ZTGD

Raiden has always been a shooter for the masses and I love that it continues to be around to this day. It won’t test your skills or reach the heights of others in the genre, but it is always a good time. I love seeing more and more releases in this series dropping for more consoles. I had a blast with this and if you have even a remote interest in the genre this is a must own. Now to sit and patiently wait for more Raiden to drop on consoles this summer.

As an entry-level experience in the Dragon Quest universe, Treasures does a lot of things right. It nails the treasure-hunting mechanic and provides plenty of nostalgia through it’s audio, visuals, and monster-collecting action.

This game feels like an adventure. The music is also outstanding with a soundtrack provided by Mick Gordon alongside some familiar tunes and plenty of set piece tracks. The whole package just comes together to create a world and it is fun to be in.

Fire Emblem: Engage falters as a follow up to what I consider to be the best the series has to offer thus far. However, despite its failings with its lackluster story and characters, the deep customization and enjoyable combat makes it one well worth experiencing anyway.

The original game exists and changing things can be a scary proposition to fans. Motive Studio has done an outstanding job of tweaking what worked and fixing what didn’t. This remake is on the same level as Capcom’s efforts with Resident Evil and will be considered one of the best going forward.

A solo adventure mode loosely tells the story of Journey to the West by showing the heroes traveling the map, but it’s all linear and just contextualizes all the minigames. The quick play mode is there for timed games, so the players set a limit, such as they only want to play for 15 minutes, and the game chooses minigames around that and at the end whoever has collected the most books (the awards for doing well in minigames) wins.

Overall the game is quite well done. While not overly a horror game, the soundtrack and some of the moments between chapters did give off a creepy vibe.

Wild Hearts ran well in framerate and resolution mode with the later offering that sweet 120fps that I wish was now standard in all games. Sadly, Wild Hearts only supports three-player co-op instead of the traditional four-player but the biggest compliment I can pay to Wild Hearts is that it has taken that addictive gameplay loop from Monster Hunter and cut out so much of the bloated controls and systems that for me it feels like the superior hunting game.

Shadow Warrior 3 ends up being just ‘ok’ in the grand scheme of things and especially in comparison to the games around it. Lo Wang deserves better and if the fates will it we will get to hang out with our pal Wang again soon.

Pharaoh offers tremendous city building flexibility and a plethora of challenges unseen in any other city builder. A New Era has introduced numerous quality of life features found in contemporary city building titles to an already solid classic. From sandbox to successive dynasties, with new options to tune the game to your playstyle introduced, Pharaoh: A New Era beyond satisfies.