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Ultimately, Star Ocean: First Departure R is merely upscaling an already flawed game that fans of the series will enjoy, being able to play on modern hardware, but is otherwise a frustrating experience.
Shenmue III isn’t for everyone, but anyone who was waiting for it will be amazed at how perfectly it captures the gameplay, atmosphere, and world of Shenmue so many years later.
Atelier Ryza is the best place for new fans of the series to jump in and a relaxing entry for older fans. Not the easiest game to get a handle on but once it clicks, you won’t want to put it down.
Finally, a roleplaying game where you play a role instead of “press button, make the number go up.”
Arise offers a beautifully crafted narrative in the skin of a 3D puzzle platformer. Though it’s not a game-changer, Arise manages to excel in everything it offers to the player providing a well-refined experience.
Romancing SaGa 3 isn’t for newcomers to the RPG genre, but it’s an excellent and complex game that JRPG fanatics will certainly appreciate. It can be ridiculously vague at times, but the game’s non-linear structure and plethora of well-developed mechanics make it a truly unique and enjoyable game.
It’s not the deepest or most robust collect-a-thon platformer, but New Super Lucky’s Tale serves as a completely decent 3D platformer that serves up some simple fun for anyone with fond memories of the collect-a-thon craze.
Pokémon Sword and Shield have a lot of great ideas and fun creatures, but the stark lack of content, rough performance, and a concerningly large number of minor issues keep them from being the definitive home console Pokémon games that myself and many other fans hoped for.
Death Stranding is one of the strangest and most unique games I’ve ever played. While its story’s pacing and theming are all over the place, its characters, world, atmosphere, and fascinatingly dull gameplay make Death Stranding an experience that you will likely either love or hate. Either way, I’m glad it exists.
Whether or not you’ve partied with corpses before, Dead Patient gives you a good taste of what’s to come in this new entry of the Corpse Party overarching plot. Even as just a single episode, it’s quite good.
The timeline idea is a neat gimmick but this is a pretty basic strategy game. If you want something simple or are a John Wick completist, it’s worth a gander. Otherwise, get back into the Long War mod for XCOM and blast alien scum.
The Surge 2 hosts some of the best combat and customization seen in the genre it inhabits. That alone makes it worth the admission price, even for those less inclined to more challenging video games. Slick, vicious, fun. Much like wrestling a greasy bear.
Do you enjoy slower-paced, puzzle-driven horror games? Does the phrase “Lovecraftian horror on Mars” get your attention? If either or both of these is true, Moons of Madness is a horror game you shouldn’t miss.
Deliver Us The Moon is a beautiful, haunting game perfect for anyone who enjoys games featuring exploration and light puzzle-solving, wants to piece together a tragic story by finding clues and logs from the past, or just dreams of visiting the moon.
The Ninja Saviors: Return of the Warriors is a fun, if not a bit basic, return to the glorious beat-em-ups of the ’90s.
We’re through the initial burst of Blood/Souls enthusiasm and into the second era, when “It’s like Bloodborne/Dark Souls, but…” is the pitch on the lips of every would-be cash-in. Code Vein is one of those.
The Outer Worlds isn’t reinventing the RPG wheel here, but it is an incredibly fun world to explore and sink countless hours into.
Doraemon: Story of Seasons is a relaxing and charming farm-life game that suffers from a painfully slow start. Once you get through the early content though, it’s a fun and easy-going game that’s perfect for unwinding.
Untitled Goose Game is one of those quiet little games that come along and shake everything up, the kind of hit a major publisher would kill for.
Greedfall could be the game that 2019 forgets, but cult status could quite easily be on the cards.