(beat main game on August 5th; finish post-game/100% achievements on August 20th)

I'm really satisfied with Trails into Reverie! I was feeling kind of ambivalent about the Trails series after Cold Steel III and IV had bummed me out, but Trails into Reverie helped address some issues I'd been having with the series as of late, and I came away from it looking forward to what the future of the series holds once more.

At this point, I'm thinking Reverie is pretty high up there, as far as my favorite Trails games go. Currently deliberating on whether it would enter my top 3 or not - it has steep competition, but nonetheless, I really like this game! It's quite good. (also it was my first time beating a Trails game on Nightmare, so that was neat)

I think this is one of the worst Nintendo games I've ever played, easily. I'm struggling to think of anything positive to say about it. Terrible pacing, clunky combat that lasts way too long for its own good, overworld traversal that feels like a chore, a perspective that's too zoomed in for a low-resolution Game Boy Advance display, a ton of tedious minigames that contribute nothing to the overall game - and also maybe the worst escort mission I've ever experienced in a game. I'm astounded by how awful it is.

Interesting indie FPS. Kind of a mash-up of multiple gameplay elements and ideas; the aesthetics and level design are very clearly inspired by classic FPSes like Wolfenstein and Doom, yet there are several modern FPS elements in this game's design, such as aiming down sights, holding down a button to sprint, leaning, etc. Kind of a curious hybrid of ideas, but I think it generally works, in spite of itself. I mostly just wish the stamina/food/etc. meters weren't a thing, here.

Game is very gory, and almost all of the enemies are anime girls. This tends to lead people to feel uncomfortable with the game's level of gore and violence toward them. I wasn't really bothered by it personally, but I guess it's worth being aware of.

It's fine. Main appeal is the presentation, and the spectacle attached to it – a graphical adventure game with lots of voice acting, some CD music, and plenty of colorful, detailed art that straddles the line between cute magical girl fare and badass mecha action. Story had its entertaining moments here and there, but parts of it fell a bit flat. I mostly just wish the story was a little more compelling, and that the characters were more interesting. Also I wish the turn-based combat wasn't just strategy-less RNG mashing – at least you can redo failed fights immediately after losing them, so it's not a huge inconvenience – mostly just a time-waster. All in all, this is an okay game for what it is, but it could have been better.

Played in co-op on original hardware. Being the first Luigi's Mansion game I actually beat, it was an interesting experience. As far as rail shooters go, it's pretty neat. The vacuum controller in terms of shape (plus the way the controller shakes as you vacuum in coins or whatnot) helped bring about a sense of physical immersion - though the controller also felt a bit small, like it was intended for a kid to hold. The way you alternate between using the light and sucking enemies into your vacuum was pretty neat, and I liked being able to vacuum the environment for coins in between enemy encounters.

All in all - not a revolutionary experience by any means, but I'm not necessarily looking for one, either. It's a fun, solid 3-level game to play around with at the arcade.