We’re back with a brand-new Now Playing! Once again, our intrepid team of writers is enjoying all manner of games, from the Japanese super-franchise Persona to an indie puzzle platformer made by a three-person team. No matter what we’re playing, we want to share with you and maybe send you down the path to try something new. Let us know in the comments what you’re playing and what news has you excited for the future!
Rachel Alm
Persona 5 Royal
I’m actively playing Persona 5: Royal, and on the heels of the recent news about the next game in the series, I’ve come to realize I’ve been playing this game, bit by bit, for nearly a decade. I bought the game in its original form on release day in 2017, didn’t beat it, and then updated to Royal to see if I might finish it then. Years later, and now I’m finally getting around to progressing past the first three palaces. I love this game; it is ruthlessly stylish, but it is also exceptionally long. It tacks on another full semester too, so it’s even longer than the original.
Admittedly, Royal includes gimmicks that add a lot of flavor to the original gameplay and make it a much more compelling loop. I adore the new phantom thief too, but there’s still plenty of downtime within the game. And there is still the awkwardness of some of the confidant interactions (Takemi, an adult doctor, calls the protagonist, a teenager, “her little genuine pig,” and you can romance her) that push the envelope a little. Sometimes, as with all fiction, I can excuse this as a mere playground of imagination, free from the rigidity of reality and merely focused on character.But I still can’t help cringing at some of the implications of these growing relationships now that I am very, very old.
That aside, the game is much improved in Royal, and I’m genuinely enjoying my progress beyond my last few stopping points. It also makes me want to play Metaphor ReFantazio when I’m done. If I ever get done. At least by the time Person 6 releases, I can, perhaps, finally be free of Persona 5, as can we all.
Alexander Joy
Urban Myth Dissolution Center
I wanted to like this game much more than I did. Stylish but shallow, its outstanding pixel art and World of Horror-inspired presentation merely paper over a linear visual novel posing as an investigative mystery. You have no choices to make, no errors to commit, no consequences to face. Within minutes of starting up, it’s obvious that Urban Myth Dissolution Center would rather be an anime – visually striking, story-driven, and completely non-interactive.
That said, once you accept that it’s a book disguised as a game, there’s more to appreciate. The supernaturally-tinged mysteries that drive it are suitably engaging, and I always found myself wanting to learn their solutions. Creepy, effectively illustrated cutscenes punctuate each case, providing plenty of scary sights. Unfortunately, the pacing of the mysteries is often too slow to build any real tension, stopping for frequent (and frequently repetitive) breaks where you must review recently acquired information to propel your protagonist’s deductions. The end of the game is similarly frustrating: without spoilers, I can say it’s capped by a clever twist, followed by a mediocre twist, followed by a downright moronic twist.
I don’t regret playing Urban Myth Dissolution Center, but I wanted better from it. Even so, it hooked me enough to play through the entire thing, and the game’s impeccable atmosphere has proven far more memorable for me than its narrative and ludic shortcomings.
Ben Rowan
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Let me paint a picture: it’s 2020, I’ve just picked up my first-gen Switch, and naturally, Breath of the Wild was one of my very first eShop buys. But, to my surprise, after around 10 hours, I just couldn’t get into it. The frame rate dips and load times kept pulling me out of the experience. After wrapping up the Great Plateau and making it to Kakariko Village, I shelved it. I knew it was a historic game, but it just wasn’t clicking for me back then.
Fast forward to 2026. With a shiny new Switch 2 finally in my hands and NSO’s free performance upgrade ready to smooth out those technical hiccups, the timing was perfect to revisit this behemoth of my backlog. And boy, I’m very happy that I did! Stripped of those old hardware limitations, this game isn’t just a joy to play; it is profoundly magical.
Seeing Hyrule’s stunning, painterly art style running at 60fps transforms the experience. I can almost feel every gust of wind rustling through the grass, the terrifying scale of the Divine Beasts on the horizon, and the quiet, melancholic beauty of a ruined kingdom rediscovering itself. Hyrule is a world begging me to get lost in it, and getting lost has never felt this good.
What’s even more beautiful is the realisation that this journey doesn’t truly end here. Every time I marvel at a sunset over the Hebra Mountains or uncover a hidden Korok puzzle, I’m filled with an almost childlike joy knowing that Tears of the Kingdom is sitting right there too, waiting for me to play it next.
As gamers, we talk endlessly about open-world fatigue. We get tired of map markers, chores, and being told exactly where to go. Breath of the Wild sidesteps this by treating its world not as a checklist, but as a real, breathing place. It’s a game that respects my intelligence, rewarding curiosity rather than blind obedience to a quest marker. It is a masterpiece in the truest sense of the word, an achingly gorgeous world to explore, and comfortably sits at the pinnacle of all the video games I’ve ever played.
Nathan Kelly
Shin Megami Tensei
I’ve become hooked on the Shin Megami Tensei franchise this month. After bouncing off a translation of the first game, I moved up to Strange Journey Redux and more recently Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance, only to become more obsessed as I dove in.
I’m coming up on what I assume is about halfway through Strange Journey Redux. I really love the grid dungeon crawling more than I thought that I would. Getting demons and fusing them is super addictive. I actually had to calm down around this point of the game, as you can start to keep to one team for longer chunks. I just want to fuse bigger, but that’s not always the optimal strategy. Each boss fight is excellent, and I think my only speed bump is that the Womb of Grief puzzles are maybe a little too large. It’s been a great reason to bust out the 3DS, and it’s made me feel like I’ve discovered a new hobby in Shin Megami Tensei specifically.
I’ve started Shin Megami Tensei V Vengeance, and I’m really loving the gameplay here. I do think that the game possibly gives you too much too fast. After playing some of the old titles, this modern version of the ruleset feels like the developers want you to be constantly team-building and seeing new demons as much as possible. I like the modern sensibilities, but it loses the feeling of scrambling to make any progress with the tools given that the older titles are so good at conveying. It’s flashy, fast, and fun. It’s not the methodical high-stakes dungeon crawler that fans might have been expecting. Rather, it’s an SMT playground that rewards exploration and experimentation. I’m definitely still going to prioritize Strange Journey, but this makes for a good alternative for the days when I want to feel a bit less tension and activate the side of my brain that wants to pick stuff up off the ground and collect demons for the compendium.
Bryan Finck
Bionic Bay
Take the pattern-based, reflex-shredding gameplay of Celeste, put it in a beautifully creepy alien world, and you have the gist of Bionic Bay. A 2D puzzle-platformer that is thrilling, frustrating, and rewarding in equal measures, I’m absolutely loving every second of it.
Each stage is a sumptuous visual feast, stark but full of details, with incredible lighting effects that constantly left me wanting to stop and stare, no matter the danger around me. As with Celeste, the game begins with simple mechanics, in this case just a jump and a rolling maneuver. These are combined to give an extra boost to your jump, which you will need early and often in the opening stages.
I’m only four levels in, but an additional mechanic has already been introduced, where you can tag certain items in the world and instantly swap places with them. So if you want to remove some exploding obstacles in your way, all you have to do is tag a barrel, jump over the bombs, and press L1 to drop that barrel right on the obstacles, clearing your path. Every screen is a visual puzzle, and you might die 20 times before it clicks and you know what you have to do, at which point you just have to execute, with all that hand-eye coordination we gamers are famous for.
The game just feels great to play; it’s really well-animated, fast, fun, and I can’t wait to see what other surprises await.
A big thank you to our writers for dropping by and to all our loyal fans for being here to check it out! Be sure to tell us what you’re playing in the comments, and check back next month for more of what our team is getting into.
