This was a pretty good month post-wise. I’m also writing a rant right now, it’s a good one, not sure when I’ll post it. Still have some things ongoing that I will review soon-ish-maybe. Kinda randomly bought Caligula Effect 2 (despite not having played the first), and there’s a couple things I’ll be getting that are out soon or in November. Surprisingly my “want to buy but haven’t yet” list has been going down smoothly enough, much of the stuff remaining in it that came out this year isn’t very high-priority stuff anymore. So things may calm down a bit, but there’s still plenty for me to review this year.
This month I’m highlighting: 13 multiplats and 4 Switch releases. As far as big releases, November is pretty quiet, but there’s still some cool stuff, including the SECOND hypest game of the year. Wow! I’m getting a couple of these.
Also I’m going with some weird inclusions I usually wouldn’t look at this month, because I figure it’s fun. The theme? Games from the same company (Microid), all based on franco/franco-belgian comics, that actually have weirdly okay collector editions and the games themselves don’t look quite as shit as they probably should. It’s really weird, not sure why there’s 3 of these this month. But there you go.
Disclaimer: I only list games that I think are worth mentioning. This includes games I’m personally interested in, games that will likely be popular, highly advertised games, small interesting ones I may notice and such. Not just games I care about myself, I highlight as much as I think makes sense. And of course I can’t see the future, so I may be missing games and I may be listing games that may get delayed.
MULTIPLATFORM RELEASES
Just Dance 2022 11/04 (Switch, PC, PS4, Xbone, PS5, Xbox X/S)
It’s Just Dance. I think it’s the second year of it not being on Wii. Poor Wii.
Demon Turf 11/04 (Switch, PC, PS4, Xbone, PS5, Xbox X/S)
This is a 3D platformer where the character is a 2D sprite. I saw this game, then suddenly a bunch of very similar-looking games (as far as the 2D sprite 3D platformer aesthetic) like Here Comes Niko started popping up. Strange. This looks okay, the demo was kinda fun.
Mobile Suit Gundam: Battle Operation Code Fairy 11/05 (PS4, PS5)
This looks very similar to other Gundam: Battle Operation games, except I guess all the pilots are cute anime girls? From what I’m seeing, Battle Operation 2 is a solely multiplayer team based thing, while this game is a single player thing using the BO2 gameplay, so it’s not quite the same thing. Plus I think you get bonuses in BO2 if you play this, and vice-versa? If you’re into the gundam stuff, this looks pretty decent.
Call of Duty: Vanguard 11/05 (PC, PS4, Xbone, PS5, Xbox X/S
CoD sucks. Just thought I’d put that out there.
Forza Horizon 5 11/09 (PC, Xbone, Xbox X/S)
I haven’t played one of these Horizon games. I played a bit of regular Forza on 360, it’s fine, this seems a lot different though with the whole open world thing which… makes me not want to try it. But maybe I should, at some point.
Blue Reflection: Second Light 11/09 (Switch, PC, PS4)
I never even heard about the first game, not sure how it escaped my radar completely. There was even an anime for it. But I tried the demo for this and it seems… pretty okay? It’s a Koei Tecmo/Gust RPG, so there’s some similarities gameplay-wise to the Atelier series (even the item creation is kinda close to alchemy). The combat is a bit weird, with a meter system that allows you to charge longer to be able to use more attacks, and some conditions makes your girls transform into magical girls that have more attacks… I dunno, might be fun. I have another RPG on my list for November (later down the line), but I might jump on this one once I’m done with it.
Jurassic World Evolution 2 11/09 (PC, PS4, Xbone, PS5, Xbox X/S)
This is the dinosaur park building simulator. I guess people liked the first one enough for there to be a sequel. Fun, cool for them. No idea what’s new or anything about this one, the first one didn’t really interest me from what I’ve seen.
Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition 11/11 (Switch, PC, PS4, Xbone, PS5, Xbox X/S)
Do you like the PS2 GTA games? Would you like to play them with really shitty-looking graphics? Well there you go! I guess it’s not quite that the graphics are shitty, but more it feels like they badly combined the graphics from 2 different games that don’t fit. The environments and vehicles and such look great, but the characters… they look like they took the models from the PS2 games, put on goofier textures and rounded off the corners. I don’t think it looks good at all. And to be anti-consumer, you can’t buy the old versions anymore on digital stores. Gonna have to dig out that PS2 if you want to play some classic GTA.
Marsupilami – Hoobadventure 11/16 (Switch, PC, PS4, Xbone)
Well there’s game one of this month’s weird theme that I mentioned in the intro. I was actually a fan of the Marsupilami comics way back in the day, but I am not familiar with this newer design. If you get the collector edition, it comes with a figure of Marsupilami, but using the old design. Strange, but cool. As for the game, it looks like a pretty okay Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze rip-off, seems kinda fun actually. If I get bored enough I might actually grab this out of morbid curiosity.
The Smurfs: Mission Vileaf 11/16 (Switch, PS4, Xbone)
And this is game two of this month’s weird theme. This collector edition is the meh one of the bunch, the smurf figure in it is just… meh. The game itself is a 3/4 perspective TPS, with some segments that make me think of Ratchet and Clank. I don’t know if this looks good at all, it’s kinda hard to say from the one trailer I saw. Might be playable, I am not touching this. (also it came out on PC literally today and I didn’t notice, and PS5/Xbox Series are getting it later)
BloodRayne 1 and 2 ReVamped 11/18 (Switch, PS4, Xbone)
I believe these are the remasters of the games that came out on PC last year (Terminal Cut). I actually never played BloodRayne back in the day, no idea if they’re good. The only one I played is Betrayal, which I barely remember (that one was a side-scroller, which got a remaster recently for some reason… they’re really pushing the old BloodRayne games for some reason… why not make new ones?).
Battlefield 2042 11/19 (PC, PS4, Xbone, PS5, Xbox X/S)
I’ve looked at beta gameplay of this, and I can’t help but feel this looks pretty meh. Like, the shooting and vehicles and stuff looks fine, no problem there, but as far as what I’m seeing in the gameplay design, it looks pretty much impossible for a single player to have an effect at all on the battlefield because it’s so big and there’s so many people, and in the end your team winning seems kinda random… Seems kinda… loosely designed. Maybe I’d need to watch someone who’s good at the game to get a proper idea of the game flow.
Asterix & Obelix: Slap Them All! 11/25 (Switch, PC, PS4, Xbone)
And the third game of this month’s weird theme, an Asterix & Obelix 2D beat ’em up. It actually looks really good graphically, and the collectors’ edition comes with a nice figure of Asterix uppercutting a roman soldier into the air. The game itself looks pretty basic as far as gameplay so I’m not super interested. Still, Microid doing lots of stuff this month for some reason. When are we getting a Gaston Lagaffe game from Microid? Or Spirou?
SWITCH RELEASES
A Boy and His Blob 11/04
This is a re-imagining of the series, it came out in Wii and was pretty okay. The first game was an NES classic (and like a lot of games on the era, probably on every computer of the time too). You’d feed jellybeans to a blob, that would transform it into different objects, and you’d have to find shit in the world to save the blob king or something. This version I recall being level-based rather than exploration, it was okay but rather easy.
Shin Megami Tensei V 11/11
Here’s finally the hype game of the month. It took so long to come out, this was literally announced alongside the Switch. Also it’s been a bit since a mainline console SMT game (with the last games being on handheld, those being Strange Journey on DS and 4/Apocalypse on 3DS), so the last one was 3, on PS2… which we got a remaster of recently. 3 is still good though it has some kinda “classic” elements to it that more modern gamers might not like (they might say it “didn’t age well”). So maybe this one will be a bit smoother. It looks fucking awesome from the only proper trailer I watched (at E3). I am pretty sure this game will be pretty great. Please buy it.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 11/11
The original, non-ruined version is coming to Switch. Okay I guess. I figure it’s probably gonna be more expensive than getting it on Steam, and won’t control as well. But the original KOTOR (and KOTOR2 of course) is the only way to experience KOTOR, considering the new remake is being made by people who actively dislike the original and have a deep-seated hatred for anyone who likes it.
Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl 11/19
It’s a remaster-remake-ish thing of the DS Pokemon games. It takes a very faithful approach, with kinda-chibi characters but in 3D, and in battle you have the more realistically-proportioned characters, just like in other old Pokemon games. It looks fine, I dunno what new things other than the Grand Underground (which does look kinda interesting) are in this version. It’ll be fine, it’s Pokemon.
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