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.

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?

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?

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.

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.

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.

One of my all time faves. Beat the hell out of this thing five, six, seven times way back when, and haven't touched it in close to twenty years. Finally played the War of the Lions version for the first time - not logging it separately, sorry - and it's thankfully just "more" all around. That's good, because if this game leaves you wanting anything, it's "more." You spend thirty or forty hours training an intricately assembled party but by the end of the game you're overpowered enough to fly right through the story's conclusion. The only reward for managing to find, poach, or steal the rarest and best items in the game is the items themselves. I've done a handful of self-imposed challenges and this time opted for a "no duplicate equipment" run. Gotta keep things fresh and interesting, you know? The difficulty is still way too unbalanced with three or four insanely hard battles and a shitload of creampuffs, and the learning curve is laughably steep in 2021 - mostly because of how opaque the game is about everything - but man do I love this game and its characters and engine and story. Always have, always will.

Very tempting to call this "the prettiest SNES game you never got to play on SNES" or something similar but, get real, nothing on the SNES ran this crisp and smooth. Still, what a beautiful and beautifully retro-vibed game this was, often challenging, rarely frustrating, and impeccably designed throughout. The split personality subtext and mountain-as-depression metaphor could have been more subtle, but who cares? With a game this charming and snazzy, a properly told story is just icing on the cake.

This was quick and mostly enjoyable. Would love to see more Nintendo IP spin-offs like this today except this is exactly the kind of video game they could never make today because if they did it'd be a $5.99 smartphone app. Decent little physics puzzle game, really, and thank God for save states because the original design punts your ass all the way back to the first tee if you bogie a couple times. That said, those same save states make the whole thing a 3-hour play at most and expose just how thin and small you used to be able to make a console game if you made it hard enough. C'est la vie!