Candy Rangers tries to blend rhythm-game precision with candy-coated shooting chaos but ends up melting under its own messy mechanics. Despite some good ideas, this sugar rush turns sour all too quickly.

Irem Collection Volume 2 contains two respectable run-and-guns and one intense shoot ‘em up that expose the run up to Nazca’s Metal Slug series. But with little historical context and a few minor emulation issues, the classic games here deserve better.

Warhammer 40,000: Shootas, Blood & Teef's hand-drawn art is fantastic and the action is suitably frenzied. But do yourself a favor and play it on another platform.

Grit and Valor – 1949 pares the real-time strategy genre down to the fundamentals. The results are taut battles between your customized mechs and waves of enemies and bosses. But progression stems from the technical advantage of collected parts more than tactical insights.

If you are yearning for controller-tossing difficulty and can tolerate a bit of imprecision, Aeterna Noctis offers an expedition that will test your reflexes and just as often, your patience.

FULL METAL SCHOOLGIRL is an outrageous mix of satire and spectacle, where cyborg schoolgirls demolish office culture one cubicle at a time. It’s can be rough around the edges and proudly so, making it a chaotic, stylish throwback that proves Yuke’s still knows how to make mayhem fun.

Instead of offering players the freedom to walk the blurred line between justice and corruption, The Precinct mostly keeps them bound in a city sandbox. This lack of narrative risk makes the game feel more like a simulation of procedure than a true exploration of power or responsibility. But if you can overlook that, there’s an atmospheric underworld in need of old-fashioned justice.

Nutmeg! is what happens when football management and card battles collide in the best possible way. It’s weird, charming, and way more fun once you finally figure out what you’re doing in both the office and on the pitch. Part spreadsheet, part sizzling highlight reel, Sumo Digital’s latest oozes late 90’s nostalgia and bleeding-edge creativity.

Energy management decisions continue to sustain Tour de France 2023’s chase for the yellow jersey. But the game’s unsophisticated physics modeling and middling aesthetics don't help the sense of simulation. This season, there are actual athletes in Team mode and basic online multiplayer racers. But it's clear that Cyanide is coasting.

At launch, Hammerwatch II doesn’t live up to the legacy established by its predecessors. It’s evident that Crackshell wanted to push play toward an open world. But convoluted characteristics like vague quest details, an underdeveloped day/night cycle, inadequate control schemes, and time limits on quests all work to undermine the studio’s ambitions.

Even with those minor blemishes, Atomic Owl manages to distinguish itself in a genre saturated by competitors. By embracing a pulled back POV, leaning into platforming, and surrounding its core mechanics with polished aesthetics, Monster Theater has delivered a title that’s worth exploring for players craving a bit of divergence. It’s not a reinvention of metroidvania formula, but it’s a sharp reminder that a few creative risks are as welcome as a new spring plumage.

Armed with a quartet of spells, Nobeta is one-witch-army, prepped to take down a castleful of antagonists. The presence of stamina and mana gauges means that the game draws from Souls-like formula. But this little enchantress offers more than your usual swing- and slugfest, extending the energy of a solid third-person shooter.

If you’re seeking a unique roguelike, look no further than Ninja or Die. Runs are split between soaring across the screen and managing your inventory, which might seem like a dissonant approach. But that kind of creativity is overflowing in Nao Games’ inaugural outing, which is poised to become one of this summer’s sleeper hits.

Like any respectable first-person shooter, Phantom Fury provides some imaginative weaponry. Outside of the middling firefights, the rest of the game is a chore built around bad design decisions. From hunts for colored-colored gate keys to scanning faux emails for passwords, most of Fury is either tiresome or tedious.

Space Adventure Cobra – The Awakening nails the look and swagger of Buichi Terasawa’s cult classic with slick anime cutscenes and a faithful retelling of the early series. Unfortunately, once control is handed over, clunky movement and overreliance on the Psychogun drag the adventure down.

At best, Ed-0: Zombie Uprising recalls those wonderfully offbeat PlayStation 2 titles that would intermittently emerge from Japan. Unapologetically janky, this is the interactive equivalent of a pulpy B-movie, with ambitions that obviously outstrip the game’s budget.

With its skeletal tutorial and complex supervisory tasks, venturing into Pro Cycling Manager 2024 can be overwhelming. Undoubtedly, this is an experience suited for the statistically obsessed, who find enjoyment in seeing their decisions potentially garner advantages. As with simulations this sophisticated, there’s some unfortunate jank, which is perplexing for a franchise that is nearly two decades old.

Parcel Corps is a game with a dozen good ideas and two underdeveloped ones. Although playing as a bike courier delivers some moments, unreliable physics and using your awkward in-game phone weakens the enjoyment associated with jumping, wall-riding, and stunting through cell-shaded environments.

Look past the game’s beguiling ‘arts and crafts’-inspired visuals and Ufouria: The Saga 2 is woefully unmarkable. Exploration, combat, and the game’s dialog are all just adequate, rarely producing the kind of enjoyment delivered by Ufouria 2’s peers. 33 years in the making, Sunsoft’s follow-up is tragically unessential.

Instead of a confident stride forward, Neptunia: Sisters vs Sisters demonstrates Idea Factory’s franchise taking another peculiar sidestep. The result is an experience that delivers amusing writing, but combat is clumsy and bolstered by overbloated systems. While the spin-off is one of the property’s better digressions, you'll probably yearn for the proficiency Neptunia’s mainline entries deliver.

Dreams of Another is a gorgeous, surreal stroll through the subconscious, where gunfire builds worlds instead of tearing them down. But beneath its mesmerizing visuals and soothing soundscape, the fragmented story and hollow characters make it feel more like a half-remembered dream than a game you’ll want to linger in.

Twelve years after the original release, this port of Toy Soldiers feels a bit dated. Sure, there’s some mild gratification found in gunning down the game’s mechanical infantry. But between the infuriatingly resistant bosses and the negligible improvements, you’ll want to think twice before enlisting.

As a collaboration between FuRyu and Natsume Atari, Reynatis is crammed with interesting ideas. But like a chef who couldn’t resist holding back on the number of ingredients, the result is a muddled mess. An action RPG starring oppressed wizards has potential, but Reynatis waters down its ambitions under a layer of ununified mechanics.

Varlet delivers some sharp psychological commentary about an always-online generation, but it too often buries them beneath tedious combat and filler tasks. With the story and themes are engaging, if you’re hoping for a Persona-level experience, expected to be frustrated by the game’s conspicuously uneven execution.

Once you’ve mastered the fine art of aquarium design, the game evolves into a tycoon sim. Here, the relaxing pacing gives way to a bit more urgency, as you ensure that everything in your garage is ready for sale by the time the crowds trickle in. Fortunately, the easy jazz soundtrack can calm any worked-up nerves. Like Cruise Ship Manager, you’ll notice a fair amount of bugs and oddities, but given the affordable price point, some of the jank is forgivable.

Shooting Insight’s four kinds of shooting are mostly tolerable. But the inability to freely shift modes and the rather dull enemy attack patterns will make for muted enjoyment by hardcore Macross fans.

Dust & Neon provides some engaging twin-stick firefights across its fifteen-minute missions. Between the taut pace and tight play, this is an above-average action-roguelike mainly undermined by above-average pricing.

Fans of Compile Heart’s quirky charms are likely to be enamored by Calamity Angels: Special Delivery’s dialog and characterization. Although combat grows repetitive long before the final credits, a whimsical entry in the RPG space is always welcome.