Ruffy and the Riverside's swapping mechanic is great fun, but I wish it would shut up and give me more organic opportunities to use that mechanic.
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is exactly what you think it is: another (rather fun) Space Marine game, albeit one with clunky new mechanics and a pretty forgettable story.
Black Myth: Wukong is an absolute delight. Its gorgeous world, incredible enemy variety, and satisfying combat all come together to create an experience worthy of the Great Sage himself.
Robobeat has a great soundtrack and its combat ticks all the boxes, but uneven balance and boring level design puts this one out of step with its peers.
Lies of P has excellent combat and a raft of well-designed boss fights, but bad storytelling permeates a sense that you've seen all of this before.
Sludge Life 2 is a second verse that feels much the same as the first, but it's still got a bouncy, vivacious, and utterly unique sound.
Planet of Lana is a perfectly fine, if strangely unambitious, cinematic platformer, hitting all the right notes without writing a new song.
Otxo is streamlined almost to a fault, but its got incredibly rewarding combat, fluid movement, and a great horror-inflected aesthetic. (Review Policy)
Bleak Faith: Forsaken's interesting art design can't save it from its glitches, bugs, and myriad terrible game design decisions. (Review Policy)
Elderand is, for better and worse, a fairly by-the-numbers Metroidvania. It does nothing exceptional, but it rarely slips up badly either.
Despite a promising setup, Red Tape accidentally embodies the concept of the banality of evil thanks to its boring gameplay and poor writing.
Evil West successfully revitalizes the third-person shooter genre with intense, satisfying combat, even if its level design isn't much to write home about.
Cagliostro's Secrets presents a reasonably-sized extra chunk of Steelrising that doesn't reinvent the wheel, but gets the job done.
Squad 51 vs. the Flying Saucers occasionally overcommits to its retro vibe with punishing and unfair difficulty, but its action is tight and it's charming enough to overlook the flaws.
Soulstice's overwritten story and repetitive second half somewhat dull the catharsis of its glorious throwback hack-and-slash combat, but it's still great fun.
Steelrising never quite feels like a cohesive experience, but its warring halves of Soulslike combat and narrative RPG storytelling are compelling enough in and of themselves.
Whether or not you vibe with Restless Soul's comedy will entirely determine whether you have a good time with it. I'm growing rather tired of self-referentiality in-game humor, and I also like my jokes to come from real characters, so Restless Soul's comedy didn't entirely work for me. If your sense of humor is different to mine, you may find the comedy more tolerable, and if you do, there's a perfectly agreeable quasi-bullet hell adventure to be had here. The whole experience is rather insubstantial and lacks a solid core gameplay mechanic to hang everything else on, but it's got a lot of heart, and that counts for something.
Thymesia may boast more Bloodborne influence than its peers, but it fails to transcend its mediocre combat, appalling lack of enemy variety, and dearth of content.
Dolmen is yet another Soulslike that proves this formula is almost impossible to get right. It's a flat, boring experience with none of the spark and vigor it needs to transcend its many technical flaws.
Kingdom of the Dead has solid combat and good level design, but it's let down by an absence of challenge and some severe performance issues.