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89 games released in 2016 and reviewed here, best first.
89 reviews
Game Hive's decade-old idle RPG builds its whole second act around clans and scheduled tournaments — a structure that gives its artifact-and-relic progression somewhere real to point, but also turns a genre built for "check back later" into a calendar commitment with a very tall premium-currency ladder sitting next to it.
7 / 10
The trilogy's middle chapter, widely framed by reviewers as a "sophomore slump" that carries over the same combat-design critique this outlet found in the original game — plus a new complaint that its own attempt at a new mechanic (barricades) adds tedium rather than depth, and an ending several reviewers call less satisfying than the first game's.
7 / 10
Obsidian's "evil already won" isometric RPG opens with one of the most original premises in the genre — and then, according to a large share of its own fans, simply stops rather than ends, a truncation reviewers link directly to the sequel and expansions it never got.
7 / 10
A GUI-driven text adventure about a priest's disappearance and the son retracing his steps, running two timelines and two protagonists through 78,000 words of prose. Every one of its 23 Steam reviews is positive, and the achievement data backs up what reviewers say about the pacing — most players who start it see it through.
6.8 / 10
A ten-year-old pixel dungeon-crawler that never quite decided whether it wants you clicking through fights or leaving them to auto-battle, held together by a four-currency stamina economy that structures every session it doesn't quietly monetise.
6.5 / 10
A comedic, procedurally generated zombie road-trip RPG in the spirit of Oregon Trail, Very Positive across more than 6,300 reviews for its charm and replayable structure — undercut by an extremely consistent complaint that random events can end a well-played run through no fault of the player, and a persistent, specifically reported local co-op and controller-configuration bug several reviewers say has gone unresolved for close to a decade.
6.5 / 10
A first-person mystery following fire lookout Henry through a summer in the Wyoming wilderness, told almost entirely through radio conversation with his supervisor Delilah, Very Positive across nearly 57,000 reviews for exceptional voice acting and atmosphere — undercut by an extremely consistent complaint that its mystery builds toward an anticlimactic, unresolved ending, a well-corroborated length-for-price concern, and a 2017 DMCA controversy involving the studio's co-founder that a specific share of reviews cite directly.
6.5 / 10
An intense, boss-rush-only action game with striking synthwave visuals and a scripted, phase-based combat structure, Very Positive across more than 7,000 reviews for its distinctive style and soundtrack — undercut by an extremely consistent complaint that its central dash mechanic feels delayed and unresponsive in a game entirely built around precise dodging, alongside a specific, reported softlock bug on one boss and well-corroborated padding-and-price complaints.
6.5 / 10
A gorgeous, wordless action RPG whose stunning pixel art and haunting score are close to universally praised across more than 15,000 reviews — and whose combat, storytelling and accessibility choices divide even players who clearly wanted to love it, in remarkably similar language across a full decade.
6.5 / 10
Kolibri Games' decade-old mobile idle didn't just popularise the miner-elevator-warehouse loop, it more or less invented the template every mining incremental since has copied. Ten years and a Ubisoft acquisition later, the loop still works — the monetisation menu and the interface built on top of it are where the wear shows.
6.5 / 10
A notoriously janky, deliberately punishing Finnish car-building and life simulator where players assemble a 1990s Datsun from scratch, Very Positive across more than 37,000 reviews for genuinely unmatched mechanical depth — undercut by an openly acknowledged developer philosophy of prioritising difficulty over conventional fun, severe persistent bugs many players say require third-party community tools to work around, and specific updates longtime players describe as actively removing convenience rather than adding it.
6.5 / 10
A hand-drawn 2D soulslike RPG that folds Dark Souls-style combat and progression into a Metroidvania structure, Very Positive across more than 20,000 reviews — undercut for a large share of players by the total absence of an in-game map, and stirred up again eight years after launch by a difficulty-altering patch whose true authorship reviewers and press coverage don't fully agree on.
6.5 / 10
A budget-priced, GUI-driven text adventure about a writer and his blind father moving into a small town with a Twin Peaks-shaped secret — long on atmosphere and prose, short on how much your choices actually change.
6.5 / 10
The idle RPG's grandparent, still running seventeen years on and still launching new worlds every few weeks — with a comic-fantasy charm that holds up and an economy built entirely around the moment a fresh leaderboard makes spending feel urgent.
6.5 / 10
A JRPG built around Velvet, one of the series' most distinctive and morally complicated protagonists, Very Positive across more than 14,000 reviews for its writing and cast — undercut by a remarkably consistent complaint that the combat and pacing underneath that story never matches its quality.
6.5 / 10
HeroCraft's open-world pirate action RPG sets you loose across three continents of real-time sailing, ship-to-ship broadsides and kraken hunts. Nearly a decade after launch it's still a genuinely good naval combat sandbox wrapped around a shallow melee layer, patched through some real bugs, and increasingly interrupted by promotional pop-ups for HeroCraft's other games.
6.5 / 10
A solo-developed, Pokemon-adjacent monster-catching RPG set in a post-apocalyptic, ghost-haunted Great Britain, whose genuinely well-balanced creature-collecting combat is undercut by a real, corroborated complaint that only its first campaign feels finished.
6 / 10
A simple low-poly air-combat shooter built for js13k 2016 — one finger steers, two fingers held together fire, and diving through the ground opens a hidden "glitch" side where enemies can't follow. An unusual two-finger gesture confirmed here to work correctly, verified by simulating the exact multi-touch event rather than trusting the description.
6 / 10
A genuinely unique text-based cyberpunk hacking sandbox that teaches real JavaScript through actual play and hosts a deep, emergent player economy — undercut by two specific, detailed accounts of the developer wiping progress and banning creative play in ways reviewers say contradict the game's own hacking-sandbox premise.
6 / 10
A fourteen-year-old browser superhero RPG still running seasonal events every month in 2026 — beloved across most of Europe, and consistently rated Mixed by the English-speaking players who review it on Steam.
6 / 10
A decade-old idle gacha RPG whose real currency was never gold, it was your own heroes — and the star-fusion system that consumes them is both the smartest thing about the game and the reason its economy is so hard to defend.
6 / 10
A charming, reference-packed boxing management RPG whose own most-upvoted reviews are almost all critical — a specific, corroborated case that its stat-decay grind and lopsided build balance were real problems the developer only partially fixed, not exaggerated complaints from a vocal minority.
6 / 10
A stage-based action-platformer starring the belly-dancing half-genie Shantae, Very Positive across more than 1,100 reviews for gorgeous art and music — dominated by an extraordinarily consistent complaint that this base version was effectively superseded by a separately sold "Ultimate Edition" bundling all its DLC, alongside well-corroborated complaints about repetitive backtracking, an uneven difficulty curve and a notably weaker story than the developer's previous entry.
6 / 10
A cute, grimly charming swamp-clicker whose own reviewers can't agree on whether it's actually an idle game — a genuine design-honesty question this review works through rather than resolves in one direction, alongside a real, well-documented achievement grind.
6 / 10
