Football Manager 26 is for the diehards alone for this reason. It’s frustrating to deal with the bugs and UI changes, even if the core game remains basically the same. If you were to imagine this game without those issues, however, the new ideas and enhancements that are in the game are universally good and, whether it is just a matter of patches or waiting for Football Manager 27, there are very good reasons to get very enthusiastic about this series again.

I realise that Avernum, and Spiderweb Software’s work in general, is a tough sell. One look at the screenshots and it’s far too easy to file this one away as something too niche for its good. But I’ll tell you this: Any time I’ve convinced someone to actually play a Spiderweb Software game, they’ve gone on to play at least a few more. Jeff Vogel has been a great survivor in indie development for a reason. If you like your RPGs, give Avernum 4 a go. Trust me.

I’m going to hazard a guess and say that the potential audience for Sacred 2 Remaster is very small. It’s a very simple, grindy, button-masher action RPG with a totally irrelevant plot. If you’re going to play and enjoy this, it’s because you get hooked on that simple, basic gameplay loop. And if you do… well, welcome to dozens upon dozens of hours of it. If you’ve never played Sacred 2 before, but enjoy Diablo-likes or Eurojank like Risen, Gothic or ELEX, then there’s every chance you’ll find this one amusing (and in the right way).

With its hugely appealing setting, rendered gorgeously well and near-blockbuster production values, Anno 117 might not be Ubisoft’s biggest breadwinner, but this is a confident and well-considered step forward for the series. When you think about what distinguishes a great city builder, you’d have to say that near to the top is when you can pan the camera back and feel like you’ve genuinely built something, and taken a couple of buildings and roads and turned it into a thriving city. The very best city builders make you want to learn about urban planning, and with Anno 117 it comes with a second benefit – it’ll make you want to learn more about what made the Ancient Roman cities tick as well.

While Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment isn’t going to convert anyone who doesn’t enjoy Koei Tecmo’s Warriors formula, this is a very fine entry in it. It effectively builds on the lore of Tears of the Kingdom, gives you plenty of entertaining characters to play around with, and looks stunning as the first Warriors to get a spin on the Nintendo Switch 2. If you enjoyed Koei’s previous collaborations with Nintendo, you’re going to really love this one.

While I do think that Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is the most polarising Digital Eclipse museum experience so far, in terms of the quality of the games that are in it to play, I also think that it’s one of the most compelling experiences from a historical perspective. Who knows if we’ll ever have a series that has thrived this completely on notoriety again, and for that reason, this is a collection of curiosities that can’t be ignored.

Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles is the best version of one of the greatest video games. This review was largely pointless in the sense that just about everyone knows that it’s a masterpiece, and yet, as of time of writing, there are “only” 2,500 user reviews on Steam. For the love of Hatsune Miku, please don’t let this be a “cult classic” a second time around. If we’re going to ever take video games seriously as an art form, it needs to start with games like this being part of the canon.

Tormented Souls 2 is the kind of horror game you like to see from independent developers. As a clear passion project that is willing to push back against “best practices” to maintain the creative vision, it’s here for people who have fond memories of the formative years of survival horror, while also looking very modern. It’s by no means perfect, but the clear enthusiasm that went into it – and the fact that it’s so atmospheric – makes it compelling.

Dragon Quest I and II HD-2D Remake achieves exactly what developers should always be trying to achieve with a retro remake: Breathe new life into something that fans love. With enough new additions to surprise and delight even the most veteran fan of both titles, combined with a gorgeous art style that does so many favours to Dragon Quest, I somehow found myself genuinely excited, enchanted by, and unable to stop playing something I’ve played almost annually for decades now.

Frankly, being competently made isn’t enough. Not for a genre as loaded as this boomer shooter one. The original Painkiller had an identity and personality. It wasn’t meaningfully different in how it played compared to its peers at the time, but it had something about it that allowed it to stand out for itself. This Painkiller is a generic multiplayer shooter with a generic Christian horror-themed setting and aesthetics, and none of it is memorable.

What it does have, though, is an excellent example of a roguelike formula largely done right, with great loot loops and an upgrade path that doesn’t make you feel like you’ve taken too many steps backwards every time you “die” and need to start a new run. And, hey. The pretty and sassy robot girls are the cherry on top.

Pokémon Legends: Z-A hits such an exceptional stride. An invigoratingly original combat system, an almost surprisingly good narrative that covers real and important themes, and the same charming monster designs and aesthetics that continue to define Pokémon as one of the biggest media properties in history. Excellent work, Game Freak.

This has been quite the non-review, I know, but then I don’t have anything to say about Persona 3 Reload that I haven’t already said, other than to note that it’s not quite as refined, smooth and slick as it is on PlayStation 5. It’s a slight enough degradation that I have no issue recommending the game anyway, though. More broadly, I guess the retro gamer in me does miss the days when meaning in video games was a collaboration between the player and the limitations the game developer worked with.

Ball x Pit is a very easy game to pick up and play, though it’s also one where the central gameplay conceit is very much present in the free demo; I could see some gamers bouncing (pun not intended) off it pretty hard, but if the demo intrigues you, trust me, there’s a lot more to come that does get addictive fast.

Ghost of Yotei achieves what it set out to, in that it wanted to take what makes Ghost of Tsushima so popular (the visual engine, the combat, Sucker Punch’s open worlds) and transport it to a “barely settled” location where they could give us a rip-roaring, all-American Wild West story. So… good on them for achieving that, I guess. But, as I brace for the inevitable comment moderation job ahead, I gotta be honest and say I just didn’t care for any of it. Or the way it capitalises on the Japanese/Ainu setting rather than tries to work with it.

It’s also nice to have something in this genre that isn’t weighed down with all the mobile game contrivances that have taken over the puzzle/RPG hybrid in the years since. It’s unfortunate that it’s such a no-frills release (they couldn’t even put multiplayer in the thing!), and that this is the dictionary definition of a game that has “aged poorly,” but who knows? Perhaps Puzzle Quest really is back this time around, and the development team can use the momentum to finally deliver a second game that moves past the mistakes of previous efforts and builds on the heritage and prestige of the original.

The long and short of it is that Silent Hill f is brilliant. It’s an exceptional story told exceptionally well, with a depth of theme and artistic heritage that makes it worth actual study. That is backed up with an entertaining blend of well-designed combat and intelligent, challenging puzzles. Silent Hill f will – or at least should – make you uncomfortable, and it will haunt your thoughts long after you’ve stopped playing. And that’s the hallmark of a truly special horror game.

As a result of these misfires, Lego Party finds itself in a position where there’s a lot to like about it and bravo to SMG for looking for ways to be creative while also producing a blatant Mario Party clone. On the other hand, it does show that where Nintendo has been producing them for decades now, this is a rookie effort. Perhaps part of the issue is that I played it on a Nintendo console, when I have the alternative sitting right there on the hard drive. On other platforms that don’t have a Mario Party, I can see this resonating more strongly. Unfortunately, though, I can’t see it being a particularly memorable experience for anyone in the long term.

I don’t know if Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion is going to turn me into a fan of these mecha games, but I certainly enjoyed the combat and design enough that I’m keen to check out some more to see if I do like something about the genre after all. Just be aware that the performance is pretty suspect at times. If you can handle that, then this is certainly an ambitious and entertaining sci-fi game for on the go.

Ultimately, perhaps we do need to remember that this is FuRyu’s first self-published game, and the existence of Varlet at all is, itself, an experiment. We didn’t get the usual creative subversion that we’ve come to expect from the company behind the likes of Lost Dimension, The Caligula Effect, Crystar, and Reynatis, but in taking this step as a company, perhaps FuRyu will be able to protect its ability to continue to do those games in the future. Valent itself, unfortunately, is a game I wish I could love more than I did.

With dozens of characters drawn from the series and a full ten courses, Everybody’s Golf Hot Shots does act like a celebration of the series to date. However, it’s also painfully clear that this game comes from a new developer trying to find their place with such a venerable series. HYDE was timid to try to be too innovative, but at the same tim,e clearly struggled to achieve the same precision from the previous developers. Unlike Clap Hanz’s Easy Come Easy Golf, HYDE’s game actually wants to challenge players and require skill. And I’m quite sure that a patch or two will get the game to where it needs to be. For now, however, as enjoyable as Everybody’s Golf Hot Shots is, it’s just a touch too frustrating for its own good.

It’s always great to see a developer grow in confidence, embrace new ideas, and find new ways to embrace their creativity. Submansion is a lot of things – quirky, surreal, whimsical and dark. It’s also the kind of game that could only come from a single developer exploring their personal creativity.

As a big-time Shantae fan, I’ve loved having the opportunity to fill in the gap for the game in the seies that we very nearly didn’t get. It’s more a curiosity than something essential – more recent titles in the series are definitely better, but if this continues to breathe life into the series, then I’m all for it.

On the one hand, we’re talking about the game that is to Kojima what Dr. Strangelove is to Stanley Kubrick (i.e. the masterpiece in a resume that basically has no misses). Even considering how brilliant Death Stranding is, Metal Gear Solid 3 is just something special, meaningful, and important as a work of art. It’s hard to see how anyone could improve on it, so it didn’t really need a “remake” in the way some other titles do. On the other hand, this really isn’t a new game, and while it wouldn’t be fair to say the remake’s efforts were “lazy,” it’s also hard to shake the feeling that where the Silent Hill 2 remake was exciting by virtue of how new it was, this is just that game, that we’ve already played and loved to death, in a prettier dress. But hey, if you’ve somehow not played Metal Gear Solid 3 before, this is going to blow your mind.

Story of Seasons doesn’t exactly paint a picture of the realities of the life of a farmer. It is, after all, one of the hardest, if noblest, jobs. But the sweet utopia that the series offers is pristine escapism, and Grand Bazaar has one of the strongest concepts and executions that we’ve seen in the series. This game is a total delight.

Nightdive proves over and over again that for a certain type of vintage video game – the more mature and high-profile “blockbusters” of yesteryear – it is a formidable choice for not only making the game playable on modern hardware, but straddling the balance between giving the nostalgic the game they remembered while making it as playable and enjoyable as new games today. Heretic and Hexen are both brilliant dark fantasy adventures, and they’ve been polished to a special kind of sheen that celebrates the impact they had on many thousands of fans back in the day.

All of this might sound critical of Iwakura Aria, and I guess in one way I am disappointed in this, but only because it could have very easily been another House in Fata Morgana. The intensity of the themes are there. The art is right up there with the best VN art I’ve ever had the pleasure to see. The writing is beautifully eloquent, and this is a rare visual novel that I would happily pick up as a proper novel, where it would stand strong on any bookshop’s shelves against any of the literature on there. Even as it is, Iwakura Aria is better than 99% of the other visual novels out there. It’s essential as-is, and right on the cusp of being a masterpiece, and that’s ultimately why I’m disappointed that it doesn’t quite get there.

A lot of it is very standard genre fare, and as most people have played at least one Mystery Dungeon title in the past, you know what you’re going to get… at least in terms of how it plays. What distinguishes Mado Monogatari is its extreme enthusiasm and relentless humour. With a joyful art style, hugely entertaining character design and a painfully catchy and exuberant soundtrack, Mado Monogatari ends up being more memorable than it has any right to be. It’s been a stressful couple of weeks for me with an almost overwhelming workload, but whenever I loaded this up I found myself smiling and relaxed almost immediately afterwards.