The first three worlds are extremely easy to the point where I was referring to this game as "literally for toddlers." The last three worlds shift between "literally for toddlers" and "annoying trial-and-error." The moment to moment platforming is nothing special. The best part of the game is getting 3rd Gear because holding the button and hitting guys actually feels satisfying. Getting 3rd Gear is also the worst because you usually have it for so long that you get to used to it, and then it resets you back to 1st Gear every level. It's a neat idea to have the same kind of progression every level, but ultimately I didn't feel that it added much. There was maybe one time any exploration ended in me going "Oh, I need to go back and find 2nd/3rd Gear because I can't progress." If there was more of that, maybe the game would've been more fun. It also does that platforming thing where some bosses are fought in completely different ways than you'd be used to from playing the game for hours prior. One of them is a maze that you navigate by flying, which is kinda cool, but the flying controls just aren't very good. The fish boss was fine, but it suffered from being way too simple (like the entire game up to that point). Overall, it's just not a super enjoyable game and I don't think you should pick it up if you're not really curious what that one assist trophy in Brawl is about.

Pushmo has a surprising amount of content, although that isn't saying a whole lot when 3 of the 11 worlds are almost entirely tutorial worlds with another third being extremely trivial. The fun of Pushmo mostly starts after you get to world 8 or 9 because at that point you actually have to use your brain. Unfortunately, the main gimmick of Pushmo isn't super fun or rewarding. Completing a pushmo never felt like it was really worth my time. This game works best if you play it for a couple puzzles a day, as anything more than that is a little obnoxious. Thankfully, the game itself is super cute visually and the mural worlds are fairly enjoyable if mostly not very difficult. It isn't a bad game by any means, but there are surely better puzzle "platformers" out there.

Specter of Torment is the first time I've completely enjoyed myself playing Shovel Knight. Shovel of Hope didn't have any glaring issues, it just wasn't anything spectacular. Plague of Shadows had some issues, but they were ironed out by the finale. Specter of Torment is extremely fun from beginning to end. The whole mode is a serious of engaging platforming challenges where you're frequently using the enemies and obstacles as the answer to whatever platforming puzzle Yacht Club has laid before you. The story is fine, nothing spectacular, although I do like that SoT takes place before SoH and PoS. This is far and away the best Shovel Knight has to offer (unless King Knight mode really blows my socks off).

I'm not sure what's up with White and me. I bought it on release, and never really got hooked. The bridges were always my favorite parts of the game. Just seeing how the camera swiveled around something like in Pokemon game blew my mind as a kid. After beating White, I'm not sure that opinion has changed.

White is nearly identical to the previous Pokemon games in terms of mechanics. This generation didn't go hard on the gimmicks like 6+. The closest it got was triple and rotation battles, but I only encountered one triple battle and zero rotation battles the entire time, and even then that's as much a gimmick as double battles. Graphically, the White is supposed to look better than previous games. Something about it never quite meshed with me, and it gives me a similar feeling to something like Owlboy, where I look at it and think "I should like how this looks." It clearly has a lot of time and effort and care put into every bit, but it just doesn't hit me the way I feel like it should. I feel like I'm missing out on something when everyone raves about the art in this game. The overworld character sprites looks weird and long to me. Of course, the animated Pokemon all look great and it's a shame we only got one gen/four games of them before being sentenced to 3D hell. No comments on the music. I mostly played this during work, so I didn't have the sound on for like 90% of my playtime, although I'm sure it sounds at least serviceable. The difficulty curve seemed fine? It definitely didn't have any steep issues like Johto can, and wasn't a cakewalk like Kalos. I grinded a little bit pre-Elite Four, but I also skipped a lot of trainers and optional content throughout the game, so I can't really hold that against the game. I don't think I'm a fan of choosing the Elite Four order. Set order felt like a hierarchy of the trainers, whereas in White each member has three level 48s and one level 50. Then, you fight N instead of Alder, which is a big shame because Alder was set up very well throughout the game to be a wise and strong trainer that I would have felt good beating. Instead, you fight N and Ghetsis after doing some chosen one shit and the credits roll. It felt anti-climatic. At least in Sword you get to fight the Champion after being completely derailed by legendary Pokemon bullshit.

I'm sort of rambling at this point, but I want to be clear that I'm not totally sure why I'm giving White the score I am. I spent 21 hours on this run and still couldn't figure out what I disliked about this game so much more than the previous games and even some of the later games. I can't believe that it's just some kind of nostalgia for the other games that I lack with this one because I played this one when it came out and I was still like 12. I've lost my train of thought because my friend put on Donnie Darko, so I'm just gonna end the review here.

I played it back in like 2013 or something originally and boy did I play the heck out of it then. Just went back to it today and man, it's as good as ever. The soundtrack is great, the art is phenomenal, the gameplay is as crisp as I remember. It's super short, beat it on normal this playthrough in just under 26 minutes. It seems really inspired by Mega Man almost to a fault at some points. There are a fair few annoyingly difficult jumps where if you don't do them just right you're instantly killed and have to restart the level. Fortunately, the levels are insanely short so that's never too big an issue. Plus, the music keeps going when you die rather than restart every time which is a nice change from some other games in the genre that most people might not really think about. Good game, I love Gunman Clive.

This game is a perfect example of how to make discovery enjoyable. Figuring out what every rod does each run is fun and has you praying that it will help you in one way or another only for it to blow up in your face and have you almost die. Then on the next room, you use that explosion to kill 3 ghosts at once and find out it also kills the frogs instantly. Having all text in Portuguese is great because even though I don't speak Portuguese, it shares enough common roots with Spanish/French that as someone who had to take a language in high school/college, there are a few things that I can sort of understand and those clue me in on what things do. The art and sound are like nothing else and really help this game stand out. It's a ruthless strategy rogue-like that is nothing like I've ever played before. Very possibly the most unique game I've encountered, and one I see myself going back to often to try and discover more of its secrets.