While a divisive entry to some, Yakuza 3 remains a highlight of the franchise for me, and it feels good to see this much love given to its restoration.

Omno is still excellent, mind. Given that it’s on Game Pass, I’d feel comfortable recommending it to almost anyone. It has spectacular art direction, appropriate music, and a whole host of fascinating ideas. Its most singular quality, though, is the one buried beneath all of the borrowing: intuitive exploration that resists handholding without artificially ramping up difficulty. It’s almost as if a kind of cryptography has been applied to all of the creatures, puzzles, and environments, except instead of being protected by hundreds of lines of code they are designed with a failsafe that is human intuition. It would be easy for someone to say that Omno does nothing new, but the reason it’s easy to say that is because it’s completely incorrect. Omno has plenty of imaginative and ingenious ideas - they’re just unfortunately hampered by more established ones that didn’t need to be there.

ITTA may have released last year, but there’s a reason why ITTA has hit the mark on Metacritic with both fans and critics alike. There’s also a reason why Super Rare Games decided to release the indie title in physical form. The game does have some forgettable bits of quirky dialogue, but ITTA is overall a fun and challenging journey through a mysterious world with accessibility features that make the game a must-play, especially for fans of the bullet-hell and boss-rush genres.

Though Genesis doesn’t exactly introduce anything totally new to the franchise, it’s an entertaining experience that stays true to the feel and tone of the series despite making a few budgetary concessions.

Heaven’s Vault is a game that was made with love and passion, that much is clear. This is a fascinatingly unique concept for a game, and the Ancient text must have taken a team months upon months of planning and work to put in place, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into a fun or engaging experience when stretched out into hours of vague and unsatisfying puzzling.

I can't say that Olija is a complete misfire. The way that the characters and enemies are animated in this pixel art style is superb. The world of Terraphage is fantastically bleak and it says a lot that my biggest criticism that I wanted to spend more time there. Unfortunately, the combat mechanics and story lack the depth that I wanted them to have. There are some good ideas here, but Olija is a voyage that ends far too soon.

This is The Chinese Room’s best game yet. It has the bombastic set pieces, unflinching gore, and intense stealth sequences that make it a harrowing experience that deserves to stand alongside other games about guys having really bad days. But it also offers a well-paced, meaty narrative with excellent performances that I’m going to be chewing on for months to come.

It's not the prettiest game, with distant scenery lacking detail, low-res cinematics, and screen tearing in busy areas. But the dizzying scale of the world, and the complete lack of loading times, is technically impressive. It's also worth noting that you need to be online to experience the career mode and progression—otherwise you're stuck with the freeform, rather empty Zen Mode. Most people play games online these days, but if you can't for whatever reason, your options will be limited. It's frustrating, because the actual riding in Riders Republic is heaps of fun. It's just been packaged in a completely off-putting way. You'll have to decide if the cringe is worth putting up with.

Moon is going to be a hard sell for a lot of people, as it's hard to get across just how bizarre and unique it is. It has its frustrating moments and the fact that the developers have asked fans on Twitter to seek out the manual for the game is telling, as it comes from an era where nothing is explained. Once the player comes to terms with the annoying parts and things start to click, they will find a game that's strange, engaging, and unforgettable all at once, with a story that may change how people look at RPGs in the future.

Tails: The Backbone Preludes is a beautiful game with an intriguing plot and some absolutely fantastic puzzle mechanics, but it does itself the disservice of playing second fiddle to its predecessor. It’s too brief and leaves too much unsaid to feel like a game in its own right. It’s as though it aimed too low and decided to settle for being a teaser or demo that’s made to tempt players to jump into the full story of Backbone, rather than take on a role of a fully-fledged game in its own right.

The most important thing for a game like Redacted is that it makes you want to immediately start a new run upon dying. And it does. One quick run before bed becomes two, becomes three. And that's pretty much all it needs. I know where and why my guard died and immediately want to rectify it. And, despite coming back to the same build, I do want to unlock the remaining weapons and buffs.

The only real problem is that it feels like a stopgap between XCOM 2 and whatever XCOM 3 might be. It neither tarnishes the XCOM name nor does it do anything revolutionary. It also has the poor luck of coming out around the time as the stellar Gears Tactics which is this game's top competition for the attention of strategy fans, which probably isn't going to help its sales. If you like the XCOM series and fancy the chance to take command of a snake soldier, then XCOM: Chimera Squad will still scratch that tactical, cover-shooting itch.

It’s highly ambitious and one of the most intriguing triple-A games I’ve played in years, but I wish so many parts of the whole weren’t inherently flawed. Now my journey in Pywel has come to an end, I’ll be leaving this one on the shelf for a while.

While Resident Evil 3 remains in the shadow of the far superior Resident Evil 2, this reimagining of the action-oriented RE3: Nemesis manages to capture the series' best qualities and deliver an experience far more memorable than the original.

“Play this game” if you’ve ever wanted a puzzle platformer, Limbo-esque horror game that drags you through a swamp of grim-dark Nordic fairy tales by your ears. It’s an excellent, labor-of-love game filled with little details that make the world feel very much alive - although no one wants that. I’d never leave my house again.

I was thoroughly satisfied with Hidden Through Time 2. Not only did I get to unwind and explore new environments, but I was able to create my own custom maps. There are a lot of details to fiddle with, and plenty of levels to work through. The plot for each time period is straightforward, but adds another layer of creativity and excitement to each level. If you’re looking for a game that will test your critical thinking skills and challenge you to look at the bigger picture, this is it.

If nothing else, Fabledom fills the need to build a thriving fantasy kingdom without an over reliance on war and conquering. You can lead a cozy life in a peaceful kingdom with minimal (read: no) defenses. You can also choose to attack everything in sight and see where that takes you. I’m sure Sir Payne would appreciate a fellow warmongering monarch in an otherwise peaceful world.

Cronos: The New Dawn is easily the most confident original game that Bloober Team has ever produced, but this unfettered ambition also brings with it teething issues that are awfully difficult to overlook. Combat is punchy yet clunky, exploration is atmospheric but predictable, while the central narrative is often held back by lacklustre performances and clumsy writing. There is a great survival horror game at the centre of Cronos, but it would have been much stronger if it had broken new ground rather than wondering tentatively on what came before.

South of Midnight doesn't reinvent anything, but it does a competent job of everything it attempts. With all that’s going on in gaming right now, that's worth something. South of Midnight respects your time, delivers an emotional narrative, trusts that you know how to play it, and is bursting with texture and taste. This is a future classic for someone, and it might just be you.

The Coma 2: Vicious Sisters is a scary, fun time. It is almost like the video game equivalent of an amusement park haunted house - lots of fun, picture-worthy, and you'll probably remember the memories more than the actual times you jumped out of your seat and screamed.

KarmaZoo’s creativity and ingenuity make it incredibly appealing, especially when layered with its humorous character and charm. However, whether you can stick it out for the long haul to enjoy the game at its fullest is another matter entirely. There is plenty to love and I’d recommend it for any social night, but I don’t think we would ever stick with it long enough to unlock even half the avatars.

Everything Baby Steps does, it executes with excellence, and I can’t think of anything else like it.

Sniper Elite 5 is a great little shooter, and I had a lot of fun sinking into its sprawling levels and inventive mechanics. It doesn’t change the formula or even introduce anything particularly new to the wider genre, but perfectly understands what it wants to be and delivers on that expectation with significant flair. I viewed it as a palette cleanser of sorts, an experience that harkens back to a different generation of single-player shooters we don’t tend to see anymore. It’s almost nostalgic, and aside from Wolfenstein there is no better Nazi-murdering simulator out there.

Game Builder Garage feels like the perfect place to build a game prototype. You can create a basic idea, see if it works and is fun, and then maybe take that concept into a real game engine development kit - but not much more. It can truly pique the curiosities of kids, and I hope it does, but it's launched in a world where it has big competition, and the depth and charm of those tutorials which only Nintendo could pull off so well can't carry the rest of the experience.

Although the story mode lets itself down a bit and the offline offerings are slim, I still had a great time with Invincible VS and expect to lose even more hours to it when the servers go up. The excellent and welcoming mechanics, well-developed roster, and tons of fan service not only make Invincible VS a stand-out tag fighter, but also the game that the series has deserving for a long time.

The world of Control has its hooks in me, but I still don't particularly enjoy playing it. The platforming isn't any kind of challenge or thrill, and the combat fills me with rage and despair. It's interesting that a game called Control can make me feel like I have no control over my character or the battlefield. Traps help, but they only go so far.

While I think it relies on dumping too much resource management on the player and it's definitely a game meant to be played on PC, Do Not Feed The Monkeys is such a weird and original game that I can't help but enjoy it on some level. If you can only get it on the Switch, it'll be a fine addition to your collection of portable indie game oddities.

Once you do find the paths you need to take, the story is over before it ever got going. The game's opening makes it feel like your character is embarking on a quest, but that journey ends after one stop. In that way, Season is structured like spring. You barely realize it's here before it's already gone.