Writing this a few days after beating the story and then beating After Alterna after a fair amount of painful attempts, I loved the story mode of this game. More on the level of Octo Expansion which I felt was a more immersive story experience than the main game, this one combined elements of all prior stuff and gave us what I would say is the best single player work from the series, which of course is impressive for a game pretty much entirely marketed as a multiplayer game. As for the multiplayer, it's good too. Largely similar of course but with lots of returning maps, as well as new interesting specials. Some good stuff (Crab Tank), some annoying stuff (Reefslider please go away), i'm sure the whole process will be ironed out by professionals eventually but i'm having fun with it right now. Salmon Run is back to give me something to do when i'm doing particularly crap at battles, and it's as fun as before (your mileage may vary) with some interesting new bosses. Overall having a lot of fun with it right now, but time will tell if it holds up, or goes up or down in my estimation I guess.

I've been obsessed with the aesthetic of games like Earthbound and Chrono Trigger for a long time, but now is the time that i've brought myself to play further than Peaceful Rest Valley and beat the game, and as expected when I actually dive head first into something I was already in love with the style of, I now love it even more. You could argue the gameplay is relatively whatever, I'm no JRPG aficionado for sure but I got a lot out of the battles here. Boss fights felt legitimately challenging but never in a cheap way, always in a way where it felt rewarding to beat them even if it only took one try. The earlier stages of the game are definitely the most difficult though it isn't the easiest game (at least it wasn't for me, i'll fully admit i've never been the most amazing at games) and there were a lot of areas that chewed me up and spat me out before I got through them. Scaraba's pyramid being the main one though it wasn't even as bad as a lot of places where the difficulty has been painful in games before and I still felt compelled to press on because by that point, the game had me hook line and sinker. The main thing that I think everyone thinks of with Earthbound is its off the beaten path personality, charm and sense of humour (maybe only matched by the Stanley Parable in terms of games i've played) which really dragged me in, this game is really funny but deeply personal and sweet and sad and many other emotions, it really is a rollercoaster ride in that regard. The story is amazing, the themes of childhood and growing up and how it is all interwoven into how the game plays and how you interact with the people and places, even some arguably throwaway lines strike a deep chord because of how much thought clearly went into writing everything here. It really connected with me on many levels because of all these funny and emotional moments to be found. The ending is beautiful, I don't want to spoil it much but it really had me, the final boss was a real rewarding moment to beat but in a much more emotion filled way than other bosses purely because of how the fight plays out. This is getting very samey but that is mostly because the points I made are really the main things I love and also I am rubbish at writing. Either way, this is a thoughtful, hilarious, and pure joyous journey of a game that drags you in and will make you remember the time you have with it, and made me feel hollow once I beat it like I didn't know what to do with myself after it. It may even make you remember times you've had before and think about how things change. A very wanky reviewer note to end on.

Not awful but really it just doesn't have almost any of the enjoyment I used to get from Pokemon. Am I getting old? Well yes but everyone else is too and they all agree that the ones that we all grew up with were better than this. That's not a "back in my day" (mostly not anyway), it's just that the mechanics, the way it played, and yeah a little bit of the fact that we were all younger and stupider, it made it much better back then. Gen 5 for example is so much fun, it has a genuinely great story, a world that feels more real than most any other Pokemon region, and it was enticing from start to finish (to post-finish (to post-post-finish). This one lost me before even the first finish, where I realised that while the entire game was a breeze Leon was a random difficulty spike and that apparently meant I hadn't grinded enough raid battles and had to go back to the wild area to grind xp candies. Losing in the older games felt more like a challenge you'd failed that you had to rethink and retry, Crasher Wake was an absolute bastard and beating him was genuinely rewarding because it was an accomplishment to finally beat his Gyarados. Leon didn't feel rewarding to beat after losing and coming back, and none of the annoyingly-difficult-in-solo raid battles were rewarding or fun. They were a mindless slog, and to be honest a lot of the game is similarly mindless even if it is a little more fun. It's one of the first times I've got to the post-game of a pokemon game and after realising how it worked, just put the game down and stopped. That's not how I felt about the other half of Unova opening up or the extra island in Sinnoh either. Trying to look at the positives, I did really enjoy the Spikemuth gym, it felt like it relied on gimmicks that I wasn't interested in a lot less in favour of a fun battle against a group of ragtag sods in a pretty rough area (aka relatable to real life). In reality, maybe we have all grown up and the series hasn't grown with us, and in another 10 to 15 years people who loved this growing up will be talking about how crap Gen 12 is. Then again, I will be like 30 in 10 years so let's not think about that. Maybe I will come back for the post-game of this later, I didn't regret my time with this game, but i've got to say the series has really gotten away from me and it's a shame. Need to just replay Platinum really.

It's a Doom game, it's hard to say I didn't enjoy it. However, of all the Dooms I have played now, this is comfortably the weakest one. It has its moments, but gets pretty weak and lazy feeling towards the end, things become "here's a lot of aggressive enemies" and I know shooters aren't renouned for incredible boss fights but the last one here was stupid, having not got the secrets because of course I didn't on a first playthrough, it is a bit of a war of attrition and i'm not the biggest fan of that. I reckon that boss would be more rewarding if I replayed to get the secrets and beat that way, but I won't do that because time is precious and I need to play more games than just Doom over and over (though if I had to, I would be ok with playing the first over and over).

This one took me a while of off-again on-again playing to beat, not because it was bad but more due to my disinterest or non-committal to games generally when I'd first picked it up. I'm glad I beat it, it's not the best game i've ever played but it was a lot of fun. The final boss was total bullshit though it felt like a bit of a disappointing way to finish the game as a lot of what went on prior was fulfilling and creative only for the final boss to feel a lot more random chance and stressful. Other than that I enjoyed though, just perhaps wish I'd done it in closer sittings as maybe I lost out on some higher engagement in the full product.

I think this game has really ignited a passion for games in me once again. I was having fun with games like Doom and Quake again this year after thinking i'd never really get gaming like I did as a child or teenager, but I think this is the game that has dragged me right back into the medium. I think the general feel of the game is what dragged me in as the way it looks and plays really helps to bring Zebes to life atmospherically as a mysterious intriguing place to be discovered and explored from start to end. The learning curve was interesting as I wasn't too familiar with games like this or really many games before a certain time at all, but it was rewarding to play and learn and certainly rewarding to beat. It was exciting and fun to actually discover new items and abilities and rewarding to beat certain bosses that were a pain on a first few goes (mostly Phantoon because of those blue fire attacks). It was great to beat and I imagine after a while, it will be great to go back and 100% (which I think I want to do, not sure).