One of those delightful sequels that expands everything the first did well without coming across as bloated. The islands are drop-dead gorgeous, the puzzles are ingenuous and rarely frustrate, and there's so many little secrets littered about here and there.

More importantly, the philosophical questions that felt rote and shallow in the first game are given greater depth here. You're no longer reading what-ifs on terminals isolated from the rest of the world: you're surrounded by characters invested in your journey, as well as the future of their own city. Even when it gets obnoxious at points, there's a degree of humanity on display that makes each stray thought easier to swallow.

Anyway, this is one of the best puzzle games we've played in years, and we'd happily recommend it to anyone.

A promising start gets bogged down by one of the sloppiest undercover plots we've ever seen. It course corrects in the back half, but we spent a large chunk of the story burying our face in our hands, frustrated by the total lack of consequences for Ryoma whenever he refused to play along.

We're glad that we saw it through to the end: if you know a little bit of Shinsengumi history, your jaw will drop at some of the buckwild ways they bend reality. And when it's firing on all cylinders, it's fantastic! You just have to wade through a lot of bullshit to get to the good stuff, and we don't blame anyone who bows out before said good stuff arrives.

We abandoned this one back in March, and only came back this month after receiving a new video card. It still feels lacking compared to the original: the treasure hunt excursions, side quests and brand-new segments take an already-bloated game (let's be real, OG RE4 was always a little too long) and stretch it to its breaking point. But treated as its own thing, there's at least some merit to what they've built here. Like the other Resident Evil remakes, it's a devilishly fun rollercoaster ride: it's just outshined by REMake 2 and 3 (not to mention the original RE4).

This was my first proper strategy RPG, and it was a blast! Each battle felt like an interesting puzzle to solve, and the maps/scenarios were unique enough that I was pushed to try plenty of mechanics that I otherwise would've ignored.

That said, the story leaves a lot to be desired. The factions break down to Monarchy, Free-Market Capitalism, and Racist Religious Sect, and while there are some fantastic characters on each side, I was so detached from the conflict at large that it weighed the whole thing down. Bummer.

A novel take on the "death game" genre (what if prisoners were forced to work together with the people they had supposedly wronged, who held their life in their hands?), combining escape room puzzles with bullet hell segments. It's a fairly well-acted, tense game, and we love the bumbling detective duo that find themselves pushed into the action? But since this is from the person behind Kakegurui, we were hoping for something a little wilder. Compared to a game like Danganronpa, Yurukill can be downright kind RE: the dangers each character faces, and that feels a bit weird! Still, we had a pretty decent time with this one.

As a die-hard The Order: 1886 defender (surprisingly short, but pretty and exciting), we expected to like this one! Space horror was already our jam, but a space thriller? That was an exciting prospect.

Unfortunately, the lead actor's performance sounds like shit, movement speed is abominably slow, and you more or less know how everything's going to turn out from the box art + the knowledge that Troy Baker is the biggest name on the box.

There's other, better narrative games set in space that you could be playing instead. Hell, we'd put ADR1FT over Fort Solis, and that game bored us to tears!