Finnish game developer Housemarque has created a title that feels both remarkably familiar –  taking the frenetic, particle-heavy NDA of past successes – and yet fundamentally revolutionary at the same time by weaving in a dense, emotionally resonant narrative.

Set on the decaying off-world colony of Carcosa, Saros takes this desolate landscape and delivers a level of fidelity, lighting, and performance that serves as a supreme technical benchmark for the PlayStation 5 Pro.

As Soltari Enforcer Arjun Devraj – brought to life with magnificent gravitas by actor Rahul Kohli – players are thrust into a world where the laws of physics are failing, and the echoes of a lost civilisation remain dangerously active.

The arrival on Carcosa serves as an immediate, uncompromising statement of intent – an ever-changing world presents a predatory landscape of shifting obsidian sands, brutalist ruins, and impossible geometric structures.

Housemarque has rigorously utilised the PlayStation 5 Pro’s expanded graphics processing capabilities to ensure that every single frame operates as a near-baroque work of art.

By fully implementing Sony’s snazzy PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) technology, the development team manages to maintain a razor-sharp 4K output while running at a buttery-smooth 60 frames per second – at least during gameplay.

This technical achievement is essential for a game that demands such extraordinary levels of player precision. The gorgeous reflections on shimmering metallic surfaces and the complex volumetric fog create a profound sense of physical presence. The environment pulls the player directly into Arjun’s desperate, claustrophobic struggle for survival, establishing a tone of dread that never relents.

Story

The narrative of Saros operates as a highly sophisticated exploration of grief, obsession, and the terrifying nature of the unknown. Arjun is a man fundamentally haunted by the disappearance of his wife, Nitya, during a disastrous research mission to the forbidden planet of Carcosa.

His journey functions as an act of personal penance. Through his investigation, he slowly uncovers the horrifying truth behind the ancient Soltari civilisation and the mysterious cosmic anomaly simply known as the Yellow Shore.

Housemarque draws heavily and explicitly from the weird fiction of Robert Chambers with multiple references, both subtle and overt. They have carefully constructed a setting that feels incredibly ancient and quietly malevolent. The storytelling relies heavily on quiet environmental observation – much like their PS5 predecessor Returnal – drip-feeding morsels of context and content and forcing the player to scrutinise the architecture and listen to scattered audio logs to piece together the tragic history of the doomed Echelon colonies.

As the narrative pushes forward, the boundary separating reality from hallucination begins to blur significantly. The Yellow Shore exists as an entity that grants god-like power at the severe cost of the user’s sanity, and its corrupting influence is deeply felt in every corner of the Carcosan landscape.

The writing remains exceptional throughout the campaign, actively avoiding typical action-movie clichés in favour of a much more contemplative, unsettling tone. The complex relationship between Arjun and the lingering memory of Nitya provides a vital, grounded human anchor to the high-concept science fiction.

This emotional core makes the final, reality-bending revelations feel genuinely earned and deeply moving, making for a story designed to linger in the mind long after the credits roll.

Gameplay

Combat in Saros represents a masterclass in risk/reward design philosophy. The core of the combat experience revolves around the Soltari Shield – a defensive tool that allows Arjun to absorb incoming projectile fire from hostile entities, but also acts as the primary engine of your offensive capabilities. Absorbing enemy energy allows you to charge Arjun’s heavily armoured arm, which can then be transformed into a wide variety of devastating Power Weapons.

This specific mechanic forces the player to play with extreme aggression, as players must frequently step directly into the path of overwhelming, screen-filling barrages to fuel their own destructive counter-attacks. It stands as a brilliant subversion of traditional cover-based shooting mechanics and forces constant engagement with enemies, richly rewarding players who can maintain their composure and situational awareness under extreme pressure.

The movement system feels equally refined. It offers a level of pinpoint responsiveness that fans expect from Housemarque’s best work. Arjun possesses a jet-assisted dash that grants a few crucial frames of invincibility. This manoeuvre allows him to weave safely through the dense, psychedelic patterns of glowing orbs that define the game’s spectacular boss encounters.

The action roguelite structure ensures that no two expeditions are identical. You continuously collect persistent resources to permanently upgrade your Soltari suit and unlock entirely new weapon archetypes at the Echelon IV base camp, creating a satisfying, steady sense of progression – and you’ll need it as the come-down after thirty-minute-long runs is brutal. Nevertheless, you pick your modifications and readily come back stronger for the next one.

The enemy design remains varied and constantly terrifying. The roster features mechanical monstrosities and bioluminescent predators that dynamically adapt to your preferred tactics as you push deeper into the hostile zones.

The ultimate test of your combat mastery arrives with the unpredictable Carcosan eclipses. These dynamic, mid-run events fundamentally alter the fabric of the active biome. As the alien sun is completely obscured, the landscape plunges into a twilight state bathed in a sickly yellow hue.

Enemy aggression scales instantly, and entirely new, temporally displaced horrors bleed into the environment. This sudden escalation forces an immediate tactical pivot. Players must quickly decide whether to sprint towards the safety of the nearest world-gate or stand their ground to harvest the ultra-rare temporal isotopes that only manifest during totality. The eclipse system guarantees that a comfortable run can transform into a desperate struggle for survival in seconds, keeping the tension remarkably high.

This escalation of the combat rounds out the symmetry of the risk/reward structure beautifully, as even the pick-ups during an eclipse have a duality of both improving some stats to the detriment of another. Do you opt for a boost to armour at the expense of strength, or boost your health, but lose additional lucenite – the ever-important currency for upgrades – upon taking damage?

The layers of complexity to the combat and level design are metered out much like the story, ultimately rewarding persistence and perseverance for those players up to the task.

Audio

The audio design in Saros ranks as the most sophisticated implementation on the PlayStation 5 to date. Housemarque has expertly utilised the Pro console’s dedicated processing power to deliver a 3D audio experience that feels genuinely transformative. The ambient soundscape provides a dense, oppressive layer of environmental noise, grinding mechanical crunchiness, and the distinctly unsettling whispers associated with the Yellow Shore.

In the absolute heat of battle, the spatial audio allows you to track multiple lethal threats across a vast three-dimensional space with surgical precision. You can distinctly hear the low hum of a charging laser building behind you, or the rapid skittering of an unseen predator hiding in the rafters. This audio clarity provides a massive, tangible tactical advantage during the most chaotic firefights.

The musical score delivers a stunning blend of traditional orchestral elements and heavy, industrial electronic synths, intelligently swelling and receding in direct response to the on-screen action. It successfully builds a sense of overwhelming operatic scale during the game’s massive, multi-phased boss encounters.

The voice acting is equally impressive throughout the campaign. Rahul Kohli’s performance as Arjun conveys a palpable sense of weary determination that fits the game’s oppressive tone perfectly, as do his ever-so slightly unsettling stranded crewmates.

Furthermore, every weapon discharge and shield absorption carries a specific, high-fidelity sound profile, translating directly into excellent haptic responses through the DualSense controller. Saros is nothing short of an audio tour-de-force.

Performance

On the PlayStation 5 Pro, Saros operates as a pure technical tour de force, delivering an image completely devoid of the distracting shimmering or ghosting artefacts that can sometimes plague lower-resolution titles during fast motion – and would have broken the immersion needed to keep up with this monster of a title.

The engine features dynamic shadows and accurate reflections that add a massive amount of visual depth to the brutalist environments, as the game flawlessly maintains its target 60 frames per second even when the screen is filled with complex particle effects and explosive fire-fights.

Load times are virtually non-existent due to the SSD integration. This specific technical advantage is a massive benefit for a game built around a repetitive loop structure. After suffering a death, you are back in the action at the base camp in mere moments…although each cycle is punctuated by lengthy discussions with crewmates that can grate if you’re overly eager to get back into the fray, but want to desperately learn more of the story.

The DualSense integration serves as another major highlight, as once again the pressure-sensitive nature of the adaptive triggers proves to be a key aspect of how you fight – a half-press unleashes your alt-fire, an unwieldy solution at first that quickly becomes second nature.

You can literally feel the distinct, subtle vibration of Carcosan rain hitting Arjun’s suit, and the intense, escalating buildup of energy in the controller before unleashing a massive Power Weapon. Every aspect of the Pro hardware has been utilised to make the player feel physically grounded within the world of Carcosa…although the impact is a little diminished versus the novelty of many of these features in Housemarque’s own Returnal (review here) back in 2020.

Verdict

Saros is a monumental achievement in modern game design. It successfully blends a high-concept, emotionally resonant narrative with best-in-class, arcade-inspired action mechanics. The final result is a premium experience that is both intellectually stimulating and physically demanding.

The exceptional technical polish present on the PlayStation 5 Pro remains unparalleled, making Saros an essential purchase for anyone who wants to witness the unleashed potential of Sony’s upgraded hardware.

Housemarque has successfully delivered a cosmic horror epic that will undoubtedly be remembered as one of the definitive games of the entire console generation. Saros is a haunting, surprisingly thoughtful, and relentlessly challenging journey that deeply rewards players – particularly those more patient – at every turn.

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Thankfully, the final product is a breathtaking achievement in world-building and design, and yet remains a game that actively defies easy classification.

Pragmata sits firmly within Capcom’s wheelhouse of character action games, expertly blending tactical gadget-based combat, complex environmental puzzles, and yet still manages to deliver a deeply moving narrative.

Set in a near-future where the moon has been completely transformed into a massive, automated industrial facility known as The Cradle, Pragmata tells the story of a lone astronaut named Hugh Williams and a mysterious young android girl named Diana.

It’s a game that feels wildly futuristic and surprisingly grounded at the same time, slathered in a highly unique ‘NASA-punk’ aesthetic to create a world that is visually unlike anything else. On the PlayStation 5 Pro, Pragmata acts as a technical showcase of the absolute highest order – and that’s saying something in a period of stellar releases for the console.

The very core of the entire experience is the evolving relationship between the two main characters – Hugh is a heavily armoured protagonist to ensure Diana’s absolute safety as they cautiously navigate the hostile lunar facility, whilst Diana is an active, highly capable, and essential part of your survival strategy.

Her unique digital abilities allow her to interact with the world in novel ways, creating a collaborative style of play that feels incredibly fresh and constantly rewarding – check out our Pragamata review to find out more!

Story

The narrative structure of Pragmata is undoubtedly one of its most impressive, captivating features, blowing past already high expectations. It successfully manages to find a warm human heart within its heavily industrial setting, as Hugh and Diana’s journey across the moon is filled with moments of mystery that slowly unfold over its eight-to-ten-hour play time.

They frequently encounter hostile, malfunctioning AI constructs and the scattered fragments of a lost lunar society. The story intelligently explores weighty themes involving AI (obviously), the fragility of memory, and what it truly means to be human.

Diana proves to be a deeply fascinating character – an advanced android-human hybrid whose wide-eyed curiosity about the world provides a stark, beautiful contrast to the bleak, mechanical reality of their surroundings. The duo’s dynamic is wholesome and deeply father/daughter in its presentation, providing an emotionally rich core.

Yes, it’s another ‘dad’ game to put alongside God of War and Last of Us, but that’s the company that it deserves to be mentioned around – Pragmata really is that good.

The writing is exceptional throughout the lengthy campaign – carefully avoiding typical sci-fi clichés in favour of a much more personal and emotional tale. The protective bond that gradually develops between Hugh and Diana is surprisingly organic despite hitting a few familiar story beats, making set-piece moments actually feel impactful – sometimes harrowing – and consequential.

The overarching antagonist is IDUS, a rogue artificial intelligence controlling The Cradle. Operating not as a typical, hateful villain, but as a misguided system iterating on human concepts with terrifying, uncanny results, IDUS’s machinations and efforts to stop the pair keep the story moving at a kinetic pace.

While the background lore involving the facility’s collapse is dense and requires a significant amount of reading to fully grasp, the overarching story remains accessible and considered – without venturing into spoiler territory (although many corners of the internet have done so already!), Pragmata’s plot is both a storytelling and gaming highlight for 2026.

Gameplay

The gameplay loop in Pragmata is brilliantly built around the highly innovative Unit Printer system, a mechanic which lends the game an impressive amount of strategic depth and variety.

Hugh’s space suit is equipped with a high-speed, integrated printer that can instantly fabricate weapons, tools, and attachments on the fly using lunafilament, a vital resource dropped by defeated robots and scavenged from the environment.

This robust system provides a staggering number of tactical options – there are 16 distinct weapons in Pragmata, all with customisation options and hacking nodes available to unlock. You can print everything from traditional pulse rifles and concussive grenade launchers to futuristic crowd control with decoy generators and high-output shotguns. This extraordinary flexibility allows the player to tailor their loadout to every encounter, with none feeling undercooked or ill-thought-out. Both offensive and defensive play styles are well catered for.

The real, undeniable brilliance of the combat system is the flawless synergy between Hugh’s ballistic shooting and Diana’s digital hacking skills. While Hugh handles the physical, heavy combat, Diana can interface directly with the facility’s vast digital infrastructure, quickly linking with your visor to highlight enemy weak points, as well as actively taking control of hostile drones and turrets to turn them violently against their masters.

Crucially, this happens entirely in real-time during the heat of combat. You might find yourself suppressing a group of heavily armoured robots with a printed heavy machine gun while Diana is simultaneously remotely disabling their energy shields or opening a hazardous steam vent directly behind them. It makes every major battle feel like a complex tactical puzzle that you are actively solving under heavy fire, putting your brain into a flow state as both hemispheres work at full pelt during hectic battle arenas.

All in all, Pragmata manages to deliver fun and dynamic gameplay with more than enough variety – and memorable boss battles, with the Gigantic Bot being a personal highlight – to make replayability a clear plus point.

Audio

The audio design in Pragmata is impressively clean, sharply industrial, and deeply atmospheric. The ambient soundscape of the moon is a carefully constructed mixture of hollow, cavernous echoes, the deep hum of ancient server farms, and the heavy, mechanical clank of Hugh’s armoured space suit.

The musical soundtrack is beautifully ethereal and appropriately space-age, filled with haunting, synthetic vocal tracks and pulsing electronic beats that perfectly match the game’s unique aesthetic. The specific audio cues for the Unit Printer system and Diana’s successful hacks are distinctly clear and highly satisfying, providing vitally important auditory feedback during the game’s more chaotic, visually noisy moments.

 The vast, empty spaces of the lunar facility sound appropriately massive and intimidating. Furthermore, every weapon discharge and digital hack possesses a specific, high-fidelity sound profile, making Pragmata as memorable for its sounds as its sights.

Performance

On the PlayStation 5 Pro, Pragmata acts as a stunning technical tour de force. The highly versatile RE Engine delivers astonishing visual fidelity across the board, with both character models and environmental textures easily among the best seen in years.

PSSR upscaling technology is expertly used to maintain a remarkably sharp 4K resolution while the game runs at a consistently smooth 60 frames per second. The game’s absolute visual peak arrives during a section explicitly inspired by generative AI, as the duo are tasked with navigating a distorted New York City built within the moon base, where the architecture defies geometry and bright yellow taxis are physically fused into the pavement. It is a wildly maximalist style that completely drops the jaw.

Load times are virtually non-existent when moving between sectors or returning to the Shelter, and this speed allows for a wonderfully seamless transition between the barren moon’s surface and the labyrinthine interior of the facility.

Performance remains rock-solid even when the screen is filled with complex particle effects from Hugh’s various printed weapons and Diana’s digital gadgets. The DualSense integration is also excellent. The haptics and adaptive triggers provide a deep level of tactile immersion that significantly enhances the experience, as players clearly feel the distinct mechanical click and whirr of the Unit Printer system fabricating a new weapon, as well as the heavy, lumbering weight of Hugh’s suit as he navigates the low-gravity lunar surface.

Incredible work here, and entirely worth the wait.

Verdict

At a time of safe sequels and staid IPs, Pragmata is a bold, highly inventive new title that showcases the absolute best of both Capcom’s creativity and technical prowess.

The seamless combination of tactical combat, environmental puzzle-solving, and emotional storytelling makes for a truly unforgettable journey.

The Unit Printer system and the real-time synergy between Hugh and Diana provide a level of mechanical depth that is rarely seen in modern action-adventure games – a unique instance where the dual protagonists’ relationship evolves not just during cutscenes, but actively during moment-to-moment gameplay, testament to the best implementations of their unique dynamic.

On the PlayStation 5 Pro, it is a staggering technical triumph that fully justifies its exceptionally long development time. Pragmata is a beautiful, kinetic and deeply original experience that absolutely should not be missed by anyone seeking a fresh take on the genre – or a fresh take on gaming in general.

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Set in 1603 and built as a native PS5 title with PS5 Pro enhancements, this standalone follow-up swaps Jin Sakai’s crisis of conscience for Atsu, a lone mercenary who has long since made peace with being the monster in someone else’s folktale.

The result is an open-world action adventure that will instantly click with anyone who roamed Tsushima, but there are enough mechanical and tonal shifts for Yōtei to stand on its own. 

The swordplay is nastier, the world is wilder, and the line between ghost story and historical drama blurs in ways that suit the northern setting. Rather than trying to reinvent everything, the game refines and deepens the template, and on both PS5 and PS5 Pro it leans hard into cinematic presentation and DualSense-driven immersion.

From the first hours, it makes an incredibly strong initial impression. Combat builds on Tsushima in smart ways, giving Atsu a broader, more expressive arsenal and replacing the stance system with something more tactile and readable. 

The story hits many familiar revenge beats but plays them with a darker, more personal edge. The open world, meanwhile, is full of exquisite vistas, reactive weather and a strong sense of place. 

The downside is that the underlying structure still leans heavily on familiar checklists, and if you treat every icon as mandatory, the pacing can sag. With that caveat in mind, this is still one of the PS5 catalogue’s standout first-party exclusives – find out all the details in our Ghost of Yotei review.

Story

Ghost of Yōtei opens with a nightmare and a massacre. Sixteen years earlier, Atsu’s family home at the foot of Mount Yōtei was attacked by a group of masked samurai. She remembers flames licking up the ginkgo tree in the courtyard, remembers the six figures who butchered everyone she loved, and remembers waking pinned to that burning trunk with her father’s katana through her shoulder. Those men become the “Yōtei Six” in local legend. For Atsu, they remain a list of names and faces to erase.

In the present day she is a bounty hunter and blade for hire, drifting through Ezo with a battered cloak, a scar that runs like a fault line across her back, and a reputation that has already seen her likeness printed on wanted posters. When a new lead surfaces on Lord Saito and his lieutenants, she heads north and the game finally lets you steer. Structurally, it is a straightforward revenge tale: six lieutenants, one architect behind them, and a long road of bodies between here and closure.

The twist lies in scale and perspective. Tsushima was the story of a nobleman caught between ideals and necessity. Yōtei centres on someone who abandoned that framework long ago. Atsu is introduced as a blunt instrument, closer to a wandering horror than a knight, and much of the story is spent testing whether anything of the person pinned to that tree is still intact. 

As you clear bandit camps, dismantle Saito’s network and resolve side stories, her legend grows in-universe. Tavern tales and bounty posters change to reflect the kind of Ghost you have chosen to be, and NPCs react accordingly.

The Yōtei Six themselves are initially drawn as clear archetypes: the calculating Snake, the brutal Oni, the elusive Kitsune, Saito’s sons known as the Spider and the Dragon, and Saito himself. 

Some of them get enough screen time and side material to feel like people rather than themed boss fights; others remain strong silhouettes with a handful of motives sketched in. The narrative is at its best when it narrows the focus to Atsu’s relationships with a small circle of allies and accomplices, particularly figures like Oyuki, Jubei and Kiku, whose fates intersect with both her past and Saito’s brutal present.

Sucker Punch leans harder than before into player choice in how you progress. After the opening sequence, you can pursue most members of the Yōtei Six in different orders. The world reacts to who has fallen and who remains: patrols shift, rumours at inns change, and some side quests resolve differently depending on which lieutenants are still breathing. Certain encounters and flashbacks are fixed, so everyone still experiences the same narrative spine, but the route you carve through Ezo shapes the pacing and tone. Pursuing Saito’s inner circle with minimal detours produces a tighter, almost linear path. Letting every rumour, bounty and personal tale pull you off course stretches Atsu’s quest into something more fragmented and melancholic.

That flexibility comes with the usual open-world trade-offs. The central story hits some superb highs, particularly in the prologue, mid-game revelations and the final stretch, but it is easy to blunt that momentum if you insist on clearing every marker between major beats. Some supporting villains never quite escape their archetypes. 

A handful of late-game emotional turns land harder if you have followed specific side threads and can feel a little abrupt if you have not. Even so, Atsu is a strong enough protagonist to hold the whole structure together. Her journey is more intimate, more openly angry and more willing to flirt with outright horror than Jin’s, and that tonal shift suits the setting and the passage of time.

Gameplay

Moment to moment, Ghost of Yōtei builds directly on Tsushima’s foundation: third-person movement, open regions, a blend of stealth and confrontation, and a light layer of progression via gear, techniques and charms. The most significant change is in how combat is framed. Where Tsushima revolved around stances, Yōtei centres combat around weapons and a new counter-focused system.

Atsu begins with a single katana, and the feel of that blade will be immediately familiar to returning players: fast slashes, clean parries, deadly ripostes if your timing is good. As the story advances, she expands that arsenal with a yari spear, a heavy ōdachi, a kusarigama and eventually the ability to dual-wield swords. Each weapon has its own timing, reach, strengths and weaknesses. Enemies telegraph different attack types with clear visual cues, and you are encouraged to switch not just for damage numbers but to answer intent.

Broad, sweeping strikes are safest to meet with the katana’s classic parry and counter. Linear thrusts are better handled by planting the spear and turning defence into a sweep. Slow, crushing overhead blows can be absorbed and reversed with the ōdachi, which chunks through armour and shields. The kusarigama excels at hooking shields, tangling legs and creating openings in a crowd. Dual-wielding trades safety for aggression, letting you shred staggered foes before they can recover. Instead of memorising which stance breaks which weapon, you are reading attack tells and choosing the right tool on the fly.

That sounds intricate, but it feels like a natural evolution of what Tsushima started. Early encounters restrict enemy variety and layer the system in gently. Tutorials and generous slowdown support you as you learn the rhythms. 

Later, mixed groups of ronin, spearmen, shield-bearers, archers and elite foes force you to constantly reassess positioning, options and priorities. When it works, combat has a brutal, expressive flow: closing the distance with a dodge, swapping to the appropriate weapon, catching an attack at just the right moment and turning it into a dismembering counter or a shove into a campfire.

Stealth remains a parallel route rather than a secondary concern. Atsu can crouch in pampas grass, use rooftops, ledges and the grappling hook to control elevation, and chain assassinations if she plans well. Enemies are a little quicker than Tsushima’s to investigate lost comrades and suspicious noises, and vision cones feel less forgiving. That nudges stealth into a more deliberate space. You can still clear entire camps without being seen, but sloppy play is punished more swiftly and recovery often involves committing fully to open combat.

Ranged options expand alongside melee. The hankyu and yumi bows return, with unlockable skills that emphasise quick target switching and satisfying multi-headshot opportunities. Tanegashima and tanzutsu matchlock weapons give you limited but powerful ways to delete a priority target at range, at the cost of noise and attention. Throwables like kunai, smoke bombs and explosives complete the toolkit, and the control scheme does a decent job of keeping all of this accessible without turning the pad into a finger-twister.

Outside combat, Atsu can establish camps. These serve as rest points where she can restore health and spirit, cook simple meals for short-term buffs, craft ammunition and interact with certain allies between main missions. Camps slot neatly into the game’s rhythm. Ride hard until resources and focus run low, make camp to reset and chat, then plan the next push into hostile territory.

The open world wraps around this core. Exploration is still guided not by a cluttered HUD but by the guiding wind, which can be called with a touchpad swipe or reshaped by playing the shamisen. Foxes dart out of the undergrowth and lead you to shrines where new charms can be earned. Hot springs offer quiet moments of reflection and permanent health boosts. Bamboo stands test your reflexes and reward stamina. Dynamic weather and time-of-day transitions help keep familiar routes interesting; one ride across a valley at dawn, in clear air, can feel very different to the same route under heavy snowfall or beneath shifting aurora.

New activities sit comfortably alongside returning ones. Sumi-e brush painting replaces haiku composition, giving Atsu stiller, more introspective moments. Gambling at zeni hajiki tables offers a low-key diversion in inns and villages. 

Bounty hunting quests and weapon mastery challenges add more structure for those who want to be guided rather than simply wander. Some side missions are tightly written character pieces that loop back into the main plot or Atsu’s past; a few are more perfunctory errands. Taken as a whole, the world feels dense without being suffocating, though players who insist on completing everything before pushing the story forward will feel the familiar fatigue of any busy open-world map.

Difficulty is flexible. You can adjust base challenge and various assist settings independently, softening timing windows or clarifying UI cues without entirely neutering the game. Armour sets and charms support distinct playstyles, whether that is high-risk, high-reward counterplay, archery from a distance, stealthy attrition or relentless aggression. The weapon counter system nudges you towards a balanced build, but it is possible to lean heavily into one approach and still succeed, especially on mid-range settings.

Yōtei also introduces three cinematic modes that double as tone control. Kurosawa mode brings back stark black-and-white visuals and a grainier soundscape that evokes mid-century samurai cinema. Miike mode tightens the camera, heightens gore and grime, and makes battles feel more claustrophobic and intense. Watanabe mode relaxes colour grading and overlays lo-fi adjacent music during exploration, giving long rides and quiet moments a very different mood. Each mode is optional and trade-offs in visibility or readability mean they are not ideal for all situations, but they are thoughtfully implemented and give the game a welcome range of flavours.

Multiplayer, for now, remains prospective. Ghost of Yōtei: Legends, a follow-up to Tsushima’s co-op mode, has been announced as a free update with two-player story missions and four-player survival maps against horror-inflected versions of the Yōtei Six and other mythological foes. At launch, however, the focus is entirely on single-player, and that narrower scope shows in how tightly the main systems and narrative beats are interwoven.

Audio

Much of Yōtei’s impact comes from sound. The world is alive with small details: grasses rustling in the wind, wolves calling in the distance, prayer flags snapping under sudden gusts, the crunch of fresh snow underfoot. Weather changes are not only visible; you can hear rain rattling on Atsu’s hat and armour, hear how a rising wind masks or reveals enemy movements. The audio mix makes simply standing still and listening in a forest, on a cliff path or outside a village surprisingly rewarding.

The score, by Toma Otowa, blends traditional Japanese instruments with more modern textures. Low drums, shamisen and shakuhachi flutes underscore duels, while more melancholic pieces follow Atsu through moments of quiet or reflection with her allies. Watanabe mode gives the soundtrack room to experiment, bringing in laid-back beats for exploration that recall the energy of shows like Samurai Champloo without feeling out of place. It’s a soundtrack that supports the drama rather than overwhelming it.

Combat audio is both dramatic and functional. Each weapon sounds distinct: the katana’s clean cuts, the heavier drag of an ōdachi swing, the whistle of a spear thrust, the metallic rasp of a kusarigama’s chain. Successful parries are punctuated by crisp audio cues that make timing feel more intuitive. Arrows have a threatening hiss as they pass near, and firearm reports are rare but thunderously loud when they do occur.

Voice acting anchors the story. Atsu’s performance balances menace and vulnerability, letting her shift from dry humour to genuine anger or grief without losing coherence. Key members of her “wolf pack” are equally well drawn. Some minor quest givers and incidental NPCs come off flatter, especially in the English track, but the main cast is strong in both languages. Lip-syncing is tailored to Japanese, as you would expect, though English holds up well.

This is also one of the better adverts for the DualSense. Haptic feedback reflects terrain, weather and impact: the granular sensation of moving through deep snow, the patter of rain, the impact of steel on steel, the judder of a blocked heavy attack. Adaptive triggers stiffen when drawing a bow and snap under firearm recoil. The touchpad and built-in speaker are used more than tokenistically. Painting sumi-e scenes or directing the wind via the shamisen feels satisfying in the hands, and small sounds-from Atsu’s breathing to the rasp of a blade being sheathed-relayed through the controller help tie you more closely to her perspective.

With a decent headset, 3D audio does at least as much work as the on-screen HUD in keeping you oriented. The direction of distant patrols, animals, streams and village chatter is easy to read, and that in turn makes it easier to rely on environmental cues instead of staring at an on-screen compass.

Performance

As a native PS5 title, Ghost of Yōtei offers multiple graphics modes, and with PS5 Pro now in the mix there is a clear split in how the game behaves on each console.

On a standard PlayStation 5 there are three primary options. The first is a quality-focused mode that prioritises resolution and image stability at 30 frames per second. Internal resolution targets are just under full 4K, and the result is a very sharp picture with dense foliage, detailed distant mountains and stable volumetric effects. For people who play slowly, treat the game like an interactive film and are less sensitive to frame rate, this mode has obvious appeal.

Alongside that sits a performance mode, which drops internal resolution down towards 1080p to reach a 60fps target. The image is noticeably softer, especially on large 4K displays, and fine geometry can shimmer a little as you move. In return, combat feels wonderfully responsive, camera movement is smoother and horse riding across open fields and forest tracks has a flow that flatters the game’s traversal and counter-driven fighting system. For many this will be the default choice.

The third main mode on base hardware introduces ray tracing. It retains a 30fps target but enables ray-traced global illumination and improved shadowing, with internal resolution sitting between the two other modes. The upgrades are most obvious in interiors, dense woodland and scenes lit by lanterns, fires or low sun, where indirect light and deeper shadow gradients add a lot to the atmosphere. On a standard PS5 this is the best-looking mode in static screenshots, though some will still prefer the feel of 60fps in motion and happily give up the extra lighting fidelity.

On PS5 Pro, all three of those modes benefit from higher internal resolutions and more stable image quality, but the more interesting change is the addition of a fourth option built specifically for the newer console. The Pro-only ray-traced performance mode combines 60fps gameplay with ray-traced lighting, leaning on Sony’s upscaling to keep the image sharp despite a lower native resolution. 

In practice, it offers a very compelling compromise: combat and traversal feel as fluid as in the standard performance mode, while reflections, shadows and indirect light behave more like they do in the 30fps ray tracing mode on base hardware. There are occasional artefacts if you go hunting for them, but it is easy to see why many PS5 Pro owners describe this as the definitive way to play.

Across both consoles and all modes, loading times are short. Fast travel is close to instant, flashbacks slide in and out without obvious loading breaks, and respawns after failure are quick enough that tough encounters invite one more attempt. Streaming as you gallop across Ezo’s larger regions is generally solid. You will occasionally catch a pop-in if you are really looking for it, but it is rare and fleeting.

Technically, Yōtei is not flawless if you probe its edges. Some background geometry and incidental props are fairly simple once you get close, and in stark midday light a few scenes can look flatter than the dramatic lighting elsewhere suggests. Overall stability, however, is strong. Extended sessions do not reveal glaring memory or performance issues, and there is no widespread reporting of broken quests or progress-blocking bugs.

Verdict

Ghost of Yōtei is a confident, often beautiful continuation of Sucker Punch’s samurai saga. It reuses the bones of Ghost of Tsushima where that still makes sense-the guiding wind, fox dens, hot springs and understated HUD and lays a darker, more personal story over the top. Atsu is a compelling lead whose anger and trauma give the familiar revenge structure some real bite. The expanded arsenal and weapon-based counter system make fights feel more expressive and deliberate. Ezo, with its dynamic weather, mountain ascents and frozen forests, is a memorable place to inhabit.

The caveats are familiar too. The open world still leans on camps to clear, icons to tick and side missions that range from quietly affecting to entirely forgettable. If you let yourself be distracted by everything, the pace of the central story can sag. Look too closely at certain assets and you can see the seams. None of that, though, significantly undermines what the game gets right. Moment to moment, drawing steel, reading an opponent’s intentions and punishing them with the right weapon remains gripping. The use of DualSense and 3D audio is among the best on the platform. Performance options on both PS5 and PS5 Pro give you plenty of control over how you want it to look and feel.

Taken on its own terms, Ghost of Yōtei is a worthy successor to Tsushima and yet another of the PS5 catalogue’s standout exclusives, regardless of whether it’s played on the original PlayStation 5 or enjoying the Pro’s visual embellishments – it’s nothing short of a masterpiece.

The post Ghost of Yotei Review – PlayStation 5 Pro appeared first on CRISP..

Released on all major formats as a remaster of 2007’s Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords, it gathers the original game, its ‘Revenge of the Plague Lord’ expansion pack and the extra content from ‘The Legend Returns’ into a single slick package. 

In terms of additions, it brings a new class as well as dozens of fresh items and fully redrawn artwork suitable for modern, high-resolution screens. 

The big question is in a world of world-beating indie puzzlers like Ball x Pit and Balatro, does this loop of gem-matching combat and RPG progression still have what it takes? 

Check out our review to find out!

Story

The narrative frame remains largely unchanged from the original release – you’re a budding hero in the world of Etheria, initially running errands and squashing monster problems before being drawn into a wider conflict, involving everything from undead hordes to political machinations.

Immortal Edition stitches the original’s main plot and expansions into a single campaign, expanding both the map and tidily weaving additional questlines into the existing structure.

Writing is brisk and functional with dialogue appearing in short text windows with character portraits, rarely overstaying its welcome. 

You accept contracts, chase rumours and confront bosses, each interaction pushing you back to the world map and, more importantly, another battle board. 

The tone is classic high fantasy RPG with a slightly knowing wink, full of valiant heroes, scheming villains and a handful of self-aware asides.

What the remaster does particularly well is organisation. Expansion content that once sat apart now feels like a natural extension of the central story. 

Optional questlines, side challenges and extra modes are surfaced more clearly, so you are less likely to miss them or to lose track of where you were…oh, and it’s all played as a turn-based match-3 puzzler in the vein of Bejeweled – hence the novelty of Puzzle Quest!

Gameplay

Mechanically, Immortal Edition stays firmly rooted in the rules and patterns of the original from all those years ago. 

Battles play out on a shared grid filled with coloured mana gems, skulls and special tiles. On your turn, you swap adjacent pieces to make matches of three or more. Matching skulls deals direct damage, while matching colours feeds your mana pools. 

You then spend that mana on class-specific spells which can damage foes, manipulate the board, shield you or inflict status effects. Crucially, both you and the enemy pull from the same board, so every move has the potential to set up a lucrative cascade of attacks for either side.

These simple foundations provide the underpinning to a surprisingly deep web of systems. The class-based selection means each character has distinct spell lists that encourage varied playstyles, from control-focused builds that constantly reshape the board to brute-force approaches that stack skull damage. 

Gear adds passive bonuses and new triggers, companions provide further modifiers, and captured enemies can be researched to expand your arsenal. The Legend Returns content adds even more wrinkles, and Immortal Edition layers a new class – the Swordmaster – as well as rejigs existing ones to offer a well-balanced roster.

The long-running point of contention has always been the game’s devious AI. Many players feel that enemies enjoy suspiciously lucky runs when new gems drop in, leading to accusations that the computer ‘cheats’. 

Immortal Edition is not immune from this debate – the developers have been explicit in saying the AI does not have hidden information or modified odds, and recent patches have even toned down how often opponents can chain large combos from off-screen drops, precisely because those moments felt rigged, regardless of the underlying maths.

In practice, perceived unfairness is reduced…but certainly not gone. You will occasionally watch an enemy string together a multi-match turn from a single swap and feel your blood pressure rise. The flip side is that when you engineer a devastating chain yourself, it still feels brilliant. That tension, and the knowledge that your next move could tip the board dramatically, remains a big part of the game’s appeal.

Outside combat, Immortal Edition retains light strategy elements. You can upgrade cities to unlock new options, train and equip companions, capture monsters to learn their abilities, research spells and manage mounts. 

None of these systems are especially complex by modern standards, but they provide welcome texture between battles and reinforce the sense that you are building a hero over time.

Audio

The soundtrack leans on orchestral fantasy themes that loop quietly in the background. They are not the sort of tracks you will rush to add to a playlist, but they sit comfortably beneath long sessions without becoming distracting. Different regions and key story beats get slightly varied motifs, giving a gentle sense of place.

Sound effects are crisp and informative. Gem matches chime pleasantly, skull hits land with a satisfying crack, and spells have distinct audio signatures that make it easier to track what has just happened in a busy turn. Given how much of the experience involves staring at a static board, audio feedback is vital for keeping the flow engaging.

Voice work is minimal, mostly limited to interface barks and the odd stinger. It underlines actions rather than driving the storytelling, which fits the series’ roots.

Performance

Technically, Puzzle Quest: Immortal Edition is light on requirements but thoughtful in its update. All the original assets have been redrawn or cleaned up for HD and 4K displays.

Gems now have distinct shapes as well as colours to aid accessibility, character portraits are sharper and environmental art on the world map reads more cleanly. The overall presentation still has the feel of a mid-2000s game at heart, but viewed through a much clearer lens.

On a modern PC, performance is effectively a non-issue. Load times between the world map and battles are short, the interface scales nicely to different resolutions and even very modest hardware has no trouble running the game smoothly. 

Options menus focus more on animation speed and input preferences than on graphics sliders, which makes sense given the underlying design.

There have been some complaints levelled at the new visuals feeling a bit over-smoothed or plastic-y compared with the original’s grittier look, with some speculating about AI-assisted art. 

There is no confirmation from Infinity Plus 2 or 505 that any generative tools were used, and official messaging simply denotes the assets as redrawn for modern resolutions. The more concrete criticism is that, stylistically, the art is functional rather than delivering a radical improvement, where preference is likely to depend on individual taste and degree of nostalgia.

Verdict

Puzzle Quest: Immortal Edition on PC is a respectful restoration of a stone-cold classic. Infinity Plus 2 and 505 Games have pulled together nearly twenty years of content, sharpened the presentation, added a handful of sensible tweaks and presented the whole package in a way that feels at home on current hardware – making this perfect for the Steam Deck. 

The core loop of out-thinking opponents on a shared match-3 board while sculpting a personalised hero remains as compelling as ever, and few modern games have matched its particular blend of puzzle tension and RPG tinkering.

At the same time, the age of the design shows. The campaign is long and occasionally grindy, the story is transparently a delivery mechanism for more battles, and even with tweaks the AI will sometimes feel like it has stolen a win. The visual refresh makes the game easier on the eyes, but does not disguise its roots.

For newcomers, this is easily the best way to experience Puzzle Quest. For returning fans, value will depend on how keen you are to revisit familiar quests with cleaner art and a bit of extra content. 

Where that sits on your buy list will largely come down to how much fondness you have for lining up three gems in a row, and hoping the next drop is in your favour…

The post Puzzle Quest: Immortal Edition Review – PC appeared first on CRISP..

On PS5, it promises to bring that cabinet experience into your living room: big drifts, huge nitrous blasts and a handful of wild tracks that feel ripped straight from the films. Raw Thrills’ pedigree is obvious, especially if you know their addition to the ‘Cruis’n’ series with Blast on Switch, but this particular port is a more modest proposition. 

What you get is the essence of the arcade game, with very little wrapped around it beyond not spending a pound every two minutes!

Story

Events are grouped into themed sets with paper-thin narrative labels about undercover missions, high-risk deliveries and rival crews. A short briefing might tell you that the police are closing in, or that a particular gang needs to be taught a lesson, and then you are immediately thrown back onto the track.

Dom and the core cast never take centre stage…and not even a single mention of the value of family, which is a crime in itself. 

There are no cinematic cut-scenes or extended dialogue sequences, but rather the game leans on the tone of the films – over-the-top chases, improbable explosions and family-adjacent banter – without trying to hew too closely to its blockbuster source material.

It admittedly suits the arcade heritage, but anyone expecting a properly scripted Fast & Furious campaign – RIP Crossroads – is going to find this an extremely slight package.

Gameplay

On the track, Fast & Furious: Arcade Edition is unabashedly old-school arcade racing. You choose from a small roster of eight licensed vehicles, including muscle cars and modern performance icons, then throw them around stunt-filled tracks based on locations like Hong Kong, Yellowstone and Havana. 

The driving model is loose and generous. Cars pivot eagerly into drifts with a light tap of the brake, and you are almost always better served by keeping your foot planted than by driving with any real finesse.

Nitrous sits at the centre of everything. You build a boost meter by driving aggressively and threading through traffic, then cash it in for long bursts of speed that drench the screen in motion blur. 

Events range from point-to-point sprints to lapped races and more objective-driven challenges that ask you to ram marked vehicles or smash environmental targets. Once you have ticked off first place on each track, an “Extreme” mode remixes things, but the underlying content does not change.

The biggest frustration is the rubber-banding – AI rivals refuse to let you break away. You can drive three near-perfect laps, clip one obstacle in the last corner and watch the field magically swarm around you. For casual players and younger drivers, that forced drama keeps races tense, but for anyone with a competitive streak, it quickly feels like the game is more interested in stage-managing photo finishes than rewarding skill. 

Compared with Raw Thrills’ own Cruis’n Blast conversion on Switch, which throws more tracks, more modes,four-player co-op at you and feels – ever so slightly – freer in how races unfold, this comes off as the thinner experience.

Local multiplayer is where the game is most fun. Two-player split-screen lets you recreate that arcade rivalry at home, and the forgiving handling makes it easy for people of different abilities to enjoy the same race. Online options are basic and do not add much long-term pull, so this is very much a sofa racer.

Audio

Audio is a clear carry-over from the arcade cabinet heritage – LOUD. Engines roar aggressively, turbochargers whistle and tyres squeal at the slightest provocation. Nitrous blasts arrive with a satisfying whoosh, and set-piece moments – collapsing bridges, missiles, falling trees – are underlined with big, cinematic sound effects that help sell the chaos even when the visuals are not doing anything especially advanced.

The soundtrack sticks to high-energy tracks that sit somewhere between action-film score and radio-friendly dance. You are unlikely to come away humming anything, but the tempo matches the pace on track. Brief snippets of voiceover comment on big drifts, heavy crashes and close finishes. Lines do repeat over longer sessions, yet in short bursts they add the right level of arcade chatter.

Crucially, the mix does a good job of keeping important cues audible. Approaching traffic, incoming sirens and the crunch of guardrails all cut through the music clearly, which helps with reaction times when the screen is busy.

Performance

On PS5, Fast & Furious: Arcade Edition looks and feels very much like a straight console port of an older arcade title. The cars are cleanly modelled and clearly licensed – all-American muscle from Ford, Dodge and Shelby but nary a hint of exotic European hypercars or Japanese drift machines – however lacking the fine detail you would expect from a native current-gen showcase whilst hurtling at 180mph. 

Environments are colourful and busy, with lots of moving parts and explosive set-pieces, yet close inspection reveals flat textures and simplistic lighting.

The upside is rock-solid performance – frame rates hold steady during hectic races, even when you are weaving through traffic while rockets explode in the distance. Load times between events are short thanks to the PS5’s storage, which preserves that “insert credit and go” momentum that defined the cabinet. There are no obvious streaming issues or major hitches.

DualSense support is present but understated, with some trigger resistance and rumble variation for different surfaces and collisions, but little that fundamentally improves the feel of driving. 

Verdict

Fast & Furious: Arcade Edition on PS5 delivers exactly what you would expect from a straight arcade conversion – immediate handling, insane, short tracks and – particularly in local split-screen – there are genuine highs and laughs to be had.

The problems lie in how quickly you can see everything there is to see. Six tracks and eight cars do not stretch very far; the event structure is threadbare, and heavy rubber-banding saps satisfaction from clean wins when going solo. 

When you remember that Raw Thrills’ own Cruis’n Blast on Switch delivers more content and a wilder sense of fun from the same broad template, this does feel like the weaker sibling.

As a budget party racer for Fast & Furious fans, it is serviceable. As a long-term home for arcade racing on PS5, it does run out of road a little too quickly, despite the budget £25 price point.

The post Fast & Furious: Arcade Edition Review – PlayStation 5 appeared first on CRISP..

Developed by Petit Fabrik and Fair Play Labs and published by GameMill, it arrives on Xbox Series X as a top-down, real-time action RPG designed first and foremost for kids and families. SpongeBob as a knight, Katara as a spellcaster, Leonardo swinging katanas in a fantasy sewer: it is a setup that writes its own charm. The key question is whether the game beneath all that crossover energy has enough staying power – find out in our CRISP. review!

Story

The premise has the light-hearted, high-concept feel of a cartoon Christmas special. A magical artefact known as the Dice of Destiny fractures reality and stitches together shards of various Nickelodeon worlds into one fantasy realm. 

Bikini Bottom resurfaces as a medieval port town. The Turtles’ home sewers twist into a sprawling catacomb. Other locations from across the Nicktoons universe pop up as hub areas, dungeons and set-pieces, all with a fantasy glaze.

You move around a world map, travelling between these zones and picking up quests from familiar faces. Objectives tend to be straightforward: clear out a dungeon, rescue a captured character, recover a lost object, or confront a themed boss. 

Dialogue is snappy, fully voiced and filled with references. SpongeBob’s boundless enthusiasm, Sandy’s confidence and the Turtles’ sibling banter all come through clearly, even in short exchanges.

The overarching narrative – fix the dice, defeat the villain meddling with reality and restore the worlds – is predictable but appropriate. Stakes are high enough to feel important while remaining firmly in cartoon territory. There are no grim twists or tonal lurches, which makes this very easy to recommend as a shared game for younger players.

Gameplay

Moment to moment, Nicktoons & The Dice of Destiny plays like a simplified, family-friendly Diablo. You pick a hero from a roster of reimagined Nicktoons, then guide them through dungeons from a top-down perspective, fighting enemies in real time. Each character fits a clear archetype. Sandy Cheeks becomes a whirlwind of melee damage, Katara leans into ranged elemental spells and support, while Leonardo focuses on agile swordplay and crowd control. The abilities and animations line up nicely with each character’s personality, which helps sell the fantasy.

Controls are straightforward. One button handles your basic attack, others trigger special abilities on short cooldowns, and dodges or blocks are forgiving. As you earn experience, you level up and invest points in small skill trees. These do not go particularly deep, but they allow you to tilt a hero towards toughness, damage output or team support. Loot drops in the form of weapons, armour and trinkets add another layer of simple progression, with clear numerical upgrades rather than dense stats.

Co-op is the real star of the show. Up to four players can adventure together locally, dropping in and out freely. The camera does a solid job of keeping everyone in frame, and revive windows are generous enough that less experienced players can experiment without constantly dragging the group back to checkpoints. 

The lack of friendly fire is a blessing in crowded fights, and the difficulty curve is tuned to keep mixed-age parties moving rather than to punish mistakes.

The main drawback is repetition. Dungeons reuse room templates and puzzle ideas frequently, and the pool of enemy types is limited. You will face a lot of similar monsters, sometimes recoloured or slightly tweaked, across different areas. Boss fights add some variety with simple mechanics and larger arenas, but long sessions can start to blur together for adults even if children are still delighted to see their favourites on screen.

Audio

Audio does a lot of the heavy lifting in making this feel like a true Nicktoons crossover. Key characters sound close to their TV incarnations, and their barks in combat or comments in hub areas capture the tone of the shows. Lines repeat over time, as you would expect, but there is enough variety early on to keep things lively.

The soundtrack sits comfortably between fantasy adventure and Saturday-morning cartoon. Hub areas are accompanied by light, catchy tracks, while dungeons have more atmospheric pieces that avoid tipping into genuine menace. Boss encounters ramp things up just enough to feel important without overwhelming younger ears.

Sound effects are clear and distinct. Weapon swings, spell casts, shield pops and environmental hazards all have their own audio cues. That clarity is important when the screen fills with players and enemies, and it makes it easier for children to understand what their actions are doing.

Performance

On Xbox Series X, Nicktoons & The Dice of Destiny looks neat rather than spectacular. Character models are colourful and expressive, with big silhouettes that work well from a top-down angle. Environments are embellished with enough detail to feel like real places without becoming visually noisy. The overall aesthetic leans into the feel of a high-resolution cartoon, with smooth animation and bold colours.

Performance is generally solid. Frame rates hold up in single player and local co-op, even when four players are firing off abilities amid groups of enemies. Load times between zones and dungeons are reasonable, and quick resume support makes it easy to dip in for a short run and come back later. Camera quirks occasionally appear when players pull in opposite directions, but the game usually resets itself quickly.

There is no online co-op, which might disappoint some, but for its intended role as a family sofa game, that limitation is easier to forgive.

Verdict

Nicktoons & The Dice of Destiny is a warm, approachable action RPG that succeeds at what it sets out to do. It gives kids a straightforward way to go on a fantasy adventure with characters they already love, and it gives adults a co-op experience simple enough to share without hours of explanation. Builds are shallow but satisfying, the tone is consistently bright and the moment-to-moment play has an easy charm.

Its shortcomings are clear: recycled dungeon chunks, a modest technical ceiling and limited depth for solo players. Yet as a family-friendly co-op title, it does enough right to earn a place in the rotation. If your household still lights up when SpongeBob or the Turtles appear on screen, rolling the Dice of Destiny together is an easy recommendation. You can decide how many stars that is worth.

The post Nicktoons and The Dice of Destiny Review – Xbox Series X appeared first on CRISP..

Formula Legends is the product of Italian indie studio 3DClouds, turning its focus from family-friendly fare (if you’ve driven a virtual Hot Wheels car or Paw Patrol vehicle in the past few years, they likely had something to do with it) to a more focused love letter to open-wheel motorsport. 

It presents itself as a sim-cade tribute to the history of Formula-style racing, steering clear of official licences in favour of stylised cars and circuits seen from a slightly elevated camera, capturing the feel of carving clean laps through decades of ever-evolving machinery.

Story

Formula Legends uses a loose ‘career’ framing in which you act as an unnamed driver stepping through different eras. Each chapter focuses on a particular decade, introduced by short text snippets that highlight key themes: the early days of minimal aerodynamics, the arrival of wings and turbo boosts, and the march towards hybrid power and ever-greater safety measures.

That framing does a fabulous job of giving context to both handling and circuit changes, all of which feel distinct and evocative of steering hurtling pieces of metal at breakneck speed.

Early events place you in cigar-shaped machines with limited grip and plenty of body roll, while later chapters hand you high-downforce cars that can grip the tarmac at alarming rates. 

Optional challenges, such as era-specific time trials or overtaking scenarios, slot between championship races to break up the flow.

What you get is a carefully crafted tour through 3DClouds’ interpretation of the sport’s evolution, told gracefully through how each decade’s cars and tracks feel.

Gameplay

Handling is where Formula Legends earns its place on the grid. Viewed from a top-down or high-angled perspective, cars respond crisply but predictably. The steering has enough weight that changes of direction feel meaningful, yet the game never tips into twitchiness – the result of post-launch refinement and very vocal fan feedback. 

Braking points still matter, apexes still count, and you quickly learn which corners invite bravery and which will punish overconfidence.

Each era feels genuinely distinct. Older cars squirm under acceleration and demand respect on corner exit, especially in the wet. 

As aerodynamic grip ramps up in later years, you can brake later and carry far more speed through sweeping curves, but you are punished if you ride kerbs too aggressively. The overall model sits firmly in sim-cade territory: the fundamentals of good driving are rewarded, but you are not wrestling with complex setup menus or tweaking the minutiae of tyre models.

Assists are available for steering, braking and traction, making the game friendly to newcomers. Turn them off, and there is enough nuance to keep more experienced players engaged, particularly when chasing leaderboards or shaving tenths off a personal best. The onboard cameras are present for a cockpit view of the action, but the game is clearly designed around its elevated view, which remains the cleanest way to read the road ahead.

Circuits are fictional yet clearly inspired by real-world venues in countries such as Britain, Italy, Canada and Japan, along with more modern street-style layouts in city and desert settings. Layouts evolve as you move through eras, mirroring how real tracks gain chicanes, safety features and new sections over time. That evolution gives revisits a pleasant sense of déjà vu: your old braking marker might still be roughly right, but the corner beyond it has changed.

Similarly, lightly tweaked names and liveries will definitely draw a smirk from Formula 1 aficionados, as you overtake ‘Mike Shoemaker’ in his trademark ‘Ferenzo’.

It also captures the tactical element of weather conditions, where the game can dynamically turn from a sunny day to a torrential downpour, with shrewd tyre changes and cautious driving making all the difference between a win and crashing out.

Multiplayer, whether online or on the sofa, benefits from the clarity of the viewpoint. You can see rivals’ lines into corners and plan your own moves with more information than a traditional low camera usually provides. Contact is light and rarely catastrophic, which suits the balanced tone between arcade action and racing realism.

Audio

Engine sound does a lot to sell the variety of vehicles – early cars emit urgent, mechanical howls, while later turbo and hybrid machines add deeper growls and more complex layers of whine and whoosh. It is not a forensic recreation of specific engines, but each has a distinct audio character, which helps sell the sense of time passing even if you are not staring at the HUD.

Music takes a back seat during races, surfacing more in menus and interludes. When it does appear, it tends to be understated and in keeping with the respectful, almost documentary tone 3DClouds is going for. The game keeps licensed music out of the way and encourages you to focus on the cars themselves.

Effects for kerb strikes, off-track excursions, and light contact are reserved but informative. You feel and hear when you have pushed a little too far, without every mistake being accompanied by theatrical crunches.

Performance

Formula Legends’ clean art style pays dividends on Series X. Cars have a slightly boxy, stylised look that reads well from above, with liveries and shapes that communicate their era at a glance. Trackside scenery is simplified but attractive, and the colour palette is bold without becoming garish. The overall effect is closer to a detailed toy set than a photo-real broadcast.

Performance is strong. Frame rates are stable in single player and hold up well in busy grids. Weather variations and time-of-day changes do not introduce noticeable stutter, and load times between sessions are short. The game is available on a wide range of platforms, but the Series X version takes advantage of the hardware mainly through resolution, silky gameplay and stability rather than lavish effects.

Input response feels tight, which is especially important when you are operating at the limit of grip in late-game machinery. There are no obvious hiccups or latency spikes to blame when you miss an apex.

Verdict

Formula Legends on Xbox Series X is a thoughtfully pitched – and keenly priced at under £20 – tribute to the fastest sport on four wheels, opting for clarity and capturing the feel over licences and spectacle. 3DClouds uses the top-down perspective and time-hopping structure to emphasise the rhythm of a good lap and the way cars have changed across decades, and in that it largely succeeds. 

Handling is satisfying, the circuits are well judged, and the historical framing gives the campaign a pleasant sense of progression.

Limitations are easy to list: there are no real-world teams or drivers, the career mode is lean compared with heavyweight sims, and cockpit-view purists may never fully click with the default camera. If you can live with those boundaries, you will find a stylish, engaging racer that earns its place alongside more serious titles as a complementary experience.

Where you place it on your star chart will come down to how much you value feel over official branding, but it deserves to be on the podium of your purchase list.

The post Formula Legends Review – Xbox Series X appeared first on CRISP..

For those unfamiliar, what is the Hydroflyer — and how does it redefine the water sports experience?

The Hydroflyer is an electric hydrofoil personal watercraft that I often explain as being a cross between an efoil and a jet ski.

It uses an electric motor and a hydrofoil wing to lift out of the water and fly smoothly above the surface. When a look of confusion comes over their face, I usually pull up thehydroflyer.com and show them, as a picture or video does a much better job than I can.

Where did the original idea for the Hydroflyer come from, and what problem were you aiming to solve in the market?

The original idea for Hydroflyer started as a passion project of mine. I saw someone foiling in a magazine and immediately knew I needed to do this, and started building my own foils and later electric foiling surfboards.

I kept trying to make these boards smaller and lighter, but I found that the weight of the batteries, motors, and computers made them feel heavy for something I was controlling with just my feet.

I grew up on dirt bikes, snowmobiles and used to race mountain bikes competitively, so the idea of a switch to a “handlebar-based set-up” for more control made a lot of sense to me, and I built the original prototype from an old bike frame. The first day I got it working, I immediately new this was a whole new sport and to me it was better in every way.  

Hydrofoiling is a rapidly growing category — what makes the Hydroflyer stand out from traditional e-foils or boards?

Unlike other eFoils on the market, the Hydroflyer was built from the ground up to be ridden like a bike or motorcycle.

The internal structure of the board needed to be much stronger to handle the extra force that could be applied. The board shape was refined to give a seamless transition of coming on and off foil, and a dual antenna system was developed to keep the rider in control at all times.

How did you approach designing a product that feels both futuristic and intuitive for new users?

From there, the next step was to make it adjustable and user-friendly so everyone could set it up to their liking. Coming from a mountain biking background, I knew how important handlebar setup was and how different some people like it.

People also like to ride in different styles, so it was crucial to have a craft that could be adjusted to the rider’s preferences with an upper mast that moves forward and back, adjustable shims and multiple power levels that allow you to ride in a casual way or a very sporty way.

What were some of the biggest technical or engineering challenges in developing the Hydroflyer, and how did your team overcome them? 

Salt water is probably one of the most challenging environments to make a device for, so this was always at the forefront of design challenges.

Having something that both heats up and cools down in the water accentuates this problem, so the first principle was triple redundancy on all waterproofing solutions. Take, for instance, the computer on the Hydroflyer. This starts off as a water-resistant piece, is then potted in a waterproof material hidden inside a waterproof compartment with double layers of waterproof gaskets, and then sealed again from the outside.

From a business standpoint, what has been your go-to-market strategy — and how has the market responded so far?

Our original go-to-market strategy was to follow the Tesla model of releasing a high-end premium product to early adopters while we work towards a mass market model. Hydroflyer 1.0 is full carbon fiber and titanium – a top-of-the-line craft that people love but definitely isn’t in everyone’s budget.

Innovation is often about timing — why do you think now is the right time for a product like the Hydroflyer to take off?

I totally agree with the timing part, and to be honest, I think people were not ready for the Hydroflyer when we launched, and lots of people saw the handlebar-focused craft as a learning tool and not the performance machine it was.

It’s only after a couple of years of media and press that people are now seeing the advantages of the Hydroflyer.

How do you see the Hydroflyer changing the landscape of leisure, luxury, and marine tourism industries globally?

Hydroflyer 1.0 enables everyone to learn to foil safely without the fear of injury. It’s an excellent device for rental centres or anyone who enjoys spending time on the water. Our guiding principle, however, is to become the personal watercraft of the future. 

Future Hydroflyers will allow someone with zero experience to hop on and glide across the water for the first time without ever getting wet. This will introduce a micromobility aspect to all waterways, just as electric scooters have transformed city transportation.

What types of customers or communities have most embraced the Hydroflyer, and were there any surprises there?

Resorts like Club Med have been a great place to explore the Hydroflyer, as it lets guests experience learning to foil without the typical dangers associated with a regular eFoil. 

As a CEO, what’s your long-term vision for the brand — is the Hydroflyer the start of a broader lifestyle or product ecosystem?

The plan is to build Hydroflyer into an ecosystem of products. We will always have the high-performance, recreational product as part of it, but future products will be micromobility solutions for people to navigate waterways, autonomous last-mile delivery devices and tools that parties like the Coast Guard can use to explore the coast. 

Sustainability is a growing priority for consumers. How does the Hydroflyer align with that shift in values?

Sustainability has always been foundational to Hydroflyer, and we see it as a clean, quiet and green alternative to the traditional jet ski. 

Lastly, if you could sum up the Hydroflyer experience in one sentence, what would it be — and why should our readers try it for themselves?

Riding a Hydroflyer is my favourite thing in the world, it’s exciting and rewarding whether you’re getting on it for the first time or the thousandth time! 

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Developed by The Game Kitchen (of Blasphemous fame) and published with the support of Dotemu and Koei Tecmo, this surprising sequel is relatively lean in runtime, but rich in moment-to-moment satisfaction. When Ragebound is in full flow, it feels unstoppable, pulling you into a trance of precise strikes and flowing movement that more than earns the right to stand up as an entry in the lauded franchise.

Story

It is not a complex tale, but it serves its purpose elegantly.

The story stays true to Ninja Gaiden’s tradition of putting gameplay above elaborate plotting, but let’s remember that the sequences in the NES original were some of the first cut-scenes ever, so story does certainly count for something.

When a demon invasion hits Hayabusa Village, fledgling shinobi Kenji Mozu steps up to defend it in the absence of his master, Ryu Hayabusa. The young ninja soon crosses paths with Kumori, a kunoichi from the rival Black Spider Clan. Their unlikely partnership leads to a fusion of powers, setting the stage for a showdown against the resurrection of an ancient Demon Lord.

The narrative is concise, moving quickly between stages and keeping the action front and centre. Cutscenes are short, with functional dialogue and stylish framing that recall classic anime – the relationship between Kumori and Kenji does take some amusing turns – while recurring characters help maintain a sense of progression across the journey.

Gameplay

At its heart, Ragebound is a pureblood Ninja Gaiden at its core, and is all about mastery. Kenji’s move set is small, but focused and endlessly expressive. The katana slash forms the backbone of your offence, the Guillotine Boost doubles as both an aerial attack to chain combos as well as a traversal tool, the dash gives you speed and positioning, whilst the dodge roll lets you slip through danger with pinpoint timing.

Every move in his arsenal has both weight and purpose. The katana slash feels sharp and responsive, the Guillotine Boost delivers satisfying control in the air, the dash offers reliable gap-closing, and the dodge roll rewards precise timing.

The Hypercharge mechanic is what ties the combat loop together, however. Matching the right attack to the right enemy colour floods the screen with energy and grants a one-hit kill potential. It adds an extra layer of decision-making to every fight, encouraging calculated risks to maximise efficiency.

Enemy variety ensures you never coast. Standard foes keep the rhythm, but shielded soldiers, ranged attackers, and teleporting assassins will punish any lapse in focus. Boss battles are highlights, with each encounter built around unique patterns and cinematic presentation.

Platforming is as finely tuned as the combat. Levels encourage chaining movement abilities into smooth sequences, using wall runs, aerial attacks, and enemy bounces to clear hazards. Maintaining momentum feels rewarding and tests both precision and awareness.

Hard Mode ramps things up to evoke memories of the NES version once again – altering enemy placement, increasing aggression, and changing attack behaviours, creating what feels like an alternate version of the game. For players who master the main campaign, it offers a fresh and genuinely challenging second run.

One notable shortfall, however, is the sense of progression in character skill. Upgrades exist, but they are conservative in design, focusing mostly on minor health boosts, stamina tweaks, or incremental weapon enhancements. These additions are helpful but rarely feel transformative. You unlock them, nod in approval, and carry on playing exactly as you did before.

There is merit in this approach. By keeping Kenji’s core move set intact from start to finish, Ragebound ensures the spotlight stays on player skill rather than character stats. The satisfaction comes from mastering timing, spacing, and awareness, not from stacking bonuses.

It keeps the game lean and primarily skill-based, true to the Ninja Gaiden ethos.

That said, some players will wish for more variety. Alternate weapons, branching ability paths, or even cosmetic rewards could have given long-term play a greater sense of personal expression. Without them, the campaign risks feeling front-loaded.

You learn the essentials early on and spend the rest of the game refining, rather than evolving, your style. For purists, this simplicity may be welcome, but it felt to me like a missed opportunity to deepen the experience.

Audio and Performance

Visually, Ragebound is exceptional. The pixel art is crisp and richly detailed, and each stage has a distinct personality that keeps the world engaging. Boss sprites are large and animated with expressive detail. Attacks feel heavy and purposeful, and visual effects are strong without overwhelming clarity.

The soundtrack is a standout. Composed by Sergio de Prado with contributions from original Ninja Gaiden composers Keiji Yamagishi and Ryuichi Nitta, it blends traditional Japanese instrumentation with modern synths for an eclectic, if slightly more serviceable than memorable selection of tunes. Tracks are tightly matched to the action, rising in intensity during boss fights and softening in quieter interludes.

Sound effects deliver clarity and impact. The clash of steel, the thud of a perfect strike, and the crackle of Hypercharge activation all enhance the sense of control. Ambient audio such as wind, distant bells, and murmured crowd noise adds depth to the setting, without distracting from the gameplay.

Minor issues do exist from a performance perspective, which are particularly apparent as this game is so exacting in what it asks of you. Beautiful, yet busy backgrounds can occasionally make hazards harder to read, and rare platform clipping can cause unexpected falls.

Final Verdict

Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound is a confident return for one of gaming’s most demanding franchises. It is fast, stylish, and focused on the fundamentals, offering an experience that values skill and precision above all else.

It is short, and the upgrade system could have been expanded, but these are small flaws in a game that delivers such a consistently satisfying loop. Every slash, dodge, and counter feels earned, and the replay value for those chasing mastery is significant.

It offers a pure, uncluttered slice of action platforming. For those familiar with the NES originals – or even the Xbox instalments first time around, it is a worthy revival. For newcomers, it is a demanding – but fair – introduction to the series’ trademark difficulty.

Code supplied by publisher for review.

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