What a POLARIZING experience this was. Really high highs, very low lows. Overall I think I enjoyed my time with the game more than I disliked it, but this is absolutely a one and done experience. I don't think I ever want to play it again fghgfghj

The first thing that jumped out to me was the story—it's better than any of the more recent Zelda titles that have released in the last ten years (I'm looking at you TotK). The characters are so fun and expressive, and it even gave us the best version of Link and Zelda's situationship. They are SO cute in this game, that even as a raging lesbian I can appreciate them. It also gave us Byrne—he kicks ass.

I hear a lot of people complain about them but I never had much issue with the touch controls. They were responsive and the enemies are just slow enough to get around the bit of discrepancy you'd have as opposed to having button controls. I think we need more games with silly controls, that's kind of a lost art, and it brings charm to a game.

The pan flute was fun at first, it was just a silly little instrument that you blow into the microphone to use, but then I got to the fire sanctuary. That. That right there. That's the reason I will never play this game again. The fire and sand sanctuary songs are SO finicky, it took me HOURS to complete both. Everywhere else it's fine! The first three sanctuaries? Not a problem. Using it in the overworld? Not a problem. Just. Those last two sanctuaries make my blood BOIL.

Train's fine. I didn't really see much issue with it aside from the stupid one-hit kill demon trains. (Especially that last area, jesus christ why are they FASTER than you?) But oh my god it is impossible to upgrade your train in this game? I got three parts. THREE. I DIDN'T EVEN COMPLETE A WHOLE SET. You don't even unlock the ability to customize your train until you unlock the water realm so I just didn't think you could do it! Also you don't unlock fast travel until way too late. Like it's appreciated but they're so out of the way and come in so late that I basically never got to use it.

That's another thing, this game is so backloaded with sidequests, that I did like three before making it to endgame. Once I realized that you were basically forced to marathon all the sidequests in one go if you wanted to 100% it, I lost interest. It's all bunnies and ferrying people around anyway so who cares, I'd probably just get another pearl necklace for my troubles.

I do like that you can wear the conductor's outfit tho.

Anyway this game is definitely fun and worthwhile if you're a Zelda fan—especially since it comes packaged in with Zelda's most important role in the whole series. Seriously Nintendo, why can't we play as her yet? Why is she always being sidelined as a damsel in distress? Her name is in the fucking title for god's sake.

replayed this to help get over a recent silly heartbreak and could barely stop sobbing through the last couple hours. this game is shallow, jank and extremely inconsistent… but also beautiful, deranged and ungodly raw. i think it’s time i stopped pretending it isn’t still one of my favourites. spm, like love, will constantly disappoint with surprisingly boring space and cloud levels and is basically overrated but fuck, when that memory theme hits and tippi reminds herself she still has hope after everything, would i not let it beat me to death one last time :’)

jk jk i mean the level design is pretty good but sometimes speech bubbles look like they’re coming out of the wrong places. 9/10

Excellent game. A ton of variety with the levels and missions, and I mean a TON of variety. All the missions would surprise me with how different it would be. 99% of them were fun as hell.

Excellent music, especially in Paris, loved that first level.
Excellent voice cast.

Only negative was 1 of the areas of the game, the 3rd one, was a pain in the ass to traverse or navigate. Sour spot on the whole game but I still loved my time with this game and the missions in the area. Definitely an essential play for the ps2.

(Winner of the "Pixels Are XIrt Award" for most pretentious indie game, speech below)

So you’re probably expecting a long-winded speech or something.

But you know who won in the end. A fan game releasing 26 months before the original, with KO-OP banning anyone stupid enough to namedrop it. And some random writer coming out of retirement just to post a hit piece on Kotaku. All because of 4chan. All because the wrong people made the right game.

Look, Snoot Game wasn’t on the ballot this year, and we’re not exactly an impartial source. But if there was no Snoot Game, we would have never graduated Volcano High. You got two universes. Two worlds to get lost in, make fanart of, have fun playing or to talk shit about. You guys got two cakes, man. You won.

The best thing to do is to play both games, even though one wants to be petty and jealous and make you take a side. But there’s plenty to love elsewhere, tonight, in Volcano High.

Excellent game, wonderful environmental storytelling. Can be poignant, unsettling and even funny all without words. I won't say any more about the story because it won't take you long to beat and it's worth experiencing blind. Just know the director of this game has clear anger towards very specific people and I love it.

Music and art direction are awesome, I love the graffiti and world-building presented, it's such a visual treat of a game. Sometimes the actual requirements for a photo can feel extremely obscure, but I feel like it's mostly due to me being not very creative with photography, and if a photography simulation game doesn't want to dumb itself down for me I honestly respect it more for it.

Movement physics are weird though, it runs like total crap on the Xbox One as well. I'm still using the VCR Xbox One so I should honestly not be surprised that games run like crap on it anymore.

EDIT: I had this at 4 stars but the DLC has made me bump it up to 5 stars.

At the time of my review I have completed Tomb Raider 1 and 2 in their entirety and am about to start on III. So far I am incredibly satisfied with this collection, as it makes my favorite game series instantly playable without having to deal with the nasty ass PS1 load times or the incredible flimsiness of the PC Ports. Unfortunately, for as long as they made me wait for this thing I'm kind of stunned at how bare bones the whole thing really is.

I want to state first and foremost that the use of A.I artwork is deplorable. I understand this game was no doubt made with a woeful budget by an overworked team, so I'm going to direct my anger more towards the publisher for not giving these games the respect they deserve to have a proper art team remastering the visuals. As it stands, the remastered visuals largely clash with the original artistic intent, don't line up properly along the grids, and generally look cheaper than the original's, as the original game was textured by artists and not a piece of shit A.I.

I am also annoyed at the OG visuals having a frame cap on them, allegedly due to animations being locked to 30 for the old visuals. Even though there are PC Ports available right now that have those same visuals at 60 FPS. There is no reason these games should be stuck at 30 FPS, unless the Switch was having too much trouble running these games, which I would believe.

I also lament the loss of save crystals, which I hypothesized could have been a fun difficulty adjuster for long-time fans of the series, as the save crystals made Tomb Raider 1 and 3 very intense games when you can't save scum through them. Tomb Raider 2 is borderline impossible without save scumming so there no change there.

I think the asking price for some fantastic games is worth it, even though I resent the business practices being used within the package. I also don't anticipate all the terrible discussion we are in for about how these games aged by guys who are obsessed with fucking Pokemon or whatever. If you enjoy these types of games there is a nice handy package here to play them, which honestly, is what I've been dying for for years.

A beautiful mountain-climbing game, Jusant stuns with it's quiet serenity and easy-to-grasp (pun well intended) mechanics for reaching for and holding onto handholds and footholds.

I loved looking at this game, every frame a beautiful array of colours and shapes - the leftovers of a seemingly long-dead society living upon a monstrous tower of stone. Exploring this place was joyful, between the small moments of sorrow found in reading the letters sent between the denizens of this forsaken place.

The game is everything it needs to be, no more and no less. It's short, the exact length of game it needed to be, and I thank it for not outstaying it's welcome like others might.

I did acid one time with a friend and I got bored and hopped on this world that my friend hosted and my friend Christian told me to hop on vc and then I had the craziest urge to just burn stuff with flint and steel and I planted my own little island filled with trees and burned it all down and i went back to my place and my friend was checking it out and I wanted to troll a bit by setting my house on fire and quickly putting it out but the fire spread IMMEDIATELY and my friend was in absolute disbelief that i burned my house down and i was laughing hysterically about it and as soon as it was completely gone I went on a burning things rampage and my friend still mouth agape in call
I give it a yeah out of ten