Story and character-wise, FFIV is a big step up. The cast is incredibly charming, and everyone gets their time in the spotlight. Unfortunately, a lot of the personality disappears past the halfway point, and most of the cast starts feeling like cardboard cutouts, and the sliver of character development that's there feels superficial and unfulfilling. On top of that, most of the heavy-hitting story moments get completely undone for no reason at all.

It's still a blast to play through, but the second half was such a letdown that it somewhat soured the experience for me.

Thoroughly mediocre flight combat. Sluggish and unsatisfying handling. The PC port barely functions on modern hardware. Annoying escort missions. Battle Above Taloraan has a random chance of just crashing to desktop upon completion due to some longstanding script bugs in the mission. Downing AT-ATs is j a n k. Draw distance?

The only reason this ever received any praise is because it let you fly an X-Wing without fucking around in DOS. Brb, I'm going to go fuck around in DOS.

Just skip to the second entry. The OG is a historical curiosity.

Harold Halibut is an outstanding technical achievement. It's not, however, a compelling game.

Harold Halibut is an adventure game that looks just like a stop motion movie. And my god do they ever do a great job at that. The game is downright gorgeous and the stop motion continuously impressed me. I really wish this tech was used in service of a better narrative.

I found it very difficult to care about the characters and plot in this world. The voice acting is excellent but the dialogue is so dull. Very rarely do characters have anything remotely interesting to say. And although some personalities shine through (namely Harold and his surrogate mother Mareaux), most of it is forgettable. This is especially true in the first 10 hours of the game which is very slice of life. The plot gets a bit more interesting by the end, but it's too late by then.

I appreciate the themes they're going for. I really like how they approached an autistic coded main character with Harold for instance. There's something so pure about how he deals with problems. I'm sure this game is for someone. Just not for me.

There are two angles for me to go about in trying to sum up my time with Harold Halibut.

On one side, this is a walking simulator at its core with glacial pacing and frequent bugs. It’s a chore to play and not always an enjoyable experience. At any moment you can go from sitting through overly long conversations to literally just holding a direction as you slowly crawl through a vent for five minutes.

On the other side, this game has a beautiful world, a fantastic narrative, and wears its heart on its sleeve at all times. You can tell the love and passion put behind this game.

Unlike many of the other reviews I’ve read on this site, I found the story to absolutely resonate with me and every time I felt bored out of my mind wandering the same halls listening to the same over the loudspeaker dialogue as I entered a tube system for the hundredth time, some beautifully shot cutscene would pull me back in. It brilliantly uses lighting, camera angles, and music to create some uniquely directed scenes. Not every scene hits, but the ones that do make up for any rough ones. It’s unfortunate that this game really shines in its final act that most players will not make it far enough to see.

If you can get past its many shortcomings, I think this game is totally worth playing through to its conclusion for what is likely to be one of the most unique games of 2024.

I held off on playing Tinykin for an unduly long time because I think the protagonist has a stupid haircut. As it turns out, even the in-game NPCs tend to express similar sentiments. Amusing.

The enviro art looks great, and calls to mind many hours spent traversing the world of Chibi-Robo. While Tinykin is clearly Pikmin inspired, it lacks any of the task-management of the series, and instead plays as a very conventional collectathon. Just rummage over every inch of level geo and pick up all the glowing edible looking collectibles on autopilot and the game will complete itself. Tinykin coasts by on delightful style and amusing NPC dialog to create a pleasantly memorable experience.

I gave up on trying to 100% my save, and am dearly wishing for a pollen radar. This is why I really don't like collectathons, they tend to resort to tedium rather than challenge. At least the time trials actually put your management of soap-board and bubble-hover schmoovement to the test. Showing that Tinykin can provide satisfying platforming sequences.