An absolutely fantastic ride from start to finish with a shocking amount of variety, impeccable vibes, fantastic audiovisuals and addictive gameplay. The ending wraps up everything in a wholesome, feel good way after which you can keep playing, diving and running the restaurant. Definitely one of the most creative, original and unique games I've played in a long time.

If I had to single out some negatives, I would say that the localization is definitely lacking. Also, each of the many disparate mechanics are rather simple and straightforward. But there are so many of them, this game might as well be in the dictionary under "greater than the sum of its parts".

Thoroughly loved it, perfect summer game.

An absolutely gorgeous game with a lovely soundtrack. The controls are a bit finicky, but nothing serious. Quite a bit of variety in the gameplay, I enjoyed gardening, photography, kayaking, making tea, going to the market and exploring the countryside.

I have to admit that the last four chapters didn't resonate with me as the first four did. The last two in particular went in a direction that I just didn't connect with and felt a bit rushed to boot. Overall, Dordogne is a wonderful game that makes you think about your childhood, family connections and life in general.

LoFi Hotel is truly wonderful, you play as an owl travelling on a giant turtle with a huge tree on its back. As you fly through the clouds you're tasked with saving cute animals on separate islands. The art style is fantastic, but the soundtrack is absolutely the standout feature of this game. Fat beats, laid back grooves and chill melodies make for a relaxing atmosphere. Each animal has a favorite track and you get an achievement if you discover which one it is. As you rescue animals, each one will provide hints about the game and clues regarding another animal's favorite track. I was completely motivated to rescue all the animals and find all the tracks.

Unfortunately, the writing is not quite there and is further hampered by absolutely atrocious English localization. This is Google Translate level of quality. Another major negative is the "gamey" part. As you rescue the animal spirits, there are these inexplicable mushroom enemies that fly directly towards you. If you don't navigate around them, you lose gems used to unlock animal shelters on the tree. This isn't really a big deal because you can get quite a lot of gems anyway, but it's just that the gameplay itself is not only bad, but also flies in the face of the chill, relaxing vibe of the game. Another case where a simpler design would have resulted in a better game.

I went into Pentiment without really knowing all that much about it other than having a genuine interest in its setting and art style. Of course, it being an Obsidian game meant that it could be as brilliant as Pillars of Eternity, original as Alpha Protocol or as boring as Tyranny. After being a bit overwhelmed at the start, what I found was a game unlike any other I have ever played. The level of detail and commitment to its theme and setting is unprecedented. This thing was made by a team of 13 people and the fact that they put so much effort into fonts is just a tiny showcase that this project was clearly a labor of love.

Pentiment is an adventure game with some light role-playing elements that sees the protagonist tackle a murder mystery. The main story beats will be the same regardless of what you do, but you do have a lot of leeway in creating the background and personality of your character and you do impact certain events. You're also on somewhat of a time limit, so this is about doing the best with what little you have. But the thing about Pentiment is that it isn't really about solving a murder. This game is about the journey, it's about your character, it's about the town and the people in it as you witness events unfold over a period of 25 years.

I fully believe it is best to experience this game going in knowing as little as possible, so I'm not interested in going over the specifics. Suffice it to say that this is undoubtedly one of the most brilliant, engrossing and unique games I've ever read.

I thought this was a really fun and creative game that provided a fresh take on the action genre and quite a bit of variety as well in its design. I think this is the only game in which I consciously nodded my head and tapped my foot to the beat in order to skillfully dispatch enemies. It plays great, looks great, sounds great - even the story is a refreshing throwback to a very simple, silly premise with likeable, one-note characters. My only big gripe is the action genre trope that I dislike the most - multiple boss forms. The last three bosses all have three forms, it's quite tiresome.

I found it a rather bittersweet affair with a lovely story that any adult can relate to. More importantly, I thought it was an excellent example of storytelling that plays to the medium's strengths. The puzzle-like gameplay of the actual unpacking was pretty cool as well, although I have to admit I was kind of happy to finish it - and this is not a long game by any means. The pixel art is absolutely lovely, but I had no idea what some of the items were so it was just a matter of trial and error, which I found tedious. Overall, a very nice game that's definitely worth playing both for the gameplay and the feels.

As much as I liked XCOM: Enemy Unknown and disliked XCOM 2, I've grown to really resent both games for popularizing the dumbest and most boring take on combat systems in turn-based strategy games. In Planetfall it's even worse. The painful slog of positioning, the annoying RNG, the cheap AI. This style of combat really has no purpose other than to be frustrating and soul-crushing. It's not HARD, I'm winning easily as I did in both XCOMs, it's just stupid and devoid of strategy. Stop copying XCOM combat, it's cheap, frustrating, boring and provides no strategy whatsoever. The Civilization part of the game is pretty shallow, the story is terrible. I was looking for some kind of hook in this game, but there just isn't one.

At first I wasn't sure what to think as the controls were kind of slow and sluggish, but once my ability got stronger, I was traversing the world with a huge smile on my face. However, the snow level was an absolutely boring and frustrating slog. I also felt that the enemies and the inconsequential multiplayer were unnecessary attempts to "gamify" an otherwise fantastic experience. In the end, I thought that Journey was an absolutely gorgeous and wonderful game brought down by some questionable design choices, which seems to be par for the course for thatgamecompany.

What could have been a touching, poignant story about a woman living out her twilight years in a desolate, harsh rural landscape ended up being a boring and frustrating experience despite its brevity. As it often happens in video games, the developer bit off more than they could chew and delivered a convoluted story mired in pretentious writing and unrealistic characters and dialogue. Frustrating controls and interface along with occasional bugs certainly didn't help, but the worst thing about this game was that by the end I just didn't care about any of it at all.

Fullbright of Gone Home fame expanded on the seminal game's formula, but it didn't result in a superior experience. Where Gone Home told a very simple yet impactful story that completely fit its small scale uncommon in video games at the time, Tacoma tells a rather worn-out story of something-went-wrong-on-space-station. But that's not my main issue. After all, you can take a rather unoriginal premise and do something very unique and interesting with it. The problem with Tacoma is that it's boring and unconvincing. And the resolution feels forced and downright cheap.

Tacoma does introduce an interesting way of examining the crew's lives and how they handled the precarious situation, but their personalities, choices and dialogue are completely tedious and dull. I also didn't care for the world-building. Fullbright sets a scene in which obese people are allowed to man high-risk jobs in extreme conditions and out of a total of half a dozen crewmembers, two are in a gay relationship and two in an interracial one. Two crewmembers are tasked to pull off an extremely complex task in 48 hours that everyone hopes will save them all, but they still find time to have sex in the meantime. It's all just so laboured and, quite frankly, preposterous.