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EA Sports College Football 2025 is the return of college football that sports gaming fans have been waiting for. There's enough here to keep the avid and dedicated fans around for a good while, with Dynasty Mode and Road to Glory taking center stage. Control over dynasty players, playing defense, and not fully showing what controls are bring down the experience quite a bit, especially in the beginning hours. EA Sports College Football 25 is not for everyone, but fans will get enough out of it to keep the franchise coming back around each year, hopefully with improvements.
Nobody Wants To Die was the game I didn't realize I needed to play this year until I played it. A fantastic narrative experience set in one of the most harrowing worlds. Though its gameplay is by the books, it didn't keep me from being thoroughly entertained from start to finish. For those looking for a cyberpunk murder mystery, you don't need to look further than Nobody Wants To Die.
Despite wearing many of its influences on its sleeve, CONSCRIPT never ends up feeling derivative, instead it carves out its own identity through a raw, layed portrayal of trench warfare. There are some slight rough edges, to be expected in-part due to the game largely being a sole venture, but nevertheless CONSCRIPT hits where it matters and succeeds in creating an affecting depiction of its source material.
Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn mixes up the action-RPG formula a little bit, allowing you to control and risk your currency to earn more. Combine that with a flashy, engaging combat system with a thoughtful difficulty adjustment system, and you have a recipe for a good time. Exploration tends to drag down the experience, with many side paths running far too long for what you find in them. Parrying also lacks the kind of refinement necessary to truly make combat shine. Aside from these balancing issues, Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn is still a solid Soulsborne affair worth checking out.
As long as you don't expect anything genre-defining, Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus is a breathtaking Metroidvania experience. The art style is gorgeous, the action-platforming is fast and satisfying, and the sweet modesty of its tale is though-provoking and gentle. Path of the Teal Lotus is a little heavy with the tutorials at the beginning, boss battles later on get frustrating, and it doesn't do anything remarkably new, but fans of Hollow Knight will find this a gratifying curio that's well worth diving into, even if the pool here is a little bit shallow.
SCHiM is a wonderfully inventive puzzle-platformer that challenges you to explore a familiar world through a completely different lens. A distinct visual style and soundtrack marry with an effective story all about overcoming obstacles and remembering what life is all about. I found myself absolutely absorbed by the world and the satisfying loop of jumping from puddle to puddle. SCHiM is a must-play in a year already full of hits. SCHiM is a game that I will come back to time and time again when needing to unwind and relax.
Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess is a wonderfully innovative fusion of genres that managed to take me on a journey from frustration to being totally absorbed in the world that it offers. Across a lengthy campaign, everything comes together to create a story that feels well and truly realised. Some rough edges do little to diminish just how impressed I am in how quickly this game managed to turn me around. While it might take a while for it to truly soar, it soars high.
Flock doesn't care about you, but kind of in the best way. A chill game that lets you be as chill as you want, while flying around providing you with charming tasks involving even more charming creatures. It's lack of care at times a curse as much as it is a blessing, Flock is in many ways the perfect cozy game either on your own or with friends.
Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail delivers in all the ways players should expect a FFXIV expansion to do so, and upped the quality bar with a graphical update that really makes it a beautiful expansion to explore. Long time players might find it to be a bunch of old stuff done up in a new way, it's in many ways an improvement from what's come before, and that's all I can ask for.
Until Then stands as a heartening example of a narrative adventure game and manages to strike a chord with its delicate balance of the supernatural and highschool drama. Managing to deftly avoid the tropes that dominate the space, every choice in Until Then feels intentional and every interaction feels far more earnest than some of its contemporaries. I very much enjoyed experiencing this story and being able to almost relive some of my own silly highschool stories through the eyes of Mark. Lying underneath the teenage awkwardness is a story about growth and acceptance, and it is one that everyone will be able to see themselves in.
The Land Beneath Us is a fun roguelike with puzzle-esque combat that is easy to learn, yet will make you think if you want to do well in later stages. If you enjoy the genre or were curious about trying it out, I feel that there are few games that I would recommend before The Land Beneath Us.
Scholar's Mate puts you in a cramped scenario filled with pursuit and hard escape room puzzles to solve. While this sounds good, this game may not be for everyone, Pacing can feel uneven, and the constant pursuit can be aggravating when trying to solve multiple puzzles. Still, there's something fun here for horror fans and puzzle lovers, especially since the game only asks for $12.99.
The Legend Of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak is one of the year's best RPGs. From its fantastic combat that looks to innovate and push the franchise, genre forward, and its storytelling. It may not be the best story in the series, but its character development is some of the best out there. After twenty years and almost eleven games, The Legend of Heroes franchises are finally poised to compete with the best of the best.
The Elder Scrolls Online: The Gold Road is brimming with new things to see and do, and the Scribing mechanic is a fantastic addition to the base game. With new enemies, solid visuals and a compelling narrative to follow, The Gold Road is a path worth traversing.
The Quintessential Quintuplets: Memories of a Quintessential Summer is fun yet forgettable filler for fans that already are invested in the series and can't get enough of the five Nakano sisters. What you get here is an average and easy visual novel with an inconsequential story and unfortunate quality control issues with its English version.
A Little to the Left: Seeing Stars offers more of what made the original campaign great. Imaginative puzzle design and new layers of complexity offer a compelling challenge for players who might have exhausted the already impressive catalogue of challenges. Despite the slight imprecision that comes with the territory of this type of puzzler on controller, I found myself enjoying this set of puzzles to a great degree. Impressive scope and out-of-the-box thinking means that this is an expansion that no fan should miss.
The core concept of Backpack Hero is one with incredible potential for an awesome conbination of two classic genres, but the result feels slightly muddled and confused in the final product. Where the foundations are solid, convoluted and poor explanations of complex mechanics lead to an experience that left me scratching my head more than a few times, and not in the intended way. Despite oozing with personality from the very beginning, and offering a wide variety of content to sink your teeth into, I didn't find myself meshing with the offerings on show here. Sometimes less, is undoubtedly more.
Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree is far more out of an expansion than I ever thought it would be, and my expectations were already a little high. While I have personal gripes with what I see to be missed chances, that doesn't stop it from being spectacular on the whole. This expansion feels like it fully completes Elden Ring, a game that already felt like a whole project, in a way I didn't even know it needed to be completed. I can no longer imagine Elden Ring being without Shadow Of The Erdtree, almost like the Realm Of Shadow was there the whole time.
#Blud is chock-full of charm, character and great writing. While being quite linear, there are things to find, explore and see. The combat evolves at a nice pace and some of the bosses are massive and enjoyable to take on. A few minor issues aside, there is a lot to like in this witty, bright and brash adventure. Plus, who doesn't like clubbing vampires with a hockey stick? I certainly do!
What it lacks in any challenge, it certainly makes up for in authenticity. Still Wakes The Deep provides some excellent lovecraftian horror on board the eery yet original location that is the Beira D. Dedicated and genuine performances from the cast of often relatable roughnecks drive home an engaging story in what ultimately become one of my favorite horror games in recent memory.