The high production values and ridiculously in-depth history, bestiary and other reading material alone is enough to make Dofus: Battles an easy recommendation, so it's nice the game itself is actually enjoyable.

If you don't mind dropping a dollar to see what it's all about, Summer Sports Simulator offers a deceptive amount of depth and playability. It won't be everyone's cup of tea, but if it clicks for you then you likely won't hesitate in dropping an extra couple of dollars to unlock all the events.

Ultimately, how much you will enjoy Across Age 2 depends on if you're okay with how little it's actually doing new.

The lack of multiplayer might be berated by some, but since only one character can attack at once as according to the intentional design of the game, I don't think of it as a missing feature.

In between all of this, crammed between the good and the bad, nestled between the occasional guilty crystal expenditure, that's where the magic happens.

There are frustrating levels – you try climbing over a sheer wall using only your arm – but most of the current levels are great. Some are even delightful.

In the end, Rowdy Wrestling doesn’t try to set the world on fire or change the face of mobile gaming as we know it. Rowdy Wrestling is exactly what it says on the box – it’s easy to pick up, hard to put down and sometimes that’s just what you need.

If you like puzzle games, you need to give Blockoban a shot. If you're a developer, it's also worth a peek to see a really great implementation of a free to paid in-game microtransaction system.

It’s not quite as novel, but No More Heroes 2 has the same swagger and charm that permeated the original. I wouldn’t recommend skipping the original title, but if you enjoy it you will certainly be happy with this follow-up. The Switch port is solid and helps address most of the technical issues the Wii version had. Good, stupid fun.

If you approach Final Fantasy Dimensions 2 with the appropriate expectations, I think you'll find it a reasonably enjoyable game. It's a little too watered down for me to give it too emphatic a recommendation, particularly given the price bracket it's sitting in. At the same time, however, I can't say I didn't have a lot of fun with it, nor can I say that it didn't offer a sufficient amount of content for the price. This isn't a normal RPG by any stretch, but that might make it more appealing to some who are tired of the usual fare. If nothing else, it's absolutely fascinating to see a game that was very much free-to-play from top to bottom in its original incarnation become a decent offline one-and-done paid title.

If you know what you're getting with Octodad, which is a game that is meant to be intentionally clumsy, and forgive the moments when the clumsiness works against you, you'll have a good time with the game.

I think those with happy memories of the original will be satisfied with what they get in Samba de Amigo: Party Central. It functions very much as a sequel should, though perhaps not in the way a sequel that arrives nearly a quarter of a century later should. If you’re looking to just have some good times shaking your controllers and your booty to some tunes, you’ll get that here. Experienced rhythm game fans will likely be turned off by its lack of precision and song selection, however. It’s tough to say whether or not this will find much of an audience here in 2023, but I’d like to believe there are at least dozens of us.

With the advance we've seen from E2D 1 to E2D 2, I think the future looks pretty bright for this game franchise, and there are some areas they could pretty smoothly transition into. In the mean time I'm gonna go back to mashing up some zombies(and boxes).

While Kaptain Brawe may not be the perfect intro to the genre due to its difficulty levels, it does offer an excellent story and clever writing that ought to draw longtime fans of adventure games into its clutches quickly.

Multiplayer is just icing on an otherwise excellent cake.

The controls work well, and the game remains a gorgeous rainbow explosion of color. And blasting endless hordes of enemies, occasionally hopping into a robot to do even more effective blasting, is a lot of fun. Those core aspects are so good, that maybe it doesn't matter so much if the game is repetitive or there's a few flaws here and there. The experience itself is enjoyable enough, that while this is nowhere near a perfect game, it's worth a download. Just, somebody help out with the translation. And I hope that in the coming weeks and months, Guns of Mercy becomes an even more fun and expansive experience.

While there are some small technical issues here that are atypical for a Nightdive release, it’s nothing that should keep you from digging into this excellent remaster of Star Wars: Dark Forces. The old-school charms of the game are given just enough of a boost to make it a blast to play even in the current year, even if some aspects like the save system are perhaps a bit too old-school. Overall, another fine effort from Nightdive and yet another solid Star Wars release on the Switch.

Kingturn RPG's ugly exterior belies the brilliant tactics game beneath. If you're looking for good graphics or story in a game you should look somewhere else. However, if you're looking for a strategy game that will truly test your mettle, look no further than Kingturn.

WWE 2K23 is shockingly good on Steam Deck despite the few issues I ran into. If you skipped the last few years of WWE games, WWE 2K23 is worth your time. It feels like an enhanced version of WWE 2K22 that improves in all the right ways and brings some long overdue features. Just don’t come into this expecting as much of a jump in quality as you had with WWE 2K22 from prior games. In its current state, WWE 2K23 is an excellent wrestling game with tons of content, but one that is let down by its online servers.

If I wasn’t a sci-fi lover expecting more of a story, I probably wouldn’t have been disappointed by the story and just enjoyed the solid puzzles and fantastic visuals. And the game does a wonderful job of planting those seeds of wonder and inquisitiveness. As you explore this alien ship and get hints of their culture and even their biology, it creates a genuine sense of awe and intrigue for those players like me who are highly susceptible to that kind of content and in that frame of mind. This is the debut game of the creative Copenhagen based Fantastic, (yes, actual studio name), and what a debut it is. I’m looking forward to seeing this game completed, and whatever else they put out in the future.

Haunted is good enough to recommend to those who enjoyed Kero Blaster or just want a decent run ‘n gun, even if it’s ultimately a little too obsessed with the object of its admiration for its own good.

I think the Story Mode and extra tunes in Samba de Amigo: Party-To-Go make it worth trying out for fans of the series even if they’ve already grabbed Party Central, but there’s no question this game loses something the further it moves away from the grace of the maracas controllers. If you don’t care about that, and there’s a very good chance you don’t, the only thing you really need to worry about here is that the demands of the note charts seem more tuned for console play than touch. You’ll have to really twist your fingers at times. Otherwise, it’s a decent game for its genre with a solid list of tracks to tap along to. Nothing remarkable, but good enough.

Night Dive has done its usual great work bringing this classic forward with a wide array of settings and options so that you can tailor it to your preferences. and the game itself for all of its flaws is a genuinely good time to play through. If you’ve played DOOM and Duke3D and are looking for something from the same neighborhood, consider picking up Rise of the Triad to see another angle on the earlier years of the genre.

Where Tractor Trails really nails the fun factor is in its simplistic, yet rewarding gameplay. A game that you can pick-up and play for a few minutes or up to a few hours is still rare, so it's nice to see that Tractor Trails stays as fun as it should long after you've started.

Even with the trial-and-error style gameplay, Nano Panda does a good job of taking the increasingly standard, single screen, star based physics puzzler and adding in enough innovation to keep you entertained.

The price point might make this a hard pill to swallow for those unfamiliar with the game already, but I suspect this is one for the super fans anyway. M2 has done its usual fine work with the emulation side of things, and Rainmaker has really packed in the extras to help increase the value proposition. The game itself is a good one, a strong deep cut from the Super NES library, and it’s nice to have the original experience in English after all this time.

Rhapsody: Marl Kingdom Chronicles is an easy recommendation for anyone who enjoyed the first game. If you liked it, you’ll love these two games. I would probably recommend newcomers play the original Rhapsody first even if it isn’t totally necessary to enjoy these sequels, if only so that you can fully appreciate all the little character nods and connections. Those who are looking for an RPG with teeth will want to keep moving, but I think if you’re in the mood for some pure low-friction fluff there aren’t many better choices in the Switch’s RPG selection.

It's a lovely game, and for the most part it works quite well. I consider my time with it well spent, even if a few tweaks could have made These Robotic Hearts of Mine much more atmospheric.