Reviewed on: PC
Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC
Publisher: Embark Studios
Developer: Embark Studios
Rating: Teen
Score: 9
About Game Informer's review system
PurchaseFriday, December 22, 2023
The Finals Review – Appetite For Destruction
<p><img loading="lazy" src="https://ift.tt/ZysmrUg" width="800" height="450" alt="Embark Studios The Finals Release Date December 7 Surprise Launch The Game Awards 2023" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-body-default" /></p>
Friday, December 15, 2023
Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince Review - A Surprisingly Common Experience
Reviewed on: Switch
Platform: Switch
Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Square Enix
Rating: Everyone 10+
Dragon Quest possesses so much history that any new game carries a degree of raised expectation. Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince delivers many of the conventions I’ve come to expect from the series: the vibrant opening song, the charismatic Slime, and the emotional storytelling I already associate with the franchise. But this game goes beyond those well-treaded territories, offering an intelligent and elegant yet simple approach to combat and dungeon design that makes it a solid spin-off experience.
In The Dark Prince, you play as Psaro, a half-human, half-monster boy who becomes a powerful monster wrangler because of a curse that makes fighting them with his own hands impossible. Wrangling is all about capturing monsters and controlling them during turn-based battles. As I progressed throughout the boy’s journey, I found stronger creatures to add to my roster. The game also has an online mode that lets you fight other players, which is a good way to test different group compositions. In my case, it took so long to find a match that my time was better spent adventuring solo.
Synthesizing new monsters by fusing two parent creatures is the best method to obtain a better team, and this system makes all your effort in previously maximizing weaker monsters worth it. Whenever you create a new monster, it’s possible to keep some of the skill points spent in the creatures you’re fusing. Through this system, I crafted some extremely powerful monsters, surpassing their regular versions found in the wild. This system pushes you towards excessive grinding, though. Whenever you fuse a new creature, it comes at level 1, regardless of its parents' levels. In the final sections of the game, fusing a new monster at the wrong moment means spending a lot of time leveling up before getting back on track and trying to defeat a boss.
With the vast number of possible monster combinations you can create in The Dark Prince, I was surprised by how streamlined combat is. The game allows you to set up tactics that define whether a party member will focus on attacking enemies or healing other party members, for example. At the same time, it’s possible to order specific actions for each monster. However, outside of boss fights, engaging more strategically in battles rarely felt necessary. The system waters down so much of each encounter that I usually entered automatic mode and let the A.I. do the thinking.
As the boy works on his craft, we learn about Psaro’s past and his journey alongside his friends, Rose and Toilen, to become strong enough to challenge his father. This is a classic, almost too familiar, premise, but even with the absence of heavily foreshadowed surprises or plot twists, The Dark Prince captivated me, making for a cozy adventure with the charm of an old-fashioned fairy tale.
The game presents the same slow-paced introduction other Dragon Quest games have, making the first few hours a slog. However, I became slowly entangled in the story. Initially, I was progressing only to unlock new monsters, but I realized I was as excited about learning more about Psaro’s tale as I was about finding new creatures. Unfortunately, very few situations offer even a glimpse of what he’s thinking, and it never gave me a chance to understand the reasoning behind his acts better. In this aspect, the game’s respect for its roots hinders its capacity to develop an intriguing character with no option besides nodding or saying yes or no.
While perfectly capable as a standalone title, The Dark Prince is directly connected to Dragon Quest IV. It gives us a chance to learn more about Psaro, a crucial figure in the older title, and also to look over some events related to the previous game from a different perspective.
Psaro’s journey takes us through areas in Nadiria, a magical dimension with different regions called circles. Each circle splits into three tiers, with one final dungeon. Sadly, this structure makes for a repetitive and predictable pattern; after completing the first four circles, I knew exactly what to expect from every new region. These areas are made worse by noticeable dips in performance, as the framerate suffers considerably. While I could easily ignore these minor performance issues, the circles’ recursive design became more tiresome whenever I went for long gameplay sessions.
On the other hand, the dungeons are the most surprising element of each circle. They all share a similar structure: many floors, a traversal gimmick, and a teleport before the boss room. While they might feel as repetitive as the circles, the puzzles inside each dungeon make them fun and varied. The developers found a solid balance between difficulty and enjoyment when designing them. The Dark Prince veers more toward traditional dungeon design, with treadmills you need to activate to advance or ladders and holes in the ground to get to the top of the building. Though most dungeons are forgettable, they offer a refreshing intellectual experience even without leaning on any design extravaganza.
By rigidly following Dragon Quest traditions, we end up with flat, cartoonish characters who inhabit a repetitive, cyclical world. But The Dark Prince plays to its strengths to deliver a solid RPG experience with a cozy narrative seasoned by a long list of charismatic creatures and entertaining dungeons.
Score: 7
About Game Informer's review system
PurchaseWednesday, December 6, 2023
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora Review - Tripping Through Jungles
Reviewed on: PC
Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft Massive
The Avatar films are great fun but have never blown me away with original storytelling. Instead, the translation of familiar formulas into a vibrant and visually arresting alien world elevates the films. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora follows that same tack, featuring first-person exploration and combat that borrows liberally from franchises like Far Cry. But here, an enormous and detailed fantasy world breathes life into the experience, making it both more engaging and sometimes needlessly obtuse – but always with a flair for the source material.
While concurrent with the movies, Frontiers of Pandora tells a separate standalone story about a small group of young Na’vi raised by the villainous and ecologically reckless RDA, and one individual Na’vi’s gradual rediscovery of their heritage and connection to nature. The overt environmental themes of the franchise are accentuated by a pointed indictment of child separation and forced re-education among indigenous populations. Developer Massive Entertainment has done a phenomenal job capturing the unique fictional nuances of the Na’vi, adding several fresh wrinkles in the form of new clans and individuals. It’s a genuine treat for franchise fans that adds substantially to the lore.
Gameplay is all about running and leaping through dense jungles, plains, and caves, while simultaneously learning the many secrets of Pandora’s flora and fauna. The richness of the ecosystems is unmatched in any game I’ve encountered. I had fun learning the properties and potential of the many strange living things along my path. As I did, new skills and gear enhanced my Na’vi’s potential, and I steadily climbed to mastery.
The visual presentation is gorgeous and does justice to the many colors and majestic natural backdrops from the films. Surprisingly, the lush and detailed world was both a joy and hindrance. Sometimes, the onscreen visuals are so overgrown and hard to parse that the game becomes visually confusing. I frequently became lost in the overwhelming stimuli, often missing key objects or clues amid the clutter.
Moving through these richly presented landscapes is great fun, thanks to a generous traversal system of climbing, jumping, sliding, and environmental objects (like plants that bounce you high into the air) that combine to memorable effect and lead to smooth and parkour-like navigation. Enhancing exploration is your dragon-like Ikran mount, allowing you to fly across the vast map easily and quickly.
Along the way, combat using bows and assault rifles adds punch to the action, often accompanied by the chance to take an alternate stealthy route instead. I found both experiences good but not great. Too few tools and abilities allow for stealth approaches, so taking my chances with a fast and direct approach was usually more expeditious. The battles themselves are intense and lethal but rarely elevated above an attempt to peek from behind cover points for pot shots at bad guys. Active close-range melees align more with the expectations established by the movies, but that approach is usually not viable.
Hunting, gathering, crafting, and cooking are central features. There’s a lot to experiment with, and creating that great new chest piece or fish dish can sometimes be thrilling. But I eventually found the breadth of options overwhelming. Dozens of different tree barks, mosses, animal hides, and pine cones – many of which can only be optimally gathered at certain times of day or weather conditions – eventually began to swim together in my mind. The game virtually demands that you engage with these mechanics to make meaningful progress, and I frequently found it got in the way of narrative pacing, or it became too frustrating to track down the things I wanted.
In between the action and exploration, Frontiers of Pandora puts a wealth of more minor mechanics and systems in your way. Again, these often hamper the fun as frequently as adding to it. Hacking constant power systems and doors, tedious investigations for forensic clues in a scene, tracking multiple currencies and favor with the clans – there’s so much here that it sometimes distracts from what’s genuinely fun: the action and discovery of a breathtaking alien landscape.
Even so, I found a lot to love in Frontiers of Pandora, including the welcome addition of two-player online cooperative play, which lets players enjoy the game with a friend. With time, the many interlocking features started to make sense, and I pushed past any frustrations to find a remarkably large and rewarding game. Enter Pandora’s vast wilderness with patience and a willingness for a measured march to understanding, and I suspect you’ll uncover what I did – a flawed but still praiseworthy addition to this growing science fiction universe.
Score: 7.75
About Game Informer's review system
Purchase