this is what i'm currently playing and i am loving it so far

the levels are designed in such a way that you have a nice balance between exploration and platforming. the core moveset is simple but versatile and the level mechanics and design mean that you are constantly using all of it. you can really get into a flow state because of it and that's super fun. i like that you can fully complete a level the first time you enter (which makes sense considering they're linear levels with room for exploration but still it means game time isn't padded out by revisiting old content which is a major pain point of mine)

visually, the game is really pretty - i think the style they went with works really well. spyro's animation communicates every move so clearly (i love his run cycle so much it's just full of life)

i can't speak much for how similar the game is to the original but from what i've heard it's pretty good. i believe they've done a lot of good quality of life changes and improved the game feel a lot and it feels great to play.

i traded shovel knight: treasure trove with my friend for this game... i still haven't got shovel knight back from them and they still haven't played it which is a bit annoying.

since i never played breath of the wild all of hyrule was completely new to me. the addition of the sky and depths probably didn't help with how overwhelmed with content i was. honestly i felt like a lot of these worlds were just empty. it's kind of sad how modern games feel like they have to create such a massive amount of content for players - it contributes to the prevalence of crunch in the industry.

maybe this type of zelda game isn't for me. i don't know.

i really enjoyed the storylines of each area of the game and the dungeons. the sudden appearance of zonai artifacts and disappearance of sheikah technology wasn't really ever explained but i dig the vibes. the characters were great and having your own little crew of glowy airheads was a fun addition. there isn't too much to say about those areas because they're the classic zelda environments but the variety of biomes around the rest of the map is something i am a big fan of. the bosses were really cinematic and epic (colgera is so awesome). the puzzles were...i mean i don't really care for the building part of the game but there was a few where i got "aha" moments which felt great.

i don't really like sidequests because they didn't feel like things i would want to do when the story is right there. i didn't end up finishing the daily gazette and yiga shenanigans (although i did fight kohga all the times because he's so goofy).

my friend was very frustrated that i never went where i was supposed to go - she accused me of being ADHD with how much i just never followed the map (to be fair i did have the minimap off because i hate just following an arrow). i really loved exploring hyrule and finding little monuments but after a certain point (after fighting ganon) i thought it was too much to do and there wasn't much point if i wasn't going to find much.

that was when i stopped playing

enter the gungeon has so much passion put into it it's insane.

every aspect of the world, from the enemies to the environments to the lore is gun-themed. the variety of guns you can get on runs is so damn fun and there's some cool references sprinkled in as well (i am a sucker for references lol)

i love that despite being a shooter it is primary a bullet hell. the enemies on their own have simple bullet patterns but when combined, patterns which are extremely satifying to weave through emerge. the bosses are especially cool tests of skill (fuck ammoconda though)

the game really does reward skillful play by giving extra hearts for mastery of bosses and randomly spawning items. bonus stages were a really cool thing i didn't know about which give more chances at cool weapons and items but are hard.

unfortunately for me, i'm not the best at bullet hells and enter the gungeon is a fucking hard one so most of the time i don't make it past the third stage :p

i don't know what drew me to this game specifically but the goofy artstyle and slapstick premise definitely helped

it's good, polished, platformer fun where you reverse the hot-dogification of old people and free pancake people from dinosaur tyranny, among other shenanigans with your giraffe and pet rock. the levels are really fun and there's some real mechanic gems in there. the references to media hidden in the stickers were a fun surprise - easter eggs are always great

i need to finish my co-op playthrough with my friend at some point it's a good time

i actually haven't finished twilight princess.

i find the game to be very slow (especially at the start) and at times very confusing. the plot tries to be extremely edgy for no reason, the tears of light sections are extremely tedious and the dungeons are extremely linear despite trying to convince you they aren't.

i've made it to the part where midna fucking dies.

okay this might be surprising but this is one of my most played games. period.

i know it's a free game which is made to catch whales who will fork out thousands for gem apples but the gameplay rocks. there is four different classes you can play as which all complement each other really well which you use to fight kirby bosses. i main the doctor because of the potion move which has high dps and healing. the movesets of all the classes (the others being sword, hammer and mage) go quite deep actually which is awesome.

we love player expression here.

there is some some cool custom bosses made for this but considering i haven't played star allies they were all new. parallel knightmare and galacta knight were really cool.

i did pay like two quid one time because i had some credit left over but nothing else. i don't think i'll ever pay money on a free game ever again lol

i actually had never heard of shovel knight when i got it.

looking it up now, i know it was one of the first successful kickstarter stories which is really cool and i really think it still is fantastic

the first campaign is the shovel of hope. as the first entry, it did an incredible job at establishing the world, cast and vibe of the series. the order of no quarter is such a quirky group of knights who are a joy to watch and fight. the central mechanic of the pogo is used in so many creative ways and the chiptune music genuinely goes hard (lich yard my beloved). you can really tell that the developers believed in the philosophy of limitations breeding creativity.

plague of shadows is generally the least favourite campaign among the fanbase. it is my absolute fucking favourite. the movement you get with the bomb burst is so cool and the amount you can customise your bombs is great. the side areas of the levels where you can get relics can get super challenging and i love it. but i think the thing i love most about this campaign is the story. over the course of playing you understand plague knight a lot more. he's just a little guy. he's awkward, eccentric and wants to prove he's good enough. he fumbles his relationship with mona because of it but shows how much he cares in the end. and it ends so sweetly with a waltz. i need to replay it but can't because i traded it temporarily with a friend for tears of the kingdom

urgh...specter of torment is the fan favourite but it is really good...and really edgy. specter knight is really cool to control - he can skateboard, run on walls and do a glorified bomb burst when you get the button prompt. that's not a joke that's literally what the developers did the levels are really tightly designed for him (just imagine what that could've been like for my skrunkly plague knight)

king knight is a really fun campaign as well - his bash and pirouette are really cool design choices and it was interesting how different the world was from his perspective. i didn't think the card game was that fun to be honest and it took me ages to beat cardia so i could actually fight her. but otherwise just like specter the levels were really tightly designed for him.

treasure trove has some extras as well - challenges i'm shit at, genderbend mode (very fun) and showdown! showdown is actually a really fun platform fighter and the movesets of each character really suit them. the story mode is fun and like many a fighting game i'm not amazing but it is great.

what more is there to say about hollow knight? it's a fucking masterpiece

world? flawless. atmosphere? incredible. music? gorgeous. combat? brilliant. design? masterful.

it really innovated the metroidvania genre and inspired so many indie devs to make their own... maybe too many given how ridiculously saturated the market is nowadays - you really have to stand out to be a success

spiritfarer broke me over and over again but i love it for that. it's the type of game you should only play once. you really need to play it firsthand. it's such a beautiful experience that i'll be doing it a disservice here but i'll try my best.

the archipelago is enormous and the variety in gameplay is really cool. i love the little minigames which have you rushing all around the ship but the more cosy tasks have their charm as well.

as you tend to the spirits on your ship you interact with them, learn about them, their lives, their hopes, their dreams, their regrets. you do your best to comfort them, fulfill some of their wishes, cook their comfort foods, be their friend. but of course then you have to say goodbye

this is the heartwrenching part

you know it's their time but still you want to hold onto them just that bit longer. when you finally decide to go there's always this slow, final boat trip to the everdoor. on the way they talk to you so genuinely, maybe talk about what's waiting for them. and then you arrive. they deliver a line that strikes you to your core. they wrap you in a warm embrace. they're gone. and you're still here. man. it's just so special.

i thought i would have been a bit alienated from deltarune when i first picked it up since at the time i knew nothing about undertale. but this wasn't the case at all - no undertale knowledge was required to fall in love with the game.

the colours and landscapes of the dark world are so cool and wonderfully bizarre and the game never makes it clear if it's make-believe or something else.

i actually wasn't expecting there to be so much mechanical difficulty in the combat. i like the agency you get when approaching combat on whether to attack or resolve a situation peacefully. bullet hells have never been a massive strength of mine but learning attack patterns was very satisfying. i really felt like i earnt my pacifist win against jevil. the punch-out against queen at the end of chapter 2 was bloody insane as it should've been

the cast has so many characters i have claimed as my blorbos. i endlessly adore chapter 1 ralsei to the ends of the earth and will fight anyone about it. my other faves are susie, jevil, seam and queen.

the dialogue had me laughing uncontrollably at how funny it was. some of it is extremely witty but there's also some small random stuff thrown in there which cracked me up

i am always blown away at how incredible the soundtrack is - my favourites are field of hopes and dreams, the world revolving, A CYBER'S WORLD?, smart race, and attack of the killer queen

a hat in time is packed to the brim with charm

while nowadays i find the movement a bit limited the level design does plenty of heavy lifting.

the characters and worlds still stick in my mind. each of them have their own cool vibes:

• mafia town is such a quaint island full of a gang who haven't foggiest idea how to do anything
• dead bird studio pits two cut-throat birds against each other in the race to the film awards
• subcon forest has a tragic backstory but when you arrive you bring some happiness to the place
• alpine skyline has so much culture and freedom to explore
• the cruise's seals are so fucking cute and ship shape is such an intense mission
• nyakuza metro took freedom to the next level and is such a unique setting

some of the music really slaps - my faves are sleepy subcon, train rush and clocktowers beneath the sea

yes i know i'm a muppet for playing it on the switch when the modding community on pc is prolifically incredible but here we are

i remember using quite a few different pokemon during my diamond playthrough, all sinnoh pokemon and johto ones i missed in silver

honestly i've forgotten a lot about the game despite it being the last pokemon game i've played

i remember the world being entertaining enough but i think this was sort of also the point where i realised pokemon isn't doing anything new with the franchise to make the games any better. it's new designs, towns, gyms and characters which are functionally the same as the very first games. i think because ultra sun has such a subversal of this in the trials and the aether foundation and silver in the nonlinearity this wasn't a problem for those games however for diamond it's go to a town, if it has a gym do that, maybe do some side or story stuff and repeat. the story stuff always involves the evil team being nefarious and fighting some grunts and a leader.

but i do remember cynthia. of course everyone remembers cynthia

super mario odyssey was my first game on the switch and really deserves all the praise its been given.

the movement is so expressive and the worlds are so well conceptualised and designed - every nook and cranny has something to find, although this can be a bit annoying when playing to full completion. i don't really mind this moon overinflation except some of the really gimmicky moons (fuck jump rope genius).

the game can get pretty challenging, especially in the dark and darker sides, but they're not unfair and are fun to complete.

it may be surprising that this was my second pokemon game after ultra sun but it just turned out that way since we got the gameboy cartridge after

i love the designs in this generation - i just wish there was more since kanto pokemon still have a dominating presence and i knew them from the anime.

i still managed to get a full team of johto pokemon i adore though!

i was a big fan of the open-ended middle of the game where you could do stuff in any order. of course this had the consequence of interesting (bad) level scaling later but was really neat.

the entirety of the kanto region being in the game is pretty awesome. i love the changes made and the progression of time for the gym leaders.

fuck red though - the only way to beat him is to grind

this was my first zelda game!

when i played it i didn't realise this was considered the best game in the zelda series at the time, even the best game period by many since i just got the cartridge from my cousin but i certainly support that opinion now

the game is endlessly full of life and care - the world, characters, environments, lore, enemies and music are

the world has such rich cultures from the earlier games and the 3D environments really enhance their homes: the gorons have their city carved into the base of a volcano; the zora made their home in an idyllic cave under lake hylia; the kokiri dwell in the vibrant lost lost woods; and the hylians have towns dotted all over hyrule

the story is surprisingly compelling for a gameplay focussed experience! the deku tree "gifts" you with navi and charges you with purging darkness from him. after, you set off into the world to warn the kingdom of the evil which turns out to be the king of thieves by taking the sacred stones yourself you stop ganondorf getting them which leads you to the two other early dungeons. however this backfires when you open the doors to the sacred realm and ganondorf takes the triforce. you must find the sages as an adult who are the only ones with the power to seal him away leading to the rest of the dungeons. i love this twist so much since the ganondorf's success changes enemies, characters and locations in the future and you experience disastrous his rule has been for the kingdom firsthand. i also remember being so shocked yet delighted by this since i expected the game to end after only the three dungeons but the realisation that was only the tutorial was magical.

the dungeons themselves are genuinely fantastic and i cannot fault a single one of them. each have such great context behind them which make them a joy to explore - i especially love the aesthetics of jabu-jabu's belly and the forest, shadow and spirit temples. of course the puzzles themselves aren't always head-scratchers but that was never the intent. the exploration of the places and the bosses are where zelda dungeons shine. i love the bosses and each one of them is amazing.

i played the 3ds version so didn't suffer the iron boots pain since i could map them to a button like the other items. the touch controls i think were integrated quite nicely in this respect, adding some more slots to map items. it's such a great system which i'm baffled by the choice to remove since breath of the wild.

oh my god. the music. ocarina of time's soundtrack might be my favourite soundtrack in any game ever. the simple melodies are some of the most iconic and memorable i have ever heard and every now and then i'll find myself humming them. since they had to be playable on the ocarina this even limited the palette of notes which many of the tunes used. however this certainly didn't stop zelda's theme, lon lon ranch, the lost woods and the windmill hut from being bangers. when unrestrained the melodies can really let loose - the title theme, kakariko village, great fairy fountain, gerudo valley and kotake and koume live rent-free in my brain. but even the ambient tunes are so immediately recognisable and whenever used in youtube videos i always catch house, kokiri forest, shop and hyrule field

this was my first pokemon game!

being my first pokemon game i had no idea what i was doing - i remember from the start using my level 50 regigigas with slow start from mystery gift which was painful. i was quite annoyed i couldn't get the ash greninja into ultra sun from the sun demo because i had just watched the xyz anime.

unfortunately i can't quite remember what exactly my first team was, especially since i've done two playthroughs (the second one completing the entire pokedex) but here's some pokemon i remember having on my team at some point (if only lively animated gen 5 spritework existed for newer generations)

and some more i shiny hunted, used in the battle tree and got from mystery gift (yes i went to GAME and got zeraora which was so cool)

what sucks is i used the free period of pokemon bank to transfer my pokemon to a new save instead of transferring them to pokemon home before selling my 3DS so i don't have an actual record of all the time i spent on the game :(

being my first pokemon game, i didn't care about changes like how gyms had been turned to trials and the lack of any HMs - i enjoyed the variety of trials and HMs are just progression blockers there's no reason for progression to hinder movesets

speaking of minigames, a lot of the side content was pretty fun!

• mantine surfing was really fun to figure out maximising scores and a great way to grind BP
• totem stickers were a fun excuse to explore every nook and cranny
• photo spots were pretty cool to see pokemon in their natural environments
• poke pelago was a great way to interact with your party and put your boxed pokemon to use (plus mohn being lillie's father after amnesia from an ultra wormhole was a pretty cool twist)
• festival plaza was a good little cyberspace for battles and shops...and rainbow rocket
• ultra wormholes were fun to zip through and brought some cool pokemon (sigilyph)

rainbow rocket was an awesome postgame! i didn't realise it was a throwback adventure until i saw lysandre and i had no bloody idea who anyone else was (the reveal of ghetsis and colress's involvement was just confusing for me lol) team skull was a really fun antagonistic force which weren't actually that threatening but had a great vibe - the aether foundation being the true sinister force felt even more unsettling yet also more fitting

the characters are still some of my favourite in the series! the anime probably helped instill some life in them but i really love acerola, hau, mallow, sophocles, guzma, hapu and zossie

i got this game as a hand-me-down from my cousin when i first got my wii

now i'm thinking about it mario galaxy was probably my first non arcade game i ever played

i don't think we've had a mario adventure of such scale since galaxy - the bombastic music, the planetoids, the vastness of space and the proportion of bossfights are uncomparable (yes galaxy 2 exists but i think the world map detracts from it). the gravity mechanics are a fun gimmick which play well with a bunch of other mechanics

galaxy was the first 3D mario to have worlds which were purely linear which i'm slightly disappointed by. my disappointment mostly stems from the fact that the less open-ended levels meant galaxy limited mario's moveset. it really is a stark difference from odyssey's vast pool of moves - mario can jump, sideflip, backflip, longjump and spin and that's it. the spin allows for some cool sequence breaks but there isn't much beyond that. otherwise levels are pretty scripted in terms of how you can approach obstacles.

the power ups are fun - bee mushroom allows climbing on honeycombs and limited flight, boo mushroom is infinite flight and intangibility, spring mushroom gives big jump but limits movement, koopa shell boosts swimming and fire and ice flowers do what you expect. they add some gameplay variety and are used sporadically so don't overstay their welcome. i think my favourite is the ice flower because it completely recontextualises water in the environment - you can skate on ponds, fountains become platforms and even waterfalls can be walljumped.

the motion control games on the other hand can go fuck themselves

there's literally an entire motion control set of galaxies which were are a slog to get through. ball balancing, manta surfing and bubble blowing aren't bad just slow to control but the amount of levels dedicated to them and how long they are is what pisses me off.

the proper levels are so good though! the imagination put into each galaxy is brilliant and some mechanics really put a smile on your face. i loved disassembling toy bowser, climbing up buoy base, soaring with dandelions and so many more things. the boss fights are so well done as well! they don't feel similar whatsoever despite all having the three-hit pattern (apart from bonefin who was just terrifying). the endgame stuff can get pretty intense and awesome too with purple comets. the purple comets are great because they open up the entire galaxy, merge levels together in a galaxy finale or create some new terrifying gauntlet.

but the levels get soured in full completion with the other comets...

prankster comets essentially just recycle content artificially with modifiers. one hit death, time limit, racing, faster enemies, whatever. all it does is bloat the already massive amount of content - they're an eighth of the content and the main reason i'm reluctant to do the full completion with luigi

first game on the wii!

it's just as iconic as ever and has given me much joy whenever i've had friends over. the whimsical miis and locales will never get old and the amount of gameplay variety is refreshing.

despite the name it doesn't count as exercise though >:p

it's a classic what can i say

there's plenty of versions of tetris nowadays that i could be playing but i'll always prefer this one. i just love this version with its muted colours and chirpy arrangement of korobeiniki.