I’m excellent at appreciating Lumines, though, and that’s especially true with Lumines Arise—which is another beautiful, transfixing, exhilarating puzzler guaranteed to stimulate both your senses and your brain. Even the really, really dumb brains.
This experience is far from perfect, something embodied by its initial tendency to lead you into dead ends. Thankfully, these roadblocks eventually gave way to some real progress, both in terms of traversal and storytelling, as the silky smooth movement alleviated some of these long, dull hikes. While Possessor(s) doesn’t fully break from a crowded field of search-action games, its compelling characters and pointed commentary give it some personality of its own. If you’re eager to explore man-made horrors, this flaming wreck of a company town will provide.
With its one-of-a-kind charm and narrative chops, The Séance of Blake Manor is a master class in the detective genre and a delicious supernatural treat for the exact kind of freak I am.
While the first act of Ambrosia Sky is far from squeaky clean, the core of what’s here—exploring a beautifully rendered dead space station and uncovering its hidden truths while battling alien fungus with a power washer—can be quite compelling when it clicks. While its gameplay didn’t fully sink its hooks in, I’m invested enough in the secrets of this doomed space station that I may be coming back for more when the next two acts of the game launch in 2026. Hopefully, those will be a bit more polished. [Part 1 review]
Altogether this is another excellent Digital Eclipse compilation that’s as informative as it is entertaining. And whenever you get tired of learning (or, if you’re old like me, yearning for the early ‘90s), you can go and rip somebody’s spine out. Who can find fault with that?
Legends: Z-A has ultimately set the standard and new direction for what Pokémon already should have been for years now. It has cut out many of the flaws that caused previous entries to feel like a slog, and improved on technical issues in ways that it simply never should have had to. This latest game has aligned Pokémon and Animal Crossing as kindred spirits, where satisfaction is found through collecting and completion of the pokédex, the same way bugs and fossils are for the latter. These are cozier RPGs, and while that can lessen their impact compared to their more mechanically involved contemporaries, it feels more like a boon than a curse that this franchise is willing to embrace that identity. Even if none of it ever stays with you for too long after you put it down, for anyone looking to kill time exploring a world full of lovable flora and fauna, Legends: Z-A makes sure that it always feels fast and fun.
If I had to describe Ninja Gaiden 4, it’s like a metal song: loud, boisterous, hard as hell, and simultaneously brutish and complex. It’s hard to expect that much more from a Ninja Gaiden title, even in a new generation. If 4 is the base for future games, the Year of the Ninja may wind up needing a few pages in the calendar.
While there are a few problems, like the controls feeling occasionally fiddly on a controller, I was pleasantly surprised by this part of the game, and the dispatching loop does a good job putting us in Robert’s stressed-out headspace, as the happenings from this mode bleed into the cutscenes outside of them...That said, there are a few other rough edges to the experience as well, at least on PC: I had a big problem with screen tearing, even with V-sync on, as well as some audio desync issues that distractingly sprang up during more busy setpieces.
Whether it’s using Karl’s harpoon gun to pin a screenful of goblins to a wall, performing an eight billion hit aerial combo with Cider, unleashing laser blasts with Brome, or hitting people with Galandra’s big, big sword, these scraps are gratifying, intuitive, and free-form. Not many games can claim to be truly best-in-class at something, but Absolum’s beat ‘em up action makes a convincing argument.
What makes it notable and what makes it good also makes it feel simply like more Hades. Now, “more Hades” is absolutely nothing to complain about, and Supergiant remains excellent at all of the narrative elements of video game design. This isn’t the revelation that Hades was, though, and the attempts to make it mechanically different don’t distinguish themselves. Despite that, Melinoë and her travails are narratively rich, and the basic combat (whose debt to Supergiant’s first game Bastion remains unmistakable) is still strong enough, to ensure that Hades II is an excellent game that nails a precarious equity between story and action—and that should be enough to convince anybody to play it.
