I'll keep this brief - if you've played Choro-Q 2 or 3, you've sorta played Choro-Q, too! This game is the progenitor of the (ca)RPG formula, and thus a little lighter on content than its successors. For example, the town featured in the second and third entries? Nowhere to be seen, yet this accomplishes as a solid racer nonetheless.

The main thing that sets this apart from the rest of the series is the realism of its setting. There is very little in this game that you couldn't see in real life - well, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but it's certainly not as over the top as its follow ups. Race through tunnels, jungles and the Scottish highlands, but never somewhere a car should never be, such as a castle or... the ocean. This lack of wonder could lead to an uninspiring course lineup, but the total opposite is true! These are some of my favourite tracks in the PS1 trilogy, as there's a particular emphasis on mastery that loses focus a little going forward. Some of these tracks have brutal turns or tricky shortcuts, and making the right calls will often be the difference between first and last place.

On top of that, the game just looks great. Each track is detailed to a degree that you can't appreciate at high speed, encouraging me to stop and smell the roses. Accompanied by a phenomenal soundtrack - a quality I failed to mention in my review for the third game - Choro-Q ensures its status as a classic, and a worthy starting point to this quaint series.

Why did I start this series with the third entry, released only in Japan but blessed with a great fan translation? It's hard to say, but I had a fun time!

My initial impressions were mixed. Extremely basic courses with AI drivers that were impossible to outpace had me infuriated, and while I enjoyed driving around the game's town, I didn't feel myself progressing at all. I'd heard the game was a (ca)RPG, with you advancing by upgrading your vehicle to overcome challenges. When I eventually located the game's shop, this system began to flourish! While the game very rarely offers up interesting choices (most parts are standard statistical upgrades), you do have to consider what kind of tyres would be best suited to the track ahead of you. It's not especially complex, but it's compelling enough to keep me invested. What really works here is how the races rarely become trivial due to your car's abilities. You still have to work hard (even harder given how fast your car begins to move (steering becomes a true test of skill)) - in order to win each race.

What sets Choro-Q apart from other racers - as well as the reason I picked it up initially - is just how colourful and quaint the presentation is. While the cars aren't anthropomorphic as such, they have a certain quality to their designs that personifies them; it certainly helps that their headlights and grills make up somewhat of a face. These cute vehicles are plopped into beautiful dioramas of tracks, ranging from things you'd see in Formula 1 to Mario Kart. It brought me a lot of pleasure to see where the game would take me next, and I was rarely disappointed with the results. These tracks are twisty, and mastering each is a reward in and of itself. The game has some incredibly awkward turns, which makes mastery consistently tough. What I learnt after a while was that there was always an answer to even the bumpiest roads.

Despite there being so much more to Choro-Q 3, that's all I have to say about it. It's abundantly joyful, surprisingly challenging and full of treats that'll keep you on your toes. The town is ridiculously dense in its design and should you desite it, this game can keep you occupied for many hours.

Never have I ever played a game that mimicked Dark Souls to this degree, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it does feel uncanny. From the pace of combat and the button mappings to the incredibly funny usage of L3 to do the most pointless jump imaginable, Lies of P is a Dark Souls game to the same degree Elden Ring is. This lays a benefical foundation, yet I found myself comparing it to Souls unfavourably in more than a few ways.

The biggest core combat change is the adoption of Sekiro's parry mechanics. Blocking is strong here, as you only take temporary damage from most attacks, which can be replenished by going on the offense yourself. Perfectly timing a block will deflect the attack, meaning you take no damage and also lower the enemy's invisible posture guage (which took me some time to catch onto). Your dodges still work the way you'd expect, though, allowing you to i-frame through moves with ease. While I found enemies generally easy to parry, oftentimes I found myself opting for a dodge instead, especially if it opened my enemy up for a bigger punish window. Besides this, it truly does play out like Dark Souls, specifically 3 with its faster foes, special moves and charged strong attacks.

The weapon system is intuitive yet brilliant. A weapon's handle determines its moveset while the blade alters speed and range. This is an oversimplification, but gets to the very core of why this worked for me. You can experiment with different combos effortlessly, and while they're not going to overhaul the game entirely, they set a foundation for fantastic replayability and expression of build, which is otherwise pretty limited. I found combat to be pretty dull for the first few hours, though. The game litters basic humanoid puppets everywhere, and when a new faction of enemies is introduced, they just feel like another flavour of puppets. It takes some time before different shaped and sized contraptions and creatures become frequent, but the game does eventually reach a point I was fully satisfied with. The endgame in particular is constantly introducing unique encounters, and I just wondered why they couldn't have scattered some more into the early game.

As for the bosses, I have mixed feelings. There was a great buildup to Romeo, many fights surpassing the previous encounter. Romeo was the hardest yet, and an incredibly satisfying challenge to overcome. Not exceedingly difficult by any means, but just right for his position in the game. What happened after was a tad awkward, as I found every boss following the king of the puppets to range from easy to a mild challenge. I understand difficulty is subjective, and different builds struggle in different areas, but I'm almost certain I died more to the clown puppet miniboss than I did to any main boss following Romeo, which just felt wrong. The biggest letdown was the Corrupted Parade Master, which the game spends a solid chunk of time building up only to be a cutscene-less follow up to the game's first boss. This is a strong concept, but the game failed to develop the fight in any meaningfully exciting way, and comes off as a truly sad conclusion to one of the game's most heart pumping sections.

This isn't to say I didn't enjoy these bosses, though. The design and spectacle didn't often match how easy some of these foes were to topple, but it did make up for it somewhat. The Puppet-Devouring Green Monster is creepy and creative in all the right ways, whereas Simon Manus blew me away with just how outstandingly over the top his moves and visuals were. With a big difficulty increase, I think he'd be an all-time favourite Souls boss for me. I emphasise difficulty because I feel the moment you defeat a tough (but fair) boss with beautiful design is indescribably fun, and the game only came close to achieving that a couple times. Because there was one boss I've neglected to mention that killed me more than Romeo, and was even more fun: Laxasia. The first phase is a highly punishing brawl with an opponent similar in stature to yourself - a FromSoft design classic. The second phase massively ups the speed, messing with my parry timings and forcing me to better implement dodges and understand her combo strings. The best part? You can volley her projectiles just like Ocarina of Time's Ganondorf. Near flawless action.

Bosses are so integral to the success of this genre, but I'd like to briefly touch on another aspect of the game I didn't love: the areas! The unfortunate thing is that I struggle to verbalize why I didn't enjoy them too much because they're so forgettable. Visually? Brill. Conceptually? Decent. Yet you interact with each level in almost the exact same way. Very few unique environmental hazards, with the ones there (like the poison swamp) being cheap and dull. There's little to explore, with most places having a linear path with a couple branching dead ends throughout. The lack of friction keeps the pace brisk, but utterly meandering. Again, the end of the game remedies this to some degree, providing a captivating tower to climb, but it's too little too late. This world may be as broad as Dark Souls, but it's nowhere near as deep.

Somehow, I've said all of this without mentioning the wonderful story, and I'll be leaving it as just that passing mention. It won't wow you, but it culminates better than any FromSoft title, and several NPCs had me smiling or verging on tears. To me, it encapsulates what the game is: great!! It didn't sweep me off my feet in the same way as a Dark Souls, but it kept me engaged and pleased consistently. I really, really like Lies of P, and if the developers go on to create something new, I'm likely there day one. They have so much room to improve and it's just so refreshing to play something with such high production values and heart from somewhere like Korea, which I personally haven't experienced before. We're in good hands here.

This game is deceptively simple. You spin continuously, certain surfaces will switch your rotation and your goal is to make it to the end of each level mostly unscathed.

While I can't go into too much depth about what worked and what didn't, what I can attest to is that I entered into a fugue state while playing Kuru Kuru Kururin. What was supposed to kill half an hour ended up swallowing up my night, as I noticed the clock had ticked past midnight and my partner was readying up for bed while I grappled with the final level. It only took me 2 hours, yet felt much shorter than that even. The pace is brisk and the game never wears out its ideas, so I suppose you can take that as the highest praise imaginable.

The truth is that, while fun, the game will likely leave your thoughts almost as quickly as it entered them. A perfectly fine 7 out of 10. Quintessentially so, even! I'll definitely give the rest of the series a go too.

Undertale Yellow is a game I've heard rumblings about for years. As much as I adored Undertale, I can't say I was too interested in engaging with much of its fan works. What makes the game special is its uniqueness, that it's not just another RPG. It kickstarted an indie RPG boon which has had some wonderful results. Point is, an Undertale prequel meant very little to me. I didn't need more backstory, nor did I need another game that played just like Undertale. After seeing the release date trailer, I decided I should play it. There must be some merit to a project that's been in development this long, right?

The first half of Undertale Yellow is fairly derivative. You travel through the ruins and Snowdin, and while these areas are different from the ones in Undertale, I felt myself going through the motions nonetheless. You meet a surprisingly friendly monster in the ruins, you explore their house then leave. You meet a royal guard obsessed with puzzles in Snowdin, then they give up on capturing you and become your friend instead. It's rote, but fun. There's plenty new here, from the enemies and remixed music to the actual areas, which are solid extensions to Undertale's. Martlett was greatly endearing, and her fight was a highlight of the early game. Yet the whole time, I just felt the team had gone the easiest direction for a game like this. It was incredibly safe, essentially a re-telling of Undertale's story, which would lead to a more unfortunate conclusion... right?

The Dunes were the big addition to this game, though they don't immediately stop the game from feeling like a path well tread. The trek through this sandy place is consistently engaging, with solid interactions, bosses and a segment in the Wild East that felt truly unique. The addition of Starlo and Ceroba keeps things fresh enough, but travelling through the Steamworks felt a little too similar to Mettaton's section in Undertale. Enough new, and some fantastic moments throughout, but that feeling of deja vu continued to linger.

This was until the very end of this portion, where the game flips your expectations upside down. While I felt the game careening into an encounter with Asgore, it goes totally off rails with a twist I could never have seen coming. This part kept me on my toes, with a feeling of dread creeping up. I'd grown far too comfortable, and the game exploited that. In this respect, while I felt the game fun but plodding up to this point, the build up to this moment had been utterly worth it. Everything after is fabulous, and the final boss was more captivating than anything the franchise had thrown at me prior. Gameplay and narrative wrapped together effortlessly, which had me trying to avoid some of the most brutal bullet patterns in the game while wiping the tears from my face.

The pacifict route end phenomenally, but the other routes are no slouch either. The neutral route has an exhilarating - yet familiar - final boss, making it the route I enjoyed the least. The genocide route was tedious, and I feel as if the structure could have been a tad different from Undertale's, but the bosses did not disappoint at all.

Undertale Yellow is brilliant. While that initial experience of finding the game deriviative keeps me from giving it a perfect score, the end of the pacifist route will stick with me for a very long time, possibly longer than anything in Undertale or Deltarune. Fans are truly something special, eh?

Road to Gehenna is an interesting expansion in that it doesn't add much totally new to the experience. You'll utilise the exact same mechanics as the base game, in environments ripped straight from the base game; without a new story, this could just be a map pack, with additional, more difficuly challenges following up from the end of the original.

However, there is a story here, and it's delivered differently from The Talos Principle. While you'll still access computers scattered across the world (in this case, one after each puzzle), they tend to be a lot more interactive. You play as Uriel, an emissary of Elohim, sent to shut down Gehenna, a world inhabited by many unique characters. I won't get into the weeds of the narrative, but it is rather compelling and philosophically challenging. The delivery is the highlight, as you access information via a social network. Each thread has posts from various people, and you're often able to add your own thoughts to the discussion boards. Sometimes these threads include attachments, such as art, literature or even the occasional text-based adventure game, similar to something like Zork. It's a brilliant framing device that builds certain individuals into unique characters, and oftentimes gets a laugh out of me due to the snappier, wittier writing.

All in all, this was a worthwile experience. While I found the puzzles dragged somewhat, with nothing brand new to shake up the fairly long playtime, the intermittent story beats more than made up for this, in many ways surpassing the storytelling of the base game. If you liked what The Talos Principle had to offer, you're bound to find something to enjoy here.

I try not to focus too much on how I score a game, but I'm really at my odds with myself here. On the one hand, Ace Combat Zero is an Ace Combat game, which means there's a high baseline of enjoyment to be had. On the other, this is the 7th AC game I've played, and if the game doesn't bring something exciting to the table, my weariness is going to set in. And truthfully, this is the first time I've felt that there's truly so little that sets this game apart from its predecessors.

This game looks like AC4 and 5, it controls like them too. One thing you can count on to be different is the story, which to me took a bit of a back seat. The cutscenes, when they happen, tend to be quite long, but missions are generally short and these scenes only show up after knocking out a few. I wasn't all that invested in the plot, nor the characters, which you really need to be for one of the late game plot twists to deliver. There are some brilliant moments; while the final level fails to deliver a groundbreaking combat experience, it is a narratively epic conclusion, enhanced by another excellent, albeit often unmemorable, soundtrack.

Now we take a quick detour to the hangar, which I've neglected to discuss in detail in any prior review. This is for the simple reason that it just works, even if each game deviates from the last somewhat. 5 had my favourite implementation, as I often hit S Ranks, I felt rewarded in that I could buy any aircraft I wanted, and any excess money could be poured into buying spares for the rest of my squad. I prefer each plane having its own distinct special weapon, as it helps to set them apart. Zero returns to the way 04 handled things, which isn't my preference but is fine. Now you can get up to 3 special weapons for each aircraft, but... everything is so expensive! Despite getting S Ranks on 16/18 missions (on hard difficulty mind you), I could barely afford to buy anything! This, combined with the fact that you unlock the SU-37 barely an hour or so into the game, meant I rigidly stuck to the same couple of planes for the entire experience. Perhaps it's a fault of me that I didn't experiment, but I didn't felt that this game was at all conducive to doing so.

"Are the missions good?" I hear you ask. To that, my answer is a resounding "I guess." While I wouldn't necessarily single out any specific mission to call bad, I don't know if I could do the opposite either. Despite having a much shorter campaign than 5, the objectives here blend together into mush. Destroy air targets, destroy ground targets, destroy air and ground targets! It's almost nothing you haven't seen before and while this would serve as a solid if not fantastic introductory Ace Combat experience, it's so utterly lacking in individuality.

The core distinction in Ace Combat Zero is the 'yellow' targets. When shooting down certain aircraft, they are sometimes neutralized instead of destroyed. They are weak, using the last ounce of power to flee the battlefield. In this scenario, you can choose to shoot them down or let them live. This extends to certain ground targets also, such as windmills or tents which don't push your mission forward, but would 'harm' the enemy. Whether or not you shoot these down affects your Ace Style, which ranges from a cruel mercenary to a noble knight. You'd expect this to have some impact on the story, but as far as I can tell, it just affects the enemy squadrons you face throughout the game. These fights are fine, but just amount to simple dogfights that I rarely found to have anything distinguishing themselves from the countless other nameless aircrafts you face. It would be generous to call the system half-baked, as I'm not even sure it was put in the oven. If I wasn't playing these games back to back, directly contrasting them against each other, I might neglect to mention it altogether!

So while Zero serves as an incredibly solid dogfighting simulation by virtue of being an Ace Combat game, I don't feel as if it did the Belkan War justice. This is an iconic precursor to the events of the entire series, yet rarely has moments that earn it that stature.

Having started the series with Ace Combat 7, I felt rather confident that it wasn't going to be topped. The missions were excellent, the controls sublime... this was what over 20 years of Ace Combat games had been building up to, right? And yet, here I am, reflecting on my time with Ace Combat 5 and simply dumbfounded at the sudden escalation in scope from its predecessors. Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War fires on all cylinders, leaving no aspect of the experience in the dust.

As an engine, this just feels like a slight upgrade to Ace Combat 04. I think I noticed some more detail in regards to weather effects, but otherwise this is more AC4, which isn't a bad thing at all! The music of the series has always been a highlight, yet it feels as if they've soared to even higher peaks this time around. The soundtrack is not only one of the series' best, but one of gaming's best. The average level of quality is astounding, with a solid diversity in regards to atmosphere and tempo. Some of the stand outs to me were Ice Cage, White Bird (Part I) and a contender for one of the best 'final boss' themes of all time, the titular Unsung War.

I really enjoyed Ace Combat 04's narrative, yet it was largely disconnected from your protagonist's point of view. I thought it a fresh approach, yet I found myself appreciating this game's direct storytelling far more. You're a silent protagonist still, yet this feels earnt the more you play the game. You are one of the Demons of Razgriz, a moniker to describe the squad that singlehandely pivoted the war. You aren't just a hero, you are a myth to many, both to your allies and your enemies. In this sense, I didn't mind missing out on a voiced protagonist, especially since the rest of the squad did some heavy lifting. Much like Ace Combat 3, this game wants you to be invested in its characters, which is easier given they actually pull their weight during battle. Each and every squadmate was precious to me, and the more secondary characters were also spotlighted to a degree that made me appreciate everyone's involvement.

To dive just a tad deeper into the plot itself, I appreciated how small of a scale everything started on. You get to view the war's escalation in real time from the perspective of a reporter, and by the end it's simple to understand how the game had built up to this point. It's very rare that you get to see a war of this scale through to completion, as the previous games always started you out as an established war pilot. There are twists and turns, missions that purely serve narrative, and many moments that pack an emotional punch, both happy and sad. It's a thrill ride, one without any brakes, and despite having a much longer single campaign than any of its predecessors, I can't say I was any less invested.

Now we come to the series' awkward sticking point: the missions. These games have struggled to find their footing in this regard, with Air Combat being understandably basic, to Ace Combat 2 providing much needed variety, to Ace Combat 3 experimenting yet ending up bloated and repetetive, to Ace Combat 04 finding a strong template that was stretched far too thin. If you've seen the score, it might be no surprise that Ace Combat 5 did it. While there are 3 extra missions I've yet to do, as well as an arcade mode which is separate to the campaign, I can safely say that there was zero filler in AC5. Basic "kill all enemies" objectives were few and far between, outweighed heavily by some incredibly creative concepts. Whether it was escorting a plane through a radar-infested field, racing the enemy to locate your lost squadmate or infiltrating an enemy's base to take damning pictures of their operations, the ideas seemed endless. These more specialised missions were used sparingly however, but the more 'generic' missions often had some twist that set them apart from one another. This usually meant layering multiple objectives together, with missions tending to last a while without dragging. There are boss fights of sorts which work better than anything previously and one of the most exhilarting chase sequences gaming has ever seen (spoilers: you are the one being chased). While I called the story a thrill ride, it would be more apt to give the descriptor to the game's missions, as Ace Combat 5 is akin to a rollercoaster ride that I never wanted to get off of.

Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War achives total parity between every element; story, characters, visuals, music and gameplay, all lacking flaws that hampered previous entries. None of this is to mention a streamlined armoury which made your choice of aircraft more impactful, the ability to direct your squad both in and out of battle, as well as the higher level of difficulty which made retrying missions and actually adapting to your circumstances necessary to succeed. Ace Combat 5 is brilliant, alright?

Ace Combat 04 sets the foundation of what I'd expected from the series coming into this marathon, as someone who'd only played AC7. This ticks all the boxes of what you'd want from the series, yet plays things a touch too safe and ends up a high quality yet largely unmemorable entry.

What works here is the story. We get illustrated vignettes with voiceover that show us a tiny piece of the conflict, from the perspective of a young lad whose family died when the enemy attacked. Initially, this paints these people in an explicitly negative light, and we get a primary threat: Yellow Thirteen. It's not long before we find out more about this mysterious figure, who ends up being a seemigly decent person, a talented pilot who respects strong opponents and acts as an intriguing window into the enemy's army. He isn't cruel; he treats the people of the town they've overtaken very well, even so far as to help them out of a bind even when they're plotting his downfall. It's a very human tale, and muddies the waters somewhat. Are you definitely playing as the good guys? It certainly appears that way, and maybe that is the case, but there are good people on each side, and the circumstances of their birth has determined their fate long before this fight ever initiated. The conclusion to your rivalry with Yellow Thirteen is somewhat underwhelming, but the journey there had me hooked.

Witnessing the jump from PS1 to PS2 is always quite exciting, and that's the case here too. Graphics are not only more detailed, the environments are far more multi-layered, with many of them being set in hills or cities. Tightly navigating through terrain is very effective due to the better controls, curtesy of the left analog stick. It's the best the series has ever played, and I finally found myself able to shoot down enemies with the machine fun, which was quite the struggle previously. Missions are longer and full of radio chatter which brings the war to life. Late into the game, you get access to the iconic SU-37, which is absurd in terms of speed and turning ability. It's a fantastic late game plane and made me consider doing New Game+ just so I'd have more time in its cockpit.

Where I must ultimately reach with this review is the missions themselves. Things start off as basic as usual, with some dogfights and bombing missions filling the early game. A short time in, you'll come across the first 'score attack' objective. One of my favourite missions in Ace Combat 7 was the nail-biting, utter decimation of a canyon's army base, and this evoked the same feeling (though admittedly a lot easier). What soon sank in was that this was the bulk of the game, with most back-to-back missions being score attacks. There was diversity in locations, but I couldn't help but feel it was all a tad monotonous. It didn't help that most were incredibly easy to not only beat, but to achive S Ranks on. I didn't have to optimise my pathing, I could just drift lazily through the sky, firing on targets that struggle to fight back. As a break from dogfighting, these missions can be effective, but I feel it only caused the game's identity to blur. There just aren't many standout missions here, though the finale is insane in the best possible way.

So for as much as I enjoyed the technical upgrade that is Ace Combat 04 (why is there a zero there?), it falls into the same trappings as its predecessor, with objectives that seem to loop as you work your way towards a stunning finale.

Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere is at odds with its ambition. A deeply thought provoking narrative that marries choice effortlessly with its conclusion is hampered by multitudinous plodding missions which rarely deviate from the mould.

Ace Combat 3 is a curious game that westerners haven't been able to enjoy in its totality, in english, until very recently. The version or the game we received here was greatly pared down, both trimming down the mission count massively (perhaps a good thing, actually) and more importantly stripping the game of its narrative that defines this entry. I see absolutely no point in giving that version a shot, and I don't know many specifics about the cut content, so going forward you can assume I'm talking about the Japanese version, which received an excellent, and more importantly complete, fan translation earlier this year.

Going from the second entry in the series to this gave me a lot of whiplash. Air Combat and its sequel had stories, but they were rather vague and were there just to get you into the action as quickly as possible. The backdrop is a war of some sort, with rather realistic depictions of battles (or as realistic as you can get while still making a fun dogfighting game). Ace Combat 3 immediately sets itself apart from these games from the title screen, which invokes a beautiful Y2K aesthetic, a product of the turn of the millenium. The UI is fantastic overall; while the general sentiment is that UI you don't notice is doing its job well, I'll always take something this bold and evocative over simple and inoffensive any day. Oh, and the music here is superb, an ethereal electric soundtrack gives each mission a strange vibe, often paired with evocative visuals that make the whole experience explicitly Ace Combat 3.

Before long, you're greeted with anime characters! Again, their designs are very 90s-esque, and seeing as the game is set in the future, it makes the game a unique time capsule. A quaint approximation of what the next 40 years may hold, such as nanotechnology, planes that can defy the laws of physics and the ability to transplant your mind into cyberspace. Characters contact you using video emails, and this aspect of the presentation is one of the most immersive. This cast wouldn't win any awards, but I found myself invested in their stories due to how well the game keeps you connected to them. And yet, that's as far as I want to go on the story. It has my thoughts enraptured and I want to give it the time and effort it deserves, so I think I'll be doing a video about it, one day.

So all is great, yeah? Not exactly. This campaign features a lot of huge turning points in the story, which I really appreciate, but this comes at the expense of how big they had to make this game. The first game had 17 missions, the second game had 21 and the third? A whopping 52 missions, which isn't even counting everything you'll have to replay in order to see all the endings. A flowchart similar to the Zero Escape series would have seriously helped this game out, though it wasn't until the second game in that series where they figured this out. The first two AC games have some repetitive mission structures, though the second at least took strides in making a lot of the missions feel distinct. I can't say the same for its sequel, which very rarely had objectives which stood out from the rest.

While the story chugs along in the background, the gameplay blends into an unrecognisable mush which I found myself struggling to continue with as I rounded out my fifth ending. Those endings are usually the highlights, with some incredible setpieces and dramatic scenes punctuating the end of the game. Notable, however, is that every single route has you go up against the same 'boss fight' agt some point in the final act, which was the most blatant example of recycled content. Ace Combat 3 either needed to trim the fat and focus a little more attention on the missions they kept, or give the game a lot more time to truly realise its vision.

Ace Combat 3 is ultimately so much more than the time I spent playing it, which is a kinder way of saying that this one is more enjoyable to think about than to actually play. Still, I'll take a lasting impression over some mildly better gameplay almost any day.

I think Air Combat tricked me into believing all PS1 just looked like that. The flat ground texture which resulted in difficult-to-judge altitude is a total non-issue in the sequel. The flight controls have been tightened, the music even better and the story? A mild improvement, but not something I cared about.

Ace Combat's biggest strength lies in its missions, where we some much needed variety. Standard dogfights are interspersed between defence objectives, time restrictions and levels that require precise navigation. Not every level is great, but the diversity is appreciated regardless. Environments are more unique, too, with the highlight being a city at night which lets you squeeze right by the buildings if you're feeling brave. As this is a PS1 game with access only to a D-Pad, controls aren't as accurate as you'd hope, making some maneuvers riskier han they'd be if full analog control was possible. Regardless, it works well enough that I can forgive the shortcomings.

Ace Combat 2 is great, a solid step up from its predecessor and a fantastic foundation for entries moving forward. I'm particularly excited to see how the series fares on more powerful hardware (particularly given the dual analog setup), but that'll have to wait a little longer.

I had pretty low expectations for this one, partially due to how I ended up experiencing this series. I had a craving for some aerial dogfighting and ended up playing (and loving) Ace Combat 7, the latest entry in the series. I'd always wanted to go back and try the older titles, but I only just got round to doing so.

With the preamble out of the way, you night be able to see why I was wary of this one. Ace Combat 7 was polished to a tee, its gameplay forged carefully over almost 20 years of flight combat games. Surely there was no way they got it right the first time around? And yet, here we are. Air Combat is lacking in story, lacking in visual fidelity, but the core experience is almost entirely intact. I played on hard, with the "expert" control scheme (which really should be default) and while there was some jank, some pretty poor early PS1 graphics and little in regards to mission diversity, I was immediately having fun! Maneuvering my plane felt good, the thrill of the chase I was smitten with was present and short runtime prevented me from boredom. While I find myself a pretty poor critic of music, I would consider this soundtrack to have its fair share of "bangers" which I'm sure I'll be listening back to.

A simple, effective start to a series with endless potential. Let's just hope that they continue to aim higher and higher from here, evolving on the initial premise. I know they reach AC7 one day, but I'm hopeful the entries in the middle will provide something fresh that I haven't seen just yet.

I was rather surprised to find the original Spyro a really fun time. Not sure why, but I expected a middling, slow experience that just saw you mindlessly collecting gems in nice looking worlds. While I still enjoyed Spyro 2, the experience I expected from Spyro 1 is more apparent here.

I will say that I was impressed by just how big this game is. Not only are there a lot of worlds, they're all visually diverse, which includes the enemy and character designs. The most joyful part of entering a new level was seeing the theming, which was always something totally unique to Spyro 2. From robot farms to Hansel & Gretel in Arabian Nights, there was little to nothing missing from the selection.

What you do in these levels is where the game lacks. My average experience was a casual stroll through a nice looking environment with little to no friction. The first title didn't have tons of friction, but the inclusion of the supercharge meant that some gems acted as navigational puzzles that required some level of critical thinking and experimentation to acquire. Now it's been a few years since I played Spyro 1 so it's possible it's better in my head, but there was nothing close to this feeling in Spyro 2. I was often having a good time, but it almost never engaged me beyond that.

There's also the issue of the minigames which were greatly hit or miss. At their best, they were decently fun breaks from finding gems. At their worst, they were tedious affairs which were torture to complete despite offering no challenge. The infamous alchemist escort is not hard, but it is finnicky, and if you've never played the game before, it's highly likely you'll have to do it twice. On the other hands, I found the bosses pretty good. The final boss was a fair level of difficult with a distinct gimmick, and the second boss even took a life from me (though dragged on otherwise)! I also want to give some credit to the characters and story, especially Ripto who was suitably pathetic for a Spyro story. I think they nailed the tone that a narrative of these games should have and I'm hopeful the next will be an equally fun time in that regard.

I want to preface this by saying that survival horror (and really, horror in general) is a bit of a blind spot for me. I've played very few survival horror games and the ones I have played are often left unfinished. This isn't for any particular reason, though it's rare these games get their hooks in me. I did finish Signalis, and I did enjoy myself, but I fear what's going to be said in the latter paragraphs may be sacrilegious for fans of the genre, so I apologise in advance.

Signalis is its vibes. While I played this game in widescreen on my Steam Deck, part of me wonders if the experience could have been even better squashed onto a CRT TV, enhancing the analogue aspect of all the game's interacables. Interfacing with this game is a delight. Its menus and puzzles would fit right at home on the Nintendo DS, which is to say it's all incredibly tangible. From basic features like being able to rotate items in your inventory to the rather innovative radio and a whole host of locks across the game requiring you to adapt to unique control sets in order to open. This is rather typical of the genre, but the ones in Signalis just felt that much more authentic and creative.

Everything about this game's visual style is strong, though. A beautiful low-poly look meshes effortlessly with an advanced lighing engine and extremely detailed pixel art to create something that's distinctly "Signalis". This isn't to mention the use of 'glitchy' visuals that ties the whole thing together. It's pulled off immaculately and enhances what I found to be a confusing yet gripping story about love. There's a lot to absorb in this world and I found certain pieces of lore interesting, though much of it was glazed over. I respect the basic delivery of information through text logs, but whenever the game decided to display information in other formats, I found myself engaging with the content actively.

The game's best portions, used very sparingly, were first-person explorations of low detail environments which appeared to stretch on forever. It was just you and the atmosphere, which was all good by me. These short moments were a much needed break from the rest of the game, which often chugs along like a busted steam train. The gunplay works, the systems work, the puzzles are often great, and the areas are decent, though lacking in diversity. The kicker, then, is how bored I'd get. Enemies lost their fear factor mere minutes after meeting them, instead becoming awkward obstacles to stumble around. Perhaps this is actually just a level of narrative dissonance I'm failing to appreciate, but the enemies felt even more artificial than the machines you save the game on. Detection is sketchy, with foes often unable to pick up on me even as I brushed past their arm. When alerted, they slowly lunge towards you, and it wasn't long before I realised how to adequately bait them. This would be fine if this was the most common enemy type, but most of them work like this, even as you advance through the final levels. There's no life to them, you leave a room and they revert to exactly where you left them. Some enemies patrol rooms, which makes it a pain to open a door, see the enemy is in the wrong spot, back out, wait a little bit and try again. The ability to peek through doors would have remedied this immensely, but it wouldn't have stopped the game's main source of horror boiling down to tedium.

Without spoiling too much, there's one type of enemy I loved, and I felt my heart race as I figured out how to deal with it. The game needed more moments like this, encounters that will stick with you, haunt you, long after putting the game down. Signalis isn't scary, there's an existentialism to the story that I appreciated, but nothing unsettling enough to keep you up at night. Maybe this was an issue of expectations, but this was where I found the game most lacking. The dread I felt meeting my first Licker in RE2, followed by surprise attacks from Mr X at seemingly random intervals. Instead, I settled into a rhythm that the game seemed hesitant to interrupt. It's occasionally fun, especially one of the boss fights (I hate the others), but I'm left wondering why they couldn't have removed half of the enemies, and half of the ammunition; and thusly, half the backtracking, which didn't grate on me too much but was a consistent irritation regardless.

I'll remember this game for its vibes alone, and that's sometimes enough for me. But the bones of a masterpiece are here, and I know that some people were able to see that. I wish I could alter my perception and see exactly what they see, but for now I'll settle for a great, spooky time.

I don't really know what happened here, but... I just didn't like Crash 2. I had low expectations coming from the original, and while I'd find it difficult to say that this is ostensibly the worse game of the two, I found it far more dull than its predecessor, perhaps partially due to how little I engaged with its 100% requirements.

Again, I don't think the Crash world is all that remarkable. You have the same few level aesthetics repeated ad nauseum throughout the game and it somehow feels even more played out this time around. The forests feel like a rehash of Crash 1 while the ice and sewer levels just introduce such dull mechanics that fail to justify their existence. Level design feels even more infuriating in this one, with more tight, awkward to time jumps that never offered a fun challenge. Then you have the gimmick levels which provide some needed diversity, but usually wound up even less fun than the regular levels. While I liked the polar bear sections, the jetpack portions almost put me to sleep.

And there was no satisfaction in beating this one, either. The bosses are overall much worse, with the penultimate one being a drawn out button masher that only provides a mild challenge during the final phase which, if you fail, you have to repeat the tedium all over. I hestiate to blame the game for this as I played on Steam Deck, but a crash that occured during the final blow of this fight put me in a real sour mood. To get the platinum relics in this one, you need to have already beaten the game, as you'll require the running shoes in order to speed through most of the levels. This, on top of awkward gem requirements for certain levels, made the process of collecting everything a chore, something I gave up on after the first world. Maybe I would've enjoyed my time more had these been possible to get on my first trip through the levels, but padding a lot of the completionist runaround into the post-game totally put me off.

I'm not sure I'll ever enjoy Crash Bandicoot. I'm still going to give Warped a shot, and likely even see it to the end, but I'm doubtful it's going to turn me around on this franchise. 4 looks fun, I suppose.