Fire Emblem: Three Houses brings the tactical and emotional goods to the Nintendo Switch; despite some rough spots, this entry is a series best.
By hewing close to genre origins, both visually and thematically (though not without some genuine innovations of his own), Lucas Pope has delivered one of the best games of the year, and certainly one of the best murder mystery games of all time.
Starlink: Battle for Atlas preserves some of the complexity that makes deep space sims so rewarding by striking a healthy between fidelity and delight; a complicated toys-to-life scheme may dampen the experience for some, however.
Light Fingers fills a gap in the Switch's library, offering a charming and exclusive indie couch co-op game. With a bit of word of mouth, it has the potential to become a sleeper hit.
Two Point Hospital follows through on its lofty goals of bringing an old favorite into a new era, and in doing so, it has eclipsed many of its genre contemporaries and predecessors alike.
Donut County is a singular experience that transcends its simple, but potent core mechanic thanks to its idiosyncratic humor, clever gameplay twists, and a gleeful sense of what makes swallowing the world into a hole so cathartic.
The Path of Motus is a competent, sometimes fun indie game with a naive take on the nature of bullying.
Mario Tennis Aces is the definitive series entry. Camelot has firmly established what it means to Mario-ize an already solid tennis foundation.
Little Nightmares is a lean experience that plays out like a creepy Germanic fairy tale rendered in a beautiful, but unsettling approximation a stop-motion film.
Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition is the definitive Warriors game, but The Legend of Zelda gets nothing out of this relationship.
Orwell: Ignorance is Strength approaches the relevance to which it aspires, but not until late in its final act.
CHUCHEL aims to be a mostly comedic turn for Amanita Design and succeeds due to a winning combination of idiosyncratic aesthetic choices and streamlined point-and-click mechanics.
Into the Breach borrows confidently from FTL's successes, but differentiates itself as a tight, highly replayable tactics game built around avoiding non-combatant casualties and collateral damage.
Fe's best moments are built around its narrative themes of the connectedness of the natural world, but its platforming and open-world ambitions can't compete with recent titans in those genres.