MVK23
2016
Remake of Yakuza 1. Similar to Yakuza 0 in design, yet not as compelling. Same minigames, which are still fun, decently interesting story, but more frustrating combat. Poorly designed bosses made me resort to cheesing strategies. Still pretty fun.
1996
A classic platformer with some dated mechanics, still enjoyable. Camera is the only thing obstructing a great experience.
2020
Eerie and thrilling multiplayer ghost hunting game. Elevated heartbeats, sweaty palms, screaming, laughing, crying. Try and identify the type of ghost you are dealing with before it hunts you. Rough around the edges, but a fantastic concept that will only get better with polish.
2004
Much like the first, this Pikmin game still retains the charm and clever design that makes the gameplay so fun. Dungeons are interesting but maybe a little too high stakes at times. Just as fun as the original.
2017
Fun little puzzle platformer lite with creepy atmostphere and monster design. A little easy and linear, but doesn't hold the experience back. Wonderfully stylized visuals. Looking forward to the sequel.
2016
Confusing and unintuitive. Tedious and poorly designed. Nice artstyle. Ultimately a waste of time.
2002
Charming, but a little janky. FLUDD was fun to use. Some challenge levels were frustrating and tedious. Tropical theme was fun most of the time, some levels felt uninspired though, like Pianta Village. Was not motivated to collect more auxilliary shines than I needed.
2007
Still somewhat holds up to this day, although after playing Odyssey, it's hard to go back to classic Marios without criticism. Great music, runs well on the Switch, galaxies could stand to be a bit more interesting visually and layout-wise. Not a lot of incentive to explore aside from getting star bits and making your way to the power star. Great game overall.
Great visuals, interesting and realistic world. However, realism doesn't always make something good. While I appreciated the realistic approach to the game, I found combat to be very tedious, and dialogue to be a bit boring. At the same time, it is interesting how you can talk to several different people during a quest and approach how you reach the outcome in different ways. I must have played for some 20 hours, but unfortunately lost motivation to play due to the tedious combat. Working my way up from serfdom felt fun though. It felt like every gold I earned actually mattered. Might revisit someday, but probably unlikely.
2005
A wonderful sequel to one my new favorite games, Katamari Damacy. Expands upon the ideas established in the first game. Rolling around to a bubbly, colorful soundtrack is more fun than ever.
Beautiful art direction, amazing lighting and environments. Superb soundtrack, very fun combat most of the time. Some minor frustrations with combat being interrupted while casting spells. Great characters and story. Solid RPG all around. Eagerly looking forward to the next entry.
2017
A colorful, excellent return to form for 2D Sonic. I was never that into Sonic the Hedgehog, but I did enjoy older 2D Sonic games along with some 3D ones like Heroes and Sonic Adventure 2. Well designed, great music and art style, gameplay is fun. The one thing that holds it back is the antiquated lives system, although I suppose it wouldn't quite be the same without lives. Overall solid game.
2019
140 hours. That is how long it took me to beat this game just casually playing through it for the first time. Granted, I maxed out every confidant except for 2, and did most of the Mementos requests. Like Persona 4 Golden, P5R stands as one of the greater JRPGs of the past 10 years. The gameplay is much improved from P4G, the dungeons are much more fun to play through. Playing the game on Hard still felt a little easy at times. Soundtrack is simply incredible. Story, characters, setting, and tone are good, but not as good as P4G I feel. P5R does the gameplay right, P4G excels with the characters, setting, and tone.
2020
Charming, great music, fun co-op gameplay. A little more laidback than past Pikmin games, but still enjoyable.
2020
Beautiful, immersive, open world samurai game. Fun gameplay, very cinematic. Strange lighting at times, storytelling is pretty good for the main quests, but kind of misses on the sidequests. World feels alive though, grounded in reality while being a bit fantastical.