Crash Bandicoot 4 is the best Crash game without a doubt. From it’s incredible artstyle to its (mostly) great levels with fun mechanics, it’s kinda hard to say it’s not the best game in the series. The n verted levels are especially incredible and I loved replaying my favorite levels in a whole different mode. It being a crash game, theres of course gonna be some unfair bullshit, but most of that doesn’t come up until the end of the game. The annoying levels are annoying, but it’s hard to bring myself to dislike them because of the artstyle and how the levels look. It’s weird, I know, but that’s what I think. Except the final level in the game fuck that stupid ass shit who ever thought that was a good idea to put in the game? Anyways, Crash/Coco control really smoothly. Jumps are precise 90% of the time, which was a massive problem in the other crash games where’d you’d fall off a ledge because of the camera or crash being very slippery. The little marker under crash when you jump helps out too. But, crash isn’t the only playable character, there’s still 3 more. Tawna is extremely fun and my favorite out of the three bonus characters although I wish there were more levels with her. Dingo and Cortex on the other hand.... not a fan. They’re both really slow and clunky, the aiming for both of them never works and just feels like a chore to play, it sucks. Luckily, there’s not many levels where you play as them though. And yeah, those are my brief thoughts on Crash 4. I could talk about the insane amount of collectibles but, what is there to say that hasn’t already been said. Anyways, Crash 4 is the best crash game and one of my favorite platformers ever.

Well, I finally did it, I finally beat Hollow Knight. A game that has been sitting in my backlog for a few months, but I finally wrapped it up. Hollow Knight is such a weird game to me, because I loved the second half but wasn’t a fan of the first. When you first start the game you don’t know how it works, you don’t fully understand enemy patterns, your moves are limited to simple attacks, making a very tedious first impression. But as you progress, it gets better. Up until the hornet fight I wanted to turn this game off but I kept telling myself “no, I will not drop this game, I will experience it from beginning to end.” 40 hours later and here we are.

Hollow Knight is not only a great game, but my favorite indie game (better than hades yes). As someone who doesn’t like indies after trying dozens of them over the years, I’m glad I was finally able to find one that clicked. The game starts off in dirt mouth, a dying town full of fog and dim lights, with very few remaining life. It already shows what this game is not even 10 minutes in. It is about you, the knight, traveling through this vast dying world to stop the infection from within. The games story is told through Npcs and atmosphere, which does a great job at conveying a depressing tone. The atmosphere is just phenomenal, and the gorgeous artstyle makes it even better. Each area in the game is distinct with its own unique personality and life to it. In the city of tears you are greeted by a rainy/dreary city, with a depressing tune playing in the back. The ancient basin is at the bottom of the world, the place you were born. The eerie and unsettling tone hits you from the moment you enter by showing you the lost souls of your fellow companions, slowly trying to escape their misery and escape to what’s left of the desolate wastelands above. These are my two personal favorite areas in the game, but nearly all of them are great (fuck you crystal peaks). Alongside the atmosphere you have the npcs, which add so much to the overall story and immersion. Every npc has a personality to them and a backstory that you can understand immediately just by looking at them. It’s great. The designs are so great, so unique, so distinct, especially the bosses. The bosses are one of the highlights in the game. While a good chunk of them are tedious (let’s say uhhh.. 40%?), the good ones are some of the best boss fights in any game ever. With Hornet and hollow knight being the best. One thing that’s rare is for me to have fun when dying to the same boss over and over again, which weirdly enough happened in this game. Fights like the soul master, hornet, hollow knight, dung beetle, and more were always fun regardless of how many times I died. Every time I return to a boss room I feel stronger. As you progress through a fight you understand the moves, the weaknesses, the patterns, spots for healing, which makes every try feel different from the last. Most games I die to a boss and go “what a fucking terrible fight” while in hollow knight I can die 20 times and still (mostly) have a great time. The gameplay itself is pretty mid and pretty fucking great at the same time, creating a weird blend. The main part of the game is of course the exploration, this being a metroidvania and all. Before you get abilities like the dash and double jump however, the exploration is very tedious. Even after receiving these abilities there were times where the platforming was just annoying and sucked total ass but it was easy to forgive. And then the combat which is... something. I don’t hate the combat, but it definitely could’ve been better. There’s a lot of customization options to make it better such as charms and weapon upgrades, but even at the end of the game I was still not satisfied with it. Luckily, it looks like silksong will be improving upon it in nearly every way.

The atmosphere, the tone, the story, the gameplay, the characters, the music, all create an incredible product in the end that everyone should play at least once. There are a lot of problems, sure, but most of them vanish as you progress and reach that end goal. And once you reach that end goal, you get an incredibly satisfying and emotional conclusion to an already fantastic game. I still have some things to do before I’m truly done with the game but as of right now all I can really say is

Play Hollow Knight.

Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is such a fantastic game and I wish I realized it sooner, way sooner. Going into this game I was expecting about the same experience I had with the original on the Wii, which was very hit or miss to where it barely even scratched a 8. However, the remaster completely flipped my views on the game.

Now, after replaying the game with qol improvements, I can safely say that it is one of the best Zelda games I’ve ever played and my favorite game I’ve played this year so far. Had such an amazing time with this game compared to the original, and this is mainly due to the new controls. While motion controls are still around (and somehow worse), there’s a new option for button controls, which allow you to control your sword using the right stick. This is such game changer, one so big that I can confidentially say that SSHD has the best combat in the series (the button controls obviously). But it’s not just my thoughts on the controls that went up, but everything from the mechanics to bosses were way better for me. Pretty much everything is the exact same as it was in the og with minor improvements, yet I still had a way better time with it. The dungeons are fantastic, the most consistent in the series tied with TP. My personal favorites are Sandship, Ancient Cistern, and Sky Keep. These ones stand out to me for their unique designs, puzzle solving, and all around enjoyment. They aren’t the most complex dungeons in the series, but they serve their roles very well, even if they lack challenge compared to some other games. The mechanics, while heavily improved in botw (stamina, gliding, upgrading, etc) are still very fun in SS, and I had an especially great time looking for items to upgrade my wide arsenal of gear. Then you have the world, which is my favorite in any Zelda game. The world in SS is so well crafted, so gorgeous and full of life, and all of this is topped off by the excellent world building and lore that makes this feel like a genuine place that I can see existing (unrelated but One Piece basically made me appreciate this game more due to my new found appreciation for world building and design).

I basically talked about everything that stood out to me, so before I reach a conclusion I want to list smaller things that I still really loved alongside a few flaws. For starters, the story. While basic, it is still very charming and a great time, even if the pacing is a bit messy near the halfway point and end. It’s a story heavily focused on the world more than plot or characters, which is why I love it so much. Then you have bosses, which are among the best in the series. You still have your fair share of piss easy/forgettable bosses, but the ones that really stand out are absolutely breathtaking. The main ones I loved are Ghirahim, Demise, and Koloktos, which are all equally challenging and fun, topped off with fantastic designs and spectacle (primarily prevalent in Demise, which may be my new favorite Zelda final boss). Everything about this game was just fantastic pretty much lol.

Now for the end. I’ve been rambling on and on about the game so I’m just gonna end it here: Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is a phenomenal game from start to finish, and a gaming experience that I will never forget. There are some problems, but in the end the sheer amount of greatness in the game outweigh all of them. Such a magical game apart of a magical series that I adore with all my heart.

Games haven’t been that much fun for me lately. I often find myself bored out of my mind playing them and it has been like this for quite some time. There are exceptions to this, but very little, and I’ve felt this way since October when I finished God of War for the first time. I don’t know why I fell out of love with games but it did upset me for a bit. It upset me because I fell out of love with a medium that originally meant so much to me, but I think that might’ve changed. Playing Link Between Worlds, I had such a fantastic time, so fantastic that I actually have motivation to play more games. And if you’re close to me, you know that this is a pretty big deal.

Legend of Zelda: A Link Between worlds is a magnificent game that uses the medium to its full advantage. It is very similar to Hollow Knight where it tells such a beautiful story through atmosphere and exploration, and seeing everything it presents come together during the final boss (which is the best final boss in the series btw) was breathtaking. That whole scene with Hilda, which I’ll get to later, was beautiful and I’ve never felt this way about a Zelda story in my life until now. And this is complimented with the overall gameplay and structure which I will now get into and focus on very briefly, since the real meat of this game is within its story, which I’m saving for last.

At first sight ALBW seems like your typical Zelda game. You start it as a normal boy living a normal yet boring life, until you find yourself in the mist of a grand adventure that started by pure coincidence. You do some dungeons, get the master sword, do some other dungeons, and then you beat the game. It’s structure is actually very similar to OOT, where you get three items, get the master sword, then go after the Seven Sages. It sounds simplistic, yet it’s so damn good fun. I had a blast going through this world finding secrets and secret areas that I couldn’t get to yet, it felt like a true adventure. Going around the world multiple times, marking areas on my map for later, planning my routes and what order I’d do dungeons in, it’s all so fun. This is very similar to how I felt playing Hollow Knight, and I think playing that game made me enjoy the adventure aspect of certain games way more. The world in ALBW isn’t that big and there isn’t all that much variety, in the normal world that is. The big thing with this game is that there are two worlds to explore: Hyrule and Lorule. Hyrule is your stereotypical Zelda world; you have your normal grassy fields, water based areas, large mountains, giant maze like forests, and deserts, it’s nothing special but it still works. Then you have Lorule, which is where the meat of the game lies. You’ll spend a large chunk of the game here, only occasionally going to Hyrule to buy items and get to different areas in Lorule via portals that are scattered across the map due to how the world is formed. Lorule is a very disconnected place; there are large gaps in the earth, broken bridges, and large cliffs, making it harder to traverse around seeing how you need to move back and forth through dimensions in order to get around, but this is what makes Lorule so good. While the world doesn’t compare to Skyward Swords world or BOTWs, Lorule is still a very special and unique place. It’s this desolate wasteland overrun by monsters, and I think the disconnected nature of Lorule does a great job at representing this. It’s a great parallel to Hyrule, which is this happy bright place where people live their normal lives. Yet in Lorule, it’s all dead. The people are unfriendly because of the nature of this dark crumbling world being held up by the remaining hope they have, the areas are opposite as to what they are in Hyrule, and there are a large sum of monsters. Look at it this way: Hyrule is 80% light and 20% dark, while Lorule is 80% dark and 20% light, maybe less. It is the perfect parallel to Hyrule and the perfect depiction of a crumbling world that is slowly getting to the point where it’s beyond saving. I love it. I love lorule, I love the atmosphere, I love everything about it. It also gives us the best overworld theme in the series so extra points for that. A big component of traversal is the ability to become a painting, which allows you to walk inside of walls. It’s a very fun mechanic that is never overused and it really makes it feel like you’re apart of this world. To sum it all up for the world: Lorule is an impressive landscape that perfectly parallels that world of Hyrule, while also telling a story through its atmosphere and exploration. (I didn’t touch upon the dungeons or overall combat, but it’s fun and very consistent. Not much to talk about here)

Now, to get to the REAL review, the component of ALBW that made it an instant favorite and potential top 1. The story. I went into it a little bit before by showing my love for Lorule, which directly connects to the story. To summarize: ALBW tells its story through it’s world. While simplistic at first, it takes a turn that I really wasn’t expecting. It isn’t anything grand, it’s not Evangelion or Berserk, but it’s still something that I was able to love and appreciate. Let’s start from the beginning: You wake up to do your job as a blacksmiths apprentice, but you’re late. And because you’re late, you’re forced to take a sword to a knight that was forgotten at the blacksmiths place. You then find yourself in Hyrule Sanctuary, which is where you meet Yuga, the main antagonist of the game. And from here, you start your adventure. Your quest to defeat Yuga. You do three dungeons, with two giving you charms that allow you to unlock the master sword. Once you do so, you unlock Lorule after getting to where the story truly begins. You get to lorule castle, see Yuga revive the dark beast, then get introduced to Hilda. After the Seven Sages that were kidnapped are spread throughout the world you go around Lorule searching for them in order to receive the triforce of courage so you can defeat Yuga. Its your formulaic adventure story for the most part, but as stated before it is mainly focused on the decaying world of Lorule, which all comes together to deliver a powerful ending. After getting to the final boss it is revealed that Hilda (lorule equivalent of Zelda) was actually using you in order to get the triforce of courage, which would allow her to rebuild Lorule after falling apart due to her ancestors destroying Lorules triforce. This is where ALBW became a game that cherish greatly. Something that the Zelda series never does is give you a good understanding of the triforce and the reigns it has on the world. You know it can grant wishes and you know that it’s something everyone seeks after, but you never get to see the effects it truly has. ALBW does an incredible job at showing the greed that spawns from the triforce, the danger that it possesses, the grasp it has on the world, but also how it’s a symbol of light. And without light, you just have darkness, the darkness that has consumed Lorule, but also the darkness that is being held back by the hope of Hilda. And this is why I love the story of A Link Between Worlds. It tells a gripping and somewhat emotional story about light vs darkness, and everything that resides within both. It’s such a beautiful story that nearly made me tear up, especially near the end during Hilda’s development. Her character is built around the despair created by darkness, and how you need the small amounts of hope left in order to defeat it. And I really love stories about hope, so I really loved this game. A lot.

A Link Between Worlds is a beautiful journey of light and darkness, it is an adventure between two sides of the same coin that is complimented with fantastic gameplay and world building. Creating a magical journey that I will try to revisit every year.

10/10

As someone who is unfamiliar with the Souls series because of how long I’ve been avoiding it, I’m glad that I can finally say that I’ve completed a game in the series. I’ve been avoiding the series due to its difficulty, but once I clicked with one of the games my views on the subject completely changed. The difficulty is what makes this game, it’s what makes it the most fun game I’ve ever played. Nearly every single boss is a giant test of skill that constantly pushes you to the edge and I loved it. If this game was any easier, it’d be boring as shit, it wouldn’t feel rewarding, and it just wouldn’t be fun. So yeah, it feels good to finally beat a souls game.

Intricate level design topped off with breathtaking atmosphere and immersion that makes you feel like you’re truly exploring this gigantic world in person - while also telling a story just through exploration. All brought together by a terrific score that you can’t find anywhere else and combat that’ll just make you feel ‘good’. You can’t forget the bosses either, easily the highlight, so many greats in here with unique designs that you’ll never forget…. like fr, hollow knight is soooo good!

Ok real review fr: Metroid Dread is a pretty good game, but it’s a little bit inconsistent. Hollow Knight kinda spoiled me and made me think all metroidvanias played a certain way, so maybe I went into this with the wrong mindset, idk. But why is it inconsistent? Well, one second I’m enjoying it and the next second I want to blow my brains out and this happened at least 10-12 times during my eight hour playthrough. There is a lot of good though, the combat is fantastic and traversal is honestly better than Hollow Knight, but the actual level design just isn’t that good. The game isn’t really immersive, at all. I never felt like I was truly exploring this world for myself while watching a story unfold right before my eyes by just taking in the atmosphere. Also, this game gives you no freedom if I’m being honest here, and this is my BIGGEST complaint with the game. In Hollow Knight there is always a ‘right’ way, a way the game wants you to go, but it also wants you to take alternate paths and explore the world in depth. So really, there isn’t a right way in HK, the way to progress is up to YOU, the player. Stuck on a boss? Simply leave and come back later. Don’t like this area? Do the same. But in dread you can’t really do this due to how linear the game is, making the 1-2 times where I got lost feel REALLY tedious. If you’re lost in HK there is always going to be some type of path that leads to something new outside the “main” path. In dread, this doesn’t exist. If you’re lost you have to find the ONE right way. But maaaaybe this isn’t a big problem because this only happened about 1-2 but I’m not gonna act like it never happened. There are also the bosses which my god these fucking suck ass. There’s only three, maybe four bosses in the game I enjoyed, and one of those bosses you fight like 6 times so by then is it really a good boss anymore? However the final boss is fantastic, peak gaming I unfortunately have to say. Just wish the entire game kept up with that quality.

Despite its faults, Metroid Dread is still a really good game and one I’d easily recommend to people trying to get into this genre… before you play Hollow Knight though, so you aren’t disappointed by how much this game pales in comparison. Still great though!