With a vaguely intriguing overall story that never shines through the juvenile and sexual drama and a remotely interesting battle system that gets old due to way too much grinding and lack of variety, Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory buries what could have been positive aspects under the sheer ridiculousness, annoyances, and poor craftsmanship of the rest of the game.

Deathwing has so much potential sitting there with the Dark Angels alone, not to mention roaming a Space Hulk, it’s an absolute shame it falls short of the Emperor’s expectations.

Tracking issues can hamper some of the games, leading to missing a save in air hockey, or some off kilter shots in pool, but with updates, additional games, and continued support, SportsBarVR could end up being the defacto virtual reality hangout platform for PS4 players.

Akiba’s Beat is in a strange position, having been released right after two other Japanese role-playing games dealt with very similar topics. While it doesn’t have strong enough writing to eclipse these titles, it does feature a few story beats that keep it from being a D-grade Persona. From a combat perspective, the game feels like a Tales game, but without any of the polish. There’s room for improvement in practically every area, but it’s still a decent RPG that is worth playing for those that somehow ran out of RPGs in their backlog.

Besides the core concept being interesting, I really don’t have any other compliments to give Touhou Genso Rondo: Bullet Ballet. It’s a disappointment for a number of reasons, and it really sucks that a lot of North American gamers’ first experience with the Touhou series will be this bad spin-off.

Jump Stars is a nice, cheap diversion if you have a couple of friends to play with. Unlike almost every other game out there, you cannot play single player. There are also just a handful of game modes to choose from. It’s a party game you might come back to when the mood strikes. The fake game show announcer with dual personalities injects some, well, personality into the game, and the characters are amusing to play with. There’s not a ton of content, and multiplayer is required, but $9.99 ($7.99 for PlayStation Plus members) seems like a fair asking price for Jump Stars.

While the combat is entertaining and the dungeon crawling is okay, the story and the whole idea of having to “motivate” these girls are simply too unnecessary, too uncomfortable, and too offensive for this game to be worth your time.

The game isn’t terrible by any means, with some fans of the show sure to enjoy reliving Elizabeth’s quest, but there is too much wasted potential here. If you don’t mind the obvious lack of depth here, you can have some fun playing the game, just don’t expect that fun to last.

It’s got the resource management and camp building that I seem to be drawn to and challenging but not Soulsbourne level enemies to tackle.

There is a saying that sometimes less is more and this is something that should have been on every computer screen during development. It feels as if Mugen Souls was never fully finished and to try and cover this up, the player was handed a multitude of gameplay mechanics that unfortunately do nothing to add to the overall value of the game.

The gameplay is far too simplistic for older gamers who will have the game deconstructed to the bare basics in a matter of hours. In other words, easy to learn and easy to master results in a mildly repetitive game.

Trinity: Souls of Zill O'll can be summed up in ultimately one word: average. It's nothing you simply must buy.

A game that attempts to sneak into an era that has long passed it by. While a minimal amount of enjoyment can be had listening to the wayfarers and tradesmen across the many worlds that the hero visits, there are too many problems that stem from the game’s now ancient design.

Anamorphine makes an important distinction by not only exploring the mental illness, but exploring the impacts that it has on those around you.

Die-hard strategy fans or those into all things military might want to give it a go, but honestly speaking, the game just isn’t ready to be played on the handheld.

Vita’s already seen a number of dating sims, but none of them combine action-RPG gameplay with visual novel elements like A.W.: Phoenix Festa. Because it handles both of these decently, it’s worth checking out for fans of the Asterisk War franchise and anyone who thinks they might enjoy such a combination. Unfortunately, it’s way too light on narrative to leave much of an impact; for a game about a tournament, it lacks the sort of excitement and tension you’d expect, and even the dating sim elements pay off in thin dividends.

As much as I personally wanted Anthem to be a runaway success, it ends up delivering an inconsistent experience that constantly waivers between mediocre and excellent.

Knack is technically impressive with its utilization of extreme particle physics and bringing to life what could have easily been a Dreamworks animated film, but the gameplay does little to really satisfy.

The game will only get better, and it’s already a feat of unique gameplay coupled with charming visuals and a sense that glory will come to the comrades that work the hardest!

Buildings Have Feelings Too can initially feel frustrating and difficult, as well as completely unforgiving. Mistakes often end up being incredibly costly and the save system can feel unfair. Despite this, it’s a fun puzzle game once players can fully grasp all of its different aspects and it’s satisfying when everything falls into place.

It just doesn’t work.

Reality Fighters has its fun moments, and showing off the AR fighting to a technophobe can be enjoyable, but you will tire of the game incredibly quickly after you realize just how simple the fighting mechanics are, and how little depth the game has.

Those expecting the same level of depth and strategy as Valkyria Chronicles will likely end up disappointed by this spin-off. When judged on its own, though, Valkyria Revolution delivers an interesting narrative and some solid, if unspectacular, action. It’s too bad that the game never truly hits a stride, as missions are rarely memorable, and ultimately a lot of interesting ideas never get fully fleshed out.

With Circuit Breakers, what you get for your money is a very, very basic twin-stick shooter that is missing a lot of what makes the best in the genre so special.

There is a wacky, multiplayer racing game in there, but it feels more like a side effect of a notepad full of gags than a gaming experience that can entertain a group of friends long enough to make them briefly forget about Super Smash Bros., nor does the single-player experience do much after you understand what’s happening in front of you.

Guns Up! is devilishly addictive and provides a seriously fun formula of mutually beneficial attack and defence tactics. It’s initially intimidating economy only works to give the game depth once you’ve completed the enlightening tutorial, leaving you with a constant desire to progress and improve both your settlement and your garrison of units. All the above is unsettlingly blighted by an ever-present need to fork out real cash or face the reality of dampening the enjoyment by grinding for hours.

It gets high marks for engaging, yet somewhat predictable, story threads and having a variety of waifus, but clearly misses the mark in a few areas.

Earthfall somewhat succeeds at it’s core mission, if it’s mission is to try to kickstart the multiplayer subgenre that Turtle Rock started a decade ago. It’s biggest failure is convincing people that it is a better alternative to Left 4 Dead 2.