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Phantom Blade Zero is a spectacularly satisfying action game that rewards precise combat and experimentation of its extensive arsenal. Its ‘Kungfupunk’ world and dance-like martial arts choreography make a strong impression, but convoluted storytelling and some frustrating navigation, as well as a confused soundtrack, holds it short of becoming a legend in its art.
Penguin Colony is an inspired reimagining of Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness. Putting aside some awkwardness in presentation, Penguin Colony is a raw, assured rhetorical march through a wintry landscape toward a mountain dripping with horrors both unknown and painfully known.
Planet Zoo 2 is, in my opinion, one of the best management sims ever made.
With a genre as saturated as the soulslike action RPG, Valor Mortis feels like a breath of fresh air.
Silver Pines draws plenty of inspiration from its contemporaries, but unlike other love letters to gaming and television classics, it finds the means to make things its own. While it fails to sell me on the combination of the horror and Metroidvania genres, Silver Pines’ fascinating premise, thought-provoking ending, and remarkable art direction kept me seated from beginning to end.
STAR WARS: Galactic Racer is fast and dangerous ‘runs-based’ game with surprisingly deep mechanics without losing sight of what makes an arcade racer fun... Sci-fi arcade racers should be ridiculously quick and feel like your vehicle might fall apart at any moment, and for me, that's what makes this a genuinely impressive racing game in its own right.
End of Abyss is a creepy adventure whose charm takes time to settle in.
Toem 2 is a wonderful little game to explore. It feels like a vacation from the real world with fun gameplay, cute characters and delightful music and sound design.
Nocturne's RPG wrappings, strong narrative and varied difficulty settings do a lot to make what is normally a fairly impenetrable genre accessible and enjoyable.
Though it’s heavy-handed with its themes, they’re also raw and easy to connect with and empathise with. It’s a shame the pacing falls short, as the mystery is engaging and the story becomes increasingly compelling just as the game comes to an abrupt end.
Control Resonant is another excellent addition to Remedy Entertainment's connected universe project.
Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave delivers another comforting title, bringing a lot of what worked from recent titles Three Houses, Engage, and Echoes all into one. While its story is grandiose and epic, it’s longer than it needs to be, leading to a massively bloated Part 1 and a weirdly streamlined Parts 2 and 3.
Dressmaker is a delightful game that can be enjoyed in short bursts or for hours at a time.
Box Knight reflects the workplace frustrations we have whenever a company gets acquired. By fighting back and showing what capitalism should provide, it’s a cathartic experience. It’s a tough game to play, and if the premise doesn’t appeal to you, you likely won’t continue playing. Give it a chance, and you might find your next best way to relieve after-work stress.
Orbitals is an absolutely stunning love letter to classic anime, perfectly capturing a beloved 20th-century aesthetic and delivering an engaging and beautifully told narrative to boot. Beyond its visuals, it lets you and a mate explore an intriguing intergalactic universe and wield a fun array of space-tech to get through each of its tight puzzle-platforming sequences. It’s joyful, stylistic, heaps of fun, and doesn’t outstay its welcome – a perfect excuse to cuddle up on the couch with a loved one.
Rhythm Paradise Groove is an enjoyable experience for players of all skill levels when it comes to rhythm games. Easy to pick up for short bursts of playtime, and with a smooth difficulty curve, this is a great instalment to the franchise, and one that can provide a great entry point into the genre. With over 80 new games to play and 30 unique co-op and competitive minigames to jump into at any time, plus a whole host of extra activities to check out, there’s no shortage of fun to be had.
Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy is an agreeable set of straightforward action-adventure environments and gameplay to the point that it ends up feeling like a shadow of the emotionally devastating, narrative-driven stealth series that founded it. Fortunately, the stunning visuals and intricate designs of the island’s many landscapes, tremendous music, an engaging central mystery, and the delectable challenge it offers on its higher difficulty levels more than make up for the parts that left me soured.
Star Wars: Zero Company is a cinematic tactics extravaganza of Star Wars storytelling and strategy. A memorable and diverse cast of dysfunctional characters at the margins of the galaxy carries you through an adventure of stellar scripted and emergent moments, a sandbox of compelling tactical decisions and an assured debut of a videogame from Bit Reactor that scratched my tactical itch with the strength of a superlaser.
Mortal Shell II is a promising evolution over its predecessor, yet it doesn’t feel as polished as it perhaps aspires to be. With its occasionally repetitive and frustrating-to-navigate environments and lack of much of a plot, some imperfections may turn away some players. That said, Mortal Shell II’s large variety of Shells, weapons and Tarstones and engaging combat system ultimately provides a mostly satisfying experience for Soulslike fans.
FEED IT takes something painfully complex and distils it into a surreal horror experience without losing sight of the disturbing realities. It focuses on psychological abuse, control and survival then lets the low-fi visual atmosphere do the work. It’s quick, but branching endings and its meaningful themes make its hour-long runtime worthwhile. Short, nasty and very uneasy but sometimes that's exactly what horror needs to be.