This is a masterpiece. I have so much stuff to say, I don't know if I can organize it in a review, but I'll try

It was CLEARLY made with love. Best soundtrack ever, AMAZING boss fights (grimm is the best, I felt like I was dancing); a lore that you need to watch a video 1 hour long to understand. Did you beat it? Great, cause there's new stuff to do, new challenges, 112%, etc. Nothing in this game is forgettable

"oh, but I like linear games"

Hey, me too, but this is a great exception... The only thing that "frustrated" me was: sometimes I got stuck on a boss, but the next day I'd try again and most of the times I passed, so It's not an unfair game, It's just skill issue.

All that for an excellent price, SO BUY IT, NOW

I love Pepper Grinder, but it needs updates. More than that, it needed more time in the oven.

Grinding/drilling through the dirt is so satisfying, bolstered by great use of HD Rumble on Switch. Grinding through gravel and popping out of the Earth, at its best, is one of the best feeling game mechanics in years to me. It is that special. The level design is great and has light collectathon elements -- big Donkey Kong Country and Yoshi's Island vibes. There are ideas used once or twice alongside level/visual themes only used a few times, and for the most part they're executed great. The difficulty during levels is breezy but not overly so. The music rips, too.

If all of Pepper Grinder was like this, it would be one of the best 2D platformers I had played in years. Skipping over the water man...it feels so good! Unfortunately, the game faces regular, frustrating issues with punishing bosses, inconsistent checkpointing, bugs, strange hitboxes, and other design quirks that leave me feeling more mixed here than any game I've played in some time. The bosses in particular -- why is there such an unearned difficulty spike here? Why am I doing Metroidvania-style pattern recognition bosses after skipping over the water using my silly drill? Why are there no permanent health upgrades to accommodate?

This still could end up in my Top 10 (or at least honorable mentions) at the end of the year because the stuff that hits really hits. But the whiplash between total elation and "almost quit the game" level frustration makes it a really difficult thing to evaluate. Excited to see what the developer does next.

Very well put together Metroidvania with exceptional quality of life features making it very smooth to play. Ubisoft have clearly taken inspiration from gems of the genre such as Hollow Knight and Ori (particuarly Will of the Wisps).

First impressions aren't great, with basic movement abilities, dull character work and a nothing-burger of a storyline. The title soon picks up speed though, with each new unlock offering interesting usage in both traversal and combat.

The map is large and full of optional platforming challenges and simple puzzles. Except for one late game area featuring a naval battle frozen in time, there is not much originality to the locations you'll be jumping around. The expected temples and forests give way to sewers and mountains respectively. Each area would have benefitted from a few more traversal or combat tweaks specific to the locale.

It is refreshing seeing AAA studios tackling a genre that has been predominantly served by the indie scene in recent years. I hope both Ubisoft, with Lost Crown, and Nintendo, with Metroid Dread, see enough success to greenlight sequels.

Completion Criteria: True Ending

It's crazy that in my head I try to think about why Dragon's Dogma 2 exploration is so engaging in comparison to other popular sandbox games and my answer is simply "oh yeah, they are rewarding".

I think this has been said by main others but yeah, this is just Dragon's Dogma 1.5 which for me is by no means a bad thing. Since I was one of those people singing Into Free and telling people how fun it is to climb on griffons and they fly off with you. The game is just good old fun. I'm just going to break this down into points I feel are worth talking about

- When I am immediately aware of how close I am to a cliff for both offense and defense, the combat is just immediately more engaging. Unfortunately I didn't like any of the new classes so I stuck with my big sword but that's not an inditement.
- I think I made the same in the first game but the Oxcart has a time skip feature. I wasted too much time at the beginning getting divebombed by Griffons
- It's hard to criticize the scope of quests in this game due to it small development team for a AAA game. I don't really remember any sidequests worth pointing out and some areas feel underdeveloped (I never had any quests in the elvish area). I would have liked to see more natural developing quests.
- On the topic of quests, it's extremely nice to see a lack of quest markers in cities, and you just get them by getting stopped in the world outside of cross quest starts. Not only that but even if you don't finish a quest perfectly, there is no indicator. There was more then one quest I assume I failed but there was no indication I did.
- Economy in this game is incredile. Never did I feel like I could get everything I needed. Whether that be a full kit or maximumly upgraded equipmment, in terms of money I always had a goal.
- While I don't have any issue with Ferrystones or Portstones personally, I can see why it rubs people the wrong way. Realistically I think this issue would be resolved for most by not having stamina out of combat. It's definitely a slog going on a direct journey once you run out of stamina once. Especially so if you don't see any combat in between. Alternatively, some other ideas would be that you can warp between portstones free of charge and/or large groups of ferrystones can be combined into a portcrystal. The first one feels very precious but once you get a second one, especially a third. There's not much reason for any more, and by the end of the game I physically couldn't get into single digits I was getting so many.

I've ignored any talk about microtransactions because you've made DD2 the scapegoat of something that has plagued way higher visibility games.

Dragon's Dogma 2 types of enemies
Dragon's Dogma 2 FPS in cities
Dragon's Dogma 2 voice lines for pawns
Dragon's Dogma 2 hours of content padded by 28 hours of walking
Dragon's Dogma 2.99€ to buy a fast travel item
Dragon's Dogma 2 times they've made the exact same mistakes because they've learned nothing at all

12 years on from the strange, incomplete original, DD2 is more of the same, uneasily sitting between the uncompromising Souls series & more conventional narrative ARPGs. At times evoking a desolate offline MMO, DD2 is at its best when out in the wilds, the sun setting at your back & two or more beasts landing on the path ahead, all Arising out of dynamic systems.

The main questline unfortunately does not play to these strengths, with much of Act I confined to the capital & some really dull writing. Fortunately, writing does not maketh a game, and side-quests that take you out into the unreasonably huge map are much more interesting, and really need to be sought out in the crowds and corners of the world. Keeping track of these with the bizarre quest tracker is uneven and obtuse: you’re either reading the landscape and tracing clues or just beating your head against a wall figuring out what the game requires of you.

Dragon’s Dogma 2 is singular, not quite fully realised, a beautifully rendered physics-heavy oddity. The art direction is profoundly generic, but so deceptively understated it at times resembles a Ray Harryhausen film, full of weight, movement and character. DD2 makes you feel like you have friends, albeit stupid friends, who'd throw themselves off a cliff for a view of yonder.

"HIgher beings, these words are for you alone..."

I've had one hell of a journey with Hollow Knight, dropping it after a first few hours because I just didn't feel it, only to give it another try years later and finally click with it. Despite my praise and my rating, I don't think I love it as much as everyone else does but it's a special experience nonetheless.

What I love most about Hollow Knight are not the bosses, its combat, lore or its level design: it's simply the atmosphere. Many of the game's areas provoke such a striking feeling - sometimes serene, sometimes somber and other times just unsettling. It's magnificent, and the soundtrack is ironed into my brain.

Hollow Knight also feels super refreshing in its pacing. The progression is slow but every step, every item, every ability feels meaningful. It's a chunky game with plenty of content but despite the relatively slow pacing, it's not bloated at all. I also felt that my playthrough ended just when it could have started to drag.

So now here I sit, the experience still marinating inside my head, and I want to urge anyone who dropped this game on a first attempt to pick it back up - it's worth it.