Saros is a game I'll be chewing on for the rest of the year. It's a game that has a lot of flaws, but makes up for them in showcasing the complicated and messy dynamics that humans find themselves in. An easy recommendation for those looking for a bullet hell with a deep mythos around it. A game that isn't perfect, and is messy, much like all of us.

The game has a fantastic premise and offers legitimate moments of joy, but it feels like it could be so much more with additional content added to the mix. More hairstyles. More facial hair options. More conversation templates for our lingo to be slotted into. The ability to encourage a Mii to confess their love or propose, rather than just waiting for them to figure it out. More “toys” for them to play with. Just… more. As it stands, I don’t think Living the Dream will have as much longevity for me as something like Animal Crossing: New Horizons or Pokemon Pokopia (two other life simulation games on Nintendo Switch), but I’m still enjoying checking on my Miis multiple times per day, at least for now.

Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly remains an unmissable experience for fans of survival horror. But like a spectre captured in the background of a photograph, this remake has lost the finer details which brought the original so vividly to life. Mio and Mayu’s intertwined descent is an immensely engrossing journey of discomforting discovery. I just don’t think this is the best version in which to enjoy it.

I did actually enjoy my time with Monster Hunter Stories 3 despite having a list of issues with it, and I suspect the reason is because it reminded me of those unsung RPGs from the late 90s and early 2000s. It feels like the kind of game you had heard someone talk about glowingly on a message board years ago and when you look it up on eBay it’s inexplicably hundreds of dollars now. The bits of the game that did tickle my brain were tied to its myriad of systems and, while it can be overwhelming, I think the game would be lesser without them. Go ahead and give it a shot if you’re both a fan of Monster Hunter’s designs and world and also want to whittle away time making numbers go up.

If you’re just looking to enjoy Mario Tennis Fever alongside family and friends in the same room, or even in ranked online play, there’s a great deal of fun to be had here. The tennis mechanics and the fever racket system combine to deliver the best (albeit most hectic) gameplay the series has seen in ages. It’s just such a shame that Mario Tennis Fever’s stellar multiplayer action feels so let down by the single player and other modes that surround it.

Code Vein II reminds me of a PS2 game, and I say that as the highest praise. It doesn’t always get what’s going for, but man is it trying. It’s the kind of game you’d rent for a weekend and think about for years afterward, not because it’s the prettiest or the most polished or the best in its genre, but because it’s unique and trying hard and succeeding in cool, memorable ways.

Make no mistake: this isn’t the triumphant return of Metroid Prime in the same way that Dread was for the 2D series. But most of Metroid Prime 4’s issues feel rooted in a lack of focus, rather than a lack of talent. In fact, the first half of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond makes it clear that Retro Studios still has everything it takes to make a spectacular Metroid Prime game, and moments of sheer brilliance occasionally shine and sparkle in its eerie corridors until the final couple of hours. But once things went south, there was no going back. Still, I’d like to see Retro take another crack now that the burden of expectation has been lifted.

It is difficult to tell if I am judging Unbeatable harshly because of how good it should be or I’m being too forgiving over how good I want it to be. At the end of the day, it’s a moot point. Unbeatable, as an experience, is not where it needs to be.

At its best, Deadpool VR matches up to the standard that Meta has set for its first-party VR releases – which makes the stumbles all the more disappointing. If you're someone who is already experienced in VR and loves Deadpool, the game is an easy recommendation even with those caveats. If you're just now looking to enter the VR market, though, maybe save this game for a rainy day. Maybe by the time you get around to it those pesky performance hiccups will be fixed.

There are ups and downs in the latest Hyrule Warriors title. While it makes a significant improvement over the previous game, it does little to justify itself as a game necessary to Zelda fans looking for an expansion to the lore, or Warriors fans looking for the next great leap in the genre.

Once Upon a Katamari walks a fine line between offering players lots of fun things to do and getting in its own way through all of these add-ons, and I found myself thinking it landed on both sides of that line at various points, depending on my mood. Perhaps it’s because I’m such a fan of the series that I have the complaints I do about this one. I’m inevitably comparing Once Upon a Katamari to all of the fun I had with previous installments, and feeling this one falls short with its attempts to do too much. I just want to roll. And while I technically can in Once Upon a Katamari, I’m forced to think about five other things while doing it.

For all this grousing, I very much enjoyed my time with Ninja Gaiden 4 when in combat. There are caveats and things I wish were better, but overall, I think this is a game made for people that will have fun mastering melee action systems and retrying until they do a section perfectly. If that is not you, if you are playing more for content tourism or for insight into the greater Ninja Gaiden story, I am afraid this game will not be what you are looking for in a Ninja Gaiden sequel. It is very much made for a specific type of person and most everyone else will just bounce off of it.

While it certainly falters in its gameplay department, I'll always stick around for a classic mafia story, even if I can see the ending from a mile away.

For anyone with an interest in sports games and novel control schemes, Drag x Drive is well worth checking out, but you’ll likely need to do so soon. I worry that, as the novelty fades, online servers – which were already pairing me with plenty of Japanese players – will begin to dry up, leaving only barren parks and bot matches for those who dabble at a later date...That Nintendo continues to experiment with multiplayer oddities should be commended. A little more attention lavished on the looks and ancillary elements could have made Drag x Drive something special. But in its current form, it still feels like a testing ground for what the Switch 2’s mouse controls can handle, and one that may not linger for very long.

Tiny Bookshop has that familiar stickiness that makes me want to continue playing for “just one more day,” but that drive is less about selling books and more about unlocking the next part of a character’s story or a new place in town to sell my products. It’s a shame there isn’t more variety to the core concept of buying and selling books to keep the game feeling fresh after a few weeks of in-game time.

All in all, Shadow Labyrinth makes for a pretty bog-standard metroidvania. This clever twist on the Pac-Man maze makes room for some cool ideas, but so much of the best stuff about Shadow Labyrinth gets diluted by straightforward metroidvania design so that it doesn't differentiate itself from the rest of the pack (sorry). Supplemented by awesome translations of classic Namco games, there's still a lot of cool stuff here and there. But frustrating mechanical and meta game choices make it hard to really connect with this world.

College Football 26 feels like a sensible step forward, a step back, and standing still all at once. Gameplay is even better than it was before, Road to Glory is somehow worse, and Dynasty is just about what it was last year. There are certainly worse outcomes for an annual sports title, but it is important to go in knowing that EA hasn't exactly reinvented the wheel.

Death Stranding 2 is a game that pulls from the same playbook as the original, one that wants you to know it was made by the creator of Metal Gear Solid, and doesn't use its 55- hour runtime to pull on the threads that are interesting about the world. Instead, its focus on combat and retreading similar ground gets tiring fast. There are moments of something special here, but they can't shine past their own shadows.

If I could slash its frustrating level designs in half, focusing on the character and intrigue its eccentricities added while sifting out the gameplay impurities they come with, Blades of Fire would be an easy recommendation for anyone looking for a cool hack-n-slash. Instead, it’s plagued with unforgivable wheel-spinning that undermines a lot of what I liked about its satisfying gameplay loop.

There’s a lot of yelling about “politics” being involved in video games out there on the internet, but here’s an example of that actually happening in broad daylight – a cool video game being used as a glaringly unsubtle vehicle for propaganda to not just prop up some real life homies, but “sportswash” a deeply problematic reputation in the process.

Overall, it’s your usual item marketplace that can be found in many other live-service games. But the inclusion of some core progression features and rewards makes the monetization here one of the more egregious examples I can remember.

Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero certainly isn’t a terrible sequel. As mentioned earlier, NIS’ usage of familiar concepts from the first game should make this offering a worthwhile treat for long-time fans. Sadly, those who are relative newcomers to the series might be turned off by the campaign structure and overall progression.

PGA Tour 2K25 is an adequate golf game caught under a current of technical weirdness. Regardless of how much I enjoyed being out on the golf course, watching the game freeze for the umpteenth time made me grit my teeth. Creation suites are well done this time around, both for characters and for courses, and MyCareer gives you a nice chunk of gameplay to build your character up. Some may fall off after that, but golf fans will have plenty of fun with PGA Tour 2K25… you know, when they can play it.

Atomfall has a lot of interesting ideas and an admirable disinterest in playing by the usual gaming rules. But there are aspects that feel like an identity crisis, and those moments take up a lot more raw time.