Honestly, even though I wasn’t really familiar with Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid before playing Burst Forth!!, I might be a fan now. This is a solid Shmup with good graphics, compelling gameplay, and a shocking amount of replayability. If you enjoy the series or the genre, I’d say this is well worth the price of admission. In the meantime, I might start looking into this quirky little anime.

Unless you’re a well-meaning-yet-misguided parent from the 80s who magically found themselves transported to the year 2022 (in which case there are other things I would be worrying about), you really have zero reason not to play this game. Cult of the Lamb is the evil-worshipping, cult-building, god-slaying video game with a perfect creepy-cute aesthetic that I never knew that I wanted—and I’m so incredibly glad that it exists.

Arcade Paradise is a fantastic management sim for those who love the genre. It may be asking a lot of players to prioritize other people’s laundry over games upfront, but the payoff is a literal heaven for those who have always wished to build their own arcade and play every game within it for free. If you enjoy a good management sim and love the idea of hopping from game to game to game as a major mechanic, Arcade Paradise is worth its weight in quarters.

The developers of We Are OFK don’t even pretend to care about making a traditional video game. It’s clear that instead, the entire goal here was to tell a story, and that’s incredibly well done. Not perfectly so. I don’t love where We Are OFK leaves one of their characters in particular, and the ending feels rushed. After spending hours with these four characters, setting up conflict, it feels like a lot of things get pushed aside to get to where the game needs them to end up, almost like the development team ran out of time. With deep character writing, fantastic voice acting, and killer visuals, though, I’d recommend We Are OFK to anyone who is okay with this being a story first, a vehicle for releasing music second, and barely a game at all.

If you’re expecting Destroy All Humans 2! – Reprobed to be more of a remaster of the original game than a remake, you’ll likely be happy with the results. The game looks great and feels extremely faithful to the time it was released. Those with nostalgia for the original will get what they need out of it. After finally spending some time with it, though, I can say confidently that this was only ever an okay game, featuring the same lack of content and empty areas that open-world games of that era were known for. Today's open-world games are better at creating an overall experience worth your time.

At the end of my hauntingly simple mission, I really wanted to walk out liking SENSEs: Midnightmore than I did. There’s a great aesthetic, cool ideas, and some real potential with the fixed camera angles, but it’s all buried by bad stealth mechanics, a puddle-deep story, and horror disarming bugs and hiccups.

South of the Circle definitely looks and feels like it was made by a BAFTA-winning team, which means that players should know they’re walking into an artistic endeavor instead of an action-packed adventure. Sure, there’s action, and there’s adventure, but it’s more of a passive movie than an active experience. As long as you set your expectations accordingly, South of the Circle will thrill (and chill!) anyone looking for a unique setting and exciting story.

Super Bullet Break uses its difficulty and gacha mechanics to truly great effect, elevating what would otherwise be a fairly standard deck builder, into something that is fiendishly addictive and easy to dump hours into. Sure, the early game can be brutally difficult, and some may find that off-putting, but stick around past those early stages, and Super Bullet Break’s moreish gacha systems will almost certainly suck you in, due to the way in which the randomized systems bring the creative options for deck building to the forefront.

Thymesia embodies the ever-rising popularity of the Soulslike genre incredibly well. As an indie Soulslike, it knows it can’t necessarily be as big and as bold as its source material, but it also doesn’t want to simply be written off as a sub-par copy of something that’s already been done. And the end result is something kinda-sorta in-between of those two things. I can appreciate Thymesia for what it does well—namely, its hauntingly beautiful visuals and fine-tuned combat basics—but its more creative endeavors felt more like the game trying to be different just for the sake of being different. I’m not sure that Thymesia is going to be at the forefront of its given genre, but it’s still a pestilence-ridden egg worth cracking open for those hungry for some new Soulslike action.

When everything comes together, Rollerdrome feels incredible, but too often, things get buried under the weight of its many systems. While even at its worst, there is definitely fun to be had here, this feels like an incredible concept for a game where the developers needed to spend a little more time workshopping what aspects of it were really needed. It’s still a good game, though, and the foundation is in place for a sequel to be truly incredible.

What the Saints Row reboot truly reminds us is that -- whatever situation they may find themselves in -- the Saints do it for each other. 2022's Saints Row is less about reeling it in and more about coming home. And in the house that Santo Ileso's Saints built, "damn, it feels good to be a gangster.

While it doesn’t end as well as it starts, that doesn’t ultimately change how much I love Xenoblade Chronicles 3. With fantastic characters, deep combat, and an enormous world to explore, it was more than worth pushing through those final hours to see the ending to one of my favorite RPGs in years. Monolith Soft have the Xenoblade series back on the right path, and I can’t wait to see where they go next. I just hope next time they have the confidence to end their game when it’s ready to end.

Midnight Fight Express has a lot of personality and can be fun for a bit, but when a game is built almost entirely around combat, you need that combat to feel great, and here it just feels okay. Attempts to provide some variety are noble, but meet with mixed success despite some really cool set pieces. A great soundtrack kept me going until the end, but those wanting an irreverent brawler aren’t lacking choices in recent years, and Midnight Fight Express never fully manages to stand out from the crowd.

Soul Hackers 2 made some interesting decisions—some of which I don’t totally agree with. But, even with whatever grievances I might have, I can’t deny that the game was ultimately both incredibly fun and well put-together. Devil Summoner might not carry the same weight as other spinoff series within the MegaTen universe, but Soul Hackers 2 is one heck of a ride from start to finish.

I had an absolute blast with GigaBash. Despite this, solo players need not apply. There just isn’t enough content here to justify the investment. Still, that’s not who GigaBash was made for and for the target audience, Passion Republic Games have delivered. If you regularly have friends to play with, there are few games released this year I would say are more worthy of your time and money.

While it isn’t going to be an easy sell for many due to the difficulty spikes that arise in the form of its demanding bosses, I ultimately came away from Book Quest satisfied with the final product. Sure, it wasn’t the laid-back, Zelda-clone I was expecting and presented a challenge that came as a shock, but that was ultimately the best thing about it. If you can look past the, at times, inconsistent hitboxes, and frequent audio bugs, then Book Quest provides a satisfying evening’s worth of, at times, hardcore action that I hope finds an audience.

Ground Divers’ cute looks hide a game with surprising depth. While there aren’t very many stages, they quickly start to require a great deal of strategy and planning which can be a lot of fun. It isn’t a must-play, but those looking for a charming puzzle game where resource management is key, and they’ll need to use their heads should give Ground Divers a look.

Despite the weaker parts of the game, such as the awkward and unclear control setup and the overly demanding boss battles, I still really enjoyed my time with Dungeon Munchies. It’s a unique game with a truly twisted and delightful sense of humor. Combined with a unique cooking mechanic and tons of ways to customize your experience, I feel it’s a game any fan of the indie scene should check out. I just hope developer maJAJa is able to implement some tweaks to improve the experience, or use what they’ve learned from this game to make their next one even better.

Unfortunately Aniquilation squanders an interesting concept with poor level design that does its best to ensure that the various mechanics at play are nothing short of frustrating the majority of the time. There is some fun to be had if you can endure the frustrations and fight your way through to the later stages of Aniqulation’s levels, where the environments open up and it becomes more apparent what the developers were going for. Sprinkle in the technical issues, and Aniquilation is difficult to recommend to anyone other than the most dedicated of twin-stick shooter fans.

So, Lost Epic didn’t quite live up to the standards that I had set for it when I had played it last year… but it was still good! Flaws aside, Lost Epic is an Metroidvania Souls-lite that’s every bit as charming as it is challenging. Sure, there’s still some work to be done here and there, but I’m confident they’ll get there in time.

NOEL The Mortal Fate tries to do a lot all at once, and for the most part, it succeeds. It’s a seriously scintillating visual novel with interesting gameplay mechanics that really pushed the limits of what RPG Maker could do. Unfortunately, some of those gameplay mechanics handled strangely at times, but that can mostly be forgiven considering the gripping story that unfolds on-screen. If you’re a visual novel fan and want to curl up with a good story on your Switch, NOEL The Mortal Fate is a deal you don’t want to pass up.

At the end of the game, I really felt like there could’ve been a lot more Quintus and the Absent Truth. The acting felt flat, the themes weren’t as fleshed out as they should’ve been, and the only truly scary thing here is how short the whole experience was. I really wanted to see this succeed, as the art style brought some unique potential, but sadly the experience needs a lot more refinement to be as interesting in execution as it was in its premise.

River City Saga: Three Kingdoms offers solid brawler gameplay and an open world that you can get around conveniently. Combat feels impactful, and the story even has its moments. Unnecessary complexity, slippery platforming, and a tone that never quite hits make this a game primarily for the series’ faithful and big-time brawler fans who have played most of the genre’s more successful recent releases.

The Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass Wave 2 may not be filled with classics, but there are no truly weak maps here, and there are several that sit comfortably among the upper echelon of the game’s track list. Waluigi Pinball alone would make this a worthy set of levels, but Mushroom Gorge, Kalamari Desert, and Sydney Sprint will all be maps I’ll frequently vote to race on in the future. I’m glad to see these releases getting stronger and can’t wait to see what Nintendo has in store for Wave 3.

Bright Memory: Infinite is a shining example of the power of development tools when placed in the hands of someone who truly knows how to get the most out of them. With its AAA production values and polished gameplay, it provides an evening’s worth of action that entertained me in a way that the genre has struggled to do since Respawn’s underappreciated Titanfall 2. If you’re comfortable with dropping twenty dollars on an experience that you know will be over in a couple of hours and are willing to overlook the messy narrative in favour of the excellent gameplay loops, then Bright Memory: Infinite is absolutely worth supporting.

I truly hope that Sword and Fairy: Together Forever finally releasing on consoles gives the series the boost it needs towards more widespread recognition globally. It’s a fantastic title with some of the deepest lore to grace the genre in a while, which also manages to back up its compelling narrative with combat that is a joy to engage with. In a summer that has sorely been lacking in epic RPGs for genre enthusiasts to get stuck into, Sword and Fairy: Together Forever not only helps fill that void but does so with a level of style and heart that begs to be experienced.

Mothmen 1966 is a game that truly lives up to its own advertising and hype, providing a unique pixelated pulp-fiction approach to the visual novel formula, while focusing on a delightfully creepy, bizarre bit of American folklore. If this is the first in the series, I can’t wait for more.

Endling – Extinction is Forever is a powerful game. It deftly highlights human greed, corruption, and our unique knack for environmental devastation. At the same time, it offers glimmers of hope and redemption, tiny bright spots that manage to shine through the encroaching darkness. The trials and tribulations of the traumatized fox at the heart of the game will leave your heart aching and bruised, and you’ll be left somehow simultaneously saddened and enraged. Such sorrowful fury is meant to be a powerful motivator: use it.