On paper it’s wrong in far too many ways to count, but in practice it’s actually pretty fun overall. The strong battle system manages to salvage Neptunia’s faults, and once you fall into the game’s tempo, the story is light and fluffy rather than the cliched obnoxiousness it could be.

The game is not without some salvageable bursts of satisfaction, of which there are plenty to just about counter its middling level design and uneventful narrative alike. It’s for that reason why Sifu is spared from any less graceful a status than that of being inconsistent, rather than wholly underwhelming.

At its best, there’s certainly moments of appreciation and respect for the artistic detail Narita Boy lavishes in, with its pixel art and generally-eery vision of cyberspace run amok with corrupted foes. At the very least, the game’s somewhat-warped screen display and drenching in ’80s culture tropes is anything but off-putting. The problem then lies with its simplicity of delivery and the game’s general lack of appeasing those looking for something more than surface-level attraction. A world that too often feels unnecessarily padded on a level design basis; a combat system though not terrible, feels a little too undecided on what it exactly wants to be. And beyond that, a story/narrative the game really could’ve gone without given how little relevance or even impact it holds on a player’s progression. Venturing through the Digital Kingdom does spark some moments of delight. But beyond its art-style and fond execution on aesthetic, Narita Boy‘s unenthusiastic lack of originality and care for its overarching design, winds up carving out a satisfactory yet tepid debut for Studio Koba.

As comical and outlandish it remains, WarioWare: Move It! and its admirable attempt to add legitimacy to the Switch’s motion controls result in an experience that’s both inconsistent and at times simply all too unclear to work out. When it works, the ideas posed and the involvement needed do manage to draw a smile at the absurdity one is voluntarily offering, let alone being presented on-screen. If nothing else, the egocentric, narcissistic idea of Wario plastering his face across many a Microgame visual is still as satisfyingly-dumb as it’s always been. But it’s a feature so obviously mutual to the series across the board and while this latest entry attempts to be both familiar to fans of the series’ prior Wii outing, while unique all the same, the failings of its motion control-reliant inputs at times land WarioWare: Move It! in an awkward spot of feeling neither wholly enjoyable nor a complete flop. There’s fun to be had in parts — Microgames at their best when they’re both mechanically and visually a source of smiles. But in any way a worthy successor to Smooth Moves or even the handheld Touched all those years ago, this is not.

Unfortunately, this version is inexplicably and inexcusably broken, prone to game-ruining bugs and frequent crashes. If all you have is a PS4, then I’m sad to say you should give Hand of Fate a pass.

Superliminal has a unique concept for a puzzle game and nice and trippy visuals to accompany it, but alas, that’s the majority of what it has going for it. The short length combined with the lack of difficulty and any interesting story means that the game will barely leave an impact on you, and there really isn’t any reason to revisit it. And it’s a shame, because it starts out impressive, but then the novelty wears off quickly. While it may still be an okay game overall, there are many other first-person puzzlers worth checking out instead which do a better job of thinking outside the box.

It might not live up to Platinum Games’ sky-high pedigree, and you might be compelled to call it their first misstep, but The Legend of Korra is a good starting point if you want to see what Platinum Games are all about.

Star Wars Battlefront II is the epitome of taking a step forward, shooting yourself in the foot and then falling backwards in pain. It goes to great lengths to rectify the mistakes of the previous game but ends up opening a new can of worms. We finally got a single player campaign, but the story is lackluster and Iden never gets a chance to shine. There’s more content and depth, but the game is severely hampered by the lack of a progression system. What really stands out about Star Wars Battlefront II is just how terrible its Loot Crate system is, because it permeates so much of the game. DICE has stripped away an actual progression system and hidden away its contents behind overpriced microtransactions. With Credits and Crafting Parts doled out at such a low rate, Star Wars Battlefront II puts players in no-win situations in the hopes of making a quick buck. The sad thing is, there’s a lot of fun that could be had in Star Wars Battlefront II. Galactic and Starfighter Assault are fun, the game runs well, and servers are holding up, but there’s nothing rewarding to keep coming back for more. It really is a shame DICE took Star Wars Battlefront II to the Dark Side.

Online is buggy, but amusingly so. It’s hard to recommend MotoGP 14 to anybody but fans of the series curious to see how it shapes up on newer hardware.

Velocity Ultra is a bog standard vertical scrolling space shooter that is saved from being entirely forgettable by some fairly interesting traversal abilities.

While We Cheer is certainly no Guitar Hero, it would be deemed enjoyable to many who appreciate similar games in the music genre.

Despite its issues I kept on plugging away at Crimson Keep, not just to review it, but because it feels like if I can just figure out how to work around its shortcomings there’s a great dungeon crawl waiting to be found. When the random drops come together to provide a balance of food, weapons and health, Crimson Keep is honestly fun, even with the stiff combat. Get a few levels and choose the right perks and you can build a nicely powerful character, tough enough to survive the excellent variety of monsters if only you can remember to use all the abilities as they become available.

Rogue Stormers can be easily saved with some tuning from the developer, and considering how hard the people at Black Forest work, it probably will come around. In the meantime, it is not fun storming this castle.

One of those titles that takes awhile to get going, something that many folks will not be able to tolerate.

At its core, Genital Jousting is a decent and competent multiplayer game, but once you get your initial chuckles out of the way when it comes to its premise, it becomes clear that what you see on display isn’t really going to rise above “decent” and “competent.”

The game isn’t the visual masterpiece one would expect from a AAA production, but it isn’t without its charm. It’s with Wrecking Zone that Sumo Digital stretches their wings thanks to the chaos of destructible environments, but the glaring lack of content and missing features makes it more of a curiosity rather than a fully fleshed out mode.

Alien Rage is essentially the generic marine alien shooter that we’ve all grown accustomed to over the years and really has no aspirations of being anything different.

G.I. Joe: Wrath of Cobra brings one of the most popular cartoons of the '80s to life in a retro-inspired beat 'em up. The limited story development and virtually nonexistent dialogue, however, lead to G.I. Joe: Wrath of Cobra falling short of its potential. What could have been a nostalgic return to real American heroes thwarting Cobra instead feels like just another brawler wearing G.I. Joe cosplay. It's a decent enough beat 'em up that fans of the genre and franchise could find enjoyable, but die-hard fans will likely be disappointed in how bare bones G.I. Joe: Wrath of Cobra ended up being.

At $29.99, the game could be a fun purchase for those primarily into multiplayer, but its current price-point and lack of significant Wii U GamePad functionality add up to a release worth skipping.

Deep in personality, but shallow in mechanics, Apotheon is a classic case of style over substance.

If you grew up racing RC cars, then you might want to give HTR+ a chance. Otherwise, existing games in the genre will probably scratch the itch for you.

Betrayer faces interesting dilemmas. It has an intriguing story built from a great mystery and good gameplay to back it up, but feels unnecessarily punishing.

The continued issues with online play (least on Nintendo’s platform) as well as Ghost Town’s wilful dismissing of a properly-adapted single-player alternative will only go to dwindle the potential audience once more. An audience whom might not see much significant change from what is still essentially an unaltered recipe from previous, but will still find immense joy in partaking in when part of a group. Which is a shame, given how well-realized Overcooked 2‘s core, emergent style of play truly is.

POed: Definitive Edition is an excellent version of a middling game, with only some of its problems due to it being early days for the FPS. It's hard not to feel affection for what it's trying to do, though, and you can see as you play how it fits into the evolution of its genre. It would have been nice if the game had figured out an identity, either leaning into the weirdness or going for straight sci-fi action, but it's almost thirty years too late to fix that now. POed's legacy was almost nonexistent, that of a kind of ok-ish game that landed right in the middle of the FPS genre figuring itself out, and from a gaming history perspective that's more than a good enough reason to check it out.

I wish I was able to play the original Rune II to see how bad it truly was and get a better sense of how much Rune II: Decapitation Edition improved it. At its core it’s a fun Viking hack and slash looter, like a third-person Borderlands set in the Viking age. It doesn’t achieve true greatness as it stands, with the technical issues not helping matters. But those aside, Rune II: Decapitation Edition is a fun, accessible game that’s better with friends, with potential to improve with future patching. The degree Studio 369 has improved the game isn’t something that can be personally ascertained, but it can faithfully be said that they did turn it into a game that’s not without its issues, but one where a good time can be found.

If its use of nostalgic video game styles had been more deliberate and integral and some of its puzzles more essential to telling the story, Between Me and the Night’s art and atmosphere could have carried the experience.

Sunset is refreshingly original in putting players in the role of a housekeeper, but with poor instructions and no real choices, it never meets its ambitions.

The solid controls and reasonably-exciting gameplay make it fun for a while, but the modes are far too similar with only surface-level changes beyond the overall length of the events to set them apart.