You can find this review in full at GBAtemp.net:
https://gbatemp.net/review/a-fold-apart.1356/

Rarely does a game captivate me the way A Fold Apart did. From so much as watching its launch trailer, I was drawn in. Between its luscious visuals and bold blue and orange colour scheme, there was something more to be uncovered; there was a narrative to be explored, to be experienced. I dived in unknowing of quite what to expect.

Opening with a cutscene of unity and togetherness, the scene is set for a close and very much in love couple. Told through several pieces of paper sliding across the screen, all seems well until, as these stories often go, it isn’t. The relationship between our unnamed couple, who I’ll refer to as Orange and Blue from here, is put to the test as Blue accepts a job forcing them to relocate in a distant city. Separate but connected in these modern times, the two smile and struggle as they attempt to make a long distance relationship work for them.

Really it’s quite a simple setup, and it’s a story that’s been told a thousand times across a thousand formats. A Fold Apart presents what I would call a basic narrative in an incredibly novel way. On paper, if you’ll pardon the pun, you have exactly what I’ve described: a couple coping and not coping with the ins and outs of being in a long distance relationship. It’s in the portrayal of this where it truly comes into its own. It’s raw, beautifully so. The gameplay can be divided into two categories: conversation and thought. The first of these is where you’ll see Orange and Blue talking to one another via text messages. You’ll occasionally get to pick a reply, and the conversations are a joy to witness. Both characters feel human; in their interactions, their quips, and in their sudden shifts in mood. During these conversations, one message in particular will stand out. One will hit home in a way the sender never intended, and it’s here the receiver will fall into thought.

The message bursts out of its neat enclosure and falls from the screen, a few choice words highlighted. Their world appearing to crumble around them, they walk through their emotions, breaking down the message, its impact–their internal monologue. The world shifts and slides as you move from one scrap of paper to the next, the dialogue revealing itself around you. To break up this monologue, you’re presented with a series of puzzles.

Though largely easy to grasp, the puzzles remain satisfying to solve. The game takes a simple idea in folding paper, and takes it far enough for each new problem to feel like a unique challenge, but not so far as to shift the focus from the evolving narrative. The puzzles seem secondary, replaceable even. It’s not to say they fail as puzzles, or are even dissatisfying; frankly they’re not. Closer to the truth is that in their nature, slow and methodical, you’re given time to catch up. You have the time to brood in each thought, to analyse and overthink it as each character does. The puzzles are, in essence, a brilliantly engineered roadblock. A pace setter to give each message the time it needs to sink in.

Empathy plays a significant part in how you experience the game. The ability to connect with the characters and ultimately walk their path alongside them is what made A Fold Apart special to me, and it’s the reason I’m still left thinking about it. It is a great game if you’re willing to give it a chance, and though only lasting around three hours, puts across what it tries to in a brilliantly memorable way. 

You can find this review in full at GBAtemp.net:
https://gbatemp.net/review/kiwi-switch-lite-cases.1369/

The Switch Lite is a console I adore. Presenting all the home console-level goodness of a flagship Switch in a bitesized package still bewilders me to a certain degree, but it is by no means perfect. Lacking the iconic clamshell design of its portable predecessors, it’s notably unprotected against the elements, and it’s here KIWI step up to the table with not one, but four unique designs. How do they fare in keeping the console safe, and how do they fare against Nintendo’s premium Flip Cover case? Let’s dive in and find out!

With four cases to review, I’ll start with the simplest design and move to the more extravagant ones as we go on. This most basic silicone case surrounds both the face and back of the console really quite cleanly. There’s no frills, no bells, and no whistles here; holes are cut out for the screen and buttons on the front, and for the various buttons, ports, and fans around the rim of the system. It can still breathe nicely, and my system didn’t seem to run any hotter for being wrapped in this case. The cutouts are clean and give you easy access to everything you’d need, with the notable exception of the Micro SD slot. I’m incredibly fond of the overall feel of the case, providing a reasonable grip, and the case itself does great in protecting the system from scratches. The only real criticism I’d pull against it is that the power and volume buttons aren’t cut out as the rest are. Instead, KIWI opted for a mushy overlaid design. It’s not to say they aren’t placed well, but I don’t like how they feel to press at all. It’s something you’ll either love or you won’t. This one is available in turqoise and grey for just £8.99, so it’s hard to complain. If that isn’t for you though, there’s plenty more to look at.

A slight variation on the first design, the yellow case sports an anti-slip moniker, largely describing the raised dots on the back of the case. As well as this, the front of the system is far more exposed, this case opting to avoid button cutouts by just leaving the full front of the system open. The case still stays on fine and is notably easier to slide into place, but does offer less protection against scratches in the long run. A more subtle difference, this case does, in fact, have a cut-out hole for the volume and power buttons. With the anti-slip bumps feeling nice to hold, and the only major issue I had with the first case fixed, this would be my case of choice for those on the tightest of budgets. Coming in at the same £8.99, and available in colours to match all three launch units, it’ll get the job done.

On the more premium end of KIWI’s offerings, and by premium I mean a grand increase in price of £2, we have your more fanciful designs. Sticking with our silicone brothers above, the grey cover here aims to deliver on ergonomics. Featuring two firm bulges on the back much resembling the feel of a classic controller, there’s more to grip, making the console as a whole a little easier to play for extended periods. From the front, we have the same coverings as our first case, complete with the overlaid rubber buttons on the power and volume I’m not overly fond of. One notable difference however comes in the form of an extra cutout for the Micro SD slot. It’s not something I take out often, so I don’t feel it too much an issue to leave it covered, but for those snapping screenshots who don’t want to upload them to a social network, this could be a deal breaker. It feels nice to hold and all in all for £10.99 I again struggle to complain.

Last on the list is where things really get exotic. This is the Goliath. Taking the bumpy back of the second case, blending it with the grips of the third, replacing the silicone with TPU plastic, and adding space to store two cartridges, it ticks a lot of boxes. If you have that extra £2, it really is an extraordinary case for £10.99. It feels sturdy. Where the others provide grip and protection against scratches, I feel I could drop my Switch in this and it would be safe. Full disclosure here, I didn’t drop my Switch, because I don’t enjoy dancing with death, but it provides a certain peace of mind all the same. Looking at the negatives, the Micro SD slot is once again off-limits, this perhaps more of an issue here with the rigid nature of the case making it slightly more difficult to remove. In a similar vein, though you can store two cartridges in the back, you’ll be pressed to find a convenient way to get them out of the case. It feels like a bit of an oversight, but given the budget price and overall quality of the product, I think I can let it slide.

Of course, when looking at Switch Lite cases, it’s hard to avoid comparing to Nintendo’s own offerings, the Flip Cover case in particular. Housing the console perfectly, as well as providing a textured grip and the clamshell design of yesteryear, it is fantastic, and for those with no real ceiling on budget, it’s hard to recommend anything else. Having said that, it’s three times more expensive than even KIWI’s most expensive case, and depending on your needs, that is money you simply may not have to spend.

All in all, KIWI have put forward a brilliant range of cases, sporting a budget price without a budget feel. Though you would need to purchase a screen protector separately for total peace of mind, I do recommend you keep them in mind should you be needing a case in the near future. For what they cost, you really can’t go wrong.

You can find this review in full at GBAtemp.net:
https://gbatemp.net/review/snakeybus.1335/

We all know Snake. Collect fruit, grow larger, the biggest threat being your ever-lengthening body. It’s a simple formula that, much like Pokémon, hasn’t evolved much in recent times. Some would argue, much like Pokémon, that it’s because it’s fine as it is, but I would disagree. Snake has always missed some kind of jazz, some kind of sparkle to really strike it rich in the modern days. Snakeybus brings exactly this.

While lesser games may opt for a massively multiplayer experience, or even a battle royale environment, the folks at Stovetop had a different idea⁠—a vision they would stop at nothing to see through to the end. What if we made Snake… with buses? On paper it’s simple, and really in-game it is too. Across a number of environments, you ride around in a bendy bus picking up passengers, and upon dropping them off, your bus extends. On extending, you’re able to pick up more passengers, allowing for exponential growth and absolute chaos as you find yourself rear ending your own bus from half way across the map.

At its core that really is it, but with a small selection of modes and maps to enjoy it, there’s a surprising amount to keep you coming back. First, you have Classic. Classic sees you do exactly as I described to the letter: you pick up passengers, you drop them off, the bus gets bigger, repeat until you mess up for a high score. Starting with a single stage, you quickly get a feel for the controls and how the game plays. Just as you’re getting comfortable, you’ll find yourself unlocking another stage as you cross scoring thresholds, keeping the experience fresh and keeping you hooked. You have a sense of ‘just one more round’ paired with a well-paced drip feed of new content to enjoy. It’s addicting while it lasts, but herein lies the largest issue: it doesn’t really last. Once your content has been run through, the only remaining motivation comes from trying to better your score and the score of others. The wackiness, the joy of Snake with buses, the marvel of it all only takes you so far, and if you don’t have friends to compete against I fear this isn’t a game you’ll be able to stick at. 

Outside of classic play, there are a few extra things to keep you interested. Timed Classic gives the game an interesting score attack vibe that incentivises fast play over cautious movements; it’s largely the same from a gameplay perspective, but the shift of focus does a good amount to feel fresh despite this. My largest point of contention lies in the Aerial mode and its beautiful madness. You see, the bus you control in Snakeybus has, as all good buses do, a jump button. It’s a small burst of rocket power dispersed from the underside of your carriage to get you out of the stickier situations you might find yourself in as part of the job. What Aerial mode does is make this single mechanic into a game mode. Instead of it being a last resort, you find yourself relying on an infinite jump to manoeuvre through a cave as water continues to rise. You deliver passengers to their destination, the water sinks a little. It’s a thrilling back and forth that is horrible to control and brilliant fun to play. In the end, however, you find yourself running into the same problem: there’s only one map you can play this mode on. Snakeybus is a game that throws interesting mechanics and fun modes at the player, but lacks the longevity to back it up. 

There is one thing in particular that stands out about the game that does, in fact, assist in giving you an additional layer of replayability in the form of online multiplayer. The catch is that it isn’t available on the console releases, with no plans of its addition in the near future. Reviewing the Switch version, this naturally means I’ve not had a chance to play it myself, but looking at gameplay for the PC release, it’s a terrible shame to see it missing. It’s brilliant. You compete against others on the same map trying to cut each other off, all the bizarre and wild action amplified exponentially. 

I had a great time with the game on the Switch, and its portable nature makes it ideal for the brief pick up and play sessions you’d generally want from an arcade title. It is difficult however for me to wholeheartedly recommend it to anybody wanting a complete Snakeybus experience. If you have a capable PC, I urge you to give the game a shot with a few friends online; those without need to assess what they want. For an arcade title to return to here and there, it remains well-executed in its concept and fun to play. Having played each level through and through, it’s not a game I see myself coming back to soon, but I also doubt this is the last I’ll play of it. 

You can find this review in full at GBAtemp.net:
https://gbatemp.net/review/helix-dura-portable-nvme-ssd.1315/

In years gone by, we lamented the limits of capacity. We cheered at the thought of 30 whole gigabytes of storage, blind to the speed our games and applications loaded. Time, as it often does, kept moving forwards. We now find ourselves in an age of capacity beyond what we can reasonably expect to fill, and shift our focus to dizzying new heights. We find ourselves in an age of speed.

As flowery as that may sound, SSDs are swiftly becoming the norm as we prioritise speed over raw capacity for our everyday activities. While you’ll find them an essential component of any modern gaming PC, their potential is often overlooked as external storage. It’s here Oyen Digital aim to join the ranks of Seagate and Samsung among others in delivering a quality and speedy choice for your portable storage needs.

Out of the box, the Helix Dura looks incredibly sleek. With what they describe to be a shockproof heat-sink design, wrapped in a silicon rubber sleeve, it is perhaps the most durable storage device I’ve ever owned. To say I’d be comfortable leaving it loose in my bag would be an understatement; I don’t think I’d bat an eye dropping this off a bridge. Having never owned an NVMe SSD before, the form factor also stood out to me. Compared to your standard 2.5 inch SSD, it’s remarkably tiny, coming in at around half the width. Between the durability and size alone, you have two great arguments for picking this over your more standard portable drives, and even your slightly less standard 2.5 inch portable SSDs. It feels like a device built to last, and Oyen clearly think so too with a four year warranty backing it up. Of course, durability is only half of the problem. The driving factor behind a purchase such as this is, as you might expect, the speed. I wasn’t disappointed.

On the official store page, you can find descriptions outlining the kind of speeds you’re to expect, advertising up to 980 MB/s, with a screenshot of their own tests showing 945 MB/s write speed and 964 MB/s read speed. Putting it to the test myself with a delightfully-themed CrystalDiskMark via a USB 3.1 port, I can say they’re bang on. Hitting just above the advertised speeds for both read and write, the Helix Dura does what it sets out to. In my brief time with this SSD, I’ve used it for a fun variety of things.

Between backing up and subsequently playing my media library, it faced no issues. You wouldn’t expect it to when Oyen themselves advertise it as a device for A/V professionals. It’s at this point it hit me. I have a whole terabyte to play with, why not just install an operating system on it? Using it as an excuse to finally try Linux, I managed to install a few different distributions to it as I found my feet, each surprising me in just how snappily they ran. If I hadn’t the cable trailing from my laptop, I wouldn’t have known I was running from an external drive. Its performance really did impress me as what I would describe as an average user.

As for the SSD under the hood, the Helix Dura sporting a Mushkin Pilot (MKNSSDPL1TB-D8). Knowing the SSD inside helps us then look at the price, and see to what degree the parts add up. This particular SSD coming in around $160, and NVMe enclosures ranging from $25 to $60 on Amazon, not to mention the warranty on top, I don’t think you’re getting a bad deal. With the Helix Dura, you have a drive that’s built to last, with the performance to back up the price point. For those looking to expand their external storage horizons, I can recommend it without hesitation, and look forward to seeing what Oyen Digital do next.

You can find this review in full at GBAtemp.net:
https://gbatemp.net/review/keychron-k2-wireless-mechanical-keyboard.1311/

When it comes to keyboards, I’ve owned a few. Big ones, small ones, fat ones, skinny ones, and even one that comes in two parts. What I have however always wanted, is a 60% keyboard, a tenkeyless keyboard. One that is portable, yet mechanical. A joy to type on, and a joy to travel with. Until now, the closest I’ve had to this ideal was the keyboard included with Pokémon Typing Adventure: a surprisingly good but non-mechanical device. Seeing Keychron’s K2 keyboard got me excited. It’s portable, it’s sleek, it’s mechanical, and it’s surprisingly affordable.

Out of the box, first impressions are something special. The keyboard has an air of simplicity to it, rocking a sleek design that would be at home with a Mac setup. Unusual to me, it also features keycaps for both Mac and Windows, as well as a key prying tool to swap them on the fly to suit your preferences. As well as these keys, you also get two orange keys for the Esc and light configuration buttons in the top-left and top-right of the keyboard respectively. As much as I like the overall aesthetic of these keys, the appeal quickly wears off when you turn the keyboard on and see how the RGB lights filter through. The entire keycap lights up. It’s not so much an issue when you know what these keys are, but when I really want to see the colours dancing across the keyboard, it’s a little distracting.

So it has a few extras for the Mac users among us. That’s great, but what about everybody else? What makes this keyboard special? I can break this down to three key areas: the battery life, the connectivity, and the design. Perhaps the standout feature, the K2 rocks a huge 4000mAh battery. What does this mean for the average user? 72 hours of continuous Bluetooth usage, lights and all. I’ve used this keyboard for a few hours each day for the past few weeks, and I’m happy to report it’s still going strong. Only needing a reported three hours to fully charge however, running out of battery barely feels an issue.

When it comes to Bluetooth keyboards, there’s one aspect that stands as an irritation to many: usage across devices. With my Pokémon Typing Adventure keyboard, switching devices meant pairing it to the new device. And if I wanted to use it again on the first device? Pair it again. It’s a small irritation sure, but it’s a real irritation all the same. The K2 doesn’t necessarily solve this problem, but it goes a long way in minimising it. When in Bluetooth mode, you can pick between three saved connections as simply as pressing the Function key, along with the appropriate number. On top of this, you can plug in a USB-C cable to connect it to any computer, game console, whatever has a USB port. Though it’s generally the standard nowadays, it’s still good to see USB-C over its mini or micro counterparts.

Finally, the design. I honestly love it so much I want to bring it up again. The model I have is the most expensive one on offer, featuring RGB lighting and an aluminium frame, coming in at $89. If you want something a little bit cheaper, you can opt for a plastic frame with RGB backlighting for $79, or a plastic frame and white backlighting for $69. If the build quality of the plastic frame is even half as nice as this one, the price more than justifies itself. I love seeing this keyboard on my desk. I love pulling it out of my bag, and most of all I love using it.

With the option of Gateron Reds, Browns, or Blues, you have your standard array of switch types available. Though I’ve never tried Cherry MX Reds, I can say the Gateron Reds are a joy to type with. If I were to pick a word to describe it, it’d be smooth. There’s no distinctive press or click where you feel your input is registered. Unlike the more tactile Blues and Browns, these are quiet and satisfying in a way I struggle to really describe. If you haven’t tried Reds before, I do recommend giving them a shot.

Both a positive and a negative for the K2 is the distinct lack of a companion app. This ultimately means usage is as simple as plug and play, but you are limited to the keyboard’s base feature set. This means no macros, no remapping, and no configurable lighting. While there is a fantastic assortment of lighting to scroll through, and likely one for every conceivable occasion, there is a slight sadness in knowing I can’t make my own. Something like the Ultimate Hacking Keyboard’s companion app is the gold standard to me: an app that allows you to configure, without requiring a background process at all times to fully utilise. It’s a shame the same isn’t on offer here, but the keyboard does ultimately tick all the right boxes for me out of the box. 

All in all, the K2 is everything I wanted in a tenkeyless keyboard and more. Sleek, portable, and an overall joy to use, it’s a keyboard that would find a home in any office or on any desk. It’s stunning, with a build quality and battery life to match. Whether $89 is a good price is something I can’t really decide for another person, but I can tell you this is something I’ve had no issue recommending to friends and family. It really just ticks all the right boxes. 

You can find this review in full at GBAtemp.net:
https://gbatemp.net/review/katana-kami-a-way-of-the-samurai-story.1308/

Now I’m not acquainted with the Way of the Samurai series⁠—I may even go as far as saying it’s not a series I’d heard of before playing this game. What drew me in wasn’t the brand, though I’m sure it might for existing fans, it really came down to two factors: random dungeons and fun sword-oriented combat. These are two of my favourite things in any kind of game, and to see them melded together is always a joy.

The game opens with you arriving at a small mountain pass. There’s not much here. You have a blacksmith, a tree, and three paths leading to different territories. As you walk closer to the blacksmith, you see an altercation: Dojima the blacksmith owes money, and it’s a not-insignificant amount. To that end, his daughter is taken as collateral, and as an upstanding citizen it’s up to you to see her returned safely home. It’s here the gameplay loop begins.

It’s simple, but fun all the same. To pay off the debt, you have several aspects to manage: the blacksmith itself, the balance of power and tension of the three neighbouring clans, and the mysterious dungeon that only appears at night. You explore the dungeon by night, completing quests, collecting bounties, and gathering items. Then, when you’re done, you make use of the newly acquired resources in the day around the blacksmith. Through Dojima’s smithery, you can upgrade your gear, making it easier to venture further into the dungeon, but really this is secondary to the fun you can have messing with the three clans.

You see, each new day brings new orders for swords. When you start, none of the clans are particularly fond of Dojima’s smithing skills, but accept he’s really their only choice. The small Post Town generally requests one or two swords each order, but the other two clans can go as high as 25; of course, you can always send more swords, or kit out the clan you dislike with fakes. It feels like a bizarre addition to a game like this, but it’s one I find remarkably amusing. Nothing is without risk, naturally. Each of the clans happens to run a small market stall outside the blacksmith, and if you get on the wrong side of them, they’ll stop selling to you entirely. You lose out on items, upgrades, and much more if you’re not careful. To mend broken bonds with the clans, you can always send them a ham if you happen across one in the dungeon, but most of the time I just wrote them off as collateral damage and kept the hams for myself.

There’s a certain intricacy to be seen in how you best utilise the three clans. You want them to hate each other, but not you. You want to incite war, but without necessarily shutting out any one group⁠—war sells swords after all. Maintaining this balance is ultimately an optional challenge, but it’s an incredibly satisfying one all the same.

With the day over, the second part of the game gets its limelight: mysterious dungeoneering. Well I say mysterious dungeoneering, but this isn’t a Mystery Dungeon game, instead a more action-oriented isometric dungeon crawler. You go from floor to randomly generated floor, defeating enemies, and picking up weapons and items. At set floors, you’ll have boss battles and challenge rooms you’re required to beat before allowing you to progress, but also allowing you a way out of the dungeon without having to reach the end. Through these, you can get a sense of steady progress while your weapons are still weak and you’re still getting used to the way the game plays.

Combat itself is frankly a joy. On paper you have a strong attack and a weak attack, but as you progress and continue to use your weapon of choice, you naturally unlock new combos. Your experience is constantly warping and changing, and yet can stay the same if all you want is a bit of mindless button mashing. It’s not dissimilar to Dynasty Warriors in that respect, but perhaps has more depth in what is possible should you want it. To diversify things further, each weapon type comes with its own unique blend of Katana Time: a powered up state you charge as you attack enemies. In this state, you’ll do incredible damage in a variety of different ways. Some swords will grow extremely long to hit more enemies at once, others will end their combo with an explosion; with nine styles to play with you’ll find one to suit how you enjoy playing. When it comes to picking a favourite part of the combat system, it’d definitely be the counters. Usable by either a well-timed dodge, comparable to how the Adept Style of Monster Hunter Generations works, or by a well-timed guard, these counters give you a brilliantly satisfying reason to learn enemy attack patterns. They’re flashy, bold, and most importantly work in the game’s online PvP.

Encountering other players in the dungeon is a mixed experience, but generally one that ends in a duel. As you explore and venture to a new floor, another player has a chance of appearing. Through simple button presses, you can decide whether you want to be cooperative and clear the floor together, or the opposite, and fight to the death. Interestingly, this isn’t a decision you have to set in stone. You can approach a player with the white flag held high, before swiftly stabbing them in the back. It’s incredibly human in its implementation, and really pushes you to either stick with or abandon an honour system. Thankfully, if a player does defeat you, you’re only thrown back to the start of the floor minus some money, in oppose to being thrown from the dungeon with nothing as you’d expect in a game like this. It’s worth saying you can play with friends, but I didn’t get to try this as nobody I knew decided to grab the game. 

The dungeon itself is a bit of a mixed bag for me. While I enjoy the randomness it offers to keep the experience fresh each run through, I feel it doesn’t necessarily do enough to hook me from start to end. With only 20 floors, and set bosses locked to the halfway point and the end, it manages to feel repetitive while in actuality being different each time. This sameness does get broken up from time to time; you get portals to skip floors, mystery floors that can either reward you with treasure or give you a challenge battle, and danger floors, which are a few floors significantly harder than what the game otherwise offers. They’re all fun for the first five, maybe the first ten times you play them, but the more you play the more you grow accustom to it. As you’re paying Dojima’s debt, your mindset shifts from wanting to explore the dungeon, to questioning whether you really need to in order to hit the next payment deadline. The gameplay remains fun, but there just needed to be more. More bosses in the mix, more enemies to encounter, variations, deviants, something to surprise you each time you go back to it. You get something like this at the end of the game, but you have to question whether weaving it into the standard gameplay loop would’ve been better than an almost-tacked on postgame. 

As things stand, Katana Kami is the best game I’ve played this year. It being the rear end of February, that might not mean much to some, but I enjoyed my time with it more than I ever could have anticipated. Through its interesting combat, great variety of weapons and styles to experience, the combos, the counters, and even the online PvP, I enjoyed my time and was left wanting more. It’s more than worth the price of admission, and I find myself able to recommend it to any lovers of fun swordplay, dungeon crawling, or the vibe of a Mystery Dungeon game in a different form. It’s a blast. 

You can find this review in full at GBAtemp.net:
https://gbatemp.net/review/cololight-pro-rgb-panel-lighting.1299/

I’ve always wanted what I call “fancy lights”. Not just your average light bulb, a light with flair and colour, customisation and diversity. I see these lights in my keyboards, in my mice, but I’ve never taken the plunge to get a standalone set. With offerings from Nanoleaf, Phillips, and a myriad of minor brands, I’ve put it off for one reason or another. Too expensive, too much hassle, how many GBAtemp reporters does it even take to screw in a smart light bulb? When given the chance to review Cololight, I for all intents and purposes leapt with joy, and haven’t looked back since.

The unit I received was a six panel starter kit with stone base, retailing at £79.99. In this kit, quite unsurprisingly, you get six panels, a stone base, and one control unit. They arrived in a delightful black tube and felt well-protected for the journey, none of them displaying any sign of fault after a few weeks of use. The idea when setting them up is a simple one, you attach the control unit to one of your panels, and then attach the other panels in sequence. With their hexagonal nature in mind, you can come up with some really creative configurations with only a few real limitations.

Setup is a relatively painless process. Once you’ve attached the control unit to a panel, the lights are on and you’re good to go. Tapping on the back of the unit will cycle through a few on-device configurations, but the real fun comes from making your own and the more complex features. To access these, you’ll need an Android or iOS device. Once you’ve grabbed the app from the relevant store, you make an account, sync the control unit by following a few simple instructions, and you’re set!

The app itself is an interesting affair, and perhaps where the majority of my criticism lies with the Cololight Pro. Much like the control unit, the app is loaded with a great number of pre-configured setups. From a dynamic rainbow pulse to a genuinely striking cherry blossom effect, there’s enough to keep a less adventurous user content. For those wanting more, you can go to the lab and get stuck in.

In the lab, you can design your own static or dynamic colour schemes, where a dynamic effect is a series of static frames run on a loop. Each panel is made up of 19 individual lights which can each be configured here. Instead of each light being distinct and defined, they blend together wonderfully; this is particularly nice with the app only allowing you to pick from one of 12 colours. Though a little limiting, and definitely not on the same spectrum as the Philips Hue and some of its other competitors, I never felt particularly held back. If anything, it drove me to experiment with blending to see how different lights together would look. I felt like a child again with my little set of paints, mixing them unknowing of the result. The bigger limitation to newcomers may in fact be how lights are coloured by distance from the control unit. If you connect your panels in a sequence one after another, each can have their own individual light setup. If however you attach three panels to a single one, each of those three would share the same lighting, as they’re the same distance from the control unit. Though it is simple, it takes a bit of time to get your head around it when coming up with new lighting effects.

Cololight Pro also supports some fun features that I have somewhat mixed opinions on. The most popular of these is likely the Alexa and Google Home support, letting people control their lights with their voice. It’s not something I’m personally into, but for the sake of the review I gave it a shot and, well, I just couldn’t figure out how to set it up. The Alexa app simply wouldn’t find the lights, so I gave up. I do strongly believe this is the fault of my home network, with issues like this cropping up in the past, but with that in mind I can’t really put an opinion to this either way. I can’t imagine it being more complex than “Alexa, turn the lights on”, so if you’re into that, it might be a nice feature.

What I was more interested in was the timer functionality, automatically turning the lights off and on at specified times. With the right setting, you could turn it into an incredibly fancy alarm clock. Setting this up is just as easy as setting an alarm on your phone: pick a time for them to turn on, a time for them to turn off, and which days you want to use it on. It did work, but it wasn’t perfect. For some reason, the lights turned on at 4am instead of 12pm, waking me really quite abruptly with bright rainbow lights. The device does have a time zone setting, which is set correctly, so I have no idea why it decided to run eight hours fast. Taking this into account, the timer is still perfectly functional, but it’s an issue that shouldn’t exist all the same.

With six panels and a great deal of enjoyment behind me, I was left wanting more. Six was fun, but I wanted wilder designs, more vibrant and creative configurations. So eager was I that I went out and bought ten additional panels, coming in at the low low price of £99.99. The interesting thing about having 16 panels is seeing just how far I can push them with only one control unit. Cololight themselves advertising that one unit can power roughly 20 panels, I was curious to see just how accurate this was; while not necessarily wrong, I don’t think it’s entirely accurate either.

Setting up my set of now-16 panels, they performed admirably on the default setting of 30 brightness, but what about 100, the maximum setting? Well on the maximum setting, they simply freeze. Dynamic effects stop working and the lights won’t communicate with the app until they’ve been unplugged. I’m not entirely surprised⁠—100 brightness is bright, and these lights can be powered with as little as a Switch dock’s USB port (note for testing I was using my tablet’s plug, not the Switch dock). From my various tests, I’ve found the lights run well at around 60 brightness with the full 16 connected. It’s a bit of a shame you can’t buy control units, the means of providing power, individually to support these growing setups for enthusiasts; your only choice is to buy another starter kit.

You can find this review in full at GBAtemp.net:
https://gbatemp.net/review/arc-of-alchemist.1293/

Idea Factory are a company I love to see. Though somewhat formulaic, the games they publish appeal to a specific audience, and they know how to hit the mark. From Hyperdimension Neptunia to Moero Chronicle, I’ve enjoyed and eagerly anticipated their games. They’re by no means for everyone, but they hold a special place in my heart all the same. As with their other titles, I loosely followed Arc of Alchemist‘s PR campaign across social media, quietly looking forward to what I hoped would be another by the books Idea Factory game, unknowing of what was to come.

As openings go, Arc of Alchemist sets out as it means to go on: poorly. From so much as the introductory cutscene, you can tell you’re in for a choppy experience, and that’s putting it lightly. For me, the game falls short in three primary areas: plot, performance, and gameplay.

On the surface, the game’s plot has a great number of interesting points. You have a post-apocalyptic environment with a bit of backstory to how the planet got this way. Wars, destruction, all that good stuff. It’s incredibly standard, and as I said in the introduction, that’s not always necessarily a negative point, especially with Idea Factory games. The backstory of the world behind you, however, you’re thrown into what feels like the middle of an adventure. You join a party of adventurers in the middle of a desert, the creatively-named “Abandoned City.” Why are you there? To find the also brilliantly named “Great Power,” in hopes of reviving the world…or something. In all honesty, though uncreative, the character motivations aren’t where I find issue; it’s standard, but it can work. Where the plot leaves me wanting is in how we appear to join our party in the middle of some grand quest, not at the start. They refer to each other with titles, and sometimes ranks. Some party members are older, some are younger, but we don’t really know anything about them. Much like a standard RPG plotline, this kind of setup can work. I understand the benefits of starting a story mid-way as to jump straight into the action, but it requires effective writing to prop it up. What does Arc of Alchemist give you? Exposition, or simply nothing at all. “Ah thank you Character B, I knew I could count on you, my best friend of six years whom I grew alongside in the great caves of Brighton.” I’m being facetious, sure, but at times it really does feel forced to that degree. You see the characters work together, even sometimes with short attempts at comedic skits, but it all falls flat when you’re not invested in their personality or wellbeing. There’s a chance this improves later into the game, but I didn’t make it far in at all.

When reviewing games, I don’t always feel it necessary to play to completion. This is a divisive point among some, but to me there’s often a point where I think “yep, that’s it,” where the ideas are fully formed and the game has presented itself in a way of such consistency where I can feel confident in my opinions. With Arc of Alchemist, I didn’t get to that point, and as such, the game may improve down the line. What stopped me playing here was the performance, and I can say this isn’t something that frequently holds me back. Arc of Alchemist is nauseating, at least on the Nintendo Switch. With a framerate encroaching on that of a 2007 gif, I struggled through headaches to even play as much as I did. It’s an utterly vile experience I couldn’t recommend to another person. Having a brief look online, the PS4 version looks tolerable, but sadly that isn’t the version I have in front of me. As it is, I would say this game should have never seen a Switch release, and I say that with a heavy heart. Visually, it does a few interesting things, but I don’t see how any single technique would make the game perform so poorly. The system has had far more taxing games grace its shores and has handled them admirably. I can only hope a patch will come, but I’m not holding my breath.

Looking at the gameplay, I find myself conflicted. As an ARPG experience, it’s barebones. The combat is about as simple as it could be, but in this simplicity I do find some semblance of satisfaction. I’d compare it to the joy of playing a Warriors game, it’s mindless. Mash A for a melee combo, hit Y for a ranged attack, maybe reposition yourself in battle if you’re that way inclined. It’s fun to beat up enemies, and I feel they did a good job in the feedback you get as you do so, but that’s about it for depth. You gain experience as you win and you level up every so often, but it doesn’t feel as though the levels do anything. Where the feedback for fighting enemies is satisfying, there’s really little fanfare for level up. It’s a case of looking back at the game and thinking “huh, the number got higher.” Ultimately it fails to keep you hooked on this combat because it just feels like you’re making no progress. Alongside your standard combat, there’s some base building and character customisation via equipment loadouts possible, but I wasn’t able to experience much of this myself with how much time I spent with the game.

All in all, Arc of Alchemist is a great crater of squandered potential married with a completely unpolished user experience. What good is here is completely outshined by the game’s performance issues, resulting in something really quite unplayable. It’s a shame. I want to see more of Compile Heart on the Switch, more of Idea Factory. I want to see Neptunia grace the system, but not like this. I can only hope they look constructively on what went wrong here and use the information to ensure it never happens again. I know they’re better than this.

You can find this review in full at GBAtemp.net:
https://gbatemp.net/review/roccat-kain-200-aimo-gaming-mouse.1290/

Roccat are a brand devoted to delivering interesting and often proprietary approaches to gaming accessories. From keyboards to headsets, stands to mice, they have a great range of products each tailored to fill a niche, and please an audience. Having previously reviewed their Vulkan 120 AIMO keyboard, I know they deliver quality, albeit at a steep price. Does the Kain manage to reach the same heights?

Sleek and clean, the box puts forward a professional and high quality aesthetic. Housing the mouse itself, as well as a Micro USB cable, a wireless dongle, and a USB extension, you have everything you need to jump straight in without any unnecessary clutter. The mouse has a lovely matted feel to it, and housing its RGB lighting only in the Roccat logo and on the mouse wheel, it isn’t as in your face as other gaming mice sometimes are. Immediately though, there is a caveat: this is an exclusively right-handed mouse. Though the lefties among us can often work around mice with buttons on one side by simply forgoing them, Roccat went further in an attempt to delivery an ergonomically sound design, and while I do think they did a great job, I can’t help but feel sad for those it doesn’t cater for. Unlike the ambidextrous mice out there, the Kain features a slanted body, the left click higher than the right to assumedly support the curved nature of a resting hand. Holding it with my left hand, it feels as though my grip extends too far. I wouldn’t call it uncomfortable, but I’d say there are most certainly better experiences out there. With my right hand however, it is a joy.

The Kain has everything you’d expect of a modern gaming mouse, albeit a little light on your fun configurable buttons. You have your left and right mouse clicks, the middle wheel, the forward and back buttons on the side, and a DPI button that can be configured via Roccat’s Swarm software, but more on that later. One thing I really would like to draw attention to with the design is almost not the mouse itself, but the port for the Micro USB cable to connect. At first glance I lamented the use of Micro USB over USB C in a time where standards really are moving forwards, but on further inspection, it became less and less of an issue. This comes down to the cable Roccat decided to bundle with the mouse. Instead of a run of the mill cable, it features grooves on the end, not unlike the Vita’s charger. These slide effortlessly into the front of the mouse to give you a wireless mouse that can genuinely feel like a high quality wired mouse when desired. The cable is secure and you wouldn’t know it detaches without somebody pointing it out to you. It’s not to say you can’t just use any Micro USB cable either. As long as the end isn’t overly chunky, it’ll fit in all the same.

Looking at it from a wireless perspective, it performs admirably. To my eyes, there’s no difference between wired and wireless. It’s fantastic. Perhaps what I love most is that I can just leave the wireless dongle in one laptop, and have the mouse plugged into another. To switch between systems, all I have to do is unplug it, the mouse fully charged, and turn it on. It’s a bit of a niche setup, but one I’m grateful for all the same.

I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on the intricacies of mice. I don’t have much in the way of a comparison for Roccat’s Owl-Eye optical sensor, but I can say even at 16000dpi it feels divine to use. Toying with a high DPI on other mice, I found the experience jittery and in general really quite difficult to get to grips with. On the Kain however, it just works. It’s smooth; really quite fast across my screen, but smooth all the same. I can make the tiniest of adjustments with an equally tiny movement, and when I want something a little slower, I can use the device’s DPI button to scale it back to a much more manageable 3000. It’s a joy, and much to my surprise, one I can appreciate without having to keep Roccat’s Swarm software installed.

To avoid confusion, Swarm is a fine piece of software for the most part. It’s about what you’d expect from a big brand, you have button configuration, lighting settings, and some of the configurable settings mentioned in the tech specs. Where I previously found fault in it was its tendency to crash when reviewing the Vulkan 120 keyboard, and when it crashed, it broke all of the keyboard’s configurable settings. No macros, frozen lights, sad times. I can say with genuine content that it is no longer the case, or at the very least, it doesn’t matter if it ends up happening. Thanks to a huge 512kb of internal storage, all your configurations are safe. You can setup your mouse how you like it, uninstall Swarm, and be on your way. If you choose to keep it installed, it doesn’t need to stay open. This step away from the ever-increasing list of background programs is a huge positive in my eyes, and one I didn’t expect to see. You can check out some screenshots below with the settings on offer.

It’s all fairly standard stuff, the most interesting in my eyes being the layered inputs. By assigning one of the buttons to Easy Shift, you can access a second layer while holding it down. It’s nothing necessarily new or groundbreaking, with Razer having something similar, and even the KLIM mouse I previously reviewed having something along the same lines, but it’s a feature I appreciate all the same. I managed to create the same setup I had with my old mouse with very little effort.

When it comes to battery life, the Kain advertises around 39 hours of charge, at least according to its page in Swarm. Though I haven’t used it wirelessly for 39 hours straight, my setup of having it plugged in half the time largely keeping it on full charge, this number doesn’t surprise me. I used it as a media controller as I marathoned series, and even forgetting to turn it off while the episodes were playing, it remained steadfast. With automatic standby functionality, as well as a low power mode that triggers upon reaching a configurable percentage of charge, Roccat definitely went beyond when considering how to get the most out of its wireless nature.

All in all, the Kain 200 AIMO is a great mouse. Functional both wired and without, it is responsive, customisable, and doesn’t need software installed and running to get the most out of it. At £90, it might not be for everybody, but I am happy to see the Kain 120 AIMO retailing at £63 for those who don’t need the wireless capabilities on offer. From what I can see, it’s functionally identical, but without one at hand I can’t say much more on it. If you have the cash to splash, be sure to check this out.

You can find this review in full at GBAtemp.net:
https://gbatemp.net/review/sisters-royale.1273/

When it comes to your average shoot ’em up, it doesn’t take much to overwhelm me. There’s always a lot happening, it’s always flashy, and I always lose focus on my character in trying to take everything in. I’m not the kind of person you’ll ever see on a high score board, but some part of this mad genre calls to me all the same. There’s always fun in death, and there’s more so in gradual progress. Slapping a cute aesthetic to this deceptively evil genre, Sisters Royale does well to lure in the unprepared, but will it keep you hooked?

The Bachelor

When it comes to plot, the game doesn’t have much to offer. You have five sisters that, as prophecy tells, will come together to defeat the great evil that is Seytan. The caveat here is that they hate each other, and completely refuse to get together. After going their separate ways, they meet for the first time, much to the peoples’ despair, to fight over a man. And this is where the game begins. Deciding amongst themselves that only the strongest is suitable for Lord Yashin’s hand, you pick your favourite sister and set out to defeat the rest in a short but sweet tale of sisterly conflict.

By in large, each sister follows the same path. You move through five chapters of vertical scrolling goodness, made up of an onslaught of enemies and projectiles, each featuring a mid-boss and a sister to battle at the end. With five stages total, you get the chance to fight every sister no matter the route you take, this including the one you’re currently controlling, as they fight against their conscience for a variety of reasons. It’s all quite silly, but it does a good job in tying together a relatively small amount of content and reusing it in a way that manages to feel fresh.

Though with each path you’ll be moving through the same stages, the experience varies greatly depending on which sister you chose to play as. You might pick your favourite on their looks, and that’s fine, but where they stand out is in their attack diversity. Each girl has a standard shot, a power shot, a summon, and a bomb. Your standard and power shots vary from being straight-shot, to wide spread, piercing, and even homing projectiles. Where I found the most fun however was in the summons; these make each girl feel truly unique. Lale’s absorbs bullets if she can get them to hit the relatively small orb in front of her, Selma’s are three swords that swirl around her as you move the control stick, Ece has a really funky laser⁠—they’re brilliantly strong attacks each with their own negative aspects to match the positive. You find the way you play differing significantly from character to character as you work with the good and bad of each moveset. Each path has a unique feel to it despite the reality of it being entirely recycled content. The game is wonderfully designed in this regard.

The boss fights these stages build up to are equally worthy of praise. Despite the chaos that comes with difficult bullet hell-esque fights, I never felt the game unfair. Attacks are clear and give you the time you need to react, if not slightly overwhelming from time to time. If you’re a person that struggles to focus among visual noise, you’ll find the game far more difficult, and this only amplifies when you get hit. After each hit, you get a moment of respite in the form of invincibility frames, but even with this, the sudden explosion of the coins you lost can be too much.

Pity for the Weak

For people like me where the difficulty is undoubtedly too much, you’ll be happy to know the game is incredibly accessible. When you start a new session, you can pick from easy, normal, or hard difficulty, with various aspects adjusting accordingly. The most notable of these changes comes in boss health bars. Comparing the easy mode I frequented to hard, your mid-bosses jump from a single segment to three, with the end of stage bosses moving from two up to four. You’ll also find revamped and more challenging movesets from these opponents as you take each segment from them, the stages themselves keeping up the pace with more enemies that feel more aggressive. It’s brilliant chaotic fun regardless of the difficulty setting, but one aspect I’m particularly appreciative of is how the game simply lets you continue upon death.

Regardless of your character or difficulty choice, you get three bars of health. You lose one per hit, and recover slowly as you progress through each stage. With five stages full of enemies, as well as their respective bosses, it’s menacingly difficult for a person like me to get through on a single life. The game is really quite lenient in letting people enjoy what’s on offer. You’ll lose all your coins and your score is reset to zero, but you can continue all the same. For those who improve and beat each stage without death, there’s an online leaderboard to compete on. For those like me, the lies a challenge of beating a stage in as few lives as possible. There’s fun to be had for anybody who enjoys a good bit of frantic shooting.

Is this a game I can recommend? It really depends on what you want from it. At the £11.69 ($13.99) price point, it sits in an interesting spot. There’s some enjoyable gameplay to be found, but it’s confined to five characters in five stages. No matter how well these are reused, the fact remains there’s only so much to do. The people who will really get the most out of it will be those like myself who bought a Flip Grip and want more games to play on a rotated console, or those hungering for some fun if not fleeting bullet flinging action.