In the end, Cross Edge is a disappointment.

It's sad to see a game whose concept has a lot of potential but doesn't follow through with a better presentation.

While Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky makes constant attempts at humor, the efforts mostly fall flat.

The seven to fifteen hours required for completing Fighting Fantasy will be a by-and-large frustrating experience.

Ragnarok DS could have been a happy marriage between the addictive combat of an MMORPG and the enjoyable stories found in the best offline games.

There are a huge number of other issues plaguing the game: sparse save points, a quest-based structure with hardly any quests, and a difficulty curve heavily dependent on level are just a few. But the most obnoxious thing about Blue Dragon: Awakened Shadow, beyond the clunky mechanics, beyond the poor localization, is how blatantly it attempts to mimic Dragon Quest IX, and how poorly it does it.

It's a shame that the (supposedly) final entry into the Star Ocean series is marred by so many cosmetic and localization problems, because the game does sport a great easy-to-use item creation system and a fast-paced rough-and-tumble combat system.

Most RPGs are meant to be played steadily, but Puzzle Quest 2 is most assuredly not the sort of game to be played at length. In short bursts separated from each other by lengthy periods spent doing something else, the mechanics remain entertaining.

It frequently plays more like a puzzle game than a tactical game, however, with large doses of luck being required to come through some encounters. The bothersome interface aspects ensure that playing the game is more a chore than entertaining, relegating it to the status of yet another disappointing DS game.

While Lufia II on the SNES might have been a rising star, this title is clearly cursed. The game's problems get in the way of enjoying almost everything.

While Trinity: Souls of Zill O'll has a lot of potential in its varied battle system, decent story, and wonderful soundtrack, it falls flat in other unforgivable areas. The repetitive and pointless missions combine with the pointless text-only overflow of dialogue to pad the game two or three times longer than it needs to be. If only the fat had been cut and more variety was offered, the game might have been decent. As is, Trinity is drowning in missteps.

While the online makes for a fun social outing, Dungeon Hunter: Alliance doesn't do enough to stand out in a crowd. With its uninspired gameplay, joke of a story, and its constant recycling of just about everything, it's barely worth the $13 price tag. There are better Diablo clones worth your buck, and this is simply not one of them.

Perhaps White Knight Chronicles II can be best considered a very large expansion of the first game.

From its trailers and screens, Fara promised an epic role-playing adventure in a beautifully crafted world. In actuality, Fara produces an extremely short adventure game with average music and visuals, insufficient difficulty and story, and hardly any RPG elements. While some RPGamers may find Fara to be a worthwhile use of two hours, most would be better off leaving this unwilling hero stranded on that island to fend for himself.

Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny took me over eighty hours to complete and only twenty of those hours actually felt fun and exciting. The game has way too many unpolished elements that keep it from being a fantastic successor to Rune Factory 3, and in the end falters from its problems described above.

Of Orcs and Men joins the list of games that have failed to deliver after some early promise. This is a pity as the concept of a game examining the point of view and culture of those fantasy races that would traditionally be shoved into the role of the antagonist forces without a second thought is an appealing one. Unfortunately, Of Orcs and Men squanders this opportunity and the result is a mediocre, all-too-short experience that won't live long in the memory.

While I love the idea of Pokémon spin-offs that try to add a new layer of depth to the tried-and-true formula, Gates to Infinity leaves a lot to be desired. It definitely will have its audience and those who are willing to overlook many of the game's major flaws, but there are plenty of more interesting dungeon crawlers out there to explore.

With unbalanced gameplay, recycled graphics, limited content, and almost no replay value, From The Abyss a disappointment and should be sent back into the abyss where it came from.

The port's errors transform an average game into an abomination barely worth touching. Atelier fans that have not yet checked out this spinoff series or readers interested in the combat and alchemy should avoid Student Alliance and hunt down the PS2 version.

Steal Princess's entire structure is antithetical to exploration and its mechanics are more often infuriating than not.

With a simplistic, weak story that will only entertain young children and drab, tedious gameplay that only young children could overlook, Spectrobes: Origins is a game that should only be played by kids, and even then, any Pokémon game will provide them with three times the content at three times the quality.

If you can track down three friends to play with and enjoy this style of gameplay, Phantasy Star Portable might be an enjoyable experience. However, it remains an excessively repetitive grindfest with little lasting appeal, regardless of multiplayer capabilities.

The occasionally good graphics, and the promise of fighting with fifteen foot tall, steam powered bots will pull in a number of people. Just about every other element of the game, especially the mundane array of quests offered, just feels uninspired and frustrating.

When all is said and done, most people will not find Valhalla Knights: Eldar Saga at the top of their wish list. It's a persnickety game that offers little but repetitive monster slaying in exchange for its murky graphics and lackluster story.

Shiren the Wanderer tears the heart and soul out of everything that makes games in this subgenre fun or even bearable, leaving a very basic, uninspired randomized crawler with no personality or bells and whistles, then wraps it into an interface that's awkward at its best, and slow and frustrating at its worst.

Percy Jackson & the Olympians is not a particularly horrid game, just an undistinguished one that does little to inspire anyone unfamiliar with its source into playing it.

Although the combat system is unique, the progressively easy difficulty, atrocious story, and subpar visuals make Last Rebellion difficult to recommend. It's also incredibly short, requiring less than fifteen hours to complete the game.

In the end, it's difficult to recommend staying away from Hyperdimension Neptunia, because despite its flaws, it may just be the most humorous title NISA's ever released. If you do decide to brave the world of Gamindustri, at least now you'll know what you're getting into.