edit (13/11/23): this review sucks. lol

I don’t understand Pokémon fans. When Sword and Shield released in 2019, it was understandable that Pokémon fans were quite upset. To start off with, the “graphics” at the time were considerably worse and when it was revealed that some Pokémon were not going to even be in the game, the game received heavy backlash from fans and was regarded as one of the most weakest mainline entries.

Then we got Pokémon Legends, which most fans agreed was a major improvement with it’s new formula of catching Pokémon out of the wild. However this also received some backlash as well, with a common theme running that the plot was shallow and the.. gameplay wasn’t fun? Wait, hold on, Game Freak has just changed the entire meta of the game for you and you’re still complaining. The fights were too easy? The graphics were too ugly? The characters are too one dimensional? It’s hard for the common Pokémon fan to find what they enjoy.

And as of now, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet have released (although it leaked a week earlier if you know what I mean). And as of now, although a lot of positive comments, Pokemon fans are still complaining! The frame rate and performance is actually so bad now because you guys bullied poor Masuda into trying to produce good ones on a console that has the same specs as a car battery. The fights are too easy? The characters are too one dimensional? You want the mechanics back from a spin off game, even though some of you DIDNT EVEN LIKE IT????

You can hate this game. If you genuinely just don’t like this game or anything in it you are perfectly fine to criticise whatever you want, we are a website that criticises everything for god’s sake. What I just don’t understand is the Pokémon fans. Why do you guys stick with this series for so long if you do nothing but rag and complain about how bad they all are? Pokemon is a series dedicated to putting out low budget titles that appeal to 10 year olds and adults who can never seem to grow up, of course the fights are too easy and everything looks shit. And maybe if you’re favourite Pokémon didn’t make it into the new game, take it as a sign that maybe it’s time to move on and try new things. Go outside and take a nice walk.

I’m a few hours in, I’m enjoying the game. I like the fruity duck starter and the evil team leader’s a baddie so hey good job Game Freak 4 stars!!!!!

The original Spyro is definitely the "purest" Spyro game in that it has less of the backtracking and gimmicky minigames for extra collectibles that future games would have, there's a nice simplicity in going into a level, collecting all of the gems in one run and just knowing that you're done with that level.

Because it's the first one though, there's a few things it clearly hasn't figured out yet. Namely boss battles, all of which are a total joke which usually come down to you hitting an enemy once, watching them slowly move to their designated next platform so you can hit them again and repeating until they're dead with no challenge having ever been posed whatsoever. The dragons you have to free are also obviously supposed to function as helpful tutorial-givers as well as a progression objective, but by the late game they've clearly run out of stuff to tell you so they just pop out and say shit like "yeah cheers Spyro!" and then immediately fuck off and it feels really abrupt, LOL

Future Spyro games would build out in terms of charm. They'd have NPCs who you talk to every time you enter the level and give you some background about the place and likely why it's overrun with bad guys. Spyro 2 has opening and ending cutscenes for every level, Spyro 3 has way more characters and cutscenes etc.

Lacking these things, Spyro 1 feel comparatively a bit empty? You go in, get to the end, maybe collect all the gems in a level, that's it, and like I say - towards the end the dragons aren't even saying shit to you.

It has a lot less fluff than its sequels, but honestly Spyro 2 & 3 are rare games in that I think their fluff is generally actually really good and helps make those games more charming and enjoyable. Without them, Spyro 1 feels like it's lacking something, but it's still a fundamentally enjoyable game with some fun gameplay. Harmless and unspectacular compared to its sequels.

The biggest thing Spyro 1 has going for it is some really dope level themes, both musically and artistically. This is by far the most fantastical and whimsical the series would ever get - particularly in the late game, and I kinda miss the fairytyle-style words that felt like they were really reminding you that Spyro is a dragon. Lofty Castle and Haunted Towers will forever be favourites.

In a Q&A I attended for one of his movies, Gaspar Noé once told the audience, that his first ever trip was watching 2001 by Kubrick when he was a kid. I absolutely knew what he was talking about.
I had the same feeling while being sucked through the screen in the last 30 minutes of this game.
It feels like an interactive art installation with a narrative that metaphorically evolves on a cosmic scale. If you tried to sum up the premise of this game, it’s: a moody saxophone-ridden noir detective thriller in which someone dear to you gets shot and you try to stop it by reversing that shot, the loud Big Bang.
And that’s were it’s connected to our universe, because in order to do so you travel through the very fabric of everything.
The experience never lets you off by getting too comfortable. The perspective, the way you interact with what is shown on screen, EVERYTHING that happens changes constantly, there is no way to describe it universally. Some of the puzzles are a bit finicky and unguided to the point, it ends up being a little frustrating, but still: It’s unique in the best sense possible and not something I will forget soon.
Genesis Noir is testament to the power videogames as a medium have, as it transcends genres and defies expectation time and time again.
I can only recommend playing through this experience with good headphones, a great and big screen and the patience you need to let it all pay off.

Interesting, beautiful, clever, and captivating.

You go through the game with a protagonist that changes face and personality, accompanied by a little girl that was born from a dragon egg. Her power is to eat lies, and the mechanic is more or less just like a normal RPG with moves and attacks when fighting the lies. The fun in it is figuring out which enemy is a lie or not. You can roughly figure out which enemy is a lie based on the end screen in order to give you context clues to the 3 chapters to come.

The only reason this game is not 5/5 is the limited soundtrack (though beautiful) and limited playtime (3 chapters, roughly cleared in less than a day). I feel as though a lot of information was pushed into the last chapter in order to conclude the story, and the only other downside is that I assumed the neutral ending was the true ending (I had to look it up). The true end concludes beautifully, but it feels rushed regardless. I assumed we would go through 5 worlds, but I am happy we got such beautiful pixel art for 3.

The characters are loveable, the lore is interesting, every person in each chapter has their motivations and development fleshed out. The most endearing part is the bond between the protagonist and the dragon girl. You switch between them in order to fetch information, and some characters will only ever give information to one of the characters, so it pays off to talk to everyone.

Additionally, exploring every item and clicking on every corner may yield you legendary items that really cheese the game (this becomes necessary later). Grinding is fun, fast, and doesn't take much effort once you get to a very high level or you find the legendary item for the area.

A cheap, clever, and emotional RPG with gorgeous pixel art and mild horror/gore aesthetic. The most interesting part is character development and interaction, but also the world in which the characters live in. We get a limited amount of knowledge, but from what we get, everything we see and hear makes sense and evokes more curiosity. I really wish the game would get a sequel or additional in-between chapters, since I adore the concept, artwork, gameplay, and the ideas used to create a narrative. Like I said, the only sad part and reason this game is not 5/5 is because it was so short, and I was hoping to get to know more.

If you enjoy the classic GBA pixel art, soundtrack, and miss the old school graphics that would classify games as retro games, this is the perfect experience for you. For the first time in years, I got to play a game that took me back to my childhood when the peak of my day was turning on my gameboy and playing pokemon silver or yellow. It's worth it just for the experience to throw you back into a world no longer that present in modern games.

rpg maker can definitely deliver some gems.

this is so unique and must be a must play of every single gamer out there, expecially those who love those type of games.

it just feels so well written, so original and you just will love the main character so much that it will HURT to do the right choice at the end.

amazing.

I like Monster Hunter Rise, I think it's a good game - but there are two statements often repeated about it that I find surprising. The first is that the game is "more accessible" than World, which is something I feel people largely say just because it's on the Switch and because there's a fair few quality of life changes like the Wirebug & the Palamute. It's more convenient than Monster Hunter World, sure, but accessible? I don't know.

I think this game is likely to be very jarring for new players because it absolutely does not teach the player how to play or how to understand the basics of Monster Hunter like World does. World teaches you through a tutorial in which you learn by playing, Rise assaults the player with lengthy textboxes over a loud and distracting vocal hub theme for the first few hours and generally explains itself in a pretty overwhelming way. Even I, as a Monster Hunter veteran who's been playing since 4U found myself a bit confused by some of the explanations of mechanics I was already familiar with.

And to be honest, the second statement is that this game is better than World, which I just really don't think it is. World's story wasn't much to write home about but it was a damn sight better than the underbaked and clearly half-assed mess this game throws at you. (Not that you ever play Monster Hunter for the story, mind you.) The graphics being such a huge downgrade isn't the game's fault and moreso a limitation of the Switch, but when you pair that with slightly less detailed maps and monsters with less intriguing behaviours, you have a game with very underwhelming presentation across the board when put next to a game that came out 3 years earlier. Rise just lacks a lot of the nifty little details that made World sparkle to me. (When you capture a monster you don't even get to see them in a little pen afterwards anymore! Bummer!)

So with all this said it might sound like I dislike Rise, but quite the opposite. There is one area in which Rise trumps World in my opinion, but it's a pretty big one; gameplay. The core, moment-to-moment gameplay in Rise is the best it's ever been in Monster Hunter, even better than World - which is saying something. Thanks to the additional attacks and exceptional mobility provided by the Wirebug, core combat with the monsters is absolutely fucking ace and having the Palamute to run around the map and track them down cuts out so much lethargic timewasting when it comes to looking for the monster. Rise was designed with verticality in mind and it shows, less detailed as they may be - the maps are a joy to traverse. Every cliff can be scaled, every ravine can be leapt over, you can clear huge sections of these maps in mere seconds and it makes you feel like the coolest mfer in the world when you do so.

Every weapon has been given new tricks and tools, the Silkbind attacks add so many layers of depth to your strategy and the fact that you can choose from multiple for each weapon is pretty insane. There are some additions that backfire a little bit, Wyvern Riding gets a bit old after a while and can often trivialise fights more than I think they should, and the Rampage, while not as offensive an extra mode clearly put in just to mix up gameplay as it could be - does wear out its welcome after a while.

Unfortunately the consequence of making so many changes in the name of convenience is that you also make the game significantly easier, perhaps too easy. I think Monster Hunter Rise is by far the easiest Monster Hunter game to date; almost every hunt is over within 20 minutes or so because you've been given so many new tools to fight the monsters with but the monsters themselves remain almost completely unchanged and are no longer able to contend with all the buffs the player's gotten between World and Rise. If World is Dark Souls, then Rise is fucking Devil May Cry.

This game is really fun, it has core gameplay and combat over World and honestly? Probably soundtrack too, some of the area battle themes like Sandy Plains and Lava Caverns in particular absolutely slap. (Oh, it also has weapon designs over World! No more "piece of monster clearly layered over bone" weapons, every weapon design in Rise is dope as hell.) However I think it needs some of the kinks around the edges ironed out. I hope Sunbreak can ramp up the difficulty, present a more interesting story and generally present a bit more finesse than Rise does because the core is there, it just needs some more support.

Pokemon Clover is the best Pokemon game ever, and managed to recapture a long lost magic that the series had and I'm dead serious when I say this. I love this game so much I have the World Record (and only) NG+ speedrun of it, and will be improving that record again later on.

While the game's starting town seems to be funny joke game like "haha your professor is Danny DeVito and your starters are a condom, arab terrorist, and Grasshole)" it quickly shows what depths it's capable of in regards to its parodic creature designs, combat depth, and difficulty.

I'll talk about the humor first: The time capsule of internet humor is pretty funny and while I'm unsure how well the humor will age in the short term, it will be nostalgic soon enough. It's offensive, but offensive in the South Park method where it makes fun of anyone and everyone and doesn't pick sides: all sides are portrayed as selfish, idiotic morons with no one in the right. You have Social Justice Warriors that go off at the slightest unintended microaggression and Nazis that are portrayed as idiodic morons disliking things just because they are different. It has a jim crow black pers...Dark Type holding a watermelon going SHEEET that is also the ideal HM slave while also having a fat pig police officer fighting type that isn't even that good to use. The mons cover all regards and I'd say only the Sadrog->PepeREE line aged poorly but that has more to do with the Pepe meme than the mon based on it.

I suppose this is a good transition to talk about the mons and their designs, both visually and functionally. Visually due to how they were compiled (the Fochun dex was roughly the first 151 designs they recieved with slight tweaks and alterations) but still have so much thought with what they have. Some like Haremit and Anaconduke could be real Pokemon and while others like Sprucifix and Unjoy would never fly, they fit right in a parody Pokemon game incredibly well. There are veryfew bad designs but they do exist, like DIEZNUTS, but it's forgiven by the surplus of good ones. They even had the right mind to drop Pokfusa before 1.0 and replace it with the much more fitting Militant. Functionally they all are exactly as they seem, and with quality and balance in mind too: Militant for example is a Deoxys lite, while there are tons of fantastic mons like Marleyzard that are designed to use Toke, a fire type Shell Smash, to set up and sweep. Their abilities also add to their jokes, like Marleyzard's White Smoke that also aids it in combat. With two exceptions that are getting nerfed in the near future (lol), the in-game balance is on point and nothing feels free while nothing feels truly unfair either.

This leads to the main campaign which if played blind really recaptured that feeling of playing Pokemon for the first time, only on an adult level: I saw a creature I didn't know of before, and had no clue what it was, what it did, how it played, until I dealt with it enough or tried it on my team for myself. The enemies weren't slouches either: You aren't just going to beat Brock because you chose the non-arab starter. You can't spam items either: The game has a hard limit of 4 item uses per battle. On the other hand, one-use items (like Berries and Sashes) will come back at the end of major battles, so there's no need to hold back on using those for big fights allowing you as many tries as you need. And you will need them, as battles only get more complex from there, Snoop and Freddie being notable hurdles in the Gym department while the rivals and Carlito also caught me off guard a couple of times. Your rival also changes depending on your gender, as does their strategy: Viol the male rival plays a very meta style strategy, while Keksandra plays like a massive shitposter who wants to mess around more rather than win. It adds that extra bit of replayability. The Elite Four (and especially the champion) also add their own surprises to shove your shit in and make you rethink your strategies.

And it doesn't end there! Pokemon Clover has a massive post-game: First there's the top of the Fochun region, followed up with 5 more gyms in the Ebin Islands with much tougher trainers using more intense strategies! This world is simply massive and with a whole new national dex, rightfully so! They're no slouch here either, filled with a life and sidequests of their own, like buying a house that can eventually lead to in my opinion the most powerful mon, Adesign! There are also plenty of bonus bosses including Adolf Hitler, Chris-Chan, some literal who named Moot, and more! The only bad part is Polany, the weakest area of the game, which is not only unfunny (just like the board it's based on!) but is also redundant with Outkast Island already existing and worst of all being unfinished. But with that out of the way, Mt. Moot is its final dungeon, and that's it.

And now I should talk about the story, so stop reading and play it right now if you wanna avoid: The first part up till the Champion is relatively standard Kanto fare with the evil team. The boss is obvious but it wasn't made out to be a big mystery. It's in the postgame with Neo Team Karma that reveals that the team you faced at first was merely a front so they could do their real misdeeds in the shadows. I actually like this as it's a small shake-up. However, the real boss has no build up and kinda dumps his entire character and motive in the final 10 minutes. Vyglass is just like you, only he hated his life despite having a wife and kid and retreated further and further into his imaginary world he created with Clovenix. It's only after beating the shit out of him, his mechs, and his mons that he apologizes for sperging out and goes back to his reality, leaving anything else in Fochun in your hands. It does its job but if Vyglass was built up better or shown once he would have been better, but he still leaves an impression just because he uses the Master Ball on the Legendary like we do and then proceeds to try and kill you with a mech.

I have no good segway into the music but they're all bangers and it's the best Pokemon soundtrack. The remixes like Darude's Sandstorm, POMF POMF POMF, Megalovania...are all translated beautifully to the GBA sound font, while the original compositions like Viol's theme, Champion's theme, Demiwaifu, Karma Admin, Neo Team Karma, Vyglass theme, they're all so good!

Long story short Pokemon Clover is the best Pokemon game and likely always will be so playing it should be required for any Pokemon fan regardless of your views and beliefs I don't care about those just play Clover.

I played Celeste in 2020 under a friend's recommendation. He, knowing that 2D Platformers that step on me and call me worthless are my kink, figured it'd be the perfect game for me. Yeah...He wasn't far off.

Celeste is just fantastic isn't it? It's ballbustingly hard, but not in a Dark Souls kinda way where it's like "you suck at the game, get better" but more in an encouraging "you can do it! Keep going!" kind of way, and this ethos is beautifully encapsulated in the way that the game's protagonist - Madeleine is trying to climb the titular mountain just to prove to herself that she can. It's a beautiful example of story and gameplay lining up and serving the same function.

And that gameplay is tight, responsive and so addictive. So many times I looked at the platforming puzzle ahead of me and thought "you want me to do what?" and then I did it, and Celeste made me feel like I was the best player in the world, even when I wasn't. Celeste is the ultimate in immense platforming challenge and mind-bending manoeuvres, Madeleine's physics feel spot-on and her signature air-dash as well as so many ingenious little mechanics contribute to the incredible things you'll achieve in this game.

Celeste pulls this all off whilst having a heartfelt and focused story that anyone with a heart will find relatable. It's very hard to find a flaw with it. I suppose I didn't love the Mirror Temple and I find Celeste's "single-screen" approach as opposed to the side-scrolling approach of games like Rayman Legends or Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze often has me wondering what to do, instead of how I do it. But these things are so minor. What a fucking banger.

This game is almost impossible to talk about and even more impossible to rate, but I'll do my best. It's something you'll really have to experience for yourself, it's a game that poses questions of autonomy, and how much "control" you really have in videogames. It does hilarious things and takes you to hilarious places (such as Minecraft) but can also get pretty dark and tense at times. While never scary, the questions it asks and scenarios it presents to you can really get quite daunting.

I won't say much more, because you won't get any more out of me talking about it than you will out of playing it, it's very cheap, you can see everything it has to offer in a little over 2 hours and I don't wanna ruin the surprises. All I'll say is - I think more can be done with the idea, more questions can be posed, more choices can be offered and more can be said. This is something that has endless potential that's yet to be explored, and based on that I think it's really worth your time. When I did my Master's in Game Design, my tutor told me that he'd met the guy who made this game and that he was very smart and funny and was also a bit of a knob! That adds up!