I hope the developers are able to take the experience from this game and build on it, because the industry needs more people like this than it does indies churning out yet more pixel shooters and aspiring eSports games, but The Girl and the Robot is a lost cause, I'm afraid.
It has been a real joy playing Aven Colony.
Nintendo has taken one of the few genuine highlights that it enjoyed with the Wii U and successfully brought it to the Switch and, one suspects, a new audience to do with the old.
I always wondered if I had a threshold when it comes to games about pretty anime girls. I guess this is it. I hope Bandai Namco wasn't using Cinderella Girls as a gauge for interest in Idolm@ster in the west.
Fallen Legion shows all the potential in the world to become a great IP. The core ideas are strong, and the attempt to tell an interesting, deep story is admirable. Unfortunately this one doesn't execute on its ideas as well as it should, and, critically, this lets down the game's themes, but it is on the cusp of being something special.
Levels+ is a completely forgettable game. It's got some gorgeous aesthetics, and functionally it's a refined, balanced, and perfectly competent Threes clone, but there is no longevity to the game whatsoever, and the lack of an online leaderboard for a game like this is downright amateur.
Transport Giant takes itself seriously. It's enjoyable and rewarding, but as a serious simulation, rather than something fun to unwind with on the weekend after a long week's work. It's not a game for everyone by any means because of that, but it is the kind of game that will continue to reward you the more you put into it.
What this all amounts to is an expansion that doesn't push Final Fantasy XIV in bold new directions because, quite frankly, it doesn't need to. Stormblood takes everything that makes the game good and doubles down on it, expanding the world of Hydaelyn and filling it with more to see, do, and experience. Minor issues with its story and storytelling notwithstanding, this is everything I could want from a Final Fantasy XIV expansion.
Yonder is a game that matches is aesthetics, design, and vision in a way that very few games could even hope to achieve; even those games that end up with astronomical Metacritic scores and GOTY awards from every corner. It's a beautiful, clearly heartfelt masterpiece, and if more games were to follow this one's lead, I would have a great deal more faith in the emergence of video games as an art form.
Flip Wars' problem is that it has no depth whatsoever. That silly, simple, chaotic, and utterly pointless button masher that you had a quick laugh at when you play it for the first time really is all that's on offer.
While it's not to the standard of its rhythm games, Rayark did well with its first RPG. Implosion looks gorgeous and is a very slick production.
Final Fantasy XII's willingness to be different and innovative has left it feeling every bit as modern and poignant now as any new JRPG on the market, and it remains my favourite game within a series that I hold very precious to me.
Damascus Gear is fun. It's clean, well-playing fun. It could have been an awful lot more, and it's a little frustrating that the game didn't make better use of the opportunities that the setting provided it. It's also not a game that you'll remember a year down the track, let alone feel nostalgic for in a decade. But it's, again, good clean fun, and if you've got a weekend to kill, this one will do it.
Chess Ultra is as good as I can conceive Chess actually getting.
Ultra Despair Girls might be an outlier, and even a game that only the most hardcore Danganronpa fans will ever truly appreciate, but underneath that hood, it's a smart one, and has a wicked sense of humour to boot. [OpenCritic note: Matt Sainsbury separately reviewed the PS4 (4 stars) and Vita (4.5 stars) versions. Their scores have been averaged.]
DiRT 4 might not be my kind of racing game normally, and nothing will ever compare with the thrill of weaving in and out of a clustered mass in an F1 game, but I genuinely enjoyed everything the game offered, and on that basis I know that it must be something special indeed.
Valkyria Revolution is an intense, special, and downright important game, with a powerful message to share not just about war itself, but also how we also talk about, and share stories about, war.
Perception was an opportunity. It was a real, genuine opportunity to do something remarkable with the horror genre, and join a couple of other experimental 'walking simulators' such as Layers of Fear, Everybody's Gone To The Rapture, and the recently-released The Town Of Light, in proving that the horror genre in video games can be cerebral, rather than visceral, but this one largely misses the mark.
The general ignorance of the west towards Japanese folk stories and philosophy mean that this is a game that a lot of people will scratch their heads over. This includes those that generally likes the games that Japanese creators make with the western market in mind. But I hope it's a game that others embrace as a stepping stone towards understanding a history and culture that too many are too eager to dismiss as "weird" or different.
Victor Vran is a cut-price Diablo clone that has a really delightful sense of humour, superb production values, and genuinely entertaining gameplay.