My opinion changed a lot the more I played this game.

When I first started it, I was completely hooked. The beginning sky island area is well designed and gets you familiar with the new cool abilities that I used much more then the ones in BOTW. The graphics and size of the world are also super impressive for being a Switch title.

Once I finished the tutorial area which took around 5 hours, everything started going downhill. The game is basically an exact copy of BOTW. The enemies are identical with the only new ones being these small robots that have replaced guardians and some dragon mini boss which I didn't bother fighting. Armor sets are also the same, there are a few new additions but to get many of them is a real chore. The main negative is that the map and story are pretty much identical to BOTW. The whole sky island I found to be a really cool concept but there's almost none of that in the rest of the game. That tutorial sky island is the largest with none of the rest being as remotely interesting anywhere. They're all very tiny with nothing on them and no reason to visit them except shrines. Another addition was an entire underground world which sounds cool and again is quite technically impressive for the Switch but after 20 minutes I decided to never go there again unless I needed to progress the story. It's all empty copy pasted land with nothing special and no reason to explore it. This leaves the main land left and as I've repeatedly said, it is an exact copy of BOTW I keep finding the need to say it over and over since I'm still amazed at how little they decided to change for this hyped $90 game. I played the shit out of BOTW in 2019 and even after 6 years so many things felt familiar, practically nothing surprised me in my playthrough. The story is very generic and worse then BOTW imo. Once again you find 4 sages then gain their powers to defeat Ganon; only this time the sages are younger kid versions who were made into anime personalities for some reason. The dungeons I found to be a downgrade and as they were much easier than BOTW, that goes for the shrines as well; they were still quite enjoyable and my favorite part of the game. I really thought I'd spend a lot of time on this game especially with the increased price tag but that was not the case. In BOTW I spend around 150hrs with 100% completion, in this game I did all shrines, a few uninteresting side quests, and the story picking up whatever korok seeds I find on my way which brought me to around 65 hours with no urge to do anything else but put it back on the shelf. Why play anymore when I pretty much experienced all of it already in BOTW? I'm very tired of this new Zelda formula and would love to see it go back to its core.

The one thing I did quite enjoy with the story was the ending. The Ganon boss fight was solid, one of the best in Zelda and a huge improvement from the BOTW final boss. The ending cinematic was also amazing. Seeing that caught me off guard, it made me wish they focused on story more as it showed they are capable. I was impressed that there could be such epic cinematics in a Zelda game and wish there was more of it throughout the story rather then using the most bare bones RPG story that goes all the way back to Final Fantasy on the NES. This game has no reason for existing. A sequel like this was not needed, this felt much more of a quality of life update with new sandbox stuff and that's about it. This was not a GOTY 2023 contender to me.

There's a lot to be said about Paradox's development and support strategy that I'm just not getting into. I will say that this is a stellar example of a Space Opera themed 4x, and, critically, it delivers the player expression that Paradox is uniquely able to bring to strategy games. The options for generating your own empire are robust, and the development options in game provide a lot of replay value for a variety of playstyles. Some options do feel strictly superior, which isn't ideal balance-wise (hive minds feel like straight up stronger because they can ignore parts of the economy and focus on expansion), but these are hardly the worst examples of that in the genre.

Very very well written, as you probably know if you've heard anything about this game. It's difficult to keep a mystery story moving in video game format, where the player controls the pacing and lines of inquiry, but the game is crafted such that you can stumble through one of a dozen logical, interesting, flavorful paths between any given plot points, allowing for a variety of roleplaying options without losing the thread of a good whodunnit. The plot is twisty and turny, philosophical and political, and the game is always evocative of a wider world. I kept expecting that we'd leave Martinaise, transition back to the precinct and see other parts of Revachol, and I was left wanting more from the characters and setting. The game's strong political themes and well-crafted sense of impending doom also made me expect a more sweeping narrative than just the resolution of the case, but that vague sense of anticlimax actually dovetailed well with the story's themes. It felt like a natural sequel hook for a game that really deserves one, but given that that's not likely to happen, the story of this story-focused RPG does feel a little incomplete. As always, feeling like you want more shows that the creators did something right.

Majora's Mask 3D takes what was a masterpiece and makes it... mostly the same except it looks broadly more appealing from a graphical standpoint (while sacrificing that moodiness N64 games naturally held), and they've replaced some of the "jankier" aspects of the original with new, more complex forms of frustrating mechanical aspects. Most of the ways they chose to "fix" the game feel misguided at best, but there are a few welcome changes tucked away in here.

I'd say if you want a marginally more consumable version of the Majora's Mask, this is kind of what you're looking for? But you're probably just better off playing the original since it's not only the easier version to set up and play but also feels more even in visuals and design, more authentic. Whereas Majora's Mask 3D feels lost in time, one foot in the N64 era and the other foot in the 3DS era, full of half-formed ideas on how to improve upon a game that perhaps didn't even really need improving upon.

Kinda went into Pentiment expecting to have to "eat my vegetables"; its aesthetic being artistically sound, but not really the kind of thing I'm generally into, and its premise sounding intellectually invigorating in a games industry that's arguably in arrested development when it comes to making mainstream experiences for adults, but maybe not enough to keep me personally going for a playtime of over 20 hours. And well, I was pretty fuckin' wrong! And not even in the Disco Elysium way where after I got over the hurdle of the first hour or two that it finally clicked (not to say that Disco Elysium's intro isn't basically perfect in its own way), Pentiment managed to sink its teeth into me right away. The game's art is also a lot more affective and unique than I would've expected just from the couple trailers I'd seen, and despite the entire game taking place across only a handful of screens (contextualized as pages in a book), there were many times that I found myself stopped in my tracks, contemplating the beauty of a specific moment.

It's also just as real as fuck without succumbing to either condemnation or romanticization. Pentiment's perspective on history and the people who shaped it is complex without cowardly labeling every participant as a morally grey agent -- there are unabashedly terrible and evil people in this world, people who are deceptive in their self-servitude, and even inarguably cruel entities like the Catholic Church house individuals who really do want to make the world a better place in their own way and even people who are in the church due to societal forces beyond their control. Pentiment is a game that tries its best to be honest about the world. It's also a game that's absolutely more intelligent and worldly than I'll ever be, and I really don't think I can do it the full justice it deserves in my own analysis of its setting and themes, so I'll just leave it there.

And yeah, Pentiment is also just a great example of how to make a dialogue-focused adventure game fun. Like, part of that is probably because I chose hedonism as one of my skills and made Andreas into a terrible little boyslut, but you know how it is. The dialogue never bored me, every character feels truly alive -- and that's without voice acting! I actually appreciated that there wasn't any honestly, it's a double-edged sword in a lot of games like this, and it only would've detracted from the bespoke aesthetic decision to give every character's spoken dialogue in "their own handwriting", in quotes because I'm not entirely sure what the implication was for the characters that are by their own admission illiterate (but I did love that Claus the town printer's dialogue is the only one that uses an actual typeface, accompanied by the satisfying thuds of a printing press).

By the end of the game, Tassing really does begin to feel like your home as well, not only because many pivotal events in Tassing's recent history are influenced by the player, but because you've grown close to the town's citizens and watched them grow and change as well. Pentiment isn't a power trip in that sense -- you cannot save everybody or give everybody a happy ending, not that you'd want to with some of the assholes you run into honestly -- but it does manage to encapsulate the warm and fuzzy feeling that despite the world being dogshit, we can still do our best for those around us, be a part of a greater whole with honest fervor. The player and Andreas will inevitably fuck up a lot, but it's something we have to live with, something to learn from. Things like that feel self-evident in the real world and are rarely explored properly in games, but the fact that Pentiment lacks a manual save function really sells that feeling. But even if we can't meta-game Tassing into the perfect little Bavarian town suffering under feudalism and religious oppression, the Tassing we end up with is undeniably ours. I think that's probably why I might never replay Pentiment, which is rare for me, since I tend to replay games I love quite often.

Also the "third act" is pretty good! Saw some people criticizing the shift in gameplay focus, but it was a nice change of pace and was probably my favorite part altogether. Don't normally recommend games on here, but honestly, check it out for yourself. I can't really think of many demographics that'd be outright disappointed by Pentiment. It's good. :)

I don't know how long it's been since a game made me feel the way I did when I was a kid. Like it was all I wanted to do, when I was outside I was thinking "oh i could be playing injustice gods among us right now." And picturing what zod combos I could think up in my head while zoning out in class. Wait actually yeah i do know how long it's been. Literally 10 years. See the injustice sentence? That game came out 10 years ago. When I was outside, hanging out with friends, exercising, doing whatever. I always think oh man i could be playing hollow knight. I lied down at night thinking oh man maybe tomorrow I could check out this area over here now that I have this ability. And I would imagine what stuff I could find there. Also perfectly captures that dark souls 1 feel while being a lot more forgiving. It's so easy to just do whatever and go in one direction and explore. There's always something there. And the movement and everything is so easy and snappy that it's not a chore at all. At first when my friend said there's DLC that triples the length of the game i'm like oh man that sounds so stretched out and long and boring. But now i'm like ... only triples??!? give me more!!! hahahaha. ohh what a day what a motherfuckin day. I can't believe I found the injustice gods among us of a new generation. I'm telling everyone about this. I'm goin back and im doin the DLC and finding every little one of those tiny collectibles. Cause this game is sick.

replayed this to help get over a recent silly heartbreak and could barely stop sobbing through the last couple hours. this game is shallow, jank and extremely inconsistent… but also beautiful, deranged and ungodly raw. i think it’s time i stopped pretending it isn’t still one of my favourites. spm, like love, will constantly disappoint with surprisingly boring space and cloud levels and is basically overrated but fuck, when that memory theme hits and tippi reminds herself she still has hope after everything, would i not let it beat me to death one last time :’)

jk jk i mean the level design is pretty good but sometimes speech bubbles look like they’re coming out of the wrong places. 9/10

Dredge presents itself as a fishing horror game, which is quite a unique combination and probably an entirely novel concept to most people who haven't seen that one Tumblr post from I think 2018 (that I couldn't find on tumblr but I did find it reposed on Reddit here at least)

As a fishing game, Dredge is pretty great! The act of fishing itself is fun, there are lots of different fish to catch, upgrading your boat is satisfying (though I wish upgrade materials were a bit more common) and the inventory management is great.

As a horror game, ehhhhhh?
Don't get me wrong, the game as great at building atmosphere and there were actually points where I was scared but all of that shattered the moment I first died. I got a textbox saying that I died and then I was set back to the last harbor.
When I complained about this to a friend she asked "Isn't that what usually happens when you die in a game?" and I guess? But other horror games where those are the effects of death still manage to keep me tense.
I played Signalis earlier this month and knowing that at worst I'd lose like 5 minutes of progess didn't make the game any less scary. I think the issue might be how incredibly easy it is to gain more resources. Damage to your ship can always be repaired pretty quickly for a bit of money and getting that money was never an issue for me.
Also none of the stories in the game are that great, especially the story of the last biome feels more like a parody than a genuine attempt at writing a horror story.
Some of the fucked up fish sure are fucked up though!

Obviously though Dredge isn't one fishing game and one horror game that you play in succesion, it's a singular fishing horror game, and as a game overall I found it to be pretty enjoyable still.
Worth checking out if you're into fishing games, but if you're looking for a horror game specifically maybe look for something else.

Confession: I didn't actually buy the Advance Collection for a history trip with the Castlevania series. Instead, I just wanted an excuse to play Aria of Sorrow again, with some other games as a bonus. Aria was my first contact with the Castlevania series, something that was both a blessing and a curse, because from then on, playing other Castlevanias always gave a feeling of "this is not quite it". Of course, in revisiting an old favorite, there's always the risk of one's memory not holding up and just not remembering the game's flaws.

One thing I definitely didn't remember was that the protagonist, Soma Cruz, is actually an eighteen year-old high-schooler, to which my immediate reaction was "no he's not". Just look at his portrait, beautifully rendered by Ayami Kojima. That piercing gaze? Shining white hair? That black turtleneck with the sleek fur-lined coat? This man is the definition of too cool for school. If he's a high schooler, he probably takes love letters out of his locker on a wheelbarrow. And he ignores them all, because that's how cool he is.

Erm-ahem. Fan fiction aside, the game takes place in Japan in the year of 2035. A solar eclipse is happening on that day, and Soma is headed to Hakuba Shrine to meet his childhood friend Mina and watch the event from there. Upon arriving at the shrine, however, Soma loses consciousness, and the two are transported to a mysterious castle, where they meet the enigmatic Genya Arikado. At first, he doesn't know what to do about the two teenagers, but as the trio are jumped by monsters, something unexpected happens: Soma absorbs the essence of a monster he defeats, obtaining its power. Having witnessed this, Arikado then ushers Soma to reach the top of the castle so the group can escape from it.

Aria was the last Castlevania game made for the Game Boy Advance, and it shows. The mastery over the limited hardware and small screen is displayed in some of the most beautiful spritework on the system. Soma himself is a shining example: the fluidity of his walk cycle, the turning of his body as he puts his strength into a swing, the way his coat gently sways with the wind... the amount of detail crammed into this not even 40 pixels tall character is impressive.

One might say that putting a lot of work into the main character is standard, as that will be the focus of the player's attention most of the time. The idea with such an approach would be to put a lot of work in the main character, and then not push enemies and other characters too far. Which is fine, except that no sprite artist at Konami got that memo, because they flexed all over the place. Enemies look positively gorgeous in Aria, from the first disgustingly goopy zombie met in the Eternal Corridor all the way to Dracula's final form, all of them are carefully designed, colored, shaded and animated.

To say nothing of the environments, which are a further step up from Harmony of Dissonance and look especially smooth. Parallax and Mode 7-like effects are a given by this point, but Aria takes it further by incorporating animated tilesets for lighting effects. The save room in this game is the most beautiful in the series, with the flickering of the flame on display through the walls and the statue in the center.

And the sound design? There are a surprising amount of voice clips for a GBA game, and enemies make all sorts of noises that give them more personality -- I especially like the intense death screams. It should also be said that the game's original soundtrack is one banger after another. Konami is really bad at this memo thing, because the composer also didn't get the one that said "these are the first and second areas of the game, no need to go all out". To say nothing of the moments where it actually made sense go hard, which... Incredible stuff.

Everything in Aria feels just right, like after a couple of games of trying to iterate on Symphony of the Night, something just clicked. The castle is a perfect mix of maze and proper castle, with the areas that branch and connect unpredictably, but without losing the feeling of distinct zones, which happened in HoD to some extent. Aria even went back to having transition rooms like SotN did, which despite being technically unnecessary in a GBA game, feel extremely natural from a design standpoint, creating some breathing room between areas that emphasize the difference between them.

In addition, the game maintains a consistent level of challenge from beginning to end, with enemies and bosses that are varied and engaging. Plus, with Soma not being a vampire hunter, the player is not locked into a whip for the entirety of the game, and he instead gets access to an arsenal of swords, lances, axes and blunt weapons. The choice between them is not simply about aesthetics: each individual weapon has a different range and hitbox shape, as well as distinct swing and recovery times. It's often advantageous to swap between weapon types for specific encounters, which speaks to how well designed equipment is.

Aria's greatest asset, however, is the Soul System and its monster abilities, through which you-- yes, you -- can now be the little asshat throwing bones from higher ground, living the ultimate Castlevania power fantasy. As established in the opening segment, when defeating enemies, Soma might obtain a soul, which when equipped, enable either a passive, sustained or instant ability related in some way to that monster. Souls are both a means of progression, with key souls obtained in specific rooms allowing access to new areas of the castle, and for combat purposes, replacing the series' traditional subweapons.

At first, this might seem similar to the DSS in that abilities are obtained as random drops from monsters, but it's far superior. For one, there's a direct connection between the monster and what its dropped soul does, which gives the system more personality. Moreover, unlike cards, every monster has a soul. In the face of the low drop rate, while it's unlikely the player will obtain every soul as they travel through the castle (unless your name is TASBot), the law of averages results in them obtaining some set of souls that they can work with. The result is that every playthrough feels slightly different as the player works with a set of tools. Also, completionists have their work cut out for them, hunting exotic monsters with the aid of late game mechanics that boost drop rates.

Souls are also an important metanarrative element that lends credence to Soma's growth. Unlike Juste before him, Soma is a student with no formal combat training, and this is reflected on his initial abilities, which are restricted to jumping and a weak attack. As he explores deeper into the castle, however, he grows stronger and faster, becoming a real powerhouse by the end of the game, and souls make that growth over the course of the story, down to the completely artificial video game notion of levels, seem justified.

Incidentally, Aria of Sorrow features an outstanding central narrative. This is largely owed to its mysterious and layered characters who make frequent appearances throughout the castle, and also to the unusual circumstances surrounding Dracula's castle in the year of 2035 itself. Similarly to HoD, ol' Vlad is nowhere to be found, this time because Aria takes place in an age in which Dracula was permanently destroyed by the Belmonts, and the characters, from church officials to government agents to soldiers to our unlucky duo of teenagers, have different ideas on why the castle reappeared.

There's no feeling quite as refreshing as returning to a childhood classic and realizing it's just as outstanding as it was all those years ago. Aria of Sorrow is the result of years of iteration and passion, and stands amongst the best Castlevanias and the best metroidvanias ever made. It alone justifies buying the Advance Collection.