It’s charming, it’s sweet, it’s peddling a message of kinship and harmony… but it does it all so dryly...Sorry, Yoshi – you’re a good boy, but you’ve got to learn some new tricks.

What disappoints so much about Anthem is that there are sparks of potential in there. Flying around in your Javelin and queuing up combo attacks with other players can be a blast. But then you discover that you’ll have to back out to Fort Tarsis during Freeplay every so often in order to continue earning experience points. Or you’ll be killed and stuck staring at a red screen waiting until a player feels like reviving you. Or you’ll want to customise your Javelin and find there are no interesting cosmetic options that aren’t behind a paywall.

As a celebration of Shonen Jump’s illustrious history, we expected more from Jump Force than just pure spectacle. But with its off-putting photorealistic aesthetic, underneath the hi-res razzle-dazzle is ultimately a hollow package and a shallow gaming experience.

Switch owners may be more comfortable with playing older games than Nintendo’s less portable cousins, but even this feels a bit too short-lived and dated to satisfy our Capcom cravings, especially when there are more exciting oldies to come to Switch, from Resident Evil 4 to the recently announced Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen.

Can you separate a game’s design from its business model? In the case of Artifact, that’s a resounding no. Both are broken. In a market of pay-to-play, Artifact is pay-to-pay. Skill matters, but the strongest card is your credit card.

Combat does get harder later, but it stops short of doing anything new or interesting. But it does its job well enough for a parent to steal the controller of their kid for a few battles. That old rivalry with Star Wolf needs to be settled.

Taking time out from fighting shadows or stealing hearts, Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight and Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight give you a fun way to hang out with your favourite SEES members or Phantom Thieves, while the series' iconic music has lost none of its resonance.

Taking time out from fighting shadows or stealing hearts, Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight and Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight give you a fun way to hang out with your favourite SEES members or Phantom Thieves, while the series' iconic music has lost none of its resonance.

Ultimately, Darksiders III takes players on a compelling journey that — when it hits its stride– stands shoulder to shoulder with the very best releases this year. Yet, just as the game starts delivering on its lofty potential, unfortunately, Gunfire Games often gives you another reason to grumble. If you can look past its woes, there’s a lot to love here — but be prepared for a frustrating delight.

Call of Cthulhu really is a game of two halves. The first half is an enjoyable horror mystery with non-linear investigating and well-paced storytelling in an appropriately established setting. The second half is a mess, narratively and mechanically. The choices you deliberate over seemingly come to nothing, characters you’ve met over the course of the game end up with gaping plot holes, and some of the design choices fall completely flat.

Combat does get harder later, but it stops short of doing anything new or interesting. But it does its job well enough for a parent to steal the controller of their kid for a few battles. That old rivalry with Star Wolf needs to be settled.

On paper, it seemed great. A new Soulcalibur game with 20 characters launching on the current generation of consoles! But what we got looks like a copy and paste from something we’ve played before.

As frustrating as it is brilliant. Whilst the story beats and core gameplay have fairly aged gracefully, despite the shiny HD sheen, the overall presentation of the game looks less flattering in 2018. It’s odd – in a game that’s very much the ‘how do you do fellow kids?’ of Japanese role-playing games, the story is the one element that doesn’t feel dated.

Play it with friends, play it with family, don’t take it too seriously and for the love of God don’t play it alone. Stick with that ruleset, and Super Mario Party might just be the party game you’ve been waiting.

For fans, this is a substantial expansion providing new characters, a new continent to explore and plenty more to comfortably fill your boots. Considering the retail copy includes a downloadable code for all the expansion pass content, it’d be a waste not to.

It’s traditional to a fault. It may look beautiful and the voice acting is a worthwhile addition, but overall Dragon Quest XI does nothing to push the JRPG genre forward. It’s a shame, as despite Square pushing XI as its big Western RPG this is a game that’s incredibly hard to recommend to a new audience.

They’re titles that everyone should play to see (in the same game, no less) how this medium grew from short-burst coin-ops to something more expansive, grounded and mature, and onto the multifaceted, enveloping open-world experiences we love so much today.

It’s bold and adventurous world design that should undoubtedly be praised. If story and atmosphere can carry a game for you, then you should be able to look past the weaknesses elsewhere to enjoy this quirky and distinctive adventure.

Although it may not be saying much, this is the most authentic representation of the series in a video game to date, and it is comfortably the best game based on the show so far. Yet, unless you are a child or somebody completely obsessed with Adventure Time, despite its charm, Pirates of the Enchiridion will struggle to keep your attention for long.

Under-cooked is actually a really good way to describe Warhammer 40,000: Gladius – Relics of War. It’s got all these good ideas, but they’re not combined in the right way. There are loads of bugs.

Octopath Traveler is a gem of an RPG with genuinely brilliant battle mechanics and a world worthy of celebration, but it’s hamstrung by an ambitious structure that doesn’t suit its narrative ambition.

The Crew 2 lacks its own purpose and identity, as though it’s magpie’d many excellent features but stitched them together in a way that doesn’t yet make sense...Despite the bolstered vehicular options and the novelty of beaching a boat in Central Park, sadly there’s just not enough here to keep you on the starting grid.

Neither easy nor unforgiving, it makes you wonder who Aces is really for; stalwart Mario fans may love the premise but find the complex combos tricky to master, whilst tennis purists may love the core game, but also struggle to adjust to those special abilities...That said, it’s beautiful, it’s polished, and it will likely be a smash hit for anyone who’s been waiting all these years for a complex and challenging Mario tennis game.

Despite the strikingly different premise from Life is Strange studio Dontnod, the team's expertise in characterisation and world-building dovetail neatly into this vampire romp. Reid's world is full of detail and flavour, its cast fully-realised and three-dimensional. It's just frustrating that its clumsy combat and limited loot detract from its otherwise unique ideas and exhilarating story.

Ultimately even its breath-taking cinematic conclusion isn’t enough to stop Detroit Become Human feeling like at best a flawed classic and at worst a frustratingly restrictive experience. Despite that, there is definitely a story worth experiencing here, and if you can endure the game’s more tedious aspects, Detroit’s branching endings will undoubtedly be spark countless chapter replays and heated conversations for years to come.

The Zelda skin helps keep things fresh, keep things different enough to warrant a purchase of this for even the most veteran Musou fans. If you’re new to the games but like Zelda, don’t go in expecting a masterpiece. But if you’re down for simple, popcorn-movie like fun you can’t go wrong with Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition. There’s a ton of content, multiple fan-favourite characters, and an over-the-top, cheese-ridden story.

More future primitive than highly evolved, there is some fun to be had here, but ultimately it’s a game that adds nothing of substance to either genre or franchise.

While we thoroughly enjoyed our 4-6 hours with Kirby Star Allies, it definitely was lacking in some areas on top of its short length. Levels are decisively easy and lack extra exploration, boss fights are simplistic, and the minigames are fun but shallow. It’s difficult not to feel like Nintendo was playing it safe when designing it.