Recent reviews by Emblem Parade

What a wonderful experience! I stood up and clapped as the end credits rolled.

Chants of Sennaar is a somewhat challenging puzzle adventure game with very little hand-holding. There's much joy to be had in exploration, experimentation, and figuring things out for yourself. Most prominently, you must decipher foreign languages, specifically their orthography, grammar, and even meanings in translation. That might sound like a poor fit for a video game, but the mechanics for it are sensible and comprehensible.

The story is unveiled in layers (literally!) and is enticing from beginning to end. Every veneer you peel off reveals something new, interesting, and often delightful.

The presentation is simple but beautiful, comprising expressive animations, alluring color palettes, and wonderful music pieces.

If I have to complain about something, it's the controller interface. It can be a bit tedious to sort through the many orthographic symbols. Also, picking directions and objects can be finicky. I have a feeling that most playtesting was done with mouse and keyboard. But this blemish did not affect my pleasure, and I should emphasize that it's absolutely playable with a controller, even if it's not always ideal.

What a lovingly crafted and satisfying game! Chants of Sennaar is an instant classic and a must-play for fans of puzzle adventure games.

Games have been breaking the 4th wall since there have been games. The Plucky Squire does so literally. I'm pretty sure it also breaks the 5th and 6th walls, and maybe even the 7.22nd.

The art direction is absolutely delightful, but the game might feel tedious at time. A solution to a puzzle might be clear to you, but you'll have to do some annoying back-and-forthing to put it in place. Combat is far too easy and just a bothersome grind. Generally the game does far too much hand-holding, such that sometimes you might be wondering if you're actually playing a game or just doing as you're told. (There's a "streamlined" game mode that is supposedly less in-your-face about it.)

Luckily, and pluckily, there is so much to enjoy that the mediocre gameplay is forgivable.

I've been enjoying James Turner's cartoon work since Beaver and Steve, and it's great to see so much of his silly positivity realized an actual game.

Thank you, Plucky Squire, for saving the world.

Sigh. So much potential here, but it's unfortunately squandered by a remarkably unimaginative application of Ubisoft's tired and reductive open world formula.

Let's start with what's good. The game looks amazing and runs really well (make sure you meet the hardware requirements!). It fulfills the fantasy of visiting a gorgeous planet full of alien flora and fauna. The different biomes have distinct flavors and there's just so much stuff and color and sound through which you can walk, gallop, and fly. I especially loved the thunderstorms: The first time lightning struck a "tree" beside me my jaw dropped. The HDR implementation is very good, especially during the daytime in which the alien sun washes the landscape in an adoring glow. As for gameplay, combat is fairly satisfying if simplistic. There isn't much variety in enemies, but the set pieces offer a lot of opportunity for infiltration strategy and tactics.

Unfortunately, everything else is ... sigh. The main quest is OK, but not great. What bogs it down is that it's structured in a plodding, awkward, and mechanically linear manner. You are told exactly where to go and what to do and really don't have to think about it at all. Still, it has its moments with a handful of set pieces and thrilling action. The story itself is a very on-the-nose retelling of how Europeans treated Native Americans and other displaced peoples, and oh yes don't forget to save the environment. So, on brand. And unlike the 2009 Avatar game, you are not given the choice to side with the humans against the Na'vi. Actually you can only play a Na'vi. Unfortunately you will have to look elsewhere to fulfill your colonial and/or white savior fantasies. "Is our children learning?"

However. There are the side quests, which are what should be the meat in an open world game. Here they are very many, very repetitive, and too often very dumb. Like, incredibly dumb. It's as if the devs blew the whole budget on licensing the Avatar IP and could only afford interns to write these. There are only a handful of quest types, but they are repeated again and again and again. Cookie cutter. Filler. Padding. Bloat. And virtually all are "find this fruit" or "my brother went fishing and got lost". I'm not opposed to grind when the gameplay loop is satisfying and rewarding. I enjoyed the first few iterations of these. By the twentieth time I was bored. By the fiftieth time I was angry. The design team must truly believe this is what gamers consider fun. Folks, let me tell you: we play your games in spite of this mind-numbing routine, not because of it.

The reward economy is also quite broken. I maxed out all skills before the endgame, which removed any material reason to pursue boring side quests. Extra skill points are useless for the main game, though they can be used in the DLC. I also saw no reason to try to get the special "coin" used to buy items, nor find rare materials to craft them, because what I already looted was better. And even if you don't aim to acquire the best gear, you'll be fine. The default level of difficulty is quite manageable. Maybe higher levels of difficulty would require more involvement with this economy, but I assume most players would stick to the defaults.

And collectibles. There are, I believe, about eleventy billion of them. Finding them is a slog, even with online guides.

There is also a variety of mini-games. I didn't hate them and thought they were a nice change of pace, but I think some people would find some of them frustrating because they depend on precision movement.

All the above is pretty much what I expect from a Ubisoft game, but what really bummed me out is how often Avatar punishes you for exploring. I love going off on a whim and messing with the supposed order of the plot. It's part of the joy of open world games: they should let you find your own story. But in Avatar your own story will be about locked doors, inactive terminals, unclimbable hills, and seemingly abandoned bases, which only "activate" later when you hit the right quest checkpoint. And this is not indicated to you. Again and again I tried to make sense of intriguing locations only to find out later that the game simply disabled them. My curiosity and problem-solving skills were "rewarded" by a pointless waste of my time.

In summary, Avatar will let you visit Pandora. And that's cool. Unfortunately, in this rendition it's too rarely an a exciting place.

Want to have adventures in an open alien world? You'll have a much more satisfying experience with Outcast: Second Contact and its sequel.

It's rare that I quit a game in the middle once I've decided to give it a try. But, so it goes.

The writing is very good, but I would rather read the novel than play through this annoyance.

In its feel it's very much a board game. Move from one square to the next, roll dice, and accumulate resources. The "quests" involve you finding and spending certain kinds of resources. This loop is mind-numbingly boring. The graphics are minimal, and the UI could not be less appealing. It's the kind of gameplay you would expect from a game that comes with a Windows 95 install.

I tried. I really tried. But when I finally ran out of resources and started losing patiently-won skill points I felt that I had endured enough.

Warning! Alert! This game, which is indeed terrific, has more limited appeal than its hype would imply.

Its structure is very straightforward: you go into a new area, find the bosses, and defeat them. You will likely have to die again and again (and again!) until you learn a boss's moves well enough to kill it before it kills you. The presentation is drop-dead gorgeous, the controls simple yet subtle, and the satisfaction felt for every inch of progress is palpable. Oh, and it's unbelievably huge. There's a lot to see. And kill.

If hard-as-nails boss fights sound frustrating to you then do not buy this game, no matter the hype. It is absolutely not a "God of War in China", despite how it might look or even feel in the first hour of gameplay. It is nothing more than a beautifully dressed-up, relentless series of boss battles. Or if you insist on a comparison to God of War: it's just the Valkyries. Oh, and I guess there are some poorly structured, ridiculously obscure optional "quests", too.

How hard is it, really? Very. Very very. Most bosses have uninterruptible attacks that can kill you fast, so the only way to get through this game is to master dodging. Learn the tells, practice the timing, and Bob's your uncle. An evil uncle. It took me several hours of persistent rematches to defeat some of these splendid nasties. Is it fair? Well, let's just say that the meaning of fairness is a bit stretched. Probably everything can be dodged, but you will find yourself often praying to the RNG gods for their favor.

There is a story, I guess, but it's rather opaque and just there for background and scenery, a flavorful retelling of "Journey to the West", underscoring its melange of folklore from Daoist, Buddhist, and even Jain sources. Though the characters are just cutscene ingredients, they are all delightful, charming, and often terrifying. However, their world, though tantalizingly alluring, is always at arm's length. Invisible walls everywhere. And that's fine, really. It's inspiring to realize how much attention and love was put into what is nothing more than context and staging for the boss fights. Some of the arenas are nothing short of breathtaking, and their beauty—and dread—builds up viscerally as you approach. But, no, you can't visit that forlorn cliff-side village in the distance, because this isn't "Elden Ring in China", either.

My biggest complaint is that there are missable bosses and quests. If you continue too far, they are locked from you and you have to restart the game to see them (or finish the game and do NG+). I truly hate this design. It's a major blemish on the game.

Smaller complaints: The game does a poor job at teaching you how combat works. I spent quite a few hours not knowing what "focus points" were (hint: they are critically important). Happily, there are community-made tutorials online. Also, annoyingly, there is no in-game map. Immersive in a way, but you might get quite confused, especially in one chapter. Again, the community stepped in to create good maps online. (Edit: Apparently the game has since been patched to add in-game maps. But so many of us played it without them, and the devs still deserve criticism.)

In summary, Black Myth: Wukong focuses pretty much on one thing, but it does it with heaps of artistry and refinement. It's hard, majestic, and excellent. Play it if you dare.

A game with so much potential, and it's all squandered on controls from hell.

Actually, there are some other annoyances, too. There is no in-game map and no quest markers, so it's often hard to know where to go. And the level design is ... mixed. There are a few cool locations, but for the most part it's quite bare.

What's really good: graphics, music, writing, and really the whole artistic package. The presentation feels very coherent. And though the story isn't especially original, and is riddled with plot holes, it scampers along pleasantly enough.

So, the controls. Ugh. They are so sensitive to direction that any slight movement of an analog stick can snap you in the wrong direction; and aiming is critical. The hit boxes seem to have no relationship to the pixels. There's this whole button dance you have to do when switching between walking and flying and carrying and dropping that is just so fiddly and annoying, and it feels like an unnecessary complication. And finally my least favorite: Every time you get hit, you are thrown to somewhere else on the screen, but also your sprite is flashing, so it's very, very so hard to see where you are for a few seconds.

What's sad to me is that so much time went into making this game, so I must assume that all these problems are actually design choices. Features, not bugs. I guess there are people out there who enjoy this kind of gameplay. Not me!

When it comes down to it, Owlboy is not unplayable, but also as charming as it is, it's sadly not enough to be worth the frustrations. I usually aim for 100% completion in games like this, but when the credits rolled I was happy to uninstall.

A wonderfully charming open-world adventure. Take a refreshing swim in the sights and sounds of a fictionalized New Caledonia. Delight in its language and music, learn about its folklore and diversity, and enjoy relatively easy, slow-moving gameplay. The game is clearly influenced by Breath of the Wild in mood, look, and play-style. Tchia doesn't quite rise to the heights of Nintendo, but it has a lot to offer.

There is a main quest and you can play it and only it. Actually, that might the best path for most players, because once you open yourself to finding all the collectibles and completing all the optional challenges then you're in for a repetitive slog. The world is lovely, but there's just not a lot of kinds of things to do in it. Alas, Tchia's open world scheme is Ubisoft-like: find a vantage spot, highlight all the points of interest on the map, and then go clean 'em up. You can also do this after finishing the game.

That sounds boring, and indeed it might be for you. There's just too much of this filler content in Tchia. That said, the world is vibrant enough to keep the game loop enjoyable even when doing the same things over and over again. As the game progresses you get access to more traversal methods, and some of them are truly delightful. But even slowly sailing your raft from island to island has a certain beauty to it. The lapping of waves, the cries of seagulls, a small village in the distance. You can almost feel the warmth of the sun and smell the Pacific sea salt.

While most of the game is about slow traversal, there are some more things to do. Specifically, your powers provide opportunities for emergent gameplay. There's not a lot of combat, but it can be made interesting if you approach it creatively. There are also several mini-games and challenge areas, which work as a change of pace. They are mostly easy, but some can be frustrating if you're going for 100% achievements.

Tchia could have used more polish before release. Controls are wonky during climbing, and you might get trapped in the scenery and have to reload a save. For me, these were relatively small annoyances that did not keep me from enjoying the game as a whole.

Affection for New Caledonia is present in every nook and cranny of this passion project. If that sounds compelling to you, and you're not entirely put off by some repetitive grind, then Tchia is for you.

I was debating with myself on whether to give Greak a thumbs up or not, because it's very flawed. But, in the end, I think it can be quite enjoyable, as long as you have the patience.

It's feels very much like a "mini Hollow Knight". However, it's inferior in practically every aspect: it's much smaller and the levels are generally less interesting, although there are some really cool puzzles. Combat is generally mediocre, though the boss fights are fun (and easy).

Where it really carves its own identity is in that it has you play multiple characters, sometimes together. When it works well, it's awesome. But, the controls too often get in the way when the characters are together. Characters can easily fall out of formation, forcing you to constantly herd them all together. There's no interesting challenge in this, it's just a pure annoyance.

But probably the worst offender is the save system. There are very few save points in the game, and it's fairly easy to die due to a silly mistake, forcing you to replay sections again and again. This includes cut scenes, which are unskippable.

I feel like the game could have use more time in the oven: to polish the controls, playtest the combat, and maybe elaborate on some of its systems. The cooking system, for example, seems quite ... undercooked. There's also very little RPG-like progression. Almost none, really.

All in all, I did have a nice time with this little metroidvania, but I can imagine it being unappealing to some players.

Frustrating, annoying, pointless.

The game is pretty and the animals are cute. But that's the only good thing I can say about it.

If you are expecting casual gameplay to match the cuteness, you will be sorely disappointed. This is a "survival" game, in that you can randomly bump into stuff that will one-shot kill you. Which will cause you to reload to the last save, which will inevitably involve repeating meaningless tasks to get to where you were before. Which might cause you to die again if you don't know what to do to avoid death.

The game does a horrible job of explaining itself to you. Half of the game I didn't even realize there was a map of the world. Not that it's especially necessary.

Controls are absolutely miserable. Half of the time they don't respond. You need to somehow position yourself on the exact pixel for certain actions to be activated.

Are you expecting a story about humanity's role in causing extinction? You'll get a very tiny sliver of that. It's really a story about hunters killing animals. Hunters are bad. That's the message. The gameplay expresses this message and only this message. There is no complexity and no variety.

I got nothing out of this game except a few hours of frustrating gameplay. Skip it, please.

Short and silly.

It actually it does have something to say and is a decent enough satire. The wackiness, though, can sometimes get distastefully on the nose. It's adult humor, sure, but the comedic instinct is teen-aged.

I was impressed by the game's cohesiveness. There's a vision here: a distinct graphical and animation style.

So, not much here, but enough to make interested enough to try Joe Richardson's newer games.