Review the last game you finished

[I am nobody]

We've got one for TV shows, books, mobile games, and movies, but I barely consume any of those and have a desire to dump my opinions on to all of you. So now we have one for general games.

Feel free to include games you decided to be done with before completing.


My list so far is:
[spoiler]

1. Alicemare (1/1) (PC)
2. Dishonored 2 (1/2) (PC)
3. House of the Dying Sun (1/7) (PC)
4. ICEY (1/ (PC)
5. Owlboy (1/ (PC)
6. Samurai of Hyuga (1/14) (PC)
7. Warden: Melody of the Undergrowth (1/16) (PC)
8. Ara Fell (1/22) (PC)
9. Regency Solitaire (1/29) (PC)
10. Gravity Rush 2 (2/11) (PS4)
11. Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun (2/11) (PC)
12. The Away Team (2/12) (PC)
13. Abzu (2/14) (PC)
14. Tales of Berseria (3/6) (PC)

[/spoiler]

15. 1979 Revolution: Black Friday (3/8 ) (PC)

I was expecting rather a lot from this one considering all the "important game" and narrative awards it either got or was nominated for. What I got was a game that is undeniably about the Iranian Revolution, but that fails to say anything remotely interesting on the subject. It feels like the developers couldn't decide between making a game or a documentary, and they ended up making a hybrid that isn't particularly good at being either.

It possibly could've been saved if the historical fictional parts were better, but they're not. The devs made the fatal mistake of combining a very defined character with a roleplaying system and then made it even worse by forcing that combination into a 105 minute game. It all feels disjointed and sudden, which is not helped by the final chapter consisting of a nonsensical plot twist and comically abrupt ending that would be a transition to the main story in any other game.

Overall, meh. The subject matter is unique, but I couldn't find whatever so many others saw in it.

[X-3]

1.) Tales of Berseria

Fun game. Cast is pretty fun, plot is pretty standard for a Tales game. I'd say that Laphicet is a child character done right, and it's satisfying to see his character develop. It's worth noting that it's a distant prequel to Zestiria, and it actually does this pretty well. In regards to battle mechanics, I found most of the characters actually fun to play with, the AI is a lot better and there's no bad mechanics like Armatization. Like Zestiria there's a focus on items and skills, but this game does it so much smoother. Overall it's much better than Zestiria, and it might be my favorite Tales game so far. (Only played Symphonia, Vesperia, Zestiria and Iaiaiaia)

One complaint I do have (I have others, but we'll go with this one for now) is how some magic-casting bosses can just buttblast the entire battlefield with an incredibly powerful spell. I never figured out how to stop them either, because they'd just hyper-armor through my attacks. I know Zesty had that Martial->Hidden->Seraph triangle but this seems to be different. Oh, and while the music overall is great, the final boss theme is absolutely terrible.

Nioh would be 2 but that got interrupted by BotW.

[I REALLY HATE POKEMON!]

Super Mario Land 2. It's one of the few 2D Mario games good enough to bother playing through completely more than once. It has a lot of variety and is short, makes for good replay value.

[Sonic 5]

Letter Quest Remastered

It was a fun little word game. My mom likes to play it too, so that's always a plus in my book.

[I am nobody]

[QUOTE="X-3, post: 1624755, member: 27765"]1.) Tales of Berseria

Fun game. Cast is pretty fun, plot is pretty standard for a Tales game. I'd say that Laphicet is a child character done right, and it's satisfying to see his character develop. It's worth noting that it's a distant prequel to Zestiria, and it actually does this pretty well. In regards to battle mechanics, I found most of the characters actually fun to play with, the AI is a lot better and there's no bad mechanics like Armatization. Like Zestiria there's a focus on items and skills, but this game does it so much smoother. Overall it's much better than Zestiria, and it might be my favorite Tales game so far. (Only played Symphonia, Vesperia, Zestiria and Iaiaiaia)

One complaint I do have (I have others, but we'll go with this one for now) is how some magic-casting bosses can just buttblast the entire battlefield with an incredibly powerful spell. I never figured out how to stop them either, because they'd just hyper-armor through my attacks. I know Zesty had that Martial->Hidden->Seraph triangle but this seems to be different. Oh, and while the music overall is great, the final boss theme is absolutely terrible.

Nioh would be 2 but that got interrupted by BotW.[/QUOTE]

Pretty much agree with that except for the plot being standard for a Tales game - maybe it's just that Symphonia is the only other overlap between us (I've played Symphonia 2, Hearts R, a few hours of Abyss, and ~half of Xillia besides that), but in my experience Tales has always been "We're the (possibly reluctant) heroes saving the world through good deeds and optimism!" where Berseria is basically "the world sucks and we want to kill it" for most of the game.

Definitely the best Tales game I've played. Still a ways to go before they're challenging Atlus or Falcom for my favorite modern JRPGs, but it's leagues better than Hearts R or Xillia.

[Apollo the Just]

I'm pretty sure the last video game I beat was back when the Apollo Justice port for phones came out and I played through it again.

I absolutely adore that game, though. The updated graphics looked really nice and smooth, INFINITELY better than the really **** Phoenix "HD" re-releases. I might still prefer the pixel art from the original because it was so nice and detailed, but the look of the game is essentially the same and it has by far my favorite style of the non-3D-rendered installments in the series. (Not an entirely fair comparison considering the first 3 games were all for an older system, I know, but it's just......... so much better)

It's also just one of the best AA games thematically. Did an excellent job of making the player *actually feel* like a rookie who's in way over his head and is trying to do the right thing in a system that's completely **** in every dimension. I'm also a sucker for when ongoing series dramatically age characters and change personalities and dynamics to reflect that time has passed - Apollo Justice did that so incredibly well. Everyone is recognizable but older and more mature, like you can feel the years they have lived through.

Such a good game. Definitely somewhere in my top 3 of the series overall, although my specific Top 3 List admittedly changes on a day to day basis.

I'll be back in this thread in probably less than a week's time, once I have finished Earthbound, caps lock at the ready.

[Sonic 5]

Resident Evil Revelations 2

I originally played this game on my 360 two years ago. I absolutely hated it. This may have been influenced by the fact that my 360 was dying (so the game would lag and stutter constantly, audio would go out of sync, and it constantly made a clicking noise) and I was going through my hellish last semester of college (so, I was constantly stressed out).

Decided to give the game another chance: it still sucks. The gameplay is generic, the AI is still suicidal, the partner role isn't fun for any human you can rope into it, and I still loathe the fact that Capcom didn't get Alyson Court to do Claire's voice. Also, the determining factor for whether you get the good or bad ending is stupid.

On the positive side: the story is cheesy and hokey, as Resident Evil should be. Barry delivers enough one-liners to make up for a lot of the game's shortcomings. Raid Mode is honestly the best part of the package.

Overall: Mediocre

[I REALLY HATE POKEMON!]

^ Have you played the first one? It's quite better.

[I am nobody]

Made it through the second one only because I was doing it co-op with family, and I completely agree with everything you just said. The ending switch in particular is moronic - we didn't even realize that we could change the scene in question, and we sure weren't going back by the time we'd finished the final episode and received the almost literal shoulder shrug that is the bad ending.

I've played about the first 90 minutes of the original game and didn't care for it. I can see why it would've been impressive on 3DS, but all the compromises they had to make so it would work really show on any other system.

[Random User]

Fire Emblem Heroes

It's a decent thing to mess around with when you're just chilling somewhere for an hour or two, which I happen to be doing often. Stamina is generous enough for me, though for someone that might want to play non-stop it'll be troublesome. The art styles change frequently between characters, I assume to differentiate them, but I don't really like this direction, personally. Music is okay, but far from memorable. The depth in the actual games is missing here, leaving simplistic rock-paper-scissors type gameplay. Overall, I'd say 5/10 for a mobile strategy game. Pick it up if you want Fire Emblem fanservice. It's free, can't hurt to try it out.

[I REALLY HATE POKEMON!]

[QUOTE="I am nobody, post: 1624852, member: 34539"]I've played about the first 90 minutes of the original game and didn't care for it. I can see why it would've been impressive on 3DS, but all the compromises they had to make so it would work really show on any other system.[/QUOTE]

It actually nails the horror aspect at least, for most of the game. Much of the environments were classic RE stuff. It is far from perfect though.

[Sonic 5]

[QUOTE="I REALLY HATE POKEMON!, post: 1624846, member: 18119"]^ Have you played the first one? It's quite better.[/QUOTE]
I played the 360 version of the first one and absolutely loved it. I wish 6 had been more like that instead of what we got. I felt that the first Revelations was a good balance between RE4's more action-oriented gameplay and the creepy, tight corridors of the original Resident Evil.

[I am nobody]

16. Poi (3/13) (PC)

It's going to sound like I hated this game when I say that my main takeaway was a new appreciation for how much polish goes into a 3D Mario game, but I actually enjoyed it. It was a lot like what Warden: Melody of the Undergrowth was to Zelda - a game as close to objectively inferior to its clear inspiration as it is possible to be that nonetheless gets enough of the fundamentals right that it survives the comparison.

Poi is basically four small Mario-esque worlds with 8 badges each, which function exactly like stars or suns. There's also a fifth world split between two tiny levels that doesn't count for reasons that aren't clear to me. The challenges are generally pretty anti-climactic and the characters lifeless compared to what you'd get from Mario, but it has some solid platforming sequences and never feels lazy. The bonus costumes are all just reskins, which is a bit disappointing, but somewhat forgivable considering this is a $15 game with two playable characters.

Overall, pretty good, but the sort of inoffensive "pretty good" that means I probably won't remember much of anything about it a year from now. Worth a play if you're into 3D platformers, especially since PC isn't exactly drowning in good ones.

[Apollo the Just]

AJ is like a decade late to the party PER USUAL, but I have officially beaten Earthbound and BOY HOWDY WAS IT INCREDIBLE.

I'm really hankerin' to read up on every single NESS WAS IN A COMA ALL ALONG theory of this game bc frankly this one is kind of asking for that kind of analysis, but before I do I want to reflect on & review this game purely from the way I experienced it, going in with approximate knowledge of the entire plot but knowing pretty much nothing about the way things actually unfold in the context of the game, and not really knowing much atm about others' interpretations. Spoilers obviously.

[spoiler=literall the whole game]
First off...... this game gives the most compelling character development to a *silent protagonist* of literally any video game I have ever played. Homesickness as a gameplay mechanic really helped humanize Ness, and seeing him think about his mom or lose motivation in battle made it feel less like I'm controlling a player avatar (such as in Pokemon or most other silent-protag games) and more obviously that Ness is his own character going on an adventure way bigger than he is. Most of the time when I feel this way about video game characters, they're either very much not silent cast members - developed through text and dialogue - or it's just me projecting; not this time. The most obvious instance of Ness character development is Magicant, but I have so much to say about that I'll get to it later. Anyway, one of this game's absolute strongest points is that it reinforces its narrative through gameplay rather than the two feeling separate (which is a criticism I have of, like, 99% of other JRPGs I otherwise love). So many moments that modern JRPGs would turn into cutscenes are told via gameplay, as moments you have to play and interact through, and it just makes everything feel very cohesive.

I also just love pretty much everything about the flavor text in this game. Uncontrollable crying and catching a cold as status ailments? That ****'s adorable. Plus there's a lot of humor in the filler text enemies get on their turns, talking to useless NPCs, etc. The game is very full of 100/10 flavor text and every other rpg needs to step up its game honestly.

I also really enjoyed Pokey's role in the story. Ignoring Mother 3 in its entirety for a moment, which makes him a piece of irredeemable garbage... I enjoyed that in this particular story about Small Child Heroes Are The Chosen Ones Who Save The Universe Because They're the Chosen Ones, there's also a Evil Small Child Little **** who literally becomes final boss phase 1 material. Ness and Pokey start out as baseball nerd in his matching jammies + that one kid from elementary school you hated, and develop into essentially the strongest human in the universe and right hand man to evil incarnate. Stories in which villains and heroes both develop from small-time to big-time are really compelling to me (it's a good trope), and it's especially fitting that in this case they're both, like, snot-nosed 8 year olds.

Okay, I gotta talk about Magicant, though. AKA birthplace of a thousand fan theories. This **** was incredible.

Flying Man as a representative of Ness's courage is........... adorable. Here we have this tiny child trying to face the evil within him, ok it's a cliche but hear me out bc IT'S DONE SO WELL HERE, and all alone for the first time since almost the beginning of his journey (no 3 happy friends to help him!!). But he can take with him Flying Man. This is SO CUTE. Flying Man, aka really obviously some sort of imaginary friend or fictional hero or other fantastical representation of strength and courage in a young child's mind, can come with Ness to help him. It's just so sweet. He's literally alone but he's personified his own courage and strength in the form of Flying Man to help him face his own demons. It's literally "Ness's Adorably Childish Coping Mechanism Joined Your Party!" and I love it so much. It made this narrative moment of FACING YOUR TRUE SELF (cue persona 4 battle music), which is usually a Coming Of Age ^TM moment, one that instead reinforces how young Ness still is despite everything.

(Also, related side note, I'm bad at this game and I died like 3 times on Ness's Nightmare. RIP 3 different Flying Mans. It took until the 2nd one died for me to notice the graves growing outside of Flying Man's house, and **** MADE ME REALLY GUILTY FOR BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DEATH OF 3 EMBODIMENTS OF NESS'S COURAGE. I kind of want to know what would happen if all 5 of them died, but I feel like it would be sad and lonely and I am glad it did not come to that.)

A couple more moments in Magicant I really liked:

• when Other Ness gives you the baseball cap I discarded, like, a million years ago. It made a piece of starter equipment feel really sentimental, especially since it's right after the flashback of when his parents first gave his red hat to him. And narratively, it implies that Ness had also felt regret for discarding this equipment and recovered it in this weird-psychic-mind-place since it was created by and for him. I felt guilty after that and kept it clogging his inventory for the rest of the game.
• when you meet young Ness and he just talks about baseball and video games without a care in the world. It's the cutest thing honestly, and again gives off a sense that Ness is reminiscing and reflecting, since this kid is a creation of his mind-space.
• **** POKEY..
• When you talk to King and he talks about how HE was there first and NESS used to be tiny and weak. The implied jealousy there is adorable. This is even better because when you talk to him at the end of the game, IRL King talks about how you are the strongest in the world.
• Talking to various enemies you've fought before? I really liked this. A lot. It made it feel like Ness feels the weight of having hurt them, even if it was something he had to do.

So yeah that **** was awesome. This whole game was great, but that was definitely BY FAR one of the highlights. That, and the final bossfight. TALKING about incorporating narrative into gameplay rather than telling it to you......... the fight against Giygas is one of the best examples of that I've ever experienced. Even the last phase can't really be called an interactive cutscene because you can still die, and it still feels like a fight. I was literally out of PP for BOTH healers and Paula one or two hits away from being KO'd with no more resurrection items, when I finished him. And I was also thoroughly creeped out with Giygas shrieking Ness's name over and over and over again the whole time.

Anyway, there are a few things that caught my attention but I still don't really know what to think about. I'm sure the internet has opinions and thoughts on them, but I'm gonna reflect on them a bit before reading other interpretations which will inevitably influence my own:

• wtf is with that weird loopy branch thing sticking out of the ground. In fact, wtf is with that whole place where you encounter Giygas. You can access it from the Underworld, and see the weird loopy branch thing before going to Magicant where a very similar-looking weird loopy branch thing teleports you to the Sea of Eden. There are a bunch of references to Eden and the Apple of prophecy or whatever, so is that supposed to be representative of the tree in Eden in some way? Am I reading way too much into this??? Very probably. I just think it's very interesting that this symbol is introduced specifically made visible BEFORE Magicant, then IN Magicant it takes you to the place where the embodiment of evil lurks in Ness's mind, and then AFTER you realize that it is located in this weird limbo space you phase distort to the past to get to Giygas. Is this representative of Giygas's influence? IDK BUT IT'S OBVIOUSLY INTENTIONAL AND THEREFORE FASCINATING.
• I'm still very "I don't know what to think but it made me Feel Things" about the Giygas fight in its entirety. The way it reflected Ness's face in its early phase, the way it called out his name repeatedly, and screamed about pain and then liberation and friendship, like. I guess one could just assume it became obsessed with him because he was prophesied as his demise, to the extent its own identity started to be defined by that obsession? My own interpretation is that, if we consider that Giygas and Ness have some sort of super-strong-psychic-beyond-the-physical mental connection, that might explain the empowerment of evil thoughts in Ness's mind (Magicant) by Giygas's influence, but on the other hand Ness's influence on Giygas may have exposed him to thoughts and feelings about friendship and love which caused it such confusion. I like to think that the immense mental power of both, which isn't strictly contained to their bodies, probably contaminated and corrupted each other - their minds probably had some sort of overlap - and in the end GOODNESS AND PROTAG-NESS WON.
• Ok wtf is with the Mani Mani Statue though. Your friendly neighborhood dudebro digs it up, then it ends up corrupting a bunch of people into a thinly-veiled KKK, then it straight up corrupts a major politician and an entire socio-economic system in Fourside, THEN it makes Ness and Jeff trip tf out until it's ultimately destroyed, until it resurfaces as a symbolic representation of the part of Ness he's afraid of/the violent and cruel side of him. Actually I guess, after typing this out, it makes sense. Since the statue corrupted everyone it came across IRL and brought out the literal worst in people with its influence, it is a good representation of the part of Ness that could become corrupt or hurtful if he didn't face it. Nevermind then guess this makes sense now.
• Moonside was still really weird, still not quite sure what was going on there.
• Ok.............. I have some time travel questions. "Ness had a feeling that he was being watched by himself as a baby." Then later Ness has a psychic hallucination in which he sees himself as a baby being named by his parents. Since Giygas can attack from the past, does that mean Ness is literally viewing himself from the future, and his young baby self senses it? Or is it just a vision he has that is only interactive from his side but did not actually exist for the baby? The text made this seem kind of like the baby was aware of his future self, which IMO makes the whole thing WAY more interesting since Giygas can interact with the future from the past.

The ending was really good. I love interactive epilogues and this was a very well executed one. Also, I KNEW the WHOLE game EXACTLY what **** they were going to pull with the photographer guy - "they're gonna have a montage at the end of the game with this aren't they." And yet, knowing what to expect didn't make it any less impactful. It was awesome.

One final note: I LOVE TONY SO MUCH.[/spoiler]

10/10. Has a lot of really good **** and some interesting food for thought.

......damn who needs other people's edgy fan theories when I basically just wrote my own tho lmao

[I am nobody]

17. Horizon: Zero Dawn (PS4)

After I finished the first sidequest in Horizon, I my first reaction was "Finally! Someone learned from The Witcher 3 and did these things properly!" I was wrong about that. Horizon's sidequests are almost universally trope-y and boring. So much for having learned anything.

I was wrong about that, too, as it turns out. It may have whiffed on the sidequests, but this is still the first open world game since TW3 (and thus the second ever, IMO) that can get by on more than just being an open world. It's still worth exploring, particularly for the excellently written and actually meaningful collectibles, but the real meat of the game is in the old world story and combat against the mega machines, neither of which really kick off until the second half of the game. The former is one of the first times I've found a post-apocalyptic story believable, (and thus cared at all, although it certainly doesn't start out seeming like it's ever going to approach credibility) and the latter is what I always wished God Eater was - smashing giant mechanical animals to bits in combat that's actually skill-based instead of relying almost entirely on RPG stats and bullet sponge health meters. Even the strongest enemies will go down inside 5 minutes if you're knocking off the right components, but they make up for that by coordinating with smaller allies and usually wiping 50-75% of your health in single melee attacks when they land.

The awful sidequests are probably going to be enough to prevent it from being a GotY contender in a year that still has Persona 5 and Danganronpa V3 even if Andromeda is a total bust, but it'll be on the list for sure. Major kudos to Guerrilla, and I'm glad Sony finally let them make something other than Killzone.

[I am nobody]

18. Eldritch Hunter (PC)

I picked this one up because it was made by the developers of The Amber Throne, a beautiful and excellently written JRPG that was an easy top 10 pick for 2015. Naturally, they followed that up with... a 2D arcade platform shooter?

Despite the major shift in genre, the art and music styles from AT make a second appearance and are just as effective here. Also like AT, the protagonist is silent, but this time the story is much sillier, and characterization comes entirely through her various shocked-face reactions to everything turning out to be a worm monster.

Oh, and it's ****ing hard. There are only 48 levels, including the bosses, but I probably died 500 times in just over two hours. Thankfully, the mechanics are tight enough and the restarts quick enough that it only became frustrating in a handful of levels.

Not bad for $5.

[ScottyMcGee]

19. Hyrule Warriors (Wii U)

Or also: Here's an Excuse to Play as Every Character in the Zelda Universe

Nothing wrong with the gameplay - if Dynasty Warriors is your thing. Otherwise you can be zoning out while repeatedly whacking armies.

The story is the worst part of this game. When it was first announced, I had this theory that Hyrule Warriors would be about the people of Skyloft ridding the surface world of monsters and establishing Hyrule, taking place immediately after Skyward Sword. But no. We get the usual, run-of-the-mill A Link to the Past clone where Ganondorf is using someone as a puppet. Not only that but the plot hinges on a sorceress named Cia being jealous of Zelda and Link and wanting Link. How petty is that? Cia and Lana clearly feel out of place. While the rest of the characters are classic, original characters from Nintendo, Cia and Lana are showing much more skin and there's a cutscene where the camera zooms in and pans around Cia's breasts and ass. It's really weird to see that in a Zelda game. It's also weird to hear rock/metal covers of Zelda songs while fighting - but that part is good - but still weird to hear in an actual game.

There's so much to unlock though, and I actually kind of care about unlocking stuff in this game - which I find hard to care about in other games.

This game though is mostly for Zelda fans, which kind of annoys me - ironic in that I'm a Zelda fan.

[I am nobody]

(19 was Dear Esther: Landmark Edition. It was more boring than I remembered and not worth reviewing)

20. Mass Effect: Andromeda (PC)

I've made no secret of the fact that Mass Effect as a series is very close to my heart. All three games are in my top 20, and the second and third are in my top 10. I've finished them all at least three times, without knowingly leaving anything undone in any of those, and never tired of it. Hell, Leigion was what got me into AI. Very, very few other games or series can compete with that.

Enter Andromeda, a game that desperately tries to live up to the series legacy and trips every step of the way. A truly incredible number of its ideas are just budget reskins of existing scenes: SAM is EDI with no personality, the Kett are the Collectors with less variety, loyalty missions are "back" in the form of lazy fetch quests with no payoff, the Nexus and Tempest are clear (but lame) imitations of the Citadel and Normandy, planet scanning returns in a far slower and less rewarding form, and you're even forced into low-stake variations on famous choices from the first game as a result of plot events that are embarrassingly similar. Everything that couldn't be lifted from its ancestors is just awful: world building is completely neglected, sidequests have so little payoff and impact that many of them literally just end after fetching the requisite lumps, the crewmembers seem like an attempt to forcibly show Kaiden and Jacob's haters that they weren't that bad, and so on. It's frankly unbelievable that this game cost $40 million.

But for all of that, it's just mediocre. As a new IP, it would've been a moderately promising start. As a Mass Effect game, the only good thing I can say about it is that it'll be very easy to pretend a game set in another galaxy never happened. Here's hoping BioWare and EA either have the self-awareness to recognize this isn't worth saving or are at least willing to find and commit the remarkable talent needed to turn mess into something worthy of the name.

When it comes down to it, I guess you might say...
[spoiler]
You'll never be better than Commander Shepard :headbang:
[MEDIA=youtube]HiRDJLcYua0[/MEDIA]
[/spoiler]

[Apollo the Just]

Mother 3.

Short review: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Long review is incoming probably tomorrow because tonight I'm very exhausted from all the crying I have been doing.

Medium length review in the meantime:

I think the best way to describe Earthbound and Mother 3 is "artfully meta." These games use the fact that they are games to tell their stories in ways that they couldn't if they weren't so self-aware (for humor sometimes, for more introspective reasons at other times).

So, like, I **** love this game. I absolutely **** love this game.

It was slightly jarring playing it immediately after Earthbound, because one thing that was very fresh and interesting to me about Earthbound was how it told its story almost 100% **entirely** through gameplay (the text that would comprise its narrative is something you obtain by choosing to examine things or talk to people; triggered cutscene events are VERY few and far between), but it still felt like a very immersive story. Mother 3 is a lot more like most of the other RPGs I've played in that it interrupts gameplay for story events far more frequently. Also, because you experience the story from so many different perspectives, you don't have one 100% silent protagonist - at the start of the game, Lucas is someone you can interact with when playing as other characters. It still does a lot of really powerful visual and implied storytelling, but I definitely noticed this shift in style going from Earthbound. I don't think it's a bad thing - I mean, all of my favorite games are like this, so obviously I don't object to it - but I think it signifies this one wanted to make some things more clear and less ambiguous.

Both games succeed really really well in using gameplay to humanize their characters (homesickness, fever, etc) rather than only treating them like people in story but not during the rest of the game. ........final boss fight comes to mind. ha ha ha I made myself sad again. ANYWAY I love and appreciate this so much and I would LOVE to see it in more games.

There's so much to talk about and I really don't have the energy to get into it right now so imma stop here for the night but this game is an easy 100000/10. It killed me and I loved every second

[I am nobody]

21. Super Mario Strikers (100% real GCN)

Mario Superstar Baseball has been a guilty pleasure for about a decade now - it clearly isn't the best baseball sim available, but it gets the realism/arcade balance just right. I wouldn't be at all surprised if I've topped 100 hours with it, and I've got a video recording on my phone of the homerun earlier this year that finally gave me 100 runs in one game. (the counter gets stuck at 99, if anyone else has been wondering) And now I finally got around to see if Mario's take on soccer was as oddly compelling.

It isn't. The game dumps most of the rules of the sport - there are no fouls or offsides - and makes up for it with godlike goalies who are mostly defeated by RNG. I had shots that would be unstoppable in real life saved by the goalie momentarily becoming The Flash, but I also had dinky shots from the midfield line go in while the goalie just watched. There's even a dumb mechanic where your captain can charge up a shot and pass a quick timing test to score an unstoppable 2 point goal, which is extraordinarily broken when combined with random powerups that can knock your entire team down.

The better player will usually still win just because they can hold possession for longer and take more RNG shots, but that doesn't result in a very fun game. Not the worst sports game I've ever played, but probably not one I'll come back to.