This offers a lot of freedom for creating games in many genres but is still limited by available models, etc.
I think personally I prefer a more focused toolset like Mario Maker as that offers a ton of options catered specifically to 2D Mario while this offers a lot of variety but lacks the focus if say you wanted to make a bunch of F-Zero tracks or something.
The tutorials do a fine job of teaching you how everything works but again, I prefer the simplicity of something like Mario Maker over this.
It's a great set of tools but it requires you to be more invested in general game building to get the most out of it

So I beat the story mode and went looking for all the cool stuff in previous Mario Golf's, you know the minigolf, ring shot, birdie challenge or even single player tournaments on the available courses and....... it doesn't have any of that????

Mario Golf: Super Rush sums up what the recent Mario sports titles have been: games that play excellently but lack that spark or content that the previous games had.

The story mode is short but sweet, expertly designed to help newcomers get used to the mechanics, with even boss battles to help keep it fresh without dragging on too long. It just sucks that there isn't much to put those skills to the test though. Like you can play all the courses outside of the story mode but it feels kinda empty when you're not competing against any of the other characters.

The new modes, speed and battle gold are excellent additions, great for multiplayer but they don't quite make up for how shallow the rest of the game is. It's a shame because the actual core gameplay is fantastic (though I do miss being able to use L/R to adjust the distance on the bar before a shot like in Toadstool Tour) it just need something to keep pulling you back in for more (hopefully the updates can maybe add in some more modes)

This was my second Tales game (Tales of Berseria was my first) so it was kinda weird at first seeing how limited it was in terms of camera movement and the overworld but the charm of it eventually won me over. One of my biggest issues with ToB was how large a lot of it environments were which lead to the game feeling like it dragged on in areas, while with ToV the overworld in particular it was the perfect size to keep the pace going at a rate I enjoyed (though I did find myself getting lost more easily)

I've found with the Tales games that the gameplay isn't really that captivating, especially the real time battle system (it can be fun at first but for a JRPG the battles can start to drag after a while) but what really hooks you in with these games are the story and characters and my gosh did Vesperia hook me in

The story touched upon a lot of really interesting themes for me. Are the laws really punishing the worst people? Is it right to take the law into your hands? Are those at the top of class system only looking out for themselves? Could we give up a source of power that we've always relied on to save our world? So much of Vesperia's story was really interesting and I loved how they used the main party to explore some of the conflicts that can happen from these ideals. Yuri and Flynn, Judith and Rita in particular have really interesting clashes because of their ideals and it makes for a really good group dynamic.

Speaking of the characters my gosh they are so good. While I think Velvet from Berseria is the stronger protagonist, Yuri has a lot of really great moments that help his character shine. Judith came in and shook things up and I love the way she pushes Estelle to make up her mind on things. Rita was fantastic with her sarcastic attitude but also her dynamic with Estelle was so good. Ripede was a million times better than Bienfu. Karol was a really solid younger member of the group that really tied in the guilds well. Flynn was an excellent foil to Yuri. I can't really go into a lot of Raven's stuff without spoilers but I did enjoy the party calling him old man all the time and Patty.... well Patty had her moments but it was off putting having Yuri switch VA around her because Bandai Namco couldn't be bothered asking Troy Baker to come back to record new lines.
Finally there's Estelle who is easily my favourite character in the whole game. While she might be a princess, I found a lot her character to be really relatable. She has her wants and desires but tends to put herself behind others. The amount of times where it feels like she's just following the group decision because she feels like putting her opinion in can be a burden (I really love that Judith comes in and is immediately like "What do you want to do?" and Estelle is like.... i... i... dunno because she's so self conscious aaaaaaaaaaaaaa) I also love how when she's made her mind up on something it's near impossible to break her from it and her instinct to help others is so good. I love that the game tests her on that instinct with what I will call the "Estelle depression arc" that takes place in the game's second arc. Seriously, if you love Estelle as a character a lot of that second arc is gonna hit you hard, like I struggled through some of that my gosh.

I need to mention the ending. The majority of the game is so good and then the ending has to be one of the most anticlimactic and flat endings I've ever experienced. It doesn't ruin the game but it does leave with a big "is that it?" and that is the biggest mark against the game I have.

Overall, while I think Tales of Berseria has the higher highs with it's cast and story, I ended up enjoying Tales of Vesperia more due it's better pacing and that I ended up enjoying Estelle's character in particular a lot.
One last thing...... Ristelle is life

The Mii creator is chef kiss
The wigs and makeup completely blow the previous Mii creators on Wii/3DS/WiiU out of the water, allowing for some incredibly creative designs like Sonic and King Dedede that actually look like their characters.

Unfortunately the game itself lacks any real depth or hooks. Once you've seen your Mii characters have their fun little interactions, there's little else to keep you invested in the game. It's a very basic RPG, where you select a level and the Mii party will automatically walk until they find a battle/etc.
The battles are very simplistic too. You control your own character while the rest do their actions automatically. It's cute and simplistic and a great way to dip your toes into the genre but it starts to wear thin after around 15 hours which is a shame

A really nice, fun and charming adventure!
The group of kids that it follows are really wholesome and heartwarming, it is so cute.

The gameplay is a little undercooked. The platforming feels wonky and unresponsive at times which can lead to some frustrating moments though the checkpoints are very generous for putting you right back where you failed. It's also a little annoying how often the gameplay gets interrupted by characters telling you what to do but it is still enjoyable to play.

The story does have some familiar plot points if you've played any of the writers previous games before but they did an excellent job at throwing some really cool plot points during the last third of the game and it is a pretty gripping experience. There's some really strong heartfelt moments throughout (I love Vanilla and Pochi's arcs so much) and overall, it's just a really nice adventure across Japan with the cutest group of kids ever.

Go-go-go getters will never fall apart!

Replaying this in 2021 and aspects of it were much better than I remembered.
There are some very fair criticisms. The lack of map objective variety, the Valm arc of the story is slightly dull, and the pair up mechanic is very broken in favour of the player. But every FE has its own flaws and while Awakening has its fair share it also has a lot of excellent aspects.

While the maps lack objective variety, there are some pretty interesting areas used like the final map, the Mila tree and the volcano. A lot of the later maps use their layouts really well and overwhelm you with enemies which force you to adapt strategies (Awakening is one of the few games in the series where I find using less units in some maps to be a viable strategy)

Yes the second half the story is dull but the first half is pretty good. The moment with Emmeryn is one of the most powerful moments in the whole series. The characters are so good too. Chrom might get overshadowed a bit but he is a fine Lord who puts his trust in his friends and his bonds. The supports are all pretty good too offering a nice variety of silly fun ones and serious character growth ones helping flesh out the characters even more.

Awakening also deserves credit for broadening the appeal of the series. Including an optional Casual mode that turns off permadeath for the first time in the West (FE12 did do it first though in Japan) was a fantastic decision. And while I prefer the more closed and focused FEs, the openness of this one, allowing grinding and a ton of extra maps was ultimately a good decision for what was at the time, seemingly the last FE.

I think one thing people overlook with Awakening though is that is truly a celebration of the series up to that point. Having played all the titles now for this playthrough, there was even more I picked up on. This was the first time a lot of stuff got localised for the West from Gaiden, Genealogy, Thracia and more which help make it feel even more special. It was so cool though seeing the game take place in the continents from FE1 and FE2, "Marth" being a direct reference to the man himself, Cherche naming her wyvern after Minerva, the Mila tree after Mila from Gaiden. We had the child mechanics from FE4 return and even a reference to it's 12 deadlords with some using the Holy Weapons too! The world map structure borrowing from FE2 and FE8. One of the late game maps is inspired from a Radiant Dawn map. Let's not forget about all the Spotpass content too, offering characters from every game in the series to use.

Awakening is truly a celebration of the series and that is what makes it special for me. It stumbles in a few areas for sure but that doesn't stop it being an excellent FE experience and one high up in the series

As someone who had recently gotten into Atlus games with Tokyo Mirage Sessions and Persona, I had been wanting to try an SMT game for a while, so getting one of the most regarded titles ported onto modern consoles was a huge incentive to finally dive into the series.

The port itself..... well it has a few big issues. For an "HD Remaster" to have music sound like it's coming out of a GBA speaker is awful. The music was so good, I loved the battle themes but my gosh the quality was garbage. Then there's the FMV cutscenes playing in 4:3 and looking super pixelated and the slowdown when there's particle effects on screen (though I've learned that's due to the PS2 generation way of rendering these particles being difficult to emulate on newer hardware) The last awful thing with the port is it having DLC. This is a rerelease of a PS2 game, how is there DLC for it at launch? Surely you would want to combine everything into one package for people to experience without an extra cost?

Ok, gripes about the port out of the way, I will say I thoroughly enjoyed my first true mainline SMT experience. While I can see how the Persona series spun off from it, I really appreciated the tone, atmosphere and greater focus on the actual demons of this game. Seeing demons like Thor and Loki play roles in the story was a nice touch and allowed me to form a greater appreciation of these demons.

It was also cool exploring the world after it was essentially ended and in the middle of being reborn. With the focus of the story being on finding your own Reason to rebuild the world in, it is super interesting seeing the characters you met at the start of the game follow their own path and ideals and slowly lose their humanity as they adapt this demon world. There are six different possible endings and I ended up with the Freedom ending which was enjoyable. It offers some good replay value but with it being a JRPG, I'm in no rush to go back and earn all six endings anytime soon.

The battle system was excellent too, with you being able to earn extra turns with critical hits and weakness hits while also losing turns for missing hits or having attacks reflected back. Add in using half a turn for passing to another party member and it offers a good amount of risk/reward as well as strategy.
Your party members are all demons you've recruited and fused during your journey so that is also a nice way to help familiarise yourself with them.

The other focus in this game compared to other Atlus titles I've played are the dungeons. The layouts are really old school, like you can tell that they were bring the first person layouts of older titles into a 3D environment with how corridory they are but I definitely prefer being able to see them from a third person perspective. They're well designed, full of traps and puzzles to make your way through and I had a good time getting through them despite getting lost on numerous occasions!

So despite the port issues that really shouldn't have been there for the most part, I can really see why this is held up as cult classic by many people. The atmosphere of the game is unlike anything else I've played and I loved my time in the world of Nocturne

I think the best way to start this off is by saying the game should probably come with a content warning of some sorts. The main group of villains are a group of children calling themselves the "Warriors of Hope" that go around killing adults who they have labelled demons. You slowly find out that each of these children have been abused by adults in the past and that leads to some very uncomfortable subject matter and scenes involving these children, including a minigame that is extremely uncomfortable. These things at first will shock most people and even put some people off the game and I can understand that. I can also see what the developers were trying to do. By including something that is out of your control, you're left to feel disgusted and powerless, most likely how these children felt during their abuse. It also gives an insight in how much damage someone can do to a childs mind when they're still developing their world view. Kotoko in particular shows just how warped you can be after suffering that kind of abuse at a young age.

Moving onto the gameplay, it is an interesting change going from a visual novel based main series to a third person shooter/adventure spin-off. You can tell the development team didn't have much experience with a full 3D game with how close the camera was and how "loose" everything felt but once you get used to those things, it was honestly a nice change of pace from the main series. Using the gun to shoot down Monokuma's in one shot via their red eyes was incredibly satisfying. Their was also little puzzle rooms where you had to figure out how to use your various bullets in order to kill all the Monokumas at once which were really fun. And we've got Toko's get out of a pinch Genocide Jack mode that basically lets you go ham until she runs out of battery. The boss battles were pretty satisfying too, growing more complex with each one, though never getting too difficult.

Finally we have our protagonists; Komaru and Toko. They are easily the highlight of this game. Toko unfortunately still has her uncomfortable "master" obsession (including awkward fantasy scenes) but she undergoes an incredible amount of character growth as she learns how to open up to Komaru and truly make her first friend.
Komaru is the perfect protagonist for this, being a normal girl who finds herself dropped into a situation that she had no idea was happening. It was great watching her slowly grow and come to grips with things as the game threw everything it could at her to try and break her.
The dynamic between Komaru and Toko is easily the highlight of the game and honestly one of my favourites I've ever experienced. Seeing these two grow to trust and rely on each other, becoming an almost inseparable duo and have a super emotionally charged scene in Chapter 4, my gosh they are incredible. Literally they make this game worth playing alone!
We also get to see characters related to those who appeared in the first game which is also nice for the world building this game adds to the series.

Overall, despite some very uncomfortable moments, this is a great experience and a nice addition to the series which was worth it for Tokomaru alone

Gameplay wise, identical to the Missing Heir so all the issues I had with the first game are still here with this one too unfortunately

That said, this one had a story I preferred, characters I liked more and an excellent soundtrack that really sells the eerier vibe this one has. Again the story is pretty down to earth even with the supernatural element of the girl who stands behind with a lot of the twists being easy to spot. Once again though there was a few things towards the end that genuinely caught me off guard and even spooked me.

This gives much more of an insight into Ayumi as a character with her playing a more prominent role in the story and I've come to appreciate her as one of Nintendo's historic characters now.

I'm left craving more FDC now after two short but sweet games. There was a third one on the Satelliview service which starred Ayumi so I'm hoping these do well enough for Nintendo to look into remaking that one too

A very interesting piece of Nintendo's history available to the West for the first time

As a remake of a game originally released in 1988, it is so intriguing to see the glow up, especially in the character designs. Full Japanese voice acting, beautiful art, and soundtrack options, it ticks off most of the things you would expect in a remake.

The gameplay itself could've done with a bit of a glow up. It is almost entirely text/option based, which is fine for a visual novel but the game can be a little too obtuse with what it wants you to do. There are times where you need to select something multiple times to progress and the game gives you little in the way of hints to know that. I feel like greying out options after you've exhausted dialogue would have been extremely helpful in keeping the pace.

The story itself is a pretty standard murder mystery affair and very down to earth. There aren't any massive shocks or twists but it manages to be engaging and entertaining to poke the player's curiosity. The murder scenes in particular is the kind of stuff you don't really expect in a Nintendo game. The characters are fine, nothing too special though the protagonist does get some meaningful development. I was hoping to see a bit more of Ayumi here after hearing how she was considered for Melee at one point but I believe her role is bigger in the next game.

Overall, solid remake that could have done with a little more modernisation but I very much appreciate finally having the chance to check out this series

Improves upon the first game in nearly aspect with an absolutely incredible finale

The biggest negative I have with the game is the couple of objectification shots of Mikan for no real reason. After the first trial though, this is thankfully not done again

The trials here are lot more unpredictable compared to the first game with old minigames expanded upon and new ones added to the mix (logic dive is the best, I love it!!!!!)

I found the overall cast here to be more enjoyable than the first, with characters I wasn't too fond off at the beginning growing on me as I progressed. Definitely gonna miss Gundham and his FOUR DARK DEVAS OF DESTRUCTION now that I've beaten the game.

But yeah, this was an incredible experience and one I am really glad I took the opportunity to judge for myself

Well worth the wait for this sequel to the original N64 title!!!
It improves upon nearly every aspect of the original while keeping most of the charm intact.

I'll quickly get my two main disappointments out of the way:
1) The music is the most bland and forgettable stuff they could've picked. Maybe they did that not to distract from the Pokemon in their habitats but the original managed to have catchy tunes so..... yeah
2) A lack of the evolutions mechanic. The original had some nice puzzles with knocking a Charmeleon into lava for Charizard to pop out or Magikarp up a waterfall for Gyarados to pop out. It's a shame they didn't do that here but it's not a deal breaker.

In every other aspect though, this is a superior sequel. The courses offer multiple routes to show off Pokemon in different areas. They also have research levels to build from your scores unlocking more interactions and Pokemon as you replay levels keeping things from getting stale.
The Illumina Pokemon act like bosses in a similar way to Mew in the original where you have to figure how to get them to glow to take a photo of them. Speaking of the Pokemon, the roster choice is a fantastic show of Pokemon across all generations. No Gen 1 bias here as Pokemon like Milotic, Meganium, Vivillon, Joltik and many more are given the chance to shine while a lot of the more prominent Gen 1 Pokemon of recent games (cough Charizard cough) take a while to show up and aren't given any special focus. In fact the final Illumina Pokemon is an inspired choice and fits the theme of nature very well.

What this game does incredibly well (and something that has been missing from the series for a while now) is show off Pokemon in their natural habitat just being themselves. Whether it's Squirtle riding on a Lapras, Grookey and Pichu playing in fields, Wailord emerging from the ocean, Kecleon camouflaging itself, or Froslass creating blizzards, the Pokemon are given a chance to shine and make you smile as you see the many interactions they have. It gives them a way to imprint on people's minds that has been sorely missing since the earlier days of the franchise.

Finally, the game offers a ton more content than I expected. There's over 200 Pokemon to see, each with 4 different star levels of pic to snap, multiple varieties of courses, and even bonus objectives to complete if you so desire. It took me around 15-20 hours to get a picture of every Pokemon and I'll gladly revisit it someday to try and fill out more of the 3 and 4 star entries.

A brilliant sequel and well worth the wait! We can only hope there's more to come because there's so many Pokemon deserving of a chance to shine!

Aside from the way some of the characters get treated, this was a really fun experience.
It was a little slow to click with me at first, everything up to and including the first class trial is basically a tutorial so it's almost painfully obvious as to whodunnit (also didn't help that my favourite didn't last long) but once things got going and the trials became more difficult to solve from the start, it became a thoroughly engaging experience.

The twists that the game throughs at you, especially towards the end are incredible and I completely love how the whole mastermind thing turned out, really memorable moment.

The music is really good too, having played Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth it's easy to tell that they were done by the same composer, hell the title themes for both games are very similar lmao

Overall a really enjoyable experience with a few problematic issues and the dialogue verging on a little too juvenile at times with a memorable cast of characters and a story that is thoroughly engaging