In Tidbits, we cover games that are difficult to cover in our regular review template. In this Tidbits, we review Wayward Strand, Biomutant, and The Forest Quartet.
Wayward Strand | 71% – Wayward Strand is an odd little game brought to us by Ghost Pattern. You play as Casey, a curious little girl that is aspiring to become a journalist. Tasked with helping your mother, you come with her to visit her workplace, which is a floating retirement home (or hospital, depending on how you want to look at it). Visually Wayward Strand is just a top-tier game in my opinion. With what seems a mix between 2D sprites and 3D surroundings, it does its damned best into charming its way into your heart. With a soft-on-the-eyes color palette and hand-drawn aesthetics, this game just looks top-notch, and I can only applaud the design artist on a job well done. In the audio department, I can’t say much either. Again an amazing job here! You need to know that this entire game is fully voiced, with voice actors that clearly loved doing their job, and it shows… or well, in this case, you’ll hear that passion. Combine that with some sweet lofi-esque audio and you’ll get that cosy feeling of visiting your grandma/pa as no other game could produce. But where the game sets itself truly apart is the story. There are multiple storylines going on at the same time. So expect yourself to go through multiple playthroughs of the game if you truly like it. You can jump from one story to the other, depending on who you want to help first. And don’t worry, you won’t be losing a lot of hours per playthrough, since the game can be completed in around 4 hours. Though don’t let this positivity overwhelm you in a hurried purchase though, because believe me when I say that this isn’t a game that’s for everyone. The slow pace and literally ‘do-nothing’ nature of Wayward Strand isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. But overall? A fun and a welcome break from everything if you need some!
Written by: Alexis
Reviewed on: Xbox Series X
Biomutant | 75% – Wait, didn’t we already review Biomutant? You may ask yourself. And yes, you are most certainly correct! Then why are we doing this one again? Because Biomutant finally released a next-gen version! So we’ll cover this fairly quickly since there isn’t much difference here. In regards to performance, Biomutant plays extremely smoothly. Whereas you could experience some stuttering previously, I never had one frame drop on my Series X. The colors pop even more in my opinion, so they seem to have changed the opacity here and there as well. In regards to controls and audio, nothing has changed actually. Though I did seem to notice that Biomutant does not approve of Quick Resume. At times when I would boot up the game through Quick-Resume, my game would totally freak out. During some of the puzzles where you have to turn dials, only one dial moved. Most of the time it resulted in me failing the puzzle. But one time it actually unlocked a box that needed multiple dials to be moved. It also caused the graphics to freak out as well. Like, if I had a word pop up from an item or something like that, there was a chance it stayed there indefinitely. So I had to reboot the game either way otherwise my screen would have become overwhelmed with random words. In my opinion, Biomutant didn’t need an updated version because the original one does its job perfectly. But I guess if you hadn’t played the original one yet, and did want to try it out? Nothing would stop you from purchasing the Next Gen version then.
Written by: Alexis
Reviewed on: Xbox Series X
The Forest Quartet | 80% – The Forest Quartet is a short but enchanting puzzle adventure about three jazz musicians dealing with the loss of their friend and lead singer, Nina. They’ve invited their fans to the forest for one last performance but first, they must deal with their personal issues like anger and anxiety. You play as the spirit of their lost friend and help them to overcome their demons by solving simple puzzles. It takes about 1 hour to beat and won’t really challenge anyone, but the story has a nice personal message to it and the visuals have a certain appeal to them that drew me in. I’d certainly recommend a playthrough and think it’s nice how the game was developed as a family project with the Danish developer (Mad) bringing in his father to compose the jazz score and his sister Nina to voice the same-named singer. Published by Bedtime Digital Games, who developed their own musical adventure, Figment.
Written by: Robby
Reviewed on: PS5
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Hello, I’m Victoria. I’m from the UK and have been playing video games for as long as I can remember; back on DreamCast. I’ve pretty much fallen for Xbox since I was around eight years old and remember BioShock being my first game on the Xbox360. Although I find it thoroughly enjoyable to not only experience gameplay, I also find comfort in getting lost and engrossed in the online worlds that sometimes differ greatly from what we know. Another side of my Xbox passion would be achievement hunting and gamerscore. I thrive when I hear the little sound of one popping up on the screen and I’m always finding ways to work on my backlog when possible. Horror is my favourite genre so if you have any recommendations, don’t be afraid to send them my way!
