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His journey is one that's worth experiencing, too. The combat is engaging, the dungeons are fun to explore, and for as much as I disliked the manner in which the Magicite system was presented, I did like experimenting with certain builds. Plus, unlike some of Team Asano's previous offerings, this game doesn't overstay its welcome. I was able to roll credits in under 15 hours, which isn't something I was able to say about the Octopath Traveler and Bravely Default games. For anyone who loves old-school Zelda-style action games, Elliot's story proves to be an adventure worth embarking on.

UFC 6 is my favorite game in the series so far. It’s content-rich, looks beautiful, and the actual fighting feels tight and responsive. It’s only bogged down by some smaller flaws, but overall, UFC 6 is a strong contender.

I really like this reimagining of The 7th Guest. The expansion of the house into a properly immersive explorable space should be cool to anyone who wandered these cobweb-laden halls and rooms and unraveled their secrets in the original. I especially like that they didn’t shed the FMV qualities of the original, even if I still find their approach to it a bit campy. I also quite enjoyed how the remake of the house extended to the improvement of the puzzle designs. This game will properly test wits and investigative skills, but if you can’t crack it, finding some Stauf Coins will keep you moving along nicely. The 7th Guest is such an important part of gaming history, and while I’d suggest watching a playthrough of the original so you can really appreciate the remake, I think The 7th Guest Remake is still its own solid puzzle thriller.

Beatdown City Survivors is an example of style succeeding while substance doesn’t. It’s not like the effort to have the substance isn’t here, it’s just the things on the table don’t have their intended impact. The overall balance just feels off, and it gets in the way of all the bits and pieces coming together as smoothly as, well, Vampire Survivors. When you have a bunch of systems and moving parts clanging together, if there’s a loose spoke in one of the wheels, the whole thing will start to wobble. Beatdown City isn’t so unstable that it topples over, especially thanks to the classic brawler framework and hip-hop style over top of everything. It’s worth checking out (especially if you know and like the other games), but it’s not going to ultimately stand out much in its own crowded space. Not for its mechanics, anyway.

Rhythm Heaven Groove is shaping up to be exactly what fans want from the next installment in the franchise with additional experiences that might appeal to more casual gamers. The new Beatspell RPG game mode is a fun evolution of the single-player experience, and the excellent music and hilarious writing stood out in every single part of my preview session. [Hands-On Impressions]

As someone who has beaten Star Fox 64 over 100 times, I found myself smiling as I experienced the new cutscenes, beautiful graphics, and gameplay enhancements during my brief preview session with the game. [Hands-On Impressions

Bubsy 4D is, straight up, a bad time. It’s fun to jump around a little bit and play with the tools you get, but in a fleeting, shallow way that isn’t enough to sustain a multi-hour platforming video game. There’s nothing to do with those tools, no practical application that’s actually fulfilling for the other parts of your brain you want to use in games like this. It almost feels like a tech demo, a demonstration that it’s possible to redo Bubsy 3D in a way that doesn’t feel like the controller you’re holding is a hunk of radioactive alien detritus not meant for human hands. But the rest of it just isn’t there.

I respect what The Remake of the End of the Greatest RPG of All Time was going for, and found its ambition and earnestness commendable despite some hammy acting in its live action scenes. I even had fun solving and putting together most of the puzzles. There’s a lot of dead air, backtracking, and time wasting that grated on me towards the end though, reminding me why escape rooms are largely designed in confined spaces and don’t involve a ton of repetition. Trying to fold RPG design structure into an escape room-like puzzle contraption was an intriguing premise, but frustrating to deal with when these two affectations intersected awkwardly. The message this story is trying to convey is also kind of clumsy, which both adds and detracts from the charm in some ways. I will say, however, that this is my favorite game in which the villain sadly caresses a Death Stranding 2 poster at GDC.

Mina the Hollower is a rewarding journey all the way to the finish, and thanks to the extensive modifiers and also New Game+, I expect I'll have a blast seeing what we can do with this magnificently spooky adventure for a long time.

There’s plenty packed into 007 First Light, and yet it still feels like IO Interactive is just scratching the surface of what it can do in this world. A new era of Bond is here, and I’m absolutely keen to see what’s next.