Final Fantasy is back.

After years of missteps and 'okay' mainline games FF comes out swinging with another game that I can truly call great.

Despite a few pacing nitpicks FF16 delivers a strong narrative and world with emotionally gripping characters. Very rarely have I played an RPG and enjoyed some of the side characters as much as the main ones. Characters like Gav and Byron ended up becoming unexpected favorites after I was sure they'd get minimal screentime.

Being a big fan - to say the least - of the FF composers that came before him (especially Uematsu and Shimomura) and being generally unversed in his music, Masayoshi Soken had a reputation to meet in my mind. I can say with confidence that my expectations were surpassed. He carries the torch with the strong motif usage that I've come to love the series for. I wish more of the music were live-recorded, but that's not enough to get in the way of his incredibly strong composition.

While some (understandably) lamented FF's transition into an action franchise, I've always been of the opinion that I'm welcome to the change so long as they become damn good action games rather than "solid" ones. 16 does the job and some. The options presented with Eikons kept me changing my strategy and setup throughout the entire game. Combat is smooth, snappy, and flows incredibly well.

Overall, FF16 has a few small things to touch up on before I can call it perfect - side quest structure, exploration, and pacing could use a bit of work - but if this is the new direction for the series, I'd say we're in good hands. The best in the series since FF9.

An absolute hidden gem that I'm beyond glad was able to see the light of day in the west. Creative and imaginative, there's never a dull moment in Live-A-Live. This game laid the groundwork for many great games to come, and what a solid foundation it was.

The characters were all fun and charming, and the story ties itself together wonderfully and cleverly. Its story beats are elevated even further by its lovingly remastered and orchestrated soundtrack.

Tldr: check out Live-A-Live.

I haven't dropped a game in a long time. Balan Wonderworld changed that.

As a longtime fan of Sonic Team's work, I was absolutely stoked to hear that Sonic series creators Yuji Naka and Naoto Oshima were returning to collaborate again after years of separation. That optimism turned to skepticism the moment I saw this game in motion, and skepticism to disappointment when the reviews started rolling in. This game quickly became the biggest joke on the block, and after all this time I wondered, "could it truly have been that bad?" After all, I still enjoyed many of Naka's other projects despite their shortcomings. I decided to give Balan Wonderworld an honest shot. Big mistake.

This game forgoes so many 3D platformer game design hallmarks and traditions to the point where I have to wonder if the team persued feedback on certain things. The first and possibly largest offense - mapping everything to one button. Everything. Jumping, attacking, menu navigation - every button does the same thing, even the triggers. This proves to be incredibly tedious and frustrating as time goes on.

The second worst thing this game does just so happens to be its central mechanic, the outfit/powerup system. Powerups are incredibly situational and specific, and there are far too many for the game's own good. Half of them could have been meshed into singular, more versatile powerups - not only to mitigate the tedium of using them, but to lend themselves to more interesting stage mechanics and puzzles. Combine their one-note gimmicky nature with the fact that every button has one function, and that's where this game's faults peek through in plain sight. Have a powerup that focuses on attack? You can no longer jump until you find a powerup that allows for it.

Balan also likes to hide its secrets behind these powerups. Stages often hide their collectibles in plain sight, but require the use of an ability that you haven't encountered yet. This makes completing stages nigh unbearable. Other games hide their secrets similarly, but newfound abilities are typically integrated of into player's move set. Balan decides to take a decidedly more complicated approach, requiring the use of a changing room to swap outfits. On paper this isn't too bad an idea - but the fact that outfits are based on stock and must be individually collected from other stages is where Balan's progression becomes a lot more grating.

Music and visuals are nothing to write home about at all. Stage themes are uninteresting and cluttered, the general visual style is flat and uninteresting, and every tune went in one ear and out the other. Sadly ironic, considering that music and visuals were consistently some of the best parts of Naka and Oshima's previous works. The character designs are a treat to look at, but without appealing environments to stage them in I just find myself wishing they were in a better game.

All in all, this game drained me like few things have before and I only managed to get halfway. I need a palette cleanser. Time to start Spyro 2.

A wonderful evolution of the Kirby formula. It takes all the parts I enjoy about Kirby games (such as exploring to find secrets) and amplifies them to a very enjoyable degree. The extra objectives in each level provided a great incentive to go back to a level and explore even more, and the treasure road trials are a nice change of pace that add more variety to the gameplay. I never expected to say that a Kirby game's combat is something that stood out to me, but simple things like the addition of a dodge roll made fighting bosses that much more delightful. I have high hopes for the series if it continues down this path.

While I was originally unsure of how I would like Xenoblade Chronicles 3 upon its reveal, it didn't take long for me to become more optimistic about it. More and more information about it was released, with a lot of it appearing to be exactly what I wanted from a new Xenoblade game. It soon became one of my most anticipated video games ever. I am extremely glad I am able to say it still surpassed my expectations despite them being so high.

The gameplay here is easily one of its strongest points, as it's pretty much exactly what I wanted from the next Xenoblade game. The world is vast and expansive with lots of interesting areas to explore. It was especially enjoyable finding all the small references to the previous Xenoblade games sprinkled throughout each area. The combat is also incredible, and I'm surprised by how well they were able to combine elements from the first and second game. The addition of classes is also one of my favorite parts of the game, as it allows for tons of customization without feeling overwhelming. Switching classes to learn arts and skills from them also kept the combat constantly feeling fresh and interesting. Even the side quests feel more interesting than ever, as they all relate in some way to the actions of the party members or other parts of the story.

Never before I have experienced such an emotional story as the one in this game. I've never cried as hard or as many times due to a piece of media as I did with Xenoblade Chronicles 3. It contains some of my favorite moments from the series, and this is thanks to the wonderful cast of characters. Since all six main party members join together near the very start of the game, each of them get a great amount of screentime with plenty of interactions with the other characters. They had become one of my favorite casts of characters by the end of the game, with it being hard who to pick who I liked the most out of them. However, while I did find the story to be excellent, it suffers from pacing issues or lack of smaller explanations at points.

As to be expected with an entry in the Xenoblade series, the soundtrack is phenomenal. The many battle themes stand out in this regard, as each of them are extremely memorable and set the tone perfectly. I do wish there was option to turn off the menu/chain attack music, because while these are incredible tracks, there were many points where I didn't want them to interrupt the song that was currently playing. Hopefully MonolithSoft will acknowledge this in a future update. I also had one more small issue with the music, which is that some of the area themes are more atmospheric instead of featuring a prominent melody. These songs are by no means bad, but I just prefer Xenoblade's typical style for area music as it allows for more memorable tracks.

I am beyond thrilled that Xenoblade Chronicles 3 turned out to be nearly a perfect replica of what I wanted. I even found the game's central message to be especially inspiring for me, which I can't say has happened with anything I've experience before. Between that, the expertly crafted gameplay, and the incredible story with spectacular characters, this game was a magical experience that I will no doubt cherish for a very long time.

An interesting new take on the Sonic series that I'm very mixed on. It's fun to have a Sonic game that allows Sonic to run around a huge open area, but personally, the appeal of open-world games has always been the exploration. Sadly, exploration is not this game's strong suit since the design of the world itself isn't too interesting. Instead, it's more about coming across miscellaneous obstacles and completing them to get rewards. These were fun, and the way they all connect and flow into each other feels great, as it constantly keeps you moving. However, this core gameplay loop does get rather repetitive, so I had to take breaks often. Also, collectibles were usually ridiculously easy to get, so it was rare for completing something to feel truly rewarding. The cyberspace levels added some nice variety by having the normal Sonic gameplay, and the bosses/guardians were often really fun to fight. Overall, I wouldn't say this is one of my favorite Sonic games, but it's definitely a good one. I'm interested to see how this formula evolves in the future.

After hearing so many negative thoughts, this game surprised me with how much I enjoyed it. It's your typical but enjoyable Zelda adventure but just controlled in a different way. I wasn't sure how big of a fan I'd be of the touchscreen controls, but I rarely found them to be a nuisance, outside of trying to use or switch between items quickly. Instead, they actually allowed for some unique and satisfying puzzles. The Temple of the Ocean King was a little tedious due to how many times you visit it, but luckily you can speed up certain parts as you obtain more items. In the end this was a pleasant, but somewhat flawed, adventure that I'm glad I played.