The dramatic changes in art style and game mechanics are probably going to leave the many fans of the first game scratching their heads, but nothing the game does seems all that likely to pull in anyone else.

Daisy Mae's Alien Buffet is a fun survival shooter with tons of weapons and a cool atmosphere to it.

The more I played Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX, the more I questioned who it’s supposed to be for. It leaves too much of the of-its-time original game intact to be a good choice for new players. It changes too many things that probably should have been left alone to work as a hit of nostalgia. With SEGA’s own fantastic SEGA AGES release of Miracle World available on the Switch for a fraction of the price, this game should have been free to take bigger chances on modernizing the gameplay as much as it updates the presentation. In the end, it’s a weird mid-point that may appeal to some (but not all) hungry Alex Kidd fans and very few others.

If you're even slightly weary with the whole JRPG idea, I'd steer clear of Grace Of Letoile, though. While its plot is unusual and its specific mechanics are unique, the overall trappings are about what you would expect at this point from the Kemco assembly line.

Fading Fairytales is a very, very simple game that's great for newcomers who want to acclimate themselves to the strategy genre.

First-person platforming is a tough thing to get right on a basic level, and the more that is asked of the player the harder it is to make it all work. Even in its beginning stages, Cyber Hook leans heavily on a swinging mechanic that doesn’t always work as you might expect. It’s not a big deal when you can easily try again, but that safety net disappears soon enough. I’m not opposed to games asking the player to perform ultra-challenging feats of parkour. In fact, I rather like it. But if that’s the ask, the game really needs to get its fundamentals right. That’s where Cyber Hook misses the mark. I think players who are very, very patient will find something to like here, but it strikes me as frustrating for all the wrong reasons.

This is a good free title, and I think some of you will have fun with it, but it does get somewhat repetitive after a while. Still, you can't really complain about spending nothing for an hour of fun, so from that perspective I'd recommend that you give it a whirl.

I’ve played worse turn-based tactical RPGs than Redemption Reapers, and perhaps some of my disappointment was on me for expecting more. But I can’t help but feel like there could have been something special here if the story was properly fleshed out and its various design choices worked better together. Instead we have a game that pushes against you in a lot of unpleasant ways, almost to the point where it feels like it wants you to stop playing. With how many solid entries in this genre the Switch has in its library, it’s hard to recommend this one with any real vigor.

Just progressing through the game normally is okay: killing hundreds of zombies at a time is hard to make boring. But the meta-game struggles.

Did you like Partia? If so, hop on board. You've got 22 more missions and some story resolution, and it's a marginally better game if only in subtle ways. Did you find Partia lacking? Then you're going to want to skip this one, because everything Partia did badly is still an issue here. If you haven't played Partia and are curious about this game, then go pick up the first one for a lower price, as it's not substantially different and will give you a perfectly good taste of what to expect from its sequel.

Overall, Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons is a decent beat-em-up, but not much more than that. This franchise has had enough serious lows that I think this still falls somewhere in the average zone, so I think I can give it a soft recommendation to Double Dragon fans. The roguelite structure does the game no favors at all in my opinion, and while the presentation is nice it does sometimes feel like it’s getting in the way of the gameplay. Not a bad dust-up, but not a great one either.

If multiplayer was working properly, Tank Riders probably would have been a game worth checking out. The controls, while annoying, were workable, and the different types of weapons offered some variety in taking out opponents. Unfortunately, without multiplayer, all you're left with is the too-short single player campaign which can be completed in a few hours and simply doesn't have enough content to carry the whole game.

So, relatively simple controls without near the depth found in their previous title. The game also ramps up a bit slower in difficulty than I had hoped, and like all survival games can get repetitive.

It's on the cusp of something really good with the battles, but the lack of variety hurts that end of things the same way it hits the whole game.

Stickman Rush is a bit of a one-trick pony: It looks wonderful, and little else.

Endless Memories is the kind of game that probably would have cleaned up in a less-crowded Metroidvania landscape. It’s a decent game whose biggest sin is being unable to properly manage its own size. Massive games in this genre can work (see Hollow Knight) but they need to take some precautions lest their sheer size and backtracking requirements end up boring the player. If you don’t mind a game that probably should have gotten off the stage hours before it actually does, and can cope with the fact that bad luck might leave you fighting goliaths with a butter knife, then feel free to give this a go.

Dream:scape is so close to being amazing that it's hard for me to say this, but the problems just killed what enjoyment I would have otherwise had.

Long term, In Fear I Trust has great potential with an awesome story- Particularly as they figure out where the plot is going in future episodes. In its current form, it's pretty buggy, and would have benefitted greatly with even a little bit of extra time baking inside of the proverbial development oven.

As such, if you enjoyed the first game, I'd strongly recommend getting in on Doom & Destiny Advanced even in the rough state that it's in. It still has a long ways to go, but I'm feeling confident about its chances of being better than the original in the long run.

Sure, the physics kind of blow and you'd ideally like to see more out of its constituent components, but there's a simple pleasure to making bridges that jive in the game's world. Give it a spin.

I hated Sonic Dash when I first played it. I did. I was sick of runners and I didn't like that the newest Sonic game had to be a runner. Well, guess who's still playing Sonic Dash? I hate to say it, but I gladly finished every mission in PAC-MAN DASH!, and should the developers release new content, I'll likely download the update and give them even more of my time, if not my IAP dollars. Once you accept that it's terrible, it's really not so bad.

If you don't mind games that are very rough around the edges, this is an action-RPG roguelike to check out. But it's not the best experience.

Like most Gameloft's titles, it's a small-scale rendition of a bigger console experience that's worth playing for all the collectibles, missions, and upgrades, despite several shortcomings.

MetalWars3 has all the parts to a mech game. In fact, it has many parts to what would make a good mech game. The upgrades you pick actually affect how you play the game, there can be actual nuance to the mechanics, and the things coming into your eyes and ears are rather pleasing. The problem is that as you keep playing it, the game begins to undermine itself, and you long for one of the speedier pinewood racers.

But after countless deaths, I'm convinced that it's not just me, that there are flaws with Hyper Trip that mar the game's appealing concept.

It's a brainless sort of fun, the kind you can easily waste many unsuspecting hours on. So, if you've been aiming for something new to keep you occupied during a particularly laborious stretch of the day or during your daily pilgramage to the Porcelain God, you should really give Major Mayhem a shot.

In reality, Frontline Commando 2 isn't quite the game the first one is, and isn't even half the game D-Day is.

TOHU does a lot of things right and doesn’t really do anything seriously wrong, but I found myself feeling very ho-hum about it in the end. The art is really nice and I enjoyed many of the puzzles. But as pretty as it is, there’s something very “generic point-and-click adventure" about the game that keeps it from truly standing out. Touch controls work well enough but note that if you’re playing docked you’re going to have to deal with a relatively annoying cursor-based interface that doesn’t work all that well with a controller. There’s so much obvious love put into this game, but I’m not sure all that personality is enough to make this anything more than a fairly standard take on a well-worn concept.