Pokemon Crystal is the definitive version of the second generation Pokemon games. It takes what made Gold and Silver great and builds upon those games with additional features and tweaks.

Generation 2, and more specifically Crystal, is the Pokemon game that I played the most as a kid and am the most nostalgic about. To me this was peak pokemon and I’ve replayed this game countless times. I remember it broke my heart starting a new game and losing a 100 hour save file and my beloved team, but as soon as I chose my new starter and went out on my adventure, I was overwhelmed with excitement. But that is nostalgia talking. How does the game hold up in 2023?

First thing that I want to say is that Crystal (gen 2 in general) is a huge improvement over the previous generation of Red, Blue, Yellow (and Green). Many of my complaints about Yellow have been addressed and improved upon in this game. Enemy A.I. is still nothing to write home about, but they have drastically improved. Their movesets are more respectable and they don’t spam random or ineffective moves as much. Whenever my Pokemon were on the verge of death, the A.I. tried to finish me off with moves such as Quick Attack, instead of randomly using Leer or wasting its turn on something else. The game is still very easy but can no longer get by just by pressing A during every battle. You need to have at least a little bit of strategy.

One of the new features that was introduced in this game is the ability to make your Pokemon hold items. If you’re reading this I don’t need to explain what this means, but this revolutionary feature has changed the way we build our teams and strategize our battles to this very day. Another new feature that was introduced here that has revolutionized the way we play Pokemon is the ability to breed male and female Pokemon, which then lay eggs that hatch into new Pokemon. Day and night cycle was present in this game for the first time.Different Pokemon are available in the wild depending on what time of the day it is. I remember patiently waiting for the clock to hit 6PM on a friday night so that I could catch a Gastly in the Sprout Tower, then to wake up the next morning at 7AM just so that I could catch a Ledyba that I was never going to use, for Pokedex sake. With the day and night cycle also comes day changes. Every day of the week something different happens in the world. For example, on certain days the Bug Catching contest is available, while certain characters who give you valuable items only appear one day per week. Trainers, such as police officers, will battle you, but only at night. Lapras will appear deep inside a cave, but only on Fridays. All of these events helped the world feel alive.

Speaking of the world, to this day this is the only Pokemon game that has not one but two whole regions, which is probably this game’s most famous feature. I couldn’t believe that when I beat the Elite Four, I was taken all the way to the Kanto region from Pokemon Yellow, and I was all for it. Of course the Kanto region is a lot more condensed and you can probably get through it in just a few hours, but it’s still there and it makes the world feel complete.

Other small quality of life features introduced in this game that I appreciate include the backpack organization. You now have more slots in your backpack and there are separate sections for your TM moves, healing items, and key items, which helps to keep your items more organized. When you encounter a wild pokemon that you have captured before, there is a small pokeball symbol next to its name indicating that you already have it registered in your Pokedex. To use HMs, you can just walk up to the spot that requires the HM and press A to automatically use it. You don’t have to go through menus just to use an HM every time like in the previous generation. There is now an experience points bar below your Pokemon’s name, so now you always know how close you are to leveling up. At the start of each battle, the enemy pokemon will do a cool little animation, which is unique to the Crystal version.

There’s plenty to appreciate and enjoy in this game. Even by today’s standards it is not too shabby. Unfortunately, as with Yellow, there’s really no reason to play this game in 2023, outside of nostalgia and novelty. Playing the remakes Heart Gold and Soul Silver is a much better experience of this generation in every single way. While playing Crystal in 2023, I was still frustrated with the fact that special and physical attacks are not split. For example, ALL fire attacks are special attacks in this game. I taught my Graveler Fire Punch, still thinking that it would be a good physical attack for coverage, but when I used it in battle, the damage it did was very underwhelming. Then I remembered that even though it's a punch, when it's fire it's not a physical move. After 15 years of being used to the physical and special move split, it's very hard to go back to these old games. It feels so unnatural.

Another complaint that I have with this game, which is pretty common and well known, is the level scaling. There is a point in the game where it tries to be a bit more open ended. So you can either go left, or right. Because of this freedom, both paths contain similar leveled enemies. So if you choose to go left, the enemy Pokemon levels will still be somewhat close to yours, but once you go back to the right, it will be a complete cake walk as enemy levels are sometimes almost half of your teams. At this point the game stops being challenging. Killing level 17 Zubats with my Level 32 Faraligatr over and over again is not fun. Once you complete your Gym badge collection, you go on to fight the Elite Four plus the Champion. Their levels are considerably higher than the last couple Gym leaders that you battled. However, there aren’t really any good areas to grind and level up your Pokemon to high enough levels for the Elite Four. You have to battle level 30 Gravelers over and over, which don’t give you all that much exp.

Overall, as I’ve said before, this was a huge improvement over the previous generation and it goes down as one of the absolute GOATs in my book, despite by my relatively low score.

I am a millennial and Hogwarts Legacy is a 20 year old dream come true.

There are few worlds in fiction with as much depth, lore, imagination, and popularity as the world of Harry Potter. Whether you grew up with the books, the movies, or both, more likely than not you were captivated by the world that these books and movies have built. I can safely speak for most people when I say that since the moment we were introduced to Hogwarts and the wizarding world in the first book and movie, we’ve all fantasized about getting our Hogwarts letters in the mail, buying our first wand, broomstick, and owl, sitting at the dining table with the rest of our fellow young wizards and witches while anxiously waiting to get sorted into one of the four Hogwarts houses, then donning the team colors that represent the pride of our new house.

Over the years, and decades, we got a fair share of Harry Potter games. We got video game adaptations of every single movie. In fact, we got multiple versions of each of the game adaptations when you take into account all the various gaming platforms that the games were released on. There were even LEGO versions and other spin offs such as the Quidditch World Cup game. These games mostly ranged from decent to terrible, full of potential and ideas that unfortunately were never fully realized.

The year is 2023 and here we have Hogwarts Legacy. The entire premise of this game is that you are a young wizard who becomes a student at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. You get sorted into a house based on a few questions that the Sorting Hat asks you. Personally I was sorted into Slytherin, but like Harry himself, I said “not Slytherin” and I chose to join Ravenclaw, because the game doesn’t force you into the house that the Hat sorts you into. You have the option to join any house that you want. From that point forward the entirety of Hogwarts is yours to explore. You go to classes to learn new spells and interact with other students in the school. Hogwarts feels alive and truly magical. Everywhere you go you will see students going to classes, playing games, studying for tests, and getting themselves into mischief. You will see ghosts flying around while having conversations, and armored statues singing and dancing. There are cats everywhere who make Hogwarts feel cozy that you can pet. The castle is huge and I had a blast just walking around exploring it, while watching the NPCs and listening to their conversations.

To my surprise Hogwarts isn’t the only area that you can explore. I was impressed by how large the areas outside of Hogwarts are. You can visit Hogsmade, which is a cozy town outside of Hogwarts in which you can shop for clothes, brooms, wands, potions and many other things. You can hang out at cafes and candy stores. The music is cheery and visiting Hogsmade always gave my mood a boost. Outside of the town you can explore many other small villages, beaches, camps, dungeons, and forests, including the Forbidden Forest. I found what would-be-Hagrid’s house (this game takes place 100 years prior to Harry Potter) and it warmed my heart.

As I mentioned earlier, you go to various classes to learn new spells, how to brew potions, and how to grow plants that can be used in combat. You’re not on a schedule of any kind. These classes are only classes in name. They are basically just missions which usually involve the professor of each class telling you to do certain tasks, and once you complete these tasks, they will teach you a new spell or skill. Some of the classes in this game mimic scenes from the Harry Potter movies. The flying lessons class felt like it was taken straight out of the first movie. Speaking of flying, unfortunately there is no Quidditch at Hogwarts this year because someone got injured last season. That's what the game says. In reality the developers just likely ran out of time to develop any deep or meaningful mechanics for the game of Quidditch, which is fine and understandable. However, I was impressed by how well the flying felt and controlled. Vehicles and traveling can really be a hit or miss, even in the most highly praised games, but in Hogwarts Legacy flying the broom was not a problem whatsoever for me. That is why I hope that they can hopefully take some time and give us a Quidditch DLC of some kind. Maybe even with multiplayer? I feel like that would really put a cherry on top of this game.

There are 20+ spells that you can learn, including the three infamous unforgivable curses. Many of these spells can be used in combat, while a few others are used for puzzle solving, decorating your Room of Requirements, and taking care of the fantastic beasts that you can catch throughout your journey. The combat can take some time to get used to but once you get the hang of it, it's a lot of fun. Your basic attacking spell is mapped to the right trigger, so it feels like a shooting game at times, and you can have four spells mapped to each of the face buttons. As you level up you earn development points that can be used in five different skill trees. With this method you can unlock more slots for your spells, so at any given time during combat you can have as many as 16 spells ready to be used. Once you get good at the combat, it feels amazing to pull off a huge combo with various spells, while also dodging, blocking, and parrying attacks from enemies.

There is a story in the game. It's not amazing by any means but it's definitely serviceable and takes you down some interesting paths. There are plenty of side quests and stories with fellow students, my most favorite stories being the ones involving Sebastian and Natsai.

For a first attempt at an open world game set in the Harry Potter magical universe, the developers did an outstanding job. They went above and beyond filling this game with the charm and magic (no pun intended) that we have dreamed of and expected. The attention to detail all over this world is immaculate. I will say that if you’re not a Harry Potter fan, or don’t know anything about the franchise, then this game may not feel all that special to you. The enemy variety is lacking, as are dialogue options and story branches in general. It may feel like a pretty basic fantasy RPG and there is always room for improvement. Whether we get a sequel, or maybe some expansions for this game, I’m sure that us Potter fans won’t be disappointed.

Pokemon Yellow is the Definitive version of the original first generation Pokemon games, although how "definitive" it truly is can be debated.

First of all, I played this game to death when it originally came out and I loved every minute of it. Back then I would have easily given it a 5/5. However, this review is strictly based on my enjoyment of it in 2023, which there honestly wasn't much of...

As I'm sure everyone knows, Yellow takes a lot of inspiration from the anime. You are forced to start with Pikachu like Ash was in the tv series. Personally I don't mind starting with Pikachu. Electric types are some of my favorites so starting with one is a nice change of pace from the norm. Being forced to start with Pikachu makes the beginning of the game more limiting and challenging, which many players understandably dislike. This particular Pikachu also can't evolve, just like in the anime, so you're stuck with him for the whole game. To go in line with the anime, this Pikachu also refuses to stay in his ball and will follow you through the entire game as long as he's in your party. You can even interact with him to see how happy (or unhappy) he is. Some other things that Yellow borrows from the anime are Pokemon battle sprites, which are significantly better than in Blue & Yellow in my opinion. Jesse and James, along with Meowth, ambush you a few times throughout your adventure. The gym leaders also have teams that closely resemble their anime teams.

The game is still very much Pokemon through and through. Go from town to town, catching various Pokemon, battling trainers, collecting badges from Gym leaders, and stopping Team Rocket shenanigans along the way. However, my childhood memories of this game are significantly better than the reality that I experienced playing it recently. I'm a big critic of the newest Scarlett and Violet Pokemon games, but playing through Yellow in 2023 made me appreciate S&V a bit more.

First, the most obvious, Gen 1 didn't have Dark and Steel (and Fairy for that matter) types, so the game lacks balance. Poison types, and most of the grass types which are combined with said poison types, are garbage. Psychic types however are overpowered. It doesn’t change the game all that much. Just don't be surprised when you hit a Magneton with Flamethrower, it will not be super effective. Bite will not be super effective against psychics and Gust will not be super effective against Bug and Grass, because for some odd reason, Gust is a normal type move in this game, not flying.

You may think that this would make the game more difficult, but it doesn't.The main thing that makes this game a complete cakewalk are the braindead enemies. The computer has no idea what it's doing, it just picks moves at random. No strategy, no common sense. It will try to hit you with a super effective move if it has one, but that's as deep as the A.I. goes. Enemy A.I. pokemon will use Recover when they are at full health, spam ground moves on flying Pokemon (which have zero effect), spam moves like Reflect on sequential turns, try to use status moves on already statused Pokemon, they will use potions (yes, basic ass potions) on level 50+ pokemon, recovering maybe 10% of their of health, etc. The battles are mindless in this game after the 2nd badge once you get a decent variety of Pokemon in your party. Just set your strongest attack in the first attack slot and press A until you win.

The reason why earlier I mentioned appreciating Violet and Scarlett a bit more after playing Yellow is because this game made me realize how far we’ve come in terms of quality of life features, which this game has pretty much none of. The biggest and most annoying thing is item management. You have a pack that can hold 20 items, and that is it. Move TMs, revives, potions, fishing rods, bike, etc. are all grouped together. There is no way to organize them. There is no way to know which move belongs to the TMs in your pack unless you try to actually teach the move. As you can imagine, with such a small item limit, your pack fills up extremely quickly. If you find an Iron or a Calcium, you better use it on someone right away, for the sake of making room in your pack. If you find a TM and it's not something top tier like Thunderbolt or Psychic for example, you might as well toss it, or at the very least sell it. Around the midpoint of the game you have to use a bike on the cycling road, wake up Snorlax using the flute, and have various key cards/passes that must be used to open doors in Team Rocket hideouts/takeovers. These otherwise useless items take up a lot of space in your pack, which doesn’t leave much room for the actually useful items that you find during these particular missions/events.

Some of the smaller gripes with quality of life in this game are not being able to tell if you’ve already caught a particular pokemon or not. In the later games, if you encounter a Pokemon that you’ve already caught before, it will have a small pokeball symbol next to its name to let you know that you’ve already caught it. This game doesn’t have that. When you buy a TM at the department store, it doesn’t tell you what the moves are until you buy them. It will literally say “are you sure you want to buy TM25?” and your only options are Yes and No. You need to pull up a guide to know what you’re actually buying. Thankfully in 2023 this is not a problem, but is still annoying and something that should’ve been thought of in the first place. Staying on topic of moves, there is no way of knowing what any of the moves in the game do. As a veteran of Pokemon games who has played them all, I remember the effects and accuracies of most of the moves in Pokemon. However, throughout the games that follow Yellow, many of the moves have changed their effects. I don’t remember how some of these moves worked back in the 90s, and the game doesn’t tell you any of it. Again, a guide must be used.

This game is an undeniable classic and if you grew up with this game like I did, you will cherish it for the rest of your life, as will I despite my many complaints and low score. This game, along with its Red and Blue siblings, is absolutely legendary and it started the phenomenon that is Pokemon, which has been going strong for almost three decades. With that said, there’s absolutely no reason at all to play these games in 2023. Maybe it's worth checking out for pure nostalgia and novelty, but other than that, it's really not worth it.


After 17 years I finally played Condemned: Criminal Origins for the first time.

As you can probably tell from my star rating, I didn't think very highly of this game, which is a shame. I almost feel guilty for giving it such a low score because this game does some truly great things. Lets start with the good.

Atmosphere is (figuratively) the name of the game here. I wouldn't call this game scary, but it was definitely creepy. The environments consist of dirty, nasty buildings, abandoned schools, offices, back alleys, etc. Even 17 years after its release, the environments are still very easy to get immersed in.

Much of this immersion and spookiness comes from the game's sound. The weapon shots sound absolutely brutal. Throughout the game you hear your enemies walking around in different rooms, or on different floors. You really need to pay attention to the sound because not only does it add to the creep factor, but hearing which direction the steps of your enemies come from can really save your life. There were some instances where I freaked myself out because I was no longer sure if the steps I was hearing were my enemies, or my own. Please do yourself a huge favor and do this game justice by playing it in the dark with headphones on.

Now on to some of the things that really bothered me...

First of all, this may be an unpopular opinion but I did not like the combat. 99% of the combat in this game is based around melee weapons that you find all around you. Pipes, shovels, axes, sledge hammers, wrenches, etc. Maybe its just me, but throughout the entire game I was really struggling with depth perception. It was very hard for me to tell if my weapon swings were going to hit my enemy or not. Same thing with the weapon reach of my enemies. Time after time I felt that I was far enough back, and I could clearly SEE my enemies not connecting with me, but I was hit regardless. I also could never master blocking, or even get good at it. In this game you hit the "block" button and you do a brief blocking animation, with a second or two until you can do it again. Basically you don't actually block, but parry instead. I just couldn't get the timing right, which became extremely frustrating at the end of the game where you fight waves of enemies where good blocking is absolutely crucial.

I mentioned atmosphere earlier. This game really tries to go for immersion and realism, which more often than not it succeeds with. Unfortunately there are many simple things that break the immersion of this game over and over again.
As I mentioned earlier, melee weapons is the main way you do combat in this game, but you do have access to guns from time to time. Shotgun, pistol, rifle. I was walking around with a pipe and I found a pistol, figuring that although the ammo will likely be rare, a pistol will still come in handy at some point. So I picked up the pistol, only to drop my pipe. I thought that maybe I pressed the wrong button, so I picked the pipe back up, but dropped my pistol... In this game you can only have one weapon on you at any given time, no matter what it is. The game tries to put you in situations in which you grab wooden planks, water pipes off a wall, and locker doors off gym lockers in desperate attempts to defend yourself, but it immediately breaks that immersion by not allowing you to put a pistol in your pocket or in your waist. Also, why can't I have a pipe in each hand? Surely in real life I'd be able to carry them around.

Next example, I had a shotgun with 3 shells in it. I killed an enemy who also had a shotgun with 5 shells in it. In the next room there was another shotgun in a locker with 4 shells in it. In a real life situation you'd take all those shells and use your shotgun wisely, but in this game you can't do that. You must decided which ONE of the three identical shotguns you'd like to keep because for whatever reason you can't carry ammo, transfer ammo, or even reload any of the guns in this game. Silly.

Lastly, I finished a level by walking through a door with a sledge hammer in my hand. The next level began IMMEDIATLY in the room that I just walked into, but my sledgehammer was nowhere to be found. I needed to search for a new weapon. Also, when you carry your weapons, you're hold them in front of your face. So a shovel, which is one of the best and most useful weapons in the game, will block 1/3 of your view because you carry it in front of your face the entire time.

Don't get me wrong, I understand why the developers made these design choices. You carry the weapons in front of your face so that as the player I know at all times which weapon I have on me. I can't pile up a bunch of shotgun shells because 12 shells would easily clear out an entire level without a challenge. Not being able to carry multiple weapons around at a time or having a side arm keeps the game from being too easy. I get it, but it really broke the immersion and made me roll my eyes more than I'd like to.

I'm glad that I finally played this game, especially during this Halloween season, but its hard for me to recommend it to everyone. I almost feel like this game would be more fun to watch than to play.

Pokemon Platinum is the "definitive" gen 4 experience.

This is my first time replaying Platinum since its initial release over 10+ years ago and overall it has held up very well and is totally worth going back to for pokemon veterans (I'm sure you all do already anyways lol) and is a great entry point for newcomers as well. This game, along with Diamond and Pearl before it, changed (for the better) the way we play pokemon games to this very day by splitting the special and physical attacks.

I remember not being a fan of the new pokemon designs that were introduced in this gen, but with time I've definitely grown to appreciate and love newcomers to this generation such as Electivire, Magnezone, Staraptor, Roserade, Drapion, Floatzel, and Togekiss to name a few. To go along with the new pokemon, many beloved new moves and items were introduced in these games also. Even though the game overall is still very linear, it does feel much more open than the previous games in the series. The towns are significantly bigger, the routes are longer, and there are more things to do in between battling each gym leader. There is a good diversity of pokemon that you can catch, and there is a much bigger chance in this game than in previous generations that your team will differ from your friends teams in many ways.

There are two things about this game that did not age well, and were not designed well in the first place. One is the speed of the game. Everything in this game feels like its moving in slow motion. You walk at a snail's pace. The running shoes feel like somewhat normal speed. After you initiate a move in battle, you can go to the bathroom, and by the time you come back the health bar of your opponent will still be in the process of depleting. It is truly unbearable at times how slow this game is (the snow route is designed to troll you, I swear.) Thankfully in 2022, there are some... alternative ways to play this game... which eliminate the problem and make the game move much faster.

Unfortunately there are no ways around the second big issue with this game, and that is the overwhelming amount of HMs. We all have an "HM slave" in our pokemon party that we use for less-than-decent-in-battle-but-absolutely-necessary-to-progress moves such as Rock Smash and Whirlpool, but in this game you need TWO HM slaves at a bare minimum because there are 8 HM's in this game, some of which feel completely forced and unnecessary. I'm talking to you Defog and Rock Climb...

Despite that, this is a mainline pokemon game, which is still fantastic. Every pokemon generation has its pluses and minuses, and Platinum is no different, but I'd say it is one of the better aged games in the entire Pokemon lineup.

I originally played this on Xbox One when it first released and just finished it again on PC in the tail end of 2022. During the early days of the Xbox One, Microsoft had this weird obsession with watching TV on your gaming console, and in my opinion that is the biggest detriment to this game.

The graphics and the overall visual presentation are absolutely phenomenal, even in 2022 (4K, 60fps). The audio in the game is also excellent. Everything from the sound effects and voice acting, to the banging soundtrack. Speaking of voice acting, the cast of characters in this game are played by some very recognizable Hollywood actors and actresses. They did a great job with the motion capture as well with top notch facial animations.

The combat in this game is pretty good and fun. It can become a bit repetitive but the game is on the short side, so the repetition doesn't get enough time to become tedious. Unfortunately the gameplay takes a backseat to what feels like countless hours of walking around, reading documents, listening to audio tapes, and watching cutscenes.

There are 5 acts in this game, each taking about 1-2 hours to complete on normal difficulty. After each act you are forced to watch a full TV episode of a Quantum Break tv show. Yes, you have to stop and watch TV after every 1-2 hours of gameplay... That is incredibly annoying, frustrating, immersion breaking, and pace breaking. Especially on repeat playthroughs.

Thankfully you can skip these TV episodes, but you will miss out on a big chunk of the story. After the 2nd Act, I got confused about what was going on and I lost interest. Side note, I personally tend to struggle to keep up with time travel, parallel universe, multi-dimension type of storylines in video games and movies. But if that is your cup of tea, then I think you will find the story in this game interesting.

Overall, this was an ambitious project, which unfortunately didn't hit the mark and has not aged very well with its structure. It has fun gameplay moments, an interesting story (for those who can keep up), but the overall experience is pretty frustrating and underwhelming.