Hades is an end-to-end delight, from one of the most vividly creative studios going around. Supergiant Games has taken a genre that is overused to the point of exhaustion, and found a way to make it interesting all over again. It's a game that plays on the primal, viseral sensations of movement and rhythm, but it delivers it with such precision that it is nothing short of hypnotic.

The mark of any great simulator or strategy game is if it encourages emergent storytelling - if you care enough about what you're doing for it to form little stories in your head. Port Royale 4 did that for me. From my obsession with becoming a global coffee baron, through to the nightmare armada of pirates I built up that would surely have terrified every boat or town that saw it bearing down on them, Port Royale has the flexibility, complexity and visual splendour that you will want to take it, and play it on your own terms, using your own strategies. That the game allows you to do that while remaining accessible to complete beginners is all the more impressive.

Ultimately though, I just want to play the story mode over and over. The missions in Mafia: Definitive Edition are artfully made – they’re eventful, emotionally rich, and deeply fascinating in their representation of the human psyche. It’s the exact same appeal as watching a movie like The Godfather, and wondering just what the characters must be thinking as they hold a gun up to another man’s face. Mafia: Definitive Edition’s narrative means something. It forces players to critically assess the life and crimes of Tommy Angelo as he tells his story to a police informant. Do we, the player, forgive him? Do we understand him? Could the impulses which drove him to do what he did, also exist within us? These questions were in the original Mafia, buried beneath the complex gameplay and 2002 era production values – but in Definitive Edition, they’re right at the forefront, staring the player in the face. Hangar 13 have done an amazing job in modernising Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven into a truly powerful narrative experience, one which I hope that fans of the original will be pleasantly surprised by.

Nevaeh is easy-playing stuff. It takes familiar, comfortable genre conventions and splices them together in a way that is imminently playable. With such a strong, compelling art style it would have been nice to see the developers push the artistry a little further, either to subvert or confirm the fairytale themes in a compelling way, but you're not going to regret your time playing this one. Not by a long shot.

At this point, EasyTech strategy games are a known quantity on Nintendo Switch. They’re light, streamlined strategy games, however, they also avoid the pitfalls of many other strategy titles developed for mobile first. They aren’t condescending to the player's intelligence, and are willing to challenge and even "beat" poor play. Furthermore, they don’t rely on unbalanced mechanics to determine victory like is standard for free-to-play titles. I am disappointed that the history is such a light brush that it’s barely present and I walked out of Grand Conqueror Rome with little better understanding on where to begin learning about ancient Rome than I had going in, but for most people that won’t be an issue. What they will get is more than enough tactical strategy action to last them for many months to come.

The only area it missed out on was the music. Why The B-52’s Rock Lobster was not the soundtrack on repeat is an oversight that will forever astound me. It was just such an obvious, perfect soundscape for this particular experience. Jokes aside, though, Fight Crab is very much my kind of game as someone who considers a trip to a Salvador Dali exhibition to be a good time. I realise that I'm in a very limited niche in that regard, but this is a horn I've trumpeted more than a few times in the past: if we're going to be on board with this games as art routine, recognising that subversive experiences like Fight Crab have value is step #1.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with homages. Vampire’s Fall is a little on the nose with its love of Diablo at times, but there’s a lot of merit to Diablo, and a turn-based open world RPG with that aesthetic and tone is certainly worth paying attention to. It’s just unfortunate that the developers were unable to elevate this beyond being a shallow grind, with more misfired attempts at humour than a narrative that’s actually worth following. Vampire’s Fall is lengthy and content-rich, but it will be quickly forgotten.

And Wasteland 3 certainly is enjoyable. It's true to the series' roots and the proto-Fallout, and understands what it is that makes XCOM-style tactical RPGs so captivating. But most of all, it uses its sense of humour and sharp writing to keep its post-apocalypse interesting, despite how well-worn that path has become in the decades since Wasteland first hit.

Moero Crystal H does what it sets out to so well - be an outrageously perverse work of extended sex humour - that if you can enjoy that, on those terms, you're not going to find something more amusing on a console, likely ever. There's something almost noble about that purity of vision.

And that's the problem with reviewing 3D All-Stars. All three of the games have historical worth, remain highly playable today, and are ported competently enough that they work. You're not going to suddenly find Bowser unbeatable because bugs have trashed what was once a great game. However, this is Nintendo's most valuable property and mascot, and it's amazing that the company didn't do more with this package than they have here.

I know I’m being vague in what I write and say here, but I really am restricted from talking about the best that 13 Sentinels offers by embargo conditions. What I can say, however, is that this game stands proudly with the likes of NieR Automata, Persona 4 and Danganronpa as something truly intelligent and meaningful. Without ever losing sight of its need to entertain players, 13 Sentinels intellectually engages with and challenges them, respecting their ability and willingness to engage with the game on that level. It is, in a games industry that increasingly frustrates me for its lack of artistic intent, deeply and proudly artistic. The fact that it just happens to have such an excellent strategy game layered over the top of the narrative is the nicest icing on the cake.

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.

I'm left with the exact same impression with Shadows of New York as I was with Coteries of New York from earlier this year. This development team has talent, writes a quality visual novel, understands the aesthetics and tone of Vampire: The Masquerade, and you get the feeling that they can achieve some incredible things with the property. To get there, though, they need to graduate from writing a pen-and-paper RPG to something more literary, because unfortunately for them, in deciding to joust with exceptionally complex, challenging subjects like they have with Shadows of New York, they're being unseated far too often by a lack of insight and complex analysis, leaving their work feeling a touch too shallow for its own good.

Inertial Drift is gorgeous. More than just a racing game, it’s a set of systems for player expression, putting them right in the shoes of a hotshot rookie on the warpath to becoming a drifting master. Although the controls are complex on paper, they’re easy to pick up and feel natural within minutes. Especially for those who love the idea of racing games but are burnt out on the methodical, perfectionist nature of modern racing sims, Inertial Drift is a wonderful throwback to an exciting, stylish era.

When you start really pulling at what Quantum Suicide offers, it works as a metanarrative discussion around all of these games, and as a result, the game offers layer after layer of some truly fascinating narrative and structure that I'm going to be thinking about for quite some time to come.

Rather than struggle with its limitations, however, Kingdoms of Amalur embraces them and is quite confident about being that "single-player MMO" experience, without pretense. It is a joyfully lengthy, grindy quest that gets away with it because it's also quite beautiful, snappy, and coherent about it. This "Re-Reckoning" doesn't do anything more than test the waters for a potential future for the franchise, but I do think it deserves one. It has been a real pleasure to have the opportunity to re-experience this game.

Coming to Captain Tsubasa as a fan of football, but knowing nothing of the anime and manga, I had no idea what to expect from this game, but I was more than impressed. Tamsoft, a company better know for little skirts-and-panties games like Senran Kagura, spinoff Hyperdimension Neptunia titles, Onechanbara and School Girl/Zombie Hunter was up against it with this game. After all, how do you compete with the might of EA and Konami without going so far into the realm of arcade experiences that the game is no longer recognisable as the sport? Tamsoft genuinely managed to figure it out. Captain Tsubasa is a back-to-basics football game with excellent pace and considerable verve. It's not just for existing fans of the anime or manga; this game is perfect for anyone who wants to enjoy clean, entertaining football action with their friends without having to first send them off to a college degree to learn how to play.

I can't recommend RPG Maker MV enough. Not only is it an ideal way for JRPG fans to engage with their favourite genre without needing to go and learn how to code first, but it's also a low-pressure and undemanding way for people with an interest in game development to understand how game developers think and create. The Switch version is less robust than the PC version and you're not going to be producing anything that you can make money with like you can on PC, but as a toy and a sandbox, RPG Maker is a delight. I can't wait to see the kind of creativity that RPG fans come up with (and yes, I will try and upload a game of my own at some point too... if I ever find the time to finish one).

There's a good number of levels and the challenge is stiff enough that you'll be plugging at it for quite some time. Here Be Dragons is limited, though. It's not as funny as it wants to be, claiming to be a satire, but failing to satirise anything, and it's not nearly as strategic as it should be, since it's more like a puzzle game that just happens to have dice rolls to potentially screw everything up. It's enjoyable and the distinctive art style shows that the developers did want to achieve something unique, but Here Be Dragons needed a little more work on executing against the intent.

I hope this is just the start for Pathfinder in video games, and I like the future that Kingmaker promises. It's a major time commitment, sure, but Pathfinder: Kingmaker has the kind of narrative arc and development that perfectly captures the essence of playing a tabletop RPG, only in digital form. That's something that I haven't really felt since the era of Baldur's Gate itself and for that I really appreciated what the developers have achieved her.

So, what's left? What reason is there to purchase Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Remastered Edition? That's really the problem here. There isn't one. This isn't Trials of Mana with its breathtaking scope, characters, and narrative reborn for a new generation. This isn't even a port of a beloved classic like Star Ocean or Romancing SaGa, because unlike those faithful ports, Crystal Chronicles Remastered doesn't preserve the reason people loved the original. There's something of a hit of nostalgia in playing through the single-player game... but it's the nostalgia of how much you loved playing that original game, with friends, and the realisation that you can't do it as well as you'd like to, in classic local multiplayer action, bites.

For fans of the old Heroes of Might & Magic titles or Total War, Immortal Realms: Vampire Wars does a lot that is highly laudable; it offers a great concept, nails the aesthetics, and offers quality tactical and strategic action. In this way, it checks all the requirements of a good strategy game. The problem is that it's hard to see it as anything more than a foundation or a statement of intent. If this one is successful enough you'll see an Immortal Realms 2 that fully delivers on the concept, I suspect. For now, however, as much as you'll enjoy what this gothic nightmare strategy promises, it's going to be a real struggle to see it as more than a promise of what might come in the future.

This tedium would be unacceptable in an action game, but Windbound is a survival game. In survival games, death is supposed to mean something. Loss of progress represents the stakes; repetition is the barrier of entry. For players ready to take that plunge, there are some far-and-few-between moments of Windbound which are exhilarating. There’s nothing quite like stalking down the player’s first Gorehorn or Gloomharrow and seeing the game’s possibilities open right up as a reward for some intrepid hunting skills. But that being said, it’s a kind of enjoyment which needs to be really scrapped for and earned, and for most people, I suspect Windbound is going to feel a little too much like work.

Pitched at a delightfully low price for what's on offer, Nexomon is, potentially, the start of an excellent franchise. The developers have managed to interpret everything that people love about Pokémon and deliver an experience that is both familiar, and yet also its own thing. A great sense of humour, some lovely aesthetics and a quality, balanced combat system make for an easy-playing, low-pressure, and very enjoyable homage. I do think that this game will surprise a lot of genre fans who, like me, went in expecting a clone and got something that far exceeds that.

Giraffe and Annika is the first outing for Atelier Mimina, and as a statement of intent, it shows us a developer that we should be paying attention to. Perhaps Giraffe and Annika is a touch on the short side for its own good, and perhaps there was a better way to build the world and adventure up than making players spend time in a fairly mundane "open world," but between the evocative characters, rich aesthetics and wholesome sense of humour, this game is a joy to play. And that is what's actually important here.

Buried Stars could have been a 5/5 game, easily. Unfortunately, the narrative thought behind the game really relied on me having a personal interest in the characters and their plight, and thanks to the inelegant and overly literal localisation, it became impossible to see them as anything but constructs and narrative tools. Buried Stars is still good enough to work as an academic thought exercise, but I do wish I understood Korean, so I could play the game the way it should be.

The big question for me, personally, though, is whether Project Cars 3 just zigged when it should have zagged. The thing is, that I do like accessible racing games. I spent many, many hours with Real Racing. But this new entry with Project Cars has given the series an identity crisis, and where the developers could have taken their existing learning and delivered the previous Project Cars vision to an all-new degree, instead we've got the team effectively starting from scratch again. I guess we can look forward to Project Cars 4 being a repeat of Project Cars 2, in taking and refining the initial idea and actually delivering to the vision.

Kandagawa Jet Girls is a joke in the same way that Senran Kagura and The Bad Touch song that I quoted at the top is: it relishes in being brazen to the point that it knows it's going to draw some eye rolls. It also knows that many of its fans will enjoy both the brazenness and the eye rolls from the puritans - it's edgy like that. But, really, it's great. It's an excellent blend of "kart" racer and jetski playground, and it is built with a level of precision and eye for detail that I think will surprise and impress many. In other words, it is yet another hit of the kind of breezily entertaining experience that, like so much of Takaki Kenichiro's work, deserves more respect than it's going to get.