You can tell that this game takes a lot of inspiration from The Legend of Zelda. It's obvious. Main character in a green tunic. And it's fun that way, puzzles that aren't totally obvious, a fully defined overworld, bosses. The puzzle element of this game is fun, as is trying to figure out the story and what to do. The combat is miserable, however - even with the reduced combat difficulty option the combat is brutal and you die very easily. This difficulty holds the game back, but not so much that it's not worth playing (there is even an option for invincibility if combat is not for you). Worth checking out, in my opinion.

This adorable game starts very strong with a decent premise, interesting-at-first characters, and cute but fun management sim. You progress for a while, and at some point the game blurs over into trying to be both a management sim and a story rich game, but kind of failing to be both as the two components of the game stop being intertwined. The end of the game also has lots of bloat, where you're just waiting for time to pass so you can check guests in and out, when there's nothing else to do. Also shout out to the worst cooking minigame I've ever played in my life.

Despite me ragging on this game though, I can't really rate it lower than "eh". There is an absolute gem of an idea somewhere in here, it just gets lost along the way. If you were to stop playing the story part of the game once Barbara asks you for 50000G, and not grind out all the buildings to maximum completion, you're probably better off for it. I'm hoping that the game does update, because I wish I'd seen more from what I played.

Uh oh! This game is not good! I always find that people grossly exaggerate how buggy video games are (Skyrim being the de facto example) and I think they exaggerate it in this game too. There were a couple of weird moments like a Quagsire spawning randomly in every room I went to when I fast traveled inside the school, and some very questionable collision detection, but these things left little impact on my gaming experience with Pokemon Violet.

What did kind of sour my time with this game was just how absolutely dead the world felt. Next to none of the towns felt lively or meaningful. There was no world scaling, so even though the game was open world, it felt like there was an intended order in mind, and I'm a little bitter about that. I'll take it compared to hand-holding, but I felt like I really didn't have freedom to explore that much, and when I did explore, there was very little to find that was actively rewarding.

And I mean, it's Pokemon. A great franchise but other than possibly Unova, it's hardly known for being the pinnacle of video game writing and atmosphere. But something in this game just feels.. so extremely unlively. Or, in the case of the extremely cringey Team Star plot, lively in the worst ways possible. I know the game gives us basically nothing to go off, but it strikes the "this can not possibly be real" tone.

And the thing is, if the gameplay was better (though open world exploration I'd argue is a part of gameplay, I mean more the combat/gyms/etc when I say this), it probably wouldn't matter. But this game does not make up for that. The three plots through much of the main story being separate is a slog. Terastalizing is not a particularly novel or interesting mechanic and using it invokes a short cutscene every time. The level curve between the badge-givers in the main stories and the end bosses in the main stories is much too high.

I've given this game more words than it really deserves. Just a very underwhelming showing that I had to drag myself to finish. Alas, there was potential here but it was squandered.

I enjoy a good walking simulator, so it's weird for me to say that I think walking simulator type games have a bit of a soft ceiling on how "good" they can be (conversely I also think they have a pretty hard floor, it's difficult to make a truly terrible one) - you truly have to be exceptional in every way in order to achieve a very high rating. And this game is only exceptional in some ways.

That's a bit of a weird statement to just say. I mean that this game has a very interesting philosophy behind it and excels at being an art project. Alan Watts' commentary is very welcome and feels appropriate as you explore the concept of Everything (though it kind of manifests as the concept of scale). Where I struggle is that the game presents itself as very vast and large, but doesn't much actually feel that way. The main part of the gameplay is introduced as "the tutorial" but there's really not much left to do other than fill out this game's equivalent of the bestiary and crash your game with disasters (which is admittedly fun, for a bit) afterwards. And by the time you get to that point it feels like it's trying to be deeper than it really is.

It's a great art project. Pick this game up when it's on steep discount some time and play it for a bit. It's a great 2.5 hours if you're into surreal experiences. But there's not much longevity beyond that, despite how vast the game might seem.

I think when I rated Pokemon Gold 4.5* last year, that was a heavy nostalgia goggles review. I still like this game, a lot, but I think if I want to review this seriously (even if I'm only really keeping track for myself) I have to knock it down half a star. It's still a great game that builds the structure that Gen 1 made into something competent, but there are certainly some parts of the game which are less than stellar: primarily the level curve. It's still probably my favorite Pokemon game and one I hold dear, but it's nontrivially because of nostalgia.

I'm combining Rise and Sunbreak into the same game for the purposes of this rating. I played it as one continuous path from beginning to end.

I think Monster Hunter's core gameplay loop is absolutely engaging enough that I have to give this a good review. Rise really is a great game with some major caveats which periodically drive me crazy, but not enough to prevent me from coming back. Not amount of wonky camera action against the walls, stupid one hit kill moves, or twitchy speedy monsters that are too fast to hit has made me want to put down this game for good, or even really end a session prematurely. It doesn't matter that the monster distribution is a bit wonky and the crafting tree is hard to work with. The game is just so damn fun that these problems don't hold it back that much. I know this review just sounds like complaining, but it's all technical points - the game is absolutely worth your while (if your PC can handle it. I did have performance issues from time to time).

Fire Emblem is a series of peaks and valleys. Rarely is it bad, but there are a few games in the series that just get it. FE8 is one of those games. For it's era this is a really good Fire Emblem. Only a couple of midgame maps are really boring, but the entire cast stands out and this is the first time in the series (I suppose FE2, in a janky way, had branched promotions) that you're really given the chance to customize your units. The entire cast is great: colorful characters that don't feel too tropey, and I can forgive the GBA/early console support system for being what it is given it's from that era of Fire Emblem. Just an absolutely swell game.

I like it when a game doesn't pretend to be something that it isn't. FE11 is about as uncomplicated as Fire Emblem gets, and in this case that's a very good thing, as it serves as a much-needed modernization to FE1 without adding a bunch of fancy stuff on top of it which would've taken away from what the original Fire Emblem is. Most of the units have no depth to them, and the story is straightforward, but that's okay because at no point is this game trying to sell me on being a grandiose adventure of deep lore: it's just good solid fun from start to end. The new reclass system in this game is great and adds loads of replayability. Minus half a star for the most ridiculous gaiden requirements this series has ever seen and locking content behind the now-defunct online shop. Still, a phenomenal entry in the series, one of my favorites in it.

Well, for the longest time I was ready to mark this in the 3-3.5 range, because it's.. pretty much just Kirby's Return to Dream Land for the Wii, for the Switch. Which is fine, the original is a great game, but you'd think a game with Deluxe in the title would be more than just a port (it sort of is, and we're going to get there, but bear with me a little). The game shares the same glaring problem that the original did: there are points at which the camera is far far far too zoomed in. Being hit from things off screen is not great, though I do otherwise think this game really nails the difficulty (as well as the original did), being a fun Kirby game without being too easy.

So: new content. The Mecha Ability is good and cool and fun to use, the Sand Ability significantly less so, Festival Ability is cool but shows up like twice ever. There are really two significantly new things, both dealing with Magolor. The first is Merry Magoland which... exists. That's about as much credit as I can give it. It's basically a glorified submenu for the minigames with "achievements", which is cute but ultimately doesn't really do much other than give you cosmetic masks to put on your characters. The beef of the new content is in Magolor Epilogue: The Interdimensional Traveler. While short, this new content is very high quality: levels based in the interdimensional world that Kirby frequently visits, playing as Magolor who gradually regains his power as you put your currency into leveling him up. This mode is high quality content and super fun, and really bridges the gaps of "what exactly is this interdimensional space" and "why did Magolor show up later as if nothing happened". I know the Kirby universe isn't exactly a lore heavy one, but I appreciate it nonetheless.

I'm still not sure the new content is worth the hefty price of a new mainline Nintendo game, but I'm ultimately glad I picked this up.