Digitally Downloaded

So if we consider that the last couple of years has given us an informal Silent Hill “trilogy” with the remake of 2, Silent Hill f, and now Silent Hill: Townfall, it’s fair to say that in some ways Townfall is the most limited of the three. But you could argue that in other, important ways it’s the most well-produced and experimental, too. A few times in the past, Konami has tapped Western developers to build on the Silent Hill franchise with a new entry (as opposed to a remake or re-envisioning). I would argue that Townfall is the first time a Western developer has at least equalled the efforts that have come out of Asia.

Most importantly of all, there’s always an assumption with flight combat games that you’re in for something pretty inaccessible. Either it’ll be an arcade game that will require twitch reflexes to be enjoyable on any level, or it’ll be something that may as well be a training simulation for the real air force for what it demands you learn. Ace Combat is not like that at all. It can certainly be challenging, but it is also clearly aware that, with its production values, it may well be the first dogfighting simulation for many players, and it does a brilliant job of giving them a game they can love.

I love digital board games that are presented with love and care, and Monster Couch could never be accused of not loving their work. The team goes truly above and beyond to make its adaptations beautiful, character-filled, and warm to play, and Flamecraft delivers this in spades. It’s going to be part of my multiplayer roster for some time to come.

I do wonder what kind of audience Akiba Lost will find. It is a glorified visual novel, and there were times while I was playing that I almost felt like the game struggles against its choice of platform. This game wants to be taken seriously as cinematic television, but belongs to a genre that often gets derided by players looking for drama and excitement. Still, it’s not really my job to figure out the market for a game, and 428: Shibuya Scramble did well enough in building a reputation and finding an audience. Akiba Lost is a bit like a spiritual successor to Shibuya Scramble, and is made with some truly prodigious quality and production values. So hopefully it is a big hit, because it deserves to be.

So insofar as I’m ever going to spend time playing survival games, Dune: Awakening will be my go-to. I acknowledge that I’m a purist as far as Dune goes, and I was never going to get along with an “alternate timeline” that largely misses the point of what Herbert was saying with his novel, but once I get past that resistance and my inherent distaste for the formula of survival games, I actually found myself enjoying this one. It’s like the rare time I find an FPS that I actually like, and that’s actually kind of impressive.

Ultimately, Sniper Dan is a time-filler rather than something you’ll dwell on after you put it down, but then again that’s true of the Where’s Wally books too. I never felt the urge to track those down and play them again… until they just happened to be staring me in the face during my weekly shop. With a similar sense of humour and similar quality to the hidden object “action”, perhaps Sniper Dan is something that you’ll also find yourself returning to for a quick laugh at random moments in the years ahead.

Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave is a massively intelligent experience, with deep and rich themes, characters, and gameplay systems. In the same month that Wolverine came out, it is nice to see that one of the three big console manufacturers/publishers still respects the player’s intelligence and is out there trying to do more than endlessly iterate on the same “best practice” game-development-by-numbers slop.

As a direct comparison, it’s hard to recommend Culdcept The First Saturn Tribute over Begins, but then that’s like saying it’s hard to recommend the GBA Fire Emblem over the new one releasing soon. I mean, sure, technically, the new game is bigger and benefits from decades of game development experience. But if you like the new Fire Emblem enough, you’re also going to enjoy the older ones, and for that reason I’d suggest that if you do play Culdcept Begins and enjoy it then your next purchase really should be Culdcept The First Saturn Tribute.

Brigandine Abyss lost some of the series identity in exchange for its efforts to try and find a broader audience. I don’t know if it will quite get there in the end. It’s easy to play and perfectly competent across both strategy and tactics, but there are so many other games out there that do that, and unlike the essential Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia, Abyss doesn’t have its own hook. With that being said, unless you are specifically comparing it to the earlier Brigandine games, the depth of characters, monsters and strategic options in Abyss is genuinely compelling so who knows- perhaps this will find a new audience after all.

You’ve got to have a real love for the very deepest niches of JRPG fandom to enjoy Exstetra, but if that describes you, this is a treat. It’s such a product of its time that developers really don’t make these kinds of things any longer, and it has finally landed in English after 13 years. If you are the audience for it, don’t let yourself overlook Exstetra.