I come away from Final Fantasy 1, 2, and 3 looking forward to the remaining games more than I did before. I appreciate the new features like the enhanced bestiary, the auto-combat feature, making grinding friendlier, and I LOVE the new soundtracks. But I hope they manage to address issues like the screen tearing and especially the font before the last three games release.

Cris Tales is an enjoyable experience if you go into it with the right expectations. It's an easygoing ride through a colorful world that, while somewhat uneven & unpolished, is a comfy & familiar adventure. The interesting time mechanics that help the game stand out unfortunately never realize their full potential, and the storyline falls a bit rote, but my experience with Crisbell and company was still a pleasant one.

NEO: The World Ends With You does a wonderful job recapturing what made this formula work so well on the DS, but in a more approachable way. If there’s one game in this duology I’ll ever find myself revisiting, it’ll definitely be this one. Few other games come close to conveying this kind of rebellious style in every aspect of its design, and NEO completely lived up to what I wanted from a TWEWY sequel.

The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles isn’t perfect, but it’s the closest that the series has ever been to that lofty goal. These games are Shu Takumi at his absolute best, and it’s a blessing that western players finally have the chance to play them without resorting to fan translations. Whether you’re a new fan, or have been with the series from the very beginning, I can’t recommend The Great Ace Attorney: Chronicles enough.

I greatly enjoyed my time with Monster Hunter Stories 2, but if this review reads more restrained than the score might make you feel - it's because as much as I enjoyed the game, it still has its fair share of flaws, and I'm unsure if players with less of a history with the franchise might be willing to overlook them. Your mileage may vary, but one thing's for sure - it's great to see that Monster Hunter: Stories isn't dead, and hopefully this is just one of many more sequels to come.

Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be able to recommend this game as enthusiastically as Kodaka and Uchikoshi’s other works. While I found many of the characters likable, the story didn’t register any stakes for me. All the twists seemed to take away urgency from the story, so much that the triumphs felt predictable by the end. In that way, World’s End Club is like the watered-down version of the two works that inspired it. Understandably, it’s not supposed to be the same. However, World’s End Club still doesn’t quite stand on its own. To its credit, it's successfully uplifting and heartfelt -- just not in the most cohesive way. I’d give a light recommendation to those who enjoy coming-of-age anime stories without the need to overthink them.

Disgaea 6 makes a lot of changes, not all of which are for the best, leading to a somewhat unsatisfying experience. The autobattle system is useful in some aspects but could cheapen the experience for those who don’t restrain themselves. Parts of the campaign, like constantly having to fight the God of Destruction at the end of each chapter, got extraordinarily tiring. Due to streamlining, the systems in and outside of battle shouldn’t be hard to grasp for new players. Yet I feel a lot of returning players will find this entry inadequate and not just because of missing classes.

Scarlet Nexus is an easy game to enjoy and a hard one to hate. It’s so unabashedly earnest about everything it set out to do that even with my issues I couldn’t help but reflect fondly back on my time playing. Most of what it tries to accomplish is done so adequately or successfully, which means a majority of what I had to discuss were parts that broke me out of the vibes presented to me. The combat is free form and incredibly creative, the visuals might be some of the finest to ever come from Bandai Namco, and the story is dense yet largely satisfying. There is fantastic framework in place now for a sequel, and I hope it sells enough so this team can continue to flesh out their vision.

I’m excited for a whole new generation to give the world of Fa’Diel a look. I appreciate that in recent years, Square Enix is giving their other franchises like Mana and SaGa time back in the spotlight. My best advice to take advantage of all that Legend of Mana has to offer is to use guides while playing, especially if you plan to tackle New Game+ and the post-game content! Now, hopefully, we will hear about a brand new Mana game before too long.

If you’ve played the original recently, I wouldn't suggest playing this port straight away, but for newcomers it is absolutely the best version, that I can definitely recommend it as a beginner friendly RPG. As a fan of the original I’m glad I got to play it again with much better visuals and fun new features, but they failed to tune some of the annoyances to make my jaunt more jolly.

In every way, Intermission is simply more of the same - just with an exciting new character to get to grips with.

Mass Effect Legendary Edition is sure to bring in both new and returning fans with its slick presentation and positive word-of-mouth about the series over the years since the original game's release. I enjoyed playing through the series again on more recent hardware, and not needing to hook up my Xbox 360 again. While the games haven't changed much from their initial releases, which can sometimes make the games feel dated, this is still an amazing collection of games to experience.

I wish I could be coming away from Biomutant recommending it to other players. In fact, before starting it I was damn near certain that I’d enjoy it, but it sadly didn’t live up to my expectations. It’s charming and has a great suite of RPG mechanics and customisation, but it’s also surprisingly generic in most of its mission design and has combat that is unique but unsatisfying. I had some fun with it, and I’m sure others will too, but I walked away from it mostly feeling nothing, which is the biggest shame of all.

Despite some glaring flaws around the edges, Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne HD Remaster is still a decently updated release of one of my favorite RPGs of all time. Much of that is attributed to the strength of the original core game experience, though. In the context of 2021, Nocturne HD Remaster almost feels like the student that does the bare minimum in class to get a passing grade. When I look around and see these great re-releases of SaGa Frontier Remastered, NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139…, and the work put in for the first Mass Effect in the very recent Legendary Edition, I wish that this re-release of Nocturne was able to finally rectify some of its long-standing problems - especially the audio compression during combat. I also think about the outstanding work Atlus put in for last year’s Steam release of Persona 4 Golden and how this feels lackluster even compared to that. I still quite enjoyed my time with Nocturne HD Remaster, but it is great because the core game is already phenomenal; aside from adding skill inheritance to demon fusions, most of the updates in this remaster aren’t all that remarkable.

When I wasn’t getting frustrated with New Pokemon Snap, I was having a great time – but I really can’t help but question the thought process with saving the best of the game for after the player has exhausted so much of the game’s content. It feels like I’m being asked to prove I deserve to play more of the game I fell in love with on the Wii’s Virtual Console by finishing a huge stack of work first. For a game that seems so determined to relax the player, I feel like they forgot to consider that there’s a fine line between relaxation and boredom. New Pokemon Snap didn’t have to bore me, and that’s what makes it all the more frustrating.

Frustrations aside, Famicom Detective Club still manages to captivate all the same. It’s a miracle that these two Nintendo classics were ever localized, let alone as a global simultaneous release with these remakes. It was a blast to join the Detective Club after so many years, and I can only hope one day we can see a similar remake for the series’ 3rd game, sales permitting. If you’re at all a fan of either the Visual Novel or Japanese Adventure game genres, you owe it to yourself to experience this vital part of their history.

Frustrations aside, Famicom Detective Club still manages to captivate all the same. It’s a miracle that these two Nintendo classics were ever localized, let alone as a global simultaneous release with these remakes. It was a blast to join the Detective Club after so many years, and I can only hope one day we can see a similar remake for the series’ 3rd game, sales permitting. If you’re at all a fan of either the Visual Novel or Japanese Adventure game genres, you owe it to yourself to experience this vital part of their history.

While the price might be asking a lot for a game that can now be purchased for significantly less on consoles - or even downloaded on Xbox as part of Game Pass! - whoever was in charge of the Kingdom Hearts III PC port has delivered not just a fantastic PC version of the game, but one that is sure to become the benchmark for Square Enix PC ports going forward - for good or ill.

For anyone who prefers pure farming and enjoys the Story of Seasons franchise, this can still be a game for you. Everything that the series is well-known for is present in this game. However, it doesn't seem like the series has really taken any real steps forward since I last played a Story of Seasons game back in 2007. For now, I think I'll stick to Rune Factory.

When it comes down to it, Poison Control fails to do anything interesting in any manner. There's nothing about the game that is outright broken, but there is just no substance to anything at all. A forgettable nothing story, forgettable gameplay, tedious maps, all lead to an experience that is an easy skip.

The fact that Disco Elysium - The Final Cut is now in a good state makes me incredibly happy because it means I can scream from the rooftops how much I want people to play this game. Not only did its gameplay mechanics surprise me with just how much variety they offer, and how much fun they are to mess around with, but its world, story, and characters are second to none in the world of gaming. I haven't stopped thinking about Disco Elysium since I put it down, and I am very excited to go back to Revachol and craft my detective's identity all over again.

NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139… is one of the most carefully constructed re-releases in recent memory. I was delighted to see just how much of the original experience remained intact, with the bulk of alterations focused on its visuals and combat. While I am happy that NieR: Automata remains a resounding success, its influence over this updated release of NieR hasn’t robbed it of its unique identity; this is, by and large, the NieR that I fell in love with. I think all the new content that has been added to Replicant ver.1.22 is all worth seeing. Looking back at my journey once more with Nier, Kainé, and Emil, I am so happy that one of the most underappreciated games gets another chance to show why it is so special again.

SaGa Frontier Remastered is almost an impossible game for me to recommend to anyone with the expectation that it'll click. I can tell you it's a very unorthodox RPG, compelling in its unconventionality, and a delight to figure out. There's not much else like it at all, and it's even somewhat of an oddball within its own series. SaGa offers a certain flavor of RPG not seen often elsewhere, and maybe it's one you'll like, though it's a bit of an acquired taste.

At the end of the day, Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth isn’t a bad game, but it’s undoubtedly Team Ladybug’s weakest work. Even the weakest from their output is well worth playing, but unlike with Touhou: Luna Nights I wouldn’t go out of your way to make time for it. Maybe some of the game's faults, like its uneven difficulty, can be alleviated with updates. Even then, other problems just run too deep; hopefully the team can stick the landing with whatever their next project ends up being.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla is a great-looking open-world game with impressive landscapes and cinematography. However, the checklist collectible open-world still needs some work to feel truly engaging, and combat is too tedious and too frequent to be compelling. As a lapsed fan of Assassin's Creed trying to see if I can click with the series once again, Valhalla didn't quite hook me as I was hoping it would.

The Outer Worlds - Murder on Eridanos is a sizable DLC offering that exhibits some fun murder-mystery hijinks with the same Outer Worlds flair you've come accustomed to in the rest of the game. With some niggling quest issues and an unsatisfying conclusion, I'm not sure if it is excellent enough to convince players to spend $15 and dust off a game they've already completed more than a year ago, but there's still fun to be had for those looking for more.

Saviors of Sapphire Wings / Stranger of Sword City Revisited fits its intent to include a title more suited to novices along with a title more suited to veterans, but Stranger of Sword City is really the reason the dual-pack is worth picking up at all. It's Experience's best game to date, offers a style not seen much elsewhere, and new updates improve it markedly over its original release. Dungeon crawler fans should definitely give it a try, and those new to the genre will at least be able to acclimate a bit.

There’s a framework of a great game here, and the changes and additions to the formula belay what feels like an even more significant step forward for the series than Monster Hunter: World. But that promise hasn’t yet come to fruition. I’m sure that one day Monster Hunter: Rise will be my favorite game in the series, but the road to reach that destination has only started. As for now, we’re left with an entry that ticks almost all of the boxes, but with some glaring exceptions. Monster Hunter: Rise is a great game; but it can, and should, be a fantastic one.