My first three are below. Let me know what you think of this format in the comments.

Dispatch

Why did this have to come out late October? I would have easily dedicated a whole review to this game had it not released amid a glut of other titles.

A spiritual successor, made by many of the same developers as Telltale games (The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us), Dispatch sees you manage a group of down-and-out superheroes working for the Los Angeles hero dispatch unit.

A lot of the game is spent watching cutscenes, shaping the story wit…

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I still fondly remember the last time Pokemon launched a widely-hyped mobile game. We all do.

For me, it was like being warped into an alternative reality, where a kids’ game that I’d re-engaged with for about a decade prior was suddenly cool again. Everyone was playing it.

It filtered into my day job too. I had business reporters from major Australian publications calling me for a background chat on Pokemon. “Tell me about the significance of Pikachu,” one asked. It was a wild time.

We’re now at the precipice of another huge mobile release from the Pokemon Company. One that might not cut through and capture the zeitgeist like Pokemon Go, but has the potential to make the sport of Pokemon battling far more widely recognised.

Pokemon Champions is a strategy battling game originally released on the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 but, as aforementioned, will launch on mobile devices at a later stage. A firm release date is yet to be an…

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Surely someone at Capcom has noticed the coincidence. For a game series that’s built around bioweapons, zombies and mutating monsters, Resident Evil has seen its own steady evolution.

The franchise started as a puzzle-box survival horror game, then made a sharp turn into action with the release of Resident Evil 4. It veered a little too far into action with Resident Evil 6 and since then the series has been trying to find a middle ground between horror and adrenaline. It’s toyed with various camera perspectives, lead characters and plot scenarios, trying to strike this balance.

The core problem being: How can you scare the player when the playable character is a shotgun-wielding zombie-destroyer by the end of the game? The power creep ultimately undermines the horror. It’s hard to feel afraid when you’re all-powerful. But keeping the character weak and vulnerable also detracts from the fun.

Resident Evil Requiem’s latest iteration’s solve for this is pretty simple: they compartmentalise the game across two characters — Grace Ashcroft, the mousy FBI analyst, and series stalwart Leon S. Kennedy. While this is very much Grace’s story, you play as both, alternating between them as the game progresses.

Grace’s sections are pure survival horror and, big call, some of the best I’ve played to boot. The best regular weapon she gets is an upgraded pistol. Beyond that, she uses her brains to survive. She can craft items, (using mutated blood, don’t think about it too deeply) and the majority of her gameplay revolves around environmental puzzles.

Leon, on the other hand, comes in packing just about everything aside from a rocket launcher. He gets all the boss fights, can parry incoming attacks, and is a literal bioweapon-mincing machine.

In the spirit of evolution, this review is also going to be a bit different.

I’ve brought in another Resident Evil superfan, Scanlines, to help me break down this game. It’s a long discussion, and we go into a lot of detail. So if you are looking for a quick verdict: We both loved this game and felt it was up there among the series best. Though, its duality and plot create a few issues.

With that: I’ll pass it to him. What are your initial impressions? What do you think?

Scanlines: I think Capcom’s decision to split the game in this manner — though not without a few minor issues — was a stroke of genius. I was nervous to start this game and the heavy cutscenes in the first hour made me wary, but it all turned out great.

Ever since Resident Evil 7, Capcom has been juggling three different generations of Resident Evil fan — classic fans, action fans and modern fans — in a way where it always felt like one of those groups was losing out. Resident Evil Village is my least favourite of the modern RE titles and where I felt this friction the most; fans of classic survival horror like me were forced to play a contrived first-person shooter sequel to the best survival horror game since the GameCube, and action fans couldn’t even enjoy Village in third person until some time after release. In essence, the Grace, Leon split in Requiem turns one of modern Resident Evil’s Achilles’ heels into its biggest selling point.

Not up for the survival horror and stalker enemy? Just a few hours in and you’ll get to indulge in the Leon S. Kennedy power fantasy. Prefer survival horror? Well, Grace is the protagonist of the story — more so than Leon — and the first half of the game is survival horror Resident Evil at its most tense.

Modern Resident Evil fans get a game that isn’t a truncated version of something that released on the original PlayStation 30 years ago, and it advances the story. Everyone wins.

I’m going to echo your big call, Harrison. I replay these games every year — original hardware, headphones on, in front of the glow of my CRT or at my computer in the dark — and not since Resident Evil 2 Remake in 2019 have I felt the level of tension and dread Requiem provokes. Some jump scares had me flying out of my seat. The way certain mechanics from the very best of the survival horror era are reused put a massive smile on my face when I realised what was going on and how I was supposed to be using the Haemolytic Injector.

Grace’s half of the game is a sweet, short dose of the finest survival horror ever crafted… but I felt Leon’s half didn’t quite live up to past adventures; the enemy variety, set-pieces and weapons roster don’t hold a candle to games like Resident Evil 4 or 5. I’d be interested to know if you felt the same way.

Harrison: Yeah, you are bang on. I think we’re going to be agreeing for most of this article.

Before I delve into Leon, I just wanted to add: whoever came up with the idea to make the zombies just that bit more human with this new mutated T-virus — absolute stroke of genius. It adds a level of characterisation to the enemies that just isn’t present in many other survival horror games.

Enemies focus on light switches, which you can use to distract them, or attempt to clean up after corpses you leave in your wake. Others literally apologise while going for your jugular. These aren’t just monsters — they are victims. This is almost always the case with Resident Evil games, but it really hits home hard here. It’s innately more creepy than lifeless corpses lurching around the place.

Scanlines: That part of the new zombies took a long time to settle for me. When I first encountered the Chef in the kitchen, a combination of my juvenile humour finding his voice and dialogue funny, the heavy cutscenes at the beginning and a lingering bitter taste in my mouth from Resident Evil 8 set alarm bells ringing — but after my first hour in the Care Centre I really fell in love with the concept.

Gunning down one zombie and hearing it whimper “Sorry” as I waited to see that tell-tale blood pool to know the deed was done was a moment of emotional poignancy this series rarely hits.

Obviously this is a reference to RE3 Remake, but as you say, it reminds the player that these people are victims of bio-organic weapons and recontextualises every horrifying monster as an innocent you’re forced to put down. That feeling never left me.

Harrison: Speaking of lifelessness — this brings me to your earlier question. While it was interesting to return to Raccoon City in the second half of the game, it was a very dull, colourless environment. As you would expect from a place that survived a nuclear fallout, I guess.

Yes, it was riddled with easter eggs from past games, including a few nods to the very niche Resident Evil Outbreak 1 and 2. And it’s the ultimate power fantasy watching Leon essentially quash legions upon legions of undead.

However, this part was the most forgettable for me. Cool, yes. But I think the environments lend so much to these action games, because you are essentially doing the same thing for a few hours. This is a tricky one to parse — it’s not bad by gameplay standards more broadly. The combat scenarios designed for this section are top notch compared to other action shooters.

The tilted-over building where you use the glass floor as a weapon. The elevator ride from hell down a dilapidated apartment block. Even the weird gas station fight segment with a chainsaw. It’s all outstanding in hindsight. And I appreciated Leon’s weapon upgrade system and the linking of kills to points — reminiscent of the arcade modes in prior games.

Scanlines: I’m going to take this opportunity, now that we’re discussing art style and graphics, to say I played using the third person camera rather than in first and that in general the presentation of Requiem didn’t blow me away. The facial animations are all quite stiff and there were moments where I noticed some very muddy-looking textures; the dreaded yellow paint and yellow tape also make a return, and I hate how you can’t turn the film grain off in this game. The drab colours in Raccoon City exacerbate all of this.

This was such a difficult area to evaluate. I agree that the set-pieces are all outstanding and I loved the easter eggs — I burst out laughing at the hidden Tofu one — but part of me feels a bit sad that the PlayStation 1 version of the RPD has been erased from history here. They make a big song and dance about returning to Raccoon for the first time in about 25 years, but we’re not really returning to it, are we?

We’re revisiting the 2019 remake, not classic Resident Evil. The upgrade system was brilliant but I do miss the weapon variety from RE4 Remake — I felt like I was waiting for a new set of guns that never materialised.

Harrison: That’s such a great point. This is a nostalgia trip without the nostalgia. Though, I replayed Resident Evil 2 Remake after finishing this, and it hits a bit harder now because of this new game.

After finishing Requiem, I can’t help but long for more of what we got within the first few hours with Grace. As we both know, she has another moment later in the game, but it’s quite linear in comparison. I just wanted another sprawling survival horror section to cap off Requiem. The Rhodes Hill hospice was the game for me.

Scanlines: It’s funny to think that the biggest issue with Requiem is probably that it should have given us more. I’m happy to feel that way about it, especially after Resident Evil Village — a game I felt dragged on and on. It is a shame about the linearity, though; that late-game stealth section involving a certain classic enemy was top-tier, and the juxtaposition in gameplay served to highlight how far Leon has come.

Harrison: That’s a good jumping-off point for another discussion. Changing gears a little: given we’re both well versed in Resident Evil canon, what do you think about the game’s plot and Victor Gideon as the big bad? There’s also a world where Jill Valentine or Claire Redfield could have been in this game rather than Leon.

Scanlines: In general, I feel the franchise has come to rely too much on legacy characters, especially Chris and Leon. I would have preferred Claire or Jill, but let’s face it — they have neither the marketing power that shareholders like nor the meme potential that the internet sees in any Leon appearance.

I was always comparing Requiem to Resident Evil 7 while playing. That was the last time we were introduced to a major new character. I think I speak for most of the fanbase when I say that Ethan Winters wasn’t particularly interesting or well-handled; Ethan had too much background and dialogue to be a player self-insert, yet Capcom were obsessed with hiding his face for a while there.

That game’s big twist was excellent too — it recontextualised a disconnected story into an integral part of the modern timeline. By comparison, I felt Grace was a little cheated in Requiem. Her character arc isn’t all that strong, and despite having a much more interesting personality and closer ties to the canon than Ethan, she lacks agency. Leon and Gideon’s actions force her into situations — Grace doesn’t follow a mission like, say, STARS Alpha Team in RE1.

On the plot more broadly — I’m not a fan. I was seriously disappointed when a certain character was killed off unceremoniously in a cutscene, and the big plot MacGuffin felt much too far-fetched. Gideon was delightfully creepy and I enjoy his lore, but I have to say — as a Resident Evil GameCube super fan, with that remake being my third favourite game ever — my heart did sink a little that RE1’s sequels got all the nostalgia bait. We returned to the series’ origin and somehow managed to completely ignore the first game.

Harrison: I’d actually never thought of that, which is a shame — I agree, the remake of the first Resident Evil game rocks and holds up to this day.

Plot-wise: I think they started strong but didn’t really know how to finish it. For a game built around honouring the series, there aren’t any real lasting implications from it.

Scanlines: I agree on the lack of lasting implications; for a game that was supposed to be about tying up loose ends… we sure have a lot of new ones.

Harrison: Yes, they did end up adding in another mysterious group to keep tabs of. I’m running out of red string for my Resident Evil conspiracy pinboard!

We’ve covered a lot of ground in terms of gameplay and story. One way I always like to cap off my reviews is by looking at the value of the game — its cost relative to its gameplay.

It’s not cheap. Capcom bumped the price up in Australia to $107 AUD ($69 USD), around $10 more than their last title. For that, I got a solid 12 hours of gameplay. It is designed to be replayed, but without too much variation. Insanity mode features slightly changed item placement and enemy difficulty, but that doesn’t have me rushing in for a second run.

How I pine for the days when a second character featuring in the game meant an entirely different playthrough. We seem to be getting further and further away from that with Resident Evil. That said, I reckon I’ll replay this over the years. For me, it’s a no-brainer if you love survival horror or Resident Evil. Though these games do go on sale, I could totally understand others waiting for that. What do you think? Any closing thoughts?

Scanlines: I’m glad you brought this up, Harrison, because the price versus value debate is one I have a lot of thoughts on. Modern gaming reminds me a lot of GameCube-era Nintendo sometimes — during that console’s heyday, a lot of their games had excessive bloat in order to inflate the runtime. Wind Waker being longer than Ocarina of Time sounded better on paper until you realised the extra length was hunting for Triforce Shards. Where am I going with this? I don’t think hours equate to value.

Most of the greats aren’t particularly long games and nobody cares — what matters is that you enjoy the experience and don’t feel ripped off. Resident Evil games have always been short and replayable, and on a personal level I’m tired of playing games that take weeks to finish.

I think the price is worth it through the lens of replaying the game once a year, as I do, and certainly for Resident Evil players who like to speedrun — but Requiem certainly isn’t a game to buy at full price for those hoping for extra modes or just looking for one particular gameplay style.

All of that being said, there are barriers to that classic Resident Evil replayability here and I share in your fondness for the classic two-character system.

The front-loaded cutscenes grind down the opening hour, and there should have been an extra difficulty in there, because Insanity mode is meant for players who have already unlocked infinite ammo and other bonuses.

They try to position Classic mode as a stop-gap, but I don’t consider being forced to use Ink Ribbons a higher difficulty — to me, that’s just the way Resident Evil is meant to be played.

Harrison: Hard agree. I played with Ink Ribbons turned on for my first run!

Scanlines: It’s been a pleasure to join you, Harrison. I’ve been relatively critical of Requiem here, but my overall opinion is that this is the best Resident Evil game of the decade so far and about on par with Resident Evil 2 Remake.

Reviewed on: Playstation 5 Pro, RTX 5070, i7 12700KF PC.

Worth playing if you like: Other Resident Evil games? But you don’t need us to tell you that. The Evil Within, Dead Space.

Available on: Playstation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox Series S and X, Windows, Steam.

Are you a fellow Resident Evil fan? Given it’s not that long, have you played through Requiem and do you have your own thoughts? And what do you think of this format for reviews? Let us know in the comments.

It was a classic case of too many games, too little time.

I downloaded The Drifter at the end of October. I could only play it on my Steam Deck — a less frequented device for me — so the game was already at a disadvantage. I booted it up, played 10 minutes to get the gist ahead of a developer interview with co-creator Dave Lloyd from Powerhoof for another story.

I remember saying the game was a unique commentary on homelessness on the call. Lloyd played a straight bat at the time, agreeing with my point. In retrospect, he must have eye-rolled on the other end of the line — another games journalist who has no bloody idea. This game is as much about homelessness as Stranger Things is about the ‘80s. It’s a present theme, it’s interesting, sure, but it’s so far from the core story.

As a result, I was intrigued, but it didn’t grab me. In that month I’d bought six other games and expansions. I was midway through

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Once again, I have defeated god.

There’s a trope among Japanese role-playing games (JRPGs) that the final boss is always some form of all-powerful divine entity. A reawakened ancient evil god. Someone who has become a god. Or a deceptive god, that was quietly evil all along.

Yet, despite calling the ending of the game a few hours in, having spent 100 hours playing Octopath Traveller 0, I was enthralled almost all of it. I genuinely didn’t skip a cutscene. In the game’s final moments, and final fight I audibly chuckled and delighted at just how over the top it all was.

Yes, I was again fighting god, but not in a way that I expected. I really don’t want to spoil it here. But rest assured, that’s a high bar for someone who really should be looking into whether there’s any kind of rewards program for crushing wayward deities.

Turning a mobile game into a console success

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the last edition of Infinite Lives for 2025. I’ll be back the week of January 26. New to the newsletter and want more? Check out my Greatest in Gaming section to discover other writers on Substack. There’s also plenty of unlocked content in my backlog, so be sure to take a look.

The savviest games industry critic could not predict just how good this year would be for videogame fans.

It was destined to be a year where everything was overshadowed by the launch of Grand Theft Auto 6. What we instead got was a watershed year for gaming, with some of the best titles we’ve seen in over a decade.

If I had to pick one word that really defines the best of what this year has to offer, it would be storytelling. This year’s top titles were defined by their ability to convey meaningful, emotional stories to players. And for my money, that’s a great trend for the industry to follow with future games.

Yes, games have been telling incredible stories for decades now. I’m sure many shed a tear when Aerith met her end to Sephiroth back in Final Fantasy VII in 1997. But I still find instances where stronger writing — or at least a greater focus on it — could have taken a title from being ordinary to exceptional.

As more studios dabble with AI experimentation in 2026, I think there’s going to be a real motivation to outsource plot writing to the bots as a non-essential aspect of building a game. The same goes for voice acting too.

But that would be a mistake. As this year’s best games show, if anything, developers should be over-indexing on writing and world-building.

Anyway, let’s get into it. Here are my top three best games for the year. I’ve gone ahead and unlocked all my reviews for my top three as summer reads, if you’ve missed them.

1) Ghost of Yotei

If you were ever searching for an argument that PlayStation game exclusivity is hurting Sony, look no further than Ghost of Yotei.

This game is outstanding and, dare I say it, a sleeper hit for this year, that shouldn’t be one. Despite very favourable reviews and scores, it nary registered a mention at The Game Awards, winning no prizes.

As I wrote in my review at the time, Ghost of Yotei doesn’t really reinvent the wheel, but it streamlines and hones many of the mechanics seen in the original game. That’s all layered on top of a really meaningful and well-told vengeance story, with a very strong artistic direction to boot.

It’s slated for a PC release next year, broadening out the number of people who can play it. I can’t help but feel the game will get its due when that happens.

2) Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

You don’t need me to tell you to go play this game. Given all the accolades it’s received, in all likelihood, if you regularly play video games, you’ve already picked it up. Or maybe not, given the game’s stance on AI.

But let me instead tell you why I personally think it’s special. This game grapples with grief in a way that perhaps no other game to date has really managed. Incredible writing, storytelling and voice acting come together in a package that will set the bar for gaming for years to come. Regardless of the size of the production and development team, that’s ultimately what I think makes it special.

My only mark against the game: I still think the general clumsiness of the third act is somewhat overlooked by a lot of critical reviews. There’s just no clear indication on how to tackle it, and I’d still strongly recommend looking up a guide if you are playing through. Still, I’m heartened to hear anecdotally that despite the game being somewhat difficult, many casual players are picking it up and making it to the very climatic ending.

3) Donkey Kong Bananza

A distant third on my list, but possibly the Nintendo Switch 2’s best game to-date. This is another case of hardware exclusivity hampering the overall success of the title. We’re all used to Nintendo games only releasing on Nintendo devices, but this was a Switch 2 exclusive, meaning only the most devoted early adopters of the new console have likely played it.

This is a game that ends stronger than it starts, especially if you are a fan of the original Donkey Kong Country series. But it also breaks new ground for 3D platformers. Literally. Almost every surface is destructible in this game, leading to a lot of unique and interesting design choices.

Anecdotally, this game also plays really well as a co-op title, so if you have a partner or child who is gaming curious, be sure to give that a go.

What came close?

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 — I played this game on the recommendation of a friend, and what a suggestion it was. If not for wanting to feature a more accessible Nintendo game in my top three, I’d easily swap this for Donkey Kong: Bananza. It’s a really robust role-playing game that’s tricky at first, but gets incredibly satisfying as you master its systems. I was really hot on this when it first came out, and I stand by my call. If you are into role-playing games and haven’t given this a go, look it up during the holiday break.

Hollow Knight: Silksong — The long-awaited sequel is such an excellent game, and I want to bat for the home team here, given it’s Australian! But its sharp difficulty curve and, at times, mean game design—especially early on—make it hard to broadly recommend. You’ve already played this game if you loved the original. If you are new to the series, it’s still a fantastic entry point. Be ready for a challenge, but the experience itself is incredibly rewarding.

Blue Prince — Almost a year on and accounts still vary for this game. I loved my time with it, but its randomness can absolutely frustrate players, especially early on. It seems the players that got the most joy out of this game kept playing after the first ending. But I stopped there, really feeling like I’d had my fill. I agree with Al Thumm’s take in my recent predictions piece: games like Blue Prince are ushering in a return to form for puzzle titles, and that’s only a good thing.

Mario Kart World — Great game. The most technical, difficult-to-master, Mario Kart to date. But Nintendo has absolutely dropped the ball on the long-tail management of it. This could have been the first truly online Mario Kart, with continuous updates and reasons to keep playing. Once you finish all of the cups, there’s just very little to do. A missed opportunity.

Letdowns:

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond — I’m still stinging from this one. Great shooter, not a great Metroidvania. Crushing, given this series has a strong fan base that waited years for this game. Don’t let me stop you if your a big fan of this series. It’s just not as good as it could be.

Pokémon Legends Z-A — Why is Nintendo tolerating such corner cutting for one of its marquee franchises? Still fun, but we can do more with the world’s most valuable intellectual property. Its fans absolutely deserve better!

Assassin’s Creed: Shadows — Still a good game, just wish the map was smaller and denser, and the story wasn’t primarily told through the last two character missions.

My most played game?

Final Fantasy XIV Online — The game I play when I have nothing to play, and despite all of the amazing games on offer in 2025, it’s still my most-played game this year. That’s highly likely due to savage raiding, where this year I cleared my fifth raiding tier. Not sure if I’ll go for my sixth in the New Year.

This game strongly rewards those who stick with it, as some of the recent patch content has been excellent. A standout: one of the new raids has an absolute ear-worm of a track written by Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello.

There’s some renewed momentum here ahead of the next major expansion, which will likely come out late 2026 at the earliest. Though, there’s been little in the way of teasers or new information for it.

Yet, despite its marketing slogan than there’s “no better time to play”, I’m a bit reluctant to suggest this game to brand new players. On my count it takes over 100 hours to get up to date with the new content and play through all prior patches, just to get to the stuff everyone is talking about or streaming. You can pay to skip content, but that’s ill-advised, as there’s a skill hurdle that older content helps you surpass.

There have been moves to make this easier and playable without needing to engage with the multiplayer aspect of the game. That includes making the first two expansions and the base game free to play. But that doesn’t address the fact that it remains a major time sink for those who are new to get to current content.

I’ll be keeping an eye on Final Fantasy XIV as well as the other ‘forever games’ next year. Can a game really last forever? I think within the next few years, we’re going to find out.

Other notable games this year

Age of Mythology: Retold — I love a good real-time strategy game, and this is one of the best. You can typically only play these games using a mouse and keyboard, but this game reboot has absolutely nailed controller play. With a steady supply of DLC, it’s definitely worth a look if you like this genre—even if you only own a gaming console.

Hades 2 — Did you miss this game? I snuck in a play through just as it came out, but ran out of time to review it. It’s missing some of the soul of the original game, but is a strong rogue-like all the same that really expands on the ideas of the original game. A great holiday game!

Elden Ring Nightreign — After a month of false starts and several calls to my internet provider earlier this year, I finally got this working. It’s heaps of fun slogging through it with a pair of friends. But there’s no real on-ramp for new players, and an expectation from the existing player base that you know what you’re doing from the get-go. So I’d watch some YouTube explainers ahead of diving in. You’ve been warned.

Disclosure: I typically purchase all of my games I review or mention in Infinite Lives. However, I accepted two 60-day game-time codes for Final Fantasy XIV this year from the game’s publicist, but purchased the expansion back in 2024.

I’ve missed so many games in this piece. Including many indie titles that I’m looking to play over the holiday break. What are your standout games of the year? Also any suggestions for what to play over the Australian summer? Let me know in the comments.

To say that expectations were high for Metroid Prime 4: Beyond may be the biggest understatement of gaming in 2025. The title went through arguably one of the most tortuous, protracted development processes ever seen with a videogame.

Originally allocated to developer Bandai Namco, Nintendo scrapped their full build of the game in 2019, and handed it back to the developer of the original Metroid Prime, Retro Studios. Their track record spoke for itself. In the intervening time, Retro took on the Donkey Kong series, reviving the 2D platformer series across two incredible games.

After getting the go-ahead, Retro then proceeded to remake the original Metroid Prime, released in 2002, as a training exercise for the new game. But news of the new title was scarce. Metroid fans collectively held their breath.

Now, almost two decades after the release of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, we finally have a sequel. But, as a fan…

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It’s one of the most absurd ways to end a videogame. In the original The Outer Worlds, the fastest way to finish is to fly a spaceship into the sun.

To do this, you need to create a low-intelligence character, and then when prompted insist that you personally – instead of an AI – will do the maths required for a complex space jump on a derelict spaceship.

The ship’s computer chimes in: “Does your captain seriously intend to do a micro jump in-system with engines that haven’t been powered in 70 years? On a derelict ship?”

Your AI replies: “That’s what my captain intends, yes.”

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Of all the games to make me question the Nintendo Switch 2 ecosystem, I never could have guessed it would be remake of Yooka-Laylee.

Made by some of the team behind the Nintendo 64 classic Banjo-Kazooie, Yooka-Replaylee has been on my radar for a while now. I felt the original was good, but needed a bit of polish. So when I saw the game on the Switch 2 eShop, I thought, why not? It’s a decently powerful console. I played the original on my Switch with no issues. Surely this would be the same.

Well, as it turns out, it’s one of the weakest versions of the game, with a capped frame rate that dips even lower at certain moments. There’s promises floating around to patch this, but no concrete dates. Despite Nintendo buffing the power on its latest console, the trend of developers releasing reduced versions of their games on the Nintendo consoles persists, all without advertising any differences on the eShop listing.

This has happened to me before. I bought Palworld on Steam Deck, expecting it to perform similarly to the PS5 version on the device, albeit scaled down. No prizes for guessing, but it did not. Yet on Steam, this was a simple return. I booted it up, saw it wasn’t playing the way I’d like, closed it immediately, submitted a return and — given I’d played less than two hours — got equivalent funds back in credit in less than a day.

I tried the same thing with Yooka-Replaylee. Wrote a thoughtful email to Nintendo requesting a refund as the version of their game — similarly priced to other console versions — was an inferior copy to others retailed at the same price, adding that this was not advertised by them on the eShop page. What followed was an automated email, giving me a minimum half an hour of work to record video of the game and log all faults to then qualify for a return. Being a tad cynical, it’s likely to stall out any further queries. It worked.

This is just one example of how Nintendo is lagging behind the times when it comes to the new digital world. And while once it was a quirk, as this generation of devices unfurls, it’s becoming a mitigating factor for the company and its devices. One that limits it to being a vehicle for Nintendo games, and that’s about it.

But… The hardware is brilliant

Let’s pull it back a little.

Six months on from purchasing the Switch 2 at launch, I can’t speak more highly of the device itself. From a hardware perspective, it’s an improvement on the original Switch in almost every way — except for the lack of an OLED screen. It runs smoothly, the Joy-Cons feel more substantial, the new Nintendo games look great. While it’s not my focus, from what I have read and heard, Nintendo has a sharp focus on parental controls, which make it a standout device in this regard. Also, when it comes to device-exclusive games, it can’t be beat. I’m beyond excited to (finally) play Metroid Prime 4: Beyond this weekend.

There are still plenty of reasons to buy a Switch 2, and I’m not alone in my thinking here either. The device will no doubt have stock issues globally this Christmas, as it’s selling like hotcakes. Nintendo has revised up its estimates for Switch 2 sales, after announcing over 10 million units sold in less than three months from launch this year. It’s the fastest-selling gaming device of all time, and it hasn’t even seen a holiday season yet.

However, as an early adopter, my Switch 2 is gathering dust. The last time it got a good workout was with Pokémon Legends: Z-A back in October. That’s largely because I’m hesitant to download anything but Nintendo-exclusive games on the device.

The limitations of the Switch 2

There are a few reasons for this. First and foremost: I’m not sure it will run well, as seen with Yooka-Replaylee. But there are other factors too. I just can’t do as much with games that I purchase on the Switch. I can’t easily share the game with a family member or second device. And crucially, there are other more robust ecosystems, with a higher bar for quality control that now have portability baked in — the primary point of difference for the original Switch. Valve’s Steam ecosystem being the go-to example.

I had a run in with that second major sticking point earlier this year, when I donated my old OLED Switch to my seldom-gamer brother. I wiped it, in order to transfer all of my games across to my new device. He wanted to play Zelda: Breath of the Wild — a near 10-year-old game. I suggested that with Nintendo’s new system, I could lend him the game, a featured touted with the release of virtual game cards.

Little did I know that in order to do so, I had to physically go to his house with my Switch 2 in order to transfer it to him. Literally hold the console within centimetres of his to initiate the transfer. Given he was hours away from a flight interstate he ended up just buying the game himself.

I understand the logic here. It would be like physically giving my brother the game card. It’s an anti-piracy measure. It perhaps encourages additional purchases of games that cost money to make. They absolutely deserve adequate renumeration. I get it. But… it’s 2025.

Game lending between at least one trusted, verified family device over the internet is a readily available feature on most other game systems. So much so, that I didn’t assume I’d have to cart my Switch 2 over to his house to do it.

The persistent eShop problem

Speaking of other ecosystems, the Nintendo eShop, despite a redesign for the better on the Switch 2, is still haphazard. While efforts have gone into fixing this, game discovery is still difficult unless you already know what you are looking for. This strongly disadvantages and discourages indie developers from committing to the ecosystem.

There’s so much opportunity here. This can become a community hub, a way to share game experiences among friends, and curate user reviews. Instead, thanks to the store surfacing them for me, I now know of weird flying simulators and obscure pop-up dating sims that I’d never buy. These games are getting equal weight on the store against those that took years to create, and a significant chunk of their development budget to port.

All of these complaints are fixable. The Switch 2 eShop has already improved since launch. And further to this, Valve went through a similar transformation of its Steam store years ago when faced similar criticisms. They are software updates, though some require a shift in mindset from Nintendo. In fact, what the Switch 2 looks like now as an ecosystem could be totally different in years to come.

Can Nintendo stay ahead without change?

I have no doubt that Nintendo’s Switch 2 will continue to sell, even with only a handful of Nintendo exclusive games available right now. As I said, it’s a great device for the current market. Iteration over total innovation of the Switch was the right call.

Years down the line though, as Steam expands into consoles with the Steam Machine, PlayStation properly embraces portable gaming and Microsoft maybe manages some kind of tangible pivot, I’m not so sure.

Nintendo’s strength has always been its first-party games. The likes of Mario, Zelda, Pokemon and Donkey Kong are only playable on its consoles. But as devices and games both grow more expensive, and the release times between major games continues balloon, this should give the most devout Nintendo fan pause.

In terms of price: We’ve seen this dynamic recently emerge with streaming services. Where once they were all cheap enough that you could own several of them, now increasing prices are forcing customers to chop and change their subscriptions. This is a strategy, a means of stifling emerging competition by taking up more of your wallet. And I wouldn’t be surprised if we see the same dynamic in gaming, as various industry players test how ‘recession-proof’ it actually is.

Nintendo continues to defy market realities slamming other industry players both with its games and devices. The Switch 2 seems unstoppable, for now. But some tactical adjustments to its online ecosystem and customer support could insulate it from future headwinds.

There’s a lot of other challenges with Nintendo’s broader online ecosystem, this article didn’t touch on all of them, so feel free to leave a comment on any I’ve missed. Also, what’s your take on the Switch 2? Are you an early adopter? Getting one for Christmas? Let me know in the comments.

If there’s one thing PlayStation exclusives tend to nail it’s a game about revenge.

Some of the console’s greatest hits — God of War, The Last of Us Part II, even the original Ghost of Tsushima — focus squarely on this theme. In games, this generally sets up a final boss fight, and then the story more or less works backwards from there.

Given this, Ghost of Yotei shouldn’t be that remarkable. There’s a lot of other competing factors that make it easy to skip. It’s the second AAA game this year set in Edo-era Japan, with Assassin’s Creed: Shadows looming large over it. Even its launch window is smack bang in the middle of a whole bunch of other sequels, including Hades 2, The Outer Worlds 2 and of course, Hollow Knight: Silksong.

Yet, what developer Sucker Punch has produced here is by all measures a triumph that is very hard to fault. It is arguably one of the best action-adventure exploration games I’ve played in a while that crucially doesn’t overstay its welcome.

It’s also, in my view, the best and most human revenge plot PlayStation has published to date. Without spoiling either game, it feels like it’s been made for those who found themselves yelling at the TV in frustration at the end of The Last of Us Part II. The ones who thought that game should have ended about three hours earlier than it did.

You know who you are, and I’m right there with you.

Humanising “the Onryo”

While building on the mechanics of the first game, Ghost of Yotei isn’t really a sequel to 2020’s Ghost of Tsushima. The game is set hundreds of years in the future, on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido with an unrelated plot.

The protagonist of the game, Atsu, is the sole survivor of a massacre of her family on their farmstead by the now-notorious Yotei Six. She flees to the south, trains for over a decade in the way of the warrior, and returns as an adult ready to exact her revenge. It sets up a compelling ‘Kill Bill’ style of story, where Atsu proceeds by crossing names off her list. Your first few minutes of the game are spent painting them onto a sash.

What makes this quest for vengeance so unique is the humanity that Atsu shows as she works to complete her goal. She’s initially presented as a one-dimensional character, dubbed “the Onryo”, a spirit whose sole goal is vengeance. As the game progresses, her reputation as this spectre of hatred grows, yet her journey challenges her resolve. She learns to accept, love and eventually, even forgive.

While the main plot beats aren’t too surprising for this kind of story, it’s ultimately their delivery that cements their meaning. These moments, poignantly voice-acted and paced to not overwhelm the player, add so much colour and emotion to the title. It defies what could have easily been a ‘kill them and be done with it’ style of game — the kind of nuance we’d expect from a book, maybe a movie, but not really a videogame.

Restraint-enabled success

Given the timing of the games, comparisons here can’t be helped between Ghost of Yotei and Assassin’s Creed: Shadows. Perhaps the foundational point separating the two is restraint. By pairing all of its mechanics back, menus and user interface, Ghost of Yotei actually accomplishes more than its rival.

That all starts with map design. The frictionless gameplay we saw in the original Ghost of Tsushima makes a clear return, and is very much improved. It’s very easy to flow from one activity to the next in Yotei. You can boot up the game, wander and stumble on meaningful things to do. The guidance system, in the form of wind that helps guide you to your objectives, and golden birds that direct the player to nearby points of interest, greatly assist.

Building on this, the game focuses on density of objectives, rather than the size of its world. You can ride from one end of Ghost of Yotei’s main area to the other in under 10 minutes. But along the way, you’d stumble across over a dozen activities and points of interest. One quest also tends to feed into another too. As a result, it’s easy to just melt into a rhythm with Yotei, going from point to point, playing at your own pace and dipping into the story when that exploration loop gets stale. That feels like the most enjoyable way to play this game.

Tiny changes make all the difference here. In a departure from the original, the entire map is displayed upon booting up the game. It’s a relief more than anything. The surprise ‘second island’ of the first title is a key churn point for that game, especially if you aim to do everything the first island has to offer before proceeding.

Another small thing: activities are broadly not revealed on the map until you discover them. It alleviates the laundry-list feeling that you need to undertake every task in order to play the game properly; a common gripe with longer open-world games. Completing a task also unlocks fast travel to that point on the map. As one would expect with a PS5 exclusive, it’s near-instant, showing off the promised hardware capabilities of the device.

Combat also feels as seamless as navigation in Ghost of Yotei. It’s not complicated, initially containing three buttons and a parry system. Through adding in additional weapons, tools and gear, over time it becomes more sophisticated. Enemies eventually start to outnumber you and vary up their tactics too upping the difficulty.

Duels, however, take it all to another level. These solo fights, primarily with bounty hunts or bosses, are tense moments of gameplay that take the same combat mechanics and kick them into overdrive. Most boil down to learning timings for parries and when to press the advantage. They are also gorgeously framed like a piece of stylistic old Japanese cinema, with Atsu staring down each opponent, sword drawn. Each one feels handcrafted and unique, with each enemy throwing a new combo or trick into the mix. Without spoiling anything, some later duels are absolute standouts of the entire game.

For those hoping for a quieter approach, stealth is in the game, and it is possible to focus on it over outright combat. But it’s not a standout. In many instances it feels way more satisfying to charge enemy camps than take them out by range or quietly. There’s missions that require it, but Yotei is not reinventing the wheel here. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before. But that’s OK. It doesn’t get in the way of the overall experience.

And in fairness, if there is one aspect that Assassin’s Creed: Shadows has over Ghost of Yotei, it lies in parkour and climbing mechanics. Atsu just looks a bit clunky as she scrambles up ropes, leaps to ledges or navigates natural obstacle courses. It’s my only fault in what is a fairly faultless package. Again, they aren’t bad here, the mechanics and animations are just stronger in Shadows. But it’s hardly a qualifying reason for marking down this game.

Standing up to its price tag

Aesthetically, Ghost of Yotei is perhaps up there as one of the best-looking PlayStation 5 games around. Bright colours punctuate what could have been very monochrome plains, snowfields and coastal plateaus. They add a sense of whimsy and mythology to the landscape. Yet while superstitions play a role in the game’s overall story, despite its landscape design this is not a game that leans heavily into the supernatural.

Similar vibrancy is seen with the game’s soundtrack, primarily punctuated and led by the Japanese instrument the shamisen—Atsu also plays this at various points on her journey. It’s designed to elevate the experience as opposed to distract from it, and given the game’s striking visuals I think this is the right call so as not to give the player sensory overload.

The overall look and feel of the game is important, as Ghost of Yotei is priced at a premium, retailing for $125 AUD. And I believe, unlike a lot of other ‘premium’ PlayStation games I’ve played in the past 12 months, it actually justifies its hefty price tag. This title pushes gaming as a genre forward in a positive direction.

Beelining the story, you are looking at around 15 hours of gameplay, but I doubt anyone but speedrunners will play it this way. It’s just too easy to get lost exploring and spend well over 40 hours seeing all there is to see. At no point does it become exhausting or unsatisfying. Smooth fast-travel mechanics also raise the value of each minute spent in this game. Yotei players spend more time in the action and less moving from one point on the map to the other.

Reading all of this, you are likely thinking that Ghost of Yotei doesn’t really bring anything groundbreaking or new to the table. And you would be right. This may go some way to explaining why it didn’t muster up a nomination for Game of the Year at The Game Awards.

Despite distancing itself from the original narratively, this is a sequel in the truest sense. If you like the original, you will like this game. Yotei perfects mechanics from Tsushima, adds in ideas that may have been left on the cutting room floor and greatly streamlines others.

But in an era where AAA games are perhaps getting too ambitious, too big, too bloated—while an ageing gaming population gets more conservative with its time—this is not only fine, it’s perhaps a path forward. Just because the hardware permits games that are larger than life, doesn’t mean it should be so.

It’s a genuine disappointment that this game may miss out on further acclaim, largely because it launched in a year of standout titles. For those with a PS5, it is well worth your time. In my view, it genuinely has been snubbed. But if the game itself is any frame of reference, there’s only one path forward for its maker, Sucker Punch.

Revenge.

Reviewed on: Playstation 5 Pro

Worth playing if you like: Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon: Forbidden West, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of The Kingdom.

Available on: Playstation 5, Playstation 5 Pro. Releasing on PC at a later date.

Other recent reviews on Infinite Lives:

Sipping virtual tea with my giant blue Feraligatr, I can’t help but think just how far the Pokemon series has come. With technology advancing, the idea of co-existing with digital monsters in our real world could soon be a reality. Pokemon Legends: Z-A, the latest in the series, grapples with that concept and provides a blueprint as to what life would look like, and the challenges of living with Pokemon in an urban setting.

It’s catnip for someone like me, a long-time fan of the franchise. From playing it on my Game Boy while fishing with my Dad to kill time as a 10-year-old, through to climbing the competitive battling ladder during Melbourne’s prolonged COVID lockdown in my late 20s. I came back to the series after resolving my own internal struggle that a series like Pokemon – primarily marketed and designed for kids – is just a good game, and that I should have no qualms playing it as an adult.

Its fandom across generations may speak to why it’s currently the largest intellectual property on the planet, worth at best guess well over USD$130 billion, more than Harry Potter and Star Wars combined. Pikachu has indeed brought home the bacon.

This all leads to why my thoughts on Pokemon Z-A are so mixed. On one hand, this game is an absolute triumph, taking the franchise in a fantastic new and accessible direction with real-time battling. But on the other hand, it feels underbaked and is genuinely making me question whether the game’s traditional developer Game Freak can continue to steward the series forward.

A fresh take on Pokemon battling

The game begins like many other Pokemon titles: with very little plot. You arrive on a train to Lumiose City, for no apparent reason. After a sudden chain of events, you end up with free accommodation and a partner Pokemon. With your first monster in tow, you are somewhat thrust into the city’s Pokemon championship (called the Z-A Royale) due to your natural talent for battling. And the game unfolds from there.

Stories aren’t historically Pokemon’s strong suit. Yet, the broader narrative and writing here is stronger than past games. Without giving anything away, it winks to players who have finished Pokemon X&Y, which first introduced the Kalos region and the Paris-inspired Lumiose City.

The main thrust of the game is exploring Lumiose by day—helping out bystanders and catching Pokemon in dedicated wild zones of the city—and competing in the Z-A Royale at night, battling trainers and levelling your team. This creates a really tight gameplay loop, which in itself is quite fun. This is broken up with other story objectives and tasks. But there’s nothing stopping you from taking the game at your own pace and enjoying the city—once you get past a few hours of pesky tutorials.

The big innovation here, and the game’s crown jewel, is its battle system. Pokemon historically sports a complicated turn-based system, where each monster (based on their speed stat) takes a turn performing an attack. Battles tend to play out more like a complicated game of chess.

In Pokemon Z-A, the battles are now held in real-time. Each move has a cooldown timer that’s instead influenced by a Pokemon’s speed stat. So, in some instances your Pokemon, if they are fast enough, can pull off two moves before the opposing monster can even retaliate. It’s a nice innovation of the traditional system, harkening back to how I used to play Pokemon when I was 10: pick the strongest moves I can find, and spam them until the opposing monster faints. Fire Blast for the win.

That’s all kicked up a notch with Mega Evolutions. Most monsters in the game have a limited-time final form that notches their power up an additional peg. That adds an extra dimension of strategy to fights, as timing a Mega Evolution can be the difference between winning and losing. Though, this is a Pokemon game, which is notoriously easy for anyone with experience. There’s no hard mode here and after you get a grapple as to how it all works the game is quite straightforward.

This tweak has also given way to two other mechanics: starting battles by stealth, and dodging. Sneaking up on opposing trainers and fainting their Pokemon in one unopposed hit feels like cheating, but apparently it’s all the rage in Lumiose. And while trained Pokemon won’t attack other trainers, you are fair game for wild Pokemon. That means you need to dodge their moves while commanding your Pokemon too, building on mechanics we first saw in Pokemon Legends: Arceus.

To make this new system marginally more accessible, Game Freak removed Pokemon abilities, innate unique buffs that each monster carries. Veterans will have to untrain their brain here, as it makes certain typically difficult Pokemon—such as Eelektross, an electric eel monster that due to an ability is usually immune to ground-type moves—a lot easier to deal with. Status effects, which are absolutely crippling in the main games, are somewhat mild here too, typically slowing monsters down rather than stopping them in their tracks.

The only wrinkle in terms of gameplay lies in the game’s final hour. All the game’s complexity and nuance that it coaches the player on over 20 or so hours gives way to a final boss that honestly, isn’t that fun to beat. It’s just a damage sponge that requires more dodging than strategy. It leaves a bitter taste in the player’s mouth as they finish what is an otherwise strong game.

But… Where’s the polish?

What makes this title so baffling is that its generally strong mechanics and gameplay are undermined by poor production values, the kind somewhat unbecoming of the premium standard Nintendo is trying to set for the Switch 2.

Graphically, Pokemon continues to underperform other mainline Nintendo games on the Switch 2 such as Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong: Bananza. It is arguably a Switch game first, not a Switch 2 exclusive like the prior two titles. But that hasn’t stopped Nintendo from charging a premium price of AUD$109 for the advanced version of the game on its latest console.

Lumiose City should feel like a paradise of people and Pokemon. While it certainly gives off that vibe, the boxiness of its buildings and two-dimensional textures mitigate any magic in the making. The exception to this is the monsters themselves; many are beautifully drawn and animated; the best some of them have ever looked. Though, some newer and generic Mega Evolution designs make me long for the fan art created in anticipation of the game’s release.

Staying on the overall production values of the game, there’s also a limited number of musical tracks, which will see players listening to the same accordion-heavy music on loop as you explore the city. Charming at first, grating 20 hours in.

The focus here has gone into tracks for meaningful battles in the game, but most of them are over in less than 5 minutes. The majority of the music you’ll hear will be overworld tracks on repeat, a stark contrast to Mario Kart World where the music changes every three minutes or so.

And while Nintendo more broadly has shied away from full voice acting in its games, given the sheer amount of text in this game in cutscenes, its absence here is jarring. This is a role-playing game and voice acting has been a norm for this genre since the early 2000s. While Pokemon is a holdout in this regard, this needs to change going forward. Especially given the game is being sold at a premium.

Is this the best we can expect from the world’s largest intellectual property?

Look, on balance: Pokemon games are quietly a massive undertaking. On paper, you are drawing and animating hundreds of monsters. Writing thousands of lines of dialogue. Producing at countless tracks of unique music and sound effects. Even in this verbose review, I’ve failed to touch on extensive character customisation, in-depth battle mechanics, collectables, side quests and the post-game content. There’s a lot in here aimed at player-pleasing and immersion. There’s a reason the gap between these games — which used to come out almost every 18 months or so — has grown significantly in recent times.

But again, I come back to the fact that there’s no shortage of money floating around to make Pokemon games. There’s an argument to be made that these games sell consoles, and are perhaps more strategically important to Nintendo than the company lets on. A gangbuster Pokemon game could be the difference between Nintendo reaching its lofty Switch 2 sales target of selling 15 million units by March next year or not.

As such, no expense should be spared. There are unconfirmed reports that Game Freak employs a fraction of the staff of other major Japanese developers such as Square Enix and Capcom. That’s hard to precisely verify, especially given they are a private Japanese company. However, this game’s credits reveal a comparatively small inhouse team, which likely explains why Pokémon’s production values lag behind its peers: it is under-resourced relative to its ambitions.

Regardless, each release should be held to the same flawless standards as other classic Nintendo properties, such as Mario and Zelda. Especially given two Pokemon games among the top 10 best-sellers for the Nintendo Switch. To this point, Nintendo historically hasn’t been afraid to step in when a title from a studio fails to meet their expectations either. Metroid Prime 4 is a perfect example. It’s been almost two decades since the last mainline Metroid Prime game, and that’s due to reported quality control issues. It is a surprise that this hasn’t happened here with both this game and earlier titles.

While Pokemon Z-A is a massive, night-and-day improvement on the disastrous bug-ridden launch of Scarlet and Violet in 2022, this release is underscoring a plateau in the production quality of the series. It hints that while Game Freak knows how to make fun, addictive games, and keep Pokemon fresh as a series, it may be at its limits in terms of keeping up with the conventions of modern premium game design that demands over $AUD100 from players.

And that’s a letdown for its ingrained fans, who want nothing more than to seamlessly melt into its vibrant and larger-than-life world. A world where Pokemon battling through augmented reality may not be too far off. Real-life tea with my Feraligatr may not be too far off too.

Pokemon’s videogames are the fuel for the rest of its empire. By cutting corners and underinvesting on production, the franchise only hurts itself and its chances of maintaining its spot as the world’s largest IP for the rest of my lifetime.

What do you think of Pokemon Legends: Z-A? And the future of the series? Are you as annoyed as me seeing it plateau in terms of game production qualities, despite the actual gameplay being so good? I also really rated Inna’s (much shorter and to the point) take on the game. So be sure to check that out too.

Catalystic Talks

Pokemon Legends Z-A is an overpriced fun time

This post will be free of any major spoilers, it does contain out of context screenshots. I am about 25 hours into the game…

Read more

6 months ago · 12 likes · 7 comments · Inna

Reviewed on: Nintendo Switch 2.

Worth playing if you like: Pokemon? Or other Japanese RPGs such as the Persona series, Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. This is closer to these games than past Pokemon titles.

Available on: Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2.

What started off as a nice idea for an easy column each year is getting progressively harder. As I covered last week, there were over 100 games on display, every genre was just about covered, and most were impressive in their own right. It makes singling any of them out an agonising decision. So, before we get into it, let me take a second here to explain my thinking with my picks.

More often than not, what it boiled down to for me was the feel of the game. Very precise and empirical, I know.

While nothing is final in an expo floor demo, playing it should give you a good sense of its direction and core mechanics. Some games just felt better to play than others? Perhaps they were more responsive or intuitive? Had a tighter, more thought-out gameplay loop. Others were just unique and interesting, they stuck in my brain well after the expo.

As primarily a console gamer, I tended to gravitate to titles that were geared towards controller gameplay over mouse and keyboard. But that’s not a total deterrent.

Some games that I also featured last year such as Fox and Shadow, Memory’s Reach, Bearers and The Last Werewolf were also on display again too. They are all still excellent. But, in fairness, and for the sake of showcasing more games, I omitted them from my consideration this time around.

Anyway, let’s dig into it.

My Arms Are Longer Now – Toot Games

What a strange game. You play as a disembodied, extendable arm bent on creating mayhem and stealing as much as you can from unwitting bystanders. A crafty take on a puzzle game that has Untitled Goose vibes. I was actually incredibly torn about including it in this wrap. I had a heap of fun playing it, but its strong thrust towards Australian humour will be polarising. But it could also be the game’s greatest asset? I couldn’t stop thinking about it after the expo. I’m keen to see more as it gets closer to release.

Middle Management – Headplug Games

Using nationalised humour as a means of cut-through appeared to be a bit of a common approach this year. New Zealand game Middle Management, a management sim focused on psychologically manipulating workers to get the most out of them, is taking a similar route. It’s dripping with tongue-in-cheek references to office culture, overwork and capitalism, all through the lens of the Kiwis’ wry sense of comedy. But there’s more than just witty writing here. It’s all underpinned by some tight and interconnected mechanics that lend a strange layer of strategy to decorating your office. Oh, and there’s a giant tentacled blob that mind-controls workers.

Doggy Don’t Care – Rotub Games

It’s a simple premise: you play as a dog that destroys things while its owners are out. It’s cute and full of fun destructible environments and set pieces. This game got a lot of attention during the Frosty Games Fest earlier this year, but it was one that I kind of glossed over until I played it. What makes it stand out is how the game feels to play. Platformers are notoriously tricky to make in this regard. Much like shooters, the norms here of what makes a good 3D platformer tend to shift quite quickly, which is what makes the Doggy Don’t Care demo as impressive as it is. Bonus: It should be out next year.

Enfant – Zedbra PTY LTD

Graphics tend to separate most indie titles from their upmarket counterparts. Many tend to focus on nailing a striking look over being a high-fidelity game. Enfant stood out from the crowd in this regard. It’s a 3D metroidvania game focused on a sole anthropomorphic elephant looking for the rest of his herd. It looks and plays like a very ambitious game, and for what it’s worth, its demo was quite smooth. It’s still early days, but one to keep an eye on.

Others well worth a wishlist:

RITA — A platformer that draws you in with its charm and keeps you there with its puzzles. One for those who love crosswords and word searches.

Adaptory — A base-building game that feels like a more customisable form of Fallout Shelter. If you couldn’t get enough of The Alters, this may scratch that itch.

Lone Pine — A cosy point-and-click adventure with a twist, with some neat Pokémon Snap photo mechanics thrown in for good measure.

Blood Vow: Survive the Night — A Diablo-like tower defence game that could become a very addictive co-op experience.

Lament of the Lost — Think Portal, but you’re Death’s Assistant. Some very cool environmental design combined with gravity-defying puzzles.

That’s it from me! Were you at PAX Australia? Did you find any gems? And if you’re a developer who showcased at the event, feel free to add a quick blurb about your game into the comments for others to find.

With a few thrusts of the needle, it was done. After a gruelling 40 hours with Hollow Knight: Silksong, piloting Hornet as she navigated its world and defeated unique bosses that demand precision, I had beaten its final boss and the game. Or so I thought.

Delighted with my achievement, I quickly posted a note on Substack. Plenty of thoughts ran through my mind about how to describe this title that broke the internet on launch: It’s one that players will rage at but can’t stop playing, I mused. It raises some fascinating debates on difficulty and accessibility, yet it leaves the player with a sense of accomplishment that many other games can’t muster.

Then it dawned on me. This final fight seemed a little easy for what was the notoriously hard game. Earlier bosses required dozens of attempts; I cleared this one in just two. My instincts were spot on. There was more. A lot more.

I had finished Act 2, but there is a whole third act to this game, hidden inside a side mission. I could have cut my losses—credits rolled and the game even unlocked a harder mode upon completion. It suggested that this final third of the game seemed entirely optional, an out for players who have had enough. I had an inflection point: Would I continue? Surely I’ve seen enough to write a detailed review.

Despite feeling a sense of satisfaction with the game, I persevered. What ensued was a rapid escalation of the game’s difficulty. The first two acts were a warm-up: the true test had begun.

A quick primer on Hollow Knight

Before delving a bit deeper into what is the main sticking point with this game—its difficulty—it’s worth explaining a bit about Hollow Knight: Silksong for those unfamiliar. Silksong is a Metroidvania game, a portmanteau defined by two major iconic 1990s video game series: Metroid and Castlevania. They are largely 2D platforming and exploration games, with combat woven into the mix.

Silksong is also a sequel. The first game, Hollow Knight, is a cult classic indie Australian game, selling 15 million copies in its lifetime. Its success triggered an obsession among the gaming press and broader internet about its sequel. This was a hotly anticipated game.

Delving into the game itself: most of the time is spent navigating Pharloom. It’s a world inhabited by anthropomorphic bugs that coexist in some form of collapsed society—a very grim version of Pixar’s A Bug’s Life. The protagonist, Hornet—a boss from the first Hollow Knight game—is captured and brought to Pharloom. She escapes, and what ensues is a quest for revenge that complicates as the game progresses.

Games like Silksong are often defined by their boss encounters. These are enemies that gate portions of the map or unlock upgrades for Hornet. These require a combination of pattern recognition and patience. The majority of your time is spent dodging, waiting for what’s called a “punish window” where you retaliate with your own strikes against them. As such, they often play out like a bit of a dance, where you learn the tells and respond in kind. The boss leads, and you follow. Often the biggest challenge is finding breaks in the action to strike.

A worthy upgrade

There are a few distinct upgrades from the original game. Hornet is arguably more versatile in combat than the original Hollow Knight. Healing is handled on the fly, at the cost of silk. Hornet generates silk by attacking enemies, leading to a dynamic where the best defence really is offence—albeit a cautious one.

She can sport various tools, movesets and upgrades you can earn across your playthrough; most routes off the beaten path are rewarded with these items. Both combat and exploration are aided by a number of movement abilities that you gain as you progress. Hornet starts off slow but quickly gains the ability to sprint, then wall jump, grapple to walls and finally double-jump. In some instances, boss battles are replaced by gruelling platforming challenges that block your path.

The true genius of Hollow Knight and its sequel compared to other games in its genre lies in its map design. Both the original and Silksong truly reward exploration. If you are gated by a boss, there’s almost always other paths you can explore to unlock more upgrades ahead of trying again. This seems simple, but these games are fairly on-rails, often forcing players down specific routes to guide the overall experience. Hollow Knight and Silksong jettison this idea, giving the player a lot of agency in how they progress and the pace at which they do so.

The whimsy of Pharloom

Artistically, the game is an absolute delight, far exceeding the original’s humble aesthetic. Pharloom’s environs are whimsical and colourful. The tunnels and ruins of the original Hollow Knight are replaced with dense forests, a vibrant volcanic area and an entire city constructed out of discarded bells.

While darkness was a core theme of the original game, this time around the map design plays with light, creating an ethereal tone that underscores most regions in the game. The sound design is engineered to match the religious undertones. Bells are a focal point of Pharloom’s rituals and culture, and the full gamut of this instrument features heavily across the game’s tracks. That swaps to strings in fights involving a lot of spider silk. There’s an attention to detail here that goes beyond a lot of other game soundtracks. It’s all also a low-key homage to Adelaide—where the game was made—which is colloquially known as the ‘City of Churches’.

Too much friction in the early game?

While veterans of the series will appreciate how quickly Silksong jumps into action, it will undoubtedly be a bit of a tough time for those new to Metroidvanias. The game affords few luxuries for the player early game, and that perhaps is the weakest part of its design. This was a tight needle to thread: too simple and it will upset veterans, too hard and you churn the player base.

For example: the compass—which helps you identify where you are on the game’s labyrinthine map—needs to first be purchased and then be equipped, taking up a valuable early-game item slot. Perhaps it was a decision aimed at harking back to when games weren’t as accessible and made the player earn everything. But there’s enough friction here already.

In addition, some early-game bosses can kill the player in as little as three hits. It’s no surprise that one of the most popular mods for the game is to remove enemies’ ability to deal two damage to Hornet in one strike. This is mitigated later on as you earn more life points, but not before you begin to dread it.

There’s a significant early-game penalty for death too. There’s an argument to be had here that these kinds of games don’t really need it. Dying will see Hornet drop all of her rosaries, an in-game currency used to purchase key items. Again, this is incredibly punishing early on. Late game, there are easier ways to farm this currency, and items that help retain it too.

Then finally, there are the runbacks—the distance between the respawn point and the boss room. For some strange reason, they are the most gruelling early game, where the player has less skill and fewer tools in their kit to handle bosses or the platforming challenges between them and the checkpoint. One notorious instance towards the end of Act 1 requires jumping through a near obstacle course between attempts of a very challenging boss. Yet later in the game in Act 3, where the game is trying to be harder, these runbacks are almost non-existent.

The game is never unfair. But on occasion, especially early on, it feels mean. In a world where game developers tend to obsess over the first portion of the title to not churn players, it’s debatable the second and third act of Silksong feels more tuned than its first.

Act 3: Worth the climb

Speaking of Act 3, it’s fair to say this is the real challenge of the game. One area requires the player to defeat over 30 difficult enemies across three separate gauntlet rooms, all without reprieve. Die once, and you start again. Another boss requires you to master mid-air combat and wall jumping, as the floor gives way to a tapestry of brambles. Oh, and did I mention that regular enemies now occasionally do double damage? Sounds enticing, I know.

This said, Act 3 also hides some of the game’s best set pieces—a trend we’re seeing a lot more across recently released games. That includes one of its best bosses, a diva opera-singing war ant, who launches attacks with an almost flamenco dancing style rhythm to them that speeds up as the fight progresses.

There are also fun unlockable minigames that test your skills and serve as a sugar break from the gloom set in motion by the plot. The whimsy of the Coral Tower and the panic and tight platforming required for your initial volcanic escape from the Abyss early in the act are also absolute standouts of the game. The Silksong faithful are truly rewarded here for their perseverance.

By this point, the difficulty of the game is also somewhat balanced by the absolutely broken strategies you can run using tools and other upgrades. Savvy players won’t try to brute force and speedrun the game, but rather use Act 3 to collect up any missed items and use them to their advantage. This was my approach.

In a sense, Silksong feels a bit like an Everest climb. Many voyeurs will be happy to get to the end of Act 2—proverbial base camp, if you will—and call it a day. But the devoted will push on, reaching the end of Act 3 and conquering that summit. The sights are worth the journey. It’s smart design, allowing most players to feel a sense of accomplishment.

All of this and it’s still $30?

Perhaps the cherry on the top of Team Cherry’s latest game is that despite its fame, acclaim and the quality of this game, it’s still $30 AUD. They could have asked a lot more, and players would pay it. If anything—and I can’t believe I’m saying this—in a year full of price increases, this cost perhaps undermines the innate value of a $30 gaming product. It’s the same cost as other games’ additional content.

For its asking price, it’s an incredibly attractive proposition for those looking to dip into this genre of game—provided they can bear with it. I’d happily recommend it. While the original Hollow Knight is free on most subscription services, the sequel here clearly surpasses the original and despite its early steep learning curve, is a better starting point.

After about 55 hours, I finally saw credits roll on Silksong again. This time, I notice and look on in awe at the fact that there were more people in the orchestra assembled for this game than there were working on its coding, testing, quality assurance and design. Astonishing.

A thank-you message appears on screen from the developers. It soaks in; I’m done. My methodical approach led to me seeing most of what the game had to offer, defeating the final boss within a dozen attempts, albeit clutching out a win with Hornet near death. The ending felt satisfying, complete. My frustrations, rewarded. My questions, answered. There was solace in its completion.

But it left me wondering: how many others will make it here? One overlooked facet of any tough and arduous climb—much like Hornet’s journey in Silksong—is that it can be incredibly lonely.

That’s a lot of words. A long review for a long game! Have you finished Hollow Knight: Silksong? Did you stop at the end of Act 2? Would you attempt Act 3? And what do you think of this trend around games hiding some of their best parts near the end as opposed to near the start. Let me know in the comments below.

Reviewed on: Nintendo Switch 2.

Worth playing if you like: Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Metroid Dread, Animal Well.

Available on: Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox Series X and S, Steam and many other platforms.

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The bananas are stacked against Donkey Kong Bananza. This is a fantastic platformer, up there with the highs and delights seen in Super Mario Odyssey—possibly even surpassing them. It's yet another Nintendo home run.

But here's the rub: the best part of the game are its final few hours. The worst? Its crunchy beginning, where controlling Donkey Kong takes a bit of getting used to. That's a problem because, on average, most players struggle to get through the first third of any given game. We see this reflected in trophy and achievement data. Narrative-based games tend to perform a little better in this regard—the story ushers people through. Platformers, on the other hand, require some tenacity.

Game developers know this. In fact, in most games, the best ideas are often crammed into the first third to ensure they're seen by the player. That's not the case here -- and Bananza is better overall for it. Like most fruit, Bananza requires some time to ripen, and for those not used to platformers, some time for you to adjust.

A rocky start

The game starts with DK mining for crystal bananas, as you do. Then out of nowhere, a trio of sinister-looking monkeys appear, identifying themselves as Void Co. They steal DK's banana hoard and cause a cave-in, trapping the ape and all his monkey pals underground. Amid all this, DK encounters a lost talking rock that joins him for the ride.

It's soon revealed this rock happens to be a junior version of Pauline, another character from Nintendo's long history. (Fun fact: she's the character trapped atop Donkey Kong in the original arcade game.) Apparently, her singing voice is special and essential for reaching the centre of the planet – just go with it. What ensues is a game about digging toward Earth's core, collecting bananas along the way and thwarting Void Co's efforts to bar the duo's path.

This is where we encounter the first major pain point of Bananza. The game's initial opening hours are by far its clunkiest, and that's primarily down to just how much DK can do. He's a pretty talented gorilla—he can climb almost everything, dig up, dig down, roll, grab parts of the environment, throw them, and use them as surfboards.

The problem: Bananza presents the player with a lot of mechanics very early on. Navigating how to use them all effectively is a challenge in itself, a short-lived one but still a difficulty. What's worse, the main gimmick of this game compounds matters.Given this is a game about digging, most of the environment can be destroyed or manipulated by DK. He smashes his way through layers of dirt with ease, creating tunnels and openings. The real unspoken genius here, though, is that the game still works despite this freedom. There are enough guardrails in place that, despite being able to tunnel through everything, you still need to complete the main objectives and boss fights in each level to proceed.

Further complicating matters, just as you're getting a handle on playing as DK, the game introduces timed transformations known as Banazas. Peppy songs—sung by Pauline—morph DK into new and slightly terrifying forms, each with their own moveset and abilities. Most are fairly simple, but again, it’s more for the player to learn.

Super Mario Odyssey had a similar level of complexity across all the enemies you could control. But it was cleverly drip-fed to the player over the course of the game. Thankfully, the Bananza transformations are spaced out. But it's a steep learning curve, even for platformer veterans. It's telling that post-game, most of the bananas I had left to find were located in the earlier stages where I was still grappling with how to play.

Why I still dig it

This is all to say it's not insurmountable. The game's gentle early difficulty accommodates newcomers, and the punishment for dying is minimal at best, usually taxing you some gold that you find in the world. But I couldn’t help but feel while playing these first few hours that this kind of control-based friction turns some players away.

That would be a shame. Some of the early areas in Bananza are its least creative. As you dig deeper, newer, more fascinating environments start to emerge: crystal-lit caverns with enemies that react to light, a beautiful beach resort littered with giant floating fruit, and a theme park dedicated to fast food with hot oil vats serving as the major obstacle. These are just a few examples, and they're all rendered stunningly, showing off the power of the Switch 2.

Cleverly, unlike the last Donkey Kong platformer game (Donkey Kong 64), your progress is not gated by the number of crystal bananas you collect. They are more or less optional, but without them the game becomes significantly more difficult as they are the primary currency for upgrading DK’s health and abilities. This allows you to really clear the game at your own pace. You can rush through with tougher boss fights, or take your time on each layer hunting banana’s down.

Bonus rooms containing some of these bananas are scattered across the levels also pay tribute to the series' heritage. I spotted one early that was a like-for-like copy of the classic level from Donkey Kong Country 2, Bramble Blast. So much love for Rare's original work on the series has gone into this game, and it shows.

This all culminates in some of the most memorable final few hours of a game I've experienced. Absolute fan service for those who love the original Donkey Kong Country franchise—enough so that it's painful for me not to spoil it here.

Worth your bananas?

There were concerns with early previews that as DK smashed through the earth, the game's frame rate would drop. This is evident, but not at all a cause for concern. The dip is minimal—especially compared to what we saw with Pokémon Scarlet and Violet—and hardly a hiccup for gameplay.

Given the depth of the game (no pun intended) and the quality of presentation, I'd say it justifies its $110 AUD (around $70 USD) price tag. Though, this being said, for those picking this up as a two-player game, the second player’s involvement is marginal. Bananza is best treated as a single player adventure, with support from a second if wanted. Put it this way: You’ll likely want to take turns playing as DK instead of Pauline.

Bananza takes about 15 hours to clear at a moderate pace, but there's heaps of fun to be had post-game hunting down the countless bananas you missed. It’s my goal to collect every last one, and it will keep me busy between other major games for months. Well-designed and challenging endgame content is locked behind your total banana count, so there are rewards for putting in the extra effort.

The challenge, of course, is getting to that point. If you're playing this game and struggling to control DK, or learn all of the mechanics, persevere. I promise, it's worth it.

Reviewed on: Switch 2

Worth playing if you like: Super Mario Odyssey, Donkey Kong 64, Banjo Kazooie.
Available on: Switch 2

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We've all had moments where we wonder about the path not taken. What if I stayed? What if we didn't break up? What if I took that job? Hypotheticals that dance around in our consciousness, but are ultimately grounded by the acceptance of who we are today. The Alters is a bold AA game that attempts to creatively tackle that question, forcing introspection from the player, albeit layered with moments of hopelessness, levity and intrigue.

Stranded alone on an unnamed planet as part of a mining mission gone wrong, builder Jan Dolski turns to the aid of a quantum computer and a cloning station to ensure his survival. Leveraging a brain scan housed in its memory banks, the computer is able to map out Dolski's life and pinpoint the decisions that turned him into the person he is today. It's also able to simulate what would happen if he made another choice, creating alternate versions of Dolski that hold different skillsets. It's an episode of Black Mirror brought to life.

For instance, the original Jan Dolski convinced his talented partner Lena not to take a job abroad given they had just bought a house together. That leads to a breakdown of the relationship. Another version of Dolski instead takes the leap with Lena, becomes homebound while her career takes off as a result, gets good at gardening and then through circumstances ends up joining the mission as a botanist instead of a builder. Consequently, that botanist version of Dolski is a lot better at dealing with and understanding Lena, who becomes a pivotal character as the story unfolds.

There's some real sliding doors moments in the game that give the player pause. They make you ask: What are the defining moments of my life? How much of it is determined by my decisions? Developers 11 Bit Studios are going all in on the nurture over nature debate, with various versions of Dolski positing that everything from sexuality, ambitions, personality traits and mental illnesses are a product of our environment and decisions as opposed to our genes. An ambitious statement for a game to make, to say the least. One that may have been lost in the broader noise around its launch.

Plot aside, the gameplay of The Alters is based around gathering resources on the planet to build out your base and meet various objectives, all with the deadline of getting the base moving before the sun — conveniently positioned a tad too close to the planet — nukes the surface. Time is the only finite resource in the game, and your goal as the player is to deftly use your clones, technical advancements you can research, and your own actions, to maximise it.

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You haven't lived until you've been hit by a blue shell just before you're about to cross the finish line.

For those not in the know—or whose last Mario Kart was the 64 version—it's a spiky shell that hones in on the player in first place and detonates. An equaliser.

If that's a frustration you are yet to experience, well, you're in luck with Mario Kart World.

In the few weeks I've been racing in the game, it's happened to me at least a dozen times. See, the graphics aren't the only thing that's gotten an update in this hotly anticipated title. Mario and his mates have gone to school on how to race, and you'll notice that they are no pushovers. They leverage items like pros, use every shortcut they can muster, and are downright merciless. Smiling assassins on the track.

Even on 50cc—the easiest difficulty—it's incredibly easy to go from first to last. In this instance, that's 24th place.

Why? Likely to balance the game. Surprisingly, this is also one of the most technical Mario Kart games we've ever seen. Courses are riddled with shortcuts that require you to be adept at timing your boosts, drifting, and mastering two new mechanics: rail and wall riding. Stealing Tony Hawk's thunder, all racers can now grind rails and wall ride, provided you hit the surface at the right speed and angle.

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We waited about 90 minutes before we called it. After getting a taste of what Elden Ring Nightreign had to offer, playing with one other random online, we were sitting in the lobby area waiting to be matched with one other player for another game. The game pulled together our first party almost instantaneously. After all, it was the launch night of the title—surely interest in it would be close to its peak.

Thirty minutes elapsed. We just assumed it was a bug in the system, so we reset the party. An hour went by. That led to us both searching Reddit to see if others had similar issues. Then, at the 90-minute mark, I pulled the pin. I've played enough online games to know when a party won't come together, no matter how long you wait.

Sadly, this wasn't a one-off experience. As I'll explain, my biggest foe in Nightreign hasn't been some powerfully chunky boss, but rather its clunky online matchmaking system.

For those unfamiliar: Nightreign is an interesting new foray by FromSoftware—makers of the notoriously difficult Elden Ring, Dark Souls and Demon's Souls series—into online multiplayer. All of their earlier games had an element of this; you could summon in other players to help with bosses. But none of them were designed from the ground up as a pure multiplayer experience.

The ambitious goal was to marry the tension and difficulty curve of Elden Ring with the teamwork and collaboration required of a typical multiplayer game. Curiously, each match requires three players. That's an odd number for co-op play. It's easy to get one other person to play on the spur of the moment, but two? That can require a bit of logistics. Anyone who plays any number of online-only games knows that anything past just one other person can be tricky to coordinate.

I'm not writing this piece lightly. It comes off the back of 16 separate attempts to play the game with friends or solo over the past two weeks. Of those, I've only experienced three successful runs of it. And by success, I mean the game actually worked as intended. Even when I managed to find two other friends who could play via PlayStation 5, the game would not let us form a party.

Meanwhile, the solo runs I attempted felt unbalanced and unfair, largely because the game puts you on a clock from the minute you spawn in and gives you very little time to experiment and learn. This is coming from someone who has beaten all Dark Souls games, and Elden Ring twice and its latest intensively difficult DLC. I know my way around Soulslike games.

When it once matched me with two other random players online, they both abruptly quit on me when we couldn't defeat one optional boss. They were both entrenched in the game, playing a later unlockable character, the Revenant. Due to my inability to contact them in-game—another curious quirk of Nightreign—I couldn't communicate that I was new here and needed some guidance.

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Blink and you may have missed Summer Game Fest over the weekend — especially if you were busy playing the new Switch 2.

The event consisted of 16 major showcases this year, featuring everything from new major titles through to indie games from around the world. That includes Australia and New Zealand's very own Frosty Games Fest, the region's debut showcase.

Part of the challenge with these events is that they are a literal firehose of gaming news. While they give many games a platform for promotion, it's easy to become lost in the noise and spend hours watching trailers that may not reveal that much at all.

I've done a bit of the work here for you and have pulled out what I think are some of the highlights of the event. It's very far from comprehensive, but it's at least a starting point for those who want to dive a little deeper.

Notable major trailers:

Resident Evil Requiem

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Grief is a dicey topic to tackle in a video game. Unlike many other mediums, you have the space, visuals and performances to tease out ideas and explore to a rich and meaningful conclusion.

Yet, many role-playing games (RPG) that explore this concept often start strong but falter at the final hurdle. There's a lingering tendency in games writing to end on a positive note even amid grim subject matter, forcing a silver lining when there just isn't one. After all, it's a game. You are there to have fun, not to feel.

Clair Obscura: Expedition 33 dares to be a bit different here, and embrace its subject matter. The ending that I chose -- there are two of them -- had me in tears. Not because it was especially sad, but because it was real. As one of many who's experienced personal grief, it's a concept that I'm incredibly critical of in video game storytelling. So many games get it wrong.

Thanks to strong writing and a willingness to explore the concept in its entirety, delving into adjacent themes such as escapism, acceptance and survivor's guilt, I can safely say that Expedition 33 nails its subject matter. It's a credit to Jennifer Svedberg-Yen, the lead writer, and her team for not letting gameplay get in the way of a good story, but rather complement robust mechanics and intricate world-building. I'll save spoiling the game's story for another piece.

Luckily, this is just the tip of the iceberg with this incredible game.

Dubbed an 'AA' title, Expedition 33 charts a new course for the gaming industry. It was developed with a smaller team and more dedicated scope compared to most role-playing games. But this title did not feel cheap or lower budget. With my playthrough coming in at around 40 hours, nor did it feel short or like I wasted time.

At its core, Expedition 33 is a story-driven game with a turn-based combat system. Its closest comparison is Final Fantasy X, however its world feels similar to the dystopian look and feel of Final Fantasy XIII-3, Lightning Returns, or perhaps even the 2018 film Annihilation.

A story that presents like a layered canvas

The game is set in a reality where a city called Lumiere -- an echo of Paris -- has been cut off from the rest of civilisation. Each year, the Paintress, a mythical being who sits at the far opposite end of the world, paints a number on a giant stone monolith. It's a form of countdown. Those older than the number displayed disintegrate. The city has existed in this state for almost a century, launching desperate expeditions to stop the Paintress from erasing humanity out of existence. It's an unmistakably French world, centred on music, art and poetry. This bleeds into the character, enemy and the over world design.

The game follows the story of Expedition 33. It's not the 33rd Expedition, but rather mainly consists of those aged 32 who are set to be erased the following year. They set off to succeed where others had failed. It's a story brimming with an undercurrent of hope that quickly turns to desperation as soon as the group leaves Lumiere.

What ensues is a tale of intrigue, as the party slowly learns that all is not what it seems with their world. This culminates with a huge plot twist partway through the game, and a final decision around the fate of the world that challenges the player's personal philosophies. The story itself is like a canvas painting, providing you with an outline at first, then applying narrative in layers until you, the player, finally see the full picture. In doing so, it morphs your perception of its leading characters unlike any game I've played.

Unique landscapes also pepper the world, as the characters progress from one area to the next making their way to the Paintress You venture lush red forests, frozen-over train stations and a giant stone amphitheatre home to a giant solemn ballet dancer foe. Creativity abounds. Flying Waters, an early underwater-themed area, is an absolute standout. It's visually stunning and unique, accompanied by a beautiful combat score that grows richer as battles progress. It’s one of many tracks that follows this pattern of adding intrigue the longer it plays.

A new high for turn-based combat

On that, Expedition 33 sets a new bar for turn-based combat mechanics. A smart user interface keeps combat snappy and moving at a fast pace, limiting your time in menus on your turn.

Perhaps borrowing from Nintendo's Mario RPG series, a parry and dodging system keeps you on your toes as the enemy takes their turn. Timing your parries correctly can result in a swift and powerful counterattack, decisively ending battles. The execution of this mechanic keeps boss battles and other hard encounters from feeling unfair. Expedition 33 also errs on the side of presenting you with fewer encounters overall than other similar RPGs, but making each of them more meaningful. It's a welcome change.

This is melded together with a checkpoint system reminiscent of Dark Souls, where resting at a flag planted by a prior expedition comes at the cost of enemies respawning. Similar to those games, healing items are limited but replenish every time you rest. It's a fantastic solution for the inventory bloat that usually accompanies these games.

Expedition 33 is also underpinned by a rich upgrade, gear and stat system. Your abilities in combat are dictated by passive buffs called Pictos that you find in the world and through defeating enemies. Equip a Picto and win four battles, and you can then port its ability to any other character without needing to equip it. It's an interesting system that feels complex at first. But as you move towards the game's third act it becomes incredibly rich and interesting, allowing you to create characters that destroy all enemies in a single turn. With hundreds of Pictos though, you'll spend a fair bit of time in menus maximising your characters' builds.

It’s key weakness: Finding where to go

You'll need to, as Expedition 33 is no pushover of a game. Enemies can easily decimate an unprepared or under-levelled party. One foible here's no way to tell whether an enemy will outright annihilate your party ahead of facing them. The game auto-saves after every encounter, so dying is no big deal. But running into enemies just to see if you are strong enough to face them can be annoying.

This weakness pervades the third act of the game, where it opens right up. While the freedom to tackle the final act in any order is appreciated, some additional guidance would have been welcome. The game merely indicates when areas are above your level with a small "danger" badge, but a clearer guide would be more helpful.

Some labyrinthine areas of the game also beg for some form of minimap. There's no navigational assistance in the areas of Expedition 33 and the game suffers for it. Your best resource become online guides, where others have already done the trial and error and have figured out where to go. This feels like an oversight in an otherwise cohesive package, where just a little more developer direction would help players experience all of what the game has to offer.

The only other fault comes from the game's cutscenes. In my playthrough on the PS5 Pro, lip-syncing was a little off, enough to initially distract you from the matter at hand. But if that's the trade-off, a flaw as a result of a lower budget, then it's more than acceptable. Especially when the overall voice acting quality compensates for it, and you consider this game's $70 AUD price tag.

It's been a while since a game has left me with as many thoughts and feelings as Expedition 33. One that I feel like this review – despite its ballooning word count – doesn't do justice to. All I can say is that if you have any remote interest in role-playing or story-based games, this is a must-play. If combat is too tough, just set the game to easy mode. And use an online guide to get around if you are lost.

Expedition 33's writing may not hit you in the same way it affected me, that's deeply personal. But it's a story that will give you pause and force reflection.

It's art.

Reviewed on: Playstation 5 Pro

Worth trying if you like: Older Final Fantasy games, The Last of Us, Paper Mario.

Available on: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, GeForce Now, Xbox Cloud Gaming, Microsoft Windows