Cobalt Core is an absolute delight. It's Slay the Spire meets FTL, and that should sell you on its premise right at the gate.
If you're still skeptical then hear me out. (Minor spoilers)

It's a deck-builder set in a space time-loop. You pick three characters to set up your starting deck along with a ship and try to make it through three stages to reach the end. At the end of each loop, depending on which characters you play with, you can unlock memories for one of the characters on your ship.

I feel like the writers and I have the exact same sense of humor because the dialog in the game is perfect. They got me laughing at loud multiple times - I especially love Peri's second memory. IYKYK. The game strikes a good balance between absurdism and seriousness that's really difficult to pull of and I think they landed it with flying colors. There are a couple of 'oh shit' story moments too that hit me harder then they should have, don't you worry.

There are a wide variety of cards and mechanics that keep you on your toes. I managed to hone in on a number of good strategies, and each of them felt satisfying when they hit.

If I could be a little bit critical, there are definitely characters that stand out above the rest. If I want to win, I take Riggs, I think she's nuts. If I want to have a hard time, I take Max or Books. The later don't feel like they can do too much on their own, which is fine, but sometimes I end up removing all of their cards in a run just to make my deck more consistent.

Additionally, I won't lie, the game is pretty easy. After getting some strategies down, Normal difficulty became a matter of 'how' and not 'if' I was going to win. Some people have said they beat the game first try, and I can see that. There are harder difficulties however, that make parts of your ship weaker and add bricks to your deck that make things more difficult. I say, if you're looking to have fun, do Normal, and if you're looking for a challenge, crank the difficulty lever to Max and ban Riggs from your ship. That'll get you sweating!

The soundtrack needs a shoutout as well. Aaron Cherof did great, the leitmotifs are banger and the beats are bumpin. The Dreadnought theme is my favorite and it's definitely finding its way onto my playlists.

So yeah, don't sleep on Cobalt Core or Rocket Rat Games. I'm gonna keep my eyes out for whatever these guys do next because this was great and I'd love to see more from them.

The best 2D platformer released last decade. Nothing even remotely comes close. It's got a simple combat system pushed to it's absolute limits, a fully fleshed out universe with lore oozing out of every surface, an art style that makes me forget I'm fighting bugs, and an atmospheric soundtrack to help me get lost in the world they created.

I spent 60 hours alone beating the Pantheon of Hallownest.

10/10 don't fucking talk to me, I beat Hollow Knight.

This game is fucking insane.

Imagine developing a 3 part series on your own for fun and then getting the funding from Patreon to do a 4th game and deciding to go all in.

And you knock it out of the fucking park.

This is one of the few games I've 100%'d. This is one of the few games I've played at least 10 or more times through. This game's movement is amazing. This game's combat is amazing. This game's atmosphere is the best I've seen in an indie game, with maybe only Hollow Knight beating it a year later.

There's a giant witch with huge tits that curses you to turn into a cat.

Oh and once you beat it, you can go back and beat every boss without getting hit to find their absolutely broken secret boss items. Fucking genius!

God this game is great, I'm going to go play it again brb.

This game's great. It also sucks.
Honestly, the Joseph Anderson review of this game gets my feelings on it perfectly.

It's an good puzzle game with genuinely creative puzzles, compelling visuals, and a vibe so pretentious I wish there was an ass in the game I could shove a stick up.

And they'd still probably make that a puzzle.

When I finish this game in 2030, I'll update this review with my full thoughts.

Edit: Yeah it's pretty good.
It's absolutely crazy to me that they somehow captured the truly open-ended gameplay of an actual DnD session with a couple of friends in a video game. 99/100 times, if you wonder 'hey do you think I can do that?' or 'Do you think the dev's accounted for this scenario?': They absolutely did.

It's borderline magic, honestly! Great game, I love it.

I have a poor relationship with Hades. On the one hand, it is an artistic powerhouse of good story writing, amazing visuals, and godlike voice acting.

On the other hand, it is one of my least favorite roguelikes in terms of gameplay I've ever played.

In my experience, the combat in Hades boils down to getting boons for one of your attacks and spamming that attack over and over and over again until you win. I'm fine with this, as long as there are creative boons that mix up the formula, and there just... aren't that many of them.

The room-to-room combat is fine - enjoyable even - as there is a lot of skill expression with the different weapons that makes quick fights fun. And then the game starts throwing armored enemies at you and you can no longer rely on stunning an enemy. Which then leads to fights where you hit them once and then run.... and then hit them once and then run... and then hit them once and then run... as you look at the clock and wonder why you're spending an hour-per-attempt on this game.

If you don't find a combo that makes room-to-room combat easier early, then later stages can get to be a real slog. The enemies aren't too hard to dodge, and they aren't too hard to hit, but they simply have too much health. Worse still some enemies can revive at full hp if you don't kill their egg in time because you're dealing with 10 of them at a time. I could give up and just let them win, or I can spend 30s of my life killing one enemy because I didn't get the right boons, or I got the right boons, just for the wrong weapon.

And then there's the Bosses. I know I'm bordering on hyperbole, but Hades takes my medal for worst Bosses in any game I've ever played, or at least worst bosses in an objectively good game I've ever played. I loathe these Bosses. Ironically the one I hate the least is the Hydra, but that's mostly because they're easy?

Every single Boss in this game spawns lesser enemies for you to deal with, while also trying to beat the shit out of you with their attacks. I'll be locked into an intense fight with Meg and then - oops I took a third of my healthbar because she spawned some fuckhead a mile away that hit me from off screen.

Oh remember how I said if you don't find a boon combo that works some of these enemies can take 30s or longer to kill? See, the Bosses don't feel compelling because without the swarm of enemies, the Bosses themselves aren't much of a threat. Their attacks don't come out very quickly and there is a lot of downtime between strikes.

Don't get me started on the travesty that is the Minotaur boss fight. The first time you get to the third area you have a duel with the Minotaur that is so good. It's genuinely a stressful fight with attacks that are difficult to dodge and sticks out in my mind as one of my favorite challenges the game threw at me.

And then they ruin it by adding Theseus. I have a special hatred for Ornstein and Smough boss fights, but this one is especially dreadful. The Minotaur is a compelling boss all by himself, and the developers proved this by having the Minotaur fight be it's own thing. The twink does not add anything good to the fight, he's just another thing to dodge and make the fight drag on for longer - again made worse by the hit-or-miss boon system.

I'm going to omit a 3 page long rant about Hades himself. He's the worst final boss I've ever played against. Hades - the god of the underworld - and the literal title of the game - summons basic enemies that are more of a threat than he is. He spends the entire game spawning enemies for you to kill and then when you finally get to 1 v 1 him, he just summons more. What a joke.

The game is, again, saved by it's presentation and by the fact that I just really like SuperGiant? The art style, characters, and voice acting, are all amazing. I love the game when I'm not playing the game part of the game.

This is the one game I hate that everyone else loves, but I still can't give it less than a 2.5 star because I do believe that it is a good game - it just doesn't click for me.