A streamlined Pokémon collection and combat game. Take your team of up to three Pokémon on “expeditions” where they automatically walk around, encounter other Pokémon, and automatically fight them in real time. Your only direct control is that you can manually trigger their abilities (which then have cooldowns before they can be used again), but you can’t target them, so you might as well just put them on auto. Successful expeditions result in experience gains and two types of item drops - Power Stones, which are basically equipment for Pokémon that boost stats or improve abilities, and cooking ingredients. Cooking is how you recruit new Pokémon via themed recipes - use a lot of blue ingredients if you want to recruit a blue Pokémon, for example.

An action RPG with a branching story and time travel gimmick. As dashing swordsman (well, swordsfox) Reynardo, attempt to lead the Rebellion to victory against the once-benevolent-but-now-mad Emperor. Make four plot-forking choices and fight through waves of imperial raven soldiers to accomplish your objectives - maybe you’re saving an old friend who’s in trouble with the Empire and claims to have a brilliant scheme for winning the war, or maybe you’re working to unearth a legendary superweapon that could instantly turn the tide of battle. The choices create twenty-four different stories, though some are quite similar. Each story ends in failure, but can reveal one of four truths before sending you back in time to the first decision point. Once you have all four truths, new options become available that allow you to use what you know to finally achieve success.

An atmospheric and exploration-heavy puzzle platformer superficially similar to games like ICO, Journey, and ABZÛ. Play as a nameless boy who wakes up on an island with no explanation, explore a handful of varied and beautiful environments, complete platforming challenges and solve puzzles to progress. There’s no dialog and much of the storytelling is vague or ambiguous.

A Musou game set in a crossover Dragon Quest world, featuring some original characters as well as some fan favorites from previous games. There’s a lot to like here for fans of Musou action and Dragon Quest flavor, though some pacing issues, an overreliance on defense/escort missions, and a complete lack of multiplayer hold the game back.

A first-person physics-based puzzle game in which you manipulate designated cubes in the environment to create platforms, barriers, springboards, and more in order to solve a series of puzzle rooms. In many ways, it’s an expanded and refined followup to Q.U.B.E: Director's Cut, though not all the changes are improvements. Where Q.U.B.E: Director's Cut is a solid puzzler elevated by its story, Q.U.B.E. 2 is just a solid puzzler.

The fourth in a series of budget-priced downloadable Picross games for the 3DS.

There are 105 standard Picross puzzles up to 20x15 in size (making this the first game in the series to include puzzles above 15x15) and 45 Mega Picross puzzles up to 15x15 in size, bringing the total up to the familiar 150. And that’s if you don’t have save data from earlier PICROSS e games - each one you do have data for unlocks five bonus Mega Picross puzzles, for a total of fifteen. And on top of all that, there are two Micross puzzles.

A simple puzzle game in which you must paint each numbered grid square in contiguous paths that can’t cross each other or move from a higher number to a lower one. Some grids are filled with a single number and have a single starting point, meaning you simply have to find the path that touches each square once; others have multiple starting points and ranges of numbers from one to nine, meaning you must find a way to draw several paths that touch each square in the right order.

A block-manipulation puzzle platformer mixed with a relationship personality quiz. Navigate a series of islands by moving blocks to create platforms and bridges and reach totems, each of which asks you a question about love’s role in your life. The goal seems to be to create an atmosphere conducive to introspection and prompt you to reflect on your thoughts and feelings about love. The game is a couple of hours long and at the end the totems give you a summary of how you answered and what it says about you.

A 3D collectathon platformer. The structure is hub-and-spokes, with an explorable hub area and a series of three zones each containing three levels that can be played in any order, plus one special level at the end. Each of the regular levels has a variety of collectibles to find and tasks to perform, and once you’ve completed enough in each of the three levels you unlock the zone boss fight granting access to the next zone. There are some repeated tasks - every level has a time trial and a couple of tasks involving a few different kinds of collectible. There are also a variety of unique tasks, including standard platforming challenges and such but also a number of one-shot mechanics that keep things fresh but are often a bit unpolished.

An open-world game with an emphasis on movement and explosive destruction. Play as Rico Rodriguez (no relation) and liberate the fictional Mediterranean island nation of Medici from oppressive dictator Di Ravello - mostly by blowing things up.

The structure is fairly standard for an open world game. There’s a chain of twenty-odd story missions that need to be done mostly in order, and many more settlements to “liberate” at your own pace. These vary widely in size and include towns, guard posts, and military bases, but liberating them is always a matter of destroying Di Ravello’s military assets and propaganda. Liberating settlements grants access to side challenges that test your skills with specific mechanics, such as vehicle races or racking up destruction with a particular weapon. Several kinds of random encounters can occur as well, tasking you with saving rebels or otherwise helping the cause, sometimes rewarding restock points for consumables. There are many collectibles to find, and liberating all settlements in a given province will mark them on your map. The setting of Medici is also varied and beautiful. I often found myself pausing to admire the scenery and take a screenshot - the game desperately needs a photo mode.