this might be one of my favorite games ever and it's just a breakout clone for the gameboy I'm not joking what's wrong with me

"See that stick? That's Mario."

Played on NSO Gameboy

I DID IT WOOOOOOOOOOOO

still traumatized by the stress i experienced during my playthrough so instead of reviewing it (which i've already done 2/3 times) i'll just summarize my winning run.

So let me just first say that I was starting off fucking AMAZINGLY. I messed up a little on Yamato, but was still able to beat Robot X with 1 life and 2 continues left. This was it. All I had to do was not mess up.

I then beat the 1st part of Stage 6 before the timer ran out, and completed it with 1 continue and 4 lives left. God had blessed me. NO matter what I did, I couldn't mess this up, I was sure of it.

I then lost 3 lives during the 1st part of Stage 7, and 4 in the 2nd part with those stupid ass conveyor belts.
I was mortified. If I didn't get the fights against Dr Dahm and Robot X perfect, it would end my perfect run.

Thankfully, I DESTROYED Dr Dahm with no damage taken (he IS the easiest boss in the game though), and got ready to take on Robot X.

I went in for a jump-kick as soon as the fight started, however, instead of going in the circle movement he usually goes in, he immediately grabbed me and slammed me onto the floor. However, a few seconds after that, one of my specials knocked him off-screen, which allowed me to use the jump-kick strategy (if you don't know what that is, i'll leave a link showing it in action right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07-Zi2ynuPE). I continued it until he only had 2 health bars left, which was when he broke out of it. I was thankfully able to get him back into the cycle, and watched as his life-bar went lower than mine. I allowed myself to enjoy my victory. Mr X is killed, and All is Well.

Would I recommend putting in the effort to beat this game on normal? Well, it's your choice, man. All i'll say is that BK3 and SOR3 are both very different experiences. Even if it's a butchered version of a way better game, this shit still fucks.

I know I said Block Ball was close to being one of the best spinoff games I played in this Kirbyathon thus far, until it kinda shit the bed a bit in the endgame, however I think Kirby's Star Stacker actually is the best Kirby spinoff up to this point (behind Dream Course at least).

It's a puzzle game, like Kirby's Avalanche, except this game is way easier in general than Puyo Puyo. Because I suck at Puyo Puyo, I found this more fun. Instead of having to set up complex combos to defeat your opponent, you just have to clear lines with stars in them to beat each stage. Combos are a thing in this game, and they also give you stars depending on how long they are, but they are way easier to perform in this game and technically aren't necessary to beat a stage. Something I do like about these combos tho is, once you start racking up combos, it throws out stars that can get you more lines if your animal buddies are in the right spots. Speaking of them, that's who you're lining up with the stars. Kine, Koo and Rick along with the stars are the main "blocks" in this game. They have a sort of chibi look and it's super cute. There are other blocks too to mix the gameplay up, like bomb blocks that clear a whole row, these blocks you must clear in a line to unlock a star inside and blocks that act like stars but don't give you stars. Use all these blocks efficiently to get the required number of stars you need. It's honestly pretty fun.

Outside of this main mode, you have a VS mode you can play with a friend. Obviously, I didn't touch this, but the other two modes, I did a bit. Those are just clear as many stars as you can till you die, and clear as many stars as you can before time runs out. They're fun little time wasters and just add more content to the game.

This is yet again, another game I technically didn't beat. The game had four difficulties and I beat them all. It got pretty tough at the end of the fourth one, but I was able to complete it. Then a hidden fifth difficulty unlocked, and it had 50 levels! The other difficulties prior only had 16 levels each (besides the easy mode which had 8). I beat the first level of the "insane" difficulty and decided I had my fill, as I probably would start to dislike the game if I did all 50 levels lol.

Not much to say with this one, despite it being one of the better Kirby spinoffs. It's just a fun little time, and more fun than Puyo Puyo imo. I know there's a Super Nintendo version, so if it's just like this game but with improved graphics and music, I know I'll enjoy that too!

Back in the day when Darksiders initially came out, I was a big action game fan (still am). I loved my DMCs and God of Wars, and so with the combat that Darksiders did have, my expectation was a cool action game but based on the Abrahamic religions as it's backdrop. Instead I got a semi decent action game, but filled with puzzles, dungeons and exploration. I wasn't a big fan of Zelda back then and I thought the puzzles/exploration were boring. I just wanted to fight stuff. So by time I got to the final dungeon, I was overwhelmed and just quit the game.

Fast forward to today, Zelda is one of my favourite franchises of all time. I love the classic Zelda formula of dungeons, exploration and puzzles. So I thought back about how Darksiders was basically a Zelda game with an Abrahamic lore, and wanted to give it another chance with my new Zelda-liking mindset.

Darksiders is a great Zelda clone. It is pretty much an Arbramic Ocarina of Time where it follows the same formula. You explore an overworld, solve puzzles dungeons to get new items that help you defeat bosses and gain access to new areas in the overworld. The more you explore, the more upgrades you will find that will make you stronger etc etc. It's not so different from Ocarina Of Time, you even get a horse.

The one thing that does really separate Darksiders from a Zelda game, besides the setting, is the combat. Zelda combat is usually nothing to write home about, and serviceable. Darksiders takes note of the action games from those days, like DMC and God of War and kind of melds it's combo focused action with Zelda's -targeting system. It works, and quite fun to play, but it's not as mechanically deep DMC or God of War. It feels more like an enhanced OoT combat system, although there isn't much enemy variety so towards the end of the game it starts to feel quite repetrtive


I love the post apocalyptic modern setting, which definitely helps separate itself from the fantasy medieval setting of Zelda to offer it's own unique experience. The lore is quite good, especially if you are familiar with any of the Abrahamic religions, it takes concepts and events and twists it to it's own dark universe. You can tell they really want to set up a larger universe with multiple games, just from this first game which was ambitious of the team and (almost) delivered.

It's not a masterpiece like Ocarina of Time, but it does what it sets out to do very well. Nothing here is ground breaking or innovative. It's just a great all around Zelda clone, which I'm glad I revisited to give a second chance.

[Average Reading Time: 7 Minutes]

A search action game that deserves to be remembered.

The Adventure Island series of games has always been a smaller curiosity of mine. I've played the NES entries in short bursts, never reaching the end of any of them due to the difficulty. Back when the Wii Shop was still alive, I bought and beat Adventure Island: The Beginning, which did little to impress me. Despite loving the SNES and its library, I never sought out the Adventure Island games that were released on it. After all this time of letting these entries live in my subconscious, I felt that now was the time to finally see first-hand what they were cooking for Nintendo's 16-bit juggernaut.

While the focus of this review will be its sequel, I would like to say a few words regarding Super Adventure Island. Those words are these: I didn't like it. 3 lives, 3 continues, 1 hit deaths and highly awkward platforming make this entry an annoying game to clear, despite its short length. There is another reason I'm telling you this, though. Chances are if you played that game and didn't enjoy it, you may have immediately written off playing the sequel, assuming it would be more of the same with barely any improvements to make it stand out. Oh, I am so happy to say that is not the case.

Much like games such as Knack 2 and Red Steel 2, Super Adventure Island II is a sequel that does away with the bad of the prior entry and introduces a wealth of gameplay that makes you wish the game was called anything else so you wouldn't have looked at it and thought of its lesser earlier entry. Unlike Knack 2 and Red Steel 2, though, Super Adventure Island II moves away from the previous game in such a large way that it's surprising to see that this is even in the same series!

Super Adventure Island II (which I'll be abbreviating to SAI2 from here on out) is a search action game in the same vein as the Metroid series of games. Funnily enough, SAI2 came out 5 months after Super Metroid, but I digress. Now, rather than simply running to the right while collecting fruit and throwing tomahawks, you'll be exploring open stages, collecting weapons and armor, and finding key items that allow you to explore more of the world.

Even the story gets a bit of an upgrade here. The game opens with Master Higgins and his newly wed wife Tina riding across the sea, celebrating their honeymoon. Their leisure-filled journey is brought to a halt when they're knocked off their raft by a storm shaking up the seas. They both wake up on different islands with their memories completely wiped. Master Higgins sets out to regain his memories, and Tina is found by the king of Waku-Waku Island, who falls in love with her and proceeds to marry her. During the wedding, though, Tina is kidnapped. Master Higgins arrives to the castle as this occurs and begins his quest to save Tina as requested by the king, oblivious to the fact that the woman he's saving is his wife.

Considering the simple setups of previous entries in the series (the prior Super game's story was just that a freaky little dude turned Tina to stone for no reason. Very deep.), this is quite a step up. I actually enjoyed watching the story unfold, as you get cutscenes after each boss fight showing Tina and Master Higgins beginning to remember each other. There's some quirkiness to the dialogue that caught me off-guard, as well. For example, you can rest at the castle which will result in Tina appearing to you in a dream to give you some guidance on what you need to do next. At the end of one of these hints, she commented that she was missing her "soaps", which got a good chuckle out of me. While the story here isn't revolutionary, I'm very happy with what's here, and feel it does a satisfying job keeping you interested in the plot.

When it comes to the gameplay, there's a lot to cover. Let's start with how Master Higgins feels to control in general. Compared to the prior entry, this is a step-up in every way. You don't have to rely on momentum for big jumps anymore. Master Higgins controls great in the air. You have a run button now. It's amazing how well they fixed the issues with the controls of the last game, and this is just for how he moves and jumps!

Combat in this game is way more involved. You start out with your fists, but as you explore you find weapons and armor to equip, as well as shields to block small projectiles. Most of the weapons you'll find come in the form of swords, allowing you to slice at enemies both on the ground and in the air. There's also a number of other types of weapons to find, such as daggers that can be thrown at distant foes and fireballs that spin around you. Experimenting with weapons is a lot of fun in this game and it allows you to develop your own strategies to take down foes and bosses in your path.

With an armor system, we also get one of the most important changes made for this game: NO MORE ONE-HIT KILLS! Ooooh, boy, it feels so good to have a health bar in an Adventure Island game for once. As you explore, you'll even find upgrades to make your health bar bigger! After playing the previous game and dealing with those annoying one-hit deaths, it feels like such a breath of fresh air to not die instantly because I let a weird flying fox touch me or something. Speaking of dying, the penalty for death isn't too bad here, either. You simply restart at the entrance of the island you're on with everything you collected so far still in your inventory. Man, it almost feels like they're apologizing for years of unfair retro gaming practices in the form of a game that actually respects your time and I'm all here for it!

Speaking of islands, there's a few to sail between and explore. You travel via raft on the overworld to each one, with each large island being its own level. There's also a number of side paths on the overworld that lead to more upgrades and progression items, so exploration is rewarded well here! Another quirk of overworld travel is that there are random encounters, which is weird since there's no exp system at all. They kind of exist to slow you down, but they're over as quickly as they start. They kinda function like overworld encounters in Zelda 2, where you're dropped in the middle of a screen with some enemies around you and you have to reach the left or right end of the screen to get out. Very simple and more of an annoyance than anything else.

Along with a health bar, Master Higgins also gains the ability to wield magic! Once you find a wand, you'll be able to use all sorts of spells to even the playing field when the going gets tough. At the start, you'll just have a spell that returns you to the start of a stage (useful for when you revisit islands for missed items), but as you collect magic upgrades, you'll gain access to even more spells to cast, from healing moves to attacking moves to fast travel! Fast travel in a SNES game! It's hard to believe, but it's real!

Enemies will also drop health and magic refills, so there's not often too much of a worry about keeping either level up. Enemies can also drop coins, which can be spent to teach Master Higgins new moves, such as pushing rocks and doing Zelda 2 style upward and downward stabs, which not only aid with progression but also in combat! Coins are also used to rest at the castle to hear Tina complain about missing her shows while she gives you hints. There's one other use for coins, though...

ENTER THE CASINO! So there's a casino hiding in the world of SAI2, and in it lies the best equipment in the game. However, it's a casino, so they're not gonna give these to you cheap. You're gonna have to play casino games, like slots, to earn enough dosh to get yourself suited up with crazy powerful gear! Now, I'd like to state that this game is very beatable without grinding the casino for gear. I will admit, though, that I spent over 3 hours grinding the casino game "Run for Doe" (think horse race betting except the horses are enemies you fight) to get enough funds for the best equipment and I don't regret it at all, so it's entirely up to you if you're down for that kind of grind!

Honestly, though, I don't think I would've bothered with the casino at all if I didn't like this game. I genuinely loved my time with this game from beginning to end, even with the casino grind. The soundtrack is fun, the gameplay feels great, getting stronger gear and new magic moves is highly satisfying, and the story kept me interested for once. There's not much more I can say other than this: If you enjoy search action games, you owe it to yourself to try Super Adventure Island II!

I was so excited for Octopath Traveler when it came out. JRPGs are my favorite genre of games. I absolutely fell in love with the art style and thought the premise of 8 different stories was a cool concept. Unfortunately Octopath Traveler under delivered in every aspect for me outside of art. That is why I waited so long to really give Octopath Traveler 2 a try even though I bought it the week it came out. I’m very happy to report that Octopath Travler 2 succeeds in every aspect that failed in the original.

Let’s start with the story and characters. In the original I only like 3 of the 8 cast the other 5 I didn’t even care about. They felt soulless and I didn’t care about anything going on with them. In Octopath 2 I struggled on who to keep in my party as I loved all 8 characters very much. Each one had motives, struggles, and real emotions that made me care about them. But what really made this game so much better was the story. In the original the stories were so disconnected with chapter after chapter being a boring slog fest. Characters didn’t have any relevance at all unless the chapter was about them. No inner party connections and at times you wondered if they even knew each other were there together. It felt like there was no purpose, no over arching story. Now I’m not going to lie to you and say this is a great story and that the party was as connected as some of the greats in the genre. But I will say it was a Grand Canyon size difference from the original. The story’s were entertaining with no throw away chapters. As the stories unfolded you could see there was something connecting these stories that was drawing closer to being realized. The party grows together, have real conversations, and care about each other. These small things made a world of difference in the quality of the games.

The battle system is very similar to the original but with minor changes that make all the difference. For one the battles felt faster and more snappy. My second biggest problem with the original outside of story is it blatantly didn’t respect the players time. If you wanted to beat the original plan on running in circles for hours to grind out EXP from random encounters. With Octopath 2 you can change at will whether you are playing at day or night. When it is night you fight tougher enemies leading to more EXP thus killing the need for grinding as well as making you use more strategy than just hit X to kill the enemy but gain no EXP. My final major upgrade is the boss fights. In the original literally EVERY SINGLE BOSS FIGHT was a DPS race with each side one a timer. It wasn’t fun or satisfying. Octopath 2 is much more strategy based finding weak points and exploiting them to gain an advantage. Again simple things can make worlds of difference.

The art style is one thing that didn’t change and thank God for that. The game is a beautiful masterpiece with wonderful set pieces and great character designs. I love thier take on 2.5D and wish many more games made use of it. The music is equally sublime and many tracks stand out as greats in the medium.

All in all if you were turned off from Octopath 2 because of the extremely average Octopath Traveler please don’t be. Give this game a chance if you are a JRPG fan, it is worthy of your time.

My 2024 ranked. (It’s been a supberbyear in gaming for me so far)
https://www.backloggd.com/u/DVince89/list/games-i-played-in-2024-ranked-1/

This game is rated e for everyone and there's a stripper in the game.

Do I need to say anything more? I mean you got the blue narsisist that yells straight, a Bootleg cheap copy Ryu from Street Fighter, Bub but make him a Discord Moderator, and a purple haired.... Sorceress that doesn't even fit within the vibe of Puzzle Bubble? All these characters are honestly goated. But a stripper in an Everyone rated game.

Nice going Taito!

Risk II is a very nostalgic game for me because it was among the first video games i've ever played.
It successfully captures the strategic depth and core rules/mechanics of the original board game. Basically, in this game you need to conquer the world.
The map is well-detailed, and the troop animations during battles add some flavour to the experience. The user interface is intuitive, allowing players to easily manage their armies and territories. The inclusion of detailed statistics and battle outcomes helps players refine their strategies and improve their gameplay.
The AI adapts to different strategies, however sometimes it gets easy to read as it has its own limits.
Overall, Risk II is a well-crafted strategy game that successfully translates the classic board game experience to the digital realm.

Not really much to say about this one, as it is essentially just Tetris and Dr. Mario, except they look nicer now. There is a new game mode that switches between the two games as you are playing them against another opponent, but it doesn’t really change anything around to the point where it feels like that much of a substantial addition. Not to mention, the music is butchered compared to the originals, to where it makes me wanna down a bottle of Dr. Mario’s pills, so that I won’t have to listen to it anymore from the fact that I’ll be dead.

Remakes #12 and 13

Any Nintendo fan, if you were to bring up the topic, would most likely talk your ear off about how great or bad Nintendo’s lineup of consoles has been from the NES all the way up to now, with the possibility that you may even get some people who will go out of their way to defend some of their more apparent blunders like the Wii U (it’s me, I’m one of those people). However, if there is one universal fact that most fans of Nintendo can agree on is that, out of all their consoles, the Virtual Boy was the absolute worst one of the bunch. For those that somehow don’t know, this was the placeholder console that was released in-between the SNES and the N64 around the mid-90s, and as you could probably tell by the name, this was meant to be a… ahem, REVOLUTIONARY system! It was gonna implement 3D and VR technology into console games, bringing capabilities that consoles like the SNES and Genesis could only DREAM of pulling off……………. or at least, it was, if it didn’t immediately crash and burn right out the starting gate.

Most of the games that were released for the thing barely took advantage of these capabilities whatsoever, which makes one question why you would even play these games in the first place, and given the fact that every single one of these games could only be played with this garbage red and black color scheme that would do a real number on your eyes, it becomes all too clear as to why this thing only lasted a year before being thrown away by Nintendo themselves. But hey, I will give the system credit, as not everything that it did was completely awful. For one thing, it gave everybody a clear idea on not how to make a video game system, and we did end up getting one or two decent games from the machine, such as with what I would consider the best game ever to be released on the platform, Virtual Boy Wario Land.

It only made sense that we were gonna be seeing more Wario Land games soon after the original game, considering how successful it was, but I never would’ve guessed that the next game in the series would be made exclusively for the Virtual Boy. Granted, that doesn’t make me wanna play it any less, but it definitely makes it hard to recommend to anyone given that fact alone, hence why I never played the game for the longest time until earlier this year when I decided to check it out. It wasn’t that hard for me to get into it, but HOO BOY, you think that staring at the red and black graphics were bad, then you should try what I did, and stare at a bunch of purple, blue, and red graphics that clash horribly with each other for hours at a time, so that was a lot of fun to go through. But anyway, obvious flaws aside, I actually ended up having a lot of fun with the game, and I would say it is really good. I wouldn’t say it is better then the original Wario Land, nor anywhere near as good as future games in the series, but it still manages to be a pretty solid platformer, and definitely the best game that was ever released on the Virtual Boy.

The story is pretty basic for a Mario spin-off like this, where while Wario is chilling inside of a cave in the Awazon region (yes, you read that correctly), he is disturbed by a gang of evil baddies who go on and take all of the treasure of the land for themselves, with Wario giving chase towards them, only to end up getting thrown down through the floor, so it is up to him to fight his way back up, get many treasures along the way, and maybe take down some bad guys as well. Again, pretty standard stuff going on here, but it is still charming and simple enough to where you can easily get invested in Wario’s plight, because not only can most of us relate to wanting to get millions of dollars through any means necessary, but you do wanna see him beat the fuck out of these creatures as well.

The graphics are… well, take a wild guess how they are, but even if we ignore the obvious elephant in the room, we got some really great sprite work going on here, with all the different levels, characters, enemies and so on looking pretty damn great, which makes the game that little more appealing to look at, the music is really good, having plenty of great tracks to hear in there such as this one, but I dunno, something about it doesn’t quite come close to what we had in the original game for me, and the gameplay/control is pretty standard for a Wario game, having everything that you would expect, with a few more bells and whistles attached as well, making for a pretty entertaining time all throughout.

The game is a 2D action platformer, where you take control of Wario once again, go through a set of fourteen different levels that’ll lead you all the way up through this tower, defeat plenty of enemies using your natural brute strength or whatever tools you have at your disposal, gather several different powerups, rare treasures, and LOTS of coins throughout your journey to get as rich as ever and for extra bonuses, and take on several bosses that can actually prove to be quite a challenge, not just because some of their gimmicks can take some time to getting used to, but you will also need to fight to see whatever is happening because of the goddamn screen. Once again, we have all heard this song and dance before, usually without any graphical nonsense holding it back, but it manages to make up for it in plenty of different ways, such as its overall tight design, its infectious energy, and having plenty of genuinely fun platforming challenges to see throughout.

If you had played the original Wario Land, then you pretty much know almost everything to expect out of this game: you run around, you bash these tiny fuckers around to take their money, you find MANY riches hiding around every corner, and you even find plenty of secret treasures along the way, which can change up the type of ending you get. That is pretty cool and all, with all of these elements blending together in beautiful, red-painted harmony, being very fun to play through, exploring around to get all of the treasures, solving the puzzles, finding these different hats that can help you out, even to the point of completely cheesing levels at some points, and even playing the minigames for the chance of getting more coins and extra lives. Most of it sticks pretty closely to the original game, but there is one thing that definitely does set it apart from that other game: the 3D aspect.

Given how this game was released on Virtual Boy, it definitely needed some sort of 3D or “VR” gimmick to make it stand out, and the way that this game does this is by introducing backgrounds, which you can jump to and from whenever you please using these arrow pads that you will find throughout many of the levels. It’s a very simple idea by today’s standards, but it is fun to explore both parts of each level to see what each might be hiding, encouraging even more exploration to see how you can go to and from that background, along with finding all of those hidden goodies. Not only that, but the game does also make sure to challenge you with this gimmick as well, with there being plenty of obstacles that can either sway to and from the background, or even send you to and from it as well whenever you aren’t quick on your feet. Hell, there are even plenty of enemies and bosses that take full advantage of this, leading you to pay close attention to who is gonna do what next, and what you should do from there, making for some somewhat tricky, yet still fun enemy encounters.

Unfortunately though, despite all of the good that is being done with this game, there are definitely some things that hold it back from being as good as the original Wario Land. For one thing, like I mentioned earlier, this game sticks WAY too closely to its roots, not introducing that many new gameplay mechanics, gimmicks, or enhancements on previous formulas whatsoever, with the only exception to this being with the 3D aspect, which can only really get you so far at the end of the day. Not to mention, the game is also pretty short, even shorter than the original game, where four of the 14 stages that I previously mentioned are just boss fights, and it doesn’t take too much time to clear out the other stages either, making the journey over much sooner then you would hope it would be.

And finally, the one last issue I have with it that probably triumphs over everything else…….. the fact that it was released on Virtual Boy. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that the game is any worse for being exclusive to the VB even to this day, but for a system that primarily advertised itself on being a 3D VR headset in the 90s, having a 2D platformer on it with VERY SLIGHT 3D elements just seems very… out of place. You could’ve probably made this game for the SNES, changed up the 3D element in some way, and ended up with a much more successful and widely beloved product at the end of the day, and yet, here we are. Not to mention, again, given how the game is always constantly black, red, or whatever color your emulator decides to be, it makes me never want to go back to play this again, and instead just watch it on YouTube instead, which is a huge shame, especially considering how wonderful this game really is beyond all that.

Overall, despite a lack of major change, its short length, and the platform it was released on, VB Wario Land is definitely a hidden gem from Nintendo’s library, and a pretty good followup to the original Wario Land as a whole, having very tight and fun platforming challenges to take on, lots of money for you to find in many different places with the powerups, and fun fights all throughout that, when you beat them, makes you feel like you really conquered something……. even if the something in question is the VB’s graphics. I would definitely recommend it for those who are big fans of the Wario Land games, as well as those who are just THAT curious enough to see what kind of titles the Virtual Boy has to offer, because, in my own personal opinion, there is no better option you can choose from other then this one. Not really sure what kind of joke I could end on with this review, so rather then trying to make one, I’m just gonna show you all what the final boss is like here, because he is absolutely terrifying. I would say that he probably scared a lot of kids back in the day, but in order to do that, that would imply that people actually bought this game and a Virtual Boy back in the day, and uh, ha ha………….. that didn’t happen.

Game #588

Just when you think "it can't get more complicated", this story will find a way to get more complicated.

Then Wake to Weep is a satisfying story finale for Penacony with some stunning setpieces - Dreamflux Reef is particularly pretty. It's about twice as long as the previous patch, but that's also because of the increasingly verbose explanations for everything related to the dream world, so if you're interested in all the additional worldbuilding, the storytelling of 2.2 might be right up your alley.

I wish Boothill would have gotten more screentime and relevance, considering the devs teased him playing a big role, but he's mostly a comic relief character here. Maybe he'll get his time to shine in the upcoming epilogue, since that should tie up some loose ends as well. With that out of the way, I still had a great time with the overall narrative and the twists and turns present in Then Wake to Weep, especially since a bunch of characters with overall less screentime in the previous two chapters got their spotlight here. The boss fight at the end was also a great way to wrap everything up and I loved the song that played during the final phase.

Despite some missed potential, it's a fitting end to Penacony with an interesting villain, and lured me in well enough to finish it within just a single day - but I can't say it sticks with me more than Aventurine's story in the previous patch, that one felt special.

Finished this dlc for the second time today, and it's still peak.

Pretty sure I only had three deaths to bosses; one to Demon Prince and two to Midir. Actually did Lapp's quest for the first time, which was a fun look at a classic character and his armor was a nice reward. I summoned him for the Spear of the Church boss since it felt like his quest wouldn't be truly complete otherwise.

Slave Knight Gael was just as fun the second time, and effortlessly defended his spot at #2 on my "Best FromSoftware Bosses" list. I used the Great Corvian Scythe this time, which turned out to be a really fun choice. In the end I was out of Estus, one hit from death, and managed to close it out with some tightly timed attacks in between one of his combos.

Couldn't ask for a better conclusion to the series.