A fun cooperative experience - playing this game with friends is a blast and with all the diferent characters and the different abilities and challenges, this has a lot of replay value and playing this with a group of friends really brightened up my nights. The bad things for me are that there are not a lot of map variety, which can lead to some repetitive gameplay and after you hit the teleport, all the money that you have cannot be used on chests left out and it going to xp is kinda lame - this money should have some other use on items, in my opinion. But otherwise, it`s a fun little game and worth checking out if you looking on something to play with your friends.

You can`t go wrong with more Portal content right? God bless the fans for doing what the devs and the companies won`t. I`m not a big fan of that ending section, but the new puzzles are really fun and unique. And considering this a free mod, this is definitely a must play, especially if you enjoyed the first two Portal games.

Just as the other DS entry, this game also fails to deliver a pleasant experience at the end. The comparisons to Spirit Tracks are inevitable; in my opinion, the music isn`t as enjoying in this one, the stylus controls are also present, which means that you not gonna have a good time controlling Link around the map, but thank god there`s not many microphone mechanic stuff - they are few of those, and the ones that shows up are fun and not near of a hassle, like those where you shout at the mic to stun enemies at one of the dungeons and when you have to ask for a discount for the cannons in the shipwright.

Storywise, this game makes more sense than Spirit Tracks, following after the end of Wind Waker, where Link and Petra must rebuild Hyrule after the flood; and let`s be honest, the whole story concept of Spirit Tracks, with the tracks around Hyrule and spirit trains and that whole stuff is kinda dumb and doesn`t make much sense. The low point for me is the Ocean King Temple, which has every piece of design universally hated by players: time limit, invisible enemies, and the fact that you have to do it like 4 or 5 times throughout the game, while repeting the stuff you have already done before, cause this dungeon is not sectioned off like the Spirit Tower in Spirit Tracks.

At the end, this is just one of those Nintendo games that feeds off gimmicks: stylus gimmicks, microphone gimmicks and other ones that just doesnt click well - the vibrant art style and cool sea exploration just gets buried underneath boring controlling and gameplay mechanics that looks cool on paper, but doesn`t work very well.

2018

First, i have to say that I`m not that fond of roguelike games, but this is the first one of this kind that i went through all the way till the end; the game just captures you and doesn`t let go.

All of the game has to offer is just chef`s kiss; the art style is phenomenal and all of the characters, including the gods and support ones are so likable and there`s so much sexual tension envolved that you just keep wanting more and more; the combat is really fun and the god`s powers just make it unique and adds a lot of replay value.

The main problem with roguelike games for me it`s that, at some point, its just gets repetitive and boring doing the same stuff, the same levels, fighting the same bosses over and over, but the story and the relationship between the characters are just so so good, that it just not an issue doing it all again - each time you complete a run, it unlocks a little more of the story and the relation between Zagreus and his parents, but just a lil bit, leaving you thristy and avid for more.

Following my trend on playing FF7 related stuff after I finished Rebirth, I fired this one up for the first time, one I`ve been longing to play for a while now. It follows, after the success of the original FF7, the idea of expanding the lore and the universe of the game, now with a rather unique, but ultimately fun idea - a shooter game.

This game has a pretty noticeable Devil May Cry-esque to it, and Vincent Valentine, the mysterious vampire like hero from the main game, it`s a perfect pick for this kind of game. It has the visuals and the feels from Advent Children, but the tone is a little more grim and eerie, especially on the scenarios and the whole feel of the stages throughout the game.

Story-wise, the game follows the events at the end of the original FF7 and introduces a new group know as DeepGround, a secret military organization from Shinra that features genetically enhanced soldiers. Vincent learns that their ultimate goal is to call forth Omega and basically turn the planet into a crumbly rock - the story goes fine until almost till the end, when it becomes too much convaluted and unnecessary complex; it`s like they tried to do too much at the same time, and it doesn`t work that well. And also, I wished the original cast, Cloud and the crew, were a bit more important and present along the game, but I can see why they did it like this.

Talking about gameplay, this game functions as a third person shooter with a variety of weapons and materias at your disposal, but Vincent can still use his melee attacks. Although I wanted a few more weapons to be avaliable, I had a lot of fun playing with the guns you can pick from and meddle with the different combinations you can make with them. Even tho it can get a little repetitive sometimes, the levels are short so you don`t really feel bored.

I wonder if they ever gonna poke around this one, after remastering Crisis Core, and introduce it to the new FF7 universe - some of the characters introduced in this game are already present in some parts, especially in episode INTERmission. Honestly, I had a blast playing this, but this has to do with me being a huge fan of the original game, so if you`re not into the lore and all of the story, you probably not gonna like this one.

Square managed to keep the FFVII Remake standard high with the short and action packed InterMission episode. Yuffie's gameplay is a lot of fun, with the game serving as a trial for the combat additions that will come on Rebirth - loved the synergy gameplay and can't wait to see the interactions between Cloud and the rest of the gang - and the music adds a lot to the environment, but it doesn't add a whole lot to the story, mostly introducing 2 antagonists from the expanded universe and building up the hype for Rebirh.

From a technical perspect, this game is amazing: the combat feels just as amazing as the first one, the game has basically zero loading times on PS5 and it is absolutely gorgeous to look. However, when you start actually playing the flaws start appearing.
My main point of criticism about this game stands on: it has too much handholding, too much scripted and predefinied moments and less player experience, and the parts that you play can feel a bit repetitive. Take the last boss story mission as an example: you play a little "stealth" section at the beggining (i can`t really call that stealth to be fair) that has two enemy encounters and a mini boss that is stupid easy, and after a bunch of flashy cutscenes, you start the fight against the last boss. The fight is cool and cinematic, and it does feel like you`re actually watching a blockbuster Spider-man movie, but at the end you can`t help but feel a little disappointed with all the outcome.
The story also doesn`t quite work for me. It`s like they tried to do too much inside a story - they tried to develop two villains, Kraven, which gets a lot of time and background but when Venom gets on screen, it feels rushed and underwhelming.
Even with all those issues, this is still a banger a must play if you`re on the new gen - the game still retains all the good things from the first game and, again, makes you feel like Spider-man - well, Spider-men actually.

And so I was finally able to put my hands on the newest FF addition to the numbered series, and being a huge FFXIV fan (being playing since 2015), I was extremely hyped for a single player experience from CBU3. 60 hours later, I can say that this game takes a while to take off, but when it does, oh boy, it`s a wild ride indeed. At first glance, this seems different than other FF games, especially combat wise, so veteran players can feel a bit odd at the beggining, but it evolves into something magical as the game progresses.

It honestly felt like I was playing FFXIV single-player; Yoshi-p takes a lot of inspiration from the mmo into building this game and a lot of stuff hit closes to home for me: the map layout and how it functions it`s just like XIV, the "hub" in this game could well be in one of the expansions of XIV, the hunt boards and the different ranks akin to the difficulties of those beasts, hell, even the sprites of the items used for crafting are the same from the items in XIV.

Speaking of similarities, one of those that deserves mentioning and a (whole) lot of praise is the music. And coming from XIV, I`m really happy that more people are finally able to enjoy the masterpieces that come from this weird, funny guy (Soken, I love you <3). The soundtrack and epic and memorable, every piece just feels like they were made for that scene and it`s something you can listen for hours and hours and not get tired of. When creating the OST, you can really see the references that he made from his work in XIV; for, example the combat theme from XVI is just an alternate version of the Eureka theme from Stormblood.

The combat suffers from the same as the story - it takes a while to get good. At the beggining, it can be really boring as you`re just basically mashing the attack button, using a skill here and there and dodging when necessary. However, as you progress further in the game, you can mix your skills however you see fit, as long you keep upgrading them, and you can make some really sweet and powerful combinations later on. What I disliked here is that the game is really easy, even on the harder boss fights - I get that they probably wanted to make the game accessible for everyone, but it wouldn`t hurt to make a few of the encounters harder to dodge.

Alas, the story; it goes through the same as the combat. The beggining is painfully slow and even boring at some points and it takes a while to really get interesting. The political trama part is amazing, and it takes a lot of inspiration from the earlier seasons of Game of Thrones, but with a little twist of the FF magic and the way the mixed that up at the end with the usual Final Fantasy wacky stuff is just great. Also, the game features that explains the story more that they added is awesome and honestly should be a staple of the franchise from now on - the war table, the whole thought thing and the conexions between every character from the plot.

The ending is ambiguous on purpose, and the whole lore on Valisthea is so interesting that it leaves you wanting for more. Yoshida and his crew delivered one of the most interesting single player experiences from recent times, and it`s an amazing entry point for the franchise to those who never played a FF game before - trust me, you`ll be amazed from what you gonna see.

The most amazing Final Fantasy single player experience of this century, without question. It`s crazy to think how they take like 15-20 hours of the original game and expand in such a way that it becomes a game of it`s own; you have content, between main quests, side content, minigames, up to 80-100 hours of gameplay, depending on how much you wish to invest time on those secondary stuff.

Story-wise, you need to treat this as a whole different thing, even more so than the first part. You get a lot of memorable scenes and dialogues from the original back again, but there`s an "avalanche" (pun intended) of new scenes, new characters, new motivations to keep the story rolling and even apparations of characters that weren`t on the original game. The whole "alternate timelines" thing from the first part still plays a big role on the development of the story on this one, and it brings a lot of new stuff to the game, although it can be way more confusing to understand all the events and how they take place, even with the core events of the original game still intact.

Gameplay wise, it`s just as good to play as the Remake. The combat is still the same, and the new characters have interesting and refreshing gameplay mechanics, especially Yuffie and Cait. I just resent the fact that they removed the way upgrading weapons functioned in the first game; the way it works in this game is just not as interesting. Even so, that`s not really a big of an issue, cause with all the new stuff they added, especially the synergy abilities and the relationship mechanic, the weapon upgrades functions well. This game has a lot of stuff to do, and I do mean a lot: the amount of minigames they added is astounding, even to a point that maybe they tried to do too much, and it`s just becomes tiresome, especially if you`re a completionist kind of gamer that tries to do everything - believe me, you`ll be spending a lot of time doing it all.

The way the world and the game is built reminds me a little of Final Fantasy X; the game at it`s core is still linear - you go from area to area as you move on throughout the story. But the way this game introduces the free roaming and open world spaces from the original is very clever; as you move, you get little "pockets" of open world, areas where you can get sidequests, chocobo hunting, minibosses and much more. And actually that`s very clever, cause if this game used open world just as the original, with all the new things they added, it could had been very overwhelming, so this way works just fine - even though not all the areas where that fun to explore.

Graphic and music, it`s just phenomenal. The characters models are just gorgeous and just a sight to behold and the music is just up to Final Fantasy standards - I just can`t get enough of all these Aerith`s theme renditions, makes me cry everytime. The only thing bad about how the game looks it`s the fact that this one still has those blurry and not rendered well background objects that Remake had, and the textures are not just what we expected at this point, but it`s doesnt come to be such a nuisance.

As i said at the beginning, this is it; this is the Final Fantasy experience we all wanted, this is the franchise at it`s best. When we all dreamed of a remake of Final Fantasy VII, we didn`t expected we would get this; honestly, this is so much better than we could have imagined.

God, I didn`t have fun with this one at all. I really wanted to like this one, but this left a really sour taste at the end. The combat is pretty bland and doesn`t really get off the ground at any point, the game has a lot of bugs ( I lost count on how many times I got stuck on virtually nothing and had to reset), the bosses designs are some of the worst I`ve ever seen in a videogame - seriously, whoever designed that fucking Destroyer boss battle shouldn`t be near a videogame ever again, cause that was probably the worst boss design I`ve ever seen in my many years of gaming. The story is cool, the game really lets you feel like a powerful guy and some of the map designs and planets are great, but that doesn`t make this much enjoyable at the end.

Honestly, this doesn`t change much things from the first game - it is still a buggy and blend mess.The levels are way less interesting than the first game, it gets kinda repetitve (these guys love them QTE, holy moly) and the story is really boring. The only things they improve from the first game is that the combat is much more refined and interesting and the boss patterns have something to it, but that doesn`t save this game at all for me.

A small and nice teaser for Dawntrail, showcasing mostly the female Hrothgar who is apparently pivotal to the new expansion story and one of the new jobs, the Pictomancer. The story itself is nothing to write home about, but it just gives you that itch to play the new content. Tural, here we come!

Ultimately, this games fall way short, plagued with bad control schemes and touch screen gimmicks; it doesn`t holds up as nearly as good as the previous titles. Everything in the game is made harder with the finicky touch controls, as its not that responsive some times, which can lead to stupid deaths - and don`t even get me started on the stupid blow on the mic thing; it`s an interesting idea, I`ll give that, as it utilizes all the console has to offer, but in practice it does not work as good as the devs wanted it to.

The game has some nice moments, and I especially liked the sound track and how it evolves and goes deeper as you, for example, speed up on your train in the overworld map or climb the endless steps of the Tower of Spirits and I`m a huge fan of the synnergy and relationship of this Link and Zelda, as it brings a lot of charm to the story, but at the end of the day, its buried underneath a lot of gimmicks and things that do not work that well.

Maybe I`m not that much into Sonic games, but even though this one I think captured perfectly the essence and the magic of the original 2D Sonic games, the thing it was hard for me to really enjoy this game.
The colours and the general art design of the characters and all the levels is great and the soundtrack is simply phenomenal, one of the best I`ve listened to recently, the game just feels unbalanced at some points; some levels are short and fun, and some so damn long and boring, throwing a whole load of stuff to kill you that justs comes out as the complete opposite of fun to be honest - looking at you Oil Ocean Zone and Titanic Monarch Zone.
I wish I was more of a Sonic guy, but at the end I was glad i finished the game and don`t really feel like coming back to it - maybe Sonic games are just not for me.

The best game you probably never played or never even heard of. It really captures the essence of those wonderful adventure puzzle games from the 90s`, combined with a strong visual appeal, making reference to the Dia de Los Muertos, one of Mexico`s most popular holidays, a phenomenal jazzy soundtrack which makes the main characters indistinguishable and, for me, the best aspect of this game - the voice acting; i can`t stress this enough, cause without the voice actors this would not be a sucess.

Of course, as a typical 90`s adventure game, this comes also with some bad perks: the game is hard and the puzzles sometimes can be a bit random, so as a modern remaster, the game could have got a hint system to help confused players. And also, a game from 2015 (the remastered version) that doesn`t have autosave is pretty pathetic in my opinion. But, if you`re looking for that nostalgic gaming vibe from the nineties, this is a must play.