Finger Guns

Though it’s pretty derivative, Devil Slayer Raksasi is a notable take on the roguelike. Its directly overhead camera perspective is novel but serves really to draw you too far out of the action, and its randomly earned drops leave it straddling the line between roguelite and roguelike. The real problem is that most of its other elements have been seen before and in better games.

The Colonists might not be the deepest of settlement games but it’s an engrossing one with a focus on productivity. It’s simplistic enough to act as an excellent introduction to the genre while having enough depth to please veterans looking for a challenge. What’s more, it hasn’t lost anything in the jump from PC to PS4.

A simple game with a new control scheme to get used to, Skate City is no frills fun. Yet rather than sounding detrimental, the chill vibe it brings to addictive arcade gameplay is a welcome addition to the handful of skateboarding games on the market.

Flipping the dungeon raid on its head, Legend of Keepers is a roguelike-strategy game hybrid that’s worth your time. It might have its tongue firmly pressed to its cheek at times but underneath its irreverent exterior is a deep and engrossing tactical gem. This is once corporate ladder you might want to synergise with.

Lasting a few fun hours, Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion is a simple but effective Zelda-like adventure in a colourful veggie-filled dystopia. However, this salad dodger’s gameplay is derivative of dozens of other better games, and it doesn’t really do anything to explore its novel concept.

If you’re a fan of Philip K. Dick’s seminal work, Silicon Dreams is absolutely worth your time. It’s not the most interactive game but it expertly explores some thought provoking themes that are synonymous with Blade Runner via an engrossing game play loop and well crafted dialogue. It’s only 4 hours long but you’ll want to play this game twice.

On the surface Poison Control looks to be cut from the same cloth as Persona, brimming with cute characters, witty script and changing hearts. But under the poison mires you need to clear and the poor shooting, the gameplay lacks polish and chokes on repetition, and the story often descends into caricature and mishandles a sexual assault. Its style is really only skin deep.

It may look deceptively cute, but El Hijo hides a level of stealth cunning to rival its peers in the genre. Not so much difficult-to-master as tempering your own patience, the reward for persevering is ultimately worth sticking it out.

Ascendshaft and Endless Shaft contains one completely broken game and one that’s utterly boring. There’s little to no depth here. No narrative to speak of. The art styles swing from incredibly bland to retina achingly horrible. There’s no soundtrack and the sound effects that are used here are flat and mundane.

If you happen to have a pre-school fan of Pocoyo in your home, this is one party you might want to RSVP too. Pocoyo Party expertly encapsulates the thematic feeling of the show to feel like a natural extension of it. It doesn’t contain a massive amount of content and a few of the mini-games aren’t as well thought out as the others but what is here is accessible and designed specifically for the fun of players aged 3-5.

A colourful, family friendly 2.5D platformer that makes no effort to hide its inspirations, Stitchy In Tooki Trouble delivers a few hours of well-crafted gaming. For older players, it’ll feel like a blast from the past that’s over just as quickly as it began. For younger players though, Stitchy will keep them engrossed for longer with forgiving systems, luscious worlds and slick platforming play.

When Demon Skin works, it works pretty well – it’s a nice-looking title with an interesting story and some combat mechanics that set it apart from other similar games. Unfortunately, its missteps are just too impactful on the overall experience to ignore. If you have the patience of a saint, you might find enough here to enjoy. If time is at a premium, and you don’t fancy the slog, I just can’t recommend it. A real shame.

Whilst it captivates with its beautiful aesthetic and whimsical score, TASOMACHI: Beyond the Twilight offers little else. Awkward platforming, directionless plot device and lack of any real substance leaves little to the imagination, let alone drive to continue.

There are a number of technical issues which blight Forgotten Fields but there’s nothing here that couldn’t be addressed over time and with patches. The core of the game, featuring a very human and relatable story mirrored in a literary fantasy one, shines bright enough that those who can forgive a few glitches will find something unique and interesting here.

Almost everything about Rain On Your Parade is geared towards giving the player a good time. A mischief simulator packed with wise cracks and pop culture references, it’s a lot of fun to play. Not all of the humour lands but enough of it does to make this an easy recommendation to anyone who liked Untitled Goose Game.

Vibrant, colourful, much deeper than it looks on the surface and doesn’t outstay its welcome, Say No! More is a thoroughly enjoyable experience. You’ll likely only play it once and it’s not a hugely interactive game, but if you like a game with a layered narrative, this will certainly deliver.

What The Dub?! takes a simple and enjoyable concept and builds a whole party game from it. There’s no deviation from the premise, for better and and for worse, and the game doesn’t leave a lot of breathing room between rounds. With a few creative jokers to play with though, this game gives you all the tools to have a very fun night in.

With a fun addictive gameplay loop, Astro Aqua Kitty is often a purr-fect sequel. It features expanded level design and enhancements over the original. If you liked the first, you’ll like this, but seven out of ten cats would say it’s missing anything to truly make it memorable, rather than just a quirky shmup.

A few annoying glitches can’t spoil the ground-breaking, emotional journey of Before Your Eyes. An imaginative control method is used in ingenious ways to tell an occasionally uplifting but ultimately heart wrenching story. It’s only a few hours long but that’s more than enough time for this game to get under your skin and leave its mark.

A low effort and badly optimised affair, Danger Scavenger offers little in the genre of games it’s trying to tap into. Leave it on the scrap pile and dig up some gold elsewhere.

A competent, accessible, family friendly yet unusually dry quiz game, Papa’s Quiz offers up a few hours of party fun before the whole thing becomes stale. It won’t be challenging Jackbox for the party game crown but would fit right into a playlist of party games with friends and relatives.

Lost Words: Beyond The Page is a heartbreaking, beautiful tale, dealing in grief, depression and escaping into our own perfect worlds to escape the sadness of reality. Do yourself a favour and bring this story to life.

The branching narrative needs a rework to ensure it respects all of the players’ decisions because right now it feels broken, squandering what spooky atmosphere some decent acting performances manage to conjure up.

Narita Boy is a feat of imagination, one of the most conceptually interesting games I’ve ever played. The retro world of the Digital Kingdom – its pixelart, design and art direction – are some of the most eye-catchingly beautiful ever committed to code. Its soundtrack is mesmerising, truly special synthwave. Narita Boy ends up more than the sum of its parts, going beyond the source code to deliver a game that should take its place alongside the greatest indies.

The classics are here, all gleamed up for the current gen of consoles. If you’re dropping in now, you’re in for a treat. But if you bought last gen’s standard version of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2, be mindful of that crafty upgrade cost.