There will be essays written on Disco Elysium. This is one of those games that will be studied in universities as Citizen Kane is studied in film and D. H. Lawrence's work is all-but unavoidable if you study literature. It's not necessarily the most outright entertaining thing the medium has ever produced, but it's an important work that explores the boundaries and potential of video games, while also having the nuance and layers it needs to challenge players to think beyond the joy they get from pressing buttons. Even if you have to play the Switch port, as inferior as it is, you should make sure that you play Disco Elysium on something.

That aside, Asmodee continues to demonstrate why it is the best digital board game developer going around. Gloomhaven itself is a little insular compared to the likes of Game of Thrones, Arkham Horror, Ticket to Ride, Pathfinder and Lord of the Rings, so I suspect it will appeal to a narrower band of players than some of Asmodee's other adaptations, but the faithful quality of that adaptation and the stellar production values make it an easy sell to existing Gloomhaven fans, and the ideal way to those that were intimidated by the size (and cost) of the box when they've seen it in their local game store to give it a go in the first place.

Considering playthroughs as both Cotton and Silk, Panorama Cotton will take about two hours to fully clear, but Challenge Mode will require some practice before players master the best routes. But the spectacle of this game never gets old – each level is so bright and colourful and happy that it’s just a joy to fly through over and over. Panorama Cotton is truly an unexpected gem that’s a delight for its entire runtime, and thanks to a modern rerelease which makes it more accessible to all sorts of players, it’s about time that more people discover this rare import title.

The run time will likely be cause for complaint for some people – Cotton 100%. But this is an arcade-style game through and through, and it’s entertaining no matter how many times it’s replayed. And since the cartridge would normally be a rare import that would fetch a hefty price, it’s a wonderful gesture to have them readily available as a digital download. For fans of SHMUPs, both Cotton 100% is a must buy – it’s an absolute standout in its genre which would appeal to old and new fans alike.

I often say that the original Blue Reflection is the most beautiful game. I say that because while it obviously didn’t compare to the AAA-blockbusters in terms of the money that has been thrown at it, the art direction was so pitch-perfect and downright beautiful that the technical limitations were irrelevant. Second Light clearly had a bigger budget and made the most of that to present a more refined and confident take on the Blue Reflection vision. The story is a vibrant, the JRPG action is classical and engaging, and the aesthetics are pristine. Getting something this wholesome and pure is a rare treat in an industry obsessed with hard and serious storytelling and adult themes, and I strongly suspect that, just like the original Blue Reflection, I’m not going to be able to get Second Light out of my mind for years to come.

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.

As interesting and tactical as that combat system is, I couldn't get past the fact that Disciples: Liberation was asking 80 (or more) hours of a person's time with so little payoff. I just found the whole thing too relentlessly miserable to connect with. It's possible to create a dark setting and still have moments of warmth, beauty and joy. Tolkien understood that. Perhaps those that have been inspired by him should be more diligent students.

But, like I've said, those nifty puzzles are just the jumping-off point for what makes this such a remarkable, memorable experience. A clever game of unloading boxes would have been enough to make Unpacking worth playing, but it's the way it weaves its beautiful story through those puzzles that makes it truly sublime.

I haven’t played a visual novel that goes about its thing with quite so much glee in quite a long time. Comedy’s always hard to get right, especially when there’s an underlying subversive quality to it, but Cupid Parasite never falters. It tells a great story in there among the humour and backs it up with an impeccable style and verve. This is one of Otomate’s finest.

There's no doubt that Mario Party Superstars was a hasty project, pulled together to capitalise on the party season and keep the run-rate ticking over for Nintendo with a new release. It's hard not to look at a selection of boards that accounts for just a quarter of what was present in the first three Mario Party titles and not think that this is less a "superstars" package but rather a rather cynical sampler. Still, what is there is excellent quality, and if you've got Christmas parties and family events on the horizon then you will likely get a lot of value out of this game. Just don't spill beer on your controller. They don't make 'em as tough as they were back on the N64.

The Nintendo Switch has been blessed with a number of good single-player card games at this point. Whether it's Shadowverse, Lord of the Rings, or The Witcher spinoff, Thronebreaker, players have plenty of deep, rich, highly strategic card games to choose between. Cards of the Dead, meanwhile, is about as engaging as Solitaire. Sure, I've played a game or two of Solitaire in my time when I'm that utterly bored, but that was when I was on a work computer and relying on pre-installed games, or on a boat with nothing but a pack of cards. If you've got Cards of the Dead on your Switch, you've also got a thousand alternatives for single-player games, and most of them are more worthwhile than this.

Dungeon Encounters is deceptive engaging. What seems at first to be a no-frills dungeon crawler, sliced back to its very minimum eventually reveals itself to be quite the clever little project. It provides the very basic foundation needed for a JRPG, and then gets out of the way, letting the player write their own story and fill in the metaphoric (and literal) blanks in their own way. That makes it an oddly cathartic experience.

Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water is so deeply Japanese that you’ll come away from it learning a bit about the wonderful horror storytelling tradition that the culture has. While some might find themselves at odds with a game that is so steadfastly traditional about how a horror game should play (especially on the back of the very modern Resident Evil: Village this year), if you go in with an open mind, understanding the cultural context that has lead to the game turning out this way, then you’re going to find it to be a really remarkable and enlightening bit of art. It’s not unlike going to an art gallery for a yurei exhibition, really.

Although the game is fun to look at, and to think about, it rarely lives up to its lofty ambitions once it’s in motion. Combat is thankfully sparse enough that players get pushed towards their next objective briskly. Although enemies aren’t always fun to fight, they do look cool, and their bullet patterns are always an impressive spectacle. And while I came in expecting a 3D bullet-hell action RPG, what I got instead was an interesting sci-fi world to explore. It’s a pleasant surprise to see that a world this rich and complex came from a studio this small. Origamihero Games is a developer with huge ambition and a lot of promise, so I’d be keen to see the team iterating on ideas from this game and continuing to polish their craft.

Working with a clearly limited budget, Tamsoft has focused on delivering a tight action-combat system, while also relying on the fan service of both Senran Kagura and Hyperdimension Neptunia to see it through. It’s a good couple of hours of genuine fun, with the requisite bath scenes, humour and familiar characters to meet and fight. You can’t help but think that both properties could have grown to become more than this, but taking as it is, it’s still entertaining nonsense, with a heavy emphasis on the “entertaining”. I play enough serious games that require deep analysis, this kind of thing is my ideal break time between them.

When we think about this Halloween season and all the horror games that celebrate it, we rarely think about a dungeon crawler. After all, the 'crawler doesn't feature visceral action or jump scares. It's all too turn-based for that. But, of course, horror can be much more than jump scares and visceral action, and Undernauts demonstrates that beautifully. Strong atmosphere, challenging combat and Experience Inc.'s mastery of the genre combine to create something that is nearly impossible to put down.

In flicking back through my notes on House of Ashes, I find that I have been more negative on it in this review than I remember feeling from my time playing it. It is a highly enjoyable experience and hard to put down. It might not be as spooky as I’d like from a horror game, and it might not play the way I think it should given the type of horror the developers were aiming for, but ultimately, holding the lives of a bunch of delinquent characters in my hands and deliberately letting them fall to their proverbial (or perhaps literal) deaths will never fail to be a (ghoulishly) good time.

Ultra Age is a middle of the pack action thing that has the basic mechanics of the genre down, but doesn’t do anything to stand out, and it has some real balancing issues. but struggles to balance difficulty progression as well as pushing boundaries in the genre. Unfortunately for the developers, this is one genre in which we are spoiled for choice, both in terms of finding challenging games to enjoy, and complex, thought-provoking experiences.

There is no doubt that The Caligula Effect 2 is a niche within a niche, and the fact that the second game so closely follows the first just confirms that the developers are comfortable with that. While it might not click with everyone, it's worth trying, because if you do like your games a bit thoughtful and arty, then this is going to be one of the highlights of the year.

This is going to sound like a backhanded compliment, but it's not intended as such: Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Hinokami Chronicles could have been so much worse. An anime that has become this celebrated was always going to deserve more than a copy/paste paint-by-numbers arena brawler, and the team at CyberConnect2 have done well with what I'm sure were significant limitations. There's respect there, and an understanding that Demon Slayer is more than a mindless series of fights, even if the gameplay system creaks with age and having been used for far too many other anime tie-ins. Mind you, if nothing else, being able to tear demons a new one with Nezuko has been something I've been looking forward to from day one with this anime, and if nothing else, CyberConnect2 delivered that.

Bunhouse is meditative and sweet. It's the kind of game that you can boot up and play for a couple of minutes or hours, depending on how much you need to de-stress, and in so many ways it parallels the joy of having actual rabbits as pets. They might not be the loudest or most boisterous buddies, but their stoic warmth fills the home with wholesome goodness. Ultimately, rabbits are wonderful, and Bunhouse does them justice.

The Eternal Cylinder is quite sad yet somehow there is a delight in finding in the smaller moments: finding an egg and evolving are especially happy moments. It is complex yet simple, running from the big bad thing that constantly looms like the Sword of Damocles is easy enough, but exploring to find the way ahead isn't always completely straightforward. The opposite emotions make the game feel deeply fulfilling. It's not quite like anything else I've ever experienced, and I feel like it will haunt me (in the best way possible) for quite some time to come.

I'm all for short games, and if a game really caught my attention I'd be more than happy to pay the equivalent of many coffees for an hour or two's play. My issue is when the game's so truncated in its brevity that it can't deliver on its promise. If Toree 2 is indeed a nostalgic love letter to the platformers of yesteryear, then the developers should have understood what made those titles cohesive, character-driven experiences. Toree 2's simply too limited and thin to deliver atmosphere, character, or a cohesive 3D platformer experience. As the saying goes: fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. I'm not making the mistake of giving this developer the benefit of the doubt this time around.

If it had a better interface and localisation, THE Card Battle: Eternal Destiny would be an easy game to recommend to people who don't usually play card games, as the mechanics are simple, elegant, and not too bothered with the hardcore deck building that is such a barrier to entry for so many people. Call it a "gateway drug" if you like, with the fan service being the hook. Unfortunately, Eternal Destiny also does everything that it can to be uninviting to newcomers. There's a decent casual game in there. Just be prepared to work to enjoy it.

I left Metroid Dread feeling quite conflicted about it. On the one hand, I do think it is fundamentally well designed, and the main gameplay element - the robot stalkers - are woven into the Metroid formula beautifully. On the other hand, that Metroid formula is getting long in the tooth and Dread doesn't do nearly enough to revitalise it. Dread is fine. It's not just nearly memorable enough for a game that fans have been waiting so many years for now.

I'm all for retro compilations giving players the option of making games more accessible, so players can set their own experience. Rewind features in old arcade shooters and platformers are great. But imagine if a retro re-release of Castlevania (or whatever) made it impossible to fall down a gap or get killed by a boss by automatically rewinding the mistake. Now imagine they gave players no way of turning that off? To deny people an inherent, defining quality of a game in favour of something that fundamentally changes the experience, without completely redesigning the game so that the new experience makes sense... Nah, it hurts this to say because I love Monkey Ball, but this is all terribe decision-making by everyone involved.

Actraiser Renaissance, however, is a remake that should have simply stuck to the basics that made Actraiser great. Instead, what you get are moments of greatness broken up by far too many moments of mediocrity.

In theory, a Bubble Bobble game with Mario Maker tossed in should be occupying my every waking moment, whether I'm busy playing it, or working out smart new ways to build sequences of levels to play through with family and friends. Instead, what Bubble Bobble 4 Friends: The Baron's Workshop represents is far more of a lazy cash-in title. Bubble Bobble, needless to say, deserves far better than that. I do still love Bubble Bobble with my very heart and soul. But sometimes, love hurts.