Bravely Default didn’t need fixing, and simply rescuing it from the 3DS is more than enough. This is a beautiful, heartfelt, and wonderfully classical JRPG, and as much as I love Mario Kart, over the past week, I’ve wanted to play this one so much more.

Fantasy Live i has that big MMO feel to it, yet throughout the adventure never becomes exhausting. Whether the post-game stuff is for you or not, the journey there is such pure, wholesome, moreish escapism that it doesn’t matter. Level-5 took many years to get this out the door, but the wait has been more than worth it.

Thanks to its laid-back, low-pressure vibe, aesthetic warmth and overall wholesomeness, Guardians of Azuma captures the comfort food quality of the entire Rune Factory series. Meanwhile, thanks to a vastly improved visual engine, accessible interesting combat, and an exceptional setting, it also takes a strong step forward from its predecessors. This is the strongest entry in a beloved series, and made all the more special because, after the original developer of the series closed shop, it looked like the entire series was dead for several years. This is a pretty good statement that there’s still so much more that it can offer yet.

I truly wish I had better things to say about Spray Paint Simulator. I do have good things to say: it’s really chill, the graphics are vibrant, the painting gameplay is great, and the options cover a good amount of possibilities. Unfortunately, the game is weighed down by its clunkiness and lack of story. (Yes, even a game about spray painting needs a story.) I would like to say I will go back to it, but I’m left wondering if I’ll ever feel that itch to return.

Elden Ring Nightreign is a very clever game. FromSoftware has produced a multiplayer-focused “Souls” experience that borrows some of the best ideas from the multiplayer giants while retaining the Soulslike formula and style. It’s not really for me. I’m a mega Souls fan, but I’m there for the dark fantasy storytelling and exploration more than the action and bosses. But I can appreciate what FromSoftware has done with this, and I certainly think the team has nailed what they set out to achieve with it.

The thing is, Eurojank RPGs are always better than their big blockbuster counterparts, because they’re what the developers really want to make. I don’t think an Elder Scrolls could be made with the grimdark purity of Tainted Grail. Look at what happened when EA put the blockbuster sheen over Dragon Age, which itself once indulged in dark fantasy. I personally don’t think King Arthur is as dark as game developers continue to, but I certainly appreciate that the developers of this game committed to that and actually delivered it. There’s a real heart and soul to this project, and Poland has produced yet another developer that is well worth keeping an eye on.

For all my criticisms here, I do want to see another take at this. There’s absolutely room for an anime Returnal, and the base mechanics are there. Scar-Lead Salvation does play well. It is so achingly close to a good game. It’s just crushed by trying to spread that quality across a very, very long gauntlet.

Pivot of Hearts is something special. The main character, Wen, is extremely relatable — even to people who aren’t game developers. He is the beating heart of the game, someone you can’t help but root for because he tries so hard to do everything “right.” The game shows genuine, non-conforming relationships progressing from the start, making it easy to fall in love with the characters. The way the developer incorporated the tarot card aspect is extremely clever. The more I played, the more I enjoyed it — even while lacking spades! I firmly believe that Pivot of Hearts can change some minds regarding “traditional” relationships. It isn’t always easy, but all that matters is that your heart is in the right place.

All in all, the original Duck Detective was a wholesome, entertaining, totally charming bit of brilliance, and this stand-alone sequel does it justice.

What you end up getting with 7’scarlet is a safe-ish suspense mystery. There are otome visual novels out there that are far darker, more explicit, sharper, more horrific, and more intense than this one, but it’s not a criticism of 7’scarlet to say that it’s for those that want something more relaxing and straightforward to enjoy. A truly lovely setting that will have you pining to explore small-town Japan, and some lovely art, make this pulpy-style otome an easy-going page-turner.

Death end re;Quest: Code Z ends up being something of an archetypical JRPG for Idea Factory in one way, while the opposite of what we expect in the other. It’s far sharper and smarter than the over-the-top fan service suggests it will be. That’s the archetypical half. Meanwhile, the JRPG mechanics are competent and enjoyable, but very standard with little experimentation. That’s categorically not what we expect from Idea Factory. It’s usually a company that experiments with combat systems to its detriment. That being said, I’m not disappointed by this at all. We haven’t had a proper “Chocobo Dungeon” style roguelike in a long time. This scratches the itch and then, thanks to the exquisite horror art and theme, leaves a bloody scar behind.

Those gripes and wishlish items are minor issues that would be nice to see Big Ant address in future titles, but I don’t want to take anything away from AFL 26. It plays incredibly well and has had a lot of effort put into it, despite being a game that only really has Australia to count on as far as marketability. What’s more, Big Ant’s still patching away. It’s going to be fascinating to see where this one ends up in a year.

I love being able to play Age of Empires II on my console, and for it to play so well on the hardware and with a controller. As someone who consumes anything to do with Romance of the Three Kingdoms with enthusiasm, I’ve loved this latest expansion in a very long line of excellent expansions, too. Now we just need to get a remaster of Civilization 2 as well, and I’ll spend the rest of the year just playing the same games I spent my entire teenage years with.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a precious thing. It has the big blockbuster production values, but in sharp contrast to most other “narrative-driven” games in this space, it also respects the intelligence of its audience and is willing to engage with a rich tapestry of themes rather than leaving the onion unpeeled. My gut tells me that as respected and successful as this game has already been, it’s only really getting started and over time will sit alongside the likes of NieR, and Planescape: Torment as the most literary and intelligent games ever made. Goddard, Camus and Sartre would be proud (well, perhaps not, existentialists are not a particularly jovial bunch by reputation).

I have not minded the opportunity to step back into Oblivion at all. It’s a big, beautiful adventure with some truly exceptional, memorable moments. The world of Oblivion alone is a perfect recreation of the Dungeons & Dragons descents into hell from my tabletop days, and I had such a rush of nostalgia playing that through again. It has made me feel old to reflect on the fact that it’s a 20-year-old game and I swear I remember playing it new like it was yesterday, and nostalgia always comes with some rose-tinted glasses, but yes, I haven’t minded having the opportunity and excuse to play this again at all.

I like my retro gaming to be bathed more in rosy nostalgia and details about what made a game great or a company significant, not drenched in cynicism. Super Technos World: River City & Technos Arcade Classics isn’t awful by any stretch, but it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that it is something of a cynical cash grab first and foremost. Do better, Arc System Works!

I came into Lushfoil Photography Sim expecting to love it, and maybe that was a mistake. I do like it. I plan on returning to it for little escapes sometimes (emphasis on little). There is just something I love about taking a view that countless others have seen and putting your own twist on it; as it turns out, that feeling can also exist thanks to video games. Unfortunately, the camera controls never became intuitive, and accessibility around motion sickness is lacking. Lushfoil Photography Sim has a solid base, but I could never recommend it to someone without also pointing out the heavy negatives.

We live in an era where games that have puzzles need to lead players by the nose to their solution, for fear of the player getting stuck and giving up. Anything that truly challenges the player is anathema to modern design best practice. That’s why Amerzone is such a rare treat. It looks the part of a modern game, tells an exceptional story with a page-turning quality that only one of history’s finest comic book artists could achieve, and is willing to throw some genuine puzzles at the player. If you’ve got the resolve for it, then you’re in for a ride with this one.

If you did have nostalgic love for Snow Bros 2, it would clearly hit you a little harder, though I do have to note that if it’s just the arcade game you want in a legal fashion it is part of the Amusement Arcade Toaplan app too – and there it’s a fair bit cheaper than Snow Bros 2 Special’s asking price too.

I’m not sure why Square Enix has decided to become so prolific with the SaGa property. Three games in a single 12-month timespan is the most ambitious release schedule we’ve ever seen for it. But I’m also not complaining. SaGa has always been something of the forgotten child of Square Enix’s JRPG properties. With any luck, that’s changing now, and a whole bunch of people are going to realise just how good Frontier 2 here is for the first time.

Despite the subject, Secrets in Green is easy to play, so that’s a plus. The issue comes with its development side of things. The game does touch on mental illness, but it almost feels like the secondary narrative rather than the primary. It had so much potential thanks to its theme (women with mental illness in Victorian England), but it did little to touch on them. The classic visual novel gameplay fits well with the narrative, though I would have liked a few more choices sprinkled in. Some of the behind-the-scenes graphics choices are just plain strange to me. Unfortunately, my best one-word description of Secrets in Green is “forgettable.”

The fact is that as a fan of Chu Chu Rocket, I am continually disappointed that there isn’t more done with that kind of puzzler, and Tempopo more than scratched the itch. This has been my favourite puzzle game in years.

These are two remarkable, classic games that have held up as well as any other retro JRPG, and one of them hasn’t actually been released in the West in a very long time (Lunar 2’s last release outside of Japan was on the PlayStation! You owe it to yourself to pick this up, because, in every way, these are truly vintage JRPG classics.

To be clear, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is good fun. The presentation is spot on, and it’s an example of how nostalgia can be traded on in a way that is fun, rather than desperate. But as a video game, it’s yet another example of how the AAA blockbuster end of the market is totally incapable of breaking away from the overly safe and familiar, and the inflexibility of these “video game design best practices” means that no property is allowed an identity of its own anymore. Every gameplay feature, character, environment, item and puzzle needs to be the exact clone of the successful examples we’ve seen before and in the end, even punching Nazis starts to feel too rote for the joy that it should provide.

All in Abyss is exceptional. Sharp and very funny writing, is backed by a fast-paced, intelligent appropriation of poker. This is going to be one of my highlights of 2025.

Warside’s single biggest flaw is that it fails to do anything to step out of the shadow of Advance Wars in any meaningful way. Without its own personality it is, ultimately, not as memorable as it should be, but that cross-play multiplayer and the fact that you don’t need your gaming group to all own Switches to enjoy playing together does save it. For not just locked to PC, but by the time it comes to consoles, I expect it will have a pretty dedicated following.

Battlefield Waltz is one of Otomate’s stronger efforts. It takes a strong setting, a strong narrative, and strong characters, and makes the most of them. It’s a “safe” game that takes few risks and doesn’t really push boundaries, but it’s an enormously enjoyable and moreish page-turner. The digital equivalent of picking up a good paperback.

One thing you could never criticise about Coulombe’s work is that he has a great eye for detail and understanding about what “art” means in the context of video games. It’s the clever use of interactivity, the playful subversions of expectation, and freeform creativity that ensures that Look Outside will remain with you, coiled in your mind and puzzling you long after the computer’s put in rest mode.

The developers really tried with an exceptionally difficult genre. AI Limit won’t be remembered alongside FromSoftware or Koei Tecmo’s work in the genre, but it’s also by no means a poor effort. It’s like the work that a student who really understands the source material produces. It might only be a shade of the master’s work, but you can’t help but hope they get another swing at it, because they’re on the cusp of breaking out and carving out something brilliant with its own identity.

Bleach Rebirth of Souls is authentic to the anime, does a good job with the narrative retelling, and is meticulous at giving you all your favourite characters to brawl around with. I can’t see a Bleach fan picking this up and not having some immediate good fun with it. I just can’t see them still having fun with it a year from now, and while the Bleach star may have faded a little from a decade or whatever ago, I do think that there was more that could have been done with it than this.

Gnomes is one of those games that is just clever, and if there’s any justice in the world it will have a similar trajectory ahead of it that Vampire Survivors did. It’s immediately accessible, both devilishly challenging and rewarding, and almost impossible to put down.

Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition is much more than a port and there’s enough there to justify a re-purchase, even if you’re still one of the ten people still playing it on the Wii U. For those that aren’t existing fans, all you need to know is that this is one of the biggest science fiction epics on the Switch, and while I do prefer the intellectual depth and fantasy trappings of the “proper” trilogy, it’s hard not to be thrilled when exploring your way around this lush, unique vision and world.

It’s hard to be a solo developer, or a small team collaborating on a visual novel. It can be intimidatingly expensive, high risk, and potentially low reward. I can certainly appreciate the desire to just get something out there even if there are massive corners to cut. Unfortunately, while I can get a sense of the kind of story that the developers wanted to tell, this was the kind of horror that needed to be deep in atmosphere and intensity, and unfortunately, everything about the presentation of Scarlett Snowfall undermined the vision.

Wanderstop is phenomenal for many reasons, including its characters, world, gameplay, and message of mental health and hygiene. I feel deeply for Alta. I’m not frustrated by her inability to think differently, I empathise with it. Learning new thought patterns requires a lot of hard work for a long time, and the game is Alta’s journey to a new way of looking at life. Wanderstop is touching, sweet, funny, and soothing. Its gameplay is flawless. My only issue with it was a lack of working accessibility options, sometimes causing me pain when I could have been feeling a glowing, happy warmth instead.

Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land is a committed effort by Koei Tecmo to further grow the series and find a new audience. It means that some of the Atelier traditions have been firmly and, on the back of the Ryza series, likely permanently behind. But this new direction is wonderful in its own way. Yumia’s ambitious scope, sense of adventure, quality party of characters, and typically gorgeous music and art direction make for an exciting new chapter to the series.

I don’t think we need the Suikoden series to “continue” any more than we need someone to go out and write a Water Margin 2. I have no idea if Konami is using this release to gauge interest in a proper “reboot” or new sequel, and being honest, I don’t think we need that. Frankly, I’m not even sure we need the rest of the series to be re-released from here (though I also wouldn’t say no to that). We should just appreciate that Suikoden and Suikoden 2 are remarkable achievements, both as literary adaptations and entertaining video games to play, and that quality and worth has not diluted one bit in the years since. Play these, love them, and then do yourself a favour and go and read Water Margin too.

I’m not the world’s biggest SHMUP fan, and I’m not great at the genre, so I struggled to get through Kamikaze Lassplanes. However, the entertaining visual novel side, along with some of the finest, most brazen fan service we’ve seen this side of Senran Kagura, kept me invested. This has been an interesting experiment. We probably won’t see another game quite like this for quite some time.

Head Over Heels: Deluxe also runs like a charm on the Steam Deck, and if you’d told 14-year-old me that I could spend a weekend lying on a sofa playing Head Over Heels, he frankly never would have moved ever again. Maybe it’s a good thing that the Deluxe Remake has taken so long to appear.

It’s always refreshing to come across a narrative that challenges genre norms, while still respecting the genre it belongs to. Him, The Smile & Bloom doesn’t set out to criticise or undermine the otome visual novel, but it does take expectations in a different direction thanks to the way it has been structured. Thanks to that, this is a vibrant and highly enjoyable, intelligent, and thoughtful experience, well worth the price of admission.

If you do remember having good times with Glover back when it was a quirky alternative, then you may well have fun blasting through it again. Anyone else picking it up today for the first time is going to see nothing but a very B-tier platformer that lacks the charisma and creativity that once helped to elevate it over so many of its peers.

Urban Myth Dissolution Center is a novel take on the ADV genre that is worth playing, even if it can be finished within a weekend. It makes you think, and not just when it comes to solving a case: its commentary on society, social media and the genesis of urban myths has left an impression on me after finishing the game, along with that spectacular ending.

Yu-Gi-Oh! has come a long way in the years since these titles, both as a card game to play (many might argue that it’s too complex now) and as something to adapt to video games. This collection is a lot of nostalgic fun to remember the simpler times, but is also important to understand just how limited these games are. It would be like if EA put together a retro compilation of its FIFA football games. Sure, you’d have a rush of nostalgic delight loading up the GBA game that you spent months playing back in the day, but it would only take one or two matches to realise that nostalgia has a habit of warping memories and not all classic video games are timeless. Some are. Konami’s Castlevania collections show that. I fully expect the impending Suikoden collection to be a similar story. These, however, are not.

Shujinkou is a genuinely worthwhile language tool wrapped up in a genuinely worthwhile indie Etrian Odyssey-style dungeon crawler. It’s an inspired, intelligent idea and I hope people give it a chance despite being as indie as they come. On sheer ambition and creative energy, I would be hard-pressed to point to anything I have ever played that’s more impressive than this.

Never 7: The End of Infinity and Ever 17: The Out of Infinity are both very different experiences, but both are worth picking up because they give you an insight into one of the auteurs of our industry. Kotaro Uchikoshi has a rare talent for bringing a literary quality to his projects, and with these two we get to see what he was like at the beginning of his career. That’s a treat that you shouldn’t miss.

The score you’ll see right below here is more reflective of where I think the game will end up than where it is right now, but Big Ant’s earned the benefit of the doubt and until they fail to deliver, I’ll continue to give it to them.

Rugby Challenge doesn’t really have licenses (aside from Jonah Lomu). It has teams – both domestic and international, but the rosters are made up, kits and logos are generic, and nothing that could be considered a licensable brand is in there. You’ll need to spend a lot of time in the editor just converting names, let alone trying to massage the team to actually look approximate to anything in the real world...If licenses don’t matter too much to you, though, then there’s a basic, but halfway reasonable game of rugby available in Rugby Challenge 4. It’s not going to be something that you spend hundreds of hours with, but for some quick play, it scratches an itch.

Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog has made a great impression on me because of the characters, the narrative, and how everything is so detailed. The gameplay and text create a frantic experience, contrasting with the laid-back visual novel style. It sure had my heart pounding and my brain in overdrive! Yes, I have some gripes about the controls and timed events, but those things haven’t stopped me from enjoying the other, more prominent aspects of the game. The series has promise, and I’m very curious about where Space Colony Studios goes with this anthology series.

What you need to know is that the frame rate is up to the task the action throws at it, and the controls are slick and feel really good. You’re a fast and ridiculously competent hero, and the power fantasy in this game is very real. Koei Tecmo no doubt developed this quickly after seeing how popular Vampire Survivors is, and while it’s not exactly pushing boundaries, the team has done a great job bringing its exceptional Warriors properties to the formula. This is a game I’ll be returning to for quite some time, as stress relief if nothing else.

If the next evolution of the Yakuza franchise is more of these thematic crossovers, smaller, experimental titles and playful spin-offs, I’m all for it. Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii proves that the previous Like a Dragon Ishin was no fluke. Ryu Ga Gotoku is clearly comfortable bringing these iconic characters to any creative setting and location, and going forward the sky’s the limit. Perhaps literally. I wouldn’t put it past them to have Goro Majima waking up on a moon base next.

Nothing about Trails Through Daybreak 2 dampens my enthusiasm for the series as a whole. I will be playing the next one the moment it’s available. This is one of the more disappointing Legend of Heroes titles, given that its biggest failing – the narrative – is typically what you want to play this series for – but even on a bad day The Legend of Heroes is a more interesting and entertaining vision and project than most JRPGs can aspire to be.

For now, though, I think it’s pretty telling that while Civilization VII certainly costs a pretty penny, I’ve already found myself going back to play VI when I want to play something that I enjoy. It’s simply not inspiring me, and given that this series above all others has, in a very real sense, shaped my lifelong interest in history, being uninspiring is perhaps the worst mistake Firaxis could have made.

Sugoro Quest: Dice Heroes can be a fun game, albeit a frustrating and unfair one. With that said, I won’t blame you if you decide to rely on save states while playing. Now onward and roll for great justice!

Hello Kitty Island Adventure is one of those games that could only come from Japanese culture. There aren’t many other cultures that see an inherent spirit and soul in a mascot, and to most of the rest of us, mascots are tools to use for branding and marketing, or otherwise become famous because of their association with a product like a film or a game (hello Mario and Mickey Mouse). It’s rare that a mascot IS the product. But that’s what has happened with Hello Kitty. Before today, most Kitty games came across as a cheap effort to extract more cash from that lucrative product, but Hello Kitty Island Adventure is different. This is a genuinely worthwhile use of your time, and the fact that it’s also free of predatory microtransactions is the sweetener on top.

The big selling point of Kingdom Come Deliverance II is also its biggest potential drawback. You’ve got to be genuinely interested in the history that it depicts to find it immersive. I do wonder whether some people will come in expecting a Skyrim-like or a first-person Witcher experience and end up disappointed with this. It’s not that kind of game. It’s far more grounded and gritty, but if reading Tolstoy or Yoshikawa appeals to you, then Kingdom Come Deliverance II is very much for you.

Neptunia Riders Vs. Dogoos is frustrating. For fans of the series, it’s fun and hits all the right notes. It’s just over way too quickly and the developers missed a real opportunity to make this a dynamite multiplayer experience. It’s also so totally reliant on appealing to existing fans that it’s going to completely fail to find a new audience for the broader Hyperdimension property. It could have been so much more for all audiences, but as it is will simply be a fun little spinoff while we continue to wait for the next big step forward for this delightful series and its characters.

There’s not too much in the designs that you won’t have seen in just about every single platform game out there, so you get your requisite forest levels, ice levels, factory levels and so on – but it all hangs together well.

I wanted to like Love Too Easily more than the game let me. There are a lot of good ideas and noble intent in there. It’s just let down by what I will put down to creative inexperience.

Freedom Wars is one of the smarter and shaper takes on the Monster Hunter formula. While Capcom’s series is certainly more refined and well-produced, there’s enough intelligence and sound enough concept and philosophy within Freedom Wars that helps to elevate it. It might only ever be a “cult classic,” but then again they say the same about David Lynch films. Sometimes a “cult classic” is just an intelligent art work that dares go against the grain a little.

The puzzle pieces are often incredibly-well hidden. That would be fine if the game wasn’t perfectly satisfactory without drilling into people that these pieces needed to be found. It’s a sour note to finish with and disappointing because the game is otherwise truly brilliant, but those collectibles are largely why I have given up on the platformer genre. Whatever happened to the idea of building a game where it is fun just to go from one end of the level to the other, and still feel validated that, yes, I’ve finished the game at the end of the last level?... With that gripe out of the way, the Nintendo Switch remaster of this classic platformer is the definitive version of it, and anyone who loved playing it previously is going to love the opportunity to play through it again. If you’re newer to video games… this is an essential modern classic.

Overall, Dynasty Warriors Origins is a big, explosive, and massively entertaining action game, and true to its title, a conscious effort by Koei Tecmo to get back to the qualities that so many people have enjoyed from the series over the years. Lu Bu is terrifying, Sun Shangxiang is history’s greatest tomboy, Zhuge Liang is brilliant, and watching all these stories play out with such energy is just utterly brilliant.

It firmly exists within the Ys series, and just as last year brought us that magnificent remake of Dragon Quest III, here’s an old-timey classic within the action JRPG genre for the people who appreciate it. Not everything needs to be deep and meaningful, and Felghana certainly isn’t that. But it’s easy to appreciate its place within one of the longest-running and most enduring JRPG properties of all time.

I don’t think anyone who looks at Tokyo Clanpool will be under any illusions about whether it’s for them or not. The game wears its charms on its sleeve and delivers a quality and consistently amusing, if somewhat mechanically standard, dungeon crawler behind it. It’s unfortunate that the “censorship” of a small part of it will cost it within the small niche audience for the game, but just know that it’s a far better game than you might see in the user reviews. They’re upset about the removed elements. What’s left there is highly enjoyable if you’re there for a frivolous, silly, charming and funny dungeon-crawling JRPG, rather than the touch-em-up minigame.

Grizzly Man is the best Pixel Pulps game to date, and it is a great way to start a new trilogy; the next two games will be Dark Side Sewers (about a remote viewer) and Possession Junkies (about a Wiccan who is the last of her lineage).

I hate to be the guy railing against a lack of content in a game, but while Riki 8Bit Game Collection was clearly a labour of love, I have to question why this wasn’t released as a music CD or music download instead, because 99% of the experience is in those music players and the Switch is not the ideal place for a music player. There’s less than ten minutes worth of gameplay in this collection, and as good as that music is, I can’t add it to my Apple playlists for working out or enjoying while I’d reading a book. The end result is, sadly, a conceptual misfire.

Basically, Xuan-Yuan Sword: The Gate of Firmament, is an older game and suffers from a poor localisation, but there’s a heart and soul in it that is so earnest and honest that it’s very easy to forgive the game its transgressions. Whether it’s the mixing of fantasy, spiritual philosophy and some of the most ancient recorded history, or the engaging combat system and stunning art direction it’s easy to get lost in this adventure, and full credit to EastAsiaSoft for giving us a second chance to play it.

The long-and-short of Fairy Tail 2 is that it’s a perfectly competent JRPG by one of the true specialists of the genre. It’s not going to be remembered as Gust’s finest work, and is more of a play-and-forget experience. This is a year that has given us everything from Final Fantasy VII Rebirth to Metaphor, a mind-blowingly good remake of Romancing SaGa 2 and, arguably, the finest Yakuza game yet with Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth. In comparison to all of that Fairy Tail’s by-the-numbers approach will seem routine. But it’s also got all the hallmarks we come to expect from Gust – this is comfort food gaming for JRPG enthusiasts, using strong material well. Sometimes, that’s all you need.

We may well never see simulators made in the mould of RollerCoaster Tycoon anymore. To an extent that is understandable – spending hours carefully building a park only to run out of money and see it fall into ruin might be authentic, but it’s not exactly “respecting the player’s time” and providing the dopamine hit that game developers talk about at their conferences these days. For my mind, though, aside from difficulties in trying to make a mouse-only interface from yesteryear work with a modern controller layout, this is the finest simulator available on the Nintendo Switch.

I suspect that because I refuse to pay $500 for a digital dress, my interest in Infinity Nikki will disappear the moment I miss out on getting a particularly attractive costume from one of the limited events. But then I’d be better off just waiting for a Nikki figure to come out with my favourite dress on it instead anyway. I can see myself becoming a big-time collector of Nikki figures, and I love the character and what Nikki represents outside of the monetisation. However, the monetisation is inexcusable, even by the standard of exploitative gatcha games. No video game about collecting dresses is worth more than it would cost to buy the actual dresses in the real world. What’s more, when you let the monetisation undermine everything that the creative side of the game is aiming to achieve and suck the joy out of the fundamental mechanics, you’ve just broken your project.

I don’t like being particularly cruel in reviews, but IronFall Invasion never needed to leave the 3DS. It was bad enough there thanks to its totally worthless storytelling and generic, bland gameplay. With the Switch it doesn’t even have the distinction of being one of the more technically impressive tech demos on the console. It truly has nothing going for it.

It’s hard to shake the feeling that Fantasian was a project designed to give several legends of the JRPG genre closure. By revising their great classic and both modernising and paying homage to it in equal measures, they can look back at their careers with the satisfaction of having completed a full journey of their own. For people that clearly love storytelling so much it’s hard to imagine a better way to finish up.

Perhaps part of the reason I have a higher tolerance for this game is not just that I love the base property, but I also love those old N64 bad 3D platformer efforts. Remember Chameleon Twist on the N64? Probably not, as it didn’t exactly win over the critics and was actually one of the most expensive N64 games. I loved it though. Or what about Glover? Or Bomberman 64? Snow Bros. Wonderland is a bit more modern than those titles, but you’re probably right that it has a dash of that heritage and tradition in it. And so you are probably right that the audience that is going to love Snow Bros Wonderland is vanishingly small. Unfortunately for you, you’ve landed in the middle of a Venn diagram where one circle is “Game Critic” and the other is “Snow Bros. Bro”. And so now your name is going to be attached to a glowing score for the game into perpetuity, because I really did love every moment of this game.

The basic reality is that a work as derivative as Dokimon is lazy. That’s not to say a lot of work wasn’t put into it. I’m sure the developer and whatever team they had spent many, many hours cobbling this together. But it’s creatively lazy and contributes nothing to the monster-taming RPG genre. And so all that work has ultimately gone to waste.

Talisman is really just a glorified game of Snakes and Ladders when it comes to players having the agency to determine the winner. They simply don’t. There’s a lot to like about the presentation and theming of the board game, and unlike its previous Talisman project, Nomad’s done a sparkling job with the presentation and aesthetics of this one. For that reason, it is the definitive version of Talisman out there, but there are just so many board games that were released in the past decade that have ruled Talisman obsolete from a game design perspective, and so many of those have a digital edition too.

Farming Simulator remains an excellent experience. It’s educational, in that you’ll walk away with it with an appreciation for what farmers go through so you can eat. At the same time, once you are familiar with its systems and loops, it becomes laid back and almost meditative for the way you’ll go about what is mechanically a repetitive grind, but aesthetically and thematically a rewarding loop that keeps you both engaged and stress-free. Farming Simulator continues to appear like it should be a mess of paradoxes, yet in action, it just works.

The Devil’s Whisper is so niche that as far as I can tell I’m the first one that’s reviewed it, anywhere. Including user reviews on Steam. It’s a pity that it’s going to fly under the radar like that, because it’s a fun blend of a homage to B-horror movies with its own unique identity. It is also clearly a work that the developers cared about a lot, given the effort that went into designing the narrative and the voice acting. I do think the art has let it down and made it difficult to convert people on the Steam page into buyers, but I recommend looking past that, because this is a decent VN worth your time.

To be frank, here, I don’t think enough was done to make Planet Coaster 2 enough of a sequel. Adding water parks and slides, and more rides in general, were all perfectly rational ways to expand on the Planet Coaster experience, but we’re in an era now where DLC is getting Game of the Year nominations, and I do think that this feels more like a massive DLC drop at 50% of the price of a base game than a new, full-priced game. And as fun as the emerging “Frontier Simulation” formula is I also can’t help but wish that the developers would challenge themselves to try and create an actual simulator at some point. Make something with teeth, folks! You might be surprised just how invested your players get when their decisions have consequences for their parks, too.

Goblin Slayer is a perfectly adequate tactics JRPG that people who have nostalgia for the genre back on the PlayStation will have a particular fondness for. Mileage may be slightly better for the fans of the anime, but even then I think the big problem this game has is that it’s very superficial and shows very little interest in making any kind of statement or point. In other words, it plays exactly like an ‘anime tie-in’ game, and nothing more or less than that.

It has taken me an age to review this game – it was released a month ago – because one of the good things about a slow-paced slice-of-life visual novel is that you can mess around with it in between playing other things, but it has never been far out of my mind as I’ve played it. To fully appreciate it you’ve got to be comfortable with glacial pacing and an earnest attempt to take something that looks like it should be fanservicey and give you something to think about instead. Calibrate your expectations just right and SINce Memories: Off the Starry Sky may just surprise you.

Digital Eclipse is onto something special with its “interactive documentary” approach overall. Atari 50 has become the standard against which all retro compilations should be judged. Additionally, I appreciate the intent and effort that went into Tetris Forever a great deal. I just hate, so much, how licensing has let everyone involved with this effort down.

Dragon Quest III was a pioneer and was very far ahead of its time. The first Final Fantasy had only been released shortly before this game, yet in terms of storytelling, worldbuilding, and themes, Dragon Quest III was much more sophisticated than Square’s inaugural title. The HD-2D engine is just the cherry on top. Thanks to that, this is one of the best retro remakes I’ve ever played.

Yakuza Kiwami is an excellent game, and if this is the start of the entire series making its way to the Switch 2 then it’s still worth having it on the device in the interest of completion. It’s a solid 5-star game that unfortunately is just a bit too much for the Switch to do full justice to.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is an objectively well-made product that is perfectly playable and it’s both empowering and entertaining. But it’s also nothing more than a product, finely tuned for passive consumption, right off the content mill.

To finish with a comparison: A game like Light de Deux highlights what can be achieved when an indie developer properly scopes out their resourcing limitations and works within that. No AI, no case of scope overwhelming the capabilities of the developer. It was a smaller-scale game, but a complete, lovely little thing to actually experience. Lovecraft wrote many smaller-scoped stories and the developers of Innsmouth 22 could have retold. It might have been a better idea for them to work towards Innsmouth 22 over a period of time after first starting with some smaller efforts that would get their creative processes, art assets, and cash flow working first. Sadly first impressions count, and no matter how intriguing the game project, if this developer makes a second I’m going to be much more wary about giving it my time.

I don’t quite think Shin Chan is that bad as Matt makes out, but the tone is jarring, and I do kind of feel that I’d get on just a little better with the core game that’s here without him present – though I’ve little doubt that his presence probably helped shift more than a few copies when Shin Chan: Shiro and the Coal Town first debuted in Japan earlier this year.

Hidden in my Paradise is an exceptional hidden object game that captured my attention for several hours. (And trust me, that is not an easy feat.) You can play whether you have two minutes or two hours to spare. Yes, I have major beef with the controller optimisation or lack thereof, but there is so much to make up for that. The snap aspect, the fine details in the items, the amount of layering of items in the paradises, the art style, the freedom to create levels, and the sheer number of objects have made Hidden in my Paradise a shining example of the genre. I have collected every item and created every snap in every paradise. I have collected every item available. I did the same for the content of the Halloween update. The only thing to do for now is begin anew and hope for more extras.

Ys and I will never be best friends. I love storytelling in my RPGs, and Ys is quite firmly committed to making me press buttons instead. More than ten games into the series and I still wish the developers did something, anything, to make Adol interesting enough to be a frontman that has more entries now than most of the absolute greats of fantasy literature. He’s no Thomas Covenant or Pug, that’s for sure. Still, despite this dispute between myself and the series, I can appreciate what so many others live and why this has become such a cult favourite over so many iterations. No other JRPG property does extreme-paced action as well as Ys, and with Ys X, that quality is supported with a sense of wonder and adventure in the exploration that makes it very difficult to put down.

I don’t usually like marking a game down for bugs, because when the patches come in the review becomes dated. However, Wildermyth really is a bad example of bugs letting the experience down to the point that the game, as wonderful and moreish as it is, is difficult to recommend right now. Add a point to this score in a few months when, in theory, the worst of its crippling bugs have been patched out, and then settle in for the perfect tabletop RPG experience when you haven’t got friends around to play a real session of Dungeons & Dragons with you.

There are 80 tracks to painstakingly unlock in I*CHU, and by the time you have them all, you’ll also have a team of pretty boys who are powerful enough to make hard mode for these tracks playable. At that point, it’s finally a full-scale rhythm game, and indeed more generous with the content than many of the others on the Switch. Unfortunately, it really needed to be redesigned to remove all the mobile game elements from it and leave players with a simple, straightforward, but enjoyable rhythm game. That core heartbeat of I*CHU is a lot of fun and very worthwhile, but it’s let down by an annoying gacha system being kept over from the mobile original (despite no longer costing players anything) and an infuriating series of visual novel “minis” that you need to spend hours in to unlock all the music.

I do wish there was more to Light de Deux, not because it feels incomplete but simply because there really could have been greater ambition behind it. We’re talking about a rare game with dance as the central theme. There was the opportunity there for the developer to really come out with something that had something big to say. Of course, it would also be unfair of me to criticise the game for it, given that we are talking about an independent developer weaving magic out of fumes. Games cost money to make and if you make the most of what you can resouce. In that context, the developer definitely punched above their weight with what they’ve delivered here. I hope that Light de Deux is a success and perhaps, down the track, if they get to the point where they have more resources, they can come back to Susanna and Mark and give us a more fully fleshed-out story about the relationship and experience of being a ballet dancer.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms 8 has a lot going for it. Thanks to the “Tales” feature it’s possibly the most accessible RoTK game to date, easing players in by giving them a clear set of targets to prioritise. Once you’re comfortable with that the depth of strategy and a staggering array of ways to play make for a deep experience with dozens upon dozens of historical play. I still find it odd that Koei Tecmo decided to remake this game, but ultimately I’m glad that it happened.

Square Enix picked an exceptional game to remake, and then did an exceptional job in remaking it. Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is a true epic and a game that comes across as ambitious to this day. While the raw storytelling is a little limited, the concept is strong and compelling, the combat system is tactical and entertaining, and bringing the game into three dimensions means that we can finally see the full scope and vision behind this adventure of generational consequence.

9 R.I.P. is, ultimately, a playful take on urban legends and more akin to that classic film, Ghost, than something more visceral. If you’re out there looking for proper horror with a similar theme, Death Mark 2 is going to be a better recommendation for you. But it’s okay that Otomate didn’t make that game, either. After all, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to get it on with a hot ghost, even if 9 R.I.P. missed the opportunity to make one of these boys look like anime Patrick Swayze.

Neva is what happens when you let actual artists make a game. That we rarely get works like this is depressing, but there’s no sense that anything in Neva was produced according to what a suit thought would be best for the share value. Yes, Neva lacks in subtlety, but it is nonetheless a beautiful, heartfelt and evocative experience. It makes it clear up front that its goal is to make you cry, and even though you know what it’s doing, you are going to cry on cue at the end of it.

Mario Party has been a multiplayer mainstay for me since right back with the original on N64. To this day the first three are on high rotation thanks to the N64 Online app. It’s really lovely to see Nintendo find creative form with Super Mario Party Jamboree by producing something that largely focuses on the basics. The new maps are excellent, the range of minigames is a delight, the bonus modes are fun, and the energy is playful and joyous. I went into this thinking it would be Nintendo’s equivalent to filler leading into the Christmas season. Turns out it was much more than that and this is a major project that everyone that enjoys multiplayer should pick up.

Without a doubt getting the most out of RPG Maker WITH requires a substantial time commitment, and there’s no point to buying the software just to play other people’s games – you can download the demo for that. If, however, you’ve ever had the creative itch to play with this wonderful genre, then the tools couldn’t be easier and you don’t need to know a line of code. Get out there and get creating!

If you’re looking to scratch that EDF itch, Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 is a decent enough way to do it – but EDF 6 is considerably better and more engaging, and that does make it a harder game to recommend. It’s still fun, for sure, because EDF mostly has that pizza-like quality that even when it’s slightly bland and predictable it’s still quite good – but I can’t help but feel that a fully-fledged World Brothers sequel should perhaps have taken its LEGO-like destruction mechanic a little further, or leaned more into the abject silliness of some of your comrades.

We talk a lot about “love letters” to classic games when modern developers make pixel-perfect SNES-era JRPGs, or a developer like Digital Eclipse turns a collection of retro games into a museum-like experience (as in Atari 50). Those are indeed love letters in their own right. But I am now convinced that absolutely no one on the planet loves any video game more than the entire team at Bloober Team loves Silent Hill 2. The amount of analysis that must have gone into understanding every minute detail of the original, and then the loving devotion and commitment to capturing all of it to bring it into modernity unspoiled has made this a uniquely passion project. Boiled down, there’s almost none of Bloober Team that is actually in this game, and yet Bloober Team’s poured everything they had into it. That is nothing short of total reverence to a masterpiece.

It really does have an exceptional narrative that builds on everything that these developers have learned from their time on Persona, with enough depth of theme that the game should encourage people to analyse it for years to come. You might need a big chunk of time to actually play it, but it is worth it.