Which brings me back to that question: what is the point of Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, really? Sure, Lost Legacy is a wildly enjoyable adventure in classic Uncharted style, and even Uncharted 4, for all my complaints about it, is a game a lot of people clearly loved, and they'll love it again here. But when the only thing these "remasters" have over the PS4 originals that you can already play on PS5 are modest technical upgrades whose practical and aesthetic improvements are marginal at best, what purpose do they actually serve? When even someone who's never played either game before and is breaking in their brand new console and can get an identical experience for half the price by just buying the existing PS4 bundle, what is this Legacy of Thieves Collection other than a half-step in a pointless technical arms race and a chance to cynically sell some unnecessary version upgrades? We would all be served better if Sony focused on bringing us some of the incredible games that aren't readily available on the console already.

I often say that racing games are, in so many ways, where boundaries get pushed. Between the work that goes into the physics engines, and creating visual environments (and cars) that are gorgeous to look at in all lighting and weather conditions, whether in motion or in screenshots, racing games give us more progress than I think we generally give them credit for. With that in context, Gran Turismo 7 is a masterpiece. Rather than being little more than a wall of sound and speed, as so many other racing games are, GT7 not only gives us excellent racing action, but it is one of the most loving homages to cars. Gran Turismo 7 is, indeed, the most perfect fan service we've seen to date.

If you’re a fan of shooters and relish the challenge, Enter the Gungeon is absolutely at the top of its genre. This is a game with meaningful, complementary mechanics and a tight gameplay loop which will have you playing for days.

Saros is a good game, and I need to be clear about that. The sheer speed and kinetic energy of the combat, the visual design, and the moreish nature of the roguelike loop come together to make something that is, by any objective measure, well-made and something that consumers clearly like to play. But on the other side of the coin, I really can’t stand Saros because I look at it and all I see is the cynical Sony studio formula slapped over the top of what was, a half-decade ago, a pretty fine game. In fact, I think I’ll dust Returnal off for a replay.

It's energetic, exciting, fast, and also highly technical. It's everything that a fighting game needs to develop a core of competitive players, and in that regard it's the best Dragon Ball game that has been produced in quite some time. But - and it's a big but - when I first saw this game in action I had hoped that the appeal of it would be broader than just to existing Dragon Ball fans, and the developers have really struggled in that regard. The game relies too heavily on you already loving the characters, and already understanding the logic and lore of the Dragon Ball universe, before it starts to open up and allow you to love it.

Anyone who has never played Link's Awakening before should absolutely play Link's Awakening. It's a damning reflection on the entire industry, in terms of the respect that it shows for the artistry of video games, that a remake, rather than a re-release, was ever even contemplated as the way to give people renewed access to this classic.

Super Mega Baseball 3 feels like the baseball games I used to love from a few generations ago. Liberated of the "depth" of modern sports games, there's an efficiency to the action that is appealing, and the gameplay modes that it does offer are all compelling. On the pitch, the difficulty curve is perfectly tuned, and while the game doesn't innovate and is ultimately destined to be the kind of thing that you pick up for short bursts of play at a time in multiplayer, the accessibility makes this one so much more appropriate for that than most other sports games out there. It's good, honest and clean entertainment, and that's something a lot of sports game developers have lost sight of in their efforts to monetise every moment of their content.

Despite some questionable use of characters, the narrative in Batman: Arkam Knight is engrossing. The city of Gotham is appropriately sprawling with a great deal to do. Combat is smooth and fluid, even if driving the Batmobile is not, and there are several good hooks for progressing Batman's character that reward you for the time invested in the game.

Nintendo deserves props for using DLC as an opportunity to add to an existing game package, rather than sell something that should have been in the original release in the first place. It's a fine line to tread, but Nintendo's showing the other publishers how DLC should be done.

When I began this review, I wondered if Immortality would live up to the hype I had created in my mind. Luckily, it did. The characters, the narrative, and the completely unique experience that it odders… this game is special. Visual. Intuitive. Genius. Half Mermaid (and Barlow in particular) has upped its own ante, and I legitimately have no idea what the studio could do next. This studio is one of the rare true artists in our little industry.

Spider-Man has all kinds of tricks to silence and distract his opponents, and while the AI is far too static and rote to make for genre-defying stealth missions, playing around with the extensive Spidey toolbox in these scenes never got old. In fact, because the stealth and combat sequences are all explicitly built around allowing Spider-Man the creativity to use his full range of abilities, it’s no coincidence that these moments where the game genuinely feels like the proper Spider-Man experience that everything should have been.

Despite my irritations with the combat system, Ōkami remains very playable throughout, and given the beauty and power of the rest of the game, I wouldn’t let a trifle like a slightly cumbersome and chaotic combat system get me down over the whole game. This is a real, bona fide masterpiece and is, if anything, getting better with age. Ōkami is not a “Zelda-like”, and deserves far more respect to be compared to a series that, arguably, it’s superior to.

Ultimately, Pokemon is a coming of age story, as told through the analogy of monster collecting and battling. This new game loses none of that, but in building a greater sense of narrative into the action, has given it a greater resonance and purpose. This is also the most creative that Game Freak has been with the franchise in quite some time, and players who had grown tired of the iterative approach the developer had been taking may well find this one a Renaissance for the series.

If you’ve ever played a TMNT beat-em-up, you’ll get a lot out of Shredder’s Revenge, especially with additional players on hand. If you’ve never played a TMNT beat-em-up, Shredder’s Revenge would be an excellent place to start.

TowerFall harkens back to the day when you could play a game like GoldenEye 007, when the person next to you got punched in the shoulder for besting you. This is a game with plenty of laughing and pointing at the screen. TowerFall is not deep in options or features, but the frentic gameplay makes for a surprisingly fun time with your friends and family.

Given that the only issue with Theatrhythm Final Bar Line is that the JRPG elements are superficial and unnecessary for the game (while not actually undermining the underlying rhythm game action), it’s hard not to see the effort as a monumentally successful project. With nearly 400 music tracks out of the box, excellent underlying rhythm game mechanics and, of course, the music being so good, this is a game that’s going to last even the most casual Final Fantasy fan for months. And then there’s the DLC with music from games outside of the Final Fantasy series to look forward to. That’s only going to add even more to the biggest value game on Switch.

The 8-bit and 16-bit Final Fantasy trilogies are both genuine masterpieces. These games wove deep, compelling stories that were as thought-provoking and artful as they were entertaining. Back in the day, they were a promise of what video games could be, and what people had to look forward to as the medium emerged as an art form. Increasingly, they’re a sad statement for what games could have been, had the medium not shifted to a pastiche of Hollywood excesses.

For a game so focused on the monstrous and the grotesque, Severed’s power lies in how it shines a critical and emotional light on an intrinsic part of what it means to be human.

Meanwhile, PES is the football game for people who love the elegance, grace, and flow of the sport. PES has always been good at that, and this year's edition, while only making subtle tweaks to the on-field engine, has done so so effectively that it has become the definitive take on the sport.

I like games that are able to explore serious ideas in an entertaining and subtle fashion. If you weren’t aware of the academic weight that drives the two titles in The Nonary Games, you wouldn’t be missing anything. It’s not essential to understand how game theory works, how it explains human behaviour, and why that’s all relevant to the deeper themes that 999 and Virtue’s Last Reward explore. If you want to take it, simply, as a cracking series of visual novels with sublime puzzle design, you can do that. But, if you’re like me and do take game narratives seriously, then these two are right up there with the best in the industry, and sticking them together into a single package makes them completely essential.

If you were a fan of the original game, this one does enough to justify giving it another play through. If you missed Odin Sphere the first time around, then this is a great introduction that is also easy to recommend.

Polarising as it might be, it's something everyone should try, because it's also the perfect example of how games can be used to a genuinely artistic outcome.

The irony of the name "Desktop Dungeons" is that the game is infinitely more suited to the iPad.

At the risk of irrelevancy to most DDNet readers, I will add the quality family time Vignettes gave us is worth more than ten times its admission fee. Make no mistake about it, I warmly recommend you take up on the invitation, make a reservation, and roll up for the Vignettes magical mystery tour!

Thematically, I find a lot more to appreciate about Dark Souls 2 than Bloodborne, it must be said.

The point I’m really getting at here is that Lumines Arise has a meditative-like quality to it. Lumines has always offered rich and vibrant soundtracks backed by gorgeous visuals and an incredibly intense, yet rewarding gameplay loops. Lumines Arise is the ultimate realisation of that vision, and quite possibly the greatest puzzle game I’ve ever played.

Persona 4 Golden is a genuine, bona fide work of art, and one of those games that show the potential for the video game format to offer more than cheap thrills. It's one of those games that you get the feeling will be remembered as a masterpiece well into the future too. With most AAA blockbusters falling out of the public discourse just a few months after release because they offer nothing but passive entertainment, it's games like Persona 4 that we continue to discuss. Even in comparison to its own sequel, it seems to have the combination of characters, narrative, and ideas that help it to continue to be worthy of thought. We'll still be talking about Persona 4 fifty years from now, and hopefully, it remains as accessible as this new PC release has allowed it to become.

This is the best Sonic effort in years as the developers managed to blend the things that made classic Sonic games so great in the first place.