If you’re desperate for another farming life sim and have nothing else to play, or you really like the art style so much that you’re willing to overlook a relatively lackluster play experience, then you’ll get something worthwhile out of the game. I sure hope you do. But for the average player, I just can’t find much to recommend it over a lot of other games. Re: Legend falls far short of being a legendary experience.

Honestly, I feel like this one is a game that manages to make a lot of little bad decisions, but the fundamental mechanic of how it handles weaponry speaks to a basic desire to make a game all about weird guns in which you never care about any of them. They’re all just momentary blips you’ll never get to hang on to, so you don’t care about their quirks and can’t build around them at all. You always feel like you’re playing with half of your tools.

Ultimately it’s just a tedious, scowling experience substituting actual improvement for growling noises and the occasional neon sign. And that’s disappointing.

Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia isn’t a truly dire or bad title, but it’s the sort of thing that you’re either going to love or hate, and that feels like a pretty big ask for the game. It was a title I found very exciting in concept, but found myself increasingly disappointed by the more I played it. Be fairly warned before you try it – but also don’t be surprised if it becomes something that some people just will not stop talking about, even with its flaws.

It feels like someone put a lot of heart into Habroxia 2, but heart only goes so far. It’s a decent enough attempt at a side-scrolling shooter, but lacks the polish I’d expect from a game these days. A bit more balance considerations, some more context for why you’re fighting the things you are, and some longer music tracks, and it would be an alright retro throwback. As it is, it’s a bit mediocre.

The biggest sin that Giraffe and Annika suffers from is a distinct lack of focus on top of grandiose ideas that don’t quite land in the way that one would hope. It suffers from the problem of trying to do many things, but not doing any of them well enough to stand out in any meaningful way. Most everything I can say about this game can be traced back to how bland most of it is. Level design, gameplay, and some aesthetic choices are uninteresting and slow. While it does nail a few things given their goals, it ultimately stumbles the landing. That’s the most disappointing thing, because it could have been so much more.

This isn’t a terrible game. If you’re a fan of the series and really eager to have more of it, it’ll probably serve decently for those purposes, but that’ll still mean overlooking things like weak translation, poor mechanics, and a slipshod feel across the board. But if you aren’t already a fan, there’s little to nothing to recommend it to you, much less to inspire you to learn more. And, last but not least… yes. It’s very wrong to try to pick up girls in a dungeon. Those girls are trying to do something other than pick up dates. Respect their time and interests. Come on.

This game both wants to be like its old-school Grandpa Mario and Aunt Celeste. The mixture of the two just doesn’t gel with me. The real bummer is I badly want it work. I truly for some it probably will. Playing MainFrames has made me realize the genre probably just isn’t for me. I don’t understand platformers and I’m certainly not good at them. So it’s probably pretty weird that I am going to recommend this game with one big fat caveat. If you’re a fan of the genre, there are a lot of cool and original things happening in MainFrames. If you’re not already comfortable in the space it’s probably not going to work as shining introduction to the world of indie platformers.

I think if you’re a fan of the Hyperdimension Neptunia series and just want to see more of the characters and play an easy action game without using much brain power, this may satisfy that itch. But for those looking for more out of the titles they choose to spend $40 on, this three-hour escapade may not be for you.

REKT is a game that has some potential, but ultimately suffers from being very light on content while seemingly missing every chance to realize that potential. If you like the idea of playing a slimmed-down version of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater meets Rocket League with cars instead of skateboards, you can certainly get some enjoyment out of this. But I think that’s a pretty niche audience for a game in today’s market.

Ultimately, it’s not hard to understand Krystopia: Nova’s Journey. It has some nice moments here and there, but they’re just that. They’re moments. Drips and drabs within a sea of mediocrity and “good enough” and elements that are both familiar and tedious. I’ve really tried my best to temper my natural disinclination toward adventure games here, but the fact of the matter is that for most non-adventure game fans, this is going to be a hard pass anyhow. The characters and dialogue don’t overcome the fundamental nature of point-and-click games, and the puzzles don’t feel satisfyingly complex but instead frustrating and unclear.

I, AI really doesn’t push any boundaries or try anything new at all. It’s a budget title and I can cut it some slack for that. But I feel like the only people who could enjoy this are those that spent hours upon hours playing Space Invaders, Galaga, or R-Type back in the 80s, whom might get enough of a nostalgia trip from this to go play those games again. Anyone else will be reaching for the deck of cards pretty quickly.

Unto the End just wants to punish the player. It feels like it went too far off the deep end of “purposefully difficult game” and ended up in kaizo territory. The challenge here isn’t fun, it’s just annoying.

The basic hack-and-slash formula it has seems fun, and you can understand why this went on to spawn sequels and so forth. Sure, it’s schlocky cheesecake action, but that’s exactly what it wants to be and that’s to its credit. Alas… I can’t really recommend this game because those technical issues are notable. They’re not “render the game unplayable” bad, although the experience was probably diminished for me. But for all I know I wasn’t the unlucky one but one of the lucky ones. I want to like this game. I repeatedly come close to liking this game. And I’m probably rating it highly given the technical issues. But those technical issues mean that for any and all of its virtues, the game ultimately fails that basic test of “is this fully playable.” If the issues are fixed in a launch patch, toss on another point to the score.

You’ve probably ascertained as much from this point, but I didn’t care for Shuffle Tactics. I don’t think it’s an utterly terrible misfire; I can tell what the designers were going for, I admire the attempt, but it just doesn’t land. It was a few years back when I reviewed another tactical-RPG-meets-roguelike title, Tyrant’s Blessing, and this game basically manages to have more failures despite having a stronger starting gun. I don’t think the game is truly atrocious, and I think if you’re in need of another roguelike game and you have played all of the offerings out there, this will… perform as advertised. But I can’t really recommend it to others.

At the end of the day I just can’t really recommend Tears of Avia to anyone else. Not being terrible is not the same as actually being good, and while I understand that this was made with love, it is ultimately a love that has little to nothing to add to the genre aside from being more of it.

Ashwalkers really just isn’t an interesting experience. It takes the post-apocalypse and manages to make it soporific. I can’t really recommend it unless you’re looking for a unique way to cure your insomnia.

If you’re really desperate to get inside a virtual aircraft and experience passenger flight again, I’m not going to stop you. But even with Bacronym accurately depicting what happens on any given flight, the appeal is going to be limited. I’m really hoping that additional content is coming for this game. Mostly because this is a passing curiosity at best, and a nose-pickingly boring experience at worst. Wait for a sale if it piques your interest, but avoid it otherwise.

The game itself is competently executed, and if I try really hard to ignore the rip-off side of things, I would call it a decent game. But even then it has some pretty significant flaws. So while I did derive some enjoyment from it, due to its rough edges (among other things) it’s really hard to recommend to anyone unless you’re a die-hard tactical RPG fan who doesn’t want to own a Nintendo system and/or doesn’t like the Fire Emblem or even the Final Fantasy Tactics IPs. Which is unfortunate, because I really wanted to be able to; there are not a lot of good games in this genre that are available on PC that I can simply name offhand.

It’s not terrible, and I can understand why people would gravitate toward it on mobile devices. But on your desktop? There are better uses of your computer.

HunterX: code name T is a middle-of-the-road experience. If you’re looking for a new metroidvania to sink your teeth into, your attention would probably be better spent elsewhere, and that’s a shame because there are some solid ideas here. The inclusion of a notable parry system that decreases enemy stats while increasing your own isn’t enough to stave off the exhaustion that creeps up from the game’s other aspects. Enemies, bosses, and areas all feel the same to go through, and this eventually builds to a point of exhaustion—even in this shorter metroidvania. It could have been excellent with more refinement, but as it stands, HunterX: code name T remains simply functional and little else.

While I did enjoy quite a lot of my time in Battlefield 2042 (especially in the new Hazard Zone mode), there are a mix of gameplay, technical, and functionality issues of varying severity that really hamper the experience. This game is somewhat recommendable to Battlefield fans and those with a general interest in military-style shooters, but there is a strong chance that the game’s current flaws are going to really limit the potential for many. Because of this, if you’re considering this game, you may want to wait for a patch or two before you deploy to the battlefield.

Really, if I had to boil down my issues to one thing, it’s that the developers need to understand how to add content to a game. Games are all about what we as players choose to do, and for extra content to actually mean anything it should ask me to make different choices. For every dating minigame I’m making the same choices every other time that minigame shows up, for every frame of bowling I am making the same choices as every frame before it. All the pretty visuals don’t change that it is the same minute or so of content repeated over and over.

Nearly everything about Neputnia Virtual Stars just feels like half-assed fanservice for the sake of fanservice. The gameplay – while somewhat competent – feels undercooked, the story is flat out boring, and the presentation doesn’t do much to salvage the first two. The inclusion of VTuber content is dim bright spot, but it’s not bright enough to bring this game up to any sort of recommendation. Prospective players should just skip this one, and Neptunia fans deserve better than this disappointment.

A lot of robot fiction makes a simple collection of circuits and wires, just the barest indicators of humanity, into an intensely human character even with nothing more than the suggestion of a face. Qualia feels like it showed up with all the robot parts you could want in a box and simply made a pretty girl to smile at you, and she can’t even make eye contact.

Alas, poor Strobophagia. You look really good. You have some promise. But you are, at the end of the day, just lacking the meat you really need to be worth an unqualified recommendation. I don’t really dislike this game, on a whole. While it’s a wispy sort of thing, it’s clear that the developers had ambitions, and you can see the places at the corners where the ambition starts to creep in and almost promise to elevate the proceedings. It’s just that each time that happens, all you get is that hint, that idea faintly expressed until you just sigh and go about your business. So the score I’m giving this game is on the high end of that same number… but ultimately, it’s a game I can’t really recommend to a lot of people. For all the neat ideas at play and the interesting visuals, it never quite has enough meat on its bones. There’s just not enough to rave about here.

If this game cooked for another six months to a year, the devs could take it beyond just having the basics to being something truly special. But as it stands right now, this game does not really offer enough satisfaction and enjoyment to be worth its asking price.

It’s not only the kind of game that you can finish in an afternoon, it’s also the kind that doesn’t leave much of an impression on you after the fact. While it’s able to roll down the road, it’s doing so holding things together with zip ties and a dream. It’s the kind of hot mess where the best experience would be to just give the album a listen on Spotify, because everything else just doesn’t do it justice.