Everyone's talkin 'bout Bugsnax! And they SHOULD be. I was completely blown away by how much I liked pretty much every aspect of this game. I played this on Game Pass so the lack of direct monetary obligation meant I could oh so easily just play the first area, say "omg Strabby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and then never pick it up again. But no, I was genuinely invested in seeing this thing through from early on.

The gameplay is super fun - it taps into the same lobe of my brain that's dedicated to catching Pokemon. There's a really satisfying difficulty curve that keeps it satisfying to encounter new areas with new creatures, and to figure out how best to catch them. I don't consider myself to have great reaction time or dexterity and I found the game to be quite accessible, while not feeling excessively coddle-y. As well, no joke ... I think this game has some of the best written characters I've seen in a game in a long time. Even the comic relief characters (let's be real though... they're all comic relief characters to a degree) are written with such love, charm, and DEPTH! You can tell a lot of thought and care went into the cast of characters and their history with one another. This sounds stupid because they're all flappy colorful muppet creatures. Just trust me on this one. You too can become overly invested in the personal affairs of flappy colorful muppet creatures and then you'll understand.

I don't want to go into any more detail than this on the off chance that somehow someone reads this and is persuaded to play the game. I think this game benefits from going in somewhat cold so I'll leave it there. But honestly, this game is so deeply weird and wonderful and worth your time.