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Funny Goblin Gamer Man
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5★

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1 Years of Service

Being part of the Backloggd community for 1 year

GOTY '23

Participated in the 2023 Game of the Year Event

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Become mutual friends with at least 3 others

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Favorite Games

Bloodborne
Bloodborne
NieR: Automata
NieR: Automata
Outer Wilds
Outer Wilds
Super Mario Galaxy
Super Mario Galaxy
Team Fortress 2
Team Fortress 2

034

Total Games Played

000

Played in 2024

078

Games Backloggd


Recently Reviewed See More

This is the only game that I feel like I could truly call a super game.

Final Fantasy 7 has always been one of those games that alluded me. I have probably played through Midgar maybe 3 or 4 different times in my life, and due to one reason or another I never made it much farther than that. It really wasn't due to anything from the game, it was just circumstances. Seeing how good Rebirth looks and wanting to get in on the hype, I finally decided to sit down and give this game the try and deserves, and holy shit did it not disappoint.

There is so much to absolutely love here. The characters are almost all winners, with the only one being disappointing was Vincent solely due to the fact that his side quest was way too short. The music is still genuinely fantastic, with songs like Cosmo Canyon and Highwind joining some of my favorites of all time. It is physically impossible for Uematsu to miss.

The most surprising thing that held up the most to me was the graphics though. I unironically think this game is still gorgeous, even with its blocky character models and blurry backgrounds. Whenever the game played a pre-rendered cutscene I felt the same awe I probably would of felt back in 1997. Good art direction and design is timeless.

The story also won me over, which is surprising because I heard that it could get overcomplicated and confusing. But no, the story is incredibly straight forward with a couple genuinely really fun and interesting twists. The game made me look at Cloud in a new light, and it made me appreciate him even more. I cant wait to play Crisis Core to learn more about his and Zack's friendship.

The gameplay was mostly a lot of fun, but it had a few issues. I love traditional turn based combat, so for the most part I had a blast managing and grinding my party through battles. The problem mainly comes from a lack of character identity, and the materia system being a bit too clunky to manage. The materia system makes it so that you can make any party member any class, and while a lot of fun to use, makes it so that the party does not have a lot of variation outside of limit breaks (which are awesome). Swapping materia also became a huge hassle even with the quick swap menu, and made a lot of the game slow down to a crawl. It really is the games biggest flaw because if they just ironed out this system a little more I could see it being one of my favorites.

There is still so much more to talk about with this game, but I'll leave it at this. Final Fantasy 7 genuinely made me feel like a kid again. This game came out 4 years before I was born, but while playing it, I truly felt the weight of what this game accomplished for its time. But even with that said, if Final Fantasy 7 released as is today (except for a few tweaks to the materia system), I do genuinely believe it would still be considered one of the all time greats.

A truly timeless masterpiece.

T-O-R-E-E, THATS THE BIRD WE LIKE TO SEE

An extremely fun and short 3D platformer with a shockingly great soundtrack. Not much different to say about this game from the 1st one, its just more Toree and thats great.

If this game had like 6 more months in the oven it could have been something truly incredible.

Penny's Big Breakaway was a game that I was highly anticipating since it was shown in that Nintendo Direct last year, and seeing it be shadow dropped last month excited me enough to buy it as soon as my next paycheck went through.

There is a lot to absolutely love here, from outstanding visual design, to exciting and bouncy music, all wrapped up in a world that is just fun to traverse. The environmental detail is absolutely stellar, and every nook and cranny in these levels were packed to the brim with hidden challenges and secrets that made them incredibly replayable.

The star of the show however is Penny herself. Starting out, I was a little worried because I wasn't fully clicking with how the game controlled, but after playing for a few more hours, I got to a point where I was flying through levels and pulling off incredibly fun movement combos. The game just feels good to play, and it reminded me a lot of Pseudoregalia in that regard, although not as deep. Penny's roll move where she rides on top of her YO-YO might be one of my new favorite 3D platformer movement techniques.

The issues however come from what I consider to be a surprising lack of polish. This game reminded me quite a lot of Super Mario Sunshine, where the core movement felt so good, but a plethora of bugs and strange design choices stop the game short of greatness. The amount of bugs I encountered in this game was unacceptable, and frankly made going for 100% a complete and total mess. There were dozens of times where Penny would just fly completely in the wrong direction, or the physics would not know what to do and just kill me instantly.

The lack of polish also led to a lot of moments having lackluster sound design, and boss fights not having the impact that I wanted them to have. The final fight had all sound cut out for me during it, and it just made the entire experience awkward. The combo system also felt poorly thought out, where once I found out I could double jump into a roll over and over again for an easy 100 move combo, every level had me quickly spamming that at the beginning to ensure I got the scrapbook piece at the end.

Overall, seeing that this game was shadowdropped in the most recent Nintendo Direct puts a sour taste in my mouth. I really do feel like if this team had another 6 months to iron out the strange kinks with it, this game could rival some of my favorite 3D platformers like Kirby and the Forgotten Land or A Hat in Time. But even with those issues, Penny's Big Breakaway was a thoroughly enjoyable game with some of the most fun traversal mechanics Ive used in a while.

It just bums me out that this game was just a few more weeks of QA away from true greatness.