Bugsnax review – you are what you eat

PC, PS4, PS5; Young Horses
This warm, strange, endearing puzzle game brings new meaning to an old axiom

Perhaps best described as a comedy body horror, Bugsnax asks you to solve the mystery surrounding a missing villager on the bizarre island of Snaxburg, and this is done by using tricks, tools and timing to catch and catalogue the creatures that live there. Part bug, part snack, these critters are the titular Bugsnax: a moth made of pizza slices, a sea monster made of dragon roll sushi, a cinnamon-roll snail. Oh - and eating them causes part of your character's body to morph into that food.

The obvious comparison, with the catch em all" mentality and the abundance of cute creatures that can only say their own name, is Pokemon. But Snaxburg doesn't borrow much from Kanto at all; you use tricks, tools and timing rather than Pokeballs to catch these critters, setting up trip wires or ketchup catapults, or luring Bugsnax towards each other to trigger a reaction.