I have never really tried to get in to a fighting game, outside of Smash. I've dabbled in Mortal Kombat (9?) and played a bit of Soul Calibur 5, but never really attempted getting decent or playing online.

I had pretty much written off ever playing a fighting game in any significant way. Then this game was upon us, and I found myself drawn to how colourful and beautifully animated it was. For once, I was actually interested. It also seemed to be a game that newcomers would be able to get some enjoyment out of.

I decided to try it and start with the World Tour mode. I enjoyed my time with that for about 5 hours max, then it started to get old and repetitive. I figured I might as well try out playing online, and I started having quite a bit of fun!

I used Cammy for the majority of the time but then switched over to Marisa for a bit because I thought she'd fit my play style better. She definitely does. I love me some heavy hitters. Unfortunately, I found myself at what I considered a pretty hefty plateau, and I know that I've got to put in a lot of practice and dedication to overcome that. I just don't think I'm willing to invest that kind of time. I'm not the kind of person that can enjoy a game like this casually. I either have to get really good, or I'm not going to enjoy it.

Regardless, it's easy to see how good this game is. If you put the time in, it's a ton of fun. It looks and runs fantastically, and the amount of tools at your disposal to learn in-game is lovely to see. I also really like the music, especially that title song.

I could see myself getting really in to this, but at least for now I'm going to move on to other things. There are way too many fantastic games releasing this year to commit this much time to a single one.

I probably put about 35 hours in to this, and I'm satisfied with that. I'm glad I tried it out and didn't write it off like I have pretty much every other fighting game in existence.

This was my first game on the Steam Deck! It was a perfect fit!

I like the battle system a lot. I like how the negotiation system works, too. It took some getting used to but I ended up liking the two equally. At first, negotiating put me off due to it being so different.

I'm coming from games like Slay the Spire, Monster Train, Across the Obelisk, and Wildfrost. StS still remains the peak of the genre, but this does a lot right.

The "main" way to play the game that involves a story and lots of dialogue is totally fine. After a couple hours, I just started skipping all the dialogue. I didn't find it interesting, it was just deterring me from the actual game. It's a shame you have to play through that part with each character to unlock the "Brawl" mode that let's you only play the good parts (the combat). Once you unlock Brawl, it becomes Slay the Spire and that's the good stuff.

I stopped playing it due to Baldur's Gate 3 releasing. I wasn't quite done with it, but at this point I don't think it's quite compelling enough to pull me back in afterwards.

After the first couple hours, I thought I was going to thoroughly enjoy this. It felt like a Pokemon game, but actually well designed. After about 15 hours or so, I had to drop it because it just wasn't keeping me interested. The story is incredibly bland and repetitive, which usually isn't a deal breaker for me. It certainly doesn't help, though. The battle mechanics ended up being way too literally rock-paper-scissors for me. At first I thought it was going to expand and become much more complex, but it never really did. The monsters themselves are cool, as they are in normal MH games. I didn't find the act of "catching" them and raising them very engaging, though. For all the things it does right, it feels like the ways it strays from the Pokemon formula hurt the game. The presentation of it all is miles ahead of Pokemon in terms of the cut scenes, the battle animations, etc. but it's not enough. The roaming around, battling, and the narrative all feel a bit repetitive and simple after a while. I enjoyed my time with it for about 10 hours - after that, it fell off.

I do think there is a lot here that Pokemon games should be taking note of (they won't) to improve their own games. Primarily the presentational aspects I mentioned a moment ago. Outside of its flashy (and quick) battles, it doesn't do much to stand out in the genre.

When BotW came out, it felt like a magical new direction for the series and at least for me, it made me feel like it could do no wrong. Despite certain elements not being exactly what I wanted, such as the repetitive shrines (especially the motion control focused ones) it was easily forgivable. It was easy to deem it a 10/10.

Tears of the Kingdom had an impossible task; be better than the revolution that was BotW. Be better than the game that made open world design actually tolerable. Although on one hand, I was very confident in this games' quality, on the other I was concerned it was going to be slammed for being outdated at this point - especially on the Switch hardware.

Well, seems like they pulled it off. All 3 levels of the world are fun to get lost in. It's crazy how you can be immersed in the underground for hours before realizing you should probably get back to what you were doing. At first glance, it seems like a boring, barren wasteland - but there's something about navigating the darkness that makes it exciting. There are just enough unique areas to keep you searching. I didn't enter the depths for a solid 10-15 hours of play time, so the realization that the shrines had roots that linked them to the structures beneath was quite a moment for me.

Not only that, but the sky is a joy to navigate as well. For the most part, my sky exploration was done whenever I launched out of a tower to survey the land. I love how that leads you to floating islands full of more things to explore. The game has a strangely unique flow to it. You get in a tower, it takes you to a sky island. After exploring that, you see a giant hole in the ground you haven't been to. After diving down, suddenly you find yourself in the abyss for 3 hours. Whoops, time to go back to the main land and find a new town. It pulls you through its world in a way that only Elden Ring has managed to do previously. It's cool to see that Breath of the Wild set up both Elden Ring and Tears of the Kingdom for similar levels of success with their world design.

I'm going to have to say I'm not that big of a fan of the fusing system. I don't find it enjoyable to build things in any video game. Fallout, Minecraft, Mario Maker, Little Big Planet, etc. have all taken steps to making building things "fun" and it's never worked for me. I'm not surprised I wasn't a fan of it here.

However, I will say that the EXECUTION of the things that you build and the creative ways you can use them is incredible. That's something that elevates this game to the next level. I don't like the act of actually putting things together - but the use they have afterwards is wild. Coming up with seemingly absurd solutions to problems and constantly making you feel like you're doing something that must not be intended is a miracle of game development never before seen. Like I said earlier, this is something BotW did and we all went nuts for it thinking it was genius. This game blows it out of the water; BotW feels like a joke now.

I've got to point out here that fusing things to weapons is cool. I enjoyed that aspect thoroughly. However, I see that system as having A LOT of room for expansion/improvement. I think you should be able to fuse multiple things together and they should have more unique elemental properties and applications. I think at the very least I expected to be able to take two items, fuse them together, and then fuse THAT to my weapon. It felt a little too streamlined. Also, it would be more interesting if items changed your weapon a lot more when you fused them. If you fuse your sword to a boulder, for example, it shouldn't turn in to a normal sword with a tiny boulder on the end. It should be a sword made of boulders that throws boulders when you swing, or something like that. Perhaps it should be more in line with a crafting system where you take a boulder, a sword, and some vines... and you create some sort of crazy roped boulder sword. I guess that's what I was hoping for; more unique creations. I feel like they put all of their efforts in the vehicular creation (which to me is boring) and nowhere near enough in to the weapon creation.

The ascend mechanic is one of my favourite mechanics of all time. It's probably the highlight of the game for me. Again, it allows you to "outsmart" the game if you put your mind to it. Building a structure that barely lets you reach a ceiling with ascend and then pulling it off feels great. Being able to escape the caves with it is a fantastic way to keep you in the moment without having to fast travel out and break momentum. Even worse in some games if you have to actually back track out manually. I'm glad they realized that would have been frustrating.

I agree with the sentiment that this game feels more like "a Zelda game" than BotW did. I have always loved (3D) Zelda games since OoT, outside of Skyward Sword. Like I said earlier, I loved BotW and think it was a great idea to break away from the traditions they had set. It was starting to get stale. I like the way they re-implemented some things that make TotK feel more like a fusion of Zelda games and BotW (which is hardly a Zelda game). Ganondorf being present is always a major plus, I don't really like any of the other antagonists the series has had. Ganon is one of the coolest video game characters, period.

The dungeons are back, in a way that fits how this game works. I'm surprised people are so positive about them, because they don't feel like traditional Zelda dungeons to me. That's not a negative point, just an observation. I thought they were fun to navigate. Although it fits the game, it still is strange to me that they aren't a bit more linear in design. However, I know that would probably break the flow of the game if they were. I'm a bit torn on this. I honestly kind of feel like this game, moreso than BotW did, makes me want more traditional dungeons. In BotW they didn't feel like dungeons at all; more like one big awkward puzzle. I didn't like them, but they didn't harm the experience. I honestly didn't miss traditional dungeons like everyone else seemed to. In TotK, though, they're closer to the old style and they CALL THEM dungeons, so I feel like it makes me actually want dungeons. Tackling the objectives in any order just doesn't feel right to me. Again, this doesn't really take away from the game for me.

The order I did the areas in surely influence my opinion on the companions, so I'll note that here.

20hr in - Goron area
25hr in - Ruto area
35hr in - Zora area
45hr in - Gerudo area
60hr - Beat the game

Those are very rough estimates. I wanted to point that out because I feel like the companions weren't as interesting as I'd hoped. I liked having the goron to help me clear out boulders - that was a cool touch and it felt powerful. It was even fun to fight with him and launch him into groups of enemies.

Before approaching the hebra area, I actually noted that I thought the powerup was going to be the ability to shoot forward in the air. It just made sense, because of how you were constantly moving horizontally while gliding. I'm glad it was because I liked this powerup the most by far.

The zora and the gerudo powerups are both let downs that I barely used. I wish they weren't so disappointing. It feels like they were meant as tools you use in battle, which I mostly wasn't interested in. I liked the functionality of the other two in exploration and I was hoping these two would be just as helpful in other ways. Perhaps surfing on bodies of water with the zora... or what I really wanted: digging downwards by using "descend" as the gerudo. That would have been awesome.

I loved the shrines in this game. Every time I went in to one, I was immediately struck by the thought "ok, so I think this might be how I'm supposed to do this but what's an alternative?..." that feeling never went away and it's one of the best parts of this game. Love it.

On the other side, I basically mentioned this before but the creation and usage of the "vehicles" was my least favourite aspect for sure. Whenever I was tasked with building something or using a machine that I built, I let out a sigh. I'm not a fan of using vehicular devices in anything outside of racing games. I like being on foot and using the tools I have to move around fluidly. Even in games where you have a mount, I generally don't like using them. Elden Ring is an exception to this as the horse was incredibly fluid to control and had a double jump. Generally, controlling a vehicle/steed is too cumbersome and isn't fun. This game is no different in that regard.

By the way - the ending is probably the best ending a Zelda game has seen. The final boss may be my new favourite (at least the 1st/2nd part - the 3rd part is visually cool but is pretty boring). At the very least it is on par with Wind Waker's.

Overall, this is most likely going to be the majority of peoples "Game of the Year" in a year absolutely FULL of incredible games. This might just be the best year in video games of all time, to be honest. That's quite an honour for this game to hold, if that happens. It's well deserved, too.

Will it be mine? I'm not sure. Baldurs Gate 3 and FF16 might have something to say about that.

After being recommended Shantae as a series due to my love for Metroidvania's, I thought I'd give one a shot. This seemed like a good place to start. I haven't ever taken the time to figure out what the series was like; I've just heard about it in passing a few times over the years. Turns out it's ~almost~ the kind of game that I love.

First, I'd like to get this out of the way: the ways the girls are designed (all the exact same way) is a bit weird. I'm not one to ever point something like this out, or even care... but this is by far the most egregious example of random/unnecessary fan service. (I don't go near other games that are way over the top with this, so this stands out to me.) Again, I don't really care about it in most games, but here it stood out immediately as very intentional and very distracting. Especially when the character art is shoved in your face constantly when conversations are being had. Also, it's such a jarring difference between the pixel art aesthetic and the very high resolution illustrations of the characters when in dialogue. All around just some strange/off-putting choices regarding the art.

To be honest, that last paragraph has nothing to do with my low-ish score of this game, though. That's not something that would move the needle of a games quality for me, I just figured it needed to be pointed out.

Anyways - the actual game. At first, I was optimistic. I think the game controls very well - the way a platformer should. The jumps are tight, the animation is smooth, the knockback feels right, the upgrades to your arsenal are fun, and the precision of all of your inputs is appreciated. I was thinking hey, we might have another Guacamelee/Hollow Knight on our hands here.

The problem arises when the "loop" sets in. I played up until the second last island. It became clear half-way through that you end up doing something similar on every island, and it got to be boring. Unlock a new island, go to it, realize you can't progress, go back to a spot on the island 2 islands ago, find a hidden path to get a random item for someone, give it to them, earn something to now progress on the new island - repeat.

It's somehow both too linear in its design and also too vague. The conversations had by the characters are not nearly interesting/engaging enough to truly pay attention to, so I was constantly looking up where to go next. Sometimes I clued in to what I was supposed to be doing, but about half the time I hit a wall and was like.... what? Where do I go? This is something that rarely happens in other Metroidvania's. Getting lost is part of the genre, though. In this game, it doesn't feel like getting lost while exploring, it just feels like you're going the way you should be but you hit an arbitrary wall that forces you to backtrack. It's not a smooth process; like I said, it's oddly linear. Oh, you walked to the right for 2 minutes through a mess of enemies that are piling on screen at an awkward rate. So much so that they overlap each other, sometimes. Welp, you hit a wall, time to turn around and go back through it so that you can get an item you didn't know you'd need. But guess what? Now you get to spam Y on your way back through those enemies for a third time! (Yes, I know the teleporting barrel thing exists, I used it frequently once I realized what it was.)

The map is an important tool in any Metroidvania. In this game, it serves its purpose (red/yellow squares are appreciated) but doesn't go any further to aid your quest. It would be nice to be able to look at the map of any island regardless of where you are. Additionally, I think adding the ability to place a pin on the map would do wonders. Plenty of times I came across something I couldn't access (like a hole/gap/chest) and assumed I could return to it later. The problem is, half of these things are mandatory to progress and half of them are just extra items. There's no way to know which ones are truly important to remember. I also don't think the areas are memorable enough to have me recall the exact location I came across something. Within each island, most of the scenery is very samey. Even in situations where I knew what kind of item I needed to progress, I had no idea where it was. They're always in super arbitrary spots. One of the last ones I got just required me to go back 2 islands, wander around and find a random patch of grass I could now destroy with my downward thrust. Why? Well, I guess that's how Metroidvania's work. I guess everything just felt like it lacked context. It didn't feel purposefully placed.

The music in this game is fantastic, though. Nothing to complain about there. Loved every tune I heard. Almost reminded me of Banjo-Kazooie music, which is some of my favourite video game music around.

In terms of the combat and your arsenal of tools... it's a mixed bag. Fighting things feels good, if you're just considering how it feels to jump around, dodge, and attack enemies. The problem is that it's, again, really basic. There's barely any reason to attack anything with things other than your basic attack. It's by far the most powerful way to fight. The game kinda just turns in to mashing Y. Outside of bosses, which were a highlight of the game. I liked the way the pistol was used to manipulate platforms, though that ability wasn't used much. The glider is cool, too. The scimitar was a pretty boring addition that late in to the game. I liked the way the boots were implemented because they weren't super easy to pull off, but it felt fair.

Overall, it just feels too by-the-books in its design for me. The segmentation of all the islands made it feel like I wasn't really exploring anything - I was just following a path until the game told me I wasn't allowed to. A Metroidvania is all about the interconnected paths and how you learn to slowly unveil new ways to explore the map. I didn't get that feeling at all here. It's a shame, because I love the way the game plays. It feels right, which I always say is the most important aspect. I suppose in a game like this, the exploration/progression is equally as important.

I likely won't be trying the newer games in the series, as they are supposedly easier than this one. I did find this game a bit too easy for my tastes, combat/platforming wise, so any easier would probably make things worse.
Maybe, though. I haven't totally written it off. There's a decent amount to like here, but it's on the lower end for me as far as Metroidvanias go.

I'm not sure where the degradation of my enjoyment comes from.

Perhaps it's because I played this solo, or perhaps it's because this game is inferior to Borderlands 1 and 2.

...perhaps it's similar in quality, but I just don't like this kind of game anymore?

I'm not entirely sure. All I know is that I didn't like it as much, and I REALLY liked Borderlands 1 and 2. They're some of my favourite games of all time.

I still liked this a lot, but I haven't had an urge to revisit it despite playing BL1 and BL2 multiple times each.