It's... ok? I thought it was really boring, feels like they spent most of the budget on actually marketing the game and hiring the voice cast. Most of the game is just listening to the characters talk to each other, and the payoff at the end is just weird. Was hoping for a bit more dynamic gameplay when it came to catching different Bugsnax, but most of the critters felt the same to catch.

A classic beatifully remade for the current gen. Insanely fun gameplay that still holds up today. Big cast of skaters, great music, create a park, hours of fun and replayability. Not much more to say, childhood favorite, adulthood favorite.

2020

Waited a while for this game. I'd say it was worth the wait. Surreal RPG with horror and deep themes. Faraway Town (real world) segments kind of felt like they dragged a little at times. Combat was really interesting at first, and overall pretty good. However, it felt a little too shallow. Most encounters could be cleared with no trouble using a combination of early game skills. Didn't feel like even bothering with some late game skills I got because the early game skills worked so well. Good music and art.

Really compelling, only complaint is some clunky mechanics and movement at times. Also some of the later puzzles were just a matter of trial and error until you got the right timing which was kind of tedious. Otherwise it was just the right length, a fun little horror game for spooky month. Probably great to play while high too.

Relaxing gameplay. Good variety of animals. Building the right habitat while also trying to make the overall park aesthetically pleasing is a fun gameplay balance. Nothing extraordinary, but a good game to come back to every once in a while.

I was really hot and cold on this game for like the first 30 hours. I think this game has one of the worst openings to a game I've played in recent memory. It's a lot of information overload with loads of tutorials, text to read, minigames to learn. Assuming you're doing the open world content, the first 15 hours of the game are basically just the Nibelheim flashback and then pulling Chadley out of your ass every 5 minutes. I really hate Chadley too, there's nothing necessarily wrong with the character, but I lost track of how many times I had to stop and pull him out of my ass just for him to say the most useless thing that could have easily been ambient dialogue. Most of the open world content is very uninteresting as well, but I ended up doing a lot of it because I felt it was the best time to experiment with different materia and master weapon skills.
Queensblood was initially a fun idea to me, but got old REALLY quickly once I got to a level of "difficulty" where the computer just counters your every play. All you need to do is pass your first turn and do the same thing to the cpu, then the game becomes a joke. Once I realized that I lost all interest in it. It's definitely no Gwent. The minigames as a whole were really hit or miss. I liked some of them like Chocobo racing, but a startling amount of minigames were just "learn these mechanics and do this perfectly, otherwise you don't win, and by the way you won't progress either"...
LOOKING AT YOU FUCKING GEARS AND GAMBITS. But I guess I didn't need to do Gears and Gambits, because the payoff ended up being a secret boss fight that requires immense grinding long after you've finished the game to even stand a chance against, which was also disappointing. Moogle hearding was also really miserable and you barely get anything of value from it. Man, the more I think about it, I just did not like many of the minigames at all lol.
I know I've been talking a lot of shit about this game, but despite all of that I still think it is a REALLY good RPG. The parts here that are traditional RPG are really good. The game really clicked for me around the Gongaga/Cosmo Canyon region. Gongaga was a pain in the ass to navigate, but Cosmo Canyon was the total opposite and really fun to explore. The main story beats are all gorgeously animated, beautifully scored, even if I have no idea what is going on with the story. Synergy abilities and materia combinations made it fun to try out different strategies. Bosses and summons were really fun to fight.
I only wish this game was just a little bit harder. I'm kind of sick of games locking their hard modes behind game completion... Like really sick of it. FFXVI did this too, which was another game that could have benefited from some difficulty. But honestly, higher difficulty in these kinds of games usually just means more health, less damage.
Great game though, I'm torn between giving it a genuine 4.5/5 and saying that it's slightly overrated at a 4, but I enjoyed my time with it enough that I think it's a 4.5 for me.

I got like 13 hours into this game but ultimately I gave up on it. It is simultaneously fun and very unfun at the same time. The game has a lot of cool ideas, but pretty much every one of them feels underdeveloped and half baked. A lot of the story and quests feel generic and uninteresting, and almost every quest has you walking slowly through a big, mostly empty map. I was at the Griffin quest and was excited to finally fight the thing, only for it to fly away and the NPCs to immediately tell me that it went to it's nest all the way on the other side of the map. The journey from point to point wouldn't be as bad if there were interesting things to do in between, but there's just not. The music is good... when it plays. Otherwise the game feels dead silent in a lot of places. The whole experience just feels kind of junky and unfinished.
However, like I said I did have fun with the game initially because it has a lot of fun concepts in its combat and follower system. The formula is in desperate need of modernization which is why I'm still very interested in the new game coming up. I think a modern Capcom can make something really special with the bones of this game. However, the original feels like a chore to play.

Charming remake of a childhood favorite. Colorful art style, solid gameplay. Surprisingly bug ridden. Bugs can be annoying or strange but don't usually hinder progress.

This is a really fun coop survival game set in a family's backyard. There was tons of intrigue and mystery every step of the way. Also worth noting that this game has crossplay functionality between PC and Xbox. Progression can feel kind of weird at times with not a lot of clarity on where you should be. Sometimes it will feel like we are exploring the right zone and then run into some obstacle or enemy we can't yet hurdle.

This is a solid first entry in the Souls series. Bluepoint did a great job giving the visuals and audio of this game a major upgrade. The PS5 can run it at a super smooth 60fps and it still looks beautiful. That being said I think this is the weakest Souls game. There were some really great levels, for me the Ivory Tower was dripping in atmosphere, but overall it's quite short with some frustrating bosses.

Tried so hard to find the fun in this game but I just couldn't. It's like someone just checked off all the features of Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley with more tedium and none of the soul. Just kind of ran around for 4 hours selling fish and all I had to show for it was a general store and a museum. The reason why AC and Stardew are so good is because of everything you can interact with in between the tedium. Having to manually pick up every single item I try to harvest is a big turnoff too.
I grabbed it because I had heard good things and it had high marks on Steam but I don't know how this game is rated as highly as it is.

Really interesting game with some surprising twists. Atmosphere in spades. I won't spoil anything in the review, as it's worth a play blind.

2018

Beautiful art. Great soundtrack. Pretty straightforward platformer with some puzzles. Like an interactive painting.

Fun and colorful, silly and whimsical. A simple idea with great execution. Takeshi's Castle and Wipeout inspired, obstacle course styled, battle royale with fun platforming gameplay. Worth every penny.

This is a fun game but you definitely have to make your own fun in it. By that I mean it's much better with friends, as playing alone the "quests" get pretty tiring and repetitive. It's worth noting that this game also has crossplay between PC and Xbox, which is a big plus.