Is it flawed?

Absolutely

Is it still a masterpiece?

Hell yeah!


Thief Gold is egregious in the department of late 90s/early 2000s video game jank with its wonky physics and weird hitboxes, but this is such a refined and unique stealth experience like no other to where almost every issue I had was so heavily overshadowed by the sheer satisfaction I felt upon completing a level. Having a meter to strictly tell you how hidden you are at all times, despite being unrealistic, really convinced me to make more ballsy moves than usual knowing that I was practically invisible in the shadows. That's not to say it's ever broken or too easy; enemies accidentally bumping into you or making too much noise will instantly give your position away and enemies are pretty tough to lose. And that isn't taking into account certain enemies like spiders that would be able to track you in the dark from what I can tell, which makes things all the more messy when other enemies get involved. The game also hosted a far stronger variety of enemies than I expected. I almost expected to only be dealing with humans, and I won't spoil what other enemies you encounter, but this game really surprised me on multiple occasions.

Now while the gameplay is pretty solid as far as the stealth is concerned (not combat, we don't do combat here), the world design, story and atmosphere are what really elevate this game to another level. The level design was fantastic for the most part and very open to experimentation, but I think the context and worldbuilding explaining all these weird places just makes them that much more special. It definitely helps that I really adore this Victorian medieval steampunk aesthetic with touch of supernatural.

I know this is a bit scrambled as I just finished the game and I'm honestly thinking of making a video on it or something, but I genuinely didn't expect to enjoy this as much as I did, and I feel like stealth games even today can takes some notes from Thief. Truly the OG

Edit: made the video for the 2 people that see this after the revision

>Gets remaster of Wii U game I love for Christmas
>expects to play it casually throughout the next couple months as there are other new games I need to get to
>fucking binges it in a week, getting all fruits in story mode and getting Platinum medals in all the new Olimar missions
>mfw only Mission mode remains
>Pikmin 4 cannot come sooner
>still Peakmin 3

Pikmin 3 is one of my favorite video games ever and I can't believe it took me this long to get to its definitive version. While I was initially skeptical about how much the new side content would really add to a game I already played for years, I found myself not only continuing to be hooked by Pikmin's addictive gameplay premise as well as appreciating aspects of the original game even more than I did initially.

Pikmin 3 always got some flak for being short and while I can't say it's unfounded criticism, I can understand the value of a much more condensed yet ultimately more polished and replayable adventure compared to its predecessor. The world design in this game is just as beautiful as it was back on the Wii U with stunning environmental details and plenty of interwoven paths and shortcuts to open up for more clean exploration as your knowledge of the map grows. The maps used for the new side missions are all ripped from the main game, which sounds like it could be repetitive on paper, but it turns out scrambling the hazards and obstacles on each of the maps and even changing where you start out can drastically change how you approach each level. It keeps the polish and cohesion found in the game's already stellar level design and delivers new and interesting twists on each one to really squeeze the potential out of these areas. It's honestly the best way I believe they could have approached making new content for the game without having to commit an absurd amount of resources to making brand new assets and locations for what ultimately amount to bite-sized missions in the same vein as the original game's mission mode.

Just like with the new content, I found the main experience to be just as fresh and interesting as I remembered it. The charge move feels even better than it did before thanks go tweaks made to the move and allows for some of the cleanest kills in the series. While some may argue this move is a bit too good and can really neuter the challenge in some enemy encounters, I personally believe dealing with a sometimes unreliable reticle shouldn't be the main focus of challenge in Pikmin's combat system; rather it should be how you allocate your resources when multitasking and making attack decisions on a larger scale. This game's (main) bosses all have their own gimmicks and methods for defeat but are all fun and incredibly inventive with which they use the combat system. The last two in particular are still pretty difficult if you aren't prepared and are the two best bosses in the series because of it. My new adaptability to the dodge roll move that was in the original game but I never mastered was very helpful against these bosses, but there were still plenty of moments where one unexpected attack can throw you off and snowball into losing dozens of Pikmin. Boss fights are incredibly strategic but still keep you on your toes in order to keep your Pikmin from scattering and running into danger. And it's this dance of balancing control and frenzied surprises that keeps the Pikmin experience so fresh after playing each game so many times.

I'd still say that Pikmin 2 is my personal favorite in the series due to its replayability, dungeon content, and general greater sense of nonlinear exploration, but damn if Pikmin 3 isn't the highest the series has reached from a pure technical gameplay perspective. Deluxe only adds on top of that, but it turns out adding to a masterpiece still gets you a masterpiece at the end of the day.

It's been a while since I've felt so conflicted about a game. On one hand, classic JRPGs and all of their tropes and quirks is a taste I've definitely developed an appreciation for and can't truly despise thanks to a certain level of endearment and nostalgia they hold. Sometimes I crave an RPG with that pulls no punches and goes all in with random encounters, standard turn-based combat, and just some asshole villain who wants nothing more than to take over the world. Breath of Fire has nothing you haven't seen countless times before in other RPGs but has a level of charm in its simplicity. Characters are flat actually character-wise, but their varied designs based on different fantasy races give them unique visual identities that makes them feel memorable based on appearance alone. Now another RPG where you team up with a blacksmith ox man, a little mole guy, a snake wizard lady, and some thief that can fuse into different chimeras is something I can say I can't name outside of this series. Enemy designs are equally as creative featuring all the different ghouls and skeletons as are so familiar alongside more unique monsters. This gives the world a sort of unique little boon of creativity that separates it from any other generic medieval RPG setting. Spritework is pleasing to the eye like in most RPGs of the time and I'm convinced JRPGs with the SNES sound front can't have bad soundtracks.

But my God I almost wonder how I spent so much time on this game as this was such a damn chore to play more times than not. As stated, combat is very basic, which isn't a damning offense on its own, but becomes hella annoying when later bosses become huge damage sponges and fights become a slog of watching characters continuously chip away at a boss's health until it dies. The main response to that is that maybe I'm underleveled or have poor gear? Well, there are extra unlockable abilities and gear which I did get, but that just made the game so easy it just played itself. The only two modes I could get out of this game by the endgame were tedious or piss easy, neither of which were very engaging. The game is nice enough to feature an auto battle option which at least saves shifting through dozens of menus to get a bunch of hits on an enemy, but I question how fun the developers thought this system was when skipping through it was their solution. Additionally, the padding and backtracking found in this game is just absurd, especially towards the latter portion of the story. Random encounters don't help with world map/dungeon traversal as the random enemy encounter rate is quite possibly the worst I've experienced in a game. Like I know the joke of getting piled by wild Zubats in caves when playing Pokemon but Breath of Fire's persistent enemies put even that to shame. Progression can be pretty cryptic as well. At one point, you literally have to accept what seems like an optional NPC quest outside of any area you've visited prior to progress the story with no hints on what you're supposed to do. The only way I can reason as to why stuff like this was added was to pad game length as artificially as possible. I made sure to keep a guide handy throughout a good portion of my playthrough because of how obtuse progression generally was. Too many times would you have to speak to a random unnamed NPC in order to trigger the story to continue.

As I stated previously, there were things I genuinely enjoyed about this game which is why I stuck through to the end. A lot of the concepts and the aesthetic was pretty special at times. The portion where you enter a character's dream world and defeat a villains corrupted consciousness was probably my favorite arc in this game's story as it was just the right amount of weird and zany to be interesting and featured some of the more legitimately tactical enemy encounters seen in this game. And it's a shame there are so many cool little ideas and touches that show how much the developers cared about this game when its age and mechanics hold the experience back so hard. I would really like to see a remake of this game with modern enhancements and an expanded story as I believe this world is too interesting to just be left in the past. Oh well, maybe I'll try the other games in the series at some point assuming these issues are ironed out in future installments.

Right off the bat this is the most solid Splatoon has been in just about every regard; crazy to think there will likely be years of updates to keep us coming with steady release of new maps and weapons. I can't say Splatoon 3 really shakes up a lot from previous entries. If you liked one Splatoon game, you'll probably like them all; and same logic applies if you never cared for the franchise in the first place. Maps, modes, and Salmon Run all feature great quality of life changes that make them just a bit more solid than their Splatoon 2 counterparts with weapons/specials being much more balanced than in Splatoon 1 and the map selection already being more interesting than Splatoon 2. Campaign takes a lot from Octo Expansion in both its structure and challenge. Genuinely don't have too much to say. Just a very fun shooter that I'm excited to see where it goes in the future.

While not a playthrough in a traditional sense, rather just an excuse to experience Hollow Knight to gather select footage for my video, I can't help but still be amazed with every bit of lore and gameplay polish they packed in here. I swear to God someone at Team Cherry took all the elements I really love about video games and packed them in what simultaneously feels like a "best-hits" compilation but entirely fresh and unique in its own way. It's the ultimate Soulslike metroidvania that doesn't feel the need to reinvent what it is and just focuses on being a damn good video game in all respects. I'd almost say this is the most clear-cut example of my taste in video games minus the fact that it doesn't have cute anime chics and isn't a 100% character driven JRPG story as to what's been appealing to me more recently (Trails in the Sky SC comes to mind as the magnum opus of that subset of my tastes). The environmental storytelling and character arcs integrated into Hollow Knight's depressing kingdom are just as gut-punching as they were when I first experienced them.

One thing I feel has been completely flipped on its head in some spaces of video game discussion is that combat has to be inherently complex to understand to be "deep" or "worthwhile." Playing Dark Souls for the first time back in 2018 really shattered that belief in my eyes as that game's combat is also simple to grasp, even though it's often hailed as the magnum opus of complex game design due to the sheer difficulty. Hollow Knight runs with this concept taken from a deceptively simple combat system and pushes the player to their limits using the simple mechanics that it never feels like the combat is simple and stagnant. Every action carries excellent weight to it despite only having one style of nail swing with directional input at the start of the game and it's no thanks to the godly nail clinking noise. Parrying, spells, nail arts, and charms all add flavor to the combat that varied weapon choice and stats would normally determine in a typical Dark Souls playthrough. It's easy to assume that there's not a whole lot of replayability since you can't technically build your character in the same way you would in typical Souls titles and can easily change equippable charms on the fly, but the amount of crazy and inventive builds you can pull makes it hard not to want to go back and defeat bosses in different ways. They even added a crazy amount of secret charm combinations, so experimenting is all part of the fun and is actively encouraged. What's crazy is that the most fun of this game's combat can be found in the endgame of all times; the point in which so many other games begin to fall apart and become a repetitive grind (cough Genshin Impact cough). Hollow Knight is brutal in some areas but never feels like it asks too much of the player to really get the most out of the endgame content. I felt like I was allowed to get a taste and play around with exactly what I wanted and never like I had to immediately complete a specific challenge to start having fun again.

Seeing as this is mainly the endgame I've been discussing, how does everything leading up to it hold up? Well, it's pretty okay...... if you ignore the incredible score, gorgeous artsyle, creative boss/enemy design and variety, beautifully interconnected world, satisfying exploration loop, the glorious feeling of getting lost, and absolutely every fucking great thing I could say about this game. What really strikes me above all else is that there's no general area of the game I'd consider to be bad or even weak. Despute being made by a small indie team, nothing feels half baked or rushed in any way. Even areas that aren't as awestriking to me as the City of Tears or Kingdom's Edge are so jam packed with lore, creative design, and purpose that it feels like removing any of them would take out something significant from the experience. That's something I can't really say about the first Dark Souls as I'm sure many of you are aware how much better that game would be without the Lost Izalith/Bed of Chaos shit combo (and half the stuff in the lord souls quest tbh). It definitely helps that these areas are all interwoven brilliantly, but even ignoring that, the level design itself is just great enough on its own to stand toe to toe with some of the most memorable levels and moments in video games. The characters you meet in these locations and arcs they go through only adds to the memorability inherently connected to each of these areas. And not getting each area map until you find a specific NPC, for as potentially off-putting as it may be for some players, is a design choice I absolutely adore since it reinforces a loop of getting lost and finding salvation for every major area in the game and gives incentive to pay extra attention to environmental cues that lead to this NPC. The feeling of just starting out in a metroidvania game and feeling completely lost for the first time is somehow constantly re-created on a smaller scale for every new area, and the game just keeps that up for the entire journey

Really thinking back this game is like two parts of gaming that I love dearly but for different reasons. The more slow-paced, atmospheric exploration you'll find when exploring new areas is some of the best feelings of getting lost in a game I have ever felt and makes each area incredibly memorable. Character arcs and environmental storytelling are both used to incredible effect as the stories interwoven with these areas ultimately form a part of their identity and give areas a deeper level of clarity besides the visual differences. On the other hand, you have the endgame with every beefed-up superboss and a plethora of equippable builds at your disposal to create for a frantic and fast yet strategic combat loop of defeating old and new foes alike. And holy shit there are so many secrets in this game. Beginning to end it doesn't matter, there's hidden stuff I didn't know until a few months ago when I started researching for my video. As absolutely corny and cliche as this stupid ending is gonna be, I'm gonna say it no matter what: Hollow Knight reminds me why I love video games.

Bapanada

I saw this insanely in-depth review on front page as I otherwise had no idea this was on here. I know I can't conjure up anything half as good as what that review stated, but it definitely got me thinking about Geoguessr in a way I haven't thought about. I used to visit this site during my free time in my highschool computer class and didn't really consider just how fascinating it is to be teleported to some random ass place in the world and having to gather anything to piece together where you are. It gives an almost unparalleled sense of exploration for something that just amounts to a database of images in knowing that everything you see is our world. I could almost never guess where I actually was unless I was lucky enough to catch a sign in a different language and could maybe guess a general region of the world, but winning was never the main draw for me here. Just seeing sights that aren't generally remarkable, but would have otherwise remained unseen by you if you had not been randomly given those coordinates, is really fucking cool.