I heard a lot of good things about Hollow Knight prior to picking it up. It's some of my closest friends top 10 games so I had to give it a try.
The combat and movement in this game is extremely fluid and fun, mastering it was the best part once retrieving all the movement options, I felt like I could fly around the screen hacking and slashing as I went.
I have slightly mixed feelings about the exploration aspect, but that might come from a personal like of having SOME direction, which in Hollow Knight you're given almost none at all.

Difficulty levels throughout the game felt really random. Some stuff earlier on is way way harder than the final boss (which I beat first try, not bragging as I didn't beat any other boss first try).

The high quality art style, animations, expansiveness, and characters in Hollow Knight are something any game dev would wish to get a fraction of, and the gameplay is almost unmatched in this genre.

I'm only on 56% completion as of writing this but I fully expect to return and tack on another bunch of hours in the future

Having only played Fallout 3 before this, I don't think there's any way to think of it other than a direct upgrade in many many ways.

The story and different allegiances are very fleshed out with fun missions, almost always giving a diplomatic option. Almost any build is viable, even a pistol build (which is what I went for).

Combat is fun as usual and perks are varied with lots of fun options. The map is crafted in a way that makes it seem huge & expansive, but really is just engineered that way to fit as much as possible into a small space.

My main issues with this game are a couple places where they didn't bother to improve; namely audio levels being weird, the radio still having only like 5 songs on repeat and not as interactive as in 3, speech system was made worse imo, crafting/repair system still super uninteresting&unnecessary, minimaps (especially local maps) are extremely unintuitive and unreadable, and the worst of all: CRASHES. This game crashed so many times during my playthrough, and it's nothing to do with my PC, it's just a buggy game. Once or twice I even had to do console commands to fix missions that weren't ending / triggering an event that it should have.

BUT the game otherwise is SO good and charming that I have no choice but to give it such a high rating. There was fun round every corner and it's so hard to put the game down and not just play 1 more mission.

Another incredible Yoshi's Island game, introducing fun mechanics that aren't forced on you too hard.
The music is a little unmemorable but still fits very well.
Controls and movement feel super clean and I feel like I need to check out the speedrun for this game as it feels very technical.
My main complaint is that it doesn't add much from the original SNES title, and feels a lot like an adapted port.
Getting to play this on my old DS was a nice experience and a bit of a throwback though, so can't complain.

This is a game I've been intrigued to play for a long time, and finally got round to playing it.
I was not disappointed!
This whole game is so cinematic and well crafted that I couldn't tell when I was in a cut scene or not, I was totally immersed.
I've heard a lot of complaints about the AI of Trico, however this is probably due to them not being aware that the worse you treat it, the less it will listen. My experience with it was totally fine apart from one tiny section of the game it did admittedly frustrate me.

In fact I felt the AI was so good that I felt a real connection to Trico and loved the connection you make with it throughout the game.

This game was in development for a loooong time and it shows! It's a masterpiece and clearly crafted with love.

I think an experience I had playing this game is a testament to how good it is.

I was waiting for a couple friends to come round, but had an hour or so to kill, so I sat down to play a bit more of The Witness, a puzzle game I'd picked up the day before. When they arrived I said "I'll just finish this puzzle". Before I knew it we were all entranced in this game for the next few hours, addictively going from puzzle to puzzle, exploring this vibrant colourful, masterfully laid out island.
Both friends ended up buying & completing the game themselves. If you like puzzles/brainteasers then The Witness is an incredible game to pick up, especially if you want a break from the usual genres.

I wasn't sure what to expect out of Pikmin, and my first few 'days' in game worried me, once I got the hang of it, this game was so much fun!
Crash landing on an alien planet, Captain Olimar makes an unlikely bond with a race of creatures known as Pikmin, who help the player complete puzzles and fight enemies in order to retrieve all the lost parts of his ship to get back home.
While I'm not a massive fan of time limit games, I felt like the time given for each level was fair and was always a good challenge to restrategise if a day was failed.
The world building in this game is incredible, full of character and the gameplay extremely rewarding.
Very excited to play the sequels in the future

Played on Switch

This game is incredible. As a Zelda scrub, after playing the original game I thought 'wow yeah I can see why this game was huge back then, doesnt hold up well now though'. What I didn't expect was that the next (playable) entry was not just going to blow my mind but also holds up almost perfectly even now over 30 years later.
The art, the animations, the music, the sound design, the overworld, the dungeons, the bosses, the gameplay; everything was absolutely fantastic and I would highly recommend this game to anyone, especially as it's on Switch.
I didn't expect this to be one of the best games I've ever played but here we are.

For a game with so much hype behind it, I felt like it was going to be easy to disappoint. However, this game alone made me feel better about boss battles from all the previous games that disappointed me!
While the run and gun levels are OK, I'd say the game really shines with it's boss battles, and it knows it.
The game is of course incredible to look at, the style is consistent and really well done, the mechanics felt smooth and super fun to move around with, and the music/sound in general really matched the vibe of the game and never got sickening to listen to when playing the same level 100 times over!
My main gripe with the game was the one or two lag spikes that happened over the course of the gameplay. I expect this is something to do with the Switch, but was still unwelcome nonetheless in a game where every micromovement matters.
I'd put this game up there with Celeste in terms of difficulty and how good it felt to beat.
Taking a break before playing the DLC because it has me feeling burnt out, but if anything I'm just excited to get back to it whenever I do!

At first I tried playing this game blind. About 5 hours in I realised this game is pretty much unplayable without knowing exactly where to go / what to do unless you want about 10x amount of hours.

With a guide this is a super fun game and holds up pretty well. I would always try to figure something out by myself at first before looking it up but if I figured it out it would always feel super rewarding. I just didn't feel like spending 1hr+ every time I was stuck because in the end I'd just get stuck about 10 minutes later due to the nature of the game.

I can understand why this game was so big for it's time, and as a Zelda scrub I'm looking forward to playing some of the more highly regarded titles in the future

This game is super fun and definitely an underrated fighting game series.
The unique mechanic of 'beast' mode adds an awesome layer to this game and allows for some insane combos.
While the artstyle isn't anything super original, the game looks great, plays so well and the controls feel fluid, allowing for some awesome moments.
My personal main was Half-Beast, her combos were super fun and allowed for some juggling potential. My gripe with this game was just that the timer was kind of annoying with how it interacted with supers. Most games will pause the timer while a super 'cutscene' plays out but you can lose even if landing a super like 6 seconds before timer runs out, which feels kind of lame.

I went into this game thinking that it was a classic. This game has not held up well at ALL.
The movement is clunky and difficult to get used to, the gameplay is very so-so, especially considering the fact that it is a sequel to one of most highly regarded platformers (Yoshi's Island on SNES).
However, the visuals are nice, the artstyle is cute and is a well-done evolution from the 'drawn' artstyle of it's predecessor. The music is... interesting; I didn't like it that much but I can understand why others would.
And after a bit of time playing, I got used to the controls and at some points even found it slightly rewarding. But in the end I decided it wasn't worth going back to complete all the possible levels, I'd much rather play a different game.

Also the boss fights are an absolute joke they took probably 30 seconds if I were to compile their times together because they were that easy

As someone who played 75% of this game countless times as a kid without finishing it, it was awesome to see this game remade into a title that holds up much better today.
This is seemingly the only Pokemon series where the pokemon themselves have actual character, where you can actually be emotionally invested without seeing them as just a statistic that you create your own backstory for.
The music in this game is incredible and the general sound is a blast to the past in the best way possible.
My main problem with this game is that, while the gameplay is fun, it is waaaaaaaaay too easy. No boss fight lasted longer than 1 minute and I was never in any real danger.
It's a shame that this is a repeated theme for Pokemon in the modern day; that no matter the genre / playstyle, these games are way too easy and don't offer any harder difficulties.
Also I got treecko so that was a massive bonus

I've always heard great things about this game as a very solid platformer and I've got to say that it delivered in every aspect.

I love the art style. The sprite designs were great, giving a mix of very modernistic designs along with these strange vague enemies that you might see in a plaformer from the late 80s/early 90s.

The music and sound design fit perfectly in the overall approach. While I didn't find myself humming any particular tune, they were certainly enjoyable throughout the game.

Lastly, while the story isn't exactly the deepest thing, the ending surprised me in how it made me feel. I won't spoil it but the final moments spiked some emotion in me that I certainly wasn't expecting.

This game was a solid game to play while travelling with the switch, would recommend to anyone looking for a quick and fun game that isn't too challenging. Looking forward to playing the sequels

(played on Switch)

Incredible art style. Solid amount of levels, doesn't go on too long nor too short. Gameplay and movement is super fluid and allows you to do some cool stuff (some). My problems with this game however are:
That it is slightly too easy to just run through a level without doing too much
The mechanic of retrieving Mario when hit is kind of frustrating (not to mention the wailing I just want him to stfu)
This game, as many others, suffers from badfinalboss-itis. The final boss was very cool graphically, but the gameplay was dull and didn't feel very fulfilling.

Great game though! Unique mechanics, loved it almost all the way through. If you're a Mario/platformer fan then this is a must play