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995 Narrative games reviewed and scored, best first.
995 reviews
The 13th entry in Nihon Falcom's long-running Trails series pairs a widely praised, technically excellent PC port with a genuinely split reception on pacing and writing among the exact veteran fanbase most qualified to judge it, compounded by specific removed anti-aliasing options, contested localisation quality, and a notable absence of the series' usual romance options.
6.5 / 10
Read review of The Legend of Heroes: Trails beyond the Horizon
A slow-paced, atmospheric survival simulation set in the frozen Canadian wilderness after a geomagnetic disaster, Very Positive across nearly 41,000 reviews for its enduring, celebrated sandbox survival mode — clouded by a decade-long wait for its narrative campaign's final chapter, which launched in March 2026 to a wave of disappointed reviews, and by reported community moderation of critical players.
6.5 / 10
A dual-reality psychological horror adventure from Bloober Team featuring music from Akira Yamaoka, Very Positive across nearly 4,000 reviews for its atmosphere and presentation — undercut by an extremely consistent complaint that it plays mostly as a walking simulator with minimal real challenge, a well-corroborated complaint about poor technical performance at launch, and a short runtime that many reviewers feel doesn't justify its full asking price.
6.5 / 10
A star-studded branching horror anthology from the Until Dawn team that splits its own reviewers on story quality and delivers far less mechanical agency than its "your choices matter" framing implies, launched alongside a broken multiplayer promise and now caught up in the same 2K Terms of Service controversy documented independently on the publisher's other 2022 release.
6.5 / 10
A charming Ace Attorney-style murder mystery visual novel built around VTuber culture that a small English-speaking audience loves outright, while a much larger Chinese-language sample raises real, repeated complaints about unfair deduction design and a toothless courtroom system.
6.5 / 10
The Red Strings Club is a short cyberpunk narrative about a bartender and a hacker uncovering a corporation's plan to eliminate human suffering through mind-altering technology. Its writing and central philosophical questions earn strong, specific praise, while its three distinct mini-games draw an unusually large, convergent body of criticism as tedious rather than engaging.
6.5 / 10
The final chapter of a long-beloved mystery trilogy The Shell Part III: Paradiso closes out a murder-mystery visual novel trilogy following Detective Reiji Tokisaka, whose obsessio
6.5 / 10
A Chinese-developed visual novel anthology of fourteen short urban-legend horror stories, praised by a large, thoughtful review sample for genuinely unsettling early chapters and a rewarding interconnected twist revealed through its afterword, undercut by a widely and specifically repeated complaint that quality declines sharply in its back half, culminating in a lengthy, poorly-received locked-room mystery finale that many reviewers say the author couldn't satisfyingly resolve.
6.5 / 10
Deck13's sci-fi Souls-like introduced limb-targeting combat and an exosuit-crafting loop genuinely novel for the genre, and spent nine years being described in almost identical terms by its own fans -- a great first few hours undone by clunky combat and a back half that runs out of ideas.
6.5 / 10
A short, atmospheric first-person horror sim from a solo developer with an established following, whose genuinely effective scares and Night of the Living Dead homage were nearly undercut by real launch bugs — since addressed by nine patches in the game's first week alone.
6.5 / 10
A Journalist, a Night Train, and a Realm Built From the Dead's Regrets The Wraith Train: Illusory Domain casts the player as journalist Li Yuanzhe, who boards the overnight exp
6.5 / 10
A tactical narrative gamebook from A Sharp, the designers of King of Dragon Pass and Six Ages, sending a randomly-generated crew of heisters on short, choice-driven raids into hell, earning a Very Positive launch reception for its writing and art, tempered by honest reviewer complaints about heavy randomness, a vaguely-worded trait system, and thin strategic depth.
6.5 / 10
A Witcher spin-off following Queen Meve's war-torn revenge story, Very Positive across more than 15,000 reviews for its writing and presentation — undercut by a dominant complaint that its Gwent-based combat leans too heavily on fixed-solution puzzles rather than the genuine strategic card matches players wanted.
6.5 / 10
Lunar Ray Games' Kickstarter-funded, Castlevania-inspired metroidvania is Very Positive on Steam, but its negative review sample splits into two genuinely different arguments -- one about real, specific shortcomings in combat, length and writing craft, and a separate, unusually large one objecting not to mechanics but to the game's prominent queer and trans representation.
6.5 / 10
A short, painterly flying game about an albatross finding its way home across the South Pacific, built on genuine cultural specificity from te ao Māori but stretched thin by a linear, repetitive middle stretch.
6.5 / 10
Wake Up With No Memory, Then Talk Your Way Through a Murder Every Week Turing Testimony opens on a genre-familiar setup: the player wakes up in an unfamiliar campus with fragmented
6.5 / 10
A years-anticipated rhythm adventure with a genuinely striking art style, voice cast and soundtrack, whose Very Positive reception sits alongside a large, detailed, recurring complaint that its story mode buries too little rhythm gameplay under too much walking, weak chart balance and a frustrating no-retry structure.
6.5 / 10
A Final Fantasy Tactics-inspired tactical RPG starring a cast of anthropomorphic animals, praised for its beautiful art and positioning-based combat — held back at launch by a harsh, poorly-taught opening difficulty spike, real UI bugs, and a serious save-corruption issue the developer fixed within weeks before largely moving on from the game.
6.5 / 10
Troika Games' legendary, writing-driven vampire RPG set in modern-day Los Angeles, Very Positive across more than 10,300 reviews for dialogue and world-building widely regarded as among the best the genre has produced — sold on Steam in a state the overwhelming majority of recent reviewers say does not run on modern Windows without a community-made unofficial patch.
6.5 / 10
A BAFTA-nominated narrative visual novel that casts you as a reformed vampire teaching genuine cognitive behavioral therapy techniques to fellow bloodsuckers, whose sharp writing, voice acting, and real educational value earn heartfelt praise from many players, while a near-universal, specific complaint holds that the game never lets you fail or truly choose, functioning more as an interactive teaching tool than a game with real narrative stakes.
6.5 / 10
DONTNOD's narrative vampire-RPG draws real praise for its moral choice system and atmospheric London setting, undercut by a genuinely clunky combat system that's the single most common complaint in this outlet's sample, and a deliberate "commit to your choices" single-save design that several reviewers describe compounding real bugs into permanent, un-fixable stuck states.
6.5 / 10
A steampunk grid-based dungeon crawler built squarely in Legend of Grimrock's shadow, with atmosphere and a Bioshock-flavoured setting that reviewers consistently praise -- and one specific, repeatedly-named design decision, enemy level-scaling, that a large share of its own fans say ruins the back half.
6.5 / 10
The first new mainline entry in the Mana series in over a decade brings genuinely fun three-character action combat and some of the best art and music the franchise has produced, undercut by a shallower open world than its predecessors, a story several longtime fans call the weakest the series has told, and a real, documented studio closure that landed days after launch.
6.5 / 10
Solo developer Alexander Merkulov, a former tactical-shooter designer working under the name Merk Games, delivers a Norse-mythology-inspired flying adventure about a raven guiding lost souls to the afterlife, earning genuine praise for how good flight itself feels and for its touching, atmospheric world, set against a detailed, specific and recurring thread of criticism that a punishing stamina system, broken collision and an unresolved ending leave the game feeling unfinished for a full release.
6.5 / 10
