Akka Arrh is an interesting experiment. Despite its shortcomings, Atari fans can still find some fun in this blaster from the past – the game just comes with a big asterisk. As much as I’m excited to see a lost piece of gaming history revitalized and brought to modern consoles, overwhelming visuals and confusing, abstract game mechanics bring the experience down.

Like a Dragon: Ishin is an awesome spin-off to an already-great series, and one I'm glad finally came to the States. Even if it tripped on the landing, the story kept me gripped, and I hope some of the new combat styles and special moves make their way to other RGG games. I also hope we'll get the other spin-offs that never made their way over. Time will tell, but for now, it's nice to be back with my favorite criminals.

Octopath Traveler II does what an excellent sequel should. Instead of breaking new ground left and right, it improves on the original in nearly every way and feels more confident about the stories it tells. There’s still room for improvement in some of its stiffer areas, but Octopath II is a sterling achievement all around.

The gameplay matters most in Wild Hearts – it’s fresh, chaotic, and breathless. It does not reinvent the hunting genre, but it does just enough with its addition of the Karakuri gadgets and arresting locales (not to mention the myriad ways to traverse them) to give the genre a fresh and welcome perspective. A stronger story would have been welcome, and the camera leaves much to be desired, but Wild Hearts is a deeply engaging experience even with these faults.

Horizon Call of the Mountain is a good showcase piece for PlayStation VR2. It is the game to use if you want to show off your new technology to friends and family. There is even an unlockable mode perfect for this, which is a passive journey on a canoe through a robot-infested jungle. What holds the game back tremendously, though, is Call of the Mountain's overreliance on climbing. The smaller parts of the game, fighting robots, making items, and looking around, are highlights. Pulling yourself up a mountain isn’t, and that’s where you spend most of the approximately six hour experience.

I encountered several minor technical issues over the course of my lengthy playthrough, such as pop-in while moving fast or long door-opening loads. And some of the game systems are more successful than others; a flood of useless low-quality gear rewards is one notable, if minor problem that sometimes stalls the fun. But for those who have long wished for a rich interactive playground to live out your own Harry Potter fantasy, Hogwarts Legacy casts an incredibly mesmerizing spell.

Deliver Us Mars’ protagonists quickly cobble together a space shuttle that barely manages to get them to their destination. A similar story feels true of this game. A gripping narrative fuels gameplay that otherwise feels functional but underbaked, making my time on the planet a mixed bag. Deliver Us Mars shines best when it lets you absorb its story, but expect to stumble over several design craters along the way.

Hi-Fi Rush finds a magical sweet spot between rhythm games, stylish action, and lighthearted, character-driven platformers we don't see very often anymore, and by every measure, it comes out on top.

Colossal Cave isn’t for everyone, but it’s like a slow and meticulously designed theme park ride, all built around an old text adventure game, making for a fascinating experience. Whether you play it or not is probably more up to your personal sensibilities, but Colossal Cave remains an immersive excavation that’s more than worth the trip, even with all the old screws and rusty bolts binding the two periods of game history together.

Purple Lamp showcases a clear adoration for SpongeBob SquarePants, with jokes, deep cuts, and characters that brought me back to my childhood. And when they weren’t forced or overused, they worked well in the narrative. I especially loved hearing that one fish scream about his love of chocolate, and hearing “My leg!” brought me great joy. When The Cosmic Shake is at its best, it sounds, looks, and plays like the kind of game I would have begged my parents to buy me growing up. But when it falters, it’s boring. It’s a game I recommend to fans of SpongeBob SquarePants with ease; for those looking for a great platformer, though, better options lie elsewhere in the sea.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, Motive made Dead Space look nicer, play better, and preserved the core of the experience. Its new flourishes add to that enjoyment instead of subtracting. This remake respects and polishes up my memories of Isaac’s first encounter with the necromorphs without making me miss the original version. It also acts as the perfect entry point for newcomers since it feels on par with today’s titles. I hope this exceptional revision signals to EA that Dead Space has plenty of gas in the tank and becomes a harbinger for more horrifying stories in this universe.

While Chained Echoes has the advantage of decades of distance from the games it looks to for inspiration, it’s a better experience in many instances than those vaunted games from which it arose. I prefer this combat, storytelling, and approach to progression and exploration to many of the JRPGs I grew up so enamored with playing. That’s the highest praise I can heap on a game so removed in time from the games to which it might be compared. Whether you currently count yourself a JRPG connoisseur or fondly recall the ʼ90s heyday of the genre, Chained Echoes is well worth your time.

Forspoken's story and combat fail to reach the heights of its movement and exploration, but thankfully those two latter elements make up most of the experience. I sprinted, often literally, through the campaign in about 15 hours, and now I have a large world filled with nooks and crannies I'm eager to run through and explore. The narrative won’t linger with me, and I avoided combat in the open world often, but I loved making Frey leap and fly through Athia to discover all its treasure chests and secrets.

Lil Gator Game is as short as it is sweet, with the main story lasting just under five hours, but that's all it needs to be. I loved exploring each nook and cranny of the world during that time for new friends, loot, and memories. By the time the story wrapped up, the game had delivered a poignant and touching message about balancing the important parts of our lives. Lil Gator Game isn't the best Zelda-like I've played, but it's probably the one that will stick with me for the longest.

Engage’s characters and social systems never quite hit the high bar set by Three Houses, but it does surpass its predecessor in almost every other way. Players looking for deep customization, expertly crafted strategy RPG combat, and a heartfelt story with adoration for more than 30 years of Fire Emblem history will find that and more in Engage. It’s one of the most gripping games I’ve played on Switch and, ultimately, one I struggled to peel myself away from. If Three Houses was an experiment with where Fire Emblem’s social mechanics can go, then Engage is doing the same for the series’ evolving combat, and excelling just as much, too.

I have reservations about the experience as a whole – however, I can't help but smile thinking about this adventure with the Straw Hats. It nails the core cast of characters, the Memoria areas are fun to revisit, and the revelations surrounding Waford, Lim, and Adio ultimately satisfy. Of course, I can't thoroughly recommend this voyage for someone new to One Piece, but seasoned pirates will find a worthy adventure on the horizon.

Even if Sports Story was polished and bug-free, it would still fall strikingly short of the first title in the series. The new sports don’t play well, the fetch quests are tiresome, and the story is tedious and less charming than that of Golf Story. What remains of the retro golf experience is fun, but the whole game feels like a textbook example of being unable to deliver on lofty ambitions.

One of the best things going for Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider is its length. Making your way to the last level and defeating the final boss only takes a few hours. In this way, it knows exactly what it is: a brief but enjoyable nostalgic experience that doesn’t overstay its welcome. By the time you start feeling like you’ve completed a full retro meal, credits are right around the corner and I appreciate it for that. Moonrider’s adventure likely won’t linger with you, but I don’t regret playing the short, familiar, and satisfying experience.

It’s this buildup of minor annoyances that makes it hard to recommend Dragon Quest Treasures. The experience is driven by charm and nostalgia, but if you don’t have an existing appreciation for the series, there isn’t much here that I could recommend over most other open-world role-playing games. It’s an experience that would greatly vary depending on the player; in other words, one player’s Dragon Quest trash is another player’s Dragon Quest Treasure.

While Soccer Story is a tale about the beautiful game, the soccer matches take a backseat to story and exploration. The adventure and role-playing aspect is a lot of fun, especially with soccer so integrated into the world, but the weak soccer matches keep it from truly being a great sports role-playing game. Buoyed by its charming and humorous premise, Soccer Story provides a satisfying adventure and a different type of soccer game, but one that doesn’t quite score a hat-trick.

Despite multiple shortcomings and my general aversion to the game’s writing, High on Life has occasional glimmers of potential. I’d like to see a sequel polish and improve upon this foundation. I’m always itching for more creative takes on shooters, but High on Life is a reminder that “different” doesn’t always mean “good.”

Need for Speed Unbound feels like a foundational entry for where the series could go from here. Competing across the title’s many events is a blast, and I love the juxtaposed visual aesthetics. Though some elements left me wanting, Unbound is as much fun as I’ve had with a Need for Speed title in years.

For the ongoing Final Fantasy VII re-examination, which Square Enix has officially dubbed the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core feels like required reading. Its place in the larger story is important and will likely grow in significance moving forward, but making your way through those story moments sometimes feels like a school assignment. Reunion is a well-executed remake of the 2007 game that delivers fun combat alongside a stilted story with an interesting and narratively important final act. If you plan on starting or continuing the Final Fantasy VII Remake journey, make sure to do your homework.

With Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration, Digital Eclipse has set a new bar for future historical compilations in video games. It's a digital traveling museum exhibit, as the game bursts at the seams with nostalgia thanks to more than 100 playable games and hundreds of relics from the developer's vault. While a good amount of the games offered will pass by quickly, those brief life spans cannot weigh down the amazing historical value of Atari 50, and I hope Digital Eclipse has more wings of its digital history tour opening in the coming years. 

For all its focus on supernatural magic and demonic threats, Midnight Suns is a fun-loving and thrilling ride. XCOM strategy fans won’t be disappointed; the format changes still result in a gratifying combat flow. But this is a more approachable and story-driven experience than Firaxis has previously attempted, filled with some of the most recognizable pop culture heroes of the moment. It’s big, boisterous, and a little bit silly at times, but just like the best of Marvel’s output in recent years, it’s also a rousing good time.

These various problems aside, though, The Callisto Protocol is still doing a lot of what Dead Space did, for better and worse. And to that end, there are moments of fun, even if, in contrast, they’re light on genuine terror. I’m okay with The Callisto Protocol being another version of its spiritual predecessor, but it struggles to nail even the basics. As a result, I’m underwhelmed, annoyed, and disappointed. If you wanted anything more out of this second crack at making a new sci-fi IP in survival horror, or something markedly different that acknowledges just how far gaming has come since 2008, The Callisto Protocol is not your answer.

Harvestella’s systems feed together in a way that forces you to engage with nearly everything it offers, whether you want to or not. But those slice-of-life activities are mundane and get in the way of letting you enjoy the RPG elements on your own terms. Maximizing a day’s schedule is sometimes rewarding, but the sluggish pacing makes it tough to stay engaged for the long haul. Harvestella forces you to do a whole lot to complete comparatively little. At 70-80 hours, it’s one of the biggest chores I’ve played in some time. That’s unfortunate because the combat, story, and characters are decent enough that, in a more traditional RPG framework, they’d shine brighter. As it stands, squeezing this fruit isn’t always worth its small amount of juice.

My only hesitation in recommending it to Xbox players is the unwelcome presence of launch bugs that impede stage and achievement unlocks for some and other strange odds and ends. Patching has helped so far, and I hope it gets to be as relatively issue-free as the PC versions soon. Despite these early console setbacks, Vampire Survivors has quickly become one of my favorite games of all time. Consider this me grabbing the sides of your head and shouting, "Play Vampire Survivors, you fool!"