A game that overwhelms you with 10000 mechanics and systems in the first few hours but if you can weather the storm it is the ultimate fps platformer playground. You've dreamed of mobility like this, tools like this, battle arenas like this. It's a rush I've rarely felt. Wish I could say it's an unqualified improvement on it's excellent predecessor, but the writing is notably worse - the tongue has been removed from the cheek and the tone has become uncomfortably self-serious. With that one caveat out of the way I'll reiterate: if you can dedicate the mental energy to internalize this game's systems, you'll have one of the best gaming experiences of your life.

A game I remember playing but never finishing as a kid - boy is it clear now why that was. Extremely charming and for most of the run time it's a fun Mario romp with a solid JRPG skeleton but when you hit a boss fight it reveals a streak of masochism. Boss fights are incredibly long and frustrating, with attack patterns lasting long past the "you have mastered this mechanic" range and into "dodge this attack with an incredibly small timing window 45 times in a row" territory. JRPG battles being a long slog is one thing, but the action component required for dodging attacks and attacking enemies is actually a physical drain - the final boss battle took me over an hour and left my hands and wrist in physical discomfort (note - you can definitely take breaks - you should in fact!). I don't know if I was chronically under leveled - it's definitely possible! But it was a real pain point in a game I otherwise had a pretty good time with.

The game is full of charm and nintendo polish - animations, puzzle mechanics, sound effects, and music are perfectly tuned and extremely satisfying. I can't say it was perfect or capital g Great, but it's definitely worth taking a look at to see what it's all about.

Genuinely a blast. Incredible that such an influential and iconic game feels almost avant-garde - definitely the rocky English script plays a part, where intense character restrictions led to something that has to be brief and evocative.

I didn't end up liking the combat but it doesn't matter. One of those cases where the iconic thing is iconic for a reason. The characters, the art, the world, the plot - it all sings, and the ways that it's lighter or less detailed than modern games actually works to it's benefit - it feels like an impressionist painting, where when you look closely at any one point you just see blobs of paint, but if you take it as a whole you're left breathless by its beauty.

A really well designed toybox. Spent a lot of time with it, played it for like a month straight - the final boss battle finally gave me what I felt like the game had been missing the whole time. I dunno, maybe the issue is with me and not the game - but ultimately feel like the world is just too passive. You can do whatever you want, but why? What do you get out of it? At times it felt like a #content treadmill - all well made and carefully crafted experiences, but none of it makes you feel anything. The world feels like a great big puzzle to be solved or a toybox to be played with, and not a place, or a story, or a character, or a mystery. And it's very well made and for the most part satisfying, so I guess I'm happy for the people that are really happy with it. But it's not really for me I guess. And again I still really liked the game overall - I just wanted something out of this game that I don't think it was interested in delivering. And that's fine.