abysmal, with the most misguided quest and level design in the series. DS1 and Demon's Souls are hard because the enemies are difficult and it relies on the player learning the level in order to breakthrough to the boss or a shortcut. DS2 keeps that tradition but adds the fact that the game is nonsense and it refuses to give you a clear direction to go because it thinks that that is what makes DS a "fun hard." Obviously there are those who enjoy this and I'm glad this is another good entry to y'all but what makes this game hard is not what I find fun about Soulslikes

i came into this expecting a pile of dogshit, and i mean yeah it definitely pongs of straight up cat piss, but it wasn't as bad as i thought it would be. that doesn't necessarily mean it's good though. nothing ever really "clicked" with this game. i kept on waiting for more and for something to finally suck me in, but it felt like i was edging for 20 hours until the credits rolled and i was like oh that's it ok then.

the levels are just really bland which i guess makes sense considering the whole theme of the game, but man this game is fucking disgusting. there was maybe three or four areas that i thought were actually "pretty" for lack of a better word, but the rest of the game was painful to look at. gotta say tho majula is probably my favorite hub out of all 3 games now, especially with the music.

i understand what people mean now when they say the hardest part about this game is just getting through the levels. there was a lot of enemy spam, but it only frustrated me in a handful of places where i was getting sniped from across the map in water up to my titties moving at like 25% normal speed. i think after playing lords of the fallen and experiencing that shitty fucking add spam i am just desensitized.

the main game bosses were actually painfully easy and it made the journey there hardly worth it. i think i beat probably 75% of them on my first try, which sucks because the bosses are my favorite part of these games. the ones that i didn't first try made me fucking miserable with the runbacks, but they were somewhat generous with bonfires being close to most bosses. there were a handful of gimmick fights which i despise, but they were already over before i had time to be annoyed at them.

i was wondering why i had what felt like negative i-frames for like 5 hours until i realized it was tied to a specific stat. whoever came up with that idea deserves to be unemployed; that shit is unbelievably stupid. equally as stupid is the absurd amount of times i got invaded in this game like holy shit i cannot go 10 minutes without getting invaded by I Clap Cheeks or Fencer Sharron bending me over and giving me backshots. at one point i just said fuck it and stopped burning the effigies and took it in the ass like a twink.

the game is just generally underwhelming. i'm not really sure how you can go from a game that defined a genre like ds1 and then immediately make this which is so far away from the foundations of the first game. it's like you made a michelin star appetizer and then served an entree with no seasoning or flavors or anything at all, just straight up fucking slop. sure you can eat it, but it isn't going to live up to the expectations you had.

considering it was the last dark souls game i played, it makes me appreciate the other two much more. i'll definitely replay ds1 and ds3 in the future, but ds2 can just rot in my library.

Mother 3 is a game that I have wanted to play for such a long time now. When I first played Earthbound back in 2016, I wanted to immediately jump into this game. However, with no official release and no way to smoothly emulate it back then, Mother 3 would sit on the back burner for a while. It's been 7 years since then and I now have finally sat down and played this game beginning to end. I have no idea what took me so long, I mean this game has been in my backlog before I even had an actual backlog that I kept track of, but I'll be honest. I am so glad I didn't play this until now. If it took me playing Earthbound again as an adult to truly understand it, I definitely would not have given Mother 3 the credit it deserves as a young teenager. That would have been a disservice, because Mother 3 is the most brilliant game I have ever played, no exaggeration.
Earthbound Beginnings was a dissection of the RPG genre. At the time it was something entirely new, taking the standard RPG but instead of the fantasy setting, it was in modern day, with the protagonists being kids exploring the world together. Earthbound was this same idea, just more fleshed out. It felt like what the team wanted to do with that original game, now fully realized. However, where do you go after that? Earthbound would be pretty difficult to top, and going for a similar setup again would be pretty redundant, wouldn't it?
I made comparisons to Super Metroid in my Earthbound review, but I think that still holds true here. Mother 3 is the Metroid Fusion to Earthbound's Super Metroid. It's a GBA followup to an SNES classic so highly regarded, that it only makes sense to go for something entirely different. While I wasn't the biggest fan of Metroid Fusion though, Mother 3 is a different story.
Rather than a dissection of the RPG genre, Mother 3 is a dissection of Earthbound. That's the best way I can describe it. You still have that comedic edge, funny characters to run into, and some very memorable and fun moments throughout the story, but Earthbound this is not. This game is a story about humanity and our role in the world. It's about how loving and caring we can be, coming together and forming communities, cultures, supporting one another, being at peace with the world around us. It's about how cruel we can be, how our greed and selfish desires can affect others and our world, how thirsting for power leads to destruction. It's about different types of people, how everyone, adults, children, parents, siblings, strong, weak, accepted, outcasted, able-bodied, disabled, male, female, or neither, everyone has their place. Everyone has their story. But at the end of the day, we have to make sure those stories live on, we have to do our part to keep our world thriving. A huge component of this game is a commentary on capitalism and its inevitable downfall. It's quite shocking to see how blunt the game is about this. Earthbound has jokes about this idea, sure, but Mother 3 doesn't hold anything back.
Unlike the previous games, Mother 3 doesn't immediately throw you into the action with minimal explanation of its story. Rather, the first several hours are spent fleshing out this world, the characters. When I finally did begin the adventure proper, I felt so much more invested than I did with the other games and it's not even a competition.
Its presentation is remarkable too. Just like Earthbound, characters don't talk or emote all that much once you begin the adventure proper. There is plenty of that in the beginning but once you're off, a lot is left open to interpretation. In fact, in the entirety of the game, the character in the lead of your party will never speak. This is something that bothered me a bit at first, but I grew to love this as it really lets me invest myself into a lot of the story's moments. How do these characters react? Well, how do I react? It's probably something along those lines.
However, when something happens that DOES cause a character to react, it's that much more powerful. The game is really good about using its presentation to its advantage. Compare this to Earthbound where party members just didn't emote or react to anything at all. Not even a little bit.
I won't talk about Mother 3's overarching story here as I want to avoid spoilers, but just know that it is fantastic across the board, one of the best narratives I have ever seen without a doubt.
On a gameplay front, Mother 3 is very similar to Earthbound, but more streamlined. There aren't any big cities or towns, so rather than having to run to shops, hospitals, and hotels, Mother 3 has everything laid out in a much more convenient way. There are plenty of hot springs on the map which will fully restore your party's HP and PP AND revive anyone who was knocked out, I very much like that.
There are also frogs scattered everywhere which act as both save points and ATMs, and the game tends to place these before boss encounters so you never have to worry about wasting PP on normal enemies, only to screw yourself over come time for a tough battle. Earthbound was pretty bad about this on a couple occasions.
Combat is much more strategic than before. Not only are buff and debuff abilities much more useful here, dare I say required for some encounters, but there is also a new rhythm mechanic here. When doing a standard attack, timing your button presses to the beat of the music will result in your character dealing extra damage on their turn. Combine this with the rolling HP mechanic returning from Earthbound and now you have to think carefully about how you go about your turn. If a party member takes mortal damage, do you risk trying to get in that extra bit of damage, or do you bypass that to try and heal them as quickly as possible? It's great stuff, and just like before, each party member has their strengths and you'll want to use those as optimally as possible. Lucas and Kumatora may be the only ones with PSI abilities but don't underestimate Boney's insane speed or Duster's ability to tank a lot of hits as well as his never ending supply of thief tools.
Honestly though, even with all that said, I don't think Mother 3 is the end all be all best Mother/Earthbound game. It all comes down to taste. Mother 3 is just the one I gravitate towards more. Earthbound is great if you prefer to just jump in and play and enjoy the comedic ride and fun environments. Earthbound also has a lot of charm in its world. I mentioned how not having big cities or towns makes Mother 3 more convenient, but exploring those areas was a big part of what made Earthbound so fun and memorable. Mother 3 is a more streamlined experience in a lot of ways but with the game taking a long time to get going as the first several hours are spent on mostly world building, as well as the game's more serious storytelling, I completely understand why some would prefer Earthbound over this. They're both fantastic games that achieve what they were going for amazingly well. As for me though, Mother 3 is now one of my favorite games of all time, and I'm so happy I finally played it after all these years.

10/10 (Masterpiece)

For the longest time I would consider Mario Kart Wii to be my favorite game of all time. It was the game that got me to play games more from 2017-2020. It was the game I always played… I always loved it and I still do.

But I think I have a new favorite game now.

I love cinema. I love games! I don't love overtly cinematic games! I think a decent chunk of the AAA game industry, particularly Sony's studios these days, has leaned so far into this style that it's really limited their potential. Games shouldn't try to copy film; they should take advantage of games as a medium and use their interactive nature to enhance an experience rather than copying an existing format. With all that said, surely I'd think this is an overrated albeit good game, right? It's not exactly filled with depth, it has tons of slow walking and ladder "puzzles", and the exploration isn't exactly thrilling either. But, despite ALL of my feelings about this, I can't deny one essential fact.

This was an emotional experience that I have never felt before within the medium of games.

As much as the Uncharted series can pull off balls-to-the-walls action and make sure you have a blast, The Last of Us barrels into the far opposite direction. Games are "supposed" to be fun, but I'd argue this is the most powerful example of how games as a medium can explore other areas of your psyche. The tension, fear, and eventually calm relief you feel before and after every enemy encounter never ends. The bond you grow with your new daughter only grows stronger with every narrow escape or cute moment that can somehow come out of this desolate hellscape. The overwhelming peace as you and her look out into the landscape ahead of you, beautiful and serene despite the dangers you both know lie hiding.

There isn't anything super special about The Last of Us 10 years after it released. In 2013 I could easily see an argument made for it being one of the greatest games of all time, but the landscape has changed a bit since then, and its downsides have started to reveal themselves more too. But even then...does any of that matter? There are so many nitpicks and problems I can have but none of that even matters when my experience with this title was so unique. I think this might be experienced best as a story in the HBO show (which I haven't seen yet) but there's something not even Pedro Pascal can provide: Ellie is in YOUR care. It's YOUR job to keep her safe. The remaining scraps of humanity in this broken world, the last of US, need her to save us all. But in the end...who needs her more? The world...or you?

Full disclosure, I did not play Samus Returns, so I went straight from Fusion to this game. And my goodness what an insane leap in quality this is. I absolutely love this game.
The controls feel perfect, this game just feels amazing to play, and it takes full advantage of how many movement options you have and integrates the upgrades you pick up in fun ways. Bosses are tough as nails, but are so fun to fight and it's when the controls feel the best, requiring quick reaction time and constant adjustment of Samus's position.
Speaking of Samus, this is her best appearance no question. In every other Metroid game apart from maybe Fusion, that I've played anyway, Samus doesn't have much of a character at all, she's pretty much a blank slate. Here though, she actually feels like a character and one I want to see succeed with her mission, adding to this is the finale of the game which I wouldn't dare spoil here.
Exploring feels pretty nice in Dread. The game is great at naturally guiding you in the right direction and it always feels like progress is being made. Enemies are fun to take down, for the most part.
I do have some little gripes.
Firstly, while the game is very straightforward as long as you stay on the beaten path that the game lays out for you, should you step away from that path and explore, remembering where to go is the worst. The map is information overload to the point where figuring out what's what is kind of overwhelming, even with a key.
Secondly, the map just isn't memorable, it's really cool how the map will change after making progress through the game, but areas just blend together, they don't stick out at all. There's no memorable music either outside of returning tunes and some boss encounters.
And speaking of boss encounters, the Chozo warriors are not fun to fight with how many times they're thrown at you. It gets old.
Finally, EMMI zones. I'm mixed on these. At first, they are very stressful and bring back that feeling of fear from Fusion but even more intense. After a while though, they get kind of old. They're more annoying to get around than they are scary once you're used to how they work. That said, that feeling of narrowly escaping an EMMI and making it out of its zone is unparalleled. On top of that, finally getting the omega beam is super satisfying.
So I do have my gripes with this game, but I do still love it and had a blast with it. It's not my favorite Metroid, that goes to Super, but this is definitely my second favorite!