This is definitely the first Team Ico game... This is a great game, don't get me wrong, but consistently feels like it stands in the shadow of (no pun intended) it's successors. Team Ico being named after this game fits nicely, their next two games feel very much like evolutions of the two main mechanics of this game.

Shadow of the colossus takes the basic three-hit-combo combat from this game and fleshes it out with traversal to make an entire experience based around that.
The Last Guardian takes the follower mechanic of Yorda from this game and evolves it from just being someone to pull along with you 90% of the time, to being the primary way of solving most puzzles in the game.

But the origins for both of those start here. Does this feel like a good midpoint between the two? I'd say no, with the hindsight of those two games the individual mechanics of this game feel half-baked.
The story of this game is like other TI games, has some lore to it but is pretty empty story-wise (on the surface level), yet despite that it creates a genuine emotional connection over it's run time. Again, this is something that they improve at in later installments.

The thing is, everything I could say about this game I immediately want to counter with 'but this is something they do better in later games', but this isn't a bad game, this is a great game, and definitely doesn't feel like the first game of a studio. The art design, audio ideology, animation and environment quality, story, world and characters already feel so evolved here, this feels like this studio's fifth game, not their first.

As much as it doesn't read like it, so far I've had nothing but good to say about this game, so what don't I like?
Well, besides the combat being way too simple, my main issue is the difficulty. When starting the game there's no difficulty options, and I breezed through the puzzles for the first two thirds (about four hours) of this game, never getting stuck for more than a moment. The combat, likewise, is just a case of hitting a room full of enemies with your one attack until they stop moving, and pulling Yorda out of a hole if she gets caught. It was a shame but never really took away from my enjoyment of the game.

This is the worst Team Ico game, and like most of this review that will sound like a criticism, but I'll be damned if that isn't a pretty high compliment.

What a breath of fresh air after playing Sonic Forces. Whilst that felt like an incompetent game that couldn't have been made by more than one person, this feels like the first game from a new studio, but is that really acceptable for the 40th game from a well-established and high-budged team of devs? I feel like the fact Sonic Team has been unable to make a fully competent game for about two decades is something that needs to be addressed.

The good:
I clearly enjoyed the game, it was over before I knew it but when I checked the time I spent a solid five hours on it, and that was just today, after playing it for a decent chunk of yesterday... So that's always a good start.
The environments are some of the best I've seen in 3D sonic, there's a real variety and they feel a lot less empty than other games in the series. The sonic levels in general feel really nice compared to some of the other stuff I've played in the series.
I liked some elements of the story, the fact it basically begins with eggman winning off-the-bat is pretty cool. I'm glad they kept amy as having the exact same intro as it feels like she has in every one of these games (that being, walking in and mistaking someone for sonic and then leaving), it's kinda charming imo. And the twist this time that it actually is Sonic is nice too. I'll talk more about stuff I didn't like as much later.
I was told the Werehog sections aren't great, and I'll talk about why they're bad later, but I didn't HATE them, I thought they were an interesting new idea for the series, and the added variety works well on paper.
The sonic levels not only look nice but have a nice sense of spectacle, but I'll say more about them later.
This is one of the least buggy 3D Sonic games I've played, but more on that later.
The bosses have a nice feeling of variety, not all of them are winners but they're all nicely paced and spaced out within the game.
The music is great as always, so good that I didn't even mind THAT much how often I have to hear the same songs.

Honestly, this game has reinvigorated me a little on the franchise, maybe I need to give Generations another go. This game shows that Sonic Team at least kinda knows how to make a video game, at least a little.

The bad:
I'll start this section off with some small points of the bad, like I did with the good, and then the main bad point of this game, that I really want to dedicate time to.
As much as I liked the Sonic sections more than normal, they are nearly totally devoid of any platforming, they're basically just pushing forward and occasionally jumping and clicking the homing button, about the same level of 'gameplay' as the climbing sections in Uncharted.
Firstly the music might be good but the sound design is shocking. Werehog's blood-curdling screams have been meme-fodder for years, completing a QTE rewards you with a... Doorbell (I assume it's meant to sound like the checkpoint sound but it just doesn't), projectile enemies make Star Wars blaster sounds that sound very out of place not only in this world but coming from a plant, and the cutscenes are sprinkled with strange character sound effects that consistently go on way too long, mostly at the fault of Chip.
As much as I like ELEMENTS of the story, at a certain point it seems strange why it's trying so hard to add depth to it's story. This could have been a pretty simple set-up, world is blown up, find temples to put it back together, easy. Instead the walking around town sections not only play on stereotypes some of the time (Mazuri, anyone?) but show a world of people, who look more akin to enemy characters from Little Nightmares, who seem to not really have more than a passing care about the fact the planet they're stood on just became shrapnel.
And Speaking of the sections where you walk around talking to people, a couple of times in the game you need to 'investigate' something, and that equates to just talking to a certain number of people until you can progress, with no puzzle or mechanic here, you can barely call this gameplay.
And speaking of barely being able to call something gameplay, The sonic levels in this game still have about as much 'gameplay' as a climbing section in an uncharted game, press forward and ocasionally the homing attack button, there's barely any difference between these levels and the three identical on-rails shooter QTE sections scattered throughout the game. This, of course, can be remedied by just holding the boost button at all times, essentially allowing you to have even less input on the gameplay.
And speaking of (master of transitions here) the boosting, the PS3 version of this game has some of the worst framerate drops I've seen in a long time. Too many enemies on screen causing a tank is one thing, but why is it so common for sonic games to have framerate issues for going 'too fast'. Surely that's the exact thing you DON'T want in this series.
Does it even bare mentioning how little variety the combat in the werehog sections have?
As well as framerate issues, this game has it's fair share of bugs. The worst being grabbing a block that you need to push in the werehog levels clipping sonic through the floor or a wall, which happened at least twice to me over the course of the game. This isn't the buggiest game I've ever played, but it's still worth mentioning.
Sonic team still can design great enemies but can't design a friendly design to save their lives.
Like most things in Sonic games, there isn't much to learn here, unlike other titles that this game takes 'inspiration' from (more on that in a bit), there is absolutely no depth to the sonic or the werehog sections, this doesn't mean there's no challenge, but it does mean that any point you fail at isn't a case of refining your play, but instead just bashing your head against a wall until you've progressed.

But what is that big issue I metnioned earlier? Hearing about this game from people, this sounds like the most interesting 3D Sonic game because of the variety introduced in the Werehog sections, and when I started playing I was kinda feeling it, it was fun, different.
But something felt off about it, something seemed familliar. I don't throw the phrase rip-off around lightly, however... At one point early on in the game I found myself pushing a lever in a circle, pushing a box onto a platform and then opening a door, but something about it suddenly made me realise what the issue is.
The werehog sections aren't just a sub-par action game ripoff, the werehog sections are a sub-par ripoff of God of War, in fact they're so close to God of War that I legitimately wonder how there wasn't legal trouble as a result of this.
taken individually the elements of the werehog gameplay are innocuous, but together it becomes impossible to ignore to anyone who has played even a small ammount of the first three God of War games. The wall sliding and climbing, the box pushing, the tapping circle top lift heavy doors, an icon appeating above an enemy's head which you can interact with with circle to trigger a quicktime event which insta-kills the enemy. Even the choice to add stretchy arms, which at first seem strange but, again, innocuous, soon becomes obvious as a way to mirror the chains on Kratos' iconic blades of chaos.
The puzzles, combat and interaction, even down to the exact control sceme, are all shameless and obvious and total rip-offs of God of War, and it is constantly distracting for the duration of the game. I've not seen a clone this shameless outside of the space of mobile gaming in a long time, and it's shocking that I didn't hear anything about this before starting the game.
The worst part of all, though? The fact it takes God of War and simplifies it down to such a basic, minimal state that any and all depth is totally lost. It's as though they went out of their way to remove any ability for real combos or, really, anything to learn to improve your ability at the combat. For god's sake, they removed the entire dodging mechanic.

Since starting the game, I've looked some things up and come to the belief that I'm playing the worst version of the game, apparently a lot of the framerate issues and bugs are solved in the xbox 360 version of the game, and the Wii version is basically an entirely different game, which may negate a lot of the shameless ripping-off that any of the parts of this game that could have been even slightly different does. I will say, this game has reignited my interest in the series by being the first 3D sonic game I've played that actually feels made by people who know what game/character/environment design is, and this may push me to playing more of the series. But I don't know if it would be possible to even jokingly call this game anything higher than 'good enough'.

[notes: I played the first four Colossi on the PS3 version of the game, and then switched to the ps4 remake, comparing what I'm seeing and playing with videos of the original game. Also, heavy spoilers for the whole review.]

I am beated, I am destroyed, what a wonderful and impactful experience. So many games try to make you feel like a hero but as this game progresses it becomes clearer and clearer that you are the villain, only to have it confirmed at the very end.

I'll start with the negatives because that will take less time;
I experienced a few bugs in this game, such as clipping inside a couple of the colossi, which took me out of the experience to say the least.
The climbing also doesn't feel massively improved but if they changed it too much then each colossus would be a cakewalk, the physics are changed but I'll mention that in positives.
A big one, the biggest challenge in this game is actually finding the Colossi, but the colossi themselves never actually felt like a challenge. The puzzles and ways to expose their weaknesses were all really interesting but all felt pretty simple, it never took me longer than ten minutes to figure out how to get on top of each beast.
Finally, the girl. It was when Agro falls off the cliff that I realised that I had a greater bond with that horse than with her, and she's meant to be the driving force and motivation for the story. I don't quite know what they could have done that wouldn't have taken away from this tight experience in some way, but it did stick out to me.

Now that's done, Let's get on to why this got such a great score;
First on the physics, they feel so much better here. In the PS3 version of the game it feels like when the game wants you to reach a specific thing you basically float through the air, but every other time you plummet to the ground like a rock, as though you weigh a tonne. This remake strikes a perfect median that keeps the challenge of the climbing and movement but isn't as noticable when it tries to help you out.
This game feels like the proto-PlayStation exclusive, the sweeping cinematic scope of not only the environments but the encounters with the colossi feel like a precursor to God of War (despite this releasing the same year as that game, in fact, the remake also released the same year as the God of War reboot) or uncharted.
Each Colossus feels unique and well-planned, like episodes of a TV show with perfect pacing for each fight. And speaking of pacing, the story for this game is perfectly executed, telling perfectly the story of a wanderer fighting these creatures in this abandoned environment where, in the desert, things have crumbled to dust and, in the forest, things have become overgrown and reclaimed by nature. At first you feel like the hero, bravely taking on these monsters to save the girl, but as each fight is introduced it becomes clear that these monsters aren't fighting until you enter their home, they're just defending themselves and, as it is revealed by the end, a piece of a dark spirit's soul.
the lack of dialogue and clear character or connections is a perfect canvas for the player to project their own story onto, as a lot of the best art is. I really can't overstate how well the story, setting and fights are executed in this game.
Comparing this to the original, as always bluepoint is on point, creating an experience that sacrifices none of the atmosphere, fun or challenge of the original and sullies none of the art design. I've never in my life seen a better or more faithful remake, and this will be the gold standard for every remake I play from now on. I never played the original as a child but I feel like seeing this would be like seeing the game how I remember it being as a young'un.

There's nothing I can say about this game that hasn't been said before, so I won't bore anyone with the intricacies of each colossi's design both artistically and in gameplay, but I implore anyone and everyone to give this a go. With this PS4 remake being absolutely the difinitive way to play. This is definitely a game I'll come back to in future but I don't know if anything will match this first playthrough.

P.S. I would recommend turning Dormin hints off when playing the game, so many times I'd be trying to figure out the puzzle and it'd tell me the solution before I even had the chance to think.

You know what? I actually really loved this, this game makes really clever and well-executed, as well as impressive, use of all the 3DS gimmicks and translates fatal frame combat pretty faithfully. You can tell they wanted this to be a bigger experience, as this includes a lot of things that are only used once or that appear to be there yet aren't (it does the collecting XP animation for no reason?), But I still had a lot of fun with all the puzzles and the surprisingly interesting story.
Don't get me wrong, this isn't a reason to buy a 3DS or anything, but this was definitely a fun evening of spooky camera moments, and with extra modes that let you just do the combat or AR puzzles, it gives me reason to come back to it in future. If nothing else, this is basically all there is for horror representation on the 3DS and I'm glad it's one of the most '3DS' games there is, if you catch my meaning.
It's 2:30 in the morning now so I should probably get to bed, but I'm really glad I stayed up to get this all done in one sitting.

For negatives, there's issues with the AR, gyros, translation and voice dub but these are all things where, if you know what to expect going in then they're not really a bother. The real big issue is the hand-holding, each plot point is repeated to you in excess of three times each for minutes on end, and sometimes it doesn't trust you to remember the mechanics of the game so it stops you being able to use those mechanics in order to tell you about the thing it's stopped you from using to tell you this, it's really bad but not something that hugely impacts the experience.

Honestly, this might end up as one of my favourite things on the system, despite a huge list of flaws. It's so unique, so charming and really well told. This game is the reason I modded my 3DS and I don't regret it one bit.

The translation is nowhere near perfect, and the controls are really really bad, but the UI, the presentation, the environments, this feels like one of those unique little horror games you'd find on the PS1 that really catches you by surprise.

Don't get me wrong though, I don't know that I could recommend it.
The DS has near-to-no horror games and this game could be used as an argument to why, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Unironically the best game I've played this year, and it's gonna be a hard one to top, this isn't just one of the best coop games ever made, it's truly great as an experience in and of itself.
Stellar environment design, outstanding music and a legitimately interesting story are what first stick out from this game, which are on show most during the mind-boggling on-rails setpieces that put uncharted to shame and make sonic look like absolute tripe.
But what about the gameplay? Nothing falls short there, this is a game that has so many ideas and perfectly executes each one. The base traversal mechanics are satisfying, responsive and fun, and each level's unique gameplay mechanic for each player feels evenly split between you and every single one feels more fleshed out than it ever needs to be.
The game switches between three types of levels, on-rails setpieces, used to move between environments, linear puzzle platforming segments, the main bulk of the game, and open hub areas for those linear puzzle levels. Each one of these hub areas is choc full of minigames and secrets to find, and one of the best features of this game is that you can jump into any of the minigames you find straight from the main menu without having to go back into the levels and find them.

I really can't stress enough the ridiculous level of polish every single thing in this game has, every level's mechanic could easily have been used for an entire game of it's own, every minigame is fleshed out to the point where they could be easily released individually (there's a fully functional Chess game, and that's one of the more basic ones).

This game looked at the least interesting leading up to release, but has completely blown me away on every level.

Negatives: Other than some poorly written lines or slightly-off voice acting, or at worst some uncanny-valley moments, there honestly isn't anything to complain about, likely thanks to the TITANIC quality assurance team that takes up a decent amount of the credits. If I were to pick anything I'd say that the ending doesn't hit as hard, emotionally, as it should have, which is a shame, but didn't really take away from the experience.

I really can't complain, as much as I try to think of things that could be wrong with this game, beacuse how could a game that EA clearly doesn't care enough about to advertise well, made by the team that made the 'just good' A Way Out, be this outstanding?
Well, here we are.
This game has something for everyone, and is for everyone, and the best part? If you buy a copy then your friends can play for free, any number of friends you like, using a similar system to 2019s Wolfenstein: Youngblood, which makes this phenomenal experience hugely more accessible.

Please play this, I don't care who you are or who uninterested you are, you won't regret it.

I replayed this for the first time in four years for a few reasons, mostly I was curious to how it holds up. I was a little worried at the beginning, the whole first portion of the game is a little slow and of-it's-time but once you get past a very specific turning point to do with Tess it all comes into focus.

Still one of the best stories, still some of the best environments and still one of the best games you can play, a must buy for anyone with a PS4, even if the first couple hours have aged a little poorly.

I am absolutely blown away, people shouldn't be allowed to make games this good.

Everything about this game is perfect, each planet, all the dialogue, every puzzle is so brilliant, this is easily one of the best games of the decade.
but... why not five stars?
There's three small issues with the game.
First, I wish the game took the time to create more of a bond with the hearthian characters, as it is they just feel like hint machines, which is a shame this feels especially strange with how much reading you have to do, it's all well-written but there doesn't need to be as much of it.
Second, some of the puzzles are just a little bit too esoteric, to the point where I felt annoyed more than triumphant when I figured a couple of them out.
Third, the controls are fantastic, they work perfectly for everything... unless you're playing on mouse and keyboard, in which case you have to grapple with some of the worst controls ever put to a game.

Other than that though this is a powerful, beautiful and expertly crafted sandbox with a really compelling story and lore. This is a must-play for anyone who loves space games, games with fun traversal, puzzle games or story games.
You're doing yourself a disservice not to play this, so get out and do it, but for the love of god please use a controller.

I cannot believe I haven't played this game yet, I slept on this game for so long and anyone with VR who hasn't played it yet is hardcore sleeping of one of the top 5 games available for any VR system.
The movement and traversal is perfect for VR and can only exist in VR, the story and world is interesting, the art design and graphical quality is SECOND-TO-NONE, and honestly, this is a near-perfect game.
THE ONLY ISSUE I HAVE, is that I wish there were more puzzles, there are plenty of traversal challenges but outside of that there's mostly just putting things in the right place puzzles, if you can even call those puzzles.

This is one of the best VR games you can play and you're doing yourself a disservice by not playing it right now.