“Final Fantasy VII Rebirth” starts with the group staying in the town of Kalm after leaving Midgar. After some introductory segments, the player is thrown into the open world which is broken up into a few huge chunks of the world map. While the entire world map isn’t available at the start, the pace at which new zones are unlocked is perfect.

The success of this game hinged on how well they were able to adapt the open world of the original, and Square did a a fantastic job. Activities in the open world have a lot of variety — from combat and exploration to puzzles and even a new card game. The world also looks beautiful, so fans of the original will be able to see iconic locations in greater detail than ever before.

One thing that detracts from the open world is the character Chadley, who was introduced in the previous part of the remake. This little twerp chimes in whenever Cloud and his party do anything in the open world, and it gets annoying fast. It also takes away from the mystique of the world and the joy of finding new things through exploration.

Combat is largely the same as it was in the previous installment. The game uses real-time action combat in battles with the option to pause to use special abilities or items. Each character plays differently, and it’s fun to experiment with different parties to see who works best together. Yuffie and Caith Sith join the cast, and their playstyles are different and powerful enough so that they feel like meaningful additions instead of tacked-on baggage. Most characters also get a great deal of development, which is great to see for such a beloved cast.

The materia system didn’t have as much of an update as I was hoping, but now there are ways to make leveling them feel a little faster. The biggest issue is that you can’t save loadouts on all your characters, so managing them is a pain as you swap weapons and party members. It never feels like you have enough materia so that everyone has a useful loadout, so have to either stick to three or four characters or go through the tedium of constantly swapping stuff.

Most of these issues are minor compared to the grand scale of the world and the spectacle of the story, but the biggest issue in “Rebirth” by far is its reliance on gimmicks. Almost every chapter has a story segment that breaks up your group and makes you play around with some new gimmick. What starts as an interesting idea becomes a series of bullets that this game uses to shoot itself in the foot. There isn’t really a reason for it because the core gameplay elements are enough to make the game great, yet the developers insisted on slowing things down to make you do something like throw crates at levers or run around a theme park.

While “Final Fantasy VII Rebirth” does a lot of things to make its story diverge from the original, it also feels like those changes don’t result in anything meaningful yet. This second chapter covers most of the original’s story, and I hope the conclusion pays off all of the wacky things “Rebirth” sets up. This game’s combat, open world and sheer spectacle are good enough for five stars, but the constant speedbumps in its pacing knock it down to four-and-a-half stars out of five.

Similar to other auto-shooter survival games, this game is all about dodging enemies and upgrading weapons as your character sends out attacks on a timed loop. It shares the same visual design as old “Geometry Wars” games, and even though the gameplay might seem similar at first, it feels very different. Weaving through enemies and getting weapons like drones, black holes and beams is fun. You can also use currency gathered in games to unlock permanent upgrades.

The game isn’t too difficult, so surviving for the whole 20 minutes is doable after a couple hours of play. It does make for a good entry point to the genre.

The main issue with the game is its lack of replayability. While you can unlock other ships that change some gameplay elements, the game still feels very limited because there’s only one level. Once you beat the game you’re pretty much done, there’s just not enough variety to keep you playing.

While the game is only a few bucks to buy, players will inevitably compare it to “Vampire Survivors,” which has way more variety by comparison. Is it worth the money? Sure, but if you’re going to play a game like this, you have to consider there are titles that just do it better.

The game is fun, and it also makes me wish there was just a new “Geometry Wars” game to play. The last notable release was in 2014, and even though this scratches a similar itch, it’s not the same thing. It’s understandable that someone would want to take the series in a new direction, but the hard truth is that there are better survival games out there, and unless this adds a decent amount of new content for free, it can’t stand amongst its competition.

If you’re someone who has played every other survivor game to death and you need something new, then “Geometry Survivor” will get the job done. If you’re a fan of the series who wants another “Geometry Wars,” then this will only get you so far.

This game needs more content to keep it replayable; otherwise, it’s only worth a handful of hours before you drop it for something else. “Geometry Survivor” earns three stars out of five.

The end of the previous game resulted in an event called “The Great Dissolution,” which dismantled Japan’s two biggest yakuza groups, forcing all its members to live as civilians. Protagonist Kasuga Ichiban works to help former yakuza find employment, and he’s soon sent to Hawaii to find his biological mother whom he’s never met. Things, of course, go off the rails like they always do in these games, and Kasuga gets wrapped in a global conspiracy.

While the game’s story starts off intriguing, it takes some obvious and cliched turns that make it harder to connect to. Hawaii is great as a setting, but it also presents challenges when translating a Japanese game set in a place where most people speak English. Many non-Japanese characters can speak fluent Japanese but have heavy accents when speaking English. The English dub of the game is fine, but definitely a step down from the original dub.

The saving grace is that the story’s conclusion is satisfying.

Kiryu Kazuma, the series’ former main protagonist, is also featured in this game. Eventually, the game focuses more on his tale as he tries to help Kasuga while dealing with a terminal cancer diagnosis. Kiryu’s struggle with his impending death gives the game a lot more emotional weight. If this is truly the last time we see Kiryu in one of these games, then it’s at least a beautiful sendoff.

The game’s turn-based combat system is mostly the same as it was before with some slight changes that make it more interesting. Positioning is now very important as enemies can be knocked into each other or your teammates to increase the damage. Part of the strategy is to set things up to pinball enemies around in order to maximize a turn and it’s pretty fun to exploit to this system.

The game also makes it easier to integrate skills from different job classes into one character so a player can create some incredibly powerful builds for their party.

These games are also known for being stacked with side content. On top of a load of sub-stories, “Infinite Wealth” adds two deep side games with Sujimon and Dondoko Island. The former is a “Pokemon” clone, and the latter is a “Stardew Valley” clone where you build up an island resort.

Both are introduced with tutorials, and while the Sujimon one was fine, the Dondoko Island introduction is like a brick wall that brings the game’s pace to a halt. While one can sink a couple dozen hours into the island, going through all of its content can be slow and tedious.

Overall, the side content in the game is a mixed bag — while some of it is great, the other chunk feels like a waste that doesn’t offer any fun gameplay or even humor.

The highs of “Infinite Wealth” are great so it’s a shame that its lows make the overall package feel less consistent than the last game, “Yakuza: Like a Dragon.” Combat is better, Kiryu’s story has fantastic payoffs, but the story is poorly paced and struggles to juggle two protagonists doing different things. “Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth” scores four stars out of five.

A big focus in this game’s updated fighting engine is the heat system. Every round a fighter can enter an enhanced state by doing a specific move. From there, they’ll have access to powerful and a heat smash attack that does a lot of damage.

The heat system encourages an aggressive play style, and even though it doesn’t last that long, it can turn the tide of an otherwise one-sided fight. The main drawback is that because it’s available in each round of a fight, it can feel like victory is mostly decided by who makes the most out of the heat system instead of who’s more skilled with the game’s deep mechanics.

The game’s story mode picks up where “Tekken 7’” left off. Jin Kazama is out to defeat his father, Kazuya Mishima, after Kazuya killed his own father, Heihachi, and fully embraced the
devil’s blood in his body.

It’s another story where the fate of the world depends on a group of martial artists duking it out with plenty of ridiculous moments jammed in, and it’s great. The story is nonsense, but the spectacle makes it all entertaining, and the graphics are stunning. Unfortunately, this story mode is quite short, so players won’t get the chance to play that many different characters.

Another thing that will help many players get into the game is the “special style” that can be toggled in the middle of a fight. Turning it on gives a player access to simplified inputs to combos and special attacks.

Most people who are new to fighting games are intimidated by the idea of having to learn long combo inputs for each character they want to play. “Special style” is great because it can toggled easily, so if a player wants to take the training wheels off to try something out, they can do so with ease. Other fighting games have used a similar auto-combo option for new players, but this is the best I’ve seen for giving people access to a variety of solid moves that can help them learn the game over time.

Most longtime fans will spend the bulk of their time in the online modes where they can fight other people. It’s great to say that a “Tekken” game finally has a rollback to help against lag and latency issues in online fights. It’s something that makes all online fighters feel a lot smoother.

On top of that, “Tekken 8” also has crossplay, which means that friends can all play together regardless of what system they’re on. It also means that the pool of players to fight against online is much larger, which helps with matchmaking times. It all makes for the most fun I’ve had with an online fighting game in a long time and ensures that “Tekken 8” will have a long, healthy lifespan.

“Tekken” has always been a deeply rewarding and fun fighting game, and this entry showcases the best of what the series has to offer. A varied roster, customization options and new tools for new players go a long way in making this game stand out in a competitive genre. The biggest shortcomings are the lack of more single-player modes and a short story mode. “Tekken 8” remains a king of the fighting game genre with four-and-a-half stars out of five.

Players won’t be taking control of the actual prince this time around. Instead, the main character is Sargon, a young warrior who’s part of a group of fighters called The Immortals. After The Immortals are betrayed by one of their own who kidnaps Prince Ghassan, they go to an old city plagued by time distortions to rescue him. While the premise isn’t anything special at first, it’s elevated by a cast of surprisingly interesting characters and its use of Persian mythology.

The gameplay is another major difference between this game and the rest of the series. The majority of “Prince of Persia” games have been third-person action platformers with a focus on puzzles and acrobatic combat. “Lost Crown” is heavily inspired by 2D games like “Metroid Dread” and “Hollow Knight” where there’s a large focus on exploration and non-linear progression. The gaming market is already flooded with these “Metroidvania” games, but “Lost Crown” succeeds in being a unique experience. The game’s combat, aesthetic and abilities are well-thought-out and make the game feel truly unique.

The difficulty of the game is a pleasant surprise. Combat is fast with satisfying feedback on hits. New abilities add a lot to the combat flow as the game goes on, even something as simple as an air dash feels like a big upgrade. Bosses are challenging without being too unforgiving, and even basic enemies are smart enough to be threatening so combat doesn’t get boring between big fights. Navigating traps and puzzles in the world is also engaging.

A big mechanic in “Prince of Persia” games has been time manipulation. Slowing down, rewinding and stasis all help Sargon get through Mount Qaf. It was cool to see the developer play around with old ideas and mix in some new ones to give the game more variety and create something, unlike anything that was seen in the 3D era of “Prince” games. Time distortion is also a big part of the story, and seeing how the confident warriors in The Immortals are shaken by the confusion and death it causes adds more layers to the story.

Since the game was made to run well on the Nintendo Switch, it doesn’t boast the sharpest or most detailed graphics. The good news is that the game’s art style looks good even without the extra graphical power. It looks like a stylized anime with lots of flashy effects during combat and solid animation in the character’s movements. It’s a great-looking game no matter what platform it’s on, but you can tell it was intended for a portable system like a Switch or Steam Deck.

I wasn’t expecting much from “The Lost Crown” when it was announced. At first, it seemed like the gaming crowd would have been better off with a 3D reboot more in line with the best games in the series. That being said, this game is a pleasant surprise, and it’s more than just another “Metroidvania” game. The game’s combat, setting, platforming and puzzles all do a lot to make the game stand out and excel. “Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown” has a solid claim to the throne and earns four-and-a-half stars out of five.

The premise of the story is simple and pretty standard for a Mario game. Mario has to rescue Princess Peach, save the mushroom kingdom and defeat a new foe while collecting star pieces along the way.

It’s not a spectacular story, especially by RPG standards, but its writing and cast elevate it. The script for the game is surprisingly funny and it delivers dry humor and visual gags that keep the story interesting. That’s complemented by characters that are charming and unique within the “Mario” world. Mallow the magical tadpole and Geno the puppet give the party a greater variety of personalities. Even Bowser joins up and delivers some great lines.

The gameplay is one of the most unique things about this adventure. It combines a simple, turn-based system with timed button prompts that improve damage and give the player bonuses. It’s an easy way of making sure the player doesn’t zone out during combat encounters.

Unfortunately, combat is very easy in general, and even though the remake adds a couple of small features to make it more interesting, it’s still devoid of options to make the game more challenging. The bright side is that new post-game bosses and a superboss have been added for players who want a good fight after the story’s conclusion.

What the game lacks in challenge, it makes up for with an extremely charming and vivid world. The game’s graphics are fantastic considering it’s running on an aging Switch, and the developer has done a great job of creating new character models that look great and retain the original’s spirit.

When combined with the clever writing and characters it becomes impossible to not be smiling as you go through Mario’s magical adventure. It’s the kind of timeless experience that appeals to any age and makes for a great entry point into RPGs for gamers who have never played one.

While this remake doesn’t completely update the original and retains some of its flaws, it’s also the best way to experience a true classic. The music, characters and world create a delightful mixture that’s a joy to play even if you’re a novice. The lack of challenge will be a problem for veteran RPG players, and it would have been nice to have more changes to the combat so it didn’t feel so simple. “Super Mario RPG” soars its way to four stars out of five.

By the end of the “Mortal Kombat 11” story, series protagonist Liu Kang became the god of fire, and now he’s reset the timeline of war and violence to give the universe a chance for peace. This means all other characters’ stories have been reset, and the canvas is cleared for a new story. While many classic characters are back, the way their stories play out puts a spin on the
lore that fans are familiar with, but it still feels so familiar that it raises the question of why they bothered with a reboot to begin with.

When the first “Mortal Kombat” reboot from 2011 chose to focus on its story mode, it created a new standard for fighting games: a mode that combines cinematic storytelling with matches
involving a variety of characters. While the premise is interesting, the results end up feeling like a less interesting rehash of past events. Some of the former heroes become villains and vice versa, but most of the characters maintain their old personalities.

The real meat of any fighting game lies with the fighting itself. The new twist this game adds to keep things fresh is Kameos. They work like a tag assist in other fighting games. After you pick your fighter, you have to select someone who acts like a sidekick, and you can call them to assist with combos — giving you more moves at your disposal. It’s an interesting system that adds a
lot of opportunity and flexibility. Figuring out which Kameo is best for each fighter provides the level of experimentation that fighting game fans thrive on.

Aside from the online versus modes, there’s also the new invasion mode that’s unlocked after beating the story. The mode involves picking a character and moving them around a board while completing fights, using special items and unlocking new gear/Kameos. While the mode is a fun novelty at first, navigating the board and dealing with the various item upgrades and resources feel like a real mismatch for a fighting game.

Towers of Time in “Mortal Kombat 11” was a great feature that offered a revolving set of fights of varying difficulty. It was fast-paced and gave players who preferred to play offline plenty of content to enjoy. Invasions in “Mortal Kombat 1” just doesn’t match what the Towers brought.

While “Mortal Kombat 1” offers a good amount of content, it feels as though the developer isn’t sure what they want the franchise to be. Most of the new incarnations of fan-favorite characters
aren’t as interesting as they once were, and while the fighting engine is better than “Mortal Kombat 11,” it lacks the modes that fit with a fighting game. This is a game that strips a franchise to its core and adds new bells and whistles to it. The end result is a mixed bag that I hope improves over the next few months. “Mortal Kombat 1” finishes the fight with three-and-a-half stars out of five.

The premise is pretty standard. Mario and friends are in a new kingdom, the flower kingdom, and then Bowser shows up to wreak havoc. From there, the player will go through a series of levels, fight some bosses and collect items as usual. The real hook comes with the level designs and new power-ups.

Most main levels have a wonder flower that drastically changes the layout and mechanics of the level. Physics works differently, enemies change, and the art becomes a lot more vibrant, bordering on psychedelic. Another featured new power is the elephant power-up, which lets players shoot water and ram through blocks.

The new powers are fun, but it’s a shame that the game doesn’t have something that lets players fly like in previous 2D games. It seems the developer chose to focus on featuring the new abilities instead of bringing back all the fan favorites.

The overall presentation of the game is fantastic. The art style of bright and charming, and the graphics are quite impressive considering it’s on an aging system. This is easily one of the best- looking games on the Switch. Nintendo remains a master in creating charming worlds that can make anyone grin as they play through the game. It’s the kind of timeless joy that appeals to everyone.

The game is also playable in co-op with up to three other people locally. Previous 2D Mario has also offered co-op play, but due to some strange choices, these sessions would often turn into frustrating bouts and players accidentally killing each other and nabbing power-ups.

Sadly, those problems still linger, and a lot of the levels feel like they were made for just one person. The chaos of multiplayer has some novelty value, but I would recommend playing alone or just passing around the control to get the best out of the game.

The good news is that Nintendo also added some online functionality that’s pretty interesting. When connected online, other players’ ghosts can be seen in levels and the overworld. You can’t collide with them, but they can occasionally save you from losing a life if they assist your ghost. It’s like the random phantoms you can encounter when playing “Dark Souls” and it’s an option that adds to the game’s charm.

While “Super Mario Bros. Wonder” doesn’t reinvent the wheel for “Mario” games, it also shows that it doesn’t have to. This game has a slew of fresh ideas that add a lot to the classic formula and deliver some of the best content ever seen in the franchise. The low number of unique power-ups and poor co-op are small issues, and they don’t drag the game down very much.

The game is pure fun distilled into a game that doesn’t overstay its welcome and always has something new to show. It earns four-and-a-half stars out of five.

Players will take control of Yasna, a crewmember of The Dragonfly, a ship of scientists sent to survey a planet named Regis III. Yasna starts the game waking up on the planet’s surface with a foggy memory and apart from her crew. The game’s opening moments are slow but do a good job of establishing the tone and conveying the game’s classic sci-fi aesthetic.

Since the game is mostly narrative-driven, there’s not a lot going on with the actual gameplay. This is the kind of “walking simulator” that was more popular in the early 2010s — and unfortunately, the label is accurate when talking about “The Invincible.” While Yasna can use some tools to help her on her journey to find her team, most of the gameplay is just going from one place to another while interacting with some buttons and levers here and there.

Playing the game feels like you’re in a long episode of “Star Trek” combined with “The Twilight Zone.” It invokes the kind of dry sci-fi that is interesting to think about but isn’t exactly exciting. That being said, the game does a good job of setting up a lot of interesting questions and using classic themes like humanity’s place in the universe and machines evolving past human control.

While Yasna is mostly on her own through the game’s story, she is in radio contact with her astrogator, who helps guide her through the objectives. It’s a choice that ends up hurting the game’s atmosphere, because even though Yasna is isolated on the planet, she still has this voice constantly in her ear.

Toward the end of the game, I was getting tired of the characters yammering on and on. The constant communication doesn’t even develop their characters all that much, and worse than that, it even halts progress until the dialogue ends.

While I admire the developer’s attempts to adapt a classic story into a game, it just doesn’t do enough to keep the game interesting. It’s a shame, because it does have a lot going on with its setting, story and technology. There’s so little variety in the gameplay that even though it’s only a few hours long, it still feels like a chore to get through. If there were some interesting puzzles or platforming elements, then it could have stayed interesting, but it’s mostly a lot of slow walking and climbing.

If “The Invincible” proves anything, it’s that these kind of narrative-driven games had their time, and if one is going to come out today, it needs to have more going on than an interesting story.

Even though the game is $30, I’d have a hard time recommending it due to the stale gameplay and lack of variety. It does have some different endings depending on the player’s
choices, so it has some replay value at the very least. “The Invincible” blasts off with three stars out of five.

The story follows the young son of a military officer, Claude C. Kenny, and a local of an underdeveloped planet named Rena. After accidentally being transported to the planet Expel, Claude’s search for a way home puts him and Rena on the path to saving the planet from its growing disasters.

While the story starts strong, it does suffer from slow pacing in the first half. A lot of the first dozen or so hours are full of RPG tropes to lead the characters from one end of Expel to the other with only a vague objective moving them forward.

The first thing players will notice about the game is how beautiful it is. The game uses the same “HD-2D” art style that was used for “Octopath Traveler,” which combines pixelated sprites with highly detailed, colorful backgrounds. It also uses character portraits that have a painted look to them, and with all those elements combined, it makes for a game world that is gorgeous while staying true to its retro roots.

The presentation is pushed further with great voice acting that makes the world more immersive and the story more engaging.

The gameplay uses a real-time battle system with special techniques that are combined with combo attacks. Battles are usually short, but fast-paced, and while the game is pretty easy most of the time, some boss battles bring spikes in difficulty.

What really makes combat fun is how can combine different characters’ abilities to make insane combos that wipe out groups of enemies. Since the game has so many different ways to craft items and increase your parties’ power, it’s easy to become overpowered, so players who get a grasp on the games’ various systems might want to play on a level above the normal difficulty.

Another unique thing about the game is its approach to building up your party. The game’s main story and sidequests will make Claude and Rena cross paths with different characters, but it’s up to the player if they’re recruited or not. Since there are only six additional slots for party members, and recruiting some characters will exclude others from joining, there’s no way to see everyone’s story in just one playthrough.

This adds a lot of replay value to the game, especially since Claude and Rena have their own, slightly different, campaign paths depending on which is chosen to be the main protagonist.

“Star Ocean The Second Story R” has a classical feel to it that is enhanced by its amazing visuals and quality-of-life upgrades. While its crafting and upgrade systems can be overwhelming, they are optional, so someone who wants to ignore them can still complete the game without issues. The main problem is with the game’s slow plot pacing, but once the first major twist happens, the story picks up a lot of steam. Thus, this gem earns four-and-a-half stars out of five.