yeah sorry, but your blinking mechanic doesn't work THROUGH THESE TEARS

A valiant, but ultimately messy effort. At times I was so immersed and fascinated by the world and setting that is crafted and all the systems interacting with each other only to be forced out by overall jank, repetition and systems not fully recognizing my actions. The last point is the most important one. Systemic games like this one that are built on choices, consequences and player knowledge live and die by the integrity of their simulation. What happens if the player pushes against the systems presented in the game? If the game doesn't break and even anticipated the choice a feeling unlike any other is created. The problem is, though, that you have to support an enormous number of interactions in a game where you interact with a decently sized cast of characters going about their lives in a roman city across multiple time loops. And this game unfortunately broke the illusion a few too many times for me in the end. I would still wholeheartedly recommend this game to everyone who is curious due to its low time investment, as I mentioned, this is a truly valiant effort that hits on so many points, I just wish it were a little more polished in the end. Also I was incredibly weirded out by that final ending, a bold direction certainly to put it favorably.

Can't wait for multiverse narratives to die in a fire.

Bayonetta 3 is a good action game but a huge step down for the Bayonetta franchise and perhaps the biggest disappointment I have ever felt in a game. Not only is the story an incoherent, embarrassing mess (not that the other two had a high bar to overcome), but unfortunately the gameplay is completely bogged down with the new focus on summoning gigantic monsters in every battle, which creates a clusterfuck of visual clutter and takes the fun and speed out of the otherwise flawless combat system with great new weapon additions.

Platinum really had to sign a monkey's paw deal with Nintendo it seems. On the one hand the franchise was saved, but on the other hand it was confined to the shackles of technological jail that are Nintendo's consoles, meaning that Bayonetta 3 might actually look and feel worse than Bayonetta 1 on the 360 did, which is such a bummer.

I am not hopeful at all for the future of Bayonetta, unfortunately. The story and character decisions did its part, certainly, but most importantly it feels like I have lost the confidence in the belief that Platinum has a coherent vision for the franchise and knows what the strengths are, because Bayonetta 3 certainly did not play to them.

When I tried the demo on Steam last year, I quickly brushed it aside as a gimmicky color-book adventure and ignored it after that. After release a solid number of remarkably high review scores convinced me to give this another shot and oh boy, did I fall in love. Chicory is essentially a 2D Zelda game without combat and a strong focus on metroidvania-style progression, puzzles and exploration. I don't like to play with mouse and keyboard for comfort reasons these days and I was afraid that a game centered around precision painting would fall flat with an analog stick and to be fair, it really isn't the most ideal input device for this mode of gameplay but it works totally fine after getting used to it - and certain optional upgrades will definitely make your life easier as you progress. This is due to the easy going nature of all aspects of the design, while there are some sections that require fast, precise inputs, you aren't punished much for failing, and pretty much every action of yours in the world is reversible.

I am not the biggest fan of the 2D Zelda games, so I can confidently say that this is probably my favorite in the genre. The characters and narrative are so full of heart, the puzzles are clever but never overwhelming and the stellar music by Lena Raine adds an incredibly rewarding layer to exploring all the different nooks in the world. The game drove me to spent extra time in it to explore every part of the map and finish even the most (seemingly) mundane side errants just to get the chance for some new character interactions, which is high praise to the charming writing and world design, that allows its characters plenty of room to breathe and surprise you in unexpected places. I really can't emphasize enough how much this game surprised me. It brought me so much joy over the last weeks and actually hit home quite hard with its themes and narrative. I can't recommend Chicory enough, it is so so good.

What I will give the biggest credit in Axiom Verge 2 are the bold aesthetic and game design decisions making up the whole structure of this game. This isn't a by the books retro-style metroidvania set in a grim alien world. Where the first game was Alien, this feels more like The Thing and Dune depending on the region. The game draws from refreshingly untapped cultural backgrounds manifesting in the world and music and overall feeling. But not only the aesthetic is unique, the gameplay also breaks major conventions - I mean, there are no bosses tied to progression or abilities at all and the game jumps between two dimensions constantly, mixing up the way you interact with the world.

The one major criticism I have is the combat. There is a variety of (mostly melee) weapons to get but the focus on melee combat doesn't pay off unfortunately, as the combat feels clunky and unresponsive. You constantly miss enemies because you have to crouch to hit most of them and the dynamic terrain with slopes and ledges makes getting an edge over enemies difficult because they constantly change elevation leading to frustrating button mashing.

The exploration is superb, constantly feeding you new abilities to get around obstacles. These abilities can be a straightforward grappling hook or more unique mechanics that offer plenty of room for experimentation as the game gets out of your way and doesn't hold your hand to figure stuff out, even if there are a lot of really helpful quality of life additions such as custom map markers and waypoints.

Ultimately, I like this sequel probably around as much as the first one, but surprisingly for different reasons. Their differences make it easy to recommend both of them equally and while many design decisions of the second one might and will alienate some people, I will always hold it in high regard if a game makes these bold decisions.

I would lie if I said that I could follow any of the lore in this game even in the slightest, it went way over my head. Still, I can absolutely appreciate the worldbuilding achieved and admire the depth and consistency present in every aspect of the storytelling, even if it isn't the most digestible narrative. It certainly feels fresh in the mythology and cultural background used, even if the tone and gruesome nature mirrored in the gameplay is familiar in the genre.
What drove me to almost 100% this game is a really tight gameplay loop where most collectibles serve an in world purpose and are hidden at a perfectly balanced rate, where you actually feel like you can totally collect everything without investing dozens of extra hours searching every corner. This is also helped by a strong map that removes frustration by showing you when a room is or isn't a dead end if you pay attention.

The boss fights are definite highlights, offering creative mechanics and making the fights clearly accessible to master with the moves available to you, avoiding big frustration points often present in these tough Souls-likes. As tight as the combat is, the platforming didn't work that smoothly too often, unfortunately, even if the added speedrun challenges were extremely fun to master once accepting the quirks of the platforming.

In general, there has been a lot of work being done on the game in the form of free updates since release. Since this was my first time playing, I can't speak to the differences, but I really enjoy how they implemented the new content into the base game, where I didn't know something was added until looking it up specifically, which makes Blasphemous at this point a really nice package and one of the better metroidvanias out there.

This game was incredibly frustrating to play. From the cast and pedigree of Annapurna Interactive, which I fared well with trusting blindly until this point, I went into this expecting a highly condensed, super polished experience.

This game is not that, it is incredibly janky, stiff and annoying to control. It puts tons of remarkable emphasis on the reactivity achievable in this limited scope - having to keep in mind where someone can hear you talk, where someone is standing at certain times or other minor details - ultimately, though this stuff boils down to a very limited interaction space and even in this limited scope the game can't keep up with the reactivity required to fully immerse the player. Dialogue options persist throughout the game even when the player's and character's knowledge change, reframing the context of the option, which leads to bizarre tonal whiplash and potentially ruins a cycle that required annoying, tedious preperations you have speedran through for the fifth time in a row to try out one minor change.

The mystery and ultimate narrative package as a whole is what kept from dropping the score lower, because having seen it through, the threads it lays throughout the experience are well crafted to keep you entertained for the duration of the game and while the execution wasn't perfect or even great most of the time, it came together in the end in a way I did not see coming, leaving well crafted room for interpretations.

I could spend endless more hours in this world, deducing languages and nuances in the relationships between them, such a deeply satisfying experience, enhanced by an enchanting soundtrack and mesmerizing art and architecture blending between cozy and luscious and oppressive and intimidating expertly.

I just can't. After ten hours I don't feel enough of a drive to keep playing. For me the Xenoblade games are bad examples of maximalist design at this point. Creating quality not by elegant subtraction but by addition of more and more systems and dimensions of complexity to the point of legitimately feeling like parody of itself to me.

I could stand Xenoblade 3 for longer than the first one due to an interesting story hook and early development, but my god the sheer spam of new systems, menues, and mechanics truly made my head hurt, killing any drive to play further - hearing how much more is to come, hailed as a positive aspect. This made me realize that the series is definitively not for me, despite my best efforts which greatly disappoints me because of the excitement seemingly everyone else has for the franchise and my absolute adoration of Xenogears and the hope of some DNA of that transfering over.

The baseline combat is so clunky and uninteresting to me that I can't stomach pushing through that for 90 more hours, not even starting on the incredibly annoying line repetitions and dull environments fully covered in ever respawning loot and enemies. I read that that this makes the game feel alive and dynamic while it did the complete opposite for me feeling like a wasteland entirely populated by procedurally generated content. As a level designer the terrain navigation truly shocked me with how clunky and unpolished it is. You constantly run into slopes you are expected to awkwardly jump your way up while other ledges are not accessible to you while being only slightly above your jump height, adding to the feeling of procedural generation, lacking the affordances and clean communication of intentional level design.

This is all pretty much rambling about how this game just isn't for me in the end, recognizing that it's obviously not a bad game, it's just rare that a game in a genre I usually really enjoy so completely goes against anything I value in games and I am envious of everyone able to fall in love with the games in this series, I wish I was one of them.

Really disappointed to have reached the point of having lost all motivation to continue further at this point after about 9 hours considering this was among my most anticipated games for the longest time.

This is probably the most beautiful sprite art I have ever seen in a game and the world oozes with life. Everything feels great to interact with, but there is just a lack of substance that really breaks my heart. It has tons of quirky characters that I stopped interacting with because the writing was just too bland to care. There are so many weird pacing decisions that grind the game to an absolute halt for 1-2 hours at a time sending you across town to fetch arbitrary things without any meaningful payoff.

I will probably finish this at some point, I just can't bother at the moment. The world and art are just too beautiful to not see it through, I just wish they would have narrowed down a narrative core instead of spreading themselves so paper thin.

The Gunk is pretty enjoyable for what it is, even if what it is is nothing too flashy. The game feels pretty good to roam around in, even if the core mechanics run out of steam pretty quickly. The removal of the titular gunk feels decently satisfying the first few times, but then gets tedious and borderline painful to squeeze the triggers for extended periods of time.

The Gunk feels fallen out of the PS2 or even PS3/360 era where there were tons of 3D adventure games that got lost in the shuffle but resonate with people that decided to give them a chance, maybe as one of their first games growing up or due to an appealing cover artwork. I have a soft spot for these kinds of games and grew up playing them, so I can't help but feel fondness for what The Gunk ended up being. It is small, it is unambitious, but at the same time there is something precious to it.

The music is one aspect that definitely stands out as really good and so does the environment art with the transitions from corrupted to lush floral meadows and interesting overgrown ruins. It is nothing you haven't seen before, but will no doubt resonate with people in the right spot for it in their lives. The perfect Game Pass game in that sense and I hope this will be someones first adventure game that they will too have fond memories for in the future while nobody around them will have heard of it.

It is a weird sensation to play a game with your eyes closed. The concept doesn't work perfectly, overlapping sounds are a problem when trying to discern the direction of attacks and the scope obviously had to be limited and adjusted to not just have thousands of RPG menues that need to be read out one by one. As a whole it works surprisingly well, though. The immersion achieved by just relying on your hearing in detailed soundscapes is pretty impressive. And while the story and world are standard medieval fantasy, the characters really shine through good writing and emotional performances. I really liked the concise side quest structure, offering self contained vignettes that get straight to the point and can offer variety in setting more easily due to the lack of visuals needed to build unique spaces. Another surprise was the combat system, which has an unexpected depth to it, adding new mechanics constantly throughout the 6 hour experience, while still remaining accessible and simple. This is an interesting counterpart to Before Your Eyes this year and I recommend checking this out just for the novelty of the interaction, it is definitely worth it.

Man, this game is so interesting and I am really glad I finally decided to play it on a whim without really knowing what it was about.
The narrative structure is fascinating and generally works incredibly well with the story it tells, stitching together roadtrips with vignettes featuring a distinct cast of characters. These vignettes offer great variety in settings and tones and the narrative puzzle revealed bit by bit through these character moments is genuinely interesting to follow because you never know for sure what you will get with each new vignette. I really can't say enough nice things about the narrative design, structure and gameplay loop of Road 96.

So... why this score?

Well, I didn't talk about the actual contents of the game yet. Road 96 is unabashedly political through every fiber of its narrative. And therein lies the problem. I adore games willing to take on politics and having the guts to stand for something.
The politics of Road 96 are messy and not supported or conveyed by the most amazing writing I have seen around, to be generous. The chosen characters and their roles in the world are certainly diverse and interesting, but it often dips into territories you wouldn't go with as the player, lacking the meaningful application of player agency and the hamfisted parallels to the real world are played for laughs and irony for the most part but can't help but reveal the superficial depth we can expect from its handling of politics. The performances are emotional for sure in key moments, but also really do not stand out as anything but servicable for the most part.

The main issue I had around the narrative problems was the lack of reactivity or guidance from characters and the game on what my decisions mean. Disappointing a staunch anarchist by choosing the moderate dialogue option got me a disappointed one-liner but...okay? There are generally three options you get, 1. everyone for themselves, 2. fuck the system 3. go vote pwease, which seem to accumulate in the background for something...maybe? I am not sure if there are even any consequences to these flavor choices you make, maybe it's so seamless that I didn't notice, but in any case there is just this total lack of bite and reaction to every choice because of this, leaving the player in this ambigous space where they just play along until credits roll.

Maybe, that's just me. It is still absolutely worth it to play this game, I can't emphasize this enough, Road 96 fascinates me to no end and it has a lot going for it, if you are at all on the fence about it, I will absolutely recommend it, at the very least you will find a lot to like, maybe even dismissing my criticisms, in which case this game could be loved by a lot of people, I believe.

Requiem plays it safe as far as sequels go and continues right where the first game left of. Even if it features more sprawling and detailed environments, it is the type of sequel where I won't remember in a years time what was part of the first game and what was the second game. This isn't a bad thing at all, ultimately I also enjoyed it about equally as Innocence, even if it has nice improvements in combat and character variety.

Where I would have wished for more refinement are the puzzles and some of the rat sections. It happened multiple times that a puzzle or general progression hinged on me noticing an interaction circle somewhere or not missing a crucial piece of dialog that is not repeated, leading to me banging my head against the wall in trial-and-error, not seeing the specific solution to a problem the game wants me to see to progress.
The rats are the bread and butter of A Plague Tale and offer a great twist on stealth mechanics. The tech is honestly impressive, but unfortunately not waterproof. The organic nature of the rat system often led to infuriating frustration where some rogue rats would still be on a cleared path, killing Amecia, you being centimeters away from a light source still dying trying to make one step forward or rats being on a path they are not supposed to be due to some mechanics I won't spoil, leading to the need for wasting a fire pot to clear a tiny patch of rats, alerting all the enemies. These were minor frustrations but were what ultimately held me back from enjoying it more than Innocence.

In the end though, A Plague Tale is incredibly easy to recommend, which hasn't changed with Requiem, offering a tight narrative with impressive set-pieces and digestable stealth gameplay, even I, a person with very very limited patience for any stealth in games, could arrange myself with. It's the little AA sibling of Uncharted and The Last of Us and is just as enjoyable, even if obviously not as refined.

A delightful bag full of imagination and creativity that ultimately falls a bit short of greatness for me due to floaty controls and a weird structure that starts as a classic 3D platformer with a hub world and distinct levels but ultimately abandons all that for a semi-linear chain of levels that totally fit the dream-within-dream narrative angle and stand as great levels on their own but ultimately fail to tie it back to an accessible pacing anchor and feeling of progression. I admire the unique approach, there really is nothing like this game, but can't say I fully appreciate the execution, which makes me all the more excited for the long awaited sequel.