It’s the game that makes the entire franchise as relevant as it was in Nineties and early Noughties and it has fulfilled the destiny Square Enix wanted for it in that it has created a new platform from which even better things can be expected from it in the future. Without question, Final Fantasy is once again a giant within the RPG world.

With the franchise celebrating its twentieth anniversary, Game Freak has delivered an adventure that pays homage to the very first quest through the Kanto region while still delivering something fun and exciting. Be you an adult or child, Pokémon Sun & Moon is still the ultimate RPG; the surface adventure is wonderful and engaging, but beneath the surface is still a wildly complex body of systems that allow the game to expand and support deep strategic play.

Ultimately, Sun & Moon feels like one of the first legitimately necessary Pokémon adventures in some time.

Watch Dogs 2 wastes its incredible, realistic world and believable characters by leaning on boring gunplay, basic cover-shooter mechanics and tonal-inconsistencies that upend every part of it. Watch Dogs 2 has the opposite problems to its predecessor then. Acts of aggression (in whatever form they may have taken) made sense for vigilante Aiden Pierce, his mission thrived on it; and oh god now Watch Dogs 2 is making us defend and justify the existence of the blandest protagonist in videogames. But that’s Watch Dogs 2, a game that will make you question everything you thought you knew about open world game design, because clearly something needs to change.

As a story, it may well be lacking, but as a collection of expertly crafted play spaces where design and mechanics reinforce and respond to your agency in myriad delightful and engaging ways, Dishonored 2 is pure magic.

With The Coaltion at the reins Gears is in safe hands, and we're genuinely intrigued to see what happens next. [Issue#257, p.64]

The story and characters are excellent and the game is enjoyable, but the open world detracts from the experience rather than adding to it. [Issue#257, p.62]

Simple fun, but potentially annoying. [Issue#181, p.84]

Too inconsistent to truly shine. [Issue#181, p.84]

A whimsical evolution of the beat-'em-up. [Issue#181, p.83]

A deep, rewarding and addictive experience. [Issue#181, p.81]

A serious contender to the Voxel throne. [Issue#181, p.80]

Fun and frantic, but soon grows tiresome. [Issue#181, p.78]

The most replayable Civ yet, but the AI is a drawback. [Issue#181, p.77]

Solid (if somewhat easy later on) combat mechanics also make up for shortcomings elsewhere, with the stack system presenting some interesting tactical possibilities.

Oh, and there’s a zombie mode. The idea there is that you shoot things that look like how you feel when playing Infinite Warfare.

As a sequel, Titanfall 2 is everything it was supposed to be. By extension, that means it isn’t a game changer; it isn’t as inventive or surprising as its predecessor, but then again, it couldn’t be. Titanfall changed the trajectory of the FPS in a powerful and immediate way, and that success isn’t to be simply re-created but iterated upon dutifully. Despite Respawn’s best efforts, the game’s obvious advancements and its spectacular engagement across multiplayer, Titanfall 2 doesn’t offer the same determined focus and balance that defined its predecessor.

With many games feeling hampered by a desire to try and blend authenticity with sensationalism, Battlefield 1 is a hell of a lot of fun – a visual powerhouse and a fine return to form for DICE that’s sadly hampered by stretches of extreme frustration caused by the studio’s desire to take one step too many into the past.

Too many fruits spoil the broth. [Issue#180, p.85]

An interactive experience unlike any other. [Issue#180, p.48]

A disappointing new step in a declining series. [Issue#180, p.80]

Horizon 3 is the best open world racer in years. [Issue#180, p.76]

The puzzles are intuitive and escalate well, although Uber should have taken more risks with its gameplay to truly standout. [Issue#180, p.48]

It's in desperate need of a rethink in terms of its movement systems. [Issue#180, p.48]

One of those games that will engrain itself in the mind - it's a must-play. [Issue#180, p.48]

As a place to hangout with friends, and cause chaos, it doesn't get much better than SportsBar VR. [Issue#180, p.48]

One of the most inventive uses of VR so far...A unique and entertaining social VR experience. [Issue#180, p.48]

This has little of the charm that make its games so enticing, nor does it offer much in the way of entrancing solitude. [Issue#180, p.48]