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First Outing

Somewhere within this rapid simulation of a school semester and a few weeks of vacation, a game like no other emerges. Miley's adventure is peopled with the usual round of stereotypes, including a bookworm, an easily confused exchange student, and a punk-rocker attired with all the directionless rebellion that a teenager should have. The game hides a surprising tough challenge within its cute borders, and it's hard to win over even the required handful of club members within the allotted time. Hey, high school's more grueling than it looks.

Goofiest Name: Translated with the same sense of revision as a Phoenix Wright game, Cherry Tree High Comedy Club abounds with names like May Bonbon and Sara Croft. But it's Miley Verisse who gets the best pun. Put her surname first if you don't get it.

To be fair, Growlanser requires certain tolerances from the player. For one thing, you'll need to appreciate (or at least look past) the glossy sensibilities of Satoshi Urushihara. As Growlanser's artist since the start, he crafts some rather silly outfits for his invariably voluptuous female characters, and the cover shows a bunch of Urushihara-designed characters stacked in an awkward totem pole of titillation. Nor does Growlanswer look all that modern, being a port of a PlayStation 2 game over ten years old. Yet there's substance beneath all of its throwbacks to a bygone era. The game's battles blend an old-fashioned aesthetic with open-field approaches, and the player's relationships with the supporting cast figure into several different endings.

Compared to Growlanser, Gungnir is more recent and yet less accessible. It's the latest in Sting's oft-neglected Dept. Heaven series, and it builds yet another strategy-RPG from grim warfare and deceptively cute artwork. Like many strategy-RPGs, Gungnir unfolds in a fantasy realm where class warfare gives way to all sorts of bloodshed, and a band of rebels is caught at the middle of it all. The game uses a familiar grid layout for its battles, but it's challenging in ways its genre often ignores. Enemies are resourceful and well-matched to the player's party, with the resulting battles eating up considerable time and tactical foresight. It's not the most accessible strategy-RPG of late, but there's a lot to see inside Gungnir.

Goofiest Name: Growlanswer's protagonist Crevanille has the weirdest moniker among all the characters. In Gungnir, the honor goes to the improbably titled Ziyad Berlioz.

Rhythm Thief and the Emperor's Treasure is little more than a hodgepodge of mini-games at its heart. Players navigate the game's various challenges by keeping time with the music, whether Phantom R is dashing across rooftops, fending off armored goons, or hiding behind the statues of a museum. And it all plays into the game's unceasingly ridiculous storyline. Pains are taken to visit actual Paris landmarks like the Louvre and Les Invalides, and it only makes things all the more insane once the main characters spout cartoony accents and launch schemes involving the ancient secrets of Babylonian civilization. It's all sewn up with the goofball charms of a good Lupin III yarn, hokey and grandiose and highly entertaining.

Goofiest Name: Fondue, our hero's dog. It's the best food-based pet name since the never-aired Shiden TV series called a cat "Roast."

A bizarre mix of elegy and comedy, Tokyo Jungle seizes common game clichés in its tale of an urban expanse reverted to the beasts. Stealth missions become vicious hunts for prey or desperate bids for escape. Collecting items is a path to attracting a mate and reproducing. And the game's somewhat basic attacks only build up the aptly haphazard sense of animals tearing each other to shreds. And it all makes Tokyo Jungle into the most entertaining slog this side of Dark Souls.

Goofiest Name: Most of the animals involved don't have names, so there's not much there.

Narrow in focus and relatively brief in playtime, The Last Story concentrates on a band of hard-drinking, hedonistic mercenaries entering the service of Lazulis Island's ruler. New in town, their slightly naïve leader Zael runs across a young woman who, to the surprise of no experienced RPG players, turns out to be the rebellious princess Calista. The plot unfolds in paths quite familiar and perhaps sexist (every female character has to be rescued at some point), but The Last Story carries itself with an rare earnestness and uncommon emphasis on the characters, building each of Zael's merc companions into an appealing comrade.

The Last Story takes far more risks in combat. Instead of repetitive fights waged at random, battles are unique and focused clashes. Gifted with one of those Mysterious RPG Hero Powers, Zael can draw enemies to him, disperse magic spells, dive off walls, snipe at enemies, and use his surroundings to crouch and sneak around. He's also able to keep tabs on the rest of his party, and victory often involves protecting your magic users until they can launch their spells. It occasionally devolves into chaos, but the charm never quite fades from the cast or their struggles. The Wii likely won't have any notable releases in 2013 unless someone brings over Pandora's Tower. If that's the case, The Last Story is a wonderful parting shot.

Goofiest Name: That'd be the ominous Count Arganan. A number of character had their names changed for the English version: Zael was originally Elza, Calista was Kanan, and Mirania was Manamia. But Arganan stays Arganan, or “Count ARRRGH” as it's so tempting to call him.

Monster World IV is built with Westone's typically creative design, and a simple game soon grows into a creative one with new challenges at each turn. Yet that's only a part of what makes this such a treasure. Simply put, Monster World IV is adorable. The atmosphere is bright and joyful, and it's buoyed by a soundtrack that remixes a catchy theme to new effect in every stage. Most of all, Asha and Pepe are a charming pair, animated with all sorts of little details, whether Asha's taking cover from a bomb's blast radius or Pepe's shaking himself off after a foray through a water temple. It's an undervalued gem from a generally undervalued developer, but now Monster World IV is available on Xbox Live, the PlayStation Network, and the Wii. So there's little excuse for neglecting it.

Goofiest Name: Probably Pepelogoo, the full name of Pepe's species. No wonder Asha shortens it.

Book of Shadows isn't a mere sequel to the original Corpse Party. No, it's a sequel, prequel, and alternate-reality retelling all at once. The game follows the same general premise as the original, in which a band of teenagers tried (and sometimes failed) to survive the terrors of Heavenly Host Elementary School. Book of Shadows recasts a number of events from the first game, and each of its numerous chapters tackles some new plot point or hypothetical scenario. One of the what-if chapters tracks the doomed drama-club student Mayu Suzumoto, giving her a better shot at making it through the school alive. Other chapters flesh out more familiar characters. One follows teacher Yui Shishido as she reminisces about her old high-school days, which weren't exactly free of haunting moments. Another builds a backstory for morbid sociopath Yuuya Kizami. And there's a final scenario that opens only after players finish the other seven—or keep a save from the original Corpse Party at hand.

In contrast to the original Corpse Party's RPG-Maker looks, Book of Shadows allows players to gaze around the scenery with a point-and-click interface. The game also relies heavily on dialogue choices to guide the story, and it's now much easier to save and backtrack after a bad decision. Of course, the grisly atmosphere remains Corpse Party's strongest suit, and Book of Shadows goes so far as to distort the player's perspective when a character's mind starts to snap. That'll happen quite a lot.

Devil May Cry fans were a bit hard on Capcom and Ninja Theory's attempt to reboot the whole franchise. Gone is the white-haired cheeseball version of Dante, quip-spouting hero of the franchise since its 2001 debut. In the reimagined world of DmC, Dante is a more mundanely attired young street punk who cares for naught but wanton living and witty comebacks. This fresh-faced Dante can't escape his heritage, however; he's the son of an angel and a demon, and he's soon caught up in an underworld war against a devilish ruler who looks a bit like Michael Chiklis. This opens a curious new world before Dante's eyes; the city before him frequently twists and divides to show its true demonic nature, and a popular soda brand is revealed to be a monstrous mutant-drug. Parallels to Futurama or Flying Phantom Ship aside, most of this hidden dimension sets up battlefields where Dante can take on numerous horrors from the demon world. And yes, he's a bit of a jerk. Capcom assures us that this is all part of the plan, yet it's downright comical when the banter between Dante and some bulbous tumor-beast whittles down to them yelling “Fuck you!” at each other.

Despite its mouthy new attitude, DmC tries to capture the same combat as its predecessors. Dante still packs a sword and two automatics, and he still double-jumps and dodges with much the same panache as the paler-tressed Dante. DmC's Dante has further options, as angelic and demonic powers are perpetually linked to the controller's shoulder buttons. The angel ability morphs Dante's weapon into a scythe that doubles as a grappling hook, while the devil one grants him a powerful but less wieldy axe, plus the power to grab enemies. Both talents play into the game's shapeshifting city, as the angel snare latches onto certain points while the devil weapon pulls pieces of the environment toward our hero. Demos of the game show off some faithfully hectic combat—along with developer Ninja Theory's penchant for pretty interludes that don't add much to the gameplay. And it'll be the gameplay that decides DmC's ultimate reception, no matter how many bouncers this new Dante punches.