A fascinating experiment by Gameloft to see what would a mobile racing game be like if it sucked




(play Asphalt 8 instead)

TL;DR: A masterclass in game design in nearly every way, Tears of the Kingdom improves upon almost every single aspect of its predecessor tenfold. A much bigger, more interesting world, expansively useful new abilities, countless new and deeply fascinating mechanics to learn, as well as multiple (at least partially) amended weaknesses of the original, like improved weapon durability and increased usefulness for each and every item you collect.

Being a serious Game of the Year contender, there is very little holding Tears of the Kingdom back from the spot. Just like Breath of the Wild that came before (whose score I've had to retroactively decrease now that such a better sequel exists), it just might be one of the defining games of this entire decade.

Pros:
+ Improves on previous game's issues like weapon durability, way too situational abilites and making items more valuable and multi-purposed
+ Much more interesting tutorial area, with all of the overall additions to the overworld feeling very much substantial and worth the game's price
+ Combat and general enemy encounters have been improved hugely with new abilities (some of the new enemies are especially fun to challenge)
+ Despite being a direct ripoff of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, the building mechanic is incredibly fitting for the game and works flawlessly. The year they delayed the game for just to iron out any problems or bugs clearly paid off, a certain Game Freak could learn from Nintendo.
+ The game has clearly been optimized to handle way more individual entities on-screen at the same time (at least compared to its predecessor, where you could seriously slow the game down with just a few electric weapons on the ground)
+ Excellent influence from Hyrule Warriors with the new bigger enemy camps and allied soldiers
+ A huge surprise bubbling beneath the surface even for people who watched the trailers
+ All pros from Breath of the Wild carry over to this game


+/- While the overall story and lore of the game is pretty good and definitely better than Breath of the Wild's, there are way less interesting character moments, which is weird since you actually spend much more time with every character in this game than you did before. Especially egregious is how each regional character's arc concludes with a nearly identical cutscene in both visuals and dialogue, which I won't spoil further. Needless to say, the focus in this game's development definitely went to the gameplay and world, not its story beats. Then again, Miyamoto hates having stories in games, so that might just explain it.
+/- I actually think the new champion abilities are much more interesting and balanced, but their controls are so clunky and bad that you almost never have the chance to properly use them. Only half of them are context-specific, so the others have to be activated by physically walking up to the champion.

Cons:
- Weak voice acting makes an unwelcome return in this game, as Nintendo is seemingly unable to give proper direction to its VAs. Characters like Sidon especially sound even more wooden and performative than before.
- Even though I did mention that the overworld additions are worth the game's asking price, I do have to say that many areas of the game's sky are sorely lacking in floating islands that could've really make it feel like a comparably huge part of the world with the surface.
- Not completely part of the game itself but I'd like to mention here that it's a damn shame the game's not getting DLC :(

TL;DR: A really fun platformer for what it's worth, being a browser-based game and all. Almost every character has a unique trait that can be used to pass through specific tasks and obstacles in different levels, which adds a lot of replayability.

Don't remember much else, but I'd say I recommend playing this if you're going through a Papa's marathon. About the first one not so much, since I don't think I ever played it, but I've heard this is basically the same game but much more polished in every way

TL;DR: Fine enough game, I remember having a lot of fun with experimenting different strategies for upgrading and customizing my guy to survive the harder levels. A genuinely (and usually fairly) difficult game when I was much younger, I believe it'd still pose a challenge for someone more seasoned with 2D shooters.

A bit buggy, though that might as well be par for the course for these kinds of games. Never bad enough to deter me from trying to play it on crappy library and school computers, though. Give it a try if you're ever on Y8.

TL;DR: Actually a pretty solid conversion of the PC game of the same name. I usually really don't like 3D-ish games based on isometric perspective, but it works mostly fine in this title. Might be because the colors really pop and contrast each other, unlike in something like Sonic 3D Blast or Lego Star Wars Advance.

You can upgrade Tron's - and the secondary original character's, Mercury's - unique abilities to survive different levels better, and even gain completely new abilities. There's some great music, some fun minigames sprinkled around and Bruce Boxleitner even returned to voice Tron, too, so the game was clearly made with care and is really fun.

Besides a few clunky enemy hitboxes and an oftentimes punishing life system, the only glaring issue is that the game is insanely short, and is padded out by having to replay through nearly identical levels as the second character you didn't pick at first (for example, if you started as Tron, you'll then have to play through very similar stages as Mercury, and vice versa). At least it's explained in a pretty interesting way story-wise, as the characters' missions are happening simultaneously and you have to make sure they each complete them.

TL;DR: I feel like it's kind of unnecessary to complain about the obvious shortcomings that the Game Boy imposed upon this game. I feel it's much more useful to consider the benefits of this game being on GB, that being that it adds to the atmosphere that you can't properly see the screen, and how the backgrounds are so dark. Interestingly enough, this means that the original Metroid II has a better, more faithful ambience than Samus Returns, and some ways even AM2R.

That said, this game is a frustrating play, despite being on the better side of early Game Boy titles. Wouldn't really recommend trying this over replaying Samus Returns or AM2R unless you're a really die-hard fan.

TL;DR: With like two hours of play time and three wins backing my points, you can trust when I say that this is a pretty good game in this burgeoning online 99 genre, definitely in the better half of the existing four games. Hard to say for sure if it's better than Tetris 99 yet, but it's equally fun at the very least.

F-Zero 99 does at least feel much more fair and meaningful than its Tetris counterpart, as you get at least some kind of reward and sense of progression regardless of where you placed. It's also better in the sense that none of its content is paywalled (at least yet).

But then again, there's also no way to properly play with your friends, you just have to sync up pressing on the "Join Game" button and pray you're matched into the same one. And even then, there's no way for you to highlight your friend in the chaos, so you'll just have to hope you see them at some point in the game or trying to match into the same one ends up kind of meaningless. And speaking of friends, mine did have a small complaint about the game not being rendered in Mode 7 anymore but in actual 3D models, which he felt detracted from the original title. I think it looks fine, and was probably necessary in some way for the game to work properly, but you should know that going in.

Overall a pretty solid "free"-to-play game, I would recommend it if you have Switch Online. The presentation, music and style is all still there from the F-Zero we don't know but do love, and I can see myself playing this for at least as long as Tetris (that being over 40 hours).

TL;DR: A pretty fun but flawed game, Tetris 99 is great at what it does, but not much else. The battle system is really unique and works surprisingly well, the gameplay is the snappy and precise Tetris we know and love, and the different collaborations for new themes and music is a great touch that makes the game interesting enough to fire up again every once in a while instead of some other version of Tetris. The two major problems are that
1. You barely get anything in regards to tangible rewarding if you don't place 1st or at least the top 5-10, and
2. Almost everything aside from the game's main mode is paywalled behind a 10€ DLC. I'm not getting that, I'd rather get a full Tetris game on sale for that money!

A solid game to try out if you have Switch Online though, it can't hurt either.

Easily one of the best video game trilogy collections of all time. I don't have much to say about this version specifically, so please check out my review for each individual game instead:

- Metroid Prime (2002): https://backloggd.com/u/Francca/review/678380/
- Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (2004): https://backloggd.com/games/metroid-prime-2-echoes/
- Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (2007): https://backloggd.com/games/metroid-prime-3-corruption/


I have also reviewed Metroid Prime Remastered (2023), which can be found here: https://backloggd.com/u/Francca/review/879459/

A fun little romp across SR-388’s biomes, designed for anyone who was pissed off about not being able to kill the Septoggs in AM2R.

No but seriously, this is a great game for destressing, and an excellent April Fools’ prank on Team Fusion’s part. It’s short but sweet, and the only thing that I’d like to see improved upon is a level select feature. There’s also a mildly frustrating bug that makes your last Missile in each magazine not exist, so in effect you never actually have full ammo but actually full ammo minus one. Regardless, this is a great game! The improvised box art isn’t half bad either, its creator must be very handsome.