Completely caught me off guard. I've heard a lot of shade thrown at this game, but very little of it actually stuck for me. The first third was a little slow, but after that the game hit the ground running. Very well paced all the way to the end, and although the plot may not be my favorite in the series, it still hooked me and had me coming back and sticking with it as much as I could.

The notorious "enemies constantly guarding" rumors were true, so mashing rush combos and finishers won't work very well in this game, but going out of your way for ten minutes to learn some Komaki moves (and making sure you're on top of upgrades) fixes that problem. Grabbing also works.

This game rules.

Completion: ~40-50%, beat all substories and Amon

Fun game as always, but probably the messiest storywise. Nothing made sense at the end because every character was a traitor multiple times so it got to the point where my brain shut off completely. Same thing for the plot twists, there were several that happened in the last few chapters alone for some reason. Not as well written as a lot of the other games for sure.

Played on hard but didn't have a difficult time at all, there was just enough challenge to keep it fun while also still feeling like enemies weren't sponges. Tanimura was probably my least favorite character to play, which made the final boss that much worse because he's not at all equipped to deal with crowds, and the final boss was a crowd of bodyguards surrounding you while the main villain fires on you from a distance and runs away when you try to get close. All of the characters were likeable enough, at least, both to play and how they acted in the story.

This is perhaps the most reluctant 4.5 I'll ever give - I really want to give it 5, but there's just a couple problems that keep it from beating Planet Robobot for me.

TL;DR: Kirby transitioned flawlessly into 3D, but I would like to see more done with copy abilities and making the screen a bit easier to see. Fantastic game though, I highly recommend it, I don't think anybody will be disappointed with this.

This game is just a pure and absolute joy - an easy GOTY contender for me along with Elden Ring. Kirby transitioned seamlessly into 3D, which almost no other game series can brag about. Movement is fluid and responsive, and each level is well paced, so the game definitely didn't overstay its welcome. You can easily 100% this game without any sort of guide, which is also nice to see. HAL also heard the complaints about Star Allies lacking content (which it definitely did) and made sure that wasn't the case this time - there's a surprising amount to do, more than any other Kirby game yet, I think. A challenge mode similar to Return to Dream Land is in this game with goal times to shoot for, which was delightfully - well, challenging - to beat in that time. Waddle Dee Town has a number of minigames to do as well, which don't take very long to complete, but are required for 100%, and more are added as you progress through the game and rescue more Waddle Dees. It was just so much fun to see it all come together and come back from a level and find more stuff to do.

However, there are a few flaws about this game. I frequently found myself losing track of Kirby on the screen due to how busy it could get sometimes, and would find myself falling into a pit before I even would realize it. Copy abilities are more limited too - in their variety and movesets both. This is probably because of a combination of the transition to 3D not allowing for the same Smash Bros-esque control scheme Kirby games have had for a while now, as well as to justify upgrading copy abilities. While I liked having upgrades - there were some really cool designs - I think I would have preferred more copy abilities in the game over this. Maybe the workshop could have been used to combine abilities Kirby 64-style to make new ones? The reason why I'm less partial to this system is that previous forms of abilities became redundant the moment you upgraded, and it would have been nice to have a reason to go back, but they're significantly lacking in power compared to the upgraded forms and that was kind of sad to see. The ultimate form of the hammer made every other ability almost useless in comparison, and the ultimate form of the sword did that to the hammer, making every boss fight in this game's True Arena an absolute joke and while it was funny at first, it's a little disappointing in retrospect. Ultimate Sword also had an expanded moveset, and made me wonder why other abilities didn't have that too. Oh well.

Overall, I'm really liking the direction HAL has taken Kirby, continuing to make it one of Nintendo's consistently best games and now it can even compete with 3D Mario. As a longtime Kirby fan since my very young childhood, I'm over the moon.

God this game is so good but Sony's PS1 emulation is so shit that the game kept crashing when I started disc 2. I'll probably never be able to finish this game if it doesn't get ported to modern systems (god I hope it does), but it has one of the most fun and interesting battle systems of any RPG ever made and I hope it that style gets revisited someday. The story was really good too despite a pretty bad (but standard for 90s) localization. I just want this game on modern systems with some QoL improvements and it might be one of the best games ever made.

I really like that Pokemon went in a brand new direction and basically made a big large Safari Zone where you can catch Pokemon all you want. The new battle system is fast paced and fun too and it felt like the game was really well balanced.

So why am I writing this review two months after I beat the game? Well, I did plan on holding off until I beat some of the post game stuff, but...I have no inclination to go back to this game whatsoever, especially after playing Elden Ring, which in comparison make this game's flaws all the more apparent. I honestly got bored pretty quickly with this game, and it did feel like a bit of a chore thinking about picking it back up each day I continued my playthrough. It looks really bad visually, overall lacking in any kind of polish and plagued by a lot of visual glitches. Although it's completely new too, I feel like it didn't add a whole lot. I like this new style, but I just wish it had so much more to offer. Oh well.

Definitely one of the best character action games ever made. A perfect evolution of what DMC4 had set up gameplay wise, it doesn't take much at all to feel cool but learning the game is extremely rewarding. This is regarding DMC in general, but I think one of its strengths is how in control you feel – there's never overly long animations for finishers, everything feels precise and buttery smooth. I had a blast going through this series, and I'd like to go back to DMC1 and 3 and see if what I've learned makes those games more enjoyable. I bet it will.

When I played this game three years ago I just remember being thoroughly uninvested for most of the game. It's hard to be objective since I'm relying on memory but I think I can summarize this as being a gorgeous looking game with a lot of promise but undermined by some key issues, namely the poorly thought out combat system. I quit playing once the credits started because I was thoroughly done by the end of it, but the credits aren't even the end of the game as you have to make your way back home to witness a final scene in an MCU style fashion.

It's okay overall and well polished, but I feel like it had a ways to go.

One of the most incredible gaming experiences I've ever had. My first experience with FromSoft's work and it was well worth it. Easily one of the best games of all time and should be remembered as one of the best examples to follow when making an open world game, although since so much of it is part of the identity of Dark Souls, it may not be super influential.

It makes use of its open world well. There's stuff around almost every nook and cranny, which makes exploration very rewarding, and it never felt like a problem when there wasn't. Art direction was really good, this game looks absolutely amazing, almost any screenshot could have been a painting or postcard.

I only had problems with some of the boss designs and the music. The final boss felt unfair purely because of how big it is, most of the time you're looking at its torso or running long distances toward it. During the former situation, it's very difficult to know when attacks are coming because they aren't signaled very well – it doesn't seem like a number of attacks have very good sound cues, which was disappointing. The music was okay – like Breath of the Wild, overworld themes were very subdued, being usually a single instrument playing a few notes at a time, which is fine. However, I don't remember any boss themes from this game, except for the final boss, which is the title screen music (which is very good, but I digress). I want to make it clear that this game feels out of place if it were in the running for the best soundtrack of the year, and I'll probably lose faith in humanity if someone says it is.

Overall though, a fantastic experience and I highly recommend it to anyone even mildly interested and willing to sink a lot of time, because you won't even realize how much you put into it (try not to forget to connect with your friends and family, ok).

With the first game, I only liked a handful of characters while the others fell flat. With this game, I liked every single character. I'm honestly impressed by how well this game was written, and how many of the problems the first game had were fixed in this one. The only thing I really disliked was one specific plot twist that involved the player needing to change their perspective (and I mean that literally), but this was probably the best mystery yet. There's a little too much of a reliance on the player needing to suspend their disbelief, but I can look past that because the rest of the game was so good.

I do feel like Spike Chunsoft games have a tendency to lead the player in the mystery instead of letting them solve it for themselves, but I think it was handled decently well here, since you see the story from two different perspectives and both characters (especially Mizuki) are pretty much sharing your experience as well.

Somnium segments were vastly improved over the first one, and now feel much more intuitive especially with a decent hint system helping you understand the rules of the dream, which was missing in the first (and felt like you were throwing random stuff constantly and seeing what stuck). There were also more puzzle segments beyond Somnium too, which is always welcome.

Overall, a near perfect game and fantastically written. Please play it.