TheWinrar
Wonderful detective game that fuses point-and-click with mad libs to deliver brain scrunching puzzles and maddening twists.
A fairly solid Portal-like that doesn't overstay its welcome. The post-game Sector 8 stuff, which as far as I can tell was added for this 10th Anniversary version, seems to have quite a bit more meat on its bones puzzle-wise... and I think there's a level editor too, which I'm not sure how it compares to Portal 2's. These features may prompt me to revisit this.
Alright alright ENOUGH WITH THE LOOT ALREADY, I just want to CAST ULTIMA!!!!
A fairly average platformer with minor metroidvania elements, largely carried by its style and how fun it is to grapple enemies.
2012
I'm sure the presentation and organic multiplayer were good for the time, but I guess you had to be there.
A great story with charming characters and breathtaking twists, but the gameplay is spotty -- novel sections boil down to 'go to all available locations and exhaust the dialogue', QTE sequences are tonal whiplash, and the Somnium puzzles range from ludokino to trial-and-error nightmares.
Zelda Source: Purah's Mod
An improved iteration of BOTW in pretty much every conceivable way -- still lots of little interface QoL changes could have been made. It's a little too annoying and time consuming to do many actions in the game such as fusing weapons, cooking, or throwing objects to name a few. I haven't done all of them but copy-paste combat shrines seem to be gone making finding a shrine always feel worth your while. Killed hours just building ridiculously bad cars and planes that sometimes worked.
An improved iteration of BOTW in pretty much every conceivable way -- still lots of little interface QoL changes could have been made. It's a little too annoying and time consuming to do many actions in the game such as fusing weapons, cooking, or throwing objects to name a few. I haven't done all of them but copy-paste combat shrines seem to be gone making finding a shrine always feel worth your while. Killed hours just building ridiculously bad cars and planes that sometimes worked.
2019
The ending stretch of the game's visual inventiveness speaks to some missed potential I think. There's some extraneous rpg-adjacent elements that could have been largely cut for a better experience. Overall a pretty decent play in the end.
2020
A cool twist on the 2D Zelda formula, giving you all the items fairly quickly and simply iterating on and increasing the complexity of the puzzle designs they allow over the course of the game. The town's characters and sidequests are fairly memorable and I enjoyed getting to choose who to marry, though how much of it qualifies as 'dating sim' territory is debatable.
2022
The charm is worth the price of admission. It's actually pretty competent considering how barebones it is too.
2013
Really front-loaded --- the game really suffers once the puzzles all start to rely on the cube gun. But the mind bending subversions and geometry (and the sly winking dashes of philosophy) make getting there an experience you won't soon forget.
2016
Hey it turns out the pervert weeb bullet hell metroidvania is actually pretty good, how about that?
I was a lot more impressed with the boss fights than anything else here really, the plot is a paper-thin excuse to throw loads of interchangeable anime girl designs at you, and the level design and regular enemies are just busywork to mow through to get to the next boss. I did appreciate the non-linearity, and the potential for sequence breaking on future playthroughs is ginormous, but there ultimately wasn't enough to this game to make me want to play past the credits.
I was a lot more impressed with the boss fights than anything else here really, the plot is a paper-thin excuse to throw loads of interchangeable anime girl designs at you, and the level design and regular enemies are just busywork to mow through to get to the next boss. I did appreciate the non-linearity, and the potential for sequence breaking on future playthroughs is ginormous, but there ultimately wasn't enough to this game to make me want to play past the credits.
Hades with a Slay The Spire map and no story
It's ok.
It's ok.
2019
It's pretty close but most of the equipment and encounters fail to engage. Wish there was a little more meat on the bones that made playing through all scenarios on all characters feel worth my time.
2019
A really cool concept weighed down by a poor interface, lack of timesaving QOL features common to visual novels, and hamfisted social commentary.