Drax
BACKER
2020
It's definitely a musou game, but at the same time, it still captures the essence and feel of Persona 5 thanks to fantastic integration of the Persona 5 mechanics, graphics, and storyline. You might not enjoy this game as much if you're not into the Persona series (and you do need to have played the original Persona 5 to understand the background), but it held my attention throughout the entire game and I'm really happy that I got to go back to this universe again.
2020
One of the better walking sims out there. Super pretty visuals and well made puzzles (but not overly complicated and with solid quality of life features so you have all the resources to solve them) make this a pretty enjoyable experience. More detail could have been given to the protagonist and her old life, and there were some bugs when I played through the Game Pass version (the cutscenes did not work and were replaced by a blank white rectangle), but all in all, a fairly nice and simple experience. The payoff wasn't amazing, but the journey was satisfying enough.
Cold Steel II but better. Has some plot holes here and there, but most of the character development is very welcome and it's really nice to see the old characters from Trails get to play their part in what is essentially a love letter to the series as one of the finales. It's also still fairly fun to break the combat system in different ways. Overall, not as good as SC or the Crossbell games (from what I know), but it's the most solid out of the Cold Steel games.
2020
The puzzles are pretty solid, maybe a little too easy. The story feels extremely disjointed and a little too heavy handed at times though. The vague downer ending doesn't really seem to help things either. I appreciate what the devs were trying to do, but more depth and detail in the story would have really enriched the experience.
2020
There's not much of a strong narrative here unfortunately, I feel like a bit of the plot is left unresolved and there are a lot of missing details to fill in the gaps of the story. However, the real strength of the game is that you get to swim around and just scan and take pictures of marine life while you listen to ambient tunes. I do wish that there was more of the game to enjoy, but it's a very chill time.
2019
To me it feels like a better RiME; there's less "gameplay" overall, but what's there feels a lot more polished and precise, and the message is much more well focused than RiME. The ending is also much more satisfying and manages to feel more like an apotheosis to some extent. This game gets pretty heavy handed, and some parts are scarily relatable. The voice acting could be better and the camera gets annoying at times (I really do wish there was an FOV slider too), but overall, not a bad experience at all. Just be prepared for how dark it can get.
1992
The whole time I was playing this, this was going through my mind: "Why am I not playing Kirby Super Star instead?" Really has not aged well. Fortunately there are many better and newer Kirby titles out there.
2020
Very clever puzzles combined with a really charming and adorable world + characters. One of the better indie puzzle games I've played recently.
1996
I really don't have anything outstandingly bad to say about Super Star, Milky Way Wishes in particular holds up really well to this day. Great chiptunes, solid boss fights, and peak Kirby gameplay. What more could you want?
1988
I'm not a fan of some of the level design choices in World 7 and 8; 8 in particular is side scroller hell. The rest of the game is pretty solid though.
1998
The game gets absurdly hard at times and requires a lot of precision platforming for an FPS, and the final boss is pretty underwhelming. That said, the gunplay and exploration are both fantastic. It's not hard to see how this advanced story-based FPSs so much.
2012
Maybe it's nostalgia, but Journey sure hits differently when you're feeling existential on a rainy afternoon wondering how you're still alive. I can't quite describe why this game means so much to me or even why you should play it. All I can say is that this game holds a special place in my heart and changed my life. Perhaps it will change yours too.
There's a lot of backtracking you need to do if you want to collect all the shards (since you need specific ability combinations to break some of the barriers), and there are plenty of parts with a fair amount of insta death or annoying enemies. The true final boss fight makes it worthwhile though, as it's one of my favorite boss fights in the entire franchise.
I hate Screech's Sprint in the context of trying to 102% the game, but literally everything else is fantastic. Amazing soundtrack, solid platforming mechanics, and tougher but fair boss fights. Probably still the peak of the series.
1993
The first pretty good Kirby game, copy abilities and graphics hold up pretty well. Controls can still be a little finicky at times and the final boss is a little annoying, but overall, solid experience.