Destructoid

Even though it's been left in the dust by its successors (even as early as Silver and Gold, which knocked it out of the park), there's no denying that the original series, including Pokémon Red, the objective best first generation game, has its charms. As long as you're able to deal with some antiquated mechanics and a ton of random battles (you are not prepared, even with repels), it's worth booting up all over again.

Still, I'm very excited about getting a chance to take Pikachu and pals to the next convention I attend, anticipating the chance at crossing paths with other trainers to compete with.

There will be someone out there who will defend this game. But in the deepest depths of their soul, they'll know they're wrong. There are almost no redeeming qualities to Slashy Souls outside of the fact that it technically works. Don't blame From Software for this -- the studio didn't even make it. And even if the developer gave the project its blessing, there's no way it could have possibly predicted what it was doing or how poorly Slashy Souls was going to turn out.

Overall, Soul Axiom is a painful experience. I love the plot premise; the idea of a digital, man-made afterlife and how that affects society is a cool idea. I just wish Wales Interactive explored it in a bit more detail, instead of giving us the half-baked story, sparse and boring environments, and easy, repetitive puzzles that it did.

Assassin's Creed Identity has a minor identity crisis. It's hard to say what it actually is, but I think Ubisoft has managed to distill the formula down to the most basic level possible, and created an AC arcade game that's even more muted than the recent Chronicles offerings. Only those who haven't tired of the setup need apply.

In Too Deep hasn't topped either season of The Walking Dead so far, but if you can still stomach a few empty "remember" prompts, you'll enjoy the story they're trying to tell.

Garden Warfare 2 immediately steps on the shoulders of the strong foundation the original built. It keeps everything people loved about the first, and expands upon concepts that needed to be addressed. For instance, the hub world turned out well. It's great that after a quick five-minute tutorial you're able to not only choose your character right away, but your faction as well.

It's a great middle-ground overall, really. Players can still grind like they can in Birthright (a mechanic that's eliminated from Conquest), but the difficulty is more in tune with the other release.

In a word, Cobalt is clunky. It has a lot of decent ideas, but it doesn't execute them very well. The platforming feels terrible. The lack of control when shooting is frustrating. The map is unhelpful. The gear is never explained well. The context-sensitive control breaks down when there are too many things going on.

Project X Zone 2 succeeds by following the simple sequel formula that many developers seem to ignore: use what worked with the first game and try to fix everything that didn't. This is flat out a better game than its predecessor. It's better paced, the action is more eye-catching, and the story is told in such a way that you don't have to be familiar with the properties covered to enjoy it.