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Reviews

This is my game reviews page! I'm always interested in dissecting video games and seeing what makes them fun or tedious. I'd like to have a place where I can write my thoughts down, kinda like writing in a journal. There's no rhyme or reason as to what I'll review, I mainly just review games I've played before where I have something to say. I have a little HTML test page where I list my favorite games if you wanna see that.

For reference, I rate games on a scale of 1 to 10. 1 is "I Would Barely Call This A Game," 4 is "Below Average," 6 is "Above Average," and 10 is "Almost Perfect / Perfect Game."

If you see a review that's like one line long, it means I'm in the middle of writing it.

 Animal Crossing is a series that's still somewhat new to me. For anyone not familiar, Animal Crossing is a game that can basically be boiled down to "neighbor simulator." It's sort of like The Sims, but you only control one character and don't have any basic needs to meet. You just go around decorating your home, talking to your neighbors, doing favors for them, catching bugs and fish for money, and quite a bit more. It takes place in real time, meaning a full day in-game is 24 hours. Once you get close to 10pm, the shops close, different bugs start to come out, and all your neighbors go to sleep for the day. Over the years, they've changed up the formula a little bit. Originally, it was a game where you just lived in a town, going day by day, just doing whatever. It's still pretty much the same, but nowadays, they give you complete control over the town. You can put in ordinances, you can build new monuments and buildings, and in this newest one, you can even terraform the environment. My first game was New Leaf from 2013, which I enjoyed thoroughly with my friends with all the new content and minigames to partake in. It kept us busy for a while, but Animal Crossing is a game that I tend to pick up and play for months at a time... and then never really touch it again. Once you get your town the way you like it, it feels like there isn't much left to do. That's just me though, many people seem like they could play this game forever. Though after 7 years and 2 console gens later, people were ready for a new Animal Crossing game. New Horizons was slated to release in 2019, but then was delayed to ensure the quality. The game came out in March of 2020 right at the start of the pandemic, giving a cozy game to quarantine with.

 At first people really liked this game. It was just more Animal Crossing. Although this time around, there was a bit of an annoying start. You and 2 villagers team up with Tom Nook to cultivate a large island into a paradise. While Tom Nook builds the houses, you can only do so much per day, since he needs a whole day to complete it. This was most likely a tutorial to ease people in, but it can take a few real-life days to get everything going. Once you get all the basics, it's classic Animal Crossing with a few small twists. There's a new crafting system that allows you to make tools, furniture, and other nice decorations. For the most part, the crafting system is cool. However, using your tools too much will cause them to break, meaning you have to craft them again. You can upgrade your tools to give them a longer lifespan, but even then, they still break pretty easily. You can customize your tools to counteract this, "resetting" the amount of times you've used them, but you have to pay in-game money to do that. Aside from that, there's also a new point system called "Nook Miles," which give you daily tasks to complete or just general achievments. With Nook Miles Points, there's a special catalog you can order from where you can get exclusive items to decorate your island or to get new crafting recipes. You can also buy "Nook Miles Tickets," which allow you to go to random little islands to gather resources or invite new villagers to live on your island. If you're artistic, you can design your own clothes as well. If you have Nintendo Online, you can also download custom clothes made by other players if making them isn't your thing. All of this leads to getting more out of the game than I feel you normally would with Animal Crossing.

 As time went on though, it was apparent that the game wasn't quite finished yet. It wasn't buggy or broken or anything, but it was missing a lot of core features that were present in most of the previous games. Either that, or there were a few confusing design choices that were really inconvenient and didn't make sense at the time. For example, everyday you get a traveling merchant that sells something different, like one that sells shoes, or one that sells rugs, and so on. Thing is, there seems to be no daily schedule or pattern to these merchants. This means it can be a looong time before you get a merchant you're looking for. Nintendo later added "free content updates," adding a lot of these missing features or fixing these design problems. Weirdly, they seemed to advertised it as though they were doing it out of the kindness of their hearts when it was stuff that should've been there to begin with. On top of that, they never brought back the multiplayer minigames from New Leaf, making the multiplayer experience a bit lacking. After a long while, they actually started adding some new content, like the ability to grow and harvest crops and cook food. There was also a paid DLC which let you design the houses of around 400 characters and adds boatloads of new decorations, keeping you busy for a while. It's possible (in fact, very likely) all of this was delayed by the pandemic, but at the end of everything, I feel they should've delayed it a bit more. If you buy the game now, you'll get a full, satisfying experience. If you bought it on day one though, it was a bit of an on-and-off slow crawl to gain access to features both old and new.

 I'm gonna rip the Band-Aid™ off this one: this game is a lot like Paper Mario. Whether that's a plus or a minus is completely up to you. I've seen people sing this game's praises and I've seen people bash this game quite viscerally. In my own opnion, I enjoyed this game a lot and would like to record my thoughts on it. But first, a bit of background.

 Paper Mario is a game that started on the Nintendo 64. It was a fun little RPG that seems to be the successor to Super Mario RPG, a highly praised RPG created by Nintendo and Square Enix. As the name might imply, the main spectacle of the game is the 2D graphics in a 3D environment; looking like as though you're playing with cutouts or paper puppets. It's fairly basic as RPGs go and it's considered a fan favorite. People loved it for the story, the battles, and the humongous supporting cast of original NPC characters: something Nintendo rarely dabbled in. They later followed up with Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door on GameCube which people seem to LOVE and crown it as the best in the series, as it improved on the first one in every way. At around the same time, Nintendo made a hand-held RPG series on the Gameboy Advance called Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga which played very similar to Paper Mario but with different aesthetics. As time went on though, it seems Nintendo felt the series were a bit too similar. As a result, Nintendo changed up Paper Mario's gameplay completely. They then released Super Paper Mario on the Wii, which was was a 2D platformer with barely any RPG elements to speak of. People weren't thrilled, but the game was decent overall and people still enjoyed it. After that, Nintendo made Paper Mario: Sticker Star for the 3DS which was received horribly. The characters seemed lifeless, the story wasn't interesting, they brought back turn-based combat but attacks were limited consumables, and they replaced the wacky world of colorful NPCs from before with just 1 base character design. After that came Paper Mario: Color Splash for the WiiU, which was a console hardly anyone had to begin with. It was very similar to Sticker Star, though people say the writing was better overall. At this point, people were hopeless for a return-to-form for Paper Mario... which is usually where indie developers come in.

 Moon Sprout games was a collection of developers who met online. They formed their company around their love for Paper Mario and wanted a game that played like the first 2 in the series. After a Kickstarter campaign and a few years later, Bug Fables released to high praise. Paper Mario fans were enjoying a game that was finally in the same vein as the games they had played almost 20 years before. The game is an RPG with an interesting battle system, colorful environments and NPCs, and a decent story. You play as a trio of heroes: Kabbu, Vi, and Leif who are trying to prove themselves in the Explorer's Guild of the Ant Kingdom. Each member has their own unique personality, strengths, flaws, and their own unique moveset that can help out in different areas in combat and in the field. As the story progresses, you learn each member of the team has their own personal problems and even get to help each one sort them out by the end. Much similar to Paper Mario, the game features Badges which allow you to bestow different abilities to your party, but only to a certain extent. You can use them to build your team in order to approach battles in multiple different ways. I found this game very engaging through the whole way. The battle system always had me thinking, the story had me always wanting to progress, and there's a fun minigame/ side quest that I won't spoil that I can literally play for hours. I was also a fan of the music. I wouldn't say the writing in this game is a masterpiece, but I found it engaging enough. As for the art, I like it overall, but it does look a big jagged or too loose at times. It sometimes makes me want to import it to my drawing program so I can smooth it out.

 I see a lot of criticism of this game that I can understand and also can't. I've seen some people say that this game is too much like Paper Mario and doesn't have its own identity. I think it's valid to say that, but at the same time, there hasn't been a Paper Mario game in this style in almost 20 years; I think it's fair to throw a bone to a niche market like this, especially since more Paper Mario-inspired games that have more of their own identities are still in the works. Of course there are emulators, but Nintendo really, really hasn't made the first 2 games very accessible, especially TTYD. In summary though, I think this game is a very nice return-to-form that people have been waiting for.

 Chibi-Robo is a series where you play as the titular 10 centimeter tall robot. As Chibi-Robo in the first game, it is your duty to go around tidying up houses, helping people solve problems, and spreading happiness. You can pick up and throw away trash, you can scrub floors, you can turn your arm into a cannon, you can glide with little propellers, and even more. Every time you clean something up, you get a little bit of money and you make the family a bit happier. Being a robot, you sometimes run low on battery and have to find the nearest outlet before you collapse. With that in mind, it's best to plan out your day sometimes. When it comes to problem solving, not only are you helping out a small family of people, but you can also help out some living toys littered throughout the house. The first game in the series was charming little experience that had a lot of surprising, yet emotional topics, such as financial struggles, grief, dysfunctional families, divorce, and then some. Despite this, it's a genuinely nice story that leaves you feeling great when all is said and done.

 Now this is a series that can never seem to catch a break. People loved the first game quite a bit, though it didn't sell very well. Over the years, Nintendo ordered more of these sequels, each of them usually having some sort of catch that didn't really help sales. The first sequel, Chibi-Robo: Park Patrol on the DS was a little too different from the first game. People thought it was okay, but the real kicker was the fact that it was a Walmart exclusive game in the US. Nintendo later made a small handful of games that were ported from the GameCube to the Wii. Chibi-Robo was one of these game, but out of the bunch, it was the only one that wasn't released in the US. The next sequel was Okaeri! Chibi-Robo! Happy Richie Ōsōji! for the DS, which Nintendo had no interest releasing in the US for some reason. This game goes back to the roots of the first one, being exactly like it while introducing loads of new and interesting things. Afterward, Nintendo made a tech demo for the 3DS showing off its camera, using Chibi-Robo in a little game called Chibi-Robo: Photo Finder. It wasn't bad, but there just wasn't much to it. Next, Nintendo ordered a sequel on the 3DS called Chibi-Robo: Zip-Lash, a painfully generic 3D platformer that is by far the least interesting entry in the series. Since then, Nintendo has put Chibi-Robo on the back burner, saying that if people didn't enjoy Zip Lash, then they didn't have much reason to continuing the series. At this point, it seemed like Chibi-Robo was in limbo... until somewhat recently.

 Going back to the Japanese DS exclusive Okaeri! Chibi-Robo! Happy Richie Ōsōji!, this game actually received an English fan translation not too long ago. The English title is dubbed Chibi-Robo: Clean Sweep. Clean Sweep is the sequel that fans in the US have been waiting for. It plays exactly like the first game: a 3D platformer where you go around cleaning up a dirty house and making a small family happy. It's a nice little game that feels surprisingly large for a DS game. Though I think most people would prefer the first game, I find this one more interesting. There are so many new and engaging ideas they bring to the table in this one. The developers did a great job building upon Chibi's existing moves as well as adding new ones, mainly those based around his plug. You can vaccuum up dust and ghosts, you can sift dust for golden nuggets, you can toss your plug into enemies or grapple to far away outlets, or you can make your assistant Telly fly up to higher ground while holding your plug so you can climb up the cable. On top of the old mechanic of recharging at an outlet before you collapse, you also have to pay attention to how much electricity you're using. The family in this game is so poor that they can't afford electricity, but they have a fancy system where they can turn trash into electricity. This gives picking up trash a whole new purpose, which didn't do too much in the original aside from earn you some points for upgrades. Once you get far enough into the game, there's a cool little mechanic where you can do over-the-phone shopping to buy nice things for the family or buy a new tool to making cleaning easier. It's always exciting whenever you order gets delivered and you get to see what each new thing looks like. In addition to helping the family, there are more living toys for you to help out, many of them being pretty funny and unique. Each of them has their own character arc, some of which intertwine with each other. There's also a hidden casino where you can gamble your money and play Black Jack with ghosts. I won't spoil the ending of this game, but the story gets extremely bizarre but in a very fun way. It's a shame the US didn't receive this when it first came out, but I'm thankful I'm able to experience it with the help of translations.

 I may be biased on this one, but... this is my favorite game ever. This was the first kart racing game I ever played and I love everything about it. A lot of reviews back in 1999 simply brushed it off as a Mario Kart clone. It may have been Sony's answer to Mario Kart, but it's very apparent Naughty Dog tried to bring their own ideas to the table when developing it. If anything, I would say this game might be closer to Diddy Kong Racing than it is Mario Kart. It comes with a Story Mode where you race against bosses or do other special races like Time Trials or CTR Token Challenges. I've played this game countless times through the years and it's great every time. Crash Bandicoot was fairly new at the time and was one of my favorite mascots. As cool as Crash and Coco are, it was cool that you were able to finally play as different characters.

 The controls in this game are super tight and the karts feel great to drive around in. Not to diss Mario Kart 64, but keep in mind... Mario Kart 64 is Mario Kart 2, and the first one in 3D at that. MK64's controls felt really slippery; I had to play as Bowser or Wario to feel some sort of control, but even then, it feels as though I'm constantly driving on ice. On another note, in order to distance itself from Mario Kart, CTR introduces a new drifting system: the power slide. You hold the drift button (R1) and at certain intervals, you press the opposite shoulder button (L1) to do a boost. You can do 3 of these in succession before you have to start another drift. While you can chain these boosts and keep a constant, good speed going, they're a little bit on the weak side. However, the fun starts when you get to a boost pad. Boost pads give you a bigger boost than a drift boost. But if you go over a boost pad, then continue to drift ahd chain boosts, you can essentially hold the same speed you got from the boost pad for the entire track, as long as you keep boosting and don't hit any walls or hazards. This changes the whole game and makes it more about skill than RNG. Less skilled players may have a tough time with this game, but people who learn the ropes will have a great time.

  There's an interesting weapon system, but honestly, the weapons are somewhat usless. If you manage to collect 10 Wumpa Fruits on a track, you'll not only go faster, but your weapons will get better. However, even the upgraded versions don't do too much damage. There are blue shell equivalents, the Warp Orbs, but only players can get these. You won't see them in Story Mode unless you get them. There are red shell equivalents, the missiles, but they don't travel the length of the course. There's a lightning equivalent, the Broken Clock, but once again, only players can get it. The other weapons are fairly original, but don't do much to stop racers in front of you. This is another aspect that makes it more skill based than RNG based; if you manage to break away from the main pack, there's very little chance they'll catch up to you. There's also a battle mode that makes use of these weapons in a better way, but I honestly don't care for it that much.

 Overall, this is a very fun kart racer and I honestly like it better than Mario Kart. It has a much higher skill ceiling which leads to more exciting races, it has more things to do in general, and it has a nice little roster of characters with more to unlock. Just a downright fun experience and one of the best experiences the PS1 has to offer.

 There's also a small team on YouTube who are working on cracking this game open so they can mod it from the inside. I'm super excited to see the results of that and to see expansion packs for this game in the future.

 There isn't much to say about this one considering it's a remake of CTR. Overall, Beenox was very faithful to the original and did a great job updating CTR for the modern era. I always praised the original CTR for having tight controls and this remake makes them even tighter, with the karts reacting exactly how you would expect them to. Additionally, this game features all of the characters and track from CTR's sequel, Crash Nitro Kart. And then to add upon that, Beenox updated the game for about a year with Grand Prixs, which gave you more tracks and allowed you to unlock characters by completing daily missions. Thankfully, it's not even a case of Fear of Missing Out that most games do these days. Once a Grand Prix passed, you could unlock the characters in the in-game shop just by playing the game. It was so fun to open up this game everyday, do a few daily challenges for about an hour, then call it a day. In total, there are 56 characters and 39 tracks. Almost every character in the Crash universe is playable. They were apparently planning to add even more, but Covid caused scheduling issues and Beenox had to move on to Crash 4.

 There are really only a few sour things about this game. First of all, it's published by Activision which is infamous for its terrible work environment and predatory game practices. Speaking of which, a lot of people were immediately turned off by the microtransactions in this game. Not to defend Activision and microtransactions, but you can unlock just about everything in this game just by playing it; the microtransactions only serve as a faster way to do it. Additionally, all items in the game are cosmetic, absolutely no pay-to-win items. THen lastly, I have to talk about the loading times. This game's loading times are atrocious. I think someone actually measured it, and across all consoles, you'll be spending about 30% of your playtime loading. This is especially terrible since some races can take like a minute. You're going to be spending 30 seconds loading the track and probably about 15 to get back to the menu screens. If it wasn't for that, I'd probably still be playing this game everyday.

 I'm a pretty big fan of roguelikes, but I've been overdue for one that really grabs me. I've seen Cult of the Lamb here and there, but wasn't really interested at first. When the release date came closer and demos started dropping, I became pretty excited for it. Once it came out, I had a hard time putting it down.

 Cult of the Lamb is a roguelite game where half of the game is a community management simulator. You play as a lamb who was saved by some demonic entity named "The One Who Waits" who only agrees to spare you if you start a cult in his name. He then gives you his crown which transfers his abilities to you. From there, you go out into the wilderness to gather resources and followers for your cult, as well as to slay the bishops who tried to sacrifice you in order to banish The One Who Waits forever. When you aren't in the woods hacking and slashing, you're at your base kinda playing baby sitter for your cult followers.

 When you're at your base, you have to cook and clean for your cult members. The more you take care of them, the more faith they'll have in your cult, and the more you'll be able to upgrade your abilities and resources. They'll also perform tasks for you so that you don't have to, such as collecting resources, building monuments, and harvesting vegetables to eat. If you neglect them, they'll begin to dissent and start spreading propaganda against your cult. Eventually, they leave the cult, sometimes bringing some of the other members along with them. It's within your best interest to treat them nicely for the above perks, but also because they don't last very long. They age pretty quickly and last around 30 to 50 in-game days (around 10 minutes per day). With that in mind, the game gives you several choices in terms of how you want to personally run your cult. Do you want to lead your cult through intimidation or kindness? Each option has its own ups and downs and you can't go back once you pick one, so you have to weigh your decisions carefully. For example, when a follower dies of old age, do you want your cult to lay them to rest forever -- gaining a lot of faith but never seeing that follower again -- or do you ressurect them, which lowers faith a little bit but your follower grows stronger since they'll be around much longer. Will you occasionally force your followers to work through the night to gather resources and make them upset, or will you give them a day off where all they do is sleep while you work? It's an interesting system, but I feel some choices are no-brainers over others.

 In terms of the roguelite aspect, I sort of wish it had more depth. You go through each area of wilderness in order to find each bishop's hideout. After 4 successful runs, you'll unlock the bishop's temple where you'll be able to fight them. The combat feels pretty good overall, but the 2D models in a 3D environment kind of lead to some awkward moments. A lot of the time, it will seem like your hit should connect but it doesn't. Or sometimes, there are bosses with bullet hell patterns, but it seems like your character's hitbox really wasn't designed with bullet hells in mind. Otherwise, the combat is quick and snappy, and super responsive. I also like some of the random events, such as the tarot cards you'll find which give you buffs for the duration of the run. Sometimes you can fight swarms of enemies for a follower or shop for food at a market, or even more. You also start each run with a random weapon, each with it's own ups and downs as well. I love doing heavy damage, so I love getting the hammers which take forever to wind up, but do massive damage when they connect. Ultimately though, the game is pretty short, with there only being about 5 major bosses.

 As good as this game is, it's pretty short. I'm alright with it, considering they're adding more content down the road. However, this game probably should've been released later on. There were a ton of annoying bugs in this game at launch, quite a few of them being game-breaking. Some of your followers would disappear permanently, sometimes rooms won't open after a fight meaning you have to throw away a perfectly good run, or sometimes your character would get poisoned until they die when they should only take around 2-3 half-hearts of damage. This game definitely needed more time in the oven, but overall, I'm pretty excited to see more.

 I have a confession: I really like the live action Cat in the Hat movie. It's weird, it's surreal, it's creepy, and it's everything a Dr. Seuss movie shouldn't be. That's exactly why I like it. I don't know who this movie was for, but it barely seems "corporate friendly" to me. Dr. Seuss adaptations probably work best in animation, but they always tend to be "modernized" and "pop-culture-y" in order to stretch it to feature length. In fact, this was the movie that supposedly caused that change: so many people found it repulsive they decided to go with the animation route. As for the game, I'm pretty sure my sister got it for her birthday and she didn't care for it at all. I had vague memories of playing this in 2003 and thinking the first third of the game was cool and the rest felt like torture. It didn't last long in our library until we sold it. Around 15 years later, I decided to pick it up on Amazon and give it another try, especially since it was 2 dollars.

 I now understand why it was 2 dollars.

 The game adaptation of the movie is a 2.5D platformer. Similar to games like Klonoa, Tomba, Kirby 64 and a bunch of other classics, you go through environments that can curl into the backgrounds sometimes. You play as the Cat in the Hat as he goes through warped versions of the house from the movie. My memory was fairly accurate, the first third of this game is pretty cool. The worlds are pretty creative, they often switch up the hazards and enemies, and the controls are pretty good. But once you get to the second third of the game, it quickly becomes apparent that's where the ideas run out. The game starts repeating itself pretty early and starts spamming the same hazards over and over. Most of the hazards just devolve into "wait for the hazard to turn off." It's more of a test of patience than it is skill. Some of the modes of transportation or switches just devolve into "wait for this mini-cutscene to end." It rarely throws anything new at you beyond that point. On top of that, the levels get longer and the collectibles become harder to find. The more you progress, the more collectibles you need to open new levels, so you have to slog through a level you already played until you find what you need. Additionally, each level has 4 keys to find, which opens a bonus challenge. These challenges are usually difficult and have a very, very long intro cutscene highlighting the task in front of you. You can't skip these cutscenes. Even if you die, you have to watch the cutscene over. On top of that, every few levels, you get a boss, which is just an iteration of the previous boss you fought: the evil neighbor Quinn from the movie in some giant robot. Every time you beat him, he just adds a new phase the next time you fight him. Everything about this game is so repetitive, that once again, my memory from my childhood was correct: this game almost feels like torture sometimes. I really can't recommend it to anyone. The movie on the other hand, I'd say give it a try, but don't watch it thinking it'll be "good."

 I will say, this game actually has a pretty nice soundtrack though.

 The mid-90's really saw a huge leap in technological advances in video games. Going from 2D to 3D was massive, both in significance and as an obstacle. In the end, we got games like Super Mario 64, Super Smash Bros., Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Metal Gear Solid, Tomb Raider, and so many more unforgettable experiences that would revolutionize the entire video game industry and inspire people to develop games themselves.

And then you had things like Eggs of Steel.

 In Eggs of Steel you play as Charlie, a moronic anthropomorpic egg who accidentally spills coffee on the main control system of the steel mill he works in. This causes all the machines in the mill to go crazy and cause havoc. Charlie has to scramble (no pun intended) to reach the emergency shut off switch, but only if he punches all the time clocks for some reason. Along the way, some ghost egg man who despises Charlie for spoilery reasons tries to stop him with robots and other contraptions.

 Eggs of Steel is a game that seems like it was behind the curve of 1998. The controls in this game feel absolutely horrible. Have you ever played an NES game where the character moves so stiffly that you can just feel their weight through the controller? Like you feel the need to hold down the D-Pad has hard as possible to maybe, just maybe, make the character move faster? This game is that, but in 3D form. Along with that, the jump is so pitiful and gives so little momentum that it always feels like you aren't going to clear the smallest, easiest gaps. Combine those two awful elements and you're gonna be dying constantly to the dumbest hazards. Furthermore, the camera is static and it only changes once you walk off the screen. The change is so sudden and the next screen is often so packed with garbage that it's nearly impossible to see where Charlie is when you first enter. They even have a flashing arrow to signal where you are on screen, but there's so much going on that the arrow itself just adds to the clutter. Also, you aren't always going the same direction which you came from; if you exit the screen on the left, it might put you on a perspective where you're supposed to be walking up, causing you to walk in a different direction that might end up killing you. Then there's the inconsistencies of the platforming. Sometimes you can walk straight onto platforms, sometimes you have to jump directly onto them. Sometimes the sense of depth is so awful that you're gonna be wasting lives jumping to platforms you can't actually reach. Sometimes there are platforms where you can't fall off despite there being no guard rail. Sometimes you just fall off anyway. With ALL of this in mind, you're going to end up frustrated through the whole thing.

  In terms of the actual gameplay, the game is extremely obtuse in terms of where you're supposed to go next or what you're supposed to do. I feel like MAYBE they were going for a puzzle-platformer angle, but in the end, it just feels like they're explaining game mechanics very poorly. There are paper airplanes in the game that tell you what you have to do when you touch them, but they're never around in places you REALLY need them. You'll spend so much time just looking at everything on the screen going "what...?," trying everything you can possibly think of, and then backtracking until you find one miniscule detail that you were missing. This is especially present with bosses. Some bosses are just "Run up to them and hit them 3 times," leaving you to say "that's it???" Other times it'll take you forever to figure out how you're supposed to beat them, and sometimes it's extremely repetitive. The whole experience is just frustrating. A game that looked and controlled like this would have been amazing in 1990, but it's absolutely nothing special in 1998 compared to everything else at the time.

 At the very least, this game has given us one of the funniest death animations I've ever seen. The one nice thing I can really say about this game is that the cutscenes are well animated. There are lots of 1-off cutscenes, but others repeat several times throughout the game, making the novelty of how goofy they are wear off quickly.

 I've never really cared for Metroidvanias or Souls-likes. Something about both genres seemed somewhat sluggish and genereally trial-and-error, a combination of which sounds exactly like something I don't have patience for. At the time I got it, I was really wanting to play a new game, but nothing was really calling to me. However, I finally decided to give Hollow Knight a try because the gameplay managed to keep my attention... and for the low 15$ price tag. Safe to say, it was a really good decision.

 Hollow Knight takes place in the decaying ruins of a once great kingdom called Hallownest. You play as a mute little bug-knight-thing simply referred to as "The Knight." At first, there is no real objective, it's just to explore and see how far you can get. Later on, strange things start to happen, and it seems like a few characters believe you may play a role in a prophecy where you destroy a lethal plague. As you progress, you gain multiple abilities which help you travel to new places and fight enemies and bosses in new ways. You also start to piece together what happened to this kindgom based on what little info the surviving NPCs give you. A lot of it is implied which is nice; nobody really info-dumps to you and you get to piece everything together yourself. You learn about the fate of Hallownest, its citizens, and its King and Queen. You get all of this, in addition to beautiful hand-drawn graphics and an unforgettable soundtrack. I absolutely adore the character designs in this game, with a lot of strange yet memorable bugs, ghosts, and more. As for the soundtrack, it's a great listen. It can be lively, meloncholy, haunting, dramatic, and so much more. If you listen close enough, you can make out certain themes that connect certain characters and story elements together. This carefully crafted experience is astounding, considering it first started as a small game-jam game.

 Hollow Knight is a game with dark grimey, yet interesting environments where getting lost is super fun. It seems like controls took a priority when making this game because once you get enough practice, the main character moves exactly how you would expect them to. You can swing your sword down to pogo-jump off of enemies or hazards and then perform a dash to cling into a wall and walljump to a new area within a matter of a second or two. In the same vein, the combat is deceivingly simple, with only a handful of moves that are surprisingly versatile. A lot of the abilities are mainly used for travel or interaction with the environment, but can also help out quite a bit in combat. These help immensely against the tough-as-nails Dark Souls-esque bosses. These days, it seems like journalists compare any game with the slightest bit of difficulty to Dark Souls, but make no mistake. This time, they're right. This game is loaded with big bosses, each of which fight in their own unique way. On your first playthrough, you'll most likely get bodied over and over. Thankfully, there are no lives in this game, so you can go right back to the boss and try again. The only trade off is that when you die, you have to fight your own ghost (who's pretty easy to kill) or risk losing all of your money if you die again before managing to kill your ghost. Although, once you learn a boss' moves, it becomes super fun to wail on them until they fall to you.

 There's a ton to do and find, which never leaves me bored. There are a lot of side quests, most of which are super engaging while a few might have you going crazy because of how difficult they are. Throughout the game's Kickstarted life, it received 3 content updates: Lifeblood, Grimm Troupe, and Godmaster. Lifeblood added a few extra bosses while Grimm Troupe added a new major quest with more bosses. Godmaster serves as the "boss rush" mode with even more new bosses to find. There were originally going to be 4 DLCs, but they added so much to it that it eventually became the sequel: Hollow Knight Silksong. With all this content, I almost feel guilty paying 15$ for this game, considering how much enjoyment I got out of it. It feels like an absolute steal and I can't wait for the sequel. This game has easily made it into my top 10 favorites of all time.

 Hypnospace Outlaw is unlike any other game I've seen before. It's a simulator and somewhat of a puzzle game that lets you experience what the Internet was like in the late 1990's. However, this title is also an alternate history game. In this timeline, people used something similar to the internet called "Sleepspace," where you had to use a special headband while you sleep to browse online. The leading company in this field is Merchantsoft, and they just released their newest corner of Sleepspace, Hypnospace, only available on HypnOS.

 In Hypnospace Outlaw, you play as a volunteer moderator, where it's your job to keep the users of each community in line and well-behaved. You have a number of communities to patrol at your own pace. Communities like older people reminiscing about the old days or kids and teens posting about drama or the lastest new video game craze: Squisherz, an alternate history Pokemon. Some people post about conspiracies, some people post about religion, some post about music, and so on. People will make reviews, blogs, or just post about their interests. As a Hypnospace moderator, you aren't allowed to directly talk to them. However, you have to make sure no one is harassing anybody, or using copyrighted content, or check to see if someone is doing something illegal like making malicious software or posting inappropriate images. Once you find someone breaking the rules, you can delete it from Hypnospace and make a little bit of Hypnocoin, the official currency. When you get enough Hypnocoin, you can spend it on little downloadables like stickers to decorate your desktop, mp3s to listen to, or virtual pets. Just be careful you don't download any viruses or click on any sketchy emails...

 No one in this game is real, but the writing in this game is so good that it feels like there's an actual person on the other side of the web pages. Being born in the 90's, I kind of caught the tail end of when the internet was about expressing yourself and started becoming more about advertisement. Each of the pages you encounter on Hypnospace seem so silly yet genuine; it's what inspired me to make this website, honestly. If you report and remove something from their page, they react to it, which plays into the story. For example, your first task as a moderator is to remove gifs of a cartoon goldfish named Gumshoe Gooper from a harmless teacher's webpage. Obviously, Merchantsoft doesn't care about someone posting a cartoon goldfish, but since they don't have the legal licensing for the character, the goldfish has to go. The older teacher doesn't really understand this and starts a rebellion in her community once you remove it, which causes everyone to spam Gumshoe Gooper. There's a lot more storylines in the game like this. It may sound overwhelming, but like I said, the game allows you to tackle everything and take everything in at your own pace. The further you get into the game, the tougher the tasks get. Some people are breaking the rules, but not exactly out in the open. It's up to you to sleuth around and figure out how they were able to snake around getting caught. At the end of the game, something big happens and it's up to you to piece together what took place.

 This game is loads of fun. It's really fun to see how people react to everything you're doing and it's fun to think about how to solve a problem someone is posing on you. Once this game was finished, the developers put out tools you can use to make your own Hypnospace page. Also, there's already a sequel in the works, Dreamsettler, which takes place in the early 2000's. I can't wait to play that one as well.

I stand with Gooper.

 As said in my Ribbit King review (I wrote that one before this one), there was a strange era of video games in the early 2000's. If a game was colorful or was made by Nintendo, a lot of people would write it off as "baby-ish" or "were they on drugs when they made this???" Katamari was one of those games as well. On the contrary to the "drugs" comments, Katamari's concept was designed by a man named "Keita Takahashi," a Japanese man who seems quite pleasant. He's active on Twitter, where he posts about he loves being a parent and how much he loves making cute, silly games.

 From what it seems like, Katamari Damacy was created to be a budget title. According to Wikipedia, it took less than 1 million dollars to develop. In Japan, it costed around 2/3rds of what a new, fully priced game would cost (4000 Yen). Namco decided to release it in America as well, only costing about 20$. It didn't sell too well, only moving around 155,000 units in Japan and 120,000 in the US. Despite this, the game got very high praises from those who played it and it became somewhat of a cult classic in the US. In Japan, these sales numbers were considered pretty successful for a new IP. Namco ordered a few sequels afterward. As years went on, many people started to learn about this game in the 2010's through Let's Plays and it gathered a huge following online. In 2012, this game was even added to the New York Museum of Modern Art among a few other titles, to showcase how far toys for children have come.

 Katamari Damacy roughly translates to "clump spirit," or more accurately, "team spirit". You play as a funny, tiny 1 centimeter tall guy simply known as "The Prince." Your father, the ever-massive King of All Cosmos, got drunk did a silly little dance and accidentally destroyed all the stars in the sky. He calls upon you, his son, to make new stars. How do you do this? By rolling everything up into a big ol' ball. The King later takes the ball, makes it into a star, and resets the Earth for you to make the next one. This concept was designed around novelty, and most importantly, simplicity. All you do is move both analog sticks in the direction you want to move the ball, called "the Katamari." You start by picking up small things, and when the Katamari gets big enough, you can move onto picking up larger things. When you first begin, your Katamari is about as big as a mouse. The further you get into the game, the bigger the ball gets. It gets as big as adults, as big as buildings, as big as cities, and as big as the moon by the end of the game. It's not always about size though; there are special levels where you have to remake the constellations. For example, for remake Cancer, only the crabs you pick up will count towards the score, or to remake Taurus, you're only allowed to pick up one cow, but it has to be the biggest cow you can find. It's a super simple concept that anyone can pick up and understand. Once you get used to it, this game becomes super relaxing, even with the time limit. Once you get really good at it, you'll find that the time limit is very lenient anyway. On top of all that, you get a banger soundtrack as well (if you're a fan of this game, you'll know what song this is without even clicking the link). You can also play in 2 player mode and can unlock more characters to play as after you go through the story mode and find the Prince's silly-looking cousins. Much like Ribbit King, every time I show this game to people, they're a bit hesitant to try it. When they pick it up and start playing though, they can never get enough.

 This video game is one of my top 10 favorites ever. Once you get good at it, you can just mindlessly play it and enjoy it over and over while trying to beat your previous scores. The sequels are great too and introduce additional challenges and modes you can try, but I like the first one most for its overall simplicity. I'm glad they did a remake of this game in 2018 as well, making it more accessible to people who wanted to try it out. As time went on it was only available on PS2 and the online PS3 shop, making its accessibility limited. Now everyone can enjoy the game on most modern consoles.

 Kirby is a series that usually delivers the goods. Truth to be told, I think Kirby games have been a little stagnant in the 2010's. They weren't bad by a long shot, but Kirby Triple Deluxe felt a little generic while Kirby Star Allies took "generic" to the next level. However, word was going around that HAL wanted to make the first Kirby game where you can platform in 3D. Some people were worried, but most were excited. I'm happy to say this is one of Kirby's best games. Kirby gets transported to a myserious world. Not too far in, he finds that Waddle Dees, some of the residents of his own world, are being hunted down and captured. Kirby travels the lands freeing the Waddle Dees from their cages and saving his friends from mind control.

 It was very clear that in this game, their primary goal was to translate Kirby's 2D gameplay into 3D and they hit the nail on the head. Kirby feels great to control and moves exactly as you would expect him to. As a result, there aren't too many copy abilities, but it's a small price to pay for how well this game does everything else. Besides, they allow you to upgrade each ability and make it stronger or function in a slightly different way that suits your style. Each level takes a long time the first time you play through it because there are so many secrets to find and objectives to complete. Every level, though having a general theme like "desert" or "snow," are all memorable and change up the environment quite a bit which means you'll rarely mix up levels and layouts in your head. That was an issue I had with games like Kirby Truple Deluxe, where all the levels were kind of generic and blended in with each other with only a few stand-outs, which got even worse in Star Allies. Oh and course, this game has an absolutely stellar soundtrack with a main theme that keeps popping up here and there.

 A regular highlight for the Kirby series for me is the bosses. They aren't as difficult as Dark Souls or anything, but they tend not to be push overs. Once you get used to them, you can find openings in their attacks and start to wail on them, which feels ultra satisfying. They even introduced a new dodge feature for Kirby where you can roll around pretty easily to dodge attacks. If you just barely manage to avoid an attack, you'll get a cool bullet-time slowdown. It seems a bit easy to cheese bosses with this, but Kirby was first designed with beginners in mind. Once you get to the post game, these bosses get amped up and much harder, but still pretty manageable once you get used to them. Of course, the game also brings back the Arena, where you can fight every boss in a row in exchange for ability upgrades. As fun as it is, I wish there was a better way to grind for ability upgrades, as once you complete all the in-game bonus levels, grinding bosses is your only option.

 Over years, I've learned that kart racing might be my second favorite genre next to platformers. When I was a kid, I always daydreamed about making my own kart racing game. Years later, Sony combined the LittleBigPlanet series with the ModNation Racers engine, making a kart racing game with user generated content. Weirdly, this was a game I didn't know I wanted at the time, but the more I saw of it, the more I began to realize I really, really wanted it. To give a brief summary of how it went, the game launched in late 2012 and the servers for it shut down in 2016. For the record, the LittleBigPlanet platformer servers for PS3 went from 2008 to 2021. So what's the deal?

 I have a love-hate relationship with this game. When this game works, it's lots of fun! When it doesn't, it's pretty frustrating. LittleBigPlanet 1 and 2 were known for their quality. Each game was lovingly crafted and had a ton of quality-of-life features. Each one had their own set of bugs that were quickly ironed out as well. Unfortunately, this same quality doesn't carry over to LBPK. Having different developers, they tried their best to craft a similar level builder, but didn't quite hit the mark in my opinion. In their defense, I imagine making an editor go from 2D to 3D isn't easy at all. Though I kind of wish they took the time to work out a lot of the wonkiness. There's a lot of features you have to get used to, a lot of them come straight from the LittleBigPlanet editor. However, these familiar tend to work a bit differently in this editor, which kind of makes you unlearn some things. In addition, the editor's controls can be a bit stiff, it sometimes has trouble moving things, it tends to crash a lot, and there aren't too many customization options when it comes to customizing the AI. They do give you a ton of track building options though. If you really dedicate the time, you can make a really cool and unique track. Aside from that, the racing tends to be pretty decent. Although, I do feel the physics are a bit too weighted in some placed while too floaty in others. The AI seems to be all over the place, sometimes being ruthless while other times they just drive into walls. The weapon system is cool though. It takes come cues from Mario Kart with green missiles going straight forward and red missiles seeking the player in front of you. Rather than attacking though, you have the option of sacrificing any weapon you pick up to block any upcoming weapons from behind you. For anyone who hates blue shells in Mario Kart, there's good news and bad news. The good news is the blue rockets can be blocked by using any weapon. The bad news is that you get pelted by these things constantly. People tend to balance this out in custom levels though, making them a bit rare online. Speaking of which, the most exciting part of the game, the online aspect, has been shut down. Some of the coolest tracks made by other players are no longer accessible. Before the servers went down, many creators made their levels free to download, but there aren't too many level slots to save them to and a lot of creators didn't login within the time period to make their levels downloadable. Some of the coolest custom levels only exist through YouTube now.

 This is a game I play maybe once a year and I end up making a full-fledged track with all the bells and whistles. The process itself is fun, and testing and tweaking it is even more fun. While ModNation Racers was cool, I felt the track customization was a little lacking. They give you a few track materials and a few set pieces to work with. In LBPK, you can make the set pieces from scratch in addition to having a few premade ones. You can even make your own weapons to theme them around the track, as well. I've made so many cool tracks in this game, none of which I can share with the world because the online is dead.

 When I was a kid, my brother apparently had a subscription to Playstation Underground, the Playstation equivalent to Nintendo Power. Sometimes they would give you demo discs to see some upcoming games. My siblings and I would spend a lot of time playing through these demos, probably more time than the people throwing them together would expect. One of the best ones though was the Jampack: 1997 Winter Demo Disc. This had games like Crash 3, Spyro 1, Metal Gear Solid, Tomb Raider Revelations, Small Soldiers, A Bug's Life, and more. I had many of these games, but there was one game that I enjoyed a lot that I never got as a kid yet it never really left my brain. That game was MediEvil. You got to play around 15 or 20 minutes of the game, then it would just throw you back to the main menu of the demo disc. I always wanted to get more out of it. It wasn't until around 2010 that I started looking for games I wanted to try as a child but never got around to. MediEvil was one at the top of my list, and after watching some playthroughs, I decided to pick it up, and I'm glad I did.

 MediEvil takes place in the 1200s. In a kingdom called Gallowmere, there was an evil sorcerer named Zarok. He and his demonic army went to war with the king's army, led by the main character, Dan Fortesque. People who didn't quite see what happened say that Dan fought valiantly and led the kingdom to victory... when in reality he died to the first arrow shot in the whole war. Being a necromancer, Zarok came back 100 years later to claim his revenge on the kingdom, summoning vast armies of the undead to do his bidding. During the process, he accidentally resurrects Dan. Dan, fully aware of his embarassing defeat, decides to take this opportunity to settle the score and live up to his own legacy.

 In the game, you play as Dan. He's a bit clunky and awkward to control, and the control layout isn't the same as most platformers at the time. Once you get used to it, it's serviceable. You go around hacking and slashing demons, monsters, zombies, and more in an effort to solve puzzles, do some platforming, and get to the end of each level. If you kill enough enemies, you can collect a Golden Chalice in each level, which teleports you to The Hall of Heroes: a place where Dan is desperate to get a statue in. There, he speaks with the statues of great heroes from the past who offer him new weapons to use. There's a huge and satisfying array of weapons, but it mostly boils down to swords, bows, daggers, hammers, and axes. Each one works a bit differently and can be used in different combat scenarios, all of which are useful at some point. There's a wide variety of enemies as well, some of which have weaknesses to certain weapon types. There are zombies, goblins who steal your weapons, flying demons, living pumpkins, living scarecrows, minotaurs, and way more.

 The soundtrack in this game seems like it was made using some sort of MIDI system (I can't find a definitive answer, so don't quote me on that). Despite this, it gives a great atmosphere to each level. One of my favorite tracks is the Hilltop Mausoleum with the harsh pipe organs horns, and choirs.

 If you're a fan of Nightmare Before Christmas, you'll probably love how this game looks, considering it was one of the main inspirations for this game's visuals. Despite being low-poly, it has a super fun cartoony, yet spooky visual style that gives you a great Halloween-y vibe. On top of that, this game uses part of its limitations to its benefits. Every stage is covered in a thick, foggy darkness so you can't tell what's lurking in the shadows. Normally fog in 90's games tends not to look great, but the black fog in this game really fits the dark atmosphere. You'll travel to all sorts of locations you'd expect from a spooky, cartoony adventure. You'll go through graveyards, mausoleums, caverns, pumpkin patches, castles, creepy villages, haunted woods, and so much more. I tend to play this game every other year in October and I imagine a lot of people share the same sort of tradition. If you're looking for something genuinely creepy, this one might not be for you. Though if you want a fun Halloween video game for the season, consider throwing this game into the mix. Like I said, the roughest thing about this game is the controls, but everything else about it has aged really well.

 The Munchables is one of those weird, colorful games that's similar to Katamari or Ribbit King. This game came out 2009 though, when weirder games started getting a bit more of an audience. Either way, it seems as though it didn't sell very well; I don't see many people talking about it despite it having some pretty above-average scores, usually getting between 6's and 8's out of 10.

 You play as a little creature known as a Munchable, where you can choose between a spiky monster named Chomper or a girly, squirrel-like monster named Munchy. Their home planet gets invaded by Tabemon: pirate monsters made out of food. Conveniently, the Munchables have an insatiable appetite and will eat these pirates on sight. Like I said earlier, this game is pretty similar to Katamari, moreso than just the visuals. The more enemies you eat, the bigger your character gets. From there, you can eat bigger enemies and the cycle countinues. Your character also changes visually, but it doesn't really affect anything. When you get to the end of a level, you're usually towering over everything. It's pretty fun, but it doesn't have the relaxing nature of Katamari since there are multiple things that can hinder your progress. If you get attacked by an enemy or touch a hazard, you momentarily get really small. If you get hit in this state, you have to start the stage over.

 There are a few basic, but fun moves you can do in this game. You can do a roll which splits enemies into smaller enemies. This is useful for when you encounter an enemy that's too big, you can just split them into 4 smaller guys. You can also do a charge move to move a bit faster while automatically eating enemies. It's simple, but it's a nice change from spamming the A button. There's also some power ups, like a super stomp that stuns enemies or a vaccuum power up that suck everything up for you for a bit.

 Honestly, I don't have much to say about this game. It's pretty fun, but I don't think anyone would like it in the same way most people can easily pick up Katamari or Ribbit King. I kind of just wanted to highlight this game since no one really talks about it. It's fun to mindlessly turn on and play around in for a bit. And of course, I have to plug the soundtrack. Overall, this game is pretty repetitive but still manages to feel fresh the whole way through.

 Peglin is a game that as of writing this, is still in Early Access. The premise of the game is pretty simple: Rogue-like Peggle. Rogue is an adventure game from 1980, where every time you played the game, everything would be randomly generated: the dungeons you explore, the enemies you encounter, and the items you find. The "Rogue-like" genre has become quite popular in recent years, with developers using Rogue as a diving board by mixing new ideas and genres into the "randomly generated" aspect. Peggle is a game from 2007 where you have a board of blue and orange pegs and your objective is to clear all of the orange pegs by launching a pinball at them. The ball bounces around the screen until it falls off the bottom. In 2021, someone combined these ideas and created Peglin.

 In Peglin, your objective is to simply defeat every enemy you encounter. To do so, you launch an orb at a bunch of pegs. Once the orb falls off the bottom of the screen, you "cash in" your attack. The more pegs you hit, the more damage you do to the enemy in front of you. Once you hit a peg, you destroy it. The only way to bring it back is by hitting a "refresh" peg, which brings back every peg on the board. You can also aim for "crit" pegs, which let you do more damage to enemies. Every time you run out of orbs, the game gives them back to you in a randomized order, but the enemies get an extra turn. After clearing a level, you often have a choice to spend gold to upgrade your orbs, choose a new orb, or heal yourself. Afterward, you throw your orb down the board to decide which part of the level you want to go to next. You can encounter more enemies or even mini-bosses for rewards, or if you aim for it, go to shops, find items, or random events.

 So far, it's a neat little game. There isn't too much to it at the moment; I think the story is just a little Peg Goblin (Peglin), got tormented by a dragon and now seeks revenge. There's an interesting collection of orbs to choose from, like orbs that pierce through enemies, orbs that can burn enemy shields, orbs that can summon a god to smite some enemies, and way more. If you build your collection just right, you can breeze through levels like nothing. In addition, there are also lots of items that can affect your performance, like adding bonus damage, making your orbs loop back to the top of the board, activating bombs on the board with one hit, and way more. As of right now though, there are only 3 worlds with more on the way. Each time you beat the game, they give you an option to add a restriction to make your next playthrough harder, but there doesn't seem to be a reward for it at the moment. From what it seems like too, there are going to be more playable characters, but you can only play as one right now. Overall, it's a neat little game and I'm excited to see where it goes. My main complaint so far is that some of the end-level bosses have a bit too much health or protection, making them nearly impossible to beat even with the best builds. Hopefully they iron that out later.

 One of the few PS1 games my brother had when we were kids was Rayman. That game was fun, but tough as nails. Games near 1996 were starting to go 3D and were becoming significantly larger. Thanks to these new restrictions, developers realized they didn't have to make their games as difficult anymore. Rayman 1 came out just a year or two too early, and as a result, didn't quite catch the memo. To this day, I still haven't beaten Rayman 1 without cheats. Unknowingly, I skipped Rayman 2 until I eventually saw Rayman 3 in the store. I picked the game up and immediately started enjoying what it had to offer.

 The story takes place after the events of Rayman 2. Rayman and his friend Globox are enjoying the peace and quiet. That is until a fly-like creature named Andre starts turning fairies known as Red Lums into Black Lums, like himself. The Black Lums use their surroundings to make clothes that they can use like puppets or vessels. Now known as Hoodlums, they start to cut down trees, set up outposts, and forcefully drive everyone out of the area. Globox tries to wake Rayman up, fails to do so, and then decides to drag him along. Globox accidentally "rips" off Rayman's limbless hands. Murfy the fairy finds a hand-less Rayman and leads him in the right direction. Through a series of unfortunate events, Globox swallows Andre and Rayman has to guide Globox through the Hoodlums' outposts to take him to the doctor's office to get Andre out of there.

 Aside from the characters, my favorite thing about this game is the combat. It's deceptively simple. Rayman is known for literally throwing his fist and punching enemies, and this is the only attack he has in the game. However, Rayman can hold the punch button to wind up a punch, leading to more damage. If Rayman just spams punches with no real force, enemies are able to parry them. With that in mind, there are several different enemy types, each one having a really cool design. There are pushover enemies who die in one punch, enemies who die in about 3-4 punches, enemies who throw bombs, enemies you can only hit by curving your shot, enemies that protect other enemies, and so much more. All you have to do is find out how to punch each and every one of these guys and clear them out of an area to progress. Despite how simple it sounds, the enemies will have you ducking and weaving through their attacks. There's hardly ever a dull moment when fighting enemies, and it never feels repetitive due to their layouts, attacks, and movements. There are also mini-bosses littered throughout and bosses at the end of each world which tend to shake up the gameplay. Some may say the combat may not be the best of the best, but if you're making a 3D platformer and need some inspiration for combat, take a few notes from this game.

 Rayman also gets an array of new abilities in this game. There aren't too many, but each one makes pretty good use of its limited capabilities. You have a tornado power that lets you lower platforms, shrink enemies, or hit multiple enemies in one shot. There's a bear trap power that lets you swing from grapple points seamlessly, and it can also be used to electrocute enemies from far away. There's a rocket power up that lets you guide Rayman's fist from a first-person perspective, and so much more.

 The soundtrack is pretty awesome too. There's a wide variety of moods on display, from peaceful, to suspensful, to spooky, to funky. This game also deserves an award for having one of the coolest opening montages ever.

 This game was made back when it felt like Ubisoft still cared to some degree. Since then, the "mainline" Rayman series has been on hiatus for almost 20 years. This was the last 3D adventure he had before the Rabbids hijacked his series. Rayman Origins and Legends are fantastic games and I love them a lot, but I'd like to see Rayman return to 3D in this style again. I have nothing against the Rabbids, but Rayman is arguably Ubisoft's most iconic character and they just don't seem interested in using him anymore. Maybe someday they'll pick him up again. Besides, Murfy says "see you in Rayman 4!" in this game, so it's bound to happen any day now, right?

 In the early 2000s, there was a strange phenomenon going on. With Playstation 2 doing well and Xbox coming onto the market, video games were more geared towards teenagers and adults at the time. This led to a weird culture where people thought that if a game was made by Nintendo or had a lot of bright colors, it was either "for babies" or for people on drugs. Even looking at reviews for this game back in the day, lots of them say something stupid like "were they on drugs when they made this game???" In my opinion, Ribbit King was maybe a decade ahead of its time.

 Following a Japanese-exclusive PS1 game called "KeroKing," Ribbit King is a game where you play golf but with frogs. You launch frogs with a little catapult and try to make it into the course hole in the least amount of strokes. However, there's more to it than that. Along the way, there are different things you can interact with that give you points. Things like touching soap bubbles, making your frog eat flies, making your frog swim in the water, or triggering certain events will net you some extra points. Chain these events together and you'll multiply your score. In the end, it actually doesn't matter how many strokes you have, but how many points you have, though having a low stroke count helps. It may sound a bit complicated, but it's much simpler than it sounds. The controls are pretty easy, so almost literally anyone can play the game. There's about 5 worlds and 4 courses per world, each course with 4 different starting points. Though there aren't many levels, setting them up in this way makes for a replayable experience. Each world has its own unique gimmicks, as well as some universal ones like trampolines to bounce off of or snakes to escape from. It's super satisfying when you become so familiar with a course that you know exactly how to get a hole-in-one.

 In terms of single player content, there's a little story mode you can try. You play as a little alien carpenter named Scooter who has been entered in a "Frolf" tournament. There, he will have to face off against a collection of strange characters and win the grand prize: Super Ribbinite, which is the main power source of his planet. Despite the fate of the planet and its energy crisis, the king buys Scooter the cheapest Frolf kit and sends him off to the tournament where he has to climb the ranks. It starts off pretty easy against the AI, but it gets much harder the further you get in. In the multiplayer mode, you can play as the Story Mode opponents. They have no impact on performance. However, you can choose different frogs to use, each with their own abilities. Some frogs are immune to lava, which is good for the lava levels. Some frogs are good at swimming, which will earn you more points if you knock them into the water. In addition, there's also a "mood" system for the frogs which affects how far you can launch them. If a frog does a lot of stressful things in one turn, it'll get tired and won't fly as far in the next turn. You can use items to fix their mood or just to generally enhance them for one turn.

 I bought this game in 2005. Every time I showed it to someone, they always thought it looked really, really weird and were hesitant to try it. By the time they finished a match though, they always wanted to play more. Most people found out about this game in the 2010s through popular Let's Plays and it later became a coveted item. Unfortunately, there aren't too many copies floating around and the ones being sold online are skyrocketing in price. The only realistic modern way to enjoy this game is through emulation. Honestly, it's a shame this game came out in 2004. It didn't sell very well because of the culture of the time and the fact it just wasn't advertised too well in the US. However, the multiplayer mode is a blast and I think people would go crazy for this game if they could play it online today. I'd love for this game to see a port or a remake or a sequel at some point.

 I was never a huge Scooby Doo fan. Like Scooby is fine, I don't hate it, but I never really got hooked on the original show or any of it's reincarnations. My sister got this game for her birthday, and I honestly don't think she's ever seen a full episode. As far as I know, she barely gave this game a try. I ended up trying it for myself and I ended up liking it a lot!

 The game starts with the Mystery Inc. group helping out one of Daphne's old friends, Holly Graham. She says her grandfather, Alexander Graham, has gone missing. Not only that, but all of the classic Scooby-Doo villains have appeared and have been wreaking havoc all over the Graham Estate. Before the gang is able to investigate, they're all kidnapped one by one until Scooby is left all alone. Scooby has to venture into all the areas of the Graham Estate: the Mansion, the Docks, and the Hedge Maze. Scooby has to rescue the gang and solve the mystery before a strange new villain named The Mastermind breaks up the gang for good.

 Like I said in my Hollow Knight review above, I was never into Metroidvanias as a kid. Strangely enough, it took me years to realize that this game is actually a 3D Metroidvania. You'll be going through each area of the Graham Estate; each one having its own secret passages and shortcuts that intertwine with the other areas. Scooby has to go as far as he can into each area until he hits a dead-end. There, he usually finds some sort of power up that will let him progress to another area. There's a nice feeling of progression in this game. For basic moves, you can run, jump, and charge at your enemies. When you first start out, you can't kill any of the enemies, you can only stun them with your charge. Later on, you get a football helmet, which lets you finally dispose of your enemies. On top of that, there are a lot of silly gadgets and items that help Scooby on his quest. There's stuff like springs which let you double jump, an umbrella that lets you glide, slippers and a lampshade that let you hide from monsters, and bubblegum that lets you bounce on enemies' heads. You keep getting new power ups until the very end of the game. The only other roadblocks in the game are these "Scooby Snack Machine" things that won't let you pass until you get a certain number of Scooby Snacks, which are littered through the game like coins. If you don't have enough, you need to backtrack until you get more. If you collect every snack you see, it'll rarely be a problem, but it can feel kind of lame sometimes.

 Despite every level being pretty linear, there's a fun feeling of exploration in this game. Secret passages are fun to find and you sometimes get rewarded with a Monster Token, which was my favorite part of this game as a kid. You bring Monster Tokens to the Monster Gallery and you'll get a blurb about one of the enemies in the game along with some trivia facts about Scooby-Doo in general. Each and every enemy in this game, except the main villain, comes from the classic 70's Scooby-Doo: Where Are You TV show. Iconic monsters like The Creeper, The Caveman, The Space Kook, The Ghost Diver, The Green Ghost, and more all make appearances. A lot of them attack Scooby in different ways too, so you have to be careful when you encounter each one for the first time. On top of all that, the voice acting consists of the main Scooby Doo voice actors of the time, including guest VA's such as Tim Curry and even Don Knotts. It's all really well done and sounds like it's straight from one of the shows. The music itself is a bit goofy and chaotic and sometimes suspenseful, but it all sounds like something that would be in the show as well. Even the bosses of the game get their own themes that sound exactly like those 70's tunes that would play during the TV chase sequences.

 Back then, licensed games were a mixed bag. Hearing "licensed game" and "Scooby Doo" combined together sounds like it wouldn't be a great mix, but this game is surprisingly good. There are a few glaring problems here and there. The collision can be a bit janky sometimes, the camera doesn't always cooperate, the snack roadblocks feel a bit forced, and there are a few rooms here and there that are just boring to navigate. In addition, the bosses feel a bit silly not well thought-out. Overall though, I have a great time every time I play this game. If you're not convinced, this game was developed by Heavy Iron Studios, the developers responsible Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom and The Spongebob Squarepants Movie: The Game. It even uses the same engine. It seems like such an authentic game that was made with a lot of love for the series. Like MediEvil, if you're looking for a fun, goofy, spooky game to play in October, consider trying this one.

 Sim Theme Park is a very simple game. Riding off the heels of the popular Roller Coaster Tycoon, Bullfrog (now defunct due to Electronic Arts) wanted to bring that experience to consoles. You make a theme park with pre-designed rides, shops, sideshows, and more. You have to keep the park visitors happy along with your employees who will go on strike if they don't approve of your leadership. Honestly, the biggest negative of this game, and you'll notice right away, is that a little advisor guy pops up in the corner to tell you something about your part every 5 seconds.

  It's a pretty repetitive but almost zen kind of game. You start with a Dinosaur/ Jungle theme park and work your way to different themes (Halloween, Alice in Wonderland, and Aliens) as you progress. You build the paths, you place the rides, you hire the employees, you set the prices for everything. You get a bit more control when it comes to building roller coasters, which is kind of the main attraction. After that, you just sort of wait to get enough money to move onto the next park. In my experience, the PC and PS1 versions are more stable than the PS2 version, though the PS2 version has a bit more to do overall.

 Spyro was one of my favorite series as a kid, and it still remains of my top favorites to this day. I thought the "Legend of Spyro" series was okay, but it just couldn't compare to the originals. As the 2000s came to a close, the only thing we really had was Spyro Skylanders. Seeing as how they made Spyro look like a literal gremlin in that game, I wasn't really interested. As the 2010's was nearing a close with no other Spyro games, I kinda gave up on thinking there would ever be anything else. That was, until Crash got the N. Sane Trilogy. Crash and Spyro have a weirdly connected past, so I figured Spyro would eventually get his remake at some point. Surely enough in 2018, we finally got Spyro: Reignited Trilogy.

 Overall, this is a pretty faithful remake. It has almost everything you'd expect. Spyro controls as he normally would, all the original content is there, and they even added Skill Points and Fast Travel to all 3 games. In terms of the positives, there isn't much to say considering it's just a remake of a trilogy that was great to begin with. Unfortunately though, there are quite a bit of downsides.

 Nothing too major comes to mind, but there's a bit of blemishes here and there that tend to add up. This first one I feel is a very personal thing that I find isn't exclusive to Spyro: sometimes, there's too much detail. In a 3D platformer, it's imperative to know what's important versus what's in the background or what's a prop. As graphics and performances improve, I find a lot of 3D platformers have this problem. Important stuff that was front-and-center in a lot of older, more restricted games tends to get lost in visual clutter pretty easily. In Spyro's case, there's Next Gen™ grass everywehre. It looks fine, but I've ran past so many games in the remake because so many of them are hidden by the grass. You can use Sparx to locate any missing gems, but it can still be tedious sometimes. While talking about visuals, I feel there's a bit of mistranslation when it comes to some of the character designs. There are definitely some NPCs or enemies that I, on a personal level, think look unappealing compared to their originals. Then, there are NPCs that just don't hit the mark at all. Let's use the Gnorcs in Spyro 1 for an example. In the original, you had some visual limitations, so you had to keep detail real low. As a result, the main enemies, the Gnorcs, in the first game actually look kind of cute. In the remake, they look kinda ugly. This contextually makes sense though, because their boss, Gnasty Gnorc, is supposed to be a big scary monster man. So, it makes sense if they look like big scary monster men.

 Here's the thing too: a lot of NPCs or enemies got pretty good upgrades from PS1 to modern graphics. The silly Wizard Cats from Spyro 3 for example look great!

 However, there's still a lot of NPCs in this game that somehow got lost in translation. Characters that are supposed to look cute and cuddly end up looking a little uncanny.

 One thing I found to be a bit of a bummer is the soundtrack. The original soundtrack was done by Stewart Copeland, the former drummer for the band The Police. Copeland used a synthesizer, with lot of synth-y sounds in the original trilogy, and his scores got more diverse with each game. Spyro's soundtrack is so interesting and unique that you'll know a Spyro song when you hear one. I believe in the remake, Copeland is credited as "supervising" the recreation of the soundtrack. The new soundtrack seems to be going for a more "realistic instruments" approach, which in theory, sounds cool. At the end of the day though, the new score sounds kind of... "muddy" to me. A lot of instruments kind of blend together somtimes. The original score was more bombastic: the melodies are clearly defined and way more in-your-face. The new score sounds like it's deathly afraid of waking your neighbors, so the main melody stays as quiet as possible. Sometimes it seems like they're removed entirely. I definitely prefer the old sountrack. Thankfully, they give you the option of switching back to the old soundtrack, which is a nice surpised given that wasn't an option in the Crash remakes.

 Those are my two biggest gripes with this game though. Everything else wrong with it is pretty simple, like frame drops, bugs, difficulty increases/decreases, and the loading times. Oh, and the fact you have to download 2/3rds of the game even if you get a physical version which is... not ideal. Either way, this remake is pretty serviceable and it makes the Playstation-stranded classics available to everyone on all platforms. Generally, I think people would enjoy the originals more. As it stands, this remake just takes the originals, polishes the visuals a bit, and sort of makes everything else a little worse. With any luck though, this may pave the way to Spyro 4. Here's hoping since there's already a Crash 4.

 As a side note, one of my favorite criticisms I commonly saw before this game released was that they made Spyro's butt too big.

 There's a neat thing called Retro Achievements, a website you can link to your Perfectly Legitimate Console™ in order to collect achievements on older games that were made before achievements were even a thing. This prompted me to replay some of the older games from my childhood, ones that I haven't played in almost 20 years at this point. Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour is one of these games. I remember liking it as a kid, but never really finishing the story mode entirely. After replaying it and getting all the achievements, I can begin to see why. Like I said in my CTR review, there were a lot of kart racers at the time trying to compete with Mario Kart. Some of them, like CTR, brought their own ideas to the table, while others just tried to cash in on the trend. While Disney came up with some cool ideas for this one, it was also a bit clear it was a bit more of the latter.
 The story of the game, narrated by Jiminy Cricket, stars Chip and Dale checking out a magical fireworks machine that the Magic Kingdom uses for their fireworks displays. Chip and Dale get a bit too close to the machine and accidentally drop their nuts into the mechanism (as one does), causing it to explode. The two now have to travel through Disney World and win races in order to get the parts back for some reason. Once you collect all the parts, you race in each level again to get a penant flag. Once you do that, you race on each course again to collect a bunch of trophies within a time limit. Doing all of this unlocks one extra character and one extra stage. The game doesn't do a great job conveying any of this to you. You kinda just keep playing until you realize the UI elements on the track selection menu start to change. I imagine this was explained in the instruction manual or something, but I've conveniently misplaced mine.
 The first thing I noticed about this game are the controls. This game has a pretty inconsistent frame rate, with some tracks being better or worse than others. When the game is (rarely) at full speed, it actually feels somewhat nice to control. This changes when you drift, however. For some reason, the karts will drift at almost a 90 degree angle, flinging you into any nearby walls. It takes a lot of work, but you can get used to it eventually. The boosts you get from drifting tend to be worth it for the most part. You absolutely do not want to drift around every corner though. Sometimes it's more efficient to just tap the drift button to do a short hop around a tight corner. You'll barely lose any speed by doing this. Otherwise, when the game slows down, the controls tend to feel a bit heavier.
 When it comes to the character selection in this game, it's a mixed bag. When you play Mario Kart or Crash Team Racing, you'd be a bit concerned if you couldn't play as the titular characters. While "Mickey" isn't in the title, I would think most people would assume you can play as him and his friends when this isn't the case. You get the aforementioned Chip and Dale who are fine, and Jiminy Cricket who seems like an odd choice, but he's also fine. Then you get mostly original characters, made specifically for this game. Some of these characters are based on rides you find in Disney World or just general Disney themes. Some of them are really cool, like an evil duck princess based on Malificent or a creepy little duck man from the Haunted Mansion, a cowboy from Thunder Mountain, or a robot from Space Mountain. The rest feel kind of generic and forgettable, as if they were background characters in DuckTales or Goof Troop. From what it seems like, there are no stat changes between these characters (and if there are, they don't convey it to you), meaning any of them are viable options. I picked the Haunted Mansion guy, Baron Karlott, because he's a little freak and he's my favorite.

 In terms of the weapon selection, there isn't much to say. Like a lot of kart racers, they copied Mario Kart's homework. There are green and red acorns that function like the Mario Kart shells... except you always get 3 of them. This sounds nice, but the NPCs also get these, meaning you're getting constantly spammed by them. There are teacups which are cool, they turn your kart into a teacup ride and you temporarily lose control. There's a basic boost, there's a rocket that's kind of like a Bullet Bill, there's a... firework popcorn booster thing that makes you invincible? Then of course, there's the Frog Spell. This acts like the lightning in Mario Kart, turning everyone in front of you into frogs. The only issue with this item is that it happens quite literally every 30 seconds or so. Just constantly. Of course, there's also coins which increase your top speed if you collect 10 like Mario Kart. However, this game innovated a mechanic I haven't seen before: Luck Fairies. Collecting these green sparkles that are randomly spawned on the track will decrease your chance of getting hit by homing weapons. Instead, the homing weapons will just ignore you sometimes. I found this to be pretty neat. The one and only drawback is that you need to collect 8 of these fairies on each track to unlock a secret character. The game doesn't keep track of which tracks you've done this one, so it can be hard to remember. On top of that, as I said earlier, these fairies randomly spawn. All 8 of them are not available on just one lap; additional ones spawn in during each lap and old ones despawn. You have to look through each track thoroughly before cashing in a lap. Fortunately, you don't have to win the race to record your fairy score.
 Each track is based around a Disney World attraction, anything before 2000 at least. You have things like Thunder Mountain Railroad, the Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, Blizzard Beach, and more. They look pretty nice for the most part with some really cool set pieces. There's a cool system where if you drive through 3 rings, you can unlock a shortcut once per a lap. The soundtrack is okay, each track usually just uses their pre-existing themes from the park. Anything original in this score isn't really too catchy. There are also some battle maps where you have to collect 50 coins in the story mode. These start out annoying but get easier as it goes on.
 Overall, this is a pretty middling experience. I don't quite fully understand why they made this game. To me, it feels like it was more of an advertisement for Disney World rather than a well-thought-out kart racer, but maybe someone will feel differently.

 As a kid, I loved Collect-a-Thon platformers. I only had a Playstation 1 and 2 at the time though, so I was only able to play games such as Spyro, Battle for Bikini Bottom, or Ty the Tasmanian Tiger. As a result, it took me quite a long time to get around to Banjo-Kazooie, which is the #1 game that comes to mind when most people bring up the genre. In summary, I liked Banjo a lot. Some of the levels toward the end got a bit annoying, but it was a really fun experience and I can see how many later games were inspired it. As of writing this, I've tried to play Banjo-Tooie a few times but haven't been able to finish it for a few reasons. My main gripe with it was that the worlds seemed way bigger than in the first game, which made traveling a bit annoying. On top of that, I feel there were too many moves to learn. If you put the game down for a bit and come back, it's going to take a while to remember what abilities you have and which button combo you have to press. Honestly, I think Tooie had a lot of problems that platformers at the time faced.

 For those unfamiliar, I'm talking about about Banjo a lot because Yooka-Laylee was created by the same team under a different company name. These developers, formerly RareWare which is now owned by Microsoft, made some of the best games on the Nintendo 64 in the 90's. Departing from Rare after the buyout, they went their separate ways for a bit but then came back and formed Playtonic around 2015. With all of their experience, what kind of game would they make 20 years later? After a successful Kickstarter campaign, the highly anticipated Yooka-Laylee released to lukewarm reception. After playing the game myself, I agree with this sentiment. From what it seems like, Playtonic hasn't really learned from the pitfalls of Tooie. This game has quite a few issues that weren't even present in the Banjo games.

 First of all, much like Tooie, the levels feel a bit too large. This would be okay if these levels were packed with fun things to do, but a lot of them are just open fields and empty space. Going off of that, some of the environments seem pretty forgettable. A lot of the structures in the levels appear very similar, so you end up just wandering in circles looking for the next objective. There's an interesting mechanic where the first time you enter a world, about halfway of the level is missing. With this mechanic, it can help you get familiar with the level when it's at a much smaller scale. Later when you get more collectibles, you have the option of filling out the rest of the world. This is cool in concept, but the expansion option doesnt require that many collectibles, so most people just expand the world right away. Once the level is full, it becomes so large that it makes it a lot harder to remember where things are and where to go. I think maybe it would be better if they had to force the player to other worlds first, and then come back when they have more abilities and collectibles, as long as they have an easy way to backtrack. There are also 200 quills to collect in each level. These act as a currency to help you buy new abilities. From a game design perspective, small collectibles like the quills are a good way to leave breadcrumbs to the player, lightly guiding them to areas they haven't been to yet. In Yooka-Laylee, the quills sometimes lead you to new places, while other times, they just seem randomly placed. Every level also has a mine cart section where you have to collect 100 gems or you just have to do it over. Some people like it, but I find it kind of boring and repetitive. Every level also has an arcade minigame that tend to be pretty dull. I think my least favorite thing about this game is the Special Moves Meter. Every time you use a special move, it depletes your meter. This includes a rolling-ball move that helps you get around faster. Once you deplete it, you have to wait about 15 seconds for it to fill up. I get that with some moves the developers don't want you to spam them, but why put a limit on how much you can use a run move in a 3D platformer?

 As for things like enemies, there's very little enemy variety. You have little goblin guys that die in one hit. You have these bee-drone guys who have a very tight window of vulnerability. You have these big beefy goblin guys who take a long time to kill but respawn anyway. You have Xbox Kinect robots that shoot lasers at you but stay in one spot. My favorite are the googly eyes that possess nearby objects and throw them at you; a callback to everything in old RareWare games having eyeballs... but that's it for enemies. They don't really make use of your abilities, except for the robots who can't detect you if you go invisible. As for the bosses, they barely feel like bosses. You just do some sort of task over and over until the boss dies. This just sounds like a brief description of what most bosses in video games are, but there's just no satisfaction to it. They aren't difficult, they aren't interesting, they aren't clever, they aren't engaging. Like in World 2, you "fight" a giant ice cube that slides around the wall. You have to light the fires beneath him in order to melt him. There's barely any indication that you're doing anything to him aside from him ever-so-slightly shrinking over time. The fires go out every 10 seconds or something and you just light them again until he's dead. Every 10 seconds, he stops and fires projectiles at you. That's it. No actual combat, no puzzle to solve, or anything. You just kinda wait him out after lighting the fires.

 I'm sad that this game is painfully average. I'm a huge fan of platformers and I'm always eager to see more of them. It's just a bit disappointing that industry veterans delivered something like this when newbies have been able to make more with less in recent years. The main highlights are the character designs and the music, and that's about it. I really hope they make a sequel and take the feedback they received to heart, I really think they could make something awesome, and I think they will one day.