For players who love cozy games and don’t mind a slightly more structured approach to exploration, Collector’s Cove offers a calm, colorful adventure on the open sea. It may not be the most groundbreaking entry in the genre, but it’s a relaxing voyage that’s easy to enjoy, especially for those of us who want nothing more than to pet all of the animal companions in the gaming world.

If Saviorless is Cuba’s first independent video game, then players are in for an aesthetically pleasing yet moody future of game design that touches on emotional elements that leave a mark on the psyche. Saviorless isn’t the best example of a platformer, but it’s a great start to something truly novel in the platforming space.

Knights Contract should have been a better game, but several poor design choices really hurt the experience. Still, I found it rewarding enough to continue on and discovered that underneath some of the glaring issues, there is a solid game to be found.

In its third mainline iteration, LittleBigPlanet's momentum shifts from a bastion of adaptive entertainment to a lightning rod of tailored inspiration. It's a logical progression, one that sacrifices personal moments of professionally crafted clarity, but in their place is a tidy collection of tools and concepts masquerading as purpose-driven levels – and the hope that talented players will embrace enough of them to fill in LittleBigPlanet 3's considerable gaps in content.

Among the Sleep puts the player behind the eyes of a two-year old and tasks them with surviving a series of wildly traumatizing scenarios. Careful hands and compassionate minds push Among the Sleep's delicate subject matter away from abject immorality, however, not with enough guidance to pivot an honest story into a capable game.

This kind of game is a welcome change to the farming/life RPG genre. If you are a player that enjoys fishing in games, then this is the game for you because it’s all fishing, all the time. Moonglow Bay is overall a fun, relaxing game, but it struggles with controls, game-breaking bugs, and glitches that can ruin the game.

Once Upon a Puppet excels in its ability to build a fantastical world cobbled together from the dilapidated remains of opulence. As a 2.5D platformer, the game’s attempts to use the genre’s foundations are often mixed. Clever puzzles and bursts of action go hand-in-hand with movement that can often not feel fluid and satisfying enough. But players open to the game’s charm should be able to ignore the blemishes and enjoy the moments that truly shine.

Dark Souls is one of the most important and powerful games ever made. Switch is the least pleasant place to play it. It works—this is still Dark Souls and Dark Souls is still very good—but sacrifices in presentation and control scream inferiority next to original and Remastered editions of the same game.

Banned Footage Vol. 1 is a test to grade how well Resident Evil 7's innate talents extend past survival horror. As a wave based survival game, it is eager but routine. As a grueling roguelike, it is chaotic and formally aggravating. As an escape room, however, its fiendish motif fits neatly inside of a clever and contained challenge. All three accumulate to a zealous B-, which is a clean score for Resident Evil 7's first post-graduate exam.

Mind Control Delete reforms Superhot’s signature slow motion power fantasy into the shape of a procedurally generated roguelike. It retains the shiny spartan aesthetic, the bellicose narrative, and the most satisfying first-person shooter gimmick of the last decade, but the twists and tweaks behind its operation don’t alter its basic complexion. Superhot felt euphoric when it was new. Mind Control Delete can only reheat that sensation of extravagance.

The story is unique but a little slow for a major portion of the game. And, though the game does last for around 20 hours, there is nothing more than the main game to keep you playing.

Sublevel Zero's novelty is how faithfully it resurrects concepts of a fallen genre. It's cool that Sigtrap Games made a game like Descent, but pressing those ideas inside the mold of a roguelike leaves a significant amount of empty space.

Indifferent to the temptations of aberration and bombast, Element4l's Spartan aesthetic plays nicely with its devotion to pure platforming. It also buries Element4l's identity beneath waves of difficulty and a few inventive tricks. Still, seeing Element4l to its conclusion is enjoyable enough, and worth it for moments of earned validation.

Ori and the Blind Forest imparts a beautiful and intricate framework of the platforming and progression that came to define latter day Castlevania and Metroid titles, but it can't muster the same technical and design prowess to fuel its own ideas. This leaves Ori as an adequate model of its revered genre, just short of the execution and innovation that could have made it exemplary.

This is a twin-stick shooter that would feel at home as a Konami title during the mid 90s. With an engaging enough gameplay core, it’s certainly a good ride, especially if you have any desire to climb the leaderboards once your weekend with it is over.

An almost equal number of significant pros and cons make Mad Max an interesting and polarizing title. Ultimately, it's a game I would recommend, but with some due caution as described in the article.

A heart of gold surrounded by endless color makes it all easier to swallow, but you're left wondering what could have been had The Last Tinker's gameplay come on as strong as its presentation.

In 2020, Saints Row IV: Re-Elected’s combat feels prosaic, its glut of content perfunctory, and its humor antiquated. It’s great on Switch but actually playing it feels like looking through a weird interactive museum.

Portraying the casual indifference from nature to it residents is a neat idea, but Shelter can't come up with enough ways to cleverly explore that relationship. The message is clear pretty early on and a change in scenery and context isn't enough to make it any more interesting. It sure is beautiful, though, and as the final scene fades away you can't help but smile.

On the basis of the shifted gameplay loop involving racing against the clock, Fate of the Phoenix presents a more hectic, difficult, yet rewarding way to play Europa Universalis V.

AO Tennis 2 is this generation's Top Spin 4. It takes over a baton that has been carried through mis-steps and let-downs as tennis fans young and old finally have a game worth their time and effort. It's not perfect by any stretch but up against the competition and its predecessor it stands head-and-shoulders above them.

Windbound is a fun experience that breaks the survival game mold. The boat crafting and sailing are innovative features that were exciting to explore. Although the positives were very strong, the quality of life issues made the experience tedious. Windbound excels in standing alone in a saturated genre, but doesn't shine through enough.

F1 Race Stars isn't a disaster by any means, but it certainly needs improvement. More importantly, it needs to take itself less seriously in some areas. There's still some fun to be had here, though.

Guayota contains a great deal of difficulty and tested my patience quite well. I loved how it implemented puzzles in a way that isolated puzzles on a per-dungeon basis. However, I wanted a bigger payoff from completing its more difficult-levels, and I wanted the light version of the levels to have something to ease the difficulty. That said, Guayota was a great test of my logic and reasoning skills in the few hours I spent in-game. I loved the aesthetic, design, and general level construction, so it’s worth playing if you’re interested in an indie gem with unique puzzles for an afternoon playthrough.

Dolmen has wonderful visuals, interesting concepts, and a soundtrack that goes great with the feeling of the story. A sticking point could be the difficulty of the enemies and the issues with struggling to progress, which might make it hard for the players to stay engaged at times. That said, if you are looking forward to a challenge with tougher enemies than usual, alongside futuristic yet apocalyptic graphics, this is the game for you!

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers is really a Final Fantasy game in name and setting only. It features almost no role-playing elements and focuses much more heavily instead on exploration and adventure.

Stasis has its quirks and shortcomings, but its atmosphere and compelling descent into deeper and deeper levels of a proverbial Hell make it worth sticking through.

NBA 2K25 from developer Visual Concepts and publisher 2K has a lot of intriguing and fun modes it offers from MyCareer to MyTeam, and MyGM, if you love that sort of control. It seems to have a nice spread of goods that caters to almost every basketball interest out there. Sadly, its need to stay online for single-player experiences and its need for smoother less animation-locked gameplay mechanics hurts the experience considerably.