Alright so this is a game I had an extremely negative preconceived notion about until actually playing through it myself on hardcore difficulty. Mostly due to me never really being a fan of the og title or the series all together but this somehow ended up being my favorite out of all the RE games due to just how little nonsense or padding there is in the entire game, you're pretty much just always engaging in the gameplay and fighting through hordes of ganados giving the whole game tons and TONS of replay value.
Though the game having a bloated boss roster with mostly poor boss fights with the exception of one or two sort of diminishes the replay value but eggs and rocket launchers exist so I can kind of look past it but at the same time these kind of games are just not designed around full blown boss fights, it makes no sense that they still decided to shove in so many of them in this day and age. Hands down the worst part of playing through the game
Also horror is still non-existent here but compared to its og counterpart it at least tried and is far more tolerable when it comes down to the overall narrative and corny one-liners and what not but I still cringed through most of it
Okay game, might just throw in a Professional run in the future

If you're under the impression of this game being an action title masquerading as a cover shooter, then let me break it to you, it's not an action game by any stretch of the imagination, it is simply a repetitive and extremely flawed movement focused cover shooter with a mind-numbingly boring gameplay loop. Even as a shooter this game has very little entertainment value as it is loaded with meat sponge boss fights that require 0 strategy to take down and can be extremely tedious in the hardest difficulty while also offering little to no actual enemy variety in the mob department. And on top of all that the game is plagued by god awful pacing where you sometimes watch cutscenes that are straight up longer than the actual gameplay segments and the narrative being non-existent with nothing but corny dialogues does not help its cause. Visuals and Music are quite samey and forgettable too which is fitting since the entire game is just that "forgettable"

Pizza Tower is literally the embodiment "bro keep playing I swear it gets fun once you master all of the mechanics" and it's absolutely true because I was on the fence on whether I actually like this game or not during my first playthrough because of the unnecessarily convoluted control scheme which actually took me the entire playthrough getting used to, which wasn't fun. But when I tried replaying some of the stages that I liked while aiming for the second lap, most of it started clicking. Though I still find the obtuse platforming gimmicks to be detrimental to some of the levels' design since those gimmicks most of the time don't compliment the game's momentum focused nature
Is it a masterpiece? No. Is it a good game? Yeah, it's pretty good

Team Ninja's attempt at making a Sekiro clone turned out to be a showcase of absolute failure and ineptitude at designing games. That is mostly due to all the contradicting design choices existing in the game simultaneously

First off, RPG mechanics being a thing makes absolutely no sense when the flag marking system is far more significant in terms of mitigating the amount of damage you receive from mobs/bosses and how much damage you deal to them. While I initially thought the flag system was a genius addition, they somehow managed to execute it so badly that I have nothing really positive to say about it other than the concept itself.
Which brings me to my next major complaint about Wo Long and that is the combat and its piss poor execution when paired with the terribly designed enemies. So, despite the game being built around this combat mechanic called "Parrying", which is by all metric an offensive mechanic masked as defensive one but here it is entirely defensive and is simply a means to avoid getting hit until you stagger what you're fighting against, which clearly incentivizes braindead defensive playstyle. All of that is somehow amplified with the bosses being designed to keep you on the defense with annoying amount of follow ups to their strings to catch you off guard if you take a seemingly safe opening, which adds a lot of RNG to already mediocre movesets, thus making parrying an absolute low IQ guessing game. But credit where credit is due, the posture system in Wo Long is basically the perfected version of Sekiro's, which I find bafflingly stupid how they managed to not capitalize off it and actually deliver a cohesive combat package.
Oh and of course, can't forget to mention just how blatantly unbalanced the entire game becomes due to all the conflicting mechanics, which is the sole contributor to the difficulty curve being all over the place

I'll wrap up the review by quoting my friend
"Seriously their games feel like 10 different people in a project who just do their own thing without communicating with the others"
which also serves as a tldr for the review and my thoughts on Team Ninja in general

Cuphead: Delicious Last Course

This DLC amps up the presentation by a long shot with extremely fluid 2D animations accompanied by some fantastic soundtracks, giving each boss a distinctive personality despite the lack of any narrative. But mechanically most of these bosses are below subpar while comparing them to the rostar of the vanilla game. That's due to some being literal RNGfests with zero overall cohesiveness in their attack patterns and some are just plain out mediocre. Though the addition of the 3rd playable character was a brilliant move on the devs part as it adds a ton replayability to the overall game and her having the most fleshed out moveset out of the 3 makes it all the more fun to go back and fight some of the older bosses

tl;dr the additonal character is fun but all the new bosses are meh (pretty game)

Going in I expected to absolutely hate this game since I have a track record of dropping every other Rockstar titles I tried in the past but it turns out I ended up liking this one, quite a lot actually. Although, there are specific segments of the game combined with some bafflingly archaic and repetitive design choices that I disliked equally as much

The story is obviously the game's main selling point and oh boy did it not deliver on that front. It's a character-driven narrative with competent writing that is no less worthy of being called a narrative masterpiece. Anyone that's willing to look past the slow pacing at the start is bound to appreciate what the story has to offer given it picks up pretty fast, around 2 chapters in or so. Though, even the slower parts of the story weren't bad and that's all thanks to the memorable cast of characters, to further strengthen my point, I have a terrible memory when it comes down to names but I can recall the entire gang by their names.
But if you know me, the story will mean absolutely nothing if the game has nothing else going on for itself. So no matter how good it is, it's not the highlight in a "video game", it's the dynamic open world. If anyone as of now asks me what my favorite open world game is I'd say it's RDR2 at the drop of a hat, the open world is that good. The amount of effort that went into crafting the world is ridiculous given how there's rarely any repetition and every single encounter always has something new to offer. Exploring the open world for the first time stumbling across random chance encounters and stranger missions or just interacting with the world in general were some of the most fun I've ever had playing this game while being completely enamored by the realistic yet subtly stylized art direction.

Aaand this is where the praises stop, now it's time to whine

This game can be such a fucking waste of time to sit through after the honeymoon phase is over and I blame it all on the stupid obsession with realism Rockstar had while making this game. Oh you want to go from one corner of the map to another one to do a side quest or whatever? Good luck sitting through doing NOTHING while watching your horse in cinematic view from awkward ass angles for 10 minutes and more! Like, I don't care about your stupid boner for realism, don't waste my time and give me an option to fast travel like every other open world games
The gameplay during story missions are either stupid chores or straight up direction-following simulator made for mentally handicapped children. There's so little freedom as to how you can approach the missions it's infuriating, like what the hell do you mean "MISSION FAILED" just because I tried reaching our objectives a little ahead of the stupid NPCs I'm supposed to trail at the pace of a literal goddamn snail?? I swear every single story mission plays out literally the same. It's basically, you follow an NPC for minutes then engage in some unpolished and clunky cover based third person shooter then follow NPCs some more and repeat, it's literally so braindead. I'm sorry but if all you do are the main quests just to wrap up the game, you haven't actually played the game, you just watched some low IQ interactive movie. At least try and take notes from your own damn open world, it's not that hard.
The story also ends on a sour note with an extremely rushed epilogue that's somehow also needlessly stretched out for no goddamn apparent reasons. Honestly would've preferred if the credits rolled right after Chapter 6 instead of the washed up DLC ass epilogue that stretches on for 7 hours

Despite my complaints I still think the pros outweigh the cons, so it's a good game overall in my book. Though I don't recommend it if you don't have the patience for Rockstar's dated game design philosophy

Stranger of Paradise

Let me preface this by saying that i have never played a single Final Fantasy title in my entire life nor do I want to anytime soon, in fact I approached this game as something more akin to Sekiro than anything else because of how the combat works, which to no one's surprise actually turned out to be really good. Though Team Ninja's ineptitude when it comes down to game design really stuck out like a sore thumb in other areas, especially in the level design department.

When it comes down to certain aspects of the game that I did manage to extract some enjoyment out of, I ultimately still found myself on the fence unable to keep a positive outlook and that's because of the game being inconsistent as hell with its overall quality throughout its entire runtime.

The introductory boss to this game coupled with a few until the halfway point were all pretty well crafted to serve as fantastic tutors of the risk and reward centered combat (that is if you play the game right) but the quality of the boss fights drop to an embarrassing degree of low once you're halfway through the game where they start pinning you up against bosses that are either frustratingly cheap or straight up ds2-tier with no more than 3 different moves. The bosses all remain roughly the same until the very final one and that's where they pull a complete 180 and give you one of the best bosses you'll ever fight.

The combat allows for a lot of freedom as to how the players want to tackle the challenges which can be considered a con, no hear me out, you are absolutely not going to take away the same amount of fun if you decide to play this game like a wuss and just target the bosses' hp bar while completely ignoring the break gauge, which I've seen some people doing in their gameplay footages. On the flipside, if you parry everything thrown at your way and constantly remain on the offense which this game encourages, you'll find yourself having the time of your life, though I understand the skill-ceiling for this kind of playstyle is quite high but this is objectively the intended way to play the game. So, even if the game offers you a plethora of different ways to take down enemies and bosses, you'll most likely end up with a sour experience of the combat if you choose to ignore the more risk and reward centric playstyle.

The story in one word is just goofy, I'm not the one to care all that much about stories in video games but the comically goofy writing at times seemed as if it was poking fun at stupid JRPG tropes, so I kind of dig it for that. It also gets a pass for making me laugh despite everything about it being so painfully one-dimensional.

The level design in this game just screams incompetence, they're all infuriatingly bad. Samey, confusing, uninspiring, forgettable, boring, filler are the words I'd use to describe every single area in this game, they're all bad, none stood out to me, absolutely NONE. What makes it worse is that the enemies you fight on your way to the boss are all canon fodders that go down in just a few hits, team ninja could've at least put some mini bosses that pose at least somewhat of a challenge instead of littering the levels with boring same 3-5 enemies, which would've prevented the levels from feeling like they were a complete utter waste of time.

Now this is where i stray from the positive sentiment everyone shares about this game, which is the customization choices. While it is undeniably fun to try out different jobs, weapons and armor sets in the beginning hours of the game but quite soon it divulges into being a goddamn chore. As for the jobs (skill trees, basically) it's fine if each weapon types had their dedicated jobs but they take this whole customization thing to the point of obnoxiousness where you're able to basically craft your playstyle taking upgrades from different jobs and mixing them up all into one of your choice which honestly feels like a waste of time when the core combat is more reliant on the player's skill if anything. That's why I couldn't be bothered with it and decided to stick with the Berserker job throughout most of the game. The game also dropping different sets of gear everytime you kill a mob can be quite annoying but there's a dedicated button that allows you to just optimize the highest level weapons and armor sets on you and your team members so I can kind of look past it. This is probably something of an homage to Final Fantasy where it's the staple or whatever, don't know, don't care, my point ultimately being that this game could've been way better if it was a bit more streamlined.

The lack of good music can also make the game more boring to play through than it actually is. Every single track is just some unforgettable background noise that you wouldn't even bother listening to outside of the playthrough, which is a shame since this game could've used some kickass tracks given just how much of a pure adrenaline rush it is fighting some of the bosses taking full advantage of the combat.

In conclusion, I actually ended up having a lot of fun playing through this one and I'm glad it's the first game I picked up this year. Wanted to start the year in a positive note when it comes down to video games so I don't regret picking up this one and sticking to it til the credits rolled. So, despite how overly critical I was of the game I'd still consider this to be one of the better action titles I've played in a while

tl;dr decent game but drops the ball super hard from the halfway point until the final boss, could've been better if it was more streamlined instead of the annoying degree of customization it offers

despite being a totally inept and buggy ass dmc clone it somehow still gets things right that dmc 5 couldn't lmfao
bosses will decimate you if you mash even on your first playthrough and are actually somewhat enjoyable to fight because of their humanoid nature but the way their hyperarmor works is arbitrary and can be a source of annoyance at times
also it takes a while until you can force out even the tiniest amount of enjoyment from this absolute mess of a game as amelia is the only fun character out of two and she unlocks after you've played through the game once but her campaign being roughly the same as the previous one doesn't work out in the game's favor
better than dmc 5 tho its still trash

First time dabbling into 2D Sonic and the verdict is that I don't like it at all as a platformer. My distaste mostly stems from the archaic nature of the game's design and that is despite apparently being the most "polished" of the bunch? The whole selling point of the game is supposed to be speed but the amount of precision platforming needed goes contrary to the whole "gotta go fast" thing. Although precise platforming wouldn't be that big of a deal if the Sonic didn't control like he had soap tied underneath his sneakers. The insta deaths due to whacky collision detection led to nothing but annoyance and the dated save system where you get sent back to the very beginning of every single level is dumb and is an obvious attempt at padding out gameplay time. I mean even the mobile ports of the classic games let you continue from the specific acts so how come a more "polished" rendition of 2D Sonic can't respect the player's time? Now even when you actually manage to go fast it's during mechanical setpieces where the player takes the backseat and the level design basically plays the game for you, the result being the least engaging gameplay possible for a platformer. So, even the very idea of speed focused gameplay is detrimental to the final product. The lack of new content also gives it the impression of obvious nostalgia pandering since 70% of it is just borrowed stages from the classic games with a new coating of paint.
Music is the only thing about Sonic Mania I happened to like, so much to the point that I'd stop playing the game just to listen to the tracks on repeat. Though catchy music alone can't save a flawed game that somehow also struggles to have its own identity, it's like trying to apply bandaids on a bullet hole.

Breath of the Wild

I suppose that wraps it up for the base game. As much as I'd love to shit all over the game there are some aspects of it I ended up liking, unfortunately. But the cons still outweigh the pros and oh boy do I not have a lot to complain here

( + ) Lets get the positives out of the way first, the open world is competently designed, although quite generic at times it still holds up very well compared to the deluge of uninspiring and linear open world titles with no sense of creativity whatsoever. The fact that the main quests never really get in the way of exploration really adds to the sense of the adventure which is pretty much the entire selling point of the game and it does somewhat deliver on that front. The physics engine coupled with the rune abilities also pave the way of tackling problems and traversing through tricky terrains in various different ways. Lastly, there's the cell-shaded artstyle, which really helps to mask the overall age of the game when it comes to the visuals and still manage to look fantastic even by today's standards

( - ) This game can be absurdly tedious at times and I mean ABSURDLY TEDIOUS. Simply traversing through it can aid to more frustration over entertainment after the honeymoon phase is over because of the game doing absolutely nothing to give the players a more convenient way of exploring the massive open world. To rub salt into the wound they tie down sprinting in empty terrains to the stamina bar. Like, I understand the need for stamina while climbing mountains as it can gatekeep more difficult areas if you haven't made enough progress. But, there's absolutely no reason to deplete the stamina bar when the only method of faster travel is on a horse that controls like crap and surfing on shields that break within mere seconds, as it does nothing but waste time and in turn bore the players.
The game also suffers from being just all around repetitive in its structure. The 4 main quests leading up to the final encounter all basically play out the same and the side quests are just a bunch of random fetch quests that boil down to doing the same errands just for a different NPC. The shrines sprinkled throughout the open world also suffer from being incredibly samey. After reaching the halfway point I ended up mostly just using them as checkpoints instead of checking out whatever puzzle or combat encounters await inside as they're all roughly the same, especially the combat shrines.
The absolute worst aspect of the game would be its horrid combat and the laughably bad enemy/boss encounters. But you might say "Fa, it's totally normal for an open world game to have lackluster combat since the focus is put on the exploration instead." To that I'd say you're completely wrong since the combat is just as integral as exploration is when it comes down to these types of games because most of the times your objectives are centered around combat which is arguably more significant than the exploration part itself. And crafting a decent combat system doesn't really take all that effort so I can't really see the logic in these arguments so I just dismiss them as cop-out defense to shield any cohesive criticisms. Digressions and tangents aside, BoTW's combat being on the lackluster side could've been easily remedied by pinning link up against enemies with well thought out movesets or by having proper variety in the enemy department, since the combat revolves around pattern memorization it'd only make sense for the enemies to actually be somewhat capable of putting up a fight. But as it turns out the enemies/bosses in this game are COMPLETELY inept, most of the time the fight basically just boils down to finding out their gimmick and just abusing it throughout the whole fight to win. The only exception to this rule would be the Lynels, which are somehow more engaging than the major bosses despite being literal mobs. Mechanically weak encounters with more emphasis put on dumb gimmicks outright ruined any potentials of the game even having a half decent combat
As for the story, I couldn't bring myself to care about any of it. It's just a bunch of nothing with the core characters being no personality having losers that only exist to guide you towards your next destination or annoy you during the main dungeons or be a damsel in distress

the open world is pretty ok everything else tho not so much

This is a game that I hold absolutely zero nostalgic connection towards as I've never really played any major Nintendo titles outside of the two Pokemon games I played as a kid. Sure the game must've been incredibly innovative for its time as it pioneers the 3D platformer genre but I can't ignore how the game aged horribly to the point it becomes frustrating to play at times, even more so if you're a completionist like I am

Mario controls pretty well for the most part but its age starts to creep in when you're given the flying hat and during the swimming segments, then it becomes extremely clunky and sluggish. Then there's the camera which is like my major gripe with the game, it doesn't cooperate half the time and most of the deaths I had in this game was due to the camera randomly obscuring the platforms I'm supposed to jump onto. I honestly would take a fixed camera over this semi-automatic dogshit. The levels are competently designed, most of the time, because there are some that are an absolute chore to get through. Namely, the Rainbow Ride level along with the ones that include a lot of swimming can be really tedious and occasionally repetitive if your goal is to get everything the level has to offer. Also the game can be a little bit blurry on whether it wants to be an actual platformer or just an exploration focused collectathon because the game rarely ever challenges your platforming skills and just gives you the task of collecting certain items. The bosses are mostly forgettable with easy to figure out gimmicks but I can't look past how every single Bowser encounter is exactly the same, it's straight up neglect at its finest.

Despite my whining I still think this game holds up quite alright when pinned against all the countless copy cats it spawned and the speedruns are fun to watch. Even though the game is ultimately carried hard by nostalgia you can still find some enjoyment out of it, only depends on how much you're willing to look past its flaws

And that's 1 done out of 3
I think the game is overall quite okay considering how the character action genre was still in its infancy stage back then but god isn't the overall entertainment value bogged down by a staggering amount of annoying puzzles and platforming segments

There's nothing to say about the story other than the fact that it merely exists to push the gameplay further and that's fine. I like this approach better than turning a video game into some lazy and uninspiring interactive cinema

Combat is quite simple and it's very easy to get the grasp of the basics even on the hardest difficulty the game provides going in for the first time. I like the fact that you have to actually watch out for the enemies' attacks and counter them before you start chaining unlike DMC where the enemies are just glorified punching bag for juggling combos, but in here when you get to chain multiple attacks it's earned and not handed to you. But sadly the counter isn't utilized well enough as quite a lot of the mobs don't have any attacks that you can get a parry out of so you have to use the awkward and janky roll to avoid their attacks before you can get your hits in. The bigger mobs also rarely ever stagger themselves but can easily stagger you leaving for a barrage of attacks if you're swarmed by the little guys at the same time. So the combat after a certain point into the game when you get a bunch of upgrades basically divulges into just a crowd-controlling tool for the small-fries and playing it defensive against the big mobs until you get a prompt to play some annoying QTE mini-game that kills the flow of the combat encounters entirely. The tools you're given outside of your signature Blades of Chaos are all quite barebones, especially the sub-weapon as it is inferior to the default weapon in every way possible in turn giving you zero incentives to ever use it. The rage mode is also quite useless as it barely lasts for a few seconds and does nothing outside of merely giving Kratos a damage boost. Which is a massive missed opportunity as I believe a lot more could've been done with it, like giving Kratos an all new weapon or at least new moves that let us swiftly deal with the more annoying enemies instead of just making it a "Press to Win" button that lasts only for a few seconds. Oh and the button prompt for circle mashing can go to hell

What truly ruined the latter half of the game for me were the constant bombardment of tedious puzzles mixed in with obnoxious platforming segments that exist solely to ruin the overall pacing of the game. It was fine for the first half but in the latter half there were straight up more puzzles than combat segments which honestly made me throw the controller and do something else. Like is this supposed to be a puzzle platformer or what? I know this is an issue plaguing most other action games that released around this time but I was just way too exasperated having to go through nothing but puzzles and platforming segments when I just wanted to hack away at some mobs, so I couldn't really ignore it. Hopefully it's toned down a little in 2 and 3

The lack of boss fights can really make it draining to sit through the whole game when it's nothing but hacking away at fodders. At least there's some variety among the mobs which I can appreciate. As for the 3 bosses that are there, The Hydra one was okay and was basically a tutorial boss fight in charge of teaching you the counter mechanic (which I hoped would've been more prominent throughout the entire game) the 2nd one was basically an environmental puzzle so it was obviously fucking boring and finally Aries, who I'm quite disappointed with, since the game basically strips you away of all your abilities just to give you some random greatsword you've never used just for the sake of spectacle and story. Only the Hydra was somewhat fun to fight while the other two were just eh

I know I ripped into this game quite hard despite how old it is but I can at least say this much with confidence that I've extracted way more enjoyment out of this than I did with whatever the fuck that terrible 2018 reboot was