I love you Tails, but you have disappointed me so. You might think silly of me to be let down by such a game. Even if a metroidvania with Tails using all his little gadgets and doohickeys is a really cool concept for a Sonic spinoff that gives my boy the spotlight he needs, this is still a Game Gear title after all, so naturally you’d expect something short of stellar.

But the thing is, this game starts off really good!! Apart from it taking me too long to figure out how to change abilities, the levels are fun to go through and Tails controls well. His movement physics aren’t bad and the flight option allows for some unique exploration challenges not typically seen in the genre to this day. I was pleasantly surprised with how much fun I was having!

It’s once you get a few levels deep do the cracks start to show. Eventually you are required to do a fair amount of backtracking, using your abilities to open the routes that you’ve missed. Of course, this should be fine in theory but I found two main issues:

Firstly, Tails can only carry 4 abilities at once, if you want to swap them out you need to leave the level you are in (by walking either all the way to the end or back to the start), then return to Tails’ House and swap them out. Obviously this kinda BLOWS because your time is wasted if you don’t happen to bring the right thing with you. It may have been a hardware limitation, or maybe it was intentional to pad out the play time, but if Tails simply had access to all his abilities at once, he would be able to spend less time faffing about for no reason.

Secondly, Alternate paths are often very camouflaged. You will certainly walk past a mostly regular looking wall without knowing that it could have been blown up with the 3rd or 4th bomb ability that you unlocked. In general, bad level design is more common as you get further into the game, so I resorted to a walkthrough and much more common save states for the second half.

Other than those fundamental problems, the rest of the experience was just alright, the item selection is half creative and fun (abilities based on Sonic, Knuckles and Fang are here!), but half useless or samey (which you probably won’t even entertain trying out because again, your slots are valuable). The story is simple and cyuuuuuute but nothing to shout about. Level theming is VERY underwhelming for a Sonic game (even if we do get to swim in a submarine), and the few boss fights are mostly mediocre with one or two cooler ones.

It may be because I spent more time in the levels but I thought the music was good and for sure one of the better game gear soundtracks! Some nice compositions here! I was a little disappointed to not find many covers / rearranges on youtube, rare sonic fanbase L, but this one I did find was indeed very nice.

So here I am disappointed purely because my hopes surprisingly shot up at the beginning, but it's okayyyyyyy... Tails Adventure may be very flawed, but it was a cool time and as a certified Two-Tailed Fox stan I am quite glad I played through it since it does carry my enthusiasm for his character very well. Safe to say we probably ain’t gonna get anything like this from SEGA again.

Crypt of the NecroDancer could be described as one of the most, if not the most difficult (well known) roguelike to get into. That’s not really a subjective statement either; the steam achievements suggest that less than 5% of players have completed what could be considered a “full” (All Zones Mode) run with any character. Whether this is due to the rhythm element, the initial difficulty wall that players inevitably face when they start, or some other reason, what awaits the players who eventually click with the game is undoubtedly an almost unlimited world of mechanical fun and challenge.

Believe me this struggle is not something I’m unfamiliar with myself. I first played this game in 2017, only to struggle with Zone 2 for a while before calling it quits. Despite how much I admired the game, it wasn’t clicking yet, and I wouldn’t give it another shot until early 2023 when a friend of mine was achieving big things in it.

As mentioned earlier, NecroDancer (ND) is hard. Initially, at the least. It will take even a great game player a non trivial amount of time to complete Zone 1 due to the nature of its gameplay. Movement is restricted to the laws of the world, the tune of the tomb… the rave of the grave… the…mix of the….styx… the… script of the crypt? YOU MOVE WITH THE MUSIC RIGHT?! And so do the enemies! If you don’t know what they’re gonna do then I gotta be honest with you buddy, you won’t stand a chance getting past the… the beat of the fleet… of monsters. Pattern recognition is the name of the game here. If the item pool isn’t favouring you, then you’ll need to lock in and make up the difference yourself… or just try again until you get a build that’s really broken. Except not really? OP runs in ND are VERY losable compared to other roguelikes ESPECIALLY depending on which character you are playing. One wrong move at any time can be your unexpected downfall, and trust me you’ll feel the true depth of shame when you lose a run like this.

But it’s made fair and well. ND would not be nearly as successful as it is if there wasn’t plenty of thought and testing put into how smooth it plays. Yes you have to make your inputs on time, but sufficient leeway is given to not make it a complete nightmare. If something catches you off guard you’re given just enough time to think it through and feel like a wiz of a magician after pulling it off. The heartbeat in your peripheral vision helps you notice when you might be losing the rhythm a bit and the red outlines of the beats that i often fail to see due to colourblindness will let you know when the song is almost over. These are just some examples of well thought out features that I feel are a little underappreciated, but go a long way in making sure all of the challenge that the game feeds you is fun and interesting challenge.

How have I come this far without talking about such a fundamental piece of the puzzle? In ND, the soundtrack represents something much more than just the music you listen to; it governs your playstyle and the pace at which you think and analyse. Whether it’s to your taste or not, you gotta admit Danny Baranowsky did a cracking job composing some super catchy tunes that you can’t get too tired of and fit all the individual zones and bosses so very well. I’m no musician but composing these while also being restricted to certain BPMs (and be of sufficient length) to match the intended difficulty must not have been easy. As I like to say however, limitations breed creativity, and that’s undoubtedly what happened here. Personally I love the whole thing, cheers Danny. And if you don’t, then luckily there’s like what, 6 alternate soundtracks to choose from?? Some of those soundtracks done by well known musicians like FamilyJules and Jake Kaufman, even a Danganronpa themed soundtrack (idfk why), if you don’t like any of those either then I’m going to assume you’re just out to cause problems. EVEN THEN, there is an option to insert your own music! It’s a piece of cake just throw your mp3 file in and it’ll calculate the tempo for you and change the gameplay accordingly!
What else? Oh yes, the names of all the tracks are musical puns based on where the track plays, I don’t know how they did that but it’s awesome, my favourite has to be the name for the lobby music, “Rhythmortis”, hehehhehe get it???

Hand in hand with the soundtrack comes everything that completes the style of ND. Unique and creative enemy designs, especially bosses (a freakin chess board dude), good variety in zone theming, a retro feeling art style with some charming cutscenes, iconic sound effects and voice lines, clever items. It’s all just fun and cool, and that’s all that needs to be said.

So you made it, you beat all of the zones with Cadence, probably learned most of the enemies patterns and witnessed her journey. Congrats! It wasn’t easy. As a reward you take a look at steam and realise you've got maybe 5% of the achievements... Right. So, I've barely done anything? Pretty much… Beyond this there are plenty of characters with their own individual gimmicks that will make you rethink how you play the game completely. Some easier than Cadence, but a lot of them harder…horribly harder. This is where the real game begins, rise to the challenge, you got this.

If all of this wasn't enough of a glazing session for how much enjoyment ND has brought me, let me praise the dev team more. ND released in 2015 and still receives updates to this day. It really is Brace Yourself Games’ baby... Bug fixes, balance changes and quality of life updates are always coming in. Two MAJOR content DLCs were released in 2017 and 2022 respectively. And just a couple weeks ago Hatsune Miku jumped into the game with a cool moveset and unique soundtrack. What the fuck?? This community is spoiled!

My friend and I would say there's phases to ND brainrot. At one end you have NecroBabies: players who have yet to beat all of the zones with Cadence, going up to NecroDead: players who have beat all zones mode with most of the characters, and NecroUndead: players who unlock and play Coda (the hardest character (you're a lunatic)). My 200 hours of playtime makes me very NecroDead and NecroUndead feels right around the corner.

Thank you NecroDancer, you really are one of a kind.

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.

Mehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I have not played the original RE3. Throughout my playthrough I could do nothing but compare this to Resident Evil 2 Remake. In doing so, my thoughts on this game can probably be explained pretty well. This game was released just 15 months after RE2 came out. It’s clear that RE3 relies heavily on the systems and assets that were used in its predecessor, this shouldn’t be a problem as long as it feels like it’s doing something new with such systems, but it doesn’t really, and I think that’s the underlying theme of how this game generally feels incredibly mediocre, uninteresting or unmemorable to me.

I would say about 30-40% of the game was actually really good, it had tension and interesting interconnecting level design. The rest, while still somewhat engaging in terms of gameplay, felt lacking in any sort of real survival horror excitement.

The story felt very barebones (yes, even for an RE game), Jill and Carlos did not take my interest very much at all. If the game was longer this certainly could have been different.

I give the game credit, a couple parts gave me some good challenges, more so than RE2 did, which was fun. I died a total of 17 times, although a few of those definitely felt unfair and frustrated me a bit, setting me back quite a bit, having to redo some of the more boring sections in the game.

And then there’s Nemesis. From what I have heard they really shafted it compared to the original, totally believable. Most of the sections involving it feel so scripted to the point of blandness. The actual boss fights are okay.

I realise this review is quite vague. I can’t really articulate too well why I was not resonating with RE3. It simply is a case of the vibes didn’t feel right ¯\(ツ)/¯.

Certainly the anti-visual novel it claims to be. The 2000s aesthetic is great, stereotypes are cranked up to 100 in a good way, love the voice acting. Altogether it makes some uniquely absurd and satirical characterisation. Generally quite funny and occasionally hilarious, but the humour won't be for everyone.

Yeah it's edgy, and can appear to be talking about certain topics in ways that it really shouldn't. But I don't think it's a big issue. Everything is described in such an "in your face" and absurd way that it's obviously poking fun at such things and I don't sense any ill will from it. I respect the creator for taking such a bold approach, that could very well be misunderstood.

I was a little discomforted at the constant pedophile jokes. I get what they're going for but like, why did the (can't believe I'm writing this) "racism route", which I found to be the funniest, only get like 2 endings whereas there's like, 6 paths involving fiascos with pedophiles? It just felt a tad obsessive. Still these routes usually had something interesting to offer.

I really want to know more about the development process for Class of '09. Who made it, how and why was it conceptualised, but there doesn't seem to be much information easily available on the internet. I'm not sure if there is some sort of running moral trying to be conveyed throughout despite all the (enjoyable) garbage that this game is. Pretty girls have it hard too, or something.

I don't know. Don't be like Nicole, Nicole is a sociopath. But at the same time, be like Nicole, Nicole is a bad bitch.

Edit: Shoutout to this review by Femmy which I think put some things into perspective for me and answered some thoughts I had.

So we put on our bravest face and promise to meet again--whether it comes true or not--and we go back to our lives and keep on going

After 200+ hours over 6 months I have finally completed the Trails in the Sky trilogy. In this review I'll talk about the trilogy as a whole, and will have a section about the 3rd game specifically, without any story spoilers. If you want to read my more spoilery thoughts on the games, check out my list ranking the games.

Yeah... man. Where do I start? What is trails most known for? The world. The world of trails is the most lively and intimately crafted setting I think I've personally seen in a video game. I like to consider myself a thorough explorer in games, but I've probably only seen about half of all the dialogue that the games have to offer. No matter how small your progression may be, every single corner that's accessible always has something new to see, whether it's people reacting to events, or simply living their lives, showing a snippet of a personal story. The most mind-blowing part is how some of these insights can be relevant to someone completely different, very far away, a long long time from now. It really is an extensive dynamic system that makes the environments and NPCs feel as real as they ever could and is, to me, the biggest sign of the developers' passion for the universe they've created.

Of course this theme doesn't stop at just NPCs, there are countless links between the games main plots that are clearly planned and intentional and so well thought out that's extremely commendable. There's nothing quite like getting planned payoffs from a something multiple games ago. No AAA studio would ever have the balls to try something like this today, obviously because it's not sustainable, but in 2004 Falcom was able to take a risk and it has clearly paid off very well for them resulting in the franchise still keeping on today.

My next favourite thing is the cast of characters OH MY GOODNESS I can not believe the amount of S-Tier characters that have popped out here. It's way too many to name, but I suppose Estelle is the star of the show, being such a fantastic protagonist, whose experiences so naturally shape who she becomes that you get the pleasure of seeing every step of the way. If you want to get the most out of the characters interactions with each other, and are playing on PC, PLEASE USE THE VOICE MOD (yes they are official japanese voices, just ported from a future version of the game that I've heard is otherwise inferior), they make the interactions 10x more memorable, funny, epic, whatever. Even the smallest conversations are a joy to listen to, amazing job from the cast.

The combat is very fun, I haven't played too many turn based games, but there's alot going on here that I enjoy that added more strategy compared to others that I have played. Be it the movement system, s-breaks and orbment system. A really fun way to make builds that reflect the characters' fighting styles and personalities.

The music from all three entries is awesome, a great mix of jazz, rock, and classical from many great composers that are extremely replayable. Oddly enough alot of the tracks didn't resonate with me when I first heard them, but as I heard them more and more they have become addictive and timeless.

There is a lot of talk about Trails being a slow burn, or the first game being setup, and the 2nd game is where things really happen. This is true to an extent, but my experience did not reflect that of others. For the most part, I found all parts to be equally enjoyable for all the different things that they offered, whether that's learning about the world through the protagonists in FC, pushing the narrative forward to crazy places in SC, seeing my favourite characters have epic or endearing moments, or having fun with the combat in 3rd, I truly have very very few issues and think of this as a borderline perfect trilogy of games with plenty to offer by my own standards. I am genuinely very sad to know that the journey with these characters has come to an end.

Trails in the Sky the 3rd

This entry in particular was a fantastic conclusion that shakes up the formula. Yes the story is not told as naturally as other entries, so I can understand thinking it might feel "lazy". But given everything that has happened, I believe it to be the best way to really give all the characters their chance to be fully realised, the best way to set up plot points for future games, the best way to tie up Liberl in a nice bow, all the while providing a more typical dungeon crawling experience with the most balanced and rewarding version of the games' combat yet. I was recommended to play 3rd on hard mode for this very reason and I'm very glad I did as it gave me multiple engaging challenges.

The main plot didn't make me feel things the way the previous games did, but I think this is down to my expectations based on those games. It was still a very good story overall that touches on a difficult theme, I really appreciate the different, more personal approach. The side doors were amazing, so many fantastic moments in them that have me feeling satisfied with everyone's development, and looking forward to what's to come in the Crossbell arc.