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Action reviews

1603 Action games reviewed and scored, best first.

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1603 reviews

Action, Adventure, RPGWindows PC

Onimusha: Way of the Sword

Capcom's first new mainline Onimusha in two decades delivers genuinely excellent combat feel and presentation that draws strong praise from both longtime fans and newcomers, undercut by a specific, well-diagnosed launch crash tied to uncapped frame rates, extremely widely corroborated over-tutorialization, a difficulty many players on both sides call too easy, and a live, unresolved identity dispute over whether the game preserves the franchise's classic DNA or wears it as skin over generic modern souls-like design.

7 / 10

Reviewed

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Pixel-Art Action-PlatformerWindows PCmacOSLinux

Owlboy

A famously nine-years-in-development pixel-art platformer following a mute flying owl who carries companions into battle, Very Positive across 2,400 reviews for genuinely exceptional art and music — undercut by an extraordinarily consistent complaint that its clumsy carry-and-throw combat and disproportionately punishing boss fights fail to match the presentation, alongside a reported softlock bug and an unaddressed screen-shake/flashing-light discomfort issue.

7 / 10

Reviewed

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Action, Indie, RoguelikeWindows PC

Parrydox: Battle of the Alamo

A confined bullet-hell roguelike from solo developer SheerAweso in which players control a shield that can only attack by parrying, defending a retelling of the Alamo across dozens of collectible items and runs, drawing a small, entirely positive but largely low-detail English review sample that credits its parry-centric twist on the genre while offering little sustained critical substance.

7 / 10

Reviewed

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Action / Beat 'em upBrowser

Path to Glory

The overall winner of js13k 2023 — a beautifully polished 13th-century beat 'em up with blocking, dodging and stunning mechanics that community judges rank among the best entries the competition has ever produced — undercut, for this shelf's purposes, by a movement scheme that tested exhaustively and simply does not respond to touch at all.

7 / 10

Reviewed

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Colony Sim, Action RoguelikeWindows PC

Pax Autocratica

A darkly satirical colony sim crossed with a first-person roguelite shooter, where you build a totalitarian regime and personally lead mechanised assaults against alien threats — a strong Early Access launch overshadowed for some players by the game's previous life as an NFT-funded project called Earth From Another Sun.

7 / 10

Reviewed

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Action RPGWindows PC

PAYDAY 3

A co-op heist shooter whose Mixed lifetime badge is a fossil of one of the decade's worst launches — always-online even solo, missing basic menu options, paid DLC sold mid-disaster — set against a genuinely verified three-year recovery that has its most recent reviews running 78% positive on the back of monthly updates and a peer-to-peer overhaul.

7 / 10

Reviewed

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Co-op Action RogueliteWindows PC

Portal Dungeon

A Risk of Rain-inspired 2D co-op action roguelite with a genuinely massive item and character roster, praised for surprisingly polished multiplayer and an addictive core loop — hit by specific, well-documented single-player balance and design complaints that an exceptionally dense, still-ongoing patch record has partially, but not completely, resolved.

7 / 10

Reviewed

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FPS, Retro Shooter, ActionWindows PCmacOS

Prodeus

A pixel-and-polygon retro boomer shooter with weapons, movement and gore its own review base calls some of the best in the genre, undercut for years by a single, near-unanimously criticised design decision — dying carries no real penalty — that the developer only partially addressed roughly a year after its full release.

7 / 10

Reviewed

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Action, Shoot 'em up, ArcadeWindows PC

Psyvariar 3

A niche grazing-focused vertical shoot-'em-up sequel from Banana Bytes and Red Art Studios, giving players seven pilots to master its signature buzz mechanic, drawing a Mostly Positive review sample that praises its innovative risk-reward scoring and character variety while flagging genuine complaints about sparse visuals and Steam Deck performance.

7 / 10

Reviewed

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Action, AdventureWindows PC

Quartermain and the Cult of Cthulhu

A pulpy, Indiana Jones-meets-Lovecraft retro boomer shooter built on the Easy FPS Editor engine, Quartermain and the Cult of Cthulhu is widely praised by reviewers as the best entry yet from prolific budget publisher DOSMan Games, offering satisfying gunplay, strong spritework, and surprisingly ambitious level design, but held back by real bugs including save corruption and disappearing weapons, awkward weapon balance, and a lack of mid-level checkpoints that turns late deaths into punishing replays.

7 / 10

Reviewed

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ActionWindows PC

Ratfall

A rat, a pipe, and nothing else Ratfall's pitch is almost insultingly simple: you're a rat, you're falling down an endless vertical pipe, and there are traps in the way

7 / 10

Reviewed

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Action RPG, Fantasy, Voxel AdventureWindows PC

Ravenlok

A gorgeous voxel-art fairytale action RPG, the finale of Cococucumber's Voxel Trilogy, originally launched day-one on Xbox Game Pass in 2023 and now available on Steam as an enhanced "Legendary Edition" with reworked combat and bosses.

7 / 10

Reviewed

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Action, Indie, Simulation, StrategyWindows PC

Red Rocket Defencism

A short, stylish and genuinely funny satirical tower-defense game set in the fictional autocracy of Varnakia, unanimously praised in its early sample for witty writing, charming characters and a striking visual identity, held back by an easy difficulty some find lacking in strategic depth, visually chaotic battles, and a runtime several reviewers wish stretched further.

7 / 10

Reviewed

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ActionWindows PC

Risen Blade Review

"Smash the Dudes," a Very Cheap Promise That Mostly Delivers Risen Blade launched July 20, 2026, from small studio Satk under publisher Karus, and its Steam page pitches

7 / 10

Reviewed

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Bullet Heaven / Survivor-likeWindows PC

Rogue: Genesia

A densely systemic bullet-heaven survivor-like that grew from a simple, focused Early Access hit into something several hundred-hour veterans now describe as buried under its own added complexity — alongside real, current complaints about difficulty balance and performance.

7 / 10

Reviewed

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ActionWindows PC

Roll The Bones

A solo-developed bullet-hell roguelite where every spell comes from a six-sided die — reviewed on its complete 20-review sample, which lands squarely in Enter the Gungeon and Nuclear Throne territory while surfacing one real, repeated onboarding complaint worth knowing about first.

7 / 10

Reviewed

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ActionWindows PC

Rusty Seas

Rusty Seas is a $19.99 furry-themed beat-'em-up from solo developer Don't Feed the Wuff, following a wolf girl named Mirig as she collects washed-up salvage and dunks rival

7 / 10

Reviewed

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Action, IndieWindows PC

Saint Slayer: Spear of Sacrilege

A lovingly crafted NES-style Castlevania throwback with genuinely excellent pixel art, music and boss design, whose deliberately stiff, old-school movement and combat is embraced by the large majority of reviewers as authentic to the genre it's honouring, while a smaller, detailed minority argues the same stiffness simply isn't fun regardless of intent.

7 / 10

Reviewed

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Action RPGWindows PCPlayStationXbox

SAND LAND

A faithful, visually charming action RPG adaptation of Akira Toriyama's post-apocalyptic desert manga, built around genuinely excellent tank and vehicle customisation, undercut by a companion dialogue system so repetitive it's the single most common complaint in its own review base.

7 / 10

Reviewed

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