It's hard to be objective when a game feels like it was tailor-made specifically for you, so I won't even try. This is probably the most fun I'll have with any game this year, and I enjoyed every minute from start to end. It's pure fanservice for any Xenoblade fan, which also means I can't recommend playing it if you haven't played the others, but that's just fine, as this is pretty much the epilogue of the series. All of the characters were likable and had a fun dynamic with each other, and seeing Shulk and Rex as middle-aged adults who act like proud fathers all the time plastered a permanent smile on my face.

I especially want to highlight the gameplay, as it really improved upon what Xenoblade 3 had established (which was already very good). Upgrading your character's abilities is now directly tied to completing Affinity Missions, which are a variety of tasks that encourage the player to engage with the world; such as completing the collectopedia (yes, it's back for real this time!) by picking up the items on the ground, or the enemypedia, which is a similar concept but for defeating 1-3 members of each enemy in the world, building ladders, ziplines, and other infrastructure, finding landmarks and secret areas, etc. I would love to see this feature in other open world or exploration-based games, just because it keeps the game engaging long after the main campaign has been finished. The Community is back from Torna, but no longer locks story progress behind itself, and lets the player complete it at their leisure. While I don't think it adds as much charm to the world as the NPC relationship chart (pretty much a staple of the series a this point), it's definitely more akin to the Bombers' Notebook from Majora's Mask, and it's very satisfying to complete as you make people happier.

Saying I feel like I've fallen in love with Xenoblade all over again basically sums everything up.

Probably my favorite Fire Emblem game to date. Despite how vapid the story is, there were some well-written moments, but it was also goofy enough to be entertaining.

The combat is pretty deep, allowing for a variety of new tactics. The new elements they added – namely, the break system and chain attacks – felt like a very natural evolution to the combat, and the Emblem system added a lot of customizability to individual units, which I adored (give Kagetsu a brave sword, Lyn's Alacrity++ and speed boost, and equip Marth to him for a good time).

It did drag on a little bit, but overall I thought it was a delightful experience. One of the best tactics games I've ever played.

At the top of this review, I don't know if I have much to say about this game aside from the fact that it'll definitely be one I'll be talking about again at the end of the year (right up there with Hi-Fi Rush).

Resident Evil 4 is widely considered to be one of the best and well-aged games ever made, and whether or not you agree with that the influence it's had in video games has been undeniable, so this remake's announcement seemed to have been received with an understandable head-scratching by most (myself included), but this game is able to justify its existence by just being Resident Evil 4 but somehow even more fun. These remakes seem to be Capcom's method of making Resident Evil's story have any coherency, but it also offers a chance to learn from these games and what makes them so much fun.

Much of the world design is the same, with the biggest changes done to improve the pacing. All the memorable set pieces are still here, but it seems like most of the tedious parts plaguing the original are gone and replaced with expanded versions of some areas, which I found were a pleasant surprise. One example of this is the lake now being fully explorable after killing Del Lago — albeit for an unnecessary new fetch quest — but I had a great time cruising around wherever I pleased until I found all the treasure in the area. The gameplay is improved simply by being twin stick on controller (even better with motion aim, and if you're cool like me you'll have that turned on), allowing for more movement options which goes a long way to making the game feel fair. However, RE2's magnet zombie hands are back, and this led to some frustrating moments especially given the lack of RE3's dodge roll.

Speaking of frustrating moments, I wasn't a fan of the return of the parts of the game where you find yourself fending off a horde of enemies while waiting for something to happen. It feels like the purpose of these is to make you use up much of your ammo to keep things tense, but it just makes the game grind to a halt to show you something cinematic. This is just my opinion, but I would have preferred to keep only the cabin fight and change the others so they aren't dependent on defending Ashley while she tries to do something.

Without getting into spoilers, while the general story is still the same, a lot of the character moments from the original RE4 were changed or cut completely, which made it feel more dependent on coming into this game having already played the original game, and while Capcom has done an admirable job keeping it accessible (more than can be said for their treatment of the original RE1-3), if this is the definitive way to play RE4, than those should have been kept. Salazar appears maybe twice before you fight him, and while his new boss fight was one of the most fun fights in Resident Evil history, it's hard not to miss the bratty, whiny manchild he once was.

The presentation is probably the best of the modern RE games. Capcom has elected to bring back music for this game instead of relying on diegetic sound as they have recently, and not only is it very good, but it works wonders making the game more atmospheric, something Resident Evil has been struggling with lately. The RE Engine continues to deliver one of the most gorgeous and visually pleasing games you've ever seen, although I think Village edges it out in art direction here.

This should absolutely be one of the games you play this year.

Since I've played this game already, I'm judging this based on its merits as a remaster (improvements to the presentation and the surprisingly meaty gameplay additions). If you haven't played this game yet, this is easily the definitive way to play it, and you should go get it right now. While not being as impressive visually as Metroid Prime Remastered, it still outdoes the Wii version graphically by quite a lot, and the new visual style is really good – Dedede having his Forgotten Land model is so much better too. It seems like they also replaced the cutscene music with live samples, which sound great (and make me wish they did the same for the rest of the game).

New copy abilities were added to this game, being Sand and Mecha (Festival returns from Star Allies as well), and I enjoyed both of them. There's a LOT of new minigames added in this one, made all the better with Merry Magoland, where a stamp rally you progress by playing those minigames allows you to unlock masks Kirby can wear even in the main game (and sometimes change his voice to a different character), as well support items, like a random copy ability or energy drink. The minigames also have challenges to complete, which I thought was a lot of fun and could be decently challenging at times.

Magalor Epilogue is probably the most notable addition, and continues the Kirby tradition of adding actual difficulty to the postgame, and I had a great time with it. The level design is kind of boring though, having only slightly more aesthetic variety than Hollow Knight (yes, you heard me), and in that sense is pretty indistinguishable from Kirby Star Allies's Heroes in Another Dimension mode. However, Magalor can upgrade his powers by collecting magic points (the main collectible), which can also be earned by maintaining a longer combo string, which incentivized me to do better in levels despite the grading system as well. I really hope this system returns in a future Kirby game, I would love it if an entire game was just like this mechanically.

Once again, if you haven't played this game before, you should definitely get this version. If you have played this before, it's not a bad way to spend the second voucher you got to get Tears of the Kingdom, but maybe wait for a sale otherwise.

This was my second time playing Metroid Prime, and overall I think I enjoyed it much more than the first. Although the original trilogy has not aged a day in the graphics and music department, the new remastered visuals look gorgeous and I found myself stopping to take in the atmosphere a lot more. The general gameplay is still good, but the boss fights have really been a weakness of the Prime games, and I was disappointed to find that they weren't touched up at all in this game. The bosses still feel very spongey, and are still very tedious and overstay their welcome. They should have at least buffed the extra weapons, because (aside from the super missiles) they're still a good way to throw away your missiles rather than doing any actual damage that could speed up boss fights.

Overall though, this game is still very good, and I can only hope 2 and 3 get the same treatment to make the wait for Metroid Prime 4 easier.

Not only was this a surprise release (which I downloaded immediately after finding out Robbie Daymond was the lead), but it was also a surprise GOTY contender, being one of the most unique and creative character action games I've ever played. It was an absolute joy to play, although levels could run rather long (most took me at least an hour to complete), I enjoyed just about every inch of this game. Some of the bosses didn't work for me and felt more frustrating than fun my first time through, but I imagine that may change once I've really mastered the game, which I feel very compelled to do. The music was really good, and I felt like the licensed music they used was well-picked (although I couldn't help cracking up when Nine Inch Nails started playing on the first boss fight). The story was simple but fun, and the same goes for the cast of characters, although I found myself very attached to all of them by the end of the game.

I really hope this game gets a sequel. Just an absolute delight.

TL;DR: These would be the best Pokémon games easily if they didn't run like a PowerPoint presentation. If this gets a patch that at least makes it run at a stable framerate, even just 30 fps, I would bump this up to a 4.

-Review here-
I want so badly to recommend this generation of Pokémon, but I can't because the games run so horribly and there's no excuse for it whatsoever. While there are points where it almost seems like the game runs fine, most of the time I was out exploring it felt like the game was running in slow motion at the best of times and 10fps at the worst. The game also does not look visually pleasing at all in the overworld, although some towns looked fine and one area even impressed me enough to stop and take a couple pictures. It's immediately obvious to anyone that these games needed another year or two of development time before they would be ready to release, though.

Despite all that though, I did find a lot to like. I liked most if not all of the new Pokémon, and I liked the way the new Gym format utilized the towns for the Gym tests rather than being inside and having some arbitrary puzzle based on the Pokémon type; I also feel like this allowed the Gym Leaders to be more expressive and personable than ever (the Normal-type leader just being some random businessman named Larry is absolutely hilarious). Terastalizing is the new battle mechanic of this game and I think it might be my favorite since Mega Evolution and I liked the depth it adds to raising your Pokémon; although the game is so easy that I rarely felt incentivized to use it at all since I could one shot almost everything. The story was one of the best in the series, and I enjoyed each character you meet, with a surprising amount of depth to some of them. I also enjoyed that there was more to do aside from going to each town, complete the gym challenge, and become champion. While collecting gym badges lets Pokémon listen to you as usual, it also lets you catch Pokémon easier, too, but I also liked how the other two stories also utilized the new gameplay mechanics of this game, namely the new traversal with this game's mascot robot dinosaur and the Let's Go mode where you send your lead Pokémon out to roam around and defeat wild Pokémon for you (which also nets you exp and material used for crafting TMs, another system I liked). Hunting Titan Pokémon to upgrade Koraidon/Miraidon's traversal capabilities was a cool idea, and you get a BotW-esque sense of freedom once they're completed. Team Star requires you to use Let's Go to defeat 30 Pokémon sent out in hordes before you can fight the boss at each base. Unfortunately, I have one more complaint to make, and that's the lack of any dynamic difficulty scaling, which this game desperately needs, because it's not fun to go around one side of the region, then end on the other side and find that everything is back to being level 20 and below — including Gym Leaders, Titans, and Team Star — and just steamrolling all of it because nothing can stand up to my Tinkaton and her massive hammer. I have to give a lot of praise to the music though, as this is one of the best soundtracks in the series (I even liked the Ed Sheeran song, but I barely knew who he was before this game and that shouldn't surprise anyone who knows me).

Game Freak, please fix your damn game and spend more time making them. You could have had something special here, possibly even a GOTY contender. Even though I gave this a mediocre score, I did still personally enjoy it a lot.