Getting Over It obviously asks a lot from the player but if you're willing to give it everything it asks for you'll be pretty happy and beating the game will feel honestly incredible. Bennett's narration might seem pretentious but it's clearly a meditation on not only game design but a rumination on his own works and his own design philosophy. Getting Over It is a sobering and lonely experience so hearing his voice again at times is a welcome change of pace to the usual trial-and-error of the climb. Not to mention that Bennett probably knew you might get sick of him eventually so he put a solid setlist of old bluegrass hits in to ease your mind.

Bennett somehow found the perfect physics puzzle that would be just frustrating enough to watch other people throw fits over but just intuitive enough that if you give it time, you can figure out the devil in the details and become genuinely competent. A stellar experience and I think I just convinced myself to raise the score while I wrote this.

TL;DR
GOIN DOWN THE ROAD FEELIN BAAAAAAAAAAD IM GOIN DOWN THE ROAD FEELIN BAAAAAAAAAAD GOIN DOWN THE ROAD FEELIN BAD AND I AIN'T GON' BE TREATED THIS-UH-WAYYYYYYY

Most metroidvanias have a sense of place. Brinstar, castlevania, and here: hallow nest. Hollow Knight arguably has the strongest sense of place out of any metroidvania I've played. It's storytelling is spilled throughout the world, waiting for you to find. As you explore, you gain a larger picture of what hallownest is and who you are. Each piece of the world has it's own lore, it's own atmosphere, and it's own stuff to do. This, combined with great foreground and background detail allow hallownest to feel like a living, 3D space even though it's in 2D. The upgrades, collectibles, and general map coverage produces a good, tangible sense of progression, the wealth of secrets encourage exploration, and the boss fights are a ton of fun. Overall, it's got all the great aspects of a metroidvania. However, levels are designed by making room, making platforms in room in a basic pattern, and enemies on some of those platforms. There is some variation, but if you took out all the visual flair then the game would be pretty boring. This poor level design holds the moment to moment gameplay back. Overall, Hollow Knight succeeds at almost everything on a macro scale but is held back by issues on a micro scale. Very good despite these issues though.

Feel puzzling bliss as Zack, with the wii controller first functioning as your friend, Wiki. Eventually this puzzler allows you to turn every enemy into a tool you can grasp on your remote. Zack and Wiki became my most beloved Wii game after feeling how it placed puzzles snugly between my fingers.

There are many Looney Tunes implicit ways for your character to die on their adventure. But a simple shake of the Wii remote allows Wiki to gain control over your death dealers. Happily, I collected every tool Wiki could make out of enemy NPCs. The game required me to use each one of them in gameplay tasks only possible on the Wii.

You might've heard that this game is tough. And yes, it will have places where the player is likely to fail many times. The design team tries to balance these failures with a hint system the player can resort to, at expense of scarce tickets.

I believe this game has all kinds of reminders that it cares for its player. As a side activity, you have chances to have a companion find accessible OST, concept art and character models. I've only found this kind of fare in more remakes/remasters of older games.

If you're wanting to love a puzzle game as much as it loves you, the only thing I'll hand you is Z&W: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure.

Honestly, when it comes to the roguelike, dungeon-crawler gameplay, there's nothing particularly special about this game.

However, everything else is what makes it a masterpiece, in my opinion. It's simply one of the most emotionally potent video games I have ever experienced, something that has nearly brought me to tears with its combination of great storytelling & writing and beautiful soundtrack. It's very well-paced and is filled with engaging content—improves even more on Explorers of Time & Darkness.

Explorers of Sky would potentially sit right at home if adapted as a Saturday morning cartoon, its entire story and sequential chapters making solid episodic content, especially alongside Sky's new chapter additions that function as side episodes within select characters from the cast. It would join the leagues of Avatar: The Last Airbender and Infinity Train in that regard, because its lighthearted exterior builds a foundation to unravel a story with real depth to it.

That's where most of the appeal of Explorers of Sky comes from, and it certainly had a profound impact on me in my childhood, of which still lingers to this very day with every replay. Every particular scene has charm and real intent behind it, slowly showcasing the epic that is Explorer of Sky's narrative. The music helps too, with absolute bangers ranging from Treasure Town to Through the Sea of Time, emphasizing the emotional weight behind some of these story moments. Not a single hour went by where I wasn't immersed in the mysticism and engaging world on offer here, even shedding a tear at certain scenes.

It's a little disappointing that the somewhat below standard roguelite rpg gameplay that underlines it isn't particularly interesting or good, although I have found it to be less irritating over time. That has more to say about my unapologetic love of the game though than it is to say that it does actually get better. There is postgame on offer that does make use of its sparse mechanics, but generally it is something to give your hands something to do in between scenes. It takes up more than a solid 1/3 of the runtime though, so it's something to consider before jumping in.

That being said, I would recommend Explorers of Sky wholeheartedly. It's still one of my favorite games to this day, and my heart still wails after the end credits. At the very least, I do hope you give it a try, for a grand tale of time and darkness awaits you!