When I pick this game up, it absorbs me every time. Crafting your deck each run, choosing your path to manage encounters, health, shops, feels like just the right amount of risk taking to tickle my brain.

The problem for me lies when I put the game down. It takes months for me to bother picking it back up again, but I think that is just my feelings towards rogue-likes. They are fun every now and then, but I will have to content myself with never really finishing these types of games.

Should've bought it on my phone, I think it would be excellent there.

I decided to pick this up over the holidays and was very pleasantly surprised. I am not a big turn-based RPG person, but my mission this year is to wade further into that genre of games. This was a nice start, and it really pulled me in and invested me for my entire 28 hour playtime.

Combat is where this game shines the most. The 'locks' system adds a pleasant level of on your feet thinking to encounters, and the active button presses to enhance your moves help you stay invested through ever step.

The story, though not groundbreaking, holds a few nice twists in the right places that will pull you back in just as you start slipping away. The NG ending is a little lackluster, a choice to pull you into NG+ for a 'true' ending, but given the run time on a playthrough, I am not keen to hop back in.

Wheels is goated though.

Still 5 months left in the season but effectively the season is over and sadly we are ending on a rather poor note. The discussion around the game is at an all-time low, but also Bungie really painted themselves into a corner by making these seasons so deliberately lead into The Final Shape. All the seasons have done this since the launch of Shadowkeep, and perhaps part of the problem is that i am just tired. But I feel this was one of the less inspired lead ups to a DLC they have done.

We have always known since the end of Lightfall that we have to get inside the Traveler, but it feels less like we have fought to make that a reality and more like things just kept falling into our lap. Season of the Witch was the only time it really felt like we did something to push the story forward, and did so at some risk to losing Eris. Nothing else this year has had any stakes, and that is a big reason I have never cared less about the story and lore this year.

Sad to say, since the Coil is one of the better activities this year. But when combined with all the half-baked Forsaken nostalgia grabs and wrote story, this season drowns itself in mediocrity

Just finished pikmin 2, and as much as I appreciate what they added to the game for the sequel, it just doesn’t feel the same as pikmin 1. I miss the tension of the timer. It made me feel smart when i could plan out the day and execute it exactly how I wanted, or fuck something up and scramble to recover. Pikmin 2 has a different kind of strategy involving the dungeons you enter and demands you curate and maintain your limited pikmin as best you can. It led to some tense moments where i contemplated returning to the surface with my few remaining pikmin, but without the timer my days were a little less organized and I never felt like i was losing precious in game time by fumbling something, just wasting some of my own.

That sounds harsh but only because otherwise this is a great game, and the encounters that involve switching between Olimar and Louis are some of the best!

A beautifully executed debut title from Team 17. The sound design, art, and story-telling are all appealing and immersive.

Progression feels natural as you are pulled from mystery to mystery, and the upgrade system makes your life easier just as you become more comfortable exploring.

My boy the fisherman sure knows how to throw it back

It's not often you get to play a big title that just goes for it. Remedy did an excellent job telling a complex story through two separate characters that you could switch to quite readily. The gameplay between both was varied enough to not become drawn out, and the new protagonist Saga Anderson was incredibly well written.

This is the best narrative game I have played this year and it is clearly deserving of every Game Awards nomination it received; you can see all of the love and creativity poured into this game. It has a dance number in it!