While the controls leave a lot of room for improvement, Pascal’s Wager: Definitive Edition is a Souls-like game that offers sufficiently high quality.

Bravely Default II is an RPG with an interesting battle system that allows you to stock multiple turns to use at once. With many main and sub jobs to choose from, the game also offers plenty of customization options. While the way the story progresses can get repetitive, the various lands you visit and their cultures and history feel grounded in reality.

Outriders could have been a great looter-shooter, but with its unbalanced structure and current instability, it’s hard to recommend.

Resident Evil Village is a game of unquestionably high quality, but sometimes its parts do not fit together. It’s hard to tell whether the developers were aiming for a terrifying horror game or an action-packed shooting experience: There are elements of both, along with the story, the new game plus systems and the inclusion of The Mercenaries, and sometimes these various elements do not work in harmony with each other. Village is a great game that you can enjoy with confidence, but with a little more synergy it could have been even better.

In its best moments, Balan Wonderworld is indeed a wondrous experience, but it becomes hard to keep dreaming with its lack of depth and attention to playability.

Blending refreshing systems like aiming and the ability to stock enemy encounters to fight them all at once when you feel like it, Fantasian’s turn-based battles are simple yet revolutionary. By implementing real-life dioramas as the main visuals, the locations have a sense of place few games can match. From story to music, everything in this game has been crafted with love and attention to detail, resulting in a game of superb quality overall.

While the essential component of repeatedly hunting monsters remains the same, the action elements have been refined with the introduction of the Wirebug and Switch Skill systems, and even monsters from previous games offer a fresh hunting challenge. The new Rampage mode, where the player must battle multiple large monsters at once, offers a stunning balance of difficulty and variety.

The game’s illustrations and background art are obviously reminiscent of other works, but together they create a visual style that feels like a good match for the unique story. While not being able to save whenever you want and limited options for text display speed could be seen as part of the presentation, it becomes frustrating when you have to play the same part again.

Touhou Luna Nights could almost be classified as a Metroidvania game. However, it has become something of its own by eliminating many elements common in the genre. By getting rid of these elements, the essence of the Touhou DNA becomes more obvious, resulting in a masterpiece that couldn’t have been made if it wasn’t based on the Touhou Project series in the first place.

Phoenotopia: Awakening aspires to be a retro 2D action adventure, and it succeeds in many ways. The cute sprites and soundtrack are appealing, and there’s lots of great exploration and puzzle gameplay. That being said, some elements bring along unnecessary stress, making the experience as a whole feel like a juicy durian that can only be cracked open with your bare hands.

Sword of the Necromancer is a real-time action RPG with roguelike elements. Reviving monsters after you beat them and having them fight alongside you is an interesting concept, but it never fully reaches its potential. The story about two girls - which plays out like a visual novel - is interesting and crafted with care.

Jumping around as a ninja in a cyberpunk world makes for a great retro-style game. Whenever a new type of action or mechanic is introduced, Cyber Shadow feels genuinely fresh. While its progression might be overwhelming at times, it’s a satisfying package for sure.

Project Wingman is an indie aerial combat game that could easily be mistaken for a AAA title. If playing a flight shooter in VR on PC is your dream, look no further. However, with repetitive gameplay and a story that’s difficult to understand, Project Wingman just doesn’t feel exhilarating enough to make it enjoyable for the casual player.

While there’s some fun to be had with the sword fighting, the stressful difficulty and lack of volume make Unto the End difficult to recommend.

Ghosts ‘n Goblins has always been famous for its difficulty, and the newest entry in the series is no exception. That being said, you can now choose between four difficulty options, and with new modern systems like checkpoints and the ability to equip multiple skills and magic, things have become a lot more manageable. But even with all that, there’s no doubt about it: Ghosts ‘n Goblins is going to kick your ass again and again. This reboot is as true to the franchise’s DNA as possible. At the same time, it tries something new with the co-op, which can be a blast if you head in with a player of approximately the same skill level.

This PS5 entry in the Atelier series delivers gorgeous anime-style visuals, which its alchemy mechanics make it easy to create equipment of the highest rank, making the speedy and dynamic combat a lot of fun. That being said, the game’s design can sometimes feel a bit too much on the user-friendly side, which can make the exploration feel tedious. While most of the story depicts the characters’ everyday lives, be prepared for a dramatic ending.

Phogs! is a fun co-op game in which two players each control one end of a dog-like creature with two heads and a snakey body. While simple to control, Phogs! manages to stay fun through the end with a wide array of gimmicks. Great camerawork and a fresh setting for each area also contribute to keeping things exciting. With a well-balanced difficulty curve, Phogs! is a great game for gamers of all ages.

Haven is an RPG that depicts two people living together on a lonely planet. Through their communication, the player learns not just about their love and insecurities, but also what kind of world it is they are inhabiting. While the ending may feel a bit anticlimactic, putting the state of mind of a couple into gameplay makes for a truly remarkable experience.

When The Past Was Around feels heavily inspired by Florence. While it is easy to fall in love with its gorgeous artwork and music, its puzzles fail to support to the story’s narrative. There’s definitely a sense of accomplishment when solving the game’s harder puzzles, but they are often utilized as traditional videogame obstacles rather than meaningful tools that contribute to the story.

Last Labyrinth is a VR puzzle adventure with a wide array of interesting gimmicks and unique presentation. If you want to truly understand the story, be ready for a lot of repetition, but in the end that effort will be well worth it.

Chronos: Before the Ashes is a Soulsborne title in which your character becomes older each time you die. With well-timed dodges being an important aspect of the gameplay, hit-and-evade style gameplay makes this an experience that is just as exhilarating as it is nerve-wracking. The balance between battles and puzzles is struck well, but while the idea of aging with every death is an interesting concept, it doesn’t work well, as the ways you can level up become more limited the older you become. Furthermore, the idea doesn’t connect to the story either, making it feel like a wasted opportunity.

While the balance between punishment and reward feels a bit extreme, the satisfaction you get when finally beating a difficult boss is unmatched. Even so many years after its original release, this “theme park of death” is still as great as it always was. While faithful to the original, sudden invasions from other players can interrupt the flow of the game, which is something I had hoped to see the remake improve on.

With a story set 100 years before Breath of the Wild, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is packed with cool surprises and emotional character moments that fans will adore. While the action feels great and exciting, the lack of strategic depth is noticeable. Still, the fact that this is no longer an all-stars spin-off game, but a title with a clear theme and story, shows new possibilities for the Warriors series and makes this a great title in itself.

ALTDEUS: Beyond Chronos is an even better VR adventure than developer MyDearest’s last game, Tokyo Chronos. The satisfying story feels like a full-fledged robot anime. While improvements could be made to the ambitious UI, which incorporates AR to make the player’s actions within the game’s world feel more natural, both the story and stellar presentation make this a game any robot anime fan should buy a VR device for.

Cyberpunk 2077’s biggest achievement is Night City, the most fascinating city in videogame history so far. While the combat outside of the main story does sometimes feel a little repetitive, the way it encourages the player to interact with the everyday lives of the inhabitants of this bustling city results in a roleplaying experience in the truest sense of the word. The game towers like a skyscraper in the Western RPG genre skyline.

Godfall combines common sword-fighting gameplay with typical hack-and-slash elements, but controls and enemy animations lack polish and don’t feel well balanced. There’s not enough of it either. Godfall also does not come optimized for PC: The UI is cumbersome to navigate through, and while in the end there’s still some good hack-and-slash fun to be had, there’s nothing unique here you won’t find elsewhere.

Sakuna’s deep rice-farming experience is truly unique. Making perfect rice is difficult at first, but you will become attached to the rice plants you have been cultivating over the in-game years. With intuitive controls, the side-scrolling action and dungeon exploration section is an enthralling experience as well. Sakuna is great at connecting these two different styles of gameplay, creating a well-balanced game with lots of variety all round.

Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne HD Remaster is the welcome return of a PS2 classic. With the addition of voiced dialogue, characters feel better portrayed than in the original. While the high encounter rate and few save points feel inconvenient in 2020, the highly strategic turn-based battles are still as tense as ever.