Nothing quite beats the feeling of long-jumping off a little planetoid and seeing Mario orbit around it as gravity slowly pulled him in. It's a small thing, but I had never experienced something like that in video games and Mario Galaxy is full of moments like it. This game was a joy and I still think back on it fondly. One of the most original and delightfully innovative 3D platformers I've ever played. I loved it so much that I even 100%'d it which involved playing through the entire game a second time as Luigi.

An incredibly fun and stylish rhythm game that is at its best when you're constantly moving & fighting, and at its weakest when you're putzin' around breaking boxes and doing awkward platforming.

This is maybe the most stylish game I've played in a long time - everything from the visual art style, to the fantastic use of music and rhythm... it has such a good vibe to it. From the very first moment I was walking around the environment and saw all the trees, lights, and miscellaneous objects moving and bouncing to the rhythm as every one of your character's footfalls hit on the beat, I realized this game was special. Getting into the groove during a combat encounter where you're flying from enemy to enemy, parrying attacks, pulling off combos, and doing it all on-beat is incredibly satisfying. However, that sweet flow often comes to a screeching halt when finishing a fight dumps you into a large area where instead of flowing to the rhythm, you're just wandering around, breaking boxes, and looking for collectibles. It's a weirdly jarring transition, even if it is still in-time with the music.

Personally, I think the jump from wandering around, to cool on-rails rhythmic sliding section, to fast-paced awesome combat section, to slow platforming section feels very disjointed. Whenever I get tossed into a big area to break a bunch of boxes and hunt for collectibles, I feel like I’m playing Ratchet and Clank, not a cool rhythm game. This might be a controversial take, but I think a better version of this game is one that is mostly on-rails with cool rhythmic traversal sections between combat encounters.

The writing and dialogue for the game is incredibly cheesy and a bit cringey. Chai, the main character, is pretty insufferable through most of the game and had me rolling my eyes constantly. And yet… somehow despite it all, I still ended up getting attached to the little idiot and the rest of the fun characters in the game, especially 808.

Overall, Hi-Fi Rush is a damn blast. It has some of the best-feeling combat in recent memory thanks to its rhythmic core, and had me tapping my foot along with the music throughout the entire game. During its dynamic sections it sings, but some of the static-feeling interludes keep it from feeling perfect.

+ Fantastic integration of rhythm game into combat and other gameplay
+ Fun soundtrack with a nice mix of original and licensed music
+ Incredible style both in the overall game and the fun 2D animated cutscenes
+ Great cast of characters even if the dialogue is cheesy as heck

- Slow exploration sections breakup the flow
- Awkward, slow platforming

Somewhere in this weird piece of art is an idea for a very good video game, but you have to suffer through monotonous fetch quests, annoying gameplay, and an obtuse story to experience even a hint of that idea.

Death Stranding does that thing that a lot of games do - it throws you into an environment that clearly spells out your limitations before slowly introducing tools to make your journey easier. The difference is it's not like "You could only jump before, but now you can double jump. Isn't that fun!?"
It's more like "You don't know how to walk down a hill because you're a big dumb man baby. Struggle through this for 10 hours and then we'll give you something to make it not suck." Every minute I spent walking around in that world was a constant battle of "Wow this sure looks beautiful I can't wait to explore it more" and "Oh I beefed it again on a pebble while walking up a slight incline".

Every single upgrade or improvement you get in the game isn't to make a fun game more fun, it's to make the game you are playing suck less.
"Walking with a load sure does suck, huh? Here have this"
"Traveling this long distance over and over is boring. Make a road to make it faster"
But you still have to put in a lot of work to even build these structures to make your life easier. So you either struggle to complete your journey or you struggle to collect resources to build a bridge to make it easier to complete your journey. Yay?

The social/"strand" portion of Death Stranding I think is some of the coolest stuff I've experienced in a game. Building bridges, roads, or other structures that you or others can use to make you journey a little easier is a lot of work but also satisfying. The fact that those structures can then be used by other players is very cool, even if it did feel like I was the only one in my world actually contributing to these projects.
I'd spend hours working on these roads and the contributions from others was measly.

I can stomach boring gameplay if the story is at least holding my interest along the way. And while I wouldn't call Death Stranding's story uninteresting, I definitely wouldn't call it good. The vibe of this game consist of characters with goofy names delivering horribly-written lines of dialogue with deadly-serious tone all while Monster energy drinks and ads for Norman Reedus's real life TV show on AMC are in the background. It's a game that simultaneously takes itself so seriously and not seriously at all. Honestly, normally, I think that kind of thing can be kind of funny but every second of this game had me scratching my head and asking "This is the video game mastermind everyone worships?"

+ Gorgeous world
+ Incredible soundtrack
+ Really cool building/social element

- Gameplay loop is just nonstop fetch quests
- Getting around the world is actively not fun until you put the work in to make it suck less
- BT encounters are stressful
- Nonsense story
- Conflicting tone

Maybe because Pokemon X/Y is the first Pokemon game I played since Pokemon R/B/Y, but dang it I love this game. I was one of those Gen 1ers for years. - "Any Pokemon after Mew don't count".
And then the first ever 3D Pokemon was announced. A 3D Pokemon game! It's what I had been dreaming about since I was a child. Maybe not exactly like this but close enough. I had a 3DS already, so why not? It looked cool!

I've heard the complaints about this game from seasoned Pokemon fans and I get it. I know this game isn't perfect, but as someone who was coming back to the series for the first time in 15 years, I was enamored. I will forever be grateful to Pokemon X/Y for getting me back into Pokemon and for curing me of my Gen 1 disease.

In the year that we finally got a new Pokemon Snap game, who would've thought that my favorite photography game would be a cute little indie. Toem does what I wanted a new Pokemon Snap to do - it's an exploration photography game. You cruise around levels, following a vague list of things to find and take photos of. Some of these are just scattered around the environment, others require you to perform specific tasks to create the opportunity to take a special photo. It's a wonderful scavenger hunt of a game with a chill vibe and cute visuals. I loved it

I originally played Ocarina of Time the year it came out when I was a kid, and the feeling of "this is the greatest thing ever" has stuck with me for a while even though my detailed memories of the game faded. I'd been wanting to go back to it for years but I've sort of been worried that my replay of it would reveal more flaws as I view it with an older, critical eye. But after finishing my replay, I love it just as much as I did as a kid. Yeah there are some annoyances like the occasionally finicky Z-targeting, or the entire Water Temple, but as a whole, Ocarina of Time holds up remarkably well. And even though I really had forgotten a lot of the game, I was shocked by how much was still somewhere in my brain waiting for me to blow the dust off.

An open-world fishing game that tosses out the traditional fishing mechanics in favor of quicker, more satisfying ones so you can focus on exploring, inventory management (the good kind), enjoying the rad atmosphere, and completing your collection.

Dredge pretty perfectly does the video game thing of "in the beginning you're weak and slow, but then you become strong!" without ever feeling bad. You inventory starts small, your ship is incredibly slow, and your fishing possibilities are limited, but it doesn't take long for the whole world to open up to you and, once it does, it's incredibly satisfying. They've done a great job at creating a really rewarding progression loop. While inventory management can sometimes be annoying, Dredge turns it into a satisfying tetromino puzzle that added an extra layer to the game.

Dredge also manages to balance the chill vibes with a feeling of suspense better than I expected a fishing game to do. At times I was cruising around enjoying myself on the ocean, while other times I was cursing and booking it as fast as I could to safety.

Trying to remain as vague as possible - the game is full of various obstacles that aim to make your fishing journey more challenging, Sometimes those obstacles are things you can overcome or bypass, other times those obstacles do not go away and it can kind of just make parts of the world permanently annoying to navigate.

Toward the end of the game, the only thing I had left to do was to catch several rare fish I was missing. It was at this point that the fishing hunt turned from fun to annoyance as there are a good number of rare fish that are totally random spawns. You can do things to improve the chances of them spawning, but it still felt like I was at the mercy of fishing RNG. Still, it was satisfying to complete my collection in the end, even if it was occasionally frustrating.

I'm someone who is mixed on fishing mechanics, typically hates controlling boats in games, and avoids scary video games like the plague. So, I never would've thought that one of the coolest games I would play of 2023 would be a fishing game where you control a boat and navigate a world full of eldritch horrors.

+ Great vibes through a perfect union of art design, music, and gameplay
+ Intriguing world and mysteries to solve
+ Great tetromino inventory management
+ Satisfying progression loop

- The grind to complete your collection is a bit too reliant on luck and can get frustrating when the fish you need just doesn't spawn
- Sometimes the day/night cycles can feel a bit too short
- Controlling your boat at full speed can feel squirrelly
- Some of the "obstacles" can be more annoying than challenging

A Short Hike meets Breath of the Wild resulting in a quirky, wholesome little package that I loved every second of.

Lil Gator Game isn't just another "BOTW-inspired game" it is inspired by Zelda on a meta level that fits and is crucial to the actual story of the game. You are playing a lil gator who literally grows up playing Zelda pretend with his sister, and now you're putting on the biggest pretend Zelda game all over the island - exploring, completing little quests, battling cardboard foes. It's cute, short, and sweet. More games like this please.

My only complaint is that, while exploration is the point of the game, without a map, quest log, or quest markers, it was a little too easy to lose your bearings on the island and have trouble finding your way to the next quest.

+ Delightfully wholesome
+ Touching little story
+ Love letter to Zelda fans
+ Feels surprisingly really good to play

- Occasionally difficult to find where you need to go

I really love what Tchia is doing, but I don’t really think the game itself is very good. There are certainly cool parts to it, but as a whole, I do not think it is particularly fun.

The heavy cultural roots of the game are so incredibly cool and a big draw. Admittedly, I had not really heard of New Caledonia prior to playing Tchia, but I love how the game pays tribute to the country and cultures there in ways that can be appreciated by someone like me who knows nothing of it. Gameplay-wise, soul-jumping into animals and random shit is dope. Jumping to a deer to sprint around the world and ragdoll into walls, or fly around as a bird to cover big distances quickly is rad. Don’t have an animal? Jump into a rock and then slingshot yourself into the air by chaining soul-jumps. It’s extremely cool! And I wish the game was just that, but it’s not. It has a boring story, long cutscenes, bad minigames, poor pacing, and a pretty empty world.

As described above, the best part of Tchia is the soul-jumping, but you have to play through a painfully boring 90 minute intro before getting the ability. And the opportunities to use the ability are entirely dependent on the objects around you. At one point I had to traverse through a large swampy area to find an item and the only thing I could possess within the area was a crab. While funny, after 3 seconds as a crab, I realized that my only real option to get where I needed to go was to just run slowly as this small child. And, man, that sucks. When I can be a cool bird or a fast-moving deer, any time spent as the kid just feels that much worse.

I played Tchia for 2 hours. In those two hours, I was introduced to about a dozen new minigames, 5 of which were not good rhythm sections. I love love love that the game used artists from the region to record original music. I do not need to play a bad rhythm game to experience said music. There was also a rock-stacking minigame with shoddy physics, a totem-carving minigame which requires a full restart if you make a mistake, a shooting range, and more. None of it really was worth doing

I wanted to love Tchia so badly. I wanted to experience this culture I was unfamiliar with in a new way, but man I just was not having enough fun to keep playing. I respect the heck out of the dev team for making this game and I’m so glad they did, but I think Tchia could’ve been a better game if the scope was reigned in just a bit.

+ Beautiful cultural representation for a country that never really appears in video games or media in general
+ Soul-jumping is rad as heck
+ Music is lovely
+ Ability to skip any segments you don’t want to play

- Intro is way too long
- Too many minigames
- Bad rhythm sections
- Not enough opportunities to soul-jump resulting in frequent, boring instances of running around as a slow child
- Feels a bit too ambitious for the small team they had

With its cute visuals, chill music, and goofy dialogue, Bear and Breakfast attempts to present itself as a charming, wholesome hotel management sim to get cozy with, but it misses the mark in just about everything it attempts.

The character art used for the dialogue and short character introduction scenes is fantastic. That style is what got me through the front door, but it didn’t take long to realize that the game underneath is not very fun. That art that I showed up for is great in the dialogue scenes and all but the actual in-game assets are designed to such a low resolution that the entire game just looks muddy. Blurry lines could be excused if they nailed the aesthetic, but the visual design is messy. Colors don’t pop, foreground objects blend into the background, and half of the environments are just dark ugly forests. It’s not a world I really wanted to explore, but the game forces you into exactly that because, when you’re not working on your hotel, it’s making you do boring fetch quests or endless amounts of material collecting in the woods. When the game actually does let you work on your hotel, it’s kind of fun to decorate your own little place, but that joy is short-lived because it quickly just throws you back into another boring side quest. When you’re not wandering around collecting junk, you’re literally just standing around waiting for guests to check in and out of your hotel so you can finish some quest or get enough money to move on. Most of my time in this hotel management sim is spent doing random other shit so I can earn the privilege of working on my hotel while I wrestle with the game’s bafflingly-bad controls.

I refuse to believe that the person who designed the controller support for Bear and Breakfast has ever played a video game using a controller in their entire life. It is wild how bad this game plays with a controller. I’ve played some rough PC to console ports that do dumb things like just mapping the cursor to a thumbstick and, honestly, I think I would’ve preferred that execution over Bear and Breakfast’s completely unintuitive control scheme.

If the bizarre console controls was Bear and Breakfast’s greatest sin, I feel like I could push through it, but the game itself is sadly just not very good. All I want to do is make and decorate my cute little hotel, but this damn game keeps making me run around dark forests, do fetch quests, play its terrible cooking minigame, and scrounge for resources. For a cute-looking little hotel sim, this game sure spends a lot of time making me do boring, tedious shit.

+ Really cute character art
+ Chill soundtrack
+ Decorating your hotel is kind of fun?

- Horrible console controls
- Terrible UI/UX
- Everything between the actual hotel stuff is boring
- Too much time spent waiting around
- Gets repetitive quickly
- Annoying inventory management
- Muddy, blurry graphics
- Bad environmental/world design

Not sure what to say about this game that hasn't been said by basically every other Zelda fan. It's an absolutely fantastic game and a wonderful breath of fresh air after playing the mediocre NES Zelda games. Took me way too long to play Link to the Past but I'm glad I finally did.

The gameplay holds up against any of the modern 2D Zeldas in almost every way.. The combat is great, the exploration is fun, the dungeons are solid. I loved every minute with this game. My only minor complaint is that the combat can be a bit finicky with respect to enemy hitboxes and how an enemy can just sit on top of you, damaging you multiple times. But those are just minor gripes in an otherwise stellar game.