What players will find when picking up Watch Dogs: Legion is a game that is prepared for a long post-launch game-as-a-service experience. The additional DLC announced so far leans into the strengths of the game and established ideas that the series does well. The beekeepers, paintball guns and magician tricks all bring a sense of playful humour to the series, but it is worth noting that anyone who is (rightfully) tired of Ubisoft's content approach to games is going to find this one a very content-driven game.

For players that have yet to play either of these two titles, this package is more than worth picking up as it comes at a great price for two separate titles. Whether either is worth a replay or not is debatable, however. This package came at perhaps the wrong time of year, given how many other great JRPGs (and Pokemon itself) have been released at the same time. These are fun little games, but they're hardly classics.

Paper Mario: Color Splash is an endlessly charming, cutesy journey that represents a greater achievement for the art directors and script writers than Intelligent Systems as a whole. It’s a shame that such a talented studio opted only to tweak the flawed Sticker Star and, as a result, dull and unbalanced gameplay often holds back this whimsical romp. As one of the final Wii U titles, though, it’s certifiably hilarious and might just warrant a second look.

As a cricket nut, Don Bradman Cricket is the definitive version of the finest cricket game ever produced. It's also quite possibly the most limited "HD Remaster" yet produced for the console, but Big Ant has now cut its teeth on next-gen development, and I can't wait to see a proper sequel down the track to a game that I have spent more time playing over the past year than any other.

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

The game plays perfectly fine, but it just shouldn't have been made this way.

Visually, the pixel art style works well enough, and it helps on the Switch not being that complex a title so load times are minimal. Because your foes only respond after your attacks, there’s always time to stop and plan out shots around how each orb’s power works – once you wrap your head around that – and so it’s a pretty easy drop-in-drop out kind of game. Not everything needs to be a 100+ hour epic, you know?

There is a camaraderie for the heroes built around trust and affection for one another that really resonates and gives the narrative a certain warmth that I enjoyed through to the end.

Mary Skelter is sublime. By turns darkly sensual and horrific, it's also beautiful, ravishing, and backed by truly expert level design and a clean, clever combat system. This game is too different to effectively compare to other dungeon crawlers, but I must say, of all the many games in this genre that I've played, this one will sit with me for a very long time into the future.

Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne was one of the first games I ever reviewed as a game critic, back on the PlayStation 2. I was mesmerised by it then, because I found it to be a deeply challenging, but also deeply rewarding JRPG, and its dark, genuinely adult theme wasn't so common for JRPGs back then. 18-odd years later, my interest in games has shifted slightly, and I'd like to think my capabilities and depth as a critic has matured. However, this game continues to compel me. It is thought-provoking, deeply creative, and a genuinely serious JRPG. Oddly enough, one of the qualities that drew me to the original has drawn me back to the remaster: we still don't get so many of those.

Mary Skelter 2 is more of the same, but given that no one else out there would touch this combination of fairy tale, fetishistic horror, and anime fan service, I can't complain one bit about what Mary Skelter 2 is. It's the sequel to one of the most original and memorable dungeon crawlers in recent memory, and that too makes it one of the most original and memorable dungeon crawlers in recent memory.

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

It’s challenging from the start, but in a way that promotes your growth, you will want to get better in order to beat your opponents. If only the online was a little more real-time, I would be inclined to give this a perfect score.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider isn’t as good as the original reboot, but feels more like a complete package than Rise of the Tomb Raider offered. Peru is represented beautifully, and with some jaw dropping landscapes coupled with very detailed character models, Tomb Raider remains an immersive adventure with just a few faults keeping it from being a true great.

It's not a great game, but it does enough to deserve its license.

Once again Dontnod has crafted a world ripe to explore, as it is set three years after the events of Life is Strange and still within Oregon the world is full of references to the original game, even within this brief pre-release teaser. Fans of the series will play this and find themselves completely relieved of any lingering concerns that they may have had that Max and Chloe are no longer the focus of the series, with Captain Spirit proving the Life is Strange universe - and Dontnod's on mastery over this kind of storytelling - is bigger then just the original protagonists.

Gripes aside, if you are looking for a colourful, fun and humorous shooter, Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare should fit the bill nicely.

So did the third episode of Minecraft Story Mode set a good precedent for the remainder of the series? Absolutely. Did it clear the bad taste left behind by episode two? Absolutely not. It makes me hopeful for episodes four and five to continue the upswing, but I’m hesitant to believe it will.

Ginga Force is one of the better shoot ‘em ups I’ve played. As someone who traditionally is not a fan of the genre, this game absolutely gave me reason enough to play each of the levels. It is a shame that the narrative is too difficult to follow as it happens alongside the action. The ability to upgrade weapons and purchase bonus items, even after failing a level, is a welcome ingredient to allow people who only casually play within the shoot ‘em up genre the ability to enjoy the game enough to get through to the end, but the fact that a lot of the good stuff is locked behind "for genre veterans only" difficulty settings does whittle down the game's potential audience a little.

Whereas Five Dates was an essential quarantine experience in my mind (so was The Complex, filmed prior to the pandemic but oddly relevant), Ten Dates is an essential “let’s get back out there and get on with life” game. It makes me feel like maybe I still have the ability, hidden very deep down inside of me, to connect with people in person. The two games are on-par score-wise while presenting very different life experiences. In Ten Dates, the characters are all relatable on some level, and the way relationships progress feels natural. The Nintendo Switch handles it very well, and I’d imagine the situation is very much the same on any other platform. All in all: play it! You’ll fall in love.

The Just Dance franchise hasn’t grown a lot since its heyday, but it doesn’t need to. Most of the songs included are a lot of fun to dance to, even if pop music isn’t your thing. The gashapon reward system offers an incentive to keep dancing without making it feel like rewards are constantly out of reach. Grab a friend and clear the lounge-room, because it’s time to get addicted to dancing all over again.

By and large EA Sports UFC 3 is the best offering from the series yet. The standing combat is well nuanced, and most of the choices made for career mode felt like steps in the right direction. Ultimate Team feels a bit out of place and unnecessary, and the overall lack of roster inclusions and modes makes this a slightly more shallow offering, but the key is the combat... which words far better when a fighter is on their feet and not down on the mat. I was engaged for several days, spending plenty of time playing the game, but the reasons that most people continue to play an EA Sports title until the next iteration comes along just isn't as strong in EA Sports UFC 3.

Let's take a step back and examine Block'hood from a distance: it's a city-building game with charming retro-styled graphics. With every step closer, with every minute longer played, the end goal becomes increasingly clear: showcasing the pressure our precious planet is currently under due to increasing human demands and decreasing natural resources. In general, I think humans know what's coming. It's the reason those huge blockbusters films about disasters do so well: no matter where we are from, what language we speak, we know that we are pushing the planet too far and possibly past the point of no return. We're scared. So some people fight it (science!) and other prefer to flee (and pretend the threat isn't there), but we're all watching and waiting. Block'hood means I no longer have to wait. I know where the world is going. And I think I'd like to get off the ride now.

In the interests of variety, evolution, and the survival of creative thought, Hohokum is a game that needs to exist and be celebrated by those who can appreciate it.

It’s a bigger game than I was expecting. At around 50-60 hours at a reasonable pace, working through everything, it’s by far the largest Mana game ever produced. The fact that it doesn’t stop being a highly playable joy from the start right through to the end should be a good indication of just how beloved this one is set to become – it may even just unseat Secret of Mana itself. Visions of Mana might not be quite so genre-refining as that classic, but otherwise, this is the perfect representation of what Mana has always meant to represent.

The collection of games itself is just such incredible value, covering off such a broad range of SEGA's history when it was at its very finest, that anyone missing out on this is doing themselves a real disservice. Heck, for the three Phantasy Star games in there alone I would instantly recommend this package. That series was every bit as good as Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest back in the day.

Taking a shallow sub-mode from other games, and presenting it in a no-frills manner, might make for a competent and reliable shooter, But Killing Floor 2 also fails to be anything more than a diversion from other, better shooters as a result. It's utterly useless in singleplayer, and for multiplayer hijinks there are more creative examples out there.

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