Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes might not exactly be the game that fans of the series were hoping for, but if you’re want to catch up with your favorite assassin and are willing to accept changes made to the gameplay, you should find plenty to like here. This is a surprisingly complex game and seriously goofy sequel-ish thing, made with obvious passion and an undying love for the gaming experience.

Dissidia Final Fantasy NT finally brings Square Enix’s handheld “what if” franchise to the big screen, and the results are pretty fantastic for those who love chaotic, high-energy combat scenarios. Unfortunately, the game can be challenging to get the hang of due to a range of factors including class differences and controls, and there’s not much to do for those who prefer their gaming sessions solo. Still, for players who do click with this third Dissidia chapter, it’s a heck of an experience.

Yo-Kai Watch Blasters never manages to shake off that minigame feel, but its core gameplay, though shallow, is fun. Don’t go in expecting anything too deep (or expecting to go anywhere beyond the town of Yo-Kai Watch 2), and Blasters is an enjoyable enough way to pass the time.

Code of Princess is a fun and frantic action adventure for the 3DS, one that often provides plenty of excitement-but which, at other times, feels limited either in design or by the hardware it calls home.

High on Life continues Squanch Games’ propensity for skewering video game tropes, this time in the form of a first-person shooter. Unfortunately, a lot of the game plays like a first draft, and armor of detached irony doesn’t do enough to protect it from its many, many kinks. Roiland’s personal brand of gross-out parody and “oh, geez” improvisational humor is already starting to feel routine in video game form, but there are a few standout bits. Thankfully, there’s a pretty fun shooter underneath all the alien semen, though stiff animations and some buggy moments can make it look slightly underbaked. If you’re a fan of Rick and Morty (or, more appropriately, “Doc and Mharti”), then High on Life might just be the pickup you need—but it never fully develops any of its really good ideas into a satisfying final draft.

It’s an absolute feat that Nintendo was able to retain the trademark Animal Crossing charming feel without including many of the tropes that have been present since the series began back in 2001. That novelty, however, is fleeting, and after a few hours of play, you’re left with a shallow feeling that your work has gotten you nowhere. Even when viewed through the lens of “just a spinoff,” Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer is disappointing.

Blue Reflection is a game that displays a heartwarming amount of beauty and grace even in the face of some tragically ugly flaws and mistakes. On a gameplay level, it never reaches the heights it wanted (or deserved) to, but as an overall experience, it feels like something special in a way few other games do.

I walked away from Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers surprised at how much fun I could still find in the game, even when playing on the less-than-adequate controls the Switch offers by default. Still, that enjoyment doesn’t change the fact that Capcom was off the mark on this release—we either should have received the game as a cheaper digital download, or as a more expansive collection.

Though the Atelier series might not be the epitome of Japan's RPG industry, I've always had a soft spot for its various chapters. Atelier Meruru isn't "epic," "intense," or "exhilarating"-it's charming, friendly, and fun, and it's not ashamed of it.

As a game—that is, a collection of loosely connected systems—it’s all very average, something that works but is wholly forgettable. Combat is more often than not a chore, the world is depressingly dull to look at, and the story feels like the last ingredient Square Enix threw in the pot, and at the very last moment no less.

State of Decay 2 builds upon Undead Labs’ original cult classic about surviving a zombie apocalypse, and in many ways, it’s bigger and better than its predecessor. In other ways, however, it’s too similar to said predecessor, resulting in an experience that often feels like it could have been deeper or more ambitious.

Song of the Deep isn’t a bad metroidvania; it’s just very basic. It doesn’t do anything particularly well, outside of maybe its endearing story, but it isn’t absolutely unplayable either.

Rise & Shine isn’t the deepest action-platformer you’ll ever play, but the tongue-in-cheek nods to the gaming industry at large, along with its stunning art style, will push you to the finish line even when the gameplay starts to let you down.

As a potential preview for what Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain might do to revolutionize the series’ classic stealth-action, Ground Zeroes is an intriguing, bite-sized playthrough. As a $30 retail disc and $20 download, however, it’s a concerning, unwelcome step for game development—and it’s nothing close to a complete, finished product.

A lack of content and a failure to properly execute on some of the new ideas had me longing for the days when Mario Party games would result in brawls in my living room.

You’d be hard pressed to find an automaker willing to take an extra year to reset their car line much like Ghost Games did here with their second run on Need for Speed. What we get is a more focused and competent racer but one seemingly unwilling to risk standing out from the crowd.

Vampire: The Masquerade — Swansong can be a compelling experience, especially for those who are already familiar with the World of Darkness. Its RPG mechanics lend depth to an otherwise standard narrative adventure, as long as you can grasp their meaning. But wonky gameplay balance and even wonkier facial animations, not to mention some of the more overwritten and under-earned emotional beats, can make falling in love with its vampires harder to swallow than a mouthful of blood.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD looks good on the surface, but some particularly frustrating design and gameplay quirks can drastically cut down on the enjoyment.

This carny simulator's as simple as can be-but it's surprisingly fun and definitely helps bolster the Move's casual appeal.

If you adore Suda 51's design sensibilities or appreciate games that punish players, then Black Knight Sword might offer enough for you to enjoy your time with it. For everyone else, far too many other games are more worthy of your time and money.

Saints Row pairs a great open-world city and respectable gameplay fundamentals with repetitive, dated mission design, a story that never finds its footing, and too many bugs to count. Depending on what you prioritize in a game, you may get some enjoyment out of it, but at best you’re looking at a diamond in a whole lot of rough.

About An Elf is a game about an elf who wants to bring about the elftopia. It’s about Princess Dam, who may or may not be a psychopath, and it’s about a cat who wants to have half-cat, half-elf babies, and about another elf who pays Dam gummy bears to tell her stupid stories. It’s about going on an adventure to fantastical places and facing off against monstrous foes, and it’s about figuring out at times overly obscure video puzzles in order to beat those foes. It’s a story about love, and loss, and hope. And, in the end, About An Elf is about five to six hours long.

It may say “new” in the title, but there’s simply not enough to get excited about in Yoshi’s New Island. Fans of the original will probably be turned off by this inferior and all-too-familiar retread.

Atari’s Recharged series has produced some fantastic remakes of classic arcade hits, but that series’ latest entry, Breakout Recharged, is definitely its weakest so far. That’s less the fault of the dev teams or the work they’ve put into these releases, and more the core game itself, as the original Breakout could only receive so much modernization before becoming a totally different game. The result is that Breakout Recharged will satisfy a specific segment of players who can enjoy its more simplistic gameplay, while leaving most everyone else wishing there’d be more to see and break here.

Just Cause 4 has so many good systems in place, but it seems to have lost sight of what to do with them. While it’s a relatively decent game in its own right, it continues the series’ decline.

While it's aimed at the same audience as its silver screen counterpart, Brave: The Video Game seems to have been sprinkled with plenty of Pixar's age-spanning magic. Sadly, for most, its spell will wear off after a weekend or two.

The fun of this arcade classic remake fades quickly as repetition leads to boredom, but its unique objectives might make it worth looking into if you have some time to kill and cash to burn.

There is a core idea here that could’ve worked, but Metroid Prime: Federation Force is nothing short of a disaster due to horribly thought out implementation and shoddy execution.