A mark of success for games like this that are calling back to an older era of games are when they can take a person who has no nostalgia for that time and makes them a fan. The person in question being me. My first console was a PS1 and I have not subsequently played any of those SNES RPGs. Now I feel like I've been missing out because I really enjoyed this game. Without even having the necessary points of reference, I can tell how much of a love letter to Sea of Stars is to the SNES classics and can feel the developer passion in every pixel.

I think the combat is great. It's not overly complex since every character only has a handful of abilites to choose from but there are a number of mechanics that keep you engaged. There's this lock system where an enemy will prepare an attack and the game will give you a set of damage types you need to hit the enemy with in a number of turns to prevent the attack. It makes you very aware of the different attack types that each of the party members have and you have to figure if you can make it in the number of turns the game gives you. Each pair of party members have unique combos so it's a good way to get a bunch of damge types in one turn. You recharge your mana for magic attacks by using melee attacks. Melee attacks also release orbs that allow you to apply magic damage to your weapon damage so you can perform magic attacks without costing mana. Although it is turn based, there are active button presses while the characters perform moves. Pressing the action button at the right time can make your attacks stronger. This also works for defending against enemy attacks. It's very satisfying to perform although I wish there was some sort of training mode to test out the timing as some abilities didn't have obvious indicators. There's a number of systems that individually are not that complex but added together makes for a very fun experience.

I really love how the levels are designed. The traversal and puzzle solving, although not challenging, provide enough substance that makes working through dungeons satisfying with lots of secrets of the hidden path. Although the stats part of the game isn't that deep, it's always nice to find a better weapon or new combos. It's certainly not a Metroidvania but you do get new items and abilites that allow you to access new areas as well as a late game ability that changes how you move around the game world. There's quite a lot of dungeons in the game and they all have a decent visual variety. The game looks fantastic and before this, I had never been the biggest fan of pixel art. I should probably rethink that position. The game also sounds great with plenty of themes worming their way into my brain.

The main weak link is probably the writing. It's not awful but it's a little uninteresting. The two main characters are pretty dull whose personalities may as well be the exact same. Garl is great though. Don't say anything bad about Garl. I found most of the other characters pretty forgettable. The story does go a few places I wasn't expecting so it's not like I was completely bored with it the whole way though. The ending isn't particularly satisfying whether it's the normal or true ending. The appeal of Garl does go a long way though.

This game was a really nice surprise for me. I wasn't anticipating it at all and only played it because it was on PS+ Extra. I really have to go back and play its inspirations like Chrono Trigger or Super Mario RPG (which is getting a remake soon) or some of the older Final Fantasy games. It really opened my eyes to a type of game I had been ignoring up to this point.

Tchia wears its influence on its sleeve but unfortunately, it does not do anything interesting with it. The main mechanic of possessing animals or objects seems cool at first but there isn't much to it. Throwing possessed objects is pretty fun for a time. It builds its world to be explored based upon your curiosity of what you can see. Not marking your location on the map was an attempt to encourage this exploration which I appreciate but it didn't work well. I mostly just marked everything on the map and then just follow the compass. The activities you find aren't particularly fun and of all the games to have enemy camps to clear out, this shouldn't have been one. I don't want to to be too hard on the game since it was clearly made with passion and features a setting we rarely if ever see in video games. It just didn't work for me.

Moving Out 2 is a decently fun time. It would probably be more fun with other people but I played it all solo which there are some accessibility options to help with. The physics of dragging things around the house and breaking everything is pretty funny. It doesn't change up enough to keep it interesting the whole way through. They do provide visual variety with the the universe hopping but you'll mostly be doing the same thing in every level. It's not completely rote as there are a few wrinkles in certain levels such as one-way doors or having to throw stuff onto a moving train. I was still pretty tired of the loop quite a bit before the end of the reasonably short game. The last level was actually pretty unique where you have to drag one item through a whole level which I enjoyed. It's a bit of fun but it won't stick with me.

Far Cry, along with the rest of Ubisoft's franchises, is a pretty known quantity at this point. Far Cry 5 didn't do anything to change that notion so if you're into the series, you'll probably like this one. It has an interesting premise with the Montana setting which could have been used to make sort of statement on modern America but expecting anything like that out off Ubisoft was probably always a losing battle. Maybe you're someone who wants politics kept out of video games but they shouldn't have set the game up like that if they weren't willing to say anything about it. The story is dragged along by some fantastic performances by the villains but the dialogue is filled with a lot of cult cliches. You're not going to miss the villains because each of the three region leaders kidnap you a few times. It get very repetitive especially since two of the three involve mind control. They did something kind of clever with one of those but the regularity of it all gets annoying. The silent protagonist is a really weird choice here. There's some value in putting the player into a blank slate character in this setting to question our own susceptibility to cult thinking but it just comes off incredibly awkward and sometimes downright comical. I kept expecting some twist with the playable character with why everyone was obsessed with them but they're a nothing character. There is a twist ending however which I actually quite enjoyed. It's perhaps a bit silly but at least it's memorable.

The gameplay is what you expect out of the series although a bit more open ended in when you can tackle story missions. There's enemy camps to clear out, stuff to destroy and animals to hunt (although they got rid of the crafting incentive to hunting). Plenty of traversal options in terms of vehicles and you ahve a wingsuit which is a bit less useful in a flatter location. You get interrupted a lot on the road by cultists. This does keep you engaged and added difficulty with helicopters and planes being sent after you once you've caused enough destruction in a given region. It does lead to some interesting moments but I could have used a bit more downtime between missions. Their rendition of Montana is gorgeous and sometimes I just wanted to drive through it instead of being shot at every five seconds. The gunplay is solid and the stealth is fine. I think this series is mostly OK and Far Cry 5 fits into that. I probably will keep playing the series as they appear on subscription services I have because they are an alright time.

I've wanted these Yakuza Samurai games to get a western release since I've learned of their existence. Playing Ishin, I certainly enjoyed it but I think it's on the lower end of the series. I was surprised that I didn't like the combat as much because I do think style switching in great. I just don't like the focus on weapons. I like hand-to-hand fighting in Yakuza so the swords and guns interest me less. There is a brawler fighting style but it is incredibly useless in this game. I didn't hate the combat. I certainly had plenty of fun setting up heat moves but it's far from the heights of the combat seen in 0, 5 and Lost Judgment.

I love going through the completion list in these games and it is a bit of a drag. This is mainly because of the crafting. There's a lot of stuff to craft and it costs a lot of money so you need to grind out chicken race betting. The seals, which are buffs you can add to equipment, can be very annoying to acquire. There's also a lot of materials that you need to grind out the same battle dungeon for ages. I know I don't have to be a completionist but I really do enjoy playing these games this way. The rest of the content is still pretty good. A lot of the familiar minigames show up such as gambling games, singing, dancing which are still fun. They have a farming and cooking minigame with its own story involving Haruka which is great. There's a lot of friends to interact with and plenty of fun substories to find.

The story takes a while to get interesting. I wasn't that motivated to see it through in the early parts of the game but it starts to come together in the latter have. I did enjoy the who's who of Yakuza characters throughout. It was fun seeing what roles the familiar characters would play. It was nice that they added characters from 0, 6 and 7 into this remaster which wouldn't have existed when the original release came out even if it meant some other character had to be replaced. Looking at the list of replaced characters, it mostly seems like an upgrade but I haven't played the original release to be sure.

Despite sounding mostly negative, I do still think this is a pretty good game and I'm glad we finally got it. I'm still eager to play Kenzan so I hope it gets a western release at some point.

There are things to praise in The Medium. The art is good and the developers are skilled at creating a creepy atmosphere. The puzzles, while not anything amazing, are decent and serve their purpose in making your interaction with the world satisfying which can be a problem in narrative focused games with little to no combat. The split between two worlds with you controlling the two forms of the main character simultaneously is cool and works really well. They have enough technical expertise to make that work without performance issues. The load times after dying are surprisingly long on the PS5's SSD. The main department where this game falters is the writing which is a pretty big problem for such a story heavy game. There is a certain element that has some pretty awful implications. I would like to think that there was no maliciousness on the part of the writers and they just didn't think it through properly. Either way, they were not equipped to deal with a story with sensitive subject matter. It's worrying that Bloober are working on the Silent Hill 2 remake which deals with a lot of sensitive issues. If they focus on the strengths, i.e their art, and leave the story the way it is, it should be ok but we'll see.

I like schlocky horror movies and Supermassive Games are very good at capturing that invideo game form. I appreciate that The Quarry is full length game since we've been mostly getting shorter experiences since Until Dawn. This gives us a lot more characters to bounce around to with eight of them being playable who can all live or die by the end. Despite being annoying teenagers, the cast are all pretty likeable. The performances are all great especially from the adult characters who feature such horror icons like Ted Raimi, Grace Zabriskie and Lance Henriksen. I do often wish these games were more interactive. The gameplay is mostly just walking a short distance before the next dialogue choice (which is usually just two options) or quick time event. What it lacks in interactivity, it makes up for in consequence. You can get some pretty different routes based upon decisions you make. Some characters can die surprisingly early too. Very early decisions can come back to haunt you. I've always enjoyed breaking apart these games and seeing all the changes that can be made. I just wish Supermassive would add a dialogue skip or something to speed up cutscenes as you will have to replay a lot of the same stuff too. It's a good game and the developers have certainly carved a niche out for themselves.

Luigi's Mansion 3 has all of the Nintendo charm you've come to love despite Next Level Gmaes not becoming a Nintendo developer till after its release. On a technical level, they pulled off a lot with the weak Switch. The animations are quite stunning with lots of nice little details. The series has never been mechanically dense, Luigi has a few different moves to keep it interesting. The new Gooigi feature adds a bit to the puzzle solving. That said, often when I'm faced with a problem in the game, I just cycle through the toolset till one of them works. I still do find it fun though at least with the puzzles and exploration. Combat is a bit boring with flashing and slamming them with the vacuum cleaner; at least for the normal enemies. The game does show a lot of creativity with the different floors of the hotel feeling different from one another. It probably doesn't make sense that a hotel has an Ancient Egypt floor but who cares? The variety is also seen with the bosses which pretty much every floor has and it rarely feels like ideas are being repeated. The normal combat may be dull but they really did a good job with the boss fights. The flow of new ideas for each floor and boss rivals the inventiveness of the mainline Mario games. Although I don't think Luigi's Mansion 3 has as high a quality of some of the Nintendo greats, it still was a joy to play through.

There's been a lot of these survival horror games where a monster stalks you with little ability to fight back, especially since Amnesia: The Dark Descent. The original Alien film feels pretty formative for this type of video game so using the Alien license feels like a match made in heaven. As far as these types of games go, this is a pretty good one. The Xenomorph is terrifying and have a randomness to their route so you're are always on your toes even after dying and reloading. The sound design is really strong with the symphony of the alien crawling around in the vents and the beeping of your radar leaving you a nervous wreck. Sometimes you don't know whether to move or stay still when you know the alien is nearby. Outside of the alien, there's also human and android enemies which are less interesting to deal with. It's a serviceable stealth game when those segments come up. You do get a bit more means to fight back later on in the game with more aliens which feels like it was trying to reference the film sequel, Aliens. It takes place on a space station that you backtrack through and get upgrades to access new areas. Unfortunately, everything looked the exact same that I rarely knew when I was revisiting an area. The level design seemed decent but it was just very boring to traverse. I was also pretty uninterested in the story and characters. Nothing there held my attention. Alien: Isolation is a game that does one thing, i.e the stalking alien, really well while everything else is mediocre.

The Dark Pictures Anthology hasn't been stellar with its release up to this point. Not that it's terrible. Man of Medan and Little Hope were a fine way to kill a few hours. House of Ashes is definitely better than the previous two. There are still some of the weaknesses of the series. It still doesn't feel particularly interactive since sometimes you switch to a character to watch a cutscene with one QTE or dialogue choice in it. Ashes is a bit more action focused so you do feel a bit more active with a lot more of those segments where you have to aim at a target. The characters are still pretty underdeveloped but Ashes has the advantage of having one really likeable character in Salim. Seeing him forced to partner with these jingoisitic American soldiers to survive the horrifying depths they've fallen into is interesting. It's fun to see the distrust between them fall away as the game goes on. Of course, some of that was me directing the story that way. It has a solid setup with the Iraq War setting and the Akkadian history backdrop. The story takes some turns I really didn't see coming that were pretty cool. Perhaps they wouldn't be so surprising if you've seen some of the nonsense programming on the History Channel these days. Overall, I had a good time with this. I should probably stop wishing for these games to be more interactive at this point. They're a known quantity and Supermassive Games have been very successful with them.

This game was just a pure joy to play. I don't know how a series as old as Mario keeps finding fresh ways to surprise and delight you but Nintendo keep pulling it off. It had been quite a while since a new 2D Mario game (and even the last 3D game is over half a decade old at this point) and the New series wasn't particularly inventive but they came out swinging with Wonder.

The game is constantly throwing new ideas at you in every level. They'll introduce a mechanic or enemy at the start of a level that will will provide the platforming challenge and explore it well in a short amount of time. Then you're onto the next level which serves you up something new. This is eccentuated by the Wonder Effects. You trigger these by finding the Wonder Flower in a level and it changes the level in a weird and often surprising way. There's plenty of unique ideas with the effects and pretty much every level has one. I'm not going to say every level and wonder effect is completely different from every other one in the game but they really do keep you guessing each level and it never feels repetitive. There are also badges that you can unlock that will give you different movement options such as a spin jump or a glide. It's probably the one portion of the game that feels a bit underbaked because it's easy to just stick with the one option the entire game. There are a few levels that require certain badges which are pretty fun.

The game is a bit too easy. The lack of challenge didn't hinder my enjoyment as I could easily flow from level to level having a great time but a bit more resistance could have made some levels more memorable. There is a hard level right at the end but it isn't as good as the final levels in 3D World or Galaxy 2. The game is great to look at with lots of nice details especially with some of Mario's animations. The music is nice too although perhaps not as catchy as some of ther series' greats. The game does feel a bit short with me getting 100% in less than 20 hours. If the old adage keep them wanting more is to be followed, I certainly did want more because I enjoyed almost every single level. I don't feel like the game was lacking in value with the quality of everything being so high. This is a must play for anyone who likes 2D platformers.

Omno doesn't really stand out in the world of indie puzzle adventure games but I think it does everything it sets out to do pretty well. The puzzles are far from mind bending but they are satisfying to solve. You unlock new abilities as you go that give a decent escalation to navigation. That said, even with its short play time, I already felt that I was growing tired with it before finishing. It has a nice look and decent visual variety among the levels. I didn't find much to hang onto with the story but it had an effective melancholic atmosphere to it. I finished this game a couple of weeks ago and not much has really stuck with me but I do think it was worth the playthrough.

The Wonderful 101 is one of my favourite character action games and this After School Hero episode does give what it set out to do in its Kickstarter promise. That being make a side scrolling action game focused on Luka. It's nothing special but it's fine for what it is either as a free DLC or a cheap standalone game. Shooting lasers and dodging lasers is fun and the boss fights are enjoyable even if they are repeats from the base game. I probably should give it another playthrough at some point because like the main game, and every Platinum game, there's always more depth to find on subsequent playthrough as you go for better ratings.

I do feel insecure when I play an absolute classic and I'm not completely enamoured by it. A lot of my love for Mario comes from Galaxy onward. I do really like the original Super Mario Bros. and I love playing all the styles in Mario Maker but SMB3, Super Mario 64 and now Super Mario World don't fill me with the adoration they probably deserve. As dramatic as all that sounds, I still did enjoy the game. It is very fun. The level design is great and the influence it has had on gaming is undeniable. It is remarkable how many secrets there are in the level. There are so many secret exits to levels that in some ways, I found exhausting but it does add a lot of depth to it. I did find myself getting frustrated with the game which I can admit was a skill issue. I never fully grasped the movement options with the cape. It doesn't control like Mario Maker which was hard to get used to. I tried not to use save states but there definitely were some of the later levels that I gave into the temptation. The platforming is great though and having some challenge is nice after coming from Wonder. I wish I could appreciate it more but I can still see it is a fantastic game.

The Missing is a decent puzzle-platformer with a story that hit me way harder than I was expecting. The main mechanic for the puzzles and platforming is the self injury and dismemberment. It's fairly novel and is an interesting way to interact with the world on top of being thematically relevant. Seeing the same long animations for it over and over again can get pretty tedious. The tedium doesn't stop there unfortunately as going through the puzzles can be an exercise in repitition. You often know the solution but wrestling with the movement and slowly enacting that solution can be too laborious. The story is worth seeing through. Although the framing of the story is perhaps overdone, the actual journey of the main character is what hit me the most when I realised what they were going through. Due to my perspective, I realised fairly late in the game where I imagine people who are going through or have gone through what J.J. is going through probably realised pretty early if not straight away. It is a story I appreciated seeing being told in a video game. It is unfortunate that the tedium of the gameplay ultimately gets in the way for me. I still think it's worth playing though.