Thirsty Suitors mixes turn-based combat with a quicktime event-fuelled cooking minigame and a mostly-optional skateboarding system complete with combos and tricks. It’s a strange blend of genres, but it’s all tied together by an excellent story and strong structure.

In each chapter of the game, you set out from your parents’ house with a main quest and possibly some side quests to do. You pick one of the two explorable areas, and skate around them towards your objective. On the way, you can interact with floating objects to fight random battles, participate in optional skate challenges, or just rack up a huge combo and find some health or mana pickups laying around. Skating is like a simplified, more forgiving Tony Hawk game, but gets pretty hard if you pursue a lot of the optional challenges. Once you arrive at a quest, you’ll get some dialogue options, experience the story, and inevitably be pulled into battle.

The combat rests upon its weakness system: You can guess an enemy’s weakness based on their personality, and if they fall for a taunt, they’ll be debuffed, and take extra damage from attacking skills of that type. All 5 types are the same except for the specific debuff they inflict, and the combat isn’t super deep as a result, but it’s elevated by the storytelling woven through the main story fights. You’ll be given dialogue options that can change the fight’s trajectory, as well as hints as to which types they’re weak to. It’s exciting to balance the mechanical aspects of combat with the ever-changing landscape of the fight, and makes the story battles far more interesting than random encounters.

WATCH THE THIRSTY SUITORS VIDEO REVIEW ABOVE

The combat also features action commands, which boil down to a QTE that reduces the damage you take or increases the damage you inflict. They’re a little repetitive, but they keep the combat from feeling automatic, and work to highlight certain late game moments.

More than anything, Thirsty Suitors leans on its story, and the writing is excellent. The game has a deep grasp of intergenerational trauma, family dynamics, Indian-American culture, and dysfunctional coping mechanisms, and turns these into both the game’s emotional core and expressive fantasy visuals. The animation here is very funny, but also depicts the emotional reality of the situation. Jala parkours all over the place, her dad wobbles onto the table, and her mum stiffly makes passive aggressive comments.

A lot of the game is about Jala atoning for her past, and overcoming the ways she has hurt people to protect herself. Your choices impact her personality in three stats, which influences certain parts of the story as well as her combat stats.

The cooking minigames are made up of slightly more involved quicktime events than the regular actions commands, combined with conversations with your parents and a metre management minigame. Again, it’s nothing too deep, but the story is so good and they’re infrequent enough that it stays fresh.

The game’s art is stylish and coherent, and the music, animation, and effects all support this. There’s plenty to do in Thirsty Suitors, as you can skate as different characters, including a cat and dog, and you can also unlock songs and outfits for Jala. The game took me 9 and a half hours, and I did barely any of the skating challenges, but completed all the side quests and cooking recipes I could find.

This is one of the best stories in a game this year. If you like sharp writing, turn-based combat, a little skating, and don’t mind some quick time events, this is easy to recommend.

Thirsty Suitors is available now on PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox Series S and X, Nintendo Switch, and PC, and is also a part of Game Pass

Along the way, a helpful companion aids you in solving environmental puzzles and discreetly guides you toward collectibles that expand the narrative. As you ascend, swing, and advance, you’ll traverse stunning biomes, find solace in tranquil melodies, and gain a panoramic view of the myriad obstacles you’ve conquered.

Don’t Nod has a reputation for crafting immersive narrative-driven games where player choices wield influence over the storyline. Jusant diverged from this, opting to convey its narrative primarily through text based collectible items, which can be ignored at one’s discretion. While the collectibles encountered in the game contribute to narrative depth, they were a bit too lengthy for my taste. And since I didn’t stumble across every item, my understanding of the storyline was hindered, and quite frankly, I’d prefer traditional storytelling altogether.

WATCH THE JUSANT VIDEO REVIEW ABOVE

While the narrative quality in Jusant varies, the gameplay is where it truly shines. From the moment you embark on your ascent, you encounter straightforward yet captivating controls. You’re constantly using the triggers for each hand, setting pitons for swinging or safety, monitoring stamina, and leveraging your companion for environmental puzzles, providing an engaging and physically interactive experience. Though my fingers underwent a substantial workout, the title’s simplistic gameplay formula kept me enthralled and interested throughout.

This game doesn’t throw traditional puzzles at you. Instead, you’ve got to be a bit strategic in how you progress. You’ll have to know when to double jump, use your companion’s special ability to get climbable plants in range, or even place your pitons to assist with your swing. It’s also easy to get in the groove and completely forget about your pitons, which slowed me down. Throughout my playthrough, reminders constantly popped up to assist, which I definitely needed.

The soundtrack does a fantastic job of creating a soothing vibe that sets the perfect tone for the game. Even though I see Jusant as a kind of “chill dad game,” the music is truly outstanding. Whether you’re wandering through dark caves or facing off against wild winds, the soundtrack really adds an emotional layer to your adventure. It can go from subtle and mellow to bold and powerful at just the right moments, and I absolutely loved that about it. I also completely gushed over the visuals here as the soft color palette helps paint each area in a significant way. It’s truly beautiful to overlook the mountain and truly take in the view. Outside of one biome, each section has a sense of calmness to it and blends in seamlessly with the music.

Jusant is a refreshing departure from the norm. Featuring straightforward yet highly enjoyable gameplay, captivating biomes and landscapes, and an OST brimming with character, it offers minimal room for critique. My biggest concern about the game is its duration. Completing the game in a single session is effortlessly attainable, and left me wanting more. But for those seeking a casual, visually striking, and notably distinctive experience, Jusant should 1000% be on your radar. The is available now Ion Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PS5 and PC for $24.99. It’s also set to launch day and date on Game Pass.

For our video review of Jusant, as well as so many more games, check out our new 3 Minute Reviews YouTube channel.

This week on Extra Punctuation, Yahtzee wonders where all stealth games have gone to.

Check out more recent episodes of Extra Punctuation on his love for the 2004 Spider-Man 2 game, the dreaded “Walk-and-Talk,” and AAA games needing to step up their traversal.

Extra Punctuation Transcript

I find I’ve been craving a specific dish, lately. Much as I am continually frustrated by the fact that I no longer live within easy walking distance of a McDonalds, there’s a specific flavour of gameplay I used to indulge in a lot and whose absence I now feel like a void in my gut. And that is stealth.

And oh I know what you’re going to say now, Mr. Socky. “Yahtzee, how can you possibly feel you’ve been underserved stealth by the current industry. Isn’t stealth one of the ingredients of the Jiminy Cockthroat model you’re always complaining every triple-A action adventure game has? Open world stealth action games with crafting and collectibles? And plenty of games have stealth sections at least, like in that Chants of Sennaar game you were talking about recently, and those little interlude levels in Marvel’s Spider-Man where you have to play as Mary Jane crouching behind a wall throwing bits of old tin around.”

Well, to take your points in reverse order, I can think of very few examples of mandatory stealth sections in the middle of non-stealth games that don’t suck a great big non-safety regulated tailpipe. Oh, hang on, tell a lie: I can’t think of any at all. Get the hell out of my superhero fantasy game and go risk getting fined for littering somewhere else, Mary Jane.

And as for the other point, the main characteristic of the Jiminy Cockthroat model is that there’s no focus. Every element of it has to have equal placement for maximum broad appeal. So stealth is just an option you can do if you feel inclined, and the moment you mess it up it defaults straight back to the standard combat mechanic. Besides, stealth in this context is always a little bit dreary, I find. Usually it’s the Far Cry 3 thing where there’s an enemy stronghold with five or six dudes walking short regular patrol routes, and we figure out the precise order to take them all out without any of the others noticing, which often feels more like a puzzle akin to untangling a set of Christmas lights.

Whenever I manage to pull it off and neutralize all the guards without an alert, I get this profound sense of anti-climax. All this tension has been building as I creep around unseen, and it doesn’t get a proper payoff. I dump the last body in the tall grass and dust off my hands going, “welp, that’s that.” I can only think of one game where that doesn’t happen, and it’s the game that pioneered the stealth predator mission: Batman: Arkham Asylum. The predator sections don’t get easier the more enemies you take down, no, the remaining ones get more and more scared and trigger happy, they start removing your options, the music gets more dramatic, the situation escalates. That’s how you make it work, and so few games that ape the Arkham predator system realise that. If you don’t raise the tension and enemies just keep obliviously patrolling no matter how many of their pals have disappeared gurgling into the bushes, you don’t feel like a predator, you feel like you’re tidying up.

But anyway. I suppose what I’m missing are games that are entirely built around stealth as the core, intended experience. But as the aforementioned obnoxious forced stealth sections in games demonstrate, stealth is a difficult thing to pull off. I mean, it’s not hard to set up a visibility system and make guards react to nearby sounds and all that, but the sticking point comes when you have to figure out what happens after the player screws it up. A guard spots them, what happens next?

Just game over straight away? That’s what only the suckiest forced stealth sections do. It’s like a combat system where you die in one hit, it’s whacking us around the head for making one tiny mistake. Give the player a chance to run away and hide? Like one of those chase-me-chase-me horror games in the Haunting Ground mould? Better, but that gets frustrating easily. Getting repeatedly spotted and having to keep retreating around the corner to hide in the nearest fridge kinda kills the flow.

Third option: have a combat system, so if you’re spotted you can fight your way out. Which I know feels like surrender. We wanted to avoid this. We went into this wanting to focus on stealth and we’ve ended up having to come up with a combat system anyway. I did say it’s hard to pull off. I think the best compromise is to have combat, but have it kinda suck. Again, the best example of stealth that works is the game that arguably pioneered it, Thief: The Dark Project. You’re supposed to creep around the shadows bopping guards on the head, but there is a direct combat system, in which Garrett waves his sword around like there’s a dog turd on the end and is completely screwed if he ever has to fight off more than one dude at a time.

And Thief makes no bones about not wanting you to fight dudes. If you play on expert level difficulty you flat out fail the mission if you kill anyone. But that intrinsic motivation aside, you don’t want to kill people anyway. You want to feel like a smooth master thief, you want to imagine all the guards waking up the next day to find no valuables and a calling card at which they can only shake their fists in impotent rage. Having to kill any of them feels very un-classy.

I think part of why we don’t see that kind of focused stealth game much anymore is that the notion of deliberately making an aspect of your game suck doesn’t really compute in today’s triple-A production mindset. It’s a hard thing to explain to the design committee. Why are we making combat that sucks? We don’t want our game to suck. Make it suck less. Why are we wasting the publisher’s millions developing a combat system that we flat out don’t want the player to use? Explain this to me, I am very important.

As I said, the Jiminy Cockthroat model is characterised by lack of focus, because it’s terrified of telling the user that they’re playing it wrong. Stealthing, direct combat, showing up to the battle on their hands and knees with a corncob balanced on their left buttock, take whatever approach you want, our aim is to appeal to as many people as possible. But there’s a reason why you don’t buy neapolitan ice cream if you’re in the mood for chocolate. Thief 4 was an execrable pile of seagull plop, for many reasons, one of which was that it no longer had the balls to fail you for killing people. You’d butcher your way through a mansion full of screaming guards and the game goes “Well done for playing the way YOU want to play! Why not buy some of these skill tree upgrades that will make you even better at clumsy murdering?”

Big money game dev also has trouble understanding the benefits of being understated. As we know, it’s all about spectacular graphics and putting the money on screen, and very little of classic Thief’s trademark slowly tip-toeing down lonely darkened corridors would cut together into an interesting trailer. But it was second to none for slow-burn atmosphere building.

The other way Thief 4 ruined things was by following the ghost train ride route of having every encounter be an enclosed stealth challenge, handfuls of guards in tight clusters of rooms who all have short patrol routes going from one end of a corridor to the other. What I loved about Thief 2 was that the levels were huge and persistent and you had to consider the mansion as a whole. Some guards would have patrol routes that go around the entire building, and you’d never know when they might burst in and catch you lifting a candlestick or dumping an unconscious carcass into the spare toilet or whatever- You know, now I’ve sounded it all out, I think I’ve finally realised that I’m not so much hankering for more well-designed stealth games as I am hankering to play through Thief 2 again. So… I guess I’ll go do that. Yes, good idea. Thanks for listening.

In this episode of The Stuff of Legends, Frost tells the story of an Elite Dangerous author who was hunted by his own fans.

The Author Hunted by His Own Fans in Elite Dangerous – Transcript

You don’t happen to have antivenom do you? Yeah, I figured as much. I’ll just read this book and hope it wears off I guess.

Elite Dangerous, created by Frontier Developments, is another one of those space flight simulator games that lures you in with the great expanse and then before you realize it, you’re working a second full-time job as a miner, a pirate, or an assassin. God, how do they get me with space capitalism EVERY TIME??? Luckily, Drew Wagar’s first job is as a sci-fi novelist, so all of the time he spends playing at night can be considered a form of method writing. That’s probably why his book, Reclamation, is considered to be the best Elite Dangerous novel and why he was personally commissioned by Frontier Developments themselves to create a sequel with a rather unorthodox development cycle. Frontier Developments wanted to host a massive in-game event where the community would try to protect or kill Drew Wagar’s character. The outcome of the events would be written into the book.

From the outside, this sounded like a good bit of cheeky fun and cross-promotion. Drew Wagar gets to promote his novels which promotes Elite Dangerous which promotes his novels, back and forth, and players get a chance to see themselves in their favorite book. From the inside, the stakes couldn’t have been higher for the lore enthusiasts, because the character Drew Wagar was playing was at the center of the mother of all grand conspiracies. His character Salome was essentially Princess Leia from Star Wars on steroids. Imagine if George Lucas decided to do a live action roleplay session where he dressed up as Leia (ooh baby?) and if you killed or protected him you’d get to be written into Star Wars itself.

No one was more excited than a group of roleplayers known as the Children of Raxxla. Devoted to Salome and unraveling the web of political conspiracies that threatened her safety, it was them that made up the majority of her defensive entourage. Together, with Drew Wagar as Salome, the commanders repeatedly practiced fighting through a simulation of open space alongside their precious cargo, but she was shot down every time. It wasn’t until weeks later that the crew abandoned the idea of fighting altogether and instead opted to focus on coordinated defensive maneuvers and evasive action. In one such practice run, Salome made it through alive. There was hope.

Hope wasn’t enough for the Premonition Allied Coalition, a group of players who thought themselves to be the best fighters and strategists Elite Dangerous had to offer, and Salome’s only real chance of survival against any open space hostiles. The PAC took charge of the operation and forced changes that rubbed the community the wrong way. The most egregious of decisions was bringing in a group of hoodlums known as the Smiling Dog Crew. These players had a reputation for being the villains of Elite Dangerous. The SDC insisted it was all roleplaying, and while they didn’t cross major lines that warranted a ban from the game, they mostly picked on new or casual players. The PAC brought in the Dog Degenerates because they figured the best way to counter griefers and trolls was by enlisting the most famous griefers and trolls. If the SDC showed any sketchy behavior, an order would be given to shoot all members down like the Dogs they were.

I can not prove intent. I can not say whether the Smiling Dog Crew really intended to help from the start or if they were setting out to do the thing everyone assumed was going to happen. But what I do know is a wealthy player by the name of Commander Runis Oo did not like the fact that the villains of the game had swapped sides, so he put a billion dollar bounty on Salome’s head. He wrote in an email, “ I usually like to do some sparring with the bad guys in Elite, because they put up more of a fight and provide more entertainment than the good ones. When I heard that SDC was siding with PAC for Salomé’s protection I thought, ‘Hell, if even they and their friends moved to the righteous side, who is there left to fight? Traders and miners?’ I thought that if they chose to play it that way, I could make things a bit more interesting by throwing a billion into the ring.”

April 29, 2017, the day of the event. Drew Wagar logged into the game as Salome. His ship was surrounded by a small group of armed fighters. Another mass of fighters surrounded those fighters, but these were unarmed and could only intercept other ships. The SDC had convinced the PAC that the biggest threat to Salome was friendly fire from inexperienced players and that it would be easier to identify hostile players if everyone left their weapons at home. The PAC issued a declaration to the community that no one else was allowed to defend Salome. All non-PAC ships would be shot or intercepted on sight. Players weren’t too happy that the PAC had hijacked an event intended for everyone and had to get approval from them to participate. Many that intended to protect Salome were embittered to the point of trying to attack her. Others hoped the SDC would betray the PAC for their perceived arrogance.

Everyone set off. The scouts flew ahead and looked for safe spots to land. Once there, the coordinates were relayed back to the Salome group who then bought time for her to charge the hyperdrive to make the jump into hyperspace, but a jump can only take you so far. Salome was most vulnerable to being intercepted during the repair and charging of the hyperdrive, and the headstart they had was all but gone. Rogue ships flew in to pull Salome out of supercruise to shoot her down, but all non-registered flyers were intercepted by PAC members. If anyone made a mad break to the center of the formation where Salome was, they were intercepted and shot down by the few ships approved to carry weapons. This worked better than expected for the first hour, but the damage to Salome’s ship was beginning to add up and the outer layer of defenders was spreading thin because they weren’t allowed to use proper weapons to fight off invaders.

Communications had become a mess and Salome was spending more time repairing and charging in between jumps. The space net wouldn’t hold for much longer and her chances of survival were non-existent. The Salome crew made the next jump and that was the last time the main defensive group heard from her. In a bold move, the closest fighters to Salome decided to split away from the hive. They figured everyone would be too distracted looking for her in the middle of the fray, and that would be enough time to get their payload to its destination. Her ship had little means to fight back, and she was running out of resources to run. Luck didn’t seem to be on her side either, as a non-playable character was targeting Salome for interdiction. Salome’s ship was too weak to fight the tug-of-war, but her fighters kept her safe. They just needed to survive six more jumps.

As part of the event, anyone on Salome’s friend’s list knew her location, with a bit of a delay. One such “friend” on that list was a member of Smiling Dog Crew. He had been following the party from the moment they split off from the thousands of players who vowed to defend her. Catching her during a jump was impossible, but her ship was so damaged that she was spending more and more time charging in between jumps. It was during this window of opportunity that he swooped in to intercept Salome. Her ship was once again too weak to sever the connection and relied on her fellow fighters to save her, but they were nowhere to be found this time. The game had crashed for one of her bodyguards. The others were having network issues. After an hour and forty-five minutes of flying through open space, Salome was shot down by one of the most well known trolls in Elite Dangerous, “Harry Potter.”

“Well what did you expect?,” said the community. The players mourned Salome and cheered for the egg on PAC’s face. The group dissolved, whether out of shame or to avoid being hunted down is anyone’s guess. The SDC stayed together and continued to harass players under the guise of roleplaying. And Drew Wagar, true to his word, wrote “Harry Potter” into his book after coming to an agreement that he be referred to as “Besieger” instead. It’s some kind of irony to be an author shot down by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named-Due-To-Copyright-Infringement.

This week on Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee reviews Lords of the Fallen. And if you subscribe to The Escapist Patreon or YouTube memberships, you can view next week’s episode on Sonic Superstars right now, as well as an uncensored version of this and every Zero Punctuation going forward!

For more major games Yahtz has reviewed lately, check out Assassin’s Creed Mirage, Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, El Paso Elsewhere and ?, Mortal Kombat 1, Chants of Sennaar and Lies of P, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, Starfield, Sea of Stars, En Garde! and Blasphemous 2, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Viewfinder and My Friendly Neighborhood.

Lords of the Fallen (2023) Zero Punctuation Transcript

Here we bloody go again. Don’t just rip off the title of another, completely unrelated game, Lords of the Fallen, did we learn nothing from Prey 2016? Think of the poor confused audience, you’re going to make them forget all about the previous Lords of the Fallen. “There was a previous Lords of the Fallen, Yahtz?” …well, never mind. I’m sick of complaining about it, anyway. Let’s just add the current year in parentheses to your title with this hot branding iron and we can move on. As I say, Oh No More Lords Of The Fallen has almost nothing in common with its namesake but for the fact that it’s a soulslike with a dark fantasy theme, but I repeat myself. It’s got all the usual soulslike trappings: you’re an immortal dude on a pilgrimage through various doomed lands where the locals have apparently been informed that you’ve been shagging their collective missus, boss fights, checkpoints, free healing potion refills, elevators with buttons in the floor. But wait a sec, I tried to do that thing I always do in Dark Souls where after using a lift I’d send it back and quickly hop off it so I don’t have to wait for it next time, but I couldn’t do that in Lords Of the Fallen because the doors closed too quick for me to hop off. So… zero stars, better luck next time.

Alright, well that summarizes the one part of my notes where I wrote down “BLOODY LIFTS” in block capitals, let’s look at the rest. For the soulslike connoisseur, Lords of the Fallen plays it pretty straight dark fantasy with a dash of that Catholic guilt vibe that Blasphemous does, and just to skip to the weaselly asshole damn with fine praise summary, in the field of offbrand Soulslikes I would describe it as “okay-ish.” Which makes it worth talking about, like discovering a supermarket own-brand knockoff Cola that’s actually halfway drinkable. Obviously it’s not as good as the real stuff but it’s pretty amazing that I tolerated it for as long as I did before using it as toilet cleaner. It’s got an interesting suite of bespoke gimmicks to set it apart; ammo for ranged weapons refills at checkpoints like your mana bar does, for example, and that’s something in itself – a soulslike with a viable bow build that isn’t an optional challenge mode for people who pride themselves on their ability to manage the weekly shopping. Just as well, ‘cos you bloody well need an accurate ranged option.

This game loves ranged enemies. If it can bean you in the temple with an unexpected crossbow bolt just as you’re creeping up for a backstab then that’s the day made as far as Lords of the Fallen’s concerned. It loves plonking them everywhere in concealed elevated spots, similar to the relationship I have with bottles of whiskey I don’t want the wife to know about. Also, the checkpoints are pretty far apart but you can use a consumable to create little mini-checkpoints at designated spots, like when you do a little poo in the woods when you can’t wait for the next rest area. And if you’re anything like me you’ll keep doing this not knowing you’re literally around the corner from the next big checkpoint and get very cross. But the big main unique selling point in Lords of the Fallens is dual world gameplay in a Metroid Prime 2 sort of area. Where you can shift from the living world to the world of the dead either by making an elaborate hand gesture or, you know, getting killed, and the world of the dead has extra paths and treasures but also extra enemies and spooky environment design, although the level of spookiness tends to be inconsistent.

You’ve got a magic flashlight that lets you glimpse the dead world version of the current area in case you want a quick viewing before you commit to a lease, and sometimes it’s a whole alternative appearance evoking Zdzislaw Beksinski throwing a Halloween party in the Warhammer 40k universe, with a gigantic skeleton looming over everything like it’s had a long night and mistaken our current environment for a puke trough. And then sometimes they just selectively smear some skulls and a bit of dryer lint about. And sometimes it just looks exactly the same as the living world but with the lighting saturation turned down a notch. And that communicates what became my broad impression of Lords of the Fallen A Little Bit Further This Time – that there were varying levels of could be arsedness in play. But the dead world does make for an interesting extra factor to consider – simultaneously expanding the exploration potential while giving you a little more wiggle room against the high difficulty; getting killed isn’t an immediate failure but more of a getting bumped down to remedial school where you get one more chance but you’ve got to start applying yourself or the pale faceless dudes with the skinny legs will overtake you in the grade rankings.

But I find these days there’s only one metric by which I can judge soulslikes, and that’s how long I can play them before the soulslike fatigue sets in. And I’d say Lords of the Falling Down did quite a bit better than average. The dual world gimmick gave it a freshness, ironically, since the dead world looks like it smells like the inside of a packet of airline pretzels that was forgotten about in a seat pocket for a year. And the game doesn’t seem to be doing the usual offbrand Soulslike thing of trying to outdo From Software when it comes to unreasonable difficulty, at least not where the boss fights are concerned. Very few visits from the Manus Father of The Abyss twitchy last second lockon spazz-out brigade that took over Elden Ring. I remember defeating this one hearty lad who was guarding the objective in the swampy area and being absolutely astonished that he didn’t have a second phase. ‘Cos he’d only taken, like, four goes and I still had all my teeth. It doesn’t hurt that the game’s generous with NPC support. Half the boss fights there’s just three dudes politely lined up outside like schoolkids waiting for you to pick teams. Frankly it made me suspicious. Yeah, you say you’ll help no strings attached but how do I know you won’t need help moving house next week?

Maybe this will turn off all those twitchy weirdos apparently in the majority who like it when soulslikes get less and less reasonable but I’m hoping to still have working wrists in my old age. So the bosses were fine, it was all the stuff in between that eventually wore me down. I’d say from around the snowy mountain area onwards the game gets more and more cheeky about the gauntlets of enemies it expects you to deal with. There was one particular hillside path that took me through, like, five groups of assholes, multiple of those burly shield men who all need to be carefully danced around unless you want their shields widening your bumhole by a factor of two feet, about three of that one thing who was an early game boss fight who’s clearly bitter about not getting a special health bar anymore, and you can’t just run past them all because the path is narrow and they’re a dogged bunch, especially the dogs. So it was after banging my head against that for an afternoon only to discover it was just a shortcut that didn’t even lead to progress, I soured to Lords of the Ballsack wholeheartedly. Still, it’s definitely a better game than the first Lords of the Ballsack, for what that’s worth. Hey, we walked across a room without breaking our ankles this time. Although we did tread in the cat’s litter box and punted the dog through a wall.

In today’s episode of Design Delve J & Ludo brave the terrors of the Sevastopol and unpack why Alien: Isolation remains such an effective horror experience.

For more episodes of Design Delve, check out J’s answers to How Sea of Stars Designed a Water Temple That Didn’t Suck, and Can A Poorly Designed Game Still Be Good?

This week on Cold Take, Frost takes a look at the sad state of consumer protections.

Check out more recent episodes of Cold Take, including AAA’s Struggle With Nostalgia, Why Are We Still Using Review Scores, The Hype Train is Running Out of Steam, and Armored Core 6 and the ‘Git Gut’ Mentality.

Consumer Rights Need to Catch Up – Transcript

Every regulation is written in blood – Happy Halloween – It’s a saying we have in the business of safety that basically means humans are bad at safety until after something bad happens. You see a sign that says “warning high voltage electricity” and you can probably guess that that sign didn’t exist until after someone felt what it was like to chew 5 gum. The video game industry shares that quality of doing something good after something bad happens, Steam’s refund policy came about after too many people were being scammed through the Early Access program. But the video game marketplace is constantly changing, so these regulations need to be updated frequently otherwise they get in the way of progress or leave buyers vulnerable to shady sellers. I don’t think anyone anticipated digital consumerism spreading as fast as it has, and that makes it harder for gamers to make informed decisions. Consumer protections are slacking, and I’d like it if we could get some signs put up before too many people get hurt.

The general gist of consumer protection is that sellers have a natural advantage over buyers because they know the real value of a product. I can try to sell you a banana for $100 and say it has magical properties that fight off macular degeneration, while really it’s a normal $10 banana  that I used to try and kill a spider. A referee then flags me down and says that I am allowed to sell the banana for $100 or even $1000 but I am not allowed to claim it has any powers beyond an average banana-sized dose of potassium and I must disclose that I used it to bash a bug in the bathroom. You’re still allowed to buy it but now that we’re on an even playing field, would you still want to? That’s old-school consumerism, designed to protect the consumer at all times by keeping them informed. You’re allowed to buy damaged goods or gamble, so long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else, but you need to know the full extent of the damage or that the odds are stacked against you. It’s not about policing morals or judging right from wrong. That’s a fool’s fool’s errand. Normal fools are going “yeah, even I ain’t touching that one.” It’s about consent and you can’t properly consent without being fully informed.

New school consumerism is a game of trying to pull a fast one on you without getting flagged down by the referee. In this scenario, my banana is normally $100 but for a limited-time only you can buy it for 80% off. This is not misinformation, this is simply intentionally confusing framing meant to pull on the strings of your imagination. “80% off? What a steal! It’s normally $100…I wonder why it was priced so high initially. Maybe it’s one of the magical bananas that fight off macular degeneration!” Meanwhile another banana (of same girth, length, curvature) with a consistent price tag of $20 offers nowhere near the same excitement. Buying stuff is nice but, for many, feeling like you got a better bargain than the seller is as sweet as any purchase. That’s why casinos and carnivals aren’t shut down by the marketplace referees. Everyone knows the odds are stacked against you, and yet that is the appeal. This is what Steam Sales used to be. Buy a game at 60% off or wait 30 minutes and see if it goes to 70%. Do you wait another 30 minutes for an 80% discount or risk it going back to full price for a few more months? I feel like my grandpappy going on about how gas used to cost a nickel. Back in my day I got Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag for $7.49 not even two years after release!

Can you believe we used to have to go to a physical location to pick up video games or wait on the mail for them? A lot has changed since then and most of it has come with the advancement of digital consumerism. This explosive growth has given consumer protections little time to keep up as it now has to deal with different global interpretations of commerce and the even more ambiguous nature of modern consumerism. This creates gaps in the marketplace and the buyers are liable to fall into the holes left by the biggest of sellers. 2023 consumerism includes all of the old trappings from 80% off stickers to pre-orders, but now we’re diving deeper into the liveservice pool. Live service has been a thing for decades, but it was predominantly centered around PC gaming and when it did come to consoles it was with a focus around online multiplayer. It’s changed so much that perhaps it’s worth a look at the older terms of conditions. Is the consumer aware enough of the current state of gaming to make an informed purchase?

Games used to be something you bought, you owned, and did not change. I can pop my disc of Crash Team Racing into my PlayStation 1 and it plays exactly as it did 24 years ago. I can access my digital download of Portal and it plays as it did 16 years ago. But No Man’s Sky is no longer the game it was 7 years ago and Cyberpunk is different from where it was 3 years ago. Both of these games do mention the potential for online changes in their End User License Agreement, that thing you never read but always say you did so you can play the game you already bought. No Man’s Sky just says it updates the game from time to time while Cyberpunk explicitly states “older, non-updated versions may become unusable over time.” Is this enough information for a consumer to make a reasonable purchase? Most people do not see the End User License Agreement until after they’ve bought the game. People still can’t wrap their heads around the fact that you do not own a video game but rather a license to play that can be revoked for any reason at any time, and now it comes with the added caveat that the thing you bought can turn into something else after the fact and there’s nothing you can do about it. Personally, I don’t think people are being informed as well as they should be.

Early Access games have to make you aware that the game is not finished and the end product can be completely different from what you are purchasing. Xbox Game Pass marks these as Game Previews. Steam has a big Early Access box that a customer can not avoid looking at because it is hovering over the purchase options, and this box provides a general FAQ about why the game is in Early Access and what that entails alongside links that provide more thorough explanations of the Early Access Program. Epic Games also warns you that the game you are purchasing is liable to change and to only continue if you’re okay with the state the game is in based on the trailers and patch notes. But, because some people prefer a hands-on approach when it comes to buying things, most digital game marketplaces will grant you a full refund if you fill out the paperwork soon enough. I’m not sure what the limit is for the others, but I know Steam will refund a game within two weeks of purchase provided that you’ve only played for 2 hours, and even then is known to make exceptions on a case by case basis. Under current policies, you can not refund No Man’s Sky or Cyberpunk 2077 if you log on and it’s a different game from the one you purchased on release.

Who would refund these two games in particular, Frost? They’ve only improved since their highly publicized missteps at launch and have given people hope that the live service model can offer redemption to any bad game. What if it doesn’t offer redemption? What if a bad game stays bad or, worst case scenario, what if a good game at launch only gets worse with patches like say Overwatch? Imagine your copy of Star Trek turning into a musical one day or Black Adam turns into an adult-film. Well, the acting will have improved. It’s not about whether they improve or not. The point is the process has major holes in it and I would be remiss to wait until a game goes from good to bad before having this conversation. I am OSHA trained, I look for the accidents before they happen. Redemption is subjective. Optimizing a game is one thing, but redeeming or ruining a game’s content is relative to the customer. A game being better or worse is a matter of opinion, but a game being different is easy to observe and prove in a court of law if it came down to it. It shouldn’t come down to it. All I’m asking for is a label. A glowing advisory saying the contents of this game are liable to change at any point before and after purchase. But would you want the banana then?

Would you subscribe to my fruit stand if you knew that one day the bananas could turn to apples, oranges, or tomatoes? They are fruit. Would I ever cycle back to bananas? “Sure…” I’ll tell you. Maybe. I’m not lying. There’s always the potential. If you don’t like what I have on offer you can always go to another fruit stand but they operate the same way I do. Casinos are fine because adults can make the informed choice to participate and if they don’t want to gamble there’s plenty of other places to go. As it stands now, I don’t think adults can make an informed decision on their games, let alone a child. And if every game turns into a virtual casino of sorts then there are only two choices. Participate or don’t.

You play as Malakai and Kaela, a sibling pair of relic hunters hailing from the City of Bones, an isolated desert town that’s an oasis of peace in the otherwise conflict-embroiled fantasy world of Jäan. When chaos and tragedy arrive on their doorstep, the brother-sister duo sets out on a mission to unmask the villains who’ve turned their lives upside down, eventually finding themselves playing critical roles in a war with higher stakes than they ever could have imagined.

Dark Envoy allows you to fully customize both Malakai and Kaela for combat, beginning with selecting from four base classes — warrior, ranger, engineer, or adept. As you level up, you increase various statistics and choose class specializations, each offering its own set of active and passive skills. You can also craft and enchant weapons, armor, and stat-boosting jewelry to further complement each character’s fighting style. I opted to use some pretty standard builds — for example, I made Kaela a sharpshooter, invested many of her attribute points into speed, and equipped her with light armor to create a character that could zip around the outskirts of the battlefield, taking out enemies from afar. In addition to Kaela and Malakai, there’s a small pool of partially modifiable companion characters to round out a party of four for each mission.

WATCH THE DARK ENVOY VIDEO REVIEW ABOVE

Dark Envoy’s combat incorporates a unique “Tactical Mode,” which permits you to slow or pause time to survey the battlefield and give directions to your units. Though I initially found this mechanic intriguing and thought the first boss fight encouraged me to use it in an effective and engaging way, for the vast majority of the game, it only served to make some uninteresting, extremely repetitive battles even longer than they needed to be. There was very little variety among enemies or map layouts, and although I sampled every difficulty setting besides “insane,” I never felt as though any real strategy came into play. I found myself using the same handful of skills — turning on “Tactical Mode” to aim the offensive ones and turning it off again to wait out the cooldown period — on an endless loop, cutting down wave after wave of enemies and wishing the fight would end faster.

I was similarly disappointed by Dark Envoy’s story, especially when it came to the branching plot. As one example, you must eventually choose to side with either the Empire or the League in the war, a decision that somehow managed to feel entirely meaningless. Both factions are described as immoral, but they’re never really shown acting in ways that illuminate their differing ideologies. Even Malakai and Kaela’s companions have no substantial thoughts on the matter — they’re perfectly content to join up with whatever side you prefer, which (if you ask me) is a remarkably blasé attitude to have about going to war.

I would be remiss not to mention that the review build of Dark Envoy suffered from a multitude of stability and performance issues, including skipping cutscenes, flickering textures, asynchronous audio, physics and pathfinding glitches, freezes, lag, and more. Often, one particular character would stand frozen in the middle of combat despite having the “move to attack” or “autonomous” stances toggled on, and even when I manually prompted him to target an enemy, he’d sometimes just stop walking before he got there. Once, the post-battle dialogue played while the boss was still very much alive and kicking, which left me distracted during the fight and confused after it was over. The list goes on, and while none of these snags could individually be described as a dealbreaker, they added up to produce a gameplay experience that was frequently frustrating.

Overall, my 30-hour playthrough of Dark Envoy was intermittently fun for the first five or so hours despite the technical issues, but the remaining 25 hours failed to deliver enough combat variety or narrative nuance to hold my interest.

Dark Envoy is available now for $29.99 on PC and will be available for Xbox and PlayStation 5 in early 2024. For more 3 Minute Reviews, check out our hub page.

World of Horror is a game that’s been in Early Access for a handful of years but has now crawled out of the choppy seas of game development, fully formed and ready to devour your time.

So here’s the set-up. You play as one of several teenage protagonists solving a pinboard full of local mysteries whose tendrils grip a seemingly quiet seaside town. I’m talking bloated corpses, melting men, ghost girls with curtains of long black hair, and other supernatural terrors. You need to defeat these evils by collecting objects, exploring different parts of town, and surviving encounters with horrible beings. 

World of Horror is roguelike in structure, meaning when you start each run the game will select five stories from a larger pool of investigations. Playthroughs last between 30 minutes to over an hour – that is if you can survive. You solve each of these investigations by visiting different locations in town and then facing random encounters. The outcome of these random events relies on your character’s RPG-style stats. You’ll be tasked with navigating creepy hospitals, abandoned houses, and the local high school. Oof, I’m so freaked out by that high school – if you know, you know. 

There’ll be times when you’ll be confronted with something truly horrifying and so must resort to combat, with the chilling rumours you’ve heard during your investigation materializing into shocking reality. These encounters are turn-based and you’ll be using a combination of attacking, defending, dodging as well as casting spells and curses. An action bar caps how many moves you can stack in a single sequence, and you then unleash it all in one turn. 

These encounters are in a word, uh terrifying. In other games, usually, the ghosties remain mostly hidden, creating a tense atmosphere. But World of Horror doesn’t mess around, and you’re face to face with these monsters – wide smiles, stretched skin, swollen faces-  you take in every single pixel that makes up their grotesque form. It’s like reading a Junji Ito manga and turning the page to a full-page panel of pure nightmare fuel. 

Runs can be difficult at first, especially when you’re looking at an overwhelming interface. It’s a throwback to the designs of classic adventure games but at first glance, it’s a lot. But World of Horror’s tutorials do a relatively good job of onboarding you, and you quickly get to understand how to navigate the game’s labyrinth of symbols, buttons, and mechanics. At first, an object or action might seem kinda useless, that’s until you discover a hyper-specific situation where they can be game-changing, and even unlock new interactions and endings. Completing a run in World of Horror is a delicate balance of strategy and luck. 

The game will dish out a handful of different mysteries each run, but due to its roguelike structure, you’ll bump into the same monsters and events quite a few times. For me, this repetition never dulled their impact, it just meant that I got another chance finding a better solution or gaining more insight into the best strategy. But the best thing about starting a new run is there’s always a chance you might encounter something new, a terror you’ve not seen before. And that’s the pull of World Of Horror – there’s always more lurking in its tangle of stories. And I want to seek out each and every one. If you want to join me on my kind of creepy quest, you can buy World of Horror over on Steam, Nintendo Switch and PS4.

Finn’s moveset is small. You can roll by holding the trigger to gain speed, jump, attack the ground to do a longer jump, and jump immediately after touching the ground to jump higher. Although you’ll unlock new abilities as you collect more eggs, the platforming stays simple and precise, and the bulk of the game is spent using your limited abilities to solve puzzles. 

Distant eggs generally involve hybrid puzzle-solving and platforming. You explore to find a way up, but there’s something stopping you, and you have to solve a minor puzzle to remove the obstacle. In general, these are easy, but satisfying, because they require understanding your platforming abilities to overcome your low jump height, and using the nearby interactable parts of the level. Maybe you need to grow a tree so you have something to jump onto, or maybe you just need to climb up to a different platform and glide over, once you unlock that ability.

WATCH THE CAVERN OF DREAMS VIDEO REVIEW ABOVE

Puzzles, on the other hand, often involve finding things that connect in different areas of the level. For example, a switch for a locked door is found by following a riddle’s clue to another area of the level. A few puzzles are incredibly obscure, but the majority of them are relatively enjoyable, testing your sense of exploration, and occasionally your ability to understand how different parts of the level connect.

There’s no combat in Cavern of Dreams, but this isn’t necessarily in the game’s favour. While many platformers have boring combat, it makes you pay attention in between the jumping challenges. When looking for your next puzzle to solve in Cavern of Dreams, there’s nothing to do but run.

To be fair, Finn’s roll can be a lot of fun to use. Rolling down a hill, then taking a big jump with the momentum you gained is satisfying on its own. That said, going up slopes is painfully slow, and Finn’s moveset is small, leaving you with little to mess around with other than rolling.

The problem is that the platforming is overly punishing. There’s no health system to speak of, so pits will instantly kill you, and other hazards bounce you unpredictably backwards, often into a pit. When you die, you’re sent to the last door you exited, which can be all the way at the beginning of a level. Because the unlockable buttslam is the only way to gain height, you’re best off halting all momentum and carefully taking each jump. The game has a bunch of narrow platforms above pits where you can lose minutes of progress, and when levels lean into that, it can be more tiresome than fun. The joyful elements of the platforming aren’t encouraged, and instead the game feels more like a cautious puzzle platformer.

Cavern of Dreams is heavily inspired by Nintendo 64 platformers, with a blur filter, low poly models, and simple, charming music. I definitely had fun for the game’s 5 hours, despite the last level being pretty annoying. But I found myself wishing the movement was faster and more frantic, and that just isn’t what this game is. If you prefer your platformers with a focus on the joy of movement, this isn’t for you. But if you like 3D puzzle platformers or classic N64 games like Rocket: Robot on Wheels, this is worth considering, because taken on its own terms, it’s a charming little adventure.

This week on Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee reviews Assassins Creed Mirage. And if you subscribe to The Escapist Patreon or YouTube memberships, you can view next week’s episode on Lords of the Fallen right now, as well as an uncensored version of this and every Zero Punctuation going forward!

For more major games Yahtz has reviewed lately, check out Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, El Paso Elsewhere and ?, Mortal Kombat 1, Chants of Sennaar and Lies of P, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, Starfield, Sea of Stars, En Garde! and Blasphemous 2, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Viewfinder and My Friendly Neighborhood.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage Zero Punctuation Transcript

If you’re unfamiliar with mirages because you’ve never read a Tintin book or whatever, it’s a phenomenon that appears in the middle of desolate wastelands which seem to be of substance but the moment you get close enough you realise are totally ephemeral. In which case, Assassin’s Creed: Mirage – yes I can see some of you are ahead of me on this one – is the most aptly subtitled entrant into the series until they bring out Assassin’s Creed: Another Bloody Boring Game About Stabbing. So those restless passionate creatives at Ubisoft couldn’t hold it in any longer and just had to spurt out some more Assocreedage after three years of edging, a recurring phenomenon I think of as Assassin’s Creed’s “What the hell do these people want,” breaks. The last one was after AssCreeSyndicate, when they all went “Oh, apparently they don’t want slightly cringey ‘let’s explore a historical time period on the magic school bus’ stabbing adventures anymore, let’s see if they’ll be any more receptive to ‘let’s all steal mummy’s credit card so we don’t have to grind the next five levels in a suboptimal chestpiece’ live servicey stabbing adventures.'” Hence Origins and Odyssey.

But now that audiences regard the phrase “live service” the way a person with severe indigestion regards the phrase “cream slice,” the latest thinking cap session has concluded that we people want the hell out of a return to basics. The prospect of maybe just not making any more AssoCreedence Clearwater Revivals not being conscionable, apparently, but then this series has long ceased to be a collection of individual artworks and is now an underlying force of nature that ebbs into our lives now and again like the tide. AssoCreeMirage feels like not so much a streamlining or refocussing as an attempt to turn back the clock, being most reminiscent of something like Brotherhood or Revelations, the interstitial games between 2 and 3 that warranted neither a new protagonist nor a number all to itself. It’s one measly city with the usual checklist of treasures to find and throats to stab, and it ends with the dude walking into a science fiction room full of LED strip lighting, experiencing an astounding revelation relating to the overarching plot, and then going out again. After which I assume he starts blowing up party balloons. The question is how one reduces scope in a way that feels fresh and not like a step back.

And Ubisoft’s answer to that question is “Sorry did you say something? I was busy putting haystacks under things.” At least Brotherhood and Revelations had Ezio, a main character we might still be invested in. AssCreeMargarine has Basim, a sort of unusually tall wind-up monkey toy. Initially he’s a street thief in 9th century Baghdad who I think we’re supposed to believe is a wayward teenager in much the way of a 29-year-old getting cast in a Jason film, and he’s also a shameless Assassin fanboy. He sees an Assassin working with his regular fence and goes “Ooh ooh pick me pick me, I’d be such a good assassin, I know how to squat in a bush and everything.” But he just can’t catch their eye, until he sneaks into a palace and ends up accidentally stabbing a dude, and that was the display of stabbing initiative they were waiting for, apparently, because he gets signed up with stabbing academy for the fall semester. And for most of the game there’s just not enough strife or doubt in Basim’s character to make him interesting. He joins the Assassins just like he wanted and immediately becomes mentor’s pet. Yes miss no miss can I fetch you some throat lozenges miss I caught Stebbins raiding the tuck shop miss shall I tell him to report to detention.

His only internal struggle is that he has recurring nightmares about a monster, and he could just be eating dodgy kippers for supper. In the end when he goes into the afore-discussed inevitable magic sci-fi room it turns out the dreams are significant, although why wasn’t entirely clear. It’s something to do with memories of a past life as one of those super special before peoples Assassin’s Creed likes so much, and an instance of one of the classic hackneyed surprise twists. I don’t wanna spoil, but it’s one of the following: someone you thought was harmless is actually the big bad, someone you thought was real is actually imaginary, or someone you thought had a vagina actually has a penis. But that’s the very end, and there’s a lot of jugular veins between you and there that need stabbing. As I say, there’s a deliberate return to the Assassin’s Creed basics: you infiltrate strongholds full of patrolling guards to reach objectives, no district liberating, no ship combat, none of whatever that fucking rap battle bollocks in AssCreeValhalla was supposed to be about, just the endless storybook romance between knife and random guards’ throats. The sandbox isn’t even that big compared to past games, so there’s less of a commute between stabbings.

Although it did mean a couple of locations got reused for different missions, and I’d have to clear out a stronghold I’d already cleared out once before. I feel sorry for whatever temp agency the Baghdad harbour employs. And happily there’s no levelling system, so you can stab away without concern for high-level enemies having done enough neck exercise to repel your blade. Well, tell a lie, there is levelling, the game hasn’t entirely cast off the shroud of used toilet paper strips that is the live service model, there’s levelling, equipment crafting, multiple premium currencies and a big fat “go to online store” button permanently visible in the corner of menu like a dog turd on a new rug. Oh, Ubisoft, you tried so hard to keep to your diet, but those cream slices were just too tempting. Thing is, though, you don’t have to worry about any of it. Your hidden blade still instakill stabs whether or not your sword does plus 2.5% stagger damage or your armor is dyed powder blue. And if you get to the point where it does become relevant ‘cos you fucked up stealthing and entered open combat then you’re probably playing it wrong.

‘Cos the open combat suuuuucks. It’s the usual dodge the red attacks parry the non-red attacks, but the addition of a stamina bar, possibly to lure in the Soulslike crowd, is a misstep as it means you’ll be in the middle of a nice flow and Basim will just stop responding to commands like his wind-up key needs turning. There’s the inevitable skill tree as well, doing the usual wrongheaded thing of making the game easier and easier the more you advance in it. Here’s a new upgrade that stabs four dudes at once while also dicing vegetables and conveniently pressing your trousers. It’s like the auto-climbing hookshot from Syndicate: if you’re rewarding the player by letting them not have to engage with the core gameplay as much you’re sort of telling on yourself a bit, there. I do support the rollback of scope as it means Creamy Ass Rage doesn’t outstay its welcome, but frankly it never had much of a welcome. It was a sort of “Oh its you,” situation. It brings nothing to the table to justify its presence. The gameplay’s just more of the usual and the story fires off like the last squirt at an amateur money shot. “So what does Assassin’s Creed need to do to please you, Yahtz? And don’t say piss off and die.” [ long pause ] “Yahtz?” What? You told me not to say it.

You play as Jack, a Ghostrunner or cybernetic ninja with amnesia, and due to your actions in the last game, the city is suffering from a massive power vacuum. All manner of fledgling factions are now looking to take control, including a newly emerged group of Ghostrunners thought to be dismantled who see you and your group as a tool of their oppression.

There’s a handy recap of the last game’s events in the extras menu but enough context is provided in the narrative to get you up to speed even if you skip it. This game’s story hits on a refreshing premise that suggests the fall of a ruthless dictator is not immediately followed by rainbows and sunshine. The supporting cast from the first game is joined by a few defectors from the old regime and the tensions between the groups now trying to work together make for intriguing drama, but many of the characters themselves are lacking any real distinctive personalities or designs. However, the band of enemy Ghosrunners don’t have that problem, as their overly dramatic rhetoric and displays of aggression keep events interesting.

WATCH THE GHOSTRUNNER 2 VIDEO REVIEW ABOVE

The hardcore and fast-paced action of Ghostrunner excels at giving you several simple tools paired with elaborate enemy and platforming challenges to make use of them. You can run on walls, grind on rails, slide on the ground, block and deflect projectiles with your sword and even change direction mid-air using bullet time. Active combat skills double as smart traversal tools that work your brain just as hard as your fingers as you swap between them in the heat of movement. You can equip and manage chips on your motherboard that specialize in certain skills providing passive bonuses to things like your stamina consumption or shuriken properties, allowing you to be better at the things you like. The addition of motorcycle sections and a wingsuit integrate surprisingly well with all your other skills, making for insanely cool strings of ninja techniques and parkour mayhem.

As powerful as you are, death is still easy to come by. Both you and enemies die in a single hit, so encounters push you to embrace perfection while clearing an arena. The quick restarts upon death temper a lot of frustration, and instead encourage you to master its combat puzzles by trying out new angles of attack and learning exactly what threats the enemies are to you in any given moment. Platforming and puzzle sections can be just as trying, but are amazingly fun with the game’s generous checkpoint system moving you along at a brisk pace.

Boss battles also make use of checkpointing which may have diluted a lot of their challenge, but this does seem necessary since they take multiple hits while you still die in one. Otherwise they are great spectacles that aren’t afraid to mix platforming into their designs rather than just combat.

Visually, Ghostrunner pulls off the cyberpunk aesthetic admirably and does a great job of making the environment look like an actual city rather than just a ninja’s playground. It hides a ton of collectables in small off-routes that can give you new weapon skins or background lore to dig through, and missions will tell you how much is left to find at their conclusion.

I was able to roll credits in just under 12 hours, but the desire to just play again and improve my times and deaths is noteworthy. There’s a roguelike mini game that lets you take on some pre-made virtual challenges, thrown at you in random configurations that I intend to spend a ton more time in. Ghostrunner 2 is a fantastic action platformer that provides spectacle, challenges and just plain fun the whole way through, and I can’t wait to see what’s next for the series. The game is out on October 26th for $39.99 on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.