A beautifully structured, rich and thoughtful adventure with gentle but decisive RPG elements.
An exhilarating, fluid, incredibly broken mage-'em-up set in tortured procedural worlds.
While component tales and battles can be hit-and-miss, this elderly Squaresoft anthology is a wonderful testament to its genre's flexibility and range.
An entertaining celebration of sleight of hand from the makers of Reigns
A brutal but graceful and comprehensible mix of ideas from Warhammer, XCOM and Gears Tactics.
Above all, though, Kaiju Wars has a wonderful feel for the cadence of a monster movie. It's always building towards those third-act reversals when your literally downtrodden cast of 16-bit expendables finally manages to break the creature's stride, your tanks ramming its ankles so that your experimental laser can rumble into firing range, in what feels exactly like the fruition of a desperate plan concocted in the back of a racing Humvee. What occasionally looks like a thin parody is, in fact, a labour of earnest affection for a species of story that, as with zombie movies, most nerds understand at the level of muscle memory. Forget sinister illuminati-style organisations - the kaijus' most fanatical adherents are surely the developers themselves.
A serviceable restoration of one of the best and strangest games in Squaresoft's back catalogue.
A bold, atmospheric yet dissatisfying ensemble RPG shooter, full of untapped promise.
Singlehandedly manage a steampunk sailboat in this ramshackle but glorious anti-open world game
An elegant martial arts meditation on temporality and self-possession, set in a loving but touristy idea of China.
An excellent, deceptively unshowy blend of platformer and roguelike.
A work of powerful ugliness that skilfully refuses to find the fun.
The engrossing flagship Xbox shooter returns with its fabled craggy supersoldier and plenty of style but not quite enough bang.
A folk horror spectacle turned score-attacker that will give you nightmares in a matter of minutes.
A sci-fi odyssey of great vision and promise that proves to be its own worst enemy.
A winning but wayward chimera of survival game, surrealism and storybook adventure.
A splendid, moody elaboration of what makes Outer Wilds so special.
A brilliant timeloop shooter that gives Dishonored's best tricks and techniques more opportunity to shine.
As witty, eccentric and imaginative as the 2005 action-platformer, with a more developed understanding of mental health.
The Ascent's arcology setting is splendid, if heavily derivative - shame that all you can do here is gun and grind.