2023
This was fantastic. I've never played the original (I actually found out it never even released here until the virtual console releases).
I have only have a few very small issues with it, the first being less of an issue with this game specifically but more an issue with the genre, and that's the lack of enemy HP bars, it's not a big deal but it's something where I genuinely don't understand why people would not want them.
The second is probably just a holdover from the original that they just didn't change and that's in the sunken ship there's a door that needs a code to be entered to open, and there's 6 puzzle doors before it that give you hint scrolls like the first letter is P, and the word is found at the bottom of the sea, these are fine but when you get to the door you'd expect the scrolls to be in the pause menus somewhere so you can re-read them, but they just aren't, so I had to go back and read them again.
The last issue is in the final area there are these 6 doors, 2 combat, 2 platforming and 2 puzzle doors. The combat and platforming ones are fine but the 2 puzzle doors are awful, one being a god damn quiz that gave me Banjo-Kazooie flashbacks (I genuinely hate Rare for Grunty's Furnace Fun). Luckily you only need to do 4 doors, so you can skip the puzzle one's, but the game doesn't tell you which door is what, so you have to waste time failing the puzzle doors to get back to the door select area.
Other than those very small issues, I loved this.
I have only have a few very small issues with it, the first being less of an issue with this game specifically but more an issue with the genre, and that's the lack of enemy HP bars, it's not a big deal but it's something where I genuinely don't understand why people would not want them.
The second is probably just a holdover from the original that they just didn't change and that's in the sunken ship there's a door that needs a code to be entered to open, and there's 6 puzzle doors before it that give you hint scrolls like the first letter is P, and the word is found at the bottom of the sea, these are fine but when you get to the door you'd expect the scrolls to be in the pause menus somewhere so you can re-read them, but they just aren't, so I had to go back and read them again.
The last issue is in the final area there are these 6 doors, 2 combat, 2 platforming and 2 puzzle doors. The combat and platforming ones are fine but the 2 puzzle doors are awful, one being a god damn quiz that gave me Banjo-Kazooie flashbacks (I genuinely hate Rare for Grunty's Furnace Fun). Luckily you only need to do 4 doors, so you can skip the puzzle one's, but the game doesn't tell you which door is what, so you have to waste time failing the puzzle doors to get back to the door select area.
Other than those very small issues, I loved this.
This was a 4, but in the final dungeon there's a bunch of koopaling bosses in a row, which isn't inherently bad, but the last couple have these timer bombs that mean you have to win in a certain amount of turns or they blow and you die. It's not like they're super hard or anything, but I don't like having the freedom to beat bosses as slowly as I want being taken away from me. I also found the final bosses spinning attack really hard to get the dodge timing right.
This game is pretty and it could've been pretty good if it was just a pure platformer, instead they did the thing companies always do when making games exclusively for Nintendo hardware, they shove whatever gimmick the console has into the game, in this case, annoying touch screen stuff.
2021
Beat main game with all collectibles at 1451 deaths, 237 of which were on the last level. I haven't done the bonus worlds that unlocked after the credits yet though.
This is a precision platformer that takes some influence from Celeste in that you play as girl and the collectibles are fruit (cherrys in this instead of strawberry), it doesn't have the story or general sense of scale that Celeste has, and it's 100 individual small levels, instead of big levels split up by screens.
I don't really play hard games, as I do not have the patience and I hate repeating large chunks of game on death, so games like this where the levels are short, you have infinite lives, and it instantly resets on death are the only types of games that can scratch the challenge itch for me, so precision platformers like this and Celeste, or something like Hotline Miami or maybe Crash Bandicoot 4.
Anyway, this was really fun, I had no idea it existed until I was scrolling through the Switch sales a couple days ago and bought it for £1.66. The name does kinda suck though.
This is a precision platformer that takes some influence from Celeste in that you play as girl and the collectibles are fruit (cherrys in this instead of strawberry), it doesn't have the story or general sense of scale that Celeste has, and it's 100 individual small levels, instead of big levels split up by screens.
I don't really play hard games, as I do not have the patience and I hate repeating large chunks of game on death, so games like this where the levels are short, you have infinite lives, and it instantly resets on death are the only types of games that can scratch the challenge itch for me, so precision platformers like this and Celeste, or something like Hotline Miami or maybe Crash Bandicoot 4.
Anyway, this was really fun, I had no idea it existed until I was scrolling through the Switch sales a couple days ago and bought it for £1.66. The name does kinda suck though.
I didn't like Man of Medan and I thought Little Hope was awful, so I had very low expectations for this so I'm really glad I enjoyed it. (I liked both Until Dawn and The Quarry so that's why I keep trying these)
2021
I've played 10 Yakuza games, and this one is probably my 2nd favorite after 6. It's not without it's issues, mostly the parkour/climbing sections that just seem pointless and kill the pacing every time they happen (which thankfully isn't many).
2022
I really liked Until Dawn but I've disliked both the Dark Pictures Anthology games I've played, so I'm glad this was enjoyable. It's a lil buggy, with things like hair kinda vibrating during cutscenes at times, and at one point a random line of dialogue was subtitled. It's also way too dark, but any light source is super bright, so I had to keep messing with the settings. Also just because you can afford to use licenced music, doesn't mean you need to have a random song in every other scene.
2019
It's a step down from Ys VIII, but that game was so ridiculously good that this was never going to be as good for me. It's still great though, but it does have some pacing issues (mostly the prison sections)
This game felt like it was literally made for me. I loved everything about it. It's an action RPG where the plot / setting is you're on a ship with a group of people, the ship gets attacked, the passengers all get scattered around this island and the entire game is set on this little island, but the island is basically skull island from King Kong, in that it's full of dinosaurs (or primordials in game) in a world where they've long been extinct. Anyway, this really does feel like they reached into my brain pulled out all my thoughts and then made a game specifically for me. I really cannot praise this enough.
2017
This game only has 4 worlds and most of them just kinda suck. There's clearly a lot of love put into this and the characters are cute but after Mafia Town the quality just falls of a cliff. It does control well, but the camera can be an absolute nightmare, and I'm someone that rarely has an issue with 3D platformer cameras.
Installing this is really unpleasent. You put the disc in, it downloads 69gb update. Then you load the game up and you have to download multiple files within the game for the campaign. Then it turns out you need to download the multiplayer for the menu to even show up, otherwise it just shows warzone and Modern Warfare II. After all that, the custscenes are broken on Xbox One and stutter. Other than all that, it is still pretty good (to be fair, I've played all the campaigns from COD2 to this, other than WWII and I've enjoyed all of them).
2010
This is a decent little 3rd person shooter with Uncharted style platforming / climbing sections. It's a game that is mostly known for having pretty nice water physics for it's time. It's also very much an unfinished game and ends abruptly. I liked it for the most part. When you die you reload to the last checkpoint within seconds with no loading screen which is pretty cool.
2008
Why do developers of games like this insist on putting in helicopter missions? They are never fun, helipcopters always control and aim horribly. It's like they watch action movies and see cool helicopter scenes and then think "hey lets put this in our game" and then never actually play it to realize how awful it is. Other than that little rant I enjoyed this for the most part. Having to do a bunch of side content to get enough respect to play missions does suck though, but I did that all at the start so it didn't kill the pacing.
2020
I've lost hearing in my right ear (hopefully temporarily) and I couldn't get a doctors apointment until June 13th (a month from when I wrote this) so I'm currently playing shorter games where sound doesn't really matter so much (in a sense that there's no real plot or voiced dialogue)
This is a pretty simple precision platformer with unlimited lives, but it never gets as difficult as other games of this type (I still died a fair amount towards the end, but it wasn't in a "I want to throw my controller out the window" kind of way) It's also suprisingly funny.
I feel like with games like this, people will just automatically ignore it since it's cheap and was originally a mobile game, but mobile games aren't inherently bad once ported to systems with actual buttons instead of touch screen controls.
It's pretty short too, depending on how bad you are at platformers, but it goes on sale for less than £2 all the time.
This is a pretty simple precision platformer with unlimited lives, but it never gets as difficult as other games of this type (I still died a fair amount towards the end, but it wasn't in a "I want to throw my controller out the window" kind of way) It's also suprisingly funny.
I feel like with games like this, people will just automatically ignore it since it's cheap and was originally a mobile game, but mobile games aren't inherently bad once ported to systems with actual buttons instead of touch screen controls.
It's pretty short too, depending on how bad you are at platformers, but it goes on sale for less than £2 all the time.
2015
I paid £0.39 for this. I had never heard of it until I saw it while scrolling through the current PS4 sales, it caught my eye and then I checked it on here to see how well recieved it was, and people seemed to like it so I bought it for the extremely high price of £0.39. Anyway, it's a 2d platformer with a big focus on exploration. I kind of expected to get lost / not know what to do, more that I did. It was definitely a good use of 2 hours and £0.39. The only issues I had were a few bugs / mistakes. The first being that the trophy for finding the bullet and the bus pass are switched so you get the bus pass trophy for finding the bullet and vice versa. The other bug is that I couldn't get the bus pass as the club bouncer dialogue wouldn't change, in videos people talk to the girl, she asks you to distract him and then you talk to the guy and she sneaks past and after you get the bus pass, but that dialogue after talking to the girl just wouldn't change. I'm really not sure what triggers that bug, and I don't know how common it is, but you don't need to collect everything to get to the end of the game, and I think doing so just gives you a slightly different ending. Other than those issues, I liked it. and just to say it again in case you missed it, I paid £0.39 for this!