I am incredibly conflicted on New Super Mario Bros Wii. So much so to the point where I am reconsidering a lot of the criticisms I levied on the DS original. This game always existed in my mind as a fun nostalgia piece, much like many of the famous Wii titles that my generation of gamers ooze over. However, coming back to it, I realized the game has many more flaws than just being an "alright game".

We're looking at one of the best-selling games of all time right now so I will just run through the things everyone says about this title. The game controls smoothly, exactly as you'd expect it to and I never found a hiccup anywhere. I'd even say that it's fun to run around in this game, more so than the original. The spin allows for much more leeway when platforming and being able to play the game from the Wii remote upright with a nunchuck or the Wii Pro controller means that anyone can play in any way they please. Music is alright, although incredibly generic and quite repetitive, as even for someone who has a soft spot for these games and their soundtracks, I got really tired of hearing the same song for every grass, water, or desert level. Level design is good enough; nothing ever feels like it pertains to the particular world's theme but they do a good job of introducing ideas and expanding on them. Although that's where my praise towards level design stops and my criticism begins.

This game has nothing interesting going for it, and I feel it makes the game feel even more painfully generic. With the original, I at least remembered most levels when playing them again and a few levels genuinely stand out to me as unique ideas. Nothing about this game is memorable. I played it in the span of a week and the only level I remember is the second to last level because the star coins were so difficult. Speaking of, why do the star coins exist in this game other than as a stand-in collectible? What do they do? They unlock a special world, sure but that could be unlocked after you beat the game normally anyways. Super Mario World doesn't force you to collect all the dragon coins in order to unlock it's special world. What else can you do with these collectibles? Spend them on hint videos that would not be necessary if you had no star coins in the first place. These things are literal contradictions in this game, their only prize is themselves which basically makes them pointless to collect in the first place. Not to mention they are not hidden cleverly at all because you really have to go hunting if you want to find these things. Most of them are hidden in an unnoticeable wall or barely take any effort to find as they just take a well-timed wall kick to reach. So effectively these things have no reason to exist, as all they do is pad out the game.

But of course, that's just if you want to beat the game to completion. What about those who just want to run through the game? Well then I am sorry for you because this game's difficulty dips and spikes sporadically like it has some kind of quota it has to fill. Most of the difficult levels are placed somewhere in the middle of the world and are usually only difficult cus they restrict something like your vision or natural progression like a sidescroller, and they can really be pace breakers. Not to mention the levels attempt to actively harm you for exploring which further puts the star coins into question. All around my feelings about the pace of the game is best summed up in World 8 where levels that take place in dark caves make it difficult to find your way through but have some genuinely creative ideas at play, there are lava rollercoasters that are probably the most fun part of the game and then the final castle just finishes the game with no interesting mechanics and no final gauntlet that tests your skill of the game like the original. I actually got all three star coins and beat the final boss in one try, it was that much of a breeze. Which pretty much sums up the whole game if you're just running through it. It's a breeze.

So those are my feelings on New Super Mario Bros Wii. Coming back to this honestly made me think about why people do not like this game as much as the original and coming back to it made it clear to see. The game has no reason to exist or be a sequel other than to cash in on 2D Mario hype and was pretty much the place that any hope for New Super Mario Bros to improve as a franchise died. I will always love this game but I will never want to return to it, not when the original outpaces it in every way.

A classic game that has, in all honesty, held up fairly well. Quite possibly the most influential game of all time, Super Mario 64 has so much to offer in such an old and small package. The main gameplay of the game is great, even for the Nintendo 64's awful controller but this game was basically made around that controller. The movement can be odd somtimes, as there can be dropped inputs all over the place, moves just not working right and times when you just question the game design. The game can be plagued with invisible walls and broken set pieces that just do not move as intended. However, it has so much charm in every corner, from the dialogue of toads, to the secret rooms, to the random characters you meet in your adventures. This game's main collections, the famous Mario stars, are incredibly fun to collect and almost each challenge can be completed while having fun. The story is bare bones but the lore contained within some of the castle walls is so deep that it makes up for it. Overall, a charming game to introduce Nintendo into the world of 3D and has captured the hearts and minds of player for decades. Give this one a try if you get a chance, it's an incredibly great piece of videogame history.

New Super Mario Bros 2 is like vanilla pudding. Nobody hates vanilla pudding because there really is no content to hate. Nobody loves vanilla pudding because there is no content to truly enjoy. Vanilla pudding is just the baseline and your enjoyment of it really comes down to if you find it tolerable enough to eat for the time being. That is New Super Mario Bros 2 and I do not think I have to explain why, but I am going to anyways.

Well I suppose what makes up the sugar content of this vanilla pudding should be up first. The stuff that's actually truly enjoyable about this game makes up a good 1% of it. New Super Mario Bros 2 fixes one of my biggest problems with New Super Mario Bros Wii, the star coins. In this outing, the game's main collectibles are actually useful again and are not hidden in invisible walls the way they were in the Wii game. The star coins are always hidden in just the right places to give you enough of a feeling of satisfaction without making it a chore for the player.However, some levels do not hide their star conis at all. Not even early game levels, I am talking about the last levels in the game I would collect all three of them in one run. Of course, all of that collecting is made easier by the power-ups which in my experience actually felt useful and unique compared to the game's predecessors. In DS and Wii, the unique power-ups to those games were really only ever used to find secrets and in the case of the propellor mushroom, actually provided a slight advantage, despite only being in like 5 levels. In New Super Mario Bros 2, you are actually forced to pick which power-up you think is best for solving a problem, which really only boils down to your choice of the tanooki leaf or the fire flower. Both are quite underwhelming and better implemented in other games but you will find that's a theme as we delve deeper into the game.

Speaking of game, how is it? It's bland and uninteresting, unsurprisingly. The art style and music lack uniqueness as both are essentially a blend of the previous two games, but mostly taking heavy inspiration from Wii. In the case of the music, it actually is the exact same as Wii and has no identity of it's own as far as I could tell. You find that a trend throughout most of the game, as boss battles include the koopalings, level themes and even the multiplayer are all ripped straight from Wii. Coin Rush, while admittedly one of my favorite things about the game, is just a single player coin battle from the Wii version. From red coins and checkpoint flags to secret cannons and hidden blocks, this game is just a rehash of everything that it's predecessors did with no added input. There really is nothing you can say about this game because it is not bad, it's just bland and the least interesting choice, yet you still find yourself coming back to it every once and a while.

Ask anyone who has played this game if they have fond memories of it and most of them will say yes. People who played this game liked it and still like it to this day, it's just when you compare this game to every other game in it's series, it is the literal definition of a middle child. But rating a game in context of others is not how I like to think about games. I always try my hardest to come to a conclusion about a game without thinking about what was done in other games, and only judge a game based on what it did right. Remembering that promise I made to myself, I just have to say that New Super Mario Bros 2 is a fine game. It's incredibly easy and it has no appeal to it whatsoever but it being a comfortable romp on it's own merits a good review.

With all of that being said, I come back to my vanilla ice cream analysis. Because if you ask someone who has never had a sugary treat before in their life to sit down and judge vanilla ice cream, they would tell you it's delicious and likely the best thing they have ever had. That will always be this game's legacy to me, something I wish I could have experienced as my first platformer so I could just appreciate it with ignorance.

It's design principles are very much so similar to its predecessor. And that is still very much so a good thing. A good half of this game is you just feeling like "oh its BotW again. Fun 😊." But then you get to the that third temple and the cracks really started to show and youre like "oh its BotW again. But kind of not as good." It's still got shrines but it's best puzzles don't take enough creative use of Ultrahand. Then you releasing that sometimes ascend can just straight up break the game in terms of travrersal. Then you notice the really crappy AI on your champions and they basically never do what you want you want. It starts to get more tedious doing shrines. Systems are still very physics based but it just never quite feels like any of that matters because of how easy it is to abuse the systems. Which is a little impressive in its own light but eventually I just realized I don't wanna actually go through and fully 100% this and I feel like there could be more to the main gameplay loop that made me want to 100% complete it but I just couldn't.

Fuse and Undo are super cool and really good systems though. Fuse and the new level of item scarcity really made collecting stuff so important. And I think it combined with what felt like a very big level of item scarcity that felt fair made interacting with the cooking and fusing to become so much fun. You really have to ration your resources in this game. Until late ga

Persona 3 Portable is the biggest "mixed bag" game I have played in a long time. There are obviously a lot of good elements here, I would not have played for nearly 90 hours if there was nothing redeeming this game. However, there are also a lot of things holding this game back and I hope that within this review, I can break down what works and what doesn't.

I would like to start with the good, the best of the good being the characters and theming. There is some absolutely excellent writing being shown off here by the Persona team, and the introduction of social links to the series makes for compelling gameplay. Between Persona 5 and Persona 3, this game absolutely has P5 beat for social links. Akinari, Maiko, Mutatsu, President Tanaka, Saori, and Bunkichi are the greatest standouts of the side characters, each grappling with the theme of loss in their respective stories. In terms of the main cast, Akihiko, Shinjiro, Koromaru, and Mitsuru stand out as excellent examples of how to write believable high schoolers without making them feel like stereotypes or archetypes. There are very few characters I would really call bad in this game, although Ken is seriously wasted potential considering his place in the main story compared to his social link. I have to say that I could not completely get into Aigis' character the way others have, not to say that I disliked her character but I simply did not feel she resonated with me the way she did others. Meanwhile, the themes in this game are as strong as ever. The persona summoning is done through means of suicide, the music constantly mentions the coming destruction, and the arcana ends in the Death 13 card. I can see why some people consider this their favorite game of all time, because going purely off of themes, this is one of the best games ever.

However, I do not critique games purely on theme alone, so allow me to indulge my mixed feelings before heading directly into the territory of what I consider bad. First off, the story, which starts off very passively, gradually grows into a much larger narrative toward the middle, before entirely halting just before the climax. This makes the game's story feel really slow at one of the most important parts. The entire month of December lacks any social links, which means your daily life goes from hanging out with friends while the threat of the end of the world looms over everyone, to a boring month of doing absolutely nothing while the characters learn to accept the things that they already accepted months beforehand. I partially understand why this was done from a theming perspective, December is supposed to be an incredibly depressing month for the game's story. But from a storytelling perspective, giving the player nothing to do as the story reaches its peak really kills momentum and just had me going "Can this be over already?" by the time January rolled around. Secondly, menus and UI. The main system menu is decent but a little bland. The battle UI wheel is a little confusing, with left going right on the circle and right going left, as well as inconsistent UI memory in battle. The real struggle with UI comes in the Velvet Room. Because of the limitations of the PSP, I understand why menus had to be dulled in some places, but cutting manual selection for skill inheritance and being unable to sort by name in the Compendium really made me want to tear my hair out. The mechanic that the game gets its namesake from should not be unfun to interact with but so many times I found myself skipping out on a visit to the Velvet Room that would have been otherwise beneficial to my playthrough, simply because I did not feel like it. The lack of skill inheritance picking especially made me feel really unattached from my personas and I found myself not interacting with the card systems, simply because I knew I would be throwing my personas out during my next Velvet Room visit anyways. Finally, for my mixed feelings, I want to discuss the combat. At certain times, the combat feels really fun to go through. Balancing SP usage, using critical hits and co-ops to save SP where I could, and landing a powerful move exactly when you need it all made me feel very connected to my party members and really pushed me through the worst of Tartarus (don't worry, we'll get to it soon). On the other hand, there were times when combat felt like I would press three buttons and then mash A to get through the all-out attack cutscene as fast as I could. The lack of enemy diversity is more so a problem with Tartarus than it is the combat, but ultimately it is the combat that suffers because of this choice. On each block of Tartarus, there are, at most, 10 unique combat encounters. Combine this with the fact that each floor of Tartarus has you go through anywhere between 5 or 10 combat encounters and you tend to run out of unique problems to solve by about a third of the way through the block.

Now I really get to tear into this game's worst features. First off, the obvious, is Tartarus. It really is a marvel of modern game design that in the year 2009, P-Studio can look at 263 randomly generated hallways with no visually unique style separating one floor from another aside from a hue shift and the occasionally added decoration and go "yeah, change nothing." I really do not know how you would go about making this better but P-Studio sure did not do it. I would always reach my Tartarus day, put my headphones in, turn on some music or a podcast, and just accept that the next 5 hours of my playthrough would be mindless RPG grinding and walking down long hallways. Finally, my greatest critique of this game, exclusive to this version of the game, is the presentation. The presentation of this game cost it a full star in my mind. Almost everything else, even the mind-numbingness parts of Tartarus could be excused if the entire game were not presented in this disgusting visual novel style. I understand that the PSP was a very limited piece of hardware and I'm not asking for fully animated cutscenes for everything, but man they could at least let more than 2 PNGs on screen at a time. It's really hard for a scene to emotionally capture you when the scene consists of 2 still characters talking at each other over a crunchy jpg and sound effects convey each action the characters take. This is not a big deal for when two characters are talking in class, but a major death scene in this game is ruined because you can hardly even tell when the character has been killed because all that signifies their death is a gunshot sound effect, the character grunting, then the sound effect of the character falling to the ground while their sprite stays completely still. This is then followed up by every single character onlooking to gasp or interject with a scream, simply to remind you that the character is there. It shouldn't even be too much to ask to have the 3D models in the background of these cutscenes, even doing simple actions, since one of the final cutscenes has this happen for dramatic effect. This presentation takes away a lot of tension and emotion from scenes that would otherwise be the most emotional game of all time.

Ultimately, do I think Persona 3 Portable is a good game? Yes. Do I think it's a great game? Almost. There are a lot of pieces holding this back which really sucks since this seems to be the only way you can play a good amount of the content. But it also seems to be lacking content from other versions of this game. It ultimately feels like the game you play after you play Persona 3 or Persona 3: FES. This really sucks because for many people, myself included, this is the only way they can play Persona 3 at all. It seriously makes the news that the Persona 3 Remake will be excluding both FES and Portable content, only furthering the gap of content in this game. I would say, play Persona 3: FES first if you have the opportunity, but if you cannot, this is not the worst substitute.

When starting this review, I would like to preface that this is my first entry in the Grand Theft Auto franchise. With that being said, this game is an absolute masterpiece from start to end. I had already dabbled in the GTA Online mode for quite some time before playing the game so I knew what I was getting into going into this but I wasn't expecting the campaign to offer this much in terms of content, personality and story. The focus on the three main characters and your ability to swap between them changes up both gameplay and how the story feels. Each character plays different and has different ways about going through missions with some leniency to allow for the player's own unique experience. Somoe plot details are hidden from characters which really builds tension in the game's story. Speaking of the story, it is absolutely perfect for the way this game presents itself. It never takes itself too seriously while still hitting some important emotional beats that will leave you satisfied in the end. Apart from the main gameplay, there is so much side content to be done that the game never truly feels empty, even after completing the campaign. Rockstar does an amazing job of worldbuilding here just as they do in every one of their games. Minor nitpicks I have would be about the general driving experience. Cars can control really weird sometimes with one slight bump to the control stick, then suddenly you've spun out completely, and the AI in this game can make some odd decisions while driving. Overall, an absolutely amazing story and gameplay experience that runs on for just the right length and never tires the player out.

What an absolutely fantastic game! I could not give this game the praise it deserves if I spent all day. The visuals and art style are so aesthetically pleasing that I could just look at scenery and enjoy myself. The gameplay does everything to make for a fun experience, from climbing up mountains to surfing down cliffsides, fighting monsters and discovering new items, this game is just constantly a blast to play. The puzzles are challenging yet never impossible. Collectibles are abundant and always make you feel worthwhile for getting them which says a lot for a game with literally thousands of items. The biggest problem with the gameplay is the items occasionally breaking but if anything, I feel this keeps the game fresh and makes it so you really have to pick and choose what you want. Music is always pleasant on the ears and never interrupts the game experience, only adding to it. The storytelling is masterfully crafted so you never have to feel like it's a burden but you can keep discovering more and more, from memories to old relics. Some of the lore leaves more to be desired which is upsetting but gives further room to expand on the lore in the future. All around a perfect gaming experience and will even get someone who doesn't like Adventure-RPGs to beat this game.

Persona 3 Portable is the biggest "mixed bag" game I have played in a long time. There are obviously a lot of good elements here, I would not have played for nearly 90 hours if there was nothing redeeming this game. However, there are also a lot of things holding this game back and I hope that within this review, I can break down what works and what doesn't.

I would like to start with the good, the best of the good being the characters and theming. There is some absolutely excellent writing being shown off here by the Persona team, and the introduction of social links to the series makes for compelling gameplay. Between Persona 5 and Persona 3, this game absolutely has P5 beat for social links. Akinari, Maiko, Mutatsu, President Tanaka, Saori, and Bunkichi are the greatest standouts of the side characters, each grappling with the theme of loss in their respective stories. In terms of the main cast, Akihiko, Shinjiro, Koromaru, and Mitsuru stand out as excellent examples of how to write believable high schoolers without making them feel like stereotypes or archetypes. There are very few characters I would really call bad in this game, although Ken is seriously wasted potential considering his place in the main story compared to his social link. I have to say that I could not completely get into Aigis' character the way others have, not to say that I disliked her character but I simply did not feel she resonated with me the way she did others. Meanwhile, the themes in this game are as strong as ever. The persona summoning is done through means of suicide, the music constantly mentions the coming destruction, and the arcana ends in the Death 13 card. I can see why some people consider this their favorite game of all time, because going purely off of themes, this is one of the best games ever.

However, I do not critique games purely on theme alone, so allow me to indulge my mixed feelings before heading directly into the territory of what I consider bad. First off, the story, which starts off very passively, gradually grows into a much larger narrative toward the middle, before entirely halting just before the climax. This makes the game's story feel really slow at one of the most important parts. The entire month of December lacks any social links, which means your daily life goes from hanging out with friends while the threat of the end of the world looms over everyone, to a boring month of doing absolutely nothing while the characters learn to accept the things that they already accepted months beforehand. I partially understand why this was done from a theming perspective, December is supposed to be an incredibly depressing month for the game's story. But from a storytelling perspective, giving the player nothing to do as the story reaches its peak really kills momentum and just had me going "Can this be over already?" by the time January rolled around. Secondly, menus and UI. The main system menu is decent but a little bland. The battle UI wheel is a little confusing, with left going right on the circle and right going left, as well as inconsistent UI memory in battle. The real struggle with UI comes in the Velvet Room. Because of the limitations of the PSP, I understand why menus had to be dulled in some places, but cutting manual selection for skill inheritance and being unable to sort by name in the Compendium really made me want to tear my hair out. The mechanic that the game gets its namesake from should not be unfun to interact with but so many times I found myself skipping out on a visit to the Velvet Room that would have been otherwise beneficial to my playthrough, simply because I did not feel like it. The lack of skill inheritance picking especially made me feel really unattached from my personas and I found myself not interacting with the card systems, simply because I knew I would be throwing my personas out during my next Velvet Room visit anyways. Finally, for my mixed feelings, I want to discuss the combat. At certain times, the combat feels really fun to go through. Balancing SP usage, using critical hits and co-ops to save SP where I could, and landing a powerful move exactly when you need it all made me feel very connected to my party members and really pushed me through the worst of Tartarus (don't worry, we'll get to it soon). On the other hand, there were times when combat felt like I would press three buttons and then mash A to get through the all-out attack cutscene as fast as I could. The lack of enemy diversity is more so a problem with Tartarus than it is the combat, but ultimately it is the combat that suffers because of this choice. On each block of Tartarus, there are, at most, 10 unique combat encounters. Combine this with the fact that each floor of Tartarus has you go through anywhere between 5 or 10 combat encounters and you tend to run out of unique problems to solve by about a third of the way through the block.

Now I really get to tear into this game's worst features. First off, the obvious, is Tartarus. It really is a marvel of modern game design that in the year 2009, P-Studio can look at 263 randomly generated hallways with no visually unique style separating one floor from another aside from a hue shift and the occasionally added decoration and go "yeah, change nothing." I really do not know how you would go about making this better but P-Studio sure did not do it. I would always reach my Tartarus day, put my headphones in, turn on some music or a podcast, and just accept that the next 5 hours of my playthrough would be mindless RPG grinding and walking down long hallways. Finally, my greatest critique of this game, exclusive to this version of the game, is the presentation. The presentation of this game cost it a full star in my mind. Almost everything else, even the mind-numbingness parts of Tartarus could be excused if the entire game were not presented in this disgusting visual novel style. I understand that the PSP was a very limited piece of hardware and I'm not asking for fully animated cutscenes for everything, but man they could at least let more than 2 PNGs on screen at a time. It's really hard for a scene to emotionally capture you when the scene consists of 2 still characters talking at each other over a crunchy jpg and sound effects convey each action the characters take. This is not a big deal for when two characters are talking in class, but a major death scene in this game is ruined because you can hardly even tell when the character has been killed because all that signifies their death is a gunshot sound effect, the character grunting, then the sound effect of the character falling to the ground while their sprite stays completely still. This is then followed up by every single character onlooking to gasp or interject with a scream, simply to remind you that the character is there. It shouldn't even be too much to ask to have the 3D models in the background of these cutscenes, even doing simple actions, since one of the final cutscenes has this happen for dramatic effect. This presentation takes away a lot of tension and emotion from scenes that would otherwise be the most emotional game of all time.

Ultimately, do I think Persona 3 Portable is a good game? Yes. Do I think it's a great game? Almost. There are a lot of pieces holding this back which really sucks since this seems to be the only way you can play a good amount of the content. But it also seems to be lacking content from other versions of this game. It ultimately feels like the game you play after you play Persona 3 or Persona 3: FES. This really sucks because for many people, myself included, this is the only way they can play Persona 3 at all. It seriously makes the news that the Persona 3 Remake will be excluding both FES and Portable content, only furthering the gap of content in this game. I would say, play Persona 3: FES first if you have the opportunity, but if you cannot, this is not the worst substitute.

Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales is really everything you expect it to be: more Marvel's Spider-Man. In some ways, it improves upon the original and makes it a more definitive experience. In others, it uses mechanics from the original in a way that just feels inferior to it.

Firstly, the story is pretty good and does a decent job of building upon Miles' character. However, it does feel like a side story, not because of the lack of focus on Peter, but because of the lack of focus on Miles. The original Marvel's Spider-Man already does a lot to establish Miles as a character, and I think it does a really good job at it. But it leaves this game to have to clean up the scraps, while simultaneously not pushing things too far that it ends up ruining his arc in the upcoming Marvel's Spider-Man too. So you're caught up in this story about Roxxon, an energy company with a pretty blatantly evil CEO, and the Underground led by the Tinkerer, who is more of an anti-hero trying to take down Roxxon. I realized about halfway through that the main story is not really about Miles at all. It's more about his relationship with each of these entities, which still works out very satisfyingly but does not really feel like a cohesive arc for the character.

Next up, is the gameplay. Solid as always. Swinging is satisfying. Miles has more tricks than Peter did thanks to his venom powers. Fighting feels much more deep thanks to the venom powers as well. Venom jumping, venom punches, and venom slams are all so satisfying to pull off properly and chain into larger combos. Stealth even got a big improvement in this game thanks to Miles' cloaking powers. A lot of what would have probably been slow sneaking sections with MJ were replaced with actually engaging puzzles that involve brain power and smart mechanics. My problem with the gameplay stems from an issue the original had as well. There's just too much crap. The whole world is stuffed full of items that I just don't feel like getting. It's all so easy to collect too. Scan an area, punch a wall, grab a thing, and swing on your way to the next thing. The activities like Spider-Man training, crime-fighting, and Roxxon/Underground bases are all very fun. But I hope that all of these worthless collectibles get removed from the sequel because it's just bloating up these games. Maybe that is why this game is so short, too.

Which brings me to my final point, the game's length. This game is really tiny. Normally I am not one to complain about game length. I don't care if a game is 6 hours long or 100 hours as long as it uses every hour respectfully. But everything about this game just feels too short. It feels like it had to be rushed so they could continue the development of Spider-Man 2. The story feels like it stops right as it's getting good, the fighting and swinging mechanics don't get enough time to really stick around long enough to make them feel as deep as they are and it feels like the amount of collectibles only exists to make up for that lack of length.

Overall, I still enjoyed my time with this game, and if you're simply looking for more of Marvel's Spider-Man gameplay this will be well worth your purchase. But this game is more like a Star Wars Clone Wars than a real entry in the franchise. Just something bite-size to chow down on if you're already a fan of the original. I do hope they bring a lot of the gameplay improvements, such as venom powers and stealth, back in the next game. Hopefully, they will not do Miles as dirty as they did him here in his own entry.

During E3 2006, Reggie Fils-Aime of Nintendo called this game "The first worthy successor of Super Mario 64" and he was right on the money with that one. This game takes everything done in previous 3D Mario titles and just makes it the best it can be. More levels, more characters, more story, more platforming, more exploration; everything in this game is dialed to an 11 which culminates in the ultimate Mario experience. The story in the game is the same Mario tale seen again and again but this time Nintendo added some flair to everything which makes the story feel incredibly dramatic. Rosalina brings some much needed lore to the world in small dialogue bits that flesh out the world without making you feel like you have to know everything and it is perfect. One thing that I harshly disagree on with most criticisms of this game is that it lacks the exploration of Mario 64. Most Mario 64 levels are not nearly as big, nor nearly as open as Galaxy and nothing highlights this more than the Purple Coin comets which replace the 100 Coin stars of Super Mario 64 and Sunshine. These stars allow you to explore everything these worlds have without hiding too many collectibles in tucked away areas that the player would never visit otherwise. Speaking of those stars, how are they in this game? Fantastic. Every challenge in this game is incredibly fun to play and nothing ever feels like you're going to the same place to grab basically the same star twice like in 64. The progression is set up perfectly so that you have plenty of time to fully understand the environment and challenges, making the beginning stars an absolute breeze (in a good way). Some challenges are a little more tedious than others but none so incredibly hard that it makes you want to throw your controller. Finally, we come to easily the grandest point in this game's favor, the soundtrack. If you have heard anything of Galaxy, automatically people will say "the soundtrack is the best in Mario history" and they are always right. Every song in this soundtrack is nothing less than a beautiful orchestrated piece that fits the tone of the game just right. Some repeat here and there but with how beautiful this game's soundtrack is, you would not mind hearing it another go around. If I had to criticize this game for anything, it would be the overreliance on motion controls and the camera going a little wonky every now and then but it's nothing too crazy distracting to where it can really bog the game down. All in all, Super Mario Galaxy is an absolute blast of a good time and even if you just want to play it through to the 60 star finish, I would give it a go, but if you really enjoy it, get all 120. This game was amazing to play and astronautical to complete.

I was always wondering why I never beat this as a kid and now that I've played it as an adult I realize why. The game is just not designed all that well. Platforms are too tiny for how slippery this plumber is. The game constantly feels like it's rushing you and with how short each level is, which means you can beat the whole game in like an hour, even if you're taking your time. Enemies don't provide anything other than points that add nothing to the gameplay. Breaking blocks more often hinders than helps so it's better to just ignore everything and reach the end as fast as possible. If I played this in 1985 I wouldn't think it's the future of gaming. I would think that somebody ported an arcade game to a home console and thought to change nothing. Because that's what it is, an arcade game. It feels designed to waste your time and suck tokens out of you through cheap deaths and crap mechanics. It's really just frustrating to play all around. I think people would look at this a lot differently if it wasn't one of the best-selling games of all time and didn't start one of the biggest franchises in gaming history.

Windjammer 2 is a game with an absolutely fantastic concept with a fun artstyle and characters bogged down by an absurdly high barrier to entry. Despite being one of the better day one releases on Game Pass this year, it's sad to see this flop all because of its lackluster tutorial and bare bones content. If there had been an easy to get into tutorial, a practice mode, some challenge modes and a sizable online experience I think this game could've done amazing but as it is, it's just going to be a game most people pass on because it felt like the fighting game community would love it by default. Sad to see this spiritual successor to a NeoGeo classic go unloved but that's just what happens when you don't put that passion needed to make a game truly great.

I've had a complicated history with 3D World, it was the last console 3D Mario I owned, I started it and never 100% beat it in the summer of '19 because I could not get past Champion's Road for the life of me. Come Summer of '20 I sit down and decide I'm gonna grind through it and I beat it, unceremoniously. I think it is important to contextualize what it is that made 3D World not live up to the hype.

Super Mario 3D World follows a similar level design idea to that of Super Mario 3D Land. The game is set in a 3D isometric world that makes it look like a 3D Mario and play like a 2D one. It makes the levels a good baseline for anyone who wants to jump into the series. That being said, World differs from Land by being a bit more open. Each of Land's levels are a bit tighter and Mario has restricted movement to make the levels flow much more naturally. Super Mario 3D World has sporadic level design, with the game often shifting what you are doing constantly. Some of them introduce their levels well. They introduce an idea, expand upon that idea and then challenge a player's understanding of that idea. Levels that come to mind are Double Cherry Pass or Switch Scramble Circus. Then you take a look at levels like Champion's Road which has the player introduced to new elements presented in new ideas constantly. Or if you want to use the excuse that Champion's road is the ultimate Act 3 or a Mario level then consider the Boo houses in the game or the ninja house levels. How many levels in 3D World can you remember that even have that three-act pattern? When people say 3D World has good game design, they are cherry-picking to the extreme.

Although I will admit there was a lot of good in this game. The green stars are very well implemented and as long as I sat back looking for them, I usually found them on my first try. In some instances, they were even placed in really nice spots that make the player feel accomplished for searching around, such as in an invisible maze where there's a glowing spot for the player to ground pound and when they do, a hidden path appears to the star. On that note, completion is a rough thorn on the rose of the 3D World. I love completing 3D Mario's. Seeing that max star count in Super Mario 64 is what I live for. So when I look at 3D World in comparison I groan. Super Mario Odyssey has a lot to do but that whole lot is paced so well, with so many tips as to where you need to go and it all flows into the next so well that I never feel booted from the action. 3D World is very different because of the 2D Mario style. If you miss a green star, you have to go back and play through the whole level to find it. Three hundred and eighty stars, along with a collection of stamps and hitting the top of every flagpole with a character makes this game a pain in the ass to get through. I think this could have easily been toned down without removing the collectibles entirely. Get rid of the stamp houses and the mushroom and flower worlds. Each little thing the game forces me to do for completion makes me feel like the game is padding out its runtime. There is no need for a captain Toad level in every world that acts as a complete pace breaker, even though I do like the Captain Toad levels. There's no need for a stamp house or twenty different secret bosses blocking my path. Half of the stars that you get in 3D World are not even from finding things in levels, most of them are just end-of-level completion which does not give the player any gratification when they complete other levels and get nothing. I like this game, I really do but they need to tone things down with the collectibles

Finally, we come to the minor issues and praises for this game. Firstly, this moveset does nothing for me. The multiple characters really felt like a way to make the movement "interesting" because there are hints where I really like a character but it fades and I always switch back to Luigi because he's objectively the best and even he feels bland at times. The power-ups are what helps in this regard because this is the most power-up heavy Mario game and it works. While the cat bell does take center stage, I found myself often wanting a Tanooki Leaf or a fire flower just because of how well-balanced everything is in terms of enhancing the player's abilities. I do wish they had brought back the pocket system here because I do find myself looking for an item constantly only to realize I have none.

All in all, Super Mario 3D World is an incredible game that feels like a true translation of the 2D Mario formula into a digestible 2.5D format without being entirely uninteresting the way that Super Mario 3D Land was. Although I do just wish that the game wasn't effectively made with 4 casual players in mind because single-player experiences are more my pace.

So Valorant; the shooter made by the same team behind League of Legends has a lot going for it. It's good, it's fun, it's pretty enough now that the game has had a few polishing updates, but its hard to say much beyond that.

The game takes inspiration from a lot of other shooters, and that's obvious the second you boot it up. The tactics of CS:GO combined with the chaos of Overwatch should be a no-brainer, right? Well, it's taken some tweaking and it really shows by the fact that the game has been getting frequent updates with character patches all the time and metas that evolve less so around the players and more so around the devs. Some characters are insanely fun to play, like the crazy setups that can be done with Cypher or the high-octance anime battles that can be done as Jett but other characters like Yoru are gimmicky at best and just not fun to play as at their worst. No character is completely unplayable but the fact that almost no one plays smokes willingly says a lot about your game design, especially when said smokes are an incredibly crucial part of the game.

But so what if the character meta is a little weird at times, the gameplay is tactics based so it should be consistent and fun, right? Well not really. They're fun when they work and when people play the game as intended but often times, you will catch people running and firing, camping in corners and hitting shots that just should not be feasible. There are an infinite number of clips of a bullet going nowhere near someone and landing a headshot and its hard to say a game feels fair when that happens. Each of the guns has their own strengths and weaknesses that don't feel as strictly enforced as they should (i.e. judge killing at ranges up to 20m and op killing at ranges as close as 2m) and its just hard to call the game a tactics game when the mechanics are so janky.

Now for the most egregious part of the game and what inspired me to write this review in the first place, the ranking system! Dear god, this game has a terrible ranking and placement system. The game not only does nothing to prevent smurfing but actively encourages it, by allowing people to join all smurf account lobbies for the first 10 unrated and counting surrender wins, meaning you can have 8-10 accounts ready to go in about 2-3 hours, but they actively encourage it. Riot Games has done nothing to prevent this problem and it gets worse as time goes on. Now I know high elo players like to say just "git gud" but I don't see why I should have to grind ranked for hours, study gameplay and reach Plat just to have an enjoyable experience. Online games should be fun and competitive at all skill levels and smurfs completely ruin that, requiring me to play solo or duo queue if I want to have an enjoyable ranked experience, as full teams usually end up just being completely crazy. Which Riot fully admits to by allowing Diamond and up to only duo queue. They admit that their ranking and queueing system is broken by having this rule! Which you think would spur them on to create a better ranking system but they just have not bothered. In a competitive, tactics-based shooter such as this one, fairness in competition is of the utmost importance but I almost rarely run into games where my team completely stomps the enemies or vice versa.

Regardless, I would like to say some positive things about the game, because I do believe there are positives. The mechanics and ideas are genuinely fun, combining abilities with tactical gunplay makes for a really fun shooter experience. The maps are mostly well-designed, with a few exceptions and the problem of far too many corners to clear, but overall the maps really dictate the strategy. The fact that I don't particularly love nor hate most maps proves they designed them well because it shows that they at least made them fair. Gun skins are actually really cool, even if they are incredibly overpriced, but it isn't exploitative like most shooters are these days. Character designs are well-made and the personalities and history behind each character make them feel real, even after hearing the same voice lines over and over. The lore, while scarce and underwhelming at times, is probably one of the most fun things about the game.

Overall, it's kind of just an average shooter that if nothing else have made me want to try out CS:GO and boot up TF2 for the first time in years which probably isn't a good thing. A game should probably not actively make me want to seek out it's competition, especially when it's competition is 10-15 years older than it. It needs a heavy breakdown of its mechanics and I think it would be best if Riot brought on someone who has actually made a shooter before, because they clearly can't do it completely right, even if they get the tactics thing right. Incredibly fun to watch, not as fun to play, which says a lot about the game.