This was one charming Lil Gator Game.

That pretty much sums up my experience with the game but here is a review nonetheless.

Lil Gator Game sounds like a very basic title for a flash game, albeit has enough wholesome content and excellent gameplay to keep you entertained throughout the whole game. It is clearly inspired by open world games such as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom with its obvious references and call backs to the game and it is unashamed to reference them, as it should because they are games that shaped the open world games today. However, it reminded me more of games like ‘A Short Hike’ with its more laid back gameplay (which is an excellent game and you should look into if you enjoy this game).

The narrative is very relatable and it does share a very cute message for those who may have forgotten that life is not always about working hard, but also giving yourself time to destress and enjoy the moment. This game seems like it should be catered to younger audiences but in reality, can be appreciated by all ages, whether it’s is the message of the game, or simply just having fun roaming around the islands.

Gameplay wise, the mobility of the main character infused with its sweet graphics, many gadget options, dialogue and characters made it satisfying to play. The only negative I have was the automatic latch onto trees to climb that made it a bit frustrating when trying to zoom around the island. Overall, an amazing game!

Difficulty: Easy
100% Playthrough.
Gameplay: 4/5
Narrative: 4/5
Art Direction/Graphics: 4/5
Music: 3/5
Creativity: 4/5

Overall: 4/5

Super Mario RPG is a fantastic remake of the original game that came out on the SNES in 1996 that stays faithful to its original source material. The charm of the original game came from its humour, world, iconic music & characters and their interactions with each other. The remake illustrates all these aspects with polished and refined graphics, and even adding some cut scenes to elevate the story and its characters.

The newly added mechanics to the battle system, such as the triple move attacks and splash damage, improves the pacing of the game but makes the game a little too breezy and lacks any sort of challenge. In saying that, the original was quite easy in terms of difficulty to begin with so you could say that this is a quality of life improvement. The simplicity is counter balanced by the difficulties of getting the timing correct with the action command prompts which keeps the battles somewhat engaging.

I grew up playing the original game and to be able to re-live the experience had me excited to play the game and it did not disappoint.

I still do however prefer the original (call me blinded by nostalgia).

Difficulty: Easy
100% Playthrough but no post-game playthrough.

Gameplay: 4/5
Narrative: 3/5
Art Direction/Graphics: 4/5
Music: 4.5/5
Overall: 4/5

Difficulty: Easy-Medium
Overall Playtime: ~5 hours
100% Completion with DLC (100% star collection)

I came across a gameplay video of ‘A Little to the Left’ on social media & it ignited the OCD inside me to check the game out myself.

As someone who loves organizing and tidying things in an orderly manner, this game was heavenly and gave me such a fulfilling experience for the most part. The cosy art style and music makes the game so much more charming and relaxing, making it a very enjoyable game to play when you want to declutter your mind. The difficulty of the game was quite simple but some levels did have its challenges, especially the levels that had multiple solutions to them. It develops your ability to recognize different patterns and sequences & being able to tackle the puzzle from different perspectives.

The game did feel a bit awkward to play using the joy cons on a Nintendo Switch console so I had to resort to playing it with the touch screen. It did not ruin any aspect of the gameplay but it did sometimes make me feel like I was playing a mobile game (Not a bad thing, I just prefer using controllers to play my games).

Towards the midpoint of the game, I felt like the game/puzzles did not know which direction to go & felt quite uninspiring. This made the game lack any sort of personality and have an overall confusing idea on what it wants to be.

Overall a must play if you like any sort of organisation games. Personally, I do not find any replayability value as the puzzles get quite similar to each other and the patterns to solve them are usually the same.

Gameplay: 4/5
Narrative: N/A
Art Direction/Graphics: 3/5
Music: 3/5
Creativity: 3/5

Overall: 3.5/5