Planet Coaster 2 suffers from sequel syndrome: the original Planet Coaster eight years after its release is still a benchmark of the genre and it is difficult to do better. Planet Coaster 2 tries by adding water attractions that significantly expand the possibilities offered to the player. What has remained unchanged, however, is the underlying structure, which is certainly solid, but not always smooth: before you get to resent it, in any case, dozens and dozens of hours of fun will pass.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth successfully expands the universe of the original game, offering an experience that combines vast explorable regions, refined gameplay mechanics, and a deep and engaging combat system. The technical improvements of the PC version, such as support for 4K, DLSS, and frame rates up to 120 fps, enhance the visuals and fluidity, making this edition the best way to enjoy the adventure. Although some secondary activities sometimes break the narrative rhythm, the title impresses with its ability to reinterpret classic events and expand the story, in order to give emotions to long-time fans and newcomers alike.

Ender Magnolia follows in the footsteps of Ender Lilies by delivering a longer-than-average metroidvania with a fun combat system and a very pleasing art style, especially when it comes to backgrounds. However, while its story beats are by no means bad, they lack the spark that was present in Ender Lilies.

A traditional metroidvania with a fascinating setting that mixes Japanese folklore and cyberpunk, brought to life by excellent pixel-art. The classic gameplay is enhanced by a mechanic that allows you to manipulate time and matter. A couple of bugs and a few minor technical stumbles, as well as an imperfect difficulty balance, however, prevent Blade Chimera from aspiring to the Olympus of the genre.

On Your Tail is a lively journey through Liguria in the role of the young Diana, a Turinese in search of inspiration for her new work. Built well and with soul, the title reaches the heart of the player with simplicity and skill, leveraging the memories and memories of the past of each of us. It is not easy, if we think about it, to be able to tell oneself with memories. Long live memories, then, but also beautiful Italian video games. And On Your Tail is a beautiful Italian video game.

Nine worlds of fantastic platform action peppered with generous doses of colorful swearing. Donkey Kong Country Returns HD has aged quite well and is still a pleasure to play, even though its sequel Tropical Freeze remains the high point of the series. Given the “full” price, we expected some additions that would justify the additional outlay for this fourth edition of the game, which instead (facelift aside) is identical to its 3DS counterpart.

The rebirth of the Musou dynasty starts with Dynasty Warriors: Origins. A greater emphasis on duels against officers and bosses combines with better management of battlefield resources to give Tecmo Koei's armies a new soul. Not being able to directly impersonate its legendary heroes weighs a bit and the absence of a multiplayer mode almost feels like an affront, but nevertheless this is the restart the series needed.

Freedom Wars Remastered is an operation that fails to restore luster to its former glory. Already narratively it was not something never seen before that could be defined as seminal and, even today, unfortunately the absence of a charismatic character is felt throughout. Not helping are the technical problems, such as a slowdown in the pace due to excessively long loads and an unstimulating work from a gameplay point of view, really old.

Nintendo cares about our health and to prove it brings us a new chapter of the Fitness Boxing series, urging us to get off the couch and follow the workout routines of inflexible virtual trainers. The playful streak of titles like Ring Fit Adventure and Boxing Fist of the North Star disappears in favour of more serious training based on the fundamentals of boxing. Worth considering if you're looking for an excuse to burn off those Christmas calories.

Beyond its very obvious Overwatch comparisons, Marvel Rivals is a competent hero shooter that is fun to play and easy to pick up, full of love for the original characters, and with a free to play model that refreshingly doesn’t require you to unlock gameplay elements. Hopefully some technical mishaps can be fixed with future patches.

There's a lot of potential that was only partially exploited in the Xenomorphs' VR debut, but there's no doubt that Part One has laid the foundations for something important: let's hope Survios takes the feedback to heart and delivers a spectacular Part Two.

The Thing Remastered is a solid operation that brings attention to a game that, already upon its release, had truly cutting-edge mechanics and solutions. Great to play again today.

Priest Simulator: Vampire Show may not be the single-player shooter of the year or the one that revolutionizes the genre, but it’s certainly refreshing to see an FPS that isn’t afraid to be different, over-the-top, and, in its own way, unique.

Antonblast meets the primal need to play a game to smash everything and score points without caring too much about the story, which, however bizarre, is simply a guise for introducing the action. The various levels are very different from each other but always united by destruction. The atmosphere felt owes much to Wario and sometimes even to Sonic, with mad runs down very steep slopes and jumps into the void while crossing fingers for everything to be okay. The ability to remember critical points on the map is rewarded more than the players' actual skill, but who cares? It entertains, and that's enough.

A very pleasant and engaging adventure, Flint: Treasure of Oblivion reaches the goal without distorting the genre and not inventing anything particularly new in the scenario of tacticians with RPG elements. Shuffle the cards on the table by taking inspiration from Baldur's Gate 3, inserting the dice mechanic and, in the meantime, detail an intense story polished to reach as many players as possible. If you haven't read Treasure Island, you want to get closer to Stevenson and then buy this toy here, then this adventure could give you unexpected emotions.

The Spirit of the Samurai is a decidedly particular game: it is full of very good ideas which, however, are never fully developed. The stop-motion style is still worth a try.

Sorry We're Closed is an action adventure horror that brings back to our monitors gameplay and techniques born in the 1990s, adding a modern story about love, loss, and acceptance, flavoring it all with combat and puzzles that integrate nicely into the experience and do not seem included just to add a couple of hours to the time it takes to see one of the multiple endings. Despite the strong personality of the protagonist and the other characters, the direction of the production is not always evident, with action and puzzler sections easy for veterans of the genre but almost too many for story mode lovers. An excellent debut, in any case.

Fairy Tail 2 improves the combat system, now clearly more action, but it fails to create a playful structure without depth and with few positive sides within it. It is a rather compassionate adventure, which still manages to entertain but not to upset the cards on the table.

The restoration work of the first chapter convinces thanks to some tweaks that involve many aspects of the original game. Nowadays you can find VR titles that are technically more refined or evolved, the base is still from 2016, however Arizona Sunshine Remake with its DLC included in the price is a great gift for those who are approaching the fun franchise of Vertigo Games today.

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1&2 Remastered is like the two-sided coin dilemma. On one side we have two video games that are true milestones of video game entertainment, up until now impossible to play in an acceptable way on modern platforms. If the coin had fallen on this side, Soul Reaver would have been condemned to oblivion. On the other side we have a remaster that only makes a few indispensable changes. In any case, heads or tails, the game is rigged and no one wins. I would like to think that there could be a third option, a monumental secret hidden somewhere, but the truth is that we can do nothing but settle for this double remaster and hope the series continues in some way or another.

Uncle Chop's Rocket Shop is a very good video game that manages to fit the simulation soul and the roguelite one. Making mistakes makes poor Wilbur's life a real hell like the real one, and what he manages to achieve is not always optimal. What is really great, however, is this pearl of a game here that manages to do all the right things and implement simulation mechanics that are really well integrated within it. To be had seriously, both if you love space and if you need to stock up on a similar video game.

It took a while, but in the end Fate of Atlantis can give up its scepter: Indiana Jones and the Ancient Circle is the best video game dedicated to the archaeologist with the whip, a true cinematic blockbuster to be played. Technically and artistically glorious, it shows some uncertainty on the front of the secondary missions not always interesting and some mechanics that could have been developed with greater judgment. Everything else is pure love for the world of Indiana Jones.

An old-school point-and-click adventure with a detective storyline full of twists, out-of-the-box humour and a superbly characterised cast. The development team should work a little more on the fair amount of bugs that plague the gameplay and the enjoyability of some puzzles that cross the threshold of illogic.

Fantasian Neo Dimension is a title that needs to be played, explored and brought to everyone's attention. There is nothing new, except for a couple of interesting mechanics, but the aesthetic and musical realization is of the highest quality, net of what is a game made with an extremely low budget. They have made a virtue of this situation, squeezing every single experience in Mistwalker and returning a decidedly remarkable JRPG.

A bit Duke Nukem without the Duke and a bit bit Bulletstorm with some reminiscence à la Anger Foot, 420Blaze It 2 is an engaging and lively FPS, powerful both in exposure and in their never tiring content. It is a work that, very capable of surprising and bewitching the player with borderline situations, manages to speak well to the hearts of fans.

The beauty of an art style in which retro and modern give life to a visually credible dystopian world cannot hide the gameplay lacks under its pixelated guise: despite the short duration, the lack of depth between investigative phases, exploration and combat has time to leave a bitter taste in the mouth.

I tried to be objective, I swear. Little Big Adventure – Twinsen's Quest is good at respectfully transposing into the contemporary a French action-adventure that many of us keep in our memories, but it also has to deal with some limits that are partly inevitable since they are children of other times. The pragmatic desire to modernize the initial work trying not to overly distort it is pleasing even if it is not completely convincing in the result, especially if observed with eyes free of the beauty filter known as nostalgia. However, it remains a balsamic dive into the past to return to Twinsun and see old friends who seem rejuvenated, despite a technical sector that, due to a few too many flaws, does not fully do justice to the original masterpiece.

Alaloth: Champions of the Four Kingdoms is an action RPG that takes the graphical style of Baldur's Gate and Pillars of Eternity and enriches it with a much more challenging than average combat system, making any button mashing-centric approach futile and forcing us to use, for once, all the skills the game makes available. Although all the typical RPG elements have been included, a certain sparingness has been used in the variety of options so as not to scare off those who do not like to get lost in hundreds of statistics, making sword skill more important than the skill point placed on a given feature.