Echoes of the Fallen by itself isn’t anything incredible, but it finished strong and had me excited for the next expansion pass installment. If you loved Final Fantasy XVI, then this is a great way to revisit those characters. If you’re on the fence, then wait until The Rising Tide launches before making a purchase.

If you’re coming into Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora purely as a fan of the films, then there’s a lot for you to get out of this – it lets you explore the world like never before and take part in the culture it created for the first time. However, if you care about it more as a video game first, then it’s nothing special. Ubisoft yet again refuses to make any steps forward when it comes to open-world design, even when given free rein to make something wild and fantastical like Pandora should be.

Against the Storm is a perfect storm: It’s a unique blend of genres that executes its ideas without any great flaws. Instead of motivating you to play ‘just one more turn,’ it tempts you into building ‘just one more city,’ condensing the thrilling allure of exploration and mechanical intricacy of a city-builder into runs that will fly by as fast as raindrops in a hurricane.

It’s this fantastic interweaving of the strategic and tactical layers that makes Last Train Home such an enjoyable ride in combination with the loving eye for authenticity and immersion.

Even after more than two decades of RPGs featuring Mario since, Super Mario RPG is still up there with the best of them, and this remake solidifies that. It’s simple, sure, but it’s great fun, and set the stage for every turn-based Mario game since. It’s been a brilliant year for Nintendo fans, and Super Mario RPG is the perfect send-off for the Switch in 2023.

The dialogue is snappy and funny, the main characters keep you invested, and it’s cool to see the story of Invincible from another perspective. The only thing it’s lacking is the rawness of the Prime Video series.

Despite all this, I do like Persona 5 Tactica – just not as much as I had hoped. It’s another fun adventure through the Metaverse with characters that I love and a style of gameplay that – while not as deep or challenging as I wanted – I do enjoy. However, as much as it breaks my heart to say it, I think it’s time to let the Phantom Thieves ride off into the sunset because this spin-off proves they don’t have infinite longevity, and we’re all sick of waiting for Persona 6 at this point.

Modern Warfare III feels like a content expansion for Call of Duty: Warzone, and if it were sold as that, at a lower price, it could’ve been justified. But by selling this as a premium experience, and crunching developers to create the game in just 16 months, Activision has shown its hand. This game shows that the publisher doesn’t care about its staff, and evidently, doesn’t respect its consumers.

Tales of Arise is a solid JRPG, if not the strongest Tales series entry. Beyond the Dawn is disappointing, even by the standards set by the main game. If, for some reason, you’ve read this review without playing the main game, rest assured that it’s decent fun. This DLC expansion, however, can be left out of your cart.

Like A Dragon Gaiden is a game that fans of the Like a Dragon series will want to play, if only to bridge the gap in their knowledge of Kiryu’s whereabouts between games. However, those who aren’t as invested in the series can probably skip this one, unless they are really interested in the new combat. At the end of the day, it is still a Like A Dragon game with all the goofy fun that goes along with it. However, it is one of the more lackluster games in the series, and is not as robust as your usual entry.

I had no idea what to expect after my first 10 minutes or so with Little Goody Two Shoes. A slick, '90s-style anime opening leads into what seems like a cutesy adventure game about a snotty kid living in the forest. Then it turns into a deduction game, a management sim, and a social game, with bits of horror and some retro-style arcade games sprinkled in for good measure. It sounds like a lot on paper, but one of Little Goody Two Shoes’ most impressive achievements is how well it manages to balance its moving parts.

I can’t fault the developers of Gargoyle Remastered, they did an excellent job of converting Gargoyles. Gargoyles is just kind of terrible to begin with, and short of a ground-up remake or reboot, no amount of pretty graphics is going to change that.

While not every game in the Jackbox Party Pack 10 hits quite right, the few that do are some of the best the series has ever seen. Unfortunately, as high as the highs are, the lows are just as low, with FixyText souring the experience somewhat with unfortunate desyncs and boring prompts.

As with a lot of these things, they get better as you settle into it, gathering more powerful weapons and generally getting better at the game, but I can still name so many other similar games that I’d rather play instead of this.

At the regular setting, enemies don’t telegraph their attacks, and you need to go into accessibility if you even want to have a chance at dodging. Your dodge also offers limited or no invincibility frames and a short range, meaning you are unlikely to come out of a fight feeling powerful. The different weapons you grab, and the boons you pick up don’t add to the depth of the gameplay, while let down a visually stunning game.

Overall this is Carlson’s best game yet, taking what made Limbo and Inside so great, and taking those puzzle mechanics to completely new heights. In a year of amazing games, Cocoon still stands out, which we certainly weren’t expecting so late into the year.

If you like visual novels, I would still likely recommend Saltsea Chronicles if only for the things that it does differently. My largest disappointments come from what was felt promised and didn’t deliver. The story attempts to do something with mystery, but these feel so telegraphed that the bigger intrigue would be if the twists never happened at all. A worthy attempt, that doesn’t quite hit greatness.

Unlike Slay the Spire, this is not an endless roguelike. Maps are predetermined and have a set number of paths, though you can’t explore all of them in one go, so you’re still incentivized to go back several times. There are also secret locations you can unlock by bringing certain heroes. Team composition is also important because some characters unlock additional powers when teamed up with certain other heroes. The biggest problem with the game is that it’s a bit janky. Targeting your cards at the right character is sometimes difficult, and there is always a delay between playing the card, the little character animations this triggers, and the sounds of the animation. It’s also a very easy game, so those looking for a challenge won’t exactly get one here.

All in all, Hexarchy is a casual turn-based strategy game worth checking out.

What most interested me is that the ending you achieve isn’t only in the choices you make, but in the way you play. Without spoiling the surprise, even meta aspects of how you play lead you down certain paths. You can’t save at a seemingly important choice and go back and see the other path, but you have to play again, and you will notice a whole different outcome. This way of path choosing was an innovation that I had never expected, and what left me thinking about the smaller things I do in real life too. This system is something special, and despite smaller issues with the characters, this system has shown a new era for visual novels.

It’s certainly not a bad roguelike if you’re into the genre. The content there is engaging enough to keep you going for a while, just don’t expect it to be the kind of game that’ll be in your regular rotation for years to come.

The part that felt they didn’t fit in with the rest of the game was the reliance on stealth. There are numerous stealth sections throughout, and I felt they were put there to make it feel more ‘gamey’. There should have been more faith in the words as the gameplay, as they are the strongest aspect, and the stealth is just a distraction. Clearer maps to work your way around also would have done a lot for the exploration and prevented some frustrating backtracking.

Football Manager 2024 is inevitably an end-of-cycle game. SI's passion meant that even this year, we got a number of decent innovations, some surprising like the improvements in animation. However, the outdated engine and gameplay patterns, more and more easy to read, are still there with them. You'll play it and enjoy it, but don't necessarily expect a memorable release.

If you’re just in this for the puzzles, then The Talos Principle 2 is a fantastic puzzle game that, despite its difficulty, carefully crafts itself to be accessible to everyone with innovative mechanics that all interlink in ways that will keep surprising you. Taking the game as a whole package though, the narrative greatly drags it down both in terms of the quality of the writing and how it’s implemented as part of the experience.

In all, Thirsty Suitors is an incredibly strong basis for a game but needed so much more to ensure it was ready to play. From a technical standpoint, there is still a lot of jank here, and while it doesn’t crash, everything feels low-budget and not quite finished. This is seen most in the facial animations, and in a game that’s all about emotion it really hurts it that everyone hits you with a blank stare. It feels like such a missed opportunity. For everything that Thirsty Suitors does well, it feels that a little bit longer investing in the game could have turned it into something great.

My Time at Sandrock is easily the best life-sim of 2023. While it’s not perfect, I haven’t been so immediately grabbed and long-term addicted to a game like this since I first played Stardew Valley, and it’ll be in my regular rota for the rest of the year. It puts its best foot forward with the production and building side of things, then keeps you coming back with seemingly endless side quests and well-developed characters.

Even with a sometimes bland Career mode and the currently disappointing state of Moments, EA Sports WRC is a game every rally sim fan should play. Driving model, realism, variety — it's the pinnacle of Codemasters' experience in the genre, plus the official World Rally Championship license. Rally has finally come home.

Unfortunately Rogue City begins to malfunction almost as often as RoboCop himself. The framerate stutters on Xbox Series S, audio drops in and out, and textures pop in and out during cutscenes. I had one enemy, clearly dead, just stand bolt upright in the middle of the room. It's not really a showcase for Unreal Engine 5 on console.