Hey Poor Player

Really, there was nothing that could have held Well Dweller back from the perfect score I’m proud to award it. This isn’t just a great Metroidvania, it’s the best one yet from a very talented developer. It’s full of neat style, challenging and competent platforming, and nightmarish fairytale monstrosities. All I can say now is that I can’t wait to see what Kyle Thompson is cooking up next.

CONTROL Resonant takes a lot of risks, and almost all of them pay off. It features a new protagonist, a very different feel to its action, and a far larger game that keeps taking audacious chances throughout. Still, it feels like a Control game in all the most important ways, building beautifully on the original. It sits comfortably among the best games of 2026.

Even though it perhaps plays it safe, Marsupilami 2: Salsa Palombia is still an undeniably fun and competent platformer. I appreciate its impressive level variety and really enjoyed the boss battles and overall challenge. Sure, it borrows a lot from Donkey Kong Country, but it’s still a worthy adventure that any platformer fan is sure to enjoy.

Honestly, while I wish I had the excuse to spend more time with the game, and though the early moments were a bit of a hassle, ultimately I had a ton of fun with Diggy Diggy Mole. This is a true indie fan’s indie darling. Sure, I’d like it to be more expansive and feature some bosses, but what’s here is well-made, precise, and challenging. If you’re a fan of the genre, you need to dig into this adventure by Novasplore Games.

While I do think there are some clever puzzles throughout Sizeable’s short journey, I don’t think the Switch is the way to play it. A game like this works best when everything is intuitive, and you can really focus on the puzzles. You don’t want to spend your time focusing on the controls themselves. Once I got past that, I found a nice, relatively cozy puzzle game that made me think, but it’s over so fast that it’s hard for it to make a lasting impression.

The 2021 original was a decent idea in a thin package that worked at its initial price point. Even though the 2026 sequel addresses critiques of the first by adding 4-player squads, rebuilt classes, Horde maps at launch, and mid-mission checkpoints, it still feels like the same game with more bolted on, at a higher price. Yes, the core gameplay still works, but I’d wait for a few patches to iron out the technical performance and snag it on a sale.

Box Knight is a competent beat ‘em up roguelike, but it never evolves beyond that. Whether we’re talking about the action, the upgrades, or the abilities, it never managed to do anything interesting. While Box Knight has a good core idea for its story and world, it says so little about the office culture it tries to satirize that it never grabbed me. You could certainly jump in with a friend and play a few rounds of it, but most players will quickly find themselves longing for more.

I really don’t enjoy being so hard on any game, let alone a Metroidvania. But it’s clear to me that, while Barbarian Saga: The Beastmaster had some cool ideas, it didn’t execute them successfully at all. It was plagued by all sorts of amateur mistakes and poor balancing. I really hope that Dormidin Studio can learn from this adventure and make an amazing game in the future. But for all my fellow fans of the genre, I can’t recommend this one at all.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword is a visually stunning revival that successfully brings Capcom’s classic franchise into the modern era using the RE Engine. Musashi injects a refreshing sense of personality into dark fantasy Kyoto, especially during the game’s intense and cinematic boss fights. This is definitely an action adventure game of the year contender.

If you’ve played most of the other great games in the genre in recent years and still want more, Mexican Ninja offers a very solid experience. The more I played it, the more I was impressed by how many things are well done, even if I never entirely got past the fact that it doesn’t quite live up to the best of its competition. If I’d connected with its world, if it offered multiplayer, or if it had a few more elements that set it apart from the pack, I might have fallen in love with it, but it’s ultimately a good game worth considering.