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Failed to hold my attention and entertain me as much as the previous entries in the series did. Too many of the visuals are very low effort; on par with WarioWare's microgames (which get a pass, as they are typically only on-screen for seconds at a time,) and the music is just OK for the most part. There's no attempt at a story (a la Megamix on 3DS) or a cast of characters (Rhythm Heaven Fever) to advance the game along, it's just a grid of squares. The series' staple sense of wacky charm only shows up in fleeting moments. Tight timing feels like a constant struggle, but this is less the game's fault and more a byproduct of modern day console latency (i.e. laggy displays, wireless/Bluetooth input methods.) It's not flat out bad, but it's probably the least inspired game in the series, and not a triumphant return to form. Even the Ado song is mid.

Loved it! It's my first foray into the older Dragon Quest games, with Dragon Quest VII being the oldest game I'd played. For better or worse, it seems Dragon Quest is that kind of game where if you've played one, you've played them all. The familiarity - from the locales, to the stories, to the music - works to its favor if you let it, though. This is a fun and charming RPG that plays perfectly in 1-hour "bedtime story" chunks, or an all-night marathon. The dialogue and story are generally lighthearted, with the occasional surprisingly dark subject matter from time to time. The HD-2D engine is gorgeous, especially at night, and I never got tired of looking at it. Music is fully orchestrated and... it's Dragon Quest music, what more need be said? If you find it repetitive, just give it time to sink its hooks into you. Deducted points for a somewhat lackluster battle system & presentation, which I assume is kept faithful to the original. Cannot direct attacks to specific monsters in groups, and buffs/debuffs cannot be monitored (memory/turn counting required.)

An excellent follow-up to Hollow Knight in almost every way. I've got some complaints, but many more positive things to say about this game than negative things. It is generally difficult -- despite a decent learning curve, you're always in danger, due to your character's fragility (and later, numerous environmental hazards.) Those who do not enjoy a demand for precise combat and platforming may be turned off, but for those who do, a wonderful (albeit sometimes frustrating) challenge awaits. I think it's best to play this game knowing as little about it as possible, so that's all I'll say!

I'm very happy with the effort M2 has put into bundling these DS Castlevania games together. The games themselves are great, rating favorably up there alongside Symphony of the Night and Super Castlevania IV, but not quite equal in my eyes. After some thought, I decided to buy the Switch version. It just felt right; I enjoy the pick-up-and-play portability and the ability to sleep/resume at any time. The games run just as expected with no issues (yet.) Multiple localizations of the games can be played (English, Japanese, Korean.) Of course, an added rewind function is always appreciated... just don't lean on it too heavily if you want an appreciable challenge. Multiple display options are included, with some prioritizing the main screen's size, and others prioritizing pixel perfect scaling. My only real complaint so far is that the control remapping is strangely limited. Certain actions can only be bound to certain buttons. Also, the side screens can feel quite small on the original Switch display -- it seems there's pros and cons no matter which platform you choose! The pixelated fonts are sharp enough, but the maps can be tough to read. Perhaps not an issue on the OLED Switch's larger display (and of course, not an issue at all when docked to a large TV.) All in all, this is a great collection at a nice price. For all Metroidvania fans, and especially recommended to those who missed these the first time around.

Maybe I'm just burnt out on the formula -- I've been a big fan since Demon's Souls -- but I struggled to enjoy my time with this DLC. It slots into the base game perhaps a bit too well, in that it's chock full of huge grassy fields of nameless tombstones and ghostly enemies, and not much else. I couldn't help but feel reminded about how the final few areas of the base game ran out of steam (excluding Miquella's Haligtree, which was excellent.) The general level design is frustratingly vertical, but the vistas are still as beautiful as they ever were. The new leveling mechanic, which only applies within the confines of the DLC area, was immediately a turnoff. I did enjoy 2 or 3 of the new bosses, and vehemently disliked the rest (including the final boss, who was a pretty big letdown for a number of reasons.) Only one of them really stuck with me as a quality encounter with genuine difficulty that rewards your perseverance (if you've been watching the pre-release trailers, you can probably guess who I'm talking about.) Otherwise, they are either boring pushovers or horribly over-tuned for the sake of... what? So people on social media will opine about how soooo hard the game is? So you feel you got your money's worth? Without spoiling anything, I found most of the bosses extremely uninteresting, visually and thematically -- some of the weakest, laziest encounters in the entire Soulsborne catalog. It pains me to think that this DLC was just a huge cash grab; finally a ding to my steel-clad confidence in Fromsoft games/expansions. I await their next game with bated breath -- "automatic pre-order" is indefinitely off the table. Be prepared for lots of reskins, dragons (always a real treat!), and Mimic Tear lookalikes... and there are a whole lot of them here. "Quantity over quality" a la Dark Souls 2 comes to mind. The Bloodstarved Beast model from Bloodborne even makes a cameo to help pad the boss count. Ultimately, I think this is a good way to assess whether or not you should buy this: did you finish the base game and feel hungry for more of the same? If so, buy this. Did you excitedly trek all the way through Bloodborne's 60 million chalice dungeons to Queen Yharnam, smiling all along the way as you fought boring reskin boss after boring reskin boss? You're gonna love it. If you felt satisfied finishing the base game with little to no desire to revisit it, hard pass.

I love Picross! Highly recommended for any fans of puzzles and/or puzzle games. It feels strange to rate a simple puzzle game so highly, but I just love Picross, and there's a lot of value here. I buy every Picross S game when it comes out, and I tend to get about 40 hours of enjoyment out of each one. This edition of the Picross S series introduces a new feature -- you can now rewind puzzles step by step with no penalty. Very handy for those extra-large puzzles, when you realize you've made a mistake 20 or 30 moves later.

Played via Game Pass, approximately half of the game (~15 hours). It looks nice and runs well, but the combat and animations all need to be a little more dialed in. Feels a little floaty. Not a moment went by where I was able to shake the feeling of this being a blatant From Software clone. The "design language" lifted from games such as Bloodborne and Sekiro (and a little NieR: Automata sprinkled in for good measure) borders on offensive. Everything, from the combat, to the locations, to the mechanical grapple hook arm, to the "trick" weapons, to the UI elements... Even the system fonts remind me heavily of a From Software game. This is not what I meant when I said I wanted a Bloodborne sequel. The emulation all over the place is cloying. I fought maybe 8 bosses and found them mostly boring. The one truly creative aspect of the game -- choosing whether or not to lie to NPCs -- doesn't seem to carry any meaningful weight that I could discern. I don't think I'll be going back to Lies of P. I went into it with a bit of a chip on my shoulder, knowing it would be "pretty inspired" by Bloodborne, but I was not prepared for how shameless of a ripoff it would actually be. It **** all the enjoyment out of it for me.

This was a fun romp, but not one of the better 2D Zelda games (granted, that's a high bar to clear!) My few complaints are ultimately made up for by the wonderful-looking new graphics engine, and I'd love to play another 2D Zelda game like this in the future. The story, dialogue, and presentation are easily the most quirky and lighthearted of all Zelda games, and it's the sense of humor about it all that kept me playing. You'll laugh and cry, and have fun along the way. If I were judging this based on its charm alone, I'd be tempted to call it a must-play. The game is dragged down by performance issues (a few seconds of lower frame rate every time you change screens or exit the inventory, which is to say, constantly,) a rather forgettable soundtrack (mostly just renditions of the iconic Zelda theme,) an overall lack of difficulty, a whole lot of time spent backtracking, and some frustrating dungeon design in the later levels. Overall, I enjoyed my time with it, but would only recommend it on sale.

Overall a good value on sale, but at full price, I'd not rate it as high. I was pretty disappointed by the variety in performance and input lag between games. Sonic Spinball feels nigh unplayable, which was a primary reason for my purchasing this collection. Other games feel better, such as Dynamite Headdy and the Phantasy Star games, but there is always some discernible lag that feels especially jolting in the 16-bit low-res presentation. Other than that, the games looked & felt pretty true to what I remember as a kid.

Overall, this was a nice treat! I didn't play Curse of The Moon 1, but I had no trouble getting into the unique multi-character play style. I enjoyed working my way through the levels, which are designed nicely to benefit the characters' differing abilities and movement. However, I did think there were a few too many gotcha's (usually involving bottomless pit deaths) and a few of the bosses just weren't fun (lava snake immediately comes to mind.) The core gameplay is still fun. A nice game at a good price.

It's just okay. Fans of Shin Megami Tensei and/or JRPGs in general will probably be able to look past the game's myriad flaws. The game's story beats play out exactly as you'd expect with little to no exposition, and there are no surprises for anyone who has played a SMT game before -- it's a story of angels and demons warring in some-day-Tokyo, with you right in the middle. The game doesn't really respect your time, whether it's the constant need for (light) grinding, or the uselessness of much of the non-story-related dialogue (I don't need a demon to tell me "there's a human up ahead," I can see them 10 feet away.) The Switch hardware both struggles to maintain 30FPS, and its age imparts a number of graphical downgrades in order to do so. The music is absolutely excellent - once again, the shining star of a SMT game - but sounds muddled, as if it were mastered to sound best coming out of the Switch's built-in speakers. The demons (who also appear in the Persona series) look better than they ever have, but again, the detail and performance is hampered by the inadequate Switch hardware. Every aspect of the game feels like give and take, but to me, this feels like one for the fans. For those who just want to battle familiar demons and drown themselves in a moody, wailing industrial soundtrack. I really think this game could've been an entirely different beast if it weren't Switch exclusive. Being able to pause and resume a game on a whim is always nice, though...

Biggest disappointment in gaming in quite some time. I've never been a golf fan, but I have been a big Mario Golf Toadstool Tour on the GameCube. Mario Golf World Tour was one of my most-played games on my 3DS (competing with the likes of Animal Crossing New Leaf and the Picross games.) When I bought a Switch on launch day, I was already looking forward to this game. Three years later, it finally comes out... and it's pathetically unfinished and uninspired. There is no joy nor excitement anywhere to be found. The course designers made nearly no effort to make these areas visually belong in the Mario universe, and they don't even look particularly good at all. Engagement comes in the form of "hit your ball into this cyclone to get up the cliffside" and that's about it. Oh, and you can collect coins as you run to where your ball landed, if you want -- they're nigh-pointless, as is the running to the ball itself. This was marketed as a core feature of the game leading up to release, and it's pathetically boring. The main mode of the game forces you to play through the course as a noisy, annoying Mii character -- using Mario or any of the other characters is not an option. The golf mechanics are both overly simplistic and unrealistic, allowing you to freely bend shots back and forth in midair, with complete disregard for club choice. There is basically nothing to unlock or obtain in the game. All included characters have one costume, and it's the one they're already wearing. You can obtain "stronger clubs" which just changes some internal numbers, and each character has a "special shot" which was almost never useful at all in my 30-or-so hours of gameplay. There's a cutscene halfway through the "story mode" which has you hit a golf ball really hard into a makeshift dam of rocks blocking a river, which destroys the dam and unlocks the next course. The cheesiness of the whole situation, combined with the poor, uninspired graphical presentation, really act as a cornerstone for my feelings about this game. This is as involved as the game gets, right here. 2 stars because the splash screen (the artwork from the cover) looks really great as the game is loading. Then, the actual game loads, and reality sets in. I really should've fought for a refund; I bought this digitally when it came out, and haven't even thought of playing it past the first week. This is the same developer responsible for the excellent Mario Golf World Tour on 3DS and Everybody's Golf on PlayStation 4. How & why is this game so bad?

Edit: The developers have since patched the game to allow for the disabling of some assists. I've raised my score from 5 to 7. Not for those who will buy anything Picross-related -- this one is kinda a dud. There are nearly no customization options (e.g. can't disable hints and autofill,) the music gets annoying pretty fast, and it is lacking in puzzles considering the price tag. I don't mean to be rude, but it is absolutely the last Picross game I'd recommend out of what is available on Switch. All of the other crossover Picross titles are better than this one.

Love it -- simple, witty, and charming. I don't even particularly care for golf! Golf Story combines light RPG elements reminiscent of 90's JRPGs with a constant focus on golf... if the world of golf were run by 8-year-olds. The golfing gameplay is well-executed, much like the mechanics found in Mario Golf games; not too in-depth, and not too simple. Your quest will take you to various golf courses that are just outlandish in design; driving balls through forests, deserts, snowscapes, off the backs of turtles, through the peering eyes of ball-thieving gophers. The sidequests are ideal, in that they don't lead you on hour-long treks out of your way. Rather, they're all quick endeavors that reward you with money, experience points, and often a good laugh. Of particular note is the dialogue and its implementation. Writing in games is always a focal point to me, and it satisfies. Everyone is loaded with personality and regular humor, and gentle effects are added via speech bubble animations, variations in font size/hardness, and some solid HD Rumble utilization. You can practically hear your Joy-Con sigh when a person admits defeat, feel your hands kick back when you rifle off a perfect shot, and the never-gets-old clink-clink-clunk of sinking your ball in the hole. Once you've finished the main story, which at my estimate will likely be around 15-20 hours thanks to a deceptive difficulty curve, you're left with a Quick Play mode which will be great to come back to anytime you feel like playing some zany courses. Great value in this game. I've only got a few minor complaints. The main one being, a little more polish could've benefitted. Transitions between many scenes is a little jarring, with the screen not fading out/in and music cutting away from one track to the next. There's also a rare camera bug that fails to re-focus onto the player, which is remedied by exiting the area (or entering a building.) I also would've appreciated a little more in-game instruction -- you can push Select ("Minus") to show the controls, but it doesn't cover all of them (such as, clicking the right analog stick toggles the camera zoom) and there's no explanation of topspin and backspin. That's about it. Highly recommended for (Mario) golf fans, generally recommended for absolutely everyone else.

A dungeon crawler through and through. Quite obviously for fans of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona, and to a lesser extent, Etrian Odyssey and old school roguelike RPGs (the Ultima series comes to mind.) Despite my not being too keen on drawing my own maps throughout dungeons (which can be almost fully automated if desired,) I still had great fun with the game, for the most part. Almost all of the appearing characters (those being all of the possible party members from Persona 3 and 4, including the respective supports Fuuka and Rise) are well represented, although there is no real development to speak of outside of a few instances. The stars of the story are newcomers Zen and Rei, and the game tells a satisfactory tale of them. The battle system is solid and the dungeons engaging, although some of the puzzles were a bit haphazard (a particular quadrant-based puzzle comes to mind -- a cartesian graph isn't numbered that way, Atlus!) Definitely the longest Persona game to date, and one of the longest RPGs I've ever played; I finished at 87 hours, and didn't even do all of the side quests. The music stands on its own, and although about half of the tracks are reprises from Persona 3 and 4, this shouldn't be considered a bad thing. The graphics (namely, character sprites) leave something to be desired. I don't mind the chibi approach, but the polygon count is abysmal. I get that it's a 3DS game, but I've seen much better on the system! All in all, it's a solid effort and entirely deserving of the Persona namesake.

So far, an incredible refresher on the pretty familiar Mario Kart formula. For the first time ever, kart handling finally feels like an organic thing! The graphics are just right, the artistic design is out of this world, and the environments are exploding with detail and personality. There's some pretty nice item balancing going on, especially since things can get nasty with 12 players. I've played every Mario Kart game (most of them thoroughly,) and this is shaping up to be the best one yet. My only complaints are negligible ones; for example, you are given the names of selectable tracks in a multiplayer session, but the names are removed when the random selection takes place. The new anti-grav element feels more like a gimmick than anything else, but it does subtly provide shortcut opportunities and more eye candy, without taking anything away from the core experience.

If you can see past the inherent hardcore RPG tendencies, generally linear story, and glaring plot holes that start building only an hour or two in, this is a great game and one of the best on the 3DS. Pros: great graphical presentation in character and environmental art. Memorable soundtrack (very reminiscent of 90's sci-fi PC games). Voice acting (for the most part most minor characters are laughable, such as the guy who charges you Macca to cross a bridge, and a young woman who is clearly voiced by a man). Hardcore gameplay, and the familiar SMT battle formula exploit the enemy's weakness, and don't get exploited yourself. Cons: navigation becomes a nightmare if you aren't intimately familiar with Tokyo. Most quests are breadcrumb-type quests that lack the breadcrumbs you're told to go somewhere, and rarely given any indication on how to get there. Some may find the old school battle presentation lacking, while others will find it charming (very similar to Devil Survivor; your party of demons is not visually represented on-screen, while enemies and attacks are lightly-animated sprites.) Finally (without giving too much away,) your party is thrust hundreds of years into the future, from a medieval kingdom into a post-apocalyptic Tokyo. Your party is hardly amazed, let alone confused at their surroundings and all of this new technology. It's something that bugged me for my entire time spent with this game; for example, they'll be intrigued by "strange food" served at Tokyo's various taverns, but have no problem operating elevators and watching surveillance videos on an HDTV monitor.