My favorite game of all time, and it has held that distinction through a very strong decade of gaming.

Gameplay gets most of the focus when it comes to Souls games and the like, but this game may have the most perfectly designed world in all of gaming. If you haven't read You Died by Jason Killingsworth and Keza McDonald, that book will explain why.

2-D platforming perfection.

Resounding proof of our minds’ abilities to embellish fond memories. A lot of the color and depth I remember from this game did not actually exist and had been filled in thru 20 years of pop culture ubiquity. Everything after the destruction of Sector 7 is a slog, and the characters are cool to look at, but ultimately shallow. Even harder to play after the superior remake.

Like many franchises, Super Mario Bros first jump into 3D has not aged well. At this point it’s more of a historical milestone than an entertaining play.

Too much everything, except focus and sense of humor. Oppressively huge and detailed setting, but I ultimately didn’t give a shit about anything that was happening. *Never played online

An absolute masterpiece that took a juvenile, gore-horny franchise and used its history to create a melancholy treatise on the persistence of past mistakes. Next to The Last of Us, no other game has used peerless gameplay to tell such a resonant tale of fearful fathers.

A truly bizarre experience. The cat's spot-on mannerisms and behaviors can't overcome its dead-eyed, uncanny-valley expressions, nor can its initial charms last in a narrative driven almost exclusively by the cat's companion. I ultimately felt nothing for The Cat as it is little more than a conveyance for the true soul of the story; it was like playing The Witcher as Roach.

A truly bizarre experience. The cat's spot-on mannerisms and behaviors can't overcome its dead-eyed, uncanny-valley expressions, nor can its initial charms last in a narrative driven almost exclusively by the cat's companion. I ultimately felt nothing for The Cat as it is little more than a conveyance for the true soul of the story; it was like playing The Witcher as Roach.