"Unfortunate" doesn't begin to describe my series, this game rewards blind luck and nothing else, I am beyond convinced at this point. After getting completely tooled by scheduling with my opponent changing times on me last minute and refusing to provide confirmation prior to the day of the match as to play times, losing this way somehow felt even worse than I had thought possible. My preparation was superior, my play was superior, and I lost, so I don't see a reason to continue engaging in an activity where what is within my control is overwhelmingly outweighed by what is not.

I am done with competitive Pokemon, and you won't get a fond farewell. This community is infected to its roots with a degenerative disease that grows stronger over time but stops short of killing its host. Tournaments used to have a competitive spirit at their heart, this has been transplanted and replaced with an artificial organ that feeds on vitriol and mockery from insecure little boys that heckle by the sidelines and tear each other to shreds over scraps of attention. The environment we fostered has trapped us all like this in a vicious cycle, and escaping it requires acceptance of the harshest reality we all scramble to explain away, that none of the countless straining efforts we put ourselves through here will ever amount to one single shining glimmer of significance. I would make this the end, but World Cup is still ongoing, and I would never leave so many great friends out to dry, so I'll suffer through a few more games for them.

One last thing before I leave you all to react with disdain, ridicule, and self-righteous fervor, before you do everything in your power to minimize my words and thoughts, box them up and shove them to some cobwebbed corner of your memory, and hope they disappear forever as a stain on your finite time ground to dust. From this moment on, nothing you say matters to me. The foulest insults you hurl with intent to wound will calmly settle at the earth before my feet, and the venom you spit will bring all the pain of a warm summer breeze. You are less than anything you can conceive, while I carry on, brimming with joy distilled from detachment.

Fantastic but still in early access in the simplest definition. If you can accept that there are placeholder models and portraits or unfinished portraits, and one route isn’t fully finished and the story isn’t done yet, hop on. This is excellent. It changes systems and feels fresh, yet so loving to the original. I’m not going to give a rating until 1.0, as that’s not really fair of me if I give something which is explicitly in early access a 4.5, yet openly diss games which release unfinished. It’d be disingenuous to the process too. I look forward to seeing what Supergiant creates here. I’ll re-review it and score it once we truly have an ending. For now, I think it’s best I put it down until its next major update to reduce any chance of burnout.

“Ciel.
Trans me now.”
Congrats Zero 🏳️‍⚧️!

Only docking a half star because the forms are a cool feature but getting some of them is just asking to get your rank docked.

A game is very special when it’s something that’s near and dear to my heart, yet lets me find new ways to approach and enjoy it or new details that I’d notice. Pokemon Platinum is that. Diamond and Pearl had a very interesting region with excellent lore, but it was tied to poor pacing and a ridiculously slow engine, along with a small Pokedex with limited variety. Platinum saw all of these flaws, and fixed them. Yes, it still runs somewhat slow as a product of being on the generation 4 engine, but it’s infinitely faster than what DP was. And adding 59 more Pokemon to the regional dex while tweaking others’ learnsets? It’s fantastic for replayability and variety, and improving the game’s pacing in terms of story and badge progression, on top of adding more dialogue really helps to build the world and make the characters feel tangible. Small things like visual tweaks, be they shading changes or additions of snow in some areas, or making the Lost Tower more haunted looking, to outright redoing some maps helps the game stand out, both in an individuality sense and also visually. It’s a treat to look at, and it’s fun seeing the same, good lore get expanded upon in a game that structures itself in a way that can hold my attention. It’s filled to brim with sidequests, and ensures that you will encounter the entire Pokedex’s worth of Pokemon in a regular run if you simply engage with its content, and that’s extremely rewarding to me. I took it at my own pace this run, engaging with daily content, fighting morning/night specific trainers and catching Pokemon that spawn only at specific times, and felt a stronger connection to the game for it. It’s a game I can always escape to, as Sinnoh fundamentally reminds me of growing up in the middle of nowhere in North Georgia, and staying with my grandparents on native land in North Carolina. It’s a mountainous, chilly region with a lot of myth to it, but that’s what makes it feel so much like a home to me. Coupled with the brilliant soundtrack, which changes depending on the time of day, it’s really easy for me to find myself immersed with the game, engrossed wholly. As characters are expanded upon dramatically, and the game’s pacing no longer feels like a slog which lacks in Pokemon variety, a game which is built upon a rather weak foundation emerges as frankly, one of the best in the series. There is a strong commitment to variety in enemy teams and movesets, and ensuring that the game’s areas all stand out in fresh and memorable ways, and the game oozes with charm for it. Playing for the first time as a child, and seeing the expanded Pokedex was mindblowing. Hell, seeing some trainer sprites move blew me away. As an adult, the game remains a “comfort” media of sorts, which I’ve replayed annually for the past four years. In 2021 and 2022 it was an escape from my father’s cancer diagnosis, and my own chronic illness, respectively. This year, playing it on a break of sorts from school, I’m unfettered and able to experience it purely as it is, and that is so precious and blissful. I cannot stress how much this game means to me.

It was great. I think the puzzle solving and physics are rightfully acclaimed, and the atmospheric storytelling really sells it. GLaDOS is hilarious and wonderfully acted, to the shock of no one. Yes, it’s some deadpan and dark humor and some is very 2007, but. It’s fun. I think getting hit with “you’re adopted” in the final boss because it’s just slinging any insult at you is really funny. I do feel like the game’s pacing can be a bit odd at times, as some chambers feel quite juxtaposed with others in their complexity and length, and not always progressively. And this is personal, but some of the reflexes the puzzles can demand of you can be tough to adjust with due to how the physics work and expect you to think up that solution on the fly, and it can be tough. It’s a motor skill thing and it’s not hard to be sensory overloaded by it. It’s minor, but there. Still, an excellent game. It didn’t hit for me as much as I’d have liked or expected it to, when so many people hype it as a “best of all time,” and that does hurt, but not the game, just me. I still really enjoyed it and I’m eager to play its sequel. Oh also I left this on my backlog for 16 months that’s my bad.