I honestly don't know why I put this down at first, Rayman Legends is absolutely incredible. There's a ton of satisfying movement tech that you get to flex in the competitive online challenges (which fortunately, are still up for console versions) and the music levels at the end of each world are perfect victory laps.

A solid Short-Hike-like where you get to forget about life for a while and wack cardboard cutouts on a stick while shield surfing and t-shirt gliding everywhere.

Lives rent-free in my head and is probably still my favorite 2D precision platformer. So disgustingly good, that it ruined the rest of February and the entirety of March by making everything else feel a little worse in comparison.

If they had improved the movement/platforming in-between the fights and nerfed the team abilities with a longer cooldown, this probably would have taken my GOTY by a strong margin. As it stands, it still came out of the gate swinging and was a fantastic and colorful introduction for me to the character action game genre.

I really sucked at this game as a kid, and fortunately I suck a little less and managed to finally clear all the levels. It's still one of the most creative implementations of a rhythm game but with plenty of absurd scenarios thrown into the mix, and though I think it slightly overreaches with the guitar levels on the DS (particularly the whammy using the triggers), it's still one of the best to ever do it.

Finally found the time to commit to this year. Turns out grown men tearing off their suits like velcro and enthusiastically clapping to karaoke is as good as everyone's made it out to be.

I feel like this metroidvania's really gone under the radar for some reason, or maybe it's just me given that I am just one of a dozen Teslagrad fans out there. Either way, it's everything I could have asked it to be with very clean movement powered by electrical wires and magnetic rails. Boss fights could have been a bit more memorable though.

Probably the best survival-horror game just down to its core basics. Not much else to say, just a stunningly perfect game.

There's so many holes I could poke into this game (awkward forced stealth sections, insufficient gems in missions/overworld forcing me to gem grind for all upgrades, occasionally claustrophobic camera, janky special moves, etc), and yet I'm willing to look past all of that because there's so much charm and love poured into it. Probably my favorite clearly flawed game, if that makes sense.

I've listened more to Sk8ter Boi and Jumping Jack Flash during my week of playing Elite Beat Agents more than I have in my entire life, and yet it just never got old. Music lives.

I'm breaking my "4/5 and above" rule just this once because Cubivore has sat in my brain for some reason despite wearing out some of my goodwill near the end. Vicious combat, edgy writing, blocky textures, and calming piano tracks come together to form one of the most distinct experiences on the GameCube outright. Probably should use a guide so you don't spend too much time grinding though.

Not surprised that I liked this game considering how much I liked the original Katamari Damacy, and the twists on the formula with the racetrack and the campfire were fantastic. I still prefer the original, but I can absolutely see why others claim that it's the perfect sequel.

I thought the bump combat in Ys I + II was solid, but this made me actually love the bump combat of classic Ys and wish we had another game in its vein.

Way too fucking real for the hour I spent. I did call my parents afterwards, was a great ice-breaker to talk about some other awkward topics that we had been avoiding for the longest time.

Alright Pang, you were right. This was better than Jet Set Radio Future once I actually got good at the game.

Simultaneously more polished yet not nearly as satisfying as the original Jet Set Radio, but I still had a smile on my face the whole time so who am I to complain? With a few tweaks to combat and some nerfs to the manual, I think this has the potential to become something even more with future iterations.

Has some noticeable limitations on how it constructs its languages, but still delivers on the premise of deciphering and forcing contextualization with all the different adventure game elements. Still though, it really didn't need half of those forced stealth segments.

Capcom Production Studio 3 wasn't having the best year in 2003, but they really delivered with the concept of Resident Evil attached to a time loop + stealth-observation. One of the best takes on the formula I've seen; hopefully indie devs start taking notes.

Simultaneously made me realize why I got burnt out on roguelites/likes in the past decade while surpassing almost all of them effortlessly.

I've definitely dragged my first Zelda game somewhat from all the different things they could have improved upon as part of an adventure game, but I also can't imagine Majora's Mask any other way. I suppose that's what it takes to ensure that Termina is never met with a terrible fate.

I'm still working on collecting my thoughts here for a formal write-up, but the short and thick of it? I think this blows Ico out of the water. And I loved Ico.