Offering a versatile experience, focusing on action and missions divided into acts, Gangs of Sherwood stands out for its simplicity and brings with it elements of character evolution. Despite the small subtitle fonts and less in-depth narrative, the title delivers engaging gameplay and hours of entertainment.

Spells & Secrets is a game with a great idea, fun co-op and friendly gameplay that stimulates creativity. However, it suffers from a weak story and a rather apathetic universe that fails to captivate the player. Despite this, it works as a good gateway for players who are curious about the roguelike genre.

Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising is basically a "Super" Granblue Fantasy Versus. In other words, it is an updated package with all the characters so far, netcode via rollback and some new modes. If you liked the original, you'll enjoy this new game even more. Otherwise, as the foundation is still the same, your opinion is unlikely to change.

Jusant is one of those titles to be played at your own pace, while enjoying its landscapes and every moment of its characters' journey. More than a climbing game, Jusant is a work of friendship and awareness; an adventure through a desolate world full of stories to tell.

ARK: Survival Ascend is the feeling of the familiar, wrapped in improvements. The implementations added to the game significantly improve the gameplay experience, in addition to a wide range of content that has been added for the console version. It's the chance for old and new players to immerse themselves in a challenging, unique survival experience whose potential can be seen to be in constant progression.

With a combat system supported by a huge amount of possibilities to customize your runs, memorable boss fights and excellent pixel art, Astral Ascent is a must-have for roguelite fans.

The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria is, at best, a mediocre base-building and environmental exploration game, but most of the time it does everything worse when compared to other similar works. Add the disappointing combat experience, a forgettable story and lackluster aesthetics, and you have something that is bad as a game, even worse as part of a universe as incredible as the one created by Tolkien.

Train Valley 2 not only maintains the strengths of its predecessor, but also brings small changes and new features that make the title even more challenging. For puzzle or simulation fans, it's a guarantee of many hours of good gameplay.

Have a Nice Death is a challenging roguelite, but also a lot of fun. Even though its randomness can be frustrating in some cases, the huge variety of build alternatives and the excellent combat system are capable of keeping you motivated to overcome these adversities.

Born of Bread is one of the biggest surprises of the year. An initially simple RPG, but one that captivates with each new mission and companion we encounter. In addition to the visuals heavily inspired by Paper Mario, the game brings a lightness that I haven't found in a title of this genre for some time. Fun, with delicious exploration, combat that works, an excellent soundtrack and full of pop culture references, Born of Bread is a game that deserves attention and that fulfills its main objective: to entertain and, at the end of the day, leave us with a smile on his face.

Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin is a very worthy adaptation of this universe for games, even if it gets lost in the DualSense interface. The linearity and contained scope of the adventure may bother those expecting a large-scale RTS. But with expectations in the right place, there's plenty to enjoy here.

As a complete game, The King of Fighters XIII: Global Match is exceptional and almost unbeatable, but the justification for relaunching it with a remodeled online system using the best of today's technology turns out to be a shot in the foot, with an unstable, incomplete result full of questionable choices, including aesthetic ones.

The Pale Reach is an expansion that makes the core game even more special for first-timers, who will now be able to enjoy a more diversified experience. The additional content brings interesting new features and is recommended for veterans too, especially given its attractive price.

Even though it is still limited by genre trends, Roots of Pacha builds a farming simulator with its own personality by centralizing the theme of community in its optimistic and relaxing campaign. Unfortunately, this didn't extend to multiplayer, which is online only and doesn't allow you to share the screen locally with your loved ones.

The Awakened King develops the story of the world of Losomn and adds a good amount of items and content to Remnant II. That's enough to keep players entertained for a while longer with what was already one of the best action games of the year.

Naruto X Boruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Connections finally brings the entire saga of its protagonist to a game, along with a multitude of iconic characters from the franchise. Its mechanics and aesthetics, however, recycle everything that was already present in previous games, with qualities and defects, which should please long-time fans and put off anyone else.

Tales of Arise: Beyond the Dawn delivers a lot of extra content and manages to delve even deeper into the history of the people of Dehna and Rena, making it a mandatory DLC for anyone who loved spending hours on end helping Alphen and his friends in the main campaign.

Dead Island 2: Haus stands out for maintaining the game's basic structure and presenting a new, uncompromising story. With a short duration and little beyond the basics, it lacks enough content to justify a return to the game.

Barton Lynch Pro Surfing is definitely a game made by surfers for surfers. Even though its technical part is below what we expect from a game nowadays, the gameplay is fun and represents the feeling of surfing very well.

KarmaZoo has a proposal that in practice only works when playing with friends. It's almost impossible to complete and have fun with randoms. In the end, it's an interesting platform game, with a unique concept, but honestly only worth playing with people you know.

Worldless stands out for its vibrant visual aesthetic and strategic challenges in turn-based battles. The abstract approach to the plot and the lack of detailed explanations can be frustrating, requiring discovery through trial and error. The experience offers intense moments, in which precise timing is crucial. Backtracking encourages exploration and solving challenges with new skills, despite some frustrating elements regarding understanding the mechanics.

The Last Faith steps into the ambivalence of familiarity: while it fulfills its promise of aptly mixing metroidvania and soulslike, it never really surprises or innovates. Although the campaign is challenging, its good pace of shortcuts, fast travel and leveling up pushes us to advance further and further through its gothic world of beautifully detailed pixel art.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 makes mistakes in practically every possible aspect, from the campaign with questionable design and shallow story, to the uninteresting zombies mode and even its classic competitive multiplayer mode, delivering much less than expected. Little is really original and the game looks more like a reuse of parts from Warzone to create a new product to be sold at full price.

Haunted House is exactly what you expect from a conventional roguelite, favoring stealth over direct combat. Abusing a cartoonish artistic style, it offers good but sometimes unstable mechanics, as well as a solid but repetitive and not always rewarding progression model.

Persona 5 Tactica is a great Tactical RPG, bringing another good story with the iconic group of Phantom Thieves, a mystery that will keep you interested in its resolution and explores a new gameplay style not yet seen in the franchise, although not very challenging. If you are a fan of the series, this is another spin-off that will please you and introduces an addictive new genre.

When played just for fun, Teardown is an excellent destruction experience, with your imagination being the limit to create the most varied situations. Unfortunately, part of this is limited by a repetitive campaign mode that can become frustrating on many occasions.

Berzerk: Recharged is fun for a limited time and gets it right by using strong arcade game elements. However, a bolder approach would guarantee an even larger audience for the Atari classic in its new version.

The Talos Principle 2 is a masterpiece that ventures into ingenious puzzles and the philosophical universe of deep questions. Even though it is aimed at audiences looking for exciting, challenging and honest intellectual stimulation, this is a less intimidating experience than it may seem, thanks to the flexibility to progress through the campaign and the certainty that each puzzle already contains everything necessary to solve it. Few games have given me so much satisfaction with the beauty of seeing everything connect and make sense of the riddles, making me run to the next. This is one of the best games of 2023 and I'm humbly delighted to see its existence.