Metroid Fusion is a very striking game. Its story and presentation are much darker than its predecessors, and the parasitic premise, while it really only means that your item pickups try to fly away from you, is really interesting. One thing I greatly appreciate about this game is that you receive much more direction on where to go. It still lets you explore, and get lost, but the critical path is much easier to follow than Super (which at the time of writing has me trapped in Maridia with no idea of what to do). The core Metroid gameplay is tight as ever, losing some of the complexity of Super (no doubt partially due to the GBA having two fewer buttons), but I think that works in its favor. Trimming the fat, such as combining normal and super missiles, easier button binds (holding R to select your power weapons as opposed to switching with Select), and removing some of the generally more annoying control hiccups goes a long way to help the game feel more streamlined. However, I felt the tragic loss of the run button throughout my entire playthrough, so it's definitely not perfect.

The item progression felt similarly smooth, and every upgrade felt like a noticeable power boost. Another thing I quite like is how the game approaches finding them, oftentimes requiring you to search on your own outside of the mapped area, since you receive a basic one at the beginning of every Sector. As well, using a combination of boss fights and data downloads (the equivalent of regular pickups) to get your abilities back is very clever, especially in how it ties back to the story.

While I see lots of people touting the "horror" of this game, it never really did much for me. The SA-X makes for an enticing villain, and moments like Ridley's resurrection and the Nightmare's gooey reveal were certainly shocking, I never felt scared of them so much as I felt the regular fear of losing progress to a boss. That being said, I never really did feel afraid of losing to a boss, except Ridley, who killed me twice. I wouldn't say this game is necessarily easy, but when all of your problems are nails and you're really only given progressively bigger hammers, the only remaining issue is getting out of the nail's way when it wants to shoot you with lasers or whatever.

That all being said though, I enjoyed Fusion, and I think at this point I officially Like Metroid(tm).

I have been playing this game for more than 10 years, and all 10 of them were well spent on it. I don't think I can adequately describe the place Terraria has in my life, but I can tell a story.

Christmas, 2012(?). I've just received a Kindle Fire, loaded with tons of games. One of those games, you guessed it, Terraria. Now, I had no idea what this game even was, but I knew that the guy on the app icon had a pickaxe and god damn did I love games with pickaxes with them. I had to leave the tablet behind to go to holiday parties, but I was buzzing with excitement to get back home and try it. When the time came, I was hooked. My parents had to put screen time limits on the tablet just so I would put it down, and even then I somehow managed to crack that. I loved Terraria.

Then, the time came that I had to start at a new school in fifth grade. I still had that old tablet, and I was still playing Terraria. I bonded with new friends (in fact, the friends I still have to this day) over Terraria. It was the first game we played and beat together, all the way back before 1.3.5. It genuinely brought me closer together with my friends, and it's become a tradition that at least once a year, if not more, we have a Terraria playthrough.

There's also an odd comfort to singleplayer Terraria. The feeling of having a whole world to myself, to explore, build up, and get stronger how I see fit, never gets old. Chipping away at a world consistently brings a sense of accomplishment, and if I'm ever feeling lost or unsure of what to do, I boot up my most recent world and take a chunk out of progression. It's nice.

And through it all, no matter what, I can always come back to Terraria. For all it's changed, it's stayed the same. It's not like Minecraft, which used to be the same sort of game for me, but ended up growing and evolving out of what made it special in my eyes. The spark has always been there, and rather than trying to stack more things on top of an already-good game, Re-Logic has always focused on adding more to what was already there, setting their vision and fleshing it out according to that, rather than any philosophy of "more" that's all too common in modern games with a similar update model, and that more than anything sets it apart as something that more games should strive to be.

All in all, Terraria might be the most important game in my life, and I wear my 1000+ hour badge of honor with pride. Beyond the fact that it's a really good game (which I really didn't touch on at all), it's done a lot for me. So, thanks, Re-Logic. Let's hope your next eight final updates are as good as the last ten have been!

Ohohoho, this... this is good.

So, Dimps briefly got their act together in 2005 to create Sonic Rush, a successor to the Advance trilogy. And did they ever clean themselves up, because this is the best modern (post-classic) 2D Sonic. Not only did they introduce Blaze the Cat, the best Sonic girl, but they also made a series-defining innovation with the Boost, which would then go on to be gradually run into the fucking dirt over the next 12 years. But that hasn't happened yet, and it's implemented really well here. The basic Sonic gameplay is still mostly intact, but Rush's main innovations are the Boost and the trick system, which mesh into a dopamine-inducing slam better than anything you could get off the streets. Basically, the Boost is your "go fast" button, allowing you to instantly accelerate to speeds higher than you'd ever reach without it. If, while you're running on your merry way, you get launched off of a spring or ramp, you're allowed to do tricks in the air, which can extend your airtime and also replenish your Boost gauge. In order to do well in this game, you have to manage your Boost and utilize tricks to soar over the level at top speed, chaining Homing Attacks and enemy bounces to rack up your score and (ideally) claim the S rank at the end. The flow state you can achieve in this game is unmatched, and the feeling of a flawless run is breathtaking. All of this is on top of wonderfully appealing sound design, charmingly low-res and brightly colored visuals, and a KICKIN' soundtrack by the funky uncle himself, Hideki Naganuma. Shoutouts to Ska Cha Cha for being the best piece of music probably ever. I love this game so much.

if only the bosses weren't 8-hit "you can only attack me when i say so" slogs, this would have been a 5...