Stamina, the single currency required to progress, arrives in minuscule volumes, making cash payments the only viable route to making headway in this offensively dull and exploitative perversion of a much loved series.

The world didn’t real need a Mario Vs. Donkey Kong remake but this is still the absolute best effort Nintendo could’ve made, with tons of new content and the same enjoyable but undemanding puzzles as before.

A surprisingly good set of remasters, that present the original PS1 trilogy in the best light possible and with some very welcome options for modern controls and graphics.

A sprawling action RPG with a poignant love affair at its heart, whose enjoyable combat and supernatural detective work is all in pursuit of a morally ambiguous goal of your own choosing.

Sometimes visuals are enough to carry a game and they certainly take Ultros far, although mediocre combat and some jankiness slightly undermines the unique vision.

Although it’s undoubtedly fun, the biggest question for Helldivers 2 is its longevity and variety. We haven’t played enough to judge that yet but then longevity is always difficult to discuss with a live service game, whose future plans are always in a state of flux. However, especially with its sensible price tag, this is definitely the best of the month’s online-only shooters, even if much of the appeal comes from shooting the wrong targets. [Review in Progress]

Despite its desperation to please, Foamstars is hard to dislike – but it’s difficult to say whether it has any staying power. There’s the expected battle pass progression trees, unlockable perks, and skin microtransactions to make your eyes roll, but it’s not as egregious as other live service titles in the same mould. In a similar vein to other B-tier online games with fun ideas (Knockout City, Rumbleverse, etc.), Foamstars feels like it’s caught against the tide, no matter whether it manages to stir up a dedicated player base or not.

The combat is good, and the script has its moments, but otherwise this is a highly repetitive open world shooter that makes very poor use of its licence.

Another disappointing Silent Hill revival, that gets some of the visuals and tone right but is let down by a hackneyed script and frustrating chase sequences.

A proper, meaty JRPG from a newly ambitious developer, whose top notch combat and art design is let down only by insipid storytelling and voice-acting.

A solid, if strangely incomplete, remake which matches Persona 5 for presentation and has some of the most interesting and varied social link options of the whole series.

A successful evolution of Yakuza: Like A Dragon, which makes great use of its Hawaiian setting and an almost endless array of distractions and mini-games.

The best Tekken game of the modern era, with a vastly improved range of game modes and the most accessible and aggressive action the series has ever seen.

An excellent set of remasters that bring the remaining three mainline Ace Attorney games to modern formats, along with a suite of extras and some effective visual updates.

A charming and beautifully constructed virtual train set, with an immaculately designed interface whose elegance helps make up for the game’s brevity and lack of challenge.

Palworld’s success is built upon the shoulders of giants but there’s no denying it is a fun experience, although how much of that is due to the novelty of it all is hard to say at this early stage. We feel almost guilty for praising it but despite the copy/paste approach to game and creature design, and the disturbing way in which Pals are treated, it does hang together as a fun multiplayer game, at least in the short term. Whatever you think of it, there’s no downplaying the fact that this has been one of the most successful indie launches of all time and one that may go on to have important ramifications for both AI content generation and the Pokémon franchise as a whole. [Early Access Review]

One of the strangest remakes of all time, given the amount of effort and care that’s been put into such obscure adventure games that, in all honesty, don’t deserve the attention.

Still one of the greatest achievements in video game storytelling and while the changes are minor the new roguelike mode and cut levels are interesting and worthwhile additions.

It bears little resemblance to any of its predecessors, but The Lost Crown is one of the best Metroidvania games of recent years and a highly enjoyable challenge.

As you might imagine, we’re still quite some way away from completing The Longing, but the experience so far has been deeply unusual, and sublime in every way. It’s a game experience unlike any other – although one that certainly won’t appeal to everyone – and the mobile version is every bit as unexpected and occasionally joyous as the PC-based original.

There’s plenty to do, it has a nice feel to it that works just fine with touch controls, and even though it can sometimes be tough to work out which small, fast-moving blobs on screen are incoming ordnance and which are collectibles, you do gradually get better at it.

In the past, similarly priced premium titles have only been supported for a few years before becoming unplayable forever, adding to any nagging doubts you may already be experiencing given its litany of problems. There’s still a solid game in there, but you’d be better off playing it on literally any other format.

With no in-app purchases, what might have been a gacha system is replaced with crafting, letting you use resources to build new beasts, that unleash damage on your behalf. It’s just as polished as you’d expect from such a venerable franchise, and stripped of its monetisation is at least as compelling.

It’s brilliant while it lasts, but feels like approximately 70% of an excellent game, and one that seems to run out of steam before reaching its full potential.

The definitive example of the stealth strategy game and a worthy swansong for developer Mimimi Games, as they deliver a charming and surprisingly accessible pirate swashbuckler.

The Wario Land formula is reinvented and improved upon in this magnificently clever and surreal platformer, that is more fun than any of the official Nintendo games.

In many ways an improvement on The Teal Mask but the tedious currency grinding and ongoing technical problems mean Scarlet and Violet’s DLC is far from essential.

A short but sweet VR romp that replicates the Peaky Blinders universe perfectly, even as it runs up against some of the intrinsic limitations of VR gaming on the Meta Quest 2.