I finally played Undertale in 2019 on Switch after hearing about it constantly for years. I didn't expect to like it, but i certainly didn't have a bad time.

THE MILDEST OF META-SPOILERS AHEAD.

I completed three playthroughs, Neutral then Pacifist then Genocide. I found Neutral to be a solid game, but not quite the life-changing experience I'd heard about. What most shocked me was how differently the game felt in dedicated Pacifist and Genocide runs. Playing Undertale as a pacifist is one of the most heartwarming, beautiful gaming experiences I've ever had, but I really wouldn't have appreciated it unless I had that Neutral, unguided playthrough first. I was constantly engaged by how the characters changed as you befriended them, and it legitimately made me want to be a kinder person IRL.

Then I played Genocide.

I wasn't prepared for how much shorter the game is. I was also unprepared for how much harder the battles got. I felt like the game was actually angry at me, punishing me for my cruelty. I can't say I enjoyed the Genocide run, but it was an incredible coda to a great game.

If you haven't played yet, make sure that you play this game three times. Play the first time without any outside influence, then look up how to do Pacifist and Genocide runs. Each time you beat the game will be completely different, and each is worth your time.

Oddly enough for an NES game, I was able to discover it in 2019 and actually enjoy the unique mechanics.

But NOT odd for an NES game is its ABSURD DIFFICULTY. Would have been a whole lot better if the jump had variable height depending on how long you held the button, but nope! Every jump is as high as possible!

Cool to play around with for a bit, but not enough to commit to the whole game.

Funny! Charming! Decent puzzles! Subpar movement and combat!

Was near the end and my Xbox decided to sync save data from the cloud, overwriting my progress with an older save file. Booooooo.

The game is good enough that I was going to finish it, but it's not good enough to replay an hour to catch up to where I was.

Bugsnax was my GOTY for 2020. I firmly believe that it presented some of the best music, dialogue, characters, and overall vibe of any game I've played in the past few years. It's the gaming equivalent of a warm blanket, which arrived at the perfect time in Winter 2020. So when I saw the Isle of BIGsnax DLC announced during October's State of Play, I was HYPED.

And I couldn't be happier to say that it's everything I wanted!

You technically don't need to beat the base game to access this free expansion, but you have to come pretty close. Once you've unlocked and completed all of Snorpy's side quests, he and Chandlo take you out to the beach to investigate the source of the recent tremors which have shaken Snaktooth Island. While looking out to the sea, a smaller landmass rises out of the depths, prompting Chandlo to shout, "Broooo… it's a NEW ISLAND, DAWG! We GOTTA go over there!!"

The expansion's story builds on the core theme of the base game. As an outsider to Snaxburg, you are tasked with helping the Grumpuses overcome their grudges and differences, to come back to the village and be a community again. In the DLC, you accompany four of them to investigate Broken Tooth Island, and while you're there, these four strong personalities will want your help to investigate, each in their own way. However, you won't get to the bottom of things until you help them hash things out and work together.

From a gameplay standpoint, think of Isle of BIGsnax like you would the Pokémon Sword & Shield expansions. It adds one big new area with new monsters to catch. A new mechanic is unlocked with a resource you discover on the island, allowing you to shrink the massive Bugsnax down to catchable size, which adds a wrinkle to the catching techniques you've learned previously. Some of these massive critters are legitimately hard to catch, with the Spaghider quite possibly being the most challenging in the entire game. (Edit: My kids found a much easier way than what I was doing and I was simultaneously proud of them and ashamed of myself) With trampolines, new Buggy Ball puzzles, and flaming Bugsnax that you have to bait into lighting torches, plenty of new ideas are introduced here, so nothing feels stale.

The DLC also includes a handful of updates on the main island, such as fast travel, new challenge requests from villagers, and cute little hats for Gramble's pets. The neatest feature is that rewards given to you after fulfilling these villager requests can be used to decorate a new house of your own in Snaxburg. It's not Animal Crossing, but there are enough items that you can give your house a unique identity. But above all, the main draw of this DLC is simply getting more time with these characters and seeing them interact in new ways. I love these doofuses so much! There's also a really cool optional area purely introduced for lore reasons, so leave no corner of Broken Tooth unexplored. If you're invested in this world like I am, you won't want to miss it.

I had beaten the game on PS5 initially, so I played through it again on the Switch for this review to see how the game would run. Achievements/Trophies from other platforms are included in-game in the Nintendo port, which is a nice touch. Understandably, the incredible haptics and sounds from the Dualsense controller won't be present on other platforms, but I was still a little disappointed that there wasn't any meaningful use of HD rumble. The visuals are weaker, but I stopped noticing quickly, and a patch was released that dramatically improved the framerate. If Switch is the first platform you play Bugsnax on, I think you'll have a great time. But the Dualsense is absolutely the best controller for this game, as it makes excellent use of rumble, trigger haptics, and the controller's speaker. If you've been fortunate enough to get your hands on a PS5, that's where you should be playing this. After finishing the DLC content on Switch, I did it all again on PS5, and the difference made by the Dualsense and short load times cannot be overstated.

After nearly a year and a half, Bugsnax still rips. I absolutely love spending time with these characters, and Isle of BIGsnax is a worthy expansion to this gem of a game.

I REFUSE to believe anyone ever saw all 72 levels of Dig Dug II without save states or emulation

This is the kind of sequel games used to get. Like Zelda II or Super Mario Bros. 2, it keeps some of the same basic concepts but ends up feeling like a totally different game. We're not digging down anymore, were slicing chunks off of islands and micro-continents, baby!

It's kind of cool as a novelty for fans of the first game, but the only time it feels better than the original Dig Dug is when you manage to lop off 40% of a landmass, sending a baker's dozen or so demons down with it to establish New Atlantis. It feels far more unfair than its predecessor, with inescapable ambushes aplenty. I never could have finished this without retrying levels over and over again on NSO. Pretty sure I beat it out of pure spite. Three stars!!

Not only was this the first Kirby game to ever keep my interest for more than an hour, it was so good that I 100%ed it!

Kirby and the Forgotten Land is a delight. As someone who had spent very little time with Kirby in the past, it felt like someone added the Cappy mechanic (called Mouthful Mode here) from Super Mario Odyssey to levels from Super Mario 3D World. It's not open 3D levels like many of us thought when the game was first revealed, but these are some of the most enjoyable little linear levels I've played in ages. The world itself is such a lovely place to be, and the characters are obscenely adorable. The Spring Breeze difficulty is perfect for kids, and Wild Mode keeps things interesting enough for experienced players.

There's a surprising amount of challenge here! Rare Stones and Waddle Dees are hidden in each level, with some being quite tricky to find. Colosseum boss rush events can be legitimately hard, I actually had to drop my difficulty level down to Spring Breeze to beat the final one. The hardest difficulty of the Kirby Tilt 'n' Roll puzzles took me over an hour to complete. If you just want to roll credits, very few collectables or challenges are required, but I was able to 100% the game in just over 25 hours.

This is bizarre to me, but for the first time in my life I actually want to go back and try other Kirby games. They really got me this time!

When my wife realized what was going on in the Lone Wolf mission, she paused the game and started playing "Never Forget" by Take That on her phone. At first I thought she was just trying to undercut the moment, but then I heard:

"With danger on my mind I would stand on the line of hope, and I knew I could make it."

"Someday soon this will all be someone else's dream. This will be someone else's dream."

"We're not invincible."

And THAT is how I ended up teary-eyed during a cheesy Take That song.

A nice little Game Pass title. Nothing is done exceptionally well here, but it's worth 5 hours if you really enjoyed the sand-vacuuming bits in Skyward Sword. The puzzles are just challenging enough that you actually have to think about a few of them, but you're not going to get stuck at any point in the game. Wish it had a map though, I could have sworn I'd scoured every inch of each area, but I apparently still missed some items to scan.

Maybe this will lead Thunderful Malmö (RIP Image & Form) to bigger and better 3D projects, but I can't help wishing this effort had gone into another SteamWorld game. Dig 3 / Heist 2 when???

27 hours and 49 minutes of the most underwhelming Pokémon adventure I've ever had.

Early reactions to these Sinnoh remakes were mixed, so I thought I'd make my playthrough more interesting for myself by FINALLY committing to a Nuzlocke. I had never completed one, so I figured this was the perfect opportunity!

With minimal effort and no grinding, I had absolutely zero casualties until Cynthia, and I only lost two Pokémon in that championship battle. It wasn't just the easiest Pokémon game I've played, it also was the most boring.

If I were a big Gen IV fan, this would have been a huge disappointment. Instead, it was merely forgettable. I had completely forgotten that I hadn't actually finished it until after I 100%ed Legends Arceus. Coming back to complete the final hour or two of Shining Pearl after the surprisingly fresh experience of Arceus emphasized how dated and uninspired this release was. A real shame, as the previous Pokémon remakes (FRLG, HGSS, ORAS) were all vast improvements on their originals. This felt like it only exists due to an obligation to keep doing a remake every few years.

Here's hoping the positive response to Arceus means we never get a weak entry like this again.

The magic of being 8 years old in the 90s and not having any consoles or money is that you could fall in love with some extremely simple PC game that came included with Windows 95.

I played dozens (if not hundreds) of hours of Hover from 1998-2000. For whatever reason, I normally did so with Winamp running in the background, as my dad had recently found out about the .mp3 file format. This means that when I think about Hover, I hear the spring item sound effect layered over "Straight Up" by Paula Abdul and "Things Can Only Get Better" by Howard Jones.

Anyway. The game is cool! It's sort of a tech demo for Windows 95, and worth your time as a curious little relic of PC history.