Historically, shoot em up games that focus on dodging and shooting as the central mechanic have not really appealed to me. To be fair, I probably haven't given them enough tries, but this game makes me want to because it is a lot of fun all the way through. Not to mention the land battling that contains a lot of the game's complexity and strategy.

The flying sections which are the most similar to traditional shoot em ups were actually some of my favorites in the game. I'll get into the controls later but they actually feel pretty comfortable during these sections. It feels like they were designed for the flying and not the land battles. Gliding around the stage while aiming at demons is a great rub-your-tummy-pat-your-head kind of challenge that I enjoyed refining as the game went along. The levels and visuals are really beautiful during this sections whether it be gliding over a human town at war, exploring an outer space stronghold, passing through Viridi's nature depots, or whatever wacked up idea the devs had. I appreciate how the levels typically open with these sections due to Palutenna's limited power of flight. It gets me excited to play each level and creates a solid structure for the experience. One criticism of the sky sections I do have is that the enemy variety does fall off towards the end to where it feels like I am shooting the same cacophony of demons, forces of nature, and aurum troops over and over again.

The land battles are where the bulk of this game takes place and is also where most of the challenge comes from. This is where the wacky controls start to really be a factor. They take some time to get used to honestly cause a little bit of pain and numbness if you play for too long. I appreciate that they are very unique and very functional once you get the hang of them though. The land sections are where the game gets a lot of it's personality. Each level and location carves out a unique environment, identity, and personal storyline that the characters discuss and get you interested in. There are often a handful of enemies that get introduced that build to this feeling as well. Then, obviously there are bosses to each chapter that are mostly exclusive to the ground sections. Most of them are interesting and build to the identity that these chapters build for themselves even more. There is decent gameplay variety and strengths and weaknesses to most of them as well. My one main complaint would be that most of the bosses are actually much easier than the levels themselves. However, this is partly due to my biggest pet peeve of the game though, the death descending difficulty slider.

In general, I really prefer not to choose my difficulty, just set the game at a good difficulty level and let me enjoy it with hopefully a solid level of challenge that is uniform for all players. If you want me to choose a difficulty at the very beginning, fine I'll pick one and we ball, but this game makes you pick one every level with collectibles locked behind certain difficulty intensities that you don't even know before hand. Not only that, but if you die and don't want to restart the level the game LOWERS the difficulty. Whatever happened to gritting it out and trying to power through a tough challenge. This basically means if you lose to a boss the next time you face it, it's going to be a little bit easier, so it leaves me wondering did I win because I played better or because the game made me lower the difficulty. Overall, I just really don't like how ever present the difficulty slider is. On the positive side on design choices, I found the Sakurai menus and staples to be charming and functional. I also enjoyed fusing my weapons and experimenting with all the different different cutomization options even though sometimes I did fuck things up.

The story is actually pretty fun as well. The voice acting within the levels goes a long way in building up individual storylines as well as a broader narrative that comes together at a few different climax points. I like a lot of the main characters, despite sometimes being a bit cringe. Pitt and Palutenna's discussions are great background to kill demons to and characters like Magnus, Viridi, Hades, and a lot of the bosses add so much to the experience. Lastly, I want comment on how creative the game is. They took a game series with not much to work with and challenged themselves to get crazy with it. There are so many cool ideas. The chapter where you play as a little girl, a dog, magnus en route to killing Pit exemplifies the success of their experimentation.

Overall, Uprising is a really creative, beautiful, and unique experience. Although, the controls can quite literally be painful at times (I actually paced myself by taking a lot of breaks) and the intensity slider kinda pisses me off. That does not soil what is a tremendous game that experiments with a variety of different ideas and even gameplay styles.

My Backloggd goat cooked up one of the greatest rom hacks of our generation. People will be talking about the custom Lakitu sprite for a very long time. The intense difficulty of the hack only proves to show the expertise, intelligence, and skill of its creator. Pretty inconcievable that this game only has three backloggd plays. Its a hidden gem, no a hidden gold mine, to be sure. There is so much meaning hidden under the surface of this game as well. Just look at its title. Gravity Machine. It aims to upack the very force that pushes against us at all times of the day, and not just in a physical way but a spiritual and emotional way. I think we all see ourselves in Mario as he sifts through the labyrinth of the Gravity Machine. He falls, he trips, he bonks, all on his way to what he believes to be his greatest triumph, 4 stars in the machine. It is then that he realizes that he has achieved nothing at all. He must steel himself for the true final test. He must defeat gravity once and for all, a feeling that is innate in all of us whether it be in our personal, professional, or spiritual lives. As we journey alongside Mario we learn not only about him but ourselves which makes the gravity machine such a beautiful and enchanting experience.

I kinda dig this game. It controls super well. The music is fantastic. Bosses are spot on and, without using heals, hit the difficulty sweet spot for me. The mix of platforming and combat is at a good balance. The platforming sections are fun to complete and evolve as you collect more power-ups, and there is a decent amount of enemy variety to make the combat fun in the moment to moment. Also, I kinda like that the combat is fairly simple. The options they give you complement the movement well and are pushed to their limits by the bosses of the game. There are a few sections that feel enemy-spammy which is one of my gripes. I like the way this game structured its gameplay loop as well. You can always count on going from mingling in Scuttletown to exploring and getting a feel for the new area to hitting the palace and fighting boss of the region. I enjoy it. There are some sections that require some backtracking, but most of the time they made it make some sort of sense and it at least expanded upon the world. Its also got a fun story that doesn't take itself too seriously.

Sure, it doesn't have the best visuals ever, but it did enough with its music, world, and gameplay to keep me interested all the way through 100%ing it.

TOEM is a really fun and charming game centered around photography. It's based around these really neat monochrome set pieces that you interact with in the third person as the player and the first person with the camera. This makes for a really unique world and cool gameplay elements with perspective.

The UI is pretty and fitting while also being very functional. The missions are a lot of fun to figure out and usually quite cute. I really liked how they included the sparkly portrait close-ups you get to take after helping some of the NPCs, very rewarding lol. I especially loved the 100 followers close-up. All the different locations having their own identity and central mechanics added a lot to the experience as well. Cataloging all the different animals was a fun side story that the game never pushes you to do outside of an achievement. I like that about it. I just kinda wanted to do it, and that feeling pervaded the experience. There were so many times when I took photos, selfies, or tripod shots that I thought were just cool for the sake of taking them. Sometimes they helped me out in a later quest but sometimes they were just fun photos to take. 100% was fun and not all that frustrating, but I guess that's a bit hard for me to say because I did look up hints on some of the quests and achievements I could not figure out. The character designs are cute. The main character is just a little guy out there in the world. The story is pretty much the journey itself which is great for a game like this, and the end of the journey was a satisfying moment that provides a beautiful opportunity for your final photo.

Overall, a super soulful game that allowed me to live out my dreams of being a photographer. I don't have much bad to say about it. They even got an expansion world that went hard.

This was my first time playing a Persona or SMT game, and, even though this game has been very prevalent in the gaming zeitgeist, I was coming in with a pretty clean slate. I really only knew general things about the game and a few characters like Joker, Ryuji, and Futaba. The first thing that really hit me about the game was just how stylish it is. It opens mid casino heist, and gliding around the first section of the game felt really cool. It is a fantastic hook that had me immediately interested in the game and its presentation, especially because I was a bit apprehensive about what the gameplay might entail. The music, art style, and animations are fantastic throughout and add so much to the experience. Stuff like showtime moves, ziplining, bouncing between cover, and ambushing enemies all work together to create a cool infiltration vibe.

As such, I had a great time infiltrating the first palace of the game. Everything was very fresh, and learning the mechanics felt natural. The battle system is pretty neat. There are so many layers to it that build as you play the game, and I slowly improved with it as the game went on. I also changed the way I interacted with battles as my priorities changed which was cool that there is a lot of flexibility in the system. The bosses were pretty cool, especially late game. The music once again adds a lot to this, but they also challenge you to adapt your playstyle to them which is cool. After the first palace and a half, I did start to get a bit bored by the mid-game dungeons. The keepers are soooo boring early on. They are literally just "Im Mr. big bad evil man and I hate people and love money and hurting people." It hurts the overall vibe of the dungeon and especially the bosses when they are so dense. I was also a bit disappointed by how similar they felt outside of theming. I guess I wish there were more to it than that which they did fix in the later dungeons. I really enjoyed Shidos Palace and especially the final royal palace. Those implemented new ideas and story beats that made it feel like I wasn't just killing a bunch of shadows in a different font.

On the story side of things, I have mixed feelings. Like I said I really don't like the majority of the villains in this game. They are super dense and are just evil to be evil. This makes most of the central conflicts pretty lame until the late game. The characters are okay, really hit or miss. I like most of the party members and it's neat to learn about them for the most part. Some of them I really do not like much at all though. Haru and Yuske are especially cringe. On the plus side, I really like Ryuji, Sojiro, Maruki, and Sumire as characters. The social sim part of the game is decent. Nothing life-changing, but I think it's kinda fun to juggle relationships, priorities, school, work, and momentos visits.

For me, P5R was starting to lose its luster around Sae's palace as it was getting a bit samey and the story wasn't hooking me as much. However, everything after that saved the experience. The dungeons get better. The stakes get higher. The story improves, and the bosses get way more exciting. The Royal post-game alone probably added a star to my score. It is so good and stands out when lined up next to the rest of the dungeons. The palace keeper is so good. He is a dynamic character that you get to know and sympathize with throughout the dungeon. The music and style is immaculate, as they create an aura that feels unique and needed for the post-game of a 100-hour game. They revived my mixed feelings about Akechi's stupid motivations in the base game by making him a deranged goat. The final boss and ending were superb as well.

Overall, I enjoyed P5R. It's got fantastic vision, style, and flare. It has solid RPG elements and dungeons. Its story and characters are hit or miss, but, by the end, I felt connected to them.

A creative, charming, and unique 2D platformer that is super fun to play with a friend. The music and art style work together to wrap you up in a warm blanket of soul from the start. There are lots of neat mechanics and gimmicks that keep the game fresh from world to world. The bosses are fun and well-designed. My one main complaint with this game is that it has too many collectibles. We 100%'d it and it actively worsened the experience. Flowers and wool are cool collectibles. I loved earning and judging all the yoshis we unlocked and unlocking secret levels. However, stamps and hearts are such a pain. It just isn't fun to scour levels for one stamp you missed while juggling the heart run 2-3 times imo.

This game is criminally underrated. It executes everything that a core Zelda experience should. First of all, the dungeons are really good. The Snow and Sand temples especially stuck out as having great puzzles that used the touch screen in cool ways and stretched my brain. The Tower of Spirits was a bit hit or miss, but it had some cool moments. I did not like the last section in the tower because of all the phantom backtracking you do though. The dungeons are also enriched by some of the best bosses in the entire series. I would name the ones I liked the most but they were all good and had more phases than most Zelda bosses do, giving them major sticking power in my memory. I do have to give props to Fraz though for being such a cool boss. MAN the snow temple rules.

Anyway, the gameplay in between the dungeons was also pretty neat outside of a few of those mainline backtrackers. There were neat little puzzles, cool Lokomo pan flute duets, and fun stations to explore. I actually think riding the train around is a pretty neat gimmick, and it was pretty cool for the first 10-15 hours of the playthrough. However, it definitely starts to get boring later on and the charm starts to wear off, especially for me because I was going for all heart pieces and force gems. This is probably one of the worst Zelda's for side quests. They are all backtracking fetch quests which just make you a trucker across the map. The game does have some sick mini-games though i.e. Goron Target Range, Pirate Hideout, and Sword Training.

The Story is just okay until you get to the very end and then it becomes kinda amazing. That ending is definitely among the best in the series for both cool moments and gameplay. There are like 5 different boss fights that pretty much all hit, and there's like 10 new songs that drop during that ending that are all bangers. The soundtrack in general is pretty good. The train, underwater, field, chancellor cole, Lokomo duet, and Byrne themes are standouts for sure.

Overall, this is another really good Zelda game worth playing that gets a bad rap. It executes what is important in a Zelda game with what I think is actually a pretty cool main gimmick. It is one of the worst Zelda's for side content FWIW

I came in expecting a game like A Short Hike, but Smushi Come Home carves out its own identity as a super fun and neat little game. It took some ideas from a short hike in world design, dialogue style, and customization and made them its own. Smushi is fun and unique to control. The climbing hooks shine as something cool I have not seen from a 3D platformer before. The scenarios Smushi finds himself in are fun, and the dialogue is charming. I really like how the game is split into three areas that each have their own stories and styles. The spring region does a good job of getting you started and introducing things. The Fall area is probably my favorite. It has lots of fun characters, challenges, and views. The lake is great too. I am a sucker for these types of island-hopping sections in games. The capybara family coming back together is great. The music bangs, and I particularly love the sound that chat boxes make when advancing text. Also, the song for the Autumn area is very pleasant. You can tell there is a lot of quality-of-life stuff in this game that helps guide you to points of interest which made 100%ing it very fun. I enjoyed reading about new mushrooms and augmenting my mushroom cap throughout the journey. Smushi is the goat too, a lot to learn from that little fungus.

Overall, I came away very impressed by this game. It's got a ton of heart and individuality packed into it. It certainly rises above its inspiration to create a really cool world and game.

Everything you could ask for in a remake and more. The game looks great, runs great, and sounds great. The cutscenes were the big draw for me and they definitely added a lot. I love the final cutscene. The battle system is also improved. One of my big complaints with the original is that the game never tells you the correct timing for the attacks and blocks so you can never really learn and get them consistently. They also just kinda felt wonky in general. This game really cleans that up. The gauge moves, splash damage, and switching are also nice wrinkles. The downside of this is that it makes the game easier but I think that's okay, especially with the postgame presenting some difficult challenges. I also appreciate additions like the scrapbook and bestiary. Post-game is pretty cool. Im glad that the refights actually changed a lot up rather than just adding HP and damage.

It's a good remake for a good game. Feels like the definitive way to play it.

Such a cool game. The puzzles are super fun to wrap your head around. They are super well designed and leverage the multiple worlds theme brilliantly. They're the kinda puzzles that make you feel good about yourself without getting frustrated if you don't get it at first. Admittedly, most of them are not too difficult but thats fine with me. A few of them, especially towards the end, blew me away with how cool they layered the mechanics on top of one another. I did not expect there to be boss fights, but I am very happy for them. They are fun to figure out and to play which can be a difficult balance to strike. Playdead always excelled at creating a really neat atmosphere, so it is not a surprise that this game does so as well. Each world has its own unique vibe to it while keeping the barren, wistful tone of the overall experience. It also tells a pretty neat story that I was not wise enough to fully parse out until reading up on it afterward so take from that what you will.

Immersion is a term that gets thrown around a lot, but it has never hit me in a game quite like this one. The emphasis on verisimilitude is so impressive, and the characters feel so real as you observe them eat their dinner, play some poker, and offer you an in on their latest robbery.

The setting itself is awesome. The vistas of America at the turn of the 20th century are beautiful and the historical angle of this game will always be pretty neat. Blood feuds, Native American subjection, oil barons, and other US historical events are a really unique aesthetic for a video game which I have never seen before. The attention to detail is also super impressive. Little things like the journal, stranger quests, legendary animals, bounty hunting, and stagecoach robbing breathe so much life into the experience.

The game has fantastic characters that ultimately drive the experience. Arthur, Dutch, John, Lenny, Javier, Tilly, Kieren, Sadie. They all bring something interesting to the table and feel real. The game puts you in their shoes and has you learning how they feel about how things are and what brought them to this point. Dutch is very fun and just a neat character overall. Arthur is also a great protagonist his development from outlaw to morally decent outlaw is a fitting one. I can concede that the game gets a bit less enjoyable towards the end. The gang HQs are much more bleak for obvious reasons and the game does drag on a bit, Things went to shit for the gang and I was kinda sad about it because I actually felt like I was a part of things which is at least impressive to me.

The gameplay is classic Rockstar which I can find stupid fun in, but it is ultimately shallow. You ride your horse to a location and shoot people typically but the game is always dressing it up and keeping things interesting. Not to mention cutscenes and story moments always adding much more meaning to the mundanity. The music also helps big time in that regard. Some of these songs absolutely slap and add stakes to huge moments in this game. There are a lot of really neat moments that will stick in my mind for years to come.

Overall, this game has got a very interesting world, a great story with compelling characters, and will make you feel a level of comradery that is very special. All those details weren't for nothing. everything hit so much harder because the characters, world, and story felt real.