A remaster that improves upon the original in every possible way so successfully that it makes the original almost redundant outside of a passing curiosity.

There are still some issues here and there - I like the overall story and feel but the characters feel a touch underbaked, and normal encounters can end up playing themselves in a way where it's almost more interesting to run around them - but then I'm drawn back in by the various hunts and tactics needed for fights against way more powerful enemies and one of the series' most overlooked soundtracks.

Playing a trombone slightly off tempo and largely out of tune remained funny for longer than I thought. Having the majority of tracks being public domain ditties really helped as you know what they're meant to sound like and really has more of an impact that getting licensed tracks or having a ton of made-for-the-game pieces

Unfortunately the games humour is a lot more hit and miss - things like the collectible card descriptions were fun but the turds in the menu (and sounds) got old pretty fast.

I can't deny it's a lot of busywork but it's also the game I needed at the right time - something mindless that I can zone out to while work was overwhelming, it was way too warm outside or a combination of the two.

Some of the later levels don't really match up to what you start with but the vast majority felt smartly designed, with only a few occasions of pixel hunting to complete a section. I was also charmed by the little messages you receive during each job and the off-filter lore that the Power Wash world has

I've never felt so compelled to play through such a bad game to completion. The situations in the game are nicely varied and the dialogue options can be highly amusing and were just enough to pull me through to see what came next.

But the act of playing the game was almost painful. With the base speed of the main character, traversing the world can be akin to wading through a swamp unless you permanently hold down the run button, in which case it feels like Yakety Sax should be playing in the background - there's just no happy medium. At one point in the game you're forced to give an old lady a piggyback which slows everything down to a crawl but even then I swear that was faster than just walking normally.

Less painful and more pointless, there are also hunger/thirst/bladder meters for you to manage (even though nothing actually happens as a result of letting any of these get too low). There's a moral points system that doesn't affect anything, and while the dialogue choices can be hilarious it's all window dressing - there is exactly one time in the game where your decisions have any impact.

And there's a whole host of other issues. I wasn't super fussed by framerate problems or other technical hitches, but the audio design might be some of the worst I've experiences in a game. Footsteps drown out every other sound, the world feels lifeless and dialogue snippets repeat constantly while sounding completely out of place. Everything just feels so lifeless - I'm not expecting a sweeping score and I know there will be some occasions where silence has more impact, but there needed some kind of atmospheric background noise.

But then you get moments where you accuse someone of arson in front of a whole town while wearing frilled cowboy chaps and tall chef hat with a tengu mask strapped to your face with pink sunglasses underneath which almost make the experience worth it. Almost. That's what the 2nd star is for I guess.

My first experience of a Boku no Natsuyasumi style game and it's one that that I found incredibly endearing, even without knowing much about Shin-chan or the characters in that series beforehand

It's not the most complex thing I've played in my life but it doesn't need to be - the simplicity works in its favour, as you go through each day exploring, maybe collecting things (maybe not) and catching up with the townsfolk dealing with their daily dose of dinosaur distractions. It's a game that really worked an in-game day or two at a time, just feeling yourself inhabit an area, admiring the scenery and eating enough Chocobi to get through the day without collapsing from exhaustion. Altogether a lovely summer evening game eked out over a week or two.

The Pikmin platformer that Nintendo wishes they'd made.

That's a little unfair to Tinykin though, as it manages to stand out on its own merits - it's a genuinely good 3D collectathon platformer that looks and runs brilliantly and pulls you in with large, detailed but rarely overwhelming level design filled with interesting scenarios and some quite fun dialogue with the world's inhabitants. The game is also smart enough to realise that dealing with enemies can actually be a chore in this type of game and as such just does away with them which really helps the flow and allows for more exploration.

I'm a bit of a sucker for games where you play as a little guy in a large setting (especially a homestead) so I think this was always going to do well with me but it turned out to probably be my favourite game of the year so far.

The same detective work I really enjoyed from Her Story but for whatever reason I couldn't really get into the story or characters as much.

Perhaps the mystery of it all was spoiled a bit by knowing some of the real life events it is seemingly inspired by quite well and working a lot of things out after just a handful of clips. Or maybe it was the conceit of this being specifically hacked webcam and other video feeds rather than just a set of police interviews as per Barlow's last work that felt more forced and didn't sit as logically in my brain.

Still, I think it's well worth playing as there really aren't many other experiences like it out there, and I do love games where taking your own notes on pen and paper is a benefit.

In my mind the current peak of the 'choose your own path' interactive movie genre'. I was immediately drawn in by a more grounded story, while the amount of different paths for each character is really impressive - sure, there will always be funnel points as that's the reality of limited time/budget but care is taken for these to feel natural and not forced and there are far fewer 'illusion of choice' decisions than you may be used to.

There's been a fair bit of divisiveness on the art style but I thought it really fit, making things feel more like a graphic novel and having time pause while making decisions is far less jarring than in other similar titles.

It's obviously not a perfect game (no such thing exists) - for example, some of the voicework could do with a little more TLC - but I felt like I played through a really good tv show and had a great time doing so.