Despite the lack of innovation in Franchise Mode, MLB 19: The Show excels when it comes to the sheer variety of single-player content on offer, while significant improvements to fielding round out the on-field package, making this one of the best baseball games ever.

Most Souls-likes tend to adopt a grimdark fantasy aesthetic, but Tunic harkens back to the 8- and 16-bit eras by presenting a vibrant and colorful world that also offers a fiendishly difficult challenge. It's not simply evocative of games from the late '80s and early '90s because it creates facsimiles of their graphics or gameplay, but because it manages to capture a tangible feeling of exploration and difficulty, where an instruction manual is your tool to deciphering everything. It's the kind of game you would've purchased because the box art looked cool, eagerly flipping through the pages of its manual on the car ride home, not quite understanding it all but getting excited at the possibilities all the same. In Tunic's case, this grand adventure lives up to the expectations.

Dota Underlords is a diverse and constantly captivating experience where no match plays out the same way twice. Having been with the genre since it was a custom map mod, it's heartening to see it executed as well as it has been here. Outwitting your opponents and the odds through clever thinking is always immensely satisfying, and the game's complexity means that there are plenty of interesting strategies to try. Dota Underlords is a wonderfully robust and well-crafted strategy game that is very easy to lose yourself in.

Patapon's ingenious combination of light real-time strategy and rhythm makes it a one-of-a-kind game that's easy to recommend.

Exciting gameplay packed with clever mechanics and framed by a compelling artistic vision make Outland a superb experience.

An essential purchase for those who have spent more hours than they'd care to admit in Eorzea.

It's a visually stunning showcase that really pushes the Xbox Series X, making it a great first title to exist solely on Microsoft's latest hardware.

Quadrilateral Cowboy succeeds in astonishing ways: It makes you feel like an incredibly accomplished computer hacker and agent of espionage. It creates an eccentric, thorough world that feels good to exist in and creates characters you can empathise with, despite the lack of a clear plot thread. Quadrilateral Cowboy presents you with a spectrum of moments, and each moment makes you feel great.

The Outer Worlds is consistently compelling throughout, and it's a superb example of how to promote traditional RPG sensibilities in a sharp, modern experience.

Every advancement Dig 2 makes to its story and mechanics strengthens your initiative to progress. There's an overwhelming sense of momentum that runs through the adventure; as if developer Image & Form sifted the original in a pan, removing its redundancies while expanding upon what made it so fun to persistently play.

With exciting new content across the board and plenty of it, Left 4 Dead 2 outdoes its predecessor and makes the zombie apocalypse an absolute blast.

When the book closes on their story, it's hard not to open it up again and begin anew. The trials you overcome endear you to both characters, but the emotions Trico elicits make you want to give it another chance--to be the patient, effective partner it truly deserves.

Sony's flagship baseball franchise has never been better.

The graphics back up the audio perfectly, and the result is the best-looking music/rhythm game ever released.

FIFA 16 can be stubborn and stifling, but it feels gloriously new, and having to learn fresh strategies and nuances in a game series like this is an almost-forgotten pleasure.

FIFA 11 is more playable, refined, and feature-packed than any FIFA game before it.

It's the way it handles player choice in particular that makes it most notable. There are no contrived right-versus-wrong decisions to exploit. The results of your decision don't just influence minor details: they lead you down wildly disparate paths, each as entertaining as the others.

Xenogears' reliance on story, subtlety, and mood make it Square's most anime-like RPG thus far, in many ways making the game one of its best.

The Outer Worlds is consistently compelling throughout, and it's a superb example of how to promote traditional RPG sensibilities in a sharp, modern experience.

FIFA 16 is full of scrappy back and forth, the ability to play patient possession football, and a greater range of passing than ever.

FIFA 11 is more playable, refined, and feature-packed than any FIFA game before it.

In Other Waters develops its central mysteries in expert fashion, drip-feeding its revelations in a way that feels natural, and dispatching you to inspect the corners of its map in a way that doesn't feel contrived. As you steadily learn more of what Vas' partner was up to on this strange planet, and you yourself begin to grasp humanity's plight, the mystery builds to a confident conclusion--one that satisfies yet remains aware that some questions are more enticing when left unanswered. In this sense, its story echoes the restraint that runs through the entire game to deliver a stylish, assured, and utterly absorbing adventure that demonstrates again and again it knows how to do a lot with seemingly very little.

FighterZ is complex and distinct enough to be enjoyed by fighting game competitors, but there's no question that it's been designed to tap into the hearts of Dragon Ball's most dedicated fans, and no doubt those same qualities will win people over who've never given the series a chance.

FIFA 16 can be stubborn and stifling, but it feels gloriously new, and having to learn fresh strategies and nuances in a game series like this is an almost-forgotten pleasure.

Delving into all its new features, new missions, new locations, and new raid, The Witch Queen has been extremely impressive and a ton of fun. The centerpiece is the laudable story campaign, making a lot of the game's best design more approachable for a variety of characters, but The Witch Queen also invokes the best parts of Destiny's past, as well--like the secret-laden, dense, and fascinating locations found in The Taken King and Forsaken expansions. The Witch Queen is a massive step forward for the game, the culmination of a recent history of great refinements and additions, resulting in a Destiny 2 that's in its best form yet.

Improves in almost every conceivable way on its predecessors and reestablishes the series as the premier example of the play style it single-handedly pioneered.

Although the Nintendo Switch might not be the best platform to play The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, it's still a fantastic experience that shouldn't be missed. If you are looking to replay The Witcher 3 and bask in its detail and beauty, the Switch port may not quite scratch that itch. However, what makes this game excellent isn't its graphics, but the powerful stories it tells, and those are as vivid as ever on Switch.

If you crave true innovation, a fair but relentless challenge, and gripping exploration in which every step has consequences, then you crave Demon's Souls.