A pretty fun game that rewards your mastery of the mechanics, with a few issues here and there. Let's start with the less important stuff. The music is okay. It serves the tone and doesn't distract most of the time, but isn't anything I'm too interested in. The story and writing are a pretty mixed bag at points. It writing isn't anything amazing for the most part, but works well enough. Unless the game's trying to be funny, which it REALLY isn't good at. The story's got a cool idea, satisfying mystery, and underwhelming ending. Visuals are good, and importantly don't distract from gameplay and are very clear. Now for the main meat and potatoes. This game is pretty fun and addictive, especially when going for 100%. Each level is fun to beat in their own, with high flying, fast paced gameplay. Through the different weapons and stage mechanics, there's a ton of variety that keeps the game interesting and different throughout. Each has a hidden present, which are usually fun and sometimes annoying to find and collect. The main appeal is trying to beat it as quick as possible to collect all the game's ace medals. They all felt pretty fair and obtainable, although I wish they were harder. This might just be the masochist in me speaking, but I got the majority of the ace medals without feeling like I had really "mastered" the level. The game lends itself to speedrunning well, and I could see myself bumping this game up to a 9 in the future if I keep playing it to master it further. When you're not doing levels, you're in visual novel segments which are... eh. These are mostly used for levity, which is a good idea. But like I said, this game's not funny. It makes them drag a bit, but you can also unlock bonus levels here that give you some new stuff to work with. So all in all, those segments are okayish. In summation, Neon white is pretty good. If you can power through some cringe moments, you're in for a great time.

I'm sad this game didn't click with me much, because the art direction and personality of this game is top notch, and there's a lot of really good ideas here. Unfortunately, I found that I was often required to act quickly or die, with controls that don't really complement that sort of design. On top of that, respawning takes quite a while, and trial and error feels frustrating and punishing. There were a good number of rooms that felt fun to solve, but they were offset by the times that the game would be overly cryptic or tedious. The game's cool, but just has too many issues that stack up for me. I could understand why some would really like this game, but I just found it to be an uneven blend of cool, fun and really annoying.

This is the definition of a mixed bag if I've ever seen one. It's still got the strong art direction and fun tone of mega man legends, but the gameplay is split into different genres, which are not consistently enjoyable. The puzzle sections are great, and are fairly well designed. The dungeon crawling is pretty dull, and the action sections are clunky but somewhat enjoyable. The weird minion management system feels pretty tacked on, and the upgrades system is pretty poorly telegraphed. I bought several new weapons but the game just wouldn't let me equip them. Maybe I'm dumb, or maybe the game bugged out, but my weapons just disappeared so I was stuck with the basic shot the whole time. There were a lot of problems like that, where communication just felt off. This game has a neat idea, but just feels too messy and is only sometimes fun. It's got enough fun moments and charm to keep it from getting a lower score, but eh. It's jank, it's messy, and it's kinda cool. It also didn't take too long or overstay it's welcome.

Mario RPG is a dang good first attempt to kick off the long line of mario rpg's. It's got an incredibly charming presentation, with very fun characters and writing, a goofy plot with a lot of memorable moments, and a fun soundtrack. All of that stuff is consistently really good.

The gameplay is also quite good, although there's a number of places that feel a bit aged or annoying. The combat is good, nothing too complicated. It's mostly carried by a ton of bosses that all bring something new to the table, which does a good job of keeping things feeling fresh.

I did find that I was a bit tired of the same few enemy types by the time I reached the end of a handful of areas. The area design is much more varied than you usually get in an RPG, to mostly positive results. Sometimes you get a neat puzzle or some light platforming. There are a few gimmicks that don't work, like platforming that requires depth perception that doesn't feel good with the isometric perspective, or combat gauntlets that go on too long.

All in all though, this is a tightly paced and very fun rpg that doesn't overstay it's welcome and has a ton of variety to it, on top of a great presentation.

I really did not enjoy this game. I couldn't care less that it's dissimilar to the RPG's. But it's just not a great adventure platformer. Let me start with the positives. While I don't think it was anything crazy, I enjoyed the story fine enough. Most of the writing was at least entertaining, but it has a weird amount of drama that feels half-baked. The music was pretty good, and there was a lot of creativity to the visuals. So here's where the problems start. The game is just REALLY boring. The game gives you MANY mechanics to work with but they are rarely used in an interesting way. Pretty much every puzzle is just "Swap into 3d" or "change into a different character/pixl." The game doesn't combine or telegraph these abilities very well. There were MANY occasions where the solution was to switch to 3d, and the only telegraph was that you were stuck. But often, you wouldn't even realize you WERE stuck until you reached a locked door, and then you have to backtrack randomly trying the 3d ability. Even if you figure it out, it's not satisfying to realize that the solution to the "puzzle" is just to change your ability. On top of that, the pacing is all over the place and extremely bloated. Every chapter is interrupted by a drawn-out bit where you go wander into a different part of town to unlock the next chapter. They aren't fun or creative, they just waste time. Bosses are also extremely easy or monotonous. The quality can vary by chapter to chapter.
Chapter 1: It's fun enough, mostly just a tutorial.
Chapter 2: This one sucks. it's tedious and FULL of places where the solution is not telegraphed at all.
Chapter 3: A decent chapter. Has a good amount of variety to it, and was more entertaining than I expected.
Chapter 4: Actually fun. It has many of the same issues as before, but there's a decent schmup segment and the platforming is generally more enjoyable here.
Chapter 5: Tedious and drawn out.
Chapter 6: Terrible. It's really just fighting the same few enemies over and over and then walking in a long hallway for a few minutes.
Chapter 7: Also pretty bad. It has many bits where it just wastes your time for no reason, and has a bit where you need to navigate through several near-identical cloud areas to find specific items. Very tedious.
Chapter 8: Very long and drawn out, exemplifying every issue the game has. It feels padded, it has simple and unintuitive puzzles, the bosses are boring, everything.

In short, this game is not fun. I'm not the biggest fan of TTYD, but boy does that game blow this out of the water.

My new favorite Kirby game. The transition to 3d was incredibly smooth. Level design is top notch, music is stellar, controls and copy abilities are very fun, the level theming is some of the best you'll ever see in a platformer, and the game's got a ton of content and a great gameplay loop. Making the main collectibles upgrade a town is a super clever and fun way to make them important. Going for 100% was really fun, even rounding up some collectible figures. The game was maybe lacking one final thing in terms of endgame content to make it feel as whole as past Kirby games, but that's more of a nitpick than anything. My biggest complaint is that stages have missions to complete, and some can be annoying. They're mostly fun, so it isn't a huge issue, but the occasional mission that requires you to do something unintuitive and makes you replay the level for no reason. All in all, excellent Kirby game, easy recommendation for most people.

This game is pretty rad. The presentation is great all around, with some of the best sprites on the SNES, with a solid soundtrack to boot. The nonlinearity of progression is satisfying and fun, and backtracking never gets obnoxious. The variety of forms are fun to use, but I found myself never using the earth form much at all. The pacing is buttery smooth, and keeps things fresh and fun the entire (pretty short) runtime. This took me about two and a half hours, and was a very enjoyable ride. Some stage obstacles and levels are kinda tedious, and the difficulty curve is all over the place. Some early bosses can be damage sponges until the game's difficulty is kinda broken by finding the legendary crest. It's still quite fun, and is strongly bolstered by it's presentation and solid level design. I'd recommend it.

It's got excellent art direction, some solid dungeon design, and an enjoyable story, but it's let down by it's dated controls and occasionally obnoxious structure. It took me a bit of time to adjust to the controls, but I liked them fine. However, several bosses near the end of the game expect way more of the player than the controls really allow. That made the last hour or so pretty annoying. Some of the dungeons are fun, but some want you to backtrack needlessly. I did also like a lot of the characters, even if the dialogue felt clunky at times. The first half was pretty fun overall, with some good exploration and some light puzzle solving. An uneven experience, that I liked fine.

Pretty tedious, but also challenging, tense, and hectic. I think it would be pretty great if it was a bit faster and had a few quality of life changes. I will say though, it was pretty engaging throughout. Despite having to backtrack pretty frequently, it's always dangerous which keeps things tense. The game's pretty janky, but it sorta works in it's favor. It can be pretty fun to figure out how to cheese bosses. It feels like you're up against this tough situation and you gotta fight dirty to even the odds. Maybe this should be a 7. Cool ass game.

This was pretty fun, but I can't help but feel the incredibly cool concept this game has could have been more fleshed out. The game has a pretty stellar opening handful of hours. The concept is fun, and trying to build up an arsenal with the stuff you find and gathering currency to save up between runs is pretty cool. The customizable arsenal on top of the game's freedom to play it as a stealth or action game also helps this element. The beginning is this fun loop of killing of targets, gathering intel, building up the arsenal. However, after a few targets were down, I had a pretty good set of abilities and weapons, and gathering stuff for future runs didn't feel too valuable anymore. It doesn't help that a few of the missions I did at this point got pretty tedious, asking you to run back and forth several times over. However, it picks up again at the end where you need to kill all the targets within a single loop. It's tense and feels satisfying to put everything you've done together. I wish it had a proper final boss, because it felt a tad underwhelming. Now for some general stuff. The presentation is pretty good all around. I like a lot of the character designs, especially for Colt and Julianna. The music and environments are great, with a 70's sort of aesthetic that is really well done. Sometimes enemies blended into the environment a bit, and lighting was a bit bland in places. The animated cutscenes look great, and I wish that style bled into the actual gameplay more. The gunplay feels good, and the open-ended levels lend themselves well to figuring out a route and executing on it. The bosses are pretty underwhelming, Julianna included. She's supposed to be an intimidating hunter, but you can just step on her head in about 4 seconds to win instantly. She's a lot more intimidating if you turn on online so that random players could be Julianna, but that could make things absurdly hard for very little benefit. Stealth was mostly fun, but sometimes it seemed like I would get spotted out of nowhere.

In summation: Pretty fun, glad I played it. Starts great, middle is okay, endgame was good. Solid presentation (music especially), fun and inventive mechanics that could have been taken a lot further. I'd say give it a shot, especially now that it's on gamepass.

A very fun boomer-shooter that does just about everything really well. I wanna get the negatives out of the way first. The writing and humor in this game is pretty dated, even considering it literally came out this year. Not a huge issue, but a lot of jokes just don't land. But the rest of the stuff in this game? Kinda rocks. The movement is very simple but fun. Chaining slide hops to schmoove around and the hook shotgun creates a really kinetic and fast experience. The weapons are some of the best I've ever seen in a shooter. Just about every weapon is useful even to the end of the game, and they're all super satisfying to use. There's a ton of enemies too, which keeps combat encounters varied. The low-poly graphics look great, and it generally feels super polished and fun to play. The level themes are pretty creative and have a ton of visual variety and play into the nightmare theme very well. Basically, you've got clever and cool looking levels, packed with challenging combat encounters with a ton of enemies, that you kill with a stellar arsenal of weapons. Very fun game.