This might be the worst game I've played in a very, very long time. The camera is terrible. All you ever do is walk around big, samey looking open areas that have as many popups as this scene from Free Guy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHwdLBxz7E4). The combat ranges from annoying to boring. It seems like it wants you to be able to do big combos, but every enemy dies in 2-3 hits except bosses who just stop taking damage whenever the game thinks they should be walking around now. I beat Darth Maul by repeatedly mashing the throw lightsaber button. He did not move until the game said I did enough damage that it was time for a cutscene to play where he moves somewhere else. Every level (the rare times that you get to engage with actual gameplay) is short, riddled with cutscenes and obnoxious dialogue, and is a flat out slog. Before a lot of levels you get to walk around the bland open areas, sometimes doing an "escort mission" where you hear the characters talk about The Plot and crawling at a snail's pace. The cutscenes aren't even remotely funny despite trying as hard as they can to be. The dialogue is ripped straight from the films with no deviation at all (no matter how boring), except that lines are re-recorded by the actors from The Clone Wars TV show. This game feels like exactly what it is: a Star Wars made by Disney in 2022. There are loading screens out the wazoo, and hoo boy do they take a while even with a beefy Gamer PC like I have. There are a billion menus with submenus that navigate slower than molasses. Do not buy this game.

This definitely was the first LEGO Star Wars game. It lacks a lot of the quality of life of later games, as well as some of the charm, but it's hard to deny that what is here is really nice. It's just a pleasant game that doesn't overstay it's welcome at all. Maybe a lot of my fondness for this game comes from spending countless hours just running around the levels making up my own storylines with my friends when we were kids. Maybe it really is an ok game. Some of the minkits are a little hard to find, which can be a nice change of pace from the stupidly easy Everything Else in this game. Except the Kashyyk minikit where you have to find the carrots. Fuck that one. Insane that someone let that one slip through. If nothing else this game makes me want to go watch the prequels again, even though I did that earlier this month. Thanks, LEGO Star Wars.

The absolute worst Shovel Knight has to offer. Obscenely short stages, the worst story so far, an obnoxious main character, and a down-right terrible movement/attack mechanic. At first glance I thought Yacht Club had learned something from the SoT campaign and were going to make another mode with fun movement and combat. I was sorely mistaken. The dash/bash move King Knight uses feels awful. The platforming in this is only sometimes enjoyable because it's reminiscent of Super Mario World's spinjump, but even that doesn't save the fairly boring or frustrating level design. The best most interesting thing this game does is change how the world map system works from the first two Shovel Knight modes (SoT doesn't have a map). That would be a really cool change of pace if the actual game were fun to play. The option card game, Joustus, is ok. I didn't hate it, but I'm not really a fan of deckbuilders so I only played the first couple of Joustus Houses worth. I can see people getting mileage out of that. I am really disappointed that this was the finale to the Shovel Knight saga after how great SoT was, but at least that game still exists. I just wish this one didn't.

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).

The beginning of Plague of Shadows was somewhat annoying. Only being able to throw bombs downwards for the first couple stages is absurdly annoying, and Plague Knight's jump control is very unwieldy. Over time, I grew a lot more fond of this mode and by the last 3rd of the game was actually completely enjoying myself. I think the first half or so has a difficult readjustment curve. It doesn't feel like most platformers I've played before, and it certainly doesn't feel like Shovel of Hope. Still a fairly fun game and I like Yacht Club's approach to letting you play as different characters through the same levels. Always a treat.

The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe accomplishes everything it set out to do. Having not played the original since it's launch in 2013, there were a few things I remembered, such as the downstairs ending and the broom closet ending. Beyond that, nothing had really stuck with me. Playing the game again now, almost 10 years later, it's shocking to see so many people clown on the game for one reason or another. The writing and humor is still very sharp. The jabs thrown at gamers and the games industry in Ultra Deluxe are well-deserved, my favorite among them mocking a Steam review that seems to have missed the point of the game entirely. Or maybe there's a layer beyond that jab that I'm missing, and now I'm the butt of the joke.

The hall of memories takes the game in such an interesting direction. It points out the flaws in sequels as a means to extend things beyond their natural life. Perhaps my favorite part of the Ultra Deluxe additions comes from the collectathon. The game explicitly tells you that you will receive no achievement nor congratulations for collecting the figurines. Yet, I felt the game was trying to point me towards collecting the figurines anyway. After collecting them, I was met with exactly what they told me: I was not congratulated, and I was not rewarded. The ending therein was a bit extended as a result, but I felt the dive into the minds of completionists was an interesting choice. And, after that ending, the game simply resets as it would after any other ending. There truly was no sparkly achievement or reward given to the player. The only reward was the same as playing the game any other way: an ending and then a reset.

I'm not smart enough to figure out what exactly the point of it all is, nor do I really care to. The game invokes a lot of feelings in me that remind me of reading a well-written book or watching a beautifully crafted talkie. For that reason, I think The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe is worthy of having at least two museums dedicated to it within itself. #BroomClosetGang

SteamWorld Dig 2 is basically just a bigger SteamWorld Dig 1. I didn't feel that any of the differences between the two were monumental. This one has a much bigger focus on the story, which kind of makes sense because the ending of 1 was a little weird from what I remember. The music is good, but nothing crazy. The gameplay and visuals remain mostly identical to the first game. The map is much larger, but it felt as if they wanted it bigger just to say it was bigger. Not much purpose to that for the most part, I thought. Still, SteamWorld Dig 1 was a good game so 2 being mostly identical isn't even a bad thing. Good job.

Death's Door is a pretty little game. It's really short (I beat it in about 5.5-6 hours) and mostly pretty easy. The puzzles and combat are, for the most part, not at all challenging. The combat is mostly a button masher where sometimes you'll decide to use your ranged attack because it's been a while. The hookshot shows some promise of depth to combat but by the time you get it the game is already over so the use is moot. The game really only shines during the final boss fight, which is a shame because it makes me wish the rest of the game were nearly as fun. The visuals and music are amazing and basically saved this game for me. It would be really dull without those, I think. The biggest issue I had with the game was the strange tonal dissonance. The music and locales and story were all very somber and lonely, but most interactions with other characters had a jokey tone like something out of A Hat In Time. It felt very obnoxious to have the game seem to be afraid to take itself seriously, especially at times where it may have actually made the player feel something. Still, I'm a sucker for the music, visuals, birds, short games, and killer finales, so Death's Door still had something to offer.

I haven't touched the original game since I was a stupid idiot kid who couldn't form coherent sentences. Now I can. Rogue Legacy 2 has really smooth movement, a plethora of unique weapons, and a lot of challenging boss fights. The areas are all unique and a lot of fun to explore. The scar challenges serve as additional challenge fights and some tutorials (I didn't know you could dash cancel the barbarian attacks until I did that scar). The music is good and cool. My only real issue with the game is the resolve system. I think losing health as a result of picking up an item is a cool idea, but the vast majority of the items don't really feel worth it for how little resolve you have especially at the start. Everything else is cool and fun and I'm looking forward to casually playing through multiple NG+ runs.

As far as Pokemon games go, Sword is actually a pretty solid one. It has a good regional dex (I don't care about Dexit) and a really neat framework for the region. Having Pokemon be a huge spectator sport is really enjoyable and it makes the gym challenge compelling. Unfortunately, Gamefreak decided that even though 99% of the game is good fun times with the homies, you NEED a world-ending threat to interrupt the climax of the game in an absurdly obnoxious way that demolishes the pace. Until the Elite 4 challenge is interrupted, the game is actually fairly solidly paced. I do recommend holding off on the DLC until the post-game because it also breaks the pace so hard. The DLC also doesn't scale well at all. Isle of Armor is built so that it either works very early game (sometime between gyms 1-3) or after you beat the main game. I haven't done Crown Tundra yet, but I've heard better things about it than IoA and know it is specifically built to be post-game. The biggest downfall of Pokemon Sword is that it's still a Pokemon game so the best it ever hope to achieve is a 3.5/5.

Fairly fun psuedo-typing game. The amount of different combinations keeps the game really fun for the most part, and the Extra Events required to level up forced me to try out new dishes I had been avoiding for the first 10 hours of gameplay. Unfortunately it's pretty grindy in the late game, and after the first couple levels you'll probably figure out which dishes are easiest for you and just spam those for the next 15 hours. Definitely a fun game, so I'm curious to see how the sequels iterate upon the really solid base.