Oh, wow. The draw is in the aesthetics, naturally (Peppino is a wonderfully expressive character, there's precisely the right amount of farcical energy in the MS Paint-esque art style, and "It's Pizza Time" is never not hype), but the real strength is in game feel. Easy enough to clear casually, challenging to master, with lots of steps of incremental growth throughout (there's a great skill pipeline from A- to S- to P-ranking a level). The game is constantly experimenting and reinventing itself, and just when you think you have a feel on what the game is going to be, it introduces something brand new. But its myriad systems never feel at odds with one another, just like a natural expression of the core gameplay loop through different modes.

One of those games where there's so much more untapped potential to it, but I almost don't want to see a mod scene develop because it would make every individual level in the core game a little less special.

I think I hate Baba is You. Or, I love Baba is You but I hate what it asks of me. Or maybe I adore Baba is You but with the major asterisk that I used Baba is Hint from time to time because some times the things Baba is You asks you to come up with on the spot are fucking asinine, and require such liberal guesstimate reads of the fundamental mechanics that extend well beyond the rules presented that you genuinely will sometimes just accidentally guess the right answer after three straight hours on the same puzzle then have to reverse engineer how the solution you got even makes sense.

Baba is You is a game about love, I think. You move around in this four by four grid with this cute little critter named Baba, and you push around blocks that manipulate the rules Baba works by. You are a kid playing with metaconceptual Legos, and as you play you discover, and as you discover you learn, and as you learn you explore, and as you explore you find new ways to play. There's a zen here, I think, don't quote me on this I don't know zen philosophy at all, in the quiet meditative peace of just seeing what the game will allow you to do, trying different solutions.

If there's an "optimal" way to play Baba is You, which i think there isn't as a facet of its nature, it's in finding new and better ways to fail faster and harder. How can you try different ideas without restarting a level, how many different ideas can you throw at a solution, how do you act when nothing you're trying is working. Maybe the most frustrating part of baba is you is how little it judges. You won't get feedback on whether your idea is right or asinine, whether your play is open or restrictive, whether you've even beaten the game or not. But I think there's something beautiful in that too- I finished Baba is You but it's more accurate to say I walked away from Baba is You, put it down like the bell rang for recess and it's time to go back to class and tomorrow I will pick up my toys and play with them again

everything about this game has so much personality and charm, it improves on basically everything from the original game. theres only like 1 bad level in this entire game, the rest of it is a blast.

even the missions with goals that arent just making something as big as possible within a time limit, which i actively disliked in the original, are super fun in this game.

the king has extra personality in this game, basically every scene involving him was super funny even if it was the same joke literally every time someone asks for help.

the game is also set at the perfect length, being almost twice as long as damacy, which was my biggest issue with damacy, it felt like it ended just as i was beginning to get really into it.

namco pls reroll this game thank you very much

edit: thank you very much namco

I haven't played this game but Tracer is a b-e-a-uty 😉
whistles 😙🎵🎶

Rule 34 😉 mmm mmm 😘

Dunno if I'll play it some day 🤷 Not into shooter games meself 🔫🔫 But I LOOOOOOVE 💖💖💖 TRACER!!!

mmmm... me luv tomboys... 😋 Yummy yum yum!!