For as many great, engaging or immersive outings we've already been treated to in the past few years with this genre, Yoku's Island Express can now be added to that same list of essential efforts with an identity that is all its own.
After so many subsequent ports and re-releases, little love is lost in a game whose age only elevates its timelessness and whose gracious-but-clever philosophy on enemy engagement makes it a thoroughly unique affair in general.
Few games can tout that their frustration, difficulty and somewhat teasing attitude is what makes them so enjoyable, but Choice Provisions prove once again that the only thing more palpable than failure is the inevitable triumph.
While it may not be adding tricks at every turn to the platformer genre or making a name for itself with its minimal puzzles, Forgotton Anne will surely win many over with its gorgeous, animated visuals and more importantly, its sense of wonder.
Though it may not provide anywhere near the kind of substantial additions to convince veterans to invest for a second time, there's no mistaking the care and passion Retro Studios and company have put into making DK's most recent outing one of his best.
By no means as high a flyer as the ample Devolver Digital outings as of late, The Swords of Ditto does conjure enough of a challenge and inevitable reward for the adventure to feel satisfyingly just, if a little taxing and lost in translation at points.
Aside from the most nitpicking of complaints, Yakuza 6 is but another declaration to the well-documented notion that Sega's decade-long series remains one of the finest, most consistent outings in the medium.
The sequel builds upon the foundation of the 2014 original in both gameplay and small additions in its artistic strides, but in the end, Q.
For those willing to bear the brunt of its inexcusably poor opening and subsequent first few hours — and can even find it in themselves to excuse the nagging stats requiring a near-constant influx of food and water — Metal Gear Survive does deliver a few good ideas along the way buried beneath its mediocre world and often grind-focused, loot-based item-gathering.
Disappointed would be the wrong — and likely more forgiving — term to describe one's feelings coming out of The Station. Disheartened is a more fitting definition; worse than its length or the severe lack of effort put into its environments that expand beyond the puzzle-solving (easily the game's best and only salvation of a plus-point) is the otherwise safe and stale retreading of a formula that has been repeated many times in sci-fi themed games and executed much better in ways more thematically interesting.
It would've been easy for Fe to get lost in its potentially naval-gazing pretentiousness, and admittedly the overuse of post-processing as well as the story's disjointed ambiguity does lend a degree of disconnect, but Fe mostly does enough with its gameplay and world-building for this brief adventure to offer a satisfactory level of enjoyment.
Had the initial forty-to-fifty hour campaign not have delivered the level of bugs and problems present in the current build, you'd easily be looking at potentially one of the year's best all-round experiences in an RPG and an essential for everyone no matter your affiliation with the genre.
Even so, Dandara‘s seemingly-impossible feat at combining elements of platforming, combat and strategy within its explorative template takes some doing and is almost an accomplishment in of itself.
Unfortunately for all the minor smiles and well-orchestrated music that accompanies one's travels, The Longest Five Minutes feels mostly like a sterile assembly of classic JRPG's least-appealing necessities.
While the actual RPG elements may initially appear thin at times, the well-delivered and genuinely funny writing is not only one of Golf Story‘s hidden traits, but something that will keep Sidebar's entrant a much talked-about title, even for a console that has already garnered a fair few highlights.
I'd be lying if I said my playthrough of A Hat in Time wasn't chock full of that same familiar sentiment on enjoying a game purely on its controls or even its tone which the developer paints in large and confident strokes.
Though it pains to proclaim such a promising title as this — given how obviously ambitious its world-building stands, how undeniably strange-but-enticing its organic-mechanical aesthetic is or how inviting the otherwise isolating ambience of its sound design is — Hob may well be one of the more disappointing showings for the genre this year when all is said and done.
Uurnog Uurnlimited is a great example of poor execution.
It's clear, beyond the obvious limitation with resolution and frame-rate, that DOOM for Switch has had to make some restrictions.
While Monopoly for Nintendo Switch doesn't feel like a big enhancement of the three-year-old iteration that came before, the flexibility of options it retains does incentivize those initially put off by the game's infamously, never-ending demeanor.