Off to a good start with this franchise. I really enjoyed the game's presentation - It attempts to make you feel like you're actually playing an animated cartoon movie, and I believe they made a really good job at it. The cel shading and graphics look awesome as a whole, and the animations are vivid and expressive as heck. Also, the music is very cool and changes whether you've been detected or not, which enriches the game's atmosphere even further.

The gameplay is responsive and fun overall, I found myself getting used to stealth situations fairly quickly, and the upgrades as a reward for obtaining all bottles in every level are quite neat and useful. The only catch in this sense is I'm not a fan of Sly's """double jump""". Oh, and the missions with the other playable characters were fine, nothing too special but those were good fun for me. Sly's vehicles were pretty cool, with that said.

The game that once introduced me to the Rayman franchise as a whole, and thus it has a special place in my heart. The game's visuals are mind-blowing for the time it released, and the soundtrack is amazing as well (Band Land is a highlight, of course). Controlling Rayman feels very responsive and satisfying in general, specially when you get all of Betilla's abilities. However, the game gets dragged down when it comes to the sharp curve in difficulty, asking the player for extremely precise maneuvers in many instances of the latter worlds, which would frustrate/confuse non-experienced players. Hell, even I who have played this game numerous times still struggle from the second world levels onwards. Not to mention that in order to complete the game, you have to break open EVERY SINGLE CAGE IN EVERY SINGLE LEVEL for the final boss level to be unlocked (essentially an obligatory 100% completion), which would be fine if it wasn't because you have to trigger specific secrets for a lot of them to appear, so good luck with that lol

Overall, it's a good game that is a visual, auditive and controllable treat, but that may not be for everyone due to it's previously mentioned, glaring difficulty issue.

I waited a long time to finally put my hands on this game, and good lord did it not disappoint. This really is the best direction HAL could've taken for Kirby's transition to full 3D, controlling Kirby the entire game just feels so natural and responsive, and the camera angle choices aid to that panoramic feel of a level quite a lot, also Kirby can now parry and it's pure GAS.
Even though the game never feels challenging (except for the third Arena tournament), the game shows a good balance in difficulty between worlds, with no steep difficulty curves to only let you focus on having more of a relaxing and fun time rather than a tedious one, which is what Kirby has been more of as a series. Even the bosses follow this rule while also compensating with interesting character designs and very varied movesets.
In terms of content, Forgotten Land offers a very wide variety of it, sometimes in a chain reaction fashion: The imprisoned Waddle Dees you save on every level are sent to a little town they help to construct, giving you access to additional stuff you can interact with like a Restaurant, a pond for fishing, and even a workshop to upgrade your copy abilities, and it's amazing to me because of how well executed and cute it all is. There are also portals to obtain rare stones for the worshop, hidden tasks to save more of the Waddle Dees and even more levels after you beat the main game!

To summarize on a humorous note, this game made me realize that in order to make your platformer good, there is two key components you gotta include: an extremely banger soundtrack and an unlockable little fishing mini-game 🐟
Kirby and the Forgotten Land has both.

A surprisingly neat ROM hack with a lot of heart put into it, at least way more than the vanilla NSMB games nowadays, anyways.
The level design here is definitely one of the biggest highlights of the game, they are really varied in terms of structure, and many of them have an exclusive gimmick per world, which are really good considering the limited editing tools back in the day.
The music was pretty okay most of the time, but sadly not much past that imo. There were some pretty nice original tunes like "Underwater" or "Fire" but even then, they are not very memorable. Other than that, I also detected a lot of rearrangements of soundtracks from other mario games, like Yoshi's Island, NSMB DS and even damn Wario World, and they are... not that good, I'm sorry :(

Overall, definitely the best New SMB Wii ROMhack out there, and also one I have a lot of respect for, even though I'm not in love with everything it has to offer. Hopefully there will be more updates about the upcoming Newer Deluxe version soon!

OH LOOK IT'S THE SMASH BROS GUY OMGGGG!1!111!

A great translation for F-ZERO, a game with insane and frenetic gameplay at its core, into the Battle Royale/99 formula, and it just fits like a ring on a finger as well because of how decision-based and agressive the races can become. Oh and they made the original courses wider to fit 99 players in them as well, of course LOL
The reward system here is great too, since not only you have to focus on securing a good placing, but also place better than your rivals which are decided per match. So in case you crash or end up not doing so well, you can still get rewarded for outplacing rivals and feel some grade of accomplishment, now that's just swell!
Everything else is great too, both old and new: Many cosmetics, decorations and color palletes to unlock, the music and gameplay are very faithful to the original, the game balance feels great, the list goes on.

So yeah, the best 99 game in my opinion. I can get why F-ZERO fans were mad at this when it was shown for the first time, but even if it's not anything exactly "new" for the series it's still an amazingly well executed take on the OG, and given the positive feedback in general I wanna believe Nintendo can try and make something fresh out of this.

Absolute masterpiece right here, I don't even know why I didn't play this before!
Celeste is definitely one of the most incredibly polished 2D platformers out there. The music is amazing, the graphics are very detailed while also keeping the pixel art simple and appealing, and also has a very good sense of humor.
Of all the aspects of the game, I think the storytelling takes the cake for me. The game takes itself very seriously when it comes to topics like mental health, something that's heavily related to Madeline and the Celeste mountain during the whole journey. In the end, she was climbing the mountain to conquer her own insecurities (reflected on the Badeline character), while also treating her depression and anxiety so she could prove herself "she can do this".

I got to beat all chapters from 1 through 9, and also obtaining all blue crystal hearts and the red ones from the B-Sides, but there's no way I can beat the C-Sides, let alone get the golden strawberries LOL

I VERY highly recommend it, especially for those who are looking for a challenging experience. You are not going to regret it :)

A more worthy fourth entry to the Crash Bandicoot series compared to the one that came out 19 years prior.
Amazing level and character design, really solid and responsive gameplay, and a very decent soundtrack despite not having as many catchy tunes as the original trilogy.

It was a very fun trip from start to finish... when it comes to the casual run, that is. I, and I really mean it when saying this, EXTREMELY don't recommend going for full completion in this game, unless you wanna have one of the most ridiculously tedious, repetitive and stressful chores in the world of platformers due to the overload of individual collectibles per stage. Trust me, I really tried to do it myself but it was just too dreadful, man :(

The beginning of the safe era of Paper Mario games.
I remember having a nice time playing this game, mainly because of the music tracks and the funny "real life items" gimmick, but everything else is a huge step back from what was established in the series.

- Bland story (Save princess peach from bowser, no catches at all).
- Great combat system replaced with a mediocre, sticker dependant one.
- All NPCs and enemies are normal toads and goombas, koopas, etc.
- Kersti's existence as a whole.
- No creative world themes (Grass, Snow, Jungle and so on...)

At its core, Paper Mario: Sticker Star was stripped away from what made prior games in the series so great in the first place, both creativity and the RPG element (a.k.a from all dignity). You know it's bad when even the Beta/E3 footage of the game looks more interesting than what we actually got.

THE best Sonic experience I've had in such a long time. The soundtrack is inmaculate, the characters' personalities are portrayed in such an amazing way throughout the game and the story is really solid and enjoyable (I haven't said such a thing about a Sonic game in a loooong time, great job Ian Flynn!). Sure, there are some downsides: Grind-fest in many situations, the graphics having a lackluster drawing distance, and certain questionable decisions about the gameplay - especially in Cyberspace -, but those are small grimes compared to the MANY good moves Sonic Team made for this game.

UPDATE (October 7th, 2023): Since the Final Horizon DLC came out, I'm bumping up my score from 3.5 to 4 stars, mainly because of the WAY better ending and the greater challenges it brings. I fucking love this game bro XD

Let's be honest, the DLC had a very rough start, with stages essentially ported from Mario Kart Tour and only given new music, but as time passed the next waves became way closer to the ones present in the base game, this meaning ACTUAL grass textures, more attention to detail and even bringing brand new balance changes and features to the table. Here are a few of my favorite tracks in the whole pass:

- Ninja Hideaway
- Waluigi Pinball
- Berlin Byways (BANGER OST BTW)
- Rainbow Road 3DS
- DK Summit
- Yoshi's Island
- Rainbow Road Wii

Also the new characters added are great too: Petey Piranha, Birdo and Wiggler are back again, Kamek finally gets his chance to shine as part of the roster, Diddy and Funky Kong make this game three times better by themselves and even Pauline is an awesome addition to the cast!
Although, I will say this: I never really understood the hate towards Peachette, she literally did nothing wrong y'all 😭

Detouring a little here, we also got some extra thingies as well: Mii Suits with their own stunts, a jukebox, customizable random item mode, the balance changes making the meta stray very far away from the Wiggler Waluigi combo days. The list goes on, it's actually pretty nice QoL stuff all in all.

Oh and a huge RIP to Piranha Plant Pipeline (Tour), the only stage that will become lost media as of now, in case MKT ceases to exist :(

One of the most unique and fun puzzle games of the bunch. I completed it way faster than I anticipated, but for a casual player the playtime is pretty fine. I love the concept for the portal gun and how the game invites you to play around with it to try and get different outcomes based on object positioning and momentum, I really dig it. Also the atmosphere of the game is phenomenally executed, it starts like a normal series of tests, but you slowly start to realize something is wrong to then start digging deeper within the facility, it's fascinating. Also also, GlaDOS is an amazing antagonist so far, hands down.
I can't wait to play Portal 2 now, I know it's gonna be even better!

PS: I'm so sorry, Companion Cube :(

A fantastic FPS that has aged really well in my book. It has a really good OST and the graphics are quite pleasant for one of the first games of its kind. The controls may feel a bit slippery at first, but then it becomes quite natural during gameplay since it motivates you to always keep moving to dodge the enemy attacks and bullets, especially in a game with a nature as oppressive as DOOM's. Also, it offers a wide amount of weapons you can get, and using them feels SO DAMN satisfying and fun.

I can gladly say I recommend it to any fan of FPS games as a whole, or even the most casuals of players. Trust me, you will have a good time with this one :)