It’s a full house this week on the Gamesline Podcast. John is joined by Lorelai, Maverick and Rose to talk about the last week in gaming. John’s still obsessing about Pikmin when he’s not playing Digimon cards or Pokémon Channel. Lorelai was Final Fantasy pilled at the Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival which got her playing Final Fantasy XI again while also digging in to Vampire Crawlers on her long road trip. Rose of course played more Marathon, Mina the Hollower, Saros, and Forbidden Solitaire while Maverick played a bunch of Hades 2.

In the news, we go over the interview Mike Fisher gave where he annihilated Yuji Naka, The Witcher 3 is getting more DLC, and a bill addressing the Stop Killing Games initiative is moving forward in California. In other news, Dark Horse Comics is unionizing after their new Embracer overlords started shutting down Things From Another World and shifting focus to Games. If you’d like to sign the petition to support the unionization effort, you can do that here.

You can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on social media @gamesline.net, John, Lorelai, Maverick, and Rose.

Also, don’t forget to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, and tell a friend about the show!

If you want to send in questions, send them to our email podcast@gamesline.net!

You can also join our Discord channel at thegamezone.zone!

Our theme song is “Crush” by Melt Channel, from the album Magic is Real.

Edited by Lorelai

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 92: Fantasy Solitaire appeared first on Gamesline.

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In the game, Scott’s bandmates are taken by an unknown entity aided by the mysterious Metal Scott. In order to save his friends, Scott teams up with his girlfriend Ramona Flowers, former Evil Exes Matthew Patel, Lucas Lee, Roxie Richter, and the robot that the Katayanagi Twins made. Each character has the same basic abilities when it comes to movement, strong and light attacks, and ability to throw opponents. They also have their own special abilities and additional tech moves activated by pressing up or down with Triangle (we’re a Dualsense household, sue me). These moves add variety between additional precise strikes or moves that give you room as enemies start to pile on. A variety of side characters shine as support moves you can trigger with L1; from Wallace Wells giving you an attack buff, to Young Neil causing a screenwide attack to clear mobs. As the enemies get tougher, you’ll also need to stock up on health items along with accessories to juice your stats, like health and attack power, to survive the ruthless streets of Canada.

The world of Toronto is lovingly filled to bursting with retro gaming flair, but EX‘s map is one contiguous section which lines up closer to River CIty Ransom than 2010’s homage to Super Mario World. “More” is the central ethos when it comes to how Tribute wanted to design this iteration of The Global Second City. Rather than go through one level at a time, Downtown Toronto is splayed out for the player to freely roam about with mysterious portals ripped open which act as the more involved levels you’ll be fighting through. This gives some more freedom in theming as well, which isn’t bad but it’s notable that the first level in the 2010 game was set in the depths of Northern Winter before you get to the gig, while here we walk through a portal to get to an ice level with a dinosaur version of Todd and Cavewoman Roxie as the bosses. Still fun, still creative, but also a key distinction between Ubisoft Montreal’s attempts to condense a book series that sprawls one year into one game, and EX being much lower stakes as if it were just happening through the weekend. If there’s any conversation around what reclamation of the term “cozy” would be, I don’t wanna be in that convo, but I’d at least bring up Scott Pilgrim EX as a step up with how it blends being hard while being super easy to pick up. 

After Metal Scott steals your friends, you go through a variety of quests in order to save the day. A lot of the game is getting from point A to point B and fighting bosses. Again, it’s aggressively simple of a concept as are most of the beat ‘em ups that precede it. Then again, that’s still part of what makes this game so fun! By the end of my playthrough I managed to clock in 6 hours total, and that’s something I won’t mind going through with friends for the next time or trying out New Game Plus mode. Friends are able to hop in and out as well with the introduction of online co-op right from the jump, something that the 2010 game had to wait much later to include. You can even hop onto other people’s sessions freely in a quick button press! It’s never been easier to bust up vegans and robots with some friends than now.

The key feature of the 2010 tie-in game alongside its art was its soundtrack from Anamanaguchi, and they’ve once again come through to soundtrack Scott Pilgrim EX. The chiptune crew from Brooklyn recently put out an album this past year as an evolution from the capital G Gamer tone their music has had, and this soundtrack feels aligned with that perspective. The main overworld theme you’ll be hearing for a chunk of the game feels like a marriage between the original’s title theme and its first level track “Another Winter,” probably the best move for the song that plays most often through the game. Places that are home to shops or storefronts are much more laid back in tone and then songs ramp up once it’s time to kick ass. There’s also moments where the timbre of the game shifts to suit the more fast and loose style of this game; a boss taking place in an old music hall leaning happily into a big band sound for example. When it comes to something as niche as a video game soundtrack intending to evoke a pre-Y2K soundfont, it’s great to hear Anamanaguchi continue to approach the task with a lot of ingenuity and fun.

As someone who has read the books, watched the movie, reread the books in the color hardcover editions, and watched the anime, this is the perfect amount of more Scott Pilgrim I’d want. It’s also important to go outside and drink a beer (personally) and hang out with friends, as the series has been able to highlight time and time again. Like, I’m almost 30 man; any sort of connection I would have to this bastard kid has long since eroded, but it’s been fun getting to squeeze a quest or two in for a day and then go take care of the rest of my night. At a point where I’m having to schedule my gaming sessions because of how busy life is, Scott Pilgrim EX is one of the few games that recognizes I’m no longer young, unemployed, alone, or a combination of the three and respects the fact I have shit to do. I would love for more games to treat me with this respect, and thankfully there’s some who still do! Also Hazel and Katie from Seconds are here so this is basically the best game on the market. 

The post New Age Retro – Scott Pilgrim EX (PC) Review appeared first on Gamesline.

The Gamesline Podcast returns with John, Maverick, and Jackson! John and Jackson are both playing Grasshopper Manufacture’s Romeo is a Dead Man. John also explores Arknights Endfield and older monster tamer games like Jade Cocoon and Robotrek. Jackson supplements Romeo time with 360 classics Tales of Vesperia and Final Fantasy XIII. Maverick talks about his experiences at MAGFest, the Denshattack! demo, and Skate Story and UNBEATABLE.

In the news, Konami legend Shutaro Iida passed away, Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond are out of Microsoft Gaming, EVO is fully bought by Qiddiya City-owned RTS, Bluepoint has been shuttered, and Tencent secretly funded Highguard. But that’s not all! A new .hack is coming, FireRed and LeafGreen are for sale on Switch, Nier: Automata will be continued, Xenoblade Chronicles X got a disappointing Switch 2 edition, and ArcSys made some AI generated border bullshit game.

You can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on social media @gamesline.net, John, Maverick, and Jackson.

Also, don’t forget to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, and tell a friend about the show!

If you want to send in questions, send them to our email podcast@gamesline.net!

You can also join our Discord channel at thegamezone.zone!

Our theme song is “Crush” by Melt Channel, from the album Magic is Real.

Edited by Lorelai with video production by John

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 83: Rosebud is a sled, man. appeared first on Gamesline.

5. UNBEATABLE

For all the gripes I have with the narrative, I still think everyone should go play D-Cell’s hot new rhythm game. The soundtrack rules and the character designs are fun as hell! I didn’t mention it in my review, but the voice cast is also a lot of fun, a mix between people new to the VO scene and some seasoned actors giving fun performances. It’s also been a catalyst for getting me back into my rhythm game fascination as of late, especially thinking about the ways rhythm games handle their own systems of making the player interact with a song beyond solely listening. 

4. Dispatch 

I feel like the older I get the less and less I’m eyeing release calendars. Things that get announced at a Keighley sanctioned event can show up in my radar, but it’s not like I’ll sit there and mark everything that I’ll be eager to see once it’s out, especially now that concerts and games are costing the same and I usually know which one wins out for my tastes and wallet. It wasn’t until Jackson was playing this game on stream where I went “oh yeah this was shown off a year ago” and got a little intrigued to pick the game up. Turns out it’s pretty damn good as well! As a team management sim, the game is fun to engage with and I had a great time sorting my heroes for a day’s worth of missions and obstacles. It’s simple, but in a way that makes the guessing of which stats to prioritize for a request fun by having to guess through the writing. I also had a pretty good time with the story! Aaron Paul’s performance as Mecha Man is subtle but still a lot of fun, as is the rest of the cast. The romance side of the narrative is definitely the weakest which makes its prominence a little jarring, but all the chances I got to hang with the Z-Team made those stumbles just another part to experience overall. Whatever the plans for a next game look like, the massive success this game has had should hopefully allow for a vision that can take a few more risks while still keeping this newly found core of what makes a superhero narrative work in games. 

3. Umamusume: Pretty Derby

I am not a gacha gamer. I have next to no experience with gacha games and don’t really plan too. Outside of the moral decay that comes with everyone going for a loot box, as games they never really interest me and I never get deep enough to warrant that hook in. Even with friends who talk to me about the narrative in games like Arknights or Honkai Impact and Honkai StarRail, the act of playing through the game just never appealed to me and would make me not care enough to get through the developing plot. All of this to say the horse girls got me, they got me good, dog. Umamusume: Pretty Derby is something I knew little about in the years prior to its global release. At most, I watched an episode of season 3 of the anime while getting ready in my Japan trip last year. As news came about the impending global release in June, I didn’t anticipate what a tidal wave of adoration was coming in the months to come. The game itself is a raising sim akin to Monster Rancher or Princess Maker where you train a young Umamusume during the three years of her racing career at Tracen Academy. Build her stats correctly and you ensure she’s prepared to take on the obstacles ahead of her. The simplicity makes the game pretty easy to hop in which I appreciate, a full gameplay loop taking about 20-30 minutes. On top of that I just had a lot of fun with each character and how their real life horse racing career correlates to the gijinka being shown off on screen. The music is also really fun to listen to, which makes the various remixes I’ve heard at raves all the more fun. Seeing the way multiple people have built out smaller communities through art and music based on this game has been very interesting to see, and is something I do feel positive about as we go through an ever expansive wave of gambling on everything. 

2. DELTARUNE Chapters 3+4

2025 marked 10 years of Toby Fox’s Undertale, and also marked the release of the next installments in his current game Deltarune. I’ve been a fan of Fox’s work for some time now, and these current releases have definitely kept the anticipation for the full game well satiated. Chapter 3 felt light when it came to its story, but was still fun to get through and have these character moments crop up between Kris, Ralsei, and Susie. Chapter 4 in turn had a huge focus on where to take the next beats of the story as we get past the halfway point of this game. It’s interesting to follow the path Deltarune has taken since its initial release in 2017 and how the addition of more people to the team has allowed Toby to iterate more on what this story can be. Chapter 5 releases the very next year and I wait excitedly for whenever the next installment of the game will be available. But never forget, until there is an actually slated day of release, any day can be Deltarune Tomorrow. 

1. Skate Story

Skate Story and Unbeatable are games about the process of making things, and both of these games released in a year where I felt the least creatively tapped in to my writing. It’s appropriate then that they bookend this list given how much I still think about Skate Story’s approach to rekindling a desire to create. I spoke about the game at length already, but it really is something to be felt and experienced on its own. I actually got to talk with Sam Eng at MAGFest, and something that was interesting to learn was the inclusion of Blood Cultures’ music into the game and how it came about. This game had been in development for some time and as both Eng and the band are creative pen pals of sorts, it would lead to some songs released before the game having this focus on the moon or of fragility through metaphors of glass. In turn, the game and levels become built around songs and also led to further discussion around albums, Eng being a fellow album enjoyer and the importance of tracklisting when it comes to putting a series of songs together beyond just a concept album. I think that’s what makes Skate Story so compelling to me, that its focus and ideas exist beyond the inherent artifice of the game. Its music is what I listen to when I cross the Manhattan Bridge to work, and while I might not be heading down to Zumiez to pick up a board, I do look at 2026 as an opportunity for more, regardless of how that more takes shape. 

The post Maverick’s Top Five Games of 2025 appeared first on Gamesline.

Before I’m a fan of video games, first and foremost I’m a fan of music. I love listening to music, I love the chances I’ve had playing music, and I love experiencing music in levels beyond just the audio experience. One of my first concerts was now over a decade ago; I still remember seeing CHVRCHES months after my first breakup and all of us in attendance getting caught in a downpour as soon as the drop in “Clearest Blue” hit. Between my friendships, my travels, and just the way I view so much of the world now, I owe a lot of my current self to the kid who would sit at the car radio flipping through stations to find sounds that resonated, regardless of their release date or genre.

It’s also the initial love of music that led to my appreciation of TV, film, and eventually video games. Katamari Damacy is one of my favorite games partially due to its eclectic soundtrack, as are a majority of the games I look at in the ever rotating top ten list that I know exists for myself, but have never put to paper. So often for me, a game that can lack in tactile prowess can make up for it by having an effective soundtrack. Conversely, one of the things that’s kept me from going back to Street Fighter 6 for practice in this current season is the fact the core soundtrack disappointingly lacks any sort of punch that Capcom as a gaming music juggernaut is known for. Still fun to watch, but any attempts to lab it will require me adding my own soundtrack so I don’t have to hear “SURVIVALIST. HUNGRY LIKE A TIGER IS” any time I hit character select. 

Rhythm games know all too well about how much the curation of sound is vital to their existence, next to the mechanical feel of “playing” the music chosen. From ParRappa the Rapper to Guitar Hero to Chuunithm, the genre has been able to solidify the key components of success: music that’s worth listening to and a gameplay that intuits the feel of being “part” of the song.

D-Cell’s UNBEATABLE is a rhythm game where music is illegal and you do crime. In this game you play as Beat, a young woman who sings in the band UNBEATABLE alongside the preteen Quaver on guitar, the explosive Clef on drums, and her reserved twin brother Treble on keyboard. The soundtrack is a wholly original collection of rock songs along with inclusions from other artists in the music and games sphere like Jamie Paige and 2mello. The rhythm gameplay itself is pretty simple: enemies, dubbed Silence, will approach Beat on a track from the outside of the screen towards the center. These enemies move in time to the music and are either on a top or bottom lane. Hit your button when the Silence arrives at a designated circle to beat them up and hit as many as possible to get through the song! Some notes require some kind of tap, others will need you to hold the button and release on time to register. Too many missed notes will result in a game over, so feel the beat and keep on trying!

There are options to set your controls to a variety of keystrokes aligned with the various approaches to rhythm gaming through a controller or keyboard; my layout maps the top lane notes to the triggers of my DualSense and the bottom lane notes to the face buttons and d-pad, similar to what I usually use for Taiko no Tatsujin. The higher difficulty beatmaps can be physically exhausting, so it’s nice to have the immediate option to try out layouts that can make subdivided notes a little easier to manage. 

I do want to highlight the team in charge of structuring the various beatmaps for the game: Chi Xu, Cheryl, and TaroNuke show their love of the genre on their sleeves with the layouts of these songs. The only time I’ve ever heard rock in a rhythm game has been either in Guitar Hero or tap rhythm games like Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! and its Western sibling Elite Beat Agents. There’s nothing that outright differentiates the genre from being included in other rhythm games, but there’s a lot of care in place to effectively highlight the feel of each song. “Empty Diary” is one of my favorite tracks and the higher difficulties do a good job of providing challenge without being a grueling test of endurance or fast track to arthritis. There are tracks that definitely lean into that Rhythm Pervert (affectionate?) mentality of playstyle, but it’s not something expected of you in normal gameplay. 

The soundtrack has also been something that’s stuck with me for the better part of the last four years. Peak Divide, the in-studio band made up of composers Clara Maddux and Vasily Nikoleav with vocals from other members including producer Rachel Lake, have cultivated a sound that is so evocative of people getting into a garage and making music as a means of escape and expression. The song I had mentioned before, “Empty Diary,” opens with a strong guitar arpeggio followed by the tapping on a cymbal leading into the rest of the band. It’s the kind of intro I’ve heard at many a bar venue or music hall from a band I hadn’t heard until then and getting to figure out for the first time. The Pillows are an immediate inspiration gleaned from this production, as is apparent in the rest of the game and its ties to FLCL. The rest of the soundtrack continues to deliver hard hitting bangers like “Waiting” and “Sleeping In,” and the game also includes various remixes of these songs or nondiegetic tunes in the Arcade mode like the Tutorial song Proper Rhythm that uses a pretty funky groove with samples from a typing instructional video that also acts as a nod to the keyboard warriors keeping their hands on the home row. 

The audio has been a core feature of what makes UNBEATABLE so charming, but alongside that is the actual visuals which are so essential to the vibe. The game is unabashedly inspired by anime, its primary aesthetics most evocative of current Studio Trigger works to draw an immediate contemporary. Every character stands out in some way, be it Beat’s rough and tumble jumpsuit look with bright pink hair or Quaver’s distinct blue and white palette in both hair and dress. The additional characters come alive with their own visual personalities and are a blast to see sprinkled throughout the environments of the game. Environments are fully realized 3D spaces which creates a Paper Mario-esque storybook feel as you see your characters run around the space. The scenes themselves take heavy Japanese influence, at one point full on recreating a train station in Inaba, and the lighting becomes such a fun thing to notice throughout your time in the Story Mode. There can be a stillness captured in some scenes which is nice to sit in for a while. Unbeatable knows what it wants to sound like and look like, and there’s no hesitation in getting those pieces aligned when put in motion. 

SIDE B – Spoilers for the story mode to UNBEATABLE

When you boot up the game for the first time, there’s a special introduction screen where the game asks about your own familiarity with rhythm games. Do you like them, do you feel skilled at them, and then calibrate the rhythm offset for you along with the flashiness of the on screen effects. The last few words in this opening scene are “THIS IS A STORY ABOUT LOSING YOUR WAY. IT’S NOT A LOVE STORY. NOT LIKE YOU’D THINK ANYWAY […] ALL STORIES ARE KIND OF LOVE STORIES. AT LEAST THE GOOD ONES ARE.” This initial introduction I felt was really well done. I can’t speak on the direct references that this game pulls on in terms of what might be in the team’s specific game bible, but since the first trailer I’ve been aware that UNBEATABLE has shades of FLCL and Scott Pilgrim in its palette. Two series that I had experienced at age twelve, a vulnerable age where the stories someone becomes really fascinated by and even passionate about take deep roots and compel that audience member to ask, “well what else?” A bit of an extrapolation, but that was about the age where I realized liking cartoons and video games wasn’t something I needed to give up at a security checkpoint before passing into adolescence. Suffice to say UNBEATABLE is a game that I felt primed to take in, enjoy, and fully engross myself in. To allow something so joyous about art and its process, warts and all, to move me to tears. That was not the experience I had with the Story Mode by its end. 

UNBEATABLE’s Story Mode starts with Eve, the vocalist for the band One More Final, taking the stage for the last time. We then cut to Beat waking up beside a tree and running up to meet Quaver, unaware of who she or anyone else is. Beat has no recollection of what she was doing and proceeds to accompany Quaver who eventually goes to the abandoned concert hall her mother played her last show at. Performing for Beat, Quaver’s guitar strums bring forth the Silence, beast-like creatures who are drawn to music and are the reason used to outlaw music in its entirety in this world. Beat proceeds to follow Quaver along as they decide to rescue Treble and Clef from prison, and the eventual breakout leads to them forming a band and starting to tour across the local area. Eventually this trips the alert of HARM, the police force cracking down on any and all cases of sound-related crime, who start upping the ante on what it will take to cut UNBEATABLE down.

I need to take a minute to talk about Tenchi Muyo! More specifically, the overall franchise of media that Tenchi Muyo! has become over time. The core frame of the narrative is about a young man named Tenchi who becomes involved in the lives of various outer space women as they bring him along for adventures and shenanigans. This summary is concise not because of a lack of depth around the series, but because the idea is extrapolated on in nearly 30 years’ worth of OVAs, TV anime, drama CDs, and movies. For the Toonami faithful, you were most likely exposed to the original 6 episode OVA also known as Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki, the 26 episode series Tenchi Universe, and other series like Tenchi in Tokyo. All of these are part of the overall franchise, but key differences that can come up mainly lie in the characterization or overall atmosphere of what you’re watching. To what degree is Ryoko Hakubi an all powerful space pirate, is Tenchi himself a hapless hero caught in between the turmoil of the women he’s helping, those kinds of things. As Youtuber Hazel highlights in her video of the series, the level to which everyone is actually related to one another becomes different depending on what you’re watching. End of the day, the series is still capturing the hearts and minds of many fans regardless of what interpretation you manage to catch.

UNBEATABLE, as a narrative, feels caught in an issue of creating multiple interpretations, but all in one package rather than these separate iterations. The demo, UNBEATABLE [white label], came out years ago as the prelude to what this game would eventually be. Many of the songs in the game had these cutscenes introducing and concluding the rhythm sections, detailing parts of Beat’s inspirations for writing. The sparsity in this case was evocative and compelling to the structure. In the main game, it’s never fully explored that Beat writes her own music. Clef in Episode Four comments on her songwriting but at no point is it really brought up prior to that. These songs we hear in the action segments and in bigger setpieces of the game aren’t really brought up as to why they’re here, which isn’t out of the ordinary in most narrative rhythm games. PaRappa never takes a second to say “LeMmE JusT jot THIS doWn” after he raps with Cheap Cheap the Cooking Chicken, nor do most musicals actually title the music in-universe since the expression of emotion through song is understood as this natural occurrence in the laws of that world.

Overall I realized that the feeling of what this story was supposed to be got superseded by other ideas butting in and clogging each other up. This story wants to be about creation, it wants to be about losing yourself, it wants to fight the power. These are things that I love that come up in so much of the art I adore! Here though, I keep finding myself asking “why” or “how come” more often than I’m able to allow myself to run with the narrative. As someone who’s also a big pro wrestling fan, that feeling of being pulled out from the illusion sucks, and that moment hit me hard by the end of Chapter 4. After Chapter 3, we meet our heroes in a larger cityscape. At this point the band has started to gain notoriety and after playing some shows, are in the process of creating an album. Penny, one of the inmates from the prison in Chapter 2 who helps the crew escape, runs into Beat and offers to help with the production of the album. For the next four days, Beat ghosts the band, gets worse in practice, and is consumed at the idea of finishing this record. Clef has a heart to heart with her in the local batting cages using this Rhythm Heaven style minigame to get her point across. 

I thought the idea was cool and I appreciate Clef as a headstrong character also knocking sense into the other headstrong character, but so much of that dialogue was tuned out because I tried to focus on the minigame. There’s parts of the game where if you fail a rhythm section, you will just get sent to the next part of the story with no option to retry the segment you just failed. It sucks! I hate the feeling that I can’t pick myself up after eating shit, something that I loved so dearly in the last game I reviewed where failure was applauded as much as succeeding! So rather than take in the narrative heft of whether the product or the process is the thing that matters most in the act of creation, I tapped circle to make sure I didn’t get a game over and skip that anyway. Then I fought some more cops, and our studio got blown up. Cut to chapter 5.

At its core, UNBEATABLE is proudly anti-authoritarian and anti-fascist. The only real interaction you have with police in this game is through fighting them, and the forces at HARM are also constantly reminded to be the villains without question. Beat, in every single interaction that she was with a member of authority, consistently reminds us that they are pieces of shit and horrible human beings. That part’s all well and fine, shoutout the cop slide. What ends up taking shape is this persecution complex, for a lack of a better word. Everything is against Beat, and since we only have Beat’s interpretation of the world she’s interacting with, then it’s easy to take that hostility at face value. People can be upset by her, but rarely, like in that batting cage segment, do we have anyone really push Beat on how she views the world. Again, this isn’t a plea to have Beat feel bad about The One Good Cop, but more having a curiosity as to why things are the way they are. Beat is thrown into this story with next to no knowledge of what’s going on, much like we are as the player, but then I felt like I had more questions about the world than Beat did and the frustrations came around the “why” of everything. Even if there were no concrete answer, to then at least have the “why” through the distorted lens of authority and scrutinize whether it was an explanation that people did feel complacent to uphold. 

Seven years is a lot of time to work on something. In that time ideas can change, be reworked, be given new life, be dead in the water after an epiphany. This focus and obsession of time passing comes up several times throughout the game. At times it feels a little tongue in cheek, but there’s an earnestness to the fact this team spent so damn long crafting this idea. The fact this game is out at all is a miracle, let it be known. But the flaws I feel I keep running into about how this story is, what the focus is, the overall premise of UNBEATABLE, I hit this point where those frustrations feel less like me wanting to sit in critique and more eager to sit in with the staff  to draw up stories. That I want to make a game that dedicates more time towards providing outlets to those who do harm. A story around a pain felt by everyone but spoken about by no one. o go out and craft something rather than say why this game isn’t evocative of the vision in my head. This isn’t my game though, and the time I sat with Beat and the others really reminded me of that by the end. 

As I work through my feelings about this game, I do feel compelled to think about the students I work with, young people of color who are very well aware of how the world hates them but who have been brought up with just enough acceptance of the status quo that to resist authority requires teaching both the intrinsic moral and the practical application of unplugging, disconnecting, and reconvening. It’s the way that even with my lack of strict cybersecurity routine I’ll shoo away a discord reply asking me to join a test server because that doesn’t sit right. The core message of rebellion and doing what you love is something I want others to take on and love passionately as well. I think this game can be profound if you’re learning what adversity feels like for the first time. If the world looks full of enemies more than it does friends, then I can see someone resonating a lot with Beat. 

I just can’t help but feel like I’m staring at a window, the lights on and the music inside just audible enough from the outside. “They must be having a good time,” I think to myself as I walk to my destination and look up the song playing because it’s by an artist I recognize or a band that I already listen to. I look at the staff, the inspirations, all of these separate pieces of the process to make this game and am so proud of what’s been created at the end in terms of the effort put in to create it. Why then, do I feel like this story lands flat? My initial draft of this review was caustic even, much more an open letter to RJ Lake and Andrew Tsai asking why couldn’t I understand this, even though I can see the blueprints and appreciate them? It sucks to have something that you’ve waited on, even put money into (two dollars, but in 2021 those were two of the maybe ten dollars I had to my name total), and get a product you like most of, but not all of. It’s not to say that RJ and Andrew are untalented either, if anything that’s refuted by the song credits and visual direction and every other piece of the game that they take a stake on. I don’t feel right calling RJ a bad writer for this story, when their expressions of isolation, worry, and perseverance in “Empty Diary” and “Mirror” are still rolling around in my head.

UNBEATABLE is something that reminded me I do like rhythm games. Its sound is one that’s been around with me ever since I listened to The Dream is Over by PUP for the first time back in 2017. It’s been in the periphery of my young adulthood, and its message of losing yourself and finding your voice has been in the back of my head for every job I got fired from, every friend I’ve had to lose, every night where I felt like the person I saw in the mirror was not the person I wanted to wake up the next morning. I think having this game a year before I enter my 30s, well traveled in my career, having an ever-growing group of friends this past year alone and now facing the reality of being a new uncle, feels like getting a gift you had just aged out of but still appreciating the thought that’s there. I’ll most likely be playing Arcade mode still, and as soon as I get that beatmap editor I’ll be making the New York Indie Rock scene every other person’s problem in the leaderboards. One of the final passages in the credits is from lead programmer Reyah Koehler, saying 

thank you so much for seeing this game to the end. we all worked really hard on the game. i hope you loved or hated it, and enough so that something about it sticks with you for a while. Thank you for believing in us and giving us the opportunity to try and make something special for you.

There’s a lot to love about UNBEATABLE, there’s a lot I’ve learned to hate. The game has a beautiful soundtrack, the rhythm sections in story mode will just be skipped over if you fail them. The character designs are fun to see, the other minigames in the narrative are clunky and don’t feel as engaging as the core rhythm game despite the artistic direction. I’ll probably be thinking about this game for a while, and to those of the team who read this I will still probably dap you up when I see you at Magfest and highlight the things I did enjoy. I think that’s what sticks the most at the end. Stories about losing your way feel different once you’ve finally started to get a handle on things, FLCL becoming less this revelation of everything I thought was true and more a fun nostalgic look at when small things mattered so much. They’re precious because of the flaws. For now, I am a little heartbroken as I collect these thoughts that feel so different to the preview I beamed about in 2021. It’ll heal, and luckily I’ve got a great soundtrack for that healing.

The post It’s A Good Sound, Just Not My Sound – UNBEATABLE (PC) Review appeared first on Gamesline.

The lack of that grit makes the recent iterations of the Tony Hawk and Skate series so jarring after all this time. THPS 3 + 4, despite it featuring one of my favorite artists’ songs that sneaks in lyrics like “currently it’s obvious there is no Constitution,” feels confined to PS1 nostalgia even while trying to adapt titles in the series that iterated beyond the initial two installments. skate. is still in development and doing what it can to sand down the original series’ edges. You don’t get body checked by cops anymore, and falling off buildings is fine because you have Not Amazon funded super goo in you now! The games are still there mechanically, but it’s saddening to see these giants miss the initial edge of the medium they’re emulating. For the last decade I would hear the occasional yearning for a new skateboarding game, but it’d feel similar to the way I’d tilt my head to the sky and mutter “yeah that was cool” about the old plaid Enjoi deck with black and white trucks and wheels I owned to timidly cruise around my neighborhood. 

Skate Story is grimy as fuck, and it rules so hard for that. I initially heard about this game about 3 years ago, and immediately fell in love with the presentation. It’s a game I’ve waited for in the corner, knowing it would eventually come, trying not to overhype myself for this thing I knew I wanted to enjoy for myself. In Skate Story you play as a demon in the underworld with a universal desire: to eat the moon. As a demon made of wire it’s an impossible task, but the demon stumbles upon a contract that bestows upon them a body of glass and a skateboard. Made of glass and pain, the demon shreds through the endless night in their quest to eat the moon. Sam Eng’s Faustian love letter to the extreme sport succeeds by making failure so much fucking fun. You will crash in this game. A lot. You get achievements for failing to land tricks after a while, to put it in perspective just how often you’ll be eating shit. 

For those who are coming to this game with experience in the button prompt or flick stick methods of trick delivery, Skate Story’s approach to shredding takes a minute to adjust to. Ollies are done with the Circle/B button and other flip tricks are performed by adding presses of the triggers and bumpers to your held ollie. Right next to your skater you’ll see shapes traced with a dot, portions of these shapes shaded in green to indicate the optimal height for your jump or landing for your trick. The harder the trick the tighter the timing, and other button combinations color in abilities like reverts and spins, while grinds borrow the Skate approach of hitting a rail just right with your ollies. 

Altogether, the glass demon shreds with abandon and every perfectly crafted line is built from a mountain of crashes and tumbles. The act of failing is also done spectacularly: every crash results in the camera dropping to the ground and rolling until it catches the shards of your body against the various nighttime scenes you shred past. At no point did I feel frustrated about falling off my board or having to redo a session. The physics are a little rough, but for a game that’s focused on a deeper descent into the dreamlike, it’s not a dealbreaker. I learned to get comfortable with the weight of the glass skater and use momentum in a way that amplified the desperation felt in getting through each chapter.

The demon traverses several layers of the underworld to complete their late night snack quest. Each moon – surprise, you’re eating more than one moon on this eternal night – casts a heavy shadow on each area you skate past. I can’t emphasize just how beautiful this game looks with its deep shadows lit by fluorescent yellows, blues, and reds. There’s a karaoke bar I go to sometimes, its concrete bar counter along with furniture and trinkets to resemble a goth nightclub, and throughout the space there’s anime memorabilia and rows of manga. It’s eclectic and spacious and with the lights set low and the candles lit, there’s something comforting about the crowds singing top 40 hits throughout the night while I sip on a beer. That’s the kind of atmosphere that Skate Story evokes in its coloring and geometry. The game feels hellishly hostile, but the very act of skating is in defiance of that hostility. Every elevated ledge becomes an opportunity to grind, every jagged bramble and hurdle another chance to bust out a new trick. 

The poorly kept secret here is that the entire game is styled after New York City, and I’m a ride or die for Skate Story as a result. Within minutes of getting your board, you speed down a dreamy version of the Manhattan Bridge bike lanes, you see the backdrop of skyscrapers and scaffolding in the distance whenever you walk through new areas. Sam Eng dedicated time to record sounds of the subway cars screeching to their stops and put that in this game. I freaked the fuck out because it’s a sound I know all too well at this point in my life! To see the Washington Square Park arch modeled in a hellscape amidst skeletons pining over a previous life of regret is cool as fuck, I don’t know what else to tell you. 

Adding to the atmosphere is Skate Story’s soundtrack. Blood Cultures and John Fio went nuts in the studio to create a soundscape that is so addictive to listen to and makes the rush of building your line all the more satisfying and alluring. I’ll be honest, I get really annoyed when people cling to genre norms as a determiner of whether or not something does the genre “correctly.” Easiest nitpick here: your skating game doesn’t have to copy the old THPS soundtrack song per song. Skate Story plays around with atmospheric electronic sounds one level, then in the next level you’re getting hard hitting EDM. You ponder in one scene and then you shake ass in another while you start hitting kickflips and varials. One of the hubs does have a ska inspired track, but we’re talking about 1st wave, fresh off the heels of reggae, where it’s less mozzarella sticks and more hanging out in places where you could get your ass kicked. The boss themes are impeccable as well, each track fully playable within a time limit, so you can juggle your time between full-on listening and getting your combo up. There’s something beautiful about hitting gnarly flip tricks while a song with bright synths and samples of Bernie Wagenblast reading out train numbers plays in full blast. 

Skate Story, by design, is a game about friction. While customizing your board, you have the option to manage the tightness of your trucks. (For people who haven’t fiddled with a board, those are the axles that keep your wheels in place.) Loose trucks make it easier to apply pressure on your board to turn or do tricks, but also feel wobbly at high speeds. Tighter trucks allow for more stability when you really ramp up in speed, which happens a lot in the slalom sections of the game. There’s no right way to set your trucks, but taking the time to figure out what feels good to you goes a long way in making the game a personal experience. 

Skate Story is imperfect and it’s so good for that. I even had moments where the geometry would glitch out and force me out of the bounds of the world in a void of hazy amber light. There are moments where trying for a complicated flip trick doesn’t exactly work, but you still throw something out for the sake of your line and try to keep your momentum. As someone who never once managed a flip trick, the intricacies of how to plant your feet to affect the angle before getting air can get overwhelming. There’s a layer of fumbling intrinsic to the mechanics where mastery is less about never getting off your board and more about how quickly you get back on your board after bailing. I think back on games like Hi-Fi Rush where having zero context of the game and learning on the fly did so much to make that experience special by the end. I won’t speak on the ending not because of spoilers, but because it’s an experience you deserve to have for yourself. It’s the kind of thing where I do wish I could experience it for the first time again. 

It’s been tough to play video games this year, if I have to be honest. I’ve had this block of wanting the right time to indulge in the hobby, and that time rarely comes. If I’m not busy with new anime or shows, then I’m out and about in the real world with friends or going to concerts. Even worse, my lobster is too buttery! But genuinely, playing games as a hobby has been difficult when nothing felt like it landed with me, or would take a while to really sink in for me. After nearly four years of waiting, Skate Story comes through as a solid reminder that I can always be willing to engage in art that’s so proud of being made within constraints. Yeah, this has Devolver’s name on it, but it’s truly something born out of love for skating and love for New York. There’s nights, especially in the winter, where the moon stands out amidst the dead foliage and ice cold buildings, its light reflected off puddles of rain or pitch black windows. Some nights it looks massive, blindingly white against the darkness of night. Skate Story gives an audience a look into how those nights feel, the hours spent going deeper and deeper into the dark with no certainty of when it’ll stop. A city of demons made of glass and pain, our bodies so susceptible to breaking, and yet we keep going.

The post Like Eating Glass – Skate Story (PC) Review appeared first on Gamesline.

Scott, Jackson, and Maverick sit down for a full-spoilers discussion of AdHoc Studio’s 2025 animated superhero adventure game Dispatch, written by Telltale veterans and voiced by a celebrity cast.

How does Dispatch interact with classic superhero themes such as multiple identities, heroes vs villains, and the burdens of power? How did the experiences of each of our players differ based on their choices? How have the writing sensibilities of the independent AdHoc Studio changed or not changed since the Telltale days? You’ll have to listen to find out!

You can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on Social Media @gamesline.net, Scott, Jackson, and Maverick.

Also, don’t forget to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, and tell a friend about the show!

If you want to send in questions, send them to our email podcast@gamesline.net!

You can also join our Discord channel at thegamezone.zone!

Theme song by Scott

Edited by Crystal

The post Dispatch Spoilercast appeared first on Gamesline.

We’ve been gaming A LOT, so this episode is just us going over the anime season for Fall 2025. And it’s also a few weeks in. Please don’t yell at us too much.

Our next assigned anime is the second half of the first season of Hell Girl. You’ll have to find it any way you can.

Our theme song is by Kirsten Carey, who can be found at @kircarey.bsky.social!

Send questions to podcast@gamesline.net, with a subject denoting it’s for URW!

The post Unlimited Rail Works 139: Fall Previews 2025 appeared first on Gamesline.

Elvie picked this month’s anime watch, so we all sat down and watched the 1999 film Adolescence of Utena!

We also talk Digimon, Watanare, Dandandan, and more!

Our theme song is by Kirsten Carey, who can be found at @kircarey.bsky.social!

Send questions to podcast@gamesline.net, with a subject denoting it’s for URW!

The post Unlimited Rail Works Episode 138: Adolescence of Utena appeared first on Gamesline.