If you can push past the sense that Luc Bernard’s art deserves to be associated with something that is so much more, this game is a great filler in between whatever else you’re playing on the Switch.
Legrand Legacy is, in the end, a very playable JRPG. Sadly it's also one of marginal appeal, even to those who grew up playing old JRPGs back in the 32-bit era.
There are games that do genuine sexiness better, and there aren't many out there that have the wild, unbound entertainment value of Senran Kagura.
For Christie nuts, The Raven is one of the better attempts to do her style of detective mystery that Christie herself wasn't involved in. It's well performed and convincing, and the age of the game is hardly a concern because, dated as it looks at times, the appeal of this one has to do more about the cerebral. It's all about the storytelling, in other words, and that side of things is spot on.
All being said, The Shrouded Isle is so razor-focused on its darkly original theme that it comes across as quite brave. This isn’t a necessarily uplifting or relaxing game. Nor is it particularly rewarding. It is, however, genuinely clever with how it works within an established genre, and it’s uncompromising in its vision. We need more games that are willing to do that.
More than anything else, Fight of Gods feels like a proof of concept.
Unfortunately it's difficult to see where the audience might be for this game. It's too much of a grind to work as a silly little character-driven sports game.
It's now in its 20th year, but Ace Combat 7 shows that there's plenty of life yet in the series. Neither pure arcade, nor hardcore simulation, it straddles the line it needs to offer both a sense of flight and fast, furious dogfight action, even as it tells a cinematic and genuinely enjoyable story.
The best way to describe the way Suda's games play is "energetic."
Bury Me, My Love is an remarkable exercise in building empathy. It’s a simple game, but so much more razor focused and successful at creating authenticity than most games that have budgets of a hundred million. Most importantly, however, is that no game is telling a story of greater importance to the world at the moment than Bury Me, My Love.
Whether this release is testing the water for a return to the series, or it's just a dip into the library to throw out a release in January, Onimusha is one of Capcom's finest and least appreciated. Hopefully with this new version, creaky as it can be at times, the game (and franchise) finds some new fans. It would be great to have Onimusha and Nioh competing side by side to have the premier Japanese dark fantasy crown.
The designers don't seem to have understood how strategy works with card games, and, unfortunately, that's really what differentiates a good TCG from a very poor one.
Whether Nintendo's approach to level design has remained to the same standards of those incredible early games has been an ongoing debate across this "New Super Mario Bros." series that Nintendo started back on the Nintendo DS and Wii, but whether you like it or not, this is certainly the pinnacle of that particular vision.
For a ten year old game, nothing about Tales of Vesperia feels like it doesn't belong today. The Tales series might be one of the most traditional JRPG properties out there, but when the core is this good, innovation isn't needed.
RollerCoaster Tycoon: Adventures is pleasant on the eyes, but is in every other way a disappointment. It's a shallow grind, which challenges none of the player's management skills, and comes across more as an opportunity to simply decorate a theme park.
The Keep aims to be a nostalgic romp through classically designed dungeon for people who grew up on Wizardry, and have a hankering for those good old days.
It's an ideal light pick-up-and-play puzzler that it will be on high rotation on my Switch for quite some time to come. It's also an excellent example of a "mascot game", as something of unique cultural and social relevance to Japan.
Really, the only thing I found disappointing with this re-release was the voice acting, which has been locked to English.
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.
With every new iteration Football Manager seems like your decisions and strategy are more accurately reflected in the on-field performance and results of your team, and that consistency and reliability is ultimately what's important in making this series such a strong outlet for storytelling.