Man I absolutely love this series.

I was introduced to Persona with Persona 5, which came out 7 years ago (good lord), and it, along with Royal, is my favorite game of all time. Unfortunately, it isn’t easy to go back to play 3 & 4 without all the QOL improvements. So when a remake of Persona 3 was announced I was so excited.

The story overall is phenomenal. To me P5s story was bombastic and arguably the biggest part of the game itself. P3 a story is a more down to earth story about people and their relationships and ultimately how everything does come to an end. The main story is much lower key so that the team dynamics and social links can shine.

The main characters are top notch. I eventually settled into a team i liked using, but personality wise I enjoyed every character. Their social links/linked episodes and their daily life events in the dorm make them feel so authentic.

The gameplay is so improved from the original. While I do prefer the dungeons of 5, 3 Reload made Tarturus not near as boring as it seemed in the originals. Plus the battling feels top notch.

The social links were decent. I really loved some, like Miyamoto, Akinari, Bebe, Mutatsu, of course the main cast. Some of them definitely fall flat though. The gourmet king and the kid that wants to date his teacher are some low lights.

The music is absolutely incredible. Atlus somehow made the remixes as good or even better than the original.

I really enjoyed the cut scenes, both animated by WIT and the CG ones.

Overall my only criticism of the game comes from the social links. You have a few that fall flat and then only 2/20+ that are available at night. Once you max social stats out and finish Tanaka and Mutatsu’ arcs there is nothing to do at night. While during the day I’m scrambling to finish all of them (ultimately I didn’t finish Fuuka, Chihiro, and Keisuke).

Still all in all, a phenomenal entry in a series I adore.

Time to beat: 79 hours
Date beaten: 2/21/24
Trophies obtained: all but the platinum and maxing out social links.
Persona Compendium %: 96%

Metroid is a series I never played growing up. I remember watching my cousin or uncle playing it and it looking really cool (Prime specifically) but I never played one until Super Metroid on the SNES Classic back when it came out. I was terrible, but I did beat it and could tell it was special. A few years later Metroid Dread came out and I absolutely adored that game. I constantly think about playing it again… if it weren’t for my backlog. The Prime trilogy always intrigued me but I was turned off by the 1 stick controls of the GameCube release and the motion controls of the Wii release. Well lo and behold Nintendo released a remastered edition for the switch with twin stick controls. Okay now I’m game.

And what a game it was. I constantly was in a fantastic mood playing Prime 1. It is such a well-put together and polished game. It is an incredibly rewarding experience throughout the game. Some may dislike the backtracking that the story and unlockables entail, but I personally loved exploring Tallon 4, finding something I couldn’t access and then that “a-ha!” Moment going off when I got the upgrade I figured I would need. The most rewarding part of this is the artifact search. None of them are insanely difficult to find, but hard enough to be very rewarding.

Most of the bosses, while good fights, were forgettable. The exceptions being Meta Ridley and Metroid Prime, both fun and challenging fights. For me the traversal and puzzle solving is the real star of the show.

The story is absolutely what you make of it. You get enough from the environmental story telling. Samus has crash landed on Tallon 4 and needs to find a way off. And that may be enough motivation for most. But, through its scanning system you can really dig into the lore of the Metroid universe and get smaller pieces of the story’s puzzle along the way. I apparently scanned about half of what was available (again crazy) and felt like I had a good grasp of the story and lore.

It’s incredible, playing this in 2023, noticing how influential it is. It’s interconnected map especially so when I think of FromSoft’s masterpieces. Now I need Nintendo to port 2 & 3! The twin stick controls make this game a dream to play compared to the GameCube.

I finished the game in 13 hours and 10 minutes with a 67% completion rate (I can’t believe how many missiles are in the game). For me it is my second favorite in the series behind Dread. But so far Metroid is a series where Nintendo does not miss period.

Pikmin 3, on its own, is a fantastic game full of wonder and exploration. When compared to its predecessors however, it can feel slightly lacking.

Let’s start with the positives:
- Gameplay: Pikmin 3’s gameplay is the best in the series. So many quality of life improvements that make this series that much better: 3 captains, the ‘go here’ function, the map and tablet functions, and a nice balance between the Pikmin (that 2 did not have) make this the best feeling Pikmin game up to this point.
- Graphics: this game is absolutely gorgeous. The environments, the creatures, the bosses, the details… I could go on and on. One of the best looking games on the WiiU.
- Final Boss: the Plasma Wraith is such a fun and well designed final boss. Making you use every single Pikmin type not only to get through the maze to rescue Olimar, but also when fighting the boss. Easily my favorite finals boss in the series.

Now for the negatives:
- Difficulty: This game is very easy, especially when compared to the other two games. Now for seasoned Pikmin players this is obviously a downside, but it makes Pikmin 3 a very approachable starting point in the series for new players. For me personally, playing this right after 1 & 2, it did take from the game slightly. The difficulty is further curbed due to essentially a lack of a day limit. Pikmin 1, while short, succeeds with its time limit. It makes it challenging and highly replayable. Pikmin 2 may have no day limit, but is easily harder than the other 2 games combined. That, along with the caves, makes it work. Pikmin 3 has no sense of urgency, up until the final boss. It also, due to the lack of a day limit, felt shorter than Pikmin 1 (although it took me 2x as long to beat). I can’t really explain it, but it somehow felt a little underwhelming.

I still loved this game. It’s a fantastic game, but it just falls a little short of its predecessors for me.

It’s absolutely incredible how Nintendo took Breath of The Wild and improved upon it in almost every conceivable way. The gameplay, the map, the story, the characters, the world, the lore, the boss battles, the dungeons, everything is improved.

I would love to see Nintendo give it a go 1 more time with the open world formula for Zelda, but I can’t stop hoping one day they will go back to the traditional 3D style of Twilight Princess, Ocarina of Time, and Skyward Sword. I think traditional 3D Zelda is Zelda at its best.

Regardless, what an absolutely special game and an absolute marvel from Nintendo. Bravo.

Pikmin 2 is my favorite entry of the Pikmin series. Pikmin 2 takes its predecessor’s base and goes all out. While it may be at the sake of feeling slightly less cohesive than the series’ first entry, the gameplay is magnified tenfold.

Pikmin 2 introduces 4 new gameplay elements: 2 new Pikmin (3 if you count Bulbmin), Caves, a second captain, and instead of ship parts you are searching for ‘treasure’ - everyday earthly items - to pay off your company’s debt.

The new Pikmin are an absolutely great addition to the series. The new gameplay scenarios that these introduce can seem endless! The addition of the purple Pikmin does diminish how important red Pikmin were in the last game, which is sad to see.

The 2 captain system opens the world of Pikmin up in ways the first game couldn’t dream of. Tasks feel like they take no time as you can accomplish 2, 3, 4 tasks at a time and still have a watchful eye with either Olimar or Louie.

Caves are a wonderful addition but do come with their drawbacks. The caves are what make this game so fun with all the treasures to find and the unique boss battles. Speaking of which the creature diversity is such a huge step up from Pikmin 1. You have over 80 unique creatures and they make the world feel loved in, diverse, and exploding with things to do.

Unfortunately Pikmin 2 can be wildly unbalanced at times, whereas its predecessor seemed to have the balance down to a tee. The overworld levels, for the most part, are fine, but the caves can be ridiculous.

Starting off: the caves are auto-generated. A lot of the time, this means nothing, but there’s that 10% of the time where the game just absolutely screws you over (looking at you Dream Den Sublevel 10). This can also lead to some caves feeling very same-y, which is not to say that there are not some very cool caves, shower room and submerged castle come to mind.

Secondly caves only allowing you to bring 100 Pikmin at a time and not giving you a chance to go get anymore, save for some Candybuds, can make the late game caves trudge on and on. For Dream Den I had to make 2 trips, as well as a cave or two in Perplexing Pool.

Finally, the removal of the 30 day time limit is something some people enjoy and some people do not. I personally enjoy it as I feel with thee vast amount of things to do it makes sense, but you do lose that unique sense of urgency that Pikmin 1 has. I do think, while I like Pikmin 2’s story, that the story of Pikmin 1 great assisted with that sense of urgency as well. You had 30 days or Olimar can never return home. Whereas in 2 you just are paying off your company’s debt. It definitely takes away from the urgency maybe even more so than the time limit itself. Perhaps if there a time limit to save Louie (as he could run out of oxygen) after you pay off the debt, I feel like nobody would be upset at the lack of of a time limit to pay off the debt.

Despite the balancing issues, I think the gameplay, boss fights, creature diversity, and treasure hunting far outshine the downsides to this game making for a special, albeit different experience that I personally prefer to Pikmin 1. I 100% completed Pikmin 2 in 33 days, coming in at exactly 22 hours of gameplay

I was only 5 when I came home from the store with Pikmin 1 22 years ago. I always remember the time limit scaring me, it just seemed so daunting for younger me. 30 parts of a ship in 30 days? Impossible!

Well 22 years later I finally decided to give Pikmin 1 a legitimate shot since Nintendo released them on the first 2 games of the series on the Switch and man am I upset with 5 year old me. This game is a delight!

Pikmin 1 is so evidently a Nintendo game with how cohesive a package this game is. Granted it is Miyamoto’s passion project, but it is remarkable how Nintendo made this proof of concept work so well.

While I personally still prefer its sequel, Pikmin 1 is a fantastic first game of a series. The time limit is a fantastic idea making you maximize every second, the creatures are diverse and makes you wish they were real, the treasure hunting aspect is super fun, and the gameplay, while barebones, works almost always to perfection.

After all my worries as a 5 year old, I 100% completed Pikmin 1 in 17 days and it took about 5 hours. If you are trying to get into the franchise with Pikmin 4 coming out this week, give 1 a shot and figure out why this series is so special.