I already thought that Final Fantasy VII Remake was damn near perfect, so to have this sequel improve on its predecessor in a number of ways is simply mindblowing. It's clear that this world is being treated with utmost respect, with an attention to detail that's almost second to none. In my mind, this is the best action RPG battle system in gaming. It deftly blends the classic turn-based Final Fantasy staples with a more modern, action-focused battle system in a way that just feels perfect. Everything that's been recreated from the original game is lovingly touched up, while the additions are of an equally high bar. I truly cannot wait for the conclusion of this trilogy and I will happily live in the world of Final Fantasy VII for as long as Square Enix will have me.

The third game in the series and the worst game in the series. This is supposed to be the culmination of the previous two Parascientific Escape games, but instead it's a confused and muddled mess. The script is absolutely riddled with typos, a typical scene would contain at least a dozen mistakes (even misspelling proper nouns referring to important in-game places and concepts). The story itself is all over the place, a poorly executed rendition of a boring concept. The puzzles are OK, but sometimes lean into some serious logic leaps. I would not recommend this game, even to players of the previous games.

I've started various Advance Wars games over the years but have never seen one of these games to completion, until now. Glad to finally experience the first game in the series (albeit with a fresh coat of paint), because it was a great time. I played the game in casual as this was my commuter game and still found it to be a reasonable challenge. I'll say that the story and characters were a bit more background than I'd expected, but they were still charming. The gameplay itself is addictive, if a bit repetitive and somewhat simplistic. A lot of the matchups can feel a bit rock-paper-scissors and "decided" battles tend to drag out a bit longer than necessary. This was still a great re-introduction to the series and I'm excited to play through the sequel.

Beacon Pines is just a lovely and charming game. The art is gorgeous, with lots of expressive characters and detailed & colorful backgrounds. The narrator offers a decent framing device, along with the branching path gimmick lending some interesting interactivity to the storytelling. The story itself has engaging characters, a digestible mystery with some fun plot twists, and a satisfying conclusion. This is just the kind of thing that's up my alley and it certainly made me nostalgic for my childhood of reading Hardy Boys books.

It's always a pleasure to see a game that sets out to achieve essentially one thing and then proceed to execute on that one thing flawlessly. Pseudoregalia demonstrates this with its movement, resulting in perhaps the most satisfying movement platformer that I've played. The world is cleverly crafted to enable players to use their tools in such a way that reaching a ledge or a platform often feels unintentional. Finally pulling off just the right string of moves to make it to a platform that seemed unreachable was exhilerating each time it happened. Outside of the movement, I felt like the game was perhaps just a bit too obtuse with its direction and that the combat felt half-baked, but getting around the castle and its surrounding areas just felt too good for these things to get in the way of my enjoyment.

I'm generally a fan of bite-sized Metroidvania games, but this one didn't really do it for me. Playing on Steam Deck was a little awkward because the control stick just mapped to the d-pad buttons making it challenging to properly handle up and down inputs. This minor frustration, plus the lack of any real indicators on the map (e.g. save rooms, pickups) made traversal less fun. The bosses are fine enough, requiring some basic strategy to beat them, but the game just ends abruptly once each boss has been cleared, with no real fanfare. It would have been nice to have perhaps one final area that the four bosses culminated in. Not a terrible game, but not something that I'd recommend unless someone was deep into Metroidvanias.

If there's any adjective to describe Hylics it would be "unique." This is the closest thing to abstract art that a turn-based RPG can be, and in that respect it succeeds wholeheartedly. Its metacommentary on the pointlessness of most RPG dialogue and its usage of RPG tropes make for a fun deconstruction of a genre that I love, but it's also fairly basic when it comes to actually playing the game (and remarkably short). Still, it makes for a charming playthrough even if it feels like the game could have been even more.

Trepang2 is at its best when you're living a super soldier power fantasy, absolutely slaughtering crowds of soldiers without even breaking a sweat. This part is endlessly entertaining but it seems like the developers wanted to lean hard into making this a horror game, with some slower paced segments that felt more like a drag than actually instilling fear. The story and setting is also underutilized, with some solid worldbuilding that doesn't seem to ever truly pan out. That said, I was certainly satisfied with the slaughtering that ensued throughout most of this game's runtime.

Pikmin 2 is an all-around improvement to its predecessor, making it an excellent sequel. Almost all of my complaints from the previous game have been addressed -- Pikmin group better and are less likely to get lost when traversing, frustrating enemies seem to have been toned down making it less likely to lose a larger number of Pikmin in one go, and the day cycle is a bit more forgiving making the game feel more relaxed. I also greatly enjoyed the treasure aspect versus collecting ship parts, as it allowed for some wonderful creativity in naming the treasures. Pikmin 2 has certainly aged better than the first game and it makes me even more excited to play the rest of this series.