55. Pokémon Legends: Z-A - Mega Dimension
fuck my stupid base 175 special attack consumer life
idk idk!! With a month or so's retrospect, my biggest issue with Z-A mechanically is that slow deterioration towards its last third or so of run-time. Its catching and battle systems are good and fun to me, so when the catching begins to take a backseat, and the battles devolve into doing the persona 5 ambushes to one-shot your opponent's first Pokemon, and you're so rich you can buy a million full restores and revives - the gameplay loop falls apart. it begins to feel less about the things the game should be about, and more like those less nuanced mechanics like dodgeroll parkour become the whole game's economy. So my hope for the DLC was that being given a new loop, it'd breathe some life into the good core mechanics of the game.
Instead what I got was the opposite...probably the gameplay loop in the series that is the most. gameplay loop-y?
The "complete a bunch of tasks" loop is charming when you have three minutes to catch and battle, while also having to do some other chores at the same time. But very quickly does it balloon to giving you a lot of loose time to spend on dodgerolling on ceilings to pick up floating pokeball items to score Objective Points. It's just kind of...not fun for more than 20 minutes. I don't want to phrase the other bad new Pokemon games like they were "pure" in comparison to this, because that's sanding it down. But I do think that this is the mainline Pokemon experience that is the least about "catching them all" or becoming a "pokemon master", and the most about performing grindy, genshin impact daily style tasks of picking up 17 items to progress. I think this DLC in specific is the least fun I've ever had playing a mainline Pokemon game. And that's probably because it's the mainline Pokemon game in which you spend the least time playing Pokemon. The 100 over so new Pokemon they added to the dex don't feel like a meaningful inclusion, when you don't spend that much time engaging with Pokemon as a Pokemon game, and therefore your use of them is sanded down.
Obviously the appeal here is that every hour or few you get to stare down a new Mega design, and like yeah. I popped off rly hard in my seat for mega t(redacted), so that part does work on me. But I also think the world is beginning to feel sincerely charmless in this to the point in which it is devaluing Megas. And I think this is a larger issue I have with the frequent Nintendo "gameplay first, narrative second" philosophy applied to a gameplay loop like this, because the plot is always as generic as the gameplay. You cannot write hundreds of lines of dialogue that feel humanistic or real, when they have to keep speaking within terms of a "Collect Items To Open Portals To The Gameplay Loop Asset Flip Alternate Dimension, So We Can Stop The Pokemon We Made Up Who Has The Mysterious Power To Create Gamepllay Loops...From Creating More Gameplay Loops." And in general, this writing just feels fake and artificial... The way it is constantly reusing the basegame characters would be nice, I would like to spend more time with them, but they also seem unaware of how to expand these characters beyond their initial writing, so they all redo all the bits already established like an anime OVA trying to be faithful to the original writing.
Eh I dunno. sorry for being negative! I am usually unusually uncynical about Pokemon in particular, so I find it a bit sad I landed on this take. But yeah, I feel a little scammed by this.
+ points for the scene where lebanne hides behind a wall looking super scared cuz jacinthe is talking to another woman
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54. Monster Hunter Wilds
This game has presented me a unique and excruciating experience of watching another series I'm not invested in get Guilty Gear Strive'd in real time. Just a complete work in unconfidence and self-hate. I also sensed some "a bad monster hunter is still better than most games" energy within myself as the campaign played out, to be completely fair. There are some setpieces in this that totally rule, and I can't say they managed to wipe out the 20 years of good iteration that makes monster hunter singular and unique. Sometimes swinging around a fuck ass great sword at a lizard with its unique brand of spacing and pacing is good enough.
I guess what it left me really thinking is that the things that are bad about it feel like they are going to plague us forever. I remember when I wasn't able to get into Monster Hunter, and it was because it was dense and it explains nothing. Monster Hunter Wilds doesn't feel like it teaches you how to navigate or understand MH's mechanics, it instead rollercoaster paces you through an overwhelming game, making sure you're not getting pushed back, but instead forced through a crowded street of systems without being bored. But it doesn't necessarily tell you how to do anything on your own. I want video games to be about learning and understanding and growth, and it feels like the voice of a generation that instead we just sort of need to addict people into loops they are not required to understand. To make you play Monster Hunter not by ever sitting you down with one mechanic, teaching you its purpose, but instead by sorta rushing you through it so fast you don't have to think about it. Monster Hunter sells 10 million+ copies on the regular, and Capcom still feels the need to put out a "mom holds your hand through the supermarket" for adults game every once and a while. If they still have to, who won't?
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53. Pac-Man Arrangement
thinking of getting into pac-man. stares vacantly as if there's something behind you
uhhh yeah this one's a lil basic. good gimmicks but bad enforcing of actually making u engage with 'em due to the lack of aggressive ghosts or anything. it's also the only one with an ending and credits so it's here first.
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52. Unfair Flips
Played this cuz I wanted to roleplay as Northernlion as I streamed it to my friends. Unfortunately, I learned that I'm not actually good at finding banter in mundanity; I could not fake the pop-off at getting three heads in a row if I tried.
Think there is plenty to this that is a genuinely neat experiment. It makes you think in probability within games with honest numbers exposed to an extent I am simply not used to, and getting 10 raw tails in a row at a 55% heads advantage is kind of mind breaking. I also think the choice for this to be a literal clicker - no automatic upgrade bullshit, YOU are the one flipping that coin, is important for making it a thought experiment that is directly engaging you. There is nothing interesting about passively watching numbers go up, so what it is asking you by being a "non-auto clicker" is to look pay attention, and feel the direct weight of your flips turn to nothing. God, isn't it weird that a satire game invented a genre, and that genre has slowly engulfed game design so that genuine video games have the exact same upgrade tree as Cookie Clicker?? Scary.
Let's not talk about how this game has a "PICK ONE OF FOUR UPGRADES" roguelite shop. it will make me so mad
I do think there is some underlying cynicism that was playing with my mind through the time that put me off it, though. Don't like the inclusion of steam achievements - I think this sort of emotional experiment in watching metaphorical paint dry should be a sort of opt-in, entirely intrinsically motivational thing anyone feels comfortable stepping out of. The moment I realized that my brain was ever-so subtly being driven to want to hear this game out beyond my personal intrigue due to the fact there is a statistic tied to my account showing I didn't finish this, I realized....fuck. jangling keys got me again.
Also, I think I got unlucky cuz this game was not meant to last an hour. sorry!
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51. Stimulation Clicker
logging this on this site feels dirty and deeply hypocritical. sorry game i'm engaging in serotonin gain behavior still
[real thoughts actually] this one's weird. very anachronistic in a way that feels like it's doing 10 year-out of fashion parody at the same time as some relatively recent stuff (nothing cutting edge tho). this doesn't feel like parody of the 2020s, this is a fucking cookie clicker (2013) thing. this probably hits more like 200 years in the future when it can be seen as a whole time capsule of the 21st century or whatever. i was gonna point out a specific joke i thought was funny in this, but i was so overwhelmed i completely forgot anything in specific (which i think means it did its job)
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50. Balatro
Sorry guys!! I played the gambling sim. my bad
Did a complete run in just under 5 hours of playtime. This final run was comprised of hard committing to an all hearts deck for flush runs in combination with some very well played Jokers. I had a "all cards count as face cards" and "all face cards become gold cards combo", synergized with a multiplier for every uncommon joker in my deck, and lost when I got to the 9th Ante boss, which initially was just a "all face cards are drawn face up", and straight up became "all face cards are debuffed" on a greedy reroll. I was forced to sell the card, which dismantled all of my joker's synergizing at once.
Criticizing the loops of roguelites is no unique take on this site, but I think what always comes off as just straight up uninspired in this genre are these card game synergy systems slapped onto everything. I had tried Nubby's Number Factory for a bit, and immediately uninstalled it after it was throwing shop UI at me every five seconds. I would say that by tuning every single element of the game to being synergistic with itself, Balatro has achieved the modest goal of being 1/4th as tunable as a Shiren the Wanderer run. This means I think I should respect it and see it as having a healthier relationship with luck than most roguelites, honestly.
But uhhhhh, yeah...I'm p much on the same page as everyone else about how addictiveness should not be a compliment. It is at best a neutral ass trait - I don't earnestly believe this game's description as addiction shows that it's cutting to the raw fun in a way other games don't. It's just a card game with a lot of 'run it back' factor.
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49. Bloodborne: The Old Hunters
I think the core appeal of From's style present on Bloodborne is their level design, the intertwining of level design into emotional and aesthetic crescendo at the climax - often being in the form of a boss fight. I like runbacks in this game, I like becoming familiar with a piece of land as much as I am familiarizing myself with a boss, because I think their land is arguably stronger and more unique than their bosses. The Old Hunters takes the scale to another level, with 1000% of the energy of the basegame, but arguably offsets the balance for me in a way that makes it my least fav portion of the game? In order to scale the boss fights even higher in difficulty, they were nice enough to put checkpoints before two major fights in a row, but suddenly I am much less forced to engage with the level design that precedes them - I sorta just ran through all the enemies to the next checkpoint. For what is in a sense, some of the strongest, most claustrophobically complex spaces, it struggles to force me to learn or engage with said spaces. This brings down the bosses as well - now I have to nonlinearly backtrack and find boring optimal grindspots, instead of carefully picking up blood vials on my way to the next fight.
I'd be a lot harsher on this if the final boss didn't rule
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48. Golden Axe
ahhhhh i'm going "golden axe" mode ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh
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47. Pokémon Sword
Every time I've played this, I've either thought it was slightly lame, or slightly cute, so I wanted to refresh my feelings and see where I'd land this time. Unfortunately I am square in the fuckin middle - its exact vibe works for me exactly as much as it doesn't. It's condensed freezer-dry mcdonalds beef patty ready-in-five-minutes Pokemon, speedrunning through average but-not-unoriginal Pokemon beats. There is no exploration in this one - you grab your Pokemon from a surface level scan of the route and go. The Wild Area - with so little secrets, and everything it offers actively on display to the player - may be eligible to be called a Department Store. Clear the gyms, beat up the bad guy, win a prize.
...Is this the worst structure for Pokemon? Eh. I think i'm the type of fan who likes the stuff this game leaves you the most, in fact. I kiiiinda like the AA 3DS RPG vibes, and I know how to have fun with these games. There just isn't that much to latch onto...except for my beautiful team of creatures. dam Pokemon hooked me again
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46. Super Mario Land
Another evening, another platformer.
This game ummmm kinda straightforwardly feels a lil bad to play. I will admit it. Most of its limitations in movement and gamefeel forced confident jumps out of me, which is fun in its own way mind you, but it defo doesn't feel like an intentional friction.
And for what it's doing, the level design is chill! I think I lean towards liking Mario at its more compact and raw movement/reactive moving to the right, so there are aspects of this I prefer to Land 2. Limitation also leads to focus, which I can always appreciate
Also Nintendo does an orientalism in this one :p
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45. Ena: Dream BBQ
What you're going to see surrounding Ena is the gap between two generations of people. Those who are being exposed to experimental art for the first time and having their brain exploded, and the old guard who is a bit more cynical, recognizing all the influences surrounding this. I am that old guard, and I'll be honest: I've seen a lot of this before. But I do have to say that it's neat, that it has tricks that wowed me and gags that made me giggle, and the music is very delicious. I think the kids are eating good with this ena stuff. Not gonna discard this as "style over substance" yet - the ending sequence I thought was actually quite evocative. Excited to see where it goes !
I wish I was Toby Fox so I could playtest stuff this cool
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44. Dino Sort
My friends like making fun of how I've been open that I had a dinosaur hyperfixation as a kid. It's sorta made it get reborn since I started playing into it, so here I am - playing a random browser game I saw on bluesky cuz it has dinosaurs in it.
Preeeetty solid sokoban puzzle block type thing. All the instructions on how to assemble its relatively simple rules are told through animal behavioral analogies, which makes it intuitive to my lizard brain. The puzzles themselves can sometimes be a lot of shuffling in circles in that sliding-puzzle toyish sort of way, but that's still a good amount of Decent Fun to me. It never gets too difficult, but I think it having a new spin on things almost each new level gives it some perfect run-time. This is more my type of small game than Toree, I think.
Biggest disappointment is in the long-term elements being very weak. There's an infinite randomly generated level mode, as well as a dailies mode where everyone plays the same RNG seed. This should give it some longevity, buuuut...the generation is limited to 4x4 rooms, and it made me realize the game's mechanics aren't very memorable without the human touch of personality. Whoops!
Apparently the person who made this has been making a free browser game at about a rate of once a month this year. It would be wrong to criticize the game with a "one mode is good but the other mode is bad" equalizer - in the timeframe this was made, having 1 good mode is a feat of itself. Very cool stuff, will have to get to more of these and eventually group them together. What a feat !
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43. Desert Demolition Starring Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote
my oomf told me to play this. thank u vee. fucked up in the crib playing Desert Demolition Starring Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote
there were some genuinely neat lil ideas in this. they were very confident in their dual protagonists with very different controls and level pacing, although the game doesn't end up deciding if it's doing a "two different characters interface with with the same level design", or a "two completely different campaigns" thing - it is unsatisfyingly doing a bit of both. the road runner half is also kiiiind of a mediocre sonic game, sorry. thought the coyote half was pretty charming though, with a slow protagonist relying on a lot of weird power-ups to keep up with the level design made for a sonic-like character. also, always a fan of the aesthetic of a platformer about chasing or being chased in a way that's much like a Race, and this game's got both.
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42. Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line
[NES Version]
Took me like 7 months to get through this. I think that's only half the game's fault; my stamina went down drastically from the sheer length of this huge thing. I bet if this was the only game I had, and I was a little kid in the 1980s, this would've floored me. Its scale is kinda mindblowing? It is also a bit of a dinky in a lot of ways the first DQ wasn't, abandoning more of the MP management run emphasis in favour of larger splits in friction between safe overworlds and unsafe dungeons. It's got a bit too much dead air for me to get away with playing this without fast forward, but, I do kinda love its world still. dragon quest ^_^
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41. 31st March, Midnight.
It's been a hot topic among Visual Novel circles that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the genre in pop culture. A lot of people would rightfully decry its treatment as rooted in racism - like the whole "quirky japan" shtick becomes belittling as soon as their games aren't normal enough. A genre with dozens of meaningfully artistic games gets simplified down to just being fetishistic dating sims. 31st March is as much a touching mixed-fiction autobiography as it is a fictionalized plea to stop being fucking weird about VNs. It portrays how people who carry seriously tangible real world ignorance - i.e. casual racism and transphobia - would also carry that ignorance to their approach of foreign art. The appropriation of Hatoful Boyfriend really fucked everyone up, dude! it is now my life mission to kill every parody dating sim🫡
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40. Balloon Fight GB
fucked up in the crib playing Balloon Kid
this game feels fake. i think i found out about it because a friend was like "did you know there's a balloon girl". it feels like a twitter fanart oc thing. once you boot into the actual game and it's the most ceremonious "holy fuck we made a balloon fight sequel" game ever; the entire soundtrack is remixes of the one song ppl remember from balloon fight, there are balloons with the word "FIGHT" in the background art. nintendos sonic mania (1990) for a game ppl dont give a fuck about (evidently they didn't either cuz it didn't release in its home country until a literal decade after)
Game is kinda like Mario Land 1 - a meaningful attempt to compartmentalize an existing game onto the Gameboy, that just sorta...feels worse to play? Except in this game's case, the physics are actually well-preserved, it's more that the game runs at a generous estimate of ten FPS. The level design itself is solid and sometimes even quite elegant - I realized that a few of the gimmicks from 2024's GOTY are stolen from this game.
I tried both versions of this game, and this is the DX-style GBC re-release, and a bad GBC re-release at that. Lazy developers 😠😠😠didn't even shade in the intentional use of negative space on the balloon sprites - you can see through your sprite every time you pass by a different colour from yourself. The colour choices are consistently more garish and windows 95 pc game-ass than what my GBC applied by default to Balloon Kid...
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39. Yoshi's Story
fucked up in the crib playing yoshi's story at 3am
Think this game's structure is very amusing but also historically interesting. You sorta see the prototype modern Nintendo game structure here; they want you to sift through a bunch of content, and find what you feel most comfortable with, regardless of if you can beat everything. So on the macro you get this "beat 1 level per world to go to the next, if you lose you can try a different level in the world" thing which is fine. Gives the game a bit of variety if you're dying a lot...though, I wonder if it's good to never force children to conquer a problem they're struggling with? I find myself wondering that when I look at new nintendo games these days.
But then on the micro, you get this super neat fruit system in which the levels aren't linear, and you beat the level by getting a certain amount of collectibles, meaning you don't have to interact with everything to succeed. At low level this enforces the previous idea, but higher level you get a lot of speedrun routing or scoring with only picking up the better fruits. I played this because I've been lowkey eyeing stealing this exact structure for a small game, I think it's high potential and very neat and intuitive
gorgeous n64 backgrounds :ok_hand:
60fps dips in a 1998 video game :ok_hand:
the soundtrack of all time :ok_hand:
You gotta really love the experimentation and the energy to appreciate this. It is slippery as shit. it will fuck your life up
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38. Dear me, I was…
utterly gorgeous, layered with dense piano pieces carrying a heavy yet never too overdramatic tone. quite a sweet story too! i thought the story had reached its logical conclusion, and then another chapter began; i was like "huh?" and then it spent it showed me pictures of cats for like 5 minutes. and then there were like 3 more chapters after that. it's a little bit all over the place for such a short work, but in a way that didn't bother me either. i kinda just like stories about seeing people grow old. a weird and sad and random depiction of someones Whole Life just carrying them around to some places.
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37. Pokémon Legends: Z-A
oh god where do i start
Okay, so, I'm very emotionally invested in Pokemon. I have talked about this and everything I'm about to say at length; It is a series I'm simultaneously attached to, but I'm also fatigued of being 'attached' to series. I think I could stop playing these right about now and feel fulfilled with the first nine gens I was there for. And the world is ending, games cost 10 more dollars now etc, so maybe I will be signing off with my time with it soon. This game had some urgency to it - change, no, the future is here - the identity of Pokemon I've known and loved is actually moving on, and I have to find out if I'm going to like the future.
I think it's cool!
It's Pokemon, but an ARPG, but a really snappy one? I think I'll have to write a full review tearing the guts out of the combat system, cuz it just has sooo many neat conversions. Think it's quaint how much texture and immediate satisfaction they managed to put into making a move like Ice Beam as luxurious as my childhood self would've imagined it. System changes are nice, but I was pleasantly surprised by the surrounding gameplay structure being solid: Battle Zones facilitate skill ceilings through rewarding maximal play, Wild Zones are these boxed-in chaos fights, and the weird PS2-y platforming makes everything feel vast and out of reach.
Of course, it's rough around the edges as usual, the most polished modern Pokemon has felt in places, also the most desolate elsewhere. Lumiose really is a small, but not quite human little town. Legends Z-A, much like the game it is remaking, has a personality problem. They wrote a whole arc about how Loan Sharks are really cool in this one.
this is the second best game my beloved supersweep did the soundtrack for in 2025 behind nen x impact
Anyways uhhhh...do I have strong feelings about the future of Pokemon after this? I dunno. My fav part of this one was all the well hand-crafted level design, and apparently Gen 10's using procedural generated worlds as a major gimmick. Just as soon as I find a new hook, it seems like I might lose sight of mine. The future is still uncertain I suppose .. Following franchises is noisy. But I think the thing in front of me was quite nice
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36. Mario Kart World
Been going back and forth in my mind about this and have to say it is (overall) a good sign out of my generally inconsistent feelings for modern Nintendo.
The first 9th generation game that doesn't look like sand! Grateful for Nintendo to putting out such a well-coloured, poppy and pop-culturally enriched little thing. The constant 70s j-jazz homaging sounds great too, it really feels like they Took The Mission Serious in a way that other Nintendo games don't.
It's hard to describe just how subtly the balancing always feels off on this launch though, like it's about to tear in half at all times. We have all these new tricks to do, but they are weighed with as much value as driving straight. Maybe that's just intentional - Mario Kart has always been a game about high and low skill players competing equally, but it feels unintuitive because it's expectant the player will have to dedicate themselves to exploit the tricks in order to make them useful.
Luckily Free Roam is basically just a Tony Hawk practice mode, and the Missions teach through forcing hard decisions out of you, so you can learn to use your tools creatively. It's been the most I've felt a Nintendo game had silently asked me to think outside of the box and break the game since Breath of the Wild, which is a remarkable design philosophy to translate to multiplayer. I don't think I have played enough of it to love it, but it's doing what it wants for those who will engage it seems
Full Review
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35. Donkey Kong Bananza
>mixed feelings on this as usual from nintendo, but overall happy that this is like, a new thing. they made a new nintendo game. they got some genuinely good and interesting ideas in here.
don't know how to feel about how much this represents nintendo fully embracing a "if you don't feel like doing something, just cheat!" mindset. i like doing things, so this doesn't appeal to me much. in botw, it usually feels like you're outsmarting the developers (even if they totally considered it all), but here it's more like any skips i'm doing are the result of the game's movement options being too strong for the level design to handle it. it takes until the last few worlds for it to find a good balance, and even then spends a bit too much time whipping up strange gimmicks to ever fully embrace what i personally felt was a happy medium.
but yeah, it's a toybox game, a fun and rigorously tested one to be the most overly stimulating thing on earth. it's still able to maintain a good sense of discovery and scale that captures me. it has "hype moments and aura" as they say. if you actively enjoy that process more than me, enjoy the highest budget gi joe action figures smashing together on earth.
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34. Marvel Cosmic Invasion
It was well-timed that I had revisited Shredders Revenge so shortly before its first true follow-up arrived - at this point, I've had copious time and experience to grapple with how I feel about how Tribute Games does their stuff
I don't think these games feel particularly compromised the way something like Absolum does, as much as they feel like they're not taking the objective too seriously. This in of itself has pros and cons; I found my time with these games underpinned by being genuinely great stim toys to play amongst friends. Genuine good conversation starters and hangout spots. But I think they lack certain traits that the greater entries of the genre leave me with my own passion, a feeling of intimidation and awe at the potential within the mechanics.
Cosmic Invasion feels solid but limited. Believe me when I say I know this genre is capable of having quite deep tunnels - when I say I don't think these games would naturally inspire me to think that. That is prob their biggest weakpoint; the vagueness and uncertainty in true curated difficulty. But maaan...are they refreshing in the right context
Full Review
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33. Bloodborne
This was my first Soulsborne oeuvre, and a bit of a strange place to start. You can feel the baggage of immediate history preceding this, influencing its every move - Bloodboorne is at its core obviously a reaction to the high level play of From's previous games. I feel almost as if it is impossible for me to speak on a story that I don't really understand the true nuances of, but I am going to try: I think Bloodborne is an interesting game. A good one, even! Grizzled with screaming guts splattered on the floor with a matte sheen, it's all beautiful and hyper-dramatic and gorgeous to look at in ways that even make me, a lovecraft hater, chill out. It has a level of focus to it that is genuinely uncommon on the modern games sphere, but because of how interconnected every mechanic is, it sticks out like a sore thumb when something is under-considered. I was whining, complaining, and nagging out of my mind on a million micro-details through my time with it - which is a sign it had fully engaged me. Difficulty in games forces you to fully engage with every mechanic in order to keep surviving, which is why we love the games we make it through and hate the ones that confuse us. Bloodborne is a game of many moments of both for me, i guess
Full Review
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32. Guardians: Denjin Makai II
Another beat-em-up I credit fed with faea at the end of the year... there are so many of these and they're starting to eat my whole llist heeeeelp.
I played through it three times witout seeing nearly all it has to offer and I think it's like .... soliiiid? but in a way that surprised me i guess. On the surface, this is "final fight with some tricks" like all the others in this unoriginal dumb genre, but I think it's more of an inverse of balancing than usual; your crowd control tools are easy, so is your knockdowns and your jabs, but the meter is so free that a lot of what you're doing reroutes to just doing Wacky Moves with strong coverage around yourself. I think it's one of the first I've played where the Weird Other Options have overtaken and become more important than the central tools ie jab jump throw. Which makes it hooooonestly very hard to quantify the balancing of from a glance without further inspection! But I think it's neat and fun and nice and has "Zeldia" who is the prettiest girl ever and also "triceratops mech warrior" which is one of the only things in the world as good as a girl. i dunno i just have fun with this genre even when i don't know what to make of its depth
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31. Hebereke
Personality in game design is quite important. If you want to relay a strong, simple idea - visually illustrating it often hits best. This is a game where you play as a penguin and a cat, and it's also a metroidvania that needs a character who can't do something, and those who can do something. So you get to the ice part of the map and... your little protagonist penguin slips onto the floor. That's how they illustrates you are missing a movement option; you are just a very, very clumsy little penguin who isn't even as good at wallking on ice as the local housepet. I understood it and easily took note of it cuz it was sillly and funny. Hebereke is a game that is silly and funny where it counts
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30. Sonic Mania
Impulsively replayed this in two evenings, in two hours, as a character I hadn't done a playthrough with before (Ray).
Have to admit to myself that I just won't ever love this game as much as I did when it came out - I am older and ironically have more bitterness towards nostalgia, the endless recapturing of ideas, etc. Think the presentation and narrative of Good Sonic Is Back doesn't charm me at all, even if the passion is clearly unsuperficial and well-guided. Never let Tee Lopes compose these bass-less ass tunes again (ok if u held me at gunpoint to explain myself his music is good i just wish he stopped supplementing basslines with orchestra hits)
Despite that, I think I was still a lil too harsh on it last time I went through it. Level design is cracked! There's no denying the team had a mature perspective on what makes Sonic 3 tick, and the quality here has been irreplicable by any other fan projects I've witnessed. I love bouncing around in 500 of the worlds greatest pinball machines
It's good. Don't make it again
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29. Silent Hill f
[hi. i finished 1 ending and not any of the other ones.]
Yeah, pretty happy with this whole thing! Been having a lot of feelings of total no-compromise disillusionment with the games industry at the moment, so I went into this with mixed expectations, worried they would strangle the point of Silent Hill out of it. It's just a bit overdesigned in my eyes. because this is actually quite a well balanced survival horror - I kept swinging wildly between having too much stuff to pick anything up, and having nothing of value in my inventory - which at first actually feels like a stronger push and pull than Silent Hill 1 or 2. Which is why it all unfortunately stops mattering if you're good enough at the sekiro parrying rhythm game elements. There are also some frankly ridiculous examples of a story beat directly being followed up by a tutorial explaining how Hinako's misogyny victim superpowers let you see through walls like that one video. Not all AAA games but always an AAA game. Some people on staff defo still gave a fuck; I went in knowing all this stuff would be true, and still ended up pleasantly surprised by the gameplay overall. Level geometry is claustrophobic, always giving enemies more breathing room than the player. Reading a flowery Ryukishi poem to figure out which order I put resident evil keys into the wall is the most incredible gameplay they've put into a $70 anything. Looking into NeoBards, they seem to be an 8-year old team that started independent - no clue how they pulled this off! It's the most graphically realistic game I've played in my life, and they spent most of it on rooms with rly wild colour contrast.
And yeah, I'm a big fan of what's going on in the narrative here. Lots of gender conformity angst, Misogyny angst, victim in-fighting angst, marriage angst, marriage angst, pregnancy angst marriage angst pregnancy angst pregnancy pregnancy angst marriage angst. Cool!
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28. Ristar
took me a while, but thoroughly fucked w/ it by the end. it is a bit of a strange, unfocused mess in the loveable sega sort of way. clearly contending with the iconography of sonic, kinda feels almost like a contrarian impulse to make a go back to rip away the speed of sonic. tying speed less to your movement but reactive feels like an attempt to call back to the early concepts of sonic 1 - speed being something mostly rewarded by tricky level gimmicks like ramps; here, it's your branches, vines, and magic spinny thingies. it's definitely kind of baby nights into dreams, huh?
was not surprised when it hit me with 3 level designers at the end despite being so short. game just has completely diff strengths and goals every world. water world has some bursts of speed, and world 5 has momentum (but in a player restrictive sense. evil sonic). world 3 and 4 are almost puzzle game-y - though the latter felt like the secret inspiration origin of the temple level from celeste. as a result it rarely builds on itself, but the concepts themselves are quite inspiring and "they could make a whole indie game out of this"
also defo inspired by the eccentricity of treasure to an extent, a lot of their signature flourishes feel sonic-ified here (maybe that's just the genesis, tho)
got jumpscared when tomoko sasaki of serani poji's name rolled onto my screen as sole composer. when sega had genuine pop stars sitting in their office chairs, it's hard to deny they had a legitimate catalog of capital a Artistes backing their products in a way it's hard to imagine we'll see again for a long time. even my most Decently Liked sega platformer has the type of juice that could kill a mario world fan
i beat the final boss with save states, sorry! the rest of the game i almost did with no continues, so i think i could do it now... but i didn't. eto bweh etc. i'll do it some other day cuz i liked it <3
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27. To a T
review
metamorphosis for little baby children (i liked it)
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26. Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil
A lot less focused than the first Klonoa, I think. Where that game had a strong vision for simple puzzles with executional challenge, this one lulls between lower execution and harder-but-still-not-hard puzzles in a way I don't really like. Equally, I had felt that Klonoa, with its first story being about the grief of a temporary visit that must end, has to earn a justification for a sequel to even exist. And Klonoa here is just a bit weaker, a bit more detached in a way I don't know if earns that rite.
On the bright side, it still has enough juice for it to kiiiiind of be one of the best games ever made. If there's any platformer series that earns its right to aesthetic spectacle, it's this one. The soundtrack gets my heart hurting. The new characters, and how they interact with the core narrative, are excellent. Don't forget what hurt you. Leorina is gender
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25. Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo
the plot premise to this is that you're playing as a nepo baby asked to save your family's energy company that is visibly draining the life out of your city. It's the first time you or your rich aunt have had to work in your life, and damn does the tough and abrasive difficulty sell that!!
There's a line, a single sentence, at the end of the game that really completes this scenario. I think you'll know which one I'm talking about.
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24. Christmas Nights into Dreams
They made a "demo" of one of the greatest games of all time featuring only one level, and with little presents to open after each attempt. However, most video games would yearn for a sole level as endlessly replayable and incremental as Nights stage 1. It's a perfect package with a sweet packaging. And could I ask for any more excuses to revisit such a sweet game?
godddd sega were so truly sick with the compositions in the 90s. unluckylucky said "they love america so fucking much' and i agree. i entertained the karaoke mode and sang through the nights vocal theme with a friend as its gorgeous little rnb tune played. and then i listened to the soul-gospel acapella remix of they made for this for some reason. i had to stop playing afterwards cuz it did something weird to my eyes. ow. maybe the corniest song i've heard in my life that made me that emotional. tomoko sasaki i owe you my entire life. i love sega. i love video games
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23. Pokémon Moon
As someone with an attachment to Pokemon that has outlasted most things in my life, one with a devotion to a series in that sort of way develops an idea of what makes a series tick. Sun & Moon, like most modern entries in the series, are a bit of a far cry from what I think is the 'ideal Pokemon game' in my head - but also may be the closest to capturing something new and special. It is, above all things, a very cute game. I spent a lot of time petting my lizards and playing dress-up in it. The routes and game progression have become so much drier, but they've done the most set-dressing to give a make-believe sense of genuine adventure. It is the best Pokemon has ever been at creating a believable fictional ecosystem, with all the cute little anime-isms on display in its world itself. It's nice!
Full Review
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22. Formless Star
A lot with a little. Franken re-aligned towards overt whimsy. Descriptions range from emotionally gorgeous, to funny, to funny-gorgeous. Genuinely kind. I like it
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21. Raindrop Sprinters
DON'T FUCK WITH RAINDROP SPRINTERS. TAKE YOUR SENSITIVE ASS BACK TO THE NINTENDO ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM IF YOU CAN'T LAST TWENTY SECONDS IN THE ARCADE JUNGLE
(Okay, but seriously, though. I really liked it. Full Review)
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20. Pikmin
Kind of an idyllic Nintendo game to me. A snappy and on-time response to increasing trends in PC game spaces, carefully thought out as simplified but with key systems highlighted. Sometimes feels a little slapdash, but closes before it can run out of its gradual increase of ideas. I had a lot of fun just resetting to get a good score this time around. I like when Olimar talks about his family, it's very cute and maintains the first two entries in the series almost feeling like a diary for the average desk job worker programming this game.
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19. We Love Katamari
Hard to deny that this is one of the best video games ever made with an opening like this one. Hard to deny it when the flourishes, from particle effects to shockingly subtle but beautiful colour choices on every map, the multimedia cutscenes and all that make this one of the most beautiful things I've ever looked at. Hard to deny it when the soundtrack actually makes me tear up while I play it. I think I personally prefer the gorgeous simplicity of Katamari 1's stage progression, but rankings don't have their place always.
Went into this fully aware of it as a metanarrative about Keita Takahashi's disinterest in making a sequel, was sidelined by the game's B-plot essentially weaving that into a story about generational trauma, and not being validated until adulthood due to distant parental figures. Hell, it's relatable - if I had made something as validated as Katamari Damacy, I'd struggle to hold reservations about getting more love either. Think the late-game felt a bit strange to me narratively - it only gets more cynical regarding the product-ness of itself, while also getting cheesily joyous about the King's family life. But I guess that's the point; if Katamari Damacy is your only baby, you'd end up a little protective....
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18. Silent Hill 2
My gut instinct is that I like this quite a bit less as a video game than the first Silent Hill. The first game leads you into combat with nothing but a shitty little pistol, putting you in the horror of watching the number of bullets in your pocket slowly draining as statistical trade-off encounters rob you of everything. 2 starts you off with a big fuckass wood brick that you slam into every enemy, thoroughly disarming pretty much everything at the mid-range. I think that "not scary" is sometimes a bit of a shallow, subjective, or overly simplifying gripe to have with a horror piece, but maaaan is 2 simply Less Scary than 1.
On the bright side, oh my god is this a beautiful aesthetic keystone, filled with droning noise set to grainy hallways with the shakiest camera as I walk through claustrophobic hallways. Akira Yamaoka fucks so much, he really does, it's all fantastic work.
Kinda thought the plot was too simple until it rly comes together in the finale. Hard to deny the exact line it is drawing about how much James deserves the horror he is putting through being so nuanced and interpretable is undeniably cool. It is the horror of a Complex Situation that won't ever leave your mind. I do think Silent Hill 1's story left me with more to chew on, but 2 is both well-expressed aesthetically and narratively, and also juuust relatable enough I imagine it comes through for a lot of people. We all got our own little pyramid head from dead by daylights to us. It's what binds us together as hurt people.
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17. Ninja Baseball Bat Man
This is relatively tentative, because I kinda just coin spammed through it, buuuuut... okay I dunno, compared to something like metal slug that is a bit too methodical yet "gamefeel" lacking to really leave an impact if you don't go on that 1cc grind. This game's really cute and adorable and wild!! It was very easy to get an optimistic first impression on something this charming on a shallow runthrough. But it also clearly packs some mechanical bite that'll defo last me at least a biiiit more, so I'll be relatiively optimistic about the placement too.
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16. Kirby's Dream Land
(playing hard mode). ... ahhhhhh i take 3 damage from the gordos? this is just like silksong act 2 O_O
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15. Streets of Rage 3
(played the japanese version)
Ahhhh this one is great actually!! Sort of had a rough start with it, feeling a bit disappointed it is looser in places where SOR2 was blisteringly tight. It is in constant contest and comparison with that game's fundamentals, which I usually find myself wanting to describe as "perfect", although there has to be room for imperfect sequels. This is one of those, and the more I played it, the more I valued its place as such. It is a weird fuckin gimmick fest that lets you free a kangaroo, has an entire stage dedicated to dodging incoming trains, and makes you play a "puzzle" that isn't actually a puzzle unless you have auDHD processing dysfunction but we still lost to it fuuuuck
But these all come together quite smoothly in the longterm. There's some really inventive stuff here, like the exact way you dodge those trains is actually quite multifaceted (jumping over, using your multiple invincible moves and animations to power thru it, hiding) as well as multiple ways to bait enemies into it (shoutouts to the ninjas that hide in the ceiling except when they're committed to an animation). They made the firebreathers crush you if you try to throw them over your back, so you can't crowd control with them anymore.
Shiren the Wanderer :handshake: SOR3 = extraordinarily clever game design built around fat people jokes
I also find myself in love with the theming, the slightly mysterious atmosphere of the modern american movie aesthetic breached by light science-fiction. The soundtrack has some incredibly stylish work on it, that feels like it is bordering on the very foundations of what can be done with the genesis' sound chip. Some "painting the sistine chapel in crayons" shit. SoR3 is working on the border of what can be done with its framework, and with the ways in which beat-em-ups have uniquely lacked direct followup or continuation, we gotta love the most cutting edge stuff we got, imperfections and all
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14. Katamari Damacy
Ahhh yes....this is the most perfect video game ever made possibly
Keita Takahashi is a visionary of modern outsider art; his reluctance to purely take from the homogenized control schemes video games were commonly composed of results in something with the playful of a toy truck running across a rough block of wood. There is literally nothing stopping u from making ur game control like a forklift
The way a bunch of individual small spaces are introduced in isolation, only for them all to eventually overlap in one big world is so wondrous... Katamari revels in uniting spaces and places together as everything rolls together... Loving everything at once is our only resolution. As jazz percussion goes crazy and it all comes together I got really emotional this time. It's the third time I've played it and it only hurts more and more. Amazing game <3
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13. Ninja Gaiden
It was nice beating a game I've liked since I was a teenager for the first time, without save states or whatever. Thought this game's difficulty had been overrated until the final arc hits you with the triple sadism blast.
"When you die, you restart at the latest checkpoint. When you game over, you restart at the start of the level you're on. And when you die to the final boss in specific you restart at the start of the world" Games Are A Conversation Between The Player And Developer and they're saying LOL GET FUCKED the whole time
Evil that the one room in 6-2 with the bird is by far the hardest challenge in the game, while also being apart of the only stages you can be forced to replay after beating
It's one of those games where the act of beating it is so challenging, it mentally prepares you to be able to speedrun the rest of the game. Very rewarding, if you can stomach it
The instant enemy respawning, while unintuitive, contributes to the game's strengths - because you can't wait for the easiest vantage in an enemy's cycle, you must confront Everything. The game challenges your innate confidence in your movements, heavily rewarding you to enter that flow state, and constantly move forwards. I was the best and the worst at this game when I was ridiculously overconfident.
One of the first games to realize wall-jumps are sick. The call and response of slashing through enemies while near-constantly moving forwards almost feels prototyping of modern precision platformers. What a neat lil game !
Masato Kato is here too, huh? NES cutscenes are surprisingly cool looking
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12. Bayonetta
I will say: not a game I love love anymore, but still a wondrous tastemaker that I can feel the distinct flavour of even now. They truly don't make em like this anymore, in more ways than one. Bayonetta was basically a raw dose of Expression as a concept to teenage me's brain; the first thing I ever played that operated with combat in a singleplayer context in a way that was Dance-y, about decisions in a very passionate sense of the word. Combine that with the general aesthetic obsession with sex, and regardless of if it's like deep or smart about the subject it defo was provocative in the brain that opened up some synapses in me. I wanted to be her basically
Also think the combat is veeeery noisy and very complex, which is a great combination for a teenager with inperfect reflexes who simultaneously liked their games to be deep. Though nowadays maybe I think I'd prefer something more focused in all lanes, more condensing of level/scoring and with more productive of enemies
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11. Silent Hill
Full Review. compared to usual, I think my opinions solidified and shifted the most in-between writing this short piece and the final product
finally finished this... an undeniably great experience in my eyes. a dense atmosphere that exists as a sorta melting pot of the design language of adventure games, mixed in with some twin peaks and general midwestern american horror. think there is something timelessly great about moving through these amorphous locales, simultaneously playing with the concrete routing of resident evil, but taking advantage of video game locations being fake and tearing their log as you just begin to get used to pathways.
akira yamaoka listened to the same music i do... and that's why it's goated. and i love him. and he fucks
the ufo ending made me laugh out loud for a solid 5 minutes, the credits actor list almost got me as hard. honestly a very aware and playful sorta game when it wants to be.
gonna be honest? i dunno if i am a little kid for not feeling like i completely got the plot, although watching the opening animation again made it a bit obvious. regardless of that, i enjoyed the cutscenes as i went through and all the lategame exposition of adults either killing children or suspending their lives in a stasis of life for their own purposes. defo puts a tight bow on all of harry's weird over-protective impulses throughout the plot.
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10. Disaster Arms: Impact Project B.A.H.N.
Top 1 word for this thing is "Inspiring". You really do have to take the one shot
Indulgent in ways that I really fuck with. Alien Soldier reference is strong, but there are a lot of touches that carve its own niche. I think the greatest strength carried over from Somnabuster is the physicality; the charge-up time on your Ignition Boost, and the sense of rocketing forwards with i-frame confidence is very distinctly different in niche from Alien Soldier's own i-frame dash. There's a lot of DEFENSE IS OFFENSE, and a lot of CONFIDENCE WILL SAVE YOUR SOUL, but I also appreciate the brittle failure states. I love how the bullet-parrying punch has enough force behind it to push you far back, consistently bowling me into projectiles that flew past me as I thought I successfully dodged them. Never forget about the past and present of your surroundings. As a more grounded Alien Soldier with more emphasis on a cohesive loop, I think it succeeds greatly.
Was really engaged with the writing, but also want to note how it added a spice to the pacing. There are some artistic touches here that feel soooo casually stylish; I love that animation of Gev shooting forwards after an introspective cutscene. Pulse past the memories. I think that extra touch of vulnerable writing - partially on the exact subject of learning to be yourself without listening to others - cements it as a work unafraid of being its own thing.
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9. Kirby's Adventure
WProbably the most I've ever been in love with the fundamentals of Kirby as a toolset. What sticks out to me is that transforming into enemy abilities is not the by-far leading gimmick, and instead everything synergizes into the In and Out verbage. Sucking up an enemy is an action, gaining their ability and using it is an action, but spitting it out is also an action. Attacking until you take damage, the ability popping out of you and onto the floor and you sucking it back up and shooting it out as a leftover projectile is a clean, effective action. There is a smoothness to both entering and exiting the gimmicks that allows the whole game to be fluid, for its ideas and pace to fluctuate and mix itself up.
And oh fuck, since when was this game so beautiful?? I seriously didn't remember just how many gorgeous colour palettes they managed to stick into this dreamy little thing; nothing would clear these smooth palettes on the SNES for maybe four years after its release?
I find myself coming back to my memories of playing this quite commonly now... It is truly a soaring game, sweet and sublime and with perfect runtime. Endlessly playful, but with snappy obstacle courses that leave me energized. It's the only Kirby game that to my knowledge, actually has momentum, which says a lot about why it appeals to me :3 but wow. luv it
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8. Sonic CD
Full Review
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7. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
Wow! Wow wow wow wow wow.
Think the frequent ludonarrative interpretations of this are maybe a testament to h.a.n.d's freaky experimentalism, and I found myself appreciating that thru numerous angles. Weird and interesting even when it's neither playing traditionally good, nor actively feeding into a fan narrative.
Very cool and evocative story - Final Fantasy-y in the way that it can be grounded and personal while also feeling wrapped in a spiraling mythology. Most Kingdom Hearts stories so far feel pretty adjacent, this is the first one that feels like genuinely good supplementary work. Made me consider that Kingdom Hearts might be a broader narrative I'm attached to now? Uh ohhh
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6. Deltarune
[ch3/4]
The month or so of slowly digging up unhinged secrets in this game is probably the most fun I've had talking about a video game amongst my friends in a long time. Toby Fox's widespread worship made it easy for this pandora's box to trojan horse its way into the hands of many, and it has been equally wonderful watching them all tear into it. A lot of the best imagery, thematic throughlines, and mysterious pieces converge to make this a massive brainworm.
[ch1/2 replay]
Honestly? A lot more growing pains than I honestly remember. The 3 party never-alone structure doesn't lend itself to being as interpretable as Undertale's quiet sadness (its got some other emotions also). Since it's unfinished, I literally cannot say it for sure, but there just isn't as much mileage as how Undertale manages to renew every single line with multiple meanings and times and places. But I kiiiinda get the impression that with the amount of character arc-y dialogue, it'll be hard to pull that off in the long-term - it's barely doing it on chapter 2. With such an ambitious project I can only hope that it all wraps together smoothly, but ironically it's the end that's such a good start. I love the overworld in both chapters, the sort of constant lingering of past weird incidents that have fostered a slightly estranged relationship with Kris to the world around them feels so personally compelling.
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5. SomnaBuster
I got pandered to. fuck. Yeah sega games are good, I know. You're right. Let's shake on it and agree this is one of the best to ever do it
I think around the fourth or fifth world did this game finally grow into its level design style and become one of the best things ever, although the physics were enough that I was having a ton of fun before that too. I always think that giving your playable character too many movement tools can muddy up the level design real bad, but there is an openness to the level design here that is perfectly complimented by the variety of ways you can flutter around and stand on the underbelly of each and every platform that makes it loose-yet-precise. It's attitude is so well balanced that it inspired me to open Godot again, and I hate making video games...
The emotionality is just a cherry on top - reminding me the power of how a narrrative can intertwine with a platformer - its melancholy twirling in tandem with the whimsicality of its gameplay to create a tone not unalike the moments of doubt at the climax of a magical witch's flight. Gonna be honest, this game just got me really emotional and a lil teary eyed more than a few times, this sorta thing just has a strong power over me I guess
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4. Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island
Got to the first ending, which literally states "the true Mystery Dungeon starts here" - maybe it's wrong to start evaluating this already, but... I love this!! There is nothing but mechanical elegance to this 2 hour long JRPG, in a single playthrough will a thousand little stories emerge. Like, look at whatever this is. Rly impressed by actual build variety, the way enemy patterns can synergize with each other to make little turn-based bullet scenarios, and the extremely volatile set of tools you can use to respond to them. Feels like the selling point of the imm-sim is right here and completely real.
(I also like Keisuke Ito's delicate arrangements...continuing to be one of my absolute fav game musicians ever)
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3. Umineko no Naku Koro ni Chiru
this part is kind of fucked to a degree higher than the other 3 WTCs, but if you've read this series up to this point, you just sorta know this is a rough outsider work worth treasuring the rough edges of. It is all worth it for Beatrice, the most character ever in the world
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2. Umineko no Naku Koro ni
the author is trying very hard to say something unsayable and i think it hits
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1. Kirby Air Riders
Beat Road Trip, played for many hours, too many hours, more hours than I've played a video game in a short period of time in years (i said that about z-a but trust me this is more), need to yap and get a lot of out of my system.
I do have reprehension to auteur-analyze Sakurai too much - if only because Nintendo fans don't seem to recognize names other than him or Shiggy - but I thought a lot about my connection to his work on this one. I think, maybe above and beyond the raw achievements, the Smash bros hype cycles and whatnot, what makes him an interesting director is that he is a public learner. When he finds out a mechanic suits his core, he will do it, do it again, do it in a new context, do a subtle riff on it, and you recognize it. You notice how he does stuff, why he does stuff, and why the way he does stuff benefits You, the Player.
There is quite a lack of game design analysis of Smash with items on. I've been playing it a lot this year. A friend of mine said that Sakurai's ideal game is probably something like Mahjong, a combination of gambling with numbers, and adaptation to a randomized environment. Randomization as terrain and weather; downpour on your usually breezy evening stroll. City Trial, in retrospect, was the sequel to a game of Melee on Temple. It is capable of harnessing the vastness of a racecar traversed 3D space into something more thoughtful, more contextual, with longer droughts and harsher tides. In a game of City Trial, everything happens once but it never feels like it happens more than once - there is a genuinely well-struck value of rarity to everything. When you hit a guy, and the screen freezes for a split second - it's this lightworks moment you're chasing in the rear-view mirror of for the rest of the session. When you hit three in a row, a miraculous set of items had rained into your pockets. After coming up with as perfect of a concept as the Legendary Dragoon in Air Ride, Sakurai slapped it into Smash Bros, where not only does it not feel particularly special - it gobbles up the attention-real estate of the players for thirty seconds. I find myself spending minutes tweaking Ultimate's items, because every special one feels so common, they linearize the whole thing. And here it is, a game that has such wide values to everything, it can sneak in a Smash Bros-y scramble into one tiny corner of the map, and totally blow the minds of exactly 3/16 players in a lobby. It is beautiful, miraculously good. And while a lot of this is true of the Gamecube predecessor, it strikes me as particularly distinct that with all the budget in the world in a modern AAA climate, City Trial is still a monolithic sole stage, with not a new breadth of secondary options, but instead thrice the amount of Events and Possibilities. It is the best sequel to Smash Ultimate, a game that in many edge-cases placed maximalism in the wrong ways, I could've imagined. The race-tracks hit spectacle sequences with the exact twitchy timing of Kid Icarus: Uprising, and the roster worships the pure game design concepts of the original Kirby games. I don't necessarily see Sakurai as the best game designer I know - he ain't no Treasure or Capcom lead - but there is something genuinely amazing about playing something that is a culmination of the exact set of games that turned me into a game design freak as a kid. I am going to be a bit too loud and annoying about it for it being attached to a $450 console during a recession, so I apologize. But I love it. I actually, really love it.
i hope i never like a new nintendo game again so i don't have to put boxart this bland highly on my account
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