Is the new release Director’s Cut of game worth a purchase if you have the original? Probably not. But if you haven’t played this yet – and there are a lot of you out there – then do yourself a favour and check this one out. It’s right up there.

Teslagrad is a sound platforming title with enough puzzle elements backing it to keep the game interesting. These hooks are needed, because the story itself is effective but undercooked with the lack of any text or dialogue. Difficult, and even sometimes unfair, boss battles and checkpoints diminish what is otherwise an excellent game. I thoroughly enjoyed working through the levels and discovering hidden items along the way.

Ninja Village is so bright and charming it's impossible not to get drawn into playing yet another Kairosoft title, and then staring at the screen for hour upon hour. These things are always so perfectly low-pressure playable, that they're just that much easier to open up than the more complex and detailed city builders available on the Switch. That's not to say it's necessarily better, but when you need to simply chill out, there are few better that do it better than Kairosoft.

The Shrouded Isle is so razor-focused on its darkly original theme that it comes across as quite brave. This isn’t a necessarily uplifting or relaxing game. Nor is it particularly rewarding. It is, however, genuinely clever with how it works within an established genre, and it’s uncompromising in its vision. We need more games that are willing to do that.

Platformer purists are going to love Berserk Boy. As a blended homage to just about everything they have ever loved about the genre, the effort that has gone into meticulously recreating the best qualities of the genre is truly impressive. It’s just disappointing that the game, while drawn nicely and supported by an excellent soundtrack, ends up ringing hollow because the developers forgot to give it an identity that extends beyond the franchises that it celebrates.

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain does enough with modern technology to update the experience and make it both fresh and familiar, which is not an easy task. However, by adhering so closely to the source material and old school conventions, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain will inevitably rub some people the wrong way due to uneven difficulty and some unfair demises that seem harsh when compared to something like the Souls titles, which are renowned for their challenges but also for their fairness in teaching you how to play the game better.

Farm Frenzy Refreshed is by no means perfect. Indeed, it sits on the wrong side of the "casual gaming" spectrum whereby it becomes a grind for the sake of keeping players playing. And yet... I continue to enjoy Farm Frenzy, have done so for nearly a decade (if not longer now), and Refreshed has given me a rush of that all over again on the PlayStation.

When everything's working smoothly, Titan Quest is a very enjoyable game. It doesn't push any boundaries (it's more than a decade old now, after all), but it runs the classic Diablo formula well, with plenty of depth for character builds and a stunning world to explore.

I’m not the world’s biggest SHMUP fan, and I’m not great at the genre, so I struggled to get through Kamikaze Lassplanes. However, the entertaining visual novel side, along with some of the finest, most brazen fan service we’ve seen this side of Senran Kagura, kept me invested. This has been an interesting experiment. We probably won’t see another game quite like this for quite some time.

At its core, Democracy 3 is a mass of pretty spreadsheets that visualise an intimidating amount of data systems that are all linked to one another.

Granted, the worst of Zen Studios pinball tables is better than almost anything similar pinball games have managed, but there are better offerings for Pinball FX 2 than Guardians of the Galaxy as well.

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?

It’s the most enjoyable Kemco game I’ve played to date. More of this and fewer generic RPG Maker-like “retro” JRPGs and I will become a real fan for this company.

If the contents of each game’s track list don’t matter to you, then I would strongly suggest picking up the second game and skipping the first. The first game has infuriating random encounters, a weaker 4-character-party-system and simpler maps to explore – and while the second game’s 9-character-party and monster fusion systems don’t make the role-playing that much more meaningful, it’s still a smidge more engaging to play around with. Both games are much better in their standard Taiko game-modes however, and so I’d still recommend Drum ‘n’ Fun before either of these two – the party game mode in Drum ‘n’ Fun is a lot more complementary to the Taiko experience compared to the JRPGs in this collection. Combining the JRPG and Rhythm genres can make for some very engaging gameplay experiences, but Taiko Rhythmic Adventure 1+2 does not do it meaningfully enough to achieve any lasting appeal.

PBA Pro Bowling 2026 on the Nintendo Switch has an extremely short lifespan, thanks to the lack of multiplayer and just one meaningful single-player mode. The development team really have done a good job of capturing the sport, and it’s a substantial improvement on FarSight’s previous efforts, which were both dry and not quite nuanced enough to do the sport justice. This gets that right, but just imagine going to the bowling alley to play a game by yourself. It’s not half the experience without friends around, and that applies to both the real sport and the digital adaptation.

Now, the argument over game length is one that's endlessly debated, and I'm firmly in the camp that says that fun is fun, and I certainly had fun revisiting the world of my onigiri-chomping namesake for a brief while. I could certainly see plenty of others finding it less compelling, however, because beyond the visuals, so very little has changed in 35 years. Yikes. 35 years. Presumably, Prince Alex is now King Alex of Radaxian by now. I'd better get back to my throne. Dammit, did I just say that out loud?

World End Syndrome does more than enough as a visual novel - it's hard to put down, well written, and the art is gorgeous. I just hope people don't give up the first time, when the "bad ending" it mandatory. In hindsight it's a brilliant way to introduce the depth of choices that come after that scene, but it's the most poorly executed trick the game has up its sleeve.

There are games that deliver horror that’s confronting and often gory, but The Count Lucanor excelled at showing a different side of fear that other studios should take cues from.

A mixed offering, but one that could serve as a fantastic foundation for Coffee Addict Studio to build on in future games.

The story, cute as it is, is a very familiar one full of archetypal anime characters. The writing is clunky at times, and the overall presentation lacks polish. Not every game needs to push the boundaries of innovation or style, though, and for what it is, How to Fool a Liar King is a cute, charming romance that's easy to just relax with and enjoy.

Not every game needs to be innovative, however, to provide thoughtful entertainment, and Period: Cube most certainly provided me with that in good measure.

Frequently surprising, intense, and always sublime.

It's priced just right as an impulse purchase, and offers so much content that anyone who's ever enjoyed a tower defence game should get a kick out of it.

These small gripes aside, for the most part all five games in the The Jackbox Party Pack are a lot of fun in a party environment, and because just about everyone can join in without having access to a controller, this gets to be one of the best inexpensive local multiplayer games to have sitting on the PlayStation 4's hard drive for when friends come over for drinks.

The Bunker weaves a decent plot, is well cast, and certainly has its moments of intensity. This was a genre that people thought was dead and buried back in the early era of CD Roms, thanks to the inaccessibility of talented actors, cinematographers, and story writers leading to trash like Night Trap dominating the genre. What a difference a few decades make. If The Bunker is anything to go by, there might be a bright future for these experiences yet.

Doom 64 is an impressive port of the forgotten son of the series. Without a multiplayer mode it sits as one of the less essential shooters from the era, but as the first effort at bringing Doom into three dimensions, it's a valuable bit of series history, and to this day it plays very nicely indeed.

I’m sure others will (and already have) find meaning in Inside. There’ll be fascinating, insightful deconstructions and I look forward to reading them. There’s a wealth of praise for the game already. It’s clearly spoken to a lot of people, but it didn’t speak to me – except, perhaps, to berate me for not being smart enough to understand what it’s trying to say.

The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 is a fairly standard point and click game, but it is also a wonderfully written and fundamentally enjoyable adventure that will appeal to both genre veterans, and people simply looking to a good, clean, fun little title.