This game exceeded even my highest expectations in almost every way.

I could talk about it for hours but as with Remake I don't think it's possible for me to do it justice, it's peak. I've spent over 200 hours with FF7 Rebirth now and I could easily jump back in for a 3rd playthrough today.

This game is such an achievement, and home to some of the most beautiful scenes, characters and music in memory. If the final part is able to do even half as many things as well as this does, then we're in for a phenomenal trilogy of games.

As an aside, getting the platinum for this was insanely fun and surprisingly easy ... until the last few combat simulations. It took me around 40 hours over 5 days to get them done. I am begging that part 3 is easier 🥹
Thanks for reading folks, hope you're all doing well!🙏

I don't have too much to say about Peakmin 4 but I'm really gunna miss Oatchi going back to play 1 and 2 ...

Biggest complaint by far is that some late-game cave enemies are super BS and can devour far too many piks at once if you don't have the right crew/approach (I'm ngl I soloed half the final cave as Oatchi) -- This wasn't bad for most of the game but it got to a point where I'd only have a couple dozen of one type and I'd lose all of them instantly if I got licked or knocked over or screeched at the wrong moment. Skill issue I'm sure but still a bummer.

In terms of positives though, everything else! Level designs were great, music is beautiful, having so many pikmin types was fun (even if half of them were so rare it was easier to use Oatchi) -- This was really fun to just sit down with before bed and I really can't believe I spent nearly 30 hours on it before reaching the true ending. There's something so addicting about figuring out how to get stuff done and then watching cute lil guys put the work in.

Really recommend this to anyone interested, super chill time (until it was the most stressful thing ever, but that's over now, it can't hurt me 😌) - easy to get into and honestly just buy it regardless so we real gamers can get a 5th one :p
It even has hands down the most hateable villain in all of media 🥹

That'll do it anyhow, thanks for reading folks, hope you're all well! I'm 110 hours deep in Infinite Wealth so hoping to finish that this week, review will likely end up similar to this one but we'll see -- Until then! 🙏

Excellent. Looking forward to the next one!

Jedi Survivor is better than Fallen Order in just about every way in my opinion. I enjoyed the first game for sure, but I was never really 'excited' for it, nor this. After beating this one, well let's just say the reveal for the next one is going to be hype 😌

The story (while starting a little weird considering where FO left off) was pretty straightforward, but is told in such a way that I think this worked to its benefit. There were still twists, some more obvious than others, and only one moment that was egregiously silly. One reveal in particular seemed so glaringly obvious that I spent the whole game calling it out and then questioning whether I was just being cynical or if it was a red herring, and while I am of course a genius who clearly knows everything, my favourite thing about this was that the game handled this event in such a way that it was possible for me to have this ongoing struggle, and I think that's cool as shit. When I was proven right it wasn't with a sigh and an "of course", it was an "I FUCKING KNEW IT!!" - and if a game can get me that invested and excited over a "cliche" or an "obvious" reveal then it must be doing something better than everything else I'm just sayin'.

The characters in particular shine bright in this entry. Cal is a genuinely interesting protagonist and while a lot of the arcs and tropes he goes through in this can be compared to similar stories, some as recent as this year, that doesn't detract from how much of a blast it was to experience his. Cameron Monaghan's performance is as great as expected and by the end I really found myself invested in Cal's story, and I will be there when the next chapter of it releases.

Quickfire some other comments now the gush is over:
The environments felt much less overwhelming in this entry, and the navigation assist was a godsend in helping me not get lost. The maps are still pretty big and while I could understand people complaining about bouncing between the same few planets it didn't bother me at all.

The combat felt better as well, it's still not amazing with the stances being limited to so few combos, but having them at all was a nice touch. I do agree with the masses that only being able to switch between two of them at a time is a shame but it is what it is.

And most importantly: Merrin 😌

That'll do it, don't sleep on this one folks, in a year absolutely stacked with bangers this definitely sits up in the upper echelons, don't let the fact that it's still buried under other GOATs stop you from playing it!

Thanks for reading to all who did, hope you're have a great week. After I'm done with the P5T DLC story I'm gunna be going on a brief PS5 hiatus to focus on some Switch and PC games, not sure if or what I'll review of those but first up is XC3 Future Redeemed so stay tuned 🙏

P.S. I don't know whose idea it was to make the enemies in this game so pitiful that I feel bad for killing them but it's equal parts hilarious and 'aw :(' ... Hearing someone ask if Jedi wound people because they don't want to get wounded and then having to cut them in half moments later is 😔 RIP Rick, bud. ✊

I know a lot of people were kinda soft on it but I really loved the story mode for the base game so I found this DLC to be a bit frustrating. Its good, expected comic book-y stuff like the rest of Mortal Kombat but I don't know. My favorite part of the base game was the mom-daughter stuff with Cassie and Sonya. So of course this DLC focused a lot on the worst mother character of all time, Sindel. It does make for an interesting contrast and the focus on villains is cool but I just am not sure the ending is satisfying enough to make up for how it felt like all my favorite characters got done dirty. The most frustrating aspect of this DLC is that my opinion on it entirely depends on what happens in the next two Mortal Kombat games lol.

Other than that I like the three new characters (Fujin the most) and having Robocop is sweet but I already had my mains so wasn't too interested in trying them out.

Overall Mortal Kombat 11 Aftermath is a pretty solid expansion with a good if somewhat frustrating conclusion to the story and good new character additions. I do think the original 40 dollar price tag for it is positively ridiculous but thankfully you can get it for much cheaper on sale. Its a solid add-on to my favorite fighting game and I can't ask for too much more than that.

Just wanted to leave this little mini review. I also recently got the platinum for both the PS4 and PS5 version of the basegame if that doesn't tell you how much I enjoyed it. I currently have MK1 installed and I def need a bit of a fighting game break but I am very eager to play it nonetheless, will definitely be reviewing that as well 😌

-----TLDR----
+ Good new additions to the roster
+ Interesting set up for the future of MK
- Too many of my characters got disrespected in story mode lol

Nancymeter - 70/100
Trophy Completion - N/A
Time Played: 2-4 hours
DLC Completion #2 of November
DLC Completion #35 of 2023

Sure the combat could be better but if you think its bad clearly you've never impulse mega flare permafrost dancing steel into stagger will-o-the-wykes lightning rod gigaflare zantetsuken level 5-ed before and it shows :/

I struggled a good bit throughout my playthroughs of Final Fantasy XVI. It is now the third mainline game in the series I've beaten but at the time I started it I had intended it to be my first. Its a series I've always known i needed to try to get into, and the demo of this game was absolutely amazing, it completely blew me away. I was very unexpectedly hyped for this. And playing it I was like oh yeah this is def 5/5 material, after the Garuda fight I was so sold on the game. The music is fucking fantastic and I've never seen such awesome boss fights. But then after that the game felt like it had already peaked. There are still great boss fights through the rest of the game but they never were as impactful as the first 10 or so hours were for me. I felt myself increasingly disinterested in the plot and all the lore and by extension - the game itself.

All that changed near the end when I finally actually started doing side missions. I surprisingly ended up becoming quite fond of all the side characters in the Hideaway and to a much lesser extent the different characters out in the various towns and villages. The game has a pretty damn good cast. It was around that point that I was pretty hype for the end. And for the most part the finale delivers. Its plenty epic, and I was having a great time. But in the end, I was a bit disappointed in how everything wrapped up. That's not to say that there's really anything wrong with the ending, it just wasn't what I was wanting. How i feel about that is how I feel about Final Fantasy XVI as a whole. Plenty of great moments, but in the end still just a little disappointing.

Now that I've explained that I still think FFXVI is great, I have a lot more to complain about. Mostly minor things but it all added up over my 90 hours spent with the game. Some minor annoyances like enemy phases being tied to health bars so sometimes when you set up a stagger and start unleashing, the game just lets them sit there and recover without taking damage and you being unable to do anything for like 20 seconds before the next phase begins. There's also some battles in the wild where if the fight naturally goes a little further than where it started, enemies may just become immune and run back to their spawn point at full health. There's also without fail after every big boss, a main quest that's meant to let things settle but it just kills the pacing and feels like the game is wasting your time by dishing out forced side quests, sometimes several in a row. In the more dungeon-y areas the game is also pretty bad at leading the player along, there were several times I ran completely in the wrong direction because it doesn't make it clear what doors you can open unless you're right next to them. My final complaint is that Final Fantasy mode, the supposed hard mode for NG+, is a complete joke. Now I'm sort of glad it wasn't hard because it made the platinum obtainable for me and now that i have one for a mainline game in the series I don't ever have to bother again. But like, the games idea of hard is give every enemy 50x as much HP. For normal enemies it ain't nothin a level 5 Zantetsuken can't solve but any enemy with a stagger bar doesn't actually feel harder to fight, they just take ages to fucking kill. Even though i skipped every cutscene and did minimal side content, my FF playthrough felt longer than my first where I did basically everything. It just isn't very fun.

So that's about all of my thoughts with Final Fantasy XVI. But to end on a more positive note: Jill is hot and Titanic Block + Counter is one of the most satisfying moves of all time.

Thanks for reading <3

-----TLDR----
+ Great cast
+ Amazing soundtrack
+ Awesome boss fights throughout
- Story quality and pacing is wildly inconsistent
- Didn't like the way it ended
- Too many little gameplay grievances that add up

Nancymeter - 85/100
Trophy Completion - 100% (Platinum #278)
Time Played: 92 hours
Completion #6 of November
Completion #210 of 2023

Signalis is 'old school' survival horror done well.. Too well honestly.

The limited inventory was a really big hurdle for me (and it seems many others) in the early hours of this game, applying a level of difficulty that very quickly becomes more frustrating than anything. Bringing a healing item, a weapon and a flashlight takes up half your inventory alone, leading me personally to an endless cycle of backtracking just to drop something off, or worse - having to go all the way back through rooms of enemies just to get a torch so you can see a new room with more enemies... And so many items than you can't carry them all since you have a torch now 🥹

Once you adapt to this restriction it becomes a lot easier though I think. I'm very much a resource hoarder in these games, convinced that I'll need a million health kits and 30 guns for the final boss alone, so I often left more enemies standing than I should've, only to run into them on every trip through a room.. I also kept pack-muling things back to the chest 'just in case' despite going the whole game without using some items at all... Don't be like me and I'm sure you'll have a much easier time :p

Besides the inventory/difficulty, there were some technical shortcomings in terms of doors not working if I turned slightly, taking so long to pick items up that I take free damage, or simply aiming my weapon (did not like that)
- but for a game made by two people it's pretty solid on the whole. It's a bit abstract in it's storytelling for a decent chunk of its runtime, but by the end things come together and are made a lot clearer. I definitely wouldn't say I understood everything, what with how long I wasted backtracking and getting lost giving me time to forget, but I feel like I took away enough that even on the surface level I liked the story.

All that said I don't want to ramble too long because I've got a busy night ahead -- short version is that if you're at all interested you should give this game a try, with it being on Gamepass as well it deserves at least a shot to win you over.

Thanks for reading as always, quicker one today because I'm hoping to finish off the last couple of chapters of FF7 Remake before bed as well, doubt I'll review it cause I couldn't do it justice, but tl;dr it's my all time favourite 😌
Enjoy your spooky season everyone, upcoming completions are hopefully Sea of Stars, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (slowly but surely) and I'm considering starting Clock Tower 3 once I beat FF7R, we'll see. Until next time!

Honestly I had such high hopes for this game. It started out really very strong. The combat was really interesting and the story seemed exciting. By the end though it sort of petered out. The endings were a bit disappointing and didn't really tie up enough of the loose threads. It felt very rushed. The side missions also felt very repetitive; having to fight the same servants several times.

When I started the game, I felt like it'd be at least an 80 but by the end I feel like I can give it a 72 for still giving me a good gameplay experience but feeling a bit disappointed by the end.

Ghostwire Tokyo is a weird game. Its more bloated than some of the ghouls walking its streets, and I didn't really understand much of the story. But I loved basically every second of it. The enemy designs, the setting, the lore, the color palette, the rain, the yokai... all of it is just so damn cool. Living in the world of Ghostwire Tokyo was an absolute dream, even if much of the actual game is busywork.

Storywise I don't have much to say but I did really like the main characters and it had some really cool levels. Where the storytelling really shines is the side quests. Despite its abundance, not all the side content is meaningless. Most of the side missions actually have some effort into them and are really cool and unique. Thanks to the free Spiders Thread update, there's a new quest chain in a haunted school that was absolutely phenomenal. Even if you ignore all the relics and other collectibles, it really is rewarding to at least check out all the quests.

Then there's the combat. Much like the rest of the game it is repetitive but still really fun. My only real complaint is that i never really felt like I needed to use the different elements much. But with how flashy it is and how cool the enemies are, it never really got old for me. Plus with how condensed the map is and how easy it is to grapple and glide around everywhere, the gameplay loop was consistently engaging. All the collectibles were just an excuse for me to spend more time in the world. Despite the downright unnecessary amount of collectibles, I still went for the platinum because I wanted to spend every second playing the game that I could.

I very much love a lot of what Ghostwire has going for it, but it still has a lot of room for improvement. From the leaked Microsoft court documents it has been confirmed that a sequel was at least once considered, but who really knows what the plans are now. I can't say I'm optimistic about its likelihood. But just knowing it was in the talks has given me a little bit of hope. I'm very grateful this game exists, and a Ghostwire 2 would instantly shoot its way up to my top 5 most anticipated games.

Nancymeter - 89/100
Trophy Completion - 100% (Platinum #272)
Time Played: 31 hours 42 minutes
Completion #5 of October
Completion #197 of 2023

I never gave this game much thought from the glimpses I've seen of it up to release, but the quadruple combo of it being a shorter game published by Annapurna that got high review scores and is day one on Game Pass made it very hard to ignore. I'm glad I didn't as I can confidently say that Cocoon is so far my favorite Indie game of 2023.

The game never tells you how to do anything, which is one of my favorite things about it. It just feels intuitive, and its solely up to you to figure things out. I got stumped a lot but outside of something I'll get to in a bit, it basically never felt like the game was unfair. And even when things seemed impossible, every single time I found out the solution I was impressed with how clever the game was. The puzzle design is just simply excellent here and it feels consistently rewarding.

Now there is a reason this game is missing a star. A few smaller issues first: I didn't really care about the art style. It feels a bit generic but its not a bad looking game either so not really a negative. The soundtrack also exists. Its fine I guess, but I never really noticed it which feels like a missed opportunity. Also if this game has a story, its very vague. I'm sure there's some deeper meaning to everything but it very much takes a backseat. These three things are fine and didn't really bother me as the gameplay is still very engaging but they do stop me from fully loving it.

Now about the actual things I dislike about the game. It took me around 5 and a half hours to beat. This is a great length for a game like this, and the puzzles continued to expand and stay interesting the whole time. That being said, there were several moments that felt like finales where the game just kept continuing on after. It led to a conflicting feeling where I was enjoying the puzzles but still wishing for the game to be over. It was just a bit exhausting to be thrown for a loop that much. The only other thing I dislike about this game are some of the timed puzzles. For the most part these are perfectly fine, but in the last fourth there is three different timed sections each made up of three different parts. They're sort of like a boss battle but if you fail any part you have to restart the whole section. While other bosses do make you restart, at least they were based on skill, but this one is solely on timing. This led to a lot of having to redo parts I already knew how to just to get back to the part I was actually stuck on and it was quite frankly a pain in the ass. I don't like timed puzzles and this was a bad way to implement them. Otherwise the bosses are all sort of similar but still unique enough that their presence makes the game more interesting.

Overall, Cocoon is a fantastic puzzle game that's held back only by a handful of small things and the very occasional annoying section. None of its negatives take away from the fact that its highly creative and one of the best games I've played in an already stacked year.

Thanks for reading if you made it this far <3

Nancymeter - 85/100
Achievement Completion - 80%
Time Played - 5 hours 43 minutes
Completion #29 of September
Completion #192 of 2023