If you've somehow missed all the other Harvest Moon games on the 3DS, then you could get a real kick out of Skytree Village, but at this stage the only people in that position will be the people that either don't own a 3DS (and this game won't be enough to buy one for, that's for certain), or people who aren't interested in Harvest Moon in the first place, and this game won't turn them onto the series either
It might not have the charm of Harvest Moon, but there's a purity to the experience in Farming Simulator 18 that also means it avoids the irritants.
It might look like Civilization on the surface, but once you realise it's actually a hybrid of card game, gamebook, RPG, and strategy game you'll be hard pressed to think of anything that you've played this year that's more fundamentally fascinating than this one. [OpenCritic note: Matt Sainsbury reviewed both the PS4 and PC versions. Their scores have been averaged.]
I can see people who enjoy the aesthetic and the intensity of the battles spending a lot of time in playing this one, and it will sit with Splatoon as Nintendo's quirky, creative, fundamentally different take on competitive gaming. I just don't think I'll ever play it again, having now wrapped up the review.
I love this game. I really, truly love it. It's the realisation of a genuine fantasy, and, as I said at the start of the review, this is the kind of completely immersive experience that is exclusive to VR that makes for the most compelling argument for the technology.
Could you argue that not enough of this game is new for fans of the series - especially when Sony has the VR headset now and a speedy racer would be such a great thing for it? Probably. You probably could argue that. But this is still a package of three of the best twitch racers out there, and given that we need to wait for Sony to find a new home for the WipeOut series, this will keep us going just fine in the meantime, you'd think.
This game manages to mix some quite serious themes in with its plentiful fanservice and Compile Heart trademark sense of the ridiculous. That it manages to do both successfully makes this a really special game. Yes, this is a game that was produced on a budget, but then, if it hadn't been, it would have been deemed far to "odd" and "risky" to have been greenlit.
I came away from Tekken 7 with a greater appreciation for the series than I went in. I enjoyed my time with the story mode, and it did help me to better understand the unique flow to combat that the game has. I also really enjoyed some of the newer characters; this game has a more rounded cast than previously. But I still struggle to get along with the approach to presentation.
Cladun is, at core, a lot of fun, and manages to take the most basic of gameplay loops that you could imagine in a video game, and make something eminently worthy out of it.
If you're going to play Farpoint, then be absolutely sure that you get the lightgun. It adds everything to the experience, making the game one of the most immersive and fundamentally enjoyable shooters that I've ever played.
The Legend of Dark Witch franchise is far too limited and nowhere near of the standard where its music is ready stand alone, and Rudymical is just not worth playing on any level.
It's quite a step up to make the combat a core part of the storytelling experience.
By the end of Spirit of Sanada you'll have learned something, enjoyed the prettiest Warriors game to date, and seen just how far Koei Tecmo's been able to take this series, so that it's no longer purely an action game. With Spirit of Sanada, we see a future for the Warriors franchise where every battle and event is given context and purpose, and it's a far deeper and more rounded experience for that.
It's a game for the here-and-now, made to give the 3DS one of its last hoorahs with a major franchise before all of Nintendo's developers move fully to the Switch.
On a technical level Caligula isn't perfect; characters can run right through doors, and enemies have a habit of getting stuck in scenery as they chase after your characters, but the art direction itself with its soft pastel colours and clean elegance is a massage for the eyes.
This is one of the best tactics JRPGs you can play. It'll last you a long time, become more rewarding the more time that you put into it, and runs just perfectly on the Switch's hardware. You could not ask for a better portable game than this.
While the game might not be better than its peers, it would fare better if it were judged separately.
For all its mechanical competency, The Surge feels as mechanical as its enemies through most of the experience. No where near enough was done with the science fiction theme, and after catching my attention with an intriguing set up, the game then lost me with a generally dull plot that it was never quite able to claw back.
I'm sure the developers went into NBA Playgrounds with the most noble of intentions, but this game is not the NBA I remembered. This game is one that young me would never have considered to be worth my allowance.
It's not a classic by any means, but it's different, interesting, and often quite clever. This is a developer with a bright future.