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Narrative reviews

344 Narrative games reviewed and scored, best first.

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344 reviews

Magic Research 2

The sequel keeps the first game's text-only school-of-magic formula intact and pours the budget into scope instead — a bigger spell list, a crew of Wizards you can delegate to, and a familiar system that splits its own fanbase down the middle.

8 / 10

Reviewed

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Metro Exodus

A well-regarded, atmospheric post-apocalyptic shooter whose reputation was genuinely damaged by a real 2019 Epic Games Store exclusivity controversy and a cluster of specific, long-unfixed bugs — but whose negative reviews have declined sharply since, consistent with a history that's now largely settled rather than an ongoing problem.

8 / 10

Reviewed

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No Man's Sky

The most complete redemption story in gaming, a decade on. The 2016 launch reviews and the 2026 ones are describing almost different games — and the newest wave of criticism has nothing to do with the old one.

8 / 10

Reviewed

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Pillars of Eternity

The game that brought the isometric party RPG back from the dead, and spent a decade being judged against a memory of Baldur's Gate rather than on its own terms. Fewer than half its buyers finish Act I — but the ones who push through average eighty hours.

8 / 10

Reviewed

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PRAGMATA

A genuinely fresh, emotionally resonant sci-fi shoot-and-hack adventure from Capcom, six years after its original 2020 announcement, praised near-universally for its unusual father-daughter bond and inventive combat — undercut for a real, consistently repeated share of the sample by a combat loop that grows repetitive in its back half, and by genuine, well-documented Denuvo DRM access problems affecting even paying, non-piloting players.

8 / 10

Reviewed

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Prey

Arkane Austin's 2017 immersive sim remains Very Positive across more than 54,000 Steam reviews, widely regarded as one of the genre's finest achievements — a reputation this review can confirm survived the closure of the very studio that made it, when Arkane Austin was shut down entirely by Microsoft in 2024, and a real controversy over the game's own title, which this review can confirm Bethesda forced onto an unrelated story over the objections of Arkane's own founder.

8 / 10

Reviewed

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Red Dead Redemption 2

An emotionally overwhelming, near-universally acclaimed western epic — undermined for over six straight years by a mandatory launcher that reviewers say can prevent you from playing even the offline single-player campaign, and a 2024 "Labor of Love" award many felt the game's own neglect made absurd.

8 / 10

Reviewed

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Resident Evil Requiem

A survival-horror triumph in its first half and a widely-debated tonal collapse in its second, wrapped around Capcom's biggest launch of the year — Overwhelmingly Positive across more than 100,000 Steam reviews and 8 million copies sold, while a large, detailed share of that same sample argues the game falls apart exactly when it should be building toward its climax.

8 / 10

Reviewed

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Resident Evil Village

A gorgeous, genre-blending horror-action sequel to Resident Evil 7 — beloved broadly, but facing a real, consistent identity debate from series fans who miss the tighter, scarier tone that came before it, plus a launch-week DRM performance problem that's echoed the franchise's reputation years later.

8 / 10

Reviewed

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Sifu

A stylish, cinematic kung fu brawler whose biggest obstacle is entirely by design — a parry-and-dodge combat system reviewers repeatedly call harder than Dark Souls, Elden Ring or even Sekiro, backed up by a Platinum achievement completion rate of just 1.5%.

8 / 10

Reviewed

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South of Midnight

A visually extraordinary, deeply personal Southern Gothic folktale from Compulsion Games, praised almost universally for its art, music and story, undercut by a real, consistently repeated complaint that its combat grows tedious well before the credits roll — released into a genuinely poignant real-world backdrop in which Xbox reportedly began shutting down the studio that made it only months after publicly celebrating its Peabody Award win.

8 / 10

Reviewed

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SPACEPLAN

A potato-powered clicker that spends its idle timers on story instead of retention, and then does the one thing almost nothing in the genre does — it actually finishes.

8 / 10

Reviewed

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Tactical Breach Wizards

A genuinely original turn-based tactics game — wizards in kevlar defenestrating enemies through fixed, puzzle-like encounters — that critics and most players love, but that a real, persistent minority bounces off within a couple of hours for advertising a freedom the game doesn't actually offer, plus a quippy writing style that divides its own fanbase.

8 / 10

Reviewed

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THE LONGING

A game whose central mechanic is a 400-day countdown that runs whether you play or not — the most literal treatment of idle time anyone has attempted, and it's 92.3% positive six years on.

8 / 10

Reviewed

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Thirsty Suitors

A surreal breakup-simulator that mashes turn-based RPG combat, skateboarding and competitive cooking into one story about confronting your exes and your family — Very Positive at 97.2% across 248 reviews, with a tiny but sharply consistent negative sample naming the same two soft spots, clunky skating and combat that turns repetitive, against writing and art almost nobody disputes.

8 / 10

Reviewed

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Titanfall 2

Respawn Entertainment's 2016 shooter remains Overwhelmingly Positive across more than 284,000 Steam reviews, widely regarded as one of the finest FPS campaigns ever made — a reputation shadowed by a genuine, years-long multiplayer DDoS crisis this review can confirm directly from the developer's own communications, and by the mandatory EA App launcher requirement that recurs as a real, persistent complaint even in reviews from Steam Deck-era players decades removed from launch.

8 / 10

Reviewed

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Unpacking

A wordless puzzle game that tells a person's life story entirely through the boxes they unpack across eight house moves -- BAFTA Game of the Year winner and Overwhelmingly Positive on Steam, with a value complaint so uniform across five years of reviews that even most of its fans raise it unprompted.

8 / 10

Reviewed

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Wanderstop

A narrative "cozy" tea-shop game from The Stanley Parable creator's studio that deliberately refuses catharsis in favour of sitting with discomfort — a design choice its own highest-voted review frames precisely as "this is therapy, not catharsis," which a substantial minority of players found genuinely frustrating rather than illuminating, especially a mechanic that wipes everything a player has built at the end of every act.

8 / 10

Reviewed

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