Just your very presence makes everyone happy, happy… happy?
Over the holiday season, we’re republishing some of the best articles from Nintendo Life writers and contributors from 2025. This article was originally published in August. Enjoy!
Editor’s note. Spoilers for a 20-year-old game inbound…
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Enjoy hours of electric, adrenaline-pumping racing action, embark on an epic journey through a realm of forgotten Disney characters and explore a long-forgotten cavern teeming with untold secrets with the PlayStation Plus Monthly Games for January 2026. Need For Speed Unbound, Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed and Core Keeper will be available to PlayStation Plus members from Tuesday January 6 until Monday February 2*.
Let’s take a closer look at each of the games.
Need For Speed Unbound | PS5
Start at the bottom, race to the top in the latest entry in the iconic Need for Speed franchise. With separate single and multiplayer campaigns, this latest edition in the Need for Speed franchise from Criterion Games delivers hours of electric, adrenaline-pumping racing action. Race against time, outsmart the cops, and take on weekly qualifiers to reach The Grand, Lakeshore’s ultimate street racing challenge. Pack your garage with precision-tuned, custom rides and light up the streets with your style, exclusive fits, and a vibrant global soundtrack that bumps in every corner of the world.
Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed | PS4, PS5
Play as Mickey Mouse and embark on an epic journey through Wasteland, a realm of forgotten Disney characters. Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed brings the magic of Disney to life in a vibrant 3D platformer. This beautiful remake sends Mickey into a fantastical world where you use paint and thinner to shape your adventure and the fate of this alternate world. Every stroke of your magic brush matters! Use paint to restore beauty and harmony or thinner to alter your environment and uncover hidden secrets. Encounter iconic characters like Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Walt Disney’s first creation. Collect virtual Disney pins and tackle creative challenges while exploring classic platforming levels inspired by animated films and shorts.
Core Keeper | PS4, PS5
Awaken as an explorer in a long-forgotten cavern teeming with untold secrets. In this award-winning, 1-8 player mining sandbox adventure, your choices shape an epic journey. Harvest relics and resources, craft advanced tools, build your base, and explore a dynamically evolving world waiting to be unearthed. Level up your skills, defeat legendary Titans, and unveil the power of the Core. Grow your garden, fish in mysterious waters, master a vast array of recipes, raise and care for animals, encounter the Cavelings, and carve out your own unique world in an enchanting underground adventure.
PlayStation Plus members have until Monday January 5 to add Lego Horizon Adventures, Killing Floor 3, The Outlast Trials, Synduality Echo of Ada and Neon White to their game library.
*PlayStation Plus Game Catalog lineup may differ in certain regions. Please check the PlayStation Store on launch day for your region’s lineup.
We eight scribes from RPS are,
Bearing jokes, we wrote in the past,
Christmas crackers, god we’re knackered,
After twelve months of graft.
O, reader of wonder, loved the most,
Why not subscribe to Supporters posts?
January leading, still proceeding,
See you once we’ve munched our roasts.
But first, time to enjoy your lovely joke!
Thumbnail and I.
I love browsing the eShop, and the clicky sounds as you scroll across it.
The pleasing crispness of the chick! sound goes so well with the Joy-Con button feel. There’s that camera shutter snap! if you scroll across a game’s gallery in quick succession, and on Switch 2 there’s a thumb-cheek pop! when you hover over a 2-wide box. Genuinely, big fan.
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Most anticipated? Oh reader, you gentle, innocent child. Hark at you, ambling in here with supple joints, eyes clear as springwater, and the scent of hope in your hair. I have grown old, dear reader. I no longer feel this emotion called “anticipation”, anymore than I remember the taste of strawberries in the Shire. Years of waiting for another Legacy of Kain game have broken my spirit. My heart is a sponge of sorrow. My beard coils round my ankles like a listless cat. All has become grey.
When I looked back on 2025 to assemble my advent calendar votes, I was surprised how many of them were smaller titles, especially in a year that saw both a new Silent Hill and Doom hitting the shelves. But then I remembered this year the Steam algorithm’s whispered in my ear like the Green Goblin Mask to Norman Osborn, guiding me to lovely indie gems (and telling me to squash that Spider-Man).
Metroid mania.
Nintendo has been marketing and promoting the recent release Metroid Prime 4: Beyond in all sorts of ways, and in case you missed it, it released a few extra offerings recently.
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Update: Digital Foundry investigates.
As the holiday celebrations get underway, Atlus has this week delivered a new update for Persona 3 Reload on the Switch 2.
We noted in our review here on Nintendo Life how the “biggest drawback” of P3R when it launched in October on the new hybrid system was the 30fps performance. Thankfully, the latest update (Version 1.03) comes with some performance improvements.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
It’s no secret that Dragon Quest is one of the most important RPG series of all time. Inspired by Wizardry, the Enix-published Famicom game has inspired thousands of famous RPGs. The genre simply wouldn’t exist the way it does today without Dragon Quest.
Last year, Square Enix finally released Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake, the long-awaited remake of Erdrick’s adventure. Today at Amazon, you can save over 60% off an Xbox Series X copy, which is perfect for collectors and new adventurers alike.
As its name implies, Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake utilizes Square Enix’s HD-2D art style, which looks absolutely incredible. The blend of modern art design with crisp 2D sprites is endlessly charming, and the lighting systems in place really do wonders. Despite being the third game in the series, it is recommended that players begin with Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake before jumping ship to I & II. This is due to Dragon Quest III being a prequel.
In addition to the new visuals, DQIII HD-2D Remake also packs in numerous new features. For one, there is brand-new story content involving Ortega, the father of the protagonist. You also gain access to the new Monster Wrangler vocation, which is a ton of fun to try out. Beyond this, much of the game has voice acting, and an orchestrated soundtrack helps bring the world to life.
If you’re a fan of both turn-based combat and the RPG genre, you owe it to yourself to experience one of the medium’s defining entries. At $22, this is a steal for a game that easily packs in 60+ hours of content.
Noah Hunter is a freelance writer and reviewer with a passion for games and technology. He co-founded Final Weapon, an outlet focused on nonsense-free Japanese gaming (in 2019) and has contributed to various publishers writing about the medium.
The upgrade is available now in the US.
Stardew Valley – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition got a surprise release on Christmas Day, but has admittedly experienced some teething issues. The creator Eric ‘ConcernedApe’ Barone was quick to acknowledge this, mentioning how fixes would be rolled out as soon as possible, and he’s now shared another update.
For fans located outside of the US that can’t even see the Switch 2 Edition of the game on their local eShop, there’s no need to worry, as it’s on the way. Barone notes how he’s holding off on the release of the Switch 2 Edition in other locations until the next patch is ready. This update is apparently “coming soon” and will resolve a crafting issue, and includes mouse control improvements.
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