Not a bad level in this game, part of platformer canon due to its popularity and quality. On May 2nd before my Spring 2024 college semester wrapped up I beat this game in co-op mode with four other friends and beat it in an hour and fifteen minutes under the instruction of one of the people there. It wasn't my first time playing and it won't be my last, New Super Mario Bros. Wii is worth revisiting every once in a while. Games like these that bring people together like that are a special thing, and it deserves all five stars because of that.

Brawl is an overhated game and I find it to be a very fun time and a great game to play at a gathering or by oneself to an extent. One summer I hunkered down and played through all of Subspace Emissary because I wanted all of the characters unlocked for when I played against my family, I must have been 13 or 14 at the time. The story mode makes up for the bulk of my love of Brawl, but the gameplay itself is super fun, I love the stages and the music and the retro game trials, all of it, this game will always hold a special place in my heart. I will admit my score is probably inflated by nostalgia, I won't discount the influence Brawl had on me, instilling a love of fighting games when I couldn't have been older than 8 years old. The value of a long single player mode in a fighting game must not be overlooked!

I can certainly see why so many people love this game. It's quick, it feels brutal and visceral and snappy and it looks great and sounds amazing. My single gripe is the frame rate, which I definitely got over when this became the only game I was playing for a month. I was reluctant the first time I tried to play it, and the second and third time too, I just couldn't get used to how it felt. And then I had to restart the game on my roommate's PS4 because I never uploaded my save data, and that was finally the playthrough to take me to the end. The truest ending too, I went all the way with Bloodborne and I recommend other people do too. My personal favorite weapon was the saw spear, I loved the gargoyle halberd in DS1 and when I saw a spear in this game it was love at first sight, even if I barely ever used the full spear form. If you own a PS4 or above, go buy and play this game. If Sony ever puts it on PC, I'll buy it in a heartbeat and do the DLC too, I couldn't buy the complete edition when it was on sale because I already had the base game through PS Plus unfortunately.

Age cannot hold back the horror of Silent Hill, a must play, I was thoroughly shaken most of the time. The puzzles are also worthy of praise, few of them felt arbitrary or like the answer was too far out of reach. I will admit reaching the best ending gave me some trouble my first time around and I had to load an earlier save to fix it, but I guess that if you explore every area to it's fullest then you'll be fine. Like all horror games that don't restrict your saves, make sure to save often and in separate slots! The actual difficulty of the gameplay isn't very high, yes the combat is janky but the enemies give enough time to react most of the time. By the end of the game I still had max pistol ammo, in fact I took down the final boss without even running out of rifle ammo. If you persevere, explore thoroughly, and know when to just run past enemies, you'll make it out of Silent Hill just fine! I'm looking forward to when I have the time to play the second game.

RE Village is a fun game that could have been scarier. I felt like there were only two or three areas in the game where I was scared, the rest ranged from not invoking anything to mild tension over where enemies might be. Beyond the horror, Village provides a great experience as an action game, which seems to be the main focus in terms of design. The gun selection never left me wanting and the aiming and shooting on an Xbox Series S controller were functional and easy to maneuver. The plot itself is standard fare to hunt down items and journey through puzzles as in most Resident Evil games, but it holds a few surprising turns that make the ride more enjoyable. The strength of RE8 lies in how different each section of the game is, providing a strong sense of variety and warding off boredom. Overall, I recommend this game to fans of Resident Evil and new players alike, although in the case of new fans I suggest playing 7 first to see where Ethan Winters begins.

I really wish that this was a better game, I'm in love with the new story and the way Square Enix expanded the intro of FF7 and all the remixes of old tracks, but the combat somewhat stains the whole experience, but FF7R is still an awesome game despite my misgivings with the battles! Half of all fights were a total slog and ruined my mood, it feels like the action style is held back by enemies having too much capability to ruin your momentum. Maybe I'm just not skilled enough in this game, but it really sucked the joy out of an otherwise perfect package. I know that it could be better too, I love Kingdom Hearts and Nier, so why is this game so tough to swallow? Besides that, every other part of this game is amazing! The characters were incredibly likable and the voice actors did a great job, I played the game in English dub and it was spectacular. The graphics were beautiful and the familiar locations were highly faithful to the original, the direct translation of prerendered backgrounds to explorable 3D made Midgar feel massive and lived in, especially with the NPC chatter as you walk by. The controls work well enough, sometimes the arrow prompts felt a little clunky and overly slow for a soldier like Cloud though. And even if the combat was frequently annoying, it still has it's good parts, when you're moving you're really going and it's very fun, and the character switching and usage of triggers to open up the command menu are ingenious. I will say though that compared to Cloud and Tifa, I didn't find Barret and Aerith to be super fun with their exclusively ranged normal attacks. I don't want to say much about the story because it really is a wonderful thing blind. Most of the added content in between the story beats veterans already know are fun sidetracks, but a few of them feel like they drag for a bit too long. I'm glad I finally finished the game, and I hope part 2 will be better. By the end of this series of remakes, I want to be able to say that Square Enix has surpassed the original, but it just isn't there yet. Still, go play this if you loved Final Fantasy VII, and if you haven't finished the original then don't play this first, it's not going to be worth it in my opinion. With all of the deviations to the story and some underlying plot details, I consider it more of a sequel than a remake.