30 Jan 2025
Basureroes: Invasion Nintendo Switch Review 8.5/10 "It’s time to take out the trash" ⚠️🚮💥 @javi_mikau @basureroes @JanduSoft #IndieGame #GameDev
Just putting this out there as I had no idea what the title meant, ‘basura’ is Spanish for rubbish / trash / garbage – just in case anyone was as flummoxed by the title of this one as I was! Luckily, aside from the title, nothing else about Basureroes: Invasion is rubbish, as it’s an incredibly engaging – and accessible – 2D platform game that has been a regular multiplayer fixture (although it’s just as good in single player mode) in our household over the last couple of weeks.
27 Jan 2025
Dynasty Warriors: Origins PS5 Review 8.5/10 "Battle Grows Where My Wanderlay Goes" 🪖⚔️ @koeitecmoeurope @s_sangokumusou
8 Jan 2025
Sugoroku Casino Party Nintendo Switch Review 8.5/10 "An Unexpected Gem!" 🎲🃏 @SAT_BOX_EN @SAT_BOX_2011 #GameDev #IndieGame
A game for up to six players, Sugoroku Casino Party is a bright and vibrant digital board game set in a casino world. There are quite a few options to get your setup just right, such as number of players, bots, length of the games themselves – with a save mechanic - and the chance to tackle each mini-game separately if you so wish. You can also lightly customise your in-game avatar with uniforms and colours to add some personality to your little plain board game piece.
Unwording Xbox Series X Review 8.5/10 "A word-based puzzle game with an emotional core" 🧠 @frostwood_int #IndieGame #GameDev
Unwording is a short but powerful exploration of overcoming negative self-talk. Solve word puzzles, explore the neighbourhood through multiple perspectives, and help Tom have a better day through a challenging yet cathartic experience.
20 Dec 2024
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered Xbox Series X Review 8.5/10 "New life to an old soul" ⚔️🔥 @AspyrMedia #IndieGame #GameDev
29 Nov 2024
Taito Milestones 3 Nintendo Switch Review 8.5/10 "A Glorious Collection of Classics" 👾 @TAITO @TaitoCorp #Retrogaming
The third entry in Taito’s ‘Milestone’ series, this selection of solid gold feels the strongest overall in terms of the games included here.
The ten games included are Bubble Bobble (1986), Rainbow Islands (1987), Rastan Saga (1987), Rastan Saga 2 (1988), Dead Connection (1992), Cadash (1989), Champion Wrestler (1989), Runark (1990), Warrior Blade (1991), and Thunder Fox (1990).
8 Nov 2024
Gori: Cuddly Carnage Xbox Review 8.5/10 "Gory, gruesome, and great fun!" 😼🛹 @GoriCarnage @AngryDemonGames @wiredp #IndieGame #GameDev
I’d been following the development of Gori: Cuddly Carnage for a while, and was hoping that the promised blend of cutesy innocence and uber-violence, combined with the neon, graphic-novel visuals would scratch my turbo-arcade itch...and yes, yes it has.
1 Nov 2024
Nikoderiko: The Magical World Nintendo Switch Review 8.5/10 "A highlight reel of classic late ‘90s platformers" 🐲 @GamesVea #IndieGame #GameDev
I’d never heard of Nikoderiko: The Magical World before receiving it for review, but within seconds of playing, I knew exactly what treats I was in for. This is very much a game that tips its hat to titles such as Donkey Kong Country, and Crash Bandicoot, as we follow the adventurous mongoose duo Niko and Luna as they try to retrieve a magical artefact from the devious Grimbald and his army of ‘Cobrings’.
3 Sept 2024
Lakeview Cabin Collection PS5 Review 8.5/10 “A Love Letter To Classic Horror” 🔪🏚️ #indieGame #IndieGameDev #GameDev
25 Jul 2024
Abathor Nintendo Switch Review 8.5/10 "A golden throwback to 16-bit co-op classics" ⚔️ @Abathor_Game @JanduSoft
I’ve covered hundreds of games during my time at The Might GF, and some can pop up seemingly out of nowhere and blow me away, some can be stewing for months and months, as I hungrily follow every dev post on social media, my appetite whetting ever further...and then the final game gets slopped on the floor in front of me in a steaming mess, leaving me smoking enigmatically up at the night sky, wondering what could have been as Bohren & Der Club of Gore play sexily in the background, the minimalist jazz soundtrack to my burgeoning disappointment.
Sometimes, though – I’ll stumble across a game that looks funky – like Abathor – and each tease or online trailer will have me adjusting my tie as steam comically toots through my collar. Good.
From the early days of its inception, developer Pow Pixel Games promised to deliver us a throwback platformer, and by Jove, did they ever!
24 May 2024
Duck Detective: The Secret Salami Nintendo Switch Review 8.5/10 “Quack the case!” 🦆 @happybroccgames #GameDev #IndieGame
18 Mar 2024
Gloomhaven XSX Review 8.5/10 "How Deep is Your (board gaming) Love?" 🧙♂️ @GloomhavenGame #IndieGame #GameDev
Although Gloomhaven was originally released on PC back in 2021, I wanted to cover it here on GF (on Xbox) in 2024 because I had such a rich experience with the boardgame on which it is based at one of our regular nerdy weekends away a few weeks ago. At said weekends, we tend to have several smaller, briefer games, and then a hefty one to tuck into for a good portion of each day. In this way we’ve played some pretty heavy hitters...but Gloomhaven always lurked at the back of our minds.
6 Mar 2024
A Void Hope Nintendo Switch Review 8.5/10 "An enchantingly melancholic game with a world class soundtrack" 🌲👻🌳 @EldenPixels #IndieGame #GameDev
The team that brought us Alwa’s Legacy and Alwa’s Awakening has returned with A Void Hope, a 2D narrative adventure with a soundtrack provided courtesy of the monolithic skills of Waveshaper.
The game begins with a short prologue that sets the scene; a couple exist in a world where people are becoming ‘empty’, which is to say they slowly lose their memories, before becoming ghostly, wandering figures that ‘haunt’ the city. Whilst the female is the main character of the prologue, the narrative soon focuses on the male, who begins in a forest cabin and must make his way through the city to find out what has happened to his partner, before his memories completely elude him and he becomes one of the empty.
26 Feb 2024
Persona 5 Tactica Nintendo Switch Review 8.5/10 “Let me in your heart again” 👦👧 @Atlus_West #Persona5 @TransvaalGF
Luckily, I have been a huge fan of Persona and the Megami Tensei series as a whole since the PlayStation 2 era, so, just as everything seemed bleak - enter Persona 5, a game I had pre-ordered the special edition for, and it made me feel good. I spent 128 hours playing it with nothing but joy in my heart, it was the thing I needed - it wasn't just a distraction, it really felt like an old friend, and the story and the cast of characters really resonated with me, so every time this universe gets expanded, I’m always hopeful that special feeling will still be there.
19 Dec 2023
ASTLIBRA Revision Nintendo Switch Review 8.5/10 ⚔️ @_KElZO #IndieGame #GameDev
other elements to keep you engaged. You play as a young blonde boy who lost a dear friend
during an attack on his village, the last he saw of her was when she was near the demon that attacked, just before we cut to a block screen. He wakes up with no memory of his past or who he is, but he is greeted by a crow who eventually names itself Karon, this is the beginning of a long journey in search of answers.
31 Aug 2023
Virtua Fighter 5 --The Ultimate Showdown PS4 Review 8.5/10 "does not fail to deliver hours of button-bashing gameplay..." 🤜💥🤛
The Fifth World Fighting Tournament has arrived, and it does not disappoint.
Virtua Fighter 5 returns with its all-out action and fast-paced - fighting that any arcade beat em’ up fan would be proud of...
This arcade (turned-console) beat 'em' up classic harnesses all of the features you would expect from its predecessors and finds more in this all-enhanced re-master. All new downloadable content is available, such as costumes and themes, updated graphic interfaces and most of all its alternate life bar User interface graphics. If you have loved all the others, then you will enjoy this!
24 Jul 2023
Stay Out of The House PS5 Review 8.5/10 “The home of sleaze, gore, madmen, slashers, and maniacs” 🔪🩸 @PuppetCombo #IndieGames #GameDev
Stay Out of the House is the new game from developer Puppet Combo, now I must admit that I’m not familiar with any of their work, although when I went on to their website it pretty much told me all I need to know, this is a quote from the website –
Stay Out of the House is split into four sections; the first act is named Night Shift, whereby you go to your character’s night shift at a gas station. Things start out pretty normally, you clean up, deal with customers etc. the store also has an arcade cabinet in the corner which you can play when the store is quiet - oddly enough the arcade game is about a killer chasing you, and you must collect things in order to escape. I really liked this introduction it was a nice build-up of suspense, and even though you can see what’s coming, it still made me jump.
10 Jul 2023
Circuit Superstars Nintendo Switch Review 8.5 /10 "Leading The Pack" 🏎️ #IndieGames #GameDev @CircuitSUP
As someone who has grown up enjoying the best of top-down racers through the decades, the sheer quality and depth of Original Fire Games’ Circuit Superstars completely leave a lot of others in the dust when it comes to blending seemingly superficial gameplay with incredible depth, without feeling alienating in its design and accessibility.
9 Jun 2023
Dark Quest 3 XSX Review 8.5/10 "oh go on...one more go..." ⚔️ 🧙♂️ @brainseal #IndieGames #GameDev
It has only been over the last few years that I’ve really gotten hips-deep into board games. From diving into breezy games like Dungeon! And Hero Quest to rule-laden slogs like Massive Darkness or Endure the Stars/Rules, I’ve really come to appreciate the wonderful blend of dedication and camaraderie that comes from a day of getting some snacks and drinks in, then settling down for eleven hours of arguing over the results of dice rolls and bafflingly unclear card descriptions.
It was after a recent weekend jaunt to a salubrious part of the country – where the curtains were promptly drawn and daylight not sighted for 48 hours – that I began to yearn for a single-player board game experience… but in the digital realm.
I genuinely spent a few days installing and uninstalling various games on my phone, hunting around for what I was looking for - and it was then that I stumbled across Dark Quest 3, which was due for imminent release, I can’t comment on Brain Seal Ltd’s other games, or even the preceding two titles in this trilogy, but I can certainly say that Dark Quest 3 is exactly what I needed.
13 Apr 2023
Clash: Artifacts of Chaos XSX Review 8.5/10 "Pretty Pugilism" ⚔️ @theACETeam @NaconFR #GameDev #IndieGame
It was only as I was installing Clash: Artifacts of Chaos that it dawned on me that I’d played the previous games in the series a decade ago - Zeno Clash and Zeno Clash 2 (2009, 2013) – and enjoyed their idiosyncratic take on the 1st person melee fighting genre.
As the installation percentage slowly rose, I cast my mind back to the sessions on my PC with the initial Clash games, they were incredibly unique titles with flawed but fun mechanics that had a narrative style and structure that called to mind Ice-Pick Lodge’s Pathologic – but the Clash series was different in that they actually held up to close scrutiny and were fun to play.
It’s a heady combination when you discover a developer that isn’t afraid to go off-piste with their narrative presentation, whilst also pushing forward a pretty niche genre, in this case, an FPS melee combat / RPG hybrid.
Fast forward to the present and within a couple of hours, I was completely on board with the third title in this long-running series - Clash: Artifacts of Chaos.