Yearly Archives: 2022

I love a good rhythm-action game. Of all the genres of games I play, this is by far the one that keeps me coming back for more, such is the moreish nature of short-lived experiences that offer immense replay ability. After all, my formative gaming years would be nothing without […]

Beat Souls – PS5 Review

February 25, 2022 in PS4 / PS5 / Reviews tagged action / beat souls / game eastasiasoft / music / rhythm by Grizz

Mages and Treasures is a puzzle game from yer man lightUP and Ratalaika. It might look familiar to anyone playing the long game with Ratalaika games as we have been. It’s practically identical in terms of layout to another lightUP game that came out the other year on PS4 & […]

Mages and Treasures – PS4 Review

February 24, 2022 in PS4 / PS5 / Reviews tagged lightup / mages / one note / ratalaika / treasures by Ian

When a game has a connection to Shin Megami Tensei I sit up and take notice. Monark is from ex-Atlus developers who worked on the tough but oh so rewarding and atmospheric JRPG series and you can see some connecting threads here and there, but this isn’t a Shin Megami […]

Monark – PS5 Review

February 24, 2022 in PS5 / Reviews tagged grinding / jrpg / madness / monark / school / seven deadly sins / shin megami tensei / tactical / turn-based by Gareth

Mekabolt+ is a rehash of Mekabolt on PS4/Vita from 2019 by somepx and Ratalaika. We reviewed it back then and this is fundamentally the same game, only just for PS5 in this instance. We’re not entirely sure why this is so, given the levels are slightly different to that which […]

Mekabolt+ – PS5 Review

February 23, 2022 in PS5 / Reviews tagged battery / mekabolt / ratalaika / rehasher / somepx by Ian

Despite the ‘cover’ art and name suggesting this might be a Bomberman/Dynablaster clone, Dyna Bomb isn’t quite what we expect. This one comes to us from 7 Raven Studios and is a 2D arcade-action puzzler that doesn’t have any strong comparisons with other games and there might be a reason for that but […]

Dyna Bomb – PS4 Review

February 23, 2022 in PS4 / Reviews tagged action / arcade / dyna bomb / platformer / puzzler by Richie

Occasionally, adventure games catch my drift and The Song Out of Space seems right up my alley. Coming from Pixel Noire, the tale of extra-terrestrial interference, murders and Cold War tensions do tick a lot of my boxes. Unfortunately, it all seems rushed and doesn’t linger on the intrigue to […]

The Song Out of Space – PS5 Review

February 21, 2022 in PS5 / Reviews tagged aliens / cold war / fbi / narratively-driven / pixel noire / point and click adventure / the song out of space / visual novel by Mike

Moto Roader continues the recent trend of obscure old console games getting ported to modern consoles and certainly this is pretty damned obscure. The original Moto Roader was a top-down futuristic racer which came out for the PC Engine in 1989 and, aside from a Wii Virtual Console appearance, it’s never had […]

Moto Roader – PS5 Review

February 21, 2022 in PS4 / PS5 / Reviews tagged moto roader / pc engine / racer / retro / super sprint / top down by Richie

The clumsily-named QUByte Classics – The Humans by Piko, is a port of a handful of versions of The Humans, a retro-puzzle game from the ’90s that feels a bit like Lemmings but plays a little more like The Lost Vikings but if you’re not familiar, don’t worry. We’ll tell you all about it. In any […]

The Humans by Piko – PS4 Review

February 19, 2022 in PS4 / Reviews tagged 2d / amiga / Collection / lemmings / megadrive / PC / port / puzzle / retro / the humans by Richie

Zombie games, they never die do they? Rather apt really. You can go back ten to fifteen years and people were calling for a break from them. Similarly the open world genre is saturating gaming somewhat, with every game needing huge maps with icons all over it to keep the […]

Dying Light 2: Stay Human – PS5 Review

February 17, 2022 in PS5 / Reviews tagged dying light / first person / open world / parkour / stay human / zombies by Gareth

From Powerslash Studios & Ratalaika Games, we have Super Onion Boy 2. First off, that’s something of a misnomer as this appears to be a port of the original Super Onion Boy that is fully playable on any HTML5 compatible browser. Yup, even your phone. Only coming as it does […]

Super Onion Boy 2 – PS4 Review

February 12, 2022 in PS4 / PS5 / Reviews tagged Blaverage / generic / ratalaika / super onion boy 2 by Ian

We shouldn’t need to tell you what Breakout: Recharged is. Aside from the screenshots which give it all away immediately, the original Breakout is really one of the cornerstones of classic gaming. Space Invaders had the shooting covered, Pac-Man was the mazey collect ’em up and Breakout was the classic bat and ball versus wall game. The natural […]

Breakout: Recharged – PS5 Review

February 12, 2022 in PS5 / Reviews tagged arkanoid / atari / bat and ball / breakout recharged / remaster / retro by Richie

It’s another day in the visual novel dungeon for me and this might be the first time a direct sequel has landed in my queue. Kansei: The Second Turn HD is the middle chapter of Sakevisual’s Green Tea Line narrative. Following on from Jisei: The First Case HD, our nameless […]

Kansei: The Second Turn HD – PS5 Review

February 9, 2022 in PS5 / Reviews tagged green tea line / kansei the second turn hd / Murder mystery / narratively-driven / police procedural / sakevisual / visual novel by Mike