A lovely homage to the early Zelda games that’s well polished, and has its own unique spin on the top-down adventure that makes it stand out despite its influence.

The best way to describe it is vague. It doesn’t tell much of anything about itself, and it just sets you off without direction with only a stick to fight with. Then you’ll see the game’s text isn’t actually readable, and any information you’ll want to know about its mechanics or hints on what to do is found through missing pages of an old school instruction manual.

The manual is a neat concept since it’s still cryptic and you’ll have to pay close attention to its drawings to understand it. The level of detail in its visual design is both cool to look at and essential to navigating through the game’s areas and finding obscure secrets.

The art and ambient music are also wonderful, and the level design is excellent. There’s so many clever shortcuts and paths hidden in plain sight that can actually bypass much of the game in hindsight. Most of it isn’t gated either, so progression can just depend on if you know it’s there or not which was awesome.

Though combat isn’t really a highlight since it’s simplistic and kinda floaty, which doesn’t really match with how aggressive the bosses can be. And the other gripe I had was its final puzzle felt excessively obtuse to me on a mechanical level compared to the rest of the game. But overall was super impressed with Tunic.

For me the allure of Zero Dawn as a new IP was the novelty of its world. Figuring out where the robot dinos came from, learning about Aloy and the tribal civilizations, the “Old Ones”, etc. Despite its flaws it effectively built up its sci-fi mysteries throughout and they were mostly given a satisfying answer by the end. Forbidden West continues from there and tries to expand more on Aloy herself and the people she encounters.

The gameplay is pretty much the same aside for some changes to combat and traversal. Fighting the machines is still really fun, and figuring out how to take on all the new variations is the best thing about the game. That said, combat with humans (which there’s a lot of) is still dull, and using melee isn’t much better than it was. They also claimed the climbing would be greatly improved and more free form in comparison, sort of? Honestly I thought it was somewhat worse since it could be really janky to control at times, though the addition of a glider was good.

I feel like the story in this one wasn’t as interesting without the intrigue of its world-building to push it forward. It does try to address Zero Dawn’s biggest flaw to me which was the characters, by making the cast more involved and giving you a base to interact with them between missions. But they still aren’t particularly memorable and the villains are especially boring here. At least the dialogue isn’t as stilted since the cutscene animations are far better than the first.

I did enjoy the side quests though. I don’t remember Zero Dawn’s standing out much at all, but these are more involving and have their own cutscenes akin to the main story, so actually wanted to do the majority of them. The other world activities aside for that (like errands and the generic outposts to clear) are still bland, though you can turn their map icons off and just ignore them at least.

Overall Forbidden West is a fine sequel. The visuals and music continue to be great and there’s better environmental variety. The ranged combat remains the highlight, and they improved on some of the first’s flaws like the side quests and animations pretty well. But it’s let down by how iterative it is, and it doesn’t really do much to justify its story imo.

Truly masterful. A challenging game dripping with atmosphere, full of varied environments, and absolutely packed with content for its price. The combat is simple but tight, there’s plenty of interesting boss fights, and the world-building is excellent.

What Hollow Knight does especially well is its sense of exploration and unique map system. It’s easy to set off in any direction and end up in huge new areas you can just get lost in. It does take some time for it to open up in its early hours, but the level design is top notch.

The platforming was a bit less precise than I would’ve liked though. The positioning of obstacles could be frustrating at times, and movement felt a bit stiff to start. But it does improve with better traversal abilities later on so it’s a minor complaint.

Like its predecessor, you’ll spend much of Changing Tides trying to maintain an oversized piece of junk that serves as your vehicle, gradually adding new parts as you pass through obstacles along the way. Only this time it’s set entirely in water, which adds some cool new elements to traversal that keep it from feeling too similar.

That said, I think its somewhat bigger scope (particularly with having more of the ship to keep up with) was a detriment since it felt a bit more tedious to play through for me. And the ride between obstacles can be pretty lengthy, but the scenery and music were still pleasant to sit through. Wouldn’t say I liked it a lot less than Lone Sails, but it’s not really an improvement either.

FromSoft's first open world game and they absolutely nailed it. I was initially worried that the move meant they would have to compromise on level design, but that wasn’t really the case here. Despite its vast and seamless world, the majority of it still has the same level of varied intricacy as the rest of their games. Like sprawling castles with detailed interiors and immense verticality, random caves you may stumble across that lead to massive underground systems, and of course plenty of unique bosses to fight.

That’s its biggest strength for me, the exploration. What sets it apart from many others is the complete lack of endless map markers or quests to focus on, rather just letting you get lost in a world with so much to see on the horizon that you can’t help but want to explore. And it rewards this curiosity by always having something worthwhile to find, whether it be useful items, boss encounters, or even paths to entire new areas. This also makes approaching difficult bosses a bit more manageable, as you can always just go somewhere else if you’re stuck and try again when you’re stronger.

And as a setting I loved The Lands Between. I’m not sure how much influence GRRM had over the world-building, but its mysterious lore is ever present all over and it’s wonderfully realized. It’s still as somber as From games have always been, but it also felt more grand given how open it is in comparison.

The only real gripe I had was the smaller catacombs you can find felt a bit too repetitive. Most of them look the same and some bosses are reused for them, basically serving as ER’s version of chalice dungeons which is eh. But I still enjoyed going through them so didn’t mind too much. Performance also seems… not great on most platforms, but I played the BC version on PS5 so was pretty much locked 60 for me. Hopefully they can iron its issues out for everything else.

But overall it’s yet another masterful game by From and now among my favorites. I’m excited to see where they go from here, cause it really did feel like a culmination of all their work up to now.

The only Metroid I’ve played before this was Prime, but I’m a huge fan of Metroidvanias so was looking forward to trying out a 2D style one with Dread. It’s a good game, but thought it was a bit… uninspired? The presentation’s strong and I liked the gameplay for the most part, especially the movement once you find more abilities. The bosses were fun too and really force you to make use of all your skills, especially for the last one. On handheld the control scheme was a bit awkward, like having to hold a button to aim while trying to dodge a lot, but I got used to it after a while.

But overall there wasn’t really much about Dread that made it stand out to me next to others in the genre. I think what was mainly lacking was the exploration. The map is sectioned into different areas with teleport loading screens back and forth, and much of it is blocked until you have the skill you need and the path leads you directly back to that area to progress, which made the level design feel pretty linear aside for backtracking for missile upgrades.

Also I wasn’t a fan of the EMMI robots at all, thought they were just boring stealth sections that didn’t add much to the game. Getting caught by them was meant to feel tense, but ended up being more annoying than anything.

Roguelikes aren’t much my thing since I find losing all the progress you make in a run to be more frustrating than anything, and Hades isn’t really different about that. But it definitely takes an interesting spin on the formula with how it integrates into its story, along with just being a very well polished game.

I really love the art direction and how vibrant the environments are. The character designs are also fantastic, all the gods look dope and really bring the style to life. The music and voice acting’s great too.

It’s definitely not easy, it took me a lot of tries to get through the bosses and reach the end. And after completing a full run there’s even more difficult modifiers you can add for replays. Combat’s based around 6 weapons and a variety of boons that give skills and upgrades to help get through, and it’s really fun when you start putting together builds for your playstyle. I ended up sticking with the shield.

It did start to get a bit tiring the more runs I did, but dying a lot is expected and always lead to new dialogue from the characters, more skills opening up, and better upgrades that slowly make you stronger and more prepared for the next time. So it’s definitely the type of game that’s hard to put down since you’ll want to keep trying over and over.

Basically Adventure Time if it were more focused on its apocalyptic aspects, needless to say it was cool for that alone

And the story is pretty interesting, there’s no voice acting for the characters but the narrator of the story does a good job conveying its progressively bleaker tone. That said I wish there was a bit more to the gameplay itself since you’re mostly doing the same monotonous actions multiple times, with occasional platforming and a fair bit of tedious backtracking. It’s only a 5 hour game but it somehow still felt a bit dragged out

A very well made metroidvania. Perhaps a bit uninspired and not quite as strong mechanically as others in the genre, but the execution as a whole is strong and it stands out with its stellar atmosphere, art direction, and music.

Its strongest aspect is the setting, with an atmospheric kingdom to explore and all the bosses you face being its people tragically turned into monsters. They do a great job setting its melancholic tone, with lots of varied areas and a nice soundtrack.

The combat’s also pretty good. Sluggish at first, but opens up once you unlock more abilities and has some cool boss fights. There’s a lot of spirits and relics to find and use for different playstyles, though I mostly just stuck with the same few for most of the game.

One thing I noticed about the gameplay is that exploring it wasn’t very stressful, there’s always a save point close by (right before bosses too), there’s fast travel, and the map marks when an area’s been fully cleared out. Appreciated this when backtracking with new abilities.

That said, the level design could’ve been a bit better. The world didn’t really feel interconnected to me, more like linear rooms that are structured basically the same which made it less interesting to explore. And some areas late in the game were a bit more bland visually.

I love games designed all around exploration, especially when they don’t have any combat like Outer Wilds. Sable is a strong effort in this genre, with no other goal than to freely explore a compelling desert world filled with ruined sci-fi ships and structures.

I think a well designed open world is one where it’s enjoyable to just go and see what’s out there, and Sable does this well with plenty of defined areas and landmarks worth exploring. Being able to climb and glide anywhere also made it easy to scale whatever towered over you.

It’s not a huge map and much of it’s empty space, but I enjoyed exploring it more than many others. It largely has to do with its atmosphere, crossing distances on the hoverbike felt meditative in a way, just you traveling on your lonesome in a barren but atmospheric world.

Another positive is the art style, the cel shaded environments look really cool and suit the world they were going for. Characters are also intentionally animated in a lower frame rate, which can be jarring but also makes it more distinct. The music’s also very good.

Sadly though, there’s some major flaws particularly with its performance. Riding on the hoverbike usually causes constant FPS drops which can be headache inducing at times combined with the visuals, and it tends to get worse in some areas than others. Others include the audio stuttering, the camera’s pretty buggy, and climbing can be a bit janky. Aside for performance the quests themselves are not very interesting, usually involving fetching items for NPCs and more served as an excuse to explore the world. This is the case for all platforms I believe, and as of now there's no indication these issues will be patched anymore. Given what Sable offers I could put up with it, but it's a shame nonetheless