A mixed bag of a sequel that improves on some things yet falters on others. A game that tries to force variety but makes it a chore instead. (I'm going to be adding more to this in the coming days as I remember more talking points.)

Let me start out by saying, I played 150hrs of this game. I still liked it. I just am not going to let it get away with all the terrible design just because I liked it. This game is no where near perfect. Still a fun game though.

I will be doing a rare thing and speaking about story in detail, but not until the very end and I will tell you before I spoil anything. I will give a brief spoiler free story opinion too.

First off, the combat has been drastically improved. Dodging actually does something. Although not well explained, the new synergy abilities and attacks are neat. The pressure system is a great addition as it help you stugger things quicker.

The story is mostly good. Although it drags on. It's pacing is constantly interrupted. It forces story into areas that never used to have story. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it does not. It's not as streamlined as remake. A lot of side quest do end up tying into something relevant with either the world, a specific character's story, or the story as a whole. This is neat. Although some are completely there for filler and have no relation to anything. It's more faithful to a fault I feel. Feels like you do things because 7 OG did it, not because it was necessary. Like you visit every time almost but they force story in those towns that lacked any story before. I won't say anything about the end here, but I have thoughts. All I'll say is that it is confusing, in a bad way. It will be in the spoiler section.

Now let's get down to the meat of this review, what is wrong with the game? There is going to be a lot here. But bare with me. No one else seems to be saying it and someone needs to.

The open world is simply tedious, not needed, and serves no real purpose but padding out an already padded game. It destroys the pacing of the story. And yes, although optional, you need the exp, the resources, and the relationship points. So it doesn't feel optional. Not only that but Chadley is literally interrupting you at all times making what is already a slow process, even worse.

Running around the world is jank. The animations get very tedious.

You can swim across anything most of the game, until all the sudden, you can't swim across a 5ft body of water in the open world because they don't want you to. It's really dumb and simply an excuse to give a purpose to something existing in the game. And no, I'm not talking about a swamp.

Upgrading is now delegated to specific machine/vendors which is a complete downgrade from Remake where you can do it anywhere anytime.

Let's talk about mini games. NOT EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE A FUCKING MINI GAME FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH! Let me repeat that, not everything needs to be be a fucking mini game. Like OMFG, I try my best not to cuss in reviews, but holy shit. I cannot express how infuriating it is to have shitty mini game every five steps. And no, I'm not talking about the amazing Queen's Blood. I'm talking about every quest turning into an annoying, terrible controlling, bad designed mini game. Sometimes they are optional. Other times they are not. Like they saw other mini games in other games and said, "Let's make that!, But Worse!" It kills the pacing of the game. It makes certain quests a chore. It makes one specific chapter unbearably slow. And no, I'm not talking about the Gold Saucer. Which surprisingly, had mostly good mini games.

Let's talk about the lighting in the game. It's shit. I'm sorry, but the game starts at 0 or 1 brightness by defeat and it's still too damn bright. Every time you exit into a bright area, you can't see. Everytime you enter a dark area, you can't see. THAT ISN'T HOW LIGHT ACTUALLY WORKS SQUARE! Yes on occasion, if you are out in the bright sun, it might be hard to see in a dark doorway. On occasion if you are in a dark area, it might be hard to see outside for a second. But not every time! But what makes this worse is that in cutscenes, characters look bleached in the sun. It looks terrible. I tried to adjust setting on my TV nothing helped.

Another complaint is the map. It's terrible. Not useful. It doesn't help guide you. It actively confuses you at times. Misleads you. There is a moment early in the game, where it tells you to climb up. You do that, then the Quest Icon on my map moves into the void and is no longer helpful. You don't realize there is another place to climb up because the map doesn't tell you. It's very easily missed due to the lighting. And due to the fact that you just shot a bunch of debris that never goes away.

Let's about about debris and item physics. So they decided your characters can collided with boxes, rocks, metal boxes, etc on the ground. The metal boxes make this loud noise when moved as if you threw them off a fucking cliff. Let's ignore the noises for a second. It just looks terrible. It feels amateurish. The moment I spoke about in the previous paragraphy. Not only is it hard to see because of the lighting, but it hard to see because there soo much debris. Like you blow up 4-5 boulders and at least 4 crystals. So you are walking around in this small area, wading through an ocean of crap that no longer needs to be there because you broke it. Any other game would have despawned the debris. But not this game. It looks terrible. It's amateurish and Square should know better. I expect better from them.

One last thing. Why is the music drastically louder than the voices. I had to lower it and it still honestly was not enough. Like at times, it feelts like you cannot hear the dialogue due to the music. Like yes, easy to fix, but yet again, I expect better from Square. It just adds to the amateurish feel of the game.

Oh and, they should be ashamed of themselves for the complete and utter lack of accessibility features in the game. Get with the times Square. Makes your games accessible. It's not hard.

Here's the thing. I know I'm talking badly about this game. All these things isolated, not that big of an issue. But after awhile it all adds up. Especially in a game that took me 150hrs! The game is just plagued with terrible annoying design.

Here are some more good things. Characters are well fleshed out. Relationships between them are great. Besides the lighting, it looks great. Music is fantastic, as long as it is not blasting over dialogue. The chocobos are cute. The moogles are cursed.

Queen's Blood, the card game, is the best. It's so satisfying. It's really fun. It has a lot going on that I cannot go into due to spoilers. Seriously one of the best card games out there. I want a game based on Queen's Blood alone. Give it to us Square.

This is where I will end my no spoiler review. All in all I still loved this game. I just refuse to let it get away with all this terrible stuff without saying anything. Most other people are not saying these things. And they need to be said. Below this will be spoilers. You have been warned.

YET AGAIN

SPOILERS STARTING

BELOW THIS POINT!

Okay, let's talk about the new playable characters. Red is a lot of fun. Although his Vegence mode is hard to grasp. I let the CPU build up his bar for me. Then used it. I couldn't seem to get a hang of the blocking needed for his gimmick. But the CPU is good at doing it for you. And also, Stardust Ray is OP.

I'm not gonna talk about Yuffie much. She is mainly the say from intergrade. I don't like her as a character nor playing as her tbh.

Cait Sith is super fun. It took me some time to understand him though. He plays very well. And his moogle is also very fun.

The Queen's Blood Story is very cool.

Now, story spoilers. AGAIN, I'M SPOILING STORY. DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU DON'T WANT SPOILERS.

The Zack story is confusing and mostly amounts to nothing until the end. Like you get minutes with him. Then you go 20hrs with nothing. I don't feel like it paid off most of the time. Except for the end, but yet again, I have words about the end. I'll leave it for last though.

So this game follows 7 OG to a fault. It forces story into areas that lacked them before in a bad way. The most notable is Costal de Sol. They present it as a break for the party. Look at this beach town. Go have fun. The problem with this is, go have fun means. You must play all these mini games that suck and you must get the lowest rank on each. It's terrible. Not fun. There are some cute moments and a fun mini game or two, but mostly it's not great. Especially when you realize the next huge location is leading towards the Gold Saucer. There is 1 chapter in between Costa de Sol vacation and Gold Saucer break. Not only that but before you reach Costa de Sol, you have a break playing in a card tourney on a boat. So yet again, it's just poorly paced. We go from high action in Upper Junon to boat vacay to some action on the boat, back to beach vacay, followed by beach boss, 1 chapter of Barret's story, to Gold Saucer vacay.

They focus a lot on Tifa's and Aerith's friendship. It works so well. It pays off. It's super cute. They do this so well with all the characters. In OG Tifa and Aerith feel like rivals for Cloud's attention. This is much better.

Cait Sith is so cute! I love him. His Moogle is so fluffy. They even do a better job at explaining why he betrays them. They also don't make his sacrifice feel like he is dying. It's dramatic but explained well enough that you know he will return in a minute or two. He also doesn't ruin a serious moment when he return by making a joke.

Added the Gi storyline about the black materia is really neat. I feel like it fleshes out Red's story a bit more. It also is just more world building. It's nice. The one other thing about Red. His voice changes when go to Cosmo Canyon. You find out he is young and he stops trying to act old. I kinda hate the youthful voice. I got used to it, but I like grumpy Red better.

Cid is likeable in this. Dare I say charming. In OG he is not. That is all I gotta say on that. Vincent is cool as always. You fight him. It's a hard but fun fight. Good stuff all around.

Finally learning Wedge's fate was heartbreaking. It does suck. But not surprising. They do a great job of sending the 7th Heaven crew off.

The theme song is very good. And the Gold Saucer date was very good. The whole hour long CH12 Loveless sequence is just amazing. Like one of the best things I've seen Final Fantasy do.

The final boss is really cool except for having no control over your party. That is infuriating. Especially during a moment where my only range character is Yuffie. I needed Barret. The party is randomized. I've watched another streamer and they had a completely different party.

Finally, let's talk about the end. It's super confusing. It starts showing many timelines and you don't realize that the mascot dog is you clue that it's a different timeline. It does this thing where fate still manages to catch up to everyone. Biggs still dies?, Zack gets tracked down by a group of solders in 2 universes and dies? One Zack manages to jump between universes and meet up with our Cloud for the final boss to then give you a fake out death and be placed back in his unverse again. It's a mess.

But even worse is the pivotal moment of Aerith's death. Does she die or not? It's so confusing and fakes you out many times. And you have no time to process it. You enter a 20 minute multi boss multi phase fight not understanding what is going on.

Your Aerith ends up dying. It's not clear though forever. One, it looks like Cloud deflects the blow. He doesn't? It takes like 23 seconds before she reacts to being stabbed. You never see her get stabbed though. It makes no sense that Cloud deflects the blow yet she still gets stabbed mortally. Then she collapses with no blood or any sign of injury. The rest of the characters gasp and then they all rage at a boss for 20 minutes. Followed by the final part of the boss where Aerith fights with Cloud. Your Aerith. Not another universe Aerith. Then she fades into the life stream after the fight. Confirmed dead? BUT WAIT! Then they show a scene with where Cloud tells her to wake up, and she does! So either that is the spirit of Aerith he tells to wake up or it is a new universe where he actually saves her? Anyways, your aerith is a force ghost only Cloud can see. Now add all the Zack stuff in that sequence too. It's so confusing.

It ruins a pivotal moment. It fails Aerith and her journey. You shouldn't have to deep dive into Youtube to understand the end. Like I understood, our Aerith died and is a force ghost only Cloud can see. But why fake us out so many times? There was no reason to make it such a mystery. You took one of the most powerful moments in gaming and made it super confusing. Added with the Zack stuff, it's even more confusing.

Tifa being sad about Aerith pays off this time. They were good friends. The whole party is sad. But they don't get to grieve like they do in OG. They don't bury her in the lake like in OG. They barely talk about. They focus so much on Cloud being about to see her force ghost and talking to her.

Great game. Needlessly confusing ending. There is a bit more to it than that. Like all the multiverse Aerith's seem to be making a plan. But still it leaves you so confused unlike Remake. Also one last thing. Remake's ending made it feel like major changes to the story were to come. To be honest, it didn't turn out that way. There are some big changes but a lot of adding more details but not changing much. The multiverse stuff is the biggest change.

Like I just feel as Remake promised major story changes but what we got was more detail but not much actually changes. Biggs dead. Wedge dead. Aerith dead. Like idk. The biggest thing being the multiverse Zach stuff. Which is cool. But it was not a huge part of the game until the end.

Also the whole mascot dog being your indicator of a different universe is not a good enough clue.

Yet again, I should not have to deep dive into Youtube to understand the end of you story. It's bad storytelling if I have to do that. I should not be left confused.

A parody game that is vastly superior to what it is parodying.

I loved this game. It's pretty humorous. It does a great job of understanding the good parts of The Witness and poking fun at what is terrible about it. The dev sure knew exactly what to do. They must have loved The Witness.

There are just so many jokes in this game. A lot of them can be funny without knowledge of The Witness. But of course, there is a whole layer can only be understood if you know The Witness.

The gimmicks do not ware out their welcome. They do a great job at making things more difficult but still fair/fun. There were only a few that were truly a bit much.

The second to last puzzle is def hard. It was the only one that felt like a true challenge. The final puzzle is the best though. That's all I'll say about that.

As someone who has major issues with The Witness this game solved pretty much all of them. It's a fair game. A game that is not up it's own ass. And most importantly, not made by Jonathon Blow. A man who refused to make his puzzle game accessible because it was against his artist vision or w/e his worthless excuse was. All you had to do is add numbers to the color puzzles Jon. So people who struggle with color blindness can complete your puzzles. Sorry, ablest behavior makes me bitter/angry.

A sequel that is still fun but flawed.

I still have a love for this game. It improves on some things but falters in others. And this is just another part of the story of how Rare didn't listen to criticism.

Where last left off with DK64(Go check my review of it so this makes a bit more sense.). The biggest problem with Tooie is that worlds are yet again too big. They are tedious to get around. It requires a stupid amount of backtracking. You have to get a move 2 world from now and then return to get this jiggy. Worlds are not self contained anymore. They actually connect in insane ways. You can do things in one world that effects another. It's cool but it also leads to tedium. They tried to add warp pads in worlds like DK64 but it doesn't really solve the problem.

Now, why am I mentioning DK64 so much? It's because it came out a year before this. And they learned nothing! They were told how tedious it was. They were told the worlds were too big. Yet here we are, with Banjo-Tooie having the same issues. The one thing they did improve is there is way less to collect in Tooie than there is in DK64. Rare simply did not listen to very valid criticisms.

Now, let's compare it to Banjo-Kazooie. It is a sequel after all. What does it improve it on? Note count no longer resets on death or exit of a level. You can now collect packs of notes instead one 1 note at a time. The overworld is a bit more interesting than the first. Although I feel like Grunty's Castle is a better vibe and theme. Ilse of Hags has more variety and there is more life going on. It has more moves to learn. Moves are more varied and all of them are used more. We get a lot more lore about the world. We also get what most people wanted and that was, to see Kazooie out of the backpack.

A cavoite to the separation move though. It does lead to tedium. Gotta find a pad to do it. Got to find a pad to switch. Got to separate in order to learn individual moves. It does lead to tedium but it was still a cool thing to do.

As usual, the worlds are varied. Most are fun. Later levels get to be a bit too much. Music is great as always. The final boss is honestly less frustrating. Dare I say, it's fun? Or at least very close to fun.

There are a few incredibly frustrating jiggies. Cough CANARY MARY cough. Some of the timers in the game are very tight. Like unfair tight. Some of the mini games suck due to bad controls.

One cool thing is the addition of a Golden Eye like multiplayer minigame. It's really fun with friends. You have to deal with the bad controls, but the 360 version does it fix it.

How does the Xbox 360 version improve on Tooie? Not much to be honest. It improves some controls. Stop n Swap lives on in this version. You get some player icons/profile pictures and a wallpaper for your 360. It looks better. I believe you could select a boss rush mode and play all the mini games from the menu.

I know I complained a lot about it. But I do love this game. I'm harsh because it needs to be said. It is not better than the first game, but not a bad sequel. It is just another example of Rare, not listening.

I know what some people are going to say. They were developed to close together. They couldn't change it even though they knew the criticisms of DK64. Fair enough. Here is the thing though. That's a trend with Rare. DKC 1, 2 and 3 were all released with 1 year of in between each other. 94, 95, 96. Bk1, DK64 and BK2 did the same thing. 98, 99, 00. Do you see the problem there?

I'm not going to go into much but DKC 3 is a mess of a game. It's not as well regarded because Rare didn't polish it like the other two. Bad hitboxes, worse graphics, worse music, etc. They simply didn't have the time.

Yet again, I know what some of you are gonna say. It's not Rare's fault they had to pump out so many games in a short amount of time. Yet again, fair enough.

I just need to paint the picture of why Tooie is the way it is. And how all of this effects not only Banjo-Kazooie Nuts n Bolts but Yooka-Laylee. I'm telling a story here of how they did not listen to criticism. Did not learn from their mistakes with DK64 and Tooie.

This here is a bad game, but in the best of ways. I laughed a lot playing this. It's very meme worthy.

Lets give credit where credit is due. The concept of Little Red Riding Hood but dark is a decent idea. The art direction is neat. But that's all the good I can say. If you are looking for Alice: Madness Returns, you will not get it.

The game sure has controls. They work. They exist. But also are super jank.

The level design is very bland and basic. Sometimes it's hard to know where you can and cannot be.

Puzzles range from, simple to baby to "oh that was supposed to be a puzzle" Sometimes the timers are a bit too long or short.

Cutscenes range from very mid to very jank to hilariously jank. Same with the voice acting. It's not good. But sometimes bad enough to be funny.

This game is funny but it's never intentional. It's so bruiting and dark. So moody. Yet the main character mostly is forced to talk in rhymes until they give up on it.

I want to make this clear. Don't play this. But if you really want to, it's short. Only overstays it's welcome slightly. Go in knowing it's not a good game. Maybe you will get a laugh a two.

The devs sure had passion. You can see that. But game making just isn't their strong suit.

Like this game tried. It tried so hard. And got so far. But in the end.... it sure was a game I played.

This is by far the worst example of Nostalgia Goggles I have ever seen for a game. It functions as in it does not crash. But literally every aspect of the game is built on terrible decision making.

I don't think you are wrong for having good memories of it. I also don't think I'm wrong in my experience with it. But I'm going to explain why mechanically, I hate this game and how it's built on layers of terrible decisions.

I'm going to make a compliment sandwich for the review. So I'm going to start out with a good thing then tell you all the bad followed by another good thing.

Firstly, the music is fantastic. It is the best aspect of the game. Maybe only one or two stinkers in the OST. One being the boss music which gets grating after some time.

Now onto the bad. First the story is just so bland. So cookie cutter, so just forgettable. It barely matters. At moments they literally solve problems seconds after they are introduced. There is nothing about this story that is memorable. The game also just doesn't signpost itself well. Sometimes gives you hints on where to go, other times you just gotta magically know where to go and what to do.

Secondly, the circle menu system is horrendous. Not only is it tedious but confusing. Nor do they tell you how to properly use it. It took me hours to understand that Y opens the menus for Player 1 and X opens it for your CPUs. This happened because all my characters were stack onto of each other when I interacted with the menus. Making it look like Y and X did the same thing. That is a huge flaw. Not only that but sometimes you plug in commands and it just decides, "nah not doing it." So you gotta do it again.

Thirdly, lets talk about interacting with the world outside of combat. In order to do certain actions Player 1 must have a certain weapon equipped. Axe breaks rocks/crystals, sword cuts grass, and whip helps you cross gaps. Not only is this tedious menuing but also prevents you from using the weapon you want to use. But the worst part about it is that they simply don't tell you whip helps you cross gaps. And even worse, crossing gaps with the whip sometimes just doesn't activate for reasons unknown. Imagine finding a gap for the first time that you must cross, using every weapon and the whip not working. That's exactly what happened to me.

Now lets move on to how your CPUs interact with the world. They have collision, thus getting stuck and then getting you stuck because you can only be so far away from them. Imagine this, your CPU get stuck but you can't get them out and thus have to reset. Now, I know what you are going to say, "Press Select" to control the CPU. Great idea, too bad the games doesn't tell you that you can do that. I found out about that 2/3 of the way through the game.

Fourthly, lets talk about combat. Like the 100% meter thing isn't my fav and it's greatly flawed but fine. The problem is that it makes you wait to attack but a lot of the time you simply cannot wait or you will be severely punished. For the sake of the argument lets say it's good. The biggest problem how the game calculates everything is terrible. You will be nuking a boss with spells, it's doing aprox 250 each hit for it to randomly say, "nah this time only 50". Same with a full 100% meter physical attack.

Now lets talk about evasion stats. The games just decides if you can hit something with no feedback. You can be directly infront of it. Watch you weapon clearly go over the enemy and its hitbox. Miss. Keep in mind, you are attack at 100% meter. You move to the side, you still miss. But it can sure hit you. Then you land a hit for them to play an animation of it dodging or my fav just saying 0 damage. You and your CPUs keep doing this song and dance until it magically say, "okay you can hit me now". This can last 30 second to a minute on one enemy that normally you would kill easily because you have done it many times before. Now add this same issue to the multitude of enemies that duplicate forever until you kill them all at once. It can be infuriating. Oh right, also all magic is unavoidable.

Fifthly, lets take about the world map. There is no mini map. It's impossible to know where you are. It doesn't tell you the names of the place you are above either. It's very precise where they want you to land.

Other bad design decisions for the map. Controlling your height is unnecessary and tedious. To land you actually have to lower yourself. Another bad decision, the world map once the the final dungeon shows up, flashes every 20-30 seconds. Turns out the the flashing is coming from the final dungeon teleporting randomly across the map. So not only is it hard to find because it's teleports but it's hard to land on because you gotta get above it before it teleports and land. And as explained earlier, the map control are terrible.

Sixthly, let's talk about your inventory and MP. The only way to heal MP is by sleeping at an Inn, using a walnut, or using a late game MP drain attack that only works for 1 character and I don't think is ever successful on bosses. What makes this worse is that you can only hold 4 of any item. That's not enough for late game areas or early game when your MP is low.

Seventhly, lets talk about the UI. No item description. Now way to know if equipment is better than what you are wearing until you buy it. Equipment stats are just numbers that mean nothing to you. It literally is just, this number is higher and equip it. No clue as to what stat it's raising.

Lastly, the finally boss has only unavoidable attacks. It's a gimmick boss that takes way too long to beat. Doesn't really explain the new gimmick. Just expects the player to figure it out. Let's hope you have MP items and you CPUs don't die. You need both alive the whole or I guess you just can't win.

Compliment sandwich end. The art style is nice. however other games do it better.

Nearly every aspect of this game is built on terrible design. Things that were solved before this game came out. Other games told you equipment stats, if it is better, what stat it raises, item descriptions, etc. An Action RPG is literally Link to the Past combat with numbers. They literally could have copied LttP combat and gave it rpg elements and it would have worked. Even add in the meter system to change it up. But no, they made a combat system that literally doesn't work. Other games had mini maps. This game released after other Action RPGs and ignored every single good design decision from them.

I'm going to leave you with 2 examples of how much the devs simply did not care or were terrible at their jobs. Obvious mistakes that are just baffling as to why they exist.

First, a late game boss, it's gimmick is that it expands every time you hit. You have to hit it in the center. Turns out, if you are not positioned right, you can be prevented from ever hitting it with physical attacks because it expanded too much. Then your only option is magic which doesn't do much as it's nearly immune to it. Bad game design.

Second, I cannot stress how much the devs simply did not care. Your characters walk in order of when you got them. But the UI at the bottom of the screen, goes 1, 3, 2. So the third character you earned is in the middle of the UI and your second character is in the last spot. Simple fix. But no one cared to fix it or any other flaws.

This is Secret of Mana. A terrible game made on terrible design. Supposedly the 2nd best or by many THE BEST the Mana series has to offer. I'm not playing any other game in the series if that's the case. You can like what you like. I'm not saying that. I think at the time when the game came out, it was novel and well regarded. I also feel like most people have not played it since it's release. But take your nostalgia goggles off and see what the game actually is. It's easy to tell someone how "it's not that bad" if you know what you are doing. But as a first time playthrough it is a miserable experience.

One of my favorite games and the series that introduced my favorite game character KOS-MOS. This is the best game in the trilogy no contest.

The story although very vague but maintains your interest. I gives you more questions than answers. But it's also the first game in a trilogy. The character are all great except Momo. A child character that is just annoying at every moment she exists.

The combat is simple yet satisfying. Learning weaknesses and planning the right moment to defeat an enemy to earn extra exp.

However the game is not perfect. There are too many types of points to spend and menus can be overwhelming. If you don't plan out how to spend your points you miss out on some good late game stuff.

One other issue is that it loves to waste your time. A lot of back and forth. Too long of cutscenes that do nothing to move the story at all. Long periods without combat.

The other major issue is it's lack of music. The game relies a lot on ambient sounds. When there is music, it slaps doe. Esp the final boss music.

It also has stupid difficulty curves and some annoying gimmick bosses.

But all in all, a fantastic JRPG with a great art style, story, world and characters. I fully recommend people to play it. The only problem is that the other 2 games in the trilolgy I cannot really recommend. So you won't get a conclusion unless you are will to suffer greatly.

A walking sim that tries to accurately portray blindness and fails. I'm legally blind. I appreciate their effort but it's not a fun game.

First off, this game is pretty.The watercolor graphics are nice. It controls fine. It does have a few good ideas. The whole noise system is neat. She hears something but doesn't know what it is. Only figures it out when she is close. Cute idea. Kind of accurate to real life.

So as I said, this is a walking sim. It's pretty much only walking. Painfully slow walking. I get it, she can't see and thus walks slow. But it's not fun.

Okay here is where I get real critical. The story. It's cute, but there are some major issues in terms of accuracy. I want to remind you, I'm legally blind.

First, this is like an 8 year old girl. Where are her parents? And why would any adult leave her unsupervised knowing she is blind. That's bad parenting.

Secondly, where is her cane? She should know how to use a cane as this point. She is 10 and as far as we know, she was born blind. As someone who uses a cane for their sight, it is beyond me, why she doesn't have one. If she would one, have more confidence walking around and two, not fall, trip and struggle so much.

Like I appreciate the devs tried to make a game about someone who is blind. I appreciate they tried to convey a blind person's experiences of the world. However, I don't feel like they spoke to anyone in the visually impaired community.

The game is soooo tedious with such an obvious story. A for effort but fails in most ways.

A purposely clunky yet cute game.

This is a cute game with a cute story. I enjoyed it enough. I had fun with it. But I'm not in love with it like everyone else was at the time.

The controls are purposely annoying. But in a good way. Most of the time it's funny. Although a few times it can be kind of annoying. Sometimes the NPCs are frustratingly unpredictable. They can at times only zero in your main objectives despite you setting up multiple distractions. It may last slightly too long too.

All in all, a cute one time play through. It's goofy. It's cute. True to life to how a goose would act. It made for a good clip or two.

Go check out my Review of the N64 version of this to get my full feelings. In short, it is an improvement to what is already an amazing game. I'll copy any info about this version from my original review below.

I suggest playing the Rare Replay Version/Xbox Version as it fixes some of the flaws. Or emulate and save state often. It's not a hard game to complete or beat. Mostly a chill fun experience. One of the biggest improvements is keeping your note count, on death or exit. It brings it in line with Tooie in that regard. It also improves some of the controls and just looks prettier.

The remaster even adds the fabled Stop N Swap feature. Sadly it amounts to nothing in the end due to Nuts n Bolts being a mediocre game. One last thing the remaster offers is a bonus mini game in Banjo's house. If you like putting puzzles together, it's fun. Be warned it get stupidly hard though.

A very cute game with very cute ideas.

This is a such a cute game. Very chill. Not too long. Changes up the gimmicks often.

It was pretty when it came out and still pretty now. Very stylized and sets the vibe well.

It controls well. No realy complaints there. The vine gimmick is a bit tedious. The worst part of the game. But still fun enough.

The story is just cute and heartfelt. Cheerful with a tone of saddness. The vibes change in ways that are surprising. It does it all well.

I've played this game twice. Both times a were fun. Nothing special, but still fun.

Go check out my Banjo-Tooie N64 review to get my full thoughts on the game. I will share the part of my review that specifically talks about the 360 version here though.

How does the Xbox 360 version improve on Tooie? Not much to be honest. It improves some controls. Stop n Swap lives on in this version. You get some player icons/profile pictures and a wallpaper for your 360. It looks better. I believe you could select a boss rush mode and play all the mini games from the menu. It also improves the controls the the first person mode.

I do love this game. It is not better than the first game, but not a bad sequel.

Another solid game made by Ninja Theory with a few flaws. One of the few games to address mental health well.

Firstly, this game is pretty. The atmosphere is amazing. The beginning moments are very eerie. The voice acting sells this game. Playing it with headphones is an actual benefit.

Be warned though, this game can be triggering. The story is beautiful. It deals with a lot of heavy topics. Don't let that stop you.

Combat is a bit simplistic. It is still fun though. Some fights can be a bit infuriating. But once the game clicks, it has a great flow.

The rune puzzles are fun and not fun at the same time. At first it is enjoyable to find the runes. Later on it gets really hard and frustrating. Nothing like walking around for 10 minutes because you can't find the vague shape of a rune off in the distance.

Puzzles do vary throughout the journey. Enemies are based on areas. Each area has a gimmick. Some are better than others. Near the end there is a set of challenges that can bite me. Some are simply not fun and annoying.

Trophies are easy to get. It is one of my few platinum trophies. Look up a guide for the collectables. Everything else is a freebie. It's also a short game.

This is such a unique game. A game that should be played with headphones. It's a joy to play. I just hope you like looking around for runes. Because you will be doing a lot of that.

Yet another game that is just so mid. It's fine. Except for one major flaw that took a game from what could have been a 4 to a 2.5.

First off, it's pretty. Very cute. I love the cat. I love exploring the the world. The puzzles are fun. Being a cat is neat.

Now what could ruin this experience. Controls? Nope. Too long? Nope. Obscure puzzles? Nope. Enemies, bad light combat, failstates? YES!

WHY DEVS? Did someone big wig say, "This game won't do well without combat?" For the life of me I do not know why we had to have bad combat and these stupid little robots that pretty much murder you within seconds. It's not fun. Why?

It would have been a better game if it was a cat just trying to get home after falling. But no, we have to have these annoying little robots and sequences where you have to decipher the matrix before they murder you. If you wanted things to be like you missed the jump and die, fine. Reasonable. It just felt forced. Felt like someone high up forced this on what was a chill vibe of a game.

It's a short mid game. Cute cat. Cute story. Neat world. Ruined by it being gamified. No one will ever convince me that a cute cat game would not have sold well without combat and enemies.

A terrible sequel to a beloved franchise but not a terrible game. It's a product of Rare not listening to criticism and what fans want. I don't make a habit of reviewing games I never beaten. I did play this game enough to know what I'm talking about. But I'm telling a story of why Yooka-Laylee is the way it is and why many Rareware's fall from grace.

We last left off with Banjo-Tooie(Go check out my N64 review for more details on that.) To sum up, for near a decade people made 2 main complaints about DK64 and Tooie. Worlds are too big. The game is tedious.

Fast forward to Microsoft buying Rare and the famous Banjo is Back trailer. It teases Banjo learning new moves. Traditional Banjo style gameplay. Fast forward to 2008 when the game comes out. It's a vehicle platformer no one asked for or wanted.

Why did this happen? Rare had 2 plans prior to vehicle platformer that would have been amazing. A remake of Banjo-Kazooie except things are slightly off and start to change. The duo start noticing something is off. Great idea. The second idea was, Grunty chasing BK around all game annoying them as they play a traditionally collectathon. Also great!

So what happened? Rare happened. This has never been Microsoft's fault. It has been well documented that while making stages for what was a traditional Banjo game, Rare realized they were too big. It would be tedious. So here we are, Rare didn't listen again to criticisms of their last 2 collectathons. So now they have to solve the problem of traversing this world. "Vehicle Platformer solves our problems!" And thus, Nuts n Bolts became what it is.

It is hard for me to believe Rare is that incompetent to not know what fans expect from a Banjo sequel. They knew people expected a collectathon platformer where they learn new moves to traverse the world. It is beyond me why they thought vehicle platformer was a good idea. They even knew fans would hate it as they tried to minimize the blowback by saying, play it before you complain. So here is another case of Rare not listening to fans.

Let's talk more about the game itself and why it's not a bad game like many claim. It's building mechanics are great. It has a robust physics engine that feels mostly great. It can be fun to build your own monstrosity of a vehicle to solve one puzzle. It is satisfying. The game looks good too.

The hub world is also really neat. It's the most the games feels like traditional Banjo. A lot of it is done on foot. The music as usual is very good as well.

The problem here is that it's not Banjo. Even Grant Kurkope, the composer for all Banjo music said, "Nuts n Bolts isn't a bad game. It just should never have been a Banjo game." There are so many times, you just want to get out of your vehicle and just solve stuff on foot as you did in all other Banjo games. That expectation and urge to do that would not be there if this didn't have a Banjo skin on it.

Another way Rare shows utter contempt for Banjo fans is by actively taunting them. A character called Lord of Games aka LOG actively makes fun of the players by mentioning collectathons and platforms as things no one wants to play anymore. LOG does this a lot. It's a bad look. Rare knowing that they made something that fans of Banjo would not like or expect from the series and actively pushing their buttons. Actively telling them their nostalgia is bad. And then wondering, why do they hate us and this game so much?

I will say, I don't hate the art style. It works. Is it my favorite, no. Do I hate it, no. They wanted to modernize it. That's fine. It makes sense. We are no longer on the N64. It's a good middle ground.

Stop n Swap comes to it's final conclusion here. It unlocks some building materals for your vehicles. Cool? I guess. It's just disappointing that 10 years of Stop n Swap and it literally being revived amounted up to, some custom parts in a vehicle platformer no one asked for or wanted.

The story is cute, but yet again, LOG ruins it. The stages are neat. Some are infuriating to get around. One being very cramped and vertical. So any slight mistake with the loose controls will send you falling down and failing the challenge.
Banjo Land is a pleasure though as it takes old assets from BK 1 and 2. That was a great trip back into nostalgia. But yet again, our nostalgia is bad, right LOG!? Even though you made a whole level based on nostalgia.

There is only so many types of challenges you can do with vehicles. So the game gets repeatitive. And if you are bad at being creative with building vehicles it just get frustrating. Things get harder and harder yet you have to change up your vehicle for each challenge. Make it better than ever before. And that is the major flaw of the gameplay loop. It's all based on your ability to make good vehicles. If you are not able to do that, then it isn't fun.

This isn't a bad game. It just should never have been a Banjo game. It proves that Rare just didn't listen criticism and didn't care about what fans wanted. And then this will lead directly into Yooka-Laylee and the problems it has.

One of the most overhyped Zelda games out there. It is not well balanced. And has a lot of bad design. Might be a classic, but it did not age well.

Okay, i know, controversial opinion. Let's start with the good. It's still a Zelda game. Game still looks good. It plays fine. The music is great.

This game is very unbalanced. Everything hits like a truck. There is nothing you can do about it until LATE GAME. Once you get your first defense upgrade, you get your last one a mere 2-3 dungeons(the final dungeon). That makes the game an infuriating experience. You go 2/3 of the game with taking max damage for everything. You could have given a defense item before that to balance things out a bit.

The first half has pretty good dungeons. Fairly well signposted. Good and fair experiences. The latter half is hell. Unbalanced, terrible dungeon design, poorly signposted mess of a game. It's infuriately hard.

Examples, drop rates are terrible. Hey you need magic for this boss, sorry the boss doesn't drop it. That's just terrible design. I should not fail because I don't have enough of a consumable that I was supposed to magically know to conserve for the boss despite it also being the gimmick of the dungeon. Bad Design.

Oh hey, the NPC across the map gives you a cryptic clue to something. Oh you didn't talk or see them? Have fun being lost! The game turns into, guess what the devs were thinking.

There are so many cases of infuriating design. Things don't drop when you need them. Making you have to leave the dungeon. Bosses don't drop required consumables needed to beat the boss. Requiring you to either die, try and grind out what you need, or leave. Late game dungeons are infuriating to get around. Late game bosses are infuriating to fight. Do you want to fight a boss with conveyor belts, moving spikes everywhere, spiked walls, etc. You are constantly taking damage out of your control. Just bad game design all around. You want to guess what the devs were thinking because you didn't talk to dude in cave. You want a boss that keeps knocking you off a ledge thus resetting it's health.

Oh and my favorite terrible design decision. A required item to beat a boss is in a random cave and you would never know. You don't get the item in the dungeon you need it for. THAT WOULD MAKE SENSE! So you get all the way through thus dungeon. You cannot beat the boss. Have no idea why or where to go to solve the problem. You cannot defend that terrible decision.

I wanted to like this game so much. I had to force my way through it. This game did not age well. It has some great sprite work. Some fun genre defining ideas. A lot of bangin music. It's too bad that the 2nd half is a miserable experience.