Possessor(s) is a compelling metroidvania game that's worth digging at to get to experience its flashy and enjoyable combat. The relationship between Luca and Rhem, as well as the general plot, is also remarkable in how it creates flawed, relatable characters in a messed-up situation. Though the game could have gone an extra mile to provide a more comfortable experience for players during exploration, it’s not enough of an issue to keep it from shining.

The base-building is nicely flexible, whether you want to make it a bare-bones production facility or something more organized with walls and doorways plus a cozy living area, and while the automation tools are fairly basic, they get the job done with minimal fuss. The platforming tools for world exploration are strong enough that, with a combination of launching from a full-speed hoverboard into a glide combined with air-dashing, Kent can frequently get to areas that should have been out of reach, especially when combined with a low-gravity environmental event. That map itself is nicely designed, albeit maybe a bit generous in advertising where the secrets are, and each biome has its own set of resources to chase after. All those raw materials then get fed back into climbing up the tech tree, which frequently involves expanding the base a bit more to fit in new machinery to process the resources in different ways and then combining it all into food, potions, tools, upgrades, and eventually the restoration of humanity. That last bit is a long way off from Kent's arrival planetside, but he's been napping for ten thousand years, so what's a few more spent in pursuit of not being the last person on Earth?

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment proves that the series can still go on and stay strong in its own way of storytelling. It has been created with the intention of tying in Tears of the Kingdom in a way that only improves and fills in the gaps that had previously been unexplored in detail. We gain a new perspective on all the characters involved in this war with Ganon and how everything came to lead up to the showdown with Link and the Demon King. It is a fantastic game to play if you’re a huge fan of The Legend of Zelda and are waiting for the next iteration of the series. While it may not be for everyone, it does the best it can to create a meaningful and fun experience set in the same world that we all know and love.

Lumines Arise is an expressive, compelling puzzle game that manages to provide a carefully created experience that merges together sound, visuals and gameplay. It’s a spectacle of lights, colors and sounds that continues to be enthralling for long bursts. There are very few projects like it on the market, and it’s an easy recommendation for anyone who loves puzzles and contemporary music.

No extraction shooter stands out as much as ARC Raiders. The game can seem overwhelming at first as there isn't much direction, and the user interface feels like it's meant for a mouse and keyboard and not a controller. Once you leave Speranza and hop into the world, experience the atmosphere and the gunplay while meeting some people along the way, however, the experience quickly gets up to speed. If you're going solo, it's worth matchmaking and finding someone to lean on for certain things. The user interface offers small font with no direction and you'll miss key elements. The game runs and looks spectacular and offers a soundtrack that isn't from this universe. If you haven't tried an extraction adventure/shooter before and missed the boat on Helldivers 2, this is the one to get into.

Overall, Amanda the Adventurer 3 is a thrilling conclusion to this small-scale trilogy and one that's sure to please fans of the first two titles. While the game does have visual flaws, which may make it tempting to ignore for new players, those who are fans of puzzles, horror and the escape room genre should give the Amanda trilogy a chance the next time they’re in the mood for mascot horror frights. It may not be the best horror title of 2025, but it's deserving of gamers' time nonetheless.

Fast & Furious: Arcade Edition is a good racing game at its core hurt by lackluster porting and a lack of content. While Raw Thrills' prior arcade effort, Cruis'n Blast, got a healthy increase in content going over to consoles, this game did not and it hurts the long-term lifespan. As an arcade racing fanatic, it's easy to get a lot of use out of the game for years, but casual racing fans will want to look towards a meatier arcade-style racing game.

While Wreckreation still needs work to get the remaining kinks out, there's still a hugely entertaining racer once you get used to the fact that there's no reasonable way to expect Burnout Paradise-levels of polish. It's the kind of game you can spend half a day listing its flaws and the other half having a great time playing, bashing opponents into scrap metal while seeing what kind of trouble you can find or create. Wreckreation shoots for the stars and doesn't quite make it, but it's hard to complain when drifting a mountain road's switchback at two hundred miles per hour or building a series of ramps up a mountain just because you can. It's a lovely peaceful world in the countryside of Wreckreation, but with a little bit of creative mayhem, that's a problem it won't have for long.

Double Dragon Revive doesn't quite hit the mark, but does do some things right. The combat gives glimpses of greatness, but there's a lot going on with that combat. Limited space and room within levels mixed with random platforming/puzzle sessions is part of the reason the genre moved on to greater things. These elements didn't necessarily need to be revisited especially when other recent Double Dragon titles didn't try to do this. Yuke's seemed to go for a more serious tone with this release, and while Streets of Rage 4 was able to get away with a serious tone, it doesn't completely work here. It may be due to the fact that it feels more like a modern anime rather than a ninja gang story from the late 1980s. Revive may have also stuck out more if there hadn't been so many chances at reviving the series in recent years.

Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake is an incredible reimagining of the original two games that keeps the core of what they were in the limelight. You have a stunning world redone and put together with the utmost care and respect for the fans. It's the perfect way to hop into the series if you have missed these games the first time around or have been on the fence about giving them a shot. They maintain their challenging nature from the original release, with a nice amount of quality-of-life changes that seem minor, but add to the experience, bringing them to another level, feeling more like a modern release due to these changes. From the first game, forcing you to be the lone hero, taking on the role to protect the land he holds dear. To the second game, where your party looks to take on the role of their ancestors and protect their people from the threats terrorizing the populace. These are incredible games, filled with character, charm and challenging gameplay, and they're absolutely worth playing in this new and enhanced release.

Pokémon Legends: Z-A is a fun romp through Lumiose City thanks to its fun and engaging gameplay and stable framerate that's ultimately held back by an antiquated approach to world design and presentation.

When Full Metal Schoolgirl is at its best it's easy to see the game it could have been, with a good mix of enemies and behaviors making the rooms feel satisfyingly challenging. This can frequently go on for a couple of rooms at a time, but soon enough the enemy mix will lean towards unmanageable, packed with ground-based cyborgs, flying ones with guns, a turret or two or maybe missile-launching dog-bots and a couple spider-bots for good measure. Sure, the weapons make short work of each individual enemy, and if you could see everything all at once, the tools are there to avoid damage, but that's just not possible. Health goes down, batteries are used to replenish it but there's only so many, and the run is over. Dying isn't a problem, but losing a notable percentage of health from off-camera enemies, when you're at floor nineteen of a twenty-floor run and you used your only key to get there, and on defeat need to re-do the lower floors that were interesting when you were less powerful but now have the health, energy, special moves and experience to blow through just feels like busywork. A good run feels nicely satisfying, the combat can be great fun once you lock into its flow, and the variety of encounters means it's not too bad when there are twenty floors between one checkpoint and the next, but when a run feels bad due to elements you can't react to and the punishment is wasted time in areas you're done with, it becomes easy to find anything else to do.

The Outer Worlds 2 is an entertaining game that’s incredibly fun to play through. There may be flaws, as most RPGs possess, but they don’t trigger any ill will. There’s plenty of polish that shows how much the team has advanced in bringing this game to another level that the first title lacked.

Ninja Gaiden 4 is a frustratingly good time. On one hand, the combat can be entertaining, with highly engaging move sets and combos. On the other hand, the story, pacing, mission structure and some enemy designs leave a lot to be desired.

Keeper is an unusual game and one clearly made for a specific audience. This is the type of game specifically created for those who can stop, smell the flowers and let the experience of walking itself entertain them. The game might have an incredibly strange concept, but Double Fine knocked it out of the park with Keeper, and it deserves to stand alongside the other great games by this developer.

NASCAR 25 will curb the appetite of those looking for a console experience. The game does the driving and racing perfectly, albeit with some slips outside of the excellent physics engine. This game needs to be experienced with a force feedback or direct drive wheel to truly appreciate the physics engine. Using a controller works well enough and will suit casual players just fine; it's just hard to come back to it from using a wheel. Outside of the racing, there isn't much going on. The Career Mode has interesting design decisions, but there's no point in racing long races if you have to start over due to the Sponsorship Goal. There are four series' here with a ton of drivers to choose from, but the customization aspect is limited. The game looks and runs well, but the sound experience is lacking. The point is you play racing games to drive the cars, which is where NASCAR 25 shines.

Yooka-Replaylee is a bright and upbeat platformer-adventure starring a pair of fun and likable characters, so it's hard to complain too much about it being overly referential. Each level is a platforming playground with mini-games, a boss encounter, unique challenges to help keep the returning ones fresh and a reasonable play-time to completion. The move-set isn't huge, but they're all effective, making navigating the world feel smooth and responsive. Thematically it's a bit all over the place and skews young for its humor and difficulty, but neither of these take away from the satisfaction of Yooka-Replaylee giving constant rewards for looking in odd places. If there's an interesting spot in the level then there's something there to collect, and more often than not the reward is an item worth the effort of the search. That's exactly how a collectathon platformer is supposed to work, and whether a game is twenty-seven years old or just a couple of days, the formula is timeless.

Dying Light: The Beast may have begun life as a DLC, but it's released as a full-fledged game that can proudly stand on its own.

The tale of Pac-Man World 2: Re-Pac is one where the gameplay sum is greater than its parts. There are a ton of flaws throughout the experience, and yet despite them all, it's still easy to recommend the game because of how fun everything is at its core. The biggest issue plaguing Re-Pac 2 is the lack of quality-of-life improvements being put in place across the board. Having the outline for Pac-Man falling, but not having a similar outline for enemies above the player, is one such example and something that will lead to needless hits and deaths, which can be frustrating during boss battles, especially with their variety of stages before you win. If you enjoyed the first Re-Pac, then getting the sequel is a must because it's more of the same kind of action, just more polished. If you didn't and have a craving for 3D platforming, then it's a slightly tougher recommendation given how janky things can feel compared to other platformers on the market.

Thankfully, Battlefield 6 is exactly what the Battlefield franchise needed. Setting aside the terrible campaign, which fails to tell anything resembling an actual story, Battlefield 6 is a return to form for Battlefield.

Absolum is a remarkable beat’em-up experience in which perfectly crafted combos and 2D visual delight drive a compelling journey through the fantasy land. While the experience can get repetitive early, this is a minor slight in what is otherwise an impressive, compelling experience throughout its entire run. The game is easily recommended for any fans of 2D action games and does what it sets out to do strikingly well.

Super Mario Galaxy remains one of the franchise’s shining points in the 3D era. While one can question the pricing structure for two 15+ year old games, there’s no doubt Nintendo has done a good amount of work adapting the beloved games to 2025. The visuals have been updated, with textures being reworked in a big way, there's a smooth framerate, and most importantly, a 4K resolution for those on a Switch 2. It’s how Super Mario Galaxy and its successor should be remembered. That’s on top of the Gyro controls being properly implemented to mimic the Wii Remote IR motion controls. If you somehow missed Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2 all those years ago, this is the ideal and most complete way to experience it.

Little Rocket Lab is about as cozy an introduction to automation as could be imagined, with a lovely pixel-art style and likable characters in a run-down but charming town. There's no pressure to rush anything, with major events coming to your door and minor ones popping up while running around the town. The automation makes for a nice change of focus for this type of life-sim setting, and it just keeps growing with new complications and machines to handle them at a nice, steady pace. The town of St. Ambroise isn't all that large, comprised of six major areas and a few indoors sections, but it's a lively place with room for the townspeople and all the machinery you build, if you plan it right. There's a lot of enjoyable work involved in bringing St. Ambroise back from the edge of ruin, from supplying rocket components to chasing after lost kids mad at their family, and while Morgan didn't ask for the latter, she's going to deal with every challenge and automation problem in her way to engineer her mother's dream into reality.

King of Meat is a game that fulfills a specific niche genre, aiming to provide a solid and entertaining party game experience for folks looking to play games with their friends. There's matchmaking and the potential to play solo, but the game at its core is much better with 1–3 others to play with. Crossplay helps with this, allowing the entire group to play on the console of their choice. Everything is straightforward and to the point; there isn’t much to do, but when done with a party, it can end up being fun. It isn’t going to be a game of the year contender by any means, but the world surrounding the game is over the top and hilarious. It allows everyone to have fun with simple weapon combos, fun customization options, a dungeon creator and unlocks that keep the core game interesting.

Agatha Christie - Death on the Nile is a good mystery game that expands on a classic narrative with new elements due to the new setting and dual protagonist structure. The expansive areas to explore, however, are a double-edged sword as they offer good-looking visuals and may be compelling to explore for hardcore adventure gamers, but may end up being labyrinthine and hard to enjoy for a more casual playthrough. Fans of the genre are likely to enjoy the experience, whether they know the original Agatha Christie story or not.

Digimon Story: Time Stranger is a fun game with interesting gameplay mechanics that are unfortunately held back by simple enemy encounter design. Thankfully, the fun mechanics and respect for the concept of Digimon will still make this an enjoyable title for fans of the franchise. If you're craving a new story starring these beloved creatures, then you can't go wrong with picking this up.

Nicktoons and the Dice of Destiny may not change the world with its simple gameplay and level design, but being the first proper Nicktoons crossover story in years is bound to let it worm its way into the minds of fans. While factors like a bizarre loot system and graphical issues hold the title back, anybody who is a fan of cartoons is bound to enjoy their time with this title. This may not be a Nicktoons Unite title by name, but it is one in spirit.

Cladun X3 is the kind of game that hides its complexity and depth of content behind a deceptively straightforward concept. Run through dungeons, beat up monsters, reach the exit. It's basically Gauntlet right up until the customization and character-growth options kick in, at which point it becomes Gauntlet with a PhD. What makes it work is the complexity of each run, balancing beating up monsters, figuring out the trap layout to catch them in the crossfire, looking for secrets in the hand-built levels or attacking a random dungeon to see how much loot you can bring back from its depths, etc. The game is huge and the grind can go on as long as you'd like it to, especially seeing as you can make your own maps and then upload them for others to play. There's a ton of great dungeon-crawling in Cladun X3's depths, with endless tweaks to the dungeon themes and ways to build characters to keep the repetition at bay.