I'm considering this one beaten because I've got so many other games that aren't as much a timesink as this, but I can see why this kicked off the rise of roguelites. A lot of great mechanics with so much variety as well as customizability that lets you narrowly focus on the meta objective of building up your overall legacy and having a stronger character no matter their variation. Plus the flavor it adds by having small genetic modifiers is excellent. Fairly cute although I don't adore it's overall aesthetic.

MHW:
An outstanding evolution of the series, with tons and tons of fun content, a breezy online component, plenty of difficulty and explorative gameplay. Like every monster hunter, every weapon feels like it's own game to learn, but much more streamlined in this one. The locales are great, the story is fine. One of few games I've put in over 300 hrs into

Rule 1


Iceborne:

I may rejoin this but feel my time off between playing it was too long. My skills and all my equipment had dropped off in efficacy so as an expansion, I feel it works best transitioning straight from the base game to it. I put a total of about 20 hours into it and didn't bite off a big enough chunk of it to feel totally satisfied. But it definitely expands the base game for it to be a very easily justified purchase, and still enjoyed a good portion of the new stuff they added during my time with it.

A wonderful narrative, well developed alternate reality characters, a fantastic idea executed quite well. It's not much of a game, but it is a great interactive "theater" piece, that ties all of its threads together in a very entertaining way, playing with time as a theme and a mechanic. Has some similarities to The Sexy Brutale, another fantastic Tequila Works project.

My only real complaints are that it can be a little bit buggy when following characters, especially while climbing or descending stairs and seems to bug out a bit more in the flat version. In VR it works just fine, though I'd prefer there to be some better controls with the Index knuckles(it's built for and acts as Vive wands). None of these complaints hurt the core of it, the one thing I'd prefer is just a bit more attention to detail to make it perfect. For instance, I would carve time out for each character but a good portion of some of the times an indivdual character is not the focus of a scene, they'll just have some light idle animations. Most of the time, it's believable and fine, but I would have preferred there to be a bit more to these moments. The "true" ending isn't too great either, and doesn't really account for what happens in the main meat of the game, it's just a fun little easter egg to add some extra "meta", but it doesn't do so great at this. The big twist and some of the smaller details that surround each of the characters does leave a bit to be desired as well, as if viewed in broader context, it just chops off several threads without tying them into the final act(or prologue).

The game's story is very intriguing though, and it does a great job of using your "unstuck from time" vantage point to understand things a regular narrative couldn't show, and especially to what degree each character acts as an unreliable narrator.