Games that tell stories only capable of being relayed through the medium of gaming will always hold a special place in my heart. Since my first encounters with video games as a whole, I've never quite found any method of storytelling to even compare to it. Sure, the occasional film or manga or what have you might catch my attention, but those I hold at the peak of any other medium don't really come close to the experiences I've had with gaming.

Return of the Obra Dinn has once again solidified this idea for me, and it does so in such a way where I feel that everything within the experience is deserving of commendation. The actors, writing, art, music, and everything all together unite for an extremely fleshed out and cohesive experience that held my attention the whole way through. I believe this holds true for much of the game's playerbase due to the incredible completion rates seen on each of the achievements. Return of the Obra Dinn manages to create a very unique gameplay loop I haven't quite seen elsewhere, it's an incredibly fresh and engaging experience that I feel anyone with a brain could hold appreciation for. It might not be a grand story in comparison to other titles of today, but it sure as hell is a good one, a GREAT one.

A game that will constantly have you thinking, theorizing, trying new things, finding new angles, and most importantly, keeping you engaged following through its bizarre and beautiful storytelling. This is a game that I believe couldn't and shouldn't be passed up, if you're interested, play it. You won't regret it.

From the cover alone, you can probably already tell what you're in for with Little Kitty, Big City, and yes, it is exactly as charming, delightful, and obnoxiously cute as you want it to be.

That said, as ridiculous as it sounds, I did have some slight apprehension going into this, given what kind of game Stray was (or, in this case, was not).

Thankfully, underneath all the sweetness, there is a fun lil platformer to be found in Little Kitty, Big City and it's not merely a cute cat simulator where you run around doing cute cat things. I mean, it is very much that as well, but it's also a half-decent collectathon with some simple but engaging puzzles and side quests for the titular little kitty to embark upon.

Really, 'simple but engaging' is perhaps the best way to describe this game. It doesn't try to be anything more or less than it needs to be. The entire thing can be finished in less than 6 hours, and outside of some wonky catforming controls and animations, it holds your attention the entire way through.

With fun platforming, endlessly delightful little touches to the cat's behaviour and animations throughout, an upbeat, jazzy score and a delightful sense of humour, it's exactly the kind of game you need to take a break from the 50+ hour narrative-heavy, live-service AAA games that inhabit the space.

Sometimes you just want to reject modernity and embrace kitty.

7.5/10

ethan: urgh…damn it…what the FUCK is happening in this village…

heisenberg screeching over the intercom: ethAN wintERS. have you ever desired a man carnally?

three years late but whatever. stinks. simultaneously the least charismatic and most self-serious entry in a series that usually threads a better needle with respect to its tone than whatever’s presented here. ethan is an unlikeable psycho, thoroughly unenjoyable riff on the ‘it takes a village’ proverb. forgets to be an action game for half the game and then when you get to that part you’re mostly doing a bunch of eighth gen arena strafing with minimal target feedback. semi-competent machine games campaign but lacklustre resi title and every insistence the game makes on deriving aesthetic and mechanical inspiration from re4 falls totally flat while the rest of the game is too much of a ‘greatest hits’ reel to really have much of an identity of its own. between resi 7 and resi 8 the guys over at capcoms resi team need to seriously consider couples therapy. may have been more charitable if i was from eastern europe 👍

Astonishingly incredible. The idea of a puzzle-metroidvania is fucking genius. From the handful of experiences I’ve had with the genre, the combat has always been the worst part of the package. These games demonstrated engaging puzzles and encapsulating atmospheres, but dithered about with lacklustre combat; combat that is somehow presented as a third pillar of the game, as an equal to its atmospheric and puzzling counterparts. Neglecting this element to the extreme brings out the best part of metroidvanias (and is really, really fun to play).

Becoming intimate with this huge web of puzzles, slowly unravelling it yourself, and reaching the bottom of the rabbit hole. It’s an incredible concept, yet is so simple and so naturally delivered that it's hard to conceive how new this game feels. As both a publisher and developer debut, this is an explosive arrival to the scene, and hopefully a sign of great things to come for both.

Much has been said about the historicity of Tetris and its many iterations, but I find the very original text-based graphics version from 1984 to be the most charming. If I was committed to grinding this as a pseudo-sport, to improve my logic center and simple problem-solving speed, I'd likely opt for one of the later titles, probably Tetris 2000 or something based off of that for what little I know; but I don't really care to, it's just an extremely fundamentally well-made puzzle game with a background that frequently births inspiration. Bored, and a few lines of code later... Tetris!

You can play a recreation of this 1984 original here,, as well as Tetris Holdings' tribute to the original. I prefer the presentation of the first here, but the second is good too.

Featuring Knuckles from Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles!

I love Sonic 3K, and I can see why it's widely regarded as one of the best games in the series, it really feels like the full package of 2D Sonic (...and Knuckles).

While Sonic 2 rewarded speed in the level design, 3K emphasizes exploration again in a similar fashion to Sonic CD; the player needs to track down hidden large rings in a level to gain access to the special stages, where Sonic navigates across a maze-like board to activate blue orbs, while steering clear of red ones. Simple in theory, but certainly tricky at times. I would absolutely recommend going out of your way to do these special stages, because you'll unlock the ability to transform into Super Sonic after getting all seven Chaos Emeralds, and blazing through later levels in the Super Saiyan form is a joy. That's enough talk regarding the special stages though, as the actual main level design is the meat of the game.

With over a dozen different levels with multiple acts, Sonic 3K is the longest entry from the classic 2D games, and it's very nice to see how consistent the quality remains throughout its runtime. I'm not going to bring up every stage here (like in my Sonic 1 review), as I don't have extensive thoughts on all of them. There will also be a bunch of inevitable comparisons to other (Sonic) games, as I bear the curse of only recently becoming a fan in 2024 and those games just happen to be fresh in my memory.

Angel Island Zone is an amazing opening level, as it introduces the player right to the design philosophy of 3K and has many easily accessible special stages and multiple of the newly introduced elemental shields. For those who don't know, the elemental shields replace the shield power-up from the previous games and all are special in their own way. The lightning shield allows Sonic to double jump and attract rings, the bubble shield provides a move similar to Bounce Bracelet in Sonic Adventure 2 and allows him to breathe underwater (so the bubbles aren't required), while the fire shield gives immunity to fire (including lava) and a mid-air dash. In Angel Island Zone no shield is particularly better than another, so it's a good place to try their abilities before using them in later levels which make extensive use of their specific traits. One of those levels is Hydrocity Zone, which follows directly afterwards - here the use of the bubble shield is encouraged, as the bubble placements in the levels are only at certain spots and the ability to freely navigate underwater is very important if you actually want to explore there to find special stages without a rush. Marble Garden is arguably the longest and most confusing stage in the game, but it's still enjoyable in its own way. Carnival Night is plenty of fun to rush through too and has some nice underwater segments, while Ice Cap Zone is one of my favorites in the game with the snowboarding intro and overall satisfying level structure - this is particularly cool, because I was already very fond of Ice Cap in Sonic Adventure 1. Meanwhile, Flying Battery Zone is the result of "what if we made Wing Fortress Zone but actually good", taking the airship aesthetic of that level and making it more fun and sightreadable and Sandopolis is an innovative desert level, where the second half reminded me a lot of Pyramid Cave in Sonic Adventure 2. Afterwards follows Lava Reef Zone, which felt very reminiscent of Celeste's Core to me, but also stood out from the rest with its more vertical level design and great soundtrack, causing it to quickly become a favorite. Everything is rounded off with the Death Egg Zone, which gave me huge SA2 vibes again, as the atmosphere felt quite similar to the ARK levels in that game, same with the gravity switching mechanic. The final boss for 3K was also surprisingly fun compared to the other classic 2D entries, and Doomsday Zone is a great bonus for players who got all the Chaos Emeralds. Man, I love Super Sonic, no matter how basic the idea behind him is.

Sonic 3's soundtrack is an interesting one to discuss, as I completed the game through Sonic Origins, which uses the prototype versions of a few songs, as I believe the licensing for Michael Jackson's songs ran out (don't quote me on this). I don't think those prototype versions are as horrible as some make them out to be, and I actually prefer Carnival Night's prototype rendition to the original. Can't say the same for Ice Cap though, the original song is iconic for a good reason and I love how it ties in with the snowboard section at the beginning. The prototype version just sounds a bit too upbeat for my taste here, considering the original track conveys the gloomy feeling of an icy cave perfectly fine. Putting the differences of MJ and prototype songs aside, some other songs I thoroughly enjoy are Angel Island Zone, Hydrocity Zone (Act 1) and Lava Reef Zone (Act 1).

Even 30 years after its original release, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles managed to provide me with a surprisingly good time and I hope that many more people will continue to play it over the years. I really wish I would have grown up with the Sonic games in my childhood...

The Party Game genre on PC is a dire one, filled with low-effort streamerbait with meme ragdoll physics, battle passes for no reason, social deduction and some basic brawlers, a far cry from what developers usually offer on consoles, even those not from Nintendo. Enter Microworks, one that actually tries a little.
What you've got here is essentially 16-player online WarioWare. If you've ever played the Team Fortress 2 mod TF2Ware, by the same developers, this is basically what it is. You play many rounds of microgames in an FPS or TPS perspective and then a boss stage that's a more complex minigame, could be racing, an FPS match, or even a quiz game (sadly unlocalized, in Spanish, at least)

This game has almost everything it needed to succeed and become a classic for Discord calls with friends all over, in a similar vein to Duck Game; a gameplay premise no one else had tried to capitalize on in this way, it became free last year, added mod support with Steam Workshop this year and still has enough of a playerbase to play with randoms, even in non-first world countries.
The problem is that while people play it, it's still not popular enough, people just don't know this game, and the developers were kind of quick to give up on it, never really adding new microgames and declaring that the mod update would be the final one, basically leaving the community that decided to purchase the premium pass to do it themselves, as you can't even play the mods without buying that pass, and the developers only made the new content as Workshop mods.
After a few hours of play, you see most of the microgames, not necessarily all the boss stages, and can't help but get a little bored.

TF2Ware actually had a larger number of microgames with some that didn't make it to this game, those that used TF2's mechanics like rocket jumping or swimming. Although those aren't here, there are lots of brand new stuff possible now that this game has been made from scratch, but the potential lies untapped. There's an extra screen you use for a stacking microgame that could easily be used for more microgames closer to actual WarioWare stuff, which would've been an easy solution to adding more content without incorporating whole new mechanics that then have to be taught in the tutorial, but I think it really is only used for just the stacking microgame and the larger quiz minigame.

Next time you wanna play something simple and silly to laugh with your friends, give this a try instead of another soulless game about untextured little guys ragdolling on each other with one single gamemode, you might be surprised. You won't be playing this forever or anything, but if at least some of my followers find out that there are developers actually trying to make something with substance on PC and check out whatever Agiriko have cooking next, I'll be satisfied.

The people over at GoodFeel looked at what Yuji Naka was doing with Balan Wonderworld and said hold my beer.

As Nintendo exclusives go this one definitely feels the most like a late era release for a system on it's way out the door. Visually it's really bland and surprisingly fuzzy and poorly optimized for a game made by one of Nintendo go to second party studios, besides the main visual motif of the levels being plays everything else feels very bland; even by Goodfeels standers with their last game this is the most "second party" made nintendo game I've seen since in a long time, There just isn't much heart here and you can 100% tell.
Gameplay wise it's very easy, like......really easy; as in it's a two button game only and the only time the gameplay changes is when Peach uses a costume which gives her the ability to do one whole new move (wow). Obviously this game was made with very little kids in mind but honestly I feel like even they would get bored with something like this. Hell even compared with Kirby games like Forgotten Lands or Planet Robobot still offer a greater challenge as the game goes on, for pretty much the beginning to the end the whole game feels like it's on autopilot; like it's only reason for existence is to babysit your 6 year old for 5 hours instead of being a normal parent and put your kid in front of Bluey or a Mr. Beast video (joking by the way fuck Mr. Beast).

I guess my overall problem with the game is how...completely unmemorable the whole experience was. I went out of my way to 100% the whole game and besides like 1 or 2 moments from the beginning and the end I've already pretty much forgotten almost every part of the game. And I don't like using the argument of "oh well it's a kids game made for very little kids; what did you expect?", because even if you made a game with it being very easy in mind you still need to make it a good game. Like a side before Kirby is a very pretty much made with kids in mind but those games are not only game games that both kids and adult can enjoy, and give kids a good challenge while also still being welcoming for smaller kids; but those games are also chock full of stuff for kids and adult to play besides the main game. Here I 100% the game and did everything in around 9 hours for a game that cost the same price as Kirby's Forgotten land, Luigi's Mansion 3, and Super Mario Wonder.

The nicest thing I can say about this game is that unlike Balan Wonderworld it's not a buggy broken mess and plays alright, it's just a shame the game itself is the definition of bland.

Unfortunately this game is not good, it's not a worthy spiritual successor to Punch-Out.
It ends up being more trial and error with an emphasis on memorization.

Worst of all is that with low life, a filter covers the entire screen and occurs a dramatic close-up, which makes it difficult to see the patterns, which are inconsistent and not very clear, even more difficult to read at the most necessary moment.
The filter even covers the start menu, making the yellow highlight almost indistinguishable.

One of the bosses is a witch who releases magic, and guess the color... With low health it was better to restart the fight.

A Gunstar Heroes inspired game by the creators of Wild Arms? I was excited about trying this game out, but it wasn’t quite what I had in mind. 

As an early full 2D game for the PS1, it understandably wasn’t of high import, as this was only released outside of Japan in the PAL region. We didn’t get it in the States, probably due to Sony Computer Entertainment America being anal about 2D games. We almost didn’t even get any Mega Man games on the PS1 because of this. The only reason Mega Man 8 was able to be released in America is because Sony didn’t want the Saturn to have an exclusive title, as if they even needed to compete with it at all. So, yeah, something like this coming to America? No chance. Nonetheless, this is still a laughable localization. I was shocked to see that the entire credits was left untranslated. Did they think nobody would beat the game or something? I’m left wondering how it was even allowed to be released like that; I’ve never seen that before. Other than that, there was a difficulty change made to the European version where instead of the Japanese version's infinite continue amount, this game limits it to 9, which does make it much more difficult. It took a lot of grinding, as this game is pretty tough. 

You have 4 guns: a normal shot, a wide shot, a homing shot, and a flame shot, which is for high damage output. The cool thing about this game is that you’re able to switch between any of them on the fly, which is fun to swap them in the levels and boss fights to suit what's going on. There’s also a lock button so you can aim in place, and a grappling hook, so you’re able to vault onto platforms above. The cool thing about the grappling hook is that you’re immune for a period of time when using it which is fun to plan out. The bosses are great too; they’re really hard, and it’s fun to learn their patterns. The final boss is a great test for all you’ve learned playing the game. You will be dying a lot though, so beware. 

Rapid Reload lets you pick from two characters, and they are Axel Sonics and Ruka Hetfield. Their only gameplay difference is their weapons, which all have the same attributes (normal, homing, etc.) but are all different variations. Ruka, for some reason, is balanced horribly. Her guns barely do any damage, and there are a ton of instances where I’m certain it’s impossible to not take damage due to her not having enough coverage for what’s on the screen. Everything I praised about the gameplay basically gets thrown out the window while playing as Ruka. This is easily the worst part about this game, and it was infuriating when attempting to beat the game as her, but I was able to, and it took a lot of practice. Axel, though, is far stronger, as he does much more damage and has a lock-on homing laser, which makes a lot of the game's levels and bosses an absolute joke. 

I don’t really think anything else is super remarkable about the game though. The music is serviceable. I like some songs, but a lot of them are pretty boring. The graphics are also pretty standard. I mean, again, a super early PS1 game, but it’s very bland. The boss sprites do look pretty cool, though, along with the character portraits shown after stage completion.

If you play this game, just play as Axel, and save yourself from raging. If you’re a completionist, I’m sorry for what you’ll have to go through. If you don’t mind playing the game in Japanese, just play Gunners Heaven. You have infinite continues and 60 FPS, so that’s definitely a more desirable version. Or you could just play Gunstar Heroes.