I've never been a big Castlevania fan. The series has never grabbed me like it does with other people. But I've heard, over and over, that if you play one Castlevania game, you must play Symphony of the Night. So I played it, and it was good, I guess. Not great, but decent. The game takes great advantage of the Playstation hardware, the environments are vibrant, and the characters are detailed (for pixels) and well-animated. Most of the enemies are interesting, although most don't present too much of a challenge that can't be overcome by spamming attacks at them. Having just finished Super Metroid, I must admit the level design really let me down. Although SotN is considered the reason "vanina" is in "Metroidvania," it's clear that Super Metroid is the attentive, doting mother, and SotN is the deadbeat father. There's almost no comparison. In Super Metroid, I rarely got lost to the point where I couldn't find my own way back to the critical path. SotN was the opposite. I grew tired of stumbling around whacking at walls, hoping for secret items that would allow me to progress, and eventually, I gave up and kept the walkthrough open on my phone. The upside-down 2nd half of the game (sorry for spoiling a 27-year-old game) was a neat idea, but inverting the map didn't improve its overall design. And the aforementioned walkthrough led me to acquire the Crissaegrim a lot earlier than was probably intended, making the latter half of the game mostly a joke. Imagine if Super Metroid gave you the Hyper Beam halfway through the game instead of right at the end. SotN has piqued my interest enough that I will try a few more entries from the Castlevania franchise, but it did not live up to the almost thirty years of hype I experienced before playing it.

There's a reason all the Metroid games after this one feel like they're paying homage to it. Super Metroid is the series' high point. It took the concept of the NES and GameBoy versions, dialled it up as much as the SNES would allow, and the result is a stellar game, even by today's standards. The atmosphere and emotion they conveyed using only 16-bit graphics must be experienced to be fully understood. The controls are tight and responsive, the level design is masterful and the game is just fun. My only gripe, and it's a minor one, is that the quality-of-life improvements added in later iterations are missed in this one.

There were two things I did not expect from Pikmin. First, I didn't think playing an RTS with a controller would be a viable option. Second, I didn't expect I would ever enjoy doing it. I'm glad I was proven wrong on both counts.

Pikmin follows a spaceman who crashes on an alien planet (presumably a future Earth) and has thirty days to recover thirty missing pieces of his spaceship and return home. To accomplish this task, the player is given control of these tiny, omnivorous, plant-based monsters called Pikmin.

The Pikmin come in three varieties, each with unique abilities and weaknesses. They are loosely classified as grunts, specialists, and marines.

Finding all of the scattered ship pieces requires using the Pikmin's abilities to overcome enemies and puzzles and then carry the parts back to your ship. The gameplay loop is simplistic but fun and rewarding. However, it appeared that most parts only had one way to collect them. I can't see a lot of replay value here unless you really like beating your previous score.

The one area that I found lacking was the interface. It's tough to figure out where you are aiming your Pikmin (you often have to throw them), and getting them to hit things in the air presents an unnecessary challenge.

If you're a fan of RTS games or drafting tiny monsters into a colourful army bent on becoming the apex predator species, you cannot go wrong with Pikmin.