tchia is many things: cute, cosy and calming.

this game absolutely nails the aesthetic and commitment to representing the island nation of the games creator, which was really lovely to see and take part in.

however, it's not the most fun game of all time. it's repetitive, the combat isn't very involved and it's a collect-a-thon in a way that often feels at odds with the games message. the map ends up littered with bits to pick up, races, statues to destroy, camps to take down.

I would've appreciated a more focused game and there's a few design choices here which miss the mark. there's a lack of fast travel, which is fine if it wasn't for the fact the game wants you to bounce around islands for a cutscene but it takes forever and a day to travel over.

I'm fully aware I'm behind the times here but on my PS4 this game didn't run very well either with a lot of stuttering.

but hey, i appreciate this game for it's setting and cosy feel. I can see this being a great jumping in point for new gamers or children and it's perfect for that!

I'm somebody who loves a good podcast game, something to do with your hands that's reasonably engaging while you listen to something interesting. but good lord man, this ain't it!

I'm really not sure what the hype was around this as the pinnacle of 'relaxing games'. I'm a neat freak and cleaning is one of my escapes, but what good does doing so in a virtual world do?

When I play a video game, I want to enjoy something. That's not to mean that these kind of menial, laid-back tasks are utterly pointless. But couldn't you be putting that energy into achieving something? Even getting a colouring book, or one of those colour the dot games is at the very least aesthetically fulfilling. Slowly cleaning specks of dirt off virtual cars is not.

Clean your house and then play your video games, don't clean your house in the video game you absolute weapon.

i think my time with pokemon is mostly up.

in the past, pokemon was just about the only RPG game i had ever played, let alone JRPG. recently, i've been correcting this insanely huge blindspot and found a love of final fantasy, chrono trigger, persona and more.

coming back to pokemon afterwards, i kinda feel like frodo does after returning to the shire at the end of LOTR. just let me drift off into the unknown to games that actually have stories and combat systems that have an ounce of depth.

for real though, this is actually quite good for a pokemon game, plenty of stuff to do, iconic pokemons and sweet visuals. i would've loved this as a kid, but alas, a kid i am not.

I believe the LEGO games have an important role to play in video game history and I'm not sure that's a concept shared by the wider gaming community.

It's not that they're anything special individually, while they all have their unique charms and quirks in relation to the franchise they're covering, they can be seen as fairly homogeneous.

However, they play an important role in the introduction of video-games as a medium. The gameplay is simple, get to the end of the level, smash as many bricks as you can, complete simple puzzles using character powers, rinse and repeat.

While to the 'hardcore gamer' this gameplay loop may feel trivial, it's a fantastic way for non-gamers to dip their feet into the waters of this medium. Notice I said 'non-gamers' and not specifically children. While it would be remiss not to mention that these games specifically have children in mind, we must be aware that not everybody has played a video game.

I've been playing games my entire life and I've noticed that when you put me in front of a new game, and a non-gamer in front of a new game, something very different happens. There's a learned behaviour to them, the ability to grasp what to do next comes easier to those who have played more games. While this is obvious to many, I've always found it interesting in how much this differs between gamers and non-gamers.

I once played Tomb Raider (2013) with an ex-girlfriend of mine and after watching me play for an hour or so, she decided it was her turn. It's a simple enough game in terms of mechanics, a third-person shooter with platforming elements. However, it took her a good hour to get to grips with the concept of moving the camera. Simply grasping moving the camera with the right stick, while moving Lara with the left at the same time was quite difficult for her. That's not to say she was unintelligent, in fact she was quite intelligent and later on that day she was committing copious amounts of human rights violations on anyone standing in Lara Croft's way. But it taught me that I shouldn't take my learned video-game knowledge for granted.

For people who haven't played games before, whether you're a child or not, the LEGO games are incredibly accessible and important for those getting into the medium. They're often based off popular franchises (a great point for fans to jump over), simple to play and have a universal humour.

I've recently become a dad and I know that some of the first games I'll be playing with him will be the LEGO games.

[In reference to this game in particular, it's really fun! the characters are unique, complete with their own abilities and animations, the cast is impressive and the story is actually quite engaging! also you can beat up lots of cops in the hub-world and watch them explode so it gets extra points for me on that]

it's such a shame that this game was a commercial flop (fuck you avengers) because it's genuinely incredible.

hot take: I prefer these versions of the characters to the MCU versions.

probably the best example of a game that does literally everything right, so right in fact that I did come away from it without a feeling of amazement.

movement is fluid and feels amazing, the worlds are creative and the capture system is by far the best 'gimmick' that has ever been in a 3D mario, so much so that the sections without it feel incredibly weird.

I feel like I'm going to enjoy this the more time I put into exploring and collecting moons, as it stands it's just a perfectly good game and that's about it.