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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 :(

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




(play Asphalt 8 instead)

TL;DR: Easily the most fun roguelike I've ever played (and I've played like 3-4 so you know I'm qualified to say that), Enter the Gungeon excels in nearly everything that makes a bullet hell game fun. The stakes, the items, the characters, the risks, and the rewards. It's fun with a friend or just by yourself, and always feels equally fair for some reason. The only major criticism I have for the game that stops it from pulling me back to as often as it otherwise could is its utter lack of proper save points during runs.

Pros:
+ Such a fun and unique setting and overall idea for a literal bullet hell game
+ Combat is easy to get into but surprisingly deep and really engaging, with literal hundreds of different and interesting firearms and items to choose from. Many of them completely transform the way you play, for better or for worse. They're also distributed completely randomly doing playthroughs, which offers you a unique experience every single time you boot up the game
+ Enemy variety is great and most bosses are a really fun challenge, and their difficulty increase is mostly well balanced as well
+ Each chamber (level) is themed in a different way and includes unique hazards for that area
+ A detailed story and lore for each playable character and more
+ Very fun to play with an equally skilled friend in co-op
+ Replayability for literal hundreds of hours

Cons:
- You can only choose to Save & Quit at the end of every chamber, and not in the middle of completing it, for example. Since chambers can last for multiple tens of minutes and save points aren't properly accessible, I've lost many runs to friends asking me to come play another game while I was still in the middle of completing one, or if I simply wanted to play something else and had just accidentally entered the next chamber without saving and quitting in advance. I genuinely would've played this game for at least twice as much time if the very simple and standard feature of a pause screen save button existed.
- While the graphics are unique and fun to look at, the art style can get a bit jarring in its drab color palettes and simplistic character designs after a while. I know that's by design, and it's not a bad art style necessarily, it just isn't very interesting to look at for multiple hours, though that might also just be the bitterness from losing runs that's talking
- Kind of lame that the second player's character can't be chosen at all in singleplayer mode
- The last secret chamber isn't properly balanced so it's almost never worth it to try and beat it because you don't get the worthwhile rewards in return
- I wish more of the guns and items were able to be purchased through the hubworld's store and not unlocked via specific achievement-like methods, because the in-game currency becomes nearly useless after you've bought all available items
- Feels like they could've done a better job at porting the game over to Switch, as it doesn't feel very optimized with the incessant loading times that last for dozens of seconds and slight frame drops when tons of bullets really start going. The game really doesn't seem that graphically demanding even when there are multiple assets on-screen simultaneously, and I think that they could've done a better job
- No online co-op

(Note: The "Finished" date on my Journal stands for the date that I completed the game's main objective. I have comfortably played the game for hundreds of hours since.)

TL;DR: Had truckloads of fun with this game when I was younger, might just get the Deluxe version on Steam because of it. Even though it's a bit of a hassle to try and play it nowadays with Flash support dying out online, there are still some workarounds. And it's definitely worth it to try, because the game's simple but effective combat and platforming is still stupidly fun all these years later. Controls are also snappy and quick to learn, and the graphics have aged surprisingly well. Too bad there isn't much to do playing singleplayer, aside from a very limited "campaign" mode, and challenging yourself against seven CPUs that are all teaming against you.

As with Super Mario 63, this is one of the better Flash games of its genre. Highly recommend experiencing it with an equally skilled friend.

TL;DR: Not a game you can properly review with a rating. Not in this day and age, anyway.

The original Pocket Edition is truly a product of this time and nostalgic to look back to, though predictably it doesn't compare to modern versions of Minecraft. And it doesn't have to. It was never supposed to. It was a serviceably solid mobile port of the Minecraft version of its time, and it did it well. From hardware-restrictive workarounds like the cyan rose and the Nether Reactor, to the tiny worlds and small local multiplayer rooms that you were confined to, everything about this game screams "childhood". You can't put a price on that, much less a review score.

I remember one of my first notable builds being an upside down house that hanged from a cliff's underside with chains made out of cobblestone stairs, and another one built on the side of a natural hill to hide the secret vault room I'd constructed behind a painting to hide it from the only other friend who played in that world with me. To this day, I'm proud of myself for finding out that trick without an online video or some other source. All me, placing paintings on open doors.