In keeping with the free-flowing, improvisational spirit of Final Fantasy VII, a series of semi-connected thoughts:

- Lots of people are hung up on the minigames for one reason or another, and they are worthy of discussion, though not about whether they belong here (of course they do) or if they're any good (most aren't), but how their purpose has shifted between the original and this iteration. In 1997, they were tonal interludes meant to show off what a strange, crazy planet we're fighting to protect, bursting with unexpected things to see and do. In 2024, they're blown up in length and number to serve as narrative delivery devices, neatly structured to grant further dimension to one or more of your party members while also conveniently padding out the playtime of your $70 luxury consumer purchase.

More than that, even, they're ways of delaying the inevitable. Rebirth isn't really a game about a doomed planet, but a doomed woman, and everyone with the faintest knowledge of FF7 is aware of this. No matter how many sprawling overworld maps or Gold Saucer diversions or matches of Queen's Blood you throw yourself into, you're still on a beeline toward tragedy. Consider Cloud and Aerith's last "date" and how they never get exactly what they want - the candy, the tchotchke, the photo. Our choices in this world, like any other video game world, are merely a dilation of time, a hopeless attempt to forestall the medium's great historical trauma, gamer 9/11.

This is all theoretically interesting, but also has the unfortunate effect of imbricating the story's emotional slam dunk with the grim maximalist demands of the AAA market. You get what you came for... after 100 hours of wildly quality-variable content, of course. Even the Fated Event itself is compromised by a ludicrous boss rush, your characters all barking out their combat sound bites as if nothing has happened, multiversal fanservice rearing its ugly head for no discernible reason. (I ask this with no malice in my heart: why do people care about Zack enough to justify how much screentime he gets here?) In many ways this is a very simple game, but in the one moment that truly called for simplicity, all of the dubious worldline hijinks Nomura planted in the first game got in the way.

- I did find myself moved by one scene toward the end where the game briefly puts you in the shoes of a sad, scared little girl. The original FF7 made remarkable use of modifying your control scheme to convey shifts in your characters' emotional states; in Rebirth they generally overdo or mishandle it, much like everything else, but it worked well here.

- The combat is generally quite enjoyable. It's comforting to know that SE can get an action RPG right after FF16. Even with one installment worth of practice, though, some characters still feel better thought-out than others. Aerith sucks and Barret is truly just sad - what if you wanted to play Bayonetta using nothing but the guns? I have a few other complaints, like how ancillary and easily interrupted magic is, your characters' irritating lack of poise, and some hitbox tracking that would make Miyazaki blush, but they are ultimately pretty minor.

- Morph and Steal are so useless, what gives?

- Guarding feels terrible. No feedback.

- I liked the (PROTORELIC QUEST SPOILERS) fight a lot. It demands careful and attentive play but also gives you lots of options.

- The music is good, of course, although what other possible outcome could there be when you throw an exhausted supergroup of Japanese composers at one of the most beloved OSTs of all time? Unfortunately, the music is also a key factor in one of the game's great failures: it is almost perpetually unable to modulate its atmosphere. This shit is LOUD, all the time. There are no opportunities whatsoever to just be in a moment and collect your thoughts or size up your environment. I knew I was in for disappointment early on when Cloud and Sephiroth rolled into Nibelheim for their ill-fated flashback mission and I heard the sorrowful strains of Anxious Heart... followed by 15 different NPCs barking at me... followed by me stepping on a stool and dragging it noisily along with my character model for 100 feet. The din is constant from start to finish, and if you don't agree, Chadley would like to have a word or fifty thousand with you.

- This is a more personal gripe, but I feel that this trilogy's total inability to establish a horror tone is one of its great betrayals of its predecessor. The writing was on the wall with the Shinra Building in Remake; while that whole dungeon was badly handled in general, there was no attempt whatsoever at conveying any unease or fear. This is likely a result of Sephiroth being overexposed from the jump in Remake so there's no mystery, no terrible legend lurking around the corner. The horror in the original worked partly because Sephiroth was so brutal in a way that the franchise had never grappled with, but also because the world was more recognizably our own and easier to project yourself on than that of any other Final Fantasy: urban, modern, diseased, desperate, doomed. The Midgar Zolom incident makes you feel small and mortal, and the Shinra Mansion like you're a mere human enmeshed in something hostile and supernatural, but in this game those two setpieces are so fucking stupid that they're not even worth talking about.

- I know that everyone is nutting over the dumb dog song but for me the standout is One, Two, SABO!, which plays, as far as I can tell, during exactly one optional combat. Aggressively joyous and exuberant to the point of menace... love it! Fucking Cactuars!

- In a perfect world, both this game and FF16 falling short of SE's sales expectations would tell the company that the AAA open-world model is just not an effective container for video game storytelling, or at least the type that Final Fantasy made its name on so many years ago. It is my unreasonable hope that they will course correct for Part 3 and bring us back to a more focused experience, but as ever, the gamers demand more. Who are the devs to deny them the constant creep toward bigger and better?

- I really enjoyed Remake, but after this installment the project has lost its shine for me. No more remakes!

- One exception: if SE had any sort of cojones left, they would follow up this time dilation game with a remake of time kompression game FF8, omitting/streamlining all of the side content and churning out the most decadent 10-hour banger of all time, though they don't and they won't.

DISCLAIMER: This review is not a review, it's a bumbling, messy rant I wrote at 2 AM. I apologize in advance for any grammar and spelling errors, as well as the occasional nonsensical sentence.

It has truly been some time since a game has so fully captured me to the degree that Little Big Planet has. There is something truly special about this game that is only shared with some of the best I’ve ever played, in fact, the last time a game was able to make me feel anything like this would have been my first playthrough of Super Mario Galaxy. I don’t Think I can ever truly, properly put it into words, but I'll certainly give it a try.

Before the actual review I’ll start by saying that I don’t have any nostalgia for this game, In fact, my first time ever playing would’ve been the day before writing this review. All of my opinions stem from very freshly playing through the game and experiencing everything it had to offer for myself.


This may be a fairly generic statement, but I think everyone can agree that today’s world has more than its fair share of misery. These past few months for me it's felt like on a global level there have been historical levels of suffering and wrongdoing happening all at once, and there is nothing I can do about it. When combined with the smaller stresses of simply living your life, it can be easy to accidentally start to live with a dark cloud over your head. This is not to say that I’m a miserable person or anything, It's just that I feel we sometimes forget how important it is to smile. I am of the opinion that we need more ways to spread positivity and happiness in the world, and that is exactly what Little Big Planet is. Little Big Planet completely counteracts everything negative I just mentioned on a personal level in nearly every way. It feels so purely created with the sole intention of bringing childlike joy and wonder to the faces of all who play it. From the animation to the music to the gameplay, everything feels so lovingly, passionately created to be the absolute best it can be. One of my favourite things about all forms of media, be it traditional books, comics, movies, tv, or games, is that they can give you such intense emotions that you would normally be unable to experience in ordinary life. Through Seething anger or incredible sadness, I’ve been affected by many of the things that I have watched, read, and played, but there is one thing even the best of movies and games are often not capable of, something that makes them truly stand out above the rest if they can accomplish it, and that's them being capable of transmitting pure, unfiltered joy to the same degree that they can other emotions. Throughout my whole playthrough, Little Big Planet had me grinning ear to ear. It's the first time in so long that I’ve been so completely invested in a game, that I’ve spent so much time in a game all at once, that I’ve been willing to give up doing anything else to actually find time to play, and since I’ve had my love for video games so overwhelmingly re-ignited like this. For all that alone, I will likely forever remember Little Big Planet and consider it one of the all time greats that I’ve played, But there is still so much more to discuss here.

Before even discussing the gameplay, there is so much to appreciate about Little Big Planet. Everything feels meticulously handcrafted, because it literally is. This game at its core is a level editor that all players have the ability to use, and the developers truly mastered everything about that level editor and managed to produce levels for the story mode that wouldn't feel out of place if they were found within a real, purely 2D triple A platformer. Within these levels there are representations of cultures from all over the world that are so obviously lovingly represented, and they have great humor to go along with them. This game genuinely made me laugh a few more times than I would have expected. The sackboy that you explore the Levels with is also an incredible addition to this game. Each sackboy exhibits so much personality and is so excellently animated. Something about their expressions just makes their emotions feel so real. The Developers really went above and beyond when it came to allowing players to fully express themselves without even speaking.

Speaking of player expression, the one part of this game that I’m really devastated I’ll never get to experience is the online. Exploring an infinite amount of community made levels with my friends and other people while being able to fully express myself and have fun at the same time seems like it would have been an absolute dream. I get hit by a little wave of sadness everytime see the crossed out online buttons on my screen, but even without them I had plenty to love about the game.

The campaign mode is spent helping numerous troubled characters throughout the earth in any way you can. Often just seeing how the developers had crafted characters and made them feel so alive through the crude level editor was enough to make me laugh, but it was also very charming. Every step of the way you are offered encouragement and witness so much creativity it's hard to not just constantly smile. Alongside just being fun to play through, these levels feel like they would be excellent inspiration for anyone who would have tried to truly dedicate themselves to the level creator as well.

In terms of actual gameplay, this is definitely the weakest part of the game, but still fun. It controls like a standard 2D platformer, with the sole issue being that sometimes sackboy feels a little bit slippery to control, putting you in the occasional situation that will feel a little unfair. Otherwise though the level design is so clever that the game never gets old. There are so many gameplay concepts and ideas featured within them I almost wish there were more levels so I could have seen them more fully explored. The game does get more difficult towards the end, but even with the slightly awkward controls I never felt it was too unfair, despite having to redo some levels a fair few times. What it really shows is that this game's potential for level design is more or less unlimited, something that would have made it all the more amazing when the servers were still up and running.

The music (partially composed by the guy who did spiderverse btw) was also a key factor to my enjoyment of this game. Almost every track is so uplifting and happy it felt like it was directly planting energy into my soul. Somehow these songs make me feel nostalgic despite having literally never heard them before yesterday. There are just so many different instruments and styles of music that all collide together in this game, making it one of my favourite gaming soundtracks of all time. Maybe I’m just weird but there were even 1 or 2 very oddly nice tracks that even made me tear up a bit.

In conclusion, Little Big Planet is just kind of a perfect video game to me. The combination of its endless creativity, interactive community, fun gameplay, and amazing music gives me the impression that it was lovingly created with the sole purpose of spreading Joy throughout the world, something we can always use more of. It's very rare that something is able to make me feel the childlike wonder I experienced while playing this game, and I'm so grateful I just randomly happened to check it out. Everything about it feels so human; you can clearly see the overwhelming passion behind the game poured into every nook and cranny within it, something I’ve only really been able to notice in a very small few of the best games I’ve played. In my opinion, more games should strive to be as joyous and as pleasant an experience as Little Big Planet. I definitely feel like this is a game everyone should try playing at least once in their lives, because if for some reason it strikes the same chord with you as it did with me, you’ll never regret it.

Genuinely one of the best platformers ever made, full of endless amounts of charm and soul. The psychics engine in this game is very impressive, especially considering this game was made on 2006 hardware. Creating levels is an absolute joy as the in game tutorials are full of the series' trademark British humour. Despite the official servers not being around anymore, there exist all sorts of community ran servers and archive projects to make you reexperience old levels or dive into a swath of new ones. Remarkably, the only difference between current and old LBP community levels is that the new ones use more contemporary memes while being about the same in quality.

The only real issues with the game are the lack of more substantial level creation tools and to some extent the story not being as fleshed out or memorable as it is in later entries (Except LBP3, screw Sumo and Sony.)

May LBP shitposting live on for another hundred years.

all of the unjust criticisms people have for the PS1 Oddworld games actually apply here
the opening cinematic is annoying, abrasive and ugly and goes on for far too long, and the game proper doesn't fare much better, unless your idea of a good time is standing still for a few minutes and moving the d-pad about as you zap waves of shadows
the game really, really wants you to watch the little CGI cinematics that play when you die, like when you get bumped off a cliff by the shadow ram thing you're supposed to jump over, or when the fat fuck smashes through a wall, so be ready to spam the start button
even better is that once you've died a few times as you try to figure out the timing and controls, it has the gall to offer hints as if you haven't already figured it out
the only positive here is the visuals; it has the cinematic part of the cinematic platformer genre sorted, but as an actual game it's beyond mediocre, an exercise in tedium

I had a pretty good time playing this game. The first couple of cases were pretty basic, the answer to "Who dun it?" is pretty apparent or revealed too early. Even though the game was originally made for the GBA, I think it is remastered quite well for modern platforms, the controls are intuitive and the performance is solid.

Solving the cases felt a lot like trial and error to me or there was a deus ex machina blowing the case wide open and not many eureka-feeling moments that I was looking for
Except the last case, now that one was a roller coaster ride,
I really loved the addition of 3D elements and combing through videos in that final case, really felt I was solving a case instead of blindly going through every option to find what unlocks the next stage of the case

A lot of frustration while figuring out how exactly the game wanted me to proceed was subdued a lot with the excellent soundtrack that I even listen to outside of the game at moments and the pleasant artwork and animations, some of the expressions Edgeworth or Mia makes are hilarious and still stick around in my thoughts lol

the characters are the highlight of this game truly for me. they are fun to hang out with or interview, people who either put their personalities on their sleeve or are really bad at hiding their true motives lol

Overall, it was an enjoyable time and I am excited to continue playing the series. But I feel this type of game would truly shine if it allowed me to progress making incomplete findings and making incorrect assumptions and eventually failing a case spectacularly and the consequent mystery of finding out what went wrong. As of now, it's a very guided experience with very little chance that you'll fail a case

I had a pretty good time playing this game. The first couple of cases were pretty basic, the answer to "Who dun it?" is pretty apparent or revealed too early. Even though the game was originally made for the GBA, I think it is remastered quite well for modern platforms, the controls are intuitive and the performance is solid. I played on a PS5.

Solving the cases felt a lot like trial and error to me or there was a deus ex machina blowing the case wide open and not many eureka-feeling moments that I was looking for, but the story and characters were engaging enough to keep me going. I had a lot of frustrating moments trying to figure out how exactly the game wanted me to proceed, I feel it would have been better if the game allowed me to proceed to the next stage whenever I wanted not railroaded into doing the very specific thing the game wants me to do to progress.

Except for that last case though, now that one was a roller coaster ride, a revelation that happened to me around halfway through the case that I did not see coming at all but was so obvious in hindsight still sticks around in my thoughts as I write this. It really felt I was solving a case instead of blindly going through every option to find what unlocks the next stage of the case. I also really loved the addition of 3D elements and combing through the videos section in that final case
The excellent soundtrack elevates key moments in the game and I even listen to them outside of the game at moments and the pleasant artwork and animations bring it all together, some of the expressions Edgeworth or Mia makes are hilarious and still stick around in my thoughts lol. I would have liked a "Retro Mode" that made the game look and sound more like how it would on original hardware because I think the artwork is drawn for that resolution and display and some of the charm is lost with the upscaling the developers have done for this remaster.

The characters are the highlight of this game truly for me. they are fun to hang out with or interview, people who either put their personalities on their sleeve or are really bad at hiding their true motives lol

Overall, it was an enjoyable time and I am excited to continue playing the series. I feel people who like figuring out the narrative would like this game. It's no outer wilds but its stands tall nonetheless. But I feel this type of game would truly shine if it allowed me to progress making incomplete findings and making incorrect assumptions and eventually failing a case spectacularly and the consequent mystery of finding out what went wrong. As of now, it's a very guided experience with very little chance that you'll fail a case

In the 1990s, few game companies were as surefire as Natsume when it came to consistently producing good games, and similarly few managed to break the licensed game curse the way they did. Dr. Slump is no exception, serving as quite possibly the definitive Arale game for fans of the manga and anime.

Criminally left untranslated for 25 years, this is a combination of action platformer, minigames and light RPG, much in the way of the Megaman Legends games. As Arale we will speed around Penguin Village, talking to familiar faces, including fan favorites Suppaman and King Nicochan, and using a wealth of abilities to engage in hilarious shenanigans against the various demented villains that will get in our way in our quest for... well, poking poop, I guess. That always seemed to be Arale's whole motivation anyway.

The presentation steals the show, especially upscaled on modern emulators: thanks to clean, colorful visuals and fantastic facial animations, it really feels like playing the anime, barring the lack of voice acting, which is due to the fact this is a long game as well: easily 6 to 7 hours for something that could easily have been shipped with one hour worth of content. In fairness it is padded with fetch quests and other game stretching means, but the comedic payoffs usually make these activities worth your time.

The only real downsides are the fact the game is based on the 90s anime remake (inferior on many counts to the 80s original), which means bizarre redesigns for several characters, most notably Midori, gone from a Marilyn blonde to a far more generic look. The other, more substantial, issue is that the action stages aren't very good, in part due to the camera angles not cooperating sometimes, but also to an over reliance on instant death pits, which can force a few restarts too many. Minor annoyances, if you are a fan of the series and can get into the groove of the game.

One can only imagine what Natsume could have done with the Dragon Ball license, perhaps making a game like this based on the start of the manga. Sadly we will never know, but we do have this game, and if you have an even passing interest in Toriyama's early work, you should for no reason let this one pass you by.

Hauntingly beautiful. The game shows you a snapshot of humanity right at it's end. Everything frozen in time. Cigarettes are still smoking in ashtrays, laundry is still on the line. Signs of life are all around, but everybody's gone.

The game focuses more on the interpersonal connections between all the villagers than the sci-fi end-of-the-world, which is definitely a choice. But I think it was a good one, overall. It feels like you're getting to know all the drama and gossip between the characters. The importance of human connections was a big theme in this game, and also seems to be in most post-apocalyptic media.

As everybody has said, the walking speed is comically slow. Which I thought would be fine, as long as the game is linear enough. But it's not, it's pretty open and there's lots of exploring and accidental backtracking. This just leads to frustration and "ugh i gotta walk all the way back now."

The voice acting was great and sounded realistic, but the characters being depicted by glowing lights that you can't really make out most of the time was pretty lame. It made it harder to keep up with what's really happening, and remembering names for each of the characters. Deliver Us The Moon did the whole "memory's of people from the past" thing a bit better I think.

The game also was maybe a bit too long. I still don't really know who Frank is or why he had a whole chapter dedicated to him.

Just rolled credits. I usually like to yap a lot with my reviews but I really don't want to spoil anything so I have to keep it a bit vague and short-ish.

This game is just a constant stream of mind-blowing discoveries. Every little nook and cranny that I stumbled upon is just so satisfying. And the same goes for every calculated thought/plan that worked.

The level design overall is absolutely impeccable, I never felt so enthralled in exploring every orifice of the game's world. And it's not just because of the highly varied and consistently top notch puzzles, even the moment-to-moment platforming sections just felt great. Not to mention the mysterious atmosphere that the game's beautiful art style bolsters. Easily one of the, if not the, best pixel art style I've ever seen.

And I have to gush a bit about all the tools you get along the way. Everytime I get a new one I always thought "oh my god this is game changing!", and I'm immediately thinking of areas where it would be useful. That's a good tell of how in sync the item designs are with the level design.

What Animal Well has done is not exactly unique, but the way it approaches its concepts feels so fresh, and it creates this sense of grandeur by condensing it all into an absurdly tight and dense package. The game never misses. It is easily the best game of its ilk, and my favorite game this gen so far.

I still have a ton of secrets to figure out, so I'll do just that. Who knows, it could be a 20 outta 10 game by the time I get the plat.

P.S. Rolled credits for the 2nd time and got the plat, doubled my play time from when I wrote this review first haha (12 hours to 26 hours). Collecting all the eggs was incredibly fun. Very interesting and inventive puzzle designs overall. But I have tasted a bit of the so called "3rd layer puzzles" and they're quite unhinged, haha. This game just keeps on giving. Shout out to the folks at the official AW discord for helping with everything after the 15 hour mark, my brain power wasn't enough to keep up. Also, the last 12-13 hours were in one sitting, and considering I get so easily tired these days, that just speaks to how good the game is. Haven't been enjoying a new game to this level since 2020.

Adding to the list of quality Metroidvanias lately, Animal Well is a largely vague game about a blob creature (?) that explores an atmospheric labyrinth with many secrets to find. There’s no combat save for avoiding occasional enemies and mainly focused on figuring out how to progress using the items you find throughout. The level design and platforming puzzles were well done and made clever use of all the mechanics, though were still straightforward enough that I wasn’t stuck on much for very long. The pixel art is really great too

Reaching credits took about 8 hours for me, but this also appears to be a game with a lot of hidden depth to it going off reviews and how much unexplained stuff I can still find (similar to Tunic it seems). Curious to see how much more you can get out of its postgame, but for the main content alone it’s well worth it

George Stobbart, the only likeable American tourist that has ever set foot in Europe.

If you do not love this game, you do not love life. I have nothing more to say. Truly the bedrock of why I still to this day adore adventure games.

Note* It is an abomination that the 1996 release is not available under its title in most countries 'Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars'.