Genuinely one of the best NES era titles, I think I can confidently state it blows a large selection of other NES platformers out of the water.

The Good: The basic gameplay is satisfying, the level design is (mostly) fantastic and there are so many little things that actually incentivise switching between the four characters!
I generally find when I play games with larger character rosters, or different "powers" (i.e. the mega man franchise) that there are characters or weapons that fulfill the niche of others much better, but here I found great uses for all characters. The mouse being able to demolish the first phase of almost every boss was wonderful to discover. The final boss rush levels were a little overwhelming at first but once I got into the flow I ended up enjoying them a ton.

- There's a hidden crab level?! And it's awesome?! You get it (as far as I can tell) by falling into the waterfall during the boss fight in the waterfall stage. The crab level also teaches you to grab onto the ceiling as Samson to avoid certain obstacles, which became very useful in some later levels. My friend completely skipped this level by beating the boss so when I accidentally plummeted into this level it was a really cool experience for both of us. The crab also looks awesome.

- The animations in this game are really charming! I love Samson's little spin when he jumps, the Golem's punching animation or how silly the mouse looks when hanging upside down. They help make the more frustrating sections a lot more tolerable, and add to the overall charm of the game.

The Bad:
- Being a NES title, it still suffers from a lot of little tricks used to make the game "harder" and extend the runtime through unfair difficulty. The main way Little Samson achieves this is by leaving characters besides Samson dead until you complete the level, which especially makes some of the later levels aggrevating without save states (If you're looking to get into this game, make sure you have a save state with everyone alive and healthy before going into the level, it will save you a ton of headache.)

- Since the themes are character specific, you'll be hearing the same four tracks throughout the entire game. The tracks are good, but after hour 2-3 they start to become a bit tedious to listen to.

- I find some of the ways the platform models overlap a bit visually unappealing. Just feels like they slapped a bunch of already existing models on top of each other without trying to make them visually cohesive. But thats a minor gripe.

Conclusion: Absolutely worth a play if you're into some of the NES classics like Mario or Castlevania. A hidden gem that I wish more people would give a try!

Had this at a 3.5 at first, but after playing some of the later chapters for each character I had to lower this to a 3 star.

Runs become unbelievably RNG-heavy to the point where some runs die in the first 2 levels because of quality difference in die rolls, and later floors often turn into a rage-inducing slog as you watch the enemy roll multiples freezes, blinds, shocks, poison, curses and what not multiple times in a row with one fight with bad RNG potentially, if not probably, dooming the entire run.

The game wants you to build for every encounter but then almost never actually gives you the tools to do so. There are some good idea's here and there is fun to be had in the earlier levels, but a game in which you lose an entire run because of 1 fight with bad RNG just kills my drive to play it after a while.

It's good but I can't say now that I've beaten it that I harbour much love for it or anything. It has a similar flaw to the XCOM games in that it really outstays its welcome by 8-10 hours. A lot of the midgame quests is grinding out the same missions you've been doing up until that point with maybe 1 or 2 new enemies to take into consideration (which became far too familiar far too quickly as well), until you finally unlock a new boss so you can get back to the fun part of the game, all the while hoping RNG doesn't decide to fuck you over on a random run. Furthermore these missions are even worse than XCOM's midgame because a ton of them feel like EXACT replica's of one another, with only slight variation in the layout. Also there's far too much walking through empty hallways and backtracking through dungeons for how monotonous and slow this can be at times. A fast walking option in the settings would've probably cut down my playthroughs length by an hour over the course of the game.

When it comes to game balance I generally think they did a good job class-wise, only the Grave Robber felt to me like it didn't serve that much of a purpose on many teams (it has a little bit of everything, but almost every comp I made i'd rather take someone else with me in their place). Vestal is a little too overcentralizing for my tastes; when the only other good (main) healer is the rng-centric Occultist you are setting up your strategy game to become vestal + 3 others as your comp on every (important) mission. Additionally, I think the bosses are mostly good as long as you know what you are getting into. Unfortunately a TON of them are matchup checks that become nearly impossible with the wrong comp, and a pushover with the right one. The wiki or a friend who knows what they are doing is a lifesaver in this regard. Going in blind can easily be the end of a run.
Enemy design is hard to talk about because generally they are well done but a lot of problems with them come from the structure of the rest of the game: There is too much RNG stacked on top of RNG meaning that any fight can be a complete push-over or spell the end of a run.

As a final note I want to say that capping your accuracy at 95% is one of the stupidest game mechanics I've seen in a while. Forcing RNG like that is fucking lame and it creates some really fucked situations where I set everything up perfectly but two of my guys decide to miss their 95% accuracy moves on their backline Madmen who promptly fears two of my guys and now the whole party is losing it right before I was about to camp etc. etc. It's just not fun, you are getting punished for the basic act of playing the game.

I understand if all of this comes of as supremely negative, but I swear I do think this is a good game over all. The core gameplay loop (in the early/mid game), the strategy, the art direction, the sound effects, the music, the atmosphere are all really great. It just falls apart bit by bit the longer this game goes on, and unfortunately this game goes on for a WHILE.

So, to conclude: This is a good game that I would not recommend to anybody. Or if you do play it, don't feel pressured to beat it. Play as long as its fun, and don't feel ashamed if you have to drop it because it is too hard or feels too unfair, because it really can be on many occasions. There is a reason that only 6.5% of players have even beaten the game on any difficulty.

Shoutout to Dismas and Reynauld the GOATS for being with me until the end and getting me that achievement o7

I feel like the first two levels have tricked people into thinking the rest of the game is just as good, but it really is not even close.

There are like 3 forms of missions all of which are some form of "drive from point A to B" which is fine at first, but the repitition soon becomes tedious. However, the real kicker is the low timers they start adding which force you to be almost perfect in your driving while NPC's crash into you unexpectedly because you cannot look through walls or sense them coming, causing you to have to open the menu and restart the mission immediately.

The last level is almost fun until the last mission in the game which is genuinly created by Satan himself to drain every last bit of soul left from your body and all you can do is watch the screen flash "Game Over: Timer Ran Out" and "Game Over: Car Exploded" over and over and over again.

The game is a frustrating mess with some genuinly good ideas. Any time I was not in a car I was having a pretty decent time collecting trading cards, buying clothing, killing robotic wasps and what not, and the first two levels are honestly really fun! Unfortunately, the game falls apart quickly the moment it asks you to actually play the main quests.

Ending B is kind of a middle finger to the player to the point where I don't particularly feel like 100%ing the game, but the 14 hours it took for me to get there were peak as hell. The atmosphere, boss fights, art and enemy design were all fantastic. Getting unfathomably skillchecked by the icy mountain until I finally conquered it and then being so strong I could sweep through the other two regions was a tremendous feeling. Though I wish some of the early game bosses were a bit more difficult, I generally think difficulty was handled wonderfully.

Normally when people complain about combat in a metroidvania like Ori and the Blind Forest and Haiku, The Robot I understand where they're coming from but I did not feel that way about Blasphemous. Really the only thing I actively dislike about this game (besides ending B) are the insta-kill hazards. Executes were a fun distraction too. Excited for Blasphemous II whenever I get around to it.

The story, music, world and characters be so good then boom, you have to do ten tedious fetch quests with no real directions half the time to keep up with the main story level jumps just so you can get back to fighting cool bosses with a combat system that is simultaneously quite deep and yet it plays so shallowly. Every encounter is a glorified stat check with a LOT of waiting around, and while Xenoblade 1's combat system can lead to some hype moments, generally it was something I tolerated for the sake of the 10/10 narrative rather than actively enjoyed. Also the AI in this game SUUUUCKS! Play definitive edition instead if you are interested in experiencing kinoblade the way it was meant to. Riki is the best character in fiction.

My final thoughts on Super Metroid are a bit complicated because i think up until finding Crocomire this game is peak but from then until ridley’s lair it is a really frustrating experience without a guide because some of the crucial items or pathways are kind of ludicrous to find/figure out. You can even accidentally heavily sequence break by using the wall jump in areas that were meant to be discovered once you get the space jump which led me to explore entire areas just to be hit with a dead end because I did not have the one item I needed to progress, leading me to spend hours backtracking and trying to find the hidden area with the next important item. Especially Maridia is super unfun in this regard. And this is not helped at all by the map which at some point becomes pretty much a grid of squares and have fun trying to figure out which rooms link into which. If you get it wrong have fun backtracking for 15 min to guess again. But then when you reach Ridley’s lair it becomes peak again.

I appreciate this entry a lot but after spending as much time running around in Maridia and Norfair as I did with the rest of the game its hard to give it higher than a 7.5-8.0

Side note: the final boss is fantastic. I was very worried when i saw the exact same layout as mother brain’s fight in zero mission (which is horrid) but it was a very nice subversion.

Really great for what it is trying to be, and explores some really interesting topics while being visually appealing and having generally well-written characters.
My only issue with it is that the idea of not listening to partners and loved ones, a topic I think is very important and needs more exploration of this kind, is kind of handwaved. Maya basically flips a switch and simply decided to listen to people from now on, and her issues are solved. I think this could've been expanded on by having the prefrontal cortex continue to be self-depricating, and put it at the feet of the audience to "filter" those comments out and select the dialogue option which shows you are actively trying to listen to the other person. Maya is clearly dealing with a lot of self-hatred and zoning out, and issues like these are not fixed overnight. They require constant effort from Maya's side.

Besides that critique, I have little to complain about. Interested to see how Dormin's writing and art style translate over into their upcoming game "Locator"!

Oxenfree is an incredibly mixed bag.

The game starts and immediately almost the entire cast is unlikeable. The way they speak is so inhuman in an attempt to create witty banter, but it just comes across as unnatural and forced.

Then the portal in the cave opens and the game becomes really good for a couple hours. Characters stop being robots and are allowed to be humans for a change (Especially Jonas and Alex improve here). Good mystery too and an effectively eerie atmosphere is created.

Then the last few hours of the plot kick in and the more you learn the less interesting and convoluted it becomes. It is at this point that you really start to feel the lack of gameplay (especially as you are made to walk further and further to continue each chapter).

Not to the mention that sometimes dialogue options will fade away before characters have finished speaking meaning you'll have to guess what direction the conversation is going in and/or miss out on information. This can also lead to choosing options which make your character say things you didn't want them to say out of lack of time to properly read the dialogue options.

The ending also confused me when it told me how I made up with Clarissa when I couldn't tell you what I did to warrant this ending; though this is but a minor nitpick compared the previously stated concerns.

In conclusion: Oxenfree has a few glaring issues preventing it from being a great game: The (lack of) gameplay, the characters having unnatural conversations and the story becoming more convoluted and uninteresting the longer it went on. The middle chunk of this game is fantastic, but it does not carry that momentum with it until the end.

Lost 30 minutes of gameplay because a bench just refused to show up and dropped it immediately after.

I'll admit I haven't given this game the fair shake I usually give games (I normally only review a game once I beat it), but with the mediocre gameplay, unengaging story, bad (female) character design, enemies respawning every time you go through a door, boring combat as well as how unsatisfying it is to collect new spells or weapons I just could not be bothered to continue playing.

Others seem to like it though so don't let this review discourage you from trying it out; it just is not for me and that is fine.

Would be a 2-star at most without save states, also Mario bangs Daisy in this one?!

Generally a fun game, with mostly decent level design. Short enough to the point where it doesn't overstay it's welcome or becomes too frustrating. But being a gameboy title following the 'arcade approach' takes away a large chunk of my goodwill towards it (AKA deleting all your progress if you go game over to artificially extend the time it takes to beat it). Also the final boss having a fun second stage pleasantly surprised me.

Also world 4 has some strange vibes; why are we fighting actual human beings in what can only be described as a chinese-themed level? There are no other humans we fight in the game so it really sticks out.
[UPDATE: having done some more research it seems they are supposed to be 'Pionpi': Zombie-like creatures from Chinese folklore. Vibes are improved.]

Not sure if I would recommend playing through the game in 2022+ outside of a general interest in older games or being a huge Mario fan but I enjoyed my time with it (thanks to save states.)