The third book in The Wheel of Time series, The Dragon Reborn, is a bit reluctant to move the story forward, recycling old themes, personal struggles, and even climactic fights. Its narrative strength, then, comes in the decision to – ironically, considering the title – abandon Rand to focus on his friends, finally giving them a real chance to shine. …
Read More »Rodrigo Lopes
Ori and the Will of the Wisps
Ori and the Will of the Wisps is an outstanding – if too safe – sequel to the already great Ori and the Blind Forest, boasting the same mesmerizing aesthetic, haunting soundtrack – dude, this series’ main theme is ridiculously good –, and engaging mechanics, like that lovely bash ability. The story in Will of the Wisps revolves around the …
Read More »Wolfenstein: The New Order
Wolfenstein: The New Order is a game of extremes that goes, in a matter of seconds, from brilliant moments of thrilling action and engaging character development to some boring scenes rife with cliché. Its level design suffers from the same problem, sometimes being inventive, sometimes being repetitive. It’s an FPS with good and bad ideas that marvels with its inconsistency. …
Read More »The Last
A murder mystery set in a post-apocalyptic world, The Last is a novel that surprises with its blend of genres, featuring a main character who is both infuriating and fascinating in the way he’s tied to the story’s central themes. You know the drill. A bunch of people are stranded in a faraway place – in this case, a hotel …
Read More »Fort Solis
This review contains spoilers. There’s this moment early on in Fort Solis when we watch a video recording of a doctor confessing his desire to see his family. He’s on a mission on Mars, and he misses them greatly. But what stands out is not his angsty-laden words, but the prolonged silences between them, when we see his eyes focus …
Read More »Metroid: Samus Returns
Metroid: Samus Returns, the 3DS remake of Metroid II: Return of Samus, seeks to reimagine certain aspects of the original by focusing on all the wrong things: instead of improving the original’s linear structure or doubling down on its foreboding atmosphere, the game decides to revamp its combat system and visuals, making them both… flashier. In other words, Samus Return …
Read More »The Time of Contempt
The Time of Contempt, the fourth volume of The Witcher saga, shows the best and worst the series so far: on the one hand, here is another story full of intriguing characters and complex social relations; on the other, our… contempt for the constant repetition of ideas and severe structure problems has just increased. The story begins shortly after the …
Read More »Kirby Air Riders
All good foxes know that chaos reigns. And when talking about the aesthetics of chaos, there’s one important word – a crucial concept, really – that must be discussed beforehand. A technical, deeply academic, almost inscrutable term that can confound even the analytical German mind of Theodor Adorno, who (an AI told me, so it must be true), gasped in …
Read More »Harold Halibut
Harold Halibut lives under the sea. The city of Fedora was haphazardly founded decades before his birth, after a ship crash-landed on a strange planet with no habitable landmass, and its people have been trying – and failing – to leave these alien waters ever since. But Harold’s worries are not that meaningful or grandiose. No, one night, when he …
Read More »The Killing Moon
Written by N. K. Jemisin, The Killing Moon is a compelling page-turner: a fantasy novel with big ideas, strong narrative arcs, and good character development. It introduces us to a fantastical world, based on dreams and religion, where war and corruption are supposed to be extinct. Its main characters, however, start to discover that those are elements intrinsic to human …
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