The perfect setup for me. As an avid SCP enjoyer, seeing this game on the horizon made me super excited. And I'm happy to say they really nail it. The Oldest House is disorienting, bizarre, and enthralling. The Objects of Power and other strange phenomena harness that SCP creepy/eeriness extremely well. The only points I can take off is for the gameplay, which to me eventually started feeling a little samey towards the end. The Hiss enemies were definitely growing tiresome. Other than that, an incredible, weird journey.

100% Completion Notes: I loved this trophy list as it's one that encourages you to see all there is to see. And boy is there a lot to see in the Oldest House. The DLCs were excellent as well, and as an Alan Wake fan, the tie ins were amazing to see.

Likely my favorite modern horror game. I never played the original, so even without nostalgic glasses on, I was enthralled. The game is gorgeous and runs like butter on most systems, and the zombie animations are the best I've ever seen. I enjoyed the story in this one much more than the first, it just seemed a liiiitle more grounded (as grounded as an RE game can be) and more character-focused. Each playthrough is relatively short and worth your time. X gon give it to ya.

100% Completion Notes: My second RE completion and much like RE1, a real joy. I just love playing through the shorter campaigns over and over, each time focusing on a different objective/achievement (speedrun, no item boxes, S ranks,etc.). Some of the DLC missions and their related achievements were an insane spike in difficulty, however. Be warned!

Death's Door is an endearing homage to original Zelda games, having you explore depressingly beautiful levels and taking on a varied cast of foes. The game is well polished and presented to the player, and I found myself growing very attached to my cute little crow friend. If you're fan of older-school games with an overworld/dungeon formula, this one may be worth your time.

100% Completion Notes: In order to get all of the achievements in one run, I had to use the starting umbrella weapon for the entire game. While it did make things more difficult, it's the exact kind of challenge that makes me love going for completions. Other than that, a few annoying missable collectibles paired with having to run through old levels to blindly search for them brought the experience down a tad.

A charming, atmospheric puzzle-platformer akin to LIMBO and INSIDE. I enjoyed the character/monster models very much and was surprised to find myself getting genuinely frightened at times. The platforming gameplay is serviceable, but this game really shines in its level design. The DLC episodes were great as well, and expanded on the protagonist/lore of the world. Loved it.

100% Completion Notes: This trophy list was fairly straightforward, with most achievements coming from playing through the games levels. But then theres Hard to the Core. Awarded for completing the game on a permadeath difficulty, this one almost broke me. But I persevered and learned to enjoy learning the routes and skills to clear it. To this day, it remains one of my rarest trophies.

The best superhero game of all-time in my opinion, replacing Batman: Arkham City. Most people who are interested in this game likely just want to swing around NYC as Spidey, and it feels great to do so. The combat is a direct copy of Arkham's, just with an aerial component that does just enough to make it feel like its own thing. The story was excellent, although I was surprised they used so many villains in one game. This game uses the same themes you'd expect from a Spider-Man story, and executes it almost perfectly. I do think the game played it a little too safe in general, but not enough to detract from the experience.

100% Completion Notes: I had a blast clearing each district of NYC, swinging and flipping as I went. The only thing that became slightly tedious were the random crime events. Kinda boring and repetitive after a while.

A cartoonish, less bloated version of AC: Odyssey. In all seriousness, this is a cute take on the Ubisoft formula, but it's not much more than that. The gameplay and puzzles are fun at first, but even being scaled down from some other Ubisoft games, the repetitiveness shows. The voice acting and writing is a weird combination of cringey and entertaining, but I found myself rolling my eyes more often than not.

100% Completion Notes: Unfortunately, this is one of the few times where going for the completion degraded the experience. The issues of repetitive puzzles and combat (once you figure out the best moves) is worsened a hundred fold. And the DLC, UGHH, just the same shit with a different coat of paint. Even the one that changed it into an isometric ARPG, it's still the same gameplay.

I played this game when I was a kid, and Spongebob was one of my favorite shows. Playing the remastered version as an adult was a wonderful trip down memory lane. The updated graphics look good, the platforming/adventure gameplay gets the job done, and even some of the humor still landed for me. A slightly-above-average platformer based on one of the greatest cartoons ever made.

100% Completion Notes: Nothing that really stood out, it's another collect-a-thon so I spent a lot of time combing through the levels. Didn't overstay its welcome.

Many, like me, have been fans of Supergiant since Bastion. Well here is their magnum opus, in a gorgeous, charming Greek mythology package. As a huge fan of Greek myths but new to the rouge-lite genre, this game served as the perfect introduction. The story was engaging and personal, the gameplay fun and somehow still varied. And the BUILDS. Oh man, scraping together an OP set of weapon augments, boons and upgrades while escaping the underworld was incredible. One of my favorite games of recent years.

100% Completion Notes: Most of this list is a challenging, albeit fun exploration of the game's challenges, builds, and characters. The only thing that rubbed me the wrong way was needing to wait for RNG conversations to pop between characters, having to do a run in between each convo to hopefully get the one I was waiting for.

Classic platformer with one of the most recognizable characters of all-time. The remaster has treated this game well, the graphics look great, but the controls could be very frustrating. I think I read about them changing Crash's hitbox? Something about squares and pills? Regardless, I completed every challenge this game threw at me, and felt immensely satisfied when it was over.

100% Completion Notes: Going for the 100% turns this game from a challenge to pure lunacy. Stormy. Ascent. Time Trial. That is all.

When I think of a perfect AA game, Plague Tale comes to mind. It takes a concept (what if we made the Black Plague supernatural?) and incorporates it from top to bottom. Stealth gameplay is serviceable, but this game really shines when the rat swarms become the puzzles you have to navigate. Playing on PS5, the haptic feedback of thousands of rats running around was disgusting in the best way.

100% Completion Notes: A decent trophy list that had me playing this game a bit longer than I wanted to. Some missables required me to replay entire chapters of the story that dragged on. Highly recommend using a guide.

Unfortunately, this game did not reach the nostalgic heights I had with the first two Infamous games. I'm not sure if its because I've played 1,000 open world games since then, but it just never grabbed me. The powers were fun to mess around with, but I was almost overwhelmed with all of the different powers and upgrades you could have. I ended up just focusing on smoke powers because I thought that was the coolest. The morality/karma mechanic and how it changes the story/world is still as banging as ever, though.

100% Completion Notes: The only thing that got me through this one was the karma system mentioned above. There were enough changes, both big and small, to get me through playing this average game twice.

Batshit insane storyline, charming and colorful blend of Final Fantasy and Disney characters. Fun real-time JRPG combat that supports different builds and playstyles. Each of the Disney worlds that serve as the game's levels are lovingly made as an homage to the original IP with its own Kingdom Hearts feel. An absolute, nostalgic classic. Don't worry about the story, it's not what you're here for.

100% Completion Notes: Oh man, a couple realllyyy grindy trophies made this one a tough platinum. Synthesis grinding especially. Playing through on Proud mode was one of my hardest gaming challenges of the year.