sourasparagus

I 100%'d the game then immediately started another file. Never done that before. I have nits to pick here and there (the prologue, some of the writing and music choices, I'd love for the areas to be truly connected), but on the whole this easily beat my expectations. The movement is what makes it - the game feels like parkour, capping with the shinespark puzzles. The Experiment boss fight is one of the coolest in the entire series.

Super thought-provoking and mind-expanding puzzle game, with a wide difficulty range. I eventually beat all the levels - without assistance - which took a long time and felt very rewarding. This would be a great game for a middle schooler alongside a basic programming curriculum, given the core game mechanic.

A solid, quasi-puzzle game. I played for ~15 hours before putting it down, but I might return to it on a plane flight. Best parts are the atmospherics / art style & the progression / rewards system. Worst part is that each run's beginning stages take too long to get through, even as you've improved. It hurts the replayability to have that level of tedium when there's no real challenge.

Can't imagine how this could be improved. The map, the bosses, the music, the gameplay, just perfect. Maybe the story reaches a bit too far, but that's a minor complaint. One of the best games I've ever played and certainly on a par with Super Metroid.

Some super creative, fun ideas, and the core 3D Mario gameplay will never be bad. But, this felt overstuffed. Truly an insane amount of collectibles to the point it cheapens the experience. I would normally play all the extras in a Mario game. With this one I dropped out an hour or two after I got to the credits.

The only improvement I could imagine would be to make the dungeons themselves more substantial. Otherwise a perfect game, with tons of wow moments and opportunities for unique exploration. The first time sneaking into Hyrule Castle was one of my favorite gaming moments ever.

I dropped at least 200 hours into this, to level 20 all the characters. The challenge factor is super high and all the mix-and-match options with the cards and relics make each run unique. Plus, the community around it (Jorbs etc.) is super rich. This is the closest I've felt to the feel of Magic the Gathering in a single-player game.

DNF after ~5 hours of play. The graphics feel dated and the controls are annoyingly loose. It's a cool concept, but so much relies on the art style and I don't think it holds up.

Dropped it after ~10 hours of play. The gameplay can be fun and fast-paced, like an old-school beat-em-up. But, the overall style / gameplay / story is too same-y from run to run and so I got bored.

Shockingly good. Doesn't have quite the exploratory feel of Super Metroid, but you still get to draw outside the lines. Holds up to the best Metroidvanias even 20 years later.