The X Button

One Reason

The four proper Panzer Dragoon games remain excellent. They may be rail shooters confined to paths, but they're also journeys through a primitive, fascinating world that resembles Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with its Moebius influences sharpened up (by Moebius himself, in fact). Crimson Dragon doesn't have quite the same alien design. Instead of a world scorched bleak and angular by calamities, it's set on a distant planet explored by dragons and their human riders, more Anne McCaffrey than Hayao Miyazaki. But it's the creation of Yukio Futatsugi, the man behind the first three Panzer Dragoon games.

Such heritage is immediately obvious in Crimson Dragon's approach to shooting. In either a rail-driven mode or free-flying control, the dragon's rider can rotate to shoot the enemies swarming from all directions, and the game supports battles and cooperative adventuring for three players. Crimson Dragon features the same slow-charging gauge for destructive dragon attacks, but it adds numerous other weapons to the mixture. Players also evolve the dragon as it progresses through the game's levels and, if the smartphone Crimson Dragon was any indication, unravels secrets about this planet o' dragons.

Crimson Dragon began as a Kinect-reliant shooter on the Xbox 360, but Microsoft since shifted it to the Xbox One and gave it a controller-based scheme. It still functions with the new system's Kinect, but there's nothing stopping the Panzer faithful from picking up the controller and going at it just as they did on the Saturn or Xbox years ago. Crimson Dragon may not turn heads like Forza or Battlefield upon the Xbox One launch, but it's easily the system's standout for a certain breed of fan.

Complaints about Dead Rising 3 emerged shortly after its first trailer. It was too dark, the complaint-makers said, too lacking in the schlocky fashions of the first Dead Rising's shopping-mall outbreak and the second's zombie-themed game show. Admittedly, the first glimpses of Dead Rising looked joyless, depicting mechanic hero Nick Ramos in an ashen cityscape roamed by hordes of zombies. He found guns, picked out routes to safety, and…well, he didn't skateboard through the undead while wearing a Mega Man arm blaster, that's for sure.

Perhaps we're a little quick to put down Dead Rising 3. Its introductory level is the stuff of today's straight-faced horror films instead of today's irony-rich horror films. Armed with only a good, weighty wrench at first, Ramos meets up with other survivors in the zombie-filled city of Los Perdidos, California (presumably near the alien-filled city of San Drad, California). Yet it doesn't take long for the game to trot out the improvised arsenals of past Dead Risings, as Ramos patches together a sledgehammer, a skill saw, and whatever else can be bound together with duct tape. He's also able to sprint, save anywhere, and drive all sorts of vehicles—and even combine those vehicles just as easily as he does weapons. Dead Rising 3 also incorporates the new Kinect's sound and motion sensors; once they're on, the game's zombies will pick up on any noises the player happens to make. The game also dispenses with time limits and escort missions, something which proved bothersome in the original Dead Rising. So the third in the series promises a few improvements to go along with its murkier tones.

For years the promise of another Killer Instinct flipped between a joke and a pipe dream. Rumors of a third game swirled around, and Conker: Live & Reloaded hinted that Rare and Microsoft remembered the series. But there was no sign of Killer Instinct, and some thought that was for the best. It was a creature of the mid-1990s, when fighting games and plastic rendered graphics briefly reigned, and there it had best stay. Microsoft disagreed, however, and the first big surprise of the Xbox One's debut was the return of Killer Instinct.

Repeating its forbears, the new, un-numbered Killer Instinct takes after contemporary Street Fighter a bit. It employs a six-button layout, and moves are done by those familiar rolling “fireball” motions and charge inputs. Moreover, Killer Instinct seizes on Street Figher IV's use of 3-D characters in a fixed, 2-D plane; combos and other excessive attacks switch the viewpoint around, but the flow remains much the same as it was in the side-view fighters of Killer Instinct's heyday. The roster includes seven of the original game's characters redesigned to varying degrees: Jago, Spinal, Orchid, Glacius, Chief Thunder, Sabrewulf, and the yet-to-be-seen Fulgore. The all-new spidery, aerially focused Sadira takes the eighth slot, though Microsoft hints that other familiar Killer Instinct characters will return in the game's second “season.”

This brings us to the third Killer Instinct's unorthodox pricing. The demo includes one character for free: it's Jago at first, but he'll trade places with others. Extra characters run another $4.99 each, but you can buy the whole bunch for $19.99 (six at launch, the other two later). A forty-dollar Ultra Pack includes all of this plus alternate costumes, accessories, and, no lie, the original arcade version of Killer Instinct, with Cinder's infinite combo and everything. For those extremely devoted fans of the series, who've long pondered the moral struggles of Glacius, there's a Pin Ultimate Edition with a display case, a pin folder, and a sixty-dollar price tag.

Strange as it sounds, it's possible to get the wrong idea about Senran Kagura Burst. With the briefest glance at it, you might see only the chipper face of a ninja girl, take in the T rating, and assume that this is another lightweight action game with perhaps some mildly risqué costumes or dialogue. To dispel these misconceptions, take a closer look or visit the game's website, where all the heroines are crossing their arms like they're in a Wheel of Time novel. See, Senran Kagura Burst is a game that germinated in creator Kenichirō Takaki's mind as a single overriding thought: breasts in 3-D.

Senran Kagura Burst thoughtfully attaches women to these 3-D breasts, of course. The students of Hanzo Academy (not Hanzo High School, mind you) range from the cheerful Asuka and the scatterbrained Hibari to the all-too-friendly Katsuragi, whose sexual harassment of her cohorts aims to amuse us, disturbingly enough. At the unscrupulous Hebijo Academy we find their rivals, including the frilly gun-nut Mirai, emotionless Hikage, and the sword-bedecked Homura, who's less than diligent in being Asuka's nemesis. They wear (and lose) multiple outfits throughout Senran Kagura Burst, and the game rarely passes up an opportunity to showcase bouncing, jiggling, wobbling, gyrating, heaving, swelling, swaying, swinging, rolling, bobbling, thrashing, swirling, throbbing, undulating, wardrobe-ruining, eye-rolling, dignity-destroying, reality-defying cartoon breasts.

Senran Kagura Burst also attaches a game to all of this. It's a side-scrolling brawler with a heavy emphasis on showing off—and not always to the point of creepy titillation. Each heroine has a specialized method of attacking, including air combos, wide-range movies, and unlockable arts. The ridiculous proportions of the characters are matched by their elaborate weaponry, whether it's Mirai's gothic dress full of firearms or the seven swords Homura carries. Burst is also two titles in one; the original Senran Kagura: Skirting Shadows follows the alleged good ninja of Hanzo, while Senran Kagura: Crimson Girls focuses on their rivals, totaling 140 missions. So there's substance to Senran Kagura Burst, in a way. But don't get the wrong idea about it.

For the typical American fighting-game fan, Aquapazza may as well be an entirely original creation. It combines characters from assorted AQUAPLUS and Leaf games: Tears to Tiara, Utawarerumono, Comic Party, To Heart, White Album, Kizuato, and Routes. All of these are well off the domestic radar. For the anime fan, however, series like Utawarerumono, To Heart, and Comic Party will conjure up recollections of the anime bubble, as they were released during the height of American anime publisher hubris, when everyone still thought you could sell a show that no one really wanted at thirty bucks for each four-episode DVD. Ah, memories.

Aquapazza requires no knowledge of these disparate contributors, because it's still a fighting game. There's no need to parse the backstories of the grappler schoolgirls, tribal archers, comic-geek schoolgirls, cat-people swordswomen, Valkyrie-ish warrior schoolgirls, and even a robot schoolgirl. Yes, Aquapazza trades on the popular conventions of modern anime, and it's no accident that the developer is Examu, makers of the pandering Arcana Heart series.

Yet Examu also knows something about the inner workings of a fighter, so Aquapazza is reasonably complicated. Main characters pair up with partners from the assorted AQUAPLUS series, and each ally has some unique contribution to the fisticuffs. The standard special-move gauges also have Splash Arts available when a character's on the ropes, and the Active Emotion System rewards players who go on the offensive. Defending too much makes characters depressed, and that leaves them open to Guard Crush attacks and other damaging moves. Yes, feelings are important in Aquapazza. It's based partly on dating simulators, after all.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past arrived in a simpler time for the series. The Zelda name comprised only two previous titles and a lousy cartoon back in 1991, and it made the Super NES debut of A Link to the Past a momentous thing. A Link Between Worlds can't carry that same allure. It comes to us when Zelda games are rampant in number and diverse in style. Yet it's also something many of us wanted but never received in those Super NES days: a sequel to A Link to the Past.

A “sequel” in the typical Zelda sense means that A Link Between Worlds is set numerous generations after the original game, introducing a new round of characters. They fill the same roles, of course: Link is still the plucky, green-clad hero and Princess Zelda is still the imperiled monarch of Hyrule—though this time she's threatened by a wizard named Yuga. Instead of traveling to the Dark World, a fixture of A Link to the Past, Link switches between Hyrule and its alternate-reality kingdom of Lorule, ruled by a purple-haired Princess Zelda lookalike named Hilda.

Aside from the dimensional shifts, A Link Between Worlds offers Link a new method of navigating tricky areas in dungeons. By transforming himself into a paper-thin drawing, he attaches to walls and shifts around like a sentient hieroglyph. This sequel breaks with Zelda tradition by letting Link traverse the dungeons in whatever order he chooses, which requires him to rent hookshots, magic rods and other special tools from the lapine merchant Ravio. A Link Between Worlds makes the questionable choice of replicating the Super NES game's sprites with unimpressive, low-detail 3-D, but we don't play Zelda games just for looks, do we?

One might interpret the recent Mario games in terms of the new suits they introduce. The Koopa shell-suit from New Super Mario Bros. ? A neat concept, but it's not implemented right. The penguin suit from New Super Mario Bros. Wii? Excellent, if limited in its use. The squirrel suit from New Super Mario Bros. Wii U? A cute repackaging of the capes and raccoon tails from prior Mario titles. What then shall we make of the cat outfit in Super Mario 3-D World? It lets Mario and company climb walls, which could introduce many new innovations to the layouts of a 3-D Mario game. On the other hand, it makes the characters look like they're wearing pajamas or suiting up for a furry convention.

Super Mario 3-D World has more than cat outfits in store. It follows the open level designs of the excellent Super Mario 3-D Land for the 3DS, which mixed the typical invention of a side-scrolling Mario game into three-dimensional stages. Super Mario 3-D World includes all of the power-ups from the 3DS game, such as the Boomerang and White Tanooki suits, while adding the cat suit and a cherry item that summons a doppelganger of the player's chosen character. World further broadens the idea with four players, and unlike the New Super Mario titles, it gets the character mix right: Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Toad. It's just like it was in Super Mario Bros. 2, with none of those extra Toads to unbalance the scheme of things.