Despite all of its environmental detail, scope, and promise of a wider, more exciting space-faring adventure, The Outer Worlds 2 is a disappointment. While it offers divergence and choice, its paper-thin satire, tonal mishmash, and balancing oddities see the experience crumble under the weight. In addition, the review build’s far too many immersion-destroying bugs, blocked questlines, and other sequence breaks ensure that the game’s issues outweigh its redeeming qualities.

In the end, ClaDun just doesn't have much going for it beyond the retro trappings.

I can truthfully say that Mary Skelter: Nightmares is the very first game I have ever played in which giving a woman multiple meatless pancakes demonstrably raised her affection for my character. I can also truthfully say that it exceeds the level of quality seen in my previous experiences with Idea Factory and Compile Heart. That comes with the significant caveat of a point where the game refused to recognize I had the critical item for progression, until after about 150 tries it finally allowed me through. Cranking the quality up from completely wretched to only somewhat wretched isn’t all that much of an accomplishment though, and leaves me no wiser than before about how these companies remain in business.

I wanted to love Fae Farm, but honestly, the full package was mostly disappointing. It is a game that tries to compete with the popular farming sims, but never quite does enough to stand on its own feet. While there are kernels of good ideas, they are marred by questionable design choices, with quests and goals that never feel satisfying. I am all for the coziness revolution, but Fae Farm, unfortunately, feels anything but.

The Rise of Digitoll may look cute and accommodating at a glance, but don't believe it. It would be one thing if the game was trying to be a brutal dungeon crawl, but a massive revision to its mechanics would be necessary for that to work.

It's a shame that the (supposedly) final entry into the Star Ocean series is marred by so many cosmetic and localization problems, because the game does sport a great easy-to-use item creation system and a fast-paced rough-and-tumble combat system.

Most RPGs are meant to be played steadily, but Puzzle Quest 2 is most assuredly not the sort of game to be played at length. In short bursts separated from each other by lengthy periods spent doing something else, the mechanics remain entertaining.

Provided the rest of the game keeps up with its strong opening, Phantom Doctrine is very well set up to be one of this year’s pleasant surprises and one that strategy fans be will happy to sink many hours into throughout multiple campaigns.

My biggest piece of advice when it comes to this game is to play the demo. You will experience everything the game has to offer in it and you will know very quickly whether you can stomach the fan service.

River City: Rival Showdown isn't a strong or memorable title in this franchise, especially when compared to Tokyo Rumble, which is by far the more quality game. With the lack of direction, the difficulty spikes, and the time it takes to upgrade skills and equipment, Rival Showdown is an exercise in frustration more than anything else.

Even as a compilation of the iOS content, Squids Odyssey ends with a 'to be continued' notification because the story is far from concluded, though developer The Game Bakers is unlikely to wait long for further updates. I feel like I got my fill of calamari with what I've already had though. Unless future installments receive a great deal of fine-tuning, my time with squid does not need extension.

For all of its small charms on the screen, the play of the game is an exercise in bashing one's head on a wall of monsters in the hopes that the random number gods smile upon the player and allow passage. And the reward for that is only to repeat the process again until the shallow and unsatisfying conclusion is reached.

Metal Max Xeno: Reborn is allegedly a refined experience of the initial game, but there are simply too many under-baked mechanics thrown in for anything to stick. At the end of the day, Reborn feels more like a tank management simulator with occasional forays into combat and exploration of an empty, generic-looking wasteland. Players are simply dropped into Dystokyo and left to their own devices. While some gamers will find themselves engrossed with monster hunting, others will find themselves frustrated by how Metal Max Xeno: Reborn is still unable to get things right, even after being fully reconstructed. A campy sense of humor can only carry a game so far. Unfortunately, this second chance at life is inexplicably held back by the same quality issues that plagued its progenitor.

Shiren the Wanderer tears the heart and soul out of everything that makes games in this subgenre fun or even bearable, leaving a very basic, uninspired randomized crawler with no personality or bells and whistles, then wraps it into an interface that's awkward at its best, and slow and frustrating at its worst.

With a simplistic, weak story that will only entertain young children and drab, tedious gameplay that only young children could overlook, Spectrobes: Origins is a game that should only be played by kids, and even then, any Pokémon game will provide them with three times the content at three times the quality.

Perhaps in a different world, Tales of Xillia 2 could have been the proper sequel that Tales fans wanted, one that more thoroughly explored the Elympios half of the world which was mostly glossed over in the first game. Instead, we got a game in which players collect cats and pay off their medical bills.

I've enjoyed a number of dungeon crawlers over the years, but never have I felt compelled to go back and experience the earliest renditions of the type. Stranger of Sword City gave me some uncomfortable flashbacks to The Dark Spire while I played it, and one deliberately-archaic title in that mold was plenty to last me a very long time.

I adored Rhapsody and Rhapsody II, but Rhapsody III feels like an unnecessary addition to this fun series. The game feels like more of a cash grab, offering mediocre stories regarding the series’ wonderful cast of characters, and it’s accompanied by uninspired dungeons and question combat design. Rhapsody III was a rollercoaster I was begging to get off because the constant ups and downs felt like whiplash. Two out of six short stories are not enough for me to recommend Rhapsody III, even for series fans, but one could say its presence for a bundle helped finally give Rhapsody II its welcome western release.

It frequently plays more like a puzzle game than a tactical game, however, with large doses of luck being required to come through some encounters. The bothersome interface aspects ensure that playing the game is more a chore than entertaining, relegating it to the status of yet another disappointing DS game.

The right person can find some level of enjoyment with Dragon Marked for Death. Unfortunately, the right person is likely somebody who has supplied a group of their own friends with copies of the game to join in on-line co-op, or else just has a hankering for stat-tuning and mission grinding. To the average gamer, the game’s repetitive nature in the face of its overall lack of multiplayer alternatives will spell anathema. Online games aren’t designed to put their best face forward when played solo, and it sadly seems this game’s timer is already ticking dangerously close towards its expiration date.

Miasma Chronicles is more than just a solid tactical RPG experience; it’s a game that’s both tongue-in-cheek fun and darkly mature, chronicling a humankind on the brink of extinction. The world-building and presentation offer much to take in and enjoy, while the combat is deep and sound, with tons of variables to constantly keep up with that can turn the tide of battle at a moment’s notice. It also has quite a keen edge, and those who enjoy a firm challenge will be well-served by what’s on offer. Despite a few technical hiccups in its current state, Miasma Chronicles has a lot to love, and is an easy recommendation for those wanting to scratch their next tactical itch with a game that asks much of its players, but also offers a wealth of quality in return.

I felt no real desire to spend any more time in Lord of Magna, and will likely forget most of what I experienced in a few months. While it's not quite at the level to warrant George Carlin's famous comparison to the act of viewing a golf game, getting anywhere near that area is not an accomplishment a developer should ever want.

While the online makes for a fun social outing, Dungeon Hunter: Alliance doesn't do enough to stand out in a crowd. With its uninspired gameplay, joke of a story, and its constant recycling of just about everything, it's barely worth the $13 price tag. There are better Diablo clones worth your buck, and this is simply not one of them.

I don’t feel like Nelke was the best version of itself, especially when players are reminded that this cheaply made game doesn’t exemplify what makes the Atelier series great. Nelke lacks the spark and unfortunately reminded me that perhaps my love of the series has truly come to an end.

From its trailers and screens, Fara promised an epic role-playing adventure in a beautifully crafted world. In actuality, Fara produces an extremely short adventure game with average music and visuals, insufficient difficulty and story, and hardly any RPG elements. While some RPGamers may find Fara to be a worthwhile use of two hours, most would be better off leaving this unwilling hero stranded on that island to fend for himself.

The best indicator of whether a given gamer will appreciate Black Rock Shooter is its visual style. The game offers moderately entertaining combat and sad girls in snow, but these can be obtained elsewhere at a fraction of the aggravation. At its core, the story is a familiar one that isn't able to justify its retelling with a new twist. There is something to be said for a game that embraces zoning out and rhythmically blowing things up, but it's not always a straight-up compliment. Look, but don't touch.

This game is a mini-game collection masquerading as an epic adventure, and it doesn't even pull that off well.

It all adds up to a game that’s more commendable on paper than in its execution. GreedFall: The Dying World is an ambitious title by a smaller developer that tells a story from a perspective not often seen in the medium. A story about the horrors of colonization, not to mention told from the point of view of the colonized, is a laudable endeavor. But there isn’t much about the game that makes it a fun outing. Characters lack personality, and it’s entirely up to the player to seek it out where it exists, combat is an overly complex mess of options layered on a foundation made for brute-forcing, and both presentation and technical optimization are in need of fine-tuning. With the change away from the more action-oriented combat being a questionable one, fans of the previous installment may still be on board for another chance to visit the world of Teer Fradee, while all others may want to miss the boat this time around.

Soccer Story provides some enjoyable basic entertainment that comes from just kicking the ball around and taking on the challenges and targets as players explore. Some of the puzzles and challenges are good fun and satisfying to complete, but there are also many that are made more frustrating than they need to be. With a flawed match system that becomes trivial once its workings have been figured out and technical issues that stack up as the game progresses, it’s incredibly tough to recommend.

The Legend of Legacy HD Remastered fails to live up to its promise of delivering a captivating dungeon-crawling experience. With its lackluster narrative, uninspired combat, and flawed progression systems, the game struggles to hold the attention of players and ultimately falls short of expectations. While the nostalgia may appeal to some fans of the original release, newcomers are likely to find little to redeem this lackluster remaster. As players journey through the world of Avalon, they’ll find themselves longing for a more fulfilling adventure, leaving The Legend of Legacy HD Remastered to fade into obscurity.

Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics is the kind of mash-up property that by all rights should have the right ingredients to hit that sweet spot. By all accounts, the original property actually does manage to do just that. But the digital adaptation lacks on several fronts, not the least of which is the unfortunate underusage of the occult element of its namesake. The grindy battle system with little enemy and environmental variety is also nothing to write home about. Cthulhu Tactics sounds like an intriguing mix of its two titular elements, but fails to deliver on the promise of either.

At the end of the day, Re: Hollow Fragment is lazy in every sense of the word, and just isn't worth the dollars that Bandai Namco is asking for.

The Awakened Fate Ultimatum draws heavily on tired anime humor and noodling about transcending one's fate. Perhaps a smack with a cake pan or a high-intensity training montage would have fuelled its own will to power.

If you can track down three friends to play with and enjoy this style of gameplay, Phantasy Star Portable might be an enjoyable experience. However, it remains an excessively repetitive grindfest with little lasting appeal, regardless of multiplayer capabilities.

Saying that Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet is at least playable is the best compliment I can give it, as there's occasional fun to be had from running around and shooting things, though not nearly enough. Almost everything else about the game amounts to a sterile waste of time. The story is vapid, the variety of locations and enemies is practically non-existent, and everything you do in the game feels completely pointless. It's not even content I'd recommend to diehard fans of the series, as there's not really even enough of that here to matter. Fatal Bullet was a chance for the game portion of the Sword Art Online franchise to step up and shine under a new developer with a new gameplay focus, but instead the entire thing shamefully fell flat on its face.

Despite some interesting ideas, Biomutant commits the cardinal sin of media — it’s boring, and that ultimately seals its fate. The game has a gorgeous world and adorable character designs, yet it’s soulless and falls far short of its ambitions. What makes it even more depressing is that, although it has potential, it’s plagued by too many poor gameplay elements plus a story that’s bloated with exposition and undermined by poor character development, as well as the rampant technical issues. Offering a main story that can easily be completed in less than fifteen hours, Biomutant is a quick experience but the dullness still comes in that short amount of time. Ambition is a beautiful thing to have, but if you cannot fulfill it, it’s nothing but wasted potential and time.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with its focus on button-mashing action; in fact, the addition of the calculator to bribe enemies into joining you is a welcome idea that has merit. But each time the game hits its stride and lets the player feel a sense of fun, it’s quickly dashed by repetitive gameplay, dull story, or another crushing difficulty spike.

All in all, it’s hard to imagine many players will get a lot out of Bleak Faith: Forsaken. It successfully pushes to the forefront an alien and otherworldly experience which is indeed as bleak as its name implies, but this alone does not an enjoyable time make. With large-scale issues embedded within its narrative structure, progression, exploration, and combat, the cons easily outweigh the pros. There are reasons to praise the design team’s overall effort — particularly given the game’s scope and the extreme limitations they had to cope with — but beyond an academic appreciation, Bleak Faith simply isn’t a fun game to play. With no shortage of far superior similar titles available on the market, this one may be relegated to go down as a hopeful starting point for its creators, but not one that will stand tall on its own merits.

There are a huge number of other issues plaguing the game: sparse save points, a quest-based structure with hardly any quests, and a difficulty curve heavily dependent on level are just a few. But the most obnoxious thing about Blue Dragon: Awakened Shadow, beyond the clunky mechanics, beyond the poor localization, is how blatantly it attempts to mimic Dragon Quest IX, and how poorly it does it.

There are many unique mechanics introduced here that have a lot of potential, but between the lack of interesting ways in which said mechanics are used and the terrible controls, they only work to hinder the game. The game is also one of the buggiest games I’ve played; its litany of bugs range from falling through walls, to abilities that don’t work correctly or unintentionally trivialize encounters and obstacles, and even bugs of the game-breaking kind. This is a game with great ideas but horrid execution, both from a technical and a design perspective, and it’s really a shame. Here’s hoping the developers will take what’s good here and execute better on it in the future.

Fans of games such as older Elder Scrolls titles and even Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild will likely find this an enjoyable experience. While Outward lacks the polish of those titles, it shares the vision of making a harsh, open-world experience into something memorable. It makes every victory feel like an accomplishment, and it allows the player to write their own story in a new and unforgiving land. And, for some, that is all they need from their RPGs to feel happily satisfied.

For as simple as a game it is, the game runs fine on the Switch. The draw distances of the levels and the pop-in is noticeable but really doesn’t impede gameplay in any meaningful way. The music and sound design is as bland as they come, leaving so little an impression that all that’s left is the admittedly fun creature design. But engaging with enemies isn’t entertaining and the levels offer no fun secrets to explore. Hyakki Castle promises an interesting premise but can deliver on little else besides some pretty loading screen concept art.

Astor: Blade of the Monolith feels like a game that needed a few more months to cook. The gameplay is underdeveloped, there are multiple bugs, and and the plot really could’ve done with some punching up. While this adventure has potential for improvement, but it’s very difficult to find reasons to recommend it in its current state.

With the release of Seven Knights: Time Wanderer, Netmarble attempts to replicate their free-to-play title’s success with this console offering. Unfortunately, the game underserves both the source material and players on the Switch. While fans of the Seven Knights mobile game may enjoy this title, there are scores of more fulfilling experiences available on the console.

Weird enemies, fast combat, and tank customization don’t save Metal Max Xeno from being an unbalanced disaster. The game also manages to end on a particularly poor note with an ill-conceived boss-rush followed by a monstrous final battle that requires expertly tuned tanks not needed anywhere else in the story. I spent nearly as much time trying to beat the final boss as I did on the rest of the game. It’s just another in a host of bad design decisions. There are some interesting parts that could have formed the basis of a good game — the tank battles against giant monsters festooned with cannons are fun — but those parts are buried by all the other terrible decisions.

The Witch and the Hundred Knight 2 is the worst gaming experience I’ve had in recent memory. The longer I played the game, the more negative my opinions became. While it started out as a harmless, bland action RPG, it beat me into submission with repetitive dungeons, bad combat, and poorly-designed boss encounters. While there may be a few interesting ideas in the story, it’s not worth suffering through the dungeons and needlessly verbose scenes to experience them.

Unfortunately, it’s very hard to find reasons to recommend Reynatis. The story has some intriguing elements that provide curiosity about where it’s going to go next, while there are some interesting gameplay ideas and the music is decent. However, the game’s execution across the board undercuts all of these. The stronger parts just don’t have what is necessary to make Reynatis much more than a curious disappointment.

Sword Coast Legends has overreached far beyond its abilities. What might have been a fine successor to Neverwinter Nights is instead a playable, but dull experience for every playstyle it offers. Dungeons & Dragons brand name represents a long lineage of CRPGs. Some excellent, some considerably less so. I, personally, had hoped that this entry could have been the former, given its ambitions to the Neverwinter Nights lineage, but ultimately this game fails to interest for any length of time.

There’s a good premise locked behind bad execution in Fate Seeker II. There’s plenty to explore and everything is connected to something. The detective work is meticulous and the awful translation makes reading for any amount of time a headache. Combat is sprinkled in as a highlight, but when most of the game is dialogue heavy, it is not enough. The poor presentation magnifies every weakness so avoid this headache at all costs.

Calamity Angels: Special Delivery is an ambitious title that took one-note jokes way too far. A title about deliveries at its epicentre has promise, and the character designs are very enjoyable. Combat has moments where the absurdity all connects, and a wonderful finishing move is shown on screen that always brings a smile, but that smile quickly becomes a twitchy bunch of frustrated nerves when the party will not listen to commands. The constant chatter and disdain from the party is easily annoying, and while the game is only twenty hours, it still feels painful herding them to complete the most basic survival instinct-related things. This constant source of manufactured tension sadly overshadows most of the good on offer here. This courier is anything but dull, but the chaotic frustrations will cause many prospective clients to look elsewhere.

Dokapon Journey fails to impress.

After wasting thirty hours of my time, this is one game that has no right to pass kindergarten.

Ultimately, there are many issues with The Caligula Effect: Overdose. There were many things in the game that I truly wanted to like, but unfortunately they do not save it from being a poor title. In its entirety, The Caligula Effect: Overdose is an underwhelming and mediocre experience from beginning to end.

Conglomerate 451 has a solid gameplay base, but that’s really all there is to it and it’s not enough to fully support the game on its own. The combat is decently engaging, but the repetitiveness and lack of interesting elements outside of it means it fails to garner full attention for any extended period of time. Those looking to crawl through neon corridors and vaporise cyborg punks will find some enjoyment from it, but it’s ultimately forgettable.

Steal Princess's entire structure is antithetical to exploration and its mechanics are more often infuriating than not.

Perhaps White Knight Chronicles II can be best considered a very large expansion of the first game.

While I love the idea of Pokémon spin-offs that try to add a new layer of depth to the tried-and-true formula, Gates to Infinity leaves a lot to be desired. It definitely will have its audience and those who are willing to overlook many of the game's major flaws, but there are plenty of more interesting dungeon crawlers out there to explore.

With unbalanced gameplay, recycled graphics, limited content, and almost no replay value, From The Abyss a disappointment and should be sent back into the abyss where it came from.

While I have spent most of this review ragging on Harvest Moon: Skytree Village's issues, I am glad I played the game because it satisfied my curiosity in regards to how Harvest Moon has changed in the last five years. While there are inklings of interesting ideas, the overall package feels hollow, as though it's missing a spark of greatness where other games have succeeded. Skytree Village doesn't offer enough incentive to keep players actively engaged, and I can only hope that the next iteration of the series makes some drastic changes to get this series back on track.

As the basic framework of a game, it serves adequately, but that's about the most praise possible.

I had a good time with Keepers of the Void, and appreciated the feeling of puzzling my way through a dungeon, as well as the spike in boss difficulty by the end. Even though it doesn’t add much, if anything, in terms of lore or storytelling to the game’s world, it’s a dungeon experience that Darksiders III overall benefits from. It doesn’t have many long-term rewards for those that have already cleared the main game, but it’s a worthwhile return trip to the world of Darksiders III nonetheless, even if only for a few hours, and the kind of thing I’d love to see integrated into the base game design for future outings in the franchise.

Necromunda: Underhive Wars is its own worst enemy; no game should be in a constant war with itself to be playable. Instead it should show off its map and objective variety with a completely capable combat system. While it is possible the game can be redeemed with multiple patches and quality-of-life improvements, for now it is a rushed and half finished experience with only faint hope that anything can be salvaged.

I wanted to give Arelite Core a chance, and found little things to admire even while the package as a whole was a disappointment. It's pretty hard to forgive a game in which beating the final boss is greeted by an immediate unknown error that crashes the whole shebang though. I'm hopeful Dragon Slumber will be able to move on to better things in the future, because this isn't a very good advertisement of whatever talents it possesses.

It's sad to see a game whose concept has a lot of potential but doesn't follow through with a better presentation.

In the end, there doesn't seem to be much reason to think of Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity as more than a left-field oddity. Newcomers to the established universe will be nonplussed by its cast of characters who lack all introduction and its fly-by-night story. Repeat visitors to Gensokyo will still be hard-pressed to locate any challenge or semblance of fun within its dreary gameplay and level design.

Sadly, The Caligula Effect really just amounts to a waste of time. It's a shame because there's some neat ideas within it, particularly on the premise and story side of things, that are stuck behind terrible design choices and poor implementation. Despite its short length — approaching twenty hours depending on how well players can avoid the mindless drones — there's no reason to abandon other plans to give it a try.

What’s hard about WitchSpring3 is that there is so little in it that is enjoyable. There is no personality in the game, and everything that is happening in the story or the gameplay feels so unremarkable. I appreciate how short an experience it was and that it was very direct in its approach, but there was so little in it to explore and engage with. This is a hard game to recommend as it can be welcoming for some gamers, but this port feels as though very little effort was put forth. WitchSpring3: Re:Fine is a boring and hollow experience that cannot be recommended at a $39.99 price point.

The problem with Pong Quest on a whole is that for a crossover, it doesn’t lean heavily enough into RPGs to be interesting for RPGamers, and by the other side of it, you can only play so much Pong before it gets stale. Pong Quest is a cute experiment that is plagued with just too much damn Pong and not enough RPG.

It's hard to find any reason to place Sacred 3 above the majority of action RPGs released recently. It doesn't do anything particularly well, with every aspect having been done considerably better elsewhere. Fans of the first two games in the series will likely prefer to pretend this never happened.

I’d like to be able to say that aside from the bugs, Monster Harvest is a great game, but that’s just not true at this point. The game is just missing too many staples that other farming sims feature. There is little main story, no NPC interaction, a near featureless battle-system, no side quests, and barely any small intermediary goals throughout the game. Even beating the final boss is greeted with a single line of dialogue and zero fanfare. Publisher Merge Games has repeatedly claimed additional content will release when debugging is complete. It would be worth RPGamer’s time to wait for both of those events to occur.

The Princess Guide provides some moments of enjoyment, but overall the game does very little to endear the player. It feels like the game goes out of its way to obscure anything that might add depth, while some amusing conversations can only distract momentarily from the egregious waste of its premise. Though The Princess Guide at least avoids some of the pitfalls of frustration, it simply doesn’t have have much to recommend it.

Of Orcs and Men joins the list of games that have failed to deliver after some early promise. This is a pity as the concept of a game examining the point of view and culture of those fantasy races that would traditionally be shoved into the role of the antagonist forces without a second thought is an appealing one. Unfortunately, Of Orcs and Men squanders this opportunity and the result is a mediocre, all-too-short experience that won't live long in the memory.

As a stand-alone product, Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization has very little to recommend it. Gameplay is decent enough to hold interest, but better versions of every aspect can be readily found elsewhere. Even for ardent fans of the series, it's highly debatable whether the game is worth the time. Hollow Realization shows no progress for a series that appears to be relying solely on its base franchise for sales.

Those looking to spend more time with the goddesses will at least enjoy more of their humour, and VTuber fans will likely get a kick out of their cameos. However, gameplay is very much lacking, with everything being done considerably better elsewhere, and ultimately, as an overall experience, Neptunia Virtual Stars remains a disappointment.

Percy Jackson & the Olympians is not a particularly horrid game, just an undistinguished one that does little to inspire anyone unfamiliar with its source into playing it.

Perhaps the best overview of Empyre is as a collection of theoretically good ideas that were never fleshed out, with a storyboard rather than a story, and a hodgepodge of gameplay mechanics rather than a coherent set of fun game systems. And that's unfortunate, because the game is full of unique and intriguing elements in its setting, overarching plot, and combat, and could have easily made for an excellent experience. But as is, it's not much more than a buggy proof-of-concept in need of serious refinements and overhauls of all its core components.

In the end, Elminage sticks far too closely to old-school mechanics that just no longer provide for a fun experience.

Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny took me over eighty hours to complete and only twenty of those hours actually felt fun and exciting. The game has way too many unpolished elements that keep it from being a fantastic successor to Rune Factory 3, and in the end falters from its problems described above.

All in all, Mugen Souls turns out to be an incredibly frustrating game with some good ideas that quickly get lost in the grind.

While Trinity: Souls of Zill O'll has a lot of potential in its varied battle system, decent story, and wonderful soundtrack, it falls flat in other unforgivable areas. The repetitive and pointless missions combine with the pointless text-only overflow of dialogue to pad the game two or three times longer than it needs to be. If only the fat had been cut and more variety was offered, the game might have been decent. As is, Trinity is drowning in missteps.

Aluna is really an interesting character and it is a shame that she doesn’t get the full showcase in this game. Aluna: Sentinel of the Shards simply plays things too safe in creating a game that is functional but not interesting. No risks were taken with the characters, the story, or the combat leaving a very linear game that is only really noteworthy for its setting of 16th-century Latin America. Even those die-hard enough to travel back in time for the experience are given an unfulfilling trip, consisting of stilted visuals rather than vibrant tapestries. The concept and the background of the game hold so much promise that they make this by-the-numbers, low-risk effort that much more disappointing.

I had every intention of enjoying Xuan-Yuan Sword: Mists Beyond the Mountains; I quite liked Xuan Yuan Sword 7 when it received a western release a few years back, and I am generally a fan of throwback, pixel-art styles with turn-based combat. But it didn’t take long for the game to tear down any goodwill built up by its predecessor or my personal inclinations. When push comes to shove, there’s just no way to ignore the terrible blow dealt to the game by its one-of-a-kind translation, evident in everything from the philosophical musings of the plot to how character arcs unfold. And if that alone wasn’t the deathblow, then the frustrating and plain unfun balance issues that made me beg for credits certainly did the trick. There’s no two ways about it: Mists Beyond the Mountains would have fared better staying shrouded in the fog of ancient obscurity.

I am not such a purist that I can’t enjoy a lower-budget indie take on the Souls-like formula, and the team at GoldKnights shows its chops in several of The Last Oricru‘s aspects. The writing and world-building are enjoyable, and the vision of giving the player lots of choice in how the story should unfold has been well realized. But when it comes to combat and performance, the game is a mess. Even if one is lucky enough to avoid game-breaking bugs, combat is executed so poorly that it spreads its taint onto the rest of the experience. When having to restart a game completely due to a bug isn’t even the worst issue encountered, I think that about says it all. In the end, the development team has much to prove to bring the gameplay in line with the good elements it showed it is capable of.

While Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky makes constant attempts at humor, the efforts mostly fall flat.

The occasionally good graphics, and the promise of fighting with fifteen foot tall, steam powered bots will pull in a number of people. Just about every other element of the game, especially the mundane array of quests offered, just feels uninspired and frustrating.

It's hard to imagine just what the developers were thinking when creating The Witch and the Hundred Knight. Metallia is so immediately distasteful that most players will be turned off in the first hour, and players who stick it out longer will likely grow bored and annoyed.

It's difficult to justify players paying full new game price for Bound by Flame, particularly for the premium cost PS4 version. Ultimately, the game has an interesting premise and selling points that on the face of things are worthy of attention, but the scope aimed for is such that the resources and timescales devoted to it sadly had no hope in achieving.

Ragnarok DS could have been a happy marriage between the addictive combat of an MMORPG and the enjoyable stories found in the best offline games.

Ultimately, Lord of Arcana does not succeed as a viable Monster Hunter clone, both because of the broken battle system or the lack of variation in the missions available, there's enough to turn people off from the title.

R.A.W is a waste of time, energy and money, as you get very little value and content, and no reward other than a sore thumb and a sour attitude.

In the end, Cross Edge is a disappointment.

The Good Life has a name behind it in SWERY, and as such, the story brings all the insanity and the confusion one has come to expect from his previous titles. There is scope for the humour to work, but factoring in fighting with the camera and struggling with the controls the whole experience is just not worthwhile. In a self-fulling prophecy, Naomi points out a lot of faults in games that The Good Life just blithely repeats itself. Throwing a crazy ad-lib together and keeping fingers crossed the game works may have worked in the past, but this game has none of the fun or the charm to be successful nowadays.

In the end, there's simply nothing interesting or worthwhile about Valhalla Knights 3.

Though the combat holds up, it’s just too difficult to find a way to recommend Element: Space as a whole. There’s not much of interest from a narrative standpoint, while all of the good points about the gameplay are offset by the technical problems. It’s a shame, as there’s a good base underneath it, but even with giving leeway based on the small size of the development team, the annoyances currently outweigh the good.

To be honest, I have a difficult time even calling Hometown Story a game, as its gameplay mechanics have almost nothing to do with its progression. Without a massive overhaul of how progression in the game works, it would probably have been better served as a visual novel, and even then, it would have been a pretty poor one.

Ultimately, the one thing that Daggerdale manages to accomplish is providing a proof of concept: Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition can work well in a video game. Unfortunately, Daggerdale is not that video game. Buggy, flawed, and bland, Daggerdale is the dice without the creativity of the players throwing them. While I'm sure we haven't seen the last of 4th Edition in the video game world, it's safe to give Daggerdale a critical miss.

Combining tactical RPGs and soccer is a good idea that could be further developed and improved upon, but Ganbare! Super Strikers really misses the mark in execution. The lack of substance that prevents the game from soaring once the novelty of the premise wears off and the flaws in the balancing become noticeable. As someone who generally prefers to play games single-player, the game failed to impress and I doubt this will hold much appeal in the multiplayer department for anyone who isn’t already a hardcore fan of both soccer and Tactical RPGs.

Varlet has a few interesting elements. The story is enjoyable enough to experience, with a welcome cast, and it’s quite enjoyable to listen to. However, the gameplay is ultimately little short of a disaster. While Varlet does a lot wrong, players can still readily get through it. However, the worst failing the game has is that it feels a significant improvement could simply come from excising much of its gameplay.