Psychopomp is a quirky oldschool linear dungeon crawler that doesn't offer much substantive in terms of gameplay, but has really fantastic visuals and some fun writing. It offers a grimy trudge through the surreal underbelly of the public sector, uncovered by the protagonist donning her newest invention: the Psychopomp. The game leans into horror quite a bit, and often features crass, edgy, and gross themes. However, it's also pretty humorous at times, dark as it may be. The atmosphere is thick as sludge here, with both creepy auditory and hypnotic visual stimulus out the wazoo. I'd say as a free game, if you have an hour or two lying around it's easily worth knocking this out just to experience the unique art.

Sheepy: A Short Adventure, as the name suggests, is a short and sweet little platformer. Going into this, I expected something Limbo-esque, and while it was unsettling at points it was overall a quite cute and actually somewhat fast-paced experience. Expectedly, as a game produced by someone majorly known for their music (MrSuicideSheep), the original tracks present in the game are very good. The pixel art here is also really pleasant, everything felt fun and looked fluid. The platforming can be basic, but is really forgiving and enjoyable nonetheless. The game's atmosphere is very compelling and I was very intrigued by the impressive set pieces and interesting tid-bits of lore the game throws at you every now and then. The story is nothing ground breaking, but solid enough to keep you wondering where the game will take you next, and has a pretty satisfying conclusion. Being a short game it does a good job keeping a brisk pace, and keeps each distinct section relatively fresh and unique, as well as still leaving room for exploration. My favorite section was easily right after you get the running power and the level is designed as such to where you can just run out without stopping. Once outside you just keep going and going, covering a massive distance, extremely satisfying and really puts you in the shoes of an animal finally allowed to run free. Also, the fact that the upbeat music has a sort of record scratch whenever you stop in this section is a funny touch. I actually laughed a few times during my playthrough. The game can have a good sense of humor when it wants to, even despite the sort of dark subject matter. Back on exploration real quick, there are a few scattered collectibles and such, as well as challenge and other achievements to go for if you want an excuse to play it again. My only personal gripe is that the first two boss fights are a little too simple and easy, making them unfortunately a bit boring. Overall though, it's just a nice title that I can't really say anything too negative about. It's free, it plays well, sounds good, looks good, and it doesn't overstay its welcome.

Setting whatever moral opposition I have towards Palworld aside, I think its biggest crime is ultimately that it's just plain boring. For all the things it's derivative of, it doesn't especially exceed at anything. The base building and automation involving the Pals is probably the most unique concept the game has to offer, but it's extremely shallow. There's no real strategy, or depth to any of the gameplay whatsoever really. Gunplay is unchallenging and very dull outside of few instances where you may acquire a new toy, such as a Foxparks flamethrower or Mossanda bazooka. However, these moments are few and far between, and their magic fades very quickly. The level of customization allotted to the player in terms of what Pals to use and how to use them is straight forward and uninteresting. It's very obvious what passives are best on what Pals, and you'd build most Pals exactly the same no matter what. Half of the Pals are simply mounts, and the other half don't do anything particularly interesting. The most you get is bland passives like "Water Pals drop more items when defeated," or a flat damage increase for a certain type, there's not really any feeling of meaningful party synergy. Pursuing said customization is also a discouraging process, as on default settings you may be waiting up to 2 hours real time for eggs to hatch late game - an absolutely absurd time sink. I don't feel this way about the other time gated activities in the game, like crafting, because it's encouraging to find a Pal that can craft faster - that's progression! In general the game isn't too terribly grindy, but it definitely picks up later on. I will say that there are a ton of handy adjustable option sliders for tweaking these issues to fit what you want, as well as other things like difficulty. This is very appreciated, but probably not going to be a perfect solution for everyone. Moving away from customization and optimization, lets shift our focus now to collection and exploration. First of all the map is not procedural, which does mean it was actually thoughtfully crafted, but also means that once you've seen it you've seen it. This is especially bad in the "dungeons" because they use the same repetitive handful of tiles over and over again, which makes them super tiresome, and quickly. I actually forgot they existed for like my first 40 hours of gameplay, and they only do so you can get practically meaningless accessories. There is no real story, no lore, no proper world building, or really any other goals or reasons to care about the world you are plopped into. You are only vaguely pointed towards towers, and they end up just being anticlimactic boss fights which are basically just normal Pals with more stats and an irrelevant NPC on their back. Collection isn't much more interesting either unfortunately, as the pool of fresh Pals to discover dries up pretty quickly. They don't evolve, and there's no sense of growth or any feeling of a meaningful relationship building between the Pal and the player - it's all very disappointing. There are a few cool Pal designs, ironically enough they're usually the least obviously plagiaristic (Cawgnito my beloved). Something I would like to genuinely praise the game for is the Pal animations, many of them are quite charming. Despite the aforementioned distance between the Pal and player, they can still be endearing due to the level of character expressed through their animations (Cawgnito my beloved, again). They aren't all perfect, and the non-Pal animations aren't nearly as stellar, but proper good animation work is one of the main things series like Pokémon have been sorely lacking as of late I feel. Speaking of the art generally, the style is all over the place. Having highly stylized, cartoony Pals, anime-inspired character models, photo-realistic guns, and semi-realistic environments all thrown together really makes you feel like you're playing a disjointed asset flip! Music is also completely unremarkable, but inoffensive I guess. I feel like a lot of the game's long term draw is going to be banking on the PvP being worthwhile, because there's no real replayability, value, or depth in any of the present systems. Overall, the game is fun for maybe your first 10 hours at most until you get truly settled into your first base and start to ask yourself "why?" I understand that the game is in early access, and it has some decent foundations. There's a lot of potential here, and as big as those shoes are it should have the funding to fill them. However, I cannot recommend Palworld in its current state to anyone who has any respect for themselves or their time.

I give it a half star for every Pal design I actually like.

Cute, short game that was actually kinda scary. I enjoy the idea of only being able to have your gun or flashlight active at any given time. The atmosphere is also pretty spooky and well crafted, makes good use of the light mechanic. It was fun and allowed for some "natural" jumpscares that didn't feel super cheap. Gunplay is fine enough, though a bit basic and repetitive. The little notes you find giving story tidbits can be humorous, but don't offer anything too excitingly deep. It doesn't overstay its welcome, but it would be hard to as it's really only about an hour in length. There are alternate game modes like perma-death, no flashlight, and a slightly higher difficulty. However, aside from the idea of relying entirely on the environment or using your muzzle flash for sight, the challenge modes don't really appeal to me. I hardly struggled with the game as-is, and I don't think they would really do enough to spice up the gameplay. It's pretty decent for what it is, not bad by any means, but even on sale it feels a bit overpriced for what you ultimately get.

Dead Space (2023) is like the perfect ideal of what a remake can do for a game. You can really feel the love and care that was poured into revitalizing this experience for a more modern audience. Even on the low graphics preset, the game is disgustingly beautiful to look at, and to listen to. The distant pained cries, the screaming of engines and gnashing of machinery, and the subtle flickering of lights and shuffling in the ceilings - the atmosphere crafted here is breathtakingly terrifying. It feels like the ship itself is alive in some sense. Maybe it wants to cry for help, but it can only speak in the droning voice of the computer, as Necromorphs burst from its every vent and vein. The opening had me scared so bad, I nearly wet myself the first few times my comms violently roared to life upon receiving a transmission. However, that fear quickly turned to excitement, as the writing is really top-notch. I was truly engrossed in the story of the unsettling setting that unfolded before me, in how each character interaction would further the plot, and the mystery. Something to note, the facial animations are very impressive, and I think they really helped to humanize and further the characters in my eyes. I also thought it was super cool that Isaac has different voicelines dependent on his health, sounding hurt when on low hp. The voice acting overall is phenomenal, and I especially love the little expletives Isaac shouts when stomping sometimes. Alongside direct comm transmissions, there are lots of text and audio logs scattered across the Ishimura to really help you get a sense for life on the ship, and to piece together how the tragedy surrounding it began to take shape. Some text logs can be very long and interesting, however, the audio logs are pretty unintrusive to gameplay so even if you aren't super interested in the lore I would still pick those up. Onto the gunplay, Dead Space's iconic limb dismemberment feels so good to play with. Alongside your other tools, Kinesis and Stasis, and the plethora of weapons you can find across the ship, there are many creative ways you can defeat your foes. Thin and crispy Necromorph: you're gonna wanna remove as many arms and legs as you can (remember to use the hands for skewering!), then a light flambé with a Hydrogen Torch, cut through the bigger chunks with the Ripper, and tenderize thoroughly with your boot. Enemy encounters are very fun and engaging, as different enemy types often require different solutions to deal with effectively, leading to divergent gameplay. Unfortunately, this encouragement of experimentation is a little bit at odds with the game's upgrade system. You can find nodes scattered across the ship, which you can slot into both your guns and your suit in order to power them up. This is forgiving enough, as you have the ability to remove your allocated nodes on a given piece of gear for a fee. The real problem I have is that on top of this price, upgrade parts for those weapons in the shop also carry a decently hefty price, and there's no in-game description to clue you into whether those upgrades are even worth buying or not. Also, given that you only really receive ammo for weapons you have equipped (which is a good thing) means that if you want to try, or swap over to a new weapon, you will likely have to either wait to accrue ammo for it, or buy it. All this to say that, especially in the early to mid-game where money is a lot tighter, your experimentation can be limited if you want to give those weapons a try closer to their full potential. In my playthrough I kinda locked into 3 weapons and hardly used the other 5. Granted, I think all of the weapons are very enjoyable and I don't feel bad about this decision, but I wouldn't blame someone for feeling like they missed out on not using a different weapon. I do believe that resources should be tight of course, it is a survival horror, after all, but I think maybe the ability to convert ammo types would've been nice, and personally I don't see a need for the node respec to carry a cost. I would also like to say that the upgrade nodes themselves felt a bit lackluster at times. The suit upgrades all felt decently good and impactful, I was always excited for more stasis charge or duration. However, when it came to weapon upgrades it felt like I was just going through the tree to get to damage nodes and maybe some special nodes - everything else didn't really matter. Some of the aforementioned special nodes did actually change how I played the game, but other than that it was all just small numbers increases that were not very interesting. It's a bit disappointing to think that the game's experimental freedom in combat is hamstrung in order to include a mediocre progression system. On the whole I'd say it's pretty inoffensive, and serves as a good incentive for searching around the ship alongside supplies. I just feel like a bit more could've been done with it to really spice up gameplay, and feel like a more necessary and fleshed out mechanic, but in the end I'm not all that disappointed. I'm not a game designer of course, but I wonder what this game would look like if all ammo drops were totally randomized regardless of what you had in your inventory, and the weapon upgrades were freely transferrable; meaning the player would be naturally pushed away from only using the same things over and over, and forced to experiment with new weapons. The thing all of the potential experimentation does seems to encourage is subsequent playthroughs, both in New Game+, and in the "Impossible" challenge mode, which do seem quite fun and offer more unique content. I think my only other light critique of the game is that it may drag a little bit towards the end. This may just be because, even on "Hard" difficulty, I was swimming in credits and ammo, and all of my gear was basically fully upgraded. Despite in-game rewards basically having lost their value at this point, I still felt the need to search for loot. In the final chapters, this began to feel extremely tedious, however I'm not sure this is as much the game's fault or more just a flaw with my compulsive mindset in playing it. Despite this, the finale was still pretty spectacular. This game suffers from the survival horror plague of having extremely easy bosses, but they are still an awesome spectacle, and satisfying to overcome. The game is overall great, there's nothing here for me to point to as especially lacking, just a few minor flaws. Dead Space (2023) is an amazing game, and I'm looking forward to playing New Game+ for the alternate ending. It does a lot of things well, and even more things fucking great.

Cobalt Core is fantastic, it really took me by surprise. I don't consider myself a Roguelite Deckbuilder fan, but this game is so engaging and fun it might've made me one. Piloting a ship along a single dimension with turn-based combat is such a cool concept. Bobbing and weaving inbetween bullets and lasers while firing off potshots with your cards is awesome, and the game makes you feel good for doing it. The fundamental mechanics are so simple and easy to pick up, I'd forgive you if you didn't recognize the huge potential skill ceiling the game has. The amount of creativity and build variety available is incredible. Between the game's cast of 8 characters and 5 ships, each with their own unique playstyles, you can formulate some absolutely diabolical builds. Aside from the gameplay, the visuals and sounds are also great. The pixel art is very well done, and I really enjoyed the music - intense when it needed to be, but not overpowering so you can slow down and think in tense moments. The characters are well designed, and the story is cute and pretty concise. The writing gets a little lol xd random on occassion, overall though I really appreciated the humor, and just the dialogue in general. Alongside the "memories" you're working to recover in-game you get to know each character little by little, and the ending was genuinely touching. Overall, the amount of content here isn't quite infinite, but I think it's easily worth the $20 price tag to support an indie developer. My only thought regarding balance is that it's a little too easy to get an Exodia with Books, she is totally mental even on the highest difficulty. Honestly though, this isn't even really a complaint, it's fun. It's possible my inexperience with the genre is blinding me to the game's flaws, and if so, then so be it. All I know is that I like Cobalt Core, a lot.

Buckshot Roulette is a cute little game, played through it a few times. Pretty self-explanatory, you play roulette but with a shotgun - oh and also your opponent is a demon thingy that killed God. If that sounds fun, don't read the rest and just go play it. The final sections of the game grant you random items that add another dimension to the buckshot blasting, and make it more skill-based than just raw rng. It's kinda funny though, how much harder the first section is compared to those latter sections due to its pure randomness. Because the resets are a little slow, this was actually somewhat frustrating on replays. I'd just want to get to those cool latter parts, but I'd get walled by bad rng and have to try that beginning bit over and over. This could maybe be remedied by giving you 3 HP on that starting section, as it's a little too punishing overall I feel. However, I think a solution I'd like to see more is to just include a simple level select after you've beaten the game so you can skip right to whichever part you like. Another thing, while this is meant to be a horror game I personally didn't find it scary at all outside of an eerie atmosphere and general fear of death or losing. That thing I mentioned about your opponent being a demon or whatever? It doesn't matter outside of aesthetics, he plays completely fair. I actually appreciate this in terms of the current gameplay, but when it blasts its own brains out, while funny, it really deflates any sort of fear in the player. I don't think any of this is inherently bad, it just makes me wonder if more could've been done to further the horror aspect of the game. Despite these small gripes, Buckshot Roulette is still a really solid and replayable experience. The visuals and sounds are nice, and the gameplay loop is pretty engaging and easy to pick up due to its simple mechanics. It's always super satisfying to make a correct guess, lifting that barrel against your chin and hearing the click of a blank, or figuring out a line or item combination to checkmate your opponent. Even if you only play it once, it's easily worth the minimum price tag of $1.20.

Northern Journey is not just a hidden gem, but a truly unique piece of art, and a masterpiece of its genre. As anyone can tell you, the art and music is beautiful and extremely immersive. Sound design on the whole is great, especially involving the environments and combat. The crack from the impact of your rock sling, to the crashing of water down a fall, everything sounds so visceral and satisfying - exactly what you would hope for from an fps adventure game. It's not just that the game looks and sounds nice though, but there's a real sense of cohesion. Seemingly based on Norwegian folklore, the game has a rife bed of inspiration to pull from for its worldbuilding. Enemies are pretty varied, interesting, and sometimes scary, while characters you meet can be strange and freaky but also have nice, subtle comedic moments. And while the game is filled with an air of melancholic, fantastical whimsy, I never found myself lost or confused. I always knew what, how, and why I was doing things. The game does a very good job of guiding the player, but without being annoying or overly hand-holdy. The level design is very nice, and I'd say the game is broken up into two distinct parts. The first half features very intricate areas that loop in on themselves with different shortcuts and paths as you acquire new weapons and items that allow you to access new parts of the map, sorta metroidvania style. The second half is much more linear, and the puzzles take a bit of a backseat to exploration and combat, I would call this the "journey" half of the game. Speaking of combat, the game plays very well. Your character is fast and you have infinite, togglable sprint, controls are responsive and platforming feels good. The weapons are fun and there is decent variety, especially in function (though if you like crossbows you'll be having a field day). While health and ammo are technically limited, there is usually plentiful amounts laying around. If you run out of either you have a small supply of emergency HP potions available to you, and the trusty rock sling you start the game with has infinite ammo and relevant damage through the whole game, so you can always scrape through. The one difficulty the game has never felt too hard or too easy necessarily, it's just a really well tuned and accessible experience. There's also permanent HP and ammo capacity/emergency HP increases hidden around to reward exploration, which I really appreciate. Northern Journey is a truly artful experience, and feels deeply intimate in a way. It's really inspiring that this game was made by just a single developer. Everything about this game blew my expectations out of the water, and it absolutely deserves more eyes on it.

I don't know what I can say about Dark Souls that hasn't already been said, it's an all-timer. I think the biggest thing I want to remark on is how well it has aged. The weighty and intentioned combat makes the jank feel baked-in, like it's just part of the experience. The visuals also have a sort of timeless beauty to them, the art direction and enemy/boss designs are fantastic. My favorite thing to do in the game was just exploring for secrets and examining every nook and cranny of all the fantastical locales the game depicts. I was most always rewarded with a cool enemy encounter, a sick item, or a pleasant bonfire. The creative map design, and how they twisted and turned in upon themselves always pleasantly surprised me. My only real criticism I have is how in the second half the areas feel a lot less impassioned, a perfect example being Lost Izalith. Not only is the boss just annoying, but the whole area itself isn't interesting at all really. There are hardly any unique item drops to incentivize exploring, and there's very little enemy variety, more than half of which don't even feel like they fit the area. It's not just boring (especially during boss runbacks), but how my partner described it was "full of microaggressions," which I thought was really funny and apt. You have to use a certain ring just for a small section, there's a bunch of enemies but they're mostly just in the way, and you can constantly get caught on the map geometry. Not a big deal individually, but summed together can kinda get under your skin a little. I think this is compounded by the fact that by this time I was kinda set in my build. I didn't really need to level or advance my gear anymore past the point it was already at, meaning there was so point in rummaging around for the disappointing soul drops or anything. This may be a two-fold issue though, as even if there was some cool weapon to be found there I'm not sure it would've mattered to me at that point in the game anyways. It's a shame because the gorgeous and interesting maps the game is mostly made up of are absolutely amazing. Because of all this I felt pretty fatigued going into the DLC, but with how brisk the pace is I didn't feel the urge to rush through and drop exploring altogether, which felt nice. The focal point of the DLC was definitely a lot more boss-oriented, and the areas were not too large to begin with. I would also like to say I beat the game with a spectator, so not a full on guide, but someone to help me when I got stuck. Even coming from other Souls games and RPGs in the past, this game can be very esoteric and confusing at times. I can easily see how you could have a very frustrating experience as a new player. While I think exploration and the joy of figuring stuff out on your own is a big part of what makes this game special, I would recommend playing with a guide of sorts - at least for emergencies. Frankly, I love this game, it's great despite its flaws. I very rarely found myself missing the modern features present in something like Elden Ring. It's extremely solid as-is, and as a result has aged surprisingly well, there's just some unfortunate moments in the later half that can feel lackluster. The only thing more timeless than its gameplay and art is the idea the game represents.

This game is pure crystallized nostalgic fun to me. The music and art direction are iconic and unforgettable. I really appreciate the whole buffet of bite-sized adventures. They all sport different mechanics, quirks and cute stories that make them interesting and unique (Meta Knightmare Ultra is peak). All of the copy abilities feel good to use, and because of that you also feel free to switch it up constantly, keeping the game fresh. The game is overall pretty easy, and coming back to it I think I would enjoy a bit more challenge outside the boss rush modes. However, this game absolutely delivers on casual fun, which is exactly what I expect from the franchise. Super Star Ultra is basically my perfect Kirby game, and I always find myself coming back to it.

I feel wrong for not liking this game, but it just didn't really click for me. The opening is really strong and had me legitimately scared for awhile. The puzzles involving the use of the powers were fun and were a good way to integrate the tutorials into gameplay. But as soon as I got past that first area the magic kinda went away. The setting is still really cool, and the political themes are at least somewhat intriguing. Audio logs are littered everywhere and I can't help but feel like the interesting stuff has already happened and the game can only tell me but not really show me. The movement feels stiff and sluggish, like I just have to eat hits with no advanced movement or cover system. Sound design is potent, gunplay would have good impact but a lot of the enemies and especially bosses are huge bullet sponges. The Plasmid system - while neat - can feel cumbersome and almost tacked on as a bandaid for the shooting system. There's some real potential in these systems for depth later on, but I just wasn't hooked. A lot of fights feel like they boil down to simply trading bullets and healing. The different weapons only seem to provide choice in preference and special ammo types, but they're all pretty similar. I enjoyed the melee combat so much more than the gunplay that I ended up with max eve and ammo for most of what I played. Lastly, I was kinda surprised they just let you, and actually encourage you to kill Big Daddies so early on. I was expecting them to be more imposing, but they're kinda just big health bars with easily abused ai. I don't want to dislike this game, and I think it has some good things going for it. The music and atmosphere is the one thing I really loved, it's super unique and interesting - I just wish I liked the gameplay more. I can definitely understand how someone experiencing a lot of these things for the first time could look back on this game really fondly. Maybe I'll come back to it at some point, but for now it's just not for me it seems.

Silent Bomber is hardly very silent. It's similar to Bomber Man, but more action than puzzle or strategy. It's a really short experience, able to be completed in a couple of hours. For the most part it'd like to say it's fun, but it has some terribly tedious sections that can be downright frustrating at times. There were moments I got confused, as it can be really bad at making it clear where you need to go. Along with not explaining things there's a fun little upgrade system, but as far as I know the game never tells you it exists. The difficulty curve is all over the place, some bosses are total cakewalks meanwhile other levels feel almost unfair. My favorites would have to be the water tunnel and the giant elevator shaft, both levels where you are confined to a decent size space that is all visible on screen at once. In contrast the levels that I dislike are either so large you fall victim to screen crunch, or are really cramped to where it's hard to avoid enemies or give your bombs space. You are given special limited "liquid" bombs that you are really never pressured to use on normal enemies, and you don't want to either. Certain boss encounters are extremely obnoxious, but can be trivialized by effective use of the liquids - especially the stun liquid. The CG cutscenes have not aged very well at all, and the story is nothing to write home about. However, the actual graphics have their charm, and the music isn't amazing, but it's not bad. Lastly, there's a score system, it grades how well you do on each mission. However, there's no restart mission or replay mission buttons. Not only can this be annoying, but it also means you can't play a mission again for a high score without playing the whole game over. Overall it feels kinda half baked, but the central mechanic is enjoyable. I actually like the way the game looks and feels, and I hope we see something like this again.

Voidigo is a really charming little roguelite. First off the game's style is really adorable, it looks amazing and has good humor. I appreciate it for being goofy and fun, but not over-the-top and obnoxious. The characters and enemies have such playful designs, and the animation goes a long way to furthering that. I love the narrator's voice and the music does a fantastic job of elevating key moments. Now, onto how it actually plays. The core gameplay loop is fun and satisfying enough, but it can definitely get stale after you've beaten the final boss a few times. I played just enough to beat the last story challenge, but anything past that just seems like time sink tedium. I'm definitely not going to go for 100%, but it's definitely something I'll keep playing - at least for the multiplayer. The content that is available right now is solid, there are many fun weapons and awesome power-ups, and I especially enjoy the mechanic of jumping to dodge and stomp on enemies' heads. That said, this game isn't without its faults, some of the mechanics can be quite frustrating. Certain enemies can be annoying, and aren't necessarily hard but just take far too long to deal with. The stomping I love so much is pretty exploitable, as you can simply spam it endlessly and get pretty far without really trying. Maybe if a resource was tied to it it could better reward skilled play, but that may take away some of the fun. It would be nice if there was a HUD element to let you know when certain power-ups were off cooldown. Then lastly, when looping, enemy stats seem to increase dramatically and it feels hard to keep up. Most of this is just felt in the time it takes to kill them, which turns the game into a bit of a slog. Perhaps this is a skill issue for not figuring out a way to break the game more effectively in my 21 hours of play at the time of writing this. However, the game doesn't even necessarily seem to want you to do this in the first place. Looping doesn't feel like it gives any extra reward compared to just starting fresh, and it makes it harder to experiment and work towards the completion goal of unlocking the finale if you're trying to be optimal. I guess on one hand it's good that there's things to excite both completionists and gamers seeking challenge above all else, but to someone who enjoys both, the systems seem a little bit at odds. Also, I want to add that, while the pet system is a cute currency sink once you've bought everything else, I feel like it's a teensy bit lackluster. Overall though, it's a very well put together game that presented me with a fun challenge. I have my gripes, but the game only just came out last June after 2 years in Steam Early Access. There has already been a few updates after the initial release, and I hope and look forward to the devs continuing to support it.

Resident Evil 4 is amazing. It's a pretty big shift from having just played Signalis, being much more linear and action based with extremely simple puzzles. Looking into the rest of the series, as this is my first Resident Evil game, I've learned this is a turning point in the series for those same reasons. I really love the old tank controls and shooting mechanics introduced in this game. They're really charming, and the awkwardness in getting used to them can ramp up tense situations. However, they become pretty comfy and satisfying once you get used to them. The management of supplies is really enjoyable and encourages you to be as resourceful as possible to conserve ammo and health amidst the hordes of enemies the game throws at you. This game does horror really well, and while a part of me wishes there was more of it, I appreciate it being well spread out between more action-based segments as to not wear out the player. Ashley isn't with you for too much of the game, but I found the parts where she is enjoyable. She gives you another thing to manage and those parts are among the more exciting ones in the game. While long at around 16 hours for a playthrough, the game is really well paced and I enjoyed the narrative thoroughly. Playing the previous games is not necessary to appreciate RE4's story. I really love Leon, he's just exactly what I wanted from the character. Little silly quips and stuff to break the tension every now and then. Graphics hold up really well for its age, and the sound design is peak - especially the music. One of the most solid and cohesive gaming experiences I've ever had.

Calamity mod follows up base Terraria so well that it's hard to believe. I really appreciate that the art and items stick pretty close to vanilla theming for the most part. The bosses are challenging, fun, and lean more into the bullet hell tendencies of the game. Items are designed really well, it's hard to find too many that are outright disappointing or feel bad to use. It's also a really stable experience, even in multiplayer. The only bug me and my partner experienced was during one of the last boss fights. To my knowledge this is relatively new content, so it's forgivable. Terraria's model of progression is so satisfying I wish it could go on forever. I'm very much looking forward to what future updates have in store.