All things considered, Black Knight Sword is truly a one-of-a-kind experience thanks to its imaginative art direction, soundtrack, narrative and overall concept. For $9.99, those qualities might be enough to warrant a purchase.

Langrisser is a tried and true return to retro roots. This enjoyable remake is one that long-time fans of Warsong or those who have been interested in the series for a long time finally get the chance to play. While it lacks a tutorial, the mechanics are mostly easy to grasp with a little sleuthing around the menus to understand how everything works. The updated art style is wonderfully drawn, but the inclusion of the original art is what shines most with a wonderful early ’90s nostalgic anime style. The story may not last on most memories, but the combat makes this a fun romp with a good amount of challenge. Any fan of tactics titles should absolutely consider diving into Langrisser I & II.

The Weaponographist is wonderfully insane and had the potential for greatness, but the pieces that it’s lacking mean it’s simply a fun, straightforward speed-running twin-stick action/RPG-lite.

With Catherine: Full Body, it feels like Atlus was trying to find an acceptable midpoint between remake and remaster. As a remake, its success depends entirely on whether or not players choose to follow Rin’s route. If they do, then the story changes at least feel justified, even if one doesn’t actually like where that story thread goes. If they don’t choose Rin, though, then the whole exercise winds up feeling entirely pointless. As a remaster, however, Catherine: Full Body is successful. The game looks and sounds great, its new remix mode offers refreshing challenges to player both old and new alike, the new safety mode makes seeing all the endings easier than ever, and the addition of a fully-featured online multiplayer is sure to keep die-hard block-stackers happy for a good long while. New players and serious fans likely won’t regret picking up Catherine: Full Body on release, but everyone else would likely be better-off waiting for a sale.

Monster Rancher 1&2 DX is a blast from the past, letting fans re-experience a classic while introducing new players to the franchise. The big take away is that these games have not aged particularly well. Mechanically, it’s rough around the edges, at least within the battle system. Raising a monster is one of the more compelling components as fans of micromanaging time and effort will have a blast. The disc system, or lack thereof now, is disappointing as it becomes a gaccha reroll machine that takes out the fun of picking up what you have around and using it. Granted, it’s hard to actually simulate a system that cannot be done today, but it’s just not the same. In the end, Monster Rancher 1 & 2 DX has done enough to justify the revisit of two of the most memorable monster games.

Unrest is a choice-driven RPG with little combat to speak of that touches on relevant social issues.

Call of the Sea could benefit from having more substance, but otherwise it’s a solid adventure game that manages to put a unique spin on the traditional Lovecraftian adventure. Norah’s journey is a memorable one, thinks to some terrific dialogue and a breathtaking, surreal island full of fantastical mystery. It may not be the most challenging graphic adventure game, but it’s still one that players might want to take a look at sometime. After all, after so many sheer descents into madness, why not set out to find a welcome change of pace?

Poi‘s greatest weakness lies in its sound design, but the core game is well-crated and a lot of fun. The smaller world size keeps players focused on the task at hand, while keeping mandatory collect-a-thon parts to a minimum puts a stronger focus on the platforming action. Thankfully, this is the game’s strongest point and anyone looking for a solid 3D platformer should check out Poi. It controls nearly-perfectly, with only an iffy camera causing issues from time to time. It looks solid for the most part too, with impressive lighting adding some impressive visual flair to what can sometimes be bland-looking stages.

The game looks fantastic and feels like it was designed specifically for the PS Vita. Capturing the essence of what Digimon is, Cyber Sleuth is the Digimon game fans have been waiting for.

It may not be the coveted next leap forward given last year’s highly-satisfying rendition, but WRC 9 provides a satisfying-enough reminder as to the heights this series has finally achieved.

Hot Lap Racing succeeds far more than it fails as a more serious racing game on the Switch. It's hurt a framerate-wise by the hardware, but still manages to control nicely with digital inputs being recognized on either controllers with purely digital inputs or analog. Controlling the cars feels natural and that plays into the harder-than-usual difficulty that makes the player get better to excel and doesn't offer as many options as other modern-day racers to ease the burden. Veteran racing fans will probably appreciate that approach to an extent, while the inclusion of many kinds of driving challenges evoked more of the fun of Project Gotham Racing than the more laborious classic Gran Turismo license tests. It's a flawed, but fun racing excursion on the Switch and offers far more racing variety than its contemporaries in the Gear Club Unlimited series.

Although not long by typical game standards, taking most explorers between four and eight hours, this is a serious amount of time for virtual reality releases. Adventuring around Tyson III is beautiful, and sometimes even breathtaking, and as such, it would have made more sense to focus on these high points instead of forcing players to drudge through puzzles or deal with sometimes finicky climbing mechanics. Even so, it’s incredibly appealing to visit the world of Robinson: The Journey within a VR headset. Barring that key aspect, it would be just another exploratory title with dinosaurs and adequate gameplay.

With period-authentic aesthetics and sharp writing, this point and click will keep you enthralled from beginning to end – and maybe teach you a thing or two about history along the way.

Amanda the Adventurer 2 is a fun adventure title that delivers solid puzzles, great performances and a nice mixture of dread and humor, but a few sloppy decisions and a lack of anything substantial in either the gameplay or story areas hold it back. Still, if you can get past those issues (and the first puzzle), there's a nice, quick romp through an eerie library here that's worth checking out. If nothing else, at least the true ending will leave fans properly hooked for more games to come...

Redeemer is at its best when being a brawler, which it does most of the time. Guns are nice to take out the small fry and leave room to concentrate on the bigger threats, and the occasional trapped room is best bulled through and forgotten, but when you’ve got a room full of enemies of different abilities and are darting about, looking for environment kills or things to throw while performing counters and working on chaining attacks together the combat flows incredibly well. Heading into a room, assessing threats, coming up with a plan, and adjusting it on the fly to pound cyborgs and mutants into the floor feels great, especially when you fall into the fight’s rhythm and come out with barely a scratch. At the end the difficulty increases by enemies that take a few too many hits to go down, frequently joined by armored sniper that require you to keep moving rather work on offense, but by then you’re almost done and can push on through to the final encounter. Ignore the story and show up for the fighting and Redeemer provides a nice, long quest with plenty of unique areas to wreak bloody violence through.

Root Letter is a strange visual novel, but one that keeps players interested throughout. If you feel you’ve received a rather lackluster ending then that’s cause to play through four more times to uncover the final truth. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t make expedite subsequent playthroughs. Still, there is a lot to like about a visual novel focused on the lives of thirty somethings rather than samey love-struck teenagers.

Turok is a great example of a type of game the FPS genre moved away from, and is actually better to play now than it was in its original version.

It falls just short of its goal of being a Bomberman killer, but just short of Bomberman is still a pretty good place to be, and Dollar Dash is definitely worth looking into.

It’s still an enjoyable action platformer, and while there are some unique elements to help make the game memorable, it still falls short of some of the great titles that inspired it.

Although it should take most ten hours to complete, A Hand in the Darkness provides something unique in the visual novel space. Not only is it a rare English yaoi tale, it also presents itself in a more realistic way than, say, Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator.

In the end, though, it’s the gameplay and music that’s king here, and both together make for a very enjoyable experience. It’s not worth the for $60 price tag for non-Persona 3 fans, but is worth trying after a price drop.

It's not too often that a game comes out at a low price that makes you feel willing to pay more if they had just added certain things. This is the case for iRacing Arcade. Was this a game simply because there was extra room in their budget or was iRacing just testing the waters? If there is a sequel, they know what to add after this. The racing, the aesthetic, and the Career Mode are the draw in iRacing Arcade. At just $25, any racing fan needs to pick it up. Players will need a group of friends to lobby up, though, as there isn't matchmaking for online racing and not much else going on outside the Career Mode. This also does get grindy and repetitive. These cars could be made into toys, as the reflections really showcase the detail in these caricatures of automobiles. The racing is fun at the right difficulty level, and is completely worth the price of admission.

For an odd spin-off to an RPG series, Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight is very well executed. Its song library is more than a little sparse considering how many of the tracks are remixes, but each song offers its own challenge and is fun once one gets into its groove.

Dark Souls II: Crown of the Old Iron King is a solid expansion to an already captivating game, but there are some questionable choices that have been made.

The Quarry comes close to being Supermassive’s strongest successor to Until Dawn yet, but sadly stumbles when it comes to delivering a satisfying finale as the story fails to hit the high marks it sets up early on with its mystery. Still, for those looking for a satisfying horror game, graphic adventure or interactive movie to have a few thrills with, there’s more than enough here to deliver a satisfying experience, largely thanks to nicely-honed gameplay and a cast of likeable characters. Give it a whirl if interested, if only so you can play director even further once you finish it and try to find something new.

It’s a mediocre brawler, an interrupted open world adventure, and a decent visual novel, but ultimately the game lacks the confident quirkiness the initial idea clearly had in spades.

Dark Souls III: The Ringed City isn’t the swan song that we hoped it would be, but it’s still an enticing adventure for hardcore fans. The problem lies within city itself, which is a bit of a formulaic mess that fails to capture what made the series great. The first half of the DLC has an excellent setup that will leave players wanting more, especially with callbacks to Dark Souls II, but city portion is structurally boring. It’s still intertwining in on itself, but it feels like the developers had a checklist of all their favorite areas and design tropes that needed to be in this short experience, lessening their importance. No one area feels fleshed out enough to be memorable. Regardless, the bosses are a decent showpiece, especially if you can find the secret one, and the new enemies are a welcome addition. It may be only a few hours long, but The Ringed City still a worthy addition to the Dark Souls universe.

Excelling with its simulation aspect and deep career mode, MXGP 3 is a solid motocross title in a market that is virtually non-existent. Back in the days of the original PlayStation, both 989 Sports (Sony) and EA had flagship motocross titles, but those days have sadly passed. For a smaller developer like Milestone to accomplish what they have with the game speaks wonders, but there is much room for growth. With the game featuring the FIM license, maybe it would be more appropriate to lock up the AMA license to have the official stadium tracks and drivers for this side of the pond. For having all the licenses and sponsors, the audience needs to be broadened.