This is a decent, entry-level horror adventure, one that will last for about an hour, and offer a nice mysterious story, and the general feeling that something is out to get you. Not exactly a gem in the world of lo-fi PS1-styled indies, but most are recommended to try it out if given the chance.

Find Pick My Heart Chapter 1 at about the same price as a coffee and it will offer you about two days of relaxing reading, involving some mild romance, some mild humour, and some mild mystery revolving around Greek Goddesses. It's not something special, though, so let it be said once more. Approach only if found really cheap…

Despite its age, Donkey Kong Country Returns HD maintains exceptional quality, offering engaging platforming sequences, visually impressive set-pieces, dazzling vistas, and a high level of difficulty. While the majority of collectibles offer limited in-game value beyond unlocking mirror mode, their inherent appeal, driven by ingrained desire, compels players to seek them out. It's highly replayable and highly addictive, leaving gamers eager to keep playing. It is disappointing that this remaster doesn't include anything new for veterans, but when the foundation is so enjoyable, it's hard to be dissatisfied.

In an age when it seems like bigger is always seen as better, Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana is a lovely reminder of the fun in a restrained JRPG that simply focuses on telling an engaging story without all the added trimmings around it. While this remaster of the Windows and PSP games is not reinventing the wheel, with similar visuals and the same combat system, the core gameplay here is sure to win round a whole new set of fans who may not have played any of the original titles or even a previous Ys game. The characters are extremely likeable and the combat system - while definitely having its frustrating challenges - is hard not to get a ton of satisfaction from.

The biggest mistake in game design is making a player feel totally disinterested on what's going on in front of their eyes - twice as big of a mistake in the actionless genre of city-builders, because unless given a strong incentive to do what needs to be done, it all feels like tedious, boring work. In Aquatico no one will feel as if they are helping a group of people survive the end of the world. You are basically a project manager of the slowest, least demanding project, where almost everything is done without much input on your behalf.

If in search for the next best thing in adventures, A Vampyre Story isn't it. While it has some issues, and an obvious lack of polish at places, it definitely has its moments, and some of these moments are awesome. It's not perfect, but genre fans will enjoy the three or so evenings they'll spend on it, with its humour, likable protagonist, and beautiful vistas being the best things on offer… and the fact that this is basically a Part One of a Part Two that never came (and probably never will) ruining the experience.

Life is Strange: Double Exposure offers up some delightfully engrossing story beats and it's easy to get wrapped up in the mystery of the tale. There's a lot to like here with Max's character development feeling fulfilling and the potential for this arc to spawn an even wider tale if the twist at the end is anything to go by. Generally speaking, the performances of the cast are all of a high quality. Where Double Exposure somewhat loses its focus is during the final chapter or two, when the plot seems to fully lean into the supernatural beyond the interesting character development. Some general technical issues with dialogue and graphics also unfortunately result in a frustrating sense of being stripped out of the immersion. Overall, for fans of the series and those who just like a good adventure tale, Double Exposure is worth enjoying.

With the majority of first-person games being rubbish, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is an incredible surprise. With the team behind Wolfenstein, it really shouldn't have been. An incredibly fun experience from start to finish with a fantastic story, beautiful environments, taxing puzzles and a fantastic score Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is the definitive Indy experience in gaming and, dare I say, all media? (no).

5 minutes of Spellagis is fun… but it remains the same even after 5000 minutes. There simply is no variety to speak of. The arenas, the enemies, the abilities of your auto-shooting mage - they are all extremely unimaginative. In essence, this is entertaining enough to keep most playing it until they reach 100% completion rate… which is easy to do in one single day.

A poor addition in the "series," Pretty Girls Pop Match is an enjoyable Match-3 title, but it's so light in content (even when it comes to the pretty girls themselves) that most are advised to play any other of the dozens of free alternatives that are out there.

In spite of its technical issues, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy is still an engrossing and tense collection of some of the best twitch-based survival-horror action RPG that also happens to be set in a radioactive Russian wasteland. The atmosphere in these titles are some of the best executed and the gameplay is very deep when it works. It is fair to see why many prefer S.T.A.L.K.E.R. over Metro since it offers an immersive sim-like experience on an ambitious scale for its time, while also having just enough magical elements that keep the universe a little bit of a mystery.

By Mario RPG standards, this is not one of the better ones, particularly when it comes to the pacing, design, and story. What saves Mario & Luigi: Brothership from sinking completely is the strategically engaging and fun battle system, delightful animations that go hand-in-hand with the cartoony art style, and the excellent soundtrack. Other gameplay ideas miss their target, and things become a drag far too quickly.

Trepang2 is a very fun and surprisingly accomplished FPS that thrives on its physical and fast-paced action combat. Players who don't mind the simpler aesthetics will find a game that has a certain catharsis that up until now was pretty much only scratched by the original F.E.A.R.. It is more than worth a look and comes recommended on PlayStation 5.

Almost every single one of the so-called "boomer shooters" tends to focus almost entirely on fast, high-octane action. WRATH: Aeon of Ruin fools you by thinking it's the same as them but it isn't. Oh, sure, it has plenty combat to satiate your need for killing evil things with cool weapons, but you are also meant to soak into its strong dark fantasy atmosphere, and spend hours exploring its beautiful, vast realms. While it has its flaws, with chief among them its needlessly large maps, it's safe to call this trip back to the magic of the past a modern classic of the genre.

No matter which way players choose to experience Broken Sword - Shadow of the Templars: Reforged, it's still a very compelling point-and-click adventure game with awesome art and animation. The compressed sound is unfortunate and the additions from the Director's Cut are sadly excluded. As it stands, there is no definitive version of Broken Sword - Shadow of the Templars and Reforged missed the opportunity to have it all.

Deceptively sweet graphics bely a terrifying tale full of extremely dark-humour-plot-twists in this mind-bending adventure. Before the Night certainly leaves a lot of questions unanswered and doubts of reality in this pet ownership tale, with few imperfections in the Nintendo Switch version. Playing after dark requires extra courage for those more easily frightened, horror veterans should be delighted by the experience.

Bloober Team's Silent Hill 2 Remake is an interesting game. It successfully freshens up the presentation of the original story while tastefully expanding the gameplay through a modern gaming frame. Their handling of boss fights, monster behaviours and puzzles makes this title a fun time through and through, despite the depressing nature of the atmosphere and story. The new takes on characters offer increased depth through new facial capture and the voice actors successfully revise some of the more complex, awkward dialogue exchanges in a manner befitting of the original title. Akira Yamoaka slays with a fantastic remix of the soundtrack and Ito does some masterful redesigning of the horrific creatures. If there was a way to remake Silent Hill 2 this was it.

Days of Doom had a lot of potential, but an utterly unforgiveable amount of hard crashes 'doom' much of its hope for a decent experience. Even when it is not crashing, there were just too many things that really should have been different. Classes are far too boring, plenty of missed opportunities for more weapons, any skills, or any sort of depth. For people looking for a game that had good potential, but blew it so badly, this is a good example to study.

As a relaxing life sim Rune Factory 5 certainly has a cozy home on Nintendo Switch. The dozens of hours of gameplay extend beyond finishing the main story, with levels to be maxed out, new equipment forged and even a new dungeon to explore, making the occasional lack of clarity of next steps a minor issue in the deservedly popular farming title.

To its credit, Touch Detective 3 + The Complete Case Files offers a lot of value since it is three adventures games plus new DLC scenarios that were created for the iOS versions. These are milquetoast and boring adventure games where the humour probably landed better in Japanese. The hand-drawn backgrounds and character designs are appealing, but get used to seeing them be recycled across all three titles. The wait for the third Touch Detective does not seem like it was something gamers were begging for. Anyone who enjoyed the first two will likely be happy the with third entry since it is more of the same, but fans of the point-and-click adventure genre will probably find these to be uneventful and dull.

Ys X: Nordics isn't a bad game, but it's not great either. The graphics don't look any better than when Ys VIII came out years ago on older systems. The story and characters are passable, but in a crowded field of games, this isn't enough anymore. The time spent on this game felt more like a reminder of what it could have been rather than an entertaining adventure. One's enjoyment of this is going to be directly proportional to if someone wants 'more of the same' of the recent Falcom formula. It is clearly selling, so the trend is likely to continue for better or worse, but there is a lot here that is tough to recommend except for diehard series fans.

Shin-chan: Shiro and the Coal Town takes what made the previous Shin-chan game good and adds a twist of intrigue that is much stronger than the latter's plot. There is a lot of fun to be had in Shin-chan's new adventure in Coal Town and a good relaxing holiday story to boot. The dedication to matching the visual and writing style of the Shin-chan universe makes this a joy to experience and a fantastic pickup for those who pine for summer during the cold seasons! It's a satisfying little adventure story with a ton of very odd humour and a really unique design.

Bloomtown: A Different Story wanted to be a lot of things. A relaxing summer vacation, an adventure filled with mysteries to solve, a real-life sim, and an RPG with neat combat mechanics plus a creature capture system. It's not bad (far from it), but by trying to juggle too many balls in the air, it fails at remaining engaging for more than a couple of hours, as it becomes obvious that there's not much depth underneath the beautiful pixel art wrapping.

Super Mario Party Jamboree is a continued return to form for the Mario Party series, blending the core formula with colourful splashes of the new and inventive. Nintendo has elevated what made the series special through a wide selection of fun mini-games, expansive boards and a mix of additional modes/challenges.

At its core, Little Goody Two Shoes is a survival management game that incorporates dating sim elements and Wario Ware-style micro-games. The micro-games can be obnoxious at times and the story won't be everyone's cup of tea considering the target audience this game caters to, but it is hard to not be swept up in the artistry poured into the presentation.

After cooking up extremely original ideas with the latest 3D entries in the series, it is great to see Nintendo apply this lust for originality to top-down Legend of Zelda, too. There isn't a lot to be said for difficulty, and, like Tears of the Kingdom before it, certain gameplay features can be abused to make the quest easier, but the key thing about Echoes of Wisdom is that it is so much fun to play. The 3D games got their much-needed shake-up, and now the top-down format has received it for the better, as well. It was far too long of a wait for Princess Zelda to get her playable role in the series that bears her name, but this is an excellent start to hopefully bigger things to come.

DOOM + DOOM II packaged id Software's classics, threw in a couple of additional settings, two OST remakes, a couple of minor improvements here and there, and some tasty, tasty mod support. All that kind of makes this the best port available right now, but it will be hard to convince anyone but diehard DOOM funs to spend any money if already in possession of this legendary FPS duo. Then again, if DOOM or DOOM II is in your library, then there's no price-tag attached.

There are worse soulslikes out there than Skautfold: Shrouded in Sanity, but there are far better ones as well. There's a somewhat good 2D Bloodborne experience somewhere here, hidden under repetitive, unimpressive, and unpolished combat, and a decent-to-forgettable atmosphere and plot. Enter its gothic world only if really starving for this type of game, and only if the price is right.