At present, Dungeon Drafters has an inventory of issues that include crashes, a frustrating user interface, balancing woes, and a script that desperately demands proofreading. Yet, for all these faults, there is potential in the mixture of grid-based movement and the sheer abundance of card-based attacks.

UFO Robot Grendizer – The Feast of the Wolves plays a lot like the anime adaptations that lined store shelves across the early 2000s. Sure, the series’ signature visuals and Grendizer’s arsenal are here and accounted for- but the play feels more like a work-in-progress than a polished retail game.

Tiny Garden’s ambitions for a relaxed agronomy are undermined by repetition, the lack of controller support, and instability. If you’re lucky, you might be able to get one tranquil afternoon of distraction but not much more.

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.

Lone Ruin is the equivalent of one of those mediocre made-for-Netflix films. It looks good and offers some unexceptional action but nearly everything here feels copped from superior works. Factor in an extremely short running time and you’re better served with one of the many other twin-stick roguelikes on the market.

Sadly, Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs: The Thrilling Steamy Maze Kiwami is neither naughty nor novel enough to recommend. While fans of the manga or anime might be tempted to go dungeoneering with ghosts, ninjas, and cat-girls, the Mystery Dungeon-style gameplay is too derivative.

Architect Life: A House Design Simulator offers a creative outlet for aspiring virtual architects, with a variety of design challenges and a robust sandbox mode. Unfortunately, clunky controls and inconsistent camera behavior can undermine the enjoyment, making what should have been a fulfilling and fun experience feel more like labor.

Survivor Mercs has some cool ideas, like squad-based combat and base-building, but it struggles to make them feel rewarding. Slow starts, weak upgrades, and unclear systems keep it from standing out in an already crowded genre.

A thoroughly disappointing PC port undermines Raiden III x MIKADO MANIAX's improvements. The lack of Steam Deck support and the presence of screen tearing is about as frustrating as losing two ships on the first stage.

With its striking visuals and stylish traversal, Star Overdrive makes a promising first impression. But the fun slowly descends into frustration as you face repetitive design, shallow mechanics, and a desolate world that offers little reward for exploration.

2023’s Astrosmash feels like the product of an industry that’s increasingly favoring profitability over artistic expression. Yes, it vaguely plays like the original, looks less pixelated, and now has obligatory power-ups, effectively checking off the minimum qualifications for any update. But for fans of Mattel’s ground-based shooter, it’s a missed opportunity to truly honor a classic.

Sadly, Neptunia Riders VS Dogoos feels more like an expanded mini-game rather than a fleshed-out experience. Given the franchise’s reference-filled saga, it would be great to see the cast star bring their banter to action games. But here, there’s not enough style or substance to hold attention spans for more than a few hours.

Lackluster role-playing combined with exploit-laden five-on-five matches means that Soccer Story is a substandard contender.

Irem Collection Vol. 1 contains a trio of tough, but satisfying shooters that deserve remembrance. But with numerous problems with the emulation and a complete lack of historical context, the games here deserve far better.

Taxi Chaos 2 desperately wants to channel Crazy Taxi’s breakneck magic, but its sloppy physics and constant bugs grind that momentum into the pavement. What should be an exhilarating arcade throwback instead becomes a frustrating mess that’s more likely to make you quit the ride than chase down a high score.

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.

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.

Too often, Solar Crown embodies what’s wrong with the modern racer. Sure, the cars are meticulously modeled and even have working windows. But these minutiae matter little when fundamentals like a fluid framerate and the ability to race offline are absent. Sadly, the latest entry in the Test Drive Unlimited franchise struggles to match the competency of decade-old racers.

Although Warside has many of the fundamentals of Advance Wars-style battles down, it’s still a work-in-progress. At present, it’s shaping up to develop into a reasonable facsimile of Intelligent Systems’ turn-based series, allowing its military units to charge onto non-Nintendo hardware.

While technically competent, Bloodhound offers few reasons for giving its tedious single player campaign a try. You’ve used all its guns and protagonist abilities before. Defeating waves of foes in cramped arenas isn’t worth revisiting unless there’s a modicum of innovation.

Trident’s Tale suffers from clunky controls, repetitive fetch quests, uninspired combat, and a lack of originality. Ultimately, it’s a tedious and forgettable game that feels more like a dated effort than a modern pirate adventure. ARGH!

A reoccurring goal in the Hyperdimension Neptunia series is saving gaming from imminent disaster. But ironically, Neptunia Game Maker R:Evolution demonstrates some of the same ailments of the gaming industry, with a lazy spin off built around salvaged concepts and sloppy combat. Undoubtedly, Nep Nep and the rest of the Guardian Goddesses deserve far better.

Critter Café first hour exudes coziness as you begin collecting creatures and decorate your modest coffee house. But soon, it becomes painfully apparent that the developers did not flesh out their designs. The next eleven hours are filled with routine sokoban puzzles, playing four basic mini-games, and seeing the game’s eponymous animals not do much of anything. Do not squander your time with this one.

Dead Dragons has most of the fundamentals of a role-playing game but lacks the ambition that elevates the genre’s better efforts.

Accolade’s sports games strove to deliver television-style perspectives. While that innovation nudged the genre forward, gameplay in the Sports Collection often feels archaic. Given the minimal curation, this is for hardcore collectors only.

A reoccurring goal in the Hyperdimension Neptunia series is saving gaming from imminent disaster. But ironically, Neptunia Game Maker R:Evolution demonstrates some of the real-life ailments of the industry, with a lazy spin off built around salvaged concepts and sloppy combat. Undoubtedly, Nep Nep and the rest of the Guardian Goddesses deserve far better.

Unless a miracle patch materializes, Die After Sunset might be doomed after launch. Gunning down the game’s relentlessly respawning enemies just to earn mediocre perks isn’t enough to lift this colorful third-person shooter out of the pits.

Elrentaros Wanderings’ core tension comes from its depiction of parallel worlds and the uncertainty of which one is real. But time spent in both realms proves uninteresting, with monotonous combat in one and insubstantial exposition in the other. There’s a very real sense of dread when the game asks you to repeatedly descend into its insipid dungeons.