There's nothing wrong with Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games 2020. It's presented with verve and for such a large range of mini-games, the fact that there's no true dud in there is impressive in its own right. At the same time, it lacks the competitive edge of the "proper" Olympics title this year, and is a little too feature light for its own good as either a single player or local multiplayer experience. That makes it throwaway. Good fun, sure. Well made, absolutely. But throwaway nonetheless.

Hero Must Die has a lot going for it – a strong, immediately compelling theme, a lovely, melancholic aesthetic, and a simple elegance to its systems. Unfortunately, the development team really struggled to find a way to marry the form and function of the JRPG, and the narrative that the mechanics are meant to support. That conflict means that Hero Must Die is nowhere near as memorable and potent as it should be. As a retro-styled little indie JRPG it’s certainly made better than most, and it’s perfectly entertaining in its own way, but as a powerful experience that makes us muse on our mortality, it’s almost painful how far this one misses the mark.

I wish farm life in Harvest Moon 3D: The Lost Valley was more gratifying because its fundamental ideas are all there. With the franchise essentially split in two going forward, I encourage Natsume to continue its experimental ways, because it's likely that the other guys will churn out the most traditional experiences possible.

There is a lot to like about Loop8, and there’s the sense that the creative team put a lot of work into the symbolism and theming of it. They shot for the stars. Unfortunately, it fell slightly short, and while it’s interesting and different, it never lives up to the clear potential it had. But that’s also okay. At least they tried something different. Gaming wouldn’t be worth it if people didn’t take a creative risk every once in a while.

With no narrative, no variable AI, and no continuity to playing (there isn’t even basic statistic tracking like win-loss scores), as good as Kashido is – and I must emphasise that it really is a fascinating game well worth learning and playing – it fails in its basic task of actually helping people to actually experience and want to invest time into this game. No digital board game should lack online play. We’re all better off importing physically copies of Kashido and taking it along to chess club meetings to see if we can get them to give something different a spin.

I suspect that Forgotten Wars will be a single player only experience very quickly, and I'm just not willing to pay a premium for a solo player CCG.

Cube Tactics is quick and sometimes intense fun little game that is quite enjoyable to play for hours on end. Just one more level.

Spy Bros. is fun. It’s by no means a classic arcade title, but it’s the kind of thing that you can pick up and have fun with in short bursts of time, particularly in multiplayer. Some will find the “all-ages” revision to be appealing too, precisely because this is the kind of game that everyone in the family can play, and enjoy together. It won’t last you like some other great arcade games, but it’s also priced nicely as an impulse buy and a chance to discover (half) of one of the more obscure titles in Toaplan’s history.

Works because the game tickles our minds based on a time when our imaginations were their most fertile: childhood. I know my toys often waged large-scale war with one another all over the living room and this game captures that in its level and character design as well as the central narrative revolving around a young boy and his nightmares.

Primal Carnage: Extinction certainly sets itself apart from other online multiplayer shooters out there. With a few different modes and a couple of maps for each mode thrown in, there is some degree of fun to be had in the game. How long that fun lasts though is simply based on how much enjoyment a person can get out of online shooters in general, and just how much patience they have for balancing issues and mechanic design flaws.

Ultimately Anime Studio Simulator comes to the table a bit rough around the edges but presents a charming story of a group of friends making an anime. Scenes such as going to an anime shop for “research” and the long list of team visits to the café craft an embodiment of playfulness and silly fun, which is, ultimately, embracing what so many of us love about anime in the first place.

Tennis in the Face is indeed a fun and funny game, but is it worth paying for? Given the fact that it's a wholly unoriginal game that barely distinguishes itself from its (free) peers, I would say no. One suspects that, at some point, the developer will be better off releasing a free version.

Taken as a simple and cheap "solitaire" (i.e single player) game, Poisoft Thud Card is enjoyable, easy playing. I do say that as someone who spent many, many hours playing Hearts on my old Windows PCs over the years, though. I like time wasting card games. As such I'll probably keep coming back to Thud Card as long as I have my Switch. Or, at least, until a developer releases a Hearts game on the console.

The game itself is a quality take on the board game. It’s just unfortunate that there is such structural issues with Risk itself that it’s rapidly losing relevance, even in the board game scene.

Whereas the original Nidhogg was a wickedly fast and immediately loveable party game, Nidhogg 2 pushes the boundaries and arrives with mixed results. Its design choices inject some more strategy to the run-and-stab gameplay, but the increased complexity and love-it-or-hate-it art style makes it a harder game to recommend for casual players.

Penarium benefits from good level design and simple mechanics that are the definition of 'easy to learn but difficult to master.' The setting for the game is a devilishly entertaining one, and Penarium is challenging without feeling cheap, which makes it a great deal easier to be forgiving of the game's difficulty curve.

This is absolutely the kind of thing that should be supported and encouraged. I would just love to see what Roach Interactive could do given the budget and time to really do justice to such an important message.

As interesting and tactical as that combat system is, I couldn't get past the fact that Disciples: Liberation was asking 80 (or more) hours of a person's time with so little payoff. I just found the whole thing too relentlessly miserable to connect with. It's possible to create a dark setting and still have moments of warmth, beauty and joy. Tolkien understood that. Perhaps those that have been inspired by him should be more diligent students.

On the one hand it's an genuinely entertaining dogfighting sim on the Nintendo 3DS - a genre so rare that its only competitor is its predecessor. On the other hand re-releasing the exact same game and selling gimmicky Amiibo miniatures unlocks as the major new addition is... well, it's not exactly adequate. This kind of feature would be a $5 DLC add-on elsewhere.

It's not that Moons of Madness is without merit, but it does come across as a game where the development team never quite reached creative cohesion and weren't able to quite work out what they wanted to achieve with this game. From the butchering of Lovecraft's vision, to a scenic structure that feels too disjointed for its own good, to the over-reliance on cheap horror tricks like jump scares in the absence of true narrative and thematic depth, Moons of Madness is just a little too confused for its own good. It's an inoffensive way for sci-fi and horror fans to while away a few hours, but by no means a masterpiece.

Unmechanical: Extended is a beautiful game. The graphics and landscapes are simply stunning and the character has real heart, despite being a little helpless. It's a pity that it leaves the door open to questions about the quality of puzzles, however.

With a better localisation Richman 11 would be essential to people who enjoy digital board games. It’s not quite as good as Square Enix’s equivalent series, but, again, since Square Enix isn’t localising those, good on Softstar for stepping up. Unfortunately the poor localisation does mean that the game comes across as obtuse and will only be for people who have a lot of experience in this kind of experience, and the patience to learn this one’s quirks over several sessions.

Bringing together so many mechanical elements to the scope and vision of Rhythm Fighter required a much more visionary developer than the one that produced the game. That’s not to say it isn’t entertaining, and there is a lot to enjoy with the game, however, it is also true that the overall experience is messy and the team lost control over what they were trying to achieve, making for something far too clumsy and clunky for the kind of precision that it needed.

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.

Ember is a fun little game, which sits nicely on mobile to help while away long commutes without pop-ups asking for you to spend money on in-app purchases every few minutes. On the other hand, if you've got an iPhone you've got access to Baldur's Gate, Knights of the Old Republic, and if you've got an iPad there's also the Spiderweb Software titles. Sadly, Ember's a distant aspirant to those games.

The difficulty creates some unnecessary grinding, and finding materials to craft some spells is a pain, but short of these two aspects Sweet Lily Dreams is a well worthwhile adventure.

I admire what the developers were trying to do with Headliner. It might be under siege, but journalism continues to fulfill a critical role in society. A game that explores the many and varied tensions that media outlets need to juggle is one way to demystify the media for people who are, increasingly, told outright lies about what the media is and what it should do. Sadly Headliner’s lack of depth, subtlety and nuance undermines the point that it was driving at. That its core design principle is also so derivative of one of the most lauded “art games” of the last decade doesn’t help it, either.

What I have a problem with is inconsistent narratives, and "gameplay" that has been so compartmentalised from the "story" that they may as well be in different products.