tsdenizen

The pinnacle of human invention, Detective Pikachu bestows meaning upon my empty life. I was initially disappointed that Danny DeVito didn't voice Pikachu, but being honest with myself, we as a race couldn't handle it. If there's any criticism to be made, the part where Detective Pikachu waterboarded Charmander in an attempt to extract info on the whereabouts of Boss Muk was arguably a bit much.

Kirby Star Allies is a bit un-engaging in its main campaign if playing solo due to almost too competent ally AI against less than challenging enemies and puzzles, but in couch co-op, the game really opens up to be a unique and highly enjoyable casual experience with friends. The game looks gorgeous, there are tons of power combinations to play with, the bosses are fun and creative, and in typical Kirby fashion, it's about as charming as video games get. Elsewhere, there are a couple of decent mini-games for fun at parties, while Guest Star adds tons of replayability by letting you play as tons of different characters in speed runs, and The Ultimate Choice adds difficulty where the main game was lacking it, with the top difficulty levels being true obstacles. Kirby Star Allies may be easy to dismiss as a lower-tier single player Kirby experience at first when compared to Triple Deluxe and Planet Robobot, but when this game's gimmick is embraced as intended, it does reach the heights of those games.

Ittle Dew 2+ is an excellent, streamlined adventure game full of charm, wit, and challenge. Replay value is aided by the short length of the main content and ability to complete the main dungeons in any order, particularly for speedrunners. On the other end, there's even more optional content than there is main content: you can run from main dungeon to main dungeon in about 4 hours, but hunting down all the secrets and completing the optional dungeons can extend a run closer to 14 hours. There's an excellent sense of freedom with regard to how you can squeeze as much or as little out of the game as you want. The combat, while more challenging than Ittle Dew, isn't considerably deeper mechanically, and the plot isn't at all riveting (a casualty of the streamlining), but it's incredibly rewarding to blaze through the campaign at breakneck speed or discover every secret the world holds. Highly recommended.

An interesting idea can only take you so far when you're too lazy to execute it properly, and that's what we have with Watch Dogs. Not only does the game struggle to make its main selling gimmick interesting, what we're left with is a mostly lifeless sandbox that's little fun to play in, with several basic mechanics that have been properly executed in other games for years almost entirely botched. The narrative isn't terrible, the characters are ok, and the hacking is kinda fun for a short while, but if you must try Watch Dogs, go used and cheap. Shouldn't be hard with all the returned copies.

The world of Skyrim is massive and full of things to do, but are these things to do fun? Sometimes, perhaps even semi-frequently, but with Skyrim, Bethesda may have pushed "more is more" a bit too far, seemingly concerned less with creating a world that is wondrous to explore than keeping the player focused on hunting down tasks. The burning spirit of pure adventure cultivated in Morrowind may not have been entirely extinguished, but it's noticeably dimmer in Skyrim.

While only a decent RPG, The Stick of Truth is an incredible South Park game, and that's what matters here. The style and humor of the show are nailed to absolute perfection, it really feels like playing a thematically connected, good season of South Park. The combat is a bit too easy and character customization doesn't go as deep as I'd hoped, but that was never the point and the systems are still solid enough. The point was to be able to immerse yourself fully in the world of South Park and at that, The Stick of Truth does a damn good job.

Breath of the Wild is gorgeous, massive, revolutionary, full of seemingly infinite possibilities, and absolutely, unequivocally both the greatest open-world game of all-time and one of the greatest games of all-time, period.

At its core, Golf Story may not be much more than solid arcade-style golf, but the dressings do so much to enhance the experience, from the hilarious writing, charming characters, beautiful pixel art, quirky soundtrack, and intelligent implementation of RPG mechanics. Beyond the thoroughly enjoyable 15-20 hour single player campaign, Golf Story also gifts us with a couch co-op mode to play with a friend, which is solid in its own right. Disc golf may be infuriating and the optional GALF may never fail to crash my game, but this is still an essential game.

Few games can claim to be as dedicated to an artistic vision as Catherine. An anime-influenced hardcore horror-puzzle-platformer about a 32-year-old man running away from nightmare-induced manifestations of adult responsibility is a bizarre concept. But it works so, so well. The gameplay is tight, frantic, clever, and absolutely ass-kicking (in that it'll kick your ass), the narrative is wrought with symbolism and themes grounded firmly in reality sure to be relatable to the target demographic, the cut-scenes are stellar, there are multiple endings to inspire replays of the campaign (not to mention the top score trophies you'll want to acquire), and the extra brutal Babel for the truly masochistic, tons of Rapunzel arcade levels, and couch co-op where sabotage is the name of the game. Catherine may not be for everyone, but it was never meant to be, and for those it was made for, it's nearly flawless.

While some could (and do) have a field day tearing apart Conception II for several of its questionable thematic elements, the real culprit here is how many interesting-on-the-surface systems the game provides the player with while demanding next to nothing of the player. The battle system is unique and should be a bunch of fun, but there's no reason to use it efficiently because the battles are so easy. Spending time with your party members to build affection should've had a time management component, but it doesn't. There are several instances of shortcomings like this. While I certainly can't call Conception II a 'good' game, I also struggle to call it an outright bad one. While it fails at nearly everything it tries, there's enough different going on here that it makes for a unique experience. Conception II isn't good, but it is interesting, which is more than I can say for a lot of games.

Super Mario Odyssey is the freedom of movement of 64, the bizarre charm of Sunshine, the spectacle of Galaxy, and the exploratory collection of the Banjo-Kazooie series rolled into one. The main campaign is designed to be easy enough to get through for pretty much anyone, while offering an exorbitant amount of challenging optional content for platforming veterans. The movement and utility of everything you possess through the Cappy mechanic is nearly interesting enough to be a game all on its own. Super Mario Odyssey tries to be all things to all people, and in my opinion, it's the only game to ever succeed at such a daunting undertaking.

A below-par runner brought up to par by its somewhat unique and well functioning control scheme. At its core, Temple Run doesn't really do anything beyond that to stand out in any way, but it's a more or less serviceable time waster.

1-2-Switch is little more than a glorified tech demo and its outrageous asking price is downright unacceptable. While it has its interesting moments and features good presentation, it's an abject failure as a fun co-operative experience and at retail price falls far short of free Wii launch tie-in title Wii Sports.

A control scheme that, while not broken, is considerably more awkward and complicated than it should be sours what could've been a great experience. They certainly can be mastered and when you do master then, you will be rewarded in kind by being able to pull off some very cool things not possible in other entries, but even at that level, the execution never stops feeling a bit uncomfortable. By no means a bad game, but it's a shame when innovation takes precedent over fun and controls become a bigger obstacle to overcome than the greater game design.

Flappy Bird is many things: shallow, infuriating, addictive, etc. It's also nothing, a hollow, vacuous ploy to have you tapping a screen like a moron until the game enforces the idea that you ****, for letting such a crummy game beat you, for getting upset that such a crummy game beat you, for playing such a crummy game at all. Yet you keep playing, like shoveling McDonald's french fries in your face until you die slowly and pathetically. I did not enjoy my time with Flappy Bird, but I had a lot of time with Flappy Bird, which is impressive in its own horrible way, I guess.

Vroom in the Night Sky, if nothing else, proves that if Superman 64 wasn't inherently broken to an unplayable degree, it would've still been very, very boring. An unbearably slow hoops racer with pathetically lazy graphics and an embarrassingly poor localization job, just "vroom" right past this one and never look back.

One might at first glance write off Slime-san as a simple Super Meat Boy clone, but they'd be a bit off. Where Super Meat Boy was all about the ultra-precise jump, Slime-san demands less in that aspect, in exchange for forcing you to balance your jumps with air dashes and wall phasing in quick succession while a wall of digestive acid threatens to melt you in every level if you don't act quickly enough. It is like Super Meat Boy in the sense that both are frantic and precise twitch platformers with ultra-tight controls, smart level design, great collectibles and speed challenges, quirky charm, and tons of content at the price point, and like Super Meat Boy, it's a must-have for those who love a brutal, but fair test of precision platforming prowess.

Fantasy Life is adorable and packed with things to do, but taken individually, each "thing to do" is ultimately quite shallow. All crafting classes boil down to the same dull mini-game, mining and woodcutting are also the same, and the 4 combat classes managed to be both shallow and unbalanced in their usability. Still, despite all the issues with with depth it faces, Fantasy Life manages to be an overall pleasant experience due to its charm and polish, if an unessential one.

Knight Terrors is a very simple game, but this by no means constitutes it being a bad game. Conversely, for your money, there may be no better pick-up-and-play game for your Switch. This is streamlined, two button control score-chasing at its peak. You've got 5 different modes and cool power-ups to unlock, an intense retro OST, and neat looking pixel monsters to slaughter, all of which enhance an addictive, twitchy arcade experience. At a measly $3 price point, Knight Terrors is a no-brainer. Thou Hast Gotten Their Money's Worth and More.

In an indie gaming market saturated with retro-styled 2D platformers, Tiny Barbarian DX stands out with its stellar pixel art, lengthy and thematically varied episodic pulp adventures, blood pumping soundtrack, and couch co-op. The bosses are extraordinary, the platforming is challenging, and the game is very speed-runner and score-chaser friendly, ensuring high replay value. If you've ever wanted to play a Mega Man 2-like game as Conan the Barbarian, this is what you've been waiting for.