272 moons later, I've "beaten" Super Mario Odyssey, but it feels like I've only scratched the surface of Mario's latest, a breathlessly creative adventure equal parts surprising and bewildering—in a good way.

Somehow, in a game about gods fighting other gods, God of War feels grounded. And because of some of the new directions it moves the series in, it has the room to explore this mythological family drama. By giving God of War small stake tension, the whole thing benefits.

It’s a beautifully weird system, one I’m not entirely convinced Nintendo and Retro Studios will have the confidence to adopt with the upcoming Metroid Prime 4. It’s one thing to ask players to marinate in the tension of a video game whose design is from several decades ago, will they have the courage to do so today? I hope so. What is Metroid, if not asking the player to take a leap of faith on themselves? The future is unknown, but the past is present here. And it’s a reminder that not all change is good when it comes to re-releases. Metroid Prime feels awkward—and it’s better for it.

Twenty-five hours in, I still have no idea what I’ll see next. It's a testament to Elden Ring that I'm so excited at the possibilities that remain, but it's also a problem that after all this time, I feel like it needs to show me more than it has so far.

The Last of Us Part II feels complacent, yet also preoccupied with its predecessor. Every facet of the original game has been expanded and enlarged in the sequel, but not actually improved. It is as if its only inspiration is the original game, and the well of pop culture it was drawing from. There is practically nothing here we haven’t seen and done repeatedly throughout previous Naughty Dog games. It sets out to surpass its predecessor, but the only meaningful contrast between them is in its even more oppressive bleakness and violence. It digs two graves, fills them with blood, and then just fu.king wallows in them.

It’s also a performance hog of a video game. My PC is quickly aging, but my GTX 1080 is usually able to brute force its way through a lot of things. Alyx, however, chewed away at my older CPU, despite the settings being at “low.” This didn’t prove bothersome for most of my time with Alyx—VR can get away with cutting corners on fidelity because of the way you interact with it—but there were a handful of sequences, especially towards the end when things ramp up, where my computer slowed to a crawl. It’s less fun to fight your way through a hallway of enemies when their animation is moving at half speed. Your mileage may vary...All the problems were worth it, though.

This remake is a celebration of the past, and does not view it, and what hindsight often does to it, with contempt. It stands on the shoulders of a gaming masterpiece, and tries to climb a little higher.

It's impossible to know if Smash Ultimate could ever serve everyone. But with this strategic mix of nostalgia and experimentation, it was able to do something I didn't expect: Bring me home.

Blue Prince is, hands down, one of the best games I’ve ever played. And that’s indie or AAA. It’s a triumph in environmental storytelling, as well as game and puzzle design. It’s a game that you need to play. The only thing it asks of you is to truly engage with its world. I still can’t say enough about what Tonda Ros and his team have put together. There is nothing like this game. Blue Prince should be front and center in contention for 2025’s Game of the Year award. [Class Of Its Own]

But damn if this doesn't feel like Demon's Souls, an accomplishment in and of itself that feels like a magic trick. Part of what happens when you revisit an older game is having to confront the reality of the time it was developed in, realizing your imagination had been filling in serious nostalgia gaps. How you felt was informing your too-rosy remembrance of what it looked like. Here, Bluepoint tries to bridge that gap with an updated presentation that makes Demon's Souls truly feel like a 2020 game worthy of being a next-generation launch title. [Opening Hours impressions]

Flight Simulator presents itself as a work in progress. A lot depends on the nature of that remaining work. It’s a game whose potential is evident, but so are the hurdles to realizing all that potential.

Crusader Kings III is massively, powerfully alive. You can almost feel it pulsing when you play it. Often, deep into the third, fourth, fifth hour of play, I'd realize I wasn't so much playing it as watching it develop.

That the story of Split Fiction could be looked at as a commentary on AI is not lost on me. AI can’t do what these people just did. You need humans to make the end of this game happen. You need people who care about what they do — who put themselves wholeheartedly into what they do — to make something this incredible. From a pure gameplay perspective, what I experienced shouldn’t be possible, and yet, they pulled it off seamlessly. Split Fiction is an outstanding commentary on friendship, opening up, and creativity that everyone must experience. [Strongly Recommended]

But it’s also a story of perseverance. Of pushing forward even when it feels impossible. Of carrying the weight of sorrow without letting it define you. And daring to believe in a future no one has ever seen – simply because someone has to. And that’s what makes Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 so quietly powerful, and such a stroke of brilliance in this medium. [Best in Class]

For the first time in a long time, a survival horror game that actually makes you feel like you're barely surviving... Horror fans should be very excited—it’s excellent. [Quick Thoughts - 1/2 through game]

There's a simplicity to life on Ella that I cherish.

For those about to play Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth for the first time, enjoy the ride. You’ll find out why it’s one of the highest-rated games of 2024. Those who played the initial PlayStation 5 release last year, well, some games truly are worth buying twice. [Highly Recommended]

Watching the creatures of Monster Hunter: World leap, and climb, and lunge isn’t like watching an enemy in a video game. It’s like being a kid and seeing a plane lift off the runway for the first time, or an elephant picking up speed, ears flapping, or a cruise ship coming too-quickly into harbor. This is the sort of scale where disaster seems imminent, always...In its very best moments, Monster Hunter World captures that feeling, and shifts it only a little, by testing whether you or the monster will be the disaster.

Just as FTL got to the heart of space opera—the experimental ship, the camaraderie of a ragtag crew, the spiraling of crises—Subset Games has found the core of the mech fantasy with Into the Breach.

Yes, FromSoft could have shipped another game that more cleanly fits one of their successful molds, another Souls, another Bloodborne. Instead, they radically iterated and came away with something that feels genuinely new to play. Which is appropriate: Like one of their own protagonists, FromSoft faced a choice between sustaining the past and charging into the unknown, and they chose the latter. [Impressoins]

The presentation of this game is what makes its gameplay feel so sharp, including the way it tells its story and characterizes the other Neons that compete with you and tease you shamelessly. Once you get the hang of Neon White’s fast-paced gameplay, it feels incredibly natural—as natural as the witty, sexy banter between the characters therein. It’s sweet as sin itself, and goes down just as easy.

The way the Nightshade Paolumu toyed with me, trapping me when least expected it, is a far cry from the original Paolumu’s fight, and in my opinion is one of the more interesting fights in the game to date. It shows the game’s designers have a few tricks left, too.

All told, that's the most exciting part about Bowser's Fury: it feels genuinely new. That's not always the case with a new game in a franchise as long-running as Mario, but Bowser's Fury proves there are still ways to make the act of making Mario jump feel exciting all over again. Onward.

Dead Space kicked ass in 2008, and this version kicks ass in 2023. It’s spooky, and it feels good to tear apart ugly dudes. What else is there to say? I hope the same team gets a chance to apply this same treatment for Dead Space 2, though perhaps with the confidence to put more of their own bloody stamp on it. And if that’s a problem, screw it—just let them make their own Dead Space, pull some elements from the sequels, and chart a new path.

This shift away from the generational system of the Awakening and Fates, and towards a more robust take on character development that takes notes from influences as diverse as Final Fantasy Tactics and Princess Maker, should not be undersold. Stepping away from that design, instead of simply making it shine bright on the big screen thanks to the Switch, is fundamentally a risky move. But I also think it’s a smart one.

The strangest curveballs make sense here, and these moments of utter plain future hellscape are punctuated by strange moments of beauty.

The moment you scratch beneath the surface, you find a fascinating world of surrealist art, copyright infringement, kids doing weird experiments, and so much more.

If you're picking up Horizon Zero Dawn today, you're in for a treat. Some of the reviews might have skewed a little high, score wise, for my liking, but Guerrilla's open-worlder is one of 2017's finest games so far. There's been stiff competition, with more to come—but I feel this is one we'll see nudge into the upper parts of several publications' year-end best lists.

Regardless of how one feels about charging $70 for an update to a game from 2013, The Last of Us remains an utterly compelling ride.

Even at this point, I can confidently say that Nier: Automata is the best Platinum game since Bayonetta 2, and that it progresses with such wonderfully rapid momentum that it's impossible to just pick up and play for an hour.

I finished Rift Apart a few days ago, but my saved game says I've played 98% of Rift Apart, with a few collectibles left to be swept up. You can bet your ass I'm gonna get that last 2%.

It’s an exhausting, often repetitive, experience just barely held up by a good story, incredible visuals, and competent game design that lifts the best bits from other video games made in the past 10 years...If you’re looking for a revolutionary experience that teaches you what open world games can be, Forbidden West isn’t it. But if you’re looking for a competent distraction that soothes and smooths the brain by repeating what open world games have been doing for years, Forbidden West does the job.

An approachable but rewardingly tough wargame gives a fresh take on familiar battles.

Metroid Dread sharply refines (but doesn't reinvent) Nintendo's 35-year-old ideas in a gorgeous and slick new package.

Nintendo is a company that craves control, and what makes Mario Maker so different from its other creations is how much control is put in the hands of players. That also means they need to trust those players. I hope they do.

A weight of expectation and obligation detracts from an otherwise great narrative adventure about colonialism and its politics.

Doom Eternal is the platonic ideal of a Doom game. The combat, level design, and enemy encounters have never felt better. And it sure does have a story. Not just plot contrivances to get the player from point A to B, but elaborate lore with multiple cultures, planets, characters and sci-fi and fantasy tropes. Page after page of fucking lore that I puzzled over as I moved through the legion’s of hell, ripping the eyes out of cacodemons and decapitating the damned.

It is unlike any game I have ever played, even its predecessor Devil Daggers isn’t…like this. Other score and time attack games don’t do this to me. They do not make me keep coming back over and over again. They do not make me wish I could open my eyes wider and wider until I can eat the world. I am terrified of it.

Night in the Woods is great at subverting power fantasies. There are moments where you have no choice but to screw up. You simply choose how you screw up because that's how unattended mental illness can be.

Hitman 3 ultimately succeeds at delivering some of the things that I really enjoy about these games, but those highlights keep getting overshadowed by inflexible Mission Stories, or the way the main plot kept putting more constraints on the game's possibilities. Maybe I’ll enjoy everything so much more by the time I do each of these levels five or six times and the actual story is far back in my memory, buried by how many ways I can use grapes to decimate my enemies. But the entire time I was playing for this review, I kept scrolling back to the levels for Hitman and Hitman 2, thinking about simply going back and exploring those all over again, and I’m not sure that desire is going to go away.

In Final Fantasy VII Remake, everything looks like how I imagined it when I was a kid. This is not the Final Fantasy VII I remember, but the dream of a Final Fantasy VII. It’s a surreal, staggering, and loving tribute to a beloved role-playing game. The voice work, the music, the story, and the combat system are rebuilt from the ground up and brimming with detail.

It’s not that there are no original ideas in Astral Chain, no bright spots or brief respites from the boring loop. It’s that for nearly 30 hours, the ones that show up are either underdeveloped or else go uncultivated in favor of something fundamentally rehashed and reheated.

Overall, the story is well told, and the puzzles do a great job of stumping you just enough to make you pay that extra bit of attention to a clue or dialogue you may have missed. [Highly Recommended]

A masterful and memorable tragedy about the magic and terror of the ordinary world.

But Link’s Awakening remains a Game Boy game from 1993, and the fancy visuals don’t touch the core design, born from a specific time and place and different expectations. It remains that game, for better and worse, which means it’s a success. Link’s Awakening was special then and with the right expectations, remains special. Now, all we can do is hope Nintendo decides to give the rest of Zelda’s handheld adventures the same loving treatment.

And it’s still such a cute, colourful, tiny hubris that they’ll sketch out for themselves. The sort that continues to demand just one more try, especially when the astronomical totals already appearing on the daily and weekly trial scoreboards mean there must be some new trick to learn. Mini Motorways is another miniature masterpiece that captivates and challenges in equal measure, a game made equally of tiny charms and tiny calamities.

Sure, there are obvious weaknesses to improve on, but importantly, I want to see what happens next with Peter and the people around him. There are some surprisingly bold storytelling decisions in Spider-Man, especially relative to what happens in this genre, and I'm invested in seeing the inevitable fallout. It helps, obviously, that Spider-Man was tremendously fun to play, too.

Those who never got a chance to experience the Game Boy Advance in all its glory? Look no further than Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo. It’s a wonderful blend of both old and new, and is one of the best adventures I’ve been on this year. I can’t wait to come back to this one when I’m even older and look at it just as fondly as I remember my childhood, as it evoked those same exact feelings.

If you just look at what Sunless Skies is from one moment to the next, you’ll rarely see much happening. It might seem empty, inert, a game that leaves everything to the imagination. Then, you might realize, that’s the trick.

Bionic Bay is a great time and a pretty solid 10-to-12-hour platforming adventure. [Strongly Recommended]

Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles is a must-play and one of my favorite games this year. [Best in Class]

Halo Infinite didn’t really do it for me. The repetition of stakes and open world activities made the final 15 hours of gameplay something I was actively dreading. At the same time, the first 10 hours or so were exciting and engaging, and I imagine that someone not trying to power through the game in a week to make a review embargo deadline of Sunday night might have a better way of spacing things out. The open world sandbox is truly fun, especially once you have access to flying vehicles late in the game, but there’s only so many hijinks to get up to (at least until the co-op campaign releases). For a game about new possibilities, and titled Infinite, the game’s universe ends up feeling pretty constrained.

Mario Kart World is the pinnacle of the series. From the detail in the open world, to the expansion of races and the resulting chaos and more, there is something for every level of gamer. For people like me who are really into the back-and-forth with other racers, the game gives you the tools to find the best lines and tricks to maximize your times. If you’re new and just want to enjoy it, you can do just that. If this game gets supported the way MK8 Deluxe did, we’re in for an even bigger treat. [Best In Its Class]

A relatively short game, The Roottrees are Dead is compelling enough to keep your attention throughout its 6-ish hour playtime (or roughly 12 hours, including the Roottreemania mode). Its puzzles are challenging enough to keep you scratching your head but not enough to pull your hair out. And when you’re stuck, a convenient hint button is always available to nudge you in the right direction. For the stay-at-home types, it’s the perfect experience for an amateur gumshoe to get their hands dirty.

It’s a scary, sad, messed-up place. And I’m very grateful for the stay.

It's so much fun to encounter these new features, and see how seamlessly integrated they are with the old school style. This really does feel like an older Sonic game that's been given proper consideration, with thoughtful level design that encourages wild leaps of faith, and characteristic speed. And then many happy returns, with different characters, to plumb away at the game's secrets.

Dragon Quest XI is an amazing monument to the fact that there is a new Dragon Quest game, but I don’t think it’s much more than that.

The more pressing problem: the second zone isn't that interesting. But the shooting is good. Really good. I just don't know how long that'll last. [10-Hour Impressions]

The expanding aura of decency and compassion that follows in V's wake makes Cyberpunk an unexpectedly charming game in spite of its chauvinist streaks and retro-kitsch. In the face of the thoroughly amok-machinery of techno-corporatism that has destroyed society and ruthlessly crushes any challenges and dissent that it might face, Cyberpunk 2077 wants to believe in a hero, and the promise of a neon sunset.

It rocks, so hard, so fast; so let it rumble and tumble you and your Switch for a while, until you're suitably sweated out.

Pragmata is a fantastic new IP that effortlessly blends its unique combat and emotional character building into one of the year’s best stories. Even if you aren’t a parent, the game’s beautiful narrative will grab its hooks into you. This is easily one of Capcom’s best original IPs in years, and is a game sci-fi fans shouldn’t miss out on. More importantly though, Pragmata is just a ton of fun. The game’s real-time hacking mechanic is a killer feature that I hope more studio’s take inspiration from.

StarVaders is an interesting and engaging take on deckbuilding roguelikes. I know we’ve been getting a lot of these recently, but this is a game that stands near the top of the genre and is a worthwhile addition to your library. [Highly Recommended]

I like how funny the writing is, especially for the battle droids, who are filled with seemingly endless one-liners mulling over their cursed existence. I like how naturalistic the platforming is, as the game makes a genuine attempt to hide its exploration tells in the environment, rather than spilling yellow paint everywhere. And I always like parrying an enemy four times in a row, breaking their stamina, and going to town with a goddamn glowing energy sword.

As fun as it is to be Miles, to be the geeky black superhero I have always wanted to exist, the game cannot reconcile the differences between its New York and the one I see outside my window. That failure would be understandable, but what is unforgivable is that it does not even make the attempt.

Crisp and colorful with an energetic EDM soundtrack, Arkanoid vs. Space Invaders is a fizzy, addictive treat—like a bag of cola bottles but with slightly more nutritional value, and all for roughly the price of a London pint.

Maybe it’s not shocking that Tunic took me away from Elden Ring. One has you running around as a cute fox trying to save the world, even if you don’t know why. The other has you running around, potentially with a cute fox mask on, trying to save the world, even if you don’t know why. What they have in common is rewarding players for curiosity. Each game goes about it in a different way, but the conclusion is the same: the reward is worth the effort.

A bonkers survival sim where watching things fall apart is half the fun.

At this point, I don’t want anyone telling me what this system can’t do. I’ve seen it. I’ve played it. And Cyberpunk 2077 remains one of the best games of the last 10 years. From its main story with Keanu Reeves’ incredible performance, to its fleshed-out side stories, to Idris Elba’s performance in “Phantom Liberty.” Every piece of this game is special. And now, I can take it with me wherever I go. [Best In Its Class]

I still want to explore that world, and maybe as I do more Adventures and Lost Sectors I'll be able to do so, but in its main campaign Destiny 2 is stubbornly, resolutely avoidant of its own themes and contradictions. It stirs from its complacency just a bit at the start, only to rock itself back to sleep listening to the percussive rhythms of combat.

It's the perfect game to kind of zone out with (especially in the literal Zone challenges, which are abstract, light-shifting exercises in going fast and not hitting barriers), to enjoy the music and visuals and feel your way around the game, via time trial, or traditional race (full of deadly power-ups and just a taste of Mario Kart-style shenanigans), or any number of challenges in the solo modes.

Importantly, picking a difficulty is not a binary and permanent choice. You can swap between these modes at any time, for any reason, within the same save. Nothing changes except how the game handles health and currency distribution. (You get plenty of coins. It’s fine.) When you finish a stage on the easier mode, the game doesn’t brand it with an “easy” tag, like a badge of shame that you need to overcome another time. You beat the level! Hooray! This is fantastic, because it means my daughter and I can make progress in different ways.

Moss is a terrific example of what happens when VR, as a medium, begins to find its own language of expression, both in art and design. It’s a game that, when asked for words to describe it, magic comes to mind.

What elevates Outer Wilds is how it confronts this tension between practicality and contemplation. Your exploration rarely feels heroic. In fact, it is often melancholic. There are moments of shout-worthy victory, sure. But as you piece together the history of your little star system, it becomes clear that there are no easy answers.

I'm here to tell you Kingdom Battle is a hell of a game, a strategy RPG with more in common with Fire Emblem than XCOM, one that wraps a satisfying turn-based combat game—featuring surprising depth to its systems and mechanics—in the approachable accessibility that's come to define modern Nintendo games...I'm as shocked as you are, but more than 10 hours later, I can't put the game down.

It’s a good racing game, but it’s a great game about being an F1 driver, and all the intangibles that they have to put on the balance sheet.

Another terrific cover shooter, but sadly let down by the tired open world elements that are shoehorned into it.

It has depth if you want to find it, but you can also mash away for hours and still do some pretty sweet combos. You could climb the ranked ladder, contesting the world’s best, or just wander the map of Libra of Soul, finding more fights and challenges. Soulcalibur VI is like fighting game comfort food for me, and really, I’m just happy to have a good one around again.

There is a distinctly nostalgic feeling to playing Wargroove. It reminds me of the Game Boy Advance, and my first brushes with Advance Wars, a series that made turn-based strategy both accessible and difficult.

While I do wish that you could try to escape from your pursuers, rather than it being an insta-fail, Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream is an excellent addition to the stealth genre. If you’ve been craving something new, don’t overlook this one. It’s far too good to ignore. [Best in Class]

So many video games frustratingly outstay their welcome, dragging out once-novel ideas in service of hitting an arbitrary amount of gameplay time, because the too-ravenous gaming audience frequently correlates game length with quality. It's refreshing, then, when a game is careful and deliberate about its ideas, and exits stage left when it's exhausted them, leaving you simultaneously desperate for more but buzzing over the limited time spent in that world.

As the credits rolled on Resident Evil Village, I was struck by just how much of the back quarter of the game felt like a desperate attempt to work Ethan Winters and his arc into the greater Resident Evil narrative. This, much more than its action emphasis, is what is frustrating about Village. For the second game in a row, Resident Evil has shown that it has outgrown its conventions, that it can create fresh horrors in new places. And still, everything must come crashing to a halt so that the curtain can be pulled back on the same threadbare wizard we've seen for 25 years.

Thimbleweed Park's puzzles are just fine as they are...By which I mean they are enjoyably frustrating, comfortably confusing—echoes of the point-and-click past. Mercifully, they're articulated in such a fashion that, again, once you begin to acknowledge the mechanics made available to you, key amongst them character swapping on the fly, they begin to sing. And they really are like songs, after a fashion, constituents of an arrangement fractured by design, until such a time that a third party, the player, can piece them back together and drink in the singular melodies.

The gameplay is a classic point-and-click adventure, but Mick Carter talks to you throughout in that neo-noir style. Graphically, The Drifter stands out with its incredibly detailed pixel art style. It’s perfect for this story and style of play because it makes you pay attention to every aspect of the environment to solve a puzzle. [Highly Recommended]

Ever listened to an album and let your imagination wander? That's what Sayonara Wild Hearts is like...All I want to do, even as I write this, is play Sayonara Wild Hearts again, and I don’t ever play games again.

An uncomfortable and fascinating exploration of confession and forged intimacy.

A genuinely eerie and disorienting shooter that is sometimes overstuffed with ideas and gags.

It’s a game where so many individual components feel really good, but it’s all dropped into outdated structure.

Satisfying. It feels good to look at, it feels good to play, and it functions as a justification for Sony's experiments with DualSense. Whether those experiments pan out is somewhat out of Sony's hands, but Astro's Playroom offers a roadmap for how other developers could take advantage of it. If no one else does—well, at least we'll have Astro's Playroom. And Astro's Playroom is pretty damn good.

The Alters has been one of the most interesting and thought-provoking games I’ve played this year. Its sublime survival aspects are only surpassed by its interactions with Jan and his Alters. It’s a beautiful game on the visual front, but even more so in the fact that it makes you come to grips with yourself. When the time comes, do you think you could depend on yourself? [Highly Recommended]

Kingdom Hearts III is an absolute disaster. I loved every minute of it.

It is a fantastic addition to a game that already has a place in my all-time favorites list, and even if this is the very last we’ll see of Prey, or the big-budget immersive sim for awhile, I’m very glad Arkane has gone out on a bang.

And this is ultimately the root of the problem with Nier 1.22 — it's forcing us into an era where the remake is the definitive text, the canonical copy of a game that existed for over a decade that formed connections with players and shows us an entirely different world of game making. The original text has murdered the exported release and the revision has come to strangle the original text because the best-selling sequel demanded it. What we're left with is two nearly identical Niers each vying to be the true Nier. One must imagine Yoko Taro happy when he watches quietly as one snuffs the other.

Capcom Fighting Collection 2 is a solid collection of mostly good fighters. Capcom did a great job of modernizing certain aspects, like having rollback netcode in all of the games, and allowing you to save at any point. With the resurgence of Capcom over the last few years, this is a great way to continue that upward trajectory and set themselves up for the future, should they recognize that there is a certain series in there that we want back. [Highly Recommended]

And in a world where boss battles are, with the exception of Souls-like games, seemingly falling out of vogue, Splatoon 2 makes an argument it's only because of lacking creativity. Each of the game's five worlds hides a wholly unique monstrosity, demanding players exploit the game's mechanics in a different way. Even if Nintendo hadn't asked me to keep quiet about the nature of the Splatoon 2's bosses (in the third world and beyond) I'd still be loathe to spoil the game's best surprises.

For as charming of a game as ‘Stray’ is, it undercuts its thematic core by imagining a post-human future in decidedly human ways.

POPUCOM is such a unique concept, and it’s executed to near perfection. If there’s one thing that I could raise a flag about, it’s the lack of a sprint button. Beyond that? POPUCOM is incredibly polished, pure fun, and just a blast to experience. Grab your friend or significant other, sit down, and prepare for some of the best puzzle/platformer/shooter action you’ll experience this year. [Best in its Class]

I can’t help but feel that the Pearl and Diamond clans already have Jubilife Village’s “how do we coexist with Pokémon?” problem figured out and have for some time: respect their autonomy to be wild animals. The urge to catch them all and the question of “is catching them all really a good idea?” lives both in this game and in myself as a series fan. Game Freak’s answers haven't been great, but asking the question is at least a big step towards a more nuanced Pokémon world.

Look Outside knows. The more you know, the less you understand. You can’t. Not until it decides you’re worthy. And trust me, we aren’t worthy. Not yet. Not until all of you see what I saw. Then, you’ll thank me. You’ll hate me. Every mystery you uncover is more gruesome than the last. The more you suffer, the more you heal. Trust me, friends. Just Look Outside… [Highly recommended]