Fusion is basically the exact opposite of Super in every single way. It's narrow and confined. It holds your hand practically the entire game and gates off exploration. It tales a straight up cinematic story (for the GBA anyway) with dialogue and cutscenes. And, most importantly, it completely reverses the role of the badass space warrior.

It should have been a catastrophic failure, but this bold experiment is easily the most distinct game in the franchise because of it. Oh, and it's pretty great. And scary. Pretty damn scary.

I don't even wanna THINK about how much work it took to make a game like this even happen. How did the pitch even get far? A 1930s cartoon gauntlet of bosses? How do these ideas even happen? And more importantly how did they execute SO WELL on an idea like this??

The only things holding it back are a few RNG elements that are pretty damn unfair and the Run n Gun levels uh, stink. But everything else is SO STELLAR. The sublimely gorgeous visuals and soundtrack, the snappy and responsive gameplay, the endless creativity that's always on display. There were NO CORNERS cut to match their vision, and the fact that Cuphead's become such a financial success makes me so happy. I want more games to be completely willing to commit to their insane vision, and Cuphead standing as one of the most impressive indie titles of all time has surely helped bring that mission forward.

Uncharted's been in a weird place for a while. They're fun games and an easy showcase of the Playstation 3's power for Sony, but calling these titles "art" was always a little bit silly. They're fun adventure games with tons of spectacle and that's totally fine! But after Naughty Dog put out The Last of Us, a landmark title that's become one of the most respected games EVER MADE partially due to its dark, emotional core, how could Nathan Drake survive with the prestige the studio earned?

The answer, it seems, was to create EASILY the best plot in the series. Uncharted 4 won't win any Oscars but its grounded, emotional story about two brothers, obsession, and betrayal elevates it so much further than the bang bang shooty type stories of the previous games. The actors' performances, the animations, the writing....it's all SO GOOD. So many games have incredibly lifeless or inhuman or robotic characters but Naughty Dog hits it out of the ballpark EVERY TIME MAN.

And the graphics?? This game is SEVEN YEARS OLD but i'm still over here taking screenshots every five minutes!! It's so smooth and so pretty! (Granted I played the PS5 remaster so that might account for it but still). Say what you will about "photorealism bad blah blah blah" IDC THIS GAME LOOKS INSANEEEE!! And it feels so smooth to play too! The climbing, the action, the shooting. The shear amount of location and gameplay variety is out of this world, I don't even want to think about how many man-hours this took to build. And how much crunch, because, ew. Yay.

Really my only major critique is I wish a lot of the gameplay had more...substance? I was pretty tired of the gunplay by the end, and I wish its stealth and combat options were deeper. But even if Uncharted doesn't have the best combat, or the best climbing, or the best stealth, or the best puzzles, it's its ability to pace everything together into one full-steam-ahead blast of an adventure that helps it stick the landing.

Triple-A video games might be in a bad situation with variety, visual styles, development time, and actually being fun these days. But Uncharted 4 is proof that sometimes, the big expensive games can be worth keeping around too.

It's REALLY cool to get some of the best courses from GBA, DS, and Wii back in the game! And the original courses are pretty sweet too! But that's around half of the package and you can't tell me you're gonna be picking shit like Tokyo Blur by choice 💀

I would be much more generous about these but ehhhhh the way cheaper visuals AND course downgrades at work here means it's always a "...but..." part you gotta be aware of. Really nice for variety alone, but when I'm intentionally skipping half of the DLC courses at all times can you really call it good?

Plus they didn't even include DS Airship Fortress or Wii Toad's Factory...wtf...

I think it's so funny how before the Master Sword, the developers made sure to ease the player into 3D gaming as much as possible. Constant hints, hand-holding as much as possible...

And then halfway through they said MAN, FUCK THEM KIDS BRO and little 8 year old Timmy on the N64 has to suffer through actual nightmare fuel with NO direction.

I love it.

Because Pack 7 exists and is ultimately a better version of Pack 3 (Quiplash 3 over 2, Champ'd Up over Tee K.O.) with more complex and "stragetic" games, I thought there's not any real reason to play this one instead. But when I played the packs with my young cousins the simpler titles in here were probably their favorites! So I'd argue it's just about as good.

Quiplash is excellent as always, Trivia Murder Party did the impossible and made trivia actually fun for once, Guesspionage is REALLY BORING AND LAME, Tee K.O. is kinda flawed but the fact that you can buy the t-shirts you make means that it's goated, and Fakin' It seems really fun with the right group (bad liers kinda kill it).

I might prefer some games from 4, 9 (emphasis on SOME), and especially 7, but the simple nature of these makes this pack still one of the best in terms of what you're gonna get.