Still a total blast. The setting, art-style, music, souls-collecting - it's all great. The characters and story, although poorly written, are still memorable and fun.

Only beaten by Symphony Of The Night as the best Castlevania.

I gave the game a try for a couple of hours on the PS5 5-hour trial, and I was definitely not hooked. The only thing that seemed interesting back then was Night City itself; it had a solid identity, attitude, charm, and was full of details. But it wasn’t enough; the progression system and combat didn’t click, and the ‘street kid’ background combined with a male V felt very generic.

After the 2.0 update I decided to give it another chance; choosing a ‘nomad’ background and a woman V. I guess this combination of things was the perfect chemistry because I was quickly hooked and enthralled in V and her supporting characters and stories.

There were some minor bugs here and there, and one sudden game crash. Not ideal of course, but given the scale and ambition of the game, it’s not a deal breaker for me overall.

I’ve had a blast with Cyberpunk 2077. I love how every single side gig, no matter how small, it’s filled with details and backstory; none of them have felt generic or repetitive. The city is fantastically realised and diverse; I prefer to drive everywhere and I disabled the mini-map because I love riding through the city and taking in the scenery.

Combat is always satisfying - the music is amazing and takes the fighting energy to the next level, and the variety of possible approaches to combat makes it always fun.

Finally, the story and characters are super captivating and memorable. I love immersing in a story and this one grabs you from the start and never lets go.

Obviously the game has the baggage from its crappy state at launch, which understandably burned lots of people, and some of those rough edges are yet to be polished, but the game I experienced is an outstanding package - an all-encompassing high-end adventure.

It's been long enough since I first played Inside that it felt right to experience it again (but mostly it was super cheap on Steam's Autumn Sale).

The atmosphere is perfectly dark and tastefully unsettling. The environmental storytelling is gripping and the platform and puzzles are air-tight.

A truly memorable title.

(Now I'm wondering, what happened with Playdead?)

It's bigger and better than its predecessors in many definitive ways, but it also regress in other ways, although arguably less significant ones.

It's a technical benchmark. The visuals, the scale of the city, the loading speeds - it's staggering.

I'm a fan of the symbiote/Venom stories, and I was looking forward to Insomniac's take with Miles mixed into it as well. Overall it was great if not a tad predictable.

I completed the main story at 14 hours (while doing some organic side-missions and whatnot) and got the platinum trophy at 29 hours. While it was fun all the way, it started to feel a bit repetitive by the end.

I also noticed a few minor glitches here and there during the whole campaign, but nothing outstanding; and given the scale of it all, it's frankly understandable.

Overall, this game is a display of ambition, technical prowess, and love for these characters and their stories.

Really liked that the whole story is told during gameplay and with full control of the character. It has aged somewhat OK but at some point I just wanted to finish it so I could start the sequel.

Glad I tried this game; I had never played this style of RPG before and it was fun and interesting for a while. The mechanics are very engaging and the lore and world is intriguing enough.

However there's an oppressive feeling to it all that ultimately makes it hard for me to want to keep going.

After spending like 2 hours on a very gripping but perhaps too-tense dungeon, my character was killed and then it hit me; the idea of going through that again wasn't appealing enough.

It's a little gem of a game for sure. And at the great price of free, it's absolutely worth trying. Just not sure if it will stress me more than entertain me.

I played a demo of this game back in the PS3 days and really liked it but never got the complete thing. Since it was dirt cheap on Steam I got it and went through and it's pretty much what that demo had promised.

It's a super stylish 3D platformer, with decent and fun parkour mechanics, but terrible combat and shooting.

The story is very shallow and felt like an afterthought; at some point I stopped caring about the plot and just looked forward to the challenges.

The visuals and music do a great job of setting the atmosphere and making the whole experience memorable. And it would have been even better without the shooting aspect of it all.

I still had a good fun time with it and I'm glad I finally experienced it after all these years from playing that PS3 demo!

The feeling of handling these cool looking 3D-model of objects that are meant to be repaired and re-assembled is satisfying enough. The story or plot around each puzzle is very simple but it makes for a cozy vibe. All in all, a tight experience that I finished during a shortish flight.

The Messenger starts like a 8-bit-era Ninja Gaiden inspired game, but it evolves into something more intricate and full of surprises and twists.

I only started playing it because I'm eagerly anticipating the release of Sea Of Stars, which is the new game from The Messenger developer's, Sabotage. More importantly, Sea Of Stars is a prequel of The Messenger. So I wanted to dig into this world in anticipation. I'm glad I did.

It's a fun, challenging platformer with engaging and varied mechanics and an interesting move-set. While it's not super fluid, it's still very fun and rewarding to move around.

I can't talk about the visuals too much without revealing some cool stuff, but I really like what they did in this regard; like a proper tribute to those classic platformers. The music is pitch-perfect for it, and some hooks are still playing in my head.

Having said that, the tone of the writing, while sometimes fun and cheeky, I felt it went too deep in that direction and as a result it took away from the interesting lore and the heft of the story.

Also, (trying to be vague here) the later part of the game suffers in terms of the placing of checkpoints, which was frustrating as it only made me feel like I was repeating some sections unnecessarily. However, the game makes sure to make it all worthwhile in the end, I felt.

Overall, The Messenger is a super tight package. Filled with variety of challenges as well as story and gameplay twists which feel ambitious for a indie developer's debut.

A memorable experience that definitely heightened my anticipation of Sea Of Stars!

A truly unforgettable game and a cerebral experience. Unique style, great and intricate puzzles, lots of variety, minimal yet intriguing narrative, and simple yet mesmerizing visuals.

This game came out of the left field and caught my eye because you play as a dog! I tried it (it's on PlayStation Plus' Catalogue) and was immediately hooked.

It kept adding new mechanics at a great pace and mixing them with the previous ones all the way to the end, so each level felt fresh and challenging without being frustrating - except for a handful of occasions where things became a tad chaotic.

There are some truly rewarding moments that are a wonder to behold.

I feel like Humanity will be first title that will come to my mind for a long while whenever I'll think about puzzle games.

Loved the art style, the music, and the acting. The charm is all there.

A fun time, where it’s definitely all about the journey and not the destination.

"The legacy of the crystals has shaped our history for long enough".

From its inception FFXVI has signalled its clear intentions of breaking out of all the classic tropes of the series' mainline entries, and they really go for it specially on the gameplay side of things.

This is a truly spectacular game, like nothing seen before in the series and indeed rarely in other games.

The setting, the cast of characters, the story are all fleshed out in a satisfactory way, approaching the level of care seen in XII's world and yet making it more accessible (thanks, Active Time Lore!).

The fact that every single side quest has full voice acting is proof of the care and dedication they put into the world-building and fleshing out each story, no matter how small it was. The group of side-quests in the last parts of the game do a specially fantastic job at this.

On the matter of details, I loved how the NPCs are always commenting and reacting on the latest events in the story. Makes the whole experience more organic.

The soundtrack is immaculate and the performances are grounded and heart-felt and together they elevate the emotional beats of the story to the next level.

And it's all wrapped in stunning visuals, yet again demonstrating Square-Enix's technical prowess.

The summons or eikons were the main aspect of Final Fantasy that hooked me into the series from the beginning, so getting to experience a story and gameplay that's so deeply based to them was super rewarding.

It's true that the (J)RPG elements are either very shallow or just non-existent, but the mechanics and systems that are there still make up for great, fun, varied, and compelling combat all throughout.

XVI is a game that succeeds at breaking away from series' "legacy" at the gameplay level while putting heavy emphasis on the world building and the story. And once you embrace this, it rewards you with unprecedented, staggering spectacle and memorable characters.

Stopped playing it halfway through because new Zelda. Now that the remake is announced, not sure I'll finish it.

It's fantastic, of course!

According to the Switch's own logging, I spent 190+ hours playing this game — that's around 5 hours per day in average, from the day i started it (which was release day).

I don't think any other game has captivated me this much before.

It's massive in size, content, and possibilities. It really makes the previous game feel like a prototype. Its shortcomings are easily eclipsed by its strengths and charms.

An indisputable benchmark for years to come.

(I will add more insights in the comments)

"3D World" is absolutely the perfect title for this game. To me this feels like the answer to "what if we made Super Mario World but 3D"; the Classic 2D Super Mario formula but with an extra dimension of movement. Like if this would have been the actual first 3D Mario game, instead of SM64, it would have felt like the natural progression. And I realize this means both that SM64 was indeed a massive jump forward back then and also that 3D World might feel like a step back in some ways.

The things that immediately win me over are the gorgeous and shiny visuals, the jazzy soundtrack, the cast of playable characters - each with their own unique skills, and the sheer amount of levels and variety.

However, it isn't that hard to get the 3 stars, the stamp, and the golden flag in your first visit to a level which leaves little or no incentive to revisit them. I think this is a shame because it makes the levels less memorable overall; no matter how nice a particular level was, if you manage to get all of the level's collectibles in one go, you're unlikely to go back to it. Even less if you don't care about getting all the collectibles and only about reaching the goal and moving on.

In comparison, the other 3D Mario entries have far fewer but much bigger worlds and you have to spend a long time on each which makes it easier for them to stick in your mind and become familiar and therefore memorable.

I guess if it had tried to strike a balance with the 64/Galaxy formula of requiring to revisit the same worlds - sometimes with variations - to get the all the level's stars, it would have made it more enjoyable for me.

Also I'm not a fan of the cat power.

Still, it's a super polished package full of the Mario World fun, charm, and style that I love.