Alright let's get some Balatro thoughts down, since I doubt I'll return to it. I put in 20-30 hours and completed up through orange stake, but not gold. Didn't mess with the challenges much but they seemed fun. For me, this is a really well-designed, fun and addictive rogue-like/lite/who cares (I know there are people who care about the like/lite distinction, but I sure don't, sorry). Like most rogue-likes (all that I've played), there's never really a satisfying ending, I just play and play more and more runs, and everything in the game slowly becomes more and more routine and less novel. Eventually the fun wears away and so I just unceremoniously end my session one day and never pick it back up. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with some games working like this, but it does make it so by the time I'm through with it my opinion has soured a little since I've played it until I'm burnt out and not enjoying it anymore. I end up quitting rogue-likes sooner than I used to do that I can avoid that feeling, I wasn't truly burnt out on Balatro, but I was starting to see the signs, IE: I didn't want to play out my run if I didn't get the upgrades I wanted right away, I preferred to just restart.

Anyway, if you're on this website reading this, you probably already know what Balatro is and why people like it, so I'll just say, yeah they're right, it's a well designed game. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

So much of this game is basically the same as the first one, one of the most similar sequels separated by 10 years ever made. But I love the first game, so that's okay. There's not really anything like these two games. The most interesting thing about them to me is that they seem to be part old-school dungeon crawlers where you explore the dungeon while managing your party's resources/health and making decisions about how far you want to go before turning back, but here the dungeon is a big open world. I love the atmosphere of this game, and of course the combat system. I agree with the common criticismthat better enemy variety would be a huge improvement, but the combat is strong enough that I still always had fun just tearing through the enemies they gave me. And it's a shame the graphical performance isn't better. But the other common criticisms are virtually all incorrect, the story is neat and also minimal because this game isn't mainly about story, it's about exploration and combat. The obtuse systems are fun and interesting. The fast travel system makes the game more deliberately paced, and makes journeys more considered and rewarding. Dragon's Dogma 2 isn't for everyone, but I had a wonderful experience playing it.

This game is really neat! The story is compelling and fun, the art style is unique, and the puzzles are interesting. I know this is a visual novel and with that comes a somewhat slower pace than other things, but sometimes I became impatient watching the character animations, I just wanted to be able to move around. But it's not a major problem by any means, and the cartoony animations give the game a lot of its charm so I'm not sure I would change that aspect even if I could. Anyway, it's a fun time, glad to have finally gotten around to playing it

The story and the plan the villains have is like, really really far-fetched and impractical, but that's okay. Some incredible moments happen in this game, the sort of main story "date" you have in particular is truly well done, in the upper echelon of "cinematic" video game cut scenes, which maybe isn't saying too much. Ryuji was a really great villain, the cutscenes around the last fight with him rules, the fight was a bit of a joke with weapons/heat actions but that's okay because the fighting in these games is just serviceable to me anyway, not really the main reason I play them. Anyway I'm excited to play Infinite Wealth in 5 years when I catch up to it

Within the opening minutes of this game, as the simple synthesized electronic soundtrack played and the 2D portraits posed on my screen, I felt nostalgia wash over me. THIS is the Ace Attorney series I love. It's not the strongest entry in the series, but the twisty mysteries and quirky characters are all present. To me the series lost something in the transition to 3D, the models felt more lifeless than the comic-like 2D portraits, the more orchestra-centric soundtrack was good but had less character than the simpler electronic versions of those songs. Great Ace Attorney in particular felt more wordy than ever, with every element excruciatingly over explained, in this already very wordy series. Investigations too feels long in the tooth by the end, but I enjoyed my time with it, and I loved returning to an earlier stylistic era of the series. I'm looking forward to playing the fan translation of Investigations 2.

Phoenix Wright > Trials and Tribulations > Justice For All > Apollo Justice > Investigations 1 > Spirit of Justice > Dual Destinies > GAA2 > GAA1 > Layton x Phoenix Wright

Remarkable game, one of the smoothest, coolest action games I've ever played.

Really just a hair's breadth away from 5 stars for me, mostly left it at 4.5 because of the final boss. It's not that the final boss is bad, but in a sense the difficulty on that particular fight was a little too high in my opinion. It's definitely doable, with your age charm if you get in young enough, you can have a bunch of chances, it's just kind of frustrating, not so fun to keep dying and reviving, dying and reviving, and only be able to beat him this way. I know you can "get good" and beat him in fewer tries, but it's a little overly difficult to do so, to the point where it would lose the fun for me.

Anyway, I really loved this one, the atmosphere rules, the combat is so satisfying, the level design is neat. That museum level is so cool.

It has all the flaws and strengths of another Uncharted, these games have barely changed since the first one. They've been refined, but the formula is still very much the same, even if they try and do a mini open world segment in this one. Chloe's character is maybe better than Nathan, but overall the writing really was annoying me, the banter just feels by the numbers at times, I don't need the constant snark, the tone of these games kind of drives me crazy. If I replayed earlier games in the series, I'd probably feel worse about them than I did when I originally played them.I finished the wild end set piece, and then Chloe says, "We just did a thing." and I really was rolling my eyes. Still hard to deny some of the things these games do so well, the big spectacle parts, the way dialogue fits seamlessly into exploration without really ever being cutoff because you're going too fast or whatever, that stuff can be very impressive. As always, these games are so unbelievable, the graphics and details are so realistic but then you just are constantly performing superhuman feats of climbing and it can feel kind of strange to have a game being both very realistic and completely impossible. The loose controls of the games, the way the jumps and climbing are semi automated, has never been my favorite, but it works well for what they're going for, with tighter movement controls, the movement and climbing wouldn't be able to look as lifelike and realistic looking. I just prefer more video gamey video games, less movie-like video games. It seems like they might be done making these for a while, but if Uncharted comes back, I think I'm probably done with the series

A new Zelda! This game is so long. Too long, I was really getting sick of it by the end. But it's partly on me for doing too much side content, I really did not have to do every single shrine. In fact, I feel like this one and Breath of the Wild before it are much much stronger games if you don't do every shrine, don't explore every nook and cranny. This game is a huge improvement over breath of the wild in a lot of ways, the dungeons are tons better, there are so many more traversal capabilities open to you, there is more variety in general, the main powers you get are more interesting. The main thing it doesn't have over BotW is novelty. For me, the first 20 hours or so of BotW was a remarkable experience, but by the end I was so familiar with the game and it felt really stale. This game gives tons of new stuff so it's exciting to play it, but it can't completely revive the novelty when so much of the world and the format is recycled from BotW, and I had played that game to death. And much like BotW, it feels stale by the end, if you want to do everything there's too much repetition, I never want to carry a crystal to a shrine again. The ending of this game though, pretty cool stuff. Much cooler than BotW. Some of it is corny, but Gannondorf is real cool.

Anyway, sorry but I still miss the old Zelda.

I've played Control, a bit of Max Payne, and now Alan Wake. As a game, Alan Wake is janky and a little repetitive but still suspenseful and thrilling, and short enough that its flaws aren't too much of an issue. As a story, it feels like it might fall apart if I think too hard about it, but that's okay because it is a fun, interesting premise. Sam Lake's writing style feels familiar and cliche, but also unique and singular all at once. Most of the characters feel a little thin, but Alan is really intriguing as a protagonist, he just feels like a guy, not particularly likable but not too awful either. The central mystery and backstory are interesting, and though there are lots of uncanny valley moments throughout the cinematic horror adventure, overall the presentation feels inventive. They were really trying to do things that most video games weren't doing, that most video games still don't do. Alan Wake has themes, has symbolism, has a morally murky protagonist who is neither fully anti hero or hero. It ends before too long also, which is nice, though I personally would try to see if I could lose 2-3 hours if I were "recutting" this game, I was starting to get just a tad bored by the end.

Overall I had a very good time with most of this one, looking forward to trying out the sequel eventually.

I like Mario, what can I say! They still know how to make these games, this is another good one. I think people saying it's easily the best 2D Mario are maybe being a little hyperbolic, but it is a great game filled with joyful moments. Outside of the final 100% challenge levels and a handful of others, this game was very easy for me, I would have liked it a little tougher, but I understand that I'm poisoned by difficult Mario Maker and SMW rom hacks. Also I wish there was a little bit less "this is for little kids" vibes to a lot of Mario, which I feel has become a little more prevalent starting around Mario Sunshine maybe, but I understand as well that Mario has always been for all ages. I'm not saying Mario needs to ultra mature or anything, I just don't need a flower telling me "great job" every time a make a jump. But it's not enough to ruin the game or anything by any means. Lots of great creativity on display throughout this game, really fun!