Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is a phenomenal experience from start to finish! My playthrough clocked in at around 13 hours, and I had a great time the whole way through. The puzzles were incredibly satisfying to solve. The game recommends you use a physical notebook to write things down, and while my notebook ended up looking like the scrawls of a madman, having something simple to look through on the fly was really useful. None of the puzzles are too difficult, but there was so much variety and always another puzzle to be solved if one was giving me trouble. The controls are extremely simple, with just directional inputs and an action button (though a back button would have been nice). This game just oozes style. I loved the fixed camera angles and the game goes a lot of places (both physically and story-wise) that I was not expecting. Enhancing the experience was the incredible soundtrack, and some of those songs will definitely be joining my playlist. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is a gorgeous puzzle game that I would recommend to anyone who is in to games where you have to think, but it still manages to be an approachable, wonderful experience.

This game is truly something special. Animal Well is a truly mesmerising and enchanting experience that fully immerses you into an absurd, horrifyingly beautiful world and allows you to explore to your heart's content. Nothing is told to you directly, in fact there are no words outside of menus as far as I remember, and solving puzzles to progress makes you feel like a genius. Those eureka moments are a shot of pure joy. After about 8 hours I rolled credits, but it feels like there is still so much more to do. I highly recommend this game to anyone who is a fan of platformers or metroidvanias, but even if you aren't usually a fan of either genre, I think there's something here that you'll enjoy. Also, the fact that this game is like less than 40MB is nothing short of a technical miracle. Truly amazing.

This was my most anticipated game of 2024, and it absolutely lived up to my expectations. As someone whose first introduction to the franchise was Remake in 2020, and who has a passing knowledge of the overall plot of the original FF7, I was so intrigued and excited to see where they would take the story in this game, and I was not disappointed. The story was full of charm and character, with moments of laugther, shock and of course, sadness, and this momentum followed through right up to the end. I absolutely adore the combat in this game. It feels to me like the perfect blend of tactics and action and was so rewarding to master. Rebirth is chock-full of side content, but unlike how other open-world games can end up feeling, every piece of side content, from every tower to every minigame, feels so meaningful, all connecting back in on each other creating a web of worthwhile story moments and bonuses to uncover. I also want Queen's Blood to become it's own thing so more people can just play it because good gosh I haven't enjoyed a card game that much in a long time. Now that I've completed the main story, I plan to go back and finish all of the side content I missed (when I saw I was in the final stretch, I rushed to see the ending out of excitement oops). The two major downsides that come to mind are 1) No Materia Loadouts and 2) The moogles are cursed, but aside from that, this game was phenomenal. PLAY THIS GAME!!!

I appreciate games that try to tackle the topics of social media and the damage it can do to someone's psyche, especially in the case of teenagers. However, I don't think this game handled it particularly well. Some lines and moments felt too on the nose, almost to the level of "No one liked my photos, I'm worthless" and while I know that is definitely how some teenage girls might feel, I wish it was portrayed with a little more tact. I did like the overarching story and how it was delivered through the different gameplay sections, the music was great, there were some moments that genuinely scared me and for a free game it was a pretty decent two hours.