Trials of the Blood Dragon is a crossover between a Far Cry 3 DLC and the Trials series, neither of which I've played, and after this neither of which I will. The game tries to embrace every 1980s film stereotype including overly macho characters, film homages, massive explosions, aliens, giant monsters, Communists threats, a Miami Vice colorscheme, you name it. This was a bit of a fad when this game came out, but they do it here with little subtlety, it's just thrown in your face in a vague attempt to be funny. Combine this with some awful voice acting and contrived storylines, and it makes the cutscene plot, which is a significant amount of the runtime, a complete waste of time. This is a motorcycle game however, we're not here for the plot, and unfortunately that's just as bad. Firstly, there's more than just motorcycle levels, as they also introduce mechanics like dual-stick shooting and a grappling hook, which are incredibly frustrating to use, not to mention straight platforming levels. Perhaps a third of the levels are just platforming with no vehicle riding, and the physics are very wonky. My issues with the physics extend to the actual vehicle levels as well though. You'll ride a bike or motorcycle depending on the level, and they are awful to control. You have very little fine control over controlling them, once they gain angular momentum, it's a waste of time to try and straighten out again, and they have so much torque -- particularly the bike -- that you'll often just flip over trying to climb hills. This is probably a more fun game to watch than to play, and I'll admit the music is pretty good, but everything about it is just grating and frustrating. Finally, I know they're doing a 1980s parody, but singling out the Vietnamese as the villains of the game, complete with ahem stereotypical dialogue, is just abhorrent.

Another game among the upper echelon of Playdate titles, Inventory Hero is a fun and fast paced game where you simply maintain the inventory of a hero on his quest. You can watch said hero fight waves of enemies on the top of the screen, but your job is to either use or discard the items that are automatically gathered. You have six possibly inventory slots, which can be filled with armor and weapons to equip, food and potions to drink, or just straight junk that must be discarded. It's a really cute game and I really enjoy the premise and the gameplay. It doesn't have a huge amount of replayability, especially since you'll hit the end of any additional content pretty quickly in a run, but I still think it's more replayable than the majority of Playdate titles. The artwork is really well done and the music isn't half bad either. Definitely one of my favorite Playdate games thus far.

I originally beat the first Mass Effect game about a decade ago, and to be honest I don't think I really appreciated it then. My poor laptop wasn't well suited to running the game, and my inexperience with shooters made for a cumbersome experience. Returning to it now, via the Legendary Edition remasters, my greatest impression is how good the world building is. You play as Cmd. Shepard, the first human soldier to join an elite arm of the galactic special services. You find yourself embroiled in a plot to continue a cyclical pattern of galactic genocide taking place over the course of millennia, and you have to make allies of various unique and interesting species to stop the threat. It's a game where your choices really do matter, both in how other characters treat you, but even towards who lives and dies and how the ending plays out. These choices can directly carry over to the sequel titles, giving a level of storytelling that even now hasn't really been surpassed. I really enjoyed the look of the future presented in this game, not just with the technology and alien races, but even things like how human fashion will evolve. It's a well thought out and cohesive vision. There are a variety of different combat methods, but those are somewhat locked depending on what class you choose at the beginning of the game, which is a bit of a shame. I ended up going pure third person shooter, which is rather enjoyable, if not terribly original. Any complaint I have towards this game is pretty minor. It's surprisingly shorter than I recall for one. I did nearly all the side quests available to me, but I think there's only five or six stages in the main campaign. The side quests have interest premises, but all take place in one of two copy pasted enemy bases, which can feel a bit silly. Overall, a thoroughly enjoyable replay, and I'm looking forward to continuing on to the rest of the series, which I never got around to finishing back in the day.

The weekly Playdate releases are an interesting bunch of games. Many of them are trying some really unique twists on typical ideas, but while some of those ideas work really well, others... not so much. Executive Golf DX is one of the ones that unfortunately fall into the latter category. It's a golf game, but instead of hitting a ball across a field, you are trying to ascend or descend an office building, complete with desks, chairs, bookshevles, etc. as obstacles. This sounds like a great idea on paper, but the combination of fighting gravity along with trying to navigate through gaps in furniture makes this a tedious affair. It doesn't help that this game has no tutorial of any sort. It took me quite a long time to figure out how the power gauge worked, and I still don't think it's a good system. The entire game is very short, only eight levels taking me about 30 minutes, but I don't think I beat any level in less than several dozen hits. Even trying to align the ball with the elevator at the end of the stage often took several tries, due to the lack of precision you have. While it's not my least favorite Playdate game, I do think it's well made with good graphics and some good ideas, the core concept just isn't a strong one.

When I was a teenager, I was obsessed with Sonic. Any game I could get my hands on I played over and over again - Sonic 2, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, even Shadow the Hedgehog. Another game I had around that time was the first Sonic Rush, and I think the fact I barely remember playing it says a lot about my opinions of it. Decades later though, I've decided to try out its sequel, Sonic Rush Adventure. This game, for lack of a better word, is mid. Everything about it is just mediocre. The earlier levels do allow you to maintain your sense of speed, but at the cost of having some very bland level design. The later levels overcompensate for this, and are a classic example of awful Dimps design. Bullshit death bits, finicky platforming sections, all while not being really interesting at all. The best part of this game might be the short sailing minigames, as there is a world map for you to explore (although there's not much there for you to find). The game does require a little bit of grind to progress at a few places, but I never had to replay anything other than the first two levels, so I might have gotten lucky. The plot as well is pretty worthless. Blaze returns, but doesn't have her own campaign, unlike the original Sonic Rush, and newcomer Marine is kinda fun, but constantly disrespected by the rest of the party. All-in-all, I can finally say that I've played through this game, but I think I was right in not picking it up back when it was new.

Finally someone has answered the age old question -- what if I could play Asteroids with a crank? Enter Hyper Meteor, an arcade-esque game where you steer a ship around a small arena, attempting to destroy obstacles by ramming into their vulnerable sections. It's a quick and simple game, with the only goal being to get the highest score. It reminds me a bit of Whitewater Wipeout in that way, although I think this genre personally appeals more to me. The controls feel good, it's fun to get into, but the nature of the game prevents it from really being any higher on my list. It apparently has Switch and PC ports, but I can't imagine those would be too entertaining without the novelty (and free giveaway) of the Playdate version.

Demon Quest '85 is a Playdate visual novel where you gather a group of your schoolmates and together summon demons to try to solve your problems. It's a short but sweet affair, where most of the gameplay entails trying to match which people, music, and items the given demon is likely to appear before, and then asking them a series of questions. These questions both reveal how to summon the subsequent demons, as well as play into an overarching story about a beyond-the-scenes war for Hell itself. The artwork is the game's strongest aspect, although I did also quite enjoy the writing. Your character can be fairly flippant about the situation they find themselves in, which I found charming. It can be a bit frustrating trying to figure out what element you got wrong when trying to summon, especially since that's basically the only gameplay, but there's enough hints to allow you to figure it out in the end.

This game was one of my most anticipated of the year, and I ended up with a lot of mixed feelings about it. On paper, every aspect of this game is really well done. I think that Final Fantasy VII has one of the best stories and characters in the series, and this game really utilizes them well, something some of the other previous spin-offs struggled with. The combat is similar to the previous Remake entry, which I enjoyed when it was released. The graphics, some initial blurry issues aside, are top notch. All that being said, there are some games that I think are better than the sum of their parts, but my big takeaway from this title is that I found it weaker than the sum of its parts. A lot of this is due to the pacing of the game. The first half of the game has a lot of minigames, many of them adapted from the original FF7. This isn't a bad thing on their own, but I honestly think in the first 10 hours of the game, you'll be playing more mandatory minigames than core gameplay. It really highlights the fact that this isn't a complete story, but the middle section of Final Fantasy VII, expanded so that it has its own beginning, middle, and end. This expansion goes better than one would expect, but does lead to some unique issues. The game sets up some mysteries, and it's a little frustrating to know they won't be resolved until a third game years in the future (and even worse for some things established in Remake). I think the second half of the game is a lot tighter focused, as it leaves the distractions and campiness behind. The new aspects to Rebirth, as opposed to Remake, are the large open world areas, and some changes to the gameplay. The open world is.. fine. It feels like a bog standard modern open world, complete with towers to visit to reveal new points of interest. They're easy enough to avoid if you don't find them interesting, and I found them mainly to be a checklist to complete. I do want to highlight the changes they're making to the story across this new trilogy. There are some players who seem opposed to the idea of any changes at all. I personally view that remaking a game gives the chance to tweak not just the visuals and gameplay, but potentially the story as well. The impression I got from Remake was that this was potentially a secret sequel to Final Fantasy VII, and that could be an interesting change. With two thirds of the new story behind us, I'm afraid to say I'm not crazy about the approach they're taking. I don't want to reveal too much, but despite Zack Fair being on the cover, he served very little purpose. His inclusion I could overlook (so long as they don't add any of the awful Crisis Core villains), but I think the changes they made to the ending segments are pretty awful. Not only does it take away from the impact of Sephiroth as the overall villain -- the same mistake they made in Remake, in my opinion -- but it also somewhat muddies what is this game's most famous legacy. There is a vision here, and a desire to keep audiences in suspense, but in the end I was just left with confusion. This review might sound a bit negative, but I do want to express that I did enjoy myself. It's rare these days that I find myself playing through a game for hours on end, but often when I went to save I would be surprised that an hour had gone by. It's because I had such high hopes for this game -- and the high reviews from others -- that I found it a bit lackluster. If I'm being honest, I didn't like it as much as Remake, I didn't like it as much as the original FF7, and what I'm sure is going to be somewhat controversial, I didn't like it as much as Final Fantasy XVI.

Unlike most of the modern Prince of Persia games, which are 3D affairs, The Lost Crown is a metroidvania. It confusingly doesn't star the Prince of Persia, but one of his elite soldiers, Sargon, as he faces a conspiracy within his own ranks to rescue the Prince. Despite not starring the Prince, a character associated with time powers, Sargon too gains reality bending abilities as he travels throughout a mysterious mountain temple. The highlight of this game is its movement system. Sargon is incredibly nimble to control, and actions such as wall jumping or combo attacks are fun to learn but nuanced to master. As far as metroidvanias go, it probably has some of the best controls of any I've played. The game does a good job balancing combat encounters with environmental platform challenges, and I never felt the game was being unfair, but it also actually expected you to utilize your movement to its fullest potential. Any negatives I have towards the game are honestly minor nitpicks. The environments, while varied, aren't necessarily all that interesting, although there are some standout examples. I also never really got the hang of using the parry system, but I think that's becoming a trend with me in multiple games. This game goes a lot harder than it needed to, but I think it resulted in one of the best games this year.

Omaze is a Playdate maze game heavily centered around circles. You are a circle and by turning the crank you move around the perimeter of larger circles, in an attempt to navigate across to the final circle. Each circle along your path features one or more clever obstacles, such as auto-rotation, enemies that chase you, or walls that disappear when the crank is docked, among others. It's a short but really clever puzzle game. I will admit that it can be a bit finicky to control, as some of the levels require using the crank and hitting the A and B buttons in quick succession, which makes getting a comfortable grip on the device difficult. Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed this game and I think it's the best Playdate game I've tried so far by a wide margin.

Another short and sweet Playdate game utilizing only the crank, Flipper Lifter puts you in control of an elevator system utilized by a colony of penguins. The elevator moves up or down by turning the crank, and you need to get the penguins to their desired floor before they get frustrated and storm off. There's no progression to this game, it's an arcade-style system where you try to move as many penguins as possible before time elapses. The difficulty comes as the number of possible floors increases over time. It's a pretty elegant system, and reminds me a lot of Mini Metro. It does lack the strategy of these sorts of games though, as there's not much else to it besides trying to group like-minded penguins together. However, it's a fun time and has good visuals and music, along with some clever touches, such as elevators being harder to move upwards the more full they are. Of the Playdate Season 1 games, this is probably my favorite thus far.

The first Playdate season has done a good job of giving out a wide variety of different genres, with this week's title being a visual novel -- Lost Your Mables. It's a short story about a girl traveling around an eccentric town looking for her dog. Dialogue choices are made by playing a pseudo-pinball minigame, which uses the crank to tilt a stage, allowing the player to direct a ball into one of three dialogue options. It has some clever writing and some cute characters, but I'll admit I didn't care much for this game. The plot is goofy to the point of not mattering, and the dialogue minigame, while cute, is difficult to control and none of the dialogue choices feel all that impactful. This game does claim to have 10 different endings though, so if you really enjoy it, you can subjugate yourself to trying to hit the needed targets. However, this was one of the weaker Playdate titles for me.

Another week another Playdate game, with the first of week three's entries being Pick Pack Pup, a match-3 game where you package items in a modern warehouse setting. The game uses the crank to scroll through its story, with the D-pad and A buttons used for the actual gameplay. The story is pretty cute. It has some fun criticisms of corporate greed while keeping a light hearted tone. The match-3 gameplay is nothing to write home about, and it's actually much easier than most as many levels don't have any way to lose. You simply need to match enough objects to move on to the next level. There are a few that buck this trend and have more puzzle or time limit constraints, but it's still never difficult. If anything, some of the point quotas are high enough to become tedious, as there's never any risk of failure, but it still takes a while to complete the stage. This is made worse by a mechanic where the bottom row of objects will be destroyed on a timer, subtracting from your point score. This only serves to draw out the level even longer, and while there is a mechanic to try and minimize this effect, I found it a bit finicky to pull off. All that aside, I like the gameplay and I like the presentation; so much so that this is probably my favorite Playdate title thus far.

If you're the developer of Boogie Loops and you're reading this, I don't want you to feel discouraged. This title has not gotten great reviews (including from me) but I don't want you to think that you did a bad job. You made a solid and somewhat intriguing music tracker, complete with fun animations and graphics. It's a solid piece of software. I use the words "software" and "title" though, because it's not a game, and I think there lies the problem. This is one of the first four games given away to all Playdate owners and thus is destined to be picked up, tried out, and within five minutes put down again by 99% of players. I frankly don't really know what I'd do with a music tracker. They seem neat enough, but playing around making beats isn't really something I'm interested in, especially on a platform like this. For some people though, they'll get a kick out of this, and I think those people will enjoy what you've made. For me personally though, it didn't leave much of an impression. Also you should've used the crank somehow.

The second batch of free Playdate games came quicker than I was expecting, and among them was one of the best regarded titles Crankin's Time Travel Adventure. It's a clever and well made game where you use the crank to move a robot forward and backwards along his path, avoiding obstacles so that he gets to his date as quickly as possible (but never on time). As part of his movement, the robot will automatically perform actions like bending over to smell flowers and climbing over tables, which you can utilize to avoid moving enemies. If any of them overlap even a pixel, the level restarts. It's a very cute game and utilizes the crank the best of any games I've played so far, but the game has a fatal flaw in that it's incredibly difficult. The crank controls are pretty precise, but I found figuring out how to pose the robot to avoid the enemies to be surprisingly precise. It's a game that I admire in its technique and ambition, but I actually hated playing. I'll admit that I only finished the first 20 levels, which I found frustrating by themselves, only to learn that there's 30 more even harder levels. This one definitely boils down to personal taste, but I personally found it more frustrating than rewarding.