Playing Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated is a fun enough time if you’re looking for a nostalgia kick with better graphics and if you’re a fan of the genre already you just might enjoy a trip to Bikini Bottom yourself.

When your jokes consist of punching down on those with mental health challenges, you’ve run out of actual comedy. There’s a way to handle this content with tact and dignity, while still being funny, but it requires a level of self-awareness that this game is far from having. Edna & Harvey: The Breakout is a game that was stuck in the past when it was originally released, but its issues are highlighted ten-fold with its console release. Paired with the gameplay headaches and accessibility issues this just isn’t a game I can recommend playing.

Song of Horror definitely exceeded all of my expectations. It hits that “haunted house attraction” level of spookiness just right and, for the most part, the puzzles are a nice mix of exploration and inventive thinking. It’s not without the occasional hiccup, and some of the puzzles could do with a few more hints, but overall? Song of Horror is one of the best horror games I’ve played this year. Best of all, it’s not QUITE done yet. Updates already planned in their roadmap include adjustments to the most egregious puzzles, fleshing out the final chapter a bit more (Another encounter with the Presence and a new character), and a new harder difficulty level. If you’re a fan of older third-person survival horror games, I highly recommend picking this up!

If Coffee Talk was standing on its own in a void, I would call this game a must play, no questions asked. The need to grind out recipes to figure out how to unlock the full story is frustrating, a stain on everything else in the package, but by the time I got to this point I had already fallen in love with the characters and aesthetic. The problem is, everything here has been done before, and better. It does feel like Toge Productions wanted to craft a homage to Valhalla, but doing so puts them right up against a cult classic. I truly think that they should have done more to differentiate themselves, to stand out more in this burgeoning genre.

If you want to play a non-serious “simulator,” go play Goat Simulator. As crazy as that game is, you can actually get some entertainment out of it, and it somehow comes closer to simulating what being a goat might be like than this game comes to actually simulating speaking.

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics brings back a beloved favorite in a reimagined way while also introducing a classic to a new audience. It celebrates the creative creatures we were introduced to in the Netflix series without feeling like a product-placement. If you’re looking for an introduction into tactics-style games and already love the world of The Dark Crystal this game is definitely worth checking out.

If you like the genre, you’ll like Kunai. If you don’t, this won’t be the one to convince you otherwise, but it’s got a great aesthetic and some real bright spots just the same.

It never crosses the line to offensive, but it just doesn’t do anything original or interesting.

If you like the trailer, you are almost certainly going to like this game. If you like the concepts, you are almost certainly going to like this game. It knows what it wants to be and it succeeds marvelously at it. And at the end of the day, I like this game, so even with its flaws, I can’t help but feel that it deserves plenty of love for just being dang fun in exactly the way it wants.

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.

It is, ultimately, solid DLC that’s worth it for fans of the game, although if you’re already bought into the game you probably already have it. What it’s not is perhaps the big send-off for the game that it had been billed as…but maybe that’s unfair, since that was never really in the cards.

Both Bayonetta and Vanquish were amongst the first games released by PlatinumGames, and they both show just how strong the studio was from the get-go. These remasters open up the opportunity for newcomers to the studio, whether from Nier: Automata or Astral Chain, to check out the studio’s origins on modern hardware.

SEGA AGES Puyo Puyo 2 has gone beyond expectations and created new opportunities and experiences with their already beloved classic. If you’re new to the franchise or style, it’s the perfect starting point. If you’re a huge fan of the Puyo Puyo series you’ll still find hours of entertainment with Puyo Puyo 2.

The big takeaway here is that a port of Sonic 2 is still a port of a classic. I still consider the Whitehead version of the game to be the definitive release, but I’ll continue to fret at the fact that it’s still locked away on mobile devices. That shouldn’t detract from the fact that M2 pulled off yet another solid port of a game I’ll still happily blast through in 2020.

Overall, whether you should pick up Rune Factory 4 Special comes entirely down to whether you played the original 3DS version or not. There’s a few new features: some things added to the trophy room to celebrate the series, new cutscenes, and a New Game + mode where you start off married. Plus, it being on the Switch instead of the 3DS allows for a higher resolution and a larger screen whether docked or in handheld mode. That said…there’s not a whole lot of actual content added.

Even with some elements from the original release that could have used a little sanding down, Yakuza 3 Remastered is still an worthwhile entry in the series to for longtime fans to experience again. It may not be my favorite sequel, but it’s still a competent and enjoyable one.

These presentation issues definitely temper my excitement for what is easily one of the more accessible fighting games I’ve had the opportunity to play. Then again, that feeling of accessibility likely comes from the fact that I’ve mostly focused on the single-player mode here – a mode that everyone, not just fighting gamers, can enjoy. Would I recommend picking the game up just for the RPG Mode alone? No, definitely not, but it does make Versus more tempting for gamers looking to start their journey into fighting games.

Langrisser I & II isn’t for everyone. But I think it’s for a lot of people who may never have even seen the originals, and I strongly recommend it to everyone on a whole lot of different levels.

Overall, Half Past Fate is a bit of a mixed bag that hits more than it misses. Whilst the individual stories here are of varying levels of quality, the overall plot and writing was still enjoyable enough to carry me through to the end.

While Yakuza 4 Remastered doesn’t offer much in the way of quality of life updates or any substantial presentation improvements, the entire package is still solid. It knows what it is and what it wants to do, and is ultimately an improvement over its direct predecessor in a number of ways. It may be different from other titles that succeed it, but I feel like this is one of the better games in the Remastered package and worth picking up.

It’s a shining example of how to do a sequel. They kept the core of what made the original enjoyable while switching up just about everything they could. There are some elements I feel it did better, some where I feel the original did better with, but on the whole they feel like they’re on equal footing. If you want a game that’s more of an experience than simply something to kill time, if you want something that showcases how artistic games can be, if you want an action platformer with plenty of approaches to combat, I can’t recommend enough that you pick up Ori and the Will of the Wisps. Also Ori and the Blind Forest if you haven’t played it already.

Persona 5 Royal allows players to experience the story they already love in a new way without losing any of the beauty from the original game. New and old characters get their chance to shine through and steal your heart, even the ones you never expected to. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and maybe you’ll even feel a sense of justice for the infamous Phantom Thieves in the end. But one thing you won’t feel is regret in picking up Persona 5 Royal, as it’s truly the best Persona title, if not one of the best video games, I’ve ever experienced to date.

Ultimately, these changes, as well as the visual and mechanical upgrades, make Yakuza 5 Remastered a better game than the original release. If you’re a newcomer to the series and have never experienced the beautiful story of this title, then this is a must-play. The changes made here, especially when considering the other remastered titles, make it clear the Yakuza Remastered Collection is a great choice for any fan of the Kazuma Kiryu saga, or someone looking to continue their journey after Yakuza Kiwami 2.

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.

If you’ve already played and enjoyed Orochi 4 itself, the Ultimate expansion makes everything better. The only downside is the asking price ($39.99) for existing owners of the game is a bit high for an add-on, but…you really do get a lot for the money. If you’re a fan and you haven’t already bought this, it is a worthwhile purchase. If you are more casually interested in Warriors stuff, maybe wait for a sale….but still get it. It won’t disappoint you with many more hours of mook-smooshing fun.

My time with Paper Beast left me in awe. While I cannot claim to fully understand what it is that I experienced while playing this game, I’m glad that I did experience it. I would encourage others to experience it as well.

Bubble Bobble 4 Friends is a pleasant callback to yesteryear, with just enough changed to keep it from simply retreading old ground. It is a little short if one charges through, points be damned, but it’s still several hours long at least. Those who prefer complex plots and modern design may be a bit disappointed, but anyone who likes a more arcadey sort of game should enjoy it.

As a fan of shoot-em-ups, rhythm games, and crude stand-up, Freedom Finger feels almost like it was tailor-made for me. The game is a solid shooter wrapped up in unique engines and wild aesthetics, and was a joy to play through for the most part.