The GameBoy Advance version of this game was the bane of my childhood. I loved and hated it at the same time, loved it for how good it was and hated it for how difficult it was. I never played it on the NES though, and if childhood me had seen that you can't save on the NES, he would surely have flipped out. I was a little worried about the difficulty going in actually. But it turned out to be not only fine, but more than fine. First of all, this game is a lot easier than both Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 2, which is positive in the NES era as you can't save on these cartridges. I felt like this game was the most well-designed out of the three though. It gives you a ton of 1-Ups, which really help to make the game manageable. So I managed to beat the entire game in one sitting, and it was a thrill ride that I absolutely loved. This is probably the best game I've played so far for the NES, and I can't wait to try out more games to see what they have in store!

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!

The NES is not a console that I used to consider had good games. I felt like most of them were absolutely held back by your inability to save, and while some of those like the Super Mario Bros. games tried to play around this by having very short games with warp zones to later worlds, I can't help but feel like this was playing around a system that was broken from the start. The Legend of Zelda is different. First of all, you can actually save in this game. Second of all, it is a wonderful open world game in an era long before open world games. This game drops you in a moderately sized world and asks you to do whatever you want. You can go in any direction you want, to any place you want as long as it isn't blocked off by an item you need. I have to praise the overworld a lot, because it is not too small, which makes it so that you don't get tired of it. At the same time, it isn't too big either. This is good because you have to start over from the beginning of the map if you die. And trust me, you will die a lot in this game, as it is brutally difficult at some points. I think I died more than 150 times throughout the 14 hours of gameplay. But if you die, you will restart in a map that easily allows you to get back to wherever you previously were. And if you die in a dungeon, you will simply restart from the start of that dungeon, a tradition that other Zelda games have also used. The gameplay is difficult, but fun. I like how you keep all the items you obtained even if you die, making this very Dark Souls-esque. In fact, I think the soulsborne series definitely was inspired by this game specifically. I also have to praise the final dungeon for how great it is design wise. It definitely feels like a true final gauntlet, and it is very satisfying to find your way through that lethal maze of a dungeon. However, not everything this game offers is perfect. The combat is pretty awkward sometimes, because Link stops every time he does something with an item or a sword. This definitely adds to the game's insane difficulty, and arguably in a way that isn't as fun. The soundtrack is also pretty one-note, only containing four songs in its entirety if I remember correctly. Still, this isn't a game that you should miss out on if you like challenging games. Definitely one of the best games for the NES!

I am usually not a fan of games that value aesthetics over everything else. I felt that a bit with RiME before it actually turned into a good game. But Journey has changed my positions a bit, because this game is SO beautiful. It is not a hard game at all, nor is it probably meant to be. It's simply you, the player, travelling through a desert to a mountain in the distance. And the journey there is actually a lot of fun. I played it with my girlfriend, and she was absolutely wowed by it, and it was hard not to be influenced by that. I liked the game because of how cool the sand gliding and flying mechanics were. I liked how you could stay in the air indefinitely if you just had enough skill (and luck) to be able to consistently fly into the carpet creatures that refill your fly meter. I liked how intensely focused the game was on delivering a fully immersive experience to the point that you can't even pause the game. The character just sits down, and no menu shows up. However, what made me love the game was the aesthetics and the soundtrack. The aesthetics are amazing! The game constantly shifts colour pallet throughout its runtime and plays around with different kinds of surfaces where you leave a trace. First it is sand, then it is snow. And the sand changes colour as well, at one point being blue and green when you are in a tunnel. But the soundtrack was definitely my favourite part! Because there is a pitfall that these aesthetic-valuing games sometimes fall in, and that is that the soundtrack focuses on beauty above everything else. Journey's soundtrack isn't like that at all! It has varied instrumentation based on where in the game you are, it is usually melodic but turns somewhat dissonant whenever something dangerous happens (I especially liked how it sounded when you were heading through a blizzard towards the mountain), and it even uses my absolute weakness, which is the key of B Minor. I just think it sounds melancholic and beautiful in a way that no other key manages for me. And the end section where you go to the mountain is triumphant and entirely in the key of B Minor with my favourite chords in that key playing throughout the section. The only parts where I felt that the game was somewhat lacking was some parts of the snow section, where it slowed down by blowing wind in your face. It didn't have to do that to convey the hopelessness in my opinion, that feeling was already there. Overall a great game though!

I love it when a game completely blows your expectations out of the water. I expected an inferior version to Dark Souls with clunky mechanics, bad bosses and bad levels. Instead I got a game that may actually be better than Dark Souls (can't really decide that before I replay it yet again) with great mechanics, extremely unique bosses and better levels than Dark Souls on average. It was a wild ride that I enjoyed basically every second of. It was a whole lot easier than Dark Souls tho, but it felt harder on some points due to the levels actually seeming harder in my opinion. But the environments were great, and they were also very immersive due to everything just making sense. Of course the enemies in Stonefang should be miners, as it is a mine, and of course that is the place where you find the most stone-like stones which you use to upgrade certain weapons. Once I arrived there, I decided to play through the entire game with the pickaxe, which was a very fun choice. So me and my pickaxe carved our way through the different areas and bosses. My favourite area overall was probably the fourth one. I loved how different each level in that area was, and the final archdemon of that area was damn epic! Another thing that greatly surprised me was the soundtrack. Overall, I am not a huge fan of the soundtrack of the Souls series, as they tend to fall more into the category of "uninspired orchestral music" to me. But Demon's Souls has a very unique soundtrack compared to Dark Souls, using a lot of more ambient textures, and many of the boss fights actually use less bombastic tunes, which just adds to the variation. I got the urge to download the soundtrack as soon as possible, which is something that I absolutely did not feel about Dark Souls' or even Bloodborne's soundtrack. In my opinion, Demon's Souls was a huge risk that basically payed off in every way, and I loved it very much.

This is a game that I have played many times, and for each time I just seem to like it more. I've heard many comments from people saying that the only reason people like this game so much is for the story and for nostalgic reasons. And while the story is certainly part of that, I feel like the gameplay is very underrated, and frankly, many of the problems that I thought the game had the first times playing it were absent from this playthrough. For instance, I disliked how long it took to change from 2D to 3D, which is a major feature in the game, and used in almost every puzzle. But during this playthrough, I found that problem to be non-existent. The whole gaming experience felt seamless. What I've always loved about the Paper Mario series is the world and the environment around you. And Super Paper Mario offers what is probably the best world(s) in the entire series. Because every world you travel to feels very distinct, has a very distinct atmosphere, and I just feel so immersed in the world because of this. Another thing that really adds to this are the different items the enemies drop. Because those items are usually very thematically correct. For instance, Crazee Dayzees and Amazee Dayzees drop Dayzee Tears, which you can use to make certain recipes. But many enemies drop these appropriate items, which really drew me into the game. I also think the main mechanic of flipping from 2D to 3D was a resounding success, probably in large part because of how incredibly detailed all the environments are. If you flip to 3D anywhere in the game, you get information about the world through things you just couldn't see in 2D, which makes it feel rewarding even when you don't find anything special there. And let's not forget about the music. This game has one of my favourite soundtracks ever, an incredibly consistent collection of weird, bumping, melancholic and bouncy tunes. Few games have better soundtracks honestly. The dialogue is also one of the strongest parts of the game. This game made me chuckle so many times throughout the game that I lost count. However, the main thing that makes me love this game beyond almost every other game I've played is the story. The story of Blumiere and Timpani is so beautiful, sad and sweet that I can't help but shed a tear or two every time I get to the ending. It may be standard in some regards, especially with its portrayal of love as the dispeller of evil, but I feel like it is actually true. Love is truly a wonderful force. All these things combine to form a game that I previously considered the strongest 9/10 that I had ever played. But now that I've played through it once again and enjoyed it so immensely, I have to give it too a 10. One of the best games I've ever played!

A true classic. This was the first Zelda game I ever played, and I had some trouble at first, but after a year of being stuck at Forsaken Fortress, I got past it and started really enjoying myself. Now I replayed it with a friend in the HD version, and I must say that it is basically a straight upgrade in just about every way. Positives are everywhere. There is a sail that lets you change the direction of the wind AND go faster with your boat, which removes having to change the wind manually all the time and makes you travel the sea faster. The triforce hunt has been largely redesigned to still capture the feeling of exploring the sea that the original had, but also removing some of the charts required, making it a whole lot less tedious. There is actually just one thing that I would mention as both a positive and a negative: by jump attacking and then immediately inputting a spin attack, your damage doubles for the spin attack. This turns out to be incredibly overpowered, killing most enemies a lot easier than it would have been otherwise. Otherwise the game is much the same, and here are some opinions on the game in general. I love the music in The Wind Waker! Not only is it highly nostalgic to me, but some more experimental tunes have sneaked their way in there, like the song playing in Hyrule Castle before getting the Master Sword, which sounds incredibly broken, distorted and has a very relaxed relationship to silence which I absolutely love. My absolute favourite of these experimental tunes has to be the Illusory Room in Ganon's Castle near the end. Everything about it is odd: odd rhythms, odd instrumentations, etc. I especially love how one part of the mix is delayed by an eighth note, making it sound different the more time passes. And because it is a modern Zelda game, every dungeon and boss music is incredible, with the highlights being Wind Temple, Forbidden Woods, Tower of the Gods and Forsaken Fortress for the dungeons, and Helmaroc King, Gohdan, all Ganon related boss tunes and Molgera. I also love how open the world is in this game. You are stuck for a bit in the beginning, but after the first two dungeons, you are free to go basically wherever you like. And there is just so much to explore, and it feels so natural to explore it because you are on the sea! I think that too is awesome, the fact that you are on the sea. And the final section rivals the final sections of my more appreciated Zelda games like Twilight Princess and Ocarina of Time. I think the bosses toward the end are the best in the game, and that's exactly how it should be. This game would have been an 8 if it was the original version, but thanks to all the improvements I cannot justify giving this anything less than a 9!

Talk about a game that was almost the complete opposite of what I expected. For a while I have disliked the huge fetishization of retro games, as I felt like they put games in a stereotypical mold that I disliked a lot. I don't want video games to be a medium where the music associated with it has to be 8-bit tunes (which unfortunately is still the case, and chiptune-inspired albums or songs are still generally seen as being "video game inspired"). While it is true that 8-bit music has a very valuable place in video game music, this fetishization of everything retro risks obscuring more games with more modern sensibilities. Maybe not the games per se, but definitely the soundtrack. If you ask any layman to name a tune from a video game, he will most likely name the main Super Mario Bros. theme, or maybe the Legend of Zelda theme. This shows how modern video game soundtracks have unfortunately fallen in the shadow when it comes to the general population. But what does all of this have to do with Rain World, I hear you ask. Well, Rain World managed to completely shatter that expectation. I walked in expecting a retro-inspired game that would be fun for a very short time and came out at the other end having just played one of the most exciting, beautiful, unique and amazing games that I've ever played. I know that I've placed a lot of high scores for games recently, but it's probably just because I have played so many good games recently. But Rain World is definitely the best of these. I have never in my life played a game that emulates nature and the ecosystem as well as Rain World. I have never encountered something as beautiful as this game. I will admit that it was a bit rough in the start due to its extremely high difficulty, but as soon as I got into the game, I was completely hooked and never looked back since. The environments are simply incredible both to look at and to play in, as the levels are almost always extremely well designed. Some areas in particular, like Five Pebbles and Subterranean, are probably some of the coolest locations I've ever been to in a game. And it's not just the gameplay that is absolutely top notch. We are talking about a masterclass in sound design, which is so good that there is a YouTube channel dedicated to basically just uploading ambience from different locations in the game. And the soundtrack, which comes in once in a while, is always welcome, and provides a very strange but compelling mix of synthwave-styled stuff and more modern production styles. I always felt welcomed into the world every time I went back to the Shaded Citadel from Shoreline and that incredible trip-hop-ish tune started to play. So, to summarize: this is one of the best games I've ever played. Basically everything is absolutely top notch, and I would recommend it to anyone and everyone. The creators deserve the money, so buy it at full prize. You might not like it at first, but the environments and sheer beauty of the entire thing will keep you coming back most likely. What a game!

A damn amazing game that is as good, if not better, than Dark Souls. But one thing it definitely has over DS are the wonderful aesthetics. Fucking hell, this world is gorgeous. I mean, it's pretty ugly in most cases, but it is very intentionally ugly, and all the designs, enviroments and skies just look amazing and really capture that dark and gloomy setting. At first, I thought this game was harder than Dark Souls, but as I got into it, I found myself dying a whole lot less than I did in that game. Bloodborne has such a cool playstyle. In Dark Souls, I was using a shield for the first 3 hours because I thought that was the way to play. It was only when I removed my shield and started taking more risks that I found myself enjoying the game to the huge extent that I did. Bloodborne simply gives you no shield. There is one, but it is godawful, and should not really be used. Instead, you get a gun which you can use to parry enemy attacks. And you definitely should be doing that, because visceral attacks in this game are extremely satisfying to pull off, and you can even get runes that get you back health on successful visceral attacks. The bosses in this game are all great in my opinion, but my favourites were probably Micolash because of how different he is, Darkbeast Paarl because of my redemption arc (I found the boss pretty early in the game, got destroyed pretty hard and realized I had to go to another boss. After a while, I went back to him and defeated him first try), The One Reborn because of how truly intense that battle is, and Gehrman because of how difficult but fair that fight feels. I've always felt that the music in the Souls games wasn't really that noticeable, but in Bloodborne, it has a different vibe that I can't really describe, and therefore I liked it a lot more than the soundtrack to Dark Souls, especially the music when you are fighting Gehrman. This was an amazing game that I will probably play again, and again, and again!

Probably the most bleak, depressing and soul-crushing game I've ever played. So many sections in this game leave you feeling completely empty inside, and even its attempt at humour is so dark that it just comes off as depressing. First of all we have the setting. The world has no females, which means that the men left are essentially just waiting for their doom. Just that is an incredibly bleak concept, but it gets worse, because it portrays all the different ways people act during this apocalypse. The world is riddled with corpses, hanging bodies, people who are broken or have simply lost the will to live, and much more. But the worst thing is the concept of Joy, a drug that makes you feel nothing. The main character, Brad, is addicted to this because of his traumatic past. This is interesting, because Joy is an actual item in the game, which makes Brad a lot more powerful and increases his health, but makes him eventually suffer from withdrawal, which reduces his damage. This makes you consider taking Joy to make the game (and by that, the pain) easier to handle. Another thing this game heavily features is a world where your party members can and will die. You can recruit up to thirty people, but when a central part of your team dies, it just feels painful. I definitely felt a lot of pain towards area 3, so much in fact that I had to shut off the game and do something else. I completed the game after returning to it, and BOY, the ending is surely something. Without spoiling anything, it is bleak as hell and will make you feel empty as all hell. Luckily, this game has some quite amazing gameplay to balance out all the bleakness, so it isn't like a Drakengard completely. It succeeds a lot better than that game did by somehow making the game both fun and painful to play at the same time. I cannot give this game any less than a 9. It was that impactful!

Ok, so this is solid proof that Kojima still has it in my opinion. This game was absolutely masterful from start to finish, and I will gladly tell you why I think so. First of all, the level design is probably the best I've ever seen. It feels like every rock, cliff and river is placed there with care, and therefore almost every mission feels absolutely amazing to play, with its own peaks and valleys, but in this case literal peaks and valleys. It literally feels like every option has been given thought, so no matter what route you take, it ends up feeling like a true journey. Now, secondly, controlling Sam feels absolutely incredible. It took a few hours to get used to, but after that I was hooked on controlling him! You truly have to treat the ground like a puzzle in this game, navigating around rocks all the time while simultaneously controlling Sam's balance and speed so you don't go too quickly or fall over, dropping all your packages. And finally, we get to the story, which felt like a beautiful rollercoaster ride of emotions. I have almost nothing bad to say about it, and it ends wonderfully on some moments that make you recontextualize a lot of things that have happened in this game. It has so much lore too, and most of it is very well developed and makes sense within the logic of the world. I feel really bad for people who didn't like this game, becuase I fear that they simply played it the wrong way. I've noticed that people who dislike this game in reviews and stuff are mostly people who try to speed through everything, where as I liked to take it slow and had a blast with just about every second of the way through. It's a shame, because I really think some of those reviewers would like this game a lot more if they just got through the first three chapters, because everything beyond those is top of the damn class in my opinion. One of the best games of the last decade, and a true masterpiece in my opinion!

Man, this game is such a mess. The gameplay is absolutely terrible, plagued with all the problems that an RPG game of this flavour can have. Repetitive combat, uneven difficulty with spikes and valleys and boring gameplay for the most part. However, the story has to be one of the craziest I've experienced in a long time, and I believe it's accented by how the gameplay is. How many games have you played where the main characters consist of a mute guy who loves to kill people, a pedophile, a child cannibal, a misanthropic dragon and among those, a pretty normal child. It's so fitting for a game where the gameplay really doesn't make you feel like you are the good guy, and that's a big plus. I will admit that some segments of this game were pure pain to play through. And I couldn't bother to collect all weapons for ending E, so I just watched it on YouTube instead, but this game was a worthwhile experience despite its lackluster gameplay. It would be a crime to give this game anything less than an 8 in my opinion because of how deeply authentic it is.

This is the second game I've played by developer Fumito Ueda, and while not nearly as good as Shadow of the Colossus (which is one of my favourite games), it still holds up really well. I can really see how influential this game must have been when it came out. First of all, it has no instructions in the entire game, which means that everything has to be figured out through, logic, reason and/or luck. For the most part this works really well, but sometimes it backfires, resulting in one particular "bullshit puzzle". This doesn't really hurt the game at all though. Another thing I love is that the whole game is an escort mission that doesn't feel at all like an escort mission, and I think that is because Yorda feels so integrated into the game that she never is a hassle to guide around. You legitimately feel a connection to her, and that helps in setting up some of the scenes towards the end of the game. The greatest thing about this game, though, is the fact that this absolutely couldn't be anything other than a game. No movie could ever convey the feeling of actually leading someone along through an abandoned castle, rescuing her from all the dangers, and all the time using your own hands to do it. And that's really one of the things that elevate this game beyond just being a good game.

This was a very interesting game. In the beginning, I wasn't really that interested in the game, because I didn't like the animation or level design that much. But something made me continue, and in hindsight I think that something must have been the charm of the game. Psychonauts has some pretty mature themes handled in a very dark comedic way. I realized this after finding a secret surrounding one of the characters in their level, which changed everything about how I viewed that character from that point. This game reminds me a lot of self-aware cartoon movies such as Terkel i knibe [Terkel in Trouble], and the twist in the end that was completely uncalled for really cemented that similarity in my opinion. I didn't care much in the beginning, but I was hooked towards the end, because the level design finally stepped up, delivering some very good final stages. The music was pretty solid too, though it actually bugged out from time to time unfortunately. I thought the game handled mental illness as a topic very well too, presenting a world where mental problems can be fixed by someone jumping into your brain and fixing your bad thoughts. It is a very interesting premise, and raises further discussion about the morality of scrambling other people's brains, which feels like something the next game can elaborate further on. But for now, this game is good enough as it is for a discussion about mental illness.

A game that somehow manages to surpass the first one. I loved the gameplay in this one. It doesn't seem nearly as bullshit as in the first game, but instead a lot more strategic. Sure, there are still attacks that are complete dogshit, but they are a lot fewer, so you can strategize around them. Overall I would say the music in this game is better, even though Blue Rescue Team has some tunes that are better individually. The best thing about the game, however, is the story. It isn't the most complicated of stories, but it is damn effective at conveying its feelings. And I don't know what it is, but I found myself cutting onions at the end of the game yet again. The game was truly at its best during the final dungeon, it being suitably difficult, and many unorthodox strategies had to be used to clear it. Haven't got much else to say, this game was a blast to play and experience, and I hope the other games in the series are this good!