Interesting to see just how much of modern Horizon is already in place in the first title (the majority of it really).

Colorado is an... OK location in my opinion. Having dabbled a lot in later games, it feels like a combo of the mountains of Mexico and the motorways of the UK but with none of the charm of either, but it's still nice enough to race around. Although the environment not being destructible (i.e. not being able go knock down wooden fences) is very irritating so I'm glad this was changed in future entries.

I miss 60FPS, but load times on Series X are great thankfully.

Also, having a definite ending and credits is really nice, wish future titles stuck to this!

Anyways, I marathoned most of this game in one sitting. It's 5am, I've been playing since 7. I'm off to collapse in a puddle.

I really didn't think much of this remake playing initially on the Switch. The graphics were just too laughably cheap looking and the controls barely functioned in my eyes. Jumping over to the PC version then, I didn't think much would change except for a better control scheme, but I found myself really enjoying this remake as a result. Better FPS and resolution, plus the previously mentioned mouse aiming which feels like a hot knife through butter when you get the sensitivity just right. It's not without its issues, and it's definitely not worth £20 in the slightest, but I still liked it regardless. A little rough around the edges? Sure, but isn't that the charm of HotD?

I do enjoy this game a lot, but a couple of things hold it back for me. So many of the areas, bosses and camera angles are just absolutely stunning and such a great showcase of VR, and had my jaw on the floor the whole way through. Unfortunately to take away from this just ever so slightly, this game reuses stage themes a lot (i.e. cave levels, desert levels etc.) which makes it a little distracting as well as repetitive and overall leaves things feeling a little rushed. Gameplay is the same as the engine that I loved from Playroom, so no complaints with how everything handles and feels, and most stage design varies between "pretty good" and "top notch". The one issue I have with level design is that I wish the final world wasn't as frustrating as it can end up being. The game wants you to keep track of way too many things at once which overwhelms the player and leads to a lot of frustrating deaths. Calculating depth and what hurts you/doesn't can be a big test of patience, and the last 2 bosses wore that thin by hitting me when I swore I should've been safe, causing me to restart a few times (which on the final boss can be upwards of 5 minutes to get back to the point you died on) which soured the end of the game for me personally.

This is great framework for a fantastic VR experience, and of course it went on to power the stupendously grin inducing Astro's Playroom, but I hope a VR sequel comes along on PSVR 2 to fix this game's shortcomings and cornercutting. Still a very fun experience regardless of my gripes though.

I don't care much for this game honestly. Enemy placement and attack patterns are extremely trial and error to the point of needing to be memorised to a tee at times, something that comes into other Kirby games but only typically if you choose to play without copy abilities. Kirby 64 does it all the time throughout the course of gameplay.

Said copy abilities are OK, but mixing can either be very cool or extremely underwhelming and there's no in-between. Kirby also moves ridiculously slow which makes the entire game just feel sluggish and at times unresponsive. Paired with the aforementioned enemy placement, and this game can get frustrating very quickly later on, which is a shame as it starts off so strong and free from the BS that plagues it later on.

There's still a good amount of fun to be had, but it's not a game I really enjoyed much previously and that's only changed slightly on returning. Minus Dream Land 3, I can now pretty confidently say that the "Dark Matter Trilogy" just isn't my cup of tea. I greatly prefer the style of Kirby games that came before and after this point.

I enjoyed Sword a whole lot, as unpopular of an opinion as that is, I'm sure. The game's setting is beautiful even if yes, the graphics are underwhelming as stated before, but the art design itself is lovely and the scenery and towns really struck a chord with me personally. Characters were all pretty likable and memorable the entire way through, and I liked the new Pokémon as well as the returning varieties. And the music is just really bloody good. That always gets me pumped to play it.

Sure, there's a lot of issues that I hope are ironed out in Gen 9, but I really think this one deserves at least a little more love than it receives.

Eh. I can see that the appeal here is probably more "look at all these Pokémon we cut from the basegame! New Dex!" but aside from that (which I currently have no interest in going after anyways) the content is pretty weak. The location is confusing to navigate for most of your journey and the area feels very open with not much to do short of talking to the scattered NPCs. Add to that the fact that the bulk of the content is just grinding to get your story Pokémon to level 70, and yeah... this pack feels dull and grindy, only really saved by some nice scenery, light humour and the aforementioned Pokémon additions.