What a delightful surprise to see this masterful platform game in the Mario 64 style. I was shocked at how perfect of a fit it is. it's so impressive how they copied it over into a new style with the same minimalist controls, just 3D. We had a blast playing through and collecting all 30 strawberries in around 2.5 hours. Some of the cassette tape platforming stages were a challenge, but we always figured them out pretty quickly and then it just came down to perfect execution. It's not the most absolutely precise and tight movement, and I completely forgive that since this was a fun project made in around a week. It's good enough and I would have loved to play a full length game in this style with different worlds to explore.

I remember being so disappointed when this game was announced. I've been wanting a Sands of Time remake for a long, long time and instead of that game coming out, we were getting this 2D game that calls back to the origins of the series. But I was wrong to be concerned because Ubisoft has delivered one of the best in class Metroidvania games and proven that the IP is tailor-made to this particular style.

The balance between combat and exploration is perfect. Both are exceptional. The combat is not too difficult and there are just enough interesting combinations, great parry/counter options, and Astra surges to use that you can master it, while simultaneously being mostly possible to just button-mash main attack your way through (though it's gonna take longer and you're going to get hurt in the process). I only died a handful of times while fighting. Most of my deaths came in the platforming sections - but the controls are tight, fluid, and fast - so it was definitely me needing to master the timing and not a game issue. . The biomes and powers combine to give many unique and interesting areas to traverse, most of the hardest ones which are optional. That incredibly strong feeling of satisfaction when best one that has been giving you trouble? The best. Cheer worthy.

I also love how the game uses the story ideas of the Prince and time in this new tale. It's a surprising story with some emotional depth. Not the greatest, but very good and there's more to it than many games in this genre. And likewise the powers themselves and how they impact "time" during platforming or combat is a joy to experience.

At around 30 hours for full 100% completion, this is also a great length. There's enough variety that it never quite outstays its welcome while providing new abilities and areas to explore at a good pace. The only nitpick that I have is that I wish there were a few more fast travel points. I appreciate how many there are, but there was a quite a few times I would need to traverse several areas to get to somewhere that I needed to go. Luckily traversal is fun and quick.

AND... the best mechanic in the game helps to ensure you aren't wasting your time searching for things. The Lost Crown introduces something that I'd expect will be a genre staple going forward - the memory shard. At any time you can press down on the d-pad and snap a picture of your location, thus capturing visually a secret that you may need to come back to after acquiring a new power. It's so much more helpful than the typical unlabeled series of icons that most games use on their maps in these games and I will have a hard time playing a Metroidvania without it in the future.

This game rocks. It's one of my favorites ever in one of my favorite genres. It's a must-play. Ubisoft has nailed it and proven that they can still develop new and exciting projects outside of sticking to a typical open world formula that is comfortable and safe.

Played for the first time ever in 2023. It's such a good game and was probably doing pretty amazing things back when it was first released, but the enhancement features really kick it up a notch. Being able to alter the Gil or XP acquisition rate makes this accessible for everyone. Combined
with having a minimap and the ability to turn off encounters, which I used only to quickly exit a dungeon or go back into one to get a treasure chest that I missed without having to fight every five seconds, the game goes a lot faster and gets rid of the wandering that was necessary in the past. Being able to curate my own gameplay and experience this classic in a reasonable amount of time without a headache, and now having better context for when I get back to completing Stranger of Paradise, is awesome.

Update: I BEAT THE BOSS AND THE GAME AND OMG IT FEELS SOOOOOOOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOD

Still stuck on final boss, and honestly may never put in the time to beat him because a few hours is all that I'm willing to give when quick twitch gaming isn't an enjoyable thing to me, but regardless this game is absolutely amazing and one of my all-time favorites in the genre. Every other boss or E.M.M.I. that I struggled with felt like just enough challenge and I was able to overcome them within 45 minutes or so. Those fights and the exploration and music and beauty of this game provided me a completely addictive and memorable loop of gameplay that I will always cherish.

This game is brilliant. It's pixel design, its phenomenal musical score, and its best-in-class battle system that stays interesting from the first battle to the last. The latter, specifically, combined with an extensive job system that allows for heavy customization, elevates this among its peers by providing a system so fun and strategic and flexible. My first playthrough was amazing and I look back on it with such fondness. The one big thing that I was frustrated by was the chapter format, though, and how all eight character stories were not woven together.

Now I'm starting up a second time through and the more I've played OPT, the less critical of the chapter structure I am. I still wish they were connected more narratively, but I can see how that would be almost impossible to do while offering player choice for the order in which they're taken on, and I don't think I'd wanna give up that freedom. I also think the chapter format is the reason we get a game where all eight protagonist characters have legitimate story and must be leveled up and used in the party at some point. One of the biggest issues with JRPGs is a huge character roster that players rarely fully experience because they pick favorites and stick with them the entire game. OPT forces you not to do that by making each character participate four different session, and therefore be used to get leveled up or be severely gimped. It's brilliant really.

I'm quite certain this game will go down as one of my all-time favorites. Top 10 is pretty much a lock, and it could wind up my favorite JRPG, too. Sequel please!?

Goose Grief! A game that makes being a jerk fun.

Untitled Goose Game was much anticipated in our home and was purchased within minutes of being available on the Nintendo Switch e-shop. My daughter finished it first, taking around three hours to complete the game's main "story". My son and I completed the main game in about 2.5 hours, but admittedly had her help if we ever got stuck. Once the primary set of puzzles are complete the game's additional challenges (some of which are much more difficult/annoying) unlock. We're working our way through those now and while some are definitely nothing more than doing the same task again with a different object, a few are genuinely rewarding once you have that "Aha!" moment and figure out the solution. The uniqueness of waddling around as a goose, stealing things and honking at innocent bystanders makes playing in this beautifully drawn world pure joy, one that will have you smiling and laughing non-stop. It's adaptive Debussy score is the perfect backdrop and makes frustrating sections a lot more relaxing than they might be with more energetic music. There's no doubt this is a super short experience, but it's one of those special ones worth every penny you pay to participate in it.

I am not a high-skill gamer so this is the very first Souls-like game that I've ever beaten. I can honestly say that it's a game unlike anything I have played before and it just continually surprised me with how much joy it brought me, even through the struggles. In a lot of ways, Elden Ring may have ruined open-world games for me because this so perfectly perfects the formula. If this game had a more approachable story and lore, it very well might have been my favorite of all-time. This experience has been amazing and I can't wait to keep going, knock out some of these difficult optional bosses, and start up a NG+ run to try out other builds.

The Forgotten City is absolutely brilliant. It offers an exploration of mythology, philosophy, religion, morality, time loops, fate, and more. The game is populated by wonderful characters and features many branching, intertwined storylines that are a joy to slowly see revealed. There are so many ways things can go based on your decisions, and the dialogue is among the best written in a game I've ever played (with superb voice acting, too!), worthy of spending the time to listen to every line. It may be a "mod", but it's arguably as good as the game it was made from and such a uniquely memorable experience that it is my personal game of the year for 2021.

Really special gameplay and storytelling through skill checks. As a lover of tabletop games with dice placement mechanics, this was right up my alley. I also adore the anime sci-fi aesthetic and both heady and emotional themes. I admit that some of the storylines got a little confusing but the grounded ones where my character was interacting with other humans and having to make challenging decisions were captivating to me. It's rare that after seeing the credits in a game, I still feel compelled to go back in and keep completing quests to experience every drop I can of the story. But Citizen Sleeper is one of those games, and I could not be more excited about continuing this journey in a sequel.

Probably not the best time to write down my thoughts since I'm still pretty frustrated with the game's seemingly endless final level which completely halted the pacing I'd experienced for the past 20 hours in favor of repeated exposition dumps and cinematics to finally wrap up and explain its confounding story. I know that many resonate with the tale deeply but I just didn't, though I can wholeheartedly respect the presentation of mental health themes and family issues throughout the game. The characters look incredible and the voice acting is outstanding. Their personalities are quirky and cute, always entertaining.

Level design is where the game shines the most just in terms of visual splendor and sheer creativity. The themes are not really explored through the gameplay mechanics usually so you're often just doing the same things over and over but the look of the level will serve as a metaphor. I was torn on these because some felt tedious while others had me completely enamored and I never wanted then to end. The platforming is simple and effective. The combat is... not great. Using powers is fun but and I enjoyed the arsenal of them but melee was terrible when it came to lack of character movement. It just isn't snappy and combined with a large amount of enemies and projectiles on screen it can get frustrating trying to maneuver. I didn't hate the battles but they certainly were less interesting to me than just exploring the worlds hunting down collectibles, of which there are thankfully many to find.

I'm glad that I spent the time to go through this game and I understand why many love it considerably more than I do. I just think back to the polish of something like Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart from a gameplay perspective and I can't say this is in that league. Again, major points for creativity and uniquely exploring important themes, it's just not handled in a way that resonated super deeply with me and nothing else stood out as particularly special.

Definitely one of the most fun action RPGs that I have ever played. This was my first Tales game and it really hooked me on the series, making me want to check out other entries as well. I'm fine with button-mashing and that's how I did most of my combat, although I did take advantage of the equipment enhancement mechanics and I would frequently change up my character combos. That being said, I enjoyed the ease of combat but also appreciated how complex it could be if you wanted that. I like games that scale and are accessible to players who want all sorts of varying difficulties. The story is awesome - a dark anti-hero of a main characters sets this one apart, because it does get dark. All of the characters are so full of personality and have such wonderful voice acting.

Unfortunately, the story is just too long. It's actually over 9.5 hours of cutscenes in the game and by about hour 40 I started to feel that. The combat was just too repetitive and the environments are not anything special either, so I got worn down and at one point even just had the AI auto-battling for me. Eventually, I had to bail because there's no reason to waste another 20+ hours just to see the story. I watched the cutscenes for what I was missing instead. And the story is great that way, too.

In the end, I got what I wanted out of the game and loved it, but it does make me wary of the series in general. Long RPGs are okay if the story demands it and the game mechanics continually evolve throughout to keep things fresh. Bersaria fell a little short and that holds it back from greatness.

Yes, Mako driving in the mountains is horrendous (otherwise it's quite enjoyable). Yes, the combat is pretty basic and sometimes clunky. Yes, the level design is fairly uninspired throughout the majority of missions and planets don't feel particularly unique despite having a ton of them to explore.

But... the story, the characters, the relationships, the music, the cinematic moments, the lore, the choices... it all more than makes up for those nitpicks I have. Playing through this for the first time (to be fair without any experience of how it has been improved upon later) was an incredible and special experience for me. I love, love, loved this introduction to a new universe that is instantly among my favorite sci-fi properties ever. So thankful that I patiently waited, unspoiled, for this to get the remaster treatment it deserved.

Super charming with cute characters and awesome worldbuilding, full of clever puns and both ocean, pop culture, and soulslike game references. It's one of the only games in this genre that I've been able to fully engage with its story emotionally and understand, and that alone makes it pretty special to me. It also features a wonderful soundtrack that fits perfectly for this underwater adventure.

Mechanically the game is pretty solid, too. It can take a while to get used to the unique parry and I never really grew to love it, but it feels amazing when you do get it to work. The rest of the combat is okay. It's not quite as tight as you expect in a game like this. Difficulty was pretty well scaled, with some later bosses be a heavy challenge. I also really respect the game for having such robust accessibility settings that allows anyone to play this and essentially one-shot enemies if they choose. Play it your way and have fun!

I don't love challenging combat anyway, so it was the old school mascot platformer feel of the game that endeared me to it so much. Even though movement and traversal weren't fantastic, exploring the areas, unlocking secrets paths to find collectibles, a strong use of verticality throughout, and above all trying on the vast array of different adorable shells and experimenting with their powers was a joy.

Sadly, the game is pretty buggy with trophies that don't work (sigh) and some nasty lag at launch, but I do expect that'll get better quickly with patches that the devs have already said are coming very soon. I'm glad I went and played this now, though, because I can be recommending it to everyone for the rest of the year.