PixlBit

If you're expecting more of the first, don't.

While WiiWare never made quite the splash that competing services XBLA and PSN did, it still managed to offer a few gems. Fluidity was one such title, providing Metroid-inspired exploration along with physics-based puzzles starring an amorphous blob of water that could phase change between ice and steam. Spin Cycle follows that experience with a more linear adventure that’s broken out into a set of 60 levels. The shift away from the original design proves less successful, with a number of the levels falling flat in their implementation.

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It's probably best to keep games with "Mystery Dungeon" in the title away from Nick.

Mystery Dungeon. Seeing those two words in succession are enough to make me cringe. For years now, Chunsoft has been developing this series of roguelikes across different licenses, with Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity marking the third in the respective subseries. No matter how they seem to spin this core concept, I simply can’t build an appreciation for it. While it tries to cater to a wider audience by removing the “hunger” facet and dialing down the difficulty, it’s still possible given its random nature to have the odds stacked so highly against you that there’s no chance for success.

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Get in on this Game Freak gem before Nintendo cuffs them back to Pokémon.

Pretending to be a rock star with mini-guitars was pretty cool for a few years, but we’ve thankfully moved past that fad and can start getting music-based games that aren’t just for fulfilling your leather pants wearing fantasies.  We’ve had a few highlights in the rhythm genre here and there as those plastic instruments made their way from Best Buy to Big Lots, but now that they’re completely gone it looks like we should get more innovative and quirky music games like we used to.  If HarmoKnight is an indicator of the upcoming rhythm game onslaught, then I say “bring it on.”  Mixing platforming with call-and-answer beat matching, HarmoKnight is a wonderfully cute and addictively fun journey that will keep you on your (tapping) toes.

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The Dragon Ninja returns with enough suffixes even Capcom would blush.

Like a photocopy of a photocopy, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 Plus reproduces the content of its original source but degrades the quality. The source is Ninja Gaiden II: Team Ninja's hack-and-slash action adventure game released for Xbox 360 in 2008. A port would be released for PlayStation 3 in 2009 (hence the Sigma) and again for PlayStation Vita in 2013 (hence the Plus). What we’re left with is that third clone from Multiplicity.

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Tomb Raided!

Games evolve quickly. Despite a trilogy of quality releases ending only five years ago, Tomb Raider was already starting to get left behind by the genre it helped to create in 1996. Now the industry’s best-known heroine is back and reinventing action-adventure once again.

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