I wrote a jokey fanfic for this video game back in 2013 that got unexpectedly well known, I see screenshots floating around on tumblr sometimes. I also closet cosplayed a character and the blurry photos of teenage me are also floating around somewhere out there on the internet.

That aside, this game is FANTASTIC, the emotions it causes in you as you realise what the actions of you, the player, and the character you are playing as (or are being played by as it seems) truly mean for your surroundings, is unexplainable. The character designs are inspiring and amazing, the songs SLAP so hard I still get pepper steak stuck in my head to this DAY so many years later.

This game, is epic. Me and my older sister took turns to do missions and mess around the levels, its involved and sprawling, and as a kid I was able to play it for hours without getting bored.
The cars are cool the story is fun and entertaining, the little easter eggs and references to the show are delightful, the costumes are perfect, the soundtrack is fun and great at putting you on edge when it needs to.
I have a vivid memory of going to the local library, finding cheat codes online, or ways to figure out cheat codes online, then going home and testing them out on my ps2. I wrote down the button combos that worked in the notes bit of the game manual, and I used the HELL out of the one hit wrecks cheat and the press horn to leap cheat. I made it my mission to find ways to go oob way before I knew what oob was.

Anyway, this game is iconic and timeless, I have nothing but fond memories for it.

So I had a dream a bit after finishing this game, and in this dream me and Noctis were in love. It was very emotional and I almost teared up recalling it to my housemate after I woke up. I liked Noctis well enough before that dream, but ever since I have felt nothing but deep love for this stupid anime boy with a million polygons that make up his hair. I went back afterwards and replayed stuff, I'd let him fish just because I thought he'd like to, not because I actually wanted to, it was truly something.

Anyway my love for Noctis aside, this game shows such amazing potential, the plot could have been something so amazing and it just.. wasn't really was it?? It makes me sad, but the DLC stories do add enough for me to be somewhat satisfied with where we were left, and, thankfully the cast of characters are written so well, and act so perfectly human, that I was, kind of ok with the story being as it was.

I don't think I've ever let a game off just because the characters were so good, but here ffxv is, being held up by its cast.

Ok, so. Handing myself the L on this one, I sure did back the stupid Homestuck stupid Kickstarter and have to wait forever for a game to come out because the author didn't look at the game development at all and the original studio ran off with all the money.
That aside, and my hatred of how the comic itself later ended also aside, this game is sweet and charming and super pretty. The backgrounds are lovely and the characters are sweet, it has nice pacing and the way lore is added feels nice as someone who knows a lot about the universe.
Wild how good this game came out, ya know, seeing everything that happened.

(See my other nuns reviews for context.)
Unlike the other two, I bought this one new and for more than £2.50, so you know I wanted it real bad.
It improved even more from nuns3, no more overworld, exclusively timeline based, choices and changes felt fun and kinda meaningful. Animation looked cool as all hell, these games translate the art style into 3d so well it boggles my mind. Game play was fun and over the top, it's not balanced by any means but I didn't really care. (Seeing as they fixed in this one the Deidara spam tact that my housemate always did when we played against each other..)
Also my boy Boruto is there, in dlc, but he's there and from an actually good anime, unlike his dad. Just great game all round, hate that I love it.

(See my review for nuns2 for more context.)
This game was a straight up improvement of the previous one, loved the timeline, liked that there was less of the overworld stuff.
So. The Hero vs Avenger fight. I have never enjoyed quick time events as much as I did in that fight, ever, theyre SO good. I replayed that fight SO much, fuck it made me care about Naruto and Sasuke, wtf!! The secret ending you can unlock?? Kino. Naruto reaching for his hand and thinking about holding it but not being able to?? The anime could never be that good. It wishes. These games are the only way to experiance Naruto, I said it.

This game made me have a Naruto phase in my fucking 20s. I never cared for Naruto as a teen, thought it was crap, saw this game for a quid in cex and thought itd be haha banter. I live tweeted me playing it, accidently genuinely enjoyed the story and characters (GOD the nuns games are better at telling the story of naruto than the show) and ended up drawing my weight in Naruto fanart, dragging my housemates and friends with me, convincing a friend who liked Naruto as a kid to DM a Naruto d&d canpaign which I am in, and for said campaign we all made Naruto OCs with Boruto era kids. I'm in Naruto hell and it's all because this game (and the next 2) is so much better than the anime it is based off of.

(See my review for the original game if you want.)
I couldn't afford the remake on release, but because I was desperatly emotional about it, and one of my close friends empathised with our mutual love of zelda, she let me borrow her copy during the day when she was at work. Dropping it off on her way in and picking it up on her way home, she would declare that "little mans is here for daycare" and I would play on my switch in the living room as long as I could get away with it. I couldn't ask for a better experiance of a remake of a game I loved as a kid.
The art direction is heart breakingly sweet and I loved every second.

When the remake was announced in a direct, I immediatly dug out my gameboy and my battered copy of this game. I replayed it for the first time in a long time and felt so emotional while I did, I honestly don't entirely know why, but this game has and still does mean a lot to me.
The map loading in squares made me get lost a lot, the puzzles confused me and would have me stuck for days, but as a kid that all made it feel weirdly magical somehow, so, seeing a remake trailer made me nearly tear up and desperately replay the game that I remembered. It held up I think, but the magic wasn't magic anymore, it was nostalgia, but I don't think that changed the experiance.

My memories of this game are soupy, old and hard to recall. I remember the blank disc with The Neverhood written badly on it in permenant marker, I remember my older sister letting me sit on the desk next to the family pc so I could see her play. I remember the music and the sound effects, the cutscenes and vagjely the story. I remember my dad joking around and quoting one of the characters because I found it funny, and I remember remembering it again a long long time after and hunting down clips of it on youtube to see if it had all been real.
This game feels like childhood more than any other, despite it not being one that I really played much myself at all. I feel so fondly for it, but I couldn't really tell you why.
As an animator now in my adulthood, I have an even bigger fondness for the stopmotion however.

This game. Ok so this game, basically created my online persona. 2010 was around the time I was making accounts on more than just neopets and club penguin, and I got REALLY obsessed with being good at this game (also the song slapped) so, I made my tumblr name a play on robot unicorn attack, talked about it a lot, got better than good at it. With this came online confidense, I started posting art, someone commented on my art, we started speaking, we got close. Fast forward 10 years later and we're engaged. Thanks robot unicorn attack for that one, you get 5 stars!!