The visual novel portions are good and offer a change in pace, but feature limited animation and come off as low-rent as a result. That holds true for the similar texture work in a lot of environments, which doesn’t do justice to the impressive character models used and the solid animation across the board. For fans of either franchise, there’s a good amount of content here to enjoy, but this isn’t the kind of game that is likely to make new fans of either series on its own.

While it would have been nice to see Centipeded: Recharged‘s leaderboard and score-reporting issues addressed in Black Widow: Recharged, the twin-stick shooting action provides a great quick-hit arcade rush. Each game lasts for a couple of minutes at most, even the best high-score run, and restarting is just about instant. The free-form arcade mode is complemented nicely by the more-structured challenge modes, and it’s easy to spend a couple more minutes playing than planned by hopping back and forth between them. Reviving Black Widow is a deep cut into Atari’s history, but it’s great to see it given a worthy sequel almost forty years since the original release.

As should probably be expected of what’s basically a port of the Wii U version, this iteration of Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water offers a decidedly average horror experience. The story of Mt. Hikami and those tied to it is rather intriguing, and it is able to create a heavy, disquieting and even chilling atmosphere at times.

Age of Empires IV makes up for the misstep of the third game while providing fans of the first two with everything they could have hoped for in a 2021 version. Hours will go by and you won’t even know it, which is the way RTS titles should be.

It turns out that Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy shouldn’t have been written off. Eidos Montreal delivers a strong story filled with comedy and tragedy, great characters and a world that feels entirely unlike the Marvel Cinematic Universe. They’ve compiled a lengthy adventure that’ll take players to new and familiar locations and built out a great gameplay system that utilizes all the Guardians’ best attributes.

If you do any type of eSports racing or are a long time fan of racing in general, Circuit Superstars is worth a look. If you enjoyed the classic games of racing’s past such as RC Pro Am and the like, then this will be right up your alley. While the Grand Prix is fine for single player, it’s going to take devoted effort to learn the game and the tracks. It lacks the hook and appeal of Mario Kart, which makes Circuit Superstars less inviting to spend hours on learning everything. This is a fun racing game to play with friends with the same light-hearted approach the developers had when creating the game. For $19.99, this is a great good option to have in your arsenal when friends come over.

Tandem: A Tale of Shadows may be guilty of taking from any and every corner of the genre in constructing its challenges. But while it may zip from one set-up to the next — less-than-concerned with the through-line that ties it all together — the perspective-shifting, requiring of balancing overhead and side-scrolling puzzle-solving alike, just about delivers on the promise its set-up initially paints. Not just on the basis of a satisfying series of environments to conquer, but an admittedly-brief fascination on how everything ends up unravelling, let alone solved. It’s not everyday you stop to marvel for a second at the way two perspectives can play out at once, but that very trait is what Tandem: A Tale of Shadows shines on and in the end utilizes sufficiently well.

The Dark Pictures Anthology still needs to iron out a few things before it can produce a truly classic entry, but thanks to a strong and fun story with a lot of twists, welcome difficulty options and stronger choice-based gameplay, House of Ashes shows the series is still striving to make notable improvements when it comes to crafting scary and entertaining tales.

Echo Generation is visually striking, with a lot of intriguing concepts and solid combat and gameplay at its core. Unfortunately, a lack of focus with the narrative holds it back from being a truly impressive RPG. The boss battles alone might be worth the price of admission, and there’s still other bits to enjoy, but those looking for more meat would best be off searching for another tale of adventurous kids from decades past.

NHL 22 on current-generation consoles is the best NHL experience that has released in some time. It also provides the biggest change from last gen to current gen consoles of any EA Sports game yet. It still has its issues at its core with how the AI plays and there are bugs that crop up often, but the overall experience feels fresh and the game looks much improved. The lighting and reflections provide the biggest boost while Frostbite brings more realism to player faces and jerseys. I feel more could have been included with Frostbite on the physics side, but this will come in the future. While the modes remain the same, the updates to each are sufficient and the addition of Superstar X-Factors allows for a game-changing experience. Online, if not getting disconnected, generally works as it needs to. NHL 22 offers the right feel for a new console that a lot of sports games haven’t provided in the last two generations.

While the start of Into the Pit is unquestionably rocky, the follow-through is a blast, with fast action and serious pyrokinetics as monsters turn into blood splats decorating the walls. While the overall theme could have been dark and gloomy, everything lights up and the darkness becomes the backdrop for the neon-magical lightshow to illuminate. The variety of enemies and level types helps each run stay engaging, and while fifteen sets of levels plus the final area can feel like a bit much, there’s no need to try to blow through it all in a couple of days. Into the Pit is about action, after all, with only just enough story to get things moving. There’s a village in trouble and a ton of monsters to destroy by way of magical annihilation, and if it takes a bit to rescue everyone they’ll be fine waiting for a combat mage to do a run or two a day until the evil is finally dispelled.

Squint hard enough and you may latch onto some modicum of intrigue with the mechanics it offers and the objectives it poses. But for anyone inexperienced with Swery’s past work — let alone those who simply don’t take well to ample busywork — The Good Life is unfortunately equal parts unappealing and unsure on just what kind of game it wants to be.

Inscryption manages to combine an expertly-crafted card game, a nail-biting tale of horror and enjoyable escape room adventures into another genre-defying gem and easily one of the year’s best games. Whether you come for the gameplay and strategy, the story and atmosphere, or both, you’ll walk away awestruck at the sheer, brilliant madness you just experienced. Daniel Mullins does it again, and once again, we urge readers not to read the reviews or other coverage as much as possible and just go in blind, experiencing this twisted odyssey for yourself. You’ll be glad you did.

Overall, Crysis Remastered Trilogy is a great set of remasters and those who skipped these games initially should strap on their nanosuits and give the franchise a shot.

Although the visuals may not be much to look at, the combat and story are the soul of Caligula Effect 2 that holds it all together. The music and characters are far more enjoyable than the first title, with a combat system that feels more fine-tuned and makes it flow at a better speed than the first entry. It’s harder to recommend for those who haven’t played the first as they will miss out on important references to the first, but it may be worth popping open a synopsis of the first or playing through it to get to this sequel which improves upon basically every aspect. There’s so much to love here, but the experience would be improved with amped-up visuals and more English support for some of the smaller dialogue. The Caligula Effect 2 is a unique story that touches on sensitive subjects with a lot of respect wrapped up in a wonderfully-enjoyable RPG that’s the perfect length without overstaying its welcome.

Back 4 Blood delivers the joy of zombie slaying in small bursts, but can become a slog the more prolonged the play session. This is blood you’ll want to return for because it’s fun to slay zombies with friends, just don’t stay too long.

Metroid Prime 4 may still be years away, but make no mistake that MercurySteam and Nintendo’s latest incarnation of Metroid has made the strain of such a wait not just more bearable, but potentially no longer existent. Sure to please longtime fans and general Switch owners/newcomers alike, Metroid Dread more than delivers on a climax two decades in the making.

The world is fun to explore, filled with a batch of great side activities, and never once compromises the story’s pacing. The gameplay is smooth and responsive, though the AI needs fine-tuning to be more consistent. It’s all wrapped up in a beautiful presentation that truly transports players to paradise, at least when nothing terrible is happening. That’s not to say the game doesn’t have its quirks and questionable decisions, and many of its core gameplay loops contradict themselves when a setpiece moment shows up, but there’s still a lot of good to be found here. Yara may be an awful place to live, but playing Far Cry 6 is well worth the trip to the rotten paradise.

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.

When playing the original version of Death Stranding, I would have described it as lethargic with some horror elements when dealing the monsters. With Death Stranding Director’s Cut, this opinion was reevaluated. It’s a game about many things. It’s about society and the role each person plays in it. It’s about overcoming depression. It’s about confusing and/or boring friends when they watch me play it. This is a chill game punctuated with tense moments, with a pacing that I didn’t appreciate until this edition. As an unexpectedly-improved release, Death Stranding: Director’s Cut is well worth the time for the curious or the existing fans, proving that Kojima still knows how to surprise.

Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom Prince’s Edition brings a great game with all its DLC content to Switch. Like every Switch port there are concessions to be made with this version. The graphic quality does take a noticeable hit, and while the DLC content isn’t incredible, it does help make up for the technical concessions. Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom is a great RPG and should be played be all fans of the genre. The main selling point for Prince’s Edition is the portability factor. But while the visuals and performance is better on other platforms, Ni No Kuni II performs well enough on the Switch where it’s a viable platform to experience this game.

Anyone looking for a new otome game to play will find enjoyment in picking up Olympia Soiree. Even newcomers to the otome genre might want to try it out as this game quickly hooks players with Olympia’s plight and relatable mood. This is an excellent release that gives Switch gamers an ever-increasing bounty of visual novels to choose from. Jump into the colorful world of Olympia Soiree and you’ll be brought on a journey with highs, lows and both surprising and satisfying conclusions.

Out of all the games Aria of Sorrow has aged the best and is the star of this collection. Circle of the Moon and Harmony of Dissonance don’t shine as bright, but are still great titles. Dracula X is worth playing, but it can be described as good but not great and seems like it would be more at home in the Anniversary Collection. Overall, Castlevania Advance Collection is a dream collection for Castlevania fans.

For all the team’s expertise on the weird, the fact that this visual identity is far from the intended appeal should give you an idea at just how well the mechanics and overall reaction to such interlocking systems plays out. Most of which left to the player’s own imagination with how best to utilize said tools and similarly-spoken scenarios. But not for a second do ACE Team view an otherwise absence of comprehension as an automatic fail-state. Yet at the same time, managing to burrow enough of a temptation that failure in that regard will almost always be by the player’s own curious, sometimes greedy, hand. That level of confidence but more so lenience in its concept — an understanding on when and how survival mechanics can be implemented without feeling tedious or invasive — in the end is what makes The Eternal Cylinder as fascinating an adventure to decipher as it is to watch unfold with bated breath.

In a nutshell, it does a great job of improving and respecting many elements of the source material, but adds too much filler content. Actraiser Renaissance is far from perfect, but it’s a must play for fans of the SNES original.

Anyone who has played these Monkey Ball titles before will be satisfied with this new available version. Those who have never touched the series before and are looking for a challenging physics-based platforming adventure should try out Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania.

The lore of Diablo is as interesting as it ever was even if the storytelling isn’t nearly as fleshed out as one would see in modern games. Giving a facelift to a twenty-year-old game without updating the gameplay is a gamble, but thankfully that is exactly what we got with Diablo II: Resurrected which is how the original fans would want it.

While the leaderboards are wonky the rest of Centipede: Recharged feels just about exactly like you’d want the original game to be when dragged into the current year. It updates the gameplay flow to be more forgiving than its predecessor but still provides quick, punchy rounds where every second counts. The Challenge section adds a more focused set of objectives than the free-form arcade mode, and it’s a lot of fun to bounce between the two to blast bugs with wild abandon and then switch over to focus on a specific goal. While the gameplay itself isn’t particularly deep, it’s not supposed to be, and instead provides straightforward shooting action best enjoyed in small, but highly-satisfying doses. It’s been forty years since Centipede crawled into arcades, and it’s great to see a new version that’s so faithful to the long-gone shooter classic.