HyperSonic1134
I first played this game back in Grade 11 and I loved it back then. I'm in my second year of university now and I still love this game as much as I did before. In my eyes, Hollow Knight is the definition of a masterpiece. Every single little thing is crafted to perfection, from the movement and combat, to the atmosphere and areas in the game. Even the parts I would say I "don't like" are still such a high quality in nearly every area that I simply just don't care. The only two areas I'm not too fond of are the Royal Waterways and Deepnest because I find the enemies of the former disgusting while the latter is just creepy, but the disgusting nature of the former and the creepy nature of the latter only enhance the experience because of the atmosphere. There's so many great areas each with their own aesthetic and it creates such a beautiful but depressing world, whether it's the lush colours of Greenpath, the unsettling atmosphere of Deepnest, the depressing setting of the City of Tears, the empty Howling Cliffs, the comfortable but tiny city of Dirtmouth, or even the deep dark Abyss, each area just has such a different vibe to it and the map is just so much fun to explore. The movement and combat is really fun. The game is really difficult at times but it starts off easy enough to teach the player how to progress well enough. Bosses like False Knight, Hornet, Mantis Lords, Soul Master, Dung Defender, and Broken Vessel, are definitely highlights in the main playthrough, and the harder versions of those bosses are really fun and challenging. The music is especially good in this game, the boss fights I mentioned all have amazing music but the actual area themes are also perfect, especially my personal favourite which is Greenpath, though other areas like City of Tears, Crystal Peak, and Kingdom's Edge have really good themes as well, and that goes for the whole game. I also love how the story is mainly told through NPC's talking about past events rather than making you watch a bunch of cutscenes. It leaves a lot of the pre-game events a mystery to be saved for later or up to interpretation. I also picked up on a lot more from the dialogue after replaying the game, and it's genius how they handled it. Really though, every aspect of this game deserves a lot of praise and I can't fully do it justice with this review, so I highly recommend you go play it, you'll love it guaranteed. Overall, I'd say this is genuinely one of the best games I've ever played and there's so many aspects to praise it for, and I would highly recommend this game to anyone.
Ehhhh, not really my kind of thing but definitely better than its predecessor. The platforming felt a lot better but still didn't feel as good as literally almost every other Mario game I've played so far. To give credit where credit is due, the level themes are a lot more unique, especially Mario Zone with the toy aesthetic and the Three Little Pigs as the boss battle. Other than that, the game really just doesn't have much that I can really talk about because it's honestly just... mediocre I guess. Overall, I just don't really care for this one much and I just find it to be the exact definition of mid.
1994
Wasn't sure if I'd like this or not, but it was really fun to play. I was initially kind of turned off by the visuals and hearing about its hard difficulty, but after playing games like the Mega Man series, I've been more open to trying harder games. This was definitely a challenge at times, but it was a pretty fun game to blaze through regardless of its difficulty. I had a blast with a good chunk of the game, though I wasn't a fan of most of the Gorilla Glacier levels. However, I do really like Croctopus Chase and Rope Bridge Rumble, both being levels that really stand out for me in particular. The levels in this game also have great gimmicks that didn't change much of the gameplay itself, but more of how you need to tackle each level. Great examples of gimmicks I love are the Stop & Go Barrels in Stop & Go Station and the flickering lights in Blackout Basement (which is probably my favourite level in the game). The music in this game is also incredibly good and it's another example of retro music being really damn good (like Mega Man), featuring tracks like Fear Factory, Mine Cart Madness, Gang-Plank Galleon, and my personal favourite which is Aquatic Ambiance. Speaking of which, props to the developers for creating really fun water levels. Normally I don't like water levels because they feel extremely slow, but these levels felt really good to control and play while having incredible music to really enhance the experience. Overall, I'd say this game provides a great level of challenge and fun and is a great starting point for the Donkey Kong Country series.
1995
Hey, this was surprisingly really good! I didn't expect much from this considering the only other Game Boy platformers that I remember playing were Super Mario Land (which I heavily disliked) and Kirby's Dream Land (which was fine but way too short), so getting a pretty good length game was actually pretty surprising and welcome! I also think the gimmick of this game being the companions works well to not change too much from the formula but also make for a lot of unique combinations, sort of like Planet Robobot with the mechs. Coo is definitely my favouirte of the three mainly because I love the Cutter and Parasol especially, but the other two have great one such as Rick with Stone and Kine with Ice. I didn't get to use all of the combinations, but I spent a majority of the game with combinations I really liked, so I was alright with that personally. Levels were pretty fun and there never really was a point where I got frustrated, I thought the difficulty was pretty fair overall and had pretty good progression despite the whole game being pretty easy overall. I guess I'd say the only part I actively didn't like was the part in Dark Castle with the sidescrollers and you had to guess which side to go on otherwise you're hit with a dead end. I never really liked that trope in level design, but at the very least it's not looping and guessing which exit is correct, those drive me mad. Overall, I'd say this game was a lot better than I expected and made for a great casual experience for the couple hours I played it for.
Okay, I think I've figured it out. New Super Mario Bros. was the one that started it all, as such it's a fresh take on the formula, but New Super Mario Bros. Wii is a point higher for me because of the perfect powerups: The Propeller Shroom and the Penguin Suit, which were always my favourite to use, though the feel of the game being the same doesn't add much for me. So what if we took New Super Mario Bros. and did literally nothing to set it apart from the other games? Well, then you have New Super Mario Bros. 2. So the gimmick of this game is... coins. Yeah, that's it. I mean having the Tanuki Leaf back was cool and all, but like... it doesn't change the fact that this game makes me feel almost nothing. Like yeah there's a few levels that make me think "oh hey, that one was pretty fun" but a majority of levels blend together just like the other two games. At the very least this one was completed really quickly so I could check it off the list, but I really don't have anything to say about it. Overall, just really uninspired and lacking creativity at all which makes for a game that is the literal definition of mediocre.
1986
Oh wow... okay well, first I'd like to say part of my experience COULD'VE been affected since I started this a while ago but put it to the side for Persona 3 since I wanted to start Reload soon. Yeah, taking a break and getting lost was annoying but getting a guide didn't help because the game itself is a problem for me. Brinstar was a decent start, but I quit at Noirfair because I just found that the game was a difficulty that was too annoying for me, mainly due to how clunky it feels. The game also lags out a ton and the controls feel like I'm fighting with them at times, it feels too easy to jump too far or not jump far enough at times. The fact that there's no map also makes the game incredibly annoying because it feels so ridiculously easy to get lost, mostly so in Noirfair. Also, the Ice Beam is weaker than the default weapon which made killing enemies take much longer. It would've been nice to switch between the default to Ice Beam to Missiles. Music isn't too bad, though the Secret Room track is genuinely like nails on a chalkboard for me. I respect this game for existing, especially since it helped to create a full on genre and inspired many others, whether it was from Metroid itself or other Metroidvanias, but the original Metroid just isn't for me. I don't think I'll revisit this one, but maybe one day after beating more Metroid games, I might try it again. Overall, the buildup of issues I have like how clunky the game felt and lag make this game something I just really don't want to finish.
Pokémon been one of my favourite series for a long time, and my favourite Generation easily has to be 5. There's so much to love about this game, from the new and unique Pokémon to the story that actually has quite a bit of meat on its bones. A lot of other Pokémon games have pretty decent stories, but Gen 5 easily has to have one of, if not the best story in Pokémon. The OST is also a banger, there's many songs that are extremely catchy like Opelucid City (both versions), Victory Road, Vs. Team Plasma, Vs. Gym Leader, Final N Battle, Vs. Ghetsis, Accumula Town, and of course, Driftveil City. I know the Pokédex gets a lot of hate (or at least it used to?), but there's a lot of great Pokémon introduced in this Gen, such as Scrafty, Volcarona, Zebstrika, Leavanny, Scolipede, Krookodie, Cofagrigus, Klinklang, Eelektross, Chandelure, and many, MANY more. I genuinely think Gen 5 has my favourite Pokédex hands down (if not then probably Gen 3 or Gen 7). The sprite work in this game is also incredible, with very smooth animations but clean spritework that is the pinnacle of this series. Also, levelling up Pokémon is a lot easier in this game thanks to Audino's and the phenomenon gimmick, which makes grinding so much quicker. The only reason why I was slightly underlevelled at the end was because I skipped quite a bit of battles since I wanted to finish the game after taking a long break from it for Persona 3.
My final team for this game was:
Oda (Samurott)
Rouge (Swoobat)
Toph (Excadrill)
Sorbet (Vanilluxe)
Arachne (Galvantula)
Yang (Reshiram)
Normally I don't like using legendary Pokémon in my team, but I used Reshiram here for story reasons (so I can have the sick final battle) but also because Reshiram is my favourite Pokémon of all time (with Zekrom as a close second). It's actually because of this game and the last bit from Dragonspiral Tower to the end that made them so much cooler for me. Overall, this game has to be easily one of the bests that Pokémon have offered in almost any way, creating a perfect experience for fans of the series and newcomers alike.
My final team for this game was:
Oda (Samurott)
Rouge (Swoobat)
Toph (Excadrill)
Sorbet (Vanilluxe)
Arachne (Galvantula)
Yang (Reshiram)
Normally I don't like using legendary Pokémon in my team, but I used Reshiram here for story reasons (so I can have the sick final battle) but also because Reshiram is my favourite Pokémon of all time (with Zekrom as a close second). It's actually because of this game and the last bit from Dragonspiral Tower to the end that made them so much cooler for me. Overall, this game has to be easily one of the bests that Pokémon have offered in almost any way, creating a perfect experience for fans of the series and newcomers alike.
2006
This review contains spoilers
I started Persona 3 a bit before the release of Reload because I like comparing remakes to the source material as I get a lot of joy out of seeing how games are improved or reimagined. Needless to say, Persona 3 is another example of an amazing game in an amazing series. I could go on and on about how much I love Persona 4 Golden (I still need to replay it for a Backloggd review) and Persona 5 Royal was also incredible, but Persona 3 felt the most ambitious of the bunch. However, I can't in good conscious give Persona 3 a perfect score due to some gameplay issues. I don't hate Tartarus, far from it, but there are some gimmicks I don't like or features that feel like they should be there. For instance, being sent to the title screen when dying and losing all your progress is brutal, especially compared to Persona 4 Golden and Persona 5 Royal which are much more forgiving. I understand that this game is much older and therefore these features didn't exist yet, but it does make it a little harder to play as someone who went from Persona 4 Golden to Persona 5 Royal to Persona 3. Another reason I can't give this game a perfect score is simply just knowing that FES, Portable, and Reload exist. Each of these are better versions of a great game so I'd rather give this a lower score now than change my score later. I'm not sure about Portable, and FES seems to change a decent bit, but Reload looks like the perfect version for me, not because it's more modern, but because I heard issues I have are fixed, such as slow pacing in the story. Speaking of, I love the story of Persona 3, but I did feel like there was quite a few times where it was kind of slow. This is mainly evident in the first few months of the game, which are also decent gameplay wise. I started to really get in the game around July once I got to the Full Moon before the Third Block. Not that the earlier stuff was bad or anything, but while the story hooked me, it sort of felt slow at the start. Now, gameplay and pacing aside, the rest of this game is just perfect. I love the characters, the story, I especially love the music and I'd go as far as to say this might be one of the best video game soundtracks I've ever heard, with great songs like Burn My Dread, When The Moon's Reaching Out Stars, all of the Tartarus themes, all of the battle themes, Changing Seasons, Unavoidable Battle, The Battle For Everyone's Souls, Master of Tartarus, Master of Shadow, and of course, Memories of You. There's just so much about Persona 3 that is oozing with charm, especially with the animated cutscenes which have a unique style that is very visually appealing to me. Tartarus was actually pretty fun to climb if I'm being honest. It was a little daunting at first, especially with the earlier Blocks, but the further I got, the better my experience was. I also think having the Social Links take place during the day and the dungeon crawling at night was a great idea, especially for the first time with a calendar system. So yeah, I definitely needed to highlight some issues there, but other than that, Persona 3 has so much going for it that I can't help but love it, even if it is flawed. Overall, despite it's issues, Persona 3 was an incredible game with many great qualities to match up my enjoyment of it with the other two Persona games I've played and love.
1992
It's nice to play a short but fun game for a little break. Kirby's Dream Land serves as the introduction to the Kirby series, and it shows, though that isn't necessarily a bad thing. The gameplay here is pretty simple, especially since it's not a gimmicky game at all, lacking things like the Copy Abilities and such, and it's very short, being completed in just under half an hour. I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing though, since the game has pretty good levels that are just fun to play. It's not anything groundbreaking, so I can't give it too high of a score, but to put it simply, it's simple and fun, that's all it really needs to be. Overall, a short and sweet game that serves as a good foundation for future entries in the series.
I mean it's alright, not an inoffensive game by any means but honestly I think this a little overrated. I heard a lot about how this is the best New Super Mario Bros. game and one of the best 2D Mario games but it's just decent at best. On one hand, it lacks a lot of annoying gimmicks found in the Wii game, but on the other hand the level design itself is either not as interesting or actually pretty tedious at times. I would like to compliment the game for it's boss battles though because those are easily the most creative 2D Mario bosses bar none. Like there's some creativity here, especially since it starts a new formula, but in all honesty, after playing Wii last year and having played 2 when I was younger, I just think the New Super Mario Bros. series isn't for me. For me, 2D Mario doesn't hit the heights I wish it did, and I doubt a replay of 2 or playing U for the first time will, as those are the last mainline 2D Mario games I need to log (unless you count Yoshi's Island, which seems pretty interesting and could possibly be as good as I've been hearing). Overall, just a pretty average 2D Mario experience.
2018
I know I just gave the past two Mega Man games five stars and I'm doing it again, but I mean it when I say these past few games have been some of the most fun I've had with the series. I can compliment the same stuff here that I did with 9 and 10 so I'll focus on the new stuff here. I think these are easily the best Robot Masters in the series, especially due to the Double Gear gimmick of this game. Instead of short and difficult battles that could be ended very easily, the bosses actually take some time to beat, especially due to the phases they have. Each boss either activates the Speed or Power Gear, and as a result they become much more difficult due to either a transformation or an attack they do with these abilities. These fights become a lot more dynamic and memorable and some of my favourites in the series. As for the Double Gear gimmick, I think it's pretty fun to use, though the Speed Gear is the highlight for me, especially with the upgrades. I love the Speed Gear upgrade that let's you move at regular speed while using it, that was a great example of a new upgrade I really love from this game. I also think the shop system is much better here as there's not only a lot more upgrades, but a there's more than just 1-Ups and Energizers. You also get a lot of Bolts which lets you play around with these buffs (unless that's just Casual mode). The difficulties seem to be a lot more balanced as opposed to Mega Man 10 which made Easy have way too much hand-holding and Normal as the other option. After reading the differences, I found Casual mode to be the one for me and I loved the difficulty. It felt somewhat easy at times, but still had great platforming segments with a lot of difficulty, like in Wily Castle 1. The art style also looks very good and it's really pleasing on the eyes. It's unfair to compare the art style of this game to it's predecessors, but this game just oozes with personality and I love it. Speaking of personality, the voice acting adds so much to the characters and Robot Masters, and the best part is, it's not bad like Mega Man 8's! All the characters have pretty fitting voices and great voice lines for Robot Masters and Wily in their fights, making things more intense and adding character to the bosses. Overall, Mega Man 11 brings a lot to the table with new features and higher quality in every way, which easily let's this be my favourite classic Mega Man game.
While I don't really like 7, 8 was pretty decent and 9 and 10 were absolutely amazing and my two favourite Mega Man games as of writing this and I'd have gotten this for those two alone. I'm giving this collection half a point less than the first one because there's some features I really liked that were removed, such as the Rewind/Save State (now Checkpoint State, which is fine but 7 was tedious to get through), and the Database. I would've liked to see the descriptions of each enemy and Robot Master like in the first one because that gave it more charm and sometimes there were useful tips there. I'm happy the Museum is at least still there. Again, didn't dip my toes much into the Challenges tab but it's cool to have anyway. Overall, while I don't like every game in the bunch and there's a few features I would've liked to see, I still got a lot of great enjoyment from this collection and would definitely recommend.
2010
I know in my last review (Mega Man 9) I said that was my new favourite Mega Man game since 6, but this one absolutely takes the cake for me. A lot of what I can say about 9 can be said here. I love how creative these levels were with their gimmicks and it added so much to the regular Mega Man experience. Most of these stages had really cool visuals like the backgrounds or unique Robot Master designs like Sheep Man, Strike Man, and Nitro Man. These Robot Masters are also a lot of fun to fight too. They don't feel too easy, but most of them put up a pretty good fight while feeling fair. This also goes for the weapons, none of them feel overpowered or too situational, but I needed to switch between them every so often since they all had pretty good uses. The Wily Castle stages also feel difficult, but not overbearingly hard like Wily Stage 2 in 9 for instance. I would say this game is definitely easier than 9, but it has a lot more going for it in terms of gameplay. Plus, the multiple playable characters and difficulty settings are a pretty nice touch, though for the run I did for this review, I stuck with the default Mega Man on Normal difficulty. Overall, I'd say this game has tons of great levels, great bosses, and other great aspects that make it one of my favourite Mega Man games out of the 10 I've played so far.
2008
Mega Man 9 going back to the NES roots was something I knew about, but I didn't think I'd like it as much as I do. I honestly think this might be my current favourite Mega Man game since it checks off all the boxes and provides an experience that is both unique while staying true to the formula of Mega Man 2. As someone who adores Mega Man 2, it's easy to say the same for this game. The weapon roster is really fun to use, with the situational weapons feeling a lot more useful and enjoyable while the others felt really good to use if I wasn't feeling the Mega Buster. I'm a little sad that the charged Mega Buster and slide were removed, but I understand the intention and it provided some difficult platforming. Despite reverting to Mega Man 2's style, it still has features from other Mega Man games like 7/8's shop, Rush and Eddie from Mega Man 3, and Beat from Mega Man 5. The platforming and levels are also really difficult, but they feel fair and aren't riddled with many moments that I would call stupid, just difficult. Despite having to redo Wily's Castle since I didn't spend my currency prior, I still found it to be pretty fun and gained more of an appreciation for Wily's Castle in this game. Overall, I would say while this game is one of the more difficult games in the series, I find it to be one of the most fair games in terms of its difficulty and it becomes a lot of fun to play as a result.
1996
This is easily the weirdest Mega Man game so far. There's a lot of aspects I like and don't like, but I think overall I like a lot of it more. For the bad, I think the voice overs kill a lot of intimidation I'd get from the Robot Masters and almost none of the voices fit the characters, If I saw Tengu Man without that goofy voice I'd actually be a little scared to fight him. Also this is a personal dislike but I don't really like the art style too much in this game. I think Mega Man 7 had a much cleaner style but was held back by how cramped the game felt and as a result there were moments where I couldn't predict what was coming. This game has much smaller sprites so the only sections that ever felt unfair since I couldn't see ahead well were in some of the gimmicky levels. However, the art style to me just doesn't really fit what I envisioned for Mega Man and it feels sort of jarring at times. I'll at least take the fact that it mostly feels fair to play over an uncanny art style though. The parts that felt a little unfair were when they brought back the gimmicks seen in one level for the Wily Castle, which were the board section in Frost Man's stage (JUMP JUMP SLIDE SLIDE) and the flight section in Air Man's stage (where you hover on Rush and the others can assist you with more projectiles). I think those were fine in those levels, but in the Wily Castle it felt a little cheap, mainly the former. Anyway, the onto the good. The levels in both visual design and level design are pretty well done here. A lot of levels have pretty fun gimmicks, like Clown Man's stage and Sword Man's stage. There's also things you can interact with using different weapons, like being able to swing off hooks with the Thunder Claw, which made levels more interesting. The shop system was much better here as well, I liked being able to upgrade my Mega Buster or other useful perks like using less energy for my special weapons. Difficulty felt pretty fair too, it did feel a lot easier than 7 (which is nice because 7 was exhausting), but it didn't feel too easy. The only real difficulty spike was in Wily Stage 1 due to how weird the board gimmick felt to control but otherwise the game felt pretty fair. Overall, I found this to be a much more enjoyable experience than the previous installment, but I do think there's some aspects of this game that don't let it live up to the heights of most of its predecessors.