In the ever-expanding jungle of PlayStation 5 titles, some games shine bright… while others trip over their own shoelaces before the tutorial ends. Here we dive into five curious specimens – Sugardew Island, Polterguys, Deep Deep Deep Nightmare, Preserve, and Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo – to explore what happens when good intentions meet questionable execution. Expect adorable animals, haunted homeware, ecological tile puzzles, and cursed sports equipment. Just don’t expect consistency, polish, or in some cases, basic entertainment.
Sugardew Island
Imagine Animal Crossing, but with all the joy surgically removed and replaced with an aggressive Pinterest board. Sugardew Island is so unbearably cute it could give a sugar glider a toothache. The animals are round, the colours are vibrant, and the Forest Folk resemble rejected garden ornaments from a craft fair. Sadly, the charm ends there. The gameplay is repetitive enough to induce déjà vu, riddled with bugs that make you wonder if the code was written by actual gnomes.
There’s supposedly farming, crafting, and socialising, but it all amounts to waiting for animations to finish while pretending you’re having fun. It’s the sort of game where “restocking a mushroom soup stall” qualifies as high-stakes excitement.
Final Verdict: Sugardew Island is like a pastel-coloured trap—gorgeous at first glance, soul-draining by the third hour. Approach with caution, or at least a stiff drink.
Polterguys
Polterguys: Possession Party is the video game equivalent of a house party where the music’s too loud, no one knows the host, and you’re trapped in a lampshade. It’s a multiplayer ghost-racing game, which sounds fun until you actually play it. Yes, you can possess a desk fan. No, it’s not as thrilling as that sentence suggests.
The levels look like Scooby-Doo got into interior design, and the “adorable” ghosts feel like rejected cereal mascots. Playing solo? Good luck. The AI is about as engaging as a damp flannel and twice as frustrating. Even the emotes feel passive-aggressive.
The soundtrack tries its best – howling wind, creaking doors – but none of it distracts from the fact that you’re essentially playing glorified hide-and-seek with IKEA furniture.
Final Verdict: A fun idea buried in gimmicks and ghostly boredom. Best played with friends you no longer like.
Deep Deep Deep Nightmare
Imagine eating dodgy cake and waking up in bullet hell. That’s Deep Deep Deep Nightmare – a game where poor choices (in food and design) lead you into a top-down roguelite shooter so repetitive it feels like punishment. The premise? Disobey your mum, fight your subconscious. Freud would be thrilled.
It’s all neon chaos and forgettable hats. You gain currency, fight creatures, then spend it on things you don’t care about. The bosses are bigger and louder but follow such predictable patterns you’ll swear you’re stuck in a ‘90s arcade machine having an existential crisis.
Yes, there’s a hat collection. No, it doesn’t help. The twin-stick combat is responsive, but after the fifth identical level you’ll question every life choice that led you here.
Final Verdict: Deep Deep Deep Nightmare feels like someone tried to remake Hades with a hangover. Best left in the subconscious.
Preserve
Preserve is a game about healing the Earth, but ironically, it made me want to salt mine it instead. You place tiles, summon bees, and watch as your biodiversity score crawls upward like a hungover snail.
Sure, it’s a relaxing little puzzler – until you realise it’s the same puzzle over and over, just with slightly different hexagons.
The game offers a puzzle mode (too fiddly), a freebuild mode (utterly pointless), and a regular mode (sleep-inducing). The music’s fine, the art is soothing, and the whole thing reeks of good intentions wrapped in a duvet of tedium.
Final Verdict: Lovely idea, buried beneath a compost heap of monotony. Play if you enjoy watching grass grow – literally.
Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo
Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo is what happens when someone watches a speedrun of Zelda, gets distracted halfway through, and decides to make a game about extreme yoyo sports and existential dread.
Combat is “varied” in the sense that your yoyo might bounce off a wall instead of an enemy. Enemies range from mildly annoying to “I’ve just thrown my controller out the window.” Exploration is essential because without upgrades, you’ll die in two hits and scream in three.
There are badges you’ll collect and immediately forget about, level design that thinks alleyways count as dungeons, and boss fights that are more memorable for the swearing they induce than the skill they demand.
Final Verdict: A game that thinks it’s brilliant because it has a yoyo. Unfortunately, style without substance just leaves you dizzy. Approach only if you’re deeply nostalgic for frustration.
