Much like Outer Wilds, it took me a few tries for me to really appreciate this game. And, as much as I don't care for how the internet compares every new metroidvania to this game, Hollow Knight is a masterpiece in this genre.

I distinctly recall when I played this game originally, that I didn't particularly care for fumbling around blindly in a new area searching for Cornifer for the map. After this playthrough, I think I still feel this way. I feel that the new Prince of Persia really took a good middle ground between giving the player a base outline for the area and purchasing the map filling in the area. With that being said, the way Hollow Knight approaches exploration did lead to cool discoveries and harrowing moments of stress...I still don't particularly care for how much this game relies on hidden walls though.

Combined with the exploration is a combat / traversal system that really expands that further you get into the game. With the combined efforts of a wealth of permanent upgrades and now-very-famous charm system, the complexity of the combat really shines in the late-game and optional high difficulty content. Hollow Knight also contain a variety of bosses that are often thrilling to fight against. You can expect some duds in there with the number that they have (Relying on throwing-garbage-all-over-the-screen attacks or periods where you cannot damage the boss)...but the quality of the majority of the bosses, especially the story-related ones, are second to none.

Speaking of the narrative, it is very opaque and obtuse. Much like the way the narrative in Dark Souls is told, it relies heavily on context clues and descriptions of abilities and items to provide flavor to the world. However, I found the world to be endlessly engrossing and the narrative cap, especially with the original true ending, to be a strong finish to this tale.

I think the thing I appreciated the most about this playthrough of Hollow Knight is how high the quality the content was for the 30 ish hours I played to get > 100%. I found it wildly refreshing in today's gaming landscape where games are getting longer and longer where you really begin to see the point of diminishing return. With a launch title of $15 supported by multiple free content updates, I don't know if I will encounter a game that is this high quality for the time and money spent. Consider me a fan and very much looking forward to Silksong (whenever that day is).

Might adjusted this review depending how I feel about the DKC sequels but I had a great time playing through this classic. With a combination of an incredible looking artstyle, bumping soundtrack and awesome controls, I couldn't stop playing.

There were some levels that were straight-up evil with the way that the camera refuses to let you see what's ahead or down resulting in blind leaps of faith that often result in you plummeting to your death or hitting a suddenly spawning enemy. Also the way the game traps you in a World until you find Funky Kong can result in having to play chunks of the World over again which didn't feel like a good use of my time.

With that being said, I can't wait to check out how the sequels improve on this solid foundation for the series!

I think Dragon's Dogma 2 is a pretty bold game. From what I've heard, the way the game is designed is pretty similar to how the first game functioned but as someone who only dabbled in Dark Arisen, I was taken aback by how uncompromising they are being with their vision. I just wish I liked this game more.

The thing I really enjoyed with this game that I had nothing negative to say about is the combat. I love how strange and dynamic the combat is especially with the larger monsters in the game. While the fodder enemies (goblins, harpies, and wolves) gets a bit obnoxious with how many of them you run into on the road, every time I encountered one of these huge beasts was a joy to play. I also loved that each vocation was perfectly viable in combat and has a good set of abilities to play around with.

The combat gets super exciting and cool when your skill synergized with your pawns...the unfortunately reality for me is that the pawns worked about 10% of the time. Most of the time I played this game, my pawns often fell off cliffs / into deep water to their death, rarely had meaningful things to say (Mostly yelling about how I pick everything up, pointing out ladders or chests I can't get to) and not provide anything helpful even when the quest is marked with the symbol of that pawn having information. This made it seem like I was constantly fighting the game for those sweet sweet moments where the pawn system works in favor of the game's design to produce the cool moments you see online.

And while I praised the game for being uncompromising in its design, the flaw that I noticed with the pawn system and its AI really exacerbated some of the obtuse and frustrating systems within the game for me. When you have to run back into town on-foot (due to the limited fast travels) because your pawn fell off and died due to no fault of your own, it's really hard to shake the feeling that the game is not exactly being mindful of your time or being able to make meaningful progress. Some people may see no problems with it and engage with the immersive nature of some of Dragon's Dogma 2's systems, I mostly found it frustrating.

Overall, there's a lot of interesting things I found super neat about this game. But when the game is so focused around systems that has issues that may cripple some player's experiences, I began to understand why there's such disparate reactions to this game. I may return to this one day but maybe I'll see if there's some patches first.

And here, we are finally done with the NES Final Fantasy games. This one goes back to the original game for a lot of its influences (Return of 1's magic charges, level progression and simple story) and expands with a pretty fun job system that allows you to switch between them. And of course, this game also adds its own set of series favorites like Moogles!

But man, these NES Final Fantasy seem to have wack pacing towards the end of the game. I didn't know that the final dungeon in this game was particularly known for being excruciating and if this version didn't allow for a way to get your HP/MP back after each boss, I probably never would have finished it. But luckily the DS version fixed that AND I became so overleveled that the final boss was pretty straightforward. I will definitely say that the PR version of this game seem to be a good balance between getting the original experience but with some of the edges smoothened out.

I also didn't care for "gimmick" bosses and dungeons that required you to use specific jobs and spells (Like Mini and Toad) to enter and navigate. Which makes FFIII overall...kind of a mixed bag. But I definitely enjoyed the new job system and look forward to getting it back in FFV.

As a lot of reviews has mentioned, this game is more of the same usual Far Cry formula. While I find the setting and vibes a bit more in-line with my interests, the game just feels kind of soulless with the same dumb NPCs running around and a giant world full of bases to take over with your animal friend.

The added mechanics (gun customization, bullet type distinction, base building and supremos) all feel like it doesn't really add meaningful impact to the game and frankly feels like a chore. You also run into silly situations where you're shooting someone's face with a 50 cal machine and its doing minimal damage because it's not the "correct" type of bullet.

It does look incredibly nice though!

My initial attempt at giving Cocoon a try didn't last long (I think it came out around all the fall blockbuster games) but MAN am I glad I did eventually. The core mechanics of the puzzles in this game, manipulating and nesting worlds inside orbs is seriously one of the most creative mechanics I've encountered in a game this year. The mechanic builds upon this core with denser and unique abilities thrown in as you get further into the game which I found endlessly refreshing. While the mechanic becomes perhaps a little too mind-bendy towards the end, that is a small critique.

The game is also accentuated with incredible art direction, fantastic music, clean graphics and fantastic boss fights (It was honestly so cool to have some form of combat in these indie puzzler games). I personally never quite bonded with titles like Limbo and Inside but decided to play this due to word-of-mouth and I'm so glad I did. This is my favorite indie game of the year by far and I will certainly keep an eye out for this studio in the future. So so highly recommended!

To start things off, I do think this game is better than FF7 Remake. There is way more to do, the game is full of visual splendor and the character interactions in the party as well as expanded lore and character backgrounds are splendid for the most part. The combat has been expanded too with additional ways to build out your party too.

But I also think that the game has some super lows and largely share the same problems I have with FF7 Remake. I genuinely think your enjoyment with FF7 Rebirth (and this remake series as a whole) depends on how much you can deal with the weird stuff it's doing to the story. While I was intrigued in the beginning, the more it went on with cryptic scenes and Sephiroth showing up saying nonsense that I began to realize I genuinely didn't care. In my eyes, it felt like it was elongating a story that could be told in a much more concise manner in the most confusing way.

Speaking of elongating, while the open areas are a wonderful addition to the corridor-centric design of FF7 Remake, it sure does feel like typical open-world design with towers to unlock icons and activity icon spread about the map. It's fun at the beginning but when you notice the same set of activities in each area you visit, you may begin to feel the fatigue. The game also doubles down on my main gripe with the OG FF7...minigames. There are SO many of them. Yes, some of them are fun (Queen's Blood is the most I've gotten sucked into an optional card game than I ever have) but this also may feel unnecessary to some.

The thing I noticed from playing this game is that FF7 is bigger than ever now. Everything seemed to be built around the overarching metaseries of games, media projects and products that must tie into each other (Some of the nods and winks in this game went right over my head). And for me, I think I just like the original game and that's it. I'm super happy for all the folks that are super engaged and loving being in this world but perhaps I won't see myself playing Part 3 in four years.

Viewfinder has a real cool hook that's pretty easy to impress when you see a trailer. I think the game succeeds on the mechanics they introduce (I'm still baffled about how they programmed this game) except on two fronts: Difficulty curve and narrative.

The game's first two chapters are filled with a lot of simple puzzles that should come to you pretty intuitively once you're in the right frame of mind. The game also provides a lot of freedom with your solutions which can be pretty fun. However, the last couple of hubs turns the difficulty up a notch which is incredibly jarring after so many levels with borderline too-simple puzzles. The final trial in particular was a test in managing frustration which I didn't particularly care for despite the game introducing a plethora of very neat gameplay twists.

The narrative is also the other place where this game seem to fall apart. With a bunch of obnoxious and vague audio logs and sticky notes that providing little context. I also found the general context around why you're doing these puzzles to be trite and not particularly interesting.

Overall, I think the core gameplay mechanics of Viewfinder to be pretty freaking solid and would love to see them make a sequel at some point. Definitely a solid first stab and I'm curious to see what other interesting games this developer will end up making.

I was genuinely impressed, having seen this game as a kid, how much they use the PS1's limited processing power to create a world that is so dripping with atmosphere and dread. Yes the camera, controls and combat feels dated but I got surprisingly used to it pretty quickly. I also genuinely enjoyed seeing what this demented game was going to throw my way next as I played through this game.

I also miss this era of games with little hand-holding and trusting that the player is smart enough to figure out what's next. Yes, some of them are super obtuse (and might require looking it up) but I genuinely think its part of the charm.

I think some of the sequels does more interesting stuff with the narrative with this one but I was very satisfied with the ending I got. The OG Silent Hill made me appreciate seeing the background on how we have the horror games we have today and I love games like Signalis and Crow Country is giving homage while providing its own twists / modernizing some elements. Loved it!

After playing through Heavensward and this, my enjoyment with this game is starting to wane a little...

To start off with the good things, I ADORE the music in this expansion (especially the militaristic drum beat version of the Crystal Prelude in the title screen). Also, the aesthetics of Doma was quite delightful for me and a breath of fresh air in this game.

In addition, the quality of the group content keeps getting better and better. I've really started to enjoy that the reason the WoL is going to these dungeons is part of the core narrative and not just "Oh just go to this random place because" from earlier in the experience. Oh and the trials...THESE are probably some of my favorites so far and I'm enjoying how mechanically complex they're getting.

And the negative is...pretty much everything else. The narrative is pretty poorly paced with it split between several regions (and a corresponding cast of characters) and one is significantly more interesting than the other. On top of that, Stormblood seems to be continuing the trend of sections of the MSQ being filled with characters demanding the WoL to do some unrelated obnoxious chores and I'm just like "Why is my character listening to this?". It's been such a consistent pattern with the way these expansions that are set up that I'm worried long-winded uninteresting detours in MSQ in Shadowbringers and Endwalker now.

Speaking of uninteresting...I was already a bit concerned from the fact that this expansion focused on the Empire as I find them to be one of the least interesting part of this world. And surely enough, this resulted in a very predictable and boring arc with a very one-note main villain. I did think some of the secondary and tertiary villains were somewhat interesting in their motivations though.

I'm mildly curious where the story goes in the patches but maybe I should give myself a break... 😅

I was pretty onboard with the vibes of Pacific Drive from the start. While it began and maintained as an oppressive "What the f is going on??" vibe, you slowly begin to piece together some understandings of how the Zone functioned. Combined with satisfying upgrade and crafting mechanics, it kept me quite entertained for its roughly 20 hour run time.

To start things off, I'm not much of a survival game person. I eventually find a lot of these types of games rather aimless or frustrating to the point where it loses me. I was surprised to find myself not in this situation (for the most part) in this game. I always had the next thing I'm looking forward to getting and was able to make decent progress towards that objective. While death is quite punishing, you can definitely alleviate some of these design decisions with generous accessibility options.

Combined with a satisfying upgrade system is a semi-roguelike system where you make "runs" to collect resources and make it further into the Zone. I did notice towards the latter half of the game that running earlier zones just to collect some early-game resources was rather tedious. But, as you begin to understand the anomalies that pepper the Zone and make longer trips, the game turned into quite a satisfying loop.

What accompanies these loops in the Zone is a narrative that features several disembodied voices that supports you as you make your way around the Zone. While you never seem them, I noticed myself getting quite attached to these characters as I went along. While I can totally see why some folks might find their presence annoying, I really enjoyed the light-hearted banter in such an oppressive environment.

Finally, the upgrade system and narrative comes to a head in the final stretch of the game. I did notice towards the end of the game that the amount of endgame resources required to get some of these upgrades became, for the lack of a better word, a tedious chore. Combined with an ending that ends up not really explaining anything and just kind of...ends, I can see why a lot of people were disappointed with the ending. For me, I realized that by the end of the game that I cared more about the characters rather than the Zone itself, and I'm glad the game structured the main mission line to not make some of these late-game upgrades a necessity to finish the game as it probably would've ruined the pacing.

Overall, I'm mildly surprised by the fact that I enjoyed Pacific Drive so much. I found that the game is pretty uncompromising in what it set out to do. I'm sure as soon as players noticed how meticulous Ironwood has built out the player's interactions with the car (For example, you can hurt yourself by dropping the rear door on your end), a lot of players would have bounced off. But for me, the satisfying car upgrade / loot run loop, the familiar and unsettling vibes of the Zone set in my home of Washington and the cast of characters allowed me to enjoy an experience that I haven't quite seen in other games. I look forward to what they do next!

Continuing my journey through FFXIV with the expansion everyone is lauding! I did notice that Shadowbringers is one of the Top 5 highest rated games on this site so I was curious to see how it goes.

And it went...pretty fantastically for the most part! This is by far my favorite bit from FFXIV so far. Filled to the brim with amazing characters, music, dungeons and trials (My favorite batch of them so far) and probably one of the best villains in recent memory, there isn't a ton for me to complain about in this expansion.

With all that being said...it's certainly not perfect. The pacing, while probably better than anything else that has come by for FFXIV, still has areas in the story where the MC is doing what's essentially chores which really breaks up the urgency of the story. In addition, much like Heavensward, the way the community hypes up the story with words like "Best FF story since FF whatever" or "It will change your life" is probably not setting it up for success.

And ultimately I can't help to notice the fact that I had to play this game 200+ hours to get to these shining moments. Yes, there are plenty of high points along the way (Despite not enjoying Stormblood a whole ton, I still think back to parts of the patches for that expansion), it is a lot to ask of players especially when parts of the MSQ is so time-consuming or simply drab. You're also spending a lot of your time just watching cutscenes...which I feel like for those that have a problem with that wouldn't have stuck around this long

I'm curious how this arc concludes with Endwalker but perhaps it will be better to let this game breathe a little. Perhaps this is not a surprise when I've been cramming 10 years of content into a few months! But I enjoyed my time with Shadowbringers and curious how they wrap this all up.

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The above is what I wrote after finishing 5.0. After finishing the patches, I totally see why people love this expansion so much. After being worried by a couple pretty slow patches narrative-wise, it really blew up in the middle with a thrilling patch with all the spectacles, development and closure I was looking for when I finished Shadowbringers. I admit that reviewing these expansions are hard due to all the expanded narrative that comes with the patches and the more I play through, the more I realize how strong they are.