For the longest time, I didn't understand the point of representation in media. I didn't get why it was such a big deal for POC to get their spotlight, spewing the same falsities like, "if they were more talented, they would get the parts." I realized soon that a big reason I was turned off by the idea of representation was because I never felt represented by media almost ever. Seeing Black, East Asian, Hispanic, among many, many other cultures slowly get their limelight in western content is beautiful, but I started to feel a little sad by the lack of good Indian representation in media, ever. The closest we've gotten until this year was Hasan Minhaj's presence in comedy and that's, pretty much it for anything in terms of positive representation. That's not the same this year.

Firstly, we had Across the Spider-verse, and Pavitr Prabhakar. It was beautiful to see someone who clearly inspired by the culture of my country and embodies it in a way that shows reverence to that culture play such a major role in a massively popular film. His dialogue was clearly written by someone that was Indian (proven by the fact that Karan Soni, his VA, oversaw the writing of his character) and it shows in the jokes he makes and the way he talks. It made me feel really happy seeing him on the big screen.

Then we have this, which is about the best thing I could ever ask for. It's a celebration of the food I grew up eating (albeit in this case with meat but it's not too different) and my Tamil heritage. It's a love letter to the experience that so many parents and their children face; moving to the west in search for a better life for their kids, only for the children to feel a culture shock and not know what they want to be. I, personally, struggled a lot (and still do) with my identity and my culture, whether it be me having to learn to be more open about the Indian food I brought to school every day, or how I still struggle to get people to pronounce my name right and default to the "white" way to say it. Seeing that story (one that is absolutely not unique to me) told in a game made me tear up multiple times. Seeing the struggle that both Venba and Paavalan go through just to raise their kid in the best way possible reminded me of my own parents and the struggles I imagine they have to go through in raising me. It's a deeply personal story that I connected with on every level and makes me so happy that a story like this is being brought to wider audiences.

Do I have gripes with the game? Yes. It's simply too short for the $15 price tag, and I think the game could have benefited with more meat on its bones. Does that change the fact that this game in the way it exists right now means a lot to me and will be one I cherish for the foreseeable future and hopefully the rest of my life? No, not at all. I'm thankful for this game existing, and hope that it can serve as proof that the stories of my people deserve to be told.

Time to go eat some god damn dosa.

Basically the metroidvania for me: someone who's not great at action but loves puzzles and exploration. The atmosphere of this game is immaculate, with such a unique visual style to it that really shows the attention to detail put into the game. The world overall is very well designed, with only a select few places where I struggled to figure out what to do, and its well connected enough to where backtracking never felt annoying (altho now that im beginning my postgame egg hunt, that opinion may change). Overall an extremely well made game that can be added to the collection of "games that make me feel incompetent as a developer cuz this guy made something this good all on his own."

This is not a perfect game. A good 60% of the shrines are not very good, the divine beasts all are really boring, the final boss is a bit underwhelming, the random yiga clan fights get really annoying after a while, etc etc. I could go on about the little nitpicky things that bother me about this game, but I dont care anymore. It may have bothered me at hour 10 of playing the game, but at hour 35 at the time of me beating the game for the first time, I feel nothing but pure joy. In fact I'm crying writing this right now because the epilogue rendition of the LOZ main theme decided to go so incredibly hard.

This is one of the most immersive worlds I've ever experienced, and one of very few where I can derive enjoyment just from running around doing literally nothing. Everything from the way the weather affects you based on your currently equipped item to how you move slower in certain terrain, everything is hand crafted to make this world feel as real as possible, and it works. Its clear where the vision of this game lies and with that idea in mind the game passes with flying colors. Its unmatched in its worldbuilding only really beaten by Shadow of the Colossus for me which I can barely compare because the vibe of the world in the 2 games are so drastically different.

The way the story is told here is also magnificent. Theres not much story actively happening, you spend most of your time piecing together what happened, figuring out what got the world to the state it is in. All 4 of the champions and especially the memories do such a good job of telling the story of what happened to Hyrule and I was wholely invested.

All in all, when a game is this good at doing what its setting out to do, I can set aside the few flaws it may have. Its such a drastically different experience for a Zelda game and an experience I've never had with pretty much any game. I may prefer the 2 N64 Zelda titles to this but this is pure mastery of the craft of game design right here and I'm kind of mad it took me so long for it to finally click for me. 10 out of fucking 10.

This is the best game.

A culmination of fantastic storytelling, engaging and challenging gameplay, a beautiful soundtrack, great visuals (atleast on the PC version), all tied together to make a game thats fundamentally changed the way I view the world around me.

I've had this as my backloggd favorite mostly because I couldn't pick between my 3 favorite games but I think I'm solid on this one being my favorite of the 3. The amount of hype I have for the sequel is unreal.

If you've seen my backloggd profile or know me any amount, you would know that The Talos Principle is my favorite game of all time. A game that's fundamentally changed the way I interact with this medium and also just, changed my life in general honestly, so to say I was excited at the prospect of a sequel is an understatement.

The common throughline for me is that most of the game just feels underbaked. Doesn't feel like enough is given the time of day to shine, and just when it starts to get nearly close to as good as the first game, it's basically over. The gold door puzzles are without a doubt the best 12 levels in the game, which sucks because the final level is just as underdeveloped as the rest of the game is. Having one gimmick per area doesn't really allow for any of them to develop nearly as much as the 5 gimmicks of the main game, leading to worlds that all feel like tutorials for the new gimmick and nothing more.

The stars are almost completely neutered, with maybe 2 of them capturing the same feeling as the original stars in interacting with the world as much as I can in order to solve a macro scaled puzzle that leads me to the star. The prometheus and sphinx stars are especially weak, considering the former are all chase sequences and the latter being extremely bare bones find and interact a little thingy to get the star.

The story, while still good in its own right, doesn't come nearly as close to as good as the first game. Where the original had its told almost entirely through subtext, with the more juicy and frankly important elements all being essentially optional, this game does the opposite and pushes it as much as possible, to where it's the central focus of the game, which doesn't work nearly as well. The overwhelming mass of characters feels painfully unnecessary, especially when only like 2 of them actually matter in the end, with the rest only existing to exist and throw occasional quips at you (although I do like how each character does have their own political viewpoints and that its cool to see how each character interprets the current situation and what they think makes sense as a next move).

Overall, I really expected more than what was received, which in all fairness is partly my fault. Going in with the expectation of a game being the sequel to my literal favorite game is too high, but too much here feels like they're desperately trying to fix something that wasn't ever broken.

Yea i don't know, it's just really fucking good. I think my only real issues is that the bossfights are a massive difficulty spike compared to everything else but that's also very a much a skill issue on my end as I'm not an action game player very often. Raccoon City PD is such a good main setting for the game, and the stress of paying attention to where Mr. X could be at any point while trying to get where you need to be just works so well to emphasize the stressful atmosphere the game is trying to develop. Every area felt like its own little Zelda dungeon and as a huge Zelda fan, I absolutely loved it.

I kind of wanted this to be the last game I beat for the year so that I could start and end the year with Ninja Gaiden/Ninja Gaiden-likes but I have other games I plan on beating soon so lol. I do think I would have liked this more if I had played it before trying out The Messenger, because that game does so much to subvert its genre that it makes a game like this (just the platforming and action elements fine tuned as much as possible) seem worse than it actually is. Overall I think the game is just, really good, with my only real issue being that it starts a bit slow and sandbags, showing off its most fun and interesting ideas in the second half of the game. Also the movement until you start unlocking more and more stuff like sprinting can feel a bit slow but once you unlock your full moveset, the game feels incredible to play. Definitely worth your time if you are a fan of the genre.

Edit Edit: Based on a comment from the writer themselves they are NOT actually in support of peterson and blah blah blah im not going to rewrite what they said here but its all good news hence the score is back and im back to shilling this game constantly lol

I've always been a massive sucker for the subset of games that are modern revivals of classic games. As a lover of games on older consoles, it's always really cool to see how developers decide to bring those types of games back to the modern day and how they improve on them while still keeping it recognizable as inspired by the games from years and years ago. I think out of all those games that I've played; this is the best one. Ninja Gaiden is already a game I did enjoy, and a game that has also not aged as badly (key word AS) as I think a lot of games from that era have, and the Messenger perfectly adds to the core gameplay style to make it feel in line with modern platformers. Even the minute addition of attacking while moving adds so much to the fluidity of the game, and that's not even including the myriad of new abilities that you're given that let you feel like the greatest ninja on the planet. Now take into account that the game is actually a metroid-vania, lets you time travel on the fly, makes use of all its mechanics to the absolute fullest possible in super creative ways, has a plethora of super memorable areas and especially bosses (the chase scene right before the final area is one of the best sequences in any game period), and is also the FUNNIEST game you'll ever play but knows when to be heartfelt, and you have a package that I think is pretty much unbeatable in its genre. I cannot wait to play the DLC and continue to replay this game over and over again until the end of time, it's truly something special.