The most read review on my site, by a thousand views, is the abysmal Hentai Golf, quite possibly the worst golf game ever created. So in comes Easy Come Easy Golf, which is absolutely delightful, but flew completely under the radar. I had never heard of this 2022 title until I randomly found some guy on X who talked about completing it recently. At his word and recommendation, I bought it, and after putting several hours into it, it is completely worth the money. Its not like a PGA tour game, its more like Hot Shots Golf, which is made by the same developer of that series, Clap Hanz. .

The catch to Easy Come Easy Golf is that each hole requires a different character. You start off with 4, the rest filled with a generic “mini-golfer” and over the course of the long campaign, you will unlock thirty in total. Each character has their own strengths and get more powerful by leveling them up via play. You unlock new characters by winning regular tournaments, which spawn matches against characters. Win those, and characters get unlocked. In additions to tournaments and match play there are distance challenges that unlocks character colors and outfits(which raise character level. New courses are unlocked with tour rank, which is raised once you win enough tournaments, which spawn the boss battles, and you win.

The golf itself is great, not surprising given the pedigree of Easy Come Easy Golf. Its easy to pick up, hard to master. You get a choice of two shot types, either flicking the right stick, or the the three tap system. I used the stick system, but either work. The game is gentle early on, but packs a punch later once you level your team and learn the mechanics.

The meat of Easy Come Easy Golf is the single player campaign. However, there are numerous online modes where you take your leveled team online and face others. But I have to wonder how easy it is to find others, given the game’s age and low visibility. My only other complaint is that the loading takes a long time, longer than it should anyway.

Easy Come Easy Golf gets a must Play with a nine back-end score. It is truly is a delightful golf game and should be as popular as Hentai Golf sadly seems to be. There is a serious golf game here that fans of Hot Shots Golf, or golf in general, will love.

Overall: Easy Come Easy Golf is a Hot Shots Golf spinoff by the same developer. Given that pedigree, its not surprising it is great!

Verdict: Must Play

eShop Page

Release Date	9/13/22
Cost	$19.99
Publisher	Clap Hanz
ESRB Rating	E

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Landnama bills itself as a “non-violent, roguelite survival base builder.” In this, you play various Viking clans settling Iceland in expeditions. To win an expedition, you must successfully colonize six areas. In each colony, you start off with a central hub, that needs to get upgraded 4 times to win. It get upgraded each time you reach a level of heart production, five, fifteen, twenty-five and thirty. To produce hearts, you explore the area, unveiling tiles and building various buildings that either produce hearts or modify those that do. You also need to build houses, which raise the total amount of hearts you can store. The survival aspect comes in the winter toll, which will take away a random amount of hearts. Lose all your hearts, you have one do over. Fail again, colony over. Fail colonizing three times and the expedition ends.

The trick in Landnama is to balance exploration and building with heart generation, so that you always have enough hearts to survive the winter. You also need to build strategically, as certain buildings can only be placed next to other building or certain tile types. In addition, there is a reputation system. Every successful colony gets you reputation, which can be used to unlock new clans, and bonuses. The harder the difficulty of expedition, and of the colonizing itself, the more reputation you will earn. And you’ll need a lot of it since everything is pretty pricey. But it does force you to get good real fast.

I liked Landnama, enough to hand it a Must Play with a nine back-end score. It’s a simple game at its heart, and each game takes only a few minutes. However, it is a game that I found engaging and you’ll want to play again. I’ve reviewed a whole lot of crap lately, and the eShop is flooded with it. It is nice to stumble upon a well-made game like Landnama and I whole-heartily recommend it for those look for a good time-waster. This is not a grand-strategy game, but it stands on its own well enough to be worth it.

Overall: Landnama is a simple but engaging strategy game of Vikings colonizing Iceland that is worth a play to anyone looking a great time-waster.

Verdict: Must Play

eShop Page

Release Date	8/1/24
Cost	13.99
Publisher	Pineapple Works
ESRB Rating	E

P.S. Try Dolmenjord for good Viking-puzzling action!

Game received for free from the publisher!

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Rogue-like is a genre comprised of games characterized with randomized levels, and permadeath. But how many people have played Rogue itself, the game that spawned an entire genre? I’d wager not that many in recent times. So along comes Epyx Rogue, a version of the original game, well the graphical version by Epyx anyway(the original was ASCII graphics). In it, you play a rogue who travels through the Dungeons of Doom looking for an amulet. There are two modes, a standard which allows saving, and Iron Rogue mode that doesn’t. Either way, the game is merciless, and obtuse, it is an eighties game after all. Still, I prefer Iron Rogue as that’s really how the game is meant to be played.

Most of what you’ll be doing in Epyx Rogue is walking around levels, picking up items, and fighting monsters by walking into them. The rest of actions are all listed on the screen, or via the action wheel. Still, things can get overly complicated. Take drinking a potion. Press R, Press Y, then press A on the potion screen. Then when it asks you to selection a potion, you use the letter wheel to select the appropriate letter corresponding to an item. If you’re lucky, it’ll be a good effect. If not, you’ll die. Everything is done manually, including equipping weapons and armor. Like I said, Epyx Rogue is an eighties DOS game transplanted to modern controllers. Fortunately, there is an extensive instruction manual in-game to help you understand things.

New to Epyx Rogue is one of three soundtracks: Dungeon Ambience, Dark Music and Epic Music. I choose the ambience, but any of three are fine(or none). There is also a few visual options(like CRT or Soft). As for longevity, Epyx Rogue is Rogue, you’ll be at this for awhile, especially when you die on Iron Rogue mode. Now the score: Epyx Rogue gets a Must Play verdict with a nine back-end score. Why? It’s Rogue, its a classic that spawned a genre. Yes, its extremely difficult, unfair even at times, but that’s kind of the point. You play this because you are glutton for punishment and will continually come back asking for more. And if you’re a fan of rogue-likes and don’t like Rogue, are you really a fan?

Overall: Epyx Rogue is a faithful translation of the classic eighties DOS game that spawned an entire genre, warts and all. A must for Rogue-like fans.

Verdict: Must Play

eShop Page

Release Date	7/18/24
Cost	$7.99
Publisher	Pixel Games UK
ESRB Rating	E

P.S. Try Dungeon Arsenal for a rogue-like card-based dungeon crawler.

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To understand my review of stitch. you must understand Piczle Lines 2, which I argued 3 days after my review was written that it should be game of the year. It ended up not being anywhere on the list but still was amazing nevertheless. Anyways, in PL2, you draw colored lines to make pictures based on the colored number. If there’s a 10, the line is 10 spaces. The trick is fitting all the lines in, which can get really tricky, and really, really time consuming in larger puzzles. We’re talking a game with hundreds of hours of content. It was jaw dropping how big the game was. Stitch. is like a slightly easier, guided PL2. Instead of throwing you into the fire with the entire image at once, you are guided from area to area, to fill in the colored lines.

Also differentiating stitch. is that the lines don’t bend. They are all either straight, or quadrilaterals(when you have even numbers only). This is not to say things don’t get tricky at times, oh they do. For example, The number can also be anywhere on the line, so if its a three space line, the number can be in the center with one space on either side. But having a confined space and predictable lines helps. You also have unlimited hints, but you get a higher score if you don’t use any. Still, there is a rhythm to the game all you its own. You get into a mode and just go. I’ll provide a video to demonstrate:

Stitch. comes with 107 puzzles of various sizes, with DLC puzzles to download later on. There are also special weekly puzzles, and daily hard puzzles. Now the verdict: Piczle Lines 2 got a Must Play and a ten back-end score due to its jaw-dropping amount of content. Stitch. will get a Must Play with a nine back-end score. It really it is delightful to play and the rhythm is addicting. There sadly isn’t 100+ hours of content here, but the daily and weekly puzzles add legs. Therefore, I fully recommend this to those who wants a game like PL2, but was intimidated by the sheer size and scale of the larger puzzles. I also recommend stitch. anyway, because it has a spin all its own.

Overall: Stitch. is a kinder, gentler Piczle Lines 2. It’s still great with its own unique identity!

Verdict: Must Play

eShop Page

Release Date	4/17/24
Cost	$14.99
Publisher	Lykke Studios
ESRB Rating	E

Game received for free from the publisher!

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Oxytone invites you to explore the depths of your mind while offering a tranquil escape from the hustle and bustle of everyday life for those seeking relaxation.

Oxytone certainly is relaxing, if you want it to be. Or it can be a serious strategic hardcore puzzle game. The choice is yours. To better explain the game, let me show you a screenshot:

In Oxytone, you are the little beam of light off the side(not in the center). Your goal is to places the lined hexagons to form a path(in blue here). You rack up combos by making a path through multiple blocks at once, the longer the path, the higher the combo score. Reach a dead end or run out of tiles, game over. Now, each of the twelves maps has a set win score. Hit it and you unlock the next map in one of four sets. You can discard a tile you don’t like by pressing B, but you lower you tile count. You can refill the meter by filling a tile completely(using all the paths on it).

As I said at the start, Oxytone is what you make of it. It can be relaxing meditative game, or it could be a serious game of strategic tile placement for the hardcore. There are 99 challenges and twelve maps. There are also unlockable path colors, backgrounds and modifiers. Now, is this a Must Play? Honestly, yes, I think it is. It is a simple puzzle game, but because it what you make of it, more people can enjoy that than you’d think. Besides, this isn’t the only Must Play verdict I’ve given to simple games, Smashy Road and Cubic Light are two other examples. Not every game needs to be a flashy AAA to be good, sometimes the simplest games can be the most satisfying.

Overall: Oxytone is a puzzle game that either be relaxing, or hardcore. For that reason it earns a Must Play verdict.

Verdict: Must Play

eShop Page

Release Date	4/11/24
Cost	$7.99
Publisher	Ox Games
ESRB Rating	E

Game received for free from the publisher(and did not affect the verdict).

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The publisher wrote in an email to me, “I am very excited to officially ruin your productivity for the rest of the week and provide you with a key for Balatro.” And ruin my productivity it did, because quite simply, Balatro is a digital drug. This unassuming game, where you make poker hands into order to beat a set score, is addicting as hell. It’s like an onion, the deeper you go, the more layers you find. Balatro will get a Must Play with a ten back-end score. This will sit with site luminaries like Tux and Fanny and Army of Ruin, and it deserves it. But why? Why is a glorified poker game worth that score? Read on, and you shall see.

Balatro’s Unassuming Front

Above is Balatro’s game screen and it tells you all you need to know, at first. You get dealt eight cards, and you can either play, or discard up to five of them, If you play, you get scored based on the hand type, from High Card and Pair, to Four of a Kind and Straight Flush. Each card has an assigned value that should be familiar to people who play blackjack. Then the card score gets multiplied by a certain number based on the hand type. You get a certain number of hands and discards. It is game over when you run out of hands and you haven’t met the blind value. If you win, you win cash that can be used in the shop between rounds.

Balatro is divided into eight antes of three rounds each. Small Blind, Big Blind and Boss Blind. The boss blinds have special conditions, like clubs or spades are worth nothing. Or all cards played in the ante up until them or worthless. Or it could be a really high blind value(as you’ll see). In between each round, you get a shop, where you can purchase all kinds of special cards which do a whole range of things, that the next section will be devoted to. Now, if you lose, you start over from scratch. However, depending on the number of cards “discovered,”and other prerequisites, you unlock new deck types, vouchers and jokers.

The Onion

Now the special cards in Balatro, there are several types. There are 150 jokers, and you can have five at any time. Most of them effect the scoring somehow. One joker might raise the multiplier if you play odd value cards. Another, very powerful, Joker jacks up the multiplier if you have only it and no other jokers. But wait, there’s more. There are tarot cards, which do special things, like change card suits or create other cards. Planet cards raise the base value of individual hand types, and are very important to use early on, imo. Finally, spectral cards do interesting things and are relatively rare. One transform cards into special cards that do special things themselves. Foil raises the chip value, holographic raises the multiplier. There’s even a spectral card that copies a joker and destroys the rest.

But wait, there’s even more to Balatro: In the shop, you can buy packs of cards or all types even standard cards, as seen above. They come in regular size, jumbo size and mega sizes. The number of cards you select varies based on card type. You can also buy vouchers that do things like give you extra hands and discards and are permanent until you lose. You can skip the small and big blinds and get special tags that do special things, like create jokers and give you $15 if you beat the boss blind. Finally, you can peek at your deck at any time, and do card counting, which is pretty much required later on.

Goodbye Productivity!

Now add the previous section together, and you get one deep experience and countless strategies. However, one misplayed hand or discard could mean the end and starting over.But you’ll come back to Balatro, over and over again. One more round. One more ante. I stayed up late playing this game, and so will you. If I have to name a complaint, the price is a little steep at fifteen dollars, but considering Balatro will take over your life for a bit, it is well worth the money. Hats off to the one man development team, you created something great!

Overall: Balatro is an unassuming game that steals so much time, it is a crime. Absolutely amazing!

Verdict: Must Play

eShop Page

Release Date	2/20/24
Cost	$14.99
Publisher	Playstack Games
ESRB Rating	E10+

Game provided for free by the publisher!

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