On one hand, Tales of Hearts R is a paint-by-numbers game that does little to stray outside of the usual series boundaries. On the other hand, the strong character dialogue, dungeon puzzles, and Chase Link combat system inject a lot of energy and entertainment into the title. It's not a video gaming masterpiece, but its fun to play. As long as you're tolerant of the lack of English dub and don't mind the anime style and plot, it's an RPG that's very much worth picking up.
Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal offers some fun platforming and treasure hunting moments, but its tedious mazes and poor story ultimately make it a drag. This one needed more time with a level editor and less time spent forcing players to repeat content.
Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric is too slow-paced, too easy, and too childish for teen or adult Sonic fans, and its control and design issues make it difficult to recommend even for its target audience.
Kirby and the Rainbow Curse is charming, lovely to look at, and fun to play—at least by yourself. It's nice to see Nintendo take advantage of the Wii U GamePad for something besides being a very expensive map display, even if that means the game's TV display is somewhat redundant. Kirby fans will be delighted by this series entry, especially if they remember Canvas Curse with fondness. Other gamers should definitely give this one a try. It has that good ol' Nintendo quality and sense of playfulness in spades.
The best part of playing Tipping Stars is finding a devilishly clever community-made level to enjoy, but is that good enough? The basic gameplay in this entry just seems uninspired, especially its main campaign. It feels like Nintendo's famed devotion to fun first is simply missing from the game, which merely ports a too-familiar formula to new devices. It's time to just let these lemmings jump off the cliff.
Final Fantasy Type-0 may have started life as a PSP game, but its mysterious world and fast-paced combat are still an exciting mix. Shame about the voice acting and interface, though.
Story of Seasons is a strong entry in this venerable series of sim games. It includes a ton of activities, some nice system upgrades like streamlined farming and complex manufacturing huts, and a much-improved localization over previous titles. It's a bit lacking in the story department and has a few questionable design decisions like the spread-out rental fields and a lack of farming help, but farming fans should be quite pleased with the overall experience. In a world where most simulation games have moved to the mobile marketplace and include obnoxious timers and microtransactions, it's wonderful to see this good old series keep evolving and improving. Farm on, my friends, farm on.
The Elder Scrolls Online features entertaining quests, dynamic combat, and a whole lot of other people. Sadly, those other people largely feel like an unnecessary addition to the game.
I'd definitely recommend Disney Infinity 3.0 for families with kids who adore Star Wars, as well as for gamers of all ages who love Disney and enjoy creating their own games and levels. If you don't fit into either of those categories, I'm not sure that the game holds its appeal past a few hours of play set fun, and that's a shame considering how much money you need to sink into the game's starter set and any additional characters and play sets you might want to buy. Though I enjoyed my time with the game, I couldn't entirely get past its bugs and quirks. Disney Infinity 3.0 is still leaning on the many possibilities of community-generated content and endless opportunities for customers to empty their wallets for plastic doodads, and not everybody is going to be willing to prop it up.
Providing that the upcoming raid is strong and we see good support and content-rich expansion during Destiny's second year, we could see this MMO-shooter go from a game beloved by a dedicated core of fans to one that excites the mass market for years to come. It got this RPG fanatic invested in a shooter for the first time since Hexen, and it might just hook you, too.
Welcome back, Yoshi. Come give us a snuggle!
Though I was a bit disappointed by the Guitar Hero Live portion of the game, Guitar Hero TV is onto something special with a lot of potential longevity. I've scored the full game just under a "must buy" because players who mostly enjoy a beefy single-player campaign will find it lacking. However, I encourage fans of Guitar Hero to check out this package for Guitar Hero TV. It's both a blast from the past days of music videos on television, and a step into the future of interactive entertainment. I'm looking forward to seeing where Activision and FreeStyle take GHTV in the future – things like a more formal vocal competition or user-curated channels are all possibilities for this new format. I'll be watching and waiting to strum along.
I'm so happy that Ubisoft remembered to put the fun back in Assassin's Creed. The series just turns out so much better with witty protagonists and lots of room for creativity. If you enjoyed Assassin's Creed II/Brotherhood and Black Flag, Syndicate will be right up your alley. It doesn't deviate enough from the formula to pull in players who don't enjoy the series in general, but it does evolve and polish the base systems considerably. The fun times greatly outweigh the occasional frustrations, and I can only hope that Ubisoft can be convinced to spread out series entries a bit more so that every Assassin's Creed game can be as good as Syndicate.
The open-world/sandbox RPG genre that Bethesda helped create has moved on and done some amazing things. It's even spread into and influenced other genres like action-adventure and MMORPG-shooter. My hype to see how Bethesda would interpret all these innovations and incorporate them into the Fallout setting turned to disappointment when I stumbled through a game that features the same poorly-implemented combat and all the same old Gamebryo engine annoyances and glitches we've been dealing with for years. Fallout 4 will provide some good old-fashioned fun for players who are looking for a prettier Fallout 3 (now with Minecraft!), but it could have and should have been much, much better than that.
If you're looking for a casual tennis game to play with friends, Wii Sports Club Tennis is still where it's at. You can grab it for your Wii U on the eShop for under $15. Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash will do ya if you're big on using buttons instead of swinging Wii Remotes or if you absolutely must perform fancy shots. Just know that this is a full-priced game that says, "Here, play some tennis," and not much else.
Vibrant and full of personality, but has also tightened up the series gameplay so you'll actually need to pay attention, strategize, and conserve your resources to defeat its challenges.
Xenoblade Chronicles X is the ultimate game about exploring and conquering a hostile alien planet. Its design hitches, though occasionally annoying, simply cannot take away from the triumph that is the planet Mira and its fantastic creatures. There are literally hundreds of hours of potential gameplay here, but even if you don't tackle everything, getting to know Mira is exciting, full of breathtaking surprises, and downright fun. If you find the patience to get over its learning curve, Xenoblade Chronicles X will reward that patience with a wealth of memorable experiences.
If you enjoyed the original Dying Light, The Following keeps its base gameplay but adds a fresh perspective with the wide-open rural setting, mysterious story, and the dune buggy. There's plenty to see and do here, though you'll have to look off the beaten path to find the most interesting bits. If I had some good fun as a dyed-in-the-wool zombie game naysayer, I'm sure you z-fans will appreciate it quite a bit. Techland definitely put in a ton of time and effort to give the popular Dying Light the kind of expansion it deserves.
The love and care that was poured into this title is obvious, and translates into a terrifically entertaining experience that I encourage everybody to try out. Play with your friends, your parents, your kids; anybody who has ever enjoyed a video game should have a blast with PvZ Garden Warfare 2. In fact, I think I'm going to go load up Rose and turn some more zombies into goats right now.
Personally, I found this remaster to have improved things just enough to cement me as a fan of Twilight Princess. The world is far more vibrant than before, and turning off motion controls removes almost all the frustration I experienced with the Wii version. I have an enduring affection for Twilight Princess' idiosyncrasies, creepy Malo Mart and all, and I'm glad we've had the chance to see the title refreshed for the HD generation.