Yes, the aesthetics of Gears are extremely boring (or did they became boring after everything else started looking like it?) and edgy, but this is a honest to god great shooter with a FLAWLESS pacing. One of the best examples of a perfectly tight 7+ hours campaign that just works; from the introduction of the mechanics to new and exciting weapons to horror inducing hallways to cooperative set-pieces to blind minibosses to huge arenas to sniper galleries it’s just so, so good. The only complain I have, apart from the obvious silliness of the tone epic employed, is that an otherwise excellent multiplayer was impossible to play due to the lack of dedicated servers.

The truly good tennis games would come after this generation of consoles, but this is a step in the right direction. In general it seems that developers could not figure out how to make an elegant distinction between using the d-pad to position yourself and using it to direct the ball, so the player has to suffer. It requires too precise an input to play at a somewhat decent level, and the reward ain’t good enough, in my opinion. It just feels kinda random, like THIS time you somehow managed to make the controls do what you wanted. This is barely better than Super Tennis, which wasn’t a particularly good game, but where Smash Tennis absolutely fucking owns that game is in the graphics department. This is seriously a very pretty SNES game with a good if minimal art-style, and it shows that with confidence. If only for that, I think everybody should play it at least once.

Much more tense that I had anticipated, but a great experience nonetheless. Ico explores its themes of bonding and persistence through the lense of a child trapped in this decaying castle, searching a way out amidst the ruins of a world that's seemingly hostile to that which he cares the most. To me the serene beauty of the enviroment is arguably the star of the show, but is permanently muddled by the constant threat of danger; you cannot leave Ico's companion Yorda alone for more than a couple of minutes without feeling worried, and calculating the distance between them in terms of seconds becomes a neccessity. The player is never quite free in their mind to meander around the castle and fully appreciate the artistry of its design. This is deliberate, of course, and its purpose gives your actions a weight that they would've otherwise lacked, perhaps. But here's my thing with Ico; I always had conceived it as a rather different experience, one more contemplative and calmer, one which just left you be in this magnificent place for the most part, one when you weren't rushed to solve anything by the ever present enemies lurking at every corner, and that's not the case. Sure, there's some momments here and there, but that's not the main thing the game's looking for, in my opinion, and this contrast became problematic to the mind of a person that had been wanting to play it for a good fifteen years.

Ultimately, even if I would've loved the game Ico was in my mind a lot more, it's hard to deny the merits the actual game has. It's almost like a horror game, the player's always on their toes, and while the combat is bad, intrusive and unceasing, it does gave a deeper meaning to the relationship between these two characters, makes the bond more solid. Anyway, the game's great and the sound design and the score are top notch, that alone makes it an obligatory play for everybody.

Extremely cool game that constantly reinvents itself and manages to remain interesting and surprising in every chapter (I thought Pogo's scenario got way to much "comedy" for my liking, but even then, it was something different). There are at least two undeniably top tier stories, and the remaining of the game keeps trying cool stuff, so even if it doesn't stick the landing you kinda have to give it to them.

It is all fun and games until the final encounter, which have you fighting a boss that's 10 times harder than any other enemy thus far. This boss is vicious, it has like 8 times more HP than the other bosses, it can, and will, one-shot you, and has AoE attacks that will interrupt your own charged attacks and that will decimate your party's health. You could argue that it is kinda the point, and that the fight could be fun if you arrive there prepared (by this I mean, if you grind your way there, and I'm talking like 2 hours or so of just grinding, that's like 10% of the runtime of the whole game, JUST GRINDING IN THE LAST CHAPTER), I mean it definitely challenges your mastering of the combat, but any game that has this sort of crazy fucking spike in difficulty, and I repeat that in my honest to god estimate it is like a 10x spike, just fucks it up. I'm sorry.

I was so close to loving this game and now I'm pissed.