This game was quite delightful, to say the least. I had a really fun time with it. Unlike the other Mario rpgs I've played, this one is a lot more in line with classic Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest than I would've expected but I guess I should've expected it considering that it was made by Square Soft back in the mid 90s. The remake itself is mostly faithful in style to pretty good results, the ability to switch party members in battle freely is a nice touch and the team attacks were another nice addition. I think the art style mostly works but there are some instances where it can feel kinda cheap. The timing-based battles make this one really engaging though despite the low difficulty. Also, isometric platforming is dumb, I get they wanted to implement Mario's platforming into this game but I just think it could've used some fine tuning.

Spider-Man 2 is still quite the strong game from Insomniac as it offers plenty of the old Spider-Man goodness but I also have to say that I'm slightly let down here. The biggest reason why I adored the original game was the development and relationship that Peter has with Mr.Negative and Doc Ock which I feel as though has been almost completely lost with Kraven the Hunter. I found his narrative incredibly uninteresting and I just wanted to get to the black suit and symbiote stuff which I will admit, is pretty awesome and I love how they translated the black suit into the gameplay. The plot between Miles and Mr.Negative was also an unexpectedly strong aspect of this game and it further reinforms my belief that Mr.Negative is the best Insomniac has done in adapting a villain for these games. The swinging here is also quite refined thanks to new additions such as the web wings and the expanded world really added a lot to the game. As for my negatives, I feel as though this one is slightly unpolished for my liking. I must've been soft-locked at least 5 times from objectives just not registering as completed and I saw plenty of visual bugs along the way too. A lot of the open-world objectives are still fun as they were in the other games but now they can feel pretty cluttered and undistinct which made the checklist feeling even more apparent. Spider-Man 2 is another strong entry in this Spider-Man mythos but I feel as though Insomniac slipped up in quite a few unfortunate ways such as introducing what is probably the least interesting villain in this Spider-Man universe in the form of Kraven. I'm not really all that familiar with Kraven but this really was not a good first impression for me on that character which is a shame because Insomniac managed to take an unknown like Mr.Negative and make him into one of my favourite Spider-Man villains in the previous game.

I was not expecting this game to hit as hard as it does. Aside from the kinda whatever story that mostly just does what it needs to, I have no notes. This is one of if not the most fun shooter games I've played thanks to tons of gameplay variety and options at your disposal during combat. The atmosphere here is also incredible with the game's three distinct locations each having a grand mood of their own. The game also zooms by so if there's a not-so-strong setpiece, it doesn't last very long and gets onto the next one. The music also goes hard along with the just insane visible detail in the environment. I played through about half of the original re4 before getting very busy with other games and school but from what I can tell, all of the changes they made here were incredibly smart. Leon still says one-liners and the game can still be campy as fuck but it manages to do that in a way that doesn't feel jarring.

Anyway yeah this is my game of the year

I finally beat this game after what I believe was half the year. I gotta say the atmosphere and graphics are easily the best part, being able to be effectively creepy without ever overdoing that. The gameplay is also solid but I feel like this game has a habit of throwing way too many enemies at you at once at certain points. The boss fights are also all dogshit, I feel like single-player shooter bosses are incredibly hard to get right and I don't think this one changes my stance on that. I would personally rather there had been more creative setpieces as opposed to the boss fights because I feel like that works better for this genre. Overall, it is a pretty strong horror game with some issues regarding its enemy encounters

I'm definitely gonna replay this in single player whenever I get the chance since I played 4 player co-op on my friend's copy but this game was an absolute joy from top to bottom. It has incredibly designed levels that constantly shake themselves up and it is generally very easy to get lost in the vibe of it all for literal hours at a time. Only thing keeping this one from the 5 stars is that they completely fucked up the camera control in local co-op for this one by assigning it to a random player instead of just moving with the furthest player like in the new super series

As someone who first got into this franchise in 2020 with the original FF7, this is the first new mainline FF game I've had the chance to play right when it was new. It also seems to be deeply controversial on this website which honestly isn't surprising at all.

As for my take, I found FF16 to be utterly brilliant. Valisthea is easily the most grim world we have experienced so far filled with war-torn landscapes that are slowly dying due to blight, slavery, and mass injustice and violence. But this grimness is juxtaposed with what might be one of the most hopeful stories in the franchise. The theme is a take on the very classic "the indifferent cruelty of the universe vs the indomitable human spirit" story. With an uncaring God looking to fix his world by trying to rid humans of their Will because he believes that is what had led to its undoing even though it is ultimately what will save this world. Clive is an excellent protagonist and is deeply explored thanks to the setup of this being a character-action Final Fantasy game. Despite this setup though, the supporting cast is also very lovable with the likes of Joshua Rosfield, Jill Warrick, and Cid being my personal favourites. The combat also goes hard, it is fairly challenging at times but it isn't really oppressively difficult. There are also a ton of options available to the player thanks to various skills offered by the Eikons that can be switched out during battle. How could I even talk about combat without mentioning the absolutely incredible boss fights though? A lot of them are nearly or even over an hour long which would normally drive me nuts but the absolute spectacle(and forgiving checkpoints) allows them to still be incredibly enjoyable and harrowing. The music is also absolutely beautiful, every new track I heard stood out and I even caught myself humming along to various boss tracks. The graphics are also amazing and it is the first time in this gen in which I could really say I've played a next-gen game that truly couldn't have been made on last-gen tech.

As for flaws, my main complaint is some pacing issues in the middle with sort of mundane quests at that point but I feel as though the rest of this 35-hour adventure made up for it. Play this one when you get the chance

After well over 2 months, I've finally beaten the fabled Tears of the Kingdom. This game didn't even feel real for the longest time before it came out so I didn't really feel the hype until right at the final trailer where I was like "oh shit this is the sequel to one my favourite games ever".

Now how does it stack up, it's definitely fantastically put together as it weaves together significantly more interesting puzzles and enemy variety. However, this innovation in gameplay comes at the cost of an interesting story or lore. It really feels like the devs came up with all these new mechanics and the fact that they wanted Link to fight Ganondorf in the end and cobbled a story together after the fact, which is saying a lot since BOTW's story isn't really much to write home about either. The shrines are better, the Zonai abilities are way more fun to mess around with than the Shekai powers ever were, and the core world is still as fun to explore as it was 6 years ago thanks to the additions of the underground and sky as well as improved dungeons. However, something really weird happened with the combat balancing here, it's like they played Elden Ring and lifted the problems I had with that game's damage output and put it here but ultimately it is a lot less extreme as Zelda is more forgiving and is a lot less combat heavy.

Overall, The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom is a game I would recommend to basically everyone with the caveat that it contains higher highs but also lower lows than BOTW. This shakes out to it being about the same in terms of enjoyment if not a little lower due to some factors such as me simply being younger when BOTW launched. I really loved this one(fyi it's like a 9.5/10 but I round so deal with it).

GOD DAMN

This is one incredible meaty ass game. I knew for a while this was probably gonna be my game of the year but I didn't really know I was going to love it this much. The scale is bigger, the problems I had with the original have mostly been fixed, and the story packs a much bigger punch. When the credits were rolling I was just left there with a big goofy smile on my face, glad that video games that have the ability to inspire, challenge, and harness emotion like this are being made today. 100% recommendation here, this is one true masterpiece for the ages.

I've finally accepted that I personally do not enjoy soulslike combat despite how popular it may seem online. However, every part outside of that was enjoyable for me across the 30 hours I did spend with the game. This is probably one of the weirdest experiences with a game I had in a while in terms of my thoughts to say the least as I did not beat the game nor do I plan to but I feel as though I've gotten my money's worth from whenever I wasn't in combat due to great music, art design, a great open world with fun traversal, etc.

Since I only rate games here on a 5 point scale(no half stars) I have to clarify that I believe this game is a firm 9/10

This is probably my favourite modern jrpg since Dragon Quest XI, boasting an incredibly fun job system, fantastic art direction, and a story that at points got to me emotionally moreso than most other pieces of media. There is one key thing that holds this one down from being a true masterpiece and that is the length, this game is too long for what it is thanks to some unnecessary padding in chapter 4 and an overlong boring final dungeon. Overall, I loved it, I still can't decide between this and Kirby as my current GOTY but there were some things that held it back a little for me