To some extent, Oure reminds me a lot of AER, another flight-heavy that seems like a bit of a wasted opportunity. Until the day when Heavy Spectrum and Daedalic Entertainment get together and make a really great flying game with a purpose, then, you’re stuck with what’s on offer here — and right now, that’s not enough to make Oure worth your time.

Even for players that are new to not only this series, but to JRPGs as a whole, Revenant Kingdom has something to draw you in and get you hooked. The world, the story, the combat, the base building, something here will grab you and keep you. There is plenty of content to dig into, and you will not find yourself bored for quite a while with all that Level-5 has given you.

It describes itself as a micro-adventure, which apparently is a fancy way of saying that it features puzzles that don’t require a dozen random steps to complete, but, instead, follow fairly straightforward, linear logic. It’s funny, it poses just the right level of challenge, the characters are delightful — if that’s how you define micro-adventure, I’m all for the subgenre.

You’ll cringe or laugh at some of the horrible dialogue, you’ll get bored by the repetitive nature of the tasks in front of you, and you’ll wonder what the point of the whole thing is, but, throughout it all, you’ll always be able to say that Past Cure works. So…I guess it has that going for it?

And that, in a nutshell, is the perfect descriptor for Devil May Cry HD Collection: torture. I don’t know what your memories may be telling you about these games from 10-15 years ago, but I can tell you that if you play them now, it’s likely to leave you wondering how they could have become so beloved in the first place. If you have fond memories, keep them there, rather than allowing them to become sullied by this hideous abomination.

Overall I had a good time with Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 Plus, but even without performance issues I think I prefer how the original game played more. There’s also a good challenge within the single-player offerings here, and they’ll have you hooked on getting a complete grade. Other than that, it’s more like a different version of Pac-Man CE than a true sequel, so it might be worth a look if any of this sounds interesting to you.

Xenon Valkyrie+ is more or less what it promises to be: a retro-tinged love letter to old school platformers. It’s probably not going to be the greatest thing you’ll ever play, but if the second half of the previous sentence is the kind of thing that’s relevant to your interests, it’s probably worth checking out.

I can’t really suggest Metal Gear Survive to either Metal Gear fans or survival game fans. There are better options out there for both, and Metal Gear Survive provides little incentive. I can appreciate the idea of trying to make a Metal Gear sidestory work, but this is an abysmal first effort by Konami, and really adds another layer of tarnish to the whole Kojima exit.

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.

ECHO is the worst game imaginable if you have a problem with delayed gratification. If, however, you’re in the market for a game where a little bit of patience goes a long way, it’s well worth your time.

There’s a world of difference between pretty cute and worth playing. Fe does a tremendous job of the former, but as far as the latter goes, it leaves quite a bit to be desired.

Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology is a great example of time travel RPG done right. Figuring out the puzzle like systems and how to most efficiently eliminate enemies makes the battle system unique and enjoyable. On top of that, finding the correct path to get to the end of the game can make for a lot of exploration. If you are a fan of RPGs, puzzles and a good story, check this one out!

Whereas games like Knowledge is Power or Jeopardy! felt a little (or, in Jeopardy!’s case, very) impersonal, It’s Quiz Time feels like it’s tailoring its experience to the individuals playing at that moment. That generic androgynous robot (Salli, for the record) turns out to be funny, and is constantly trash-talking and praising players by name. This extends to the app/controller as well, with tailored messages flashing on each player’s screen at the end of every round, giving them text they can share via social media that say how well they did in a particular round (note: I did not do this). Add in the personalized stats at the end of the game, and you can see why It’s Quiz Time is so much better than its competition.

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.

Thanks to the graphical style, battle system and music, overall Lost Sphear is a reasonable attempt at bringing back the feel of the classic JRPG from the golden SNES era. It’s too bad they made some of the story choices they did, though if it weren’t for that, Lost Sphear would have been a much better game.

Jurassic World Pinball offers a decent collection of tables if you are a fan of Jurassic Park and you’ll definitely have a good time with them. Another recommended addition to Pinball FX3!

If you’re a fan of OK K.O.! Let’s Play Heroes and you’re eager to experience it in another medium, then you may want to check it out. If you’re not, look elsewhere, because this is a strictly fans-only game.

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.

Admittedly, AER might have been a little more enjoyable if she’d had some clear purpose for flying around her world, or if the sights surrounding her were a little more breathtaking. I mean, they’re certainly not ugly, and there are points where you might even say that AER is stylish. But there’s nothing breathtaking, and if you go in hoping for that, you’ll be letdown. But if you go in looking for a game that won’t push you too hard, that’s perfect for when you just want to shut your brain off and float, then it’s hard to think of anything better. AER’s successes are somewhat modest, but that’s really all that they need to be to make it a game worth considering.

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.

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.

It’s neat to see the franchise trying something new, even if it doesn’t totally succeed. More importantly, none of the new stuff takes away from what makes Warriors games fun in the first place: you still get to single-handedly mow down enemy army after enemy army. No matter what else may have changed, that core fact remains the same in Dynasty Warriors 9 — and as long as that’s true, that’s really all that matters.

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.

There isn’t much else to say about Space Invaders Extreme, except playing it is a whole lot of simple fun, and will trigger your nostalgia greatly. It takes a formula that worked in the 1980s and added just enough spice to give today’s gamers a thrill. At $19.99, it may be a little expensive to some who have never heard of the series (or played it on previous last gen platforms). If you haven’t, I highly recommend playing the original game, then once you are accustomed, jump into Extreme with both feet and have a blast. For those who love the series already, this is a no brainer. Space Invaders Extreme is a must own for your Steam library!

I would suggest checking out Dissidia Final Fantasy NT if you’ve played the other Dissidia titles, but I’d temper your expectations when it comes to content. You’ll blow through the story mode quickly enough, and then you’ll just be left with a pretty sub-standard online experience that is definitely in need of some work. The stripped out RPG elements from the previous Dissidia titles really do this entry a disservice, and I think hewing too closely to NT’s arcade roots was a bad call. Still, I can’t help but feel there’s something worth playing here, even if it’s not the best Dissidia game to date.

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.

What makes it really frustrating is that The Sims 4 has so much potential to be great with so many customization options. The game even throws people like me a bone, allowing you to give your Sim clear motivations and emotions, and it tailors the gameplay around that. But, cruelly, it makes doing all those things a massive chore, meaning that unless you really, really like moving your cursor slowly around the screen, you’re not going to get much out of it.

I don’t often find myself interested in seeing where these games are going, but I’ll admit that this one got me hooked. Give it a chance (provided, obviously, you already have an interest in visual novels), and you’ll probably find yourself hooked too.