#colossal caverns

[anueutsuho]

This is the best hack ever.

[randomnumbergallery]

[c7thetumbler]

Quick Game Reviews: September - December 2024

This is the game review post for the remaining 4 months I got too lazy to keep up with during the year! I'm going to skip my favorite game I played this year part for now, but I hope this provides some insight to someone somewhere.

Let's get it going!

Screenshot from my Gameplay

Colossal Caverns (Pikmin 2 mod)

^link to PikHacker's download site with all their mods.

Hot off my Super Mario Eclipse playthrough, I finally decided to give this a go! For those unaware, this is a Pikmin 2 hack that puts every boss, enemy, and treasure in a single, gigantic cave level and the challenge is to escape. The REAL challenge is to get all the treasure, and the REALLY INTENSE challenge it to defeat all the enemies. There are a number of customization options such as including the Onions underground, max Pikmin limit increase to 200, and some enemy health adjustment, but I would recommend you do those for one playthrough and then really try it without those changes so you really have to learn enemy behavior and feel how intense it can get.

This is a really fun hack, and I'd recommend it for Pikmin 2 vets. this isn't something you hop into if you've only played 4 though.

image stolen from a redditor

DOOM Eternal (Steam)

I'm a big OG Doom/Doom II fan, and Doom 2016 was pretty good, so I figured it was about time I played this single-player game.

Then I launched it in steam, already a layer of DRM that requires a login, and was immediately greeted with another login screen!

I uninstalled, may ask for a refund. Is it petty? Idk. The game may have a multiplayer component or online features, but there's 0 reason why I need to do that for a single player game. Hell, I feel like I have a pretty low bar given I've hooked up my Ubisoft account to Mario V Rabbids and Rayman, but that's also optional and the games work independent of it. I suspect if I looked for a pirated version, I could play this game without giving them my email address and logging in, so why are we doing this. The game doesn't even let me adjust options or take a screenshot without logging in

Splatoon 3: Grand Festival (Switch)

The final splatfest!

But not really!

This was actually a really cool in-game event. Not only did they extend the "finale" to the full 3 days and bring all 3 idol groups into play, they made an entirely new overworld map that adjusted and actively changed over the course of the three days.

The amount of love and polish that went into a very short, non-repeated in-game experience that fans from the past 10 years would absolutely enjoy is just unparalleled. In the first 2 days you could visit one of three stadiums which rotated which group was playing, but in the final day all three groups were performing together on the main stage with pyrotechnics and flying platforms and it was nuts. Over the course of the evening, the other venues actually caught fire and burned down while it continued, making it a more clear reference to Burning Man than it already was.

It did however fall to the typical downsides of a Splatfest in terms of gameplay. Even with three teams it was quite easy to get paired against your own team and have that entire battle not count towards your clout or your team score, and even though I played like 20 triple battles only 3 of them were against other teams. This is something of a long-running bug bear; I understand you want people to play frequently, but there should either be an option to say "Yes I will wait longer to fight against other teams" or a rewards incentive to play against your own team instead of just throwing it or being dissappointed when it happens. It also unfortunately suffers from the lack of matchmaking, and this was pretty clear when team past started getting prestige ranks in the double digits on day 2 vs a normal teams as well. That's a little trickier, as genuinely I can believe that people who picked Past are genuinely long-time players, but it's an unfortunate issue with competitive games with ladders.

The stage for the triple battles though was also cool. Personally I wasn't a big fan of it's layout, however if your team secured the Ultra Signal your idol group would actually come out and cheer you on, which was rad af. The whole event was just one big hypefest that really fit the style of the game, and the best send-off to date. I wish more games were able to do a big send-off like this rather than just slowly deteriorate and fall-oof, but that's an impossible standard and made me excited for the series' future.

Also, there was a Splatfest in October and they're still doing balance patches so it wasn't really a send-off but still

Image from download page

Super Mario and the Rainbow Stars (PC)

I forgot what pointed me to this game, but it's pretty good! definitely made by people who love the series and want to see a more cohesive world and Mario RPG level story inside a platformer. It's pretty fun and has a great amount of content despite only having 1 world so far!

Gameplay wise I do have some criticisms. The game tries to bring Mario Odyssey gameplay into a 2D platformer, and while sometimes that can work, it does feel a little out of place here. It's not bad, and the levels do a good job of showcasing it, but it feels a little out of place and I personally had issues with the movement options and the star throw at the same time.

Level design is another thing. I'm not sure if this was a limitation thing, a deliberate choice, or just coincidence, but basically every level has similar feel and recurring layouts. Specifically, you'll find yourself going up for a few jumps, then a part where you need to ground point or descend vertically, and then back up again in the next area. But the levels themselves aren't vertical, and in fact pretty limited in that direction, so seeing that same layout repeatedly makes it feel more like a fan game than a real one. It's difficult to describe, but picture the heartbeat line on an EKG and that's how your path typically seems to pan out. With this many movement options and gimmicks in the game, it would be cool if they took a more open-level style approach where you could skip some of these sections through some more technical, high jumps, branching paths, etc.

All that said though, it's still a very good fangame! Visuals are great, Music and Sound design are great, and there's a lot of love put into it. I'm hoping that the level design continues improving over time, and this could be a really iconic fangame.

Screenshot from the Steam Store Page

Spark the Electric Jester 2 (Steam)

This has been floating around my backlog for a while; I've tried it before but I got distracted by collectibles and didn't give it a real shot, so I figured I'd give it a go this time and just go through the game without obsessing.

Spark the Electric Jester is an indie game series that's based off of Sonic, and 2 is the first 3D one that builds off of Sonic Adventure 2's playstyle. It adds in combat as well, with combo building and timed parries which open up the attacker to your assault, but ultimately the game shines the most when it's just the classic Sonic 3D platforming.

Like real Sonic it's a little Janky; sometimes when you try and run up walls it doesn't quite stick right, some jumps are a bit strange, enemy targeting is finicky, but overall it's a fun time. The game itself is very short, taking me only 2.4 hours to beat between both my attempts, but I also didn't focus on doing the achievements and gathering the collectibles, of which each level has a few in their branching paths. Plot-wise, it suffers a little bit from taking itself a little too seriously and being a bit too complicated for my tastes, but that doesn't detract from the gameplay.

If you have a Sonic Adventure itch and this is on sale, it's worth a pick-up I'd say, but if you don't the game is just okay by its own merits. 3 is where the series really gets into its own.

Screenshot from the Steam store page

Spark the Electric Jester 3 (Steam)

This is like 2 but way better!

An actual, really well-polished love letter to Sonic Adventure 2, Spark 3 goes back to Spark being the main character and a less-linear level structure. Each level has a few challenges within them to keep you coming back and replaying, and the combat as a whole feels way better with some unlockable moves and even alternate characters to play as.

Again, the story is convoluted but you won't miss much if you skip straight to this one as they do a good job of recapping enough so you're not totally lost. I still think it takes itself a little to seriously, and I'm not a huge fan of how it gets near the end, but as a game it's a great experience.

Highly recommend this over the 2nd one for Sonic Adventure fans, though both are great games. The replayability and polish on this surpass even SA2 in those regards, imo.

Screenshot from Steam store page

Neon White (Steam)

Reminds me of Lovely Planet but with more polish and care placed into level design! I'm not too big a fan about how long the between-worlds sections can take with the plot, but I also haven't gotten very far in it.

Gameplay-wise, it's an FPS where you pick up cards to use guns/abilities to quickly defeat all the enemies and get to the end of a level as fast as you can. Replaying the level will open up other opportunities to get goodies or complete it faster by showing you a hint somewhere in the level that will save you enough time to get the highest rank. I really liked this game, but my attention span prevented me from getting very far. That's a me-problem though; this is a great pick-up for precision platforming and execution fans.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (Switch)

I don't know how I feel about this game to be honest. I mean, I really like it but after I was done I was torn between "this game dragged on" and "I wish there was more to do".

To get started, this is a Zelda game where you play as Zelda, and instead of attacking directly you use a magic wand to copy and paste items and enemies to attack other enemies and solve challenges. It's a very fun concept, and I think they executed it well, but it runs into a few problems. First, when you find items and summons that let you bypass multiple things, you end up only ever using those. These get mitigated after a while with a few rooms and bosses that require specific elements, heights, wind obstacles etc. to get past, but "grab spider and climb wall" is a fairly early game discovery and a faithful one throughout nearly the whole game.

Second, narratively the game could use some work. I like the idea that Link is silent through the whole game, canonically, however Zelda really shouldn't have been. A game from Zelda's perspective has a lot of unique potential to tell a familiar story from a new angle using its own gameplay, but what really seems to have happened is we got "what if Link didn't have items but instead was kirby, and then also you can be Link normally sometimes." The game certainly shines in a lot of places with clever puzzles and copy interactions, but Zelda being the main character isn't explored upon and feels more like the gimmick than the gameplay gimmick. That on top of the entire game being about people fawning over how cool Link is and nobody outside of the castle knowing the princess of Hyrule somehow really cements that she can be done better, Nintendo. This point is also tough to bring up because it could easily be misconstrued as me saying "why ruin this game by making me play as a girl, UGH" but I would like to stress that I'm definitely not making that point; I'm saying they picked a character who is always crucial to the plot and arching theme of every game and didn't use that to the game's advantage. Also, every other Zelda game you should've been able to play as a girl don't @ me

As for the good parts though, they did a good job of world and puzzle design despite the issues with dominant solutions. I did 100% the game and run through areas multiple times to discover fun puzzles I hadn't seen before and cool hidden things that I would've missed had I not been so thorough. Ultimately this is a good game and I'd recommend it, but if possible try and find a way to play a bit of it first before dropping full price on it, as it may not be for every LoZ fan.

Super Nintendo World (Universal Studios Hollywood)

That's right; I went to a REAL LIFE VIDEO GAME!

And it was pretty cool! I'll open up top with a few caveats though:

Universal Studios struggles in comparison to Disney when it comes to immersion in their theme-parks, with their employees being not so much in character as much as people who are trying to keep a theme park going. In most areas this is fine, but SNW's facade and experience necessitates a bit more character work than they're clearly paying these people for.

Universal Studios Hollywood is cramped for space since it's actually a functioning Studio with over 20 sound stages and in the middle of an incredibly cramped city. As a result, there is only 1 ride, vs Japan's 2 (soon 3) and Orlando's 2. I also doubt they'll be adding the Donkey Kong Country to it.

This land requires that you pay $42 for the power up band, as without it you can only ride one ride, and the minigames/interactable content don't do anything if you don't have one. For families that didn't realize this, this is a huge bummer for kids who get to see a bunch of other people having a blast hitting blocks and getting coins, only for those same blocks to do an empty thud if you don't have one.

The space is way too small and without other rides. Since it's clearly USH's biggest draw at the moment and the ride easily gets to over an hour long wait and the missions encourage you riding it several times, it makes for an overwhelmingly crowded and anxious experience.

That all being said, I had a fun time there. With the power-up band and a smart phone, there are over 132 stamps to collect, including secret interactables in the world, collecting keys and coins to fight Bowser Jr (the biggest minigame in the area), completing minigames such as an interactable block wall that will stop a thwomp from falling, hitting timers to keep a piranha plant asleep, and timing a pow block hit to knock a koopa shell into a key. It's a really cool, well-done immersive experience and I appreciate that they made the whole place a game rather than a reference.

That being said, the band interactions could use some work. The Mario Kart ride is an interactable, AR 3D shooting game where you use koopa shells you get from item blocks to try and beat bowser's team, and while it's fun in its own right, the visors aren't wide enough to get a good view of everything, and the employees make no effort to tell you where to scan your band so that the ride actually counts in your app. As a result I had some fun with the ride itself, but my progress was not tracked and I was left wanting to try again only to be met with the 75 minute wait time, which we weren't doing. This would be mitigated with a much bigger park; you can encourage guests to re-run the same rides over and over again if all of them had similar band interactions, but with just the one it really grinds it all to a halt. The employees not explaining band interactions was a recurring issue; you'll spend a lot of time wondering if you're doing it right for some minigames and you don't know that somethings don't count as being completed, like character meet-ups, unless you make a point to ask and they let you scan something specific.

All-in-all, it's a fun experience but there's not too much there unless you're a freak like me, and it could still use a lot of work. I had a good time though and would go again, but the park being restricted to such a small space with only one real ride limits its potential, and on the whole it's an expensive experience.

If you do go though, I would highly recommend getting the early pass and going on a Tues/Wed/Thursday; Those are the cheapest, least crowded times, and the early pass will let you get in the Mario Kart ride without a wait if you're there on time. Avoid any times near holidays of course

Super Mario Party Jamboree (Switch)

Super Mario Party gets a sequel!... I'm not sure how this is different branch than Superstars though. I guess more sub-modes and focus on switch-only motion controls? It's fine, that's a nitpick.

I'll start out by saying that its core Mario Party game mode is pretty good! Most board have their own gimmick, but as a whole it's pretty close to the style of Mario Party everyone knows and loves without trying to reinvent things to the point of over-complication. The inclusion of "Pro mode" is also nice, as it allows you to play solo without feeling like the computers are robbing you and makes every decision you make on the board actually mean something. I have yet to play this with friends, but this feels like a fun game night experience and a good entry in the series for sure.

I will say that pro-mode feels like a necessary option in this one though. Mario Party is known for having a lot of randomness, but this game in particular has a TON more minigames, random events, and just un-counter-able nonsense than Superstars did. It's a little frustrating because I want to play with more minigames, but a lot are dominated by what are basically that exploding bowser minigame in terms of luck. No idea why "Select a key, select a door, hope for the best" is in there.

It also boasts having a ton of minigames in its own right, which technically isn't wrong, but when you split it by game mode it comes up severely lacking. On the box it says there are over 100, but when you play the main mode, exclude the completely random ones, and while I try not to personally I understand that a large chunk of players exclude motion controls, You'll be seeing repeats within the same game over 10 turns, and there are really at most 40 available. That sucks! I feel like I speak for a lot of people when I say I don't mind them bringing back more mini-games from Superstars; they add more variety, are nostalgic, and genuinely people appreciate non-repetitiveness more than they would appreciate having "new" minigames that they end up seeing way too often.

In terms of some new mechanics, the free-roaming team mode and buddy system present in Island tour and then in Super Mario Party has been replace by a "Jamboree buddy" system. Roughly half the characters (The unique, non-minion ones) have the chance of appearing on the board, and passing them initiates a unique minigame that if you win lets them follow you for 3 turns and grants you special perks. Events will proc twice when you have them, including shops, coins from spaces, stars, and even Bowser spaces, which is a fun risk-reward feature. They can also be stolen after being won, which is a bit frustrating because all that takes is passing the player with them. Would've preferred a duel minigame, boo, and/or an item to challenge them instead. But regardless, the gimmick is fun and most of their special minigames are cool because they're uniquely tailored to the character. My main issue with this is that it would've been cool to have minigames for every character, but I understand that time constraints would make that difficult.

The lack of the previously mentioned team/partner modes is a little sad though. Those modes were definitely my favorite "new" game mode the series introduced, and the unique dice per character added some fun and strategy to the otherwise simplest aspect of the game: rolling the dice. I would've preferred it over a couple of the Game modes they added, which I'll get into.

Party-Planner Trek is their single player mode, where you select a character and wander across the 5 main board completing challenges and mini-games to collect stars, each board ending in a boss minigame where you team up with characters you may have found along the way. It fine as a game mode, not too exciting and introduces you to each board, but also not really that difficult or entertaining in its own right. It'll only take a couple hours to complete, and the story itself is pretty low stakes

Para-Troopa flight school has you holding the joy-cons out to your sides like wings and flapping/gliding with them to move around in game. Unfortunately this is where my experience with it gets in the way; I have essential tremors which unfortunately means that my small, constant shaking easily meses up the sensors and I have to make much bigger movements to compensate. It's not for me, and Toad's Item Factory I've not even tried for similar reasons. Rhythm Kitchen is also similar to a Super Mario Party Game Mode, but again I found it improperly reading movements I made so I'm just passing on all these.

Koopathlon is a fall-guys esque? game mode. Not sure if "A lot of players bumble around trying to get further than the rest" is a genre yet, but also it's a little different, like Super Mario 35 was. Basically you go against 19 other players and play 3 "solo" minigames in a row where you try and rack up more coins overall before a bowser minigame that can even the playing field more, as you're playing directly against the other players and if you get eliminated you get sent back more and more spaces depending on your current lead. The minigames then come back a difficulty level harder. It's fun, but not really worth more than a couple replays, in my opinion.

And then finally Bowser Kaboom Squad has you working as a group of 8 players trying to take down imposter bowser before 5 rounds are up, running around and breaking crates to load bombs into a canon while environmental enemies and bowser himself tries to take everyone out. This is the game mode other than the main one I spend the most time in. It's not too difficult or stressful, and I much prefer the cooperative nature of this rather than the chaoticness of Koopathlon, but again this suffers from a shallow mini-game pool and only 3 levels.

Thematically this game also suffers from being a recent Mario spin-off, where they're not allowed to stray far from the Mario formula. Indeed, every NPC is aa different color toad or a basic enemy with a hat, which makes the game a lot more bland when those characters are already playable. It's frustrating that in the Gamecube era they were very willing to embrace the variety of wacky characters they had like Piantas and wacky hosts, but after Odyssey, 3D world, Wonder, all the Luigi's Mansions, Princess Peach Showtime, and their RPG games we're back to "Kamek is the host, everyone is a toad or bad guy, and we made a fake Bowser." The Mario world has a lot of creative things in it; please start using them

Overall this sounds like a bad review, but I still quite enjoyed it as a Mario Party game. I think Superstars is still a better core Mario-party experience, but this definitely stands up in it's own right. But if you're looking for a lot more variety in minigames, I'd maybe pick this one up on sale or something later down the line.

Screenshot from the Steam store page

Shadow Generations (Steam)

Ohey, the best 3D Sonic game, which previously I would've qualified since Generations, but it's EVEN BETTER?

I had a lot of things on a Wishlist for a Sonic Generations remake/sequel, but I wouldn't have ever said "side expansion about Shadow" as one of them. But lo, it was a wonderful decision! Plotwise, the story is somewhat hampered by the fact that it takes place before Lost World, meaning nothing can substantially change with Shadow's character/ knowledge in future games like Forces, but they did a great job with his characterization none the less. His voice actor, whose been on the job for a while, still feels like he's trying just a bit too hard to be edgy, but not so bad that it detracts from everything more than just being like "Haha, edgehog"

Gameplay wise it's a vast improvement over the baseline Generations. It's in a different engine (more on that in the next review), but it's close enough to stay familiar while also being much smoother. Shadow's Doom powers add the sort of progression that Sonic's been flubbing with for quite some time, offering options that both improve movement and attacks in ways that allow you to properly branch paths in ways more interesting than "did you jump when the spring wasn't visible on the screen" that Generations liked to do.

Length wise, it's also pretty decent. I would say that I would've liked one more "world", something like Prison Island from Shadow the Hedgehog and a boss fight with a GUN robot. It was actually surprising that that game didn't get any level representation, and they opted to instead shove Radical Highway in every level. It was the first level you play as him in the series, but Doom being like "That's some nice platforming you're doing, shame if it were suddenly RADICAL HIGHWAY" every time got old. I would've rather they stuck with themes in the level, like Rail Canyon could shift to have weird gravity and parts from Mystic Manor, The ark could have you planet hopping like you did in the Rouge/Knuckles levels, Forces could've had the ruby fucking with everything. It would be more novel anyway.

But for those who like the boost style gameplay of 3D Sonic games, this is the best outing yet and worth picking up for $30 at least. If you've not played the original Generations, this is a great bundle.

Screenshot from the Steam store page

Sonic X Shadow Generations (Steam)

This is for the "remake" part of the bundle, which is just a slightly updated Sonic Generations. I did 100% both of the games in here.

I consider these to be separate games mostly because even the game considers them to be separate. Instead of remaking Sonic Generations in the engine they had access to, they really only did some slight, almost mod-like changes to the version of Sonic Generations that was already available on steam to account for Sonic being an asshole to Amy (for literally no reason, originally framing Sonic shoving his hand in her face to talk to tails as "cool", so a good change actually) and then plot changes for Shadow Generations to fit better in. This version of Sonic Generations is then launched after you select it in the starting menu, as if it was a launcher itself.

On the one hand, I'm okay with this because it was likely a rights/age of the engine issue that prevented them from updating the game significantly or remaking it entirely in the new engine. On the other... Modders have used Generations as the base for like 12 years now? It would've been cool to see them add in more levels, if only just the 3DS levels that now are unplayable through any modern means. Granted, the 3DS levels weren't good, but they had game representation in there that's now just completely lost.

Adding in new levels would've also been nice. Sega re-used, and will continue to re-use assets from the Sonic Generations, so there's justification for adding more substantial content from games that are overwhelmingly popular in the series and were missing from the original, ie anything from Advanced, Rush, 3D Blast, to newer games that never made it to 3D like Mania.

Gameplay wise, it's still pretty good. It definitely shows some of its age with level and mission design, but overall it was the best 3D Sonic experience since Adventure 2, and then undefeated until Shadow Generations in my mind.

I would recommend picking it up if you don't own Sonic Generations anyway, but if you've played it at all, especially recently, don't buy it for Sonic Generations; Buy it for Shadow

Screenshot from Steam store page

Sonic Origins (Steam)

So now I'm on a Sonic kick, and while I waited a while to pick this collection due to its price and also misleading release, I'm glad I did now the plus version is out and it was on sale.

Full disclosure, I'd never actually 100% CD and 3 & Knuckles. CD was a bit to complex for me (and I had no idea you had to go back in time and destroy the generators on every level), and I only ever had &Knuckles to play with originally. The removal of lives (optional) and the ability to use medals to replay levels and specials stages really allows for exploration of levels without fearing losing all your progress, and to makes a much more enjoyable experience on the whole. The music they had to replace is definitely worse than the originals, but easily overlooked. Otherwise, the games play well, the inclusion of Amy was a good choice (though I would've liked to have seen more classic characters for the price) and the other quality of life features are good as well. The 10 Game Gear games are nice, but none of them are really that memorable or play well on their own so that's passable.

If this is on sale for $5-10 and you haven't played all these games to death, I'd pick it up, but if you own these games in another form this is certainly a more polished way of enjoying them but nothing to drop too much on

Image from srb2 website

Sonic Robo Blast 2 (PC)

After an attempt to revisit Forces to continue my Sonic 100% streak up to 7, I decided to pick up one of the most beloved Sonic fangames which started out as a DOOM mod (and I think still is? I didn't research this tbh).

Overall I'd say it's pretty fun; the multitude of characters to play as cool and the levels feel more or less true to what a 3D classic sonic would be. I however didn't finish it, as I kept getting frustrated with the thok move, camera, and controls, and after all those 100%'s I kept needing to restart to find those chaos emeralds. Ultimately, I made the experience worse for myself to achieve an arbitrary goal.

The game is free and a really fun fangame, so give it a try but also understand the controls and movement aren't for everyone

Screenshot from my only god pack pull so far

Pokemon TCG Pocket (Android)

I hate Gacha Games. Blind Boxes are gambling. Therefore, this blind box F2P game is the worst thing I've ever downloaded on my phone.

Except it's not? I really can't explain it past Nostalgia for when I was 5 collecting Pokemon cards, especially since I suck at battling as much now as I did then, but there's just something cool about collecting all the pokemon and seeing all the cool card art. I am not immune to the dopamine rush of opening 2 card packs a day and a 1/5 chance of picking from friend's packs.

Gameplay wise it's a little simpler than the in-person game, but as a result smaller balance issues make greater impacts. In most cases for example, it's much better to get tails on the initial coin flip to go second, as the energy advantage is usually way more useful that the evolution advantage that the first player gets on turn 3. Also, a large number of decks rely on coin flips going well, and that can get frustrating very quickly when you're already relying on card draws being in your favor.

This game is a dangerous gateway drug into getting into TCGs for real. Use responsibly, and understand that when you drop your first buck on any gambling game you have crossed the biggest line to cross and it will be hard if not impossible to go back.

Mario & Luigi: Brothership (Switch)

I was so excited to see the series not only return, but in stylized 3D! I was very concerned this series was dead after the studio shut down.

That being said, this one is just... alright. The way it's structured with the constant return to hub and the disjointed islands is not doing it any favors. It might be more... "streamlined" I suppose, but what I really liked about the series was for the most part the world was interesting to explore and really bizarre and wacky. With every dungeon essentially being a rather small island among a vast, mostly empty ocean, it kinda feels a bit shallow.

It also unfortunately suffers from the issues that prevented Dream Team from being on of the greats, mainly the constant tutorials all the way up to the final boss and cutscenes explaining what just clearly happened on screen to you in case you weren't playing during the playable section where you did the thing.

Gameplay wise it's pretty solid; It can get pretty repetitive, especially in the first half the game when you're missing a lot of your kit and mainly just focus on jump attacks. But it's a M&L game, so even that feels really solid, and the battle plug system also adds a lot to the game. The characterization of Bowser, Jr., and his minions is also really solid.

Overall this game suffers from dragging on way too long, which I can't even say is because it's just too long a game or the dialogue and constant explanations really stretch it for all it's worth. I'd place this below Dream Team, as not a bad game but one with a number of flaws preventing it from being good. Worth a pick-up if it ever goes on sale, but also not a necessary experience like Superstar Saga, SMRPG, or TTYD.

Official Update Artwork by Hibachi (@HibachiX1)

Dead Estate: GOOD NIGHT! (Steam)

The final update for this game! I decided now would be as good a time as ever to catch up on those achievements. I never did, but only because of Assignment Anya (the last update I covered earlier this year).

This update adds a Dream route, which include 4 floors, a bonus floor that can appear in the main route, and some insane bosses leading to a unique ending for each characters and even more costumes! It's a really solid cap on the game and a great note to end on; I thoroughly enjoyed almost every moment with it.

If you've not picked up Dead Estate yet, it's now "complete" and definitely worth the purchase. If it's been a while, it''s worth a revisit (but warm up on some basic runs and challenges first)

Screenshot from the Steam store page

ATLYSS (Steam)

Once again it's proven that randy furries can make some of the best content known to man (I don't know if the creators of this, Pseudoregalia, or Dust an Elysian Tale are horny furries it's a joke I should probably delete this when I proofread it).

Atlyss is a Diablo-like game combined with a 3D platformer, where you can pick one of 6 races and then 3 classes to get a variety of skills, weapons, and attacks to overcome enemies, dungeons, and complete quests. It's very fun despite only having 2 dungeons in it so far, and even better when you grab a friend or few to do some dungeon runs. I'm very excited to see where the game goes!

This game really took off of course because of its character customization, which lets you slide bars all the way to the right to get absurd proportions and wear some pretty thirsty clothes. That being said, while its character designs are definitely what you would expect with a game that lets you do that, the amount of options lets you create some really cool looking characters. The game even makes a point to give you scrolls that let you learn the skills other races have innately pretty early on, so there's really no reason not to make your favorite character look how they want and then play them exactly how you want (because imp's life drain is insanely powerful)

You could wait for more content, but honestly there's a good 8 hours in there right now to mess around with a some built in replay ability, I very much recommend this one

Screenshot from the Steam store page

UFO 50 (Steam)

I'm gonna have a couple controversial reviews on this list I think, but maybe not too controversial.

This is a collection of NES style games, with on overarching narrative about this being a found classic console with these 50 games released in order in the 80s. The games themselves for the most part feel very modern in a way that's hard to describe. They lack that classic jank that NES games used to have, like the sprite limit flicker, bad hitboxes in ice climbers, etc that make it just enough not to hit my nostalgia buttons but also mechanics that are much more polished overall.

Total I think I played 15 games before I put this one down. Each game is actually a real game in its own right, ranging from RPGs, arcade style games, platformers, puzzle games, even some strategy games in there. I've definitely spent a lot more time in some games than others, but this is unfortunately where I run into a personal problem when it comes to compilation games. If I'm not excited to try every game in the bundle, I often time abandon it pretty quickly.

I understand this is a me problem and I may have just not found the crazy good ones yet, but these games for the most part all just felt like fine. None of them really grabbed me except one of the later ones where you play as a Spaceman and gather resources like the top-down sections in Blaster Master, but even that was hindered by the design choice to make you wait for meat to regen in your town before you can explore more.

Overall, I can tell a lot of love went into this compilation and i'm not faulting it for that. Personally, I just couldn't get too into a lot of these games in the modern era, and because of that I ended up dropping this compilation early. Your mileage may very!

Screenshot from Steam store page

Black Mesa (Steam)

The Half-Life 2 update that made it workshop compatible and contain every Episode reminded me of this! But mostly my friend Blossom sharing funny videos of it actually.

I actually wasn't a huge fan of original half-life that much; I find the sequel nails the tone and game feel a lot better, but again it's not bad. Certainly this is the definitive way to play the original, and worth picking up for that alone, but if you didn't like the OG half-life you're not going to get much mileage out of this

Screenshot from Steam store page

Marvel Rivals (Steam)

Overwatch but better! I think. It's very easy to get overwhelmed in this game, and clearly takes a lot of time to understand character dynamics and what is even going on, but honestly I enjoyed what little time I spent with this way, waaaaaaay more than any time I spent with Overwatch. Sniping also doesn't seem to be nearly as prevalent; a huge plus for people like me who, on top of knowing that snipers take away any fun from a game that balances around weapon strength/reload speed/range, are correct.

There's clearly some balancing issues, but overall since I'm never going to be playing competitive it's just a good time and I can look past that.

It scratches that hero shooter itch without fomo or demanding so much of your time. Definitely worth a try (with friends)

Screenshot from DLC Steam store page

Disney Dreamlight Valley: Storybook Vale (Switch)

This is again what my Sister plays when she visits (or I visit her), so this is from the perspective of someone who watches her play and occasionally when she doesn't complete timed events finishes those up after the visits.

I'll open up by saying that the game definitely runs a lot better overall. Granted, it's very far from perfect, but the game crashes are now few and far between, slowdown is a lot less common, the music no longer skips, and a lot of item spawning issues have been fixed. Granted, the slowdowns are still there, loading times are frankly unacceptable still, and the item management system still needs to be reworked to prevent forced loading screens if they're going to be this long, but it's good progress.

This expansion specifically adds a whole new land in the form of the Storybook vale, a world shaped vaguely like a book that has 3 biomes: a ruined library in the fall, a golden Greek paradise based off of Hercules, and a fairytale forest with references to Alice in Wonderland and Sleeping Beauty. It adds in 3 new befriendable characters (will like increase to 5 later), Merida from Brave, Flynn from Tangled, and the star of the show Hades from Hercules.

The lands themselves are much better design, going from geometric walls and winding paths found in the base game and last expansion to much larger, more detailed and open areas that allow you to see further into the distance and actually take in the sightlines. It also adds in a new mechanic, a net, which you use to gather Snippets (small creatures made out of paper) which you then use to rebuild a book and create art to advance the plot.

On the whole, it's more of the same gameplay loop but better polished. It's very easy to lose yourself running around and doing tasks, but since my sister isn't one for decorating the world that specific large aspect of the game gets lost.

The new characters are neat, though I've not seen Brave myself. Flynn is also an odd choice, as now all three main characters from Tangled, what I thought was one of Disney's weakest movies, are now present in the game when other majorly successful movies like Alice in Wonderland and 101 Dalmatians are nowhere to be seen.

My older reviews still mostly stand in terms of recommending this game at all, but the expansion offers a fair amount of new content and promises to release more throughout the year so it's not a bad game.

Luigi's Mansion 2 HD (Switch)

Aight so I have major beef with this one, to the point where I kinda want to do an extensive write-up on all the switch ports/remasters that Nintendo's done over the past 7 years. Their record kinda sucks but this is the worst by far.

This is just a straight port of Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon on the 3DS. It can only technically be called HD because of the resolution, but other than that, some lighting, and a few specific textures I cannot tell the difference between the two. Additionally, they did not fix any of the animations, something that's forgivable on the 3DS because the resolution's so small and it's a tiny console, but when you see animations in cutscenes just run out and characters freeze on the big screen it's frankly unacceptable to call this "HD." In a lot of games I review, I talk about how their jank is part of the charm, but this isn't just jank, it looks bad and lazy.

As far as new features: There aren't any. This game is virtually identical to the 3DS original, except there isn't 3D. I know a lot of people didn't like the 3D on that console, but I loved it and consider it a feature taken out. So to me, this is the equivalent of an upscaling mod on your PC. For nearly twice the price the game was 11 years ago. Absurd.

Gameplay wise, this is the weakest entry in the series by a mile. The constant interruptions from E. Gadd and the mission structure make it really difficult to get into the gameplay and environments since you're constantly being told what wacky thing just happened on screen or just straight up yanked out of the level back to the hub. It was again acceptable at the time because portable games typically get different experiences than you would expect from a home console, but on a home console it's just not an engaging experience.

I got this as a gift, and I spent the whole time playing thinking about how much a waste of money this was. Skip it and get Luigi's Mansion 3 if you haven't

Screenshot from the Steam store page

Awaria (Steam)

From the makers of Helltaker comes Helltaker but as a fast-paced arcade-like game instead! You play as a repair-lady who runs around between generators and generator part dispensers to fix them while being assaulted by ghost ladies with strange powers related to how they died. Then you smooch them at the end of each level. Pretty simple, but really addictive and easily overwhelming as parts take time to generate, you have a limited amount of time to fix generators, and you can only hold 2 items at once. As it introduces parts that take other parts to generate, it really forces you to strategize instantaneously while running around and dodging like a madman.

The difficulty is quite up there, but it wasn't anything insurmountable and I played it on Hard mode by default, which you don't have to do of course. I would highly recommend giving this one a go; it's another labor of love and insanely fun for the time you spend with it. Also it's free

Screenshot from Steam store page

Balatro (Steam)

I'm really bad at poker and I've only gotten to like Ante 4? in a run so far and that felt like a lot of luck by getting insane straight multipliers and then losing when I couldn't make a straight. Other than that, I really don't get it; it seems like a distilled rogue-lite in that they've removed core gameplay elements and turned it from a platformer/shooter/deckbuilder etc. to just playing cards, and while I typically enjoy that style of gameplay I need more than that out of a game. It just genuinely feels like luck.

Personally I would skip this, but it's also one of the most bought, played, and well-received games of 2024 so like my opinion's an outlier here.

Screenshot from Steam store page

Tower Factory (Steam Early Access)

This is a really neat idea! Basically a mix between your standard Tower Defense game and your endless factory maker (Satisfactory, Factorio, etc.) You basically have to create and optimize factory buildings and conveyor belts to get the resources you need, process them into different resources, and then use those top create the towers to defend this.

While doing this, you need to create light towers to further unlock the map and find Light Crystals, which you then use to defeat the wizard tower (enemy spawn point) which you also have to find. Maps are randomly generated, with your resource pools, obelisks that power up adjacent towers, resource/coin chests, and light crystals scatter across the map. This allows for your replays to be different every time each level, of which there are 4, progressively harder ones so far.

Despite not seeming like a lot, the replayability is high and in fact key, because you start off with very few towers and resources and may end up losing your first bout on each level, gaining coins depending on your performance at the end of the level. These coins can then be used to permanently upgrade and unlock new towers'/factory components to help you perform better on the next run.

It's pretty fun! It can get really hectic jumping between the two halves of the game, especially since resource pools can run out and you may need to refactor your factory during an intense wave, but the actual TD aspects of it are pretty simple so it's not overwhelming. It unfortunately falls into the pitfall that almost every genre crossover game has however, where if the audiences for both were a Venn diagram, the only people who would really get into the game would be at the intersection of both genres, not pools from both sides. The TD aspect is pretty simple, and the factory aspect seems so as well, and they have to be so in the intense moments you're not overwhelmed fine tuning either. Again, I like it, but it's very easy to tell it's not for everyone.

Keep in mind it's early access, but if you like TD and Factory games this might be worth a pick-up! or at least a follow to see when it nears completion if Early Access is understandably not your thing. I picked it up in the Steam winter sale.

And that's it! thank you for reading this far, and have a great 2025!