Creature Romances: Kokonoe Kokoro

Creature Romances: Kokonoe Kokoro

Creature Romances: Kokonoe Kokoro is a typical slice of life visual novel, with one exception, the love interest is a grotesque humanoid grasshopper. Unfortunately, the game simply ignores this fact, so the story progresses just like a typical, bland high school romance. The game can also be completed in less than an hour and features one choice that leads to one good or two bad endings. Overall, this game can be skipped as it has very little to offer.

Gameplay: Short, simple, and extremely bland despite the monstrous characters.

Graphics: The CGs are rather disturbing, but that’s probably the point.

Sound: The music is unremarkable, but the game does feature full Japanese voice acting

The Gardens Between

The Gardens Between

The Gardens Between is a relaxing and charming puzzle game based around friendship and memories. It features time manipulation for puzzle solving but never becomes too complicated or convoluted. The visuals are detailed and beautiful while the audio complements the dreamlike atmosphere nicely. While it’s not a very lengthy or particularly challenging game, it still makes for an enjoyable experience.

Gameplay: The puzzles are clever, but never too taxing.

Graphics: Very detailed and beautifully animated.

Sound: The soundtrack is very soothing

REKT! High Octane Stunts On Its Way To Steam

REKT! High Octane Stunts On Its Way To Steam

After conquering the hearts of over 160 000 players on the Nintendo Switch, REKT! High Octane Stunts is now on its way to Steam as well. For those not familiar with the game, it’s an action-packed driving game that draws inspiration from classics such as Rush and the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series. It challenges players to master challenging tricks, such as backflips, drifts, and spins to become an ultimate stunter. All of this is wrapped up in beautiful retro neon graphics

The Room Three

The Room Three

The Room Three builds upon everything that made the previous two games so successful and adds some interesting ideas of its own. It’s much more ambitious than the past games, with larger environments and more exploration. The visuals and audio are top-notch, and the puzzles are extremely satisfying to solve. It’s still a relatively short experience, but the inclusion of alternate endings that require some effort to uncover adds some longevity.

Gameplay: You’ll love this game if you are a puzzle fan.

Graphics: The visuals are beautifully detailed.

Sound: The music is sparse, but the sound effects are great

Intake

Intake

Intake is a great retro-style arcade shooter that challenges players to blast luminescent pills using the correct colored shots. It’s a deceptively simple title but can become very addictive after a few rounds. The inclusion of power-ups and special challenge levels every few rounds also keeps the game unpredictable. It’s a pity that the soundtrack only features five tunes, but the gameplay is solid, and chasing high scores is a real adrenaline rush.

Gameplay: Straightforward to play, but very challenging and quite addictive.

Graphics: Relatively simple, but very stylish.

Sound: The soundtrack is great, but there are only five tunes

Steamworld Dig 2

Steamworld Dig 2

SteamWorld Dig 2 takes everything that made the original such an addictively entertaining game and polishes them up even more. Digging around for treasure to sell in town to upgrade your gear is a lot of fun, but there’s also plenty of puzzle platforming to do. Throw in some great visuals and a funky soundtrack, and you have a game that definitely should not be missed.

Gameplay: Starts very simple, but becomes very addictive very quickly.

Graphics: Detailed visuals and great character designs.

Sound: Features a varied soundtrack and nice sound effects

Forgotten Trace: Thanatos in Nostalgia

Forgotten Trace: Thanatos in Nostalgia

Forgotten Trace: Thanatos in Nostalgia is a visual novel with an interesting premise, but some parts feel padded out unnecessarily. It is also the first part of what was supposed to be a three-part series, but there is no sign of the other two parts yet. This makes it hard to recommend the game as there is no guarantee the story will ever be completed. It’s a pity as Forgotten Trace does have some nice elements and the art style is good, despite the low resolution.

Gameplay: The story is interesting, but ends on a cliffhanger and can be a slog to read at times.

Graphics: The resolution is fixed at 1024×768, but the art style is decent.

Sound: Japanese voice acting and decent background music

Lust for Darkness

Lust for Darkness

Lust for Darkness attempts something a little different with the horror genre by combining it with erotic and occult themes. Unfortunately, it struggles with pacing and the overall experience is very short. There are still some good elements, such as the great environmental detail and design of the alien dimension you get to visit, but the gameplay is very shallow. Hopefully, all the issues will be addressed in a sequel as there is a lot of potential with the story and setting.

Gameplay: A walking simulator with some mild puzzles and a few enemies to evade.

Graphics: The environments are almost photo-realistic, but character models and animations are very rough around the edges.

Sound: The voice acting is not very good, but the soundtrack is decent

Chuusotsu! 1st Graduation: Time After Time

Chuusotsu! 1st Graduation: Time After Time

Chuusotsu! 1st Graduation: Time After Time is a kinetic novel that features three girls who end up living under the same roof while trying to regain their place in society. It is set in a future where aptitude tests determine your career for life and those who fail end up as worthless outcasts called chuusotsu. The game features bright, colorful visuals but the story can veer into unexpectedly dark directions. It is certainly an intriguing tale and hopefully, future installments will reveal more of the world and characters introduced here.

Gameplay: This is a kinetic novel, so there is no interaction beyond reading the story.

Graphics: The backgrounds are detailed and the character sprites look very nice.

Sound: Both the voice acting and background music is decent

CARRION

CARRION

CARRION is a great, although brief game that gives players the chance to go wild in a research facility as a flesh-eating tentacle monster. The game is extremely bloody, but between all the mayhem there are also plenty of puzzles to solve. Your creature can unlock a ton of new abilities, which opens up new areas to explore, but the lack of a map could frustrate some players. Despite some repetition and a few small niggles we thoroughly enjoyed our time with CARRION and the game comes highly recommended.

Gameplay: Plays like a very violent Metroidvania, except without the platforming elements.

Graphics: The pixel art looks great and the animations are smooth, but more unique locations would have been a big plus.

Sound: Atmospheric music and great sound effects