Fans will no doubt appreciate the new gameplay features but, as a whole, Mugen Souls Z feels too exclusive a game, even for a sequel. Its niche narrative focus and penchant for superficiality make it a hard sell for newcomers.

While NBA 2K19 is competent it has also, for me at least, continued down the road of not feeling as fun or exciting as previous NBA 2K titles. This year, the feeling isn’t so much of outcry as it is fatigue at having seen the gradual changes take place over the last several years.

Chernobylite is a game that's dripping in atmosphere, but doesn't quite hit the mark in other areas. If you can get past its clunky shooting and stealth mechanics, there’s some fun to be had in base building and people management.

Has-Been Heroes has a genuinely inviting and involving combat system that requires real strategic thought to master. However the rest of the game just doesn’t pull together to form a cohesive whole, with brutal difficulty, frustrating permadeath and an under-utilised premise all serving to taint the end product. It does at least benefit from the Nintendo Switch’s portability, and this is where it’s at its best, but at home you’ll likely be turning it off far quicker than Frozenbyte were hoping for.

Please don't take this review as the ranting of a moody Ninja Gaiden fan. Remove the franchise name and the score would still be the same. Despite promising much at the start, Ninja Gaiden 3 misfires at almost every turn, and whilst it's not a bad game, it struggles to rise above average.

With more development time, copious patches, and some decent tutorials, the good game hidden deep inside Flint: Treasure of Oblivion could be dug up and unearthed. But for now, that treasure remains hidden, with only a map inscribed on the back of a wooden peg leg to try and find it.

While Way of the Hado feels tacked on and ultimately a pointless gimmick, this is still a great version of Street Fighter II and currently the best way to experience the classic game on today’s hardware. The additions to the main game are minor at best for the astonishing price tag, with Evil Ryu and Violent Ken just being amped up clones of existing fighters, but it still plays like the classic arcade fighter. Just don’t expect anything revolutionary.

Including all of the NASCAR license must be a mammoth task, and while Heat 5 is an improvement over its forbearers, the overall feeling of the game is that of a vacuous slog. With no obvious USP other than the volume of cars and tracks, or magic new features that other racing games should take inspiration from, NASCAR Heat 5 is a perfunctory depiction that’s enjoyable in small doses but runs out of tyres once you get past the initial stages.

There's nothing big or clever about Habroxia, yet it will provide a solid few hours entertainment. It is remarkably unremarkable, but it's worth a punt if you want something to play on PS Vita.

If you're a fan of horse racing or interested in getting into the sport, Champion Jockey is without doubt a must-have; it's technical, it's in-depth and you're guaranteed hours upon hours of replay value. However, if you happen to be a gamer looking for a quick burst of casual fun, Champion Jockey's myriad of intricacies and learning curve may be enough to hinder your enjoyment.

UEFA 2012 is what many of us have been asking for since DLC became a major part of console gaming. Unfortunately, the desire to deliver it as an expansion, rather than a unique product has meant that corners have been cut. While that has made the end product less expensive than in previous instances, it still appears quite costly when measured against other items on the relevant stores.

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? stays faithful to the show's traditional format, packing in thousands of questions and several modes for both local and online multiplayer – the battle royale mode is a pretty good idea. There can be some odd difficulty spikes though, not to mention the need to grind to unlock more question packs and the player avatar and host doing little more than taking up space. A practical recreation that lacks any sort of soul.

As a 3D action game, Estival Versus manages to tick most boxes, but it fails to deliver anything which could be labelled as ground-breaking. While in no way poor or unenjoyable, it does little to put this franchise on the map. Still, for fans of previous entries, there’s plenty of meat on the bone, bundled together in a respectably polished brawler.

The dark, twisted story is something that has a lot of potential, and the music is great. However, odd design choices like obscuring the action and cluttered menus that don’t mesh together well, along with pretty uninteresting characters makes it hard to do so.

The Inner Friend isn’t a bad game, but it never really rises above mediocrity. As a result, it's difficult to recommend unless the narrative premise attracts you. There are some moments of greatness amidst an interesting take on trauma and the idea of replaying unresolved memories from one’s past, but the overall feel is distinctly average.

Like the first two games, Fairy Fencer F: Refrain Chord is flawed, tonally inconsistent, and a massively repetitive grind. Re-treading this story for the third time and jump to an entirely different and less enjoyable gameplay system has made it even harder to recommend this game in spite of it's flaws. There is charm, and there are moments, and diehard Compile Heart fans might be able to push through and enjoy them, but I suspect that the people this game will truly speak to are few and far between.

Monochrome Mobius: Rights and Wrongs is full of interesting nuggets of narrative revelations for fans of the long-running Utawarerumono visual novel series, but its pacing problems and lacking quality make it much less suitable for newcomers than it should be.

While a fun distraction, there’s little to recommend wholeheartedly when it comes to Kirby: Battle Royale. Its mini-games are well designed, but with a short Story Mode and limited replay value for its other modes, it becomes clear that this is not a stellar addition to an already bulging line-up. Kirby fans are probably better off saving for a Switch as the pink puffball is heading there next year.

The Occupation has a premise that is really intriguing in theory. Trying to spy on a powerful entity and taking them to task with your questioning is the kind of experience that can be great in the game, and taking inspiration from current affairs makes it feel much more authentic. It's a shame that various bugs, even when updated to the most recent build, can make the experience feel lacklustre, and at times a frustration to play.

Grimshade frustrates as it offers up an interesting and original world to explore and then actively deters you from doing so with overly difficult and frequent combat. This could be worth visiting after some balance updates, but one to avoid for now.

Oniken does a few things right, but flounders when it comes to the most important parts of the experience. The visuals and audio of the game are a faithful and accurate tribute to the style of classic NES action games, sure. All of the artistic flair in the world can't help a game that simply isn't fun to play, though. Action in Oniken is consistently stiff and frustrating, and while boss encounters can provide brief moments of gratifying gameplay, only the most dedicated of action platformer fans will have the patience to reach those encounters.

Lost Soul Aside is, ironically, a mostly soulless experience that never really comes together.

Although I see what it was going for, Legend of Legacy HD Remastered doesn’t quite stick the landing. The visuals and music are excellent, and the concept of filling maps out through exploration scratches a very specific yet satisfying itch. But, the repetitive nature of the overall gameplay, along with punishing you for any sort of experimentation with characters or weapon loadouts, leaves a bitter taste in the mouth, overall.

Raiders has some interesting ideas, but slips in its execution. While the gunplay is solid and the graphics and voice acting are both good, the repetition of the missions combined with the need to replay them for what little character customisation there is quickly takes the shine from it all. What remains is a middling game that misses its potential.

Hypercharge: Unboxed delivers on its promise of plastic-bashing toy warfare. However, for more mature gamers and fans of the genre, it doesn’t go deep enough, playing it safe with serviceable albeit rather basic gameplay.

I really wanted to write about the positives of featuring more cultures in this genre, and about how cool it is to have a famous actor play the protagonist, but sadly the gameplay gets in the way of anything interesting. Unknown 9: Awakening is just a bunch of gaming tropes loosely tied together with boring and uninspired NPCs lazily lurching from set piece to set piece, as the poorly designed game creaks and groans under the weight of expectation.

Breach & Clear is playable and it is even quite entertaining. Clearing missions and customising characters is satisfying, and the sound design and music help engage the player. Everything else though, does the opposite. Low quality visuals, poor menus, a complete lack of story and game-breaking glitches render this game, at least on this platform, nearly impossible to enjoy in the long term.

Instead of being a full-fat adaptation of Survival Evolved, ARK Park is more of a taster, chopping that game into smaller chunks, then isolating them. This isn’t the same sprawling open world shooter – it’s something much smaller and less substantive, though still looks to capture that core ARK essence. It may succeed on some level though, needless to say, those players who pony up £30 and go in blind could come away deeply dissatisfied.