The first episode of the Final Season season does a good job of establishing everything, which is what the first episode is supposed to do. We meet up with Clementine and AJ again. We learn about their developing relationship. We get a sense that the overarching theme for the game will be Clem's struggle to mould AJ into the best person he can be. This struggle is, of course, affected by the state of the world, forcing Clem to find a balance between being a survivor who will do anything to stay alive but won't end up like so many of The Walking Dead's villains who do so at the expense of others. The first episode also establishes the setting (a boarding school for troubled youth), the supporting cast (the troubled youths), and some initial conflict (the constant fight to find more food and the looming threat of another group of survivors). First episodes are rarely as heavy-hitting as the final ones, and this is the case here. Still, it's a satisfying start to the game.

Metroid Fusion is the fourth game in the main Metroid storyline. Once again, you don the Chozo-infused armour of the galactic bounty hunter, genocide enthusiast, and all-around errand girl for a dubious space empire, Samus Aran. After returning to the planet from the second game (where she killed all but one of the Metroids), she gets infected by a different parasitic alien species, the "X," and almost dies. This all happens before you even press start at the title screen.

To save her from certain death at the hands of her X infection, a bunch of science guys inject her with an infusion of Metroid DNA that they happened to have lying around. This miraculously cures our heroine and conveniently gives her the ability to absorb X to regenerate her health and for some reason, missiles. This is convenient for two reasons. One is because the science station is quickly overrun by the X, and also because after the last Metroid died saving Samus from Mother Brain in the previous game, the developers were running out of reasons to call the series "Metroid." Although, as we all know, it would be more accurate if they renamed this series "Nothing Ever Really Dies."

Anyway, Samus ventures to the newly X-infected science station in her very weakened state. The science guys had to "surgically remove" her old suit to save her life. But don't worry, guys, she grew a new one or something. For you speedrunning hoarders out there, never fear, if you beat the game fast enough while collecting enough junk, you can still see pictures of Samus in her underwear. Joined on her journey to the obviously going-to-self-destruct-at-some-point science station is a plucky AI co-pilot who may or may not be the resurrected brain of her former commander who was conveniently retconned into the story to vomit exposition and move the game along. Remember, Adam Malkovich won't actually appear in the series for another eight years when Metroid: Other M is released.

That's probably the longest preamble I've written to date, which is a testament to how much more story they've seemingly added to the game. Although where Super Metroid communicated its story quite masterfully with atmospheric cues, Fusion beats you over the head with it at every opportunity.

From a visual perspective, Fusion is an improvement over Super Metroid. The art is more detailed and generally more readable. The animations are much smoother too, both for Samus and for the enemies she encounters. Most of it works well, although some of the more familiar bosses look more like Saturday morning cartoon versions of themselves than they probably should.

The audio is a bit of a mixed bag. The music is pretty whatever. Half the time, I didn't even realize it was there. There's nothing as notable as some of the themes used in Super Metroid. The sound effects are all over the place. Some are punchy and crisp, while others are muddled or feel out of place.

The gameplay is fine but it doesn't live up to Super Metroid. Throughout the game, the AI points you to where to go next, so you never explore the map for yourself. There's a clear path the game sets out for you and little reason to go off script. Most of the enemies are recycled from other games, although instead of dropping missiles and energy pellets, they transform into X upon defeat, which Samus can then "absorb." The bosses are all over the place. Some are quite interesting and offer a fun challenge. Others are cheesy and feel more unfair than challenging. And the final boss is a bit anti-climactic. This also leads me to bring up the SA-X. You see, the pieces of Samus' old suit that the science guys removed have T-1000ed themselves back together and become a new, more powerful X version of Samus with all of your old abilities. You're constantly told that the SA-X is hunting you through the science station, but apart from a handful of scripted encounters and one mediocre boss battle, the SA-X is very little like the "Dark Link" or "Tyrant" the game makes them out to be.

If it sounds like I have nothing good to say about Fusion, don't take me the wrong way. I enjoyed Fusion. I've played it twice now and had a good time each time. But it's not as good as it could have been, and that's a shame.

I've never been a big Castlevania fan. The series has never grabbed me like it does with other people. But I've heard, over and over, that if you play one Castlevania game, you must play Symphony of the Night. So I played it, and it was good, I guess. Not great, but decent. The game takes great advantage of the Playstation hardware, the environments are vibrant, and the characters are detailed (for pixels) and well-animated. Most of the enemies are interesting, although most don't present too much of a challenge that can't be overcome by spamming attacks at them. Having just finished Super Metroid, I must admit the level design really let me down. Although SotN is considered the reason "vanina" is in "Metroidvania," it's clear that Super Metroid is the attentive, doting mother, and SotN is the deadbeat father. There's almost no comparison. In Super Metroid, I rarely got lost to the point where I couldn't find my own way back to the critical path. SotN was the opposite. I grew tired of stumbling around whacking at walls, hoping for secret items that would allow me to progress, and eventually, I gave up and kept the walkthrough open on my phone. The upside-down 2nd half of the game (sorry for spoiling a 27-year-old game) was a neat idea, but inverting the map didn't improve its overall design. And the aforementioned walkthrough led me to acquire the Crissaegrim a lot earlier than was probably intended, making the latter half of the game mostly a joke. Imagine if Super Metroid gave you the Hyper Beam halfway through the game instead of right at the end. SotN has piqued my interest enough that I will try a few more entries from the Castlevania franchise, but it did not live up to the almost thirty years of hype I experienced before playing it.