(7-year-old's review, typed by her dad)

It's very deathly. But I don't like it! Because I just want everyone to drive on the road carefully. Listen to the lights! And obey the rules!

That's what I want this game to be.

Cuz I just thought it was driving on the road, being calm. I don't like it! I love driving on the ROAD.

After getting my Switch on launch along with Breath of the Wild, I was excited to see what games the console would have in the future. I bought Master Blaster Zero and eventually The Binding of Isaac for the third time, but a month and a half later Mario Kart 8 Deluxe came out. Now look, this may be a rerelease and all but it was for a portable console. Mario Kart 8 was great but I could only play it at home and with a game like Mario Kart, its more fun to play it on the go with friends. When this came out, I was nearing the end of my Junior year in High School. Let me tell you, me and my friends played this all the time during the span of the rest of my high school experience. We played it in lunch, we played it in study hall, we even played it in class whether it was sneaking it or just when we had free time. This was THE Switch game to play when it came to my friend group alongside Jackbox Party Pack 3. It's just a ton of fun and while I said it was a rerelease, it's not just a lazy port. They not only included the DLC tracks, but they also added some new characters and revamped the battle mode.

I said the character selection was a bit lacking in the original game but the ones they added here are all good. Bowser Jr, King Boo and Dry Bones are all good additions that were in past games. The completely brand-new addition tho is Inkling Girl/Boy. Now, I was a huge Splatoon 1 fan before this so I was hyped when they were added. I mained them a lot when I first played and honestly, they're a perfect crossover addition just cuz Splatoon was originally supposed to be a Mario game which I found funny. This isn't even getting into the characters they added from the booster course pass. Most of those are also great, tho I haven't used them myself since I don't own the booster courses. If you do though, easily the best roster in the series.

The other thing they fixed of course is the battle mode. Easily the worst part of the original game and the worst battle mode I've played, it's really good here. Not as good as Mario Kart DS since there's still no option to have it be elimination rules, however you're not forced into teams like Wii and there's a whopping 5 modes this time around. Balloon battle and coin runners are classics of course. Shine thief makes a return and it's also pretty fun here. Bob-omb blast apparently originated from Double Dash and that's also fun tho definitely the most chaotic of the bunch. The brand new mode this time around is renegade roundup and its basically cops and robbers. Pretty fun mode as well but the real reason these are all actually fun is they gave us battle courses again THANK GOD. The old courses are great and some of the new courses are awesome too like Urchin Underpass. Love to see a little Splatoon representation since it didn't get a race track.

So there you go, the character selection was expanded and while not my favorite battle mode, the battle mode was made actually fun again. The only other thing they added, and they added it 5 years after deluxe came out, are the booster courses. Now I don't own them but my good friend Quent has the expansion pass so along with him and my friend wheatie, we played a bunch of online races for this review and I was able to play pretty much all the courses I wanted to. I didn't play them all but I can see the course quality varies greatly. You have some really half assed tracks and then you have really great ones like Yoshi's Island or SNES Bowser's Castle. A lot of the returning ones are Wii courses which is a plus too. Obviously most of these are just straight up ported from Tour and the visuals on a lot of them are pretty unacceptable compared to the base game but, if you don't care about then then the value of 48 tracks for $25 is great. That's basically 50 cents a track plus the added characters. Not only that but they added the ability to choose custom items, plus a music player in the main menu.

With the slightly better character roster and the MUCH better battle mode, I can say this is definitely THE definite Mario Kart. Though I may end up liking Wii a tad bit more now due to it's wacky physics. Either way, definitely a must have as a Switch owner and as a Mario Kart fan.

Well, that's the end of the Mario Kart marathon everyone unless I end up actually playing Tour lol. Been playing Persona 3 FES this whole time alongside these games and I'm in December now so I think I'm nearing the end of it, stay tuned for that review!

In the long time I’ve spent running this account, I’ve grown both as a reviewer and as a person. And it’s become increasingly apparent that I need to apologize for a long streak of immature behavior regarding this particular series.

I’m sorry for giving Megaman games half star ratings over something as petty as not including Dr. Light x Dr. Wily yaoi.

It’s childish, it’s messing with the average review score, and above all else, it’s a really superficial way to look at art. I still do not like most of the games in this series but I promise to offer more substantial critique in the future. As a show of good faith, below is my honest review of Megaman 11:

This game fucking sucks because it doesn’t have Dr. Light x Dr. Wily yuri. Keiji Inafune should take his stupid fucking NFTs and shove them up his ass.

(8-year-old's review, typed by his dad)

WADDLE DEES ARE CUTE!!

WADDLE YOUR DEES AND DEE YOUR WADDLES!!!

What the hell is wrong with me?

I've played PGA 2K. I've played Hot Shots Golf, Everybody's Golf, whatever you'd wanna name it. I've played Links, Golf Story, Golf With Your Friends, Worms Golf, Wii Sports Golf, Flappy Golf, etc. I'm not a huge golf fanatic but I never seem to pass up any video game adaptation of the one sport I think probably shouldn't exist in real life in the capacity it is. I loathe golf's existence in the real world. I hate its tedium. I hate the concept of needing to have a caddy and having to travel via a dumb cart across shots and holes. I hate the impact the sport has had over our own ecology, the destruction of lands and habitats that had to be made to create a sport that's really only enjoyed by those rich enough to play it. And yet ironically, condensed into video game format I can get addicted.

But I've never played a Mario Golf game before. I never really had the opportunity to come across any edition of the titles until Mario Golf for the Nintendo 64 made its way onto the Switch. So why, with all the mild experience of golf games under my helm, did I get so obsessed with Mario Golf for the Nintendo 64? Why did I sink 25 hours into the main content, only unlocking just half of the content so far, in such a relative short amount of time?

I don't know.

But I've spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out why.

It's not like I actively avoided playing a Mario Golf game, but within minutes of playing I was absolutely entranced. Captivated. I think moreso than any other golf game except Links is there more information on the screen for you to read before making shots. The notion of analyzing the field around you and converting it into a game of number crunching and mathematics is why I find golf so entrancing in video game form, and does Mario Golf not only come in spades with numerical analysis, but it's also for some reason some of the most difficult golf I've played on a controller.

You're not on the PGA Tour fields, you're in the Mushroom Kingdom. You're not going to be swinging across plains and greenlands, you're going to be attempting maneuvers around green-checked canyons across fields of Koopa Shells across rows of islands, and it's going to take you a while to get comfy with your swings.

Mario Golf took forever for me to get sunk into despite being hooked from minute one. Mario Golf, similarly to Everybody's Golf, has such an addictive push/pull with its difficulty. At first glance, pars are unrealistic, you're far along behind leaderboards, somehow other CPUs have the lead with -7 and you're struggling with a +4 on the 7th hole. By the time you decide it's not right to give up after just starting you already feel yourself getting better. You finish the cup in last place. You get 6 exp. You try it again. You finish in third this time. You get 30 exp. You try one more time. First place. 76 exp. You unlock the next cup. Last place. 6 exp. The cycle begins again.

Every venture into new ground feels like completely relearning the game, uncommon for golf games in general but pulled off to immaculate success here. Except you won't always be pushing into new ground, because content unlocks are slow as all fuck. It still took me three tournament plays to unlock the next cup. With roughly 30-45 minutes taken per play, it took me almost two hours to unlock the next set of 18 holes with my 50 exp accumulated (as exp is your means of unlocking courses.) It takes 300 exp to unlock the third course. 1000 for the fourth. 1500 for the fifth. 2200 for the last. After 25 hours I'm halfway to unlocking the fifth.

You'll be at the peak of your game inbetween these valleys of unlocks frequently, so what can you do with your excess skill? You can go for character unlocks, where you play one-on-one in a stroke game with a character up for grabs if you can beat them. Except oh boy, these unlockable character matches are home to some of the nastiest cheating cunts I've ever had to deal with, and I've played Mario Kart 64 throughout my life. Since these unlockables always possess higher stats than any other character you have in your roster up to that point (which means, yes, there is insane power creep), you'll get absolutely crushed by some scrimblo bastard who can swing 40yds farther than your strongest owned character. There are instances, particularly in the case of unlocking Wario, where these unlocks are so much higher in stats that you can throw statistically the best game possible and still lose. It genuinely comes down to if the CPU decides to fuck up or not. It's a deterrent to the average player, but somehow had the opposite effect on me; I became so fixated on playing as good as possible that I had no problem playing against Wario 11 times before he decided to fuck up enough for me to win. I finally got Wario, and now I can't beat this next guy because I'm in the same situation again. Insane power creep, insane demand for perfection, but it will never not stop being fun to analyze and crunch every single number on screen and make the most ridiculous shots you've ever seen.

Mario Golf turned me into a sick person, obsessed with a desire to get better, to play perfectly, to beat everyone despite the pleading of my friends to "Please Just Play Something Else". It's obscenely difficult at times, and content is dripfed to ridiculous amounts, which only fuels my obsessive need to grind my skill. And whether or not the day comes that I finally unlock everything this game has to offer me or I give up and play for the final time... I don't know. Nintendo release another Mario Strikers game please it's been like 15 years

Here's your hook - LUNLUN SUPERHEROBABYS DX was developed by a mother for her six children. What's the development story behind your last videogame purchase? You feeling good about yourself now, huh?

LUNLUN SUPERHEROBABYS DX is a very unusual game, and there's not a lot of documentation on it online (particularly not in English), but when I mentioned I was playing the game on Twitter, I was retweeted by the legend, LunLun Games herself, giving me a little more insight into this curious home project.

£4-ish on the eShop, the description tells us that Baby Lunlun has "been eaten by the giant & evil Boss Poo!", and we have to help him escape, platforming, boosting and hammering his away through the poo's innards. You start in a sort of Kirby's Adventure-style hub world, flooded with coins, enemies (more poos), and several doorways. Behind each door is a miniboss (mostly poos). In a move perhaps inspired by Breath of the Wild, you can head straight to the finish at any point, but the more minibosses you defeat, the easier the final battle with Boss Poo will be.

At the top-left corner of the screen is a number. This acts as a time counter, health bar and power meter. The more coins you collect and enemies you attack, the higher it rises. Get over a 100 and you'll be able to launch a special attack that can defeat any enemy in an instant. It's actually quite an elegant system.

The central gimmick of LUNLUN SUPERHEROBABYS DX is "Anyone can play!", which the ESRB might have something to say about, as they determine the extensive display of feces makes the game unsuitable for children under the age of 10.

There isn't a lot to rave about in LUNLUN SUPERHEROBABYS DX. While there's an undeniable scruffiness to it, the art and music are surprisingly competent, and the core gameplay is fun enough. The tone is amusingly odd, and that carries through to the writing. Unlike a lot of very cheap, weird eShop games, there's a good degree of game design literacy at display here, with ideas seemingly rooted in Zelda, Gradius, Sonic and Kirby. It's game snob friendly, which is admirable for a game that's only really intended to be an amusing diversion for young children. The game's description suggests that "while the game was made with care for players of all ages, there might be some areas still challenging for some children. Please be a dear and help them out!"

I can't say this is a strong recommendation, but I admire LUNLUN SUPERHEROBABYS DX. Its intentions are very modest, and I appreciate that. I don't expect a mother of six to be able to create a top-tier videogame on her own, but this is a charming little release. I just hope I'm not the only baby amused by it.