Rating Don't Starve Together separately, because this game is much more fun with friends. As I understand it there's also new content, but I didn't play the original enough to compare.

Playing with friends mitigates the high stakes that normally make Don't Starve almost unplayable for me. So does lowering the difficulty or allowing infinite respawns. Especially if your friends already know how to play the game, Don't Starve Together really is about being together.

It's still not my preference, but if I'm in a good mood and someone else wants to play it, I won't turn down Don't Starve.

Look I'm sorry, I don't like Pokemon. I tried Emerald intending to give it a fair shot, and cleared the first two areas with some birds I caught before I got bored. This game is 95% random enemy encounters with a rudimentary combat system that immediately becomes tedious.

I know there is depth here, as I witness secondhand from challenge runs and competitive play. Perhaps this specific version just started off too slow for my tastes. There's also a zeitgeist around Pokemon that I am not a participant in. I suspect that Pokemon is just hard to enjoy if you didn't start with it as a kid, at least for me.

Excellent vibes, with a strong artistic identity. A sci-fi setting is refreshing for this genre. It's a polished game.

Unfortunately, Songbringer is yet another case of procgen resulting in a flatter game than would've otherwise been possible handcrafted with the same level of polish. I admire the attempt, and I doggedly persist in replicating it myself despite (or because) no one seems to be able to do it well.

From what I remember, there were a few issues. The game is combat-focused, making dungeons simplistic. Despite being pretty short, it's too long to warrant replaying (or at least I didn't feel any desire to replay). If I'm only going to play it once, it doesn't need to be procedurally generated.

The overworld exploration was much better than the dungeons. It has several ways of finding secrets that help avoid Walkthrough Syndrome--which is essential because no walkthrough is possible for a procgen game. I was still confused at several points, but a replay would help.

I have played very little of this game besides way too much time making custom levels when I could've been designing levels for my own games. I don't care much for Mario platformers in general. But, as a level editor, MM2 is quite remarkable. It's intuitive, fun, and flexible.

Meanwhile, Mario Maker 2 as a social phenomenon is legendary. I have surely watched more MM2 YouTube videos than any other category of content. Especially troll levels, which are a whole strange and beautiful genre of level design, with so many layers of meta it is utterly incomprehensible but always fun.

I can't say how much of that is owed to Nintendo. But these four and a half stars go out to the Mario Maker community.

My greatest regret in life is that I did not try Tetris sooner. I tried Tetris 99 because it was free with my Nintendo Switch Online subscription, and it changed my life. Tetris is a perfect game. I would be hard-pressed to rate any Tetris variant low.

As a variant though, I'm not sure how well Tetris 99 holds up. The "battle royal" has a particular strategy to it that takes some time to pick up on, but in the end, it's not complicated. Play Tetris better than everyone else, and you will have a pretty good chance at winning (but not guaranteed). It does not really add much besides keeping rounds short.

I suppose the competition is part of what kept me going, long enough for me to have a pretty consistent win rate, at my peak. If not for Tetris 99, I may not have discovered Tetris for its own sake. For that, I will always regard this game highly.

This 5-star review is not earned entirely off the merits of this specific game. Rather, I consider Tetris Effect to be the definitively best version of modern Tetris, and Tetris itself is a perfect game.

Tetris Effect especially understands Tetris as a meditative experience. It enhances that meditation through gorgeous music that reacts to your placement of pieces, and ephemeral relaxing visuals.

Tetris changed my life, really. Tetris is a patient companion for when the mind is too chaotic. Tetris is beautiful.

Especially compared to Genshin Impact, this game is surprisingly good. Teambuilding/strategy is flexible, so F2P is entirely viable as long as you are strategic with your banner pulls (I may have just gotten lucky though). To play end-game content you will need to play semi-regularly, but it doesn't need to be daily.

The ability to auto-battle mitigates a lot of the Grind to get strong teams since it can be done while doing something else. And, your auto-battle team doesn't have to be fast or strong--just reliable.

The writing is decent and genuinely funny. The characters are still tropes, but at least they have a sense of humor. The main quest plotlines are hit or miss, but there are some good quests and the lore is compelling.

As a time-wasting game, you can do worse than Honkai: Star Rail. You can also do better.

There's good in this game, it's just buried deep--especially if you don't spend money (which nobody should). If you have a strong team in the right circumstances, the combat is satisfying, and the team building and elemental system have depth and neat synergies.

Except--building a strong team requires an immense amount of effort (or cash). The Grind is required before you can have fun. And the Grind has little to offer; the story is skippable, and the characters are tropes at best. Exploration is repetitive (though better in later areas).

The soundtrack is gorgeous. The art is pretty. The game can be pleasant and relaxing. But--even as a time waster--Genshin Impact has nothing of substance to offer.

Hoooo boy. This game is going to be impossible to review.

Never before have I seen a sequel so simultaneously better and worse than its precursors. In every single aspect, RF5 changed from previous entries in bizarre ways.

RF5 introduced many new quality-of-life features like picking up items automatically. But only some of them? And other quality-of-life features were removed. In fact, RF5 is one of the clunkiest in the series, especially since you are juggling so many more different things.

A lot more effort was put into the dating mechanics and the unique dialogue with each marriageable candidate. Also, there are no restrictions on gender (hooray)! However, this additional effort only goes to reveal how generic most of the characters are. The most interesting characters are locked behind other story content. Dating is incredibly slow, tedious, and sometimes obtuse.

The jump to 3D graphics was a complete failure. The game looks utterly bland. There is barely even foliage to break up long stretches of ground. The town is weirdly huge and undetailed. For some reason, the later game areas look much better. Similarly, the main story is extremely confusing and poorly written at the beginning, but it picks up later. The ending villains are genuinely awesome. I would love to know what production shenanigans happened to cause the early game to be so shoddy.

Meanwhile, the combat and crafting are the best in the series! More mechanics, crafting ingredients, and enemies. There are obscure ways to make overpowered gear and post-game that requires it. NPCs are also genuinely useful in battle and you can take multiple with you at a time. Dungeons are mazelike, but there are plenty of them. The open-world segments are good. There's a lot to explore!

I stuck through RF5 all the way to the end, but I'm not totally sure if I'm glad for it. This entry has the most to offer, but it's marred by clunky controls, bad writing, and a pivot to 3D that was entirely unnecessary.

My other favorite of the series (along with 3). Additional quality-of-life mechanics and new features fill out the experience so there is always variety and room for optimization.

On hard mode, it requires in-depth game knowledge to progress, and many bosses feel impossible without appropriate hand-crafted gear. That same gear also absolutely obliterates regular enemies, so the balance is not quite in the right spot. It's also hard to get over-leveled because stronger materials are always locked behind bosses of equivalent levels.

This game also has the most content by far. Unfortunately, this content is of mediocre quality. Dungeons tend to be mazelike and repetitive. Combat is the same as always.

The story involves killing god, one of my favorite fantasy tropes. The characters are not any more complex than they have ever been. The story is also way too long past the first arc. If you enjoy the main gameplay (and I do) RF4 will take you far. Otherwise, you'll get bored before the end.

RF4 is the quintessential Rune Factory... For better or for worse.

I have a particular nostalgia for Rune Factory 3. I played it the most out of the series. It introduces more quality-of-life features. It's a fun game to optimize. The story/characters are alright, with an actual plot and some dramatic moments. The post-marriage storyline is especially memorable--and legitimately infuriating.

The game is a bit too easy even on hard mode once you know the intricacies of the mechanics, but it is fun to wallop stuff with OP gear. I'd say it lacks some polish, and the art/audio doesn't hold up that well (it is on the DS). I have not tried the remaster, but I will if I end up replaying it again.

This game properly introduces many of the RPG mechanics that become a mainstay for the rest of the series. Unfortunately, it is locked behind the entire first half of the game. The first time playing, it's exciting to unlock so much new stuff at once. But, if you've played any of the later games it's frustrating for the core mechanics to be inaccessible from the beginning--even most magic spells!

Having multiple generations would also be more interesting if there were more new characters to interact with, and more interactions with the adults and parents. It's a fun concept that doesn't pan out.