Tag: Review

Review: The System Shock remake on Nintendo Switch 2 is an (almost) perfect way to explore Citadel Station on the go
For those thinking of picking up System Shock for the first time on Nintendo Switch 2, Nightdive Studios’ 2023 remake transforms an iconic but dated immersive sim into a first-person survival/shooter hybrid that doesn’t feel out of place alongside modern games. What started as an unwieldy point-and-click/FPS hybrid now plays as a more traditional FPS and it works well enough with a controller. Given combat is so prevalent the change makes sense, and the shooting feels solid; however, navigating menus, inventory management, and interacting with switches or items in the environment can be finicky.

It is for this reason I would discourage anyone playing System Shock (2023) using a standard pair of Joy-Cons. Unless you’re a natural with gyro aiming, they feel far too imprecise in a game that offers no auto-aim assist that I can discern. That lack of precision can still frustrate when using a Pro controller, but the game plays smoothly enough (after patches) so that precision aiming and picking up objects in the environment is manageable. I’ve you are stuck with a pair of Joy-Con 2s, you could try using one as a mouse on a lapboard or something serving the same purpose – though I could not find a sensitivity setting that ever felt as good as a proper PC mouse.

I’m highlighting this caveat early as System Shock (2023) has survival elements with resource and inventory management. Precision aiming is essential for conserving limited ammunition and minimising the damage you take. It’s only during cyberspace sequences and the end-game – when you have your hands on powerful weapons, weapon mods, and upgraded player augmentations – that System Shock (2023) can be played as a run-and-gun FPS with less concern for accuracy.

With a Pro controller and the Nintendo Switch 2 docked or propped up in tabletop mode, System Shock (2023) becomes every bit as compelling and immersive as on other platforms – especially when you combine the stylised visuals with campy voice acting, creepy ambient audio, and an incredible synth-heavy soundtrack. It targets a high resolution with all visual features intact, and it sustains 60fps enough of the time that I rarely noticed any impact on responsiveness. It’s not perfect, however, and given the extensive post-processing effects and pixelation filter on objects near to the player, Nightdive Studios could drop the resolution further to focus on stable performance.

Considering just the game and not the hardware you play it on, System Shock (2023) is essential for those who enjoy more action-oriented immersive sims like Eidos Montreal’s recent Deus Ex games, or Arkane Studios’ Dishonored series and Prey (2017). It has little interest in providing the typical frictionless, heavily-guide experience of most modern games – even if you set each difficulty sliders to the lowest value. Thorough exploration, reading and listening to notes, and then following clues to key items is a core part of the experience. Even on the lowest mission difficulty, the objective icon only gives you a direction of travel, but getting anywhere in the labyrinthine Citadel Station is still a challenge.

System Shock (2023) is a game that rewards or punishes player agency as it should. If you explore cautiously, pick off isolated enemies, hack every door panel, hunt for secret stashes, and conserve resources, you’ll rarely be caught off guard; you’ll be able to minimise the effect of environmental hazards; and you’ll always have heavy firepower in reserve to trivialise a boss encounter or ambush. If you ignore your surroundings, charge into groups of enemies, and waste powerful ammunition, you’ll soon hit difficulty spikes that force you back to the last regeneration bay (or you’ll have to remember to make frequent manual saves).

Despite the focus on player agency and freedom, System Shock (2023) is still far more playable than its predecessor. There are mid-game requirements that might take you back and forth between levels of the station, but it opens up gradually and escalates smoothly towards the finale. For those who listen to audio logs, read notes, and pay attention to environmental details, it also has a wonderfully fleshed out setting and backstory you can piece together. If an audio log or note hints at an event, you can find evidence of it in the environment. Citadel Station provides a cohesive and believable sense of place despite the sci-fi trappings.

Wrapping up, I have now explored the remade Citadel Station across four different platforms. After early teething problems that a patch mostly resolved, the Nintendo Switch 2 port is yet another option easy to recommend to fans of the immersive sim genre looking for a portable option (especially important when you consider how few im-sim options there are on Nintendo hardware). The only caveat is that my recommendation only applies if you have a Pro controller, as the standard Joy-Con experience is predictably awful and the Joy-Con 2 mouse option is not as responsive as it should be.

Pros:
- Yet another opportunity to play the excellent System Shock remake
- It’s a rare immersive sim on Nintendo hardware
- Great visuals, campy voice work, and synth-heavy soundtrack
- Performance issues mostly resolved with post-launch patches
Cons:
- Nintendo Joy-Cons and first-person games are a terrible match
- Those who need a guided experience beware
Score: 8/10

System Shock (2023) was reviewed on Nintendo Switch 2 using a code provided to gameblur by the publisher. It is also available on PC, Xbox One/Series S|X, PS4/5, and Nintendo Switch 1.
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27/12/2025
Review: Blood: Refreshed Supply on Switch offers a gore-soaked battle against the controls, cheap ambushes, and splash damage
Nightdive Studios have spent an incredible decade remastering classic ‘90s and early ’00s PC titles, before releasing them on console. The relative simplicity of early first-person shooters like Powerslave Exhumed and STRIFE: Veteran Edition lend themselves to controller support, with no true Y-axis and limited verticality. Remasters of true 3D titles, think Quake and Turok, typically benefit from a slick auto-aim implementation that makes you feel skilful while still clearly nudging your shots towards the target. In contrast, Blood: Refreshed Supply doesn’t gel very well with a controller – a problem that exacerbates other dated designs.

Starting with the good, Blood: Refreshed Supply looks authentic yet wonderfully crisp on both Switch handheld screens and a 4K TV. It runs great on both the Nintendo Switch 1 and 2. There are plenty of options to tweak the visuals, audio, and controls, and there’s more content in the form of two old expansion campaigns and a new one. It’s a comprehensive and content-rich remastering effort that preserves a game known for both its vocal, snarky protagonist Caleb, and the early introduction of several FPS mechanics that would become commonplace in time.

Unlike so many late ‘90s FPS, Blood put more effort into the storytelling beyond simple text-based interludes. A dated but no less entertaining intro video reveals Caleb and other former cult leaders were banished by a demon they once served. With no explanation given, it sets up a revenge story that kicks off with Caleb emerging from a tomb and uttering the iconic line, “I live… AGAIN!”. From that point on, you’re tackling traditional, sequential, classic FPS levels, but they include some unique lines between all the quips to better flesh out the setting and guide the player.

As a result, Blood has more narrative glue holding together it’s diverse and loosely connected levels. However, it is first and foremost a classic FPS with 99% of the focus on level design, weapons, enemies to use them on, and a boss capping off each act. To its credit, and despite so many commonalities between FPS from that era, the gunplay feels fast and impactful thanks to destructible environments (where scripted, of course); the diverse arsenal; and a focus on over-the-top gore. Earlier games may have offered spectacular death animations for sprites, but Blood offered dismembered limbs and heads bouncing around, and uncomfortably funny burning deaths.

From a pitchfork, flare gun, and classic double-barrelled shotgun, to an aerosol can and lighter combo, Tesla Cannon, and voodoo doll, Blood: Refreshed Supply offers an entertaining toolset to dispose of the cultists, undead, and demons that impede Caleb’s pursuit of his former master. Better still, most weapons offer an alternate fire mode that gives them greater versatility (on top of the usual FPS pick-ups like temporary mega-health, invisibility, and dual-wielding). The double-barrel shotgun offers the now-ubiquitous one or two-barrel blast, while the Tesla Cannon’s alternate fire chews through ammo to create a BFG-like projectile. Dynamite – which I’ll return to shortly – can be flung to explode on impact or bounced around corners with a timed fuse.

A great arsenal, a diverse roster of enemies, and a ton of gore – what could go wrong? With a mouse, keyboard, and easy-to-reach quick-save and quick-load keys, not much. On either Nintendo Switch console, regardless of whether you’re using a pro controller or the latest iteration of crappy joy-cons, the experience is far less fun and fluid. There is clearly auto-aim of some form, but it can’t compensate for twitchy and imprecise controller inputs that make it far too easy to miss targets in an FPS that can be surprisingly stingy when it comes to ammunition and healing items.

It’s not just the controls though. No matter how hard I tried tweaking the sensitivity and using gyro-aiming, Blood: Refreshed Supply still hails from an era that relished in labyrinthine levels, packed with keys, secrets, and monster ambushes. Exploration and secret-hunting are a highlight, but this means a lot of the time you’ll be trying to react to enemies that suddenly appear all around you; often a mix of melee rushers and ranged enemies that can shred your health bar quickly (and even on even lower difficulties). You might think weapon alternate fire modes and area-of-effect explosives could see you through… but that brings me to another criticism.

Blood: Refreshed Supply has brutal splash damage irrespective of the source – environmental hazards, enemy attacks, or Calab’s arsenal. When you combine splash damage with cheap ambushes, just as many of my deaths were self-inflicted as a dynamite bundle bounced back at me or hit an enemy that in front of me that appeared as I was tossing it. If you’re someone who dislikes the concept of save-scrumming to optimise every encounter, Blood: Refreshed Supply will brutalise you into compliance.

Wrapping up, Blood: Refreshed Supply is another great Nightdive Studios remaster, with an unusual setting, dark humour, and satisfyingly gory gunplay. It is, however, cheap when it comes to enemy placement and unforgiving when it comes to splash damage. If you’re a PC player and no stranger to hammering quick-save/quick-load to get through classic FPS, it is easy enough to recommend. On console, however, it might be worth waiting for a few patches to tweak the auto-aim as the imprecise controls can turn challenge into frustration.

Pros:
- An unusual setting, dark humour, and snarky protagonist
- A diverse arsenal and satisfyingly gory gunplay
- Labyrinthine levels will satisfy those who love exploration and secret-hunting
- Smart visual enhancements without impacting authenticity
Cons:
- A fondness for cheap ambushes that encourage save-scumming
- Twitchy controller aiming and brutal splash damage are a recipe for self-inflicted deaths
Score: 7/10

Blood: Refreshed Supply was reviewed on Nintendo Switch 1/2 using a code provided by the publisher. It is also available on PC, Xbox One/Series S|X, and PS4/PS5.
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23/12/2025
Editorial: The Tormented Souls games are for those who like a spot of survival-horror in their puzzle games
I regret sitting on the Tormented Souls games until a few months after the sequel arrived in 2025. As a long-time fan of classic survival-horror – going back to fixed camera angles and tank controls – both games are slightly uneven but impressive indie alternatives from Chilean developer Dual Effect.

They have all the trappings of the classic Resident Evil and Silent Hill games: think fixed camera angles, inventory management, save rooms with soothing music, a mix of logical and absurd puzzles, and combat that is more about conserving supplies and using the right tools, rather than skilful movement and aiming (though that certainly helps).

The setup for Tormented Souls is simple but effective, with limited exposition and lingering questions that benefit the narrative flow. Protagonist Caroline Walker receives a photograph of two girls – the sight of which causes her extreme pain. Following the address on the back of the photo, she travels to the remote Wildberger Hospital, sneaks inside, and ends up clubbed from behind.

She wakes up naked in a bathtub, missing an eye, and with no clue as to what’s going on or why twisted monsters now stalk the halls. Like the best horror games, this leaves the player and protagonist on the same journey of discovery, without being burdened by too much prior knowledge that could ruin the sense of mystery or take the edge off the horror.

That said, the storytelling is somewhat limited outside of a few key cutscenes towards the end of the game.

She meets a priest seemingly oblivious to the monsters; encounters the little girl seen in the photograph; and discovers plenty of notes and audio recordings that recount the tragic story of the Wildberger family and the horrors that took place. Taking a few optional steps to save Anna is canonical, but it’s not too hard to get the “true” ending if you’re paying attention.

Without wanting to spoil too much too soon, the sequel picks up right after the first game, as the Caroline and Anna seek solitude and healing at an old monastery. The same forces that consumed the Wildberger hospital reemerge in this new setting with an equally dark past. Many of those who offered salvation have become twisted by their own desires, shame, and guilt, which leaves Caroline on a quest to save Anna again in another monster-ridden setting.

Once again, there’s a secondary cast that may or may not be trustworthy, and your actions towards the end of the game – primarily based on your willingness to backtrack – are important save a key character and unlock the true ending.

All that said, the Tormented Souls games are more body-horror than psychological-horror. The setting, brisk pacing, and narrative beats kept me engaged and pushing forward through both games, but they ultimately serve as an excuse to drag Caroline through increasingly decrepit, bizarre, and blood-stained environments packed with an inordinate number of key items and puzzles.

The original Spencer mansion in 1996’s Resident Evil felt illogical, with misplaced keys and puzzles that forced you to backtrack from one side of the mansion grounds to the other. In contrast, the Wilderberg Hospital and Villa Hess veer more towards Silent Hill levels of weirdness – including unexplained time-travel and Tormented Souls’ own take on a twisted “otherworld”.

Of course, it all boils down to locked doors and key hunts, but what counts a key item can be wildly variable and is often just one step on the path towards another key.

There are clues to codes found in both documents and environmental details; darkness is lethal but there are times you need to disable light sources to solve puzzles; inspecting and combining items within the inventory screen is mandatory; and most puzzles involve working out the right sequence of actions (with enough variables that brute-forcing the solution is difficult).

If you enjoy sifting through notes, jotting down notes from environmental text, and solving twisted puzzles, Tormented Souls 1 and 2 should be on your radar. The only problem, perhaps, is that the puzzles and other designs can feel derivative; an amalgamation of the best parts of other survival-horror classics. The sequel is a far more confident game and more cohesive in design, whereas the original Tormented Souls feels disconnected at times despite still offering entertaining puzzles.

On the topic of derivative mechanics, the combat in both games is never more than fine. Unless I missed something, the DIY weapons Caroline uses don’t seem to make any sense in the context of her character, but the modified nail-gun and a pipe-based shotgun look and sound suitably powerful as you blast enemies to the floor and finish them off with a melee weapon to conserve ammunition.

The combat always feels secondary to the puzzles and even the rare boss fights rely more on pattern recognition and using items to end the fight, not simply unloading your most powerful ammunition into them.

This skewed focus is most notable in the first game, in which clearing out areas to run around freely and focus on puzzling is easier. Tormented Souls 2 tries to keep you on your toes by repopulating areas with monsters more frequently, but if you ever get stuck on a puzzle, it’s still not uncommon to find yourself looping through empty corridors and rooms looking for a key or clue you missed.

Some might find that design unsatisfying but, returning to the title of this piece, the Tormented Souls games are for those who like a spot of survival-horror in their puzzle games. If you look past the dubious titillation from the opening scene of the first game, Dual Effect has consistently created environments that are mix of beautifully detailed and terrifying, thick with an atmosphere of dread, elevated up by creepy ambience and music, and packed with challenging puzzles to solve.

If solving weird, twisted, and sometimes illogical puzzles are why you love classics survival-horror games, don’t pass over the Tormented Souls games because of their indie status and budget-pricing.

Tormented Souls 1 and 2 were reviewed on Xbox Series S|X. A code for Tormented Souls 2 was provided to gameblur by the publisher. It is also available on PC and PS5.
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22/12/2025
Review: Outlaws + Handful of Missions: Remaster (Nintendo Switch)
There has to be a point where, when considering the work done by Nightdive Studios in remastering, we should immediately acknowledge the stunning work the company is doing in updating and preserving classic games – some of which were considered lost to time – and making them playable for modern machines. Using their custom KEX Engine, they haven’t just made the games playable on modern hardware, but updated them as well with better visuals, quality of life changes, behind the scenes extras – if those production goodies are still available – and even going as far as creating new expansions, in conjunction with other developers, for certain games. Their track record is nothing short of… wait for it… legendary.

Not ones to rest on their laurels, Nightdive are constantly jumping into forgotten gaming libraries and pulling out gems to work on; usually multiple titles at a time. Right now, we’re going to focus on one of their latest efforts: the Outlaws + Handful of Missions: Remaster.

Outlaws might be one of those games you have heard of. Lord knows it’s flown well under my radar for many years, even though it has an illustrious pedigree behind it.

And that pedigree? None other than LucasArts themselves.

While most will remember LucasArts for their classic point-and-click adventure games and numerous Star Wars titles (with the enduring legacy of Monkey Island still going strong), but their FPS legacy didn’t begin and end with Star Wars: Dark Forces. Two years after LucasArts gave us one of the best Star War FPS’s, they used the same engine to power a nostalgic trip into the Wild West with Outlaws.

Heavily inspired by Westerns, particularly of the Spaghetti kind, Outlaws was a surprisingly narrative heavy FPS that took us through Frontier towns and tumbleweed-filled gulches across a lawless land of bandits and land barons. A year later, the free expansion, Handful of Missions, was released to further extend our stay in the lawless frontier. Although Outlaws wasn’t a major commercial success, it managed to gain a cult following as well, along with community-created level packs, and is regarded as the first game to introduce a sniper zoom on weapons and reload animations.

Like most Westerns, this is a story about revenge. When retired Marshall James Anderson’s wife is killed and his daughter kidnapped by the minions of a ruthless land baron, the good Marshall sets out to get his daughter back and deliver frontier justice to the men that took her.

While this may be a simple story, Outlaws tells it with a surprising amount of cut scenes and dialogue, chronicling Anderson’s bloody journey across the West. LucasArts tells that story with serious cinematic flair, featuring a wonderful opening sequence heavily inspired by Spaghetti Westerns and some fantastic lingering landscape shots. It doesn’t hurt either that the surprisingly dark story is rounded out with a soundtrack that fits right up there with the best Westerns.

The audio design is great overall, with wonderful sound effects for gunfire and reloads – though I did get a little tired of hearing the same; “You’re outnumbered Marshall!” sound byte playing throughout the campaign.

Featuring a combination of hidden secrets, large multilayered maps, light environmental puzzles, and fun shooting, Outlaws plays like any number of FPS’s from the 1990’s. It may not feature the smartest of enemies, but they fill the role of shooting gallery goons well enough. The Wild, Wild West motif, coupled with the game stunning score, goes a long way to giving Outlaws its own flavour. Overly complex it may not be, but it is incredibly stylish and fun.

There are an assortment of items to pick up, from the typical key variants to open locked doors, to oil canisters and throwing knives for combat. Most weapons have an awesome alternate attack. For the double-barrel shotgun, as an example, it’s the classic ability to fire either one round at a time or both. My favourite, however, was the revolver alternate, which lets you quick fire with a fanning technique – that’s slapping the hammer back repeatedly with the palm of your hand. If you’ve watched enough Westerns, you’ll have seen that move often enough.

If I have one nitpick about the games combat, it would be that important enemies, or bosses if you will, often aren’t all that discernible from regular enemies beyond how much damage they take to go down. More than once I had a level end as I capped someone, only to have a cut scene play showing that I’d just taken down a wanted target when I thought I was blasting just another cattle thief.

The Handful of Missions expansion, meanwhile, is just that: a handful of missions. Only they take you back into the events that made Anderson the Marshall that he becomes. Across the Civil War battlefield, to hunting down and trying to bring in wanted felons alive, the expansion is a nice continuation of the game for those wanting more High Plains shenanigans.

As for Outlaws + Handful of Missions: Remaster itself? Well, what is there to say? Nightdive have once again worked their magic to make this the best version of the game to play without spoiling the original vision. Most noticeable, of course, are the reworked, high-resolution visuals which gives the game a lovely, crisp look. You can switch between the original visuals and the new with the push of a button – a feature I always love – but this is one time I certainly do prefer the reworked art assets.

There’s also cross-play multiplayer, both online and locally, and a Vault for you to take a gander at the games production artwork, script, and development documents. And if you love the soundtrack as much as I do, you can listen to each of the games tracks in the Vault as well. Rounding out the package are a set of Achievements to be earned.

Overall, Outlaws + Handful of Missions: Remaster is an excellent remaster of a really fun Western-themed shooter long-relegated to a clunky and buggy PC version. It may not be visually or mechanically complex by today’s standards, but it’s still a great FPS featuring a strong narrative and a fantastic soundtrack, that still proves that sometimes, simplicity is the best design.

Pros:
- Reworked textures and higher resolution
- Can switch between original and reworked visuals at any time
- Excellent soundtrack
- Fun gameplay
Cons:
- Some overused sound bytes
Score: 8/10

Outlaws + Handful of Missions Remaster was reviewed on Nintendo Switch 1/2 using a code provided by the publisher. It is also available on PC, Xbox One/Series S|X, and PS4/PS5.
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18/12/2025
Review: Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition (Nintendo Switch 1/2)
After Aspyr and Crystal Dynamic’s conservative but smart remasters of the CORE-era Tomb Raider games, I had hoped that a remastered Tomb Raider: Legends, Anniversary, and Underworld Trilogy was the next logical step. Instead, we got the shadow drop of a Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition port for the Nintendo Switch 1 and 2. If you’re after a one sentence summary: it’s a solid, feature-complete portable option; however, it’s hard not to notice visual compromises that make it feel like a Switch 1-focussed project that left Aspyr with few options beyond boosting the resolution and framerate for the Switch 2.

Starting with the quality of the game rather than the port, it’s hard to believe this reboot released on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 all the way back in 2013, before receiving a spruced up Definitive Edition for Xbox One and PS4 the following year. It still looks good and feels modern – reinforcing my belief the cinematic, open-world, third-person, action-adventure genre has become too dominant and increasingly stagnant in the “AAA” space. When it was released, Tomb Raider (2013) felt like an impressive and polished hybrid of classic Uncharted-style set-pieces and shooting, merged with the fledgling open-world, action-RPG template.

It’s more open-zone in practice, with the plot taking you through each region on the island. The path occasionally loops back through evolving central regions, and all zones are connected by set-pieces or obvious transitions designed to mask loading screens. There are parts that feel more like Crystal Dynamic’s first reboot trilogy – in which you spend the bulk of your time running, jumping, puzzling, and driving rare animals closer to extinction – but there’s a gradual shift towards wild set-pieces and firefights, coupled with a steady flow of XP and points to invest in a limited skill-tree, and no shortage of collectible weapon parts and scrap to improve your arsenal. It was an early indication of the trend that would see RPG and survival-crafting elements shoehorned into every other genre – but it felt fresh at the time.

Although many of those designs have been commonplace, Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition on Switch is still worth playing for the first time if you missed it (or worth replaying if you wanted a portable option). Both newcomers and returning players might find the compact world, brisk pacing, and 12- to 15-hour runtime less daunting compared to the AAA bloat we’ve come to expect in 2025. It also serves as a decent introduction to the character of Lara Croft by proving an entertaining albeit dubiously written origin story. Lara goes from terrified victim, to retching after her first kill in self-defence, to killing hundreds of cult-like castaways in often brutal ways (including gratuitous executions you can unlock in a skill-tree for bonus XP).

It’s a classic example of narrative dissonance in a video game – think gameplay systems and storytelling that don’t feel coherent – but Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition is still a wild ride and good fun if you don’t overthink it. A young Lara and a diverse crew of Hollywood-style archetypes (most only fleshed out later in flashback cutscenes) are shipwrecked in the Dragon’s Triangle while on the hunt for the civilisation of an ancient Japanese Empress who was said to control the weather. A gruelling opening sets the tone, with Lara escaping from a pursuer through a series of gameplay tutorials and classic stick-wriggling, button-mashing, quick-time event (QTEs). As a precursor of what’s to come, failing any of these early QTEs reward you with a gruesome death scene before setting you back to try it again.

That over-reliance on QTEs and questionably gratuitous violence feels like baggage from the era but, thankfully, most of the game plays out as a mix of slick third-person platforming, light puzzling, wild set-pieces, and scrappy shooting that sees Lara automatically ducking behind anything waist-high. There are white markers to guide you while platforming; Lara gravitates towards ledges and ropes when jumping; puzzles rarely let you think for more than a minute before giving a hint; you can sneak up on enemies and dispatch them stealthily; there’s a “hunters sense” scanning ability you’ll find yourself spamming to highlight enemies and items, and the map slowly fills with dozens of markers as you explore. Thankfully, that familiarity is less of a problem for Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition in 2025 as only those foolish enough to systematically hunt for every collectible will find it overstays its welcome.

Returning to the port itself, it’s worth touching on the visuals and technical performance not because they’re terrible or the game is unplayable – the cutbacks are simply unexpected. The Switch 1 has had many great Xbox One/PS4-era conversions, but Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition loses a considerable amount of vegetation density and shadows that can change the entire feel of many forested areas by leaving them far brighter. That said, if you’ve not played the other versions recently, it’s not a deal breaker. More annoying is the visible pop-in when running through an area and framerate drops from the mid-game Shantytown area onwards on Switch 1 that can impact the responsiveness of the controls. The Switch 2 receives no noticeable visual upgrades, but it does have a higher base resolution and reasonably solid 60fps framerate. It ultimately feels underwhelming and clearly underutilises the improved hardware.

All that said, it’s still a solid portable option for console hardware that has seen far greater uptake than handheld PCs that still have OS and interface issues, compatibility problems, and a lack of developer-created optimised settings for older games. Despite my preference for the older games and criticisms of this port, I played through the bulk of Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition on the original Switch, content to forgive any technical flaws as the tight gameplay loop hooked for another 15 or so hours. Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition may not feel as mechanically fresh in 2025 – having laid many of the foundations for so many modern cinematic, third-person, action-adventures – but it’s compact design and brevity (and budget pricing) offers a breath of fresh air for those daunted by modern AAA games.

Pros:
- Tomb Raider (2013) remains a solid reboot that still plays great
- Completionists will find collectible-hunting sessions a good fit for handheld play
- It still looks good on Nintendo Switch displays (and decent enough when docked)
- The Switch 2 version benefits from boosted resolution and a 60fps framerate…
Cons:
- …but the reduced visual settings compared to other platforms are obvious
- An unstable 30fps framerate can make the controls feel sluggish on the Switch 1 at times
Score: 7/10

Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition was reviewed on Nintendo Switch 1/2 using a code provided by the publisher. It is also available on PC, Xbox One/Series S|X, and PS4/PS5.
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07/12/2025
Review: Kaku: Ancient Seal (Xbox Series)
While Kaku: Ancient Seals bills itself as an open-world, action-adventure RPG, in reality – and spiritually – it feels a lot closer to the PS2- and PS3-era of large zone, action-platformers, like Jak & Daxter and Ratchet & Clank. Just with a sprinkling of modern ARPG mechanics. Make no mistake, that’s no slight against Kaku and developer BINGOBELL’s aspirations, as Kaku certainly goes big in just about every way it possibly can.

Set during some primeval era, Kaku throws you into the shoes of young Kaku himself. A quest to capture a flying piggy leads him to a bigger quest to save the world. Kaku is the anointed one and the future of the world – now split into four continents by way of a catastrophe – needs some serious saving. Kaku has to use his newly acquired godly powers and return elemental balance to the world.

And Kaku’s quest isn’t just big, it’s massive. Because Kaku’s world is massive. There are four continents for you to run across to set things right in, populated by primeval creatures of all sorts, like savage tribes and elemental Lords that need to be taken down to right the elemental imbalance. All of which is rounded out by side-quests to take on, both brain teasing and environmental puzzles to solve, platforming challenges and puzzles, and lots and lots of combat.

If that sounds like a lot, that’s because it is. Like many open-world games, Kaku perhaps throws a little too much at you to do, a lot of which becomes repetitive by the time you’ve reached the second continent and the play-style and story-flow is established. So while I did eventually wear myself out on finding shrine keys and collecting all the various items you need for upgrades and crafting, the exploration and platforming still managed to keep me hooked. And a lot of that is down to the games world design.

Each continent is home to a different biome, from wet marshlands to dry-as-bone deserts and freezing glaciers, providing a nice variety of gorgeous locales to explore. Because each area is so large, Kaku is dotted with teleportation pillars for you to unlock via a fun puzzle game that has you sliding blocks to certain positions within a set number of moves.

Although you can approach any continent at any time (even jumping between them during missions), Kaku’s environments are less open-world and more open-zone, as each continent is broken up into different regions and temples that you load into. This is a good idea as it helps to make each area more navigable, while providing greater variation and themes. Invisible walls do, unfortunately, pop up when you reach the edge of the games map, which both looks and feels awkward.

The platforming, which is one of the games highlights for me, is very traditional, with the ability to double-jump and air dash to navigate the pitfalls around you. We’re talking moving platforms, spiked and fire platforms, and switches you need to hit while riding platforms that are moving or falling apart. In short, it’s fairly traditional stuff for 3D platformers but it is done well.

Combat is where you start to see more modern mechanics with enemies that have massive health and stun bars. Kaku has a light attack, an arm guard attack that damages the stun bar, and a wide range of combat skills to unlock, These range from more melee attacks, ranged attacks, and what is, essentially, a super mode that heals you while giving you access to godly weapons and damage output for short durations.

The said, combat is easily the weakest aspect for me. The enemies being bullet sponges are just one of the many combat issues that eventually had me kiting enemies from a distance when I could, or just avoiding them completely when I could. A lot of that comes down to Kaku’s combat speed and animations that feel too slow coming out of or transitioning between attacks. When you combine Kaku’s slow move-set with enemy attacks that briefly stun you and many enemy attacks, especially projectiles, that are really fast, all too often you get stuck in stun-lock loops and pummelled in mobs. Enemies also do pretty hefty damage, even when you start to upgrade Kaku’s stats.

I also found a fair amount of cheap enemy placement in environments that require lots of platforming with deadly drops beneath you. Large enemies on small ledges with little room to manoeuvre is just a giant no.

Boss fights tend to go big with giant enemies that have multiple health bars and attack patterns you need to pay attention to. While they’re generally more fun to engage than common mobs, they’re still plagued by the same combat issues which can be aggravating when you’ve taken a boss down to it’s last health bar, only to be stun-locked and knocked off a platform to your instant death, and have to restart the entire fight.

One thing you’re going to have to do is upgrade to keep Kaku alive. If you don’t, you’ll quickly watch your health disappear in a flash while dishing out single points of damage to groups of enemies.

There are a fair amount of crafting materials to gather: from shards that drop from enemies you use to upgrade your base abilities, to various ores and plants for healing and inventory expansion. There’s a very light crafting system for cooking beneficial foods and creating elemental ammo for your slingshot. Armour and weapons can’t be crafted or upgraded; instead, they’re dropped from bosses or picked up from chests and have buffs associated with them The most you can do is socket them with ruins that add incremental perks like ten percent more health.

What you really want to do is rapidly upgrade Kaku’s inventory limit, how much food he can carry, his health, stamina, attack, and defence – everything really. Attack, defence, and item limits are easily upgraded in a sort of spirit realm, where you channel crafting items into unlocking higher tiers of damage and defence. Kaku’s skill tree has a variety of useful attacks and you can also only upgrade them here (at launch, the skill tree video is bugged though as it plays the same video for each of Kaku’s skills instead of showing the correct one per skill).

Following in Breath of The Wilds footsteps, there are small puzzle-platforming temples in the spirit realm you need to complete to upgrade health and stamina. These formed some of my favourite moments in Kaku, as they required you to use the bulk of your platforming skills in bite-sized moments that didn’t outstay their welcome.

That said, upgrading doesn’t make the combat and it’s surprising difficulty, any better but it does make fights shorter. Even when I’d upgraded Kaku’s damage output to its fourth tier, I still preferred to avoid fighting unless I had no other choice.

Returning to the positives, Kaku is a mostly gorgeous game. While I don’t think the cut-scenes do a great job of showcasing this, the scenery when you’re exploring Kaku’s world are, oftentimes, quite stunning. There’s a wonderfully massive sense of scale captured by the environment design that always made it a pleasure for me to see what was around the next bend.

While Kaku has some issues and kid-friendly visuals that belie its high combat difficulty (and the occasional frustrating platforming moment), BINGOBELLS adventure still manages to feel like a fun return to action-platformers of old. If you can overlook the frustrating combat system that could do with some fine-tuning, there’s still plenty of fun to be had in its primeval world.

Pros:
- A massive multi-zoned world to explore
- Beautiful environments that create an epic sense of scale
- Fun platforming, puzzling, and exploration gameplay
Cons:
- The combat feels overly difficult and mechanics need fine-tuning
- Some poor/cheap enemy placement
- Repetitive area side-quests and tasks for upgrades
Score: 7/10

Kaku: Ancient Seals was reviewed on Xbox Series S|X using a code provided by the publisher. It is also available on PC and PS5/Pro.
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31/10/2025
Review: Castle of Heart: Retold (Nintendo Switch)
With the original Castle of Heart, released back in 2018 as a Switch exclusive, developer 7Levels decided that they wanted to bring back really old-school action-platforming to the market. One that gave us the difficulty of yesteryear wrapped in a shiny new hardware package. Castle of Heart managed to earn a reputation for being quite difficult, but not always for the right reasons.

Seven years on, 7Levels have half remastered, half remade Castle of Heart with a significant number of improvements, both visually and behind the scenes, to make this the definitive version. And they haven’t skimped on the difficulty in the process.

Castle of Heart’s story is one we’ve heard countless times in the fantasy genre. An evil wizard gains too much power through shady, otherworldly dealings and begins to subjugate the world. One priestess dares to stand against him, earning the wizard’s wrath. And, when a brave knight stands up to the wizard to protect the priestess, the wizard abducts the priestess and turns everyone else into stone. But, don’t you know it, thanks to the priestess’ tear, the knight is only partly transformed. Grabbing his sword, he goes on a mission to rescue the priestess, slay the wizard, and, hopefully, undo the curse before it does him in fully.

As the brave knight, you have twenty visually distinct levels to survive, along with a handful of bosses to slay on the way to saving your love and yourself. While the knight is mobile, the curse is still active, slowly turning him to stone as you fight your way to salvation. Health pick-ups from the environment and defeated enemies will restore a portion of your health, but you’re always on a strict time limit, watching it whittle away as you charge across each stage. And charge you will have to, if you want to make it to the end before crumbling into stone.

As the knight, you can dual-wield weapons for extra damage, block attacks, dodge roll out of the way, and jump high enough to put most superheroes to shame. All of these skills you’ll need to chain together on a regular basis. You’ll want to dual wield, whether that’s with swords or crossbows, to deal extra damage because every little bit of health you save makes the difference between life and death.

With your health always depleting, losing too much of it causes your arm to shatter and eventually the rest of your body follows suite. Getting through enemy encounters and environmental traps as quickly as possible is therefore paramount to your survival. The stages are littered with health pickups and enemies drop slivers of health on death, while hitting a checkpoint restores you fully before the next section. However, between the damage dealt by enemies – which increases in later stages – and how long it may take to get through an encounter, you always feel like you’re on the back-foot. Even with gems hidden throughout each stage that increases your total health, it always feels like you’re one step away from crumbling to dust. The sense of urgency is very real.

That said, enemy encounters have been retooled. Unblockable attacks now have a visual prompt, and early enemies don’t take as many swings to put down. You can get caught between them though, which makes for some troublesome times but, thankfully, your dodge roll also knocks down enemies to create some valuable breathing room. Enemy placement can be a bit of a pain and feel unfair at times, such as projectile enemies at the lip of a jump you need to reach or flying enemies just going about their business near a rope you need to swing on.

Stages are very linear, but the developers build upon each environmental design after they’ve been introduced in early levels. Before long, you’ll be swinging across large gaps to land on collapsing platforms, jumping over spikes, and leaping into a group of enemies. These are some of the best moments in the game and require you to be absolutely on point to make it through. There’s no room for even a tiny misstep in these sequences.

That said, instant death haunts you on just about every step of your journey. Mistime a swing or jump too late from those floorboards, it’s curtains and right back to the last checkpoint. To mitigate the number of instant deaths in the game, the developers have liberally placed checkpoints around the stages and give you infinite lives. There’s no game over screen here, just another chance to get it right. While that is appreciated, it doesn’t mitigate how unforgiving certain instant death platforming sequences feel, such as having to make it to the top of a flooding mine before the water catches you were even a split-second delay in your response time determines whether or not you succeed.

Castle of Heart: Retold has been rebuilt with better textures and materials, improved meshes and geometry, and significant lighting improvements. It is, quite simply, gorgeous with much of the game falling into the screenshot worthy status. The 3D world with a 2.5D perspective making for a stunning spectacle, with multiple layers of scenery adding tons of depth to each location. Animations have been improved as well, for both our hero knight and the various enemies you’ll encounter, making the game feel closer to a remake than a remaster at times.

While it seems that the bulk of the original’s issues have been addressed – such as combat difficulty, control issues, visual quality, and a complete script rewrite – Castle of Heart: Retold still has some issues that keep it from old-school greatness.

While enemies may be visually distinct, with each area introducing new ones that fit the biome, attack patterns are repeated. Later encounters less about learning and exploiting new move-sets, and more about dealing with more incoming damage. This may make it easier to use the same tricks to defeat them, but between the escalating damage and your life draining away, I found it made more sense to just jump over enemies and rush past those that I could.

Another issue that increases the difficulty is a common problem that most multi-layered 2D games suffer from: foreground elements obstructing the action. That happens in quite a bit in Castle of Heart: Retold, especially in the sliding sequences. Yes, it makes the game look beautiful, but when that tree trunk or rock in the foreground hides the edge of a cliff or drop from a roof at any point in a long platforming sequence, it can feel infuriating.

On the whole, Castle of Heart: Retold is a great remake/remaster of an existing game that focuses on fixing the original releases problems, while bringing back old-school action-platformer difficulty. With a beautiful visual upgrade and plenty of tense set-pieces, it will suit those in the mood for significant challenge from their platformers.

Pros:
- A gorgeous visual remake
- Some nicely constructed platforming sequences
- The turning-to-stone premise keeps you on the edge of your seat
Cons:
- Some sequences can be very frustrating, especially when the environment can obscure your view
- Later enemies just feel like reskins with the same move-set
Score: 7/10

Castle of Heart: Retold was reviewed on Nintendo Switch using a code provided by the publisher. It is also available on PC, Xbox One/Series S|X, PS4/5, and Nintendo Switch 2.
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05/10/2025
Console Review: Frostpunk 2 (Xbox Series)
Although I enjoyed my first experience with the Frostpunk IP on console, I had a feeling the port of Frostpunk 2 would prove more challenging. Despite sharing many core mechanics, Frostpunk 2 is far more menu-driven, with a focus on tweaking supply lines and juggling resource allocation across multiple Frostland sites, rather than restrictive city-building in one location. The result is an engrossing sequel with far greater scope and complexity, but it doesn’t always gel with a controller.

That said, Frostpunk 2 is still a great sequel so long as you’re not after more of the same. The campaign and sandbox-style missions begin with the familiar task of building up a settlement around a generator and exploiting local resources, but it takes less time to establish a logistics hub and dispatch Frostland teams to explore a sprawling over-world map. There are technology paths that focus on fortifying and sustaining a single mega-city by tapping into unlimited resource deposits, but the branching campaign chapters will still force you to explore the Frostlands to either settle or loot distant locations.

Frostpunk 2 feels considerably more epic in scope thanks to new mechanics and an accelerated timeframe. The in-game clock hurtles forward through days and weeks, so it plays out over years and decades, rather than the days and months of the original. The city-building elements – which now involve sprawling districts, hubs, and key buildings – feels less exacting. In contrast, menu-driven systems that control the flow of heat and workers across your city are vital, and so too are Frostland supply lines let you balance the flow of colonists, food, fuel, and goods between settlements and outposts.

Some may find the reduced focus on city-building disappointing, but there are new and expanded mechanics to keep you engaged. The most obvious is the new council and enhanced interplay of factions within your city. It starts with a simple vote to keep your player on as a steward (which can trigger an early game-over screen) but you’ll soon find yourself using these council sessions to vote on introducing new laws. These govern everything from education and social support, to policing and healthcare – all of which come with pros, cons, and faction preferences. If you play your cards right, there is even a path to entrench yourself as an autocratic leader who rules by edict.

Factions can organically support your decisions, negotiate over future policy and research goals, or force you into a vote if you’ve ignored their requests for too long. If a faction gains dominance, they can start claiming housing districts, offer more support if you’re aligned with them, develop potentially problematic rituals, and even rebel against you – damaging structures and your economy. There is plenty of leniency on the lower difficulties, but a combination of social unrest, fanatics, sabotage, and the elements can conspire to destroy your settlement if problems are left to fester.

It is a complex and sometimes overwhelming interplay of systems, but it is incredibly satisfying to keep your city thriving on the edge of disaster – especially when you are reaping the rewards of an earlier narrative decision or newly researched technology. Gameplay can feel dry as you simply define development zones, flip between information overlays, and shift sliders, but the audiovisual elements are immersive. The city announcer, citizen comments, and short narrative vignettes convey the impact of your choices. Machines clear the ice, basic foundations grow into bustling districts, and well-lit paths and heat pipes connect them. Better still, you can zoom right out into the Frostlands view, zoom back into secondary settlements, or pan across the over-world map to track approaching Whiteout storms that still threaten your settlements from time to time and cut off distant outposts.

Unfortunately, all that complexity means playing Frostpunk 2 on console (or on PC using a gamepad) will have you fighting the controls just often enough to be frustrating. Selecting the wrong structure in a radial menu or placing a district in the wrong spot is annoying but manageable. Struggling to navigate the screen overlay icons or struggling to shift sliders in sensible increments is far more impactful as the game goes on. When you throw in other annoyances – like repeatedly zooming into a settlement while trying to connect Frostland supply lines, or tutorial pop-ups that won’t close – Frostpunk 2 can begin to grate. I just hope 11 bit Studios is still working on refining the control scheme as the rest of the package is an excellent choice for fans of the city-builders and management games with a survival twist.

Pros:
- It’s easier to establish interconnected cities and settlements
- Managing political factions is almost as stressful as managing resources and the elements
- The choice-driven campaign changes up how later chapters play out
- Generator cities, settlements, and the Frostlands all look and sound more beautiful than ever
Cons:
- The gamepad control scheme feels smartly designed but is awkward and sometimes frustrating in practice
- It can feel like a pure management game at times as you navigate menus, overlays, and maps
Score: 7/10

Frostpunk 2 was reviewed on Xbox Series S|X using a code provided to gameblur by the publisher. It is also available on PC and PS5.
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04/10/2025
Retrospective Review: Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition
If 1995’s Command & Conquer built upon early real-time strategy attempts to perfect the foundations of the genre, so too did 2004’s Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War for the nascent squad-based RTS genre. Strategy games in which your ability to micromanage fewer squads and control territory is often more important than fortifying bases, tech-ing up, and overwhelming your opponent with a mass of units (which is not to say that can’t be done). Losing territory could swiftly strip you of resources and access to high-tier units, while losing entire squads and powerful leader units could turn the tide against you as you scramble to reinforce from scratch. Two decades on, even with real-time strategy reduced to a more niche market, the legacy of Relic’s Dawn of War is still visible in game design.

Returning to it by way of the Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition, I forgot how much it feels like a game of two halves – each half catering to a very different audience. If you share my fondness for fortifying every square inch of a map as you expand, upgrading every unit as far as possible, and using tactical retreats to preserve squads for a final push, the campaigns and lower difficulty AI skirmishes – either solo or coop – have you well catered for. If you prefer reactive, high-intensity, high-mobility battles to claim and hold territory, the PvP modes have you covered and, to a lesser extent, the Dark Crusade and Soulstorm campaigns on higher AI difficulties.

If this remaster is your introduction to Dawn of War, it is one of those “easy to grasp, hard to master” games. The original campaign and Winter Assault expansion serve as lengthy, glorified tutorials that introduce basic mechanics and strategies, while providing all the narrative context and world-building you could ask for. You might think Space Marines killing aliens and demons in the God Emperor’s name has limited potential, but the Dawn of War campaign gets right what so many modern Warhammer 40,000 games gets wrong: the cast show some self-awareness of the absurd universe they inhabit, it focuses on the distinctly human flaws under a Space Marine’s superhuman physiology, and that humanity makes it easy to root for the protagonists. The Winter Assault campaigns lean more into the absurdity and hypocrisy of the universe, whereas the Dark Crusade and Soulstorm expansions only offer narrated flavour text to link together skirmishes.

Of course, the minute-to-minute gameplay is the draw of any RTS, and the Dawn of War – Definitive Edition offers up everything from exhilarating chaos to plodding grind, with no shortage of frustration that’ll have you cursing unit pathfinding and their lack of self-preservation. Befitting the squad-based focus, base-building is relatively simple with three resources to manage – requisition, power, whether you control a holy relic or not – and there are typically three tiers of global upgrades. Controlling units is standard RTS fare but in addition to global upgrades, you can personalise squad weapon loadouts; attach support units, define movement and engagement rules; use light and heavy cover to enhance infantry effectiveness; and exploit morale damage, negative cover, high ground, and line-of-sight to give your forces the edge.

Irrespective of which of the nine factions you play as through the campaigns, skirmishes, or PvP modes, the basics are the same – even if the base-building and upgrade pathways may differ slightly. Control points need to be captured and fortified to generate requisition; generators or scattered plasma sources provide power; and rare holy relics must be captured and held to produce the most powerful units. Capturing points quickly requires spreading your infantry across the map; construction requires shepherding your weak builder units around; your defensive options are limited to one or two turret variants; and turtling is useless outside of scripted campaign missions that limit what enemy forces you face. There are units that can serve as base defence, but entrenched units and turrets are easily outranged. At best, defences can stall an enemy force while you move your army to intercept.

In PvP matches, AI skirmishes, and much of the Dark Crusade and Soulstorm expansions – which offer turn-by-turn conquest maps to dominate – battles take place across broadly symmetrical maps and play out as dynamic cycles of attack and retreat, favouring those who can juggle expansion and micromanaging their army. Capturing and defending control points is beneficial (and essential for some victory conditions), but your limited defensive options mean a combined army can always steamroll a primary base if not intercepted. It makes for a stressful but thrilling back-and-forth. Even a player that has dominated territory could suddenly lose their key unit producing buildings or holy relic and find themselves with an abundance of resources they can spend on only basic squads.

In contrast, the original campaign and the Winter Assault expansion are for those who prefer a scripted and more predictable experience. There are a few exceptions that impose time limits, but most missions allow you to slowly spread across a handcrafted map towards your objective. The methodical pacing and lower stakes might frustrate some, as even on the higher campaign difficulties the AI plays by the same rules. They may get free reinforcements at times, but as you claim control points and fortify chokepoints, they lose their ability to counterattack, and your growing force will inevitably steamroll the objective. There’s something about this predictable formula that I always enjoy, but after completing the original campaign and the Winter Assault expansion, I could understand why they wanted to change up the formula with Dark Crusade and Soulstorm.

I’ve got this far without discussing the remastered elements of the Definitive Edition as it does a great job of presenting the game as you mis-remember it. Having a combined launcher, fully customisable controls, a pulled back camera, and proper widescreen support that doesn’t stretch HUD elements are simple but significant improvements. There are apparently pathfinding tweaks but these did little to alleviate the frustration of units shuffling around one anther instead of engaging enemies. There’s no hiding the limited geometric complexity, but the remastered 4K textures are a notable improvement that serve both the gameplay and rudimentary in-game cinematics well. It also ran at a mostly consistent 1440/60 at max settings on my 5-year-old gaming laptop with an underpowered i7 CPU and 8GB RTX3070 mobile GPU.

Ultimately, I think the Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition is a solid remaster – even if it’s not a particularly ambitious one. The core gameplay is still strong, even if the campaigns and PvP components can feel a world apart in how they play. Whether you’ve enjoyed structured RTS campaigns or chaotic PvP. there’s something for everyone. It should satisfy returning players looking for a nostalgia hit, and any fan of modern RTS games with a focus on managing fewer, more specialised units. If you’re someone that has spent last decade or two playing and modding the original, you might find the remastering effort too limited to justify the price – but there is the prospect of a revived and more robust multiplayer scene.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition was reviewed on PC using a code provided to gameblur by the publisher.
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20/09/2025
Impressions: The Rogue Prince of Persia (PS5/Xbox Series)
Arriving on consoles a year after launching into early access on PC, the full release of The Rogue Prince of Persia is a fun but limited rogue-lite. It layers classic Prince of Persia aesthetics and themes atop the fast and fluid gameplay of Dead Cells, and then tries, with reasonable success, to offer narrative context by way of an expanding storyline that fits the time-travelling, repetition-driven gameplay loop.

If you are going in with no knowledge of the original trilogy, or no nostalgic expectations, it feels like a good companion game to the recent Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown that adopted a 2D Metroidvania framework. However, after a half-dozen hours, nearing the end of the second act, I was already growing tired of retreading familiar layouts and early bosses just to progress another story beat.

That said, The Rogue Prince of Persia nails the opening hours. The traversal and combat feel responsive, look slick, and is always accompanied by an excellent soundtrack that blends Persian themes with a thumping beat. Evil Empire’s prior game, Dead Cells, was always fast but, befitting a Prince of Persia protagonist, this game is all about seamlessly flowing between stylish platforming and bouts of acrobatic combat.

The side-on 2D perspective and clutter-free backdrops keep the action simple and readable, even while hurtling through platforming sections, avoiding deadly traps and spike pits, and prioritising enemies among clustered mobs. Despite the lack of third dimension, a wall run, vault, and dash – tied to the left and right triggers – add impressive complexity and the freedom of movement you would expect from the IP.

In addition to scrambling up geometry within the gameplay plane, you can wall-run up, down, or across background walls. This allows you to string together lengthy sequences of wall-runs, jumps, dashes, and pole hops to keep off the ground with ease. Mastering this movement takes time – especially as the laws governing conservation of momentum don’t exist in this universe – but the move-set is essential for surviving the toughest platforming sections and avoiding the elaborate attack patterns of both common foes and bosses.

Combat finds a good balance between simple and complex. Every weapon has a distinct attack speed, basic combo, and charged attack; secondary weapons typically provide ranged attacks that consume energy generated by melee strikes; while aerial slams, dashes, and vaults keep you out of harm’s way. The Rogue Prince of Persia is one of those games a skilled speedrunner could likely complete in a single run with only starter weapons.

That said, befitting its rogue-like structure, there are a myriad of secondary systems tied to narrative and character progression to incentivise pushing forward each time you fall. More importantly – and especially if you’re returning to the game for the first time since the early access launch – story beats are more common, and the progression systems provide more permanent buffs.

Retreading early levels gets faster and more stylish thanks to conventional XP-based levelling and a ‘Souls-like, dropped-on-death resource. As you level, skill points can be assigned and freely reassigned across a half-dozen skill trees, buffing survivability, movement, energy gain, and resource farming. Several unlock a stackable “second chance” ability that I’d consider vital to getting through later runs.

Collecting the souls of corrupted Hun warriors is a risk-reward system. You can stash them at an alter found at the start of each level – or smash it for more souls and push on to the next. Back at the oasis hub, you can infuse these souls into unlocking new weapons or medallions (which provide passive abilities tied to your movement or combat abilities) that can appear in a run. It is a solid, addictive, one-more-run structure undone by a lack of diversity in environmental design, a limited number bosses, and set-pieces repeated too often.

The evolving story is a highlight. The new prince falls to a Hun warlord in the opening scene, revealing a dark magic aiding the horde and the prince’s secret – a medallion that revives him at the last place he slept should he die. It’s a familiar setup for the IP and adds context for the rogue-lite gameplay loop. To keep the player engaged, each run offers a few branching paths between convergence points – usually a boss – with NPC encounters that sometimes change based on the prince’s knowledge, and a mind map that tracks clues hinting at where to explore next.

There’s fun banter and exposition between the prince, NPCs, and members of his family he saves, but the pace can slow dramatically at points. I found myself avoiding most combat and ignoring NPCs unless a quest demands you talk to them for a key item. Each act introduces new locations along your path to the palace but, to complete a quest, you need to complete several interactions along a fixed route and repeat all of them if you fall before the end.

Another issue is that despite the aesthetic changes between environments and procedurally generated layouts, you only need to clear them a handful of times to recognise repeating locations, overused scripted events, and the fact they ultimately play out much the same way regardless. As soon as you become stuck on a late-run boss or the pace of levelling falls off, the repetitive design becomes more obvious and less satisfying.

All that said, The Rogue Prince of Persia is an indie project, at a lower price point, and (currently) available on Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus. With that in mind, it’s a fun and well-designed spin-off that could have done with a little more variety and less stringent quest flags. If you enjoyed Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown’s 2D gameplay or loved Dead Cells and want to scratch a similar itch (albeit with a more platforming-focussed twist) The Rogue Prince of Persia will prove well worth your time.

This article originally appeared on Nexushub.

The Rogue Prince of Persia was played on PS5 using a code provided to gameblur by the publisher, and on Xbox Series S/X using Xbox Game Pass. It is also available on PC.
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12/09/2025