Rating still holds. Something is special about this game and Squeak Squad for me. My childhood is built around the Flagship Kirby titles, and while not everyone is down with Amazing Mirror and Squeak Squad, I am. It isn’t a perfect Metroidvania, your CPU allies are negligible and stupid when they hold weight, and it isn’t mapped particularly well, but it’s far less bad map wise than little me remembered. Finished it with 95% completion, and in 2 days. My little cousin got me the Switch Online expansion, and say what you will, but the GBA emulator, and filter are rather excellent with the OLED. It’s rare you see me hyping up a graphics filter, but this put CRT filters to shame. I’ll always love this game; it’s charming with its unique bestiary, its soundtrack, and its structure. I think it’s a really nice game, emblematic of the era in the early 2000s where Nintendo outsourced a lot of handheld titles, and they still tended to slap. This slapped.

I never know how to write shit about Mario Party cause like you generally know what the fuck you're getting into with these games. Like there's just not all that much to talk about with it. I do think this one has more than enough content to work towards that is more interesting in actual replayability, the star bank and being able to unlock a map, some more minigames and characters is nice, it's mainly why this was like my childhood MP.

I think the games are absolutely who ya play them with and the little moments ya share with them. So like before I played this with two of my besties (Appreciations and Weatherby) and had pretty great times.

Ya got shit like Bowser Jr hitting a like 3080 on the snowboarding minigame like the cheating little shit he is, us all clowning on Bowser Jr constantly, me losing at that one dogshit bumper car bump-o-rama battle minigame cause the controls are so so so ass, buying cheap wine and just laughing about stupid bullshit happening in game.

Mario Party ain't about Mario Party, it's about chilling with people and slamming back some cheap ass wine while the game itself fucks you over in the dumbest ways possible or clearly sets you up to just lose the entire game. Even if I never play this again I will always keep these memories pretty close to my heart as very special cherished times.

My continued vendetta against Bowser Jr grows stronger with each passing day. One day I'll get him back for stealing 5 of my stars that son of a bitch.

This game is very poorly designed. The progression and the mini games make this a very tedious collectathon experience. It almost feels like the developers were playing a practical joke with its game design. One of the mini games is broken to the point of being nearly impossible and it is repeated at least four times. To top it off there is a very easy to activate softlock that can gate 101% completion from you at the very end of the game. This all makes it hard to recommend to people. It's like a full time job of a video game.

To me this game design actually holds value. It makes for a game that's so over the top that it turns around and becomes compelling. You enter these giant collectathon sandboxes and it's so overwhelming, but slowly working out the ins and outs of the levels and achieving that 100% felt really satisfying in a way banjo never really got for me. A lot of people rightfully criticize the way it handles playable characters, but I think that limitation of having to find them was another step in this big puzzle of navigating the labrynthine collectathon loop the levels present. DK64 was always pushing me and testing me in all these ways that kept me engaged the entire time. I don't think there will ever be another game like it. Like what game has five variations of most of the collectibles in a level? It's just so insane to me and I find it endearing.

This is all held together by phenomenal presentation. I think this game values and understands the vibes of Donkey Kong Country more than people have you believe. Banjo is full of whimsy and a cozy feel to it. DK64 has a heavier emphasis on atmosphere, with the later levels going for moody foreboding stuff that you would see in the country games, it's great, and I think it compliments the daunting collectathon challenge it presents. I feel the same way about the music and I think it's easily Grant Kirkhopes best score. It's a surprisingly varied soundtrack and I often felt that it was going for the same kind of natural ambience David Wise goes for in the country games. I really don't understand the complaint that it just sounds like Banjo, they are definitely going for different things.

I wasn't sure I wanted to give this game as high of a rating as I did, but what cemented it for me was Hideout Helm and the final fight with K. Rool. It's an incredible finale and it's almost worth all the crap the game puts you through. Hideout Helm is a tight timed gauntlet that puts your knowledge of all the Kongs to the test with this incredible track that really puts the pressure on. And the K. Rool fight is this incredibly ambitious 5 round minimum boxing match where you have to use each kong's unique abilities to take him down. Legit one of my favorite bosses of all time, it's a masterwork in puzzle focused boss design.

I think one of the reasons I loved this game as much as I did was because it felt like a culmination of rareware at Nintendo. For better and worse it's this swan song collectathon where they just put all their eggs in a basket and went crazy with it. The fact you play Donkey Kong arcade and Rarewares Jetpac for mandatory progression only cements this idea. It's a celebratory experience that you have to really work at to get it's bombastic payoff. I don't think it's a game I'd casually play, but it was a challenge I set for myself that I found really fruitful at the end of the day.

Gotta go fast!

After Sonic Adventure has served as my personal gateway into the series and Sonic Adventure 2 gave me an even better experience, I can proudly call myself a fan of the series now. A fan who only played 3D Sonic. That being said, Sonic Origins opened up a whole new dimension to me: 2D Sonic!

Here's a quick rundown of the zones: Green Hill was surprisingly the least engaging zone for me, but I can appreciate it for how iconic it is and being a good introduction with a timeless theme. I didn't have an issue with Marble Zone's methodical approach for the most part, although some of the random pop-up spikes felt a little cheap. Spring Yard is fine, but gets repetitive after a while. Now, Labyrinth Zone seems to be pretty universally hated, but I didn't find myself having much of an issue with it and thought it was rather refreshing after going through Spring Yard, the underwater sections were cool. Star Light Zone had cool catapults and Scrap Brain was... rather hard compared to the rest of the game - but that makes sense, it's the last level for a reason! The final fight itself though was a bit underwhelming and the ending was cheap.

But in the end, I enjoyed my time with the Blue Blur's debut game, even if most of the level design goes against the whole "gotta go fast" motif, which apparently is a dealbreaker for many. And while 2D Sonic is fun, I'd be lying if I told you I didn't miss the homing attack from Adventure at first.

Oh, Sonic Adventure 2...

At first, the shift from hub worlds to linear storytelling was a change I had to get used to - the pace of doing levels back to back feels way different from walking around Station Square aimlessly to get to the next stage and I didn't like how it felt here. However, my stance changed about halfway through the HERO story (which I played first), and I began to appreciate the storytelling of the sequel over SA1, because you get the story (on your side atleast) told in chronological order without having to puzzle it together and you constantly switch characters, so it doesn't get boring. So on the HERO side you're already getting a full story about Sonic and his friends alone, but the villains are contextualized in the DARK story. Personally, I preferred the DARK story, it just felt like the more complete package overall and the cast is more interesting.

As for the gameplay, Adventure 2 brought some noticeable changes to the Treasure Hunt stages, put an extended focus on mech levels (which play similar to Gamma from SA1) and also changes the physics and controls a bit from the first game - nothing worse than no longer being able to overly rely on Sonic's spindash, as it's not overpowered anymore. You get used to it fast, but that was a death sentence in the first hours of playing! Concerning the Treasure Hunt stages... I'm not a fan of what they did to the radar, the beeping noise is even more obnoxious (and louder) than before and only having the shards show up in a set order is frustrating. However, sometime during Knuckles' final level it came to me that I've developed stockholm syndrome towards the Treasure Hunt gameplay and after reflecting and replaying the Knuckles stages again, I had a lot more fun with them than before. They're an acquired taste, a guilty pleasure.

You know what else is guilty of being TOO LOUD? The mech levels - just hold down the lock-on button and you'll get a free trial of tinnitus, all while you've got a full Michael Bay movie with thirteen different kinds of explosions going down in the background. Weapons Bed might actually be one of the loudest levels I have ever played in ANY game. It's not like the audio mixing was good to begin with, the volume of sound effects during regular gameplay is so comically overtuned and you might as well believe the conversations in cutscenes were recorded during a rave by how often the voices get drowned out by the music. But generally, the soundtrack of Adventure 2 really delivers. Favorite songs are Escape from the City, Live & Learn and E.G.G.M.A.N.

Not much more to say, except that I missed out on the Chao Garden in this playthrough entirely, just because I had no clue how to hatch the eggs. A shame, cause that's apparently a big aspect of the game - so I'll be sure to check it out sometime. What else, Shadow and Rogue are awesome and this game is a blast to play despite the issues. I'm considering bumping it up to five stars if the Chao part of the game turns out to be good. It's just chaotic and fun.

In which other game can you experience Tails using his special move of crashing the game twice after telling Eggman how powerful he is? I can't think of one.

I love this dev. They come up with such smart and high concept ideas, and though this didnt hit in the way 7 Days did for me, I still enjoyed the time I spent with it. Normally, personality tests as a concept are something I don't particularly subscribe to (especially as a gameplay format), but in the case of Refind Self it works incredibly well. Playing as an android, simultaneously teaching her humanity while also exercising your own freedom of choice is a very endearing route of storytelling. The grief and kindness expressed through the options you chose, the limited amount of time you have to play reflecting the wind-up android's existence... as seems to always be the case, this dev is very careful and smart in the way they go about presenting their world. I love their artstyle, love the philosophy behind it. The only thing I could say these games lack is music, as each only has a few tracks (few meaning 2 or 3) that don't loop especially well. Highly suggest this dev's catalog for anyone looking for a unique and short, lovingly crafted experience. Really excited to see what they put out next ☆