Dragon Quest Builders will undoubtedly scratch the itch of any Minecraft/Terraria fans looking for their next favourite game, but it's accessible enough that RPG fans should enjoy it, too.

There's not enough here to justify playing it if you've already played the original, and if you didn't play that first game because you're not a fan of dungeon crawlers, nothing here is going to change your mind. The art style is still exceptionally good, and it reflects the tone of a game that's surprisingly mature in a contemplative, non-skeezy way. Overall, though, this very much represents an incremental upgrade — rather than a major step forward — over the Stranger of Sword City, and it should be received as such.

If you're being charitable, of course, you may say that this is simply an example of Uncanny Valley moving at its own pace, or that horror works best when it draws things out and builds up the tension. However true that may be, if you're not feeling charitable — perhaps because you're bored out of your mind and tired of exploring the facility and hotel in which the game takes place at a glacial pace — then it'd be very, very easy to throw your hands up in frustration and move on to something that moves a little faster.

Given how complex a lot of modern RPGs can be, there's something refreshing about how straightforward everything is here. Asdivine Hearts won't turn any heads for innovation, but if it's just an old-fashioned RPG adventure you're after, it delivers that in spades.

There are significantly better Metroidvanias on the Vita, and whatever may be gained from the one twist here — the aforementioned double heroines — is more than outweighed by the overall lacklustre performance.

Atelier Firis represents the first Atelier game I’ve ever played that I wouldn’t be able to recommend. For a series that has long been known for meeting a certain level of competence, it’s a surprising letdown.

For better and for worse, it captures the feeling of what it's like to be sitting around a table, rolling dice and moving your token around a board. It's a pretty no-frills simulation, all things considered, but if that's what you're after, this will do the trick.

Touhou Genso Wanderer is a middling dungeon crawler that wants to talk your ear off, and you're better off not giving it a chance to do that.

The story here is exactly what you would expect from one of the creators of The Banner Saga. It is clear enough and interesting enough to keep you reading and coming back for more. The art follows suit and is a beautifully drawn world with characters that manage to convey a lot of emotion on the screen. Cutscenes are few and far between, but are always enjoyable. This is not a great game by any stretch, but you can clearly see the framework for one and with a little less grinding and some more mechanics at play I could see this being a truly special sim. As it stands, it is just a good, fun 9-15 hours depending on how you play.

I first played The Deer God a few months ago, back when it was free on Xbox One as part of Games With Gold — I playing it for about half an hour back then, got bored, and deleted it shortly thereafter. Now that it actually costs money…well, I played it for a lot longer than half an hour, but it's still a pretty boring experience that'll have you freeing up the hard drive space in pretty short order.

If I were to compare Fate/EXTELLA to one specific Warriors game/series, though, it would have to be the One Piece Pirate Warriors games. While Fate/EXTELLA isn't quite as insanely over-the-top, it nonetheless shares with those games a fondness for vivid colours, distinctive characters, and a sense of fun that the Samurai/Dynasty Warriors games sometimes lack.

In general, it passes by in a blur of jumping and shooting, and doesn't give any reason why it's worth your time or money.

I'm not going to pretend that Spellspire is a game for everyone: if you're not obsessed with words and spelling, it probably won't speak to you. Luckily, I am obsessed with words and spelling, which means that I've just found my favourite new game.

I know that a lot of people have already written off the Toukiden series as little more than a Monster Hunter clone. And I get it: you are, after all, hunting monsters. But Toukiden 2 shows that just because the formula may be similar, the execution is on a whole other level. It's a fantastic game, and if you want to hunt monsters in an open world, you don't need to wait around for Monster Hunter World — Toukiden 2 is already here.

As someone who wants a bit of handholding in my games, I'll freely admit that this made it difficult for me to enjoy the game. At the same time, however, I fully recognize…a few things, actually. First, space travel is difficult, so any time you need to think about the physics of it — even in a video game — it's going to get a little challenging. Secondly, and more important, those lunar landing games still appeal to some people, even if they don't appeal to me. I'm just going to assume that that niche will be satisfied with what's on offer in Blue Collar Astronaut, and figure that I don't like it too much because it's not made with someone like me in mind.

Which is how, ultimately, I arrive at the same place as all those people who disliked Valkyria Revolution for very different reasons than me. I may not share in their distaste for the game's move away from turn-based combat, but I definitely agree with them that this game features far too much pointless talk to be engaging. It's quite possible that a judicious and frequent use of the "Skip this scene" feature might uncover a game worth checking out, but that's making players do the work that the game's creators should've done in the first place.

Shu is a very pleasant-looking — some might even say "cute" — game. The characters are delightful, from the adorable main character to all his little friends; even the villains and dangers are liable to make you say, "Awww." Likewise, the music strikes a good balance between being frenetic enough to get you to keep going, while at the same time not being so obtrusive that it harshes the overall friendly vibe. But it's more than just aesthetics. The controls feel fairly tight, which is important considering there's the odd part where you need to move with a bit of urgency. Shu's world is also designed pretty nicely — the levels are fairly lengthy, and they're all full of secrets and treasures just waiting to be uncovered. A well-made platformer that's sure to please people who like those things, and it's pretty darn cute, to boot.

One conclusion that I think everyone can agree on is this: Salt and Sanctuary is one heck of a game.

I wouldn't say that Oceanhorn is flawless, mind you. It's a little stingy when it comes to save points, which is kind of annoying if you want to, you know, save your game, rather than just putting your Vita to sleep. And also… Actually, that's it. That's my only major problem with Oceanhorn. It's tailor-made for the mobile experience, and it's about as exceptional an RPG as I've ever played on the Vita.

At first I wasn't sure about Tiny Rails, but once I started playing it and progressing, I was hooked. It's simple, fun, and very addicting. The visuals and overall presentation make this a joy to play. Those looking for nonstop action or hardcore game play found in many other games on Steam, may not find Tiny Rails to their liking. But, those looking for an involving challenge and enjoy simulation games will find something to like here. I may not be the biggest fan of Sim games, but I can recommend giving Tiny Rails a try!

Plague Road looks great, and that, in itself, is an accomplishment. But it's also the sort of thing that can be appreciated in screenshots — since once you get to playing, you may find that it ruins the overall experience.

A broken game with crappy controls, no autosave, and a bunch of nonsensical puzzles. In other words, you'd be wise to avoid Mr. Pumpkin Adventure at any and all costs.

If you aren't a part of that coveted 2-year-old demographic (or at least know someone that age), you probably won't get too much out of this game, though it's interesting to consider how similar It's Spring Again is to artsy games like Hohokum, Eufloria, or Flower. Obviously they all have more content, but if you were to stretch It's Spring Again out for a longer period of time and take out the narrator, it'd be tough to tell the difference. And, if nothing else, if you want to see a 100% in your trophy list and want to achieve that with only a few dollars and a couple of minutes spent on it, then at approximately $2 and 10-15 minutes, respectively, It's Spring Again will absolutely do the trick.

As frustrating as Ninja Usagimaru: Two Tails of Adventure can be, I don’t detest this game anywhere near as much as The Witness, for the simple reason that there’s not nearly as much here to detest. It never aspires to be anything more than a simple puzzle game that you can play on the go, albeit one that will make you want to throw your handheld of choice out a bus window. I can’t say it appeals to me, but if you’re after a brain-twister that’s easy to pick up and put down, then I could see it kind of doing the trick.

Now, I admit that I’m clearly not the target audience here. The tender story of a young woman coming to terms with her sexuality while also figuring out her career path isn’t the kind of thing I’d normally read, and Asuka’s not compelling enough a character to win me over. All that said, I’m glad it exists for people who do like those stories, and if you want a slow-moving visual novel that’s more character-driven than many of its contemporaries, you could do a lot worse than to pick up Nurse Love Addiction.

It shouldn’t be too surprising, I suppose, that Fairune got its start as a mobile title — with its basic mechanics and relative lack of plot, it feels like the sort of game you can hop into and out of with minimal difficulty. And, let’s be honest, there’s certainly a place for pick-up-and-play games on the Vita and the 3DS. But there’s a difference between being able to pick up a game and immediately start playing it, and a game being so undemanding it barely feels worth it. Fairune falls into the latter category.

Active Soccer 2 DX obviously has its share of flaws, but it has plenty of good points, too. Even though it’s lacking in bells and whistles, it’s still a solid game — which, when you think about it, is more than can be said for any other soccer game on the Vita.

As it stands, I’m not sure it’s worth playing for most people. Quibbles about terminology notwithstanding, Polara is, at its core, an endless runner; whether you’ll want to play it depends entirely on whether you need another one of those in your life. It’s a pleasant enough diversion to have on your Vita or your 3DS, but it’s certainly not something you absolutely have to play.

What’s especially annoying about that is that I know for a fact that these games can be better, since the first two SAO games on Vita were decent. You wouldn’t think that such rapid regression would be possible, but Accel World VS Sword Art Online is proof that it absolutely is.

It’s another stellar entry in a franchise that’s full of them, and if you’re after an RPG that pushes the Vita to its limits (without ever breaking them), it’s a definite must-play.

If it weren’t broken, Still Time would be a lot of fun. The fact it is broken — and in a pretty unpredictable way to boot — pretty much negates the fun aspect. Instead, all you’re left with is a wish that the game could be rewound to a point in time where it wasn’t built around a feature that didn’t quite work right.

I wish I could add something nice about it, but I’m really at a loss to name anything it does that merits praise. Touhou Kobuto V is so boring that it makes me long for the days of the relatively stellar mediocrity of Touhou Double Focus and Touhou Genso Wanderer. Those games, at least, had some interesting ideas, whereas this…this is just about the least interesting game you could imagine.

I’m not even sure that it’s a fully functioning game, seeing as one time I went back to NeverEnd and found that my save file was corrupted for no obvious reason. In other words, NeverEnd looks bad, plays even worse, and doesn’t work like it should. It may not cost much, but it still manages to be overpriced at that low price point on account of the fact it’s abysmal.

There’s a chance, of course, that Mecho Tales plays better with a full controller than on a handheld. But even if it does, there’s still the question on why you’d want to. Whether you’re playing the game on a small screen or a large one, there’s no getting around the fact that doing so will sear your eyeballs. Your vision is precious, and so is your time, so you’re better off using both far, far away from Mecho Tales.

I feel bad about not liking Bodycheck more than I do. As someone who loves the Vita, I always appreciate when developers show the same level of devotion to the handheld. But there’s still no way I could recommend a mediocre-at-best game to people, no matter how much I want the system to continue to succeed well into its twilight years — and, sadly, this is the definition of a mediocre-at-best game.

Obviously, if forma.8 were anything near a full-priced game, it probably wouldn’t be worth picking up. But seeing as it’s free with PlayStation Plus this month (and fairly reasonably priced on a number of other platforms), it’s hard to say no to a game that’s as pleasantly unobtrusive as this.

Revenant Saga is populated by all kinds of terrible, terrible people, who seemingly have no filters between their brains and their mouths. Anna, obviously, is the worst. Other townsfolk are just plain mean. Even the demons who can speak come off as passive-aggressive losers more than anything else. It’s hard to tell if all that was intentional, or if the game lost/gained something in the translation, but, secretly, Revenant Saga is hilarious. Does that make it worth your time? Probably not, since you still have to slog through a generic RPG to get to the hilarious bits. Of course, if you like generic retro RPGs, then, good news: Revenant Saga delivers everything you could hope for, along with a surprising amount of humour.

Mask of Truth’s fights are standard SRPG fare, with grids and turns and, occasionally, teams. You don’t need to worry about learning anything too complex, which in turn leaves you more time to sift through the story. Conversely, it means that if you don’t find the story compelling, it’s not like there’s some other element here that could win you over. Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth is for diehards only, and everyone else need not apply.

Contrasted with the playful, pleasant narration that accompanied Thomas Was Alone, it just comes off as obnoxious. But really, that’s just a minor annoyance that pales in comparison to the fact that Alteric is demanding without balancing its demands with a sense of fairness. It’d be easy to overlook some annoying gasping if the game was good otherwise, but seeing as Alteric isn’t, it’s the grating cherry on top of an unfair sundae.

It’s nowhere near perfect. But for what it is, and for the (cheap) price it is, there are much worse gaming ways to pass the time than 36 Fragments of Midnight.

Here’s the best way I can describe it: my daily calendar this year has been Jeopardy!-themed. There were new questions every day, it gave dollar values for each question, and at the end of each week I could “wager” my weekly total in a Final Jeopardy! type-question. The experience I got out of that was pretty much the same as what I got playing Jeopardy! on PS4. That’s fine if all you’re after is a bit of trivia; I’m certainly partial to testing my knowledge of random factoids. But if you’re looking for anything like the actual game of Jeopardy!, then keep looking, because you won’t find it here.

What’s frustrating about it is that it’s not hard to imagine Factotum 90 being a fun game. Make the robots move a little more quickly, make the camera less sticky, and suddenly nearly all the issues are fixed. In the absence of those fixes, however, you’re just left with a puzzle game that’s got some great ideas, but that falls just short of executing them.

I wouldn’t want to suggest that anyone other than adventure game fans will want to check it out: it’s relatively easy and short, but it’s still of the walk here, pick up X, combine X with Y school of gameplay. Still, if you’re a fan of the genre and want to see how long Double Fine have been cranking out the classics, this game is well worth checking out.

I can completely understand if the weirdness (or even grossness, depending on how strongly you feel about a bunny girl looking for her master) of Rabi-Ribi turns you off the game entirely. But at the same time, there’s something to be said for not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Like, say, Monster Monpiece before it, Rabi-Ribi may have some pretty questionable aspects, but it also has some pretty enjoyable ones, too. I leave it up to you to decide which of those things wins out.

That word, pleasant, may just be the best way to describe all of Undertale. I know that’s nowhere near as strong a term as many of its devotees have used, but it feels entirely appropriate to me. The characters, the charmingly retro graphics, the interactions: they’re generally quite pleasant. I wouldn’t say they make this a must-play game, but I would say that it means that if you play Undertale, you’ll likely have a grin on your face the whole time.

Really, the only reason to check out Squareboy vs Bullies: Arena Edition is if you’re absolutely desperate for some kind of beat-’em-up game on the go. Even then, and even at a minimal price point, it’s hard to imagine why you’d feel the need to bother with it.

It probably says as much about its competitors and peers as it does about Cursed Castilla itself that things like fairness and non-sucky controls are considered points in its favour. But given the state of retro-inspired gaming, that’s where we are. Cursed Castilla shows that it’s possible to recreate the vibe of 8- and 16-bit games without making those games feel like a chore to play, and for that, I’m incredibly grateful.

While there are lots of cases of newcomers need not apply when it comes to JRPG franchises, I’m hard-pressed to think of any where it works quite as well as it does here. Summon Night 6 is geared towards fans of the first five games, and seeing as the first four of those never made it across the Pacific, that should tell you everything you need to know.

One More Dungeon isn’t exactly a complex game. It’s a tough game, to be sure, and it doesn’t give you anything in the way of handholding before it sets you loose in the dungeon and expects you to figure things out on your own. But outside of the learning curve — which can be measured in minutes — there’s not much here that should surprise you if you’ve ever played some of those original FPSes. One More Dungeon offers some decent enough nostalgia for people pining for the early days of Doom, but otherwise, you shouldn’t go into this game expecting too much.

Super Hydorah isn’t really for me, since dying over and over again has never been my cup of tea. But it is for some people. So if you’re one of those people, and you’re into shmups, good news: here’s your new favourite game.

To be sure, nothing here is necessarily bad. Every aspect of the game is competently-made, if wholly uninspired. Antiquia Lost is totally functional, and you can get from beginning to end without the game ever breaking on you. But that leads to the bigger question of why you’d want to go from beginning to end. I get that some people just live to play retro RPGs, but I’d hope that even these people have better taste than to play something as forgettable as Antiquia Lost.

While I get that the developers wanted to make Gunhouse more challenging, it feels like they did so at the expense of making it more fun. It feels like the whole game could’ve been drastically changed for the better just with that one small shift in how the game is played, so the fact they opted not to do that is kind of frustrating.

Demon Gaze wasn’t the kind of game that was so bad that it needed to be reinvented from the ground up, it was so average enough that a sequel could make slight improvements and still feel like progress. Luckily, Demon Gaze II does that: like the first game, it’s solid enough that you can play it without being too disappointed, but with the added bonus that things are a little bit better this time around.

If Time Recoil truly represents 10tons’ Vita swansong — and they’re currently saying it is — then they’ve picked one heck of a high note to go out on. As far as I’m concerned, Time Recoil is the very best twin-stick shooter the handheld has to offer, and it’s well-worth checking out.

Unfortunately, like its predecessor, Midnight Shadows has all these great ideas, but it doesn’t seem to know what to do with them. The game still consists entirely of your on-screen characters very slowly walking around neighbourhoods, looking for clues and hiding whenever monsters come close. To be sure, there are worse things for a game to be than unsettling and spooky — especially if, obviously, we’re talking about a horror game. It’s just that it doesn’t take long before you wish that Yomawari: Midnight Shadows would deliver more than a creepy feeling, and, like its predecessor, it’s a wish that never quite pays off.

Fallen Legion: Flames of Rebellion will appeal to a very specific type of player: someone who loves Vanillaware RPGs, and is eager to try out a game that isn’t afraid to try something new when it comes to controls. I’d be lying if I said that applied to me, but if it describes you, you should absolutely check this game out.

It calls itself (a) contemporary adventure game about debt, family, and the truth about honesty, but this undersells the bleakness within significantly. It’s dark. It’s angry. It’s self-loathing. It’s nihilistic. It’s built on the premise that everyone lies, all the time, and it uses this as a foundation for critiquing all of modern-day capitalism. Needless to say, literally none of it resonated with me.

If Save the Ninja Clan were a full-priced game, that might be fatal to its chances — after all, the most important part of any twitch platformer is tight controls, and if it doesn’t have that, it doesn’t have anything. Seeing, however, as it’s well under $5, it’s hard to be too demanding of the game. Buy it if you want a disposable twitch platformer, and you may be surprised if you don’t expect all that much.

I’d be lying if I said that Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth – Hacker’s Memory made me eager to check out more games in the series, let alone expand my horizons to see what else Digimon has to offer. But if you’re already a fan, I imagine that this game is competent enough and expansive enough that you’ll find all kinds of stuff to enjoy.

Where Iconoclasts falls a little short is in making it clear what it expects of you in places. It uses little signs to convey instructions, but a lot of the time these illustrations make no sense, and you have to puzzle things out for yourself. It’s obviously never impossible, but there are certainly places where it feels like it may as well be. Still, as the creation of one man after seven years of development, it’s hard to fault Iconoclasts for being a little challenging in places. If that’s the trade-off to be made for a story as strong and distinctive as this, it’s well worth it.

Little Adventure on the Prairie features arguably the easiest Platinum trophy ever. On the other: it’s also possibly the worst game ever. I leave it up to you to decide which of those considerations you weigh more heavily.

Would I say that I enjoyed Chaos;Child? Clearly not, and I feel like I should go drink a gallon of ginger ale and some plain crackers to settle my stomach after playing it. But if you like a bit of blood and gore with your mysteries, it’s probably something you owe yourself to check out.

On PS4 alone, you could do a lot worse than picking this up. Midnight Deluxe hits all the right targets for a casual game — short levels, low price, addictive — which means that checking it out is kind of a no-brainer.

For me, the biggest sign that Deadbolt is worth checking out is that it gets really tough really quickly, but I couldn’t help but go back to it again and again. Seeing as I tend to be allergic to ultra-tough games, that should tell you a lot about its addictive properties. It should also tell you that if you’ve been in the mood for a stealth game that blends action and puzzling, Deadbolt is well worth your time.

Timothy vs the Aliens is all about missed opportunities and strange choices that transform a game with a promising premise into a giant mess. If you squint hard enough you can see how it could’ve worked, but as it stands, you’ll want to stay far, far away.

The thing is, point & click adventure is, as a category, much more competitive than hidden object game. It’s great that True Fear: Forsaken Souls – Part 1 tries to be something more than a generic hidden object game, but based on the evidence, they probably shouldn’t have even tried.

It’s not particularly ambitious, which means that it neither wows you, nor does it ever run the risk of mind-blowingly bad. It’s worth checking out if you need an average platformer, but don’t expect to be thinking about it beyond the few hours it’ll take you to beat it.

While it’s great that Root Double strives to give players something more than the standard visual novel experience, there’s still something to be said for economy and brevity. I feel like there’s a middle ground between nothing but clichés for a less than ten hours, and requiring 60+ hours to tell a full story, you know? With a good editor, Root Double probably could’ve been great. As it stands, it’s more the kind of visual novel that you’ve really got to be willing to commit to.

It’s not going to wow you with its graphics or anything, but it’s still easy to see how One Eyed Kutkh would be appealing to people who don’t usually play video games. On the one hand, that’s really just another way of saying that if you’re looking for a challenge or something that will wow you, One Eyed Kutkh probably isn’t it. But if you’re an optimist looking for the good news, or if you’re looking for a way to hook someone just starting out with games, there are certainly worse ways to do it than with this one.

Burly Men at Sea is most definitely not a bad game by any means. It’s bursting with invention and imagination, in everything from the way you drag the screen around to move the titular burly men, to the music that’s largely built around vocally-created sounds, and all points in between. If you’re looking for a unique experience, Burly Men at Sea offers it — but, at the same time, don’t be shocked if it’s an experience that wears thin before you’ve seen everything the game has to offer.

Your enjoyment of Mercenary Kings: Reloaded Edition will still depend to a very large extent on how much you enjoyed games like Metal Slug or Contra. If you didn’t like them before, you’re probably not going to like a game that borrows from significantly. If you did, however, then you can rest easy with this game/homage, knowing that it no longer gets in its own way.

The Count Lucanor won’t challenge you too hard in terms of its gameplay, but as far as the overall experience goes, you’re going to want to play with the lights on.

It’s a fairly forgettable sequel to a game that, really, wasn’t all that interesting in the first place. It won’t crash your Vita, and I assume that means that your PC or PS4 would be safe as well, but that’s pretty much the highest compliment I can pay the game.

To be clear, I wouldn’t say that Dragon Sinker is going to blow you away or anything. You should go into it expecting a mostly-generic JRPG, just as you would any other Kemco game. But, like the better JRPGs from that studio, that tiny bit of game that isn’t generic is enough to ensure that JRPG fans looking for their next fix may want to consider it if the price is right.

Semispheres is definitely worth picking up on a handheld. It’s not going to change your life or anything, but it will undeniably give you a few hours of pleasant puzzling.

Rogue Aces is a very good addition to the respective libraries of the Switch and the Vita. It’s not the kind of game that justifies your purchase of either device, but it’s a fun little game that’s a lot of fun to play on the go.

There’s little in Neurovoider that you wouldn’t be able to get in most other twin-stick shooters…except, of course, for that fantastic soundtrack. If scores were everything, we’d be talking about an all-time classic game. Instead, it’s really more of a niche game, with a soundtrack that you need to go download right this second.

League of Evil is still the same old game that made it so much fun all those years ago. The levels are still quick little puzzles for you to feel out and solve, ideally within seconds. The graphics are still heavily indebted to games of earlier eras, as is the plot (which, as the title implies, is all about you taking on a group — a league, if you will — of evildoers). There’s little here that you wouldn’t also see in the likes of Super Meat Boy.

Unfortunately, even if you think that’s a point in the game’s favour, all the funny interactions and oddball characters in the world can’t hide the fact that Penny-Punching Princess’ action is kind of meh. The game gets points for trying something new, but it would’ve gotten even more if that new thing had actually turned out well.

Not the worst, but not the best, either. Bit Dungeon Plus is just kind of there, and I challenge anyone to have a strong opinion about it one way or another.

You may only play a couple of minutes (after you pick it up, realize it’s not for you, and quit) or you may play a few more minutes after that (after you get the Platinum, realize you’ve done everything there is to do, and set the game aside), but either way, your time with InkSplosion is going to be quick and forgettable.

Obviously, the format will be familiar to anyone who ever played a Picross game on their DS. But just because it’s not brand new that doesn’t make it any less worthwhile. Pic-a-Pix Color is sure to ensnare anyone who loves a good puzzle challenge — so if you pick it up, you’ve been warned.

At the right price (which is to say: not very much) and for the right amount of time (again: not very much), Oh…Sir! The Hollywood Roast is worth a playthrough. Only one, mind you, and then you’ll never feel like playing it again, but still, for that one time, it’s kind of worth it.

Obviously, it’s unfair to dock points from Devious Dungeon for not being Rogue Legacy. It’s its own game, and deserves to be judged on its own merits. Plus, like I said, it’s certainly enjoyable enough. But, at the same time, it’s impossible to look at what it does and not see how much better all of it was done elsewhere. It may not be fair, but it’s still entirely accurate.

I know that reviewing daily regulations and double-checking birth dates and passport numbers sounds like it’s the most mind-numbing work ever. And, in real life, you may be right (though having known people who worked at borders, I’d argue otherwise). In Papers, Please, however, they’re tasks that are every bit as weighty as any gun battle or puzzle, and they make for a uniquely enjoyable game experience.

2064 is somewhere between a point-and-click adventure and a visual novel, only it seems to combine the less attractive qualities of both genres.

It’s always fun to see games mashing together genres you wouldn’t necessarily think go together. True, it’s even more fun when the mash-up works, but Vostok Inc. deserves kudos (if not necessarily a recommendation) for trying something new.

7’scarlet is by Otomate, which means that you need to go in expecting the story to take more than a few seemingly unnecessary romantic detours. But, like Bad Apple Wars and Psychedelia of the Black Butterfly before it, has a decent story underneath all that romance, and if you’re willing to give it abit of a chance, it definitely pays off.

If Schacht were free, I could see suggesting people check it out, since it shows some promise, and it suggests that the people behind it may be worth watching. But at a price of literally any amount above zero, there’s just no way you’re getting your money’s worth here.

Despite its RPG trappings, Defender’s Quest isn’t all that far from your typical tower defense game. Kudos to its developers for wanting to give it a little something extra, but in the end, the game is more or less what you’d expect.

Riddled Corpses EX isn’t going to astound you, but it’s also not going to disappoint you too much if you just want to shoot some monsters. It may not be sophisticated, but it works.

What matters most, though, is how well OOTP 19 delivers in terms of giving you full — and I do mean full — control over your favourite baseball franchise. And, unsurprisingly, it delivers a comprehensive experience, as it has for years now. Whether you want to build your team from scratch or take over the reins of your current favourite, you can do that here, and you’ll probably sink hours and hours and hours into it in the process.

I’d like to say that there are some points in the game’s favour, but that would be a lie. Ice Cream Surfer is a bargain basement App Store game masquerading as a mid-priced indie game, and at that price you should stay far, far away.

Super Destronaut DX is essentially Space Invaders for the present day, so your feelings on that classic will dictate entirely how you feel about this modern update.

If you’ve ever wanted to play a JRPG but don’t know where to begin, Rainbow Skies serves as a pretty thorough intro. (And, of course, if you’re already into JRPGs and you need something to sink your next couple of weeks into, it’ll more than serve that function, too.)

I really wish I could say anything positive about Maximum Football 2018. After all, it’s clearly a labour of love, and you hate to say something bad about a game that people have so clearly put their hearts and souls into. But when the end result is something as bad in every conceivable way as this game is, your options for positive words are pretty limited. Maybe one day down the road this franchise may evolve into a worthy Madden alternative, but right now, it’s not even close to being a passable stopgap solution.

I’d be lying, of course, if I said that I found the puzzles that compelling. And the fact that they almost always lead to more gore (albeit hand-drawn gore) is more than a little off-putting. But still, if you’re in the mood for a puzzle-platformer/word game that’s different from pretty much everything else out there, Haimrik may be an interesting investment.