There’s a pattern to the way I watch Prime Video’s The Wheel of Time that’s still firmly in place three seasons on.

I spend the first two or three episodes getting all worked up by how much showrunner Rafe Judkins and his cast and crew have strayed from Robert Jordan’s novels. Then I snap out of it, remember that no one could adapt a 15-volume series as written, and adopt a less puritanical position. I focus instead on how well Wheel of Time captures the spirit of its source material, as well as how entertaining it is not as an adaptation, but as a dramatic work in its own right.

Measured against these criteria, The Wheel of Time Season 3 earns a passing grade. It’s far from perfect – and purists will pull their hair out over its many departures from the books – but it effectively channels the essence of Jordan’s saga, while also delivering the goods as a standalone fantasy outing.

Picking up shortly after the events of Season 2, The Wheel of Time Season 3 sees the fight between forces of light and dark intensify. The Dark One’s most powerful servants, the Forsaken, are at large. Internal strife runs rampant in Aes Sedai stronghold Tar Valon, fuelled by the rogue Black Ajah. Even sleepy backwater province the Two Rivers is once again in peril. Yet all these threats pale in comparison to the danger posed by prophesied savior Rand al’Thor (Josha Stradowski), whose gradual, One Power-fuelled corruption may be too much for his closest allies – including Moiraine Damodred (Rosamund Pike) and Egwene al’Vere (Madeleine Madden) – to counter.

Related: The Wheel of Time: Every New Character Confirmed for Season 3 (& Who Plays Them)

So, basically, Season 3 is a broad strokes remix of Jordan’s third and fourth Wheel of Time novels, The Dragon Reborn and The Shadow Rising, along with elements from other entries in the series. Characters, concepts, and events are compressed, combined, or outright eliminated as Judkins and his writers’ room as they try to wrangle the books’ numerous subplots, sweeping geography, and dense lore into a coherent eight-episode season of TV. And to their credit, they do a decent job; it’s always clear where people are and why they’re there. That said, as with Seasons 1 and 2, the constant to-ing and fro-ing means there’s rarely enough time for anything to sink in, blunting Season 3’s overall emotional heft.

The third season’s action is similarly underwhelming. Apart from the bloody VFX showcase that kicks off the season premiere and the heavily hyped Two Rivers battle late in the game, there’s not much excitement in The Wheel of Time Season 3. This isn’t a problem in and of itself. After all, Jordan measured out the Wheel of Time books’ spectacle judiciously, and there’s precedent for carrying that over to live-action. The most popular prestige fantasy show ever, HBO’s Game of Thrones, was arguably at its best when characters were trading barbs, not crossing swords. But for this approach to work, the dialogue has to crackle, and The Wheel of Time Season 3’s rarely does. Even the likes of Pike, Sophie Okonedo, Olivia Williams, and Shohreh Aghdashloo – easily the stand-out performers this go round – often struggle to do much with the lines they’re given.

Related: 10 Best Fantasy Book Series Ever

The other make-or-break factor with set piece-lite fantasy shows is that when these sequences do finally arrive, they have to really deliver. The Wheel of Time battle scenes are fine, however, they’re a tad underwhelming compared to those in the aforementioned Game of Thrones and its prequel House of the Dragon, or even the multi-episode siege in Prime Video’s other fantasy series, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. The CGI is uneven, the staging and shot composition oddly pedestrian. Worse, an air of cheapness creeps into these sequences, as it does the series at large. Amazon MGM Studios clearly shelled out a lot of money for The Wheel of Time‘s third batch of episodes, but the overall presentation robs the costumes, makeup, and sets – all as beautifully designed and realized as ever – of the verisimilitude that makes a made-up world seem real.

All of which positions this review as an outright pan; honestly, it’s not. Just like when I watch The Wheel of Time, when I review it, I have to get the bad out of the way before I’m ready to consider the good. And make no mistake: there’s plenty to enjoy here – provided you’re not too wedded to Jordan’s text and can forgive some rough edges. Heck, there are moments when The Wheel of Time Season 3 is stunningly good. Notably, Episode 4 does a bang-up job of dramatizing a key event from the books involving a mountain of backstory, in a way that plays to the strengths of TV as a medium. No, it’s not a 1:1 recreation of what Jordan wrote (although much of what’s shown more or less lines up with the author’s canon). But the narrative, thematic, and emotional thrust are all on point.

Related: Why Wheel of Time Recast Barney Harris’ Mat Cauthon in Season 2

And that’s true of The Wheel of Time Season 3 more broadly, too. Sure, characters frequently behave in ways that will seem alien to hardcore fans – the Moiraine/Lanfear piece of the puzzle this season is gonna drive book truthers wild – and the vibe skews more contemporary than Jordan’s Tolkien-influenced writings (even accounting for the scribe’s racier passages). Yet Season 3 is still a story of reluctant heroes thrust onto the frontline of an era-defining conflict. Of free will versus destiny, and self-sacrifice in the face of hopeless odds. Are the details different – even disappointing, on occasion? Absolutely. But if you can meet it on its own terms, it’s worth your time just the same.

The Wheel of Time Season 3 premieres on Prime Video on March 13, 2025.

It’s one of the reasons I was looking forward to playing Hazelight Studio’s latest game with her. Josef Fares is well-known for his co-op adventures, like A Way Out and It Takes Two, so I thought playing one of his games with her would be fun. Plus, I thought it would be nice to get differing perspectives on Split Fiction. We’re both highly critical, but I tend to look at the overall picture while she focuses more on moment-to-moment beats. Thankfully, after each session with the game, we always came away with the same opinion – it was fun to experience, but it wasn’t the masterpiece that people are saying it is.

Don’t get me wrong, if you’re just going into Split Fiction for a co-op romp through a variety of exciting and creative levels, the game delivers in spades. That’s mostly thanks to the central premise, where you play as two different writers – the sourpuss sci-fi fan Mio and the fantasy-loving optimist Zoe. They both become involved with a publishing company called Rader, whose CEO is attempting to steal ideas from its writers by hooking them into a machine meant to simulate their works. Mio tries to escape and ends up stumbling into Zoe’s simulation, causing their simulations to fuse, with the rest of the game having both authors try to escape the simulation by destroying Rader’s machine, also hoping doing so will end Rader’s theft.

Now this is a fascinating concept for a story, especially in 2025. In an age where artists are growing increasingly worried about the use of AI and how corporations are increasingly more disinterested in respecting art and artists and would rather just cut them out of the equation entirely, the commentary about corporations, AI, the need for human involvement in the creation of stories, and ideas is fascinating. Shame the game does absolutely nothing with it.

One thing my fiance and I both agreed upon is just how clunky the dialogue of Split Fiction is. Zoe and Mio simply aren’t well-written. It’s not as bad as something like Forspoken, but nearly every line of dialogue never once convinced us that these were three-dimensional characters. Plus, when the game decides to get weird, the dialogue is almost intentionally trying to nudge you and say “Isn’t this funny and random???” Again, it’s not constant, but there’s a reason why we both began to tune out whenever a cutscene began to play. It’s all the more frustrating because, again, there are some great ideas within the story, but the characters are mere ciphers for Split Fiction to deliver its gameplay.

Thankfully, we didn’t care that much about the story because the moment-to-moment gameplay made up for it almost entirely. While each character has the same general moves, like a double jump, dash, and wall run, each level will offer up a few unique ideas, sequences, or setpieces for both Zoe and Mio. In the first major level, Mio gains control of a sword that allows her to invert gravity, encouraging her to get up close when fighting enemies. Zoe, meanwhile, gains access to a whip that allows her to pull and throw things around, meaning if you want to survive combat encounters, you’ll have to keep your distance. Because of this, each player will have a slightly different experience, with puzzles that will need players to communicate how to use their respective abilities to solve them.

Related: All Split Fiction Voice Actors and Why Zoe and Mio Sound Familiar

It was in these moments that Split Fiction was at its best. When stages decided to make each character feel distinct, it made the levels far more dynamic. The first level featured a setpiece where while Mio was driving on a motorcycle, Zoe had to unlock a cellphone to make sure the motorcycle didn’t blow up. In another level, Zoe gains the ability to manipulate the environment, and Mio has to platform across the areas that Zoe made for her. The game even features some smaller side quests, called Side Stories, that run with one-off ideas, like turning both of them into pigs, but Zoe could turn into a spring and Mio had rocket farts.

For the most part, we enjoyed everything that the game threw at us. Sometimes a few sequences were a bit forced – my fiance hated the tonal whiplash the Monkey King dance-off provided – but given how each section lasts for only 5-10 minutes, if we didn’t like a particular section, we’d be given a new task that made us forget about the old one relatively quickly. Because of this, Split Fiction throws a lot of gameplay mechanics at its players, but it never feels overwhelming since the game still eases players into each new idea. Anyone can pick up and enjoy it, regardless of their skill level, especially thanks to the game’s very forgiving checkpoint system.

Visually, the game is a spectacle. One of the Side Stories involves a collapsing star that looks absolutely marvelous from a distance. Speeding along futuristic sci-fi cities is exhilarating, and even some of the quiet landscapes of the fantasy worlds have their unique charm. The character models look a bit rough and feel just as inorganic as the dolls you played as in It Takes Two, but by and large, Split Fiction is a good showcase for how games can still visually impress in 2025.

At the end of the day, my fiance and I both enjoyed our time with Split Fiction. While it definitely has some narrative issues and the pacing can be a bit uneven, it’s still a great time for two players who want to experience a fully fleshed-out co-op adventure. Its highs are arguably higher than It Takes Two thanks to its numerous setpieces, and outside of a few puzzles that made us a wee bit angry, our relationship is stronger for it.

Verdict: Recommended

Split Fiction is now available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

That’s the intention of newly established indie studio, Ivy Road. Made of creatives who are known for their work on other projects, like The Stanley Parable director Davey Wreden, Gone Home artist Karla Zimonja, and Minecraft composer C418, Wanderstop is the team’s first title, aiming to illustrate the effects of burnout.

In execution, Ivy Road’s debut accomplishes that and more. A narrative-focused, cozy-central game about change & tea, Wanderstop brews even more than what’s boiling under the surface. 

A Relatable, Feel-Good Premise

In its starting chapter, Wanderstop deals an intense opening revealing the tale of a fighter’s intense rise and tragically relatable downward spiral — showing that burnout can happen to anyone on all levels.

You play as Alta, a brash sword-wielding warrior whose only obsession is fighting, training to get to the top, and continuously doing what’s necessary to win and stay there. After blaming herself for being defeated and losing her edge, she ventures into the forest to find a legendary master who can supposedly train and “fix” her. 

After getting lost, exhausted, and collapsing, she wakes up in Wanderstop’s mysterious clearing next to its bright and cheerful shop owner, Boro. With expected cozy game advice such as “tea is good for the body and soul,” Boro suggests the fallen Alta works at the shop as a means to help her recuperate. 

Over the course of a small campaign — generally between 10 and 15 hours — you’ll gather ingredients, make tea, tidy and decorate the shop, fulfill customers’ orders, and have Boro follow you on this journey of self-discovery like a wholesome Jiminy Cricket of self-care. 

Pour the Tea, Literally

To accomplish this, Wanderstop’s gameplay is thankfully made to only be as challenging as you want it to be.

After gathering tea leaves to turn into tea balls, learning how to grow unique hybrid plants that grow various fruits, and putting together other peculiar ingredients, you’ll throw them all into Wanderstop’s tea brewing machine — a wondrous Willy Wonka-esque contraption that turns the art of making a cracking brew into the fun kind of chore. 

It’s just one of the examples of playfulness the shop features like toy cargo trains going under a waterfall acting as a dishwasher, and the horde of adorable item-gathering Pluffins (penguin-puffin hybrids) wandering the grounds. 

Pressing the control for the “Highlight” feature, you’ll be able to quickly identify new wandering customers to take orders from, and do the same later on to easily find them again when you need to deliver them their custom brew. 

You’ll get more complex requests that challenge your memory and plant-growing skills, but it’s nothing you can’t solve wth your field guide and Book of Answers you later obtain, quickly telling you all you need to know if you just want to move the story along. 

Altogether, Wanderstop’s quick-to-learn mechanics and accessible guides make gameplay easily approachable and not too overwhelming — as is the intended premise when you’re playing as a protagonist like Alta in her situation.

Related: MainFrames Is the Cuter Version of Super Meat Boy You Might Actually Beat [Review]

A Stunning Sight

That said, because there’s no rush to fulfil orders or objectives and progress the story, it’s so easy to get lost in the comfortable majesty of explaining the grounds, growing plants for tea ingredients, clipping weeds, sweeping leaves, finding and mailing lost packages, and brewing & tasty new flavours — all with the backing of the magical folksy soundtrack. 

Choosing a simple-yet-vivid art style, Wanderstop is designed to make strolling its grounds feel so openly scenic, you can’t help but want to take your time. From the calming use of lighting, music, and shifting colors of seasons, you can’t help but feel the underlying message that it’s okay to slow down and take everything in as you sweep up leaves and clip weeds to find new decorative trinkets and unique mugs to add to your collection.   

Along with other mechanics like encouraging Alta to taste different tea flavors — each evoking an old memory depending on the type — you’ll also feel an additionally hidden satisfaction that you’re not just learning more about the protagonist, but that she might be a step further on her journey to sound mental health. 

The only issue with its gameplay lies in its inventory management — specifically, in Alta’s pocket size and how items are grouped. In many management games, quantities of the same items are grouped together to make navigation easier.

In Wanderstop, this is the same in its Seeds Pocket, e.g., eight Yellow Seeds, six Blue, three Red, and six Green. However, items in all other pockets do not — making each unit of the same fruits stack together along with mushrooms and tea balls. It makes the already small pocket space fill up far quicker than it needs to.

With that, while some might be compelled to collect as much as they can on one outing around the grounds, you might find lots of instances where you need to off-load items you’ve found at the shop to make room so you can venture back out again to restock — one that could easily be remedied if inventory space were either doubled or other duplicate items could be grouped together. 

It’s a small problem, but a niggling one that can be a regular nuisance across a full playthrough.

Narratively Delightful

That said, the issue with inventory management is a meager one in the grand scheme of things as you’re getting immersed in what Wanderstop does best: its narrative.

The story is progressed by meeting and serving a cast of well-designed eccentric characters, soon arriving as samples of this extraordinary part of the world. 

For instance, the larger-than-life Gerald the Knight — whose moments involving showing pictures of him with his un-enthused teenage son — are some of the game’s funniest, surprising you with literal laugh-out-loud-levels of absurd moments. Still, there are subtle hints of dark humor that add extra chuckles without being too overbearing. 

Each tea request further each customer’s own story with completion, building up additional intriguing narratives along with Alta’s. While dialogue options give you chances to make conversations as brief as possible, each character is so likeable in their own way, it’s easy to want to indulge them as much as possible to learn more about them all. 

Nevertheless, as immersive the charm and whimsy can be, Wanderstop isn’t afraid to get right into the real issues of what self-loathing, obsession, and refusing can take care of self can do to one’s wellbeing — which Ivy Road realizes how damaging it can be when you treat a goal or aspiration as the only thing in the world.

What’s more, those more mature segments of storytelling leak into those of the customers’ as well. Without going into spoilers, a good number of new friends you meet and interact with have a personal arc you can’t help but get invested in as the overall plot goes on.

Even outside of Altas’ personal tale and those of the titular tea shop’s guests, Wanderstop’s narrative gets increasingly, enchantingly mysterious — with not only the clearing’s odd seasonal shifts, but a curious abnormality affecting the patrons as well, easing you into the cozy title’s darker elements, but these multiple tonal shifts never feeling out of place as they bounce back and forth. 

With director Davey Wreden’s skill for injecting thought-provoking narratives into multi-layered gaming experiences, this comes as no surprise. As Wanderstop goes on and Wreden’s seeming intentions are revealed in an effective “pulling back the curtain” manner, it’s an unexpected concoction of both being on the edge of your seat but also being excited to return to the clearing and craft some more comforting brews. 

For a new team made of just 17 members, Wanderstop is a captivating cozy management adventure that works on levels even beyond those expected of the genre. 

With a core message about the importance of being aware of burnout and self-care, Ivy Roads’ debut game works both as an approachable tea shop simulator where you can switch you brain off too — along with interweaving a hard-hitting narrative that regularly has you both on the edge of your seat and smiling from ear to ear.  Achieving that balance is an insanely difficult feat that any dev team should be commended for.

As a very personal tale that’s relatable to so many, Wanderstop’s unique premise and storybook-like setting will have something for everyone. As far as cozy narrative-focused games go, Ivy Roads’ Wanderstop has raised the bar.

Verdict: Recommended

Wanderstop releases on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S on March 11. A review code for the game was provided by the publisher. Reviewed on PS5.

If you want to tackle heavy real-world issues without scaring mainstream audiences away, dress them up in a genre wrapper. It’s a classic storytelling trick, and one that Mickey 17 director Bong Joon-ho has milked plenty of mileage out of over the years.

Pick any entry on South Korean filmmaker’s CV and you’ll see what I mean. Monster movie The Host? A sneaky skewering of US foreign policy. Dystopian action flick Snowpiercer? A social stratification takedown. Family-friendly fantasy Okja? An anti-capitalism satire. 2019 Best Picture-winning black comedy Parasite? A scathing indictment of class inequality. And so it goes for all Bong’s films – including Mickey 17.

Ostensibly, this is an OTT sci-fi/comedy built around the gimmick of Robert Pattinson playing dual roles. But really, it’s a vehicle for Bong to take aim at a bunch of subjects, both timely and timeless. And while he often lands wide of the mark, Pattinson’s powerhouse performance is just enough to get Mickey 17 over the line.

Based on Edward Ashton’s 2022 novel Mickey 7, Mickey 17 introduces us to down-on-his-luck schlub Mickey Barnes (Pattinson). Mickey’s an “Expendable”: someone who dies, gets cloned, and dies again on a daily basis as part of shady politician Kenneth Marshall’s (Mark Ruffalo) mission to colonize alien world Nilfheim. It’s a straightforward if brutal existence – until the latest Mickey is rolled out prematurely. Now, the old and new Mickey have to figure out how to live with each other, especially if they’re going to stand a chance of shutting down Marshall’s real plan for the Nilfheim colony.

Related: Parasite Review – Escape to the Movies

So, basically, Mickey 17 is Snowpiercer meets Okja. As such, the film’s tonal shifts are more pronounced than what viewers only familiar with Parasite will likely expect. The sense that some actors are performing in a different movie – sometimes in the same scene – than their co-stars pervades proceedings. It’s not entirely on them, either. Bong’s screenplay lurches between slapstick pratfalls, jet black social commentary, genuine tenderness and more besides throughout Mickey 17‘s 137-minute runtime. It’s very much in keeping with Bong’s sensibilities as a storyteller, however, the effect is more jarring than usual here.

This is particularly the case where Mickey 17‘s political commentary is concerned. Bong leans hard on the broad humor in these moments, and it blunts whatever point he’s trying to make. Ruffalo’s attention-obsessed buffoon – whose line deliveries are clearly modelled on the idiosyncratic tics of a certain US President – and his equally cartoonish wife (portrayed by Toni Collette) are barely even caricatures. We instantly get that they’re so monstrously entitled that treating Mickey as disposable is par for the course, however, Bong never digs any deeper into their psyche.

Related: Parasite Is an Infectious Class Act

Maybe that’s his way of saying that the Marshalls of this world aren’t actually that complex; they just do what they do because the world tells them they can. Regardless, it’s a bit one note. So is Mickey 17‘s half-hearted stab at anti-imperial sentiment, and its handwaving towards the racist undertones of populist movements. Fortunately, Bong handles Mickey himself with far greater nuance – helped enormously by a never better Pattinson. The English actor is equally engaging as the loveably gormless Mickey 17 and the borderline psychotic Mickey 18, selling both as distinct characters. His chemistry with on-screen other half Naomi Ackie is solid as well, despite the latter’s erratically scripted arc.

It’s a bit old hat, but it really is hard to imagine another actor in the Mickey role. Pattinson’s just that good at the humor, and more importantly, the pathos. As Mickey, he sketches out an affecting portrait of self-loathing and guilt, and what it means to forgive yourself and let go of life-long burdens – especially those you should’ve never shouldered to begin with. More than that, the deft way that Pattinson renders Mickey’s understandably complex relationship with death (he’s at once resigned to his fate and desperate for more time) lends Mickey 17‘s underlying meditation on mortality a heft its other thematic components lack.

Related: Robert Pattinson Pulls an Uno Reverse Card on the Twilight Hate

At various points in the movie, people ask Mickey the same question: “How does it feel to die?” But the more time we spend with Mickey, the more we begin to understand what really matters is how it feels if you can’t. If the finite nature of life – the absence of do-overs, and the fear that comes with it – is what makes us human, what does that say about Mickey’s nigh-infinite existence? Had Bong devoted more screentime to this conundrum, Mickey 17 could’ve been something truly special. As it stands, the film we got just about works – but as an acting showcase, not a sly genre parable.

Mickey 17 is in cinemas now.

This game, published by The Arcade Crew and developed by Assoupi, hasn’t had the most extensive marketing campaign, with only one reveal trailer and one release date trailer making the more casual crowd aware of its existence. Placing most chips on its viral potential is a risky move, yet the positive buzz surrounding the previews and the demo released in late 2024 is encouraging. After playing through the whole adventure myself in roughly three hours, I could see it becoming a sleeper hit.

While the charming trailers and other promotional materials released so far suggest this is a mostly relaxed outing that’s putting chill vibes and clever puzzles over everything else, you’d be surprised by how momentarily hard it can get. I’m saying “momentarily” because, unlike in modern platforming classics such as Super Meat Boy, you’re likely to overcome the challenges MainFrames presents after a while and without punching the nearest wall in the process.

At worst, there’ll be times when MainFrames tests your patience or introduces a hard-to-digest mechanic which takes a while to fully click together with what you already know. But it’s not a crushingly difficult game, and the extremely breezy pace and its control scheme, coupled with instant respawns and checkpoints in each room/screen, help the experience move along before things get frustrating.

Floppy’s basic actions are running, jumping, and sort-of-dashing forward. It’s a simple affair which translates into an easy-to-pick-up platformer. Generally, these moves need to be used in conjunction with icons and windows found within each frame. The game’s central gimmick is using a PC monitor and the insides of a system as the many scenes for Floppy’s journey. For the most part, Assoupi made great use of this concept, which applies to both the (admittedly thin) plot and the level design and structure. Sometimes, it’s easy to identify missed gameplay opportunities, but given how the developers have skillfully avoided repetition and trimmed any potential fat, it’s hard to be annoyed by the things MainFrames doesn’t want to do.

Related: Suikoden I&II HD Remaster Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars Is Nostalgia Done Right [Review]

Daemons (background processes) are at the center of Floppy’s romp. While some characters offer guidance, plenty of those programs are even more lost than our hero, so a secondary task throughout the whole journey is saving as many of them as possible. It doesn’t directly affect the ending or progression, but some of the most enjoyable areas involve figuring out safe routes for them toward a digital elevator that can take them to the safety of a lively break room.

Players who want to make a beeline for the ending can safely ignore these challenges, but achievement hunters will want to clear every room. Moreover, there’s a super hard achievement which requires players to finish the entire game without dying even once (there’s quite a bit of trial-and-error in this one). Needless to say, speedrunners and the hardcore crowd will fall in love with MainFrames… if they give it a chance. Oddly enough, there are zero (as far as I can tell) achievements tied to regular progression.

By the time you reach the end, it’s hard not to look back and realize that, yeah, the best bits of the game were actually the ones that nearly made you lose hair. Many rooms you can just breeze through with a basic understanding of mechanics, such as resizing the windows based on your movement or dragging them around, but some of the trickier screens land in that sweet spot of putting pressure on the player without feeling unfair. I’d say a lot of playtesting time went into this one.

Accompanying all the wall-jumping and window-multitasking, MainFrames introduces a number of colorful desktop backgrounds that are never distracting (besides one level which actively tries to make you feel dizzy) and blend together well with the elements at the forefront which Floppy needs to interact with. Likewise, the cheerful soundtrack never felt overbearing or “overly cool” for what’s largely a chill and focused adventure.

Not as pleasing were some unfortunate bugs that made Floppy not react to any inputs after dying and forced me to reload certain screens several times from the main menu, which is especially bothersome when you’re dealing with a hard section, or repeating loading scenes that didn’t match my actual progression through the eight major levels. While I didn’t experience any game-breaking issues myself, one or two solid patches would be welcomed.

In the end, MainFrames is the rare sort of indie release that both feels professional and knows not to punch above its weight. It has a clear central idea and hits the right notes without getting itself into too much trouble (unlike Floppy). I wouldn’t describe it as “cozy” given how much it can kick your ass, but it’s an easy suggestion for anyone who’s looking for quick and gorgeous platforming thrills with a perfect amount of complexity.

Verdict: Recommended

MainFrames is out today, March 6, on PC and Nintendo Switch.

Boxing is in Daredevil: Born Again protagonist Matt Murdock’s blood. So, it’s only fitting that the blind lawyer by day, costumed vigilante by night had to fight his way back onto the small screen.

After Netflix cancelled the original Daredevil series back in 2018 (part of the streamer’s wider shutdown of all its Marvel Cinematic Universe shows), the Man Without Fear was left in limbo. Fans lobbied Marvel Studios to revive Daredevil for years, but rights issues meant this was initially a non-starter. Things didn’t go much smoother when Marvel was finally ready for a new MCU outing headlined by Murdock and his crime-fighting alter-ego, either. First the 2023 Hollywood strikes ground filming to halt, then Marvel decided to essentially start over from scratch.

All of which is to say that Daredevil: Born Again has been a long time coming and is therefore one of the most hotly-anticipated MCU productions in recent memory. Happily, the wait was mostly worth it, as – based on its two-part premiere – Born Again is a largely satisfying continuation of Netflix’s Daredevil series.

And Daredevil: Born Again really is a continuation – at least at first. Season 1 opens with Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll), and Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) back together again, just as we left them in Daredevil Season 3. The trio’s reunion doesn’t last long, though. Tragedy tears them apart before the opening credits have even rolled, and Matt promptly retires from the superhero game. But with a police conspiracy afoot and Wilson Fisk/The Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio) taking control of City Hall, it won’t be long before Matt’s forced to suit up again – whatever the cost.

Related: What MCU Movies & TV Shows to Watch Before Daredevil: Born Again

It’s all very gritty and determinedly grown-up, and immediately dispels any lingering concerns that Marvel Studios would water down Daredevil’s milieu in the transition from Netflix to Disney+. On the contrary, showrunner Dario Scardapane and his team make a concerted effort to emulate what came before. Born Again‘s muted palette – not to mention its one-take action sequence early on – are very much in line with the original show’s aesthetic. The same goes for the revival’s flashes of graphic violence and profanity: you don’t need a radar sense to detect we’re in a different corner of the MCU than where Marvel Studios’ other, predominantly family-friendly fare goes down.

Indeed, watching Cox, Woll, and Hensen playing off each other against this Netflix-inspired backdrop almost feels like you’re watching Daredevil Season 4 (and will likely leave newcomers a tad lost). But like I said earlier, this feeling fades somewhat, once Born Again‘s focus shifts away from both the Matt/Karen/Foggy interplay and Murdock’s spandex-clad antics. In their place, we get a deliberately paced legal potboiler that teams our hero with new civilian allies, Nikki M. James’ Kirsten and Clark Johnson’s Cherry. Matt also scores a fresh love interest, therapist Heather Glenn (Margarita Levieva).

Related: How Many Years Apart Are Netflix’s Daredevil and Born Again on the MCU Timeline?

None of this is bad, per se. Matt’s case is a smartly reworked comics storyline. Cox and Levieva have solid chemistry. But does any of it hit the same highs as the Netflix original? It’s too early to say for certain, however, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that’s probably a “no” – particularly with Woll and Hensen seemingly side-lined for Born Again‘s seven remaining episodes. On the plus side, Scardapane and co. haven’t abandoned the Netflix Daredevil‘s other core dynamic: the eternal battle of wills (and wits) between Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk. Watching Cox and D’Onofrio verbally spar is as entertaining as ever, and neatly lays out Born Again‘s compelling central thesis.

Like its Netflix predecessor, Daredevil: Born Again is preoccupied with the unintended consequences of using might to make right as you see it, whether that’s trying to clean up the streets or control a city. But there’s an even greater focus this time around on redemption (a popular topic for superhero shows this year). Daredevil and Kingpin are both trying to start over in Born Again, but can two people with so much to atone for – no matter what they set out to achieve or why – ever truly atone? Do they even really want to?

Related: Every Daredevil Comics Costume Teased in the Born Again Trailer

That’s easily Born Again Season 1’s most arresting thematic wrinkle: the notion that Murdock and Fisk might be kidding themselves about who they really are. The violence in them, the hunger for retribution will eventually win out over whatever state of grace they strive for. Sure, there’s commentary around populist leaders and policing (complete with a nod to the real-life appropriation of the Punisher’s skull symbol) in Born Again, but putting Matt and Wilson’s souls under the microscope is what hits like a red-gloved fist.

And ultimately, this probably sums up why Daredevil: Born Again ultimately succeeds: it captures the spirit of the Netflix original. Does it nail every aspect of its execution with Bullseye-like precision? Not quite. But it does Matt Murdock and his world justice, and that’s what counts.

Daredevil: Born Again Season 1 is currently streaming on Disney+, with new episodes dropping Tuesdays.

While opinions are mixed from Suikoden III onwards, the first two titles are generally highly regarded. Now, with Suikoden I&II HD Remaster Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars, there is a perfect opportunity for a new generation of players to understand the magic.

After a few dozen hours of war and gathering the Stars of Destiny twice over, it is safe to say that Konami has definitely fulfilled the brief. The HD remaster has given these classic JRPGs a fresh coat of paint, and together with several wise quality-of-life changes, these are easily the best versions that fans and newcomers can experience.

That’s all true from just the visual and audio side of things, as the actual gameplay, systems, and narrative have not been tweaked meaningfully. Save for some translation changes, this is still the classic Suikoden and Suikoden II adventures that captured the imaginations of many back in the day.

Fulfilling Destiny

A significant part of that is down to the storytelling that is present in both games, which have overlapping characters and themes, and stay steadfast to the idea of people coming together for the greater good.

In Suikoden I, that means putting together the Liberation Army and rising against the oppressive rule of a once-benevolent emperor. As for Suikoden II, a facade of peace is soon broken by the fires of war, and when the people you care about are caught in the middle, players will have to take up arms and save the day.

The hero’s journey in both games isn’t breaking new ground. Still, the real star is the recruitment of the fabled 108 Stars of Destiny, a design choice inspired by the classic Ming dynasty novel The Water Margin, where 108 rebels joined forces against the government. And there is a healthy variety of colorful characters that populate this world, each with their motivations and ideals, with players left to figure out just how to recruit them to the cause.

Some require a simple conversation, others may need more coaxing with the right party member in tow, and a few are rewards from completing more convoluted tasks and side stories. This chase, albeit optional, incentivizes players to pay more attention to the world and the people and, in turn, immerse themselves more into the narrative. With each new recruit, the world seemingly grows larger, and the impact of the pending conflict becomes heavier,

The way both games connect through consistent characters helps as well, as players attempting to fully enjoy Suikoden I&II HD Remaster Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars will get more context out of the adventures. Although character and story developments are often told through text and the occasional story scene, there is still a certain charm to the proceedings, helped by the much-improved HD visuals and reworked effects.

The Flames of War

You cannot have conflict without combat in JRPGs, and the grid-based system allows that kind of strategic nuance that still stands up even in today’s context. Characters have different combat ranges that affect who they can target on the front and backline, allowing for diverse six-person party configurations to suit your approach. You need to think about who your best attackers, support characters, or even tanks are, and how their attacks can target the enemy’s party of six. With 107 other potential allies to choose from, that can be a big headache.

That’s before we even talk about the Rune system, which takes the place of standard magic in the series. By equipping certain Runes, your characters gain access to potent elemental spells or other positive buffs, and can combine them to devastating effects. Characters with strong bonds are also capable of Unite attacks, flashy and often effective combos that can decimate one or the entire enemy formation. It was revolutionary for its time, and remains a robust enough system now.

Between the two games, Suikoden I is certainly more challenging, with difficulty spikes that can catch players off guard, while the sequel has benefitted from a more well-balanced approach that makes things more palatable. Either way, it is vital to think ahead of potential combat, and prepare well.

Eventually, army clashes will also take place, giving players a taste of rock-paper-scissors combat that involves more than just your ragtag group of rebels. The idea of larger-scale battles was a pleasant surprise in the old days, and it still largely holds true, especially with the more Fire Emblem-like design in Suikoden II. But the sense of freshness has undoubtedly been dulled with time, and the same goes for the solo duels. Thankfully, these moments are always accompanied by consequential narrative progression, alleviating the potential fatigue.

Related: Two Point Museum Upholds the Franchise’s High Standards [Review]

Staying Old-School

As I have pointed out constantly, these are JRPGs of another time. Even with the new features added, both titles are still quintessentially old school, with little modern comfort that may come as a shock to new players trying out things for the first time.

For Suikoden I, the inventory system remains draconian and unintuitive, with no party-wide stash. Changing equipment means tiresome transfers in one menu and equipping them in the next. At least the sequel remedies this with an inventory that covers the party, but you still have to decide what is essential to bring into battle with the limited slots. So it could be either an extra Medicine to heal up or an accessory that buffs your defense, with erroneous choices leading possibly to disaster.

Your party also continually wears the scars of battles, with no helpful healing until you reach an inn where you can rest and save the game. If you fall in combat, that could easily mean hours of progress wasted, even with the added auto-save mechanic. Those hoping to grind your levels and become more powerful for the challenges ahead will also be in for a rude shock. Although your standard stats may increase, your attacking power relies on upgrading your weapons using blacksmiths. That requires spending Potch, the in-game currency, and even if you are swimming in cash, there are still progression gates to keep you in check.

It may sound strange, but I am not criticizing these systems. It is just as I remembered, where it made sense for that era of JRPGs, but now brought to the present for a different generation. Whether that is something you can stomach will determine if you will enjoy the few core systems under the hood of Suikoden I&II HD Remaster Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars.

For someone who was there in 1995 and 1998, this is, without a doubt, the best way to relive those memories on modern platforms. There is an argument for the need to update these systems, but leaving them as they are is another way of paying homage to a pure experience of how things were back then. Having deeper character development would have been nice, but it doesn’t necessarily take away from an already satisfying time.

A Foundation for the Future

The fact that modern players now have the option to play through both games with Suikoden I&II HD Remaster Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars is a blessing. It helps to demonstrate the progress made between the two games, and coupled with the added features like fast-forwarded battles and a conversation log to track everything, it both streamlines and expands the experience in a way that just wasn’t possible before.

The way the visuals and the sound design have been upgraded also ensures that the games get the care and attention to detail that keep the series’ legend alive. The hope is that renewed interest in Suikoden will eventually give Konami no choice but to invest strongly in a new entry, but at the very least, longtime fans have something new to look forward to and cherish as they bring the fight to Emperor Barbarossa and Luca Blight.

Verdict: Exemplary

Suikoden I&II HD Remaster Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars releases for PC and consoles on March 6th. A review code for the game was provided by the publisher. Reviewed on PS5.

What Two Point Museum Is About

Like Two Point Hospital and Two Point Campus before it, Two Point Museum is set in the titular Two Point County, a sort of video game equivalent to Springfield from The Simpsons. This time around, players are a museum curator that’s responsible for creating a great learning experience for knowledge-hungry Two Pointers. In the game, you can create museums featuring exhibits ranging from dinosaur bones to mysterious monoliths and man-eating plants. The goal is to get people viewing your exhibits so you can make more money, get “stars” to fully complete levels, and just, in general, make the best museum you can imagine.

Two Point Museum’s Core Gameplay Loop Is Addicting

If you’ve played a Two Point game before, you’ll pretty much immediately understand how Museum works. Your goal is to get people coming to your museum by making it more appealing through decorations, exhibits, and other goodies. You then get in a cycle of using the money you make to further improve the museum, thus resulting in more money. Captialism, ho!

While the main mechanics of Two Point Museum are familiar, there are a fair number of little differences between the game and its predecessors. To get new exhibits and various other goodies, you’ll send your staff to a bunch of exotic locales, where various things can happen to them. Your staff can even die while on an expedition. The exhibits that you gather all have different requirements both to function and to generate “buzz,” which is one of the big stats that brings people to your museum.

The core gameplay loop of Two Point Museum was addicting, often pulling me in for several hours at a time. I also found, more than in any other Two Point game, that I put a lot of time into thinking about the design and layout of rooms. With Campus and Hospital, I’ve always felt like I was trying to shove whatever I needed to build into whatever spot was available. Those games also suffer from scope creep in which you end up having to build a lot of the same thing, especially as you get later in the game. Two Point Museum feels like it rewards being intentional and thinking about the design of your space.

Although the core gameplay loop is strong, it does still have the same issues as the other Two Point games, in that there are times where your progression grinds to a screeching halt. You’ll find yourself waiting on one thing, whether that be enough funds for an expedition or an expedition to come back, that can add some extra tedium to the game that wasn’t as present in Hospital, though it’s not nearly as slow as Campus could be.

Part of this is because what you get on expeditions is up to random chance. While the game does seemingly do a great job of stacking the dice in your favor when it comes to quest items, it’s really easy to find yourself pulling the same item over and over again, never quite getting what you want in a timely manner. That leads to Two Point Museum sometimes feeling a bit boring, even if it never really crosses the line into a full blown snooze fest.

Two Point Museum Is More Linear Than Campus and Hospital

In Hospital and Campus, there’s a certain pace at which you generally approach different levels. Normally, you’ll boot one up, get your first star, and then either bounce to the next level or try for the next star. Once you have that first star, though, there’s nothing really holding you back. There’s also often a lot of advantage to switching levels, since it’ll get you access to more things that can help you succeed. One of the things that’s more frustrating about those games is it can sometimes feel like you’re being asked to do more with fewer resources, and it’s impossible to know when that’s happening until it’s happening.

Two Point Museum‘s main game is a lot more linear than Campus or Hospital. Early on, the game trains players to leave and come back to a certain level after doing other things. It’s, in fact, required to do that in order to get more stars. As such, getting two stars in one level can often directly involve getting one star in another. This linearity ends up being something of a double edged sword.

The game does a better job than either of its predecessors at teaching you how to play the game, which is great. The learning curve isn’t nearly as frustrating as Campus, and in general, I always felt like Two Point Museum was scaffolding my knowledge effectively. Items are basically unlocked when you need them, and the game is clear when you’re wasting your time and need to move on.

There’s a real sense that Two Point Studios put a lot of thought into the design of Museum. The game feels really well put together, and that linearity does help with some of the repetition, though it doesn’t entirely fix it. Two Point Museum feels intentional, and I love that.

At the same time, Museum feels like a much smaller game at launch than either Campus or Hospital. From a straight numerical perspective, Museum has five levels at launch, while Campus and Hospital had 12 and 15, respectively. More isn’t always better, and Museum‘s levels are generally pretty well-designed, but the lack of options makes the linearity, at times, almost painfully obvious.

It seems likely to me that the lower number of initial levels was a purposeful choice, with Two Point Studios opting to focus on depth rather than breadth. However, Two Point Museum still feels like it could have benefited from another level or two. Pretty much every level you encounter introduces a new mechanic, meaning there’s no level where it feels like all of that comes together in a truly satisfying way.

There are, as a note, challenge levels, where you’ve got to accomplish some specific goal, and I found them both perfectly acceptable and utterly forgettable.

The Presentation Is Great, But the UI Can Be Finicky

Two Point Museum has a great presentation and retains the same tongue-in-cheek humor that the franchise is known for. There aren’t many graphical changes compared to Campus and Hospital, but the game has a sort of timeless quality that makes it easy to ignore that. From a technical perspective, it runs smoothly, and I only encountered one glitch over the course of my time with the game. However, that glitch does get into one of my other issues with the game: The UI can be a bit finicky at times.

I never found the finickiness to impact what I was doing in any major capacity, but I did find myself sometimes moving the camera around trying to get a proper grip on what I was looking for, and sometimes I had to go through multiple steps to do something that should have been simple, like expand a room or building. The oddest issue that I encountered was that I build a helipad too close to a wall, meaning that it couldn’t be used. However, I wasn’t able to alter the building directly. Instead, I had to use a tool to literally just destroy the building and start from scratch. It wasn’t too major, but it was very confusing while it was happening.

Verdict: Recommended

Overall, I really like Two Point Museum, and the game falls somewhere between Campus and Hospital for me. Museum fixes the pacing problems that made Campus often feel like a slog, while not falling into the micromanagement trap of the late game portion of Hospital. At the same time, the game can still be tedious at times, and I do wish there were more levels.

Not every part of the title clicks perfectly, but Two Point Museum is a fun, charming game that I absolutely recommend to lovers of management sims.

A PC review code was provided by the published for the purposes of this review. Two Point Museum officially releases on March 4, with early access available five days prior to that.

This isn’t just a tale of how one dude with a big sword killed a bunch of stuff, it’s one about saving a lost child, helping him learn more about the world, and finding his own place in it. Every mission has you and a few of your core group heading out to discover something and investigate the mystery at the core of the story, and most of them are intensely likeable. Werner isn’t, but that’s got to be intentional.

It helps that your Hunter actually talks for once too. That means you’re playing a customizable actual person in this amazing world, and not only do they talk, but they really know their stuff. There are several points where the Hunter’s knowledge is essential in overcoming the challenges ahead, not just their ability to hit things really good. They can still do that though. Actually, they can do that better than ever too.

Prepare To Feel Cool

While some of the over-the-top action from Rise is gone, it’s been replaced with a system that feels like a great compromise between World and Rise. The weapons are all familiar for those who’ve been fans of the series for a long time, but also have a few new moves and tricks that keep them feeling really exciting. You also get a new Focus Mode to muck around with that lets you hit wounds you create on monsters to not only perform a special attack, but also get more materials and sometimes stun the monster you hit. These can help you really control the flow of a fight, and because they often knock a monster down, can be a good chance to catch your breath.

Then you’ve got the Seikret, your new bird companion who will come to your aid as soon as you whistle and allow you to sharpen your weapons or heal on the go, but who can also carry a weapon for you. This sounds odd, but it means that you can take two weapons out with you on every hunt. I opted for a Charge Blade as my primary and the Bow as my secondary. While I used the Charge Blade and its monstrous attacks most of the time, a couple of the monsters really didn’t want me to be close to them, so the Bow and its new attacks allowed me to pick away at these beasts from a little bit further away. It just means you can be more flexible with less effort, which leads to far fewer hunts where you feel like your gear was the reason you got carted three times.

Then you’ve got various slinger ammo types and environmental things you can use to help you take down monsters, and either your Palico, some impressive AI hunters, or the big wide world of real people out there too. You don’t even have to track monsters down anymore, you can automate that all if you want to allow you to focus on just fighting, or just gathering the materials, all of which come pre-marked on your map. Whil there may be those who might feel as though it’s too hand-holdy, for me, at least, it just meant I could focus on fighting enormous beasts and upgrading my gear. While I did paintballing and hunting things in ye olden days, it really just meant more fluff to push through before the main reason anyone plays Monster Hunter… the monsters!

Also Prepare To Be Scared

The monster designs this time around are awe-inspiring. Let’s talk about Lala Barina as a good example, as it’s been shown off plenty in the marketing. This graceful balletic spider zips around with perfect posture before shooting spores that can paralyze you or stabbing you with a well-placed claw. The characters in the game are sort of taken with the design too, which helps make everything feel that bit more alive.

Nearly every monster I fought was a delightful horror in every possible sense, and missions hunting them all flowed together to leave the main campaign feeling like a really well-run Dungeons & Dragons campaign, because everything has actual meaning for a change. It’s not just about fighting for the sake of it, every hunt in the main story is to defend yourself, or to help you investigate what’s actually going on in this strange world.

Every hunt actually feels like a necessity, at least until the end game, where things become a little more “Classic Monster Hunter.” It means that there are a few times during the story where you’ll dispatch a hard foe, only to have something far scarier turn up to finish the first monster off, or just because it feels like you’re heart rate is too low. You could easily play through the story never having done any of the usual grinding that allows you to get better gear, just so long as you’re skilled enough. You can always stop if you want to grind, but you don’t have to if you just want the story.

One of my few gripes with the game does come up in some of these story moments though. You’ll often find yourself surveying the scenery while riding to the next location, and while it’s nice to take everything in, it does sometimes feel a bit too restrictive when all you want to do is just explore and fight. It’s a minor issue, but it can help to ruin the game’s momentum from time to time.

Monster Hunter Wilds sands off a lot of the edges from the series, and while I was concerned that this could leave the game feeling frictionless and uninspiring, the addition of a really engaging story, some of the coolest monsters I’ve seen in any game, and the new systems all combine to make it just pure fun. It’s good for newcomers because of all the helpful parts, but veterans will be overjoyed with everything that comes after the credits, not to mention the wonders of having two weapons easily accessible. Monster Hunter Wilds is probably going to be my game of the year, and I’d be shocked if that’s not the case for a lot of other people too.

Verdict: Exemplary

Monster Hunter Wilds releases for PC and consoles on Feb. 28. A review code for the game was provided by the publisher. Reviewed on PC.

Developed by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and set six months after the events of Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Pirate Yakuza shifts the focus to series mainstay Goro Majima, former Captain of the Shimano Family and rival of series protagonist Kazuma Kiryu. Goro has had plenty of significant roles in this long-running series, and although he is mainly relegated to the background in Infinite Wealth, players take control of him in Pirate Yakuza.

However, this time, instead of sharing the spotlight with Kiryu as he did in the incredibly popular Yakuza 0, Goro finds himself alone and, without his memory, washed up on an island near Hawaii. Saved by a young boy named Noah, Goro rediscovers himself by becoming a pirate while chasing after a legendary treasure, thus beginning the events of Pirate Yakuza. It’s a simple premise that soon evolves into an island-hopping swashbuckling adventure with a criminal conspiracy at the center of it all that is quite frankly hard to put down.

The game is much smaller in terms of story length and accessible content than Infinite Wealth and is more comparable to the 2023 release, Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, in both gameplay and story size. Make no mistake, though— while Pirate Yakuza is considerably smaller length-wise when compared to the other mainline entries, it is still an extensive and incredibly in-depth game that lets players live out their wildest Pirate fantasies. Essentially, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio has tastefully repurposed the assets developed for Infinite Wealth into a One Piece simulator starring Goro Majima.

Taking a break from the JRPG and turn-based combat, Pirate Yakuza goes back to the brawling beat-em-up playstyle of older entries and Man Who Erased His Name, giving Goro two different fighting styles that players can seamlessly switch back and forth during combat. The Mad Dog style is more akin to the fighting Goro did in previous Yakuza entries. In contrast, the Sea Dog style allows him to fight like he truly belongs on the high seas, complete with dual cutlasses, a musket, and a grappling hook that makes combat enthralling and might be some of the best that the series has had to offer so far.

Plenty of challenging fights, both with crowds and one-on-one fights with powerful bosses, will keep you strategizing when it would be best to switch styles. Whether it’s to use a heat gauge move to do crowd control with one style or to drain the health of a boss encounter with another style, the varying situations justify the two types of fighting. Goro’s upgrade skill tree will also give players plenty to work toward as they explore the varying locales of Pirate Yakuza, a couple of which make their return from Infinite Wealth.

Rather than coming across as lazy, RGG Studios displays a staggering amount of confidence in its engine and assets from its previous game. While there are plenty of familiar locations and mini-games, there are also new locations to explore as well. While Honolulu and Nele Island are hubs Like a Dragon fans will be familiar with, Pirate Yakuza leans much more into the first half of its name with Madlantis. In this new location, pirates gather to partake in coliseum battles, batting cages, recruitment, and many other side quests and games.

The mission objectives can sometimes feel repetitive, especially in the way of side quests. Still, the lore of Pirate Yakuza is so thoroughly developed it’s hard not to get invested in almost every character you come across, from bartenders to mascots and so many more. The lighthouse travel system makes sailing feel less tedious, and the islands and open sea areas you can explore also make the game feel a lot bigger than it actually is.

Pirate Yakuza really gets to shine in all of the new Pirate Crew mechanics and crew systems. While Goro starts as a castaway with nothing to his name, players can (relatively quickly) build a crew from the ground up as they progress through the story. Instead of managing two different parties in two distinct locations, like in Infinite Wealth, players must pick up recruits from across Nele Island, Madlantis, and Honolulu to create a formidable crew that will survive more intense seafaring battles as the story progresses.

However, it’s not as simple as just finding someone and making them part of your crew. Each character has its own backstory, motivations, and offbeat humor that further accentuates the zany tone and style that the Like a Dragon series has leaned into more and more over the years. Any prospective member has one requirement or another for them to join your crew. Whether you have to beat them in a fight, have a specific overall ranking, or contribute to their place of business, you must earn their respect as a Captain before eventually taking them onto your crew. The Yakuza series has never been more One Piece than this, and the process makes you that much more invested in future battles with them on your crew.

The Crew Formration system in Pirate Yakuza is also one of the most fun to experiment with. Every character has unique attributes depending on what position in your ship you put them in. Whether it’s the left or right cannons, the turrets, or your first mate, specific perks and buffs are activated depending on who you choose when two ships engage in battle. There are also those you have to assign as “boarding” crew members, who will join you when you take the fight to the enemy’s ship for hand-to-hand combat.

Related: Yakuza’s Meteoric Rise to Fame Is a Modern-Day Miracle

Regarding your Pirate Ship, there are plenty of customization options to expand the number of crew members and even partake in activities such as karaoke or holding a feat and celebration with your crew. Morale is essential when sailing the seas of Pirate Yakuza, and the game makes sure you stay on top of the happiness of your team. It’s a fun balancing act that makes every chance encounter with other pirates feel that much more tense. Speaking of, the naval combat in Pirate Yakuza is incredibly polished and perhaps the most fun aspect of the video game.

When in control of the Goromaru (Goro’s aptly named ship), players are given a plethora of options regarding how they want to both experience and partake in a sea battle. From being able to shift your camera’s perspective to making real-time strategic switches from controlling the ship to doing damage with ranged weapons in Goro’s hands, it all feels incredibly cinematic. Your ship feels just heavy enough to make combat feel exciting and light enough to pull off fun maneuvers to dodge cannon fire and deal out some of your own damage.

The customization options for both Goro and his ship are also plentiful, allowing you to practically design your own ship that stands out from everyone else’s in the story. It’s worth mentioning that Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii has a decently engaging narrative, albeit with a weak throughline that feels exhausting when you get to the story’s final chapter. Most of the supporting cast of Pirate Yakuza is new, with characters like Jason and his children Noah, Moana, and Naomi, and crew member Masura Fujita; this Yakuza entry is mostly detached from the previous games in the series, mainly due to Goro’s amnesia which is a core part of the story. Newcomers to the long-running series won’t be entirely lost, while veterans will recognize familiar faces as well as references to the previous game in the series.

Unfortunately, almost every single story beat is driven by Goro’s relationship with Noah, the young boy he saves his life at the beginning of the game. Goro’s affection for the child is endearing at first, until the continually increasing incredulous situations his crew finds themselves in are, in one way or another, done in service of making the kid happy. It feels repetitive, which is a little disappointing, especially because everything else surrounding it can be unexpected and exciting.

The game’s ending more than makes up for the narrative’s faults, as Pirate Yakuza ends on a strong enough note to get players excited for whatever comes next. The game’s story is only five chapters long and takes about 18 hours to complete, but they’re pretty extensive and filled with all the over-the-top cutscenes and surprisingly emotional moments that you’ve come to expect from the series at this point.

Overall, Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii reminds me of a much more scaled-down version of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. The game took the strong foundations of Infinite Wealth (and, in Tears‘ case, Breath of the Wild) and added new elements on top of it to tell a shorter pirate story starring everyone’s favorite Mad Dog of Shinoma.

Despite the story’s short length, there are plenty of side quests, customization options, and crew members to recruit and open seas to explore and discover treasure after you’ve rolled credits. Pirate Yakuza is an incredibly fun spinoff that should be checked out if you’re a fan of sea-faring adventures, strong combat mechanics, and an over-the-top story that is an absolute blast to play through.

Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii releases for PS5, PS4, PC, and Xbox on Feb. 20, 2025. A review code for the game was provided by the publisher. Reviewed on PS5.

From its gunslinging combat potential to its beautiful colorful world, Avowed captured my attention early on. I’m happy to say that on full release, Obsidian delivered, and I’ve finally fallen for a fantasy RPG in spite of some flaws.

Avowed Is Approachable Without Sacrificing Depth

For many would-be fans, the complex worlds and systems of fantasy RPGs can be a barrier to entry. Avowed is aware of this and takes some great steps to alleviate this issue. While set in the same universe as Obsidian Entertainment’s Pillars of Eternity series, I never felt lost for not playing those games prior to Avowed.

From the early minutes of Avowed, several proper nouns from the fantasy world of Eora are going to be thrown at you. While this might be overwhelming in other games, a certain massive quality-of-fife feature circumvents this problem and creates opportunities to learn the history of the world at your own pace.

Whenever a highlighted term like the name of a Faction, God, place, or more pop up in dialogue, you’re able to press a button to instantly pause the conversation and bring up “Dialogue History & Lore.” This will give some brief context to the topic. This is incredibly helpful, and I hope it inspires more games to do the same. It’s an optional feature that never gets in the way but vastly benefits anyone looking to learn more about Obsidian’s fiction.

There’s still plenty of depth to Avowed, with all sorts of additional lore for players willing to seek it out. Avowed is full of documents players can discover to learn more about the history, lore, and cultures of the Eora. I found myself captivated by these optional discoveries for most of my first play-through because I was able to ease into the world with an optional guided hand. As I progressed through Avowed, I found myself developing familiarity and intrigue with Eora, especially the cultures and religions of its various factions. If I had needed it, however, I often had the option to ask characters about the terms they speak of in dialogue, so there’s ample opportunity for a refresher beyond hitting the Dialogue History & Lore button.

Like its history and lore, the gameplay in Avowed is also approachable with plenty of room to go deeper. After a short and sweet tutorial, you have a lot of agency as to how you discover the Living Lands. Tracking the quality of weapons and armor is straightforward, and weapon upgrades are simple in the beginning.

These upgrades start off very basic. More damage, some basic new moves in combat like a parry, etc. The abilities, attributes, and perks for Unique weapons stack way more as Avowed progresses, allowing for as much complexity and specialty in character builds as the player sees fit.

A Discoverable – But Not Open – World

Despite how it may appear at first glance, Avowed is not an open-world RPG. The various regions of the Living Land are segmented apart from each other. The fast travel and loading screens separating these areas may not feel as immersive or “next-gen” as many contemporary RPGs. Even so, Avowed is actually a better game because of this structure. The smaller scale means each region of Avowed is highly detailed and dense. Some are also very unique, with different biomes and aesthetics showcasing the combination of Unreal Engine 5.3 and incredible art direction. All this made me wish I was playing on a high-end PC instead of an Xbox Series S to make the most of it, though it ran better than most games on the budget-friendly console.

Even with their differences, what each region in Avowed shares is a call to explore them. These areas are dense with POIs to discover, loot to find, and side quests to encounter. You can certainly populate your map and journal with side missions and bounties. However, setting off in any direction and walking for a short time is bound to bump you into something cool and compelling. Almost every time, doing so was worth it. Sometimes I found loot, others lore, or even killed a bounty and grabbed their trophy before I’d even gone to the bounty board, marking the map with the targets’ location.

Most regions in the Living Lands are dense with compelling content. Each time I entered a new region, I set aside the main quest to see what I could find. In Shatterscarp (pictured above), for example, I found myself able to stay busy and engaged for a few hours without progressing the main quest at all.

Slay Your Own Way

Avowed is a game about personal freedom, and this somewhat extends to combat. There are several types of weapons in Avowed, from one and two-handed melee options to firearms and spells from grimoires and wands. Experimenting with these various weapon types is an absolute blast in the early game. Getting creative with combat and discovering my own play style was one of my favorite experiences in Avowed. This is made even better by the ability to choose which weapon is in each hand, leading to some really whacky combinations that can actually be quite effective.

However, to get the most out of combat and remain effective as the game progresses, you’ll need to invest pretty heavily into a build. This becomes even more of a necessity past Normal difficulty. It takes a lot of resources to purchase or upgrade weapons and gear that will be effective in the late game. As a result, I felt stuck with one set of weapons for around half the main quest. Even still, I really enjoyed the visceral, deliberate first-person combat in Avowed.

As much as I enjoyed the combat in Avowed, though, there were times when I wished it would dial back a bit. Always having something to do means there’s never nothing to do. There were some instances when I found myself in what felt like an endless cycle of random encounters out in the Living Lands. In these rare moments, the combat began to feel like a drag as I felt forced into battles. This is especially problematic if you’re in an area with enemies you’re under-equipped to fight.

Eventually, I just learned you can run right past some of these groups of wandering enemies, but that didn’t always work. In one instance, this idea took me right into the presence of a character who most players will encounter as an early-game boss. This caused a really frustrating death and ruined the surprise of an exciting, albeit minor, story beat I should’ve encountered later. Granted, if you really need to get away, you can almost always set up a Party Camp to take a break. This is where you rest to heal, upgrade gear, and speak with your companions.

Related: Avowed PC Specs: Minimum and Recommended System Requirements

The Friends We Made Along the Way

There’s an old joke that proposes that maybe, the real treasure was the friends we made along the way. In Avowed, this is kind of the truth. You’ll be quickly introduced to Kai when you first reach Dawnshore and will encounter three more characters who join your party along the quest. While all four of these companions can be found and spoken to at your Party Camp, you can only take two of them out into the world with you at a time.

The more party members I recruited, the tougher of a choice that became. Not only does one each have their own set of helpful upgradable abilities, but each has their own distinct personality and connection to the Living Lands. I found myself growing especially fond of Kai. While he’s charming from the beginning, he has a companion quest that reveals more about the life he lived before meeting the Envoy. This adds so much depth to his character and swayed me to keep him by my side for almost the entire playthrough.

Every time I switched out members of my party, I was pleasantly surprised by how well they fit into the story my decisions were shaping in Avowed. No matter who I brought with me, it felt like they were meant to be there. Each companion adds something different to every moment. I often found myself asking for their advice when it came time to make tough decisions in the branching story. I do wish, however, that these companions had more varied lines to respond to combat. Some of their quips grew tiresome the more I heard them.

Thankfully, companions bring much more to Avowed than different dialogue. Each one has a set of upgradable skills and serves a different role in combat. I was pleasantly surprised by just how capable most are in a fight. I found myself reacting to them and fighting alongside them, not just commanding them.

These companions are one of the major highlights of Avowed’s journey. Giatta and Yatzli’s magic, for example, is extremely helpful in combat. These powers also add some colorful visual flare to fights. In combat, I found myself relying on Kai as much as I sought his guidance in major story choices. However, only a few days after rolling credits, I had to remind myself of Marius’ name. His gruff personality is fun in the early game, and he has a great dynamic with Kai in the opening hours. However, I found Marius’ abilities to be quite underpowered compared to the other three for my play style. As a result, I rarely took him with me into combat and found it hard to attach to the character by the end of the Main Quest.

The Journey, Not the Destination

Ultimately, the main quest in Avowed ends up being its weakest point. You play as the Envoy, a close ally of the emperor in Aedyr. The Envoy heads to the Living Lands to investigate a mysterious plague known as the Dreamscurge, which is corrupting souls and minds across the area. Those suffering from the Dreamscurge speak in riddles and are hyper-aggressive. Folks infected with Dreamscurge also have vibrant floral growths on them. These resemble the Godlike features of the Envoy.

It’s a really fascinating premise. There’s a sense of urgency and mystery to it all, and interesting themes to boot. The Envoy represents an empire that has imposed itself upon the Living Lands, but it’s up to you how loyal they stay to Aedyr. There’s also a mysterious voice in the Envoy’s head of union origin. However, as these plots develop, they sometimes unravel.

Firstly, the voice in the Envoy’s head just grows grating after a while. It just about only speaks in riddles, making for a hard time developing any sort of relationship with the Envoy and player. The voice itself also has this really theatrical, overdramatic quality to it that gets excessive at times. Some subtlety in the performance would have been much appreciated, especially since they remain a presence throughout the majority of the main quest.

The story itself starts solid but ultimately comes a little short by the finale. No spoilers here, but it almost feels like there are too many branching narratives to guarantee any combination results in a satisfying conclusion. While some of the endings may end up feeling more powerful than others, the conclusion of my first journey felt underwhelming. Still, the taste left in my mouth at the finale was nowhere near sour enough to stop me from diving right back into Avowed for a second play-through.

While Avowed doesn’t finish nearly as strong as it starts, the game’s reasonable runtime is still worthwhile. The fantasy world of Eora is fascinating. Exploring it is deeply rewarding. The companions give the journey lots of heart. The story, even for its faults, still tells a cohesive story supported by some visuals and performances. If you can get through a few narrative lowlights and the typical RPG bugs and jank, Avowed houses an approachable but wonderful fantasy RPG worth completing and repeating.

Verdict: Recommended

Avowed is available on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox Game Pass from February 18th. A review code for the game was provided by the publisher. Reviewed on Xbox Series S.

Directed and written for the screen by Perkins and adapted from the short story of the same name by Stephen King, The Monkey follows twin brothers Hal and Bill Shelburn and their lifelong conflict with a toy monkey. With its drumsticks and snare, the monkey brings nothing but death and suffering to those surrounding Hal and Bill. An unintentional burden left behind by their father, who disappeared, Hal and Bill soon learn of how the monkey works and eventually find a way to dispose of it and move on with their lives.

That is until the monkey returns 25 years later.

Now adults living separate and estranged lives, the two brothers deal with their traumatic losses in entirely different ways. With the return of the monkey, Osgood Perkins takes his script and an astounding level of gory detail in the production design to tell a fascinating story about how death is a part of everyone’s lives, yet we can’t let fear of it dismantle our relationships with those closest to us.

The best part about the film is that it conveys these existential and intense themes with incredibly over-the-top and surprisingly comedic violence. Every death on screen is as gory, senseless, and absurd as it can be. Humans pop like balloons in The Monkey, and we, as viewers, bear witness to every bloody detail. With Perkins’ clever comedic sensibilities and Theo James’ pitch-perfect timing, the result is a film that is as horrifying and unsettling as it is hilarious. Hal, Bill, and Hal’s distant son Petey (Colin O’Brien) are the story’s main focus and help drive the narrative that signifies generational trauma and how parents can pass on their own grief and loss to their children.

While some may think such crass humor and graphic imagery might undermine the commentary of grief and loss, it’s actually quite the contrary. In between all the darker and funny moments is a heartfelt story, and it’s all thanks to Perkins’ expert balance of horror and comedy. The writer/director carefully builds tension with every scene involving the monkey, and its distinct design only helps to elevate the unease. At the same time, some unexpected actors (with Elijah Wood, Tatiana Maslany, and Adam Scott joining the film in more minor roles) play up the stark reality that the monkey is dangerous, contrary to the creature’s playful and silly design.

Every death in the movie is intricately designed, giving the Final Destination series a run for its money with its elaborate sequence of events. The film also has some impressive editing and transitions courtesy of Greg Ng and Graham Fortin, who know how to make viewers anxious about which victim the monkey will claim next and how exactly they’ll end up going down in the worst way possible. It’s a fascinating way to convey how the concept of death and its inevitability can seem to some people while also reinforcing the randomness and pointlessness of it all.

As both Hal and Bill, James works double duty, playing twins who couldn’t be further apart in ideals and responses to their trauma as children witnessing grotesque deaths. James’s subtle yet effective work includes the deadpan delivery in lines of one twin compared to the manic and rushed dialect of another, as his characters help to ground the film in a fascinating relationship that keeps things interesting.

Related: 15 Best Classic Horror Movies on Streaming

With a brisk runtime of 98 minutes, The Monkey is well-paced and flies by. Because of how quickly the movie progresses, it’s easy to see story beats and plot points that seem like discrepancies. However, they’re actually in better service to the greater themes of the story. Unlike other horror films dealing with similar tropes, The Monkey has no firm set of rules. There’s no real way to tell how it works, who it chooses to kill, and how they die. The senselessness of it all evokes plenty of genuine feelings and worries that come with death in real life, and therein lies the genius of Perkins’ movie.

Nico Aguilar’s cinematography helps capture the striking imagery of the insane havoc that the toy monkey wreaks and sometimes surprises with kaleidoscopic images that further accentuate the exploitative ’70s film aesthetic that The Monkey is aiming for. Unlike the director’s previous work, Longlegs, which was self-serious and nihilistic while hiding the darkness of the characters, The Monkey chooses to put the world and all its horrors on display to the most extreme level possible and show its characters persevering through it all.

With The Monkey, it almost feels like Perkins has created a therapeutic (and gruesome) blend of horror and comedy to give audiences another option of what to do in the face of such dire times: have a good laugh. There are some things that will always be out of our control, and it’s up to us to decide how to move forward. Given that the director’s mother died as a result of the September 11th terrorist attacks, it’s not hard to see what real-life tragedies and unexplainable horrors impacted the making of this film, making it feel even more poignant. The Monkey is a masterfully crafted film by a top-tier horror director who draws on real-life tragedies and loss to inspire others with grief and anxiety to deal with their troubles with a smile. Everybody dies. And that’s life.

The Monkey hits theaters on February 21, 2025.