PurgatoryDreams
2017
A metroidvania with a world that is brimming with atmosphere. It's really easy to get lost in the world, exploring and testing the limits of what you can do - and the game rewards you for it. It's very challenging as well, but mastering the mechanics is incredibly satisfying and allows you to do a lot of flashy plays.
2018
Way more enjoyable than I thought. The gameplay is really repetitive, but the story and the dialogue have a lot of charm to them. It feels like a very natural extension of the Pokémon world, which I didn't really expect to get out of this. Could use more interesting gameplay, however... It feels very point-and-click and nothing else at times, and not in the fun Ace Attorney way.
One of the Pokémon games with the most content. Contests, the Battle Frontier (even if it wasn't perfect, its addition to toy with the concept of endgame content was fun), practically remaking the battle system with the addition of natures and abilities, etc. Definitely a big step for the franchise.
1991
2005
1993
Other than one of the zones, I think this game perfects the Sonic formula that was presented in Sonic 1 and 2. Really vertical levels that the game forces you to learn the layout of so that you can get the good future for each and every zone as fast as possible. This game has some really memorable music and level design, although WW can be a less than stellar level because of its main gimmick.
2021
The Pixel Remaster for this game, in my opinion, turns it into such a fun and short experience to go through. Despite being a very simple RPG with not a lot of features, the game forces you to manage the resources that you have (like magic, healing items, etc.) in order to go through dungeons and bosses. It's a very pleasant experience that, in my opinion, has aged incredibly well.
1992
Wow, they learned from the first game. They took everything that made the first game good and vastly improved everything. Level design gives you a lot more freedom to go around, trying to learn the layout so that you can get through levels faster. One minor downside is how much easier some levels can be, and also the tediousness of the last two levels. Bosses are also too easy for my liking, but creative.
All in all, a really interesting free indie game. A really painful look into the sex work industry and the pain of dealing with it from the perspective of a transgender person. It's really deep, and it tugs at my heart in a really personal way. The auto-biographical nature of the work might not appeal to everyone but I adored it, it was horrifying to read the author's thought process as everything happened.
Insanely fun game, the natural evolution of Pokémon RBY. Pokémon have a much lower power level, but that only incentivizes strategy a lot more. The difficulty of the game was just right, and it has two regions (even if Kanto feels like just a smaller extra, it's still undeniably quite a bit more content).
Same opinion as with FRLG. A new game to play the originals, and though the gameplay changes have been pretty divisive among the fanbase, I think it gives these games a fairly new identity. It was pretty fun to get through these games, a lot more relaxing than Pokémon usually is... Needed a little bit more content to separate itself from Yellow, and it needed to explore some of the gameplay mechanics it introduces (controlling your Partner in the overworld) a little bit more.