Good game overall, but sadly not fun enough to justify the huge time investment. (We’re talking 50+ hours for the main story + side quests.) Combat often feels boring and repetitive—there’s no nuance or strategy, 99% of the time you just spam your strongest move (which have agonisingly long, unskippable animations by the way. These get longer and longer as you unlock more powerful moves) and wait for it to be over. Sidequests include the usual offenders of fetch quests, walking simulator quests, and, in a couple of cases, loot grinding. Which is a shame because the story is genuinely interesting. The game does have a good soul, it’s just hampered by boring, repetitive combat and generic sidequests that pad the length out far longer than it needed to be.
TLDR: Mediocre but passable gameplay with rubbish story. If you love Metroid Prime games then I'm sure you'll love this too but I found it underwhelming. It feels like they've done nothing to improve on the concept since the first game 20 years ago—if anything, it's worse. The areas are more linear, so there's little sense of exploration. A boring open-world section has been added. The controls and gameplay itself have barely changed since the original, which is a shame because it just doesn't feel that fun to control Samus in 2025. Combat lacks player feedback and falls flat. The graphics are incredibly inconsistent—sometimes looking great but other times looking ugly or uncanny (most objects in the environment fall into the latter category, and have a low-quality, maybe(?) AI-generated, feel to them). Boss fights still drag on just like they did in the first game. There are some interesting cinematic moments and story beats but nothing groundbreaking. Unfortunately the storyline itself is utter garbage with the most rubbish, unfulfilling ending I've ever experienced that made me feel like playing the game was a huge waste of time, and I regret that I wasted a whole weekend on it. Overall I had a bit of fun with this but I would have been happier to have spent my time and money elsewhere.
Very solid game overall. Interesting mechanics, fun boss fights, and less obtuse story / lore compared to the original Hollow Knight which is a plus for me. The game of course is challenging, and its main weakness is that in certain areas this difficulty leans too far toward being simply irritating or punishing rather than a fun challenge. Thankfully most of the time I found it to be the latter. There are also many optional side quests here; these are pretty hit-and-miss as some lead to fun exploration or boss fights, but others are just MMO-style filler! (ie., "kill X of enemy Y using weapon Z"—not exactly respectful of the player's time) But on the whole this is definitely recommended; you do need to be willing to push through the occasional poor decision made by the developers to enjoy this otherwise great experience, but don't let that put you off.
I came in understanding this to be a spiritual successor to the phenomenal Mario Odyssey, which it certainly seems to be. Sadly, it falls short of Odyssey in every way. I would unhesitatingly recommend it to anyone who enjoys platforming/action-adventure/collecting type games—but only with the caveat that it's not as good as Mario Odyssey (aesthetics aren't as pleasing; gameplay isn't as fun or dynamic; story is functional but I felt it was structured wierdly; far too easy and the only difficult moments are janky/frustrating difficulty, not the good kind of challenge). Goes to show that high production value and good ideas don't necessarily make a stellar game. Please do play it if you're into these kind of games like I am, but temper your expectations.
Absurdly overrated. You progress to unlock decks and other modifiers but the mechanics really just stay the same. After a few runs you realise you're just doing the same thing over and over with no real progression or variation... What's the point? There's only 1 music track which gets old really fast and the visuals are nice but they get old fast too. Play if you want to experience what the hype's all about—but don't expect anything life-changing.
Amazing game!! I'll confess I would never have even known it existed were it not for the free Epic giveaway that put it in my hands. However, I'm so glad it did, because this was a rock-solid experience. Like Advance Wars or Fire Emblem but the overall systems were better in my opinion—combining RNG card-battling with tile-based, turn-based combat actually works and the way you can customise your decks going into battle is really cool too. Lots of variety available especially with the free DLC. Great aesthetic, great music, great gameplay, simple and accessible story... why wouldn't you play it?
Absolutely solid game. I'm really surprised the average user score here isn't very high (response bias?)—on Steam it's classed as "Overwhelmingly positive." Like the studio's previous game, Sunshine Heavy Industries, this one has beautiful and very consistent aesthetic throughout, as well as lovely music and sounds (many SFX are filtered to give the impression you're really in space; it's quite cool). There is an overarching narrative tying the character's stories together that is really fun to discover as you play through and unlock more characters and ships. Above all, and most importantly, IT'S FUN. Deck-building roguelikes can get stale really fast, but this one is a real joy to play. I got fed up with the two other deck-building roguelikes I've played because they just weren't fair—success was dependent on getting the right setup, which is purely luck-based, and if you don't get the perfect combination of cards and relics/artifacts (or whatever the game calls them) you're screwed. That issue is just not present in Cobalt Core! Every run feels winnable, even if you don't have some crazy broken combination of cards and artifacts. That said, having the right card can really give you a power boost, so it hasn't been toned down too much. The stories this game will generate for you are awesome too—in my first hard mode run I had two situations where I was sure I was doomed, but with a bit of thinking found a way to play my hand that let me survive near-fatal attacks with a couple HP remaining, and then **** my way through to victory. That moment when it looks like your run is over but you find the optimum way to play your cards—again, without relying on luck to give you some crazy broken combos like other deck-builders do—and it turns out you'll live to keep fighting is priceless, and I can't think of any other games that have given me that experience. A must-play in my opinion.
TL;DR: GET THIS GAME! :)Good indie games are hard to find—some of the lucky ones blow up and get famous but there are many great games made by small teams that don't get advertised enough or don't get found by that famous YouTuber and sadly remain obscure. I think Sunshine Heavy Industries is one such **** team behind this game has, in my opinion, done just about everything right: the graphics are elegant and consistent in style, the core gameplay loop is satisfying and fun, the writing is hilarious, and the relaxing electronic music is heart-meltingly beautiful and perfectly fitting for the game's overall vibes and **** the unfamiliar, this game is about building space ships according to certain specifications. The closest thing I can compare it to is Dragon Quest Builders where rooms have to meet certain criteria to correctly be classified as that room, but it leans more heavily into that idea with a currency system so that you have to both meet the requirements and make a profit on each ship. Doing that alone is usually fairly easy, but you can sort of choose your own level of challenge by considering what you want the ship to look like too. If you meet the requirements but think the ship is ugly, then you have the challenge of tidying it up before submitting it. Fixing one problem often creates another, leading to a satisfying loop of refining your ship until you're happy with it. As you progress, the requirements become more complex with many new types of ships and parts being added into the mix, so the gameplay doesn't get stale. It's a hidden gem that I think anyone interested should definitely pick up!
Excellent game. As you probably know, it's basically a top-down version of Terraria or Minecraft, but in my opinion vastly superior to both. Minecraft has hideous visuals, while Core Keeper is beautiful to look at. Terraria has the infuriating issue of being CONSTANTLY bombarded by enemy attacks, always preventing you from doing what you are trying to do. Core Keeper, conversely, is much more respectful of the player, typically allowing you to engage enemies on your own terms. It's also easier to prevent enemies spawning where you don't want them to be. So you have the freedom to build a house, craft items, farm animals and plants, and cook food without being constantly bothered (unless you set up your base in a spot with a lot of enemy spawn tiles, but you can remove those to "cleanse" it anyway as mentioned above). 10+ hours in so far and 2 bosses defeated, and I haven't been pestered by the stupid bloodmoons, goblin hordes or any trash like that that happens in many other survival crafting games. I've had enemies appear around my base 2-3 times causing minor damage, and that's plenty; enough to give you a reason to think about traps and securing your base, but not so much as to detract from your main goals. So this is a welcome difference that makes me want to keep playing. If you've never played either of the abovementioned games, but think you like the idea of survival crafting and building game, it's excellent for the asking price (especially as it's 50% off on a couple stores), so give it a go. Beautiful graphics; a fun and engaging gameplay loop of exploring, collecting resources and building; easy to jump into and back out of on your own time, and great fun either solo or with a friend(s).
Fun game with stunning animations. If you liked the Ori games or Hollow Knight, and enjoy the spy action movie type themes (gadgets and guns) I highly recommend this.
First Sonic game I've ever played and honestly it was pretty meh. I think many of the raving reviews are based on nostalgia not actual fun value of the game itself. Taken on its own merit it's really not that fun. Controls are clunky and frustrating and difficulty level is unreasonable compared to other modern platformers that are a lot more forgiving. Celeste for example I've completed 100%, because while difficult is also very fun and very forgiving. This game has neither of those two qualities. I like how the game contains bonus and special stages but likewise these are clunky and frustrating to play and if you fail one, you don't get another chance without replaying the entire main level to get back to it—for every attempt. So much frustration for bonus games that aren't really even fun. I really like the pixel art though so it gets points for that. My advice would be give it a miss unless you already know you love Sonic games as for me the fun factor was just totally absent. Go play Celeste or a Mario game if you want a platformer that's fun and easy to pick up.
Not terrible, but massively overrated. Absolutely wonderful pixel art / overall art direction and style, and the music is great too. (The music's not particularly memorable, but does the job fine.) The combat is simplistic but fun, and there are a few heartwarming story moments. That's where the positives end though. On the Switch, there are performance issues (slowdown, and the game crashes when loading a new area after playing for over an hour or so, forcing you to reload). The plot has more holes than Swiss cheese, and leaves you full of questions at the end. There are so many things that feel like they should've been explained that haven't. The irony is, the game is chock-full of cutscenes and dialogue, but the focus of 99% of these is random side characters and info that is irrelevant to the main story. The game therefore comes across as being very narrative-focused but really has very little overarching narrative at all. Gameplay-wise, there are some good puzzles, and combat scenarios, but they do end up getting a bit samey. It would've been nice to see a bit more variety there too. Overall, the game isn't bad, but it isn't anything stellar either. I'd recommend it if, like me, you were attracted by the wonderful art style, but you aren't picky about a quality story. Otherwise, maybe find something else.
Fun to play overall but excessively difficult in my opinion. I get that roguelikes are meant to be challenging, but if you can never finish after many runs (I think I've done a couple dozen by now) then I think the bar is set too high. Maybe I'm just crap at it, but many of the situations it throws at you seem excessively unfair to me. Note that there is no story and no meaningful changes between runs. You can unlock new characters and areas, but progress for this is very very slow, even though I paid extra for the coin doubler, which is frustrating. Worth buying if you like the card mechanics like me, but don't expect it to be a satisfying experience in the long term.
Awesome game! The lighting effects are beautiful and the mechanics are solid. There's nothing quite so satisfying as watching objects in the room get smashed as you whale on the ghosts! It is a bit rough around the edges—you can tell it wasn't developed by Nintendo themselves; it's not up to the standard of Breath of the Wild or Mario Odyssey in terms of polish. Also beware that it is a bit short; I've only clocked 5 hours and I'm about halfway through the story at the time of writing. Because it's so fun I feel like I'd be happy to play it a second time to find all the secrets so the value isn't all that bad though. Also, don't get it for the multiplayer—I found these components a bit lacklustre. There are three minigames a bit like in the Mario Party games that don't really have lasting value. There's also a multiplayer arcade mode that uses the same mechanics as single player but I find it a bit dry. Single-player co-op works well however and is much better then the pathetic co-op experience in Odyssey. Odyssey's co-op was ok for laughs but wasn't really playable, whereas you could actually enjoy the story with a friend playing along in this game. Overall, it's a very fun experience that is otherwise well thought-out and executed. No regrets buying it at launch; even if it isn't the amazing experience offered by BotW or Odyssey, this one's definitely a keeper along with the other top Switch games.
Fun to play and relaxed pace. Kind of a mix of Age of Empires and Clash of Clans! Controls are handled excellently for a console RTS too—game is so easy to play with a controller. I love what they've done with this side of it. Unfortunately performance on the Switch is disappointing. Low frame rate when moving camera, stutters, and there are no shadows, not even blob shadows! This is pretty sad in my opinion as the game has very simplistic graphics and I believe the Switch could easily handle it if it were optimised well. Developers Shiro Games were were reasonably quick to patch some of the crash issues but they are yet to do anything to improve optimisation, and a few crashes still exist. (I've experienced crashes on both loading and saving games since the patch.) They seem eager to gather feedback from players and improve the game. On the flipside, I was really disappointed in how Shiro have been constantly advertising the new Northgard Conquest content update... but never mentioned anywhere that this update actually would not be available on console versions. It makes me sad that they were not open in their advertising about Conquest would be available, and show so little consideration for players who have been made to feel left out. (Yesterday they tweeted, "So who's enjoying Conquest so far?" Well, obviously not console gamers...) And unlike the performance issues, they don't seem very responsive to questions / comments about this issue on social media. It seems possible that the console versions will never have the same content as on PC. Overall it's a fun game, but it's cheaper and has more content now in the PC version, and as I've mentioned the graphics are terrible on Switch. You may wish to go for the PC version instead, although I'm opting to keep mine as I prefer to game on Switch and I'm hoping that in future the game will be improved with the same content as on PC.
Really solid title, extremely well-presented and fun to play. The dungeon maker minigame is actually a lot of fun; it's basically a puzzle-solving game that you beat by using rooms from dungeons you've already cleared plus a few specially-made ones. I was suprised by how much I liked this aspect of it. Overall cute characters, fun minigames, a well-presented world with fun combat and exciting exploration; it's got everything I like in an adventure game. You can tell it's a third-party remake though; sometimes it's a bit rough around the edges (slow frame rate when first entering an area, no antialiasing, sometimes weird animations, motion isn't truly analogue with only 8 directions you can move). I got over that pretty quickly though and just settled in for the ride. Just don't compare it to Breath of the Wild (which is the best game I've ever played), since it's totally different. If you take it for what it is—a remake **** from nearly 30 years ago—it's great. If you're not sure about the classic Zelda games as compared to BotW, check out A Link to the Past on SNES, which is now available for free on Switch if you are a Nintendo Switch Online subscriber. A Link to the Past is REALLY similar to this one. (Both games are of the same generation.) Overall a great experience of a classic game with all the bells and whistles of modern games (including markers the player can place on the map to help you remember to go back for things—a really really good addition!!!). Not quite perfect, but cute, fun and well worth the purchase.
It's not an awful game, but honestly it just isn't very fun. The pace is infuriatingly slow (it takes forever just for you to move around) and you spend the majority of your time just waiting for money to come in so you can actually do something. Or you wait forever for things to build. It's like Clash of Clans or something. Many elements of the game are extremely frustrating. For example, once you build a guard tower or a ship, your archers are stuck inside that for the rest of the game, so too bad if you need them to defend your borders from enemy attacks later. The game also does next to nothing to explain to you what everything does. Some things are self-explanatory or can be inferred, but not everything. I spent a gem to unlock this hermit girl who was immediately attacked and kidnapped. Would've been good if the game could let me know spending that gem would release a kidnappable human BEFORE I wasted it. Learning the hard way is great IRL but this is a GAME, isn't it supposed to be fun? The pace gets even slower as you get close to conquering an island as people seem to stop spawning entirely, making it impossible to continue doing anything, especially if you have died and respawned with few workers already, basically breaking your game. (Unless I've missed something, once you expand past the spawn points for recruits, you can't get any more so if you have no builders at that point you can never build again.) It's a catch 22 because you need to expand out to win, but expanding out eliminates the resources you need to be able to win. Incredibly frustrating that this game feels so broken in its mechanics and there are so many ways you can get yourself in a situation where it's impossible to progress, or you spend 90% of your time waiting around for something to happen. Graphics are also quite lacking in my opinion. I grow very weary of this modern fad for everything to look like a SNES game. It's 2018 for goodness sake, can't developers make games that actually look nice? Finally, it's still early days for this game, but there are few bugs and glitches so even if you're interested might be worth waiting until the patch comes out in early 2019. I got **** into buying this by all the extremely positive reviews here on Metacritic so I guess this review is a counterpoint to that. I'm sure it's great for some people but if you don't like slow-paced, frustrating strategy games that feel like mobile base-building games but with worse graphics, don't buy this. I feel like it has the potential to be something awesome (the fundamental concepts of resource management, defense and expansion, and simplicity of it are great) but somehow it just does't actually work together into a satisfying experience due to how easy it is for your progress to be blocked.
This is fundamentally an enjoyable game but I simply don't believe it is worth the high scores it is getting, especially for the exorbitant $120 AU (around $85 US, and the huge difference in price between countries is another issue entirely!) I paid for the Standard digital edition. Firstly, the mechanics are intrinsically fun. It is fun to fly your ship around, change weapons on the fly (very easy with digital version) and blast your enemies. The worlds in the game are pretty and in general I think the art style is well done. It really does look beautiful when you fly around the planet and create your own sunrises and sunsets! Music and sound are done very well too IMO, and being able to freely fly between worlds is a great idea. However, there are so many things wrong with this game I just don't see how anyone can give it a 10. Some things that I find offputting and would warn others about too are as follows: - This is NOT a Star Fox game, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Great Fox and ROB are not present, and the Star Fox characters are obviously tacked on. They are included in the opening cutscene and given their own sidequest in the game, but what disappointed me was that during a pivotal cutscene halfway through the game, Fox (who I had been playing as the entire time) was conspicuously absent. It just felt weird and disconnected the way it had been done. An admirable attempt by Ubisoft, though, and if you weren't coming in expecting a Star Fox game then you won't be disappointed. Think of Fox as a bonus character. - The pay-for-parts system is obviously a complete ripoff. I thought I would be fine with the Digital Standard edition since you get one of each weapon type. This allows me to exploit all enemy vulnerabilities and open all types of treasure chest. However even with this there are things locked behind a paywall. Mainly, there are 35 upgrades you can unlock throughout the course of the game. However, 12 of these require you to level up certain characters (4 upgrades each for Eli, Kharl and Shaid) all of whom are conveniently missing from the Digital Standard edition. I paid $120 AU and there are still features locked behind a paywall. Sad. - The graphics are clunky and don't look current-gen on the Switch at least. Transitions from space-to-planet look pretty bad, and you can tell the disc-shaped planet you were flying into is turning into a flat terrain within the game's engine as you descend. It just looks bad to me. - The control scheme can occasionally be irritating, mainly because with inverted flight controls turned on, they for some reason become non-inverted during certain sequences, requiring you to put up with reverse movement for those sequences. Even worse, motion aiming (which would have been a fantastic feature) is only available when zoomed in by clicking the right stick, and with inverted flight controls, the motion controls are also inverted, meaning pushing the controller down makes your ship aim up and vice-versa! Seriously?! How did that one make it through testing? - Gameplay elements are extremely copy-and-paste style. You raid pirate bases throughout the game, but they are all identical! Some characters only have 1 line of dialogue recorded for a given event, so get used to hearing Razor say "I'm picking up some wreckage near your position. Might be worth checking out" hundreds of times whenever you find loot in space (she keeps saying it repeatedly while you stay near it too). The gameplay itself, while inherently fun, is very repetitive, with only a limited number of enemy and mission types to pursue throughout the game. The different planets offer a lot of variety but you are still doing the same things with just a different look. - The main story is very short. I don't understand how Ubi thought they would make money by releasing a Wave 2 of ships/weapons/etc., since everyone will have finished the game by then! I haven't finished it yet and will update this if my perspective changes but it seems to me that there's really nothing to keep people coming back, let alone spend further money on an already expensive game. That said, I have my fingers crossed for some hefty content updates from Ubisoft, but I guess we'll see. Bottom line: I don't regret buying this game; even with all its glaring flaws it is still fundamentally a well-presented and fun experience. I would advise interested players to give it a go if you are willing to spend the money, but it certainly is far from good value-for-money compared to games like Odyssey or BotW in terms of both quality and the amount of time you'll have playing it. I would strongly advise against getting a physical edition, too, unless you want to spend hundreds on the toys or individual DLC purchases, as the provided weapons are very limited outside of the two digital editions. Thanks for reading and hope this helped. :)
Don't understand why this is so underrated. I loved it. The controls are creative, intuitive and fun. People complaining about it maybe because it was before its time. Motion controls in BotW and Android PUBG make aiming so much better and it was the same here before either of them. The only downside to this game is the challenge medals. You have to look up a guide to find them otherwise you'd be repeating the same level a zillion times which would get old fast. Definitely pick this one up.
Kinda cool but unfortunately not quite worth the money. The visuals are good (aside from the character art, ugh) but I dislike the inconsistency between beautiful 3D maps and cheap-looking sprites for soldiers. Sounds are pretty good, a bit clunky at times but simple and very fitting for the game. Gameplay-wise the core concept is amazing. Aside from slightly awkward camera controls the gameplay is brilliant: you control four units with three types to select from each with their own uses and tactically defend your island. It's a lovely idea and the the way you control your troops is quite fluid, not perfect but pretty good. Where this game falls apart is the insane difficulty level toward the end. As other users have said already there is no sense of reward when you put hours into a long and difficult campaign to just lose in the third last island, and then that's it. Game over, start again; no rewards or unlockables to make your next playthrough different. A "tactical rogue-lite" is how it's advertised so maybe I should've known better because I struggle with the idea behind rogue-likes... But the permadeath simply makes no sense in a game like this and after one play through with nearly unbeatable odds at the end you really don't feel like trying again. This game might be great for people who are happy to practise over and over again to do a no deaths speedrun in Celeste, or who love rogue-likes. But for the average gamer who wants to retry a level after losing, it's really frustrating and off-putting. I guess putting yourself in the mindset of an arcade game or an endless runner, where you are just lasting as long as you can until you fail, might help a little bit, but it's weird because there actually is a final island and a game could last a couple hours (you can save and continue though). Basically IMO it'd be so much more fun if the permadeath was optional or the difficulty was toned down even just on the final 3 or 4 levels. Definitely worth a go though if you are content with the mindset that it's like Tetris or something and you're just seeing how far you get, not actually thinking about "winning." On the plus side, there were a few game-breaking bugs that the developer promptly patched. The game is still being worked on by its developers and that's really encouraging to see.
