Safely calling it. I complained in one of my last reviews that Unpacking, a game consisting solely of unpacking boxes and organizing contents, was one of the most tedious experiences I've ever had. But at least that game was short and sweet and told a little story! The same can't be said of this game, which is exactly what it purports to be and reminds me of that old Simpsons gag where Bart wants to play Yard Work Simulator at the carnival after blowing off actual yard work to go to the carnival. I can't even say the hour and change I spent on this (three mowjobs, two too many) made for a soothing experience. The ride-on mower handled like garbage and it was way too easy to miss strips of grass and hit flowerbeds. All my best wishes to people pouring actual chunks of time into this game. You only get the one life, you know?

Virtually identical to last year's release, right down to the in-game menus and graphical interface. There's nothing wrong with that - hell, there's everything right with that! - but it did contribute to the overall "been there, done that" feeling I had while playing this game every night for the month of April. I think I dumped more hours into The Show 22 than I did The Show 21 last year, but felt like I accomplished even less this time around. As long as I have Game Pass and as long as these are part of it, I bet I come back every April for more. But thirty or forty hours into this particular title, it's just time for me to move on, not out of boredom but self-preservation. There are only so many hours and so many days, and such.

Had a great time with this one. The Zelda inspirations are obvious and plentiful but not ham-fisted and had Nintendo released exactly this game with a few visual tweaks and called it a minor Zelda game, people would have gone apeshit for it just the same. Hits that perfect 10-15 hour length and just as soon as I started to feel the slightest bit like the whole thing was dragging a bit, the endgame turned into this nonstop rush of secrets and formerly hidden treasures and I could have gone for another five. Even busted out some pencil and paper for some of the more challenging puzzles, triggering a delightful and specific nostalgic feeling I haven't had in gaming since The Witness. Just a beauty from start to finish. And if this was truly "Souls-hard" then I can handle Souls games, no problem.

A marked improvement, so many years later, over the Left 4 Dead games. But you'd certainly expect that much! I had plenty of fun and more than a little frustration working through this campaign with two buddies over the past month and a half, starting out mostly just spraying bullets and swinging bats and running from Point A to Point B, ending up having lengthy conversations about deck builds and level strategies. We learned the game together, and taught each other as we went. And that's kind of cool and rare these days, no? All that said, the game itself was repetitive and sometimes felt borderline broken in the early going. There'll be no need whatsoever to go back for this one a few years from now if you pass on it now.

Time for a little spring cleaning on the "now playing" list. Ostensibly I've been playing this for eleven years. That's not true, though. Eleven years ago I played it like, twice, and despite some vague-and-getting-vaguer memories of cute vibes and good times I hadn't touched it since then. Until now! Sadly, it's not a game that aged well. I'm not sure any Wii game has, honestly. I loved the arts-and-crafts aesthetic here but couldn't put aside the thought that LittleBigPlanet was doing the same thing in HD a few years prior. Gameplay-wise, it's Kirby taken to its easiest extreme. You can't die! You literally cannot "lose" here, you can only fail to collect everything you want to collect. I have no beef with that, but it may have contributed toward making this game feel much older than it is. Hey, they can't all be classics.

After 25 years, this is as close as I've seen to a worthy Final Fantasy Tactics successor. Feels like something halfway between that game and a Fire Emblem. Every character is unique and there are multiple paths through the story, a Game of Thrones-like web of alliances and betrayals. Slightly surprised by how soon it all ended (thirty, thirty-five hours?) especially after the grindfest that was Octopath Traveler. Likely makes up for that "brevity" on replays, what with all the branching story paths, but I'm content to put this down for now. I expected great things and wasn't disappointed at all. What a gem!

Oof. Here's the first big departure from the rest of the Annapurna Interactive Ultimate PS4 Collection for me, the previous four games being one-or-two-sitting experiences, this one more of a ten-hour slog. It's an interactive novel - no less, no more - that feels like a Murakami take on Gothic Americana. Magical realism with a heavy dose of mountain ghost towns and midnight bluegrass. And it started out so strong! An old antique delivery man and his dog are looking to make one last drop-off, but can't find the address. A blind gas station attendant points him toward a TV repairwoman, and one accidental trip down an abandoned mineshaft later, a wormhole of sorts opens up - the titular Kentucky Route Zero - and baby we are off to the races. If only the ensuing chapters could match the opener! For my money, each of the five acts was inferior to its predecessor, to the point where I spent the fourth and fifth just angrily mashing my way through endless streams of text, lamenting what a waste of time it all was. Your mileage may vary, and plenty of people seem to love this thing, but I have to wonder if some of those people just haven't yet discovered, well, books.

Satisfying enough, but admittedly a little slighter than I expected. Yuffie's never been my bag - sorry, basic Aerith (Aeris) boy here turned proud Tifa man - but this was always going to live or die based on the gameplay and the story. They were... fine. Clocks in at just two chapters and the pace is a total mess, starting slower than molasses and ending with an absurd boss gauntlet. I had my fun here and had more of it the more I played, but really this mostly just got me hyped for Rebirth, you know? Can't believe Remake is four years old already. So is my four-year-old. It all tracks but it's fucked up al the same, you know?

Gorgeous little Studio Ghibli-inspired JRPG that plays like a real time blend of Dragon Quest and Pokémon. I played this on the PS3 I still have hooked up and it looks astonishing ten years later. So what left me a little cold here? Standard JRPG complaints - fetch quest mechanics, repetetive battles. I just don't have all the gaming time in the world these days, and can't help but feel that forty or fifty gaming hours were better spent distributed across a variety of games. Your mileage (and free time) may vary!

Holy smokes, my first logging in ten months or so? Fellas the gaming game is rapidly passing me by. But not this game, a delightful and barely challenging game for babies in which I collected every wonder seed over the course of, I dunno, three weeks, concentrated into four or five nights of actual playtime? Look, I loved this. Loved the idea of each level going batshit sideways in its own hyperspecific way, loved the quality of life improvements over previous games in the series. Probably my favorite 2D Super Mario game since the SNES days? Low bar, but consider it high praise all the same. A better game might have thrown more difficult endgame content at me... says the guy who's logged two games total in 2023? Get the fuck outta here, self. Go beat Tears of the Kingdom already!