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Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty is not just the biggest expansion released by CD Projekt RED, but also one of the best pieces of content. The quality of the storytelling, art direction and level design in Phantom Liberty is incredible, even in comparison with the base game.
Star Trek: Infinite is a fine science fiction grand strategy experience, designed to appeal to fans of the TV and movie franchise. The development team has tried hard to deliver as many familiar elements as possible and mostly succeeded. The game creates a more focused experience than the New Horizons mod for Stellaris and its mechanics are easier to understand.
No Place for Bravery offers an interesting mix of tough combat and exotic presentation. Some players might be driven away by the pixel art (the weird legs of the characters still annoy me) or the difficulty level. But the story and the gameplay have the quality required to keep players engaged.
Limerick: Cadence Mansion is a good game for spooky season because it has plenty of familiar mechanics while creating an interesting universe. It’s not horror by any means but there are some effective scary moments. The game creates constant tension between the drive to discover more and the need to run to a Panic room to avoid death and recover.
Torn Away is a narrative-focused game that explores some very difficult historical moments through the eyes of a child. Asya is a strong protagonist and the game works hard to give her interesting things to do from a gameplay perspective. Neither the platforming nor the puzzles sequences are hard to complete and most of the mechanics are familiar.
Wargroove 2 is one of the best smallish-scale tactics titles I have played recently, offering a wide variety of cool scenarios in its campaigns as well as extra variety with Conquest. The turn-to-turn action is compelling, and players have space to tweak the difficulty to suit their needs.
Astrea: Six-Sided Oracles is a complex and engaging dice builder. The universe is interesting, even if the lore is mostly expressed via gameplay and presentation. There are a ton of dice to choose from as players build their own playstyle around their favorite hero.
Days of Doom is a competent combination of rogue-lite elements and turn and tile-driven combat. Battles are tense, especially when bigger and boss enemies arrive, and require players to carefully think about their character’s abilities and positioning.
Gunbrella delivers a great combination of platforming and combat, punctuated by challenging boss fights and plenty of character interactions. The game introduces new ideas and challenges at a good pace and boredom never sets in. The narrative could have used some extra weirdness, but the universe is engaging and offers some cool moments.
Even with some of its shortcomings on PS5, Baldur’s Gate III remains one of the best games of our time. Looking at the amazing quantity and quality of the content, you will most likely forgive the developers for the bugs – that most likely will be fixed through patches.
Six Ages 2: Lights Going Out is designed as an evolution rather than an evolution. Glorantha continues to offer a good setting for role-playing and management, although the apocalyptic element feels a little restrictive. I like the steady flow of events and the care that goes into creating interesting situations and engaging choices.
Affogato mixes two ideas that don’t normally belong together. The puzzle-style, card-driven reverse tower defense is pretty unique as an idea but suffers from a lack of variety and some difficulty spikes. The developers need to consider a sequel that focuses on this side of the game to explore its potential.
En Garde! offers a tight core idea and executes on it well, although in some predictable ways. It’s fun to constantly scan the battlefield and evaluate incoming enemies to decide how to use the environment and Adalia’s superior fencing skills to separate groups, stun some enemies, and, finally, take all of them down.
Astronaut: The Best isn’t as deep or as varied as it seems at first sight, but it has good core mechanics. And the world it conjures is engaging in its weirdness, despite the relative lack of cohesion that’s evident at certain points in the branching narratives. The game’s presentation will not be for everybody, although it meshes well with both story and mechanics.
Remnant II brings so many improvements over the first game that I’m tempted to ask Gunslinger to remake Remnant: From the Ashes with all the systems they’ve put into the sequel. I’ve rarely been pleasantly surprised by a game like Remnant II.
The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales relies on an intriguing concept, and for the most part is quite enjoyable. The adventure sequences are immersive and motivate you to push forward and discover more. The game becomes even more remarkable if we take into account that it has been developed by a team of four people.
Crime O'Clock offers a great time-traveling detective experience and shows what skilled developers can achieve while re-inventing a classic mechanic. All its five era locations are attractive, packed with interesting characters, tons of details, and some truly weird ideas. The black and white look and the colorful case touches complement each other well.
Final Fantasy XVI is one of those very rare masterpieces with issues. Developed by a stellar team, the game shines when it comes to story and combat, but fails in other aspects like narrative structure, itemization and RPG elements.
20 Minutes Till Dawn is an interesting action combat with a rogue-lite structure. The narrative elements are minimal, the presentation doesn’t impress but makes the combat easy to read, but the core gameplay loop is very satisfying. The variety of heroines also gives players a range of play styles, which get further boosted when mixing and matching level upgrades in new ways.
SOULVARS is a complex video game dedicated to fans of classic Japanese role-playing games and, especially, to those who love their deep combat systems. Newcomers might find combat hard to comprehend but the game does offer the resources to understand the mechanics and use them in cool ways.