I've always loved Smash, I think it's a top tier party game that most anyone with a hint of competitive spirit should be down to play. Melee specifically has a lot of flaws, often literal bugs (G&W and Kirby cannot be damaged by Bowser d-throw in NTSC 1.00-1.02, NTSC 1.00 has Link's hookshot moonjump and frozen turnip/black hole glitch). The lack of input buffer while praised by the competitive scene is overall a negative thing, that's a complicated discussion but TLDR a little bit of input buffer with consideration to queue is always good (NOT what Ultimate did); it makes basic movement go from "clunky and awkward" to new players to feeling far more natural.

FTL is in my mind one of the most respectable roguelikes in regards to a player's abilities, what RNG it has is not run-ruining unless you deliberately choose to be risky and playing it safe is more than viable with the stock ships on the original difficulties. Where it stands to falter is how, upon truly learning the ins and outs of the game, you the player will likely be unstoppable without playing Hard and using a terrible ship like Rock B; things like Hacking being a win button essentially in the hands of a decently competent player. Mods address a lot of this though as well as make the game more diverse and challenging.

This is a cult gem with some vibes so insanely "itself", and the fact the game works flawlessly over even the worst internet connections is great. The game's main weak point is that creating the ideal toolkit that's actually fun for a lobby of varying sizes takes a lot of foresight as well as map consideration, so it might seem very inconsistent and lol random to those who don't want to put in the time to understand why banana is OP or why turn counters need to be considered for more deadly weapons (no first-turn instawins, etc.)

A thematic masterpiece oozing with character and lore, but to a degree that many would call bloated despite usually being optional. A re-use of a lore-significant boss that was the payoff of an entire questline for a random cave was a massive misstep by FromSoft also, and they absolutely did not put nearly as much care into duo fights as previous titles (even for the singular mandatory one, it has no unique flow to it once they're both fighting you; unlike say, Bell Gargoyles in DS1)

Timeless masterpiece that is an amazing starter and long-term light-sim/management game, but the introduction to the game is brutal with the inexplicable choice to order events by alphabetical instead of difficulty like in RCT1 (Amity Airfield should be the last Intermediate/first Advanced rather than first Intermediate...)

Quickplay disappearing was a massive blunder, though it changes nothing for people who exclusively played on community servers. The game is deceptively dense with nuanced interactions where changing something so minor as 10% damage is the difference between winning and losing an interaction, or requiring 3 pipes instead of 2 as Demo vs Soldier. And of course, there's the whole bot situation, which while not as bad as it used to be is still very much a thing. Valve also seemingly does not playtest any maps they add for holiday updates, and have been proven to botch implementation when the workshop versions work perfectly fine. Also the performance is kinda poopy even with stuff like Mastercomfig, but such is the limitations of Source engine left behind in the wake of Dota 2 and CS:GO.

There's very little I could actually criticize this game for past subjective writing choices, but if I had to it'd be that it runs at 30FPS and there's niche interactions that become practically impossible such as a certain "move or don't move" alternating attack near the end of the game.

The second-to-last chapter is very abrupt and widely regarded as a curveball that didn't necessarily stick the landing. Splitting Bea and Gregg's interactions for a playthrough also feels borderline padding, but due to the structure I think it fits within the realistically timed day-to-day structure, Mae couldn't possibly do all of those interactions in that time-frame, so the question then becomes: would an extra 3~ish hours be worth it to the initial playtime if laid out sequentially? Maybe! I think both characters are great so maybe there's a missed opportunity there.

Some interactions not being laid out very clearly can be confusing, and waiting for Yorda takes a lot longer than just grabbing her hand.

There comes a mighty temptation to claw grip when tackling some colossi, mainly due to wanting to adjust the camera when you need to be focused simultaneously on movement and attacking. The last colossus is very confusing right towards the end as even the hint is actually worded incorrectly and unhelpfully, and previous colossi did not help reveal how to finish it.

Though this issue has been mostly alleviated, this was one of the de facto "wiki games" for the longest time. The recipe book and other small nudges in the world have helped, but things like entering the Nether for the longest time were only known about by word of mouth until 1.16 added the nether ruins with incomplete portals, suggesting you could finish them.

The. Godforsaken. Raindeer.

Much has been said about Trico's AI, and while I think the complaints are overblown, there are some sections where it feels inorganically unresponsive. A section where I tried to get Trico to jump to but he just kept walking in 180s back and forth along the way, eventually making me feel like I must've been missing something. Or possibly an oversight in another section, where Trico kept nudging towards a chain that had 0 relevance at that point in the game, actively sending me the wrong way for a while.

I think having better contrast for unexplored parts of the map would help in tying up loose ends. Some of the DLC content is sort of interspersed throughout the game world and can lead to disproportional difficulty spikes for players unaware said content was intended to be very late / post-game (these are entirely optional though). The ability to miss key items like the hunter's journal is a pretty big misstep imo, and the pacing especially in the first half could be quickened a lot.

I genuinely don't know what to say other than some levels are "weaker" LOL