Game Skinny

Ultimately, anyone who played and enjoyed the original Rogue Legacy is going to love this sequel just as much if not more. Everything that made the first game so great is here, though it is all bigger and better than ever before.

Citizen Sleeper is an innovative cyberpunk RPG that understands the core tenants of the genre better than most AAA attempts. With deeply sympathetic (and extremely cool) characters, it builds its punishing post-capitalist society on the back of some of the best descriptive prose I've seen in a video game. The only caveat is to play with a mouse and keyboard if you can.

Whether the world-building and strong writing make Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising worth a look is highly dependent on what you want from it. It seems evident a visual novel-style pack-in companion would have served the developers’ goals more efficiently: the real draw here is the world they’re constructing and the people, anthropomorphic and otherwise, who make it tick.

A recommendation for We Were Here Forever comes largely weighted by what you're looking to get out of the experience: a few nights of brain teasers and puzzle solving with a close friend? Absolutely. An airtight puzzler that isn't held together by scotch tape and prayers? Maybe not.

Salt and Sacrifice is a labor of love for its genre, one that will scratch any veteran’s itch for more mysterious worlds to explore. It never reaches the heights of the best Souls-likes but never sinks to the lows of those that attempt and fail to work within the framework.

Nintendo Switch Sports is in the fortunate position to offer an experience I want. From when it was announced, I knew I was interested in the game. There is no substitute for swinging a controller like a sword and hitting a person in a game with a sword.

Trek to Yomi is a masterclass in presentation. The striking, period-appropriate style and impressive use of fixed camera angles make each screen engrossing, pushing you to see what’s next. The writing doesn’t live up to the nuanced expectation set by styling the game after the works of Kurosawa, and some of the chapters are a bit long in the tooth, but Trek to Yomi is still worth playing for any fan of 2D action or the samurai genre.

Chernobylite’s next-gen update is the best way to play the survival-horror game on console despite its unevenness. Aside from some animation slowdown in the loading screens, the game runs at a solid framerate, and perceivable frame dips were nonexistent in my playtime examining the upgrade.

Eldest Souls Depths of the Forgotten is essentially more Eldest Souls. It isn’t very long, clocking in at about two hours with all the dying to The Rotting Crown, but my first playthrough of the base game wasn’t much less than six, and subsequent runs quickly cut to two hours as well. Still, thanks to the generally enjoyable gameplay loop of the base game, the DLC is also a mostly fun experience.

While Kaiju Wars carries a feeling of familiarity, there’s enough here for it to stand apart from others in the genre. With good pacing, tactical play, and pop-culture moments, there’s plenty of fun to be had with the main campaign. The first act is roughly six hours long, and there are five acts total.

There’s absolutely no variation in stage design or objectives in the entirety of The Force Unleashed. You get an impressive array of fun Force powers to use, from lightning strikes to stylish lightsaber throws, but not much reason to use them.

Ultimately, MLB The Show 22 is a powerhouse like most entries in the series, but it falls victim to the sports-game pitfall of yearly editions: it just doesn't add enough new features. Most long-time fans may not mind that, though ff you're looking for an upgrade, this is just another season, albeit a good one.

While fans finally have good combat in a LEGO Star Wars game, competent action can only stretch the experience so far. With its overreliance on open-world fluff, which de-emphasizes the considered design of older games, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga feels like one step forward and two steps back.

Chinatown Detective Agency is a unique game with a compelling story and fantastic art direction. Its scope is global, but the local Singapore setting feels authentic. The puzzles are just challenging enough so that they never feel unfair. Although, its buggy performance hampers the experience a bit.

While Forgive Me Father is a throwback to shooters' past, it brings a fresh take to a tired genre that many have moved on from. Although it falls into certain pitfalls that games have moved away from in terms of level design, there are enough fantastic areas to keep you glued to your seat in hopes of seeing its brilliance again.

Despite the richness of its world, engaging story, and implementation of old-school RPG mechanics, Elex 2 works against itself at almost every turn. Because of its utter lack of polish. There have been some patches since the game's release addressing some of its bugs, but in my time with it, I experienced enough of them to not want to return. Random auto-save sticking was just one of the soul-destroying glitches I encountered.

The House of the Dead Remake will be a fun zombie shooting romp on rails for about an hour for anyone but the most hardcore fan of the series. A friend is required to make the most of this hour, though. While you have them at the door, maybe ask if they’ll chip in for half of the game’s price tag too.

With an excellent loot system and stellar gunplay, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands is easily one of the most addictive and satisfying FPS games in recent memory.

Overall, Kirby and the Forgotten Land is exactly the sequel we'd expect. Despite the move to 3D, the gameplay is instantly familiar. While nothing here is anything close to groundbreaking or even innovative, it is a comfortable, casual, all-ages adventure worth taking.

Weird West isn't a perfect game, but it has so many fascinating elements that it's definitely worth playing for fans of classic isometric-style RPGs. It would have been nice to see it lean more into those PC gaming roots with its control and user interface, but the world itself, from the characters to the physics and the chemistry, is great.

Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin is an endearing action RPG that takes careful steps with its reappropriation of traditional Final Fantasy systems. The translation to Team Ninja’s brand of fast-paced combat feels amazing when it’s firing on all cylinders. Unfortunately, it’s let down by technical issues and a loot system that actively pushes you away from messing around with its jobs in the way that it so desperately wants.

Ghostwire Tokyo is essentially what I thought it would be, for better and for worse. It's charming but empty, ambitious but too formulaic, and it's got the most personality of any game I've played this year. I sincerely hope Tango has more Ghostwire in store, either as DLC or a sequel. Despite its issues, there's nothing else quite like it.

It's been 10 years, but I wish Rune Factory 5 had been delayed for a bit longer. The jump to 3D was inevitable, though more time and polish could have made a significant difference. The cast and daily life are still superb, beyond Rune Factory 4 in some instances, but there's a distinct sense that Rune Factory 5 wasn't finished growing before it was harvested.

Persona 4 Arena Ultimax's fighting is still superb. The satisfaction of finally understanding a character's move pool is matched only by actually pulling them off in battle, and Golden Mode and online battles mean you get plenty of chances for both whether you're playing solo or not.

Chocobo GP has the potential to be a much better racing game in the future. It's fun enough for now, though it feels unfinished, and despite the interesting technical variations, the course selection is really quite disappointing. Season two looks promising, but since Square Enix decided to gate content behind such a structure, hopefully, this support continues, and Chocobo GP doesn't break down on the track.