Problems are more plentiful than the collectible monsters in Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals, the epitome of how not to make a Poke-clone.

Dull platforming and button-mashing action make Blade Kitten a disappointing first game for its cute-as-a-cat heroine.

Not bad. But a laundry list of unfortunate drawbacks keeps it from becoming the exciting box of good times and nostalgia that it could have been.

Evoland goes through the motions of imitating some great games, but never evolves into a good game itself.

The gameplay can be fun for a little while, but it soon becomes an exercise in repetition and boredom.

More than 10 years after its original release, Persona 2: Innocent Sin no longer has the magic it once did.

It's lovely to have Super Monkey Ball back, but Banana Blitz HD is not a good showcase of what made the series work. It's a remake of a game that was originally designed for a very different, specific purpose and control scheme, and the efforts made to update it for 2019 have made for a lesser game. It's a shame, because a glimmer of what made the series great remains, and it's enough to make us hope that someday we get a new entry that properly returns the series to its roots.

The alchemy of Contrast doesn't quite pay off, and in the end, the game feels as insubstantial as the shadows that populate its world.

Loot Rascals card and deck systems are enticing, and its singular aesthetic and strange sense of humor make the game fundamentally likable early on. After a few hours, however, it feels like there isn't a lot to gain for all the effort you're asked to put in. There are fleeting moments of joy when a strategic card collection lets you steamroll through the enemy forces, but the monotony of getting to those moments wears you down in the end.

Don't Knock Twice doesn't share company with the likes of Layers of Fear so much as it does with the large number of “VR Experiences” flooding digital storefronts: quick and dirty cash-ins that feel more like tech demos than full-fledged games. Don't Knock Twice is more solidly constructed than some, but it's largely unambitious and forgettable. It seems content to be a ground-level thriller at a time and on a platform with plenty of hungry competition.

Double Dragon IV isn’t a good game in a modern sense, but it certainly is an honest trip back in time that will, if nothing else, offer a heavy dose of nostalgia for anyone with a fondness for the Lee Brothers' 8-bit adventures. Frankly, it mimics its source material perfectly. It’s a worthwhile historical artifact if nothing else, but absolutely cannot match the vast improvements in gaming since those early days.

Even a merry band of adventurous thanes can't save this quest from ruin.

Venetica has too many flaws in just about every facet to make for an engrossing role-playing experience.

Like the fireworks that occasionally ignite throughout select races, Gravel's attempts at excitement don't quite dazzle.

Battlegrounds is a forgettable entry in the Red Faction franchise that neither builds upon previous games nor forges an interesting path of its own.

Venetica has too many flaws in just about every facet to make for an engrossing role-playing experience.

Grow Up plays with gameplay elements that are unapologetically unwieldy. When even basic things like jumping and climbing feel clumsy, it’s difficult to get excited about playing with B.U.D., even if he elicits a laugh or two. There’s enough charm and visually rewarding exploration to make Grow Up worth a look if you can get past the control issues, but that's ultimately easier said than done.

Golem attempts but fails to find harmony in bringing a vague tale together with any sort of emotional resonance. That might have been easier to forgive if the journey itself was exceptional. Instead Golem's inconsistent puzzles and jarring difficulty spikes will infuriate you more than they infatuate.

The world ends with a whimper in this shallow puzzle game.

Despite my profound apathy regarding making sense of Cliff's hallucinations and dreams, there was at least some satisfaction in silently assassinating the undead.

Shenmue III has its moments. It delivers on the promise of creating interesting and engaging new environments for Ryo and friends to explore and play around in. Yet, I can't help but think that the game's dogged determination to retain the same "feel" of its Dreamcast ancestors at any cost hurts it immensely. The creative team seems determined to not move anything forward substantially when it comes to Shenmue--including the story, which ends on yet another unfinished cliffhanger. Shenmue III is certainly an interesting game thrown out of time, but that doesn't mean that it's always enjoyable to play.

There's a pervasive plainness to Escape Dead Island that hasn’t been common since the PlayStation 2 days.

Bee Movie Game on the DS has nice 3D graphics, but it's short, repetitive, and lacking in variety.

The game's frustrating reliance on awkward platform jumping and its poor camera keep it from being recommendable to anyone at all.

The graphical foundation is in place, but there are too many flawed combat systems to call this a strong debut for what's sure to be an annualized series. EA Sports UFC manages to make only certain aspects of MMA both fun and functional, forcing most fights to play out in a familiar, brawling fashion.

A dull and repetitive platformer that does no justice to the exciting exploits of its titular character.

Bladestorm: Nightmare is a game trapped in 2007, awkwardly fumbling for a way to push a tried and true formula forward. The ideas are appreciable, but not nearly enough of the required effort has been put in to make this game great or even challenging.

There's nothing here to make a mark: no creativity on display, no clever competitive modes, no sense of accomplishment. There's only a seven-hour campaign, optional missions in which you try to keep the overkill meter consistently replenished, and the knowledge that in a month, you won't remember having played Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel.

Silly dance sequences lighten the mood, but sluggish combat and a forgettable narrative make Kinect Star Wars a weak choice.

If I found myself describing the game to friends as the game I wanted it to be more than the game it was, it's because the "ideal" version of State of Decay is intoxicating.

Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness' payoff was not worth the time I put into it. The story feels bloated and empty, with no worthwhile emotional payoff in character development or narrative. Combat and its subsequent upgrade systems are genuinely fun, but the overall experience is held back from being great by issues elsewhere.

The first few hours of Blackgate provide an exciting glimpse of what might have been a great game, but it slowly falls apart, hour by hour, villain by villain.

An improved control scheme and online campaign support aren't enough to save Monster Madness from mediocrity.

This fighting game offers some simple yet brutish fun, but poor controls and uninteresting presentation make it a struggle to get past the first few rounds.

There’s something to be said for the continuing efforts to keep turn-based RPGs viable, and Stranger of Sword City in particular shows a commendable willingness to at least try fusing new ideas with still-viable concepts of old. However, without characters even worth caring about to drive it along, Stranger of Sword City is left leaning on its gameplay, which is comprised primarily of the most laborious, antiquated aspects of the genre.

The elements that made its predecessors interesting have been all but destroyed, making Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel a functional shooter but little more.

Perception feels like a lost opportunity to showcase the beauty of mundanity. The routine-like flow of going from goal to goal as you rely on Cassie's sixth sense feels like a series of chores lacking in stimulation. And while reaching the end rewards you with an additional thematic message that no one could have anticipated, it doesn't redeem the game from its lack of nuance and overreliance on hand-holding waypoints.

Project X Zone 2 is at first promising, but not even its fan-service can save it from continually faltering in the face of its drudgery.

Happy Wars suffers from serious technical issues that undermine an otherwise quality core experience.

Everything Brain Voyage does has been done better by other logic and puzzle minigame collections.

The Masterplan feels like the most tragic kind of missed opportunity: a set of viable ideas rendered inert in practice.

While it won't dazzle you with ambitious, creative puzzle-solving, its central story is as haunting and consuming as you want a good Lovecraft tale to be. But then, like some nightmare creature, an action sequence comes out of nowhere and ruins the experience.

The video game version of Order of the Phoenix captures none of the magic in the Harry Potter books or films.

While Rubble Without a Cause echoes many positive aspects of its predecessor, the gloomy story and unimaginative quests turn what should have been another fun fairy tale into something of a death march. Yet even with these significant flaws, the overall charm of the visuals and voice acting kept me playing and left me optimistic that the series will redeem itself in the next chapter.

A pale, perfunctory imitation of both that crutches itself far too heavily on brainless, clunky, spastic action that doesn't so much entertain as it bewilders.

Once again, the classic hop-and-dodge Frogger formula has been used to fashion together a somewhat passable 3D platformer, which is then ultimately soured by problematic controls, tedious level designs, and bargain-basement production values.

The trademark Wario weirdness is still there, but Game & Wario is too uneven and frustrating to wholly recommend.

Dwelling on these few low points may seem overly harsh--they account for no more than a small portion of the whole game, after all. But they are not merely poor moments in an otherwise solid game; they're awful pieces of game design utterly inconsistent with the rest of the game.

The world ends with a whimper in this shallow puzzle game.

Genki Bowl VII's four quick activities lack the excitement and humor of your earlier adventures in Steelport.

Much of Call of Cthulhu is a perfectly competent adventure game built on firm, if uninspired, point-and-click traditions.

It's a trite and aggressively boring version of what a million other third-person action games have done. And even for its budget price, it's a pretty lousy value.

This half-hearted revival attempt leaves Golden Axe lifeless and dull.

Nether is noticeably unfinished, and has a lot of work ahead before it resembles a solid game. But it has a discernible spark of life. There is potential for it to become a game worthy of attention. The environment it presents is huge, and the grayed-out portions of the map serve to tease you with even more areas to explore, and stories to create, in its bleak, abysmal, yet interesting world. If only it can learn to stop tripping over its own feet.

If FIFA 19 on PS4 and Xbox One is a 40-piece orchestra with all the bells and whistles you can think of, then FIFA 19 on Nintendo Switch is the tribute band.

My Memory of Us feels misguided; a concept that doesn’t sit well, marred by puzzle gameplay that fails to challenge or excite.

Banana Splitz's disappointing collection of minigames can't live up to the standards of classic Monkey Ball gameplay.

It means well, and divorced from the game's context, the game's aesthetic is charming. But it doesn’t really work as either a puzzle game or as an educational experience.

It's still a fundamentally unimaginative example of the genre it's aping, and completely fades out of memory the second you remember there are other fish in the sea.

With this game, you get what you pay for: passable gameplay and graphics but far too little bang for the buck.

The 2nd Runner is an improvement on the original in many ways, to be certain, but held against modern standards, Zone of the Enders comes off awful rusty.

My Memory of Us feels misguided; a concept that doesn’t sit well, marred by puzzle gameplay that fails to challenge or excite. It means well, and divorced from the game's context, the game's aesthetic is charming. But it doesn’t really work as either a puzzle game or as an educational experience.

Stick with the original. BurgerTime: World Tour has its heart in the right place and evokes fond memories of a nearly 30-year-old classic arcade game, but the 3D perspective, control problems, and too many ill-advised additions to the basic formula make this one hard burger to get down.

When The Crew puts you into races with good AI, and you get to race through interesting and varied environments, you get the feeling that you're playing a good game. When you struggle to find people to join your crew online, balk at the outdated graphics, and shake your head at the AI and the occasionally unpredictable physics, you realize: The Crew isn't that good after all. When you can't play due to server issues, you find a new game to play and leave The Crew in your dust.

The elements of a charming Nancy Drew tale are here, but the game is far too short and too problematic to be recommendable.

Icky space bugs make Genesis Rising interesting. Even ickier tech bugs and design problems make Genesis Rising annoying.

The faults of its gameplay are especially disappointing given that Trek to Yomi is such a gorgeous and spellbinding game to look at. Its visuals are evocative of classic samurai cinema in a way few other games have managed, successfully capturing the look and feel of Kurosawa's masterpieces with aplomb. It's easy to recommend if you have an Xbox Game Pass subscription, if only to marvel at each meticulously constructed frame. If only the game beneath it all wasn't such an unfortunate letdown.

It's a trite and aggressively boring version of what a million other third-person action games have done. And even for its budget price, it's a pretty lousy value.

It feels great to play, the aerial trickery is gratifying, and it's got a lot of goofy charm, but all of this is unfortunately buried under an inexplicable need to test players beyond what should be necessary in a galaxy where you tool around as a T-rex wearing sunglasses.

Driveclub is ordinary menus and ordinary races, standard time trials, and a few drift events. Driveclub is bland social competition. Driveclub is the fear of risks and the embrace of the ordinary.

This bare-bones baseball game doesn't do nearly enough to improve upon its predecessor.

Medieval Moves: Deadmund's Quest loses steam early, resulting in a tepid adventure that annoys more often than it delights.

The latest addition to this family of innovative city-building games leaves you wanting more, mostly because it offers so little that is new.

Dangerous Driving nails the basic feeling of driving a car in Burnout, but the lack of small details quickly begin to add up and peel away at everything that doesn't feel quite right. The most damning criticism I can level at it is that it's often dull and lifeless.

If you can get past its performance, there are glimpses of a good story here, and moments that make it a worthy installment in the Francis Zach Morgan saga. But, ultimately, Deadly Premonition 2 lacks the emotional resonance found in the first game. It's a different brew of coffee from your favorite roaster, but one that's more bitter than you probably hoped for.

This educational game feels more like therapy than fun.

Fundamentally, One Piece Odyssey isn't a bad RPG, just a very generic one that strives to do little more than tick off all the checkboxes of what players expect from the genre: side quests, crafting, cooking, fan-service, and so on. Attaching the One Piece license to it results in expectations that are only partially met: While the Straw Hats are as delightful as ever to be around, the story they've found themselves stuck in is not. Ultimately, the greatest sin of One Piece Odyssey is wasted potential, something it shares with many of the other video game adaptations of the franchise.

It's got an engagingly original story, but this throwback to bygone console role-playing games botches the gameplay fundamentals.

The sterile presentation and lack of options certainly don't help matters, either. While it has its highlights, the party is over before it can really get started.

Sequence is a disappointment--a game with some good ideas that fails to build on its initially impressive showing.

My eight-year-old self would have absolutely loved Calico to bits, I'm sure. Unfortunately, I am no longer a wide-eyed, curious 8-year-old girl--I'm a game reviewer whose tolerance for bugs and simplistic gameplay has worn thin over the decades. As much as I wish I could view Calico through the eyes of an imaginative youngster, I can't. Perhaps if you are better at embracing your childlike fantasies, you may be able to overlook Calico's many flaws and appreciate its imaginative, fairy-dust-sprinkled charm, but I feel that the magic will wear thin quite quickly.

This light "strategy" game is charming enough, but its gameplay is wildly unbalanced.

Ancient Shadow doesn't bring anything new to the table, and, what's worse, none of the problems from the previous games have been fixed or improved.

If there's one thing Skater XL excels at, it's that it has a great foundation that shows Easy Day Studios knows how to make quality skateboarding mechanics. Unfortunately, the rest of the experience isn't quite there yet. The uninspired levels, barebones features, and overall unfinished-feeling state makes its 1.0 release look like it's still in Early Access. Its trick system deserves more, and with time, it could grow into a great experience. As it is now, Skater XL lacks spots worth conquering and fails to entice past this initial bail.

The King of Fighters XII is the latest chapter in 15 years of fighting game history. It's also a disappointment.

The charm of the film's characters isn't enough to save this simple, tedious platformer.

My eight-year-old self would have absolutely loved Calico to bits, I'm sure. Unfortunately, I am no longer a wide-eyed, curious 8-year-old girl--I'm a game reviewer whose tolerance for bugs and simplistic gameplay has worn thin over the decades. As much as I wish I could view Calico through the eyes of an imaginative youngster, I can't. Perhaps if you are better at embracing your childlike fantasies, you may be able to overlook Calico's many flaws and appreciate its imaginative, fairy-dust-sprinkled charm, but I feel that the magic will wear thin quite quickly.

Nintendo last explored this franchise in 2006 with Yoshi's Island DS, and though that game had its own problems, it also had an identity. By introducing new babies with different abilities, it provided a fun and unpredictable sequel to the Super Nintendo original. Yoshi's New Island has no such identity.

A wrestling game shouldn't be about wrestling with the controls.

Frustrating issues make Shaun White Snowboarding seem less like a downhill rush and more like an uphill grind.

Thousand Threads cannot deliver on its initial promises of small-town intrigue and simmering maleficence--as you uncover the map and meet more of the people living on it, the less the game's world feels like a real place. While I enjoyed the game's atmosphere and sense of discovery when I started, by the end I had lost all interest in the interpersonal disputes of the game's inhabitants, none of whom felt like real people anymore. The strange colonies of Thousand Threads are enjoyable if you're just passing through, but stay more than an hour or two and you'll find that there's not much to do there.

The fun of risk-and-reward gameplay comes from actually earning the rewards; if the rewards aren't good enough, or if the risk is too heavy, the fun turns to frustration. For all of Lords of Fallen's good ideas, it struggles to make the payoff worthy of the investment. Its meandering level design and slogging encounters turn challenge into tedium, leaving a feeling that getting up and doing something else would be time better spent.

Lackluster gameplay makes this a disappointing conclusion to the Legend of Spyro series.

Even a solid game needs some spice, and We Are Doomed never gives you much. You will certainly notice how good it feels to play the game, and the presentation is top notch, but it never really gives you a reason to care.

Ancient Shadow doesn't bring anything new to the table, and, what's worse, none of the problems from the previous games have been fixed or improved.

It's all dime-store philosophy, but it's still a philosophy, and I credit Journal for a valiant attempt to say something, even if the message comes out tangled up in the end.

Despite its artistic aptitude, The Last Tinker lacks identity. The combat is remedial, the platforming is robotic, and the puzzles are little more than frustrating roadblocks that fail to mystify.

Dynasty Warriors Plus comes with new touch-based diversions, but they don't prevent this entry from being the same old button masher.