pros:
- phenomenal story and characters basically all the way through
- most side quests are fun
- looks great (most of the time - i had frame rate issues in particularly crowded parts of the map)
- open world has a lot to do (though this has downsides)
cons:
- tries too hard to be realistic, which comes with a variety of problems - the most notable being the awful, awful physics and controls of both the character and your horse
- stupidly arduous to 100% (and its even worse to get the platinum trophy, which i gave up on)

wanted to revist the pokemon games because of nostalgia, but pokemon is boring so i did a randomized nuzlocke. despite everything, this was the first randomized nuzlocke i've completed! i started a bunch when i was a kid but i would always lose interest and restart when i came back.

lost my whole team to the rival's last pokemon in the elite four (level 61 metagross swept my level 53~ team lol) but i beat the elite four on my second try while only losing my flygon (which is still sad, because i love flygon)

the worst death though was skarmory, who i found super early on and carried me thorough most of the game by being strong both defensively and offensively. he died because i wasn't paying attention, which is on me

pros:
- graphics look very vibrant, especially for the time
- some shines are fun to get
cons:
- movement is not good, especially in comparison to other mario games. fludd is stiff, you have no long jump and no backflip.
- due to the movement not being good, certain aspects of the level design will frequently be incredibly frustrating to deal with
- getting all 120 shines is nightmarish due to the blue coins, which are placed like the moons in odyssey except there is no way to keep track of which blue coins you have and don't have. i kept track on my own, and i still had trouble getting them all

despite all this, i couldn't give a super low rating. why? well, even a bad mario game is still not the end of the world. i only curse my need to 100% the game, because i think i would rate this higher if i did not force myself to get all the blue coins.

i also made heavy use of save states, which thankfully saved me from frustration where other more honest people struggled (especially levels like the pachinko and lily pad).

overall, i would say this is still worthwhile enough for mario fans or 3d platformer fans, but if you're just getting started either mario 64 or mario odyssey is leagues above as a starting point

a massive improvement over the first game in some areas, but somehow worse than the first game in others. the story is leagues better due to the fact that this game actually has a story, which the first didn't. the bosses were cooler, i guess. but my god this game was a slog to get through. its roughly double the length of the first game, and it has a shitload of backtracking. i've seen people say that this one is easier to play without a guide, but i didn't find that to be the case. but hey at least i can go onto the solid games now...

i almost got softlocked because i had a slither of health and was surrounded by rooms with enemies that would float above obstacles and shoot at me while i couldn't shoot at them. later i had to backtrack for 15 minutes because i didn't have enough explosives to take down the final boss. not terrible but its not fun, and there's not much reason to play as the story is incredibly weak. i will try playing mg2 as i've heard its a massive improvement, but really i'm just excited to get to the mgs games.

as someone who has not (yet) played the original god of war trilogy, i feel like i had a unique experience in comparison to someone who had. whenever kratos' past is referenced, it almost feels like it is building up a mystery. it is satisfying to hear kratos reveal little pieces of his past during the late game because it feels like a mystery is unravelling, which i think was really well done.

there were some moments where it they made atreus too much of an asshole, but other than that the story of the game was fantastic and i loved kratos and atreus' relationship. i adored the feelings i experienced during the final five to ten minutes of the story especially. the interpretation of norse mythology in this game is also very interesting (even though i'm more interested in greek mythology, which makes me excited to go back and play the original trilogy)

i obtained the platinum for the game, and that was... mostly fun, but there were a couple tedious elements. the collectibles were annoying because i had no way of knowing which ravens i had gotten and which ones i hadn't, for example. i wasn't a fan of the nilfheim section because it felt extraordinarily repetitive and took way too long. however, i don't really hold this against the game too heavily as i was the one who decided to 100% it - the main meat of the game is phenomenal.

the combat is very satisfying, as the game has a perfect difficult curve. you improve at roughly the same pace as the game gets more difficult, and some of the stuff you can do later in the game makes you feel really cool. the valkyries are a mostly great epitome of this, with only one fight that i thought was slightly unfair (though that may just be a skill issue)

overall great game, very excited for ragnarok