Is it wrong to say that this is my favorite Jak and Daxter game? This feels like the first time where Naughty Dog, post tone and storytelling shift, actually nailed the writing in this world that they've created. The stakes are high but not to the ridiculous "we're using time travel and other dimensions and whatever else we throw at the wall" degree that the previous games had. Instead Jak is fighting against seedy underground mafia shit after being poisoned from beyond the grave by someone he killed in Jak 2 and it rules. This is how I like my Jak and Daxter!

That being said, I do remember being oddly jealous of this game when it came out because I kinda wish we got a Ratchet and Clank racing game too. Yes I know there's racing minigames in the first two games, they're not the same, damnit!

I both admire this game for being a technological marvel on the Sega Genesis (Look at those 3D graphics! Listen to the main menu and credits music going full Amiga on the Genesis sound chip! Admire the cutscene stills that seemingly destroy the color limitations of the hardware!) and hate it for being an absolute brutal monster of a game to play difficulty-wise. There is literally no reason for a game based off a Disney/Pixar property to be this stingy with the lives and health pick-ups but this game just expects you to do all of these levels pixel perfect with your wonky giant hitbox and your weird grabbing radius because you also start out with zero continues! Castlevania had continues!

The fact that I'm rating this game so highly even though I was one of those unlucky people that had to restart their entire game because I saved on the Goldoba battleship with an underlevelled team shows how much I love everything this game sets out to do. This game is the nadir of sixth generation JRPGs to me and it's a shame that so many people don't give this game a chance because of the card battle system (which is way more intuitive than it looks, even if RNG will screw you over sometimes) or the voice acting (which, yes, sucks ass) turning them away.

There's definite arguments to be had about this game's content in comparison to the older titles but I don't think enough credit is given to the way this game changed how the animals move out. Now, you have to initiate the move-out dialogue rather than finding out that one of them randomly decided to leave and you have to talk them out of it. This is a total game changer that I hope sticks with the franchise for good, because now I can play this game and take several month hiatuses without worrying that Zucker or Merengue are just going to be gone when I turn the game back on and there was nothing I can do about it. They finally removed the most stress-inducing thorn out of Animal Crossing's side and I hope it stays that way.

As for the rest of the game? I'm gonna be completely truthful here, I logged over 255 hours into this game and was playing it well into 2021 even before the huge content patch so it's safe to say that I'll be sticking with this game for another couple of years, partly because I feel more confident turning on this Animal Crossing rather than any of my older towns.

I made the worst mistake by playing the Sega Genesis version. Unlike most SNES/Genesis era Disney games where the soundtrack is pretty good on both versions, Pinocchio takes it a step backward by going "You know who I hate? The player." and makes the Sega version sound like digital diarrhea. The Sega Genesis version of "I've Got No Strings" that plays during the rhythm minigame on the 3rd level is like knives in your eardrums.

As for the rest of the game, it's a weird combination of both too hard for its target audience and too short for those who can make it past the many difficulty spikes. Even if you read the manual to figure out what's going on (and the manual explains every gameplay change, acting as 90's DRM for this game), you still have to deal with things like the labyrinthine first level, the random mine cart level where you have do split-second ducking and jumping or else you instantly die, or the final level, which is "hey remember that ostrich part everyone hates in The Lion King? It's that but worse".

But then, once you get past these grueling tasks and enter the basic side-scrolling portions of the game, it's easy and none of the levels last very long. The most visually interesting part of the game - the part where Pinocchio is fleeing Pleasure Island and climbing these beautifully rendered purple ocean rock faces while he fights giant smoke monsters - lasts about five minutes and that includes the boss at the end. Making difficulty spikes so that a kid couldn't beat the game in a single rental was a pretty common practice in the 90's, but this is the only game where it feels like the difficulty spikes are there to disguise the game's otherwise hilariously short runtime.

At least the graphics are nice. The sprite work is incredibly fluid and has a lot of great animation frames. I just wish it was in a better game.

Spyro 3 is simultaneously the best and the worst in the classic trilogy. The good parts in this game are really good! This game delivers the most polished Spyro game, it adds improvements so strong that they're retroactively applied to the whole trilogy in Reignited, and it tells the best story with some of the best lines in the series.

Sadly, the game also uses the kitchen sink approach that plagued other games of this era like DK64 and Crash: Warped and a solid 30% of this game...I just don't really care for. Give me more of the good bits I already liked in this series, not a ton of variety that either lands perfectly or somersaults face-first into the pavement. All of my least favorite Classic Spyro missions and levels are bunched together in this game and it makes me dread replays of this game a lot more than the games that contain Tree Tops and the Breeze Harbor trolley.

...but despite all that I still give this game a 4 out of 5 because, even though I absolutely hate those speedway races and any time I have to play as Agent 9, the rest of the game is still very fantastic. The good stuff is just that good.

It's 2022 and this is the first time I've played a Traveller's Tales Lego game. It was alright. The most 6.5/10 game to ever exist. Probably the most valid Harry Potter adaptation right now simply because it was allowed to poke fun at some of the plot points in a way that this franchise doesn't feel allowed to do, with a charming amount of PS3-era jank (I like it when the magic targeting system decides to not work) and a hefty amount of early HD-era dirt and grass textures.

The main downside to this game is that not once did Hogwarts feel at all good to navigate. Discovering new areas in Hogwarts were less "oh wow, look at this fun new area!" and more "well I've searched all of the other rooms but my totals are still at 95%, so will this room have a random door that leads to a Student in Peril because I've been scouring this stupid castle for an hour now". I feel like having a Marauder's Map menu option or some sort of fast warping system would've saved so much pain.

Ah well. It was all worth it just for this game's rendition of Cedric Diggory's death and for the Moaning Myrtle boss battle.