Ghost Trick is an essential and engrossing experience for any PC gamer.
Vengeance combines the fresh, familiar, and the fiendish into one incredible RPG.
Relink offers fluid combat against inventive bosses in gorgeous landscapes-this is an essential ARPG.
Riven is as impressive, immersive, and unmissable as it's ever been.
Whatever the mode, there’s no doubt Gleylancer’s a brilliant 16-bit shmup. The game’s fantastic use of parallax scrolling adds not only speed but excitement to its varied eleven stages; taking you down through icy depths, weaving between small gaps in tight tunnels, slowly looping around a gigantic battleship, or hurtling through an asteroid field. The ways your Movers — the floating gun turrets that follow your ship — can behave are so different from one another they have a direct impact on how you tackle everything from “popcorn” enemies to end of level bosses, and the newfound flexibility of Modern Mode feels like the perfect twist on an already brilliant idea. Gleylancer is as fresh and thrilling as it’s ever been, only now it’s as authentic — or accessible — as you want it to be too.
Clockwork Aquario has been a long time coming, but it was definitely worth the wait. An obvious labour of love, this ill-fated arcade gem has been improbably recovered, restored, and reassembled, and it never feels like anything less than a carefully unearthed treasure that's been polished until it shines. It won't take long to beat - and it shouldn't, because a good 30-year-old arcade platformer is supposed to be short and sweet - but what the game lacks in length it more than makes up for in entertainment and raw creativity, with stages pitting you against everything from mechanical flying fish to a gigantic egg-dropping robo-penguin. It's the sort of game you come back to again and again because you want to rather than have to, and we feel lucky to have it.
The blend of all-out action, deep strategy, and Ancient's irreverent humour is as enjoyable as ever here, and smashing a huge castle-tank into evil things never stops being fun. Gotta Protectors: Cart of Darkness plays its story for laughs but the game itself is an expertly crafted challenge with lots to do and plenty more to keep coming back for.
A fun and engaging RPG with beautiful graphics and a bouncy pace.
An excellent remake, prequel, and game in its own right-Crisis Core has it all.
Kunitsu-Gami's a gorgeous and engaging take on the tower defence formula.
Atmospheric, imaginative, and enjoyably unpredictable-this is one of the year's best horror games.
This is unlikely to be the Aleste collection anyone wanted. Those interested in the early days of Aleste will quickly notice the lack of the MSX2 games and the omission of Musha, Dennin (AKA: Robo), and Super Aleste will disappoint those fond of the most popular entries in the series. However, even without those, Aleste Collection still contains five great shmups and represents excellent value for money, especially when you consider this package costs much less than some second-hand cart-only auctions do for single games contained within it – and that's before you even consider GG Aleste 3's very welcome addition.
Luckily for publisher Live Wire, its bare-minimum localisation work and stumble out of the online gate aren't destructive enough to drag the excellent Espgaluda II down too much, and underneath it all the game feels as fresh and well-designed as ever. The flexible risk/reward scoring system allows long-time fans to decide for themselves (to a certain extent) how much trouble they want to get into while still allowing newcomers enough leeway to enjoy an intense and visually spectacular shmup experience.
Gynoug hasn’t quite got that special extra spark that turns a great game into a spectacular one, but even so it’s still a unique and thoroughly enjoyable thirty-year-old shmup capable of standing proudly next to any other sold on the eShop, and yet another affordable retro re-release sitting in that perfect middle ground between modern convenience and hardcore authenticity.
Resurrection is arguably one of the best of its genre even after all these years and a lot of competition (plenty of it coming from developer Cave themselves). It’s relentlessly challenging, breathlessly inventive and exhilarating to play; an essential purchase for confirmed shmup fans. But it’s also one that needs you to do a lot of homework to get anything meaningful out of it.
Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth doesn't take too long to beat - even the most curious/thorough/careful player is unlikely to go over the 10-hour mark - but when the adventure's this much fun and as densely packed with creativity, does it matter? At the end of it all you're far more likely to feel satisfied than short-changed, and Deedlit's tale is a surprisingly touching one regardless of how much or little you already know about Lodoss. If you're after something with the flavour of Symphony of the Night that doesn't feel like a shallow knock-off, this is a fine alternative.
Sea of Stars may not truly recapture the magic of '90s RPGs, but it's still a polished, enjoyable blend of old and new.
Tomb Raider Remastered is an impressive and authentic update. Too authentic in some places, though.
Sand Land is just another forgettable tie-in to add to the existing anime game pile.
The Last Faith is a beautiful but inconsistent rehash of older, better games.