Question: how do you make a visual novel fun to play? Not read. Play.

Ace Attorney resolves the age-old question by making you an active participant in the courtroom drama that unfolds: that is to say, the plot doesn't move until you make the deductions, talk to the right people, or point out a contradiction. It's part brain-teaser, part trying to guess the conclusion the game is trying to lead you to, and it works...for the most part. More on that later.

The highlights of this game are easily the characters. Given life by an amazing script (props to the localizers) and iconic designs, you get invested in the over-the-top sparring between Wright and Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth. Every side character is distinguished with weird mannerisms, especially the culprits of each case who you get to sweat and break down over the course of a trial. The game also operates on the simplest, most theatrical interpretation of the law, but I wouldn't have this eccentric anime soap opera any other way.

As for the negatives, they unfortunately stem from the gameplay. Investigation is easily the more dull half of the game (and the trilogy as a whole), mostly consisting of point and click segments to find evidence and dialogue trees to get clues. It feels like moving from Point A to Point B and shoving evidence in the other character's faces until you hit the right flag and get to progress the plot. Compare that to the Court segments, which have an actual game over state for trying to brute force it (albeit easily circumvented by save scumming), and one clearly stands head and shoulders over the other. The court segments are much more animated and fun, but they sometimes suffer from feeling too "on rails" when you want to question something, but the game is clearly nudging you towards another contradiction that can't wait--alas, a constraint of the medium.

All this to say that Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and its sequels Justice For All and Trials and Tribulations are a collective masterpiece that must be experienced for themselves. Capcom has re-released this sum'bitch like ten different ways now, so there's no excuse for not having played it.

Gonna try to challenge myself to articulate why I like this game without saying "mood," "atmosphere," or "ambience."

This game really was a risk: a gamble on a popular IP, breaking from the established platforming formula--and as a launch title, no less. And god damn, it worked.

Luigi's Mansion gameplay is half exploratory puzzle-solving and half fishing minigame disguised as ghost vacuuming. These two halves work seamlessly off each other, as 99% of your interactions with the environment come from the Poltergust (the aforementioned vacuum cleaner) anyway. Catching ghosts is a thrilling affair, especially when you have to wrangle multiple at once while dodging their attacks, getting dragged along in their desperate flailing to escape.

The titular mansion, too, is such an inspired locale. It really does feel "lived in" and not just a video game level, if you catch my drift. Keeping the target demographic in mind, it's not scary, but certainly spooky, all its dark hallways teeming with mischievous spirits. Luigi, ever the lovable coward, is the perfect choice of protagonist for this sort of haunt: a match made in heaven.

The game can be beaten in a matter of hours, with an unlockable hard mode upon completion. Highly recommend.

(Emulated with an English patch.)

Dragon Quest 1 and 2 come from a different era of RPGs without quest markers or obvious railroading toward a destination. The developers plop you in a starting town and tell you to figure it out...and that's sort of the joy of it. From your first Slime to the Dragonlord, it really does feel like a quest, as you level up, gather hints from NPCs, and solve puzzles. I played both 1 and 2 with a journal to take physical notes, and I think that's how it's meant to be enjoyed, to be quite honest.

I don't think about it often, but the feel of how your character controls in a video game makes a lot of difference. And man, Samus is fun to control: fast, acrobatic, merciless. MercurySteam did a bang-up job of movement options in this game, with a newly implemented slide and running melee counter in addition to the usual tools. By the lategame, the game will really start to test your mastery of that toolkit, and it's exhilarating.

It's probably the most story-involved Metroid game aside from Other M, so if you want maximum enjoyment out of it, I'd at least familiarize yourself with Super Metroid and Fusion first. Raven Beak (in all his glory) is also a welcome addition to the canon, with some hard-hitting revelations that reframe the whole game and the series at large.

As for negatives...it's sort of linear?