If there is one thing I missed these last two summers, it is going on road trips with my friends. However, Get in the Car, Loser! gave me the full experience of driving down a demon-infested highway and spouting utter hilarity and nonsense with a new group of friends. The immersion of this feeling throughout the game is what entirely sells the experience, and the characters and their conflicts are both charming and relatable. While it is not a perfect experience, it’s certainly a memorable one in both narrative and presentation. With the base game being entirely free, there is no reason not to give the game a shot. Get in the Car, Loser! is the big queer road trip story you didn’t know you needed, with all the messy drama that entails.

I adored my time with Atelier Shallie, though I feel a bit let down that the story didn't have as much closure as I was hoping. Still it's easy to get swept up in the world, characters, systems, and combat.

While it'll never be the most technically impressive or original game, its creators clearly understand what works and what doesn't. The excellent music and fun combat combine with the charming characters to create a game that has a certain intangible feel, a spirit that pervades it and makes it more than simply the collection of things seen before it may appear at first glance. As the PSP enters its twilight years, most RPGamers would find few better sendoffs than this.

Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection doesn’t aim to completely reinvent what’s been established in the previous two entries in the series. Instead, it smartly tweaks and iterates on what worked and what didn’t work to create a much more refined and enjoyable monster-catching experience. The story touches on more serious subjects, and keeps things moving along well, even if it lacks the depth it could have. Combat is plenty of fun, with individual battles having more impact and much of the tedium of the previous series entries cleaned up, but exploring and collecting monsters is a blast, and having available non-battle activities for monsters makes it all the more exciting to go out and find new ones. Fans of collecting monsters and min/maxing their team will have almost an endless supply of tweaking to play around with. Any fan of Monster Hunter or Pokémon-like games should not pass on this one.

In spite of its technical issues, Marvel’s Midnight Suns is an easy recommendation to strategy and superhero fans or anyone who’s been missing the more traditional BioWare experience. Its tactical combat stands out in the genre and is consistently compelling. The plot is no great shakes but the characters are excellent renditions of decades-old favorites. It’s also a well-paced game, never getting bogged down in any one form of play for too long but free-form enough to allow for players to do that if they wish. Not only is Midnight Suns a great Marvel game, it’s a great game in its own right.

While it offers a whole host of improvements, the Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake experiences end up being quite different. Dragon Quest I’s remake offers an amazing story upgrade but has frustrating battles throughout, while Dragon Quest II’s remake is one of the most amazing and memorable Dragon Quest experiences there is. Together with the Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake released a year ago, they do make a definitive trilogy that all Dragon Quest fans and those new to the series should explore. It was a worthwhile return to the games that made middle school me the RPGamer I am today.

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon could be played by someone new to the series quite easily thanks to its many refinements and the tutorial contained within the Prologue chapters. Veterans of the series will find a game that combines the refinements of more recent entries, save for a lack of variety in battle objectives.

Etrian Odyssey V is very much what I expected it would be. That means it won't appeal to anyone who has never been interested in this series, but it continues to showcase impressive dungeons and a rewarding sense of exploration. The series hasn't lost its spark of well-realized inspiration, and that's all many need to hear. It certainly managed to ensnare me for the entirety of the experience.

For me, this is an ideal remake. It keeps all the hardcore mechanics I love, gets rid of the ones I find tiresome, overhauls what needs to be improved, and leaves the right things alone. Any EO fan who isn't burned out should enjoy this game, and even if you're burned out it might be worth a shot thanks to the reduced rote activities.

I feel that the way SEGA completed Kiryu's saga was done with so much class, and the investment I felt throughout was constantly there. While the changes to the combat were somewhat of a letdown, I won't deny that every other aspect of the finale wowed me and left me an emotional train wreck. Long time fans of the Yakuza series will likely find The Song of Life to be a satifying conclusion.

There’s a lot of things in Tainted Grail: Conquest that show the developers knew what they were doing. It is rare to see a game so fully embrace the type of game it wants to be, as the roguelite nature symbolizes the growth of the protagonist to fully understand their surroundings. The game has a forgiving nature as it does not punish players for dying too often and in turn makes it accessible to pick up and play. All the tinkering options with classes and deckbuilding make it daunting at first glance, but after getting the hang of it, each playthrough feels unique even when using the same class. The realm of Arthurian legend has never quite been explored this way before, and seeing the psychological wear and tear on the denizens of this trapped world is addicting. Get ready to dive into the Wyrdness, just make sure to have enough Wyrdcandle ready to light the way.

Playing through Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes was an addictive and wonderful experience. When I stopped playing, I was constantly thinking about the characters, story, and the world-building that Rabbit & Bear has created. The game is very much a love letter to JRPG and Suikoden fans, and while there are a lot of similarities, I personally didn’t find that detracting. After putting more than fifty hours into the game, it reminded me of both the joy of being in one of Murayama’s worlds, and the sadness that he will never pen another game in this series. While there are elements of the game that needed more time in the oven, I cannot deny the happiness I felt every time I booted up the game.

Although Dragon Quest IX's main story can be completed in forty hours or so, doing so would be a disservice to the supplementary material. These additional layers are what transform the most recent iteration of one of RPG-dom's sacred cows from a repainted throwback into an old-timer who has traded speed for the silvered brows of style.

In a year full of JRPGs, God Wars still manages to be a standout. Following Kaguya's story through ancient Japan, dealing with warring factions and angry gods was a fun journey. I found it impressive that for such a lengthy game, the story pacing was well done and I never lost interest in what was happening. In fact, I found myself interested enough as the game progressed that I was researching the people, events, and gods depicted. The gameplay especially shined, with an incredible amount of customization and strategy that has been streamlined out of many console strategy RPGs. The Impurity system was a great addition and helped keep the strategy in this smaller scale game. It's certainly not without flaws, the soundtrack could have used more variety and the limited map size guaranteed that many allies went unused, but the strategy was top notch. Players looking for a mechanically deep strategy RPG with a unique backdrop will not be disappointed.

A lot of time has passed since 2009, and I find it harder to unreservedly gush about games now than then. Mario and Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story was an unexpected delight when I first played it, while now the game is less surprising and more familiar. That doesn’t detract from its quality in any way, and anyone who missed it the first time and has even the slightest inkling of interest should immediately track down a copy. There really hasn’t been an outright bad Mario and Luigi game, but this one lays a worthy claim to being the strongest of all.

Considering the game sets out to recreate a classic experience, it's hard to find any real faults in Etrian Odyssey III aside from the graphics and music.

A couple of hang-ups prevent it from being a truly excellent experience, but regardless, it comes highly recommended.

Story of Seasons is a great game to relax with, and ultimately I adored my time with it. For fans of the series, this installment will not disappoint, and for newcomers, it offers aa terrific entry point with a ton of ease. There's so much to discover, create and customize in Story of Seasons that it's easy to lose track of time. It really is just that much fun.

7th Dragon III doesn't try to break new ground or provide a deep meaningful story. What it does do is entertain players thoroughly through its lengthy adventure and a plethora of classes and skills to toy with.

With Van Helsing's first set of adventures, Neocore Games seems to have hit its stride very quickly. These first steps are a strong start for a series of much promise, and RPGamers should find plenty of reasons to desire to return to Borgova in the near future and create yet more monster giblets.

Pokémon HeartGold is an addictive game. There's plenty to do and lots of secrets to uncover.

Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII- Reunion is a game that fans of Final Fantasy VII and its remake will enjoy since many loose ends are tied up and beloved characters make a triumphant appareance. The game in its core is short and simple, with a massive amount of side content that isn’t very inviting to complete, but the effort put in the remastered version managed to make it a good addition to the series. The game can work as a hype-increaser before the arrival of the highly anticipated Final Fantasy VII Rebirth or as a motivator to revisit the story of Cloud.

While Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii retreads some familiar ground, it is hard to deny what a joyful experience it is. It’s as though Ryu ga Gatoku Studio knew gamers needed a bit more stupidity in their lives, decided One Piece and Like a Dragon should have a baby, and boom — you get this delightful oddball spinoff that is just fun. Much like Monkey D. Luffy in One Piece, Majima is no thoughts and just vibes, on the adventure of a lifetime, and while finding treasure and becoming a pirate king would be a great reward, it really is more about the friends we make along the way. Everything in Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is exactly what we’ve come to expect from the Like a Dragon series dialed up to a hundred, and while other series would long ago have gotten stale, sometimes injecting a large dose of stupidity can go a long way.

The vast amount of content to explore and multitude of game systems to experience make for a great game throughout that doesn't get stale. However, this variety comes at a cost of some of its systems being simplistic and underdeveloped. By focusing on a smaller set of deeper and better integrated systems, the experience could have been even better. But with its attempt to boil the ocean, Ni no Kuni II falls just short of being truly amazing.

Dark Arisen is definite a play to Dragon's Dogma's strengths and it turns out well for it. There is still work to be done for the series, particularly in bulking up the story and world, but there's lots of highly addictive fun to be had from exploring Bitterblack Isle's depths.

There are areas for improvement, most notably on the storytelling front, but Capcom has produced a thoroughly entertaining adventure with widespread charm.

God Eater Resurrection is both a useful re-entry point for existing fans and the ideal opportunity for new players to get into the series.

Where you fall on Souldiers probably depends on whether you were an early adopter. Technical issues appearing at launch were considerable, but have now largely been addressed. Those just coming to the game now, or those willing to return for a second attempt, will find a title as superbly high-quality as it is challenging. However, with great challenge comes great satisfaction, and the journey along the way is just so memorable; there were times I could literally not put the controller down, even after hours of playing. The ending does promise a sequel, and I, for one, am extremely excited about what this talented team can provide in a sophomore outing with the lessons learned here.