The Wanderer reading room
Idle RPGs, MMOs, browser games and mobile RPGs, taken apart properly. Every review carries a score out of 10, what the game does well, what it does badly, and the kind of player it is actually for.
A fast, punchy 2D shoot 'em up that channels vintage Tiger LCD handhelds into a bizarre time-travel story, earning near-unanimous praise for its ink-drawn art style and acapella soundtrack, tempered by one detailed review arguing it's a lesser retread of its developer's previous game.
8.2 / 10
Read review of Future Knight Review: A Retro-LCD Shoot 'Em Up With an Acapella Soul
A scaredy-cat girl becomes the accidental mayor of a monster-and-ghost-filled town in this Tim Burton-flavoured puzzle adventure, and an overwhelmingly positive reception says its crafting, comedy, and absurd musical jukebox have found a devoted audience.
8.1 / 10
A two-person indie team's cozy-creepy library-organizing game asks solo players or groups of up to four to shelve an ever-growing collection of books by their own logic while fending off rats, skeletons, and the occasional poltergeist, and its nearly unanimous praise centres on exactly how good that sorting loop feels.
8 / 10
A real-time puzzle game where mischievous fairies harass local wildlife, turn toad tantrums into weapons, and somehow make it all feel adorable.
8.1 / 10
A roguelike deckbuilder set in a hand-drawn 1990s Norwegian small town full of punks, black metal, and creeping supernatural dread, praised almost unanimously for its distinctive voice and surprisingly deep card mechanics.
8.1 / 10
Checking Into Brain World Rots Snuggle Nightmare casts you as Max Brush, an independent journalist who sneaks into the shuttered Brain World Rots theme park to investigate the disa
8.2 / 10
A Coloring Book You Can Hold in Your Hands Woodo describes itself as feeling like a 3D coloring book you can touch, and that turns out to be an unusually precise pitch. Each level
8.8 / 10
A faithful 4K remaster of two of the most beloved 1990s JRPGs, bundling Silver Star Story and Eternal Blue with real quality-of-life upgrades, undercut only by a divisive full voice redub that longtime fans can't quite let go of.
8 / 10
Capcom gives its most overlooked Mega Man sub-series the remaster treatment it always deserved, rebuilding all seven Nintendo DS versions in RE Engine with genuine quality-of-life care rather than a lazy emulator wrapper.
8 / 10
Konami's careful, largely faithful HD remaster of two PlayStation-era JRPG classics preserves what made them beloved while quietly fixing decades-old friction points, though inventory management and event timers still bite in places.
8 / 10
Read review of Suikoden I&II HD Remaster Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars Review
Ancient Corporation and legendary composer Yuzo Koshiro return to their Genesis-era roots with a horizontal shoot-'em-up built to run natively on real 16-bit hardware, earning "Very Positive" reviews for a soundtrack and pixel-art presentation reviewers call some of the finest the genre has ever produced.
8 / 10
River End Games' isometric narrative stealth-adventure sends a young woman through a gorgeous Nordic city hunting her missing brother, earning an "Overwhelmingly Positive" reception for its cinematic presentation even as a sizeable minority balks at its rigid, one-solution puzzle design and steep price for a short campaign.
8 / 10
A live-action FMV thriller about a young woman avenging her sister's disappearance after years of school bullying and institutional cover-up, drawing a Very Positive reception across over a thousand reviews for its production values, tense branching structure and detective-style investigation mechanics, tempered by a short seventh chapter, some overly-guided decision-making, and a public post-launch announcement that its production studio has disbanded.
8 / 10
From the creators of Judero, this stop-motion digging adventure sends a friendly robot beneath a whimsical claymation world to mend her community, earning near-unanimous praise for its handcrafted charm and soundtrack even as some reviewers wish its short, simple gameplay loop went deeper.
8 / 10
A retro-inspired, roguelike-adjacent turn-based RPG that compresses a classic Chosen One quest into a couple of hours per run, drawing a unanimously Positive reception praising its charming pixel art, standout music and surprisingly deep, replayable systems hidden beneath a minimalist arcade-style pace, from a small but enthusiastic solo-developer release.
8 / 10
An Early Access cozy creature collector that fuses Stardew Valley-style town life with roguelike dungeon-diving combat and Nimbit creature raising with genuine trait inheritance, drawing a Very Positive early reception for its unusually polished launch and inventive genre blend, tempered by one detailed reviewer's warning that its dungeon, raising and town systems currently compete for the player's time rather than reinforcing each other.
8 / 10
A hand-drawn, Papers Please-inspired sorting sim about working a recycling line in a quietly authoritarian world, praised almost unanimously for its charm, escalating rules, and understated storytelling, held back mainly by a hold-to-drag control scheme that several reviewers found genuinely strains the hand.
8 / 10
A complete-at-launch, Skate-and-Dave-Mirra-flavoured 3D BMX game from a decade-long mobile series developer, whose overwhelmingly positive reception is tempered by a well-corroborated, unusual control scheme with a real learning curve and no keyboard rebinding.
8 / 10
A solo-developed, first-person immersive-sim action game inspired by Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, Overwhelmingly Positive across 567 English reviews for its chaotic, physics-driven combat and dark humour, with a fair complaint that its story campaign is short and some technical crashes cost lost progress.
8 / 10
Powerhoof's pulpy point-and-click thriller resurrects a murdered drifter seconds before his death and sends him sprinting through a conspiracy-laden noir mystery, earning an "Overwhelmingly Positive" score for logical puzzles and a breakneck pace that reviewers say reinvents the genre's usual rhythm.
8.5 / 10
Evil Trout Inc. follows The Roottrees Are Dead with a lavish remake of their own free itch.io text adventure, Type Help, adding full voice acting, hand-painted scenes, and new epilogue content to a chilling seance-machine murder mystery. The deduction is a little gentler than Obra Dinn, but the atmosphere, cast, and voice work make this an easy pick for genre fans.
8 / 10
The Wide Open Sky is Running out of Catfish is a cozy story-driven photography game about riding a giant flying catfish through the clouds, spawning and photographing sea creatures made of mist, and this review's sample, unanimous at 75 out of 75 reviews, keeps landing on the same word for its story about death and impermanence — a punch to the gut wrapped in a retro-polygon fever dream.
8.5 / 10
A tactical roguelike where you charge devastating spells on a match-3 grid and cast them against technofascist cyberpunk CEOs while climbing a corporate tower, drawing a small but unanimously positive early review base for its deep combo-driven mechanics, sharp anti-capitalist satire and confidently tongue-in-cheek writing.
8 / 10
A short, narrative-driven incremental game about a demoted angel racing a demon rival through Heaven's annual Soul-Catching Contest, pairing cherub-worker resource management with a warmly received yuri romance and optional rhythm-game elements.
8 / 10
