This was my first time playing a From Software game. The unforgiving nature and the lack of sign posting draws you in immediately. The setting of Yharnam is incredibly well realised, making it one of the more believable and immersive worlds I've played in a game, despite its increasingly horrifying and bizarre nature.

The game draws you in beautifully to uncovering its mysteries, deeper into a tangled web of horrors, all in a world with discrete levels that overlap and tangle into each other in a believable and engaging way. Monsters straddle the line between horrifying and absurd, and the creativity in this worlds gothic cities, tangled woods and beyond is very impressive.

I love how it draws you into being aggressive, giving you almost entirely offensive tools. There's a real sense of progression in running away from enemies and bosses with tail tucked between your legs, to finally feeling confident enough to face them head on.

I admire this game a lot, and I really enjoyed my time with it. I find it hard to say I love it though, purely because I'm not a big fan of being scared. Yharnam's an incredible world but it's one I have to force myself to go back to. I'm always glad I did though.

Very interesting and strange game to reflect on in hindsight. I read the story about its rough development cycle, and that reflects in the game. It can feel rushed, packed full of ideas that you move through fairly quickly.

I love Columbia as a contrast to Rapture, a place of unnerving joy and spectacle rather than sunken decay, but both certain in their superiority over the rest of the world. The presentation is fantastic, and the game's opening, the rescue of Elizabeth, and later sequences have a wonderful sense of scale, imagination, and gorgeous characters and setting. It's just messy. The further away I get from this game, the more I remember individual moments, but not the whole story.

I really admire this game's balls to the wall approach, and I love its cinematic quality, its world, its main pairing of Booker and Elizabeth. Combat is still fun despite being simplified, and enemies like the motorized patriots are wonderfully bonkers. It's just wildly inconsistent, which I like, but also find it hard to fully recommend.

A very enjoyable sequel that somewhat lives in the first game's shadow. I know this is some people's favourite game, and I understand why, but it never click with me in the same way. Nothing in the game really captivates me like the original.

It makes some nice improvements to the original's gameplay, although the remote hacking is actually worse for me with my red green colour blindness! Playing as Big Daddy, the Little Sister sections, as well as the drill and rivet gun, are all nicely done. The Big Sisters are a fun challenge too, and a necessary escalation all things considered.

I don't know though. The story, the characters, the world, it all plays second fiddle to the original for me, even now. It doesn't quite have that wow factor. There are a few great moments that I won't spoil. I'm also yet to play Minvera's Den, which I understand is pretty great. But yeah, it doesn't grab me as much as 1 or Infinite, despite being perhaps the most consistent of the three.

I downloaded the demo for this when it was released, and was blown away by it in a way very few games have managed. It was beautiful beyond any game I'd seen at the time, but also far more weird, interesting and scary. There's a cinematic quality to the opening level that is timeless and compelling every time I play it.

That never stops, from Steinman's Medical Pavilion to Fort Frolic, the game has a knack for creating unnerving characters and moments, framed just right to make you afraid, but all the more curious to push on. Uncovering the stories of the world, through the storylines and audio diaries, is fascinating.

Rapture itself, despite it's decay, feels like a living world with how it allows you to manipulate its machines and enemies. Weapons and plasmids have a fun amount of customization, leading to some memorably creative and unpredictable battles.

It's not a perfect game by any stretch, with the last few chapters being a noticeable drop off in quality. But I'm impressed every time I go back how good this game still is. It's art deco art direction, style, cinematic quality and creativity make up for what flaws it has.

Enjoyable dungeon crawler with an amusingly twisted cartoon design. There's an addictive quality to seeing what each run through will grant you. The religious overtones and disgusting designs of the bosses are a lot of fun to find, too. After a while I found myself seeing the same bosses fairly often, not all of them particularly fun. The gameplay is fun but I found Isaac a bit awkward to control. I never really moved on to the later huge expansions to the game, but I can understand why people get so addicted to this game, even if it didn't spur me on much further.

One of my favourite games as a child, and one I can still revisit fondly every now and then. The offbeat cartoon style of this game gives it a lasting charm - its humour, characters and music.

There's a nice readable simplicity to the simple colours and level design. Each level is perfectly sized, just large enough for each concept to feel fully fleshed out without becoming overstretched. I never felt overwhelmed with collecting because there was enough variety and fun in the platforming to make it feel worth it. Each level has distinct character and soundtrack, with my favourites being Treasure Trove Cove and Freezeezy Peak.

Banjo and Kazooie have a nice moveset that amusingly compliments their design as a duo. The sprinting and flying I remember being a little awkward to control, but that was common at the time. The camera has similar issues. The game is far from unplayable though, and worth a look, especially on Rare Replay or something like that.