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.

Despite the poor narrative, there is some fun to be had throughout the 9 or so hours it’ll take you to beat Lost Legacy. While it’s definitely not the globe-trotting adventure of a full, numbered Uncharted, this expansion has a few great moments of its own.

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.

I wish I could say Kiryu’s sendoff was the best Yakuza game of the bunch, but last year’s Yakuza 0 still stands out. Yakuza 6 succeeds, though, despite its shortcomings. It’s definitely the best looking, most technically impressive Yakuza game. And The Song of Life is its most heart warming (and heart wrenching!) story.

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.

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.

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 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.

If you don’t play many shooters and haven’t seen what the genre has been up to in the last few years, its additions might seem fresh enough. If you’re the type to buy FPS games often, you won’t find much new or impressive here.

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.

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.

Despite its lack of polish, Kingdom Come: Deliverance is an engaging ride. If players are willing to embrace the beauty of history and the challenge of survival in a world that cares nothing for its inhabitants, role-playing doesn’t come much more satisfying than this.

It’s a little hard to achieve that goal when relying on “been there, done that” tropes like an innocent girl juxtaposed with evil motives and supernatural powers. But there are new, interesting things at work. These get better as the game goes on, culminating in a satisfyingly climactic endgame sequence.

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.

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.

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.

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.

If you’re not a huge fan of Fire Emblem, you may want to sit this one out.

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.

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.

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, Days Gone is best described as an infuriating-if-enjoyable mess. It offers both a good central tenant of an idea and a unique take on a saturated genre, but is subsequently let down by dated storytelling, unnecessary bloat (the level-up system is so ineffectual you may question why anyone bothered to include it) and an investment in time and patience that really doesn’t come anywhere near to justifying the eventual pay-off.

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.

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.

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.

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.