This really holds up quite well. Feels like it's from a totally different era of indie games where they were devs were translating what used to be ambitious flash games to full releases that felt like passion projects.

The core gameplay of this is still fun. Setting stuff on fire never really gets old and the combos are a great way to get you to experiment and drive your progress. Some objects and combos are definitely much cooler than others where as some are just blatant fodder to help get you some quick cash. It can be a little disappointing when something cool sounding just ends up burning with zero fanfare.

Also man does that fire still look really damn good!

I'm going to be honest, I have zero clue how From Software can ever top this, but I'm excited to see what they could do next (Maybe something different though? Hint hint Armored Core). This game is simply put fucking incredible.

Open world design has been completely smashed in the best way possible here: By verticality. This world is filled with secrets woven into every single layer of its world. You're always climbing up something or going down something as is the From Soft way. Sign posting is fantastic and encourages constant rabbit holes. Every where you look is some mini adventure waiting to happen. It's exactly what I loved out of Breath of the Wild but dialed up to its best. I spent around 100 hours and hit up just about every single area in the game (I'm pretty sure) and I still don't feel like I truly explored half of it. Everywhere has its own set of secrets and some dungeons have fucking mini dungeons hiding inside of them. There's just an insane amount of creativity on display here.

On top of some of the series best or most interesting dungeon design, the boss design is (generally) divine. This series has had a history of some really boring bosses or just flatout bad ones (fuck you forever Sif and Bed of Chaos). And Elden Ring isn't the exception here, but it's ratio of good to bad is way way way way better. They clearly learned a lot from Sekiro and applied it here.

However, I'm sorry big monsters are still just not that fun to fight in this series. It's not versatile like Monster Hunter, so you're basically just slapping away at some ankles and dealing with your camera.

Which... The lock-on camera in this game is maybe the worst it's been in the entire series. I've never had problems in past games with it locking on to the wrong enemies and I guess it just feels like the behavior is super inconsistent. Given how many enemies frequently move around or go into the air here too it's very disorienting and can lead to some bullshit feeling deaths if you rely on it.

All those problems aside though, I can forgive them. It comes with the territory of the series. This game is From Soft firing on all cylinders. It's both a simultaneous greatest hits of all their previous soulsborne games combined with their next biggest step forward.

The original Dead Space was a game I replayed so many times I remembered pretty much everything going into this remake and yet this remake still managed to surprise me in a lot of very delightful ways.

I'm a bit mixed on how I feel with whether the intent of a remake is to ever replace the original. I think Capcom found the perfect balance that allows all of their remakes and their original games to co-exist while still telling the same plot and having many of the same moments. It allows you to play both the original and the remakes and still get a very worthwhile experience, and for the last 5 years I've leaned on that being what I value the most out of a remake.

But this Dead Space remake? I largely think this is a replacement to the original. Many elements carried over or redone from the original are just better. The annoying chapters aren't fixed per se but they've found ways to freshen them up and add some new ideas. I thought it ended up just flowing better.

Opening up the Ishimura was a fantastic decision and doesn't feel like it compromised the original design of the game at all. And the end result is a real nice pacing of optional backtracking and constant forward progress. The backtracking feels entirely worth it and it's satisfying going back through areas.

I think that's what's important here, nothing is compromised with this remake and everything is just really really fucking good. The playfulness of the Intensity Director, the new alt fires, the combat flow, the absolutely beautiful lighting that isn't afraid to cast an entire room in darkness. All of it is just absurdly polished feeling.

If they somehow keep up this momentum and love and care with a remake of 2, I feel like Dead Space can really come back in a major way. I hope so anyways!

This game is like ALMOST really good, but it's constantly buckling under the weight of it's ambition and it ends up being just a very scuffed experience.

It's like an alternate universe Resident Evil game and it's surprising how close they got in a lot of ways. The game has some pretty cool and strong ideas with the reload and healing mechanics or even a short lived infection meter. It looks fantastic visually (mostly). Hell they even tried to have full on cutscenes and voice acting.

But again, that ambition ends up really knee capping this game. There's some very lackluster enemy variety, the placement of save rooms are incredibly sparse and poorly placed, enemy placement is incredibly cheap (seriously why the fuck did anyone think it was a good idea to hide enemies RIGHT around corners where you can't see them?), the voice acting is insane in how inconsistent and usually pretty bad it is, things just sorta happen in the story, and the english translation is incredibly awkward. Like I said, super fucking scuffed.

I respect what the game wants to be. I really REALLY want to see what more this team can do. I love seeing games like this punching far above their weight class. Just not a true hidden gem like I hoped it would be.

Incredibly cute game. Reminds me a lot of cozy 6th console gen games like Chibi Robo, Finny the Fish, or A Dog's Life.

Charming and atmospheric. A lot of great solid visual design combined with thoughtful exploration. Absolutely incredible music too. This might quickly climb up in my personal rankings.

This game feels very self contained and controlled without getting overly ambitious.

However, one pretty distinct low point of this game for me was the pretty mediocre stealth sections. They over stayed their welcome (unlike the rest of the game), and just didn't really feel great for the style of game this is. Not the best final level gimmick to close the game out on.

On the Steam Deck emulating on Prime Hack. Highly recommend if you want to play with more up to date controls and HD visuals. Surprisingly it doesn't compromise the gameplay at all.

Metroid Prime is one of those games that just nailed it on the first try. With it's dev history you really wouldn't have thought it would, but damn did Retro just knock it out of the park. Great sense of level progression and exploration even if you still do a lot of kind of tedious backtracking. Great combat that almost just feels like a first person Zelda with it's lock on targeting and strafing. Even with dual analog controls, I still used it a lot just for the extra abilities it gives. There's a great flow to this game that just has not aged.

If there's like maybe a couple things that are a problem, boss fights are a little too long and platforming is still kind of frustrating regardless of what control method you have. Falling to the bottom of a vertical shaft in this series has just always really sucked and this is no exception (in large part because you're doing so much backtracking).

Still, the game was pretty perfect when it came out, and it's still pretty perfect now.

Honestly, apart from Killzone 2, it's one of those games I think about a lot. It's a pretty unique feeling game even today. Who would have thought a cover shooter could work this well in a top down format?

It's definitely not perfect. The terrain can sometimes be a pain and the auto targeting frustrating and lead to some bullshit feeling deaths, but I'm overall very surprised how well this held up years later.

The levels are tightly paced, combat is a great balance between challenging and action packed, the AI is surprisingly pretty decent and will try and flank you or keep you moving. It's weird, but it reminds me a lot of older metal gear games when you decide to gun your way out of an alert phase.

Be forewarned though, there was a free chapter 5 that was release for the game via the killzone website that you can't download anymore. There's archives out there that are easy enough to get running on an emu or a PSP, but apparently it's impossible on Vita. It's not THAT crucial, but it's a real fucking bummer that's basically lost by any official means.

Who would have thought Capcom would be the ones to make the new Castlevania game? Let alone the best one (heh got 'em).

What a fucking wild ride. A love letter to european horror through the eyes of Resident Evil 4 and 7. The immersion factors here are through the fucking roof with the stellar art design and stellar audio design. Just all around fantastic presentation. Probably the first RE story I felt genuinely invested in beyond just the wacky fun.

I really wish horror in general wasn't afraid to get this fucking weird again. This game evokes an almost PS2 era of game that doesn't exist (both just nostalgia wise and also what it literally rips right from RE4).

Rouge-likes don't have to be doomed to a pit of mid-tier or just fun afternoons.

When you've got arenas this good to compliment combat this great, everything else is just a bonus.

And boy howdy what a bonus. Atmosphere is off the charts and art design is so stellar. The alien ruins never stopped being a sight to behold and the sound design never lets up it's brilliance. Evokes all the best parts of the Metroid series.

Really this could have been a case study for Metroid Other M on how to translate 2D metroid to 3D properly.

Even when I was getting my ass handed to me, I still loved every second here.

Visually and audibly, a real fucking treat. Wonderful art design combined with an absolutely stellar soundtrack.

Great combat as a whole, though sadly ends like right as it truly starts to find its stride... The final chapter is sick as fuck.

One complaint is the controls take some fine tuning for sure, but I never quite felt like I had something that felt as smooth or snappy as other twin stick shooters.

I think the upped enemy variety is amazing even today and the fast paced almost John Wick sometimes feeling combat is still stupid slick after all these years.

Where it shows the most cracks these days is maybe it's level design and boss encounters. The Icon of Sin fucking sucks and there's an almost (albeit really charming and personality driven) amateurish level design that can sometimes make you feel stupid for not seeing the tiny crack in the wall that lets you progress.

Other than that, it's still Doom 2 and it still fucking rules. The mod scene for this game will never not be amazing too.

An absolute labor of love.

The combat is super tight, engaging, and even exhausting sometimes. The pace here is pretty on point from start to finish.

The art style and music are fantastic and incredibly unique.

I guess the only thing is it probably plays better on the Vita than it does on the Switch purely because of size and weight of the system.

I loved how this game started and by the end of it I felt very... bittersweet.

Conflicted emotions are at every corner of the story and it's clearly intentional. Once you put it together it's still leaves a very uneasy feeling. I don't think it's bad, it's just not what I'd call a clean happy story even at the best of times. It's constantly giving your mixed signals and you kind of just have to roll with it and accept them.

Really this game's biggest issue is some of the puzzle design is just infuriating. It teeters some fine lines between moon logic and inconsistent. I never felt stupid when I had to end up looking something up so much as just frustrated that it "makes sense", but the game is bad at communicating the steps. And some of the puzzle designs are just dumb and needlessly require several instance of backtracking or shit you're just not going to remember.

But still, the presentation is great. I liked the idea of the dungeon crawling style hallways and kind of wish there was more interactivity with it. Even though there's nothing out there in those halls with you, you're constantly feeling watched or like there might be something just around the corner. Though some of the overworld music gets pretty tedious and annoying in the back half, the spookier/moodier tracks (complete with the almost toy like sound to the synths) is great and really helps set the mood of just how miserable and dreary the underground base you're trapped in is.

I'm also surprised this contains a remake of the original game. Pretty stacked package for a point and click game.

Easily and retroactively my GotY for 2020.

What a serious labor of love. It basically plays like all the best parts of the Half Life 2 modding community and it's take on cyberpunk both wears its inspiration on its sleeve and provides a unique spin. Giving you a world that feels more bleak and grimey (and real) than really most in the genre.

Everything from the sound design, the art design, and the gunplay just feels so damn good.

The major warning I have to give is the game is pretty purposefully not nice. The odds are almost never in your favor and it asks you to constantly roll with the punches.

Maybe not for everyone, but extremely my shit.