I was starved for a new Animal Crossing by 2020, and with sheltering in place...my combined total for all my playthroughs of Animal Crossing: New Horizons is over 800 hours...

By comparison, the next highest playtime is in my two playthroughs of Baldur's Gate 3, which sits at 190~ hours

There is no such thing as "underrated" or "overrated". If you think a game is "overrated" you might as well cut to the chase and call it terrible. At least by that point you are being honest and aren't beating around the bush.

When you say a game is "underrated", you are just wishing that you had more people to discuss that particular or critics rated that said game higher with the former I argue it's better just to be happy with what you have. Every of heard of "it's popular, it sucks?" That's what happens when something lesser known becomes popular, what was once something that made you feel "cool" for liking is now annoying to see the very sight of, seeing memes and people who clearly don't have their heads straight discussing the very stories you liked. I argue everyone feels like this to varying degrees whether they want to admit it or not.

For the latter, critics don't even matter unless if you are a game dev or publisher, if you just play games all the review is there for is for whether or not you should purchase the game in question around the time of release. Game critics decades ago mattered since they were all that is avaliable but now everyone can review a game. At best, game critics can just be just be used for confirmation bias to see if there are others who enjoyed a "disappointing" game in a popular series but that's only if you are super desperate for confirmation bias.

Finally, at the end of the day, internet discussion is really just a turf war between people who view their favorite media as a religion and the pro wrestlers who think want to challenge them cutting a promo at a vein attempt to upsetting what is seemingly the status quo. People need a "safe spot" to write their "unpopular opinions". I might think games like the entire Zelda franchise, Silent Hill 2, Mass Effect 2 and Metal Gear Solid 3 are "overpraised", there has to be that someone who needs to make a video or forum thread where it's okay to say they are not that great because deep down no one wants to recreate that Family Guy Godfather scene. As long as a game has some degree of popularity, there will be naysers just that with some games and media you need to look harder than others. I've even seen some people online say they don't like Tales of Symphonia that much and by extension Tales as a whole, once again it depends on where you look.

Edit, for your "people never got past the second disc of Tales of Symphonia" point. Lots of people discuss their favorite old games that way. Just look up any popular vid like say those GVMERS documentaries or any vid that discuss a dead dormant franchise almost everyone will go like, "I remember how awesome x was" or "this was awesome". No one if anyone will discuss the development stories the vids touched on or try to play the games recently. They just want to indulge in the fantasy, not be challenged in anyway. One of the many reasons why I quit using Reddit was because every time I brought up an older game, some guy would reply to me discussing his memories of the game then actually talk about the points I made regarding the said old game in question. I still get Youtube replies where someone is like, "I remember playing game x 10 years ago on my dad's PC" and it's like I don't care man, I don't.

It's annoying but that's how it is. I've mostly given up on internet discussion specifically trying to "prove" things to others because of everything I mentioned.

Seconding this argument! Boiling down your perception of popular opinion into what is underrated or overrated is, at the end of the day, seeking affirmation for the difference between that and your personal opinion. If you did or didn’t like something, that’s totally fine.

Lately, I’ve been having many moments where I rate something very different from the HLTB/Metacritic/Google’s X% of people like this game scores. At first I was like OP, wondering where this discrepancy was coming from. But at the end of the day, the discrepancy is the development of your personal taste in what you like or value out of video games, and [hopefully] the development in how you engage with them. Can you see the flaws in something you like? Do you like it despite these flaws? Can you see something for what it was 30 years ago? Not that anyone’s under obligation to do these things, but it might be more meaningful to unpack why this discrepancy is here.

There was a thread on here sometime last year that asked a similar question: “why are people giving so many 10/10 scores?” As Civilwarfare is saying, with the democratization of reviewing games, anyone can give a perfect score to anything. The worst game you’ve ever played is a 10/10 to someone on here. But I think a large part of that and most ratings is (1) people rating things based on nostalgia for something they played years ago and by extension (2) people giving blanket scores to something they just generally liked. It is much, much easier to give something a score and not back it up with why you feel that way than to critically engage with something and then boil it down to a score. Finally, the most granular you can get on HLTB is a 20-point scale. Most of the time, there is just not enough nuance in peoples’ reviews or scores, but they all get fed into the same averages and metrics.

Developing your personal taste is going to take a long, long time, and at some point it’s going to be pushed on by what you think popular opinion is. If you just want a community of people who agree with you, you can easily find that on somewhere like Reddit or TikTok, but at the end of the day, regarding video game scores, it’s okay that yours isn’t the same as the averages we see online. Small caveat though is case some weirdos are misconstruing this, but decreasing a score after seeing a woman, person of color, or LGBTQ+ person in a video game is fucked and not what I mean when I say that developing your personal taste is a good thing and that you should own it.

Lately, with inflation/potential tariffs/my already huge backlog/other priorities in my life, I find myself less and less willing to pay for games at full price. While I know (1) I won't get to enjoy games at release alongside their communities and (2) I won't be supporting indie developers as much, I can't afford this hobby if I had to buy everything at its highest or even a 15-25% off price point.

That being said, that doesn't mean I don't want to stop playing video games. So I wanted to ask- how often are you checking for video game sales? Are you scouring Steam/PlayStation Store/Nintendo eShop/Deku Deals frequently? Do you just wait for larger events like Black Friday? Are you turning your nose at my penny-pinching and only buy deluxe editions at their fullest price? Or would you rather wait X years after a non-Nintendo game releases to get the best discount possible?

Super Mario RPG – Nintendo Switch – 80%
They cram a whole lot of game in here, but it doesn't really have anything to say narratively. I appreciate its cartoonish comedy and its visuals, but by the end I was getting sick of its combat.

Final Fantasy XVI – PlayStation 5 – 80%
Voice acting was the best part of the game, but Clive doesn't really have the same chemistry with anyone else after Cid dies. Side mission design was either cohesive or dull, and combat wasn't my favorite due to a lack of builds/variety/combo chaining. I wish there was also more thought put into the world-building, it felt like every area has a different government style just for the sake of it, and we rarely see the larger impacts of Clive's crusade on the people of FF16.

999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors – Emulated Nintendo DS – 80%
Escape room Danganronpa starring a douchey asshole- I liked how all the characters were distinct from one another and its Lord of the Flies-reminiscent theming with how human nature will regress if you stress it enough, but felt the sci-fi elements later in the story diluted all this.

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest – Emulated Game Boy Advance – 75%
Fun platforming, but boy was the environment difficult to read most of the time. Dixie Kong also makes the game much more approachable, which is sad in a game named after Diddy Kong.

Pokémon Snap – Emulated N64 – 75%
Fun and cute and made me nostalgic for a time when there weren't even 200 Pokémon yet, but the requirements for what makes a "good" shot were inconsistent. Still, I'd play the new sequel on the Switch if I ever get some more digital vouchers.

Chroma Squad – Mac – 70%
Interesting opportunities to find synergy between all your characters in a tactical RPG, and fun music that reminded me of mid-to-late 2010's Cartoon Network, but there are way too many Patreon references in this game and it falls off on the last part by only letting you play as one character.

The Stillness of the Wind – Nintendo Switch – 45% (Retired)
A visual novel that was forced to be a video game- Telma is slow and not fun to play as, and the UI is difficult to read and scan. I didn't enjoy this game, even for all its pretty visuals and unsettling story.

Right now I'm deep into Final Fantasy XVI, so I'll be playing that probably for the rest of this month and some of next. My brother also bought me Elden Ring for my birthday last year, so I'm looking forward to playing that. I could honestly sustain myself on releases this year (not to mention any potential Switch successors) but I'm probably going to pick up Civilization VII, the Hades II EA, Monster Hunter Wilds, and Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii.

Of course I've been waiting for GTA VI since I was in high school, but I'm also looking forward to Doom: The Dark Ages, Mafia: The Old Country, Metal Gear Solid Delta, South of Midnight, Pokemon Legends: Z-A, Metroid Prime 4, and Ghost of Yotei.

As for my backlog, I also want to try to take a stab at GTA: San Andreas, Yakuza 0, Fallout 4, Cities: Skylines, Red Dead Redemption, Pikmin, Outer Wilds, and Red Dead Redemption. It's a great time to be gaming right now, though in the back of my head I'm weary that we as consumers have yet to really face the consequences of the mass layoffs throughout the industry.

10 – Infernax | PS5 | 85%
Of my top 20 games this year, 20% of them are pixel platformers in a fantasy setting. I love how bombastic and hammy they are, but I think what makes Infernax stand above the rest is its morality system and how far its art goes to convey the insidious presence throughout the world. Almost all of these games (e.g. Shovel Knight and Bloodstained) have dark or high fantasy tones, but lean towards comedy or paying homage to Castlevania. Infernax feels like something new and it is absolutely disgusting with its artwork and banging with its music. While the player’s goals might not be the clearest from time to time, the Metroidvania elements woven throughout the gameplay never let you stay lost for long.

9 – The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom | Nintendo Switch | 85%
Love that Zelda finally gets to be a hero, and I quickly found that there was a lot of freedom in how I approached exploration and combat. This toybox design following Link’s Awakening is so charming, especially paired with this game’s soundtrack and dramatic character animations. While I wish this game success so we have future opportunities to play as Zelda, I did feel like some of the echoes were a little redundant, and simultaneously were there too many that I had to scroll through. Tri is also not the easiest to aim, but the game is so fun that I didn’t mind throughout.

8 – Hitman: World of Assassination | PS5 | 85%
I love how silly this game is for a spy thriller about an coldhearted assassin who’s either the best in the world or the sloppiest fuck-up who’s ever picked up a can of tomato sauce. It’s dumb but owns it and its voice acting is so consistently stilted that I can’t help but laugh whenever I play. While its story isn’t something I follow with tremendous care, I do love its level and environment design, as well as the community missions where you have to kill everyone on the map. Just talking about it now gives me the itch to play again.

7 – Hardspace: Shipbreaker | PS5 | 85%
This game is surprisingly a joy to play for me that I played it twice. Salvaging in zero-gravity while you fight for your labor union is a fun concept, and I love the final mission where you have to destroy everything. I felt like the narrative conflict was resolved too quickly in the end, but perhaps that’s the point, if we all gathered together and demanded better from the bourgeoisie we could not just survive but live rather quickly? Otherwise, this game is not without redundancy and poor optimization, as well as the inability to skip cutscenes on replays.

6 – Stardew Valley | Mac | 90%
Felt more engaged with Stardew Valley even after all this time, and while I initially didn’t love the looming “Grandpa’s Evaluation” at the end of Year 2, it did make me push to optimize throughout my entire playthrough. I enjoyed designing my farm and the social aspects of the game up until my character got married. It feels like there’s not enough to do with your spouse other than have kids, and it feels like a missed opportunity to have more than 6 dialog options with them for the rest of the game. Perhaps this is more prevalent because you end up seeing your spouse every day, but I think after the spring of Year 2 this game does lose some steam. If you enjoy managing tasks and cute pixel art, though, Stardew Valley is always a great bet.

5 – Demon’s Souls | PS5 | 90%
It’s clunky but I was an awesome wizard who took down the final boss in 20 hits, so I really don’t mind how not fun moving around felt. Once it clicked for me maybe 3 hours in, I could feel myself becoming one of those From Software shills. But beyond the power fantasy of becoming Dr. Strange was the environmental storytelling. This game is dirty and gross and run-down but it has some of the best-looking environments on the Playstation 5. It is a treat to experience, and I’m glad I found the patience to pick this up.

4 – ABZÛ | Nintendo Switch | 90%
I played this in one sitting but felt the deep love for the ocean that I feel when I go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It is charming and tear-jerking and its wordless story of learning to live as part of nature rather than extract from it hits hard with an impending climate crisis on our hands. I’ll have to pick it up in a few years so I can play it again for the first time.

3 – Cocoon | PS5 | 95%
What a trip, this game makes you feel like you’re solving a Rubik’s cube in zero-gravity. Its visuals, logical puzzle design, sound design, and score are some of the best out there. Everything is fractal and alien and kind of disgusting, but it’s almost as if high fantasy was science fiction. I had to keep playing once I got started. Its abstract story is told without words, but in nearly every aspect I could feel the hard work of all the developers who worked on this game. The tedium of backtracking and solving puzzles did wear on me eventually, as did some of the un-readability of the environment design, but Cocoon definitely stole a spot in my top 10 for the year at the last minute.

2 – Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door | Nintendo Switch | 95%
I’ve been waiting for this game for over a decade, and I crushed it in 25 hours. Was it worth it, to get a glimpse of my childhood in an improved format? Yes, because it was handled with so much love, care, and respect for the source material that I was somehow transported to 2005 to play it once again. I love this series and have deep respect for the team that remade this game into a new experience for the Switch. They made it such a seamless experience that you never have to look anything up, and you’re never lost for long. I’ll probably pick it up for another round sometime in the new year.

1 – Baldur's Gate 3 | PS5 | 95%
I’ve spent about 150 hours on two runs with this game. It’s amazing and if you were someone in 2023 claiming that you’d never heard of this game/why did it win GOTY that says more about you than Baldur’s Gate. Some of the best storytelling, themes, and voice acting in the industry, and I’m excited now to play it again in the future.

Daily Challenge - 2025-01-01
Score: 203 / 300
🟦🟦🟦 🟦 = 75 | New Super Mario Bros. Wii
🟩🟩🟧 🟦 = 55 | P | Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
🟦🟦🟦 🟦 = 73 | S | Sunset Overdrive

I did better than the average for once 🥲

Mass Effect | PS5 | 75%
Stiff and poorly mapped by today's standards but I enjoyed my time playing it. I never got to play the series on my Xbox 360 growing up, but I can appreciate why this game was so popular back then. It feels like your decisions and the combat carry narrative weight, and that unless you want to open your journal or map every few minutes you have to actively engage with the story to figure out where to go next. Initially, I thought it was moving too slowly, but realized I had been playing this game for over three hours at a time.

This Bed We Made | PS5 | 65%
I appreciate this game as a meditation on hiding who you are and the consequences/lengths you’ll eventually succumb to for suppressing yourself for so long, but wow do the narrative stakes not pan out during gameplay. There’s always an unnerving feeling that you can get caught at any moment, or that messing around with guests’ belongings will get you in trouble…but nothing ever happens. Interesting ideas and I like some investigative detective work, but nothing really pans out and wow do the character models either look like the Joker or have misshapen proportions.

Hardspace: Shipbreaker | PS5 | 85%
Replayed from earlier in the year- I still love labor rights and job simulators, but I didn’t realize how this game does not let you skip any story beats. Also, its poor optimization for its many particle effects felt more pronounced this time around.

Cocoon | PS5 | 95%
What a trip, this game makes you feel like you’re solving a Rubik’s cube in zero-gravity. Its visuals, logical puzzle design, sound design, and score are some of the best out there. Its abstract story is told without words, but in nearly every aspect I could feel the hard work of all the developers who worked on this game. The tedium of backtracking and solving puzzles did wear on me eventually, as did some of the un-readability of the environment design, but Cocoon definitely stole a spot in my top 10 for the year at the last minute.

The Operator | Mac | 75%
As with This Bed We Made, I do like some investigative detective work, and I did enjoy the bomb defusing simulator, but wow did it get redundant and wow was the dialog here stilted and not aligned to the period of time it takes place in. Initially it feels like you’re a paper pusher for the feds, but its off-the-rails conspiracy theorist plot kept me paying attention. It feels like there’s too many layers to make commentary on anything, e.g. if you can trust the US government (probably not) or corporations (definitely not), but this game absolutely nails how to get you to feel uncomfortable.

Stardew Valley | Mac | 85%
Replayed from 2017- someone on TikTok said that picking up Stardew Valley is basically blacking out for 40-100 hours and even now so many years after its release is that true. I felt more engaged with it now that my frontal lobe has developed, and where I probably would’ve given it a 90-95% back then I’ve since soured on it a little bit. There’s some story beats I realize I don’t like, like Penny pushing George’s wheelchair without asking and then getting upset when he gets mad at her, but I think what I find most anticlimactic is how few dialog options there really are. Once you get married to someone and see them every day, they have around 10~ options year-round that they’ll say. Stardew Valley is mostly quality over quantity, but I found wanting more out of the romance aspects that you really have to work for.

Bad UX- if upgrading my character/buying items is a slog or can't be done quickly I get annoyed super fast
Most contemporary dialog writing- characters in specific real-life time periods or fantastical worlds should not speak like us
Inoffensive character writing that has everyone apologizing all the time/learning lessons too quickly- let them have room to grow
Inconsistent AI- if your enemies are incompetent and brain-dead, at least make it so they're always like that and not so hard that it creates difficulty spikes
Difficulty spikes- games that don't ramp up in a logical way feel like they don't know what they want
Putting coziness/aesthetics over gameplay/UX- cute vibes do not mean you should shove excessive or unintuitive menuing into your game
Using fonts or text effects in subtitles that make them difficult to read- making an accessibility feature inaccessible is evil
Walking simulators that make walking boring for no narrative reason or even worse, dizzying with motion blur
Motion blur
Lack of tutorials for complex systems or games where time is a factor in the player's success
Having a woman, POC, or LGBTQ character be one of the or a possible main character but never showing them in marketing or on the box art
lll-proportioned character models
Sheathed weapons that clip through your character's outfit
Hair and cloth physics that don't simultaneously appear in the environment that the character is in

The Last Story? I'll also defer my turn regardless if I'm correct or not :)

I'll nominate Crypt of the Necrodancer!

With the recent PS5 Pro announcement I felt like I was preemptively unexcited and by the end disappointed with its price point, absent (but available if you pay extra) features, and lack of a distinct PS5 library. The PS5 was the most recent console that I've purchased since I bought my Nintendo Switch in 2018, and I can't help but feel...like I should've just bought a PS4? Or switched to PC?

Don't get me wrong, I've had some fun experiences on it, and I can't speak for Xbox but more often than not I've felt this console generation has been lackluster. Like, everything has been more expensive but we're not really getting the "next-gen" experience we've paid for. For me, the existing 20~ PS5 exclusives doesn't seem worth it no matter how great they look. And now, in Sony's case, they seem to be moving ahead despite how the only way to acquire a PS5 during the first couple years of its life cycle was from scalpers.

Will I change my mind when GTA VI or when Nintendo releases a new console? Would I be happier with a Steam Deck? I don't know, but I'd really appreciate if I could hear some other points of view or experiences- with the middling releases and news lately I find I'm more excited to emulate old games than think about what new titles I'll be playing in the future.

Shadow Warrior 3: Definitive Edition (Xbox Series X/S) - August 15, 2024 - New Game +. Medium difficulty. Collected all of the Upgrade Orbs. Fully upgraded the character and all of the weapons. Completed all of the Challenges, except the New Game + ones. - REPLAY

Doom (1993) (Xbox One) - August 18, 2024 - Ultra-Violence difficulty. 100% Kills and Secrets in every level, except E4M3 and E4M7 which have glitched secrets only reachable with Noclip. All secret levels found and completed. - REPLAY

Silent Hill (PlayStation) - August 25, 2024 - 3h 37m 39s - Time was taken from the Results screen, so it may not be entirely accurate. - "Next Fear". Hard difficulty. Bad+ Ending. Saves: 29. Continues: 0. Items: 170/204 (+5). Rank: 48. - REPLAY

Grand Theft Auto III (PlayStation 2) - August 26, 2024 - 100% Completed. - REPLAY

Happy gaming for September!

Did you play GTA III growing up/when it first came out? I've tried really hard to get started with it but find myself always getting impatient with its mission design

Her Story and I cede my turn if I'm right :)

You are correct, so someone else can go!

Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones – Active hater of the difficulty spikes in this game.

Did you go Ephraim's route? I know for myself this was one of the easier games in the series but I remember once the split happened it definitely escalated in challenge, particularly the boat level. I think I've heard Erika's route is not as hard (I still need to go back and replay someday to play that route myself).

Epharim's! A little past the halfway point I was just stuck, and it was designed to be two back-to-back levels so I couldn't back out and grind. If I were to pick it up again I'd over-level everyone and then blast through the rest of it

Abzû – Nintendo Switch – 90%
I adored the environment design, music, and story of this game. "Short and sweet" condensed into a 3-hour experience, likely to become something I revisit annually.

Demon's Souls – PS5 – 85%
Clunky controls in one of the most realized environments I've seen on the PS5. I loved running around as a mage in this game, and did not realize I could have a power fantasy fulfilled in a Souls game.

Her Story – Mac – 85%
Love a good knowledge-based game that tries to get you to be creative with your solutions. I have over five pages of notes on a spreadsheet chronicling the timeline of the events of this game.

Pokémon Platinum Version – Emulated Nintendo DS – 85%
That sweet spot of challenging, hold-handing, and letting you go off and do your thing. Everything moves a little too slowly for my liking, but in my quest to play something from every generation, this has been my favorite so far.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 – Emulated Sega Genesis – 80%
This is the first time I've clicked with a Sonic game and wanted more without feeling obligated to finish it. It's a wonderful experience, with platforming, stage design, and music more slick than the first, and I'm excited to continue with the series...until I absolutely should no longer be excited to continue with the series.

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider – PS5 – 75%
The best the visuals have been in this series up until this point, but it has a story that robs the protagonist of the nuanced choices Corvo and Emily got to make.

Disc Room – Nintendo Switch – 75%
Fun for the most part with an interesting, wordless story, but I found it got repetitive towards the end with rooms that did not have clear goals.

de Blob – Nintendo Switch – 55%
A game from my childhood was on sale for under $10 USD, so I had to buy it. It got exhausting after the first level, which is also what I remember from my childhood.

Lil' Guardsman – Mac – 55%
If Papers, Please, wasn't a good game and had nothing of substance to say but still had blocks of text, it would be Lil' Guardsman. The voice acting was great, though.

And my retirements:
Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones – Active hater of the difficulty spikes in this game.
Kirby Super Star – Just lost interest after the first world or two, but it has very nice visuals!

Midnight Protocol???

I started the Switch remake or remaster whatever of Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door. It's been years since I played the original, though I've watched it. So far my thoughts are: ooo fun new look for the beginning, yay same font, why is the ground so glossy and reflective, the NPCs and partners are more expressive now! and more and/or easier to see details like cute pictures on the walls in people's houses.

I'm in the Petalburg currently.

And I still have replays of Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete and Final Fantasy VI PR going.

I absolutely loved this remake- they really doubled down on the soundtrack and expressive animations so experiencing it for the first time in over a decade and following the story for real felt so rewarding. But I felt the exact same way about the floor- most of the time it wasn't even "metal," why was it so shiny???

Zelda has that whole vibe that the Kingdom Hearts series does where it felt like I would enjoy it more if I grew up with the franchise all though it gets this vibe from me for different reasons.

Funnily enough I also don't like Witcher 3 but I do think Cyberpunk 2077 has pretty solid gameplay and the fact that it's shorter also helps too.

I want to play Persona 5 one of these days but apparently from what I heard, the first 10 hours is basically a tutorial.

This actually encapsulates how my brothers and I are towards these franchises- those of us who have played Legend of Zelda have been playing every game since 2006, and if you play Pokémon you were probably playing it in 2003. For us it seems that the nostalgic attachment really improves the patience you have with these series that are 20-30+ years old and not substantially improving.

I'll nominate Devil May Cry!

Ah ok my mistake. I was just surprised that a 5 year old game was still selling at it's original release price, with no permanent price reduction.

I don't think Nintendo cares for a "permanent price reduction" 😔 Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey are both 7 years old and sometimes go on sale so maybe we can wait till 2026 for Link's Awakening to be sold for $10 less?

Personally I try to get the digital game vouchers for their first-party games, though that means you can't get a physical cartridge, and have to spend $100 to save $20...

I've been trying a bunch of new series lately, and for the first time since 2019 when I tried and gave up on Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, I beat a FromSoftware game: Demon's Souls. I feel like I finally "get" the appeal of these types of games now that I've successfully gotten through one of them.

But then I started thinking about my attempts at Final Fantasy and the older GTA games, and how they don't seem to click for me. Is there a series or franchise that everyone else likes which you can't seem to get into? Did you wait or power through whatever was blocking you, and eventually get hooked?

My first Game of the Month with you all- happy to have gotten to play this, especially with Echoes of Wisdom coming out next month!

This was a replay for me, I got it when it first came out in 2019, and back then I did not connect to it at all and had to follow a walkthrough. Since then, my brain's frontal lobe has actually developed so I was able to logically think through puzzles and mark the map to take notes. There is so much joy in the way this game looks and feels, how it wants you to leave no stone unturned and is happy to reward you for it. Playing it now made me realize that the combat is only difficult or that you're only lost if you're not trying to actually engage with what's in front of you, and experiencing Link's Awakening for the first time like this easily puts it into my top ten for this year.

However, the performance issues, notably when there's too many particle effects and enemies on the screen, are infrequent yet jarring when they occur. I also felt like I was unfairly being pushed off cliffs, as an enemy would hit me and Link would slowly move off the side instead of immediately getting knocked over. It was like the game was still registering that he had gotten hit, but it was too long after making contact for it to have felt fair. Lastly, the long fetch quest at the end where you learn how to get to the end was unintuitive and unnecessarily demanding- there are too many people involved in getting you the magnifying glass, and this was one of two puzzles that I had to look up to figure out. Overall, what was unsavory about this game was infrequent, but when they appeared my patience eroded quickly.

I had a more productive month than I thought!

07/03: Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins | 70% | Realized this is when we start seeing the aesthetic and musical variety in Super Mario games, though Mario still isn't as fun to control as he is in contemporary games.

07/03: Pyre | 80% | Surprisingly clicked with high fantasy MOBA basketball, but there is too much lore in this game. Enjoyed seeing how this sets the foundation for Supergiant to make Hades.

07/06: Mega Man | 60% | Lots of bullshit and unclear instructions for how to play, as the standard with many NES games.

07/17: Kirby's Dream Land 2 | 75% | Having Kirby ride giant beasts seemed kind of superfluous but I enjoy seeing how every entry builds on the last.

07/18: Pokémon Legends: Arceus | 85% | Didn't think I'd replay this but I had the itch to do it this year knowing its sequel is coming next year. It's...much easier than I remember? But the writing is just as bad.

07/19: Ed, Edd n Eddy: The Mis-Edventures | 50% | Felt like playing a licensed cartoon GBA game from my childhood...and this one isn't very good. Very nostalgic for me, at the very least.

07/25: Cult of the Lamb | 80% | Similar to Legends: Arceus, replaying Cult of the Lamb was much easier this time around than before. It still has performance issues, and its DLC was free but it's inconsequential, and it kind of makes me wish I didn't replay it.

07/31: God of War | 80% | I played the 2018 game in 2018, but wanted to get into the series since my brother is a big fan. This has a lot of slashy combat and personality, but its UX isn't very great and there were moments with the puzzles, platforming, and timed challenges, that were frustrating due to unclear hit boxes, lack of affordances, and lack of time that made them annoying instead of difficult.