For a first attempt at a kart racer, All-Star Fruit Racing shows that the team behind it is talented, and they know how to make a genuinely fun game.
If you're able to settle into Realms of Arkania's rhythm and allow it to engage with your imagination, there is an awful lot of nostalgic joy to derive from something so wonderfully classic as this.
Vertical Strike is a super low budget and cheap little game, designed to give fans of the occasional dogfight a quick rush. Thanks to its tight and efficient mechanics, and the steady and enjoyable approach that it has to difficulty escalation, it achieves what it sets out to. Nothing more, and nothing less.
One Strike is mildly fun, but woefully ill equipped to provide any long term value.
Frost is mechanically sound and has all the hallmarks of a truly great single player card game. Sadly, its inability to take the concept and really drive home something impactful leaves it feeling a little shallow and limited in the end; a missed opportunity for something so gorgeous and refined.
If you are a roguelike fan, then this is a lovely, charming, colourful and traditional take on the genre, and it's the first really good example of that on the Nintendo Switch to date. For that reason alone it's the superior version of one of the more fundamentally enjoyable roguelikes I've played in quite a few years now.
Octopath Traveler is a beautiful game that somehow never gets tired.
The game itself is a noble effort, sure, but ultimately far too ambitious to achieve what it's really looking to achieve. The end result is the death knell for horror games; it's just not intense or frightening enough.
Sadly, I can't imagine a single scenario that I would actually want to play Awkward with anyone.
Shining Resonance Refrain might not be a classic example of the genre, but it gets the most important components of the genre right – the characters and the storytelling – and backs it up with some gorgeous art and a perfectly competent combat system.
Mushroom Wars 2 is the ideal casual strategy game.
Koihime Enbu RyoRaiRai is going to be one very niche fighting game on the PlayStation 4. Very few people in the west will care about the extended franchise that it comes from, being adult visual novels, and those that are fans enough of Koihime Musou have been able to buy the previous version of Koihimi Enbu on PC. I hope some people discover it though, because there really is a good little fighting game in there.
It's just disappointing that Hexologic didn't prove testing enough on the intellect to be a truly spectacular example of a puzzler.
It's apologetically grindy, and a time sink for the sake of being a time sink. Most of the time, it's the kind of thing I simply wouldn't enjoy, and yet, somehow for both it and its predecessor, it all comes together to be something I do really enjoy. The purity and simplicity of what drives this game is appealing, and even refreshing, and the perfect thing for a lazy Sunday afternoon, when you just need to clear your head.
I would have liked more context to the action, better realised characters, and more involved levels. And, of course, some kind of single player experience. But, for what it is, as a no-frills Overwatch clone, Paladins gets the job done. It's a game I'll likely be playing for quite some time to come, because it certainly scratches a very specific itch.
Lumines is at its best when it's pure immersion, no frills.
It's still delightful, but perhaps a game that would have been better off in the hands of developers with a greater capacity for music curation.
As far as pure entertainment goes, it's hard to look past Sushi Striker.
I'm so delighted to say that Lust For Darkness is the real deal. The fact that I can compare it to one of the greatest erotic thrillers of all time in Eyes Wide Shut, and not break down laughing, is in itself is a great credit to the developers. The game lacks the sheer mastery and refinement that Stanley Kubrick had over his canvas, but this is still leagues ahead of the clumsy, overly-simple idea of "horror" that most game developers aspire to.
Vampyr is the vampire story that I've waited for many, many years for.