It's a super-short indie project, so it almost feels unfair to throw a score onto Red Bow. It's just not a game to put on the same kind of scale as major blockbusters from Nintendo. But, then again, the game is a commercial project and sits on the same virtual store shelf as Nintendo's games. The reality is that Red Bow struggles to understand how horror game stories are told, and adventure games are designed. There are some ideas buried in there, and when the developer is more experienced it would be great to see him revisit this but Red Bow itself its a bit too hollow for its own good.

Slightly more cerebral while also filled with the fast action that the series is known for, Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires sits neatly as a midway point between the action of the "proper" Dynasty Warriors and the strategy of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series. There probably isn't all that much of an audience for this, but for fans that were disappointed with the open world experiment of Dynasty Warriors 9, Empires here will be redemption, and for those who have never let their enthusiasm for the series be dampened, this is an excellent opportunity to marry Sun Shangxiang and make many beautiful babies... or perhaps to unite China. Whatever your preference is, really.

What I’m saying is that I’m not entirely sure who is going to enjoy Curse of the Sea Rats. I do know that there’s going to be an audience out there for it, because while it has several issues it also has many redeeming qualities. However, when it’s one of a few million Metroidvanias that are already on the Switch, I fear that Sea Rats will struggle to find that audience, despite being a clear passion project from everyone involved.

Looking back on this review, I’m actually a bit depressed that the highlight of the game (for me, at least) was simply how good Ryse looked. It’s obvious that Crytek is capable of so much more, but Ryse simply borrows the best that a few franchises has to offer, and instead chooses to cobble them together quite lazily with a few superfluous mechanics thrown in for good measure, rather than refining and building upon the core game.

J-Stars Victory VS is very playable. But, when you consider that the entire purpose of this game's existence is to act as fan service, the fact that it fails to offer the kind of fan service that would have had fans clamouring for it is incredibly disappointing.

Hello Kitty and Friends Happiness Parade is bright, bubbly, and whimsical. It’s also reasonably challenging, since it’s actually not easy to be as mechanical as a metronome, especially when there are as many visual distractions as this game throws at you. Consequently, between this and that also good quality Animal Crossing clone on Apple Arcade, Hello Kitty is having quite a good year in video games.

As hack ‘n’ slash titles, the Ultimate Alliance games were, and still are, rather basic and bare bones.

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.

Perils of Man provides a solid point and click experience that will immerse you into this fantasy story and definitely racks up enough game time to make the small price tag worthwhile.

I love how well-made Hatsune Miku: VR Future Live is. I love how stunning Miku is when she’s dancing around in VR. I love being able to put myself right in the middle of her concerts. For a traditional Miku game, I’ve got Project Diva X and Future Tone. That’s more than enough Miku gaming to last me months, if not years more. And now, courtesy of Virtual Reality, I have a completely different Miku experience to enjoy.

Of course there are a lot of top down shooters on the Switch now. Some, such as Jydge or Mr Shifty, actually do some interesting things with the structure. Crimsonland is the polar opposite. It’s the safest, most generic example of the dual stick shooter in years. There’s no denying there’s a visceral thrill in the action that it offers, but let’s just say it’s just as well the game’s priced to be a cheap bit of throwaway fun.

One Strike is mildly fun, but woefully ill equipped to provide any long term value.

So whenever I wasn’t about to Hulk Smash the entire console (I promise I’m exaggerating, no consoles were harmed during the writing of this review) I did actually quite enjoy the game. I’d sit down to play for an hour, and come out of it twice that amount of time later with burning eyes because I barely blinked in case I missed something. There’s a great satisfaction felt when your farm starts functioning, then when it expands a little, and especially when it starts bringing in the cash. If only the developers were better at onboarding players and providing the information that they need to fully understand what’s going on around them, this little franchise has the makings of something special.

Combat feels faster and more fluid than most other similar games.

I generally like the “filler” titles in the Dragon Quest franchise. Dragon Quest Treasures was a delight, as was Builders, as was the VR game that I played in an arcade in Japan. This is a versatile property and most of the developers that work on it clearly enjoy what they’re doing. But Strash is different. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth as it comes across as cynical, and derivative to everything but Dragon Quest. Most egregious of all is that somehow, despite being based on a well-regarded Dragon Quest anime, it genuinely seems like the developers failed to understand what makes Dragon Quest a uniquely special property. If they did understand it, they comprehensively failed to articulate it. I’m genuinely disappointed, but, on the plus side, I fully expect that the upcoming Dragon Quest Monsters game will completely right the ship. The great thing about this series is that even in its lowest moments, it never takes long to bounce back.

Flockers is a clever game for the thinking gamer and those fans of Lemmings who have been waiting for so long for another quality puzzler in the style. If Team 17 can bring the level editor and level sharing ability over from the PC version in a future update, as well as a touchpad interface, I’d give it that last star.

In just about every way, Reynatis is a game that tries to reach well beyond what the team was perhaps capable of achieving. Which raises an interesting question: What to score it? I, personally would rather play something like this than the 99 per cent of games out there that copy off the “best practices” template of what has come before. Of course they’re more refined then Reynatis! But they’re just iterating on what already worked. Reynatis is a wild, chaotic mess that frequently loses sight of itself, but that’s the consequence of reaching for something different. Sometimes when people try this the ideas just don’t pan out as hoped. Reynatis is still very playable and the core gameplay is genuinely enjoyable. It might consistently fail to meet its lofty ambitions, but at least it tries, and as a work of art there is value in exploring what it does try to do.

Nothing redeems Asphalt 9. It's shallow, inferior game that has been built with the exclusive purpose of getting suckers to throw more money at it. This stuff should be left on mobile platforms or, better yet, never made.

Tamsoft went into this one with a clear brief to do something heavily fanservicey, and even by comparison to its work on Action Unleashed, MegaTagmension certainly achieves that.

Hellboy: Web of Wyrd looks the part. It’s a gorgeous game and I was really hoping that it would deliver the vision for the character and comic in the same way that it captured the aesthetics. Sadly, instead, we got a stodgy roguelike that largely misses the point of what either Hellboy or the roguelike should offer. Equally sadly, we continue to wait for a truly great Hellboy game.

Sword Coast Legends offers up a solid version of Dungeons & Dragons, with a campaign and setting that were immediately appealing to me and plenty of user content already filling the community. This sort of content will be enormously valuable in giving Sword Coast Legends life beyond its campaign. However, limited tools hold this title back from greatness on the editing front, while its clear Diablo and Dragon Age influences may rub D&D purists the wrong way.

To say that the final product is possibly one of the most disappointing games I’ve ever experienced is not an exaggeration, this is coming from a guy who has had to review some pretty disappointing ones over the years.

To call Asemblence an unorthodox game would be an understatement; it’s a game that throws convention off a cliff. I doubt many would find it fun, or even satisfying in a traditional sense, but it's a game that pushes the boundaries of what a game can be – that questions our most basic assumptions of the medium, and that is something we desperately need.

This is a game that is most interested in telling a story, and, just as with Nier before it, Drakengard 3 has a plot that is nothing short of a masterpiece. It's the kind of game that is going to inevitably be under-appreciated by people who can't be bothered trying to understand it. Judging from some of the other critical responses to the game that have already been published, we're already seeing that happen.

At first glance the beat ‘em up turned cooking sim turned rhythm game appears to suffer from an identity crisis, but Senran Kagura Bon Appétit! is a light-hearted comedy above all else. It’s as niche as games come thanks to its flaunting of risqué material subject to all manner of misunderstandings, but Bon Appétit! is effective as a silly pastime.

Combine the uninspired enemies and level design with a checkpoint system that’s more than happy to erase half an hour of progress if you die midway through a run, and you’ll find that RemiLore becomes a game that’s more tedium than fun.

A very competent, but ultimately unremarkable game.

I can't help but think to myself that there are so many more interesting board games that I'd much rather have on my Switch than a serviceable version of Catan.

While Episode 2: Assembly Required does build on some of the building blocks (ha) from the first episode, it is mostly a step down in terms of quality as well as quantity. I worry that the speed at which the episode was pushed out resulted in some graphical glitches that are not what you expect from a Telltale Games title. It was a solid effort, but mostly just a waste of time.

It simply comes across as decidedly average and without an ideal target audience.

It still tells a potent, important story, and looks the part, but I fear the only thing people are going to notice as they play is how unrefined and often downright irritating they find the button-pressing bits, because they are so poor they completely overwhelm the stuff that players should be focusing on instead.

So, what's left? What reason is there to purchase Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Remastered Edition? That's really the problem here. There isn't one. This isn't Trials of Mana with its breathtaking scope, characters, and narrative reborn for a new generation. This isn't even a port of a beloved classic like Star Ocean or Romancing SaGa, because unlike those faithful ports, Crystal Chronicles Remastered doesn't preserve the reason people loved the original. There's something of a hit of nostalgia in playing through the single-player game... but it's the nostalgia of how much you loved playing that original game, with friends, and the realisation that you can't do it as well as you'd like to, in classic local multiplayer action, bites.

Magic 2015 is still the best way to bring a new player to this old game and the deck building is a great deal of fun, but those who have played the last couple of releases may feel somewhat underwhelmed by this iteration.

An unapologetically smart and thoughtful game, one that's happy to be philosophical, and one that's willing to make you work to truly dig into what makes it so wonderful. It's like a work of literature in that way, as opposed to a page-turning novel, and it commands (and deserves) respect for that.

So let's go down the list of what makes The Complex compelling: phenomenal cast, complicated characters, a deep and rather dark narrative. No, it's not a traditional game. No, it's not a traditional film. But when it comes to interactive films, it's a very solid effort worth several playthroughs to discover what you may have missed the first time. The developer even makes it easy to play again, offering a skip button for subsequent plays. There are some components that seem unnecessary, and some settings that could be improved upon, but The Complex is absolutely a game I will recommend again and again.

On the surface, Sheltered 2 looks great. The formula: take the original title and add factions. Easy, right? It seems easy enough until the pages and pages of information pop-ups appear, expecting players to remember everything immediately or else get stuck. I'd describe it as a cognitive nightmare. Back at the beginning of this review, I wondered if adding factions is enough to change the middle reviews that Sheltered received. In my case, it does not. It's fun enough in a sim/management way, but the post-apocalyptic thing has been repeated what feels like infinitely and lacks originality, and factions just complicate the game to the point there's no more room in my brain for information to remain there. There is very little to become emotionally attached to. The result? A middling review.

I love the classic Dragon Quest titles with a passion, but there is nothing that redeems these poor ports. They fail as an archive of classics, since the redesign fundamentally changes them. They fail as pieces of entertainment, because they're so ugly and poorly made. Finally, they fail as Dragon Quest, because Dragon Quest fans will be insulted by this trash being passed off as their memories.

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.

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.

The sense of shallowness is impossible to shake, and over the course of a reasonably long brawler/RPG gets tiring. Dusk Diver 2, much like its predecessor, has all the potential in the world, and most of its individual elements are really competently made. It just doesn’t come together in execution, and while I was willing to give the developers the benefit of the doubt the first time, I’m just not certain they have a good grasp of how they want to execute on their ambition with this series. I don’t know if a third would be a good idea at this stage.

It's pretty in a generic manner, and has enough content that it will satisfy people that don't much care for creativity. But there is a point where a homage becomes a flat-out copy, and sadly, Tanzia simply doesn't seem to care that it's so brazen in its "influences."

I just did not care enough about anything that I was seeing or doing to enjoy Edge of Eternity. The narrative lacks thought and insight, the characters are bland, and each new location simply means more fetch quests and slightly higher level enemies to go through the motions to fight. Edge of Eternity is undoubtedly beautiful and the art team deserves kudos, but it is a hollow, empty, and shallow kind of beauty, and with no intelligence nor soul to back it up, the talents of the artists are largely wasted on this one.

Call it "casual" if you want, but this is the ideal fighting game for me... and who knows. It might well be the start of the new king of fanservicey fighters, what with Dead or Alive 6's stated intention to ease back on that side of things. And Athena really does look stunning in her bikini. I've been waiting many King of Fighters games for that.

Constant C is filled with creativity, laughter, deceiving level design and ruthless platforming segments; it’s charming aesthetics only mask the brutality of the gameplay that’s hidden beneath the surface.

It sets out to offer a nostalgic JRPG experience, and it achieves that. It might lack the style and substance of a truly good game, but I can think of worse ways for JRPG veterans to eat away a lazy Sunday or two than this.

If I could give Beyond Eyes more stars, I would. Rarely does a character emotion become so pronounced in my own being. When Rae was delighted, I’d laugh with excitement. When Rae was scared, I cowered alongside her. When Rae was upset I was quite literally found sobbing in the fetal position until the wave of emotion passed.

Forced is actually a really good game. The mechanics of it all work rather well, co-op is fun if more than one person is up for punishment. Beta Dwarf has done a good job of making simple mechanics and turning them into a complex game of hand-eye coordination, skill and a little bit of luck mixed in for good measure.

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.

So this is a very short review, but since the developer doesn't have enough respect for players or the source material to include a core part of the original experience, I'm going to show them as much respect in return.

It's great to have a "real" Kingdom Under Fire game playable on modern platforms. I know Blueside has had all kinds of issues with sustaining and modernising this series, but everyone really should experience the original. With Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders there was real potential that this series could have gone on to something big. As it is, though it's shaping up more as a bit of flash in the pan brilliance that will likely not be replicated.

As something of a budget entry into the same genre occupied by Onechanbara, Dead or School is decent fun. Being a budget game it struggles to maintain a consistency in tone and experience, but a solid loot and upgrade system, some great boss fights, and a good sense of humour, all help to see it through.

There’s a lot to admire in this game, and it only gets better once you’ve hit the end and are ready for the extra mode, where you’ll be able to really test out your mastery of the combat and ‘crawling. Is It Wrong To Try To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon is entertaining stuff. It's neither the perfect dungeon crawler nor the most stand-out visual novel, however, the blend of the two, coupled with the strong anime license leveraged with the greatest of competencies, still make this one a very solid time-filler.

Mato Anomalies had picked the right kind of experience to ape. The Persona series is consistently the most intelligent and thought-provoking in the JRPG genre. The developers have also done a decent effort to understand the thematic basis of those games, and at least attempt their own spin on it. Unfortunately, whether for a lack of resources or an inability to bring the creative elements together cohesively enough, Mato Anomalies’ greatest achievement is simply demonstrating just how hard it really is to make a game like Persona 3, 4 and 5.

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.

Taken from within a vacuum, NHL 15 is a perfectly solid hockey title, however longtime fans of the series are bound to be disappointed by the things that they have grown used to over the years that are missing.

This is a game by Peter Molyneux who, for all his misfires in recent years, remains a guy who is fiercely intelligent and deeply committed to creative game development. The fact that he allowed this game to fall into such a cynical monetisation model shows just how enslaved developers and publishers have become to free-to-play games, and that makes Godus a symbol, but for reasons that Molyneux probably didn't anticipate; it's a symbol for just how infuriating free-to-play has become.

It's the most hardcore tactics strategy game you'll ever play. It's brutally and unapologetically unforgiving, and yes, it lacks the presentation values and atmosphere that would help people get over the learning curve. But for the patient few who will be willing to give this game the time it demands, Natural Doctrine is going to be an experience with nearly limitless depth and it is, in fact, one of the best multiplayer strategy experiences on any console at the moment.

What horror games should be. Genuinely unsettling, smart, and intense, it is rare that a horror game aims to break past the jump scares and combat-heavy gameplay and simply tell a creepy story, so it's a small miracle that not only does Corpse Party try, it also largely succeeds.

Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games is good fun, but ultimately it’s too shallow and simple to be anything but a passing diversion.

What Somi has achieved in creating Retsnom all by himself is remarkable. It’s just a shame that the frustrating puzzle design and brutal level of difficulty will, I imagine, prevent most people from being able to experience the full weight of what it has to offer.

This is a beautiful, serene and relaxing experience and I loved every second of it.

It’s different, it’s creative, it’s stark, and I loved every second of 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.

The team writes intelligent, worthy scenarios and narratives, and then they do the best they can to build gameplay to support that concept.

For a first attempt at a kart racer, All-Star Fruit Racing shows that the team behind it is talented, and they know how to make a genuinely fun game. There’s a lot of joy involved in playing this one, and it’s an ideal party racing game, particularly on the PlayStation 4, where there’s no Mario Kart equivalent to reach for. If it wasn’t for the infuriating AI, I’d even argue that All-Star Fruit Racing takes a step forward in a genre that Nintendo itself is almost painfully conservative about.

Kandagawa Jet Girls is a joke in the same way that Senran Kagura and The Bad Touch song that I quoted at the top is: it relishes in being brazen to the point that it knows it's going to draw some eye rolls. It also knows that many of its fans will enjoy both the brazenness and the eye rolls from the puritans - it's edgy like that. But, really, it's great. It's an excellent blend of "kart" racer and jetski playground, and it is built with a level of precision and eye for detail that I think will surprise and impress many. In other words, it is yet another hit of the kind of breezily entertaining experience that, like so much of Takaki Kenichiro's work, deserves more respect than it's going to get.

For all I know I’m the only person left on the planet that cares about Snow Bros. and Toaplan’s legacy in single-screen platformers. Nonetheless, it is a bit of arcade history and this is preserving a property that was almost lost. I’ve had an absolute blast playing through this, the new levels are great, and now there’s an outside chance that there might be all-new Snow Bros. adventures on the horizon.

I do appreciate the effort that went into Remorse: The List. The developers had a strong vision and did their best to execute on it. On a technical level, I also found it to be quite impressive for the Switch. There are much bigger games that struggle to lift to this visual and mechanical quality on that hardware. But, unfortunately, at the end of the day, this is a horror game where its enemies – which it relies on far too much to carry the experience – are more likely to make you giggle than sweat. That’s a death knell for any horror experience.

As a story-focused first-person adventure game, NERO is quite remarkable. It’s surreal, heartfelt, bittersweet, and thought-provoking, and that should have been more than enough to carry it without the need for shoehorned-in “gameplay”. As it is, it’s a very good game, but it would have been so much better if it hadn’t tried so hard to avoid the “walking simulator” criticism and just ran with its strengths.

I had a really challenging time playing Once Upon Light, and it was enjoyable for that, but at times I felt some levels were too cluttered with content. Hardcore puzzle fans should have an enjoyable experience, but this one isn't really something that more relaxed players will get into.

Mind Zero is still a very entertaining game, it's just that when you deliberately compare yourself to the greatest, you're inevitably going to disappoint. Were Mind Zero to stand with its own narrative drive, and free of the comparisons to Persona, this game would have appreciated for what it is, rather than what it is not.

That is not to say Fantasy Hero: Unsigned Legacy is a bad game. Far from it, there are moments when it is fun and most of its mechanics come together. The problem is that the overall experience is rather short, and very little about the game is memorable once you put the Vita down.

Late Shift is definitely a step in the right direction for choose-your-own-adventure film-games. Consider this: when reviewing a game or a film, we often look at content, characters, and (voice) acting. Late Shift stands up to each of these elements on its own to a certain degree. Some of the content verged on deep but never quite made it, the characters were solidly average, and the acting was surprising, in the best way.

I really would have enjoyed combat with more depth to it than this. Saint Seiya: Soldiers' Soul is a great way to learn about or remember the anime, and a variety of modes and collectibles add mileage to the game. At the end of the day however, it is also meant to be a fighting game, and the combat is simply too bland to really get the most out of the experience.

The game can be fun to play for a few hours here and there but repetitiveness filters through to the presentation, too, with reused music and visuals that become draining after a while.

The low percentage chances of getting the really good slimes are where the microtransactions might have come in handy for the less patient, but with a bit of patience you’ll end up with the powerful team that you’re looking for, and there are certainly enough levels on offer to keep you playing for quite some time.

Do this game again, but shift the focus so that everyone can enjoy it without relying on others being online, and then we'll talk.

I think it is safe to say that Snoopy has avoided the movie-tie-in curse. What we have here is a game that is solid in its design ideas and has implemented them effectively. Yes there are some slowdown issues, but considering who the game is marketed towards, I don’t think they’ll be taking too much notice of that. It’s an enjoyable game, filled to the brim with fun and imagination.

What’s most important is that the game works without giving me the slightest bit of motion sickness, and as a fan of trash B-grade science fiction, I was really able to appreciate the inherent silliness of it all. There might not be much depth here over the long term, but for some short bursts of frenetic action, it absolutely has the lightgun genre nailed.

It is a very clever little puzzle game that tries to add something through commentary that lifts it well beyond standard puzzle platformer fare.

If a player who stumbles upon this title on Steam becomes inspired to make serious educational reform after watching their students get dehumanised into tropical fruit, No Pineapple Left Behind will have all been worth it.

I came away from There Came An Echo quite sold on its unique approach to inputs, and that is both surprising, and really quite inspiring. Because it plays so differently, the game requires that you take a very different approach to playing it, and while I don’t think this is an innovation that’s going mainstream any time soon, having a voice controlled game on the PlayStation 4 makes for a unique, interesting, diversion. Throw in production values well beyond what most indies can achieve, and a plot that will get you thinking across its last few hours, and you’ve got a genuinely worthwhile little experiment here.

I can appreciate why a developer would want to try its hand at a Souls-like. It's a hugely popular genre that doesn't have that many entries at this point in time, and there's a veritable goldmine of unique settings and concepts to explore. A horror-themed Souls on an abandoned space station, circling a black hole, is appealing on every level. Unfortunately, this genre is also incredibly demanding, technically and creatively, and while I admire the ambition of Cradle Games, with Hellpoint they've shot for the stars but well missed the mark.

NBA Live 16 has a lot of really solid pieces that are starting to come together. These disparate parts still need smoothing out and the game itself still has room to improve, but those looking for a more arcade-like NBA experience with a variety of modes should enjoy what the game has to offer.

The game is still very playable, and that same old loop around farming up some veggies in order to afford the adorably cute animals is as entertaining as always.

With nothing to do other than explore and combat enemies, the fact that both systems are insultingly simple means that Fairune has no value, whatsoever.

This is a console that does not need lesser local multiplayer experiences to bolster it up.

If lastability and replay value are the sacrifices needed for tight and innovative design, then Attack of the Earthlings signals a welcome change in a saturated genre. I for one welcome our new insect overlords.

Vambrace: Cold Soul is by no means a bad game. It's far too derivative and simple to reach the same league as Darkest Dungeon as a classic, but it's an enjoyable time waster, with superb production values and neat, clean, classical turn based combat action. The best way to play the game is probably on the Nintendo Switch, too, since it's the kind of background noise that works while you've got the sport or a movie on TV.

I can't recommend RPG Maker MV enough. Not only is it an ideal way for JRPG fans to engage with their favourite genre without needing to go and learn how to code first, but it's also a low-pressure and undemanding way for people with an interest in game development to understand how game developers think and create. The Switch version is less robust than the PC version and you're not going to be producing anything that you can make money with like you can on PC, but as a toy and a sandbox, RPG Maker is a delight. I can't wait to see the kind of creativity that RPG fans come up with (and yes, I will try and upload a game of my own at some point too... if I ever find the time to finish one).

Bright Memory: Infinite doesn’t waste time. It goes in, gives you a hell of a time, and then ducks out before it has the chance to overstay its welcome. I hope the developer isn’t done from here, as I’d love to see more of Bright Memory (and Shelia!) in the future. In the meantime, this big action, relentless energy and visually spectacular experience is a true rollercoaster thrill-ride, and is worth every cent on the admission ticket.

Gothic is getting a full remake, which will release in 2024. I actually expect that to be good, because the developers can use the modern tools they have to modernise and restore the original vision of the game. Unfortunately, though, that’s the final nail in the coffin for the original. Unless you have a very academic reason for wanting to play an artefact of B-tier game design from the early turn of the century, there’s just no reason to play this port.

Utawarerumono Zan is obviously a limited game, but as the first attempt to expand the Utawarerumono property beyond its roots, it's a good first step. The action is as fluid and enjoyable as we've ever seen in a Tamsoft game, and your favourite Utawarerumono character's personality and fighting style has been recreated expertly. It might be one for existing fans only, but I would hope that anyone who plays the original visual novels (and you really should) is an "existing fan," and will therefore also love this.

Blue Estate is a fun little shooter that has a sense of humour, but ends too soon. I did enjoy the game but also did feel that it got a little too repetitive. If you're a fan of on rail shooters this is sure to please. If not, it still might be worth a whirl, since it is priced appropriately for what it offers.

What really lets Our World Is Ended down is its lack of narrative focus. On the one hand you'd got a compelling discussion about fluid reality - something that, much like AI and robotics, is quickly falling out of the area of "science fiction" and into "we actually need to talk about this, because it's happening" territory. On the other hand, you've got a lot of stories about a bunch of generally unlikable characters and their obsession with breasts. With the way Our World Is Ended is designed, these don't mix anywhere near as well as they needed to to take this to the upper echelons of the genre.

Spirit of the North almost nails it. From the art to the characterisation, and even the wordless narrative structure, the developers have clearly put a lot of thought and creative energy into this, and it shows. You might want to play on another platform to get the full scope of the vision, because on Switch it is a little limited by the hardware, but even then, Spirit of the North has moments where it soars. It's just unfortunate that it keeps crashing into walls along the way, as the developers tried to justify the existence of the game by what can only be termed "gameplay bits", and every time that happens the motor takes a while to get going again. If you can handle the clumsy pacing and arbitrary puzzles and collectibles, though, Spirit of the North really is beautifully earnest in what it is looking to achieve.

Overall this is a decent game with a deep combat system and some replay value if you want to explore the levels fully and find every hidden item. A weak story with a nasty potential glitch keep this game from being as good as it could have been. Fans of classic Castlevania games should especially enjoy this experience.

I know which game I’d rather play. School Girl / Zombie Hunter is not the longest game, which makes it ideal for quick bursts of fun. It has a brilliant little gameplay loop that certainly has its bugs and low-budget irritations, but never stops being utterly entertaining. Throw in the most perfect take on trashy B-grade horror that I’ve ever seen in a game, and there are not many other games released this year that I’ve had more fun with than this one.