I hate to abandon games, especially this one but...
I so badly wanted to love this game. The art style, the humor and the gameplay all seemed perfect to me. This game looked like it was made for me. I first played this towards the end of last year and for the most part I was enjoying it but then I played it more..
As I write this review I have 17 hours into it. In the nicest way possible this game is SO boring... (storywise). My favorite parts about this game is exploring, the combat and the puzzles. I could literally care less about the story unfortunately. I didn't see this game as anything longer than like.. 8 hours, and me being at 17 hours and barely being halfway.. this game is a slog. It has too much for what it is. Filler areas that the game can do without, all these characters and such that don't give an emotional pull.. Thank god that this game has a fast forward button and you can pretty much skip all dialogue. It's unfortunate because this game is absolutely beautiful, stunning even, but lacks in so many ways. When it comes to music, it's terrible and very annoying. I swear there's like only 4 songs and they play over and over and over to where I had to eventually play the game on mute. The music just fills me with rage I don't know why LOL.
Also.. this game kinda runs bad. I don't know if me playing on switch has anything to do with it but the game stutters from time to time and there's input lag..? You'll be walking around and the game skips like a scratched dvd or something, it's weird.
The pluses about this game are the bosses, they're actually a challenge and it's rewarding when you defeat them. The pixel art is gorgeous, very reminiscent of the Mother series and I love that. Anything other than combat/artstyle is really a hit or miss with this game AND there's dlc that I'm not gonna check out even though it's just like a farming sim? I don't know..
I don't find myself picking this game back up because I genuinely was not having fun, it feels like a huge chore to get through which is not what I was expecting. Not the worst, it's just so mediocre that even ragging on this game makes me feel bad.

Well... this is Crash Bandicoot.. but on the Game Boy Advance.
I do think Crash's mechanics were translated fairly well to 2D but some things were kind of off like the jumping and even the spins at times were a little delayed(?) Music was typical Crash music and level design is what you'd expect. The story was really dumb though LOL like it's barely a story. Bosses were really annoying and not impactful. The final boss with Cortex was hardly a fight at all, I wouldn't have even minded a second phase. Don't like how, for I guess the true ending you need to get all the gems and relics in each level and basically play the whole game over again. Glad I played this though because I love Crash and I love the GBA so playing this was a no brainer. The difficulty gets really really unfair though, but that's Crash for you.

Since this game's release I had always wanted this game and really wanted to play it. As a Kirby fan, I thought it looked fun and really just wanted to play more Kirby games. I never got the game though. I was a little younger, about 12, and I hoped I'd get it, but I never did. It was always on my mind for a couple years after release and whenever I saw it mentioned I would go "Man I wanna play this SO bad, I wish I had it." I saw it as the "definitive" Kirby experience even though I knew absolutely NOTHING about this game. Then I just kinda forgot about it. The last Kirby game I had played was Kirby Super Star Ultra that I'd play over and over as a kid.
This game though.... I went in completely blind and... I was heavily disappointed. I honestly dreaded almost every moment of this game. The level design was cool but I played this on a 2DS XL so.. I didn't get the complete experience with the dimensions. This game was clearly made with the 3D function in mind. Motion control segments were also cool but not really necessary... and they were kinda jank at times. The power ups you get in this game were really lacking and just weren't fun to use. They weren't very strong either and found myself a lot of the times just using the stars during boss fights. The vibes in this game and the floral themes just weren't doing it for me. Also why was this game so hard? It goes from 0 to 100 really quickly.. or maybe I just suck at the game BUT I didn't start dying until maybe the 3rd world? And what's the point of the keychains?? Kind of useless to me to be honest. Another thing, why why whyyy do we need to collect a certain amount of sun stones to unlock levels/bosses? This was my issue in Spyro 2 except here it isn't as annoying. I had to grind sun stones for the final boss which, in the moment, wasn't too bad because I only needed two but still... I'm just trying to beat the game man.
The main power up in this game, I don't know what it's called I forgot, I'm just gonna call it the "super suck".. well the super suck was super sucky. You use it for repetitive puzzles and for the dumbest scripted events in the game to where it doesn't really have an impact. Nintendo thought "Oh Kirby sucks so let's make him suck more" really lame power, especially for it to be the like "super cool", "hyped up" thing. Mini bosses were kind of creative though buuuut got really repetitive when I had to fight them over and over and over and over and over and-
The final boss was a slay I'll give it that. It was difficult but nothing too crazy. Like.. but did girly really have to have like 5 million phases and move sets LOL I get it's the final boss but sheesh.. Also the final blow to the boss was SO predictable, like I just knew Kirby was gonna use his super suck to end her.
This wasn't the worst game I've played but it was still pretty disappointing... I wanted to play more Kirby's other than the pixel-y ones and.. this game has now made me wary of the other "3D" kirbys.. I wouldn't play it again though, that's for sure never happening. I don't think I'd ever recommend the game to others either, it just didn't satisfy. There's too much going on but then not enough at the same time.

Finally got to playing this tonight and… I don’t know.. Personally I wouldn’t consider this a “Silent Hill” game, a “horror” game yes, but to have it be associated with the Silent Hill naming is a throw off. If Konami wanted to make a new spooky game then just make a new spooky game, don’t taint it by trying to connect it to Silent Hill. I will say, this game indeed scared me at times, it’s atmosphere was honestly really great!
One thing that threw me off though was the voicing acting/lip sync, if I’m correct, I assume they basically just subbed the Japanese lip syncing and added English voicing over that, which, okay that’s fine(?) but it added a bit of un-polish to the game imo. They honestly should’ve just kept the Japanese voicing and subbed it with no English voicing.
This game was very real at times in the sense of the subject matter and the emotions the characters felt. Suicidal subject matter… Wishing to be there more for friends/loved ones during their darker times, etc… It was very touching to where it had me tearing up slightly at the end. And I’m sure if I had played this during my teenage years it would’ve hit even harder… hell it hits hard even now, excluding the social media aspect of it all.
That last chase though was very annoying but very rewarding when I finally got through it.
Honestly I think anyone that’s interested should give this game a chance despite any “negative” feedback it received. It’s very human, very relatable and I appreciate that.

Played via the "reignited" trilogy on PS5
So........ realistically I'm not going to officially beat this game LOL
It makes you basically (almost) "100%" the game to get to the final boss and I'm not doing all that. It requires 40 orbs and at the moment I'm typing this review I have 10 LMAO. The "side quests" are lowkey SO hard in this game and SO not enjoyable that I'd rather pluck my eyelashes one by one then pour lemon juice in my eyes... That may sound a little extreme but this game is NOT good, I played it mostly because it's Spyro and I love Spyro.. just not this one. Also because I really want to experience the original trilogy and I need to get through it. Sucks I won't actually beat it but... I mean I made it to the end and have played every other level except fighting the final boss, Ripto. Really cheap and annoying that you have to have orbs to access him... like just lemme beat the game yknow? The characters in this game were very annoying, very ugly and very unnecessary.. They tried to make it more "story based" but tbh Spyro doesn't need some crazy story to be "good". That's why I liked the first one, you have one simple mission: save as many dragons as you can and defeat Gnasty Gnorc. I'll also mention: so. many. cutscenes. AND tutorials for things I already know? And even if I didn't know, lemme figure it out. Plus they give you so many things to do in this game that it's like: what do I even do in this (certain) level? Very very overwhelming at times and some levels were just waaaay too big and confusing. Felt like there really wasn't a real purpose to it all, which sucks to say. Don't know what the creators were thinking with this one but it ain't it... What a disappointing sequel to a pretty solid game. Hopefully the third one is better but so far I don't have the highest expectations. I'll start it sometime in the near future, hopefully, but for now I'm all Spyro'd out.

I was really in the mood for something really "retro", "video game-y", and nostalgic. Out of a whim I started playing Aria of Sorrow (it just kinda called out to me) and man was I surprised at how good this game was. I hadn't really gotten into the more "open" Castlevania games because they seemed really overwhelming to me despite me really wanting to get into them. Before playing this I had only played classic Castlevania like the ones on NES, SNES, etc... I was getting really tired of playing 3D, third person games, stuff that was more "modern" and really just wanted a break.
The enemies, the RPG elements, the bosses.. everything about this game is so good. The music was really good and also had some callbacks to older Castlevania games which I liked. And the characters were likeable enough to invest me in the story. This game does get really tough but it's manageable, it can be pretty hectic and unfair at times though. The leveling system was very satisfying and collecting souls of enemies was honestly really fun. I ended up getting the "normal" ending which I don't mind and I don't really intend on getting the "true" ending.
All in all I'm pretty satisfied with my experience with this game. I really wanted to play an "older", pixel-y game and this delivered. It took me roughly 5 and a half to 6 hours to beat this game which is awesome. I just played it in my free time for however long during that session. It wasn't too long and it didn't overstay it's welcome either. I'd recommend this game to any Castlevania lover such as myself and even newcomers who have yet to delve into the series. There hasn't been too many games recently that have truly made me happy, excited, hyped and all of the above compared to with this game. It seriously got me out of a gaming slump that I had and I'm very glad to have finally played this game after wanting to for the longest time.

Played via the "reignited trilogy" on PS5.
This game had been on the backlog since the remake trilogy came out LOL. I had played it here and there, mostly as a way to pass the time. Forgot about it for a couple years and I've now finally beat it. I grew up with the Spyro games on the PS2 but never played the original. This game was fun, challenging and very feel good. The art style they went with is GORGEOUS and I couldn't stop praising the graphics every time I played. Levels were open but small enough to where they weren't too overwhelming to play in. The enemy variation in this game was pretty good with each world having pretty much it's own creatures to defeat. Bosses were really easy though but I'm not complaining. I will say the Gnasty Gnorc "boss fight" was probably the wackest of them all. Very anti climatic and just didn't hit like I thought it would. It was pretty difficult though with me having to retry the fight about 5 times. Overall, Spyro 1 is a good game for being one of the early 3d platforming games of the late 90s. I'll be playing Spyro 2 in my spare time as I finish up my playthrough of Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow.

(about 5-6 hours in)
Dropping this game because it's just unfortunately not what I thought... It's clunky, jank and at times just not fun. I see what they were going for with this game and the execution can make due but it lacked for me. I had no issue with the limited saves but the combat, movement and enemy designs, etc. weren't really doing it for me. You can run from enemies but if you leave them at a door and then go back through said door you get stuck and the enemy is able to hit you and it happens every single time. It's like it takes a second for the character to be able to move after going through a door and it makes it troublesome for wanting to just avoid enemies and go on to your current objective. It's atmosphere is decent and the music is also okay at best so I'll give it that but that's pretty much all I liked. The UI was also a little weird but I kinda vibed with it. God... and the map.. don't even get me started. I seen a review that described this game as playing Resident Evil but on hard mode but I think I'd have a more enjoyable time dealing with that than with this game. It did scratch that classic survival horror itch and it's great to see new ones being made but... Hopefully a sequel improves upon some things it struggled with but for now I think I'll stick to just watching playthroughs with this one.
*Maybe in the future I'll actually finish it but I don't see myself doing that anytime soon.

Yakuza 0…
This game was very good. It’s a VERY solid game. The plot twists and certain reveals had me invested and wanting more as the game went on. Is it bad to say I wished this game was more linear…? I didn’t know too much about this game before playing it but I didn’t think you’d have so much “freedom” outside of the main missions. It does get a bit stale after awhile (exploring the city and doing side quests) while I didn’t mind it and was glad a lot of things were optional, some side quests were pretty bland or very typical.
The game’s start is also kinda slow, and doesn’t really pick up until chapter 6(?) maybe. But the characters are really good and though at times I preferred Majima over Kiryu, Kiryu really went and grew on me as the game progressed. Hopefully this isn’t the end of my Yakuza journey and I continue with the others, but for my first game experience of the franchise, it wasn’t too bad at all.