Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are good remakes of an inherently flawed Pokemon game. The games lean a little hard into recapturing the experience of the originals, which is a detriment and somewhat negates the fantastic visual and quality-of-life improvements. Honestly, it feels that Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are a preemptive olive branch to Pokemon fans ahead of Pokemon Legends: Arceus, in that it provides a decidedly retro experience as an alternative option to what is sure to be the most envelope-pushing Pokemon game made since the franchise launched 25 years ago. Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are made for those looking to celebrate the past of the Pokemon experience. For the rest of us, it's a nice distraction to hold us over until the launch of the next Pokemon game in a couple of months.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle R is a great experience for fans already familiar with the original series and those that are jumping into the fighter as a result. There is a lot to love in that regard as the personality from the original manga is in full force, but there's much less of that "bizarre adventure" that is also at the core of Araki's series. The fighting has been improved, and there are plenty of characters to mess around with, but more fighting does not always equal more fun in this case.

Ultimately, Mario Strikers: Battle League reminded me a bit of last year's Mario Golf: Super Rush. Both games offer a fun core gameplay experience but are ultimately very thin in terms of content which hinders their replayability. If you don't have a dedicated group who wants to play Battle League on the regular, the game could end up collecting dust on the shelf. Next Level Games has promised additional roster updates and other content releases after release, so hopefully the game grows into a more robust experience after a few months.

Big Brain Academy: Brain vs. Brain is the type of game that Nintendo does better than any other developer in the industry. This is a game that has clearly been designed with families in mind, and it's the perfect way to play together, while also taking in something educational.

At its very best, Sakura Wars made me feel like I was playing through a top-tier shonen or seinen anime, and while the lows certainly exist, they are infrequent and inconsequential enough to the core experience that it makes it easy for me to recommend the game to anyone with a passing interest. While it might be mechanically lacking in some aspects, it smooths over those rough edges with a ton of heart, and I’ll always take an ambitious game that sometimes fails to reach the heights it strives for over a boring, middle-of-the-road title.

There's fun to be had in Evil West but there are far too many chinks in this armor to make it worthy of wearing into the field. 

The Siege of Paris delivers an adventure that I simply could not put down, keeping me riveted to the final battle and beyond, and I would return to this world in an absolute heartbeat. A villain that is nothing like you expect and a rich cast of characters keep you invested the whole way through, and while the game's new mechanics didn't really floor me the way that I'd hoped, they do enough to bolster an engrossing tale of intrigue, loss, war, and forgiveness that I would recommend to anyone who adores this franchise.

Despite its jagged, toothy edges, Evil Dead: The Game remains one of the more pleasant surprises of this year so far. Gripes are pushed to the background when you possess a survivor and use them against their team or rend a Deadite to bits with a chainsaw and even with some movement hang-ups on both teams, every match plays out relatively smoothly. If Saber Interactive keeps up with community feedback and delivers more DLC down the line, Evil Dead: The Game could solidify itself as one of the truly great asymmetrical horror experiences.

For many NHL franchise players, the career mode has never been the reason to pick up the game, so it's easy to live with this lackluster story. The other game modes in NHL 21 are as good as ever. You may not be a big hockey fan, but if you enjoy sports games, it's hard to do better than this.

Ultimately, Legend of Mana presents a fun and enchanting world to explore. The gameplay is simplistic and clumsy, but the tedium is alleviated somewhat by M2's modern additions. If players avoid getting bogged down by the unnecessary side systems, they may be able to capture Legend of Mana's lost spirit of adventure.

Ultimately, Hooked on You has some funny aspects to it that are worth checking out for Dead by Daylight fans, but for everyone else who might not be familiar with the lore, this feels like a weaker dating sim that isn't able to truly feel like its own game that's independent of the main series.

Nintendo Switch Sports shows that Nintendo still does motion control multiplayer games better than any other company, but a few different decisions would have made it a much easier recommendation.

Frontiers of Pandora may not blow you away with its story, but it will immerse you in its world and give you a rush of adrenaline. For those just wanting to take a trip to Pandora, this should satisfy you until Cameron releases Avatar 3 in 2025.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning’s story is fascinating and still holds up eight years later. The combat is basic yet enjoyable, providing several opportunities to be a deadly assassin, unstoppable warrior, or powerful mage. However, the near-constant technical issues derail this game almost entirely. Kaiko has since provided a significant quality-of-life patch after the game’s release, so fans may not run into the same issues. The early impressions show improved performance and fewer framerate issues.

FIFA 21 is an exercise of refinement, not evolution. The newest installment highlights the downsides of annualization, but also highlights that EA is listening to fans. FIFA 21 doesn’t make a million changes and improvements from FIFA 20, but the changes and improvements it does make go a long way in enhancing the experience.

John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando delivers a wild ride through the undead apocalypse with just enough new to make it worth your time. It takes the familiar bones of the genre and wraps them in something bigger and louder. Sometimes that spills over into repetition, but when everything clicks, which it will for your first several hours of play, it feels like standing in the middle of a raging river (of zombies) and letting the current (of zombies) carry you straight through the storm.

It can be challenging to wrap one's head around Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin. On the one hand, it is utterly steeped in Final Fantasy mythology. And yet, it's a far cry from a traditional Final Fantasy game. In a way, it feels like an attempt to apply the Final Fantasy VII Remake approach to a game much less suited to such treatment, with fascinating, if not entirely successful, results. Fans of heavily customizable action games will find a lot to love but might be divorced from the nods and homages to Final Fantasy history. It'll be the players who have a foot in both worlds that will most enjoy Stranger of Paradise, but despite some narrative pacing issues and a bit of bloat, most players will find it an enjoyable, action-packed fantasy adventure.

LEGO is all about taking pieces and connecting them together to build something new, so it's only fitting that LEGO 2K Drive combines parts from so many other great games; combining pieces of Mario Kart 8, Forza Horizon 5, Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed and the LEGO games of Traveler's Tales has resulted in a surprisingly high-quality racer. Sometimes last millisecond losses can feel a little bit cheap, and the building mechanics can feel a little bit daunting. Despite these minor issues, LEGO 2K Drive proves that there's still a lot of gas left in the tank for the LEGO brand, and brick fans of all-ages should drive away satisfied.

It is a game that does one thing, and it isn’t reinventing the wheel. It’s just golf, and without those extra levels of unprecedented creativity, it isn’t going to be the most memorable title to come out this year. If you don’t like virtual golf, this isn’t going to change your mind. If you do enjoy golf and miss the days of having Wii Sports golf be relevant, then it’ll be a fun, if not mindblowing, experience.

I really wanted to like 12 Minutes. It's a compelling concept, but the game's rigid structure and lack of options make it feel less like a game about a time loop and more like a narrative adventure where I kept having to sit through "Game Over" screens because I didn't make the specific choice necessary. As a result, it feels like the most irksome elements of Capcom's Ace Attorney series, without the rewarding aspects. At times, I was genuinely surprised by the options made available to me, but far more often, I found myself feeling like the game's concept was basically just window dressing. 12 Minutes feels far too limited for its concept, and that makes the game feel like a chore far more often than not.

I'm hoping that Modus will continue to support the Cris Tales with patches to address some of its technical issues. Decreasing load times might be too much to hope for on Switch, but game-breaking bugs are another story. I feel optimistic about it because Cris Tales is too good of a game to leave things like this. It puts new spins on some classic JRPG elements and creates an aesthetic all its own, telling tales that are universal and troublingly timely. Technical flaws aside, Cris Tales is a potent blend of the best of the JRPGs that inspired it and fresh ideas from a unique and personal perspective. Playing it is like discovering a fantastic SNES RPG from another timeline (with much more advanced graphics), serving as both a love letter to the past and an invitation to push forward, and it is likely to capture the imaginations of anyone who embarks on Crisbell's journey.

Unfinished Business as a whole is a worthwhile addition to the RoboCop lore. Its thoughtful narrative and empowering gunplay are unique within the first-person shooter genre and loyally translate RoboCop’s core tenets into an interactive form. Some of Rogue City’s issues, like abysmal lip syncing and awkward dialogue camera, have carried over into this standalone expansion, but those are relatively small dents in this game’s shiny armor. Like most bullets, they bounce off RoboCop’s chassis and don’t impede his ability to serve and protect.

Compared to other recent open world games, even those released on the Nintendo Switch years ago, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet is something of a disappointment especially in the graphics department. But for better or worse, Pokemon games are rarely judged by their immense fanbase against anything that's not a Pokemon game. And as a Pokemon game, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet is an absolute joy with a deeper storyline than usual, a ton of fantastically designed Pokemon, and continued quality-of-life improvements that makes for a less tedious Pokemon experience without sacrificing any essential bits. Pokemon fans will love Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, and even casual players or lapsed Pokemon fans will enjoy the allure of "catching 'em all" provided they don't place a premium on graphics.

The Battletoads reboot has a little something for everyone. It's accessible, well-executed, and largely rewarding. It captures the energy and spirit of the franchise for diehard fans while also providing the best possible entry point for new fans. Sure, it might be a little simpler compared to some of the more expansive titles available today, but it does a stellar job of bringing Battletoads into the modern era while also harkening back to the days of playing the game on NES. It's the kind of game you'll want to spend hours in... even if you want to rage quit here and there.

The Marvel MaXimum Collection follows the trend of modern collections to simplify the game, which does take away some of the natural challenge and engagement. When lives are infinite in X-Men: The Arcade Game, then some of the tension of battles and the excitement of victory are undercut. The whole point of these collections is to recreate those original games in all their weird, fun, colorful glory. This isn’t a problem with the Marvel MaXimum Collection alone, but it does reflect the idea that this game feels more like a museum piece than a full-throated embrace of the titles. It’s still a very good piece of superhero gaming history that remains a lot of fun to play, but it doesn’t perfectly capture the feeling of playing those original games quite like some other collections have in the past. Luckily, the strength of the presentation and the enduring quality of the games featured in the collection deliver a timeless experience.

If you're looking for a solo shooter that will keep your attention, you might want to steer clear of this one. For everyone else, Rainbow Six Extraction is a fairly enjoyable experience.

I often felt like the game gave me multiple chances to save a character so that, even if I missed a vital item previously or erred in judgement otherwise, one bad decision isn’t a death sentence. Like a horror trivia night centered around a game you’ve never played or a movie you’ve never watched, Little Hope feels best when you try to get in the heads of the characters and imagine what they’d do and how others would respond. There are characters that’ll make you swear in the beginning that you don’t care what happens to them, and you may even root for their downfall, but you’ll be cheering them on by the end.

Bleach Rebirth of Souls excels rather well as a fighting game but less as a complete package. The story mode, most of all, feels a bit sloppy, which is a shame considering the source material. Still, this is Bleach’s best video game outing by far and a great fighting game in general. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a game that turns the tides as much as Rebirth of Souls does. While not perfect, it has what it needs to become a staple title for anime/manga fans to enjoy.