I mean this in the best way possible when I say this feels like one of those games you'd play at a McDonald's game kiosk as a kid.

Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus was my first outing with this legendary series, and I can already tell this will become one of my favorite game franchises of all time. I had an absolute blast with this game, got the platinum trophy and everything, I only have a few minor nitpicks.

To start, the characters are all memorable and enjoyable to see. Sly and the deuteragonists Bentley and Murray especially are just so damn lovable and sweet. The ost is banging, especially during boss fights. The art style is so gorgeous its unreal, clearly taking inspiration from comic books, it adds so much personality to the overall look and vibe this game gives. At its core, the gameplay loop is satisfying and addicting as well. Swinging from hooks immediately into walking on ropes and shit was so cool and the stealth was super fun too, even if for a good amount of the game I charged head first into every enemy.

My complaints with this game are very few, pretty much just minor nitpicks. It's pretty much just a cost of being an early PS2 3D platforming game, but god sometimes the gameplay was not doing it for me. Unless you get a lucky charm, Sly dies in one hit, and Sly's hitbox can be so absurd at times that even if his pinky toe or hat touches something your immediately sent back to the last checkpoint. Maybe this issue was just caused by the fact that I played this game on PS3 streaming on my PS5, but I swear sometimes inputs just do not register. Sometimes when I would go to grapple onto a hook or jump onto a rail the input just would not register and I would be sent falling to my death.

In short, Sly Cooper is a hella great 3D platformer that hopefully Sony will eventually remember the existence of, because a new one of these using modern tech would go so hard. The game features lovable characters, a gorgeous art style, a fantastic soundtrack, and a good core gameplay loop. This game is only held back by shitty 1-hit deaths and occasionally poor boss fights.

"The hardest battles are fought in the mind, not the sword."

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is a uniquely horrifying game in which you play as Senua, a Celtic warrior with Psychosis who goes on a journey to save the soul of her deceased lover Dillion from the Goddess Hela. Throughout this journey Senua must endure death and the challenges her condition places in front of her so she may be reunited with her lover.

Where Hellblade excels most is within its sound design and atmosphere. From the very beginning the game tells you to play with headphones, and for good reason, as throughout the games nearly 8 hour long story you are placed within Senua's head and get to hear the voices in her head as they surround your ears to either act as her guide or tormentor. The atmosphere is brilliantly designed as well, each surface is filled to the brim with detail, and does a phenomenal job at setting the tone, especially in areas like the labyrinths and villages.

While the combat in Hellblade does certainly take a backseat for most of the game, it is by far one of the most fun and satisfying combat systems I've had the pleasure of experiencing. While being very simple and only consisting of light attacks, heavy attacks, and a punch/kick attack used for breaking shields, achieving combos and hitting a perfect parry feels unbelievably good. The combat especially becomes even more fun and rewarding as you develop the "Focus" meter, in which time slows down for your enemies and you get to go nuts and beat the hell out of every enemy in your sight.

Hellblade's narrative is an exceptional one. As stated previously you play as Senua who must face the challenges her Psychosis throws at her as well as challenge the Gods as she aims to save the soul of her lover. From the very beginning you realize that YOU are now one of the voices in Senua's head, as the voice that acts as the narrator begins to speak to you, and even in some cases Senua herself will talk directly to you. The stakes are immediately raised for the player after the combat tutorial ends, in which we are told that if Senua is killed too many times, the curse of darkness she possesses will spread to her head and we will be forced to restart the entire game. This threat however is empty, or at least I believe it is, as in most cases in the game it's harder to die in a battle than it is to win it, which I won't complain about. As the story progresses however, I felt as if it began to lose itself as it tries to confuse the player more than explain itself. I especially began to feel more iffy on the plot as I reached the ending, which felt very anticlimactic and felt to be a huge and sudden 180 from the tone the rest of the story had.

A few other minor gripes I had were with the puzzles and the backtracking. In Hellblade, the puzzles typically consist of finding a locked door with runes on it, and to unlock the doors you must find the listed rune within your environment. I will give credit where credit is due, a good many of these puzzles have very unique solutions in which you have to line up two objects in the horizon perfectly to create the rune, which was very cool to me. However the awe I felt from these unique solutions faded quickly due to the repetitive nature of these puzzles, especially toward the end of the game I found myself asking "Why can't I just keep going through instead of having to solve these puzzles after every little bit of progression?". The backtracking this game throws at you can also at times be completely absurd, especially in the beginning of the game. After defeating bosses like Valravyn and Surtr, you have to then go ALL the way back to the beginning room, which can take several minutes, and when every path looks identical it can be very hard to tell if you are going the right way, ESPECIALLY due to the lack of a map.

Overall, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice provides a unique look at how Psychosis affects the minds of those who have it and the obstacles they face, while also providing fun combat, a banging OST, outstanding sound design and atmosphere, and intriguing characters. However these positives come at the cost of repetitive puzzles, unenjoyable backtracking, and sometimes a less than satisfying narrative, with incredibly high highs, and low lows. I'm eagerly awaiting Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 now, and with better puzzle design, less backtracking, and a more stable narrative, I could easily see the sequel becoming an all time great.