Apollo Justice surprised me with the all around quality! I went into this game familiar with the events of the first trilogy, though this is the first Ace Attorney game I've played. Still, getting to see the mix of both returning and new characters brought me much joy, and I was pleasantly surprised with how good the writing was! The writing was great throughout, but especially excelled during its comedic and serious moments in particular. Every character I met had a mix of tragedy and comedy in them, and I loved that. Being a visual novel, the plot and story were forefront to gameplay, but the game doesn't have any issues providing a compelling narrative that doesn't leave you worried about the gameplay (though I still had fun with the gameplay as well). Overall I'd say that I enjoyed this game pretty well, and I'm excited to try the sequel at some point!

My favorite character is Trucy Wright

One of the most charming games ever, filled with different enemies and beatiful environments to explore, Pikmin 4 is one of the most fun games I've played.
There are so many clever mechanics that makes this my favorite strategy game, the brutally intense moments makes the game even more remarkable.
This game also comes with sort of a "remake" of pikmin 1, where you replay Captain Olimar's first adventure, although it's more of a reboot of the original. This game is the pinnacle of the franchise, and a must play for everyone.

Rain World is an incredible game. The combination of the art of all the different regions, the music, the enemies and their complex behaviours and individual goals all come together to form such an immersive world and a fully developed ecosystem that truly feels like it's alive all around you. The map is vast and expansive with each region and subregion having completely different looks and feelings; there are so many different paths to take to get from one specific place to another that it feels like you can really choose your own direction to go.

The use of procedural generation for the movement of both yourself as the slugcat, and other creatures makes everything feel very alive and reacting to the world rather than just being stuck in precalculated routes. In addition to this, while you can go through the game perfectly fine with only the simple controls and movement that it teaches you (walk, jump, climb, pounce), the skill ceiling is incredibly high; you can string together combinations to make the movement feel so much more fluid and alive. However, none of this is explicitly taught in-game and as it is unlikely that a player comes discovers it naturally, I think the movement can feel slightly frustratingly clunky at times. I wish at least some of the more advanced movement was taught to the player as I think it would highly increase the enjoyability for new players who don't want to look online for movement tech/aren't aware of its existence.

The way your character can interact with and build up a rapport or even a hostility with other species is one of my favourite parts of the game: creatures will remember you between cyles and treat you differently based on your previous actions. The world keeps moving even after you've left the room and it's fascinating to watch the other entities in the game just go about their lives. I think the best example of this, and definitely the most intricate example, is that of the scavengers. They give the player options for trading in exchange for items, alternative paths via tolls and support killing enemies at times, among others. They have a stored "reputation" mechanic, like almost all other species in the game, which can be affected by a myriad of factors. This number, while not explicitly told to the player, strongly influences the scavengers' behaviour and can have a massive change on the potential gameplay depending on whether the player tries to befriend or harm them.

The first time I played Rain World I went in completely blind and learnt almost nothing about the lore, which did work fine but made the ending feel very abrupt and even more strangely psychedelic than it already is. As a sidenote, while not being present in any other part of the game, the ending has a decent amount of eyestrain which was mildly disorientating and might affect some people. Now, having gone through the bits of the lore you can learn from the in-game information storage, it's a very interestingly developed story but very difficult to find in the game which is one critique I have of it. I wish it was more accessibly taught but I understand that that would sort of go against the immersion of being a slugcat.

In terms of things issues with the game, I would say that ease and accessibility for a new player is very low: the map is sprawling and very difficult to visualise in part due to the way the slugcat "remembers" it, even with the occasional prompts from the overseers it is daunting to know where to begin as each area can be theoretically accessed right from the start. The randomness of enemy spawns/behaviour, cycle length, food regeneration, and other aspects can make the game feel incredibly frustrating especially when you can die instantly due to something you could genuinely not have predicted or defended yourself from. At best, this fits in with the attitude of the game being that you are a tiny vulnerable creature whose best defense is to flee and who must simply try and survive in an incredibly difficult environment. At worst, it feels unfairly and frustratingly punishing. The movement of the slugcat can feel a little clumsy and many possible movement techniques are not taught in game which further limits the player's enjoyment in my opinion.

I really do think think that I've never played a game that's come close to Rain World in the sense of the environment and ecosystem being so alive around you. While the difficulty and sheer size of the world and can be disheartening, it is a phenomenal game that only gets better the more you learn about it.

[I played it the first time in 2021 and then several times again in 2024 with the new "remixed" setting but haven't yet played the Downpour DLC.]