BUG SMACKS

he theme this month was meant to be festive. And with that in mind, is a stretch, but it’s a winter-adjacent excuse to play one of the best Metroidvania games’s mesmerizing charms—like some rare breed of benevolent spider that catches you in its web just to pay you compliments and give a back rub. The way pushes you further into its world, whether through power-ups or crumbling floors, is so compelling that 35 hours here will seem like a nice afternoon spent examining insects. And that’s the low end of the scale: Glance at the Steam reviews, and you’ll see them from people with 100+ hours in the game, all complaining that ten quid for this much game feels like burglary. That’s maybe a measure of how good this is—a game you’ll want to pay more for.