Like many, I heard of Banjo and its reputation thanks to Smash Bros speculations.
"A N64 classic, Rare at its best, Xbox bad, Nuts & Bolts has cars" and yada yada. You know the drill. SO I just gave it a shot thanks to the NSO.... so here it is what I think of it

As many already stated online, the biggest part of Banjo Kazooie is the presentation: from the first second, you can feel how much personality this game oozes: the walking N64 logo, the musical opening, the characters, the spiral mountain exploration, the quirky humor. Everything is just perfect and you can already tell why it is so beloved.
Compared to Mario 64, which in more instances present a world that feels empty, every part of Banjo's world feels alive and memorable.
And this personality makes a lot: the various levels are nothing you haven't seen already in a platformer: desert, woods, swamps, haunted houses, greenlands, beaches... but then you discover the changing of Seasons and stories in Click Clock Wood, the a**hole shark and the goofy pirate in Treasure trove cove, the delusional dad and the christmas theme in Freezy Peak, the disturbing Clanker literally swimming in dung.... the way they are presented and built makes you want to visit them over and over again, which works perfectly for the collective aspect of the title, that is not only necessary to progress, but also feels incentivated.

It's clear that the devs really cared for this world, so much so that they added so much extra details that on paper feels completely unnecessary, like the infamous quiz at the end of the game or the ability to literally turn on cheat codes (and the punishment for inputting too many)

The gameplay is also incredibly good: compared to Mario and other types of platforming heroes, Banjo just... waddles around at a slower pace, but this, combined with the various moves you unlock in later world, makes for a really varied set of skills, that feels natural and just enjoyable to perform.
One thing I particularly respected about the exploration of the levels is how you kinda have to.... manage the resources you get: in a game like Mario 64 or a Hat in time, you can breeze throught the world without a care in the world, getting every extra hearts you find and breezing through enemies with your best moves. Banjo on the other hand has to take care of his amount of eggs, feathers and especially life bar, since dying in a world means having to re-collect the musical notes from the start. This approach I feel is only a flaw in levels like the engine room in Rusty Bucket (which is a cheap way to die) or whenever you gotta grab some tiny objects underwater. Otherwise, I like the idea that I have to be careful about my health and powers: I can't just use all of my gold feathers on these vines, what if I need them later? Or I can't kill this honeyhive now, maybe I will need some health because that freaking bird in the tree keeps pecking me.

It is a sort of "survival-platformer" approach that I really liked, despite many people may prefer the more direct action of other platformers.

The flaws of the game for me: definitely the clunky camera, that while better than the one in Mario 64, still makes for some annoying moments in later platforming options.
Another thing: I am not a fan of the swimming controls, reason why Clanker's cavern and Rusty Bucket are my least favorite levels. I may not be ashamed to say that save-states helped me endure levels like CLick CLock Wood or Rusty Bay, that I feel otherwise would have been infuriating to traverse at times. Grunty's Lair can be also kinda dispersive to nacigate I feel, and in thar regar I may prefer how compact other hubworld like Peach's castle are.

Overall I just ended up going through Grunty's Quiz, save Tootie, and call it a day.... I wasn't really tempted to go into the final battle, since I needed like 10 extra notes and I didn't want go back on a level to collect them all again.
But then I said "ehe, just an extra run on Mad Monster Mansion! What can go wrong?"

And honestly I am glad I came back: first off, because it confirmed to me that replaying levels for collection is incredibly fun, but also because I was really surprised by that final boss. First, just the fact that I ended up with just enough puzzle pieces to complete Grunty's portrait made me smile hard, and reminded me of why collect-a-thons are so based.
Second, Grunty's confrontation has no reason to go this hard: it is simple in concept, but the way the witch shoots fireballs to predict you movement, dashes through the screen and makes you use all of your different abilities only to end up killed by a giant blue terminator jinjo.... I dunno I really liked that..
I didn't 100% the game so I didn't get the "Banjo Kazooie 2 secret footage", but the sole fact that the devs add that..... man it is so good.

So yeah, I heard a classic N64 game was good, tried the game and find out it was more than good.
It has some things that makes it jankier compared to more modern titles, but for the rest this is an immaculate experience.

Kazooie literally called Banjo sister "that ugly thing"... that is kinda messed up, girl.

A New Frontier fails to capture what made the previous walking dead seasons so fantastic. It introduces a new cast which is largely forgettable and throughout I wished I was playing as Clem, who is reduced to a secondary character in this game. The narrative’s focus on the protagonists family dynamic did not engage me and the writing is very hit and miss. What’s more the gameplay is as unengaging as ever, becoming more egregious at this point after two seasons with minimal gameplay innovations. It’s not all bad though, I really enjoyed Clem’s involvement in this game, particularly with the flashback sequences, and there are some memorable, standout story moments. However, ultimately I found A New Frontier to be a mediocre experience that was likely an unfortunate symptom of Telltale’s poor management culture at the time leading to some poor development decisions.

2016 Ranked

After almost 15 years, Konami brought back one of their most underrated IPs, but killed it straight away. The latest and last Rocket Knight game in the series, this feels like more of a sequel to the really shitty Genesis version of Sparkster, rather than a successor to the masterpieces that were Rocket Knight Adventures, and Sparkster (SNES).

To be fair, Rocket Knight is not as bad as Sparkster (Genesis) as it has actual decent level design and the controls feel very tight. It's just that it's painfully mediocre when you compare it to RKA. There are basically zero setpieces that made the originals stand out- just levels that are somewhat enjoyable.

While the controls are tight, you don't get that cool Sonic like momentum that was present in RKA/Sparkster (SNES). Rather than having that cool charging rocket boost those games had, you have the unsatisfying boost on demand that the Genesis version of Sparkster had.

Bosses are just... meh. They used to be the most enjoyable aspect of these games but here, they just are too gimmicky and inconsistent with how they work.

It's just everything about this game feels stale and lacks any charm the previous games had. Something to do with this bland western artstyle it now has, going for a more Saturday morning cartoon look, which is not a bad artstyle to go for in general, but makes Rocket Knight look really ugly and generic compared to the gorgeous charming art of the previous.

It's sad that this is the last Rocket Knight we got. Hopefully the new collection that comes out re-sparks interest in the franchise and we get an actual good modern game this series deserves.

It’s really a shame that reactions to Stellar Blade are more focused on the fanservice or the coomer reactions. You got one group of people who just focus on the fanservice and hail the game to be the savior of sexualized women in gaming, and then you got the other group who view the game in a negative light because of the first group. And you know what? I can’t even blame them because the first group is really insufferable.

I don't care in the slightest about Stellar Blade having a "sexy" protagonist. I saw a trailer for it once and was immediately interested, because of how fun and unique it looked.

But coomers saw the female Protagonist’s butt and were obnoxious about it ever since. Like come on, it’s bottom of the barrel fanservice you’re going all crazy for. Literally everything I've seen about this game online is people with underaged anime character avatars cream their pants over how this game is "destroying wokeness" or whatever. Nothing against Eve, because she is really pretty and I actually really like her, but she looks like every female character in every korean MMO ever made. It's like people going to war over white bread. Apparently, these guys are now whining about censorship, signing petitions, and making videos of themselves (they look about as you'd expect) about why their cause matters lmao. These pathetic gamerbros will never not be incredibly annoying and cringe to me.

Because Stellar Blade is just so much more. Picture all those apocalyptic gachas and their really great world-building, fantastic atmosphere but really cheap and dull (chibi) gameplay, then amp it up to AAA levels – that's the magic of Stellar Blade.

The environments are beautifully crafted and the atmospheric soundtrack is another aspect I deeply appreciate and thoroughly enjoyed in this game. There's nothing quite like losing yourself in a captivating melody as you journey through vast, lonely landscapes and cities. Just like Nier, Stellar Blade really nailed its soundtrack.

The gameplay is just so much fun and showcases an exceptional level of refinement and polish. Every movement, dodge and parry hit the mark perfectly. The more skills you unlock, the cooler and more fun the combat gets. There's never a dull moment - the gameplay remains consistently exciting and stylish from start to finish.

I found the plot to be really intriguing, and I really enjoyed uncovering plenty of secrets and snippets of lore. But what really surprised me were the sidequests. Sure, some were usual filler content, but most served to make the world feel alive and deepened the lore. Completing them was enjoyable, they never felt like a chore. So good job there.

Oh, and I'm pleasantly surprised by Eve! Initially, I expected her to be the typical "waifu" (ugh, I hate that word), merely there for visual appeal with little personality beyond conforming to generic “anime girl” tropes. Most of these tropes revolve around being “innocent”, "naive" or a "sweet flower girl." But Eve defies those expectations, and I couldn't be happier about it.

Even though Stellar Blade took huge inspiration from Nier and other apocalyptic gacha games, it's still an extremely unique and fun game that everyone should give a chance. Don't listen to the manchildren throwing tantrums or all the buzz about the “fanservice," which is honestly vastly overexaggerated due to some optional skins. Honestly, aside from the optional skins, there are absolutely no horny aspects present in the game.

There are just so many little touches to the point where you can tell the developers really cared about making this game great, and they succeeded. Stellar Blade is simply a beautiful game.

A pretty flawed game in terms of how it handles quests and story but an incredibly ambitious one. I can't think of anything else that would make you wait 30+ hours to unlock one of the main selling features, but there's something about working your way up as a blade on that harsh planet that makes the moment you finally get a skell license and eventually take flight so special and satisfying... It completely changes the world you've come to know so far. Soaring around an exceptionally designed open world fighting monsters in the sky with Hiroyuki Sawano music blasting is something you won't find anywhere else.

So many things about XCX make it feel like a true evolution of XC1, in gameplay and art design, complex mechanics, intricate area layouts, so much customization and freedom, that were all just thrown out of the window for the next entries. The whole thing feels genuinely impossible to pull off on this toaster of a console, its scale and visual fidelity impressed me more than anything on Switch ever has. In the best way it doesn't feel like a Nintendo game at all.

I really enjoyed spending most of last month chilling exploring this alien planet. It's just been sitting on my shelf for years unplayed after I failed to get into it before, and it ended up being my most enjoyable Xenoblade experience since the original. 1 and X truly feel like they're in a different series from 2 and 3 to me. Had I played this back in 2015 I don't think I would have been nearly as impressed by BOTW, or any open world for that matter. I would recommend checking it out now because any future port is going to be missing some stuff, it's very tailored for the Wii U unfortunately.

Full disclosure: couldn't play through the game because of constant crashes. Will probably give it another try sometime in the future. Still, I felt justified in rating it based on my limited experience.

I quickly realized I didn't like the story and began skipping the cutscenes, so I figured I might as well download a save file and jump through most of the missions to avoid the crashes.

Shortly before the game's release I played the demo of it and was so impressed that I couldn't wait for the full game to come out. But I remember when I finally gave it a try, the early sections of the game got me so bored that I just kinda moved onto other games.

And it is true that the beginning of the game is kinda slow. You start off with a quick jetpack tutorial and a dogfight, which is pretty fun, but then it kinda drags you into this very slow and mediocre cover-based shooter with a lot of cutscenes, dialogues and walking sections.

Once they give you the jetpack again, there's strangely another dogfight tutorial that is exactly the same. But you also get to do some cover-based shooting with the jetpack, and I gotta say, this is kinda where the game's potential lies, and what impressed me so much with the demo. Imagine a cover-based shooter where you can fly over enemies and ambush them from behind or attack from the air. In addition there is vertical cover that totally shifts the plane of combat. The possibilities here were insane: fully three-dimensional combat and fully three-dimensional exploration of open levels. That's what it could've been.

In reality though, I feel like the systems don't really interact with each other, and often undermine each other. The levels are pretty linear and often wouldn't let you switch between hovering and boosting because you'd immediately start hitting walls and lose control. The floors and ceilings are also quite noticeable. In more open locations you'd see mountains and wanna climb on top of them, but the game just wouldn't let you. But when the game does give you some open-space combat arenas, you quickly realize that you kinda have to get close to your enemies in order to deal any decent damage, and once you do get close, you kinda have to take cover because you're extremely fragile. Not to mention there are very few locations that give you vertical cover.

In fact, I feel like this game is too short and spends way too much time locking you in linear sections and depriving you of the jetpack, the main attraction of the game. Without it, this is just a poor man's Gears of War.

But the dogfights are really the star of the show here. It's very fun to do maneuvers and outsmart enemies. On top of that, the coolest feature is how you can hijack an enemy aircraft and fully utilize it throughout the battle. Like it's not just a gimmick, they don't break in 5 seconds or limit your movement, they're a decent combat option.

Honestly, instead of crafting a story-driven campaign, they should've just given us procedurally-generated open levels with both ground and air combat happening simultaneously like in Battlefront and Battlefield games, except give us better weapons, higher accuracy, more melee options and maybe some special powers to make us feel like a superhero. Let us dive from the air to the ground with an AOE attack or pluck enemies from the ground like an eagle. Let us kamikaze-attack airships or use a hook to zip towards them. Now that would've been a really fun game. But instead this kinda makes you feel like a dog on a leash in a park. There seems to be so much fun to be had here, but they just don't let you do any of it.

Even as someone who was very excited for the game since the demo dropped, I didn't expect to be THIS in love with the final product. It's genuinely unbelievable that it's Shift Up's first console project. This is a technical marvel packed with eyecandy environments, models and effects that still runs at 60fps the whole time at a 30GB file size. In a lot of ways it feels like the first true 9th generation game I've experienced, and finally not a remake or sequel of anything else. So many moments where I was genuinely blown away by what I was seeing and experiencing, like arriving in the main city for the first time. Still shocking that SIE decided to back this so hard in publishing and promotion as it seems to go against everything the company is about in recent years but it's a move I'm thankful for.

Stellar Blade harks back to the PS2 era, unashamed of being a video game and prioritising gameplay above all else, with a ton of unlockable outfits and new game+ free on day one. Not to say that its design is primitive in any way as it incorporates all the best parts of modern gaming too. Areas are a mix of linear setpiece based levels and more open exploration. I liked how the side missions took you to new locations and had actually great rewards, and in general it's not a ridiculous time sink like a lot of modern games. Combat is an absolute blast, a fusion of other great actions like Sekiro, Bayonetta, even Resident Evil at times. Very reflex heavy swordplay wth a variety of different ranged firearms as well. With the amount of skills and specialized equipment you can collect you'd think it would get too easy after a point, but you will still get put in your place by the brutal boss fights at the end of the story. The grotesque monster designs and the elaborate animations for dismembering them are just on another level, every encounter sticks out in my memory. And I've seen criticism of it but I personally loved the parkour and Uncharted style climbing around the world. I felt like there was such a huge variety to what I was doing for my whole 40 hours played and it was mixing multiple genres I love perfectly. Finally if this game doesn't at least take nominations for best OST of the year it will be an absolute crime because it's constantly hitting your ears with objectively heavenly sounds, the most atmospheric emotional vocal songs seamlessly switching to more intense versions when fighting. Combined with the landscapes and art design you just gotta stop and take it all in sometimes.

This achievement has been overshadowed by some REALLY braindead controversies over the last few months and I've also seen a lot of hate from fans of the other series that clearly inspired it. It's a new IP so harsh critics are to be expected but I look forward to more people warming to it and realizing how it's actually a love letter to those things and an amazing game in its own right, and I hope EVE will be respected one day like Bayonetta, 2B etc have come to be. This singlehandedly made me feel less doomer about the game industry, if we can still get stuff like this every once in a while we may be alright. I will be eagerly awaiting whatever these devs make next on console

If there was one way to describe Stellar Blade it would be HOT ASS. Why? Because the story sucks balls and the main character has a fat donk. It's a game that truly embodies both meanings of the term.

All jokes aside though, I was actually impressed with this game in many areas. The gameplay is straight up awesome, it's like I was playing Sekiro with all the benefits of controlling a hot android girl. Boss fights were nice aswell, I did beat them all first try besides the last two though. Visually it was stunning. In a market that's now oversaturated with poorly optimized garbage Stellar Blade was a breath of fresh air for sure. Also the soundtrack has to be one of my favorites, I will now be waiting for it come out on spotify and I only just finished waiting for the P3R OST. I have mixed feelings on the level design, Eidos 7 was really nice in particular however it started getting repetitive and for some reason the only two open world sections are both deserts, like what's up with that??? Anyway, now we get to objectively the best part of the game, the costumes. Seriously, I don't think I've had this much fun with a games cosmetics since Ghost of Tsushima. Almost every single outfit is an absolute banger and Eve's just so good looking that you can't help but want to make her look as good as possible. If you want to feel like a 6 year old girl dressing up her barbie doll, then Stellar Blade is the game for you.

Now that we've covered the good stuff, let's get into the part of the game that's kinda bad. The story. To put it simply, it's just a cheap ripoff of NieR. If you've played either NieR you will already know how the entire story unfolds. I pretty much predicted every single plot point except the very last one. Not to mention the characters, oh my god the characters are abysmal. Adam has to be one of my least favorite characters in recent memory. He spends the entire game being a boring dipshit and at the end just turns into an absolute cuck. Like yeah, Eve is boring, annoying, and the complete definition of a mary sue too but atleast she's hot. It really is a shame. Stellar Blade does so many things right it just makes me think Shift Up should've gone the DMC route and prioritized style over attempting substance.

All in all, I enjoyed my time with this game. I just wish it had a better story.

I'm sure many people jumping into this review are previous readers of Hoshizora no Memoria (same developer) and want to know how similar Iroseka is. To briefly get it out of the way I would say the two are mostly not the same. There's definitely no Chinami equivalent in Iroseka so you won't be called Onii-chan 10,000 times before you're done with the story. And the drama style, setting, and themes are a lot different.


Pretty Interesting Setting

Despite most of the characters being high school age, which is kind of to be expected of most visual novels, this is NOT a slice of life high school story at all. In fact, I think it would be fair to say that at most the major characters are shown at school like 20% of the time. Iroseka mixes this minor high school aspect with a supernatural setting with parallel worlds. These parallel worlds specifically are a huge part of Iroseka's story as the main character will have many personal reasons for having to travel to or deal with these different areas. I'm not going to get into detail in order to not get into spoilers but I thought the way they integrated the supernatural stuff was quite well done. It helps give Iroseka a unique identity but while still having a huge focus on relatable psychological character drama. I also liked how they slowly built up the powers that Yuuma, the main character, and his ghost girl partner Shinku, are capable of as the story progresses.


Memorable Emotional/Depressing Moments

I am NOT exaggerating when I say depressing. Even as early as towards the end of the common route, you're going to see some stories that delve into pretty heavy subject matter, including but not limited to: lost memories, loneliness, depression, revenge, suicide, terminal diseases, extreme self-sacrifice, physical abuse, trafficking, the dark side of traditions, etc. If any of these sound like potential triggers for you, I would recommend not reading this visual novel. That said, I think the way that Iroseka delves into these subject matter is pretty tasteful. You are not going to see stupidly thrown in edgy H scenes for shock value like some eroge fall into. Quite the opposite. In fact, the visual novel goes heavily into the psychology of each character's mindset as the stuff they have gone through and I think the way that it's both presented and how the characters develop from these situations are quite good and what really got me to quite like a good amount of this visual novel.


Excellent Presentation (Art/Music)

I've always adored the art style of visual novels by developer “favorite” for their bright colors, very distinct character designs, and really good CGs. But I would say the absolute best thing about the presentation in Iroseka is actually the music. The composer Shinobu composes background music for basically every favorite visual novel including Hoshimemo, Iroseka and the currently untranslated Sakura Moyu. But the real stick outs are the emotional songs. As stated earlier, there are some moments in Iroseka that are quite emotional and the excellent background music helps the emotional scenes become even more enjoyable and immersive.

Heavy Use of Flashbacks / Exposition

As stated earlier, this is a visual novel with a pretty big emphasis on the supernatural and parallel world elements, so there's going to be a lot of stuff that needs to be explained. And the writer definitely wants to make sure to describe the many worlds and characters you will meet, including many minor characters’ backstories. To give an example in my favorite girl Kana's route, a good portion of the beginning of her route is giving a whole hour flashback of a side character that is only tangentially related to Kana. This flashback IS incredibly important for the themes of the story, so I definitely did not mind this as well as a lot of the exposition of the supernatural stuff by the dorm daddy, Shigure. They are definitely important to know and I was personally interested in what they had to say. But if you're not a fan of exposition and backstory heavy stories you could maybe think twice before picking up this title. But I thought the author did a good job of not getting too long-winded and a lot of these scenes actually really helped me get into the world and the characters and story even more than I already was.

Inconsistent Route Quality

Iroseka has a commonly used locked true route structure. Meaning you have to read the 4 ‘side’ heroine routes before you unlock the true route. Kana’s is generally considered the best side route and has become one of my personal favorite nakige style routes in isolation. The other side routes are much more hit or miss. Kyou’s has a big plot element that isn’t resolved, Tsukasa’s is way too short despite having an interesting concept, and Mio’s is decent, but just doesn’t hit as hard as I think it should. Basically, I think that the core message and themes of each route are actually pretty good, it's just the amount of care and time given to developing them varies.

As for the true route itself, many people cite it as THE reason to read the visual novel and I can certainly see why. It has very memorable emotional nakige moments and some crazy reveals that happen as early as 15 minutes into the route. However, I have much more mixed feelings about the true route than expected. Similar to the other four routes, I think the core message and themes are actually pretty good, but the issues I have with the true route can be boiled down to 3 things: 1)The plot trying too hard be a supernatural nakige that’s TOO creative 2) A few characters’ actions and stories not making much sense or are just flat out-stupid 3) Some reveals recontextualizing certain aspects of the side routes in a negative way, especially Kana’s where if you noticed I said her route is one my favorites “in insolation”.

Apparently a lot of the flaws I have with the Iroseka get fixed in the currently untranslated sequel, Irotoridoi no Hikari or The Colorful Light. People I’ve talked to cite this sequel as extremely important for filling in a lot of the gaps and details Sekai skipped in order to tell its relatively simpler emotional narrative. So if you are interested and like Iroseka and want to see more, be sure to monetarily support THIS original localization of The Colorful World.


Medicore to Bad Comedy

As I stated earlier, this visual novel has comedy that's very reminiscent of the mid to late 2000s anime harem style comedy. Expect a lot of pervert jokes including but not limited to accidentally walking into a girl changing, girls calling the main guy a pervert when he didn't do anything, or making fun of a supposed fetish that protagonist clearly does not have such as being a lolicon, being into femboys, etc. I've never liked this humor and there are many times where I had to take a break because I was getting really mad whenever these scenes popped up, especially when they happen after pretty important emotional scenes.

That said, the absolute worst offender is the protagonist's mentor “Suzu". The writer just tries to write her off as a “tease" character but The fact that she's a lazy immature person for much of the story is quite annoying. Anytime she makes a mistake, she always tries to dump the blame on the main character Yuuma, or worse try to do things that get him in a situation for the other girls to get unfairly angry at him.

Final Thoughts

Great emotional moments, interesting setting, solid psychological drama, hit or miss route execution and bad comedy.

8/10.