imagine someone just waking up some day and thinking "what if i made a game about a small guy with a ball than can go big with the many things it collects? all of the objects having it's own kind of collision, causing that crispy sensation? and, logically, the ball itself getting slower with the amount of things you collect? oh, and of course, the art style being so colorful and caricatured in a humurous - but never offensive - way? having one of the best soundtracks of the medium? man, it's gonna be awesome"

well, someone actually thinked. thanks to keita takahashi, now we have katamari damacy, the greatest videogame production since super mario bros. (1985).

at least for me!

I truly, truly wish I could give this game 5 stars. It does so much so incredibly right, but it just has a couple too many flaws. It's still incredible though. Let's talk about those flaws.
1. The dungeons and shrines have very little visual variety.
2. The dungeons really could benefit from some more self contained puzzles, like the other zelda games.
3. The side quests are almost all terrible. "Rushroom Rush" can go lock itself in a burning building
4. It isn't very replayable. The core gameplay loop revolves around discovery, and that doesn't really happen on multiple playthroughs.
Ok, now onto the positives.
I tend to measure a game's quality based on the memories I have with it. If there are moments in a game that I think back to and remember fondly, then the game probably succeeded. Breath of the wild has so many moments it honestly astounds me. I'm pretty sure that the map of breath of the wild is more condensed than any other video game ever. Each corner, every crevasse hides something, it took two years of combing through the world for me to feel like I had done it all. The world lends itself so naturally to discovery because no matter where you go there's something to find. The physics system gives you so much freedom that you can kill enemies with random stuff just lying around. The world is beautiful and robust and natural, that some locations I don't thing I'll ever forget. The game I'd flawed, but what it does right is so right that I can't really fault it.

Apprezzato:
-Estetica e stile retro. I disegni di Cuphead sono davvero incredibili, l'estetica anni '30 è davvero originale e vista molto raramente nel mondo videoludico. Cuphead riesce a creare un immaginario suo, strizzando anche l'occhio a qualche opera di Walt Disney con boss che rimandano a personaggi celebri.
-Gameplay. Sostanzialmente un gioco di memorizzazione di pattern che si presenta da subito come molto hardcore e lo rimane fino alla fine del titolo, continuando a crescere di livello. Il gioco è strutturato quasi unicamente da boss battle e qualche sporadico livello a sviluppo orizzontale. La possibilità di completare il gioco in coop, di rigiocare le boss fight a difficoltà aumentata e di personalizzare i propri attacchi inoltre garantisce al titolo un buon livello di rigiocabilità.
-Boss. Character design incredibile che si sviluppa con una o più trasformazioni durante le battaglie, alcuni di essi diventano iconici, anche i più dimenticabili hanno comunque una resa scenica ottima. La sensazione è quella che non ce ne sia neanche uno ad essere insufficiente.
-Colonna sonora. Un accompagnamento pazzesco, perfettamente in linea con lo stile del gioco.

Non Apprezzato:
-I livelli a scorrimento orizzontale. Li ho trovati molto meno ispirati e più noiosi, era spesso un peso doverli affrontare. Per fortuna sono presenti in quantità limitata.

Conclusioni:
Sicuramente il miglior run 'n' gun a cui io abbia mai giocato. Un videogioco ispiratissimo che va a creare un immaginario molto solido, che può tranquillamente essere la base per una futura saga videoludica. Bello da giocare sia in solo che in coop, il gioco si autobilancia a difficoltà nel momento in cui entra in gioco un compagno. Consiglio a tutti di giocarlo, può essere abbastanza proibitivo vista la sua difficoltà, ma anche molto gratificante.

I can't believe Google went so hard for this. Not just 7 pretty fun minigames, but an entire island with its own unique themes and citizens, complete with sidequests. And you can pick a team to compete against players all over the world while feeling that sense of unity.

If I'm being honest though I think it could have dropped the sidequest part. While exploring the world the first time is fun, and a neat way to give a bit of personality to the minigames themselves, actually going back and forth to complete them gets too repetitive, especially with the slow walking speed.

The minigames are mostly pretty fun. I especially like the Rugby and Rhythm games. But of course it's ultimately nothing great in and of itself, it's just impressive that Google put so much effort into a promotional game like this.

The Greatest Pokémon made to this day.

Pokemon Mystery dungeon manages to give me all the things I wanted into the series in 1 game but how?

The game starts of pretty intertesting you get this screen and mysterious voice that asks you questions about your intertest , choice of judgement and your personality. Result of it gives you a Pokémon starter that represents YOU. so no "damn the MC sucks" NO NIGGA IT'S YOU THAT SUCKS! (if you end up sucking.) but what this does is make the game much more personal compared to the mainline games.

The story while cheesy and really kind hearted early on the game story has some intertesting themes I'd never thought I'd see in a pokemon game. Such as finding meaning in life and should one strife for quanity in life or quality? As a kid the game story was just fun nothing special but playing it again as a adult made me truly realize how well crafted it's from good foreshadowing unfortunately sometimes too on the nose but most of the time really sneaky and masterful.

Now what also surpised of the game was the character cast. The game is about 2 you and your partner apart of a explorers guild so that were most of the cast stems from. While large being pokemon leading them to having really distinctive designs yet cohesive by their colors and roles at the guild. Most of them are decently to good characterized but some not so much. This wasn't particular a problem since they weren't setup to be but could've been done. Now the character that is my favourite in the franchise , made me love a favourite secondary evolution and strenghten my love for the game. To me he's ultimately the true protagonist of the game the way he carries the themes hardly and perfectly on his shoulder. The theme of meaning of life and companionship , humility and compassion are the main themes of the game and Grovyle carries all of those perfectly. He starts out as a mysterious outlaw ( criminal pokemon ) but when we learn his motive he learns he's actually the good. We learn that he is from the future trying to stop the current world from its demise but that would also end up leading to his own death since the time he came would be gone. Anyway that doesn't hurt his willpower , conviction and courage to save the world one bit. He learns the main duo the importance of trust in others and their comrades. Learns them how to be more sympathic and kinder person but ultimately learns them his philosophy on life. Now another character who felt really shallow in the main game but the True ending of the game recontextualized and made the usage of his character much better. Dusknoir is the parellel to Grovyle his character. Starts of as a helper but ends up betraying the duo? Why because he was working under Dialga. In the special episode (DLC) he reveals that he has the fear of dying. Not being there , not being alive was something he couldn't accept. During a convo in the episode Dusknoir asks grovyle how he could have such a strong resolve and conviction towards something that could lead to his own death. Here grovyle his philosophy on life comes to play. He believes Pokémon should strife for quality in life and not quanity. He believes if he truly makes a long lasting impact on the planet in the past. He will be remember in the future of the world. He knows that allot pokémon set foot on the planet yet few footprints remain in the world. By making a future possible where it isn't darkness and death but light and life. He believes he could truly die satisfied knowing he accomplished something he truly wanted and believed in. That makes me love him so much such great and cool character. Anyway throughout the episode Dusknoir and Grovyle turn into a duo and have to team up. While they are enemies of eachother they have no other choice "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." Basically we see Dusknoir grow as this pokemon desperately trying to stay alive thru any means possibile acting fully on his pride , selfish and heartless pokemon. ( funny because hes a ghost type lol ) anyway while his growth is rough and no where near static since we see him try and go back to his out habits. Ultimately he turns out to be a pokemon that can be selfless , display kindness and show humility. At the end of the episode where they die he asks grovyle if his existence had any meaning and grovyle tells him ofcourse and he passed away satisfyingly. a perfect end to his character arc.

Now onto music/gameplay/presentation

These 3 go from 10/10/8 for me. The music is easily the strongest in the series and used most effectively. The 2D pixel sprite art is fantastic to look at and made the game age really well. The gameplay is also a nice spin but sometimes too punishing which my only complaint with it. The gameplay starts out quite simple the dungeon designs aren't so complex and easy to go thru and the combat system seemed to be stale. but they develop so naturally where the rise in diffculty isn't too drastic. It's challenging decent amount of variety with items. IQ system leads to some cool custom strategies and the move/enemy variety also made the game not so stale for me the gameplay was really dungeon like so I was really immersed while playing.
While looking amazing the game presentation doesn't just stop there the usage of music at perfect times , sometimes drawing certain even more detailed and good cutscene direction.

I truly love this game as of date no Pokémon as topped this TIMELESS classic of a game to me. It's everything I wanted & expected from the series so I had a great experience with it. PLEASE PLAY THE GAME

It's really a shame how under the radar this game is. From it's cartoony Saturday morning theme story, to it's clever puzzles, and it's stylish look, Zack and Wiki is easily one of the best puzzle games on the wii.

Zack and Wiki goes for a more point and click style of adventure game, opting the wii mote as it's closest counterpart, remotes. While the game does have a child like nature and wonder, the puzzles themselves are far more challenging than they appear, often asking a lot of forethought about the actions you take before and after. While a hint system certainly is there, their are just some clues that are a little more obtuse or confusing in terms of how to interact, but these moments are usually few and far between. On top of this, each puzzle has a certain amount of points to collect, often given the full amount when you are able to do puzzles fast enough and not make too many mistakes. This in turn helps provide for some fairly interesting replay value as the game also has secret treasures to find on each map and collect, making you think extra hard on top of the usual puzzles.

While you won't find a lot of action in Zack and Wiki, the humor, art style , and puzzles are more than enough to burn this charm game into your heart.