"WHAT?!" I hear you saying. "ONE STAR FOR THE MASTERPIECE THAT IS DEAD RISING 1?! HOW DARE YOU!!" And yeah, I don't like rating it that either. But the thing is I'm on PS4 and that version seems to be HORRIBLY optimized! So this isn't so much a 1 star review of Dead Rising, but rather its PS4 port

Dead Rising is a notoriously stringent game series, and under normal circumstances that would be fine. The problem is this version has crashed for me no less than 4 times. My PS4 games have crashed a few times, but it's a rare occurrence and all the crashes happened to me here within the first few hours of gameplay, meaning I haven't even beaten the first story quest! I got to Carlos, beat him, and then crashed. I got to Carlos again, beat him again, saved right after, found the scientist hiding in the store and crashed. This repeated another 2 times before I finally gave up

Back in the day, when I was poor, had no xbox and youtube was new, I did go through all of Dead Rising's story. I think it's a fine story with most of my gripes being things I don't like about zombie stories in general (i.e. I hate it when all my friends die!) But it's still a neat story, the bosses being the obvious standout of character design, and the gameplay is of course fun as all heck.

This is not a review: it is a warning. PLEASE do not buy this game on PS4, because this port port sucks so much. It's such a shame, because I would love to enjoy this game more than I currently can. Bleh

Before the remaster next month, I want to log my thoughts now about this game. Thing is it's one of my favorite games ever made. Not just because it's an interesting world to explore, not just because the characters you meet are fun and interesting, and not just because the action button system basically makes critical hits into a skill rather than chance, but because this is one of the only games I can actually see and articulate its difficulty curve

Just in the first area alone we start out with Goombas that all have 2 HP. If you do an action command properly, you do 2 damage. Easy! Except the battle you encounter has 3 enemies. So you also need to learn how to defend. The next new enemy you encounter is by itself, but has 3 HP, forcing you to learn the action commands properly. The next fight you're fighting two of them (insert kittens here) and eventually you get to the tutorial boss which has a body part on the ground and in the air, both with 3 HP, which you need to attack before hitting the main body

The game continues like this in a way that lets me physically see the difficulty curve. Like I remember Boggly Woods not just for its amazing color pallet, but because that's when enemies with 4 HP become standard. I remember Keelhaul Key not just because of the shipwreck storyline, but because the Ember enemies introduced have the same 8 HP as the previous chapter but also have an elemental affinity that wasn't present up until this point.

This is also why I don't really like the newer Paper Mario games. Like, I love partners and I love the wild creativity and I hate that those were removed, but those aren't the only things that make a good game. Origami King looks like a fine game, but the battle system doesn't feel cohesive to me. Numbers feel random rather than predictable, so there's no reason for me to invest in the gameplay. Unlike TTYD where I know how much damage an enemy can do just by paying attention to what the game is telling me.

So, yeah. I like this game a lot. Both for its wild creativity but also its incredible implementation of game design that makes knowing how it works feel rewarding. I'll do a more professional (for me) log on the remaster when I've beaten it, but this is just my off-the-cuff feelings of TTYD: I like it because I am a HUGE gameplay nerd

Ninja Gaiden is an incredibly frustrating game, but also incredibly fun. It's one of those old school games that push you to be better and understand the rules in order to overcome them. And when you do, you feel incredible. Getting better at the game makes the game more fun and makes you want to play it over and over to keep getting better (or at least I did).

A lot of the challenge does come from unfairness caused by poor programming (most notably the respawning enemies and dying to the final boss sends you back to the beginning of the last level). While that is unfortunate and keeps me from giving it a perfect score, the game functions in its most important features, such as hitboxes, controls and movement.

And I think it's that paradox of being both incredibly unfair and incredibly fair that hits a sweet spot for an incredibly engaging title, worthy of being considered a classic. While rough around the edges, Ninja Gaiden is well worth playing even to this day.

I absolutely adored Unicorn Overlord. Its unique take on auto battles feels a lot like dominos in it takes a while to set up but is immensely fun to watch play out & fall perfectly into place. And every class feels unique, which makes experimentation fun and interesting

As others have pointed out the story doesn't have the depth or nuance of something like FFT, but it's still good for what's there. And while characters are a bit one note, they're all likable enough and the several dozen unique rapport events between characters are really nice additions to fill in the otherwise plot focused story

And even if the story is a bit thin, the combat, art, world, music, weapons more than make up for it. But what really impressed me most were the items that effected the flow of battle. Whether they were bear traps that stop enemies to get an advantage over them, or makeshift forts that gave you strategic defense on the road, they all have a unique purpose and use. My favorite are the bells that let you provoke enemies, allowing you to mess up the enemy formation by taunting an archer and killing them before they can assist attack your characters to death

Overall Unicorn Overlord is a wonderful game, and with the amount of content it has it's well worth your money. If you are a fan of strategy and tactic games like FFT, Shining Force or Fire Emblem, you owe it to yourself to play this game

Arzette is a really, really good game. It's an homage rather than a parody and I'm happy it exists this way. It shows us in an alternate timeline, the Zelda CD-I games could have been great & that there was something special about them

Put aside how they "ruin" the characters, add just a little polish & you can see how charming they could be. Make the levels more intuitive to navigate and you can see that the levels were always beautiful. And if the CD-I soundtrack just added... Actually, that was the one thing that always slapped about the CD-I games, but Arzette's OST rocks, too!

But even on its own merits the game still succeeds. It's almost like a mini-metoridvania with a level selector rather than an interconnected world, but you still get that same gameplay loop of starting out weak, getting the hang of the game, and by the end you're crushing every enemy on your path to the end.

Arzette is a short game, but well worth every ruby you spend on it. If I had to sum it up in one word it is, unironically, good.

Paradise Killer is a vibes game. The mystery is great, the exploration is fun (especially with platformer powerups you can find), and the characters are all fun to interact with, but the main reason you play it is just to be in its world. The Vaprowave aesthetic is something I thoroughly enjoy and this game oozes it from every pixel

It's not a perfect game. My main complaint is while you interact with the cast of colorful characters they, never interact with each other which hinders some of the story telling. Nevertheless, I throughly enjoyed scouring this world, both to solve its central mystery and to just be there

Shadow 2005 is an unfinished mess of a game. Most of the weapons in this game suck, the multiple endings add nothing but padding and the only polish this game has is on the ground causing Shadow to slip and slide everywhere

But I also love it. It is one of my favorite games, hands down. The gameplay is simple enough to enjoy, music is terrific, sometimes the story is actually decent and gosh darn it I love all the try-hard edgynes! I especially love all the ending names which are just so emo, like Galaxy's Requiem or At Vagrancy's End

This game is a bad game and I do not think you will enjoy it, but gosh dang it, I love it to bits

House of the Dead is not a perfect game, but a lot of what holds it back is its nature as a quarter eating arcade game. A lot of the time there is no way to avoid damage, save survivors or get the precious few helpful items in the game without replaying it over and over again

But if you can get past that (such as with a home port) it is a blast to play. Action is fast, shooting zombies feels fun, there are tons of creative moments in the game, and the voice acting & story is so bad that it's awesome. I love this game to bits.

A Hat In Time is nearly everything I wanted from a collectathon. Fun, imaginative, full of surprises, a move set you feel in control of, secrets around every corner, a variety of different costumes to unlock and an overall positive vibe to the whole experience

It's not a perfect game by any means. It can feel very unpolished & the majority of the other characters are weirdly hostile to Hat Kid, but I can forgive that. I enjoy going through the world, I enjoy collecting all the items & that's enough for me: This is a game I enjoy

If I had to describe Super Mario Sunshine in a single word, it would be "tragedy." It is one of the most beautiful games out there with great core gameplay, but the missions are more often than not repetitive tasks with little to no variation despite seeing them over & over

The games biggest flaw is how the end game can only be unlocked after beating every level's 7th mission, effectively making making a collectathon where half of the collectables feel meaningless. Sunshine is proof you should never judge a book by its cover, because sometimes that's the best part

It's easy to oversell a Mario game, especially the mainline system sellers. With that in mind it is hard to convey how much I loved Odyssey. Part of it was how easy it was to go at my own pace and never feel I was cheating myself out of an experience

The world is big, beautiful & bursting with things to find around every corner. The multiple creatures to possess made things exciting throughout (my favorite was the sunshine style gushen). And what flaws this game has feels like necessary evils rather than oversights or bad design

I don't like most Mario games, but I really do love Odyssey

Mario + Rabbid Kingdom Battle is a game filled to the brim with love. Every corner of this world has something in it, whether it's a collectable item, a battle, or a joke. Its tactic gameplay is fluid and easy to master, while being a consistently enjoyable experience that manages to throw in a decent story and some fun surprises

And even though I do have some gripes with the game (3 character teams with an unswitchable main character will always be a pet peeve of mine) it doesn't detract from the overall package, which is excellent. It is absolutely worth your time getting

Blasphmous is an absolute gem of a game and one of the best Soulslike out there. Its aesthetic of gothic Catholicism permeates every inch of this game. Every enemy in agony, each ruined background, its subdued, haunting soundtrack and so much more forms a cohesive, memorably world

The combination of side scrolling platforming, the precision of soulslike combat, and the exploration of metroidvania create a unique experience that makes it a joy to move and fight through the trials this game inflicts upon its players

While lacking the magic of the Dark Souls games it tries to emulate, Code Vein is still a solid entry into the soulslike genre. Its anime aesthetic is appropriately over the top, and I often think back fondly of its stylish assortments of weapons and skills.

And the one area it does surpasses FromSoft's titles, the character creator, it absolutely knocks it out of the park. There are so many options to tweak little details here & there. It's become one of my favorite creators ever and other games should take ques from it.