this game is so cute and comfy. but I guess I'm insane for liking it, considering all the angry hater reviews. oh well! I can accept and admit that! I like it! it's cute!
I also like Hey You, Pikachu! but that's another matter entirely, I think. still, since I like that, of course I like this. liked it way more when I was younger... not young enough to be part of the demographic for this game, but hey. I'm autistic. stuff like this was bound to be of interest to me for longer than it would be for most neurotypical people.

anyway, I gave this a revisit around this time last year, and while it's cute and cozy, the novelty of watching Pokemon TV has definitely worn off. but when I was younger, I definitely loved this a lot. got stuck on it, I remember.
I'd love another game that does things like this one does. a lot of people only mention the watching TV part of it, but you can go outside and even go to other places. there's not much to do, which is more than a little unfortunate, but it's a refresher for when you're good on watching TV. I wish this game was a bit bigger than it is... your experience won't last all too long. this game used the GameCube clock, and had the parts of the Pichu Bros. anime time-gated. I never tried to change the time and make it faster, but I'm sure you could do that. I was playing emulated this time, and even if there were a way to manipulate the time in that case, I wouldn't have bothered. still, at most, you'd get... in terms of hours, I dunno. but you'd be good after a week. unless you really like the game. it's a cute little world to get lost in when you need some comfort!

there is a small amount of room customization you can do, more would have been fun. there's a small amount of plushes you can buy, but they go in set places, and they cannot be changed in any way. lots of TVs, but most of them change the way the screen looks and I'm not very fond of that. lemme have a funny gimmicky TV without changing the screen color or whatever, smh.

declaring this game done. I rang all 5 bells. while the story technically continues, following that continuation just leads to new game plus, and I don't really care. this game never actually ends. but I'm done because I'm bored. the process to ring the last bell is incredibly annoying if you've not worked on friendships prior to that requirement coming up. guess who messed up on that front? :)

the process of making friends in this game is as tedious as it is in most Harvest Moon titles, though it feels even more so because of how big the areas are and how spread out people are. also, some of them are impossible to find on certain days. so yeah, lesson to anyone out there reading this review, considering playing this game: do not ignore the townsfolk, you will need to have 10 friends.(3 hearts or more)

this game is... a Lot. it's not terrible, but it's not... really good? idk lol. I played Tree of Tranquility on the Wii ages ago and never finished it because a couple of the rainbow recipes were obnoxious. still, I think it's the better game. I know, this game added the wizard and witch princess as marriage candidates. I know the wizard's got a million fangirls. I don't get it myself. he's boring. and not the sort of character I'm into. but really, all of the characters you can marry are boring. except maybe Maya, she's wacky and obnoxious. but her behavior and way of speaking make me think she's too young to be marrying anyone. thankfully she's the only really childish character. unless I'm mistaken, it seems like Animal Parade is the game that kickstarted having at least one marriageable character that looks and acts like they're under the age of 18. Sigh.
oh, I guess Luke is... not boring. but he is also obnoxious. sooooooooo. boring or obnoxious, take your pick. Luke's also a dumbass. I know some people are into that! :^)

that said, if you're in it for some farming, this game is good. I am not sure of the criteria of unlocks(animals specifically, a few crops are locked at the beginning, but only by story progress), but there's a good variety of crops and flowers to grow, and animals to raise. there's also a fuckton of stuff to cook. but cooking kind of sucks because you have to have your ingredients in the rucksack, and you have to cook dishes one at a time.

this game is called Animal Parade, but the actual animal parade you can see... isn't much of a parade. and you have to complete a quest of helping 3 animals to make it happen. not anything difficult in that quest, but I had an annoying time with it due to mistakes that I made.
the mayor of Flower Bud Village(Magical Melody), Theodore, is now a ringmaster. they did not give him a mouth, and chose to just make his mustache be like a mouth and so it's really fucking weird when he talks. the circus is something that is incredibly underwhelming. I am not sure why the game was pseudo themed around that, at least with the game title and box art. it's literally basically nothing. you don't even see townsfolk there ever! laaaaaaaame!
anyway, the 3 animals ran off during a visit to Harmonica Town and Theodore needs you to help them so they return. it's really dumb. but I guess they had to make the animal parade something you earn for whatever reason.

best positive thing I've got to say is that, even though the animal festival comes around once a year, it's awesome if your animals win because they wear little crowns!!! literally the most precious shit ever. why haven't more games done that. there was nothing more delightful than seeing my duck wear that little crown. so cute.

I was gonna write some more shit but I can't remember what I was gonna say. so, fuck it! I wrote plenty anyway

so this is a game where I kiiiiiiiiiinda have the nostalgia goggles on. technically my second Puyo game, but my first Puyo game with "Puyo" in the title. the English dub, while... not great, still gets genuine laughs out of me. I do really like a large majority of the voices, which have definitely influenced who my favorite characters are.(in Fever specifically... Popoi, Yu, Carbuncle, Raffine, Hohow Bird) and while this is the only game that did it, I 100% prefer Carbuncle's "tada" voice in this game. the "gugu" will never do it for me. u_u

this game... I just decided to replay it, total spur of the moment thing. been long enough... this game kicked my ass. even when I put the difficulty on easy. which... really, it felt like there was little to no difference aside from the fever gauge boost. there was a more "visible" difference between the difficulties in 2.
playing this after playing 2... god damn. 2 is better. it may not have Popoi, or an English dub, but it's better. it does not have the better soundtrack, though. this game's soundtrack wins.
still, this game is good enough, and worth playing. it's fun and cute. I'm a big fan of fever mode, it's given me the chance to save myself from losses. of course that doesn't always work, but it's fun anyway. endless fever is fun but I wish there was a character select for it in this game so I could hear Popoi or Yu's chants.

disclaimer: I only played the demo.

I really have to log this and put my thoughts out there. I love rhythm games. I am learning, though, that I don't like when rhythm games do... more. it's too much for me to handle. I thought I'd love Crypt of the Necrodancer. I... didn't. :( glad there was a demo of this. I was tempted to purchase it, but it was far too much money to spend on something I wasn't sure I'd like. the demo was longer than I expected it to be, so it gets points for that.
this game is SO cool stylistically and musically. like, it gets that all juuuuust right. but for me, the gameplay was very awkward. using different buttons really threw me off terribly. my shitty ADHD brain couldn't keep up and I didn't even actually complete the demo. embarrassing! but I'm glad I was able to try it.

wahoo it's Black... 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
not much to say about this. a fine game, more gen 5, can't really go wrong. however, even if I do feel this is better than any other of the "second version" games, it's still hard to say this one's entirely worth playing. sure the story is a continuation of the original game, and for that alone, it stands pretty tall. but the story didn't really need said continuation. very little of interest happens, and the way it ends isn't much different from the conclusion reached in the first game.
there is, overall, even more to do... but most of it really wasn't of interest to me. had a bit of fun with the movie studio early on but it could have done with being a lot less of a slow process.

It's OK.
playing this game made me realize I fucking hate the gameplay of Platinum's games. I really, really hate it. but that's on me. and not something I was going to realize until I played a Platinum game. but I liked Bayonetta a LOT as a character for years. honestly I was obsessed. and so, I felt obligated to play her games. still gotta finish 2, uhhhhhhhh, someday. >_> due to all I know about 3, and due to my dislike of the gameplay of these games, I doubt I'll play that one on my own. who knows. maybe the fucked up sense of obligation I have will make me play it.
unfortunately, I don't really care for most of the other characters. there's also such a small notable cast, which is kind of a downside here. a few more characters probably would have helped make things more interesting. while not comparable for the most part, The Wonderful 101 has a sizeable cast full of mostly likable characters, and they really helped make the game enjoyable as a whole. so Bayonetta severely suffers in that department.
I don't like Jeanne, and I know that's largely a controversial or hot take. but I don't. imo, she makes the worst first impression and never gave me a reason to like her. I've really never understood why anyone likes her. maybe I'm just fucked up and insane, who knows. Rodin is great, though his role means he's... not much of a character in the grand scheme of things. still, I adore him. Enzo is a funny asshole, Luka is the second worst, and Balder just sort of exists, idk. considering that my memory of him at this time is pretty poor, he definitely didn't do anything memorable, soooooooo... yep.
aaaaaaaand the story is uninteresting and convoluted. so, then... what real good is there? not much. the game looks good. the music was fine, though largely not notable.
I don't know how to give this a proper end, so I'll end it by saying that. :^)

back in the day, I did not play this. I was burnt out after gen 4. I am more than a little sad I skipped this. gen 5 is a million times better than 4. 4 is so bland, 5 is visually interesting basically all of the time and does some really neat stuff visually. as much as Castelia City makes my brain melt, it's very cool.
imo Black/White/2 are peak Pokemon.
I actually wanted to play gen 5 for several years. sadly, by the time I wanted to try getting a copy of Black, it was already quite tricky to get, and way too expensive. this was well before more recent shenanigans driving used game prices even higher. so I did the good ol' yo ho ho and finally was able to play this game on my current computer. awkward to join the gen 5 fans so late, but y'know, it is what it is.
I played this game with cheats so I could avoid any and all real grinding. because grinding in Pokemon games, more than any other RPG, really fuckin sucks. many people complain about current Pokemon games and how easily Pokemon level up... and while I think that should be optional, and even offer maybe a few options in that direction, grinding sucks.
while this game definitely has downsides, namely most cities and towns feeling a bit too small, there was nothing that actively ruined the experience.
I do not think the story is as good as many others do. it's certainly very ambitious, I will give it that with no hesitation. but it falls short with the "bad guys" being actually bad while insisting their way is right. no one ever even comes close to believing them. if they'd been not so overtly obviously bad, it'd work... better. and then you have N. I like N, but his whole thing is very underdeveloped. you get a few glimpses into his world to understand why he is... the way he is, and how it happened. it's beautiful to see him figure things out and break free in the end. there's a satisfaction in taking Ghetsis down. I barely knew who N was, but stories of abuse hit hard, even when they're as underdeveloped as this one was. so I felt very sad for N and very angry at Ghetsis. but the development comes and goes so fast, it causes a sort of whiplash feeling.

fighting the league champion after the insanity that goes down is so anti-climactic.

young me back in 2007 really liked this game and had a massive phase with it. I was obsessed with Count Bleck in the most cringy way. a chunk of that definitely still exists in the depths of the internet.
anyway, while I haven't been able to play this game for myself in years... I remember that the last time I tried to, I ended up dropping it. so uh, I think that in and of itself is enough to say: I don't like it much anymore. while I haven't been able to play it in so long, I've relived the game 3 times through different people on YouTube. that's a lot more fun, because I'm not the one playing.
while I did once really like this game, I do know the gameplay was never my favorite thing.
it's funny, because thinking back, I am not sure why Past Me liked this game so much. while I've got those rose-tinted goggles on for lots of old favorite games... not so much for this one.
a lot of people say the story is good, or even great. I say it's really not that great and is outright pretty cringeworthy at its core. this is definitely partially because over time, I discovered I'm aromantic and despise sappy love story bullshit. and that's what the story of this game is at its core. sappy love story bullshit. bleh. though I do recall not really liking it way back when too. I was like, sort of captivated, but didn't really like it.
overall it's an ok game that I can't see myself ever replaying. happy to watch others play it tho.

for the first time in years, I played this last March, choosing to get through the whole game with 10 HP. due to not playing the game for so long, even though I've watched other people play over that time, my memory was not the greatest.
in short, I struggled. a LOT. probably shouldn't have done 10 HP but I made it through... grinding near the end to have power rush badges. barely survived the Shadow Queen. great experience tho. while the original Paper Mario game is my favorite game everrrrrrrrr, this is pretty high up there.