Hello! Welcome to the latest Geeky Brummie Games Release Roundup!

This week, JRPGs, a Silent Hill surprise and Harley Quinn.

Extremely short one this week. Releases have slowed down for a couple of weeks, although things will be picking up after that. However, this week still has plenty to talk about, although maybe it’s not all good.

New Releases

Silent Hill: The Short Message was announced at Sony’s State of Play presentation as an exclusive free game for PS5. Yes, surprisingly we have a new Silent Hill game! Unsurprisingly, due to the franchise’s track record in recent years, it’s also really bad! If you like a walkthrough theme park attraction where someone yells in your ear that suicide, bullying and child abuse are bad, you’ll love this. If you prefer your heavy themes to be handled a little more subtly and tastefully, then steer clear. Disappointing.

Granblue Fantasy Relink (PC, PlayStation) is an anime JRPG about skyfaring adventurers heading out on an epic journey. The demo gave me absolutely no sense of story due to it dumping me into the middle of the action with no context. That said, the combat was a lot of fun, with some real-time battling that reveal how Platinum was a developer early on in the project, and the visuals are gorgeous. Definitely seems like one to watch for fans of the genre.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League (PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S) is perhaps the messiest release of the week. As the title suggests, this is a DC game where you control a bunch of misfit supervillains tasked with taking down iconic superheroes who have all gone mad. However, between WB refusing to send review codes, screenshots and marketing that emphasis in-game currency and “early access” server issues, this may just be yet another mediocre AAA third-person shooter.

Game of the Week

Game of the Week this week is Persona 3 Reload (PC, PlayStation, Xbox), the remake of Atlus’ classic 2006 JRPG.

Persona 3 Reload sees you playing as a teen who enrols in a new high school, only to discover a secret hour that appears at midnight that only a few special people can see. During this time, he joins a team of supernatural investigators trying to tackle a mysterious tower known as Tartarus. Now living a double life, you must survive high school while also uncovering the mysteries of the Dark Hour.

Persona 3 was the only Persona game I’ve played so far that I found to be disappointing, but that’s mostly due to coming to it after its followups. Which is why Reload is a big deal, as it promises to provide all the intriguing story of the original Persona 3 with all the quality-of-life improvements added by Persona 4 and 5. Persona 5 is also a clear influence on the game’s visual direction, combining the bold comic book design of that game and combining it with Persona 3’s muted blue palette to make something striking but still in tone.

I’m very curious to see how much Persona 3 Reload improves on the original, and for that it has to be Game of the Week.