The creature-collector genre is dominated by Pokemon and filled out from there with many games heavily inspired by it. Through a certain lens, Flock is a creature collector, too, but if you go into it looking for a game very much like Pokemon, you won't find it. The task of filling out your Pokedex-like Field Guide by discovering a world of (mostly) fantastical creatures, each with their own physical and behavioral traits, is very much like the genre's titan, but beyond that, Flock is much more lax, not to mention charming and delicate. It's better described as a creature observer, and that novel approach winds up being very enjoyable.

Flock takes place in a gorgeously colorful wilderness called The Uplands. As the customizable player character and bird-rider, you and an optional co-op partner head into a small camp where your aunt and some pals need your help cataloging the many critters roaming the land. The entire game takes place on the back of your feathered friend, and the game's way of automatically adjusting your flight path vertically, while you do so horizontally, makes it all very easy to control. It feels light and fun in your hands, like going down a slide at the playground.

This child-like spirit is present throughout the game, from its candy-colored trees and plains to its small cast of characters who speak mostly in terms players of all ages can understand, but who occasionally pack a hint of something more grown-up in their musings. I found it similar to how characters on many Cartoon Network shows speak. It isn't trying to be subversive, like a Dreamworks movie sneaking in an adult joke; rather, it treats its audience with some maturity, expressed in the words characters choose. It's immediately inviting, and the game's soft music makes for a perpetually calming soundtrack that keep game feeling meditative and decompressing.

Zenless Zone Zero (ZZZ) is HoYoverse's third game launch in four years. You'd think that HoYo's formula would get stale with yet another free-to-play gacha RPG dropping just 15 months after the release of Honkai: Star Rail, but that couldn't be further from the truth. The developer has managed to create another familiar but distinct gameplay experience by once again learning from past missteps to deliver a game that is both iterative and innovative at the same time. The downside here, however, is that ZZZ puts several new and interesting elements together but forces you to spend the most time with the least interesting of the bunch.

Zenless Zone Zero has more style and aesthetic excellence than both Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, all in a much smaller package in terms of world size and scale of locations. At this point, Genshin Impact's open-world has become almost too large and sprawling to facilitate a comfortable or compact mobile gaming experience, meaning it's best experienced on PC or console. Meanwhile, Star Rail is the exact opposite because its turn-based combat and auto-battle features are a perfect fit for mobile devices. Zenless Zone Zero sits squarely in the middle of those two experiences by combining roguelike puzzle dungeons, fast-paced action combat, and chill life-sim activities into one varied gameplay loop.

The story also deviates from what we've come to expect from HoYoverse. The world-building is still strong, but it's scaled back considerably. Instead of high-stakes conflicts with gods and higher powers, so far, Zenless Zone Zero has you follow the daily lives of two tech-genius siblings--Wise and Belle--as they find ways to make money legally and illegally. You get to pick which sibling you play as, but no matter who you go with, both remain in the story as characters who get regular dialogue. The main difference is that you choose what your protagonist says and control them while exploring the city of New Eridu.

As the Switch moves into the twilight years of an especially lengthy lifespan, Nintendo has increasingly turned toward remasters of its back catalog to fill out the release calendar. This is the context for Luigi's Mansion 2 HD, a remastered version of a relatively recent 2013 release on 3DS. The sequel is a game that served as a sharpened, refined take on the ideas presented by the first Luigi's Mansion--and laid the groundwork for the even better Luigi's Mansion 3--so having access to that piece of the series' history untethered from the 3DS makes it feel that much more valuable. While the recency makes it feel less essential than some remasters of older classics like Metroid Prime or Super Mario RPG, it's still just as fun to solve puzzles, schlurp ghosts into your jerry-rigged vacuum cleaner, and enjoy some gentle scares along the way.

The original Luigi's Mansion was a cute diversion-verging-on-tech-demo that helped cement Luigi's personality as Mario's skittish and reluctantly heroic brother. Drafted against his will to catch a bunch of ghosts, it was a kid-friendly take on Resident Evil by way of Ghostbusters--even down to the tank controls, puzzles, and interconnected mansion setting. Luigi's Mansion 2, by comparison, swaps out the single environment for a series of different buildings that all reside in one extremely haunted neighborhood called Evershade Valley. That gives the game a more disconnected, mission-based feeling than both its earlier and later entries, in exchange for environments that present very differently from each other and allow for the feeling of themed haunted houses: an ancient tomb, a creaky old snow lodge, and so on.

The mission structure focused on single goals that take around 15-20 minutes to complete seems primed for portable play on 3DS--the game's original platform--and that gives Luigi's Mansion 2 a particular rhythm. It's easy to pick up and digest a stage or two at a time but harder to get lost in for long stretches of time without feeling like you're going through the same steps over and over. A typical mission has you exploring a particular section of the building you're investigating, usually needing to locate some MacGuffin to unlock a section, sucking up a few scattered ghosts, and taking part in at least one arena-style fight against several ghosts. Rinse, repeat.

Still in early access, Evil Empire's The Rogue Prince of Persia is already an entertaining 2D roguelike, building a world composed of vibrant colors and dozens of monstrous soldiers that are ever-so-delightful to slice and crush over and over. For now, the game falters when it comes to delivering a compelling story, but its use of narrative breadcrumbs to lead the player through its assortment of levels helps to maintain an incentive to push forward when its challenging combat presents a roadblock that takes a handful of attempts to overcome. It's still too early to say anything definitive about the full game, but what's here is more than a sound bedrock--this is a great spiritual successor to Dead Cells that builds on an already engaging combat loop with smooth parkour and movement mechanics.

In The Rogue Prince of Persia, you play as the eldest of two princes, who has found himself stuck in a time loop. The Huns have invaded the prince's home city, utilizing a strange dark magic that has overwhelmed Persia's forces. Possessing a medallion that revives him in an oasis encampment just outside the city three days into the invasion every time he dies, the prince has to repeatedly fight his way through the Huns to reach their leader and kill him. While working his way through the various levels of the game, the prince will also run across allies and members of his family--some captured, others still fighting the Huns--whom he can aid by utilizing knowledge gleaned from multiple loops.

The prince's investigations play out as a mind board with pictures of characters and notes that are connected with lines, hinting at what you might have to do next to proceed in the game. A note discovered in the Huns' camp reveals that an important individual has been captured by the game's first boss, for example, encouraging you to reach said boss to question them as to their identity. Some of these investigations require you to travel to specific areas in a certain order over the course of a single run--I once had to talk to someone in one of the two starting areas to grab a specific item, travel to another area to use said item, and then go onto a third location to see how the used item had affected the environment. Dying amid a run would reset the process, as the nature of the time loop would mean that I never spoke to the person in the first area in the first place.

Though The Chinese Room has previously worked in the horror genre, I don't think of the team as primarily a horror-centric development studio. Rather, I've long felt its name is synonymous with sadness. The throughline spanning games like Dear Esther, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, and even Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is a feeling of melancholy, longing, or even tragedy. Still Wakes The Deep continues this run of depressing games, which I mean as a compliment. By leaning into the studio's forte, the game's memorable horrors become more affecting hardships.

I've found it difficult to write about Still Wakes The Deep as I didn't want to spoil its best aspect--the monster at the root of it all, which isn't shown in any pre-launch materials. But then I discovered how the game has been advertised--"The Thing on an oil rig"--which seems to let me off the hook. As it turns out, that elevator pitch is exactly what this game is like. Blue-collar workers stranded with a creature of unknown origin is a classic horror premise--Alien's "truckers in space" is essentially this, too. The Chinese Room pulls from these genre titans to tell a story of its own and places it all in an especially uncommon setting.

It's Christmas 1975. Aboard an oil rig near Scotland, Caz McLeary evades the personal problems awaiting him back on the mainland by joining his buddy and several others toiling away at sea. The game's early moments set the scene well, with large, intimidating human-made machinery creaking and bellowing amid a storm. Indoors, claustrophobic corridors are plastered in cautionary signage that reminds players of just how dangerous and oppressive an oil rig is--even without a monster showing up. Fulfilling any role in such an environment seems to merit copious hazard pay. As waves crash around the perimeter and rain-soaked ladders climb to platforms that feel more like thrill rides when you stand atop them, the game's message seems clear: This place is not safe, and humanity doesn't belong there.