Overall, Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age is a beautifully designed game from story to gameplay construction. To boot, the game is absolutely gorgeous and is fun to watch in motion. The fact that you have easily over 70+ hours of gameplay (teetering on 100) makes the longevity of the adventure more memorable. This is how you make an RPG, and I hope that the good folks at Square Enix continue to develop the series the same way.

Donut County is a little short and peaks prematurely and I don’t care. I’ve never played a game where I control a hungry hole, think like a trash raccoon, or talk to friendly animals at the bottom of a cave.

In sum, it seems like the vision of State of Mind was bigger and more robust than its end result. The core idea is interesting, but the execution fizzles out early and doesn’t recover. Still, if you’re into sci-fi and are looking for a game to roll through on a lazy Saturday, you could do worse than State of Mind.

Kiwami 2 is best thought of as remake masquerading as an encore. More separation may have allowed it to better stand out and ease Yakuza’s encroaching sense of repetition. It’s impossible to deny the charm of its weird idiosyncrasies and the power of its serpentine drama. Kiwami 2 hits the modern Yakuza standard and, with any reasonable hope, breaks it for good. It also, for better or for worse, will finally allow people to cherish Yakuza 2 outside of its legendary tiger battle.

If Guacamelee was a celebration riot through metroidvania, its sequel feels closer to an orderly parade across the same space. Guacamelee! 2 is a warm, expertly designed, devilishly preposterous, and, ultimately, safe return to its Mexiverse.

We Happy Few is a great game that has the potential to be an excellent game with a few tweaks here and there. Perhaps wait a little while for an update to fix the problems if you really want to maximize the enjoyment you get out of it, though. I could easily imagine rating this a point higher after the glitches are patched.

As it stands right now, the Wolfhunter DLC, which is going to be a review in progress to see how it all works out, is action-packed and entertaining. The dungeon I was able to get through with the devs at ZeniMax Online Studios was fun, and it felt like a well thought out idea that was executed beautifully.

The convergence of Japanese folklore and a Sumi-e aesthetic over the blueprint of The Legend of Zelda created a benign opus that, eleven years later, remains unchallenged and unequaled by any scale of competition. Okami, even with its pronounced vulnerabilities, is a singular creation and merits constant preservation.

The addition of Real Player Motion to the package improved Madden 19 dramatically. The controls felt great because of it and the gameplay felt tightly woven, which translated to one fun experience playing football in a video game.

As far as presentation, Unavowed has twice the resolution of a typical Wadjet Eye title (640×360), but more importantly the art work looks great. Voice-acting and dialog is nicely done, and you can also enable a commentary track as you play to learn more about the development. In sum, if you enjoy the genre, you’re sure to enjoy Unavowed.

Dead Cells, from any imaginable approach, thrives in a powerful cycle of surprise and satisfaction.

Overall, Neverout is an interesting VR title turned into a Nintendo Switch experience that seems to be better suited to handle it. It’s fun, it’s challenging, and it can be a bit frustrating now and then, but it’s still worth checking out, especially at the price point.

Iterations of Detached have been floating around on other virtual reality platforms since 2016. This clarifies its position as groundwork instead of structure. It was a step that needed to be taken in search of higher ground. Virtual reality’s second and third generation of software, with games like Moss and Tetris Effect, are better aware of the platform’s strengths and limitations. Detached can impress newcomers right away. More practiced enthusiasts will quickly look in other directions.

Mothergunship is a solid title that hangs its hat on weapon customization, while sacrificing some gameplay. It’s definitely worth a go, even if only to show the insane weapon designs one can concoct.

At $20, this is honestly a bargain, especially considering the appeal of the first three titles in particular. In terms of quality, I’d rank them (perhaps unsurprisingly) as such: X, X2, X3, and X4. But they’re all worth experiencing if you’ve never done so before, and with the terrific presentation, true-to-form gameplay, and extensive bonus content, Legacy Collection is certainly the best way to go about it.

Overall, if you’re looking for a solid experience that keeps going and motivates you to keep going through rewards and short missions, then you’ll enjoy Defiance 2050. It’s a solid title that does what is advertised. Just excuse those last generation cutscenes.

As it stands, Galak-Z: Variant S is a simple shooter that is fun in short stints. The controls are fun, the level design is outstanding, but the motivating factors of the game, which include upgrades, needs to be improved a little before it becomes great. As it stands right now, it’s a good space shooter with some potential for improvement in the future.

MXGP Pro may not be a cut-and-paste job even if it shares similar coding under the hood, yet it isn’t far from it. Though I enjoy this version of the sport more than the version in MotoGP 18, it does little to change the fact that this game serves to check off a small list of requirements that any racing game should have to be enjoyable. Nothing more, nothing less. To create something truly fun, time and care needs to be put into it. Maybe next year Milestone will cut their output in half and its franchises will flourish because of it.

Tempest 4000 is a defiant artifact that returns to life once a console generation. What would it be like if someone who made games for the VIC-20 in the early 80’s authored another game in 2018? How many programmers from that generation are still even in this line of work? An answer to these curiosities may seem like a precarious way to spend $30. Thankfully, as either a psychedelic wonderland or a classic arcade score chase, Tempest 4000 is full of eccentric support.

Really, no matter how you look at it, Sonic Mania is a huge success and Sonic Mania Plus is a celebration of that success thanks to smart physical edition design and items and valuable new in-game content. At only $30, it’s a superb deal and a release I would recommend be on anyone’s short list of must-haves.

Overall, Nepenthe is a solid indie game. It’s a fun, complicated RPG that has brilliant moments backed up by unique art and music presentation. It does have some bugs to fix, but nothing yet that isn’t manageable or gameplay disruptive.

Inside is another amazing game from Playdead and I’ll be picking up everything they have to offer in the future. If you love atmospheric games that play more like beautifully crafted films than Inside is for you. I would recommend this to anyone as it’s one of the best looking games you can get your hands on.

Guerrilla survives its remaster in a photo finish. The monotonous mission structure, expressionless story (where everyone looks exactly the same), and conventional shooting are nails in a coffin. Fortunately the coffin’s lid is obliterated by Guerrilla’s screaming half corpse and its giddying commitment to destruction. There’s still nothing quite like it, no matter how many “what about” claims are lobbed in its direction.

As it goes for a Switch game as a whole, this is certainly one of the better releases on the system from a third party company. While you get just the vanilla version of Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, the fact that you get it on the Nintendo Switch in amazing form is something to behold. The game looks solid, the intensity of the original release is still intact, and the gameplay doesn’t drop off much when playing it portable. It’s a must-have for Nintendo Switch owners dying for a first-person shooter.

Being that the game is unchanged from last year, it’s no surprise that the Become As Gods Edition doesn’t disappoint. If you’re Xbox-only and haven’t given this game a go, there’s no better time than the present.

Prey: Mooncrash melds Arkane's excellent immersive sim playground with the challenge of a roguelike that gives players a good excuse to dive back into what made Prey so fun.

I would recommend Red Faction: Guerilla to anyone who likes sci-fi and third person free roaming. While it lacks an intuitive story line, the gameplay makes up for that by being original and engaging. I did, however get bored after playing for long periods of time so I recommend playing in spurts.

Limbo is a classic, it’s definitely on the list of top indie games of all time, and you should 100% pick it up for the Switch. It may be a short run through but it will definitely be one that sticks with you.