Like any sort of anti-art, it shatters the foundations of the medium so that we can look at those pieces, in isolation, and understand their value as a whole. It throws a spanner into the whole argument around games as art, paradoxically affirming the artistic merits of the medium in a way that few other games ever have.

SMT IV: Apocalypse is a really smart and thoughtful game on the wrong platform entirely, for what it wants to offer. It’s easy to spot the compromises to the vision that the development team needed to make to have it all fit the platform, and while it’s still an essential title, it’s difficult to sit back and not wonder just how much more it could have been.

There’s a premise with a lot of potential in enigma, but it’s squandered on cliche characters, uneven pacing, and rough localisation.

Clockwork Tales’ inconsistent tone, lack of self-awareness, and generally poor presentation let down an otherwise standard example of the genre, which means you’ll need to be a really big genre fan to derive much value from this.

There are dozens and dozens of different elemental monsters to discover, and that’s half the joy of the game. The other half is the bright charm and personality of Alchemic Jousts. It’s not the deepest strategy game you’ll ever play, but it’s one of the most charming that you’ll see for some time to come.

It’s also a horribly, horribly plain looking game. Because each level plays out on a single screen panel, there’s a lack of a sense of scale, which is generally appreciated in a strategy game. Environments look like they were done in ten minutes in Microsoft Paint, too. This kind of game flies by okay as a little mobile time waster, but a PlayStation 4 experience needs to offer much more than this.

All of this would be almost okay if 4 Elements also wasn’t one of the most unrelentingly plain-looking games, with terrible sprites representing enemies, and bland level design to back it up.

What Mario Maker on the 3DS has forgotten is that one of the key reasons to make games is to have other people play them.

Let It Die is of exceedingly high quality for a free-to-play title; it’s dozens of GB in download size and looks and feels every bit an example of a higher-end game from Japan. It’s also far too reasonable on the microtransactions and asking players for money. It’s possible to speed up progress through the game by paying real money, or preserve a favoured character that's just perished but the incentives for doing that are low, particularly when anyone who is inclined to enjoy a roguelike is not going to have any issues with a grind, or re-starting games from scratch after a character dies.

Calling All Units doesn’t set out to do anything new, it’s pretty much an online only version of Need for Speed: Pursuit. The new mechanics of chasing down others online with a group of others is indeed fun, and for the most part the online does work. The story does nothing exciting whatsoever, but it does teach the new mechanics and how they work.

The overriding focus of any point-and-click adventure game has to be on the excellence of the story, well fleshed-out characters, as well as puzzles that are germane to the story and enhance it. On all these counts, I believe Demetrios delivers, notwithstanding a few minor stumbles. It is particularly welcome on the Vita platform, which lacks a wider range of games in this genre. The game runs smoothly with minimal loading times, and the bubble icon looks very cool indeed, to boot.

Because I was so emotionally invested in the game, I started to lose time while I was playing it. I don’t think it’s an overly long game, but I do think that its length will be wholly dependent on how good you are at understanding its logic and puzzles. It wouldn’t matter if it was over in an hour, though. The game is deep, meaningful, and powerful. It’s reflective, different, and beautiful. It may well end up being more divisive than Ueda’s previous masterpieces, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a masterpiece, from one of the industry’s true auteurs. Play this game. Even if you hate it, it’s going to broaden your horizons around what games are truly capable of.

Fun, as the rhythm portions and the soundtracks that they use mesh well together. But let's not pull punches about this; this is a game that is going to be exclusively of interest to existing fans of Senran Kagura, and who are also fans of rhythm games. It's not going to convert anyone to the franchise, and unlike the likes of Persona 4 Dancing All Night, it's also not meaty enough as a rhythm game to appeal to people who aren't already deeply involved in the genre. It's pure fanservice.

This simply isn't true. The thematic depth and cultural context of the game make for a wonderful, complex, and meaningful narrative, and FFXV is every bit as worthy as a narrative work as Stand By Me, from which it draws so much inspiration. Couple this with the fact that it's a surprisingly traditional Final Fantasy game in the ways that count, and I've got to say I haven’t loved a Final Fantasy game with such raw passion in many years.

Experience the game with the mindset of wanting to get lost in a virtual world, though, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by Hollow Realization’s hidden charms.

Dragon Ball: Fusions takes a familiar tale and style of play and decides to mix the whole formula up. Some aspects of the formula work better than others, but the end result is still an enjoyable experience that takes an overly well-known property and manages to make it fresh in several ways.

Playing Exile’s End involves a lot more aimless running around than it should. It’s frustrating because these are all problems that have been solved as the Metroidvania genre’s developed over the years. When it’s allowed to shine, it’s a wonderful game that almost rivals the original Metroid, I just wish it didn't spend so much time getting in its own way out of a commitment to dated ideas about difficulty.

For strategy gaming veterans, Motorsport Manager will just feel right. There are a myriad of meaningful choices embedded into each part of the game, meaning that lovers of micromanagement will find themselves at home in Playsport Games’ take on the manager genre.

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.

This is one of those games which you could buy on a portable device and enjoy far more because of that.

Tyranny is an excellent RPG experience that has many of the hallmarks of great classic role-playing games while still making plenty of smart choices to modernise the experience for today's audience. Refined systems and a story where choices can often have some real consequence made my time with Tyranny rewarding, despite a disappointingly abrupt ending that left me wanting for more.

Ittle Dew 2 has many good things going for it, but I am wondering whether Ittle might thrive more now if she sets off on her raft, unencumbered by trying to be part of another franchise's tradition, to discover a new land all her own.

It shows that none of the main Assassin's Creed games are going to age particularly well, but it also does a good job of highlighting - when freed of the expectations that come with being a blockbuster - that the real strengths of the series are far more subtle than the graphics or size of the cities that it renders.

It certainly offers a unique story in the realm of video games. Fans of the genre will certainly get a kick out of the game, others may just be intrigued enough by the story to try it out. But will it stand out as a classic in the genre when we're getting so many of them at the moment? Probably not.

Taking a shallow sub-mode from other games, and presenting it in a no-frills manner, might make for a competent and reliable shooter, But Killing Floor 2 also fails to be anything more than a diversion from other, better shooters as a result. It's utterly useless in singleplayer, and for multiplayer hijinks there are more creative examples out there.

Ultimately, Pokemon is a coming of age story, as told through the analogy of monster collecting and battling. This new game loses none of that, but in building a greater sense of narrative into the action, has given it a greater resonance and purpose. This is also the most creative that Game Freak has been with the franchise in quite some time, and players who had grown tired of the iterative approach the developer had been taking may well find this one a Renaissance for the series.

Ultimately, Pokemon is a coming of age story, as told through the analogy of monster collecting and battling. This new game loses none of that, but in building a greater sense of narrative into the action, has given it a greater resonance and purpose. This is also the most creative that Game Freak has been with the franchise in quite some time, and players who had grown tired of the iterative approach the developer had been taking may well find this one a Renaissance for the series.

The game is simple and fun and can pose a challenge to anyone who wants to find everything in the game. The developers had some really good ideas with the moon phases and to use real world time and weather. I think in the context of a more in-depth and purposeful game, that kind of feature would be distinctive and potent. Hopefully some other developers were paying attention.