Constance remains a modest game, yet manages to deliver a lovely experience with the means it has — and you can feel the heart behind it. Still, we would have liked its core progression to be less linear, and for it to fully embrace its original gameplay mechanics to give its combat a bit more flavour. But thanks to its superb art direction, the themes it tackles, and its precision in platforming, it remains an adventure well worth experiencing.

With its many customization options and the simply fun nature of its gameplay, Kirby Air Riders makes a strong impression from the very first sessions. Beneath a deceptive feeling of simplicity lies a surprising amount of depth, one that takes hours and hours to fully master. Still, the experience may start to feel a bit repetitive after a while: unfortunately, the generous shots of dopamine the game delivers struggle to keep the player engaged past the ten-hour mark. There’s no doubt, however, that competitive players in search of yet another frantic, fluorescent, borderline-epileptic thrill ride will find exactly what they’re looking for.

With Anno 117: Pax Romana, Ubisoft Mainz manages to push the series to a new height, bringing in small yet meaningful innovations and a duality between its two regions that works well — both in their aesthetics and in their gameplay. The military component remains as uninteresting as ever compared to the city-building aspect, which is, without a doubt, some of the very best the genre has to offer.

Call of Duty : Black Ops 7 walked into Battlefield 6's release like Sideshow Bob walking into a comically big rake. From a disastrous coop campaign to an overly-complex zombie mode, this is probably the worst main episode ever released, feeling like a 2010's parody of Call of Duty.

Dispatch now stands as the benchmark episodic narrative game — a new reference point for what the genre can do best. A superb art direction, dynamic staging, and a strong cast elevate the experience, delivering a superhero story that may be fairly classic, but is filled with heart. What truly stands out, however, is its ability to add a management gameplay layer that blends seamlessly and meaningfully into the adventure.

Torn between puzzle mechanics and rigorous martial arts brawls, Forestrike doesn't always find the right balance - but when lightning strikes, it strikes right on target. Finding the true worth of Forestrike requires training, dedication, and a good capacity to handle frustration.

Possessor(s) betrays Heart Machine's experience with amateurish flaws, ranging from unpleasant controls to a very unremarkable metroidvania level structure. Ultimately feels like a first draft with good intentions and absolutely stellar artworks interspersed throughout.

Arc Raiders is an excellent game and a new benchmark for the extraction shooter genre. Its few flaws, particularly its somewhat conventional art direction, won't diminish its appeal. More than the gameplay itself, it's the interactions with other players, both hostile and peaceful, that linger in the memory, making Arc Raiders a truly memorable game.

With Goodnight Universe, Nice Dream takes the concept explored in Before Your Eyes to new heights. A more refined and nuanced use of the camera complements a denser, well-crafted storyline that captivates us thanks to an effective cast. It's a shame that some ideas are still explored a little too tentatively, and that the game is released on some platforms without the option to play with a camera, which significantly diminishes its appeal.

Freed from its big brother's technical issues, Hyrule Warriors : Age of Imprisonment is a polished muso experience that remains a tad too easy. Also, while the Switch 2's power is certainly put to good use, reading the action in portable mode is sometimes difficult due to an overload of visual effects and UI elements.

Despite its highly effective formula and undeniable qualities, Slots & Daggers is difficult to praise highly. While one can accept that the project's modest scale might hinder the high replayability normally inherent to roguelites, it remains problematic to note that the progression curve is somewhat unbalanced, shifting very quickly from extreme weakness to overwhelming power. It's certainly a good offering that deserved more depth to truly reach its full potential.

Let’s just say we didn’t set out with high hopes after the somewhat lackluster experience of Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake. However, in a welcome burst of clarity, Square Enix has this time taken the task of remaking the game seriously, paying due tribute to the original content while also enriching it with a wealth of new features that make the experience both enjoyable and surprising for newcomers and veterans alike. As it stands, this attempt proves far more satisfying than last year’s predecessor and can easily be recommended to any budding archaeologist eager to explore the origins of a genre and a legendary franchise, without suffering the main pitfalls of the era.

Far from the polished Streets of Rage 4, Double Dragon Revive stumbles over its balancing and rushes its finishing touches. Yet behind all the clumsiness of this brawler lies a small heart that beats to the rhythm of fluid combos and punks sent flying into dumpsters, windows, and electric panels. These environmental finishers add both soul and impact to a beat ’em up that takes a little longer than usual to reveal its strengths over its flaws. While waiting for some much-needed patches, Double Dragon Revive doesn’t deserve to appear in your favorite YouTuber’s “Top 5 Worst Double Dragon Games,” and that’s already something. But it does show just how far this franchise still has to go as it searches for a better future without tarnishing its past.

Funny, cruel, and painfully perceptive, The Outer Worlds 2 marks Obsidian’s triumphant return to the top of the RPG genre. Beneath a few minor technical blemishes lies a work of remarkable coherence and freedom, where every choice matters and every laugh stings. A brilliant, deeply humanist, and unmissable RPG that constantly reminds us why we love video games. And once it’s over, there’s only one thing you want to do: start all over again. Isn’t that the mark of a truly great game?

It's hard to find a single real flaw in PowerWash Simulator 2's shining armor. It's the perfect lo-fi game to chill out after a hard day's work. While new mechanics are sparsely used, post-launch content will continue to bring on the good times, to be sure.

Is Ninja Gaiden 4 bad ? No. Yakumo advances the saga's gameplay in a modern fashion, but the new gameplay mechanics introduce a few means to easily cheese through encounters, partially undercutting the fighting game roots brought by the late Tomonobu Itagaki. And the level design is not good either, with recycled environments galore. But PlatinumGames' new, inexperienced team still brings in action game goodness with instant lightning-fast battles, gory executions and a few great bosses to make you try a new run in Master Ninja mode or complete the post-game trials. Ninja Gaiden 4 also probably is a good onboarding experience for series newcomers.

Keeper effortlessly stands out as one of the most visually striking artistic directions of the year. We can only applaud Double Fine’s work for delivering something both captivating and sublime, as well as for its storytelling — subtle yet effective — and its surprising ability to humanize a lighthouse. While we’ll keep the surprises awaiting within the lighthouse to ourselves — as those twists do refresh the experience nicely — it’s hard not to feel a hint of disappointment at how simple the game remains in terms of overall challenge.

It took six years, multiple studios, countless reboots, and a trail of broken promises to finally deliver Bloodlines 2. The result is utterly schizophrenic : a game too ambitious for its budget, yet too timid for its own universe. What was meant to reinvent the vampire RPG ends up merely mimicking its conventions. Bled dry by compromise, Bloodlines 2 has lost what little vitality it had left. Beneath layers of code and the scars of its tortured development, you can still glimpse what it might have been: a gothic tragedy about duality, a nocturnal political fresco, a mirror held up to our own thirst for power. But that dream didn’t survive the daylight.

While the Pokémon Legends series may at first seem eager to break free from the limitations of the mainline episodes, it still falls short of the long-awaited reinvention fans have been hoping for. Z-A shows plenty of good ideas and offers the most engaging battle system the franchise has seen in a long time, but it struggles to make up for its eternal shortcomings: dull and underwhelming visuals for the modern era, a still overly childish narrative, a glaring lack of personality, and gameplay inconsistencies that gradually erode the experience over time. Though die-hard fans of the series will no doubt overlook these flaws, the average player (who only hunts monsters from time to time) will find Pokémon Legends: Z-A to be a pleasant attempt, but far from essential.

Do not play Ball x Pit expecting a solid roguelite experience — because you won’t find one. What you will find, however, is an interesting reinterpretation of Vampire Survivors in a brick-breaker format: dynamic enough, with a generous arsenal and a small town-management mechanic that adds a bit of freshness to the formula. Despite the gameplay variations introduced by certain characters, it doesn’t take long before a sense of repetitiveness settles in, as you start chaining runs without thinking too much about it.

Battlefield 6 is, above all, a game of reconquest — an attempt to win back its historical community and to atone for BF2042. Under those conditions, the mission to deliver a classic “made in Battlefield” experience is fulfilled, and whether it’s in terms of gameplay, feel, or weapon balancing in multiplayer, it’s a solid overall success. In this context, it’s hard to see the franchise revolutionizing or even shaking up its formula, but the multiplayer aspect holds up well — and that’s what matters most right now. The few attempts at innovation, starting with the campaign, feel more like a desire to mimic Call of Duty than anything else, complete with that tiresome brand of Americanism — and we’re still angry about that story conclusion, which recalls the darkest hours of CoD. If you’re going to copy Activision, at least don’t take the bad stuff — though to be fair, we’ve already avoided the overabundance of ugly skins, and that’s already a pretty big victory.

In an already crowded 2025, Absolum still manages to climb onto the podium as an obvious standout. Guard Crush Games, Dotemu, and Supamonks deliver a masterful experience where missteps are few and far between. From the sublime soundtrack to the perfectly handled visuals, from the finely tuned roguelite loop to the premium quality of the combat mechanics, only the narrative feels somewhat left aside — which, in the end, is hardly an issue in a beat ’em up. Suffice to say, we really had to struggle to find flaws worth mentioning. After Streets of Rage 4, Dotemu raises the bar even higher, pulling off with rare brilliance the launch of its very first in-house franchise. Will this spark a new resurgence for the genre? If so, the next five years are going to be absolutely wild — in the best possible way.

The trauma inflicted by Baby Steps makes me want to give it a 1/10 to get revenge for what it did to me. Luckily for him, I'm a very pragmatic person and behind this continuous torture, this hostility and hatred towards its player, it remains an extremely funny proposition in many ways, with gameplay that is nevertheless mastered. There you go, take your 8/10 and leave me alone, I never want to hear from you again.

While its effective art direction and rich gameplay are undeniable, Henry Halfhead is an experience that hesitates too much to exploit its ideas, preferring to multiply influences without going there frankly. The result is a nice game, but one that lacks this strong structure both in its rhythm and the use of its mechanics and in terms of story, because of a dispersion that is too noticeable and which prevents it from being truly memorable.

As for the gameplay breakdown, even if I were able to give you an analysis as in-depth as those once delivered by King Puyo, what would be the point given that patches will inevitably transform the game during the season? What's the point of thinking about what the "right rating" is for a product over which the press has no influence whatsoever? So many questions and so few answers. Only one certainty remains: football sucks, but we can't live without it. And as for the rating, wait and see, I'll roll the dice... it's 7!

Based on Swery65's resume, we expected Hotel Barcelona to have a lot of kinks to work through, but we still weren't prepared for the god-awful controls, the poorly-implemented invasion mechanic or the wacky, zany plot. A waste of great artworks.

CloverPit is a roguelite that is conceptually solid, with an instantly addictive loop, but it runs up against modest ambitions that limit the richness of its possibilities. While having a narrative thread helps to structure the adventure, it also gives the impression that the whole thing has been too heavily built around it. What we have here is a small but efficient roguelite that will keep us busy for a while, but whose limits in depth become clear once its short story has been wrapped up.

With Hades 2, the studio didn’t just meet expectations, they absolutely obliterated them. Bigger in scope, sharper in writing, and deeper in its mechanics, the game surpasses its predecessor on every level. Where many sequels merely pile on content, this one completely reshuffles the roguelite formula with fearless ambition, while remaining incredibly accessible. It’s a rare tour de force, a masterclass in game design that proves excellence can be pushed even further, run after run. Hades 2 isn’t just a successful sequel. It’s a lesson in design, a celebration of the roguelite genre, and a living hymn to mythology. By managing to elevate a formula already considered perfect, Supergiant has delivered one of the most brilliant sequels in video game history. It’s also a powerful reminder that a game can be demanding, generous, and profoundly human all at once. You don’t come out of it unscathed, and more importantly, you never want to leave.