Yeah, so this one’s a little late. With the amount of games releasing lately, it’s hard to find the time to play everything that’s on my plate, and fairly judge them comparatively in these “best of” posts. The plus side of this taking so long is, well, there’s a ton of awesome games out right now. Between April and May, I’ve had just as much to play as almost any other time this year. There have been some incredibly surprising games that came essentially from out of nowhere, and ended up taking up a ton of my time. And of course there’s still Hearthstone, which I think I’ve played almost every day for the last few months, but I digress.

Mibibli’s Quest

Take everything you love about Mega Man, make it a whole lot weirder, and you’ll have Mibibli’s Quest. The tight platforming through varied stages rivals anything we’ve seen in the genre in the last few years, and the huge amount creativity carries you through a dozen or more hours of excellence. I love the original Mega Man games, and this comes almost as close as MegaMan Unlimited to bringing back that feel, and then adds its own madness on top.

The Wolf Among Us: Episode 3

Everything is picking up steam, and we’re finally starting to see some of the real players behind this story. Scene after scene, I was being bombarded with action, character development, and more twists and turns. After the excellent reveal of the second episode, this episode starts and barely ever lets up. By the last hour, I was literally on the edge of my seat, awaiting the next choice I was going to be forced into. I love this series so far, and the relationships between each character feel realer than ever in this one; I can’t wait to see how they grow after this.

Trials Fusion

In what feels like a mix between BADLAND and Donkey Kong Country Returns, the newest Trials game is the best in the series I’ve played yet. Each level is brilliantly designed around setpieces, and has the pacing to make you want to binge the whole thing in one sitting. The level designs are varied throughout, and there’s always a punchline at the end, whether you’re abducted by aliens out of nowhere or a giant sand monster drags you to its depths. The creativity on display here is matched by few other frantic platformers, and it’s a shame that the last couple hours shed the high speed races for slower, physics based puzzles that the series (for some reason) seems to pride itself on. It’s a blast for those first several hours though, and I’d gladly play through them again.

Honorable Mentions:

Monument Valley

In case you missed the first time I talked this game up, it’s a beautiful, brief experience that builds a better world and characters in an hour than many games do in twenty.

Hearthstone

Hearthstone makes one of these lists again because it’s on iPad now, and I’m still playing it every day since like five months ago. Help.