IGN Japan

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream feels like a kind of chemical experiment, where the player’s imagination collides with the game’s unpredictable interpretations to create laugh-out-loud, emergent moments. New systems like Little Quirks and the island’s shared lingo undeniably elevate the series’ core appeal. However, the experience of grinding into that loop ultimately works against it. While the limitations placed on sharing features are disappointing, its distinct identity still stands out—even in 2026, a year filled with rich and varied slow-life games.

Marathon is an ambitious effort from veteran FPS developer Bungie, channeling its expertise into the extraction shooter genre. The act of firing its weapons feels undeniably satisfying, and the loop grows more addictive with each run. That said, the roughness of its UI and task design is hard to overlook. Still, the rapid rollout of quality-of-life patches within just two weeks of launch clearly shows Bungie’s commitment to seriously supporting and improving the game.

A compact yet intricately crafted original third-person shooter. Its blend of hacking and gunplay successfully creates a unique sense of satisfaction, though it can occasionally feel a bit unfocused, leaving you wishing for greater weapon variety and more diverse combat styles. While the overall story leaves a somewhat muted impression, the lighthearted, everyday banter between the two main characters offers a charm unlike anything found in other games.

Life is Strange: Double Exposure successfully course-corrects after its predecessor lost sight of the series’ direction. By toning down the more grim elements and refocusing on the relationship between Max and Chloe, as well as the dual-protagonist system, it recaptures the brilliance of its core appeal as a coming-of-age mystery. Its highly satisfying choices and conclusion provide a fitting and impressive landing as a final chapter.

Crimson Desert is an open-world adventure game that boasts stunning visuals and an enormous amount of content. From challenging combat and puzzles to slower-paced activities such as trading and animal husbandry, it offers a wide variety of ways to play. That said, the game falls short in its storytelling, and some inconvenient systems leave it missing the mark in many respects, making it hard to call it universally accessible. Still, for those looking to embark on a complex, anything-but-straightforward ambitious journey, it’s a game well worth experiencing.

While drawing heavily from the lineage of Dragon Quest Builders, Pokémon Pokopia successfully translates the inherently complex creatures and systems of Pokémon into a cohesive gameplay loop, reconstructing the overall experience into something with the relaxed, leisurely pacing reminiscent of Animal Crossing. The Pokémon models are charmingly rendered, and the distant scenery showcases the capabilities of the Nintendo Switch 2. With the potential to become a long-beloved staple title for the platform, it also represents a breakthrough in how the Pokémon IP can be approached, resulting in a game with a uniquely impressive level of polish and accomplishment.

Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly Remake faithfully preserves the haunting charm of its story, where sadness, beauty, and eeriness coexist, while vividly reimagining the classic horror experience. Combat with the Camera Obscura can occasionally lack a sense of punch, which is a minor drawback, but the enhanced presentation gives the village an even more oppressive and unsettling atmosphere, and the gameplay now holds up well by modern standards. Though some aspects of its progression remain old-school, the game’s meticulous structure is still exceptional, making this remake in large part a welcome revival of a horror classic.

CODE VEIN II isn’t merely an evolution into an open-field format; it’s a carefully refined follow-up that identifies and polishes the weaker elements of its predecessor. The revamped Buddy System in particular feels like a true innovation, transformed into something entirely new that brilliantly balances tension with a strong sense of camaraderie in battle. The story, however, leans heavily on repetition and often lacks emotional impact. Even so, thanks to its many user-friendly features, CODE VEIN II stands as a Soulslike—indeed, an Elden-like—that can be confidently recommended to a wide range of players.

Resident Evil Requiem fuses the horror sensibilities of the Resident Evil 2 remake with the exhilarating action of Resident Evil 4’s remake, rearticulating the series’ fundamental appeal in what feels like a definitive culmination. While its level design and gimmicks—heavily indebted to the legacy of past entries—occasionally verge on repetition, the game nevertheless delivers a sense of closure to Leon’s harrowing journey and stands as a remarkable realization of the franchise’s long-gestating ambitions. It is, without question, a requiem worthy of the series’ history—an elegy to the memories it has built over the years, and an experience well worth seeing through to the very end.

Dragon Quest VII Reimagined reconstructs the original’s sprawling narrative with a far brisker, more accessible pace. That approach may well represent the optimal solution for guiding modern players through such an enormous adventure, yet it comes at a cost. In streamlining the experience, the game sacrifices some of the strategic depth expected of an RPG, as well as the literary weight of the original’s meditation on the limits of salvation. It is charming and eminently approachable, but the sharp edges that once lingered in the heart have been smoothed away—resulting in a remake that feels exemplary, yet somewhat too well-behaved for its own good.