Rayman Legends is an example of a game that will never age. There's a beautiful painterly art style to everything with backdrops that look like they were taken straight from the concept art. The music is incredibly unique and varied, and the gameplay, though introduced with Origins, is very satisfying and quick.

Lots of my memories with this game has kinda left me since first playing it back in 2013. It's crazy to think it has been 11 years since it first released, and even crazier is the fact that Origins had only released 2 years prior. While I think Origins still holds up as well, I think the art style with the characters, doesn't seamlessly integrate with the environments. Don't get me wrong, I think this was a deliberate choice, in order to make the interactive elements and characters stand out from the background. But I believe this choice hindered the art style, making looking back at Origins feel almost a little dated. For a while throughout my life I vastly preferred the cartoony cel shaded characters of Origins, but my mind has changed.

Disregarding my feelings on the art style, Legends isn't just all style and no substance. Legends has a meaty main game where collecting every Teensie and getting enough lums has you looking through every nook and cranny in the game. There's a lot of challenge to this, but not too much to where I was frustrated. Each character has a moveset of standing and running punches and kicks, with the running punch almost acting like a roll attack from Donkey Kong Country, wherein you are thrust forward with momentum after using it. This is a very "risk or reward" type of move; sometimes you want to use it to get faster or carry your momentum through a jump, which the game encourages, but other times you might use it and not be aware of the danger that is just a few feet ahead. There's also an expected ground pound move, but it can destroy enemies within a short radius, which helps if you hadn't have aimed right on top of an enemy.

What I think really carries the movement in this game is the animations. Rayman and friends feel like they're almost like a slingshot. One example of this is when you're at top speed, you can quickly turn around after immediately using a dash attack (Running punch), which causes Rayman to not lose his momentum from turning around, which is something I found out very late into this game. The animations and the length of them allow the characters to feel weighty and natural. One thing I think is not really used in conjunction with the main moveset and this philosophy of "speed" is the glide, or Rayman's helicopter hair. You tend to lose all momentum here, which I think is purposeful for sections that have wind elements or sections where you are expected to carefully maneuver through the air. But I think they could've done a bit more with the glide without making it too overpowered.

Something that really stood out to me in this game is just the amount of content. You're constantly bombarded with new levels to play, and throughout the game you can unlock "Back to Origins" levels which is basically just that: levels brought over and touched up from Origins. Not every level is included here, but it just about is. There's 5 worlds with 8 levels each, and each level has a few tweaks with enemy placement and such. I didn't want to bother with this mode, since I want to go back and replay Origins here soon, but damn this is such a cool option for those who maybe missed out on Origins, and one that I'm still shocked was included.

There's a plethora of unlockable costumes, unlockable stages, and creatures to collect that increase your Lum count (which you will need if you want all the costumes, dear god). Included in the Switch version is "Murphy's touch" which is pretty much just a bundle of levels that took advantage of the wii u gamepad in fun ways, that you weren't able to play in other ports, due to there being no touch screen. Kinda a weird addition, since the main game includes a perfectly usable button prompt version of Murphy throughout the game, but I'm cool with it being an option I guess.

Something that I know will stick with me for months after replaying this is the music levels, in which the game almost becomes an autorunner with button presses timed with the music. I think most everyone remembers the heavily marketed "Black Betty" level, which is really good, depending on if you like the song or not (its an ok song). But I truly forgot about the remixes and new songs included with later music levels. These levels were so satisfying and including them at the end of a world really felt like a reward after getting through tough levels. There's also 8-bit versions of some of these levels after getting about 400 Teensies, and these were fairly difficult with screen interruptions that varied depending on the song. I loved these levels because they weren't too difficult and they provided a unique challenge, being that you had to almost rely on the music more than the visuals at times. There are also probably some of the most difficult levels in the game, which are time attack challenges. These are fairly manageable but I would be lying if some of them weren't very tight with the gold trophy requirements.

I think my only main complaint with this game is the hub world. The paintings and the vibe is a neat idea, and I dig how it implements with the levels, but I think using paintings for the rest of the modes and for the costume selection makes it a little tiresome to navigate. I kept thinking to myself, "why couldn't they have relegated costumes to a menu, where you can access it at any point"? But I suppose that's a minor nitpick. I would have just rather preferred a linear world map or something of the sort that gives me a sense of how much progress I have made.

Needless to say I think if someone wants to get into Rayman games this is probably one of the most accessible with it being on near every platform at this point, and it's very cheap. You won't regret it!

There's no doubt in my mind that Silent Hill 2 deserves the praise it gets.

Going into Silent Hill 2, I was very curious how different or similar it might be to the first game, and at least from the outside they're pretty similar. The main character is looking for someone close to them in the foggy desolate town of Silent Hill, where scary shit happens and there's a fair bit of symbolism. Where SH2 deviates on its own is with the themes of its story and the guilt from James Sunderland. James is looking for his wife, Mary, who gave him a letter calling him to Silent Hill, a vacation spot for them prior to Mary's passing from some sort of illness. This is a complete departure from some of the lore from the first game: the cult is gone, any story set up with Harry and his daughter is gone, really most of the lore comes from Silent Hill's newspapers and journal entries, seemingly from events that happened prior to the town's abandonment. This whole game honestly feels like it could be a hallucination or an odd tale; needless to say it isn't concerned about lore but more about a larger emotional narrative that James is a part of.

The first time we see James, he's in a bathroom, looking through a mirror, seemingly contemplating why he has even come to Silent Hill in the first place. This scene felt, to me, almost as a "thesis statement" to the entire game: James is seeing himself reflected in the town and is coming to terms with (spoiler alert, but I already put a warning on this) killing his wife.

Much has been said about the monster designs being visualizations of his sexual frustration towards his wife, and with someone like Pyramid Head, a reflection of himself. I hate to steal something from the Silent Hill wiki, but mentioned in the plot section was an interesting correlation with the first time you encounter Pyramid Head. Once he is "defeated" he is shown to walk down a path and basically submerge himself completely in water; this could be seen as a foreshadowing as the "only path James can go down" is the path of suicide, which we see through the "in water" ending, wherein James drowns himself. There's even a detail (which might be a coincidence, who knows) that I've discovered after doing a bit of research, that the body in front of the TV in the wood apartments is actually James' model, which could contribute heavily to the "suicide" theming.

Much of this game has a dreamlike, very nightmarish quality. I don't really think this game was originally intended to be "canon" to any sort of larger Silent Hill universe. Lots of symbolism derived from James' mind can be found in this town. I won't go into too much detail, but early into the game's story, I think this game implies heavily that this could be either metaphorical state of grief, or guilt, or even both. Not to mention the alternate reality version of Silent Hill that has a very industrial, body-horror vibe to it. Lots of the imagery seen exclusively with Angela can also be seen as the town taking form to represent her emotional conflict and the evil that has entered her life. It seems like Silent Hill is a vessel that shifts based on who is perceiving it, or that the way someone perceives the town is based on their own past.

James repeatedly witnesses Maria, a completely separate character from Mary, (though very purposefully similar) die in gruesome fashion. I like to think this might be a commentary of the waves of guilt that might be pursuing James; he's spiraling, it's an image he really can't ever get out of his head, and perhaps one that he won't want to let go of. In the "Maria" ending of the game (which I think is probably the worst one, if you were to choose which would be canon), James chooses Maria to come with him and leave Silent Hill, thereby caving into someone who might satisfy, emotionally and sexually, the hole that Mary left when she died. James doesn't go through any sort of reconciliation or forgiveness by going with Maria. Even more evident is the fact that Maria is seemingly sick when they leave, implying that Maria might have a similar sickness to Mary. This shows that James is doomed to repeat the same cycle. If we aren't able to move on from wrongdoings, there isn't any growth. We will just make the same mistake again.

I honestly contest the fact that some people find the "In Water" ending to be the main ending. Not only does "Leave" satisfy Mary's wishes for James to move on with his life, I think it leaves a more positive message as a whole. James should absolutely suffer for his wrongdoings, but not through death. There are punishments worse than death, but there can also be a sense of hope afterward.

Also, gameplay is obviously excellent. Even for those who aren't into tank controls, this is so extremely accessible and has aged a lot better than other games of its time. It's surprisingly forgiving with save points and Ammo and Health is plentiful. Plus, the map is extremely well laid out and keeps track of shit for you, much like the first game, which I will commend for that.

Side notes:
- Dog ending is actually the best ending who am I kidding
- The UFO ending seriously got me. The fact that they had Harry come back as a low poly model implying there's a universe where both of these games are canon to each other only through a UFO ending is kinda nuts

Replaying this game, and playing it right after Fever, I think this follow up is more quantity than quality.

It's apparent that Nintendo SPD wanted to do something a bit different with Rhythm Heaven. The beginning section of the game (everything prior to Lush Tower) is almost more of a tutorial if you're coming from prior Rhythm Heaven games. Most of the minigames, with a few exceptions, are easier versions of existing minigames from prior entries in the series. Air Rally and Sneaky Spirits, for example, come with completely different background music and are a bit shorter. I'm assuming this was done to be more accessible, but I thought the original versions of those games were accessible enough. Part of the problem I have with this choice is that it makes the beginning of the game feel a bit sluggish. In addition to this change, there is a noticeable lack of remixes until you get to Lush Tower. This, and the addition of a "story" (it really is just flavor text), amounts to what I think is the worst part of this game. While other Rhythm Heavens would quickly push you to the next minigame and always have a new minigame right around the corner, this game chooses to modify existing minigames, in-between each one inserting flavor text that contributes to a story you really don't care about. I don't like to sound harsh, but really, the story doesn't take itself seriously and for a game focused on short bursts of gameplay, why should you take it seriously?

I think throughout the first two hours it's kinda apparent that there is a lack of new minigames, at least as much as Fever introduced within the same time span. Which I think isn't an overall bad decision. This game is a "megamix" after all, and I can't really say I don't enjoy playing through these games again. There is also a good amount of new minigames that this game brings to the table too, and I really enjoyed those. I just think the choice to use minigames we have already played before, interspersed with small cutscenes, drags the pacing down a bit. As well as the decision to not include remixes every 4 minigames.

One thing I really noticed was how easy this game was compared to Fever. Fever had remixes that repeatedly felt like a challenge every time I got to them, while this one I was kinda able to do in one go. Even the "Final Remix" only took me two tries, while Fever's "Remix 10" took me over 10 attempts. Maybe it could just be me getting better at these games, but I think overall the game felt a bit easier compared to the rest of the series.

Also, for replayability, I think the museum is a great way to lay out all of the minigames similar to how they were laid out in other games. I'm just a tad disappointed there isn't an easier way to get to here, maybe through the file menu or something. There's also the shop, where you can buy past minigames that didn't appear in the main story of Megamix. Some of these I really would've loved to see in the main story, but I'm at least glad they're here.

Probably my favorite Rhythm Heaven game. With just the right amount of content and pacing that does very well to keep you on your toes, I really think Fever is perfect. So many staple minigames came from this entry in the series and every single one is fun in their own right. Remix 10 is still very hard but after some practice, getting a superb isn’t too difficult. Getting a superb on every minigame is an attainable goal and I was able to achieve it without any issues (minus monkey watch, fuck you. But also, I love you). Some games like “Donk-Donk” (what is that thing that they do anyways?) gave me trouble but I got the hang of it after a few tries.

This game is also funny as hell (or heaven, if you’d rather). I love the character designs, which are both cute and sometimes nonsensical. They cooked here.

I don’t really understand what the point of this was? It’s free, around 3-4 hours, there’s little to no actual survival horror gameplay, which I can’t really complain about for what amounts to a short narrative experience. Theres one puzzle and it’s a super basic “find the code for a lock” puzzle, which implies to me that the devs actually wanted the gameplay to be engaging? Like if you’re going to include puzzles maybe include more than one? One section of the game has you going around trying to find these “memory pages”, if you will, all while being chased by this monster. This section was really tense and scary aesthetically admittedly and reminded me a lot of Silent Hill 1’s imagery which uses a lot of industrial design. But the problem with this section was that it was really maze-like and you couldn’t really understand where you were going or how you were keeping track of the pages. This leads to a tension between trying to find the pages and frantically avoiding the monster, but it feels cheap, due to how the level design is misleading.

The story concerns this girl, Anita, basically blaming herself for the suicide of her friend Maya and for the guilt that her other friend Amelie has for Maya’s suicide. The story tries to be profound but I don’t really think it said anything other than “seek forgiveness from people and yourself” and it just felt very surface level. Idk. It’s just really mid, and I don’t understand why this was made. For such a short experience, and for it to be kind of half walking sim and half horror puzzle game, it doesn’t really come together in the end, and doesn’t justify its existence.

Just wanted to make a review of this since I haven’t already.

Halo 1 should be praised more than other entries in this series. It has such an atmosphere and incredible sense of exploration. From the start, you’re thrown into conflict on the Pillar of Autumn, seeing through the visor of master chief. You feel and look like a badass compared to all of the NPCs around you. Coming off and onto the Halo structure, you start to get the sense of scale. This game builds so much in the first 30 mins of the game, and throughout the rest you’re being thrown into several different gameplay scenarios and action set pieces. The AR and Pistol feel so great to use and guns you find left from enemies allow you to change how you want to play. Alien (covenant) weapons are more effective against shields, so there starts to be a sort of tension between the guns you’re provided.

Aside from gameplay, the story is great. You feel a sense of a “Link and Navi” dynamic between Master Chief and Cortana. The soldiers on your side actually feel like people. The AI is also incredible in this.

Let me emphasize the music is so underrated. I’ll be honest I think the music really ties the story and atmosphere together. “A Walk in the Woods”, “Ambient Wonder” and, of course, “Truth and Reconciliation” are all so iconic and have no right being as good as they are. It gives Halo its own identity outside of its iconic character design. Martin O’Donell deserves more honestly.

A fun, simple, yet atmospheric platformer, Cave Story should be given a lot more credit, over a decade after its initial release. This game still holds up tremendously well and is super inspiring. I love the lore, the character designs, the music, the gameplay variety! For only being about 8 hours or so, it’s paced really well on top of that.

Only problems I really have are with the crazy difficulty spike at the end. The normal three bosses were enough to have me frustrated, but this whole playthru I was trying to fulfill the requirements for the perfect ending. Fairly easily to fulfill them, but the problem is the final “cave” at the end with a boss fight that has three phases with no saving or health refills.

Yeah hell no. I’m good with the normal ending. I’ll just look it up on YouTube. 😭

Edit: okay I actually went back and replayed the entire game just to unlock the spur and do some extra side content. This game really allows itself to be replayed. I’d say it was worth doing for the spur alone this gun is sickkkk

Also doing the final sanctuary to beat Ballos was so hard but so extremely worth it. Such a fun boss fight

Majora's mask is weird. For Nintendo to follow up their success of OOT with a weird, otherworldly, unconventional game such as this, I respect it a lot. In many ways this game is bolder than OOT, immediately noticable with its premise. I'm not going to repeat the story exactly here, as this game has been talked about to death, but the fact that ganon isn't here, we aren't in hyrule, we're only playing as young link, there is no Zelda in this game (minus one small flashback), I mean this game takes a lot of risks with its plot. Aesthetically this game stands out the most compared to other zelda games. There is a really dark art style here, but one that is at the same time, colorful. It's playful but at the same time a little rugged and creepy. The giants, for example, feel alien compared to giants you would normally see in medieval high fantasy settings. This also extends to the NPCs (who are overall borrowed from OOT), wherein you can feel a very old japanese influence. Other than the visuals, the atmosphere is also created with its haunting music. The song of healing is one of the most harrowing pieces of music I've heard in a game; it feels anxious at the beginning of the song, but once it hits the bridge, it starts to feel a little hopeful. What a perfect song to encapsulate the main gameplay motivator: the time limit (counting down to the crashing of the moon onto termina).

The time limit is not something that is used as a cheap gimmick to make you feel stressed. Most NPCs in termina are working on the clock. They have set schedules, many of which are required for you to recognize if you want to grab any extra items, or for many main story events throughout the game. This mechanic (plus lots of unique time-specific dialogue from NPCs) help make the world feel much more alive than OOT was.

Masks in this game are also very different in this game, most of them amounting to just using them for one instance, but a lot of them act a lot like gameplay buffs like the blast mask and the bunny hood. The main 3 though, add a lot gameplay-wise and allow you to kind of choose exactly what you want your playstyle to be during combat. It's neat to see a simple, early attempt at creating more variety in traversal, in this way. It really makes the puzzles that more interesting to try and solve, where you not only have the unique item that you found within a dungeon to use, but you also have these masks at your disposal.

The main 4 dungeons are extremely fun and very rewarding. Minus some cryptic game design in a few spots, I thought these dungeons aged very well. For some more confusing gameplay moments, you can still understand what the developers were intending for the player to do. One example is the "Dexihand" enemy, which normally is supposed to grab you and throw you off course, being used in the Stone Temple dungeon to throw you onto a ledge you wouldn't have normally been able to get to. This is a fun, clever use of existing game mechanics, but wasn't as obvious to me that I could do this. I can recognize that this was a clever puzzle but I also recognize that the game didn't push me towards that conclusion. Which is fine. With a lot of older titles in the 3d era, I can look past puzzles like these only because they were still figuring shit out.

Most of the uniqueness of this game compared to other zelda titles comes from its weirdness. Majora's boss fight is very fun yet very strange. Majora starts fucking moonwalking and doing a Cossack Dance? I didn't know he was chill like that.

The weirdness of this entire game aesthetically I think adds a foreign, otherworldly aspect to the world, which I believe is intentional. It feels like if I just walked onto an alien planet. Things are familiar, there is an order to this world that is here, but I don't know the full picture yet. It's a lot like star wars in that way lmfao

Majora's mask becomes a living, breathing game as a result of all this. No other zelda game really comes close in atmosphere honestly

I remember when I was younger back in 2011, my brother and I were randomly looking on the Pokemon website and we saw the blog post with images of black Kyurem and white Kyurem. We lost our shit finding out they were making Black 2 and White 2 in that moment. I remember being so excited and still feeling giddy about it at the dinner table. That excitement for me was there because I loved Pokemon Black. it was the first new region Pokemon games I had bought on release day (I had played the gba titles prior and my first DS game was Soulsilver). Release day was on Sunday (for some reason I remember Pokemon games released on Sundays?) and my dad offered to buy both of them for my brother and I with absolutely no build up. Needless to say we played the original Black and White a ton.

For Pokemon Black 2, I remembered playing it and beating it, but I quickly put it away, as I was busy playing the 3ds around this time. Revisiting it this year, I can see why a lot of people believe these to be better than B/W.

The story in this game starts off with a new trainer on the West side of Unova, with no real connection to the trainer you played as in B/W. We also quickly find out this is two years after the events of B/W. Hugh is your rival, and he has some simple but pretty cool motivations in the story. We learn that his sister lost a purrloin, taken by team plasma four years prior to this game. I liked the small ways that they connected story beats to the first game, as I think it makes the world feel believable.

Another instance of cool worldbuilding: team plasma has been split into followers of Ghetsis (those who want to liberate pokemon from their poke balls and take over Unova) and followers of N (those who have changed their ways and decide to work together with pokemon to correct their mistakes). I love this side of Pokemon story; it's simple, still very much a Pokemon story, but we never see what has happened to the region or even the characters we knew within the region before being thrust into the next generation of Pokemon games. What's the most fascinating is the writing. Zinzolin believes that pokeballs are civilization, and pokemon represent nature. The new team plasma wants to see a world taken back by nature by the removal of pokeballs. Which honestly, is such an interesting premise! You start to believe in the motivations of this team and in some sort of way you see where they are coming from! Their motivations obviously can be applied to our IRL worldviews; Humanity is causing harm to nature by allowing civilization to grow enough to create climate change. But obviously team plasma is flawed in their view, as they see the destruction of humanity as the solution to their problems, and in particular, the destruction being caused by an Ice Age.

Something that really ties in this metaphor, for me, and is such a small detail is the interactions with the Swords of Justice Pokemon, Cobalion, Terrakion, and Verizion. All three choose to come along with you in your journey throughout the game, and characters in your story tell you that the Pokemon are willing to be captured in order to prevent Team Plasma's rule over the region. It's a really neat, cool touch that makes the story richer.

Story beats aside, the gameplay is some of the strongest in the series. It has typical Pokemon gameplay moments, going from town to town and fighting gym leaders, but this game feels much more refined. Battles feel extremely speedy, especially compared to previous DS entries. I ended up turning battle animations off (which makes the battles fly by even faster), but the battle animations and pixel art aged really well. Triple battles and rotation battles are new, and while fun, they didn't really leave much of an impact. The gyms are completely overhauled from B/W, which was a nice upgrade. Overall there isn't much that Black 2 has that gets in the way of battles. EXP share is here, but only applies to one Pokemon, which was just, OK. I felt pretty underleveled throughout the game, just barely underneath every trainers' levels, but this incentivized me to fight every trainer I could find along the way to the next gym. Gym leaders were very challenging at times (looking at you Elesa) but never too hard or too easy.

I haven't gotten to the post game stuff, but boy there's a lot. You can travel back to Accumula town from B/W, there's the battle tower in Black City, the battle subway, the Pokemon World Tournament, multiple Legendaries from previous games, and even more on top of that. Not to mention, the game doesn't even give you the box legendary during your playthrough.

The soundtrack is sick too. I think that about covers my thoughts.

I’m gonna use this season to log my thoughts on halo infinite’s multiplayer since launch.

The multiplayer in season 1 was rough. There were like four maps, cosmetics were locked behind armor sets and couldn’t be combined, and there was a severe lack of modes, and with no forge mode yet. Even through that, I managed to get to level 100 in season 1 and since then I’ve kinda gotten away from infinite. I’ve put a ton of hours into the game’s multiplayer, mostly because I think the core gameplay is really solid, despite how shitty the beginning was.

Fast forward to season 5 (I really didn’t touch seasons 3 and 4) this game his improved immensely. Customization is a lot more fleshed out, albeit not really as good as MCC (I want the Sangheili), but forge is AMAZING, multiplayer modes are super fun, and there are a lot of remade maps using forge, as well as some really good new ones. Infection is also back which I really love.

Overall I think the state of the game is improving a lot and I really think this game is underrated in the multiplayer department (at least for how the game feels at its core).