InuYasha: Secret of the Divine Jewel is a dud.

Needless to say, Eredia wasn't my cup of tea in the end. The few bright spots it has are completely overshadowed by its tasteless protagonist and its subpar execution. This is supposedly the first of three installments. While I can't say what the future holds for the series, I can say that where it stands right now, I can’t recommend it to anyone.

Katana Kami is the worst game I've ever reviewed at RPGFan. While it works from a technical standpoint, the design is as flat and disgusting as a glass of soda that's been sitting out on the dining room table all night and into the morning. The ideas are there. I can almost hear the exciting discussions during the beginning stages of development. On paper, this game sounds tenacious and engrossing, but everything done after those initial meetings was clearly a disaster. I never got a sense of import or consequence. Katana Kami is a black hole that sucks in time and gives nothing back.

So many things don't fit, so many things work against each other, and everything just reeks of half finished game ideas.

Aura: Fate of the Ages promises many things, yet fails to deliver on almost all of them.

I keep a list of RPGs I want to play, or think I should play, or have to play for the sake of writing a review. Cross Edge was right on the bottom "edge" of the list. Now, I happily "cross" it off the list.

Despite all my complaints, I initially had fun with Dying Light 2. The first quarter of the game was engaging. I think if the rest of the game played like this, I would have way more positive things to say, but the fact is that it’s just not done. This is clearly an unfinished game mired in mismanagement. I don’t blame the developers at all; the leaders and executives behind this work are responsible. What works here is clean and well done, albeit with some boring AAA niceties. After the first quarter or so, though, the game absolutely falls apart in almost every respect. I’m sad for what was produced here, but if I’m being honest, I’m more sad that I invested nearly thirty hours of my own time into this. Don’t make the same mistake I did.

Death by Scrolling is a functional game. It controls well, is feature complete, and is mostly bug-free, but it lacks the spark needed to make it truly compelling. Recent updates have added new content and breathed some life into the experience, but the core remaining so bare still makes it a difficult game to recommend, unless you’re specifically looking for a stripped-down, low-commitment take on the genre.

In a word: yuck.

The new virtual world of Ainground is just a regular VR game. And this is Hollow Realization's core problem: there is absolutely no motivation to push forward in the game. Kirito and his harem of stereotypes adventure far and wide, but often with no discernable purpose.

At the end of the day, Freedom Cry is a terrible game.

So in the final analysis, Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom takes a bunch of decently designed aspects and mangles them into an unfun experience.

I guess if I had to summarize my experience with Izuna 2: The Unemployed Ninja Returns, it would be this: do not buy this game. Do not rent this game. Do not borrow this game from a friend.

The Princess Guide could have been so much more if there had been more effort put into it. Instead, we have a mess of a game that needed more time in the oven. My instincts as an Instructor are telling me to ride off into the sunset, leaving this game to its own problems.

Often, even if a game is flawed, there will still be an audience who can appreciate what it has to offer and look past its flaws. I would be hard-pressed to identify any such audience for Agarest: Generations of War.

We Are The Caretakers is a reminder of just how much work it takes to properly bring something from a cool concept to an actual functioning game. I have no doubt that Heart Shaped Game’s intentions were noble, and their courage to venture into relatively unexplored territory in gaming deserves its due credit. But when looking at the bigger picture and judging the game for what it is, not what it is supposed to be, We Are The Caretakers is simply beyond the pale.

Nights of Azure 2 was the chance to improve on its predecessors potential, but it completely drops the ball.

Between its endless backtracking, lengthy, unskippable cutscenes and space battles in which nothing happens, this feels like a five hour game that was padded out to five-times its length, with some ridiculous cleavage grafted onto it in an attempt to distract. Integrity and Faithlessness is not a game that respects or deserves your time, and perhaps Star Ocean is a series that's ready to be jettisoned from the airlock.

This is a disturbingly conservative action RPG that functions as a museum of bad game design.

There are a few promising things about Crystar, but they are overshadowed by its terrible combat and a story that thinks it's much more interesting and important than it actually is.

A finale built for fans that will be hard for newcomers to enjoy.

A dense and impenetrable creature-management simulation that relishes in gut-punching the player every time they make progress.

As it stands, Artis Impact is an audiovisual masterpiece that fails to convey a cohesive narrative or engage the player beyond its spectacular presentation.

Did I enjoy being scared? Yeah, I did. I don’t understand people who watch a horror movie, laugh at it the whole time, and then talk about how the movie just wasn’t scary. If you allow yourself to be scared, this game creates some reliable tension. Unfortunately, the entire premise is essentially the theft of what Hideo Kojima’s team created, and nothing is built on top of that. As if the mind-shatteringly awful ending wasn’t bad enough, the final achievement is titled “See the names of Gods.” This is awarded for seeing the credits. I’m just going to leave that there and let you finish my final thoughts on your own.

Capcom deserves credit for preserving these games in a complete package. All versions are here, faithfully presented. For longtime fans, that preservation alone may justify the collection. But I cannot, in good conscience, recommend it to newcomers. The games are intact, and with them come all of their limitations. Once, it felt like an ambitious handheld experiment; now it plays like a trilogy stuck between ideas. Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection is an honest time capsule, capturing a series that never found its footing.

I came away from Adore extremely disappointed. While I still believe that combining monster-collecting mechanics in an action roguelike framework could be effective, this title has too many missteps that prevent it from being enjoyable after a couple hours. Furthermore, the control and presentation issues on Nintendo Switch exacerbate these core design flaws, making for an overall frustrating gameplay experience.

Much like vanilla ice cream, MidBoss suffers from a severe case of creative bankruptcy. From its aesthetics that seem like straight asset rips, to its extremely shallow gameplay that tries to impress with numbers only, the final product is a meager roguelike that desperately clings onto a single gimmick to stand out from the rest of the crowd. While that might make for a passable game that you can kill time with every now and then, it doesn't make for a very memorable one that you'll think about playing again just for old time's sake. With this in mind, unless you're a diehard fan of roguelikes, you can safely keep MidBoss out of your Steam library.

There's potential for a fine adventure clutched within ICY's frosty embrace, and a little more time and care could've made this memorable. As it stands, it just feels broken.