It’s always refreshing to come across a narrative that challenges genre norms, while still respecting the genre it belongs to. Him, The Smile & Bloom doesn’t set out to criticise or undermine the otome visual novel, but it does take expectations in a different direction thanks to the way it has been structured. Thanks to that, this is a vibrant and highly enjoyable, intelligent, and thoughtful experience, well worth the price of admission.

If you do remember having good times with Glover back when it was a quirky alternative, then you may well have fun blasting through it again. Anyone else picking it up today for the first time is going to see nothing but a very B-tier platformer that lacks the charisma and creativity that once helped to elevate it over so many of its peers.

Urban Myth Dissolution Center is a novel take on the ADV genre that is worth playing, even if it can be finished within a weekend. It makes you think, and not just when it comes to solving a case: its commentary on society, social media and the genesis of urban myths has left an impression on me after finishing the game, along with that spectacular ending.

Yu-Gi-Oh! has come a long way in the years since these titles, both as a card game to play (many might argue that it’s too complex now) and as something to adapt to video games. This collection is a lot of nostalgic fun to remember the simpler times, but is also important to understand just how limited these games are. It would be like if EA put together a retro compilation of its FIFA football games. Sure, you’d have a rush of nostalgic delight loading up the GBA game that you spent months playing back in the day, but it would only take one or two matches to realise that nostalgia has a habit of warping memories and not all classic video games are timeless. Some are. Konami’s Castlevania collections show that. I fully expect the impending Suikoden collection to be a similar story. These, however, are not.

Shujinkou is a genuinely worthwhile language tool wrapped up in a genuinely worthwhile indie Etrian Odyssey-style dungeon crawler. It’s an inspired, intelligent idea and I hope people give it a chance despite being as indie as they come. On sheer ambition and creative energy, I would be hard-pressed to point to anything I have ever played that’s more impressive than this.

Never 7: The End of Infinity and Ever 17: The Out of Infinity are both very different experiences, but both are worth picking up because they give you an insight into one of the auteurs of our industry. Kotaro Uchikoshi has a rare talent for bringing a literary quality to his projects, and with these two we get to see what he was like at the beginning of his career. That’s a treat that you shouldn’t miss.

The score you’ll see right below here is more reflective of where I think the game will end up than where it is right now, but Big Ant’s earned the benefit of the doubt and until they fail to deliver, I’ll continue to give it to them.

Rugby Challenge doesn’t really have licenses (aside from Jonah Lomu). It has teams – both domestic and international, but the rosters are made up, kits and logos are generic, and nothing that could be considered a licensable brand is in there. You’ll need to spend a lot of time in the editor just converting names, let alone trying to massage the team to actually look approximate to anything in the real world...If licenses don’t matter too much to you, though, then there’s a basic, but halfway reasonable game of rugby available in Rugby Challenge 4. It’s not going to be something that you spend hundreds of hours with, but for some quick play, it scratches an itch.

Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog has made a great impression on me because of the characters, the narrative, and how everything is so detailed. The gameplay and text create a frantic experience, contrasting with the laid-back visual novel style. It sure had my heart pounding and my brain in overdrive! Yes, I have some gripes about the controls and timed events, but those things haven’t stopped me from enjoying the other, more prominent aspects of the game. The series has promise, and I’m very curious about where Space Colony Studios goes with this anthology series.

What you need to know is that the frame rate is up to the task the action throws at it, and the controls are slick and feel really good. You’re a fast and ridiculously competent hero, and the power fantasy in this game is very real. Koei Tecmo no doubt developed this quickly after seeing how popular Vampire Survivors is, and while it’s not exactly pushing boundaries, the team has done a great job bringing its exceptional Warriors properties to the formula. This is a game I’ll be returning to for quite some time, as stress relief if nothing else.

If the next evolution of the Yakuza franchise is more of these thematic crossovers, smaller, experimental titles and playful spin-offs, I’m all for it. Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii proves that the previous Like a Dragon Ishin was no fluke. Ryu Ga Gotoku is clearly comfortable bringing these iconic characters to any creative setting and location, and going forward the sky’s the limit. Perhaps literally. I wouldn’t put it past them to have Goro Majima waking up on a moon base next.

Nothing about Trails Through Daybreak 2 dampens my enthusiasm for the series as a whole. I will be playing the next one the moment it’s available. This is one of the more disappointing Legend of Heroes titles, given that its biggest failing – the narrative – is typically what you want to play this series for – but even on a bad day The Legend of Heroes is a more interesting and entertaining vision and project than most JRPGs can aspire to be.

For now, though, I think it’s pretty telling that while Civilization VII certainly costs a pretty penny, I’ve already found myself going back to play VI when I want to play something that I enjoy. It’s simply not inspiring me, and given that this series above all others has, in a very real sense, shaped my lifelong interest in history, being uninspiring is perhaps the worst mistake Firaxis could have made.

Sugoro Quest: Dice Heroes can be a fun game, albeit a frustrating and unfair one. With that said, I won’t blame you if you decide to rely on save states while playing. Now onward and roll for great justice!

Hello Kitty Island Adventure is one of those games that could only come from Japanese culture. There aren’t many other cultures that see an inherent spirit and soul in a mascot, and to most of the rest of us, mascots are tools to use for branding and marketing, or otherwise become famous because of their association with a product like a film or a game (hello Mario and Mickey Mouse). It’s rare that a mascot IS the product. But that’s what has happened with Hello Kitty. Before today, most Kitty games came across as a cheap effort to extract more cash from that lucrative product, but Hello Kitty Island Adventure is different. This is a genuinely worthwhile use of your time, and the fact that it’s also free of predatory microtransactions is the sweetener on top.

The big selling point of Kingdom Come Deliverance II is also its biggest potential drawback. You’ve got to be genuinely interested in the history that it depicts to find it immersive. I do wonder whether some people will come in expecting a Skyrim-like or a first-person Witcher experience and end up disappointed with this. It’s not that kind of game. It’s far more grounded and gritty, but if reading Tolstoy or Yoshikawa appeals to you, then Kingdom Come Deliverance II is very much for you.

Neptunia Riders Vs. Dogoos is frustrating. For fans of the series, it’s fun and hits all the right notes. It’s just over way too quickly and the developers missed a real opportunity to make this a dynamite multiplayer experience. It’s also so totally reliant on appealing to existing fans that it’s going to completely fail to find a new audience for the broader Hyperdimension property. It could have been so much more for all audiences, but as it is will simply be a fun little spinoff while we continue to wait for the next big step forward for this delightful series and its characters.

There’s not too much in the designs that you won’t have seen in just about every single platform game out there, so you get your requisite forest levels, ice levels, factory levels and so on – but it all hangs together well.

I wanted to like Love Too Easily more than the game let me. There are a lot of good ideas and noble intent in there. It’s just let down by what I will put down to creative inexperience.

Freedom Wars is one of the smarter and shaper takes on the Monster Hunter formula. While Capcom’s series is certainly more refined and well-produced, there’s enough intelligence and sound enough concept and philosophy within Freedom Wars that helps to elevate it. It might only ever be a “cult classic,” but then again they say the same about David Lynch films. Sometimes a “cult classic” is just an intelligent art work that dares go against the grain a little.

The puzzle pieces are often incredibly-well hidden. That would be fine if the game wasn’t perfectly satisfactory without drilling into people that these pieces needed to be found. It’s a sour note to finish with and disappointing because the game is otherwise truly brilliant, but those collectibles are largely why I have given up on the platformer genre. Whatever happened to the idea of building a game where it is fun just to go from one end of the level to the other, and still feel validated that, yes, I’ve finished the game at the end of the last level?... With that gripe out of the way, the Nintendo Switch remaster of this classic platformer is the definitive version of it, and anyone who loved playing it previously is going to love the opportunity to play through it again. If you’re newer to video games… this is an essential modern classic.

Overall, Dynasty Warriors Origins is a big, explosive, and massively entertaining action game, and true to its title, a conscious effort by Koei Tecmo to get back to the qualities that so many people have enjoyed from the series over the years. Lu Bu is terrifying, Sun Shangxiang is history’s greatest tomboy, Zhuge Liang is brilliant, and watching all these stories play out with such energy is just utterly brilliant.

It firmly exists within the Ys series, and just as last year brought us that magnificent remake of Dragon Quest III, here’s an old-timey classic within the action JRPG genre for the people who appreciate it. Not everything needs to be deep and meaningful, and Felghana certainly isn’t that. But it’s easy to appreciate its place within one of the longest-running and most enduring JRPG properties of all time.

I don’t think anyone who looks at Tokyo Clanpool will be under any illusions about whether it’s for them or not. The game wears its charms on its sleeve and delivers a quality and consistently amusing, if somewhat mechanically standard, dungeon crawler behind it. It’s unfortunate that the “censorship” of a small part of it will cost it within the small niche audience for the game, but just know that it’s a far better game than you might see in the user reviews. They’re upset about the removed elements. What’s left there is highly enjoyable if you’re there for a frivolous, silly, charming and funny dungeon-crawling JRPG, rather than the touch-em-up minigame.

Grizzly Man is the best Pixel Pulps game to date, and it is a great way to start a new trilogy; the next two games will be Dark Side Sewers (about a remote viewer) and Possession Junkies (about a Wiccan who is the last of her lineage).

I hate to be the guy railing against a lack of content in a game, but while Riki 8Bit Game Collection was clearly a labour of love, I have to question why this wasn’t released as a music CD or music download instead, because 99% of the experience is in those music players and the Switch is not the ideal place for a music player. There’s less than ten minutes worth of gameplay in this collection, and as good as that music is, I can’t add it to my Apple playlists for working out or enjoying while I’d reading a book. The end result is, sadly, a conceptual misfire.

Basically, Xuan-Yuan Sword: The Gate of Firmament, is an older game and suffers from a poor localisation, but there’s a heart and soul in it that is so earnest and honest that it’s very easy to forgive the game its transgressions. Whether it’s the mixing of fantasy, spiritual philosophy and some of the most ancient recorded history, or the engaging combat system and stunning art direction it’s easy to get lost in this adventure, and full credit to EastAsiaSoft for giving us a second chance to play it.

The long-and-short of Fairy Tail 2 is that it’s a perfectly competent JRPG by one of the true specialists of the genre. It’s not going to be remembered as Gust’s finest work, and is more of a play-and-forget experience. This is a year that has given us everything from Final Fantasy VII Rebirth to Metaphor, a mind-blowingly good remake of Romancing SaGa 2 and, arguably, the finest Yakuza game yet with Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth. In comparison to all of that Fairy Tail’s by-the-numbers approach will seem routine. But it’s also got all the hallmarks we come to expect from Gust – this is comfort food gaming for JRPG enthusiasts, using strong material well. Sometimes, that’s all you need.