Early on you could quickly come to the conclusion that LBW expands and enhances the original vision for LTTP and therefore is the better of the two; movement and combat feel slicker due to the freedom of movement and the game's targeted 60 FPS, the musical score truly comes alive with the instrumentation, and the game’s core mechanic - the ability to merge with the wall - creates an entirely new way to look at the world and how you can traverse across it.

However, as the game switches to the next phase after collecting the 3 pendants, it becomes clear that the two most significant shifts the game makes - the ability to tackle dungeons in any order, and the ability to rent the key items needed to transverse the world and defeat dungeons - creates a number of massive shifts to how the game flows and a difficulty curve that somehow feels like it stagnates but also shifts with a wild imbalance.

Dungeons take the biggest hit, as puzzles feel dialled down in their complexity due to a number of revisions made including the map showing you the layout on your bottom 3DS screen, and the compass showing you where everything is to collect. You’re not figuring out the mystery of these dungeons, and the removal of the key items to collect from dungeons means the wonder of a Link’s Awakening - where in collecting the item mid-dungeon would recontextualize the dungeon, is lost. The rental system is a great idea, I just think specific items should have been unlocked from with dungeons first.

Bosses are for the most part a pushover, but the spectacle of the Desert Palace boss and the clever use of the merge ability for the Dark Palace fight are highlights.

Link Between Worlds is still excellent, but a lot of that is because of how closely it follows in the footsteps of one of the greatest games of all time.

Like, it's fucking mad this exists.

My enjoyment simply came down to whether I had people in the room to play against: when I did, it's probably the best thing I'll play this year; in any other setting? It's an exceptional sports arcade title that just lacks enough in its single-player campaign (and I have no time for online play - call me a coward idgaf).

The best thing about WJ2 is how it doesn't fuck around with the formula - if you spent any time with OG WJ you know what you're getting, just with a cleaner presentation, new characters and arenas.

With all this said, I only want to play it when I’ve got an opponent in the room with me - which isn’t all that often.

Even the bullshit anime nonsense could not ruin one of the most addictive and satisfying games of the year. High octane speedrunning/platforming mixed in with the clever use of single-use abilities almost turns Neon White into a puzzle-platformer on fast-forward.

The way levels can be recontextualised depending on your objective (faster time or medals) means levels are approached and navigated in different ways, offering a ton of replay value. And the way the game builds on the card mechanic and expands to the point your rocket jump/ziplining across giant maps is simply exceptional stuff.

Added points for a sublime drum n' bass soundtrack.

Added added points for Steve Blum.

It's not a full-price title, but even at 40 quid, it's still bold of Nintendo to shift this at launch with a lack of content. What is here is solid - with the Chambara and Rocket League-inspired Football being solid inclusions - and there's obviously more to come with Golf in the fall and whatever else after. There's simply no reason this shouldn't have been cheaper or even bundled with the Switch with modes being bundled as different packages to purchase.

So yeah... it's not quite the zeitgeist the original Wii Sports was but it's still decent enough that you'll enjoy what's here (as long as you've got friends to play with).

A nasty, visceral, violent lo-fi experience that is the closest we've gotten to grindcore in video game format.

Three cheers for Chad Shakespeare.

Also, the soundtrack absolutely fucks.

Card Shark is easily a standout title this year.

The gameplay loop is based on learning how to cheat at cards in a controlled environment (which is needed for some of the later tricks) before moving to an environment where you need to put your skills to the test to progress the story. Conveniently enough, the favourite pastime of France in the 1700s is a good ol’ game of cards, so even with the increasingly escalating stakes, it always comes back to cards.

The mechanics are a combination of shuffling through cards and QTEs. While this seems basic, the elements of these tricks evolve over time to the point you’re picking specific cards out of the deck and having to place them in exact spots (I could never wrap my head around the transparent stack!), and the QTE inputs are similar enough each time that you never feel ambushed by them. On top of this, your opponents are slowly growing suspicious of your actions during the course of the game, represented by a bar at the bottom. If you take too long and the bar reaches the end, you’ll find yourself in the slammer for the night, reflecting on where it all went wrong.

The most surprising element of Card Shark is the twists and turns the story takes throughout its roughly 8-hour campaign that kept me engaged from the start and eagerly had me wanting to figure out an incredibly complex trick just so I could progress to the next story beat. The game has a tremendous sense of humour about it, with a collection of outlandish characters - Death even shows up if you end up dead, giving you a chance to return to the living through - you guessed: a game of cards (spoiler: he’s not very good cards).

There’s no doubt the element of frustration exists within Card Shark: the tutorials are not the most engaging and are not always well explained; the games/levels can be quite slow-paced, meaning failing and redoing them can turn into a chore, though the developer, Nerial does shift the dialogue to reflect you showing up for the same card game considering you were arrested for cheating previously.

With this said, when you do pull off a complex trick and swindle your opponent out of their money, oh mon Dieu does it feel satisfying. Card Shark is a game that excels in spite of its flaws and is an essential title to play for its originality in 2022.

Poinpy has a simple gameplay hook, and like Downwell, Ojiro Fumoto understands how to utilise that hook to its fullest.

The mobile gaming space has mutated over the years into a F2P hellscape, so it's refreshing that Poinpy harkens back to the early days with its mechanics.

I don't think it quite has the replayability of Downwell, which I would come back to on/off over a couple of years, but for a quick little dopamine blast (and if you have a Netflix sub) Poinpy is an easy recommendation.

Yup, it sure is a Kojima game. There are few games I can think of in dire need of a remake/remaster for single every aspect of it. From its lack of availability in the west, the clunky navigation of the menus, and some incredibly poor writing from the getgo - it's a game with a lot of issues.

With all that said, there just isn't another game like Snatcher; it VIBES, y'kno? The title/credits sequence alone just sets a tone like few others, and this is a game from 1994. We talk about how Kojima brought a cinematic quality to video games with MGS, but he was already establishing this several years earlier here.