For a debut game, Moss is a remarkably mature, intelligent, confident and purposeful game by Polyarc.
It feels more creative and less constrained than the "major" Assassin's Creed titles (as did Liberation and Chronicles), and for that reason it's right up there with my favourite games in the entire franchise.
Go into this game with an open mind, and allow the game's pleasant charm, sweet characters and storytelling, and light, graceful approach to JRPG action to wash over you, and you may just find yourself as in love with the utterly refreshing and pure experience that Atelier Lydie & Suelle has to offer you.
You may well find Gal*Gun 2 to be offensive and intolerable. But that's all the more reason to experience it and discuss it, and because it's backed by a really good light gun experience that is bigger and (on balance) better than its predecessor, this game is one of the most playable and interesting transgressive franchises the Japanese industry has ever produced.
This game is a strong contender for my favourite game in 2018 to date.
Lumines is at its best when it's pure immersion, no frills.
It's time to broaden the horizons, but in the meantime, Half-Genie Hero Ultimate Edition is as good as platformers get on the Nintendo Switch.
This game's predecessor was remarkable. This game itself is a remarkable evolution of that original vision.
This is the kind of game I can sit down to and play for an entire evening without realising how much time was slipping. It's always "just one more turn," or "just one more battle", and even after all these years of playing Koei's strategy and action games set through the Sengoku period, and reading books about it, I'm always impressed that Koei Tecmo manages to teach me something new each time it releases something in the franchise.
Dragon Quest XI is, from end to end, an iconic example of everything that Dragon Quest has stood for since way back in the 80's. It's charming and has a colourful energy that makes it very hard to put down.
Octopath Traveler is a beautiful game that somehow never gets tired.
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.
Not once has SEGA let me down, and Yakuza Kiwami 2 is no different. It's a bloody brilliant game.
God Wars is too Japanese in tone, aesthetic and design to ever have much of a hope of reaching a mainstream audience, but as a culturally relevant artifact, anyone who is interested in seeing how a game can explore ancient folk tales and spirituality in an interesting and engaging manner should not pass up this opportunity
It doesn't offer the dense and intelligent narrative of Final Fantasy at its very best, but it's a joyful and heartfelt ball of fun, and it's great that Square Enix is able to find a way to balance out both approaches with its premiere franchise.
If you go into Yomawari with the right spirit (hah, I had to get one pun in there), both of these games are memorable, beautiful, elegant and often chilling.
In that context, 11-11 Memories Retold is something precious; it’s a rare foil against the lies about war that the likes of Call of Duty and Battlefield get away with far too easily.
Atlus has proven that Persona 4 DAN was not a one off, and while SEGA and Atlus seem to have lost the Hatsune Miku license recently, it is clearly not because the company has lost the ability to produce a sublime example of the rhythm game genre.
It obviously very niche, and as with any other example of surrealism, a lot of people are going to completely miss the appeal of Katamari Damacy Reroll. Polarising as it might be, it's something everyone should try, because it's also the perfect example of how games can be used to a genuinely artistic outcome.
The Last Remnant is perhaps doomed to be one of Square Enix's forgotten classics. It never earned itself a sequel, and for years languished on a platform that people never really bought into for JRPGs. Perhaps with the PlayStation 4 release of the Remaster, the game has a chance of finding a new audience, though, because it weaves a ripping yarn, and has a beautifully detailed combat system that is endlessly rewarding to tinker with.