Far bigger in scope than any of its predecessors, Megadimension Neptunia VII has nevertheless managed to retain its focus over what fans enjoy about the series most; its humour and its fan service.

I’ve rarely been as delighted in simply immersing myself into a game as I’ve been with GNOG.

This seems like the type of title that would have been a potentially risky endeavour when it was first brought over to North America, but now Phoenix Wright is one of the most recognised DS properties out there. It would be great to see more like it.

For my first experience with the Luigi's Mansion series, I had such a good time. Boiled down it's a fairly simple riff on GhostBusters, but Luigi's Mansion has been produced with such a sense of humour and eye for detail that it has a personality and uniquely Nintendo quality all of its own. Halloween always brings the deluge of seasonably-themed games, and so many of them aim for a true kind of horror. Nintendo tops the pack this year with something that revels in the silliness of the season, and it does so with panache.

Many people may simply look at King’s Quest and think it’s cashing in on an old series and taking advantage of the revival of point and clickers. It is so much more. The Odd Gentlemen is such a small team, but Creative Director Matt Corba should be given some sort of award for his work with this game. He, and his team, handled the canon of the previous games beautifully, while managing to weave an entirely new and just as endearing storyline into it. The team might not have had an IP like The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones to work with, but King’s Quest does everything right.

New Pokémon Snap is a delight to play. It's bright, colourful, and overflowing with personality and while it does become a little too "grindy" for its own good, the core gameplay hasn't evolved much from the N64 original, and that's a very good thing indeed. Nintendo may have launched this in and around a lot of big blockbuster stuff (Returnal AND Resident Evil Village has been a big win for Sony over the last week), but then those games are so darned hardcore that New Pokémon Snap is exactly the antidote to them that I have needed.

F1 is my preferred format for racing, and I would argue that Codemasters as given more respect to the F1 license in building it up over the last few years than anyone else. F1 2020 is on the cusp of being a top-flight annual licensed sports game like 2K's NBA, EA's FIFA and Sony's MLB The Show, and it has managed to get there without nickel-and-diming consumers to anywhere the same extent. This year's edition might be iterative on the track, but the off-track improvements show that Codemasters hasn't yet run out of ideas yet either.

I hope this is just the start for Pathfinder in video games, and I like the future that Kingmaker promises. It's a major time commitment, sure, but Pathfinder: Kingmaker has the kind of narrative arc and development that perfectly captures the essence of playing a tabletop RPG, only in digital form. That's something that I haven't really felt since the era of Baldur's Gate itself and for that I really appreciated what the developers have achieved her.

Ultimately though, I just want to play the story mode over and over. The missions in Mafia: Definitive Edition are artfully made – they’re eventful, emotionally rich, and deeply fascinating in their representation of the human psyche. It’s the exact same appeal as watching a movie like The Godfather, and wondering just what the characters must be thinking as they hold a gun up to another man’s face. Mafia: Definitive Edition’s narrative means something. It forces players to critically assess the life and crimes of Tommy Angelo as he tells his story to a police informant. Do we, the player, forgive him? Do we understand him? Could the impulses which drove him to do what he did, also exist within us? These questions were in the original Mafia, buried beneath the complex gameplay and 2002 era production values – but in Definitive Edition, they’re right at the forefront, staring the player in the face. Hangar 13 have done an amazing job in modernising Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven into a truly powerful narrative experience, one which I hope that fans of the original will be pleasantly surprised by.

It has taken me an age to review this game – it was released a month ago – because one of the good things about a slow-paced slice-of-life visual novel is that you can mess around with it in between playing other things, but it has never been far out of my mind as I’ve played it. To fully appreciate it you’ve got to be comfortable with glacial pacing and an earnest attempt to take something that looks like it should be fanservicey and give you something to think about instead. Calibrate your expectations just right and SINce Memories: Off the Starry Sky may just surprise you.

AI: The Somnium Files – nirvanA Initiative is an exceptional game that hits the same beats as the original, while introducing plenty of fun new characters and a winding, complex plot that is going to keep you second-guessing right to the end. If only we had more games that respected the intelligence of their players like this one does.

It is sharp, witty, intelligent, and just the right shade of nasty -, and is a true inspiration for future open-world action adventure games.

Not Tonight is a deeply relevant, thoughtful experience. It comes from a place of genuine frustration with the way too much of the world is behaving at the moment, but manages to channel that frustration into something productive - a satirical (however darkly), deeply sympathetic game, that's both entertaining and has a strong point to make. Is it a little too infatuated with Papers, Please? Yes, but you could do far worse than create a breathless homage to a game that great.

The tactical strategy on offer is complex and rich enough that you’ll want to master it, and the touch interface works so well that this is really the definitive version. In a year loaded with quality Aussie-developed games, Star Hammer: The Vanguard Prophecy flew a little under the radar, but it deserves notice as one of the best games we’ve produced in quite some time.

Big Ant is, effortlessly, the world’s premier independent developer of niche sports, and Lacrosse falls squarely in its beat. It’s ace and I love it. Now.

Altogether, Crimson Spires was a surprise. “Otome VN with vampires” is – and I say this with all the love in the world for both otome and the gothic – something so utterly trope-y that I had no interest in playing it. Even after reading Matt C’s review on this very website, I had no interest in it. Given that (other Matt) is the only person on Metacritic with a review of it, I suspect that many other people were put off with how blandly common the elevator pitch is. But then you start playing it and it really gets its teeth into you (sorry, I almost got to the end of the review, but I just couldn’t resist a pun). Superb characterisation, a richly woven tapestry of mystery and the smouldering sexiness of it all combine to make Crimson Spires noteworthy. There’s even a reason to buy it on Switch if you owned the PC release, since this version includes a new game plus mode with even more content to bite down on.

While I say that RPG Maker FES is more limited than its PC brethren, it still enables plenty of creativity.

There's really something for everyone in this title regardless of your experience in RTS games, with a great story, heaps of different ways to experience the game's content for all skill levels and for those who want to be the very best, there's a gauntlet of tough opponents just waiting for you.

The whole collection features a promising ten games from a sorely underlooked handheld console, all of which hold up well today. The collection doesn’t have the same sheer value for money that something like the SEGA Mega Drive Collection does, but you shouldn’t underestimate how well all of these handheld titles told up today. While Volume 1 does lean heavily into the fighting game genre, it’s SNK – you knew what you were getting into. I especially liked the way that the handheld ports simplified and distilled the core of each property, but not in a limiting way: I felt like I was getting the proper Metal Slug, KOF and Last Blade experiences, but simplified down to be more accessible for a newer player. With an excellent multiplayer mode and opportunities for replay value across the titles, Neo Geo Pocket Color Collection Vol. 1 is a welcome addition to the retro compilations across the Switch eShop.

The passage of time can sometimes be kind to classic games. Where Klonoa was once compared unfavourably to the far more “innovative” platformers that were doing the rounds, perhaps now it can be judged on its own merits instead, and while neither of the two Klonoa games are especially flashy or spectacular, the subtle and nuanced whimsy that sits at their core offers a particularly potent foil to the self-seriousness that far too many modern games – even platformers – express. Whether you’re replaying these for nostalgia or discovering them for the first time, Klonoa’s going to win you over with this collection.

Death’s Door is a tremendously well-designed game, with superb production values and a tight core gameplay loop. I was immersed and impressed the whole way through, ready to rise to any challenge the game would throw at me, because I was so in love with its design and its world. You don’t have to be a fan of Zelda-style games to see the appeal of this one: Death’s Door is simply the tried and true fundamentals of game design, refined and polished to the ultimate degree.

While Voice of Cards could be refined as a game, the vision is impeccable, and while the game's not as outrageous or subversive as NieR and its sequel, it still represents Yoko Taro's unique qualities as a game designer and narrative writer: he is forever experimenting and pushing boundaries. Voice of Cards is almost subtle in this, but the way that it aims to work collaboratively with players to share a story, rather than tell it, is a delightful departure from the norm for the JRPG. I don't think anyone expected him to follow up NieR with a "card game," but Yoko Taro has hit onto something very special here.

For the price, Star Wars Pinball is a fantastic package for fans of the science fiction franchise as well as those who just like a good game of pinball. Sure, some of the new features are better than others, and any time you have a large collection of themed tables, some are going to be more enjoyable than the others, but they are more the exception than the rule. With all kinds of tables offering a variety of sound effects, music, visual flair, ramps, multiple levels and a nice sense of progression, there is a lot to enjoy here. That makes it an easy to recommend package that I am going to spend a lot of time with in the coming weeks, months, and probably years.

Though TRI lacks the polish and presentation of the more popular Portal titles, its sheer accessibility and serenity mark it out as something genuinely different, and as such deserves to be noticed.

When my biggest criticism of a game is “the font isn’t quite right,” I know I’ve played something pretty special. Radiant Tales doesn’t subvert the otome genre. It is not meant to challenge the audience to think deeply about things. It is, simply, a well-written and well-meaning romance story about a troupe of performers and a highly magical adventure they embark on together. It’s like the non-steamy end of Harlequin novels, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Everyone benefits from a little romantic fantasy at times.

Tormented Souls isn't trying to be a necessarily accessible horror game. It embraces the retro heroes of the genre, and throws challenging puzzles and combat at players. More than that, though, the game has a nasty, hard edge, and ends up sitting at the loud and extreme end of the horror genre. If you enjoy your cathartic horror experiences, however (as I do), then you'll love the gauntlet of pain and torn flesh that this one throws at you.

Danganronpa Another Episode ends up being an experiment that works, in taking the original games and doing something so completely different to them. It lacks the jump scares, monsters, and a significant difficulty level of the horror franchises that it aspires to be a part of, but is so unsettling is its narrative and vision that it is one of the most genuine, affecting horror games I have ever played.

Bakeru is a warm, delightful thing and one of the best non-Nintendo platformers that I’ve ever played. Admittedly I’m partial to it given that I love roaming Japan for all its little regional quirks and specialties, and I loved discovering the developer’s interpretations of them here, but even if you’re not attuned to the game’s cultural resonance, its relentless joy will surely prove infectious.