In the end, Pragmata is a great new IP from Capcom. It’s endearing, it offers a unique and satisfying take on third-person combat, and also boasts plenty of scope for exploration, impressive bosses, rewarding payoffs and a significant amount of built-in postgame content. What more could someone ask for?

Fatal Frame 2 Remake is creepy, haunting, and thrilling in equal measure. It’s also fiddly and frustrating at times, and requires the player to put in a ton of effort if they want to feel like they’ve gotten everything out of the story. (PROTIP: get a walkthrough.) Still, it’s a truly affecting experience, and that’s down to the developers’ brilliant use of mechanics. I’ve played literally hundreds of creepy horror titles, but I’ve almost never felt this kind of connection to the story, and that’s entirely down to the decision they made to trigger that bit of physical discomfort in the player. I can’t imagine it’s going to be an experience for everyone, but the results are inarguable – I cared about what happened to these twins, and appreciated the experience all the more because of it.

Those looking for a simple-yet-effective grind and not bothered by bad voice acting will enjoy Dragonkin: The Banished. It doesn’t attempt to rewrite the ARPG, but it provides a solid loop with a novel approach to skill-building that serves as an antidote to the terminally-online titans of the genre.

Planet of Lana II: Children of the Leaf successfully expands on its underrated first entry in nearly every way possible. It’s the perfect Empire Strikes Back to Planet of Lana’s New Hope: approachable, beautiful, and a great adventure worth taking.

Dread Delusion’s best content overshadows its flaws. Even with some disappointment at the lackluster outcomes to my decisions, the build up to those moments was rich, engaging, and founded in human emotion. The storytelling in Dread Delusion is top notch, and I found myself transfixed, exhausting each dialogue tree, and reading every lore-book I came across. There are moments from Dread Delusion that will haunt me for months to come, and that quality alone makes it worthwhile.

Anthem#9 looks fantastic in trailers and the gem matching mechanics are satisfying — piecing together a giant combination of attacks feels great. On the other hand, the UI needs work, the difficulty spike going from the basic (AKA tutorial) missions to the extra missions is supremely out of whack, and all the white flashes made me sick and will likely trigger seizures in photosensitive people. I want to like Anthem#9 more than I do, but it really doesn’t like me back.

At the end of the day, Unbeatable is a solid rhythm title with great audio-visual presentation and and a heartwarming narrative, though some lackluster pacing and inconsistent voice application make it a trickier recommendation than I would have expected.

There’s nothing meaningful to recommend this title, and it’s easy to call it the weakest entry in the entire Kain series—an outcome that falls far short of the modern revival I had hoped for.

Love Eternal is very demanding game — it demands perfection for its platforming, focus for the narrative beats, and patience for both. I can say that it’s one of the most unique games I’ve played in a very long while, and maybe with time I’ll come to enjoy it more than I did. I never stopped being intrigued enough to keep pressing on, but the frustration it put me through only took away from the experience overall.

Caves of Qud can be a frustrating and downright hostile experience at times. It’s clearly built for those who have a fondness for older PC-style RPGs and those who enjoy diving deep into several different systems running at once, and for me the overwhelming nature of things adds to the charm. Caves of Qud is one of the most unique adventures currently out there — it’s just not one that will resonate with anyone looking for something laid back or relaxing.

While Painkiller’s attempt to reboot is a worthy goal, but the reality is that it just doesn’t get the franchise where it needs to go, as it’s not something easily recommended to a friend thanks to its mediocre nature, nor is it a a true single-player experience for those old-school Painkiller fans out there. Just like its protagonists, the game is caught in a purgatory between the modern online gaming landscape and its classic arena shooter legacy, fighting for a redemption that isn’t looking likely to come.

Wreckfest 2 is, at this moment, a promising Early Access release. It’s already a blast to play and offers everything fans of combat racing could ask for – other than, you know, structure and a career mode. Still, there’s already a worthwhile amount of content, including a truly bonkers derby arena full of ramps, loops, and giant metal traps that crush cars like grapes. It’s always a risk engaging with something in Early Access, as there’s a chance that promised features will never materialize. That said, there’s already a lot to love, and for players who long to see a Volkswagen Bug car disintegrate into component parts as it’s rammed head-on by a school bus going 80, Wreckfest 2 certainly has the goods. [Early Access Score - 65]

Marathon is an excellent experience, and a great shooter made by a great developer. Taking all the lessons they’ve learned from decades of FPS design, Marathon succeeds with gameplay and gunplay that’s leagues better than anything else on the market. I’ve lost more sleep in the last few weeks than I have playing any other game recently, and while the online crowd may be a bit too hostile at times, those willing to engage with its dynamic loop will be rewarded with one of the finest first-person shooters this generation.

Overall, JDM: Japanese Drift Master is a stylish racer with a lot of anime charm. I am in love with the anime aesthetic and as a huge fan of classic Japanese street cars, I was happy to see my non-Toyota favorites here. Unfortunately, its handling model makes the entire package turn out to be an inconsistent ride.

The excellent color palette, cute yak animations, witty writing, and excellent soundtrack were simply not enough to encourage me to play further. All of the novel concepts and innovations presented to me were swiftly undone by the insufficient interface controls near the halfway point of the campaign. Fighting with this interface felt like I was a monk trying to coax my yak up a ramp, and that yak was unwilling to take another step.

Speeding through the world while listening to the perfectly-tuned soundtrack, I did find myself getting lost in the experience, exactly as the developers hoped I would. More than once I knew the exact route to the next objective, yet decided to do a few more dry runs, just because I was enjoying the driving too much. I’m not saying that there aren’t frustrations to be found in Adrift, but I still found this one of the most relaxing things I’ve played in ages. Just being in this world is a delight, and when I’d finally finished exploring it, I was a little sad that there wasn’t more to see. It won’t be for everyone, but for those who click with it, it’ll be just what they were looking for.

For those willing to overlook the lackluster narrative, Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflections is an amazing adventure. The visuals, monsters, and companions made the world feel incredibly alive. The battle system is dramatically improved over its predecessors, and is leaps and bounds better than its initial outing on the Nintendo 3DS. I’m hoping Capcom stays the course with a future Monster Hunter Stories 4, as they are absolutely on the right track with this franchise.

Nobody comes to platformers for the story, they come to them for joy of play – and Demon Tides is nearly pure mechanical joy. It’s a geyser of creativity and passion that ennobles the genre. There are flaws, but they’re very hard to see from the heights this game reaches the vast majority of the time. Anybody with any interest in jumping and/or collecting should leap, not walk, to the digital storefront.

With four classes with distinct powers to upgrade and over a dozen weapons, each with a bevy of unlockable attachments, players will have no trouble finding a build that appeals to them, so long as they’re passionately invested in mass-murdering zombies and the various mutant gunk creatures that come along for the ride. With a fast pace, extreme replayability and irreverent tone, Toxic Commando is a blast from beginning to end — I just don’t understand why it’s not called Toxic Commandos — because, again, there are four of them.

Without the insane sense of humor and quality retro styling, I probably wouldn’t give it a moment’s thought. But, it does have those qualities, and uses them to excellent effect, even while the gameplay is disappointingly pedestrian. It has some neat quirks, amusing throwbacks and charm aplenty, but overall it’s nothing to brainwash a princess over.

As it stands, the framework of a promising tycoon game flickers beneath the strobe lights, but it struggles to justify the cover charge. Moments of satisfaction are undercut by clumsy onboarding and a lack of personality, leaving the whole experience feeling flatter than it should. Unfortunately, Disco Simulator hints at a better party than the one it ultimately throws.

It took me a dozen hours to beat Resident Evil Requiem the first time, and I don’t think more than twenty minutes ever passed without absolutely flooring me with some new surprise, reveal, or thrilling setpiece. It’s violent, scary, and funny, and everything good about the series all rolled up into one. We’re 30 years into the Resident Evil franchise, and not only is it not getting long in the tooth, the developers are doing their best work yet. It’s a masterpiece from beginning to end, and an absolute must-play.

While its mechanics never quite cohere into a truly transcendent experience, the developers’ understanding of their protagonist helps to bolster Styx: Blades of Greed against becoming just another anonymous sneak-‘em-up. They’ve provided a play space that’s free of judgment and agnostic to the moralistic implications of player behavior, and I felt no pangs of guilt as I went about systematically murdering a fortress full of guards and staff, stealing all I could in the process – after all, it’s what Styx would do, and they probably deserved it anyway.

The workaday plot aside, the fact that my main complaints about Relooted boil down to wanting more of it says something about its quality. The heists are satisfying, the escapes are exciting, and the characters that get a chance to shine are charismatic. Relooted has the bones of an all-timer, but it falls short of building the perfect reliquary to keep them in.

Mewgenics is sure to be a hit with Binding of Isaac fans, roguelite fans, and tactics RPG fans. It has McMillen’s signature ugly-cute Newgrounds flash art, a toe-tapping soundtrack, and an unfathomable number of ways for players to approach its chaotic, layered grid combat — just be prepared to see many, many, many cats expire as nine lives are not included.

Its recipe is a simple one — take rock-solid FPS and survival fundamentals, and flesh them with high-level, imaginatively distinct, and powerful horror. It’s not a subtle experience, but met on its own terms, warts, Wranglers and all, it hits like a sledgehammer in the best possible way. Brace yourself.

Ultimately, I can’t imagine who this game was for. If it was directed at children I could understand the level of difficulty, but the thin content and basic systems will hardly appeal to seasoned players. If Salt 2 were a ship, it would give the Kraken indigestion.

REANIMAL is a nightmare that won’t end. After beating the campaign I immediately started it up again, hoping that by finding all of the secrets I’d get some answers to the questions the ending raised. Sadly, it wasn’t to be, and I found myself with too many loose ends while also being unable to get the haunting aesthetic out of my head. This is a grim, nasty experience from the masters of the genre. It’s a singularly nasty journey, and while I can’t recommend it to everyone, anyone looking to take a trip through the dark side won’t find one much better.