The double-edged-ness of TTYD runs throughout its very being. A bizarrely crunchy and engaging turn-based/action combat system hybrid, but very little in the main story is going to truly challenge the seasoned player without interfacing with the various methods the game gives the player to create their own challenge mode (and even then you might not ever see a game over screen). A 50/50 gender ratio in the main cast, further bolstered by each of those women being really fun designs with strong personalities, which is then doused by the swamp water that is the tendency for RPG writers to feel the need to make every woman in the main cast be horny for the main protagonist in a really awkward way (like, it's just little old Mario, and he never seems to really welcome any of this affection, literally kissed or accosted with physical affection against his will more times than you count on two hands I'd wager). A strong sense of humor that crumbles under the weight of its desire to constantly be punching down (Vivian is not the great trans representation you've been told she is in the original Japanese script, it's so much worse than you realize). A story that could summed up as a quirky DnD campaign with strong variety both visually and conceptually, it really does transcend what you'd expect from a Mario game... but then it really has nothing cohesive to say in the end, not even an overarching theme or some sort of broad feeling to impart to the player beyond just expecting the player to appreciate the adventure for what it was.

But despite all that it does manage to work, and it's hard to fault Intelligent Systems for really trying to form this into an experience that was probably pushing at the boundaries of what Nintendo was allowing them to get away with, and even the parts I dislike just end up adding to the game's overall sense of character. How many other Mario games portray the issue of casual misogyny within the workplace? How many other Mario games have you participating in organized crime? Much of the experience is cobbled together out of novelty, but it manages to come together in a way that elevates what it even means to be a Mario game.

A lot of people complain about the backtracking, and really, they're not that wrong. Each screen in the game is its own carefully constructed diorama of sorts both in terms of gameplay and visuals, and because of that every chapter is composed of maybe 4 to 6 "major" screens with a varying amount of "minor" screens (that are mostly made up of smaller rooms or houses within towns or villages) and maybe a dungeon that's composer of a handful of screens itself. Some chapters you're basically just gonna be going back and forth through the same screens ad nauseum, and while somebody who has played the game more times than she can count like me is able to see why the game is the way it is, I wouldn't blame anybody if that broke the camel for them.

Anyways, before I wrap this up I'm gonna talk about Vivian, especially because I feel a wave of discourse potentially bubbling up whenever the remake releases. I could probably write a whole detailed essay on Vivian's portrayal, but I'll give the rundown, and if you wanna look into it more yourself, MarioWiki's article on Vivian has probably the most comprehensive set of sources I've seen (I'm sorry I'm lazy about properly formatting sources within my reviews). In the Japanese version she's characterized as a crossdresser (specifically referred to as "otoko no ko"), and it feels mostly played as a joke at Vivian's expense, with that being pretty much the same in the French and Spanish localizations. There's a particularly nasty scene in the second chapter of the Japanese script where Vivian is visibly gutted, unable to defend herself after her sister denies her gender identity; this was replaced for a less extreme, but still clearly abusive conversation about how she's ugly in the English version (with her gender never being called into question). Interestingly, the Italian version's portrayal of Vivian is the bravest with it not only acknowledging her womanhood and retaining her transness (which was effectively just dropped in the English and German scripts), but also reworking the entire scenario where her sister denies her gender identity into one where Vivian stands up for herself and proclaims her pride for " having become a woman". As well in the Italian version, the Tattle Log and in-menu text ostensibly refer to her as a woman or with feminine terminology (whereas even the in-menu text in the Japanese version seemingly mocks her by referring to her with masculine terminology).

The upcoming remake's English script will probably retain the "ambiguity" of the original localization (I say ambiguity because tbh that's a bias a lot of people still have, where they assume the lack of explicitly textual queerness implies the the character is cishet, but that's a discussion for another time), though there are explicit changes to the script that have already been shown, so there's some hope that the English script could even adapt aspects of the original's Italian script within the framework of modern sensibilities.

Either way, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is beloved for a reason, and even among its own ilk it stands out both in gameplay and aesthetic. I still don't find myself really longing for another one like it, the older I get the more I just appreciate experiences for what they are. Sure, games like Sticker Star or Color Splash are vapid simulacrums of their predecessors, but I don't really feel personally attacked by their mere existence. TTYD still exists, and regardless of whether we get the mythical True TTYD Sequel, TTYD's existence is immutable. Our lives are short, and the love we're able to extract from our experiences is ephemeral; it's better to just enjoy what we have while we have it than chase after a high that would never be able to live up to nostalgia-soaked memories anyways.

(6-year-old's review, typed by her dad)

I met a goat guy 3 times. He had a long beard and I just felt weird.

[Dad's note: She had her tonsils out the same day TotK came out, so she was in a semi-delirious state when she insisted on reviewing the game. I was very impressed that she still managed to get through a couple shrines on her own!]

Limbo, at the time of its Windows release around 2012, was one of those titles I had no idea existed, until I played it at a friend's place on PC. Main reason for that was that I really wasn't interested in new games.
My latest device was a GBA for ages and I still managed to find games on old machines to complete, whilst my imagination of modern games was mostly 3D design and overwhelming input with complicated controls and the need to invest loads of time and concentration. And Wii games usually too casual on the other hand.

Though I'm really into old and b/w movies, so having no aversion like many of the younger folks do, the simple but beautiful grey scale design inspired by German Expressionism wasn't what caught my attention in the first place. Actually, because of the title, I had expected a dancing game.
My love with Limbo began, when I was forced to take the pad in hand to play.
It just feels so natural exploring the eerie landscape and dive deeper into physics of a sombre, unknown territory. It's kind of a modern take on the old days, when you put in Pitfall or Jungle Hunt. That have been really crude graphics, but enough to trigger your imagination adding up to adventures larger than life.

The moment you gruesomely die and don't want the nightmare to end is when you realize you're hooked. I guess it must have been when I had to find out how to get past a huge spider that literally pierced me over and over again.
I never finished Limbo that day though and here is where the Nintendo Switch version comes into play. I got introduced to the Switch at the same friend's house, but never got one myself until the OLED version was unleashed. Now looking for games and Limbo being on discount was the ideal moment.

I know things have happened since Limbo's release, like danish programmers Playdead released their follow up Inside. But a great game has to stay at least a good game no matter how much time has passed.
Now, I always liked puzzles and platforming. I guess if you liked to play something as Kwirk or Plok like me, you can understand where Limbo clicks into connection here.

It's not breathless action until maybe the final sections, so what I like is I can usually slow down between tasks and think what I want to do. And even if not, it's very pleasant you can run into it until you pass. The save points are very convenient, so there's usually little to memorize, compared to back in the day, when Jump'n'Runs expected you to learn complete level designs, having you fall back to the start for any lethal mistake.

Old platformers are sometimes awfully short if you look back at them, but with that system it took a while to master them.
But Limbo's being comfortable makes it also appear not too complex. Sure, you've got to take your time to internalize the mechanics, like how to move with a friggin maggot stuck into your head, having an influence on control, but that's part of the learning curve. Next obstacle with a maggot, you have another task to worry about.

Actually, I had to look up information to find out the game is supposed to draw interpretations from the sentence „Uncertain of his sister's fate, a boy enters Limbo“. I just checked and it doesn't show up in the game. However, whilst Limbo itself doesn't suffer in quality depending on that knowledge, it would have helped to understand what the ending was about. Not that it really is any more specific than the bestiary and people, live or dead, you meet while manipulating objects or even physics along the way.

Though the ending felt a little underwhelming as a reward, it's the overall experience distinguishing Limbo as the brilliant adventure it is.
Having in mind it started out with just Arnt Jensen and some sketched out ideas in 2004 until he met Dino Patti via internet campaign to then establish Playdead and finance the project, Limbo is a very refined and thought through debut plenty of publishers wish they could offer.

I'm still about to play Inside, but judging from the reviews, Playdead managed to build upon that success.
Even if it will be hard to reverse engineer that initial experience when you already played newer games inspired by Limbo, I'd still highly suggest picking it up anyway.
Compared to titles like Dream Alone whose traps seem just to be designed to piss you off, Limbo has that almost flawless quality to really put you into the zone.

As mentioned above, Limbo really helped me to rebuild trust in the gaming industry. I don't know if it really had that much of an impact, but it was a door opener to find more gems hidden under what appeared to me as a surface of uninteresting next gen titles. Call me an old fart, who doesn't even use added save options, if the original didn't have one, but I've got certain schematics of what I like, represented by Tomb Raider putting an end to platforming games finally back then. I mainly played racing games after that, though GBA was enough of a throwback to pull me in.

I'm actually very happy that I could find entertainment in new titles and mechanics. In the end, there are games like Limbo out there that also got me to enjoy some of the comforts established over the years. So much, that for instance in Point'n'Click adventures, I start to avoid old games with mechanics way too complicated, after games like Strangeland showed me it doesn't have to be that way.
As the revelation Limbo was to me, I should probably give it five stars for the conversion it started.

The first 2-3 hours of inscryption are wonderful. A creepy, thoroughly atmospheric dive in this weird, creepy card game, played in a small little cabin against some weird guy who pantomines the parts of the bosses and kills you with a camera at the end. There's so many little touches in this part, and coming off the table and solving all the little puzzles of the cabin with an aim to escape/win, its awesome. There's a great occult, macabre vibe to it all, and then it all comes together for a neat resolution as you and your talking cards hatch a plan.

Its sad for me to say that whilst it would have been dissapointing in it's own right, the game would have been better stopping right there. It would have left me wanting way, way more and the game would come out at about an hour and a half long, but that's a better world than the one we live in.

Because Inscryption really just could not help itself from going down the creepypasta meta rabbit hole for the latter two thirds of it's runtime. It's not as bad as the dev's previous game Pony Island and is presented pretty well, but is ultimately just way less endearing and interesting than the first act.

Sadly the game also gets less mechanically interesting. Part of this is definetly a psychological element - i'm less interested in getting into the minutae of the mechanics when its obvious the game's now committed to throwing the baby out with the bathwater every 20 minutes, but I also think there's an elegance to the creature sacrifice emphasis of the first act that nothing that comes after comes close to matching.

I understand there is meant to be a point to this, at least somewhat, as the soulful roleplay-driven gameplay gives way to more mechanically deep or whatever gameplay, but I do think it just falls flat and the non-card gameplay of the latter sections are particularly weak in comparison.

And the story? It's thankfully told with fantastic production values and editing and is pretty well paced, and pulls those good old 4th wall meta game tricks which honestly im a bit tired of by now even if they're very cute in this one. But it's just really not interesting and there's not really much more to it than Sonic.exe at the end of the day. It's well told and the presentation is outright incredible throughout, but on a personal level it's really just where I wish the story didn't go after such an incredible opening.

It also really drags near the end. The final section prior to the ending is way too fucking long and not much even happens in the story. If it didn't so blatantly feel like a "final act" I probably would have dropped it about halfway through.

So yeah, if I stopped playing the game after 2 hours the score here would probably be a 4.5/5, maybe even a 5 if i was feeling particularly generous. And it's not like the rest of the game is offensively bad or anything, it's just profoundly dissapointing, especially in the light of what's clearly a mountain of effort and attention to detail that's gone into it that feels in service of completely the wrong way for the game to go.

Inscryption truly took me down the rabbit hole. I wish it didn't bother.