Earlier this year, after learning that a sequel was coming out, I decided to play through Oxenfree after having it in my backlog for years. I found the first game's story quite interesting and thought the voice acting was well done, but I found the pacing to be a bit slow and I was put off by several weird design decisions (character dialogue being interrupted when choosing a response, a slow walking speed, frequent and long loading screens, and a world that wasn't overly interesting to explore). Though I finished the game with mixed feelings I was surprisingly excited to see how the developers mixed things up in the sequel.

Oxenfree 2 follows very closely in the shoes of the original game. You still take control of one person (in this game it is a girl named Riley), you explore a large outdoors area (that still has little to interact with), and you select dialogue responses for whatever conversation is going on. The story is a continuation of the first game, and it is almost assumed that you know about the events that occurred there. I highly recommend new players start with that game before diving into the sequel.

In the first Oxenfree you had a larger group of friends to interact with, but in Oxenfree 2 most conversations are between Riley and a young male named Jacob (there are still interactions with others, it's just that most are between these two). I actually quite enjoyed this change to a smaller cast as it really highlighted the growth of a new friendship between Riley and Jacob. The voice acting for these two was incredible and the voice actors really brought these characters to life through realistic banter and dialogue. Both were very likeable, and the conversations were fun to listen to. For me, the voice acting was probably the game's biggest highlight.

The developers made a good number of improvements to this game over the first game. The graphics, while still retaining the look of the original, felt more polished and created a unique look for the world and its inhabitants. The music is entirely instrumental and felt somewhat spooky and created an interesting atmosphere. Thankfully, a lot of the issues I had with the original game were also ironed out in the sequel. Choosing a dialogue option no longer interrupted conversations mid-sentence and instead didn't start playing until after the current statement had finished being spoken, which was such a huge quality of life change. Also, load times seemed shorter (though they were still far too frequent) and the amount of backtracking seemed reduced too. It really felt like the developers listened to players complaints about the first game and made sure to fix them in the sequel, which I really appreciated.

Despite really only saying positives about the game so far, it left me a bit disappointed. Sure, it improved on the original game in almost every way, but it falters with regards to its story. While still good, it was less memorable than the first game's story. The early and mid-game events (everything excluding the ending) were flashier and more interesting than those in the original game, but when all was said and done, I just felt a bit underwhelmed. I finished the game with what I assume is the "good ending", which while somewhat satisfying (with regards to the series as a whole), ultimately left me feeling a bit disappointed. The game's story wasn't bad by any means, and I was quite captivated by it at times, but I can't deny that it was less memorable than the first game.

I enjoyed my playthrough of Oxenfree 2. Mostly, I was impressed by how the developers improved on the groundwork that was laid by the first game. Graphics, music, voice acting, pacing, and load times were all improved, but sadly the game was held back a bit due to a less interesting story and a somewhat underwhelming ending. Despite being not blown away by the story, I do still highly recommend that fans of the original check this game out. For anyone interested in checking this series out for the first time, I advise them to start out with the first game as the stories are deeply connected.

It has been a long time coming, but I finally made it through Celeste! Over the past few years, I have started and stopped this game multiple times. I first started playing it on PS4, got to Chapter 3, then gave up on it. Months later I picked it for the Switch, where I slowly chipped away at it but never dedicated myself to making any sort of meaningful progress, but eventually got to the end of Chapter 3 once again. I never felt that the game was too hard or unfair, I just kept being drawn away to games with more depth than a platformer. A few weeks back I decided to set my focus strictly on finishing Celeste once and for, all and I am really glad that I did. When I immersed myself fully I was finally able to see why this game is so beloved.

The art style in Celeste is beautiful. The graphics in the platforming sections have a simple but nice look to them, looking like an upscaled or more modernized retro game, which I felt worked really well for this gameplay style. Each chapter had its own distinct look and feel to it too which kept things fresh. I also really loved the portraits that were used during the dialogue segments. These were incredibly charming, and the artist did a wonderful job of imbuing the characters with a great level of personality and emotion.

The sound design throughout Celeste was great as well. The sound effects were fitting for the gameplay and the noises used in place of voices for the dialogue segments worked surprisingly well. The soundtrack was very catchy too and I almost always got a track stuck in my head after a play session.

I really enjoyed the story in Celeste, too. I won't go into it in detail here as I feel it is best to experience it yourself, but I found it to be well written, engaging, and pretty touching, too.

Where Celeste shines brightest is in its challenging but never unfair level design (though I have yet to attempt the B-sides so I can't vouch for their difficulty just yet). I died a lot in my playthrough (almost 1500 times), but these all seemed fair as it was my error that caused me to die, not cheap or poor level design. I always felt that the tough areas were made this way to test my skills and to push me to improve, not to punish me. It helped that the game's world is broken up into individual rooms, with each death resetting you back to the start of that room. This greatly reduced the feeling of frustration whenever I died and made it easy to keep on trying time and time again until I finally made it through to the end. It was such an exhilarating and satisfying feeling to make it through a particularly challenging room after so many failed attempts.

For how simple the gameplay was (jump, dash, grip), the gameplay always felt fresh, mostly because of clever level design, but also because of new mechanics that were introduced in each chapter. Most chapters were also concluded with a boss battle of sorts, which generally required quick reflexes and mastery of the chapter's new mechanics. I wish there had been more of these in the game, but the ones that were there offered a nice challenge and were incredibly satisfying to get through.

Celeste was an incredible experience. It was a very challenging game at times, but the feeling of satisfaction that I felt when overcoming a particularly tough section made it worth any of the stress and frustration. I died a lot, and I didn't find all that many of the collectibles (90/175 strawberries), but I thoroughly enjoyed my time with this game. I'm unsure if I will ever go back to finish the B-side levels, but I probably will return from time to time to gather a few more of those missing collectibles.

Last year I played through all of the 2D Metroid games (Metroid Zero Mission and Samus Returns instead of the original games), which was a good amount of fun. After finishing them I wanted to play through the 3D games in the series, but I had no good way of doing so. I was understandably hyped when Metroid Prime Remastered was announced at a Nintendo Direct earlier this year and was instantly excited to finally see how this series translated to the first-person perspective.

Right from the very get go I was impressed by what the game had to offer. The graphical overhaul from the original game was extremely well done and made this 20-year-old game feel brand new. The sound design was good throughout too, with a strong (albeit a bit repetitive) soundtrack, and sound effects that worked well for the game world. The game's controls also worked better than I had anticipated they would. The gyro aiming was an appreciated addition and the ability to lock onto enemies with the press of a button made the combat considerably more satisfying than it would have been otherwise. Samus's movement was also very fluid which made exploring the world a lot of fun. Lastly, I felt there was a good variety of weapons and gadgets to unlock too. It was always exciting to add something new to my arsenal, especially when it allowed me to reach previously unreachable locations in the game's expansive landscape.

I liked a lot about Metroid Prime Remastered, but it wasn't without its faults. The biggest annoyance to me was the lack of any brightness settings. I played this entirely in handheld mode, primarily in public places, which caused a decent amount of glare on the screen. As many of the game's environments were very dark it often became difficult to traverse the world, even leading to a small handful of deaths because of it (for example, I fell into a pit with toxic water and was unable to find a low ledge to jump up to due to how dark the area was). This wasn't game breaking by any means, but it certainly hampered my overall enjoyment. I also felt that the game's combat was so-so at best, and it became rather tiresome after a few hours. I eventually started to avoid battles whenever possible as I felt there was no real reason to see them through to completion. Some sort of XP system or other reason to defeat enemies would have alleviated this issue, in my opinion.

Overall, I had a good time with Metroid Prime Remastered. The graphics were great, the sound design was solid, the world exploration was a lot of fun, and the controls worked perfectly. The lack of brightness settings and the mostly hollow combat lessened my enjoyment a bit, but I still really enjoyed my time with it as a whole, and it was great to finally play one of the 3D Metroid games. I will definitely be checking out the sequels once they are released.