Lost Judgment is a step up from its predecessor in almost every aspect: the already-fun combat has been given greater depth, side content is surprisingly expansive, and much of the tedium has been removed. Moment to moment, it's as fun to play as these games ever have been.

The one thing I can knock it for is that the story and writing didn't achieve the same impact for me as other games from RGG Studio; it feels like it's already played its biggest surprises well before the main plot wraps up. There are still great moments along the way, but it falls short of being a perfect package.

Scarlet Nexus is a story-heavy game that is very anime. Normally, this would put me off, but I found the combat and the setting interesting enough to stick with it. The game does a smart job of not just providing you with a variety of abilities, but giving you reasons to use them all. Even if I had favorite approaches, I had to respond to the enemies I was facing.

After beating the game as Kasane, I wasn't up for playing through a second time as Yuito, but I'm not upset about the time I spent with Scarlet Nexus.

I have been consumed by Dread.

My first time playing a 2D Metroid game has left a remarkable impression on me. This is a game that, though it rewards and encourages exploration, nevertheless has an incredible forward momentum to it. New discoveries and abilities cascade upon each other, one quickly leading to the next. Boss fights provide a tough but fair challenge, and EMMI robots add tension to even routine revisiting of areas.

Verterans of the series might be able to point to areas where Dread is lacking; I cannot.

Sable immediately had me enamored; the art style is unique, the writing is surprisingly funny, and the exploration takes the right cues from Breath of the Wild. My enchantment faded, however, the more I played. The platforming never quite feels satisfying, and seeming bugs turned at least one puzzle from fun to frustrating. Performance issues, even on Series X, became such that I couldn't play for long periods without feeling a bit nauseated.

Sable deserves credit for the charm it had in its first hours, I just wish it had maintained that.

Tales of Arise turned out to be just the JRPG junk food I'd been craving. Examined seriously, there are some big issues here: the plot becomes an ideological mess, and some parts of combat just don't work the way you'd hope. And despite those flaws, I had a really good time with it.

Combat, across multiple characters, kept me engaged throughout, but what really struck me, and caught me off guard, was the way the writing clicked with me. I found myself invested in these characters and the world around them even after some of it stopped making sense. I don't regret sinking 50 hours into it one bit.

Bayonetta is a blast when it isn't taking itself seriously - which is most of the time. Both combat and the mission structure are well crafted to encourage replaying and mastery. It's intercut by scenes that tend to be outlandish, while Bayonetta herself is sarcastic without coming across as edgy. It's a fun arcade experience.

The complaint I'd lodge is that by the end of the game, I felt like I was using familiar combos like a crutch, and brute forcing my way through the boss battles that grew lengthier and lengthier (with mechanics often far removed from standard combat). But don't let my lack of skill deter you. This is an absurd, raunchy romp of a game that deserves to be enjoyed.

Two decades after its initial release, Majora's Mask still feels remarkably fresh playing it for the first time now. I loved Ocarina of Time as a kid, so this game comes with no small amount of tangential nostalgia, but the structure renders it unique from not just other Zelda games, but anything else I've played, too.

Each new discovery in the early stages of the game comes with a whole host of new questions for how it fits into the mechanical puzzle of the three day loop. The world and its characters are packed with personality and charm, though some of the grandeur is missing from its N64 cousin. By the end of my playthrough I'll admit to finding some of the repetition tedious, but that hardly takes away from a remarkable experience on the whole.