Tomba! Special Edition is a major preservation effort by Limited Run Games that successfully brings Tokuro Fujiwara's masterpiece back into the spotlight, packaging it with a series of small extras to further tickle the nostalgia strings. At its core, Tomba! remains a must-play video game for both veterans and newcomers, but the reissue presents some rough edges that could have been smoothed for the current year.

Arriving sixteen years after the first, this second chapter lands in a radically different gaming context: the creators know this, and manage to play just right with the nostalgia of the original World of Goo players, while simultaneously unfolding a game formula that spirals in surreal directions towards the end of the adventure. And it is precisely this happy spiraling that makes World of Goo 2 great and significant, a true manual for those who want to evoke great glories from the past. In its mobile and chaotic structures and in the physics of its unpredictable fluids, the virtual world of Goo Balls is a certainty for puzzle enthusiasts and, more generally, for games created with care, courage, and awareness.

CYGNI: All Guns Blazing is a nice surprise, a flash of light in the darkness of a market that is all too domesticated and at the same time the passionate homage of a small Scottish team to the glorious and all-Japanese era of bullet hell-style shooters. Faithful to these prerogatives yet capable of introducing some interesting new elements, the game is completed quickly but only if you approach it in a distracted and superficial way: those who want to invest effort and energy will have it for several days.

SteamWorld Heist II reconfirms himself as an excellent successor of the first chapter, introducing lots of new content.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - Sweep the Board! is a very simple party game that must be played with friends: it's the only way to really appreciate the experience and turn a blind eye to the actual quality of the minigames.

Thank Goodness You're Here! is crazy, irreverent, surreal, and funny. Unfortunately, it's all in English, sometimes a bit garbled. Take a stroll through the town of Barnsworth to meet its quirky residents and help them with their routines, which seem to be going anything but smoothly. It will make you laugh and then leave you confused. Only when you're ready to embrace the nonsense and its metaphysical oddities will you truly get in sync with it. But then, catching the bus back home might be tough.

Disney Speedstorm comes to iOS and Android with a lot of characters, tracks, events and modes, while delivering an immediate and fun gameplay just like the best kart racers around. The stunning graphics that grace each and every challenge are a plus for fans of Disney brands, which are represented in the game in an excellent manner.

Quotation forthcoming.

Asphalt Legends Unite confirms itself as a sensational arcade racer and represents a major step forward for the Gameloft series, which becomes multiplatform and introduces new cross-platform multiplayer modes in an effort to further increase its already huge installed base. Bringing the game to PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch has obviously meant no small commitment for the developers, but from the point of view of the most loyal iOS and Android users the update inevitably looks less meaty than hoped.

Nobody Wants to Die is a narrative adventure featuring a fascinating cyberpunk setting that draws heavily on some rather famous works (Blade Runner, Altered Carbon, and a dash of Ghost in the Shell) to tell an interesting and engaging story built entirely on the two protagonists. The gameplay is limited to crime scene analysis and the developers have not dared to trespass; rather, they infused the investigative mechanics with contextual hints that make the experience quite guided, but no less enjoyable.

Été is a relaxing and beautiful game, full of poetry. Try it if you are searching for something different.

Fresh and fun, minimalist to the point, Arranger is a perfect summer work for portability. Fast-paced but hardly frustrating, Arranger's puzzles combined with a very dry narrative make for a refreshing indie experience that entertains, even if it only lasts a handful of hours.

Once Human excels at practically nothing, yet it is a thoroughly convincing free-to-play. Thanks to a map packed with points of interest, adrenaline-pumping and immediate combat, and crafting that is never too overwhelming, even those who usually steer clear of survival games might find Starry Studio's offering interesting. Unfortunately, the AI is woefully inadequate and artistically everything is really far too derivative to generate real interest.

Quotation forthcoming.

Quotation forthcoming.

Dungeons of Hinterberg is a puzzle and combat-based action game with an intentionally compassed and relaxed tone. The level of challenge offered never crosses a certain line, and this is reflected in modest level design and a lack of depth in the mechanics. Fun and enjoyable in these summer months, but far from memorable.

Fresh, fun, light-hearted, immediate, Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition is the quintessence of gaming of yesteryear, when you played and replayed the same software over and over again until you learnt it by heart and did home-made speedruns. A joy of nostalgic gameplay.

Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn is the souls-lite that inherits game mechanics from many video games, to offer something new.

Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess is a precious gem. These are precisely the games we sorely miss: the ones that made a console shine between one blockbuster and another, the ones that the general public should respect. The mere existence of a game like this is a success, but Kunitsu-Gami is also a fantastic video game. We couldn’t ask for more.

The First Descendant has great gameplay and characters trapped under predatory monetization, nonexistent story, repetitive mission design and an unholy amount of grinding.

SCHiM is a narrative experience with a truly peculiar graphical style, which tries to bring platforming mechanics and puzzle elements to the table to deliver a gameplay that flows nicely but doesn't leave its mark due to its excessive simplicity and linearity.

Quotation forthcoming.

Zenless Zone Zero stands at the moment as one of the best expressions of a genre often subject to fierce criticism, almost always justified. From an artistic point of view, the work done by miHoYo with the game is truly amazing, and every single sequence turns out to be a thrilling spectacle, thanks to an extraordinary use of cel shading and a direction that is perfectly aware of its prerogatives. The fights are as simple as they are frantic, they certainly return satisfaction even if the challenge is lacking for much of the currently available content and the action, also due to the too short missions and small and often repeated scenarios, soon tends to become repetitive.

Anger Foot is not a game without flaws. We've actually encountered many throughout our adventure in the sunny Shit City, while kicking doors and asses of goons and strange creatures. Nonetheless, its funny, stupidly satisfying gameplay makes this "first-person shooter" genre debut one to cherish jealousy in our library.

Quotation forthcoming.

Quotation forthcoming.

Dawntrail is by far the most complex expansion that Final Fantasy 14 has ever had to tackle: after concluding a ten-year-long story, it had to lay completely new narrative foundations, a goal it has only partially achieved. Similar to what happened with Stormblood, it suffers from much weaker writing compared to the usual standards and is particularly marked by significant pacing issues; however, it compensates with an exceptional "Battle Content" design, promising tons of satisfying encounters.

Riven is one of the best possible remakes to date. It's a smart game blessed with smart decisions.