Kiwami is fun, but it really feels like the first game in the series, regardless of being a remake. The side content can be fun, but a lot of it I had very little interest in outside of briefly checking it out. The only major activity I really got sucked into was Slot Car Racing, and that was fun. A lot of the substories are very samey, usually featuring some sort of con-artist plot.

The story is pretty messy. A lot of stuff is barely established, so bit emotional moments don't really hit. Some dialogue scenes go on for a while too, so I really started to lose my patience near the end.

Combat is fun, although very simple. There's enough variety and flashy animation to keep it enjoyable, but some fights are just obnoxious. Gun-based enemies in particular are just not fun to fight at all, so a later boss fight with three gun-toting foes is about as fun as it sounds.

Now that sounded mostly negative, but I still generally enjoyed my time with Kiwami. Most of the time, you're going through neat plot moments with fun action. There's just enough fun stuff here to really wish it was a bit stronger on all fronts.

Pretty fun and relaxed pokemon game. Mostly fairly easy with a few jumps in difficulty, and those were generally pretty fun to fight. Especially the ultra necrozma fight. The rest of it was still fun, but a bit mindless. The structure and pace was pretty good, except the first island which is real slow.

Presentation is all around great. I like the music a lot, I like the characters a lot, and I really enjoy the hawaiian theming. It gives a very comfortable feel.

It's not a particularly remarkable game, but it is fun and I enjoyed it.

Also, Guzma is the coolest guy.

A pretty great follow up to Jet set radio that makes a lot of good improvements on what those two games set up. The more open environments are fun to explore, movement feels better, and there's some fun trick and combo based challenges. It doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it doesn't need to. My one major criticism is that it's a bit light on content for a price tag of $40. There's a lot to do if you want to go for 100 percent, but it feels like there could have been some more substantial content. It's extremely polished, at least. Also, the story is weird and I liked it. Pretty good game.

Really doesn't get anywhere near as much credit as it deserves. I can understand the annoyances, the story is really boring and Dante's design stinks, but if you just skip the cutscenes you're in for a great action game and (in my eyes) the third best DMC game, behind 3 and 5.

Combat feels great, with weapons that are very fun to use and string together. Some enemy types are kind of annoying, and generally it's just too easy. I played on hard but I still encountered very little resistance. It doesn't have to be as hard as 3, but a bit more challenge would be nice. The rare moments of difficulty were great. Bosses are pretty good, excluding mundus. They all have cool gimmicks and great visual design.

Speaking of visual design, the levels look really cool and are fun to go through. The levels are outwardly hostile towards Dante, which gives them a really interesting presence. This on top of cool themes makes the levels here great, and in terms of level theming it's arguably the best in the series.

That's all you really need to make a fun game in my eyes, and in that DMC succeeds. However, you can really notice that the tone here just isn't correct. It's oddly serious despite combat being so ridiculous. Dante isn't doing stupid shit at all times, which is a major downgrade from 3. Again, the game is fun so it's not the worst problem, but it is very noticeable.

I hope to eventually see opinions switch on this one. Most people get weirdly hung up on story in games, but if you skip those cutscenes you're in for a fast-paced, varied, and satisfying action game.

I'm glad to see how much this game has improved as it's gone on, from the solid chapter 1, to occasionally frustrating chapter 2, to a great finale in chapter 3. And it seems like the previous chapters have been tweaked and nudged to be even better. The scope here is extremely impressive, with levels brimming with detail and a barrage of insane setpieces and levels. You've got a huge arsenal that feels pretty good to use, fun movement, good music and art direction, all in all a very solid boomer-shooter with some very memorable moments and huge scale. It can still be frustrating, with sparse checkpoints at times. Also, it can be a bit TOO big sometimes, with levels that are a pain to navigate or boss fights that have one or two unneeded phases. I appreciate the ambition, but it wouldn't hurt to tone it back just a touch.

Game's good, big recommendation for boomer-shooter enjoyers. Anyone who was unimpressed with the previous builds should absolutely revisit it now. It's been pretty substantially improved.

Xenoblade X is a very messy game. There's a lot of mechanics at play here, a lot of story elements, and weird ideas. While there are a lot of times where it feels disjointed, it oddly works much more often than it doesn't.

Combat is a real highlight here. It feels like familiar xenoblade action, except with the ability to swap between melee and ranged attacks. A major new change is TP, which is built up by using certain attacks that can be spent on other arts. More importantly, TP is used to activate overdrive. Overdrive is an enhanced mode where arts come back very quickly, and can be perpetually maintained by earning more and more TP. Keeping it going as long as you can is some of the most fun I've had with any combat system ever. Unfortunately, some of that goes out the window when skells are introduced. As fun as it is punching stuff with a giant robot, combat just feels less mechanically complex. Overdrive is no longer a hectic rush to keep it going, but is just luck-based instead. It's a shame that the strongest option isn't the most fun.

Exploration is standard xenoblade fare for the most part, but the open-world setup is quite fun, especially when skells get introduced. The limited ground movement is replaced by jumping all over the place at mach 10, and it feels great.

Quests are a bit messy. Sidequests are comparable to other xenoblade games, but it can be rough trying to find the right enemy to kill or item to find after Xenoblade 1's Definitive edition perfected this style of quest system. Story quests are straightforward and have a lot of great moments. Affinity quests are okay to pretty good, really just depends on if I like the characters in them or not.

The FrontierNav system is very unusual. It's all about strategically placing different types of probes to gather materials. It's alright, but feels a bit complicated for not a lot of fun extra moments. It often is more of a limiter on stuff that doesn't seem like it should be limited.

The music and presentation is good. The area themes are great, and a lot of the vocal themes are also great, but for different reasons. Area design is sharp and cool looking. Only real downside is that the character designs are somewhat dull.

The story is one of the more unfinished feeling elements. There's a great premise, a lot of excellent moments, some good sections of character writing, cool reveals. But this is on top of a disjointed structure and a core cast that feels flat for the vast majority of the game. For example, Lin was quite boring for most of the game until she randomly got a bunch of great moments in the last few chapters. The villains don't feel like a huge threat and reveals tied to them feel underwhelming. This would be fine if the core cast had more going on.

Alright that's enough essay writing. Game's good.

This feels like a wonderful combination of all the best parts of every pikmin game with so many new ideas and changes that it creates an extremely fresh and consistently fun time.

The normal above-ground action is great here. Exploring the large maps with their great variety of settings and tons of stuff to find was consistently fun, and using the captain and oatchi in tandem is interesting. Having two distinctly different captains is a great dynamic, and I look forward to mastering it in repeat playthroughs to see how quick I can beat it.

Caves are drastically better this time around. While in 2, they encouraged taking your time and not multitasking. They also took up the largest chunk of the game by far, and got old quick thanks to repetitive level design. This time around, the mechanics are far more interesting and having time continue to pass encourages you to keep it quick.

I love variety, and Pikmin 4 is packed with it. From aboveground, to caves, to battles and challenges you find while walking around, to the 2 hour bonus olimar campaign, to night expeditions, your core pikmin abilities are tested in so many different ways that it stayed exciting the whole way through.

Unlike 3, 4 feels very content-packed and ends at just the right point. It didn't end too fast, nor drag on like 2 did. The pacing was perfect.

My main complaint is the tutorial. It's too long, and pretty boring. Once you get through that first hour, it's great. Just had a rough start.

Yeah, this is the best pikmin game to me. I had so much fun the whole way through.

What started as a fairly standard megaman-like really grew into something unique as I better understood it's mechanics and got good at going fast. The combination of using a short-range punch and a long-range but weak grapple is a fun set of tools to work with, given that the grapple can grab weakened enemies, who can then be thrown into enemies to instantly weaken them, which results in a great sense of flow. You can go on a tear, taking down enemy after enemy and it feels great. Music's pretty good, visuals are sharp and impacts feel good. The level design and secret hunting have a good deal of variety. All in all, extremely solid.