spent more time building monsters than playing the actual mini-games

on a totally different planet from any other game in the series. customization limited, soundtrack is informed by subtle dissonance, your neighbors get mad for no reason and sometimes straight up steal shit from you. maintaining the ideal living space in the original animal crossing is impossible by design. your role in this story is that of the klutzy comic relief. this is a game about finding joy in suffering, making sense of a world too unpredictable and unforgiving to keep under control. the inclusion of NES pinball helps too

played nonstop for like 4 months and then stopped forever just like i do with every animal crossing game

terraformed my island into a giant maze with various weird environments and setpieces and whenever my friends would visit i'd hide bags of money around and make them look for them. made me feel like willy wonka

this had something going for it tbh. my most prominent memory of this game was getting rich farming gold beetles on the island every night, but my emotional bond with a video game tends to be strongest when i learn how to break/exploit it. idk what that says about me

played nonstop for like 4 months and then stopped forever just like i do with every animal crossing game

takes some weird liberties with the original trilogy's source material, but it works i like it

whimsical to an almost unsettling extreme. features probably my favorite villain dynamic ever. gruntilda's face is on everything, her voice echoes through the castle, her presence follows you constantly, but you never actually face her in person until the very end of the game. a simple but intense buildup that works so well

its tone is drier, gloomier, better suited for the long haul than the original game's loud overstimulating presentation. streamlines certain gameplay elements to make room for vastly more complicated ones, namely its massive interconnected levels. navigating the worlds with no map forces you to pay attention to every detail and rely solely on your memory to get around, until eventually the layouts register in the same part of your brain as your own family members. easily the most breathtaking thing to come out of the collectathon platformer era

extremely well designed but these ranked linear action games are tough for me to sink my teeth into. one playthrough is enough for me

underrated classic. even basic movement brings me joy. i went as a goth version of the main character for halloween when i was 12

tries to make a meaningful statement about player agency and fails, but succeeds at damn near everything else. atmosphere is distinct and unforgettable, pacing is dramatic and horror-like, all weapons are fun to use, thematically shits all over randian objectivism. what more can you ask for

they made the bosses super difficult towards the end to incentivize microtransactions, but i powered through without giving them a fuckin cent. the plot twist isn't anything super original, but the buildup to it is admittedly kind of insane. loove the battle system

didn't get much into the metagaming aspect but WOW this game is pretty and the soundtrack is baller

bought this at a friend's recommendation and the timing was unbelievable. cute story that brought me to tears once or twice. gameplay is fun but has too much IWBTG vibes for me to ever truly fall in love with. i like games to feel a little aimless and empty sometimes; the level of polish here is impressive but doesn't leave much room to resonate with me

no jrpg has touched me on a personal level quite like this one. one of the most profoundly strange and beautiful games ever made. lulls you with long stretches of uneventful gameplay and a lush dreamy soundtrack to prepare you for the periodic mindfuck of its harsh nonsensical plot twists. subverts the "power of friendship" theme by instead exploring the mundanity of acquaintanceship. rewrites the rules of rpg battle systems to emphasize the weight of each individual encounter rather than test your endurance over time. chrono cross is a game that does things differently just because it can, and the resulting product straddles the line so hard between stupid and genius i can't not adore it

easily the most refined 90s rpg. i used to consider this an objectively better final fantasy, but with time i find myself valuing more unorthodox risk-taking over this game's simple conventional beauty. corridors of time is still probably my favorite song from any OST

cool mouse puzzle game. if i'd played this during its active years it would've taken over my life

gameplay sucks and like 90% of its jokes aren't funny but i still really like this for some reason? not only is conker's bad fur day a technical marvel with easily the finest audio/visual quality the N64 was capable of, but it's also a fascinating early exercise in testing the limits of how hard a kid-friendly property can be distorted into something hideous and unrecognizable. there's so much wrong with this game but i think its existence makes the world a somewhat better place

does some charming things with the soundtrack and voice acting. shoutout unknown 90s roots rockers the bygone dogs for gracing this game with the most memorable and least fitting music ever. but otherwise a pretty unremarkable sci-fi racer

changed me in a profound and permanent way. as a distant clueless 7 year old lacking any sense of order, this game felt like the first thing in the world that made perfect sense to me. its touch is loving but never condescending. i felt understood but never spoiled. my friend told me there was an unlockable space level and i didn’t believe him until i saw it with my own eyes. a miracle was possible after all. this is the standard to which i’ve held not only every video game, but every life experience period

getting to see the ultimate crowning game of my childhood through a modern corrupted lens is honestly kinda cool in a fucked up way. by all technicality a bad remake, but i'm still glad it exists

honestly impressive how many different layers of dumb this is. “dating sim but fucked up” isn’t the worst concept in the world but the execution is psychological horror in only the loosest sense of the term. the characters’ struggles with depression/self-harm are the primary source of shock value which isn’t abnormal for the horror genre, but don’t expect its themes to get much deeper than “mental illness scary.” this is also a case of a subversive anime parody wanting to have its cake and eat it too; being cheeky and self-aware about what tropes you’re already using doesn’t count as a deconstructive work sorry. even talking about this game pisses me off so i’m done now

a little over-ambitious plus banjo-tooie does almost everything this game does better, but still too special to be ignored. nails it with the atmosphere and level design, but making every single objective exclusive to a specific character was kind of a lame move. having to constantly switch characters/forms/time of day is a simple task on paper but the wasted time adds up. i restarted 3 different playthroughs of this before i finally made it to the end. there’s a masterpiece buried in here somewhere, but i’m still happy with what we got

unnerved me as a child. probably because of all the bees. but i vibe with it now

it’s motherfuckin puyo pop no shit i love it

takes place in a twisted dreamlike version of suburban america designed to tickle your senses at every corner. nonsensical, terrifying, everchanging, yet sincerely moving. playing this as a kid probably would’ve rattled me to my core, but after multiple playthroughs as an adult it still only ever grows more fascinating. even its flaws somehow make it perfect. i want to live in this game

you know i thought i didn't like this but looking back it's one of the more interesting rpgs i've played? everything about its design feels crude and impulsive like it was dreamed up by a literal child. leveling is unbalanced and maps are laid out with the sloppy unorganized passion of a kid's train of thought. feels like one of those games that shouldn't exist but does. also if you refuse the last recruitable partner enough times you get abruptly sent back to the beginning of the game which is one of the dumbest and most amazing gags i've ever seen

nothing special mechanically, but never stops being infectiously charming. it takes a lot for high fantasy to win me over but they nailed it with this. the escort npcs cheering every time you kill an enemy is actually the most adorable thing ever

does an exorbitant amount of things right. vault 11 could have been its own standalone game and i'd still love it, and it makes up literally like 1% of this game's content

cute but i also never want to play it again

the cleanest FF installment. every game in this series has a ton of shit wrong with it, but this one has the fewest problems. characters are fleshed out and grow naturally over the course of the story. (freya might be my fav in the series) battle system is balanced perfectly with no easy shortcuts to steamrolling everything. medieval high fantasy world isn’t quite to my preference but the execution is so tasteful i can’t not love it

by far my favorite of the classic 2D FF titles. cute, simple, surprisingly funny, and the job system rules. also exdeath best villain in the series

overrated, but not bad. the variety of party members is cool, but character building feels stiff and unrewarding, and it makes for a somewhat aimless story that leaves little room for me to care about. kefka is fun but fails to impress me when his only appeal as a villain is that he's like, the most crazy evil guy ever. i was 14 once too

subsequent titles would further improve upon the FF formula, but this game’s vibes are immaculate and it deserves the hype for that reason alone. its bare-bones rudimentary gameplay combined with its bizarre and somewhat inconsistent retro sci-fi aesthetic makes for a super relaxing world to just exist in. there’s an indescribable magic that transcends its technical limitations in a way that few other games can pull off. any story about defying fate always gets to me emotionally. also the main cast is undeniably great when you look past their flanderized place in pop culture. sephiroth’s emotional vulnerability always personally appealed to me more than the blind chaotic evil of other series villains around this time

people hate me for this but 8 is the best final fantasy. pushes the edgy sci-fi angle of 7 to comedic levels. contorts its fantasy universe into an infectiously dumb teen drama love story with some of the most nonsensical plot elements in the series. squall is a loser but i love him. battle system emphasizes exploration and hoarding resources over the standard enemy grind. soundtrack ranges from soppy piano ballads to gritty synth rock both of which i love the shit out of. triple triad had an intense stranglehold on me. the winner by a landslide

one of the steepest brilliant story to hilarious dialogue/VA ratios i've ever seen, and you know what i love it. the plot structure itself is chilling in the way it begins with an extensive fantasy scope then gradually shrinks as it laser focuses into the characters' personal dilemmas. emphasizes the value of the people around you rather than the fate of the entire universe itself. but fuck me some of these cutscenes are unintentionally funny and not even just the laughing one. the strict linearity and clumsy post-game balancing keep it from being an all time fav but the easier accessibility of this title definitely works in its favor. this is usually the first FF i tell people to play

gonna be honest i don't remember most of this game so i'll probably need to play it again which will never happen. doesn't overhaul the classic FF battle system so much as it does streamline it to a point that makes me question the purpose of the ATB system to begin with. like it meshes with the gambit system in a way that feels weirdly redundant? the awkwardness is strangely alluring