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Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero is a great 3D arena fighter that honours the core Dragon Ball series and is also a celebration of the classic, and much loved Tenkaichi series.
Metaphor: Refantazio is a big new step for the Studio Zero team and I came away feeling like it was a massive success for the team. It delivered on everything I wanted from it back when I heard about it as Project Re Fantasy as all I really wanted was Persona in a fantasy setting.
Astro Bot delivers on what players have wanted more of since playing Playroom years ago when the PS5 launched. It’s a well designed platformer with a fun mascot character and makes amazing use of the PS5 and DualSense to create a really immersive experience that also looks incredible.
Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club is an amazing offering from Nintendo and a welcome addition of something more mature for their catalogue. It offers a tight and engaging story that fans of mystery stories are really going to get invested in.
Visions of Mana offers a solid JRPG experience with an interesting cast of characters and a world that is fun to explore. I loved the multiple layers of customisation that the game offers to really tailor the experience and your party to exactly how you want to spec them out. I would have appreciated better pacing overall and side quests that were designed better than what we got but the main story mostly makes up for the issues.
The Casting of Frank Stone is a game that I have no issues recommending to fans of horror, and especially to people that like Supermassive’s game structure or the Dead by Daylight series. I loved that this game tried new things with its narrative and that it offered interesting twists and turns along the way that kept me guessing and speculating on what would happen next.
Star Wars: Outlaws delivers on the goal of giving the player the opportunity to live the life of a scoundrel in the Star Wars universe and shows that the story doesn’t need to have Jedis at the forefront to tell an interesting tale. It’s full of colourful and interesting characters, races and locales and the worlds are pact with things to stumble across to keep to busy for many hours.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak offers a fun and engaging JRPG experience and is a great jumping on point for people who may have been overwhelmed by starting the series and unsure of how to take the plunge. It’s packed full of interesting characters and great performances, and its unique combat system helps keep things interesting for the many hours it will take you to beat it.
It’s clear that a lot of effort has gone into the creation of this enhanced version of Shin Megami Tensei V. With a whole new side of the story to play, new endings to uncover and a ton of new demons to collect, it cements itself as the definitive way to now experience SMTV whether it’s your first time going in, or if you have the itch to re-experience it.
Shadow of the Erdtree is what I would call the perfect DLC/Expansion pack and it does everything I want from this kind of content. It builds upon the core systems that made the base game so great, without breaking what was already there, it provides so much new content when it comes to areas to uncover and bosses to defeat.
Sand Land is a game that is very Toriyama though and through. Sure, looking at games like Dragon Quest or Chrono Trigger, they are Toriyama-esque because of his assistance with character designs. But Sand Land is pure Toriyama. It captures his world building, highlights his character and mech designs and best of all it captures the sense of comedy that has been an integral part of many of his works.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is a fantastic next step in the Remake Trilogy. It builds upon what was already established in the first game and has broken down the walls, allowing for a much more open experience that allows for deeper interaction with the game’s world and between the game’s characters.
Persona 3 Reload delivers on the long wanted dream of a Persona 3 remake. It brings one of the series’ best entries into the modern age with a ton of quality of life improvements and new features. It’s certainly a long story, but one filled with an addictive drive to uncover what happens next as there are multiple mysteries you’re simultaneously trying to uncover more about intermingled within the game’s other mechanics and the day-to-day social forward gameplay loop.
There’s a reason that many in the fighting community say that Tekken is the best 3D fighting game and this is another incredible entry in the series. Not only does it have an impressive launch roster of 32 characters at launch that each feel different from one another and cover a wide range of fighting styles, you also have the ability to customise their appearance using the game’s slew of unlockable cosmetic items if you’re into that too.
The Last of Us Part 2 Remaster is the definition of ‘more of a good thing’. It comes with the core game, which itself I still find to be an incredible follow up to the first game along with a surprisingly deep new mode with No Return and a slew of new features that enhance an already great game but now allows it to utilise the improved features of the PS5.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is an amazing revival of a series that hasn’t been given much love in recent years and is an incredible addition to the Metroidvania genre. It’s combat, puzzles and platforming are really satisfying doesn’t overstay it’s welcome when it comes to overall pacing.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is a faithful and welcome addition to the Avatar movie franchise. It takes the established world building and builds upon it with an original quest to provide a way for the player to experience the vibrant yet dangerous world of Pandora first hand. While it does have some room to improve when it comes to late mission and character design, it’s clear that the better parts of Ubisoft’s game catalogue have built Frontiers of Pandora up to what it is. Claiming its traversal and gun play from Far Cry, strategic use of planning and use of technology from Watch Dogs and its stealth and strategy mechanics from Assassin’s Creed.
Alan Wake 2 is unlike anything I’ve ever played. Not since Death Stranding have I experienced a game be allowed to be weird, and stick to it’s creative vision without the need to be confined into pre-defined and understood game designs or structures we’ve experienced hundreds of times before just to pull in as much cash as possible. Alan Wake 2 cleverly integrates music, as well as live action sequences to enhance the way it tells stories and I loved that it took the risk to do so.
This is how sequels should be. They should build upon the events of the original, introduce new complications for our characters, present challenges that will help them grow as they manage to overcome them and introduce new mechanics that change up the gameplay in new and interesting ways. Spider-Man 2 does all of that and more.
Sonic Superstars is a nice return to most of what made 2D Sonic so great in the 90s. It has fun and unique zones to explore, Chaos Emeralds and abilities to find and earn, and the addictive replay value of trying to discover each stage’s secrets and most efficient path all while having an amazing soundtrack to enjoy while you do it.