Now I've heard stories about this one. And by that I mean stories about how no one tells stories about this game, if that makes any sense. You'd think the follow up to one of the most critically acclaimed and influential titles in not only the series, but gaming as a whole, would garner more recognition. But no—it just sorta has this weird aura of neutrality around it. With that it meant that I had absolutely zero clue what to expect when jumping into Prime 2.

What immediately jumped at me was how massively the structure of the world and progression was changed. I remember Prime 1 felt a lot more... loose? What I mean by that is that the world never felt openly restricted. It created a wonderful illusion that didn't make the next critical path immediately obvious. It's admittedly very hit or miss and will definitely not jive with everyone, what with all the back and forth, but it added to the feeling of isolation.

Prime 2 decides to tackle this problem in a way that caught me off guard. It's totally a Zelda game. The world is very segmented, meaning that there are three main areas and each area is tackled consecutively. No need to backtrack, sorta. When backtracking is required, it's made blatantly clear and you just need to enter a teleporter. (with one exception!!!!!!that wasn't very fun).

What this means is that the game's pacing is much smoother, but weirdly makes the world feel smaller and less organic. Which is a shame considering that the backstory with the Luminoth and the Ing is so intriguing. Also did I mention the dark world I completely forgot about the dark world yeah that was pretty random. The dark world was definitely one of the aspects that was out left field for me, even though it seems like such a core element of the game.

I kind of like and dislike its implementation?? It's definitely not your typical dark world schpiel, i'll admit. The way it's handled is really cool, making it an actual hostile environment, with only a sparse amount of light bubbles offering respite. It really sells the feeling that the Ing are a legitimate threat. However, I still can't shake the feeling that the dark world is such an... afterthought?? Which is weird to say because it still feels fully realized even with the technical and time restrictions imposed.

Metroid Prime 2 is a peculiar case. The case of a quality sequel being so overshadowed by its predecessor is so... strange. People are asking for Prime 4 and they still haven't played this one!!!! Perhaps why people aren't as attracted to Prime 2 may be that it doesn't feel as grandiose of a revelation as Prime 1. It's more quality Metroid Prime!! Not a lot to be upset about, but also not a lot to be blown away by.

Pikmin 4 has that nice feeling of a series that has been dormant for some time, and then comes back with a slew of new additions and reinventions that makes it feel like it was never away to begin with. Quite a nice feeling really.

Obviously the caveat of this being that niche series + dormant + drastic gameplay changes/additions = tutorializing everything and bringing down the game's pace to a crawl. If anything whenever a massive amount of explanation is thrown at the player, it tends to overwhelm and makes them feel under prepared. Tutorials are at their best when they aren't being presented as one.

Once the game gets going, it REALLY gets going. If there's one benefit that the tutorials bring to the table, it's hammering down to the player the concept and execution of dandori. Once a player understands dandori, every other gameplay mechanic falls into place so naturally. One of the biggest additions is with your pet dog(?) Oatchi, which essentially works as your co-captain for the adventure. A ludicrously powerful, destructive co-captain. With Oatchi, the possibilities of dandori open up tremendously, and its up to the player's own observation and discretion to figure how to efficiently tackle each task. You can split yourself up and cover more tasks, or maybe you should focus on teaming up and focusing in on tasks together. Totally up to you.

And if that wasn't enough we also get to finally see what was so scary about these "nocturnal creatures" that we've been hearing about. In night expeditions, the dynamic changes to a more tower defense style of gameplay. It's quite simple, but the addition of glow pikmin does help stand out more, and it works as a nice change of pace.

Caves are also back, which was the worst news to hear since September 29, 2008. Thankfully, their implementation was very tasteful, since each one is individually hand-crafted. Which means that they offer bite-sized levels that can challenge players in a controlled environment. Like, imagine if these levels were randomly generated. It'd almost defeat the whole purpose of them!

tl;dr This game is Pikmin 2 but good

Ooooo now this one always intrigued me. When I was a kid I was BIG into Mario & Luigi. Bowser's Inside Story was my first RPG experience and it was PEAK. Then i saw this weird little thing called "Paper Mario" or something idk. I already had my 3DS ready to go for when Dream Team dropped, but in the time I thought hey why not try out this um huh uh what's it called "Paper Mario: Sticker Sta-" dies

Throughout all that i watching stupid youtubers and they were OBSESSED with this game. Everytime a Geno, Mallow, Smithy, Star Road or whatever were mentioned. I was watching Mario Bros Z. and these assholes the Axem Rangers appeared and I recognized them and I was like OH MY GOD so yes through the 2010s i was exposed to this game that people wouldn't shut up about.

Don't worry this is where I'll talk about the game SO fast forward to 2023 they announce a remake and I'm like PERFECT morbid curiosity got me and I bought the remake. It was kinda not exactly what i was expecting?? Like this game is goofy and strange, and introduces things that will never appear again. A true lighting-in-a-bottle time capsule for Mario, which is honestly awesome. The turn based combat in this game caught me off-guard so much, as in, it was bitch easy. I've heard that this game was an "introductory" RPG but I never really understood what that meant. Now I know. You're not playing this game for the combat, even though it's well realized and has its own charm with timed actions, it just doesn't try to be more than that.

The pacing of this game also caught me by surprise. A brisk 12-hour RPG???? What?? Even in future Mario RPGs the play time would range at about the 25-30 hour mark on a normal playthrough, but here comes this game hitting me with reasonable pacing excuse me. So we've got a short, easy, breezy, baby RPG that for the longest time was stuck as an anomaly. So why were people obsessed with it? Well to me it seems Mario RPG nails its world and characters. An easy, relaxing game that can be replayed at a moment's notice, with a fun and catchy soundtrack that I hear more in youtuber videos than in the actual game. It's just a damn charming game.
People love this game because it will never happen again.

Core Pikmin gameplay perfected and made much more accesible to boot. The time limit is still here, yet its tied to the amount of fruit you're able to collect. Any good player will develop a surplus of food, which to some will make the time limit seem pointless, but its main achievement is easing in new players and teaching them that if they play good then they're rewarded with a generous clock. Overall a solution that is friendlier than the one introduced in Pikmin 1, where even with good play the time limit still remained daunting to some.

Even so, the main challenge in Pikmin 3 is with its three captain system. Unlike in Pikmin 2, where double captain always seemed out of place and unnecessary, here in Pikmin 3 it's integral to progression. Maps are bigger, items are abundant, and objectives are spread out. This means that the player can assign each captain whatever role they deem necessary for the day. This is pushed even further with the ability to give orders to captains, making division of tasks MUCH more efficient. Not to mention the environments are gorgeous, densely packed, and brimming with detail. Enemy designs are goofy, dangerous, weird, and creative.

The new pikmin are also integrated smoothly into the main squad. No longer tied to caves, they can propogate in the overworld as usual meaning they're more abundant and can actually have valuable strengths and weaknesses. Rocks have high damage, but don't stick to enemies to attack, while Wings have low damage, but are the best at gathering fruits, items, and have a solidifed niche in aerial combat.

Pikmin 3 is the ultimate Pikmin experience. A perfect starting point for newcomers, while still offering substantial additions and changes for veterans. Throughout the review I've been trying so hard not to shit on Pikmin 2 so much ok please i'm trying here

First time Silent Hill-er right here, and let me tell you this game is not what i expected it to be, and i mean that in a good and bad way. I want to get this out of the way—this game is CRAZY for ps1. It pulled off a semi-open world with a back-facing, kind-of controllable camera in 1999. Granted with some caveats such as my eleventh worst enemy tank controls, but it didn't dissuade me.

What suprised me the most was just how... not survival it felt?? Like people classify this as "survival-horror", but i think i more accurate description is "ˢᵘʳᵛᶦᵛᵃˡ⁻HORROR". I mean i played it in normal mode, but come on it's called normal for a reason it's meant to be the difficulty the devs intended to reach. Lots of ammo, lots of health items, barely any bosses to dry your inventory, enemies kinda suck... it all felt a little uneventful. That or i'm just a pro like that who knows most likely the latter.

The "HORROR" part, though? They absolutely nailed it. The dead silence that fills the foggy town and the rusted, decayed appearance of the nightmare zones were just pulled off wonderfully. The music and sound design were also top of the line quality. Like i was more scared of the music than the actual enemies. The sound was absolutely what kept me on edge throughout my entire playthrough more than anything.

Silent Hill is all about leaving the protagonist in the dark, not giving clear directions, confusing them... so the designers thought oh hey fuck you the player might as well feel the same. This game DOES NOT hold back and will not give a shit if you stubbed your toe ow. Some people will think "oh but the puzzles aren't hard they're logic based" and it's like yeah but actually no. Some of the puzzles just have misdirection. Like one puzzle near the end has zodiac symbols and numbers. So you think ok in real life they DO have corresponding numbers. But no the numbers relate to how many limbs the symbol has??? The game in general has a high focus on puzzles which i did not expect. I was able to—frustratingly—solve them at least but eh. They're fun but a little too much of the experience for my taste. It kind of defeats the purpose of repeat playthroughs because you'll already know the solutions to puzzles, the combat sucks, and all the scares won't suprise you as much.

Lots of the enjoyment of Silent Hill comes from the inital playthrough where you have NO idea what the hell is going. The game does try to incentivize multiple playthroughs through multiple endings and higher difficulties but maaaan i dunno if it's enough. The first playthrough was AWESOME and kept me engaged till the end but the thought of a replay doesn't sound as enticing as i'm sure the game thought it would be. I feel with stronger core gameplay mechanics I would replay but as it stands, it's a stellar first experience that i'm not sure if I'll revisit.

Pssssh I dunno how to feel about this one. It's super weird. On the surface, it seems to be just a straight improvement over the first one. You get 2 new types of pikmin to play around with, you control 2 captains instead of 1, and the time limit is removed. It's like wow they're trying to make the game more approachable, WHILE still not sacrificing the strategy. Looks like a straight win. Yep. Sure.

And shortly after the beginning you get introduced to caves. AWESOME RIGHT. Caves can deliver more compact, concentrated, deliberate challenges, while still having the overworld housing the usual strategy from the first game. Except... huh there are no ship parts to collect. You're collecting treasure to pay off your company's debt—thrilling right. But wait... there's barely any treasure in the overworld. And then you say ok I'll go to caves and do a little spelunking nothing wrong with that. And then you do more, and more, and you realize huh weird these caves are mostly randomly generated and not handcrafted at all EXCUSE ME.

Like yeah sure each cave can have its own unique fun gimmick—if your idea of unique fun is breadbugs and waterwraiths sure ok. After awhile they blend in, and just kEEP ON GOING. AND THEN YOU REALIZE CAVES ARE BASICALLY THE ENTIRE GAME. The overworld might as well be a glorified world map. You can't even breed the 2 new pikmin in the overworld only in caves why. Weeeelll they basically are just a premium subscription. Subscribe to caves and you too can amass an army of... a handful of purple pikmin. Like yeah they're fun and overpowered, but why was there such an imbalance between the aboveground and underground? Also yeah 2 captains woo yippee really makes a difference in the overworld that is used.

Also this game's difficulty curve is so much stranger than in the previous entry. In Pikmin 1, the world was cruel and unforgiving—just like mother nature intended. The difficulty was based on the player's skill, observation, intuition, and decision making. It was survival of the fittest in the purest form.
So for the sequel, the logical step was to make the game bullshit hard. We removed the time limit so we haaaave to compensate somehow. I won't lie, there is a delight in having everything out to kill you, but it becomes kind of exhausting when you're 7 floors deep and the cave is still not over oh my god please. I only got the "paid debt" ending so uh fuck Louie is dead but whatevs. I'm not a masochist out to get every treasure.

I've been very negative throughout because the game's structure is so confounding I DON'T GET IT. But this game survives by the fact that it follows the first game closely. Pikmin 1 had such a strong foundation that even a sequel that decides to risk it all in the pursuit of... caves(???) is still gonna be inherently fun and interesting.

So this is a big win for me right here. After 2 years this FINALLY LEFT MY BACKLOG. I'm absolutely not the only one in that position like come on $3 on sale is a steal. ANYWAYS apparently this is a reboot of the Tomb Raider series, which is a series i have no previous connection to. So that makes me the PERFECT, target audience these folks were aiming for. I have positively NO point of reference for this series so I can't compare to what came before or after. Being on sale for $3 does that to a man.

Let's start off with the presentation because this game reeally wants to show off it's graphical capabilites. It's kinda cute looking back at what cutting edge used to look like 10 years ago. It's one of those "this will be gaming in -CURRENT- year" games—weird label i know but it makes sense in my head. Regardless the game holds up quite nicely at least.

Gameplay wise um well i have to come out and admit it I barely dabble into these cinematic–third-person–lite rpg–story-driven games before. Confessions from a stupid nintendo fan I know. But you know for what it's trying to achieve it does it quite well. The scenarios are bombastic and are mellowed out with some light exploration. The combat is REALLY fun and can remind me of RE4 at points. But it kinda fell into that same trap RE4 fell where the puzzles suffer as a result. I dunno maybe i didn't explore enough (70% complete take that for what you will) but the puzzles were few, easy, and kinda jarring. Like when i entered a tomb i expected it to be a series of progressively harder puzzles, but it ended up just being a singular one for the entire tomb. Also not enough raiding of tombs was made weirdly enough.

A little bit of an uneducated ramble, but like from what I think the series would be about it's that the core of the game would revolve around the tombs and Lara would, well, raid them—hence Tomb Raider. Crazy I know. I dunno i thought the structure would be closer to Zelda, but it was more Uncharted.

Overall still a solid game, and it does make me curious about the rest of the series like I NEED to know if Tomb Raider is actually about raiding tombs I'm not crazy ok

EDIT: ALSO SHOUTOUT TO ALEXALILY FOR MENTIONING THIS IN THEIR REVIEW—FUCK THOSE WHITE FLASHING LIGHTS THAT APPEAR EVERYTIME IN THE CAMPFIRE MENUS OH MY GOD

Reading up on some interviews it's clear to see the influences this game had. The devs were well aware that Mario Maker defeated any need for a new 2D Mario game—at least in the traditional style that was established prior. So incidentally it forced the devs to FINALLY KILL NEW SUPER MARIO BROS WOOOOOOOO
SO NOW THAT THAT SHIT IS DEAD AND BURIED what did they come up?

Surprise surprise they made something actually new. No joke this is probably the closest thing to an actual Super Mario Bros. 5 they've ever made. The whole style and structure of the game feels modern and not outdated except lives lives are still here why are they still here i never got a game over why. They took 2D Mario and fitted in snugly to a 3D Mario structure. So that means a more non-linear approach to world design—levels no longer follow eachother back-to-back, instead, they're divided into groups that are all spread out and can be tackled in any order. What's more the win condition for every world is to collect a certain amount of wonder seeds.

ALSO WONDER SEEDS BEST ADDITION TO THE GAME. THEY'RE SO COOL EACH LEVEL HAS A UNIQUE SETPIECE TIED TO ITS WONDER SEED YEEES. Honestly they're a brilliant inclusion and bring so much life and creativity to the game. ALSO ALSO BADGES WHAAAT. They're such a nice inclusion that gives even more variety to playing and they can be switched out on the fly upon every death so experimentation is encouraged.

One small complaint i have with this game is in regards to its world structure its so weird. So you know how in Mario Odyssey each kingdom was divided into smaller kingdoms and larger kingdoms? Well this game basically does the same and it's eeehhh. It's really weird too 7 worlds: 5 large, 2 small?? The small ones just feel kind of awkward and anticlimactic like they have no end-world bossfight. The pacing in that regard is odd but the game's length isn't even a problem it's actually a solid 8 hour main campaign and a 15 hour completionist campaign. It doesn't leave you wanting more, but it also doesn't overstay it's welcome—it's perfect. JUST LIKE THIS GAME IT'S PERFECT WOOOOOOO

Woooow Mega Maan. You know it's without a doubt Mega Man. It has that indistinguishable Mega Man Mega Man from the hit game Mega Man. It reminds of Mega Man for some reason. It's the start of Mega Man where they made Mega Man another ten times but also decided we need more Mega Man so they made different Mega Man Mans because people need Mega Man every few months. We needed Mega Man so much that now there's barely any Mega Man for a few years because we might have oversaturated—i mean—overMegaManned too much Mega Man. We just sort of Mega Manned to much you feel me oh god what did i get myself into

You know it's pretty bad when i try to avoid playing a game even though i already have it. But i said screw it, if I wanna experience the highs of DMC 5, i have to experience the lows of DMC 2. And oh man what a looooww. I mean it's playable just not a type of playable i want to play you know. Movement and combat is sluggish, guns shred everything, there's a single type of sword, and there's zero fun in the mood and presentation. This game hates fun, but more importantly it hates you. Like yeah sure you can master* the combat✱ and go devil may cry 2 combo mad(⁇) or something but why would you want to dedicate your time to s ranking infested chopper.

Yes it's Devil May Cry 1. When you play it you'll reeeeallly feel that 1. In comparison to other DMC games it lacks a TON. Lucky for me I decided that DMC 1 should be my first one, so judging it with that viewpoint... yeah it still feels like a 1. There's like 2 main weapons, 1 aerial attack, you can't switch between weapons on the fly, 3 guns, rudimentary combos, and you can't switch between weapons on the fly. Even with all of those limitations, DMC 1 still manages to create an engaging combat system. Engaging in the sense that everything will kill you in like 3 hits but hey that still counts. It's less about stylish combos and more of observing and capitalizing on openings. You'll be jumping more than you'll be slashing basically. With all that in mind DMC 1 still carves its niche due to its atmosphere. It's weird you'd think this will be a loud game with a rocking soundtrack, and it still is, but it's mellowed out with quieter moments, disturbing sounds, and just those moments where you can hear the wind. It's a rough game with a solid foundation, so that leaves room for the sequel to fully realize this game's vision... !

Ok let's get this out of the way—I bought this because of the Castlevania expansion maybe kind of sort of not entirely. But the fanservice there was great i got my money's worth. Oh yeah the game too um, well I really enjoyed it. Even so, it fell into the patented roguelike trap of "At first it didn't click, but later on it was fun". I liked the game. That's it. I completed a run where i killed Dracula, and i completed another standard run. It took a while, and when I saw that THAT was basically the easy difficulty I said yep that's my cue to leave. By then i already had my fill and felt contempt. I dunno maybe if I pick it up again I'll really get into it.

Hey look another edition of "a friend recommended me this". I only played it up until like level 4 which sounds bad, however that's because i was doing the B sides along with the normal level. I'll never forgive this game for that sin. I thought oh so the normal level is sort of an A side so let me complete the B sides too. No apparently i didn't need to do that and when i found out about it i hadn't played the game in 3 months so that was great. I'm sure it's a good game and good games must be completed... at some point... eventually. yeah