Sublimely focused artpiece that works to chisel gold from stone tablets. A theoretical fall off the cutting edge made timeless by the sheer visible willpower it took to land on it. A grand epic fairy tale free of superfluous distraction. Its battle system perfectly marries the considered strategy of an RPG with the kinetic spectacle of an action game. Seeing the Saturn's polygons struggle to create the main character's face is the kind of beautiful 1990s retrofuturism was that deserves to be preserved, not remade by a third party's paintbrush.

Incredibly long-winded, if very earnest tale about the tragic mistakes people can become burdened with and what our responses at a breaking point really say about the rest of our lives. Explores a litany of dark and devastating places while gradually altering your perception of what Fata Morgana's presentation actually is, while its surface aesthetics welcome a level of seriousness harder to take if in typical anime style. Heartwrenching score. One chapter is peak story-moment for me this year.

Sublimely satisfying game, where boss battles are practically rhythmic in demanding dexterity from you, animation and sound cement every blow, and areas challenge your best approach but still in a way it feels fun to move. As my first modern FromSoft title, the shift away from RPG elements kept learning purely on my own tenacity. Exploring its vast yet tightly designed locales and learning its fights after hours of trying provided euphoria few other things this past year could.

Immeasurable bounce back from II, satisfying to the point combat and character building with mecha, pushing the PS2 to fully realize its aesthetic scale with fixed camera kino, a Kajira soundtrack that's both grandiose and heartfelt underlying payoff after payoff bursting with earnest emotional drive. Enough focused content to feel like two games in one. Theoretical favorite if not for growing nitpicks about plot beats and more high/low presentation. The kind of game with both a fun block puzzler, and a Jesus cameo.

Carries a bit stronger of an actual story throughline while exploring than several of its brethren, but mainly rises to the top through its incredibly absorbing soul system which constantly evolves your kit to explore and interact with the world in a way that keeps the experience fresh during the whole run. Carries Symphony's personalization with more of a leash, but it retains its artsy horror style for a new generation of characters, would be a shame if that got lost in the future.

The perfectly refined arcade tech rail shooter experience. Incorporating the multiple shot types a la Gunstar Heroes really helps to vary your strategy across the various levels and I was impressed to see it lean into Saga's weirder elements. Excellent polish experience all-around in showing the OG Xbox as the 6th gen's powerhouse

The most (fairly) challenging Metroidvania style game in terms of boss variety, but the Glyph system combinations can be a pretty fun way of fighting back. I like how it starts you in a smaller scale before gradually expanding out to its title; helps the endgame feel distinct and less rehashy than its siblings. Shanoa bae.

Kirby's true 3D leap brings a freshness the series was very due for after Star Allies. Its levels each have a distinctive sense of place, the camera gently nudging you along to find collectibles and play around with goofy powers. Great music as expected, the endgame definitely a high in my book.

What feels like a fully realized go at Spark as a concept, melding a satisfying rhythm of increasingly high speed thrills with platforming and kinetic flow as a few light gimmicks to give every level an actual place. More budget and time to let the wacky story nonsense shine. Still don't love combat stopping your level tracks and boss fights are mid but the core gameplay is fully nailed here.

Run and Gun stages are a bit mid, but the bosses have such creative variety and bountiful animation in conjunction with all its variety. Genuinely standout aesthetic and mostly fun challenge. Also considers the Delicious Last Course, a great supplement that takes a slice of the best core elements of the base game.

Absolutely incredible vision. Exploratory with the kind of focused design where nearly everything that can be explored adds to the overall mystery. That said, kind of a pain in the ass to play. Some annoying logical leaps if a small clue is missed, a lot of waiting a long time for things to happen, a lot of dealing with the ship controls, a lot of redoing upon tiny mistakes. Appreciate but it's harder to lean people onto.

Even in its low res low poly graphics, Silent Hill 1 retains the very distinct horror fear of bumbling around in the dark, knowing little of where to go, only finding some place of eventual solace. It practically jumpscares you with FMV cutscenes, and despite its jank the story is presented very well to immerse you in the world, until an overly obtuse puzzle takes you out again. Short enough to make for fairly painless replaying too!

Honestly the most effective facsimile of classic Sonic design I've ever seen in a fangame; genuinely feels like everything a remake of a classic game should be, taking concepts that weren't fully realized due to limitations and expanding their scale to added potential. Nice final boss too.

Holds this incredible moment to moment spontaneity between all of the different gimmicks. As a co-op game you and your partner constantly alternating roles throughout keeps the experience fresh and even replayable, despite an underwhelming ending and connection issues.

Aesthetically gorgeous, beautifully scored, insanely smooth, abundant of detail.........and able to be easily broken in innumerable different ways to render much of its challenges moot. Back half can be a slog if you don't know how to bat dash. Still a great standard bearer for things to come; the goofy voice acting is the icing on the cake.

Treasure's original debut, now enhanced with 3D that works really well for the game. Burst with creative ideas, bosses less technically refined than latter titles of theirs but still offers a lot of fun possibilities with all the weapon mixing hotswaps. Stylish, cool and kinetic in a way I assume many Genesis games aspired to hit that X factor.

On a pure gameplay level, the best feeling game of the series, visually spectacular and with incredibly satisfying controller feel, but the writing still has the distilled safe impact of a post-Crack in Time effort that could owe to go further with its ideas less throwaway banter. Very fun! Just could've been more impactful.

Really well put together puzzle game; the most challenging of the three to figure out despite the surfboard stage depth perception. It holds to its consistent structure the best while still having variance Moonlight Museum lacked.

Very fun beat em up, played with a friend and were both enjoying it mostly for how it lasted. It animates fantastically, sounds solid, and was mostly a good time, though hardest boss in the standard campaign wasn't the final one surprisingly enough. It's a fun game with some depth under the hood I haven't fully grasped.

Yes, Blitzball is an affront to God. Yes the Sphere Grid can be too bloated a thing to follow, the dungeons are pitifully short and Yuna really could've used an expressive VA. But man, the vibes, the music, the surprising depth of combat some bosses provide, and even the climatic story moments really hit hard. FFX wanted you to be doing so much to make the most of it, and while it could be tighter, I appreciate how marvelous this was in its original context.

Riders is very based at optimal ability. It can also be a pain in the ass to get a handle on, especially if your display is fuzzy. Get over that hump and you have a VERY satisfying racing game to stunt in and surprise friends who don't know jack about how it works. Its light story is given so much expressive character and in Sonic tradition music's a slapper.

Aesthetically really top notch for a SNES game, immaculate cyber ninja vibes for a challenging game that's still MOSTLY fair enough. Would recommend on emulator with associated help because god save your wallet if finding a copy.

Despite how long it takes for the story to get going and an incredibly tedious amount of loot sorting during the playthrough, the Job system really does a lot to elevate the action gaminess of Stranger of Paradise to be a fun and rewarding experience to plow through. Jack is genuinely a great main character for this. Shame about the DLC's difficulty locking, but the base game as is holds a lot better than its doofy first impression.

Another very good Castlevania game; it's definitely feeling the holding pattern by this point with its unremarkable castle, but the two-character gimmick is a nice implementation with the story/bosses and I do like portraits. . . .the first time. It makes the anime style look a lot better on new characters than the Aria cast. Final battle and the optional battle? Honestly pretty kino.

It is incredibly validating to see a current team hard at work to actually understand what makes Sonic, his friends, his world and his style cool to people like me raised on the Adventure era. Sonic's speed provides efficiency to go from jaunt to jaunt exploring mini-setpieces, micro-levels and specially built enemies. Visibly hampered by certain creative handcuffs, but retains a distinctive charm, given further life by Ohtani and the sound crew's diligent work to make every moment count as much as it can.

A cute Zelda clone with an actually pretty strong message about finding your creative voice and an art design that literally leaves its entire world as your canvas. The game design itself is fairly rudimentary but the style sells it, especially if you're an artistic person. Play on PC.

Meant to represent the Game Boy Advance version of the game, and it's a really rad 2D Devil May Cry clone with gorgeous spritework. Highly possible this is the best Spyro game since the PS1 days.

Incredibly charming game that perfectly captures the moment in time of fun 90s OVA goofiness; its art direction is one of the best aged attempts at stylized 3D in the era of potato faces and the interconnected dungeon world was pretty cool for a game like this despite the limited camera controls.

A game with a theoretically terrible premise that actually works! Has the vein of a point and click adventure game with a greater freedom of movement. Slow paced but always gives you something new to look for, interspersed with fun bouts of the very bizarre to spice things up occasionally.

Fun time, albeit more of a fangameass fangame with fairly empty feeling (if aesthetically distinct and musically charged) level design. But it still feels good to play.

As a late NES game, it's a surprisingly robust and creative game that has a good number of levels and content. Has its moments of classic unfair difficulty garbage but makes up with the creativity of its transformations for traversal and action, like a very unique kind of Mega Man clone.

Adequate collection, on the merits of the strong set of games it's repackaging being brought to 4K widescreen. It can be overly bright, and Door to Phatomille is still left with many trappings of its Wiimake base, but its intact game design bolstered by the enduring quality of Lunatea's Veil endure to provide what's hopefully a new start.

Certainly smaller in scale compared to either of the Legends games but it's a very charming romp throughout all of the different escalating minigames. You get to shoot cops in the face AND personalize your own army of Minions; they don't make em like this anymore.

Well-made and genuinely fun still, character-weapon binding is alright, but incredibly soulless as a sequel without enough to call its own. Solid, enjoyable but less fulfilling as its own experience.

Really admirable game considering the system it's on, using the horizontal and vertical ways and setting the tone with some decently challenging puzzles at times. Cute story.

Carried immeasurably by an excellent core gameplay loop of exploring massive areas to catch mons of fairly abundant variety that lets you punch above your weight. Even with the incredibly boring story and technically deficient aesthetics, going around to catch Pokemon has the kind of intuitive snappiness that binds everything else together.

It has more color and better music but the actual puzzle design is a drop from Moonlight Museum with the board races and boss battles kind of a distraction from the core game feel. It's still nice but has less of its predecessor's and sequel's novelty.

Very cute, impressive aesthetic for an indie game, nice use of the DualSense, but it does feel very tech demoey, occasionally putting you in fetch quests but otherwise handily guiding you through contextual button prompt setpieces. Very one and done experience but it works fine as a brief cat simulator moment.

Very charming style that uses the game pad perfectly to carry on the drawing gimmick. Note that the nature of this game will probably hurt if you have neck pains given all the looking down.

Technically adds more weapons (I guess) and separated the one underground area into separate dungeons to make it a more expansive adventure, but idk, it just doesn't hit enough the same way; a few of those dungeons kind of suck and its story is hurt by all the dead ends it got stuck in.

Interesting enough game; I like its grapple mechanics and the multi-tier powerup system enough. Gets a little too bullshit in the last chunk of the game, but I like it enough. It's fine; have no idea why THIS game is the treasure of the GBA's library though.

An interesting curiosity, being Dimps's first grasp at the series and a more accurate portable Sonic 2 than the 8-bit one. Still has some of its trappings (special stage hell) and does feel emptier in comparison, but it's a solid jaunt into replicating the original classic Sonic experience to a handheld.

Really interesting worldbuilding and character threads to keep track of to make the cinematic space opera story engaging, and a LOT of customizability in its gameplay depth, though individual skill buffing often negates the point of most of them and the mecha are a wasted sunk cost aside from inopportune difficulty spikes. Barely prevalent music. Very soulful but very mid experience. Crispin Freeman having the time of his life as Albedo.

In of itself it's fairly unremarkable, even compared to a game like Ristar, but I admire the dedication to stick to a fully 2D game like this on the SEGA Saturn; the sprite animation really comes alive in this game and it's enjoyable enough despite Astal lacking the aesthetic appeal or gameplay hook of a more lasting scrimblo.

Honestly, the most disappointing game I played this year. Fun concept, spells are a distinct way of adding flavor, sanity effects are cool the first time, but the whole game structure is too tedious and repetitive as the game drags on, brought to a particularly screeching halt with a portal warp room you set multiple things in place to backtrack between.....................twice.

Mid but charming life simulator that funny enough, provides life to what without it is a fairly mediocre rougelike with occasional lockups. The "cute thing actually doing something satanic" aesthetic gave it the claim to fame but the entertainment value peaks at being able to shape and name followers.

It's cute. A charming adventure with colorful art direction and a nice storybook feel for its twee journey narrative. Very light on any actual gaminess to involve in, but it's a pleasant experience in the brief hours it lasts.

Truly the best worst game of time. perfect balance between based and cringe; the ultimate medium of completely non-designed repetition and half-hearted attempts at actual design. It's easy to feel overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of stupid nonsense barreling your way, but with a friend it can be fairly enjoyable to tower over and punch zombies in the face in spite of that. Mostly.

Much of Spark 2 feels like a prototype to test possibilities in creating its style, like it's all half-there. Its levels have good speed focus but blend together in lacking any sense of place with wonky loops, any boss fight is a tepidly repetitive affair, and despite its story attempts at cheesy charm, its presentation leaves it mostly impactless.

Still okay, but it does feel like something's missing in terms of how dumbed down its mechanics are; it's smoother for sure but completely lacking in those fun moments of risk and speed reward that feel perfectly Sonic, and even the plot is bereft of the previous game's more expressive angle. Head and shoulders above Free Riders still.

Plays passably but comes off as a very soulless experience. Its castle is incredibly tedious to explore with just how many long shafts are everywhere. Difficulty has wild spikes without specific powers that trivialize them, in a system most players will barely scratch the surface of due to grindy, unguided design. Almost entirely footnote plot. Solid baseline that thankfully led to greener pastures, but it is only a baseline.

Bloated, tedious, backtracky affair that carries farming mechanics too static for its runtime with combat that's occasionally fun (if spongey) to tedious exploration. Bland story that hits every expected beat and never goes anywhere interesting. At one point the game arbitrarily cripples every stat to artificially boost challenge which worsens every above issue.

I mean it's an adequate Flintstones game but not really THAT special of an experience, especially when considering how Barney's hang move can act very finnicky when over instant death pits. Acceptable but not much that's being missed at all for NES collectors.

I was told this was a good Klonoa clone. It was not. The level aesthetics are surprisingly strong and I like the bonus levels and collectibles being kept/puzzles being solved upon finishing a stage, but level pacing is still all over the place, fetching puzzle objects is overly tedious and aiming at the screen is a crapshoot. Plus it's cursed with the character design and "jokes" from the movie and one lame boss fight repeated three times. At least it's mercifully short.

Better introductory pacing, more prevalent good music, a few solid story scenes, and better use of the mecha don't save this being an incredibly tedious game thanks to its battle system; skillful in theory but far too slow and longwinded against enemy packs while basically trial and error against bosses. Also neutered the character customization, recasted/miscasted the first game's key characters, filled itself with horribly anemic sidequests that are mostly just back and forth fetching and made Shion and KOS-MOS look worse.

Some strongly distinct aesthetics, decent narrative beats and some good music tracks don't save what's somehow the worst feeling most stop start 3D Sonic out of all of them. Confused movement intentionally hampered by a need for upgrades reliant on precision launch Wii remotes could not handle. A basic game mechanic that has no reliable working order. Levitated Ruin's wind current and Pirate Storm's diehard challenge are particularly frustrating lows.

Ugly, lifeless, unoriginal, undercooked, boring, exploitative, unintuitive, under-designed, unbalanced, unsatisfying and completely missing a soul. Forcibly reconfigured as an utterly clueless bandwagon hopper so incompetent it looks worse than PS3 launch games and doesn't even explain how to connect with friends. Deserves everything that became of it. This is the only game here I technically didn't finish, but the demo was enough.