QCF: AVGN 8-Bit

ne might almost expect a game with the namesake of the Angry Video Game Nerd series to be horrible by design. After all, the Nerd — created and portrayed by James Rolfe — has a penchant for bringing what he calls the worst of the worst to light, sometimes sprinkling in bits of reluctant video game trivia with a sea of curse word-ridden catchphrases. In some instances, it's not entirely unwelcome to see low doses of a weird low-budget robot, cursing mutant, or some other weird shit.

An FMV intro of Rolfe as the Nerd at the beginning of Retroware's AVGN 8-bit may not inspire confidence in the ease or enjoyment of any trials ahead: "This game sucks ... just the way I like it."

Thing is, it doesn't actually suck. Dare I say it's pretty well-rounded, though not the most inventive experience in terms of level flow, gameplay mechanics, or boss battles. This game won't change your life, but you'll have some fun along the way.

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QCF: Hollow Knight: Silksong

t isn’t very often that the cultural zeitgeist of video games just comes together on a subject like the friggin’ Planeteers summoning Captain Planet, right? I mean, thinking back, the last few times something like that happened were the releases of Pokémon GO or Grand Theft Auto V—video game releases that surpassed the typical grand-scale spectacle for their respective audiences and had instead exploded into being these larger-than-life experiences that invaded all of the water coolers out there.

Well, it happened again with the long-awaited sequel to the 2017 sleeper hit from indie studio Team Cherry—Hollow Knight: Silksong.

What was once ranked among the vaporware meme status of Half-Life 3 or, to a lesser extent, Banjo-Threeie (can’t really do Shenmue III or Zach Snyder’s Justice League, because well, those ended up coming out), the highly anticipated follow-up finally emerged from years of silence with a surprise launch date that was showcased in the 2025 Gamescom event. The sporadic appearance of the trailer not only showed everyone watching and in attendance that the game was alive and well, but it also steadily concluded with an eye-opening launch date that was just a mere two weeks away.

No advance press copies or influencer kits—a worldwide release for everyone to experience completely sealed from behind Team Cherry’s doors until its Sept. 4 launch date. The clandestine rollout couldn’t be more thematic for Silksong, as the crux of the game teased a quest that spanned a world far bigger and more daunting than Hollow Knight’s Hallownest ever was, and after spending hours of needling my way through the troubled lands of Pharloom, I can safely say that the hype is real.

Silksong is one of the finest Metroidvanias ever made—a true peak for the sub-genre of “search-action” gaming.

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QCF: Promise Mascot Agency

he Yakuza/Like a Dragon titles are a series of video games that quickly etched their mark onto my heart, especially after I started to lose hope of whether or not the next Shenmue entry would ever happen. In spite of the action-laced criminal drama that the series is famous for, though, the B-Story styled side-quests and activities were what always hooked me for hours on end, more often to the extent that the main objectives of the games were ironically set to the side. While Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio made sure to pack plenty of flashy distractions and gripping stories, there was a certain recurring trend among the low-stakes pastimes that were included in each Yakuza title—a business-simulator-like mini-game. These side-operations didn’t just have some flimsy premise to justify their inclusion, either; these games are often sizable productions, complete with their own wacky gravitas of the “Saving the Orphanage” variety attached to the ordeal, and in some instances were just as deep as the main plot.

Thinking back, I remember spending a whole night grinding away at Ichiban Confections, and just easily lost count over how many times that I had thought to myself, “Man, this should be a whole-ass game with a full-time 40-hour campaign and everything…”

Well, it would seem that Kaizen Game Works must have heard my silly pipe dreams and did just that with Promise Mascot Agency, and even enlisted the incredible talents of Takaya Kuroda for good measure.

Beyond the parallels to the Dragon of Dojima’s outings, Promise Mascot Agency offers an engrossing story of perseverance and redemption through a massive melting pot of gameplay mechanics that have no business working together as well as they do. The end result is a fresh and weirdly addictive venture that delivers an experience that’s even better than the bizarrely solid sum of its parts.

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PPR Presents Limelight: Hollow Knight: Silksong

he indie equivalent of Shenmue III and Half-Life 3 is out! The meme is officially dead! Everyone’s favorite chat spam has materialized, and the sequel to the 2017 Metroidvania Sleeper is here!

Hollow Knight: Silksong is FINALLY a thing, and everyone’s kinda freaking out about it. Join George as he dives headfirst into the gloomy, labyrinthine journey that’s sure to be filled with all of the cheap enemy placement and tricky wall-jumps you could ever imagine and then some! The jury is still out on whether or not the wait was worth it, but one thing is for sure—the amount of hype and joy for this release is feverish, and we, for one, cannot wait to see what all of the hullabaloo is all about!

Be sure to tune in to our Twitch at 9:30 PM PST on 09/06/2025 to watch the highly anticipated sequel from Team Cherry! You can check out the streams here or directly on our Twitch channel, and vibe along with us as we work towards ushering in a new age of Limelight for y'all!

QCF: Elsie

t’s often said that necessity is the mother of invention, and in the case of the dispiriting limbo that Capcom has planted the Blue Bomber in, the iconic robot’s absence has encouraged multiple studios and visionaries to step up and deliver an experience not all too dissimilar to that of the Mega Man effect. With the rare exception of 2018’s Mega Man 11, the super fighting robot has been mainly relegated to nostalgia collections or vanity cameos, and the weight of his “pew-pew” gameplay has been carried on by a variety of indie developments or community efforts.

This new influx of games, however, has also encouraged studios to do more than a superficial spin on the trademark Run’nGun formula, with select titles really showing off the timeless potential of Mega Man-inspired side-scrolling action. One of which is Elsie, an independently developed adventure starring a larger-than-life, mascot-pilled android made by Knight Shift Games and published by Playtonic's new publishing branch, “Playtonic Friends.” As the fourth game to be supported by Playtonic’s offshoot publication label, Elsie offers many familiar dynamics that more resemble the feel of the Mega Man X series than its 8-bit counterpart, only with a Rougelike twist on the setup. While this territory isn’t exactly uncharted with 20XX and 30XX making waves in the subgenre, Elsie sinks its teeth more into the character-driven spectacle its inspiration is famous for, with a side of frenetic bullet action that blends into something like Mega Man X meets SuperGiant Games’ Hades.

I say this with my whole chest and every heavy breath huffed in—words really can’t serve justice to what Knight Shift Games has done with those mechanics—I genuinely believe that Elsie breathes a whole new sense of life into some admittedly fatigued concepts by delivering an immaculate sense of game feel and presentation that I haven’t experienced in years.

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QCF: Bomb Rush Cyberfunk

 find it pretty funny that I’m writing this review mere weeks after the Dreamcast’s 24th Anniversary; I mean, not just that in that granular humor from a well-timed coincidence sort of way, but in that I’m still seeing one of my favorite consoles live on through a legacy that dwarfs its flash-in-the-pan lifespan. Even though it was released two years into the 128-Bit Machine’s reign, Jet Grind Radio left quite the impact in 2000, as it quickly became a must-have exclusive for the platform and yet another reason to attract anyone over to SEGA hardware instead of Nintendo’s or Sony’s offering.

After an underwhelming sequel and years of Fan-service cameos, SEGA’s frenetic Graffiti-racer has mostly lived on as a garnish for the repeated servings of nostalgia surrounding the Japanese brands’ peak years. Given that the property has undoubtedly had more of an impact than SEGA had accounted for, it was only inevitable that one studio would set out to tag the spot Jet Grind Radio had left untouched for twenty years.

Netherlands studio, Team Reptile, answered the call, & endeavored to produce a spiritual successor to the Dreamcast Cult favorite with Bomb Rush Cyber Funk, an improved open-world take over the middling attempt we saw out of Jet Set Radio Future, with a freestyle approach to progression. The end result isn’t just a fresh approach to a familiar classic but a practical reinvention that improves upon its source material in nearly every single way.

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QCF: Nescape

hen most think of the NES, they'll likely imagine platformers, side-scrollers and turn-based RPGs. Nintendo's premier console did, after all, introduce us to the very roots of these genres as we know them today while also restoring our faith in video games as a whole after the 1980s game crash.

Some titles, however, were more experimental than others – more specifically, those of the point-and-click genre. Two that immediately come to mine are the console ports of King's Quest V and Shadowgate, in addition to Manic Mansion from Lucasfilm Games.

One could consider NEScape! a faithful ode to any of these titles now available in the Nintendo Switch and Xbox Live libraries, albeit with a much more docile feel. In short, it truly is an "escape room" for the NES.

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QCF: Firegirl: Hack 'N Splash Rescue

ith a city on fire in the background, a young firefighter desperately tries to save anyone that may be still inside the collapsing building. With little breath left in her body and even less water to fight the blaze, she continues to push forward in desperate hopes of making a difference. All this, on her very first night with the fire department. Okay, maybe it’s not that serious, but it sets the stage for an epic experience. In Firegirl: Hack 'N Splash Rescue the noir themes and roguelite gameplay elements blend very well in an experience that is difficult to master but equally hard to put down.

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