Jefklaks Codex

Twenty-two years after the development of this NES adaptation of Magicland Dizzy, the code was rediscovered by Philip Oliver. A successful Kickstarter campaign later, it got its own physical NES cartridge release.

Back in October last year, I picked up Rayman Legends for a very reasonable price at the local mall. The problem was, the inside was empty.

“Guacaaameleeeeee! Super Turbo Championship Editiooonnn!” yells the narrator as I boot up the (enhanced edition of the) game. Woah. Even the title screen immediately makes it clear: this game is lighthearted and doesn’t take itself too seriously, the complete opposite of other metroidvanias like Hollow Knight.

Six years after the highlight of LucasFilm Games, Monkey Island: LeChuck’s Revenge, LucasFilm turned LucasArts finally takes another stab at Guybrush’s piratey adventures in the Caribbean Sea.

What do you get when you mix the humor of The Curse of Monkey Island with the looks of Deponia and the puzzles of Broken Sword?

Apart from The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, the game that came packed with our shiny silver GameCube back in 2003, Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door must be my favorite GC game—or more importantly, my favorite Mario game ever.

Adventure games are dead—the title of a forum post that pops up every few months since 1996 or so. Then devs reveal a promising title at E3, the hype is real, the tension rises, the game is released, and everybody posts adventure games are dead again.

Collecting Skull and Bones—no, not the 2001 Cypress Hill album—is part of the October/November Halloween fun. Flipping Death, a 2018 game from Zoink, a Swedish developer I never heard of before, perfectly fits your autumny morbid craving.

You enter the Castle Corridor with a knife, handed to you by Aluca—erm, right, Genya Arikado—who ushers you in, to “go to the throne room, all will be revealed”.

Somehow, I never managed to beat the first installment of the Mario Land series when I was younger. My sister got the game bundled with her Game Boy, while I got the traditional Tetris and later on bought myself straight into Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins—which was and still is awesome on all accounts.

E. A. Sports. It’s In The Game!—who doesn’t remember that jaw-dropping introduction? Just in case you do need a reminder on how awesome it was to boot up FIFA Road To World Cup 98 in 1997, here’s a video highlighting all the exciting moments from the beginning to the menu system to the end of a match:

After finishing Hollow Knight, I rather fancied playing another metroidvania—one I actually, to my big shame, never really touched: the granddaddy of ‘vanias, Super Metroid.

I hope they get divorced. That’s my review, condensed into a single sentence. As much as I loved my deep dive into the world of Hallownest, as the end came near, I tried stopping playing three times.

Never before have I bashed my head against the (virtual, thankfully) wall before. Celeste came close - very close. But this game… Oh, where to start.

I finally cracked it. I finally know what makes a grand game. It turns out to be astonishingly simple: if it makes me smile.

Originally released only two years after Sacred, Titan Quest combines Greek mythology with hack and slash: a world full of mesmerizing creatures to kill, wealth to collect, and above all: horrible bugs and boring gameplay.

Three years after the highly appreciated Torchlight, Runic Games continues the trend with Torchlight 2, released only a few months after Diablo III. Should we be comparing this versus Diablo 2 or 3? Is it worth it to again hire a pet, gear up, and go after the Alchemist? Let's find out.

2020 marks the 20th anniversary of the beloved and mostly undisputed hack and slash king, Diablo II. Does it still hold up, twenty years later, compared to modern Diablo clones?

After twelve years of agony and resorting to other Diablo-like games, series finally returns with a third installment. Not developed by Blizzard North, and not quite being Diablo, how does Diablo 3 hold up compared to other hack and slash games, and to its predecessor?

In 2009, the masterminds of the guys behind Fate and Blizzard North created the near-perfect Diablo game everybody was waiting for since Diablo II: Lord of Destruction. Oh, and it was released within 11 months. Suffice to say that it is worth a long and hard look!