Static Spotlight
The Best Game I Played this Month
The Last of Us Part I
Release Date: September 2, 2022 Genre: Action, Adventure Platform: PC, PS
A game worth remaking to this degree for sure. I could never really bring myself to finish the original for some reason, but the super improved graphics really brought the story, writing, and performances to another level.
Combat-wise, I think Part 2 blows this game out of the water, but I did constantly find myself more impressed by the encounters here. The tankier infected combined with the more hectic feeling encounters makes this game succeed in feeling more of a survival game compared to its sequel for sure.
The Left Behind DLC didn’t really blow me away with its puzzles and mechanics, but the story was worth seeing unfold and it was cool to experience combat encounters that let you pit human enemies against infected to create very cool sequences.
I wish the story here lasted a bit longer to get us closer to how long it took to complete Part 2 but what’s here is a very refined and streamlined experience that does a great job building up a relationship between two main characters into something special.
9: AMAZING
Completed
Dragon Ruins
Release Date: April 30, 2024 Genre: Dungeon Crawler, RPG Platform: PC
Basically the closest thing you can get to a dungeon crawler idle game.
A much simpler experience than I expected going off of the Store page images alone. Your party auto battles everything themselves, so they really don’t have any specialties aside from their base stats . The only time you’ll really be strategizing is when you choose to stock up on potions and teleporters to maximize your runs. Even if you completely ignore those mechanics, you’ll eventually just level up your characters high enough to steam roll every enemy in the game.
While the gameplay is very straight forward, I absolutely loved the look and sound of this game. Makes me happy that I can dive right into the sequel to see how they’ve built off of this really nice framework.
7: GOOD
Gori: Cuddly Carnage
Release Date: August 2, 2024 Genre: Action / Adventure Platforms: PC, PS, Xbox, Switch
If you can look past the janky combat and ugly presentation, Gori is a surprisingly fun time that has a handful of very competent gameplay elements.
Combat here was largely pretty fun. Aside from mowing down the standard enemies you can take out in one hit, it was fun whittling down the beefier boys and finishing them off with flashy super move. I was a big fan of the gun you pick up pretty early into the game which gives the combat loop some nice variety once you have ranged options to take out foes.
As the game introduces more and more enemy variety, the more hectic combat encounters become and that’s where the game really starts to show its rough edges. There will constantly be enemies outside of your field of view and when some of them just explode as soon as you come in contact with them, it can lead to some frustrating encounters that zap your health.
Each level contains 3 hidden keys you can grab to unlock doors back on your ship, and I love that each of them triggers a “hey kitty kitty kitty” voice cue whenever you’re close to them to help with finding them. It’s a good thing they have this too, because missing one part of a key means that you need to replay through the entire level over again until you can figure out where it is.
The story here was surprisingly solid throughout and it ended up being a big part of why I wanted to see this one all the way through the finish line. While the lead up to the finale was good, the final confrontation, boss fight, and concluding cinematic felt pretty underwhelming. The set up that got us there had me thinking the the end would be a bit more conclusive, but they spent most of their effort setting up for a sequel that might never actually come to fruition.
The post game here seemed promising at first, but all of the challenges that are unlocked after you roll credits are just segments copy and pasted straight from the main levels with either a high score requirement or time limit. Getting gold in all of these was also super easy as all of the goals were set way to low to issue any sort of real challenge. Would have been cool to see them have some more interesting objectives set up here that took advantage of the game’s core strengths, but it is what it is. Once you unlock the final door, it’s basically just a continuation of the sequel tease you see at the end of the base game and then credits again.
Aside from that, I guess I could play through every level again on higher difficulties to grab all of the gold stars, but outside of getting the Steam achievement I doubt there’s any other worth while award.
Bounced between whether I wanted to give this game a 6 or a 7 and I ended up going with the later because of the unique combat system in play and the fact that movement between areas was often more fun than not.
6: FINE
Xenosensory
Release Date: December 31, 2025 Genre: Simulator, Strategy Platforms: PC
A fun premise, unique gameplay, cool meta unlockables and an interesting narrative wrapped up in a $3 experience that you can 100% complete in about 2 hours.
While gameplay loops get a bit mindless as you unlock more and more upgrades, runs stay fresh by the introduction of new enemy variants and level gimmicks. There’s also a good amount of equipable action skills and gadgets you can mess around with to maximize runs and go for high scores on the leaderboard if you’re looking for a bit more longevity. The built in randomizer and challenge modes are also there for people who want to squeeze everything they can out of it.
Xenosensory is a top tier incremental clicker that cements caiys as a solo developer worth watching.
7: GOOD
Gatekeeper
Release Date: August 1, 2025 Genre: Action, Adventure, Roguelike Platforms: PC
A fun time if you’re in the mood for jumping into an isometric Risk of Rain 2-like, but I wouldn’t go in expecting a never before seen experience especially if you’re a veteran to this genre.
The base combat feels good and I was surprised by how clean the overall UI was. Typically the menu designs are thrown to the wayside in indie roguelikes like this, leading to ugly screens full of numbers and percentages that are hard to parse but they did a good job here. It was a bit disappointing to see that each biome had the same boss every time, but what’s there is pretty solid.
The tutorialization here was pretty barebones, but that did make it pretty fun to piece together how mechanics worked on my own as I went through runs. Still not super clear on some of the end game triggers around where you choose to fight the final boss, start another loop, or end your run altogether, but I’m sure a quick look at a guide would clear up that murkiness in no time.
I had a good time with Gatekeeper, but most likely won’t put more time into unlocking the rest of the playable cast. The Gatekeeps themselves, while there was a nice variety, just came off as reskins of Risk of Rain 2 characters and the items you pick up in every run just seemed like things I had seen many times over in other roguelike shooters. Nothing really stood out as particularly new or unique, so it will probably be pretty hard to recollect my time with this one a few months after putting it down.
7: GOOD
Interior Worlds
Release Date: April 7, 2023 Genre: Adventure, Photography Platforms: PC
A liminal photography game made worthwhile by some awesome locations and gameplay just engaging enough to string you along for a memorable ride.
The environments feels hostile, but nothing will ever jump out and attack you which I appreciated. The spooks are very tame for the most part, aside from one or two jump scares that felt a little cheap. Shoutout especially to the airport, theater, school, and mall that were brilliantly crafted and felt like they had been plucked straight out another time and place.
I liked going out of my way to find every alien, video tape, secret code, and film filter I could, but that drive wasn’t strong enough to go back through each level a second time to pick up what I had missed and 100% the game. Unlocking the museum and shooting gallery along with the secret ending was tempting, but I felt like going out on a high when I rolled credits and didn’t want to bog down my experience by going through a guide to painstakingly cross everything off of a list just to say that I did it.
A very cool game and easy recommend to anyone who’s a fan of photography games or exploring trippy lo-fi areas.
7: GOOD
Quarantine Zone: The Last Check
Check Out the Full Review!
Fish to Dish: Idle Sushi
Release Date: June 16, 2025 Genre: Idle, Clicker Platforms: PC
A simple idle game that I would consider way too simple if it wasn’t something that I could just station at the bottom of my monitor while I went about my day.
The moment to moment gameplay is pretty boring and all of the upgrades are pretty lackluster, but I would be lying if I said that it didn’t feel super satisfying to pick up a ton of fish at once after leaving the game idle for a few hours. Despite the pretty tame gameplay, I was pretty invested up until I unlocked the final fishing spot and then everything plateaued pretty heavily. Ended up seeing it through to compete the fish encyclopedia, but didn’t really want to put in 100 more hours to grab every achievement they shoved into this one.
6: FINE
Shelldiver
Release Date: November 16, 2025 Genre: Incremental, Action Platforms: PC
I neat little incremental game with a fun gameplay loop that only gets better as you unlock new upgrades, zones, and buildings. Has a very satisfying victory lap if you decide to push it all the way to credits, which you can do in a single afternoon.
7: GOOD
MIO: Memories in Orbit
Release Date: January 20, 2026 Genre: Metroidvania Platforms: PC, PS, Xbox, Switch
When I started Mio I was really jonesing for a good Metroidvania to sink my teeth into. Sadly, what I got was a frustrating experience that only had occasional glimpses of a worthwhile experience.
From the start, the onboarding was pretty rough. You have zero defensive options (no dash or guard), very low health, and very few checkpoints. There’s just not a whole lot of fun to be had in the first 30 to 60 minutes of this game. And when you finally do start to get your abilities, the moments feel so subdued which I always felt pretty bummed by. I feel like a gameplay defying addition to my kit should be the reward for a difficult boss fight, but instead I’m just finding it at the end of a random hallway it always feels really deflating. Also, they really don’t try to give any explanation as to why the guy that’s giving you all of these upgrades can’t just set you up with everything that you need immediately. Just a small gripe that I found weird.
There were just a few too many things here that didn’t quite hit for me here. I really wanted to like the soundtrack, but I felt that the choir featured in a lot of the songs just kind of got annoying after awhile. I really wanted to get into the narrative, but it just wasn’t clicking for me. There may be a good story to piece together out of all the logs you pick up, but I couldn’t really find anything super compelling. One of the biggest revelations of seeing that the map infinitely loops really should have blown my mind, but it really didn’t add anything substantial or interesting to the gameplay. If anything it just kind of made reading the map kind of a headache. Just a lot of middling bits here that add up to a middling sum.
On the other hand, I think that there were some neat things the devs implemented to really give this game its own identity. I was a big fan of the aesthetic
switch up they did whenever you entered a tutorial for a newly found ability. I also thought they used their VO really effectively to help emphasize big story beats. While the shuttles were the slowest, crappiest means of travel and I hated it every time I had to use them, the elevators on the other went faster than the speed of light which I really appreciated.
I think one of the core issues with this game for me was that backtracking to re-explore areas with new abilities simply wasn’t very fun. There aren’t enough shortcuts available to circumvent complicated platforming puzzles you’ve done a dozen times and there aren’t enough fast travel points to efficiently get to areas that you want to beeline back to. I did really like how they they showed partially explored areas with the blinking dotted lines on the map, but that didn’t really help address my biggest problems with the exploration.
The Nacre Droplets system is one of the worst attempts at currency management that I’ve ever seen in a metroidvania / souls like. The fact that you can find stations to convert your droplets into permanent currency helps alleviate this a bit, but they’re just non existent in the later levels of the game for some reason. And the fact that there’s no way to recover them after you die just feels like a slap in the face on top of it all . The whole thing feels super unnecessary, tacked on, and not thought out at all.
I think this game really peaked at about the halfway point. The upgrades were starting to get really unique and the bosses were getting way more interesting. I was really hoping that it would keep this momentum to the end, but it kind of just felt like it was treading water for awhile after that. Platforming started to feel a bit exhausting and bosses were getting fewer and farther between.
I wanted to keep playing after I rolled credits to see the optional bosses I had missed my first time through, but the more I played the more frustrated I got as I backtracked through the same areas again and again looking for ways forward. I just wasn’t having any fun at this point so I just decided to call it quits on Mio for good.
6:FINE
Flick Shot Rogues
Check Out the Full Review!
Dropped
Frogmonster
Release Date: April 2, 2024 Genre: Soulslike, FPS Platforms: PC
Fine for what it is, but just feels a bit too amateurish in a lot of places to make this recommendable.
The later bosses I ran ran into here were the biggest deterrent for me not wanted to continue my playthrough. While some bosses had pretty interesting patterns to learn, I just felt like the battles lasted for far too long to keep things fun and interesting. Once you get a feel for the boss’s loop, it’s just a matter of doing the same things over and over again until you whittle down its health bar to zero.
The level design here was pretty bizarre. Levels were very linear, but it was also very easy to get turned around. The biomes themselves have a nice level of variety between them, but when you’re in those individual areas everything looks basically the same the whole way through. It really didn’t help that the voxel art style makes level readability pretty brutal at points. I constantly found myself running through the same areas just praying that I wasn’t backtracking through something that I had already done. It becomes ever more difficult once you clear the arena combat encounters and bosses that serve as good markers as you’re traversing through areas for the first time. There does seem to be a metroidvania element in play here as I encountered doors I definitely couldn’t open at the time, and just thinking of backtracking through these areas again gives me a big headache. Would have helped if the map was actually useful instead of just showing how the different biomes connect to each other.
The music here ranged from mediocre to straight up grating, which is surprising because the last main patch was soley focused a revamping all of the tracks in the game to be a bit more palpable. It’s cool to see that the community stepped in to help with this effort, but I found myself dreading having to explore the starting forest area because of the super monotonous tune that plagues it.
I really wanted to see this one through to the end even if I wasn’t having the greatest time, so I bumped the difficulty down to easy mode but I couldn’t really feel a significant difference. I seemed to be dealing the same damage while enemies were hitting me for roughly the same amount. Seemed the same for bosses which was the real stopping point for me, though the dev clearly makes the note that bosses get easier to face after losing to the same one three times. I just got to a point were I didn’t want to bash my head against these spongier foes for the chance of a payoff that didn’t seem like it was coming any time soon.
Sifu
Release Date: March 28, 2023 Genre: Action, Rougelike Platforms: PC, PS, Xbox, Switch
Good game, but I’m bad at it.
Dead Space (2023)
Release Date: January 27, 2023 Genre: Survival Horror Platforms: PC, PS, Xbox
Kept starting new save files over and over again after I would play a few chapters and then drop it for one reason or another. I wanted this to be an experience on par with the Silent Hill 2 remake or Resident Evil 4 remake, but there’s just something about it that’s holding it back for me. Maybe it’s the unconventional weapons and general playstyle that don’t gel as much for me or maybe it’s the fact that the enemy encounters don’t feel as well directed, but I’m officially calling it quits after this most recent attempt.
Billie’s Wheelie
Release Date: October 24, 2025 Genre: Racing, Platformer Platforms: PC
Real bad. Feels like a student project you’d put together for homework, not a game that you charge people $5 for on Steam. Grating music, terrible controls, lazy level design, etc. Don’t make people play this with you if you consider them friends because they might not be by the time you close out of it.
Brews & Bastards
Release Date: September 22, 2025 Genre: Dungeon Crawler, Rougelike Platforms: PC, Xbox
It’s going to be a no from me, dawg. Brews & Bastards feels like an unpolished an underbaked attempt at a party roguelike. Cooldowns are way too long, base abilities are very unoriginal, there are tons of bugs, the looping music track sucks, and above all else it’s just kind of boring.
At a time where first party Xbox titles are either missing the mark, getting delayed into oblivion, or getting outright cancelled, it would be nice to see some quality assurance for Game Pass at the very least. But when you see games like this, Bratz, My Little Pony, and Quarantine Zone: The Last Check topping the newly released list, it’s evident that they’re more concerned about quantity over quality when it comes to this service.
Arknights: Endfield
Release Date: January 22, 2026 Genre: Gacha, Action, Base Building Platforms: PC, PS, Mobile
Zenless Zone Zero has been the only gacha game to really dig its hooks into me, and it boils down to having 2 major features: super quick, flashy, and simple combat mixed with very casual dailies that I can knock out in 5 minutes. While Arknights: Endfield seemingly has a lot going for it, I feel like it’s basically the antithesis of ZZZ’s overall structure.
Right off the bat, the game looks great and is optimized so well. The writing though … not so much. On top of the typical anime tropes you get out of these games, it also felt like I was dropped into the continuation of a story rather than the start of one, which was pretty off-putting.
Combat feels fine, but very on par with other games in the genre, especially ones that are built from the ground up to be as accessible as possible on mobile devices. Not a huge fan of the party or chain systems that they introduced in the tutorials. I really liked some of the enemy designs that they showed off, but their move sets were pretty lackluster and repetitive.
The element that really turned me off from putting more time into it was the base building. It immediately made me think of those predatory mobile games that have been around forever and the amount of money / time required to keep things up and running. That system in the hands of a gacha game just feels like a recipe for disaster when it comes to squeezing as much money as possible form the player.
Glad a gave this one a shot, but won’t be putting any more time into it.
Drop Duchy: Complete Edition
Release Date: May 5, 2025 Genre: Puzzle, Strategy, Rougelike Platforms: PC
A very interesting and intricate puzzle roguelike that’s just a little too involved for me to keep wanting to come back to it.
Overall I just feel like this game demands a lot from the player. You’re constantly picking up new cards for your deck and trying to juggle all of the different effects to find some sort of synergy that’s good enough to build up your army while also collecting resources to use between rounds to heal yourself, upgrade cards, etc. Sometimes you’ll run into areas that work completely against your build though, so you’ll have to swap around your active cards to take advantage of the available resources and try to survive. And then once your done with that round, you’ll have to manually go back into your deck and reselect your strongest cards for the following rounds until you run up against another wall. All of that bridled with run times that go on forever just makes this a game that’s not super digestible, especially when I typically just want to put on a podcast or a video and just kind of chill out when I’m playing these kinds of games.
Outside of all the prep, I do think the moment to moment gameplay once you actually start a round is great. Not only do you have to try to place all of your pieces to clear lines and get bonus resources, but you also need to juggle placing enemy military bases in disadvantageous places while placing your military pieces in advantageous places. I was also a big fan of the actual battle phases that play out once you’ve filled out your board. You can have less troops than the enemy on the board, but if you’re able to take advantage of type weaknesses and combinations, you can skirt through an encounter without taking any damage. It was always super satisfying whenever that happened.
Not a bad game by any means, just something that I can’t see myself dedicating any more time to.
Cairn
Release Date: January 2, 2026 Genre: Simulation, Adventure Platforms: PC, PS
Despite not loving the demo, the critical reception bridled with the fact that January was very light for new game releases convinced me to pick this up and give it ago.
I find the climbing mechanics really frustrating, the main character very annoying, and the overall gameplay loop very dry and unrewarding.
On top of everything else, it runs pretty poorly on PS5 at launch. I noticed major screen tearing as soon as I made it over the first major wall and the settings are extremely barebones so there’s really nothing that can be done to fix the issues until they put out a patch.
Don’t really get the appeal of this one and I won’t be sinking any more time into it.
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