At first the game was just a neat little thought experiment, but by the end of it I can look back positively on Balan Wonderworld. It's very obviously flawed in some major ways but through the cracks you can see some really interesting ideas.

The simple/accessible control scheme and multiple costumes is a really great idea. A problem I've had with Kirby games is that the powerups are mostly combat focused. They don't effect Kirby's movement options in any meaningful way because Kirby's baseline movement range is so wide. The suits in Balan Wonderworld provide a lot of different movement options and the levels compliment this. The levels have a lot of verticality to them and multiple ways to advance through them, some intentional and some not. It feels very satisfying to get a trophy you were not supposed to get with early game suits and clever platforming. It feels really good to maneuver around the intended path with a suit from another level opposed to the suit provided for the obstacle. There is an expression in the platforming that the game and level design gives you.

But it comes with a catch, this shit is terribly inconsistent. There is a lot of bloat in the suits. While I enjoy some of the silly one off challenge suits, like the now infamous box fox, I don’t really care for multiple suits that do literally the same thing. You get two swimming suits in chapter 2 one after the other and the second one is just better, it makes the former weirdly redundant almost as soon as you get it. The levels themselves can also be a roller coaster ride. Chapter 5 made me want to quit the game but Chapter 10 was one of the best levels I’ve ever played in any 3D platformer. Most of the little CGI stories are heartwarming but the cat one I found genuinely offensive.

With all that in mind there is a real turning point to the game. When you unlock the Frost Fairy suit this shit really gets going. That suit is so hilariously over powered in both vertical and horizontal movement options that it makes lot of the levels super trivial, but trivial in a fun cathartic way. Chapter 10 was seriously a triumph in game design. There’s an intended path to get through the level but the Frost Fairy suit gives you the freedom to wholly create your own path.

I honestly believe if this game got the time to cut a lot of the fat and polish out what it did well it could have been a really great game.

Some other thoughts:
This game is the opposite of ahead of it’s time and I say that as a compliment. I don’t think the Fortnite pilled super children of the next generation would be into this at all but I shutter to think how this game would have warped my baby brain if I somehow had access to it as a child. I would have eaten it up.

The quick time event and sports mini games I just completely avoided. That shit just seems unfinished.

The Isle of Tims is a fun little hangout spot. All games should have hangout spots.

The gameplay for bosses was pretty neat. They are all really simple to beat but the challenge is to beat them in 3 different ways with different suits. Just a neat little idea that works well with the suits.

This is like my fifth Atlus game and it's the first one where I think I actually cared about all the demons. They all look incredible, I love reading their backstories, the way they are integrated in the world is fun. Just having a good time with all these wicked dudes. I made an effort to reach the end game with 3 very special dudes on my team and the game lets you take very early game demons all the way to the end and have them be mechanically viable. Much appreciated.

There was an instance where I fought one demon and another demon in my stock came out and they had a huge conversation about their similar backstories and that rocked.

The world is successful at riding this line between linear and open. Good visuals. Good music.

Special shoutout to the sound design. It's a pretty wild task to give all these precious boys their own noise and they did a really wonderful job there. I would actively run by demons on the world map just to hear them make noises at me.

Uhhh yeah, just a solid little romp.

Oh no. They made pokemon good.

From a mechanical perspective I was very pleased with a lot of the decisions made. Mints and bottle caps are easily accessible which solves a lot of the tedium with catching pokemon. A lot of the 'A' mashing brain dead combat with random pokemon and trainers on the road has been streamlined or made completely avoidable. Tera whatevering is a really interesting new mechanic that isn't over powered and helps ALL pokemon instead of just a few. The three storylines have different forms of combat in each one that provide gameplay variety to break apart the general fun of exploring. It was just FUN. The normal dread that hits at around the 3rd gym in a pokemon game never came while I was playing this. From day one to day done I was actively having a good time just playing the game, exploring the cool world, catching some cool dudes, and accomplishing goals.

Just mechanically this game gets a big gold star for solving a lot of my gripes and making pokemon fun again but then it went and did something unbelievable. It made me care about the story.

I was invested in all three of the main storylines and when they converged into a single finale I was kind of floored by just how much I cared about everything. I nearly cried like 3 separate times. It's not the deepest story and they pluck some pretty low hanging emotional fruits but that's what pokemon SHOULD be doing. The IP is suited to simple stories like this and not these grand narratives of Gods and terrorist groups. Good lord I was reading the dialogue and there were parts I thought were genuinely funny. In the last chapter the characters are riffing off each other and I was absolutely consumed by the warm feelings of friendship. WHAT IS HAPPENING. How can they just suddenly know what makes a pokemon game good after YEARS of coming off completely oblivious. Is this game an accident? I'm losing my mind.

Other notes:

-They absolutely nailed the legendary pokemon in this game. I'm glad they had so much confidence in the world they made and the player's ability to explore and enjoy exploring.

-The technical stuff is bad but I don't care. Suck it nerds.

I played a lot of Tetris Friends in college. College was a dark and depressing time in my life. The rat race of academia, the mounting debt, the failed relationships, and the looming threat of poverty in our crumbling world without the necessary diploma was heavy on the head. Tetris Friends was a frantic and stressful Facebook game full of ads and a hierarchical matchmaking multiplayer where super freaks from far away countries would t-spin your whole body and shake you for your lunch money. I think I got pretty good at tetris in this time.

Eventually I did graduate from college and I deleted Facebook and tetris left my life for nearly a decade.

Now I return to tetris, an adult riddled with hippie love and big boy drugs and I see that tetris, in my absence, has done much the same.

Neat game. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I didn't play so much Groove Coaster last year. I thought the gear and the leveling up and the party configuration stuff was all pretty cool for a rhythm game.

Final Fantasy as a series definitely has enough bangers to fill a whole catalog of songs but compared to other rhythm games it felt lacking in diversity. What it lacks in diversity, it makes up for in its consistency. Consistently good experience, consistently good visuals, consistently good music, and a consistent overall aesthetic. I think this game is incredibly well made and I know the kind of guy who would love this but I'm not that guy.

My first foray into the Xenoblade series and it's the expansion, prequal, DLC to the second game of a trilogy and I don't think I'd have it any other way. It was short and simple and felt like a perfect introduction to a series that is a bit overwhelming from the outside looking in.

I had a lot of trepidations going in. There's a lot of videos out there making fun of Xenoblade. Weird voice acting and awkward deliveries, walls of tutorials and systems, overly dramatic moments, one liners on repeat, and the boobs. The cans on some of these gals put me in an absolute cold sweat hoping my wife wouldn't walk into the room. But really if you go in with your good time hat on, all of these things I thought I'd hate just came off as incredibly charming. I was being charmed left and right by this cornball cast of characters and their overly complicated lives and gameplay mechanics. I couldn't get enough of it. When Lora says "aren't we intrepid?" for the 500th time I was on my couch just hollering "hell yeah, we are intrepid as fuck!" I haven't played the other games so the blue guys come on the screen and say a bunch of silly words about whatever and I'm just snacking. Say more nonsense at me I love it. A whole cutscene just talking about how Lora and Haze kind of look like sisters, why not!

You put the good time hat on and the fun don't stop.

I've always viewed the Xenoblade games from a gameplay perspective as kind of a single player MMO. You've got attacks and cooldowns and random people online just champing at the bit to explain it all to you. Once you've got the rhythm of it all it feels amazing. You've got to time your attacks so they chain into each other while also keeping track of 3 bars that fill up and do one thing and another 5 menus that pop up and do another thing, all while the game is exploding in colors and numbers and just screaming directly into your face. Juggling all this nonsense "I won't lie, it feels good".

So yeah, I was really surprised to be so smitten by all the stuff I thought I wouldn't like. But even better than all of that is the stuff that I WAS excited for. The worlds are huge and beautiful and the game is just a joy to exist in. At the end of the game when you climb to the highest point and overlook the massive desert and city you just spent hours in at the ground level, and in your peripheral the mountains are moving and you realize the whole world is literally breathing because your on the back of this massive beasty, and it's all true to scale and lovingly crafted. I was in awe. This is Xenoblade baby.

NOTES:
I like that the characters have distinct colors and big gaudy weapons. They all look like action figures and toys. It fits with their over the top nobility and niceness. They are all pretty predictable character archetypes and I like that. I want an Addam and Lora toy and I want to smash them together and make them kiss.

Mythra's tits are out of this world. Then at the end you get a quick glimpse at Pyra and holy shit. I think Mythra is a really interesting and cool character with great voice acting and her giant rack really does her a disservice. But I guess I also don't want to contribute to like...large breast erasure or anything. They are just so distracting lmao

Really interesting and cool story, but holy moly I can only run through so many forests fighting the same old dudes for so long. I'm very excited for the sequel. I trust Remedy to expand on the good and fix the bad from a gameplay and environment perspective.

I specifically hope the manuscript pages make a return, though I'm not sure how it will work narratively. It's definitely the highlight of the game for me. A diegetic way of learning more about side characters, what's happening "off-camera", and even what will happen later through a prose presentation was a super unique and well executed little slice of the gameplay pie. More of that please. Fatten me up Alan, I'll be your little piggy.

This game spooked me supreme like 3 times. So that's pretty good. I was really weak and put all my points into strength which made me really strong, but then later I wasn't very strong but I just kept doing it and eventually I was really strong again.

I'm a pretty simple guy. Just walking through a bunch of spooky scary PS1 mazes really is all I need to have a good time.

4 skelebones out of 5. oooooOOOOoooo boooooooo!

The way this game has enemies that are just non-antagonistic is wild. And the way it messes with perspective having big enemies in the background and small enemies in the foreground and rewarding shooting things far away is such an inverse on the rail shooter mentality of things being far away being harder to hit and not a threat.

That and just the mere act of interpreting the shapes as antagonistic is flexing a brain muscle nothing else in the entire world has ever done.

I also played this high, the way God intended, so I don't even know what I'm talking about right now.

This game has the perfect name. Very Rhythm and very Doctor.

With the Rhythm it's nice that it keeps throwing gimmicks at you instead of raising the difficulty on the individual gimmicks too high. When the gimmicks get overlapped it can be hit or miss but it's mostly hits. Playing a level well is satisfying and it doesn't require too much to get past a level which is good because...

The little narratives explored in the Doctor side of this game are all so charming. All the stories feel so small but also cover such grand emotions under the surface. Things like love, and anxiety, and regret. The songs bring out these big explosions internally but externally the narratives are so insignificant. There is also a lot of melancholy here that you could only get in a hospital setting.

The game also has a lot of grand boss fights which is fun for a rhythm game. They bring out all the tricks and gimmicks for those and they are pretty delightful to experience.

Just a solid little guy. The Baseball guys plotline, in particular, got me so emotional for how ridiculously cornballs it was.

A beautiful bridge between classic castlevanias and the more metroid-like castevanias. Being essentially non-canon the story is very simple. The controls are heavy and committed similar to a classic castlevania game but not to the degree where it impedes movement, it just punishes unnecessary and suboptimal movement. Once you get the hang of the whip and the double tap sprinting controlling the game is a real joy. Ascending up the more vertical segments with speed while also fighting enemies feels good but still vulnerable, a trait I think later metroid-like castlevanias lose a bit of. Combine that with the interesting DSS system, a beautiful castle, excellent bosses, and a banger of a soundtrack and you've got my favorite metroidvania of all time.

I made a no good video about this game. The main point was that deckbuilding is way better than experience points.

Please, whatever you do, don't watch it. Thank you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhvUGrxfqnk