Bizarre character selection which gates the most popular characters with kids behind a ‘hard’ mode and sequesters the Yoshi and Nabbit to an ‘easy’ mode, effectively halving the roster of available characters for people who prefer either mode.

The Online mode feels half-baked yet also like borderline cheating, with good co-ordination you can essentially have infinite lives. This distraction of other players makes it very difficult to appreciate the course design.

Saying that it's Super Mario World bought into the modern day with all that entails. The Wonder effects add a good deal of variety and are much less gimmicky than anticipated. It also has a robust selection of difficult courses for those that like to go for 100% as I had.

Despite its reputation, I picked this up because I'm recovering from a surgery and needed something basically brain dead, something low-key to just hang out with. I have a severe aversion to open-world design (it even tanked Elden Ring for me earlier this year) and was really surprised to find myself enjoying FFXV's take on the form, which is largely non-committal and vibes-centric. I was really grooving with the FFXI-ness of the game, from its generally passive open spaces to its combat that doesn't ask much of the player beyond specific things, to its general hangout-itude. And then Chapter 9 came around and it became apparent that everything after that point was rushed, misguided, or maybe a bit of both. I am usually the person decrying overfocus on story and pleading for more sparseness and room to breathe, but god almighty I would've killed for a 30 minute cutscene to flesh out some of this stuff. By the last chapter I was begging for it to be over, and the ending was basically incomprehensible. Went from something I was shocked to find myself enjoying to being a nightmare in a very short span of time. Here's hoping XVI's better.

I adored Final Fantasy VII Remake more than, frankly, any AAA game since the PlayStation 2, and a lot of that was in its looseness with itself; its willingness to be light and fun and exuberant and goofy. There's plenty of that here, and this little chapter served as a pleasant reminder of how charming this version of Midgar and its characters are; honestly this comes off more than anything as "hey don't you miss this game? why not give it another run?" and the notion is tempting! I was surprised to find that while FF7R's "kingdom hearts bullshit" was charming and self-critical (coming off as a meta-level awareness of Nomura's broader influence in the aftermath of FF7, and providing a venue for introspection about FF7's own overblown cultural heft), the introduction of Dirge of Cerberus material and its accompanying melodrama is somewhat exhausting. The resolution of Yuffie's plot feels rushed and unearned, and the segue back into the main plot is perfunctory and self-defeating; a glimpse at a much more compelling melodrama waiting just over the horizon. Plot quibbles aside here, FF7R remains one of the smartest AAA games in recent memory, and the Sonon/Yuffie pairing is basically an elaborate excuse to further press into Final Fantasy XIII's combat system's raison d'être, simulating the platonic ideal of watching an action anime. It's neat! Further stripping out the player growth mechanics only highlighted how woefully little wiggle room there is in the base game, foregrounding for me the hopes that FF7R2 will have an open field with some kind of encounters mechanism. FF7R might be an incredible AAA game but it is, tragically, not really a JRPG in any meaningful way.