At first brush, Destiny Connect by all rights appears to be successful in what it seems to have been created for: provide a cute, fun, and polished throwback game for both modern audiences and those who remember the older console generations fondly. The issues with the game don’t become apparent immediately, but do rear their heads before too long, causing fatigue with the bland, aimless narrative and frustration with the repetitive and simple combat. Time travel is a tricky thing, and in Destiny Connect’s case, the only fond memories I’m left with are the good times I’ve had with the games that were its inspirations.

Neverland Card Battles is indeed unique and the first game to accurately combine a CCG with a TRPG; however, although it is not bad, the execution has just enough holes in it to keep the game from being fun.

It tries to do a lot of things, and definitely has a distinct personality from anything else I remember playing. Layering everything with needless profanity is not the magic bullet to become amazing though, and using the game’s real bullets is often more complicated than it should be. If a sequel should come to pass, there’s plenty of room for improvement.

Cyberpunk 2077 is currently a strange one to judge and though there are definitely those out there who will still get lots of enjoyment from the game in its current state, the caveats are major, especially for anyone playing on consoles. CD Projekt RED’s management has absolutely rushed it out before it was properly ready, and at this stage it’s very much a case of buyer beware. It’s clear that lots of effort has been put into creating Night City and the well-linked major gameplay systems, but even when putting the technical issues aside, it still feels much like many open-world games that have come before.

Ultimately, Dark Alliance is a flawed game that provides a perfunctory single-player experience that fails to dazzle or delight. While there is some depth and enjoyment deep within the heart of the multiplayer experience, Dark Alliance fails to provide the engrossing gameplay experience that is required in order to sustain the sort of long-term community clearly desired by the game’s creators. The developers are already planning to implement changes based on player feedback, on top of a planned expansion and fifth playable character, but the question then becomes how many will still be waiting in Icewind Dale?

Two Brothers will find most appeal with those who grew up in the earlier periods of adventure gaming, when players had to make their own way through the world.

Dungeons & Dragons Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition is an easy way to get into the franchise. Sadly, this version has few noteworthy new features and several bugs, making it not as good as one could have wished for. Nonetheless, it is great news that an iconic PC franchise is getting an enhanced version to reach more RPGamers. Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition is a recommendation for those who love D&D, but they should expect some bumps along the ride.

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.

Agarest 2 is a definite step in the right direction for the series, but there's still plenty of room for improvement. Some time spent focusing on creating a more engaging world and story, as well as to streamline some of the game's unnecessarily complex systems should help in getting Agarest to rise up the rankings. The series is beginning to show promise, however, and its pre-existing fans will find much to like in this entry.

Azur Lane: Crosswave doesn’t harbour ambitions to be more than it really is and, though it may be a bit underwhelming, it at least doesn’t outstay its welcome. It’s perfectly happy to just provide some hours of mild entertainment without trying to reinvent the wheel and that may be enough for some, but certainly not all.

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.

Despite a lot of issues in the gameplay, I actually had a lot of fun playing Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory, and that's largely in part to the humorous script and terrific localization job.

Despite a great localization and plenty of solid aspects, Akiba's Beat's strengths never manage to overshadow its glaring problems. Its copy-paste combat system, constant revisiting of dungeons, and other minor problems all add up to a bland and occasionally irritating experience.

Not every game has to push the envelope, and Unlucky Mage certainly doesn't. Yet it could deliver better in terms of story and execution.

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.

Criminal Girls quite ably eats up a good few hours early on, but simply fails to provide enough of a lasting experience to recommend. There are some interesting aspects, and it helps cater to a niche, but it's hard to find any area in the gameplay where things haven't been done considerably better elsewhere.

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.

Dragon Fantasy Book II is still a lot of fun. Dungeons are highly enjoyable to explore and the new battle system is very strong despite its few flaws. However, it doesn't upgrade Book I as much as it might've done.

Rise of the Argonauts is a difficult game to judge, mainly due to its backwards design. The majority of the game is spent engaged in the story rather than the combat, which is unusual for a game of its type.

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.

It was always going to be tough to follow-up Golf Story in an interesting manner, and one certainly can’t say there was a lack of ambition in what Sidebar Games was trying to achieve in Sports Story. However, fulfilling that ambition is another matter entirely, and ultimately the game leaves a sense of what could have been. Sports Story still has its moments and those who enjoyed Golf Story will be able to find some enjoyment at least. The game ultimately overshoots the green, but hopefully useful lessons will be learned in time for the next approach.

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.