With an epic RPG, a classic point and click adventure and two casual puzzlers, we’re checking out a diverse selection console releases today. Risen, Dance of Death: Du Lac and Fey, Sissa’s Path and Cat Slide Tiles were all launched on PC before, but recently received new console ports.
Risen review (PS4)
For some odd reason, I keep getting Gothic and Risen mixed up in my head, even though there’s almost a decade between them. They share a developer, a publisher and a fantasy setting though, so maybe it’s not that strange. Luckily, THQ Nordic recently re-launched Risen for modern consoles, bringing the 2009 PC title from Piranha Bytes to today’s PlayStation, Xbox and Switch players.
THQ Nordic made no secret of the fact that, unlike with the Gothic Remake, Risen was going to be launched pretty much in an “as-is” state for consoles. But although we weren’t expecting a full remake treatment, minor tweaks were still made to the game – most notably with a new UI that’s easier to read/navigate on TV screens. They’ve also eliminated load screens to modernize the experience, though I barely remember the load screens from the original release so they couldn’t have been too bothersome.
Content-wise, this is the same experience people played over a decade ago, with an impressive 50+ hour campaign and some strong voice acting, which holds up well. We can’t say the same for the combat though, which feels clunky – especially in melee before you acquire magic spells. Things pick up a bit once you’re past the first few hours, but it’s a slow starter in the combat area that requires you to stick with it if you want to get the most out of it.
Visually, Risen has aged quite well with some gorgeous world design and visual effects, though the game’s character models feel incredibly dated by comparison – maybe that’s where my confusion with Gothic comes from. It’s passable, but they’re awkward reminders that this is a game from over a decade ago when you consider what’s technically possible these days – which should also include a game not crashing, though that also happened twice. Nevertheless, if you enjoy a grand action RPG then this re-release offers plenty of value for money with its lengthy campaign, despite its dated elements.
Dance of Death: Du Lac and Fey review (PS4)
We saw Du Lac and Fey: Dance Of Death get released on Steam a few years ago, and weren’t expecting a console port to land in 2023, almost four years after it first appeared. Hidden Trap and Dolores Entertainment recently launched it on PlayStation, Xbox and Switch though, bringing this point and click-inspired adventure game to a much wider audience.
The premise sure had us intrigued – Du Lac and Fey: Dance Of Death revolves around the classic mystery of Jack the Ripper, but this time with protagonists Lancelot Du Lac and Morgana Le Fey. That’s right, those of the Arthurian legends, which makes for a nice creative blend of historical influences. Set in London’s Whitechapel, the immortal pair chases after Jack the Ripper with the help of local girl Mary Jane Kelly, believing he is no mere mortal and that darker forces are at work here.
The darkness translates to the depiction of London at the end of the 19th century, which the developers definitely aren’t romanticizing in Du Lac and Fey. And while there are traditional point and click mechanics at work here, the game also lets you switch between characters, making use of their particular talents – like Morgana’s ability to communicate with animals now that she’s turned into a dog herself.
Audiovisually, there’s some impressive voice acting work on display here, and we really enjoyed the art style as well. Subtitles are often incorrectly translated though, so if that’s the kind of thing that annoys you then you may want to ignore those. There’s also a wooden feel to the animations though, which messes a bit with the general flow of the otherwise engaging game. If you’re a big fan of classic PC adventure games, however, this’ll entertain you despite its lack of polish in some places.
Sissa’s Path review (PS4)
Indie developer Antonio Filipe launched Sissa’s Path on Steam last year, and EastAsiaSoft has now brought the game to all major consoles, giving Sokoban fans yet another title to enjoy.
Sissa’s Path is a fairly basic take on the Sokoban formula, its biggest eyecatcher being the visual design for the game. You control a little cute cube-shaped kitten called Sissa across familiar grid-based puzzles, where the classic boxes have been replaced with balls of wool that Sissa likes to play with. As you’ll probably expect at this point, you have to make sure that you get these balls to where they need to go in order to finish the level.
Compared to other Sokoban-inspired titles, Sissa’s Path feels relatively basic and forgiving. If you’ve played similar games before, you’ll quickly latch on to the fact that you can often just follow a strategy where you make a bit of room for yourself and then just push the balls of wool into the right spot. To compensate for this you can only rewind a single turn, but there aren’t the most cunning puzzles we’ve seen in the Sobokan genre. It is super cute though, so perhaps it’s a good entry-level game for novices that helps them get comfortable with basic strategies.
Cat Slide Tiles review (PS4)
Amazingly enough, we have two puzzle games in this roundup that feature cats. Funnily enough, they’re also mostly geared towards the more casual end of the genre. Luckily, Cat Slide Tiles, which came out on Steam through developer Minicactus Games in 2021, has a different gameplay concept. Publisher QUByte has brought it to PlayStation and Xbox, and we checked it out on a PS4.
The core concept of Cat Slide Tiles is a creative play on the classic sliding puzzle. You know, the kind where you get a little puzzle with nine or sixteen tiles and one open slot – requiring you to slide the pieces around until you form a complete picture. While the mechanics here are similar, the objective is different. For each puzzle, there’s a predefined start point where a cat waits, and there’s an end point. Your job? Slide the pieces that have pathways on them into the correct spot so that the cat can walk from the start point to the finish point, picking up keys in the process.
You’ll notice that, despite the fact there’s still a 4×4 grid, there’s always more than one open space – so sliding the right parts into place isn’t necessarily the problem. It’s about finding the right path, and there are regularly multiple solutions available. It makes for a somewhat casual puzzle experience, and what stand out to us most of all is the excellent visual presentation. Rather than presenting these sliding puzzle from a traditional top-down perspective, there’s a 3D/isometric view that’s filled with intricate little details – as if you’re looking at a diorama. It makes otherwise fairly generic gameplay fun to play in short bursts, though it would have been better if the controls were more intuitive and aligned with touch mechanics – highlighting a tile and then just ‘pulling’ it into the right direction with the thumbstick with a button held down. There are several button presses involved now, which is needlessly convoluted. Luckily, the charm factor makes up for it.
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