Dragon Quest Treasures is some of the most fun I’ve had just exploring a game world all year, between its great world design and excellent soundtrack. This treasure hunt is a delight for players of all ages and one of the more unique experiences I’ve had on Switch in recent memory. The strange combat system will disappoint some, but if you can just get over that and a few other little quirks, this is an adventure well worth taking.

Ultimately, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion doesn’t do anything too crazy beyond massively upgrading the visuals and expanding the audio. And frankly, that’s good enough. The original PSP game was excellent with its strong central character and carefully crafted combat, and the addition of a right thumbstick on modern controllers to control the camera is a huge upgrade all by itself. By just taking this foundation and freshening up the graphics and sound, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion is both one of the most successful video game prequels and one of the best action RPGs in general.

Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends & the Secret Fairy is a strong entry in the series and is an improvement on the previous game. It introduces new mechanics that fit well within the context of the story without feeling like they were forcibly implemented just for the sake of it, while also refining existing core gameplay elements. While I’m not entirely satisfied with a change, or lack thereof, here and there, this game is certainly worth your time, especially if you enjoyed Ryza’s first adventure.

Still, Immortals Fenyx Rising is one of the best games of the year. It doesn’t matter if its inspiration is so blatant when the team uses that as only a springboard. This isn’t a repaint of Breath of the Wild, but rather an evolution of it, and more often than not it makes smarter gameplay decisions that in full create a more enjoyable, irresistible world. The disjointed, sometimes crass tone leaves a bad taste, especially among those looking to enjoy this with their kids or siblings, but as clear as the throughline is between Breath of the Wild and Immortals Fenyx Rising, it’s just as obvious that Immortals will live again. This is just the start of something special.

By virtue of its smaller scale, Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a tighter, better designed package. It might not boast as many hours of content, but what it has is far more worth your time. If you felt the original Marvel’s Spider-Man was a bit average or too bloated with open-world gaming cliches, Miles Morales might just be what you’re looking for.

My 40 hours in Yakuza: Like a Dragon were a great experience regardless if I was playing on my original Xbox One or seamlessly transitioning my save onto the Xbox Series X for improved resolution, frame rate, and loading times. I loved its characters, humor, and willingness to balance complete absurdity with utter sincerity. And even though the battle system would occasionally trip over its own feet, I still adored watching my crew beat the hell out of some weirdos, grow a little bit closer, and celebrate their victory with karaoke back at the pub.

While it’s sure to be overshadowed by the excellent pair of Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Demon’s Souls, Sackboy: A Big Adventure is a wonderful platformer and a strong part of what makes the PS5’s launch lineup arguably the best in video game history. The aesthetic beauty, incredible use of music, and wealth of unlockables overshadow some of the finicky control issues. Whether you’re going it alone or partying up with some pals, Sackboy: A Big Adventure is a great entry to one of Sony’s beloved franchises.

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin is ultimately a charming and fun adventure. The farming mechanics could have been explained more explicitly, but once everything clicks, you come to appreciate how well both the farming simulation and sidescrolling action adventure aspects complement each other. Sakuna starts off as a spoiled goddess with no concern for anyone but herself. But as she learns the value of hard work through harvesting rice and bonds with her group of outcast humans, she truly grows into a heroine fit to conquer the Isle of Demons.

Since nearly all the various trinkets and relics and map markers have meaningful purpose, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is a rare open-world game where virtually every activity feels worth doing. Like Eivor scaling the snow-covered mountains of Norway, Valhalla achieves new heights for the RPG era of Assassin’s Creed, and I’ve never been more excited to see where the series goes next.

Wasteland 3 succeeds on its narrative, choice system, strong characters, and compelling factions. It stumbles in its lifeless world, inconsistent presentation, familiar gameplay, and technical side – it often feels like a snow-themed reskin of Wasteland 2, with many of that title’s limitations and janky systems. Nonetheless, designer Brian Fargo has here made the best post-apocalyptic RPG since Fallout: New Vegas. It’s just not as good as the one he made 23 years ago with Fallout.

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim is absolutely wonderful all around. Each of the 13 protagonists gets relatively equal screen time, and they’re all brought to life by both the great English and Japanese voice tracks. You’re sure to have your favorites, but it’s incredibly satisfying to see how each of their stories intersects through time and space and coalesces into the battle for mankind against the alien invaders. This is one adventure you simply don’t want to miss.

Despite the time skip, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night feels like it could have come out just a year after Order of Ecclesia, when IGA and his team were still riding a hot streak and at the height of their abilities. Even after all this time, the house that IGA built has collected no cobwebs.

Samurai Shodown is a pristine work of fighting game clarity.

Judgment is as magical and grounded as true city life.

Add in some surprisingly good plot twists and emotional arcs and SteamWorld Quest is a game that storied RPG developers like Atlus and Square Enix could be proud of. The fact that this is Image & Form’s first outing in the genre begs the question of what exciting adventure the developers will rush headlong into next.

Days Gone offers an emotional rebuttal to apocalyptic nihilism.

Would my love for Sekiro have deepened if it allowed me to make it easier by softening its combat or giving me endless resources to survive? Probably. I’ve always wanted to be a tourist in From Software’s worlds rather than a permanent resident. I prefer my leisure masochism to be based around exploration and discovery, not challenges of timing and pattern recognition. But I also can’t indict the game for being something it isn’t. I may loathe playing Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, but I also have to acknowledge that it’s wholly committed to its artistic vision and executes it with astonishing care. I may hate that I’m physically incapable of finishing it, but my god do I respect it.

Humor keeps Tropico 6 from getting too stressful.

Devil May Cry 5 is 99 percent about doing things that are totally sweet and looking totally sweet while doing them. There’s no thematic depth waiting beneath its bombastic, blood-drenched glamour and its vulcanizing, improvisational violence choreography. But when Hideaki Itsuno’s unlikely sequel drew me into a meditative flow of stabbing angry skeletons with a sword the height and width of a Bob’s Big Boy statue, I still found myself carried back to electric moments and powerful memories.

This is not a horror game or even a survival horror game so much as it is a Resident Evil game — Resident Evil 2 is the Resident Evil game...Because of that, Resident Evil 2 can feel overwhelmingly formal. It’s slick and splendid, but also rigid. In excising all the flaws of past entries, Resident Evil 2 loses the unpredictability of the tradition it seemingly codifies. This is a remake, a returning to the serieses roots and, presumably, a commitment to a new path forward. Resident Evil 2 soars as a definitive statement of intent after a decade of recentering. Beholden to the past as this game is, it’s a promising new beginning. Now that Resident Evil has found itself, it will be exciting to see what kind of gross hot-dog dinosaur it mutates into next.

In an age where instant gratification is an essential feature in nearly all art, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate might seem almost miserly in its slow drip and patient reveals of its staggering depth. After more than 20 hours with the game, I’d still only unlocked two-thirds of the main cast and explored half of the World of Light’s map. Rather than feel irritated or cheated by its patience, I instead found Ultimate a luxurious experience, every bit as meditative in practice as its fights were bombastic. This is a game to be enjoyed over time, to be savored with a refreshed palate after you’ve spent some time away.

Overall the game is a pleasure to play, a breezy RPG packed with beauty and charm that will bring older players back to the series’ beginning while recruiting a new generation that will ensure Pokemon’s future. So much of my favorite childhood media just doesn’t hold up to my modern tastes and I have no real interest in using some form of emulator to relive the original Pokemon Red/Blue’s archaic gameplay. Let’s Go brings back the warm memories and blends them with a satisfying new experience.

As far as the narrative itself, it’s brilliant and terrible. It’s epic and overlong. It’s moving and predictable. Inspiring and exhausting. It is an achievement in video game writing, acting, directing, and motion capture. It will win awards. It will be remembered long after the game itself is rendered unplayable by the advance of technology. It is also gratuitously self-indulgent, derivative, and too goddamn long.

As a course correction to an aging series, Soulcalibur VI is unimpeachable. More significantly, as a fighting game with a singular identity, this game could shed its name entirely and impress on its own merits. The game world is enveloping, full of posh art and luxurious conflict that evokes a waltz more than a brawl. The soul, against all odds, still burns.

Mega Man 11 doesn’t have to change video games, though, and it doesn’t have to inspire a new legion of followers. It just has to be as honest and good as it is.

Any review of WoW is inherently a work in progress, with the full scope of the expansion taking years to reveal. But Battle for Azeroth has me hooked again and I look forward to sharing more of my thoughts as the war rages on.

Marvel's Spider-Man is a modern, AAA blockbuster video game in every possible sense. It is highly polished, intricately designed, near-flawlessly produced and intelligently scaffolded. And it has achieved for the character of Spider-Man what very few games about comic book heroes accomplish: creating an experience both purely focused on the character and broad enough to have mass appeal. It will, without a doubt, stand for some time as the definitive Spider-Man video game.

Tekken 7 is the first modern fighting game I've played that really seems to maintain the feel of the classics in its entirety. As much fun as the results of the genre's evolution has been, there's always going to be a place in the gaming collective for the classics, and Tekken 7 is fundamentally just that. It's nearly perfect as a core Tekken experience. The only thing that was truly disappointing was the lack of Tekken Ball.