We wake to a locust swarm seeped in obsession with comfy appearances, bleeding proclamations of cozy; it has become a host unto itself, demanding – with a daring whimper – "wholesome" be recognized a genre all its own. Stardew Valley is the definitive progenitor, the blueprint for an indefinite trend of farming systems plaguing a veritable hellscape of uninspired clones which boast everything shy of a reason to be considered separable from their generational twins.

Yet it stands now as a Babel to its contemporaries, decorated for flawlessly executing what its replicas crumble as they attempt – but in this same life were it also once the David who slew Goliath. It proudly stands above too the weakly gasping Harvest Moon franchise, and remains unreachable by its indie successors. It lays itself bare with no secrets or tricks, and still it has drawn victory with the two hands of the single developer who had woven it. How can it remain so comfortably the definitive farming game?

It may well be as inexplicable as the Valley having a heart and soul all its own. Stardew Valley is a cozy community, but the answer dwells in the darkness it harbors; just as palpable and cold in its honesty. It lurks in the subtext between warmth and indifference. You can touch your light to it, earnest in effort to mend it, but it may not ever heal. Yet the attempt is not wasted; it is something to be grateful for. Simply to be there for them – simply to care, to just nod your head and console them – is sometimes the best you can do for someone. The people of the Valley exist, not as binary and pixels but as those around us. They walk with us in our daily lives, able to be touched in these same ways.

Stardew Valley has become my second home, and its residents my family, even if only for this fleeting moment. Though I move on, the lessons from others I learned will linger.

You feel an unwavering connection to the valley itself..

Though the circumstances around this game dev team are inconclusive, it's sincerely tragic that this game has been (probably) abandoned. It's a really cool project with a visible amount of passion put into it, built on the foundation of a very engaging gameplay loop. The writing is incredibly sincere and character connections feel real, to some degree. There was a massive amount of potential here. It's unavailable to purchase on Steam so if you ever get a chance to play it through "other means" I would highly recommend it. Even if you purchase a key for it on a third party website I would say it's well worth the asking price in its currently unfinished state, the first campaign is really good and the sandbox has plenty of content. I got an easy fifty hours just achievement hunting out of it.

Dark Deity is a game that's been getting pushed around a bit by negative reviews even though it's perfectly capable of throwing its own weight around. I would dare to even say the game is overhated. This is the curse of being heavily inspired by a beloved franchise that had decades of games to refine the formula with a triple A budget and then being compared to it blow for blow by the hardcore fans of the genre looking to scratch the itch. It's only unfortunate that I would have to agree with many criticisms; this game really doesn't flawlessly execute a lot of its ideas and concepts. The story is relatively standard, the characters are charming but nothing terribly standout, and most offensively to me the armor triangle - one of the game's unique ideas - is all but terribly communicated and nearly useless to learn considering I was able to beat the game on its hardest difficulty fine without bothering to memorize it.

Yet the game comes from a place of passion that you just can't help but root for. It's far from perfect, but it's also far from bad by any means. The art is incredible and the high points of the game can really live up to its contemporary and shine, even if the low points are as low as they may be. I regrettably can't give it a higher score than I am due to technical issues and mediocre balancing, but while it's a flawed experience it was also a greatly fun one. I really did enjoy my fifty-five hours to grab 100% achievements. A game can still be enjoyable even while acknowledging its failings. Of course, the game really does break apart even at the highest difficulty when you have a bit of experience under your belt and understand which characters and class combinations can steamroll the game (looking at Trickster Cia in particular).

I would say you can't really go wrong getting this game if you like these kinds of games. It does scratch the Fire Emblem itch. I'm seriously looking forward to seeing what they do with Dark Deity 2 and how they expand and improve upon the failings of this title - as I don't think any of the foundation here is irredeemable, simply imbalanced - and I have some serious faith that they can achieve what they're hoping to accomplish with this series because of the clear love they have for this genre.

Oh MAN you can tell even in this game that Kojima was such a huge movie nerd with the way this game's cinematography is handled. It's exceptionally well done and honestly contributes a lot to how gracefully this game has aged in comparison to a lot of other PS1 titles. The gameplay can be a bit rough around the edges at times on account of being a PS1 game, but for my first time experiencing this title in 2023 it holds up exceptionally well.

Except the button mashing torture sequence had to of been invented by a seriously hateful person.

Baba is You
Baba is Love
Baba is Dense

It's difficult to be critical of a game that's so lovingly crafted by a team so clearly passionate about a strong fundamental concept with a brilliantly unique core, especially when the end result really is a truly gorgeous little gem. There's not much to dislike, if anything at all, but I feel the need to indulge in nitpicking just a smidge.

There's a certain line that this game likes to toy with; it dwells in the place where abstract and absurdity begins to blend with logical through lines and deductive reasoning that creates a beautiful sense of chaos. The game has many memorable "A-hah!" moments where things just click into place, but as the game gradually progresses with a constant trickle of new rules to introduce it begins to supplement itself with a much less satisfying "A-...huh?" moment on occasion. There are times where the abstract logic required is demanding in its expectations; it asks of you to not just to think outside of the box but even beyond the scope of the yard that surrounds it, and to chase into the woods beyond.

While this is far from an offensive trait for a puzzle game to have, I find that the issue for myself is an agitation produced as a byproduct of this detail married with just how long the game's run-time is for full completion. Some puzzle games pride themselves on being dense with challenge but relatively short and with focused execution, and others indulge in a more leisurely stroll through a game densely packed with content that typically explores different ideas, story themes, and difficulty configurations. Baba, resting on the third hand, is a game that continues to escalate its difficulty without giving the player a chance to rest on their laurels and take a breather, nor does Baba dare to introduce any spice to the formula across its runtime.

Each new rule introduced builds, but never branches, thus providing the experience of a solid foundation that offers exactly the same experience from the ground floor up. The quality does not diminish, and the view at the top is awfully rewarding once you've conquered the climb, but for me the pace of such a restlessly vertical experience inevitably began to feel like a slog by the midway point. Each new puzzle steadily demands more of the player as the solutions begin to become more delicate and precisely crafted, often having just one solution and one path to attain it through the tedium of reset after reset. The puzzles are brilliant, especially at the end of the game, make no mistake, but the journey to that peak can begin to feel lethargic once you've realized that you're only on floor 100 of 200 and the climb promises to only get longer as you go higher.

This is an incredible treat for the completionist fanatical about the game's content, as they will not be left with the want to fill a Baba-sized hole in their heart by the end. Too much content is hardly a bad thing, especially for those content with the journey. For me though, my enjoyment began to wane as soon I realized in the back half of my playtime that I was left only with some sense of obligation to see the game through to its final achievement - and that I no longer had that spark of wonder that led me to experiment through those early levels. New rules and words were not enough to break the monotony for myself.

Yet Baba is not a game that I think should be changed for anything. Baba is not even a game that I would consider to have any flaws, or at least not flaws that could be easily or objectively measured, but I also can't say that Baba is a masterpiece of gaming. Of course, it doesn't need to be; masterpiece is not a win condition here, it's superlative.

Baba is Baba, and that's great.

As someone with no nostalgia for this title, and only finally played it with the release of this iteration; what a fantastic game. The character writing is a bit weak, especially due to having such a massive cast, but each character manages to stand apart in terms of gameplay and overall makes teambuilding and strategy feel personal and fun. The story is great as well in the way it subverts nearly every trope of a traditional JRPG and pulls it off so convincingly, genuinely could be considered groundbreaking for the time period in which it was written.

It was very easy to see why this is such a beloved title.

Unfiltered unapologetic anger of a strategy game fan ahead:
Man this game was just disappointing. The difficulty and strategic depth are all artificial and the people who have been gassing this game up for ages with no complaints definitely haven't made it past act 2. I'm convinced that the majority of positive reviews I've seen for this game are people deluded into thinking it's good because the visuals are well-done and they're desperate to have a proper spiritual successor to the mostly abandoned Advanced Wars franchise.

And no, don't try and insist otherwise. According to the Steam achievements only 2.4% of people have cleared the final act. Only 2.4% of people bothered to get enough stars to unlock and finish the game. Even if we assume that it was too much to grind out, let's take a loot at act 6, eh? Only 4.8% of people have cleared act 6. Oh.

This game is a mockery of the games it copies. It guts out some of the mechanics that made those games so engaging (all commanders play the same, for instance, is the biggest one for me) in order to try and be unique. It loses all of its steam after the initial act 1 when you hit the vertical difficulty spike of act 2 and have to play precisely how the game wants you to in order to achieve S ranks - which boils down to spamming units before the enemy overwhelms you with its inflated gold income and runs you over. You could say, oh but S rank isn't required to clear - and this is true. Yet the game also requires you to at least get enough stars to even UNLOCK the final act. Not a true ending, just to flat out finish the game. There's very little strategy to these S-ranks apart from throwing your units at the opponent until you win in a speedrun # of turns required (with no save states in case you misplay slightly and ruin your whole strategy), rather than wanting you to play strategical, encouraging throwing lives of your apparently incredibly disposable units away. Because the only thing that matters in war is speed.

This continues all the way until act 7 where the game designers seemingly then decide "I'm tired of making Advanced Wars maps, this is Fire Emblem now" and forces you to play NOT around strategically capturing points and building up a nest egg but rather just being a rushdown map where you have to minimize losses versus an army quintuple your size. These maps would be excusable if the VERY FINAL MAP OF THE GAME WASN'T ONE OF THESE, effectively tossing in the dumpster any strategical skills you had nurtured leading up to the climax. Again, picture any castle siege map of Fire Emblem. It's exactly the same. No gold income or unit spawners for you to play with.

Don't even get me started on how horribly imbalanced the Arcade Mode's higher difficulty tiers are, which only make the game harder by doubling the AI's gold income per building. Because that's a fun challenge. Good thing the game requires you to clear Arcade mode on every single difficulty, on every single character, to achieve 100%. I climbed that mountain and I saw its peak. It sucked.

I stuck through the whole game hoping something would click and I would get it, but no, it just gradually got worse. I'm an angrier person for having stuck with this dumpster fire of a game. It was built on the remains of a genuinely good franchise, captivating those of us who wanted a love letter to the same games it copied the formula from, and all it had to do was replicate and improve the blueprint. Instead they just lit the blueprint on fire and made a pale imitation wearing the skin of a better game. Don't get suckered by the pretty pixel art, it genuinely isn't worth your time.

I can only recommend this to people who want to play it strictly for the multiplayer, which the community is active to this day to my knowledge with quite a generous amount of community events and custom maps to play with.