After the whole Mighty No. 9 fiasco, we admittedly we had doubts about Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. We even feared it would be another Dark Void Zero scenario, where the 8-bit style demake – the excellent Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon, in this case – ultimately received higher critical praise than the main event.
Thankfully, word has it the long-time-coming Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a worthy spiritual successor to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, delivering the goods in a slick and stylish manner. Jim Sterling chalked up some favourable first impressions earlier today, while the Metacritic user score for the PS4 version currently sits at 8.2, being full of gushingly positive user reviews.
Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled also ‘crashes’ into store this week. No reviews are live yet, but it’s hard to imagine anything going drastically wrong given how well the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro remasters turned out. Expect it to top the UK chart next Monday. It may have trouble fending off Super Mario Maker 2 the following week, though.
After recently hitting the Xbox One, cutesy co-op adventure Riverbond arrives on PS4. VideoChums awarded it a lukewarm 6.6. “Riverbond is definitely an appealing game, especially if you want an easy breezy co-op experience to wind down with. However, the lack of both challenge and replay incentives means that you likely won’t get more than a few hours of passive enjoyment out of it,†they said.
That’s joined by delightfully eccentric Vacation Simulator, an advance pre-order release of SEGA’s Yakuza-alike Judgment, and the colourful cameo filled puzzler Crystal Crisis. We’ve rounded-up reviews of that last one below.
You’ll also find scores for Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry, which gains a retail release on Switch and PS4 this Friday. Door-smashing shooter RICO is another receiving a belated retail release, again on both PS4 and Switch. We gave it an 8/10 back in March.
New release showcase:
Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry
Reviews:
7/10 – Cultured Vultures: Though it has its faults, if you like sex jokes and puzzles tied into a decent point-and-click dating adventure, then Larry Laffer’s latest outing is the game for you.
7/10 – PSU: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry brings Leisure Suit Larry into the modern era in a suitably awkward and entertaining fashion. It’s a good point n’ click adventure, and is funny on a fairly regular basis. Just don’t expect too much to have changed with its horndog hero.
Crystal Crisis
Reviews:
8/10 – Destructoid: This is just a well-made game, a genuinely fun puzzler that challenges players to imagine new strategies with every character they try. And with memory mode beckoning me to play again and again, I don’t imagine I’ll be taking up any of the other Switch puzzle games for a long, long time.
80% – Gaming Trend: While the roster feels unbalanced and story mode feels redundant, the core experience and myriad modes make up for these pitfalls and then some. Having largely finished my stint with Tetris 99 and Puyo Puyo Champions, it seems that I’ve found my new standby puzzler in Crystal Crisis.
5.5 – Dual Shockers: Crystal Crisis is a decent puzzle fighter that ultimately suffers due to bad pacing and lackluster capitalization of its premise.
New digital multi-format releases
- Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled
- Neverwinter: Undermountain
- Jurassic World Evolution: Claire’s Sanctuary
- Another Sight
- Cybarian: The Time Traveling Warrior
- Citizens of Space
New on PSN
- Judgment
- Mini-Mech Mayhem
- Riverbond
- Catan VR
- Vacation Simulator
- Etherborn
- Luna
- Mars Alive
- Omega Strike Deluxe Edition
- Path to Mnemosyne
- The Padre
- Underworld Ascendant
- Atelier Lulua ~The Scion of Arland~
- Epic World
New on Xbox One store
- Antiquia Lost
- Double Cross
- Captain Cat
- BackSlash
New Nintendo retail releases
- Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled
- Valthirian Arc: Hero School Story
- Nippon Marathon
- R.I.C.O.
- Leisure Suit Larry – Wet Dreams Don’t Dry
Next week: Super Mario Maker 2, F1 2019, We. The Revolution, The Sinking City, War Tech Fighters, Tour De France: Season 2019, Super Neptunia RPG, Car Mechanic Simulator, Samurai Shodown, and Monster Jam Steel Titans.