Brain Games is an early title from programmer Larry Kaplan, and the reason we know his name from an era when most game designers were either legendary weirdos we still talk about to this day or complete nobodies who were treated as replaceable cogs by an unfair system is because Larry would go on to make Kaboom, have great timing on leaving Atari, and become one of the original founders of an obscure little start up company named Activision. Humble beginnings here though eh Larry?

This is a cart made up of a number of memory type games with varying degrees of difficulty and sort of horny names like “Touch Me” and “Play Me.” None of them are very fun. Its really only notable for Kaplan’s involvement and the very entertaining theory that Ralph Baer stole the idea of Simon from Touch Me as revenge for Nolan Bushnell stealing the idea for Pong from him. Allegedly, of course.

What a game. Truly the game of all time.
Wii U gamepad technology, of course Wario had to capitalize on it! The art style also peaked with this game, it's literally just the same as Rhythm Heaven's and it looks fantastic.
I think instead of reviewing the game as a whole, I think it would be more appropriate to give short reviews for every minigame instead.
Arrow: Boring. It's a bit clunky too.
Shutter: Pretty good! I like it's theming and the actual game itself is pretty solid. It's a bit unfortunate that two of the same "maps" were used twice but it's whatever.
Ski: Okay. It's pretty standard and isn't all that interesting, but there's nothing too wrong with it either.
Patchwork: Not a bad puzzle game, but boy do I kinda suck at it. I also like how this game kind of emphasizes Ana more, I always liked her better.
Kung Fu: Kinda clunky, but it's nice seeing Young Cricket actually doing kung fu stuff. I guess? Does this even count?
Gamer: Easily the best game in this package. Not only is it actual WarioWare, it's a got a really cool other part of the game that makes the game amazingly suspenseful! The best way I could describe it would be WarioWare FNaF and it's a ton of fun. I also appreciate the inclusion of a mode where you just play the microgames, too!
Design: This one sucks. I don't wanna pull out a damn RULER for Game & Wario.
Ashley: It's good, the gamepad movement works better than I thought it would. One of the better games.
Taxi: It's mid gif I like how this was the start of Spitz talking more, though.
Pirates: I like the idea, I love the rhythm, but it doesn't work as well as I would like sometimes. I also don't want to do poses after the rhythm is done, sorry!
Bowling: I hated this one until I realized I could tilt the gamepad to control the movement. It became okay after that.
Pyoro: Funny little bird guy who has become more than that in recent times (if you know, you know)
I can't review the multiplayers games unfortunately, but I've heard good things about Sketch.
The music in this game is alright, Pirates is good (it HAS to be), though I wish there was a vocal song somewhere, basically every WarioWare game has had one up until this point.
Definition of an okay game. Shutter, Gamer, Patchwork, and Ashley carry it for me. Game of all time!!!!

Dragon Quest III is one of the best sequels (or prequel in this case) in video games, which marked a before and after not only for the Dragon Quest series, but for JRPGs in general. And this is a remake at the height of the legend.

In 1988 this game was a sensation in Japan, everyone wanted it. It was the first game to sell more than 1 million copies in a single day (which is remarkable for a time when video games were not as popular as they are today), there were endless lines of people with the sole desire to try the title, so much so that many of them were students or workers who skipped their duties. It was a social phenomenon.

~ And thus, the legend was born ~
Dragon Quest I and II were the foundation of JRPGs almost in their entirety, but in retrospect, they feel like portotypes of what a true solid RPG is. DQI had good foundations, but a combat system that was too simple, and while DQII was a giant step forward that improved and evolved many aspects, the development team had many problems during the production of the title as they still did not have so much experience and had a very limited time, making the final game had no clear direction and had many balancing problems. Well then, Dragon Quest III comes to be the pinnacle of the idea that Yuji Horii and Chun Soft had always dreamed of creating for an RPG, a game that had enough time to be developed and tested properly, and in which you can see its developers were quite satisfied, so much so that even Yuji Horii considered it a perfect game. This game was such a significant leap in game design and quality that it takes it to a completely different level, making even JRPGs that were released years after this one feel like mediocre products.

If you played the first game you will know that there was always mention of someone named Erdrick/Roto, who according to everyone's words was a very important figure in the story, so much so that being his descendant directly made you someone important as well, but what did he really do to earn that title, well, Dragon Quest III is the answer to that question. The story begins with an introductory cinematic that tells us how our father, the greatest hero of that time, once tried to stop the archfiend but failed in the attempt, and obviously, as offspring of the great hero, we are tasked with the mission to finish what our father left unfinished. I won't go into spoilers (even though it's a 35+ year old game), so I'll just say that, if you played Dragon Quest I, this game has a plot twist that makes it connect as a prequel in a pretty satisfying way. And it's impressive that only in the third game alone this kind of homage has already been made to the first title, the game that started it all, and it's something I loved very much the first time I played this title. Even with everything, though, the premise is just as simple as the previous games, a simple "go and collect the 6 magic items and save the world from this villain", but I think that what this game lacks in story it makes up for with adventure and simple to understand, but pretty solid gameplay.

This game allows you to customize your party, having a variety of 7 classes for 3 of your party members, it gives you total freedom to build and customize your play style, and it is quite entertaining to experiment with different combinations, because even though there can be difficult places because of having (for example) only warriors and a mage, the game is built in such a way that having a solid strategy, enough wit and a decent team is enough to overcome the adversities, and although I do not deny that the possibility of getting stuck for having a poor party at the end of the title is a possibility, but unlike the first Final Fantasy where if that happened you had to restart the whole game or grind to death, Dragon Quest III allows you to create more characters than you can fit in your party, thus opening up the possibility of you having reserves, and all of this expands further once you get to the place where you can change classes, allowing you to create "hybrid" characters, such as monks with the ability to cast healing magic or mages with better attack and physical defense. Each class levels up and grows in a very satisfying way, which for example with mages and priests, not only makes them more useful in battle by expanding their arsenal of attack or support spells, but they are learning magical abilities that are useful even outside of battles and make exploration more comfortable, for example, you can learn spells that help you get out of caves/dungeons instantly at any time.

Many of the elements that make this game great had already appeared for the first time in DQ2, however, it was in this game where they really made use of them properly, which as insignificant as this may seem, make a big difference between being just a good game and being a great game. For starters, the battles are incredibly well balanced and far more entertaining by far. Dragon Quest III is also the first game in the series where you actually need to strategize to overcome battles instead of just overcoming them by brute force as in the previous games. Something that highlights the difference between DQ2 and DQ3 despite having the same combat system, is the final battle, where one will require a simple strategy and the other will require you to really be careful and act cautiously if you want to have a chance to be victorious.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves, let's talk about what makes combat entertaining. Something I really like, is how Dragon Quest makes a lot of emphasis on not only using brute force to defeat your enemies, many times using the most powerful attack magic for example is not the most convenient, but the game encourages you to use status altering magic to overcome battles (even those against bosses), for example, it is of vital importance to lower the defense to enemies that are damage sponges to be able to defeat them or, on the contrary, when there's an enemy that with two hits could knock you out, raising your defense several times makes them not even have a chance to scratch you, not to mention that you'd be surprised how many common enemies are vulnerable to the "sleep" or "death" status, yes, their effectiveness is random, but when it manages to hit it feels incredibly rewarding. And another thing I love about the battles is how many monsters have a "personality" so to speak, you can tell by the way they fight and have their own strategies. For example, there are monsters that will try to call on other monsters to heal them in battle (we all know who I'm talking about), while others will be cruel and use vicious tactics to try to defeat you, such as attacking a specific member of your party all at once. There are also some that may look very scary but are so dumb that they will try to use spells even when they have no MP (others will be smart enough to steal MP from you). These are small details, but complemented with the fact that they are designed by Akira Toriyama, give a lot of personality and charisma to the enemies of this game and make the progression and the very fact of playing very fun and entertaining because of the great variety in the gameplay.

The world is gigantic, full of kingdoms, towns, shrines, towers and dungeons to discover, and although your mission is simply to stop the bad guy on duty, you must travel the world in search of the path that will allow you to reach your ultimate goal. From the very beginning the game is very open, you can go explore at your leisure and get to know the world at your own pace, you can go mostly in the order you want, even presenting you with many problems and places that are completely optional, such as awakening the sleeping village or returning the crown to the king in the second kingdom, and once you get the ship the world opens up even more and allows you to progress in the order you want, similar to an open world. I especially like how the 6 magic orbs aren't just obtained by beating a dungeon and that's it, but there are some that have very unique situations and are quite memorable. One of my favorite things and one that I am quite thankful to have is the "Zoom" spell, which allows you to instantly travel to any town you have previously visited, and it is to be admired that since this game there is the option of fast travel, something that other video game franchises took years and even decades to implement. Although a negative aspect of this game is that it has one of the worst defects of the games of that era, as there are many things that are a little ambiguous in their method of obtaining, it is not as serious as in DQII, but for example the strongest sword in the game is obtained in a very particular way, even so, it is nothing that a guide can not solve, although I only recommend the use of this when you are really stuck and do not know what to do. Dragon Quest III is simply a game that has a very good sense of adventure and that is about feeling that sense of progress and exploration in its purest state, because rather than being a burden, it feels like something engaging and a primary aspect of the experience.

Exploring villages is usually something fundamental, and Dragon Quest always makes it entertaining thanks to the NPCs who always have something useful, something interesting or even something silly and funny to say. Something I love about this game is the day and night cycle, which basically makes all the villages have two faces and there are certain changes accordingly, this is also a main mechanic, because many times in order to advance we will have to wait for nightfall, because that way some of the villagers' dialogues will change and with that different clues will be at your disposal, or simply because different things happen in some cases and it's just fun to see it. And something that I really love about this game is how it always rewards your curiosity, which encourages you to stay curious and keep exploring or going back to places that you had already explored so you can access and discover places that were previously locked and get a little reward.

Speaking of the OST, it's superb, if you like classical style music the tunes you'll find in this game will delight you. Koichi Sugiyama may have been a despicable person, but his work on the Dragon Quest series was vital in giving this series that heart and soul that we all love. The soundtrack of this installment shines from the rest of the series especially for the cultural representation that they tried to give to some of the locations that we can see throughout the game, like an Egyptian-inspired pyramid, or Jipang, whose name is self-explanatory of the place it is based on. But talking about the rest of the songs, the battle theme is simple, but it is entertaining and engaging unlike the first and second battle theme of the series which were a bit boring. The overworld theme is heroic, and conveys that feeling of being on an epic adventure very well. Strolling through the villages is always enjoyable when what's playing in the background is a sweet melody like this one. And there are other songs that I love, but I won't leave without mentioning my favorite song; Heavenly Flight. The moment I heard it tears came out of my eyes from how beautiful and majestic it is, simply one of my favorite songs in the whole series.

The graphics in this edition are gorgeous, they really enhance the immersion and are one of the most remarkable of the 16-bit era because of how colorful and well done the art is. I really like how the day and night cycle is very well portrayed, making the background of the battles match the time of day, the villages at night look very pretty especially. Each monster also has animations for each action they perform, which gives a little more life to the battles. And finally, Akira Toriyama's designs are still very nice to have, featuring many monsters and even characters that would become super iconic like the hero or the martial artist.

This remake was made by Heartbeat and is made with the Dragon Quest VI engine, which was the last game in the series at the time. Talking about the changes, it rebalances a lot the game without sacrificing totally its original difficulty curve, it adds many quality of life improvements like the bag and a more agile menu navigation. It also makes some small improvements to the gameplay, for example, now you can change equipment in the middle of the battle (as in DQVI). It renews and modernizes the graphics and adapts the songs to the Super Nintendo. And god, the result is amazing and in my opinion makes the game a thousand times better. The soundtrack is expanded by adding new pieces to the game, the graphics are some of the best the Super Nintendo could display, it still looks beautiful to this day and the range of random encounters was reduced considerably to make exploration and the overall experience much more enjoyable.

Conclusion
Despite its age and simplicity, Dragon Quest III defines what a good RPG should be. It is able to offer a solid experience even today that generates an immaculate sense of adventure and a great feeling of accomplishment when you finish the game, thanks to its simple, yet solid design and gameplay mechanics that are still present in many games even today. It was the game that defined and set the gold standard in the JRPG genre. It is directly one of the most important and influential games of all time and to be honest, it is still a very solid and entertaining game despite being a 1988 original, but the fact that this remake puts it on par with any other SNES game is proof of how well designed it was from the beginning in its time.

Dragon Quest III is a game that defined me as a player forever. While not my top 1 of the franchise, this to me is the most important of them all because of the impact it had on me the first time I played it. I wouldn't be exaggerating if I were to one day consider it my true favorite video game of all time, because frankly, to me this game is that precious. It wasn't my first game in the genre, but I consider this to be the game that made me fall in love with RPGs and taught me to really appreciate them.

← Dragon Quest I & II - Review
→ Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen - Review

I have mixed feelings on this one (yet it's still good)
First off, as someone who LOVES story in video games, Rhythm Heaven absolutely does not need one. The story felt in the way of the actual game, and I don't feel anything for any of the characters in them (except for MAYBE Trey). The story, characters, and dialogue just made me :| most of the time.
This game's gimmick is that it has taken games from all over the series in one one! To properly tell you how I feel about the gameplay, I must first tell you my story with this game. I was SUPER pumped to play this game that after I finished Fever, I even replayed all of Tengoku with all superbs in one day. And then I played the first lot of games, and they were crappy prequels. They were shorter, more barebones, and the songs were worse. The new games were okay, but I really liked ones like First Contact. I then got to Donut Land, only to find out the old games they took were just, the old games remade/ported to Megamix! I was ecstatic because they were GOOD! I was still depressed about the lack of remixes, and there were still shitty prequels after Donut Land, but they Lush Tower they had given all the prequels a sequel akin to the original versions! AND REMIXES!
The game got so much better by Heaven World it was insane. I was enjoying myself a lot more, and it had old bangers like Lockstep and Cheer Readers, and new ones like Pajama Party, Blue Bear, and Kitties! I only enjoy being able to buy cute collectibles and extra rhythm games, even if 4/6 of them are from Fever, and the collectibles and purchasable music replacing the rewards you get for getting a perfect (and you only unlock perfects after finishing Lush Woods). I also love the inclusion of the Challenge Train is also great, since I've basically mastered all the returning rhythm games it's nice to still have some challenges relating to them.
All of the songs except for (most) of the prequels are great, it's Rhythm Heaven after all. One thing I learned TODAY though, is that this game actually has more than 1 lyrical remix rhythm game, but for some reason wasn't localized and they were just instrumental. The music is still good though, it would have to be for a rhythm game.
It's very interesting how much I had to say about this game in comparison to the earlier titles in the series. It's an alright game, it functions, but I just cannot get the bad taste in my mouth after the terrible first impression. I also don't like the redesigns they gave to the characters in Shoot-Em-Up, Fan Club, and The Dazzles, it was almost like they wanted to give each Rhythm Heaven generation a different "art-style" despite DS and Fever looking the same with it's characters. But after I finished it, I like the game a lot more now, despite it still being probably my least favorite of the series. I really hope there's a new Rhythm Heaven game, and I also hope it goes back to the old formula, with the exception of keeping the Challenge Train.

It took me a minute to wrestle with how I felt about Pikmin 4 because while playing it, I really didn't know where it stood with me. I love Pikmin to death and waited so long for this game but weirdly felt so "meh" with it at first. The limit to 3 types on the screen at once really threw a wrench in my face, I'm not gonna lie.

The tutorial is a bit of a slog and there's a ton of QoL changes they made that didn't sit well with me at first. I was wanting the game to challenge me a bit more with every passing minute and those challenges weren't really hitting. I was pretty annoyed the game would constantly ask if you wanted to restart when you messed up or lost some Pikmin.. at first.

All of those things are optional so I just said, "No" to those things and went on my merry way. I remembered how torturous the older games can be and I think those times really hardened us Gamers for a future dystopia, but we in turn got a utopia instead. There's no need to fight our demons anymore, we can just accept the light and bask in the glory. I realized how fucking awesome it is that this game even came out in the first place and I slowly dropped my guard and just let this game take me for a ride. I do HOWEVER, wish that you could turn the side character tips off. If I could do anything, I would beat Colin to a pulp. That dude never shuts up and we gotta stop letting the side characters spoil puzzles for you if you don't figure it out in .3 milliseconds. That was the only thing that truly aggravated me about this game.

I do still wish that the game had a bit more challenge, like a hard mode maybe. But, it turned out that the challenge was mostly packed into the incredibly gigantic post-game that I wasn't expecting. Basically the 2nd half of the game is after the initial plot ends and I found some of the caves in that section to be exactly what I was looking for. Yeah, the game is basically Pikmin 2: The Second One, but Pikmin 2 was hard as fucking balls to play as a kid and I rather enjoyed the remix on it.

If I could change anything, I would make the Ice Pikmin appear later in the game since they tend to end fights incredibly quickly. Their ability to freeze water is extremely useful but you also get Blue Pikmin fairly early as well, so the freezing water ability gets reserved mostly for Dandori. You need to use Ice Pikmin in most levels so it was hard to not use them to attack literally everything. The downside is you can't harvest the enemy bodies for more Pikmin, but that never proved to be an issue for the ones that get their own Onions early.

Oatchi is a great addition to a fault. He is outrageously powerful, which is nice in a pinch but he suffers from my same complaints as the Icy boys. He is however incredibly useful during Night raids and Dandori, on top of just being a goober so I can't complain too much about him. I did like the upgrade system that came with him, but I hope if they bring it back it gets fine tuned a little bit. It was so easy to become immune to literally everything. Most of my complaints about this game is literally just it not being torture porn and I should probably talk to someone about it.

The post-game really sealed the deal for me though. Most of my Pikmin deaths were during that phase of the game. Some of the post-game Dandori missions really made me want to toss my joycons into a volcano. The final dungeon was asking for quite a lot. I was so happy to see it all.

I will not fault it too much for the lack of challenge though. Pikmin 4 left me very excited to see where a possible Pikmin 5 could go and hopefully I'll be alive in 2048 to see it. More and more people got into the series because of this game so I have a lot of hope. The QoL changes were not made for me, those changes were made for them and I can accept that. This game is beautifully well done and I still enjoyed every second of it, even if it took me a minute to realize.

Edit: Used to be a 4.5 star rating, but I stopped doing halfsies.