Nelly Cootalot: The Fowl Fleet is a pleasant example of a point-and-click game. It emulates some classic experiences from the past like Monkey Island, but it does little to stand out or offer genuine excitement. Regardless, a great witty protagonist, fun characters, logical puzzles, and an overall fun journey are enough to recommend this to anyone who loves a good old graphic adventure.

Although Blazing Chrome sticks fairly closely to the formula of games like Metal Slug and Contra, its great boss encounters, responsive gameplay, and 16-bit pixel art make it a faithful homage to an underrepresented subgenre.

Dragon Quest Builders 2 is the definitive edition of Square Enix’s crafting RPG. Not only does it fix issues from the original, but it also expands upon its predecessor with a larger scale and more content. On the other end of the spectrum, the sequel doesn’t drastically change the formula. Quality-of-life improvements make it easier to customize your structures and engage with the campaign, but it’s more of the same. If the original offering was enough for you or you didn’t like it in the first place, this game won’t change your mind. But if your goal is to enjoy the best version of an immersive and charming crafting RPG experience, then Dragon Quest Builders 2 is a great place to start building.

Sea of Solitude might be flawed but that makes it more human than any perfect game would ever be. There’s a little bit of classic Ico in the game, especially in the way the journey is concluded, and more than a passing resemblance to Hellblade as an imaginary pilgrimage through a retrospective hardship. When Sea of Solitude states it’s a personal journey, it really is so. It could be about anyone’s passage to understand better not only themselves but also the people around them and that’s the game’s biggest strength.

Senran Kagura Peach Ball is one of those “You got chocolate in my peanut butter/You got peanut butter in my chocolate” moments you don’t see often in video games. It combines the unapologetic lewd and silly nature of the franchise with the thrill and unpredictable excitement that I love about pinball.

F1 2019 is a great game with solid presentation, smooth technical performance and tons of things to tinker with and drive through. However, it’s severely hurt by its moronic AI. Marrying more traditional video games sentiments to a simulation is always problematic. The thing is, Codemasters has no competition in the genre so there’s no outside pressure to improve on what they have been doing in the past. Emulating clean driving, especially from the AI’s side, isn’t impossible as Gran Turismo Sport did it in a very classy way. Maybe that’s something Codemasters should look into before rolling out F1 2020.

With its surprising level of complexity and depth, Mini-Mech Mayhem is a game that could have a wider appeal were it not crippled by its PSVR exclusivity.

For younger players, 198X may not open up in the same way as to us old farts. However, it’s like a museum of a bygone era when the budding digital entertainment was honest and ripe, rendered in a beautiful pixel art and channeled through a marvelous soundscape. Oh, and the ending pays a nice homage to Golden Axe – without the chasing part.

Koral is part science display, part puzzle game, and all design compromise. It feels like a roadmap on what not to do when designing an environmentally conscious game. Without a doubt, the visuals are initially captivating, but their flair quickly wears off and you’re left with the game’s dismal content. The game provides a clunky experience that doesn’t satisfy in any meaningful manner. Too shallow in both its educational content and puzzle-solving gameplay, Koral finds the perfect middle ground to embody an especially painful kind of mediocrity.

If you have to play a game from the Hyperneptunia franchise, I suppose that Super Neptunia RPG is as good a place as any to start. Thanks to the “hero with amnesia” plot device it introduces, newcomers will be acquainted with a cast of characters that players of the series will probably be familiar with and maybe even look forward to seeing again. But brace yourself for almost immediate disappointment. The platforming, combat and quests have all been done much better by many other games and while the game references are cute and marginally unexpected, they aren’t enough to balance the scales in Super Neptunia RPG’s favor.

Around the time The Martian film came out, there was a free-to-play, text-only game that had a much more engaging and well-written story than Mars Alive. There are so many excellent examples of survival crafting games that simply substituting a nearly featureless desert for a forest or undersea world isn’t enough to hold our attention, and the absolutely glacial pace of exploring and crafting doesn’t help. The game’s trailers suggest a much more action-packed, epic and graphically complex product but the reality is entirely different. The biggest survival challenge in Mars Alive is its hours of repetitious and slow gameplay.

The design of the monsters and the Innsmouthers are fantastic and the world building is creepy and fun. However, The Sinking City gets hamstrung by an overall chunkiness it doesn’t quite recover from. It’s hard to stay invested when combat is terrible and glitches and crashes ruin pacing and progression. This is a game demands a lot of patience and tolerance.

Cadence of Hyrule is a miracle project, birthed from an indie developer given the keys to Hyrule Castle and surpassing everyone’s expectations. Brace Yourself Games has managed to compose its own worthy Zelda adventure, incorporating its own rhythmic roguelike gameplay with fantastic remixes. The end result is a unique musical experience that’s hard to put down. Needless to say, the game may not be as inviting to those unversed with The Legend of Zelda. But for big fans seeking a new tempo, Cadence of Hyrule hits all the right beats, and I look forward to an encore.

In bringing the series back from the dead to today’s competitive scene, Samurai Shodown not only chooses to honor the series legacy but dares to be old-school. Instead of flashing extra frosting to attract attention, the game trusts that its basic gameplay is enough to keep the players coming back to it. There’s no trendy character customization and all the collectibles are just gallery items, such as sounds, artwork and movies, you unlock by playing, not paying. Samurai Shodown is like a Chinese checkers to more showy and easygoing fighting games out there but not any less engaging. It’s not how fast you can hit but when you hit that matters. Uncompromised and dignified, Samurai Shodown might be a niche title in its genre but it does its own thing and succeeds in it.

Much of Riverbond is a lot of fun: the combat, destruction and environments are simple but addictive and satisfying and the levels are varied. I wish that there was a little more story and character to become invested in, and that there was less reliance on similar structures for each level. Combat isn’t always fun for reasons that have nothing to do with skill or weapons but baked in mechanics and design choices. Overall, the voxel aesthetic works well with the game’s gentle sense of humor and lack of real menace. Riverbond isn’t the most complex action-RPG, but a good example of form and function in harmony.

Although Gato Roboto does not provide the type of sprawling world design that Metroidvania titles are known for, it still does a decent job at reducing this type of experience into a condensed form. The abbreviated process of upgrading Kiki’s mech suit is a satisfying sprint that takes you from helplessness to empowerment at a rapid pace. It may not offer an exciting new take on Metroidvanias, and the limited scope of the world is disappointing, but Gato Roboto works as a solid microcosm of its genre for those who are strapped for time.

My Friend Pedro is an action movie compressed into a 2D-sidescroller, complete with an oddball premise, unlikely heroes, and bullet-time cinematics. It manages to be both a fast run-and-gun à la Contra as well as a slow, thoughtful platformer like Metroid. The game isn’t pushing any visual limits, but on the plus side, it performs fine on the Nintendo Switch’s tablet mode. My Friend Pedro may be short, but it’s an explosive, wild ride that is rarely boring and always bananas.

Judgment is an absolute roller coaster of an experience that I can wholeheartedly recommend. It’s an intense investigative adventure full of drama, action, and heart. If this is the direction where the Yakuza series is headed to, I have high hopes for the future. The developers have effectively used the established formula to tell a brand new story. Without a doubt, Judgment is worth playing for both fans and newcomers alike.

Total War: Three Kingdoms provides a solid look at the spectacle, history, and romance of the Three Kingdoms period, as well as being entertaining enough to hold the attention of those who just might not care about that stuff. I don’t know who they are, but I’m sure they’re out there.

In the end, Warhammer: Chaosbane is more about its satisfying gameplay than being an accurate and respectful representation of its franchise. Here, Warhammer is actually a mere coating to a competent Diablo clone rather than being an essence of it. In many ways, the game has budget title sentiments to it when it resorts to simple narration and recycling assets but still it’s sold for a full price. That’s a fact, in addition to the lackluster performance of the online game, that drops Warhammer: Chaosbane from an essential purchase it would definitely have been as a mid-price title. Wait for a sale and you’re probably happier with what you get.

Blazing Beaks was a nice little surprise and I thoroughly recommend it for fans of the genre. It loses a few points in my eyes for a rather bland soundtrack and a complete lack of narrative. Overall, though, it’s a fun little game and worthy to sit among the others.

Overall, if you've played and enjoyed the first game in the series, getting Trails of Cold Steel II is a no-brainer. You're going to love it. If you've never played the series, however, this sequel might not be the right place to start. It's pretty easy to say that the PS4 port is the definitive version with enhanced graphics, sounds, and all DLC included with it.

The games might be as old school as they come and the lack of Metal Slug and other top tier SNK titles are missed but the SNK 40th Anniversary collection is more than a compilation of the company’s early hits. The clean interface, breadth of games, added console ports and new playback options represents a new beginning for legal retro game emulation.

Selma and the Wisp has an interesting premise, having you control a character who, in turn, leads another character. Unfortunately, the indirect playstyle leads to frustration in hazardous areas as you are forced to escort a girl and hope she doesn’t die by accident. At least it’s a short adventure, with ten levels that only run about two or three hours, for those curious to try it out. The idea of this “guiding light simulator” remains intriguing, but the experience is hard to fully recommend.

I thought Outer Wilds was going to be more of an RPG, and I sort of wish it was. The more engaging gameplay elements — the story and its mysteries, the fascinating and beautiful planets, the thrill of exploration and discovery — always took a backseat to the puzzles and physics, which were intriguing but sometimes felt like an arbitrary impediment that drained some of the delight out of Outer Wild’s often genuinely unique experience.

All things considered, Duck Game is a thoroughly enjoyable and silly party game. Its simple but fast-paced gameplay, varied map design, and penchant towards bedlam make for unpredictable fun. While I would only wholeheartedly recommend the game for local play, it makes for a great addition to anyone's rotation of couch multiplayer titles.

If Effie’s combat and camera were a little more tightly refined and its open world a little more full of interesting content, the game would be a real winner. As it stands, Effie is fun and charming, and its flaws and frustrations don’t entirely ruin the experience. There is no shortage of 3D puzzle platform games in the world, but Effie stands out as a colorful and vibrantly realized translation of a fairly tale come to life.

Conan Unconquered’s slow-moving economy that always seems to lag behind the relentless waves of enemies is frustrating and the fact that there are only two playable heroes — a third is available behind a paywall at launch — and no story or campaign make the game feel like it’s incomplete or at the very least a meager package for the price. Coupled with the repetitious nature of the environments and matches, the uninspired voice work and shallow gameplay, Conan Unconquered is a disappointing hybrid of RTS and tower defense that squanders the Conan brand once again.