Crypt of the Necrodancer may not be for everyone, but if the idea of a steamy love-in between two seemingly incompatible genres turns you on, you’re gonna love it.

It’s a game in near-perfect balance, a lean and distinctly not mean ode to turn-based tactics that embraces the genre’s creative puzzling while repudiating its worst excesses. Tactical Breach Wizards lets you see the future, raise the dead, and burst through windows on a witch’s broom. Yet amid all that, its most powerful spell is empathy.

It is not the blow-away game of 2016, nor does it seem to have the staying power of Ruby and Sapphire, but it’s enjoyable. Pokémon games are their own beasts, and hopefully Sun and Moon is a show of further changes and things to come for the franchise.

The emotional core of the game remains the interdependency between you and the Pikmin, and the sense of responsibility and gratitude that you feel towards them. Walking through my local park after playing it for a day, I felt that if I crouched down under a tree and remained still, I’d see little lines of them ferrying things around among the ants and beetles. The most memorable games are always the ones that inject a little magic into your every day life.

Final Fantasy XVI is the series at its most spectacular, for good and bad. However, Square Enix has taken a lot of the criticism aimed at previous games into account, and the battles offer more freedom, the characters are fleshed out, and thanks to detailed world-building, you finally get the sense again that there is a world out there that needs saving.

Given that Uncharted 4 is already available on PlayStation 5 as part of a wee free collection of PlayStation classics for all PlayStation Plus subscribers, it’s hard to argue that this is an essential purchase for anyone who’s played these games before. If they passed you by at the time, though, this is the best way to experience two different spins on the same bombastic action game – adventures that remind us why characters such as Nathan Drake (and his spiritual predecessor Lara Croft) suit video games so well.

It’s reassuring that despite ever-greater technical refinement, Gran Turismo’s unique, eccentric character remains intact. It’s present in the grab-bag mission mode, which handily demonstrates that a race between 17 brake horsepower Fiat 500s can be just as gripping as one between cars with 50 times that. It manifests most obviously in the utterly bemusing music rally mode, which has you hitting checkpoints to the strains of 80s pop relic Hooked on Classics. Keeping this distinctive spirit alive in the era of 4K and 60 frames a second, Gran Turismo 7 feels both fresh and comfortingly familiar.

Despite its fantasy-sport emphasis, it has an underlying stamp of authenticity – it still requires you to adhere to the basics of rallying, keeping things smooth, braking early and balancing the throttle to get satisfying four-wheel drifts going.

There’s so much happening during the action that you learn to focus on the centre of the screen, relying on reflexes and peripheral vision to take it all in simultaneously as the scene explodes. Saros asks a lot of you – you’ll strafe until your thumbs hurt – but it taps into something primal, pulling you into a flow state where even a screen full of flaming orbs spat by towering hostile aliens no longer seems that big a deal.

Many good RPGs of late have eschewed melodic soundtracks for a more ambient route, but Sea of Stars is full of great tunes. The battle music in particular is both enlivening and nostalgic, and changes ever so slightly from area to area. This attention to detail is what makes the game such a fabulous way to while away end-of-summer evenings. There are pirates and curses, necromancers and spies; there are moonbeam boomerangs, and stealthy stabbings through green portals in the air. Sea of Stars is no shallow mirror of RPGs past. Its depth and sparkle make it a modern classic in its own right.

Link’s Awakening is a fantastic remake of a game that was fantastic in 1993. Fans must decide for themselves if those two things combine to make it a fantastic game in 2019 – particularly when the glorious Cadence of Hyrule is also on the Switch to scratch the itch you may have for 2D Zelda – and at a third of the price.

The writing is sharp and the action fun, but it is the stunning re-creation of another world that is this game’s crown jewel.

Arkham Knight triumphs as a richly empowering comic book fantasy that sees its hero fail almost as much as he succeeds, making him the most believable, the most occasionally unlikeable, and ultimately the most heroic he’s ever been.

I have never seen – or played – anything like it. It’s not a game that everyone will love, but I do think it’s one that everyone should play.

The game may look like Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, but its philosophy is unforgiving, with painfully limited ammo and a foe that can only be taken down with a headshot.

This game shows tremendous love for all things Spider-Man, and the ending packs a punch he would be proud of. But Insomniac relies too much on its hero to elevate the world built around him, with the result that the game wears thin some time before its powerful conclusion.

All-in-all, fans of battling, wonder-trading, and scratching their Pokémon behind the ear will still find things to love in the game, and for many, the changes in Sun and Moon are a refreshing reinvention of a classic formula. It may be initially jarring to veterans, but it is an attractive option for those who have been away from the series for a time to return.

Forza 6 feels like a worthy apology for the misjudgements it made with Forza 5. With competition from the likes of Driveclub and Project Cars, the franchise isn’t quite the benchmark it once was, but it’s damn good to see Turn 10 back on track with such impressive flair.

But DKCR is a colourful, creative romp with one of Nintendo's oldest creations, and with all the hidden levels, bosses and treats thrown in, you'll still be playing it after Christmas.

Treyarch's game is exhilarating and beautifully orchestrated, but it feels like a full-stop, it needs to be a full-stop, because toward the end of the campaign, bombardment fatigue begins to set in.

I’ve rarely played anything that is so unashamedly itself. Each hour is different, each character distinct and memorable, each new psychic playground full of surprises. There are a few things here that belong back in 2005, such as an obsession with collectibles and a redundant tree of upgrades that only confuses the array of psychic powers. But this is a standout title that reminds us why 3D platformers were once gaming’s most popular genre.

With its ever-louder demands for precise jumps and absolute control fluidity, Rayman Origins won't be for everyone. It is tough – have we mentioned that? – and it will frustrate some gamers more than it compels them to continue.

The improvements do now leave the actual battles in conspicuous need of a visual overhaul (something for the imminent 3DS to tackle, perhaps) but at least fans will have plenty to occupy their time until that happens.

The result of the old team getting together again is a tale that retreads old paths but also clearly wants to be more than just an ode to a bygone era of video games. When Threepwood goes to an oracle, Voodoo Lady, for advice, she summarises the paradox this game faces: “You must walk the path, yet you have already walked the path.” Return to Monkey Island pulls off the trick of looking backwards and forwards at the same time, reminding us that the point-and-click adventure will never really die: it’s a zombie pirate that won’t stay in the ground for long.

Diablo 3 on console is a joy. What some thought a quintessential PC game feels at home in its new format, particularly where stripped of its forebear's annoyances. It may not push the boundaries, but as an old-school action RPG it is unparalleled.

As in Journey, surely now an ordained saint of artistically ambitious and emotionally resonant video games, that cleaved mountain always looms in the distance, beckoning you towards it. You do eventually reach it, in the dead of winter, beaten down, the world dying around you. I’m still thinking about what happened there. Rarely has a game made me feel so much in a few short hours. It will be some time before I feel ready to play it again, but until I do, I will be recommending it to anyone who’ll listen.

An enthralling, at times near-classic adventure.

Sunless Skies doesn’t paint an entirely convincing picture of interplanetary travel. Your locomotive, for instance, sails between points on a flat surface, giving it the feel of seafaring with a cosmic paint job. But better to compromise there than in style, imagination and atmosphere. Sunless Skies has that in spades.