Freemo Reviews

Pragmata is one of the best new IP’s of this generation. Boasting an exciting, original sci-fi world, an impeccable sense of style and one of the most novel combat systems you’ll find in any action game. Pragmata sees Capcom continuing their generation-long golden streak and maintaining their place as the strongest third-party publisher of the past decade.

While I had my concerns about Requiem’s pitch of marrying two distinct styles of gameplay, by splitting your playtime in Requiem between two protagonists, having Leon’s sections offer action-heavy gameplay akin to Resident Evil 4-6 and newcomer Grace Ashcroft’s sections provide a more slow-paced survival horror experience in the vein of Resident Evil 7, 2, and 1. As I thought, this could lead to a disjointed experience that gives you tonal whiplash as you jump back and forth between the two; any fears I had were quickly alleviated once I started playing Requiem. This best-of-both-worlds approach works wonderfully, with the two styles of gameplay juxtaposing beautifully and allowing Requiem to deliver the best action-to-horror balance we’ve seen in a Resident Evil game yet.

2025 was yet another incredible year for games, full of high-quality experiences, offering a staggering degree of variety that left many of us unable to keep up with this never-ending deluge of releases and watching our backlogs grow ever longer, so join me as I take one last look back on the year that was 2025 to celebrate the cream of the crop and give these developers their much deserved flowers!

The Hinokami Chronicles 2 is in every way your traditional CyberConnect sequel, refining a couple of the shortcomings of its predecessor, but mostly just piling more of everything on top of the existing framework. More modes, more stages to duke it out on and of course, more fighters. Which makes The Hinokami Chronicles 2 a much more robust and worthwhile experience than its sometimes meek-feeling predecessor, even if its mechanical simplicity means it’s unlikely to win over anyone who’s not already a fan of CyberConnect’s brand of anime arena fighters.

Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound is an exceptional retro throwback, taking what made the platformers of the 8 and 16-bit generations special and distilling it into its purest form, while removing the era's shortcomings of unbalanced difficulties and technical limitations to deliver an experience that can appeal to both old-school purists and those with more modern gaming sensibilities.

With Donkey Kong Bananza, our favourite tie-wearing ape has finally gotten the 3D adventure he’s long deserved. Donkey Kong Bananza is a perfectly balanced collectathon that’s focused purely on ensuring you’re having fun at every moment as you smash your way through its creative and varied environments. With its immaculate game feel, charming cast of characters and a focus on environmental destruction, the likes of which we haven’t seen since Red Faction: Guerilla, Donkey Kong Bananza is one of the most joyous and unabashedly videogamey experiences of 2025, and yet another serious contender for Game of the Year 2025.

With Death Stranding 2, Kojima has delivered a triumphant career highlight. While it won’t resonate with everyone, and hell, I certainly recommend it to everyone, if you are willing to settle in for a slower, deliberately paced and deeply strange game, you’re gonna be rewarded with one of the most unique and oddly satisfying video game experiences you’ll ever have.

I’m sure it won't surprise anybody when I say Mario Kart World is a great kart racer that’s a joy to play; it’d be a lot more shocking if it weren’t. But the unfortunate reality for Mario Kart World is that it doesn’t exist in a vacuum, so inevitably has to be compared to its predecessor, and those comparisons don’t always reflect too kindly on Mario Kart World.

With Doom: The Dark Ages, id has once again reaffirmed why they’re my favourite shooter studio. While, The Dark Ages' heavier focus on story doesn't pay off and its soundtrack is a step down from the prior 2 Doom games, with Mick Gordon’s crushing riffs being sorely missed here, exploration is more rewarding than ever before thanks to The Dark Age’s exceptional level design, the new medieval setting allows for a greater degree of visual variety than any Doom game since Doom 3 and the Dark Ages' wonderful assortment of absurd and brutal weapons make shootouts more thrilling than ever.

With its immaculately written and performed characters, masterfully designed combat system, and sorrow-filled story that has not left my mind since finishing the game, Clair Obscur is perhaps the strongest studio debut ever and a clear frontrunner for Game of the Year 2025.

While South of Midnight isn’t without its shortcomings, most glaringly its monotonous combat, its impeccable soundtrack, distinct setting and juxtaposition of whimsical fantasy elements and confronting emotional themes make South of Midnight Compulsion’s best game by a country mile and easily one of the most bold and original games Xbox has published in recent years.

For every good video game based on a beloved anime, there are 3 bad ones. So, I taper my expectations going into any of these games, and doing so allows a game to occasionally pleasantly surprise you. Bleach: Rebirth of Souls is one such game. Rebirth of Souls isn’t the greatest fighting game you’ll ever play, with its lacklustre visuals and clumsy story presentation keeping it from measuring up to the best of the genre. However, it is still a fun brawler that offers far more depth than you might expect at first blush. Even with its shortcomings, Rebirth of Souls is certainly better than most of the slop that pollutes this subgenre of fighters, so if you’re looking for an anime brawler to duke it out in with friends, you could do far worse than Rebirth of Souls.

The wordily titled Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is the best Yakuza spin-off yet, thanks to some refreshing mechanics, a compelling new spin on long-running icon, Goro Majima, a loveable cast of supporting characters and a world offering a balanced blend of new locations and re-purposed locales from Infinite Wealth. 20 years on and over 20 entries later, the Yakuza series is still managing to fend off franchise fatigue in a way few long-running series have.

Ninja Gaiden 2 Black is a timely reminder of what we were missing out on during this franchise’s absence, as 17 years after its original release, Ninja Gaiden 2 has aged beautifully, still offering one of the most varied and flexible combat systems of any character action game and the fresh coat of paint Team Ninja has applied with the new Unreal Engine 5 visuals allow Ninja Gaiden 2’s spectacular character designs and varied environments to shine brighter than ever before. While a few omissions prevent Ninja Gaiden 2 Black from being the definitive package it should be, this is still the best way to experience one of the most rewarding action games ever made.

Having to follow the obscenely stacked 2023, which saw an unprecedented lineup of amazing games released, 2024 always felt destined to pale in comparison, and 2024 admittedly was a slower year for the industry, which led to some gamers labelling 2024 as a weak year for games. Still, I have to disagree with this consensus. For what 2024 lacked in volume, it more than made up for in quality. 2024 offered a strong and incredibly diverse lineup of games. No matter your favourite genre, be it JRPGs, survival-horror games, shooters, platformers, fighting games, metroidvanias or rogue-likes, there was something phenomenal for you to play in 2024. So join me as I take a look back and count down my top 25 games of 2024 (all be it a bit later than usual!).

2025 is set to be a massive year for the games industry that may well go down alongside years like 2008 and 2023 as one of the biggest years for games we've ever seen. With the release of a new Nintendo console, a colossal slate of games, including some huge, long-awaited exclusives from all three console platformer owners, and, of course, the release of one of the most anticipated games in history, Grand Theft Auto 6, there's no shortage of things to be excited for in 2025. So, I'm here to count down my top 25 (Okay, 26, as I had to add an extra game after Xbox's Developer Direct!) most anticipated games of 2025. Strap in, it's a long one!

While its story might only resonate with 40K diehards, Space Marine II nails the most important element of any shooter: Game feel. Space Marine II plays phenomenally well, offering a uniquely satisfying blend of third-person shooting and hack-and-slash action, making it a worthy pickup for anybody seeking a no-frills, masterfully paced throwback to the shooters of a bygone era.