I'm super biased because I adored these games when they first came out on the Dreamcast, but my god I love these two games!

The controls are clunky, the voice acting is a bit wooden, there's no quality of life features that are commonplace these days, but it just works. Go back to when these games originally came out and it's a miracle what the developers were able to achieve. Games that have come out since have arguably done this better, but they're standing on the shoulders of Shenmue.

At times the pace is glacial. But the whole point is to take each day as it comes and make the most of your time. Shenmue is a living, breathing world and its inhabitants all have their schedules to keep to. Need to ask at an antique shop about the old scroll you found in your basement? You can only do it when the shop is open. It can feel frustrating from a 2024 perspective that you can't just do whatever you want whenever you wish, but again, that's the point of Shenmue. The sequel does add a 'wait' feature if need to be at a certain place at a specific time you can whiz the clock forward. It's a handy implementation but does take away some of the fun of filling your day.

If you've not played these before, it's difficult to recommend them because they are showing their age now. If you're level-headed enough to appreciate that they are old games, you might be surprised at how much enjoyment you'll get out of them.

Again, I'm biased, but these are two of the best games of all time.

Also I just noticed that I finished my last play-through on 6th May and finished this time on 5th May! Spooky!

I wasn't expecting Pokemon Snap to have as much depth as it does! I always imagined this just to be a generic on-rails shooter under the guise of a family friendly cash in.

On the surface, that's exactly what it is. But where Pokemon Snap differs is that there are extra objectives to achieve other than just taking as many pictures of Pokemon as you can in each level. Sometimes the game will require you to take a certain number of photos of different species before progressing. Other times you will need to trigger a certain event to open a different pathway.

Snap doesn't do a brilliant job of signposting exactly what it is you have to do to open these pathways. Bear in mind that this game comes from a pre-googling-the-answer era. This creates a bit of a fork in the road for my lasting impression.

On the one hand, the game is incredibly brief and despite enjoying myself, I don't think there's much replay value unless I really wanted to snap every 'Mon that I could. On the other hand, viewed through a 1999 lens, I wouldn't have been able to google how to progress to the next level and therefore the game's lifespan would've increased.

As I've played this via NSO, I land more on the side of it being too brief although any longer and it would run the risk of being too repetitive. Definitely worth checking out even if you've only got a slight curiosity in Pikachu and pals.