idk, man, it's Diablo 2, what do you want from me. one of the greatest to ever do it. hang Diablo 2's jersey from the rafters. frame it and put it in the louvre. let it retire to a peaceful life in the countryside.

A few years ago I reinstalled Diablo 2 from my battlechest disks and tried playing it and, man, all the quality of life type stuff that all the other ARPGs of the last twenty years is really nice and having zero of that in Diablo 2 was kinda rough because I am a big baby. But also it turns out Act 1 on Normal also just kinda sucks (at least for the classes I tend to play). You level up pretty slowly and it takes so long to really get going. So back in the day that made me put the game down pretty quickly. But not this time! I persevered and also they added just enough nice little QoL things that I truly do not mind the ways in which the game didn't get "updated".

I played all the way through on the updated graphics and they are, largely, fine but they really make me glad there's a quick toggle to swap back to the old graphics because it's so easy to see how artistically inferior the new shit is. Yeah, sure, it's all 3d rendered and got nicer lighting and particle effects and whatever but the vibe is wildly different. The darkness isn't as consuming and oppressive. There is so much more gray and brown. If you are interested in Diablo 2 as a Game To Click On Things then it doesn't really matter much but if you care about Diablo 2 as Art then it extremely matters!!

It's kinda wild to me that they've made balance changes and even added new items and runewords and shit! Somewhere there are people hiding in a basement hoping that the bean counters don't find out about them and ask "wait, you're spending how much time on this? for a game with no battlepass? or microtransactions? from how many years ago?" and I love that for them. It's cool to see it get items with some new mechanics and also they fixed Summoner Druid to be Actually Viable and I appreciate that a lot because I love all my killer puppies and big bear friend and weird forest spirit tentacle creature.

Act 2 was always my favorite act as a stupid teenager. But oh my god duuuude the fucking Maggot Lair!! All-timer for Worst Dungeon. Gotta be one of the worst. Trying to just move around is bad enough but then having to fight shit, too?? And good fuckin' luck if you're a dope like me who likes to play summoning classes. The rest of it is pretty alright. Just gotta watch out for those stupid lightning beetles, y'know.

Diablo 2 Nightmare Difficulty is still the sweetest sweet spot. You've got solid gear and you've got quite a few skills leveled up. You can actually kill shit and not immediately fucking die. It feels so good to play. It's the best part of the game. And then you get to Hell Difficulty. And it is so aptly named. You really gotta do a lot of extra farming for more levels and more loot and it's so miserable. I am simply past my "spending all day farming stuff" days. I got better shit to do. Apologies to socketed items and runewords and high-tier set items, I am simply in a different part of my life now.

Act 3 isn't good and it was never good. Annoying-ass maps with annoying-ass enemies, fuck Durance of Hate, fuck Mephisto, fuck Act 3, all my homies hate Act 3.

Playing this with someone who played the game once many years ago (long enough that this was essentially a fresh experience) was an absolute treat because so much of this game is deeply burned into my brain. Hearing reactions to story beats that I basically didn't remember because I was a hardcore ladder girly who didn't care about the story was fun. The first time we hit some beetles in Act 2 and got wrecked by lightning, they made some noises that were somewhere between a shriek and squeal and it was a delight. I highly recommend this extremely specific experience of playing the game.

The end of Act 4 is so fucking funny, dude. Like, imagine getting Diablo 2 before the expansion and the game just fucking ends there. Modern games could never. Extremely funny.

There's a new thing with "Terrorized" zones and I have no idea what's going on there? Like, the affected area has all the enemies made to be your level +2, so you can use areas you wouldn't normally be revisiting to get level-appropriate XP and loot but I don't fully understand if that's better than just your classic Baal runs or whatever-the-fuck.

Act 5 sure is Some Shit, huh. This time around I really noticed the small changes in things here. How, even back in 2001 or whatever, they were iterating and pushing on what was possible in the game.

I still haven't ever gotten to level 99. Or fought an Uber Diablo. Or gotten and Annihilus or Hellfire Torch. And I probably never will. And that's okay! But if I ever somehow get that desire, then this is a very solid version of the game to do it in!

In an industry that is so obsessed with franchises and selling you the same shit over and over and loves to do "remakes" that fundamentally change important aspects of games, this is one of the absolute least egregious examples of modern remake-thinking.

The first time I ever beat this game was back in 2022. After playing Forgotten Land when it launched, and really enjoying that, I was still in a Kirby mood and decided to beat one of the few mainline games I haven't already. While not bad overall, I found this notably weaker than Dreamland 1 for several reasons. I was a bit generous back then tho and gave it a 6 like I did Dreamland 1. Well coming back to it again, yeah It's still weaker than Dreamland 1 and I'm dropping it to a 5 now.

That's not to say there aren't some things this game improved on compared to 1. Overall, Kirby feels better to control in this one which is nice. While I'm nostalgic for the first game's ost, this game might have it beat overall. Sure it reuses a lot of tracks from Dreamland 1 and Adventure, however it's original tracks are actually really damn good. Coo's Theme is the real standout here, goddamn is that some good shit. Visually it also looks nicer than Dreamland 1 I'd say, though still doesn't look that great overall since it's still a Gameboy game.

The main thing this game added though were the animal friends. The aforementioned Koo the owl, Kine the fish and Rick the hamster are the three buddies in this game. They're a fun addition and change the gameplay up. Since copy abilities are back, each animal friend actually has their own version of each one. They greatly vary in usage though. Koo with parasol is amazing while Rick with needle is most of the time awful. It's a cool idea, that gets expanded on way more in Dreamland 3, however the execution here is very hit and miss.

Something you can use these animal friends abilities on are copy ability specific blocks. These usually block the main collectable in this game, the rainbow drops. To get 100% in this game, and fight the true final boss, you must get them all. Let me tell you, some of them are a huge pain to get. Not only are the later ones cryptic, the one where you have to use Kine + electric is just straight BS sometimes because of what you have to do to get it. If you know you know, but either way you most likely won't be getting these without a guide.

Other than that, the game just goes on for way too long I feel. To beat Dreamland 1, it takes around and hour or less (most likely a half hour) which is perfect for the type of game this is. Dreamland 2 might improve on 1's controls a bit, but it's still a Gameboy game and it's around 4 hours long to full complete everything. That's way longer and as such it just drags on near the end. That, plus the level design can be very hit or miss. Most of the levels are passable I'd say, however the game really loves its auto scrolling levels and these can be a bitch sometimes with it being a Gameboy game. And of course there's the infamous auto-scroller with the instakill dead ends that is pure trial and error and yeah that one is pure dogshit.

Along with the rainbow drops, to get 100% you have to also do these star collecting minigames and also find the female Gooey once. Gooey is this blobby guy that replaces an animal buddy if it gives you the one you already have. He just gives you some health back if you collect him. However there's a 1/8 chance it'll be a female Gooey instead and finding her actually contributes to 100% which is weird but easy to do in a certain level luckily. The star minigames you can do after going into the boss door again after you've beaten them. You have to collect every star and get a perfect in every world because this contributes to 100%. The minigames themselves are fine enough, however if you get hit or miss a star, you can't play it again until you go and beat a stage. I get why they do this as it's easy to grind lives if this wasn't in place, however the fact you have to do this for 100% just means it wastes time if you lose which isn't fun.

This is the first in the Dark Matter trilogy and so after we defeat Dedede at the end, we get to fight Dark Matter for the first time. Get used to doing that as he's a regular throughout the trilogy ofc. I remember the fight being more frustrating back in 2022, but here it wasn't too bad. Decent introduction to them as a main antagonist of the trilogy.

While I quite like Dreamland 1 and 3, I don't have much of a connection to 2 at all and I personally think it's a lot more flawed compared to those two games. It improves on some things from 1 but is also way longer and drags on because of that. Not to mention it's annoying to 100%. It's not a terrible sequel but I personally think it's a downgrade compared to 1 even if the animal friends and copy abilities being here are nice. I'll take 1 any day of the week over this.

This is yet another Kirby game I had yet to play prior to this Kirbyathon. I was honestly feeling a 6 most of the time I was playing, and was thinking this is the best Kirby spin-off thus far (after Dream Course). Then the endgame happened.

Let's start with the positives first though. This is basically Kirby breakout and it's generally pretty fun. You break blocks by bouncing Kirby against the paddles, typical breakout basically. The twist here, besides being Kirby themed ofc, is 4 of Kirby's staple copy abilities are in the game and used as power-ups. Stone let's you destroy anything directly below you, burn anything directly above you, needle stops you in place briefly and let's you cling back onto a bumper and aim again and spark bounces you sporadically destroying any block in your path more effectively. This was probably the coolest part of the game. Like Dream Course, the copy abilities are implemented super well into the actual gameplay.

Each level also has a boss at the end, like Pinball Land, but unlike that game I was actually able to beat (almost) all of them this time around. They can be pretty fun but watch out you don't get thrown into the spikes. Luckily in the stage prior to the boss, you can get a sneak-peak at what the boss will be as well as the opportunity to get safety blocks that cover the spikes in the boss stage.

The OST was alright, I saw some reviews saying it was really good but I can't say any of the songs stood out imo.

Now for the endgame, the later stages can be quite annoying with their block placement and the use of 4 bumpers around the screen. The 10th stage, I even decided to save state past that first section cuz it was just so obnoxious. The hit detection on the bumpers can be wonky, which I can't discredit the game too much since it's still a Gameboy game, however it still led to some frustration in the endgame. That plus you can't even play the final level and get the true ending without getting a certain score threshold in each stage. I did this only once in stage 9, and it was by complete accident. I tried to beat the required score a couple of times in stage 1, but I think there's also a secret time requirement (from one of the reviews I read on here) and with how random the game can be with being able to hit blocks in time, yeah no thanks. I know they did this, so it would make you replay the game a bunch, however it's still a bummer.

Overall, it's a decent little game however the true ending being locked to a somewhat frustrating 100% and the endgame levels being kinda frustrating brings it down a bit. It's a fun little time waster, and definitely better than Pinball Land. And yeah, this is yet another game I technically wasn't able to beat due to the 100% requirement. At least I beat every other stage in the game otherwise.