Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, Koji Igarashi's first proper effort since 2008's Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, is a Rococo masterwork.
The experience won’t suit every temperament, but to give up on an entire universe for inspiring awe too infrequently or for not inspiring the specific awe you’d prefer would be like abandoning bird-watching after a single hour without an exciting specimen.
Mighty No. 9 melds the old with the new, ends up with the worst of both
The hellacious new Doom tears the original to shreds
Intentionally or not, the new Hitman is hilarious
Layers Of Fear aims for arty horror, but its strength is simple scares
The original Amplitude broke this ground over 10 years ago, but the world just wasn't ready. Maybe in 2016 people will be more open to the idea of finding the music inside themselves.
In Just Cause 3, bringing a jet to a gunfight isn't cheating—it's expected
The best parts of Assassin's Creed Syndicate are the things it does differently from other entries in the series, and its greatest frustrations are what it has in common with them. The series' heroes have been fighting the same battle against the same enemy for countless generations without success partly because they've always got one foot in the past. If Assassin's Creed never changes, it'll stay as stuck as its own stars.
Given Animal Crossing's sickeningly cutesy look and feel, it's tempting to play tricks on it, to fool its adorably simple-minded denizens into living in squalor and liking it. But the game is just too sincere to prank, the way that toys can't feel embarrassed of how they're played with.
Volume makes full use of its updated setting and, in doing so, tells one of the freshest Robin Hood tales in decades—maybe even centuries.
Submerged doesn't want to see you fail, but it doesn't trust you to succeed without its help, either. It bears repeating: Children aren't morons. Submerged knows this, but it still treats its players like they're just kids.
A dedication to hostility keeps The Witcher 3 cohesive despite its sprawl
So far, Climax Studios seems to remember what Ubisoft has long since forgotten: Assassin's Creed isn't about captaining a ship or poaching animals or curating an art gallery. It's about wearing a hood and assassinating people.
Final Fantasy is too massive a cultural force to be in danger of failing after a few years of disappointing releases, but hope for the future of the series rests with Type-0 all the same.
Apotheon is attractive, vibrant, and challenging when Nikandreos is scrapping with a deity or exploring Mount Olympus, but it's dragged down whenever he has to squabble with its innumerable mortal thugs—which is all the time.
The emails you can rifle through at Abstergo Entertainment tease a potentially exciting future for the series—Russia, Brazil, China, Japan—but unless it can get over its current identity crisis, the best we can hope for from the future of Assassin's Creed is more near-hits.