there was a certain point in this game that reminded me of being an unassuming meat eater watching travel cooking shows with little concern. the tone of these shows are pretty upbeat, i can just immerse myself, turn off my brain, relax with the pleasant dialog between the hosts and the locals, and the happy music playing as the butcher dad jovially brags about how his son for the first time ever will be executing a cow :)

this game is really damn good, it's mechanically excellent and the art's insanely charming, but i feel better off not acknowledging that fact. halfway through kirby 64, a 10 hour game, i had the realization that n64 graphics would be a good base for my next game's artstyle. my game's story amounted to just a concept for an intro yesterday, but i spent like 2 and a half hours playing pokemon black from the beginning earlier and now i actually have a sense of direction with where to go from there. i had pretty much experienced all of balatro after completing a playthrough of it's demo. i wonder where i'd be if i had spent those 50 hours differently.

the art direction in this goes way beyond the original, it stands apart from half life 2 and even outpaces both of them in my opinion, which is such an accomplishment. i only really wish the gunplay was more fun, they kind of feel like pea shooters compared to the original

this games incredibly cute and cool conceptually, but the amount of finetuning you need to do to clear each puzzle gets annoying

was really enjoying the loop at first, but once i started to get bored, i looked up how much was left, found out i was only halfway through and then checked the fuck out

this games narrative and rpg systems sux which is why its a 3.5, but it gets two things right in ways that no other game ive played has: exploration and death. usually what happens once you get your ass kicked in most games is youre either forced to bang your head against a wall until you get it right, or you grind to raise numbers until youre just powerful enough to climb over the wall in front of you. here instead, your only recourse is to explore more of the world. after you get your ass kicked somewhere in this game, youre lead to get lost in new environments until you also get your ass kicked somewhere else, but now with the resources you found in the second place you have the ability to return to the first place and kick its ass back. this game handles player death in such a cool way, you get sent to this afterlife location and it stops the weird disconnect you get from most games where youre punished with the clock getting wound back. instead, you keep everything you have, any enemy you defeated stays defeated and theres unique ways to get resources there that you cant in the overworld. the way this game handles these two aspects makes you never feel like your progress is being impeded or like youre stuck somewhere which is a feeling that a roguelike or metroidvania usually produces for me. there was always a sense that im still growing and the world is still moving with me.