Master Key

Play it on: Switch, Windows (Steam Deck OK)
Current goal: Find the other sodding mushroom

If you’re looking for a follow-up after Animal Well, then I am very pleased to be able to recommend you Master Key. So far grimly unnoticed by the games press, this is a bloody brilliant Zelda-like, presented in monochrome chunky pixels, with a sublime journey delivered through new skills opening up new areas.

It’s monstrously clever about it all, encouraging widespread exploration to discover how your latest upgrade unlocks entire new dungeons where previously you thought there was only a plain wall, and boss fights are scrupulously fair. It’s wordless, but the game’s smattering of NPCs communicate in the simplest of image-based speech bubbles, letting me weave my own narrative and motivations for everything that’s going on.

And despite the reasonably small map, it’s enormous, multi-layered and bulging with secrets. It’s such a brilliantly refined delivery of the old-school Zelda format, streamlined to its purest excellence, and most importantly, has a hookshot and boomerang. Those are worth 20 percentage points each, ensuring an already great game scores at around the 124 percent mark. — John Walker