What a great package of games that I wasn't terribly interested in at their release but fell in love with nearly 20 years later. It's been long enough since I played the first two that I can't remember if either of those stood out to me, but I remember liking them about equally as the third, which I just recently finished.

I'm not much of a visual novel fan, but the writing and presentation are quirky and funny enough to make it worth reading lots of text. I do wish some of the puzzle-solving was more prevalent. I'd really love these if they made the investigations and in-court defense a tad more complex.

One of very few games that I've played through more than once, in this case at least 4 times now. The most recent was while reminding myself which iOS game I owned on an iPad I've long neglected. I started M11 on a whim and casually finished it that same day (admittedly, it's not terribly lengthy). The mechanics are some of my favorite ever. They allow for clever puzzle platforming with just enough entropy to be exciting without being frustrating. Only recently did I realize that it doesn't have that many reviews, and even those are just fine and not exactly glowing. I would've sworn is a bit of an indie darling. I suppose it's niche; but still, I was dismayed!

A bit of a letdown, but I went into it fresh with no childhood memories. I absolutely love the Mario RPGs that followed this, especially the Mario & Luigi series. The first two Paper Mario's are also great. I certainly appreciate the walk that this made to allow everything after it to run. M&L: Superstar Saga is an all-timer for me, and this is just OK compared to that. I kept wondering when SMRPG was going to really get going, but it never excelled like I hoped. Halfway through (~8 hours in), I mostly wanted to finish it as soon as possible.

I'm happy for any Pikmin I can get, so I'm grateful we're still getting mainline Pikmin games, even if they're ~10 years apart. This has most of the Pikmin stuff I love, but the changes--namely the reworking of multi-character management that was so fun in Pikmin 3--aren't so welcome. You get some of that multitasking when giving your character and Oatchi different taks, but it feels dumbed down from the previous game. Adding gear and currency just add a false sense of complexity without meaningfully changing how you play the game. The night missions aren't ever something I looked forward to.

I played this a lot and enjoyed much of it, but it did make me hope for a better Pikmin 5, hopefully this decade.

One of my favorites this year. I love the look: cute but not twee. The click-and-drag interface generally works well. Dragging a scenario to a box and then dragging characters, usually 1-3 per box, is intuitive. I did frequently drag a character mistakenly when trying to drag the entire box off screen to clear it. Ultimately, putting together little scenes to create a larger but still not overly complex story is really satisfying.

I really love the way the game opens up after completing the last chapter. I wish there had been more devil chapters, but I was excited to have more to do after the main game. I also got unexpectedly obsessed with getting all of the stamps. Unfortunately, the clumsy way of scrolling through chapters is cumbersome enough that I felt punished for wanting to revisit chapters to complete all challenges and stamps. Maybe this a drawback of playing on a touchscreen (I played on a phone). Still, this was one of those rare games that I couldn't help but devour over just a few days, despite a few flaws with the touch interface on a small screen. It made my infrequently used NF subscription more worthwhile than any show or movie recently.

A beautiful, dreamy interactive memoir that's worth the hour it takes to complete but whose toybox-like interactivity is frequently uninteresting. The gameplay falls back to "click on everything to move on" a bit too often for me. I did love the original songs, and the soundtrack is good overall. I like the mix of visual styles and how the hand-drawn scenes denote memories from the protagonist's childhood. I don't think I would've wanted another hour, even if the story, which is sweet and moving, were further fleshed out.

I forgot to review this when I finished it several months ago, but it's maintained its shine in my memory since. One of the great puzzle games from last decade, with just the right amount of abstract weirdness and outside-the-box thinking required, which could've been infuriating instead of fascinating. I played through on a PC, but I remember it playing just as well on an iPad the first time I tinkered with it without finishing it. So, so close to being a 5-star game for me, though I can't put my finger on what it's missing.

A really great tiny indie that I'm glad got a sequel that I hope to play soon. Playing in handheld mode on the Switch isn't ideal; a good bit of visual detail gets lost. I'm strongly considering re-playing on PC to give its visuals another look.

I wish some of the controls were tighter. Moving and jumping are a bit awkward, making it easy to knock around fuel tanks inside the ship or accidentally hit buttons I didn't mean to hit. I was hoping for a little more challenge in the vehicle mechanics, but they're still engaging and not over-simplified.

This has some of the quiet charm of other side-scroller puzzle-platform indies like Limbo or Inside, but it certainly has its own appeal.