A more traditional Fire Emblem experience than Three Houses, but one that’s filled with fun new features and emphasises deep and varied gameplay over dating mini-games.

Easily the best One Piece video game there’s ever been and a genuinely fun and innovative Japanese role-player in its own right.

Another great indie detective game that not only makes solving crimes fun and interesting but has some surprisingly good storytelling to tie everything together.

The best sequel to Chrono Trigger there’s never been, with a pseudo-Japanese role-player that maintains a delicate balance between retro homage and modern indie game.

One of the best story-based games of the year, with a complex mix of dystopian sci-fi, religious meditation, and a razor-sharp script.

A purposefully under-designed platformer that takes several cues from Pikmin but forges ahead with its own distinctive take on a platforming comfort game.

Fans of gripping mysteries and intriguing puzzles will love the eclectic storytelling, but not necessarily the pervy humour, in Kotaro Uchikoshi’s most fascinating oddity.

The best 2D shooter for several years and a fantastic homage to the genre, with some of the best pixel art graphics of the year.

A colourful, silly and deliberately over-the-top first person shooter, with severely undercooked gunplay and a sense of humour that will test the patience of even Rick and Morty fans.

An excellent sequel that marries Metroidvania style exploration with a dizzying array of new combat mechanics, to make one of the best roguelike experiences of this or any year.

This is likely to be the definitive version of a great game, and an excellent excuse to dive back into its gloriously rich and varied world, but at the moment it’s a bug-ridden mess that’s more trouble to play than the seven-year-old original. We’re sure by next Christmas it’ll all be running perfectly but all you get this year is a lump of 4K coal. [Review in Progress]

Charming and relaxing is not how you’d describe the average action role-player but this wholesome Dragon Quest spin-off is an enjoyably undemanding, family friendly adventure.

The touchscreen interface works well, even if a controller still trumps it, and for persistent players there are hundreds of hours of entertainment in this delightful and unassuming package. An inspiring addition to the Apple Arcade line-up.

Starting with a path a few squares long, clearing waves of mobs earns gold to buy fresh pieces of track and new turrets that are randomly selected from a gradually expanding range. Many turrets come with a conjoined grid square of water, which makes placing them on the game’s minimal islands an additional challenge. Soon more paths appear on neighbouring islands, forcing you to split your resources to defend them all simultaneously, in this sophisticated and engaging take on a well-established genre.

Already a classic on home formats, it works immaculately on a touchscreen; its blend of drama, murder mystery, and supernatural dread cleverly constructed to be understandable in whatever way you experience its fractured timeline. A genuine classic, but you may need to clear some space for its gargantuan, nearly 14GB file size.

An inspired piece of Final Fantasy 7 fan service, and a very good remaster, but as a standalone game the story and gameplay has very little value.

The best Need For Speed in a decade – but that says far more about the moribund state of the franchise than it does this workmanlike new entry.

Although it feels more like an early access release at this point, this is a promising start for what should eventually eclipse Vermintide 2 and all the other Left 4 Dead wannabes.

Dead Space 4 in all but name, except with no puzzles and surprisingly little suspense. The Callisto Protocol has plenty of gritty action but that’s not quite enough to sustain interest for its entire duration.

For a 27-year-old game with only minor changes this is still an enjoyably taxing tactical role-player but it’s new games this series needs, not more remakes.

A fantastically idiosyncratic approach to both superheroes and turn-based strategy, that manages to remain perfectly accessible without ever talking down to its audience.

An enjoyable combat system is left to flounder in an otherwise unambitious ode to Xbox 360 era shooters, that quickly gets too repetitive to enjoy.

Easily the best of The Dark Pictures anthology series, with a horror story that is deliciously chilling, surprisingly well acted, and far more interesting to play than its predecessors.

Being closer to a traditional video game does more harm than good, in a game that is all too proficient at making anarchic mayhem seem boring.

A significant advancement on Pokémon Sword and Shield and while it’s not hard to see how it could be improved further this is the most ambitious and entertaining Pokémon has been in a long while.

A significant advancement on Pokémon Sword and Shield and while it’s not hard to see how it could be improved further this is the most ambitious and entertaining Pokémon has been in a long while.

A fantasy musical adventure which has big laughs to match its big heart, while being built around charming, if shallow, gameplay mechanics.

A disappointing follow-up to Limbo and Inside that lacks the same complexity of plot and puzzles, and yet struggles surprisingly poorly with the move to 3D.