MidasGloves
My favorite fighting game of all time. The roster is so varied and the systems so open that with enough dedication, anything can be viable. The artstyle holds up, the sound design and voice direction are the best in the genre, and Heroes & Heralds is actually a nice distraction you can put some time into if you want. A dozen-year legacy that refuses to die, full of infinite creativity & unfiltered love for every single facet of the IPs involved. That's before you mod in 50 extra characters on the PC version. 8ing's masterpiece and one of the best games Capcom ever released.
2012
One of the best OSTs of all time. The progenitor of a sub-genre that has literally had a 90% failure rate at maintaining players/profitability, itself being part of that 90%.
It took some years of thought, but I'm certain now: this is my favorite Platinum game. The combat takes basic ideas from other Platinum titles but injects them with mechanics that are squarely Transformers (Vehicle Mode, Rush Attacks, Vehicle Attacks, Overdrive) and puts 5 distinct characters, a ton of build variety, and some of the best enemy/boss design in the entire genre in there to boot. Throw in a charming visual style that hasn't aged, the best Platinum OST outside of Anarchy Reigns, and a solid little story evocative of G1 with as many of the original VAs as possible (including Cullen at his most motivated, with possibly the best Optimus/Megatron confrontation that Cullen & Welker have ever voiced), and that's an underappreciated classic. If you even remotely care about action games or Transformers, you owe it to yourself to play this game however you can.
2022
One of the games I was most excited about in the past 5 years and one of the worst I've ever played. There's so much wrong with this game that's been said a dozen times that the only thing I can say is why I didn't give it half a star: some of the enemies and armor sets (that aren't pulled from other SE games) have cool designs, and the music from the composer behind Bayonetta 1&2 has some nice tracks. That's all the good I can say.
2019
A good game, and I can't really praise it more than that. Astral Chain has a lot of great pieces but I found it managed to be less than the sum of its parts, with its unsatisfying combat being the crux of it.
2014
This game gets a bad rap. It's a game that barely hits 3 hours while throwing an hour of filler at you, but it's a decent time and replaying it with all four elements is an even faster and more enjoyable playthrough. Nothing mindblowing but it was worth the price they sold it at.
2022
Bayonetta 3 has the best weapons in the series, the best bosses in the series (the best Rival fights for sure), the best Witch Trials, the most varied and actually fun genre shifts on average, and is generally a solid action game overall. That it manages to be worse than 1 goes to show how damning its flaws are, between the muddy visuals, the weaker OST than prior games, the long-winded and empty levels, the dull designs of most Homunculi, the half-baked nature of Viola's gameplay that needed a patch to fix, and probably the worst story in a game I've finished. It's a better game than Bayo 2 and yet it leaves a worse taste in the mouth.
2014
Bayonetta 2 is a gorgeous game with great music, creative weapons, a legitimately good story, and a ton of cool bonus/postgame content. The fact that it's still the worst game in this trilogy says a lot about how much the enemy/boss design, shallow weapon movesets, Verse scoring, and Magic balancing were fumbled. Still a great game on its own merits, mind you.
2009
The fact that a game with Witch Walk, Missile Operation, more bad bosses than good, and the ludicrous unlock requirement for its best weapon is still the best game in its series and a modern action classic says a LOT about how good this combat is.
2009
The most underrated Platinum title. Basically the score chasing part of being good at a beat-em-up turned into the entire point of a game, with fantastic aesthetics.
This is my go-to example for a 10/10 not needing to be perfect. I loved it on the WiiU and this version is even better. There are absolutely imperfections all over this game, but there's nothing like it, and I'll never forget it.
The best Kirby game. Legitimately one of the best lineups of bosses in a 3D Action game, and that's not even in the Top 5 reasons I'd recommend this game.
2023
This is the game you daydream about in your late teens, that feeling of perfectly-timed fight choreography to the beat of your favorite song, combined with the DNA of some of the pillars of 3D action games. Filled to the brim with details that make you remember why this medium is worthwhile. I can't see this losing GOTY 2023 to anything currently announced.
2023
Excellent speedy platformer that does more than retread the Wario Land design that inspired it. The biggest issue is that there isn't more of it unless you're combing for those P-Ranks, but with the amount of content on the cutting room floor to get this game in a finished state, I can easily see an update or sequel doing just that.
This game also might have the best boss rush of all time.
This game also might have the best boss rush of all time.