David Flynn
No Straight Roads is a rockin' good time with a friend, but beware of the many glitches, bad camera, and attacks not syncing up with the music.
Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition is an almost great update on the original. While the game itself is still fantastic and the new content is fun, the online only multiplayer leaves a lot to be desired in terms of quality and features.
Raji; An Ancient Epic has a lot of potential and a unique style and story, but seems to be actively working against the player's enjoyment in many ways. While the first level is enjoyable, the rest of the game is plagued with performance issues and incomprehensible design decisions.
Lovingly Evil is a funny and charming dating sim with interesting characters and frustrating minigames. While it is well-written, don't expect the game to get too deep or go beyond the start of your relationship with one of the characters.
Spiritfarer excels in every genre it dips its toes in.
Yakuza Kiwami 2 is a contender for the best game in this consistently excellent series. Its crime drama story of family, love, revenge, and pride will have you hooked. Combat has never felt as smooth or involved before, outside of certain moments. This is a gorgeous, fun, heartwarming, and extreme remake of one of the franchise's most beloved entries.
Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise is somehow much, much worse than the original. The game looks and feels awful, with an unacceptable framerate and PlayStation 1 level textures. While the story is great, it's brought down by even more tedious gameplay and some harmful stereotypes.
While Röki doesn't do anything particularly new or interesting, it does present a gorgeous world and introduces those unfamiliar with many myths and legends to learn more about.
Fans of the series may feel a sense of déjà vu when playing through the extremely short Shantae and the Seven Sirens. But it's still a game worth your time, even if it doesn't meet the high bar set by the rest of the series.
CrossCode is an amazing puzzle action RPG with a touching story and a beautifully detailed world. Combat has tons of options and puzzles require a lot of critical thinking and creative solutions to solve. It draws inspiration from classic SNES RPGs and the Zelda series, but stands proudly among them as a modern classic.
While Paper Mario: The Origami King makes excellent strides in terms of humor and adventure game design, it's still sorely lacking aesthetically and features a horrendous battle system that only gets more frustrating as you play. I've given up on the series returning to the style of my childhood's classics, but if the series ditches battles entirely it could make for some extremely fun adventure games.
Night Call may draw you with its murder mysteries, but you'll keep playing to learn about its numerous, interesting characters. It's incredibly well written, if a bit pretentious in the best way. Unfortunately, it's numerous glitches may frustrate players too much to keep playing.
Rehydrated is a wonderful remake of an incredibly fun game. The humor and joyful platforming will have you smiling ear to ear, even if the game has more than a few technical problems.
Namco Museum Archives is a collection of the company's NES classics, no more, no less. While the emulation is great and the original games are a good touch, the "Museum" part of the title rings hollow.
Summary: Persona 4 is still one of the best JRPGs of all time, and this port only further proves that while clearing up your vision of Inaba and adding a new control scheme with which to Face Yourself. With this PC version bringing along the enhancements and new features of Golden, there's never been a better time to Reach out to the Truth for newcomers or for veterans to Make History.
House Flipper is emblematic of why every game doesn't need to be on Switch. Its nauseating performance, terrible controls, and laggy menus combine to make an overall awful experience. The game itself, while relaxing at times, seems to want to waste your time in any way it possibly can.
Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition is the best version of Monolithsoft's masterpiece. Its additions serve to streamline the experience and make an already great game that much better. Its expansion Future Connected gives some much needed closure on one of the story's best and most complex characters while spicing up the exploration and combat in a fun, new way. If you're not already a fan, this version might just hook you like it has so many others.
All three of these games are exactly what you'd expect from other versions: the same shootin', lootin', and possibly rootin' and tootin' found on other platforms. However, this style of game is a great fit for a portable console and may be worth double dipping if you've never played the DLC before.
Mission: It's Complicated is a visual novel that will immediately charm your pants off with a cast of diverse and lovable characters. It's short enough to just hop in for a quick playthrough, but has enough endings to keep you busy for quite some time.
SNK Gals' Fighters is a reminder of why fighting games didn't really work on portable consoles back in the day. While the additions to this port are nice and the game looks good, the game itself feels unresponsive and the controls are too complex for its own good.