This was our second Zelda after Link's Awakening that kept us going right through the finish line! What a delightful time. It has such a lively, vibrant palette, even when it's blown up on a big TV instead of a handheld.

When we weren't traipsing through dungeons, we were matching stones with animals, helping a librarian track down overdue books, and even went on a massive detour to an isolated cottage, just to feed someone's dog for them. And Link's talking hat never got on our nerves, even when it was mouthing off!

The one dark spot on this whole journey is the run to the final boss. Capcom really wanted to put us through our paces, so they ensured that we had barely any health for the final fight, regardless of how many times we reset. Nightmarish sequence, but hey, we still made it through! Great game.

(Note: we specifically played the Nintendo Switch Online version, though it doesn't seem like Backloggd has that as an option yet. Ah well.)

A modern makeover of one of the most thrilling horror games from the 360 era, Dead Space 2023 does a fine job showing the Ishimura and its new, ugly inhabitants with even greater detail. But considering how you can still buy and play the original Dead Space on modern consoles and PCs, we were expecting them to add something more than a few side quests and a secret ending. As-is, it’s a solid retread that made us wish for a more radical departure in design, like what Capcom has done with the Resident Evil remakes.

The investigative loop here is deeply mediocre, to the point where we felt like we were sleep-walking through each day's events. And the Switch version is riddled with errors: our "time played" counter never activated, there were typos galore, and there were moments where we could see code in the text boxes instead of the actual text.

In spite of all that? We're suckers for this sort of story. A close-knit group of friends who drifted apart over the years reunite after our meddling protagonist arrives, poking and prodding to find his mysterious pen pal: said friends must do whatever they can to stonewall this person, but find their secrets unwound one by one. It's emotionally cathartic and often funny, especially if you're playing with the over-the-top live-action sprites turned on.

Root Letter: Last Answer was endearing enough that we saw it through to the end, playing through all five routes. We just wish this story was wrapped around a better game.

We can't tell if this is Silicon Knights' fault or the controller's (maybe both?), but this controls so much worse than the PS1 original. We found ourselves making platforming mistakes here that simply didn't occur in our PS1 playthrough. And Jennifer Hale is practically sleepwalking through her role this time around. That said? The cutscenes are a delightfully goofy time, and the added fidelity means that Liquid Snake actually looks like Solid Snake now. We don't regret playing through it, but it's easily inferior to the original in most regards.