A gentle, delightful treat. The manner in which you start the game feeling pretty mobile and able to explore as you wish, but the game keeps upping your mobility over and over to levels you couldn't imagine, feels so empowering.

I love how so much of this game is less about solving the individual puzzles and more about trying to learn the language of the puzzles, and what perspective they want you to approach with. I'm not the biggest fan of puzzle games, and this approach appeals to me so much more than the conventional approach.

The world of The Witness is also just endlessly fascinating to explore, both from an aesthetic perspective and because of the environmental puzzles.

There's a real conflict here between the game wanting to create space for calm exploration, letting you appreciate the gradual development of your island across months of game-time, but also wanting to push the task system which seeks to trap you in an endless loop of completing just one more Nook Miles task before you log off for the evening. The former is rewarding, whilst the latter feels cynical.

The extent to which everything feels kind of clumsy and slow, taking twice as long as it needs, is charming at first but grows tiring over time.

I have a deep, deep respect for the design of this game, and the ways in which it constantly pushes at the barriers of what you thought was even possible. Elegant and mind-blowing.

Big, confusing, soulless worlds, an awful camera, grating, unfunny character designs, awkward, imprecise movement, and a feeling that the only reason any of this is actually challenging at all is due to bad game design rather than due to intent.

Worst of all, none of it is even fun. Abandoned at the third world.

Kind of wish I hadn't spent quite so much time on this one. I dislike the attempt to create addictive habits by how the game's upgrade system whispers 'just one more game' in your ear every time you die. I also dislike how the upgrade system gives this feeling that I'm not getting further in the game because I'm improving at it (even though I am) but instead because my character is just so much more powerful than before.

The game's sense of humour is pretty great fwiw.

Individual ratings;
Spyro; 5/10
Spyro 2; 6/10
Spyro 3; 4/10

Was shocked by how poorly these held up to my memory of playing them in my childhood. You don't get to get away with not having much in the way of compelling gameplay by just stuffing a bunch of gems in worlds; exploration should be motivated by worlds being interesting to explore, not by having treasure spread out on every single inch of the floor. Most challenge presented by the game isn't intentional but instead due to poor game design; it's both frustrating that the games generally aren't remotely challenging and also frustrating that the bits where you do struggle are due to bad design.

The series in general seems like it doesn't believe its platforming is actually compelling enough on its own (correct) so inserts a bunch of underdeveloped minigames and side-distractions. This gets particularly bad with the third game where all five of the additional characters control and play much worse than Spyro does.

Biggest criticism is that the main mode actually has the inverse of a difficulty curve; the game starts out challenging and intense, but you soon get so many power ups and potions and buffs that by the end of the game you can pretty much just tank through everything without much thought. It's sad that early on I felt encouraged to learn enemy patterns, whilst by the end of the game putting in any effort to learn new patterns felt unnecessary.

In general it was pretty fun and charming, though, and this re-envisioned Hyrule was a lot of fun to explore. Worse than Crypt from a gameplay perspective, but the added flavour makes the experience worthwhile regardless.

Game is great. Most notably Hat Girl controls incredibly offering a feeling of freedom of movement whilst also offering a lot of things to learn and improve at, the game's personality and sense of humour is very entertaining and deeply endearing, and the variety both in level design and the challenges you face means the experience never feels repetitive or like it's overstaying its welcome.

I particularly love how unique and different the level concepts are from most other platformers. I also, frankly, just love how fun the game is. I also love that the game has an actual challenge mode to push you to your limits.

Game unfinished (I got 2/3rds of the way through I think?) as it induced motion sickness in me multiple times, even though I'd literally never experienced motion sickness before anywhere else in my life. My actual enjoyment levels are substantially lower than my rating indicates as a result of this, but I'm trying to be fair to the game in my rating.

The story and philosophical portions of the game have some compelling moments, but also some bits that really don't work for me; most notably the choose-your-own-adventure portions force you to take very limiting answers that force you down philosophical paths that likely don't match up with what you really think. The in-game puzzles are mostly enjoyable, and there are some great a-ha moments, but I think a lot of the puzzles for the first half of the game are ultimately very simple and only appear to have any challenge to them due to their presentation (where you have to walk around/look around a large amount to actually see what is going on). Seemed like a fine game, but nothing special.

Solidly enjoyable and very charming. I actually really didn't enjoy the strange matching-up-with-your-actions music, and didn't bother going for 100% which might say something about the short-lived appeal, but the core experience was satisfying and innovative.

Did not like the fan-service boss, the anticlimactic ending (seriously, it was awful), or how out-of-place and needlessly punishing the insta-kill spikes feel. Outside of those elements the game was very charming and enjoyable though, with fun combat and an engaging world that doesn't overstay its welcome.

2018

Couldn't be bothered to finish this one, though I believe I was very near the end. The core game just does almost nothing actually interesting with its gimmick meaning that all that gimmick really does is force you to memorise the layout of the world and make the game feel artificially longer.

The running sections are generally really fun and exciting, chao garden is the cutest, the mech sections are solid, unremarkable filler, and the treasure hunt and car sections are honestly just bad. It's frustrating that if you only took the very best parts of this game you can cobble together something really good, but the weaker elements really drag it down.

This is pretty great for hanging out in group calls with friends, trying to bully each other on stages whilst just enjoying each other's company. That said I can't really play single-player at all on this, which is indicative of the game's appeal to me outside of this social component.

The visual design is kind of perfect for what the game is going for, and when it leans into platforming aspects the level design is really enjoyable (all the races are great, if eventually repetitive, as is any stage where you just have to survive). On the other end of the spectrum the team games vary from okayish filler to deeply not fun, and the existence of the matching game feels unnecessary. The proliferation of hackers is a particularly painful low-note. Looking forward to seeing how things improve in Season 2, and to see how much they've taken onboard feedback.