Bayonetta 1 and 2 are fairly similar games so it comes down to personal taste as to which one is better. I find the improved visuals, smoother controls, and available content to make Bayonetta 2 the better experience and correspondingly I rate it better. It isn't without flaws, some sections are far too gimmicky for their own good, and the over abundance of enemies that can deflect your combos to interrupt them are beyond annoying, but this constitutes a fairly small amount of the game if you play it fully. It gets down to brass tax faster than the first game, has excellent game feel, and there's loads of extras and unlockables to gun for. The performance improvements of the Nintendo Switch version sweeten the deal. Must play if you love the genre.

The oddball of the classic Silent Hill games, I find that to be a good thing in many ways. In fact, on a single playthrough basis I probably like this game more than the obvious pick for best game in the series, Silent Hill 2, but I am aware I can't really rate this higher in good conscience.

4 sets itself apart by having a greater emphasis on melee combat, more self contained levels that revolve less around puzzles and more around getting through them efficiently, and inventory management. Additionally, the game's paradigm shifts halfway through, with your safe zone of the titular room 302 becoming hostile and being tasked with a game long escort quest. I find the escort quest to be a little unfairly maligned, because in sharp contrast to Maria in 2, Eileen actually cannot die. Eileen's condition purely effects your shots at the endings where she survives, and she's actually surprisingly resilient, able to take a couple dozen hits without detriment to your shot at the Escape ending. That said, you do often need to wait for her which can bog down the speed at which you get through the game, especially in comparison to how quickly you can blitz the first half of the game.

Where the game really succeeds is having excellent tension. The levels are dark, dingy, loaded with creepy sounds (with some exceptions like the infamous belching Patient monsters) and the apartment hauntings do an excellent job of flipping the experience on the player, making your safe haven into a place you dread returning to. While I do find the camera angles to be awkward at times, general movement is also a lot smoother than the previous games. I'd say my biggest criticism is that the game has easily the worst replay value of any game in the series. The unlockables are amazingly lame, none of the endings contribute to unlocking anything, and the more rigid progression of the game makes certain passages very sloggy to replay. It's an excellent seasonal game though, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is open minded with horror games. There isn't really another game out there quite like this one.

The one that started it all and a darn good game by the standards of PS1 horror. While RE3 might compete with it in play control, Silent Hill has by far the best atmosphere and environments of any Playstaion era survival horror game. It's also considerably less frustrating with no inventory management and fairly straightforward brain teasers for its puzzles. The game also has excellent replay value with 5 different endings, special bonus options you unlock on game clear, and extra weapons for each clear alongside a very tough but fun to try ranking system. If you love PS1 survival horror games, you'll love this.

A horror classic for certain! The atmosphere of Silent Hill 2 is just stellar, from the sound to the visuals, it's amazing what they pulled off for one of the earliest PS2 games. Add in the surrealist elements of the story, and you have a very unsettling game to play alone in the dark. While the controls are typical Survival Horror tank style, you do have strafing buttons and better camera angles than Resident Evil so it plays just fine if you are used to the formula. The game is also remarkably easy and generous for a Survival Horror game, with an abundance of ammo and healing items. It's only really a challenge on Hard mode during boss fights and the infamous hospital chase with Pyramid Head. Despite this, the lack of challenge doesn't detract from the atmosphere which is a major accomplishment on its own. Definitely a must play for fans of the genre, if you can immerse yourself in the game you will not be disappointed.

What's there to say about Bayonetta? It's ridiculous as all hell and takes the character action formula to its extremes. Despite being built around a fairly powerful mechanic it still has plenty of challenges. My biggest criticisms are that despite the extensive combo options, it's impractical to make use of most of them so you tend to just use the same moves you know will work repeatedly, which is not helped by the weapons being pretty poorly balanced. The game also infamously has loads of QTE's, sequences, and even attacks that result in instant death should you fail on them. I shouldn't need to elaborate on why that's annoying for a new or rusty player. A Switch specific problem is that all slow down has been eliminated, which accidentally makes button mashing mini games much hard than they are supposed to be. Still, it's a great playing game that's just the right length for a single playthrough in this genre with plenty of unlockables and incentives giving it amazing replay value. An absolute must for fans of the genre.

This game is just about perfect when it comes to beat em ups. Any complaints I might have are strictly mileage ones like difficulty and length. All the turtles play unique, you have a bevvy of moves that all have their uses, great use of the license and it's just satisfying to fight and kill things.

One thing to note is that the Cowabunga Collection adds a manual dash button, patching up one of the biggest control issues from the original game. Excellent addition and makes a fun game even better to play.

HUGE improvement over the previous NES outing. Actual differences between the turtles, all attack options are more viable and have a chance to be put to good use, and much improved boss fights with actual strategy to employ against them outside of Jump Kick spam. This about the best the NES can do for a beat em up. The main problems are like the last game some levels and bosses can drag for too long making it feel a little repetitive. It's also remarkably stingy with healing items for a console beat 'em up, with half the levels not having any at all. With the more generous system for extra lives though, this is hardly a problem. Check it out if you're a huge Turtles fan and lover of NES action games.

The home port of the classic Arcade game! Despite what a certain Irate Gamer might tell you, this is pretty decent adaptation of the arcade game, doing the best they could with the hardware. The attacks are slightly stripped down but the original is already pretty simplistic so it's not a huge deal. I appreciate the new levels and unique enemies to this version, making it stand out as its own thing from the cabinet version. That said, the bosses are very repetitive, being bulked up considerably while having less options for looping them. Every boss fight boils down to jump kick spam if you want to survive, with only a handful of shake ups. Still, for the era it's made for it's perfectly serviceable and better than I was expecting.

One thing I noticed which may be a Cowabunga Collection problem is unresponsive controls. I could only find one button config that allowed me to do the Special Attack by pressing jump and attack simultaneously in a consistent fashion. Even using Keyboard controls eliminating the chance I'm not pressing the buttons at the same time still had it be very inconsistent. With all the other available enhancements, it seems odd there isn't a macro for the special attack.

A cornerstone and classic of the beat em up genre, so very much worth checking out on that merit. Absolutely brutal though, with dense enemy configurations with genuinely difficult to avoid attack patterns, this one can be a quarter muncher. The arcade I played this at had the dip settings for 3 lives per token and I still blew through 4 dollars trying to complete the whole game, with a guy a jumping in to help halfway through. Nothing is more satisfying than getting suplex chains going with Haggar though.

If you like hybridized simulation and action RPG games, you could do far worse than this. The simulation aspects aren't overly demanding, and the game has very smooth control and good flexibility with the available options to not make the rougelike aspects overly frustrating. That said, the two elements don't pair as well as they could, the simulation aspect has several resources that decay way too quickly to make extensive dungeoneering a good idea. Additionally, while you can invoke rituals to mitigate the decay while exploring, they all come with draw backs or just don't limit it enough. Additionally, most of the sidequest content is strictly linked to the cult and surrounding locations rather than the dungeon, so beyond collecting certain resources the game doesn't demand that you explore much. The game also has very little post game content despite continuing endlessly after beating the final boss.

That said, they did make it clear they are going to develop the game further with updates, and while I'm not a huge fan of that model I'm sure the game will only become better with time. It also does not waste your time or overly pad the game, which as someone who plays a lot of over-long JRPG's, I can appreciate that. If you love the look of the game, chances are you'll enjoy it, so give it a shot!

Hoo boy, Cold Steel is definitely going to be my definitive example of having too much of a good thing going forward. Do be aware my rating is in the context of the whole series, stand alone I'd rate it 4 stars instead. That said, this game is long (100 hours for not even a 100% playthrough!) and it's easy to be exhausted by the Erebonia format in general by the time you reach it. Unfortunately it has a lot of the writing faults Cold Steel 2 had which is a problem because of how story heavy Trails as a whole is. Very strong opening act followed by a very aimless and poorly justified second act that just feels like filler, which this game DID NOT need. The ensemble cast is cool in theory, but some characters are starved for prominence and trying to give everyone at least one thing to say bloats the run time of every scene in this game to truly awful lengths. There were sequences that went on so long I legitimately had to take multiple bathroom breaks before they were over.

On the positive sides, all the moments meant to be cathartic do land pretty well, and the ending is definitely a heart warming capstone. While I'm not a fan of the harem nature, I do feel the romantic scenes feel a lot more genuine than the ones in the first half of the Tetralogy. Gameplay-wise it's also a step up from 3, balancing it's mechanics way better and not having the obnoxious "Rocket-Tag" style Cold Steel 3 had. The huge cast is something your mileage will vary on. I hated having to constantly move around equipment, equip people with limited resources, and constantly being forced into using certain parties. I can easily see how someone would like that, however, and it does keep some variety.

All said though, this is easily my least favorite game in the Trails series so far, and Cold Steel as a whole just felt like it got weaker with each installment. They're still very good, especially if you like this style of RPG, but I have no desire to play any of them again any time soon, and I might even just pass on Reverie since I'm so burnt out on Erebonia. Definitely looking more forward to the Crossbell and Calvard games coming Stateside.