Rise Of The Tomb Raider is by far the best of the ‘Survivor’ trilogy for me, and I had just about given up hope of ever playing it again (originally played on XBox). Then they hit us with Clair Obscur and this back-to-back, so, instabuy! Like Arkham Knight and Riven Remake, it launched without achievements, but like Riven Remake, it has been updated with achievement support now. Unfortunately, unlike Riven Remake, the achievements I’ve earned before or since the update as of the time I’m writing haven’t updated on the progress page, which is a shame, as otherwise this is a 5-star game to me. Highly recommended as a highlight of not only the trilogy, but of the entire eighth gen.
If you rely on Good Old Games but need your Monkey Ball fix, this is fine for what it is. The bad first: Yeah, it's jank, leading to a lot of cheap deaths and misses. No cheevo support at this time, which is a bit unfortunate. Unlockable portraits could display the goals for which to unlock them. No in-game display/graphics options, which makes a display issue I'm experiencing towards the end of the playthrough difficult to troubleshoot. The good: A lot of indie charm, jank and all. The unlockable portraits remind me of the style of Flash animations from way back when, and the simplistic graphical design is charming. The game design just works for the most part, and the level design is all you can ask for. It's frustrating-yet-hilarious fun to take turns with likeminded friends on it. Would probably give it a lower rating without that 'multiplayer' element and if it was priced any higher, but for a $10 indie Monkey Ball clone with the charm it has, it does its job well enough.
For those who don't know Riven, it's a sequel to the exploration-based atmospheric puzzle classic MYST. A lot of little details to pay attention to in order to solve environmental puzzles that will likely challenge you for hours without help. For those more familiar with the classic, this isn't a totally faithful remake. The order of things is changed, area layouts and access to some locations are changed--all to keep things fresh, I suppose. Lots of little surprises even for diehard fans of the original. The game itself is breathtaking, same as the original. It's mostly well-optimised--spare a few places, you're not going to need a top-of-the-line rig to max everything out. Did a playthrough on a laptop with a GPU roughly equal to a 4060, with 8GB VRAM, and it was able to play really well on 4K medium settings, and with AMDs AI, was even playable with 4K epic settings. The biggest complaint I have is that the few human characters look cartoonishly out of place in contrast to how beautiful the rest of the game looks. Definitely worth it, though.
Fantastic Warriors-lite third-person action game. Kinda throws you in, even if you’ve played the other games in the series—it just kind of expects you to know who the new characters are already, my one gripe. That said, the characters are as fun as ever, and the game itself is perfect for bite-size play sessions. Playing this on my AYN Loki Max at 1080p at 8w is perfect, and similar handhelds like the ROG Ally should similarly have no issue running it, with plenty of battery life. And it seems to be compatible with Mods Of Culture™️, too, if you know where to find them. That said: Marvelous/XSEED. Estival Versus, Burst Re:Newal and Peach Ball, please. I need moar full-HD Senran Kagura in the palm of my hands. :)
