The original Animal Crossing is an interesting case study to me, considering that I've spent plenty of time playing the games after this (Wild World, New Leaf, and New Horizons) before coming back to the source. Right away, I can tell that the sauce is there but it's nowhere as polished as its successors. For example, you can't immediately submit fossils to the museum because Blathers isn't confident enough in his fossil certification; instead, you have to write up a letter, attach the fossil to the letter, and mail it off to the museum to get identified before it gets mailed back, and you also have to wait a day before finding your first fossil before you can mail it off to boot. There's other little things too, like Nook's Cranny being a bit "luck-based" in what tools they'll choose to sell to you first, so you might not get the chance to fish on the first day if it's not being sold, or how the Able Sisters aren't actually selling clothing in the original, just acting as a stand-in for custom designs that are more fully integrated in the sequels. Oh, and there are goddamn mosquitos everywhere that really love to bite me while I'm fishing for coelacanths and harvesting my daily money rock; I swear my budget Ico should have gotten West Nile virus by now considering how many times he's been bit over the past couple of weeks.

And yet, it's in these imperfections and its distinct vibe that the original carves out its niche. Unlike its successors, everyone in the village you move to is at best indifferent and at worst somewhat hostile and cynical of you, the newbie moving in. They don't make any attempts to hide it really; the villagers constantly joke about how they would never forget you when you load up your game again, and some even saw me as this kind of pestilence that existed and wanted nothing to do with whenever I tried chatting them up to see if I could do them any favors. The only guy in town who seems to give a damn about you is a raccoon who is more or less exploiting you for free labor. And yet, there's something oddly comforting about this and the "lack" of things to do in the original Animal Crossing when compared to the games that came after. I never felt like I was being rushed towards some light at the far end of the tunnel or felt disappointed that I didn't make enough progress to hit the next checkpoint, or even a need to make myself presentable and affable to those around me. If they didn't care, why should I? There's a million things to do in New Leaf and New Horizons that kept pushing me forward, and contrary to that, the lack of ambition in the original kept me rooted in the simple daily tasks; I was content just fishing to my heart's desire, having nothing to prove and no one to prove anything to. I may be done with Animal Crossing for now, but I can appreciate how it lets you forget about life for a while. It doesn't need to be something flashy or aspiring: it just is.

the "huge innovation that is finally bringing 2d mario back from the grave!" in question:

sorry it's fine it's not a bad game at all but any time I think about going back to play more I just don't really want to do it, feels like sludge content. I guess for kids it's better sludge content than like Roblox or whatever but it feels like there's nothing to even latch on to here if this Isn't your first platformer ever. There's like 2 bottomless pits in this entire game like wtf. Absolutely nothing to mechanically engage with besides the inherent fun in controlling the character which is as good as it's always been, which is part of the problem if you have ever played literally any other 2d mario game. Sometimes there'll be like a really hard side level and usually those are a bit more fun but from the 4 or 5 worlds I played there wasn't like a single goldilocks level, on the normal world the hard levels are "you might die like 2 times" hard and the special world was Balls hard enough to feel way too jarring coming from the main levels and just feel annoying.

Flower gimmicks are neat but ultimately they are gimmicks and it doesn't take long for them to iterate on every idea they had for it and for them to start repeating and getting super played out. Why is there so much bloat between levels, I remember someone posting something about how like dying is quicker since you're not booted back to the map, but every time you enter a new world which happens like every 30 minutes you've gotta spam through a bunch of dialogue written for 8 year olds, why is there so much dialogue in a mario game literally all of them have the same story that can be explained in 2 seconds why are we doing this.

really, feels like the first mario game that i'm just too old for or whatever. feels incredibly bizarre to see heaps and heaps of praise and calls for GOTY on what is functionally just another new soup game with some bells and whistles added lol. extremely extremely safe game, i mean maybe im stupid for expecting even the slightest deviance otherwise from a big budget AAA mario game released a couple months after the movie but whatever

A surprisingly sad journey into ethnic dilution and cultural identity. Playing out like a visual novel, the personable story is the attraction here as we uncover the highs and lows of an Indian family who have immigrated to Canada. How a child growing up in a foreign country feels apprehensive about displaying their ethnic background, only to soon realise that they should've embraced the culture their parents bestowed upon them all those years ago. It's actually really moving.

Player interaction comes from cooking and learning about South-Indian cuisine in between the narrative time jumps. While these little puzzles are presented with such authenticity, they are perhaps too basic and limited in the mechanical department. It's basically clicking ingredients in the right order. Now I'm not expecting 'Cooking Mama' level of chopping ingredients, stirring broths etc. but to really sell this as an interactive experience it just needed more involvement. Due to how short the story is - exacerbated by the fleeting time jumps which can diminish the core emotion - it just about gets away with it.

Delectably tender in the middle, but undercooked round the edges.

From all the other Metroidvanias that had been released at the time, this one stood out from the crowd. There was something about this game's art direction is that drove me to download it, and ever since I beat it, I'll never forget the experience that was my first playthrough of this game. Hollow Knight from the very start drops you in with no questions asked. You're a lone knight in this dark and depressing world filled with many creatures and things you have no way of knowing what could be around the next corner. It's the mysterious factor of the game along with the atmospheric soundtrack that draws you in and keeps you exploring for hours on end. Like most Metroidvanias, you will get more abilities the more you progress making the adventure smoother the more you play, but the game in turn also gets harder. You'll notice immediately when you die and realize that you lost all your currency, you'll probably end up scrambling back to get to where you died to collect it all again only to have died again, meaning that past soul with all your currency is gone. It stings, but it's something you'll learn throughout the game, the fact being that it won't hold your hand. It respects the player enough to check their surroundings and pick and choose their battles carefully. It's not the best I've played in terms of design but for their first time attempting this genre, they nailed it.

Pretty dang cool mystery/graphic adventure game! Nothing particularly crazy or groundbreaking here, just an intriguing small-town mystery polished to a sheen that you can play in a sitting or two. Love the way this game does branching paths like a Choose Your Own Adventure book too, not something you see too much outside of visual novels.

I've got some minor gripes (protip if you dont like the narrator's va's weird mic you can mute them and it doesnt hurt the game at all) but this is generally a really solid mystery game, especially if you're getting it thru gamepass. Crazy how every small town furry mystery game inspired in some part by Twin Peaks is better than the one that made the biggest waves