Not my first time playing this game, but this playthrough really made me appreciate just how incredible this game is. Daytime stages are pretty much the best a 3D platformer can get, the blistering high speeds and memorable level designs make for an infinitely replayable experience that gives you the overwhelming urge to get better at the game. Nighttime stages aren’t the pinnacle of action games or anything, but I still find them all enjoyable. This game can get quite difficult at points, but that’s honestly one of my favorite things about it, it’s not afraid to push you to your absolute limit. Unleashed really was the perfect title here. There’s a ton of content here too, one of the longest Sonic games and it earns it. Aesthetically, it’s the peak of the series. The game looks fantastic even 15 years later, voice acting is top notch, and it has arguably the most well developed soundtrack in the whole series. This is now neck and neck for being my absolute favorite Sonic game, it really doesn’t get much better than this. Every single part of the Unleashed playthrough experience is fun.

Played this to prep myself for the upcoming RE4 remake, really enjoyed it! They nailed the recreation of the game’s main areas, atmosphere here is fantastic and the game is definitely a lot scarier than the original. I still like the fixed camera style a lot, and I won’t lie there are some things I miss about the original (how colorful it was, the far superior soundtrack, the A to B progression system etc), so I wouldn’t call this a replacement of the original like the RE1 remake is, but if you have to just play one version of RE2 this is definitely it. My biggest problem with the game is still the way you essentially have to play it twice, I think it’s handled better here but it’s still a lot of the same thing just repeated and especially with the removal of the progression system here it kills any drive I have to fully re-experience the game. Mr X was made truly terrifying here and is definitely one of the best improvements, though there’s one notable point in both playthroughs where he’s more obnoxious than scary. The story is expanded on here a decent amount and is given a few new scenes that are great. I’ve been talking mostly about how this game serves as a remake, but the thing is RE2 1998 is still a great game for the time, and this faithfully takes the same core and transforms it for a modern audience. Almost all of its strengths and weaknesses were retained.

I thought I had my expectations in check but wow this was disappointing, such a downgrade from RE2 on every level. I knew going in that fans of the original disliked a lot of the changes here, and I can confirm that this game doesn’t care much about being faithful to the original. I’m fine with that, but the content that got replaced is so much better than what’s here. There were multiple moments here that were obnoxious bc of what felt like huge design oversights. The game looks and sounds great for sure, but it runs out of steam so fast. It’s even shorter than the original RE3 on a first playthrough which is insane, and there were still parts I wish were cut. Level design is my biggest issue here bc they clearly didn’t know when to calm tf down with enemy placement, it’s impossible to avoid so many of these guys so you end up just shooting everyone you run into and it’s so much less engaging than before. There’s also a few level specific mechanics that just do not feel well thought out at all. Boss fights are a notable sour point here, there aren’t many but they’re just damage sponges and are more irritating than challenging. Nemesis is not threatening whatsoever and his chase scenes are really lame even when compared to the original. This game fails as a follow-up to the RE2 remake and it’s even worse as a remake of the original game.

I’ve been playing more survival horror games than usual lately, and this managed to clear absolutely every single one of them. Where the horror in a game like Resident Evil comes from its harsh mechanics, the horror in Silent Hill comes mostly from its story and aesthetics. The story is interesting and creepy, and while it may not reach the heights of SH2, it’s still pretty good. Where this game truly excels are the aesthetics and especially the environmental design, it’s truly unreal. There are areas here that look and feel completely unlike anything I’ve ever played, and I mean that in the best way possible. The game is incredible at getting under your skin with its suggestive design. I was consistently impressed with every single area. This is arguably the best looking game on PS2, it holds up remarkably well especially playing on original hardware. Sound design is also excellent, as expected coming off of SH2. The atmosphere in this game is meticulously constructed in every single area, completely impossible to replicate. This is right up there with its predecessor as a must-play experience for any horror fan.

This is a collection of a bunch of vignettes that all play with JRPG tropes in unique ways, and for the most part I found these stories really unique and entertaining. This feels like the predecessor to Chrono Trigger in many ways, so fans of that game will immediately see similarities. It’s mostly a very accessible game, but my one big fault is that the game lets you choose any of these chapters to start with. Certain chapters I enjoyed within the context of the rest of the game, but are particularly unconventional and could make for a very weak first impression. Aside from that tho, I honestly loved this. Combat is a big standout for me, each encounter was like a mini tactics battle with a really fun grid system. I had to thoughtfully consider how to dispatch enemies effectively, and while it’s far from a difficult game, each battle had me engaged. Presentation is gorgeous with the HD-2D Switch remake, it’s a total overhaul that still remains faithful to the original. While some chapters are definitely weaker than others, I thoroughly enjoyed the majority of my time with this game. And while I won’t spoil the final segments that come after you finish the seven main chapters, I found them to be so fun and satisfying that they elevate the entire experience. This definitely deserves to be considered a classic of the era right alongside FFVI and Chrono Trigger.

What an amazing remake, takes everything that made the original special and modernizes it. I still think it’s worth playing the original alongside this bc they do feel different in areas, but this feels more like a modern adaptation than anything. RE4 was a fantastic game for 2005 standards, and now RE4R is a fantastic game for 2023 standards. They’ve expanded the story in some cool ways, still nothing crazy but I enjoyed seeing the additions. I like most of the characters a lot more here, especially Ashley. The movement feels fantastic here and this is honestly probably the most fun I’ve ever had with a shooter, even if that’s not this game’s primary genre. It’s tense as hell with resources at points, but it’s always possible to just barely scrape by and it feels amazing every time. It keeps the same horror action balance as the original but increases both sides of the equation, so it’s scarier and even more action packed than the original, all while maintaining a fun and campy tone that somehow doesn’t feel out of place. The whole thing is a super delicate balancing act but they pull it off so perfectly you hardly even notice. It’s just an amazing time start to finish, it definitely lived up to all my expectations and surprised me in ways I didn’t even expect.

Can’t say I expected this at all… I honestly don’t know what possessed me to replay this bc I hated it when I first tried it three years ago but I’m glad I did bc I feel my perspective on this game has softened a good deal. There are still parts of this game that I find unforgivably atrocious, especially in the second half, and to be honest there are very few things I find all that good either. Combat is clunky and the game is one of the mashiest I’ve ever played, level progression is arbitrarily confusing and there’s so much unnecessary back and forth in each world. But underneath all that is a game with a lot of heart, even if it’s corny and easy to make fun of. I get a strange sense of nostalgia from this game, I love the presentation and especially the soundtrack. There are small bits of the story I latch onto and find enjoyable. And while the gameplay certainly isn’t good, I can enjoy some mindless button mashing every one in a while, especially when it’s accompanied by such a fun world. I can’t bring myself to call this a good game… but I have a soft spot for it now.

As the starting point to one of my favorite franchises ever, I can’t help but respect this game a ton. It did a lot for the time it released, and a lot of it shockingly well. It’s super primitive, but in a way that’s kinda charming looking back. There’s barely a story to speak of, but it’s okay bc the game is set up in a way that encourages you to imagine your own stories with your own characters, and that’s really cute in the sense that we rarely if ever get RPGs like that anymore. Still, this game has aged a LOT. Even under all the polish of the pixel remaster, this is still a 1987 NES RPG, and no amount of touch-ups can change that. Mechanically the game is BARE, very few interesting things going on here and I can’t help but feel like most people who have ever played an RPG before are gonna be on autopilot the entire game. Mindless is an understatement… the overwhelming majority of battles (including most bosses) can be beaten by spamming attack and nothing else. At least it’s short so it doesn’t have time to get obnoxious… this game pretty much exists as an 8-10 hour video game history lesson at that point. In that sense, I have a soft spot for it. But I can’t bring myself to genuinely recommend this as a standalone game to anyone who isn’t explicitly interested in seeing the early foundations of this series/genre.

This was better than I remember, I didn’t really like this game much at all last time I played it but I had a good amount of fun this time. I can’t help but feel that gameplay wise it’s a big downgrade from Unleashed in every way… most of that is probably due to the Wii’s hardware. This is a much slower paced game, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s generally pretty fun, although over way too fast. It’s easy to look at this game now as the beginning of many of the trends that would end up leading this series into one of its worst eras, especially in regards to the writing and tone of it all, and while I don’t like those aspects, I don’t think that should undermine the fact that this particular installment is a pretty pleasant playthrough from start to finish. Could be a lot better… but could be a lot worse. I like it enough and wouldn’t mind coming back to it

This is a weird one… I find this game to be an impressively ambitious sequel especially for the time, with significantly more complicated (although flawed) mechanics, an actual attempt at a story, and a larger scope in general. The leveling system is controversial but I honestly like it, gave me lots of freedom to build my team however I wanted and I was always thinking ahead. However, I also feel like it shoots itself in the foot in some aspects and that stops me from enjoying it too much. I really don’t like the rotating fourth party member, it’s counterintuitive to the games whole design and limits your team. I like the leveling overall but it also means lots of weapon types are totally useless, and I also caught myself using magic way more than it was actually necessary just so I could use it when it was actually useful. Worst part of the game is the last few hours, horrible dungeon design and I was just wanting the game to be over already. I feel like this game is a step up from the original, but it falls short in the end and I still wouldn’t genuinely recommend this one to anyone who isn’t actively tracking the progression of the FF series.

This is simultaneously one of the most magical gaming experiences I've ever had and one of the most frustrating. The game has multiple fantastic moments especially towards the end, and the bosses especially are much better than BotW. Unfortunately tho that's my only problem with that game that I feel was completely fixed. I really liked half of the dungeons here, the other half were mediocre. The story is better but they went out of their way to reuse the memory shit which is just about the worst way to tell a story imo, I checked out fast. I know some people love the ability to do things in whatever order you want, but it made certain parts of the game so much less impactful than they could've been for me personally. Every single issue I have with this game is a carry-over from BotW which is disappointing to me as I really hoped this game would fix my issues with it.

But god they really took this opportunity to take BotW's strengths and further improve on them. The open world is immaculate and even denser than before, I was shocked how much the sky and depths added to this world. The scope is larger than ever physically, and even that expansion is miniscule compared to the mechanical scope of TotK the new abilities take an already wide open game and make it significantly more freeform in every way possible, I'm convinced you could find multiple solutions for every single puzzle in this game which is really cool. I've heard this described as the closest thing you can get to a sandbox game with an actual structure, and I think that's accurate. It's not the kind of game design that blows me away personally but I have to respect how ambitious it is, and how remarkably solid the final build of the game is despite the incredibly complex systems at work here. This is what will make the game for most people.

What I wanted out of this game was an experience that built off of BotW's mechanics while telling a more engaging story with unique and satisfying dungeons. I got about halfway there on each. The story is better for sure and the ending is truly incredible, but the majority of it still feels under-developed and it being told through memories took me out of it almost immediately. I was convinced I was getting what I had hoped for during the first five hours or so, but the moment I saw that first dragon tear the disappointment came crashing down hard. The dungeons were hit or miss, and there was only one I felt could stand up to the average Zelda dungeon.

It's not the sequel I wanted but this is still a really great game in its own right, even tho I was let down in multiple areas I can't bring myself to say the whole package was a dissapointment. I'd be lying if I said I didn't absolutely love playing this game, because I really did. I do think the praise for this game is a bit blown out of proportion, at least for now people are extremely quick to dismiss the flaws on this one which isn't really fair. But I'd rather not focus on all that. It wasn't what I wanted but it surprised me in totally different ways.

Totally forgot to log this one

This is a simple but very fun rhythm game, style is off the charts and I got lots of genuine laughs while playing. Reminds me a lot of WarioWare in the best way. Song selection is definitely strange but I find it weirdly charming hearing songs like The Anthem crushed down to DS quality. My one big gripe with the game is the scoring system, for some of the later stages on higher difficulties it makes it nearly impossible to even clear songs without getting a practically perfect rank (looking at Jumping Jack Flash specifically here). And it’s just annoying bc I find the harder charts so much more engaging but I want to play them without constantly being on the brink of failing for the most minor mistake. Other than that, super fun time, definitely gonna check out one of the Japan only games some time

This is the first Final Fantasy game I’ve been able to play on release, I followed it closely for years and now that I’ve finally finished it I’m so happy to say it’s really fantastic. The one real issue I take with it is that there are a few filler quests within the main questline that have no relevance to the story and should’ve been side missions, they tank the pace of the game at a few points. I also wish they had incorporated more RPG mechanics, specifically elemental affinities. Other than that though, absolutely no complaints. Combat is fun as hell, super fluid, and I love the amount of abilities you can play with. Customizing your layout is lots of fun and never got old. Presentationally speaking of course it’s top of the line in every aspect, it’s exactly what we’ve come to expect from mainline FF. Boss fights are a consistent high point, the spectacle here is absolutely off the charts and arguably the best I’ve ever seen in a video game. The best part of this game to me is the story, it spans a whole 18 years and is incredibly complex but the new Active Time Lore feature makes it really easy to keep up with it all. I really loved this from beginning to end and the final scenes absolutely floored me in the best possible way. Thinking back to the “four pillars” that the dev team laid out wanting to focus on, they absolutely nailed all of them. This is a phenomenal game and easily the best in the series in decades.

It’s really bittersweet to me that this is easily the best sonic team game in over a decade, on the one hand it feels like they’re genuinely trying again which is awesome but on the other hand, this is really the best we can do now? It’s so painfully obvious that this is a mid budget game trying it’s hardest to mimic high budget games and as a result it feels incredibly unpolished and downright unfinished at points. Presentation is unapologetically cheap and you can’t go five minutes without feeling like something broke, this feels like a beta build of a game. Cyberspace is terrible, a bunch of reused level designs with the worst controls in the series, I skipped these whenever I could. But honestly the open zone was a lot more fun than I thought it would be, the speed here is fantastic and there’s something so enjoyable about just freestyling your way to a destination. It’s kinda like Mirror’s Edge but a lot faster and with less focused level design. The boss fights are as janky as the rest of the game but they make up for it with the awesome scale and intensity, these are new high points for the series. This is definitely one of the better Sonic stories as well, I think the characterization was pretty well done here (especially Eggman) and the general tone is such a departure from the previous titles in the best way. This is definitely a step in the right direction but this series still has a long way to go before it’s back on track.

Glad I finally experienced this but this has aged WAY more than the rest of the series. The biggest issue is complete lack of any calibration settings, which means if you don't have a CRT (I don't) you have to learn to play just the right amount off-beat. On top of that the hammer-on/pull-off system is extremely finnicky and way too faithful to a real guitar to be reliable. Both of these things make the game way harder than it should be so it's a good thing the game itself is quite easy, the timing window is incredibly forgiving and charts are generally not difficult at all, there are even multiple sections which have been notably dumbed down in an effort to keep things more simple. All that being said I find great charm in the game's simplicity, career mode is barebones but the series signature humor and absurdity is still here although more tempered than what it eventually becomes. The setlist is pretty good with lots of recognizable songs and they did a shockingly great job recreating all these since this is still the era of the series where every song is a cover. Probably won't revisit this but the core gameplay is just so fun that I still had a good time, not really worth revisiting unless you're a big series fan though.