Hollow Knight stands as a monument to game design, and quite possibly, as the greatest Metroidvania game of all time.
Octopath Traveler takes a long, hard look at classic JRPGs, successfully emulates most of what we remember so fondly about them with our rose tinted nostalgia glasses, sheds their annoying or excessive parts that we choose to forget, and adds its own surprising and unique innovations that elevate it from being yet another nostalgic pander to becoming a proper modern wonder.
Lost on Mars' shallowness and repetitive structure are issues for sure, but the DLC isn't long enough for them to become too much of a problem. As such, in the end, it's a fairly enjoyable but ultimately forgettable experience.
While this is a substantially improved experience, it is still No Man's Sky. And while this is, more or less, No Man's Sky as we were always promised it would be, the core conceit, structure, and gameplay loop haven't changed. There's just more to them than before.
Despite a lack of optimization in needed areas and some aspects of both games that haven't aged very well, this collection presents a good excuse to jump back into Shenmue 1 and 2, both of which remain inherently engaging games even today.
Dragon Quest XI is a stellar game that displays a great command of the ins and outs of its genre the way few other games can and do. What it lacks in originality, it more than makes up for with its confident execution of ideas, showing that a game doesn't need to be revolutionary or the freshest thing on the block to be an incredible experience. With a memorable cast of characters, a well-told, briskly paced story, stunning and vibrant visuals, and a beautiful and extremely varied world as its setting, Dragon Quest XI serves as yet another excellent instalment in this amazingly consistent franchise.
Pro Evolution Soccer 2019 is absolutely amazing on the pitch, proving that as far as pure simulation goes, Konami's franchise still reigns supreme. But in all other areas, its refusal to improve is starting to become increasingly frustrating, to the point where several such flaws are actively damaging the experience in many ways.
Living Dead Zombies, then, is pretty much what you would have expected it to be if you've played Far Cry 5's last two DLCs. Just like its two predecessors, this final piece of DLCs for Ubisoft's massive open world shooter doesn't really leverage the base game's biggest strengths, but it provides a unique flavour of experience of its own. It's a little bit on the shallow side and can be a bit repetitive, but it's definitely not unenjoyable.
While in the last few years, FIFA games have been focused on making flashy, headline improvements in terms of modes or presentation, FIFA 19 instead chooses to make those improvements on the pitch. Off the pitch, there's not quite as much to talk about (other than the excellent House Rules Kick-Off matches), which is obviously a little disappointing, but thanks to a consciously slowed down pace and much more involved and methodical on-pitch gameplay, FIFA 19 proves to be a solid upgrade, and an excellent simulation of the beautiful game.
This is one of the best Assassin's Creed games Ubisoft has ever made, joining the likes of Assassin's Creed 2 and Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood at the very top of the franchise's hierarchy. While its choice and consequence mechanics aren't radical reinventions, they add a great deal of agency and variation to the proceedings, while a beautiful and varied setting, a meaningful progression system, a ton of enjoyable content, and the series' best combat system all come together to deliver a memorable odyssey.
The return of the Blue Bomber is something we've all been desperately hoping and waiting for for many years now, and thankfully, Mega Man 11 proves to be a worthy comeback for this industry icon. It successfully modernizes the series in a lot of ways, making sure that it doesn't feel out of place in today's day and age, but does so while making sure that at its core, it still very much feels like the Mega Man we know and love.
Thanks to key improvements and additions, WWE 2K19 is perhaps the most impressive game in the series in years. There are still issues that need sorting out, mostly on the technical side, while somewhat ageing mechanics and the microtransactions model also need to be given a bit more thought, but after years of stumbling around, 2K Sports at least have a very solid base to work with now.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is a landmark achievement for Rockstar, for open world games, and for video games as a whole.
Football Manager 2019 is probably the best this series has been in years, if not ever.
Battlefield V is yet another excellent addition in this admirably consistent franchise.
Fallout 76 is not a completely broken game. It's not absolutely devoid of enjoyment, and every once in a while, it can live up to the franchise name it bears. The problem is that that enjoyment is buried under a mountainous pile of long stretches of boredom and emptiness, tedious and mind-numbing quests, baffling design choices, unbelievably bad technical issues, and a host of other problems that turn this into an experience that, frankly, has no business being out on shelves as a full-priced AAA game in its current state. What's concerning is that even if the issues that can be fixed through patches and updates are ironed out, the core fundamentals of the game are deeply flawed.
RIDE 3 may not have the panache and the multiple coatings of polish of some of the other racing sims out there, but thanks to its attention to detail in terms of the bikes themselves, and how well those bikes control, it's a ride worth taking regardless.
Ashen wears its influences unabashedly, but immaculate execution helps it rise above unoriginality.
The City That Never Sleeps feels surprisingly essential to the larger story Insomniac are telling in their own Spider-Man universe, and should be played by anyone who enjoyed the base game.
Revisiting Onimusha: Warlords with this remastered release should be a treat for all fans of the original, while if you've never played it before, it's also an excellent opportunity to experience a classic action title that has aged surprisingly well.