2023

2023 has come and gone, and with it another year of logging and reviewing all the video games I played. Despite my internal feeling that I don't really play that many games, I surprised myself by crushing my previous annual record with 76 games finished this year.

Differing from previous years though, is how I rate the games. In years past I used a letter grade system, as I felt it was less ambiguous. However, this year I began posting my reviews to my Backloggd page (wink wink) and thus had to adapt to their system of stars out of five. I think it's still a fair system, but I use it more to get a general sense of how much I liked the game, rather than providing apples to apples comparisons between games.

In my head, a 3/5 or 3.5/5 are what I would consider to be "average games", with a 3.5/5 being an average game I liked, and a 3/5 being one I didn't. From there, a 4/5 is a good game, a 4.5/5 is excellent, and 5/5 is among my favorite games of all time. Likewise, 2.5/5 is bad, 2/5 is awful, and 1.5/5 is among my least favorite games. I have yet to actually award any games anything lower than a 1.5/5, mainly because if a game is that awful I won't actually finish it.

1.5/5

Zone of the Enders (PS2)

The ultimate "we have Evangelion at home" game, Zone of the Enders is a sci-fi hack-and-slash where you play as Leo, a whiny, spoiled bratty kid, who accidentally gains control of a flying mech. This is an awful game in nearly every aspect. The voice acting for all the characters is very stiff, with Leo constantly berating and preaching to the other characters who are doing their best to save the space colony during a crisis. On paper, the setting should be one that I like — a space colony orbiting Jupiter — but they don't really do much with it, and it could easily have been set on Earth. The villains' plot is very vague, they simply arrive and start killing the populace with no stated goals. The combat is very stiff, and quickly devolves into a button mash-fest with the one of two enemy designs in the entire game. The camera is terrible, where every time you stop moving, it auto-adjusts forward again, regardless of what you're doing with the right stick. The CGI for the characters is pretty awful, which I'm willing to overlook given the time period. What I'm not willing to overlook is the mech designs, which has the cockpit in the groin for... some reason. The game is very short, which is both a blessing and a curse, but it turns out it's not even a completed story. This is set up to just be the prologue of some larger plot which we don't see, ending on a rather unsatisfying note. Ironically, while this game feels like a demo, its lasting legacy isn't for this game itself, but that it came bundled with a demo for Metal Gear Solid 2. I was really looking forward to this game, and was shocked at how badly I disliked it. For these reasons and more, it joins the illustrious ranks of the worst games I've ranked thus far.

Sonic Frontiers: The Final Horizon (PC)

I played Sonic Frontiers when it released, and I went away with positive feelings towards the game. Sure, it had issues, but it seemed like it was a solid foundation to build future games upon. The Final Horizon was announced as a free DLC primarily marketed as having playable Tails, Knuckles, and Amy, and I was excited to try it out. This DLC is a combination of baffling decisions from start to finish, and it does nothing but shine a spotlight on all the flaws in this game. To begin, the three new characters have about 10 minutes of campaign each. Sure, you're free to explore a remixed version of the final map, but there's not much to do. Amy controls pretty well, being similar to Sonic but with a triple jump/float fall. Tails takes some getting used to, but his advanced mobility makes up for his oddities, while this version of Knuckles is probably the worst controlling version we've ever had (yes, including Sonic 06). The rest of the DLC focuses on Sonic, and a lot of noise has been made as this being "the hardest Sonic has ever been". I would have to agree with this assessment, but not in a fair, challenging way. Instead, it's a parade of cheap moves and unfathomable choices. There's a timed boss rush with no checkpoints! Vertical platforming sections with breakable objects that don't respawn if you fall! Combat trials where the instructions lie to you! It started out fine, but by the end I felt like progressing was an exercise in uncovering secret mechanics while being barraged by incessant projectiles, horrible cameras, and awful physics. The only thing that saves this game is that the new music they added is really excellent. The themes they use for playing as the three new characters are really well done, and probably my favorite three tracks in 3D Sonic in a decade. Oh and the DLC is free, thank god I didn't have to pay for this.

2/5

Sonic Triple Trouble (GG)

I adored the fan-made Sonic Triple Trouble 16-bit last year, but I've never gotten around to beating the original version of the game, or any of the Game Gear Sonic games for that matter. There was a time where they were constantly including these games as unlockable content, but I never found them appealing. Having now played through Triple Trouble, my opinion hasn't changed. It really is shocking that while the studio was making the Genesis Sonic games, whose mechanics are still being reused to this day, their coworkers down the hall were developing a game with some of the jankiest physics around. The HUD constantly goes behind screen elements, so you can't see how many rings or lives you have, the hit detection is all over the place, the level design is god awful, and yet when all is said and done, this might still be the best of the 8-bit Sonic games. This game has exactly two redeeming factors. Firstly, the graphics are actually rather well done for the time, certainly miles above what you'd see on many Game Boy titles. Secondly, Sunset Park Zone's theme is a banger. I can safely say you can ignore this game and go play the vastly superior fan remake.

Toy Story 2 (GBC)

It is the late 1990s and Pokemon fever is gripping the nation. You are a young child who has become infatuated with Pokemon from watching the cartoon, and especially after your friend allows you to play his copy of Pokemon Red. All you want in life is a copy of the game and a Game Boy to play it on. You beg your parents, but they're wary of this strange Japanese cock fighting cartoon their young son is into, and they're unsure if they really want him playing video games all day. However, they finally relent and for your birthday or Christmas or something, the young lad receives a Game Boy Color of his very own, and with it this — a copy of Toy Story 2. This young man is me, dear viewers, and this is the very first video game I ever owned. Now, over 20 years later, I have finally beaten it for the first time. I was honestly shocked how much of this game I remember, down to rather minute details, probably because I played the first half of the game over and over again, unable to beat it. While it didn't give me much trouble today, I can see why I wasn't able to complete it at the time, as it's confusing, a bit unfair, and rather jank. For the positives, sprites in this game have a surprisingly high number of animation frames. Particularly in some of the enemies you fight, like the robot guys or the shooting cowboys, I was impressed by how smooth their animation was. The backgrounds don't impress quite as much, but for a Game Boy platforming game it's fine. As I said, the level design is very obtuse, and I think I only had as easy a time as I did because I remembered some of the intricacies of the earlier levels. Such as the third level requiring you to find a wrench to go off a ramp to get a feather to get the key to the exit from a giant chicken statue (I'm also sure what you're picturing in your head is much more impressive than how the game actually looks). The controls are really awful, with both jump and run bound to the B button, meaning you can really only jump when completely still. Pretty much every platform in the game is exactly your full jump width away, meaning you need to be perfectly lined up, or else you'll fall back to an earlier part of the level. The single song they use in the game is actually rather catchy, but it begins to grind on you when they use it in literally every level. Overall, it's not a good game by any means, and I probably like it more than I should due to nostalgia, but I honestly was expecting much worse. It is somewhat unfortunate that while other children were getting to play Final Fantasy IX or Sonic Adventure, I was stuck playing this game, which was about 15 years out of date, but everyone has to begin somewhere.

The Medium (PS5)

When Bloober Team was announced to be the ones developing the upcoming Silent Hill 2 remake, there was a collective groan from the internet. I was vaguely familiar with The Medium, and it seemed interesting enough, so I decided to try it out and see if it hampers my enthusiasm for the SH2 remake. Well, I certainly understand what the anxiety is about. Now, The Medium isn't bad per say, but it is incredibly uninteresting. You play as Marianne, who in addition to having two first names, also has the ability to see into a second, poorly defined world. What the world actually is, or what her role as a medium actually entails, is left to your imagination. She is summoned to an abandoned spa resort by a mysterious phone call from someone she doesn't know, and embarks on a mission to learn more about her powers. The game is best described as just very dull. The puzzles are very simple and unimaginative, the plotline is pretty basic, and the game is surprisingly short, although that might be a blessing. I keep comparing it to Resident Evil with how well crafted and intricate some of their puzzles are, compared to simply entering a room, grab all the items, and unlock the exit. I managed to have no idea what was going on, while understanding stuff the main character hadn't picked up. So, is the Silent Hill 2 remake doomed? Possibly, although there is some hope. That game already has a plot, puzzles, and characters, and all it needs is a studio to make some atmospheric visuals. Here, Bloober Team does quite well. I think some of the locations are quite good looking, particularly the forested areas. Their monsters could use some work, but while all is not lost, it's certainly in danger.

Knuckles' Chaotix (32X)

The oft-forgotten black sheep of the classic Sonic titles, Knuckles' Chaotix was the only Sonic game released for the Sega 32X, and as of this writing, it's the only system the game has ever been released on. To start with the positives, this game is really great looking. The advent of 3D gaming robbed us of great pixelwork right as it started getting really intricate, and by the time it became popular again in recent years, styles and sensibilities had changed. This game has crazy, colorful, 90s bombastic pixel art and I love it. The artists really carried this game, even giving it a full day/night cycle system. There my positives really end, as this game is a complete mess in nearly every other way. The main gimmick is that you play through the game with two characters connected via a rubber band system. I have to assume this is an experiment to allow for better coop play — which had been pretty lacking in the Genesis titles — but I'm afraid to say the experiment was a failure. The rubber banding causes even the most simple of platforming to become chaotic (no pun intended), with very little gameplay benefits. The level design is just as nonsensical; in some levels being very simple and straightforward, others incredibly convoluted, but never reaching a happy medium. The graphics I praised earlier may look good, but they often blend the stage with the background. You don't even get to pick the levels, they're randomly selected. While you technically get to pick your partner character (for all the good that choice is worth), it might as well be random as well. It's a interesting game visually, but a mess in every other way. I wouldn't recommend anyone other than the most hardened Sonic game play the game, but it might be worth watching someone else play the game through online.

2.5/5

Ratatouille (PS2)

I'll be honest here, I was actually rather surprised with the game for the first half or so. I was expecting a pretty dreadful movie tie-in game, but this was turning out to be a fairly well done, if generic, 3D platformer. Unfortunately, while it isn't that long, it quickly becomes repetitive. This game ignores large parts of the movie to instead focus on the rats attempting to steal food from various locales. It's not the worst premise I've heard of, but it does become tiresome when you are going through the same motions again and again. Being a game from the mid-2000s, this game is also pretty drab and bland visually, which is frustrating given its source material. I mentioned the plot, which is another baffling choice. The entire basis of the film was the relationship between Remi and the human chef, and attempting to save his career and the restaurant. They do have some brief cooking minigames, but the two characters barely interact, to the point where he doesn't even appear in the final level. Neither does the food critic, nor does anyone actually make ratatouille. Instead (spoilers), parts of the restaurant is destroyed in the final level, and the credits state that they failed to save the restaurant and it had to be shut down. My jaw actually dropped, this is such a crazy ending, and anyone looking for the sentiment of the film will be left out to dry.

Streets of Kamurocho (PC)

For Sega's 60th anniversary, they released a special Yakuza x Streets of Rage game called Streets of Kamurocho. It's a somewhat clunky recreation of the first level of Streets of Rage 2, but with Yakuza characters and enemies swapped in. That's it. The first level of Streets of Rage 2 is fun, so it's enjoyable enough. There's even three different characters (that all play the same) to choose from. But given that I was able to finish this game in like 10 minutes, there's not really much here to write home about. You can't even download this game anymore, but if you are interested in playing it, I would advise to just put it out of your mind and play Streets of Rage 2 instead.

Evoland (PC)

The concept of Evoland is really interesting. As the game progresses, the visual and gameplay style of the game evolves, matching the evolution of the gaming industry throughout the 80s and 90s. The game begins with a monochrome Game Boy-esque aesthetic, and quickly evolves to 16-color palettes, 256 colors, HD textures, and onto 3D and pre-rendered backgrounds. The gameplay is an homage to several different genres, most notably taking inspiration from Zelda, Final Fantasy and Diablo. Overall, the best word to describe this game is "cute". However, as interesting as the evolution of the medium is, the game has one fundamental flaw; that it's not all that fun to actually play. The Zelda sections are clunky with superficial puzzles and enemies, the Final Fantasy sections have a barebones combat system with barely any abilities, and the game decides right at the very end that it should try and have some vague plot, which is too shallow to be interesting, but wastes too much time to be a good parody. There's some good potential here, and this game did get a sequel, but for its first outing it relies entirely on the novelty of its concept.

Solar Ash (PC)

The closest we'll get to another Shadow the Hedgehog game, Solar Ash is a 3D platformer where you travel across a... black hole I think? defeating creatures in an attempt to save your home. Let's start off with the positives. This game is really pretty. It has a very colorful and unique aesthetic with enough variety in its locales to keep things interesting. This concludes the things I liked about this game. That's not entirely fair, because I nearly like many aspects of this game, but they all ended up falling flat for me. The movement starts off enjoyable, but I found the platforming puzzles very tedious and imprecise. The story concept is interesting, but it isn't very deep and hard to follow. The combat seems quick and fast paced, but has annoying enemy designs and a bizarre health system. Across the board this is a game that I should've really enjoyed but I ended up forcing myself to finish. I'm sure there are some people out there who really enjoy this game, but it's certainly not for me.

Super Mario Kart (SNES)

In recent years, I've started taking a closer look at the games that I play in order to recognize some of the visual effects being shown, in an attempt to understand how they work. The Super Nintendo is a great system for this, as it had a number of cool hardware graphical features that were well utilized by developers in the day. Things like parallax, transparent effects, and most famously Mode 7. Mode 7 was a feature of the SNES where developers could take a very large graphic and then rotate, transform, or scale it any way they wanted, on a line by line basis. One of its best known uses is to progressively shrink the top of the graphic, and progressively stretch the bottom so the square asset is turned into a trapezoid. This gives the illusion that you are instead viewing the image as a 3D plane with depth, and by putting other sprites in corresponding locations, you can create the illusion of characters moving around on it. Final Fantasy VI, F-Zero, and the poster boy for this, Super Mario Kart all used this feature to create pseudo-3D levels with great effect. It's a great trick, and I've always been fond of Super Mario Kart because of it. So, is the game actually any good? Um.. no. Sadly, while it's a great example in graphical prowess of the time, the game suffers mainly for trying to compensate for its poor enemy AI by letting them cheat. And I mean they cheat, they do not follow the same speed and acceleration rules as the player, even the weakest enemies always jump over any obstacles, and they don't get items in the same way. They all have their own items they use, some of which aren't even available to human characters. The controls aren't horrible, but they're definitely a bit floaty and imprecise. The level design for some of the levels is pretty dreadful, and the computer players almost always finish in the same order, meaning that if you fall into second or third place, you must come in first place later to make up for it. The entire package is bizarre as it's a very influential and iconic game, but not one that I terribly enjoy. Actually, my hot take is that while I love the Mario Kart series, the first several entires are all pretty poor.

Pokemon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire (GBA)

Pokemon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire is a pinball game featuring the Pokemon from Ruby and Sapphire. That's about it. There are two different boards to play on, arbitrarily named Ruby and Sapphire. The main gameplay is to interact with various elements on the board to reveal Pokemon to catch, evolve, or hatch. The only real goal outside of playing pinball is to catch every single Pokemon, but I think you'd really have to enjoy playing pinball to ever want to approach tackling that. There aren't any other modes aside from that. That isn't to say it's a bad game. The graphics are nice, the physics seem well done, but at the end of the day I simply don't really like pinball all that much, and I like completing the Pokedex even less. If either of those things appeal to you, then I say give this game a look, but I found it tiresome pretty quickly.

Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (DS)

I'm a big fan of the Castlevania series, with Aria of Sorrow in particular as one of my top five favorite games. I've played the other two DS entries, and for October decided to finish them out with Order of Ecclesia, which was also the last of the classic Metroidvania entries. I believe it's considered one of the strongest entries in the series, which is why I'm afraid to say that I absolutely hated this game. The game tries to build upon the soul system introduced in Aria with the "glyph" system, where Shanoa can absorb glyphs dropped by enemies or found in levels. This now includes weapons, meaning your attack ability is limited by your MP, which has to auto-refill as a result. I found it to be a far inferior system, as it's slower to absorb glyphs and not all enemies drop them (I think?). I think it's a worse mechanic for both enemy abilities and melee weapons over the previous games. I never really adapted to the combat either, it always felt sluggish to me, with the dual attacks in particular frequently dropping inputs. While you start with some of the movement abilities found in previous games, there are very few actually gained throughout the game — the double jump is the only one that immediately comes to mind. This, combined with the level design focusing more on small, sectioned levels rather than a typical sprawling map, means the game feels much more linear and limited with less exploration. I don't hate the individual levels on paper, but they didn't feel as rewarding, and are another example of this game trying to change the formula to its detriment. This game is also credited as being harder than the typical Castlevania game. However, since the player gameplay is largely the same as previous entries, they accomplish this by more spongey, harder hitting enemies, and some really frustrating enemy patterns. The bosses in particular are overly convoluted to the point of frustration. My fondness for the genre and the series overall saves this entry from being at the bottom of my list, but it's probably my least favorite Castlevania game that I've actually finished.

Lunark (PC)

I'm not a big fan of Another World (aka Out of this World), but for some reason when Lunark was first announced on Kickstarter, it was one of the very few games that I backed. It took me a while to get around to it, but I am sorry to report that I didn't really care for the game. I think it was the art and animation that drew my attention, and it proved to be the best part of the game. The pixel art really shines, with the environments in particular being very flashy. I found the rotoscoped "cutscenes" to be fun as well, although it's painfully obvious that there's only a few actual unique animations overlaid onto different backgrounds. The gameplay is fine. It's very Another World-esque in pretty much every way. I think the pixel-based art made it more obvious where to go in this game versus the polygon aesthetic of Another World, but the puzzles here are largely less interesting. There are a few that stand out, but they largely feel pretty much the same. I've used the phrase before, but it felt like the developers had more confidence in the combat than they should have, as I found it rigid and largely tried to avoid it. The final section in particular was really poorly designed and left a pretty bad taste in my mouth at the conclusion of the game. Overall, I don't regret supporting the game, as I think it is a well made title, but it didn't really appeal to me personally.

Terra Nil (PC)

A cute, quiet game about cleaning up the environment, Terra Nil seems like a fun and interesting game, only for it to completely fall out after about an hour. While the game looks like a city sim, the levels are very short, making it more like a puzzle game. Each level plays in three phases, each with its own metrics you have to hit to progress. There's very little creativity in how you want to create your level, you simply need to hit the levels they require of you, which are surprisingly rigid. The different buildings clean up the environment in different ways, and while there are some paths of building A leads into building B, many of them don't seem to mesh together well. The later phases in particular require you to often destroy structures you've built previously. Perhaps the worst part of the game is the final phase, where you have to branch out and completely destroy all the buildings you've made thus far. This is difficult to do on limited resources, and often requires completely destroying much of your creation just to reach the more remote parts of the map. The resource system seems very poorly balanced — where you have more than enough for most of the level, only to run out at the very end, at which point there's nothing you can do. You can't destroy buildings for more resources, you're just stuck. The game is well animated and colorful, which implies to me this is aiming for the "cozy" crowd who want to build up their map over time. However, there's no endless mode (that I saw), it's very short, and the frustration of actually playing the game will drive them away. This seems like a misfire on all fronts.

3/5

Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age (PC)

My first game of 2023, and possibly the most disappointing game of the year for me. I was really expecting to like this game for the setting, the characters, the gambit control system, etc., and yet in every single area I felt this game was a let down. The plot of this game feels incredibly bland and unfocused. The grand adventure the party goes on remains within a short distance from the starting city, and always feels like the party is just reacting to the latest event without any agency. While I did like quite a few of the party members, some of them are pretty horrible, and none worse than main character Vaan. I like the idea of the main character being just some kid who is swept up in something bigger than him, but where Vaan really fails is his characterization, and in particular his voice acting. Vaan's voice actor is probably the worst voice actor I've ever heard in a major game production, and is a major part of why his character does not work at all for me. The combat system here reminds me a lot of Xenoblade Chronicles, whose own biggest flaw for me was its combat system. The MMO-style of half turn-based, half action combat feels very chaotic, and it's much harder to achieve the more strategic feeling of purely turn based games. I did find the gambit system interesting, as macro systems are a feature I wish more RPGs would have. However, while it's a good first attempt, it isn't quite powerful enough for my liking; I found myself regularly needing to tweak certain gambits or disabling them for certain areas. Boolean operators would've been a great addition, although I can see why that would've made things too complicated. All this being said, I wouldn't say there was nothing I liked. I really enjoyed the character of Balthier, even if he didn't get as much development as I would've liked. The re-imagining of the famous summons as great warships was also a neat idea, and lent itself to some well-made cinematics. Some of the villains were interesting, although the final villain remained underdeveloped and too little seen. Overall, a big disappointment, and a dramatic drop off in quality from the Final Fantasy games that came before. Even something like FFVIII, as weird and uneven as it was, still had some cool ideas and set pieces. This game just felt flat and drab the entire way through.

Kena: Bridge of Spirits (PC)

From an animation studio known for their Majora's Mask CGI fan video comes Kena: Bridge of Spirits, an action-adventure game where you play as a young spirit guide attempting to find closure for three people following the destruction of their village. First and foremost, I must say that this game is gorgeous. Understandably since this studio was an animation studio first, but this game has been positively compared to Pixar in its animation style and quality, and I have to agree, it's a very stunning game. This does come at a cost though, as I have a pretty good — but not great — GPU, and this game ran at 99% utilization the entire time I played it. I have yet to find another game that came close to that. The story is a little barebones, but I found the characterization of Kena and the spirits to be well done. I think the pacing could've been done better, as you tend to get all their backstory at once, but I still enjoyed what was there. The biggest downside for this game is the gameplay itself. It takes a lot of inspiration from Zelda, although its puzzles and exploration aren't nearly as strong. The combat is either the same handful of enemies over and over or much more difficult boss fights. I kept thinking to myself that the developers had a lot more faith in the game's combat mechanics than I did. The shield/parry mechanic for example is so slow that I found it basically useless. Kena as a character feels rather sluggish, especially compared to the quick and hard hitting bosses they want you to fight. I think there's a good foundation here, but I wish they had spent less energy on the combat and more on the puzzles.

Alien Isolation (PS4)

This game is a very thorough mix of elements I really like, and stuff that I'm really not a fan of. Firstly, I love the setting and visuals of this game. Not only were they faithful to the designs of the original Alien film, but they were able to expand that set design to what an entire space station might look like in this world. The retro-futuristic 70s tech meshes well and obeys the same sensibilities while also working as video game mechanics. I must admit that I don't care for stealth games; I find them rather tedious and sometimes boring, and this game suffers from that at times. You will spend a lot of time crouched, slowly moving through hallways. The sections where you're hiding from the Alien are the better of these. I didn't give this a great rating though, and that's due to the game feeling padded and poorly paced at times. Having an Alien isn't enough, so they added android enemies as well, and I groaned each time they showed up. They aren't very interesting, not actually all that dangerous, but are bullet sponges and difficult to dodge, in a game where you get very little ammunition. There's a multi-chapter plot about trying to deactivation them and (spoilers) you never do. It's a waste of time and they just lumber around the rest of the game. I also thought the ending was rather poor. Right when you think the game is just about over, they literally drop you down a trapdoor for another tacked-on section. The final scene also has one last twist that happens so quickly, I found it incredibly unsatisfying. If you're a fan of sci-fi horror or stealth, you'll likely enjoy this one, but I thought it was just alright.

Rez (DC)

Rez reminds me a lot of Crazy Taxi. Both are arcade-esque experiences where the game is fun to play in short bursts, but are pretty repetitive and don't actually offer much content. Also both were on the Dreamcast. Rez is a 3D on-rails shooter where you fly through a wireframe soundscape shooting down any enemy that files within view. The visuals and music are definitely the highlights of the game, and probably the only reason anyone remembers it. If this game had a pretty static backdrop, it would've fallen to the wayside of history. It's a game that I think I would rather watch someone play than play myself, a trait it shares with a later game by its creator, Tetris Effect. I just didn't like the actual gameplay. You move a cursor on screen and hold down a single button. There isn't much to it, and I found the levels more tedious than I did exhilarating. The VR version of the game might be more enjoyable, because you can both immerse yourself in the game as well as gain more precise controls. As for the original version, it's a mediocre game in great packaging.

Hue (PC)

Hue is a puzzle platformer where by changing the background color of the levels, you reveal or hide level elements of various colors. The color shifting is a clever system, and while I had seen similar concepts before, including some of my own short-lived proofs of concept, I haven't seen it done in a fully fledged game. There are a number of different puzzle elements that work together to make quite complex puzzles. While I wouldn't say the game is difficult, there were definitely some later levels that stumped for a time. The story is only told via letters from the player character's mother, and while I liked the story and the voice acting, it doesn't integrate itself into the gameplay too well. It's a solid game, but rather repetitive. The only progression you get is additional colors to swap to. While the levels do get more difficult, they don't utilize all the colors in tandem. A fun but plain game that was worth the free price.

Control: The Foundation (PC)

The Foundation is the first DLC for Control, where director Jesse descends down to the caverns beneath the Bureau's foundation to repair damage to their reality. While I really enjoyed the base Control game, I really didn't care for this at all. A major reason I liked the original game was its setting, set inside a government building containing some of the world's greatest secrets. This DLC does add a little bit of lore and plot, but it feels rather lacking, and in most other aspects as well. The entire DLC is an honestly quite small collection of caves, and the goal boils down to completing four areas then beating a boss fight. It would be a fairly barebones chapter of the main game, let alone its own DLC. They do add some new abilities which mesh well with the pre-existing moveset, but the gameplay is just mindless enemy fighting. I was honestly only interested in playing the second DLC, but I was hoping this first addition would've been more than it was.

Control: AWE (PC)

AWE is the second DLC for Control, which crosses over with Remedy's previous game Alan Wake. In addition to featuring the extra-worldy voice of Alan Wake himself, the expansion also adds additional enemy mechanics which mimic those from his own game. Those additions would've gotten frustrating if used throughout a full length game, but they were interesting and fairly well integrated here. While I did like this DLC more than The Foundation, I was probably more let down by it, as I found it rather lackluster. The expansion moves back into the setting I preferred from the main game, but this content boils down to simply chasing down a monster through several areas, then defeating it. I thought The Foundation was barebones, but this had even less content. I think the worlds of Alan Wake and Control mesh well together, and it's likely that they'll play with this connection in future titles, but as someone who didn't really care for Alan Wake that much, I didn't get any nostalgia for seeing him again, and frankly he didn't really do much. While I did really enjoy the base Control game, I didn't find either of the DLC additions to be all that interesting, and I think they could be safely skipped if you happened to pick up a copy that didn't include them.

Ristar (MD)

About 15 years ago, I picked up a Sega Genesis at a yard sale from a mother who was selling her poor college-aged kid's childhood possessions. As part of getting the console, I also two controllers, the required cables, and four games. NBA Jam, NHLPA 94, Sonic 2, and Ristar. The sports games aren't actually half bad, and I've beaten Sonic 2 many times over the years, but for 15 years I've never actually finished Ristar. Until today. With copious use of save states. Ristar is a 2D platformer where you play as the titular Ristar, as he travels the cosmos, defeating enemies by grabbing and ramming his face into them. Aside from jump, this is Ristar's only move. He can stretch out his arms, grab onto things, and pull himself towards them. This can be used as an offensive move, for platforming, swinging around poles, picking up items, etc. It's a simple but neat mechanic, and it's used to its full potential in a number of interesting ways. The levels themselves are perhaps a bit linear, but structured well-enough, and the graphics are top notch. This might be one of the best looking games on the system. Really big, colorful sprites, interesting scenery, and cool looking enemy designs make the visuals this game's strength. So why the middling rating? I have tried many times over the years to get into this game, but at the end of the day, I find that I just don't like how it controls. The actual platforming isn't bad, but the grabbing mechanic, which is very heavily used, is very hit or miss for me. I often find myself missing my target, or performing the action slightly too late, or being unable to attack in the direction I want to. Perhaps it's just me, but after repeatedly becoming uninterested over and over for nearly two decades, it's enough of a reason that I never really bothered finishing the game. It's not terribly long, although if you find the controls as imprecise as I do, some of the later levels are an exercise in frustration. I've really wanted to like this game more than I do, and while I think the graphics do make this one of the more noteworthy Genesis titles, it's not one that I think about too fondly.

Viewfinder (PC)

Much like Portal or Superliminal, Viewfinder is a puzzle game based on altering the perspective of the player's view in order to reach new areas. By aligning photographs to the first person view and hitting a button, those photographs supersede what was behind and becomes the new reality. This allows for some really neat mechanics, such as duplication of objects, creating paths to access new areas, and allowing the player to actually enter various optical illusions. From a technological perspective, this game is incredible. It does a great job blending gameplay with its visual illusions, creating some really unique and interesting puzzles. The games I mentioned previously all set themselves inside a vague laboratory of some sort, and while this game does technically do that as well, the majority of this game takes place on idyllic floating islands, exploring old workshops. This game has more background lore than plot, you get some dialogue and voice recordings of the people who originally created the illusions, and while it's interesting enough, I never really got too invested in the story. The biggest issue with this game, and why I found it a bit lackluster, is it never really transcends from incredible tech demo to well-realized game. The issue here are the puzzles. The developers have a lot of interesting ideas about how to utilize the mechanics into a variety of puzzles, and I think the majority of them are incorporated well. But if you've played Portal, for example, it goes farther than just introducing the portals and the turrets and the various other objects. They begin introducing levels that combine several of these mechanics together, then several more, until you have well-designed but somewhat complex levels requiring a deep understanding of multiple mechanics. Viewfinder introduces all the pieces needed for some really great puzzles, but rarely uses more than one or two of them at a time. Even the final level is (spoilers) just a time trial of several single challenges back to back. The only real challenge here is it's the first time they actually bother timing you, so you're having to rush when you never had to before. I don't think any part of this game is bad, but I do think it never reaches its full potential.

Chicory: A Colorful Tale (PS5)

I don't have too much to say about Chicory. It's a short and cute game about using your magical paintbrush to color the world back in and to help defeat the corruption plaguing the world. The relationships between the characters are very wholesome, and the game gives off a very positive vibe about overcoming one's impostor syndrome. The puzzles are pretty well constructed, but got a bit repetitive by the end. I played this game on PS5, which heavily utilizes the touchpad in a clever, yet carpal tunnel-inducing way. There are a lot of characters to talk to in the game, but by the second half I never felt inclined to really interact with anyone, nor did I feel the need to continue grabbing the many, many different costume options. It's an average game, and considering I got it for free I think it was worth my time, but it never really blew me away.

Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords (PSP)

This is a combination of a match 3 game (think Bejeweled or Candy Crush) with some RPG elements. You and the enemy AI take turns swapping tiles on the board, earning MP, XP, coins, or doing damage depending on the tile type. It's a neat concept, with surprisingly in-depth equipment and side quest mechanics. I enjoy these types of games, and while I did rather enjoy this game, I think I liked it more than it deserves. The core gameplay can be a bit frustrating, as in a typical match 3 game you want to set up good future moves for yourself. In this game, you actively don't want to do so, as that will only help your opponent next turn. It trades one type of strategy for another, but this is arguably less rewarding. The game is also very biased towards the enemies, who seem to get just the moves they need to gain an extra turn. It got so bad once that the game actually crashed from all the "extra turn" effects on screen. This game does actually have an in-depth story, but it didn't really do anything for me. Overall, a surprisingly fun puzzle game, but one that somewhat outstays its welcome.

Teardown (PS5)

Another day, another incredible tech demo that has trouble pivoting into an actual game. I want to be clear that this review is just for the campaign of Teardown, which is almost certainly not really the intended focus of the game. From what I played, I can tell that the multiplayer or modded content is where the real fun lies, and the campaign is simply a nice addition from the developers, in case no one else ends up playing or modding the game. To start, there's a lot to like here. If you've ever seen Minecraft with shaders, it strongly resembles this, although Teardown has much smaller voxels. This allows for every object to be interactable or breakable, while still lending itself well to great looking models. While the campaign has a story, it's pretty thin, and comprises of a series of missions with clear cut objectives. You would think that in a game where everything is destroyable, you would have lots of demolition missions, but you will be destroying surprisingly little in your playthrough. I read an interview with the developers where they stated that they created the destructible mechanics first, then found themselves struggling to find gameplay styles that well suited it. In my opinion, they didn't succeed in the final product, as the mission objectives are a baffling collection. Probably 80% or so of them are heist-like, where you have to retrieve a set number of items across the map and escape. While this might seem fun, most of these have a 1 minute timer that begins when you collect the first item, meaning that most levels are about 15 minutes of positioning escape routes and vehicles, followed by a single minute of rushing around. This is fun for some maps, but the sheer number of them are exhausting. They do come up with some differing ideas in the second half of the game, but many of those consist of being shot at by enemies, which might be even less enjoyable. It's a shame these objectives are so poor, because with some slight tweaks this could have been an excellent experience. Well, almost. While I did get used to it, some of the physics are a bit off. From what I can tell, the game only considers a collection of voxels as falling if it is completely separated from the ground. This means that you can have a massive structure standing on a tiny column, and it won't fall. It's not as bad as Minecraft, but again, when you're trying to destroy stuff, it can be frustrating when objects don't obey gravity as expected. As it is, the rating I've given this is mainly due to its potential, as I probably enjoyed myself much less than it would imply.

Sonic Superstars (PC)

As is tradition for a 2.5D Sonic game, Sonic Superstars is a bit of a mixed bag that comes together to create an incredibly mediocre game. It's not a bad time by any means, but it also didn't really keep my attention. Before we get into that though, there are some positives I want to highlight. Firstly, the physics of this game are pretty solid. I alluded to it earlier, but all of the 2.5D Sonic games all tend to feel... off. Even Sonic Generations, which was probably the closest up until now, controlled notably different (and in my opinion, worse) than the classic games. Superstars also coincidentally made the same change Super Mario Bros. Wonder did, which is completely remove the life system. I can't say I miss it, although it feels like they didn't think how it would affect other mechanics. For example, the game still gives you points, but I have no idea what they're used for since they no longer give lives. Now, while I did feel that Super Mario Bros. Wonder wasn't nearly as innovative as everyone else seemed to think, this game pushes the envelope even less. Again, not necessarily in a bad way, but in an uninteresting way. For the most part, all the characters control just like you'd expect, the enemies follow their familiar archetypes, and the level design is by the books. When you get to see the level design that is, as like other 2.5D Sonic games, the camera is way too close. I don't know why this happens in so many titles, especially now with a widescreen HD display available to use, but this game would've greatly benefited with a wider field of view. You might also be familiar that this game got a lot of criticism for its bosses, and while I certainly agree, I want to explain why. On the surface, these bosses seem fine. They have a pattern of attack the player has to dodge, then they're vulnerable for a window of time. Classic boss 101. Except that's not how Sonic bosses have traditionally worked. In Sonic 3, for example, you can run up and repeatedly bounce on the first boss's head until they're defeated in seconds. The fun of Sonic bosses is being able to sneak hits in, something they don't allow here. There's also more egregious issues, like lots of auto-scrolling bosses that last for several minutes, and a series of attack patterns that surprised me that Arzest (the co-developer) didn't have a history in shmups. The big gimmick of this game was giving the Chaos Emeralds their own individual powers, which is a mechanic I thought had potential in the past (Sonic 06 of all things did it), but the implementation is a bit lacking. They greatly limit how often you can use the abilities, and I'm not sure why as I didn't find any of them terribly useful. The series has also had its share of crap special stages, but these are really bad. You have to swing across points in a big open space as the emerald zooms about, but it seems just random enough to be frustrating. Finally, I do need to address the elephant in the room (besides Mario Wonder I guess) and that is the price. I typically don't like to complain too much about the price of a game, but at $60, this game is triple the cost Sonic Mania was, and it feels like a huge blunder on their part. If anything, it reinforces my opinion that Sega wasn't expecting Mania to be successful, and has learned the wrong lessons from it. Superstars is a competent game, but not a terribly interesting one.

Final Fantasy VII Remake: Episode Intermission (PS5)

I was a big fan of Final Fantasy VII Remake when it first released, and I was rather annoyed by the choice to make the Yuffie DLC only available on the PS5 (and later PC) versions of the game, and not the original PS4. I'm still not sure of the rationale behind this, and it took me several years before I was finally able experience it. Episode Intermission is only two episodes long, starring Yuffie and beginning around the time Cloud meets Aerith in the main title. If I'm being honest, I've never liked Yuffie. She's an annoying optional character who steals your stuff in FFVII, a weird kid in Crisis Core, and here they give her a "rawr xd" personality (I do actually like her in Kingdom Hearts, but no one in Kingdom Hearts has their actual personality). It's a little charming at times, but she can be pretty grating. Her combat style is also rather odd, which doesn't help the rather uneven difficulty of the game, but a good part of that is it's been a while since I played FFVIIR, and it took me a while to get back into the swing of things. As you can tell, I wasn't too impressed with this DLC. It doesn't help that the plot doesn't really add anything to FFVIIR — at least so far — but it does manage to add in some stereotypically cringy Square Enix characters right at the end. They leave it vague as to what their deal is, and while I didn't recognize them, they might be from previous media, but boy, could I not care less if they never showed up again. I feel a little bad, as there is some stuff to like here, but overall, I didn't miss much by being unable to play this on PS4.

3.5/5

Warioware: Touched! (DS)

This is a fun Wario-themed collection of microgames; which are short games completed in only a few seconds with quick motions of the stylus or the microphone. I quite liked this game. I found the art style to be stylish, the microgames are all pretty fun and very inventive, and the plot, as short as it was, had some cute and funny moments. Like other similar games of this era, such as Feel the Magic XY/XX, the game comes off as slightly unhinged but in a fun chaotic way. The biggest downside to the game is its length, but I think the main appeal of the game is attempting to beat your high score, and the story mode is just there for some flavor. Overall, while I'm not sure I would've gotten my money's worth paying full price back in the day, it's a fun game if you can get it for cheap now.

VA-11 Hall-A (PC)

A visual novel where you play a bartender in the cyberpunk not-so-distant-future, VA-11 Hall-A (pronounced "valhalla") focuses on Jill, a young bartender, as she serves patrons in a strangely cozy, but unremarkable bar of the same name. The game is a mostly first person view looking out at her customers, with the only gameplay mixing the drink orders. You do not get to pick any dialogue choices, the only options you have towards changing the outcome of the game is which drinks you decide to give the customers, even if that might not be exactly what they ordered. I think cozy does best describe this game. I enjoyed seeing the regular customers and hearing their descriptions of the outside world. You get to know them and their quirks well. The game heavily draws upon old Japanese PC-98 games, and while I'm not terribly familiar with them, they yield a really strong aesthetic that fits the game well. This is a visual novel however, and I must say that writing can be very inconsistent. For the most part I enjoyed the dialogue and characters, but it did stray into "cringy" territory. You can tell this game was written by a bunch of men. Gentlemen, if you out there are aspiring to be a writer, you need to understand that women do not talk about their breasts to strangers. They do not call each other "flat", they do not make comments on how busty each other are, and they certainly don't do it every single day. I also found the direction of the game to be a bit lacking. The world building starts off very strong, with a focus on the events occurring in their dystopian city. However, after the first act or so, these events largely stop, and instead focus more on the Jill's own life. I would guess that 95% of the plotlines introduced do not go anywhere, or are even remotely explained (the handing of the Anna character is baffling to me). You could argue that that makes sense, that the only plot to really wrap up would be Jill's own, as life does not have answers for everything. To an extent that works, but at some point introducing plotlines that have no purpose takes away from the world building rather than adding to it.

Quake (PC)

Despite being on record that I don't like most FPS games, I do enjoy the "boomer shooter" genre of typically older, faster paced FPS games. I have played Wolfenstein 3D and Doom in the past, but I've never played id Software's follow up game, Quake. I'm pleased to say that it improves upon the Doom games in a number of ways. The graphical quality has improved, the guns all feel fun to use, and the level design is much, much better. One of my biggest complaints about Doom was how convoluted some of the levels become, but with the exception of some very late game levels, I was able to clearly understand where the objectives were, and which direction Quake wanted me to go. However, they do trade some good design choices for bad ones, and my biggest problem with this game are some of the tedious enemies. Most of them are fine, but there are some enemy types that are just a slog to fight. The worst offender is the large enemy with the chainsaw. I'm fine with the fact they're a bit of a damage sponge. I'm fine with their chainsaws. But boy did I hate that they can use grenades. You would think grenade throwing enemies would be somewhat rare, but they function as the main enemy type in some early stages. Aside from groaning every time I'd see one of them, I did enjoy Quake, and I can see why it has the reputation it does.

The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog (PC)

I sometimes find it tricky to assign ratings to games. Say you have a game with a strong vision that it executes well, but doesn't have the scope to be considered the best of the best, where does it fall? The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog is a prime example of this type of game. Sonic and his friends have come together for a murder mystery train event, and it's up to Tails and the new player character to solve who was the assigned killer of Sonic the Hedgehog. The art is colorful and fun, the dialogue is well written; overall its a very fun outing. You get to see the characters interact with each other in a casual setting, and the events of the game play to their respective character traits. It's a somewhat short visual novel, which is why I don't include it among my favorite games this year, but it accomplishes what it wants to do very well. The only downside is the special stage mini-game you have to repeatedly play, which is somehow a bit lackluster and tricky to control at the same time. Later on, they also change the game from a subsection of the window to be full screen, and I found it much harder to play zoomed in. This is a minor complaint however, and given the game is quick and free, it's an excellent side story that I would certainly recommend.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (PC)

See if you've heard this one before. A young Jedi survivor travels the stars with a ragtag group in order to find a ancient McGuffin that will bring down the Empire. I find the post-Prequel Trilogy period to be a bit overdone at this point, and Star Wars Jedi doesn't add too much in the story department. The characters are rather likeable, surprising given how little development they get, but the overall plot isn't anything to write home about. If anything, the entire events of the game end up being pointless as (spoilers) they decide using the holocron was a terrible idea and just destroy it. They could've never met and the story wouldn't be too different. As for the gameplay it's... fine. They do a good job making the levels feel like a natural part of the environment, but none of it really sticks out. It's a lot of the same hallways and same sorts of puzzles. The combat has a lot of unlockable moves, which is nice, but I always found it a bit clunky, and you spend a lot of time blocking attacks wearing down stamina bars. Credit where credit is due though, I wasn't expecting a Star Wars game from EA to not be riddled with micro-transactions or bloated unlockable systems, but this game is pretty streamlined and to the point. It's also a lot shorter than I was expecting, with only a handful of levels. There's a good foundation here, and if the sequel takes what worked and improves upon it, I could see it being a worthwhile game. I just wish I found the setting more interesting or novel.

Death Stranding (PC)

I try to go into games with an open mind, but I'll fully admit to you that I started playing Death Stranding with the expectation that I would hate everything about it. It was to my complete shock that I actually started to enjoy the gameplay and the world. You play a Sam, a postal delivery man in the post-apocalyptic world of America, delivering packages between the last bastions of society and trying to interlink them all to the same national network system. Delivering packages might sound dull, but I found it rather soothing to manually travel from one area to another, planning my route and trying to avoid the natural obstacles while the Low Roar soundtrack plays (even if the game had an annoying habit of only starting the music when I was about to reach my destination). Some have called it a walking simulator, and that's fair, but I found the scenery varied and challenging enough to keep my attention. You can craft items and structures in a Metal Gear Solid V sort of way, and some of those get synced to the worlds of other players. It's a bit of an odd system; while I like the feeling of working with the other porters of the world to accomplish our collective goals, it does make the game somewhat easier, as you can rely on the infrastructure other players have built to avoid the more challenging parts of your journey. The problem I have with this game is everything else, which really only serves to prevent me from delivering my packages. The scattered human enemies aren't worth fighting, and the interactions with the ghost-like "BTs" require you to stop what you're doing and complete a stealth section, or else risk damage and fighting a mini-boss. This game feels split in two; you have the regular postal delivery gameplay, but then the game remembers it's a video game and video games need boss sections. So they stop what you're doing, give you some guns, and make you shoot some enemies. Because you never use guns during regular gameplay, they can't make these sections hard, so they make them somewhat tedious instead. This is all in service of a plot which is just as nonsensical as I feared. At best you're dealing with mildly unique characters with their own personality quirks, but at worst you're having to listen to hours of cutscenes of Kojima pseudoscience and poorly explained concepts. This game has some of the worst world building I've ever seen, and there is no better example of it than the ending of the game, which I won't spoil, but requires you to sit through over two hours of technobabble cutscenes and just enough player interaction to be annoying. They play the entire credit sequence twice!! The villains of the game are incredibly weak, and just serve to exemplify how the overall plot is stopping me from delivering packages. The game is best when you are helping the local population with their problems, but it's its own insistence on being weird and unique that holds it back.

Inside (PC)

The spiritual successor to their previous game Limbo, Inside is a dark puzzle platformer where you play as a young boy attempting to navigate through a dystopian facility. I don't have too much to say about Inside, it's a solid but somewhat short experience. The visuals are definitely the highlight, it's a great looking game that manages to impart its world to the player without any dialogue or text. It is easy to fill in the blanks to build up the world in your mind. The puzzles are clever, if a bit simplistic. Many of them are simple timing or block pushing puzzles that can be solved within a few attempts. It's best to go into this game blind, as the twist near the end of the game is probably the highlight, which was spoiled for me as I knew it was going to happen ahead of time. While it may not be one of my favorites of the year, I would definitely recommend it, it's a short but sweet experience.

We Love Katamari Reroll+ Royal Reverie (PC)

A modern port of the Katamari sequel for PS2, I've always thought this is this best of the Katamari games that I've played, and quite an improvement over the first one. The levels in the original either have you make a katamari of a given size, or roll up a specific number of specific targets. This game, in comparison, has some more unique ideas, such as a racecar level, levels in space, underwater, making a snowman, etc. It feels very clever and about as far as you can take the theme. At the end of the day, it is a very basic concept, but it works so well due to the whimsical setting and clever humor. There are some downsides however. For this release, I went and got every achievement, and the tediousness of the game does come into play, as there are some levels you have to replay up to five times, just making sure to roll up a specific object each time. For the later levels which are near 20 minutes in length, it's an exercise in patience. That being said, it's a good remaster and a game that nearly everyone is intrigued upon when seeing it.

Observation (PC)

While I didn't terribly care for Alien: Isolation, one of the things I thought it did well was its environments and UI. It added to the 1970s retro-futuristic VHS-core of the original film in a convincing way that worked well for the medium. The head UI designer for that game, along with some of their fellow developers, went on to release another sci-fi title, Observation. You play as SAM, the surprisingly low tech AI in charge of overseeing a space station following a mysterious disaster. The gameplay mostly consists of controlling a series of security cameras, where you can relay information to the crew or interact with certain puzzles. There is also a mode where you control a free moving sphere and are able to move about the space station itself. The gameplay is... fine. It's both a bit sluggish and wild to control, and while there are some interesting puzzles, they aren't terribly intricate. The main difficulty comes from figuring out what the game is asking of you at times. However, the gameplay doesn't really feel like it's the main focus, even in the developer's eyes. They clearly set out to make a game-ified version of a sci-fi Netflix drama, with the pacing, twists, and even the opening credits very much in that vein. I did like the characters, and I did like the plot, although I thought the pacing was a bit off. The game is rather short, I finished it in roughly 3 or 4 hours, and while it's a good burn at the beginning, near the end everything takes a sudden lurch towards the conclusion. I don't really feel like I quite understood everything that happened, but I also don't think I was supposed to. If you enjoy sci-fi dramas or 2001: A Space Odyssey, I think you will enjoy this game, even if its merits entirely lie in its cinematography.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice for All (PC)

The second game in the Ace Attorney series, Justice for All plays very much like the first game, with four new cases for our heroes to investigate in the field and debate in the courtroom. Most of the mechanics are the same as the original game, with the exception of the new "Psyche-lock" mechanic. This forces the player to present several pieces of evidence at once to unlock further dialogue options. It's a somewhat interesting mechanic, although it's fundamentally not really that different than a typical discussion. While the first game had five cases (including the extra case added in later releases), this game has only four, and to be honest the first three were just okay. I didn't hate any of them, but between them, one is a short introductory case, the second was rather obvious to me, and the third is just a bit silly. However, I found the final case to be very engaging, which breaks the pattern the previous cases used to keep the drama high. I don't think it feels as impactful as the last cases from the first game, but that might change if some of its characters return in the next title. All in all, a fun visual novel with some highs and lows, but good enough that I plan on finishing out the trilogy.

Spaceplan (PC)

I never thought I'd actually play a clicker game in my entire life, but I'm a sucker for anything space related, so I swallowed by pride and tried out Spaceplan. The game is pretty standard clicker fare. Make the number go bigger so you can buy better equipment so you can make the number go bigger faster. By clicking a button you generate energy (referred to as Watts, a unit of power, with an optional toggle to correctly display them as Joules. It slightly annoys me that's not correct by default) which you can use to build devices to generate more energy per click, or to generate automatically. You and your trusty spaceship AI are in orbit of a mysterious planet and by generating energy to send out probes and scans you attempt to figure out where you are and how to get home. The humor is very Portal — down to the inclusion of potatoes — but it works rather well. There are some minor twists in the plot, so I won't reveal too much, but for a game that could have had nothing at all, I was pleased with the events and dialogue. The UI is also very aesthetically pleasing. You mostly view a minimalist depiction of the planet, your spaceship, and any potato-based items you send into orbit or the surface. Good use of shading and subtle effects make it much more pleasing than a mostly empty screen could've been. My one criticism is that there are some gaps in rewards where it's unclear what you're working towards, or that the next reward is a much larger wait than previous. It's a fairly minor complaint, especially since the game still generates energy for a time after you quit, but it's worth mentioning. The very nature of the game means that it's not going to go on my favorites list, but I did rather enjoy my time with it overall, even if it is on the shorter side (especially for this genre).

Sea of Stars (PC)

From the same studio that made The Messenger, Sea of Stars was one of my most anticipated games of the year, and while there is a lot to like, I think it ended up being a bit of a disappointment. Beginning with the positives, the game is absolutely gorgeous. This game might have the best pixel art I have ever seen. The environments are lush and vibrant, the animations are fluid and detailed, and it is by far the game's strongest area. The soundtrack quality matches its visuals, even featuring the composer from Chrono Trigger as a guest. The game takes inspiration from Chrono Trigger in other ways too — such as the combat — which despite my complaints later, I think is pretty well designed. It's a bit of a mix between Paper Mario and the Chrono games, with three party members, dual techs, and extra damage on timed moves. It's a solid system, and for the first few hours I was thoroughly enjoying myself. This brings me to my issues with the game, namely that it plateaus very early. With the exception of the prologue (where they give you backstory for an hour before letting you actually play the game), the game is well paced at the start, giving you new abilities and mechanics and giving the plot a strong sense of direction. After a while though, things begin to drag. Each character only has three special moves total, and once you learn those early on, the combat never evolves. Every battle ends up being very monotonous. Some of the more powerful techniques — such as ultimate moves or dual techs — take too long to charge up to be used in anything other than boss fights. Many of the moves are also tedious to use, such as the lunar boomerang move. It's a cool move, but takes concentration and a bit of time to use without a clear advantage. My biggest issue however has to be the plot. From moment to moment it's fine, but I never felt super engaged with the events, and often felt a bit aimless. For many plot-heavy games, I often stop and ask "Why are the characters here?". In some games (such as Chrono Trigger) the events that lead the heroes to each point are easy to follow and track, and the plot logically follows along. This game... not so much. It starts out well, but by the midpoint begins follow its own logic without many stakes. This culminates in what I must vaguely describe as a very lackluster ending. It's clear they really want me to go and work towards a better "true ending", but frankly I don't feel the engagement enough to continue. It's a shame, this game has a lot going for it. If you had asked me after 5 hours or so my feelings, I would've said it was a solid 4.5/5 game. I was waiting for a "wow" moment to really push it to the next level, but that moment never came. Instead, the game coasts along a bit, and while I do think it's one of the better indie RPGs in recent years, I find myself a bit let down.

Assassin's Creed: Revelations (PS4)

Assassin's Creed: Revelations picks up where Brotherhood left off and covers the final chapter of Ezio's life as he searches Constantinople/Istanbul for keys to access Altair's final secrets. This might be controversial, but I actually enjoyed this one more than Brotherhood, which let me down a bit. The plot here is fairly straight-forward, but I thought it was better than the revenge storyline from Brotherhood. I enjoyed seeing Constantinople and I thought a new region was a refreshing change of pace from the Italian setting of the previous two games. The inclusion of Altair's plotline was a nice touch as well. It never took away from the main game, but was a nice coda to the first game, back when the series cared about such things. I do understand why people don't like this game, however, and it's largely because this game barely innovates on the series at all. There's a few new mechanics, like the hook blade or some new sub-weapons, but this is largely the Ezio from Brotherhood aged up a bit and dropped right into this game. If you were feeling fatigued by the series or hoping for something new, I can see why you'd be very let down. I was also surprised by Desmond's story, or the lack thereof. I wasn't crazy about his ending in Brotherhood, and while I do think the modern plotline is a great framing story, it never lived up to its potential. You can tell Ubisoft is already checking out on the Desmond plotline because he's barely in the game. The previous game ends in a cliffhanger which was completely unaddressed in this game. It didn't really bother me that much, as I was fine remaining in the past, but it's interesting to mention. Overall, while I ended a bit tired of Brotherhood and it's ending, Revelations has increased my interest of the series, and I plan on continuing with another entry. We'll see how long this enthusiasm lasts.

Xenoblade Chronicles: Future Connected (NS)

More of an epilogue than an expansion, Future Connected is an extra campaign that was added to the Switch version of Xenoblade Chronicles. It follows Shulk, Melia, and two children of Riki as they attempt to reclaim the High Entia capital from a new threat. I don't have too much to say about this title, it feels like a standard length extra chapter added to the game, which I suppose is impressive given it had been over a decade since it was made. There's a little bit of extra development for Shulk and Melia, but for Shulk especially, it feels like his story was already told. None of the antagonists are too fleshed out, and while I was assuming it was a crossover given the title, I don't think that's true. The area you explore is apparently a cut area from the original game, so it's neat to see it actually playable. I liked some of the extra content, including the extra Ponspector quests and ability, which I actually prefer over how Chain attacks worked in the base game. It's a nice side story, although I'll admit I still don't really like the game's combat all that much.

Slay the Princess (PC)

I can't say too much about Slay the Princess without giving it away, but know that it is a horror visual novel where you are tasked by the narrator of the story to slay a princess currently locked up in the basement of a nearby cabin. The game is very self aware of its own narrative in its discussions between the various characters, and in the choices that the player makes. The game is not terribly long — I was able to finish it in less than two hours — but I also definitely did not see all that there was to see, and curious players could likely spend much more time exploring the different choices. It has good voice acting and writing, and I quite enjoyed the art. However, and I'm going to try to be vague here, the structure of the game means that many of your choices seem important at first, but somewhat superficial overall. While I did like the characters, I didn't really feel much of an impact from the story overall. It had some neat concepts, but I realized what it was going for about halfway through, and after that it feels more like checking off boxes than really exploring the narrative. I would still recommend the game, as it does have some rather horrific elements, but I don't think I was as fond of it as some other reviewers.

Yakuza Kiwami (PC)

For me, this game exemplifies "better than the sum of its parts". While Yakuza 0 had some flaws, I enjoyed my time with it and was curious about the next entry in the series. I'm afraid to say that this game really feels like a watered down version of 0, mostly due to its locales and set pieces. That's not necessarily this game's fault, as it's a remake of the original Yakuza, but it's about on par with Kiryu's part of Yakuza 0, meaning this is only half of that game. Aside from Kiryu looking older, and some city businesses having changed, I'm not sure I could tell screenshots from these two games apart. I don't think I liked the plot as much as the previous title either. It never really felt like the stakes were as high, which works well towards Kiryu's relationships, but not as well in the finale when all the big players suddenly turn up. I quite like Kiryu as a character, but the game shows him having a heart of gold while telling you he is an inspirational star in his organization, which is filled exclusively with pieces of shit. This dichotomy never really works out, and I think it's why the games always seem to show Kiryu not actually apart of any syndicate. It wouldn't work well with the image the game is trying to portray. His ten year stint in jail also seems to have had no affect at all on him, despite the rest of the world changing while he was gone. The one exception might be Majima, who I really liked in 0, but really don't like this portrayal. His character shift at the very end of 0 felt jarring, but unavoidable given this is a remake. I don't know why they decided to put this character here originally though. He isn't given any backstory or explanation, and is berating enough that by the end I just avoided him. Finally, the combat is alright, but I never grew to love it. You're either fighting wave after wave of the same tired enemies, or facing off against some really awful bosses. I think the boss fights were the lowest part of the game for me, as they have way too much health, dodge excessively, and can heal. Those fights were mainly wars of attrition between their health bar and my healing item supply. However, I said this game is more than the sum of its parts. Despite not really liking any individual aspect of the game, I found myself quite enjoying it overall. Given how similar it is, I do think Yakuza 0 is superior, as it does everything but better. However if you enjoyed that game, I think you would easily enjoy this one. I have heard this series is a bit same-y, but I do hope that the subsequent games change things up a little. I don't think I'd be as interested in a third entry repeating the same steps as these two.

Radical Dreamers (PC)

If you took my average rating across a video game series, the Chrono franchise would easily be on top. Chrono Cross, flaws and all, is still in my top 10 favorite games, and I still consider Chrono Trigger the best game ever made. Unknown to most fans though, there is actually a third Chrono game, which for many years remained somewhat obscure, until the Chrono Cross remaster brought into greater consciousness. Radical Dreamers is technically the second game in the series, released for the Japanese-only Satellaview SNES add-on, and previously only available in English via a mid-2000s fan translation. The game features three characters — Serge, Kid, and Magil — as they attempt to break into a manor and steal the treasure inside. For most of its playthrough, Radical Dreamers seems to have nothing at all to do with Trigger, only dropping vague references, waiting until the end to reveal that the entire game is meant to answer the open fate of one of its characters. For those who have played Chrono Cross, this plot will sound incredibly similar. Indeed, dissatisfied with how Radical Dreamers turned out, its plot would be reused as the basis of Chrono Cross, so far as to reuse much of this scenario in that game, when Serge, Kid, and a third party member break into Viper Manor near the beginning of the game. Somewhat ironically, I think the characterization shown here is much better than we got in Cross, as Kid and Serge actually have a relationship, and the connections to the first game are much more solid (Magil has a heavily hinted upon connection to Trigger, while his modified Cross version Guile is a completely discardable character). The game itself is a visual novel with some exploration and light combat thrown in. It's somewhat engaging, and the music is excellent, but I can see why the developers wanted a do-over. There's a hidden and somewhat arbitrary health and relationship stat which will determine how the ending goes. In addition, it carries on the tradition of silly alternative endings, but those are probably best viewed online. I think if you're a fan of the series this game is worth playing, simply to get some additional insight into the development of Cross, and to spend more time in this world. Besides, if you know where to look while playing Chrono Cross, you can find out that this game is not entirely forgotten.

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII: Reunion (PC)

With the second part of the Final Fantasy VII remake coming out in a few months, I figured I would get back into the swing of things by playing what I understand to be the only FFVII spin-off worth playing, Crisis Core. This game is really hit or miss. The stuff I like I really like, and the stuff I didn't really sucks. For positives, I enjoyed the combat of this game. It's an action RPG vaguely similar to FFVII Remake, but with only a single playable character, Zach Fair. You can definitely tell that this was originally a PSP game though, as the encounters and zones don't flow together well at all. The game also has a large number of short, but enjoyable missions, as well as a materia melding system that strongly reminded me of Birth by Sleep — understandable given they were both PSP games by the same developer around the same time. This Reunion version of the game is also visually quite good. You can tell they took strong guidance (and sometimes direct assets) from FFVII Remake. The music is also strong, although most of the best tracks are again remixes from FFVII. Now for the bad... the plot of this game is dreadful. Now, while Zack can be a tad annoying, he actually grew on me, and neither he nor anything introduced in FFVII is the problem. Instead, it's all the original content and plots introduced in this game. Vague antagonist Genesis and vague protagonist Angeal have literally no motivation. It's not that I didn't understand their motives, they literally never have any, the game gives them verbose speeches about honor, power, or lost Shakespearean plays, but never explains what they're actually doing. While the sections of the game where you cover events shown in FFVII are good — Nibelheim being a standout — the rest of it is just... drab. I would go so far as to say that the inclusion of Angeal and Genesis, and their relation to the story, actually makes Sephiroth a less interesting character. While I have good opinions of Square Enix before and after, the late 2000s were not a good time for their storytelling, and this game falls right into that, although I think it's still better than other titles they were putting out. Overall though, I did enjoy myself with the game and I can see why it was credited as one of the best PSP games, even if I'm a bit concerned with how some of its plots might come back to bite the next FFVII remake entries.

Call of the Sea (PS5)

Reject husband. Embrace fish. Call of the Sea is a puzzle game with the backdrop of a Lovecraft novel, as protagonist Norah searches for her husband, lost on a remote island after searching for a cure for her own mysterious illness. On the surface, Call of the Sea offers nothing that other Lovecraftian games don't. Mysterious disappearances. Weird black goo. Ancient intricate stone carvings. Fish people. However, while it is a bit by the book, Call of the Sea does offer a few things that other similar games don't. For one, it's surprisingly vibrant. It's a very colorful game with a nice art style. Compare this to the similar (and similarly named) Call of Cthulhu, which I played a few years back, which was an incredibly drab and dark affair. Even when things are reaching their climax, the game embraces it's color scheme, which I think goes a long way. The puzzles also actually require some thought, although they're a bit seldom for a game of this length. I do wish that games with a Lovecraftian spin didn't just rip off the same Cthulhu tropes, as there's only so much variation you can spin on them. I liked the main character, although I never felt any danger to her at all. If anything, it's a bit amusing that she's on her own on a remote island having no troubles at all, while reading her husband's journal entries depicting his misfortune and descent into madness. It's a fun game, and interesting enough to keep my attention, if a bit on the short side.

4/5

Chained Echoes (PC)

The hot new indie RPG, Chained Echoes, follows a diverse group of characters who have joined together in an attempt to stop the powers-that-be from going to war. It's a great looking game made by a single, incredibly talented developer. The combat system is pretty interesting, focusing on balancing types of moves for maximum effect. I really liked the cast of characters and thought that their motivations and their dialogue were all well written, and step up from what we usually get from indie RPGs (sorry Rise of the Third Power). The "dungeons" do feel a bit more shallow than some of its companions, but I don't think that's a bad thing, as many of those games end up feeling smothering as you're locked into a grinding dungeon for hours. I do have some slight criticisms however. The game enjoys throwing lots of twists in, particularly regarding character's true motivations. Some of these work quite well, while others end up feeling rather silly and undermining a character's (particularly the villain's) motivations. The leveling system reminds me quite a bit of Chrono Cross's, although I think it's handled better here. The problem with it is that each character has a huge amount of active or passive abilities, but very few slots to equip them. The passive abilities in particular they give you are pretty good early on, to the point where I didn't bother switching them out. By the end of the game, actually leveling up felt more like a chore. These are fairly minor issues though, and overall I enjoyed the game pretty thoroughly.

Dead Cells (PC)

Dead Cells is a mix between the Metroidvania and Roguelike genres, of which I really love the former but am not a huge fan of the latter. The gameplay of this is super smooth. The character movement flows really well, the weapons all feel distinct but useful, and you get a wide variety of abilities at your disposal. The enemies are also well-designed. There aren't a huge number of them, but that allows you to learn their patterns and how to best defeat them, even as they still remain dangerous. The soundtrack, particularly the first level, is pretty great, and the levels have distinct visual and level designs that really flesh them out. My only gripe with the game is my own personal feelings towards Roguelikes. They're fine, but they can feel confusing towards the beginning as its unclear what does and doesn't carry over between runs, if anything, and towards the end they can feel frustrating as it can come down to sheer luck whether you'll have good enough equipment to finish the game. I do think Dead Cells handles these mechanics well though. There's a well established system in getting better possible upgrades each run, and I was fairly consistently gaining new permanent moves. The game has some branching paths, so you can have the option of different level order, assuming you've unlocked certain abilities. These new levels are well made, but on runs where I was attempting to actually beat the game, I tended to stick to the more "basic" levels, as they were easier. I played this due to their announced Castlevania crossover, and I'm definitely still excited to play more.

Hi-Fi Rush (PC)

Literally coming out of nowhere is Hi-Fi Rush, which was released alongside its announcement trailer to grand praise. I am no exception as I really liked this game. It's a fun and simple hack-and-slash/platformer that brings back memories of the Dreamcast days. The world is colorful and fun, while still throwing in some pointed remarks against mega-corporations. The gameplay is really slick, with an emphasis on performing attacks on beat with the music, but not requiring it, which removes the frustration sometimes found in games with similar mechanics. The characters are all unique and likeable, with some excellent voice acting. The only negatives I have are pretty minor; there's an upgrade system but you don't have enough available slots to make it feel worth your while. The music they licensed really fits with the game, but they didn't get enough to fill the game, instead they only mostly appear at the beginning and ends of the game, with original music being used in between. These are minor comments though, overall it's an excellent title and an early contender for best of the year.

Tunic (PC)

An indie Souls-like game dressed up as a Zelda clone, Tunic is an isometric adventure game where you play as a little fox guy as he explores the world and solves dungeons and puzzles. It has a very strong resemblance to Zelda, from overworld to character design. This game's greatest strength is giving the feeling of playing an old Zelda 1-esque game with very little guidance, simply exploring the world to find the way to progress. Pages of the game's manual are found scattered throughout the world, which I thought was a brilliant concept. By finding these pages, you are taught about different mechanics, hints on progression, and even maps of the world. It's a great way to pay homage towards to an older era of games, while being seamlessly integrated into this one. The game is also very visually stunning, having a good low-poly art style and occasionally employing perspective changes to give the world a sense of scale. I mentioned it was a Souls-like game, and that's particularly in the combat. It has a similar death mechanic, dodge roll/stamina system, and mentality towards difficulty that you'll find in those types of games. I'm not necessarily a huge fan of that style, but I think this game remained pretty fair, although it did tiptoe right up against the bullshit line on a few occasions. The secrets also could be a bit obtuse; I'm not sure I ever really understood the plot of the game, but given its meta "here's the in-game manual", it didn't really feel like much of a priority. This game was all made by a single developer, and it's an astonishing work of quality.

Resident Evil 4 (PS5)

Can the remake of one of the most beloved games of all time hold up to the original? Resident Evil 4 Remake (REm4ke?) is the latest entry in this new wave of Resident Evil games and like the others, it is a great blend of action, horror, and applying some modern sensibilities to the original version of the game. RE4, more than most of the other games in the series, has held up pretty well over the years, so the announcement of this remake was met with some raised eyebrows, including from myself. Having now played it, I do think there's a lot they improved upon. Ashley actually acts like a terrified teenager, and her relationship with Leon feels much more organic. The game is a lot less camp than the original, which works well for Ashley and Luis, but does lose its charm with some of the villains. Salazar is still quirky, but not nearly as likeable as in the original. The level design has been streamlined quite a bit, especially in the latter part of the game where the original got a bit tedious. I'll admit that I had a bit of trouble with the combat, particularly in the beginning of the game and particularly with crowd control. The early village and cabin sections were a test of my patience as I hadn't yet gotten accustomed to the combat, and I had about 8 bullets to my name. As the game went on and I played better and got better equipped, I did enjoy the game more, opposed to the original which I think gets more tedious as you go along. In the end, I don't think it's quite my favorite of the new RE games (which probably still is RE2 Remake), but I can still highly recommend it to fans of the old and the new; even though I'm still unsure whether this game really needed to be remade at all. We're now in the odd place where we have two excellent games, but neither are the definitive version.

Skies of Arcadia: Legends (GC)

Sega consoles were often noted as having fewer JRPG entries than their competitors, but among their smaller line up were a few great gems. Skies of Arcadia: Legends is a port of the Dreamcast game where you play as Vyse, a sky pirate who goes on a quest to travel the world and oppose the evil empire. This game is great fun, and the world they create is really vibrant and interesting. The main characters have great chemistry together and are all really likeable. There are some darker aspects to the game, but the tone remains pretty optimistic overall, which I think really works well. The villains are also well fleshed out, weaving in and out of the plot to the point where you feel well acquainted with them and their quirks. The combat of this game is okay. It's a pretty barebones system which reminds me of a very stripped down Chrono Cross. You have different elemental attributes to your weapons and spells, but as far as I can tell, the game doesn't inform you on which elements are strong against which, you just have to experiment. There is also ship-to-ship combat, which you would expect from a pirate game. It's similar to, but even more simplistic than, the normal combat, where you picking several moves at once then watch the battles play out. My biggest complaint about the game is that the combat is very, very slow. There are lots of flashy animations that you'll get to watch happen 100 times over, although you can skip some of your own. I'll admit I played this on an emulator, and if I hadn't I don't know if I would've ever made it past the final section simply due to how long you have to go between saving. Some boss fights can last close to an hour simply due to how slow the combat moves, and there are several sections where you have to beat multiple bosses before being able to save. The game also has a few moments of being a bit unfair; there are some enemies that put you into a stunlock loop immediately if you don't know to watch out for it. Overall, It's a bright and colorful experience, and one of the forgotten gems of the era.

Omori (PC)

There's a genre of games that are heavily inspired by EarthBound and the Mother series, which combine child-like whimsy with darker themes. Undertale, Yumi Nikki, and LISA are all examples of this, but I've found those games to be somewhat unsatisfactory in how they blend the two. Either they lean too hard into the absurd or the depressing, and don't integrate them well. Omori is the first of this style that I think really gets the combination correct. You play as Sunny, a teenage recluse whose friend group falls apart following the death of his sister, and his dream alter-ego Omori, who spends each night with his friends as they once were. The inclusion of the dream world allows for the whimsy and surreal elements, while also providing character development and backstory for the friends, while the more grounded daytime sections explore the real world and what has happened to each character in the intervening years. This game's strongest strength is its artwork. It's a gorgeous game that manages to successfully blend a simpler art-style with some photo-realistic, dark, or surreal elements. I often find that the harder a game wants me to feel for the plight of a character, the harder it is for me to feel the way they want me to, but I really bonded with all of the characters in this game. The game uses photographs taken over a year to showcase the group's comradery, and I really grew to like each of them and their different dynamics. I genuinely wished for the characters to grow back together, and the underlying secrets holding them apart are introduced to the player well. There are some downsides to the game though, and its how it handles the dream world. While I said that the game does well blending the two styles, much of the dream sections end up not being terribly important to the overall story, and at times almost feels like a diversion. I think there were some ways they could better incorporate the silly moments to the main plot, but the dream hijinks as is could've been completely ignored and not changed the plot at all. The game is a turn-based RPG, and again while the UI is excellent and actually serves to help build character dynamics, the gameplay itself is fine. It's not terribly deep, and can largely be played using the same strategy for most battles. Overall I really enjoyed Omori and its characters are going to be some that I will fondly think about.

Ex-Zodiac (PC)

Note: This review was written while the game was still in early access, and before I had bothered to learn Godot.

Back during my futile attempt to learn the Godot engine, I ran into this game as one of the few examples of professional games made in the engine, and decided to pick it up. Ex-Zodiac is, for lack of a better description, a Star Fox clone. The low poly look of the game is meant to invoke memories of the original Star Fox game. The different types of levels, the enemies, even your ship and its controls are clear homages to Star Fox. However, I don't want that to sound like a negative, because I think this game is far better than the original Star Fox, and is a really enjoyable experience. The graphics, while simple, are really well done. The game controls and runs well and the enemy designs are smartly crafted. In addition to the rail shooter Arwing-esque gameplay, there are also open arena sections, a second vehicle to ride in one level and, to my pleasant surprise, the game reveals its also a Space Harrier clone during its secret levels. Even though the game is still in early access, I think what they have put out is solid enough on its own, even if I do have one nitpick. I think the level order as it is now is a bit lopsided, with two "arena" levels both at the end. With the addition of more levels, I think mixing them up would be more ideal. I do also hope they continue to rip off Star Fox and use its branching paths, which is one of the best examples of that system, although that would require a good deal more levels to be added. Even without a final release, I would certainly recommend Ex-Zodiac, and I look forward to each new addition.

Ratchet & Clank: Rifts Apart (PS5)

Part 3D platformer, part third person shooter, Rifts Apart is the most recent game following a long gap in the Ratchet & Clank series. My only experience with Ratchet & Clank was staying up all night playing the entirety of one of the PS2 games (it had something to do with competing in a galactic ranking I think). Despite this, I was able to follow along pretty well with the plot and its characters. You play as either Ratchet or newcomer Rivet, Ratchet's counterpart from another dimension, as the two strive to save their own dimensions, from the nefarious Emperor, uh, Nefarious. This game was heavily promoted during the release of the PS5 for its graphics and quick load times, which are rather impressive. The characters are really emotive and showcases how far graphics have come since the PS2 days. The platforming sections, while not as important as the shooting sections, were pretty enjoyable. The multiple dimension inclusion might be a bit overdone these days (see: every Marvel project for the last five years), but I think they included in well in both the story and gameplay, and it never really takes itself too seriously. It's there to introduce Rivet and the other alternate characters, but it's not meant for a deeper introspection. The game mainly focuses on the third person shooting, which while fun for a time, did get a bit tedious towards the end. There are a large number of different weapons, some I liked more than others, but none that I really fell in love with. The enemy variety ends up being the biggest limitation in my opinion; there's a good variety in the beginning of the game, but at about the halfway mark, they stop introducing new enemy types, leading you to fight waves of the same five or six enemy varieties. This gets worse near the end of the game, when the plot dictates that the enemies needs to be mainly of the robot type. I got real sick of fighting that large robot mini-boss over and over again. The game also heavily relies upon the PS5 DualSense, particularly the adaptive triggers, which always seemed to me to be a cool technology on paper, but a bit finicky to use in the heat of a game. All-in-all, a solid game, and given I got it for free via PlayStation's subscription service (you'll be seeing a lot more PS5 games in the near future), I enjoyed the game and don't regret trying it out.

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk (PC)

I'm a big fan of spiritual successors. I constantly see people begging studios to keep bringing back the same tired franchises for another go around simply due to brand recognition, even when they clearly have run out of any ideas. I'm happy to see developers inspired by earlier creations and using those inspirations to create something new without being tied down to what came before. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is an extreme case of this, being a Jet Set Radio installment in all but name. You play as Red, a cyborg guy whose head gets, uh, chopped off and replaced with this robot head, who needs to challenge all the graffiti skate park gangs around town to get it back. It's a wild ride, and honestly features much more heavily than I was expecting, but it works well. Everyone is going to compare this game to JSR, so I shall as well, but I'm pleased to say that BRC comes out rather well in the comparison. I've only played the first Jet Set Radio game, but this one has much better controls, a more fleshed out trick system, and three different vehicles to use, although they control exactly the same as each other. The level design is really well thought out, with the skate park-ification blending well with realistic elements of a city. There are a few levels that have some tedious sections, but it's much better than some of the real nonsense areas of JSR. In an interesting way, I actually have the same big criticism of both JSR and BRC, which is that I really dislike the combat, or really the fact it exists at all. I do think it's much better in this game, as it's actually fairly well integrated, but I just want to skate around and do platforming tricks. The fact that there are people constantly shooting at me is completely antithetical to that. You can remove the police by changing your costume, but I want to wear the designs I like, plus it's often required for progression to get back to a high police level again. All in all, this is a great successor to Jet Set Radio, and anyone who has been waiting two decades for Sega to make a sequel (or even port the ones they have) should take a look at this game. Hot take, while this game has a pretty good soundtrack, it's nowhere near Jet Set Radio levels. The Concept of Love alone is better than like 80% of this OST combined.

Titanfall 2 (PC)

Everyone has their personal favorite genres, where they're predisposed to enjoy titles in that style. Likewise, there are also genres that some people simply don't really care for, and for me, that's FPS. While there are some that I end up liking, they're few and far between, and they have to do a lot to impress me. To my surprise then, I really liked Titanfall 2. I didn't even know it had a campaign until someone recommended it to me. The flow of the game reminds me a lot of Half-Life, in all the best ways. It's not quite as chaotic as a boomer shooter, but it still rewards fast paced gameplay, which is what I prefer. The gunplay is really good, the movement is really good, and there are a variety of really inventive level mechanics. I went into this game expecting nothing at all, but thoroughly enjoyed myself. I don't think there was a single moment I found myself frustrated with the game, which is as high of praise I can give an FPS.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations (PC)

This is the third and final game in the original Ace Attorney trilogy, and I'm pleased to say I think it's the best of the three. While this game adds no new gameplay mechanics over the previous title, it does a good job wrapping up plots that have been set up going back to the first game. I enjoyed all of the cases in this one, and I even think the typical wacky middle case is interesting in its own right. The writers are confident enough in their abilities to expand beyond the more simple story structures of the previous games. Here, events of the later cases are directly impacted by events in previous ones, and they even foreshadow some twists that prove crucial in the conclusion. I usually can figure out who the killers are pretty early in most cases, but the final case really had me guessing until the very end, although it is helped out by its unorthodox setting. My one complaint is that in at least two of the cases, they show the obvious silhouette of the killer far before the player is meant to have enough clues to deduce who it was. While they've previously shown the killer in the tutorial cases, I don't recall them spoiling later cases like this, and it's the one gripe I have against the game. Overall though, I really enjoyed this one, and it was a good conclusion to the trilogy.

Alan Wake II (PS5)

I really wasn't sure what to expect from this game. Of Remedy's recent titles, I really liked Control, had neutral opinions towards its expansions (including the Alan Wake crossover), and really disliked the original Alan Wake game. Alan Wake 2 falls somewhere in the middle. It's much, much improved over the original game, and clearly showcases the authors' growth as writers. It shares a lot of DNA with its predecessor, even if nearly 15 years have elapsed since its release. The setting and threat are the same, its combat utilizes the same flashlight + gunplay mechanic, but they've clearly made improvements on what did and didn't work. For one, this game is less of an action game than the first. It actually reminds me a lot of Resident Evil 2 Remake in its camera and combat style, as well as how the puzzles and inventory functions. That isn't to say that the combat is as good as RE2, as I think that's probably this game's biggest fault. It's not entirely its fault, as it is limited by what the first game set up, but it still remains a pretty clunky affair, particularly during the boss fights. Don't feel bad about turning the difficulty down to "story" mode, as that's really what this game is about. It reminds me of Death Stranding in a way. Both games have other rich mechanics, but the combat is included because video games without combat tend to feel somewhat empty, and are often criticized as "walking simulators". For that, I don't blame them for having combat in this game, but it definitely gets in the way. The story is still a huge rip off of Twin Peaks, but now has the insight to turn it into its own thing, rather than just being a huge homage. They weave Alan's profession and situation together, and create some really cool mechanics with them. However, the story isn't perfect. While I think I followed along with most of the elements, its still an intentionally confusing game, and (spoilers) I found the ending to be really lackluster. This game ties in extremely heavily with Control, and they want to continue setting up the shared narrative and not wrap up anything yet. Where Control is a game about people trying to understand everything about the paranormal, this is a game where you are stranded in the middle of it, and not meant to understand everything, or even have everything be understandable. I still much preferred Control, but Alan Wake 2 is an interesting step in the next direction.

4.5/5

Immortality (PC)

From the creator of Her Story and Telling Lies comes their third live action mystery game, this time showcasing the personal and professional life of one Marissa Marcel, an actress involved in three films that were never released. You start with a limited number of clips, and by selecting items in each scene, you are taken to new scenes with related people or items, slowly building up your collection of scenes. This game has next to no direction, similar to the prior two games. It is completely up to the player to watch the clips out of order and determine for themselves what is happening, and even what the mysteries actually are. While this game does start off similarly to the previous two, it does eventually set itself apart in a very major way, which I won't mention here, as the discovery of this is what really makes this game interesting. Overall, I found the story telling very well done, and the mystery to be very engaging. The acting here is also top notch; I would actually really like to watch the films that they are making, particularly the one in the 1960s. The one complaint I have is the control system. I would definitely recommend everyone to play this with a controller, as the rumble feature plays a major part in discovering new secrets. There is also both a rewind and frame-by-frame mode, both of which need to be used to complete the game, a fact I didn't realize until half way through. The other two games also let you search for keywords in order to find new clips. I think the clicking on elements in the scenes works better for flow, but it also became much harder near the end to find a scene that I was certain existed, but wasn't sure how to get to. Overall, a really interesting game, especially for movie buffs for people who might not be interested in traditional games, and probably the best game out of the three.

Astro's Playroom (PS5)

This is a fantastic little introduction to the PS5 and its hardware, meant to show off the features of the new controller while also paying homage to a wide variety of PlayStation games and products. While meant to be an introduction, this game is a solid 3D platformer in its own right. It's definitely on the easy side, but I was surprised how much content there was for what is essentially a tutorial demo. There are several different control mechanics used in the different levels, lots of secrets to find, and lots of cute recreations of scenes from famous PlayStation games. They did not need to go this hard for this game, but given that it's free for all PS5 owners, I cannot recommend this enough.

Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker (PC)

After roughly 20 months of playing the game, I have finally completed the most current expansion (ignoring some of the extra patches they've released). Overall, I can say that I have thoroughly enjoyed my time playing FFXIV, and Endwalker continued to amaze with its vistas and scope. This expansion definitely felt like the end of a chapter, as it deals almost entirely with concluding events and characters who were previously introduced. Nearly all of the new cities and locations are excellent, with very strong aesthetic design and character. Perhaps more so than any of the other expansions, this one introduced new areas that are explicitly designed to blow you away. As a conclusion to the first arc of this story, I think it does well, although there is a lot more nostalgia and "spinning the wheels" than in previous expansions. Where Shadowbringers felt like a continuous progression of events all the way through, there are pretty long chunks of this story where not a lot happens. They take those opportunities to showcase pretty much every major character you've met showing up, which can feel quite tedious, rather than the grand celebration they want it to be. The largest downside to this expansion has to be the villains however. I don't think I cared for any of them at all. They serve their purpose in the larger events well, but as actual characters they're all uninteresting and unsympathetic. There's also a bit of power creep in this expansion with what technologies this world is capable of, which is pretty jarring, but I think I'm willing to give them a one time pass for some of them. Is it as good as Shadowbringers? No, and frankly a lot of what makes this expansion great is based off of its predecessor's heavy lifting. But I still greatly enjoyed myself, and I'm eager to move on from the current array of plotlines to see what lies next.

Neon White (PC)

A high-speed mix of a puzzle platformer and FPS, Neon White is a stylish speedrunner's dream. You play as the eponymous "Neon White" as you fight demons to improve your credit score enough to not be vaporized by the forces of Heaven for another year, in a vague The World Ends With You type competition. To assist in your demon hunting, there are a number of different weapon cards that provide some ammunition or a secondary movement ability. While defeating all the demons in a level is the stated goal, in reality the game is about navigating yourself between platforms, using the ability of the cards to assist you. The environments are great looking, and the soundtrack is incredible. The game has an arcade/Dreamcast gameplay loop, where it's incredibly addicting to play level after level, memorizing the way forward to get the best times. If this game just used level select screen with no cutscenes, I think it might be my favorite game of the year thus far, but sadly this game has one major flaw, and that is the plot. It's an incredibly stereotypical anime amnesia plot full of boring psychopathic enemies, cringy sexual innuendos, and awful voice acting. Yes, I know the guy who played Spike Spiegel is in it, but this is not his best performance. I ended up muting the voice audio, and that helped quite a bit, but the plot still has nothing to offer. If you skip all the cutscenes, I think this game is definitely a must play.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (NS)

When making a sequel to a well received piece of media, what do you do? Many creators try and build upon the previous work in every way, to the point where the subsequent title often looks and feels differently to its predecessor. This runs the risk of alienating people who liked certain aspects of the previous entry that are now missing. There are stories of players who were devastated when 3D gaming became popular, for they preferred 2D sprites to the new polygon worlds. Another option is to just take what you made before and make it "more". This is usually the realm of DLC and expansions, not proper sequels, but it's something I've wondered if developers should consider more often. Many games have huge modding scenes around this very concept, often for older games even after their more different sequels come out. Tears of the Kingdom takes this approach to its design, sharing the same general overworld, physics, enemies, etc. as Breath of the Wild, but remixed. The world is largely as players remember it, but with enough new quests and landscape changes to keep it fresh. There is now an "Ultrahand" ability to combine physical items into new configurations, and you can combine multiple items together. In many ways it has completely supplanted BotW for me. It's similar enough to that game to scratch the same itch, but builds enough upon what it offered to make this more or less the definitive experience. All that being said, I was surprised to find myself not nearly as enthusiastic about this game as BotW. I would agree that it's the better game, but the novelty of this world is gone for me. Much of what I liked about BotW was that feeling of complete exploration. The world was varied and over each hill was a mystery worth seeing. In a market oversaturated with bland open worlds, it's one of the few that I felt really captured the exploration spirit for me. With TotK, that sense of exploration is still there, but I largely know what I'm going to find over each hill. Sure, the landscape is somewhat changed from BotW and the enemies I find might be different, but I no longer wondered about what would lie in each region of Hyrule, because I already knew. The new layers of the map, the sky and (spoilers) the depths, didn't really do it for me either. The sky islands are much more sparse than I was expecting, and while I do somewhat find the depths to be interesting, I spent most of my time walking around in the dark, trying to figure out where the gaps in the walls were to find the next light. The story is also pretty much cut and paste from the first one, which I think is the biggest missed opportunity. I know they were limited by the pre-existing map, but I do wish the four temple locations weren't the same exact four villages as the first game. I've also seen consensus that these dungeons are better than in BotW, which I'm not sure I agree with. Granted, I seem to have liked the Divine Beasts more than the average player (speaking of which, I was waiting the whole time for someone to mention where they went), but I didn't find these dungeons too interesting. A significant portion of time is spent actually getting to them, which I don't mind too much, but the dungeons proper consist of activating four or five rooms from the center, fighting the boss, then leaving. I think Ocarina of Time's introductory dungeon might be more complex than anything in this game, let alone some of its later ones. Combine this with the abundance of shrines, and I think the criteria for puzzles has been met, but I was surprised to hear people say they were a level above the previous game. In the end, I struggled to come up with a ranking for this game. I wasn't doing ratings at the time, but I definitely would've given BotW a perfect score, and I think this game is an improvement over it in most areas. Yet, after finishing the game I felt I had played a great expansion to Breath of the Wild, not its sequel, which left me honestly a little whelmed. Given the history of originality in this series, I was hoping for Majora's Mask, but got Master Quest.

Final Fantasy XVI (PS5)

I bought a PS5 specifically for this game, and I'm pleased to say after all is said and done this was a worthwhile adventure. FFXVI is an action RPG, heavily inspired by series such as Devil May Cry, which it shares some developers with (some say this is the first ARPG in the series. I'm not sure what they thought FFXV was). Compared to previous Final Fantasy titles, the combat isn't quite as deep, and the RPG elements are barely present, but the game does a good job giving a variety of abilities which can be swapped between in the heat of battle. You play as Clive, a nobleman-turned-slave-turned-outlaw who gains the power of a God and attempts to use it to liberate the magic users of the land. A stated goal of the game was to have political intrigue ala Game of Thrones, and while I can see what they were going for, it doesn't quite land. There are a variety of nations with their own goals, but there really isn't much intrigue, they serve as faceless entities until its time for Clive to actually travel there, at which point things usually turn to shit. I did like the main characters quite a lot though, Clive in particular is very well acted and sympathetic. He is both a very masculine character, but manages to build personal relationships that are believable and touching. Some have criticized the sidequests, and while I agree they are somewhat repetitive, some of them do supplement the main story quite well. As someone who has played a lot of FFXIV, I could immediately see the similarities in the sidequests, which is both good and bad. It's a surprisingly linear game, without an open world typical of today's fashions, but it is a fairly expansive world and I think the game utilizes it well. Overall, I really enjoyed the game. I think its another high point in a series that had somewhat of a downturn a decade or so ago, but has had a string of better titles in recent years.

The Witcher 3 (PC) [REPLAY]

I played The Witcher 3 a few years ago, but cheaped out and didn't buy the expansions at the time. Since then, I've heard how they're among the best DLC ever released, so I decided to go back and play them, and to take the opportunity to replay the entire base game. I remember not knowing what I was getting into at the time, and I think my second impressions are a lot stronger than the first. The sidequests in this game as a whole are some of the best you can find. Many games treat sidequests often as bland fetch quests with very little in substance (cough FFXIV cough), but in this game they flesh out the world and Geralt in particular. His entire job is to hunt monsters, and so while you are on this grand quest to find Ciri and save her from the Wild Hunt, you still take the odd job hunting monsters, each of which has their own characters, their own threats, and while they can be a bit by the book, their own resolutions. You don't just walk into a town, talk to three people, then get your reward. All the characters and voice acting are fantastic, especially Geralt himself. I think games have a problem where voice acting is often "good for a video game", and we don't like to admit that that encompasses a very high percentage of games. This game never has this problem at all, and I was engrossed in every performance.. except for children characters, who also all share the same creepy face model. It is odd that this series follows directly from the books. While I can see that being great for book fans, it means that 99% of players will not have crucial backstory about these characters. Ciri herself only appears for the first time in this game. While I like the overall story, I must admit it does lose momentum in the middle, where you're five subquests deep with no Ciri in sight. If I'm also being nitpicky, I learned to tolerate the combat but I never loved it, with the upgrade system being particularly weak. You have way more abilities than available slots, so at some point I stopped even using my ability points. I'm pleased to say my replay was a success, and I'm very eager to see what the two DLC campaigns have to offer. P.S. While I completely ignored Gwent the first time I played, I really tried to give it a go this time. I still hate it.

The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine (PC)

Blood and Wine is less of a DLC in the way that Hearts of Stone was, and closer to that of a sequel. This expansion adds a whole new region to the game, that of the fantasy-French Toussaint, complete with new characters and side quests to accompany. It's a fitting ending for Geralt's journey, and even though it had to establish everything within this expansion, the region is still able to impart its own identity and character. On paper, I think Blood and Wine is probably the highlight of the whole Witcher 3 collection, but interestingly I personally preferred Hearts of Stone. I think its plot was a bit more tight-nit than here, and while this does have some great locales, I liked everything the first DLC had across the board, while some items didn't interest me quite as much. I was honestly getting a bit fatigued of the game (and its combat) by this point, but credit where credit is due, this expansion is still better than the vast majority of games on its own.

Vampire Survivors (PC)

What appeared at first to be a low-budget Castlevania rip-off turned out to be one of the most addicting games I've played in a while. Vampire Survivors is a rogue-like where your only controls throughout the entire game are moving your character. All attacking is done automatically as wave after wave of the undead horde close in around you. Defeated enemies drop gems which once collected build up your XP bar, allowing you to pick between one of three or four upgrades. These upgrades are both your auto-attacking weaponry as well as buffs for your player. The game starts out slow, but by combining different weapons together (both literally and mechanically), you begin to build up a formidable arsenal. Each run is limited to only 30 minutes max, a sometimes frustratingly strict timeframe that I ran into just before reaching some achievement on several occasions. You are motivated to keep playing by reaching a variety of these achievements, which unlocks new stages, weaponry, and characters. It's surprisingly addicting, and very well crafted. I'm typically not a big fan of rogue-likes as I find the continual losing of progression to be demoralizing, but this game does a great job making runs both diverse enough to experiment with, but also simple enough that it's straight-forward to create the build you want. It's a fun, simple game that really encourages you to work towards completing all its achievements. I wasn't kidding about the Castlevania homages though, this game includes legally distinct knock-offs of just about every character and weapon from that series.

MyHouse.wad (PC)

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of Doom II mods, but it is very rare that one becomes distinguished enough to attract attention outside of the Doom community. MyHouse.wad is a simple map of the house of a childhood friend of the author. There's definitely nothing else here. The less you know about this game going in, the better. I will say that this is not a traditional mod, and even if you don't care for Doom, it's still worth your time, as the normal monster hunting gameplay isn't the focus here, it's the level design. Even if it's very obtuse as to what you're supposed to be doing, casual exploration can be just as rewarding as actually making progress. Good luck.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder (NS)

For the last two decades or so, the 3D Mario games have regularly featured great innovations that have pushed the entire genre forward, while the 2D Mario games have been... fine. The New Super Mario Bros. series was never as prestigious as its 3D counterparts, but those days are done, and the era of Super Mario Bros. Wonder is upon us. The game shares a lot of similarities to its predecessors, even as far back as Super Mario World, but with a number of modern sensibilities. Gone is the frustrating time limit on each level. Clever new power-ups have been added, along with secret exits and objectives, different optional abilities, and branching paths. It's a solidly made and enjoyable experience. If I have to pick nits, some reviewers have placed it as the greatest 2D game, but I don't think it's quite as revolutionary as Super Mario World, and it's honestly pretty similar to New Super Mario Bros. Wii in my eyes, although I do prefer this game. The bosses are also a bit lackluster, and some of the secrets can be more frustrating than interesting to find. These are minor issues though, and overall it's an excellent addition to gaming's forefront series. I do think it should've been called "Super Mario Wonder" though.

Timesplitters Future Perfect (GC)

I love media which features many different periods of time, especially if they're brave enough to include future time periods. Timesplitters 2 is always a title I use as an example of this, and while I love that game, I never played any of the others in the series. The original Timesplitters (apparently) doesn't have much of a story, the second has an overarching plot with some flavor text, but the third has an actual story campaign with voice acting and cutscenes. The story takes place directly after the events of the second game, and while the humor can be a little... dated, it does have its moments. Rather than playing as native people to each time period, you play the entire game as Sgt. Cortez as he travels through time to stop the creator of the Timesplitters. There are more levels set in each time period than the second game, which means there's fewer periods overall, but the selection they've created is really great. A 1960s train level, a 1990s haunted mansion, a 1920s underwater city, and even the speculative future examples I mentioned — a near future office complex and far future war zone. The combat is really fun, although it's slightly ruined by being a twin stick shooter on the Gamecube. The accuracy you have with the second stick isn't as tight as you would hope. They definitely fudge the enemy hitboxes to help, but it's still rough. There's only one part that this really becomes a problem, and I would say it's the only bad level in the game. An infamous escort sniper mission, where your enemies are all invisible. It's horrible. That level aside though, this is a really fun game with loads of extra content. The series has been promised a sequel for nearly two decades now, and while I doubt it'll happen, I'll eagerly play it if it does.

Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye (PC)

One of the best games I've played since starting these reviews has been Outer Wilds, a game where you travel across a solar system discovering the mysteries left behind by an ancient civilization in order to save your own. It had the perfect mix of exploration, mechanics, and discovering mysteries through your own curiosity. It's one of the best games I've ever played. Thus, it was about time that I got around to playing its DLC — Echoes of the Eye. Where the main Outer Wilds game focused on traveling across many planets, Echoes of the Eye almost entirely takes place on the hidden space station of a separate race of aliens, so much so that aside from the beginning, you will be doing very little spaceflight in this DLC. This station, referred to as "The Stranger", is an incredibly cool setting. It comprises of a river and villages on the inside of a rotating barrel, imparting gravity. The river flows all the way around, allowing for easy access throughout while fitting with the game's theme of surprisingly small planets. It's a really great setting, and one of the best examples I've seen of this concept (another game I played this year, Zone of the Enders, tried a similar setting with far less success). While you learned about the aliens in the base game via their written journal entries, in Echoes of the Eye there is no written text at all. Instead, the game displays hints and lore via visual slide projectors, a somewhat contrived but incredibly effective method. Without a single word I felt that this species was as fleshed out as the other, perhaps more since we actually get to see what they look like. The mysteries and exploration here are just as excellent as the base game, and it's a shame I put off playing it for this long. That being said, I think Echoes of the Eye is unfortunately not quite as strong as its predecessor, mainly due to some decisions near the end of the expansion. Without revealing too much, the game heavily leans into stealth sections near the end, which are both a bit confusing to navigate as well as somewhat repetitive. Unlocking the best ending also requires you to redo the end of the base Outer Wilds, a sequence of events that I had largely forgotten, and feels a bit out of place given how Echoes of the Eye had remained very separated up until that point. These are minor nitpicks though, and overall I thoroughly enjoyed my return to this world(s).

5/5

Metroid Prime Remastered (NS)

I typically don't include games I've played in the past as part of these reviews, since I'm unable to give my initial impressions. However, it's been over 15 years since I've beaten Metroid Prime and the remaster makes just enough changes to justify being included as a separate title. Anytime I finish playing a remake of a game, I ask myself whether the remake justifies its own existence. To remake a game implies that you are striving to improve on everything the game did wrong in hindsight while enhancing everything the game did right. There are many remakes that do not reach this goal and leave a mixed legacy of which version is actually the definitive one. Metroid Prime Remastered avoids this discussion by not remaking the game, merely remastering it. They take the original acclaimed Metroid Prime and enhance the parts that haven't stood the test of time, namely the graphics and control schemes. It's an approach that works in its favor, as it firmly places itself as the latest and greatest way to play the game. The new control scheme (there's actually three new ones, but I used the twin-stick method) brings modern sensibilities to a game made before these approaches had been standardized. I always remembered the original as one of the best looking games on the Gamecube, but placed side by side, it's shocking how much better the remaster looks. The game itself remains engaging and fun, with some of the best atmospheric settings ever. Has my opinion of the game changed much in 15 years? Not overall, I still had just as much fun as I was expecting to overall, although I will say the final section is more of a drag than I remembered. Once you get the final upgrade, the game really stalls in momentum, and I think some of the final bosses are among the weakest. In a lesser game, these would've been a miserable slog, but the gameplay remains so engaging, that I didn't think too poorly of them.

The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone (PC)

While I originally played The Witcher 3 a number of years ago, I never had the expansions at the time, and thus recently decided to replay the whole game in order to finally experience them. It's a bit of a risky endeavour. What if I wasted all that time and they turn out to be terrible? Well, my fears were for naught, for the first expansion Hearts of Stone proved to be rather excellent. It's not nearly the length of the main campaign, but the extra content proved to be incredibly memorable and well written. The base game's plot got a bit slow in the middle, and while this only has the pressure of being a series of sidequests, it still crafts a very well constructed premise and eventful characters and events. Geralt becomes indentured to a mysterious omniscient benefactor (who is briefly alluded to in the base game) who employs him to fill three impossible requests, each interesting in their own right. The locales remain the same along with most of the mechanics, so it really is the characters and plot that carry the show, and they do it well. I'm eagerly looking forward to finishing up with the second expansion, which hopefully will keep up the excellent pace.