I never had too much of an issue with Wonderland or the Colosseum. Wonderland being topsy turvy in navigating felt appropriate to the area, and it at least is a small world so it's actually not that hard to navigate around. Colosseum is just straight up a challenge test and is where, for me, was the first difficulty spike.

Deep Jungle, however? I hate this area. This area sucks. I get the idea of vines jumping and the slide area being fun scenes, but when you start going back and forth to progress the story and they immediately turn into bad gimmicks and sometimes the vines just don't work, I would rather play fucking ToonTown for the same things!

Olympus Colosseum is the difficulty spike. Had to use potions against Cloud and Cerberus, so that's a first. Cloud is relatively easy to just jump jump jump and try to hit him from behind, but Cerberus asked a lot out of my movement, just mashing puts you in the line of fire. A welcome change to be honest.

I'm kinda mad that I didn't use magic more often when I was younger, because it's especially good for getting XP against certain enemies and for clearing out crowds. Blizzard is especially useful for being a frontal cone, and Fire can be used out of combos. I don't know what Thunder is good for, it saps way too much out of my MP.

Flower: "Hey kid, you want to buy some drugs? Just gimme a Potion and I'll get you the GOOD stuff"

Wonderland was OK. A bunch of gigantic shadows I was never told about spawned after clearing a few waves of enemies and then vanished, and I have no idea why. Trickmaster was easy, just let Donald and Goofy die while you get on a shelf and mash your head against the button. Whoever said to use the Blizzard tactic, it doesn't work. Just hit. He just goes back to the oven sooner anyway.

Gotta love how I collected all the evidence for the Queen and still got the goddamn box with Donald and Goofy, what even is my luck. The mushrooms also already spawned in the forest area and I can't even do anything with them lol

Who will win? Some guy who hates everything from a Final Fantasy game, or one kid with a key that nukes based on MP damage? You decide! I'm told Traverse Town is still the "start" and that Wonderland will be the difficulty jump, but I still don't see it. It's too late to change difficulty anyway.

This game is both "I am mashing this button" but also at the same time "mashing will just get you killed". It's especially prevalent in swarms where just mashing means the Shadows or Soldiers behind will ambush you, even if Donald and Goofy as additions are there to, quote on quote, help (Holy shit Donald your MP is not unlimited). That being said, Ripple Drive? Busted. Leon dies in like 8 strings from it, Guard Armor took like 12.

Sora's smile killed somebody.

OK the energy tank in the hallway having a trap was actually a good one. I was already full on energy tanks but that is hilarious, well played game.

Also finished my first run! Did it in 2:15. Mother Brain was heavily annoying and I never realized how scary the Metroids are without Ice Beam even if they're very fleeting (like... 4 rooms?). I'm going to go for a speed time to get under an hour and then end it there.

Not a fun game, and it's not just limitations and the timeframe. Movement is super restrictive and everything feels like it lags. I appreciate the violent alien atmosphere that thinks Samus should leave and the disorientation it tries for, but it is so unfun to play and how combat is just "tank the damage and hope for the best" is grueling.

Hindsight is 20/20 but I feel like I should've picked Proud. I know I literally just left Destiny Islands but the punishment I've been getting is minimal, and I don't think the game counted on me being 100% run meaning I'm farming to get items = I'm constantly overleveled. Oh well.

Ripple Drive is insanely good. Literally just NUKE a set of enemies with a finisher, even better than Stun Impact. Think it's also because I have more MP from picking staff but goddamn.

I like how the game teases you with "LOOK AT THIS GUY WHO BECAME A THING YOU'VE NEVER SEEN" only to just be surrounded by Shadows mooks instead. Also the townspeople are just suddenly gone with the wind when they showed up in the first district. Are they hiding or have they already become Heartless..... suspicious.

Despite a whole hour of play, in the grand scheme of things, I didn't get much done in KH1. Lot of grinding to Level 10 to make 100% completion easier later. The quicker I get to level 40 the better, and farming off of XP dumps from Wakka or Selphie is the earliest opportunity without going insane smacking shadows later.
Why did 7 year old me have so much trouble with Riku, he is physically incapable of dealing with a jumping Sora. It's like he's secretly terrified, or maybe people are just reticent to jump in combat
I got beat in the race because of one mistake, and I kept restarting until I won just to get a stone to sell. Farming these would actually be insanity, because it really isn't that much and there are better places to get monies later.
Random stranger I have no idea what you're talking about I just wanted this mushroom please stop making fun of me

I have no idea how speedrunners beat Kraid, seems like he covers all options in terms of movement and there's no way NOT to get hit. I just tanked damage and bombed and missiled and waved as much as I could and survived with like 90 health. Felt like I cheesed it.

Really, really wish you could switch beams like you switch to missile mode. Also, dear god there are rooms that look exactly the same, with barely a difference other than one has a wall and one doesn't. You really do need to write yourself a map to get around. It just feels like it doesn't fit in a game of sci-fi where Samus has a suit with a visor that could probably give it SOME kind of map, as opposed to La-Mulana where the guy is literally an archaeologist who writes on maps, or Zelda 1 where you're a kid on an adventure. I know the NES has limitations but it also has the capability to make rooms more distinct than this based on other games.

This game actually gets really frustrating once you get past Level 2. I have no idea how to deal with the fire monsters and the conveyors level is insane. I also have no idea how to set myself up for the triple barrel or quadruple barrel jump achievement for RA. I'll figure it out eventually.

Been so long since I played this, it's time to board the nostalgia train. Already started tearing up when I saw "Starting a new journey may not be so hard, or maybe it has already begun". All it takes is that and Shimomura music and the tear ducts star to flow. Dearly Beloved especially. SIMPLE AND CLEAN IS THE WAY THAT YOU'RE MAKING ME FEEL TONIGHT

Chose FM difficulty, Staff/no sword, and the adventure begins in the dead of night. If I recall I never fully explored using magic as like a combo thing in this game.

Fuck your Blitzball Wakka, I'm built different.

I can't believe I spent 30 min beating the crap out of Tidus and Selphie i.e. two kids just to farm XP. The three-on-one fight is fun though.

And thus begins a co-op experience between a pragmatic lib politician who doesn't understand how economics works named Tatsuki, and a sweet loving pyromaniac who actually knows what they're doing named Karma.

For some reason a tutorial didn't happen and I ended up throwing fireballs at myself, woops. It's OK my charisma is really high I'm sure things will work out.

Oh yeah I chose to be a Wanderer because animals are fucking cool and I like ranged combat. My spider shall commit slaughter while I say I have nothing to do with it like a good politician. I don't know if this game allows the character to go through a midlife crisis of "what have I done" but I hope so.

Apparently "let's sober them up" means killing them that is not what I meant holy shit I just wanted to knock them out oh god reload reload reload

Locking missiles behind different beams so you have to track through more monotonous areas just to get a replacement is insanely annoying, I don't know why I didn't just give up there.

Norfair sucks. It is easily slower to traverse than Brinstar because you are jumping and platforming way more and Samus sucks to maneuver with. Why do people like this game again?

I'm taking the Wave Beam with me to Kraid. I've been told there are like 4 strategies and I didn't choose the easiest or the hardest. Wish me luck.

To the people who played this game without any map or guide to help you out, I'm happy you're built different, but also is it a product of cope, because these walls all look the fucking same and I'm known with being good with directions and I still got lost, which is a first!

Got terrified by the things that show up in some item rooms if you leave and come back. Yeah they barely do any damage but it looked like a fucking glitch

This game is painfully slow. The movement hurts and genuinely is kinda unfun to play.
Wall jump glitch is fun though.

I seriously hate doing combos. A reminder that this is not a fighter I typically enjoy because I just like neutral game and pulling out supers. As soon as I have to learn super tight frame-perfect combos, I SLEEP

Playing Celeste is like learning a skill. It's something that can deteriorate over time. So I had to start back from square one because I couldn't even remember the controls and god knows I don't want to start right from Chapter 9

I still like how much control I have over Madeline, it's still my fav platformer in terms of "I have absolute minute control", and I like how there's some leeway in terms of both jumping off of platforms and the traffic light speed. That being said, don't be me and go straight to the B-sides right when you unlock them. The progression still feels like it's all A-Sides BEFORE all B-sides, otherwise it punches you in the throat. There was one slide in 1-B that you have to go super fast to then crouch, dash into a jumpy thingy, and then dash again, and I wasn't ready. Still got through because I REFUSE TO LET THIS GAME BEAT ME.

Music still rocks. GOD I love Lena Raine, everything she touches is gold.

This is a really fun bullet hell, if mostly because it being in tune with the music makes it that much more appealing to me. Love Barracuda and New Game, I think I've enjoyed every boss in this game so far. The game is definitely on the easy side when it comes to bullet hell, especially with a really busted dash, but it might still catch people by surprise for the bosses.

First time actually playing Terraria singleplayer and realizing how much of a wiki game this is, more than Minecraft is at this point. The achievements push some kind of progression but good luck figuring out the rest, pal!

There was one song that I heard as I started mining underground and it was awful but it eventually went right back to the main theme so I guess it's fine.

Zelle spooked the fuck out of me in its first hour before setting itself up to be more atmospheric, but still damn that was spooky. I like the music, very reminiscent of Undertale in texture but different in structure (melodic motivation instead of motifs).
This definitely has things to say about faith and religion. The arbitrary rules set forth by a thoroughly punishing goddess (even lying to you about her gifts) that seem ignored in favor of a second chance while really just using you for their own ends is a harsh critique, and it also goes hand in hand so far with a conversation around suicide. This shit is going to get heavy.
Very curious to see where this goes. It's apparently a short game.

The movement still sucks as of 20% completion, but every time I'm not trying to get to the next set of bars/challenge is still really fun. There's some weirdly non-frustrating set of difficulty to figuring out how to wrap around bars to keep from falling and tightening around a bar while slowly inching forward to get at a coin.

Someone told me there's a controls option to make movement faster and I'm tempted to switch.

Because Arcades are straight up dead in the US, I am emulating the Arcade version. Sue me. RA may have audio bugs but THAT WON'T STOP ME

Mario apparently dies on contact with the ground from like an inch down if they don't jump, and like 3 inches down if they do. Did Mario originally skip leg day?

I might need to watch speedrunners or records but is the best way to rack up points is to complete levels as fast as possible or to continually jump over barrels? Or the hammer? I'm not sure which racks up the most.

Trying to get achievements to work on this thing with RetroArch is insanity, do not do this. Arcade games do not work with RetroArch if you're emulating, stick to MAME or literally anything else. Do NOT be me.

I haven't played this game in years but I like how the tutorial heavily teaches the fundamental buttons and roman cancelling without actually teaching like, actual core shit like how useful a crouching dust attack is or not even teaching specials. I assume there's other tutorials for that but those feel like things you'd want in like, the main tutorial. Apparently nobody speedruns the tutorial but my days of playing Rivals of Aether way too much kicked in and I got the cheevo on the second go, it's actually not that hard.

I got an achievement for fishing that's rad

I get the traversal being so stingy is part of how the physics interact with the puzzles, and what gives the challenge, but that doesn't change how awful it FEELS to constantly zig-zag move around or you grind to a halt. So far in the first two levels, it's fine because the areas are small, but it was still annoying to have to go all the way back to smack a checkpoint so I didn't have to repeat progress (why can't there be more checkpoints?).
The music sounded like someone was knocking on my door which ruined my immersion 0/10

I both forgot how punchable so many of these characters are and how godawful some of Monokuma's dialogue is.
The pacing before the first investigation is also really annoying. I do like the free time stuff where you basically push out people's backstory, but that itself is really slow and forced, sometimes it goes right into the archetype that already exists. Getting a plat will... not be fun.

"Ahh... it's about to come out... It's gonna come out! My pristine, pure white, stuffing!" -- Monokuma

Kill me

Ichabod: "We have to find the murderer amongst us"
tries really hard to hold back laughter

Halfway through Chapter 1 atm.

I never quite understood the people criticizing Telltale for not "honoring decisions" when the strengths of their games rely on telling stories in entertaining QTE/dialogue ways rather than just watching a TV show. Although considering the big fat disclaimer at the beginning saying "YOUR CHOICES MATTER", I can kinda see where they're coming from at the get go, but I'm here for where the story takes me still.

I like the vaguely comic book aesthetic this goes for. It kinda helps some of the designs and the moody noir city really fits, even if the music is more cinematic drama than actual noir music.

On my second playthrough to clean up some achievements before Second Quest, time includes my first playthrough as well.

I think the exploring, enemy design for the most part, and combat is still really good. Yes they're tank controls but the enemies are designed around those tank controls. Wizzrobes are still the most infuriating for their high damage output but the sword is not the only weapon in your toolset, and I think people are scared to use non-sword weapons (like the the wand is insanely useful for a while!). I think it's still a satisfying game to play at heart.

Darknuts still terrify me when they're jam packed in a small room with little places to go. Bombs away!

Just finished the Prologue, like past the first day of Day 1?
On replay, the aesthetic is still really nice. I like the CG cutscenes, the music just rockets to attention, and the art is firing on all cylinders.
But man the dialogue.... it does not hit me. The otaku has some REALLY cringe lines, the "ogre" shit and the weird structuring of conversations feels so unnatural, and all the characters start on really bad starts. I don't remember if it gets any better but here's hoping!

This is a really simple but fun Kirby-like before Kirby was even a thing. Everything is really damn cute and I love the designs. The gameplay has a curve and attacking is just one button (and the game doesn't teach you how to change base form), but it's still neat and actually quite frustrating in some sections. But the game is REALLY short, I went through the whole game in 50 minutes.
Ultimate Form is a monstrosity though... and super busted.

Me: "This game isn't too hard I wonder what people were talking about"
100cc hits
"Ah, I am error"
This really exposes how finicky the drifting in this game is, and how little fun it is. No, it's not impossible to figure out, but the difficulty for it doesn't feel earned. There's maps with pretty much 180 turns and the drifting at regular speed is insanity, you have to immediately hop, drift, stop drift, and brake near the same time, and you still barely get the turn while the CPUs just take it in stride. It's a moment where you feel the AI is cheating because, well, they are.
I like how there's a shortcut where Lakitu tells you to stop but it's actually a way to go if you have a feather.

Drifting is fucking hard in this game I swear to god
Beat pretty much everything on 50cc, getting a comeback from 5th to 1st on the last lap is really hard in this game.
Probably the least amount of leeway for a starting boost