Polygon

While a couple late-game side quests overstay their welcome, a big part of this game’s appeal is that it can easily be enjoyed in shorter sessions. You can’t really drop in on Tears of the Kingdom or Persona 5 for 30 minutes and make meaningful progress, but you absolutely can in The Adventures of Elliot. Though the scope of the story is compact, I was pleasantly surprised by the way the stakes ratcheted up over time to reach a thrilling conclusion. While I do wish the time-travel aspects had more depth, if you have fond memories of Secret of Mana and/or A Link to the Past — or are simply craving a satisfying RPG experience that won’t take over your life — you’ll have a fantastic time with The Adventures of Elliot. It’s an easy game to pick up and a hard one to put down.

Battle Mode is, frankly, a bit overwhelming at first, but the combination of dog fighting and Arwing space acrobatics was a lot of fun, once I learned to read the battlefield. More enjoyable though was the implementation of GameChat features. [Hands-On Impressions]

Indulge me as I draw one last comparison: You can link Mina the Hollower to UFO 50, too. They’re radically different games (well, one is 50 radically different games in one), but they are both born from the same modern-retro mindset. Derek Yu understands that the magic of an old game is loading into a world you know nothing about and excavating the secrets within it like a treasure hunter. Yacht Club Games gets that too, building a world of glorious discoveries for its rodent hero to unearth. Mina the Hollower is secrets, and secrets are Mina the Hollower.

007 First Light is an incredibly shiny, well-polished game that truly lives up to its name. In fact, it's tough to argue against it being the best Bond game of all time. That doesn't mean it isn't flawed, however, and I spent the opening third wondering exactly when it was going to properly kick into motion. I wish it leant more into its Hitman side, with more solutions for each level, and rewarded exploration with more than just world-building, as neat as that is. As an incredibly solid foundation for a sequel, however? It's an absolute blast.

If there’s one thing that, to me, seems unchanged between Black Flag and Black Flag Resynced, it’s the ship combat. This is a good thing. In 2013, Black Flag established a standard for naval combat in games that has not been surpassed, ultimately serving as the basis for Ubisoft’s 2024 open-world pirate game Skull and Bones. (Ubisoft Singapore, the primary developer of Skull and Bones, is also the primary developer of Black Flag Resynced.) Giant frigates aren’t lumbering vessels, but rather nimble vehicles you can turn and accelerate with precision. You can fire a multitude of cannons and mortars. And all the while, your crew of ne’er-do-wells chants sea shanties. It ruled then. It rules now. [Hands-On Impressions]

The longer I played Zero Parades, the more it began to reveal itself in engrossing ways. Set the grand political theater aside, and you have a remarkably human story about Cascade. Early on, you learn that she’s haunted by a cowardly act of self-preservation and needs this assignment to redeem herself — especially because she’s going to need the help of her old crewmates to pull it off. It’s less of a spy thriller and more akin to someone returning to their hometown and dealing with the mess they left behind.

My instinct is to say that I hope to see these ideas fully realized in a more traditional Yoshi game, but I’m not sure if that would be the right solution. Turn Yoshi and the Mysterious Book into a proper platformer where you need to use creatures’ powers to solve your way through levels, and you basically have a Kirby game. What makes this unique is how contained it is, even if that’s what holds it back too. It’s as if you’ve been tossed into the whimsical playtesting lab Nintendo uses to poke and prod at every creature it designs for a new game — more of an extension of Super Mario Maker’s creative freedom than Super Mario Bros. Wonder’s meticulously designed platforming. If anything, a sequel could stand to drop the level-based structure entirely in favor of a true sandbox full of critters to be experimented on. The idea never fully hatches, but I can appreciate the playful concept it’s flutter-jumping towards with great effort. It doesn’t capture that timeless joy of experiencing World 1-1 for the first time, but it at least helps you understand how Nintendo engineers those magical moments.

Inkonbini has helped me find peace in this tiny convenience store, where the lights sometimes flicker and I have to whack a fridge to get it working again. I’ve also helped others find their inner peace and purpose, and did that in just a week’s worth of shifts. Inkonbini is perfect for a weekend afternoon when all you want to do is cozy up on the couch and relax.

It’s Subnautica, but better. Subnautica 2's initial early access launch reminds me of what Obsidian did with Grounded 2, recreating a more polished version of what worked the first time. That's not a bad thing! I've spent 20 hours with Subnautica 2 and still want to keep playing. It's just hard to see what makes this a sequel yet. [Early Access Review]

At this stage in Forza Horizon's life, it's justifiable to ask how much longer it can follow the smooth grooves of its long-perfected formula without settling into a suffocating routine. But it's also easy to take for granted what these games do so well beneath all those noisy layers of activity: They realize the romance and freedom of the open road. Unspooling their miles of tarmac through majestic scenery is a pure, undirected, unfettered joy. Horizon 6 is as good at that as any of its predecessors. Arguably, it's better.