A beautiful puzzle adventure about linguistics, culture, and the benefits of understanding one another, inspired by The Tower of Babel.

Chants of Sennaar does a fantastic job with its ludonarrative; The goal is to decipher the languages of different civilizations, achieved by analysing environments and conversations. All the while, we learn about their ways of life and what led them to the current day and the lives they live. This dual purpose really resonated with me, and I personally think it struck an absolutely perfect balance between gameplay depth and narrative substance.

I adored the use of different linguistic mechanics that make you turn your head a little when it comes to certain puzzles (as well as the different script styles inspired by existing languages). It may not be as intricate as it could have been, but it’s enough to make you go “ahhh! cool!” when you notice certain things for the first time.
Thinking about it from the opposite perspective, it was clear that a lot of care was taken into simplifying certain aspects to make sure the puzzle solving felt smooth, accessible and rewarding. An example of how this is done is the removal of many “less interesting” words in the glyphs given to you, such as “the”, and “a”. We only have to focus on the parts that are meaningful to the purpose of the game and its world. The translation experience is finely crafted for that of a game player, and not that of a PhD student, which is what keeps it fun!

Many reviews complain about the stealth sections breaking up the pacing, I disagree with this, possibly due to me being a huge sucker for the narrative. I just found that these sections blended in with the journey so well, added in a unique feeling throughout the exploration that otherwise wouldn't have been felt, and did way more good than any harm they may have done by taking you away from puzzles. They don’t take up that much of the game anyway, and some of them had dialogue to analyse throughout! Keeps the brain thinking in both ways.

Great presentation, with an especially amazing soundtrack. Even though a fair bit of the game had me slowly backtracking, it was just too striking of a world to get very upset about it.

This is definitely up there as one of my favourite puzzle games and I recommend it to anyone who thinks it sounds remotely fun. The morals told are reflected greatly within the gameplay, which is also executed extremely well.

Parkour in video games will never not be incredibly fun.

It's disappointing that only the Uncharted and Tomb Raider reboot series offer such a rich blend of action-adventure and platforming elements, as they are such a joy to play. As a kid, I loved jumping straight into a game and being greeted with immediate, thrilling gameplay—no bloated opening cutscenes or overlong tutorials. While I do enjoy cinematic games that tend to prioritize graphics more than anything else, it's also nice just to dive into the spectacle of pure gameplay. The Uncharted series nails this with its exciting parkour mechanics that keep you constantly hooked on the screen.

I'm so happy they took everything from Uncharted 2, one of the best in the series, and enhanced it in every conceivable way, delivering yet another action-packed, over-the-top experience. The visuals and environments are stunning, and you can truly feel the passion Naughty Dog poured into this game.

While the story and characters in Uncharted 4 are phenomenal, the combat falls a little bit short. The gunplay never felt better, and it's fun to shoot enemies, but at certain points, it started to feel more like a chore rather than something I was actively excited about, mainly because it became a bit too repetitive. Luckily, the platforming and traversal make up the vast majority of the game.

At its core, Uncharted 4 offers a perfect conclusion to the Nathan Drake adventures, delivering entertaining gameplay that is truly the spectacle of the game and proves that cinematic games can be more than just good graphics. This nearly 10-year-old AAA game is more enjoyable than many cinematic €70-80 games that forget to prioritize fun nowadays.

So no shade to The Last of Us, but I hope Naughty Dog's next game—hopefully not another remaster or remake—will actually have fun gameplay again.

P3R was my first taste of the Persona series, and oh man, this series is tough to love. While the JRPG elements and art style were intriguing at first, the casual bigotry, misogyny, and transphobia in both the game and its community quickly turned me off. The high school simulation aspect often felt cringe-worthy, with female characters falling into reductive stereotypes and written like a 13-year-old in heat, which highlights bigger issues within the series. The community's dismissive attitude towards these valid criticisms only makes the atmosphere more unwelcoming. Despite its okay story and gameplay, the blatantly bigoted moments and terrible writing reminded me why I was hesitant to dive into serious gaming for so long. Maybe I should stick to the niche corners of the internet, places that make room for everyone and not just japanophile men.