"Until the day we meet again"

Gonna pump out some Shinra propaganda for listening while you read this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftFF70_9cog

Bai Gawd it has been a wonderful year for so many great new releases and this one has yet again topped my list so far this year. I am definitely a major fanboy for this one since I grew up around this Final Fantasy as my introduction to this life changing series for me. From playing the games, watching my brother play it, to watching the Advent Children movie when we were younger and reaching this point now and playing the next installment of this remake. Revisiting the locations and witnessing some of these scenes and nearly improving in so many areas and the party feels so alive and the interactions made my heart so damn happy. This game is a rollercoaster of emotions in a great way! From laughing out loud to the unexpected jokes to the tearful emotional moments.

Overall gameplay has been definitely improved on and I love how the quicker you think ahead pays off with the synergy moves and making nearly every party member so damn fun to play and experiment with. RED XIII was definitely one of my absolute favorites to play with! I love how the other party members are in the background in some of the fights as well and you can see them fighting other enemies as well. Could not believe how much mini games they threw in here as well and all are pretty nice to breakup the repetition and have you always doing unique things and Queens Blood is definitely the brightest most addictive diamond of the bunch.

I knew the soundtrack was gonna hit me with some damn fine tunes like the first installment did, but of course I still underestimated them. I will also say some of the side quests are pretty good to do and the banter between party members is so good and makes for some additional lore and fanservice for our favorite characters except Chadley who can go suck a Chocobo egg! I loved how much Barrett was fleshed out in this one they did his story with Dyne damn well and goddamn that man is such a badass party member to have once you get into late game territory.

By no means is it the perfect game, but for longtime fans of the original it is one hell of a treat and I am curious to see where they continue to go with telling the story in its new ways. I was on the fence about this one with its new twists and turns to the story changes, but I feel like it worked out really well. I am definitely cool with waiting a bit for the next part considering all the RPGS I still need to get to, the new and old ones! I could certainly go on and talk about every little detail, but I don't wanna be like these game trailers nowadays that tell you every little thing about games and want you to experience it for yourself!

Remains one of my favorites of all time so many years later. I'm sure it helps that this was one of the first games I ever owned, but there's still such a zen-like quality to running and jumping around the most beautiful PS1 pastels and polygons while Copeland's perfect score accompanies every moment. Full completion is a breeze and rarely frustrating (Tree Tops aside of course), so much so that you could probably knock out this entire game in a weekend if you wanted.

I'll keep coming back to Spyro until the day I die, you can count on that.

Stunning art - world, rich and clever;
Renaissance mice and voles and more.
Charm recalls classics I adore,
90s Sam & Max, however
the dialogue became a chore.
The worldbuilding became ignored,
memes cheapen what was once clever;
my expectations were severed.

Every fibre of my being wanted to love this, and in many ways, I do. However, I often felt weary of some aspects of the game. Some of the zones you travel to are very cumbersome, making it a pain to complete the numerous and dull side activities. That being said, the best parts were the linear parts that follow the main story, which hit unbelievably hard. The worst part of the whole thing is that it feels like no minigame idea was turned down. Some of which are mandatory, and some have weapons behind them. If you are a completionist like me, you'll have a rough time seeing everything the game offers.

My brother and I used to mess around with Pikmin as kids, and I always loved the little guys, but I think I was not prepared for the level of challenge it brings when I was 8 years old - I'm not sure we got past the second world. Pikmin 3 is one of my favorite games of all time, and Pikmin 4 is not far behind, so I thought I'd head back to the roots of this franchise now that they've made their way to Switch.

Pikmin is held back only by the AI, which I am sure is the best we had available back in 2001. The fact that you can effectively control 100 soldiers on a map for an RTS game with a controller was already a miracle. Pikmin 1 is best described as a well-executed proof of concept - over time, this basic idea blossomed into a masterpiece in later titles. I was thoroughly addicted and stuck to the screen for the 8 hour adventure, looking for new strats and racing the clock to retrieve all my rocket parts. I'm so glad this game exists and existed when it did, and it holds up quite well on its own.

Pikmin 1 is brutal and tests your survival abilities in a way that has faded out of the series, and it's something I think I can live without. The racing clock is stressful, with the threat of permadeath looming over you, but I managed to escape with all 30 parts on day 28 due to careful planning and knowing when to replay the day once or twice (or eight times). I wish the Pikmin were smart enough not to constantly drown themselves, or know when to pick up items, or even know the shortest way back to camp, or understand they can't dive into pits of fire, but that's just life innit. It's interesting to see how Pikmin evolved in this game from mindless, expendable drones that you're expected to lose hundreds of to cherished friends you'll die protecting in Pikmin 4. I can't wait for Pikmin 2! Coming soon.

I’m obsessed with aesthetics and environment design. Striking ideas woven into something's presentation gets me giddy. My tendency to undervalue a game's positives when its art direction is lacking—and vice versa—is my most identifiable bias. I often say I’m a visual person and that’s something I take pride in, but it can be a curse.

I loved how Halo Infinite felt when I first played it. There is immense joy in grapple-hooking across its open-world, using my full kit to come out unscathed against a dozen bosses, and the bone shattering explosion when popping an Elite’s head with a sniper rifle. Gunfights, the new utility equipment, and the sound/feel of each weapon is accompanied by exceptional weight. Approaching battles in any number of classic Halo ways, and adapting when things go wrong, is enormous fun.

But Infinite’s campaign didn’t click years ago. It’s obsession with rehashed aesthetics stretched over the franchise’s longest campaign to date underwhelmed me. I thought I might have just been overly cynical, so after the addition of co-op (alongside the latest update finally letting me play without crashing), I was itching to revisit it.

Yet not much has changed. Infinite is painfully uninventive. Its biome is limited to homochromatic grassy plains littered with identical trees and hexagonal pillars. It does a decent job keeping this region fresh with mountain peaks, ravines, and little swamplands, but it feels more like a single MMO zone than the focus of a full game. Some adore the way this world looks and I don't necessarily disagree; it's lovely in a vacuum. If this were a slice of what Infinite had to offer, I'd speak of it fondly, but the over reliance on that concept loses its novelty fast.

On the other hand, its missions are properly dire, with few memorable set pieces alternating between minimalist forerunner structures and dark metal military bases. In particular, the last four or five missions are chock full of reused blue corridors. I have no love for the spiritless presentation of this campaign. It’s as if it was designed by the only person on Earth whose favorite part of Halo is The Library in Combat Evolved. Regardless of their many mechanical flaws, both Halo 4 and 5 are significantly more exciting in scope.

Infinite ends up coming across as a demo; an unfinished experiment revealing what this franchise could look like when thrust into an open-world. It successfully proves that Master Chief running, gunning, flying, driving, and grapple-hooking throughout a massive map is tons of fun, but it doesn't have much meat on its bones.

I've never been narrative-obsessed when it comes to Halo, but it’s fitting that the plot boils down to a convoluted attempt to get a Cortana-esque A.I. quipping with the Chief like the good ol’ days. It’s a “here's what the next big step for Halo looks like” without actually taking steps to push the series forward. It's 343’s attempt to get back on the “right track” through a reboot of sorts.

But even after the launch, there was reason to be excited for its future. “Infinite” as a title wasn't related to its themes, but instead signaled the beginning of a 10-year plan. No more numbered entries or sequels. Infinite would house Halo for a long time. And that was exciting. Its first expansion could have knocked it out of the park.

That reportedly fell apart. Story expansions are not in development, the Slipspace Engine might actually be a total mess, and the campaign was originally planned to be much more. You can watch the Infinite engine demonstration on YouTube to see how few of these ideas made it into the final game: In my review at launch, I wrote “much of what was revealed in the announcement trailer is not present. Where are the large animals? The rain? The oceans? The snowy mountains? The moonlit groves occupied by stags? The raging thunder? The shifting deserts? The coiling trees? The waves of great bulls stampeding? The underwater vehicles exploring ruins? The beaches?”

So yeah, Infinite feels like a demo. And after revisiting, it’s still an unbelievable mess on PC. My girlfriend crashed dozens of times, and I couldn’t play for years because it wouldn’t stay open for more than a few minutes. Half of the time we respawned, we couldn’t swap equipment. During the final mission, we had to do it without dying because checkpoints were broken, and if we failed, it would reset the level. Sometimes we’d lose big chunks of progress out of nowhere when loading our save.

And I'm sad to see Halo once again promise the start of something new yet end unfinished. We were meant to explore more of this Halo ring, see what the Endless would turn into, and probably get new weapons, fight more bosses, and unlock extra equipment. With the potential for more environments and less dire campaign missions, I was looking forward to it.

Infinite is tons of fun when it works, but it's rarely exciting to look at. I can see why people love it; it feels great in your hands, but the other half of what I look for in Halo isn’t here.