Tails of Iron 2: Whiskers of Winter

2021’s Tails of Iron was my favourite game of that year. It was a deeply charming title, with souls-lite combat, exploration of a beautifully realised and reactive world, and a simple, yet well told, story, all narrated by the wonderfully gravelly tones of Geralt of Rivia himself. I’d happily compare it favourably to genre-titan Hollow Knight; though the pace of combat is certainly slower, there is much of the same combination of charm and challenge. Tails of Iron 2: Whiskers of Winter then, asks the all-important question: What if we did that again, but more?

I’ve been recently wary of sequels, noting a trend to tighten up and expand on mechanics while losing something of the charm or narrative focus of their predecessor. Horizon: Forbidden West and Fallen Order: The Other One both fell into this trap for me, with the moment-to-moment gameplay feeling tweaked, streamlined and improved, but the narrative and character work that drew me into their forerunners sadly lacking. Whiskers of Winter, in its opening, had me very fearful, though fortunately this trepidation did not last.

The game opens with a cinematic, as is the tradition, establishing our new protagonist, Arlo, as the probably-brother of the first game’s Reggie, a bastard son of the old king raised in the very Winterfell castle of Winter’s Edge. The Game of Thrones influence, already quite strong in the first game, is certainly dialed up here, though by and large I think this works. Narratively what follows is a near carbon copy, beat for beat, of the opening of Tails of Iron. You do a little training. You have some cool, high level gear. Then, the Big Bad shows up and wrecks the place, killing your father/father figure, leaving you with broken gear and a quest for revenge. Having recently replayed some of Tails of Iron in preparation for this review, the deja vu was striking.

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At a Glance

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Fortunately, then, when the game gets going it does find its feet. Arlo’s quest is more wide ranging than Reggie’s was, taking in far broader views of its quasi-medieval woodland critter world. Tails of Iron was, for most of its run, quite focused in its story of rats versus frogs, only really branching out into weirder territory with the Metro 2033-styled moles towards the end. Whiskers of Winter is, from the get go, much more willing to break out of that, sending you quickly to explore a forest full of owls, badgers, snakes and scorpions in one direction, fish-people and even friendly(ish) frogs in the other. The Owls were particularly charming, governed by a parliament (of course) and reminiscent of the board game Root as much as the original games Redwall by way of George R R Martin.

The supporting cast are, much like in the first game, lightly sketched but well drawn, with recurring allies popping up and quickly recognisable. The art style is very much the same as the first game, side by side the two appear largely identical, but with a game of this type that’s no bad thing. Character design, world design and artistic vision are the focus here, rather than fancy effects. This is slightly let down in some of the battles against larger creatures, where the lack of a turning-around frame in the animation is a little more noticeable (looking at you, giant snake-thing).

Gameplay is where I think the tendrils of sequel-itis are most strongly felt. The combat and exploration in Tails of Iron was relatively simple – you had your normal attack, your strong attack, block, parry, dodge and a bow. Enemies telegraphed attacks well enough, and there was a nice weightiness to the combat that I enjoyed a great deal. There were some niggles, certainly. It wasn’t always clear when a hit had been landed on you, with no real stagger mechanic, meaning you couldn’t always tell when you’d taken a hit if it wasn’t one that knocked you across the screen. Some telegraphed attacks also seemed very difficult to counter.

The second point has been nicely addressed, with the big red-circle ‘dodge-me’ attacks now showing a clear marker of where, exactly, you need to dodge. I’ve found this greatly eased the readability of some of the more frenetic fights, or those against big monsters. This is especially noticeable when playing on a smaller screen, which I appreciated as I have mostly been playing this on my SteamDeck, on which it both runs and looks delightful. The first point, though, remains an issue, with the occasional fight being cut short by Arlo dying, despite me not really noticing that I was taking any damage.

Slightly compounding this is the sequels biggest, and perhaps most controversial, change. Oddbug have leaned very heavily into elemental damages. Everything in the game is now dealing not only normal damage, but also a special extra damage – fire, electric, poison, ice, etc., and all your armours have extra resistances, or weaknesses, against these. All enemies both deal and resist different elements too. It’s a big jump from the very basic enemy-type based resistances of Tails of Iron, and one that I think adds a lot more complexity without necessarily adding depth.

As such, you will find certain areas significantly harder if you don’t equip yourself correctly. Equipment changes can now be done on the fly rather than at certain locations, which was a change I disliked initially, as it removed an element of planning and commitment that I liked about the first game, but which is absolutely necessary now – running through a centipede nest with a poison spear was a grueling experience, as the enemies largely ignored most of the damage I was inflicting on them.

I felt this change lost a bit of the grounded world of the first game, elevating it to something far more high-fantasy than the gritty world that had been created, with every weapon in the game being, essentially, a magic weapon. There is also a LOT of equipment. I’m always a big fan of breaking up the armour set into lots of pieces, so was happy to see separate pauldrons making an appearance, but the amount of weapons, two-handed weapons, bows, crossbows, shields, hats, armours and pauldrons to sort through is quickly ARPG-style overwhelming. The UI here is also not great at quickly identifying what is good against what is bad. The inventory UI in Tails of Iron was certainly nothing to write home about either, but it was simple and you weren’t dealing with an overwhelming volume of choices. You’d also pick a loadout and run with it, rarely changing during the mission unless you found something particularly good. Here, inventory management is very much ‘A Thing’, and unfortunately the tools you have to carry it out are lacking.

Overall, despite my misgivings about the additions made to the basic formula, I’ve still got a lot of affection for Whiskers of Winter. I’m a sucker for this art style and world design; woodland critters cosplaying Game of Thrones will never not be a superb aesthetic, a perfect mixture of grimdark and adorable. Expanding it beyond the rats was a great choice, and I love the places that decision takes us. The basics of the gameplay and the combat are still really solid, and while I think the extra complexity of the elemental damage system muddies that somewhat and weakens the world-building, if you’re a mechanics-and-systems kind of player, you’ll likely enjoy it far more than I did. 

In the interest of full disclosure, VGamingNews was provided with a copy of the game in order to conduct this review.

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Warden’s Will

As I sit at my desk, writing the title of the game, it has just dawned on me how clever the title actually is. Warden’s Will – is it referring to the will of the wardens you take control of as you fight to survive, or is it the will they leave for their comrades in the inevitable deaths that follow? After many runs spanning many hours, I can confidently say that it is both. Developed and published by ELYZIO, this roguelite third-person movement shooter takes inspiration from titles such as Risk of Rain and Warframe, and simplifies them down to the core of what makes them a good, fun challenge. Playable solo or with up to three other players co-op, each stage delivers a very satisfying flurry of on-screen mayhem, testing your mechanical skill and quick decision making, as you battle your way to the final boss. Runs will be multiple, deaths will be plenty, but where there’s a will, there’s a way.

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This is an abridged version of our GAME NAME video review, which can be seen here:

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The intro to the game caught my attention, with its AC/DC-like track behind a great art style, not shying away from the knowledge that death is a part of progression. You start the game as your first of four total unlockable wardens, you have the freedom to roam the training hub, where you can swap and test out a couple of guns and abilities before jumping into your first run.

The concept of the game is akin to Risk of Rain, with its own flavour. There are five stages, and you progress to the next stage by finding and up-linking three transmitters within the level that then open the breach. The breach transports you to a boss arena, where you must defeat the big bad robot to then progress to the next stage. In order to up-link a transmitter, you have to gather green gems acquired from defeating enemies and then stay within a certain perimeter of it. Green beams are emitted from a completed transmitter that then give the direction of the other two; once all three are complete, they point toward the breach. 

You still with me? Good.

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At A Glance

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Within each stage, you also collect money from destroying enemies that allows you to do a few different things – some pods allow you to choose one of three randomly generated upgrades which are only kept for that specific run. Another pod will give you additional ‘bytes’ which act as the meta progression currency, these are the only thing retained after the run is over. You can also find reboot stations to grant an additional life for that run should you die.  All in all, a tried and tested formula, which for me, works well.

When I mentioned simplicity before, I really meant it. There is a primary shot and an alternate fire specific to each gun; there’s a unique movement ability, and two combat abilities specific to each warden. And that’s it… well kind of… The beauty is how you combine these mechanics whilst managing your stamina bar and gun temperature. You learn quickly that you not only need to always be on the move, but also move methodically to maximise your few abilities and cooldowns. For example, I enjoy playing as the ninja/samurai warden. His movement feels so slick and smooth, especially as you gradually improve your stamina bar. He can perform a linear dash in any direction and has combat abilities that provide extra movement, as well as destructive power. Now, initially I felt like my wings were literally clipped, switching away from the flying warden, but with clever resource management and upgrades, you can essentially suspend yourself in the air for so long that Hermes himself would wonder if you nicked off with his winged sandals.

Let’s talk about progression. The meta coins – or bytes – are collected during each run and are used to unlock either a new warden, unlock a new gun, or upgrade your base health, shield, or stamina pools. Each of the four wardens have their unique movement and abilities, and the guns can be used by any one for them. Initially the bytes were very hard to save up, and the unlockables were expensive, making for slow progression. This, however, has since been balanced and has much better pacing.

Now, some weapons I felt were better than others across the board, as well as being more fun to use. The three most impactful ones, in my opinion being the railgun – where precision is rewarded with high damage output and piercing shots. The lava gun – where sustained hits lead to explosive results with grouped enemies. And the minigun – where rapid fire enhanced with the correct upgrades meant its fire rate would shred through the hoard. Each gun does encourage different play styles, and this variation is key to keep runs fresh and interesting.  

The art style may divide opinion, but I feel that, again, the beauty is in the simplicity. There is a smooth colour palette with a cartoon-like, almost hand drawn, feel to it; the design tries to allow for the mess of attacks on screen to be differentiated as best possible so that you can avoid them, or at least try to. As the mayhem builds and as the enemies themselves ramp up in difficulty, so too does the accompanying music. Early on seeming quite distant and unassuming, it becomes more dynamic, scaling with the intensity of the gameplay making it more immersive. Even when sat through the end credits, the cyberpunk like beat had me head bopping as I punched the air in celebration.

The first time I saw the credits roll was more a sigh of relief more than anything else, as each run would take me about 60-70 minutes, so naturally falling to the final boss had me rage quitting each time. At this point in time, there isn’t much else to the game once you complete a run. The stages are all the same, although with the latest update, you can now play them in any order. The enemies are also the same each time, including the bosses and types of waves that come at you. The variation comes from your different wardens and the different guns. At least so far, the developers are very active and constantly working on updates and balances. They have a thriving discord community which allows them to listen to player feedback and provide further updates, and their roadmap is very encouraging, as it looks like there are lots of new features and improvements on the horizon.

I was very thankful for receiving a free Steam code from PressEngine in order to review Warden’s Will. I was able to get a couple of mates to join in on the action, as currently on Steam you can grab it for just shy of £13. It’s always chaotic fun when you get the band together, each being able to utilize the strengths of the different guns and wardens. Each person has their own pool of coins and gems, meaning the transmitter up link is faster. Upgrading is individualised, so you will have to find your own pod to augment yourself. If one of you dies, you become a sparkling orb, where you are at the mercy for one of your pals to collect you and take you to a revive station, which they need to stay close to as you get reconstructed. Jumping in and out of a session is straightforward, and performance only occasionally dipped when the bullets started to envelop the screen.

All in all, I had a good time with Warden’s Will, the difficulty felt like a good balance of tough yet satisfying, rewarding fast movement and quick thinking. In its current state it can feel limited in its replayability once you unlock everything and complete a run or two. But with a promising road map of what’s to come, I would say it is definitely worth picking up and testing your mettle.

In the interest of full disclosure, VGamingNews was provided with a copy of the game in order to conduct this review.

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Jack Axe

Life, death, taxes and Drew buying indie platform games. The only absolutes in the universe. 

Bought on Boxing Day 2022, I remember buying Jack Axe, the tiny platformer from Keybol Games, because the visuals reminded me of a cross between Grapple Dog and Celeste, and the mechanics seemed right up my alley. After ploughing through a bunch of other small games, but no platformers in a while, I felt it was time I got this one sorted – aiming to see it off in one sitting.

At first, getting around feels pretty good. Jack is easy enough to control on terra firma, has a nice bouncy jumping arc, a handy double-jump and an infinite wall kick for scaling tight spaces. After only a few minutes you’ll unlock the rest of Jack’s abilities, which come courtesy of a long lost artefact, in the shape of a bloody big axe. You can launch the axe in (almost) any direction, then, while it’s in flight, you can push the button again to fling Jack towards it, effectively making the axe both a weapon and a means of getting around. To keep things challenging, you can only use the axe dash once whilst you’re airborne; you have to touch the ground again to reset the ability. Launching yourself about is quick and easy, and it only takes a few minutes for you to get the hang of the physics and understand Jack’s limitations.

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Jack Axe At a Glance

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The idea is for you to explore the world and collect hidden gemstones, known as runes. After collecting a bunch of these, you spend them to activate a portal which will take you to the next world, where it’s rinse and repeat. You might also want to pick up gold coins on your travels; they’re scattered around the world and come as rewards for killing the enemies, which infinitely respawn. Coins can be used to open doorways to small areas that hold a few of the trickiest runes to collect, as well as housing a big boss enemy. Why are we collecting all this stuff? Well, that’s not entirely clear, since the story is hinted at once for about 30 seconds before being abandoned entirely. But then, it’s not like you need a deep and meaningful plot to make a two-button platformer work.

The level design is simple but effective. Each world is a semi-open zone, and has lots of little areas that you can explore to your hearts’ content. There are runes tucked away in all sorts of hard to reach places, and you’re encouraged to go snooping around everywhere you can find. It’s nice that you’re not restricted to collecting the runes in any specific order, and being able to wander around under your own direction helps offer a fun sense of exploration. 

The visual style is super sweet, with brightly coloured environments and enemies that are characterful whilst retaining a certain home-brewed simplicity. Perhaps inspired by Celeste, Jack has a squat little design that makes the areas seem huge by comparison, and opens the door for some huge looking boss monsters, whose designs are something of a mixed bag. I don’t have a single thing in my notes about the sound design, which means it was fine, I guess? I suppose there’s worse things for music to be than forgettable.

Sadly, the longer I played Jack Axe, the longer the laundry list of problems became. It almost became a checklist of what you don’t want in a platformer. Spiked floors that sometimes didn’t kill you and let you carry on. Jumping clear over enemies and dying anyway. Hitting the button to activate the axe dash and it not registering, or worse, the ability activating but you bumping into nothing and immediately falling to your demise. Since you lose some coins every time you die, it becomes a chore to continually collect them, knowing full well that a fair amount of your bounty will end up going straight down the drain, thanks to nothing more than poor luck and worse coding.

What’s most frustrating is knowing that if all this was just made more stable, Jack Axe would actually be a simple but solid platformer that’s pretty easy to recommend. Sure, it doesn’t have anything that would set the world alight, but with the cutesy graphics, and the open but manageable levels, it would only take tightening the screws (albeit significantly) to make this a much more enjoyable experience. 

Adding insult to injury, after four hours of my playthrough – persevering with the ropey mechanics, collecting all the coins and runes I could find, beating the bosses – I finally made it to the last level, and right then, Jack Axe ran into a fatal error and closed, apparently frying my save file in the progress. Ugh. The idea of Beat the Backlog is to actually complete all the games I’ve bought since I have a lifetime habit of abandoning stuff when I stumble onto something new, but I was just annoyed with Jack Axe to start all over again. 

And in that vein, there’s a four-player couch co-op mode available too, but I wasn’t willing to give the game any more of my time after deleting my file, so that goes unreviewed, I’m afraid. I’ve watched some co-op playthroughs on YouTube and it looks like the multiplayer mode could be fun with the right crowd. It looks to have a New Super Mario Bros. feel to it, without so many bells and whistles – if you wanna bounce about, collect some stuff and annoy your friends all at the same time, think about giving it a go.

Jack Axe has the opportunity to be a fun little platformer, but it suffers from horribly unreliable mechanics that make it more frustrating than it is enjoyable. Between the endless unrecognised button presses, janky hit boxes and your abilities routinely failing to launch, there’s enough to discourage some folks from going very far at all. But for those who show a little faith and push on -fear not- you too might be rewarded by a terminal crash and a deleted save file at the crescendo of the game. Sadly, it’ll take a lot more than the delightfully sweet visuals to keep this one off the chopping block.

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Teslagrad

Drew has pledged to slowly but slowly churn his way through his sizeable stack of Nintendo Switch games for his ‘Beat the Backlog’ feature. Check out his main article to see what games he’s completed already!

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Another one of my past festive purchases, Teslagrad from Rain Games, looked destined to be something I enjoyed from the moment I laid eyes on it. A Metroidvania armed with some interesting mechanics, a sweet little art style and a steampunk theme? This is very well equipped to grab my attention! I absolutely love Metroidvania games -especially those that aren’t marathon in length-  so I was actually a little surprised to see Teslagrad still gathering dust, unplayed, over three years after I bought it. Thankfully, I recently had a week off from my day job to sit around in my underwear and play video games with few other responsibilities, so I thought it was high time I gave it a go!

From a gameplay perspective, there’s little not to like about Teslagrad, which successfully mixes the traditional with the unique. The game takes place inside the walls of a huge castle that stands at the centre of the titular city, and you’ll get around using good old fashioned run and jump platforming mechanics, avoiding hazards and enemies as you go. Making matters more interesting are the electro-magical elements of the castle, which our main character can interact with using a collection of ancient artefacts, allowing him to overcome the secrets of the castle. The puzzle design is great in Teslagrad – it uses simple to understand elements in conjunction with one another to create unique problems that take just the right amount of brain power and skill to complete. 

The game has you changing polarity to open doorways, learning how to build up momentum to fling yourself (and items) around, and teleport-dashing your way through walls to make your way around the castle, avoiding molten iron, sneaking past shadow beasties and dealing with mechanical guardians as you go. The magnetism mechanics, while very good fun, can be a little unreliable though, especially when it comes to things like speed and momentum. There were times when I had to try at a specific puzzle over and over again – despite knowing exactly what to do, I couldn’t get the desired result from the game, and this led to a fair few frustrating moments.

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Teslagrad At a Glance

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Dotted throughout the game are some notable boss encounters, which are something of a mixed bag. The big baddies definitely made for a nice change of pace from leaping over electrical zappers and figuring out how to overcome an obstacle, but they did little to be especially memorable and didn’t really stand out in the way of their design. Additionally, I feel like the bosses often relied on some of the more finicky elements of the mechanics, causing you to repeat them more times than you’d like, annoyance growing every time.

While I fully expected to enjoy the platforming and puzzle mechanics just from watching the trailer, what caught me by surprise was how impressively Teslagrad tells its story. In the intro, we see a man in curious garb secret a child away to a lonely house; the man quickly leaves and many years seem to pass. Before we know it, a group of hostile soldiers arrive at the house, and fearfully, the mother shoos the now-grown child out of the backdoor and onto the rain soaked city streets in a panic. As the soldiers chase you through alleyways and across rooftops, you’re bombarded with imagery of a war-torn country; posters warning of oppressive civil restrictions, obvious propaganda, and statues gloating at past defeats. Teslagrad is clearly a tale of oppression and revolution and I loved how quickly the game impresses this upon you. Upon reaching the castle, where the majority of the game takes place, the environmental storytelling is kicked into high gear, with painted murals, stained glass windows and even elaborate puppeteered stage plays telling the tale of your character’s ancestry and the betrayal your people have fought to overcome.

The tale is even deeper for more completionist players, as you’ll find cards scattered throughout the game that expand on various parts of the lore and give you a greater insight into the history of the world. The cards come in sets of three and are collected in a non-linear fashion, meaning that you can sometimes be left in suspense for ages as you wait to find out more details about a particular topic. I was entirely enthralled by the history of the two warring tribes and loved the almost comic book stylisation of the cards – to me they were absolutely addicting, and there was no way I was finishing the game without finding them all. Using the history of the world as the optional sidequest is a complete masterstroke in my opinion, and I was glad to scour every nook and cranny of the castle over my 8-hour play through to understand the tale in full.

Visually, I liked what Rain Games did with Teslagrad, but then I always am a sucker for hand-drawn artwork. The style has a certain soft edged look that has since become synonymous with the mobile RPG market, but I think it looks nice enough and certainly offers a solid, consistent look to the game. As I mentioned above, the historical elements of the game are portrayed particularly well, with wall paintings and murals hitting the exact spot between mysterious and understandable, and the optional cards telling their stories incredibly clearly. The environments are a little mixed, with some coming across as a little filler-y, while others stand out as being quite unique and characterful. Perhaps my only genuine criticism of the visuals is that some of the animations are a little lacking, with the number of frames used being noticeably low from time to time. 

The music in Teslagrad is impressive and really turned up my enjoyment of the game. With a mix of traditional platform-sounding jingles to much more sinister and atmospheric dirges, this is a soundtrack that waxes and wanes with the gameplay. Perhaps the most unexpected song in the OST happens to be my favourite; it’s a bouncy, playful string and xylophone affair that scores your exploration of a huge biodome filled with trees and lush greenery. 

Bear and Cat have nailed the sense of innocent, wide-eyed wonder that should accompany such a place, and it’s just such a jolly little tune that I can’t help but love it. The musical score works in an impressive tandem with the on screen depictions throughout the entire game, and there’s no better example than climbing Teslagrad Tower. I got goosebumps hearing the angelic hymn rise in concert with the climb – reaching a beautiful crest exactly as I reached the pinnacle to look out over the land below. The attention to detail in this scene is impeccable.

Perhaps the most telling thing about my playthrough of Teslagrad is that I immediately bought the sequel upon completing it. As a man who’s made a pledge to enjoy the games I’ve already paid for before buying more, the fact that I was convinced to add Teslagrad II to my backlog should speak to how much I enjoyed what Rain Games put together here. 

Teslagrad spins an interesting tale off the back of an interesting gameplay mechanic, coalescing into a game that’s fun to play from start to finish. Flinging yourself around using electromagnetism makes for some excellent platforming and puzzle solving, and the tale of dystopian revolution is magnificently told, at least for those who seek out the necessary pieces. Perhaps only lacking in a little bit of reliability in the mechanics and a bigger visual budget, Teslagrad does a great job flying the flag for alternative Metroidvanias and deserves an incredible amount of praise.

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Ninja Gaiden 2: Black

Ninjas. 

Ninjas are cool. 

In fact, for a period of time the UK Government banned the word ‘ninja’, along with references to specific weaponry.  This meant for a time, ninjas were more punk rock than actual punks, which led to a generation of kids growing up thinking that Michaelangelo from the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles used a string of sausages as his primary weapons. Thankfully, ninjas are more accepted these days, and are regularly represented in the world of video games.

As my fascination with the ancient assassins grew, I surrounded myself with numerous games like Shinobi, Mini Ninjas and The Last Ninja 2, and I loved them all. When Team Ninja snuck up on the world and shadow-dropped a remake of Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, you better believe I wanted to slice my way through Ryu’s world of corporate monsters and ninjas for hire.

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Ninja Gaiden 2: Black – At a Glance

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Ninja Gaiden 2 Black starts with a Sonia, a CIA agent looking for a ninja warrior called Ryu Hayabusa, master ninja, a descendant of the Dragon Ninja lineage, and protagonist of the game. Unsurprisingly, Hayabusa is notoriously difficult to find. Soon, Sonia is attacked by the rival Spider Clan, where Ryu must come from the shadows and find out why the CIA is tracking him. The nefarious rivials lead him back home to find it under siege, with only his father, the leader of the Dragon Clan holding off the onslaught of fiends.

From here, the action quickly spreads, leaving Hayabusa and Sonia to trek around the world, trying to stop the evil clansman from unleashing the untold horrors of the underworld, and it’s up to us to hack, slash and brutalise our way through the swathe of enemies.

The opening premise of Ninja Gaiden 2 Black feels like a mix of fantastical mythology mixed with a modern twist. It’s not often you play a game where a ninja, equipped with the weapons from Feudal Japan, and fight demons from the underworld on top of a helicarrier, but it somehow makes sense. Along with the daft story, the graphics really stand out here. Despite Ninja Gaiden 2 Black being a remaster of Ninja Gaiden 2 Sigma, Team Ninja has given the near-20-year old game such a decent lick of paint that makes it feel almost like a current gen game. There are moments, particularly in New York, where the game doesn’t look as polished as something built from the ground up, but considering the game hit the Xbox 360, this is by no means a bad looking game.

The story is laid out across multiple chapters and is primarily told through an opening paragraph of text, followed by a short cutscene. These are used to frame the gameplay in such a way that you can purely focus on the action, stomping your way through hoards of ninjas and monsters. While I liked the idea of being left to slash through the game, having a block of text at the beginning of each level left itself open to some big gaps in the story. Ryu would be in modern Tokyo one moment then appear back at home, before setting off to Italy (for some reason). While there is some logic to the plot, I felt it could have been better explained if Ryu was given clear objectives throughout each level. Just having someone say, “Oh no, the baddy has escaped to New York, get after them” would have been enough.

In fairness though, you play a hack and slash game to, well, hack and slash things, and here is where Ninja Gaiden 2 Black excels. There are a lot of enemies to take down, and luckily Ryu has the toolset to do that. Using a combination of the Dragon Sword, trusty shuriken and Ninjitsu powers, you’re able to carve your way through enemies with ease and it’s not long before the limbs are flying and blood is spurting like something out of a Tarantino film. The gameplay is slick, and throughout my time I found no issues with the framerate. What really got me excited about how Ninja Gaiden 2 played was that Team Ninja expected a level of skill from you. Mashing X will only get you so far; enemies will soon get tough enough that you’ll have to rely on dodging and parrying while looking for an opening to attack. 

Thankfully, the controls don’t hinder your playstyle and actually work with you to help get you through some difficult situations. This is also helped by the various weapons you can find throughout the adventure. If you find that the sword wasn’t to your style, then you can use a staff to keep enemies further away from you. My favourite weapon was the chain, a fast weapon that is very good for crowd control and quickly removing fodder enemies. With the controls, the weapons and the various upgrades scattered through each level, it felt like Team Ninja was encouraging me to battle on. Towards the end of the game where the difficulty really ramps up, I found I had the tools to beat what was in front of me, I just had to work out which tools were best for each situation.

When I wasn’t making everyone a meat fountain, it was time to explore each level and put Ryu’s ninja skills to the test. Each level makes use of his sneaky skillset as I had to leap, wall run and flip through environments, which ranged from the rooftops of a futuristic Tokyo, to the winding streets of New York and a deep forest setting. Each location feels unique, with the different surroundings forcing you to use your skills in different ways; the urban setting of New York relies heavily on using Hayabusa’s jumping abilities, whereas the dense forests require a more aquatic approach. Much like combat, each action can be performed effortlessly, that is, except for swimming. Moving through water feels more like moving through custard; it is hard to see and navigate. Mercifully, there are only a few underwater sections and most can be avoided by tapping the B button repeatedly, which makes Ryu stride across the water like Jesus on jet skies.

Ryu’s campaign is broken with a few side stories, featuring a cast of supporting characters, Momiji, Rachel and Ayene. It’s here where I will say the design represents relics of the past, with full jiggle physics that could be straight out of Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball, on full display. It felt like the design choice wasn’t even done for any reason other than for laughs. During cut scenes, no matter if it is a calm discussion or action-heavy sequences, there would be two flesh-coloured beach balls hilariously bouncing in different directions. I think if you’re going to include any kind of fan service elements, try not to draw attention to them. Keep it classy, like how Ryu’s backside naturally draws the eyes thanks to his taut leather outfit.

Costume choices aside, the supporting cast have their own unique weapons that they bring to the table, from Momiji’s Heavenly Dragon Naginata (a big staff with a sword attached), to Rachel’s Type 666 Machine Gun, which mixes up the gameplay nicely. It’s a shame that these support levels are only sporadic, as I had more fun using Momiji’s Naginata to calve through enemies than any of the items in Ryu’s arsenal. Thankfully, on completing the game, a Mission Mode is unlocked, allowing you to speed through each level with any character of your choosing.

Speaking of the end game, once the credits roll on Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, there are numerous challenges and tasks to tackle. Chapter Challenge tasks you with running through one of the previously completed levels and earning as high a score as possible. You can use everything you’ve unlocked during the campaign, but it acts more like a pseudo-speed run challenge than anything. Tag Missions, however, are a different kettle of ninjas. Here you team up with an NPC of your choice and battle through enemies to complete set goals. 

This mode became rather addictive, as I tried to chase down as many gold medals as possible. Each mission gives you a set objective, like defeating 100 enemies or completing a run as quickly as possible, and I found the success was reliant on the loadouts chosen at the beginning of each mission, along with the skills earned during the playthrough. It’s one of the few times where I’ve found myself completely engaged with the post-game content, rather than thinking it was a cool throwaway mode. As the review was about to be published, Team Ninja also added a New Game+ and photo modes to the game, which further expands on the games’ longevity.

Ninja Gaiden 2 Black is a tight hack and slash, full of fluidity that sees blood, guts and dismembered limbs fly all over the shop. The story is very wobbly, much like the under utilised support characters, but among the over the top violence is a challenging game designed to test your skills as a ninja, and while the game is tough, even on its easiest setting, it never feels unfair. Team Ninja encourages you to try different approaches to boss fights so that when you do ultimately prevail, there is a great sense of achievement.

In the interest of full disclosure, VGamingNews was provided with a copy of the game in order to conduct this review.

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Devil May Cry

Drew has pledged to slowly but slowly churn his way through his sizeable stack of Nintendo Switch games for his ‘Beat the Backlog’ feature. Check out his main article to see what games he’s completed already!

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Statistics show that I am one of only six gamers in the entire world who has never owned a PS2. Being part of this exclusive (but incredibly sad) club means that I’ve missed out on a boatload of excellent titles that had an absolute stranglehold on the world in the early noughties. One such game is Devil May Cry – Capcom’s action-adventure that debuted the dashing half-demon swashbuckler, Dante, which went on to sell over two million copies. With a Netflix anime series coming in a few months, I thought it was high time that I donned the crimson trenchcoat for myself.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen the intro to a game more successfully sum up what’s to come next than the original Devil May Cry. After an incredibly corny title screen, we’re offered a short crawl of text that explains the backstory of the legendary dark knight, Sparda, before careening into a hodgepodge action scene where we’re introduced to Dante. After tussling with a leather clad demon named Trish, Dante is just seconds from putting a bullet between her eyes when she takes off her sunglasses… apparently her vague likeness to Dante’s dead mother is enough to overcome the fact that she javelined a whole ass sword through his chest 30-seconds earlier, and makes Dante open to helping her out.

The storyline that unfolds over the next 6-8 hours is wafer thin and makes little-to-no sense from minute to minute. From this hare-brained opening to revelations about Dante’s family and his Oedipal relationship with Trish, it’s all messy, teenage stuff. Obviously, no-one is expecting a finely nuanced tale from a hack-and-slash action-adventure, but what you get is closer to what you’d get from an arcade shooter like Time Crisis, where the plot is merely a device to facilitate blasting baddies. Does the story make the game any less fun? No, of course not, but it did make me cringe and as a fan of a lot of corny media, I think it’s worth noting.

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Devil May Cry At a Glance

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Thankfully, the gameplay holds up much better than the story does. Devil May Cry always marketed itself on being ‘cool’ and ‘stylish’, and dashing around as Dante, engaging in sword- and gunplay against the forces of evil is certainly that. The controls are simple, yet somehow still a little clunky, but I’m willing to look past that for all the fun I had blasting demon marionettes and juggling giant lizards with Dante’s oversized sword. Entering the Devil Trigger Mode is fun too – at the push of a button you can transform the halfbreed Dante into one of his demonic forms, raining down elemental attacks on your enemies until your energy bar runs out and you return to normal. There’s nothing groundbreaking about the format (even in 2001) but it’s undoubtedly fun.

What does hold the fun back somewhat are the partially fixed camera angles. A Capcom staple in the early 2000s, the developer figured that entirely static cameras might restrict their options somewhat, and so chose to split the difference by providing players with views that panned to follow Dante around the screen, before snapping to offer different views of the environments as you passed certain points. Choosing to eschew an entirely dynamic over the shoulder camera may have helped in creating impressive views of their environments, but it makes controlling Dante an absolute nightmare. 

Battling in the tight hallways of the castle often leads to you fighting an enemy who’s off camera; with Dante on one side of the threshold and the baddie on the other, you’re unable to properly time your attacks or evasions. Even in the many open courtyards, you’ll often find yourself flicking back and forth between two vastly different views as you fight, flipping the direction of your controls from moment to moment and leaving you both bamboozled and at the mercy of your foes. I’m a lifelong fan of the Resident Evil series and absolutely love the tension that the fixed camera angles helped provide, but Capcom’s tried and tested formula just doesn’t work in this entirely different genre, even tweaked as it was.

Another element carried over from Resident Evil is the menu scheme, which pauses the action while you switch weapons, upgrade your skills and administer health items. All the stopping and starting feels jarring for a game that prides itself on fluid and continuous action, and I think the flow of the game would have been better served using button combinations to access common items, like healables, without interrupting the battle. What also stands out about the menus are how dated the visuals look almost 25 years later. The ‘cool’ pre-rendered videos of your weapons in use and items spinning into shot when you select them have not aged well, and the entire UI now looks absolutely ancient (which it is).

But while the menus are pretty ghastly, I won’t say the same for the environment or enemy designs, both of which are characterful and enjoyable, even a quarter of a century later. The gothic castle environment leans heavily on Capcom’s experience with the elaborate but dingy locales seen in Resident Evil 1 and 2, and while many of the places make very little logical sense, they certainly pass the Rule of Cool. The demonic enemies are also excellent – from the creepy, shuddering marionette puppets, to the shadowy reapers wielding massive shears, to the Hunter-inspired lizard warriors, the bad guys look great. My favourite enemy is the massive magma filled arachnid boss, Phantom, who snarls and shouts at Dante between explosive breath attacks and lightning fast tail strikes. I love his condescending manner and his booming voice as much as his visual style, and he’s easily the most memorable enemy in the entire game.

Even though I enjoyed the core gameplay (awkward cameras aside), some of the later missions get bogged down. After battling waves of increasingly spongy enemies to artificially slow you down, it takes an unexpected turn, introducing a gimmicky first-person underwater section that is wholly out of place and entirely uninspiring. And the final boss, which should be an opportunity for an impressive showdown requiring all the skills you’ve mastered up to this point, is instead relegated to a bland on rails shoot-em-up section instead. I’m rarely a fan of games shoehorning in random changes to the formula for the sake of gameplay diversity, and that’s especially true when the new sections are objectively less impressive than what you’ve gotten used to. Again, this is one that Capcom would chalk up to experience, I’m sure.

Devil May Cry harkens back to simpler times, offering fun hack and slash action that you don’t need to take too seriously. Capcom treats us to some very cool environments as we wander across the spooky Mallet Island, smashing through some excellently designed enemies along the way, and what gets in the way can mostly be put down to inexperience on the developers’ part. The fixed camera angles that served them so well in the past are a real pain this time around, and the slow and deliberate menu system detracts from the fluid pace they were going for. This debut entry offers a fun peek back at the origins of a popular franchise; it might be fun for fans of the modern entries or videogame historians, but the average man in the street probably isn’t missing out by not revisiting it in 2025.

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Final Fantasy Adventure

Drew has pledged to slowly but slowly churn his way through his sizeable stack of Nintendo Switch games for his ‘Beat the Backlog’ feature. Check out his main article to see what games he’s completed already!

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Alright -real talk now- I never had any intention of buying or playing Final Fantasy Adventure. I picked up the game as part of the Collection of Mana, which I bought specifically to enjoy Trials of Mana, since I never got to play it when I was a kid. But, in the spirit of Beat the Backlog, when my random number generator picked out Collection of Mana as my next game, I felt it was only right to start at the beginning, rather than jump forward to the final game in the anthology.

The introduction to the game is surprisingly bleak, and things kick off as our hero escapes from a gladiatorial arena, amidst the death of his friend. Then, on the run from the Dark Lord, you bump into a maiden in need of help and escorting her to safety, you quickly become embroiled in a battle to save the world from tyrannous oppression, and realise your part in an ancient legend along the way. Yes, the story may be trope laden and simplistic, but it also contains a few impactful moments of loss that both caught me by surprise and made me glad I gave the game a chance. 

As the first spin off from the mainline Final Fantasy games, the combat style strays from the existing turn-based battles and into a much more action focussed style. There are a few traditional RPG elements that carry over (like upgradable character statistics that impact your output in battle), but the play style is much more like its successor, Secret of Mana, than what’s come before. Now you’re able to spam the attack button to kill enemies, as you might in a Zelda game, but there’s been a tactical element added, whereby waiting in between attacks allows your weapons to charge up, and unleashing special effects when you choose to attack with maximum energy. You can also utilise a variety of weapons outside of combat, helping you traverse the landscape and overcome obstacles. While simple, it’s fun to explore the world by lopping down trees with the axe or smashing through walls with the mace, and I loved seeing the origins of the chain-flail posts that let you leap over large gaps.

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Final Fantasy Adventure At a Glance

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I was certainly intrigued to see what the first game in the Mana series was like, but I didn’t hold out too much hope of enjoying it, since I tend to find that games from the Game Boy era and earlier are either a little too simple or just astronomically difficult. I was pleasantly surprised with Final Fantasy Adventure though, which strikes a nice balance between laid back wanderings and tricky dungeons filled with tough enemies. It’s easy enough to breeze around the world map, wantonly slaying monsters, especially after learning Cure magic, but I found myself glad to be able to save anywhere, since top end enemies can finish you off in just a couple of hits. Things become a little repetitive, sure, but there’s a sense of exploration offered that makes a little rinse-and-repeating worthwhile.

The dungeons are where things probably feel most like Squaresoft were most in transition – the action-based battling might be leaning into a new style, but the sprawling maps and seemingly endless waves of enemies definitely have the feel of oldschool FInal Fantasy. There’s a few simple simultaneous button puzzles introduced, as well as AI controlled companion characters, both of which are ideas that would be expanded upon in the famously multiplayer Secret of Mana. I enjoyed the dungeon sequences for the challenge they posed, but the limited visuals and music meant that they all inevitably all felt the same and I probably more enjoyed the overworld exploration. Offering about 8-10 hours of playtime, I think Final Fantasy Adventure manages to hit the sweet spot, as the game reached its conclusion just when my interest was beginning to wane and I was ready for something new.

Like many games spawned in the Game Boy era and expanded into the SNES and beyond, a lot of Final Fantasy Adventure feels familiar from my time with later games in the timeline. Good portions of the story ended up being reused in Secret of Mana, as did many of the enemies and bosses. There’s zero complaints from me on this front though, as it’s cool seeing the ‘devolved’ versions of these sprites, which were impressively brought to life back on Nintendo’s green screened handheld. Series staples like rabbites, sahagin and killer bees are all instantly recognisable, as are some of my favourite bosses, like the Mantis Ant and the Vampire. It will never cease to amaze me how expressive and unique pixel artists managed to be, working with just a few colours and a meagre 2MB of memory!

Speaking of impressive work with limited technology – there are some excellent entries in the soundtrack as well, which is wonderfully arranged by Kenji, Itō. The overworld and boss themes are incredibly catchy and each purveys a great sense of adventure, and the music behind the pivotal plot points are scored with sombre melodies seriously overachieve considering the tools available. Mainline Final Fantasy fans will be happy to hear that Nobuo Uematsu’s Chocobo theme crosses over into the spin off too, offering the perfect soundtrack to all your bird-riding adventures! They’re not all bangers though, as I found myself pretty quickly growing tired of the dungeon music, having to mute my Switch as the endless warbling got on my nerves. 

Final Fantasy Adventure makes for a fascinating retrospective into the Mana series of games, and still has plenty to offer almost 35 years after its initial release. Despite its well worn plot elements, there are some impressive moments of depth in the storytelling that I would never expect from a Game Boy game. It’s great fun to see the debut appearances of so many beloved enemies, offering you the chance to trace a direct line from their humble, green toned beginnings to the vibrant standard bearers they would become. Is it the best title in the series? No. But it is the one that started it all, and fans can take a lot of joy in seeing how it all began.

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Syberia

Drew has pledged to slowly but slowly churn his way through his sizeable stack of Nintendo Switch games for his ‘Beat the Backlog’ feature. Check out his main article to see what games he’s completed already!

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Syberia is a game that has occupied a lot more space in my brain than it should. Mostly, it’s because I know I bought the first game ages ago and hadn’t played it, yet the sequels are continually going on sale on the Nintendo eShop and it regularly takes a good amount of willpower for me not to add them to my backlog, since they’re all ridiculously cheap. But if this seemingly neverending feature has taught me anything, it’s that I shouldn’t just spring for a game because there’s a deal on! (I can’t be handing out ten of the King’s English willynilly – not in this economy!) So, in a bid to scratch the itch and see if I should buy the whole lot, I fired up the original Syberia to give it a go.

The game opens with a rather macabre scene, where a young woman stands in the rain, watching as a group of clockwork robots march past in a funeral procession. The automatons have a terrifying look about them, sporting a bleak dystopian look and a horror movie shuddering gait that immediately gave me the heebie-jeebies. We quickly learn that the woman is Kate Walker, a lawyer from the US and our main protagonist. She’s been sent by her employer to the decrepit industrial town of Valadilene in the French Alps, expecting to broker the purchase of the stuttering Voralberg Mechanical Toy and Puppet Factory, which has been in decline for some years. The deal hits an early snag however, when Kate learns that the owner of the company, Anna Voralberg, has recently passed away, and rumours that her brother, Hans, long thought dead, may still be alive, throwing legal red tape all over the ownership rights and the prospective sale. What follows is a rather jumbled journey across backwater Europe, as Kate tries to track down the family’s prodigal son and finalise the deal for the factory.

There’s no denying that the premise is an odd one, and this oddness seemingly permeates every nook and cranny of Syberia. Nobody Kate encounters seems to have a normal relationship with the world around them, and are all incredibly obstructive in the most bizarre ways possible, just to facilitate some of the strangest puzzle solving I’ve ever experienced. From a lawyer who won’t open the door unless he can read the reason for your arrival through his steampunk Ring doorbell, to a mining supervisor with a debilitating celebrity obsession dating back 30-years, to an aging starlet who’s verve for life can only be restored by tasting a specific cocktail that’s made in a lone hotel bar half the world away – this is gamifying at its best (worst?).

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At a Glance

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The most egregious puzzle surrounds a train station which has been turned into an aviary (for some reason); you have to gather a specific item to shoo away a bunch of ankle high birds that are “guarding” a ladder. You do this in order to collect a bird egg, which you then place in a 20-year old locking mechanism before turning on the machine housed inside. The whole sequence is incredibly silly, which could be both a blessing and a curse – players of a certain age will find a lot of nostalgia in such ridiculously insular logic, but modern players will undoubtedly find it all rather eyerolling and daft.

The game is fully voice-acted, and while that was something of a luxury for the time, it’s met with mixed results. Perhaps due to the aforementioned awkwardness, none of the characters in the game are especially likeable, including Kate, whose particular brand of optimism comes across as being annoyingly condescending. Oscar, the Voralberg automaton who you help reassemble and activate, is the best of the bunch, but that’s perhaps his pickiness actually makes sense, being an incredibly limited logic engine, as he is. Kate will sporadically take calls from a few folks back home, making sure she’s alright – but they’re all complete headcases! Her fiance, Dan, is a passive-aggressive douchebag, while her boss, Mr Marson, is just downright aggressive, and her best friend, Olivia, seems to be the worst kind of gaslighting narcissist. It’s hardly surprising that Kate’s happy wandering about in the arse-end of Europe – anything to escape this lot!

Visually, I got exactly what I had hoped for with Syberia – lovely pre-rendered backgrounds, gleaming with awkward lighting and plagued by all manner of strange clipping. It’s textbook early-2000s and I love it. These wonderfully depicted environments and slightly waxwork character models are exactly what drew me into buying the game in the first place! The locations, random as they may be, are all expressively drawn, and there seems to be an air of timeless mystery about almost everywhere Kate visits. I particularly enjoyed the once grand Hotel Kronsky, which has the same dusty grandeur as many of the locations found in Resident Evil. 

The FMV sequences (full motion video, for you young’ns) are crisp and clean, sporting what were probably pretty high end graphics for the period, though Kate does look a little Uncanny Valley by today’s standards. The UI has easily aged the worst, with horrible pop-out menus and sporting an array of ugly, yet free fonts, the like you’d see on 1001fonts.com. There’s something incredibly jarring about seeing a default Windows handwriting font in a mysterious diary, though, in fairness, I imagine that cost and time constraints may have made the alternative something of a pain to source.

This adventure isn’t the most enthralling nor the puzzles the most engaging, and it took me a slow 5-6 hours to complete Syberia, finding most, but not all, of the optional elements along the way. However, in a nice touch, you are rewarded for your thoroughness with bits of concept artwork, allowing you to peek behind the curtain at the making of the game, which I’m always a fan of. 

Syberia is absolutely of its time, offering a point-and-click adventure that now seems outdated in almost every aspect. With aging character models, an archaic and ugly UI and whole townships blatantly designed to facilitate a few oddball puzzles, it’s unlikely to win over many new fans in 2025. That said, it’s not all bad – the pre-rendered environments still look pretty decent, and there’s a few moments so ridiculous that you’ll likely get a laugh or two. Perhaps like the clockwork automatons in the Voralberg factory, Syberia is a product of a bygone era, but not without significance to those curious about days gone by.

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Mindcop

Mindcop is the debut game from German developer Andre Gareis, and it didn’t take me more than a minute to be drawn in by the characterful visuals and intriguing premise. Never one to turn down the chance to don my trenchcoat and brandish my oversized magnifying glass, I was keen to take this latest whodunit for a spin and see what all the fuss was about. Always requiring a ‘Watson’ to my ‘Sherlock’, I dragged VGamingNews’ own Gaz Jones along for the ride, enjoying this single player sleuthing adventure as a buddy cop duo.

The Mindcop (or MC as he prefers to be known) is called out to investigate a murder at the Merrilyn Crater Camp, a sleepy tourist trap built around a huge piece of volcanic rock, branded ‘Bombo’ by the management. A quick look around reveals that Rebecca Goodman, manager of the camp’s hostel, has fallen victim to a fatal stabbing, and it doesn’t take long for MC to jump on a couple of hot leads. With the help of your comedically oversized partner, Linda, you have just five days to solve the brutal killing and arrest the offender, before all the staff leave the camp at the end of vacation season and someone gets away with murder.

Like all good whodunits, there’s a varied collection of characters, each with their own pasts, relationships and motivations, and it’s up to you to gather evidence and ask the right questions to discern who is telling the truth, and who can’t be trusted. This is a murder mystery with no dead wood – the entire cast feels well written, and encountering a new character garners a feeling of giddy anticipation at uncovering how they might fit into the larger puzzle.  As well as MC, who is rightfully dripping with main character energy, it’s hard not to like Officer Kenneth Bartley, the bumbling small town cop and Linda, who plays the New Age-y, aloof foil to MC perfectly.

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At a Glance

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We’re even treated to a little voice acting between MC and Linda, as they natter away each morning on the drive from their hotel to the MCC, and these off the wall conversations are routinely laugh-out-loud funny. The only downside to these sections is that they make you realise how amazing it would be if the entire game was voice acted! I get it – voice work is both expensive and time consuming, so this certainly isn’t a criticism – I’m just a little bummed not to hear Sean’s brash machismo or Alex’s snooty sarcasm brought to life!

Questioning suspects is really simple; you can choose to talk about a piece of evidence you’ve collected or about a topic that’s come up as part of your investigation. You steer the conversation by repeatedly choosing between two question options, but be careful – you can’t go back and ask the alternative if you don’t learn anything, so make sure you always choose the question you think is most important. You’ll uncover more and more topics to talk about with every conversation you have, expanding the lines of inquiry down the road. There’s also a really handy feature built in for those folks who struggle with names (like me) – any time a character is mentioned, an icon appears in the corner of the screen and you can push a button to immediately bring up a picture of the person, alongside your notes. It’s a small thing, but I can’t rave about how much I appreciated not getting my suspects mixed up!

Oh, did I forget to mention you can read a suspect’s mind to see if they’re telling the truth? They don’t call him ‘Mindcop’ for nothing!

Once you’ve questioned a suspect you get the option to ‘Mind Surf’ them; this offers you the chance to peek at a person’s innermost thoughts and feelings, but only if you can break down their mental barriers first. You do this by playing a fun mini game against the clock; the suspect’s brain hovers in the centre of the screen and different coloured ‘mind bullets’ are fired in from each side, leaving little coloured clouds in the brain tissue wherever they land. You have to rotate the brain so that you get three of the same colour clouds in a row, which adds more time to clock and allows you to keep going – last long enough and MC will crack into their brain and let you peek at what’s inside.

The whole mini game sequence is bizarre but incredibly fun. From the over the top 90s saxophone soundtrack, to the image of MC literally surfing along the bottom of the screen doing tricks, the tone of the game takes a hard left turn into Surreal Town, and I’m all for it. 

After successfully surfing a suspect’s mind, MC finds himself faced with three doors standing on a beach, looking out over the ‘The Sea of Thoughts’. Each door represents a thought or a memory the suspect has – one represents a truth, another a lie, and the last is something they’re unsure about. By entering a door, MC can watch their thoughts and deduce what it might mean -of course, being thoughts, some of these sequences aren’t exactly true to life, and it’s up to you to decipher what they mean in context of their behaviour, their relationships with someone else, or how they fit into the crime. It’s a fun additional layer to understanding a suspect’s motivations, especially since other games have historically made a hash of subtle tone of voice or facial expression cues.

So investigating the crime is easy, right? Well, it’s a little more tricky than that. You see, only having five days to find the killer has a really meaningful impact on the gameplay, as everything you do in Mindcop costs you time. You’re given 7 hours each day, and whether it’s inspecting a house for clues, interrogating/Mind Surfing a suspect, travelling to other key locations – every action will chip away at your remaining total. Once your time is up, you’ll have to head back to the local precinct for a rundown of events with Linda before getting some shut-eye at the hotel. Some choices look like they may only take a few minutes at first, but can require a lot of time to inspect more thoroughly – is it worth rummaging through all those boxes in a suspects’ home, or can the time be better spent elsewhere? That’s up to you to decide. 

I don’t remember seeing a system like this in an investigative game before and I loved its implementation. The time constraint forces you to constantly weigh up whether your actions can realistically be expected to produce meaningful results and makes you lean on certain assumptions about your case, since you simply don’t have time to do everything. Spending too much time scouring every nook and cranny for evidence, or prattling about meaningless subjects to the wrong person is a sure-fire way to finish the game with no idea who the murderer is. 

Once you have a good idea who the murderer is, you can request search warrants to look through their homes without interruption and choose to arrest a suspect you think has committed the crime. That said, you need to choose wisely, as you can only hold one suspect in custody at a time, and you’re not likely to get any cooperation from them once you’ve ransacked their home or wrongly locked them in the slammer! At the end of the fifth day, you’ll have a run-in with your suspect and it’ll become clear whether you got your man or not – if not, you’ll definitely want to fire up the game again and see what you can do differently in order to collar the right perp the next time around! 

Aesthetically, I love the look of Mindcop.  The greyscale palette gives the game a certain grittiness that underlines the serious side of the gameplay, while the Rick and Morty style characters are absolutely perfect for the more wacky elements. Lighting is nicely handled too, particularly when gleams of red or blue from a siren highlight a suspect and the surrounding area. While only small, the downside to the visual style is that it’s tricky to fall in love with any of the environments or locations, since none of them really stand out from the pack.

Mindcop is an incredibly entertaining whodunit that expertly blends level headed crime solving with laugh-out-loud foolishness in a way that just shouldn’t work – but it does. Questioning the folk of the Merrylin Crater Camp and scouring for evidence is delightfully simple, and the pivotal time mechanic creates an incredible sense of urgency that’s often lacking in crime games. It’s a game that takes itself just seriously enough, as showcased by its combination of derpy cartoon-noir visuals and saxophone laden soundtrack with its cast of well rounded characters and layered storyline. Fun from start to finish, Mindcop is dripping with tongue-in-cheek playfulness that you won’t need a forensic team to uncover.

In the interest of full disclosure, VGamingNews was provided with a copy of the game in order to conduct this review.

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Knights of Pen & Paper +1 Deluxier Edition

Drew has pledged to slowly but slowly churn his way through his sizeable stack of Nintendo Switch games for his ‘Beat the Backlog’ feature. Check out his main article to see what games he’s completed already!

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Looking back, I think I must have downloaded Knights of Pen & Paper +1 Deluxier Edition during a particularly bad spell of tabletop roleplaying withdrawal. Aside from a humorous and lengthy title that only Fall Out Boy might contend with, there’s something quite fun about the idea of playing a videogame where you’re playing a TTRPG, and despite the simple looking visuals, I clearly thought enough of the idea to part with some of my 2021 Christmas money to give it a try (albeit 4-years later!).

To be honest, my intro paragraph sums up most of what you need to know about Knights of Pen & Paper. In the game you play as a whole tabletop roleplaying group, battling their way through a Dungeons & Dragons-inspired game opposite their Dungeon Master. As you squash umpteen familiar monsters in turn-based combat, you’ll earn XP and gold which you can use to upgrade your party and their gear. What’s more fun is that you can actually spend your gold outside of the game, upgrading your TTRPG experience with more players around the table, miniatures, loaded dice and even snacks, all of which translate into additional benefits in the game. 

Just at a quick glance you’ll realise there really isn’t anything to write home about on the visual or sound fronts.  The simple pixel art does just enough to get you through, but aside from a few fun character designs, it’s quite clear that the graphics are just a means to an end. The sound is just as basic, with a few scratchy sound effects to punctuate the various attacks and the relentless organ grinding of the same three 8-bit battle tracks that will surely drive you insane if you keep the volume turned up for your entire playthrough.

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At a Glance

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This feeling of simple repetition permeates Knights of Pen & Paper and wantonly spills over into the gameplay.  Your group of buffoons are charged with travelling from one place of interest to another, slaying the 2-3 types of monsters that live there before returning to a town to complete the quest, earning you loot and experience points. However, the game draws a surprising amount of playability from the fact that all of the gameplay is broken down into micro-tasks (as you might expect from a game also released on Android and iOS) which go by in the blink of an eye. Battles each take just 2-3 minutes to complete, and the quests themselves usually equate to only 5-6 short lines of set up and payoff dialogue. I think I found myself drawn into completing runs of missions simply because I’d hardly registered the fact that I’d literally just accepted and completed the one before.

Battling is done in throwback turn-based combat fashion, where each character rolls initiative and then takes an action when it’s their turn. Each character has four different skills they can use, tailored to suit their D&D-inspired class, and you’ll pound away at the baddies until they all fall over or until your party gets wiped out. Anyone with a modicum of tactical character building can create a heinous group of characters, allowing you to stun half of the enemies into inaction for the entire battle, allowing you to mop up waves of their pals and snag maximum loot with minimum effort. Like everything else in Knights of Pen & Paper, this isn’t a nuanced and subtle system – it’s a basic vehicle for fun fantasy scraps and shenanigans.

While the rapid gameplay drives the game surprisingly well, there will be a whole bunch of players who grow tired about halfway through, as there just isn’t a whole lot to do. Looking back on my playtime, I was surprised to see I ploughed about 20 hours into one hundred percenting the game, and while huge chunks of that time just fell away through sheer “I’ll just do one more mission” repetition, I could feel the fatigue set in around the 65% mark. The last couple of hours are a particular brand of grind, where the enemies have become incredibly spongy and no longer perceptible to your best attacks, making everything a much more drawn out and dull affair. That said, I ploughed on through as I had already committed to reaching the end and I drove on through willpower alone.

What I do like is that Knights of Pen & Paper wears its heart on its sleeve, lovingly championing its inspirations whilst poking fun at itself and at tabletop roleplaying in general. This is a game made by roleplayers for roleplayers and it shows. From the half-baked ideas thrown around by the players in out-of-character dialogue, to the dungeon master shamelessly reusing entire plot elements and missions, to the waves of non-sensical external references added sheerly for shits and giggles, all Table Top fans have been in a game like this one. There’s a tremendous amount of fourth wall breaking in the game and endless wink-and-nod references to infamous TTRPG behaviour that I just loved. Playing Knights of Pen & Paper reminded me of my early teenage forays into roleplaying and how quickly things can devolve into hilarious madness when you’re just screwing around and throwing dice with your friends. 

A simple but effective throwback to simpler times, Knights of Pen & Paper +1 Deluxier Edition is a love letter to tabletop roleplaying games and the fun you can have acting daft with your mates whilst throwing dice. If you’ve come looking for a deep and layered plotline or a finely balanced battle system, you’ve come to the wrong place. This is the land of the min-maxing, meta-gaming meat shields and their party of pals. Best enjoyed by existing TTRPG fans who want to churn out a few micro quests whilst taking a break from something more taxing, there’s fun to be had here if you enjoy the simple things in life.

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