An interesting game with a top tier story for the franchise, a unique atmosphere and setting, and mostly fun fanservice seeing familiar faces in new roles, though it is held back by just ok gameplay and combat.

Visually, this is a Kiwami-style remake of the original Ishin. It generally looks great, and it's cool to contrast it with the Dragon Engine and other HD versions of these characters (I prefer K2 Ryuji's face to Saigo's, but Izo >>> K1 Nishiki). There's also a dog at one point that references the original Yakuza and looks like it was ripped straight from the PS2. Nitpicking aside though, it's a treat to see, especially with some of the older characters who haven't gotten the HD treatment prior to this, like Hijikata/Mine. But for actual feel and gameplay, this is more along the lines of the HD remasters. There's a little bit of touching up, like tiny shops not having loading zones, but when it takes 20 years to pick up a sparkly object on the ground, it feels like I'm back in Yakuza 5.

The gameplay still mostly has its feet in that era too. It's got a bit of QoL, like being able to hit enemies on the ground (even though you don't lean over like in DE, you just kind of hit the air above them), and fancier looking health bars (though only 1 for bosses is lame). Overall though, it leaves some to be desired. It's clear that weapon based styles were an experiment for the series and they're... alright. There was something off about the balance between rush combos, finishers, and heat actions in these styles that made combat feel a lot more monotonous than usual, and the midgame seemed to have extremely health-spongy enemies that contributed to that feeling. For reference, I played on hard and crafted what seemed like somewhat overpowered weapons for that point in the game. Bosses, on the other hand, basically fell over, usually so fast that I forgot they even had wacky special powers.

And that's the elephant in the room when talking about this game's combat: the trooper cards. Before release, this was the thing I was most apprehensive about, and in hindsight, I think I was right. They weren't immensely distracting, but they felt like an immersion breaking band-aid for the slightly too stale combat, and I think overall they were a negative. They gave a much, much weaker but similar taste of "oh yeah, ugh" that comes when you fight a boss in LAD and have to use that game's JRPG combat: it just kind of gets in the way from how it feels like the fight should play out. The quality of some of the cutscenes makes it feel like it's prepping you for some cinematic clash that you'd find in Ghost of Tsushima, but then you remember you're playing a PS3 Yakuza game. Which again, is still pretty fun, but there's just a little bit of mismatch there. It feels like there's several ideas for combat that get mashed together in this game. Is this a serious samurai story with matching combat? It is a normal Yakuza brawler that happens to have swords and guns? Is it a wacky super power simulator with crazy effects? Is it, as the remake oddly seems to try and highlight, a stylish action game with ranks for every fight? I don't know, but it tries to be all of those and doesn't really nail any of them. It's like they tried to apply the unique balance of serious and silly tones of the Yakuza series to the combat itself, but it didn't really work for me. Also, spamming square on Gunman with a high fire rate gun like Vortex is so silly, and any fire sword basically stunlocks single targets, including bosses. The bandit leader in battle dungeons was also the worst fight I've ever done in an RGG game.

Moving on to more positive notes: the story and characters! As the entry from between 5 and 0, I was very curious to see which side this game would fall on: 5's mess of a main plot and finale, or 0's much tighter and more emotional story? I'm happy to say it was much closer to 0 than 5 here. I kept waiting for some ridiculous twists in the last few chapters, and while there was plenty of crazy stuff, it was all totally acceptable and well put together (vague spoiler warning: besides the last 10 minutes before the credits, lmao). On the character side, this was the other thing I was apprehensive about before release: the recasts. On this point, I'll concede that it pretty much worked out. The only character that I really wish hadn't been replaced was Todo (Baba -> Zhao), not because Zhao was bad, but I just think Baba seems like a much better fit and I would've liked that performance more. Every other recast was totally fine at worst (Yamazaki, Takeda), and great at best (Kondo, Oryo). The returning cast was generally very good too; it was fun to see the old faces in new roles and didn't feel too gimmicky to me in the slightest aside from maybe maintaining some old character quirks or accents. Hijikata/Mine in particular stood out as a great character who I didn't care for as much in his original role, but had much more room to breathe here and really grew on me. Even others like Kondo and Takechi had me liking them more than counterparts. (More vague minor spoilers:) It's also crazy that this is legitimately the game where Kiryu/Majima get the most time to shine as an actual pair. Overall, I really enjoyed the story, though in the middle I wasn't as sure about that and the slightly darker tone compared to Yakuza wasn't 100% hitting, but it pulled me back by the end.

Other minor notes:
The new remix of Affected Fight was really cool to see, and Fly got the same treatment which was nice, but then they just reused Pledge of Demon, which was weird considering how much effort was put into getting Kuze into this game in the first place.
The glossary is a perfect idea for this game for international audiences, and I was impressed at the foresight... for about 3 minutes, until it didn't have a definition for goshi. Then I realized it was literally only place names, which is probably the least useful thing it could have done. It was funny to be 25 hours in and see it still prompting me to check on where Tosa is in modern Japan though. No text log was also a slight miss.

This was a fun entry in the series that I'm glad worldwide fans now get to check out, and while the changes made for the remake are a bit of a mixed bag, it's still a good experience. Definitely worth playing for the story and characters, an interesting time period and place to explore, and at least judging the weapon styles and combat for yourself.

Tchia, for all its faults, is still one of the most wonderfully unique and charming games I've played in a long time. The story, while maybe it could've used being a bit longer to flesh out some characters a little more, is such a wild ride that constantly had me laughing whether because it was being legitimately funny or batshit insane (it was often both). Its also surprisingly dark for something that looks like an animated movie for kids. We're talking a villain who eats babies whole and a visual gag of a headless chicken with blood included. Also fucking like a bunch of people die, its crazy. While doing all the side content will probably take you 4x as long, the main story should only take you around 5 hours or so and I really think everyone should give this a shot especially if you got it on PS plus last month just to experience it. Also it features lesbians! Girls kiss! The story also gets wholesome with it so that's like an extra five stars.

Where Tchia will lose some people is the gameplay. The charm is absolutely still there, you can literally pick up a dog and hold it over your head, its hilarious. It also features a really cool mechanic where you can posses nearly every small animal or object. Some of the animals have different abilities you can use, like Cats have night vision. I did not find almost any of that really useful but its a cute little thing. However I did always have several birds stored in my backpack to use them to fly around when needed. And yes, the birds do have a dedicated poop button, if you were wondering. Now yes everything I've just described is awesome but then the open world stuff comes in. You've got your usual clearing out camps or doing races and stuff. None of it is bad but, I just never really wanted to do it. It just felt like a distraction when all I cared about was the story. Unfortunately as well, a lot of the gameplay in the story amounts to fetch quests. Finding an animal or item for someone and bringing it back to them. Its pretty boring, if I'm honest. There also some combat, which just involves soul jumping into explosive objects and launching yourselves into enemies. The soul jumping is fun but the combat is just pretty eh, and the enemies can be pretty annoying to deal with in dense areas where they'll constantly trap you, drain your stamina and force you to do a little qte. That's another thing, you'll drain stamina from doing almost everything. You're encouraged to find fruit around the islands to increase your stamina but they are very minor increases. If you run out of stamina too you'll basically faint and be returned to the nearest campfire. Thankfully there is an option in the settings to basically make it so you'll never faint. This really isnt a game that benefits from being difficult, and the challenge really is just annoying more than truly hard so I'd really recommend playing with that option on to keep Tchia the chill fun time its meant to be. My final gameplay critique is there are way too many campfire rhythm minigames. I do actually quite like rhythms games (Miku gang rise up) but they were just a bit excessive here, sometimes happening within ten minutes of eachother or less. You do have an option to let them autoplay which I ended up doing most of the time. These are full length songs and while the music in this game, vocal tracks especially, is amazing it just is another part of the gameplay that feels repetitive.

Tchia may suffer from some common open world problems, it may not run the best, it may bore you sometimes but despite all this, I wholeheartedly recommend it. Its bold, its hilarious and it is downright unforgettable.

Trophy Completion - 0% (not the best trophy list lol)
Time Played - 5+ hours
Nancymeter - 81/100
Game Completion #75 of 2023
April Completion #5

Ultimately, did I enjoy most of my hour or so I played with this game? I think I did. But also, I feel like I've already experienced everything the game has to offer. Will I come back to this regularly? Is there really a reason to? Well, I can't really say yes to either. Of course, every game is better with friends but that may only buy you another couple hours of enjoyment out of this. As far as I can tell only the first two very very short tutorial levels are developer made and everything else is user generated content. That's not entirely damning on its own but its clear from the level creator side of things the game is quite restrictive. There is only so many ways people can get creative with the same couple types of traps, enemies. There is an okay selection of blocks and textures but its not enough to stop levels from feeling the same, even when theyre as different as the game allows them to be. The core gameplay loop is enjoyable and every game with a grappling hook is a win but much like everything else, its not enough. What is there is fun but... there's nothing really there. Hopefully this gets supported more in the future, but its gonna need a lot of work to make me, and I suspect most people, wanna come back to it - even with it being a free PS Plus offering.

Just wanted to give my quick thoughts on this unfortunately disappointing game. Thanks for reading <3

Nancymeter - 57/100

The first time I played this I really wasn't impressed to be honest. I wasn't in the right mood for the style of gameplay it demands, and I get so lost with all the backtracking that Nemesis quickly became a huge annoyance for me.

Playing it again in a more fitting mood, not trying to rush through everything and being a little more careful.. Yeah I hadn't been fair at all. I've stood firm for ages that this is an average game and ole Nemmy is the most frustrating, broken enemy in the series, but in reality I was just a stinky butthead.

Sure it's short, but the quality is pretty ace across the board. Not to mention Jill being the hottest, most badass girlboss in gaming (maaaaybe second to Tifa but sh) -- I get it now. It's not perfect and I wish there was more to it, it definitely falls short in some ways compared to RE2 (where is the awesome end credits song?!?) but yeah, I'm convinced. This game good.

Also despite having a really dumb and stoopid name that makes him sound like a fool that doesn't like AI, Carlos is neat :p

You know what? This was a lot better than I thought it was going to be! I haven't played OG Octopath, but I've heard mixed things about it, but even I can tell from this game that everything about it was upgraded.

The visuals and soundtrack are absolutely stunning, probably one of the best looking and sounding games all year. The HD-2D style is so awesome and it was done amazingly here. The combat is genuinely really fun and strategic with a ton of strategy and a bunch of really good boss fights between the stories that actually are pretty tough.

And then there's the story, which I can TELL is a massive improvement from the original based on the way it's described to me. All of the characters in this game are super fun and well-written, with a ton of opportunities for fleshing them out in both the main story and the crossover side stories, which I hear isn't even IN the original. The way the stories intertwine feel super natural and the stories themselves are just a lot better written, with Throne and Temenos in particular being standouts for me.

I think what's kinda holding this game back for being a masterpiece for me is an ultimately petty reason. I think the overworld is fairly basic in its mechanical design (not creative, god no). I don't think I'm gonna remember any specific puzzles or setpieces in this world compared to something like Xenoblade 3. There's also the fact that each new recruit starts out super low-leveled, which makes sense but can be a bit of a pain.

But apart from that, this is just a beautiful game with an incredible soundtrack, fun jrpg combat, memorable boss encounters, a really well told, interconnected story, and a cast of characters I genuinely loved. Banger game. I was pleasantly surprised with this one.

I see a lot of vitriol by other reviewers on here, so I wanted to try and clean up this game's rep a little.
Phantasy Star II was a game of many firsts when it came to the United States in 1990. It was the first 16-bit console RPG, for instance, beating Final Fantasy IV (known at the time as Final Fantasy II) to the market by a year and a half, and even beat the original Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest II on NES to the market in North America by a few months. It was the first major RPG on the Sega Genesis. It was also one of the first major RPGs to have a death of a major character in it. Final Fantasy VII would take the credit for that seven years later, but here was Phantasy Star II, doing it when the most complex plots console RPG games had at that point was "dark lord bad, you hero, go stop."

Speaking of the plot, while not complex by today's standards, it holds up well as a tale of ecological destruction, dystopia, and self-discovery with ramifications and consequences that would be felt and paid off in full with Phantasy Star IV later on. There is also a major plot twist at the very end that recontextualizes all the events of the game that, if you don't know about, will absolutely blow your mind. I will not spoil it here, because it is just that good. The attention to detail and lore is what makes the original Phantasy Star games unique in a sense. Each one's plot builds into the next, which is something not often seen even now.

The music is catchy and easy on the ears, and the combat is also fun and intense. The one flaw of the game is that it is brutal. I'll admit there is a lot of grinding in this game, and the dungeons are basically labyrinths that will put your skills to the test. While the grinding is not on the same level as say, Dragon Quest II, it does come close. Though if you have played many RPGs of this era, you'll know what to expect. When this game shipped, it came with a guide that included maps. I recommend having maps on standby, as well. This is a fantastic, landmark game that still holds up, provided you are willing to meet it halfway with its quirks that are more a sign of its era than bad design. One of the most rewarding roleplaying experiences I've ever had, and just plain enjoyable if you put the time in.

So far this year I've beaten things like Rogue Warrior, Life of Black Tiger, Orc Slayer, Duke Nukem Forever, Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back and much more of equally nonexistant quality. The Quiet Man? It's worse than all of those.

I will go so far to even say that it is my least favorite game I've ever played. I can't call it the worst game of all time as there are many games that are so broken that its impossible to even beat them. However I genuinely wish this was one of those because the 2.99 I spent on this would of had more use in the fucking blender. From story to gameplay to anything else you can think of that makes up a game The Quiet Man completely and utterly fails at.

So to start, the main concept of the game is that since the main character is deaf the vast majority of the game barring the first and last cutscene is nearly completely silent. Only via a second playthrough do you get the option of experiencing the audio, but more on that in a bit. I do think this is actually a really interesting concept but the abysmal execution makes the entire thing fall apart. Firstly there is no subtitles. This is understandable to a degree as you'd naturally assume the whole point of this "mechanic" is that you don't get to hear or understand anything the main character can't. But it doesn't actually work like that. There's maybe one or two instances in the game where anyone uses sign language. The main character very clearly is at the least able to read lips or something of the sort as in every single cutscene he is capable of having conversations and understanding everything being said to him. So why no subtitles? Why does the game open with a message explicitly emphasizing that there are no subtitles. The whole point of the game just completely falls apart because of this. What's worse is that these cutscenes are pointlessly long slog-fests. The game is thankfully only a couple of hours long but so much of it is just spent in these torturously long completely silent scenes of people just fucking talking. Not to mention extended completely silent scenes of a woman singing and playing piano. There are zero interesting visuals to accompany it either, and the framing and composition for the FMVs makes CW shows look like they were filmed by Roger Deakins in comparison. This is all to say that it is fucking boring as god damn motherfucking shit. This would be a great way to get your kids to go to sleep but honestly letting anyone play or watch this is probably highly unethical. And guess what? Knowing the dialogue and story actually makes this even worse. Im convinced that the whole no subtitles thing to make this as unnecessarily cryptic as possible is entirely to mask the fact that the actual story is fuckass. The new game plus audio thing wasnt even in the original game! It had to be patched in because people were rightfully complaining about how miserable this game is. If I'm being completely honest I did not and will not be fully playing this game again to experience the full story. From what i've heard and seen it is so terrible on a base factor (and so easily to tell so from what you're able to piece together of it in your first playthrough) and I highly doubt any new information could possibly save this game. There is some twists near the end and it takes a weird supernatural turn that's just... like I can't even begin to explain it man its just so stupid. In summary the cutscenes are too long, the story is terrible, and the dialogue only makes it worse. But hey, that's only one half of the game. Surely the actual gameplay is better?

The gameplay of The Quiet Man is arguably a dozen times worse than the stupid ass story. It is janky, unpolished and barebones to a laughable degree. There is basically zero explanation to anything, all you have to go off is a really awful menu that just shows symbols instead of just telling you what the buttons do so you're mostly left to button mashing your way through the whole game. And honestly thats really all you need to do for the most part. It's so poorly put together that you can just spam attack through nearly the entire thing. The enemies are the same couple ones with very minimal variance throughout most of the game. They clip through the environments and don't have transition animations so they often just teleport all over the place. The reused characters is so funny too especially when some are in the FMV cutscenes so its especially noticeable. Also not to insinuate anything but besides like some of the bosses, literally every enemy in this is a minority... so on top of everything else that's maybe not the best look. Despite how stupidly easy it is to just button mash through all of the encounters the game can be randomly hard at times. A big chunk of this is definitely because of how the controls aren't explained at all and you're expected to do certain actions for some enemies but more than this the camera is total garbage and there are multiple instances of cutscenes being flashed on screen during the combat making it hard to even see what's happening. Just as easily as you can stunlock enemies they can stunlock you and your character is very frail. Also like previously mentioned the characters just teleport around between animations so its just a huge clusterfuck of game vomit. Also they have the audacity to have a trophy for beating the game without getting hit, which is really funny.

Yeah, thats kinda all I have to say about this game. There's some other random shit like how bland it looks, like how the death loading screens being your mom/love interest looking at you lovingly. She has nice eyes and a good smile so thats basically the only part of the game I enjoyed more than I enjoy stubbing my toe. Also yeah, the same actress is used for both the main characters mom in flashbacks and as the main characters love interest. I'm not gonna comment further on it, I'm just as confused as you are. There's more I could complain about, endlessly even. But I'm tired of talking about this game lmao. In summary, this game is terrible and It's my least favorite game I've ever completed. It also gets the honor of being the very first game I ever give a 0/100 to, so congrats!

Thanks for reading y'all. Sorry this is only my third review three months in. Typing is just hard lol. I'm working on a Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe and Assassin's Creed Ezio Collection review at the moment so hopefully it won't be too long before you see me again. Take care, don't play this game.

Nancymeter - 0/100
Time Played - too damn much
Trophy Completion - who cares
Game Completion #1 of March
Game Completion #51 of 2023

During a time where the general consensus was that the Mega Man series desperately needed to be souped up a bit, Capcom answered those prayers with Mega Man X, far exceeding many's expectations in the process. I've been a classic Mega Man person since I was a kid, but X1 kicks major ass. It stands where it does today for damn good reasons, and is possibly the magnum opus of the sidescroller brand of the franchise.

Recently I had complained about Mega Man 7's urging to revisit levels to dig up hidden items and upgrades just to make your life easier, a trait typically found and fondly remembered in the X series. What's the difference here? Well, it's less tedious, there's more incentive to do it, more room to explore, and generally it feels much more rewarding. The movement (which is absolutely wonderful, just as good as everyone says) really helps with this. You can use your wall jumps, speed boosts, and various tricks combining the two of them to discover areas you wouldn't see normally, often containing health and armor upgrades that are much worth the effort. It's not quite like going out of bounds, but for me it's a similar feeling that brings childlike glee and wonder.

You can also exit previously entered stages much more conveniently, not having to get a special item for that or anything. This is great because some stages are altered a bit depending on the order you do them in, for example if you do Chill Penguin first then Flame Mammoth's stage will be frozen over, allowing you to reach the latter's health upgrade. You can also come back to Chill Penguin's stage with Flame Mammoth's weapon to destroy a structure containing the health upgrade in the former's stage as well. There's a lot of stuff like this, and for my money it's far more enjoyable here than their attempt to integrate this into 7 with Rush Search or whatever it was.

Sometimes, however, I feel like the enemy placement is a bit poor and some stages go on surprisingly longer than others, both of these most notable in the first stage of Sigma's hideout. There's a big scene where both a major protagonist and antagonist meet their demise, but then the level continues for about just as long as it took to reach that section and caps off with an annoying spider boss battle. It makes that whole moment feel a lot more anticlimactic than what was probably intended. As far as the enemy placement goes, there's not much to really elaborate on there. Go to the vertical corridor in the aforementioned Sigma stage and you should see what I mean, but there are many more minor cases throughout the game. This could just be a skill issue on my part, however.

Anyway, yeah! It's really good! X1 is essentially singlehandedly responsible for saving the franchise, and many people remember it fondly to this day both due to this and due to just being really goddamn fun. Sadly, it seemed like they didn't really know where to go with the sequels to this game, and at the end of the day most people know the X series for being notoriously inconsistent in quality overall. I'll be replaying X2 and X3 soon to refresh my thoughts on them, but I remember them being really damn underwhelming compared to this one.

Considering this is the first game by this studio, I was quite impressed by the world design, art design, presentation and audio design. Alongside that, the robots have crazy unique animations that work surprisingly well.

The worse parts of this, as you can expect from the so called "Eurojank" titles, is the overall janky feeling of some aspects of the game such as shooting or overall combat.

Still, the game runs better than most current AAA games with minimal FPS drops, which is a shock. Really excited to get more titles from this studio.

Mega Man 7 is a bit of a black sheep in how it feels and plays out. With Mega Man X proving a much greater commercial and critical success than 6 in early 1994, I'd assume they wanted to stick some elements of X into the next installment of the original series. The end result is this very "in-between" installment that doesn't know which design philosophy to stick to.

The level layouts are now more reminiscent of X, but Mega Man is limited to his own control scheme rather than gain X's wall jumping and dashing abilities. There's hidden items now, but without wall jumping and the like you have to use "Rush Search" in certain spots in certain levels to get upgrades and other various shit to make your life easier. The locations of these are either not indicated very well or not indicated at all, and it doesn't help that Rush Search is very specific, very finicky, and not at all fun to use. You also have to replay a level all the way through if you go hunting for items you missed, unless you find The One That Allows You To Exit Levels. Shouldn't this be a normal fucking feature on levels you already cleared? Start and select! It's not that hard!

You can also buy these items in the shop but the useful ones typically cost many screws, which are a hassle to grind for due to item drops from enemies being RNG based. There's not really any winning with that. You shouldn't need to grind for currency in a Mega Man game, and you shouldn't need to search all over the goddamn floors for hidden items, and really you shouldn't be needing to revisit levels anyway. This can be done with optional items in previous installments as well, but they're generally more inconsequential. If you don't get the Super Adaptor in particular, and the upgrade for the Super Adaptor, the final stages will all be maddening.

Even with all the preparation and secret items, though, nothing can really mitigate the final boss. Wily is infamously ridiculous in this game, and for good reason. They just felt like making him really difficult according to interviews, no real reason to do so, no gradual buildup in terms of difficulty, nothing. He sucks, and his weakness almost sucks more. One last kick in the head before the game comes to a close.

There's a lot to complain about, since it doesn't quite feel like classic Mega Man, and doesn't quite feel like Mega Man X, but really it's totally serviceable on its own two legs. I would probably play any of the previous five and definitely the first X game over this, but this is an okay game on its own. I just don't find that it lives up to expectations set by its precursors, yknow?

There are two games that can be pointed out as the culprits as why I love the videogame medium as much as I do today, one of them is Super Smash Bros. Brawl, which introduced to many of the franchises I love to this day (And I'll probably talk about it another time), and the other one was Kirby's Adventure Wii, as it was known here in Europe. Funny thing is, I didn't even know this game existed before I bought it, I was barely 8 years old and didn't pay much atention to TV ads, so imagine my surprise when I walked into the game store with my parents, with the idea of getting Epic mickey for my birthday, and seing the funny pink ball from Smash in a box art. I don't know why, but for some reason I changed my mind, and I ended up asking my parents to buy that game, and honestly, I will forever thank my past self for that decision, because it resulted in one of the best possible proper introductions to the platformer genre I could have had, and the mos fun moments I had with a game in all of my life.

So, yeah, after that chunk of background, I think you could guess that I got pretty excited when this game was announced, I mean, a remake of my favourite game when I was a kid? with an oncredibly beautiful art-style? with more Maglor? AND THEY GOT EGG CATCHER ON THIS SHIT?! Sign me up! So now the question is, is it any good?.... I mean yeah the original was awesome so of course it's good.

The game as it released on 2011 had one goal in mind: offer a fun but simple platformer that everyone can pick up and have fun both alone or with friends, and my god it delivers. All of the levels are devided by rooms, are while most levels do have some mechanic or platforming obstacle accross all the rooms, in general terms, each room is its own little puzzle, with its secrets that give either lives or the collectables, and some levels end with a ''Super-ability'' section which can grant access to challenge room that ends on a mini-boss. A faily simple gampley loop, one that becomes almost ACDICTING, this is how most Kirby games operate, but this in particular just stands out, and even tho it's an easy game, everytime you complete a puzzle or defeat one of the really fun final bosses, you feel like you achieved something great, a reward sensation that few other games match, and the fact a game like this can give such feeling is incredible.

Honestly, I think that the game as it is holds up extremely well, so it makes sense that the only changes made to the main campaign are visual (also two brand new abilities, both extremely cool, albeit one of them is pretty damn overpowered), and speaking of visuals...

I understand why some people dislike Dedede's new design and the outlines, I really do, but I just don't agree. The presentation id jaw-dropping, is a bit of a shame that because of Metroid Prime Remastered dropping this month I can't call this the best Remaster Nintendo has put out, but holy hell does it come close. The new artstyle injects new life to every corner of the game: the colors pop out even more and it looks gorgeous, the backgrounds are all amazing, there are some new animations and details that add a lot to the experience,... It's probablu one of the best looking non pixel-art 2D platformers I've played; keep in mind, I'm not saying the original looks bad, it still looks amazing, but this is just another level, it may be nostalgia be playing tricks on me, but I just love it too much.

On top of ALL of this, on top of all the incredible base game and visual overhaul... YOU ALSO GET FUCKING EGG CATCHER LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. I really like the adition of Magoland , it just add so much content and fun that it's almost surreal; a TON of minigames, some new, some returning, and all really fun; the hub that changes as you progress in the story and in Magoland's missions (yeah, there are over 100 missions in Magoland alone, this shit is crazy) PLUS the mask, a really cute collectable with references across the series, wich at this point I feel spoiled with tha amaount of Kirby love. There's also Magolor's Epilogue, and... I don't really want to talk about it a whole lot, is a great adition and creative one at that, tho the level design can feel a bit ''arcadie'' and not as great or fun as the base game, but the progression sensation is awesome thanks to the RPG elements and, the ending is batshit insane, I'm not saying more so I don't spoil anybody, but it goes so fucking hard.

Oof... so, here you are, you just read a random guy on the internet gushing about a game he loves, and honestly, first of all, thank you for lending your time into reading this, and also, yeah, I just really love this game; it's far from being perfect, there are some minor problems here and there already present on the original release and some of the Magoland missions do feel like padding and in some cases straight up bullshit, but... I just can't bring myself to not love this game. Again, nostalgia doesn't blind me from its shortcomings, and Robobot surprasses it in both design and what it has to tell as a story, but I really recommend this game, it's a lovely time both alone and in co-op, it has love oozing from every part and it ahs a ton to offer, trust me, is a good one, and it has some secrets to show... so might as well discover them...




oh yeah I almost forgot, the music fucKING SLAPS HOLY MOTHER OF DEDEDE THIS SHIT IS A CONSTANT BOP WHAT THE ACTUAL FU- ok that's enough, again thanks for reading, and have a good day or night :).

This was the only classic Mario I never played cuz it wasn't in the All-Stars pack, but... WOW

Levels are awesome
Cape is so cool
So many secret exits to find
It's probably the best of the bunch

One of the 2 games I would recommend as an introduction to the fire emblem series, alongside Awakening. Shadows of Valentia is a remastered version of Fire Emblem Echoes, and I gotta say, it is incredible.

The aesthetic of this game gives a comforting feel due to the music and echoey yet realistic voice acting. You can't help but feel immersed in the conflict between Alm and Celica.

For a remaster, the gameplay feels a little too basic as this game is clearly inspired by Fire Emblem Fates, which has some of the best gameplay in the whole series, but has less elements than Fates. I wouldn't say it's bad, just filled with missed opportunities.

Most characters have colourful personalities, except a few that fell short on character development, as well as some voice lines that fall flat.

I love the idea that you control 2 separate armies, and each chapter has them come closer and a confrontation is inevitable.