This is a game I wanted to like so much more than I actually did. The sound design, visuals and especially the pre-rendered backgrounds are such a treat, though the music left a lot to be desired. I like the idea of a samurai-Resi hybrid action game. The thing is, I don't think the tank controls do this particular game any favors.

Combat is very simple in this game. You've got a handful of weapons with a basic combo and metered attack, plus a perfect parry that does loads of damage (great touch for a samurai game). You can move around survival horror style or lock onto an enemy, changing left and right into strafe buttons to allow for dodging incoming attacks or circling around threats. I'll be the first to admit my skill issue here, I fumbled with the controls quite a bit in my time with this game. My complaint isn't so much that "controls bad", it's that combat is so brutally simple that there isn't much to engage with, no hook to keep trying when the going gets tough.

Three weapons with one power move each makes for very repetitive encounters, and the progression of wandering and puzzle solving often lead me to walking around enemies just like Resident Evil. The game also has limited healing items you have to use the same XP that levels weapons to upgrade, and I unfortunately wasted all of it on the weapons before realizing I screwed my save to require near perfect gameplay for the entire end section. Perhaps I'll come back to this and find more enjoyment later, but for now I'll consider this playthrough good enough and move on to Onimusha 2 when I crave more B-tier Capcom action schlock.

I'm not much of a Smash fan but I think a lot of that comes from the unprecedented hype cycle for specifically the Wii U version of this game leading to not only the worst feeling big budget fighting game I've ever played (except maybe Virtua Fighter but that shit was revolutionary), but the worst community too. I'll give credit that some of the new characters had inventive movesets for the series. However, just about everything about this game compares negatively to both Brawl and Ultimate. Horrendous game feel, lack of single player content aside from the bare minimum, weakest remix selection in the franchise, that awful plastic-y look, the worst character balance ever with Bayonetta... I could go on for ages about how much I hate this game and everything it did.

No Clank in the title, no Clank in the gameplay. Ratchet: Deadlocked is a semi-spinoff of the mainline series that ditches the planet-exploring adventure elements to focus solely on the arena-based combat challenges that first appeared in Going Commando. While I don't think this game reaches the heights of the first two, once the gameplay loop settles in it's very addicting and quite the fun time. It's a lot like a 3D bullet hell, where you have to jump-dodge incoming projectiles and use cover to manage the damage you take throughout missions.

This game has perhaps my favorite implementation of the weapon leveling system in the series. The full loadout is very trim even compared to Up Your Arsenal, with only one weapon per use case. Each weapon can be adjusted with mods that add effects like zapping nearby enemies, freezing the one in place, dropping bouncer-bombs off the explosion, and so on. The low amount of ammo per weapon along with large swarms of enemies mean you will often have to switch between multiple weapons for the same purposes, leading to the most strategizing about what to use since R&C1. All weapons upgrade up to level 10, which means even players that favor a set of 3 or so weapons won't max them out until the very end of the game.

Surprisingly, considering the travesty that is this game's cover art, the story is actually one of the best in the series. It balances the team narrative and outwardly jokey nature of 3 along with the irreverent and play-it-straight comedy of 2 by portraying a deathmatch game show that parodies shows like the WWE. I would say the narrators interject a bit too often with bad jokes during gameplay, but it's very much the point so I'd leave it at "it would be better if they halved the frequency of voice lines". Gleeman Vox is a highlight villain, embodying the best elements of Vince McMahon's TV presence while finally living up to the villainy of Chairman Drek to give us a competent and cunning face behind the mayhem for once.

Underlining all that goodness is one of the most jamming soundtracks on the PS2. The electronic-hard rock vibe captures what you would think they were going for with that awful cover art. The visuals are quite nice as well, with color palettes that don't seer through your eyes like the worst levels in 3, though Ratchet's head never seems to fit the gladiator suits he is in whenever the helmet comes off Iron Man style. My last complaint is that since the structure of the game is entirely mission based with no exploration or moments of quiet, there isn't a really big sense of progression as you get to the end, as every single mission in the game ends with the same song and results screen. But aside from that, this is one of the most solid entries in the Ratchet and Clank series.

Just try not to think about the cover art while you are playing.

This is a sort of "dream sequel" to Super Mario 64 in a way, capturing a lot of the essence of that game's appeal in a new setting that pushes the mechanics and difficulty a bit further than Nintendo proper ever did. One of the greats of the ROM hacking scene, especially for SM64 considering how many shoddily designed hacks exist in the same space as this. The level design is a real treat if you are well trained with the controls, though newcomers may find this hack really frustrating. This is a big comfort game of mine to veg out to when I'm listening to youtube videos and crave a bit of 3D platforming on the side.

If you had to make a case for a perfect DLC that improves on its base game in every way, The Old Hunters would fit that bill quite well. It follows the formula of "short but sweet run through a few areas with a few bosses" of the other Souls DLCs, but the bosses here really give the base game a serious showing-up. They're fast and relentless, but very well balanced on the difficulty scale. Each boss plays like a sort of dance, as you learn their tells and rhythm. It kind of goes to show how weak a lot of the bosses in the main game are in comparison. And that music... hot damn.

I am very conflicted about this game. There's a sort of focus and confidence to the design that is beyond what earlier Souls games displayed. However, I also feel a lot of the best experimentation and design aspects were lost as this game over-specialized into its combat design. Don't get me wrong, the combat here is much better than in Dark Souls or Demon's Souls. But it's also not all that great compared to something like the Devil May Cry or Kingdom Hearts series.

The introduction of trick weapons is probably this game's best inclusion. It allows for a single weapon to have two different modes of attack, which greatly increases the variety of gameplay even as you spec into that one weapon. That said, this game has much less weapons than a typical Souls game, as each acts as two unique weapons as opposed to fitting a category. For such a great system, the game doesn't have all that great of a variety of enemies for you to use them on.

Bosses here are a bit of a disappointment. The game hits you early with masterclass fights like Father Gascoigne and Blood Starved Beast, but later fights are generally against big enemies with wide sweeping attacks that aren't all that fun to deal with in this system. The game does redeem itself a bit with Gehrman, possibly one of the best "final boss" type fights the series has had. However, it's a real shame the best combat the series has had is paired with the second weakest boss lineup, only beat in unoriginality by Dark Souls II.

The music and visuals never disappointed in this game, but I expected more with all the praise this one gets. The level design was incredibly solid for the early parts, so it was a shame to see the game doesn't vary a lot in terms of structure as it goes. It kind of feels like wandering through a forest for a really long time: at first it's interesting, but as it goes the monotony of the walk through similar areas really gets to you.

I can't say I didn't enjoy my time in Yahrnam, but I was expecting a lot more. For the supposed "masterpiece" of the Souls series, this game has very little variety or ambition of its own. This game is too long for its own good, with so much to do that nearly all feels exactly the same. I don't see myself coming back to this one much.

This game has me feeling the most hopeful for the series I have in a long time, but it's also "five steps forward, three steps back" for Sonic as a whole. The story was nice but much too focused on the past of the series, as if they were afraid to be too bold and defanged some intended darker elements or further character drama. I liked Sage's character but not that much, it was a very formulaic story that I think didn't differentiate itself enough from Shadow's original SA2 arc.

The open zone was the best part of the game by far, with lots of different small objectives and bosses giving a nice sense of exploration and a good sandbox for the movement. The freeform nature of it allowed for a lot of fun objective skipping and experimentation, though the physics were certainly wonky and restrictive a lot of the time as well. Given more time iterating, this style of gameplay could very well put Sonic back into the forefront of experimental and interesting platforming games.

The cyberspace levels were a nice concept, with some fantastic music and a good objective system. However, I feel the S rank times were too easy to achieve, a problem it shares with the many boost-era Sonic games it shares this design with. There also should have been a sort of special achievement for getting all the objectives in the same run to increase replay value. The level design was quite the disappointment as well, often reusing unedited chunks levels from Generations, Unleashed, and strangely enough Adventure 2.

Given the framework that this game set, I can see a true classic Sonic game coming out of Sonic Team again, which is something I haven't felt in a very long time. They just need to spend more time working out the kinks in the design, create more original content for the cyberspace stand-in, and write a bolder story with less talking and more actions from the characters.

I was expecting a bit more from this one. Level design was good but not great by Half-Life standards, and I felt the environmental storytelling was much weaker than the original game. The new alien weapons were cool concepts but didn't add much to the overall experience. The difficulty curve of this game is quite intense, by the end I felt like I was getting spammed with enemies. Don't get me wrong, it was still a fun time with engaging gunplay and great design. I just went in expecting some grade-A Half Life and this felt more like a B-tier spin off.

One of the most difficult and action-packed games in the Metroid series, Prime 2 focuses more on the moment-to-moment challenge than its predecessor. The game starts strong with an incredibly well directed "post-disaster" scene that is much more engaging than the equivalent in Prime 1. This strength in directing holds for all the cinematics and location reveals in the game, with my favorite portrayal of Samus as a character through animations.

The light/dark world spin this game has on the Metroid formula is interesting, though it detracts from the exploration aspect a bit. The game asks you to retread similar but changed level layouts, with toxic air and stronger enemies doubling the already high danger of the light world counterparts. It means you do less "discovery" than most Metroid games, but instead use your memory of recent layouts in a sort of challenge mode. All in all I think it's not a bad idea, and only in late game item retrieval did I find annoyance in how sparse portals often make you travel long distances to get many places.

Combat in this game in general is decent, but the bosses here are an absolute treat. There are straightforward shooting matches with Dark Samus, enemies that use your own abilities against you, and the major area bosses that are long battles that often make use of multiple abilities at once. The variety and creativity is stellar, and the combat is enhanced a bit with the beam ammo system imo. You can't just choose your strongest beam, you have to balance enemy weaknesses with your current ammo count and try to get ammo with kills of the opposite beam. It's easy to get scared and just use the power beam all the time, but if you get the ammo upgrades and try to use the beams more often you may find some fun in the system.

Thankfully this game has many area shortcuts to get around easily during the end game macguffin search, though the light/dark world portal placement can often lead to tedium in retreading areas at times. However, the finale is the best in the Prime series by a long shot. Overall I think this game is almost as good as Prime 1 but rougher around the edges.

This game is absolutely sublime. Metal Gear before this was a fairly simple stealth action series but this game took the complexity and player expression to an entirely different level. Guard AI is the most interesting in the series by a long shot, the level design is superb with every room being its own interesting and memorable puzzle, there are loads of different ways to handle all sorts of different situations. The base game is somewhat lean on gameplay but the VR/alternative missions and Snake Tales additions in Substance more than make up for that.

Much has been said about this game's story, which I think overall is the strongest in the series. Though I don't think people talk enough about how engrossing Raiden is as a character. He tries so hard to just do his mission the best he can, while the situation is constantly getting worse through no fault of his own. I've heard people complain about Dead Cell but I think Vamp and Fortune are great characters, Fatman I understand the complaints with but he's really no different from most members of Cobra Unit aside from having a more fleshed out backstory.

The sound design and music here is just incredible. One of my favorite game soundtracks ever, with so many memorable songs that fit the atmosphere and mood so well. The sound mixing and every single sound effect is just so iconic. The voice acting as well stands out as really great even as the rest of the industry caught up with MGS1 (fake accents notwithstanding), with dramatic scenes having a real punch that games MGS4 and onwards were really missing.

Idk maybe I'm gushing a lot but this really is one of my favorite games ever and I'm always having a blast when I revisit it.

This was... fine? The voice acting and cutscenes are a huge downgrade from MGS1. Mechanics from 2 are added very sloppily, like the random noisy spots on the floors and nearly useless lockers in odd corners. The controls map kinda strangely to the GameCube controller imo, the Z button sucks for aiming and I would accidentally equip and unequip weapons/items a lot while adjusting my aim in first person. I appreciate that they cut down on the backtracking but I'd MUCH rather play the original compared to this, even with the improvements it brings.