Two decades later in the world of Skyrim, and eventually, The Elder Scrolls VI, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is still a game worth playing. As the series' first foray into 3D, you will certainly feel its age. As soon as you deal with the graphics (whether through mods or through self discipline), and figure out exactly how combat rolls work, you will be thrown into a vibrant, almost alien world with nothing but the name of some bald dude in a distant city. That's it, get out there; you are immediately handed access to a world filled with interesting quests, guilds, dungeons, exploration, and treasures. In classic The Elder Scrolls fashion, your main storyline involves saving the known world from certain doom, and of the three post 2000 TES games, it has a strong argument for being the best in the series.

If you've only played Skyrim, and to a lesser extent, Oblivion, Morrowind will certainly be a learning experience for you, even as a fan of the series. If you're willing to bear with the ancient systems that run the gameplay, you will find the game to be a unique glimpse into the world of The Elder Scrolls that will reward your creativity and curiosity.

One step forward, $4.99 steps back. The Sims 4 is the update that The Sims 3 needed, with the Sims and artstyle getting a well-needed graphical modernization. Unfortunately, after all of the gameplay features introduced and mastered throughout the series, The Sims 4 has eagerly taken them away to sell them back to you one more time. The game is incredibly barebones without DLC, but if you decide to go down that route, there is usually at least one DLC that will interest you as a Sims player. If you've gotten sick of the aged graphics of The Sims 3 and want a more modern take on the series, the base game is currently free-to-play, but your experience will be limited until you open up the wallet.

Some great divergences from a formula that was previously feeling pretty stale. However, you basically see everything this game has to offer within the first few hours, and then the rest is just... more of that. You'll fight wild pokemon and throw pokeballs, sit through the occasional mind-numbingly easy trainer battle ... 20 hours later, I can't say it's even that much more difficult, let alone deep. The open world is a neat idea, but you don't have many ways to interact with your environment and end up simply running point-to-point over and over. It's a framework for a great game sometime in the unspecified future, but I don't know that there's enough here to keep me engaged.

UPDATE: Returned to the game months later and finished it. Frankly, not worth it. Ending was pretty flaccid. Will check out the postgame though, as I hear it's worth seeing.

Another shorter review for my profiles standards, this time on a game that I haven't touched in well over a decade but still remember like yesterday thanks to nostalgia goggles. The team gimmick is one of the most unique and well-done gimmicks in a Sonic game & the level design uses each strength of the teams to full effect and the music is just fucking awesome. However to get the true ending you not only have to effectively do the same game 4 times via different campaigns (mind you, one of those campaigns turns the game moreso into a fucking Rareware-esque collectathon rather than a Sonic game), but Chaos Emeralds are tied to Special Stages again which have some of the shittiest controls to ever grace a video game, so overall the game has neat ideas with awesome set-pieces that begin to crumble once you realize you have to contend with both extreme tedium and terrible controls to 100% it. I plan on returning to this one in the future to see how exactly it's held up for me since I last played it as a kid (but given how clearly I still remember everything, I'm predicting my opinion won't change much).

Years later, Super Mario Galaxy still has my favorite soundtrack in the entire franchise. Really a fantastic score with a lot of memorable tracks!

Also the Switch port is easily the best version to play the game, I think Nintendo did a fantastic job in remastering the textures and controls where it was necessary. Enjoyed it so much that I went for 100% completion during the release week!

However it's a real shame that the 3D All-Stars trilogy was abandoned by Nintendo, now so many new players will miss out on this great game :(

Maybe I still have a ton to experience and I'm getting ahead of myself but I often think about how few 3D action games I've played that have released over the decades have really made 3D dungeons as good or stimulating as this game's.

Ocarina's dungeons especially the Temples really make use of 3D space and verticality with all sorts of creative or otherwise stimulating puzzles and scenarios of sorts.

I'm sure a lot of specific praise has been said about that already but one thing I feel most people don't appreciate is Ocarina's variety in dungeon layouts. What I mean is most Zelda games 2D or 3D usually have all or most of their dungeons fall into one of three categories (I don't take credit for thinking of these, I'm loosely remembering these from GMTK's Boss Keys series): (1) more complex lock and key find the path dungeons (2) more linear gauntlet style follow the path dungeons and (3) those special puzzle box dungeons where you change a central mechanism of sorts often

Ocarina dungeons have all of these. The Forest Temple is one of the most memorable Lock and Key dungeons in the series. The Shadow Temple is a linear gauntlet. The Water Temple is probably the most infamous puzzle box dungeon as well.

Just between the temples in terms of variety we have:
3 more complex Lock and Key dungeons: Fire Temple, Forest Temple, Water Temple (and Spirit Temple kind of)
1 puzzle box being the Water Temple (Water Temple is kind of a mix of both)
and 2 more linear gauntlets of sorts with the Shadow and Spirit Temple
Most Zelda games have all their dungeons fit into one category with maybe one outlier (most LA/Oracle dungeons are lock and key and I'm pretty sure every Skyward Sword dungeon is a linear gauntlet of more creative puzzles) but Ocarina manages to have this appreciable diversity I feel most of the others don't have (my memory is a bit fuzzy on some like Twilight Princess)

Also wow this game released pretty close to my birthday.

Certainly has a lot going for it over the base game main story, but I don't think this is a masterpiece or anything. A lot of fun enough levels but a lot of half baked or annoying ones too. My favourite levels were honestly the more combat and stealthy levels than the platforming levels.

I'll come back and finish all the levels I haven't done at some point, but for now I'll check out Splatoon 3's main story and see what the praise there is about (or maybe I'll spend another 20hrs in Anarchy haha)

Main Story log (8.5/10)

I liked it more than Octo Expansion overall. The faster paced combat and stealth oriented levels are still my favourites but the platformy ones were more enjoyable this time for me.

But lord, Splatoon story mode's just need lots more enemy types / variety. It's like the main thing preventing them from being something so much greater. Nearly every enemy is some generic Octarian variant we've seen a bunch in previous story modes.

That and having an overworld with more things to do would go a long ways. Alterna is a vibe but none of the Sites besides that one with a bunch of rails really feel that different to be in and explore. Of course the detail in each Site is pretty good, and the buildup to each boss at the top is well done. I just feel like some things are missing.

The diversity, overall design and game feel of the levels in Octo Expansion and Return of the Mammalians are more than appreciable at this point; but the lack of enemy variety is just the main thing I want to see fixed in the Splatoon 3 Expansion.