There are technical issues here and there, some that will cause frustration, but this still is a sensational port for both those who want to double dip and those who have yet to play the RPG. It may not be perfect, but Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition is the dose of Final Fantasy we all need.

Before the Storm is a must-play component of the series and the franchise is something that anyone who enjoys a strong narrative should try out.

Outside of the cheese factor, everything here is just dull. Loads of banal conversations, wooden acting and obvious advice abound for every one moment you can laugh over Richard deciding to grab a girl’s rear end in what can only be described as a video game in the loosest sense of the term. This might be a weird thing to hear from a critic, but just wait for the highlights to go up on YouTube instead. You’ll get the same chuckle-worthy stupidity and save some money in the process. It’s a game about being a pick-up artist that you should in no way consider picking up.

With the revamp of war, naval combat, technological additions and managing territory, Stellaris: Apocalypse might even be a more ambitious addition than last year’s Stellaris: Utopia. Stellaris only seems to journey towards a brighter future and Stellaris: Apocalypse paves the way for it to shine.

It is extremely difficult to recommend Creature Romances: Kokonoe Kokoro to anyone other than the niche of visual novel fans who devour all games with non-human romances. They’ll of course need to read this one too, but no one else needs to worry. There’s little to be missed by not experiencing a story told thousands of times before with better characterization and drama. Here’s hoping that the otome version actually provides a better storyline instead of relying purely on absurd character design as its selling point.

The Silver Case was a seminal example of an incredibly influential game creator’s early days while he is finding his creative footing. It still remains a flawed, but genius, masterwork.

Fear Effect Sedna is a flawed return for the late PS1-era classic, with its combat occasionally being a bit clunky and not utilizing the tactical elements as well as it wanted to. But the creepy descent into Inuit horror, stylish graphics, and challenging puzzles and gameplay may still provide you with enough reasons to take a peek at it.

Zero North Zero West is an incredible journey through unexplored worlds, packed with amazing sights rendered in a riot of color and effects, and a perfect vacation when your mind needs a getaway somewhere new.

Gravel offers fun racing with a variety of cars and environments. The Off-road Masters mode that includes the Gravel Channel storyline is a unique way to include a story that features boss battles with the one-one-one challenges. Otherwise the modes in Gravel are lacking and the visuals are severely hurting. There’s better car models in some mobile games, but at least the selection is enough to get past this and the game looks good in motion with the colors and the lighting. Unfortunately, while advertised as PS4 Pro Enhanced, HDR isn’t included even though Milestone’s latest Supercross game included HDR. What makes the negatives more forgiving is that Gravel retails for $49.99, rather than a full-priced game. It has its moments and its variety, but it can’t be compared to something like the DiRT series.

Moss is an exceptionally thoughtful, beautiful and unique experience. It’s deceptively simple, but surprisingly deep in unexpected ways. While $29.99 USD is a steep asking price for an experience that feels unfinished, if you have a PlayStation VR and are dying to try out something fresh, you’d be remiss not to give Moss a go. It’s a game that wouldn’t feel right without VR, yet doesn’t rely on the technology as a lazy gimmick in lieu of proper game design. We haven’t seen the last of our little pal Quill and something tells us that her next adventure will take virtual reality to new heights.

Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet is flawed, but succeeds at providing a thrilling MMO-esque experience offline. Newcomers to the SAO franchise can jump in with this and enjoy themselves — especially if they just want a great third-person shooting experience. Be sure that you have time to devote to it, however, because it will consume a lot of it.

For those willing to take the chance, what awaits is a fantastic, mesmerizing trip across America and its parables and oddities throughout the ages, with a journey that’s easy to get lost in full of amazing writing, splendid characters and superb performances all around.

Phantom 8 Studio shouldn’t be discouraged from future attempts at delivering a cinematic experience of a game on par with triple-A output, because they still have some neat ideas and directions to take. But there’s no getting around the fact that Past Cure is a massive flop right out of the gate. Bland combat, bland environments, bland performances, a plot that doesn’t go anywhere and an attempt to master multiple genres ends up creating a juggling act that drops all of the balls. Sadly, it appears the only medicine appropriate for this game is a full dose of strychnine.

Sadly, its invasive microtransaction structure and otherwise lack of engagement as a Metal Gear/stealth entrant is what will likely stand as its greatest downfall — inevitably cancelling out all the goodwill the game creates in its shorter spells. Metal Gear Survive as a whole isn’t the utter abomination many had suspected it would be, but it doesn’t push itself beyond the still-waning status of being tepidly average.

The first Bayonetta is slowly showing its age, but its more robust sequel remains at the top of its game. It contains some of the best combat mechanics that are perfectly integrated in the most over-the-top, outlandish scenarios. It’s stylish, frantic and oddly addicting. Unfortunately, the story may as well be non-existent and the voice acting from characters such as the newly-introduced Loki will make you want to skip cutscenes. It doesn’t help when you hear the brat calling Bayonetta Love every second sentence and cussing every scene. Regardless, it’s all about the craziness that PlatinumGames usually brings to their games and they’ve hit it out of the park with Bayonetta 2. They refined the formula with the sequel, creating a top-tier action game that shouldn’t be overlooked. It may not be perfect, but this is a solid remaster that more players need to experience, and considering you get two games for the price of one, this ends up being an incredibly appealing package.

There are far better ways to spend even the shorter spells of time on a complete package. The Station, sadly, is light-years away from being one of them.

One of the best things that can be said about Red Embrace is that players will wish it were even longer. Each of the main men is loveable in their own way and makes you want to keep spending time with them. This skilled writing ensures that most players end up replaying multiple times just to get as much from it as possible. Some fans might be initially let down by the single PG-13 release, but hopefully not for long once they begin playing. It’s a little difficult to 100% complete Red Embrace, but it’s certainly worth doing.

Secret of Mana is a strange title. On one hand it has so many missteps in its redesign that it’s easy to quickly dismiss it, but it remains a rewarding gaming experience upon playing. A lot of changes take away from the original’s charm while several aspects that could have benefited from an update were left alone. Honestly what would have been ideal is if it was left in the original state and given a 2D sprite makeover in the style of Final Fantasy IV for the PSP and maybe added some minor updates like shops containing item descriptions, but even with the complaints that can be made about this remake, it’s still Secret of Mana. Almost every JRPG fan will enjoy this remake, though a better Secret of Mana experience can be found on Super Nintendo.

Flawed as it is, it’s the bizarre juxtapose of adventuring, platforming, puzzle-solving and even stealth that Zoink somehow manage to find middle-ground for. That, at least, deserves some credit.

Despite a few flaws and annoyances, it needs to be repeated: DropMix is just plain fun. It’s a damn good rhythm game with some amazing music that encourages creativity and has you achieve this goal in a particularly clever way. Heck, it says a lot that even after going through all of the included cards and still having a ton of fun, I was more than willing to pick up a few more packs with money from my own pocket. But regardless of what cards you decide to go with or how you decide to play, it’s an excellent rhythm game guaranteed to keep you hooked for a long time. Now to just hope for more choice cards in the future…

Milestone has a solid footing with Monster Energy Supercross – The Official Videogame. If the team offers continual support that carries over to new titles, this series has the potential to be something special. While it has a few bugs and nagging issues that need to be ironed out, none of them are game-breaking. Capturing the feel of the pre-race and post-race festivities is an aspect that other racing games are behind on. The visuals, especially the lighting, stand out but the immersion gets brought back to earth due to some inconsistent physics from a graphics engine that’s normally geared for shooters and adventure games along with some other graphical hiccups. Most important is the fact that Milestone has brought back an officially-licensed AMA Supercross game for the world to play.

While it may leave you wanting more in certain areas, Crossing Souls is still an excellent action game with a terrific, gripping story you’ll want to see to the very end. This little chunk of the 1980s is filled with terrific, nicely-detailed visuals, fun character-switching gameplay, and a unique vision of the afterlife with several impressive touches.

It’s fun yet flawed, and while it would be recommended to fans of this style, the recommendation comes with caveats. It doesn’t quite excel at being a traditional Dynasty Warriors game or taking the formula to a new open world format, but does a good enough job at both where it’s enjoyable but not exceptional.

Had the initial forty-to-fifty hour campaign not delivered the level of bugs and problems present in the current build, you'd easily be looking at potentially one of the year's best all-round experiences in an RPG and an essential for everyone no matter your affiliation with the genre. As it stands, visually, technically and mechanically sound as its foundation is, Kingdom Come: Deliverance's performance is an unruly and occasionally unpredictable beast.

While it’s a bit creaky around the edges at times, Sairento VR‘s ninja action is truly fantastic when it gets moving. Hopping from wall to wall while picking off headshots then diving to earth in a slide that ends in decapitation feels amazing, as does holding the high ground and raining arrows down for stealth kills. You can pull out the guns and go in blazing or pick your way carefully and be sneaky, although once one enemy has seen you, all enemies always know where you are so you need to be ready if things go wrong. There’s a huge amount of depth in its gameplay and every moment can be dealt with in whatever way makes you happiest. Dive in with the sword, dual-wield pistols, break out the sniper rifle, toss kunai around or machine-gun everything that moves. If you can combine speed, grace and firepower, there’s not an enemy out there that can stand against your ninja might.

Kirby Battle Royale is by no means a bad game overall, but it just has so little content that it barely warrants a lengthy play session, let alone a purchase. The mini-games themselves are fun and well-designed, but the overall package doesn’t do any of them justice. If you need a dose of classic Kirby action, you’d be better off waiting for the upcoming Switch game, because this is one party that you can safely skip going to.

Space Invaders had slipped off the gaming radar when Extreme revived the series and a decade later it’s still a great shooter that deserves to be pulled from the resting grounds of old hardware onto something more accessible. On the surface it’s a flashy crowd-pleaser, but underneath there’s a good amount of room for skilled play to pay off in high scores. Whether you choose to play for the light show or a spot on the leaderboard is personal choice, but neither option is a bad one and both offer plenty of high-energy shooting action. It’s great to have Space Invaders Extreme back, dancing away on a modern platform, and maybe if it does OK for itself we could get Infinity Gene as well. There’s always hope.

Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late[st] brings new additions to the table, but doesn’t offer massive improvements over the games that came before it. It’s very much a reminder of a bygone era where an incremental upgrade led to a “new” entry in a series, but this does at least include quality of life improvements thanks to the overhauled storyline presentation. Anyone who has a prior version of the game will know what they’re getting into here, while newcomers should have a blast if they enjoy a faster-paced Guilty Gear-style affair.