Having games focused around typing has always been a neat weird little concept, but Epistory just lacks a long-staying hook after the first hour or so. Movement and exploration feels half-baked with awkward free movement controls despite having areas built out of tiles and a confusing map that feels needlessly interconnected and large. There's very little variety with combat despite unlocking some form of complexity in the form of different spells you swap between because the only way the game ups the challenge is increasing the enemy count and how fast you have to react to them, which increasingly begins to feel unfair because of words that very regularly repeat themselves across multiple enemies. It's far too easy to end up in bad situations because you think you'll be typing a word for one enemy, only to see something else in the corner of the screen get hit instead or maybe sometimes getting stuck because you hit some other letter and got stuck typing that word with no way to backspace out. I wish I could care for the story but it's so overwritten trying desperately to sound poetic about what depression feels like, and even harder to care for in the moment when you're fighting off enemies or wandering around figuring out where the next thing to type is.

Honestly the biggest problem of them all is Epistory's core focus on typing just doesn't feel as satisfying as other well known titles with its gimmick. Typing of the Dead may be sort of a meme game, but it's still the best in its class because of how it fundamentally makes typing tense and satisfying to nail and get faster at. The loud tactile sound and instant visual feedback makes those games so much stronger as typing games, whereas Epistory has one sound for every time you finish a word and the same enemy fade out for finishing all of them, and one of its core mechanics weirdly even discourages typing fast with the combo meter being timed. Playing too quickly weirdly punishes you more, which should have been a red flag from the get-go.

It's a neat seeing a new attempt at this kind of game and I didn't lose very much considering this was free on the Epic Games Store at one point, but playing it just made me want to go play Typing of the Dead again or even just loading up Monkeytype to see how fast I could slap something out.

I'm still kinda going through the new post-game content, but the main game alone has been so faithfully recreated in such care that regardless of how I feel about that new content, this is a must-play. Super Mario RPG is so incredibly cozy and funny, and does so many things that make its familiar cast of characters fun to be around in this new perspective as well as tons of new characters that fit perfectly right in. While the combat system is a bit simplistic with balance that kind of see-saws back and forth between laughably easy and on the rare occasion being suddenly ball-busting with a timing mechanic that feels inconsistent compared to its successors in Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi, it never teeters toward being obnoxious or frustrating. This is an easy game to recommend to someone who's never played an RPG before or may not have taken interest in Final Fantasy-like games before.

The remaster itself is truly stellar. The redone soundtrack is beautiful, if also kind of reminding me at times of how Square remade the music for the Kingdom Hearts remasters. That's not a complaint, that's praise in my view because I prefer the orchestral versions of these tracks now and also because Yoko Shimomura has such a unique style of music that creates this sense of pure wonder and joy that fits right in with the game's tone and art style. I may personally prefer what I've played of the Paper Mario games, but those titles wouldn't have happened without Super Mario RPG happening first, and this is both the most accessible way to play it as well as the best way with its quality of life improvements and additions.

Easily my new favorite 2D Mario game, it's not even really a contest. Besides oozing with charm and personality that rivals if not surpasses the old pixel sprite work of past games and leaping beyond the same tired New style of games, this is a culmination of every learned fine-tuned lesson of past games. Mario's never felt snappier to control and his moveset feels focused and refined with enough room for pro players to really get moving fast and precisely, and the level design finally nails what World had tried to accomplish way back then but now even more experimental than ever before. Levels actively encourage exploring every nook and cranny for collectibles and secrets without forcing the player into hunting things down by requirement. The central Wonder Flower mechanic never ceased to keep surprising me with every level, finding unique ways of changing things up in a manner that never felt stale or forgettable.

This is the game that finally has broken 2D Mario out of the same tired old trends for almost two decades into something truly new and fresh. There's a genuine passion for weird new ideas, and the level of polish on display continues to show that Nintendo's teams really can be unparalleled in the industry when it comes to making something special when they put their minds to it. I just hope that whatever comes next for a new 2D entry that it doesn't result in rehashing this for the next decade.

I thought Starfield would be the Bethesda title that would finally get me to push through all the way to the end and actually finish a playthrough (especially with all the stuff I've heard and definitely been spoiled by now about New Game+), but there's something here that's missing that expected magic(tm) element that Elder Scrolls and even the newer Fallout games retained. The procedural generated planets were absolutely a mistake. I don't see them being as a groundwork for modders because of just how many of them there are and how quickly you learn to avoid the generated content because of how repetitive and samey they all are. While it's impressive initially for the early hours how they managed to make them feel almost seamless from the handmade stuff, you begin to see the holes and loop after a while and it's incredibly difficult to ignore the drastic quality difference between them.

The faction quests are some of the best Bethesda's ever done and I'm shocked by the sheer length of some of them like the Vanguard questline, but the amount of back and forthing that they require you to do quickly adds onto how many loading screens and fast traveling you start doing, going somewhere to speak to somebody, do a small task, and then go back to that person, then go back to the original person, repeat. And Starfield's universe just... isn't enough of a hook to keep going. There's a massive issue with how the most interesting stuff in this universe has already happened by the time you're exploring around! The massive conflict and wars between the different factions and their political or even religious beliefs, and all the different horrible things that each side had done to each other during all the warfare, this stuff shouldn't have been kept to narration and background lore. The way the plot unfolds, you're essentially tidying up loose ends that should have been dealt with a long time ago and it's so much substantially less interesting, especially when Bethesda's writing staff have shown before that they can at least try involving the player in interesting grand-scale conflicts like this in Skyrim.

I don't really know how much that expansion pack and future updates are going to fix Starfield, and that's what worries me here. There's a lot of interesting stuff here even despite the flaws and the looting cycle was addictive for the 25ish hours that I played this for, but there's something noticeably missing at Starfield's core that hurts it so much worse than even the likes of Fallout 4, whose sin is more just a badly written story rather than a lack of one. Debate all you want about how faithful FO4 is to the Fallout franchise during its golden years, I can still look at that game and see it uniquely as Fallout. I don't know what Starfield's identity really is, and that's what kills this game for me. While I like this more than Fallout 76, being better than a live service game that I care very little for shouldn't be the bar that this is reaching for.

I appreciate on a technical level that Bethesda did live true to their word that this is the most bug-free Bethesda game I have played. It was genuinely nice not needing to mod anything right out of the gate to keep it stable like you have to do with every single one of their other games, right up until getting fussy with the atrocious UI how many hours later and just not willing to put up with it anymore. I still can't believe how much of a drastic improvement StarUI makes to the entire experience, and all the more baffling that once again Bethesda just can't do these simple quality of life improvements themselves when they've had the blueprints from the community for decades now to fix these issues. And while the bugs are far less frequent than they've ever been, it was in exchange for performance which is bafflingly rough. I get their engine does a lot of complicated stuff with tracking every single object imaginable and their physics and all, but this game still looks rough for barely even keeping 50 to 60 FPS on my rig (RX 6700 XT/Ryzen 5800X3D) and with me being generous on the resolution upscaling. I can tolerate FSR 2's artifacts more than most people and I wasn't expecting to be playing at 1440p native like a weird number of people do these days, but Starfield really just doesn't look the part for how insanely demanding it is compared to other games this generation.

I'm sure the modding community will do even more interesting things with this game but there's a lot here that needs to be fixed, and I'm just not fully sure how much of that core is necessarily patch-able. I know I will reinstall Skyrim for any variety of reasons, but even with a stack of mods installed, being in Skyrim's world will never cease to entertain me even with how many times I've walked through its fields and cities and all the different ways I've done it. I don't think I will be able to say the same for Starfield unless Bethesda has something truly out of left field to save its future.

Thinking I'm gonna wait for some more patches on this before coming back to this, which is a shame from how excited I was hearing that Hopoo Games' last send-off to the series was going to be a remake of the original.

I don't mind challenge and all, and it's half the appeal of RoR in particular, but something about the way Returns was rebalanced and adjusted that is just far too frustrating with the shocking lack of directional aiming. I'm not asking for full 360 directional aiming, but not being able to shoot the opposite direction quickly when you're trying to kite enemies is frankly ridiculous, especially with how much more aggressive they were made. Certain elite enemies also have ridiculous damage outputs and really strange hitboxes, especially anything involving electricity. I'm not a fan of how little damage the player does kind of essentially after the first stage, and leads to runs being extremely RNG and in a way that the sequel had managed to solve through things like the 3D printers and scrappers that helped to at least give the player a potential fighting chance to save their run, all of which are also shockingly absent from this remake. The Providence Trials are the definition of annoying frustrating garbage that very quickly stops being fun, and I can't believe that ability unlocks are mostly tied to them.

Every single other thing in Returns is fantastic. The music is stellar as always, and the sprite work is genuinely incredible, especially the artwork for the logs. There's a great game buried here just like the original and its sequel, but Hopoo themselves announced that they're aware there's balancing issues and that directional L/R aiming will be added in a future patch so I'm just putting this on hold until it's more polished up.

This is the 2D Mario entry that I'm most likely going to end up replaying at some point. I have childhood nostalgia for this being one of the very first video games I ever played as a kid, but I also know very well that I never got very far in to actually finish it way back then. Now having actually finished it for the first time ever in like two decades since I originally played it, I do like it quite a fair bit but it's also weirdly tough for me to decide if I like it more than Super Mario Bros. 3, as World may have a ton of charm with a great art style and wonderfully cozy music, but its expanded moveset is a little more questionable in my eyes compared to the simple perfection of SMB3. The level design also tends to veer more in weird puzzle/maze territory a lot more often than 3 ever does, and while there's an element of fun discovery and surprise whenever you do find those secret exits and switches, it's more annoying when they're actually required for progression on occasion and then being forced to replay entire levels over again to figure out what bizarre thing you need to do to continue.

I still think this is a pretty fun good time but my low skill at these kinds of games tend to make them more frustrating as they go along, and this one felt a bit more egregious with this than 3 did for me. The hidden goodies and extras along the way though make me curious for another round at some point especially because I'm very well aware there were secret worlds that I missed.

I'm honestly kind of shocked this entry is as controversial as it currently is? I will agree with the upped $35 price tag being a bit absurd, they shouldn't have raised the price when considering very little here is of such quality to warrant it. Buy this on a sale or check other stores like Green Man Gaming. But at the same time, I think Party Pack 10 has more than enough good games here to make this a better entry than most of the newer packs have been, I sincerely disagree that this is the worst pack when 6 and 9 had more duds than this does.

Tee KO 2 admittedly makes up a lot of the value for my group when the first is easily one of the best games Jackbox has ever had, and this is just more of it with more options. FixyText will definitely be dependent on your group of friends, but the sheer chaos of it reminds me quite a bit of Talking Points from Pack 7; if your group is good at making up random garbage that actually makes all of you laugh, it will be a good time. Timejinx is a much more interesting take on trivia than the other trivia games in this series has been, enough that it's a very fun time but I do wish questions didn't repeat so often; there needs to be more questions than what the game has at least around launch right now. Dodo Re Mi I feel like is the reason why the price was raised higher than usual because the sheer number of songs and options here is genuinely insane, but the value of this game is going to really depend on how much you and the people you play with like rhythm games. It's definitely a little buggy and it's not like a hyper polished actual full game like other real rhythm games, but it's been the game my group has spent the most time on playing so far.

The only real stinker here in the entire pack is Hypnotorious, to such a degree that I question if anybody actually playtested this thing. It's a deduction game which Jackbox isn't new to, but this one is so incredibly badly explained and moves at such an insanely slow pace. I've played this game with two different groups, and both of them audibly groaned and stopped playing early right after we realized we only played one round and not a full match. Having dud games isn't new for Jackbox, it's basically expected for every entry at this point, and at the very least I'm happy enough with every other game in the pack that this makes 10 one of the better newer entries.

I wouldn't recommend this to someone who hasn't bought the other Jackbox games before, get the starter pack if that's the case. For everyone else, know your group of friends and decide for yourself if the types of games here sound like a good time, especially in terms of how much you might value Dodo Re Mi since it's the biggest game in the package.

While I can definitely see how I was disappointed on my first go-around with this game back when I played it on PS5 a year or two ago, this time around I think Control finally managed to click for me! It's a really damn good time!

Most of it really comes down to finally getting both what combat expects of you and the little nuances of how it's best played, as well as finally having more of the story and character behind Jesse really clicking this time around. Combat in Control is meant to be a test of balance, swapping between your powers and gun to keep both limits in check so you aren't stuck being helpless running around the battlefield. Rooms will turn into explosive chaotic playgrounds the moment enemies spawn in as you're zipping around dashing through every nook and cranny, crashing in through tables and glass reminiscent of essentially creating your own John Woo action flick. There may not be the dual wielded pistols or slow motion diving ala Max Payne here, but the sheer destruction displayed on screen never stopped being satisfying, especially at the speed you're meant to be throwing objects around at enemies which I think is what threw me off on my first run back then. Jesse's Launch power can be timed and combo'd in a lot of different ways, and something the game doesn't really make clear to you unless you experiment is you can let go of items and watch them fly a lot sooner than you think they're meant to. A tip: if you think throwing objects at flying enemies is impossible from how often they dodge, stop watching for objects to get beside you before you let go, just grab for a brief second and let go and they'll fly toward them before they have a chance to react to what you grabbed.

As for the story, a lot of Control really coasts along on its atmosphere and tone. I've seen a lot of comments kind of making equivalents to this being a "vibe game" in a sense, maybe along the lines of something like Neon White in my mind which sounds ridiculously weird, I know! The point is more in that while Neon White is a vibe for like, people obsessed with Hot Topic, Control captures more of a vibe for those who are easily enthralled by the unknown, the things that they aren't supposed to know about, a rabbit hole that you aren't coming back out of when you have learned something you weren't supposed to. What does throw me off from calling it a straight up vibe game though is that Control's willing to also go to those dark levels that that kind of vibe can lead to. It's Jesse pulling down the poster and discovering what's behind it, not being able to unsee any of it. It's not just the proof that something beyond our knowledge exists, but what comes of it and what comes after, how you're meant to deal and manage with it. Discovering the abuse and cruelty behind a broken system/entity despite the initial goals of trying to understand something, being a victim of those circumstances, and taking them to make something better in your image from another perspective. There's comparisons made to SCP and while a lot of that is absolutely fair (there's definitely a lot of not-subtle similarities and likely nods of appreciation toward it), I think there's something more to Control's bleakness and seriousness behind its approach compared to the more community-made fun of that online circle.

The only things that really still didn't click this time around still remains being the progression system and the ending. The mod system is just garbage straight up, I hate that such a gamey system like this, focused on low barely imperceptible percentages and numbers, is in a work that's so dedicated to immersion and tone building. It's random Diablo-level RNG in a game whose combat system shouldn't need it in the first place, taking away from what should have been more carefully balanced instead. The game also just doesn't give enough ability points across the base game, so it further sucks when you're going to just end up dumping all of them into Health and Energy because they're the most worthwhile and important things to upgrade to even stand a chance against the level scaling towards the end. And as for the ending, while I get what it's going for in that this story doesn't need something overly bombastic and grand scale to end on, the ending almost feels like a montage or slideshow that rushes through those final events far too quickly, like an hour was just completely skipped over, a moment of respite that doesn't feel earned. The DLCs don't really do much to fix this, and so it makes it harder to figure out whether it was just done by questionable intention or if there was actually meant to be something more and Remedy just didn't have time or money to do so.

As a whole though? Incredibly glad that I gave Control another shot. The combat stands as some of the most satisfying in the genre, it's one of the most technically and artistically impressive games I've seen, and as a whole Control just oozes a unique style that feels special and auteur, something that no other studio would be capable of making other than Remedy.

Feels a lot weirder to play now with Alan Wake 2 actually being available right now. AWE is neat in terms of fan service for long time Remedy/Alan Wake fans as well as directly shouting in your face that Control and Alan Wake's universes are directly connected to each other, but I'm just not really sure how I feel about this when considering it was the last expansion released for Control and very likely being the thing you'll play last. Foundation made for a far better epilogue to Control's story, characters and world and really should've been released the other way around. AWE is notably more difficult than the base game or Foundation are by scaling health numbers to something more suited to endgame players who have done everything up to this point, which sucks because recommending playing it before Foundation is a lot rougher to say.

The map is a bit more interesting to navigate than Foundation was, but it's also a lot more samey looking to the rest of the base game with a whole lot more asset reuse down to even the same turntable rooms being here. The encounters with Hartman are immensely unsettling and creepy as well as amping up the tension in a gameplay manner in a really interesting way, but there's also just too many regular combat sections here that take away from the atmospheric creep factor. And while being a tease for Alan Wake 2 back when this came out was really cool, I wish there was more actual substantial meat on these bones, something to actually dig into and get something more out of than just "hey Alan Wake's still a thing we promise," especially with again, that sequel now actually being out and released. There's some high high's here, but the lows are a lot more consistently mediocre which is a shame.

I appreciate the one new enemy addition that forces you to be a lot more cautious about wasting your ammo and energy because of their higher aggression compared to anything from the base game roster, and there's definitely some intrigue and neat foundations (ha ha) for what could come in the future by turning the Board into a questionable moral grey figure. I just wish the actual location itself was more visually interesting and didn't demand so much boring backtracking when very little content in the base game ever gets this repetitive. The lore collectibles usually helped pace things out and add more intrigue to the game's world but this DLC doesn't have that many of them to actually go and find, and it doesn't help that the only audio logs in the form of Ash's radio diaries lack any emotional direction or narrative hook to really latch onto.

I probably would've had a better time with this if it had been like an hour or two shorter, maybe cutting out some of the ritual objectives when they're samey enough as it is.

The loot pool is better and the swamp area being somewhat shrunken down (or at least less focused on) help make the core game itself more fun to actually play this season, but everything else surrounding it still remains really eh compared to the previous seasons. The battle pass still wasn't good enough to warrant spending for, alongside the seasonal quests being formatted in a really strange way that hinders doing multiple tasks in one match if you could survive doing so. I don't understand this generation of shooters having an obsession with this godawful Hulu ass UI design because the lobby didn't need changing to this massive scrolling list that actively hides the core gamemodes (what the hell, Epic?), the already mentioned quest and map menus should have gotten changes instead.

Epic in general feels like they're struggling to both maintain a playerbase as well as making sure they keep spending money. The massive layoffs at the company that got media attention outside of the game is one thing, but you can also see it in the game itself with things like forcing in incentives for Crew subscriptions to be recurring rather than subbing for a month and immediately cancelling for one skin, a pass and some currency. Crossovers seem to be dwindling down now that other companies are seemingly less interested in Fortnite trying to be this massive "metaverse" that it kept trying to be advertised as. The UI redesign was clearly to encourage more playtime in the Creative worlds, but Roblox this ain't and I just don't get why Epic doesn't seem to understand this. Fortnite at its core is a genuinely very good third person shooter, it should keep sticking with what its good at rather than trying to be this bizarro multi-game engine that it will never be able to compete with the bigwigs on, especially when it's nowhere near as accessible as its competitors are in terms of platforms and hardware requirements.

honestly i probably spent more time on that horde rush mode they added midway through than the actual battle royale mode itself

This is very good up until the game loops itself, and then the shtick starts to wear thin incredibly fast. It's a shame because American Nightmare significantly refines the gameplay to the point where I find the combat actually fun here; smart tweaks like drastically raising the stamina Alan has, reducing how much flashlight time is needed on enemies before they're vulnerable, increasing the weapon variety but lowering your max ammo counts to encourage switching between them, and more types of enemies make for a much more engaging combat system than anything the first game offered. Unlike the first game however, the story and levels just cannot make up the rest of the package with how blatantly obvious it is that being a small title meant for Xbox Live Arcade didn't allow for more actual meat for that combat to chew on.

Honestly I'd just look up the cutscenes on YouTube or a plot summary, even with the game only being around 4-5 hours. The tedium sets in incredibly fast when the levels begin repeating, no matter how much Remedy tried to cut down on repeating objectives on each loop, and the story just loses its hook at that point as well. Having a better version of the first game's combat here just makes me wish that it was possible to have it in that game instead, and more of a shame that the 2021 remaster didn't bother to.

I ended up liking the game more overall this time around compared to the first time I played it, but more because of just how much further Alan Wake's stellar writing and atmosphere really carry itself over gameplay. While Alan Wake struggles with a combat system that is too simple and not tuned well enough to justify lasting for the whole game's length with how often hordes of enemies are sent after you or the sheer abundance of supplies that takes away any true tension or decision making from moment-to-moment gameplay, you're going to be here for the thriller mystery story that keeps you on your toes and seeing how these characters have to deal with how increasingly insane it gets. There's a level of genius here that shows Remedy even back then shining at their brightest with how it smartly ties the collectible manuscript pages between both story and gameplay; when the earlier pages mention how feverishly Alan looks for these pages to get more about the story, there's a realization of how the game's roped you into this role just as the pages themselves said when you're scouring each corner looking for them, hoping to hear more of the game's wonderful writing and narration so you yourself can get more clues about what's going on outside of Alan's POV or what could potentially be coming soon later into the game. It feels natural, unforced by any kind of narrative that's pushed onto the player and required of you to keep progressing ala a Spec Ops: The Line kinda deal (even if that's a pretty extreme example).

It really is just that combat system that holds the game back for me still, even if I was more "okay" with it this time around compared to my first playthrough. It's honestly only really more of an issue towards Episode 5 and 6 when enemy encounters start drastically raising up without enough story or narration beats in-between to ease things up like the rest of the game does. The dodge system feels bad when it's less of a dodge and more the game making you watch the start of your sprint animation over and over again, and when enemies very regularly will attack you off-camera where you can't see or hear them leading to situations that never really feel super fair to play through. I do think Remedy tried to improve with what they had on the two DLC episodes by playing more with environmental options for combat and they do make the combat immensely more interesting from the get-go, but it's too little too late by that point.

Even with its issues and maybe not necessarily being my favorite Remedy game, Alan Wake still strikes hard at the spots that it needed to nail, to a degree where it's fully understandable why this weird little game stuck with so many people for so many years long after its release. Knowing how Remedy's titles are nowadays and seeing the sheer confidence they have in their later works with experimentation, I'm far more hopeful and interested in seeing what the sequel has to offer. This still remains a nice little romp that's absolutely worth playing if you don't mind some jank and a runtime that maybe goes an hour or two a little longer than it really needs to.

Insane to think this originally came out only 3 years after the first game for how much it completely and utterly supersedes it, and might as well make SMB1 look like a prototype. SMB3 oozes personality and confidence with a more playful art style, a drastically more tightened up control scheme and freeform moveset for Mario, and generally much better ideas for challenge and experimentation in level design. I do think World 7 is a little stinky and World 8 starts to lean a little too uncomfortably into "can you avoid 10 different flying objects on screen at once" or "can you solve my maze" territory, but I'm happy that it only really starts to crop up around the end of the game rather than souring the entire whole experience. Just a genuinely great platformer and shows just how much Nintendo was at the top of their class at the time, considering how well this has aged compared to most NES games.

One quick note, it's more than a little silly that the NES original didn't have any save function for how much longer this game is too. It's less of a problem these days considering any emulator or modern re-release of it has save state functionality (and All-Stars/Advance straight up added saves), but still more than a bit lame. At the very least, the worry of running out of lives and having to redo the entire game is much less of a concern compared to the first or second game, if anything SMB3 is a little too eager to shower you in extra lives to make it through the entire game.

There's some really neat and strange ideas here and it's wild to see just how drastically Nintendo was willing to pivot a sequel's direction to the game that put them and the video game industry as a whole onto the map. I just don't think the level design holds up whatsoever, very little of it feels memorable with how many dickish enemy spawns and traps there are mixed with bland climbs or stretches of areas that just don't always mix well together with a cast of 4 very different playable characters that had to be accounted for. Never would have finished this if it wasn't for save states and I don't really feel ashamed to admit that.