degree of respect I can only wish the Final Fantasy mobile ports had received. The translation… well, it’s in English. That’s a good thing. It’s not the best stuff I’ve read, and there are some awkward bits here and there, but it’s acceptable. A little better than Romancing SaGa 2, but not much better, if you know what I mean.

I love Romancing SaGa 3 because of its gameplay first and foremost. I find its character growth systems and party building aspects fascinating. I think its lack of guidance and overall opacity is thrilling. The challenging battles test my planning skills, and that’s sometimes just what I want from an RPG. Formations? Sign me up, friend. Mastering skills so that other characters with the same weapon can access them, giving me the smallest bit of agency in my party build? Yeah. Good stuff. Carefully measuring out my resources so that I can leg out a vicious boss who doesn’t play even remotely fair? Mm-hm. Dungeons that are actually there to tenderize you rather than reward you with bits of cheese? Neat.

Is that going to appeal to you? I don’t know. I cannot stress enough that this game is very difficult, and it isn’t going to offer you much help. I’ve heard some people like to play it with a guide and have fun with it that way, and if that’s you, that’s totally cool. I personally think it’s enjoyable to peel back the layers of odd games, and those of you who share my tastes will be in heaven here. It’s probably as approachable as any SaGa games has ever been, but even once you know what you’re doing, it’s tough.

That’s the final gate, really. You will certainly lose battles in this game. You’re going to lose progress now and then. Does that fill you with determination to overcome the challenge, or does that annoy you? If it’s the former, I strongly recommend diving into this treasure. Otherwise, you might have a better time replaying a Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest game. I think those who have patience and are okay with off-beat games will get an awful lot out of Romancing SaGa 3, and I’m absolutely thrilled that it’s out and accessible for a far wider audience at long last.

I didn’t think about it like that until I played Discolored, a game that removes all the color, and makes it your job to get it back. You’ll do this by completing different puzzles in a deserted diner in the middle of nowhere.

Discolored is a puzzle game created by Jason Godbey and published by Shifty Eye. You start in what I can only assume is your office. Since the beginning, you need to start solving puzzles to start the real puzzles. You start by getting a viewer, a tool that’ll let you go through a painting Super Mario 64 style.

After you use the viewer, you end up inside the painting, in a lonely diner in the middle of the desert. Everything is silent, dark and colorless. Nothing tells you what to do, you have to already know what the goal of the game is.

The atmosphere makes you feel uneasy. I had to double-check if Discolored was just a puzzle game, or if it had scary elements in it. The lack of color and sounds, combined with a first-person perspective, keeps you waiting for some scary moment or a monster that chases you while you solve the puzzles. Thankfully, none of that happens.

Instead, you get a 3D puzzle with just one environment. This is a cool aspect of the game; being just the diner and its surroundings feels like you’re trying to get out of an Escape Room. Plus, when you progress through the game, new secret areas start to appear. However, this made the whole game a bit short, if you already know what to do.

If you don’t know how to do it, though, it’s going to take a while. Some puzzles are hard to understand. Sometimes you’ll have no clue of what to do, and you’ll go back and forth hoping to stumble across an answer. Luckily, Discolored has an option to hint hotspots that you can enable in the settings. This feature makes your job easier, but you still need to figure out what to do for yourself.

One thing that I dislike about the game is how you interact with the objects. You have a small cursor that turns into a triangle when it’s over an interactive object. This is a good thing, it guides you in the game without an actual hint.

What I don’t like is how close you need to be to the object to work. You need to be really close, and have the cursor exactly on top of the object if you want to know it’s interactive. It’s a little frustrating how precise you need to be, especially when you don’t know if that object is actually helpful.

Despite this, when you have all the tools you need at your disposal, it’s fun to look around for the answer of the puzzle, even if that means you have to go to the same place several times. Once you start completing the puzzles, you feel so rewarded, even more so when you see the colors coming back to the world around you.

Now, what I liked the most about Discolored is the way it uses sound. As I mentioned before, there will be times when you’ll get no sound at all in some areas. But when you get to an area with music, the atmosphere changes immediately. Instead of feeling uneasy, you’ll feel relaxed and calm by listening to some classical music. And the game does a great job in deciding when to play music and when to let you listen to nothing but your own footsteps.

The colors, once you start getting them, are vibrant and they give you a sense of positivity knowing that you’re actually making progress.

Overall, Discolored is a short, pretty game that’s worth checking out. Despite some gameplay mechanics, Discolored is enjoyable and rewarding if you’re into puzzle games. Plus, its story, if you can call it that, gives you just enough details to make you wonder a lot of things, like who’s giving you these jobs and what’s that evil thing doing here. You feel like there’s more to the story than we know of right now, and it leaves you craving for more.

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Skate City is a skating game developed by Agens and published by Snowman exclusively on Apple Arcade. As you guess, the game is all about skating. You’ll skate around the world in the streets of each city you go to.

Sadly, I’m using “around the world" lightly here. You can only travel to a total of 3 cities: Los Angeles, Oslo, and Barcelona. However, each city brings its own style, music, and obstacles. Don’t get me wrong, these cities are pretty, but I would’ve loved having more places to visit.

Each city has a number of challenges and an Endless mode. The Endless mode is pretty straightforward. You can play around the streets of the city you’re in, and you can get some money by doing different tricks and completing specific requirements. The money you get can be used to buy new clothes and gear or to unlock another city.

The challenges are a little more difficult. There are a lot of challenges available. Some are really different, like avoiding people in your way or escaping the police, and others are your typical skating challenges like doing different tricks at a certain time.

The challenges are the most interesting part of the game, but sadly, they get old fairly quickly. Plus this is a short game, and unlocking each city won’t take that long. This is not a game for you to play endlessly. Instead, it is a game for you to casually chill while trying to kill some time.

Speaking of chilling, Skate City’s soundtrack is great for this. It gets you excited while playing a challenge or relaxed while skating around. Also, the animations and 3D models are simple and accurate.

The game runs smoothly, but I did have a small problem with the tutorial at the beginning of the game, where it would get stuck while doing a 50-50 grind, but it probably was because I was using an old device (iPhone 6S).

When it comes to the gameplay, Skate City has a couple of things to improve, at least with the on-screen controls. You do tricks by sliding on the left or right side of the screen. These are the most simple tricks, but when you have to do something more complicated, you’ll need to also touch the corners of the screen.

The main problem is that sometimes it won’t respond the way you wanted. This is especially frustrating when you’re doing a challenge where you need to do a trick in the exact moment the game tells you to.

If you’re using a BlueTooth controller, you won’t have these problems. It will make the gameplay more responsive and fun, but there is a learning curve involved since you need to use both joysticks and a lot of buttons. It’ll take some time to get a hold of it, especially if you’re not used to a physical controller.

While being like any other skating game, Skate City stands out as a good option for the people interested in skating. Its several challenges, different cities, and excellent music make this game a great game to enjoy. Just try to use a BlueTooth controller when playing to improve the experience.

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You’ll travel to Indonesia, China, Turkey, and England throughout your journey. Each place you visit will have its own unique characters for you to interact with. These characters will guide you through the levels and through your personal journey, as they give you advice for your life and the problems you’re feeling.

All this, though, is told without any words. Instead, Projection does a good job telling its story by showing you what’s going on while making progress. It’s like trying to communicate with someone who speaks a different language, you’ll have a lot of “Oh, I get it" moments when playing this game.

Projection’s aesthetics are one of its best features. The music and sounds are great and they make you feel like you’re inside another world, a shadow puppet world. Speaking of shadows, they look awesome. Every character, place, and object you encounter is filled with details.

Despite being a 2D game, the places you visit have a sense of depth, and you’ll feel like the world is so much bigger than you think. Combine that with the music, and you’ll even feel nervous when moving to another section like something big is about to happen. And it will, you just need to be patient.

Speaking of patience, you’re going to need it when learning to play this game. Projection is a simple game: Just go from point A to point B, solving puzzles and obtaining a few butterflies as collectibles along the way.

The problem is, the controls are not the best when using your screen. To control Greta you need to swipe left or right to move and up to jump. Despite being simple controls, they’re not that responsive, and you might jump beforehand, causing you to lose progress or even drown.

The biggest problem is the light. You see, you are not alone in this journey. You have a light ball with you that’ll help you cast shadows to solve puzzles and make progress. The puzzles are mostly simple, and even clever, although they might get repetitive. However, it takes time for you to get used to the light and to learn how it works. After you learn to use the shadows, the game becomes easier and less frustrating.

Still, there are a few interactions where the light ball gets really annoying. For example, if you want to go up, you need to cast a shadow below Greta. When you do, Greta goes up, causing the screen to go up, which makes the light ball go up, which makes the shadow disappear, which makes Greta go back down again. So you end up where you started or even going farther down. It’s funny to make this comparison, but it feels like you’re playing Getting Over It when you’re platforming your way up.

Despite the controls, which I hope they address in a future update, Projection: First Light is a game worth playing. Its beautiful scenery, great music, and cute wordless story outweigh the annoying controls and interactions with shadows and different objects. You might even rage quit because of its controls and interactions, but the game is so good you’ll want to pay again almost right away.

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Tint by Lykke Studios is a game about painting. Each level begins with one or more origami shapes sitting on a page, and your goal is to draw an unbroken line of watercolor paint to each shape in the corresponding color. For example, a red paper frog might need a line of red paint to connect to it.

It seems simple enough, but the challenge is that you’ll often have a shape with a color like orange or purple, and the dabs of paint you have to work with are generally just primary colors (red, yellow, and blue). So how do you get purple from that? Well, as you can probably guess, you combine red and blue. Or yellow and red for orange, and so on. You can only draw with one color at a time, so in order to combine colors you’ll have to first draw a line with red (your primary), and then draw a new line with blue (another primary) that crosses over the red line, which makes your purple (the secondary color).

It’s a mechanic that works pretty well and is fun to mess around with, but that’s really only half the story. The other part of the challenge comes from the level design. On each page there will already be lines and shapes of different colors that you need to navigate around (or through) on your way to the origami figure(s). If you accidentally hit another primary color on the page, you might end up with a new color you didn’t want. And even worse, if you run into a color that’s already been turned into a secondary color, you’ll wind up making a nasty grey and you’ll have to start over.

It’s essentially a color mixing logic puzzle combined with a spatial puzzler like a maze. Neither element in the game is very difficult or complex on its own, but the two together can make for some pretty tricky levels. Fortunately, the game gives you hints if you do get stuck, and even more fortunately, they don’t cost any kind of currency to use. Thanks, Apple Arcade!

You probably won’t need the hints most of the time though, as the level of challenge here is fairly light overall. I did have to use one or two hints a handful of times, but I was able to solve most puzzles by just diving straight in and experimenting for a few minutes. I tend to really enjoy puzzle games that are more relaxing than brain-busting, and I found the difficulty to be pretty perfect in that regard.

Presentation-wise the game really shines. The watercolor paint looks and feels very realistic (especially when two colors combine), and each section of levels comes with new background details like rain or even a snail that slowly scoots by the page. (Go on, poke the snail. You know you want to.)

Musically there’s not a lot going on, with various little chimes and bells that ring when you do certain actions. The soundtrack to each level is mostly just ambient noise like wind, rain, or bugs chirping. It all works really well and perfectly complements the simple, relaxing mood of the gameplay. The developers also included haptic feedback to the painting mechanics, which in my opinion makes every game twice as much fun to interact with.

If I have any big complaint about the game, it’s that there’s nowhere near enough of it. There are only 50 levels in all, and many of them can be solved in just a few seconds. The most time I spent with one was probably two or three minutes, and the entire game can be completed in just an hour or so. It’s hard to complain, though, when the whole thing is more-or-less free…ish. It doesn’t really owe us anything, does it?

Beyond that, I did have an issue with painting at the top of levels sometimes triggering the iOS notification screen, which is a problem I had with Mini Motorways in that review as well. It could also be frustrating starting the painting from scratch each time you accidentally get too close to a line of the wrong color–an undo button would go a long way here.

In all, Tint probably won’t change the world. It’s not flashy like Soyanara Wild Hearts or bursting with heartfelt storytelling like Assemble With Care. And there’s certainly no Sonic racing around in it. But what it lacks in hedgehogs it makes up for with snails. I guess what I’m trying to say is that while it may not blow your socks off, it will certainly gently peel them off and toss them in the dryer for you while you curl up on the couch with some hot chocolate. If any of that sounds appealing to you, definitely give Tint a try.

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Yes, it is good. (Didn’t have to wait long for that, did you?) In Speed Demons you take control of a car racing along a busy highway filled with other cars and trucks that are mostly minding their own business. Your Pedal has been firmly superglued to The Metal, it seems, as you have no control over the acceleration and therefore most of what you’ll be doing is weaving around traffic and hanging on for dear life.

Now, I’m sure you’ve played mobile games like this before. All you’re doing is continuously scrolling forward (which is up, in this case) and just sliding your fingers around to avoid hitting stuff for as long as possible. What makes it stand out from most of the pack are three main things: It’s level-based, it’s premium, and it just feels really nice to play.

Let’s tackle those in order. Most games in this genre tend to be endless, but that’s not the case with Speed Demons. It’s divided into five chapters and a prologue, epilogue, and two appendices. Each chapter is further divided into a number of named sections, and each of those contains 5 or so levels to complete. So while the gameplay itself may not be “endless”, the amount of content sure seems close. In fact, my first play session was close to an hour long, playing through dozens of levels, and I thought I surely must have blown through a third of the game’s content. But no, upon backing out to the menu I realized I wasn’t even finished with the first chapter yet, and I had barely scratched the surface of what the game offers.

As for the levels themselves, they each have a specific goal to complete beyond just avoiding traffic. These range from objectives like bashing a certain number of cars off the road before the time is up to surviving while being hunted by the deadly Enforcers. My two personal favorites, though, are the racing and passing levels. (Both are more or less the same, in that you have to drive past a certain number of red cars before the level ends.) Some levels will also have “modifiers” added to them in an attempt to spice things up even further, like adding a damage bar to your car or boosting the difficulty. All of these different objectives are fun twists on the auto-runner formula, even if they aren’t that different from each other at the end of the day.

The second thing that sets it apart from similar games is the price. It’s… well, free-ish but not free free, ya know? As part of Apple Arcade, you’re getting it as part of the subscription at no extra cost which sure feels like free when you download the game, but upon loading it up–surprise!–it’s actually quite premium. There’s no ad banner at the bottom of the screen, no videos playing after you beat a level, and there’s just one currency instead of six. It’s refreshing, to say the least. The currency is used just for upgrading cars, and you can only buy two upgrade points for each one. Unlike other games in this genre, you won’t be caught in an endless loop of throwing increasing amounts of fun-bucks down an infinite upgrade pit until your eyes dry up and roll onto the floor for your cat to play with.

The third thing setting it apart, as I’ve said, is that it just feels really damn good to play. The visuals are silky smooth (the best Radiangames has ever done, by far), the controls are fluid and responsive, and everything from the speed of the cars to the snappy UI just feels slick as heck. It’s one of the Apple Arcade games I find myself coming back to again and again not just because it’s fun, but because it’s just very satisfying to interact with.

How long I keep coming back is less certain, though, because as fun and compulsive as it is, it’s not a terribly deep game. Each level feels very similar, even as your cars and objectives slightly change and the scenery gets a few new colors here and there. You’re ultimately still driving in a mostly straight line while avoiding traffic for a minute or two in nearly every level. As enjoyable as the game is, I fear there will be a point when I finish my hundredth race and see that I still have dozens upon dozens to go and I just won’t have the energy for it. (Metaphorical energy, that is. Remember, there are no timers here. Premium!)

There’s a reason Radiangames has such a dedicated following around here. It’s because they make really good mobile games, and Speed Demons is no different in that regard. It’s fun and fast, and easily one of the best looking things they’ve ever released. It’s also loaded with content, with lots of cars to unlock and more levels than I can count. Unfortunately, all those shiny cars and levels start to blend together after a while and you might find yourself yearning for something a bit deeper long before you reach the end. I’m having a pretty great time with it, all things considered, but your mileage may vary.

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Hot Lava is an action game developed by Klei, the studio behind games like Don’t Starve. This game takes your childhood memories of playing “the floor is lava" to the next level. You’ll be jumping, sliding, swinging and sticking to walls. You can do anything but touching the floor because, you know, it’s lava. Just in case you didn’t get that part.

You’ll start the game playing as Hazard, but you can also play as the other Global Action Team (G.A.T.) members available from the toy shelf. You’ll play in different maps that go from the school to the playground and even the basement. As of right now, there are 6 maps, each one with a series of levels. Mostly, you’ll have to get from point A to point B in each level. However, that’s easier said than done. You’ll face a lot of obstacles along the way.

To unlock a new map, you’ll need a certain amount of stars, which you get by playing the levels on every map. There is more than one star on each level, so the completionists out there are going to have to grind a lot. Fortunately, these levels are not that difficult on your first try. To get more stars you’ll need to do some challenges like not dying or completing the level as fast as you can. Still, it’s just a matter of practice.

The only hard level is the “follow your sister" mission. This mission is so incredibly frustrating, and unnecessarily hard. You have to follow your sister to the goal. Sounds easy right? Well, it’s not. You have to go fast, and if you stay behind or take too long you just lose. Unlike every other level, you don’t have any checkpoints, so if you die you have to start over. And, to make things worse, you can’t even pause the game because it’ll count as you stopping playing and you’ll just start over. This last thing might be a bug, but it’s annoying that you can’t even take a break, so I hope they fix it soon.

Now let’s talk about gameplay, which is fine, or at least it would be with some better controls. As of right now, Hot Lava is a game you must play with a Bluetooth controller. If you don’t have one, you’re going to have a bad time. The on-screen controls cover the corners from the screen. To move your character’s point of view, you have to move your device to your left or right. Thankfully, you can change that in the settings so you can move your perspective with your right finger. However, thanks to all the other buttons, there will be times when you try to move and you’ll end up using the grab button instead. This is something Klei needs to fix as soon as possible. It gets frustrating from the start. If you have one, you’ll want to connect a Bluetooth controller since the beginning. Besides that, the gameplay is easy to learn. It’ll take some time for you to get used to it, but as you progress, you’ll have more control over your jumps.

Hot Lava has a unique style. From the universe to the characters and its sense of humor, you can see the team took its time to get the aesthetics right, and they nailed it. The models and animations are really well made. And while the characters are clean and simple, you can give them a different look with the collectibles you’ll get from each level.

Overall, Hot Lava is a fun parkour/action game with a lot of potential. Once they fix things like the control design, it’ll become a solid game on Apple Arcade. Until then, Hot Lava remains as a great game for the people with the correct equipment, i.e. a Bluetooth controller. The environment and unique universe will keep you entertained from beginning to end, and thanks to the different starts and collectibles there are, you have a lot of reasons to keep playing this game.

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Your goal in this new game is technically nothing more than getting to the end, but there are three challenges in each room (level). There’s always one for saving all the baby frogs on a level. Others tend to include saving 3 frogs and avoiding dying in a specific way (drowning, falling pens, etc.) This is where the modernizations come into place. Stars will earn you frog coins which will automatically award you a variety of different customizations, special levels, or new houses. You can earn new costumes, frogs, or even musical sounds to be used in the collection tab once you’ve unlocked it. Special levels offer challenges that are rather different from the normal game. The first will task you with collecting gems while endless cans roll straight at you. It’s new, it’s fun, and at times, it can be a real challenge.

To help with these challenges and your treks across the many rooms, you’ll find two more new additions that I found myself enjoying a whole lot. There’s the first: Power-ups. These little collectibles can be used with a simple tap and can do things like set a bomb to blow up either enemies or pesky blocks, a jump pad to jump up to high places or over enemies, or throwable objects found around the world to do the same as a bomb just with more range. The last, and most enjoyable, is jellybeans. Collect 100 and turn into a SuperFrog! You’ll become invulnerable for somewhere around 20 seconds. You’ll also become bigger and be able to push around the majority of blocks and outright destroy enemies. These are all fun little additions that sometimes are necessary and other times are just lots of fun.

As the game progresses, you’ll notice the world changing, too. Rooms become harder as some enemies actually track you or have ranged attacks. There’s a whole host of different enemies and hazards to keep you on your little webbed toes. While losing your frogs to these enemies might be a pain, I rarely felt like it was impossible. There’s just one hitch — you should probably switch your controls to something easier. Tapping to move your frog forward is fine and fluid but swiping left or right will slow you down considerably and sometimes not work entirely. This can lead to a few costly mistakes that might leave you more than a little bothered.

The graphics and music of Frogger in Toy Town is nothing to sneeze at, either. The frog you control is 3D, cute, and actually looks a little like a toy itself. The world around you looks much the same and has a feel very reminiscent of the ever-loved Toy Story, while the music is pretty simplistic at points and groovy at others.

So, is this game worth it? If you enjoy platformers, frogs, or reflex-based games, I think so! The controls can be a little iffy on the phone sometimes but everything about this really feels like a great job at taking an old, loved title and bringing it to 2019.

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How about a planet so thoroughly destroyed by space dragons that survivors have to reside in spaceships and dive through the atmosphere to collect junk off the dragons’ backs?

It’s not an intuitive way to end the world, sure, but it’s a whole lot more interesting than the usual fare. EarthNight, one of the many new games featured on Apple Arcade, takes this unusual approach to the post-apocalypse and fashions an unusual blend of gameplay that tasks players with diving from space through a sky teeming with dragons in hopes of reaching the surface of the earth and finding some way to save the world.

The game is an auto-runner, a genre which itself may seem old hat for a mobile game, but this one has enough tricks up its sleeve to breathe life into a genre that seems to consist mostly of Temple Run and Canabalt clones. While there’s certainly plenty of running you can do on the constantly-squirming back of the snake-like dragons, the best players will find ways to launch themselves skyward, bouncing off enemies’ backs and jumping from ledges to find greater treasures that will lead to more unlockable abilities. These runs culminate in battles at the head of each dragon you land on, with you trying to stab their craniums with the right timing to slay them before they shake you from their backs and deny you their much-coveted treasures that you gain from their defeats.

The abilities these treasures let you unlock can be game-changing. They range from simple increases in jumping power to the ability to deflect lasers and ride on the backs of tameable creatures. The more you unlock, the more the strategy of the game changes, keeping things fresh on each randomized attempt at reaching the surface.

While that might sound like the setup for a game that pads its gametime by forcing players to grind their way to victory, it never feels that way. There are no roadblocks that are impossible to pass without upgrades, and even the upgrades themselves offer multiple ways to unlock them — either by slaying the right dragons or by gathering enough treasure. While I certainly don’t have the skills to test it out, it feels like the entire game could be beaten with a single mistake-free run down the metaphorical gauntlet.

The spaceship that you return to in order to unlock these upgrades has a subtle level of character to it, giving players the opportunity to empathize with the two heroes who are tasked with saving Earth from the clutches of the dragons. It’s oddly serene, showing both characters performing mundane activities that you can’t help but feel allows them to cope with the catastrophe that took place miles below. It’s a wonderful example of how less can be more when it comes to storytelling, and it lets players fill in the gaps of the characters’ personalities in a way that allows them to step into their shoes.

In fact, what really makes this game stand out is the sheer amount of care that went into building up the personality and atmosphere surrounding the two player characters’ quests to save the world. There’s a tangible feeling of desperation every time they dive from their spaceship into the writhing mass of flying dragons below, giving a sense of weight every time you progress further towards the surface of the earth, and a sense of loss every time you fail and have to return to the ship and try again.

While progressing down through the different levels of the Earth’s atmosphere, the game makes the stakes feel more and more dire. A distant view of Earth with dozens of dragons standing in your way seems bad enough, but as you get closer it becomes clear that something is terribly wrong with the world you left behind. The view grows more and more unfamiliar and the names of the atmospheric layers stop matching up with what you learned in school and instead start sounding like descriptions of a wasteland that has nothing left for you to save.

Helping along the experience is absolutely a colorful, vibrant art style that feels lovingly-drawn and brings out a lot of personality. For the most part, it works well with the gameplay, with the player, enemies and power-ups all easy to distinguish at a glance, which is a necessity with gameplay so fast-paced. There are a few times when things get a bit cluttered and a few others when some enemies are too small to easily notice on a small screen, but this doesn’t happen enough to detract from the high-octane experience. A bigger problem is the times when it’s
impossible to tell what lies above or below you, making it hard to judge when to jump up or fall down to make it through a level with all the health and collectibles you’re looking for.

While none of the music in the synthesized soundtrack stands out as particularly excellent, it works well with the gameplay, alternating the tone seamlessly between the somber and action-packed portions of the game. It sets a bit of a retro tone to the game as well, calling back to arcade games from the 90s that seem to be part of the game’s inspiration.

Unfortunately, the game’s controls mar the otherwise well-crafted experience. To be specific: the developers seem to have forgotten that they were releasing the game on a mobile device, which has more control options than just tapping different parts of the screen. Choosing whether to dive, dash or double-jump midair could be made easy by assigning each to a different swipe or gesture, but instead each separate move is assigned a different small, easy-to-miss segment of the screen that you have to tap to perform. It’s a scheme designed for a controller, ported
clumsily to a mobile device without much consideration for what the devices are capable of. Thankfully, iOS 13 lets you connect PS4 and Xbox One controllers, which completely negates any of the control problems, but that’s a crutch that the game should not need to rely on.

EarthNight is a game that could have been amazing, but lets a few failings knock it down from the heights it might have reached. Instead, we’re left with a really good game — one that shows the inventiveness and imagination of its creators without quite reaching the level of greatness that was well within their reach.

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Don’t get me wrong here. King’s League II is a good game. In it, you’ll find two different modes. “Story” entails a fulfilling, though a little obvious, tale in which a prince must earn his countrymen’s and father’s respect. You’ll meet new companions throughout, many of which will be a part of your troops to make the game vastly easier.

The main crux of the story mode will revolve around an overworld, the same as the previous installments. You can take on missions to earn you gold (the main currency), gems (the also main currency), and reputation. Each one will buy you something different, whether it be new upgrades for your facilities and earn widespread buffs, level-up troops or units, or will simply earn you better perks such as more items unlocked in the shop.

As Maxwell, you’ll also man the front lines with your companions in an attempt to become number 1 in a long series of around 30 battles all the way up into the King’s League. There’s also a small rivalry going on in the background as well as an evil plot or two, but they always just feel like a little extra flavor that comes to a climax right at the end.

Combat in King’s League II is rather idle where your only option is to set up your team and watch as they either walk from left to right and collide with the opposing troops or shoot their arrows, spells, or heals. It’s not at all a bad system and, in fact, I like it quite a bit. It’s got a very decent difficulty as well as a good variety of different skills and classes to give you some customization. The fact that you can also train units differently and level up your troops in one of two different areas furthers that enjoyment into a really fun time!

Another part of the overworld you can take part in is becoming Warden of settlements. Simply battle a place and if you win, you’re Warden! This entails you earning a certain amount of both gems and gold. You can even do dungeons, small tournaments, and you may end up fighting a golem or two in the process. Some of these various competitions and dungeons will earn you anything from companions to items and of course more of those sweet, sweet gold coins and gems.

So, are there any negatives in Story mode? Yes. For starters, there are around 10 Epic characters you can earn throughout the game but the last 4 or 5 won’t be unlocked until at least midway through the game, with most being unlocked near the end. This means that you won’t ever really be able to use them as their stats simply won’t match up well with your already well-trained and well-leveled up companions. Rather than giving us a lot of different options, it instead feels like we’re stuck with only a few variations of a team rather than the intended dozens.

The second mode you’ll be able to play is Classic Mode, but I strongly insist you play Story Mode first, as Classic is… well, it’s a let down, especially for strong supporters of the series.

Classic mode takes away all of the story of the game and breaks it down into the same exact challenges, dungeons, equipment, and battles. To make matters worse, it takes away all of the Story characters as well. No Maxwell. No Epics. It’s just faceless soldiers either Rare or Common. I played through the entire mode and was sorely disappointed with this fact.

Classic Mode also takes away a few of the popular features in the previous generations. There are no more “random events”. These used to be great for earning you special characters, reputation, gold, or gems. It was a fun way to give you a little luck and a good, strong character. Instead, you’re on the same playing field as everyone else and let me just tell you that it’s not all that entertaining. In fact, if you’re unlucky or unfamiliar with the series and its mechanics, you’ll likely be losing a few arenas and far too many battles. In short, Classic Mode is just Story Mode turned into a grindfest for anyone that already played Story Mode.

Not to end this review on a bad note though, the game is really interesting. The story kept me entertained and invested, the characters feel good and have their own stories as well, the combat is fluid and complex, there’s great customization in individual troops, and it’s paced well enough that I never felt like I wanted it over sooner. Classic Mode may just be tacked on to give it that replayability factor, but the real reason you’ll be playing this is for Story and that makes the game an overall solid experience.

Oh, and one last note — Be wary of your rogues. They’ll dodge everything from swords and arrows to your own healer’s heals…

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I could be incredibly shortsighted in saying this, but Dawn of Isles feels it leans on the teachings of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Its soft cartoon art style, long, swishing grass, and addictingly simplistic gathering and cooking have me wondering if NetEase would ever consider porting it to the Nintendo Switch. I was entranced as soon as the game fired up, throwing me into one of the most unique and charming character select screens I’ve come across in close to two decades of bouncing between MMOs.

That being said, those into the freedom of character creation tools will be let down here. There are no race and class customization options here, you instead pick one of the four pre-determined characters; the bulky warrior tank, cute and nimble archer, tall and graceful dancer/healer, or the well-rounded Mage. You can tweak their face and add tattoos, but that’s about it. It’ll be doppelganger city out in the wild.

Dawn of Isles takes its time to get going. Things kick off on your own private island where you’ll learn how to gather materials, craft items, and build/upgrade your island’s facilities. Before long, you’re fighting crabs on the beach, allowing your sister to swim safely ashore from wherever she’s been all this time. Chatter ensues, you befriend a “peeping tom", and all hell breaks loose as the sneaky lizard’s change of heart falls on deaf ears, leading to his master and his cronies swooping in to steal your sister for reasons I struggled to comprehend.

The game is almost fully voiced in Japanese or Chinese. And while the text translation isn’t the worst I’ve seen in a foreign F2P MMO, it still struggles to make much sense in key moments. It feels like a minor gripe at first, but you’ll struggle to really connect with any of the characters you’ll meet on your journey around Kanganol. After the boom in “Imouto" anime, maybe there’s a reason the emphasis lies on your little sister and barely anybody else. Given the context, it actually kind of works.

Though the UI can start to get a little cluttered over time – like most F2P MMOs – the simple tap n’ drag nature of combat lends itself to playing arguably better on a PC/emulator set-up than a mobile phone itself. I wanted to take in the sights and sounds on a larger screen, my tablet, but when it couldn’t handle the game smoothly above its standard setting, I just had to see it scaled up to max on a more capable machine – my main gaming PC. My Pixel 2 XL runs it better than my tablet, but Dawn of Isles honestly feels more at home on a larger screen.

Switching into screenshot mode reveals just how Dawn of Isles pulls off its powerful visuals, though – draw distance is incredibly slim. If it’s not visible in the standard view, it basically doesn’t exist. It’s an efficient rendering method for sure, but it would be nice to see a little less deep grey mist when taking a close up shot of you and your friends.

While the archaic hotbar makes a grand return, it’s more a convenient tool than a combat necessity. In most cases, its slots are simply shortcuts to your gathering tools, food, and other commonly used items.

Whether you’re in need of wood, ore, fish, hides, or berries and wheat, you can quickly tap the corresponding tool on your hotbar and hold the action button to whack every node in sight. It’s not the most engrossing gathering mechanic, but there’s something oddly satisfying about the screen shake simulating the impact of a hatchet striking a tree, or a pickaxe splitting a rock.

The stock sound effect of a tennis racket hitting a ball only adds to the enjoyment. If you’re grinding materials, it’s fun to just imagine a game of Wii Sports Tennis or an iconic Wimbledon Grand Slam taking place somewhere in the distance. Extra materials or treasures can be bought and sold at any time through the market interface, creating a decent sense of community, or fueling the confounding ability to steal ripened fruit and vegetables from anyone else’s home island.

Combat is, on the whole, only slightly more complicated than the tap n’ go nature of gathering. It’s a semi-active system that feels like a mix between the evolution of MMO combat in games like TERA and Black Desert Online and the more traditional styles of World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV.

Auto-attacks still always find their target, but you have a dedicated dash button to quickly escape incoming damage. Most of the early game is easily tackled alone, but players can team up in groups of 5 to tackle a small number of rapid dungeons or band together in larger parties to take on randomly spawning world bosses. Most mobs can be tamed by throwing specific items and “dancing". Once captured, pets will grant you access to another unique attack in combat.

Pets can be leveled up, evolved into larger species, and occasionally used as mounts. I didn’t see much reason to capture something new in my 8-10 hours with the game, but with elemental resistances and their own roles, I don’t doubt there are pets better suited to specific situations you’ll want to keep an eye out for.

Gathering ended up being one of the quickest ways to level up early on, but dungeon and boss combat soon took over. The world’s 5-6 zones aren’t massive by today’s MMO standards, but the quests and storylines will keep you from burning through them too quickly.

Auto-attacks are delivered by holding down the large weapon icon, with separate abilities – typically on a cooldown – or on the surrounding buttons. You’ll learn a few more as time goes on, but at level 20 all my Dancer had was one core AOE ability, a healing clone she could toss out to mimic her moves, and her pet’s own – a straight-line AOE.

The only real gimmick to speak of is the something akin to elemental conversion. Simply put, your attacks can trigger additional effects when mixing with attacks of another element. If I were to drop my Dancer’s poison AOE on another enemy’s ring of fire, it would detonate for additional damage. Likewise, a fire ability mixed with a puddle would create steam for another ability to take advantage of. It’s a welcome tweak to the fairly uninspired combat system and one skilled players can manipulate at will by crafting throwable jars of their chosen elemental effect.

Dawn of Isles is a gorgeously crafted mobile MMO. With a delightful art style, plenty to see and do, and countless rewards and achievements to reap, it’s a true testament to how far mobile graphics have advanced in such a short time.

This is the kind of game I was desperately searching for when World of Warcraft started to grow stale for me in the mid-2000s. Knowing it’s playable on something that fits in my pocket makes me feel old yet thankful. The only thing that managed to tear me away from Dawn of Isles was my emulator crashing on a load screen after 6 hours of flawless gameplay. That has to mean something for a mobile game.

I’m in the camp of people who never played the original and only experienced The Dragon’s Trap through Lizardcube and DotEmu’s remake on the Switch. It did a lot right with difficulty options but the new visuals and new music won me over. I bought this the moment it went live on the eShop for Nintendo Switch and liked it enough to buy it again physically thanks to the limited retail release on both PS4 and Switch. Games like this and Game Atelier’s Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom showcase how to bring classics or how to reimagine older games for modern audiences.

You begin playing as Wonder Boy or Wonder Girl (you can toggle who to play before starting a new save and even tap on the logo on the title screen to see the new artwork) trying to take down the dragon. You start off pretty strong but get cursed into a half human half lizard and now look for a way to lift the curse as you traverse through some gorgeous and well designed levels. Progression is fairly non linear and you have the ability to transform and use various skills to uncover more secrets throughout. Expect a single playthrough of the main campaign to take around 6 hours.

I played this on an iPad Pro, iPad Air 2, and iPhone 7 over the last few days and it manages to look gorgeous regardless of platform. Lizardcube has done something beyond special with the new art and animations here. This is one of the few games that actually looks like a painting in motion. Performance has been mostly ok but I’ve run into the same issue I had on the Switch which had some slowdown when you turn around quick or during some animations. When this port was announced, I was hoping the iOS version wouldn’t have that issue but sadly it does. This is something I notice often and it annoyed me on Switch. Other than that, the performance has been fine. This game was designed for 16:9 and any other aspect ratio (So iPhone X screen size and iPads) will have bars on the sides or top and bottom with artwork. Keep that in mind since new premium ports usually make good use of the full screen real estate available on modern iOS devices.

Just like the love and care put into the visuals, the new soundtrack is fantastic. One of the best aspects of this remake is the ability to switch to retro visuals or music on the fly. You can do this by dragging fingers from left to right (for the visuals) and even leave it be in the middle so you have the left and right showcasing different eras in visuals. With an Mfi controller, you can use the triggers to switch visuals or music options quickly if you don’t want to get into a menu and stop the action. There are a few music options but the newest soundtrack is perfect. If the old school level design and some of the enemy placements feel too unfair to you, there’s an easy difficulty option that lets you breeze through most things in the game. Stuff like this definitely helps make an older game more accessible to newcomers to the genre.

My biggest annoyance with the iOS version barring that performance issue is how it controls on the iPhone 7. The default button sizes are too big and you often end up restricting your own view of the game. A lot of this can be fixed but this is definitely a game that would be better on a larger screen with more real estate for control freedom if you want to play it with touch controls. If you’re having too much trouble on the controls, make sure you keep playing around with the sizes and positions to get it to play best for you. I’d still recommend playing this with an MFi controller if you can.

One other control issue is in the button sizes sometimes having a touch target too small. On iPad, the game renders at 16:9 with bars around. This is also something you will experience on iPhone X screen sizes since the original game was designed for 16:9. On iPad access to the pause menu and inventory is sadly at the top left and right of the gameplay portion and not the actual screen which makes things even more annoying.

Overall, you absolutely need to play this game if you’re a fan of platformers and enjoy premium experiences on mobile. Playdigious did a lovely job with the port and it is perfect if you have an MFi controller. If you don’t, the touch screen controls are definitely not a fantastic way to play this because of how it controls in general. If you want to play this on touch, make sure to spend some time customising the controls through button sizes and positions because it doesn’t feel great on the iPhone 7 to me and is much better with touch on iPad. When it comes to remakes or ports of older games, Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap is definitely one of my favourite ones in recent times. It oozes charm and care unlike most remakes these days.

Looks pretty good, right? Solid soundtrack, great visuals, smooth controls… what’s not to like? Well, the controls themselves, actually. While I’ll admit that the controls work well, and they are unobtrusive, I do not like them. Before I really criticise them, though, let’s take a look at how they actually work. Movement is handled by swiping (and holding, to continue to move smoothly) either to the left or the right, and the magnet is activated by tapping. No jumping, no tapping miscellaneous buttons on the screen, nothing. Quite elegant. My complaint, however, is specifically in regards to iPad controls: Swiping on an iPad, particularly when the iPad is supported by a stand of some variety, is cumbersome and doesn’t feel great. There is a simple solution, though: Add a toggle for a second, entirely tap based, control scheme. Tap (and hold to continue to move) on the right side to move right, the left to move left, and the middle to activate the magnet. Simple, iPad friendly, and no additional UI buttons necessary.

Gameplay, similar to the controls, is fairly simple: Get the magnetic box from the starting location to the glowing outline with the star. Simple. Except, of course, for all the obstacles composing the puzzle. These obstacles range from the simple hole, to lasers, gaps, switchable blocks, and more. Sometimes completing the puzzle is as simple as filling a hole with a box and rolling across; other times, it’s as complicated as flipping two or three switches, activating or deactivating a laser, and repelling from one platform to another. This wide range of difficulty, however, isn’t linear. That is to say, there may be two or three easy levels, then a very, very difficult level, then another four or five easy levels… or there may be a difficult level, an easy level, and another difficult level, and then another easy level! It feels as though very little thought was actually put into deciding which levels should come first and which should be used as a challenge. It isn’t an issue with level design, mind you—Magnibox’s puzzles are very well made. They’re just ordered in what seems to be a somewhat random fashion.

Magnibox feels very much like a mobile game, although not in the cheap, freemium way that’s become attached to mobile gaming. No, this feels like a game made to be played on the go. Puzzles tend to be very short, frequently solvable in under two or three minutes, meaning all 160 levels could be played in only a few hours… if one was so inclined. Despite that, or rather because of that, it’s best played in short bursts—a level here, a level there; maybe a bit of trial and error before finally reaching the solution. This ties back into level design: Each puzzle is small, short, difficult (but not too difficult), and fits nicely into a single bite. For comparison, Daggerhood’s levels were ridiculously short… but also very, very hard, frequently requiring five-plus minutes each; Magnibox on the other hand, rarely takes longer than two. For the difficult puzzles.

While “fun” is certainly subjective, and while I wouldn’t want to say it is objectively fun (that’s a bit of a broad generalisation), Magnibox is at the very least satisfying. Grabbed a power up and pulling to that negative block over yonder? There’s a solid Thunk when you get there. Hopping through a teleporter? A quick Bw-ong and it’s done. Add in the upbeat soundtrack, the absence of time limits or any kind of pressure or sense of immediacy to act on something right now and you’re in for a one-way ride to happy town.

On the whole, Magnibox is pretty great. It sets out to deliver a charming platform puzzler experience, and it more than accomplishes that goal. It has a premium feeling, a relaxed pace, smooth controls, and so very, very many unique levels. While it could do a better job with its difficulty curve and introducing new mechanics, and while I have a special dislike of the swipe controls on iPads, the gameplay and unique feel more than make up for such minor issues. At its price point, Magnibox is well worth picking up.

The story follows Arina and Frendt, neighboring children who find a deep friendship in their time in each other’s homes – and in the gardens in between. After years of growth together, Frendt is moving away, and The Gardens Between is about their intertwined past. It is clear that Arina is headstrong and Frendt is a cautious thinker. Arina boldly moves ahead for the most part, carrying the lantern. Frendt is a bit more exploratory, and uses his skills to find important items or change what timeline is being affected. They’re a perfect match.

Arina and Frendt’s story is told through various islands, each representing a memory of their time together. Each island isolates the children from the real world and places them in their dreams and fantasies. Each island is themed to a specific event or memory. The islands contain giant versions of childhood items: a garden hose, a kiddie pool, playing cards, etc. And each grouping of islands/constellations tells part of the story. There are no text or voiceovers, but the narrative remains clear.

The gameplay is based on going forwards and backwards in time. Swipe left to go back in time, swipe right to move time forward, and tap to execute an action. Those are the only motions needed to play the entire game. It’s genius in its simplicity. It’s so intuitive to swipe to move time than you would think the title was originally designed for mobile, rather than being ported from other platforms. It also works well in a mobile space as it is easy to play in small bursts rather than one long sitting.

Cloud saving makes it easy to play on multiple devices. I cannot even begin to list the number of titles this could benefit, and it is a very welcome feature. I like to mostly play on my iPad so I can soak in the graphics, but I love having it synced up on my phone for when I’m away and struck with genius to complete a level. You can play in portrait or landscape mode. The title was originally for PC and consoles, so these versions play landscape. I’m a rebel, plus the islands move upward, so I prefer to play in portrait. Like the cloud saving, it’s a small detail that can mean a lot.

The purpose is also clear: get a ball of light into the stone statue at the top of each island. It seems easy at first, but then more elements are added; black holes and bells change the game completely. I mentioned a bell earlier – ringing the bell freezes the friends and allows you to move certain objects through time and space rather than the children. It’s a fascinating mechanic, and the swap adds a good amount of depth to the gameplay.

The incredible ambient soundtrack deserves a shoutout, as it fades into the background to help concentration while also being quite clever. Wear headphones (or crank that volume, but it’s not the same in this case) to really immerse yourself in the world. The ambient sound effects are perfectly suited for each environment. For example, in the level outfitted with a giant TV at the top of the island, you’ll hear background noise from the speakers the closer you get.

The game is quite short, even as short games go. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours and patience to complete The Gardens Between, but that’s not a bad thing. The story is told eloquently, without pointless bulk or filler.

I have two gripes with The Gardens Between. One, the dark bars at the top and bottom of the screen, indicating a cut scene. It seems unnecessary to do for only a few seconds at a time, maximum, and somewhat removes me from the narrative. Two, if you’re stuck, you’re stuck with trial and error – you won’t find any hints here.

The end of the game may be the end of being neighbors, but it doesn’t mean the end of being friends. Arina and Frendt evolve over time together, from kiddie pools to exploring drains. My friends and I preferred to explore the local cemetery, which seems bleak in retrospect. Anyway, they will keep evolving as they are apart, and in my mind they remain friends through the trials of tribulations of growing up and into adulthood.

OCO is almost perfectly explained by its name – once you’ve played one of its many stages, anyway. It’s a simplistic puzzle game in which your only real task is to tap the screen to jump. As rudimentary and uninspired as that might first sound, the challenge of OCO stems from overcoming that simple limitation. Each stage is completed by devouring the square pellets. Sounds simple, right? It is – but how you manage that will constantly change.

You move automatically around the abstract stage with nothing but gravity keeping you grounded. You can’t stop, and the only way to turn is by bashing into a solid object. That’s both a blessing and a curse you’ll want to embrace. If you overshoot a jump and need to turn around, you’ll have to look for something to bounce off first – and that’s really going to eat into your final clear time.

Things start out nice and simple. A quick hop here and there will be more than enough in most cases. But the welcome change with OCO is how each stage is about as clear-cut as the last. Rather than layering new mechanics until things get too demanding for your mid-afternoon gaming break, OCO swaps out each major mechanic for something new with each named world. You’ll need more and more points to unlock them, but you’re free to jump straight from World 1 to World 5 if the idea of “Warp" catches your fancy. You’ll obviously still need to jump and bounce in almost every stage, but you’ll be manipulating warp pads in one world and making use of speed boosting terrain in another.

Having a bit of trouble on a stage? You’re welcome to spend your points on perfect solution hints, but your tiny jumps and massive leaps leave trails behind that aren’t just for show. They’re a great method of visual feedback that can be used to identify unoptimized jumps. Learn by doing, as they say. And if you’re left feeling smarter when you’re all done with the main game, there’s a built-in level editor for you to puzzle your friends (or strangers) with – and there’s already a bunch of custom stages to access from the get-go, but you’ll have to part with your points to access all but the public’s newest creations.

One of the first things you’ll notice when firing up OCO is that it almost demands you use headphones. It doesn’t outright say it’s the “true experience", but it’s the same kind of humble request a horror game like Amnesia or even those mega-popular ASMR videos want from you – to have all of its artistic endeavors enjoyed as one whole being. While I wouldn’t say it’s absolutely necessary, the gentle beats derived from each tiny action goes hand-in-hand with the spirograph-style image you end up with at the culmination of each stage. It’s like a tame version of the PixelJunk Eden soundtrack.

What I love the most about OCO is how it gets you to underestimate each stage. You get a chance to survey the stage before it drops you into a set starting position, but it’s rarely enough for you to completely master the level in your first run despite how simple and inviting it might look. There’s nearly always a better, faster, more efficient route through each level.

OCO is almost always smarter than you, but it lures you in with its unintimidating soft colors and gradients, round edges, and simple shapes. You don’t need to perfect each stage to move onto the next, but the way it only presents the Perfect Time and Perfect Tap goals after your first clear is a great way to let you go at your own pace rather than stressing you right out of the gate with a true challenge. We’re working hard enough in life as it is, and OCO doesn’t want to bog you down with expectations like your condescending boss. Thanks, buddy. I needed that reprieve.

And what a reprieve it is. OCO isn’t going to give Animal Crossing a run for its temper-quelling money or replace that book of slightly damp sudoku puzzles by the john, but leaving it on your phone’s multitasking list for a quick poke while waiting for the kettle to boil isn’t such a stretch. Each level is presented as a bite-sized chunk that’s easy to swallow, and the only thing that might get in the way of the VCR-style Play button moving you to the next stage is a 30-second ad for a clicker game that is a much bigger waste of time than any of OCO’s gloriously addictive and intelligent puzzles.

Between the thirty-plus hour campaign (an interesting campaign no less), challenging levels at five different difficulties, and more than enough characters to drink a tavern out of business, Shieldwall Chronicles is a very, very replayable game. More than that, it’s a fun game—once I figured out its quirks and made the necessary changes, there wasn’t a minute of unenjoyed strategy.

The immediate draw, of course, is the story. You, the player, lead a mercenary band hired to guard a caravan as it travels into the northern realms. Along the way, the party is drawn into a conflict which threatens to destabilise the established order—and maybe make a pretty penny along the way. While there is nothing revolutionary to be found here, that is alright. It is an enjoyable experience, and the characters are well written. In addition, branching story paths provide additional gameplay beyond the initial play through. If more games offered this in a well-done package consistently, I would be a happy man indeed.

Getting the basics down is pretty easy. The game offers a helpful tutorial which introduces the important mechanics. Actually playing the game, though, can be a little more complicated. For a start, the size of the character roster alone can be a little intimidating: Fifteen different classes, each with a male and female variant, each with their own skills, backstory, and use case—nevermind the subtle mechanics which aren’t covered in the tutorial. Shieldwall is designed to last well beyond the campaign itself. It’s meant to provide the thirty-plus hours of the campaign, plus a good twenty in party composition for the truly hardcore.

All this leads to the actual meat of what we all care about: Gameplay. Does the game play well, and is it fun? The answer to both is a confident yes. The turn-by-turn action is, depending on the difficulty, either incredibly easy or crazy difficult—requiring a fair amount of thought and planning each turn—at the player’s discretion. Of the two combat systems, complex or simple mode, I had initially intended to play in complex mode on hard. Unfortunately, hard proved far too difficult for the tactical noob that I am, so I quickly dropped it down to normal. This didn’t solve the problem, however; complex mode itself was the problem. Put simply, actions in complex mode, whether they were skills, movement, or attacks, were prohibitively expensive—especially for slow characters, like the dwarf or tree spirit.

Fortunately, switching to simple mode provided a simpler, but more enjoyable (and definitely better balanced), experience. Instead of a single pool of of action points to allocate to movement, attacking or using skills; each has their own pool or allotment. This means that instead of having to weigh movement against skills, attacks against movement, and skills against attacks, the only thing that has to be considered is whether I would get more value out of my limited action point pool by using a skill this turn, or next turn. Thus, while the intent of complex mode is to provide slower and more tactical gameplay; in actual play, it seems to only make the game inordinately difficult in the beginning.

As it turns out, iOS isn’t the first platform Shieldwall Chronicles released on—that honour belongs to Steam. Nevertheless, the port is quite admirable… as long as the device it is played on is an iPad. While technically released and playable on iPhones, and while it does support cloud saving (only for iOS devices) for easy switching between phone and tablet, it is simply not suited for a smaller device. The screen is just too small, and there is too much that needs to fit on it for the game to really excel. Despite that, however, it is playable, although not as comfortably as on an iPad—any iPad.

All things considered, Shieldwall Chronicles is a pretty solid game. It needs some work—specifically on the complex combat system, and for play on smaller screens—but, on the whole, it is a fun, well made game. When there are so many games that are made for consumption and consumption alone, it is good to find one now and again that is made by someone who cares, for players who are looking for quality. Despite its flaws, Shieldwall Chronicles: Swords of the North delivers just that.

Help! I’m Haunted isn’t some cheap copy, either. Whatever it may lack in originality, it makes a good effort to make up for through sheer polish. Keeping in mind the target it’s aiming at, Help! I’m Haunted nails its visuals and doesn’t slouch on the soundtrack, either. It controls well, offers quite a few stages, and has fairly solid level design. Outside of a few irritating points, it’s a very pleasant game to run through. There are really just a couple of flies in the ointment. First, it’s so busy chasing Kero Blaster that it never really finds an identity of its own. Related to that, the other issue is that it ends up falling short of its inspiration in almost every aspect. How much those points matter are going to depend entirely on the player’s experience with Kero Blaster and what they’re looking for out of this particular game.

If you can somehow take the game on its own, it’s a fun action-platformer that has enough variety in its weaponry and enemies that it manages to feel quite fresh the whole way through. Your character, a sort of Ghostbusters expy, ventures out to various locations to rescue people who are being haunted by nasty supernatural monsters and ghouls. Your goal is to reach the end of the stage and touch the character who called for help, but you’ll have to blast your way through tons of baddies to reach them. There are occasional moments where you’ll have to exercise your jumping skills, but even the toughest of these situations shouldn’t be too hard for anyone with platforming experience. Enemies will drop a currency that you can use to buy upgrades for your guns, and successfully completing a stage will give you a nice bonus. You’ll also find health pick-ups now and then, but you can’t depend on them showing up so it’s best to avoid taking unnecessary hits.

Rescue all the people requesting help and you’ll open up a boss stage. It works like any other stage, but instead of finding a citizen in need at the end, you’ll find a big boss that you have to kill. There are four of these bosses in total, and the last of them is probably one of the only times during the game where you really need to pay attention. Almost everything else will easily fall to your impressive arsenal provided you exercise the smallest amount of caution. This is one of the weak points of the game. It’s just too easy until the very, very end. Your character can take a ton of hits right from the start, and as long as you catch on to the idea that you have to swap your active weapon in particular situations, the enemies are unlikely to wear that health meter down before you reach the end of the stage. The first few bosses use extremely simple patterns, and even if you don’t pay attention, odds are good you’ll whittle their health bars down to nothing before they can even peel off half of yours.

So if you’re looking for a challenge, you probably won’t find one here. The whole game can be cleared in a couple of hours, and unless you’re interested in replaying levels to fill out your arsenal, that’s all there is to it. It can be kind of fun to revisit earlier stages with a powered-up weapon from later in the game, but doing so tends to reveal just how little the game offers outside of gun play. As your bullets wipe out everything in your path, it’s hard to avoid noticing how plain the level layouts are, especially in the first several stages. The visual design of these stages is excellent. You can find great details in almost every location, and there really is a fair bit of variety with regards to the settings. But in terms of the mechanical design, there’s too much repetition and too few meaningful interactions with the environment. Walls, ceilings, and platforms sometimes feel like they’re only there to keep you from flooding the screen with the powered up water shot.

These are things that most people probably won’t care about too much on their first playthrough of the game, so I’m not sure how big of a problem they are. More noticeable may be that the controls occasionally feel a little too stiff, hits don’t always feel perfectly fair, and that weapon switching via the menu is just enough of a hassle that you’ll probably try to muscle through with the weapon you have equipped unless things really aren’t working out. Kero Blaster isn’t free of any of these criticisms either, mind you, but for some reason they draw my attention a little more in Help! I’m Haunted. I suspect the weapon switching comes down to the menu being accessible from the center of the screen in this game as opposed to the right side of the screen in Kero Blaster, and the rest is likely down to level design and enemy placement. I have to stress that I feel like these are very minor issues in the grand scheme of things, and are really only obvious because the game feels smooth to play the vast majority of the time.

If you haven’t played Kero Blaster before, well, you should. But if you haven’t, the way that the controls work is that you have left and right arrows to move and a sort of stick shift that allows you to lock your gunfire to the left, right, or straight up. Beside that stick shift, you’ve got a nice little jump button. This allows you to set your gun firing while you focus on movement, and it’s a great solution for this kind of game on mobile. Help! I’m Haunted completely copies that layout, but adds a few extra moves like a dash and a roll that can be a bit tricky to pull off with touch controls. It’s pretty easy to forget about these advanced moves, only to be reminded of them when you accidentally pull one off. You certainly don’t need them to get through the game. MFi controller support is in, but certain functions (like the menu to switch weapons) still require you to use the touch screen. The developer will apparently be addressing this in a future update, though.

I don’t want to sound too down on Help! I’m Haunted. It’s an enjoyable game at a very agreeable price. As a massive fan of Kero Blaster, I’m glad to play a game that takes cues from it without falling flat on its face. I had a pleasant time blasting through the game and had a good bit of fun once things heated up near the end. Still, once the credits finished rolling, I found myself not wanting to replay this game, but instead had a strong desire to fire up the considerably better Kero Blaster once again. That said, Help! I’m Haunted is good enough to recommend to those who enjoyed Kero Blaster or just want a decent run ‘n gun, even if it’s ultimately a little too obsessed with the object of its admiration for its own good.

Candies ‘n Curses kicks off with an oddly long intro segment which sets the scene for the game: You play as a character named Molli who accepted a dare to check out a nearby haunted mansion, which just so happens to be packed to the brim with ghosts. You fight these ghosts (initially) with your flashlight by running into them kinda sorta like Slayin ($0.99). Unlike Slayin, you play Candies ‘n Curses in portrait mode and there’s multiple levels of enemies which for lack of a better comparison almost gives me a classic (non-Super) Mario Bros vibe.

Using simple swipe controls you can send Molli up and down a level my swiping up or down, and you run right or left by swiping in that direction. The cadence of the game basically involves jumping between floors and in between ghosts to kill as many of them as possible as quickly as you can to keep your combo meter rolling. You’ll eventually reach a (often very cleverly designed) boss fight, and if you manage to make it past that, you’ll proceed to the next level where the whole thing repeats again with more difficult enemies and bosses.

You’ll eventually run out of hearts from hitting ghosts and die, at which point you’re offered the ability to watch an ad to continue once per run. Keep going until you die again, and you’ll have the ability to watch another ad to double the souls you collected on this particular run. What are souls? Oh, well, they’re one of two currencies you’re constantly earning in the game, with ectoplasm being the other.

These two currencies are used to unlock new weapons, like a lantern that changes your attack from a front-facing flashlight to a set of orbs encircling Molli that you mash into enemies instead. Additionally, each weapon can also be equipped with charms, which do things like give you more life, increase drop rates, and other stacking passive bonuses. There’s also an overarching experience system that has you constantly leveling up, as new weapons are gated not only by currency but also character level.

And of course along with all of these there are daily challenges you can do which provide bonus freemium currency, daily log-in bonuses, and an in-game store where you can buy all the extra souls and ectoplasm you’d ever want. If you really feel like dropping some cash, you can pick up a soul doubler and remove ads, each for $4.99. You can even enable push notifications to be reminded to keep playing when your daily bonuses are up again.

I think this all feels more annoying than usual in Candies ‘n Curses because you can definitely see the core of a really good Crescent Moon game in here. If Candies ‘n Curses had been released at a different time in the history of the App Store, it’d just be a real awesome premium game that sells for a few bucks. Instead, the whole first time player experience is all about teaching you how all the stuff you can buy in the game works.

But, hey, that’s just sort of the reality of the App Store in 2018.

Candies ‘n Curses is a great time, and has its hooks in me like any game with a fun upgrade cycle. The freemium stuff is pretty in your face, and the dual $4.99 IAPs to turn it into a more premium experience feels a little on the expensive side for what’s basically just a simple fast action arcade game. It also has some minor rendering issues on the iPhone X, with the game displaying some game data under the notch, but that sort of thing should be an easy fix.

But, hey, for the entry price of free, Candies ‘n Curses is totally worth downloading- Doubly so for being super timely with Halloween coming next week.

At the surface, Pivotol is just another puzzler that involves matching colors, and that comes across in the screenshots, too. And it’s true, matching colored tiles is absolutely the aim of the game here. Matching any six colored tiles immediately vanquishes them from the screen, just as you’d expect. So that’s it, right? Review over, time to move on.

Well, not entirely. See, Pivotol has something the French like to call “je ne sais quoi." There’s no direct translation into English, but the gist is that it means there’s something about the game that elevates it. One rough explanation for the French phrase is “something (such as an appealing quality) that cannot be adequately described or expressed," and that’s probably just about right. Although I think I can put my finger on at least one of the aspects that makes me keep coming back to Pivotol – it doesn’t stress me out.

As I touched on earlier, Pivotol‘s main – and indeed, only – target for players is to match colored tiles, with those tiles removed from the screen once six of them are touching in some way. Players can rotate blocks of four tiles in order to achieve this, with some wildcard tiles thrown in for good measure. Those wildcards can act as bombs, for example, adding a little depth to the game that might otherwise be lacking. But ultimately, it’s all about matching colored tiles. Which isn’t a new idea, obviously, but what’s different here is that there is no timer, no move counter, no endless and constant rush of more and more tiles throwing themselves from the top of the screen in an attempt to make your life a living hell. It’s all so….relaxing. You spin some tiles, some disappear – if you’re doing your job properly, at least – and then some more fall down from the top of the screen. Rinse, repeat. And it’s all so civilized.

Maybe it’s a sign I’m getting old or it’s just a swing in what I want from a game, but I’m past games that punish me for not being an expert in the art of gaming. I don’t want to find my gaming sessions curtailed because the game is fighting me, and Pivotol does a great job of entertaining and rewarding without making me feel like I’m a failure because I didn’t have the reflexes of a jungle cat as that unwanted tile falls from the sky, hell-bent on finishing me off. This is all to say that Pivotol is fun without being overbearing. That isn’t to say it’s not challenging, because it absolutely is, but it’s challenging at your own pace and that can make a world of difference to ensuring a puzzle game treads the fine line between being challenging and unforgiving.

Part of the charm of Pivotol is in the fact that it’s totally endless, with no levels to speak of. It’s a game to be played because it’s fun to make tiles disappear, rather than because you feel the need to progress. It’s surely not going to be for everyone, but for me, Pivotol tickles all the right spots and I’m thoroughly enjoying my time with it.

If you’re a fan of puzzle games but don’t like to be stressed out by them, Pivotol is a game you really should be picking up. It’s free, so why not?

There’s not much of a story here. You play as an adventurer trying to ascend a tower full of monsters. As soon as the game starts, blocks begin to fall. Some of them are solid blocks, while others will crumble and spawn a monster. Chests will also fall from above, containing coins, items, and other surprises if you can reach them and open them. If you survive long enough, you may see other things drop from above, but few of those things are pleasant. After a certain number of blocks fall, the layers will begin flashing, signifying that you’ve reached a new level. The gaps will be filled at this point, so you’ll want to mind that you’re not occupying one of them. Before the next batch of blocks begins to fall, you’ll be able to check out a shop or examine the many grave markers littering each floor.

When you begin the game, you’ll only be able to choose one character, but as you play you’ll accumulate points that can be used to unlock a ton of others, each a little different from the last. While playing, you’ll come across a bunch of different kinds of weapons and items, adding further variety to the game. Besides the broad weapon types, you’ve got your standard dungeon crawl/roguelike variety of differing parameters and attributes on each and every piece you pick up. Sure, that cool new sword you found may have some power backing it, but those throwing knives with a knock-back capability will be worth their weight in gold in the long run. If you don’t find anything cool, the shops usually sell some decent weapons.

As in most Japanese-style roguelikes, you’ll slowly regain your health as time passes, so as long as you can avoid taking a whole lot of damage at once, your health can hold out for a while. By the way, a block falling on your head? That qualifies as a lot of damage at once. If you find yourself in a pinch, you can restore some health if you have the right items on hand. Every five floors or so, you’ll find an inn instead of a shop, allowing you to completely rest and probably even pick up some health-restoring items. As you climb higher, you’ll find yourself having to deal with more monsters, stronger monsters, and a bigger mix of said monsters. If you’re not prepared with the right stockpile of goodies, your chances of survival aren’t great. You’ll also need to make sure you stay fed. Your belly is constantly emptying as you fight off the hordes and hop from block to block, and the only way to fill it up again is with food. It’s usually not a problem, but it’s important to remember to eat now and then.

Most of the business with equipment and items is handled via a menu that you can bring up at any time using a virtual button. When you’re not using items, you’ll be moving back and forth using virtual arrows, jumping with a virtual button, and either using another virtual button to swing your weapon or just setting it so that your character auto-attacks like a smart little beaver. The game is played in portrait mode, so if you remember how The Blocks Cometh played on iOS, you can probably imagine how things work here. Having to constantly go into the menu to do things isn’t the most elegant of solutions, but I suppose there isn’t really any other way to go about it. The game controls well for the action bits, at least, and I reckon that’s where it was important to get things right.

Pandoraid is free to play with ad support, and there’s unfortunately no IAP available to disable those ads. You won’t be seeing them all that often apart from the ever-present banner at the bottom of the screen, at least. When you die, you can choose to continue from the beginning of the level rather than starting over if you like, and should you choose to do that, you’ll probably find yourself watching a video ad. You can also voluntarily watch an ad to halve the prices of items in shops. In one of the more unusual quirks of the game, you can also choose to watch an ad to leave a grave marker behind on the floor that you died on. It has your name and how you died on it, and other players will be able to see it. I’d like to note that I could probably stretch that small point into a Dark Souls reference, but I want to believe we’re beyond that now.

As much it’s kind of a bummer that you can’t pay to get rid of the ads, Pandoraid is still a really fun game that will keep you playing for a good long while. The retro-style visuals and chip-tune soundtrack are great at evoking a vintage feel, the controls work well, and the unlocks are both enjoyable and meaningful. The grave markers add a small social element to the game without being intrusive, and the smattering of roguelike aspects help things stay fresh each time. If you’ve been looking for something vaguely reminiscent of The Blocks Cometh to fill the gap it left, I think you’ll find Pandoraid does the job with aplomb.

If that name sounds familiar, it should. Guihal was also the developer behind YesSir, a game we enjoyed back in 2014. He’s back, and this time with a puzzle game that’s altogether more colorful than the decidedly dark look of YesSir.

So, on to Troisix.

A puzzle game through and through, Troisix is based on the Chromino board game, and it’s easy to see how. Chromino relies on players matching colored tiles, just like Troisix, but a few things were added to the iOS game in order to make it more suited to playing alone. The rectangles of Chromino have been replaced by hexagons, while the rules have also received a refresh as well. The biggest change is the inclusion of the hungry ogre, a villain that you don’t really see, so much as experience the effects of. Apparently based on Venom, the ogre goes around claiming previously colorful tiles for himself, turning them black in the process. That’s obviously not good for you or your tiles and makes for a great variation on the standard tile-matching genre. The inclusion of the ogre us what makes the game so different and elevates it above the standard tile-matching fare that fills the App Store.

When playing through the 44 levels gamers will face one of four different gameplay modes;

• Place them all: Gamers have to place all tiles or a predefined number of them.
• Release them: One or multiple colors have captured, release them by cleverly placing the tiles in order to create a path to join them.
• Against the clock challenge: Depending on the level, players have to finish it in a predefined time.
• Attack of the Ogre: Repeatedly, the hungry ogre will attack in order to block your moves.

The difference in the gameplay modes means the game doesn’t get repetitive and if you’re of a nervous disposition, those timed levels will have you sweating, trust me!

Ultimately, no matter which level you are playing, the aim of the game is to place tiles so that at least two of their sides touch other tiles with matching colors. That obviously means that not all tiles can be placed in all positions, but some can be placed in multiple locations. It’s here where Troisix can become very complicated, very quickly. You start with a limited number of tiles in hand, but as the game progresses, that can increase to as many as 50 tiles at once. Deciding which of those tiles to place where can be the difference between a successful level and the hungry ogre taking over. It’s here that the real complexity kicks in and will have you coming back for more, no matter how many times you find yourself failing.

It’s also refreshing to play a game these days with no in-app purchases to speak of. Gamers hand over their $1.99 and get one fresh copy of Troisix in return. With support for English and French localization and iPhone and iPad screen sizes, this is a game that was originally intended to take around six months to develop, only for that to stretch to three years. If you want to recognize the hard work that went into creating a game as charming and as fun as Troisix, I heartily suggest you check this out. You’ll download many less deserving games this month, believe me.

As the title may suggest, Returner Zhero is actually a prequel, with your new character being the first person to be sent to the alien ship as part of a science mission following the arrival of said aliens to Earth. Those aliens have dispatched a giant lazer beam, one which penetrates the Earth’s core. You’ve been sent on a recon mission of sorts, and again, you’re going to need to solve puzzles in order to get things done. Yay!

If there was one thing that Returner 77 had going for it, it was its overall aesthetics. If you’re a fan of console games like Dead Space then you will immediately feel right at home in either that original game or Returner Zhero. Dark, cold and atmospheric are three words that I’d use to describe the environment you will be tasked with traversing. There’s also a distinctly Halo-like vibe going on which, honestly, ticks all of my boxes for this kind of game. There’s an argument for the visuals not being quite as impressive in this prequel as they were in Returner 77 but I may be nitpicking here. Played on a modern iOS device, Returner Zhero looks lovely.

Actually playing the game is a sort of point-and-click affair, rather than a roaming open-world one. Gamers scan the area ahead of them and then double-tap points of interest, at which point their character will interact with them. That invariably leads to a puzzle of some kind, and that’s where things can, unfortunately, go a little awry. I like puzzles as much as the next introvert, but unfortunately, there is a degree of repetition here that I didn’t wholly enjoy. If you’ve seen one puzzle where you need to get a lazer from one place to another by moving things around, you’ve seen them all. I also hit one-too-many spots where the puzzle just wouldn’t behave as the developer expected, with mechanisms not reacting to touches and the like. Bugs happen, absolutely, but in a game where you can’t progress because a touch target won’t register a tap, things start to get annoying, fast.

All that is a shame, because when it’s firing on all cylinders Returner Zhero is a great little game. Actually, calling it “little" is doing it a disservice because there are hours of fun to be had here, assuming you have the perseverance required to beat some of the more cerebrally challenging puzzles into submission. One tip I would have is this though; don’t try to follow the story too much whilst playing because, unless I just missed something somewhere, it’s bordering on the indecipherable. I never really felt like I understood why I was there or what I was trying to do in the grand scheme of things. I got that I needed to follow my nose and solve puzzles as I went, but why? What was at stake? What would happen if I failed? Ultimately, if you can play for the puzzles and the atmospherics – the sound is top-notch throughout – then you’re going to be just fine. Try to work out what’s happening in the timeline, especially with Returner 77 thrown in for good measure, and it’s crazy-making. My suggestion is to put some good earphones in, turn the lights down and just enjoy what’s in front of you without thinking about the whys and wherefores.

All this leaves me with a quandary as to what score to bestow upon Returner Zhero because on the one hand it infuriated me at times, and as I type I still don’t really know what was going on at times or why I was solving certain puzzles. But on the other hand, I enjoyed playing the game. I enjoyed the tension the soundtrack provided and I felt great after I successfully beat a tricky puzzle into submission. I’d suggest there’s enough here to warrant the $4.99 expenditure here, and it’s clear a third game is likely to follow. If you are able to discern the story and timeline, and enjoyed Returner 77, that alone makes this a must-buy. Otherwise, I’d still say it’s worth your time and importantly, your money.

So what can I say about The Company Game without spilling all of its secrets and thus ruining the game completely? Well, I can start by saying that the idea of using an iPhone as the window into another computer is nothing new in and of itself. We’ve been treated to some great games in the past, many of which have turned an iPhone into a portable terminal, asking gamers to interact with it directly as if it were a “real" computer. The Company Game makes a better fist of that than many of its contemporaries, asking gamers to solve puzzle after puzzle after puzzle, using their iPhone as the tool to do so. Again, it’s difficult to explain without giving the game’s secrets away, but expect to be fiddling with your iPhone in all manner of ways in an attempt to work out that one puzzle that’s been driving you insane for the last hour. Because once you get to a puzzle like that, there’s little chance you’re going to be able to put your iPhone down and walk away.

The whole premise of the game revolves around The Company which may or may not be evil. It’s your job to try and work that out based on information leaked to you by an informant alongside whatever you can glean from hacking the systems in play, largely by completing puzzles. No two of those puzzles are the same, meaning you’re likely going to get stuck more than a few times and in all honesty, I did. Lots. But that’s part of The Company Game‘s charm, assuming you can last long enough not to throw your iPhone through the nearest window – some of those puzzles are hard. If you persevere, however, you will definitely be rewarded.

Speaking of levels, there are 25 of them in total, each of which is unique as we just learned. Each is self-contained which really lends itself to the dip-in, dip-out gameplay that I’m a fan of on mobile. Given the level of frustration you may feel, that lends itself to giving you a break, too!

For all the myriad ways The Company Game uses your phone as a little box of tricks to be leveraged in the art of puzzle solving, there are still times where the phone isn’t used at all beyond acting as a touchscreen. These occasions can be doubly confusing because, especially if stuck, you can find yourself overcomplicating things because you’re looking for a weird or wonderful way to make something happen on-screen when in reality, all you need to do was stab at it with your meaty fingers. It may feel at times like the developer ran out of ideas, but that may be being overly harsh to a game that will delight more than it irritates or disappoints. That isn’t to say it’s perfect, because it is not, but it more than earns its $1.99 asking price.

When it comes to making a puzzle game feel like it isn’t just another match-three game or the like, there are few things developers can do without going too far. The Company Game arguably treads that tightrope just so, though at times I did wonder whether the puzzles were too obscure or if I was just not as smart as I thought I was! The Company Game will not be for everyone, of that there is absolutely no doubt, but if you’re a fan of smartphone puzzle games, want something a little bit different to the usual fare, and don’t mind having your blood pressure increase further than it really probably should, The Company Game should at the very least be on your radar.

Before beginning the game, you need to select your base bear. All of your favourite bear categories are covered: Black! Brown! Panda! Polar! After choosing the bear, you can randomize its outfits until you’re happy. My polar bear began life decked out in green jeans, rainbow suspenders, and a burgundy beret.

Everything revolves around time, thanks to a time machine that rather unfortunately resembles a refrigerator and a very hungry bear (in this case, my beret-bearing polar bear). At first glance, the narrative in Alphabear 2 is a riff on Back to the Future. I’m not a huge fan of time traveling films, as they tend to leave me on the border of confusion and an existential crisis. But I have seen the first two Back to the Future movies, and did learn something very interesting recently: the DeLorean in the film was originally supposed to be a fridge. The filmmakers changed it to a car in fear that a ripple effect of children being locked into fridges would be started. That’s right: Spry Fox borrowed the original plot and made it into a new narrative poking fun at Back to the Future. It’s ingenious, really.

So by entering the time machine, your bear of course manages to destroy the future. You’ll have to travel back through different eras to find historic figures and rediscover words along the way to – you guessed it! – rewrite history. Your bear and the professor meet other bears along the way, and continue to make Back to the Future jokes (“Onward to the past!").

The story is linear, following a very familiar buttons-in-a-line route that games such as Candy Crush helped make infamous in the free-to-play mobile market. There are several worlds, each with its own boss to battle after you spell your way through dozens of levels. You cannot return to past levels at first, but eventually you earn your way back in hard or master versions of those normal levels you’ve completed. I do wish I had the ability to go back, especially in order to use bears and earn items when I cannot currently proceed further down the story line.

Gameplay hasn’t changed much since the original Alphabear. Before each level begins, you’re able to choose from your collected bears to assist you during each story level. Some levels recommend certain types of bears, but it’s always up to you to make the final decision. Each bear will do something different in the level, such as give extra turns to specific letters or hints for what to spell.

You have a limited amount of honey (energy) to spend playing in story mode; the energy refreshes on its own over time, or by throwing some of Alphabear 2‘s premium currency at it. Each level starts with a bear (or multiple bears) surrounded by letter tiles. Most matches only have countdowns on the time left on letter tiles, but some do have a time limit as well. Remove the tiles by spelling words, and bears will grow to fill the spaces left behind. In an ideal world, you will clear all the tiles and create one giant bear, but that’s often just a pipe dream thanks to the tiles that have move countdowns until each turns into rock… and bears can’t grow through rocks! Bigger bears are worth more points, and clearing the board will earn you colored cloth to help craft clothing.

You can stop a level when you hit the target score, or continue on to try and make the biggest bear possible. For a perfectionist and completionist such as myself, I’ll rarely quit early because I want to know what I am capable of. If you’re struggling to hit the score at all, you can check your boost inventory to see if something helps; boosts are earned as rewards throughout the game, and are a lifesaver when you just can’t get past that one level. We’ve all been there! Having a +5% score or +10 second time limit can make a world of difference.

Another way to boost your score is to pay attention to the “ix" of the day. Use it correctly, and you’ll earn bonus points. For example, if “re" is the prefix of the day, “redo" would earn bonus points but “ore" would not. It forces you to look at the letters differently than you were before, which can spark an idea. The game really does well at balancing difficulty and progression, and provides a lot of opportunity to help get past any walls you may find yourself up against.

After a level is complete, one of the best parts of Alphabear 2 occurs: the photo booth! These amusing little scenes can be shared across social media, making the game slightly interactive. In the photos, your bear will appear in a randomized pose, saying Mad Lib-type phrases using words from the level. It’s easy to lose yourself by scrolling through these images, one after the other, saving or sharing the great ones as you go. I have an embarrassing amount of them at this point.

The amount of replay value in Alphabear 2 is overwhelming at first; luckily, not all sections of the game are available at the beginning, making it an easy curve to follow until all the content is accessible. The main screen contains special events, TV time, Time Warps, Daily Events, Bear School, and the game’s meat and potatoes – Story Mode.

The Daily Events section is cleverly set up as clocks. At first, only a few are available, but as is the theme, you’ll unlock more as you go. Each clock will offer a different challenge daily, such as competing a small board or a lovely leisurely no-time board. Some clocks are only available on certain days; for example, on Sundays you’ll get a notification stating, “It’s Sunday Fun-Day! Fix the Sunday clock to win coins!" It’s another successful tactic to bring you back to your bears on a daily basis.

At some point in the Story Mode, you’ll get to a level that your bears may need to be upgraded to complete. This is where two more of the modes come into play, Time Warps and Bear School. Time Warps send bears through time in one of three time machines. One uses coins (the best but most rare), one uses berries (it is so-so), and the last is free (you can click on it after a set time but the bears are quite common). Duplicate bears level up bears that you own, or new bears join your collection. Or is it a bear party? I definitely like to think of my bears as a collection of RPG characters I can choose to join my party.

Bear School sets out levels to beat to increase the stats on any bear matching the daily types (cautious, merry, etc). The first level per day will cost coins, but after that you’ll need coffee to keep working forward. There are two options, levelling up instantly (one level) or winning a timed event to earn one to three levels and the chance at some goodies (berries and cloth). It’s nice to have the option of just quickly getting it done for a little reward or taking the time and risking the bigger reward.

Collecting cloth for clothing seems to take forever, although I seem to have expensive taste for what is available. After three days of on-and-off playing, I have 200 red cloths, 123 yellow cloths, and 30 blue cloths; that means I can craft a cat-filled housecoat (90 yellow cloths) but the hot dog costume (500 yellow cloths) is still far out of my reach. But I must get it. I will get it. I will return every hour until I do. That’s right, this is another part of the game aside from the gameplay that keeps me coming back for more. The world needs to see my bear saying funny things while dressed like a hot dog.

Alphabear 2 is a free-to-play title, but you can pay for an ad-free experience if you’re interested. This allows you to permanently have the TV bonuses (such as increased berries or an increased chance at cloth) instead of having to watch ads every few hours. You also get free honey three times per day instead of having to watch three ads to receive it. Otherwise, I never encountered an ad during play, not even between levels.

Something I struggle to appreciate is that you still need to wait for energy refills if you pay for a no-ads bundle. It’s considerably costly to still have to wait for more honey to build up so you can continue. Despite not liking the feature, I do understand that its purpose is to help increase longevity… but as I’ve stated repeatedly, the game has already succeeded at creating a desire to return, so I wonder if it’s necessary.

Since it’s been so long since Alphabear’s release, and the mobile game landscape moves so quickly, I had actually forgotten that I had played the title before I picked up the sequel and it instantly felt familiar, from the writing to the gameplay. I will never tire of being able to write slightly dirty (or often just very genetically correct) words and getting points for them, so even without the witty bears I often find myself chucking while playing. It’s a great quick reprieve from the stresses of daily life, with reason to return time after time and a great reason to share your progress on social media with the photo booth. The paid No Ad option does seem expensive to still have to wait for honey, but that’s absolutely no deterrent from the title.

Top-down golfing is nothing new as far as the App Store goes. There have been many, many games that came before Golfing Around but few have been able to offer the same level of charm while managing to remind me of the games I used to play back when I was a kid. I’m thinking of the original PGA Tour games on the Sega Genesis (Or Mega Drive to those of us across the pond) where golf games were simulations, but also had a decidedly simple feel to them. You point the ball in the direction you want it to go, allow for wind direction and severity, and away you go.

That’s the beautiful simplicity that has me hooked on Golfing Around, but there is also a facet of the game that makes it much more complicated than it first appears. Yes, you tap and hold on a power meter in order to tell your little golfer how hard to whack the ball, but there are considerations to be made beyond that deceptively simple mechanic. Holding the button too long will cause your player to slice the ball, causing it to spin off either left or right. Selecting the wrong club will have you either massively overshooting your target or dropping into that pond just before the green. There’s more to Golfing Around than initially meets the eye, but it all adds to the enjoyment rather than detracts from it.

As I mentioned earlier, the main view you will take when playing is a top-down affair with your character in view, fairly closely zoomed. However, tapping a button will see the camera zoom out, giving you a bird’s-eye view of the terrain you need to navigate in order to reach your ultimate goal, the hole. This allows for more careful planning of your shots and with the club selection becoming so important as holes become more difficult, it also allows you to pick the right one for the shot at hand, too.

Thankfully, all of the internal debating you will do while choosing the right shot won’t get too uncomfortable thanks to the decision to make Golfing Around a portrait game. Because of this, one-handed use is perfectly possible and honestly, encouraged. Being able to pick the game up and thumb your way through a hole or two while waiting for your sandwich, or an Uber, or anything else for that matter, is a joy. I love one-handed games for this very reason, and it suits the way this game plays to a tee if you’ll forgive me the golfing pun!

When it comes to longevity, the fun you can have with Golfing Around is ultimately endless. THere are three courses each with nine holes, but when you’ve perfected those you can move on to user-created courses. Or if you’re so inclined, you can create your own, too. This alone can extend the game’s lifespan immeasurably, and considering the game won’t cost you a penny (assuming you can live with the ads) then there are few better value for money propositions around right now. If you do decide that the ads are not for you then a very reasonable $2.99 will see them bid you adieu, allowing for intrusion-free gaming.

By now it’s probably abundantly clear that I’m a fan of Golfing Around. There is something about being able to play a golf game that takes itself seriously, but not too seriously on an iPhone, one-handed, any time I want that I think makes this a great addition to any gaming arsenal. And when you’ve done that, maybe check out some of Colin Lane’s other work? There’s plenty to choose from.

There really is very little narrative in Zero Escape; what I’ve already described is about it. The content comes from the 99 problems that require a solution. It begins easy enough: “Blind Mice” is three, “Easy as ABC” is 123, and so on. The difficulty increases as extra elements are added, such as the period or typing as though you would on an old cell phone keyboard.

The answers rooted in pop culture may just be my favorite; it’s with glee I can answer “90210” when the question is “Beverly Hills” (I am proud to say I was among the original fans, and less proud to say I loved the more recent iteration). Other questions are surprisingly obscure. For example “Birth of Relativity” sounds like it would refer to the year Einstein discovered relativity, but it’s Einstein’s birthday instead. Now, I’m not exactly the world’s most patient person, but I never found I felt extreme frustration towards the game, even when I was stuck.

The questions themselves are mostly universal, something someone in any part of the world may be able to answer. The history questions did seem to lean to the American side of things quite heavily, but otherwise they cover just about any trivia tidbit involving a numerical answer. I’ve actually learned from the questions/hints: I now know what number “score” represents and have reclaimed my ability to spell “hello” upside down on a calculator. The best comparison I can think of for the questions is what you would find in a game of Trivial Pursuit, if the game only had numbers as answers.

I really appreciate the game’s credit system. And when I say credit system, I don’t mean there are in-app purchases. Each floor has one available hint, costing a certain amount of credits. The lower the floor, the more credits it will cost to access its hint. You begin the game with a handful of credits, but after that you can earn them through missions. The missions contain a handful of mathematical questions, normally addition or subtraction, sometimes multiplication or division. The best part is that it resets at the hour mark, so you’re not waiting 24 hours to earn more credits and get past where you may be stuck. And you’re not paying to progress either, another important note.

While Zero Escape shines in its ability to earn credits (without paying actual money!), it does tend to suffer with regards to the hints provided by credits. Later levels could especially benefit from having multiple hints available, even at the high cost. Another small problem I have with the game is its lack of a Clear or Backspace button – the perfectionist in me despised having to hit the Enter button knowing full well there’s something wrong with the answer I’ve given, solely because my finger slipped or I obviously miscounted.

Zero Escape is truly a mobile game, in that it can be played in any scenario. If you’re bored on the subway while staying steady with one hand, you can play with the other. There’s no music or sound effects absolutely necessary (although the retro bleeps are also very much appreciated) to progress in the game thanks to its entirely linear structure. It may be too distracting though, so keep an eye out for your stop. If you have thirty seconds free, you can pick it up; if you have thirty minutes free, your brain will most certainly have a workout.

While you can play one-handed, you definitely won’t find yourself playing infinitely. The bottom floor is in sight, along with the end of the game, and prior to success I find myself having to prepare to grieve the end of the experience. But that’s a hallmark of a good game, isn’t it? One you fear the end of? And the end isn’t all bad when the experience is enjoyable.

Graphically, Zero Escape is stuck in the era of early cell phone screens, with bright green letters and numbers practically popping off the black background. The sounds match the retro vibe with zing and boops seemingly coming straight out of an old computer. My favorite is when the graphics and the sound combine to create an image on the screen: the picture appears in characters, line by line, accompanied by a dot-matrix printer sound. Despite loving the pop culture questions, it’s these image questions I really looked forward to seeing.

If you’re looking for a straightforward, one-handed, one-time-payment puzzle game, Zero Escape may very well be it. The retro sounds and graphics delighted the kid (and teenager) in me. The difficulty curve was never insurmountable, and you’re never asked to spend more actual cash to get hints. The hourly mission is a great way to keep those stuck on a level motivated to keep revisiting it. There is this nagging voice in my brain regarding some questions lacking completely logical answers based on the phrasing, but even these questions just required a couple more tries before moving forward. More importantly, when contemplating the title, I recall the pop culture references as well as the sheer variety of questions available to answer more than anything that voice in my head wants to complain about.

As usual, the game starts with an extra download, allowing you to ponder your decisions in life. After that, you’re run through the typical tutorial that crams the game’s systems into your brain in rapid-fire fashion, almost guaranteeing you’re not going to grok any of it. Oh well. Once the game leaves you be, you’ll figure things out quickly enough if you’ve played any similar games before. Use energy to take on missions, clear the missions to earn rewards, exchange rewards to draw a random new character, create new equipment, or enhance existing units, and hope you’re strong enough to take on the next mission. If not, repeat the stuff you’ve already done until you are able to move forward. As you go along, you’ll be presented with cut-scenes that move the story forward, such as it is. To tell the truth, the cut-scenes are mostly an excuse to show off the full-sized art of the girl-ships.

The main difference between this game and others like it is in the side-scrolling shoot-em-up action that the meta-game is bolted onto. As you head on each mission, you may get attacked along the way. You can try to avoid those random battles, but you may have to fight them. Either way, you’re going to be controlling some floaty super-deformed girls as they auto-fire upon an enemy fleet made up of actual ships and other floaty super-deformed girls. In addition to your basic attack, you have access to some special moves that operate on cool-down timers. You can move your characters around, but they’re pretty slow and their hit-boxes aren’t small, so it’s hard to avoid most of the shots that head your way. It’s mostly about positioning them for offensive purposes. Victory is going to depend far more on the strength of your team than on any twitch skill you may or may not have.

There’s quite a bit that goes into that. Your teams are made up of up to six girls, with the front row reserved for light units and the rear for your heavy hitters and support units. They come in different rarities and ranks, and will accumulate experience through use. Eventually, their levels will cap and you’ll have to enhance them if you want to keep improving them. Each girl can be equipped with gear pieces that can be crafted, bought, and enhanced using the resources you’ll be collecting. There are tons of resources to keep track of, which is about normal for this genre these days. You’ve got your premium resource that can be bought for real money and used for just about everything in some way or another. Coins will also be used for a lot of things, and oil serves as the game’s stamina.

Since your ships are basically high school girls with guns attached, it stands to reason that they would have a school. The academy contains a number of useful buildings, and perhaps most importantly is your most reliable way of earning coins and oil. You can upgrade buildings to improve their output and storage capabilities. You can also make use of a shop here, or send students to train their special skills if you have the necessary text books. You’ll also see your girls walking around here, which doesn’t really do anything practical but is kind of cute.

It’s all rather silly, but if I’m going to be completely honest, it’s also kind of fun. Of course, that’s keeping the condition in mind that you have to be okay with this kind of collect/grind/upgrade free-to-play game to begin with, but I feel like we’re far enough along in this genre’s history that I shouldn’t have to qualify that every time. There are lots of customization options and the shoot-em-up gameplay is engaging without being demanding. It’s kind of hilarious seeing what kind of girl each historical ship has been made into, as well. Who knew that the HMS Repulse was such a go-getter?

Azur Lane has enough interesting ideas of its own to help it stand out a little from the crowd, and there’s a considerable amount of content here to enjoy right from the get-go. It’s perhaps a little overly-complicated for its own good, and anyone who isn’t already somewhat familiar with games like these is probably going to be scared away by its busy interface and tutorial avalanche. At the same time, it’s not hard to see why this game was a pretty big hit in other regions. The art is good, the gameplay is reasonably fun, and there’s a lot to chew on for those who get engaged with it.

Prior to the journey beginning, One Hour One Life nudges you through a required tutorial that gives you the base knowledge of how to exist and interact with the world. You’ll spawn in as a young adult female, fully capable of doing the required tasks at hand. Only in time are you ready to take on the world: carving a rock against another larger rock to create your first harvesting tool up to your first axe, a godsend in creating your first fire. Even as the fully capable human you are onboarded with, you will die
before the tutorials completion. Multiple times. You see, death isn’t a potential outcome: it’s a guarantee. Upon each death you are given a graph showing the family tree, further emphasizing that one wrong move could be over in a minute. As you finally find ground as to what you think One Hour One Life is, everything you know is thrown out the window.

One Hour One Life is a 100% online permadeath game where all characters on the server are actually players. Post-tutorial, with no choice as to climate or location, you are born as a one year old child to a mother (“Eve") who is your only option to survive — especially with an almost non-existent health pool. Your only form of verbal communication is frustrating but realistic single text letters. Good luck. It’s worth noting: to balance out population, you have a small chance to be “born" as a young adult character if babies outnumber sustainable mothers on your server.

At this moment, the first domino tumbles and regardless of the outcome, you have left a mark on the environment. Your birth alone is an almost immediate strain on resources. At birth, you may have a great mother: one who names you, focuses solely on you and keeps you alive to become a contributing member of society. At the age of three you can begin to use tools, accomplish small tasks and help your family survive. This world is a harsh one, that seemingly only intends to kill you, and odds typically are not in your favor.

Maybe your mother is near death and breastfeeding will lead to an early death, requiring her to make a moral decision with each passing minute. Maybe you’ll spawn with a mother that has two children already, knowing it’s too much and you’re ultimately left unnamed and to die. One could only hope to be born to a mother of an “advanced" village, with thick mud walls protecting the farm. The more common outcome, sadly, is to a mother barely sustaining herself in the woods desperately searching for previous fallen townships to find anything for her next meal.

In One Hour One Life, you age a year per minute with each year opening more and more possibility to you. If you make it to age 60, you’ll die of old age, which is very uncommon. In my time played, I’ve had the opportunity to experience the death of an elder — leaving such an impact on the village, every resident left to mourn the fallen elder. Ultimately I was ignored and died of starvation.

It’s not uncommon for the first hour or so that you play that you’ll be lucky to see the age of 6 or 7. Even at age 3, you’re barely able to say a three letter word like “Mom" much less find berries or food for yourself. You have no role, no job — but with any semi-organized group that you are lucky enough to spawn into, hopefully someone will be at base delegating tasks. In the event that no one is, the best thing you can do is try to assist around the farm, gathering berries or making food baskets for the elders.

While survival and sustenance are typical player motivation, nothing is stopping you from being a monster. From murder and thievery to destroying as much of a resource that you possibly can — you are left to your own motivation and imagination. For instance, I was forced to leave an encampment and stumbled upon a large village where I was told “I wasn’t welcome" and even though I was starving, I was instructed not to steal from their farm. As a kneejerk response, I hid silently on the edges, only appearing to gather and chow down some of their carrots only to survive. After a few years, I was found and killed. It was only after the fact, the realization hit about the extent I likely hurt their progress. Many future children died because of my attempt at retaliation.

Only through experience will you begin to have a birth “build order." There are some quality of life items (i.e. a marker to guide you home), but it’s best to experience and grow through osmosis just by playing. I would recommend staying away from wikis and learning purely by trial and error. It leads to a more exciting experience even at the expense of those around you. The developer trickles out new tech on an almost weekly basis, with new tech seemingly relying on when the player base achieves milestones. It’s a slow process of advancement but one with no end in sight. It’s hinted at through the trailer that, one day in the far future, you’ll be capable of building modern housing with modern appliances. For right now, in the world of One Hour One Life, mud walls are a luxury.

The aesthetic of One Hour One Life might turn some off but due to the nature of choices, might make you feel less evil. I’ve experienced a birth in the middle of the woods, to a mother who gave her life just to keep me sustained. I aged to the point where I also spawned a child. I couldn’t sustain them in the long run and as a wolf appeared I opted to drop the child to aid my escape. Shortly thereafter, karma caught up as I died of starvation mere steps from an abandoned encampment. While these actions might make me sound evil, it’s the tough choices that will sit with you long after you play.

One Hour One Life is niche and has a high barrier to entry, an experience that will likely make you lose faith in humanity but gain it back on your next life. The biggest downfall of One Hour One Life rests solely on its current controls that, while not horrible, are just inaccurate enough that I charged up my Apple Pencil to assist in the precise actions of crafting and assumably can be adjusted and fixed in future builds of this growing game. If you even have the slightest inkling to play, do it. I’ve spent a good amount of time between the PC version and mobile version of One Hour One Life and am glad to know that even with my time spent, I’ve barely scratched the surface as to what this game will ultimately become.

A few basics about the game before we move into the first of those two concerns.

For those unaware, Evergarden was created by the same people who brought us Race The Sun, a game that became something of a cult classic amongst a portion of the mobile gaming population. That respect was well deserved, and developer Flippfly is back again with a new game, this time based all around a garden, a forest, and a fox-like companion called Fen.

The aim of the game is almost indecipherable at first blush and is honestly the biggest knock I have against a game that I’ve enjoyed playing for this review. The on-boarding process is minimal, to say the least, and while I appreciate what the game is trying to do here, there were times where I just couldn’t instinctively work out what Evergarden wanted me to do in order to progress. However, once that all became clear, things started to really open up.

That progression comes when the gamer realizes that the aim of the game is to combine plants, or flowers depending on how you look at it, and then effectively use them in a giant game of flora Connect4. Yes, the number of flowers required in the sequence changes and yes, the layout of said flowers that is required in order to progress also alters depending on the challenge at hand, but you are essentially doing the same thing throughout. That is, you need to combine flowers in order to cultivate other flowers and then match them to a patter on the octagonal game board just the way Fen likes. It sounds fairly easy when you say it like that, but trust me, when you start to progress and as the space on the game board diminishes, things can get difficult. Fast.

This now brings me to the issue I mentioned earlier. To delve into the game any further in this review would do both you, the reader, and developer Flippfly a disservice. In truth, Evergarden is best experienced first hand and not via the (admittedly awesome) pages of this wonderful website. Words only serve to ruin the surprises that await and the little gems you will discover. I haven’t even mentioned the music, or the sounds used throughout the game as you combine flowers or even plant new ones. The whole thing sounds gorgeous and I suggest headphones are almost a requirement so as to get the best out of the aural experience.

For me, there is a line in the App Store description for this game that perfectly sums it up – “Evergarden may feel familiar at first, but you will discover it is like no game you have played before." That brings us to the second reason I mentioned way back in the first paragraph of this review. The game absolutely will feel familiar when you’re setting out, but as you progress through Evergarden you will experience something the likes of which I doubt you will have in your gaming life.

If you’re a mobile gamer, which you are because you’re reading this, and have a few dollars to spend on a game that will have you staring at your screen in wonderment without it being the usual shooter or racing game, then this is the game for you. Puzzle games lend themselves to mobile gaming particularly well, and Evergarden with its gorgeous color palette and subtle shading looks just beautiful on a modern iOS device. The game is calming yet addictive and one I don’t expect to stop playing any time soon, even after this review’s completion.

In a recent interview, the developers behind Evergarden shared that the game was created to honor their mother who sadly died in 2016. That somehow lends a poignant charm to the game, beyond the almost excessive charm it already possesses, and I’m sure she’d be proud.

The “actual" story of Task Attack begins on level two when you’re interrupted by a text message from your (assumed) significant other “Cindi Smith". From the get-go Cindi criticizes you for wasting time playing video games and reminds you of a simple errand she asked you to do: pick up carrots for dinner. The game then instructs you to “Blast that Task!" revealing your inner monologue and true intent. “Carrots can wait! You’ve got a universe to save!"

Thus, sets the series of Task Attack‘s events into motion that play out over the course of the game’s six levels, all with unique enemies, mini-bosses and bosses to fight through. For example, throughout level two (the “Get Carrots" level) you’ll be fighting mini carrots shooting a single projectile ultimately leading to an epic fight against a single large carrot, shooting invulnerable mini carrots that you must dodge and return fire. This is only stepping stone on the path through Task Attack‘s strange universe.

Task Attack, at its core, is a story about a procrastination while attempting to ignore various “adult" requests in effort to just find time for oneself. As a thirty one year old father of two, the game oddly poked and prodded at my own personal thoughts I have (for better or worse) dealing with responsibilities. As one ages and my free time begins to dwindle, most have wanted to “Blast that Task!". Obviously, I’m thankful for everything life has given me — but sometimes I just want to be left alone to my own imagination or one of my hobbies. Admittedly, I’ve probably thought to myself “get your own carrots!" as I’ve grumpily went broke in my daily routine to traverse the isles of my local super market. There are very few tasks I can blast in my real life without various levels of repercussions.

The story of Task Attack, while simplistic, follows a satisfying loop: receive a message, “Blast the Task!", a witty one liner and the level begins. Even with the simple story structure of Task Attack, it’s quickly apparent you’re living out a “day in the life of X" — the minimalism allows you
to easily relate to and fill in the blanks.

Through the course of Task Attack‘s six levels, not a single death left the game accountable. The controls feel solid and should be commended. A sea of retro-inspired space shooters exist with many not even close to adequate. Nailing the responsive controls of Task Attack only becomes more important as you are allotted just three lives total. No additional lives are to be found via pickup or score. While in many ways having a designated number of lives can be off-putting, Task Attack isn’t overly strict with each “Game Over" allowing you to begin at the beginning of that same stage. As long as you complete a stage, you can go back and replay it.

Task Attack comes with four difficulties (“Easy", “Normal", “Hard" and “Master") alongside an “Infinite Play" mode, padding out the game’s already competent amount of content. It took me roughly two hours to play through all difficulties of Task Attack (with “Master" mode taking most of that time) and dabble in infinite mode. It’s worth noting you do get a special ending for completing the game on “Master" mode. You’ll likely want to go back and play more of the “Infinite Play" mode as it scratches the itch of a good “score chaser" simply bringing all the enemies back at random that you fought through the course of the campaign.

Mechanically, if you’ve played any arcade game growing up you’ll feel at home. Ship progression exists through four varied powerups: double shot, big shot, spread shot and laser. Each powerup has an active timer, reverting back to the default single shot when the timer hits zero. As long as you’re maintaining and clearing the enemies on screen in a timely manner, it’s not uncommon to chain powerups and keep a rhythm through each level’s enemy waves.

Accompanying the great gameplay is a stellar retro soundtrack. Alex Cap’s soundtrack brings the game to life with modern hardware, while keeping that grungy chunk of the limited sounds arcade cabinets and old game consoles would produce. Complexity does exist within the tracks, but feels grounded to the retro aesthetic.

With this being Hot Avocado’s first foray, Task Attack impresses and proves the developers have the talent to not only create something original, but accomplish the even harder task of standing out alongside the App Store’s crop of uninspired and shovelware retro clones. With the story itself hitting home with surprises and resonating within me, the small price of 99¢ is well worth the content. Even if Task Attack was treated as a one-and-done experience, it’s well worth a purchase.

It’s a simple, zany, pick up and play brawler that doesn’t ask too much and doesn’t overstay its welcome. It’s a pixel art fighting game that throws you into a side-scrolling wrestling ring with a bunch of other wrestlers and basically says “last one in the ring wins – GO!” Oh, and it lets you drop kick a luchador from the top rope, so that’s worth something in my book.

Getting rowdy

Rowdy Wrestling is the epitome of keeping things simple. You have four huge buttons on screen that correspond to your four movements: Left, right, jump and attack. That’s really all you need to succeed. When you press attack your character will swing both arms forward wildly and smack any muscle-bound dudes unlucky enough to be standing in front of you. When their health bar is empty, an attack becomes a huge lift and throw that sends opponents hurtling through the air back and over your head. This is the bread and butter of the game – weaken enemy, throw enemy, repeat.

The characters are all stiff as boards except for their swinging arms and the games physics has them bounce like toys when the get hit or thrown, meaning a cluster of four wrestlers can be a mess of flailing arms and thrown bodies until one dazed man stands victorious.

When you get into it there are some slightly more complex tactics. The aforementioned drop kick is done by jumping then attacking, which tends to knock some dudes out cold. And if you do it off the top rope you’ll almost always get them in one go.

Around the edge of the arena, coaches will occasionally stick their hands in holding weapons, so grab them and swing wildly. These range from chairs, to batons, planks of wood and more. They do incredible damage, but the enemy will rush for them just as you do, and there are few things more exhilarating (or terrifying) than being one of two left standing and the other guy just grabbed a steel chair.

Make a career out of it

When it gets down to it, there are a couple of game modes on offer. You can complete a Rumble on your own or in a tag team, with a whole bunch of wrestlers to beat up. The game will drop a series of themin from the sky one after another, and the last one standing wins.

Or you can complete a season on your own or in a tag team, which is a series of one-on-one or two-on-two fights strung together. There’s also an Endless mode for each that throws competitors into the ring and asks you how long you’ll survive.

There are 55 wrestlers to unlock over the course of your game, and they all have slightly different Power and HP stats. They all have appropriate wrestler-y names as well, like Brent Diamond, Wes Phoenix and Bonk The Clown. Their costumes are all as weird as you’d expect, with some looking like extras out of an episode of Sons of Anarchy, while others are dressed as tubby sumo wrestlers, clowns or off-brand super heroes.

You unlock new wrestlers and tag teams from the select screen by spending coins. Coins are gained relatively quickly from matches, as well as extras if you choose to watch an advertisement – it is a free game after all.

All this isn’t to say that Rowdy Wrestling is perfect. I did find that more than once I was longing for just a little more control going into a fight, that the ring was too small and the opponents too big. Also, when I saw a tag team option on the main menu I almost jumped for joy at the thought of a whacky pass and play wrestling game I could play with my girlfriend while we watch TV. Unfortunately, the tag team mode just pairs you up with an AI partner and lets you go nuts as a duo, no multiplayer to speak of here.

In the end, Rowdy Wrestling doesn’t try to set the world on fire or change the face of mobile gaming as we know it. Rowdy Wrestling is exactly what it say on the box – it’s easy to pick up, hard to put down and sometimes that’s just what you need.

Don’t Let Go – Free Falling (Free), developed by Alimote ApS, is a “hardcore endless faller" in which you adjust the position of two humanoids (think wooden drawing figures) grasping to one another only by their hands. You’ll find a multitude of obstacles with different attributes obstructing you path, all needing to be evaded. Your sole goal is survival. This world is out to get you. The mixture of speed and tension will likely resonate amongst fans of Thumper ($4.99) and Race The Sun ($4.99). While it’s eons away from “rhythm horror", Don’t Let Go presents multiple opportunities that land near Thumper’s tension-filled moment-to-moment gameplay.

Anxiety begins to seep within as the droning soundtrack begins to slowly build up and an immersive sense of speed gain and difficulty brutally ramps up. Don’t Let Go is hard. Death should be expected. You’ll be struggling from the get-go, but ultimately it will click. The process of learning how to precisely maneuver the tandem free fall duo alive feels satisfying. Speaking of soundtrack: Don’t Let Go‘s droning dance/electronic soundtrack beautifully fits alongside its ambient noise. Wearing a headset (and cranking it) is strongly encouraged. The soundtrack of Don’t Let Go not only compliments its gameplay, it greatly enhances the complete package if you let it take your full attention.

The control method of Don’t Let Go is one that is easy in concept, but hard in practice. Movement is managed through two on screen buttons: spin the left playable character with the left button, spin the right with the right button. Press both buttons to arch both characters backs and increase speed — also adapting your hit box to fit through various circular obstacles. Be warned: increasing speed comes with the cost of stamina, a mechanic you will learn to balance in time. Success can only be had when you find your personal balance of controls and begin to lightly nudge the characters back and forth. If you attempt to move erratically, you’ll spin out of control. Finding yourself in a loop is harder to recover from. This remains true even in the earliest moments of your run.

Scores within Don’t Let Go can be padded by two forms of collectibles: blue pickups, which tack on 3 more points per collectible; and green pickups, which boosts you past a few obstacles in an invulnerable state. Collecting these powerups introduces a power struggle of risk vs. reward, so always choose quickly and wisely. While endless runners of the past typically relied on in-app purchases or boosters as attempts to keep you playing, Don’t Let Go exceeds solely on the inclusion of its leaderboards. I instinctively found myself yearning for top spot. Each new high score received seemed once impossible. Now, I held that spot in my possession, albeit bloodied, broken and bruised from prior failed attempts.

Don’t Let Go nails the blend of pick up and play gameplay while pushing the player into a “one more round" mentality. It’s quickly obvious the developers subscribe to the concept of simplistic aesthetics (think somewhere between Race the Sun and Superhot) complimented by solid core mechanics. Don’t Let Go isn’t complex, nor groundbreaking: it just feels good to play. It’s fun. A task many attempt but only few achieve. With that being said, Don’t Let Go isn’t without its faults. The biggest flaws are apparent by lacking a progression system (i.e. quests, daily missions, etc.) and player customization (neither IAP or gameplay earned). With a little extra time spent towards the prior, Don’t Let Go could really place a foothold alongside the similar apps that seem immune to falling off the charts.

Don’t Let Go’s monetization structure is fair and should continue to be applauded amongst mobile players: free to play (with ads) or a one time purchase of $1.99 (bringing the game to an ad-free premium level). This respects both “play a few rounds and un-install" players and those who will keep Don’t Let Go amongst their devices rotation. I fall into the latter camp. Overall, Don’t Let Go is an easy recommendation that truly has potential for greatness; if the future is one in which the developer chooses to expand and pad out content. But even as it is, stripped down to just its core mechanics and aesthetic, Don’t Let Go is still worthy of an installation. Falling hopelessly into an oblivion has never been this much fun.

Enter Earth Atlantis($1.99). I’ll get it out of the way right now, this game is a submersible Metal Slug. If you’re not familiar with that particular title, when people talk about 2D pixel games in a positive light you can thank Metal Slug, the godfather of pixel art. When they talk about it in a negative light, it’s usually because it doesn’t measure up(or maybe they aren’t familiar with Metal Slug). Cast upon a beige/brown scale palette, Earth Atlantis seems to exist to lure you back in time to those halcyon days when you were only capable of two axis movement.

This is a game based in traditional bullet dodging ship flight shooting. Games like Phoenix 2(Free) and Sky Force Reloaded(Free) have paved the way for games like Earth Atlantis that want to take your classic shooter game and turn in a new direction. In E.A. you pilot a submarine that is on a mission to eradicate small and large creatures of the deep in a post apocalyptic aquatic landscape. seascape? whatever. Once you select your vehicle, you are dropped into a winding maze of tunnels that must be navigated to reach and defeat major threats that sequentially spawn anew as old ones are eliminated.

Controls are very basic and lend themselves very well to your basic M.O. dodge bullets, kill enemies, and find new enemies. The left side of the screen functions as a d-pad with well tuned directional movement. The only other action you can take other than movement is to flip your front face from left to right and vice versa. Auto-fire is always on and you don’t run out of bullets. This leaves you with very little overhead while you are in the midst of the multiple sprays of projectiles most of the bosses will dump out at you in your fights.

My first impression of Earth Atlantis was that of a beautifully submersed labrynth that, unfortunately, ended up getting tedious to traverse. The high points to me are the boss fights and sub-unlock fights that not only provide more complex dodging patterns, but also stunning background peices that teem with bio-mechanical life(that do sometimes seem to be summoned to the foreground and join in the fight) and a break from the normal rocky tunnels you spend most of your game time in.

As you collect power ups, your weapon systems become more formidable and it usually only takes a few minutes to be in shape for a boss fight. There are two game modes, Quest, which is the standard, and Hunter, which requires you to have cleared Quest mode once in order to unlock. Hunter has a timer attached and more time is added by picking up buffs left by vanquished foes. It almost accomplishes what I want most in this game, a speedier version that doesn’t rely on an intimate knowledge of the game map. While you do feel a greater sense of urgency, you will still get stymied by numerous dead ends and false trails that divide the map up. I like the explorational flavor that Earth Atlantis brings to a genre known famously for a simple scrolling screen devoid of navigational choices, but an alternate mode that celebrates the purity of movement solely for the benefit of not getting shot out of the… sea… would just make this game top rank to me. Another big improvement that could be made for this game is increased advancement options. Unlocking all 4 ships in the game happened after about 2.5 hours of gameplay for me and I have taken out a little more than 80% of the game’s enemies after a few more hours of gameplay. What keeps those other games fresh is new ships, heavily scaling upgrades and enemy power levels which this game does not currently have.

All told Earth Atlantis is a lot of fun. While it is not a game you could spend 30-40 hours in currently, it has the components for expansion to that scale. It really hits a great stride once you get a few hours in and have the majority of the map memorized and still have a few bosses to defeat before unlocking Hunter mode. This is also a good game to share with a kid as most of the tunnels are safe enough for a kid to navigate and you can switch in for the more challenging boss fights. If you are a fan of pretty games or spelunking or just a good old bullet dodger, you’ll want to pick this one up!

SEGA and its development team has put in a lot of work on the Genesis emulator used by SEGA Forever, and Vectorman is a fine showcase for that progress. It looks great, runs well, and sounds very good indeed. You can use save states, flick between a handful of visual settings, rewind your playthrough at the tap of a button, and customize your virtual controls to your heart’s delight. Like virtually all of the SEGA Forever releases, you can also play with an MFi controller if you want the authentic experience. If you’re going with touch controls, the usual rules apply. This is a tough game that relies on accurate shooting and maneuvering, and doing all of that with virtual buttons is going to test your patience at times. Luckily, you can try the game out for free if you can tolerate fairly regular ads, and if you find the controls aren’t killing it for you, pay to remove the ads and activate a couple of extra features with a single reasonably-priced IAP.

How about Vectorman, then? Well, I think it’s really important to understand the context in which it originally released. The game came out on the Genesis in late 1995, capping off what could delicately be called a rough year for SEGA. Nintendo’s late 1994 release Donkey Kong Country had finally given the Super NES the kick in the pants it needed to start outpacing the Genesis even in its strongest regions. The 32X attachment for the Genesis, meant to extend the life of SEGA’s most successful console, had utterly flopped and was almost entirely disowned by SEGA of Japan right from the hop. A lot of that was because SEGA’s Japan side had their own 32-bit solution, the SEGA Saturn, which launched in late 1994 in Japan and had a surprise release in North America in May of 1995. Unfortunately, the new system was already tripping over its own feet after Sony and its PlayStation made SEGA look like utter donkeys at the inaugural E3 show. Things weren’t going so well.

See, the Genesis was an odd situation for SEGA. In North America, it competed strongly against the Super NES for the first-place position, a true neck-and-neck race. In Europe, it was clowning Nintendo. But in Japan, the system was a distant third place, coming in behind even the PC Engine/Turbografx-16. SEGA is, of course, a Japanese company, and that meant that ultimately Japan was pulling the strings. They were ready to move on to a new console, and that meant SEGA’s finest Japanese development teams were moving on as well. SEGA of America, on the other hand, had a vested interest in keeping the Genesis rolling. To that end, they sunk money into a lot of American and European studios, producing a steady trickle of Genesis software well after things had dried up on the other side of the Pacific. One of the more successful partnerships of that sort that SEGA had was with BlueSky Software. The resulting software included games like Shadowrun, Jurassic Park, World Series Baseball, and of course, Vectorman.

At its core, Vectorman is a run-and-gun platformer, a genre that was already very well-represented on the Genesis platform when the game released. You control the titular ‘bot as he runs, shoots, and double-jumps his way through 16 fairly large stages. There are power-ups to collect that will temporarily give you new weapons or special transformations, but at the end of it all it’s going to come down to how well you can hop, blast, and duck. Most of the stages use a familiar side-scrolling view, but a few of them switch to an overhead view to mix things up a little. Vectorman is quite a versatile fellow thanks to his double-jump and ability to shoot in eight different directions, and unlike many run-and-gun heroes, he can even take a few hits before dying. Wow, does he have any weaknesses? Well, yes. If he runs out of lives, that’s it. No continues. No do-overs. You’re back at the start of the game. So, you know, make use of those save states.

You can tell Donkey Kong Country was on somebody’s mind, though, because what really stands out about Vectorman is how gosh-darned good it looks. The hero is made up of 23 individual sprites moving in tandem, and everything has that pre-rendered shine that Donkey Kong Country had made so popular. Vectorman’s sprites are affected by various light sources; obviously a bit of fakery, but a very impressive bit nonetheless. Everything is smoothly animated, and some of the backgrounds really are to die for. That’s all backed with an amazing soundtrack composed by Jon Holland. It really is a stunning technical showpiece for the Genesis, even if a lot of that is (in the fine Donkey Kong Country tradition) from clever design decisions as opposed to any magical unlocked horsepower in the hardware itself.

As for how it plays, well, there are better run-and-gun games on the Genesis without a doubt. Vectorman is a little slippery and hard to get used to at first. The enemy designs are a little boring and everything takes way too many shots to destroy. The bosses are a bit underwhelming. The overhead levels don’t really work as well as you might like, and the power-ups lack a certain punch. It’s probably a little hard and unforgiving for its own good, though there are tons of cheats you can use to mitigate that. I could see any or all of these points turning some players off. Nevertheless, I think Vectorman is quite a bit of fun if you get used to its quirks. For whatever the enemies and levels design might lack, the main character is just a lot of fun to move around and attack with. It’s worth getting over that initial hump, especially since the level designs generally get better as you go along.

Basically, abuse those save states, try to give the game a few levels to unfurl, and if you have an MFi controller, you really should be using it. The more of those things you can check off, the better you’ll find Vectorman to be. Yes, it’s a game that largely gets by on its good looks, but it’s not just flash. There’s a solid action game here, one that has more than a few rough edges, but certainly worth playing. This particular version of the game is about as good as you’re going to get on a mobile device, though I do wish I could load my saved game as easily as I can save it. This is a really tough game, so having to go back to the main menu to load every time I screw up is a bit annoying. Apart from that, this is as good a way as any to close out SEGA Forever‘s first year.

Admittedly, the game features a rather basic set of controls: they involve just a joystick and two buttons that work together to pull off different functions. On offense, the blue button on the left handles different passing functions, while the red button on the right handles shots and harder, manual passes. On defense, the blue button lets you attempt to safely tackle a player to reclaim the ball, while the red button goes for the more dangerous slide tackle. Take out a player and miss the ball, or even worse, get them from behind, and it might mean a warning, yellow card, or red card, and instant ejection. The joystick not only moves your character, but can also control the angle on shots and passes. Definitely play the tutorial to find out how the buttons work, as double-taps and the joystick can pull off a ton of different things. You can also use an MFi controller if you want.

While you can play a friendly match, the heart of the game is the SSC Manager mode, which lets you go on your career as the manager of a lower-level club, and then taking new jobs as you lead your teams to success. You can train your players through different minigames on your off days to help speed up their progression and realize their potential. Need to improve the roster? There is a transfer market available, and your scouts can help you find players on the market to improve your team or add depth. You earn more revenue the better you do, and can lose money for bookings of players, so be careful with those slide tackles!

Manager mode is a bit daunting for me, someone who follows American sports and the way their player markets work, which are more insular and regimented than international soccer. The game throws a ton of offers from teams at you even from the start, and it does put the pressure on you to make a move. However, after a few matches, and making a few moves to improve my team, I felt a lot more comfortable with the system. Because you’re constantly bringing in money, and can add an influx of cash to your team by spending gold coins; it’s a system that’s friendly to players, and feels like it has some depth to it, without going too far into realism. The auto option for lineups, once you choose your formation and preference for attacking, neutral, or defensive styles, takes some of the guesswork out of building your starting lineup.

Also, Manager mode is awesome because you really get to realize how many great English team names there are. I now support Scunthorpe. The player names are real, and the team names are only slightly different from real team names and colors. You can play with a whole bunch of worldwide teams in Friendly mode, and eventually get a job with the top-level clubs in Manager mode.

My main beef with Super Soccer Champs is pretty much that the game is so much more difficult with touch controls versus using an MFi controller. If you have one, absolutely use it with this game, the movement is super smooth and you’ll be bending shots like a master soon. Also, if you have two controllers, you can play in local multiplayer matches!

Using a controller is such an improvement on when I played the game with just touch controls. The game just gets so much more difficult when you don’t have that necessary accuracy to make tight moves around defenders, or to make a perfect route to cut off an attack. Honestly, the game is free, so you should give it a shot yourself, but I feel like this is a much bigger issue than the controls would be in the similar Tennis Champs Returns. Definitely mess around with the touch control settings, you can choose from three different joystick sizes and move the stick and buttons anywhere on screen. I had best results with a large size stick. Also, I do wish I could switch players manually rather than having the game handle it automatically, but I think this is a remnant of the Sensible Soccer days.

The game is free-to-play, and for a brief moment pre-release when the store didn’t work, I was concerned about the game being pay-to-win. The game required coins to play friendly matches and the “Nations Cup" that totally isn’t the World Cup wink wink, along with the ability to buy upgrade packs and speed up player development in the Manager mode. It’s absolutely not that bad…for you, that is. The VIP mode, for $1.99, removes restrictions on friendly matches, and serves as an XP doubler, which gets you more coins. It also removes all ads, and for $1.99, that’s a killer deal. There are two coin packs available, but they cost $0.99 and $1.99 each, and there isn’t anything more expensive than that. Also, the Nations Cup will award gold coins for winning, if you want to take a country all the way to glory. Just not the United States, because who knows what they’re doing right now.

So yeah, this isn’t FIFA Mobile, you would have to really suck at the game or be really impatient to blow a ton of cash. If you played Tennis Champs Returns, this is essentially the same economy, and I cannot realistically say anything bad about it at all. Uprising Games makes cool retro game homages and doesn’t charge exorbitant prices for their releases. If you have a controller, Super Soccer Champs is a must-play, since it really is a lot of fun when you can control it well. If you’re just playing with touch, have some patience, and find control settings that work accurately for you.

The rules of Bloons TD 6 are standard tower defense fare. Creeps travel along the path, and you have to play towers in fixed positions with certain target radii to destroy them, without getting rid of all your lives. Where Bloons TD 6 mixes things up is through having dozens of towers, each with their own upgrade trees, and also some fun units to play with that don’t fit the standard tower defense archetype. The plane and helicopters can patrol certain parts of the board, and you can set paths and formations for them! Towers of different types come into play, and certain objectives require you to use just those towers, so you want to learn about everything the game has to offer.

Visually, Bloons TD 6 mixes 3D monkey towers with 2D levels and bloons that come in. Due to the top-down view, it actually works pretty well, and the monkeys are animated well enough that they look smooth when the game’s going at fast speed. Many of the enemies just feature visual variations to differentiate between them, such as colors for different power bloons, and decorations to show that they’re camo, but there’s so much on screen that you’ll have to pay close attention to which is which. And really, everything gets so flooded with action that you’ll have to tell in more general cues what’s on screen and what isn’t. If nothing’s dying, you have a problem.

Each monkey tower has three upgrade paths, with later paths unlocked by earning more experience for them by using the tower more. You can only have upgrades from two paths, and only one path can go to level three or higher. This means that you can have towers of the same base type, but with wildly different effects. And you will need many of these variations to do well, particularly as the bloons come in different types like ceramic, lead, and camo, which often require specialized upgrades in order to destroy. The camo bloons are particularly nasty, as if you don’t have enough firepower that can detect them, they will utterly wreck your defenses.

Additionally, the game now includes her units, with four available at first. These units automatically upgrade themselves, so you don’t have to worry so much about them, and you can only summon one of them on the battlefield. Still, their different attacks can provide a helpful boost to your preferred attacking style, whether you like sending arrows at enemies or dropping explosives.

The game contains 20 levels at launch, but as per previous Bloons TD titles, expect more in later updates. Each level has rewards for beating it on Easy, Medium, and Hard, and then there are different objectives after that to throw you off. For example, you might have to beat a level with only a certain class of monkey tower, or deal with stronger enemies, or reverse paths, and so on. You get money for each time you complete one of these objectives, so there are reasons to play beyond personal challenge and completionism. Though, there is a lot here if you love just hammering down and trying to beat every single piece of content in the game.

And that’s the thing with Bloons TD 6. It’s very clearly for a certain kind of gamer. I’m more the kind that likes to play a ton of different experiences, but I can see this being a game that you can spend hundreds of hours with, if you never get tired of the tower defense mechanics. The game gives you so many units, and so many strategies with your units, and then so many different variations on challenges, that there is a lot to master. And the promise of future content should keep you coming back for more and more. Seriously, there are just so many systems and subsystems that it’s tough to scratch the surface of what’s in play.

Every time I play one of these Flash game adaptations, I feel like I notice a trend of maximalism in these games. Everything just happens so much in these games. There are often complex game systems, levels have multiple variations on top of each other, and the games feel like they’re intended for an audience that wants to complete everything to 300 percent completion. I notice it with stuff like Codename Entertainment’s Idle Champions (Free) and Kongregate’s Realm Grinder (Free) along with the Bloons games. They feel like they’re just meant to overload you with stuff. They feel targeted toward the kind of gamer who gets value out of, say, the maligned Steam “dollars per hour" metric. Which, hey, if you’re someone that only has a few bucks to spend on games, and prefers to obsessively master one title, then Ninja Kiwi makes games just for you. Bloons TD 6 at launch has enough content and upgrades to go after for the different towers, that you’ll likely play this one for hours upon hours at a time.

The one thing about Bloons TD 6 is that it’s a lot like the Kingdom Rush series in that while it’s a paid game, you can also spend a lot of money on top of it. You can buy special powers with the game’s hard currency, Monkey Money. However, you do earn Monkey Money for completing levels and objectives, so you can earn a lot of it by grinding. Additionally, you can unlock all the upgrades for units much faster through in-game purchases. Also, if you want to drop $17.99 for a coin doubler, which seems like the way to go if you want to just wreck everything, you can do that. Seems like the game should probably just go free-to-play at that point, but I suppose there’s enough of an audience that keeps spending on Bloons TD in-game purchases that the paid app plus IAP model works?

Bloons TD 6 is perfect for the kind of person looking to just lose hundreds and hundreds of hours into one game, seeking to attain complete mastery. You’ll love this if that sounds like you. Otherwise, for the less obsessive, it’s a solid tower defense game, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Boy I am glad I did. On my second look I realised this game is awesome. It has all the same qualities of your card based dungeon games, yet Reignman offers a different way to play your cards in battles. Your cards are placed randomly on a four by five grid and you slide them horizontally and vertically to attack.

It’s surprising how much difference one small change like sliding the heroes can make to the roguelike or battle card genre. While the game play is not hard to pick up and understand there is loads of depth to explore. As you slide, both yourself (the blue team) and your AI opponent (the red team) attack. If you slide to the right the second card attacks the first and if there is a third it attacks the second. You want to score as many attacks on the red cards while receiving as little damage in return. This is how the need for strategy comes into the game.

Sometimes you have no choice and need to make a move letting red team attack to get your self in position to attack back. To win a battle you need to destroy all of your opponents cards while at the same time keeping enough of your cards in play for the next battle. The cards destroyed during a previous battle do not regenerate before the next battle, you do however, get heroes as rewards at the end of the battle.

To begin the game you select which type of hero you want to attract more of, Melee, Ranged, Magic or no preference. You then have normal battles, epic battles, treasure chests and surprise encounters to improve your heroes. There is also a camp you can stop at to rest. At the camp you can spend gold to recruit, revive, train, and heal your heroes. The price of each thing goes up as you use it so it’s a good idea to mix it up, recruit a couple of heroes and resurrect a couple, making a bigger team for less gold.

In between camps you can change the line up of your team before each battle, heroes who do not see combat for a turn heal some of their hitpoints. Which is a handy way to get some healing on a hero so you can use them again without losing them straight away. Of course, if you lose all the heroes before the healing one it will join the fight even with low health.

You are offered choices of where to go next and your path through the chapter and up to the boss fight changes depending on which area you chose. You can use this to your advantage and scroll ahead, making sure you are on the right path to hit a chest or camp if you need one.

Perhaps one of the easiest things to understand in Reignman is the stats of the heroes, which you will find at the bottom of the cards. Health, attack and defense, the heart shows the number of hitpoints is the amount of damage you can take. The sword is your attack and shows how much damage you will do in one attack, while the shield is your defense and shows how much damage you take before it starts to take life off your hero. Some cards break shields, or add shields, so the number will change, but it helps to watch the numbers when you are working out where to slide.

I will admit the sliding function takes a little getting use to, it is the factor leading to my first attempt to play being so short. Once you get the hang of it and understand how it is a little bit deeper than simply swiping from side to side and relying on luck you find yourself drawn into the game and playing it for long stretches of time.

There is a small element of luck involved, what stages you have ahead of you and where your cards are arranged on the board can affect how well you do in a round or overall. Strategy is still definitely needed much more than simple luck. You will be asking yourself endless questions:

• Which cards are you going to send in first?
• Which moves on the board see you taking the least damage?
• Which path sees you get to a camp in time?
• Are you going to revive or recruit at the next camp?
• At a temple is health, defense or attack more important to choose?
• Do you want your heroes to have higher health or attack?

Every choice you make is going to move you further along or Reign down (mwahaha) terrible consequences for your band of heroes. You will undoubtedly make the wrong decision more than once, yell at the phone and walk away in disgust, but then you will come back, knowing you can do better.

This is what Reignman offers, it creeps up on you and worms its way into your psyche. You will second guess every decision and be thinking about what you will do differently in the next game. It is a great roguelike with elements of RPG, but it is different as well. Strong stats are not going to see you win without failure, you need to think carefully, plan your path, arrange your heroes and slide them across the board with forethought and care. After you have done all of that, cross your fingers and toes, and hope you don’t run out of luck.

But if you take damage, then your POW meter drops to one bar and if you don’t get a bomb within 5 seconds, you die. Also, if you take a hit while at one bar, you die instantly. Your POW meter also steadily decreases, so if you take long routes to the bombs, you might find it takes an extra bomb pickup to activate MAX mode. The one ability you have beyond this is Time Shock. Tap the screen, and time slows down and enemies will run away from you, allowing you safe passage to where you need to go.

Silverfish DX is all about tradeoffs. Is it worth going around a horde of enemies to get to the bomb, if it leaves you in danger for a longer amount of time? But the cost of messing up is that you might have to collect three bombs to get back to MAX, and that’s assuming if you survive. Time Shock also has a cost in that you won’t get many protons from your kill with the bomb, because enemies will scatter out of the way. See, one trick to get a lot of protons from one bomb is to lure enemies to chase you near a bomb, then swing around it, and fly back into the bomb as the horde nears it, taking out a bunch at once and flying you straight into a bunch of protons. Of course, you better be sure that you have enough POW to go MAX…

The game is brilliantly tense as you play, because you always have these systems on your mind while you’re trying to just survive. Things just keep ramping up without you realizing it, and you’re making strategic decisions with each bomb. Do you go for the existing hordes, knowing that they’ll run, or for the new ones popping up that you can get to before they scatter? Do you use your Time Shock now to get to a bomb and trigger MAX mode, at the risk of not having it if you need it right after you get out of MAX? Or do you wait, and possibly wind up needing it anyway? So many decisions and tradeoffs have to be made while you play, and the game is fantastic at combining raw thrills with strategic intent. It’s the same way that it feels like Pac-Man, and it feels like Geometry Wars Pacifism, but yet…not.

Of course, you’re probably well aware of all this if you’ve played the now-defunct Silverfish releases on iPhone and iPad. What’s the difference between Silverfish DX and the old Silverfish games? First off, instead of being tied to the cardinal directions, you now have 360 degrees of movement. This makes it a bit easier to navigate through tight spots of enemies, as you now can go at an angle, and not just in a straight line! I always found being stuck in the cardinal directions to feel a bit weird when enemies could run everywhere, and this alone makes this the definitive version of the game. If you miss moving in cardinal directions, use the d-pad on your MFi controller.

One thing missing from Silverfish DX compared to previous versions is the lack of extra modes besides the default one, though they all kind of used similar rules just with different tweaks. They were nice to mix up the experience, but it’s not the most glaring omission. Also, according to the developer, barely anybody played the extra modes, so there is a reason why it’s only the one mode. Though, if you see all the enemies in the game, there might just be something new for you…

The game supports MFi controls, and they work well, though there is some latency inherent to the MFi controller standard, so you might find it easier to play with the touchscreen. Honestly, I just find them different, like the turning angle is a bit different on each one, and I’ve broken high scores set with each control method while I played, but I got 10 million with touch controls. There is a bug right now with MFi controls where you can’t activate the time burst by hitting the trigger (I also wish this power was on a face button, and not just RT) after the first play session. So, you’ll need to tap the screen to activate that power. The game also has Apple TV support!

I feel like my one complaint with Silverfish DX is that it’s kind of shallow because it is just that one game mode. It’s a good game mode, and it’s well-made. But, it’s still just an arcade high score chaser, and while surprises come in the form of enemies that you discover for the first time, you’ll get the gist of the experience rather quickly. It becomes about iteration and improvement on high scores. Perhaps you’ll love that, but just be aware of it when you’re coming in. But, I had a lot of fun with Silverfish DX, and hopefully this version lasts forever, so we don’t have to wait until 2026 for Silverfish DX’ Turbo: Championship Edition Plus.

Whether developer OrangePixel set out to honor the classic games of my youth or not I can’t say, though I find it extremely unlikely they could develop Sir Questionnaire without great respect and affection for the earlier games it emulates. The opening screen already has you traveling back in time, with (purposely) pixelated images mimicking the low-res artwork of a less technological era. On your first play through you meet a few old wise men who give you the typical cryptic old man messages. This serves as the tutorial, not that a game as straightforward as Sir Questionnaire needs much guidance for the player. From there the game, at its most basic level, is just choosing between two buttons. As a kid I was obsessed with choose your own adventure stories (yes, I know they were for boys, so were computer games way back in my day), and this game really scratches the itch for them I didn’t even know I still had.

The choices are simple: walk, attack, escape, search, grab, drink, open… such simple one-word commands to choose from. You never know what will happen when you choose an action either. For instance, when you use the milk it may be old and take some hit points, or it may be perfectly fine and replenish some health. This carries over into some of your potions as well; nothing is a sure thing in noble Sir Questionnaire’s world. OrangePixel describes the game as a hack ‘n’ slash, turn based, roguelike and that is exactly what they delivered, in a very simplistic and retro format. It would be easy to dismiss Sir Questionnaire as one-dimensional and unsophisticated, but you really shouldn’t be so quick to judge. Things are not as undemanding as the first few play throughs lead you to believe.

You travel through the dungeon, floor by floor, killing monsters, collecting loot, and snapping photos to fill your codex. Taking photos of the monsters is cool, giving a little in-game achievement to aspire to. You will quickly lose track of which monsters you have photographed, but that is ok–look down into the left corner and if you see the camera icon, you don’t have the photo. Your inventory management is another way the game loses its simplicity. All equipment you collect is limited to a number of uses, which displays underneath its symbol once you equip it. This means you are juggling not only the management of health-related consumables, but also when to equip your better weapons and shields for maximum ease of creature killing. Do you equip that shield as soon as you find it and risk not having it in a harder fight, or do you take a chance unshielded and maybe not make it to that tougher fight at all?

Every game starts by letting you choose a quest for the play through, and if you manage to complete the quest you are rewarded with a nice stash of loot for your next game. The rooms seem to be quite random so replayability is a non-issue. There is a need for skill in choosing which inventory to use and when, however the outcome of your battles rely heavily on luck as well. You need to get the right drops, the right monsters, find the keys… so many things need to align themselves to get further into the game. Luck is such an integral part of the game it is one of the stats you can increase when leveling up.

One player in our forums actually won the game in his first play through, something I still haven’t done in the countless tries I’ve had while getting ready to write the review. OrangePixel have already updated the game to make finding the dungeon master and winning the game so early less likely, as well as adding Game Center achievements for those of us who like them. I stopped writing long enough to play a couple of times after the update and there are some awesome new things to experience in the depths of the dungeon. To get to the next floor you need to fight ten creatures, but not every room has a monster in it. Some have statues, others a throne, or even a merchant. There are chests you can open with keys you find, and a skull key will open one of the labyrinths allowing you to get a crown if you make it through and beat the mini boss at the end. I’ll let you discover for yourself what happens if you sit on a throne with a crown.

Sir Questionnaire may not be for everyone, but that’s ok, it would be a boring world of games if we all liked exactly the same thing. However, if you’re looking for a game with a great retro feel, lots to discover and awesome replayability, it is an absolute must. If you like choose your own adventures, Zelda, or Zork, this game is for you. If, just like me, you’re just an aging gamer looking for some nostalgia in a modern gaming world, then this is the game to download.