Some of my favourite games are in one way or another unpolished, unrefined, imperfect in so many ways that when i think about them isolated from the experience of my playthrough, i often wonder why i consider them so high.

Then the chills come.

And this happens to me a lot, actually. Anytime I think about Yakuza 6 I can spend half an hour criticising all of the short comings, and bullshit about the combat or some of the systems, it doesn't matter, really. The core is pure, and in that core there's a story that resonated with me in ways I was only hoping it would; there is an open world that contains the kind of shit that I fall in love with in such a way I can only think about it for days and days.

Castlevania II is bullshit; obscure, obtuse to an extent that most would consider a total failure, I might consider it a failure tomorrow, i don't care, this game has connected with me as Dark Souls did in 2014. This is an ambitious aproximation to the formula that with all of its problems and the utmost certainty that it can't be completed without a guide, I cannot take anything away from the moments i have gone through and how its ambition, as often as problematic, is also inspiring and in some ways revolutionary. Coming from a linear, action game with a difficult curve that turns the later half of the game into an insufferable hell, Castlevania II implements levels and the possibility of healing in churches, it creates an actual curve that even with bosses broken by items and a difficulty that goes inverted, let's you familiarize with its enviroments.

If Castlevania was a test of skill and especially patience, Simon's Quest is more akin to the type of tiny puzzly world that wants you to wrestle with it's own rules, it's a pure adventure game, one with fenomenal ideas that turn the world into a somehow believeable and consistent environment. The interconnection between the cities, that serves as main hubs, let's the player little nuggets of brilliance in both rythm management and world design; it's about the consistency, how the few rules that the game bases upon itself are repeated, and even with assistance to decode some of these, there are beautiful moments to be found in understanding and relating clues to events, events to objects, and then finding out the next step in the journey. This is a game that both rewards exploration inside levels as much as requires attention and puzzle solving in the open world; and even if some of this puzzles are too obtuse, the verbs of the game are few, and it manages this communication to the player through clever design in a lot of places.

What does a barrier mean, the use of objects not just for attacking but for exploring, how the game tutorializes you in safe places to let you interpret what this initial clue based design mean. But again, it's all about the chills, it's a frustrating and failed game in many ways, one that made me gasp when i kneeled next to a river, that excited me throwing holy water, videogames are fucking great if I can say this without deleting it one second later.

And this is a fine videogame.

The driving is pretty on point, there are really cool set pieces, and the game as a whole can be at times a really good place to hang out and just enjoy the vistas and the flow of the road, but the characters and the general mood of this franchise annoys me so much. The characters can't stop talking about things I don't care, the dialogue itself is too nice and welcoming to the player that it comes out forced, which is something that relates directly to the progression system. The amount of visual stimuli this game thinks is needed to hook players is just insulting, the map is full of icons, the ending of every career is so full of colours, and ticks, even spins to a wheel of fortune, is like a casino for kindergarten kids. And it's a shame because the core is really nice and the game is beautiful to see, but I feel everything is so clearly put there to satisfy me with the lowest input necessary, like what the worse kind of a game pass game can be, trying to appeal every single human being who is just not enough interested in the game just for the sake of progression and achieving things that frankly are useless when all of your starting cars do the job. This is a very good game that fails spectacularly not to make me feel stupid while playing it, sorry.

I think I enjoyed Kena so much because I miss unconcerness in videogames.

This is just the definition of enjoyable. It won't break any ground, it puts its own cuteness and charm above all else; even possibly at the cost of a deeper, more engaging level design, or a richer more complex combat. This doesn't matter to Kena, it wants to be PS2 at heart, and it certainly feels what I dreamed a perfect weekend rent game would be when I was playing Kingdom Hearts 2 with 10 years old sitting on the floor of my room with an old TV and my eyes glued to the screen.

Kena doesn't fail to do anything remarkable because it's not even trying, it's just what it wants to be; and absolute success on forgetfulness. And this is something weird to mark as positive, but this game tastes like cookies and milk on a Saturday, like a cartoon marathon on a long weekend with no homework, or a snowy day without class.

It's nice to remember that games doesn't need to be remembered because either they're too self centered and believe themselves as the NEXT BIG THING, or because they need to make you flow with them for at least months through seasons and passes and fucking I don't know anymore it's tiring just thinking about it. I want useless mechanics to hug a cute puppy and a jump that's not afraid of itself; a game that doesn't need to flash me with shit or stuff itself for endless hours of absolutely nothing. This is just fun, and, you know? Games can be fun.

Thanks for the reminder.

Being the worst of the franchise I've played yet, it is really interesting as a direct comparison with AM2R, and how both manage to analyze, decompose and rearrange what makes the original game interesting and what Metroid is supose to be.

Coming from the same source I think AM2R gets much more of the core of Metroid magic right and improves upon the original material in a beautiful and mesmerizing way, letting the traversal flow flawlessly and actively disempowering Samus to put her at what she actually is in the game, a tiny fraction in a vast, hostile unknown environment. Also AM2R feels like a direct sequel to Zero Mission from all perspectives: the look, the feel, the rhythm; and in the points where AM2R does his own things and elevates on different directions, it does knowing and letting the player know how a Metroid remake by its original makers is.

Its soul is focused on its legacy.

On the contrary this remake has an unique voice, wants to point out how incredibly cool Samus is prioritizing the combat and the overall polish of animations, cutscenes and difficulty to a point AM2R can't logistically get, but also doesn't want to, to a certain degree.
Having set that and getting much more out of this new interpretation of the sequel to Metroid from AM2R, Samus Returns (3DS) does a great job at making just a fun, engaging and deeply satisfying Metroid at the cost of some of its soul; the atmosphere doesn't get the job done and I particularly dislike the colour palette in here; but at the same time I've never had such great and rewarding encounters, especially boss fights.

It is clearly unbalanced; even the new habilities, or the power bomb, are a bit broken but to the point where I think they're just very fun to play with. What is new here is kind of hard to elevate, it's difficult to say how this is more than just a fine Metroid title; but just as a game, getting rid of the big elephant in the room; it is fun, addictive, satisfying, epic on a pretty modern scale, and it has the level of detail and polish you can only get from a AAA game.

In the end, and prefering what AM2R does, I am happy that Mercury went for their own take on this game, and on Metroid as a whole. Knowing now that Dread exists as it is, I am as interested on it as afraid of how the pillars that define this franchise for me will stand after seeing how their vision here pretty much goes on a whole different direction of what I consider makes this franchise shine as an out of time classic.

I enjoy the creepy vibes, the loneliness and fear that comes from the unknown, of knowing yourself unable to confront the next menace that will show itself behind you hunting you down through a dark, cold corridor with the only company of the tools you've been getting through the journey. This game does none of this, but what it does is really good and I can't blame it for being itself.

PS: Samus is a badass and I'm all for it.

Overall a pretty mediocre and downright bad platformers at times elevated by its uniqueness and charm on character and level design.

Balan Wonderworld has good ideas, really interesting aspects but a poor execution on almost every front; character designs are a standout, boss fights are consistently pretty good but level design is uneven, the amount of dresses plays against itself making most of them useless the more you play, and the worlds are a hit or miss depending too much at times on replays that will likely never come due to repetiveness. There are good concepts for levels that manage to be great experiences and the balance between open environments and more linear intricate corridors is (like the rest of the game) unbalanced but pretty good at times.

This is an example of how general consensus depends too much on polish and modern game standards over style and substance; Balan does its own thing, and while being a failure on some fronts that are usually considered as pillars of an experience like gamefeel, performance or polish, that doesn't detract in any way any of its virtues. It has a much clearer identity than a lot of modern platformers and the charisma to be remembered for its own rights and wrongs; a game I can't call good, but deeply interesting, and an unfairly hated game that could have found a niche at a lower price point and the right mindset going in.

A much more focused, solid and satisfying experience than the base game.

I've never been much of a Zero Dawn fan even after loving some of the key elements of the game and most of all praising the intent to define an original concept with fun and deep twists to both visual design and gameplay; having said that, the game extended too much, the balance between the two plots that are ocurring at the same time are unbalanced in quality and even worse the animation and care put on cutscenes and general dialogue is subpar and detracts so much from the whole that I ended up, except for a couple of moments, not feeling what at the beginning was an intriguing and potentially entertaining story.

Frozen Wilds solves this by being just an expansion, which means less content with more polish, less characters but better defined, and the necessary additions to an already fantastic core gameplay that rejuvenates the later arc of the game into a potential look into the future, one with a dna of its own that doesn't fight with it's own nature as a AAA title with massive scope.

I hope Forbidden West learns its lessons and this is just the beginning of Horizon defining itself as a saga as refreshing and fun as its own best concepts.

Trek To Yomi is the kind of game I either love or despise, no middle ground. The decisions made here to turn this mediocre 2D slash game into an artistic experience with its shot composition, filters and coarse reference to classic Samurai films are rather poor and make this seemingly harmless indie game into one of the practices I hate the most in modern entertainment; the stupid homage.

This game doesn't try to get what Kurosawa says in his Samurai films, let alone his style beyond black and white and grain. The magic of Yojimbo, Seven Samurai or RAN is never present here, only able to be thought of while playing this by the sheer abundance of comments made by the press and the users. Even with its soul not being there it tries so hard to remind you of what you may think this movies were. There is love here, the shots made with the fixed cameras on gameplay are a few times astonishing and they let the journey flow at the beginning; and the voice acting, while being held back by a barebones script, is pretty on point and works to sell you on part of the atmosphere. If this just were a bad homage with some love and a bunch of good shots put here and there this may had been a serviceable poor game that tries too hard but at least has basic but fun level design and good visuals.

But the combat.

I'm not gonna rant much more because I don't like to discredit something made with care by a team, and I feel much more at ease critizing things like The Avengers game than an indie project built, I'm sure, with the best possible intentions; but this combat can't make the cut. It doesn't feel good at all, it's clunky, unresponsive, on hard the game turns at times into an spiral of almost instant deaths, the parry is awful (the game doesn't even count it as it should a lot of times, and you end up dying while listening to the sound made by the swords clashing). I don't get why this game based almost entirely gameplay wise on combat encounters has some of the worst sword combat I've experienced on a not amateur game; it's just bad.

Flying Wild Hog is better than this, and the tiny bit I played of Shadow Warrior 3 makes it imposible to me to understand how this was released in this state. Let's hope the next thing they do has the same level of focus but on the right places.