Browse by genre

Narrative reviews

344 Narrative games reviewed and scored, best first.

Browse the reviews

344 reviews

Graphite

A pencil-drawn tactics RPG where combat plays out on a shared timeline both sides can sabotage, off to a strong start on a tiny early sample and a distinctive hook, with a controller gap and an unproven long game keeping the verdict cautious three days after launch.

7.5 / 10

Reviewed

Read review of Graphite

Hogwarts Legacy

A gorgeous, best-in-class open-world recreation of the wizarding world undercut by combat and side content a large share of critical reviewers call repetitive and shallow — and, since early 2025, a wave of high-vote negative reviews over a new privacy policy and EULA that reviewers say arrived with a modding update and made opting out of data sharing nearly impossible.

7.5 / 10

Reviewed

Read review of Hogwarts Legacy

IMMORTALITY

A David Lynch-inflected FMV mystery from Her Story creator Sam Barlow, built around piecing together three unreleased films through a "match cut" navigation system that a large and detailed share of its own audience says lacks the deductive satisfaction of his earlier work.

7.5 / 10

Reviewed

Read review of IMMORTALITY

Kingdom Come Deliverance

An ambitious, unusually grounded medieval RPG whose historical immersion and storytelling are still praised even by its harshest critics — undercut by a combat system reviewers say only really works one-on-one, persistent bugs eight years on, and two fresh 2026 controversies: a retroactive EULA change requiring a third-party account, and an allegation that Warhorse replaced a human translator with AI.

7.5 / 10

Reviewed

Read review of Kingdom Come Deliverance

Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name

A six-month side story that began life as DLC for Infinite Wealth and still plays like one in places, following Kazuma Kiryu through his faked-death years under the alias Joryu. The brawling and the finale land; the padding in between and a price tag built for a longer game are the recurring complaints from its own audience.

7.5 / 10

Reviewed

Read review of Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name

Little Nightmares II

A gorgeous, unsettling puzzle-platformer sequel that expanded on a beloved horror original -- Very Positive on Steam, with a genuinely well-documented, still-unresolved PC-specific bug and a mouse-and-keyboard control scheme reviewers have criticised in near-identical terms since launch week.

7.5 / 10

Reviewed

Read review of Little Nightmares II

Magic Research

A one-person, text-first incremental about running a school of wizards that keeps almost everything on a single screen of menus, and turns dying to a boss into the moment its retirement system finally starts paying off.

7.5 / 10

Reviewed

Read review of Magic Research

Metro 2033 Redux

A widely acclaimed post-apocalyptic shooter whose negative reviews cluster around two distinct, dateable events rather than the game's own design — a 2019 review-bombing tied to Metro Exodus's Epic Games Store exclusivity, and a larger, more recent wave of genuine modern- system compatibility problems that this review found dominating 2025 and 2026 far more than any complaint about the game itself.

7.5 / 10

Reviewed

Read review of Metro 2033 Redux

MIO: Memories in Orbit

A visually stunning metroidvania whose reviews split sharply on one specific mechanic — permanent health loss tied to the story — that several players call the moment the game turns from a favorite into a frustration, and others say isn't nearly as punishing as it's made out to be.

7.5 / 10

Reviewed

Read review of MIO: Memories in Orbit

MiSide

A yandere-dating-sim premise that flips into psychological horror within its first minutes, and one of 2024's biggest indie viral hits — reviewed here with a specific, verifiable colorblind-accessibility gate its own community flagged, and a look at why a mostly-linear, five-hour game became a genre-defining moment anyway.

7.5 / 10

Reviewed

Read review of MiSide

Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom

Level-5's sequel swaps Studio Ghibli's direct involvement for a hybrid of open-world action RPG and kingdom-building sim -- gorgeous and generous with content, but eight years on its combat, story and half-baked army battles are the recurring complaints even among fans who put hundreds of hours into it.

7.5 / 10

Reviewed

Read review of Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom

NORCO

A densely written, richly atmospheric Southern Gothic point-and-click set in a surreal, sinking Louisiana refinery town, whose passionate fanbase and its critics converge on the same specific complaint — a narrative that loses its footing in the final act after an extraordinary opening.

7.5 / 10

Reviewed

Read review of NORCO

OFF

The long-awaited official Steam release of one of indie RPG history's most influential cult classics — a surreal, unsettling 2008 RPG Maker game credited as a direct inspiration for Undertale, Deltarune, Omori and OneShot — undercut for longtime fans by a completely replaced soundtrack, a change with a specific, well-documented and genuinely sympathetic reason behind it.

7.5 / 10

Reviewed

Read review of OFF

Pentiment

Obsidian's hand-illustrated murder-mystery RPG set in 1500s Bavaria earns comparisons to Disco Elysium and praise from actual medievalists -- and a genuinely substantial minority of its own fans arguing the choices that define it matter far less than the game pretends.

7.5 / 10

Reviewed

Read review of Pentiment

Planet of Lana

A visually stunning sci-fi puzzle-platformer that draws the same LIMBO and INSIDE comparisons its critics use against it, praised almost unanimously for its art and music while a large, specific share of its own reviewers argue the puzzles never move past their opening ideas.

7.5 / 10

Reviewed

Read review of Planet of Lana

Potionomics

A witch-run potion shop, a card-based haggling minigame that critics singled out as genuinely clever, and a debt-clock structure so demanding that fewer than one in five players who own it have ever actually paid it off -- an IGF audience-award winner whose charm and its exhausting pace turn out to be the same design decision.

7.5 / 10

Reviewed

Read review of Potionomics

More genres

Full A–Z index →