It’s another week which means we’ve got more takes, because that’s what we do here at Kotaku. We love the retro-themed PS5 Pro, have some problems with The Plucky Squire, weighed in on the Space Marine 2 controversy, and spent seven hours with Dragon Age: Inquisition. Check out all of our opinions for this week in games.
I really enjoyed The Plucky Squire, an action-adventure game in the vein of classic Legend of Zelda titles. It’s got not one, but two, whimsical art styles: one reminiscent of children’s picture books, and another in which the hero is presented as a miniature toy that comes to life in a child’s bedroom. The game is most often presented in the former, where screen transitions are accompanied by the turning of a page, and the middle of most stages appropriately folds where they meet. The eponymous hero goes on many adventures with his friends Violet and Thrash, who each embody noble and righteous virtues, while triumphantly defeating the forces of evil time and time again. At the close of these journeys, the Plucky Squire comes home and writes about it all, because naturally he’s also a bestselling author in the land of Mojo. It’s a game with all the fixings of a kids’ classic, something that can be shared with the children in one’s life to encourage them to dream big and boldly. As I played the game, though, I did find myself wishing that The Plucky Squire actually believed in its audience as much as it claims to. – Moises Taveras Read More
Sony is marking the 30th anniversary of PlayStation with a new lineup of limited-edition, PS1-inspired consoles and accessories and they look surprisingly good, especially for those of us who still have fond memories of listening to the disc spin in the original console while grinding through our favorite ‘90s RPG late at night. – Ethan Gach Read More
Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2, made by Saber Interactive, is the sequel to a beloved 2011 shooter and has been praised for, among other things, feeling like an old-school Xbox 360-era game. But some have marshaled that classic mystique into a rebuke of modern games that don’t conform to certain views they have about who gaming is for and what it needs to be good. – Ethan Gach Read More
I have been waiting for Dragon Age: The Veilguard for 10 years. The last game developer BioWare put out was 2019’s Anthem, an ill-fated loot shooter that chased live-service trends and felt like a misuse of the team’s talents. In the years since, there have been reports and admissions from the studio that the fourth entry in the studio’s fantasy RPG franchise had undergone multiple revamps, including pivoting away from a live-service, multiplayer-driven game in 2021. At a glance, The Veilguard, with its emphasis on narrative and on the multiple well-developed, three-dimensional companions you can befriend or romance, seems like a strategic shift back to core principles for a studio that has been fumbling to find its voice again. – Kenneth Shepard Read More
Efforts to preserve, spotlight, and celebrate important games of the past have been gaining steam in recent years. Consider, for instance, Digital Eclipse’s Atari 50, a compilation of games from across that company’s history that provides wonderful context in the form of interviews and archival materials, illuminating their colossal impact on gaming. Now, we have another such compilation: UF0 50, a collection of 50 games from UFO Soft, the business-software-maker-turned-game-developer that, across the 1980s, was responsible for dozens of gems which simultaneously reflected the larger gaming trends of the time, while also innovating and pushing the medium forward in their own right. There’s just one small but crucial detail here, however, that sets UFO 50 apart from any other such compilations: UFO Soft never actually existed. – Carolyn Petit Read More
If you listen closely, it feels like you can hear the jingle of plastic and metal for Nintendo’s next console as its manufactured and assembled in faraway factories. You can almost sense its launch lineup coming into focus as the company’s developers prepare to put their finishing touches on whimsical new experiments. Rumors and speculation around a supposed Switch 2 have reached a fever pitch as fans await a possible official reveal any week now. So it’s our last chance to share our hopes and predictions for the new hardware before dreams become reality. Here’s what we want from a Switch 2, and what we think we’ll actually get. – Ethan Gach Read More
Astro Bot is one of the most entertaining and depressing games I’ve played in ages. It’s a loud, unrestrained explosion of creative energy, it’s an antiseptic corporate product drowning in brand fellatio. A shining example of what current-gen first-party games can be, a dreary reminder of everything they’re not. PlayStation is dead; long live PlayStation. – Cole Kronman Read More
Ever since FromSoftware released the action RPG Demon Souls in 2009, the rest of the video game industry has been (lovingly) copying it. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, as the saying goes. Amongst a wealth of solid takes on the genre, last year’s dark fantasy title Lies of P stands out as one of the best. Not only does the game expertly emulate what fans love about the Souls genre, but it also iterates on its formula in exciting ways. Though one year after its release, what I find most charming about Lies of P is just how enthralling its absurd premise actually is. – Willa Rowe Read More
Earlier this month, myself and several other content creators and members of the press got to go hands-on with BioWare’s long-anticipated RPG Dragon Age: The Veilguard. I came away from my seven hours with it really impressed with what feels like the most cohesive game BioWare has put together since probably 2012’s Mass Effect 3. And part of that time was spent exploring the capabilities of the game’s character creator, with which we had full freedom. – Kenneth Shepard Read More
Making a sequel to an amazing game is hard enough, but with each subsequent entry that task gets even harder. So while 1991’s point-and-click adventure game Monkey Island 2 is seen as a stunning improvement over its predecessor, the more the series went on, the harder it was to recapture the original sparkle. That is partially due to changing taste in games over the years and who was actually behind its development, but the sentiment still stands. So when Return to Monkey Island, the sixth game in the franchise, released two years ago on September 19, 2022, over three decades after the original, there was no telling what we were going to get. And yet, Return to Monkey Island might just be the best game in the series to date. – Willa Rowe Read More
