As in part one, the core experience of A Plague Tale: Requiem consists of its atmospheric strengths, strongly attached to the game's pleasant heroes. Beside its magnificent presentation, including beautiful graphics and prime voice-over artist, the sequel does overall also a better job concerning gameplay, making Requiem the better game. But the extension of variety and freedom during regular stealth action stages or the clever puzzles can't hide the existence of the (few) lousy and misplaced defensive battle sequences.

It feels overwhelming and too complex to play for a few quiet hours, and some of the features and choices are a bit odd. There are some cute animals and even dinosaurs are available with the DLC.

While it has its rough edges here and there, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is a must-play for any fan of deep and heavy RPGs in the style of Pillars of Eternity or Divinity Original Sin 2. The underlying system of Pathfinder gives the game incredible complexity at the cost of having to read through item and ability descriptions that sound like they’ve been written by the nerdiest accountant in the world. If you can manage to push through the obtuse calculations and the vastly fluctuating difficulty, you’ll find an incredibly immersive story that branches in unexpected and impressive ways, allowing you to forge your very own path through a demon-infested crusade.

Dorfromantik offers a video game experience without any violence, multiplayer or deep storytelling; and with this successfully creates a pure, relaxing building game.

Yacht Club Games still knows how to make a good Shovel Knight game. The mix of old strengths and new elements combine into a fun, vertical experience that make Shovel Knight Dig an experience we can fully recommend.

The developers behind Golf Peaks once again show what they are capable of. Railbound manages to engross the player through its playful graphical stile as well as through its clever puzzles. If you are yearning for a fun puzzle game and don’t hate trains, don’t miss Railbound.

The game offers a good mix of platforming with some puzzle elements. On top of the solid gameplay, Gris+ captivates the player with its absolutely gorgeous visuals. If you haven’t played Gris yet, the Apple Arcade release is a well-worth experience.

Railgrade is a phenomenal little puzzle game all about connecting resources and industries on a far-out space colony with trains. While more limited in scope than similar games such as Factorio or Satisfactory, Railgrade nails an almost Zen-like gameplay loop with its short missions and simple controls. All of the solid gameplay is held up with a motivating progression in difficulty and a charming, diorama-like presentation.

Tunic is one of those games that won’t let you go until you see the credits rolling. It’s insane, what Andrew Shouldice and his small team came up with and how much lifeblood was poured into this action adventure. Definitely an indie title you should not miss.

FIFA 23 is a solid outing fort he series, even though it lacks the really groundbreaking innovations. Best new feature is Hypermotion-2-Technolgoy, that give the on-pitch-gameplay a new spin. However, there are still a lot of old flaws, that EA Sports has to target over the next years.

Soulstice the attempt by small developer Reply Games Studios to create a character action game in the style of Bayonetta and Devil May Cry. While neither as flashy nor deep as its bigger siblings, “Soulstice” offers a very solid foundation, an entertaining story, and enough depth to get you through a playthrough. It’s not the best the genre has to offer, but it’s an easy recommendation for anyone looking for a new action title on a budget.

Return to Monkey Island is no high flyer, but a good classical adventure game, far away from disappointment. Essentially it is fan service pure. That's a huge benefit for lovers of Guybrush's adventures, but series beginners don't really profit from the mass of allusions in any area. The great puzzle design or the top voice-over do not change anything about that.

NBA 2K23 leaves us torn: On the one hand, it’s an almost perfect simulation of the sport delivering a high amount of detail and gameplay-value. On the other hand, the experience is heavily harmed by microtransactions and in-game advertisments.

Temtem follows a rather simple premise. What if Pokémon’s first generation was made today? The result is an excellent dose of nostalgia with many modernized features such as campaign co-op and a rich endgame. It’s about time Nintendo’s stagnant franchise gets serious competition and as things stand now, Temtem is the game for those who have dropped off the main Pokémon games for lack of innovation and challenge. A relatively low price and a ton of very polished content makes this an easy recommendation.

Although currently a bit light on content (with more on the way) Jetpack Joyride on Apple Arcade does away with the original's microtransactions while still keeping the same addicting and fun gameplay loop. This is an absolute no-brainer for subscribers to Apple's gaming service.

Steelrising entices with a steampunk reimagining of the French Revolution and combat heavily inspired by Dark Souls. While it nails many aspects of its presentation and shows just how far developer Spiders has come from games like Technomancer, the combat still doesn’t flow quite as smoothly as with competitors. What it lacks in interesting environment design, it balances out with excellent atmosphere and a welcoming approach to difficulty. Thanks to an accessibility function and optional waypoints, it’s never been this easy to get into a Souls-Like. Steelrising is an excellent addition to Spiders’ portfolio and an easy recommendation for fans of Action-RPGs and those with an interest in the mysterious and enchanting world put on screen.

Splatoon 3 still lives from its unique gameplay mechanics that had been just slightly extended. Five years after Splatoon 2 there are mostly minor enhancements concerning gameplay and technically. Too little for reaching a new series' climax, but enough for Splatton 3 to maintain the high class of its predecessor.

Nine Noir Lives is a nearly purrfect point and click adventure from Silvernode Games. You play the cat-detective Cuddles Nutterbutter and his assistant Tabby Marshmalleow to investigate murder. Dark and fun at the same time, a bit messy here and then but overall, if you have a lot of time to resolve all the riddles, a great game.

SD Gundam Battle Alliance is a nostalgic treat not just for fans of the over 40 years of Gundam history, but also for fans of Action RPGs. Ditching many modern sensibilities, such as complex game systems, deep customizability or even a coherent, emotional story, SD Gundam Battle Alliance can feel like a relic lost in time. The easy to learn and hard to master combat system that’s largely learned by bashing your head against an increasingly unfair difficulty curve is incredibly satisfying to learn. In time we combo together ranged and melee attacks, juggling our opponents with ease only to get completely crushed by the next boss until we find the right combination of skills, upgrades and gundam to best even the hardest foe. While not without its flaws, SD Gundam Battle Alliance is a celebration of a storied franchise and its particular style of gameplay, executed with style and charm.

The Last of Us is still a great survival-action game with a captivating story, intense action and two of the best main characters you've ever seen. The new version looks mostly amazing and quiet deserves being considered as a PS5 native. But because it remains the same game experience at its core, first and foremost The Last of Us: Part 1 is interesting for people who did not play the original before or who are hardcore fans of the series.

Kirby‘s Dream Buffet is a fun little game with our favorite pink munch ball that is excellently presented. Minor shortcomings in the amount of content can be overlooked if one is looking for a game with short rounds to fill some gaps in the day.

Rollerdrome is a celebration of the mantra “easy to learn, hard to master”, except even the beginning stages require advanced levels of hand-eye-coordination that may challenge a more casual audience. Despite having various, commendable options for difficulty and accessibility, at the core, Rollerdome is aimed at a niche of hardcore players that love chasing highscore and chasing the elusive “perfect run”. While certainly not to everyone’s taste, Rollerdrome is absolutely stellar at what it does and lands its killer combo with a stylish presentation and a banging soundtrack.

With minor swabs the Saints Row reboot maintains the madness of the series, delivering entertaining, effectfull action and humorous cutscenes and dialogue with a myriad pop cultural references. It is still not on eye level with GTA, but especially concerning customization of characters, cars or weapons, Saints Row sets a new standard for the genre.

Cult of the Lamb takes a much more casual approach to the Rogue-Like genre and presents a much smoother and streamlined experience. This however means that the randomness of runs, the variance and challenge all get left on the wayside with the latter being relegated to the higher difficulty settings. No matter the difficulty, Cult of the Lamb seems to struggle in balancing its many progression systems with many players maxing out aspects of cult progression halfway through the dungeon progression. Despite those flaws and a relatively short completion time of roughly 10-15 hours, we thoroughly enjoyed time spent with Cult of the Lamb and may even return to it sometime later for a second playthrough.

Soul Hackers 2 is a JRPG for fans of the Devil Summoner games and Persona 5, but unfortunately struggles with boring dungeons and a story that could have been made a lot more.

Thymesia may look like an Indie-Developer trying to do Bloodborne, but it ends up being more than that. Thymesia seamlessly blends the fast, often frantic combat of games like Devil May Cry with a more thoughtful approach, giving the players the tools to quickly leap between enemies, while strategically switching between light and heavy attacks, as well as flashy specials. While regular combat is often a fun power fantasy, the game truly shines in its boss fights, where two equally deadly warriors dance around each other parrying and trading blows. The only sore spot in the gameplay is that there isn’t already a Thymesia 2 to sink my teeth into.

Whether it's the puzzle design, the presentation or the background story, the third entry in the House of Da Vinci franchise delivers just like its predecessors did. If you are interested in puzzle games at all, you need to play The House of Da Vinci 3.

The asking price is certainly not too high, as you are getting a highly polished game with many, many hours of content waiting for you. If you haven't already played Dicey Dungeons on another platform, you now have one less excuse.