Clea 2 is a confident step forward for a developer that has an original, interesting idea and set about turning it into something playable. It might lack the intensity of some of the horror games that it resembles, but its quiet moodiness and subtle challenges make it an interesting curiosity for those with a few hours to spare.

I am the target audience for Demon Slayer: Sweep The Board in that I’m both a Demon Slayer fan and the three Mario Party titles on the N64 Virtual Console on Switch are (by a significant margin) my most played titles on it. I got everything that I expected out of this game and had a lot of fun with it right throughout. In fact, with Mario Party itself in a weird kind of limbo of diminishing returns of late, perhaps we do need a new property to pick up the baton.

The Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 is a great re-release of the seventh through tenth entries, but it could have been much more, and it feels a little cynical that it's not. While there are the four games, the boss rushes and other challenges to be completed, this entry just leaves the impression that there should have been ‘more’ of everything.

Bleach Rebirth of Souls is authentic to the anime, does a good job with the narrative retelling, and is meticulous at giving you all your favourite characters to brawl around with. I can’t see a Bleach fan picking this up and not having some immediate good fun with it. I just can’t see them still having fun with it a year from now, and while the Bleach star may have faded a little from a decade or whatever ago, I do think that there was more that could have been done with it than this.

It is a digital combination of an extremely difficult board game and deck builder, combined with some zany creatures and topped off with some insane levels of difficulty. Perhaps it is the requirement of balance that made me love a game with such randomness behind it, as balancing my turns or the cards made me feel powerful in a world of beautiful chaos. I think Loot Rascals actually taught me something, which isn't something I say often about video games.

As a relatively low-price collection of three retro JRPGs that will last you for a long time (if only because each offers dozens of hours of classic grinding), the Collection of SaGa is obviously niche in terms of its demographic, but these are games that are very easy to love. It would have been nice to have some of the features that more comprehensive retro collections have – digital art books, histories, music players and so on, but no-frills or not these are valuable, pioneering pieces of video game history, and they’re both worth owning and persevering with.

If you've ever enjoyed a Metroidvania before, then you'll probably enjoy Cathedral. The fewer of the genre that you've played the better, however, as the lack of original creativity will wash over you easier with less experience and fewer points of comparison among Cathedral's peers. Otherwise, it's a perfectly competent example of the genre. It's just a pity that the Metroidvania genre, in particular, is so over-saturated that we just didn't need more of it.

Soldner-X 2: Final Prototype is fine as a Vita game. There are better shoot-em-ups out there for the handheld though, and I could only recommend this to the SHMUP diehards. The levels are a tad too long for a handheld game which holds it back somewhat, and unfortunately it doesn't do much to push the genre forward.

For all my quibbles regarding Tales of Xillia 2 from a general design standpoint, it still manages to shake up the series’ formula in the right ways.

Reading back through this review it sounds negative, but that’s because I’m coming to it from the perspective of someone who generally plays single-player and is passionate about the skill tester side of rhythm games. Samba de Amigo is one of those rare rhythm games that isn’t expressly for me. I do love its quality as a party game, and a drinking game, and so it’ll stay firmly in my Switch’s memory. It’s just that, even despite the cracking soundtrack, it’s also not going to join the rotation of rhythm games I use to de-stress and tune out of the world with.

Far bigger in scope than any of its predecessors, Megadimension Neptunia VII has nevertheless managed to retain its focus over what fans enjoy about the series most; its humour and its fan service.

The most heartwarming thing about this game is its a tribute to the lead developer's sadly deceased dog companion. For that reason alone anyone who has ever had a beloved pet really owes it to themselves to experience this one.

Serious Sam remains the perfect foil to all the self-serious and often toxic shooters that we see today. All three games (and the two DLC expansions) that are contained in this collection are pure, unmitigated fun, and there's not a single (admittedly high-quality) rendition of Ronald Reagan across any of them. Not coincidentally, while I've already deleted that CoD off my hard drive, the Serious Sam Collection will stay on my Switch for quite some time to come. In short bursts - particularly on the commute after a hard day's work - there's nothing more cathartic.

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.

Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town is wholesome. It's a little naive in the way it presents the "grass is always greener on the other side" perspective on country living, but this series has been kicking around since the Super Nintendo and always gets away with it, on account of being so sweet and good-natured that it's impossible not to love.

I have had such a wonderful time with Pokémon Violet and Scarlet. None of the issues that I have with these games are anything but the most mild and forgivable irritations. Meanwhile, the promise of a big but blissfully uncomplicated world, filled with adventure and monsters to collect, brought me right back to what drew me into the whole Pokémon franchise in the first place. Is Scarlet and Violet a technical mess? Sure. Do I care? Not in the slightest. I’m here for the pokémon. Not to count frames.

The real strength of Gray Dawn lies far from its decent controls, its ability to run economically on a PC whilst looking amazing, and its employment of psychological horror tropes to get your heart rate up. The proof is all in the Christianity-flavoured pudding. I have never played any other game quite like this which uses all the trappings of religion in a way that subverts our everyday conceptions of it.

Far Cry New Dawn while being a great experience feels more like an expansion to Far Cry 5 than it does its own stand alone title. This is not a bad thing, but if it had to be compared? It would be like saying New Dawn is equivalent to The Witcher 3’s Blood & Wine which was a great addition to the main title.

For its strengths and its faults, I kept finding myself drawn back to the game’s evocative narrative all the way through. Even after the open world shenanigans and tedious emphasis on combat wore me down, I carried on at the thought of finding out more about characters who at that point were starting to feel like real people. And at the centre of it all, is Deacon St. John – a callous, cold-blooded ex-biker ex-military mercenary, but he’s got an enormous heart, and that makes all the difference. The whole game is a joy to play, because of the optimism which he and his friends build up over the course of what is otherwise a bleak and empty landscape. And this is more than a fitting summary for Days Gone – a zombie game in 2019 featuring open-world mechanics we’ve all seen before – but like Deadon, the team at Bend Studio have got an enormous hearts, and, just like with Deacon, that makes all the difference.

That ending notwithstanding, Kona is a trip worth taking. It’s a beautiful, moody showcase of the snowy wilds of northern Canada, and a slow-burning mystery steeped in atmosphere. Play it for the journey, not the destination.

As long as you’re patient, there’s a lot to enjoy in Gothic 2, from the quest structure, to the scope of the world, and detailed plot, the world is filled with secrets and discoveries to make. It is clear to this day that were Gothic 1 provided the vision, Gothic 2 is when Piranha Bytes really converted. To this day you could argue that this is the team’s finest work, and the closest it has ever come to climbing out of the “Eurojank” space to simply sit next to Bethesda, BioWare and Obsidian in the upper echelons of the genre (historically, at least).

In effect, Legend of Mana is less interested in being a JRPG as it is a story of immersion. You’re given these truly beautiful, art gallery-worthy environments to explore, these eclectic, memorable characters to interact with, and a narrative that is broken up into a series of vignettes that keeps the overall game feeling vibrant and energetic. Perhaps the best comparison I can draw with Legend of Mana is to that of the most beautiful picture book version of Aesop’s Fables you could imagine. Without being religiously heavy-handed, this game has a way of sharing wonderful little stories of morality and humour, and it’s certainly going to be rolling around in my head for some time to come entirely because of the quality of those stories.

It’s unfortunate that Sand Land isn’t quite up to the standard that one of Japan’s all-time great artists deserves. It’s not that it’s a bad game. It’s very entertaining, especially when you start messing around with the tank battles. It’s just nothing more than a well-made licensed tie-in, something that you’ll forget soon after you play it, and never feel the need to return to. It really does look great, though. Akira Toriyama is going to be missed.

The Fall of the Dungeon Guardians offers up familiarity while still managing to work in some new wrinkles for the genre and is a welcome addition to the genre, despite some of its other shortcomings.

What it is is a challenging fantasy game with a good sense of progression that is entertaining to play, even if it's got no chance of being remembered as a classic like Demon's Souls and Dark Souls are.

Toukiden is the most beautiful and playable "Monster Hunter clone" to date.

Despite these irritants, The Escapist remains light-hearted fun. It's not an especially meaningful or rich gaming experience (and of course, it doesn't try to be either), and it won't be remembered a decade from now as a classic, but it's honest entertainment that does on some level tap into one of the more enduring subsets of the crime fiction genre.

A few new wrinkles such as the team-up attacks and the really cool audio part of the presentation are quite welcome, and I think these superhero games lend themselves to the TT Games better than most genres due to the large number of unique skills. It's reliable fun, but we keep saying this - TT Games needs to start bringing some genuinely original new ways of looking at LEGO, or the scores will start to fall as people get very tired of doing the same thing over and over again.