Next Fest 25|2 Day 4
Micro-reviews for Day 4 of Summer Next Fest 2025, exploring Crescent County, Gurei, Hippoxxus, Dragon March, A Little Perspective, Life Below, VOID/BREAKER, and MIO: Memories In Orbit
Today was full of bangers. Game after game a great experience. This is a good day to have this page be available (and not be limited to just text) since you can look at all the screenshots, see what suits your fancy, and try it out yourself.
Highlights: MIO, VOID/BREAKER, A Little Perspective
Crescent County
A game that mixes deliveries with racing, in a world where the main mode of transport are witch brooms. While I would've wished the demo had more than one race in it, it does a very good job at showcasing the world, mechanics, and vibes. And if you enjoy the demo, they also have a Kickstarter campaign going until the end of Next Fest
Playtime: 30min
Gurei
A 2D boss rush, where you decide the order in which you fight the bosses. Each victory makes future bosses harder, unlocks a new ability, and gives you a few extra lives. This freedom means you can customize the boss-killing experience to your own strengths, or to your weaknesses if you crave a challenge
Playtime: 20min+
Hippoxxus
A 2d pixel metroidvania. The space station environment feels a bit barren, though what is there is surprisingly responsive to you (and your bullets). It's not bad, but also doesn't really have anything to stand out with
Playtime: 30min
Dragon March
Simple but filled with charm. You're a robo-dragon walking inside a digital landscape, collecting other robo-dragons. Each one you collect starts following you as a growing snake which becomes an obstacle for you to avoid (alongside environmental hazards). Very polished and surprisingly enjoyable
Playtime: ~25min
A Little Perspective
At first I thought the perspective detection of this PoV-switching puzzle game is a bit janky. Then I realized the "jank" actually had logic to it and was an intended puzzle mechanic. Eventually it successfully fried my brain, and it felt great to both uncover and solve the secret extra-hard puzzles
Playtime: 20-60min
Life Below
A "city" building game, where your job is to reinvigorate a coral reef, expanding it, and luring fish back into it. It's calm and low stakes, likely will feature some environmental message given the thematic and intro cutscene, and while at the start I didn't enjoy the look of the "reef's" surroundings, as more variety and corals were added it really did come together into a colorful fish habitat
Playtime: ~45min
VOID/BREAKER
A very fast paced roguelike FPS where you gotta keep on moving if you're to not die. The game has a lot of destructible environments and has you constantly use them to kill enemies and regenerate ammo/health. Visually looks great, and there is an interesting system for upgrading your gun. Only good things from my time in the demo. The whole package is so well made and polished it's astonishing it's made by a single dev
Playtime: 40min+
MIO: Memories In Orbit
Another metroidvania, with an incredible artstyle. From the digital UI to the comic-book-esque 3D environments, the devs knocked it out of the park. And the gameplay is not far behind this excellence, providing good mobility early on, fluid combat, and a lot of nooks and crannies to explore and shortcuts to uncover. Looking forward to playing this one when it comes out
