Yes, it’s incredibly provocative. Yes, it’s incredibly satisfying. Yes, it’s titillating, but in no way does it sacrifice the importance of mechanical mastery for shock value. Takaki has created a beast that caters to some pretty specific tastes, and the unapologetic delivery of the franchise’s latest offering should be admired regardless of whether or not your idea of a good time involves busty Japanese girls.

Hyrule Warriors Legends isn’t as technically impressive as the original release on the Wii U, but it stands out as a true highlight among portable Warriors games.

Nubla is a work of art based on many other works of art. It is able to capture the feel of the very museum it is based on, it allows anyone to come along and pick it up. The ability to explore the game at their own pace without dragging out too long is appreciated. It is a beautiful, calming game that many should try out. Many will probably buy it for the quick Platinum trophy, but hopefully once they're in they discover something that makes them sit back and reflect too.

This is a big download to have sitting on the iPad, but it's well worthwhile, both in terms of sheer quantity, as well as the quality of the game's mechanics.

Hacknet is a beautiful example of compelling non-linear storytelling. While it is still a game about hacking, it is far more about solving the mystery around Bit's death using the tools he (she?) has given you. Combining an enthralling story with a truly impressive learning curve and a stellar soundtrack, Hacknet is definitely something special.

The Golf Club Collector's Edition is a very polished version of the game that came out last year. It has all of the necessary patches, some new tools, a great new tropical theme and a season mode that I personally had been pining for.

Paper Mario is such an eclectic and generally experimental series that it's difficult to define what makes a good entry in it. Some people like the specific combat systems that the series plays with. Others enjoy Mario in the JRPG context. For me it's the sense of humour that's important. On that basis I couldn't be happier with The Origami King. I feel that there will be discussion about that ring-based combat system and some of the world design elements, but through it all I do think that most people will be too busy enjoying the deadpan, dry, droll and refreshing humour that they won't care about much else. This is a fine return to form for Paper Mario at what it does best.

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 real question with Archetype Acadia is whether it justifies its length. With 1.6 million words in it, it’s three times the length of The Lord of the Rings. Or to mention another post-apocalyptic, dark tale filled with moral conflict, Archetype Acadia is roughly 26 times longer than Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. While it’s an imperfect comparison to make between visual novels and novels (by their nature, VNs do need to be longer), there’s just no reason that Archetype Acadia needed to be that long. It’s good, and at times even great, but slimming it down and focusing on delivering greater intensity through the art and story beats could have elevated this game to the highs of the genre.

Monster Hunter Generations might not be a true sequel due to its similarities to Monster Hunter 4 and the many call backs to earlier games in the series. That being said, Generations does make some excellent design choices as it highlights everything that has made the series great, added some new mechanics to help keep things fresh and provides the biggest and best Monster Hunter experience yet.

Minit is a truly special game from Devolver Digital. One of those rare games that executes a new idea in a truly special way. Every sixty second period was a brand-new adventure filled with a sense of wonder.

There’s something for every sports game fan in there, and the overall package is of immense overall value. The problem EA has is that in trying to supply an ever-growing range of tastes, what its adding to the package for existing fans, who already have preferred gameplay modes, is really quite limited.

For strategy gaming veterans, Motorsport Manager will just feel right. There are a myriad of meaningful choices embedded into each part of the game, meaning that lovers of micromanagement will find themselves at home in Playsport Games’ take on the manager genre.

It’s just a really nicely designed and executed game. I don’t think Ariana and the Elder Codex will be the kind of experience that sits in people’s memories for months and years after finishing it. I also don’t think that it’ll be something people are recommending and writing essays on a decade from now. It’s a bright, charming game made for easy consumption right now, and sometimes that’s all you need.

A great re-introduction to a new King’s Quest series. The beautiful scenery, the interesting characters, the unique and fascinating narrative all come together to create a heart-warming title anyone can enjoy.

Unrelentingly simple and yet uncontrollably addictive, Absolute Drift is a comfort game in every sense of the term.

What it does have, though, is an excellent example of a roguelike formula largely done right, with great loot loops and an upgrade path that doesn’t make you feel like you’ve taken too many steps backwards every time you “die” and need to start a new run. And, hey. The pretty and sassy robot girls are the cherry on top.

The appeal of Langrisser I & II is quite limited, and I don't think it's going to grab the attention of the Fire Emblem new converts that the developer was probably hoping to. With that being said, for the nostalgic, and people who like their traditional tactics JRPGs, there's a lot to like here. The re-drawn art is lovely, and while the narrative is a little too heavy on the shallow and cliche, the focus on the battlefield tactics action is certainly a refreshing shift from Fire Emblem's increasingly bold pivot towards being a waifu and husbando simulator.

Doki Doki Literature Club (and this Plus version) is both a homage and a challenge. It’s a homage in the way it delightfully plays with the dating visual novel genre – sure, it ends up subverting that to horrific effect, but there’s such glee in how it does that that hugely entertaining. On the other hand, it’s also a challenge – a suggestion that the genre can be a bit more reflective, look for ways to approach things differently, and that there is a lot that this genre can do with characterisation and relationship dynamics. The director has been outspoken that the initial seed of Doki Doki Literature Club from his “love/hate” relationship with anime and VNs. There’s much more of the love in there, I think, but developers making games in this genre should certainly play this game to encourage them to think about the structure of their own work from a different angle.

A game that is from start to finish filled with difficult choices, and demands multiple replays in order to fully appreciate all of the different possible paths through the narrative.

This combat system is a lot of fun. Each character does have distinct abilities and a role in the battlefield, and the action is fast enough that you’ll need to think quickly as you play. The crowning achievement of combat is the super attacks that you work towards (usually in time for the boss battles).

The most impressive thing to me about Guitar Hero Live is the way the developers have breathed new life into a series that became notorious for doing the same thing over and over again.

While there are a lot of standard features for its genre, God Eater 3 is far from standard. Where once this was one of the genre's pretenders, sitting quietly on handheld consoles and developing a small, but dedicated audience, it now looks like Bandai Namco has a series that belongs with Toukiden and Monster Hunter at the very front of the stage.

Dialing the difficulty up also provides a real test of anyone's management abilities. So look past the satirical elements of Tropico 5. The humour is there, and it's funny, but the real strength of this series - especially with Sim City falling off the map completely in recent years - is that it plays so, so well.

In flicking back through my notes on House of Ashes, I find that I have been more negative on it in this review than I remember feeling from my time playing it. It is a highly enjoyable experience and hard to put down. It might not be as spooky as I’d like from a horror game, and it might not play the way I think it should given the type of horror the developers were aiming for, but ultimately, holding the lives of a bunch of delinquent characters in my hands and deliberately letting them fall to their proverbial (or perhaps literal) deaths will never fail to be a (ghoulishly) good time.

And there's some lovely sketches taken straight from the Fighting Fantasy original book that are sprinkled through the game that help to visualise the action.

I’d kill for a Jackbox Party Pack launcher, from which I could launch whichever games in packs I already owned during gaming sessions, rather than having to both remember which pack they were in and then launch that pack’s interface. In fact, I’d pay for just that alone, Jackbox Games. How about it?

Left Alive is a bundle of genuinely brilliant ideas, let down by frequently shoddy execution. A resoundingly anti-war war game, with a deep understanding of the way that war complicates personal and societal morality, Left Alive asks all the right questions that a game about war should. It also does a great job of making that sense of survival as desperate as it should. If only there was the technical competence behind it, to support those great ideas.

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is a superb blockbuster game that hits its brief perfectly. It shows a meticulous eye for detail, throws one brilliant action set piece after another at the player, and is the best showcase yet for the PlayStation 5 hardware. Sure, it's as shallow as a pool of water on Venus, but I've no doubt people coming to this game are simply looking for a vividly entertaining product, and that's exactly what they'll get.

If you can handle the corners that were cut due to the budget, then Thymasia’s combat system is worth it all on its own. The game’s intriguingly dark setting and the exquisitely dark theme are more than good enough to pay attention to as well. There are certainly things that the development team could do with a sequel if this generates enough revenue to build on the foundations that they’ve created, but the earnestness that went into making this one distinctive from the other “Souls clones” is worthwhile either way.

In some ways, Destroy All Humans! shows its age, being a remake of a game that's now 15 years old, in a genre that's grown a lot in those years. But it's also got a sense of humour and parody of American life that feels more relevant today than when the original game first came out. That's a depressing reflection on the state of the world today, but it also means that the satire that underpins everything else in the game hits harder than the original creators ever could have imagined.

Reading back through this review it sounds negative, but that’s because I’m coming to it from the perspective of someone who generally plays single-player and is passionate about the skill tester side of rhythm games. Samba de Amigo is one of those rare rhythm games that isn’t expressly for me. I do love its quality as a party game, and a drinking game, and so it’ll stay firmly in my Switch’s memory. It’s just that, even despite the cracking soundtrack, it’s also not going to join the rotation of rhythm games I use to de-stress and tune out of the world with.

If you want an otome game that isn't quite as dense as Otomate's usual fare, you can't go wrong with Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly. Between the mysterious thriller at the game's heart and the romantic side stories, this is a game that kept me turning page after figurative page.

Hue is a very special experience. Imagine taking some of the best bits of Braid and Thomas Was Alone and intertwining them into an equally amazing package and you get Hue. Hue deserves everyone’s attention and it also deserves a collector’s edition release.

Once you’re into the right mindset though, this is a game which will capture your attention and keep you guessing even after the credits have rolled.

Journey to the Savage Planet ticks all the right boxes. It gets its core play loops right, and it respects the player's time - you'll clock it at 15 or so hours if you're not too concerned with collecting everything along the way. I had a good time in both single player and co-op, and for something that is so foreign to the kind of games I usually play, that this one hooked me in speaks to its X-factor. For all the good, however, the game's a complete misfire as a narrative experience.

For its strengths and its faults, I kept finding myself drawn back to the game’s evocative narrative all the way through. Even after the open world shenanigans and tedious emphasis on combat wore me down, I carried on at the thought of finding out more about characters who at that point were starting to feel like real people. And at the centre of it all, is Deacon St. John – a callous, cold-blooded ex-biker ex-military mercenary, but he’s got an enormous heart, and that makes all the difference. The whole game is a joy to play, because of the optimism which he and his friends build up over the course of what is otherwise a bleak and empty landscape. And this is more than a fitting summary for Days Gone – a zombie game in 2019 featuring open-world mechanics we’ve all seen before – but like Deadon, the team at Bend Studio have got an enormous hearts, and, just like with Deacon, that makes all the difference.

I'm not the world's biggest fan of shooters, but I have a soft spot for Serious Sam. It's partly because it exists to make fun of the rest of the genre, and do so in a colourful, easy-going way such that it's the equivalent of a Sunday morning cartoon. It's also all-action, but in the right way. I find more realistic shooters stressful when I'm being swamped from all sides, but Serious Sam does such a great job with the power fantasy that you'll look at a screen filled with 100 ugly beasties... and wish they had brought friends. I enjoyed getting re-acquainted with Serious Sam earlier in the year with the collection. With Serious Sam 4 I have a game that should have done better on the PlayStation 5 hardware, but is a new favourite shooter anyway.

It is lovely and refreshing to play a digital card game that isn't so desperate to be the next big thing in esports that it tears whatever heart and soul it might have had right out of the experience. I walked into The Lord of the Rings: Adventure Card Game fully expecting yet another attempt to "do Hearthstone" on the Nintendo Switch. I walked away thoroughly impressed with how completely the game surprised me.

The story and characters that Arcade Spirits presents are wonderful and days after beating it are still floating around in my head. Arcade Spirits packages a lot in its six hour journey and is an example of how a game designed to be inclusive game can be done right.

A truly classy, inventive game.

After being disappointed with Paradox Paradigm I am thrilled that Lover Pretend was a big bounce back to form, both in my perception of Otomate, and the localiser, Aksys. While the first impression is that this one is going to make incest a core theme and that’s going to be simply plain unpleasant for (almost) anyone, the good news is that it soon settles down into a rather comfortable reflection on celebrity, the filmmaking process, and, of course, romance.

The way the video game industry treats World War 2 is terrible. Headquarters: World War 2 is a good, fast-moving and tactically interesting strategy game. But it is yet again treading over the same selective memory of World War 2, and doing so without a critical or contemplative eye. As well-made as it is, it’s not really doing much to help it stand out from the million other WW2-based games where you get to shoot Nazis as American and British soldiers.

Whether you enjoy raising monsters, slaying them, or adventuring across vast lands with your pals, you’ll find something to hold your attention in this game, and who knows? You may even come to find yourself loving every little bit of this adventure.

This is one of the finest JRPGs on the iPad, with production values that equal, if not exceed, other 2D animated masterpieces such as Dragon's Crown or Child of Light. It's a game that will more appeal to players who grew up with JRPGs on the Super Nintendo and so appreciate the lost of art minimalist narrative exploration, but it is nevertheless a tight, strategic, and deeply enjoyable JRPG that I hope spins into something much more grand as the revenue starts rolling in from this first release.

If you’re going to play Farpoint, then be absolutely sure that you get the lightgun. It adds everything to the experience, making the game one of the most immersive and fundamentally enjoyable shooters that I’ve ever played.

In the off chance that you're interested in seeing what the most serious of strategy games look like, then here's a perfect exhibit A for you.

Potion Permit is twee. It’s sweet and charming, and made with love. The developers were also successful in finding a new take on the Moon-like rural life sim, and Atelier fans in particular are going to enjoy this crossover. The combat is the only real misfire, and thankfully it’s never present enough to make the rest of the experience taste sour.

Cygni: All Guns Blazing is a SHMUP with some seriously high production values behind it. For a genre that is usually quite niche, seeing something that pitches higher like this is impressive. It’s not always perfect – the budget spent on the cut scenes was a noble idea that ultimately misfired – but once you’re into the thick of the swirling maelstrom of activity, it’s hard to be disappointed with what the developers have achieved.

My only recommendation is that if you're coming to this looking for multiplayer fun, consider buying copies for friends too, because from day one the community for the game has been fairly limited.

If you take Radiant Tale – Fanfare! as professional-grade fanservice to simply have fun with, it’s difficult to be disappointed with it. After all, as I noted with Radiant Tale, this is one of Idea Factory’s more charming and enjoyable visual novels in recent years, and as the saying goes “a little is good, and more is better!”

Mallow Drops is a fun, unique little puzzle game that offers up plenty of charm and challenge. It is not the longest of games, as it can be beaten in a handful of hours or so, but I found it to be very approachable and something I could pick up and play for fifteen minutes to advance a couple of levels and then come back to it later as desired.

It's a clean, snappy, hugely entertaining game, and an excellent next step forward for the emerging property. You'll want to have a high tolerance for fan service, but it's a Compile Heart game and you should already know full well what to expect going in. What's important is that it's all executed so well that Azur Lane ends up being too charming to put down, and there's more waifu bait in this one than any other game you'll play in 2020.

There's no doubt that Mario Party Superstars was a hasty project, pulled together to capitalise on the party season and keep the run-rate ticking over for Nintendo with a new release. It's hard not to look at a selection of boards that accounts for just a quarter of what was present in the first three Mario Party titles and not think that this is less a "superstars" package but rather a rather cynical sampler. Still, what is there is excellent quality, and if you've got Christmas parties and family events on the horizon then you will likely get a lot of value out of this game. Just don't spill beer on your controller. They don't make 'em as tough as they were back on the N64.

Neverwinter Nights 2 is an artifact of its time, and today straddles a somewhat uncomfortable spot where it’s not quite so nostalgic that it feels “retro” while at the same time, the games industry is now producing far more complex and nuanced narratives, in particular. With that being said, as a stand-in for getting a group together to play some tabletop Dungeons & Dragons, it’s difficult to look past this. Basically, it’s the right kind of kitsch.

There’s no denying that Marvelous can make a game, but to make a mech simulator of this calibre... That I didn't expect. I was pleasantly surprised and Daemon X Machina is proof of just how well Marvelous can execute on great ideas. With the Armored Core series currently on hold, the void of its absence can finally be filled with this highly customisable and equally story-driven experience.

The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker’s hook, for me, remains the need to take over as a psychiatrist. It’s not as easy as sitting comfortably and saying things like, “and how does that make you feel?” As Doctor Dekker’s replacement you are toeing the line between your patients’ sanity and insanity, having to decipher clues in their personality or stories to gain insight into what to ask. The supernatural, Cthulhu-centric story behind the game is also a shining point that has led me to finally break my hesitancy to read Lovecraft. Your own sanity comes into question.

Studio Evil have served us up our order and I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to see what they have planned for dessert.

The developer deserves props for doing something genuinely interesting in a staid genre. Shadows: Awakening is familiar enough, but it has some enjoyably unique mechanics that help to elevate it, and a world to explore that's genuinely captivating. It would be great to see the developer get a chance to do more with this franchise.

The world has seen better visual novels. We've experienced smarter and deeper narratives, and we've seen games that effectively meld visual novel convention with gameplay elements to push the boundaries of what this genre is capable of. But since it's set in a patisserie, let's use this analogy to explain why Nekopara Vol 3 is so worthwhile: a title like Steins;Gate, Death Mark or Utawarerumono is like having a Kobe wagyu beef steak. It's the most succulent, delicious thing you've ever eaten. Nekopara is like having a crepe, filled with cream and sweet fruits; you're going to be on your death bed saying "I'm so glad I didn't miss out on that in my life," but you're going to enjoy the hell out of eating it anyway.

The universe of Genesis is vibrant, with distant systems lighting the ship with a beautiful sci-fi glow, and the aliens representing a full intriguing gamut from cockroach-like beasts through to humanoid aliens. This is the kind of game that people who dream of crafting their own space exploration stories, without being dragged through any particular forced narrative, will absolutely love.

There are dozens and dozens of different elemental monsters to discover, and that’s half the joy of the game. The other half is the bright charm and personality of Alchemic Jousts. It’s not the deepest strategy game you’ll ever play, but it’s one of the most charming that you’ll see for some time to come.

Kill la Kill is an anime licensed tie-in fighter done well, and given how frequently these turn out to be terrible that in itself is a relief. It's fast, it's furious, it's explicit and fanservicey, and it is outright hilarious in its satire. The developers have nailed every element of Kill la Kill that needed to be done right, and I can't imagine fans wanting anything more from this particular game.

Dungeons 3 looks and plays simply compared to some of the other strategy games out there, but there’s a definite depth of challenge to the game that, coupled with its sense of humour and excellent co-op mode, make for the perfect game to kick back with on a lazy weekend afternoon and some beers. It’s hard not to love it for that.

It is not quite the revolutionary title people were hoping for, but Watch Dogs is still an excellent game in its own right.

It’s fun, mostly fluid and packed with content… as long as you ignore the money-making My Faction mode entirely.

Gears of War 4 is the best game in the series so far with more likable characters and a better and more well-written story. The story of friendship and family fits well with the summer blockbuster style that the series has always strived for. Full of action, some humour and maybe even a few scares thrown in with the mix, more than anything else it looks like The Coalition is determined to mature the Gears franchise, and that is hardly a bad thing at all.

Incredible Mandy is a great example of design by subtraction, focusing on puzzle-solving and atmosphere and eschewing mechanics which do not contribute to the developer’s singular vision. The result is a game which evokes a particularly introspective sensation in the player – if they are able to afford the game their patience and attention despite the lack of combat or narrative tension, then they will be met with rewarding puzzles and a comforting mood. If this sounds like just what you need to unwind, then Incredible Mandy will be a game you are sure to regard with fondness.

Many will say that Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 isn’t as great as the first collection. While the first seems to have had a bit more attention to detail in it, this collection is still a great way to explore the Mega Man games of yesteryear. I am crossing all of my body parts hoping that we see a third collection containing the likes of the Game Boy games, Mega Man & Bass and Wily Wars, as I have enjoyed every minute of Mega Man Legacy Collection 2, despite missing a few key features found in the first collection.

If you’re able to settle into Realms of Arkania’s rhythm and allow it to engage with your imagination, there is an awful lot of nostalgic joy to derive from something so wonderfully classic as this.

Madden NFL 17 is not a perfect game. You still have a handful of oddball AI and animation moments, but they are far fewer between than in years past and this year's iteration delivers a much more authentic experience than any football game has to date. Is Madden NFL 17 worth upgrading to if you already own last year's version? I believe so as it is a step forward in just about every area and there were no discernible steps backwards.

While I would prefer to see Bandai Namco at least try and do something to modernise the series, it’s difficult to really criticise it for sticking to beloved tradition. And as long as the narratives continue to be as enjoyable as they are, it’s really quite easy to forgive each new game its flaws anyway.

One of the highest quality board games on the iPad. Pathfinder fans are probably itching for a ‘real’ game, in the vein of Dragon Age, but in the meantime, this is a good start to the digital side of the IP.

I genuinely didn’t know that I wanted Golden Tee Arcade Classics until it was released, and now I fully expect to be one of my most played games with Nintendo does its annual “what did you play” wrap. It’s challenging, it’s rewarding, it’s nostalgic and, as strange as the entire project is, it’s so very entertaining. I now know what the Simpsons’ excellent Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge was parodying, and like so many of the best Simpsons jokes, it’s making fun of a very fine thing indeed.

Guilty Gear Xrd Revelator is a fantastic fighting package offering lots to love for both series fans and newcomers alike. This is a flashy, modern fighter which boasts both gameplay depth and an anachronistic punk aesthetic.

If you consider yourself an adult, say anywhere between the ages of 18 and yet-to-expire, I dare say that you are burdened by an inner-child, a nostalgic whisper that reminds of a simpler lifestyle, fantastical expectations, and games that made you feel adventurous, alive.

The pacey, stylish, and colourful action, complemented with the neat strategy elements and interesting - albeit high-energy narrative, combine to make The Princess Guide quite unlike the other JRPGs out there.

Nihilumbra is a game that really anybody can enjoy, it’s just a shame that they hid the difficult levels behind the story mode. That being said, it’s worth a play through for the narrative alone; a strong, and somewhat emotional reflection on the player and how they exist within their own world.

It’s odd that the fighting game about pokemon would turn out to be one of the better examples of a competitive fighting game, but the balance and mechanics of the game are just that; you’ll have a bit of fun with it if you play it casually, but the more seriously you take it, the greater the longevity that you’ll get out of it.

An RPG that is more about building an army and then leading it into battle is in many ways so much more interesting than an RPG where you’re in control of a one-man army and in pursuit of personal power. I only hope that the release of this game, now, means that there is more Mount & Blade coming, because there really is nothing else like it out there.

If we were too look at 3DS version in isolation, it does miss the point of why people play Smash Bros. in the first place.

Just enough has been done to preserve the spirit of the original games while making these entries feel like a legitimate part of the current Pokémon ecosystem. Game Freak and Nintendo have taken the main Pokémon franchise about as far is it can go, short of actually evolving it.

There are plenty of reasons to avoid buying ports of mobile games on Steam, but The Room is the exception to that rule. So many of these games feel like a quick cash-grab, but I am happy to say that The Room is not one of them.

Just enough has been done to preserve the spirit of the original games while making these entries feel like a legitimate part of the current Pokémon ecosystem. Game Freak and Nintendo have taken the main Pokémon franchise about as far is it can go, short of actually evolving it.

For those who have played and loved any of the tabletop games over the years that have been based on Lovecraft’s mythos – the tabletop miniatures game that Cthulhu Tactics itself is based on, for example, or Arkham Horror, or the legendary Call of Cthulhu pen-and-paper RPG, Cthulhu Tactics does a remarkable job of capturing that same aesthetic and sense of overwhelming challenge. This game is well and truly worth a look.

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.

The part of me fascinated by the supernatural and cryptozoology loves this game. The part of me that still has those high school type emotions loves this game. The part of me that reads romance novels loves this game. The part of me that enjoys visual novels loves this game. Put all those parts together, and it’s safe to say that I love this game. I’m felt feelings that I haven’t felt since high school, since my first love 20 years ago. It’s quite the wild ride.

None of the characters or situations in Coffee Talk are simple or black-and-white. Rather, the world is a beautiful, complicated shade of grey. People aren't "good" or "bad," they're just trying to do their best. The message is hopeful. The pace is soothing. The music is well-suited to the environment. Coffee Talk really delivers on all fronts, and even offers more game time post-story. Now, it's time for me to return to my customers, I think the orc has arrived...

The original White Day is one of my favourite horror games. It’s clumsy and clunky, but it had the right energy and really had a lot of creative ideas going for it. I am disappointed that White Day 2 is relatively unambitious and struggles to have its own identity. It’s still an awful lot of fun and I much prefer it to the big action “horror” games that want to be action shooters with ugly monsters. While I found White Day 2 to be an admirable commitment to a more classical form of horror, I was just hoping for something with a little more impact behind it.

As with the main Danganronpa games, there’s a number of serious subtexts to Ultra Despair Girls, and actually digging into these themes makes it clear that the game’s a lot smarter than it might appear at first.

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.

Dark Alliance II is an excellent way to spend some time and a game that, in its vinyl vintage years, continues to be entertaining for reasons beyond nostalgia. If you’re looking for a “Diablo-like” with some interesting level design, a streamlined and efficient approach to questing, and some great water effects (seriously), then you’ll get a good run out of this one.

DiRT 4 does a remarkable job of creating a sense of speed.

It’s certainly a more thoughtful, methodical game than something like Monaco, but with patience, Mouldy Toof and Team17 will have you feeling like a real master of escape.

A great effort, overall. Don’t let this one disappear in the swill of shovelware on the Switch’s online store.

HAL Laboratory may not be innovating here, but they’ve once again delivered an incredibly polished platformer that should appeal to all. Those looking for some cooperative fun will definitely want to check it out, as there are few better reasons to separate the Nintendo Switch’s Joy-Cons.

Normally when I review a game, I play, I write, and I’m done. Cat Café Manager is different: I fully intend to continue playing it for many more hours. A terrible saying is that variety is the spice of life, and this game provides a lot of variety via the choices players can make with regards to progression. The cats are great, of course, but the real fun here is running the café and learning the town’s story. Aside from some fairly minor issues, such as my qualms with building, I always came away from Cat Café Manager with a smile on my face.

I am an Air Traffic Controller – Airport Hero Haneda is a simple, straightforward and clean simulation game, with a healthy hit of challenge and some delightful presentational qualities for the target audience (people that like airports and plains). It’s an incredible niche game and, without a doubt, most people will look at it and wonder what the appeal is. The tiny audience that will click with it, however, will absolutely love it.