this might be unironically the worst game I've ever played. This shit is like if they made bennet foddy's getting over it but took all the character out of it to market it towards 14 year old XQC viewers (not to say that GOI isn't 100% innocent of being rage bait, but it has some substance with the dialogue sections w/ BF)

While I can kinda respect SOME of the choices they made, having country music being played ironically and also doing a cool idea by making you play in a server with like 10 other people (which I did appreciate), quite simply, pogostuck is the most miserable and unfun game I've ever played. I only put in 14 hours in this game and I think the furthest I've made was 45% on map 1. I genuniely think I will only return to this game when I unironically have absolutely nothing left in my backlog, and even by then I will probably find something else to play. It is just for me at least, doo doo garbage

I have conflicting feelings on TLOU 1. On one hand, the gameplay, while being fun, can be really fucking annoying sometimes, causing me to waste almost an hour on some parts trying to find the solution to a problem. While some of this I will admit was me potentially not using ALL of my accessible resources with me, I still found it just really fucking annoying having to repeat sections that I found tough from annoying checkpoints with barely any resources in the hope that I might make it to the next if I do something slightly different. For the 13 hours it took me to beat this game, There was at least 4 hours of gameplay that I genuinely was just not enjoying in the game.

On the other hand however, the story is one of the best I've ever seen told in a video game, and is definitely this game's biggest strength. I really became connected to the journey of Ellie and Joel, and while I was spoiled on some major plot events (specifically relating to the beginning and ending of the game) I still found myself engaged throughout my playthrough in where their journey would go next. On top of this, while I'm not usually one who cares about it that much, this game looks incredible, and the graphical quality has aged so well I genuinely think it could have come out today and nobody would bat an eye.

I think it is a game that everyone should play once in their life, as it has some of the best acting and writing i've seen in a game, but the gameplay sections at times are definitely a bit rough around the edges, which holds it back for me as being one of my favorite games ever.

This is such an upgrade compared to ep1 it's actually insane. The little over 4 hour experience I had in this game was more enjoyable than all of hl1 and that is insane. The level and mission design is so more iconic than ep1 and the new gimmicks also are so much more enjoyable to play around with. The ending too is just insane. The last hour experience is probably my favourite sequence of missions in a HL game. If you haven't played this game, whether you just haven't gotten around to it a bit or were turned off by the kinda underwhelming experience of ep1, playing this game should be your top priority as it is so barely close to being as good as HL2

While there was one puzzle at the end of the game that's solution was kind of annoying, the rest of Blue Shift is one of the most consistently good parts of any of the gold source HL games. This might have been recency bias since this was the last gold source HL game I played, but I liked pretty much every aspect touched in Blue Shift more than I did in opposing force. The new additions and features in the game that made it stand out from the original, while having far fewer than OF, utilized it's new features a lot more than OF as the more grounded nature of Calhoun made me really think I was an actual security guard escaping the madness of the black mesa incident, more than Shepard in OF which just seemed like a less powerful Gordan Freeman. I also liked the atmosphere a lot more, as playing through the earlier stages and seeing more of Black Mesa, and then having to run around for the first few minutes after the incident played a lot into the horror aspects of the game which I really appreciated. Overall while both OF and BS are good games to play after beating HL1, I would strongly recommend BS over OF, as I simply just liked it more as an experience.

For a small 3-4 hour long campaign that aims to put a spin on the events in the half-life story, I think this game executes on it's main goals well. I liked the new gimmicks added to this game, and while they weren't really utilized that much (i think there were 3-4 sections where you could climb a rope that I noticed and same deal with the option to use npcs for coop in fights), I found them at least interesting. That said I feel like this game is almost too similar to the plot of HL1 and with a lot of the same jank carrying over from that game to this, I probably wont touch this game again for a long time. That said, it's definitely worth your time, especially if you played and enjoyed HL1. It's more of a fun twist on the story to kill an afternoon or evening than an actual game that I would actively go back to.

(side note: this is my first mario rpg and my first TBRPG that's not a persona game that I actually beat)
For a 12 hour long RPG (something VERY rare to find these days), SMRPG is one of the most unique games I've played for a while.

The spin it puts on turn based combat is really interesting, having the same general structure as other games, but adding in extra depth through a timing system which I found really enjoyable to master.

This game's story is also really great, and I loved the world building of finding new kingdoms to explore and see how their atmosphere and problems differ from the last. I also really like the artstyle of the game and while seeing mario bowser and peach a lot differently than how I usually see them was a bit of a culture shock, It didn't take me too long to get around their new style, and liked it a lot (especially bowsers). I also really liked the new characters they introduced and built around the story, with Geno probably being my favorite as his sense of humor I enjoyed a lot, and not to mention he has some of the most broken abilities I've ever seen in a game.

This segways well however into one of my main problems with the game: IT'S SO FUCKING EASY. This is coming from someone who's greatest feat in a turn based game is beating p3reload on hard (chickening out on the elizabeth fight tho) and beating P3Fes on normal, as I beat both persona 4 and 5 (5 numerous times) on easy, and struggled there. However with this game I did no grinding whatsoever and I think I died a total of 3 times, because I forgot to heal. This doesn't take too much away from the game as the story is great and the difficulty in combat is made up for in the difficulty of the janky platforming and borderline unfair puzzles (fuck those 2 puzzle rooms in the last leg of the game).

Otherwise apart from this though this is a great game and considering it's price and quality it is definitely worth picking up, even if it's on the shorter side.