Artistically, this is one of the coolest games I've ever played. It's clearly a passion project of some very talented people. I am definitely going to be watching out for future stuff by them. The illustrations, voice acting, and music all do an excellent job of selling the characters, story, and atmosphere.

The story itself is interesting, but may not stick with me as strongly as some other game stories I've experienced recently. It came across as cryptic and intriguing, but not necessarily cohesive in the end. Maybe I just didn't quite follow all the information it was throwing my way, but when trying to explain the story to a friend, I wasn't ever actually fully confident of the explanation I was giving.

Game and structure-wise, this was 'good'. It feels like, in the end, kind of a gimmicky setup, but it doesn't really feel like it needs to be much more than that. It was a short and sweet experience, but it's also extremely cool knowing how many other branching paths and stories I never saw there are packed into this game. I can't say I have too much of an urge to see them all, since they began to feel a bit same-y, but this was a treat regardless. I'm glad to have experienced this one despite some slightly mixed feelings in some areas. Certainly worth a simple first playthrough just to witness the artistry here.

Pros:
+ Illustrations, voice acting, music
+ Overall tone and atmosphere

Cons:
- A touch repetitive, even when facing different paths/conflicts
- Tough to fully understand the story in one playthrough

Spoiler-free review! The less you know before playing this, the better. But you SHOULD play it!

I've heard time and time again from people who played this game on the DS that it is a hidden gem. It seemed that every person who had played it wanted every person they know to also experience it. I finally understand, and I'm so glad for it.

I'd always wanted to check this game out, but being only available on the DS (or emulated) made it less appealing to me. I knew eventually I'd like to find a good way to play, and with the re-release on modern consoles, I was instantly down.

This game has straight up one of (if not the best) mystery stories I've ever experienced in any medium. It's extremely tightly knit, everything serves a purpose, and it leaves great hints along the way to empower the player's imagination and problem solving. I predicted a number of twists, but had plenty still blindside me in the best way possible. I adore the characters and their dialogue, which both managed to make me crack up and get emotional plenty of times.

Visually, this game is really refreshing. Its character designs are so far out there that they instantly establish identities and personalities the moment they step out on screen. The animation work is hilarious and lends itself well to the roles played out by the game's well-developed and well-utilized cast. The sound design and music are also excellent, and I'm sure a number of tracks will make their way into my frequently-listened-to game music.

Gameplay-wise, this is some of the most clever puzzling I've seen in a game, as well. Solutions are not always obvious, and are often pretty far-fetched, but I think the game establishes early that logic doesn't always apply here. Personally, I think it's all the better for that. When things fall into place after a few head-scratching attempts, it feels great. Those eureka moments make each section really special. I never felt so stumped that I had to use a guide, though there were just a couple of times I got close to considering it. I'm glad I relied on my own problem-solving and creativity, though, as it was way more satisfying.

Positives:
+ Story, mystery, dialogue
+ Fun and expressive characters
+ Music and sound
+ Fresh, clever puzzle mechanics

Negatives:
- A few character moments that were just a touch too aggressively annoying (but that was often the point so I can't fault them much for that)
- Occasional visual jitters when characters moved at the same time as the camera

Master Mode, 100% completed.
- All main quests, shrine quests, side quests
- All shrines and Divine Beasts
- All key locations visited
- All Korok Seeds collected
- Full Hyrule Compendium
- Full upgrades of every piece of armor
- Every Stone Talus, Hinox, and Molduga defeated (and Lynels for good measure)
- All DLC completed

This was likely the biggest undertaking I've ever taken on in a video game, and I have no regrets. I've played this game through a couple of times now, but never to this level of completion.

I adore this game. The simple act of exploring and getting lost / distracted is a treat, and the world itself is so rich with things to see and do. Combat is fun, rewarding (usually), and has lots of room for expression. The story and characters are loveable and engaging.

I really don't have any complaints with this game. If there is anything to say even slightly negatively, it's that I prefer the pace of exploration, puzzle solving, and making your own path when compared to following the main questline. The game gives you so much freedom to make your own choices that I never found that at all cumbersome.

This is a game I'd consider easily within my top 5, and I can't wait to see if they can improve on it in Tears of the Kingdom. I'm expecting a very different game feel in most regards, but I'm optimistic for this, as well.

A friend already owned this game and had an extra key, so I figured I'd try it out on a whim. I was pleasantly surprised!

I'm already a big fan of the Carcassonne board game, and this gave me strong vibes of that while being a super zen experience. Chill music, pleasant visuals, and a simple game structure that doesn't require too much brain power makes for a lovely time here.

I think overall it takes a bit too long to play through a single round, but it feels very satisfying all the way through regardless. I would have liked to have more emphasis on your tile limit as it drops down into lower numbers, since I didn't even notice I was running out until the game ended. I could see myself playing this again, but I don't think it will be the 'pick up for a quick, relaxing session' game I thought it would be when I started, simply because it took me 1.5+ hours to finish my first go at it.

Positives:
+ Atmosphere, music, visual style
+ Overall concept and mechanics
+ Satisfying and addictive quest system
+ Lots of achievements that make me want to try again

Negatives:
- Bit too long by default (would be nice if it were 30-45 minutes instead imo)
- Some camera control and tile visibility/clarity could be better
- Once it's gone on for a long time, it gets a little less chill and a bit more overwhelming

Edit: I played this game for 10 hours within my first 3 days and completed a total of 3 full games. The strategy of the gameplay suddenly clicked for me near the end of game 2, and it felt like things really opened up and became more clear. This was a double-edged sword, however, since this meant that game 3 was suddenly much longer than the others. 5 hours long, to be specific. I got extremely addicted to this game for those 3 days, and did that entire 3rd game in one sitting. I have a love-hate relationship with this game now. While I find it really well done and engaging to play, it is far too addicting to me and I still felt like the length of a single game is just far too long. To lean into some excessive overdramaticism, this game was far too enjoyable and completely ruined those 3 days. I couldn't pull myself away, but I also felt awful about that fact the longer I played. If I return to this game, it will be with a timer that forces me to stop after a certain time limit.

I know it's said to death, but this game is shockingly good. I groaned when I first heard the concept and that the Rabbids of all things would be co-starring in a Mario game. I was not interested in the slightest, as I've disliked the Rabbids for years. Despite my negative first impressions, this game is great, though I do still have some mixed feelings on it.

The gameplay is the clear focus here, and it's surprisingly well thought-out and really fun. It gets quite tough, too, but never feels unfair. I generally tried to get a perfect score in each battle, but it was much easier said than done and I did give in and accept lesser scores a couple times, especially towards the late game. They somehow took a format that on the surface seems pretty restrictive and gave it a lot of depth. Between dash attacks, team jumps, super moves, weapon variety, and each character having their own identities and traits in battle, the combat packed in a lot of good content.

Presentation-wise, this game gets mixed reviews from me. Grant Kirkhope does good music as always, but I feel like this one is a bit weaker compared to his other works. It's still very cool to see him hands-on with a Mario title, though. The songs that are a bit more inspired from past songs work super well, though, especially Rabbid DK's boss theme. Visually, I think this game is pretty "okay". It has a lot of character, but feels very awkward and slow a lot of the time. There were also a lot of times where I experienced visual bugs, ranging from minor to severely corrupted.

I think the general puzzle gameplay in the overworld between battles is pretty fun, and on my first playthrough back in 2017 (which I didn't complete), I tried hard to backtrack and 100% every world. This became way too cumbersome, so when I came back to this in 2022, I ditched that dream and went for minimal completion. Even playing this way, I still felt like this game went on a bit too long. It got pretty repetitive and I found myself wishing for the end by the beginning of the 4th area.

Grab bag things that I can't categorize or don't have enough to say about: writing is super cringey, I like the enemy types, bosses are alright but only the first left a big impression on me, Rabbid Luigi is my BOY.

Pros:
+ Battle system in general
+ Surprising amount of depth and variety
+ Good puzzles
+ Good music

Cons:
- Drags on, gets repetitive
- Visual bugs and jank
- Too much backtracking for extras
- Story, writing, humor

I took a few long breaks from this game so my memories of some areas are fuzzy, but what I can confidently remember is how the game made me feel. I really loved this game and would place it, most likely, at my 3rd favourite Zelda game just behind BotW and Link Between Worlds.

The art-style has aged extremely well, the music is great, character designs are fun and expressive, and that's all just surface-level presentation. Gameplay-wise it feels super fun, too. The sword combat is exciting and feels dynamic in all the right ways, and the bosses are pretty high-quality, as well. Dungeon puzzles make you feel clever and accomplished, and I only found myself confused as to how to progress a couple times.

One thing I found I really enjoyed in this game that I wasn't expecting to was the sailing. Exploring and digging up chests uncovered by sea charts was very satisfying, and I appreciated how there were plenty of little improvised mini-games to play while sailing a long distance (enemy encounters, obstacles, rupees randomly popping up, etc). I very nearly went for 100% in this game, but had a feeling it would become a bit too much of a grind for my liking if I were to do so. I left it on a high note instead while getting as many collectables as I could along the way.

Positives:
+ Combat
+ Characters
+ Exploration
+ Music and Art
+ Puzzle / Dungeon Design

Negatives:
- A couple lesser dungeons that were frustrating or slow
- Latter-half 'fetch quest' dragged a bit too long

I had very mixed feelings on this game when first starting out, but it won me over in spades by the end. In my opinion, Ori's strongest point is its movement / platforming, but only when you've unlocked the majority of Ori's moveset. I would've thought my highest point of praise with this game would've been its art, but despite the beautiful sets and characters, I had my frustrations with the art, too.

Artistically, it's obvious that this game looks beautiful and sounds just as good. Though a bit unmemorable aside from a few tunes, the soundtrack does all it needs to in solidifying the game's atmosphere as simply wonderful. The characters are charming to look at, and the visual effects and backgrounds are pleasing to the eye. However, I found myself often getting swept up in 'pixel vomit', where clarity was often lost in the muddle of too much happening on screen. Sometimes it was hard to tell which objects were in the foreground or background, for example, and enemy (and player) attacks were often hard to follow or see.

On the point of combat, this game's is nothing special at all. It's a 1-button button-mash for the most part, though later moves in the game do allow for some fun movement involving enemies. The most fun way to deal with enemies was by far simply dashing around / evading them and not killing them at all.

Platforming-wise, I found this game imprecise and floaty at first, which often was a detriment during tight platforming challenges. However, after unlocking more moves, things started to click. Moving around the world of Ori is the most fun thing to do once you have enough moves to make it fast and fluid. The caveat to this is that the first few hours of the game can feel like a slow and cumbersome drag. Once it clicks, though, it feels nothing short of amazing. The areas / levels themselves aren't very memorable, though, and I never managed to build much of a mental map to guide myself around, often flipping the map open and shut over and over because I didn't recognize where I was.

One more nitpick I must address is the game's "create-your-own-checkpoint" system. This is a neat idea in theory, but it honestly doesn't work at all. Too often did I lose minutes of progress simply because I forgot to save. Reverting back to a checkpoint and being forced to rewatch cutscenes or tread old ground isn't fun. You could argue this is my own memory's fault, though the game itself doesn't help any way in reminding you. In fact, since the checkpoints use a finite resource that can also be expended through combat, it unconsciously re-enforces the fact that you should hold onto them and not use them frivolously. Odd system.

Positives:
+ Movement in the latter half of the game
+ Art style and music
+ Skill-tree rewards exploration and strategy
+ A couple movement-based specific moves that I won't spoil here give this game a unique identity from peers of the genre

Negatives:
- Occasional lack of visual clarity
- Checkpoint system
- Combat
- First half of the game feels slow and a bit sloppy

I have mixed feelings on this game, but I think looking back on my experience I would call it mostly positive. The visuals and music are great, and the main hook of being able to combine copy abilities is a great idea that should definitely be fleshed out in a future game.

While I enjoyed the copy ability mechanics, I would argue that there are a few that are extremely OP and others that are basically useless. The lack of balance deterred my drive for experimentation somewhat, but I still tried to get every possible combo by game's end.

I first played through the game without a particular focus on collecting all of the crystal shards due to how often they would seem more annoying than fun to collect. I'm not fond of the 'hey to get this one, you need to have this exact combination of these two abilities that you won't be able to find anywhere in the level and have to hold on to for 5 minutes into the level without dying because you'll lose it' schtick. The ones that you came across naturally were satisfying to collect, but I could do without the "puzzle" ones. Once I'd played through once, I did decide to go back through and collect the ones I was missing. In the end, I found it didn't take too long, and I was at least thankful for the ability to retain any collected items / abilities by exiting the level through the pause menu at any time. There was no need to play through to the end of the level if I got what I needed from it 10 seconds in.

The bosses in this game were pretty awful and unmemorable with the exception of the last boss. Maybe I just happened to have OP moves when I fought them, but several bosses didn't even get a chance to launch an attack on me before I managed to kill them without even taking a step.

With all the nitpicks out of the way, I would still say this is a solid platformer with enjoyable presentation that tries some unique things and mostly succeeds. I'd say it's more worth going for an any% completion rather than 100%, but I also wouldn't say I regret completing it 100% for the full experience.

Positives:
+ Art and music
+ Copy mechanics
+ Charming levels

Negatives:
- Unbalanced abilities
- Bosses
- Puzzles / 100% requirements

Having never played much of the Kirby catalogue until this year after playing Forgotten Land, I decided to check out a couple other stand-out titles. This was first on my list, and it didn't disappoint!

Presentation-wise this game immediately hooked me. I love the little UI bar at the bottom of the screen with the different pictures showing off which ability you've copied. The visual style is adorably charming, and the music is addictive. I wasn't 100% sold on the idea of splitting the game into smaller sub-games at first, but I think it serves the overall experience well and further adds to the uniqueness of its presentation.

The games all play relatively the same (with a couple exceptions that provide fun asides from the main game modes), but the controls are refined and the level design is good throughout. I wouldn't say anything about the gameplay stands out as particularly excellent in the grand scheme of things, but it holds up pretty well for its time and, most importantly, I had fun!

The bosses from this game are fairly memorable in their weird designs, but I found most of them pretty easy. For the most part, you can get by just brute forcing the boss from full to 0 health in a few seconds. This is a bit more true for the mini-bosses and some of the major bosses more than others. A few of the bosses were pretty genuinely tough, but the weird lack of balance was a little odd.

Speaking of balance, some moves are just so much better / more powerful than others, but I still found each enjoyable to use whenever I had the chance. I had my preferences by the end (yo-yo for life), but I wouldn't necessarily shrug off the others. I also liked the ability to create a CPU helper. It's a simple thing, but it was cute and often a legitimately helpful strategy.

Overall, I'd praise this game on most points, especially for its time. I felt a few things were a little dragged on despite it being such a small package, but I still had fun throughout and was satisfied by the end.

Positives:
+ Presentation / style
+ Copy abilities
+ Controls / platforming

Negatives:
- Inconsistent difficulty
- Pacing

This game feels odd to review. I can tell that for its time this would have been an excellent game and one of the best of all time for its era. However, having already played successors to this game such as Link Between Worlds, this game just doesn't match up in a lot of regards.

I can't crack down on this game too hard, though. LttP has a lot going for it. Its world design and exploration aspects are charming and engaging, the full arsenal of moves at play here is quite large (though most I hardly even touched), and the art direction still holds up extremely well.

However, there are a lot of negatives that soured the overall experience. General movement and combat felt extremely sloppy at times, and dungeon design is shockingly poor throughout. These factors continuously dragged the experience down for me the entire time I spent playing.

I did manage to 100% the game, but not without getting frustrated time and time again getting chain combo'd by weird enemy behavior. This game is difficult, but not necessarily in a good way. A lot of the challenge only exists because of weird enemy placement, sword blind spots, janky hitboxes, and the fact that an enemy could get on top of you therefore rendering your sword useless unless you could create some space and attack again. Usually this would result in taking 3 hits of damage or more instead of just 1. I'm sure there are experts out there who think this system works just fine, but it felt unfair and unfun to me.

I think overall I'll remember this game most for the feeling of frustration and annoyance I had with its mechanics and design. I think it's still got enough strong points to warrant praise and a decent critical score, but I would personally consider this my least favourite Zelda game as of writing this review.

Positives:
+ Art and presentation
+ World design
+ Exploration and progression
+ Lots of abilities to use

Negatives:
- Movement and combat
- Dungeon design
- Overly difficult / unfair elements

I had high hopes for this game when it was announced as I'd previously always thought Kirby would be a great series for a 3D platformer. I have very minimal experience with Kirby games, and from the little I've played I haven't been all that impressed. This game, however, far exceeded my expectations.

The good:
+ Mechanics and puzzles
+ Exploration and secrets
+ Great boss battles (esp. in post-game)
+ Visual presentation and setting
+ Music
+ Absolutely full of charm and bonus polish

The bad:
- Nothing really, honestly

I had to think hard to come up with any nitpicks with this game, and all I really decided is that after a while some of the mini-bosses became a little annoying to see over and over. Beyond this, I think everything was solid. It's been a long time since I was so motivated to 100% a game, and it was a joy to do so all the way through to the end.

Having played the original Half Life through a good 12 years ago or so, I was really impressed with this remake. I was especially impressed with the expanded end game. It all-in-all feels like an extremely well put together passion project, though at times I found it was dragging its feet and getting a bit repetitive. This may be a minority opinion, but I actually wish it were a bit shorter. It took 3 playthroughs reaching various points in the game before I finally picked it back up from the start and played it through to completion. It just kept losing me for some reason or another. I'm glad I made my way through it, though. As someone who prefers multiplayer competitive FPS games, this was probably one of my favourite single-player FPS campaigns.

Presentation-wise this game knocks it out of the park better than almost anything I've ever played. The characters, story, animations, music, and voice acting are all incredible. I was impressed with new curveballs and twists they were able to introduce in the writing, and it managed to keep me engaged despite knowing the story of the original well.

The combat is also a particular strong point. While it takes a bit to get used to and some aspects of optimal strategy can easily be glossed over due to information overload... when it clicks, it feels great.

The game suffers in pacing and in the more exploratory side-quest sections. Thankfully the side-quest areas are mostly skippable by heading straight towards the main quests, but I wanted to get as close to mastery completion as I could without multiple playthroughs. Many parts of this game were a slog to get through, and I found myself impatiently eager for when the next bombastic fight scene or epic cutscene would come by.

Pros:
+ Combat
+ Presentation (Animation, Music, Etc.)
+ Charming Cast and Story

Cons:
- Side-Quests
- Slow Pace, Padded Playtime
- Exploration Areas