There's something really daunting about discussing Terraria since its my second favorite game, after the Xenoblade trilogy. What's going to happen here is me slathering this game with praise which is gonna get old real quick. There's only so many ways to say something is good.


This game is pure satisfaction and is a master of teaching the player by figuring things out for themselves. I guess your main goal of Terraria is simply to become strong. The game is unforgiving and that is enough to drive the player to want to surpass the obstacles. On one side of the World is the Corruption and on the other side is the Jungle. Both of which are extremely difficult to travel through. So what is the player to do when they have no path to go on either side of them? Go down of course! And that's the beauty of it. You'll find all kinds of equipment from various sources that will slowly make you capable of surpassing these barriers. And when you do get strong enough then you find there's a whole new area or boss that will kick your ass. So the cycle repeats until the player is wielding the most powerful gear in the game and fighting eldritch gods. It's incredibly satisfying. You'll get more powerful simply because YOU want to. Not because the game is telling you.


This game is incredibly dense for content. There are so many unique bosses, weapons and opportunities for customization that its a little bit daunting. However its also not so rigid that once you've found a style that you like doesn't mean you aren't free to change your entire class for the sake of using a cool new weapon. If you go through the entire game as a melee build you can easily swap to a mage right before the final fight if you really wanted to and it wouldn’t be much to stop you.


Every boss fight is just... so fun. Especially when you up the difficulty and they start to learn some fancy new moves. Bosses in this game aren't just another obstacle to get through like boss fights are in some other games. They are real tests of your abilities and the game will not allow you to progress unless you are able to beat them. My issue with them though is that actually starting boss fights take a lot of effort. Boss summons are expensive to get and are all consumable to you'll only get a single go before you have to craft a new summon when you fail. Like the Moon Lord, for example, is the final boss and is naturally really difficult and the Gauntlet you have to go through to summon him is agonizing to repeat. It's like losing to a boss in Dark Souls or Hollow Knight and being sent back to an earlier area in the level then going all the way back to the boss for another attempt. However in Terraria, this space in between isn't a chance to cooldown or rethink your strategy. It's just tedium. Thankfully though, this, among other minor issues, can be fixed with mods.


The game also excels in many other ways. The OST is just perfect. It's incredibly iconic and whether your vibing out in space or fighting an army of pirates, the OST will set the mood really well. The artsyle is also really nice. The only game with better pixelart in my opinion is Owlboy and when you add some mods and texture packs you’ll have something beautiful. This game on the surface looks very generic fantasy but look a little closer and you’ll see that it has an incredibly fun personality to it, whether that’s referencing just about every other game in existence or seeing what madness the community has made.


That’s gotta be one of my favorite things about the game. Terraria is such a universally loved game that just about everyone has played it or at least knows about it. And in my experience, it is one of the few fandoms worth engaging with. This is a pretty subjective point but I’ve never had a bad time around other fans and the only discourse seems to come from whether Corruption or Crimson is better and that is just such a non serious thing to discuss. It’s great. As well as with devs that are actively engaging with their fans and youtubers like Chippy giving constant support. It’s just a nice group to be a part of.


So yeah, this is easily one of the greatest games of all time and my favorite (non Xenoblade) video game. A fun game with an awesome community. Infinite replayability and a crazy good modding scene. (But I’ll discuss mods at another time…) It is perfection.

A common criticism for Mario games released in the 3DS and Wii U era was that they were getting very bland. Not bad really. Just nothing new. Every game was designed to appeal to everyone. No risks of attempts to change the game like with 64 and Galaxy. Just very basic Mario platforming. Super Mario 3D Land!

This game is nothing special. It is marketed as the 3DS's mainline Mario game and that's all it was. The story is the same as usual with no new characters besides Pom Pom... I guess? Bowser kidnaps Peach and Mario has to do platforming to save her. Its the exact same you've seen a ton of times. To be fair, no one is playing Mario games for the story. You're playing it for the fun gameplay but it really does make you wish for something more than just cliff-notes after how bombastic Galaxy was.

The level design is simultaneously really interesting and also really basic. At the time we were just off the heels of Super Mario Galaxy 2, debatabley the beginning of the "Bland Era." The Galaxy games kind of did away with the open level style started by 64 and turned into a mission based style of replaying the same level with minor changes. 3D Land does this too but takes it to a whole new degree. Gameplay is designed like the New Super Mario Bros. series but in 3D. Typical 3 collectibles per level, 8 worlds with 7-9 levels each ending with a flagpole. Again, this isn't a bad thing. I'd argue with some good unique level designs and elements this could work really well, (Like in 3D World) 3D Land doesn't have this. This game is doing NOTHING you haven't seen before. The only thing keeping this game from being considered part of the New Soup series is that it is "technically" in 3D however its hard to care when the game still feels and plays like a 2D game.

I like what this game was starting. It's not a bad game. It's painfully generic but I would not call it bad. Just... another Mario platformer. And thankfully we'd get this game done right with 3D World a couple years later.

I can't recommend this game to anyone but those morbidly curious. Anything this game does is done better and more uniquely by 3D World. Play that instead because you will find nothing here.

I'm REALLY not a fan of Pokemon games. Even the ones that people say are really good, I rarely think are all that great. When I started this game I was really not expecting to enjoy it. This is easily one of the most disliked Pokemon games for being kind of the start of Pokemon's downfall so I was really worried because I'm already not super into these games, however to my surprise I thought it was pretty good.

The usual issues with these games that I find are still present. The battle system is basic and it's upsetting that it hasn't changed much in the main series besides Legends Arkoos and that's easily the biggest problem to me. These games are very boring especially at the start and they really esculate all that much until the endgame. This game just might be the worst case of it. I already knew about how easy this game would be so I decided to do a blind nuzlocke instead and the difficulty was still an issue. Most fights just boil down to swapping to whichever Pokemon had the effective move then executing it. I played the game in very small bursts over the course of a few weeks so it never got stale but if I had been any faster it easily would have been an issue.

Another common complaint is the story. Normally I don't think it's fair to call a Pokemon game's plot bad since they're all basically the exact same, however I can see where these complaints come from. The story had a lot of potential. I think Lysandre was actually a really cool villain but he's bogged down by being related to Team Flare who is easily the lamest evil Pokemon team. AZ was also a character I thought could have been really interesting if they gave him more time but they don't until the very end of the game. The main complaint I hear about the plot is the 4 rivals being too friendly. That's not the issue. The issue is that they're underdeveloped.The genderswap rival had some characterization but nothing super interesting or compelling. The other 3 each representing a different element of Pokemon games from filling out the Pokedex or just appreciating the Pokemon themselves. I think if fleshed out these could have been really cool characters but of course they aren't. Thankfully I think the future gens fix this even if they don't focus on more important aspects (such as making the games good.) To put it plainly, Gen 6 had A LOT of potential in its story that they just didn't go through with.

My favorite thing about this game besides the new Pokemon added has the be the region itself. At first I wasn't really enjoying it. Standard grass route and the first forest is copy paste Viridian forest from Gen 1. I was willing to ignore this though because at the time I assumed it was just them riding off the fact that the game was 3D so making the routes look super unique wouldn't be a priority. I was SO wrong. Kalos just might be the prettiest region in a Pokemon game. The early routes start off generic but they soon turned into sights that I was genuinely left me in awe. (My favorite is definitely the Pokemon League because its just this fucking massive castle where the camera starts to pan out as you approach it.)

The Pokemon designs are really good here. Gen 6 definitely went for a quality over quantity and it definitely shows. Greninja, Pangoro, Malamar, Tyrantrum, Sylveon, Hawlucha, Goodra, and Noivern are my favorites. I also love the Mega designs. My opinion of Sceptile who is my favorite Pokemon would be much lower if not for his Mega.

I no longer have high expectations for Pokemon and I don't see myself playing any of the future games, however Pokemon X and Y nail the aspects of Pokemon that I care about. The Pokemon, region and music are amazing and while I do agree that it has its flaws I don't think its fair to act like this game is the only Pokemon game that has them. This game is cozy. That's why I like it. Not my favorite Pokemon game but they definitely had way worse ones.