The pacing holds this game back hard. I'm a huge Fire Emblem fan and there's a lot to love here but I absolutely hate having to spend hours in between story maps doing nothing but wandering around and watching bars go up. I didn't mind it on my first playthrough, but it made subsequent playthroughs an absolute slog. The game's also obscenely ugly. This is probably one of the worst looking big budget games I've seen in a long time.

Beside those two key flaws, generally it's solid. I can see why a newcomer to the series would really love this, especially if you don't mind the slow pace. The characters are great, far more in depth than Awakening or Fates and the English dub cast does a great job, especially in the case of Dimitri. Speaking of Dimitri, this game's trio of lords are all phenomenal characters. It's good that they hinged the game's conflict on such likable characters, unlike a certain 3DS game I won't mention by name. The structure of the game into the two arcs was another solid choice. Classmates in the first act turn to bitter enemies in the second, creating a poignant feeling that I hadn't felt in a Fire Emblem game before. And I absolutely adored how the story changed in the second arc to accomodate what characters I did or didn't recruit to my house in the first.

Despite all my praise for the characters, the story has a terrible case of telling and not showing. The engine doesn't feel all that capable of telling a story like this. Whereas the 3DS games at least had itheir models for the story sections in a 3D environment, this game has them standing on a flat, weird looking, fucked up panorama that vaguely resembles the location it's supposed to represent. It's weird. Even worse, key story sections are rendered less effective by the poor presentation, as they all have this sort of plasticky quality about them. There's an abundance of moments that hit, of course, but there's a few oddball moments that don't hit the necessary beats due to the presentation.

Gameplay is about what you'd expect from Awakening or Fates: Birthright. Most maps are defeat the commander/rout the enemy, and aren't particularly complex, which isn't too awful, just not as compelling as I'd hope. There's a few maps (particularly in the first arc) that try a unique mechanic like warp tiles or switches and they all fall flat. Outside of map design, the freeflow character building of Awakening and Fates has been taken to a logical extreme, and while on paper more freedom is good, in the end characters end up feeling homogenized and sometimes there's no clear path for characters, as far as classes go. In general the sense of satisfaction you'd get from raising characters in past games (raising an early game cavalier into a busted paladin, or a frail mage into a versatile dark knight) is pretty much missing here.

Overall there's a lot I love here and some that I'm not so keen on, but it's a solid first FE game on the Switch; following the current trend, we'll probably see another Fire Emblem in 2021. Maybe that one will fix the graphics and general story presentatio problems I had with this one. I sure hope so. I'd say this is an about average Fire Emblem game. Doesn't come close to the heights of some other installments but it's not insulting in the way Fates was, and it does enough I like to put it above some of the more middling entries.

Edit: I didn't mention the soundtrack! It's excellent. The vocal main theme is amazing and so are most of the map tracks. I can see why some people might be bothered by the strange fixation on adding dubstep elements to some tracks, but it doesn't bother me all that much.

Being a fan of both classic TR and the reboot series, this game left me very conflicted. I think Eidos did a better job at giving us a "true" Tomb Raider experience than CD, focusing less in combat and more in exploration, platforming and puzzles. that's great. however, i found the story to be weak and considerably worse that the first two in the trilogy. the game starts really strong but there are lots of problems along the way and some design choices really hurt the narrative. I'm so tired of these RPG elements and AAA tropes being in almost every story-driven singleplayer game nowadays, for no reason other than having more "content". it does not make things better and harms the dynamic and pacing of the story SO MUCH, it's a real shame. upgrades, skill trees, hub worlds and side quests don't belong in a tomb raider game. i'm totally okay with TR not being that mainstream anymore tbh, we don't need all that stuff.

Back to the story, apart from some stale moments the plot is still interesting and engaging, until it becomes really disappointing and predictable after they killed off an important character middle of the game, it makes no sense and the ending is weaker because of it. and don't get me started about the white savior stuff because yeah, that happens. the villain was ok with a cool final fight, but the end could have been so much more satisfying. i still don't know what Jonah is doing in these games, his solely reason to exist is that Lara can have a friend. he has zero character. I recognise the effort to make him a bit more of a character this time but it ended up being too superficial. remember Sam from the first game? yeah, she was nice.

Now that this trilogy is over I hope we can have a bolder tomb raider game in the near future that isn't so concerned about telling the origin story of Lara Croft because, really, we never needed that.

My first game played on the Switch, it had to be this one and didn't disappoint. 3D Mario brings me so much good memories from Super Mario Sunshine, which I absolutely loved as a child. I always loved the style and creativity that these games have. Super Mario Odyssey looks absolutely gorgeous and is joy to play, all the kingdoms are fun and unique. New Donk City rules tho.

The new mechanic is trademark Nintendo, simple but functional. It adds so much variety to gameplay and some of the creatures you can capture could easily have each a game of their own.

Nintendo did it again.

As a big Star Wars fan I really loved this game and am so happy that it's doing well. It definitely has some flaws and technical issues but I think it delivered where it mattered the most. Combat is good with a decent variety of attacks and force powers, plus a great variety of enemies. I'm glad that Respawn wasn't afraid to go weird with SW and got to really explore the universe. The level design and narrative were quite interesting too. I find it funny that it's basically the same story as The Last Jedi but we won't be seeing a lot of people complaining about it. I must say that I'm also forever grateful for this game basically giving me gender swapped Kylo Ren. Thank you so much.

Who would've thought that EA was wrong about singleplayer games? Excited for the future.

So... this was my first Kojima game (I dropped MGSV but intend to go back someday) and probably the weirder experience I've ever had as a gamer, which I kinda expected knowing his reputation. The beginning was really rough for me, like it was so bizarre and overwhelming that it took two or three weeks for me to start enjoying the game. And the main reason for that was the gameplay. It's incredible how a concept as simple as delivering packages can be so fun, immersive and diverse. The terrain is always an obstacle and you can really feel the hard work it is to make every single step until your final destination. It becomes very addictive to use the many options between equipment, weapons and structures, which you gradually unlock until the end of the game, keeping the gameplay fresh.

The plot, however, is a mess and tries too much. I'm convinced that Kojima doesn't really know how to write well, but tricks people into thinking he is a genius (which he is, but for other reasons) over his comically convoluted plot. Most of the characters talk like robots and don't show any emotion at all (besides crying sometimes), the cutscenes are so fucking long oh my god. I didn't care about anything, and that's a shame considering the amazing cast. I appreciate how Kojima is more interested in the concept of ideas than anything else, but if you use your characters only as means to tell a metaphor, then the story becomes empty.

In conclusion, amazing gameplay, design and a bold concept developed really well, but terrible plot, story and characters. Kojima definitely has his style.