New unique minigames and a gigantic island to explore makes Lost in Blue 2 an engaging purchase for anyone who can get past the daunting first few hours of extreme survival. However, the one-two combo of a companion who lacks any sort of survival competency and the required precise micromanagement of each character's vital stats can tempt even the most hardened survival buffs to snap their DS clean in half.

There are better visual novels and better RPGs out there than Fate/Extra, and with similar themes to boot, so skip this title and play The World Ends With You; Chaos Rings; or 9 Persons, 9 Hours, 9 Doors instead.

While its queer twist on a usually heteronormative story deserves to be recognised, the game is let down by not letting the new ideas come to fruition. It feels like I received a bouquet of violets, but instead of them being fresh and in-bloom, they are already wilting. With just a few tweaks, the bouquet could revitalise into a fun roguelike, and while it’s overall a serviceable experience, there’s really no reason to go back once you have the true ending, if you don’t feel tired out before then.

Holiday Star is possibly the only game that contains a pheasant weaponizing the delusional fervor of otaku. Established birdie lovers will find a lot to love in Holiday Star, but fledglings should start with the prequel.

I’ll continue to keep plugging away at Tales of Crestoria as it’s updated, because I’m genuinely enjoying my time with the game, and love seeing characters like Arche, Farah, Presea, Leon, and all of my other favourites take to the stage once again. I just hope Bandai Namco can manage the bugs a little better and increase the frequency of materials and drops just a bit so people who are less willing to drop lots of money on a gacha can enjoy the story and the additional content at a reasonable pace.

I went into Reynatis with many expectations formed by the previously mentioned Crymachina and The Caligula Effect 2. I expected a jankfest that would narratively punch skyward, seeking to shatter the heavens with razor-sharp words like its predecessors. Instead, the result was middling, and I feel this is due to the dual protagonists having to split the story—and thus split the focus. Reynatis has a bit of an identity crisis, and rather than it feeling like clean cuts on where one ends and the other begins, it’s all blended up into a mess that is both fun and taxing to play, both narratively intriguing and vapid, and both exciting and mundane. My one consolation is that if The Caligula Effect 2 and Crymachina are anything to go off of, a sequel to Reynatis could be one of my favorite games of the year. With that hope in mind, I eagerly look forward to the next strange FuRyu collaboration.

Ultimately, to say that I didn't enjoy The Caligula Effect would be an understatement. I actively disliked this game the longer I played it. Its uninteresting cast, repetitive music, poor dungeon design, and tedious battle system created an experience that I sincerely detested. There's no doubt that some will enjoy the game, but I doubt most will. The Caligula Effect may not be unplayable, but that doesn't mean that it should be played. The dozens and dozens of hours that I sunk into the game weren't enjoyable at all. After reading this review, you may fall victim to the titular Caligula Effect and want to see just how bad it is for yourself—just don't say that I didn't warn you.

At this point, it should be obvious that if you're considering purchasing this game, I'd advise you not to. There are so many other, better games you could be playing.

A unique and aesthetically appealing work of art.

It’s a bit ironic to me that NieR Re[in]carnation is a game about memories, about being trapped, and about trying to break free, but that it’s a gacha game. All of those overwhelming, overbearing elements that loop you into a grind are all surrounding a beautiful game that presents a world of isolation and oppression. It’s a package of things I love about NieR, chained to another package of things I really dislike. It feels deliberate, but in a way, that’s more frustrating and overbearing than in Replicant and Automata. Yet it all sounds basically perfect for a Yoko Taro game, doesn’t it? Maybe this is a faultless encapsulation of the NieR experience, and my grievances are exactly what the developers are going for.

None of the bland gameplay is helped by the fact that the controls feel sluggish overall.

The game looks pretty yet cheap in places, but the simple presentation is easy to digest, especially with the sometimes-deeper concepts addressed in the story. I may not be the right audience for this, but as I watch my daughter delight in playing, it is easy to take a page from the story and appreciate the title for what it is instead of what it is not. Despite all of its issues, it is oddly delightful to spend a day playing in the old LDC helping friends, cooking new recipes, or exploring with a dragon!

Only recommended for the type of people who devour anything from Japan, regardless of quality.

There isn't much here that has not already been done in Japanese RPGs before and if you keep up with the Naruto manga or anime, there is nothing you haven't already read or watched before.

While Calico‘s current state is vastly improved from its initial release thanks to these patches, its initial launch state can’t just be swept under the rug. But the continued effort to improve the game, combined with its welcoming, comforting, and charming nature shining through these unpleasant mats of fur, makes it clear that Peachy Keen Games is a developer with a lot of potential — and I can’t wait to see what they can do in the future with more experience.

While I didn't have huge expectations for Destiny Connect, I feel like the game has settled for simply being average. For a sub-15 hour RPG, revisiting the same places over and over again while posing no challenge struggled to hold my attention for even a third of the time, and the charming art is severely let down by the Switch version's quality. There are so many better examples of beginner RPGs out there that allow kids to customise and experiment much more and give them a robust world to explore. Think Fantasy Life on the 3DS, or any Pokémon game, and you've already got something much more engaging and exciting.

What could have been a gem among point-and-click adventures fails to rise above mediocrity despite its fantastic visuals.

In the end, though, I give Spiders credit for their work on Faery: Legends of Avalon. If they maintain the quality music and dialogue from the game, improve the plot, and fix the controls and world maps, they'll have a decent game on their hands, worth the 1200 MS points. In that case, pick up the first episode of the series. Otherwise, your money is better spent elsewhere.

Since the in-game graphics are weak, and the music is bland, the only chance this game has to win fans is its gameplay.

While part of the fun is in exploration, I just found it very difficult to figure anything out. Add to that a translation that is at times pretty bad and, at points, incomplete (parts of text are just cut off and missing), and you have a game not worth a purchase.

Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance is a game with great promise but poor-to-mediocre performance, depending on your affinity for action-oriented loot hunting and patience for AI and other technical shortcomings that should have been nipped in beta. But with promise comes optimism; Tuque Games has a robust DLC and expansion roadmap planned, so its continued investment in the game could lead to patches ameliorating my gripes. If it does, you’ll find that Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance reaches the lofty heights of its renowned spiritual predecessors. But if Tuque Games neglects these issues, Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance will remain a fun but prohibitively frustrating game I can recommend to series devotees and few others.

Deep Labyrinth is every generic action-RPG you've ever played overlaid with what is quite possibly one of the worst control schemes in any DS game.

Mugen Souls Z represents a valiant effort and shows bounding improvements over its predecessor.

This all goes to show that eye candy and excellent music mean nothing if everything else is weak.

Competent, yet forgettable.

Although this game reminded me of plastic people fighting to the death in stiff, catatonic glory, the nostalgia didn't make up for the game's oversimplification of the strategy RPG genre. When compared to games made as far back as 1998, Disciples III simply falls flat on its face.

A welcome enhancement to a BioWare classic that is worth revisiting if you can see past its aged look, but consoles may not be the best format.

While The Council's meager finale is indicative of its inability to meet the lofty expectations it set for itself early on, there's still a lot to like for fans of the genre. Your acceptance and enjoyment of the story's twists and shoddy lore will determine just how much you like it, though.