certainly there are things conventional pokemon could stand to learn from this one like yeahyeahyeah the faster pacing of general progression and menu-ing are OBVIOUS pluses whogivesashit.

Fact is though! I can't STAND playing these compulsive fucking open-world adhd ass adventure games too long at a time......... I'm never THINKING when I play this type of shit, and they always just devolve into stupid loops of me desperately pocketing one meaningless trinket after another or spending HOURS fulfilling some bogus checklists! I just ain't got the time!!!

And when this game's core mission they ask of you is ENTIRELY based around fulfilling another dumb checklist in a giant field somewhere - we've got a problem!

I'm sick of things being so big and aimless! I hate it here! I must get free!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A dry-feeling middling finale to the Winters Story. RE games aren't exactly known for their stories, but Village was incredibly strong narratively so going into this was disappointing with it's Disney Channel Original Movie level overall plot and twists. This however has really strong character moments when it decides to stop messing around. The gameplay and puzzles were the best part of this.

Not as good as base Village, but not even nearly as bad as some of the stuff I've played in this very same franchise.

Not showing Ethan's face was just absurdly silly

Mannequin chase was absolutely incredible, 10/10 horror section right there (especially the sound design)

2:42:58 clear time on Normal

Flawed and ambitious, Banjo-Tooie is full of so many memorable ideas from the weird 'find the doubloons in this tiny town' of Jolly Roger's Lagoon, to combing a theme park for goodies. What stops these things from feeling merely like little fetch quests is that they usually relate to the moveset in some way - Banjo-Tooie is essentially a point-and-click-puzzle-mechanics adventure expressed through a fairly puzzle and exploration focused platformer. Sure the game is about 50/50 on whether these puzzles feel nice or not, but when things work it's a delight to see your moves put into some new joke or mini-story's context. I like that the moveset never becomes overly powerful: even if some moves amount to keys, the moves' scopes remain constrained enough to still give the levels personality by the end.

The level design goes all over the place, but the theming and little NPCs always pulls the levels together in at least an acceptable way (not all levels are great, of course.) Things feel thought out.

I have to give a hand to Grunty Industries for being so ambitious - we basically get a 3D Zelda dungeon, but far larger and ambitious than any Zelda dungeon ever made. Weaving between a building interior and exterior, spanning 5 floors, themed around all these aspects of a factory - on some ways it feels like a dungeon: it's so complex that it kind of eludes your full spatial comprehension of it, while still being 'logical' enough to somehow keep yourself oriented. Unlike the way some game dungeons give you maps so that you never miss a thing, Grunty Industries is happy to just let you not be able to find everything. "Don't 100% me, just leave the mystery until next time." I like that. The mystery isn't in some meta-layer or 4th-wall trick: the mystery is right in front of you, it's contained in your failure to grasp the ridiculous layout of the level. And in some ways that feels truer to life. When do we ever know the complete depth of anything?

...That being said, if you ever play this, make sure to bind fast-forward to your controller's R2 trigger. I mean you can play it the 'old normal' way if you want but I honestly don't think the added hours you'll spend walking slowly around will add much to the experience.

What is presented as an elaborate April Fool's Joke ends up being an extremely competent murder mystery visual novel from SEGA in The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog. The setup is exactly as you'd expect. The familiar faces of the Sonic cast come together on a train to celebrate Amy's birthday with a murder mystery party, but things go wrong fast and you (with Tails' help) must deduce whodunit. The twists and overall story aren't mindblowing like any of its contemporaries, but SEGA manages to pack a lot into this little package. Scenes are mostly self-contained, as you enter a room, find the evidence, and then cross-examine each suspect in a Phoenix Wright-style trial. No deduction is really difficult, but the act of raising objections to the charismatic Sonic friends is a gimmick that stays fresh for the hour and a half that it needs to. Once you find the correct evidence, you must enter a mind palace state where you collect rings as Sonic. This functions like an autorunner, and is a welcome and surprising switch-up from the majority of reading the game otherwise has to offer. The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog also sports a stunning art style and a par for the course banging soundtrack. If nothing else, the work that went into this little free title was all passion and all for fun first. Some if not most Sonic fans will probably not care at all for the slower paced nature of the visual novel genre, but if you are a fan of games like Frog Detective or other visual novels, this is a goofy, but enjoyable way to spend an hour or two.

Oh boy.

This game is hard to judge. It's a game that I think should be played, but it's a game I can't say many people will actually enjoy without nostalgic context. This was my first real console game. I was 7 years old when I played this, from a step brother's N64. And, for better or for worse, my entire sense of humour, preferred vibes and aesthetics, all spawned from this game. I like the absurdity, the whackiness, good use of references. I love something that is so goofy but also tries to keep itself on track, something that tries to convince you its something you could at least take seriously.

This game controls like ass, though. It is miserable to play, and its sense of humour is incredibly dated. People playing it for the first time now will not enjoy it, of that I'm almost certain. But fuck, this game does mean a lot to me. A whole lot. I wouldn't want it to change a bit, really. It can stay the dumpster fire that it is and I'll love it for it.