Minit is a short adventure akin to Legend of Zelda but you can only play in minute long windows before succumbing to death. As a premise, it's fairly unique and the game is built well around the mechanic. Figuring out what you need to do in the time you are given or finding a new spawn point is very gratifying. You will finish it pretty quickly but it's interesting that there's still some nice secrets and collectibles to find even with the minute timer. Playing the second run with makes the timer forty seconds long which really makes you think how to do everything on time. It's ultimately a very simple game but it doesn't really do anything wrong so I ighly recommend it.

My Friend Pedro takes all the scenes out your favourite dumb action movie and puts it into a video game. You're shooting endless amounts of dudes while jumping, flipping, swinging on ropes, diving through windows, dual weiled so hit multiple targets at once, riding on skateboards, richoceting bullets, kicking objects into faces, falling incredible distances, riding a motorcycle. They introduce all of these mechanics pretty slowly so you have time to learn them and it's all really fun. You're given a pretty generous slow motion meter which makes performing these feats very doable while also getting to see it in such detail. The normal level of aim assist also helps with this without beign too strong that it makes the game feel like it's playing itself. The levels are designed well enough that keeping your kill combo going to get S ranks is fun and satisfying. There are a few levels that try to change up the formula but most of these drag a bit. I couldn't tell you much about what was happening in the story but it's probably not important. Very fun game.

Closing out the Seaon of the Dragon, we have the Dragonhold DLC that brings us to Southern Elsweyr. It doesn't offer anything particularly different from the Northern Elsweyr chapter but it does everything pretty well. It offers another dragon fighting story with another great cast of characters (who couldn't love Caska?). Building up the Dragonguard Sanctum by doing daily quests is a satisfying thing to do. It was the same in Northern Elsweyr but the dragon world events have to be coolest world event they've done, at least up to this point. I love the dolmen sound from the base game but seeing a bunch of players sprinting to where the dragon lands and fighting this massive thing is just really fun. It closes out the year long story well and it was a nice reunion of a lot of the characters from the base game's main quest. I do like the year long story concept and it worked well here but I have heard they're not great after this point.

The Elder Scrolls Online is still bring us to place in Tamriel we'll probably never see in the main series. Is it a very condensed version of the maps? Yes, absolutely. Will it explore the lore and give a sense of place as much as the main series, if we can even hold the main series to that standard these days? Probably not. Is it still fun to run around and talk to characters in this version of Tamriel? I certainly think it is. This one is about the Khajiit and we all love those folks. It's cool to see the different kinds of Khajiit, or furstocks as they decided to call them here, as opposed to only the one type we've seen in pretty much every other Elder Scrolls game. You can see little kitty cats and giant lions just chatting away.

I usually enjoy the main story of these DLCs but after playing a lot of them the last few months, there is a pretty apparent formula to them. World ending threat starts and we need to find a MacGuffin to power you up to beat it. This is a wider problem in fantasy but as someone who still finds comfort in these fantasy stories, I do enjoy them. I do usually like the characters they build up around you, whether they be new or returning characters. It makes it feel like it's more than just the playable character doing literally everything. I will say this chapter did work through villains quicker than I was expecting. I kept thinking one character was going to the final big bad till you kill them and move onto the next. The actual big bad had a ton of health that the fight, although still not challenging, could have some mechanics rather than the usual beat everyone before they even finish their dialogue because the overland difficulty is so easy. The dragons, while clearly pandering to Skyrim fans, lead to some decent set pieces throughout the story. This Season of the Dragon storyline was the first year long story where the four DLC releases all told a continuous story. I haven't played the final part but I enjoyed the first dungeon DLC that builds up to the release of the dragons and the the second one that shows you some wider consequences of dragons being present. The year long stories don't seem to have been that popular among the playerbase but I want to call this one a successful endeavour from what I've played so far.

A new chapter usually introduces a new gameplay feature. Elsweyr came with a new class, Necromancer. I do not begrudge them adding new classes because people are always asking for them so it's clearly a worthwhile addition. For me though, I've always only played one character who uses the base game class, Nightblade and even if there was a way of switching classes, I still probably wouldn't. As far as new gameplay features go, it may as well not exist for me outside of seeing other players using the unique skills for the class. Overall, I did enjoy Elsweyr and am eager to move onto the smaller Dragonhold DLC to finish the Season of the Dragon.

I've been meaning to play this for a while after being very pleasantly surprised by my love for Sea of Stars. I'm glad I've played The Messenger now because it is fantastic. As a platformer, it has a really good pace and the level design has a really great flow to it. Getting a mid-air jump whenever you hit something feels really great. The soundtrack is downright mystifying and it has a great look with good level variety. Eventually, you get a time travel ability that allows you to switch between 8-bit and 16-bit graphics. This is an idea so good, I don't know how it hasn't been used before.

That's not the only twist that this game has to offer though. When you get to what feels like the end of the game, it turns into a Metroidvania. Of course, platformers and Metroidvanias can often go hand in hand but it is impressive that these levels that had a fast pace to them initially suddenly invite you to slow down and be mindful of navigation and how the levels connect. The level design works really well for both types of gameplay. The new items and abilities aren't the most exciting but they do offer a satisfying progression of movement. The bosses are all great and don't really repeat mechanics much. The writing in the game can get a bit tiring with the overly self aware humour but the story can be fun as it coincides with the gameplay twists. I guess I need to pay attention to Sabotage Studio now because both of their games have been winners now.

It's nice that Elder Scrolls Online will bring up to regions in Tamriel that I question will ever be seen in the main games. Although we see some of Black Marsh in the base game, Murkmire brings us to the land of the Argonians and I feel it explores their culture a lot better here. I said something similar when I played the Wrothgar DLC but Argonians were never an Elder Scrolls race I cared much about but now I have a new found appreciation for them. Seeing the visual variety of the Argonians was cool and I was intrigued by the different tribes that make up Murkmire. There's plenty of beauty to be found in the seemingly dank swamps of the region. The most interesting thing about the Argonians was always their connection to the Hist; a possibly sentient race of trees that guides the lizard folks' actions. I don't think we necessarily learn anything new about their relationship but I enjoyed seeing it on display throughout the DLC. The main villain being an Argonian desperate to make a connection to the Hist that they never had is a pretty good motivation for the course of the story. It's a pretty self contained episode with no grander arc and they make good use of the shorter story. There's a decent attempt to make the main quests feel different from one another even if ultimately, you're mostly just killing hordes with the same combat system as always. I did quite enjoy my time with it.

As the final chapter of the Daedric War storyline, Summerset takes us to the land of the Altmer. The chapter doesn't make the High Elves particularly likeable since they are hard to like with their stuck up attitude but we do get some insight into their culture which is usually the goal of these expansions. The region has a high fantasy looks to its bright colours and white brick towers. It is very gorgeous to look at but I could probably see people saying it looks generic. The main story is decent and it was nice to see some Daedric Princes duking it out. I did really enjoy the characters in this one. Although this was always the case in this game, it became more obvious with this chapter how much dialogue there is and how characters change and have things to say even after their part in a quest is done. There was a number of returning characters and it was interesting to see how they developed since you saw them last and this goes for even small side characters. A character you have the option of saving in a side quest the Morrowind chapter showing up here. She isn't part of a quest in Summerset; she's just working a job and will thank you for helping her and tell you what she's been up to since that quest. I find stuff like that quite rewarding. The side quests in Summerset aren't as good as they are in the Morrowind expansion but they're still pretty solid. A new chapter usually brings a new feature. The one here was jewelery crafting which is pretty light as new features go and it probably should have been there at launch. Getting materials for jewelery crafting was also way more grindy than all the other crafting and was only fixed in a patch in 2023 so it was never that great. Overall, it's a pretty good expansion and provides a decent end for the Daedric Wars storyline.

As more Elder Scrolls Online DLC and the middle chapter of the Daedric War storyline, Clockwork City is pretty good. The mechanical look of the area isn't really to my liking but building a whole zone and city with the Dwemer tileset is something new for ESO. Unfortunately, it isn't as complex of a structure as you think it should be in the lore even they did try to add some intricacies to the layout of the underground areas. I quite enjoyed the main storyline and really liked the ending and the writing of Sotha Sil. The final conversation with him might be some of the best writing in the game.

An inventive puzzle game is always something to celebrate and Chants of Sennaar is definitely one of them. It's a game all about languages and learning to communicate. It's not just one language; there's quite a few and they have different grammar rules. At the beginning, I found myself thinking how I was going to start putting words and their meaning together but it ramps it up gradually and has some clever ways of teaching you without just giving you the answer. I really liked how the final language in the game is learned by connecting meanings with all the previous languages making the final segment feel like a very satisfying victory lap building on everything you've done so far. Communication and connecting people are, of course, not original themes in fiction but when you're the one learning the languages and bridging the gap between the different peoples in the game, you do feel them a lot stronger. It's an excellent puzzle game and absolutely worth playing through.

"It's another one of those" is a phrase that comes up a lot when discussing open world checklist games with skill trees and Ghostwire: Tokyo sure is another one of those. It being a very urban environment with some amount of interiors is cool but the heavy focus on map markers makes it difficult to feel like you are exploring an area. The combat looks cool and it can occasionally feel great but it's not interesting enough to sustain the amount of time you will spend on it. The three different elemental powers do feel different from one another and show their individual strengths once you've gone down the skill tree. I did quite enjoy the side quests because they do usually lead to a unique interior. There writing isn't bad but it does not do much to make you care about the story or characters. I feel I just don't have much to say about this game. It's OK.

I enjoy Elder Scrolls Online and Morrowind is one of my favourite games ever. Can ESO's rendition of Vvardenfell live up to such a height? No, of course not but I didn't expect it to. ESO feels more like a theme park version of Tamriel which is certainly true with this Morrowind expansion but I still have a good time in it. I do enjoy seeing the region again in prettier graphics and seeing it in older state. I don't think they did a great job with presenting Vvardenfell 700 years before the event of The Elder Scrolls 3 such as with Seyda Neen looking the exact same when it really shouldn't exist at all at this point but it is nice to see Vivec City under construction or Ald'Ruhn being an Ashlander camp. As an ESO expansion, it offers a lot of the same stuff as the rest. Wolrd bosses to kill, delves to explore, collectibles to gather. The side quests are pretty strong and do a good job of giving the major settlements some character. The series of quests in Sadrith Mora do drag a bit but for the most part, they are all pretty good. The quests for Balmora are a stand out. The main quest is decent and guides you around the whole map quite well. Seeing Baar Dau drop in the sky was cool even if I can also admit it was pretty cheesy. I had a good time with this expansion and I'm looking forward to seeing more of the Daedric War stroyline.

Outer Wilds showed me the folly of forcing my way through a game I'm not enjoying just because it's so acclaimed. What would have been a game that bored me that I just would have moved on quickly from led to me just straight up hating it. This game does not deserve that because regardless of my feelings for it, it does a lot of things right. It's a puzzle game that genuinely makes you think to figure out how it works and it doesn't force in some bad combat. Even if it isn't a setting I care about, I can see how this exploration of a solar system with diverse planets is a dream game for people. I just found the game so completely tedious. Every time I die or do something that resets the loop, having to go through launching the ship and flying back to the planet I was on is so annoying to me. It's not like it takes that long and there's auto pilot but I just hated every second I had to do that. It led to me not willing to experiment with the puzzle solving or rushing exploration because I don't know how long I have left in the loop. I'm usually pretty strict with not looking up answers for puzzles in games but the thought of another loop reset broke me down when I was already forcing my way through it. There has been a lot of time loop games the last few years and this is the only one that had me dreading it every time. I'm being overly harsh on a game that has some brilliant ingenuity to it but I really just did not enjoy it.

Like a Dragon Gaiden is a bite-sized Yakuza adventure if a game that still has a ton of content when going for 100% can be considered bite-sized. The main campaign is shorter than the other games which I appreciated for the story they were telling. I wasn't really happy with Yakuza 6 as Kiryu's last game so it is good that RGG have more story to tell with this guy which will continue into Infinite Wealth. It is also nice to have Kiryu in a brawler game now that the Dragon Engine combat has worked it's kinks out which certainly was not the case back with Yakuza 6 or Kiwami 2. The combat is very fun especially with the wire or rocket shoes. Working through the side content and completion list is as entertaining as it always is for me although I wish the main big side content wasn't related to the coliseum. I like when the focus of the side content is related to something other than combat since there's enough combat in the rest of the game. It was nice to see some minigames making a return after a long absence such as pool. When it comes to a story that is set between two points we have already seen, it can be difficult to fill it with something interesting but I think they do a good job here. And if you have any history with the series, that ending is going to hit you hard. I really enjoyed Gaiden and would not mind these shorter experiences in between their big games.