As a fan of Pokémon over the past 30 years, Pokémon Pokopia is the game I’ve been waiting for since I was a kid. From the first moment I got to transform my Ditto into its trainer to getting to talk to and help my favorite Kanto region Pokémon, it made my heart warm. This cozy life sim is a deep and surprisingly profound way to celebrate the 30th anniversary of this franchise.

Ultimately, Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War! bets big and differently on production and wins. The concepts and framing are what make it unique and enhance the game as a total package.

It’s been a couple years since The Secret of Crystal Mountain was announced, and to be honest, I had no idea it was. I took the appointment at GDC to preview the game for a half hour and came away impressed with what Chris Rosenthal and Revolutron Games has so far.

Survival games have been a huge genre in the industry that gets a lot of attention for being a sandbox of creativity and resourcefulness, where you explore a world that has existed before you arrive and will be the same long after you’re done. It’s how most survival games tend to operate. Blossom: The Seed of Life takes a bit of a different approach, as you are a cute robot tasked with reviving this dead world that resembles Mars — everything around you is red, dusty, and barren as you try to bring life back to the world.

Indie strategy RPGs are a dime a dozen these days, which means extra work has to be done in order to get attention. While OmniSuperMegaCorp had a bit of an advantage in the form of a press release arriving in my inbox, the pitch and trailers I’ve seen (including the one above) were enough to make me interested.

Avatar Legends, in its current state, feels polished in more ways than one, taking plenty of mechanics from other successful fighting games and creating original ones as well. 

When I was walking around Day of the Devs, I stopped in my tracks once I caught glimpse of a snowboarding game. I’m not talking about some basic snowboarding game either. This one featured crazy tricks, neon colors, and just a bunch of euphoric visuals to go along with what obviously looked like a competitive race down the slopes. I knew I had to get my hands on it, and I’m glad I did.

At the end of the game, I felt immense satisfaction. With all but a couple trophies awarded (that I may go back for at some point) and a couple faults worth mentioning, it still felt complete and like something substantial was accomplished. It’s a wonderful playthrough that respects you, your time, money, hard drive space, and effort.

The SmashPad staff celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Mario franchise by unveiling their Top 10 favorite Mario games.

Remakes simply shouldn’t be 1:1 faithful to their original unless the original’s production values were so lacking that merely having better graphics is enough to make the game more palatable. Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly REMAKE could have focused solely on improving the original’s presentation and controls, but it goes farther, adding extra content and new mechanics. Unfortunately, these new mechanics only make the game worse, as they’re almost as frustrating as they are needless, tarnishing a game that could have easily superseded its predecessors while still not outright ruining what made the original so good.

Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection is a lovingly intrepid take on the series’ conventions. There’s a palpable whimsy to its character-driven moments and punchy, elephantine vigor to its action that rivals the greats.

One thing that I’ve sort of grown tired of seeing from “cozy” games is the overabundance of farming and base-building games. No matter how chill they are, they hardly ever vibe with me. What I do vibe with, however, are the games that make people feel. That’s exactly what Fishbowl has set out to do, and even though the latest Steam Next Fest demo was really short, I got a lot out of it.