It feels weird to review this because everyone's experience with Tabletop Simulator (TTS) is different. Instead, I'll review it as a combination of my own experiences playing the game and how good it actually is at simulating tabletop games.

This game has a special place in my heart because I played it a lot during the pandemic - when my college had to shut down in 2020, my friends and I had to migrate to using this simulator instead of meeting up for our usual board game nights, and man did I have a fun time. Not only did we play our usual favorites like Villainous, but TTS introduced us to many new games that we ended up enjoying, like The Red Dragon Inn.

TTS was our saving grace at the time; board game nights on the simulator felt like board game nights in-person and helped us keep in touch over those rough months of the pandemic. We did have a couple mishaps at first trying to adapt and learn the game's controls, but overall we had a wonderful time. Also, TTS's library is endless, there are so many board games to that have been integrated into the library, so I still find myself returning to it to play more games.

I will say, however, that the game is mainly enjoyable playing with people you know. Of course, you can try matchmaking with anyone via online lobbies or Discord groups dedicated to playing TTS board games, but I've had a mixed experience with this: most of the people I've played games this way were cool, but there are still a couple bad apples here and there. The game's in-game lobby is also pretty toxic and I personally think the game would be better off without it.

What is it with Battlefront players and our horrible luck?

First, we had the 2015 game, which was released with very little content and terrible balancing. We then got the 2017 game, which had extremely overpriced heroes that it was practically pay-to-play.

Now, we have a re-release of the classic games, but this time with multiple bugs and terrible servers.

I'll end this review on an optimistic note at least: history shows that Battlefront games are always able to redeem themselves and get better over time, as we saw with the 2015 and 2017 games. Hopefully this will be the case for the re-release, otherwise I will continue giving it this negative review.

This game is rife with problems and it's only gotten worse over time.

While the idea of exploring different worlds in VR is exciting (and I'm amazed by some of the places that people have designed), this game is in such a bad state now. For one thing, it's very buggy, and a lot of the problems I had with this game when I started playing in 2020 are still there.

The biggest problem I have with the game, however, is the community. The game is full of creeps, and this is especially bad considering how many kids play this game. It's something that I wish the developers would address and crack down on more, but over time it's been getting worse and worse.

I never grew up playing this video game myself, but decided to play it out of curiosity after learning about it through my AP World History teacher in high school.

This game is phenomenal. I don't think Sid Meier will ever craft a better Civilization game.

Rich in both history and strategy, every game of Civilization IV offers a new experience. I'm always eager to try out different approaches to the game and see how I can win with each civilization. Despite being so rich in strategy, it's also very accessible to someone who's never played a strategy game before. This is partly due to the course of the game itself - the "start" of history is very simple but as the game progresses you have more things to manage, but by then you have a better idea of how to run the game. I still remember playing my first ever game, having zero clue what to do at first except build villages and protect them with Archers, and by the end I had this intricate plan of how I could amass an army to have the highest score in the game (Joao ultimately beat me, but boy was that game fun).

The expansion pack in particular, Beyond the Sword, expands on the original game's strengths. Not only does it improve the AI, but it creates new features for the game such as Espionage and much more complex victory conditions. Furthermore, it adds more civilizations to the game such as the Khmer and new leaders for older ones, souch as Boudica representing the Celts. The expansion thus deepens the game's addictive value in addition to creating a more diverse, educational experience for the player.

If I had to pick one gripe I had with the game, I do wish some of the character portraits were a bit more historically accurate. Catherine the Great and Hatshepsut immediately come to mind for this, but I'm grateful that they are even an option in the first place as they are among my favorite historical figures.

The game's strengths, however, are endless. Whether you're a history buff, someone looking to get into strategy games, or just someone who wants to have a good time, Civilization IV is the game for you.

Overall, I liked this game. While nothing "wowed" me except the finale, the game has a solid storyline and decent gameplay.

The game has a pretty slow start. Without spoiling too much, the game doesn't really pick up until after you get through the first planet (excluding the prologue). It also has a couple of pacing issues here and there, with you having to revisit planets multiple times to unlock more areas. By the time I finished the game, I was completely burnt out and tired of visiting the main, large planet in the game. Anyone who has played this game will know exactly which planet I'm referring to lol.

I also felt that, with the exception of two planets, the levels were designed to look too "platformy" and this killed the immersion that the developers seemed to intend with the game. This is something that the sequel fortunately improves upon, but I'll elaborate on that in my review for that game.

I didn't like the combat system at first, but it grew on me as I developed my own playstyle and unlocked new abilities. The game rewards you not only in understand how Cal works, but how the enemy does as well. There were times when I would be stuck on a boss and would feel so frustrated, but the payoff with finally mastering the boss's attacks and defeating them is well worth it.

The game's strongest asset, however, is its storytelling. This has one of my favorite stories to come out of the Disney era of Star Wars so far, both the protagonists and antagonists of this game are very well-written and I became more and more invested in their storylines as the game progressed. This solid writing ultimately builds up to one of the most intense finales I've ever witnessed in a video game.

This is a pretty decent entry for what seemed to be a series dedicated to Fire Emblem remakes.

My favorite part about this game is the art style. The game looks very beautiful and has my favorite character portraits of any Fire Emblem game. The character designs look amazing, especially considering how newer Fire Emblem games have been lacking in this department in my opinion.

I also find the writing pretty solid. The kingdoms of Rigel and Zofia are very fascinating, and having you switch between Alm and Celica throughout the game truly compares and contrasts not only their characters, but the nations they personify.

I find the characters' writing themselves to be a mixed bag. Without spoiling anything, some major plot details made me much more disappointed in how some characters were developed. The female characters in particular struggle from a damsel-in-distress syndrome that the original game had. I wish that the writers had polished a lot of the character endings. Being a remake of an older game, this would've given the developers an opportunity to improve upon some of the original game's weaker writing. We already see it with Leon now being written as a gay character to improve portrayal of LGBT+ characters in the series, so I don't understand why the remake retains the original game's poor portrayal of female characters.

I found the maps in this game to be so-so, and none of them were truly memorable for me. I did enjoy traversing through dungeons however.

And so there's Shadows of Valentia, the first and only entry in the Echoes series so far. Unfortunately, some people theorize that due to poor sales, we've never had another Echoes game since. It's a shame, as it's a solid game in spite of its flaws and can be enjoyed by newer and older fans alike.

This is my favorite Star Wars video game.

I had this game as a kid but I never got to truly play it until now. My older sister had bought it and I tried to play it, but I was too young to understand it. I finally played through it now and... wow. What a phenomenal game.

I was hooked on this game from the very beginning. I don't remember the last time I felt this way about a game, where I was so engrossed in its lore, its gameplay, its characters, that I couldn't put it down and would think about it non-stop.

With that said, no game is perfect, and KOTOR itself has a couple of flaws. The levels in the game all have tremendous worldbuilding - such that you can dedicate an entire game to each of them - but I did find a couple of them to feel a bit unpolished in terms of level design. I was also a bit underwhelmed with the finale, both in terms of gameplay and story.

Everything else about the game was top-notch. I finished playing it last month, and I'm already itching for another replay. I'm excited to experience the game again while exploring different story options and trying out different builds for my character.

Also, here's one last word of advice, do not read any Wookieepedia article remotely related to this game unless you want to give yourself major spoilers.

This game actually had some potential upon release but it never transpired into anything truly good. It's not surprising that it eventually died.

I did somewhat enjoy the PvE content, I liked visiting places in real life and then fighting "dark wizards" through the app. I actually preferred PvE in this game compared to PvE in Pokémon GO as it felt so much more engaging. I also thought the way they integrated Portkeys through AR was pretty cool.

Everything else felt so lacking however. The gameplay feels stale very quickly. The whole premise of "unconfounding" items around the world did not feel very "Harry Potter" and just felt like a lazy reskin of Pokémon GO. I also wish there were more to do with our Houses. Instead, it just changed the color of your character's silhouette? Why can't there be different challenges we can do for our House? Or a House Cup between the Houses? Niantic was able to incorporate some PvP in Pokémon GO via the three different teams, so how they were able to blunder this aspect so badly bewilders me.

The game lacked the immersion that a Harry Potter game should have. That, along with Niantic's track record of poor decision-making, ultimately killed the game.

While this collection's release is understandably controversial, I would be lying if I said I regretted my purchase.

Granted, there are multiple problems I still have with it. There's zero reason for Super Mario Galaxy 2 to not be included in this, for one thing. It's also a very greedy move of Nintendo to not only price this game at the standard price of $60, but also sell it within a limited time frame to pressure consumers to buy it out of FOMO. And, as a passionate fan of Super Mario Sunshine, I can say that playing the game on the Switch does not give you the full experience, as Switch controllers lack pressure sensitivity, which was an integral way to control FLUDD in the original release.

But... I've had this collection since release and, despite these problems, I still enjoyed it?

There is so much joy to be had in having these games at the palm of your hand, I've played all three of these games as a kid, but it feels great to finally have them within one singular collection so I can play them wherever I go.

While I have my complaints with how Sunshine is controlled on the Switch, I love how Galaxy is adapted to the Switch. I don't have to shake a Wii Remote furiously every time I want to perform a spin, and the touch screen/Pro controller motion sensors work perfectly for collecting Star Bits. Also, Sunshine and Galaxy look phenomenal to this day.

An underrated feature I see rarely talked about this collection is the option to play the games in multiple languages. Instead of being locked within the language of the region your purchased the game in, you can select any available language you want before playing the game. For instance, I am currently playing Sunshine in Spanish despite being in the US, and it's provided a way for me to teach myself Spanish while playing one of my beloved childhood games.

So, overall, it's a pretty solid collection of games but it will forever be tainted by its controversial release. It's a shame, because a price drop and a permanent release would easily make this one of the more well-received games on the Switch.

I have been playing Roblox since 2008 and I have seen it evolve for better and for worse.

For better? The places are more complex and intricate than ever. I'm impressed at how in-depth a lot of the gamees are now, I would never have believed back in 2008 that Roblox would have the capacity for games such as Survive the Killer, since games back then were so much simpler. It's really become a great way for you to try your hand at game developing.

For worse? Unfortunately, it seems that many of Roblox's flaws in its early days have only been exacerbated, often at the volition of the devs. It's disappointing to see the admins now supporting problems in the game such as online dating. Microtransactions are also now more prevalent than ever.

While other N64 games like Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time continue to stand the test of time and are still regarded as fantastic video games today, I find that Mario Kart 64 has aged poorly in comparison.

I still think the game did a few things right for the genre. I find it to have one of the best course selections in the series, and I'm always excited to see which Mario Kart 64 courses make it as a retro stage with each new Mario Kart game.

In addition to a great course selection, the game has an amazing soundtrack. A lot of them are unfortunately reused (as is the case for a lot of the older Mario Kart games), but they nevertheless sound amazing. "Koopa Troopa Beach" in particular is a favorite of mine.

Now we go to the gameplay itself... the racing isn't as fun as it used to be. With other older Mario Kart games, even Super Circuit, I actually the racing enjoyable still, but racing in this game feels very "slippery" so to speak and there's not in learning how to master the game, whereas other entries like Mario Kart Wii still have me replaying it over and over again to find new ways to get better.

Coupled with these poor racing mechanics is a horrendous AI. The rubber band AI in this game is BAD. When I replay this game, I ask myself how I managed to enjoy this as a kid because the AI can be so frustrating to play against. This video provides a short but great example of this game's AI.

I understand that, being the first 3D racing game in the series, it had a lot of hurdles to face. But whereas other N64 games also faced these similar challenges but are still fun to play, I struggle finding the energy to play this game today.