With slightly better performance, Deliver Us The Moon could have been one of the best games of the year. As it stands, it’ll have to settle for being merely intriguing.

It’s always refreshing to come across a visual novel that’s as good as what it does as Spirit Hunter: NG. Like Death Mark before it, it’s a game that wants to scare you and knows how to do it, and it makes for a visual novel experience that’s well above most of its competitors.

Overall, I’m really, really impressed by Desperados III. It went from being a game that wasn’t really on my radar, to definitely being one of the best games I’ve played all year. If you’re like me and haven’t played a single game in the series so far, this seems like an excellent place to start. I highly recommend checking it out, you won’t be disappointed.

Though Greymoor may not be a groundbreaking new chapter for ESO, it is yet another step forward. With how rocky the launch was, it is wonderful to see ZeniMax continue to create great new content, and although the main quest is nothing to write home about, it kicks off the year-long Dark Heart of Skyrim event and holds a lot of promise.

Much like the real thing, the best thing about soccer video games is seeing the beautiful game in full flight. Ganbare! Super Strikers has a lot of the same elements of soccer (and some enhanced moves that, in the right circumstances, could have been kind of neat) but as a package, it gets bogged down in its twist. Turn-based battles aren’t inherently incompatible with soccer, but the two certainly don’t mesh well here.

Gravity Rider Zero is a great way to introduce someone to the idea of what Trials has done well for several years, but don’t go in expecting more than that.

At $40, I think Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics is a real steal. This, for me, is one of those games I’d suggest buying digitally, just because you’ll likely never want to remove it from the system. It’s a great game to have handy in a variety of cases and certainly belongs on the list of must-have Nintendo Switch games.

Basically, I’m just happy that Journey to the Savage Planet on the Switch finally has it living up to the potential the game showed back when it was first teased. It’s kind of ironic it had to be visually downgraded to achieve that, but if I have to sacrifice a bit of performance to get a lot more fun out of a game, that’s a trade-off I’ll take every time.

Does this make for a faithful representation of John Wick? As I said, I have no idea. I’d feel much more confident in saying it’s not the best Mike Bithell game possible, but I imagine that’s a much less meaningful statement for most people, judging by box office totals compared to the broader cultural impact of Thomas Was Alone. As such, I’ll split the difference, and say that John Wick Hex is a solid strategic action game that’s great if you’re in the mood for skulking around in stylish shadows and killing lots and lots of bad guys.

Presumably the game goes easy on players so they can focus on the unfolding story (pun not originally intended). However, if you hate the story as much as I did, that’s not a good thing. Again, I’ll freely admit that if you don’t spend too much time thinking about any of this, A Fold Apart is a mildly charming puzzle-platformer. But beneath that brightly-coloured surface, there’s a pretty noxious message.

As I said up top, I never played any of the Five Nights at Freddy’s games, so it’s entirely possible that those games were just as finicky. Somehow, though, I doubt that mobile games that relied on touch controls are as frustrating as these games with their way-too-sensitive thumbsicks. Which, in turn, means that whether you’re a series veteran who wants to relive these games, or if, like me, you’re someone who wants to experience the games for the first time, Help Wanted really isn’t worth it.

Despite some issues, it’s hard to suggest not playing Minecraft Dungeons, considering the low entry price on most platforms, and the fact that it’s free on Xbox One via Game Pass if you’re already subscribed. It’s a fun take on a traditional Action-RPG that utilizes the Minecraft charm really well and will make for a fun time, especially if you can get a friend or two to tag along with you.

Control issues aside, I still wouldn’t say that Stories Untold is a bad game. Indeed, if you like emotionally heavy games with interesting, underutilized mechanics, you’ll get that here — you’ll just have to go in understanding that, without a mouse and keyboard, some of those mechanics don’t work the best.

As I’ve always said, KEMCO RPGs exist within a pretty narrow band — they’re never great, but they’re never terrible. They’re really just the same game repeated dozens of times with minor tweaks, and Asdivine Menace is no different. As far as I’m concerned, however, the microtransactions are a step too far, and you’re probably better off getting one of the other KEMCO games that falls closer to the good-ish side of the spectrum.

If you’re looking for a game on the go that’ll last you a few dozen hours (if you’re the completionist type), Vampyr delivers that. But that also means spending a few dozen hours with a game that’s not particularly interesting, and I don’t know why you’d want to bother with that.

If you haven’t checked out one of these excellent SEGA AGES releases so far, Thunder Force AC is a pretty good place to start. It’s one of those games that rarely gets ported, certainly not to current consoles, and is a neat little bit of video game history in its own right. I would highly recommend picking it up when it hits the Switch eShop today.

Concept Destruction feels more like a really great demo or a proof of concept than a full-fledged must-play game. What’s here is good, but with a few big tweaks and additions this could have been great. As it stands, this is a fun way to spend an hour or so, but if you want more than that, you’ll just have to wait for the developers to flesh this out a little (or rather, a lot) more.

Where MLB The Show is basically just refining its (admittedly very good) formula while it waits around for the next generation, and RBI Baseball chose this year to take a step backwards, SMB3 feels like a substantial improvement over its predecessors — which I already loved without reservation. It’s fun, it’s simple, it’s got about as much depth as you could want in a baseball game. Just about the only thing missing at this point is a create-a-player feature — which, I hope, is in the cards for my presumptive 2023 GOTY, Super Mega Baseball 4.

It’s a huge misfire from a developer that, at the very least, tends to be pretty competent, and it means you shouldn’t feel any hesitation about skipping this one and going back and playing one of Compile Hearts many better RPGs.

The most annoying part of Balthazar’s Dream is that a lot of care and attention went into it, and with a few tweaks it could have been much better. The way items like hydrants and vacuums play such a key role show a real commitment to the dog theme, and the overarching narrative — about a dog sitting at the hospital bed of his master in a coma — could’ve been heartwarming. Instead, though, you’re left with a game that can’t get out of its own way. In the end, it doesn’t matter how cute Balthazar’s Dream could’ve been; when you have a platformer where the jumping is a pain, no amount of adorable pups will save it.

It’s all pretty low stakes, and it’s extremely low stress. But that’s the point — it’s designed to be a relaxing game you can finish in a single sitting. It’s not about the change the world, but it should be enough to put a smile on your face…and yes, maybe just make you want to go camping.

Really, if you’ve ever played any run & gun platformer, you’ve experienced what Random Heroes has to offer. Just about the only difference here is that there’s more of it than you’d find than in most places. If you value quantity of a game above all else, then it might do the trick, but otherwise I don’t see why you’d bother with it.

Honestly, I can’t figure out why anyone would want to buy Ghost Sweeper. I mean, it’s a free phone game (with in-app purchases, of course), and, better still, you can also play Solomon’s Key itself in your browser right now. I’m all for supporting indie games, but when they do as little as Ghost Sweeper does to build on their inspirations, there’s really no point to playing them.

Even if the deeper meaning of Wanderlust’s politics are somewhere between pablum and deeply problematic, there’s no denying that the game fulfills its goal of making you stop and read and think about what you want to do next. It’s a visual novel that takes the “novel” part very seriously, and even if it accompanies its copious text with some gorgeous visuals, if you’re going to play/experience it, you’ll better have your reading glasses handy.

Despite its flaws — both performance and otherwise — Blacksad: Under The Skin still makes for an interesting game. It’s clunky (in more ways than one), but it’s also got a gripping story at its core, and it’s oozing style. I’ve certainly played better adventure games than this one, but there’s enough interesting stuff going on here that fans of the genre could do worse than checking it out.

Controls aren’t immediately obvious, and with such limited movements within each turn, you’re a) mostly figuring it out as you go along, and b) dying a lot. For many people, of course, the difficulty is the point, especially when we’re talking about survival horror — which, its isometric puzzle trappings notwithstanding, Overland definitely is. It doesn’t hold your hand (which, for some — i.e. me — may be a drawback), so if you’re tired of the current apocalypse and in the mood for one that’s a little different, it might just do the trick.

As it stands, this is a great port of a unique, obscure fighting game that I’m happy gets to see the light of day again. Hopefully, this will pave the way for more Neo Geo Pocket content on the Switch, which seems to be a perfect fit. Definitely check it out when you have a chance, you won’t be disappointed.

Illusion of L’Phalcia also makes tentative steps into the world of 3D animation. It’s not the first time KEMCO games have tried 3D, but they don’t do it often, and it looks absolutely awful here. Some excuses could be made for the fact this is actually a port of one of their older games…but still, we’re talking about a game that was originally released in 2014, not 1994. There’s no reason why the few scenes with 3D characters should look as bad as they do. To be fair, if it weren’t for those shoddy 3D animations, there wouldn’t be a single thing in Illusion of L’Phalcia that’s even remotely memorable. It’s near the bottom of the barrel as far as KEMCO JRPGs go, and you’d be better off playing pretty much anything else they’ve brought over to consoles.