The kind of game you will either rate 10/10 or 2/10. Easily Nakazawa and Uchikoshi's best work. Amazing pacing and somehow the most consistently solid Infinity cast despite the game not really focusing on characters as much as the previous two entries. If you somehow see this review first, don't read anything else about this game because people spoil major aspects of it without even realizing it, just go play it for yourself.

Also the ending is great fuck you

It's okay.

First route is near 1:1 with Rebellions' first route except with a bunch of really questionable differences that drag it down, and the second route is just kinda nothing. I don't recommend this one, just play the remake instead.

"Okay, hear me out on this one. What if we made Secret Game but actually good?"

(Rating only for the 999 remaster)
Still really good but the downgrades from the original DS release are too big to ignore, play that instead.

Huge step up from the original simply due to the Swift Sail and other quality-of-life features. Still doesn't have very fun dungeons but oh well. I still love the style of this game and wish I could rate it higher, but the dungeons just drag it down IMO.

I take back everything I said about the original, it's a masterpiece compared to this.

Not as bad as its reputation would have you think.

That being said it's not good.

How did they fuck up Sonic Colours of all things?

Better than DR1 and 2 in a lot of ways. Best core story in the series, and best individual mysteries in the series. My main issue with V3 is that it's really long, like twice the length of DR1, and I feel like some of the early chapters are really dragged down by the increased runtime. The game becomes a bit of a slog and doesn't have the snappiness DR1 or 2 does, which is unfortunate. The ending is almost perfect.

A game that deserves to be played regardless of how poorly it's aged in certain areas.

A fresh change of pace. Really enjoyed experimenting with the many different choices. The narrator is so good.

Uchikoshi peaked here. Great atmosphere, pacing, and twists. Cast is somewhat lacking but I think they're likeable enough and work well for what the game is trying to do. Play the DS version, the ports are utter garbage.

Nothing will ever peak higher than the final boss of Revenge of the King.

Revisiting this after ToTK game me newfound appreciation for just how amazing this game is. That one certainly has more to it but BoTW is just so well put together. The world is intricately laid out in a way that's so fun to explore. There's a sense of magic to this game that hasn't been lost on me even after 5 playthroughs, something that I feel ToTK (or any game really) hasn't been able to recapture.

This is the best Pikmin game. It's the culmination of absolutely everything I love about this franchise and no matter how incredible 4 is in its own right, nothing can top the sheer mastery of the RTS gameplay in this one.