Games of the week
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Dragon Quest: Builders 2
Platform: PS4, Switch
Genre: RPG
Price: £42.99
A blueprint for success
Dragon Quest: Builders brilliantly blends the fantasy RPG series with Minecraft's resource juggling and creative gameplay. The result is anything but derivative, with real drive given to your building antics through the assembling of your own bustling colony of friends with quests, needs and desires. Sadly, the storyline is weaker in this sequel, and you're now accompanied by a buddy who fights alongside you and citizens who build parts of the settlement themselves, which detracts from your sense of heroic importance. Ego aside, Dragon Quest: Builders 2 has some neat additions, like new tools and interface tweaks for more intuitive construction, and that magical appeal can still be found in protecting and nurturing your own little community, piece by piece.
Skip to the end: Great fun, even if it doesn't build on the original.
Score: 8/10
Etherborn
Platform: PC, Xbox One, PS4, Switch
Genre: Puzzler
Price: £14.99
Gravity well
Etherborn is what an MC Escher platformer would look like. In this ethereal puzzler, you traverse entwined columns, trees, bridges and cliffs, walking from floors to walls to ceilings until up and down become old-fashioned concepts. There's something of classic PlayStation adventure ICO in the soothing sounds and environments, generating a suitably weightless atmosphere, as you unpick the path through each 3D labyrinth. The camera deserves an honourable mention – trust in it and it won't let you down, even when things get truly dizzying – and the forgiving savepoints are wonderful. Etherborn's puzzling exercise forces your brain to operate in an entirely new and wholly enthralling way.
Skip to the end: An unnervingly woozy but gracefully enjoyable challenge.
Score: 8/10
Super Cane Magic ZERO
Platform: PC, PS4, Switch
Genre: RPG
Price: £29.99
Stick with it
Super Cane Magic ZERO is wilfully bonkers. It's the sort of emphatic weirdness that you either have to dive headlong into or just reject immediately – because in a game where the sadness of a dead wizard's dog is causing the end of the world, the oddness is not going to let up any time soon. Ride the strange though, and you'll discover a solid and very playable adventure in a cheerfully bright world that manages to bring a fresh liveliness to age-old RPG traditions, like loot-hunting or level grinding. Multiplayer adds a nice dash of company to your questing, with an enjoyable battle mode to boot.
Skip to the end: A ridiculously silly but well-crafted action RPG.
Score: 7/10
Graveyard Keeper
Platform: PC, iPad/iPhone
Genre: RPG
Price: £9.99
Pushing up daisies
Graveyard Keeper is the cadaverous cousin of farming simulators like Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing. After a brief whisk of plot, you awake in a strange Medieval village, where a talking donkey dumps corpses for you to bury and a disembodied skull gives you pointers on carrying out autopsies. In between tending graves, improving the local church and carrying out tasks for the locals, you're seeking a way back to the life you lost, yet this pastoral life has plenty of grim attractions. The extensive crafting system is tough to grasp but quickly makes sense, while the lovely 2D visuals add warmth to your chilly duties and the varied actions make being the Graveyard Keeper a busy and intriguing life.
Skip to the end: A huge and addictive pursuit, though a bit awkward on mobile.
Score: 8/10
