What you want

When doing anything creative, you must fight the temptation to try and reinvent the wheel. Everybody thrills at the sight of the new – this month’s cover game makes that perfectly clear. But that should not demean the notion of simply delivering on people’s expectations; it might not be as exciting to work on, but it’s no less honourable a goal.

It’s a recurring theme this issue – and how could it not be, in a month that yields a new Dragon Quest (in this case DQXI, p112)? Yuji Horii and co have made their careers out of making much the same thing over and over again, striking just about the right balance of nostalgia and progress with each new instalment in Japan’s favourite series. Their latest release could not have been technically possible before PS4, but it’s an old game at heart, right down to the sequenced sequ orchestra on its soundtrack.

Elsewhere there’s Guacamelee 2 (p108), which knows better than to mess around too much with a proven formula – though there are few finer iterative steps in videogames than the introduction of a playable chicken. Similarly,

Yakuza Kiwami 2 (p114) does the Ronseal thing to a tee, making over a beloved game in shiny new clothes while expanding it in ways laser-targeted to series fans. All of the above, of course, are sequels – but Marvel’s

Spider-Man (p104) builds on a very different legacy. The webslinging wonder has a chequered videogame past, but Insomniac succeeds where others have failed by simply giving the people what they want. That it may barely have an original idea to call its own is by the by; it is the Spider-Man game that has long existed in our heads, and its coming to life, however generic it may be, is something we can only celebrate.