This is just a list of games we’ve played through, accompanied with some feelings about them. Consider them tiny game reviews.
I’ll be updating this list from time to time. Feel free to come back here if you ever want to know my quick thoughts about the games you see in the sidebar’s game list.
Note: If you’re a fan or a developer of one of these games, try not to get upset. I may come off overly rude at some points, since these thoughts are very condensed and honest. Feel free to use the comments section to contact me if you want a more detailed and constructive article about any of the games. I’d love to give constructive feedback to you.
Browse reviews by genre
Action-adventure
Battle Princess Madelyn (Switch)
A short arcade-style game very much like Ghouls ‘n Ghosts. Despite finishing it in a day, I really enjoyed the experience. Will definitely return to play this again (note to self: I’m not very good at keeping promises).
Blasphemous (Switch)
This is a metroidvania game with a cruel but very intriguing catholic setting. The game itself was quite satisfying but not enough for me to warrant playing through a new game plus.
There’s one game mechanic (Righteous Riposte) that I didn’t manage to pull off even once, but it’s not exactly required at any point in the game.
Brütal Legend (PS3)
I apparently managed to keep myself from getting spoiled completely before playing this game. For some reason I was expecting a some kind of point-and-click game. Instead, Brütal Legend is part 3D-zelda-like hack-and-slash, part open world exploration on wheels and part real time strategy combat. It’s also very much a love letter to all things heavy metal, and sprinkled with witty DoubleFine humor. There are several rock star celebrity voice actors (doing a good job at it, too).
I quite enjoyed this. I’m not that familiar with the heavy metal scene but it didn’t feel like that’s necessary. (You do, however, have to like the music style. It’s all you can listen while driving around.)
Most of the game is spent running or driving around alone, whacking enemies with a guitar-axe. But parts of the game have you command troops on battlefield. Both systems felt like they could use minor improvements, but aside from that I had fun playing in both modes.
I don’t know if this is exclusive to PS3 version or not, but there was significant input lag in the game. After pushing the control stick or pressing a button it takes some time before the character actually registers that action.
Link: homepage
Cadence of Hyrule (Switch)
Forget the Link’s Awakening remake. Get this instead. I’m musically challenged and never really had a problem with the rhythmic gameplay. There’s a physical version available now, with all DLC included.
Fallen Legion (Switch)
(I want to write a full article about this one some day, since it’s hard to condence my exact thoughts in this small space.)
Not sure what to classify this game as. You choose a stage, then your characters continue running forward until you meet an enemy or an NPC that presents you with either a choice or some kind of reward (good, neutral or bad) for making a choice previously. Combat works so that you wait for your characters to gain meter. Once they have any, you can tell them to go attack, or wait longer for them to gather more meter. You then try to string combos by making the characters attack in sync one after the other.
There are quite a few of things in this game that made it feel like it was made by “Japanese gaming otaku” (I’ll probably have to elaborate on what I mean by that someday) – and was surprised by the credits roll that it wasn’t! The game is FULL of very small things that, if fixed, would likely make it a good game. But as is, the experience was quite lackluster and very much rage-inducing at times. I recommend playing Has Been Heroes or Indivisible instead (if you’re looking for a somewhat similar game style but done better).
How to Survive (PC)
A zombie survival game. The game is from top-down view (like Diablo) and has simple crafting elements. Despite being quite short, amateurish and somewhat buggy I liked the game enough to buy all the DLC, and…
…well, I wouldn’t call it a “mistake”, but the DLC is quite unpolished. (Even compared to the unpolishness of the main game.) It’s nothing horrible, but the dialogue isn’t written very well, the characters speak different things compared to the texts, and you can hear the NPCs shout things like “Stay away from me!” during combat when the NPC is no longer even on the whole island.
About the bugginess: there’s nothing game breaking. Mostly it’s just the physics being a bit janky and some of the DLC is accessible during certain moments even if you don’t own it.
I’m not usually a fan of achievements, but there was something about this game that got me to collect all of them on Steam. It was quite a trip and required some googling, but it did feel worthwhile.
Link: steam
Indivisible (Switch)
This game combines platforming with some kind of semi-turn-based combat. The platforming is actually quite difficult at times.
The combat is quite similar to Fallen Legion (review above). Story-wise this game suffers from a similar amateurism as Fallen Legion, but since Indivisible is lighter and more humor-based (whereas Fallen Legion takes itself quite seriously) I’ve been able to enjoy this game much more. I really like the characters and their mischievous talks with each other, even if they feel like they’re mostly written by me back when I was a teenager.
I like the combat much better here than in Fallen Legion. The combat system is more complicated, which at first I might think is bad since playing Fallen Legion already felt like I didn’t have a good grasp of everything. But there’s one major difference that makes this game’s combat much more enjoyable: your attacks are protected. In Fallen Legion, whenever you attacked, you might get attacked back. That alone made the combat too chaotic to ever enjoy. In Indivisible, if one of your party members attacks, you’ll be allowed to attack with all characters in peace until you’ve done all you wanted.
The game is somewhat buggy and there are some strange design decisions here and there, but overall I really enjoyed the gameplay (both platforming and combat). The story isn’t great but the vast range of characters hold it together quite nicely.
Metroid Dread (Switch)
Metroid Dread is a really good metroidvania game. Some of the button layouts took a while to learn, but aside from that the controls are really crisp, moving feels really good, the boss battles were great. The end boss is especially difficult, but felt fair to try over and over again. The atmosphere was great too. Play in a dimly lit room for some extra serving of dread.
Probably the only thing that put me off a little bit was the linearity of the game. Sure, you can stop here and there to go explore areas to find upgrades, but most of the time you’re going to run into a bunch of obstacles that require better abilities. So you might just as well keep following the story and get most upgrades before spending too much time exploring. It feels like I’m kind of spoiled by Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in seeing that this game, too, could have been a much better fit for me if it was done as open world.
If you like speedrunning games like this, this is probably going to be an extra treat. Also all the end game rewards (which are just pictures) are hidden behind finishing the game under a certain time.
Beat ’em up
River City Girls (Switch)
2-player co-op beat-em-up with RPG elements mixed in (like River City Ransom/Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari) and freeroaming map (although you need to unlock city parts by progressing in the story). You increase your stats by leveling up (by beating enemies) or eating food (yes, the stat boost from eating food is permanent). Unlike in River City Ransom, you can’t keep eating the same foods to increase your stats because all food only does that the first time you eat it. So you need to go around the city, visit new shops and keep eating new stuff to make yourself stronger.
The game is a bit more linear than I’d hoped from a River City title. (Yes, you roam around the map freely, but you must unlock new parts of the map in a certain order.) I like the AI much more than in River City Ransom: Underground: the world feels more lively with enemies doing their own stuff in some areas and not dodging 100% of your special attacks. The music and graphics are wonderful. Vayandil and I played the heck out of this game and enjoyed it tremendously.
Link: gog
River City Girls 2 (Switch)
It’s more the same that RCG1 offered, but improved in almost every way. You now have a total of 6 characters to choose from (2 which get unlocked while advancing in the story). The story’s a bit longer, there’s more side quests, more areas, secret places, and more moves and combos. The music is still bangers. Graphics are mostly identical to the first game. A big plus is that character dialogue now reflects who you’re playing as! There’s also 2-4 player co-op this time, but we haven’t tried playing with more than 2 players yet.
It’s not perfect, but out of all the beat-em-ups on this list, this is the one I recommend the most. (Take into account that we played the whole game on co-op and I’m a pretty big fan of the Kunio-kun series, so those may skew my view quite a bit.)
Link: steam
Scott Pilgrim vs the World: The Game (Switch)
It’s a fun little game with 4 player co-op that’s a mixture of beat-em-up and RPG. I can immediately see this game has taken a lot of inspiration from River City Ransom (in both good and bad.) Enemies run to attack you immediately and drop coins when they die. You can pick up objects and lying enemies and use them to attack your opponents. There’s character leveling and permanent stat increases in the form of going to shops to buy food and other junk. Some of the moves the characters learn are also straight from RCR (like Grand Slam). There’s hidden shops. The graphics and music are both gorgeous.
Like most beat-em-ups, the game is pretty short aside from redoing the stages to level up your characters.
Streets of Rage 4 (Switch)
This is an alright beat-em-up with really nice visuals and 2-4 player co-op. With that said, I had a lot of trouble wrapping my head around some of the gameplay due to how used I am to some other beat-em-ups like Final Fight, TMNT and River City Ransom series.
I get that Streets of Rage has its own beat-em-up legacy, but there were a few things I felt I was constantly hoping for while playing. It would be nice if all characters could run or had some other way to hop forward quickly and easily. I really wish the player characters could jump down and upwards (you can only jump left or right, or in place, but the enemies can move and hop to wherever they like). While grabbing, it feels really counter-intuitive that some characters have forward+Y as “pummel” and neutral Y as “throw forward” instead of the other way around. It feels really weird not having any kind of defend button (all characters do have a “defensive special” move, but none of those really feel defensive).
We played through the game several times, trying to improve our scores and skills. But overall, we never really managed to find what makes the game really work (i.e. how you make sure you don’t take any damage from enemies).
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge
A whopping 1-6 player co-op beat-em-up, very reminiscent of NES and SNES Turtles beat-em-ups. The game is linear, but you can return to old stages, and there’s some incentive to do so in the form of challenges. Every stage has a few challenges for you to complete. Most of them are very doable, but there’s a few stages with a “Don’t take any damage” challenge, which we found to be quite difficult, even after practicing those stages for several hours.
This is a nice game, especially if you have a bunch of people to play with. There’s also some 2-person combo attacks and mechanics to give another player health and revive them. The gameplay is quite solid and responsive.
Card game
Wingspan (PC)
Platformer
A Hat in Time (PC)
A short and sweet 3D Mario-like with co-op. Main story took us about 30 hours with all DLC. There are extra DLC challenges we skipped.
Like with most other games that have it, we really liked the co-op. The visuals and humor were nice. We really liked the visual world of stages, even if they were disorienting at times. (Especially compared to stages in 3D Mario games.) Gameplay was pretty great for a 3D platformer, although the occasional level design and camera issues sometimes caused problems (playing co-op, which forces split screen, might have also affected this).
Link: gog
Super Mario 3D All-Stars (Switch)
Super Mario 3D All-Stars has been getting some flak for being a pretty lazy port of the first three 3D Mario games. There have been some gripes about the quality of the games. I can assure you, if you’re not a speedrunner you most likely won’t notice a thing. Especially if it’s been a dozen years since you’ve last played these games.
Despite the gripes, there have been some improvements as well. Camera directions have been changed to follow modern standards. The games run smoother for the most part. Sunshine and Galaxy have wider aspect ratio. Some textures are higher quality.
Personally, I’m just happy to have these games on a modern console. Even if it’s not a considerable upgrade like the Super Mario All-Stars (which overhauled all the 2D Mario games’ graphics and introduced the original Super Mario 2 to western audiences).
If you have to choose between buying this or Mario Odyssey, I’d suggest getting Odyssey. (Except in the one exception that you only, and I mean ONLY, want quantity over quality.) Playing all these games through really makes me appreciate how Super Mario Odyssey combines the best of all the 3D Mario games. (Exploration from Mario 64 and extensive move set and tight controls from Galaxy.)
Super Mario 64 (Switch)
Considering that this was the “rocky start” for the 3D Mario games, the game holds up suprisingly well. Pretty much my only gripe was how tacky the camera is at times. Compared to most other 3D Mario games, I love how you can pick up the stars quickly in this game if you know what to do.
Super Mario Sunshine (Switch)
I stand by my previous assessments that Sunshine is the Sonic 2006 of the Mario series. The cutscenes, characters, story and gameplay all feel somewhat of a deviation from what Mario games represent. There’s something of a rusty fanfic vibe to the whole game.
And despite all that, Sunshine is a pretty good game. My second biggest gripe is how they made each Shine only available in its respected episodes. My biggest gripe is the blue coins. Those are not just hidden all around the stages, but are often only available within specific episodes. (My third gripe is that there’s no long jump in this game. I’m way too used to having it.)
Like Mario 64, this game is pretty great if you’re young and want a game where you can just waste time exploring every nook and cranny.
Super Mario Galaxy (Switch)
They brought back long jump, but took away diving (and generally just slowed Mario down quite a bit). Many stages put you upside down and running around planets in weird camera angles. On one hand, it makes controlling Mario difficult at times, and at others, it reminds me that Nintendo is one of the few game companies that can pull this kind of thing off without completely and utterly botching it.
Galaxy is also much more linear than the previous 3D Mario games. I’m not sure if its the linearity or something else, but the game feels even longer than 64 and Sunshine.
The original Wii version used Wii’s remote sensor for some of the controls. These have translated surprisingly well, even if you play with a pro controller.
Galaxy feels like a good game, but after playing it now that I’ve somewhat recently experienced Mario 64 and Odyssey, I definitely prefer the controls and open-worldness of those games.
Point and click
Beneath a Steel Sky (PC)
This was an okay point and click game. It’s somewhat short and sweet (took us about 9 hours), and more simple and logical than point and click games usually. We didn’t really get stuck anywhere and never had to resort to a guide. The humor was okay-to-nice, and the setting was somewhat interesting. My biggest gripes were with walking and saving.
Walking around isn’t nearly as smooth as in games like Monkey Island or Sam & Max. The character walks only straight up, down, left and right. The characters also can’t walk through each other so you have to wait for them to avoid each other or go into position when initiating a conversation. You can increase the game speed in the menu, though, that helps a bit. Also, this is an older game (from 1994) so saving and reloading was a bit clunky, as espected from games of those days.
Link: gog
Sam & Max Hit the Road (PC)
An old point and click game aimed at younger audience. The game is visually very pleasing, but suffers from some problems with the UI. There were at least two screens in the game that I probably would have never found if Vayandil hadn’t pointed them out to me (because she’s played the game for hours on end as a kid).
There are quite a few completely optional minigames like dress-up and battleship. They will probably increase the game’s length for younger audience, but to anybody else they’re quite unplayable.
I would like to suggest playing Telltale’s Sam & Max series instead, but according to some reviewers, those might not operate any more on Windows 10. (The Telltale games are also pulled from GOG because “Telltale went under in 2018”, and don’t seem to be back despite the company being bought by LCG Entertainment and seemingly resuming operations. Hmm.)
(UPDATE: Skunkape appears to be making remasters of the whole Telltale series, starting with Sam & Max Save the World. Nice!)
Either way, I don’t think Sam & Max Hit the Road is exactly a bad point and click game, but it’s mostly carried by the characters of Sam and Max and their humor. Watch a trailer and play it if you think that might be your thing.
Link: gog
Tsioque (PC)
This is a super short interactive fairy tale book (that looks somewhat like a point and click game but isn’t exactly). Essentially, you click stuff you see around you and stuff happens. Sometimes that stuff is a game over. Actually quite often, since many puzzles contain sudden “quick time” events (with no prompts). You just have to realize that you needed to do something while something else was going on. But don’t worry, you get checkpoints with almost every click, so you get to retry the event immediately.
The animations were really, really neat and it was an enjoyable little story. Still, I wouldn’t recommend the game unless that is exactly what you’re looking for.
Link: gog
Thimbleweed Park (PC)
A very nice modern Lucasarts style point and click adventure game. Our playthrough was about 15 hours. There are quite a bit of things to do so it very rarely felt like we had no idea what to do next. There is an in-game hotline for if you need help. Can’t comment on its quality since we didn’t end up needing any tips.
Our only gripe was that the game is very meta. If you prefer your point and click adventures with very little or completely void of fourth wall breaking, then you might want to skip this one. Other than that, if you don’t hate point and click adventures, I highly suggest this one.
Link: gog
Puzzle
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (PC)
I don’t usually like to recommend games that are story-based (aside from visual novels), but I really liked this one. A big reason was probably because there was no text and no comprehensive speech, so the narrative is based completely on body language and actions. I recommend this if you want to experience a couple of hours in a morbid fairy tale puzzle land.
Link: gog
Layton’s Mystery Journey (Switch)
The puzzles are quite nice, aside from a few cases where we had trouble understanding the premise.
However, the stories told in the game are very tame and therefore, quite dull. It’s a bit weird that the puzzles sometimes feel complicated, but the game otherwise feels very safe and casual.
Despite not being much of a fan of the storyline, there’s something about the game’s music and style that has left a nostalgic imprint on me.
There’s a system for “daily puzzles” where you can download a new simple puzzle every day. At the time of this writing, the “daily puzzle” thingie already has several hundred puzzles to solve so it’s a nice extra.
Role-playing
Breath of Fire (SNES Online)
I’m really enjoying these older RPGs that have much more condensed stories compared to most modern games. This game has a very interesting cast of characters who have different abilities. May require you to look up some stuff from a walkthrough (I don’t know if those things are hinted in the manual since we didn’t have one). If you happen to realize those things without looking them up, you’ll feel like a genius. Not without its flaws, but still highly recommendable.
Breath of Fire II (SNES Online)
I definitely liked the first game more than the sequel. This game is a lot more grindy. (There’s a spot I stopped for about 10 hours to level up characters, and it feels like it was barely enough at times.) There are parts that would be extremely annoying without save states (courtesy of SNES Online or using an emulator). And many situations and mechanics that require you to either read a walkthrough beforehand or play through the game many many times if you don’t want to end up with suboptimal options.
The game requires that you lose certain fights, so you end up wasting a lot of healing items. Finally, a bit too many dungeons have insanely high encounter rates. You’ll be fighting monsters literally every 4-6 steps. Almost every dungeon comes with a theme or gimmick. Some being pretty interesting, and some super annoying.
All characters have a special move but they are all useless. For example, one of the moves is supposed to wake up a sleeping party member. But it just damages them without waking them up! Another special move is a taunt. But it has been given to the one party member who has one of the worst defense ratings in the whole cast of characters!
It’s strange that this sequel feels like it should be the first game in the series. This is the game where they tried all sort of crazy things. BoF1 on the other hand felt much more polished and streamlined.
Collection of Mana: Final Fantasy Adventure (Switch)
I actually enjoyed this quite a bit. Maybe even more than Secret of Mana and Trials of Mana (which are also bundled in the collection). Story is definitely not the game’s strong point, but that didn’t really matter. Even though most of the game is pretty linear, it felt like a semi-proper adventure with delightfully confusing dungeons and gameplay. (Make sure to have a bunch of keys with you at all times.)
My only major gripes are that the inventory system is pretty cumbersome and the music is very repetitive. For example, pretty much all dungeons have the same music.
Collection of Mana: Secret of Mana (Switch)
Something felt off with the combat system. I’ve played Seiken Densetsu 3/Trials of Mana (the SNES version, not the remake) a long time ago before this one, and that has a much improved combat and gameplay.
Overall, the game was okay but nothing spectacular. (This game seems to have a cult following, so I’m sure quite a few are sad about that verdict.) I did like that we could play co-op, but many boss fights boiled down to just me competing with the boss about who is quicker to open up the menu and cast spells, so there were times when Vayandil had nothing to do.
Collection of Mana: Trials of Mana (Switch)
The combat definitely feels much better than in Secret of Mana. You don’t have to wait as long between attacks and doing special attacks is done with a press of a button (instead of holding down the button for a long time). It’s still a bit troublesome how the game stops any time somebody casts a spell or does a special attack.
The game has some major bugs (shields, dexterity and luck effectively do nothing), although you probably won’t notice them if nobody tells you about them. (Sorry about that!) The game does not really reward exploration: areas have all sorts of optional routes, but there are next to no chests or other rewards to find there. The game has co-op, which is really nice, but sometimes status effects make you switch to another character and get all confused. The menus are super slow and clunky, not much of an improvement from Secret of Mana.
Even with all that, the game was pretty enjoyable. There’s something about the gameplay done right that combat (for the most part) feels nice and satisfying.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance
This is one of those games where I just have a lot of things I really like but also a few things that really bother me. The world is fantastic. It really feels like a living, breathing 14-15th century country with very authentically built castles and towns. I’ve had fun just running and riding around in the woods, playing a game of dice with people every now and then hunting wild animals. You don’t just wear a suit of armor. The protection just for your upper body is formed of 6 different pieces layered on top of each other.
My biggest gripe is that the game is still somewhat buggy and unfinished even after years of patching. Most bugs are minor, like leaving quest items indefinitely in your inventory. Others may make a later part of the game comparably harder just because you happened to find and pick up a quest item before you were supposed to. There may still be game breaking bugs, for all I know. Some quests are also timed without giving any indication for it (and some are not, despite sounding like they should be). The end result is that I feel like I need to keep a wiki/walkthrough open at all times to check for these things and it spoils a part of the game.
The combat is also a bit hit and miss at times.
Still, I’ve put over 400 hours into the game. I can’t argue that I’ve enjoyed it tremendously.
StarTropics (NES Online)
There are some cheap deaths and we ended up using the save states quite a bit. Also there’s one part that requires you to look up “copy protection” from the internet to keep playing. Other than that, the game was very enjoyable. Highly recommended.
Strategy/simulation
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord (PC)
I’ve been playing the early access. It’s buggy and missing a lot of features. Still, it feels so good to be riding on the fields of Calradia again. I want to make a blog post about this one since there’s a few game design choices I’d like to discuss (things that have been made really quick to access, and things that take a lot of time), and show off some bugs. I already have over 150 hours in. Still, since it’s early access I suggest you wait until the game is closer to ready. Also, it’s one of those games that teaches you what it’s like to be rich.
Link: steam
Stronghold Crusader HD (PC)
I had really hard time placing walls until I realized you have to press SPACE to flatten the view. Without doing that, the game tries to guide your wall-placing, making it difficult at times.
I’ve really been liking the game. I’m a real sucker for building forts and defending them. And while the single-player campaign doesn’t really have a story this time, it does have something like a whopping 80 missions.
A word of warning about the GOG version: it actually contains two games. It has Stronghold Crusader Extreme HD and Stronghold Crusader HD. The problem is that while both games have different content, GOG only gives you a shortcut for the Extreme HD. If you want to access Crusader HD (and those 80 missions I mentioned), you have to navigate to the installation folder and make your own shortcut for the “Stronghold Crusader.exe” file.
Link: gog
Total War: Shogun 2 (PC)
Part of the Total War game series. This one is set in feudal Japan. There’s the main game and two expansions (Rise of the Samurai and Fall of the Samurai), all set in slightly different years in Japan’s history. The map, units and technologies are slightly different in each version.
Basically, you conquer cities/provinces on a world map. Your armies can walk around somewhat freely along roads (in contrast to a game like Civilization, where you move on tiles). Battles take you to a field of combat where you command your army as a combination of units (as opposed to single units like in Stronghold or Age of Empires). It’s quite glorious.
I have some gripes about the Total War gameplay, like how leveling up works and how the game sometimes shows that you can move into a spot (usually a town or such) but then you end up just outside of it. Also how easy it is to lose important agents.
I keep coming back to this game despite having played it for hundreds of hours. This is one of those games that I play if I’m really sleepy but need to stay up for some reason. It just keeps me awake and interested all the time.
I often choose the “long” campaign, and end up regretting it because I wanted the game to go on for longer. (It’s a good thing you can keep playing even after that, but still.)
Link: steam
Visual novel
AI: The Somnium Files (Switch)
A near-futuristic murder mystery visual novel with much humor and puns sprinkled around. The game keeps track of routes you’ve traversed and you can easily jump to different scenes without having to juggle tons of save slots. This means that you can actually manage through pretty much the whole game without a walkthrough. (Except possibly for a few hidden objects.)
The Switch version has many framerate issues. I don’t think I really payed them mind while playing, though. If that’s a problem for you, I’ve heard that the Steam version doesn’t have those issues.
Link: steam
Clannad (PC/Switch)
This is a semi-legendary dating sim visual novel with a lot of humor, melancholy and tragedy.
Clannad is without question the visual novel I’ve enjoyed the most thus far. I don’t think I can stress that enough without going to a rant, so instead I’ll just give a few warnings/suggestions.
Use a non-spoiler walkthrough that shows which options to pick. (Crossed out options are ones that you must NOT pick on that route.) It took me 120 hours to play through the entire game. Without a walkthrough, expect that time to rise tenfold if you want to experience most of it.
The game is slightly on the older side, so there is a huge chunk of the MAIN GAME hidden behind a convoluted “light orb” gathering mechanic. (I think at least one light orb can only be accessed if you happen to finish two separate routes back to back.)
There’s also a very well done anime adaptation available. The game has a lot more content, if that’s what you’re looking for. But if you just want a condensed version (or get turned off by the somewhat dated art style of the visual novel), then the anime may be the better option for you.
Link: steam, LimitedRunGames
Doki Doki Literature Club (PC)
Do not google this game. Also do not look at the reviews. And do not look at comments.
As long as you’re not turned off by the “This game is not suitable for children or those who are easily disturbed.” warning, I suggest you just get it and play it. It’s free and only a few hours long.
Little Busters (PC)
This is a visual novel with a bunch of mini (and some not-so-mini) games in it. It’s an interesting concept, but I’m glad that you can also turn the bigger mini games off because they do get a bit exhausting when you’re playing through the game for umpteenth time.
The dialogue seems to change a little bit depending on which routes you’ve finished. I’m not quite sure what to think of that. On one hand, it’s nice to see the characters evolve and scenes change. On the other hand, you’re going to miss out on stuff if you don’t start every playthrough from the very beginning.
I really like that you can easily move backwards in the game. You can either go back screen by screen or hop into a previous/next choice. These make it easy to retry fights and minigames without having to play around with save states.
There are some problems I have with the controls, however. If you want to skip texts, you must use ‘C’ instead of Ctrl if you don’t want to miss unseen dialogue. (Almost every other PC Visual Novel I’ve played uses Ctrl for this.) Also, there are some commands the game doesn’t show anywhere within the game. For example there is an automatic mode in the game, activated by pressing ‘A’.
This is another massive visual novel with certain endings hidden until you finish certain others. So looking at a walkthrough may not be the worst idea.
Link: steam
Nurse Love Syndrome (Switch)
This is a yuri visual novel about the nursing life. There is one specific thing that got me intrigued about the game: the story is apparently written by two actual nurses. And you can really see that in the game. A lot of anime and visual novels suffer from the fact that the writers aren’t familiar in the fields that their stories are based on. That’s not the case here – it really feels like the characters know what they’re talking about.
Other than that, I thought the game had a very good mix of humor, drama and romance. There is one minor technical issue (at least on the Switch version): the text sometimes gets cut. You have to press up or down to open up a view where you can see it fully.
Three of the six available character routes felt much shorter than the other three. That felt a bit disappointing while playing, but I found out there’s a reason for it. The game on Switch and Steam is an improved version. The original game didn’t have those three routes at all, so I guess it’s a nice thing they were added in the first place.
This game, too, is pretty complicated if you want to experience all endings, so don’t be afraid to use a walkthrough. There are a bunch of different endings and some routes need to be cleared before others become available.
Link: steam, LimitedRunGames
To the Moon (PC)
This is an RPGMaker visual novel that’s on the shorter side (around 5 hours).
It was pretty OK. I liked the humor and did get the feelies in the end. If you want a shorter visual novel (and don’t mind having to walk around in the game) then this is not a bad choice.
Link: gog.com
Other
Alba (Switch)
This is a short and very child-friendly exploration game about taking pictures of local animals (mostly birds). The game doesn’t really try to teach the player about the birds all that much. You get a picture, name, habitat and what kinds of sounds the bird makes.
As fans of birds, we really liked the game. The way the birds act is very cute, and we enjoyed watching them go around their daily business. However, the game did leave us wanting for a similar game that would be bigger and even more robust.
A Short Hike (PC)
This is a super short open world exploration game with stuff like climbing and flying and talking and running around and fishing. The overall feeling of the game is a bit hard to put into words. It’s like… if you want to experience Stardew Valley or Breath Of the Wild, but without fighting or farming and condensed in just a few hours. Either way, it was fun while it lasted.
There’s a postmortem video about the game, if you’re interested in some of the decisions behind the game design.
Link: gog
The Beginner’s Guide (PC)
A narrative walking simulator through one person’s crummy games. It’s made by the same guy who made Stanley Parable. If you’re looking for “an interesting narrative experience game”, I suggest skipping this and going for Stanley Parable instead.
Link: steam
Carrion (Switch)
Oh, man. This game was great. If you’ve been hankering for a game where you don’t just play a hero that looks like a monster, then this is for you. You’re actually playing a mutated monster with very monster-like abilities that scurries and slithers around. The game isn’t all that long (maybe around 3-5 hours), but it was very fun and satisfying.
Link: gog
Peace, Death (Switch)
This game is somewhat similar to Papers, Please. Except that you use buttons to interact with your clients and stick directions to decide where to send them. (As opposed to having to drag things around with a mouse on your table like in Paper’s Please.) Also you only have a certain amount of clients every day. This makes the game more fast-paced and manageable. If you liked Papers, Please for its gameplay style but disliked the setting or realism of having to manage your table, then this game is probably heaven sent for you.
Stanley Parable (PC)
This is some kind of a reactive-narrative experience.
Not sure what else to say. If you’re looking for something a bit different then try it out. It’s not very long but it was rather amusing.
Link: steam
Wild Guns Reloaded (Switch)
This is an arcade-style game where you essentially play until you get game over and then start from the beginning, slowly getting better and better and making it just a bit further every time. I like that the game has co-op (1-4 players) and it’s really satisfying learning the stages and getting better. I also like the new characters. I’ve been wanting a bomb/grenade user type of character with satisfying gameplay mechanics, and the new character Doris really fills that need.