Digital Eclipse and publisher Nighthawk Interactive did a fantastic job with bringing three Disney 16-bit classics back to the current generation of gaming and offered up additional content to justify the reasonable price tag. One can only hope that they can get ahold of more Disney-owned gaming content *cough cough* LUCASARTS *ahem* and bring it back to life. Until such a time, they did a heckuva job with the Disney Classic Games Collection. While not perfect, it’s still a worthwhile trip down memory lane.

As free-to-play games come, Orcs Must Die! Unchained is quite good. The game is crafted meticulously to serve you humor and playfulness, as well as complicated strategy-led gameplay that will have you hooked after an hour or so. While the term microtransactions will be the dirty word with this game, they’re not necessary to have some real fun. Anyway, definitely check it out.

Legend of Mana is a beautiful game full of wonder and whimsy. Every time I hopped into this gorgeous remaster, I found myself grinning from ear to ear. Though I do not have experience with the original Legend of Mana, I feel fans will be quite happy with the work put into this remaster.

Wayward Strand is a delightfully grounded game, despite its foreign setting. In this small, cozy space there is genuine hope, sadness, anger, and love. These are real people and Casey is a young girl learning how to grasp the world in new ways. Players have the ability to be an active part of this experience and let the world envelop them, or buck responsibility for personal gain. Like Casey, like Tomi, or Mr. Avery, or Dr. Shen, or Esther, or like Joe, I wish I had more time to see and do everything all at once. Alas, in life you do not get a repeat performance. At least here there are bountiful opportunities to make friends, to be compassionate, to listen, to sit, to breathe, and to exist. Each day and each run a chance to do something more valuable than the last.

Ground Zero, from developer Malformation Games, is a tip-of-the-hat to classic survival horror times, and well-executed with story and gameplay.

While Monster Rancher 1 deserved additional graphical and audio updates, playing the remastered Monster Rancher 2 is nothing short of fun. The new music-lookup monster creation system is a much needed modernization for the series, the FF Mode is a great way to quickly grind out your monster’s stats, but I fear that multiplayer may be a letdown. I sincerely hope that these remasters pave the way for a modern Monster Rancher installment, because if these remasters are any indication, Koei Tecmo are on the right track.

Riders Republic is a truly massive extreme sports game that borrows from Ubisoft's better open world pillars. A variety of events and the ability to play against massive servers in a gorgeous sandbox provide a unique thrill that few games manage.

The Silver Lining is about as good as DLC #1, and it’s worth the three hours or so it takes to play through. With the recent price drop on Marvel’s Spider-Man, it’s a good time to pick up the game and the content if you haven’t already, as this was certainly one of 2018’s finest. The DLC did a fine job overall adding worthwhile game-extending content. Clearly, the future for Spider-Man videogames has never been brighter.

Lucah: Born of a Dream is a neon crash of allusive storytelling, deliberate top-down combat, and distressed, manic ambience. Its indirect means of expression risks losing the player in its internal contradictions—it’s hysterical and tender, it’s demanding and soothing—but tenacious pandemonium is also its objective. Lucah: Born of a Dream seeks an audience that can relate to its world without needing to make explicit sense of its features.

MultiVersus from Player First Games is a good fighting game. It does a good job of competing against the likes of Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. series. While it may not yet have the longevity of Nintendo’s golden child, MultiVersus’ characters, maps, and welcoming atmosphere are enough to convince any future wannabe fighter to give it a try.

Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! is a great addition to the Doki Doki Literature Club! franchise, but I do wish there was just a bit more in the game. For those of you who have already played through DDLC!, you’ll have a great time playing through it once again to learn more about our characters’ prologues and other secrets embedded in the game itself. You might not be as surprised as you were during your first playthrough of DDLC! back in 2017 (or whenever you played it), but you will be quite intrigued and puzzled as you try and unlock the additional content. Just do your best to avoid spoilers that will be posted online. If you haven’t played DDLC! before, DDLCP! is worth your time and an excellent way to get into the franchise. Just know this: This game is not suitable for children or those who are easily disturbed. You’ve been warned.

Old Moon’s Ghost Song has all the markings of a good metroidvania game, literally giving a tip-of-the-hat to the Metroid series, and works to make the experience deeper than a replicated version of a Nintendo classic.

Doom Eternal: The Ancient Gods Part 1 (TAG1) walks a very fine line between crafting a new narrative versus providing players with more to do beyond KILL ALL THE DEMONS!!1 There will be moments where you find yourself in brand new environments and in an entirely different story, but there will also be moments where you’ll think you’re playing a “New Game +” kind of scenario, where you’re immersed in end-game encounters comprised of waves of demons that you would also find at the end of Doom Eternal. The difficulty feels harder, to boot. You should expect TAG1 to take you around 6 hours or so (more if you like to be a completionist and find all of the secrets). You will enjoy this if you played Doom Eternal, but you’ll be left with a cliffhanger at the end that prepares you for what’s to come…

Whether in combat or solving puzzles, as well as in management of your oasis, Ever Oasis does a nice job of being accessible yet avoids being shallow. This is not a tough game to learn the mechanics nor is it hard to make steady progress, hour after hour, and that’s a good thing. It provides a charming atmosphere and a pleasant presentation that’s fun to get into and hard to leave. If you’re in the market for that, GREEZO’s Ever Oasis makes a strong case for itself.

At the end of the day, should you add this game to your Nintendo Switch? Uh, yeah. It’s a fun game that has some depth right out of the gate. In addition, and this is the perspective of a parent, if your kids have never played online battles before, then this is a game to start them on. The innocence of the game is there, as is the Nintendo assurance that your kids aren’t going to rage quit. That’s always a good thing to avoid, especially when your console is basically a high-end tablet (I mean that with respect, Nintendo fans). Anyway, drop the dough and grab this game. It’s quality.

All that to say that this surprise re-release of Virtua Fighter 5 is a welcome one, especially for PS+ members who get it for free. The series still has a special place amongst all of the other fighting franchises out there, so hopefully enough interest is generated with this re-release to warrant a full blown sequel in the future. In the meantime, AM2 and Ryu ga Gotoku Studios have done a fine job with Ultimate Showdown, such that any fan of the series or fighting games in general should check it out.

For fans of the game, Atlantis is most certainly worthwhile. In playing Atlantis, I realized how far removed I had become from this ARPG franchise, and it was good to revisit. Quality new content as well as immediately-beneficial time of life upgrades to the game in general make Atlantis easy to recommend.

In sum, Like A Dragon: Ishin! is a cool game with a lot to offer for those curious about the series or those who love it but want a fresh take on the characters, setting, time period, and combat. Much of what makes RGG Studio games so great is here, and there is no shortness of characters, story, and content for players to sink themselves into if they so choose. I enjoyed my time with Ishin!, and while I prefer the more modern settings the series is known for, I tip my hat to RGG for stepping out into this time period to take a fun look at a piece of Japanese history.

Romeo is a Dead Man is classic Suda51–an irreverent fever dream that constantly threatens to topple any notion of what a game can or should be. By challenging expectations, the game certainly has the potential to be polarizing to a wide swath of players. Yet there is a method to the madness and sometimes the most insane approach can make for the most enjoyable journeys.

At the end of the day, Ruined King: A League of Legends story is great RPG for two sets of fans. League players (and those from other Riot games) get the opportunity to explore worlds they may have heard about, but never visited. For those unfamiliar with League, you get the opportunity to explore a land of pirates in an accessible story-driven RPG and expose yourself to Runeterra’s universe. The story is compelling and beautifully told, and the lands of Bilgewater and Shadow Isles are full of secrets. While it’s great you need not grind, the combat system feels like it was changed for the sake of change. Airship Syndicate knocked it out of the park in most ways (be it soundtrack, world design, storytelling, and gameplay), and I’m so excited to see more!

Rise of the Ronin is not merely an amalgamation of open-world tropes with punishing combat. While its side activities may be unremarkable and its serene world more barren than alive, each system feeds into itself. This is done in service to further expand upon Team NINJA’s character-driven combat fantasy, one supplemented by a narrative housed in cultural and political intrigue during one of Japan’s most turbulent periods. Whether looking for a casual, open-world jaunt or a ferocious action-adventure, Rise of the Ronin is steeped in choice.

Superhot VR is a license to perform inside of a bullet ballet without any of the implicit horror of gun violence. Its hook—time only moves when you do—makes room for strategy and action in equal measure, and its stationary operation neatly accommodates and conceals the limitations of virtual reality. All that’s left is to imagine is the caliber of Superhot VR’s performance outside of Sony’s finicky hardware.

Hindsight is effective with its emotional intentions, powerful in its storytelling, and light in its interactivity options. You may not play this more than once, but the impact of the game’s purpose will resonate for a while.

Ultimately, the Switch Edition provides players with the most complete and best portable version of this addictive and popular game. The new content alone isn’t worth the asking price, but if you want to get your ‘craft on while on the move, consider the Switch Edition.

Subnautica: Below Zero is not as large as 2014’s Subnautica but it is as deep. Between its fantastically mysterious story to its compelling biome, Below Zero builds upon what made the first game strong while being unique all on its own. The on-land segments of the game were pretty lackluster overall, which was slightly disappointing; but for a game that is all about discovering what lies beneath, Subnautica: Below Zero is a breath of fresh air.

All in all, Squadrons is a great encapsulation of what it feels like to be a star fighter in Star Wars, but only if you can experience it in VR. I find it hard to recommend if your only means of playing this game is on a standard monitor or TV, but an opportunity to play Squadrons in VR is an experience worth having. Doubly so if you’re able to play the game with a flight stick.

Hogwarts Legacy is mostly everything it promised it would be. The main story is quite good, the side quests seem endless, and the magical mystery that most know in this wizarding world from books and movies is ever present in this game.

Ghostwire: Tokyo is a brilliant experiment in the clash of style and substance. Tokyo exists as an open world reminiscent of older games whose design may now feel ancient. Yet Tango Gameworks infuses nearly every aspect of the journey with a new, weird twist that no developer has thought to do before. Combat is striking and frenzied, even if it never reaches true complexity. And while the side content and the story may falter in their variety, enough praise cannot be heaped on the handling of Japanese folklore and the devotion towards cultural expression. Ghostwire: Tokyo may not be for everyone but I guarantee there is something in it for every single player to love.