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.

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.

Steel & Steam has considerable potential for however many future installments it sees, but this first one didn't make me happy very often.

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.

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.

Woodsalt feels like something whose ideas would have been better served as a visual novel. The sparse gameplay that is there is so superficial that it ends up detracting from the experience. It’s at least respectful of the player’s time in that one can easily get a playthrough done in well under ten hours, but even then it’s very hard to recommend.

Soulvars will hold limited appeal to turn-based RPG fans. Those looking for a compelling plot and lovable characters will likely want to search elsewhere. The battle system is good enough to entertain players, but offers little to compel them to return to the game once it is beaten as the replay value is nearly zero. Unfortunately, its soulless plot and characterization make it a grind to get through.

Fantasy of Expedition is ambitious for its attempt to combine elements from real-time strategy games, roguelikes, RPGs, idle games, clicker games, and 16-bit nostalgia. However, the resulting product feels time-consuming and not rewarding in its power creep or challenge. The simple story is representative of the depth of each of these elements but also highlights where the game could shine if just a few of them were further refined or removed.

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

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.

The potential is still there, because Romance Dawn doesn't do nearly enough right to make this an adequate substitute for reading the manga or watching the anime.

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.

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.

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.

ArcaniA is just an altogether frustrating experience. Its few good points fail to shine through in any way thanks to the vast number of technical and design issues. Even a fun battle system can't do much for the game other than highlight even further the wasted potential.

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.

Everreach: Project Eden somehow manages to avoid being as annoying to play as its constituent parts would indicate, and there will be some out there who can get a decent evening or two’s entertainment from it. The game at least flows along quickly and the writing just about holds interest through the six or so hours it takes to see everything on offer. But this papering over fails to deal with the major underlying cracks, and it remains one that is impossible to actively recommend.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This was supposed to be the first entry into an episodic game, but there are currently no announced continuations, and it is doubtful any who played this game are eager for more.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

I can't deny that the fifty or so hours spent playing Valkyria Revolution had some fun times. The litany of problems present made it more enticing to stay in an endless loop of free missions rather than return to the story though, and even when doing that I kept finding issues quality improvement should have spotted. If this is the best Sega could do to revive the Valkyria franchise, no wonder it's been dormant for years.