Never before has there been a game that makes you feel so warm and fuzzy when you fail your task.

Unfortunately, it’s not a very complete package largely alienates anyone who isn’t already familiar with fighters, making it a tough sell for people looking for a casual experience.

It scratches my nostalgia for classic dungeon crawlers, while offering a stiff challenge, and stunning art work that, while I'll never play the game in public because of those pictures, I find to be both amusing and oddly charming.

My disappointment with Egglia is its capitulation to free-to-play mobile game conventions, that simply weren't necessary. Priced at the relatively premium price that it's set at, I expected Egglia to be something bolder; something willing to do away with the timers and endless grind. I expected something to take advantage of the gorgeous art style to tell a compelling story. I expected a game that was closer to what I might expect to play on my PlayStation 4 than something I download to my iPad, noodle around with for a while, but ultimately forget. Sadly, Egglia is not that game.

I would define this game as a nice game that was very well cooked and served. No, it wasn’t one of those rare breed that practically forced me to sit and play. Mystralia's is a more down to earth experience, gaining most of its credit through its adorably vivid presentation. It also does very well in the puzzle department.

It’s the humour and presentation that makes No More Heroes VR worthwhile in the end.

And in to those players attuned to punishing difficulty and high expectations, Neko Navy feels like three soft hackysacks and an earnest request to have fun. Anyone can play it, anyone can enjoy it, but for the lovers of the SHMUP genre, this is home.

Idol Manager really needs a console release - the scope and design of the game makes it perfect for the Nintendo Switch in particular - but in the meantime, I can see myself spending a lot of time playing this on the PC. I'm not the world's biggest fan of idols (at least, idols that aren't digital and with aquamarine twintail hair), but I do find the culture behind them fascinating to study. Idol Manager is a far more thoughtful take on all of this than I was expecting, and consequently, I've found the whole thing to be fascinating.

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.

These are indie developers and they have captured the basics of the “princess marker” hyper-niche genre. They just needed to focus a little more on presentation and storytelling technique (unless your Yoko Taro, you’re probably not in a position to be writing in abrupt and bad endings without giving players some inkling that one might be coming up), and Long Live The Queen could have been something truly great.

Project Zero: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse is by no means a mainstream horror game, is the point that I’m making through this review. However, it is incredible. In the context of the broader Project Zero series, it’s going to be fondly remembered. It’s hard to look past Project Zero 2 as the masterpiece of the series, but the intensity of the atmosphere and strength of the narrative in this one means that this one isn’t far behind. More importantly, however, is that in 2023 this is one of those surprisingly rare attempts at a Japanese horror game, as opposed to a horror game made by Japanese developers. They’re different things, and this game is not only an excellent piece of entertainment, but it is also an enormously useful resource for anyone that wants to understand the aesthetics of horror outside of the western mainstream.

Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition feels like a release schedule filler. While the multiplayer features are robust, they’re hardly innovative, and really it’s just a package of sliced-up classic games with a timer attached to them. I’d never call a game development project “lazy,” because they’re not, but the minimum work has gone into this, and while it will become a competitive obsession for a small minority, there could have been so much more done to draw in a much broader audience and really celebrate the deep heritage of these games (as well as Nintendo in facilitating competitive play).

Bury Me, My Love is a remarkable exercise in building empathy. It’s a simple game, but so much more razor focused and successful at creating authenticity than most games that have budgets of a hundred million. Most importantly, however, is that no game is telling a story of greater importance to the world at the moment than Bury Me, My Love. The games industry and those who play games keep arguing that there's the potential for video games to have the emotional power and potential to be the next great art form. Here’s your proof.

Warlock 2 is an incredible well crafted game that is easy to bury hours into. Like any other good strategy game it can take some time to find the right strategy that will suit your play style, but that process of discovery is what makes these games so enticing.

Without any statistical tracking, limited number of players on the court and only a handful of modes, that this title won't have quite the shelf life for me that a more involved simulation game like NBA 2K19.

2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil doesn't necessarily reinvent the wheel. It does, however, bring new refinements on the pitch from the already excellent FIFA 14, and layers on a Brazilian vibe and mode structure that's unique from the yearly FIFA releases.

As an existing fan of Disgaea, this new one is, despite the incredible focus on big numbers, more of the same, and that is fine by me. The extended level cap is hugely indulgent and entirely unnecessary to the tactics JRPG format, but at the same time it's part of Disgaea's inherent self-awareness and genre-transgressive humour. It very much wants you to see it as a silly indulgence. Couple that with the genuinely funny, satirical script and the rich tactical core that, once you peel back the excess is as compelling as always, and Disgaea 6 shows that the developers at Nippon Ichi still know how to get a player both deeply invested and laughing along with the thing. I want to say that I don’t think there’s much more that can be done with Disgaea. To me it seems that the hyperbolic potential of the series must have peaked now. But then I thought that exact same thing after Disgaea 5 and this new entry has certainly corrected me on that count.

Late Shift is still enjoyable enough.

The team at Telltale Games has done a spectacular job of creating a compartmentalised story that runs parallel to the books and show that fans know so well.

It's a small game that shows off all the artistic talents of the team. There's a real joyfulness in the concept of flight, as enabled by VR, and Unity has never looked better; if this is a sign of things to come from that engine then we're in for some wild times as developers of all sizes start creating more VR content for it. There's a purity and innocence to Eagle Flight so completely wondrous to behold that I wish Ubisoft created more of these kinds of games.

Demon Gaze II is only one or two tiny steps away from breaking away from its genre trappings to be a game that is so good that people who don’t usually like the dungeon crawlers should give it a play. The developer has done a great job in making the game more accessible (while still leaving plenty of ultra-difficult stuff there for the really committed), and the art direction for the characters and monsters is so vivid and vibrant that you can’t help but admire them.

While I fully acknowledge that Don Bradman Cricket 2014 isn't the finest sports game out there and isn't a patch on the production values of, say, FIFA, Madden or NHL games, it does generally play a good game of cricket, and this is the game that we fans of the sport have been waiting for, so with that in mind I'll reemphasise this; this is the greatest cricket game ever produced.

WWE 2K16 is a return to form for the series, and it is great to see that the development team has managed to right the ship.

Without involving the micromanagement of something like Transport Giant, it’s also a game that offers just enough complexity to offer players a management challenge, and a sense of rewarding satisfaction when they’ve built up a sustainable, large, city. The story mode itself is quite poor, but as with any good city builder, all the fun’s in the sandbox mode anyway, and unleashing both your inner creative and inner city planner at once.

While it's shallow and has an overly narrow focus, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order is good fun, and serves as excellent, entertaining fan service for the Marvel faithful. Get a group of friends together, and this is a glorious throwback to the days of couch co-op adventuring, with the development team even throwing in a camera that very nearly ruins the experience. That is true commitment to recapturing the essence of playing games from yesteryear, right there.

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

I can go on infinitely about how much I am enjoying Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy. The game present little truly new to the series' gameplay, but since it already shone in past titles that's a great thing. The characters are lovable, often with dry wit and secret pasts (or presents). Whimsy combines with reality, creating a fantastic believable world. The game promises at least dozens of hours of gameplay with limitless expansion potential, and I'm excited to see where it goes.

However, the real strength in this one is the way the various fascinating stories of fascinating heroes is retold, and as a result of that Samurai Warriors 4-II is one of the best games in the series for some time.