Crashlands 2, Gordian Quest, and more; The Games I've Been Playing - April 2025

Each month, I want to share some less formal thoughts about the games I've been playing and my impressions of them. These might be game's that got reviewed for the site or not. As an individual person covering a storefront that is shoveling titles onto its store each day, I have time to dip my toes into a lot of it, but I can't always spend the time needed for a review. With recaps like this, I can give some games their due, even if I can't get a full review of them. I can also add additional thoughts to things I did decide to write about or even honor older games I just decided to back to for some reason or another. See below for what I played this past month.

Crashlands 2 ($9.99)

I'm taking on several bigger time-investment games, and Crashlands 2 is the one I foresee taking the longest, but also one I fully intend to see to the end. With the first Crashlands, developers Butterscotch Shenanigans sold me on a genre I had pretty much written off thanks in large part to the way it made a lot of survival and crafting mechanics way less annoying to deal with and injecting a ton of humor and charm into the mix. This second game ups the ante while also featuring an entirely handcrafted world, and I'm having a ton of fun plugging my way through it.

Click here to read more about Crashlands 2

Prince of Persia Lost Crown (Free)

I like a good metroidvania experience every once in awhile, and Prince of Persia Lost Crown delivers just that. While this game isn't the most convenient game to play on mobile, it mashes up exploration and traversal upgrades with the acrobatics and combat that the reimagined Prince of Persia built its identity on to satisfying results. Aside from feeling the need to play this one with a controller and dealing with some frame stuttering during cutscenes, I'm having a great--though occasionally aimless--time with this one.

Click here to read our Prince of Persia Lost Crown review on Pocket Gamer

SaGa Frontier 2 Remastered ($28.99)

When I first started this epic Square classic, I was immediately smitten by its risk-taking and incredible artwork. The opening sequences of this game are bite-size, but hop between different characters and spans of time that give even the smallest vignettes and epic feel. After the first hour or so, though, this fades away into some more traditional JRPG tropes, which is fine, but also makes everything feel less special (and also a little more difficult to progress through). Aspirationally, I want to see this game through to the end, but I am not sure I have it in me.

Click here to read more about SaGa Frontier 2 Remastered

Duck Detective: Secret Salami (Free)

This adventure game is short, sweet, and charming. It also does the thing that Tangle Tower and other games have done where you actually use real logic given information you have to figure out what is going on, as opposed to more traditional adventure game mechanics of piecing items together to figure out how to solve puzzles that eventually just funnel you toward its story reveals. I am not sure this game really makes full use of its premise and potential for silly detective adventuring, but it's also so short that that's probably ok.

Click here to read our Duck Detective: Secret Salami review

The Great Sneeze (Free)

Speaking of short adventure games, I was surprised by how enjoyable The Great Sneeze was. Many edutainment-style games can feel too much like work or feature some design choices that fly in the face of best practices, but neither things are true here. Instead of trying to be too clever, this game gently guides you through its adventure while accomplishing its mission of sharing some information about Caspar David Friederike. 

Click here to read our The Great Sneeze review

The Mr. Rabbit Magic Show (Free)

Rusty Lake is celebrating 10 years of its surreal adventure game universe with a free game that plays a lot like hap inc. games like Hidden my game by mom. It's fun and strange and... it just game out so I don't have a ton more to say about it but I bet things will get weirder before I finish it.

Click here to read more about The Mr. Rabbit Magic Show on Pocket Gamer

Gordian Quest (Free)

I would still be dumping hours into Gordian Quest if I didn't feel like I was fighting the game to play it. Between it forgetting whether you've paid for the unlock, tap areas that are unresponsive, text that flows off of the screen, quest indicators that don't behave consistently, and some (alleged) progress-ending bugs, its ambitious combination of deckbuilding and tabletop role-playing mechanics doesn't always feel all that worth it. Hoping some updates fix enough of these issues that I can return to it, because I do really like what it is going for.

Click here to read our Gordian Quest review