With its stock-reliant appearance and seemingly uncombed delivery, Hyposphere feels like a game hurriedly rushed out for presentation sake, with little else put into refining the experience underpinning it.

Sure, there’s a few oddities here and there, but overall Gahkthun of the Golden Lightning has rocketed up the list of must play visual novels on Steam.

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth deserves every member of its rabid fanbase. The game is is filled with so much to find and explore; there are innumerable secrets to discover and things to figure out. Afterbirth adds more of that and anyone who enjoys the original would be well served to download this pustule-covered add on.

As intriguing as the world building is, it does not feel fully fleshed out yet.

Although Conclave does require an unusual amount of hard work on the player’s part, as well as the patience of a saint, the expansion is still mostly worthwhile (many of the bad changes were in the free patch, so there’s no way to avoid them without reverting to a previous version).

Europa Universalis IV’s online multiplayer used to have significant problems to the point where it was basically non-functional. With the debut of Mare Nostrum, multiplayer seems to be working very well now and despite the occasional disconnect which requires one to restart the entire game, it’s now more enjoyable than the single player experience.

The leap in quality in the sequel compared to the first entry is comparable to the transition that Final Fantasy made when it graduated to the SNES. With this in mind, hopefully Black Tome is not the final book in the world of Dragon Fantasy.

It may have taken its sweet time to finally arrive in English, but now that it’s here, you absolutely owe it to yourself to play The House of Fata Morgana.

Sometimes sappy and sweet - and at other times terrifying - OZMAFIA!! is one experience that otome fans aren’t likely to forget anytime soon.

Outlands doesn’t change anything up in a meaningful way, doesn’t find a way to mix its two distinct styles of gameplay into something altogether more fun and doesn’t even fix the original game’s unfortunate frame rate issues. In every sense of it, Outlands is just “more TRON RUN/r.” That’s too bad, but it’s also not the worst thing to be.

Unlike some cringe-worthy games, the characters feel developed and not as if they’re simply jumping into relationships willy nilly. The storyline is sweet, sometimes saddening, and makes AlienWorks a developer to keep an eye on in the future.

While some of its aspects when it comes to controlling things could use a bit more polish, the simple-yet-challenging gameplay can easily captivate you, finding yourself in for a meaty round of quick matches.

If you feel that you’ve already braved the darkest, scariest secrets of Hinamizawa then you will be surprised by the latest chapter.

My Little Kitties is a two to four hour visual novel which might appeal to people looking for a brief view into the life of a high-school aged father, but it is somehow not nearly as cute as the name implies.

If you’ve got a few hours to kill and are looking for a cute, simple story, then KARAKARA will likely fill the void.

If there was some innovation or more effort was made to carve out a unique identity, this could have been a great retro title. Instead we have something rather forgettable and only recommended to the most hardcore retro game fans.

A title marred by technical and visual anomalies, perhaps its run-time could be considered an ironic hindsight.

There are plenty of games that are built around ridiculous ideas, but they have enough content built into them that make them enjoyable for more than five seconds.

New Retro Arcade: Neon had everything going for it, including a tremendous amount of goodwill thanks to the original proof of concept on Oculus Rift. While this paid version adds new features and more reasons to play, there’s still a feeling that something is missing.

With a bit more content, Blade Ballet could have the potential to be another multiplayer classic, which is why hopefully we’ll see more additions to it in the future. As is, though, it’s still really fun, especially when combined with a few good friends.

Mountain Goat Mountain is a simple and accessible game that’s easy to drop into for a quick hit of gaming, and a wonderfully replayable combination of cute, fun and challenging.

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

The biggest let down is that the game engine leads to a great deal of frustration when playing. If not for that total annoyance, this release would be the ideal way to experience Umineko When They Cry.

Granted, it’s easy to see this unique take on the first-person experience fall by the wayside, especially when you consider its initial technical follies and weak player onboarding, but flaws aside, Valley has the potential to serve as an introduction to the first-person adventure genre for players who are used to more combat-heavy experiences.

Cat President ~A More Purrfect Union~ gives us all a chance to step back from potential fears of the actual impending election and have a laugh at the whole process.

It’s outrageous that a slice of life game that actually makes an effort to create a great backstory and memorable characters still ends up with a beginning that drags. Luckily, both audio and visuals are outstanding, showing that a lot of care went into creating this visual novel.

Pan-Pan may provide a short journey in the end, but it’s definitely worth setting out on. If the absolutely stunning graphics and art style don’t draw you in, then hopefully the intriguing world and enjoyable puzzles will.

While the gameplay found in Featherpunk Prime does offer some momentary enjoyment on each of its self-contained floors, the frustrations lie with how reliant the game feels on the same design structure aspects and same layout in each of its floors; the repetitiveness eventually begins to grate.