Moss: Book 2 builds on the original in every way to create an unforgettable experience. The world is bigger, more beautiful, and areas can be re-visited and explored with new tools and an even greater purpose. New enemies, weapons, and abilities make combat and puzzles more varied and interesting, but most importantly, it delivers yet another stunning tale with the loveable Quill at your side. It’s undoubtedly one of the best PSVR games available and the perfect choice for anyone who loves platformer puzzle games.

There aren’t many games I’ve been bursting to play. Skywalker Saga was a rare case, but that came with an added risk - not living up to the hype. It’s the first Lego Star Wars to bundle the films together since the Complete Saga and that’s a tall order, especially since it’s now nine films. Not just three trilogies, either, but all their worlds, their cities, and their landmarks. The old games had small hubs with Dexter’s Diner and Mos Eisley’s Cantina, but Skywalker Saga goes above and beyond to bring Star Wars’ galaxy to life. It lived up to the hype and shattered my expectations. Somehow, Lego Star Wars returned, and it returned with style.

Bringing this game to consoles turned it into the most beginner-friendly and fastest-loading version of Crusader Kings yet. It falls only slightly short of the PC version’s greatness simply through the game being built from the ground up for desktop gameplay. As it stands, Crusader Kings 3: Console Edition is the platonic ideal for console ports when it comes to strategy games.

If you love the Judgment series, The Kaito Files DLC offers more of the same with enough of a little refresh in gameplay to keep it interesting, and while still offering the usual balance of humour and compelling storyline that Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios has mastered. After all, not many games will have you wrestling in a hot tub with a guy in his underwear while on the hunt for a murderer. Though I would have liked to hit the streets of Yokohama with Kaito or pick up some side cases, it’s an enjoyable experience that left me wanting to spend more time with my favourite flashy-dressed bruiser.

Tiny Tina's Wonderlands is a Borderlands game. It's not a spin-off, it's not inspired by, and it's not a mix of Borderlands and D&D - it's just Borderlands. It's a waste of a great concept, and comes with the typical Borderlands drawbacks of potentially grating humour, way too many guns, way too small storage space, and a lot of always-on characters who aren't given enough room to breathe. It's fun, but it's nothing special. The worst part is it could have been.

Unless you’re aiming to find every Waddle Dee and complete every secret objective, Kirby and the Forgotten Land won’t challenge you, but it sure as hell will keep you smiling. Most of all, it proves that Kirby works remarkably well in 3D and cements itself as the next big thing for the pink puffball. I don’t want to see him limited to just moving left and right ever again.

There’s no denying the irresistible charm of Tunic. Even if its mistake is its fixation with the very rose-tinted days of classic Zelda, Tunic still is an evocative experience: you’re still embarking on an epic hero’s journey marked by stretches of tranquillity, tantalising mysteries, and hard-won victories, powered by a nearly infinite fountain of nostalgia. In the end, I can’t help but feel increasingly enamoured by the sights and encounters.

Who Pressed Mute On Uncle Marcus? is an enjoyable and sometimes funny yarn, with a strong script, solid performances, and an intriguing central mystery. It doesn't push the FMV genre forward in any meaningful ways like Sam Barlow's Her Story and Telling Lies did, and it could use a better log to keep track of which lines of questioning you've already pursued. But, it's an enjoyable genre exercise that takes a dull experience we're all familiar with after two years of a pandemic, and somehow makes it fun again.

When comparing it to its predecessors, the game feels like a sorely needed update. Yes, it treads old ground, with the same crops, monsters, items, and mechanics to deal with, but you can’t really mess with a winning formula, and the game has plenty of worthwhile additions of its own. To sum it up, playing Rune Factory 5 is a compelling, joyous experience that its fans will devour heartily as if it were a plate full of Supreme Curry.

Ghostwire: Tokyo is a shooter unlike anything I’ve ever played before. Its depiction of Japan is frighteningly lifelike in its execution, begging for us to explore its abandoned streets and dimly lit alleyways in search of wayward spirits that all have stories to tell. Whether you’re bounding across rooftops or doing battle in construction sites, it is constantly surprising in ways that few games in recent memory have managed to. It is fresh, exciting, and a demonstration of what a major studio is capable of when they’re given the freedom to tackle a new universe without compromise. It isn’t perfect, but it’s so different, and that should be more than enough for people to take notice.

This is a small project, but it packs in its share of indelible images. Aperture Desk Job confirms that, even when working on a limited scale, Valve is still the best in the biz at plopping you down in the middle of a well-realized sci-fi world and conjuring up a host of imaginative sights before your wide, unblinking eyes.

Stranger of Paradise is violent, dark, and brilliantly captivating. It’s a must-play for Final Fantasy fans. Steeped in sentiment and lovingly crafted homages to our favourite games, it offers a new mystery to unravel and breaks the mould of what you’d expect from the series. You might miss having a wide world to explore, proper side quests, and all the usual trimmings, but there’s a lot to love about Stranger of Paradise that you won’t find in your back catalogue of FF games.

Ultimately, Persona 4 Arena Ultimax doesn’t seem to quite know who it’s for. It should be aimed at Persona fans, but the steep learning curve and lack of fan service elements lean away from that idea. As a fighting game, it doesn’t seem that compelling either, and asks for heavy investment in a story that’s relatively light on gameplay. It will find some fans, but it doesn’t look likely to pick up many outsiders. But hey, at least it has rollback netcode now.

I’m sure I won’t be thinking about Shadow Warrior 3 in five minutes’ time, but I’m okay with that. It doesn’t do anything to reinvent the wheel or the first-person shooter, but it moves away from the co-op looter-shooter nonsense the second game tried to pull and delivers a short, satisfying campaign that’s fast-paced and close enough to Doom to be considered good. It’s just a shame there’s no “shut the fuck up” filter.

Even with PlatinumGames’ signature combat and some mechanics brought in from its past work, Babylon’s Fall babylon-falls short in every department. Any hopes I had were quickly dragged down by wonky combat mechanics, a below-average narrative, poor graphics, and even worse aesthetic choices that only make the whole experience even more unenjoyable and frustrating. Babylon’s Fall is a poor attempt at a cash grab that doesn’t even get that right - no one is going to want to spend money on it.

Triangle Strategy is an excellent game that expertly combines satisfying combat and a layered narrative to create something I didn’t know I needed. Serenoa Wollfort’s journey is punctuated with intrigue, betrayal, and triumph that are all driven by player decisions that actually feel like they matter. It isn’t smoke and mirrors on a moral railroad presenting the illusion of choice, it's a ride or die political rollercoaster where failing to convince a single ally will result in the untimely deaths of thousands.

It’s safe to say that Chocobo GP doesn’t out-do Mario Kart, but then I don’t think anyone would ever really expect it to. Most players, myself included, will simply choose this title because they love Final Fantasy, not because they think it’s going to be GOTY material. It’s a fun kart racer that you can easily while away your time with, but ultimately brings nothing groundbreaking to the genre. If you’re looking for a Final Fantasy fix, it might not quite hit that sweet spot for you, at least, not until you hand over your hard-earned gil for the season pass.

Otherwise, Gran Turismo 7 is hard to fault. I can't think of another racing game I've accidentally played for 5 hours straight without leaving the couch. The racing is thrilling, the cars are a joy to drive, the tracks are magnificent, and the career is well structured. I haven't even talked about the photo mode, which is one of the best I've seen in a game. All the screenshots in this review were taken with it. I haven't fully dipped into multiplayer yet either, which has the potential to spawn a thriving competitive scene. There's just so much, and I can't imagine wanting to play another racing sim any time soon.

The Witch Queen is nowhere near over. We still have the raid next weekend and, if Beyond Light is any indication, a lot more to discover once the first team crosses the finish line. It’s difficult to judge a Destiny expansion this early on, but based on the campaign alone, I feel confident in saying this is the best piece of Destiny content Bungie has ever put out. If this is the new standard for expansions, the future of Destiny 2 is extraordinarily bright… and dark.

FromSoftware doesn’t rewrite the medium’s rulebook, but does tear its own tenets asunder while reconstructing them into a cohesive whole that outclasses all that came before it. The Lands Between invites you to explore it with an unparalleled level of freedom, offering up a plate of seemingly impenetrable challenges and intimately constructed stories that are always a delight to indulge in. This is, without doubt, one of the best games in recent memory.

FAR: Changing Tides’ gameplay loop of keeping your ramshackle vehicle running is simple but enjoyable. When you get into a good rhythm, you feel at one with your craft, everything goes smoothly for a minute, and you can enjoy the ride until the next mast snaps or abandoned wreckage blocks your way. It takes patience, but when every quick task is rewarded by a hum, whir, or click, and every obstacle inspires as much awe as it does terror, it’s all worth it.

For a lot of fighting game fans, The King of Fighters 15 is exactly what they’ve been looking for - a no frills fighter that focuses on its mechanics and doesn’t hold the player's hand. In a generation where most games in the genre have five-hour campaigns from day one, it’s an admirable stance to take. As much as I love how KoF 15 plays and looks, I can’t help but miss the bells and whistles that are expected. If you’re looking for a fighter that shrugs off that expectation, then the King of Fighters 15 is absolutely for you.

Total War Warhammer 3 is a gift to its fans, a fitting send-off to the trilogy. The real going-away party arrives whenever Mortal Empires shows up, but for now, you can delve into the twisted Chaos Realm and get lost in sprawling battles and text-heavy menus, like any Total War fan.

People are going to play this game and have a lot of fun. That’s all a lot of people want from a game, and Forbidding West delivers. Through a certain lens, it deserves the perfect scores I’m expecting to see. But much like Ghost of Tsushima, a lot of you are going to come away disappointed by the lack of substance and new ideas. In many ways, Horizon Forbidden West is like it’s own machines. It’s grand, it’s gorgeous, but it has no soul.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel is Yu-Gi-Oh! at its best. The kid gloves have been taken off to give us a complex, deep game full of exciting plays and powerful combos, but presented in a sensible and readable way, free from Joey Wheeler shoutin' about da heart o' da cards. Whether you're a veteran duelist, a lapsed player, or someone who's had a vague interest at some point in the last 25 years, this is the way you want to get into Yu-Gi-Oh!.

As the first expansion of what I’ll assume will be many, Royal Court has impressed me. This expansion has had some serious effort put into it for a company that has put out a lot of DLC in the past that simply adds more buttons to press and counters to track. For what it adds, it’s an expensive purchase, but improving the experience of a game you’re meant to play for hundreds of hours might just make it worthwhile. It’s the sort of expansion that you’d feel the exclusion of, and that in itself is an accomplishment.

Lost Ark feels like a reward after so many hashed-out and rocky launches of new games. You know what you’re getting with Lost Ark, it’s an experience that has already been through the tests and tribulations of its first two years of content. Its story won’t speak to everyone, but the endgame experience is worth a few cutscenes here and there. Lost Ark is one of the most polished titles I’ve played for some time, especially an MMO.

As someone who adores games like Spelunky for forcing the player to digest every bit of information, Sifu strikes that exact same spot with the force of a freight train, delivering a combat system that is truly unrivalled. As a game, it's one of the most engaging I've played in some time, it's just a shame that it won't appeal to all players thanks to its surprising difficulty and that it took some developmental liberties with representing Asian voices.