Sayonara Wild Hearts is like Pop Rocks: The Game. It’s a delicious and surprising visual and audio journey that constantly changes rhythms and mechanics before disappearing rather quickly in a glamorous, flavor-filled explosion.

Kind Words is a unique and, more importantly, kind idea that deserves an audience. It encourages empathy between strangers online, and this shouldn’t be overlooked, especially in 2019 when it often feels like everyone wants to cause as much harm to one another as possible. Your appreciation of it will vary depending on how much you need it, but even its existence should be commended. Read more at https://www.gamerevolution.com/review/596163-kind-words-review-a-game-for-anyone-who-needs-a-helping-hand#lhlWBkocre7puSHK.99

Astral Chain is a unique and beautiful game that excels at what it’s trying to do. It’s one of the best games of the year so far, and it makes me excited to see what the studio will come up with next.

Thanks to one of Bandai Namco’s best localization efforts and the fantastic work of both Level-5 and Studio Ghibli, Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch is still a joy to experience almost a decade after it was originally released. Both the story and the world it takes place in is full of heart, and the new Switch port is a great way to take it all in. While this adds nothing new besides the ability to play the game portably, the core product is good enough to earn its spot on your Switch.

NHL 20 is an enjoyable hockey game with great core fundamentals and new player movement to fall back on, but it’s definitely not a must-buy entry if you are currently happy with the version you own.

Thankfully for fans, the up-and-down series has largely been a slam dunk this year as its consistently great gameplay is aided by a fantastic story mode and less invasive microtransactions.

Despite some of its flaws, the few hours you’ll spend with Creature of the Well will be some of the most satisfying you’ll spend in all of gaming in 2019.

The only “sin” Monster Hunter World: Iceborne commits is lack of accessibility since you have to complete the story of the base game to get to the new material. However, that’s just the way expansions work, and in exchange for that mild inconvenience, you get another 20-30 hours of new content with the same high quality that generated critical acclaim for the game when it first released.

With Gears 5, there’s a lot to love. The campaign is solid, making bold pushes in brave directions, and continues to be a hoot with friends. The story ultimately failed to fulfil its potential, but compelling gameplay keeps things moving. Horde continues to be a brilliant binge of violent goodness, with new mechanics and rewards that help boost longevity. Escape is a worthy addition to the roster of modes, oozing potential for more creative players to realize. Versus is back in a big way, helping newcomers find their feet, while keeping loyal fans of the franchise happy with classic game types and the thank-god-it’s-not-terrible shotgun. If you’re any kind of shooter fan, this game has earned your attention.

WRC 8 is the best game yet in the series and has a major edge on its chief competitor due to its far more accessible racing.

In emulating the past so closely, the developers have inherently come out with a product that seems clunky at first glance. It’s only on further inspection that you see all the systems and interactions hidden behind old-minded UI. Add-ons like Close Encounters don’t fundamentally shift that balance, but they do provide a lot of value in their expansions. For a game competing with The Sims and their overpriced Stuff Packs, it’s a welcome trend that’s well worth supporting.

Final Fantasy 8 Remastered is the definitive way to play the RPG classic. There are no inherent flaws of this port beyond the portions of the original game that have aged poorly. For the most part, the story and gameplay has held up over time and Squall’s adventure is better than most give it credit for being.

It’s a shame the pacing does such a number on Blair Witch. It deals with some heady topics like PTSD, mental illness, and police shootings.

Full Body’s occasional well-intentioned but problematic narrative additions don’t suffocate its core, choice-laden plot as it is still strong enough to persist despite how outdated the new branches can be. Aside from being open to more people, its block puzzles didn’t see as much of an upgrade but they remain as tense, thrilling, and sometimes frustrating as they were in 2011.

For every spark of a neuron, there’s a cluster of dead cells threatening to snuff it out. The entire enterprise feels like a bundle of great ideas that mix together into something that’s less than the sum of its parts.

The deluge of branching paths and chilling atmosphere combine well enough with its brief yet keen story that invites players to repeatedly run through it. But an abundance of cheap jump scares, semi-frequent slowdown, and initially goofy cast members mean that it pales in comparison to Until Dawn; the studio’s magnum opus that all of its titles will forever be compared to.

Despite some minor issues that hold it back from being the ultimate Yu-Gi-Oh! game, this is a fantastic reminder of how enjoyable the card game is and why players fell in love with it in the first place.

The charm that covers nearly every inch of this game is also infectious, especially as this medium can better actualize its main characters’ imagination into something playable. Sometimes those playable aspects can get in the way but it’s still easy to saddle up on this bike even if that bike sometimes slams on the brakes.

From its narrative to its world to its puzzles and combat, Control intrigues its players and invites them to think and rewards them handily for doing so; a true remedy for overly linear and coddling game design.

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is like no survival game I’ve played before. Charting human evolution is an extraordinarily complex concept for a video game, yet Panache Digital Games has pulled it off by way of carving its own route through a crowded genre. There’s nothing flashy about the brutal landscape in which you attempt to evolve your lineage, and I assume some won’t be interested in a game with unlockable abilities that include being able to sniff a bit farther or hear a little clearer. But this is a wonderfully unique experience that will be deeply appealing to those interested in a hardcore challenge, that just so happens to be rooted in a time period that is completely unexplored territory.

This is a remastered title done the right way, as it performs perfectly and the revamped localization gives even veteran players a great reason to play it again.

Telling Lies is like the best parts of an adventure game, a mystery novel, and an art nouveau movie all rolled up into one. It tells an exciting story uniquely and shows that Sam Barlow’s success with Her Story wasn’t just a fluke. Besides a few frustrating moments, Telling Lies was one of the most compelling gaming experience I’ve had yet in 2019.

Oninaki tackles the theme of death brilliantly thanks to some poignant scenes and a willingness to go where most games won’t. That thorough exploration of death ties into every aspect of the game from its hack and slash gameplay to the ending choice that will leave players reflecting upon the journey they just went on. It isn’t often that a game truly succeeds as art, but every part of Oninaki goes back into its core motif and that’s why it is an essential action RPG.

In Dicey Dungeons, everything is already on the table. It’s a highly replayable game that you can pick up for short sessions whenever the moment strikes.

Age of Wonders: Planetfall is one of the most unique 4X games released in recent memory, and that is great news for a genre that can be a bit stale at times. Its blend of XCOM-like combat with the traditional strategy elements isn’t perfect, and there are some rough spots that Triumph Studios will need to work on in the future, but it provides an enjoyable and fresh challenge. While the generic sci-fi world isn’t as rich or organic as the previous high fantasy settings, its amount of depth and ways to play carry it up and beyond many of its genre rivals.

Rad does more right than it does wrong. Because it has some money behind it, it probably spends a bit too much time on worldbuilding and presentation. It’s all truly great stuff, but it ultimately gets in the way of the gameplay, making what should be a satisfying loop feel bloated.

Even among its retro FPS peers, 3D Realms has put out a best-in-class experience that rivals anything released this year. The fact that such a game can come after the character’s inauspicious debut in Bombshell makes it all the more miraculous.

This is one gigantic miss and perhaps one of the worst games of the year.