If titles such as Yooka-Laylee and Bioshock are considered love letters to their respective gaming inspirations, then Octopath Traveler is the full-on romance novel of the JRPG. Steeped in combat mechanics and visuals of JRPG's from a long-passed era, SquareEnix's latest is a return to the greatness of classic role-playing adventure games.

The Nintendo Switch has proven to be one of the best platforms for engaging and lengthy JRPG's. We've just seen the release of Shining Resonance: Refrain and are days away from Octopath Traveler hitting the console and the system is currently packed with several more such as Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Lost Sphear.

It's a rather weird thought that Mario Tennis would share any resemblance to that of Marvel's latest Avenger's movie, but when Mario is set on the path to recovering 5 colored 'Power Stones', I had to shake my head and let out a very loud sigh. In fact, I made that same sound at many of the design choices that Camelot chose to go with for this latest installment.

My experience with the NieR franchise is mostly limited to the release of NieR: Automata when it launched on the PlayStation 4 last year. I did play a few hours of the original NieR back on the Xbox 360 some 7 years ago, but I would be surprised if I played more than 4 or 5 hours of it.