For personal reference more than anything else.

First full playthrough of this game after an attempt about 8 years ago.

This was alright, the main pony gameplay was kind of fun if a little repetitive at times. I quite liked the puzzles as well. The story wasn't particularly interesting and it felt a bit 'been there, done that', I saw a lot of the 'cute or child-friendly looking thing that's actually evil and scary' growing up and this one going the satanic route just feels one step further into generic territory. I did really like the section with Asmodeus though, the fake steam messages absolutely got me and made me check before I got to the ones that would have made the fact they were fake incredibly clear, it did kind of freak me out which was good. I was also surprised that Hopeless Soul wasn't evil as I really thought they would be, so that felt quite nice and subversive. In all honesty though I think that outside of the Asmodeus section, I was having the best time with the game when it was doing the happy and colourful bullshit with Louey which feels like it kind of defeats the point of the game. I think there may be more under the surface to this game in terms of its story and what its trying to say, but what I felt played messy, shallow and relying too hard on shock value. So I don't exactly care to look it up or whatever. The music was really good though and I was a fan of the general aesthetic of the game.

Its not a bad game and I don't regret my time with it, but I don't really have much to say about it either nor do I think it will really stay in my mind. Still though, it was an alright game.

For personal reference more than anything else.

First full playthrough of this game after an attempt about 8-9 years ago and another attempt 2 years ago. Got 76%.

I was sort of worried about going back to this game as I figured it would just be kind of boring and play poorly but as I wanted to replay Rise at some point and figured that it felt weird to go straight into that one, I decided to at the very least try this and see what happens.

To start off with the story is actually pretty good, I really liked learning about Himiko and what Matthias and the Solarii were trying to do. I also think that Lara's personal journey is great as well, I quite like this version of Lara and found it interesting to follow her and see how she changes throughout the game. I also think that around the halfway point onwards I genuinely considered her to be a badass due to how many enemies she was dealing with and the fact that she was able to dispatch all of them, her getting the grenade launcher in the Solarii Fortress was definitely a highlight to me.

The rest of the characters were just sort of there, Alex was annoying, Whitman was kind of a prick but he was hot so I didn't really mind, Jonah was likeable but didn't really seem to do much, Roth was fine, Grim was funny. Reyes I liked and she provided a nice change of pace due to her slight dislike of Lara which I was a fan of as it made their conversations (and Reyes as a character) more interesting and I thought Sam was good, with me also enjoying the relationship between her and Lara. There were two things I really liked about the Endurance crew, the first were the cutscenes where Lara would watch some old videos they made of happier times (I kind of wish they did this a bit more though as they were nice to watch and I think they would have really helped to flesh out the crew) and the second thing was the hostility in the group at times between Lara, Reyes and Whitman, it made me think of the drama in The Blair Witch Project and Unfriended which is my favourite parts of those films and so I was very happy that it was present here.

As for the gameplay though, part of my worry was that despite having a far bit of it before and also having played Rise & Shadow, I for some reason thought this game would just feel slow with unengaging gameplay. I was so wrong though, this game is so fucking fun. The combat is amazing, all the weapons felt great to use, some of the attacks were really brutal and it was kind of cool. Upgrades were a surprise as in so many games I play, upgrades feel so boring but here it was stuff I wanted and made the game more fun. The puzzles were fine but most of them felt too easy and short, I think I did every optional tomb barring one and the majority felt like the first step of a puzzle but was over before it got to the main part. There were a couple of tombs I enjoyed and thought had a good puzzle that was more complex but they felt like the exception.

Action set pieces happened a bit too often I think, it felt like every five minutes a structure was collapsing, an explosion was going off or Lara was sliding down something. It meant the game relied on QTEs quite a bit which was fine most of the time but just sort of annoying every once in a while. Admittedly though, the frequency of the set pieces and the fact that they were ramping up in intensity with each one, making them more and more outlandish as they went on really worked for me and it made the whole situation very amusing, probably not what was intended but I was having a very good time.

Some scattered thoughts:

• I was going to try and go for 100% but while I was happy to get collectibles as I was going, stopping and making a point to look for all of them in each area got boring on the first area I tried so I just decided against it.

• I did enjoy the majority of the logs I found but I think in some cases it felt like they were saying things the game should have been communicating in cutscenes and the like, big plot moments and character development end up inside these optional and missable logs which I think was kind of a bad decision.

• Being able to fast travel in this game is very strange and doesn't really make sense but it is much appreciated.

I really enjoyed this game, I can't believe its taken me this long to actually finish it but I'm so glad I did. In a way this is kind of an important Tomb Raider game for me as while its not the first one I played (Underworld or the Sky Games one, I think?) or the one that really got me into the series (Rise), I don't think I would have gotten into this series at least as early as I did if I hadn't had got it on Xbox Live Gold and really enjoyed my time with it when I was younger, because of that I honestly appreciate it quite a bit.

For personal reference more than anything else.

First time playing through this game. Finished after fighting King Dedede. Played on the Switch through Nintendo Switch Online. Got 76%.

It's been just under two months since I played a Kirby game and I also wanted to start playing more games when I need to kill some time for short periods and this seemed like a good choice. But unfortunately it didn't really work out. I didn't like this game, I think it was a mixture of things but the main thing is just how it feels like a less interesting version than either of the first two games, it is so dull for the longest time because its piss easy until the last two worlds and anything new it tries doesn't really work for me. Sure, its like the first two games which I enjoyed, but despite their issues they felt like that had something to keep me engaged or was worth sticking around/playing through the not so good stuff for.

All the levels feel the same except for the auto-scroller ones that just suck (except for the one where you have to go upwards, I didn't mind that one). The music feels the same. The animals don't feel like they provide enough of a different play style to justify their existence and in multiple cases I found myself ignoring them or immediately disposing of them because the little change they did bring was kind of annoying outside of when the game called for it. I will say though, I thought the hamster was cute.

The game feels like it finally adds a bit of a challenge in the sixth world which was the only one I felt even remotely positive on, as I noticed that the levels were actually requiring me to think (even if it was just a little bit) and not just play completely mindlessly. Of course this is a kids game, so really, it should be on the easier side, but the first two games are also for children and they provide more of a challenge than this one (kinda noticing a pattern forming after this and Dead Rising where I complain about the difficulty being too high in one game just for the next one to go too far in the opposite direction, I'd like to think that its because these games just can't find a healthy medium but maybe I'm just being a hypocrite). Another thing I didn't like was the length of the game, I think it was somewhere between Dreamland 1 and Adventure but it felt like the one that overstayed its welcome the most. I really don't think this game needed to be this long, it repeats itself constantly, from what I saw 3 different mini-bosses get used 3 different times each and the game even does the same thing Halo CE went on to do where you do a level you've already done backwards.

As for the ending, I was a little taken aback when the game sent me to the title screen after the fight with Dedede, despite the game hinting at another fight and so I looked it up. Turns out I hadn't unlocked it yet, as not only did I not collect any Rainbow Drops, I had no clue that they were a thing outside of maybe seeing one towards the end of the game. I could probably do it but I just don't want to, I hadn't really liked any boss fight in this game outside of the first phase with the cloud eyeball boss and the way I see it, I got an ending so I don't really care all that much.

So yeah, didn't particularly like the game.