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Rare Replay isn't without its minor hiccups, understandable in such a vast collection, but it's something that should be in every Xbox One owner's collection. Even though Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts and Blast Corps have their share of technical issues and the ZX Spectrum titles included have aged roughly, it's going to be almost impossible not to enjoy yourself here.
There have been a great deal of fantastic platformers this year, with Ori and the Blind Forest and Axiom Verge being standouts, but N++ might be the best of them all. Its seemingly endless array of content builds upon its fantastic mechanics and physics to create one of the most satisfying titles to come out in 2015.
Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight continues the trend of quality dungeon-crawling conventions.
The technical problems of episodes past — the variable frame rate, incessant hitching, visual glitches, etc — persist here, but at this point, we're so used to them that it hardly feels worthy of a callout here. Mostly it's just a bummer that A Nest of Vipers doesn't continue the steady uptick in quality we saw over the previous two episodes, but Episode Five nonetheless proves itself a necessary step in the lead-up to the season's conclusion next episode.
With Episode 4: Dark Room finishing on a brilliant cliffhanger, Dontnod will no doubt be firing on all cylinders as they head towards the finish line for Life Is Strange with some serious momentum behind them.
Lost Dimension is a sound SRPG that should be played by anyone who loved Valkyria Chronicles or adores Japanese roleplaying experiences.
Hatoful Boyfriend is the food fight of video games. While you can derive a great deal of entertainment from its complete insanity, this doesn't negate the fact that the end result is a total mess.
Roving Rogue is a good game that falls short of being exceptional. The game concept is executed well and it controls nicely, but the concept is a bit lacking.
Zenzizenzic is a massive dose of twin-stick action, demanding a learning period to master its systems, but rewarding players with a finely tuned machine of destruction for their effort. The various weapons and tools fit together perfectly, but the game never becomes a pushover even with the knowledge of how to use all that power, or even anything less than major challenge on the higher difficulty levels.
Tembo the Badass Elephant is a platformer that only comes once in a while, making it an experience that no gamer can afford to miss. Game Freak takes a break from their Pokemon duties to show everyone that they're no one trick pony and that Pulseman was no accident.
While The Road to Gehenna may not be as expansive as its parent game, it provides exactly the kind of devious challenges its fans are wanting more of. The difficulty starts at the same level The Talos Principle had in the latter half of the game and doesn't let up, although it doesn't get much harder either.
With the addition of Journey, the PlayStation 4 library has gotten a heck of a lot more special. If October's Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection manages to avoid being a technical disaster, this will mean that Sony's latest console will have five of the most incredible PlayStation 3 titles available for purchase if you include both this and The Last of Us Remastered.
Codemasters has lost a lot of goodwill for their F1 series in the past few years. In a perfect world, everything here (minus the updated racing info, of course) would have debuted last year as F1 2014.
Onechanbara Z2: Chaos is one of the better entries in the eleven year old series, but that's not saying much. There's a decent level of character customization, relatively fluid swordplay and a ton of fan service to be found.
The concept behind Guild of Dungeoneering is fantastic and more people should delve into tweaking genres like this. As the game stands, however, there are features that seem missing from a typical "full" release.
Deception IV: The Nightmare Princess offers up the definitive edition of the newest entry in the series. As a result, it's a highly-polished experience that benefits from some extra care.
Remaking a game that is inherently flawed has to be an incredible challenge and tinyBuild did the best it possibly could. While its physics are largely suspect, its pacing ranges from great to dreadful and its boss battles are universally poor, the new version of No Time to Explain could potentially warrant a playthrough from someone looking for something inherently stupid (with this last word being used in the most endearing way possible).
Prototype Biohazard Bundle is a questionable release. While it's an acceptable port to the current generation platforms, the Prototype duo don't hold up well in the current environment.
J-Stars Victory VS+ fumbles what should have been a glorious, celebratory experience. It's combat is banal, its design is overcomplicated and its presentation is completely halfhearted. Even so, there's a lot to be said for the pure fanservice of J-Stars Victory VS+.
Spectra is a fantastic little track-racer with a killer beat and instantly accessible gameplay. Each song is long enough to provide a good challenge as the track gets more cluttered the longer you play, and the percentage bar showing how much song is left means you're never left wondering if it's ever going to end.