One of the most unique approaches to a video game ever. I was initially thrown off by essentially playing translator simulator but they actually made this in such a way that decoding a foreign language feel rewarding with enough puzzle and exploration elements thrown in there to make for a pretty engaging experience. I finished it in one sitting, crazily enough. What kept me engaged though wasn't just the mechanics but the worldbuilding. Meeting each new group of people with their own distinct culture and language made me wonder how they all ended up in one huge tower together... and who was at the top? Ultimately, didn't need much help on this game either with the exception of one somewhat BS puzzle right at the end where they were looking for "brother" instead of "man" as the answer to an already vague puzzle. Really loved this game though minus that one very minor hiccup.

What a special, special game. You can really tell just how much thought and effort went into the puzzle and game design, the graphics, the secrets, the atmosphere. It was a pretty quick beat but I think for a game like this where its up to the player to decide just how much effort they want to put into exploring and collecting eggs, I think it was fitting to keep it short. There are some pretty horrific and pretty beautiful beats thoughout the game and it always kept me on my toes. I don't think I ever needed to do any backtracking where it felt tedious and it almost started to feel like most of the puzzles were solving themselves. That doesn't mean that I think the puzzles were easy, but rather the game does such a good job of teaching you what you need to do without telling you explicitly. I don't think I would change a thing about this game and I look forward to returning to it to try to get more eggs in the future.

Platforming was really satisfying, I'd even say more satisfying than LBP3. Loved looking over the level for secrets and trying to get the best time on the Knitted Knight Trials. From a gameplay perspective this game really killed it. Highlight of the game though - gotta be the soundtrack. Throwing in licenced music to some of the stages and making the obstacles and enemies in the game physically react to the beat fully immersed me in some of the levels. The world variety wasn't too diverse but ultimately they managed to make each individual stage in each world feel unique so big plus on the game design. I enjoyed going for more collectibles and outfits then randomly setting my appearance. Really like that they added in a surprise me option. Story was lackluster but the game wasn't about story less so theming and platforming.

The first entry of the Ace Attorney series for me to try out, I was instantly gripped by the mixture of evidence based deduction and reasoning in the form of a visual novel. The first episode had me fully invested as it felt the stakes were high and the culprit and antagonists were unlikable it really caught my attention early on and I really liked the way that each mystery began to unfold. However, the story really starts to drag and take its time in the fourth episode where episodes became twice as long with the investigation taking as long as each trial. The final trial was good, but took way too long. The characters grew on me and the twists were good, although I almost have fatigue after this first game in the series. I should hope it is a while before I make a return, but once I do return I suspect I'll enjoy the reintroduction.

Dredge is all about atmosphere. The simple yet detailed environments, poly graphics, deep fog, and diverse soundtrack really add to this mysterious experience where you don't really know what's lurking around the corner or what screwed up item you might unearth from the deep. The story doesn't really get too detailed, but I'm sure it's there if someone wanted to dissect every little comment someone makes. The gameplay itself is pretty straightforward - but navigating the challenges of each environment provide enough diversity where each main zone feels different. Other than its short length, the only downside for this game is the fact that when you die, there is no death animation of the ship sinking - you just cut to a black screen that says you capsized and you can immediately start back from the last time you docked. It almost ruins some of the challenge in avoiding all obstacles because the punishment is so small.

This game is incredibly charming and creative. Each level's theming and atmosphere felt so distincltly different and scratched my creative brain in just the right way, the platforming is also pretty fun. But honestly the standout of this game was the soundtrack. Each level's soundtrack fit perfectly and had an awesome mix of original music and old hits. Overall, this isn't a pretty long game and some of the platforming does end up getting repetitive (it's a pretty simple game). I wanted to try out some of the player made levels but it turns out the servers have been down for years now, so that's a huge piece of history and effort lost, bumping this game down significantly for me as I don't think the short story mode captures the whole of this game and I don't bother to engage in the level maker.

Snake Pass is a unique game, I don't think there is any other game where you have to carefully manage your long body and use its slithering capabilities to navigate a course and for that I will give it its flowers. The controls and technique does take a hot minute to get used to before things click and the game actually starts feeling doable, but that learning curve is definitely something. It's hard and frustrating and sometimes unforgiving at first, but once that click happened it felt like the rest of the game was a breeze. And yes, it is a unique game in its mechanics, but who was asking for something like this? I had fun and I'll give it some credit, but I'm ultimately glad it's over.

This game is the reason 3D platformers are the way they are. The first of it's kind, Super Mario 64, got so much right when there was no blueprint to work from. For that reason alone does it deserve legend status. The movement (for its time) is crazy for what you're able to do and chain together, let alone in a 3D space. The worlds all have such a unique feel to them making you want to go explore every corner for a red coin or a star. The puzzles are doable, yet when you get one you've been trying to figure out it fills you with accomplishment rather than facepalming that you missed it. The last 10 or so stars for me, I personally found very challenging to scrape together which added to the accomplishment of clearing the game. While the first half of the courses are indeed very iconic, the latter half are much more difficult and choosing to engage with the harder courses surprised me by how difficult and frustrating the ending of this game could be. I think it did reveal a few flaws in the movement towards the end for me. Trying to move the other direction often had Mario move in a circle to get to that direction, causing him to fall off many platforms a substantial amount of times. In a modern game, this probably wouldn't be an issue, but you also can't blame the clunky controls because it really was the first time something of this scale was done in a 3D space - they got it right for the most part. Hard to not give this one a 5 star rating from me, even if parts were frustrating due to the controls.

As a huge Binding of Isaac fan, people have been telling me to pick up Hades for a while now and I'm glad I did as I felt it was a very fun, intense, moving, and contained experience. I like how even when you lose a run, you still gain something in the form of permanent ability that carries over between runs. I also really liked how there was some sort of story and mystery to the game that is unfolded during and between runs. Once I finally beat Hades once, I thought the story would be finished, but when it is shown that there is more to uncover by winning ~ 10 or so times, that alone was the push I needed in order to really engage with some of the other aspects of the game. And to me rolling credits was very rewarding, but at a certain point it felt a little tedious. Most of the runs feel more or less the same after a certain point and once you have enough permanent abilities that carry over between runs, you're able to reach Hades with ease every time (whether you beat him or not is another story). Overall: fun roguelike, liked the story, but lacked a bit of variance between runs that a game like BoI really has that I was craving.

I don't think I've ever seen a choices matter game do a better job at user experience than in Goodbye Volcano High. Some options make you perform extra actions to choose them because Fang is anxious and it takes effort to be confident and put yourself out there, some options go away entirely if you're too indecisive, sometimes the options are shuffling around making them hard to pick because the MC is scatterbrained at the moment. I thought these creative decisions were really cool and want to see them implemented in other story/decision based games. On to the story - I found it extremely comforting and felt really satisfied with where I was at with my ending and I thought the story that they attempted to tell was super impactful. Goodbye Volcano High is a story about acceptance of the future, and that community matters the most in the face of dispair. Life is ever changing and where we are right now will never be where we are in the future, that's just how life functions. Whether your best friend moves, or you break up with your partner, or the world explodes, this story shows us that we should relish in the present no matter what comes after and never take that present for granted. So glad I decided to give this one a try considering it's not a typical gameplay heavy experience and encourage others to do the same despite any reservations they might have due to the presentation.

As I decided to make my entry into the Metal Gear Solid Series, I saw that Metal Gear 1 and 2 were optional, but as someone who loves worldbuilding and not missing out on any pieces of a story, I delved into Metal Gear. It was not the game I was expecting and for a while was really enjoying it and worked hard to navigate my way through screens unscathed, unlocking new rooms, saving prisoners, and gaining new tools to help me on my mission. The thing that really tripped me up is that at a certain point it is an absolute requirement that you start hitting random walls in order to find key equipment that help you progress. To me that is not great game design and very cheesy, at this point I needed to look up a walkthrough to make my way through the game which I did not like.

When I started playing Dead Island 2, everything was screaming at me that I shouldn't like this game. They overhauled so much of the RPG and open worldness of the first game that made it so special, the story is uniquely unserious and cheesy, and there isn't too much depth to the combat. But once I committed to playing and beating this game, as well as taking my time moving through it, I was so surprised that I was actually enjoying it and having fun with it for a few reasons. First, the environments are so visually stunning and well detailed. As someone who lives in LA, I had a blast exploring all the nooks and crannies of notable LA locations. I would say this by far is the biggest standout for the game. Every house tells a story whether blatant or hidden and it's an aspect I don't see as much attention to detail in other games. Secondly, mowing your way through zombies is just... awesome. Modding all the weapons and slicing zombie heads, comboing with some drop-kicking, while not extremely complex it is actually a lot of fun and theraputic. I would also say that I was surprised of some of the story twists once I made my way through the end game. I'm glad I stuck with this one.

Okay don't get me wrong, there are some really cool and unique mechanics here and the soundtrack/art style is sublime. However there's a big obstacle that brings this game so far down for me. I started this game saying I wouldn't look anywhere for online help and just take my time moving through and experiencing it. For a game like this, that throws so many different mechanics at you in cryptic language, doesn't take the time to explain or retain any sort of explanation I felt I heavily misunderstood a few key mechanics like feeding animals to create more gardens, using compost to make plants grow faster, etc. But for the first half of the game none of that is really necessary at all to understand. So during the first half I had a great time, treated it just like any other metroidvania. But then you unlock this "living network" mechanism and realize you can connect up the shamasal you've already killed. Now again, I'm not using any outside help here, so I figured that in order to beat the game I not only needed to kill every shamasal, but I also needed to link every one up to the network. So I spend hours trying and failing to link up these different pathways, trying to pick the right plant, get the right seed, return back to the original spot, etc. I spend hours doing all of this tedious work and only connected 2 shamasal after giving up. This part of the game (if you choose to engage with it) is ridiculous and so very not fun. And it's not very clear that this is entirely optional and the game leads you into believing it's necessary (by providing you with all these different tools for gardening specifically). For me this was a very middle of the road experience, with some very frustrating stretches because I chose to engage with exploration and the mechanics that the game lays out for you. Without the gardening, this would have honestly been a decent game for me.