This is a game which taught me to love the feeling of being lost, and I’m sure it’s one I will return to for a long time.

If I had to sum everything up in one thought, it would be to stop what you’re doing and dive into the Deadfire archipelago. With brilliant storytelling, character development, places to see and many ways in order to do what is needed, there’s no shortage of adventure to be had. Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire is a fantastic experience and honestly should be a must for any admirers or lovers of the RPG genre.

The teams behind these Warriors games are also clearly comfortable with the Nintendo Switch as a piece of hardware, and One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3 might be three years old now, but the Switch “ultimate edition” really is the ultimate edition.

An interesting, albeit incredibly hard, journey. It's a game made for people who are willing to play and replay the same levels over and over again because they simply won't let it beat them, and while that might be a niche audience today, it's hard to argue that Cast of the Seven Godsends doesn't do it in style.

Hello Kitty Kruisers isn't a great game from an adult's perspective, and that's a bit of a wasted opportunity as there are plenty of adult Kitty fans out there. But where most games made for children are brutally bad, I don't think Kruisers is that. In fact, I think the developers have cleverly stripped back the elements of a kart racer that children struggle with, while leaving the elements that they're inclined to enjoy. And for parents that are dragged into playing this with their kids, just think; soon enough they'll graduate to Mario Kart.

There is no respect from the developer in this game. Not for the genres, nor for the time that the game asks of its players. There is no greater insult that an artist can direct at their audience.

It really is little more than a direct port of a really wonderful game, with only the most superficial of enhancements. That being said, Dragon’s Crown Pro is a direct port of a really wonderful game, and it’s still the most sublime, brilliant fun, and it only gets better the more people you share it with.

Time After Time had me on the edge of my seat—it wasn't just the novelty of hearing English swears transliterated in Japanese dialogue. This is a game with so much to say, and such a creative way of saying it, that I couldn't put it down.

Ultimately, TurbOT is a game with interesting ideas held down by very poor execution.

Timberman Vs is such a confused and poorly thought out game, I wouldn't recommend it if it was free (and it is free on the iPhone anyway).

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.

A strong contender for my favourite game in 2018 to date.

It's time to broaden the horizons, but in the meantime, Half-Genie Hero Ultimate Edition is as good as platformers get on the Nintendo Switch.

Late Shift is still enjoyable enough.

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is delightful and easy to recommend. As I mentioned in my original review of the game, as flawed as I find them to be, I enjoy the personality and tone of the Donkey Kong games more than any other platformers out there. That still holds mostly true to this day. Though I now do turn to Shantae as my primary source of bouncy fun, I’ll always jump at the chance to get some more Donkey Kong on. I’ve greatly enjoyed the chance to play through Tropical Freeze again, though as one of the few that does own a Wii U, and a copy of that game I’ve got to also accept that I’m not really the target audience for such a vanilla porting effort.

While the loot grind is generally enjoyable, and the randomised missions help keep the missions from becoming rote, Sky Rogue does struggle to give you a reason to care about any of it.

Saturday Morning RPG is enjoyable. It's a clean, cheap, pleasant RPG for people who either grew up in the 80s, or have developed an appreciation for what passed as entertainment back then. Either way, the heavy reliance on nostalgia does wear thin and lose its comedic appeal, and from there you're only left with a workable, but very limited, turn based combat system, and not much more.

Unless you really love the music of BlazBlue (and you might be better off purchasing a soundtrack if that’s the case), it’s pretty difficult to recommend Eat Beat DeadSpike-san. It’s a polished rhythm game with a really enjoyable look to it, but there’s just little replayability for a genre that is built upon that principle. This certainly won’t give anyone their Elite Beat Agents fix, but it does show that the touch-based rhythm games are right at home on the portable.

This game is memorable. It's one I'm going to keep referencing back to, both as an example of really clean, effective writing, and an intelligent concept executed with startling precision. It works as discussion on social interactions, the role technology has on our lives, and a critique of the increasing reliance we have on social media. It's superb, different, and an essential experience.

In contrast to its beautifully elegant and minimalist cousin, Proteus, which I referred to at the start, Rememoried is hauntingly beautiful and has a far greater depth of emotional substance. But it is begging us, as players, a little to hard to embrace it and recognise its genius.

By building upon universal human experiences, Team Gotham have created a poignant game which distills romance without being sappy, compassion without ulterior motive and self-reflection without the fear of others’ expectations. Perhaps it’s not the most exciting or enjoyable of games, but I’m sure Solo will find a core audience which will appreciate it for what it does best.

This is a game that knows it’s nothing more than light-hearted fun, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Sure, it can feel a little too cheesy to be palatable at times, but the developers have cooked up a perfectly satisfying meal for the enjoyment of you, your great-grandchildren, and your great-great-grandchildren after them.

It's not an accessible game. Of course it's not. Drive on Moscow might just be the most niche title on the PlayStation 4. But the historical accuracy and the way that the game has taken one of the most important military campaigns through World War 2, and turned it into something so fascinating, makes it very, very worthwhile.

The Bunker weaves a decent plot, is well cast, and certainly has its moments of intensity. This was a genre that people thought was dead and buried back in the early era of CD Roms, thanks to the inaccessibility of talented actors, cinematographers, and story writers leading to trash like Night Trap dominating the genre. What a difference a few decades make. If The Bunker is anything to go by, there might be a bright future for these experiences yet.

Megadimension Neptunia VIIR is an odd duck, being sold heavily on the VR features, even though they are so overtly tacked-on, but whatever the development story behind that, Compile Heart has gone back and substantially improved the gameplay engine, to the point that this is genuinely one of the better JRPGs out there. Making it all the more pity that a lot of people won’t see past the low budget these games are made on, and their love of underwear.

Mutant Football League is a cheap and poorly executed arcade sports game. I think the developers went in with all the right intents, because there really aren't enough sports games being made for people who aren't willing to put a major commitment into the game in order to be able to appreciate it on any level. But for all the good intentions this game needs so much refinement, polish, and a complete graphical overhaul that I can't see myself busting this game out the next time I've got guests looking to play a game, either.

Ultimately, Shelter Generations relies on your capacity to dig into its subtleties. On that overt level it's an obtuse and obviously indie game, and it's really quite demanding of the player; it asks them to figure their own way through the game, and it asks them to really commit to an emotional connection to these hopeless little cubs. Go into it in the right spirit, though, and with absolutely no words it tells one of the most powerful stories you'll find on the Switch.

Spiderweb Software's Vogel would be the first to admit it's a niche game for a niche audience. But the game's honesty to that niche, and its reverence for classical RPG design and structure, make it a rare, even precious breed among modern games, and there's a reason that, for all the games I've played and deleted off my iPad, I've never taken a Spiderweb Software game off it. And I'll never remove Avernum 3, either.

Jokes aside, the lack of personality in Project Highrise hurts it. You stop caring about whether tenants move in and out, or what happens to them while they stay. And then the whole game becomes an exercise in figuring out ways to exploit it to make it even easier for you. Which sounds harsh, I know, and I don't mean to be, because overall it is an admirable and mechanically sound simulator. It's just that for a genre that was in danger of fading to real obscurity, the renaissance that it has had over the last five years ago has left Project Highrise with a lot of catching up to do.

Extinction is a game which just feels bad to play. It’s technically proficient, looks good and has everything it needs to be a functional game, but it never goes beyond that and assumes the player will be engaged just by the act of killing big monsters.

Football Manager has always been for a specific type of person, and one who enjoys a blurring of the lines between legitimate work, and entertainment. Football Manager 2018 Touch brings that effectively enough to the Nintendo Switch, and while it's not a game that's going to turn too many heads or win awards, anyone who likes their really cerebral experiences will love spending hours trying to eke the most out of the favourite football team.

The Adventure Pals is a welcome addition to the platforming genre, holding its own due to its quirky story, colourful graphics and accessible gameplay. I fell in love with the game and didn’t want to put it down. It's not the most essential, original, or unique that's ever been made, and it has some technical issues, but these are minor complaints in the grand scheme of things.

Reverie is a game with Kiwi heart and soul, it is a love letter to New Zealand, to classic adventure puzzle games, and to childhood summers spent daydreaming being an explorer and hero.

God of War on the PlayStation 4 has taken me completely by surprise. As a game that follows on from the old games, but somehow turns it completely on its head and makes it a world worth investing time into feels almost like a miracle. It is one of those games that takes Norse mythology as a core idea and treats it with respect, while also integrating it seamlessly into the story and making it important to the narrative. I have a newfound interest in learning more about Norse mythology, and it truly makes a game special when it encourages the player to learn more beyond the scope of the game itself.

You may well find Gal*Gun 2 to be offensive and intolerable. But that’s all the more reason to experience it and discuss it, and because it’s backed by a really good light gun experience that is bigger and (on balance) better than its predecessor, this game is one of the most playable and interesting transgressive franchises the Japanese industry has ever produced.

Aside from Diablo itself, the clones of the genre have largely slid right back into mediocrity, and I have to hope that a new Titan Quest could be the shot in the arm that can revitalise the interest that genre fans have in it, outside of Diablo.

Anything but inspiring.

Even if you don't care about the poor storytelling and juvenile understanding of the noir genre, Metropolis is still a supremely bland and uninteresting match-3 game; one that doesn't integrate the gameplay and narrative together in a particularly interesting way and yet somehow also wants people to play it four times to experience all the endings.

It’s not high-octane or revolutionary fare by any means, but Swim Out has a quiet beauty that gives it more in common with chess than Tetris, and that sort of thing is hard to come by nowadays.

Don't come into Opus: Rocket of Whispers expecting some sort of hardcore survival simulation or captivating pushing-buttons experience, or you'll probably wind up disappointed. No, Rocket of Whispers is something much better: a game that uses its simple game loop, repetitiveness and all, to tell a familiar but sincere story about loneliness and coping with grief.

The game itself doesn’t give much in the way of context of who Tesla and Lovecraft are, or even why a scientist would be fighting an author to begin with. Nonetheless, Tesla vs Lovecraft is a fun twin-stick shooter, made even better by being technically on-point and very clean to play.

The Witch and the Hundred Knight 2 is a success. I just wish the storytellers on the team were able to really cut loose and pull hard at the strings that, currently, they’re only tugging lightly at.

It's a super casual management sim, like Farmville or whatever city-building equivalents there are. Only far less attractive or compelling. But at least it's not begging you to buy premium currency every five minutes, I guess.

The Charming Empire does a great job of introducing players to the Taishō period; a period that we rarely learn much about in the west. As a period piece it does a decent enough job, but there are so many gorgeous visual novels out there now that the pedestrian presentation really hurts the romance and storytelling of it all.

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.

Warp Shift is a puzzle game that is joyful in its accessibility and expansive in its complexity.

You're not going to forget your time with Detective Pikachu in a hurry, and those memories are going to be all very positive.

I soured quickly on Penny-Punching Princess. I love the art. I love the combat. I found the sharp challenge and simple, clean mechanics to all be very enjoyable. But I just couldn’t get past how shallow it really was in the end, and how the game failed to live up to the tantalising promises made in its lede. It could have easily been a 5/5 game, but instead it’s one of the real disappointments in 2018.

The Alliance Alive invokes the finest elements of the JRPG genre, modernizes them, and innovates where necessary. Its gripping fantasy plot can be worshiped for its emotional center or parsed for statements on equality, order, and free will. Whether or not you enjoyed The Legend of Legacy, this one stands as an authentic classic that captures the majesty of a Super Nintendo/PlayStation era masterpiece while also gazing forward.

Go into this game with an open mind, and allow the game’s pleasant charm, sweet characters and storytelling, and light, graceful approach to JRPG action to wash over you, and you may just find yourself as in love with the utterly refreshing and pure experience that Atelier Lydie & Suelle has to offer you.

It’s a shame that the plot turns what could have been an interesting, critical title into one that’s simply yet another serviceable AAA game for mass consumption. Did Ubisoft have something interesting to say about extremism and violence? Probably not, but maybe embracing parallels with current events would have made this production seem less like a backyard rodeo.

It fails to demonstrate any inquisitive or creative spirit, which is what makes indie games innovative, vibrant and, ultimately, worth playing.

I left the game feeling frustrated more than anything else. With arbitrary, esoteric puzzles and a wildly inconsistent tone exacerbated by technical issues, I found it hard to get sucked into the game’s atmosphere. The clever plot twists and unique setting were all but drowned out by errant jokes about office politics.

The Station is a wonderful example of how a game’s atmosphere can impact and influence the narrative. The space station felt believable, although the few characters that lived aboard fell a bit flat for me. As a sci-fi walking sim, The Station is more than successful enough.

Vermintide II feels like a predictable step in a fantastic direction.

I didn’t quite love Ni No Kuni 2 quite as much as its predecessor, because I wasn’t quite as connected to it. The game’s choice of themes and approach to storytelling didn’t quite tap into the same emotions. But it is without a doubt a better game. With the addition of city building and strategy battle elements, Ni No Kuni 2 is a deeper and more varied experience than most JRPGs out there, and certainly among the most beautiful and artful games that you’ll ever see.

And now, remastered on the PlayStation 4, we’ve got the game Rogue always deserved to be.

I’d only recommend this one for a quick burst and a bit of fun, because it doesn’t offer anything substantial.

This is a strong, strong game by Koei Tecmo, and does the Attack on Titan franchise a great service. Sadly, that's a franchise that doesn't have the pulling power that it did a few years ago, but older fans will enjoy the opportunity to get a new look at the distinctive setting and world, and who knows? The game might just find one or two new fans for the bloody, brutal, but ultimately dazzling franchise.

If there’s any justice in the world Yakuza 6 would sell millions of copies. It’s smart, sharp, often surreal, and always hugely entertaining. The game maintains the series’ penchant for reproducing the experience of being in a Japanese city to exacting details, and then overlays a brilliant, labyrinthine, wildly funny B-grade yakuza drama over the top. It’s the kind of game you just “live” in, and the perfect example of open world game design done right.

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.

Taken as a simple and cheap "solitaire" (i.e single player) game, Poisoft Thud Card is enjoyable, easy playing. I do say that as someone who spent many, many hours playing Hearts on my old Windows PCs over the years, though. I like time wasting card games. As such I'll probably keep coming back to Thud Card as long as I have my Switch. Or, at least, until a developer releases a Hearts game on the console.

There are not many games in this world that I can say actually made me grow as a person, but A Normal Lost Phone is definitely one of those titles.

Acceleration of Suguri 2 succeeds by having the complexity of a fighting game while rewarding quick thinking, reaction speed and dexterity.

It's not going to be forgiving on any level for players in their first couple of hours. Move past that, though, and you're left with one of the greatest examples of sheer precision in rhythm game design, and, let's face it, there's nothing more important to a rhythm game than that.

Unsatisfying ending aside, North is an interesting, insightful game that's worth a look. It doesn't ask a lot of your time (or wallet), and when it's firing on all cylinders, it has something genuinely important to say.

The tiniest of oddities and issues keep me from loving Edo Blossoms quite as much as I love Kyoto Winds. But then, the latter is a game I would have played a half dozen times by now, if not more. Being a slightly weaker sequel to that by the tiniest of margins still means that Edo Blossoms is one of the best visual novels out there.

Dragon Sinker's strength is that, in being such a slavish homage to one of the greatest JRPGs ever made, it too manages to be more playable than many of the original story JRPGs that Kemco produces. It is an endlessly replayable formula that the developers are copying wholesale, after all. But then, in being a slavish homage, the Dragon Sinker also opens itself up to comparisons with the game it's derivative of. And, sadly, it doesn't come out well in those comparisons at all.

If you’re really after a taste of something different, take a walk on the wild side with Neptune and the CPUs. After all, no other MMO has all its flaws on display quite like 4 Goddesses Online; if you’re going to sit through toxic players, boss fights, and an unfathomable plot, you might as well do it with cute girls who acknowledge the genre’s flaws and enthusiastically attempt to make them entertaining.

World Conqueror X is a hugely rewarding strategy game. It's not as refined or committed to the history of the conflict as the more serious wargame fans would like, but then it manages to depict the truly complex, global conflict in a streamlined, accessible, and, for the most part, authentic manner. I am beyond delighted that the Nintendo Switch has something like this on it.

As a demo, it actually works; when I played it for ten minutes in a controlled environment last year, I came away quite impressed with it. But those first ten minutes are Bravo Team's limit, and Sony should have realised this and pulled the plug on the project as a commercial game a long time ago.

The game despite the obvious padding is a great length for both casual gameplay and for someone who wants to finish it in one sitting. The misfiring humour and weak standard of the environments however make for a poor narrative, and generally, an experience that isn’t particularly memorable.

To say that The 25th Ward is niche would be an understatement, but that’s what’s so impressive about it. It respects the intelligence of its players, allowing them to wade through the feverish surrealism that the game often depicts, and melds that perfectly with a traditional noir thriller than Raymond Chandler himself would have been proud of. Goichi Suda might be known for his action games today (and they’re usually very fine games in their own right), but what I wouldn’t give for him to go back for another spin or two at the visual novel.

Its bare-bones design philosophy means it’s perhaps not the best title for survival genre diehards, but it’s a refreshing title to hit the Switch and one you might find yourself playing for way longer than planned.

Totes The Goat takes one of my favourite retro games, and does a decent job of modernising it. The developer would have benefited from the actual Q*Bert license, and some creativity of their own so that the game didn't seem like such an earnest attempt to cash in on one of the biggest and most influential mobile titles, but yes, Totes is genuine good fun, and I imagine I'll get many months of play out of this one.

It's that sort of depth that makes Fe's story so affecting, even if it seems quite straightforward and even predictable on the surface. I saw every twist from a mile out, and yet I never felt like the story suffered as a result. Rather, Fe is a fairy tale: the sort of story that finds charm in its simplicity and familiarity, but has a lot to say to anyone willing to dig beneath the surface. In that, it's a resounding success.

These games are important because, as the dominant entertainment industry, games are a way to inspire audiences to learn more about something, and the more people learn about cultures other than their own, the better. Mulaka might not be your favourite game in 2018, but what you take away from it will be far more valuable than the couple of hours of entertainment you'll get from it.

It's a B-grade Dead Space clone that follows the "rules" of horror without actually understanding any of them. Sure, it's a good thing that developers want to continue that "horror in space" tradition of Dead Space, but this team simply wasn't up to the task. On any level.

Zwei! The Arges Adventure is a lovely little title from Falcom that I am very happy was localised after the success of its successor. If you’ve been been needing some lighthearted dungeon crawling or have already played the localised sequel and want to know how the series began, than you'll appreciate this one a great deal.

Where the Water Tastes Like Wine is an incredible achievement, and the latest in a growing body of games that really push the bounds of what the medium can do. It is, at its heart, a game about stories, and the incredible power that they have, brought to life in the most beautiful way possible.

For a debut game, Moss is a remarkably mature, intelligent, confident and purposeful game by Polyarc...Moss really is the best VR game we've seen to date.

Immortal Redneck is a blast of a game in a genre that we don’t see enough of. It’s not the first roguelike FPS that we’ve seen on PlayStation 4, and I wouldn’t say it’s the best, either. It does, however, have an exceptional aesthetic, clever level design, clean action, a decent difficulty curve, and plenty of longevity. A very worthy action game indeed.

Despite the issues with balance, juvenile moments in the writing, and the occasional bug that suggested the ambition of the game slightly overextended its budget, Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet is the best video game entry in this particular franchise.

It’s an insult in existing at all. I'd rather castrated myself with a rusted spoon than think about this game any longer.

Proof that bigger isn’t always better. The additional gameplay mechanics only get in the way of how fun the original was, and makes the screen a busy mess at times. The saving grace is that the Switch version of the game is perfect for short play sessions, which makes it a decent purchase for those that want Pac-Man on the go.

It's a workable enough take on the game. Like I said at the start, pool is ideal for a handheld platform, and I can see myself playing Premium Pool Arena a lot while on trips or during short breaks. It's a clean, efficient, and largely no-frills take on the game, and in all that it's pleasant and enjoyable. And that's really all that can be said about a game like this.

So this won’t be remembered as a particularly good remake, and it’s tragic, because by itself, outside of the shadow of the game it’s a remaster of, Secret of Mana has its charms.

For every positive thing that Kingdom Come does with its storytelling, setting, and themes, it then lets itself down with childish writing, and then doesn’t help itself out by being so ambitious that, even beyond the bugs, the game has structural issues that are difficult to ignore.

This is an intense, clever, thoughtful and intellectually challenging JRPG that should remind people that when it comes to this genre, visual presentation and even the gameplay itself aren’t the drawcard. It’s that story that counts, and Radiant Historia manages to achieve something truly remarkable in giving players a time travelling plot that is genuinely interesting and worthwhile.

The game’s not going to draw the attention or community of “proper” fighting games, but Slice, Dice & Rice is distinctive, intelligent, rhythmical and, more importantly, intense. That ability to lose a match from a single button press makes every single movement count, and in that way it’s the most perfect, pure fighting game that you could hope to find. Just make sure you’ve got people to play in local multiplayer with. That’s where the game’s long term value is going to be.

Tesla vs Lovecraft is enjoyable enough for what it is: a simple, energetic twin-stick shooter fat doesn't push any boundaries but gets most of the fundamentals right. At the same time, there's so much untapped potential in the idea of Lovecraft/Tesla crossover, and that leaves me wanting so much more from this game than it actually delivers.

The main thing is the developers haven’t messed with the content. Because almost no one bought the Wii U, few people had the chance to play Bayonetta 2. With Bayonetta 3 on the horizon, giving people a chance to catch up is a really good idea on Nintendo’s part. That’s why these ports have been released, and they’re that good that, even if you were one of the few with a Wii U, you may as well buy them again.

It's never fun to play a game that's so fundamentally uninteresting that you really struggle to even watch the screen as you're playing.

What makes Sky Force work so well, though, is the thought and care which went into keeping the gameplay balanced – and it’s hard to appreciate just how narrowly the game’s design teeters.

The historical setting, the devotion to detail and colourful artstyle are sure to draw its share of fans, and the gameplay is also a perfectly functional modern reimagining of 80’s era beat-em-ups. It is my dream that there forms a devoted fanbase who appreciate both of those things, but for now this is a game divided between two aims.

Koei Tecmo has done a remarkable job of telling the many stories of the many people that make Romance of the Three Kingdoms such a compelling book and period of history, and the beautiful cinematic consistency makes it the most perfect realisation of everything Koei Tecmo has been aiming for with this series over many years now.

The Seven Deadly Sins is a fun anime franchise, and that sense of fun does translate to the game. It’s not a perfect game by any means, and has some genuinely aggravating elements, though, and that means it is going to be one that only fans of the franchise are going to enjoy.

There’s so much raw content in this package that, as long as you’re a fan of the standard tactics JRPG formula, you won’t be able to help but get plenty of value out of this trilogy. And the standard tactics JRPG formula is so damn good that it’s timeless. Making Mercenaries Saga itself functionally timeless.