I can't put into words how much I love Outer Wilds. I really can't, but I'll try. There's something about mystery media that just grabs me. Slowly uncovering more and more about the world is immensely satisfying to me. Outer Wilds pulls this off better than any game I know. It's interesting to follow the breadcrumbs all throughout the game and when you stumble a big moments/scene and the music changes... Yup, that's the stuff, that's exactly what I need. I don't even understand why it's so much fun for me, it just is.

Flying around with the ship is also a lot of fun and being able to go wherever you want with it? This is free exploration done right. The only thing holding you back is your knowledge about the world. And the fear of what horror of space will kill you this time.

And the atmosphere, OH MY GOD, THE ATMOSPHERE!!! Outer Wilds gave me a feeling of loneliness unmatched by any other piece of fiction. Which made it all the sweeter when I found an NPC I could hang out with for a while, enjoying a campfire and some calming music. Outer Wilds always makes you feel like there's still something out there in space, even if you uncovered all of its mysteries.

Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy the DLC at all. The stealth sections were too much for me. I had no fun and put it down after a few hours. But the main game is one of my favourite games of all time. It's rare to find a game that moves you as much as much as Outer Wilds moved me. It's truly a special game in that regard.

Before Breath of the Wild came along, this was my favourite Zelda game. Back then, this often made me feel like the odd one out but these days, it's a lot more common to find people who enjoy this game.

Idk why, but the motion controls are just enjoyable to me. Yes, they sometimes make me yell at the screen, but I feel like it works a lot more often than most people say. I also liked the linearity of the different areas. It's as if the entire overworld is a dungeon this time around. Speaking of dungeons, those are great here as well. Think of the sand ship or the water temple (which is actually a lot of fun in this Zelda game, weird, I know).

And the art style, it's so gorgeous! Everything looks like a painting and the game aged incredibly well because of it. Skyward Sword is also the first Zelda game with a fully orchestrated soundtrack, if I remember correctly, which is just a perfect match for this franchise.

I could go on for a lot longer about what I love about Skyward Sword, like the characters, the atmosphere, the premise that Zelda is Link's girlfriend now, the game's setting in the beginning of the timeline etc etc...

Metroid: Samus Returns crawled, so that Metroid Dread could run. You can see that many of Dread's elements were tested here. I really enjoyed the modernised controls, but unfortunately, Samus Returns is held back by the structure of the original Metroid II. The overall progression is super linear, meaning that there is no reason to backtrack, except for finding upgrades which the game withheld from you, because you simply didn't have the right upgrade yet. This just feels artificial and arbitrary. However, I really enjoyed how Mercury Steam expanded the areas of Metroid II. Now, every sub-area of Samus Returns is kind of like a mini-Metroidvania in its own right. That was also true for the original, sure, but there, the areas were far too small to actually get lost in.

I've already said it in my review of Super Mario 3D Land: A game like 3D Land wouldn't work on a home console, because it's meant to provide short bursts of fun. Hence, 3D World suffers from not being available on a handheld (at least when it first came out). I get exhausted and bored really quickly while I play 3D World, because it's just playing through levels and nothing else. In contrast, I can play all of the other 3D Mario games for hours in one go and still have fun.

However, Nitendo did a lot to combat the inherent repetitiveness of 3D World. The levels are bigger, have more interesting ideas and concepts as well as top tier leveldesign, you can play through the entire game with your friends and the game gets really challenging towards the end.

At the end of the day, a lot was done to make 3D World work on the Wii U. But its core identity is still based on a handheld game, which sadly brings it down quite a lot for me.

Metroid Dread proves that Metroid deserves a place in contemporary gaming culture. For far too long, people were only able to look into the distant past to find out, how Metroid defined a genre. Now, Metroid is back and while I still think the formula could be improved (I would appreciate a less rigid order of upgrades like in Hollow Knight), Mercury Steam managed to create a Metroid game that feels modern. Gone are the clunky controls of the past games, Samus finally feels way less clunky to control.

I was a bit scared that the E.M.M.M.I. sections would kill the game, because I usually strongly dislike stealth sections in games, but they are always short enough to be challenging without being frustrating. Speaking of which, Metroid Dread absolutely nails its difficulty. I also really liked how the game tries its best to prevent you from getting too lost, without explicitly telling you where to go. You still need to explore the map yourself, but there are far less of these moments, where you are searching for that ONE spot in the world that the game now expects you to visit.

To be honest, there isn't really any reason to play Smash 4 today. All other entries have something to distinguish themselves:

-Smash 64: where it all began
-Smash Melee: the competitive darling
-Smash Brawl: the janky, odd, edgy, casual darling. Also subspace
-Smash Ultimate: the newest one, also the most satisfying to play (in my opinion

Heck, even the 3DS version is superior content wise because of Smash Run.

As a result, Smash 4 is the most eh, most irrelevant entry in the franchise.

Mario Sunshine is a very weird case. There is SO MUCH wrong with this game. Countless glitches, weird difficulty spikes and dozens of shine sprites that were clearly thrown in just to fluff the game to a total of 120. The blue coins are an especially infamous example of this. It's clearly rushed and unfinished. Not allowing the player to choose, which missions they want to complete is also a questionable choice at best.

But I still love it everytime I complete it. I can't even really explain why. It'd probably because of how the game feels to control. Mario feels so snappy and jumping around in Delfino Plaza is just fun in itself. In that regard, it's pretty similar to Mario 64. Moving around feels good. And the theming oh GOD, THE THEMING!!! Listening to the soundtrack and seeing the gorgeous levels brings me to my happy place. Mario Sunshine isn't just fun to control, it's also fun to look at. Maybe I also like it so much, because it's so weird and different in comparison to the other 3D Marios. It has this daring nature of trying out something completely different with its franchise that so many GameCube games seem to have. By this point, I can find everything I need for 100% without consulting a guide, because I have played it so much and once I reached that point, Mario Sunshine became even more fun.

There are so many small improvements in Splatoon 3 compared to Splatoon 2, I honestly believe it justifies its existence as a new game. If you liked Splatoon 1 or 2, you'll like this one as well.

The only thing that got worse is the map design. Maps are so damn boring and same-y here, it's atrocious. I really miss my janky weird Splatoon 1 maps.

Oh and maybe that's only me, but the insane amount of weapons leads to me never trying out the weird ones and just sticking with the standard stuff. Idk, there are so many purely situational weapons here, why should I even use them? But then I feel like I'm also missing out on all the cool weapons, idk, it's weird.

Oh and at this point it's beyond excusable that this game still uses peer 2 peer instead of dedicated servers, wtf Nintendo?!

I love this game. Eversince I first saw my brother play Isaac in 2013/2014, it intrigued me. I wanted to play it myself so badly. When I finally did in 2015, it was unlike anything I had ever played before. An infinitely replayable roguelike with hundreds of items and secrets to uncover, filled to the brim with weird details. It spoke to me on a deeper level. In the years that followed, I continued to play Isaac every now and then. Each DLC and update caused another spike of play time spent with this game for me.

And then Repentance released.

After all these years, it was as if I experienced Isaac for the first time again. Everything was new, the enemies, the new floors, the new items, details, endings, secrets, characters, synergies, EVERYTHING. I couldn't get enough of it. Repentance is clearly created with so much care that playing it felt as if I rediscovered my love for a special someone.