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.

Continuing my period of retro games, I decided to try to get into the Kirby games. And so, I started from the beginning, at Kirby's Dream Land. Now, I've played some small bits from Kirby games before, mainly from Kirby's Epic Yarn for the Wii. But this is the first Kirby game I've completed. And god damn, was it short! Only 5 levels with the last level basically being a boss rush. It was a lot of fun though. The bosses were pretty varied, and although everything was a bit on the easy side, I still had a lot of fun. It felt like something I needed after the huge challenge that was Ninja Gaiden. Something more chill, you know? The music was pretty good, especially King Dedede's theme and the second stage's theme. A really fun time that I could probably return to a lot in the future!

My feelings on this one shifted a lot throughout the game. I was really enjoying myself in the beginning. It felt really nice controlling Samus in this game, which was one of my main issues with Super Metroid, that the controls felt a bit clunky. Here they worked really well, although I wish that you would keep your ground speed when jumping, which was something Super Metroid had. I felt like the level design was pretty suited to the game. In Super Metroid, you had a map, which meant that you could make the game very big without having to worry about the player getting lost. Metroid II has no map, and therefore it is much more fitting to have the game being more linear, which it also is. This game is incredibly linear compared to basically all other Metroid games. But it works because of its limitations. I also really enjoy the main premise of this game. In Metroid II, you are basically committing genocide on a planet's population of Metroids. Your goal is simply to kill them all. And you have a counter at the bottom, which helps you keeping track on how many Metroids are left to kill. The game starts off pretty easily, but has a pretty smooth difficulty curve, which towards the end turns into a difficulty spike. The final four metroids and the final boss are without a doubt the hardest parts of the game, which is as it should be, I guess. And this was the point where I was getting a bit frustrated in the game. It all worked out in the end, though, because after countless tries, I finally defeated the final boss, which was incredibly satisfying and kept that mood until the end of the game. And that is a really important thing. It's ok for a video game to frustrate you as long as you feel that reward after the struggle. There were some things I disliked about the game, like some rooms being way too long, but ultimately I felt like this was a really good game. Possibly even better than Super Metroid, but I'll have to replay that game on the original console to see how I feel about that. For now, this stands as a great Metroid game!

Dropped this game mainly because of everything here feeling so extremely risky and unreliable. Usually, my strategy while playing stealth games is the "can't be found if there are no enemies" approach, which involves killing or neutralizing all enemies I find. Problem is, in this game I found that to be extremely unreliable. Multiple times, I surveyed the scene, shot an enemy with what I assumed was a silenced weapon, only to miss even though I was aiming right at his head and triggering an alert instantly. I also felt like it was very unclear what the enemy could actually see. Even though you have a sound and shadow meter at the bottom, which in theory should work excellently to show how noticeable you are, in practice I found it to be pretty damn unreliable. I was found by enemies multiple times even though my light meter showed that I was in pitch-darkness. And it is also often unclear which way an enemy is facing, making you get detected easily even when you think the enemy is looking away. I only got three levels in, and gave up there because of how frustrating it was to sneak past everything just to trigger an alarm that you couldn't even see. I may return to this game in the future, because I really do not consider this to be a bad game, but at the moment, I feel like I don't have the energy to continue. The soundtrack is absolutely one of my favourite soundtracks of all time though. Amon Tobin is a bloody genius!

I went in to this expecting a crazy game and got a game that was even crazier than I expected. There are so many things here that I absolutely loved! The gameplay is incredibly satisfying. It just feels right to roll up everything in sight. Another thing that helps with the satisfaction is the fact that the soundtrack is pretty damn great. Lots of short, but catchy tunes here that contain some pretty sick production. I loved how the game felt so relatively relaxed. It feels like a game that doesn't punish you, but in this case this is absolutely not a negative at all, because it helps making the experience amazing! I also loved that it showed everything you collected in a collection, something that most players probably won't find interesting enough to look at, but for me it was just a very nice touch. The thing I struggled with the most was the controls, although I did get used to them after a while, and when I figured out that I could turn a lot quicker by using a specific command, the game began feeling a lot more nice! But at the end of the day, any game where you can roll up everything from small fruits and animals to hilariously oversized walruses, octupi and even huge buildings, is going to interest me at least a little bit. Luckily this game turned out to be everything I hoped for and even more on top of that. I am probably gonna play this a lot more and have an absolute blast with it!

Maybe not the best way to play this game, but at least I finally played it. And man, what a game it was! The first thing that stuck out to me from the beginning is how absolutely gorgeous the backgrounds are! I was playing a bit of Donkey Kong Country while playing through this game, and these two games really made me fall in love with the prerendered backgrounds as a concept. They look super detailed, and they always seem to paint a picture of what is happening. In Midgar, it seems like every single background tells a story of the people who live there. And that is absolutely amazing. Something that isn't technically as impressive are the 3D models, but I found them to be very cute and made the game feel like a toy theatre or something, which is something that was successful in disarming me for some of the heavier moments in the game's incredible story. And it really was incredible. I felt like I got to know the main cast very well, especially Aerith, Tifa and Cloud, which are now some of my favourite RPG characters. But a story and aesthetics can seldom carry a game alone, so luckily this game has very nice gameplay and one of the best soundtracks. I like that the battle system is timer-based, because it makes it very exciting and stressful. This was especially true during some of the final bosses of the game. I wouldn't say that it's a particularly hard game, but I don't think it really needs to. Playing the game without grinding and facing every enemy was something I found worked very well to increase the difficulty, and if it ever gets too hard I also find it super satisfying to grind, as you progress so quickly between levels, you level up quickly, and the battle theme is a major jam that I love. I loved almost every song from the game with the "Hurry!" theme and the two final battles being my favourite songs from the OST. Fortunately, the OST is on Spotify, so it's very easy to access. But one of the biggest reasons as to why I love this game is because it does something that even some of the darkest games I've played haven't done. If you've played the game, you probably know what I am talking about, and I won't say what it is. But trust me when I say that it is incredibly well executed and gives you the exact feeling that it wants to give. This game was basically as good as it was hyped up to be, and probably exceeded my expectations. Everyone should experience this!

What a phenomenal game! The platforming here feels a lot better than any Mario game I've played for sure, and the level design is incredible too. However, what really sets this game apart are the beautiful prerendered backgrounds and sprites, and the wonderful atmosphere and music. This game seems to focus a lot more on atmosphere than almost any other platformer I've played. Actually, Rain World is probably the closest one when it comes to atmosphere. Playing this game felt great, and every level was awesome! A masterpiece that surely blew my expectations out of the water.

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!

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.

Initially, my thoughts on this game were not very positive. While I enjoyed the aesthetics quite a lot, and found the boss battles quite fun, I thought the whole run-n-gun part of the game ruined the game. I also thought that some of the bosses in Inkwell Isle II were incredibly annoying and frustrating, and I couldn't really see this game as anything incredible.

But then I got to the good part. As soon as you reach Inkwell Isle III, this game gets really good. The boss battles are a huge step up in my opinion, mainly because they all have such cool concepts I think, and the run-n-gun levels are a lot batter, which is due to the fact that they feel a lot easier. Maybe I just got used to the formula, but I was having a lot more fun with this game when I reached that point, and up until and including the end, I was having a very good time. The aesthetics is probably the strongest part of this game. I don't think anyone would dispute that, so I won't dwell on it for too long. I also loved the sound design, because it felt suitably cartooney at all times. What I didn't like as much was the music unfortunately. When it comes to jazz, I am a big fan of the outliar genres. Spiritual Jazz, Free Jazz and Avant-Garde Jazz. This game seems to play it way too safe in my eyes, and the result is a soundtrack that is appropriate, but uninteresting. Nevertheless, I did come to appreciate this game with time, and I will definitely play it again!

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.

It seems like this game was hyped up by a lot of people, but I honestly didn't feel that hyped for it when I was to start playing it, mainly because I had played Overland which, while good, was kind of broken, and therefore I didn't expect a lot for this game. That was an expectation that wasn't exactly supported by the game, as I actually enjoyed myself quite a lot with this game. Actually, that is not completely true, the game itself is actually pretty boring a lot of the time. But I feel like my time with this game was worth it, because of the characters mainly. This game acts a lot like a visual novel in that the absolute main focus on the game is the dialogue and characters, which definitely are the strongest aspects of this game. The dialogue is pretty Undertale, but actually a lot better in my opinion. It seems to be perpetually self-aware of itself, so everytime the dialogue is a bit ridiculous, it always seems intentionally so. I also LOVE the environments of this game, it really nailed this pixar short film-feeling. And I also loved how the story got progressively crazier and crazier, culminating in an almost Lynchian fashion. I think a big reason as to why I got so relatively into this game was because at first, I played it with my girlfriend, and her enjoyment of it made me enjoy it a lot more, and we actually played it for a couple of hours together. A lot of times, this game may feel like a slog to get through, because there is just so much to do at most times. Talk to every character every day. And you should also explore completely as the secrets you find will absolutely be worth it in my opinion. But I'm not gonna lie: it was hard motivating yourself sometimes. But I ultimately felt it was worth it, because of the elements mentioned above. Something that adds to the game is how incredibly immersive it feels. My favourite element of that immersion is definitely the fact that the tune that plays when you are about to wake up from sleeping is constructed in a way that makes it feel awkward to turn it off by waking up whenever you do it. This is a good metaphor for being in a dream and suddenly waking up, and I do believe they thought about that when they made the game. Also, you can play games within games, and there is a lot of attention to detail when it comes to world building. Every major company that you would expect to see has been replaced by a similar company, but in this imaginary world. So, this game is interestingly enough a game that pulled me in through something entirely different than its gameplay. It had its moments, but it was the characters, setting and art that really made me stay. Great game, honestly!

It's interesting to say the least to play all of the classic games that many people have nostalgic memories of, but I have no memories of. One single word could describe this entire game, and that word would be "epic". This game is truly epic, in the traditional sense. The stakes are always super high, and become even higher as the game progresses, and I love that the game becomes even bigger once you think it's about to end. If I was to compare the story to something, I think it would be Fullmetal Alchemist actually, mainly due to its structure and even though the two villains have completely different motives, I think the things they do are actually pretty similar, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if Hiromu Arakawa was in some way inspired by this game. Though it can also be the case that she was inspired by traditional manga, and that this is the case with this game too. But I digress. One of the best aspects of this game is definitely the characters, and also the way they are integrated into the battle system. Every character is played in an unique way, which is very different from the game I played before: Final Fantasy VII, where any character can be basically anything. Celes and Terra are probably my favourites since they have such interesting story arcs throughout the entire game, and they worked very well in my team, Celes being the main firepower and Terra healing a lot. The combat system in this game is similar to that in FF7, but it doesn't have limit breaks. I love how characters have things that are completely unique to them in this game, like Sabin's Blitz or Mog's Dance. This makes me like all characters in battle in different ways, even though some unfortunately are clearly stronger than others. I think this game was a lot more streamlined than 7, and it was often a lot easier to figure out what to do, even though some things in the second half were pretty confusing. It had a lot of set pieces, and it felt like a ride from one epic moment to the next basically. I'm glad they kept up the tradition of keeping the dungeons short usually, because I get sick of over-long dungeons in RPGs. This game also has one of the most insane villains I've seen in a video game, and I enjoyed Kefka a lot everytime he was on the screen. And finally, the music in this game is pretty good overall, but becomes amazing once you reach the final battle. For at least a week after finishing the game, I couldn't stop listening to "Dancing Mad". It is a tune fitting of this game: epic, long and with peaks and valleys. Even though I probably prefer Final Fantasy VII over this game, I still consider this to be a masterpiece. There were some parts that were a bit annoying, but overall, this game left me with a great sense of satisfaction when I finally finished it. Damn, what an incredible game!

I think this game basically does everything it does perfectly. It achieves exactly what it set out to do, which is to feel like a holiday. I fell in love with it from the first moment I picked it up, and very quickly I found myself considering this game to be a perfect 10. I don't think I have played it enough to justify such a rating though, and I would like to try it with a controller, which is something that I do not have where I am as of writing this review. It worked fine with mouse and keyboard, but I can imagine it will work even better with a controller. But I nevertheless loved this game. The world was incredible. Very small, but still big enough to find new things all the time, and because it was so small, I made it a goal to try and find my way around it: learn it by heart so to speak. While I didn't succeed on that, I am not planning on giving up. I loved the music, the atmosphere, and the movement mechanics. Skydiving to gain speed was super satisfying to do, and the golden feathers function like both a collectible and a difficulty select screen. It's one of the cutest games I've played too, and for those reasons it deserves this strong 9 that I've given it!