Phuz

Had to up my review score. It's a pretty fun game but they could have really just pushed that fun factor a lot more. I enjoy a game but then I'm done. It lacks that extra bit of excitement to just play game after game. Gonna keep hold of this though, it's nice for a quick half hour blast. Obviously Nintendo are cartoon consoles, so if you were that bothered about amazing graphics you'd be on XB, or PS. Does the job though, looks nice enough. Songs are pretty varied. Not particularly to my taste but none I really hate. I'd prefer it a bit snappier. Seems to be a thing with sims in general that they feel a bit sluggish on player movement. I'd definitely prefer if it just ditched all the time out and replay BS and just let me play. Honestly a pretty great game. Just needs that extra bit of fun adding. It wouldn't kill to make it a tad more arcade like in the sense of player movement. I think it's that lack of snap on direction change etc that is preventing it being that bit more fun. Like I'm always putting extra pressure on the thumbstick as a natural reaction to wanting characters to move faster.

Very early first impression review and it's a tough one. There's just no excuse. 1. Xenoblade X ran on WiiU perfectly and looked beautiful. This stutters at times and has a lot more pop in than I expected. It's a way less graphically demanding game and a two generation newer console. 2. The time wasting. When I finish a battle I want to continue, not look at a multi zoom shot on a Pokeball, not get offered to rename my catch, not any 10 seconds of rubbish it throws at me like a 90's Final Fantasy game. I just want to bloody play. Well that's the bad. The good. Regardless of optimization, it looks lovely. Very Tales of like, which is my favourite visual style for games. When it is running well it looks lush on my 75" TV. It has loads of charm. It has an amazing OST. It feels pretty fluid to move around. It has that lovely cohesive vibe that so many games miss. The graphics, the OST, the gameplay, the world, the characters - they all feel like they belong together, not separate entities bolted together. Honestly if the game picks up as I get further in to it, I could overlook the optimization and potentially give this full marks. It's a kids cartoon, that you can play, that sounds amazing. It does give that back to childhood special cartoon vibe, which considering my childhood didn't include Pokemon as I was around before Pokemon, that's quite some thing to manage. If you can over look a bit of unnecessary stuff after battles and a bit of pop in, then Violet is really a great feel good vibe. Tbh it feels more like a cozy than a turn based RPG. Am I gonna get hooked? Probably not. Am I going to enjoy killing a couple of hours here and there? Absolutely. It's actually hard to describe but it's like a Tales of made cute and turn based and made for kids. As an adult though it's still hitting for me. Fun and vibe override optimization for me and it's not a disaster on that front like say Rune Factory 5 but it is there, so far it hasn't killed my enjoyment. For the record I'm actually a Digimon fan and never considered myself a Pokemon fan. So it is a pleasant surprise.

Great stuff, tried it on game pass. Game starts with go to place marked on map. There's literally no map. Accidentally found my way there and then the next bit also needed the non existent map to get there. About the worst thing to be broken in a game navigating streets is the damn map. Apparently this is a bug that considering the age of the game, is one they just couldn't be arsed fixing.

Not a huge fan of platformers. This game nailed it though. Just clever non stop fun. Don't let the silly look put you off.

Playing this on game pass. Last night I downloaded 14 games to try. I deleted 10 that I didn't like from the get go for various reasons. So I thought sod it, I'll try some of these free games. This was the first I tried and what a bloody good choice. By the looks of things, this game is completely free. You want cosmetics then you're gonna need a big wallet but I just played for hours with no cash grabs. It looks great, it sounds great, it controls great, even the VA is really good for the most part, which is bloody rare. Overall it's great fun in a great setting and no characters so annoying that I've wanted to kick them in the face. It also has loads of menus but didn't force me to use them. I chose which menus I wanted to investigate at my own pace and the game will optimize your build for you. To me it was a super user friendly introduction to how it works, without being overwhelming. Side missions introduce things to you and help you get acquainted with the game, or do main missions to blow some alien face off. As an extra thing of note, I don't like shooters. It's one of my least favourite genres but here I am just been hooked on this game for hours. On top of that, all the characters are as far from Taash as it gets. They all look good, not like woke weirdos. I will update this if my view changes but this game was a great surprise. Really enjoying it.

What a horrible game. Game came on, bit of an epic tune playing. I thought OK nice opening. Then a lot of menu's and some **** hiphop songs, leaving me a bit confused as to what to select or do. Google got me through that easy enough though. Start training, what a horrible, clunky bag of tug the controls are. It feels laggy and not as in the game is laggy, as in the player responds like they just took 5 valium an hour before. It felt like I was constantly pushing really hard on the thumbstick, almost like some brain reaction if I push harder the player will move better. It just felt slow and horrible. I didn't even get through the last couple of training modules because I was already sick of the way it controls. Shame cos I loved watching NFL as a kid and thought as an adult this would be a nice bit of a nostalgia trigger. I just don't know how people can enjoy those unresponsive controls in a game. I think the best word to sum it up is sluggish.

I feel this whole game was ruined for me by what was held back in DLC. The game price was high but just about acceptable. That holding back a chunk of the game behind a pay wall had a big effect. After the joke of £120 DLC in Tekken 8, I was already pretty annoyed with Bamco. Now this has really put me off buying their future releases. Yes this was a far cheaper DLC than Tekken but holding back a way to generate in game money and experience behind DLC was a **** move. I'd rather they'd just sold the base game higher but with all the content. I was so far in at the point I realised how it was affecting my options that it was too late. If you are determined to play this game, then just pay the extra. If you get a chunk in and not feeling it, like I wasn't, then just drop it, it doesn't get much better. I got 5 hours in, it was boring. I got to 20 hours in and had a great time. By 30 hours that had completely reversed and I was absolutely sick of it. I cheesed it to the end to finish the story, which took about another 15 hours and I really wish I hadn't bothered. It just got more and more tedious. Filler and more filler and annoying dialogue esp the drunk Digimon. Backtracking repeating the same dungeons under the guise of time travel, I don't get how people can say this game has no filler and the end story which I started hitting the last third of my play time really felt padded out to the point it got on my nerves. I'm not sure that even if I had the DLC XP and money dungeons that I still wouldn't have just hit auto battle to get to the end. It just dragged like hell. So for context, I loved Cybersleuth. I did 350 hours in it. 350 hours is pretty unheard of for me. Even my 2 favourite games in 40 years of gaming I haven't played for 350 hours. Getting bored after 20 hours of Time Stranger really made me baffled by all the reviews saying what an improvement it is on Cybersleuth. They made Japanese quirkyness turn to American cheese and left a soulless mess in a nice new shiny package. The VA is shockingly bad. If you can tolerate the English VA for more than 10 minutes, you have some wires loose. The dungeons felt amateurish by 2026 standards. The whole vibe was gone. Cybersleuth had this cohesion where the world, the graphics, the OST, the characters, the sound fx, the story - everything just felt right. Time Stranger feels like a copy pasted Cybersleuth but one that missed the mark. It didn't have the great gelling like Cybersleuth, none of it felt natural. The magic had gone. Polished up a bit, absolutely but it lost all its identity and character in the process. I'm not gonna write more other than as a Digimon fan, it was a big disappointment and a huge downgrade from Cybersleuth. It's even left me wishing I'd bought ZA instead and I'm not even a fan of Pokemon.

For starters I generally can't stand this type of game. I buy them on odd occasion on sale if I fancy a change as was the case here. Not played it long but having a great time so far. Satisfying combat, good visuals, great music. Feels a bit like I'd expect a 3D Contra to play - run and gun. I do find the darkness a bit annoying, not the theme, just find I miss things when environments are that dark. Played on Switch 2, so no idea how it looks or runs on Switch 1. No issues at all though, was completely smooth. Got to give a second mention to the OST, it's pretty damn perfect. Loads of fun, will defo play some more. I'm not really in to horror games and more in to action. This strikes a nice balance and definitely feels more action smash up some alien ****, than alien horror vibes. Great game so far.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Just a heads up, anyone reading this, these reviews are for the game over 15 years ago. Search for a realm reborn and you will find reviews on the game in current state.

I'm not playing a game where the character is slower than a sloth. I was annoyed within minutes.

I only played the demo but compared to similar games like Tekken and DoA it feels pretty boring. It just seemed to lack fun. Felt a bit too clinical.

Waste of money. And I'm not talking about it being a definitive edition, I never bought the first release. It's just a **** game. If you want to play an Ys game then play these. Ys Origin Legend of Nayuta (basically Ys reskinned) Ys Oath in Felghana Ys Ark of Napishtim (if you want a bit of old school gaming) All the games on the new engine are boring, generic RPGs with great music All the old games are great games, with great music. I bought Ys 10, found it a bit boring and every time I went back to it, I found it less entertaining than the last. If I had to rank the new game engine ones then probably release order 8 - 9 - 10. None of them are good. If you spend all your life eating Indian but then try Nepalese, it's very similar but oozing its own very distinct flavours. Old Zelda is the Indian and old Ys is the Nepalese. Old Ys are fast paced, fun action, puzzle adventure games. New Ys are generic RPGs with very questionable design choices. Bad mapping, very stop start killing the action, poor cutscenes, poor pacing and poor dialogue.

You can't give this game less than a 10. It's just so much fun. It's free with the subscription but music is paid. You do get quite a lot free though. You're not buying the shell of the game. I love Camellia too and it comes with loads of Camellia. You hold two light sabers, you smash the blocks in time to the music as they come at you. Simple as that. 5 difficulty settings but loads of toggles to make things easier, or harder. If you have a bad back for example, you could turn off walls, so you don't have to duck down. It doesn't have an awful lot of music packs but what it does have should cater to most people. There are 5 albums I like and a good few singles. I think they did a good job of covering a wide range of tastes with a small library. If you have VR and don't have this, you're missing out massively.

I'm a bit mixed. Whilst it is a good game, it has been over complicated with new mechanics. I love Garou MotW and it's great because I can pick it up again after 6 months and get back in to it. With CotW, I have to go and relearn everything and that's not fun. Why of all DJ's did they put some clown in there. Could have had Jazzy Jeff, could have had Carl Cox, could have had A-Trak but instead we got some complete spanner. If you're going to put something as dumb as a DJ on the roster, at least make it a good DJ. As for Ronaldo, why? Just why? Garou was perfectly responsive and skill was required but without having to remember all the extra stuff. Garou also had more memorable music and was more fun to play. They just missed the mark here. I do like CotW but since I bought it I seem to be returning to MotW more often than CotW. It feels a bit more modern King of Fighters, rather than a Fatal Fury to me. It's 100% a downgrade from Garou but is still a really good game. Just not a great game. Whilst my review is pretty negative due to being disappointed, it is still worth it. I was really looking forward to it from the moment it was revealed at Evo, so if you are new to Fatal Fury then you're probably gonna enjoy it just fine. For me it was an anticlimax.

I'm giving it 2/10 for the music, cos it would be unfair to discredit that. Considering I've played 5 hours of this and was bored to death the entire time and another review says it goes down hill at 10 hours, I am pleased I stopped wasting my time at 5 hours. Pros Music is really good to great. Cons Story really isn't doing much. Kidnap rescue, kidnap rescue. Dialogue pretty childish and not very good. Plot points and accompanying dialogue is really silly at times. The court scene was ridiculous. Graphics are OK. There is nicer stuff in that era. Battle system is just outright boring. Mash A through battle after battle and then think a bit for 1 battle. Considering I don't play many menu turn based, I'm not very experienced with them and it shouldn't have been that easy for someone like me. I was pretty much sent on my way from an area. Went round the entire map, ended up back where I started and then had to go back to the previous room to trigger a new scene to open the next part. Don't make it look like I need to move to the next area if really I need to go back to a room I left 2 minutes earlier. Complete waste of time back tracking due to a misleading objective. Clunky. Frame drops. No character development. There was literally nothing I enjoyed other than the music. A completely boring game and without the OST it would have got a 0/10. Complete waste of my time and money. This game lives on nostalgia. If you want to play a banging old game with dungeons and overworld and great music, then do yourself a favour and play A Link to the Past, not this utter junk. ALttP absolutely destroys Chrono Trigger in every possible way. If you particularly want a game with a similar play style to Chrono Trigger, then Ara Fell is superior in every way.

Edit: You might as well ignore this review because the game is no longer available. It's a very hard one to rate because it's really quite charming but the production quality is low. I found it a bit jarring at first because the dialogue will talk about a room full of people but the image is an empty room. This is definitely a game on a budget. Music is very basic. It is partially voice acted. Same as every other game in the world, cheesy American voicing, the dialogue isn't particularly strong either but for some reason, for its masses of flaws the game keeps making me want to go back. The characters are likeable and it's quite fun in the fact that it's not all dark and dreary in tone and major plus that no one is incredibly annoying, like in Final Fantasy where they manage to write a cast full of A' holes. The characters in this don't make me want to club them to a brutal end. There is just a great amount of charm here and I'll definitely update this score as I get further in, this is just early game first impressions after 4 hours. I can't pin point what it is but it's very likeable. It's so light hearted with characters that if real would (love them, or hate them), be people you'd remember. It has a very happy vibe to it and I've been playing in little half hour spells before bed and it has been a great chill and unwind kind of game. I must add too that it is save anywhere, which is a bonus. I actually feel a bit tight giving it a 7 and think had this game had a bit more spent on it that I would have very little bad to say. Character designs I like too. Nothing flashy but a good job. Looking forward to seeing where the story goes and more mini adventures. You're basically a pilot for a criminal space crew who do dodgy deliveries and each outing is like a little adventure. As for metacritic 0/10. After all these years they're still incapable of keeping the formatting of what I type. I didn't just type a wall of text. They are also responsible for my only ever password leak in my 40+ years alive. They really need to pick their game up with the websites backend.

I've not long been playing it. Just one night. Now this is a free game and I don't really care what it's like, the OST is worth a 10 alone. It looks great. I didn't have room on my SSD and played from a HDD and the issues were minimal, so I imagine this would be buttery smooth if I swapped it to the other drive. Controls are great, the graphics and tonal control over the graphics are fantastic. First impressions are very high. I will say the character's don't know when to shut the **** up and a couple have little girl voices when they're not little girls. So VA is a bit of a weakness but this game is damn free and so polished outside of the acting. Can't really complain at all so far.

Wow, this having a rating higher than Rune Factory Guardians of Azuma is wild. It's not even in the same league. It's a good game. I've sat with my girlfriend playing this and it is probably the best SoS game I've sat with her playing. Certainly better optimization, than Mineral and Olive Town. Olive Town seemed to be better gameplay though. It looks great, music is a bit hit and miss with some songs being a bit annoying. The game just seems to hold itself back unnecessarily. Like the fully upgraded bag is just not even close to big enough. My GF is constantly having to go back to the house to make space. An option to craft, or buy extra storage, not only for storage but so different item types can be stored separately in different boxes is severely missing. As is a dedicated fridge. Farming is restrictive due to field restrictions. Farm redesigning is non existent. It does have a great gameplay loop but this really feels like an old game in new packaging. There are just so many times when I'm saying why don't you do that and she replies you can't do it in this game. They should have completely modernised this game and they didn't and it shows in the lack of many staple gameplay elements from games in the genre. I wouldn't say it's a lazy remake in the fact it is a good recreation but it is lazy in the fact it needed a lot of quality of life improvements that they just haven't added. Still, for what it is, it's really good but **** Valley, Rune Factory Guardians of Azuma, Harvestella and Coral Island all absolutely destroy this game. I'd say Rune Factory 5 is better too if you can deal with RF5's bad optimisation. A real missed opportunity because with just a little more development this game could have been a 10. The total lack of farm options is a real set back though. I'm not going to do a playthrough myself when my GF is done cos 3 small fields and basement for crops, lack of storage and no farm design is a big no for me. I don't see the point in some mechanics like uprooting and storing trees, when they don't give you sufficient storage to go storing trees for 3/4 year. If you can overlook the flaws, you'll be hooked. It's too mid for me to entertain with zero design elements. I've played too many great farming games to play this at this stage. Still enjoying helping my GF out with it. To have no dungeons, little storage, limited fields and no farm design is too many things missing.

Absolutely boring. It has no charm at all. OST sounds a bit amateur. Moving around feels like something from 30 years ago. I didn't enjoy playing, nothing made me want to play more. For the record, I love puzzle games and there are way better puzzle games out there for pennies on eshops and steam. It's like games just get sparkling reviews these days for being a bit different. Different doesn't equal fun.

Dialogue a bit cheesy. Ugly as hell, it looks pretty terrible. I love action RPG's, so not that it's not my type of thing mashing up baddies. I just didn't find it much fun. Tbh with this type of game where you die, level up and try again, I think the Skyforce games are way more fun. Hades is obviously very popular, I just don't get the attraction personally. I enjoyed Ball x Pit, and a few others that play in a similar way too and found them more entertaining. Glad I got this on game pass cos it would have been money p1ssed up the wall.

I'm dropping it. It's a good game but a bit of a slow plod. Just personal taste but the very well written and executed dialogue is a bit boring and there's a bit too much just running about and yapping. I think this game would be great for people in to open world games cos it looks like there's plenty to explore. Probably a great game for someone else but after a great first impression, it just isn't holding my interest. Character building is quite a heavy focus and I just don't find the characters very interesting. I'm not a Potter fan though. Gave it a try and whilst I don't find it entertaining enough to justify my time, this could easy be a 10/10 game for some people. I'm not throwing shade with the 3 score, that's just my personal enjoyment and I think the price this game goes on sale for now, it is worth taking a chance on. Looks nice and the voice acting is actually pretty good for the most part. OST does the job, nothing special but fitting. Absolutely give it a try though.

I didn't buy the full game because I wasn't keen on the demo. It seemed pretty great but after a few laps I just felt that the physics were a bit off. It was all a bit weightless, the drifting and steering just felt like I was driving a plastic car. It looks great and a lot of choice, courses that I played were good, just didn't like that the driving felt so light. I'll try it again at some point but that light feel stripped the fun out of it for me. Other than that it was good but that is really the key component to a race game and it missed the mark for me. Obviously I was playing a pre release version and if it has been improved, then so will my review when I buy it. I didn't like MK World but after I demo'd X Worlds, I went and reinstalled MKW and appreciated the feel of the racing more. I can take or leave kart racers. Always loved them but they're wearing a bit thin now after 30 years. These modern kart racers are doing nothing to improve on what Mario Kart was doing on Wii, or MK8 on WiiU and it doesn't feel like anything significant is being brought to the table to be like wow, this is the new benchmark for kart racers. I think a Star Fox Arwing Air Racer would have made a nice new take on the racing and have a fast air racer. Like a linear flying kart dog fighter. I don't know but something more is needed to add life back in to the genre now that neither Sonic, or Mario seem to be doing. Just feels like same old with a new coat of paint.

The years 1-2 isn't included with the game, it's a download that once used, can't be retrieved again, so game has low resale value because you can only trade the base game, years 1+2 applies to the box art only when it comes to resale. The world game is damn boring. Restricts your moves and even restricts your buttons for a while. The dialogue is like the sort of filler junk you'd complain about in an RPG. The game has a sluggish feel. Music is pretty rubbish. 18 character base roster is a joke when they had 90 characters they could choose from. Ken looks homeless, Blanka looks like some goofy toy. Changing animations on the character game start screen is pretty cool but that's about the only nice thing I have to say about the game. The menu's are a bit dark and messy. The DLC is abysmally priced. Making that already poor trade in value even worse. I'm a big fighting game fan. I own over 50 fighters but SF6 just bores me. I find everytime I put it on, I end up switching it off and playing 3rd Strike, or Garou Mark of the Wolves, or even leaving the Switch altogether to play some Tekken on Steam. One good thing I can say for SF6 is I've never liked Tekken but SF6 was so rubbish I took a chance on Tekken 8, which turned out to be absolute fire and I enjoyed it so much I bought Tekken 7 too. My disappointment in SF6 led to me getting two amazing games. You can keep your BS Capcom with your 18 character base roster and £80 DLC. Tekken 8 has a 32 character base game thanks and is more fun to play. I'm not supporting any company anymore that withholds massive portions of the game and tries to call it DLC. That's not DLC. DLC is to give extra content, not to withhold half of the game you already paid for. And get Yoko Shimamura back in your music department. 3 decades of crap music is long enough.

This game was really fun. Great little rails target shooter. I wish there was stuff like this in Switch 2 with a gun type device. All these old Wii titles that made use of motion controls were great fun. Sin and Punishment, Mario Galaxy, loads of them utilised motion control and it made things more fun. I owned Sin and Punishment on Wii twice and playing on emulator now for old times sake and it just isn't as much fun. Crossbow would be completely pointless on controller. I wish there was a fun collection on Switch/2 like we had on Wii. Sadly Nintendo seems to be going away from fun and heading towards the same old games you can play on any other platform. We need more fun like this on Switch 2. That was the whole point in Nintendo, non serious fun and Link's Crossbow is a prime example. I miss the Wii.

Incredibly boring. Honestly I feel a 2/10 is generous. I feel like I just wasted hours having no fun. With games like this I feel that 3D came too soon. The hardware just can't deliver a good experience. It's showing age pretty terribly. Very clumsy controls, endless invisible bump battles, horrible camera. Whenever it is invoking a dark atmosphere it uses some image bending effect that is pretty nauseating. The story seems like it will get interesting but it's just a frustrating play. Animations in and out of rooms, areas and battles, although short, they just add that extra time that makes everything drag a bit. Visuals have that unpleasant murky look that was often seen in that era. OST is pretty good as are animated scenes but again really aged with instruments sounding like a toddlers first instruments collection. Dialogue is very mid. It is a game that is crying out for a remake but in its original form, it's not a nice play, even then, why bother? Just make a new game. It's a pass for me. I started gaming in the 80's and the 2D games were great through the early consoles but the 3D in this era was just messy and it felt like a chore to play pretty quickly. Potential there is great but potential is all it is. If you haven't played the Xenoblade Chronicles games, then straight bypass this and head on over to those on the Switch. The enjoyment level is immensely higher. I can't do a direct comparison because I have better things to do than finish Xenogears to compare. What I can take away is the difference is like night and day. There are just far too many great games out there now to be wasting time playing this. Maybe it was great when there was nothing better about but todays games destroy Xenogears. The last game I got stuck in to rather than casual short sessions was Clair Obscur, no one in their right mind would choose to play Xenogears over Clair Obscur. Pretty much every game I have sunk hours in to in 2025 have been significantly better. If you don't have nostalgia for it, then give it a miss. In short it's ugly, boring and dated.

Good hack and slash. Not amazing but I found it more enjoyable than Musou games. Everything is pretty good but nothing was great. I'd recommend it as a budget title but it often has a hefty price tag.

Quite simply not playing this. I'm fighting people with swords and then step off a shallow riverbank and die. What through? Death by twisted ankle? It sent me back a right hike by dying. I'm not playing something where the slightest bit of exploration inexplicably kills me and makes me walk all the way back through the bit I literally just finished walking through. Nice looking, nice sound, dumb gameplay. Combat is clunky too. How long to swing a sword? It's like everything has a delay on it. Maybe it's supposed to impose the feeling of swinging a heavy sword. It just imposes the feeling that maybe the Chinese supermodel holding the sword is already carrying too much weight in her **** and doesn't have enough strength for the sword too. I got some unheard of Chinese ARPG on Steam recently for about £2.50 and it was way more fun than this and the girl had bigger **** but could still manage to swing her sword with good speed and strength.

It's probably great for some people but it feels dated to me. Music is weird. There are a lot of load screens. Characters not particularly interesting. Battles are OK. The world and moving around it feels dated and lacking. A bit like a less smooth version of one of the better SAO games. I like anime and the styling is nice here but none of it matters if it just feels old and not much fun. It's just not worth my time hence the 0 score. Of recent I've played a variety of games, Xenoblade X, Clair Obscur, Tales of Graces F, Ace Combat 7, Zelda Echoes, Tekken 8. They were all fun and with Tekken, I'll only visit it occasionally, it was still exciting though. There is something that makes me leave it installed and makes me want to go back and play again. Metaphor Refantazio just makes me want to free up the drive space it's using. There is just nothing in me wanting to fire that game up again. After playing Clair Obscur, the dialogue and VA in Metaphor is noticeably mid. I did play a turn based game this year I didn't like much at all. The Romancing Saga 3D remake thing and I had pretty harsh words about that but looking back, I found it way more fun than Metaphor.

I started with a 7 score but came back to lower. It just lacks vibe. Doesn't have that charm of other farming games. The music especially is low standard and the game just doesn't look that great. Even after the ability to move fast is unlocked, I still can't be that bothered moving between areas. It's just pretty uninteresting. Dialogue is a bit poor. Some is OK but it has that cheesy undertone, American cheese, like Hollywood, WWE etc. A few characters are likeable but many aren't. I don't know, it's hard to pin point the problem but I'm just not finding it fun. I've played Guardians of Azuma recently and that was so much better. Yes pricier but at a cost to return ratio GoA was better by a long, long way and as it's available physical it is resellable and actually ended up costing me less than it was to buy Wylde Flowers digitally. Another (not a farming game so can't compare within the genre like I did with GoA) I just finished was Expedition 33 and going from that to Wylde Flowers just feels like a leap back 20 years and not in a good way. Lacking is the only word I can think best describes it. There is just better stuff out there to play. Coral Island and **** Valley are easy recommendations over this. I would even say Rune Factory 5 and Pioneers of Olive Town too. It's not a high grade farming game. I wish I'd gone for Hello Kitty, or Fantasy Life instead.

I've not got a lot to say about this game. Honestly I just found it boring. It's ot the genre because I do like this style of game but it didn't click with me at all. Nothing stands out as being bad, just nothing good either.

Unbearable. I cannot tolerate the utter BS dialogue like it was written by a 12 year old. Just outright Z grade Hollywood style crap fronting as an action game. Imagine the most dire cheesy teenage action film possible, then digitise the characters and add some rubbish button layouts and you have DMC 5. Wasted money even at sale price. If someone spoke like that in life it would be all of 2 minutes before they were sparked out on the floor for being the most irritating little peasant in existence. Why the hell would I pay money to listen to a complete tool? With all the good reviews I went in blind expecting a banger. What I got was a pointless dint in my wallet.

Lovely music and that's about it. I just can't take to the characters. I'm not talking woke stuff cos I haven't come across any of that yet. They're just not likeable. It's not an enjoyable play and I'm not giving points for OST. It's a game and I'm not giving points for music when I don't enjoy the gameplay. Shame because I feel a potentially good game was possible here but it feels like it was written by obnoxious 12 year olds. It's not just this game, I had the same issue with FF10 and that is I don't have any interest in saving people I want to kick in the face. Glad it was on game pass because I'd have been pretty pee'd off if I spent money on this. Far too many good games released in the last 12 months to bother with this.

It's beautiful and for the first time in as long as I can remember the voice acting is actually good and the characters don't make me want to kick them in the face. Story is engaging. The sound is almost like an RPG style spin on the Amelie soundtrack and effects are great too. Now I am not huge on menu turn based combat (I do like strategy turn based though) and when I play turn based games there is always a high risk that I won't enjoy it but this is nice. It includes real time dodge, or parry for defence but menu attacks with real time inputs to increase power. Honestly it just works. It's keeps you engaged instead of waiting through animations and makes turn based fun. It's a bit like the Xenoblade games in that aspect with the timed button press. The world is linear with forking paths where paths lead to an enemy and a treasure, or the story destination. The game has invisible walls, so you don't explore the surrounding scenery much but there are still lots of things to be found. Tutorials are fed at a good pace and don't make you feel like you're sitting a memory test. It's hard to comment on graphics because nothing plays well with my PC due to using a HDD but the world is stunning and even using a slow drive, there were minimal issues. The whole game just sets an atmosphere where everything gels. The characters, graphics, world, music, story, battles. All departments are singing from the same hymn sheet. It's very cohesive and complete. RPG systems in place for upgrades and swapping bits in and out are fleshed enough to do their job but not stupid amounts of time sat in menus. Get to your save spot, manage the party and move on. It would be unfair to call this anything short of a masterpiece. It excels at everything. It's near perfection. What it gets wrong does not justify any point reduction. Simply outstanding and will go down in gaming history. The story, yeah, you really won't guess where it's going and it has a fantastic ending that you play through. So basically not just sitting through a cut scene, it's gameplay right through. Due to it not being my preferred type of game, it's not my fav game ever but it's still top 5 for me, regardless, I would say it's probably the best game ever made if I ignore personal views.

First impressions review, cos not had it long. Banging OST. Graphics a bit ropey at times, not sure if this is the game, or my setup though but sometimes the characters look like paper cutouts. Gameplay, it's a very fun fighter. I have always found this style of input boring in a fighting game preferring the fast play style of old arcade fighters and motion inputs but as the years have gone on a lot of those have lost their speed and fun. SF6, KoF 15 and City of the Wolves are just not on a par for fun with the old fighters, so I'm more open to this style now. I don't know why but DoA just clicks with me better than Tekken but on Tekken 8 something just felt really nice about it. It's smooth, stylish and something just feels nice. It just has a flow that feels good. I own easily 50+ fighters and I'm generally pretty good and having played them for over 3 decades I can generally pick up and play any fighter to an extent and tend to just do that as I like to play casual on many games and don't strive for high level competitive play, I'm actually considering investing a bit of time in to this one though. I think it could be rewarding. I always score based on enjoyment and negatives don't affect my score if enjoyment isn't impacted. For me this was a 10. I don't usually like OTT games and this is definitely a bit OTT but with the banging soundtrack it all merges well in to a very complete package that is very cohesive and nothing feels out of place. I will come back and change this to a proper review after I've sunk some hours in but for first impressions, I really like it. I'm tempted to knock the dust off the arcade stick for a proper session with this one.

Due to my PS4 missing parts and I'd nearly finished this, I bought it again on Steam a few years on. It's obviously not quite the same excitement 2nd time round. I get a bit of screen tear but that's quite possibly something in settings I've not sussed out. Overall though a very similar experience to PS4. I absolutely love this game and I'm going to be real here, it had a whopping head start having Motoi Sakuraba on the OST and a few by Go Shiina too. OST is important to me. The systems are not as complicated as I remember them being and tbh as long as you keep your equipment as best available and basic things like that, you don't really need to worry about the systems too much. The characters are really nerdy and I prefer this to the obnoxious little **** you usually get in Tales games. I love the game world, the music, the story. Everything just works. Whilst those things are pretty great, none of them are outstanding on their own but as a whole it just works. Gripes I have are that sometimes it can be a tad tricky to figure out what to do next, sometimes just speaking to the person in your party will give you a rough idea. This not knowing is usually because I didn't pay attention to some of the dialogue, or the place hasn't yet been discovered and labelled on the map. Also the warping around the map is bad. Not quite sure what they were thinking with that system. It often isn't available and not well implemented. If this game had just had a few tweaks with destination markers, quick travel and simplified systems, it could be a masterpiece but none the less, even the best of the best games have several flaws and the flaws in Zestiria don't stop my 10 score. I thoroughly enjoy it. Still remains my favourite Tales of. I almost saw it to the end last time and will this time. The only other Tales I played right through was Graces F. All the others had flaws that were bad enough to put me off playing. Abyss for terrible character, Vesperia got a bit boring, Arise felt generic and Berseria the pacing fell flat for me. I do love animated Adventure/Action RPG's, so my score is likely biased by that. I love Ys, Zelda, Xenoblade etc, so this is really right up my street. It feels a bit like a mixture of those. 10/10.

Well I thought I'd wasted my money here. No sooner had I seen Motoi Sakuraba did the music and bought it, to see immediately after that the lead character is an A-hole. I drop every game where a character boils my piss, FF10, Tales of Abyss, Valkyria Chronicles 4 and Xenoblade 3 being sone big ones that I just couldn't put up with. Well was already regretting my purchase. Honestly though the guy is a complete **** but not half as annoying as those in the games mentioned. The game looks amazing, the OST is amazing, the gameplay is fun. There are QoL settings in the pause menu, so if you missed something you need, you can get back to it quickly. There's very little grind. I'm not huge on deck builders, or turn based but I'm actually really enjoying this. It's fast paced and surprisingly simple to understand. I really have not wanted to put it down and have just stopped playing to recharge my controllers. The overall feel of the game, as in character writing and game world general vibe, reminds me of Neo Dimension Fantasian. I just really don't have anything negative to say.

I just don't get it. It's an OK platformer that looks like an 80's Commodore game. I just didn't find it fun to play, so I stopped. I'm not a huge fan of platformers but I really like a few, Tiny Kin, Mario Galaxy to name a couple but they were a fun play. I just didn't find Celeste very likeable at all. Tbh I had way more fun playing the Alex Kid Master System remake and that game is a bit clunky. Absolutely baffled by the glowing reviews for this. It should be a £1.30 eshop game.

One of the most overrated games ever. Graphics look like they are pieces of paper. When I saw trailers it looked nice but when I played, I thought it looked awful. Characters just walk straight through objects too, to the point it hust looked like lazy development. Very very clunky and not fun.

I don't care about graphics but these graphics really hamper gameplay, so it's a different story. Trying to figure out who is where. One of my lead characters had blonde hair in the portrait, then black hair on the map. It's just confusing to look at. I'm sure this game could have been a belter but the lack of controls and info within the maps makes it an absolute chore and just had me wanting to turn off and put fire emblem on. It's just a very messy way of seeing who your characters are and what their ranges are. I remember having a go on a game, might have been called Shining Force on the Mega Drive on NSO and it was way better than this. Quite frankly this looks like a good game that has been left an absolute mess and is stress, rather than fun. The whole visual aspect makes it an infuriatingly slow slog. You're just constantly trying to get the picture of layout, rather than strategising.

Wow, I want some of whatever people are smoking to rate this above RF5. RF5 might have major optimisation issues but it destroys this. Had more fun in one day of playing RF5 than I've had in a week of this. So it looks great. The actual farm looks awful but the rest has plenty of charm. The sound is a mixed bag. The music is kind of good but also a bit annoying. Definitely OK overall though, nothing making me want to turn the sound off. Gameplay. This is where it falls short. It's just boring. The controls aren't clunky at all but they're also not very tight. Days are just far too short. Obviously cozy games like this are repetitive by nature but this really feels like groundhog day. By the time you've done a tiny bit of farming, the day is gone and so is your stamina and you're off to bed. Again on the topic of stamina, the moment you go over, your health just gets wied out. A couple of accidental extra swings of the axe then you wake up with a fee. There's just nothing much to do, not a lot of fun to be had. Nothing special about the characters. Outside of lovely character art and a rather cheerful vibe, there's just no substance to this. I'm an old school gamer. I can make allowance for older games but people most have some seriously strong nostalgia glasses on to play this. It is the only farming game I have disliked and I've played quite a few and played thousands of hours. To name some of the better ones - **** Valley, Coral Island, Story of Seasons, RF Azuma, literally any other farming game I've played, including cheapo eshop £2 jobbies have been better. Very little to like sith RF3. So bored with it.

I'm not far in and wasn't sure if I'd like it after not liking Link's Awakening. I am playing on Switch 2 so don't know of it has terrible performance on Switch 1 like LA does but what a great game so far. It's like classic Zelda with a new twist. Really fun so far. It's not as good as Skyward Sword but in 2.5 hours with this I had way more fun than the 10 hours I spent with both LA and BotW. It feels like real Zelda again. I hope there are more proper Zelda's like this to come on Switch 2.

Well, I like Weeby stuff. I guess I am moderately Weeby but this game is so far past my threshold for cringe that it is completely ruined by it. Even when I knew noone could see what was on screen, I still felt embarrassed even though I was alone. The character writing in some cases is absolutely awful. After a while some new characters got introduced and not only did the level of cringe continue, it got worse. Graphically it's nice. It's a bit paper cut out like 13 Sentinels but without the horrible clunkiness of that game. OST is alright. I remember thinking a few tracks sounded nice but none stuck in my head, or had me looking for them on youtube. Gameplay is great. Grid based battles that are simple to get to grips with and fun. The outdoors sections of the game that look like a cheap board game aren't much fun. It's like Danganronpa vs Fire Emblem but without the charm of either. It was a really dumb move from the devs to ruin this with such ridiculous characters. They even manage to make the guy from Final Fantasy 10 seem palatable, they're literally that bad. Two in particular a little round kid and a brother, if you've played, then you'll know. I'm gonna keep this spoiler free though. If you haven't played Fire Emblem Three Houses and Danganronpa, then there is absolutely zero point in getting this inferior mixture of the two. Just play those instead. Anyone with a Switch should play Three Houses anyway, it's the best Switch game. 100 Line was a potentially top grade game, ruined by idiotic writing.

This would be a good game but ruined by rubbish controls. When I press jump, I expect sonic to jump, not 2 seconds later. You can't have a fast paced game with very slow controller response. Double jump is also dumb because if you jump against a wall, it clings on and jumps back the other way. The game can't tell if you want to double jump, or wall jump. It merges the two as it pleases which quite often ends with a double jump ending up jumping off a wall backwards in to an enemy behind you. It's a shame because it seems like a good game but ruined by poor controls. Not jumping when you press the jump button, in a game that revolves around jumping, is a pretty terrible oversight from the devs.

Wow, these reviews are wild. Very, very boring game. The styling is quite nice and the music ranges from OK to really good. It pretty much ends there though. Dungeons are super boring. If any other game had done pathetic dungeon's like those, it would have been ripped to pieces. Voice acting is incredibly annoying for most characters. Dialogue is passable. It feels really dated overall and like it would have provided just as little fun even in its era. This game actually made me feel guilty for the low scores I've given some other games recently. It just feels like going through the motions. There is nothing exciting. Nothing making me want to carry on playing. I don't care for most of the characters and if they suddenly got wiped out, I wouldn't be remotely bothered. I can't think of a turn based Switch 1 game I enjoyed less than this. Even from Kemco. The brave and default system doesn't particularly add much. I don't play an awful lot of turn based games but in recent years I can think of off the top of my head Romancing Saga 2 remake, Neo Dimension, Refantazio, Arafell, Digimon Cybersleuth, Rise of the 3rd Power, Octopath, Chained Echoes, Cosmic Star Heroine. Literally every game I can think of off the top of my head was more fun. I thought I was getting a bargain at £31. It was actually a rip off, it has not given me any value for that £31 at all. Just cost me money to drive an hour round trip to trade it in and lose £11 on the game cost plus fuel money. Pure ****. Might as well have just flushed cash down the ****.

OK, well lets get the elephant in the room out of the way. We all know these guys fail over and over to optimise games from 1 frame in 5 seconds on Pioneers of Olive Town and complete lag and stutter on Rune Factory 5 upon leaving any building and many times in between. Well true to form, there's plenty of lag here too in Guardians of Azuma. It's not a Switch 2 thing. This company just don't seem to have a grip on making software run smoothly, it is however far less annoying than those I mentioned and certainly not like that motion sickness inducing mess that Nintendo put out for Link's Awakening. It isn't there from the start and it showed for me around in game day 7. You might think Christ, that early but I do have most of farm 1 and a bit of farm 2 in that area already filled and lots of people in the town working and constantly active. I'm not excusing any of it because it shouldn't be happening, merely explaining that my area is pretty damn busy at a very early stage of the game. Why a 10 score then with these performance issues arising already after just a few evenings playing? It really isn't that immersion breaking and the game is really one of the best in its genre for what I've played of it so far. I don't score off an acumination of parts, I score based on my overall enjoyment. At first I wasn't sure I thought all a bit meh, average RF, SoS game. Then suddenly it all just opened up. It's a very tame introduction to give you a feel for the game and I thought that was it but then suddenly every aspect of the game just came to life. New characters, new stories, new travel, new exploration, new items, new quests, cooking, battles, bonding. Everything just suddenly turned up to 11. I'm finding it really exciting to play. I just had to come off because everyone was going to bed and I could have happily sat playing all night til the sun rises again. I think if you know about this game, then chance is you'll like it. It's not the sort of thing you just stumble on if you have not interest. It's an action JRPG, with farming, crafting, building and relationship sim where you get to romance someone with boobs 5 times the size they should be. It's super Weeby. If you haven't got a bit of Weeb in you, then stay clear, it will be a 0/10 for you. In Rune Factory style, there is just crazy amounts of stuff going on from battling giant monsters, to farming, to dating. What I like is that something just takes my interest but I don't feel like I'm stuck in that time constraint that many farming games frustrate you with. There's no stamina dieing with half of your tasks not done, you can just wander off from the story quest for a bit and do some side quests, or a bit of redesigning the farm. I never feel like the game has me pinned in a corner to do what it wants me to do, it has a decent sense of freedom. Not gonna lie, the control scheme on the farm is taking me a little bit of time to get used to. The mouse function though, OMG, so fast. You don't even have to tell it what to do sometimes. You can literally click hold and drag and it will harvest, you don't even have to release the button and it switches to water, then you do need to manually select seeds but again, just click and drag. No fertiliser in this game. You use magic to boost crops. There are some little quirks here and there such as trees obscuring the view of crops and a few other minor annoyances but overall the farming works really well. If you prefer to grind, you can. Just don't switch to mouse control. I'm finding I just pop one joycon out of the grip for sorting the farm woth the mouse, then back in to the grip for everything else. I would usually play with loose joycons but with this having action elements, I play with the grip. So then the action. Time stops for you to eat things for recovery, it freezes whilst you access items and items take effect before leaving the menu, meaning you don't get smashed because you're trying to find items whilst fighting. There is a good choice of weapons and upgrades. You will make use of a crossbow as a secondary weapon and it's all very customisable with 2 weapon slots and 3 defence clothing slots (all upgradable). You get to take a party to assist you. It has unlockable specials and magic, perfect dodge allows a slow mo attack, it's all really quite fun. There are all sorts to find, unlock and collect across the maps. Battles are a bit like modern Ys (8-10) controls. I feel like I can see all sorts of bits from other games in it but never thinking oh they've copied that. Like certain elements remind me of Zelda, some elements reminded me of Tales of games, some bits remind me of Xenoblade games. For me, as long as it carries on like it has been so far, then it's a masterpiece within its genre. I love it. If you aren't sure if this game is for you, it probably isn't. Save yourself 56 quid.

Accidental review. Metacritic jumped from Switch 2 to Switch 1 for some reason.

I will start by saying I score based on cost to fun ratio. If you want to score based on individual aspects then the score would be higher but looking pretty and controlling reasonably well etc does not make the game any more fun to me. It's a good game but that's all. It's far from great. It's just a boring play. I do prefer it to SonicXW cos Sonic felt really light. The cornering and drifting etc just feels powerless in Sonic XW and Mario Kart does have that illusion of weight, I'll give it that. However, it has uninspiring tracks and feels gimmicky. It's a step down from MK8 and MKWii. I find I play one cup and turn off, two at most, then don't play again for a long time. Nothing pulls me back in to play. If anything it just wastes disk space and I regularly delete it to use the space for other games. I tried the online but I'm a definitely more of a local player, not an online gamer. The online felt chaotic and I soon went off it after a day, or two. I don't like open world games anyway but the open world bit did have bits of fun to be had again though, got boring fast. I know some shops still sell at £75 but you can pick it up for £60 from reliable games companies online and I think that's in the right ball park for a first party game. I think you have to be really big on kart racers and delve deep in to this to really enjoy it and get your money's worth. If you're a casual kart gamer then Mario Kart 8 is way more fun for a quick pick up and play. Way more fun all round really. I think the issue lies in that Mario Kart isn't a game you buy, play and trade. Whereas usually a £60 game I would trade back in for £40 and I'm only out of pocket by £20. By nature MKW is one you keep and play again down the line and at £60 it really needs to be more fun than this for something that's not going to get traded. If I'm parting with a full £60, it needs to give me more for my money. I got this game day one as well as RF Guardians of Azuma. Azuma was worth every penny of the £65 but in the end cost me £23 after trade in. MK World cost me £35 digital and if I had to put a price on it's value to me, I'd say £8. Gameplay 5/10, value 2/10. I give an overall 3/10.

It jist isn't great. The art work is good but shows its age on modern TV's. Controls are clunky, brush is even worse. I spent ages trying to figure out a puzzle just to realise it wasn't a puzzle and I just needed to read a sign for the game to progress. Combat is pretty lame as are camera angles. It's a massively overrated game. It could have been amazing but poor execution of gameplay holds it back in so many ways. There is no reason to play a game like this unless you have exhausted all Zelda'sand Zelda likes and still want more. Fairune was way better than this. It looks **** but the gameplay is great. Okami is the other way round, looks nice but no fun.

This would be such a good game but it's so clunky. They really need a remake rather than HD remaster. I'm so sick of drawings not working right that it just becomes frustrating.