I hate to say it but Megamix disappointed me a little bit. After hearing so much about how great it was, the actual game ended up letting me down a little bit.

The new games are generally really good. I love Sumo Brothers, Pajama Party, Blue Bear, and Second Contact so much. The remixes are a bit more of a mixed bag though, while ones like Citrus and Machine are fantastic and can attempt to stand up against Fever's, there's also really bland ones like Donut and Barbershop. I think the choice to do 3 medleys wasn't the best either, Final Remix is really the only memorable one. The ported minigames are done well a5 least and I think they got most of the important ones that weren't held back by control issues. Most. All I can really say is that some DS minigames feel wrong without flicking, but that issue was inevitable. Really the issue here is just that I don't care that much for playing old content and the new content is so sparce, even if it's good.

What mainly drags me down on this game is the story and prequel games. The pacing for this game is genuinely dreadful. The dialog is charming, but I fail to find it funny or interesting at all and I was just trying to get through it as fast as possible most of the time. It just slows everything down. The prequel games make easier versions of existing games, often some of the already easiest in the series, for padding purposes and with usually pretty bad music. Not all of them are equally terrible but none of them have a right to exist. Both of those combined make the beginning of this game drag out awfully and made it really unfun to go through.

Thankfully, after all that is done with it's still comfy to just go through and play some rhythm games. The amount of content and unlockables in this game is staggering, and I love additions like the expanded cafe and rhythm items (even if the perfect rewards were way better). The Challenge Train is a little bit too screwed up and evil for my tastes but it's definitely not a bad addition. Rhythm Heaven is so fun that I can't be too upset about this game as a whole, especially when it gave us some real bangers. Still though if we get a 5th game I hope they lean away from some of what this one did.

Omori is a genuine contender for the best game I've played in my life. This is the only time, ever since I played Mother 3 back in 2013, that I have even considered that possibility outside of that legendary trilogy. Everything about it works.

The combat is solid and inventive. The world is so wonderfully detailed and the dialog is hilarious, charming, heartfelt, and emotional. The story can make me tear up at the drop of a hat. The characters are so lovable and realistic. It's just so good I can't even put it into words. Would give more than five stars if I could.

Persona 3 Portable is a game I don't entirely hate playing as its still Persona 3, one of my favorite games, at its core, but I'm giving it this mildly exaggerated score because I do believe this should never ever be your first experience with Persona 3. Here's why.

- The lack of cutscenes, despite what some people tell you, IS a big deal. In the opening of the game, the story presentation was so bad without them that I legitamately had no clue what was going on, and I had played the game before.

- The combat sucks. It's Persona 4's mechanics duct taped onto Persona 3 and I find it a major waste. If I wanted to play Persona 4, I would play Persona 4. Playing Persona 3 Portable is watching mechanics put into a game not made for them and robbing the combat almost entirely of what was unique about it. I like Persona 4's dizzy mechanics and such, but I don't play Persona 3 for that.

- The overworld is awful. Dragging a cursor around it is of course worse than a natural overworld, but man it is made so much worse by just how ugly it is. If they at least put some effort into the menus or possibly remade the graphics go make an overworld work on PSP that would be nice, but instead we have this ugly as hell flash game-esque map.

- Introduced skill cards. Might be a bit petty but I've never liked these, skill cards are way too OP and make it comically easy to power through the game with a couple personas, and this game is unfortunately responsible for inventing them.

- The female route makes some wack changes. The music is excellent and some of the social links aren't half bad, but it isn't an awful idea but the party dynamics definitely weren't made for it with how being a girl effects it, and story changes like the big one you get for doing a certain social link are awful. It's still kind of interesting, but as the game tells you, never play it first. I think we'd be better off getting a Persona game with an actual female protagonist then as an option, but that'll probably never happen.

- Numerous dumb changes that exist for no real reason. Skills from having two Personas are items now. Why? They felt like it, I don't know.

- Option to date a ten year-old if you're not playing the rerelease.

- Said rerelease has AI upscaling and compressed sound.

Game sucks, play FES. Only positive outside of music from playing the wack as hell female route is direct party member control, but the original is livable without it, and if you REALLY want it, just mod or hack FES.

Superstars is definitely a good step up for the series, and I think the praise for this game was warranted for that, but I still think it's a somewhat underwhelming game, especially when we haven't had a truly great Mario Party game in over ten years.

For some things I think are solid in this game, the minigames are a pretty solid collection of classics and the items that are in this game are pretty good, not the best in the series but definitely have potential for strategic plays. Mechanically this game is pretty simple but ultimately solid, which is great. Other games in the series like 1 or 4 are held back on every board due to crappy mechanics so having that alone helps Superstars out a lot, so keep that in mind no matter how much I dump on it from here on out. I also wanna give this game credit for allowing a lot of customization, like adding turns midgame or FINALLY giving you the choice to choose your bonus stars. Took them long enough, but these are great decisions. I don't think you can turn players into AI and vice versa anymore though which is weird, it's been in since Mario Party 1 and it makes playing long games way easier.

There's three main issues I have with Superstars. First, they removed Shy Guy from the playable roster. Pretty cringe. Aside from that, I mainly dislike the economy and boards. Everything in this game is super cheap. Banks take less money now, most items are really cheap, battles take less coins, and certain shops on boards allow for gold pipes to be very easily obtainable and very very affordable. The "Gold Pipe Meta" was something I absolutely hated in Super and I really do not like that it has not been addressed at all. Flutters and Magic Lamps were rare and usually given to people in third or last place, gold pipes ignore that entirely which can just make boards racing to get more of them.

Thankfully stars are back to 20 coins, but this major issue I had with Super still hasn't been resolved. It makes this game feel a little babied down since even the poorest players can afford things, and the people ahead can basically just get whatever they want without having to worry about running out of money.

Next up is the boards, which is easily my biggest issue with Superstars. Making this game remixed old content was already an idea I'm not a fan of, I feel like they only did it because they didn't have the confidence to make a good Mario Party game from the ground up, but the boards they choose were frankly just not the best they could have. It only being N64 boards is a problem already to me since I think most people that aren't old agree that board design got a lot better in the Gamecube games, but I assume they wanted to do N64 boards since they didn't have the orb system. There's also only 5, which is a below average amount for the series. I feel like more is always better when there's almost always 1 or 2 I don't like in a game, which is once again true in this one so that's a problem.

I think Yoshi's Tropical Island and Horror Land were good choices. They're some of the better boards from their respective games, with funny but not entirely intrusive gimmicks and the improved item system helps out a lot. You can reliably keep keys and other good items on you in Horror Land and now movement helps a ton with the rat race in Tropical Island.

Peach's Birthday Cake is, in my opinion, the worst board in the series. I don't know why the hell they brought it back when it definitely isn't popular but they sure did it. It is slightly improved by having items at all, but the board is still essentially a straight line where you pray people land on your traps that have a good chance of being a waste of money.

Space Land is a board that, while looking cool, is so utterly uninteresting and I just have no clue why they brought it back. Bowser's laser is a board gimmick that I find so pointless as I don't think I've ever actually seen it hit anyone, and the board is just way too big, especially with how easy it is to get stuck being forced to go back. It's not awful but it's also very uninteresting.

Woody Woods is a good board in Mario Party 3 but I think it only could have worked there. The signs switching directions would normally be annoying like it is in most boards with a similar gimmick but I think it works great in 3 due to the reverse mushroom, which allows for an easy way to get around it with an affordable and common item. Super Stars does not have that so frankly I just find the board kind of annoying.

Again, the mechanics of this game are solid enough so that helps playing on these boards a lot but I can't really say that "Mario Party is back" at the moment, especially when they're just returning to old ideas and I feel like not really fully understanding them. I don't love the N64 games outside of 3 so maybe that's why but this is just an underwhelming Mario Party for me. I was gonna give this a 7 but Idk after saying all this I'm feeling a 6, maybe I'll raise it later we'll see.