This is one of the best adventure/platformer game in the ps2, but I would be lying about it saying it's the best, when the late half of it have some big glaring issues. But I can say this. It does have it's heart in the right place.

Story

It's a simple, I want to see outside world! And help my alien robot partner in his quest to take down this money hungry garbage corporation! Kinda story.

It's cliche yes, but fun dialogue that is about forced friendship to slowly loving friendship writing makes it enjoyable to experience in my opinion, especially compared to the botched marvel like dialogues of it's "reboot" that I couldn't bring myself to finish to this day.

But unfortunately writing is not perfect. There is one section that where Clank makes a big mistake because of someone unknowingly and Ratchet doesn't forgive him for a bit toooo long time and that section really bothered me unfortunately. I know every cliche story have a no hope section at the middle but I felt like they kinda take it too far with taking too long to resolve that issue.

But other than that section I enjoyed the rest of it with how both of them starts as a constantly arguing couple because their preferences are completely opposite to each other, then slowly becomes best friends ever with settling their differences. A straight buddy buddy story this is after all.

Gameplay

Gameplay wise beginning wasn't that engaging, you have the basic guns, a melee wrench and jumping abilities. Also using guns felt weird to me because Ratchet uses guns like fire flower from Mario.

What I mean is there is no aim reticle so when you press the shoot weapon, he shoots where he looks and that's for the every weapon other than weapons that have scopes

But I used to that after couple of sections because it's really not that important to be accurate after all. Enemies are mostly basic running to your face kinda enemies so you are rarely required to be accurate and spamming guns like fire flower for Mario is enough to destroy enemies

But after that I realized actually gameplay is really enjoyable because of it's variety! There are so many worlds and every world has it's own buyable or obtainable exclusive weapons, enemies and gadgets to find!

Not just that, there is a slight metroidvania feeling injected onto it. What I mean is, you can go other planets as long as you have to coordiantes and if you found the neccessary gadget for exploration of that world before, you can explore that world early! It's not common in every part of it but still It made me suprised!

Actually the most engaging part for me was realizing every worlds have shorcuts that takes you back to the entrance of it something like dark souls! Unfortunately sometimes it cheats with putting teleporters or convoluted elevators but still, rest was enough for me to make me realize this game's level design is really perfectly handmade from start to finish and that's what I liked about it.

Unfortunately it's not all perfect tho, like I said I have some big issues for the late half of the game.

Late level equipment and gadget prices are off the chards and forcing you to grind money for progressing for them sucks.

Platforming fun and all but movement speed feels a bit tad slow for my liking.

Sections that you need to use Clank to command robots are also really damn slow

Ice levels are not fun platforming levels in this game.

Near the end enemies become bullet spongy in a bad way

Yeah that's about it. I enjoyed this game but some problems of this game unfortunately holds this game back in my opinion. Some of the problems I counted really at times soured me from continuing because of it messes up the pacing. But still in my opinion it's still worth trying this game because highs are really high especially for the first half.

A good first entry to a beautiful franchise, it's story, dialogue, and atmosphere are top notch, the game has a comedic undertone that makes it not so depressing, a lot of choices have consequences and will lead to bloodshed, making you really think about what you pick, sure the combat is a bit boring and too easy, and sure there is a lot of backtracking here, but even with that, the game clocks in at around 40 hours if you do everything, and it doesn't feel dragged out. I highly recommend playing this game as it is a great way to enter the witcher universe; don't skip it! Also, the soundtrack is great! 7.5/10

I kinda got hopelessly addicted to this game, putting in way more time than was required to beat it. The characters and world building were so immersive and interesting, the writing was always engaging and had a slight humour to it which was enjoyable. It's almost hard to believe that this is their first game with the scale of it, but the signs become pretty quickly evident, the super limited variety of NPC models, small scale environments and reused interiors. Despite this it still manages to make those environments feel dense, the reuse of NPC models quickly fades away from the from your attention because the dialogue and story immerse you so much. The combat system is pretty poor, you can adapt to it but it's basically clicking to a timer for the most part. It doesn't feel like you have much control but most encounters are small enough that it never really becomes a hindrance. I'm really interested to see how the remake goes with how different this game is from its sequels.

Easily the most disturbing entry in the Resident Evil series. The game's antagonists, the Baker family, steal the spotlight. Whether it's Jack taunting and stalking you through the dilapidated house, Marguerite's twisted sense of maternal instincts, or Lucas's sadism channeled through "Saw" inspired games and traps, the game manages to keep you in a constant state of anxiety. The gameplay isn't particularly innovative but it's solid and gets the job done. Gunplay feels natural over time and acquiring better firearms and upgrading them provides a noticeable boost and sense of progression as you play. A few minor gripes keep me from giving this five stars. "The Molded" are the cannon fodder enemies and quickly overstay their welcome. Their design is decent and they work for their role but you soon find yourself desiring a bit more variety in encounters. Then in typical Resident Evil fashion, the first 2/3 of the game are stellar and they completely lose you in the final act with a jarring change of setting and pacing. However those issues aside, this entry in my opinion stands out as the best and most memorable of the series. A worthy reboot that should not be passed on for appreciators of survival horror, be they casual or hardcore.

Is Picross a game? Or is it a coloring book for The Count?

I've picked at Picross games a few times over the years, and each time follows a similar pattern. I get lost in time. It feels like fun. But the more I play and the better / faster I get, the less it feels like a game. The more victory feels assured instead of earned. That completion becomes an inevitable mark of patience instead of a reward for cleverness.

Picross strips all pretenses that other games hinge upon. Player action is the only action that can happen. There are no surprises. Everything is presented up front and fair. The greatest penalty is lost time.

There's an awareness that develops in the rhythm of how these puzzles can and must progress. That complexity doesn't increase difficulty, only the tediousness of careful counting and eye-spying changes from my previous choices. That mistakes and failures come from basic arithmetic errors or misreading a 6 for an 8. That the greatest obstacle possible is the functioning of my own brain.

Once I reach this state, the fun stops. I feel like I'm using myself to mine bitcoin for the dopamine hit of finishing a puzzle, dressed up in gamification to feel like a video game level. I stop feeling like a human doing a human thing. I feel like a machine pantomiming a rudimentary concept of how to have fun.

I dunno man. There's something sinister and existential there. Picross feels like the one line of code in the Matrix of video games I've been able to read. Because Picross reveals exactly what’s happening and why you’re doing what you’re doing exponentially faster than most games. Because the steps you must take are preset and the greatest reward the game can give is more of itself. More time spent engaging your brain in a way that doesn't require language or emotion. More time spent honing a non-transferable way of thinking that only enables More Of This.

I can't help but think of the people who turn Pokémon games into mindless casino machines for literal hundreds of hours. Picross is the condensed version of that, without asking for the emotional investment in Pikachu as a down payment. An invitation to roleplay in losing your humanity without the veneer of an external reason for doing so. This is not a club, this is a crack house.

More recent Picross games have been friendlier in presentation, more cheerful in tone. They are liars and cowards. Mario's Super Picross's opening screens have the sound and ambiance of a horror game. As far as game cover art goes, this one might be perfect. Mario, the mascot of fun in games itself, staring into your soul as he pixelates into cold, blank numerology, while wildly discordant colorful foreign text fails to package this nightmare as a Good Time.

I can't score this.

So I never realized they made this game until kinda recently, and I think I know why. It was released for the NES even though the SNES was out, so I guess it just kinda fell by the wayside. Regardless, it fails to match the simple fun of it's predecessor by throwing in some cheap design reminiscent of the GnG games. So many enemies just kinda spawn right on top of you and it's super frustrating. The level design is messier too, less focused on mastery of your abilities, and more meant to test your twitch reflexes without being all too creative. They do away with some of the more pointless ideas from GQ like the random battles, but it fails to really add anything special. Visually I guess it's an upgrade, but that's to be expected when compared to a 1990 Gameboy release. Slowdown is another massive issue here. It happened in the original occasionally, but it absolutely plagues this game. Firebrand is a lot smaller in comparison to the amount of screen real estate available, so they made up for this by putting more enemies and projectiles on the screen, and the result is super laggy at times. The core of GQ2 is still fun, but the first half of the game is a rough experience. It isn't until you acquire the better abilities that you begin to have fun, and I just wish it were as well-paced as the original. Shame. 3/6

First game in the Gargoyle's Quest Trilogy.

You play as Firebrand (the first boss in Ghost & Goblins?), a gargoyle on a mission to save the ghoul realm from an alien species known as 'The Destroyers'. The game mixes world exploration with linear platforming sections, and has a levelling feature with RPG elements. Firebrand starts off pretty weak and can hardly fly for a few secs... by the endgame, though, he's an all-conquering gargoyle with massive claws and wings granting him unlimited flight. Negative points include the flying, which doesn't always work well for the combat and platforming sections, and the random encounters really add a lot of filler to an otherwise short game.

You have a type of gameplay style you're very familiar with and is you preferred type of game and you go back to one of it's earliest incarnations? That's pretty much what happened here. I love the Metroidvania style, I've reviewed plenty of them and here in my backlog I've played many of them. But this, is kinda different, not only am I playing an early Metroidvania style game, but a Castlevania game I never had a chance to play prior, and I wasn't sure what to expect.

I'll start with the easy yet kinda...uninteresting part of the game. I don't care if this is an early Metroidvania style game, it's still Castlevania and this story did absolutely nothing new that even the first NES games didn't do. I was actually kinda surprised how little character was here. You have a whip, you, your mentor, and his son go to defeat Dracula. Dracula captures Mentor and casts you both into the depths of the castle, your mentor's son is your rival who wants to save his father alone so he's your rival, hours later kill Dracula and save your mentor...that's about it, bar a few pieces of dialogue in spots, there's nothing here...

Which actually, isn't an awful thing since the game focuses pretty much on giving you a huge area, plenty of enemies to kill, and items to find. Speaking of items this game's gimmick is the "Dual Set-up System" (DSS) where you basically get cards dropped from enemies and you combine a set of cards in a formula, one card is ability and the other is attribute and it gives you different results, which definitely gives the game it's fun. Aside from that you have your typical leveling, HP, MP, armor and usable items, nothing new there.

Shockingly, I wasn't expecting to hear such great music in the game, I know Castlevania usually has great music but the Gameboy Advance sound chip did have it's times where it didn't do well with music or sounds depending on the game, but not here, everything sounds great and looks decently good too, a step down from Symphony of the Night but it's the GBA vs the PS1 to be fair.

Overall I enjoyed the game plenty, but at times I couldn't shake the feeling of having done all this before, as someone who's played plenty Metroidvnia style games, this didn't do anything new aside from the DSS mechanics, so it's a great game for what it is as a Castlevania game on the go, but if you're an avid Castlevania or Metroidvania fan you'll likely have some fun, but don't expect anything super amazing.