My first introduction to Banjo Kazooie was in the E3 2019 Nintendo Direct when he was revealed for Smash. I had no idea who this character was or what the series was about, I just knew that a LOT of people were happy they made it, and I couldn't understand why. But having finally played the game I now understand the tears of the people that flow from the lack of this series in the modern day, they are now my tears as well.

The gameplay in Banjo Kazooie is simply phenomenal. The titular duo's moveset is extremely varied and gives you everything you need to master the game with. It never really felt like I hit a wall because of it, if there was a puzzle to solve I was always certain that I had what I needed to solve it at my disposal and the game rewarded me for that. On top of that the platforming is pure joy, the perfect mix of challenge and fun. And then there's just the collectathon structure this game employs to an excellent degree. In any other 3D platformer I would feel content just to get the objectives required to beat the game, but because collecting things in Banjo Kazooie is just so damn satisfying I found myself collecting everything. 100% completing this game not only felt really satisfying but it also felt like the intended way to play the game and enhanced the experience ten times more than it would have been if I just did the bare minimum required.

The other main thing I want to talk about here is the game's presentation. Despite being an N64 game I feel like Banjo Kazooie has held up incredibly well. The game's visual style, world, tone, and sound design are all just so damn charming. There's so much to love here, from all the charming characters and the funny dialogue between them, to the oddly kinda edgy sense of humor the game has (at least for an E rated game) like when they said Gruntilda does a striptease or when Kazooie heavily implied she was gonna shove a key up someone's ass, just jokes that I laughed a lot at because I had no idea how they got away with them. The worlds here are very unique and interesting as well. There are of course some stinkers (looking at you Bubblegloop Swamp) but for the most parts these environments are just interesting and fun in concept and a blast to actually explore yourself. They take basic level themes and add the game's charm to them to make some truly great levels that are some of the best I've ever played in a platformer.

Overall, Banjo Kazooie is a classic game that's well loved for a reason. The game's charm, pristine level design, and incredibly fun gameplay cycle kept me engaged and addicted the whole way through and turned me into a fan of this character and this series that I priorly couldn't care less about.

Perhaps the design ethos of this game can be summed up with the design of Batman himself.

You have a carefully crafted grey bodysuit; a perfectly sculpted Alex Ross inspired cowl with extra long ears; the large, iconic bat symbol spread over a mile-wide chest; tiny details like cuts and scratches that build up as the game progresses. All these strokes of intentional design serve to ground the character into this darker, heightened vision of the Dark Knight. And yet they still gave him the trunks.

Arkham Asylum is a game that knows it's silly, but its also twisted and dark and surprisingly deep gameplay-wise, from its metroidvania structure to its involved combat system to its many, many riddle challenges.

It's a game that is tight and compact, with intimately-decorated environments all stuffed with fun secrets and disturbing details. Its atmosphere is infection, so much so that it demands your immersion, making you feel the rain on your face.

Most of all, however, the game shows just how much the developers loved Batman. It feels like this game was made by people who wanted nothing more than to make the definitive Batman experience and that passion shines through in every moment.

Bringing back Conroy, Hamill and Sorkin from the Animated Series is only the tip of the iceberg, but its emblematic of the studio's respect for the character and his world. Again, only people who truly loved and understood the character would have the balls to put him in black trunks. And of course they fit perfectly, because it's Batman. It's all Batman, the silly and the serious.

This wasn't just the best superhero game of all time when it was released, forever raising people's expectations for the superhero action subgenre, but it was also the start of a seminal series of games that stand toe-to-toe with some of the movies for cultural impact.

The best part of all: the graphics have hardly aged a day. Arkham Asylum's original artstyle is still as striking and evocative as it was in 2009, zany and beautiful and creepy in equal measure.

Even 15 years later, it deserves another visit. But first, did anyone catch the game last night?

Before Your Eyes, a game by GoodbyeWorld Games in early 2021, is an absolutely brilliant game portraying the human condition as a microcosm within your webcam. Utilizing the mechanic of your own self blinking the game mechanics are fairly simple, just don't blink, or do, you'll need to progress someday. For only being around 2 hours in length this game manages to pull you in and truly care about the small cast of characters surrounding our main character named Benjamin. Although this is a 'choose your own adventure' type game there are some choices that just make sense to do over others, at least for me it was obvious sometimes in which way you were being swayed to decide, this however does not ruin the game or dampen the experience in the slightest, in fact going back and choosing some of those other choices may be an interesting experience... however, the replayability of this game is one I would not personally recommend, it is one in which I believe that going in to achievement hunt or even finishing and then going back strictly for achievements, not saying not to replay ever since you should someday when you want to reexperience the game itself instead of just collecting online tokens, definitely seem like it could dampen an experience and make you percieve at as strictly 'gotta blink to get here' instead of following its narrative and getting that attatchment, my beliefs on achievements within this game even stretch to thinking that although achievements are kinda cool, I would say this game could even be better off without that incentive or 'need to get this/that'.

Overall this was an absolutely fantastic experience and one that I wish I'd gotten around to sooner

I haven't really written reviews for games before so hope this is alright.

This game isn’t for me and that’s okay.

Honestly this game is the furthest thing possible from my tastes and I was really only pushed to play because it happens to be my significant other’s favorite game. I can’t even say I’m disappointed since I more or less got the experience I assumed I was going to get from the general look of things. The presentation with the animal people living in what looks to be a rust belt is nice to look at though it's far away from my preferred aesthetic in video games, but at least it looks crispy good even on the nintendo switch. Most surprisingly it has a very memorable soundtrack with me even humming some of its tunes even when I’m not playing it. In terms of its presentation and production value, there really isn’t much to complain about as its definitely something that looks and sounds good. How does it play though? I might have some issues.

So the main character is essentially this cat creature girl who returns to her hometown after dropping out of college. From there you can usually hang out with either Bea or Gregg while some main story stuff plays out. It's a serviceable formula that works well in its setting as lots of lore details about possum springs are sprinkled coloring the background for something really interesting going on for sure.

My issue is that some of these characters just aren’t very likable to me at all. Most of the NPCs I talk to on my way to either of those two characters just don’t have much interesting things to say at all to the point where I kind of gave up talking to them by part 3. Mae and Gregg’s dynamic feels insufferable to me as they remind me of “le quirky young adults who wanna live life to the fullest” which I found juvenile without a decent payoff even at the conclusion of Gregg’s story. Bea was definitely more interesting though as her level-headedness clashed well with Mae’s obnoxiousness. Mae herself was just too aggravating to watch as her personality and a lot of the actions towards the end of the story to the point that I just don’t really care what happens to her.

Honestly, the first three parts of the story were just sort of slow and monotonous to me with occasional good nuggets of interesting dialogue such as Mae and Bea arguing about how Bea should live her life or when Mae’s mom snapped at her. The real meat of the story feels to be all squished into part 4 when some plot heavy stuff occurs. Wish they built towards this more because besides the mystery itself I’m unsure if they ever foreshadowed characters even being part of this twist but maybe I’m wrong there. Nonetheless the trippy stuff was pretty cool and the epilogue was actually a nice closure that wrapped a nice bow thematically to what the game is really about.

Do I actually like Night in the Woods? Eh sorta, the fact that I completed means I had enough good faith in it to keep going, but I’ll probably never revisit it again since so many things it does just rubs me the wrong way but maybe some might find it more endearing. It's definitely put together well and I can see why it's beloved by certain folks out there and more power to them. For now I’ll stick to what I like.

Yeah its clunky and the camera sucks and the air control after a dash is super weird but who cares? Who is playing this cute anniversary week long project / brief snack to hold us over until Earthblade releases, and seriously complaining about that stuff.

What really amazed me, amidst the oceans of mario references (more Sunshine than 64 though, I must say) was how much of the core appeal of Celeste actually survives. The writing, the level design, the music, the look, its a rough but very successful simulacrum of the actual game.

At the end of the day, what I mostly come away from this thinking about is the thoughtfulness of this team. As they once deeply understood and conveyed the feelings of (seemingly) insurmountable self-doubt that come before self-acceptance (and to make it so implicitly queer and personal, while making it so universal that it successfully reaches and connects with those who aren't or [as was the case for me] don't know yet, is the work of genuinely masterful storytellers), they now show they fully recognise what that game means to those whose personal journeys were aided by it. In essence, Celeste 64 is a victory lap about the therapeutic value of looking back on those cliffs you once thought insurmountable, to see how far you've really come. In doing so it also gets to slyly reminiscence on how valuable the first game actually is for so many. Kind of genius if you ask me.

All the way back in 2010, me and my brother were gifted a Wii during our first week of school that Fall. I had just started the 5th grade and a week or two prior I had rented and played a chunk of Super Mario Galaxy 2 on my dad's friend's Wii during a beach trip. I absolutely loved what I played of it but after the trip was over, I had to return the game back to the rental store and of course the Wii was not mine, so I craved more. Like I said, my dad gifted us a Wii and with it was Super Mario Galaxy. My brother got the Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs game so it's pretty clear only one of us got a quality title. I was infactuated with this game. I can still remember running home from school, going right to my Wii as I couldn't wait to play it any longer. I'd wake up super early on weekends too just to play more. This and Galaxy 2 were basically the first non-licensed game's I truly loved and I'm very thankful for that as it made me want to play more Nintendo titles afterwards. As you can see I adore this game, let's talk about why!

I think the defining factor as to why people love this game so much (besides the story) is its atmosphere and portrayal of space. Sure, you have more goofy or lighthearted galaxies like Honeyhive or Beach Bowl that wouldn't feel out of place in another game. But a good chunk of the galaxies in this game, as well as the Comet Observatory, just have this really unique emptyness or marvel that really makes you feel like you're in space. Take Space Junk Galaxy for example. It's a very serene and solemn galaxy where most of the setting is literal space with some junk spread throughout just like the name implies and it's very relaxing to go through. A lot of the time I would just go into first person and marvel at the scope of all the planets or just look at the different skyboxes each galaxy has. Even on this playthrough, when I've played this game countless times, I still did this..it just never gets old to me.

As I said, the story is probably the other aspect people love about this game the most. It's still a Mario game so don't expect something mind-blowing but the cutscenes that are here are all great. Be it the beginning cutscene where Mario gets shot at by a magikoopa and gets flung to the starting planet while Peach screams his name, to the ending cutscene where all the Luma's save the entire universe by sacrificing themselves. It's just all so well done. Granted, these cutscenes only really happen at the beginning and end of the game, but it's what's contained in them that matters and it's the single best story in any mainline Mario game hands down. That's not even getting into the optional Rosalina's storybook which is in itself the single best part of the story. It just adds that extra depth to her character and let's you see who she is and how she got there. And even replaying it now, I still teared up...it's that good.

The OST I also think is the single best soundtrack in any Mario game. It has it all, it has catchy songs, it has majestic songs, it has atmospheric songs, it has emotional songs. I love Galaxy 2's OST too but it doesn't top 1 in my opinion and I think that's specifically because 2 doesn't have those emotional/sad songs which I value a bunch nowadays. Those would be A Wish, Sad Girl, and Family. Those last two especially, goddamn dude, I always can't help but get emotional when I hear them. Some other more lighthearted songs I love are Gusty Garden obviously, Melty Molten Galaxy, Buoy Base Galaxy and The Comet Observatory. All in all, an absolutely fantastic soundtrack.

As for the galaxies themselves...they're good! There may be some I'm not the biggest fan of, mostly the beach/bee galaxies and that's mostly because they reuse that theme twice which kinda stinks. But in general the galaxies are quite good even if they're aren't a ton of main one's. In that regard, 2 still does it better because there's way more fun and varied galaxies in that one, but 1 still has some really great levels to play around in. My favorites were Gusty Garden, Buoy Base, Freezeflame, Melty Molten and Space Junk. Special mention to Toy Time too for being so wacky and fun. Though, honestly another small critique I have with the game is the prankster comets. I'm fine with the purple coin ones but for the ones you playthrough your first time through before Bowser, there only being 4 types is kinda lame. 2 fixed this somewhat by adding more types and making it less obvious what it's gonna be but I felt it was worth pointing out. I will also say, people saying the movement in this game sucks I will never get. Is it better than Odyssey's? Definitely not but I still think it's a ton of fun to play around with the gravity. That's just me at least.

So yeah, I know I gave a criticism or two but I still absolutely adore this game and 2 fixes those issues I have and I sort of group them together as one game so it balances each others faults out. It and Galaxy 2 are basically my favorite games ever and I go back and forth on which one I prefer regularly for different reasons so I usually group them together even if both give pretty different gaming experiences. Either way, this game means everything to me and it's a must play for every gamer I think. I love it so much. Anyways, figured I'd go and replay 2 while I'm at it so look for that review soon!

Also forgot to say, I played as Luigi this time around. He's fun to play as even if he is slippery cuz his jumps are much larger. The reward you get for 100%ing both Mario and Luigi is lame as hell though and definitely was improved in 2.

It's amazing what this team has been able to do in a week.

The controls were a bit hit or miss and I spent about 5 minutes at the beginning trying to figure out how to advance, until I discovered the climb button (I felt like that journalist from Cuphead). But going back to Madeline and its intense platforming has been a marvel, they have managed to capture the essence of Celeste in a very contained format.

The fact that it's free makes it even more amazing, and it's enough reason to arm myself with patience (because these games usually frustrate me, in a good way) and give it a good try!