Never played a roguelike before. Never played a Supergiant Games... game before (though i was aware of their work). But people were saying this was an EASY game of the year. So i was like huh what exactly is this game that i never heard of before and that it's winning everyone over. So i bit the bullet and bought it to see what it was all about. Aaaaand i didn't get it. It was frustrating to reach so close to the surface only to die to stupid face theseus and get sent all the way back. So i wrote off the game as "not for me" and moved one. Fast forward to a year and a half later i'm basically a changed man, an "i played dead cells and liked it" type of man. So I get this random itch to play it again. I mean, it's been rotting in my Steam for so long so might as well. I started a new file and it all just... made SENSE. I actually understood what the structure was and what progression looked like. I was finally making progress and enjoying the characters, story, music, everything. This game taught me to give games second chances because it might actually work out in the end.

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.

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

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

I dunno man i really like Bayonetta but i'm never crazy about it. Something about it just never clicked you know. I never had that moment where the combat started making sense and everything was flowing naturally and effortlessly. Ok what i'm saying is i'm bad at it but it's not my fault i swear. Bayonetta 1 WILL kick your ass—It's the hardest in the series by far. But it's hard to a ridiculous degree to the point where whenever i was trying to experiment with a new set of weapons it'd just make it worse. So to survive i stuck with the standard Scarborough Fair for most of the game. The presentation is also suprisingly drab like it's supposed to be a high-octane action game so of course we NEED everything to be brown to fit that energy. It's got that 360 shooter color scheme and it just does not work. The story is also confusing to follow and is presented poorly it only gets worse as the series goes on. Overall i can recognize that the game is super good. It's so content rich and with deep combat mechanics you could sink a hundred hours into it so OF COURSE i sunk twelve hours into it.

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.

Spider-Man just lacks that SAUCE y'know. It's big, it's expensive, it has all the bells and whistles you'd expect from an AAAAAAAA release or something. It plays its hand veeery safe. That's not a bad thing though, I feel these "popcorn games" have their place and yes I know it's not a movie but you get my point.

I'm not even that big into Spider-Man—I am ABSOLUTELY what we in the business call a well um... a casual fan, so I'm not too terribly invested into how faithful these characters are or whatever. I'm literally just here to web swing and punch dudes. And cool great it does that job wonderfully, but i still can't shake that feeling that it could have gone that extra mile to differentiate itself.

I dunno though, I feel like critiquing the game for not being unique enough is being disingenuous to what the game is trying to achieve. It's trying to be THE Spider-Man game right, but in doing so it just sorta becomes A Spider-Man game. That or it just becomes an AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA game.

This game just brings me BACK. A lot of fond memories with this one. Got my Switch day one along with Breath of the Wild and it felt quite literally magical. It was so new so fresh anything was possible. Oh and Breath of the Wild was pretty good too. I'm not that much of a Zelda guy, but if it's basically the only launch title... welp. But that welp quickly turned into a WELP because it was sooo fun exploring hyrule and making your OWN adventure. Sure it felt like there weren't many extrinsic reasons to explore the world, but the sense of wonder and discovery was so good that it didn't even matter that the world only had shrines and koroks. Simply put the world design is some of the best ever in the history of the medium. No exaggeration.

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

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.

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... !

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.