Cthulhu has lost his powers, and thinks that by doing heroic deeds, he'll get those powers back. He makes friends along the way in a humorously written, turn-based RPG.

Graphics: SNES-era sprites

Battle System: turn-based

Personal Rating: 6/10 

RPG Backtrack about this game: https://rpgamer.com/2022/12/rpg-backtrack-274-an-eldritch-horror-holiday/ 

Erik & Mia escape from a life on a Viking ship to have a treasure hunt with some lesser gods in a magical world. Repetitive gameplay loop, no good control over the monsters, feels like DQH2 with a boatload of missions to do, checklists galore. So so so so so few monsters, it's ridiculous. Disappointing really, and just too random for my likes. DQ fans will likely enjoy.

Graphics: Cell-shaded anime 3D

Battle System: Button Mash, auto-battle monsters

Personal Rating: 6.5/10 

My RPGamer review: https://rpgamer.com/review/dragon-quest-treasures-review/

DQ Slime Time about this game: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/3toLf0skTzb

Play as Dal & Gwyn as they rescue the rest of the kids and adventure around a star system, solving puzzles and fighting the evil robots. Nice story, meh gameplay - it's an adventure game with lots of environmental puzzles. Played 2-player with my kids.

Graphics: 3D from maybe 2015

Battle System: shoot & slash

Personal Rating: 6/10 

Buggy as shit Pokémon game. Still fun, lots of fun open-world stuff to do, but frustrating aspects as well. Collecting the Pokémon is fun again as most battles can be avoided. My son and I both filled our Pokédex to all 400! Working on a Living Dex...

Graphics: Modern 3D, some parts nice, others bland

Battle System: Turn-based

Personal Rating: 9/10 

One of my top 3 this year: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/S1MJlgmgYvb 

Six high school girls moonlight as Magical Girls that go into worlds that are works of Shakespeare being attacked by monsters. It's a hilarious romp through a school year full of substitute teachers, sleepovers, pets, and monster battling.

Graphics: Modern 3D, stylized to look like a comic book often

Battle System: Turn-based

Personal Rating: 9/10 

My RPGamer review: https://rpgamer.com/review/this-way-madness-lies-review/

Student by day, thief by night. Platty McPlatty finds bad people and steals their desire to be bad. Plays out on a schedule like Persona 3 & 4. Dungeons are not procedurally generated, but set and lovely. Great characters, demons, and friends. The game grew way too long and forcing the randomly generated dungeon on top of the others was not a good call.

Graphics: Modern 3D, stylized to look like a comic book often

Battle System: Turn-based

Personal Rating: 8/10 

My RPGamer impression: https://rpgamer.com/2022/10/persona-5-royal-switch-impression/ 

One of my top 3 this year: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/S1MJlgmgYvb 

Normal overworld/dungeon 3D experience, but feels like Etrian Odyssey in battle. Really loved the adult language & sarcastic humor.

Graphics: Reminds me of Alliance Alive graphics, Etrian in battle

Battle System: Turn-based

Personal Rating: 8/10 

Beat 'em up completed with both of my sons. In the Cowabunga Collection on Switch. I missed being able to swing like a baseball bat with Donatello.

Graphics: SNES

Battle System: Beat 'em up

Personal Rating: 5/10 

Beat 'em up completed with both of my sons. In the Cowabunga Collection on Switch.

Graphics: SNES

Battle System: Beat 'em up

Personal Rating: 5/10 

Translated SNES RPG. Three 14 year-old girls get transported from Tokyo Tower to another world by a princess to save the world. They become Magic Knights, and take a short journey to save the world. Getting to be a lot of Shonen type things going on. Interesting twist at end. 

Graphics: Very nice SNES sprites

Battle System: Isometric Turn-based

Personal Rating: 6.5/10

Slime Time Sidequest where I talked about this game: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/uG5zvrBkTzb 

Played on and off again for 8 months, maybe two 1-hour sessions a month when we recalled. Not engaging with Minecraft setting at all, but that's on me. Kids like seeing things from Minecraft (which they barely have played) or from the TV show (which they loved). We got to final boss, couldn't beat 2nd form. Have played around with DLC lands now to power up. Finally got powerful, watched some videos on how to win, barely scraped out a win with zero revives left, only 1 person left alive!

Graphics: 3D, looks like Minecraft

Battle System: Hack & Slash

Personal Rating: 6/10

It's the Fun-sized Forge from DQXI, but as a full game! You run a weapon shop, make weapons, and rent them out. Rhythm game + Visual novel = this game. No battles, just the forge and polishing weapons.

Graphics: 3D, nice for 2014 on 3DS

Battle System: rhythm

Personal Rating: 6.5/10

Some nice things, but it's honestly putting me to sleep. 6 play sessions, only 2 hours into it.  A whole weekend to do that much. Too basic?

Graphics: 16-bit

Battle System: Turn-based

Personal Rating: not enough time

Just getting started. Don't like Nightmares, nope, nope, nope.

Graphics: Nice 2D, Vita/Switch nice

Battle System: Turn-based

Personal Rating: too soon but trending down

I played Marenian Tavern Story: Patty and the Hungry God a few years ago and immediately rushed out and purchased this game. Here we go 4 years later, I'm playing! Completed the game. Enjoyed it, big spikes in recipe EXP, eat a ton to level up, boss battles take forever, not enough equipment to change to improve stats.

Graphics: DS-era pixels. Nice, but 2005ish

Battle System: Turn-based

Personal Rating: 7/10

After Puzzle & Dragon: Super Mario Bros. disappointed me, I really still had a craving for puzzle-based RPG combat. This game was amazing. Mix of puzzle and strategy RPG with an overworld like Heroes of Might & Magic. Decent story too, and you play as 5 heroes in 5 different chapters. Couple of hard bosses and chapter 2 is kinda meh, but the rest is just pure amazing fun.

Graphics: 2D, excellent 3(DS) era pixel-art, high-def

Battle System: Turn-based, press-turn SMT system

Personal Rating: 9/10

One of my top 3 this year! https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/S1MJlgmgYvb 

A GBC-quality monster-collecting game. Got past the first town/boss. That took a very dark turn. Wasn't feeling the slowness/grind at the time. Set it aside.

Graphics: GBC era

Battle System: Turn-based

Personal Rating: too soon to tell

Bought this in my grab-everything Vita heyday. Finally got around to starting at the beginning of our 10K miles road trip in June. Enjoyed it, the social links more than the battles. 250ish randomly generated floors just was annoying. Knew the ending years ago, so I enjoyed the journey with the SEES team.

Graphics: 3D, but looks dated, after all, it's a PSP title

Battle System: Turn-based, press-turn SMT system

Personal Rating: 7/10

One of my top 3 this year: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/S1MJlgmgYvb 

Enjoying the matching gameplay, but it's starting to get grindy around the end of world 3 (oh my, my early review stands: it got SUPER grindy later). Running the same boards multiple times is meh. Getting the right power setups from party members is key to doing enough damage. There's really only one option for doing max damage: Boo Mario + Boo Luigi. Grinded for 1UPs to get through the end.

Graphics: 3DS, nice graphics

Battle System: Match-3

Personal Rating: 5/10

Slime Time Sidequest where I talked about this game: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/hLOPaZRkTzb 

My son played Ultra Moon at the same time so we could trade and battle and kinda play together. I really enjoyed this game and blazed through it in a couple of weeks. I'd forgotten much of my Moon playthrough years back, so lots of "new to me" stuff again.

Graphics: 3DS, nice Pokémon graphics

Battle System: Turn-based

Personal Rating: 8.5/10

It's 2D musou madness!! Hilarious dialogue (but not much of it), and just 100 levels of going full-hog musou crazy. Had a good time with it; the levels play fast, it's always eas to understand what you're doing, good progression system. Had a great time with it.

Graphics: 3DS, nice 2D graphics

Battle System: Hack & Slash

Personal Rating: 7/10

It's a turn-based game from Level-5 with seemingly a deep game world, but the gameplay is angonizingly slow. Really feel like I've spent 5-10 hours with it, but it's been two. The pieces are like little statues that walk around and you roll dice for everything, so it's like Dn'D I guess.

Graphics: 3DS, graphics seem older

Battle System: Slow-ass turn-based

Personal Rating: 4/10

Premise: Rean is a year older, so of course he's now a teacher. All the girls love him! Recreating the vibe of the first game with a new Class VII. Interesting new fishing, battle mechanics, and other things. Battles seemed harder a dozen hours in, got better farther on. 

Graphics: 3D, looks great

Battle System: Legend of Heroes, turn-based

Personal Rating: 8/10 so far

Premise: You get dropped into the past? & have to make the first Pokedex. Sneak up and throw Pokeballs to catch Pokemon, or do it through battle. Lots of missions, HUGE areas to explore, lots of crafting to do. Star Rank: 7. Bosses beat: 4. 

Graphics: 3D, it's fine

Battle System: Pokemon turn-based

Personal Rating: 8/10

One of my top 3 this year: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/S1MJlgmgYvb 

Premise: You're an Archlion King, but there are 3 more. Gather them & stop mom from being eaten and beat the evil Serpent to save the world (at least for another 1000 years)! This is a bite-sized RPG from a Kemco company. Short, simplistic battle system. It was a nice diversion for an evening.

Graphics: SNES+ level 2D sprites

Battle System: traditional turn-based

Personal Rating: 6.5/10

Premise: You're an amnesiac dropped into the middle of a battle outside Rigbarth. Join the security force, SEED, and farm, fight, & flirt your way to victory. Basically the same as all other Rune Factory games. Has lots of nice QoL improvements!

Graphics: 3D, but Vita/PS3 quality

Battle System: Action RPG, hit, dodge, etc.

First impressions: Article on RPGamer  

Official Review: Review on RPGamer

Personal Rating: 8/10

Premise: Second Cold Steel game. Time to get the band back together and defeat someone! Defeated the someone and did all the post-game, of which there was almost 10 hours of. Excellent title, amazing series!

Graphics: 3D Vita

Battle System: Awesome Trails placement & AOE turn-based

Personal Rating: 9/10

Premise: Zelda gameplay, with some golf. Golf was easy until wind went crazy. ARPG elements kinda suck, and honestly, it's not really an RPG, zero stat increases.

Graphics: 2D sprites

Battle System: Hack and slash with golf club.

Personal Rating: 6/10

Official Review: My RPGamer Review

Premise: Zelda gameplay, with some golf. Very basic

Graphics: 2D sprites

Battle System: Hack and slash with golf club, shoot magic

Personal Rating: 6/10

Premise: World War killed all humans, only Undead are left, but even now EVIL is lurking. Gotta defeat EVIL. A skeleton, a ghost, a vampire, and a zombie walk into a bar...

Graphics: 2D Graphics - SNESy

Battle System: DQ turn-based combat, maybe DQVI era

Personal Rating: 7/10

RPG Backtrack about this game: https://rpgamer.com/2022/01/rpg-backtrack-249-need-an-rpg-why-not-zeboyd/