(5-year-old's review, typed by her dad)

You get to catch a lot of Bugsnax. They're half Bug and half Snax. You get to feed people Bugsnax and that's it!

No that's not it. There's new places that you get to explore and catch Bugsnax, that's it.

This game tries something different, but for once I didn't come out of it saying "good ideas, a lot of potential, would be intrigued by a sequel" They hit a home run on the first try.

It reminded me a lot of Breath of the Wild, in the sense that it feels like *I* did everything. In Breath of the Wild, that sense of freedom makes exploring enjoyable, in this game, it makes revealing the secrets of the world immensely satisfying.

I loved this, I don't want to talk about it extensively, because I feel like that would ruin the experience for potential other players. Just know: if you're frustrated because you're feeling stuck, stick with this game, I didn't regret it. The ending is amazingly simple, it's nevertheless one of the best endings in video games ever.

Also the soundtrack is amazing.

After a lot of time playing this game I have developed my frustrations with its design: how the rigid victory conditions and tile adjacency mechanic disincentivize creativity in favour of optimal play; how trade and diplomacy are dissatisfying against AI opponents, yet the game is fundamentally ill-suited to multiplayer (it's just too long, and "online speed" games don't feel right!); and how the endgame often plays out as "I know I've probably won, I just have to sit through another fifty turns before it can happen". However, these are the niggles of somebody who has enjoyed several hundred hours of Civilization VI (inc. a few Deity wins) and counts the experience among his favourites. This is an excellent and approachable grand strategy title good for losing entire days to.

I've been ever so slowly chipping away at this since the SNES NSO launched. Every now and then just dipping back in for an hour here and there, a few months apart. The dark world can be a real grind, and it's about halfway through that my play through became much more fragmented.

I think the last time I actually beat the game was when the SNES was still a current generation console. I've picked it up for pretty much every console it's been available on but that dark world hump always got me. But I persevered and had a really good time. In brief stages over the course of a couple of years.

It's still an incredible game. It still makes me go wow even after 30 years. It's such a great game with so many secrets and surprises and its roots grow into so many brilliant games to come. I can see why a lot of people say this is the best one (it isn't) and I will probably keep coming back to this until the end my time on this cursed earth.

But first, I think I might charge the 3DS and give a Link Between World's another play through.

Oh hey guys yo I just heard of this unknown little gem called Final Fantasy 7: Make. It's like Final Fantasy Remake but it's just made. They made it.
The thing about playing the video game Final Fantasy Seven in the year 2022 is that there is no way to go into this sucker free of expectations. Those expectations were mostly absorbed via osmosis from message boards in the 00s and they were mostly way wrong because kids didn't understand the game any better than they understood anything else. They hadn't even gotten any of the good Final Fantasy games in English at the time! Playwise they were here playing this game, which tries to make a more freeform FFV but lacks the options and good boss design and so is mostly just kind of okay. But also, that's not what anyone really talks about so who cares.
First thing I see is the shot with Aeris (look I played the original translation for this shut up) that pulls back and shows Midgar and I realize, damn this looks great. This looks better than any AAA game released in the last few generations. Great art direction. And I realize that the weird fucked up chunky overworld sprites are an attempt at making the game like those previous final fantasies. They hadn't decided on how the aesthetics should look in 3D yet and I think that the decision to drop that was correct but tiny lumpy cloud is funny so it balances out.
You would always get the impression from online teens that this sucker was just endless stoic melodrama but not only is it not that, it's kind of extremely about being not that. Coud tries to play that role for roughly five seconds before becoming a ride-or-die for his friends ultra sincere guy and it rules. Aeris is immediately very charming. Tifa is kind of an insecure weirdo for plot reasons. Barret has some VERY unpleasant localization choices but is still very likable. Vincent has hilarious backstory and is otherwise uh, present. There's like nothing there. Yuffie also is maybe halfway to a character. Red XIII fuck man why is he even there I dunno. Cool that he's a cat. Sephiroth is some dipshit. Just a dude. He exists for the sake of Cloud's character.
Most importantly, everyone involved knew the truth that Final Fantasy only works when it's like 50% comedy, and that's what we get. The actual save the world story is secondary to the intense internal drama of a handful of main characters that's actually good and compelling and does rad stuff with the presentation and the game is just constantly whipping between jokes and drama the whole way, often in the same scene. The game is very textually clear that it's not enough to want to save the world. You have to be people. You have a real reason for fighting, because the world isn't an abstract concept. It's the people you know and care about. It's da lifestream babyyy.
The scale of ambition here is wild. They put a whole tower defence game in this thing for some reason. You hit a button to make a dolphin launch you three stories upwards. You do CPR as a man who needs about 30 seconds to take a full breath. These things make the game feel so fun and alive and also make it nearly impossible to make something exactly like it in the modern era with modern budget expectations, though Yakuza is the closest thing I can think of. I knew the game's reputation as having long summons but the final boss having an attack where a meteor shoots through half the solar system and explodes the sun to damage the party and it takes like, multiple minutes is absolutely hilarious and wonderful. They just went for it. It wasn't always smart but they just did whatever wild fuckin thing they could think of.
I'm very curious about the absolutely wild legacy of FF7s extended universe because it's an inherently absurd premise for it to have one. But I get it. I can see, fully, why this thing made such an impact. Why it lives on in the brains of all the kids who played it as a teen. It holds up! I had a great time, and I feel enriched, and that's what matters.