Sigh, it’s happened again. I love Metaphor: ReFantazio’s worldbuilding, atmosphere, cinematics, and a genuinely breathtaking UI, and I can see why it’s critically lauded. But, much like their other games, I just couldn’t get hooked for much the same reasons - laborious busywork and constant interruption to the actually-engaging parts of the gameplay. Outside its cutscenes, the world surprisingly feels oddly drab and empty (I often felt like I was in Pokémon Legends: Arceus), lacking the visual richness to match its ambitious themes. Despite admiring its vision, I sadly found it hard to stay engaged or connect deeply with its characters.

I fooled myself into thinking that one gets a certain amount of enjoyment ‘for free’ by virtue of being in the Star Wars universe. This has previously been true and carried me through multiple otherwise-not-amazing games. Star Wars Outlaws has proven me wrong: an uninspired, bare-minimum “open-world” experience (if you can even call it that, given how restrictive it can be)… stealth, combat, and exploration that are painfully shallow, with comically bad AI and repetitive mechanics. It has its moments of charm and “huh cool :)”, but overall a disappointment that does not live up to its potential.

I love that Team NINJA are always trying stuff out - since Nioh through Wo Long and now Ronin, they’re obviously keen to experiment. Unfortunately, while their previous ones have been hits, this one is a bit of a miss. Any real sense of a soulslike is gone, making way for aggressively mid Ubisoft type openworld checklist activities. The bloated scope reveals a lack of polish. Exploration is a chore and unrewarding. Combat is fun at first, but quickly becomes pretty mindless (and amazingly, from these guys, super easy). I hope they try the openworld stuff again, but for me this aint it.

I tried. I really did. Being so critically lauded, I battled with the feeling that I must be missing something. Many hours of unsatisfying combat, constant interruptions from either robotic or otherwise insufferable characters and eyerolling minigames. Turns out; it’s nostalgia and anime-brain that I’m missing, and if you don’t have those, the game is an admirably wide-scoped and gorgeous to look at chore. I get it, there’s a great game here for those predisposed to its sensibilities… but sadly that’s not me.

Let’s get it out of the way: the game has fun moments. The visual and sound design are great, the music is really nice, and of course there’s lots to do. Unfortunately… none of it is revolutionary - far from it - and it has many, many problems (not helped by Todd still telling sweet little lies). I wish the experience was more freeform and seamless, because the overshadowing of dated systems & what it could have been are hard to look past.

At a time, Overwatch was a paradigm-shifting juggernaut: beautiful art, Blizzard-at-its-best character & world design, and satisfying gunplay. More recently, this so-called sequel is a soulless shell and testament to bad management.

Sub Rosa was a wild ride through the streets of Reservoir Dogs and Heat, and all your friends are there. Now sadly abandoned in early access, the streets are empty. A real shame.

Another Minecraft spin-off with, sadly for me, barely any emphasis on creativity. Clearly targeted at children, so it’s hard to come down hard on, but I found it repetitive and unrewarding.

Tone, visuals, atmosphere and music are back to Diablo’s dark roots. Unfortunately the pacing, activities and uneven design quality (not to mention monetisation) become old pretty quickly. Feels more like a checklist than an epic journey, but it’ll probably be a good game in a year or two.

Full of potential and has glimmers of greatness, but ultimately lands somewhere between dull and painful.