The Witness fold my brain and subsequently rearranged it. I can’t describe this master class of lateral thinking and bustling exploration in any other way. Knowledge is everything.

The progression depends on how many secrets of this island you have discovered. The Witness could’ve scattered its hints scantily. Instead, hundreds of exciting puzzles are lined up in every corner.

The minimalism of many line puzzles should be a matter of taste, but I am beguiled by the elegance with which The Witness rebuilds such a simple scaffolding every minute — in shapes that surprise for many hours of gameplay.

Steins;Gate is a visual novel at its finest and tells one of the foremost and most complex time travel stories you could ever experience in all of media.

It features fascinatingly detailed and unique artworks, an atmospheric and playful soundtrack, well-written and relatable characters and interactive choices leading to different endings hitting your emotions in a different way. Critique of Japanese pop culture and society are merged with a dramatic, joyful and humorous narrative, science fiction adventure and love stories - all of it is excellently balanced.

The script is wonderfully translated and tips are explaining Japanese memes, cultural references and more, preventing you from getting confused. I personally recommend the original Steins;Gate visual novel, but ELITE is doing fine as well, if you have no access to the original.

Steins;Gate is one of the most cathartic experiences I've ever had.

Yakuza 0 was my entry point in this series. After the first slow-paced chapters, things got suddenly better. The gripping story escalates more and more — for more than 20 hours. Even the substories, despite their enormous absurdity, are perfectly entangled with the tonality of the overall narrative. Yakuza 0’s great story is topped off by the authentic designs of the Japanese city districts you can freely explore. The exorbitantly exaggerated fight scenes, reminiscent of classics like Streets of Rage, wonderfully sync with the rest of this masterpiece.

Xenoblade Chronicles X is not only my favorite Xenoblade game, but my favorite entry in the entire “Xeno franchise”.

One of my favorite elements of the game is its playful, experimental and serene soundtrack composed by Hiroyuki Sawano, also known for the soundtrack of Attack on Titan. It’s a bliss listening to it while exploring X’s massive open world afoot or in a mech, doing engaging side quests, defeating tyrants and following the thrilling story of the game and its lovely characters.

Unfortunately, the story progression is locked behind side quests which is the only reason this game does not get the full score. Since Xenoblade Chronicles X is more gameplay-driven than story-driven, this isn’t too big of a negative.

This game is a farting horse corpse that deserves to be poked at with a knot. Can you name a game worse than that? Well, I can, probably Fallout 76 or Superman 64. Continuing this way, this contemptible game offers nothing, but horrific graphics, dreadful and unbalanced gameplay and uninspired areas that are way too linear. There is no exploration, no difficulty, no adventure, no story, not the full compendium of monsters, not a full game. But you can buy the Pokéball Plus for 50 bucks to get access to Mew, I suppose.

Continuing the events of Persona 5 on a road trip with your old and embosomed friends and a new cast of allies and villains, Persona 5 Strikers adds up to the whole entire Persona 5 experience.

While being a Musō game, it definitely feels like Persona 5 by adding tons of Persona elements into the combat. Exploit weaknesses, execute all-out-attacks and baton passes, shoot with guns, buff yourself and debuff your enemies, use ailments, enforce technical moves and surprise your enemies from the shadows!

Like Persona 5, Strikers is oozing with style and grants you a variety of new tracks and remixes of old songs letting you jam while beating up shadows in the new palaces, called prisons in this game. Counter Strike might be my favorite soundtrack of this game.

If you loved Persona 5 or Persona 5 Royal, there is no way around this game. I absolutely recommend it, since it is so much more than just a Musō game. The characters get fleshed out more, especially those who came up a bit short in the original game. If you’re not into action games, there’s an easy mode as well, so you won’t have problems to get through this game!

My concerns have come true:

The relationship and thus, the dialogues, are inconsistently written, sometimes authentically convincing, sometimes horrendously cheesy. The writing is just good enough to keep you going, though.

The worst part is the unnecessary addition of gameplay. It interrupts what drives players to keep going with tedious gameplay and combat. And while visually appealing at first, the environments are boringly generic and don’t even offer some kind of points of interest. At this rate, this game should’ve been a visual novel instead.

Its soundtrack is powerful and beautiful, but I feel like I won’t remember it in a few days.

Super Mario Maker 2 titillates the builders’ creativity with a bunch of themes, a lot of game changing elements and various tools that might shackle them tighter to this game than a Chain Chomp on a wooden stake.

If you prefer playing courses instead of building them, this game offers an almost infinite number of levels and will show you new mechanics you haven’t seen before once in a while.

Its horrific net code makes it impossible to play this game with others and it’s a crime that you need an online subscription to share your levels with others or to play others’ courses.

Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth is the finest Digimon RPG of all time and surprised me with an exciting evolution and de-evolution mechanic and unexpected mature and deep storylines. The lovely characters are designed by Suzuhito Yasuda, known for Durarara!! and Shin Megami Tensei. Each of the 341 Digimon has at least one signature skill with its own unique animation in the turn-based combat system. While random encounters could actually become annoying, you will be able to turn them off very early. The Complete Edition features both games, Cyber Sleuth and Hacker’s Memory, and allows you to transfer your progress from one game to the other.