Really enjoyed this one and still found it pretty challenging despite having so much recent experience with souls games. The world in this one looks beautiful and is designed so well in the way that it remains mostly interconnected and Metroidvania-esque akin to DS1. You can pretty much get to anywhere from any of the lanterns which is awesome.

The lore in this one is also somewhat understandable for once. I loved the creepiness and areas like Old Yharnam and the Unseen Village will likely remain memorable for a long time to come. Some levels do go on a little too long in my opinion though, it felt like I spent an age in the forbidden woods even though I had fun exploring. I wish there was more time spent in Yharnam proper.

My only problems come with the combat really. At the start its pretty jarring to have healing linked to a purchasable item although it doesn't really matter in the long run once you get more souls. Some of the bosses feel awesome to fight like the Blood-Starved Beast, Father Gascoigne, and the final boss. Others, however, can feel big and janky in the worst ways with huge hitboxes and spongy healthbars. Some of the chalice bosses are absolutely terrible and the worst offenders in this regard, especially the fire dog in the dungeon where you have half health. In fromsoft games by the end I usually have pretty good faith in my ability to dodge but in this the inconsistency in bosses and timing really threw me off a few times - the sidestep is not it. Although I actually had a pretty easy time with the DLC bosses like the Orphan of Kos and Laurence I didn't feel like I had got the hang of parrying and it felt like I still needed good rng to win. At the end of Sekiro or DS3 I could confidently say that if I lost a fight it was due to my own error. In this it felt 50/50 my fault or just straight jank.

Speaking of the chalice dungeons, they did feel like pretty blatant padding. Don't get me wrong, I had a lot of fun on my way to killing the Queen of Yharnam but it was primarily in the same set of rooms fighting the same sets of enemies. It makes you realise how much shorter the actual meat of this game is than other fromsoft games - although I would have easily traded all the chalice dungeons for one more overworld area.

The DLC is okay: the bosses are pretty great and are probably the best, most fairest set of encounters in the game. The initial area though is a bit of an asset flip to be honest. I liked the fishing hamlet and the clocktower, but I don't really understand what it is about the DLC that makes people laud it as one of the best ever. The Orphan of Kos was one of the best fights in the series I'll give you that, but I still had more fun comparatively with the bosses in The Ringed City.

Overall this was great. I hope my review doesn't come across too negative, this one still had all the hallmarks of a great souls game and some of the bosses had me on the edge of my seat. Lastly, on the technical side, its impressive to me how responsive this feels at 30fps. I was expecting it to be tough to get into after playing the Dark Souls games at 60fps but it felt great.

Maybe my least favourite game ever? I haven't played this in months after getting to Chris' campaign and finding out the zombies now shoot at me and it's a third person cover shooter now. wtaf.

I finished Leon's campaign but after initially thinking the gameplay was a step up over RE5, I was hit by level after level of randomly put together enemies and frustratingly dull puzzles. Not even coop could save this from being a bore fest after about an hour. The plot is nonsensical, it has nothing even remotely in common in terms of gameplay with Resident Evil and the boss fights, narrative, and characters are completely butchered. Terrible.

Loved this one, probably my second favourite Fromsoft game so far after Sekiro but I haven't played Bloodborne yet.

The game basically fixes everything I found annoying from DS1. The combat is quicker, but infinitely more fair and there's a lot less gank. The areas aren't always as visually interesting as those in the first game but the level design is leagues above; I loved almost every area and the challenging areas were actually fun this time around, rather than being tedious.

The balancing, progression, and pacing of the game are all second to none and making your way through all the areas felt like an epic journey. There's a lot of really creative areas like Irythill and the Farron swamp is actually pretty fun compared to typical poison areas.

Most importantly though, the bosses are some of the best in the genre. Bosses like the Soul of Cinder, Pontiff Sulveyn, and the Nameless King are so well put together that they feel like events. Almost every boss feels like a challenge and beating some of the later ones feels like a genuine achievement. I loved the bosses so much in this that I beat all of the optional ones as well as all of the bosses within both of the DLCs.

The DLCs are the only part I really have any gripes with. The Ringed City is almost perfect, I loved it and Midir and Gael are some of the best boss fights ever. Ashes of Ariandel, however, felt a little redundant. The snowfield area is the only area in the game I thought was a bit lazily put together. Once it gets to the town with all the bird people though it becomes pretty good - but then it's pretty much over. All of this is kinda made up for in the fact that Sister Friede might be my favourite boss out of the DS games.

Overall, this is pretty much the best experience I've had with a game in a long time. I couldn't tell you what the hell happened in terms of the story but I got to use a sword that was longer than me to kill gods. 9/10.

Thought this would end up as one of my favourite souls games but for all Demon Souls' flaws it felt a lot more inspired in its setting and world. I couldn't connect to the overworld in this one despite it being the most metroidvania-esque. It just felt pretty generic compared to Elden Ring or Sekiro.

I appreciate what this game did for the genre, but I can't help but feel that it didn't really do anything better than Demon's Souls. Although the areas in this one are interconnected, areas like the Tower of Latria and Boletarian Palace stuck with me more than anything here.

For all the eccentricities of Demon's souls with the stupid world tendency system, it had character. I barely even interacted with the humanity system in this one because all it did was give you more flasks. Everything up to Ornstein and Smough was great but everything after drops massively in quality. It feels like they just gave up on interesting bosses and resorted to gimmicky areas such as the catacombs where the difficulty just comes from the fact it's dark. Bosses especially in the late game have ridiculous run-ups that just pad out an already padded experience. If it had ended at the halfway point it would've been a better game for it.

The one thing I hate about the souls fanbase is the 'git gud' attitude to refining the genre. People adore this game for being difficult in almost unfair ways that are more frustrating than rewarding. Making me run a mile before I fight the same boss over and over doesn't make me feel good when I beat the boss, it just makes me want to do something more constructive with my time. I'm glad the newer games are less obnoxious.

As far as the bosses go, they are okay, but far more akin to Demon's souls in their inconsistency than games like Sekiro and Elden Ring which have a pretty great gauntlet of challenging yet fair encounters.

Maybe it's because I played this one after playing the games it directly led to, but I just don't get what's so much better about this than Elden Ring. Hopefully I have a better time with III.

This game is a real mixed bag. Overall I enjoyed it but its flaws are glaringly obvious and are often a cause of real frustration. I loved the train sequence and the training facility was fun in that it reminded me of RE1's mansion. It's nice to see more of Rebecca and controlling two characters is a unique twist that works by allowing you to be tactical in splitting up or exploring together.

Some things just don't work, though. The lack of an item box is probably this game's biggest weakness. Backtracking to pick up weapons I'd left somewhere else took up a good 20% of my playtime on this game and picking up items individually off of the floor is just pure tedium. The other huge problem is the plain unfair enemy types. Enemies like the frogs, the leechmen, and the monkeys all feel annoying to fight and can either 1-hit kill you or stunlock you into a gameover. The game also rarely telegraphs boss encounters so sometimes you can accidentally lose a lot of progress walking into a room you're not supposed to. These are also some of the worst bosses in the series in terms of creativity. They're mostly all just big mutated animals.

The characters are fine if uninteresting compared to Leon, Chris, or Jill, but the story is outright atrocious this time around. It attempts the same prequel nonsense we've seen over and over where everything was secretly caused by this one guy. The main villain is just plain stupid and spends most of his time singing opera ominously in his best Sephiroth cosplay. The game's depiction of Wesker and William Birkin is also funny as they just mustache-twirl the whole game.

Overall, I think this game is strongest at the start and when it's not too plot-heavy. The earlier areas are great and then the game steadily decreases in quality once you hit the lab, the factory, and the water treatment plant. Despite all that's wrong with it though, I did still enjoy playing another classic-style Resident Evil even if it's probably the weakest one of its era.

Probably the worst Mario game I've ever played if I'm being honest. From janky controls to the half-baked levels, to the samey theming and awkward attempts to insert shooting mechanics with the water gun, this game feels more dated to me than its predecessor of 5 years.

I've heard that it took only 18 months to make this and that it was essentially rushed together and that really shows. The game takes the open-ended objectives of 64 and makes them only completable in a linear order, with little player choice. To make things worse, the levels are so inconsistent in quality and difficulty that it feels like a jumble sale of ideas hastily put together just to get something out on the GameCube. Every area has the same red coin level and the same 'chase shadow mario' gimmick level, it feels so repetitive and I've barely played 5 hours. The increased attempts at adding story to the game also fall flat as the voice acting is below awful and the 'plot' detracts from easily jumping in to the levels I want to play and having fun; do I really have to help clean a muddy runway before I can play the first level?

The music is great and the visuals are pretty fine for its time, but none of this can make up for the fact that the core gameplay loop is a grindy, repetitive slog through a very limited set of locations. It genuinely feels like it was outsourced to Ubisoft or something.

Mario has an expanded moveset in this one, but he feels so slippery compared to 64 and the camera angles are somehow worse. I absolutely loved 64 when I played it earlier this year, but this just feels like a rehash with less creativity. I can see why this is most people's lowest rated 3D Mario, but I didn't ever really expect to actively dislike a Mario game so much. Disappointing.

I played the Midgar section after getting a bit sick of the remake and I get why this was so revolutionary for the genre at the time in terms of the 3D environments.

This is not really a review per say, but more of a vent about my frustration getting into Final Fantasy. Everything this game does well I've experienced better in more modern games, probably as a direct result of them taking elements from this. Going back to the source for me didn't resonate the way something like Chrono Trigger did. That's not to say this is bad, just that I've struggled to see what it is about Final Fantasy that people love. To me this is a perfectly fine game but it didn't blow me away really at all.

I think FF is just not for me. If I grew up with it maybe I'd feel differently but I've played 3 games now and none of them have really resonated. Instead of playing 10 hours of each of the games in the series to see whether I like one, I think I'm content to leave this series alone for a while.

Got to chapter 9 before dropping this. It was a lot of fun initially but I think the slow pace just kind of killed it for me. I was interested in the characters but there's just too much filler for me in the form of tedious side quests to kill random mobs and drawn out 'puzzles' like the robot hand section which went on for like half an hour.

It's not a bad game by any means, but I'd rather spend my time on a game that values the experience it's giving rather than stretching content to the point of boredom. I'm trying to stop playing games beyond the point which I begin to dislike them and finishing them just to say I beat them and unfortunately this was not for me.

I never really wanted a sequel to The Last of Us. The first game was and is still one of my favourite games of all time but I thought it ended perfectly. In the run-up to this game I was not really excited at all. I thought it would be pretty derivative and sour the experience of the first game - and then I got almost the entire script spoiled to me.

I thought the game sounded pretty dumb and never got around to playing it, I bought Ghost of Tsushima instead and moved on.

Getting through my backlog recently though has made me want to go back and catch up on the actual game, not just what was spoiled to me, as it has been a pretty big blind spot for me in terms of AAA games.

Playing the game detached 3 or so years from all the controversy and discussion, I was struck by two things:

Firstly, the strength of the gameplay pretty much carried the experience here for me. I was never someone who found the first game boring, I spent over 770 hours on TLOU 1 with about 150 or so in the story mode playing grounded, grounded+, and about 600 or so hours in the multiplayer which is one of my favourite online experiences ever. The encounters, enemy AI, weapons, and overall fluidity of the gameplay systems are all so much better here though. Sweeping through the Scars encounters especially were always fun. The game's at its best when you get caught and have to improvise and there's so many ways you can do that now. Set pieces are as fun as ever and there are plenty of moments that stand out as exciting. The only problem really is the setting being pretty samey and slow which brings me to my other point.

The pacing and overall story are a bit less impactful than the game's predecessor. The plot of the first game was never that exciting, being 'get Ellie to the Fireflies', but the characters were special and memorable to me even 9 years on from when I first played it. Characters like Bill, Tess, David, and Henry and Sam have stuck with me for as long as I can remember. Here the characters are noticeably lesser. Without spoiling anything, outside of the main characters, Owen and Lev were the only characters I felt had room to grow. Nobody gets enough character development for me and there's nothing that feels remotely as special as the relationship between Joel and Ellie from the first game. The plot, especially for the first 15 hours of the game basically extends to 'kill these random guys' as well which means rather than playing for the story and characters, for the better half of this experience I was playing for the gameplay with the hope that things would improve.

The plot does develop, but exceptionally slowly. The pacing is glacial and hits a mid-point climax before dropping all the tension to essentially return to ground zero. It never really feels like it's going anywhere until the final few hours to be completely honest.

That said, the quality of the game is immense in terms of visual fidelity, art and sound design, and voice acting. It has that AAA wow factor that you expect from Naughty Dog and when it hits the mark it feels amazing. Sometimes it falls short but it's different enough from the first game for me to feel like it was worth making. It's not derivative in the slightest and takes the story in a completely new direction. I applaud that ND had the guts to make something so different and I hope that part 3 feels equally as unique.

Starts off pretty fun with a rehash of castle Dimitrescu which I enjoyed. The creepy doll house bit was fun. Every area is just an asset flip though you literally only explore areas you've already been to in the main story. At least RE4 Separate Ways or RE7's DLCs had new areas and new mechanics. This just feels incredibly samey.

The story is also easily the worst of anything I've played in RE, including 5. The sappy Fast & Furious 'family' trope is overdone and it's just too much here. The plot twist is beyond obvious. The plot is even more contrived than the base game. The main character is as plain and boring as they come, especially for this series. I could go on, but ultimately this is just a lazy asset flip with some cool ideas thrown in like the mannequins.

Top that all off with the janky third person mechanics that feel so shoehorned in and this becomes something that is not really worth playing to be completely honest. Please don't let this be the future direction for the franchise. For all the complaints people had about the End of Zoe DLC for 7, at least it had new areas, new enemies, and completely revamped combat. This has 'hold R1 to get rid of moldy obstacles in the corridor'.

This game is trying so hard to be so many different things and doesn't really nail any of them. Its meandering structure falls short of 7's tight pace and there's way less atmosphere. There's nothing really remotely scary or tense in here. The Lycans are easily the worst basic enemies in the RE franchise. Despite the clear influence from RE4, this game also fails to bring anything new or interesting to the formula. It's a definite mixed bag and mostly feels trite by the standards not only of 7 but also the recent remakes.

First things first, this one is more action focused. That's cool but in reality the encounters aren't all that interesting. The mechanics extend to shoot...and that's it. There's a few more guns I guess. Whilst the gunplay is passable, freedom is not at all something this game values. There are SO many cutscenes that take away player agency and whilst the castle starts off pretty good, later areas are linear shooting galleries broken up by cutscenes where your character is grabbed by something or taken to another section of the map. The big issue here is that getting around the map never felt like something I was doing. The designers wanted me to suddenly blip somewhere else so cue the floor breaking or a monster hitting me into another room or whatever. The thing I love about the earlier games is the organic way the game leads you into new areas, the exploration, which is not present here.

The setting is fine, but the wacky fantasy monsters do feel a bit much. Don't get me wrong, RE gets ridiculous, but this feels like the result of a board meeting where the intern got to write in their fanfiction. Vampires and werewolves great, but how are they unique? Well they're zombies but faster...yippee. None of the characters stood out to me at all really and they all have so much dialogue and so little in terms of threat factor. You know what's not scary? Explaining everything in boring detail to me over and over. Heisenberg felt like something straight out of RE5 and Lady Dimitrescu was so underutilised that she saw me about 3 times in my whole time in the castle.

Finally, I think the story is just straight up abysmal. The game makes some pretty questionable changes to lore to tie to the main franchise. I won't spoil anything, but it just feels contrived. The story though is just straight up everything I hate about the more plot-heavy RE games. There's so much random nonsense and lore exposition going on and so many ideas that are just half-assed. RE4 had the village, the castle, and the island. This game seems to think more areas = a better game so it cuts down about 6 areas each to a 2-3 hour fairground ride where nothing is explored in detail and we just get a mish-mash of action. The only area that feels remotely like RE is the castle.

I don't know how a game can have so many new ideas and make none of them stick. Usually I remember a location pretty vividly from each RE game. For 2 its the police station, for 3 the hospital, for 4 the castle, and for 1 the mansion. For this game I don't think there's a single standout location and any that are interesting, like the factory, are so underdeveloped in terms of level design and length that I probably won't remember any of them.

Pretty much everything I wanted and could have asked for in a 2D Mario game. Except from the repetitive Bowser Jr. minibosses, there are almost no problems with this game.

The levels are so full of new ideas and everything is focused on pure fun. The wonder seeds, new enemies, and the overall creativity of the game makes every level feel unique and the controls and visual design make everything pop. Mario controls intuitively and the levels have never been more visually distinct. The music is good but doesn't really stand out amongst other Mario games, however.

The difficulty of the levels is pretty much perfect. It rarely gets to the extreme difficulty of later levels in Mario 3 and the challenging levels in the special world are just challenging enough to entertain those looking for more difficulty but not crazy enough to be impossible. The 'final-final trial' was exceptionally tough, but I felt a sense of achievement from finally getting through it. Saying this, the extra content is very well put together. Compared to the special zone in Mario World which feels a little tacked on, the special world in Wonder functions more like the Star World with a challenge for each main world hub. The collectible coins are rarely obnoxious and usually pretty enjoyable to find and the decision to make them function as currency was great. There is finally some function to getting them.

Everything is just so well designed and this game just perfectly embodies how an extremely talented group of developers, given the time and resources they need and the encouragement to be creative and bold (this game had no set deadline or budget), can deliver something of almost unparalleled quality. The attention to detail, the quality of life features, the creativity. Everything is here.

2D Mario hasn't been this good since the 90s. Tied with Resident Evil 4 for GOTY for me.

A lot of fun and definitely the scariest in the franchise. The opening few hours are genuinely freaky and later areas like the greenhouse and child's room are tense and unsettling.

Despite dialling up the horror, RE7 still manages to get most of the key aspects of a great RE game down well. The exploration is great, especially in the first part of the mansion where you have no weapons and are avoiding Jack. The mansion as a whole is great. Later areas get a bit more linear and the action ramps up whilst the scares get fewer and fewer (which is pretty standard for RE). The atmosphere is great throughout and, whilst it's not my favourite setting, the Baker estate earns its place as an iconic location for the franchise.

There was obviously a lot of love put into rebooting the franchise and I was thoroughly impressed how this game still feels like RE despite all the changes such as the first-person mode. Despite what critics say, there are a lot of level design quirks that remain in line with earlier games. It's a fresh coat of paint, but sticks to the franchise's key gameplay loops and for that I think it's one of the best soft reboots we've ever had.

The DLCs are also a lot of fun. They play differently to the main game and are more action heavy but the change of pace is exciting and they don't last long enough to detract from the main experience. Both Not a Hero and End of Zoe add some interesting worldbuilding to the main story and twist the mechanics enough to stand out as unique.

The only real problem is the combat. There's not really enough variation in the main campaign and sometimes the molded just feel placed there for the sake of it. Compared to games like REmake and the RE2 remake the default enemies aren't really threatening and the focus on killing them takes away from some of the fight-or-flight mechanics of earlier games.

Overall though, this was a solid 8.5/10 and I'd recommend to anyone looking for a great first-person survival horror.