Port Royale 4 is a wonderful game, and the compromises that were made to bring it to Nintendo Switch are minor and easy to overlook. This is the kind of simulator that you can end up spending hundreds of hours with, and as one of the rare genres that aren't over-represented on the console, this is an excellent first port of call for genre fans looking for some on-the-go thinkies.

There's not really much else I can add to those two reviews for this Nintendo Switch release, but Goichi Suda and NISA bringing these two visual novel classics together to the Nintendo Switch is a good thing. Both are magnificent examples of what can be done to give games a literary quality, and going forward, no study of crime fiction or noir could be complete without considering The Silver Case up there with the likes of The Big Sleep or Chinatown. Japan actually has a very deep tradition in noir storytelling, and this is an excellent introduction to it.

I had a great time with Boomerang X. The action is tight and it always feels like an expression of skill whenever a level is successfully beaten. The surreal fantasy setting also matches the game’s tone perfectly, providing moments of surprise and wonder with each new level. The simplicity in DANG!’s design really works in their favour – it provides an excellent degree of challenge with unique, memorable mechanics and no wasted time. It’s a masterclass in fast-paced, precision-based 3D action.

Heart of the Woods is a beautiful and romantic visual novel, with a wonderfully winding plot and brilliant set of characters. Without giving anything away, the first hour or two isn't indicative of the rest of the game, and once you push through that slow, senseless start, something beautiful, sweet, and, yes, a little sexy shines through the paranormal, gothic and mystery elements.

I went into this expecting little more than a second-tier spinoff from the “real” Monster Hunter, and I’ve walked away with it being one of my favourite JRPGs of the year, in a year that has included Bravely Default, NieR, Atelier Ryza 2, and Scarlet Nexus. That is some incredible company to be in.

Doki Doki Literature Club (and this Plus version) is both a homage and a challenge. It’s a homage in the way it delightfully plays with the dating visual novel genre – sure, it ends up subverting that to horrific effect, but there’s such glee in how it does that that hugely entertaining. On the other hand, it’s also a challenge – a suggestion that the genre can be a bit more reflective, look for ways to approach things differently, and that there is a lot that this genre can do with characterisation and relationship dynamics. The director has been outspoken that the initial seed of Doki Doki Literature Club from his “love/hate” relationship with anime and VNs. There’s much more of the love in there, I think, but developers making games in this genre should certainly play this game to encourage them to think about the structure of their own work from a different angle.

The biggest problem Cross The Moon will face is getting people to pick it up. "A game aligned with French New Wave values and auteur theory with a surrealistic noir narrative and art photography aesthetics" is hardly a bullet point that a PR or marketing agent would want to try selling. I actually was given a copy on PC back when it released last year and put it aside because it was just too esoteric to immediately grab my attention. It's just too easy to find something "safer" to play than something that looks like it could very easily turn out to be trite. I'm glad that, on a whim, I purchased and gave it a go on Nintendo Switch, because once you give it a go, it rewards the risk you took on playing it. Cross The Moon has a lot going on and all of it is quite brilliant.

For anyone who came to Mario Golf to play golf, Super Rush is greatly lacking. I'll be willing to grit my teeth and buy the DLC if that's what it takes to get this game up to par, but Nintendo's going to need to at least double the number of courses to get it there, and at the time of writing there only seem to be four new courses on the roadmap (though they are, at least, going to be free). It's still not going to be enough to return Mario Golf to that pedestal that it once had on the N64 and Game Boy Color.

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.

I just didn’t expect it could be this bad. Dark Alliance is a functionally broken product. When enemies simply ignore you as you carve their health down to zero, when there’s so little to the game that that’s all you’re doing, and when the multiplayer experience is only superior because it’s a chance to share the misery with someone else, some passable graphics and one neat checkpointing system aren't anywhere near enough to redeem this game. This is the poorest handling of a license since Superman 64.

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.

Of course, it would be unfair to expect Empire of Angels IV to be an equivalent experience to Disgaea, and I don’t. Empire of Angels’ strengths are its streamlined tactics engine and its fan service, and the game delivers both of those with exceptional proficiency. It’s just a pity that the localisation stops me from enjoying the characters as much as I think I might have otherwise – everything sense I have tells me that in its native language Empire of Angels IV would be quite the out-there good time. As it is, though, the game's just lucky that it's gorgeous enough and plays so nicely that it got its hooks into me anyway.

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?

Scarlet Nexus is one of the most interesting new JRPGs that we’ve seen in a while from a big publisher. Combining a beautifully elegant, but also visceral combat system with rich and evocative theme, and hugely entertaining characters, this game is available on the previous generation, I know, bit in design and execution it’s very much the perfect new-generation experience.

As I’ve said a few times in this review so far, Arc System Works are masters of the genre, and Guilty Gear Strive is a showcase of that mastery. It might not be the most comprehensive fighting game out there, and I do think the developers have made a mistake in giving up on drawing new players into the franchise with a story mode that assumes you’ve been playing Guilty Gear for years. However, those quibbles melt away the instant you get into the action itself. There’s no other word to describe it: it’s sublime.

Anyhow, I digress. To come back to where I talk about the grift. The grift here is that each of these titles offer platinum trophies that can be "earned" with no effort required whatsoever. You'll sit through a laboured and completely ineffective 10-20 minute sermon on nonsense, play it through a couple of times to meet all its conditions, and then you'll get your trophy. I don't know if anyone still actually cares about those things, but as pathetic as it is as selling point for a pathetic series of games, it actually works. If these games didn't annoy me so much I'd be making a joke about how Sony's allowing hardcore Christian content onto the same platform where they've turned into puritans over anime boobs.

Anyhow, I digress. To come back to where I talk about the grift. The grift here is that each of these titles offer platinum trophies that can be "earned" with no effort required whatsoever. You'll sit through a laboured and completely ineffective 10-20 minute sermon on nonsense, play it through a couple of times to meet all its conditions, and then you'll get your trophy. I don't know if anyone still actually cares about those things, but as pathetic as it is as selling point for a pathetic series of games, it actually works. If these games didn't annoy me so much I'd be making a joke about how Sony's allowing hardcore Christian content onto the same platform where they've turned into puritans over anime boobs.

Anyhow, I digress. To come back to where I talk about the grift. The grift here is that each of these titles offer platinum trophies that can be "earned" with no effort required whatsoever. You'll sit through a laboured and completely ineffective 10-20 minute sermon on nonsense, play it through a couple of times to meet all its conditions, and then you'll get your trophy. I don't know if anyone still actually cares about those things, but as pathetic as it is as selling point for a pathetic series of games, it actually works. If these games didn't annoy me so much I'd be making a joke about how Sony's allowing hardcore Christian content onto the same platform where they've turned into puritans over anime boobs.

Anyhow, I digress. To come back to where I talk about the grift. The grift here is that each of these titles offer platinum trophies that can be "earned" with no effort required whatsoever. You'll sit through a laboured and completely ineffective 10-20 minute sermon on nonsense, play it through a couple of times to meet all its conditions, and then you'll get your trophy. I don't know if anyone still actually cares about those things, but as pathetic as it is as selling point for a pathetic series of games, it actually works. If these games didn't annoy me so much I'd be making a joke about how Sony's allowing hardcore Christian content onto the same platform where they've turned into puritans over anime boobs.

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.

I don’t know if SHING! will find its desired audience. The control scheme and deviations from genre standards leave a sour first impression, and it’s not helped by the vapid quality of the story and writing. The game is filled with schlocky Shadow Warrior style jokes at the expense of the Far East setting (fake-Asian words which sound like English swear words!), and bloody violence despite the immature Saturday-morning-cartoon simplicity. If a game is crass, it needs to have other qualities to redeem it, and SHING! unfortunately fails to justify its shortcomings. I can respect the desire to experiment and to break from tradition, but this game doesn’t do enough to be worth the investment.

My concerns with DC Super Hero Girls: Teen Power sit with it as a property. I know this is a wildly controversial thing to say, but I don't really believe that Marvel and DC are appropriate for children. If the hundreds of implied and explicit deaths per movie or show weren't enough to convince you of that, then the inherent moral lessons from these properties should because there's a lot more there to digest, interpret and come to terms with than people generally think about. Making all that baggage cute, as DC Super Hero Girls: Teen Power does, might make it palatable to a young audience, but it still needs to be questioned. That being said, at least it's not Call of Duty, which way too many people buy for their kids, and as I said at the start, both Nintendo and the developer deserve a lot of credit for producing a game specifically designed for young girls that isn't an egregious example of shovelware. This thing plays well and is fully featured, and that is a sadly uncommon thing for this demographic.

The thing that often stops people short with game development is that the programming side of things can be intimidating. To this day the logic and process of software development throws me into a spin every time I look at it... and I do create games. They might be visual novels, sure, but they're games. I've always felt like I should know more about programming, but I just can't do it. Game Builder Garage might be pitched at a younger audience - and I can genuinely see Nintendo selling a bunch of Switches to schools for use in the younger grades as an introduction to the all-important education space - but the systematic clarity with which the tutorials of Game Builder Garage are arranged, and then the ease of use and accessibility of the software to play around with afterwards, makes it the best introduction to programming that I've come across, for anyone of any age.

With two artifacts that belong in the video game hall of fame, and one curiosity that highlights Itagaki’s genius by showing what happened when he wasn’t involved in Ninja Gaiden, this collection stands the test of time. So many modern action video games are either self-serious or desperately eager to make sure you laugh when they tell you to. It’s weird, given how bloodthirsty the Ninja Gaiden series is, but the laconic, droll approach that they take to everything they do almost comes across as subtle and classy these days, and I’ve loved revisiting that.

Though I love the concept and presentation of Wing of Darkness, it falls a little short of being an instant indie classic like Sumire was. Wing of Darkness has the right attitude when it comes to depicting the impact of war. It has impeccable presentation and art direction. The gameplay systems are enjoyable and, for the most part, well-executed. Almost everything about Wing of Darkness is spot-on, but it just falls short of making us care enough that the poignant themes and evocative narrative can really hit home. Perhaps this developer will make enough revenue from this to take a second spin at it, and I would play that in a heartbeat, because I am totally certain that the limitations of Wing of Darkness has nothing to do with the developer's talent, ideas, and ambition.

Neptunia ReVerse is clearly a "first-run effort" by Idea Factory to take the tools of the PlayStation 5 and see what they can do with them. It's perhaps a less ambitious effort than what Idea Factory made as its launch on PlayStation 4 (Omega Quintet), but putting that aside, this is a genuinely good game, worth the time of any JRPG fan, and by its very nature the perfect introduction to the entire series for new players with the new console. The additions that have been made here make it even more complete and also worth a replay for the Neptunia faithful. And if nothing else having an excuse to watch Neptune and the other girls run around in swimwear costumes for a few hours is always worth the investment.

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is a superb blockbuster game that hits its brief perfectly. It shows a meticulous eye for detail, throws one brilliant action set piece after another at the player, and is the best showcase yet for the PlayStation 5 hardware. Sure, it's as shallow as a pool of water on Venus, but I've no doubt people coming to this game are simply looking for a vividly entertaining product, and that's exactly what they'll get.

Everyday Today's MENU for EMIYA Family is such a beautiful, wholesome, heart-warming thing. It so effectively celebrates a quality of Japanese culture that goes so much deeper than "raw fish" (you have no idea how many people STILL ask me "what can you even eat over there?!?" when they discover that I have a seafood allergy), and it also highlights just how potent the Fate property has become, that this most tangential of tangent spinoff series could end up with something so perfectly pleasant to play. Also. Rin is just so freaking pretty.