A very bad dungeon crawler and an even worse strategy game eking by on a solid hook and an incredible aesthetic.

Neat little Nintendo DS gem, you've probably never heard of it. The writing's whatever and most of the characters remain undeveloped, but the game's got a fun sense of humor and some rad art designs (even if it all does look a bit like a Dragon Ball ripoff in parts).

On the other hand it all felt a little generic to me, a little old hat — except for the really cool stuff it does with multiple endings! Probably at least worth a try just to support the indie dev scene.

This game is 1,000 hours too long and the writing gets progressively worse as it goes. But the visual style and music are absolute fire, so it’s at least worth experiencing the first handful of dungeons.

For me it's like, BotW's dungeons aren't as good as other Zelda dungeons (and I'm long tired of Zelda dungeons), combat's not as good as Soulsborne's, monsters aren't as fun to hunt or fight as Monster Hunter's, riding across the big ruined countryside lacks the emotional weight of the same exact thing in Shadow of the Colossus (though BotW's terrain climbing is better), narrative rewards for exploration don't compare to Morrowind's, and bokoblin base raids sure as hell don't hold a candle up to Far Cry's. Doesn't help to have played it pretty close on the heels of Witcher 3, whose world I found way more gratifying to nook-and-cranny.

On the other hand it's a grab bag of features from a bunch of my favorite games, so even if it's a weaker version of all those features it's still got some scale appeal. I did enjoy a lot of the shrine puzzles. I'm hopeful the sequel will Majora's Mask the hell out of it and draw me in more with the story and character stuff.

The biggest chunk of fun I got out of BotW was watching all the crazy shit the people who love it get up to on streams and videos.

Every now and then, a game comes along that changes your perception of what games can and could be. Outer Wilds is one of those. A masterpiece of tone whose mechanics of solar system-sized exploration meld beautifully, perfectly with the story the player discovers by engaging with them.

The end result is sublime enough it sent shivers down my spine. Game of the Year 2019; please go experience Outer Wilds.

The worst Dark Souls by a good margin is still easily one of the best video games. How’s that for overachievement?

The Dark Souls of video games.