Harmonix has delivered a reboot that perfectly captures the spirit and rock solid mechanics of the original, which is something that should be commended.

Although it doesn’t look like much, Conquest of Elysium 4 packs a ton of depth beneath its pixelated surface.

For a game that has such an incredibly interesting premise, 1000 Heads Among the Trees is utterly woeful in execution.

With so many interlocking systems, Thea: The Awakening is a bit of a Frankenstein of a game, but kudos to MuHa for bolting together everything so seamlessly and for trying something new, though it might be time for developers to put card game subsystems on ice for a few years.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel is hands down the best JRPG this year — and that’s saying a lot considering how many great ones have come out in the past twelve months. But what it has that most of those others don’t is heart.

The combat can feel a little repetitive in long play sessions because it essentially is, but overall SteamWorld Heist is an excellent merger of role playing and turn-based combat.

Overall, Rubble Without A Cause is a disappointment. The first chapter was great, but the tonal shift and structure found here just doesn’t hit the right notes.

Summon Night 5 is an SRPG that needs to be played by anyone who likes the genre. It’s a love letter to fans of a somewhat bygone era of Japanese roleplaying games and manages to deliver on nearly all fronts, be it story, characterization, gameplay or presentation.

Clannad is a visual novel that everyone should complete at least once in their lives. The hard part will be securing enough time to persist through every route in the proper way to see the true ending.

The Bit.Trip is a must for anyone who owned any of the original games on the Wii, or heard of them and just wants to try them out. Their designs are simplistic in theory, but a riot to play.

It’s hard to recommend FIVE: Guardians of David to anyone. Fans of action RPGs have literally dozens of better games to choose from. Even gamers who would like to play an RPG without being assaulted by bloodshed have some excellent choices, such as the Torchlight games.

Jack the Ripper is a substantial and enjoyable additional chapter to the main game, only marred by the developer’s insistence on trying to make real history fit into a fiction.

Overall, Radiohammer doesn’t stack up to the other strong offerings in the rhythm game genre on the 3DS, such as Project Mirai DX or Theatrhythm: Curtain Call, but those games also aren’t $5.99 like this one.

The game is not without some technical issues, with crash bugs and UI glitches needing to be addressed, but for anyone still invested in The Sims — or curious to see how the game has evolved since 2014 — this expansion is worth picking up.

It may be one step forward and two steps back in the overall Final Fantasy XIII series, but it is still an attractive package.

The simple battles with their special moves are entertaining in short bursts and having sole ownership of a piece of property to defend lends a real sense of empowerment. In the end, though, the desire to see how a base has held up under attack is outgunned by the lack of desire to actually sign in and check the darn thing.

Originally conceived for touch screens, the game still plays better with finger swipes than mouse control.

Platformer and puzzle game fans who pick this up will have a good time, but everybody else can pass on Color Symphony 2.

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.

The Mean Greens has a strong core concept, but wrapped around it is a game that feels a few major patches short of its potential. Levels are clever and gameplay modes are varied, but the shooting is imprecise and lackluster and without specializations or level incentives, there isn’t much reason to keep playing.

Its color-coded racing improves upon the F-Zero formula, and even if the mutiplayer fails to meet its potential, FAST Racing NEO is challenging and riveting enough to keep players busy for a long while, whether driving solo or with friends.

It may not be the RPG we had sought at the beginning, but it’s one that marries together most (though not all) of what makes this Mario spin-off so immediately engrossing.

It looks good and sounds creepy and unsettling and though Renegade Kid has tweaked the gameplay and systems to make it friendlier, Dementium Remastered is still a victim of some awkward controls, borderline bland level design and an overall feeling of repetition.

It may have taken a number of years to get here, but Yakuza 5 was worth the wait. It’s not only the most robust and well-executed game in the series, it’s also one of the best games of last generation.

Since the heyday of Rollercoaster Tycoon and Theme Hospital, it’s not often that lite-management sims get a chance to strut their stuff. This was not originally meant to be that game, but it could have been with a change of the business model. Instead this is a title that is balanced for tedium.

Fat Princess was subversive, politically incorrect and unexpectedly complex in its strategy and depth. Fat Princess Adventures trades a little of that depth for a more straightforward, action RPG-focused design.

The action is huge, the enemies gigantic and the firepower overwhelming. Earth Defense Force 4.1 is finally the game the series has always tried to be.

This Vita version of an older title has managed to up the game, surpassing the goofy, B-movie fun found in 2017.