Despite the unwanted pressure of its competition structure and potion-making getting a little bogged down toward the middle, I still kept finding myself playing at 3 a.m. after sitting down for “a quick session,” and I already want to do it again...I spent the first few hours of Potionomics falling more and more in love with the experience. Even once the new-game shine wore off, I never stopped being charmed by the meticulous care Voracious Games clearly put into every detail of Potionomics. That elevates an already great experience into one of the best games of the year, and one of my favorite management sims ever.

Ys X: Nordics doesn’t exactly feel like an evolution of the prolific series, but more of a sidestep into something new and different. I’m not sure if future games will look like this, but that’s honestly Nordics’ biggest strength. It simultaneously feels faithful to the franchise and bold and new, all at once. It certainly stumbles here and there with story and the visual variety of its world, but it’s a robust seafaring tale full of rebellious spirit — just like the pirates that inspired it. It’s already been an absurdly busy year for RPGs, but I hope something as stellar as Ys X doesn’t get lost beneath the waves.

Revenge of the Savage Planet wants to be the game you can sit on your couch and beat over a weekend with a friend, and that’s just perfect.

Escape Academy offers a truly unique experience that provides the player with a sense of discovery that’s difficult to compare to any other game. I have a new itch to scratch, and now no other game can satisfy that. I’ll have to go book an escape room.

Terra Nil’s focus on ecological restoration is refreshing to see, and it feels particularly poignant in the face of worsening global warming. Luckily, that strong theme is backed up by equally strong gameplay elements that all tie into that overarching theme. Generous thought has been put into each step of the restoration process, and whether you want a challenging city builder or a laid-back puzzle game, Terra Nil can fill either role.

It wants to deliver the chill vibes while confronting real-world social issues. There is no commitment to the latter beyond surface-level platitudes; Otherwise, it might detract from the relaxing goals of brewing drinks. It is a problem that existed in the original Coffee Talk but has only gotten worse. While there is no denying the joys of revisiting the magical residents of Seattle, Coffee Talk Episode 2 doesn’t nail the balance of bitter and sweet like a perfect cup of coffee.

Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe is a fine remaster of an incredibly tight platformer. It may not have the same scope or energy as Kirby and the Forgotten Land, but it doesn’t need to. If you want a solid Kirby game for your Switch and don’t mind some of the lackluster add-on modes, then Kirby is worth a shot.

I could actually see myself replaying Dawntrail in its entirety just to pore back over this adventure and look for missed details and re-experience the highs and lows. That’s a first for me, nearly a thousand hours in.

Warzone 2.0 tries to cater to a wider audience by borrowing ideas from its competition, but it delivers a hodgepodge of ideas that seems to forget what made the original Warzone so iconic.

KOF’s resistance to any grand story arc defies the pressure being applied by its rivals. Minimal solo options and routine online duels don’t reinvent anything either. This isn’t laziness on SNK’s part, however. It feels more like a focus on maintaining the design philosophy that the player base has loved all along: potent character design, instantly identifiable team play, and off-the-wall plotlines.

This is a Yakuza game through and through, filled with both raucous absurdity and heart-crushing emotion.

A game built on the message that your choices matter, The Quarry does very little to prove this design principle in execution. It’s a grand attempt at recapturing the magic of the developer’s cult 2015 hit Until Dawn, but rather than demonstrate growth for Supermassive, The Quarry makes it feel like the studio is trapped in the past. In this case, it’s an overemphasis on pulpy B-horror movies from the ‘80s.

Kirby Air Riders is absolutely not going to be a game for everyone, and it doesn’t want to be. And it won’t be a constant in your life either. But like that weird uncle and his larger-than-life stories, it’s probably an experience you’ll remember fondly now and again. And in a world where video games are obsessed with occupying your time and stringing you along for weeks, months, even years — that’s undeniably refreshing.

Call of the Mountain succeeds where so many other ambitious VR projects stumble for one reason — it keeps it simple. Core mechanics like traversal and combat have a generous margin of error, and can be customized extensively depending on your appetite (or lack thereof) for a challenge. This keeps the focus on immersion and exploration, rather than fiddling with finicky button inputs and timing.

I might hesitate to call Age of Imprisonment an “essential” Switch 2 game, but it’s a crucial piece of giving the system a strongly varied first-year lineup. And, more than anything, it makes me excited to see the future of Koei Tecmo and Nintendo’s budding relationship.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is almost great. Its unfair difficulty is its most substantial flaw, but this is something that could be tweaked in an update. Exploring the world is an immense amount of fun, its controls and movement are fluid, and the world has a definitive sense of style. But many players won’t get to experience all that it has to offer due to its overpowered bosses, especially at the start of the game.

If you’re willing to overlook the bloated combat, you’ll find a lot to love in this macabre adventure about the bond between sisters.

Ultimately, much of Metroid Prime 4 feels like a failed experiment. As great as it is to explore the lightning-struck Volt Forge or pick through the haunted remains of the Ice Belt facility, the game’s standout moments are buried in drudgery.

There isn’t anything like Metal: Hellsinger. Diehard metal fans will no doubt fall in love with it instantly, but the overall experience is satisfying and compelling enough to serve as a gateway into the metal genre for newcomers. It perfectly embodies the passion, energy, and emotion that all metalheads share.

Though I would have liked to see Square Enix make more drastic changes to the overall formula, Crisis Core has never looked or felt better to play. Zack’s story is gripping, hopeful, and emotionally devastating. So despite a few minor flaws, Crisis Core Reunion feels like “essential reading” for anyone interested in Final Fantasy VII and the ongoing Remake project.

Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name goes back on much of this forward momentum and seeks to latch onto what fans loved about the previous era of the franchise. While it retains the wonderfully designed mini-games and impressively realized city streets of its fictionalized locales, the need to live in the past holds it back. Kazuma Kiryu’s presence is the most concerning, as the story fails to justify why it needs to keep bringing Kiryu out. Every time Kiryu gets out, will he get pulled back in? Maybe they’ll finally snuff him out for real in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth.

Overall, it feels like Z-A has made a definitive statement about what the “Legends” games are able to aspire to – a way for Pokémon to get weird and experimental alongside the main games. Looking back, that’s the most compelling part about Z-A: the promise it holds for the series’ future and the steps it takes to do something different. So even if Z-A isn’t everything I wanted it to be, it’s a world I dearly enjoyed getting to live in.

More than anything, Nightreign feels like a sandbox for FromSoftware to try something new, implement ideas, and see how they land. In the grand scheme of things, it makes me far more interested to see what the studio can cook up with the Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive The Duskbloods, which is also multiplayer-focused. In that regard, Nightreign feels more like a stepping-stone for the studio, and as long as you go in with tempered expectations, there’s still a healthy dose of fun to be had.

There’s something to be said about not messing with something that’s working just fine. The Show 22 is a familiar product for better and for worse. The ball game is as solid as ever, but the video game entry fails to offer something truly new for PlayStation owners who bought last year’s installment, while its most noticeable change doesn’t really help matters.

For those who do decide to delve in and grind to the end, Brothership has a message about how we’re all in this together. And seeing the classic brothers get up to all sorts of creative hijinks is always a fun nostalgia trip, providing just enough cuteness to see this journey through.

It’s an utterly unique title that boasts astounding production values, supported by a cast of actors that do an incredible job of playing multiple characters. There are a few niggling issues with the various gameplay systems, but it’s an incredible experience that easily stands out as one of my favorites of the year.

Cronos is a strong reminder of how important the survival element of the genre can be, and how so many games have seemingly lost that half. I absolutely adore the decrepit little world that Bloober has built here, and just wish the game could have stuck the landing better in support of it. Cronos comes within a razor’s edge of being a new horror classic, but even with its missteps, its world and panic-inducing combat is something well worth experiencing. A snafu in the review process meant I had access to the wrong build of the game for a while, but it’s proof of how much I enjoyed Cronos that I was willing to play through it another whole time in the review process...More than anything, it feels like post-Silent Hill 2 Bloober Team has really found its footing. Cronos is absolutely a step in the right direction, and I can’t wait to see what the studio does next to keep on building from here.

South of Midnight’s endless imagination and slick presentation make for a perfect weekend playthrough for Game Pass subscribers. But it doesn’t quite have the chops to make it the fun single-player action game that I had hoped for.