Peak storytelling, biggest positive about this game. The story and world of this game are absolutely perfect. Those things kept me attached to this game for a reason. I can't believe this was on the Wii to begin with, the world is so beautiful. Unfortunately it's really low resolution on the switch. Nonetheless, im really impressed with the experience of this game. I'd say this title is very worth playing.

What doesn't really grab me is the combat system, I wasn't a big fan of the strange combat this game uses. It's like an auto attack kinda thing that is a little too idle for me. I think if you can bear with that system though, this game is absolutely perfect. If you don't like it, it's still very worth sticking it through for the amazing story this game has to it. The only other complaint I have about this game is that they could've adjusted the xp values for grinding and such, on casual it's too easy, and in the regular mode it's too little XP to level up smoothly. Besides that I think this could be described as Peak.

The 2D platformer with flower comedians.

This game's presentation is absolutely amazing. It has a very adorable and wonderful style to it. The characters and their animations are very charming, you can tell a lot of effort went into that. The world design is really beautiful, in terms of art direction: 10/10. This game also has a surprising emphasis on it's music, which is a really cool change. I wouldn't say it has the best soundtrack in the franchise, but it's got some real nice themes.

The level design is really, really good. They designed so many new enemies for this game that are often essential to some pieces of the level, and it's just another big piece of this game's charm. Each level on its own is very good, but the wonder flowers add a whole new layer to everything. They poured so many very unique ideas into the wonder parts of each level, and it really set this game apart from anything Mario has ever set out to do before. There's a lot to unpack in each level, and I had nothing but fun doing so. The badge system is really awesome and adds a lot of replayability and accessibility to the game. The badge modifiers can be really helpful for levels, but they also add another layer of fun in each being their own sort of power-up almost. Having so many unique abilities to play each level with, you can definitely get a lot of playtime out of this game. I believe this game would provide a lot of fun for anybody.

Despite there being nothing but praise to sing for the level design in the game and art/music direction, there is quite a few negatives I could point out during my playthrough. Some which have been criticisms for multiple titles in the past, so it's a little disappointing that this game suffers the same issues.

1. Yet again, this game doesn't have any unique bosses. I couldn't believe my eyes when I realized all of the bosses were just Bowser Jr. fights. Sure, there's unique gimmicks to each of his encounters, but it's still the same damn boss for the whole game. (Aside from the final boss of course)

2. The airship levels use the exact same wonder flower gimmick every time and they have the exact same "boss" every time. (SOMEHOW another boss fumble) I was really excited to see that airship levels returned, and those levels themselves are very well designed, but the copy + paste used in them really sucks.

3. Hidden/Character specific blocks. This wouldn't be that bad if there wasn't a hidden block for each of the game's 12 characters. It's not that bad in the main levels, considering most of the hidden blocks are just coins or some hidden power-ups, but some do lead to a secret, and if you aren't running through every level with each of the 12 characters you could very well miss something. Another huge miss is the "Search Party" levels. These are an absolute joke. The whole level is based around hidden blocks. (To specify, you can still hit each block regardless of what character you are, but trying to find them is the pain in the ass) These levels suck because, well, there's 12 characters. You could play with 4 people but you still could have to run through the level 3 times just to finish it. Luckily, these levels are not entirely necessary to beat the game, but the fact that they exist and take up a level spot in the world is insulting.

4. Levels seem to be spread quite unevenly throughout the world. Some worlds have a lot of full-length levels, and some have next to none. World 3, for instance, feels meaningless because it has 6 full-length levels and doesn't even have a boss fight, World 5 doesn't have a boss fight either. Also to specify, there's a lot of levels that are very short, like the Search Party levels i mentioned. These serve as little challenge levels that are all pretty neat. But due to these, there's a weird distribution of the main, full-length levels.

Those are the main 4 things I found to be unlikable about the game, but it doesn't much impact how creative and fun this game was. So, overall I loved this game but it is a tad bit disappointing to see some of the same issues carrying over from the New Super Mario Bros series.

19 INCHES OF VENOM (Spoilers ahead)

This game was absolutely great, another beautiful Spidey adventure on the PS5. I have a lot to say for this one, and very little negative.

The story was very well put together, balancing it's character selection very well. It starts off with a bang and slows down for a little bit, but It really picks up around halfway through the game. The story kept topping itself after every main event, you didn't know exactly what to expect next. It was quite the ride. We got some really nice character development for Miles, and watching Peter and MJ really come together again was very charming. It was also very nice to see Harry and Peter reunited.
Unlike Spiderman 3, this game doesn't suffer from having multiple villains. The 2 big villains are nicely handled, and the side villains don't take anything away from them, yet still add their own nice touch. Not a lot more to say here story-wise. It was pretty peak

Gameplay wise? they absolutely killed it. The abilities and gadgets and super intuitive to use, the new movement mechanics are AWESOME, and the (somewhat) new combat system is extremely well done. This game is a decent bit more difficult than the last 2 games, which is a much bigger positive than you'd think. The best improvement imo is the fact that they greatly reduced the amount of shitty stealth sections. There's only like 2 in this game and they're all decently short. They don't feel like they slow the game down at all, either. (Thank you insomniac) The new parry mechanic encourages the player to make the gameplay a little less more of a dodge-fest. The many boss fights greatly benefit from the new and intuitive combat, as each boss is a lot more fleshed out than ever before. They have health bars finally, meaning the game doesn't force one way to beat them. They are a lot more challenging than before as well, making it all the more satisfying to come over your enemies. There are some absolutely insane gameplay sections, too. And once again, they keep topping themselves over and over again with each one. Absolutely stellar gameplay experience here.

The side content is pretty good. The old annoying wire and chemical puzzles from Spiderman 1 are completely removed and replaced with unique missions, they did well on making sure that you weren't fed up doing the same stuff over and over for story purposes. The new collectibles aren't all entirely new, but they're not anything familiar either. The suit selection is absolutely incredible, and most suits have 4 selectable styles for them. Side missions have also been pretty well done and some provide a little more of a complete storyline than they used to.

Overall, this game was a really, really great experience. This is one of the games this year that I'd say is worth picking up without much hesitation.

The first 3D entry of the pokemon series. Abandoning the beautiful pixel graphics for 3D models, it wasn't that bad overall. The 3D models in Gen 6 still bring a lot of life to the pokemon and plenty of personality. It was a good transition for the series. The new world painted in 3D looked very good. Based on France, the Kalos region has a lot of personality and had some stunning architecture. And it has the best pokemon league by far, it's not even close. Look at those elite four rooms again and try to prove me wrong.

The new selection of pokemon was also very nice and refreshing, with many loveable designs in this new generation to speak of, and many fan favorites here. Introduced as a new counter against the meta Dragon type, the new Fairy type was absolutely busted in this generation. As with many things about this game, it needed some more time in the oven.

The Mega Evolution gimmick was really awesome, the new designs provided for each were so damn cool and I can understand why it's such a fan favorite gimmick. I'm also pretty sure it was competitively busted but I'm no competitive player. The only issue I have with it is that it's hardly touched in the main story at all, You face like 3 megas the entire game. It's a tad bit disappointing. There's also more cool gimmicks in this game like Poke-amie and Super Training. Both are pretty much just mini games, but they're fun at least. Super Training is the much more useful of the 2 and gives you a new way to EV train and gain some special items, like stones and such. Poke-amie is just a cool way to play minigames and interact with your pokemon, the practical use of it is Pokemon friendship in-game. Both are pretty neat and small side features that don't add a lot to the game, but take nothing away from it.

A common complaint in this game is the exp share. Most people argue it makes the game too easy, mainly because you can overlevel without trying too hard. From my experience, it's not that easy to overlevel during the game, and in terms of actual difficultly, most of the pokemon league and gyms use pretty solid teams that could give you plenty of issues during a playthrough. I don't think it's a hard game by any means, but I think people exaggerate the difficulty a little bit here.

In terms of story, the ball has never been dropped harder. The evil team, team Flare, is straight up dog poop. The "twist" villain is far too blatant of a twist and mainly the reason why the story is so bad. The villain has some of the worst writing ever and it just ruins the story for the most part, but if it was written correctly, it would've been really good I'd say. I commend the risk they took with this one but it's really a shame that it turned out the way it did.

Overall, I think that this game needed a bit more time in the oven, as apparent with a few parts of it. But I also believe this game got a little too much of a bad rep and that the gameplay still provides a great pokemon experience regardless.