Fallout is still fun, even at its lowest point, though given how strong the back half is, it’s hard not to feel like the show doesn’t live up to its full potential.

“Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth” is one of the more ambitious RPGs of the past few years. It mostly covers the second act of 1997’s “Final Fantasy 7,” where Cloud, Tifa, Barret, and Aerith chase Sephiroth, a former war hero turned vicious murderer, across continents oceans in a bid to stop him from destroying the planet. This portion of the original “FF7,” released in 1997, is messy and unfocused, with what amounts to a MacGuffin hunt as its foundation, and it only establishes an identity in its latter half, before the game switches to a different focus at the end anyway. That’s not an easy or even appealing concept to build an entire, lengthy new remake around, but Square Enix answered the challenge with an elegant narrative whose earnestness helps cover some of the game’s clumsier design aspects.

Cygames mixes well-worn RPG concepts and systems, borrowing bits from Lunar: Silver Star Story, Bravely Default and Bandai Namco’s Tales of series—and several more besides. The result should be a hackneyed mess of tropes. But it’s not. Instead, Granblue Fantasy Relink’s brilliance comes from how it imbues familiar ideas with an earnestness and charm that feels almost impossible to resist.

Two worlds exist inside Persona 3 Reload, and I’m not talking about the real world and the Dark Hour. I mean the thoughtful evolution of Persona 3’s relationships and refinement of its characters coexisting with missing features, careless lighting, bad environment scaling, and a dormitory afflicted with Fisher Price furniture. While bonding events and stronger voice direction for the English cast underscore Persona 3’s themes more effectively than ever, these improvements are held back by missin

In less than 15 minutes, developer Ryu Ga Gotoku (RGG) delivered a one-two punch that hammered out my wavering confidence in Infinite Wealth, and it didn’t falter again. Despite getting off to a rough start and having a few experimental ideas that don’t quite land as they should, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is RGG Studio’s best work to date and a superb RPG.

Starfield is about humanity peeling back the mysteries of the universe to understand its place in the cosmos. Except when it’s about exploration. Or pirates. It has an anti-war message, sometimes, when it isn’t promoting the military. Sometimes there’s smuggling, but you can be a space cop, or a space cop who smuggles contraband and beats up debt defaulters. No one in Starfield really cares what you do most of the time, though some of your companions get a bit unhappy if you murder people. I don’t really know what to make of Starfield. After roughly 90 hours and nearly two weeks, I have no idea what it wants me to think, do, or feel about any of its themes.

Five years after the end of “Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order,” Cal Kestis’ friends are scattered across the galaxy dealing with their own demons, while the young Jedi Knight runs guerrilla strikes against key Imperial targets. Reality tore his dreams of resistance into tatters of resentment, and he’s left trying to find a purpose for his life in “Star Wars Jedi: Survivor” — a journey of surprises that improves on the original in every way. However, like Cal himself, it still falls short of its full potential.

In an age where remakes and retro-inspired projects try recreating what classic games of old felt like, Octopath Traveler II accomplishes something impressive. Despite being rooted in modern design with a host of conveniences, it effortlessly captures the spirit, style, and sense of adventure of the best RPGs from the SNES era, while still innovating and showing there’s life in turn-based battles yet. The feat is even more remarkable, considering Octopath II’s most significant changes are small and subtle.

Final Fantasy maker Square Enix and Final Fantasy XV team Luminous Productions set themselves a monstrous task with Forspoken. Releasing an open-world fantasy game in such a crowded landscape to players growing increasingly tired of these games’ endless task lists and vast worlds seems like folly. However, this isn’t just another big-budget game, even if its large world and combat may seem superficially reminiscent to recent hits like Horizon Forbidden West. It builds on its inspirations in subtle, clever ways, and while it may not have the deepest or most original story, Forspoken is a refreshingly personal tale that brings some welcome twists to the usual formula.

An adorable Kitty Shield smiles up at me from my latest treasure haul. The local appraiser, unmoved by its cute design, may say it’s not worth much, but that just means I get to proudly hang it on display in my vault instead – it’s not the most valuable piece of my hoard, but I look on it with satisfaction nonetheless. That Kitty Shield is a suitable metaphor for Dragon Quest Treasures as a whole: It’s far from the richest jewel in the Dragon Quest crown, but a laid-back structure, charming world, and endless stream of rewards make it a relaxing RPG still worth admiring.

The itinerary for a class trip typically includes safe, normal things — visiting a historical landmark and learning how to cooperate with people from other schools, for instance. You’re less likely to encounter classroom-sized spiders or intense personal trauma, and hopefully, you won’t be responsible for a friend never returning home. But these are just some of the everyday tribulations for the unlucky band of middle schoolers in Digimon Survive. Developed by Hyde, Digimon Survive shoulders the heavy burden of evolving the series’ traditional blend of monster breeding and turn-based role-playing — namely, with the addition of visual-novel elements. But that burden proves a bit too heavy to carry. The visual-novel aspects seem ideal for the story Digimon Survive wants to tell, but whether from a lack of confidence in its own characters or a misunderstanding of what makes visual novels a powerful storytelling medium to begin with, it falls short of its abundant potential.

It was when the Welsh cat girl punched a mutant in the face, cutting their villainous monologue short and kicking off a spectacular mid-game boss battle, that I realized Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was my new favorite RPG. I had my suspicions prior to that moment, though – when the story explored Taion’s background and presented him as a complex, interesting character instead of the stereotype usually applied to black people in video games, for example. I wrote earlier this month that developer Monolith Soft’s Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is a leap forward in storytelling for the series, and spending more time with it only furthered my belief that this is one of the finest RPGs of the past few generations.