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.

Trek To Yomi is what happens when you’ve got a compelling creative vision, and build a game around it, rather than the other way around. Everything you see, sense and experience in this game contributes to the overall experience, with absolutely no fat or waste. It’s intense, dark, and unforgiving, but it’s also the kind of haunting experience that will stay with you for a long time to come. If Menchiari continues to work with the right developers, and continues to deliver to this standard, he’s going to be one of the all-time great video game artists.

I have famously low demands when it comes to fan service games. I genuinely enjoyed Hentai Vs. Evil, and that is a game that you have to have an enormous tolerance for fan service to find entertaining on any level. I know who I am and I roll with it. But Waifu Impact is just beyond terrible. A beachy homage to Genshin Impact with bikinis and water pistol fights could have been a lot of fun. This, however plays more like a very first prototype of that excellent idea that someone actually dropped on to the Switch store about three years too early into development.

I went into Samurai Bringer expecting a generic roguelike (albeit with a samurai setting). On a cursory look of the screenshots, that’s what it seems to be. But it soon becomes clear that it is a very substantial departure from other action-roguelikes. This isn’t Hades-but-with-katanas. This is what I would expect a Samurai Warriors roguelike to be like, and the strength of that concept is backed up with one of the best and most engaging equipment customisation systems I’ve ever seen. In a year that, just four months in, has been packed with so many high-quality releases, Samurai Bringer might be flying right under the radar, but it’s actually one of the best of them.

Nintendo Switch Sports is well-made, with the gorgeous, “lifestyle” aesthetics that have always been characteristic of this series. The motion controls work well, and in local multiplayer it is good fun, as Wii Sports was 16 years ago. However, it lacks the zeitgeist quality that Wii Sports had, and I just can’t see this resonating to anywhere near the same degree. I don’t think there’s any scenario where Nintendo could recapture the magic that made Wii Sports such a mass culture phenomenon, and as well as Nintendo Switch Sports is made, it doesn’t get there.

Ixtona gave me exactly what I was expecting, and, ultimately, I didn’t regret the hours I spent with it.

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim is lengthy and complex, particularly if you really want to understand every little nuance of the story. The story might not feature player agency, as it has no branching choices or bad endings (and I’d argue that this is a strength of the game, that it’s determined to tell one story and tell it well) but even then the narrative alone will take at least fifteen hours to see to the end. Add on a few hours of the strategy RPG and you’ve got a hefty title on your hands. Ultimately though, I stuck through with 13 Sentinels because it’s paced immaculately – the mystery of the narrative gets its hooks into you and rushes you through an intricate web of conspiracy, discovery, and self-reflection. It got me to laugh, to gasp, and to view the world differently. We talk a lot about the potential of interactive storytelling to deliver experiences beyond film or print, and yet not many games do – but here is Vanillaware making it look effortless. Here’s hoping that 13 Sentinels is remembered long afterwards for all it has achieved.

Whatever platform you play Roguebook on, its sheer quality helps elevate it to the top of a genre that has become far too overused over the past five years. The precision balancing and depth of the gameplay, the entertaining design and varied exploration elements combine to overcome the fact that you’ve probably played what Roguebook is offering a few times over by now.

Working with a clearly limited budget, Tamsoft has focused on delivering a tight action-combat system, while also relying on the fan service of both Senran Kagura and Hyperdimension Neptunia to see it through. It’s a good couple of hours of genuine fun, with the requisite bath scenes, humour and familiar characters to meet and fight. You can’t help but think that both properties could have grown to become more than this, but taking as it is, it’s still entertaining nonsense, with a heavy emphasis on the “entertaining”. I play enough serious games that require deep analysis, this kind of thing is my ideal break time between them.

No doubt the audience for Chinatown Detective Agency is small. Modern video games spoon feed everything to players, so I can only imagine how counterintuitive it will seem to many to have a game that’s actively telling them to Google It, Mate and is willing to leave them high-and-dry with only vague clues. This is a game for people that genuinely enjoy researching stuff, and niche as that is, I have to believe that there’s a space in the market for it. Otherwise, “where’s the curiosity gone?” becomes a very real and sad question that we need to ask about our society and the entertainment that we consume.

Crusader Kings III is a hobby all by itself. When you start a campaign in this one, you’re going to need to settle in for the long haul, and in the initial stages, where you’ll make mistakes (and often not understand why), it can all be too overwhelming and you’ll give up on it. That’s fine if you decide on that basis that the game isn’t for you. It’s not for everyone and it’s certainly not Civilization. However, there’s no other way this game could have been made, and when it all finally clicks, the depth and intelligence of what Crusader Kings III offers also make it impossible to put down. You’re not going to find a more complex strategy game, nor a more rewarding one, on consoles.

I don’t have a problem with games that feature nudity and titillation. If a developer were to make a strip poker game then I would be all over that (assuming the poker played well enough). Bring on all the Gal*Guns and Dead or Alives that developers can produce. But for the love of Hatsune Miku, Nintendo, don’t let the eStore be flooded with this nonsense.

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.

The House of the Dead is a classic and monumentally important video game. I didn’t even bat an eyelid when this popped up on the eShop. Even knowing that as a Forever Entertainment project it probably wasn’t going to be all that, my fierce loyalty to the brand caused me to buy this instantly. As I wrote in the introduction to this review, however, The House of the Dead Remake makes Uwe Boll’s film seem like a masterpiece by comparison. At least Boll had the good sense to put gratuitous B-genre exploitation nudity and unintentionally hilarious directing in his film. His film was a thing you could enjoy drunk. You play this game and you’ll just jump straight to the hangover.

This score is not reflective of the quality of the games (overall). I’m not going to be putting Alpine Ski down in a hurry, and I’ve been playing Qix for decades now, so I would never begrudge it being part of a Milestones collection. Most of the other titles are interesting as a curio. The quality of the ports for all of these titles great thanks to Hamster’s technology, but nonetheless, this is a woeful excuse for a compilation, and that’s particularly surprising given that it came from the same publisher that gave us the Space Invaders Invincible Collection. That was one of the very best retro collections. “Disappointing” doesn’t begin to describe what I feel about Taito Milestones.

The Cruel King And The Great Hero is a lovely and loving adaptation of everything that people love about the fairy tale, with the charming premise of a girl that dreams of being a hero, and a gold-hearted dragon that makes that happen for her. I know we’re all feeling JRPG fatigue from the sheer number of them that have been released this year, but don’t let this slip past you. It almost did me, and that would have been a big pity.

The biggest problem Sony faces is in getting more casual fans to enjoy its baseball games. The hardcore are going to love it, and mechanically, MLB does a great job of giving you ways to fine-tune how you play, the control system that works for you, and so on. This is effortlessly the best baseball game we’ve seen to date. However, what it doesn’t do is make players comfortable with it before throwing them in the deep end. Whether it’s endless statistics and career-altering decision trees in the career mode, the overwhelming experience of having cards and items and microtransactions thrown at you in that mode, or the need to manage an entire team while also dealing with the on-field performance, MLB The Show 22 is difficult to get into if you’re a casual fan of the sport. A simple season mode would have gone a long way to address that, but, for whatever reason, Sony doesn’t seem overly concerned with making its series the catalyst that converts people with a casual interest in baseball into fans.

Like the best in literature and the arts, by the time Chrono Cross’ credits roll you’re going to be left in a reflective mood. It’s not just that it’s a very good game – though it is – is also that it’s a probing work of art that asks meaningful questions of the players and respects them enough to allow them to come to their own conclusions about it. This is the first time that we’ve had the opportunity to play the game here in Australia, and it’s telling that this 23-year-old game comes across as one of the most forceful steps forward for games as an art form that we’re going to see this year.

While Ikai’s a missed opportunity, it’s not one that necessarily should be missed. It’s not overlong, has some vivid imagery, and while the puzzles are almost laughable at times for how out of place they are, the actual design of them remains interesting right throughout. I’m glad I played Ikai, but I doubt I’ll play it again.

Relayer gets so much right. It’s gorgeous on the eyes, the narrative is twisty and fun in the way that the very best pulp sci-fi can be, and the traditional tactics JRPG action is well-executed and clean. It takes such joy in what it is doing that I can’t imagine there will be many people that walk away from it without a smile on their faces. While it might not do enough to stand out as one of the greats of the genre, it is more than worth your time, especially if you’ve ever looked to space and wondered just what tactical warfare up there might look like.

Submerged: Hidden Depth didn’t quite hit me as strongly as its predecessor. It is a more rounded and proficient take on the vision, but ultimately it is also the exact same vision as its predecessor and, this second time around, the impact just isn’t the same. However, it is still a beautiful, emotional and poignant bit of art, and we should all be sending our politicians copies to play. Otherwise, we’ll all find ourselves travelling around our crumbling, drowned cities soon. Just like Miku and Taku do here.

It’s hard to develop your own voice until you understand how other artists find theirs. While I ultimately find Dark Deity to be uninspired and certainly won’t be replaying it every year or so, as I do Fire Emblem, I also hope that this developer produces another tactics JRPG. I would buy that in a heartbeat, because I am quite certain that with a bit more experience as a team of artists, not only will this developer find its own voice, but it will start to build on everything that made those GBA Fire Emblem titles great. That – the promise of some kind of “Fire Emblem Plus” – is some exciting promise indeed.

I’m not the world’s biggest fan of platformers, but I can’t help but delight at what Kirby and the Forgotten Land offers. It’s bright, wholesome, charming, funny and memorable. It’s also a near-flawless example of Nintendo at its very best.

I must reiterate that The Ascent is gorgeous, and for a team of just a dozen developers, they have outperformed themselves in that regard. Unfortunately, because the narrative is so anaemic and there is so little that connects the narrative to the aesthetics and gameplay, The Ascent ends up feeling empty. There’s nothing memorable about the characters, the world is dull and far too large for how little it offers, and while, yes, the story hits those key cyberpunk talking points, the developers largely missed the nuances that elevate cyberpunk beyond pulp fiction. So, again, the game’s fine, if you are looking for a generic sci-fi shooter (and can ideally drag a friend along). As a work of cyberpunk, though, it’s a failure.

At this point it’s pretty clear that Crypton’s strategy has shifted from positioning Hatsune Miku as something associated principally with music, to developing an all-ages mascot character in the same vein as Hello Kitty, Rilakkuma, or Doraemon. I am quite certain that these light and casual little puzzle games are cheap to produce while Crypton builds its capabilities in this area… but at the same time, it is quite clear that these games do come from a proper company with a serious vision and a commitment to quality. Even putting aside my undying love for Hatsune Miku, this is genuinely the best digital jigsaw puzzle game I’ve played to date, and as a fan of jigsaws, this was the nicest of surprise releases.

Gal*Gun: Double Peace was excellent on its original release on PlayStation 4, and it’s excellent here. People will no doubt write this up as shallow and crass titillation, just as they did with the first release, but then shallow commentary isn’t exactly uncommon where anime and fan service is involved. The game is satire and it is therefore a commentary. You don’t have to like it, but that doesn’t change what it is. Without a doubt, Gal*Gun will unsettle some people, and that’s fine – the game’s just not for you, and you don’t have to buy it – but if you do find these kinds of games interesting, and have somehow missed out on the series to date, now you can jump in with the best in the series, on the console best suited to it.

Who Pressed Mute on Uncle Marcus? is a shining example of everything I love about FMV murder mystery games: the intrigue, the interpersonal relationships, and the quest for the truth. I especially like that no matter how often you fail there will always be another chance to uncover the truth, and without penalty. In fact, “failing” and pointing the finger incorrectly is especially interesting because that’s when true colours really shine. I have such high expectations from Good Gate Media and Wales Interactive that I keep expecting one of the game to be a flop, but alas, this was not!

I have to wonder if the gaming audience is quite ready for the kind of metatextual experience that Stranger of Paradise presents. It’s not only a game that doesn’t take itself seriously, but it outright challenges players’ expectations on how games are made and how they should be played. It’s hugely entertaining and as experimental as Final Fantasy at its best, but I do wonder how well something so reflective will click and be remembered as a great in the longer term. I only hope that people realise that the nonsense of Jack, his iPod, and his obsession with Chaos is just the surface of this brilliantly smart, layered thing, and they then take the time to dig into what Stranger of Paradise is really saying as a work of metatextual satire.

Rune Factory 5 plays things pretty conservatively, and it’s the better for it. It’s a comfort food kind of experience, and while this might cost it on store shelves given that it has been released at the tail end of so many excellent, intelligent, innovative, and big RPGs, it’s a game of simple delights and pleasant experiences. Sometimes, that’s enough.

You’re going to have fun with this game. For the criticisms I list above, I do think that Tango Gameworks has, with guidance from Bethesda (no doubt), created a refined and highly playable open-world game. It’s one that ticks all the boxes and does so in such a way that’s hard to actively fault. Yet, it's also so frustrating. The hints of what the developers wanted it to be are there. They wanted to make a Noh-inspired, yurei-and-yokai drenched blend of Shinto, Buddhism and neon-modern Japan. That would have been incredible. Sadly that didn't happen. Instead, I was left with the impression that I’d just played a Ubisoft Goes To Tokyo farce, and that left me feeling very deflated indeed.

I don’t want to spoil anything, but simply saying “Greek Tragedy” covers a lot, if you follow me. Clearly, you’re going to get the most out of Sokobos if you already love Sokoban as a core concept, but I could have wished for a slightly deeper story behind it all.

Hundred Days is a fascinating little experience. I didn't expect it to be a graceful little anti-capitalist dig, but I rather love that it is. It didn't discourage me from wanting my own vineyard one day... but it certainly reminded me that I never want anything I do to become so big that I stop caring about it, and it's a rare quality for a simulator - or any game - to subvert the expected experience to deliver a powerful message like that.

I don’t think we should completely give up on it, though. Games have been turned around from disastrous launches to become quite well-loved things, and I do think there is room for Babylon’s Fall to grow, while also being a decent time (in the right conditions) right now. It’s certainly content rich in its current state already, and while it’s probably a bit of a gamble throwing money into something that might not be around for too long, I can still see this developing a community.

It's hard to stay mad at Chocobo GP, though, even when you're hit with what feels like an endless barrage of magic. The game's just too bright and cheerful. Obviously, your mileage is going to depend on whether you're a fan of Chocobo. Not just Final Fantasy, but also this specific series of cute mascot characters. If you are, though, you couldn't ask for a more loving treatment. The expansive roster, the adorable presentation, and the quality kart racing mechanics will combine to give you something that you just might prefer over Mario Kart. The latter might be a bigger and tighter racing experience, but Chocobo GP has a killer weapon up its sleeve that makes all the difference: Chocobo.

That Conan Chop Chop is supposedly a Conan title is a reminder that Conan is the only rival to Dungeons & Dragons as the most poorly used license in video games. It's time to give someone else a go, Funcom. It also fails completely as a single-player adventure, so if you were considering it for yourself, look to any of the other roguelikes out there instead. However, I still think there is a role here that the developers have delivered on. There aren't many multiplayer-orientated roguelikes, and you can certainly have a lot of fun with this over a weekend of beers and button-mashing. It's not going to last long beyond the hangover and will be rotated out of the library quickly enough, but it's still a moreish good time while it lasts.

On the surface, Triangle Strategy seems like a straightforward and even no-frills homage to the tactics JRPGs of yesteryear. It has clearly been developed to tap into the same qualities that made Final Fantasy Tactics such a beloved classic for so many years, but there is more to it than that. With the tone and structure of a historical epic, Triangle Strategy is much denser and more demanding of its players than many might go into expecting. Engage with it on that level, however, and it's one of the finest examples of the genre you'll ever find.

I often say that racing games are, in so many ways, where boundaries get pushed. Between the work that goes into the physics engines, and creating visual environments (and cars) that are gorgeous to look at in all lighting and weather conditions, whether in motion or in screenshots, racing games give us more progress than I think we generally give them credit for. With that in context, Gran Turismo 7 is a masterpiece. Rather than being little more than a wall of sound and speed, as so many other racing games are, GT7 not only gives us excellent racing action, but it is one of the most loving homages to cars. Gran Turismo 7 is, indeed, the most perfect fan service we've seen to date.

Even that's ultimately part of the charm of Elex II though, because it was a game made by RPG enthusiasts for RPG enthusiasts, and min-maxing is, ultimately, a big part of this community. Though the game comes across as an impenetrable club members-only experience at times, the creativity and energy behind it is impossible to deny. Frankly, I would rather play something like this, bugs and all, than something overproduced and so safe that it puts me to sleep.

Atelier remains the comfort food of video games, and Atelier Sophie 2 is one of the more comforting snacks. With so many dense and complex games releasing around one another at the moment, having something that is light, warm, and good-natured is a nice release. I don't know if launching immediately after Elden Ring and Horizon, and immediately before Triangle Strategy works in Sophie's favour, but if you can resist making those comparisons, what you'll see here is one of the most refined and beautiful entries in this long-running and utterly wonderful JRPG mainstay. The game deserves better than to be compared like-for-like with these other titles, as it no doubt will be.

With Elden Ring, we're in masterpiece territory. FromSoftware is consistently great, of course, and I don't mean to denigrate Sekiro or Dark Souls here, as they're all exceptional, but Elden Ring has all the potential to have a similar level of impact as Demon's Souls here. Spinning a richly evocative and carefully paced tale of darkness and misery, Elden Ring isn't the most easygoing game, either in terms of its storytelling or general difficulty. However, not only is it majestic in scope and vision, it is one of the most perfect examples of how an open world structure can be used to the thematic benefit of the game, rather than just be a massive space used to hurl worthless content at players. In this way, Elden Ring joins a very elite group indeed... and is has arguably topped it.

Puzzle & Dragons on console could be and should be so much more than this. The base game - the puzzling action itself - is so good, and we've already seen the proof that it works in a more expanded, ambitious project. Dumping the mobile game on Nintendo Switch, meanwhile, seems odd and pointless. I can't even play the mobile game here in Australia and I was still left wondering why anyone would think something this shallow and featureless would work on console.

I do admire the developer's desire to maintain the arcade fighter tone and aesthetic in King of Fighters, and I'll forever be a fan of this series as long as they keep dropping Athena into it. The team at SNK are no doubt working on more limited budgets than the big guns, and with the absolute focus on esports in the fighting game space it's no surprise that they've made that a near-perfect experience, even as they've stripped almost everything else out of the game to make that happen. However, there's no way to paper over this; people who do like fighting games in single player or local multiplayer are going to be left feeling very cold, though. Colder than Kula, even. And that's disappointing.

The Forsaken Maiden is not really a sequel or successor to the first Voice of Cards. There's no effort to build on the previous game. Instead, The Forsaken Maiden exists in parallel to the first Voice of Cards, as another module to sit on the virtual bookshelf of adventures. I only hope that Square Enix is being rewarded for these and the plan is to fill many shelves with many more parallel modules like this. I will forever find the time to more Voice of Cards if it's going to keep being like this.

Challenging, rewarding, gorgeous and culturally authentic, GetsuFumaDen is one of the most enjoyable roguelikes I’ve played. Mechanically it doesn’t do much to challenge or reinvent the formula, but it streamlines it beautifully. Meanwhile, it offers a vivid and detailed, classical take on Japanese art styles and the Hyakki Yagyō storytelling tradition. As a starting point for learning more about both these things, you couldn’t ask for something more inspired.

I'm not the world's biggest fan of platformers, but I very much warmed to Grapple Dog. The thought and passion that went into every element of the experience is explicit, and it's hard not to fall for its wiles and charms. I do think the developers lost sight a little of how they wanted people to play this game, as the speedrunning quality of the movement system does feel at odds with the way the game also asks you to carefully explore levels, but that's really splitting hairs here. Grapple Dog is a bold, confident, and often inspired take on a genre that is as oversaturated as they come.

Monark is a smart game. It knows it, and it wants you to know it too. Some may well find that it's even pretentious. But it’s also in so many ways a boundary-pushing and innovative experience, and one that I imagine will be unique for a very long time to come. Putting aside the disappointment that comes from realising that it could have attacked with its themes more, I don’t think there is any other way that the creative team could have delivered on a more coherent and compelling vision and, really, it is experiences like Monark that keep me interested in this medium. Don’t let this one pass you by, folks.

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.

I have deep and irresolvable issues with Horizon: Forbidden West, and it largely boils down to the game being an empty blockbuster that will chew up a lot of your time, but not do anything meaningful with it. However, that's all Horizon ever wanted to be and criticising Horizon for not being a great work of art is like criticising a reality television dance show for not being ballet. For what it is, Horizon is impeccable. Most importantly, it builds on the success of the first game in a way that I am quite certain that those who loved Aloy and her first quest will find even more to love about this one.

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.

I wonder if the writing enamoured me so much that it hampered my enjoyment of the rest of the game. The combat and dungeon crawling is fine, above-average even, but it often felt like an impediment to Rise of the Third Power’s excellent story. Nevertheless, I had a great time with Stegosoft Games’ latest offering. The team's love for the JRPG genre is shining through, and their ability to spin a great narrative helps the work lift well beyond what you usually get from "RPG Maker"-like projects.

The Hundred Year Kingdom is the most rare and precious of things: it's a smart, engaging, and thoughtful game, but also one that is highly accessible, playable, and respects the player's time. It is clearly a solo project, but it's also weird how a solo developer has managed to figure out how to do that when so many developers 1,000x their size remain committed to wasting our lives on their content.

There’s a place for this kind of game, though, and thanks to the great sense of humour, Maglam Lord remains a delight from start right through to its end. It’s a kind of comfort food that operates within the expectations of the genre, and so, while someone who is not familiar with JRPGs will find it all confounding, if you do appreciate the nuances and of the genre it’s going to entertain you a great deal.

Historical fiction is a quick way to my heart, and while, if I were inclined to make a historical fiction game set in ancient Rome myself, I would probably go with some kind of retelling of Caligula’s story (note: I swear it’s so much more interesting than the popular stories would have you believe), I found this to be interesting and engaging experience on every level. The tactical action is challenging and deep, the management side of things is robust, and the story that it weaves will keep you invested, even 40 or more hours into it. This is an early game of the year contender.

Every time I think I'm losing interest in Pokémon, Game Freak does something to reinvigorate me. The Pokémon Pearl and Diamond remakes last year were fine, though I ended up spending more time just playing the original Pokémon Pearl again. I needed something like Arceus, I think, to get me to once again drop dozens of hours into a single game. This is a brave, bold game into new frontiers for Game Freak, and it confidently promises a new and revitalised future for the series.

I'm sadly torn on Gomoku. I love that we have a serious take on a great game on Nintendo Switch, but the lack of online play defies all logic. If you've been dying to learn Gomoku, then this will get you going (aside from the missing application of a critical rule). Otherwise, though, anyone interested enough in Gomoku to consider a video game adaptation surely has a board of their own for local play, and the game's utility as a training tool is hindered by how few opportunities most of us will ever have to want to play the game seriously enough to train. The application itself is presented lovingly, but I just don't see the audience here.

There might not be much of Hatsune Miku herself in Connecting Puzzle Tamagotori, but I can't see how a Miku fan would be disappointed by this game. It's warm, creative, bright and charming. It might not be the most challenging puzzle game you've ever played, but I doubt you've played a happier one.

If 2022 is going to be the year where I end up slamming dozens of games for being written like amateurish fan fiction, so be it. YA-style writing might sell well, but to be perfectly blunt about this it's good writing in only the most exceedingly rare cases. For narrative-heavy genres, like RPGs, the tonal dissonance that YA writing forces into to work to make it read and sound "modern" even if it's set in a world of swords and sorcery, is unacceptable. I could have and should have liked Reverie Tactics. In practice, I found it infuriating. Developers: please stop pitching your work at this level.

Which brings me back to that question: what is the point of Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, really? Sure, Lost Legacy is a wildly enjoyable adventure in classic Uncharted style, and even Uncharted 4, for all my complaints about it, is a game a lot of people clearly loved, and they'll love it again here. But when the only thing these "remasters" have over the PS4 originals that you can already play on PS5 are modest technical upgrades whose practical and aesthetic improvements are marginal at best, what purpose do they actually serve? When even someone who's never played either game before and is breaking in their brand new console and can get an identical experience for half the price by just buying the existing PS4 bundle, what is this Legacy of Thieves Collection other than a half-step in a pointless technical arms race and a chance to cynically sell some unnecessary version upgrades? We would all be served better if Sony focused on bringing us some of the incredible games that aren't readily available on the console already.

If you do like Space Harrier and similar, and you're familiar enough with the Neptunia series to know the characters and enemies without needing to have them introduced to you, then Top Nep is a short burst of nostalgic-themed fun. It's also a decent game to introduce people to the genre, thanks to the modest difficulty option, while eventually scaling to something more challenging to give the genre faithful something to sink their teeth into. I have very few issues with Top Nep as an arcade action throwback. My issue is that, as a Neptunia fan, the less-than-lip service paid to the property left the overall experience feeling humourless and soulless. For all the faults and missteps of Neptunia over the years that is something I never thought I would be saying about a game in the series.

I don’t have strong feelings for Eternal Radiance. It’s got no egregious flaws, and boasts a lengthy quest and a combat loop sure to keep players satisfied. As a bare-bones, back-to-basics look at the action-JRPG, it’s fine. It’s just that on the Switch there are so many available games that take a more interesting look at the JRPG formula, whether it has to do with narrative or gameplay or visual aesthetic, and that makes Eternal Radiance seem woefully bland by comparison. Reading the situation generously, it does feel like the game’s simplicity comes down to the developer’s affection of JRPG tropes, rather than a lack of creativity or ambition. But it's still a quality that holds the overall experience back. The finished product is fine, and quite nice to look at, but it is something that makes me want to play something else instead.

Here's the thing about Pupperazzi: it isn't perfect, but it is perfectly happy. For days I've been obsessed with meeting new dogs, dressing new dogs, photographing new dogs, petting new dogs... you get the idea. Lord knows the world is a difficult enough place right now, and Pupperazzi makes things seem lighter and easier while playing. Photographers like myself will get a kick out of how the developers recreated the photographic process in a video game. Animals lovers will adore meeting each and every furry being. Aside from those two things that really irk me, the game is quite soothing... unless you're scrambling to take a photo of that ONE dog that will inevitably keep running away. And then you'll finally snap the sneaky little doggo and life will be all the happier.

Aside from being an imperfect port, Concordia is an excellent digital board game for Eurogame veterans. That's a fairly small niche on Switch and I do think most people will be happy with Wingspan, but if you do like your board games to be smart and engaging, this is one that you don't want to overlook.

I wasn't expecting much from Space Stella. It's a Trooze-published game, after all. But what I actually good exceeded my expectations in the most wrong way possible. I don't like bandying around terms like "unplayable" much, since "unplayable" implies that the game cannot be completed, and most of the time it's juvenile hyperbole for "this is just a game I don't much like playing because it has some flaws in it." But Space Stella is genuinely unplayable. Even if I could handle the sickeningly janky gameplay (which I can't), I have a visceral desire to avoid playing a game so shallow, uninspired and downright empty as this one.

It’s quite the joy to play, and it is by no means the only "retro" experience that displays limitations that become more apparent with age. For the modest price being asked of players with this Switch release, it’s a great opportunity for a hit of nostalgia. As I said at the top of the review, however, it's not quite the timeless experience that its immediate peer is.

Like all of qureate's games, the fan service of Duel Princess crosses far beyond the light and bubbly stuff that sits within a lot of people's comfort zones and lands squarely into outright titillation. Those who tolerate fan service if they otherwise enjoy a game will find this a bit much, and as a consequence qureate has certainly limited the audience more than the team needed to, given how little relevance the erotic elements have to anything else in the game. However, for people like me that do enjoy the aesthetics of anime eroticism, there's the added benefit with Duel Princess that it's qureate's best game to date. By moving the focus far away from storytelling (which they're terrible at), to casual and entertaining gameplay structures (which, as it turns out, they're quite good at), qureate is getting dangerously close to giving the likes of Idea Factory a run for their money.

To Be Or Not To Be is an excellent - and rare - example of Shakespeare being brought to video games. It works as a satirical deconstruction of Hamlet, and it works as a simple (but enjoyable) choose-your-own-adventure gamebook in video game form. I wish more developers were willing to tackle this kind of source material.

My issues with Arcadia Fallen have to do with my issues with the wider YA narrative genre that it belongs to, but I really cannot stand the tonal inconsistencies, the juvenile writing style, or the complete shallowness of these things and the thoughts they express. It seems that I'm increasingly in the minority here, but I'm not a fan of treating audiences like idiots. However, if YA writing doesn't annoy you as much as it does me, then you're going to really get along with this one, since the presentation is impeccable, and it does have its heart in the right place.

Should the very negative impression that Alone Musc levels be tempered by the fact that the credits list just four people? Perhaps, but then perhaps those four people should have worked on something more in-line with what they had the resources for. Alone Musc is, by a long way, the poorest rhythm game on a console that has a lot of excellent rhythm games, and unfortunately, for a genre as straightforward as this one, there was nowhere for this team to hide their inability to compete with the other developers working in the genre.

Theatre of Sorrows isn't worth your time. It's dressed up nicely with some good art and the occasional sinister moment to dwell on, but underneath that is little more than a basic resource management experience, with such egregious repetition through its "roguelike" elements that it becomes rote well before you've even finished the game for the first time. As a carefully-planned, linear and focused experience, Theatre of Sorrows could have been something creepy and evocative. Instead, it's like reading the same snippets of Lovecraft over and over again. Do that, and it doesn't take long at all for them to lose all meaning and value.

To the game's credit, there are a lot of levels, and the asking price is modest. There is some effort that has gone into making Epic Dumpster Bear 2. There are even some genuinely nice touches, like little facts about bears that pop up during loading screens, and some elements, powerups, and similar that make it clear that the game is Canadian. I like it when the developers don't shy away from identifying their work with their culture. Unlike many low-budget platformers, there is a soul and sense that the developers weren't just looking to make a cynical dollar. So much of Epic Dumpster Bear 2 is admirable, it's just a pity that there wasn't a stronger vision behind it.

The only real problem with Oink Games is that the single-player experience is a bit too no-frills for its own good. Why can't I organise a five-round game of Startups against the AI, developers? You've implemented a great scoring system that demands play over five (if not ten) rounds, but when you're playing solo you're restricted to one game at a time. Thankfully the AI is a challenge without it ever feeling like they cheat, but still, between the limitations of solo play and the fact that two of the four games don't really work as single-player experiences, you'll need to go into this being aware that you're only getting a quarter of the experience unless you can get a Friday evening group together. Thankfully, that should be pretty easy since, once you do play Oink Games, you'll want to play it a whole lot).

There are exceptional options for chess on the Switch. Pawn of the Dead, meanwhile, is one of the poorest games on the console.

So, while the horror might be a little too much of a pastiche for its own good (it does go places sometimes, but a "haunted letter", Ring-style, is a shoddy hook in 2021), there's something very readable and enjoyable about The Letter. It's not particularly deep, but it's significantly better than amateur standard, the editing is clean, and you can just tell that this was a labour of love for the development team. It might not be an Otomate production, but this is of a standard that well exceeds most other indie visual novels.

It's great when you need free chips, but Poker Club was built entirely around the social experience and that's largely absent here. I love Poker Club's design and philosophy, but unfortunately, where Ripstone's other games on Switch are exceptional, this is a vastly inferior port and experience.

The oddity here is that while it's a "full" Switch release, it's still listed as an Early Access title on Steam. The three-person team putting Dungeon Munchies together could still tighten up that platforming aspect, and I really hope they do. Dungeon Munchies won't appeal to everyone, but it's precisely the kind of small indie gaming idea that would never get large traction with a bigger publisher.

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.

While that might sound like a catastrophic weakness for a tactics game, it’s really not and hidden well. Look at how compelling Advance Wars or Final Fantasy Tactics is despite the simplicity of the enemy AI and the actual on-field tactics. Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector aims for a similar casual tactical feel as those kinds of games, and, thanks to the excellent and authentic depiction of the grimdark 40K universe, nails it. This is just plain good tactics play, and sometimes that’s enough.

The core fundamentals of Monster Rancher are delightful, and while this collection has its issues, there aren't all that many modern equivalents to what it offers, so they hold their value well. Whether this is some kind of elaborate market research with Koei canvassing interest for a potential new Monster Rancher, or a simple acknowledgement that the series still has fans and they'll buy anything Monster Rancher-related, I don't know. I almost hope they don't make a new Monster Rancher, because the appeal of these games is in their simple charm. Simplicity that modern game development can't get away with. In that context, I actually believe that Monster Rancher 1 & 2 DX will be the best of this series. Putting aside the inability to summon monsters via CD, both games have aged like the finest of wines, and remain some of the best examples of design from their era.

Slap Them All is by no means perfect. It's shallow, even by genre standards, lacks the all-but mandatory four-player option, has been balanced for two players to the point that it doesn't really work as a single-player game, and fails to give players any reason to give it a second go once powered through. And yet at the same time, it is the best use of the beloved Asterix & Obelix property that we have seen in years and for us long-suffering Asterix & Obelix fans, for that reason alone Slap Them All is a gift.

Real Boxing 2 is everything wrong with mobile gaming, and while it's free of the microtransactions on Nintendo Switch, all that it has to offer is an endless parade of matches that display no personality. I'm no expert on boxing, but I know enough about the sport to know that boxing fans aren't going to find this satisfying on any level.

To be blunt, I would never call Ultimate Summer Camp a deep or important game, but it is pure, undiluted fun. It's not trying to be deep or smart, but rather a bubbly-light bit of nonsense with a healthy dollop of fan service, and it delivers that with some spot-on delivery. Think of this as a reward for making your way through the 60-odd hours it takes to get through the Danganronpa series and the relatively serious and deep-thinking themes that those three titles explore. After that, you deserve a reward, and as a positive foil to them, this is the perfect delivery mechanism. So don't judge this in isolation. Consider that Danganronpa Decadence contains all those other games as well, and that you really ought to have played through them all before even stepping into the joy of this thing, making the overall collection the best that has been released on the Nintendo Switch to date.

The appeal of Date Night Bowling is incredibly limited. It's for people that want to play a game with their romantic partner, and need something that both can enjoy equally, regardless of their gaming experience. At the same time, it's for those that don't want to become too competitive or heated. And both people also need to be old enough to enjoy the 80's and 90's vibes and aesthetics. It's inoffensive enough in fulfilling that very narrow role, but its concepts fall down badly when you're playing single-player, or with anyone other than your significant other. Throw in a dearth of depth and character, and even when you are playing it in its optimal environment, you're going to wish that you decided to take date night to a real bowling alley instead.

The original BloodRayne is a cult classic and masterpiece, in the same way that the best B-grade exploitation was. It wasn’t a great game, but a strong concept that combined slaying Nazis and sexy vampire sucking was really all it needed. Just like B-cinema doesn’t need great camera angles when it’s got creatively gory death scenes and women that don’t like wearing clothes. In fairness, BloodRayne 2 does clean things up in comparison to the original. It plays better (platforming aside), and is generally a more coherent experience. It gets rid of the Nazis (largely), but ups the sex. And yet it loses a little X-factor in being better. Rather than aiming for cult appeal, BloodRayne 2 aspired to be an actual game and where the first succeeded at being what it wanted to, the second did not. However, as I said at the start of this review, because it is a better base game, and its themes have translated across better into 2021, it is the better of the two to play today.

It's a succinct and heartfelt game with a gorgeous aesthetic and an evocative narrative. The Kids We Were seems destined to be a thing that people will overlook, but I really hope that they don't. The way it taps into both a sense of nostalgia for youth and the Japanese nostalgia for the golden 80's might not be the most original narrative angle ever, but it's a story told so well that you won't be able to put it down.

There's nothing overtly wrong with BloodRayne: Revamped. It is an opportunity to replay a trashy (by deliberate design) early example of a B-grade "exploitation grindhouse" video game. These kinds of experiences only really became viable with the power that the PlayStation 2 generation brought to the party, so BloodRayne really is one of the first of its kind, and there's historical value in that. It could have done with a more substantial remake than this, though. If there was anything from back on the PlayStation 2 era that would have really benefitted from a full, top-to-bottom remake, it's the "sex sells" stuff like BloodRayne must surely be at the top of that list.

I hadn't played the analogue board game of Root before this digital adaptation, but I'm going to buy a copy for the Christmas party circuit now. While it's not too complex, there's plenty of depth to Root's systems, and the careful balancing between them, despite their very different play styles and objectives, makes for a strategically chaotic, but massively entertaining experience. This is a masterful bit of game design, recreated with love for the play anywhere Nintendo Switch experience.

This then is the challenge with Jurassic World Evolution 2. If you're a Jurassic Film fan who also likes micromanagement, there's certainly enough meat on its dinosaur bones to keep you happy for a good long while. However, if you're more just a management sim fan, you'll probably find its quirky management style – sometimes hands-on, sometimes hands-off – a tad irritating, as well as the limitations of its console controls.

Football Manager is work, and there's no other way to describe it. Most games conceal work-like routines and elements beneath the play, but Football Manager ignores the pretence; you're given spreadsheets and actual KPIs to deliver, and if you fail, your virtual club will fire you. It is so difficult to articulate how something like this can be so compelling, but remember, video games are there to allow us the escapism of being someone who we're never going to be, and I'm never going to be the real-life manager of Crystal Palace (and even if I was given that opportunity, I reckon we should let Vieira hold on a while yet). Football Manager 2022 Touch is a wholly inadequate release, given it costs the same amount as last year's edition while also being last year's edition... and yet I won't be able to drag myself away from it for many months ahead.

SMT V is perhaps a little too smart for its own good, and might alienate some people in the process, but it’s also refreshing to have developers create something that actually dares to have that level of confidence in their audience. This is a game that makes few concessions and compromises, but it is rewarding in kind and has a kind of elevated gravitas that marks it out as a rare and special thing indeed.

These gripes aside – and I realise that I’ve griped a lot in this review – Pokémon Pearl remains an excellent game, and the remake is of a very high quality. I’ve been able to reunite with Piplup, relive a very fondly-remembered adventure, and while there have been some tweaks that I’ve been less than amused by, on balance the developers have retained the qualities that made that game such a fondly remembered one.

There will be essays written on Disco Elysium. This is one of those games that will be studied in universities as Citizen Kane is studied in film and D. H. Lawrence's work is all-but unavoidable if you study literature. It's not necessarily the most outright entertaining thing the medium has ever produced, but it's an important work that explores the boundaries and potential of video games, while also having the nuance and layers it needs to challenge players to think beyond the joy they get from pressing buttons. Even if you have to play the Switch port, as inferior as it is, you should make sure that you play Disco Elysium on something.

That aside, Asmodee continues to demonstrate why it is the best digital board game developer going around. Gloomhaven itself is a little insular compared to the likes of Game of Thrones, Arkham Horror, Ticket to Ride, Pathfinder and Lord of the Rings, so I suspect it will appeal to a narrower band of players than some of Asmodee's other adaptations, but the faithful quality of that adaptation and the stellar production values make it an easy sell to existing Gloomhaven fans, and the ideal way to those that were intimidated by the size (and cost) of the box when they've seen it in their local game store to give it a go in the first place.

Considering playthroughs as both Cotton and Silk, Panorama Cotton will take about two hours to fully clear, but Challenge Mode will require some practice before players master the best routes. But the spectacle of this game never gets old – each level is so bright and colourful and happy that it’s just a joy to fly through over and over. Panorama Cotton is truly an unexpected gem that’s a delight for its entire runtime, and thanks to a modern rerelease which makes it more accessible to all sorts of players, it’s about time that more people discover this rare import title.

The run time will likely be cause for complaint for some people – Cotton 100%. But this is an arcade-style game through and through, and it’s entertaining no matter how many times it’s replayed. And since the cartridge would normally be a rare import that would fetch a hefty price, it’s a wonderful gesture to have them readily available as a digital download. For fans of SHMUPs, both Cotton 100% is a must buy – it’s an absolute standout in its genre which would appeal to old and new fans alike.

I often say that the original Blue Reflection is the most beautiful game. I say that because while it obviously didn’t compare to the AAA-blockbusters in terms of the money that has been thrown at it, the art direction was so pitch-perfect and downright beautiful that the technical limitations were irrelevant. Second Light clearly had a bigger budget and made the most of that to present a more refined and confident take on the Blue Reflection vision. The story is a vibrant, the JRPG action is classical and engaging, and the aesthetics are pristine. Getting something this wholesome and pure is a rare treat in an industry obsessed with hard and serious storytelling and adult themes, and I strongly suspect that, just like the original Blue Reflection, I’m not going to be able to get Second Light out of my mind for years to come.

While Voice of Cards could be refined as a game, the vision is impeccable, and while the game's not as outrageous or subversive as NieR and its sequel, it still represents Yoko Taro's unique qualities as a game designer and narrative writer: he is forever experimenting and pushing boundaries. Voice of Cards is almost subtle in this, but the way that it aims to work collaboratively with players to share a story, rather than tell it, is a delightful departure from the norm for the JRPG. I don't think anyone expected him to follow up NieR with a "card game," but Yoko Taro has hit onto something very special here.

As interesting and tactical as that combat system is, I couldn't get past the fact that Disciples: Liberation was asking 80 (or more) hours of a person's time with so little payoff. I just found the whole thing too relentlessly miserable to connect with. It's possible to create a dark setting and still have moments of warmth, beauty and joy. Tolkien understood that. Perhaps those that have been inspired by him should be more diligent students.

But, like I've said, those nifty puzzles are just the jumping-off point for what makes this such a remarkable, memorable experience. A clever game of unloading boxes would have been enough to make Unpacking worth playing, but it's the way it weaves its beautiful story through those puzzles that makes it truly sublime.