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.

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.

It is bright and energetic and filled with character, and those are the qualities you need to carry a curious, new generation of players into the fray long enough for them to find their footing in such a niche style of game. That DXM feels so distinct beyond that is just a bonus.

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.

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

Ancestors might not be for me, but there’s no doubt it has conviction. I can respect that.

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

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.

An uncomfortable and fascinating exploration of confession and forged intimacy.

Perhaps most impressively, the world of Remnant is genuinely mysterious. There’s a story playing out about the end of the world as we know it and a conflict between forces mundane and magical, but most of the details and lore of the world are buried in item descriptions and those items are scarce.

This procedural mystery about a 70s cult never feels connected to its story.

There’s a certain joy in enjoying both modes side by side, the tightness of the puzzle boxes next to the floatiness and abstraction of the 3D spaces, which evoke both the 3D platformers of the 32-and-64-bit era as well as much less cheery work, such as the haunting landscapes of Connor Sherlock and Kitty Horrorshow’s works.

While Dicey Dungeons isn’t my favorite in the genre, its approachability and aesthetic makes it stand out in the crowd. It’s the perfect ambassador for a genre I’ve been trying to get everyone I know to play. I only wish I could play it on my phone.

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.

Youngblood is more like a spinoff than a sequel, even if it takes place after the events of the last two games. It has a different structure, tells a different kind of story, and barely worth playing if you're not playing with a friend. And it's packaged in a way that encourages that. It costs only $30, though a $40 deluxe edition allows you to share the game with a friend who doesn't own it...But really, it's all just an excuse to violently kill more Nazis, and I'm not too good to say that it's enough for me.

A moody and rewarding visual novel that is let down by some bad mystery plotting.

The core game is so much fun, but I would have rather spent $20 and had the game, its levels, and its characters open to me from the start.

The kind of story Sea of Solitude is trying to tell is deeply ambitious. It's the kind of game that might take an indie studio numerous attempts, even with the support of a giant like EA. Sea of Solitude may have drawbacks, but at the end of the day the game is still a stunning accomplishment. It's still a world I enjoyed spending time in.

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.

The Sinking City humanizes Lovecraft’s principal villains, turns them into people, and tells a better story because of it.

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

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.

Some of what’s wrong in Rage 2 feels like compromised implementation of fundamentally good ideas, but I think its fatal flaw is that it’s a game obsessed with feeling fun rather than trusting any of its ideas to be fun.

The result is a game that still feels like history, but only history as told through the shaded maps in a textbook.

It’s a wildly fun, dark, campy examination of the modern workplace as a well of suffering and pain, and as such, it’s just what I need here in April of 2019.

A puzzle platformer that smoothly finesses the line between feeling challenging and keeping me motivated.

And that’s Days Gone in a nutshell: a waste of time that doesn’t get you anything decent in return. I could have written everything here after a few hours of playing, but I kept thinking “There’s gotta be something around the corner to justify all this.” And so I’d play a few hours, and then a few more. Soon, a big plot turn was being communicated, and so I gave the game another chance. But that, like Deacon’s code, was just a long con. A game with a billion carrots on a stick, but no matter how many you eat, you’re still hungry, but at that point, the sunk cost of eating these damn carrots is so large you might as well keep eating. [20 Hour Impressions]

Falcon Age squanders its compelling narrative foundations with reductive gameplay and a dumb cute bird.