It's unlikely to make it to the top of anyone's game of the year list, but it's still worth a look if you're between AAA titles.

If you enjoy a game that's easy to pick up but has challenging battles and allows you to customize your character with plenty of new duds, then Blue Dragon: Awakened Shadow will be worth your while.

Age of Imprisonment’s plethora of options helps elevate it as an enjoyable Warriors experience. On the other hand, it suffers from its notable roster absences, especially for Zelda fans, since it’s common to go to Warriors games not for their canon-compliant stories but for the opportunity to throw fan-favorite characters at floods of enemies. Knowing what to expect helps alleviate the disappointment, and the Warriors format works wonders at conveying Tears of the Kingdom’s Imprisoning War. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment’s seriousness and polish help it overcome its shortcomings, making it an overall good time. And like with most Warriors games, a good time is usually good enough.

If you’ve previously played Tokyo Xanadu eX+, there probably isn’t enough new here to warrant a revisit. If you are a new player or have only experienced the original Vita release back in 2017, then give this Switch version a second look. It’s rare for a Switch port to have few significant compromises, and even rarer still for that port to be the best version of the game, but Aksys and Falcom did a great job with this release.

Date A Live: Ren Dystopia is an engaging visual novel that series fans will enjoy. What Date A Live fan wouldn’t want to experience hijinks with their favorite characters and meet a new one who could potentially become a favorite? The game is hollow without prior exposure to the Date A Live light novels, anime, and especially the Rio-Reincarnation visual novel (with all its included extras), so I recommend Ren Dystopia to established fans only.

The gameplay hasn't really changed, but it's more than serviceable and will keep you entertained as you make your way from punchline to punchline. If you're in the market for some cheap laughs, this game is an easy recommendation.

Adventures of Mana is nostalgic in the best way possible, offering you a solid adventure, clever puzzles, and a breathtaking soundtrack.

Part of the appeal of roguelikes is the depth. Since static maps aren’t developed and a linear (or non-linear) story doesn’t unfold in typical RPG fashion, a generous serving of content is almost required. Curse of the Dead Gods feels like a proof of concept in this way, because what’s here is tight, enticing, and consistent, but it needs more. Without meaningful changes across runs, everything just kinda bleeds together. Maybe that’s okay. Maybe Curse of the Dead Gods was always intended to be a 15-hour game. If that’s what you’re after, then by all means, but a game like this needs teeth and a degree of chaos oftentimes found in other roguelikes. With this hybrid genre hotter than ever, maybe it came out of development just a little too late.

A daringly ambiguous piece of storytelling with some scary moments.

Generation of Chaos: Pandora's Reflection is a perfectly serviceable game that didn't give me the headache I feared, but it never got my blood pumping, either.

Tunguska: The Vistation leaves a strong impression, though it’s not always the right one. It gets the more esoteric game-feel aspects, like combat feedback and satisfying exploration rewards, down pat, but struggles with fundamental design elements like control schemes and narrative. There is an undeniably large amount of jank in the game, which will either endear you to the experience or turn you off it entirely. Still, Tunguska is an enjoyable enough experience on its own that it’s worth giving a try to find out for yourself.

Corona Borealis is the kind of enjoyable visual novel you can lose yourself in for a short while, but it doesn't offer much staying power once you've completed all its routes.

Truly, Grim Dawn represents the modern gamer's slot machine, where three cherries are a set item drop and three 7's are a jackpot of a story that never comes to fruition.

Little-Known Galaxy is like the neglected spaceship you’re given command of. It has a ton of potential and a crew with heart but is a fixer-upper requiring time and patience. The developers are very responsive to user feedback; even as we speak, they’re in the process of making quality-of-life adjustments. As it stands now, the graphics, sound, and character interactions are my favorite parts of Little Known Galaxy. On the other hand, I dislike the excessive grinding and being unable to save whenever I want. Little-Known Galaxy is a game that its target demographic will enjoy, but it won’t win over those uninterested in cozy games like Stardew Valley.

If you’re a fan of the genre and like cyberpunk tales, I think The Sundew is worth a go if you’re looking for a distraction, but expect a fleeting bit of entertainment with some confusing caveats. Considering that this title was obviously a labor of love from one person, at the end of the day, I enjoyed my time with The Sundew overall and am looking forward to seeing what future works may come from this promising developer.

No matter how much I enjoyed The Indigo Disk from moment to moment, the flaws from the base game and the painful BBQ gameplay loop prevent me from considering this DLC as something “better.” It is different content, and it is more content, but it is not fundamentally improved content.

Quality of life improvements over the already good Megadimension Neptunia VII make this the best Neptunia game to date.

All in all, House of Ashes is a solid new entry in The Dark Pictures Anthology. While I ultimately found it to be a less engaging and frightening experience than its immediate predecessor, it’s still an enjoyable adventure title with some impressive animation work on display. And while I wasn’t in love with some of the changes, I respect that Supermassive Games is listening to fan feedback and attempting to innovate with each successive title. We’re due for at least one more of these games, so I’ll be very curious to see what the Curator has in store for us next time.

More of an experience than a game.

It may sound like Rune Factory 2 is a worthless game, but that's only my tendency to focus on the negative, and it is especially frustrating because the developers made so many avoidable mistakes.

A slow start to what will hopefully be a memorable series. Casual fans of Batman and/or the genre should be pleased.

While RPGolf Legends doesn’t have a robust story to match the vibrant personality of its protagonist and has to overcome some recurring lulls in gameplay, it’s a simple, charming game with enough allure to make it worth its relatively short run-time. Give it a swing and go for par.

Tell Me Why is kind of a fascinating experience. It feels personal and down-to-earth, even if it can at times be a little dull. The struggle of its twin protagonists to come to terms with the death of their troubled mother is relatable, even if the game never definitively answers their questions about her. Tyler’s experiences as a trans man feel genuine, and the game treats him with respect, even though it also capitalizes on his trauma to move the plot along. In the end, memories can only reveal so much, particularly when they conflict with someone else’s, and the only peace you can really have is the peace you choose to make for yourself.

Overall, I think Norn9: Last Era is a surprising improvement in some respects to its predecessor: offering new perspectives on the original’s storylines and showing detailed consequences for its many routes. It doesn’t necessarily fix problems Norn9: Var Commons has, but it elaborates on the inherent potential sometimes lost in the original game. Last Era is easily one of the best otome fandisks I’ve played, and I can recommend it to either returning Norn9 fans or newcomers curious about this particular visual novel series. Just go into this with tempered expectations, and you’ll find this attempt at a reset is more than decent.

From the beginning of the game, I wanted to complete Those Who Rule to learn the fate of the Rangers and engage with more of the tough battles and varied objectives. There was enough to keep me going in discovering new characters, unlocking new classes, and contemplating new map effects or strategies. The interplay of the combat design and the importance of positioning and managing aggro is deeply satisfying. That said, the fiddly UI and rather limited management options do take away from the experience. Some may also be turned off by the relatively basic enemy variety: there are no lions and tigers and bears here. But I can’t deny the game has a lot of heart and soul. For those who have a soft spot for political drama between warring nations nestled around a challenging turn-based combat system, it might pay to be king for a day.

Despite my issues with the game, I did ultimately enjoy Cat Quest. Its brevity actually works in its favor, making the issues outlined above feel less egregious than they would if the game were longer. I still wish the story wasn't quite so bland and the gameplay wasn't as repetitive, but I also find myself wanting to jump back in to finish the handful of side quests I have left, so the game definitely does something right. If you just want to kill monsters as an adorable cat and experience as many cat puns as possible, Cat Quest may be the game for you!

A highly original game that's hard to describe, but makes sense in action.

Much like Psycho-Pass: The Movie, Mandatory Happiness is a slightly disposable, yet ultimately enjoyable look at another facet of the Psycho-Pass universe.