As unique as Typoman is, seeing the scale of its missed opportunity unfold only saddens me evermore.

While the final explanation shows that, predictably enough, there’s more going on than meets the eye, it’s more short story than novel. In terms of both story and gameplay it’s hard to find much to recommend about The Starship Damrey, but there’s nothing really wrong with it either. It’s a curiosity, interesting enough while being played, and then it’s over.

If you’re looking for a shorter RPG and don’t care particularly about the storyline then Machina of the Planet Tree -Planet Ruler- will serve up some enjoyable gameplay, if little else, for seven to ten hours.

Ken’s Rage 2 feels like it was developed by Koei’s B-team thanks to performance issues, subpar graphics, a shallow character development system and fighting mechanics that are only as fun as the game’s limited combat engine allows. For the price, there are so many better alternatives out there that it would feel irresponsible of us to recommend this to anyone who’s not a diehard fan.

Sword Art Online Re: Hollow Fragment is entirely average, which is frustrating because there are elements of greatness sprinkled throughout its somewhat mess of a product.

Credit to Michelle Mylett and Al Weaver (who play Amy and Rees, respectively) for serving what material they’re given here, credit too to Wales Interactive for supporting the FMV genre still. But the pull of multiple branching endings (technically) as well as a shallow relationship mechanic mark The Complex down as, while not terrible, a safe, sterile and sadly under-utilized effort.

Thus, for 700 points, ColorZ is simply not worth the aggravation if you plan to play alone, but if you have friends or family to play with, ColorZ may be worth a try if the premise intrigues you.

In the end, this Chrome needs more polish.

Platformer and puzzle game fans who pick this up will have a good time, but everybody else can pass on Color Symphony 2.

Risen 3: Titan Lords is a clunky mess of a game that fails to capitalize on the potential it has put forth. While the concept sounds alluring, and it’s chock-full of charm, it’s weighed down by stodgy design and a lack of polish.

A few great ideas are drowned in a torrent of design flaws and technical problems. I wish there were something interesting to say about this game’s failures, but they just amount to plain, old-fashioned bad craftsmanship.

While Blacksad: Under the Skin shows a lot of promise in its story, world and a couple of neat gameplay mechanics that help put you right in Blacksad’s shoes, it unfortunately suffers when it comes to the execution. Be it clunky pixel hunts, an awkward interface or a myriad of potential glitches, the end result comes off as a bit of a janky, unpolished mess. Pendulo isn’t exactly a perfect developer, but this may end up being their weakest work yet, at least until future patches can improve things. For now, though, best to just turn down this case.

Never Alone makes experiencing this untouched world cumbersome and frustrating, draining the magic away from its promise and leaving a sketchy, unpolished game in its snow-covered wake.

The Men of Yoshiwara: Kikuya may be worth a purchase on Steam for those who haven’t played it, but there are definite issues with the release. The biggest of these is the iffy translation and editing work done to the text, harming its ability to entertain.

While Rise of the Argonauts offers lots of hacking and slashing, which is fun for a time, its story, style and sound aren’t enough to atone for its shallowness and elevate this odyssey to the epic heights to which it aspires.

Chronology is a great example of how a few warts can taint an otherwise pretty package.

The issue with this Vita version as that the publisher just decided to bring that same exact version over without tailoring it to fit the platform. Many can look past this and enjoy a better looking, but faithful recreation of Final Fantasy Adventures, but we as gamers should expect better.

J-Stars Victory VS+ fumbles what should have been a glorious, celebratory experience. It’s combat is banal, its design is overcomplicated and its presentation is completely halfhearted.

Deathbound is a game that has a lot of great ideas that seem amazing on paper, but few of them actually end up hitting the mark. The clear high points of this game pretty much all relate to the setting, the story, and the characters presented, but even this is marred by the goofy vocal performances and the frequency of the swearing in a bid to seem edgy and cool. But in the end, the game is dragged down by a wonky multi-character combat system, a messy health system, an all-round unresponsiveness, which is a death warrant in a Souls-like such as this, and the fact that the game's performance is enough to make you throw in the towel before you even have a good reason to write the game off. It feels like a game that would have benefited from pivoting to an all-out hack-and-slash format because, despite labeling itself as one, Deathbound simply doesn't have the polish or the attention to detail needed to truly call itself a Souls game.

While there have been many great and accessible titles gracing Nintendo’s growing eShop catalog in recent months, Rakoo & Friends sadly doesn’t offer as much variety, engagement and reason to return to aside from a graceful wind-down.

The episode doesn’t really close out the story of the Order of the Stone as a whole and really only makes it an addition to one of the many adventures that Jessie will have.

Phantom Brave is sure to be a fun, but possibly underwhelming, return to the franchise for fans of the original title, as well as of other NIS titles like the Disgaea series. For newcomers, however, the game has failed most of its attempts to make gameplay accessible to even well-versed veterans of the turn-based strategy genre. The end result is a niche-interest title that will likely be hit-or-miss with hardcore fans, due to the rough and messy assembly of its multitude of interesting parts.

JETT: The Far Shore has an impressive world with well-crafted lore, an intriguing story and eye-catching visuals. Unfortunately, you actually have to play through the game to experience any of it, and that ends up being a slow, plodding mess in more ways than one. Maybe those with more patience will enjoy the trip more, but everyone else can rightfully skip JETT: The Far Shore and just remain grounded with better games instead.

As promising a foundation there may be here, Foamstars sadly finds itself buried beneath a malaise of lackluster content and an underdeveloped world alike. Occasionally enjoyable and suggestive of greater potential the foam-centric mechanics can be, as both an offensive and defensive tool alike, it's everything going on in and around the core gameplay, that ultimately makes the experience feel hollow and at worst, jarring to deal with. From its all-too-cheery presentation, to its laughably one-dimensional attempt at instilling personality into its world and characters. Right down to the horrid monetization practices at the very start of its life-cycle. A commitment to further updates and new content may stave off a small amount of concern, but it's hard to see where Foamstars' longevity will land. By no means the worst attempt at a multiplayer-centric experience by way of its handful of hopeful, admirable elements here and there, but still one that could've been far better given the promise.

If you’re already a fan of the series, it’s impossible to recommend a bare-bones expansion like this at its current price point. If you’re not… well, I have a hard time imagining that you’d enjoy the third installment at all.

Unfortunately the considerable lack of polish, indecisively wonky aesthetic and utterly dismal implementation of random events both visually and structurally — of which can leave your six/seven/eight hour run feeling wasted for nothing — leaves Genesis Alpha One feeling like an early build with far too many a hole to plug. There are some pleasant joys and novel moments to be had amidst the mundane and the cumbersome, but in the end, Radiation Blue’s multi-genre spanning venture — ambitious its intentions may be — delivers both an underbaked and amateurishly constrained effort.

As expected, Resident Evil 6 — four years after its original release — remains one of the series’ most underbaked, underdeveloped and downright unappealing entries in a franchise that has claimed far greater heights in terms of gameplay and presentation.

For now, though, it is something that should only be acknowledged by the truly masochistic.

The problem with Vertical Drop Heroes HD is that it’s not very fun.

FireFly lives up to its promise of producing a better-looking version of its first games, but that’s all they live up to.

Mostly it’s just a bummer that A Nest of Vipers doesn’t continue the steady uptick in quality we saw over the previous two episodes, but Episode Five nonetheless proves itself a necessary step in the lead-up to the season’s conclusion next episode.

Yume Nikki: Dream Diary is successful in recreating an atmosphere and world that feels as chaotic and random as a dream, but converting a dream into a game does not lead to a great gaming experience.

As charming and as neat of an idea as playing past-versions of yourself is, there are simply not enough legs to the core hook here and that dooms the final product to mediocrity right from the start.

While die-hard roguelike fans may find some comfort in the difficult combat, the game as a whole lacks the polish and fun factor of others in the genre.

Simply put, Fuel Overdose can't figure out what it wants to be, and that's a shame.

Some folks are really into slice of life tales, and for others, it makes reading a visual novel a total slog. If you’re interested in a slightly mystical take on the genre then perhaps A Butterfly in the District of Dreams will excite you. For most, however, it’s an average tale which plods along with no real meaning for the majority of it. There’s nothing harmful about this, and there’s far worse you can play on Steam, but your hours of reading time might be better served elsewhere.

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel is an unpolished, uninspired adventure where fun can be had with friends, but that time could be better spent elsewhere.

Final Fantasy XIII has its own set of problems, mainly consisting of a mediocre story and incredibly linear progression for the first forty hours, but the poor PC optimization puts it over the top.

Even for a game priced at five dollars, Ninja Senki DX is a letdown.

At the end of the day, it’s tough to recommend Life is Strange: The Arcadia Bay Collection as it is near launch. It’s easily the worst-possible way to experience two classic games and not in small ways. The dramatic drop-off in texture quality and abundance of texture pop-in hurts the experience, as do long loading times. The foundation of what made the games so great is still present, but hampered. In hindsight, having it titled as the Arcadia Bay Collection was a tip-off that this wouldn’t be the exact same as the Remastered Collection that hit other consoles. This is a downgraded version of the experience in every way except voice acting and should only be played by those who must have it available on the go.

Infinity Runner has a fun, unique concept that isn’t utilized to the fullest.

Maybe Mighty No. 9 2 will be the Mega Man rebirth we so desperately desire, but at this point, Inafune’s attempted return to glory is a bona fide swing and a miss.

While McDroid shoots for the stars with these additions to the tower defense genre, it mostly ends up flaming out in the atmosphere.

Unfortunately, Episode 2 can’t hold in its excitement and spoils the big twist about halfway in and the rest of the game suffers for it.

While Rise of the Argonauts offers lots of hacking and slashing, which is fun for a time, its story, style and sound aren’t enough to atone for its shallowness and elevate this odyssey to the epic heights to which it aspires.

Table Top Racing is an excellent mobile game that doesn’t translate well to Vita.

It will only appeal to hardcore hunting game enthusiasts, as it’s ultimately boring, repetitive and empty. There’s little to do, see or experience, and unless you’re a true fan of the genre, your money is best spent elsewhere.

The House of the Dead: Remake had a lot working in its favor going in that didn’t pan out in the end. The main problems lie in the controls, which never work as well as they should, at least at launch. It’s entirely possible like with the Panzer Dragoon Remake that improvements make the post-launch experience better, but as it stands, it’s hard to recommend this for serious light gun fans or those just looking to see what all the fuss was about in the genre 20-30 years ago. Playing the game varies from being fun when things work to being frustrating when they don’t work well — and that happens more than it should. It’s not a great-looking game, but does sound great and will hopefully receive post-launch support to improve the experience overall.

Ultraworld is a seriously distinctive game that deserves credit for its beautiful, if sometimes bizarre, world design. The story’s delivery also happens to be quite unique and offers a few cool twists before completion. It’s a shame, then, that there have to be technical startup issues with the Steam release.

For some people and maybe even for you, WipeOut Pulse is worth the effort involved and then some.

Whether you can enjoy Chivalry: Medieval Warfare depends on how low you are willing to lower your expectations for what a current-gen console game should look and feel like.

The lack of core-features, underutilization of the impressive emotions system, flawed customization and faulty… practically everything else, only emphasizes EA’s struggle to keep its promises.

Mario & Luigi: Brotherhood succeeds at creating a loyal sequel to the previous installments in the franchise, but fails to successfully bring that franchise to the level of quality synonymous with Nintendo's console games. Slow progression, major quality-of-life issues and unbearably-boring lengths of dialogue and gameplay heavily bog down this fun and lighthearted turn-based RPG, with the final product ending up as a 50-50 split of soul-sucking boredom and family-friendly fun.

While it seems to do an excellent job as a racing simulation for purely go-karts, it lacks in the video game department. This is almost better as a tool for those that do actual karting at these tracks with these actual karts rather than calling this a game. KartKraft works best if you’re trying to hone your racing kraft rather than attempting to be in a virtual competitive space. What makes the gaming aspect of this release worse is that it retails for $39.99, and there just isn’t a lot here to justify that price. While modding may be available, it remains to be seen if there will be enough of an audience to crank out additions, because that also tends to show that Motorsport Games may not being doing too much with the title going forward. The current roadmap for the game shows wet weather and rental cars are coming, but there’s no date for these updates.

If you have a lot of nostalgia for Speedball 2, you’ll probably enjoy this HD remake for what it is, but those looking for a new arcade sports game should look elsewhere.

There’s some fun to be had with LEGO Worlds, but you will need to trudge through a lot of problems to get to it. The UI is unintuitive, especially on the Switch, the combat is clumsy, there’s a serious lack of drive in the adventure mode, the missions are beyond repetitive and it’s buggy, just to name a few. With that said, there are a plethora of worlds to explore, and even after countless hours with the game, we were still seeing new environments. Creating a custom world is also an entertaining feature, even though it’s purely tied to the Free Mode. In the end, though, LEGO Worlds had incredible potential to be the next Minecraft, especially considering the pedigree of LEGO, but it winds up being weighed down by a lack of vision.

For all the temporal distractions, the near-mandatory attitude and dictation its open-World formula ends up presenting may end up dealing a blow to Sniper Ghost Warrior 3‘s small and hidden joys of explorative distraction. But the heaviest of blows will no doubt come from its near-constant technical issues that are varied in scale but frustratingly, persistently present throughout.

The Bell Chimes for Gold starts out as charming and fun to play. It’s once you spend more time with it that the problems with regard to unregistered button presses and certain items not being picked up automatically move from small annoyance to grating on the entire gameplay session. It also doesn’t help that the majority of the experience (exploring dungeons for items) is entirely repetitive.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League works on a surface level, but look beneath the surface and there isn’t enough for story, live service, shooter or DC fans to properly enjoy long-term.

Ultimately, what’s disappointing about Herding Dog is that its aspirations, demands, tasks and ideas are simply too small scale.

While there's a lot not to like about Never 7: The End of Infinity, it’s not a complete waste. Being able to go through an old genre example is nice for a history lesson for those interested in how the style evolved. There are a few story beats that do get the ol’ brain hamster running the wheel, which is also cool. The fact that it takes about half of the game to go anywhere is a problem, as is the fact that it is shorter than most modern visual novel fans have come to expect. As a curiosity, this is worth checking out. For someone who is only checking out the visual novel genre for the first time, there are better options.

The single player campaign becomes a miserable mess where the only real path to succeed is to ignore the features that are supposed to add depth. Picking it up for multiplayer is something that can only be recommended to the most dedicated Gundam fans with a preexisting group of like minded people, but even for fans there are better series titles available.

This title attempts to meld an educational focus with endearing characters. Unfortunately, it doesn’t manage to create compelling characters or plot. The information gained about Japan while playing is valid and factual, but that alone isn’t enough to make the entire experience enjoyable.

Pitting the player’s wit against a changing set of circumstances is a fun and exhilarating experience on paper, but ROOT makes too many wrong decisions in executing this mechanic that it’s hard not to see the majority of its level-by-level progression as anything but malnourished of some much-needed player-support.

The controls are smooth and accurrate and there are a good number of levels, but the overly-careful strategies needed make it more work than play. [Dec 2008, p.57]

It’s not that Conception Plus: Maidens of the Twelve Stars is a terrible game. In small bits, it can be fun to progress through the story and make the numbers get bigger. The problem is that, once the weirdness wears off, it’s an achingly average to below average JRPG. So much feels padded for the sake of prolonging the run time, the environments of the dungeons never feel interesting, and the challenge is to the player’s patience, not their brain. Spike Chunsoft have a concept here, but it’s one that needs a little more time gestating. Considering how great Spike Chunsoft is as a developer and publisher, we should hope for better than Conception Plus: Maidens of the Twelve Stars.

Rhythm Destruction has its problems, no question, but it’s also an interesting experiment in combining genres.

Those devoted to the genre with a lot of patience may enjoy its meaty campaign, but anyone else would be better off buying one of the many superior entires in the Rapala series.

While Back To Bed is not a terrible puzzler by any stretch of the imagination, it is terribly underwhelming.

Infinity Strash: Dragon Quest The Adventures of Dai is an interesting idea in bringing the anime to video game form that falls short in execution. It sounded great on paper, but nothing comes together in any way that makes this title rise above mediocrity. The basic repetitive gameplay that’s sparsely portioned out between story development prevents this from being the great action RPG it should have been. Fans of The Adventures of Dai or Dragon Quest in general might find enjoyment in this title. As critical as this review is there was fun had in playing it, but without the Dragon Quest name no one would give this a second thought. But despite its shortcomings it does still successfully convey the Dragon Quest charm, which might be enough to bring some enjoyment to a small segment of gamers, but most wouldn’t consider it worth the price of admission. As such, it’s difficult to recommend it to anyone but the most hardcore Dragon Questfans and even they should keep expectations low.

For as cool as The Tomorrow Children looks, there is far too much monotony in its moment-to-moment gameplay to warrant a recommendation. Forget about all of the time you’ll spend gathering resources and riding the bus to the islands, as a resource-gathering game there’s a lot to be desired here.

f you enjoyed LoveKami -Divinity Stage- then you may also dig this game. It just depends why you were enamored with the previous title. Those who were really into the whole idol aspect will find little in this narrative to hook them (beyond a very brief segment). If you just love this take on Japan where goddesses are as klutzy, naughty and paradoxically naive then this visual novel should still be up your alley. There’s not a lot of deep storytelling or character development, but LoveKami -Useless Goddess- should satisfy folks looking to perk up a drab afternoon.

The game does occasionally muster some remnant of satisfaction with the way its world and aesthetic is structured. But a case of artistic vision overwhelming implementation leaves Recompile with a muddled, at times horribly-frustrating sense of progression.

Protodroid DeLTA is one of those game that may be technically competent when it comes to areas like graphics, music and basic gameplay, but it suffers from not having an original bone in its body. There may be a few fun platforming challenges here and there, but you can do and have done better when it comes to Mega Man-inspired games. So it may not suffer the same fate as Mega Man X7 when it comes to awkward 3D gaming, but at least people still remember MMX7 years later, while this will lucky to be remembered after a month or so.

As is, No One But You is a game with some intriguing moments and great artwork but overall feels too disjointed.

While Rise of the Argonauts offers lots of hacking and slashing, which is fun for a time, its story, style and sound aren’t enough to atone for its shallowness and elevate this odyssey to the epic heights to which it aspires.

The sloppy translations and awkward English are not what brings the game down, but rather the structure of the missions, the lack of character development, and most critically, the uninteresting, spectator sport combat.

Desert Child eagerly attempts to pay homage to these influences and while isn’t so indulgent it wanes on the delivery of the gameplay itself, sadly what offer of gameplay there is ends up both repetitive and eventually drab to the point of boredom. Helped little by the disappointing lack of explanation or context for many of its objectives. And even at such a brief run-time of around four to five hours, Desert Child still ends up taking far too long at delivering what is, in actuality, so very little.

Perception isn’t great, failing to clear every benchmark that it set out for itself by a healthy margin. It could fall back on the fact that it was trying something experimental as an excuse for what went wrong, but there are too many experimental games in today’s day and age for me to cut any slack for the mess that is this game. With the pedigree of the team that created it and the lofty expectations that it set out for itself, it fails to live up even to modest expectations. While it’s noble to attempt to tackle representation in interesting ways, Perception isn’t a poster child for what games of this persuasion should strive to be.

One of the best-looking releases of the past few years from a technical and artistic standpoint, so heavily undermined by everything else surrounding it, The Callisto Protocol caps off 2022 with a release devoid in substance and all the more disappointing because of it.

In the end, Rise of the Tomb Raider: Cold Darkness Awakened ends up being a forgettable experience

This is a sixth sequel in spin-off's clothing, with added cumbersome gameplay elements. [Sept 2007, p.67]

If it sounds like this is all being to harsh on The BIG Cynical Adventure, it’s only because the game makes it too easy to be cynical right back at it. The one-man development efforts of Cowcat are to admired, but they sadly can’t save the end product from being purely mediocre.

Lord of Arcana has got more problems than being a clone of a better game can account for. It's boring, repetitive, tedious, and only rarely fun.

Who’s to say what the real, developer-side cause is for Scarlet Nexus’ failings. What was already a mammoth undertaking in crafting a competent-enough hack-and-slash action game that could muscle its way into the spotlight, Bandai Namco’s latest in-house creation is not just inadequate in appeasing long-time fans of the genre, but worse, comes across ignorant of its own player’s time.

Surgeon Simulator 2013 isn’t all bad and I’m surprised I liked it as much as I did. There is a bizarre sense of exploration you get from just goofing around and seeing what exactly you can do, and at times it feels like an odd sort of point and click adventure game, where every puzzle is to use a sharp object on a man’s face

Those Who Remain deserves major points for creativity of ideas and premise. The title holds a lot of promise, but ultimately fails to deliver a memorable, cohesive performance. Because puzzles force players to run back and forth to find solutions which can take time away from immersion into this world. Those Who Remain is a title committed to psychological horror, but has self-sabotaged with mediocre gameplay. It lovingly sets up a thrilling ambiance, but doesn’t allow players to fully experience the title. The use of various ideas like alternate dimensions and ever-persistent shadow people are great, but aren’t executed well. Additionally, characters are not uniquely fleshed out and don’t support the flat story that held a lot of promise. Characters feel generic to the point where it’s difficult to even like them. Edward is truly an everyman but doesn’t have enough uniqueness to capture attention. Even the “choices” made don’t ultimately make drastic changes you may have been hoping for. I wanted to like Those Who Remain, but it failed to capture my attention as a standout indie horror.

With better pacing, more interesting plot lines and more focused interactions, The Sword in the Darkness is easily the best episode of Telltale’s Game of Thrones yet; it’s not “good” by any means yet, but it’s getting dangerously close.

Perhaps if Scars Above had put more work into the areas where our lead heroine has to explore this strange world and analyze it more in order to solve various puzzles, basically letting her be the scientist she is, it could have been vastly better overall, or at least help give it a better identity to help it stand out more. Instead, Scars Above settles for being a generic third-person action game that rarely, if ever, takes any sort of risks. While it may not fall prey to anything that feels egregiously bad and at least has decent combat, you’ll likely walk away from the mystery of the Metahedron feeling more bored than satisfied.

To get the most out of the experience, Producing Perfection practically mandates that its players have some kind of working knowledge of the Hyperdimension world to enjoy its trappings. If players are in that category, then perhaps there’s enough here to sustain interest, as the excessive dialogue is really only entertaining for those who know the characters and established lore well.

Haze can be enjoyable, but it's far from the PS3's killer app.

The graphics lack style or pizzazz and the controls have a wrongness to them. This Touhou title isn’t terrible, but the curiosity of its mash up is all it has.

This is not to say that Criminal Girls: Invite Only is inherently broken; it certainly functions and offers over twenty hours of gameplay, but there’s better JRPGs available.

It’s certainly passable, but you can find many Metroidvania games that fulfill their gaming ambitions much better.

Coffin Dodgers is a heavily flawed game that winds up being ever-so-slightly greater than the sum of its parts.

Though nothing in Driveclub is inherently broken, its forced combination of clean racing and horrible AI have the potential to frustrate players more than any minor glitch could. Add this to the lack of any meaningful customization options and missing weather system, and you have the makings of a disappointment.

Unfortunately, Calvino Noir doesn’t meet the expectations that come with this genre and style.

In no way, shape or form could Redout: Space Assault be considered required playing. It’s simplistic and more than a little disappointing for what the developer can actually produce. That doesn’t mean it’s without any merit, though. Folks looking for a new Starfox type game will find plenty to enjoy here so long as they know that there are some lumps in the gravy. When it’s hitting its mark, this is an extremely exciting game. When it stumbles, though, it stumbles hard. For the budget price, there are worse ways to spend an afternoon, but there isn’t anything here to justify more than that one afternoon.