Disco Elysium is an exquisitely-written RPG of external and internal turmoil, political unrest, and self-destruction, packaged into a detective noir.
Mission: It's Complicated is a wonderfully relatable and inclusive superhero romance dating sim, offered up for free on Steam for Valentine's Day.
The Arcade Crew/Turtleblaze's Kunai is a masterclass in 2D action, and will be catnip to metroidvania platformer fans looking for their next fix.
The new indie game Wildfire is a boon for stealth game fans, and it's packed with smart ideas, interesting spells, and inventive level design.
The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners isn't just a great use of the source material, but a top-notch survival action game that fulfills VR's potential.
Death Stranding is a game meant to be experienced by all, even those who won’t complete it, and a good PC build makes this the best version to determine if Sam is the right porter for the job.
Scott Pilgrim holds up exceptionally well.
If Death’s Door is not mentioned in a list of the year’s best indies, it will only be due to its finer focus and lack of complexity or significant depth, which also speaks to the game's utter lack of bloat. Those who are looking for the cavernous biomes of Hollow Knight or the lore-rich epistolatory storytelling in a Souls game may feel shorted by the 10 or so breezy hours on offer here, but Death’s Door is a precisely engineered and immersive adventure which will fully satisfy anyone seeking that exact experience. Isometric action RPGs are a dime a dozen, but rarely are they polished to such a brilliant sheen.
That’s about as much as should be spoiled for a game which all fans of the first and many curious neophytes will readily purchase on sight. Spelunky 2 is, at the end of the day, more Spelunky, an unspeakably radiant generosity to the medium at large. Whether or not it’s perfect is beside the point, because it’s the very definition of a must-play game. While multiplayer could not be tested for this review, the addition of online co-op will likely set Twitch streams on fire, and the return of daily runs ensures that Spelunky 2 is a game that will happily remain installed for years to come, and may even improve with age.
That just scratches the surface - there’s also crafting, a chip slot equipment system, companions to help in battle, some simple item fishing a la Hades, unique weapons to divine, and many more secrets we haven’t even touched upon. For Brazilian developer Studio Pixel Punk, Unsighted is an accessible and content-rich debut with a compelling sci-fi drama at its core, and certainly in the argument for one of the best metroidvanias of the year.
It’s hard to imagine how a Zero Dawn fan could be at all dissatisfied with Guerilla Games’ choices here - the studio has delivered exactly what they were waiting for.
Wild Hearts should thrive in its post-launch life as new updates accrue, while players devise and trade loadout strategies and boss techniques. Additionally, Koei Tecmo has stated that no microtransactions are planned, with new karakuri, weapons, kemono, and quests expected in the coming months. Our review encompassed single player only, and the game is a completely reasonable and satisfying challenge in offline mode, with an engaging story that builds to some gratifying peaks. Wild Hearts is a class act and an impressive first step at a franchise that feels entirely original, in spite of its direct Monster Hunter competition looming large.
Small touches like these elevate Wildfrost into the upper tiers of the genre, even while its generally lighter range of content may steer potential buyers away. Once its best qualities come into view, though, that familiar roguelite deckbuilder addiction takes hold to reveal considerable potential, with dozens of encouraging RNG-fueled synergies, lucky accidents which breathe life into additional playthroughs. Wildfrost might seem a bit bare-bones, but each of its moving parts feels precision-engineered, making for an impressive entry into the genre for the studio and a great value for its asking price.
Then again, this is exactly how isolation works. The world continues on outside the window at breakneck pace, leaving only stories and memories to cling to in the aftermath. The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood is about the forgotten, punished, and lost finding their footing once again, reclaiming authority and placement in their world. Do they feel vengeful towards their captors or betrayed by the lost connections who now casually darken their door with a smile? Do they punish themselves for their actions, or blame it on the broken system they now seek to change? Don’t allow the colorful outfits and smiling faces to fool you, as The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood can form a rather insidious narrative dependent on player input, to make for an entirely original and rewardingly rich adventure.
Additional achievements, challenges, unlocks, and secrets bring enduring value to Risk of Rain Returns, and the new graphics do just enough to contemporize the look of the game without sacrificing its creepy pixelated presentation. This all manifests into a project that feels like a true gift for fans and a premium prospect for roguelite veterans who may have missed its original launch. Risk of Rain Returns takes an all-timer which might have been overshadowed by its sequel and gives it much, much more than a fresh coat of paint.
But perhaps Blood West’s strongest component is its exploration, and the pull to devour every inch of its creepy map design can be reason enough to turn the game into a 30-hour experience or more. The amount of that time spent dying and backtracking are all part of the hellish journey, but the difficulty is balanced such that gamers of all stripes should find enough equipment and upgrades to power their way through. For a combat-heavy horror game, Blood West focuses on the most important details and leaves the rest to rot, and their full release version delivers one of the year's best surprises.
At the end of the day, Super Mario RPG has not received much love, outside of a surprising appearance on the SNES Classic and some Geno ephemera in the Smash series. To describe it as a purely niche oddity would be wrong, as it was a massive seller back in its day and has popped up on best-of lists ever since, but it still comes off as an oddball first-party Nintendo game. Super Mario RPG Switch fulfills most expected obligations and even surprises with a few new features, making it a predictable crowd-pleaser for those in the know who should welcome it with open arms while left wanting for even more content. The House of Mario doesn’t bless us with many full-spectrum remakes like this, and maybe this will be enough to spark interest in a real sequel some day.
Further and further in, Ultros’ world seems one of creative, chaotic malleability instead of precision, opening up to sequence-breaking and weird shortcuts through experimentation. It’s a game about amassing the tools and time to carve a connective path with nature, learning the layout of the land, and collaborating with it to continue on. Ultros takes the common ingredients of the modern metroidvania, then transplants them into an utterly original DMT-infused Metroid fever dream, in the very best way.
Rise of the Ronin is an immersive open-world title that does a lot of work to value the time of its players, making for a rewarding journey.
Tangledeep's attractive presentation belies its classic roguelike trappings, making for a compelling challenge in its new home on the Nintendo Switch.