Played via Phantasy Reverie Series

Klonoa 2 is a massive improvement over the original Klonoa on most fronts. The game is bigger, more challenging, looks even better, and tells a story just as good and emotionally hitting with a more complete message compared to the original, which was more of a bittersweet gut punch overall.

Complaints wise, some of these stages drag on for way too fucking long, some going on for 20 minutes or longer, which makes going for 100% completion in a game with no room restarts not something I would ever bother doing. If missing a single collectable means going through 20-30 minutes of gameplay again, I'm not rebooting for that collectable. Though if you're just playing the game front to back and collecting things as you see, you'll have a much more enjoyable experience overall than if you went for 100%, similar to say, Crash 4.

OFF is an incredible game that manages to hold a significant landstone in pop culture even over a decade after releasing. Even to this day there's not many things quite like it, just things that have been inspired by it.

OFF contains an absolutely ephemeral world, some of the most thick, intense atmosphere I've ever seen in an RPG Maker game, an absolutely incredible score that's unlike anything else I've ever heard, wonderful writing that helps pull you deeper into these characters and this strange, unknowable world, and with deep themes and implications running all throughout its runtime. It's a story with a lot of open room for interpretation and one you'll likely be chewing on for a time after.

The only thing really holding OFF back is its gameplay, its incredibly simple and basic, ultimately brainless. I never used the auto feature, but it honestly probably would've been for the best. The combat is piss easy, enemies never present a real challenge, the game never requires more than basic attack mashing for 90% of its runtime, the combat is very barebones. Luckily, the exploration and puzzles make up for it at least. The puzzles are rather fun brainteasers that definitely can make you do some thinking and have some rather inventive solutions (especially the one in the 3rd Zone, you know the fucking one).

All in all, while flawed, there's a reason OFF is the eternal classic it is. Still a joy to experience even to this day.

Shoutouts to Pablo btw the realest nigga there ever was.

I love this fuckin franchise man

The single best April Fools joke any company has ever made, Sonic gave us a cute, simple little VN with some of the best characterization and writing we've had from the series in years. The characters were all on point, and Shadow notably was handled incredibly.

The main character, the self insert, being such a failperson was also adorable and incredibly charming. They really do feel like just a random civilian that got pulled into something just much larger than life for a brief moment. The music was also very solid, the little endless runner segments helped spice up the regular VN stuff, it's just a good time overall. I also soyjack pogged and pointed everytime they referenced Sonic Unleashed.

Don't go in expecting a masterpiece, its very much so baby's first VN, but if it isn'ta short, sweet, fanservice filled blast of a VN built expressly for Sonic fans, than I dont know what it is.

I recall having an absoulute utter and fucking blast with this fanhack. It was also incredibly revolutionary within the Pikmin modding scene at the time, with its complete reshaping of Pikmin 2, creating a brand new game using the original game as a foundation, being genuinely incredible at the time. It helps that the game as a whole is also just fun. It's challenging, and clearly designed in mind for those who have mastered the original Pikmin 2. Luckily, I'm one of those people, and I'm overjoyed with what this hack delivered.

Also holy shit, using the Mystic March soundfont with Aquatic Ambiance was an all-time genius move, that fucking remix is so goddamn good.

I'm not quite sure how to describe my thoughts on this game overall. I had a pretty good enjoyable time overall, but ultimately don't have a lot to say about it, I'll try and say what I can though.

The game-feel and level design definitely feels like a notable upgrade from 2, just feeling much more substantial overall. A lot of 2's level could feel incredibly short or almost mindless at points, and I think this game generally is a massive improvement over that, with only a few of the side objective levels being somewhat mindless, I think overall most levels are fun and engaging.

The combat has also received a substantial improvement, giving the player much more in terms of options, multiple characters and styles and actual combo and juggle systems. The combat is actually rather entertaining and makes bosses and even basic combat way more fun overall!

I want to give a special shoutout to the final level of this game, which despite somehow being almost over 20 fucking minutes, never genuinely felt obnoxious or boring to traverse. It's one of the best examples I've ever seen of feeling genuine progression in a level in a platformer, and has an absolutely incredible atmosphere to it as well. I was genuinely pretty caught up in the experience.

The finale also goes completely off the rails like the previous 2 games did, the story revelations were frankly batshit insane and I'm not sure how I feel about it all. The final boss felt a little underwhelming compared to the last two entries.

The absolute best thing about this game without a second thought however, is the soundtrack. A beautiful, largely big-beat score is something I've wanted games to return to desperately. Every single track on this OST slams hard as fuck and is something I'll gladly listen to outside of the game itself.

Overall, a pretty enjoyable high-speed platformer, and if you're an Adventure era Sonic fan, this might be the exact game you've been looking for.

One of my favorite classic arcade games of all time. I prefer it to the original Pac-Man by a country mile. The improvements made to the formula make it much more fun to play in my opinion.

During a trip to a different state last year, we frequently visited a boardwalk with an arcade with classic games, something that's not really accessible to me regularly, and I spent literally like 75% of my time at that arcade just slamming away at Ms. Pac-Man and doing better and better. It's addictive, even to this day.

This is a stellar, perfect remake, straight up.

Return to Dreamland is a game I've always adored, it's been a comfort game of mine, though it never stood as my absolute favorite in the series, it always stood high among the series, but after playing it around 4 or so times total the game had begun to slightly lose its luster.

Going into this remake I expected a slightly better version of a game I already loved, what I didn't expect was for it to become the genuine definitive edition of the game without a thought.

RTDL Deluxe improves upon what is left and proceeds to add even more. The main game is kept almost exactly as is, just beautifully revamped with the new wonderful artstyle and higher fidelity visuals. This game is stunning, with the already pretty backgrounds of the original being incredibly revamped to look even better. All of the copy abilities have received their new attacks seen in future games, the new copy abilities of Sand & Mecha are all fun to use and implemented quite well and their Ability Rooms are pretty cool (getting Platinum Ranks in Ability Rooms is still a huge fucking pain tho), feeling like they fit right into the original game, and there's occasional additions of new music from future entries that fit in better.

All the new content however, is what really pulled me in. Magolor Epilogue was a surprisingly fun, with its more combo-oriented gameplay mode, ranking system, and moveset upgrading making for a fun mode to play through and master (I actually Platinum Ranked everything before even getting close to fully upgrading my moveset so I'll have to grind some stages to get the final upgrades now lol).

Merry Magoland was so much better than I anticipated. Even as someone who actually does get a huge kick out of Kirby Subgames, I wasn't expecting to get as much of a kick out of it as I did. Magoland will unironically give this game a huge amount of longevity with me & my little sister and my friend group, as the quick, chaotic, kinetic fun they offer are a blast. Honestly if anything, Magoland only proves that if they ever made a Kirby equivalent to Mario Party it would literally thrash 90% of the entries in that series. Seeing so many classics revamped and just as fun, if not even better than they were, alongside several new ones that were also a complete blast put a huge smile on my face. Them bringing back Checkerboard Chase and making it even better made me inordinately happy, as that might just be my favorite party minigame ever lol. I'm planning to work on getting all Missions overtime as I can.

Also no spoilers but the new / revamped EX bosses in this game are some of the coolest goddamn fights in the series, with the final fight in the True Arena being an easy contender for a Top 5 fight in the entire franchise. Not to mention all of the lore additions being surprisingly fucking staggering and adding a lot to the story & expanding Kirby's world further.

One of my only issues with the remake is the one, sole aspect it removed, the original Scope Shot minigame. Yes, they replaced it with a new, also fun and chaotic scope minigame, and the original Scope Shot minigame really isn't all that replayable, it was a super fun rush of 3 different bosses with really fun patterns that was a blast with friends. It's not even an issue with not having pointer controls, as Kirby on the Draw showed that pointer based shooting minigames could be brought back with stick based aiming just as fine. Though maybe having a stick based aiming game + a scope shot minigame made bringing back the original Scope Shot minigame seem unneccesary. Ultimately, its not a major loss, as we gained a replacement minigame, Ninja Dojo was kept, and we got 8 other great ones as well (well, that Magolor Tome one is pretty mid but the other 7 are great), so it's really a miniscule, minor loss if anything.

Unfortunately, the remake's intention to be as faithful as possible with the original content does result in EX Mode still remaining as a relatively uninteresting revisit, with the only changes being halved health, less healing items, increased & slightly changed enemy locations, and the admittedly good revamped bosses, just as they were in the original game. Simply put, EX Mode doesn't add much to a playthrough outside of the bosses to warrant playing through the entire game again just to unlock the True Arena. Every future game handled the replay modes significantly better (Dedede Tour, Meta Knightmare & Guest Star are all just better), and it would have been preferable if something could have been done to make EX Mode more interesting, but being left as is ultimately isn't the worst thing, maybe just don't play it so close to playing the main story, or bring some friends along if possible.

Overall though, minor nitpicks aside, Return to Dreamland Deluxe is an incredible remake completely worth picking it up again. It's a perfect remake and the superior way to play RTDL, that preserves everything wonderful from the original but improved, and only adds star studded new content. If you're a Kirby fan or just someone who's interested, please pick this title up.

I've been watching this game's development ever since Peppino was first being shared online, eagerly awaiting its release. Was the 5 year development time worth it? Absolutely, every minute spent cooking was spent towards crafting a fucking masterpiece.

Pizza Tower is an incredible game, it's a game that oozes love, passion, and pure talent in every single instant. Brimming with personality and soul in every frame of animation, every mechanic, every idea, Pizza Tower takes all of its inspirations and blends all of them together with its own wonderfully unique ideas into a fantastic experience.

The gameplay is tight, responsive, addictive, and satisfying to master. All the stages are heavily varied and unique, always keeping the gameplay fresh. The boss roster is fucking incredible front to back, with an all star roster for a 2D platformer. The music is incredible front to back, with a bunch of classic samples oldheads will love.

This is a game I'm going to be spending a lot of time playing ideally, I want to P Rank every stage this game has to offer. When I finally do that, I plan to return to this review and give it the more expansive coverage it deserves. To put it bluntly though, this is already a hard GOTY contender for 2023 just a month into the year, and I have hard doubts that many things will challenge it.

I remember having an absolutely incredible time playing this game. Its story was genuinely beautiful, it had some absolutely tragic moments, and utilized the medium to tell its story in a very interesting way, and it has some of the most chilling and impactful moments in any game I've ever played. Pascal's Children and the BECOME AS GODS segment have stuck with me years after playing. The music was also just out of this world, an incredible soundtrack.

My biggest complaint which makes me occasionally want to dip the game down to a 4 or 4.5 star is that the combat is relatively weak. While the combat systems and combo potential are pretty decent, the combat itself has a very light, low impact feeling to it much of the time, enemy variety is distractingly low making combat encounters become grating overtime.