Another Crab's Treasure was a blast to 100%. A near perfect package for long time enjoyers of the Souls-like genre AND people who are less masochistic thanks to the extensive difficulty adjustments you can make basically whenever you want. The only real negative was the FEW bugs I encountered that seemed to only occur during boss fights that would KILL ME DEAD.

OTHER THAN THAT, I couldn't put this game down once I started it. The first hour was a bit awkward for me but I think that's how every Souls game feels. After you beat the first boss or two things start to get GOOD. The game flows quickly and there's never too much time between a big boss fight. The shell magic mechanics and the exploration are delicious and my two favorite things that set this game apart from other Souls games.

This is a MUST PLAY for me this year, I will be hounding everybody I know to make sure they play this game. Especially since those who aren't fans of the genre can essentially play Legend of Zelda if they put the game on the easier difficulties.

TL;DR: An incredibly well made Tekken experience for everybody, whether brand new to the series or a long time fan and competitor.

Tekken will always hold a special place for me (so obviously I am a little bit biased here) I grew up going to the local arcade/pizza place with my best friends JUST to play Tekken 3 for hours on end.

Tekken 8 feels like the next step for Tekken. It's hard to put this into words because I loved Tekken 7 and I believe I put something close to 800 hours into that game (at least 100 of those hours were spent in Tekken Bowl, but I digress) Tekken 8 is very clearly, to me, the Super Smash Bros Ultimate to Tekken 7's Super Smash Bros For Wii U/3DS.

Everything that felt like it was expanded on (just a little bit) in Tekken 7 feels fully fledged out in Tekken 8. The single player experience is INFINITELY better: The Dark Awakens is a VERY well done campaign AND Arcade Quest is an incredible way to teach new players the works of the game without forcing them into a training room or combo challenge. (Doing combo challenges and the very in-depth training room are still fully available though, as always)

And the Heat mechanic, while frustrating to play against at a lower level, becomes one of the most intricate and interesting pieces of playing the game, making the purchase of Tekken 8 worth it just to see the new combo routes that the heat dashes and openers offer.

Also, Kuma has an EWGF and they made Heihachi into a super cool chick with purple hair, so that's super cool for me (Kuma(and Panda)/Heihachi main)

I am very very very conflicted with this game... it's fun, I am having a very good time just harvesting materials, catching pals, and building up my base (a perfect fusion of Ark, Legends Arceus, and a first person shooter)

The problem lies with the elephant in the room... the two elephants in the room actually.

1. This game is almost confirmed to have used AI in a way that I cannot support. Artificial Intelligence is something of a trigger word throughout every field nowadays. In some cases, AI is a good tool, when editing in Photoshop it has been very helpful to not have to always hand select things to simply remove them from the photo (not always though, still dumb as bricks), but in the same example, Photoshop unfortunately uses generative AI which is one of the major forms of AI that I don't personally want to support. It is heavily implied by the creator of Palworld that generative AI was used in one way or another for this game, although the specific use is unknown as of writing this.

2. They may have straight up plagiarized Pokemon models. I can't say whether or not I agree with this as the similarities most are deeming plagiarism don't seem like they're the "Carbon Copies" that everybody on Twitter claims them to be. It's a tough look for the company either way because you can absolutely tell that Anubis was inspired by Lucario in some shape or form.

So while the game is fun enough that I put the time I did into it... the drama surrounding the release and the development has lowkey watered it down, and if my day one purchase (so I unfortunately could not return it) ended up supporting an AI riddled and plagiarized "game"... that would be wildly unfortunate.

I love this. A little love letter made by the creators of Celeste for the 6th anniversary of the original game's release. Considering this was made in a week (give or take) it is wildly polished. The movement is a little slippery BUT the platforming is incredibly well handled, although fairly simple, which helps with controlling Madeline's slips and slides.

After about 10-15 minutes of flailing about in the main hub world the movement began to make a lot more sense and just in time for the first tape world, which is very obviously inspired by the "secrets" from Super Mario Sunshine. (the "a capella" music, the mysteriously floating platforms, the abyss background)

There weren't any strawberries that were necessarily HARD to get but there were two or three that I definitely got in "incorrect" ways. The overall completion time took about an hour and a half, I then tried speedrunning it (just for fun) and spend about another hour or so on it.

This is one of those games that I would recommend to anybody and everybody. It's free, easy to pick up and play, and is incredibly satisfying to master and complete. Everything you could want from a platformer, all while keeping that Celeste charm as if it came straight from the 2018 game.

Also it's a "retro" 3D platformer... that's like the best genre of video games???

Super Smash Bros. Melee is THE diamond in the rough, a fighting game developed in 18 months from start to finish that would go on to define an entire genre, create a massive competitive community, and is still seeing new developments in the meta to this day.

To somebody who's never played Melee (or maybe never even played Smash or another platform fighter) the game could look fast, random, a glitch showcase in fighting game format, but once you take that first step (learning how to do your first terrible wavedash, realizing that l-cancelling kinda does matter, getting pillar combo'd and laser camped by a shitty slippi Falco for the first time) it feels like crack cocaine.

Also, Nintendo sucks ass and it is INSANE to see them continue to try and shut down the game in one way or another after over 20 years of the game being one of their only (theoretical) competitive success stories.

When I was on the younger side of the Teenage spectrum this game was one that I played daily. Hours and hours on end just exploring in the sandbox world that is the Island of Medici and basically never progressing through the actual story.

I finally went through to beat the game's story now, almost 9 years after I had first started playing the game. The story is... just alright, but the sandbox and the physics engine are incredibly addictive and super fun to learn and abuse.

The time it took to actually beat the game: 20 hours, like at max 20 hours.
The other 760 hours were just pure bliss for a Highschool Freshman who didn't want to do his math homework.