Enjoying Chex Quest is not a celebration of its design. It’s not a celebration of expertly crafted combat arenas. It’s a piece of pack-in corporate advertisement for some incredibly mid cereal. And yet something about playing it today just feels so incredibly warm and cozy. The earnestness of its specific innocence is bordering on contagious. Health pickups are glasses of water and delicious plates of fruits and vegetables. The core drive of the plot is protecting the galaxy’s crops of fruits and veggies against the flemoids, a boogery slime-guy race that threatens your very way of life - and more importantly, threatens your access to a balanced breakfast.

Chex Quest really is just DOOM. The weapons behave the same and all have ZORCHer analogs (ZORCHing of course referring to teleporting the flemoids back to whence they came – gibbing the snot-dudes would be a no-no for your family-friendly game) - the shotgun teleporter, the minigun teleporter, the plasma gun teleporter, the rocket launcher teleporter (?). All of the weapons behave pretty much in lockstep with their DOOM counterparts, with the downside of having a significantly weaker system of weapon feedback. I guess that’s what happens when you switch out a bitchin’ super shotty for a non-descript teleporter.

Because of this, Chex Quest feels significantly worse than DOOM. I think this is most heavily felt in the third installment of the series, where the level design has had 10 years of DOOM modding to learn from, but it’s only a minor gripe in this first episode. Partly because of the novelty of its DOS-style hyper-saturated color palette and partly because of its runtime. It takes less than 20 minutes to beat this first Episode, and it never really sags from pacing issues.

Chex Quest is not a great game. It’s not a great DOOM wad. It’s not even particularly good. But it is perhaps one of the best examples of a phrase I’ve only ever used mockingly – good, clean fun.

...I AM A ROCKSTAR!
Oh man, this is gonna be a tough review. There's so much I love about this game, so much it might be a new favorite of mine. Okay let's get into it...

Our game opens with the protag, Chai, jamming out to The Black Keys and waiting in line to get into Project Armstrong, an effort by Vandelay Technologies to give robotic prosthetics to those needing of them. One surgery later, and he's got a new arm... and a MP3 player in his chest? AND KILLER ROBOTS AFTER HIM?? Seems something went awry! However, it's not all bad, as said MP3 player has integrated itself into his new robot arm and is giving him strange musical superpowers. Not wanting to get killed by robots, he heads out to look for an exit.

This leads me into the gameplay and oh my god it's so good. I suck at rhythm games and I suck at most hack n' slashes, but put em together and you have a match that could rival peanut butter and chocolate. It's hard to describe, the feeling of landing combos, the shouts of "HEY! HEY! CHAI! HEY!" as you turn robots into scrap metal, it all...rocks!! Although there are a few things that annoy me, mostly enemies with shields. Enemies with shields require you to summon your friends, Peppermint and Macaron to break them for you (oh and Macaron can be especially annoying since his shield take two attacks to break and his attack takes the longest to recharge). Oh, and speaking of characters...

The characters are one part of Hi-Fi Rush that didn't grab me at first. Chai and our deuteragonist, Peppermint, start rather annoying. One an annoying dumbass, the other an annoying smartass. It's not until we meet Macaron and his robot buddy CNMN (pronounced cinnamon) that things get good. Chai and Peppermint go through some development, 808 is adorable, Macaron is a big lovable teddy bear, and CNMN is deadpan in all the right ways while still having a lot of heartwarming moments. The heads of Vandelay are a lot of fun too. Rekka is pro-wrestler turned boss with anger issues, Zanzo is a massive JoJo reference that you beat by draining him of all his budget, Korsica is probably taken the most serious by the game, Mimosa is and egocentric diva with a fantastic boss fight, Roquefort is a no-nonsense grumpy old man with an even BETTER boss fight, and Kale is the big bad, evil as hell, multimillionaire who you really want to punch in the face. All and all, the cast is amazing and fit the games tone to a T. I would get into the story, but most of the actually reveals are character based and spoilery, most of the actual story is just "Corpation plans to use robot limbs to mind control people, go stop em" and to be honest, that's all I need for a game like this.

OH SHIT I ALMOST FORGOT TO TALK ABOUT THE SOUNDTRACK! HOW DID I FORGET!? Uh...the soundtrack is really good! I tend to have a hard time talking about music other than "it's good!" or "it fits the tone!" and Hi-Fi Rush's music does both of those, but something about it just feels GOOD. The original tracks are amazingly made and the licensed tracks fit the mood perfectly. A part near the end set to Whirring by The Joy Formidable almost made me cry while I was playing.

So, that's Hi-Fi Rush, a game that is now one of my most favorites. I could gush about it for a few paragraphs but I feel like I'd either end up spoiling the game or repeating myself. I love this game with every fiber of being and I'm so glad I got to play it. How sadly ironic that Tango Gameworks fell to very villain of this game. Fuck you microsoft.

THIS REVIEW IS PART OF A BALANCED BREAKFAST
(Read this review right after waking up for the full experience)
Well this is a charming lil game. A somewhat amateur Doom episode with the blood and guns switched for more kid friendly alternatives. All for the price of a box of cereal (box of cereal included)!

Each level takes place in a different part of the Chex Nutrition Research Base (which is on another planet for some reason). After the base is attacked by the Flemoids (not Phlegmoids?) for some reason.

So what about the gameplay? Did you not hear me earlier? It's Doom. Literally just a mod for the original Doom. Although I did find some trouble with the weapons, as instead of distinct guns, you have many gizmos and goobers that shoot red stuff. It gets a bit confusing.

All and all, a pretty charming hour or so. I imagine if you were a kid, who got this out of the cereal your mom made you get instead of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, it would kicked ass!

After finishing the first ending, I believe that Sekiro is my favourite Souls game. The first few times I tried playing it wasn't really clicking, but then I was in the mood for another Souls game after playing Lies of the P, and wow did it click this time. The combat felt the best in the Souls series, and the guardian ape was unquestionably the best Souls boss I encountered in a while playing these souls games. It's time for a second playthrough as I realised I accidentally missed lots of optional bosses

I just played this for 12 hours straight thats how determined I was to finish this game personally rank it my third favourite fromsoft game for the time being still gotta play dark souls 2 and 3 and bloodborne if it ever arrives on pc the worldbuilding and lore is definitely a strong point here combat was not as refining as we would see in later titles felt slow and not that fun. I enjoyed most boss fights, except for Bed of Chaos, which was the worst boss fight I've ever fought on a fromsoft game. Unfortunately, I got the bad ending because I was stubborn and refused to look at guides for help except for one or two things, so my next playthrough will be me going for all achievements/trophies.

A pleasant but challenging game. I refuse to believe that kids defeated this back in the day without some sort of guide. I was more lost on this at times than on soulslikes, but I had a good time, and the milkman sequence caught me off guard It was quite entertaining, and it told a more truthful story about mental health than you usually see in games. The drawbacks for me were that some of the bosses were underwhelming to fight, particularly the last boss. Definitely worth playing if you have patience, One of the best 3D platformers on the PS2 that is often overlooked in favour of Crash bandicoot, Spyro, Jak and Daxter

I'm not the biggest metroidvania fan, I normally get burned out playing them, but this maintained my attention the whole way through, the last section is really damn intense! I'm not going to give any spoilers since I believe it's best if people walk in blind! The puzzles are largely straightforward if you stand still and think about them, but they can have some severe difficulty spikes in certain portions. The only negative aspects I can think of are that the ladder can be awkward to climb at times, and the spikes are difficult to see when doing platform jumping with the bubble! The jumping felt fluid and smooth and the world's colours and animal designs were fantastic. the game rewards discoverability with cool items to progress the map, The boss battles were enjoyable and some were even creepy! This is my favourite game of the year so far, which I was not expecting to say when I started playing it. It makes me want to play other greats of the genre, which is the highest compliment I can give it.