Half-Life 2 always stands out in my mind for this due to it being such a physics playground.

I usually hate water areas in games, though 😂 Especially the Zelda ones.

There’s almost no multiplayer in Honkai Star Rail, though, much less anything approaching what an MMO does. It has asynchronous character sharing and one-to-one chat. That’s literally all the player interaction there is in the core game. Every now and then there’s an event where you can go head-to-head in simple games like match 3.

I tried a bunch of these today and yesterday. EDIT: also tacked on impressions of demos for After Inc: Revival, Kaizen: A Factory Story, and Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon.

In the “Shut Up and Take My Money” tier:

• Bits & Bops - Sure, it’s a total Rhythm Heaven clone but, hey, why mess with a winning formula? Still, I worry about devs borrowing this heavily from Nintendo titles these days 😬
• Dispatch - I only needed 10 minutes with this to know I’m sold. The animation is gorgeous and it has a hell of a cast. Between this and Expedition 33, how are new studios getting these people!?
• Mina the Hollower - Shovel Knight’s the best retro game I’ve seen and I didn’t need to see much of Mina to know that Yacht Club delivered again. It’s got a Zelda vibe (the jump especially feels just like it did in Link’s Awakening) along with all that other 8-bit-with-present-day-game-design goodness. I also cut this one short so I can enjoy it in full later. Day 1 for me.

Pretty good but a couple hiccups:

• Forestrike - Hey, PlayStation gamepad glyphs! Always appreciated. Outstanding atmosphere in general. The pixel graphics are interesting; the character design reminds me of old Sierra games. I wonder if at some point during dev they considered just not going roguelite? There’s real storytelling talent here and I think a linear game with increasing complexity might have been even better (and helped to not undercut the narrative as roguelite progression tends to do).
• inKonbini - Very short demo, but the gameplay seems it’d be good and vibe is cozy. Really strange that the written Japanese is gibberish. It seems too elaborate to be placeholder text, so I wonder what the story there is? It takes me out of the life sim aspect of this a bit.
• Kaizen: A Factory Story - I found a lot to like with this. I tend not to like puzzle games, but when I find one that’s interesting, I tend to really like it. The setting is also great. After a very short demo, the only thing I’m not sure on is how long the full game is going to be. I’d like to get this, but the price has to be right.
• MIO: Memories in Orbit - This one was up and down for me across the board: music, gameplay, systems, visuals. The tutorial sections are outstanding work and worth the download for that alone (there’s one right away). While I think the metroidvania design here is good, I wasn’t sold on the graphics. At times it’s difficult to parse out what’s a platform and what’s background, and there are weird blind spots with camera on top of that. I also can’t believe they went with the map system from Hollow Knight, the only real negative of that game.
• Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon - I see this one just went 1.0 after an early access period, and critic reviews have been mixed. Understandable why old Elder Scrolls fans are feeling this is scratching an itch. I think there’s a lot to like here, but I might ultimately skip it. The prevailing thought I kept getting through the demo is that this studio’s next game is going to be great.

Not for me:

• After Inc: Revival - This ended up playing more like a clicker game than I was expecting. This seems not bad, but this isn’t my kind of game.
• BALL X PIT - The gameplay pacing on this is unpleasant, with the roguelite elements stopping the action too much. Kept wanting to get into a flow state and was constantly interrupted.
• Bloodgrounds - All the other demos I played came ready with story and this one feels underbaked in that department. What I played of the demo was almost all gameplay. Didn’t see much that sets it apart from the pack.
• Dice Gambit - I don’t think this strategy game gets the basics down well enough to add on the dice layer. Feels like one move should be guaranteed regardless of rolls (and lack of move undo is unfortunate also). The art style also isn’t for me.

Aphelion: I’ve been kinda out on Don’t Nod but the trailer tells me they at least still know how to pick licensed music.

Beast of Reincarnation: Didn’t know Game Freak had this in them. Still wouldn’t recommend going anywhere near their stuff without seeing reviews first.

The Blood of Dawnwalker: This is my dark horse pick coming out of this week’s showcases. Yeah, it’s a Witcher clone from CD Projekt devs, but it only needs to capture some of the Witcher magic to be great. The publisher is curious, though. This has to be Bamco’s biggest swing with a Western studio yet, right?

Persona 4 Revival: Little more than a title card reveal. Honestly, the timeline for this one works for me. No way it comes out this year, and I’m still relatively fresh off Metaphor. Good name, too. “Revival” is a very TV-coded hype term.

They improved the handcrafted dungeon stuff in P3R, so I think it’ll probably still be better, but definitely not P5 level.

This seems a long way out though.

“Teaser” is certainly accurate. This was little more than a title card. So much for this coming out this year.

I wouldn’t expect dungeon overhauls. It will most likely still be procedurally generated like P3R was.

Would never have guessed Owlcat’s new game would be in The Expanse universe, or that it would be an action RPG, for that matter.

I’m a huge fan of The Expanse so I’m going to check it out regardless, but I don’t know how this is gonna go.

Played through the demo for this and thought it wasn’t bad. The tutorial sections are big highlights, which I think is smart design for a metroidvania. Enjoyed this overall more than Nine Sols, which I didn’t like anywhere near as much as seemingly everyone did.

Biggest negative is that it uses Hollow Knight’s map system, which was easily my least favorite part of that game.

I’m interested and I’ll keep an eye out for gameplay on this, but holy hell is this name bad.

Fortunately, Silksong’s never missed a release window before.

This looks sweet. Vibes of Startropics and something else I can’t quite put my finger on.

Edit: I didn’t even need 15 minutes with the demo. Outstanding stuff again from Yacht Club. Day 1 purchase for me.

Yep, most of it is at Final Fantasy Hacktics.

I’m not familiar with FFTA’s scene.

Well, there are few modding scenes as robust as the FFT one, so maybe someone will put a nice package together.

Nothing out there is anywhere close to the quality of the Reborn soundtrack, though.

It’s coming out on everything. Post on Square Enix’s site with multiple details here.

I can’t believe they didn’t orchestrate the soundtrack as they did for Tactics Ogre. That was the only thing I wanted out of this project. Ughhh.

All I can hope for at this point are that the new content and gameplay changes are positive.