While LISA: The Painful attempts to do something unique and bold, it misfires and instead tells a story that works against its own ends, ultimately feeling gratuitous and pointless.

The 3rd Birthday is disappointing; it brings back a series and a character that fans adore, and destroys what fans held as a paragon. The narrative is filled with holes and problems, the tough Aya people were hoping for is absent, the gameplay is a mess, and the story tries harder to throw you into cheap plot twists rather than to be enjoyable.

Life is Strange: Double Exposure is a game that fails to capitalize on its premise. Although the soundtrack and occasional moments of intrigue are commendable, they are overshadowed by poor character development, confusing plot choices, and a lack of polish. The technical issues, combined with the short length and unresolved storylines, make this entry feel rushed and incomplete. Longtime fans of the series might find themselves disheartened, as they may genuinely dislike the narrative choices that diverge from what they loved about the original. While some may find enjoyment in revisiting the world of Life is Strange, for many, this game could feel like a disappointing misstep.

Aside from the bears, there’s little to recommend here on the game’s own merits. Great strategy RPGs aren’t hard to come by these days, but it’s generally a time-consuming subgenre, and Crown Wars comes across worse in their shadow. Bearing that in mind, even if you’ve exhausted all other options, you may be better off firing up another run of XCOM, Jagged Alliance, or Fire Emblem.

Anima: Gate of Memories is a game filled with potential that it generally fails to execute.

I doubt I will look back on Sorcery Saga: Curse Of The Great Curry God fondly, if I remember it at all. If you cornered me and forced me to give it a compliment, the best I could come up with is that it is mercifully short.

Airoheart is a pale imitation of the game it strives to be and could have benefited from more polish and flair. Unfortunately, any glimmers of potential are buried under flawed design and general mediocrity. The biggest flaw is undoubtedly Airoheart’s lack of identity. In its effort to be Zelda, Airoheart never had a chance to be Airoheart.

Despite having themes and concepts that speak to me, the game was ultimately a mediocre experience. I liked the vivid graphics and endearing characters but was turned off by the tepid music and mushy controls. My final thought regarding Viola: The Heroine’s Melody is that it’s simply another game that falls into my “I wanted to love it, but I didn’t” category.

Opoona is yet another example of a game where very little is actually broken, but very little is noticeably good, either.

It pains me to say this, but SINce Memories: Off the Starry Sky is a subpar Memories: Off game and a mediocre-at-best visual novel. Visual novels live and die by their storylines and characters, which fall flat here. Lovely graphics and Takeshi Abo’s stellar music are not enough to save SINce Memories: Off the Starry Sky from being one of 2024’s biggest disappointments.

What a heart-wrenching disappointment. Dungeon Drafters opens strong, but fails to use what makes it great to create a fun experience for the player. This goes far beyond “git gud.” Dungeon Drafters provides an illusion of choice, and with this many options, that’s borderline cruel. Allowing this amount of customization but requiring players to play a certain way is like hanging a steak out in front of a dog and never letting them eat it.

Uninspired slop. MKA had quite a bit of promise, and we were extremely excited to play the game based on interviews with the staff members, but issues with the control scheme and gameplay functionality killed what we were hoping would come about in Mage Knight: Apocalypse.

As with its handheld predecessors, Dark Kingdom is a game that can be enjoyable to hardcore fans of the genre who are willing to overlook its flaws, but probably not to anyone else.

It's fun, but incredibly flawed. As long as it's taken as such, fans of the adventure genre will probably have fun playing it like I did.

How to Sing to Open Your Heart is another entry in the massive pile of games I've played that don't do anything wrong, but don't really do anything right either. Localized otome games have become surprisingly ubiquitous within the past decade, and with several fantastic titles to choose from, there is no reason to waste your precious time and hard-earned money on uninspired fluff like How to Sing to Open Your Heart.

If you like a straightforward plot and don't mind Lovecraftian-like animations.

If I had to describe Ann Achronist: Many Happy Returns in one word, it would be "indecisive." The game has an identity crisis about what it wants to be, and its dichotomy between silly and serious is off-putting. I wanted more of the artful visuals and heady writing of the prologue and epilogues and less of the uninspired graphics and corny writing from the game's middle. These two extremes do not mesh together well at all, and it feels like eating a sandwich featuring tasty artisan bread but with a slice of cheap, processed cheese in the middle. Ann Achronist: Many Happy Returns is not a bad little time-waster, but it's difficult to recommend unless you can snag it at a bargain bin price.

Too Human is repetitive, unbalanced, and frustrating, made complete with an uninteresting story.

Mario & Luigi: Brothership has you covered if—and only if—Mario RPG mechanics are your favorite thing and you want the largest mass of them yet. If they aren’t, you’re probably going to struggle to get over the initial five-hour hump before the game truly begins. While I didn’t outright hate most of my time with the game, would I have even seen it through to its conclusion if I weren’t reviewing it, even as a fan of Mario RPGs who wants to see Nintendo make more? Possibly not. Perhaps the best thing to do about Mario & Luigi: Brothership is to hope Nintendo realizes the missteps here and has the resolve to try their hand at the franchise once more instead of abandoning it again.

The bottom line regarding Monster Kingdom: Jewel Summoner is that the game is a colossal disappointment.

For all the twisted, macabre, death-worshiping crap that's found in this game, it only makes sense that the game itself should suffer a terrible fate.

Super Neptunia RPG feels like a game that's stuck in limbo, not knowing where it wants to go. There is certainly potential here, but it falls flat of what it wanted to accomplish. I do like the return to a simpler, light-hearted story but I wish the rest of the game didn't have to suffer for it. I always wish the best for Neptunia, but this is one spin-off I'm afraid I must leave in the past.

Metal Slug Tactics tends to play it safe while simultaneously encouraging players to not play it safe. With few bells and whistles, everything just feels slightly different, rather than a mind-blowing change in gameplay. Even in an old-school SRPG like Shining Force, characters feel starkly different from each other—except the centaurs—though in this title, everything just kinda runs together. It feels like Metal Slug because it looks like Metal Slug, and the sound effects help in that respect, but in no way does this game evoke frenetic joy like its forebears.

There's some playability at the core of the game for those who enjoy mindless, droll beat 'em ups, so Code of Princess isn't the worst game out there for the 3DS, but for $40 you can do a lot better.

Save your money (or spend it on "Persona 3," Atlus fans!) and skip this mediocre mess. [Import]

Tardy's uncomfortable sci-fi atmosphere and beautiful pixel visuals are the biggest successes for this otherwise by-the-numbers adventure game.

While Dawn of Heroes is a stalwart effort by the developers, and I can't say that there's anything truly wrong with the game, it simply underwhelms in every single aspect.

Overall, I do like Wild Hearts S as a faster and flashier alternative to the games that inspired it. It may not be as newcomer-friendly as Monster Hunter Wilds seems to be, but it’s still a fun time, especially if you’re coming off of that game and looking for something slightly different. It’s a shame that this new Switch 2 version doesn’t offer quite enough to justify the purchase, but if you’re looking for a fun, yet flawed, Monster Hunter clone to play on the go, there’s enough here to scratch that itch.