John-Charles Holmes

@sonic9jct.jctholmes.com

1340 Followers 720 Following

I'm that guy what makes all the ice cream and beer. Writer, artist, Marketing Manager at The Yetee. Comic artist and contributor for Nintendo Force. Drummer with Ho Etsu Taiko. Loves to eat and watch movies in Chicago.

Star Wars MouseHunt Toy Story 5 Return of the King
Of the Devil Earthion Skin Deep Paranormasight Perfect Tides Cryptmaster 428 Shibuya Scramble Rhythm Doctor Mina the Hollower
5. YOU DO NOT NEED TO FEAR THE PLAYER, THE CUSTOMER OR THE REVIEWER Players who have bought a game are customers and treasured guests who have paid to have a specific experience. Miyazaki does not hate the Dark Souls player - he spends a lot of time crafting a specific experience for them, which they want, which is why they keep buying his games.
Mandalorian and Grogu Popstar The Brave Little Toaster I Love Boosters
Bowser's Galaxy Generator
Hermes: That just raises further questions!
Popstar The Brave Little Toaster I Love Boosters Sheep Detectives
Homer stuck in two vending machines at once
An... interesting excursion in the history of Ridge Racer. The series took a brief multiplat pitstop to attempt to swipe at Gran Turismo's crown and while I respect the ambition, it doesn't entirely work here as intended. Ridge Racer was never really a game about nailing the timing of braking into turns and tuning line graphs until your car's suspension feels just adequate. It's about the drifting and the fantasy of racing. There are still a number of successes in the game, though. The same amazing UI graphic design present in Namco games of this era is still here (it's no R4, but it's still striking) and similarly, the soundtrack is still full of some series appropriate bangers. I'm also a big fan of introducing a story mode to finally give Reiko Nagase a backstory of sorts. Just gotta admit, I didn't expect it to be as dripping with raw sapphic energy as it is. Not that I'm complaining, of course.
Wild this is like the third indie game out in the span of a year that has an overarching narrative about the dangers of crunch culture in the workplace. A pitch-perfect parody of CD-ROM games of the DOS era, back when you could buy one of those discs with 1000 games on it without knowing what you were gonna find inside. On it's own, Forbidden Solitaire is a particularly enjoyable twist on solitaire mahjong that would absolutely hold its own as shareware in the late 90s. However, it's the dedicated attention to detail around the specific details of this era of gaming and even just sharing in the obsession with outdated games with your likeminded friends. Forbidden Solitaire especially knocks it out of the park with a dedication to every element of the game that it avoids falling into an irony poisoned trap. I remember reading an interview with the devs where they mentioned holding back on just how much FMV was used in the game since overdoing it would risk turning the game into a self-aware joke and yeah I see where they were coming from on this. The game gives you just enough that a cool fringe horror story can be told around Forbidden Solitaire... but the game itself still holds up AS Forbidden Solitaire. A really awesome interactive piece of performance art that clocks in at an immensely satisfying 4 hours, Forbidden Solitaire is already a lock for one of my favorite games of 2026.
The team behind 2020's phenomenal Streets of Rage 4 is back with a new beat-em-up based on an original concept and guys... this might be the best beat-em-up I've played since Streets of Rage 4. As neat as it was seeing Guard Crush and Dotemu expand on the fighting game inspired combo system in SOR4, they really let loose in Absolum, serving up 4 characters with completely different playstyles and a really impactful rogue-lite element. This mostly comes in the form of new buffs and abilities randomly collected in each run and branching paths a la Capcom's Dungeon & Dragons games (or to a lesser degree, a lot of Vanillaware's output). The way I'm describing it might sound derivative of other great games, but I can't stress how cool it is seeing this team at the height of their powers working on an original concept. Instead of using the aforemention RPG/rogue elements to turn the game into a trivial cakewalk by overpowering the player, Absolum's true success is secretly teaching the player how to 1CC an arcade beat-em-up. Sure, you get the tools to manage the game better the longer you play with lite progression, but run after run, it's about applying what you know to get the most out of your limited lives. Seriously, if you played SOR4, you know what to expect here-- it's an expansion on the idea but bigger and with some of most gorgeous 2D game animation out of France since Rayman Legends. Had a blast with this one and honestly just discovered there's even MORE game once you hit credits. A genuine gift of a game, I couldn't be happier with my time on this.
A pullover hoodie with an embroidered sprite of a body engulfed in flames from Street Fighter II
Apple Cinnamon Girl Scout cookies