Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption

While this fantasy action game follows in the footsteps of difficult, challenging titles that tests your skills, this adventure is difficult, but not always in a good way. In Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption, you fight a series of increasingly stronger creatures to the death, all of which are decidedly tougher than you. Further adding challenge, you often face these battles with a handicap, sacrificing your health, stamina, or favorite weapon to open the portal that will take you to the creature's lair. There's no option to adjust the difficulty, nor can you pause the game midfight to catch your breath or figure out a new strategy. If you choose, you can even start with the most difficult enemy and work your way backward, as every fight becomes available once you get past the training exercises.

But while fans of games like Dark Souls will appreciate the challenge of this game, they may have an issue with the controls, which are noticeably imprecise and can't be adjusted. Also, with only a handful of enemies and nothing else to do, this almost seems more like practice for other, deeper games. While not being able to pause is understandable for this kind of game, it's also rather annoying, especially if you're interrupted and taken away from the screen while you're so close to victory that you can just taste it. Finally, the game doesn't really explain what your items do, which can be frustrating (though figuring that out is part of the appeal of these kinds of games). As a result, this kind of gameplay will only appeal to a limited number of gamers. If challenging, sometimes frustrating gameplay is something that appeals to you, especially if you like testing your gameplay skills, Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption should keep you swinging for a while.