The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV pulls off a highly satisfying conclusion to this long running saga but character bloat and lack of improvements hinder the experience.
Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin manages to deliver some great farming and solid action gameplay but falls short in both areas in different ways.
Cyberpunk 2077 has most of the makings of a great open world RPG but an avalanche of bugs and crashes prevent most of this potential from shining through the grime.
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim’s combat may only be serviceable at best but incredibly handled story more than makes up for this shortcoming.
Immortals Fenyx Rising takes what may have seemed like a mundane concept and created an open-world adventure game that relishes in Greek lore and comedy all while providing great combat and solid puzzles.
The Falconeer may not nail the “perch” as well as one may hope but this unique air combat game offers enough unique combat and flying mechanics to make it worthwhile despite its story and mission variety issues.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla offers perhaps the biggest most content filled world to explore yet in a lore filled land where combat is king while stealth still takes a step back compared to previous entries.
The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope is a noticeable improvement as it spins a mysteriously horrifying tale that still ends up lacking in some areas.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon takes big risks and becomes a slightly flawed but highly enjoyable RPG that takes the over-the-top nature of the Yakuza series and turns it up a notch.
Undead Darlings ~ no cure for love ~’s story outshines its dungeon crawling but this unpolished gem of a visual novel RPG proves to be well worth delving into.
Watch Dogs: Legion tries something new and it serves as both the game’s biggest strength and a small weakness as the amount of variety at every turn makes this a game players will constantly want to sink time into.
Nexomon: Extinction features a great story and some unique changes to a familiar formula that both help and hinder the experience, making it something great for fans of the genre but not quite up to the level of a certain series.
Tell Me Why features a compelling mystery that loses its depth the longer the story progresses but its strong characters and solid puzzles prove that Dontnod hasn’t missed a step.
Giraffe and Annika may be a bit too simple for its own good but its childlike charm makes for a light and delightful adventure game.
Serious Sam 4 may not differ too much from its norm but it brings the high-paced frantic FPS action that fans love to an entirely new level.
While still a solid basketball game, NBA 2K21 doesn’t bring enough new to the table this year and instead focuses more on constant grind for VC.
Although Pathfinder: Kingmaker Definitive Edition delivers an incredibly lengthy story and great combat, far too many bugs and troublesome kingdom mechanics can suck some of the fun from this table top RPG brought to console.
Kandagawa Jet Girls is a solid but too easy arcade racer that doesn’t quite deliver on fan-service but still manages to offer a great collection of characters.
Destroy All Humans! is a fun and modernized action game that is held back by its 2005 design structure.
Despite its short length and occasionally odd use of levels Battletoads succeeds in becoming a toadally worthwhile reboot.