I’m not the world’s biggest fan of Contra in the first place, but I’ve always admired the series for challenging and inspiring so many players over the decades. Likewise, I understand what WayForward’s done with this remake of the original. I appreciate the effort to try and find a broader audience. But if that was the goal they should have properly built the game around that kind of experience, rather than half-measuring it and then giving players the ability to just ignore it all. The complete lack of confidence in actually following through with whatever creative vision WayForward took into this project, unfortunately, leaves the entire experience feeling soulless.

Despite its unyielding dedication for all things realistic, I rather enjoyed the demanding style of play The Golf Club prides itself on, even during the first few hours, where the game will either draw you in or turn you off completely.

Anything but inspiring.

RONIN is over in around seven to eight hours but the lengthy design of the levels makes it feel a lot longer than that. When you’re locked in a stalemate with ten armed guards, jumping around the walls to avoid gunfire is more tiresome than engaging. RONIN is good for a few short levels in your spare time, but I can’t fathom playing it for a long session.

Moon Chronicles: Episode 1 lifts the veil off of Renegade Kid’s revamped throwback FPS title. It's a healthy blend of retro aesthetics and modern controls, while the B-movie narrative set the stage for a solid shooter that’s a good fit for the 3DS eShop. It might be short, but it succeeded in leaving me with a desire for more. Hopefully the wait won’t be too long.

This game will not be for everyone, and there are superior platformers available on the market that offer a greater gameplay experience. With that said, control issues aside there is replay value, with each level giving you a ranking out of four stars based on how well you perform.

Secret Files: Tunguska is entertaining stuff, and adventure game fans who have somehow not played this yet should have a look at it. By the same token, it's difficult to look at this game and argue that it's as timeless as Monkey Island. It's simply too limited.

The shooter sections feel out of place, and they almost feel like they’ve been included to flesh out the already short campaign. Which is a shame, because the action is perfect.

The only thing really lacking here is the personality, which is a shame, because Rock ‘n’ Roll Racing was full of personality, and BlazeRush could have been a new contender if it followed suit.

A Druid’s Duel was a very intense experience that had me growl like a grizzly more than once as a single mistake would be enough for the opponent to take me down. Overall, A Druid’s Duel is a solid and attractive experience that tactics strategy fans will find themselves losing themselves in for hours at a time.

I’m still surprised that Nintendo ever thought that there would be an audience for Yo-Kai Watch 2 in the west, but boy am I glad that they did.

Unlike Nintendo's Mini NES retro console that was released last year, this is a more difficult package to recommend to people that didn’t grow up playing the games. I don’t think there’s been a better effort to archive the games on the Atari 2600 and bring them to modern players, but I just don’t think the people used to complex worlds, storytelling and gameplay that we have today will understand the value of these older games. But older players may well get a kick out of playing Basic Math again, to remind them of just how hard it was to act out excitement on that Christmas day when their parents thought they had found the perfect gift.

Stikbold lacks any kind of narrative or gameplay substance to be a compelling single player game. Sadly, it’s all too simple to be an effective multiplayer title, either. It’s passingly fun.

If you’re really after a taste of something different, take a walk on the wild side with Neptune and the CPUs. After all, no other MMO has all its flaws on display quite like 4 Goddesses Online; if you’re going to sit through toxic players, boss fights, and an unfathomable plot, you might as well do it with cute girls who acknowledge the genre’s flaws and enthusiastically attempt to make them entertaining.

God Wars is too Japanese in tone, aesthetic and design to ever have much of a hope of reaching a mainstream audience, but as a culturally relevant artifact, anyone who is interested in seeing how a game can explore ancient folk tales and spirituality in an interesting and engaging manner should not pass up this opportunity.

None of these irritants break the game, though, and I did have a lot of fun with Ty the Tasmanian Tiger HD. Having not played the original I got to enjoy something retro-styled from a genre that is effectively dead, and while I never got along well with collect-a-thon, it was still a big part of my youth so there was an inherent nostalgia there. I also loved that this is a genuine product of Australia, with Australian humour and culture depicted throughout. Krome Studios' classic might not have the profile of a Crash Bandicoot or Spyro, but anyone wondering why this got a HD re-release needn't. Ty the Tasmanian Tiger certainly belongs on modern consoles, and it would be lovely for the franchise itself to be resuscitated at some point.

Billion Road isn't perfect. The interface makes it difficult to track some of the finer points of detail, particularly around property ownership, and a lack of minigames and other events of excitement mean there's a draining level of downtime in the game where you're just waiting for your next turn to roll around. However, for the board game enthusiast this is a true Japanese experience. Under the bright colours and ridiculous wealth being thrown around (you'll be worth billions in just an hour) lies something that has clearly been created by people who love the unique micro-cultures with Japan, and the sheer delight that you have in simply travelling across the country.

The Museum Archives are by no means the perfect collection - they're the wrong ports in that the NES ports rather than the arcade originals are in there, and there are many compilations that have more games in them. With that being said, there's not single dud game in this collection, and whether they're as well known as Pac-Man or as obscure as Dragon Spirit, they're all genuine all-time classics. You buy either of these collections and you'll be coming back to them for years to come.

Minoria is excellent, but it's also very limited. It's beautiful, the action is solid for the most part, and there are plenty of intriguing ideas running behind it. The game's problem is that it deserved a bigger vision than the modest execution, and while that is a much more preferable problem than the other way around (too much ambition for too little means), it still means that Minoria will be forgotten well before it deserves to be.

Throw in the superior character portraits, art, and musical score and Mercenaries Blaze represents a confident step forward. Of course, it’s not of the standard of a Fire Emblem, Disgaea or God Wars, but for people that enjoy the core gameplay loop of the tactics JRPG – and it is a very compelling one – Mercenaries Blaze is a lean and effective example of it.

It's a completely individual title that slides in nicely with what I shall, in the future, refer to as D'Avekki lore; it can be played alone, or it can be played before or after the other two titles in the "series," but any way you play it, it's a standalone experience. The noir feeling of the narrative means that choices aren't always delineated as "right" or "wrong", but, rather, a choice between bad and equally bad. The supernatural aspect somehow fits perfectly with the noir aspect. The gameplay is new yet familiar, with the developer mixing up how choices are made by going from text to video in a way that makes it perfectly clear how to play. Koehring and Cunard play off each other wonderfully, building off character stereotypes from past films and fiction when the men were "manly" men and the women were "dainty" ladies. Thanks to the trophies, it is relatively easy to explore all dark corners of the game. Basically, this is another D'Avekki hit game that I will probably never stop referencing or wanting to discuss.

Risk System is something of a connoisseur’s shoot-em-up, with intelligently designed enemies and bosses that reward careful practice and precise movements. The demanding level of difficulty might cause some initial frustrations, but a determined attitude and a calculated approach to risk will help players emerge victoriously. After a few hours of playing, I was able to effortlessly take down bosses that I’d previously thought of as impossible, and that’s always a great feeling to have.

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.

Despite these minor issues, Process of Elimination is high quality, authentic, classical example of Japanese detective fiction. It’s not subversive or particularly boundary-breaking, but it’s also a very good student of the genre. So long as you can still kick back and enjoy a good Conan Doyle, Christie or Ranpo story, you’ll enjoy what this has to offer.

Howl is an earnest effort with a strong aesthetic and creative vision. It’s easy to imagine that it’s going to find an audience among people who pick it up on a whim – because in screenshots and video, it does stand out – and then find themselves absorbed in the puzzles. Unfortunately, while it does get challenging, Howl outlives its welcome, and the strange decision to deliberately add repetition into something that should have focused on forward momentum really hurts it in the end. If it was half the game it would have been twice as impressive.

Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge is a delightfully charming, remarkably in-depth eco-management sim. I figured it would be a pretty chill game with some intense parts of difficulty for me because that’s where I’m at these days. What I got was better than anything I expected. It’s not confusing, there is very little stress involved, and it is easy to get lost spending hours at a time meeting new frog friends and saving the wetlands. The expansive help section is especially appreciated. The game goes at the pace you choose. It was actually so overwhelmingly chill it was a bit easier to overlook some of the parts I did struggle with.

It would be nice to see Just Dance further innovate as a series, or it runs the risk of becoming incredibly repetitive going forward. Some new features provide interesting wrinkles in the existing formula, but it feels like the series has plateaued and is in need of a few new moves before the next inevitable release.

Road to the Olympics is a solid addition to Steep. Even if the story mode is lacking, the Olympic events and new Japan-based massif are more than enough to make this worth your time, especially with the PyeongChang games on the horizon. It might look like one of those weary licensed games of the PS1 and PS2 days, but fret not, because Road to the Olympics is the real deal.