God of War: Ascension is a fine enough game but it struggles to earn its existence. On one hand, I think the combat is a lot of fun, more fun than the usual for these games. The chains being used more and the increased emphasis on grabbing with them makes the gameplay a lot more fast paced, very rarely did I get frustrated with it. Elementals effecting the blades also was a good feature. Im not sure how much of this is new and what was added in GoW3 but I liked it nonetheless. That being said, thats about the only praise I can give this game.

The story is well, it sure is a story. While God of War isnt known for peak story telling outside of the newest entry, I found most of the games to have pretty compelling and enjoyable stories to them. Besides this one. As a prequel it doesnt really bring anything new to the table. The characters are uninteresting, the cool set pieces are few and far between and the story is just unapologetically mid. Its not bad, but compared to past entries I was incredibly less interested in it and all the villains are completely forgettable.

I think the biggest problem with this game is how much it feels like just an attempt to modernize the series and make itself relevant. Sure, graphically its impressive for the PS3 but the art style itself looks ugly and bland like so many other games in the era, it loses most of the charm even the PSP games were able to retain. The menus look like a generic action game and lets not forget everyones favorite 2010-ish single player game feature: tacked on mutliplayer. Its dead now of course but I wager it was never very lively to begin with. All of this just makes the game feel like a bit of a cash grab. Not an effortless one, mind you but a cash grab is a cash grab.

All this being said, I still find it to be a pretty good game overall. The combat is very fluid and although there arent many, the dope moments are certifiably dope. If you've finished the rest of the series and want more God of War you are sure to get something out of this, but it might just make you long to be playing the previous entries instead.

Trophy Completion - 91% (34/36)
Time Played - 13 hours 16 minutes
Nancymeter - 69/100
Game Completion #66 of 2022
June Completion #1

*no I did not forget to change the playtime from my FFA review, they legit both have the same playtime

I am gonna try to not write a long review for this one because even though Its a short game, having gone for the platinum it has long overstayed its welcome and Im ready to delete it.

Despite that harsh opening, this game honestly wasnt all that bad. Please dont play this without a friend or friend with benefits or brother or sister or grandma or whatever, because I honestly cant imagine this game being very fun solo. It is fully meant to be a co-op game so maybe skip it if nobody loves you.

So the game is basically ratchet and clank gameplay but in a tower defense format. There is only 5 levels and one of them is a reskin so you're not really getting a lot of content here. There is also a multiplayer but it is beyond dead and Im not convinced would of been worth it to begin with. The game does have some decent replay value through medals and challenges and leveling up weapons, so having to replay the levels for the platinum was more fun then it was a bother. Story is whatever, its mildly funny but just there to string everything together. The game is really quite basic but it still does have all the charm you'd come to expect from a Ratchet and Clank game, so as long as you're playing with the right person you'll find this a fun game to beat in a sitting or two. If not, maybe you're not missing much.

Platinum Thoughts: So for the most part going for this platinum was pretty funny. You got some good miscellaneous ones and in general its just a good small trophy list. The hardest among these is to beat three of the levels with developer times, but as long as you attempt these on a second playthrough after you've upgraded most of your guns its pretty fun to try to beat them as quick as possible. They each took us a couple tries but we always were only short by a couple seconds so its a fair challenge without being too much of a pain. So for the most part its a fun not too demanding platinum. But then theres the one trophy that will long outlast all the others. You have to glide, hoverboot and run for a certain amount of miles that even after having beaten each level 2-3+ times we werent even half close too. This took us a few hours of additional grinding. This trophy is just lame, you'll long since have seen everything the game has to offer by the time you unlock it and leaves the game with an unsatisfying feeling upon completion. Worst part is the skill points you can use to track your progress end before you've met the trophy requirement, so you'll just be wandering around for an additional hour hoping you rack up enough time somehow.

All this being said, trophy annoyances don't equate to quality. You'll find that FFA is a respectable if probably unnecessary little co-op game and its worth the short time you'll spend on it if you've got someone to share it with. I'll always be grateful for series I like getting their own wacky little spinoffs and this is no exception

Trophy Completion - 100% (23/23) Platinum #198
Time Played - 13 hours 16 minutes
Nancymeter - 65/100
Game Completion #64 of 2022
May Completion #14

Very satisfying fast-paced racing across excellently designed tracks, with plenty of fun things like jumps, half pipes, full pipes and loops.

One aspect of F-Zero X I love is the attacking mechanic. Winning a cup is not all about coming first in every race. While that IS an option (though I tend to think less likely in higher difficulties which require perfect driving), it's much more viable to take out the person currently winning the overall ranking (conveniently labelled "rival") so they get 0 points for a race and effectively remove them as an opponent for the rest of the cup.

The attacking mechanic is also a big risk vs reward factor, as missing a hit could instead have you slamming into a wall, losing health and slowing you down.

Speaking of risk vs reward, making the boost and health system the same bar is so evil and I love it. You really have to balance your greed.

A few things I wasn't a fan of, such as the fact the Ai blatantly cheats. As I mentioned, taking out your rival is a huge part of winning on higher difficulties. Unfortunately the cpu cars basically go way faster than you, so you tend to have only a single chance to knock out a rival at the very start, before they speed past you and get to the front of the pack for the rest of the race. Of course if you're good enough to consistently get to the front in a race you can have another chance, but if you're driving that perfectly AND want to risk your placement by trying to knock out an opponent, I'd say you're good enough to win even without knocking out your rival (at least on Expert, I never tried master and don't intend to).

I know it's a big skill issue, but the #1 tip I always saw for this game was double tap turning. While I could do this perfectly on truly sharp corners, and hairpin turns (which ironically made the later cups slightly easier as that's where they tend to be), it never worked for me at all in the corners that weren't necessarily sharp, but just enough to make me skid if I tried to take them raw. Anytime I tried to do it in those cases I'd just slam in to a wall, and I could never work out how to do it despite watching videos. That bugged me the whole time knowing I could be doing better, but could never get it to work how it's supposed to.

Supposedly the N64 version is the best because the sensitivity of the control stick, and the Switch pro controller just ain't built for the precision needed. That's why I did not feel bad about using save states between some races to win lol.

Anywho it's a really fun game, with exhilarating speed and tracks, with mechanics that can really turn you pro if you want to dig deep, otherwise expert may be a little frustrating (I only did it because it was needed for the credits).

Ok yes, I did decide to play this game because of the memes and its outlandish presentation. And yes, Bunger is a national treasure.

However, I actually enjoyed Bugsnax very much. It's packed with charm and I was always excited to see new areas with new snax to discover and catch. It has a neat story with a cast that, while made up mostly of exaggerated tropes, is pretty fun to interact with and learn more about.

Other than that I'm not entirely certain why I enjoyed it so much, just hits all the right notes for me I suppose. Definitely at least worth a try if for no other reason than how unique it is.

Kind of a hidden gem. An interesting and somewhat deep combat system paired with a cliche story.

The most unique part of the game is the way progression works, you age with each death and you have to reach the end before getting to a certain age. While this was cool in theory, I feel like I would have enjoyed the game more if the progression was more standard.

Either way, it's priced pretty steeply for what it is but probably worth a play on a sale.

Edit: Bumped it up to a 4/5 after I decided to go for the platinum. Mastering the combat system is really satisfying.