SRB2 is an enjoyable romp. The base for this game is good-- Sonic and co. control well and speeding through levels feels as good as it it should. The issues lie in the level design, especially after Deep Sea. Castle Eggman starts to introduce precision platforming, which just does not work in this game. The characters accelerate far too slow and once they get going they're too hard to stop. It makes it extremely hard to actually land on the tiny platforms you're supposed to. The level design only gets worse over time, and once you're to the final zone, the game starts throwing unreactable obstacles at you at almost every turn! Because of this, SRB2 is just not fun on a first playthrough at all-- you are bound to get killed by many things you could NOT have seen coming otherwise. Replaying the game mitigates a lot of these things but the level design doesn't change, you just come to expect the unexpected.

Celeste is a game that excels in the pure gameplay aspect. Though simple, the way Madeline controls is damn near perfect and allows you to fly through screens like nobody's business. The way the levels are designed also makes this possible-- the tricks you learn later can be put to use on earlier levels. My biggest issue with the A-Sides is that the initial gimmicks are underutilized, they come and go fast... which Chapter 7 and both the B and C Sides fix. The story is also cute, though nothing too special. It tackles some heavy topics and though I felt the message it was trying to present got a bit overbearing at times (specifically in Chapter 6) it never turned me off. In contrast to both of these, though, the graphics and music are both somewhat lacking for the same reasons. They're FINE, (and I like a lot of the B-sides, made by guest composers) but neither of them stuck out to me-- they're tools for someone to experience the main meat of the game, being the gameplay. Otherwise, though it is a highly recommended game anyone should (and can, due to the assist mode) play.

To preface, I'm not a huge fan of shumps. I don't think they're bad but I never was interested in them. However, when Pop'n Twinbee got added to the SNES online app, I thought I may as well try it...

This game really outdid itself when it comes to the presentation. The visuals are striking and amazed me at every turn, and the music is just bouncy and fun. When it comes to the actual gameplay, way the "options" ala Gradius work in this game are very interesting, especially if you choose one of the other two modes for them. Surround effectively makes you a bullet spraying menace and Engulf puts up to 4 more mini Twinbees that, as the name suggests, "engulf" the screen. These put a twist on the otherwise normal (though really fun) shump gameplay. Multiplayer is also very fun and if you can give it a try, you should.

Persona 4 is certainly an interesting RPG. It's strengths are powerful but the weak links the game has really bring it down for me. I love the characters-- they are masterfully written and are without a doubt one of the best parts of the game. The Investigation Team and cohorts are always a joy to watch. However, the method the game presents these characters to you, being social links, are lacking in many places. You don't get much for doing them, which I can tolerate, but many of the character's social links contain effectively nothing. Chie's and Yukiko's are both good examples. Although these characters are written well, the social link fails to expand my scope and I feel as if I wasted my time doing them and not someone else's. The meat of the actual gameplay also does something similar-- dungeons are not particularly fun to go through. Running through corridors to try to find the exit while doing the same "spam the weakness" strategy to common mooks isn't fun to me, and feels like the battle system isn't fully utilized in those battles... which is where the bosses come in. Every boss in P4 keeps you on your toes and not a single one did I win by a sizable margin. Having the bosses be that exhilarating is something most RPGs fail to capture, and my biggest love for the gameplay.
All in all, P4 is a pretty good game bogged down by some issues at its core.

It's a beat em' up, and it's a damn fun one at that. All of my issues with these game are extremely minor nitpicks like depth perception and the lack of a dash for all characters that aren't Cherry (which this game doesn't actually need, it's designed in a way that does not necessitate speed) but otherwise I had basically no problems. An innovation this game does make is a fully fledged combo system which is VERY fun to experiment with and is probably my favorite part of it, and as standard for these arcade-y kind of games it has a TON of replayability, even going as far as to give you rewards (in character form) for doing better on levels. I'll definitely be coming back to this one later on.

Mischief Makers is an interesting game. Though I do think it is overrated, there are things it gets very right, mainly the puzzles and boss battles, and Treasure has always been very good at the latter. A lot of the puzzles in this game were satisfying to solve and weren't things you couldn't reasonably figure out, and the boss fights, at least earlier on, are just Treasure in their element. However, by the time you get to the end of the game, Mischief Makers starts falling apart. Merco onwards the bosses start becoming either boring or poorly designed, and the game as a whole is stuffed with filler-- a lot of the levels just feel empty and like they were unfinished (which this game allegedly is). The graphics also have not aged well, even for a N64 game. Often times it can look pretty ugly. Otherwise though, the game is a hamfisted little parody of Japanese tropes and a good puzzle platformer. Check it out, but don't expect the best game ever like many claim it to be.

Cyber Shadow is exactly what you'd expect it to be. A linear "ninja" platforming game that takes a lot from the likes of Ninja Gaiden, Shadow of the Ninja and Shatterhand. It basically hits all the notes those games do while being much more fair, dropping mechanics like lives systems and having much better level design. The other draw this game has is the way you get upgrades and get more abilties to utilize which is probably the strongest part of the game. Being fully powered up is a great feeling and gives you freedom on how to handle situations. Main issues come in the form of poorly designed segments and the odd lack of invincibility frames when hit, allowing you to get stun locked and I don't care for the backtracking you need to do to get 100%. Definitely worth checking out.

Awful, awful game. The main idea is that you go on Monster Hunter-like quests and complete an objective all while leveling up your characters. However, not only are a majority of the objectives garbage in their own right, you basically only go to 5 places and it geets tiring quick. In ADDITION, the game is extremely vague about the main way to progress in the game-- flags. Flags are gotten by doing some totally random, arbitrary, impossible thing to figure out without extreme trial and error or a guide. Beyond that, the game's level's are designed horribly and don't accommodate for the fact that you may be playing alone or with others, which makes the game imbalanced, the music is extremely forgettable, the story is godawful and the most ham-fisted "NO RACISM" plot I've ever seen in a game. The ONLY good things DMFD features some gameplay ideas for the main cast (the Witch) and their designs. Otherwise, literally everything else is terrible. Go play something worth your time.