An incredible game, an incredible journey through a gigantic undergrond world. A world that feels living, but corrupted by all the different diseases going on throughout the different parts of it. Needless to say, the art is incredible, and really sells all of the different locations to you. Another thing I really liked a lot was the stag network. It just makes sense that there would be a subway of some sort underground, and not only is the stag damn useful to travel around quickly, he is also cute as hell, as is actually most creatures in the game. With games, I usually play them quite slowly, one hour here and there on and off for like a month or something. But I felt myself coming back to this game for multiple hours, sometimes up to five in a row, which to me is really a sign of an incredible game. One drawback of a game being this addictive is that you can get tired of travelling around, which definitely happened to me a bit. But whenever it did, I tried to just slow down a bit, and take in the environment, which immersed me more in the feeling of travelling through this broken world.

The combat in this game is also an incredible part of it. I love how you can use different charms to give yourself a certain edge in battle. I liked range and speed over everything else, so I picked charms that would increase those stats, so that I would become a fast-attacking monster that slaughtered basically everything in a matter of seconds by the end of the game. It felt awesome, and very appropriate to its metroidvania status, as one key aspect of those games to me should be how incredibly overpowered you feel when you have collected everything, and is just powering through all enemies that previously gave you trouble.

It was a true joy to explore this world. The map system is great, because it doesn't give you too much information at first on where you are heading, but reveals everything you have explored when you get to a safe zone (which in this game are benches). This makes the map exploration of this game feel rewarding, as the map gets expanded all the time simply through your exploration, and most importantly, it shows you the paths that you may have missed sometimes, which encourages further exploration. By the end of the game, I had found almost everything there was to find, that's how much fun it was exploring.

So, what we have is an incredibly fun game here. I enjoyed myself so much every second, and it all gets tied together into a nice big package by the fact that everything feels so coherent in the game. There are no creatures in this massive world that feel like they do not belong there, they are consistent with the art style of the whole game, and most importantly, they make this world seem so incredibly alive.

Continuing my long journey to complete all Zelda games, Link's Awakening was next on the list. And I must say that I had a lot more fun with this game than with A Link to the Past, especially towards the end when everything was going the most smoothly. The final two dungeons are easily some of my favourite dungeons of any 2D Zelda game. However, the other dungeons didn't leave that big of an impression on me, which is probably because the game felt very puzzle focused as a whole. There wasn't really ever a break from the puzzles. You figure out where to go through exploring and/or talking to people (a puzzle), which leads to a dungeon where you figure out where to go through exploring and/or talking to things. Except for the bosses and mini-bosses, it felt pretty samey. Which is unfortunate, because the story and especially the story implications are probably some of the most interesting in the series. Because, when it comes down to it, are you really the good guy, and the bosses the bad guys? Worth thinking about if you've played the game. I also enjoyed most of the music with the exception of that damn tune that plays every time you pick up a powerup. I think this game might be a lot better on repeat playthroughs.

I am astonished. This is one of the best games I have ever played for PC. It is like BioShock, but even better! I love the combat, the level design, the exploration, the many options, and the plot! And let's not forget that incredible soundtrack, my favourite tunes being "Engineering", "Hydro 1" and "Ops 2". This game blew my mind, and it's easily the best game from 1998! I haven't been this hooked to a game since I played MGS2, and that is saying something considering that that is my all time favourite game. If you want a game where you can customize your character in a lot of different ways, that is difficult, but gets easy to the point of being satisfying as hell when you get good at it, and that has a kickass soundtrack and some of the best villains in video game history, then you need to play this game!

This game was honestly a lot of fun. I liked the mechanics, and how accessible it felt. The music was also very moody and added very well to the whole experience. Many interesting ideas that worked out for the most part, like there being nothing that indicates that the starting party is the main cast, because you can actually lose your entire starting party by them dying and being replaced with other people that you find. Dogs were really powerful allies in this game that can easily take out most aliens while not being able to operate mechanical things. Made for interesting considerations. I was quite bummed that they didn't let you take two cars to have a party of MANY members. However, I guess that would have been a lot harder to balance from a level perspective. The problem that lead to me not finishing this game, however, was the second-to-final world. Because the first level there was such a huge difficulty spike that I actually felt turned off from the game immediately. It truly felt like bullshit, which is a shame, because I really liked this game. But even though I may never finish it, I still had a lot of fun and consider this to be a good game!

So here it is. I completed what by many people is referred to as one of the hardest games ever made. And sure, a big reason for that is that you are intended to play it on the NES, which has no saves. That, and the fact that if you die to the final bosses even once, you are sent back three levels. I played it on the 3DS, so I used save states. Initially I only used it so I wouldn't have to start over from the very beginning every time I started up the game. But in the end, I realized that the final boss gauntlet would actually be way too difficult (in that you have to play through three levels to get one single try at them, those levels being some of the hardest in the entire already damn hard game), so I saved before the final boss and retried until I beat them. Now that I have figured out the strategy, I could probably beat the game without using those final save states if I tried to, and I may do that in the future. Why? Because this game was so much FUN! I cannot underemphasize the importance of everything dying in one hit in this game. Because this game is hard, the enemies are relentless and infinitely spawning, and they knock you back into bottomless pits if they hit you, killing you instantly. You can also die by running out of health, which happened to me many times because of how relentless the barrage of enemies is. This would have been majorly annoying and have made the game borderline unplayable if the enemies did not die in one hit. But they do, and this makes the game SO enjoyable! Sure, it's trial and error most of the time, and you have to memorize many of the later stages and make up strategies for them, but I actually think that is part of the fun. The infinite continues this game gives you encourages this play style in my opinion, and it's very quick to restart, so it feels seamless. Probably one of the best games for the NES!

This is an extremely critically acclaimed game, so I had to play it as a result. And I had a lot of fun with it! Some parts were really frustrating though, because the Metroidvania-style gameplay can easily lead to a lot of backtracking. This is unfortunately something that was a problem in this game. It didn't bother me that much though, and the end section of this game more than made up for it because of how good it was! The soundtrack is really good, but most of the tunes exist in better versions in the Metroid Prime games in my opinion. So, overall an overhyped, but pretty good game!

Without a doubt one of the strangest games I have ever played. On first playthrough, there seems to be little that could be described as a story, and the environments felt very amateurish at times, and at other times just weird and strange. The gameplay is nothing worth talking about, as you literally just walk from point to point most of the time. But I still did enjoy this game, mainly because of the music. This game does something very cool when it comes to the music, and that is to integrate it completely into the game. Most of the music is played in the background, but there are elements that are controlled by how you move, where you move, etc. The result is an incredibly weird, but cool, soundtrack, unlike anything I've ever heard in a video game. Alongside this game, you can download a libretto that apparently explains things a bit more. Because of this, I absolutely do not consider myself completely done with this game, and I will definitely pick it up again at a later date to try and fully understand it. So, for now it stands as one of the most unique games I've ever played.

I honestly felt quite fed up with this game after a while. Mindless exploration is not really for me, it seems. The music is great, and the different environments that you explore are very cool, but I think I have gotten a big grasp on what prevents this game from being good in my opinion, and that is the walking speed. It would be one thing if you could explore at your own pace all the time, but to me it seems like you are always at the mercy of the slow walking speed, which makes the whole game basically just waiting for things to happen. Waiting for the door to come close enough. Waiting for something to appear, which always seems like a longshot considering that the different dream worlds were way too confusing to be able to consistently find your way. Which may well be intentional, but it unfortunately didn't make for a compelling game in my opinion. I am glad that I have played it, but that's about it unfortunately.

I got recommended this game at least four years ago, so I felt like it was finally time to give it a shot (no pun intended). And it was a damn fun game. The core gameplay consists mainly of shooting guys, but it's made super satisfying (and stress inducing) due to the fact that everything dies in one hit, including you, and the respawn time is very quick. The soundtrack was holy amazing, especially "Hydrogen", which made me look forward to the level every time it played. The story was the part where I felt the game fell short in my opinion. I liked it in the beginning, especially in the details. For instance, you save a girl from a level, and from that point on, she appears in different places in your apartment every day. It becomes a routine, so when she disappears, it's a shocking moment. But after a certain point, the story starts to spew the same message that so many other games already have made, the message about how "you enjoy all the killing, don't you?". That point was made as early as 1998 in Metal Gear Solid, and now it feels pretty old in my opinion. And the way the game ends felt like a huge anticlimax, which was probably the point, but it didn't make it more satisfying. So, a mixed bag on some points, but the gameplay was so satisfying that it made up for all its shortcomings. A damn good game!

I wasn't sure whether I was going to play this game or not, but then I read a review that argued very much in favour of this game. This is usually all it takes to convince me to try out a game, so I did just that. And boy, I do not regret doing that. This game was refreshingly different from any other Zelda I have played, and while it had some frustrating things, I did enjoy my time with it quite a lot, especially towards the end when I had mastered it. Let's first talk about the combat, because I consider that to be by far the strongest aspect of this game. In the beginning, it feels good, but not incredible. This, however, changes once you acquire the ability to do down thrusts and up thrusts. This makes the combat feel amazing, and at the most frustrating portions of the game, this was what kept me playing honestly. And the sense of achievement of having beaten a game that is this hard, but I digress. The level design is functioning, but not anything special. I was surprised over how easy it was to navigate most of the dungeons, even though they didn't have a map, and the rooms looked pretty similar. I say most because the Great Temple was actually so confusing that I decided to look up a map just to not have to waste too much time just searching it in vain. But I still really liked the ending portion of the game, and the boss of the Great Temple was definitely my favourite. Speaking of which, I find it interesting how in many NES games the bosses are easier than the dungeon or even some of the enemies. This was not the case for the bosses of the two last temples, but it was definitely true for the rest of them. But they were all pretty fun. Another thing I liked about the game was that the items you got in the dungeons were not to be used in the dungeons, but instead in the overworld. This is very fitting for the game in my opinion, because it is a 2D platformer instead of a "traditional" Zelda game. In that way, it feels almost like a Pokémon game, where you unlock certain abilities and are able to use them on things you have seen earlier in the game. But my favourite aspect about the game has to be the difficulty. This game is hard for a beginner, and you will struggle at first. But as you get better, you will see yourself plough through most of the sections that you used to have huge trouble with. The Iron Knuckles and the jumping bird enemies are my favourite example. In the beginning, Iron Knuckles are this huge threat that will probably kill you over and over again until you learn how to fight them, but once you do you simply destroy them. And while you do not exactly destroy the bird enemies as they are incredibly difficult, probably the most difficult in the game (I honestly died more to them than to any of the bosses combined), you learn to fight them more easily. After having finished this game, I just felt this huge feeling of accomplishment, as if I had just completed a humongous task, which I possibly also had. It was a great game all the way through, and while there are some flaws, such as some frustrating dungeon designs late in the game, and some incredibly annoying enemies, I had a blast honestly!

Wow.

I didn't know video games were capable of doing what this game managed to do. I mean, until playing this game Metal Gear Solid 2 was my favourite game of all time, but I am seriously reconsidering that after playing through this game. I don't think any game I've ever played has had a story that is as perfectly executed as this one. Scratch that, I can think of few stories in all of media that could match this one. It goes so well from joy to humour and then to despair and sadness. I have never felt this moved by a video game before, and I don't know if I ever will. The ending actually moved me to tears, which is something no other video game ever has managed to do. Thankfully the game also manages to deliver gameplay that feels smooth, entertaining and tight. And the soundtrack is simply incredible, with amazing instrumentation, progressiveness and melodies. I cannot recommend it enough. It's such a masterpiece that it is incredible in spite of this below average port. If you are interested in action games or storytelling in games at all, you need to get this one. It is that good.

Well, I can now safely say that another game that has moved me to tears has been played by me.

God damn, this game. Never have I played a Nintendo game with such mature and well-handled themes. Super Paper Mario comes to mind as a game being close, but the story in this game has moments that are even better than that game, and SPM is the game that I consider to be the closes to 10/10 out of all my non-10/10 games. I'm not gonna spoil the hard-hitting moments, as I didn't actually know about the last one, and it hit me like a sledgehammer right in the heart. So, having mentioned that, let's talk about some other aspects instead. This game has one of the best soundtracks I've heard! So many incredible tunes, but the standouts for me must be "Battle Against the Masked Man" and "Strong One". I love the battle system in this game, especially since I am a musician myself, and the battle system require a good sense of rhythm to use it to its full potential. The game also has some really solid boss battles, and I loved figuring out strategies for every boss. But the main thing that kept me constantly interested was the story. I must admit that it took some time to really get going (the prologue is three chapters long after all, which roughly translates to five-six hours of gameplay if I remember correctly), but once I got control of Lucas, I was basically hooked! Like I mentioned, it contains some really heartbreaking moments, so proceed with caution if you are interested, because if you stay, you will get a game like no other!

I would say that the general thoughts about this game (i.e., that this is a good movie, but a bad game) are true to some extent, but there are some things that I think could only have been executed by keeping this a game instead of a movie. For instance, the winter chapter is amazing and highlights how good the stealth in this game can be when the environments are good enough to compensate the core mechanics, and it is good precisely because it is playable. The battle against David was a bit of a pushover, but I still found a lot of satisfaction in it. The gameplay overall is a different story however. It goes from really good (like I mentioned before) to ok (which it is most of the time) to horribly mediocre (i.e., that god damn sniper section). The story is where this game really shines. I think it characterized the main characters really well, and the moral ambiguity of the final chapters is really amazing. I found myself constantly questioning whether the main duo really were good guys, which is exactly what I think the intention was.

The biggest surprise factor was actually the soundtrack, which contains some really strange instrumentation including what sounds like a clock playing, a strangely tuned string instrument, and lots of creative ways of using the guitar. It wasn't at all what I thought it was going to be. I imagined it to be what most triple A games go for nowadays, which is the good old Hollywood blockbuster soundtrack, with forgettable orchestral music without originality. The beginning was probably the worst part of the game, minus the opening sequence where you play as Sarah. It takes a long time to really get going, and it took me a while to actually start to really enjoy the gameplay. But when it did kick in, I found myself enjoying it quite a bit.

Overall, a pretty solid game with interesting soundtrack and a great story, which unfortunately is held back a bit by its gameplay.