I'm really happy to say that knuckle sandwich was not a casualty of its decade long development cycle. The amount of time spent on this game shows in the density of novelty, one-off mechanics, visual gags and high effort set pieces, especially in the combat encounters, comparable to that of deltarune chapter 2, a game made by a man with infinite money.

Those combat encounters are, in many ways, the highlight of the entire experience. Between the unique mini games given to almost every enemy and definitely every boss, the psychedelic procedural backgrounds that accommodate them, and the regular breaks from format to make a single joke, knuckle sandwich is a breezy experience that rarely overstays its welcome even if you feel as conflicted about other parts of it as I do (more later). I did find the game's maths to be confusing and kind of unpolished, with numerous skills shockingly under tuned, others over tuned, and a really inconsistent approach two enemies health and defence stats that make it very difficult to tell if you're actually doing decent damage for any particular encounter.

I'd like to give particular praise to the game's OST, created by a bunch of independent artists who aren't necessarily in games, and God does it show! Swagger and personality oozes out of every track and manages to make even some of the least interesting locations shine through sound. Special props to the standard battle tracks "Handsome Humans" and "Fearsome Freaks" as well as "Nothing Sweeter" and "Brightfang Lash".

In broad spoiler free terms, the story and writing writ large is the biggest letdown of the game. Knuckle sandwich has whimsy, much like many indie RPGs of its lineage, but it doesn't have much in the way of emotion. Your party characters barely allow you to endear yourself to them by letting you know basically anything about them (the most i ever got was one character being a former athlete who struggles with chronic health issues, said once in optional dialogue). All characters in general could serve to be A bit more intense and punchy than they are? For the simpler archetypes to land. The strong thematic basis of "being a young person working sucks" doesn't last, and with the story being almost entirely driven by a very simple plot, knuckle sandwich is left feeling like it's about nothing but very, VERY gentle satire for most of its runtime. That's about all I can say without delving into plot details.

Ultimately, knuckle sandwich is a very light and breezy time, at a crisp 10-15 hours, full of novelty and virtuosic presentation, but struggles to be a story worth the grandiosity of the JRPG format. In other words, it's a really good Mario and Luigi game.

Returning to the original Risk of Rain, my go-to class procrastination game since I was 12, really highlights how one of a kind the project is even compared to its sequel.

I don't like roguelikes/lites/whatever! I don't want to play games which are designed around less authorship and more grinding. This game will always be an exception.Risk of Rain has vibes out the goddamn wazoo, from its still flawless soundtrack to its weird little items to its newly souped up spectacular pixel art. Risk of Rain has a sense of place and atmosphere that almost every other game of its kind - including its sequel - wish they had. The sense of a deeply hostile, complicated ecosystem with an underlying sense of lost, bloody history. There is a sinister tension to every moment, ratcheting up as the difficulty level scales in time from easy, to hard, to I SEE YOU. That creepypasta ass moment still hits.

I also still appreciate how Risk of Rain's pacing, both for a single playthrough and its meta-progression of unlocks, does not waste your goddamn time. It's not going to ask 100 hours of you to get all the toys, it might not even ask 10 if you're a returning player like myself.

On that last note - if you already own the original, why play this one? Well, because your friends are checking it out and you want to play with them. That's probably why. However, just between you and me, I think it's all worth it for the final boss, which has become so spectacular that Mithrix looks like a puppy.

The art direction and character designs are the best they’ve ever been and even work to the limitations of the Wii.

Skyward Sword has my favourite version of link and zelda, and the best unique characters (groose!!! Ghirahim!!!). The charisma of the characters and their designs also contribute to Skyloft being the most warm and delightful hub world.

I like the motion control combat in all its simplicity. It’s not amazing but i wouldn’t accuse any 3D zelda game of having great combat, I think they’re holistic games that try to be greater than the sum of their parts.

All of the dungeons are really cool and, I’d argue, just uncontroversially good among 3d zeldas, especially the well known standouts like the Ancient Cistern and Sand Ship. Bosses are similarly mostly pretty awesome as moments of spectacle with a few exceptions.

The silent realm challenges are absolutely peak, and I love any challenge in a game that forces you to remember that the levels are spaces, and think of them as such, rather than filtering out things that are uninteractive or seemingly irrelevant.

Lastly, the premise of being a DISTANT prequel means that the game isn’t slavishly devoted to all the same zelda iconography and world building, which makes it a little pocket of fresh air in the same way that, say, Pokemon White 1 feels to return to.

I could write a list about as long of the things that don’t kick ass about this game but I think it’s more interesting to focus on why Skyward Sword is uniquely special, it genuinely is my favourite zelda that I’ve played.

Showing my hand here as a particular kind of freak because the last quarter had me screaming about danganronpa v3. Big fan of the emotional core of the story, the actual theme/message i can kind of take or leave because i don't really respect the darwinian fixation enough to be impressed by them proposing an alternative i guess lmao but it's still neat.

Gameplay wise much less cruel as the first game for the most part, although the advancements in enemy AI and gradual rollout of the map regularly creates unfair situations where the easiest move is to just let you die.

Fatman is an icon

Shockingly the game everyone knows is good is good!

The well known cinematic obsession of Kojima shine through here in a way I don't expect later games to with camera control and stronger visual delineation between gameplay and cutscenes. Every setpiece, every carefully constructed angle, creates such an awesome holistic experience of moving through this story, although the camera does often prioritise a good shot over an easily playable shot lol.

The other standout is definitely the character banter. I adore a good ensemble, and this crowd of repressed freaks with absolutely no subtlety to their themes is just a delight to hear from start to finish. The performances are so animated!

My biggest issue with the game is that its third act gets quite cheap and feels pretty bloated. Multiple random ambush encounters with normal, unnamed enemies in close spaces, rooms full of security camera turrets placed in deliberately cheap places, hilariously deflationary backtracking and a whole lot of getting to the point.

I am in love. Legitimately a new all time favourite.
I've heard a few times that the best games are the 7/10s, the messy projects that demand your patience but have the ideas and heart and ambition to reward it. Dual Hearts is this game through and through.

What you will put up with: Mildly janky controls, not enough sound, the occasional block pushing puzzle and a few boss fights that range from tedious to infuriating.

What you will receive:
A beautiful sleepy island town full of hangoutitude that you will come to love and appreciate along with its adorable and charming low-poly-anime townsfolk.
A series of levels that range from spyro to psychonauts in their approach to interpreting dreams, not all of which hit, but none of which outstay their welcome.
A whole ass grand JRPG narrative contained within the confines of a sleepy little town, Persona style.
An absolutely fantastic soundtrack.
So much optional content, so many secrets, all rewarding you for caring about being in this space and exploring everything it has to offer.
And MOST OF ALL,
Your cute round little pig moomin failson best friend who I will die for 100 times over.

I struggle to articulate just how much I love this game and how happy it made me feel to just exist in its spaces. So many little hand-crafted spots and moments, deeply unnecessary, placed in there with love.

It'd mean the world to me if this review made one other person find and love this game, the same way that a random offhand forum comment did for me <3

I want so badly to love rain world. People talk about it in the same almost religious terms as they do Outer Wilds, which gave me everything I anticipated and more. I love every individual thing that Rain World does: its strange platforming that conveys a real sense of embodying an animal, its complex simulated ecosystem, the quiet desolation of its landscape, the methodical way you move through the world and the fact that the main source of power you have is just knowledge and instinct.

But I don't love Rain World.

Not unlike some other incredible simulational games like Dwarf Fortress, the reality of this game is that for every in-game day you spend exploring this beautiful world or discovering something new or successfully surviving a ridiculous scuffle between three types of lizards and scavengers, you spend 5 days just getting food from the place you already know food is, 5 days dying due to no fault of your own, and 5 days getting yourself killed because enemies have parked their asses right on the other side of a pipe and haven't moved for ten minutes. I can appreciate that for some people, this is not an issue and maybe even adds to the overall sensation, but for me, this meant that I would get entirely sick of my surroundings before moving on to a new area and realising I wasn't actually enthusiastic about going through the same routine again but in an even more hostile place.

I think if you're going to love this game, you will know in the first couple hours (especially if you look up some vague beginner's tips and aren't afraid to turn on a few of the remix accessibility options). Unfortunately, I did not, and I will forever be a poser and a hack.

Nearly a decade after my first time playing the trilogy, I'm finding new appreciation for the unraveling of its mysteries, the warmth of its characters, and particularly in Justice For All, the ambition of its final chapter. While the finale of the trilogy and the later great ace attorney Saga both present a much more interwoven and ambitious overall plot, Farewell, My Turnabout is still the most densely packed, nail biting roller coaster of a case we've had the privilege of enjoying. It's always special when a game series decides to flip even its most core conceit on its head.