Spirit Tracks gets way harsher critique than it deserves to, and I think it's almost entirely because of the train thing, which just kinda feels weird to me. "oh but it's on rails so you don't have as much freedom to explore", what, like wind waker didn't just have you sailing through nothing between islands? that sure was gripping gameplay, glad they let me have that amazing adventurous choice.

the ost has a delicious windy style, all panpipes and yumminess. cole is kinda goofy, and I do have to admit the trains thing seems very out of left field, but why not make goofy games? who cares! link gets a little train driver outfit! also zelda's an actual character with thoughts and feelings for, like, the first time ever in the series? this game is better than people say it is, and better than it has any right being.

I unironically like Phantom Hourglass a lot. the music is pretty good, the plot is good, it features Linebeck who might be one of the top ten characters in the entire series. I do find it lacks a certain amount of charm and generally feels like it's treading water (har har) in comparison to the other DS/3DS games. Link Between Worlds fits the zelda style to a T and uses the ready-made template of a "Zelda Game" to practically perfection. Spirit Tracks divulges from the usual Zelda standard but does so with a huge amount of charm & unique presence. Phantom Hourglass... doesn't really do either of those. it's just kind of... there.
Three stars & Linebeck adds an extra half.

i don't even have wooooooooords for twilight princess, man. yeah it's kinda edgy, yeah it's kinda cringe. but deep down, aren't we all kinda edgy? aren't we all kinda cringe? no, but we can be when we run around pretending to be a shadow-cursed wolf in a Dark Evil Scary Land and then a glowing lizard tells us about our evil girlfriend who floats through space and stabs us.

perfect game. no zelda will ever do dungeons like TP, no zelda will ever do a soundtrack like TP, no zelda will ever do the hero's journey like TP. if TP was a married man i'd ignore his ring and take such good care of him that I wouldn't walk straight for a month.

oooh, baby, ocarina of time but with weird fan theories! or, y'know, more of them. majora is just the most wonderful proof that ocarina wasn't a one-hit wonder, nor was zelda a series that was going to run out of ideas anytime soon. mix all the best parts of ocarina with the things that majora does right, like the almost disgustingly detailed NPC-schedule-time system, and the general theme of despair, and you get a masterpiece. more dungeons would have been wonderful, but this game was made in a year, i'm not about to go crazy on that. my favourite thing about majora is the NPCs, since they annoyed me so much in OoT: everyone felt very lifeless. but in majora, everyone's weird as fuck and has all kinds of shit going on, and everyone needs to go to therapy! i love this game and it's dark little heart. ty for being the counterargument to all the weirdos who were mad that twilight princess "made zelda edgy"

nostalgia and favouritism is ocarina's sourest legacy, but not it's biggest, considering how it's footprint has not only remained on all-but every zelda game since, but also on a majority of all 3D action-adventure RPGs since. there are parts that have aged a bit awkwardly, and replaying it recently with a friend who's never played it before (and only ever played very modern games), it's faults shine through pretty obviously, not to mention the fanboys that insist on OoT being the best thing since sliced bread. aside from that, this game is just yummy. koji kondo, aonuma and miyamoto at their best and most iconic.

I was asked to write this review by a friend, and I figured it would be a fitting first one on this website. As a bit of an author's note, this is moreso a review of the entire NBA 2k franchise as a whole, as opposed to this specific game. I intend to look at gameplay as its developed over the yearly release model, as well as the trends these games represent in both the technological, and economical sides of the video game industry.

I suppose to begin with, yes, these are mildly competent basketball games. You can perform a variety of flashy and fun dribble moves, layups, dunks and shots that all Feel nice to play. The systems at the very basis of the game are all sound and a genuinely enjoyable couch basketball experience. That's why the rest of what I'm about to say feels so tragic as both a basketball fan, and someone who plays a lot of video games.

For better, and certainly for worse, the NBA 2K games have genuinely been on the cutting edge of the industry for some time, despite maybe falling off through the pandemic.

Graphically, when these games try, few games look better. This, of course, is funded by both the yearly release model, and microtransaction HELL.

One of the first experiences regarding microtransactions in gaming i personally remember comes with NBA 2k's Virtual Currency model, and later their own loot box system within the MyTeam game mode.

There is hardly anything besides a basic game you can do within 2k that doesn't involve spending vc, drip feeding it out as gameplay rewards and offering it in multitudes for packages that look quite cheap. Looking cheap Every Time they shove them in your face. Expecting $5 here, $5 there, until ultimately a $60 game has become an $80 dollar one, and so on up the price ladder.

Say what you will about the morality of the model, but it at one point had fully become the industry standard, showing that in the mid2010's the folks at 2k had their finger on the pulse, yet that's not quite the only thing needed to make a good game, is it?

For as good as 2k's finance department is, the execution of plans by their game development department leaves a lot to be desired. Between 2k18, and 2k22, not a single mode in the game has been altered or added outside of MyTeam or MyCareer, the two game modes which require you to spend the most VC in order to progress through the ranks and ultimately create a better roster, or player, respectively. If 2k cannot monetize it, they do not care about it.

Despite what seems to be a genuinely forward thinking dev team with a solid foundation based in basketball and significant technological acheivement, the NBA 2k franchise, even with its massive pool of resources and ideas, has failed to innovate on anything besides it pricing model in a decade and a half, and ultimately, isn't worth more than 2 stars in any iteration.

This game is cute and offers a perspective often overlooked in gaming circles. It unfortunately suffers from unclear directions and loose, unexplained connecting logic between certain information points. It's understandable, based on the game's limited scope, but it does mean if you don't "get" something right away you might feel stuck for a good bit; and even if you do manage to get something you may not really understand why, which somewhat diminishes the educational value this game appears to want to foster.

if you wanna choose a game that's a real labour of love, terraria comes first place every time. the devs are on this shit, and every "last" update is met with another one to add even more stuff. if you can get one or two friends together to fuck around, terraria is just perfect. even solo play is brilliant! from the meditative energy of jumping from ore vein to ore vein and mining for hours, to the boss fights that'll have you white-knuckling your mouse white-gamer-boy style, terraria is just plain good