A good sequel at first glance, but once you delve deeper into the game the huge list of bullshit shows and ruin your experience.

This is what I think about Pikmin 2, an innovative sequel that brings a lot to the table but at the same time ruins what made the original great. My opinion of the game drastically changed once I got to the post-game of the basic ending, once you get there you get a whole new map to explore and welcome to bullshit city, this part of the game made me realize how flawed the Pikmin's AI is, it shows how dumb they are and once you get into a dungeon of that last stage.

The early game till the end of the base plot of the game is a ton of fun, it brings a lot of cool ideas such as two new Pikmin types with one of them being somewhat useless, the purple Pikmin, and the white Pikmin which is a bit too useful for treasure hunting and his race being only available in caves is really annoying in all honesty.
They gave us a new captain to control making this game also a COOP game! But the main reason they gave us a second playable character is to multitask so one can take a group of Pikmin and the other takes another group to avoid wasting time, but here's the issue with this, it's useless since there's no urgency to do anything fast unlike Pikmin 1! Guess Louie would've been more useful in the first game.
One big change that can seem unnoticeable is how most enemies have a lot less health than Pikmin's 1 enemies making them feel less like a damage sponge and making encounters less long, but it came as a tradeoff, they are also way more brutal and there's a lot of one-hit kill enemies or just ones that eat Pikmin really, really fast like a bunch of big Bulborbs in the caves.

So would that game be an upgrade to the original or just a downgrade? It's a very difficult question, both games do work as standalone releases and none of them just feels like it'll replace the next but the "superior" game would be Pikmin 2 as it's not 2 hours long like Pikmin 1 and there's no time limit, no bombs for yellow Pikmin making these atrocious stone walls in Pikmin 1 gone forever (thankfully) and the overworld maps just feel more balanced and better to explore, for the most part... Do they actually expect me to go there with my yellow Pikmin to break that electric fence past the wooden bridge? Don't they know how hard it is to move Pikmin on a small surface surrounded by instant death threats around them?

So what about the post-game? I'd love to tell tales about them but the last stage is just bad! Well, the overworld isn't but anything in the underground sections just sucks dude, even when they were easy in the early part of the game you kinda just slog through them but you never really have fun, they all look and play the same, the main factor is either "Will it be too easy or just filled with bullshit".
I love the idea of earning a unique item that gives Olimar new abilities after beating the boss of the cave but like I said it just feels the same, it goes on for too long and I wish they were each only like 5 or 6 floors long.
But in the case of the last world, it just shows how badly designed they are, bullshit one-hit traps everywhere like bombs with the 1 IQ all Pikmin share they all urge themselves to go hit something that you didn't order them to or just flock themselves to something at the wrong time like bombs right when they explode and in an instant you just lose like 50 Pikmin out of bad luck and level design.

So if anyone wondered "Is Pikmin 2 difficult?" for the most part it isn't, it's just filled with bullshit at the end.
But at the end of the day, it's still a fun game and beating the game doesn't require finishing all dogshit caves.

Now that's a game that has been haunting my backlog since I was a toddler because this game creeped me out and I doubt I'm alone on this.

Pikmin 1 is in a weird position for me, it's a really relaxing game with a pretty chill atmosphere but at the same time, it can get terribly scary due to the unknown and the time limit. This is my main issue that isn't really an issue with the game, it's the time limit! I personally hate time limits because it forces me to think fast and stress whether I can do things in time and I know that If I fail I have to do everything all over again! I don't really have much else to say about this game that hasn't been said already, I'm just wondering if anyone else also dislikes this time limit and it might be why they removed it in future entries.

Other than that this game has an incredible atmosphere that has yet to be mastered by another game that isn't it's own sequel with a really odd soundtrack, amazing character designs, and tight addictive gameplay.

I'm sorry to say that I do not like Super Mario Bros on the NES, I can already hear the Nintendo Youtubers outside of my house...

This game is a platformer game alright, it's the iconic NES game that helped the industry and bla bla bla, the type of talk you'd hear in a video essay about the NES or Mario's history but if we remove the historical context out of this game it becomes pretty mediocre.
Instead of praising this game for doing things first, I think it would be more fun to talk about its flaws, for example, the terrible momentum physics. Playing this game after playing Mario Maker 2 really shows how terrible the momentum is and how easy it is to miss a jump with the weird accelerations that just never seem to be right.
Something else that I hate is the 8 worlds that are pretty much the damn same, I can't force myself to even play worlds 1-3 because why would I, the warp zone is right there! The temptation is just too strong! With each world having pretty much the same stage layout and order it gets really boring and repetitive, and with that 1-up trick you can have enough lives to remove any difficulty from the game and pretty much just turns the game into a 100 Mario challenge from Mario Maker.
The stages and enemies, you can tell me a billion times that the 1-1 stage is the most iconic stage and how smart it is for the player or whatever the Nintendo YouTubers keep repeating as if they all shared the same game essay, you can't tell me that anything outside of 1-1 and 1-2 are actually well-designed stages, at best I'll give you the entirety of World 1 but anything past that is bullshit with terrible enemies like the cheep cheep and hammer bros, or the GIGANTIC lava bar from the castle stages... these just sucks man...

Do take this with a grain of salt as this is how I view this game and this is my opinion and not yours, you might think this game is a timeless masterpiece and that's good for you but I don't think this means it should be free from actual criticism even if it's an old piece of media.
This game did age tremendously well compared to other NES games from that era like Clu Clu Land and many others and I do well acknowledge that fact.

We love Katamari again and again and again I just can't stop loving the Katamari.

As the tradition of the year 2023, we got another remaster of an iconic game from the sixth console generation and it's a pretty damn faithful and wonderful way to experience this 2005 game on a modern console. This port uses the same art style as Katamari Damacy Reroll which has been the same since Beautiful Katamari in 2007, other than being a straight-up good remaster of the original game it also introduced new stages about the king's backstory and some QOL improvements which are always welcomed.
The five new stages about the king are honestly just ok, it's just reused maps with unique gimmicks but unfortunately, they are just too short and not really rememberable, if anything it just makes me wish we had more stages to play! It just feels like a tease of something we might never get, a brand new original Katamari game.

Other than that it's pretty much just the original game but with a more modern coat of paint that is good enough to replace the original Playstation 2 game. The controversial thing about this game would be the DLC, they made a DLC that either comes bundled with the special edition of the game which costs 10 more € or you can just buy it standalone for 20 damn €! It's a scam either way since gatekeeping such good tunes for 10 or 20€ is just wrong, I think all Katamari games should get legacy tracks as an unlockable bonus and not as an expensive DLC and worse of all you can't even get FLACs or MP3s of the song it's just weird bundled game files...

Should you play this remaster over the original game? Definitely, the 1080p and constant 60 fps are such a nice addition, and playing the original game on original hardware can be a bit rough on the eyes so I do think this game is an upgrade.

Touhou 2 but with a boss health bar.

Yep, ZUN finally settled with the Shump gameplay and by that I just mean ripping Touhou 2 and just adding a nice coat of paint on top. It's a serviceable sequel for Touhou 2 even though it only brings the boss health bar to the table, though don't get me wrong this is a godsend as it was a pain to know when the bosses would die in Touhou 2 so at least I know how little my damage do to a boss because yeah they brought back the bullet sponge bosses and I sincerely hope this isn't a common thing in the franchise, I really don't want to fall asleep while fighting the final boss every time.
Otherwise same old, same old with the music being just ok and the art style being somewhat of an eyesore with intense background color hurting my eyes.

Should you play it? Not particularly but if you had to make a choice between 2 and 4, definitely go for 4.

Tetris Touhou?!

The third mainline entry in the Touhou franchise and you can tell the creator wasn't really sure what to make with the franchise, but it seems he finally settled on shmups and not breakout or whatever Touhou 1 was supposed to be.
This Touhou game is most likely the most underrated one out of the PC-98 pentalogy, unlike the first two which are really forgettable for the better or worse. In this game, you can select from a dozen or so character to play but obviously, I picked Reimu, the whole game is separated into two screens like a puzzle game you play with a friend or an AI like Tetris or Panic Bomber. Your goal is to destroy as many enemies with a combo as possible on your screen to fill your attack bar to make a mean attack that will go to the enemy's screen and you need to repeat that process till he dies.
It's pretty easy and fun! I hope we get something else like this online or something.

Should you play this game? Definitely, but I heard Touhou 9 was the same thing but better so you should check out that one first I guess.

I don't understand the Mima joke.

A pretty basic start for what will be known as the Touhou franchise if we ignore the first entry, this game is a basic shmup and it's just ok. My biggest issue with the game is how long the boss battle are they take so much damage it's such a waste of time! It's also not visually impressive and the soundtrack is nothing to write home about.

Should you play it? Only if you care about the history of Touhou otherwise you have plenty more shmups to choose from.

Thank god they finally made a game based on the DVD screensaver.

That's one hell of a start for the Touhou franchise and by hell I mean a hell to play. This game isn't fun, sorry all Touhou 1 fans out there (nobody) but it's just not fun... The main goal of the game is to bounce a funny ball with your melee or distance attack and the goal is to break all of the weird Japanese cards or whatever they are supposed to represent, but doesn't that sound familiar? It's just Breakout with Boss battles, and these are the highlight of the game since they are tough as nails. They technically are not that hard it's just that the randomness of the ball speed really sucks and will make you fail a couple of times.

Should you play this game? Not really but I doubt most of the Touhou players even consider playing the older ones since they don't really want to play basketball, I just did it because I thought it would be funny to know where this franchise started.

"It's not Super Star. But once you get past that, you can appreciate Dream Land 3 for what it is" - Gandhi

The third and final game of the Dream Land trilogy that just couldn't push the franchise forward like Super Star. Dream Land 3 is a game I kept seeing images of online and kept thinking "Wow this game looks adorable" and then realized how nobody talked about this game outside of its art style, guess the reason was pretty simple... it's just a very boring Kirby game that plays exactly like Kirby's Dream Land 2 and just ignores everything that Super Star did. It's not a terrible game by any means it just does nothing unique and it's similar to the Final Fantasy 7 and 8 situation where 7 just raises the bar so high that you know the sequel just won't be able to make the franchise rise to a new peak once again. So yeah, this is no Super Star 2 but it's excused by the prettiest art style in the entire Super Nintendo library this game looks stellar and if you are here you probably know about that since it's the only thing that drives people into playing it.

The main gimmick in this game is the new secret task that you need to do in each stage to satisfy some character at the end of each stage and doing those are necessary for the true ending, guess what? They suck ass it's not fun so I just didn't bother and looked up the true ending online, if you want people to bother with collectibles you must make them fun just like in Kirby's Return to Dream Land these were fun to collect.
There are 6 stages per world and they all are fine in a Kirby standard but god they all feel the same, it's like trying to remember New Super Mario Bros Wii stages, you can't! They all just do the "Snow world, Grass world, Water world, ..." and it's just sad to see after how unique Super Star was.

Should you play this game? It's a basic as basic can get Kirby game and it's not too long so why not, just don't expect another Super Star.

This is the Kirby spinoff that pisses me off the least.

So I honestly have no idea what this game is all about, I just know that winning is really easy in this game and that's why it doesn't piss me off as how the others do. Apparently, this is a clone of Soldam, I've never played any personally but I might check them out if it means a more fleshed-out version of this game because yes this game has a somewhat decent gameplay loop but my god it gets boring really quickly as it's pretty much always the same thing!

Should you play this? Sure I guess, at least it's not shitty golf or pinball.

This is the Kirby game that would create the standard for later games and for good reason because this game is examplar.

Kirby Super Star also known as probably the best Super Nintendo game, I honestly have no complaints about this game, it's just a very complete bundle of Kirby adventure in a single game with good pacing, good new quirks and gimmicks, creative stages and literally anything good that you could ask for a good Kirby game!
I personally grew up with Kirby Super Star Ultra on Nintendo DS so I already knew what this game was about and playing the "lesser" version it surprised me with how well it stood the test of time pretty much like all previous mainline Kirby games, the DS version is obviously superior due to having the definitive content in it but visually I do think this one aged the best.
The art style of this game is adorable, it's a mix between drawn pixel art and pre-rendered texture giving this game a unique look compared to other Super Nintendo games. The soundtrack is filled with some of the most iconic tracks of the whole franchise, everytime a stage played I was like "Oh dude I know that song!" and it's always a banger.
The main game is separated into 5 main campaigns which feel like 5 different Kirby games, the first one, Spring Breeze is pretty much a remake of Kirby's Dream Land, the second is Dynablade which is more like a classic original Kirby adventure with no real quirks, the third which is probably the main standout of the game, The Great Cave Offensive which is this mostly linear metroidvaniaesque map where you find useless treasure to fill a grid and reach the end of the cave and it's really fun! The fourth is a unique action-packed stage where you go on a rampage and destroy the Halberd, which is also its first appearance in the Kirby Franchise. And finally, Milkyway Wishes where you go from planet to planet to summon the Galactic Nova and it's also the campaign with one of the most iconic final boss fights of the franchise.

Explaining all of this was pretty much useless because if you are here you probably played all of this and already know what this game is all about, and if you are here and still haven't played it, you know what to do!

Now should you play this version or the Ultra remaster? If you just want to play the best version of Super Star definitely go for Ultra on DS, but if you just want to play a good Super Nintendo game this is definitely one of the best.

Wooo! Another Kirby spinoff! This time it's a breakout clone because Kirby in a pinball machine or Kirby playing golf just wasn't enough.

It's pretty straightforward, it's a breakout game with a Kirby theme, if you like breakout and Kirby congratulation you will enjoy this game but I personally do not care about breakout so this does nothing for me just like the three previous spinoffs!

This game isn't good nor is it particularly bad, it just exists and I hate it for existing.

Pit's second attempt at being relevant failed miserably again.

This is a sequel to the NES game and it's pretty much the same thing as before... except (inhale), a terrible field of view due to the Gameboy screen forcing us most of the time to do blind jumps and hiding even more enemies than the NES version. Gosh, Nintendo! You can't expect to put an NES game on Gameboy and expect it to work well!
It's not a straight-up copy of the NES game though, it has multiple differences but I'm not crazy enough to list them all as I do not like this game and I don't think anyone cares because nobody likes this game either!

But the idea is still the same, play the underground stages with this stupid doodle jump layout, do the awful castle stages, go to the overworld and play this terrible Super Mario Bros 1 layout stage, castle again, the overworld or however, they call it and blam it's over though it's easier said than done because if you have the patience to go through that without saves states you have my congratulations.

Unlike the NES version, it has no 3D classic remaster which is normal since they only did a few NES games and I don't think it's possible to make a 3D Gameboy game, thinking about it gives me the creeps.

Should you play it? No! But it's still a bit better than the NES version so if you had to pick one this one would do the trick. Or just play the 3D classic version, or just play Kid Icarus Uprising.

Before Kratos there was Pit and I can tell you that he didn't leave much of an impression compared to Kratos.

This is a very mediocre game, who would've known! This is a common early NES game issue, they tend to be really frustrating and just not fun enough to complete.

This is a platformer game, unsurprising for an NES game, and the obvious goal is to get to the end of each stage. The main idea of Kid Icarus is kinda fun and doesn't seem all that hard but with the number of enemies spawning right next to you, above you or anywhere else you don't expect them to be trust me they will be there and at the worst moment. Otherwise, for an NES game, it's pretty in-depth since this game doesn't rely on a high score system since there's an actual ending but good luck getting there without cheats or saves states because you will die over and over and with how repetitive this game is it's not like Super Mario Bros 1 or 3 where when you lose it's like "Aw man, guess I'll try it again" No with Kid Icarus it's just "I'm not grinding hearts ever again fuck this game".

Should you play this game? Dear god no, it's not worth going back-... to this version, maybe you should check out the 3D classic version of the game on the 3DS.

A sequel to Kirby's Dream Land but with the gameplay of Kirby's Adventure with the new animal gimmick... It's not that weird but naming it after the most successful version would've made a bit more sense I think, though Kirby's Adventure 2 is a pretty boring name.

Like before, this Kirby game feels like a technical marvel for the Gameboy with the nice graphics and smooth gameplay, it's really weird to think of it like that but Kirby games were the most visually impressive game of the NES and Gameboy generation, it even had great gameplay that still stands the test of time.
This game takes a queue from Kirby's adventure where you go from world to world, do X amount of stages, beat the boss. The main issue with this is that in this game you have this new ability where Kirby has pets he can ride, these are overpowered as all hell! In my opinion, this is the easiest Kirby game you cannot lose if you are riding an animal.
The stage also tends to be on the easy side where they are all really short and your biggest enemy might as well just be the instant death fall pits.

Overall it's a very fine game on the Gameboy but nowadays it does get a bit boring when you play it with how each stage really feel the same, the monochrome art style of the Gameboy really doesn't play in the favor of the game.
This game also has a true ending once you get all of the thingamajigs in each world to beat Nightmare I suppose but I wouldn't bother with it.

Should you play it? Sure it's a really competent Gameboy game but also a pretty boring Kirby game and it's shorter than Kirby's Adventure.