August's review pile has a useful split in it. Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls is the easy crowd-pleaser, Beast of Reincarnation is the divisive one, and Helix: Descent N Ascent is the smaller game quietly making a strong case for itself.
That makes them good games to log rather than flatten into a single "best of the week" list. The critic scores point in different directions, and the reasons matter more than the order.
Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls
Release date: August 6, 2026, on PlayStation 5 and PC
OpenCritic: 87 average from 23 critics, with 94% recommending it
Marvel Tōkon has the cleanest consensus of the three. OpenCritic places it in the Mighty tier and in the top 5% of scored games. IGN gave it 9/10, Tom's Guide scored it 4.5/5, and ScreenRant's Matthew Danielson gave it 88/100.
The appeal is familiar but well executed: a four-on-four tag-team fighter built around Marvel characters and Arc System Works' particular comfort with expressive, readable combat. The reviews keep circling the same strengths: it is technical without being hostile to new players, the roster gives teams room to experiment, and the online structure gives people a reason to keep learning instead of treating the first week as the whole game.
The useful caution is that "beginner-friendly" does not mean shallow. A player can get in quickly, but the tag systems and team choices still leave room for the usual fighting-game rabbit hole. If you want a new competitive game to practise, this looks like the safest pick here. If you only want a short single-player campaign, the reviews suggest a thinner proposition.
Best fit: players who want a new fighter with a strong online centre and enough technical depth to reward practice.
Beast of Reincarnation
Release date: August 3, 2026, on PC
OpenCritic: 75 average from 74 critics, with 54% recommending it
Beast of Reincarnation is where the review roundup gets more interesting. It has the largest critic sample here and the weakest agreement. IGN and GameSpot both gave it 6/10. Eurogamer scored it 3/5. The Guardian's Diego Argüello described a journey shaped by the last words of dying robots, while GamingBolt praised the road-trip quality of the adventure even while pointing to camera problems.
The idea is strong: Game Freak moves into a darker action-RPG built around Emma and her canine companion, Koo, in a world close to collapse. Critics seem to see the ambition. They also see the weeds around it. Combat, camera behaviour, pacing, and the unevenness between the game's best ideas and its rougher execution keep coming up in the lower scores.
That does not make the game a write-off. A 75 average is not a disaster, and the split tells you more than the number does. Beast of Reincarnation looks like a game for players who will forgive a clumsy edge when the setting, journey, or character relationship lands. It is less convincing as a blind purchase for anyone looking for a polished action game with no rough patches.
Best fit: players who like unusual worlds and can live with mechanical and technical friction when the larger journey works.
Helix: Descent N Ascent
Release date: July 23, 2026, on PC and Nintendo Switch
OpenCritic: 78 average from critics, with 100% recommending it
Helix is the sleeper in this group. It is smaller than the other two, but the early critical response is unusually consistent: OpenCritic lists a 78 average and 100% critic recommendation. Checkpoint Gaming called its discovery-led puzzle design a fabulous time, while Game Scanner's review gave it 74/100 and said its atmosphere and smart puzzles outweighed technical and pacing roughness.
The pitch is a wordless, monochrome puzzle adventure about exploring a lost civilisation and working out what the world wants you to notice. That kind of game can become vague very quickly. The reviews suggest Helix avoids that trap by letting the player make connections rather than handing over a constant stream of instructions.
There is still a warning in the score. A 78 is good, not untouchable, and the mentions of pacing and technical roughness are worth keeping in the record. But the 100% recommendation figure says the rough edges did not erase the central pleasure. For a player who wants to solve something without being walked through every step, Helix may be the most appealing game of the three.
Best fit: players who want atmosphere, exploration, and puzzles that trust them to pay attention.
Which one belongs in your Perthro journal?
Pick Marvel Tōkon if you want the most reliable recommendation and a game that can become a regular part of your week. Pick Beast of Reincarnation if the setting matters more to you than a perfectly smooth combat loop. Pick Helix if you want a quieter game that asks you to look closely and do some of the thinking yourself.
The critic scores are useful as a map, not a verdict. Log the game, then log the part the score cannot capture: who you played with, where the friction started, and whether you kept thinking about it after you put the controller down. Perthro is free on the App Store for iPhone running iOS 17.0 or later, with ratings, reviews, backlog and wishlist tools, custom lists, friends and feed, supported library imports, IGDB metadata, and custom themes.
If you want to compare notes with other players, the community is there. For app questions, use support.