Bleach: Rebirth of Souls is an ok game. When it’s at its best, it’s delivering exciting battles and retelling a story many love in a streamlined and sometimes overly simplified manner. When it’s at its worst, it can be a frustrating affair that leaves you feeling a need for a more polished experience and nuanced.

Unfortunately, the Sacre Bleu experience is too uneven. Technical issues, bland design choices, and a lackluster story make it a chore to play.

When the easy flow and music clicks just right, it hits well, but there is little else on offer here. Its lack of deeper mechanics or aspects for players to sink their teeth into is rather disappointing and leaves Skate City with nothing to hook players after experiencing the vibe it offers.

Tomb Raider I-III Remastered is a mixed bag of a remastered bundle. While it offers players new quality-of-life updates and great new features, the experience is marred by frustrating movement and an unreliable camera.

Player enjoyment from The Last Oricru relies heavily on what matters to them. If they are looking for a fun co-op romp with interesting build possibilities to toy around with, the game is likely worth picking up on sale. However, it does not have much to offer for players who care more about a difficult journey across a well-realized world with lore and secrets to piece together.

Unfortunately, the aspects of Winter Ember surrounding its core gameplay loop are so lackluster. The game’s stealth mechanics and tight design have the potential to be a solid new entry in the genre, but the game’s less polished parts ultimately hold it back.

For most of my time with Diablo Immortal, I was pleasantly surprised. But when I reached the endgame content it became clear that all of that was to trap me in an exploitative revenue scheme. I would have been more than willing to buy a battle pass here and there or even some cosmetics or expansions to support Diablo Immortal into the future, but its bold and scummy approach to manipulating vulnerable players not only soured my entire experience with the game but marks a dangerous cornerstone in the monetization of similar products in the future.

Fans hoping to return to a game they are already familiar with will likely be very satisfied with Romancing SaGa -Minstrel Song- Remastered. It does an admirable job of remastering the game’s visuals and adds a considerable amount of new content for fans to engage with. However, it doesn’t do quite enough to make the game accessible or interesting enough for most newcomers.

If you played the game on any other console, the Wii version of the game ported to the Switch isn’t the way to go when Xbox Game Pass has the game available on the Series X|S. While the story still hits, the gameplay is beyond dated and ultimately the motion elements remove any feeling of combos and replace them with constant wrist flicks and frantic waving.

While the quality of every game is ultimately subjective, Once Human is unique in how, other than its serious technical issues, all of its problems or strengths are contentious ones that it is easy to imagine every person feeling differently about. For many, however, I suspect that it will end up being such a mixed bag as not to be worth sticking with in favor of a more focused and refined competitor.

I love the idea of In My Shadow. It has a somewhat intriguing storyline and unique gameplay that show a lot of potential. Bella is not the deepest of main characters, but I did find myself drawn into her story initially. I also really did like the idea of moving objects to solves puzzles found in the shadows. It is an enjoyable game to play, but I just wish there was more to it than what we received.

Perhaps one of Kaiserpunk‘s biggest issues is that it tries to do too much.

The Invincible is ultimately a sub-par experience. While it delivers flashes of quality in its cast and its attention to some details, the narrative is ultimately weighed down too much.

Since this DLC is also priced at $14.99, it makes that all a hard pill to swallow. While Voice of the People is very lacking, it does, however, set up new things for Victoria 3 that hopefully can be taken full advantage of later in the game’s cycle.

When it’s at its best, Detective Pikachu Returns delivers the charm and cuteness that have always been hallmarks of the Pokemon franchise. However, all too frequently it fails to reach those heights thanks to shallow gameplay, a bloated story, and repetitive missions that feel lackluster, no matter what age demographic they are targeting.

Trinity Trigger had so much promise. It had great talent associated with it. It looked like it could be a fun and grand adventure. But everything just fell flat on its face. From the story to just about every gameplay mechanic felt more tedious than enjoyable. More mechanics that felt added to try to make it more fun or be more involved instead got in the way of any enjoyment I felt like I could’ve had during my playthrough. Even if you could look past all of its faults, the dumb-as-rocks companion AI will find a way to ruin that for you. The only saving Trinity Trigger I could think of is if you play the entire game and all the extra content in co-op, what feels like its intended playstyle. And even then, I’d wait to get this game until online co-op is added sometime in the future.

While Wuthering Waves delivers some strong story moments and fun gameplay within its interesting world, it has a lot of problems.

DK Island + Emerald Rush get old quickly and don’t feel like sizeable additions to the experience to carry that price tag. Only the most diehard fans looking to reexperience a handful of levels will really get much out of it.

Gigantic: Rampage Edition is a valiant effort, and it is always great to see fans of a series or game get to revisit it. However, there’s fear that what it offers is far too little to entice many players who aren’t fans.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a love letter to a flawed character that shares some flaws of its own. The care and love of Tolkien lore are quite obvious, but it doesn’t always mesh well with the disappointing mechanics and less-than-stellar gameplay.

Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar is a remaster that does an excellent job supporting its great features but is severely held back by its several dated elements.

So, while Shuyan Saga delivers a fairly fulfilling narrative that allows the player a reasonable amount of control in crafting their version of Shuyan, the active elements of the game hold it back from being a truly enjoyable experience.

The Order of Giants had a chance to do something fun with one of the most interesting aspects of The Great Circle‘s story, but it missed the mark. The DLC was fun as an excuse to play more of MachineGames’s excellent game. But it quickly began to feel like a mish-mash of ideas that were left on the cutting room floor.

This means the only reason for someone to play the DLC is that they want an excuse to shoot more bad guys in Far Cry 6, but it struggles to deliver that with its small enemy count and lack of player choice in encounters. It isn’t like the game’s previous DLCs or the base game, where players have enough room in the world to take different approaches or experiment with their gear. It is effectively a shooting gallery with pretty colors for players to watch out for, and I don’t think that will be enough to motivate most players to check it out. 

I could see the vision of Hello Neighbor 2. The premise was promising, and the puzzles offered some fun, but the game is very unpolished. Between the frequent crashes, visual and AI bugs, and no reason to sneak around whatsoever, I really can’t recommend this game as it currently stands, even if you are a fan of this series.

Gargoyles Remastered isn’t really worth the time unless you’re a hardcore fan of old platformers or a veteran of the original game desiring to revisit a favorite.

Destiny Rising is a game I wish I could like. I love a great space opera, and the core of that is here. Good controls and meaningful progression lay a promising foundation. Sadly, little else about playing the game does anything to draw you back in.

It is hard to discern just who South Park: Snow Day! is for. Diehard South Park fans will not get much out of its lackluster references and lack of new ideas for the franchise. Meanwhile, those who care more about playing a fun game won’t find the mechanical complexity that can be found in previous franchise RPGs.

Music Racer Ultimate is all flash and no fun. For a music game, the music is okay, but the game itself is not satisfying to play. The rewards aren’t rewarding, the levels are aggravating, and the menus and layout are confusing. This port needed way more time in the oven to ensure that its trip to Xbox would actually feel right at home, not a mobile game that feels like it’s just on a bigger screen.

Ultimately Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water ends up being a boring slog more often than a tense horror experience. The remaster will likely be welcomed by fans of the series, especially those that never had a Wii U to check out the original. However, any future Fatal Frame titles will have to evolve to feel at home in modern times.

It is a shame that Serious Sam 4 is not able to live up to the series’ legacy. While the franchise has never been associated with particularly groundbreaking or polished titles it has previously been able to offer enjoyable experiences with its own identity and fun gameplay. Serious Sam 4 is too bogged down by questionable design and poor presentation to manage that, and instead feels like a title quickly thrown together with an overnight script than a cohesive product.

The bursts of fun are weighed down by a small pool of visually bland and overly similar maps, a lack of any meaningful progression, clunky gunplay, and some serious balancing issues. For fans looking for a new game to blend FPS and RTS gameplay, Eximius: Seize the Frontline has some fun to offer. But for fans of just one of those genres, the mix will likely detract too much to be enjoyable.

After numerous hours bouncing between fun, if repetitive combat, and annoying characters occupying a forgettable story, Zenless Zone Zero falls well short of what it needs to be.

While Loop8: Summer of Gods is a JRPG that has an interesting concept and some genuinely good features, the game is unfortunately bogged down with poor optimizations, questionable gameplay decisions, and a very painful combat system.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III recycles old ideas in a stale package that is a downright slog for most of the experience. It commits the ultimate sin of being boring, and it does not bode well for the future of a franchise that, for the last 20 years, has been the pinnacle of popular FPS games.

My biggest issue with the Crysis Remaster Trilogy is that it only feels halfway remastered. Nothing was updated to modern standards except for the visuals, and that is a huge problem. Remasters like the Spyro and Tony Hawk ones work so well because the gameplay is smoothed out and plays like a modern game. Unfortunately, that oversight (or failure, if they really did try to update it from the originals) makes it impossible to recommend the beautiful-looking collection to anyone other than hardcore fans of the original games. I really wanted to enjoy these games that were so positively talked about when I was younger, but sadly they didn’t come anywhere close to living up to the hype with this remaster attempt.

I commend the game for trying something totally new in the realm of puzzle games. In a sea of match-three and click-and-find puzzle games, Trenga Unlimited does something I have never seen before. And it’s not that it fails, by any means. On the contrary, the puzzle concept itself is excellent. It’s just an unpolished and unbalanced game. I can’t keep incentivized to play it because the story mode has no incentives, and the survival mode is far too difficult. A game using this same concept but with some polish and apt difficulty curve could be great.

When all is said and done, Cobra Kai: Card Fighter delivers what could’ve been a fun karate-themed diversion, but instead it bogs it down with tedious grinding gameplay that serves no purpose but to deprive the player of what simple enjoyment the games basic mechanics might have offered.

Necromunda: Hired Gun comes this close to being a good game. It takes heavy inspiration from one of the best FPS games on the market, but with an uninteresting narrative, clunky graphics, uneven performance, and a litany of undercooked ideas. Necromunda: Hired Gun is hard to recommend, even at its budget price tag. You might find yourself having fun from time to time with it, but those moments are simply too short to recommend putting up with the rest of the game.

HUNTER x HUNTER NEN x IMPACT struggles to find the fun. While its core gameplay concepts feel like a great framework for intense battles, the lack of balancing sucks the joy out of its 3v3 fights.

With the source material being so well known for its quality, it’s a shame Bluey: The Videogame is nowhere near as good in writing, gameplay, animation, or anything for that matter. Even with the target audience being young gamers or parents wanting their kids to try something they are familiar with, it’s hard to see many people finding joy here.

Cobra Kai 2: Dojos Rising struggles mightily to match what makes Cobra Kai so appealing, largely because of how poorly the game itself actually performs. I was really hoping to get more out of my time with the game, and I hope future patches can help improve playability. Even if the bugs get squashed, a lack of innovative choices or new stories will still make Cobra Kai 2: Dojos Rising a disappointing release that couldn’t live up to its potential.

This is, unfortunately, where many of Sands of Salzaar’s mechanics fall. The meshing of genres is definitely interesting and full of potential, but so much of what is included feels half-baked or poorly implemented that it feels as though the developers would have had an easier time with a more focused product.

One Step After Fall managed to bring a strong first impression that quickly fizzled under the weight of its many glaring failures. If you are looking for games that deliver deep emotional stories coupled with simplistic gameplay, there are far better options out there than this.

In the end, the main takeaway I have from playing through Circus Electrique is just how flat it all feels. Playing the game is never explicitly unpleasant but is never memorable or particularly fun, either. Instead, the game is almost liminal. So while the game is unlikely to end up on any lists for worst games of the year, I doubt that most players who try it will remember its release for very long.

While there is some fun to be had, SYNDUALITY: Echo of Ada offers a mostly tedious experience in many ways. The gameplay is ridiculously arduous and painfully repetitive, the performance is barely acceptable, and its monetization model is questionable.

I have no doubt that Throne and Liberty will find a niche in the MMO community that it somehow speaks to. And I’m happy for those people that they will find something to enjoy here. But for most players, I don’t think Throne and Liberty will have anything valuable.

Anyone who isn’t thrilled at the idea of having Roiland constantly chattering in their ear for a dozen hours straight will likely find the game’s incessant need to force itself on the player annoying. With the addition of uncompelling combat, frustrating exploration, and a lack of anything else to offer players, High on Life is one of the most annoying, derivative, and slogging experiences in years.

For those hoping several patches could make MindsEye into a possibly well-executed game, there’s no salvaging the mess left behind in Redrock.

From better versions of characters available for a premium to its ammo types and generic clean science-fiction setting, there is little about The First Descendant that feels original. Every element feels like a cheap facsimile of the successes of other loot-based games without understanding what makes those systems work in their original contexts. This leaves The First Descendant feeling like an online shop with the imitation of a game built around it with gameplay and mechanics relegated to second-thoughts at best.

Space Jam: A New Legacy – The Game is free, but it still does very little to justify players spending any time with it at all…For fans of beat-em-ups, there are plenty of better options available that are not much more expensive, especially if players have Xbox Game Pass already. For Space Jam fans, there is so little of the characters or personality of the movie in the game that it does not seem as though it would justify the time investment.

I wanted to like Captain Blood. A throwback title without the modern faff that comes with so many newer releases was refreshing…Still, Captain Blood’s lacking design and poor tuning make it an absolute chore to play through. It quickly wears through any goodwill or nostalgia it might have benefited from and ultimately has very little going for it.

Mongil Star Dive misses far more than it hits. Obnoxious characters weigh down a passable story, while decent gameplay is curtailed by an oppressive leveling system that feels too inhibitive to the experience.

I really wanted to love Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong. I already am a fan of its setting, desperately want AA video games to rise in prominence again, and love slow burns that are focused on character dialogue and interactions. However, there is just too much getting in the way of Swansong’s success. There is no way of knowing exactly what happened, but the final product is one that I can’t even recommend picking up on sale.

With so many Metroidvania games on the market, Clunky Hero will be drowned out by a multitude of far superior titles. Even if it has its moments, there is absolutely nothing that makes it stand out against similar, better-crafted titles like Hollow Knight or Monster Sanctuary. If anything, it’s worth picking up for a cheap laugh due to its lack of purpose.

Playing tends to mostly involve just going around the same loop repeatedly while crossing one’s fingers hoping to land on the few spots needed to progress while combat is usually just an excuse to put the phone down and pay attention to a show on the TV.