If you miss games meant to be played on the go rather than simply able to be played that way, Monster Hunter Stories is worth checking out. That won’t be the case for most players on PS4, though, unless you happen to engage in regular remote play or own a PlayStation Portal. It becomes a bit harder to recommend as an option to be played at home when its simple design and lacking story struggle to stand out next to the wide variety of great RPGs on the platform. Interesting combat certainly helps, and if you’re a big fan of Monster Hunter, seeing its world in a whole new style will certainly offer some appeal, but Monster Hunter Stories will be hard to truly fall in love with unless you’re playing it the way it was designed to be played.

Much as I was hoping Ninja 1987 would be some glittering holiday bauble, it turned out to be a very generic platformer. While it absolutely boasted great aesthetics and seemed inspired by classic NES games, the adventure itself is short and imprecise. Still, if you’re looking for something fun and easy this holiday season, it won’t set you back very much.

For a game that’s supposedly Rune Factory-adjacent, I’ve got to say that I feel a little let down here. Between its engaging premise, large cast of playable characters, and emphasis on crafting, Silent Hope offers a lot to players but never really goes anywhere interesting with it. As a fan of both Marvelous and Rune Factory, I know that this developer is capable of creating games with plenty of depth. Ironically, however, the game about literally exploring a near-endless abyss isn’t one of them. The game does have its charms, to be sure, but the sheer amount of potentially cool things that it could have done (and didn’t do) left me feeling more frustrated than anything.

If you’re a fan of Made in Abyss, then Made in Abyss: Binary Star Falling into Darkness will certainly interest you; however, those unfamiliar with the story should wait for an update or two before taking the plunge. The premise is amazing, the story is intriguing, and the dark emotional depths it delves into genuinely shocked me on multiple occasions, but the going is slow, and the execution is clunky. There’s a fantastic survival game here unlike any other that presents well on the surface, but dive deeper, and you’ll find a whole slew of balancing issues that desperately need sorting.

Deliver Us The Moon makes its final console appearance on the Nintendo Switch, after being available for PC and all other consoles for the past four years. The game continues to deliver a thrilling sci-fi experience whilst picking your brain with challenging puzzles. However, the Switch’s hardware constraints mean that said experience is significantly diminished with low texture resolution, low frame rates, and long load times.

There are some truly fun moments in Gotham Knights. Playing with a friend highlights the very best of what the developers set out to do, and I enjoyed both the story and getting to see Gotham’s protectors outside of Batman grab the spotlight. If the developers had built Gotham Knights around its strengths, it could have been an easy recommendation. As is, you spend so much time in its bland open world that only those who plan to explore it with friends should seriously consider it.

Puss! certainly has some things going for it. From its surreal aesthetics to its haunting sound design that evokes the feeling of tuning into a radio station in some strange, far-off land, the game’s presentation is top-tier stuff. And while occasionally a bit unfair with all of the chaos unfolding all at once, the boss battles are always memorable. Still, it’s hard to recommend the game to all but the most patient players at the end of the day. If you’ve got ice water pumping through your veins or are looking for a fun way to torture your friends during your next drunken gaming gathering, Puss! might be worth adding to your Switch library. However, if you don’t find yourself in either of those camps, then this probably isn’t going to be the game for you.

Gori: Cuddly Carnage is a game that knows exactly what it is and doesn’t try to be anything else. It’s a chaotic, visually impressive romp filled with over-the-top violence and juvenile humor. If you’re looking for a mindless action game with a killer cat protagonist, it might just scratch that itch. However, if you’re expecting a deep story, engaging characters, or innovative gameplay, you’ll likely be disappointed. It’s a game that insists upon itself, doubling down on its particular brand of humor and spectacle whether you like it or not. For some, that might be enough, but for me, Gori: Cuddly Carnage was the kind of fun I forgot about as soon as I put the controller down.

River City Girls 2 does a lot right. With fantastic presentation, an incredibly exciting soundtrack, and tons of creativity and variety, all of the elements are here for a classic beat ‘em up. Poor performance, though, really brings the experience down, being an almost constant thorn in your side. It’s by no means unplayable, and I still had a fair amount of fun along the way, but this feels like a game that wasn’t ready to release yet. Hopefully, after a few patches, we’ll be talking about it being the great game it could be, but for now, know what you’re getting yourself into.

If you were already a fan of the original release, you won’t be disappointed with the boatload of content Treachery In Beatdown City: Ultra Remix offers. From the updated arsenal of moves it puts at your fingertips, added areas to explore, and even more tongue-in-cheek storytelling that plays on current events and 90s video game nostalgia in equal measure, there’s a lot to like here. But fresh content and some witty writing can only carry a game so far. And while I love many of the ideas behind Treachery In Beatdown City, this update doesn’t do quite enough to keep its pixelated brand of pugilism from growing stale far too soon.

Ruin Raiders is an attractive adventure featuring adorable animal characters. With surprisingly challenging gameplay and satisfying boss fights, every dungeon you descend into provides a unique challenge. The biggest qualms are that the game can occasionally devolve into a grind-fest and there's a lack of coherent story. However, if you like the sound of a good turn-based strategy title in the spirit of X-Com combined with dungeon-crawling and combat featuring interesting animalistic abilities, you’ll probably enjoy Ruin Raiders.

The prolonged gestation period of Dead Island 2 has finally ended with a familiar sequel, eschewing the unpredictable and uncomfortable pastures of Banoi for a monstrous version of Los Angeles. Dead Island 2 will be a pleasing romp for fans of the original with its cavalcade of chaos-causing weaponry, its adrenaline-packed wars with the undead, and its cool new modifications and traps to keep the zombie slaying fresh. Before long, though, it becomes apparent how Dead Island 2 suffers from some frustrating design problems, like trapping you inside an area until you’ve cleared all undead, as well as coercing you to perform one of a small handful of utterly tedious tasks like tracking down keys to open doors and transformers to open/close gates.

Most of Rune Factory 5 is fine. There are minor issues with everything from the story to the graphics to the gameplay, but only a few of these issues will negatively impact the experience in a meaningful way. The bigger problem is simply that so little about Rune Factory 5 stands out. So many of the minor issues present here could have been overlooked if the core experience was exceptional and really moved the series forward, but instead, the development team spent nine years making a new Rune Factory, only to put out a game that feels like a minor step forward at best and in some ways feels like a step back. If you’re a massive fan of the series and need more of it, you’ll have a fun enough time with Rune Factory 5, but everyone else should proceed with caution.

Test Drive Unlimited: Solar Crown sits in a bit of an unfortunate spot on the road. It wants so badly to be like its older brothers, Forza Horizon and The Crew. Yet it misses its mark due to a laundry list of immersion-wrecking faults and bugs, a lack of technical details, and an unremarkable collection of cars. To Test Drive Unlimited: Solar Crown’s credit, Hong Kong can be an absolutely gorgeous sandbox with its impressive mix of urban and natural environments. Despite these shortcomings and its occasionally spotty steering and quirky rearview mirrors, there’s something worthwhile trapped under the hood. Buried somewhere underneath the attempts at realism, you can almost catch a glimpse of the fun arcade racer Test Drive Unlimited: Solar Crown is better suited to be.

The Plane Effect strikes me as a fairly polarizing experience that won’t be for everyone. If you prefer gameplay mechanics over aesthetics and deeper meaning, turn back now; if you love a cinematic, visually arresting journey and don’t mind clunky controls, this might be the surreal commute from another dimension for you. I can’t guarantee The Plane Effect will be your favorite game this year, but I can promise a unique experience that will make you feel all sorts of emotions; whether those emotions are awe or anger is anyone’s guess.

Despite some nagging issues, Sclash mostly succeeds in delivering a streamlined yet challenging combat experience that any fighting game purist will enjoy, and any newbie can too, without much hassle. So if fast-paced, strategic, samurai swordfights are your cup of tea, don’t hesitate to pick up Sclash and lay waste to your foes.

Little Nightmares III is a solid sequel that honors the franchise’s horror foundations but stumbles with excessive caution. It’s a nightmare worth having, but one that feels hauntingly familiar. In a series built on unsettling expectations, familiarity is its scariest weakness. For series fans seeking more puzzle platforming in The Nowhere, Little Nightmares III delivers exactly that—no more, no less.

While there are five games in the Rose & Camellia Collection, none of them are that long. You can finish the whole series in an afternoon. While the insane tone and style are highly entertaining, the lacking controls hold this collection back from being essential. Still, I’m glad that someone looked at this series and decided to preserve it for future generations. Nobody needs to play the Rose & Camellia Collection, but for the right price, you can have a few entertaining hours with it.

The core combat is still fun and fans of Scott Pilgrim will have a good time getting together and seeing all the references, but there are simply better beat ‘em ups available for you to brawl your way through.

If you fancy a jaunty mail-centered platformer you can do much worse than Mail Time. It’s not quite priority mail, but manages to avoid being returned to sender. So open this envelope up and you might find something appealing inside.

Blanc is certainly cozy, cute, and charming, and it deserves high marks for its aesthetics and ideas, but I can’t deny how frustrated I felt while playing it. There were some high moments where cub and fawn flew through the frozen fields, delicately criss-crossing darkened paths in an otherwise blinding white spendor, but they were often followed by whiplashed lows of missing actionable cues and odd technical difficulties.

Underneath the intriguing concept and gorgeous graphics, The Waylanders has a somewhat meaty tactical experience wrapped around the bare bones of an RPG. And while it may be light on the actual role-playing elements, there’s enough of a unique spin in terms of story, setting, and battle system that those who prefer mechanics above anything else might have a good time. This is by no means Baldur’s Gate nor Dragon’s Age: like King Ith’s Tuatha de Danaan, those gods aren’t here. I can recommend The Waylanders, but only if expectations are managed accordingly.

I enjoyed my time with Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir. It tells an interesting story that puts interesting twists on some expected tropes. While there were elements of the UI that showed their age, once I got used to them and played the game on its terms, I was able to work through it without much issue. With the story taking its time to get interesting, though and being fairly short at that, it is hard to call this a must-play. Still, for fans who have been interested for many years, finally getting to play this in English is a treat.

Defend the Rook is a great example of what happens when you have a really solid foundation but ultimately don’t end up doing much with it. While I enjoyed my time with the game I couldn’t help but feel as though I was playing some kind of extended demo. Yeah, it was fun, but it got same-y really quickly. And that is definitely not good when it comes to roguelikes. Would I recommend Defend the Rook? I’m not sure, honestly. I guess I wouldn’t steer you away from it if you wanted to buy it, but, unless they start adding content (which they should because what they have is fun!), I don’t know that I’ll be chomping at the bit to suggest it to people that I talk to.

I’ll still stand by the notion that the dialogue could use some fat trimming and the canvas section was just unnecessary, but for all intents and purposes, if you want a blast from the past with a hidden twist all wrapped up in a tidy little package, I Doesn’t Exist is harmless enough that I’d recommend the venture. Just temper your expectations a bit and have some patience set aside for the text-input side of I Doesn’t Exist. After all, who knows when the next time will be that we’ll actually see someone using text-adventure gameplay again.

All in all, I’d have a very hard time recommending the Jurassic Park: Classic Games Collection to anyone that isn’t a die-hard fan of the series or someone with a lot of nostalgia for these games in particular. Most of the entries are sparse in content and not all that fun to play, with the NES Jurassic Park game and the Game Boy version of Jurassic Park 2 being the only ones I was able to stomach for very long. Sure, it’s kind of cool that there’s save states, a rewind button, and in-game maps now, but it really doesn’t do much in relieving these overall tired and unfun games. Still, if nostalgia is your friend, you might want to check out the Jurassic Park: Classic Games Collection.

If you’re playing with others, I imagine you’ll have a great time with The Ascent. While it still isn’t anywhere near perfect, the beautiful graphics and solid gunplay should be enough for those who just want something cool to play with their friends. There’s plenty of loot to collect along the way, too, letting you each put your stamp on your character. If you have no one to play with, though, I wouldn’t recommend The Ascent. The game feels like it’s fighting against you the entire way. It never stops feeling like this game wasn’t meant for you.

Killing Floor 3 is a decent night with friends and a weak successor. It chases trends that do not fit the series, ships with a campaign that does not shape the action, and leans on grind to stretch content that should have been deeper instead of longer. Fans will find flashes to enjoy. Most players will bounce to other co‑op shooters that respect their time.