My second Final Fantasy game, after 7, and I was really wondering if I would like it as much as I liked 7. Love the aesthetic, despite the absolutely insane character design, and the setting is great. The plot hooks drew me in, and despite how unlikeable Tidus is, the other characters make up for it.

The thematic focus on each characters individual struggle to break free from the cycle of violence perpetrated by the structures that define us is a little heavy handed, but I do appreciate the use of each character as a way to explore the many different ways these structures can influence who we are, on a micro level and a macro level.

The characters of this game didn’t resonate with me in the way that the characters of 7 did unfortunately. Lulu and Wakka are pretty one dimensional, with Wakka’s crisis of faith seeming like it’s going to be a bigger jumping off point for his character that never really comes. Rikku is also mainly a tool to dump exposition on the Al-Bhed, while Kimahri does have more of an actual arc than the other characters, but I still didn’t really connect with him as he was often sidelined during the games' big moments. Yuna and Auron are different stories. I found both of these characters were very compelling.

Tidus is annoying, and I feel like he doesn’t ever really get a redemption arc to make him a likeable character.I feel like a lot of my gripes with Tidus could be chalked up to some truly atrocious voice acting. I don’t think the V/A really understood the assignment, and I feel like one of the huge issues with his character is that the tone of the voice actors performance doesn’t really match the tone of the circumstances in the game. It’s also unfortunate that the rerelease doesn’t allow you to choose the Japanese Dub, as in general the voice acting is pretty cringe (though I do appreciate the unintentional camp of this era of early V/A in games).

I really liked the combat system in X, and loved agonizing over moves while trying to predict a pattern that would help me survive some of the tougher fights. A few of the late game bosses are pretty punishing, and the turn system really ups the tension. The sphere grid is also really great, and while it was intimidating at first, after getting the general idea of how to plot character growth it was really rewarding to bust the builds.

Finally, when the screamo track kicks in while fighting [REDACTED] at the end of the game,you best be wilding out, as its insanely hype.

first time playing a monster hunter game, and got into a lot more than I thought I would. All of the monster designs are really cool, love the gameplay loop, and also the animals are cute as hell.

This game really shines playing with friends, and had a blast playing in the same room as a friend. Not sure I would dump as much time into this as a single player experience, but it's unmatched as a co-op action rpg.

I will say that I found the learning curve to be a little intimidating, even if it is streamlined for new players such as myself. Mainly this was due to the tutorials being presented in the form of text boxes, which left me with questions that I had to refer to an online guide for clarification on. Also like, I've played 40 hours of this game and I'm still getting new tutorial pop ups........so much to parse lmao. That being said those systems that are introduced are great, even if I had to look to outside sources for clarification on how things worked.

Good game! will play more of these probably!

Have tried to get through this game a few times, and have always lost steam at the pacing shift after the 6-ish hour mark. This time I was reserved to power through, no matter how rough the shift was, and goddamn was it ever worth it.

Final Fantasy 7 is definetly not technically a perfect game (a lot of the mini-games they force you to play through truly suck, sometimes the path forward can be really esoteric, some characters are underdeveloped), but fuck it, the story is so good and busting the materia system to stomp harder enemies kicks ass.

So many all-timer plot twists that I somehow had no idea were coming, even though [REDACTED]'s death is the "Luke I am your father" of Video Games I was still on the edge of my seat waiting for the hammer to drop.

Hard not to love a game about eco-resistance fighters taking down their neo-feudal corporate overlords with a giant sword. Inspiring.

Really excited to give the remake a shot with this fresh in my mind.

Pretty janky port of a game that is like, impossible to play in it's original form at this point for some reason. Not nearly as esoteric with it's puzzle design as I remember, despite the odd really bad one. Each world is cool, and the emptiness and ambience is something that always stuck with me. The sound design also does wonders to add to the mood.

The writing and acting is way goofier than I remember it being, but it's camp still has charm. I really wonder how serious Cyan wanted us to take these characters and plot upon initial release, because it's hard to picture it unaware of the absurdity of it's story.

On a more personal note, I played this with my dad when I was a kid, and neither of us could figure out how to get farther than the stoneship age, which I think we stumbled into by luck. I have always had it in the back of my head that someday I would beat this, and when it went on sale on the switch I grabbed it and beat it in......5 hours. Not nearly as hard as I remember it being, but it still felt great to shred the puzzles that seemed impossible to me as a child.

A lot to love here, but also I have some big gripes with the structure of roguelites, especially after going all in on other, less forgiving roguelikes.

I'll start with what I like: fitting a true narrative into this game is truly a feat, and everyone is right about the characters/portraits/voice acting being amazing. Outside of that, the color palate used on each floor looks amazing, and the boons system is great. I love a lot of the small details in design, and the interplay between the buffs, and I can tell a lot of thought and love was poured into these systems during the creation process.

Unfortunately, there is a fundamental flaw with the core design of Roguelites that prevents me from loving them as much as their roguelike counterparts. Specifically, I really dislike how runs on this are dependent on external buffs, and how the game essentially gets easier as you progress due to this progression method. Being able to add additional challenge to the run is a nice addition but I also dislike that it's done manually. I would prefer the element of surprise, like Binding of Isaac's curses, that cause the player to react when faced with the unexpected instead of the Hades method of making the player plan to maneuver around a handicap. Also goddamn the enemy design is boring.

Overall, this game is pretty good besides my minor gripes. Fun to play, but I don't think it will ever be able to dig it's claws in me like and Isaac or a Spelunky, even. It has gotten a lot of my friends who would never have played a roguelike in a million years interested in the genre, and there is a lot of merit in that, but I think the discourse about it being game of the year 2020 is a bit of a reach when it doesn't have much lasting depth for fans of the genre.

Kentucky Route Zero is without a doubt the most pretentious game I have ever played. I would be ok with that, if the plot warranted such pretentions, but unfortunately a lot of the story beats in KRZ didn't really resonate with me. I don't think this game is nearly as deep as gamers think it is. So much ink has been spilled over "the american dream", and I don't think this has anything new or insightful to add about the current state of modern north american life. Yes, capitalism is bad. Yes, most people are forced into indentured slavery due to insurmountable debt. Yes, the system is rotten to the core, and we need to find our own happiness through....the power of friendship. I'm sure all of this would seem groundbreaking if you have never checks notes read a single book in your life, but I have had this story rehashed and retold in every artistic medium over and over again for decades. Also I am still salty about having to sit through a fucking hour long play in this game. The whole thing reeks of something some brutal undergrad student would try to convince me is deep at a house party.

Despite my overall gripes, I can appreciate some of the narrative experimentation this game does pull off. Having a non-static main character is nothing new in games, but switching characters mid-conversation creates an interesting disorientation of self and presents a way to exposit the inner thoughts of characters in a way I haven't seen before. Also, some of the actual gameplay itself is really unique; there are many small moments that stick out, and I found myself consistently caught off guard by small gameplay choices that I will not spoil here. I think that breaking this game up into chapters works ok, but also led to a wildly inconsistent tone that may have worked when playing each chapter years apart, but doesn't really work when playing the game over the span of a week or two.

I sat for two weeks after completing this game before I wrote about it, hoping that mulling it over a bit more would let me draw out more nuance from what I had just engaged with, and hindsight would allow me to appreciate the whole more. Unfortunately, my take on the game hasn't changed much since the credits rolled. I know this game means a lot to a lot of people, and I can understand why, but unfortunately the storytelling didn't resonate with me in any profound way. It's worth playing, as a piece of experimental storytelling, but it's not the decade defining piece of art it has been hyped up to be.

After having a blast ripping and tearing my way through the atmospheric moonbases and metal-album-cover hellscapes of Doom 93 I was excited to keep the pain train rolling with Doom II.

Unfortunately most of the design choices that made the original work so well were lost in the wash when designing a sequel.

The tight 3 acts of the first doom are replaced with one long string of 32 levels, which doesn't work as well pacing wise imo, instead of letting the stakes build and wiping the slate clean you get stuck in this long slog of levels where a death means you are fucked because you should have the BFG by this point (and dying strips you of all of your weapons, something that was the case in Doom 1 but mattered less as the 9 level scenarios meant you accumulated supplies from scratch every few levels anyways)

Essentially, it just makes it so you have to rely on the quicksave feature a lot more, and save scum your way through the many (MANY) ambushes that WILL kill you unexpectedly, and also the many death pits that await (notably more than in the first game).

Also, prepare to have a walkthrough open if you want to get through this with your sanity in tact. In Doom 93, the level design made sense: if you needed a key, most of the time you could see where it was through a window or from some vantage point, signaling the direction to go. There is some gimmicky bs, but in Doom 2 I would get lost every level and just roam endlessly until giving in and looking up where to go, only to find the most esoteric solution to the puzzle. The worst offender is in the tenement level, where you get stuck roaming only to find out you need to bump into a specific skull decoration to open a door, a decoration that is not unique to this level and has never had this function in the past. Some real atrocious "level design 101" stuff not to do level gimmicks.

The story is about as deep as I expected, but switching up the setting and making a chunk of the action take place in a city was a cool call (even if the limitations of the time really just make the city levels a bunch of kind of boring blocks)

Despite these gripes, its not all bad: super shotgun truly rocks, so do the new monster designs, despite being very annoying. The revenant is scary as hell even in 2d, and the icon of sin is the definition of metal album cover inspired doom design. very sick. When you boil it down, blasting through demons with you shotgun is still as fun as ever, but some bad pacing and level design choices make this game notably less enjoyable than it's predecessor.

The aesthetic of doom 64 really caught me off guard. After playing Doom 2016, I expected compressed guitar solos and run and gun gameplay, but what I got was eerie dark ambient music and some of the most undeniably sick settings I have ever seen. Blasting through a castle full of demons under a flaming green sky is so sick, and the run and gun gameplay really holds up. It's just so cool, every teen metalheads dream.

My only gripe with Doom 64 is some of the more esoteric level design. There are some parts where I had to look up a walkthrough and was astounded that anyone figured it out on their own. Specifically, the yellow key on the pedestal when you have to...press the light like a button? also the part where you have to stand on a block and shoot a switch, when shooting switchs to trigger them was never introduced as a mechanic and also never works elsewhere in the game lol. Also, the trap where you step on the rocket launcher pedestal and get killed instantly by arrows but there is a way to raise shields to protect you but its hidden behind a wall that looks like every other wall in the level. Video games don't do shit like this anymore, and that is def for the better; running around a level and trying to open ever wall to progress is something I do not have time for as an adult.

Besides the gripe of the occasional shaky design choice, Doom 64 whips ass and easily worth the 2 bucks it costs on the e-shop.

Weird how barebones this collection is, and honestly not the ideal way to play any of these games, but Mario Galaxy alone is worth the price of admission if you have never played. Weird that the only bonus feature is the option to listen to the soundtracks though. I feel like with a little extra content this could have been a great package for both oldheads and people who want to play classics they may have missed, but it feels like it was pumped out last minute and is therefore only really worth it if you missed these on original release.

Holds up perfectly, the gravity mechanics are a super well executed idea and the decision to stagger the stars in each levels so you can't plow through them is a great way to prevent level fatigue. I was really wondering how well this would hold up after being letdown by sunshine, and am glad that this plays as well as it does.

I like that the hub world gives you more of a chance to interact with the games cast, it's a great way to flesh out the characters, not that the story is groundbreaking or deep by any means, but usually a mario game feels a little tech-demo-y where as this one feels more like an actual lived in a world. Great game! thank god luigi is back, even if the purple coin stage is incredibly brutal. Also forgot that Captain Toad was introduced in this game. Love that little guy.