Deathloop is a tremendously stylish stealth-action game that builds on Arkane's strengths, even if some of its creative gambles fall flat.

After years of waiting, it pains me to say Final Fantasy VII Remake fails to truly impress. The classic storyline — or at least what’s on offer here — benefits greatly from generous and stellar voice acting, but how you extract the tale of a generation is nothing short of a slog. Running up and down corridors and staircases for dozens of hours is a drag, and while the combat system can, at times, offer up brawls that put MMO raids to shame, mountains of fluff and a combat system that can’t settle on a single style make this one feel like a slight step back from the already problematic Final Fantasy XV. There’s very little freedom of movement here. Just a linear campaign with not much else to offer.

Final Fantasy XVI delivers on the “action” side of its action-RPG formula. A fierce and fast-paced combat system makes for the series’ most exciting stab at real-time swordplay yet, while its blockbuster Eikon fights rank among some of gaming’s most awe-inspiring battles. But there’s a general flatness surrounding those exhilarating highs, as shallow RPG hooks and dated design leave a promising evolution for the series stuck in the past.

Neva may not be the most complex 2D platformer, but it still might make you cry.

If you can get around the obscene difficulty of having to survive brutally challenging, checkpoint-lite platforming gauntlets, creative level design still makes it worth confronting Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze‘s frustrations.

Dragon Ball FighterZ’ is the first Dragon Ball game everyone should play.

Dragon's Dogma 2 is an exhilarating, if occasionally frustrating, RPG full of dynamic player-driven moments.

Echoes of Wisdom’s best parts are the ones that break away from what’s expected. My favorite moments largely happen in Still World rifts, where I need to carve my own path through twisted snippets of Hyrule’s world using echoes. I’m attuned with Zelda most when I find a large gap I can’t pass, but realize I can get to the other side by grabbing hold of a flying tile with my bind ability and following its path. In clever puzzle platform moments like that, I feel like I'm tapping into her third of the Triforce; I’m using her wisdom to meet any challenge that arises. And I’m doing that by drawing on her connection to all things within her kingdom and communicating her eternal royalty through tangible play.

Lies of P makes it clear that developer Neowiz has a deep appreciation and understanding for FromSoftware;s games that goes beyond a surface-level copy.

Assassin's Creed Shadows finds peace and quiet amid a flurry of repetitive violence.

Dragon Age: Inquisition is BioWare’s strongest effort to date, but the massive scope of the world comes at no small cost.

Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector balances survival stress and transhumanist optimism, even if those ideas are sometimes at odds with one another.

A Plague Tale: Requiem is a fantastic sequel on several counts. It improves on its predecessor in just about every way by finely tuning its stealth and navigation systems, adding more gameplay variety, and delivering a visually stunning world that puts games with much larger budgets to shame. Its weak spot comes down to its messy storytelling, which exposes the thematic limits of a medium that’s over reliant on violence as its primary form of interaction.

While it commits its fair share of game design sins, Blasphemous 2 delivers a rewarding, unsettling Metroidvania that's worthy of some devotion.

Mortal Kombat 1's creative Kameo system helps reinvent the classic fighting series, but poor single-player offerings feel like a step back.

Hogwarts Legacy delivers a perfectly competent adventure, but its most unforgivable curse is its lack of imagination. Despite having access to an entire universe of possibilities, its sole trick is using magic to cover up tired video game clichés that feel entirely disconnected from the vibrant source material it’s adapting. The only unique aspect it brings to the open-world genre is franchise branding, making for a shallow experience that doesn’t offer much more than wish fulfillment for fans unable to let go of a dream.

Resident Evil Village boils all the best and worst parts of the franchise down into an eclectic, though uneven experience.

I hesitate to call Super Mario RPG an improvement over the 1996 version. It’s still the same whimsical adventure that I’ll never tire of playing, but it loses a bit of what made the original special amid a stack of tweaks that go both too far and not far enough. I imagine that a lot of players will stick to the original on future replays, opting to soak in its dense pixels and dark landscapes.

Doom: The Dark Ages delivers another dose of reliable thrills by building on the foundation established by its excellent predecessors. The power fantasy of it all is more potent than ever, but Id Software’s experiment in excess proves that there is such a thing as “too much” when it comes to video game spectacle.

Despite its rough edges, Hellblade is often stunning, and approaches mental illness with a unique blend of traditional storytelling and interactive mechanics. If you’re more interested in a stylish action game, there are certainly better options out there, but one thing is clear: No game will leave you feeling like Hellblade does.

Without the scads of small talk, Persona Q feels lost in the shadow of its parent series.

MLB The Show 20 is another home run thanks to its refined gameplay and many modes.

NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139… confirms that the original NieR was both way ahead of its time and far behind it. The story is tremendously captivating and it’s only gotten better with newly added content. On the other side of the coin, the repetitive gameplay feels outdated even by 2010 standards. Those who press through the 30-hour adventure will be rewarded with a bold narrative odyssey. It may even outdo NieR Automata in retrospect, but it’s hard to blame anyone who’d rather watch it all on YouTube instead of playing it for themselves.

Triangle Strategy delivers smart tactics, but battles play second fiddle to its dull political lore.

Starfield isn’t the generation-defining video game that overeager fans might be expecting; it’s a fairly typical, though impressively constructed Bethesda RPG where depth and stability often come at the expense of scope. The surprisingly limited base adventure isn’t so much the draw here, though. The enormous intergalactic playground feels custom-made for modders who want to explore the infinite possibilities of space just as much as Constellation and Bethesda itself.

Yes, FIFA 19 is largely the same game you got last year, especially if you don’t care about the campaign mode, The Journey. That said, it reliably delivers the excellent soccer simulation fans are looking for. While the new features don’t compliment what’s already there, they also don’t hinder an otherwise solid experience. Those who start playing FIFA 19 will find it very difficult to stop.

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands gets lost in its attempt to offer players more choice than ever before, ultimately forgetting to restock the reward machine needed to keep patrons invested.

Pokémon Legends: Arceus is a step in the right direction for the aging series, even if its technical limits can't always support its ambitions.