The depiction of an endless world here is really beautiful, there is no end nor start to the huge megastructures you traverse through, in fact, falling into the void to get on a platform you couldn't reach is a main mechanic, as the world loops over itself. Time and space have no meaning, both don't have a defined start or ending, they are simply there while you walk through them until you finally reach your goal. Or perhaps it isn't really as much of a goal as it is an inevitability. Life tends to end one way or another, even if you could life forever in an equally never-ending world, sooner or later you'll want it to be over. The scale can make you feel insignificant, but you can still bring some life and beauty to a meaningless world and give it some meaning.

Illogical architecture mixed with constantly shifting gravity plus some really, really beautiful landscapes make for a really innovative and creative puzzle game. Unfortunately, you get used to the puzzle mechanics and everything described above stops working as great as it could have at the start. The endlessness cannot be understood, you can't - or more likely, you shouldn't - get used to it. For a world as illogical as this, everything seems to work under a defined set of rules. This could be subtext on how everything in nature is defined to work in a certain way. For example, zebras have black stripes over white skin to hide better from hunters, this is something that nobody who has ever been alive has decided, it is mostly accepted as something that simply is, the same way the world of Manifold Garden is supposed to not have been created by someone but is heavily based on clearly defined rules that seem to hold a greater purpose, that purpose being to get you to reach the end. There's always an intention to everything.

The purpose of the world is perfectly defined and understandable but it wants you to think it's incomprehensible, your small size in comparison to the eternal world pretends to represent how small you actually are in comparison to the grand scheme of things, but fails because conceiving infinity is rather impossible yet Manifold Garden reduces it to a bunch of gravity and colour block puzzles. Despite all great that I said in the last two paragraphs, that is mostly stuff I've thought of while writing this, not while playing the game. That is the problem of depicting the endless as a defined set of rules, that this ends up feeling more like a technical showoff rather than a tale on passing through an unintelligible and seemingly illogical world. The greatly executed mind-bending puzzles are the real meat here. The effort is commendable, but the intention of the world can be understood really fast, as it just is to get you to the next level and consequently the ending. This is a game about contemplating the vastness of the universe in which the universe itself looks huge and bigger than life but is actually all about getting from one chamber to another. Portal if it was about shifting gravity and bizarre architecture.

Maybe the real problem of depicting something as abstract as the endless isn't that we can't associate it with something, but rather the human part of the work in which everything has to serve a purpose as specific as getting the player to the next level. I had my solid time with the puzzles tho.

Borderlands 2: The Video Gaming Experience is a slightly acquired taste - but there is an undeniable flow here once you figure it out. With the Diablo influence finally finding its feet, the game walks the line between Zany and Serious in both its combat and narrative in a way thats riveting and compelling. The sad truth is: Gearbox will probably never write a character as good as Handsome Jack (or most of the cast) ever again.

In fact (hot take) it was probably essential that Borderlands 2 was written with a largely comedic lean, because the unserious attitude helps you feel less seriously about the games cheap feeling gameplay. The games looter-churn means youll be obligated to use guns that suck in a game where the shooting already kind of sucks, the artstyle is pretty but also very poorly assembled and buggy - it all feels less irritating (key word being “less”) when the world is already absurd and illogical.

Mf thinks life is all sunshine and rainbows

Despite my fondness for the Kirby series and the pink ball’s equally adorable friends, it’s kind of surprising how I haven’t played many of this cute eldritch horror’s older adventures. Case and point, it was only relatively recently that I finally played Kirby’s Dream Land,  and while it was certainly a simple and fun enough adventure —and a necessary stepping stone all things considered—, it didn’t quite click with me the same it does for others. It has its moments and highlights, like the shoot ‘em up boss fight, and as a short, easy-to-access platformer, it does a good job, but I find it reaaaaally hard to get invested in its not-so great levels, and Adventure’s existence and how fun and complete that game feels while also accomplishing everything Dream Land does doesn’t exactly help things.

All this to say I had no  clue what to expect from the sequel; I knew I had to play this, this is the first outing in Shinichi Shimomura’s less action oriented take on Kirby compared with what Sakurai would end up pursuing in Super Star and that fact alone made it far more interesting, and I also knew some other things here and there, like the fact it features copy abilities and what-not, but overall… Yeah, I didn’t know much about aside from ‘’this is the direct continuation to Dream Land’’. I wasn’t expecting anything bad, hell, I don’t even consider the original game a bad work at all, but I would lie if I said I had high expectations going in…

… so what if I told you I kinda really jammed with this game?

I… Wow, if we see this and the two previous games and some sort of original trilogy, then the evolution is clear as day; as I said, I knew this game lifted some elements from Adventure like the copy abilities, but I never expected to see so many translated so well to the charming brick that is the Game Boy. Levels once again have the adorable introductory cutscenes, but instead of being limited to one-stage run-throughs, there are actual defined hub-worlds, and while there’s less optional stuff than in Adventure (by less, I mean none), the hub areas themselves feel much more compacted and representative of the world they are set in, and it’s hard to describe how, but these areas and the game as a whole manage to feel very lively despite normally featuring no color at all.

And on the levels themselves… You can play as a hamster, so I think that says more than enough. The original Dream Land attempted things such as vertical challenges and annoying mazes, and while those are very much present here, they are accompanied by far more interesting overall lay-outs; the game is still easy, but beating the stages feel like an accomplishment either way thanks to the more varied and fitting challenges, mini-bosses that are actually super fun,  and a but more of a puzzle-like feeling thanks to the collectables and the varying paths.

There are still 1ups here and there, but the existence of star bits and being rewarded with a life after collecting enough is a incredibly simple change that goes a long way in encouraging you to approach the stages in a slower-paced, different way, and that’s not even getting into the main collectables that give you the real ending.

Most of the stuff in or added to Dream Land 2 seems like the most basic shit imaginable, and maybe it is, but it’s all done with such care and intent that it’s hard to not be profoundly enthralled by simply getting a new power-up or uncovering a secret. The design, the animations, so reminiscent of both games that came before yet even more adorable, and charming, even the music for crying out loud! Most are rather short loops, sure, but what they lack in length, they deliver in quality, have you even heard Coo’s theme? You know this bird is the real deal when this starts playing.

Oh, that reminds me of the friend animals, actually… Nah, just kidding, I could never forget Rick and his incredibly silly dance, I smiled so much when I saw the lil’ guy go… Rick, Coo, and Kine are so much more than what they seem at first; they aren’t only  funny fellas that give new ways to move around, they are also broken as hell in every sense of the word! Each power-up acts different depending if you are accompanied by them or not, and they are pretty much the key to finding the game’s more hidden secrets, and… I don’t know man, they are just so much fun to play as and make you view levels in a completely different way.

Out of the bunch, Kine is probably the least useful: his land movement is ass and pretty frustrating, and it’s not like it makes swimming easier than it already is, and getting him without the possibility of getting rid of it can make certain sections into a nightmare. Other than that, they are genius additions that not only seem like an inspiration for the sections in Kirby 64 alongside other friends of Kirby and even the ability combination mechanic, but also feel like a sort of preview for the far more complex move-sets Super Star would give us.

It's a super charming and fun experience that only has two big problems, those being The Iceberg and the Dark Castle; the former is an ice world, and even tho that alone doesn’t have to mean anything negative, it sadly has some of the most annoying, stressful, and frustrating levels in the entire game, with a vertical sections that is either the easiest thing ever or the most bullshit platformer challenge I’ve ever tried depending on if you have an animal pal or not. And the latter is relying solely in drawn out sections that aren’t that fun to begin with and content to see in other worlds, which is a huge shame considering how cool the whole setting is. Two whole worlds that drag down what’s otherwise a fun and wonderfully simple platformer, it's still Kirby after all, but what intrigues me is how it manages to be Kirby, if that makes sense.

It's clear to me now how much this game not only would highly influence both Dream Land 3 and 64, but after also the Kirby series in general: other playable characters aside of the main puffball, puzzle-like elements  and collectables that would return at full force in the modern 2D games, the long running tradition of Dedede getting possessed, and the beginning of the whole Kirby background story as we know it. What surprises me is not so much that it introduces these elements, but just how well they work right here, right now.

It's true that it has two worlds that feel like a bit of a chore, it’s true that most of the puzzle can be summarized as ‘’you need x ability to break x block’’, it’s true that it borrows a ton from Adventure, and all of that matters, but it also matters just how much of a fun and well-thought out adventure this is. I’ve used the word ‘’charm’’ a couple of times, but it’s the word that defines it best….

Also, if the three animal fellas don’t appear in the next 3D Kirby game (If there is one) I will RIOT, I NEED MORE OF THESE ADORABLE MACHINES OF DESTRUCTION AND THEIR SILLY DANCES, DAMMIT!

I've never played a game that is so OBVIOUSLY a masterpiece. I cannot fathom someone playing this and just being like 'Yeah it was okay'.

There is so much to enjoy and unpack here. The art, music and beautiful painted looking environments. The writing, how it's both funny, sad, profound and emotionally complex. The unqiue skills you can invest in, how they are characterised as different parts of your body and psyche and how they can interrupt your internal monologue. The almost unnecessary amount of in depth and complicated worldbuilding, and how it is completely up to the player how deep they want to dive into it.

I also personally love how the game dives head first into complicated and controversial topics and doesn't beat the player over the head with any kind of obvious message. It kind of feels like a lot of media created today avoids taboo topics like race and class in order to avoid saying something wrong, like the writers feel like they aren't qualified to bring up about certain topics. And while this may be valid from a moral perspective, in my opinion the art can suffer as a result.

I could keep listing more incredible aspects to this game, as well as how well they are put together, but it feels almost redundant. If you've played this game, you know how good it is. And if you don't think so, you're either a spineless moralist, a parasitic ultra-liberal, a racist Revacholian fascist or a deluded naive communard.

Man. I love fish, I love animals, I love taking pictures of both of these, and I loved Endless Ocean on the Wii. This game is not like the originals. I started this game with a higher opinion of this than I think a lot of people, it was fun, kind of clunky mechanically, but the core was strong enough to be a good time. The more I played though, the more baffling decisions I encountered. There’s so many axed modes and features from the Wii game that this feels like if you ported the idea to an iPhone game more than a third entry of the Endless Ocean series, which sucks. I got my money’s worth out of it, and overall it’s fine, the features cut are things I could overlook if the game was as good as the originals and it’s just not. Not to mention, I have encountered so many glitches that halt progression, and even gotten softlocked out of the ending from what I can tell because one of the items I need to complete the 99 tasks you have to do to pad the game out to hell and back just didn’t spawn in the already rare randomly generated formation, all of this just makes me wonder how this game was okayed in the state it’s in, missing any of the typical “shine” from a Nintendo published title, with things that scream a lack of QA testing.
Overall the lack of an aquarium mode the change to randomly generated maps from set maps, making exploration a lot more tedious to get what you want, and just lack of good QOL features… makes the game all in all very disappointing.

recommend it if you're a tetris weirdo, but i will never really love to play this verison, yet i love returning to it every now and then.

this is my go-to tetris pallete cleanser when i'm fully in tetris brain, something that hasn't been the case for a little over a year now. this era of tetris is quite fascinating, and of all console versions of tetris, this feels the most like a home computer version with its single rotation, only hard drop and less-conventional lives system. the controls feel as if they were intended to be mapped to arrow keys where a player could have their fingers on multiple separate digital actuators at all times.

this era around the late 80's was probably the most interesting period in the overall splintering and iteration of tetris as it was unleashed up on the world, they were all just learning how to cook up those quadruple rectangles and it resulted in a genuine mechanical variety that unfortunately isn't found in any tetris released in the current era. i have no idea what BPS was even trying to do here, still feels as if they're in the progress of figure out how to make tetris work on a pad. it is of zero surpise that that shortly after this, BPS would devise their own system with lock delay as a core principle of tetromino arrangement. one of the the strains of tetris that BPS would, towards the end of the 90's, overcook and would demand that to be the only tetris dish served. BPS's impending near-strangulation of tetris started here, and on many days, i would rather play this over NEStris. thankfully BPS would figure out how to cook it just right for a bit in their successor to this one (plus bombliss!)

NOTA: 7,75

Castlevania Lords of The Shadow é um belo game de ação e plataforma com boa direção de arte, um ótimo e desafiador combate no hard que é a base de combos e magias desbloqueaveis, além de sua jogabilidade contar com muitos puzzles criativos (embora em número exagerado) e habilidades adquiridas durante as fases, promovendo um leve backtracking para obter upgrades de magia e vida.

Com uma história de poucos personagens porém bem interessante e uma reviravolta no final. Os confrontos de Gabriel Belmont são divididos por capítulos e fases jogáveis e de cara é um conceito que é meio datado, a transição entre elas atrapalha o ritmo da gameplay, além de seus mapas não serem nada intuitivos e os cenários confundem bastante em alguns trechos sobre onde seguir e onde explorar.

Falando em datado, sofri bastante com a limitação da câmera durante os cenários e alguns casos de hitbox bem imprecisas também.

Já nos trechos de plataforma, há uma leve imprecisão e delay para os movimentos do Gabriel, e alguns deles exige rápida movimentação e podem ser bem estressantes de se passar.

O game tem uma progressão que simula um mini metroidvania com as skills adquiridas, porém rapidamente ele abandona a ideia de deixar itens para habilidades adquiridas mais para frente, assim como também abandona as boss fights em inimigos colossais que são introduzidas no começo do game e só retornam próximo do fim e as montarias que poderiam ser bem mais exploradas e tornar os capítulos mais ricos.

Finalmente, a DLC que vem inclusa nessa versão, introduz a Laura, um novo personagem jogável que deveria ter mais trechos com ela além de introduzir algumas cutscenes animadas como se fossem HQ que o game base deveria ter.

Procurando games da franquia Castlevania, tive uma leve influência do Alanzoka e o fato desse game ter como linha do tempo apenas uma trilogia diferente da original dos demais games, embora o game pela época precisaria urgente de um remake ou remaster, recomendo bastante! Os chefes misturados com a trilha sonora gera confrontos bem épicos. Para quem curte jogos com mais cara de PS2/PS3, com certeza vai curtir.

NOTA: 10 ou perfeição

Elden Ring é basicamente tudo que eu sempre quis, desde os primordios de 2021 onde me tornei fã do gênero Soulslike e depois de todas as jornadas em Demons Remake, os três Dark Souls, Bloodborne e Sekiro, o grande Miazaki junta mecânicas principalmente vistas nos Dark Souls, mantendo e superando no quesito trilha sonora e direção de arte, introduzindo-as em um mundo aberto.

Tendo experienciado esse game desde 2022 constantemente, decidi que seria a vez de platinar no PC e não me canso de admirar o que para mim torna esse game o meu preferido de pelo menos da última década: sua flexibilidade. O gênero torna os inúmeros confrontos do game engajantes e sempre dá para o player opções ao se deparar com um adversário formidável: Utilizar summons? Chamar um amigo ou aleatório? Tentar diferentes equipamentos e builds? Ou simplesmente virar as costas e explorar/upar.

Fora isso, a exploração de Elden Ring é surreal, o game utiliza muito do mapa e o retrospecto de excelência em level design para construir dungeons com variedades de materiais de upgrade e equipamentos com diferentes weapon arts. Mesmo que os chefes se repitam.

A lore de Elden Ring é uma das coisas que eu acho que ficou meio desperdiçada, a temática é fantástica e ainda contou com o auxílio de George R.R.Martin e por mais que faça parte da proposta do game, sinto que poderia receber mais destaque.

Minha maior crítica ao game fica em seu NG+, os inimigos e chefes de pelo menos até a boss fight do Radahn não evoluem nem perto do que o player após a conclusão do game, além dos diversos atalhos e builds bem roubadas, esse trecho em questão fica muito fácil e me da sempre uma sensação de querer skippar simplesmente.

Um dos pontos que me fez jogar por horas e horas é o coop especial em apenas 2 pessoas, pois utilizamos da flexibilidade do game para se nerfar em momentos e eu pude aproveitar e usar algumas armas que nem sempre no solo teria como, ou se não, precisaria de uma boa adaptação. Em especial no PC, nossa gameplay veio acompanhada do excelente mod Semless Coop e Harder Coop, o que derruba as barreiras do coop e torna a run pelo menos 5 vezes mais complicada.

De maneira geral, a versão de Elden Ring de PC foi a melhor escolha que eu já fiz, por si só já fui capaz de variar a jogabilidade em relação às minhas 500+ horas no PS5 por ter jogado no Rog Ally, como os mods que citei tornou a gameplay ainda mais genial. O sucesso desse game é eminente e abre portas para o gênero souls like se tornar menos nichado, recomendo muito para aqueles que querem iniciar no gênero e para aqueles que ja conhecem, é simplesmente experiência obrigatória. Chega logo 21 de junho, não aguento mais esperar pela DLC.

Simplesmente a masterpiece do gênero souls like!

This is THE quintessential Kirby game. If someone wants to try just a single Kirby game, you point to this one. Everything that pretty much becomes a mainstay in the franchise most likely stems from this one.

It just plays so well. The difficulty is JUST right and there is the added bonus of drop in Coop. Almost every copy ability is satisfying to use and the artstyle is gorgeous. Level design is some of the best in all of Kirby.

I love how levels are presented as "episodes" each with their own gimmick. Like the the tutorial episode is called Spring Breeze, which is a modern homage to Kirby's Dream Land. Then you have a more traditional Kirby episode like Dynablade. Then the Great Cave Offensive episode which is exploration based, encouraging you to find all treasures before completing the level. My personal favorite is Milky Way Wishes which kind of plays like a Kirby metroidvania that has you exploring planets to find copy abilities as permanent upgrades. All of these episodes hit and absolutely do not miss. It also has the benefit of keeping the game feel fresh all the way through.

The original Super Star is a 9/10 (4.5 stars) as it was almost perfect, but just fell short of having enough content to completely satisfy me. With Kirby Super Star Ultra, it not only comes with better QoL features and visuals, but you have FOUR extra hard hard mode episodes - which easily elevates this game to a perfect score. Having a nice extra CHALLENGING post game with cool unlockables after beating the main game gives Super Star so much more life and is the definitive way to experience this game.