I played this game side by side with my best friend, who had already played it and was adamant on me experiencing it too. I had the most wonderful few hours immersing myself in this beautifully crafted world and its gentle yet impactful storytelling. The music and art direction is truly fantastic, and the game handles its delicate, somewhat nebulous narrative with grace and respect, leaving me thinking even after the credits rolled. This is a game that anyone with an open mind should experience.

Celeste is one of the best 2D platformers ever made, with challenging yet rewarding gameplay, a stunning soundtrack, gorgeous pixel art, and a story that connected with me so deeply that I believe it truly changed my life. There is so much to say about this game that has already been said in a million better, more thoughtful ways. The blending of level design and narrative leaves such a strong impression on those willing to engage with this game’s message, that it’s no wonder so many people hold this game so close to their heart.
Though my experience with the base game has stood the test of time, my feelings about the Farewell chapter have soured over the years since its addition. The final chapter of such an impactful tale being locked behind a difficulty curve so extreme that I physically can not overcome, while rewarding for those who can, was an unfortunate finale to an otherwise beautiful, perfect game.

Kalos! Every time I play through these games I love them even more. Gen 6 is a controversial point in the series for the Pokemon community, and as I move towards reviewing the modern generations, my logs will get less and less objective and more personal. I just hope to share my enthusiasm about this series in a thoughtful way!
Kalos as a region is so beautiful and well designed. It is easily my favorite. Where Kalos tragically falls short is in its story and characters. I love the ideas and concepts laid out here, but the execution is imperfect at best. The lore of Kalos is so interesting and well thought out- and if we ever get a Legends Floette about the king, the war, and the original ultimate weapon, I think it could be the best story Pokemon has ever told.
X and Y has the best pre-national Pokédex of any game. The variety is so wonderful. I only play with pokemon introduced in the respective region, and I still had so many fantastic choices. The lineup of mons introduced in Gen 6 might be the best ever, and combined with the great early game encounters, just blows Unova and its sad dex out of the water.
The art style and direction of this game is my absolute favorite. There’s something so charming about these detailed cities and beautiful landscapes made to look like little dioramas. The color choices and particular aesthetics they went for feels so unique for this series, and so fitting of the France-inspired setting.
Though the game is known for being easy, I appreciated the EXP share keeping my team evenly leveled and enjoyed the more casual stroll through a Pokemon region. Though I would love a hard mode option for X and Y, there are many ways to organically create that through pokemon choices and restrictions. My carefully crafted team with beneficial natures and across the board type coverage did their job well.

I had, of course, been hearing of Journey since my entry into the gaming world in 2015, and though I had always planned to play it, the one who truly brought it to my attention was my best friend. I’m certain it was one of our first conversations about video games after we met; “Have you played Journey? You haven’t? Oh my gosh, you have to play Journey!” Even then I said of course I would, but three years passed without honoring that, despite the game sitting in my Steam library. I just never found the right moment. Surely, it was coming.
Just a few days into 2024, the first new year after moving across the country alone to chase something I dream of, my best friend and I were staying at my childhood home on the water. It was one of the few annual times we are able to see each other in person, and we had much to do. But in the middle of the night, we found ourselves hooking up my Steam Deck to the TV’s HDMI. With the faint sound of the crashing waves outside the window, we sat on the title screen of a game called Journey. It was a New Years’ game, my friend said.
Journey’s story is not one that can be told in any other medium. In 2012, ThatGameCompany figured out what the industry has been grappling with before and since; how to tell a story only a video game can tell.
Journey is a game accessible to nearly everyone, playable for those who have been gaming since their childhoods to those holding a controller for the first time. It’s not difficult, it’s not overwhelming, it doesn’t even speak a single word. Your fellow travelers could be anyone, from anywhere, and everyone will share the same experience. The only thing Journey asks of the player, and of the medium of gaming, is connection- the physical and emotional connection between the player and the traveler. Simple as that is, it is integral to Journey’s identity and impact. And video games are the only medium that can provide the connection needed. Journey triumphs in its simplicity, and approaches the medium of gaming with that same outlook. And it’s rewarded for it, time and time again.
That’s why it is impossible to look upon Journey without looking at yourself and your time with it. It’s why I hesitate to call this a review of any kind. I don’t know if it’s possible, for myself at least, to look at Journey through a completely objective lens. And even if you could, I think that’s missing the point. Your personal connection with this game is what makes it so beautiful. Journey trusts that, through our eyes, a game about nothing can become a game about everything. This is where the beauty of the nothingness in Journey lies.

__ this was adapted from a full review of Journey I wrote for my blog

Pokemon Sun is a game so dear to me that I will never be able to review it objectively, and that’s okay. Not nearly my first experience with Pokemon, but the one that really solidified my love for the series, and my love for JRPGs, even.
The game being dialogue heavy is essentially the poster child for criticism of Sun and Moon, which is strange because it has the most realized narrative and worldbuilding of a single Pokemon game. Coming right after a generation held back by a story that couldn’t commit, when Sun and Moon dared to learn from X and Y’s mistakes, it was panned for committing to a full bodied narrative. These criticisms are especially puzzling when considering Pokemon’s native genre- JRPGs; long, text-heavy story experiences.
The story and characters here are nothing particularly groundbreaking or unique, but so wonderful nonetheless. This is one of the few Pokemon regions that feel so full of life and heart, and that’s the reason its few stumbles are worth looking past.

Gen 5 was my most anticipated generation going into my Pokemon marathon. I have a lot of thoughts! But ultimately, a lot of respect and love for this game. Somehow, all of my closest Pokemon-adjacent friends throughout the years have had Black and White as their absolute favorite in the series. I heard a lot about it, and had very high expectations. I don’t think they fell short, but I do wish this game came to me at a better time.
Unfortunately, due to the nature of this project I didn’t get to spend as much time as I wanted going through the story. This wasn’t a problem for the previous games; but Black and White really wants to immerse you in its story, my favorite virtue in a game. But because of my mission and the fact I had the story spoiled for me long before going in I didn’t get that sense of wonder as strongly as I wished. When the game started to pick up at Dragonspiral Tower, that’s when I really fell in love. I always talk about how exciting it is when Pokemon leans into its JRPG roots; the last fourth of the game is amazing. It becomes a very well written story by the end, something easily worth sacrificing the standard Elite Four experience for.
As far as art direction goes, it’s very hit or miss. The cities look amazing, and the bridges!! The character sprites are adorable. But I definitely do not like how the battles look. The moving sprites would be okay without the shifting camera, but there is just a lot of visual noise. I enjoy the static sprites much more.
My original plan was to play White 2 immediately after this game, but I realized I want to come back to Unova when I can really take my time. I’m so excited to play through this region again one day!

Bear and Breakfast is a game with a fantastic concept and great bones, but unfortunately, those two things are not enough to make a good game. By the time the game has lulled you into a pleasant routine, it continues to pile unnecessary, underwhelming additions to both the management simulator and the narrative, until both barely mean anything at all.
The first hour or so is a miserable slog through character dialog that's endearing at best, trying a little too hard to engage you in a story with not nearly enough information. This becomes a running theme with the story, all culminating in the final character interactions of the game being wildly overwhelming info dumps that are never foreshadowed and entirely devoid of purpose.
But when you start getting hands-on with the bed and breakfast management, the game transforms into this extremely satisfying loop of planning and building rooms, decorating your hotels, and doing extremely basic fetch quests for a charming cast of animal, human, and aquatic real estate representative(?) friends, each of which help you unlock new features to make your hosting business easier. You have a couple different systems to work with; foraging for materials provides you with the means to build functional furniture and landmarks that attract visitors, the trash your human guests leave behind can be used to buy decorative objects from a mischievous raccoon’s dumpster. Your humans all have their own preferences, which introduces a points-based rating system for your venues and the bedrooms you assign to patrons. None of this is particularly complicated, but that’s a plus for me; I’m not very well versed in the management genre, so “Baby’s First Management Sim” is pretty much a positive in my book. It’s all going swimmingly until the game stops in its tracks… for a horribly designed cooking system.
Ironically, the character who introduces you to cooking, Julia, is the best written character in the game besides our lovable bear of the hour, Hank. She has a brief backstory, ambitions, a little character arc, and cute dialogue. Her passion, regrettably, does not live up. The cooking system is atrocious. A card-based culinary system sounds like a fantastic idea on paper, but this game doesn’t utilize any card game concepts for anything other than cluttering up the UI. The game wants the process of foraging for and preparing a dish to take as long as possible, but your guests will eat them at a ridiculously fast pace. This, along with the truly terrible heating system required for the last two properties completely killed the pleasant gameplay loop that had been building up for hours. Once you’re given the option to hire your furry friends to help you manage these systems, it’s a little too late and far too expensive. After days of struggling to make enough profits per day to continue engaging with the gameplay, I ended up just leaving the game open and idle while doing other things. I came back hours later to a magically fixed economy, with enough money to finally finish the story.
The narrative to this point has been mostly nonexistent with some enjoyable character writing. The last few hours of this game consist of grating fetch quests with grand plot twists that manage to be both completely out of left field and entirely uninteresting. If any of these story beats and concepts had been foreshadowed, alluded to or set up in any way, I think it would have been fine. But for all of them to be plopped into your lap like an afterthought at the very end of the game is the final letdown of Bear and Breakfast.

The Sinnoh games are held in high regard in the Pokemon community, but especially Platinum. I went on a journey to discover why that is. I never had an interest in Sinnoh or its Pokemon before this, but I walked away from this four month period with a lot of respect for Sinnoh. This isn’t the space to cover two of the three games that I spent my time with last October-February, Brilliant Diamond and Legends Arceus, but I am able to talk a bit about Platinum.
Platinum is a fantastic game, just as Emerald is. I have trouble deciding which is better between the two, but I think this one just slightly wins. While I don’t think it quite lived up to its praise, I’m not sure any game could. It is undoubtedly one of Pokemon’s best experiences. The soundtrack is stunning, the Pokédex has grown on me so much, the region of Sinnoh is, while a bit uniform, a joy to travel through. The story is a huge step up from previous games, which is an extremely important turning point for this franchise.
As for the gameplay itself, I thought it was great until the very end. My biggest issue with Pokémon games tends to be the level jump before the Elite Four, and this game may be the worst of all in my experience. I can’t strike this against the game itself since it’s an ongoing problem with the series, but it definitely killed the mood in the late game.
I want to give an extra shoutout to this game’s spritework; I think it’s the series’ peak in terms of pixel art and is lovely all the way through. Combined with the music, it gives Sinnoh a very clear identity and feeling. Playing this on the DS Lite is absolutely the way to go, and I’m very glad I did.

I really liked Splatoon 1 and 2. But this is the first game in the series that I’ve LOVED. Everything from the QOL changes to the new catalog and season feature, the great story mode, and the fleshed out world take Splatoon from a good franchise to a great one. The characters, narrative, and writing doesn’t quite live up to Splatoon 2 especially after Octo Expansion, but there’s plenty of game ahead of us for those things to change. A wonderful, quirky, chaotic foray into the over saturated market of online shooters, and no doubt worth your time.

A wonderful, short game that does everything it sets out to do perfectly. I often appreciate games with a smaller scope that completely deliver on its premise, and this may be my favorite example. Another game I played side by side with my best friend in a voice call, the late nights exploring this fascinating underground world with excited discussion and inside jokes easily became my favorite gaming experience of 2022. The cyberpunk-inspired slums and creepy sewers as seen through the eyes of a little orange cat were an absolute joy to explore, the gameplay never dragging on or feeling like a chore. The story, characters, and concepts were never particularly complex but nonetheless felt perfect. A fantastic eight hour experience through and through.

I have a lot of mixed feelings on this game. At the start, I absolutely loved it. But the further I got into it, the more it started to feel like it lacked substance. The fact I was not playing on the original platform and rather the virtual console really made the gameplay issues stand out, and the experience didn’t feel like a novelty in the way that Blue did. The level curve is completely out of whack here. Post game or not, having the elite four begin at level 40 will cause issues, and the strange level jump around the Olivine gym made for strange pacing; once I had gotten to the Rocket sections, the game felt very routine. It wasn’t bad, but much of it felt like a chore. Levels aside, the whole game is great. I really liked the design and aesthetic of Johto itself, it’s Kanto but better in every way. The music is great, of course. The Pokémon designs are really amazing and interesting this gen. I want to take time to mention the sprites , which are some of my favorites in the entire franchise. The art direction in Gen 2 is very concise, and I love it. There are lots of great things to say about this game. I think a lot of my issues with Crystal would be fixed by either treating the post game as a part of the main experience, or playing through the Gen 4 remakes. I will definitely try Soul Silver and finish the rest of what Crystal has to offer, but judging the game by its main campaign, I would place it right above Blue. Personally, it falls a little short of Gen 1 for me as I didn’t have as much fun with my play through, but ranking it objectively as possible it is definitely much better than the original Red and Blue.

I played this game with my best friend when we were in person for the first time in a year. Extremely corny 6 hours with one of the most unreal endings ever. Josef Fares is forever my GOAT. I was completely speechless. Do not look up anything about this game, get a close friend and play. I am so serious. It is so worth it. But you have to play with a close friend and do bits and inside jokes the entire time. That is the correct way to do this. Completely unreal. Something that happens towards the end is one of my top ten moments in gaming

Galar! The most controversial region in the Pokemon series- and a game I love.
I always play through the first game of the last gen right before a new generation, and I was so happy to revisit these games. My first playthrough was pretty unique, being right after my longest ever shiny hunt, and getting to play through with two shinies! In honor of them, I played through with Acacia my shiny Scorbunny (I’m curious if anyone picks up on the name reference!). I definitely think Sword and Shield are better games to play through slowly, spending lots of time in the wild area between gyms. Still, I think this game is a way more solid experience than a lot of people are willing to admit, and absolutely the end of an era.
The only truly puzzling thing about this game is the story. Having very little involvement at all until moments before the Champion battle is certainly unique.. and I can’t help but think it’s an extreme response to the criticism of Sun and Moon. The climax, especially the “final boss fight” is a lot of fun, but feels a little hollow since it truly comes out of nowhere. The game makes up for this by having really memorable and lovable characters, which makes me happy!
Visually, I do really love the direction of this game. No, it’s not The Last Of Us 2. But the color palette is really nice and the important locations are really grand, and I’m a huge fan of art director James Turner’s work in general!
Very good Pokédex too! Besides the starters, which are my least favorite bunch of the series, I really love the new Pokemon designs, Lots of fun typings and cool inspirations. Dynamax is also really fun to play with and makes battles feel so cinematic! Even if the game is a bit easy, I think overall it’s really nice.