Much of my experience was salvaged by the beautiful visuals, heavily reminiscent of Night in the Woods, and the very endearing cast of characters that Finley gets to know duringver his time at Porcupine. I loved walking to work every day, chatting with the owner of the local pub, checking in with the woman who fished by the sewer, and dropping by the flower shop to see how my friend, the florist, was doing. I enjoyed bumping into patients on the street and seeing how much they’d improved. Every character had a distinct personality and felt alive, and helping them out in between shifts coloured the world in and made the experience fun, instead of just tolerable. But there’s only so much that can do to buoy a game so bogged down with inconsistencies and bugs.

Final Fantasy 16 is a bold new benchmark for the series that puts emotional complexity and courageous world building at the forefront. Clive Rosfield’s epic journey is defined by constant bouts of hurt and tragedy, but it’s also lined with an inescapable aura of hope in how our heroes are fighting for a world worth saving. Every person you meet and village saved from ruin are worth protecting, with heartfelt dialogue and ferocious combat mixing together in service of an RPG that, while flawed and glacial in some spots, I’d struggle to label as anything other than a triumph.

Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life remains one of the best that the series has to offer, managing to preserve what made it so special in the first place with its unique emphasis on an aging town and cast of characters, while also raising the bar with new content and improvements. While more recent titles in the series tend to offer distractions in the way of more mechanics and options, A Wonderful Life is a return to form that focuses more on the life sim and farming aspects that fans fell in love with all those years ago.

Dark Descent is a generic XCOM clone with brief moments of engaging puzzle-piecing strategy. The horror is underused and feels wholly out of place as it pushes you further and further into action. Music is adrenaline-pumping and clearly designed to compliment firefights, troops yell ‘LET’S GO TEAM’ every time you move, and xenomorphs are easier to mow down than avoid. Nothing about Dark Descent wants you to be scared, but everything about Aliens does. Mix in the cocktail of performance issues and thin mechanics, and what you have is another disappointing entry in the catalogue of Alien games.

Park Beyond is a unique experience that has a huge amount of potential that’s not entirely been released yet. I experienced a number of visual glitches in particular and there are still some core features that feel absent. While I don’t need to do a deep dive into micro-management I do wish I could set patrol areas for staff, instead of just restricting their duties. I didn’t even find a way to move them or call them to a specific ride. You just have to Impossify them and trust in their jetpacks and the AI. Things like this feel like an oversight that I hope is changed as the game progresses.

The problem is that everything in Layers of Fear (2023) seems to be taking cues from the first game, not the second. The Writer's frame story and both pieces of DLC share the first game's approach to ubiquitous, weak voice acting, and both pieces of DLC return to the unpleasant mansion setting. Layers of Fear 2 should have been an evolution for the series that informed what Bloober and Anshar Studios built here, but that isn't the case. Maybe it's fitting, after all, that this collection shares the first game's name.

I don’t want to get into story spoilers, but I thought its representation of AI was a wonderful breath of fresh air, one that didn’t strike fear into my heart or make me worried about the state of my job. If you like walking simulators, story-driven games, and excellent voice acting, Return to Grace is well worth a shot – very few games make me want to dip back in immediately, just to see what else could happen.

Do not play Greyhill Incident. It is a great idea that falls apart utterly and completely. The core gameplay loop is infuriating, unrefined, and unenjoyable. What specks of quality I may have encountered do little to mask the sully of the rest. The biggest commendation I can give this game is how well it implements the store-bought asset packs. There’s potential for this developer to create something better in the future. But for now: hard pass.

Harmony: Fall of the Reverie is too connected to its core concept of steering the future based on fate and factions, and this idea means players must abandon both the choice and the narrative in this choice-based narrative game. It's not exactly a formula for success. Despite some interesting designs and a potentially compelling tale at its heart, there's nothing harmonious about Harmony.

Diablo 4 has a solid foundation, but Blizzard is going to have to keep finding new ways to justify this slower take on the series forever, or else revert back to the mindless grind of D3, which isn’t what I want to see. Players are going to push for faster gameplay and less friction, and it's going to be up to Blizzard to stick to its guns here and maintain the vision of Diablo 4, while also managing the natural effects of power creep over time. It’s an unenviable position, but I respect the hell out of this team for choosing the path of most resistance and pursuing a unique identity for this game, especially in light of what Diablo Immortal is and what Overwatch has become.

Amnesia: The Bunker is a bold new step for the series and it’s the shot in the arm that I think it’s needed for some time now. This first attempt isn’t perfect and has some teething issues as it figures out its new identity, but it makes up for it by being a truly terrifying experience that shows how bright the series’ future can be.

As a fighting game, Street Fighter 6 is pretty much flawless, but it’s the little details across the board that make it clear that this is a fighter for everyone and not just fans of the genre. A wild statement for a series that’s always felt more hardcore and impenetrable than the rest. Whether you’re a newcomer playing with Modern controls or a veteran with a fight stick and a vendetta, Street Fighter 6 feels like the most approachable and welcoming fighter I’ve ever played without ever once sacrificing its potential complexity and fighting spirit.

Everything is earned here, from your gear to the answers to your questions, and the experience is all the better for it. For every battle you fail, a new one appears, yet there is minimal frustration due to the way you can learn from your mistakes. You’ll explore a haunting yet beautiful world, subtly changing as your actions affect the environment, and uncover a well-written story that kept my attention throughout. Miasma Chronicles is a dark journey that is well worth embarking on.

Nightdive had almost an impossible task revitalising System Shock, and yet it’s done so effortlessly. The level to which it manages to remain faithful to the original while also very much being a modern game released in 2023 is impressive. It may be let down slightly by wonky cyberspace and some less-than-Shodan-level AI, but this is easily the best way for people today to experience one of the most genre-defining games of all time.

There are more positives – character designs, too, are phenomenal interpretations of Tolkien’s descriptions, and the creepy folk horror vibes of the Mirkwood Elves is inspired – but they’re too few and far between to save this boring game.

Sunshine Shuffle feels thin, yet overextended at the same time. Had it doubled down on its greatest asset – its characters – it could have been something great. As it is, the story is over far too soon, and all that’s left is a middling card game you could play with less faff pretty much anywhere else. It’s great to see Poker Night At The Inventory live on, but Sunshine Shuffle forgot that the poker was always the least important part of it.

Fans of the IP will have some fun here, but you likely already know whether you’ll like this game or not. Boltgun competently blends the Warhammer universe with a genre that felt made for it, but offers no surprises. It set out to be a Doom clone, and it succeeded. That’s fine in some ways, but a shame in others because this could have been special with the application of a few original ideas.

It’s a nine-year-old formula running on six-year-old hardware, and neither of them can elevate the other. One of them must change, and Giants is probably the one who needs to blink first if it hopes to pull off another portable Farming Simulator in 2025.

The gameplay is nothing special, and it isn't particularly trying to be. It exists as a framework to tell a story, and plenty of games have excelled with that mindset. But all it has to say is that pollution is bad and it's all your fault. It doesn't inspire change, it doesn't shock, it doesn't even highlight the plight of the animals we share this world with, becoming too wrapped up in casual visual metaphor than with showcasing the harsh reality of what we have done to this world. The bees are dying, but so is my patience.

With all that said, the most disappointing part of Resurgence isn’t any technical problem or frustrating minigame, it’s how much you want it to succeed. Seeing it shine just to shy away behind tacked-on action is tragic, even if it isn’t enough to take away from this brilliant classic Trek story.

Planet of Lana is a delightful puzzle platformer that hits that sweet spot in more ways than one. It’s not too challenging nor too simple, and though it could have delivered endless levels of similar ideas, it only takes enough time as it needs to tell the perfect story of friendship and survival.

Monster Menu is a competent game at best. It emulates the Rogue experience decently and does something very interesting with its food-based mechanics, but it doesn’t stretch far. There’s enjoyment to be had in the high-difficulty and grindy aspects- if that’s your thing, but you won’t find much depth or complexity here. More McDonalds than Michelin, you’ll wish that you’d opted for something more flavourful.

I wish Humanity’s marketing had focused more on its puzzles than its story, because it’s fairly clear to me which is stronger and I came away a little disappointed. The game’s mechanics evolve very well with the story’s narrative, and it’s a lot of fun. I’m just not sure its story was worth telling.

It's creative, but it's also a bit of a mess. Lego 2K Drive mixes Forza Horizon and Mario Kart together, but it's not as good as either of them, and doesn't bring much new to the table either. There are building blocks here for Lego to use for future IP-less games, but this doesn't quite put them all together in a way that will interest anyone who isn’t still in primary school.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a masterpiece that not only equals what came before, it does everything in its power to surpass it. Even as it presents endless possibilities for me to indulge in and push my creative potential, it all comes back to the intimate gravestones or superfluous conversations that bring its world to life. Fading memorials and lone flowers cement the loss this vision of Hyrule has felt, and my unpredictable path is determined to piece it all back together.

Playing Afterimage, then, is a lot like going to a congested airport. It offers you the chance to visit a ton of interesting destinations. But, getting to them can feel like waiting through a long TSA line only to find out you're missing essential paperwork. Yeah, I want to see Naples, but maybe not that bad.

I’m overwhelmingly charmed by Peridot, despite its shortcomings. I still like to check in on my adult dots, even though there’s nothing left to do with them now but breed, and I love taking pictures of them next to my cats to post on my social media. The charm of Peridot’s cute creatures will bring a lot of curious players in the door, and if Niantic can build out the pet sim features some more they may even stick around. The tech is impressive and it feels like a platform that can grow and grow, but the cost of breeding is a deal breaker for me. I’ll be watching Peridot with much interest, but for now, I won’t be playing it.

Honkai: Star Rail feels like the consummation of all the knowledge that Hoyoverse amassed so far after the two juggernauts that preceded it. With a good amount of content to tackle at launch and such a compelling story being told, all that remains to be seen is where the Astral Express will take us next.