Difficulty: Easy-Medium
Overall Playtime: ~5 hours
100% Completion with DLC (100% star collection)

I came across a gameplay video of ‘A Little to the Left’ on social media & it ignited the OCD inside me to check the game out myself.

As someone who loves organizing and tidying things in an orderly manner, this game was heavenly and gave me such a fulfilling experience for the most part. The cosy art style and music makes the game so much more charming and relaxing, making it a very enjoyable game to play when you want to declutter your mind. The difficulty of the game was quite simple but some levels did have its challenges, especially the levels that had multiple solutions to them. It develops your ability to recognize different patterns and sequences & being able to tackle the puzzle from different perspectives.

The game did feel a bit awkward to play using the joy cons on a Nintendo Switch console so I had to resort to playing it with the touch screen. It did not ruin any aspect of the gameplay but it did sometimes make me feel like I was playing a mobile game (Not a bad thing, I just prefer using controllers to play my games).

Towards the midpoint of the game, I felt like the game/puzzles did not know which direction to go & felt quite uninspiring. This made the game lack any sort of personality and have an overall confusing idea on what it wants to be.

Overall a must play if you like any sort of organisation games. Personally, I do not find any replayability value as the puzzles get quite similar to each other and the patterns to solve them are usually the same.

Gameplay: 4/5
Narrative: N/A
Art Direction/Graphics: 3/5
Music: 3/5
Creativity: 3/5

Overall: 3.5/5

Difficulty: Easy
Overall Playtime
100% Playthrough with 100% memories collected.

I entered 'Stray' blindly without watching any trailers or knowing what the game entailed. What I thought was a cute cat simulator game at the beginning, soon turned into a dark but phenomenal & atmospheric world with a deep story that is told in a short playthrough time.

I absolutely loved exploring every crevice of the areas you visit as most objects are either climbable or interactable. This encourages you to make detours to traverse every corner to discover new things. I just wish exploration was rewarding with more collectables and secrets as this game is mainly focused on exploration. The vibrant locations and scenery had me mesmerised while the eerie environments captured the hopelessness and darkness which almost made it initially seem like a horror game, especially when the Zurks first made an appearance.

This game never "strays" from it's intended story-telling and is straight to the point, making it a very impactful and engaging story & it made you feel sympathetic for the automatons that reside inside the cybercity, especially for B-12 towards the end of the game.

Despite the beauty of the game, I did find the cat's face a bit uncanny, especially when it meows. The movement of the cat also did feel a bit janky at times & a lot of repeating dialogue with each NPC when you show an item. If there was one thing I could add to the game, I would have hoped for a customisation of the cat at the start, even if it is a basic one, to make it a bit more personalised. Overall, amazing game and I would love to see a sequel (or even a prequel).

Gameplay: 4/5
Narrative: 4.5/5
Art Direction/Graphics: 4/5
Music: 4/5
Creativity: 4/5
Overall: 4/5

Difficulty: Easy
Overall Playtime: 50+ hours
100% Playthrough & Collectables

Gameplay:
Super Mario Odyssey was a very strong title to launch the Nintendo Switch system and this game was one of my main reasons for purchasing one.

I have grown up with Super Mario games and in particular, 3D Mario games have always been my favourite. To put it briefly, the movement and control of Mario are well polished compared to its previous titles and the gameplay feels extremely smooth and satisfying. From classic jumps and movements to new Cappy hops and rolls, it was a delight to traverse across the different locations in the game.

For someone who loves 100% completing games, every moon was a joy to collect and I never felt any boredom trying to collect them all (except grinding for coins to get every collectable and moons).

Narrative:
Classic Mario storyline of Princess Peach being captured and in need of rescue. I just wish they switched up the objectives a bit more or have a twist to make the story more interesting or intriguing. We have seen time and time again that Princess Peach could handle her own so there is no need for the same storyline every game.

Music:
As expected from a Mario game, the soundtrack is excellent! (Although not my favourite in the Mario games). There’s no way you can listen to ‘Jump Up, Super Star!’ without bopping or singing along.

Art Direction/Graphics:
Although the Nintendo Switch graphics are outdated, I thoroughly enjoyed the refined graphics of the game. The design of the enemies and characters that you encounter in each area have a lot of personality and characteristics that make them memorable. Each area you explore also differs in many interesting ways and stand out from each other. As you don’t stay in one area for too long, the anticipation to progress into the next area is exciting.

Creativity:
Each and every costume that is acquirable looks incredible, with each outfit capturing the theme of each area while also throwing back to old costumes of Mario in previous games. I would have personally liked for other playable characters to change the tone of the game a bit, especially when many characters do not even make an appearance in this game.

The capture system is nothing new in games in general, but it adds a riveting element to the gameplay mechanics.

It has been around 7 years since the game was released and it is still one of my favourite Nintendo Switch games I have played. This gets me excited for a new 3D Mario game in the next generation console.

Gameplay: 5/5
Narrative: 3.5/5
Art Direction/Graphics: 4.5/5
Music: 4.5/5
Creativity: 5/5

Overall: 4.5/5