I 100 percented the main story mode for this, I'll review the Luigi campaign separately. Did not play the challenge modes but maybe I will at some point. Not sure I care enough about that sort of thing. Anyways it's another "new" super mario game. I've seen some hot takes crop up recently that nsmbu is actually really good and just overlooked because it's the fourth game in the "new" style and I gotta disagree. It's fine enough. Most of the level design is really solid, though there's some rough spots. I like the funny squirrel power up. Generally though it's nothing to write home about, I do not understand the reappraisal of this one! I guess it's probably the best new super mario game but whatever who cares

I really backed myself into a corner giving the main game 2 stars for being a shitty remake because I like both the main game and I like left behind but I like left behind slightly less so I feel like I gotta give it 1.5 stars now because stupid arbitrary rules whatever! Anyways yeah this port is still a buggy mess in the left behind chapter but I wanna talk about the actual game here a little

Left behind is a weird one. It wants to tell Ellie and Riley's story but Ellie and Riley's story does not really have violence or action in it until the very end and this is a DLC to a game where you go around killing guys so there's an expectation to get to do more of that so they just cut between the Rellie story (that's their ship name, I've decided) and the story of what Ellie was doing while Joel was wounded in the main campaign and it does not really work, I think. I don't really care about Ellie running around a mall killing guys to find medicine for Joel and I'm not sold that it and the Rellie story make any new meaning or connections by being contrasted! It tries to tie it up at the end with Riley talking about fighting for love over Ellie giving Joel his medicine but it feels like it's just trying to reverse engineer a connection when the only real reason for the cutting back and forth is a gameplay pacing one.

I would like this more if it was just the Ellie and Riley stuff, basically just a "walking simulator" with some fun little set pieces and interactable moments, but I understand how that would not fly with most people buying it lol so whateva

A weirdly buggy, disappointing "next gen" remade of a game that gets remade every generation? I smell you Todd... I smell you in the code...

Strangely bad remake aside, the game itself honestly holds up. I wasn't expecting it to, I really went in thinking it was gonna be a lot worse than I remember it being 5 years ago, but it's still a pretty good game!

My roommate also has the PS5 remaster of Part II so I'll definitely be stealing her PS5 to check that out too and hopefully it will be a better port than this one lol

I could gush about this game forever I played 200 hours of it and will play more of it for years to come but it doesn't quite have the BOTW sauce for me. It takes BOTW's world and turns it into a crazy wacky playground and it rules and I don't fault it for that because obviously I don't just want them to make BOTW again but BOTW's magic was in its serenity and slowness and the way you really had to work to get from one place or another and you really felt like an adventurer. Basically I don't like this game as much as BOTW but ultimately do not fault it for any of those changes because I do not want them to make the same game twice