So… I also have a backlog of books.

I’ve been trying to get into the habit of reading, something I’ve lost since I graduated high-school too many years ago. Unlike gaming, where you have guaranteed AAA heavy hitters and thousands of curated lists for indie darlings, looking for books that haven’t yet been turned into a movie or an amazon series proved to be difficult.

So I looked for the wisest person I know for reading advice, my wife, and asked her for recommendations. Some questions and answers later, she came up with a perfect book for me: Gideon The Ninth, the first in the Locked Tomb series of books by Tamsyn Muir. My wife got me the physical version for Christmas and, despite being a bit intimidated by its heft, I was very excited to give it a read.

And with a tagline such as “Lesbian Necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space”, how could I not.

Gideon The Ninth is a book about lesbian necromancers exploring a haunted gothic palace in space. It follows Gideon Nav, a rowdy swordmaster of the Ninth House, a place she absolutely despises and would try anything in her power to leave. But alas, she is less than a resident: a prisoner.

It is very clear from the beginning that Gideon is a master swordfighter with a terrible attitude, who would rather swallow rocks than to serve the Ninth House and its leader, Harrowhark Nonagesimus. Harrow also knows how to fight, but with bones instead of a sword, as she is the primary – and only – necromancer in the Ninth House. Gideon and Harrow have known each other their whole lives and absolutely despise the living hell out of each other. And I love them.

Their personalities clash so much that every conversation is filled with insults and snappy comments. Harrow is serious and adamant to become the most powerful necromancer. Gideon is a silly billy, brave of heart, dumb of ass. Despite how mean they can be to each other, you get glimpses of how much they care for each other too, and that is when their relationship shines the most.

After a plan to escape from the Ninth House goes awry, Gideon is offered one last choice to finally be free: Accompany Harrow to a mysterious old mansion on a different planet where the First House once existed. Harrow needs Gideon because every Necromancer needs their Cavalier, and Gideon needs Harrow to get the hell out of the Ninth House and gain her freedom.

Despite the cross-planetary setting, the Rules of Magic here are very much defined and make sense within the world. Necromancy is possible thanks to Thanergy, aka energy of death, so places where a lot of death has happened tend to make necromancers more powerful. Harrow’s necromancy powers involve the use of bones, allowing her to create skeletons (or parts of them) at will. But, as any magic user, it tends to leave her defenseless from physical attacks, and that’s when the Cavalier comes in. They protect their Necromancer from any harm with sword in hand.

Thankfully there isn’t a laser in sight. I was worried that having spaceships in this world would also lead to laser guns and other staples of these kinds of stories. But no, everything is as traditional fantasy as it gets when it comes to swordfighting and necromancy. Each of the Cavaliers and Necromancers you meet throughout the book have their own distinct fighting style, but it never leans into stereotypical sci-fi.

With the Necromancy and the traditional swordfighting, you might often forget about the sci-fi elements, which made me wonder why opt for this setting at all. Planets could’ve been islands, spaceships could’ve been, well, just ships. Personally, I don’t think it adds too much to the moment-to-moment narrative, but I’m hoping the setting is explored more in the rest of the series.

Another element of this book that really captured me was the mystery. There is a big mystery surrounding the First House and why have Gideon and Harrow been invited. The book keeps you on your toes during the first two acts as things seem a bit out of place, leading perfectly into the following acts as you see the mystery begin to unfold. Yes, I’m being vague here, but it is such a good mystery story that I don’t want to spoil a single thing.

At this point during a game review I would start talking about the gameplay and controls. And trust me, I wish I could turn this into a videogame with how great the story, the characters and the fight scenes are, but for now I’ll talk about how the book itself is narrated because it’s worth mentioning.

The book itself is narrated in Third-Person, following Gideon throughout the story. Pretty standard stuff, but what makes reading this book a delight is that the narration captures Gideon’s vibe, almost as if Gideon herself is narrating the play-by-play as she is living it. The narration will have funny quips and dark jokes that would feel out of place in any other type of narration, but here it provides another layer of personality.

And it’s literally all thanks to Gideon’s personality. Since most of my content is gaming anyway, I can compare Gideon to Dante from the Devil May Cry series: foul mouth, loves to fight, and is always ready to provide a funny comment in a moment of high stress. In addition to providing a nice layer of character to the narration itself, it gives the very dark story a funny undertone.

A good story and great setting is nothing without good characters and Gideon delivers several interesting characters throughout the book. Without going into too much detail on the story, a necromancer and a cavalier from each of the 9 houses are reunited to the First House. The roster can feel a bit inflated with over 20 characters with quite a bit of involvement in the story, but again, the narration is so good and the characters so unique that I didn’t feel like this was an issue (specially when characters have the number of their house somewhere in their name, such as “Harrow Nonagesimus” and “Abigail Pent”).

Gideon The Ninth is a joy to read, but also very, very dense. The book is long, at least for my standards, and it can be a bit heavy on the descriptions of the environments or the characters. But I overlook all of that because of how easy it is to imagine the world, the characters and the many situations Gideon and Harrow find themselves in. It’s a hard book to skim through, as every paragraph serves a purpose to the narrative.

The best example comes in fight scenes. It is amazing how Tamsyn Muir is able to describe all the action happening in a fight scene so masterfully. Battles can get as complex and convoluted as a Dragon Ball Z fight, and yet her wonderful narration aids you every step of the way. I can’t overstate how enjoyable and easy it is to follow the fights in this book, it makes you feel like you’re there witnessing the entire thing in front of your eyes.

It took me longer than I’m proud to admit finishing this book. It is dense and the sheer size can be a bit too much sometimes, but between the very detailed prose and the narration following Gideon’s story from her perspective, I enjoyed every single page.

I am conflicted if I want to see Gideon The Ninth transformed into a comic, animated series or video game. Part of me thinks the action sequences are so well written that you could perfectly translate them to a visual medium. But I have grown so accustomed to how I experienced these in my head that I don’t want any other vision to ruin that.

But hey, I got two more books to read! The next book in the series seems to be focused on Harrow, so I’m curious to see how much that affects the narration. Needless to say, I enjoyed the incredible world built by Tamsyn Muir and I cannot wait to experience more of it.

The Frog and the Gun. One, an amphibian born in water, destined to conquer the land. The other, a weapon of war, designed to turn any knife fight into something far more dangerous. Since the dawn of time, they’ve lived separate lives, that is, until a Spanish mad man decided to combine these two powerhouses into something never seen before. And with that, The Frogun was born.

Time to talk about one of my favorite games of all time: Frogun. Developed by Spanish solo-dev Molegato, this game is a level-based 3D platformer with silly vibes and tight controls. It centers on Renata, a little girl looking for her parents who have not returned from their latest expedition. She will travel across the land with her faithful Frogun to cross any obstacle and platform that comes in her path.

And that is about as much story as you’re going to get. It’s a game focused on, well, gameplay, and that is where it excels at. What makes this game so unique is that every level has two distinct objectives that bends the genre. On one hand, it’s a collect-a-thon, where you need to slowly scour every inch of the level to get all hidden collectibles. On the other hand, it asks the player to finish a level as fast as possible, comparable to a speedrun you might see in Games Done Quick. This dichotomy creates a truly unique experience that incentivizes you to try everything it has to offer, without making either objective mandatory.

Take me back to 1999

I can’t talk about this game without mentioning the outstanding retro presentation. The graphics are very similar to a late 1990s PS1 game, you know, very intentionally blocky. Every world, enemy, object and character is so unique and full of personality. It feels so realistically PS1, that I actually play it with one of the many optional “retro” filters it comes packaged with (and at 30 fps but shhh). The game’s identity is extremely silly and lighthearted, and that can be felt through the characters, dialogue, music and even the sound effects.

Frogun consists of 6 worlds, each with 6 levels and a boss fight at the end. While there isn’t a ton of variety on each world’s theme – expect your typical grass, ice and sand environments – the developer finds a way to make each world feel unique. Most worlds leverage the theme to implement fun mechanics or enemy designs, such as stalactites in ice levels or sinking lily pads in a swamp. The worlds are accompanied by incredibly composed music that I found myself constantly humming.

Frogun is a 3D platforming masterpiece. The controls are quite simple but masterfully developed to be tight, responsive, and have a perfect balance of speed and momentum. There are very few cheap deaths where you fail to land on a platform due to the perspective of the camera, but it doesn’t detract much from the experience as getting back to a checkpoints takes little time. This is a testament to both great level design, and also modern accessibility features, such as Renata’s shadow being highlighted every time you jump.

But now let’s talk about the star of the show: The Frogun itself (herself? himself? themself?? The gun talks, ok?). This little creature is a character that accompanies Renata throughout the adventure, being the voice to give you context in the world and tutorials. When pressing the action button, you can have The Frogun extend its tongue forward in the direction of the player character. This can be done to either pull objects towards Renata or to pull Renata towards an object, like a Zelda’s Hookshot. It sounds like such a simple concept but it turns the platforming from good to excellent.

Collect-a-gun

In each level you have 6 objectives: Beat the level, collect all coins, beat the level without dying, beat the level’s time trial, get the two secret Eyemeralds, and the even secret-er Obsidian Skull. The only real mandatory objective is the first one. You can ignore all the secrets, take your time to finish the level, and you can still beat Frogun in no time. But for those whose mind goes brrr whenever they see a percentage go up, Frogun is here to deliver.

Completing the level without dying is pretty self explanatory. In the latter half of the game, it is even harder to execute properly on your first run as the platforming gets more and more challenging. This usually results in having to do an additional “safe” run of the level, just to finish without falling.

Levels are intricately designed to hide secrets all around. Let’s start with coins: each level will have between 200 and 500 coins scattered throughout the level. Hardly hidden, as they are used to guide the player through the level, but collecting them all is the real challenge. There are coins of different values, differentiated by their colors, with higher ones on more hard-to-reach places. Each level also has several ceramic jars and bowls, each containing at least one coin for Renata to collect and get you closer to 100% completion.

The Obsidian Skull and Eyemeralds are a bit more difficult to get to. These are well hidden, usually requiring you to play around with the camera in certain sections to even see them. Eyemeralds are hidden in the main level, while Obsidian Skulls tend to be hidden within a platforming challenge section within the level. The hiding spots of these are really clever, and take a lot of carefully looking around.

The game does have a lot of quality-of-life design patterns that would not be there if this game was actually developed in 1999. For instance, you don’t lose the coins you’ve gathered in a level when dying, regardless of your last checkpoint. The only real consequence of dying in a level is obviously not getting the non-mandatory not-dying objective, but beyond that, it is very friendly towards players who happen to fall a lot in platformers.

The more you progress through the worlds, the bigger the levels get, and the bigger the challenge. I recall getting to areas that felt like background geometry, but were perfectly reachable with a few well placed jumps and Frogun zips. If you are a completionist and love exploration, you will adore this aspect of the game, and more specifically, seeing the end result screen of each level with your list of accomplishments.

Frogging around at the speed of sound

Let’s talk about that last objective: Time Trial.

Trying to beat a level as fast as possible is crazy fun. Since it’s impossible to collect all secrets and do the time trial in a single run, you will always need to do a secondary run. So, you spend most of the first playthrough of a level playing as slow as possible to get every item, and then you blast through as quickly as possible on your second go at it. Sections that might’ve taken you several tries can be skipped entirely with a few well placed jumps.

This is where The Frogun shines the most. If you know where to look, you can use The Frogun to zip yourself into any wall, creating some ridiculous routes that turn a 7-minute run into a 30-second speedrun. Having two mindsets for every level gives you two different versions of each level, but the level design doesn’t actually change, just what you interact with it.

For this speedrunning element of Frogun, there are a lot of Quality-of-Life design choices as well. For starters, checkpoints retain the clock time at the time the checkpoint was reached. Meaning, if you have trouble with a specific section of a level, dying a bunch of times won’t affect the time spent in a level. If you haven’t even reached the first checkpoint, the level’s timer will start at 0, as well as your death counter.

I was about halfway through the second world when I beat a level a little too fast and I was rewarded with an extra shiny new emblem. Surprise! There is a 7th objective to every level: Master Time Trial. This new emblem changed the game for me, literally. I went back and played through all the levels again to get better times, and wouldn’t move on from a level until I had achieved the best time possible. It is so additive, and it’s the closest I’ll ever be to actually speedrunning a game. It requires so much precision and perfection to get that 7th emblem and fully complete a level.

The best part about all of this is that the level design supports both playstyles. Every single platform is perfectly placed to either host secrets, or be leveraged for a speedrun. That’s what makes this game so special. It gives you excellent design for speedrunning and exploration, excelling at both at the same time.

Encore! Encore! Encore!

And it has a sequel! Frogun Encore released in 2024. It’s not worth doing a second post just on it, as Molegato himself compared this more to an expansion rather than a full game. It’s way shorter, but it adds a couple of enhancements, but one element that detracts from the experience.

The biggest addition is multiplayer. Two players can go out and explore each level together. I didn’t really try playing it like this so I can’t talk about it much, but it did bring one downside with it: losing full control of the camera. Since two players can play at the same time, the game zooms out the camera and sadly removes full camera controls. Don’t get me wrong, the level design is different here, but still outstanding; the dev knew the consequences of changing the camera and adjusted the design accordingly.

The world design is way more creative this time around, literally. The design is centered around worlds heavily inspired by specific countries, so each theme is more focused on a country’s aesthetics and culture rather than a generic sand/ice/grass environment. You get to explore not-Japan, not-Norway, not-Greece and many others in your adventure, each with its unique flavor and music. And my god the music is even better this time around, quickly becoming one of my favorite video game soundtracks of all time, beautifully composed and matching each world’s theme perfectly.

The sequel shines in its own different way, and it’s a testament to Molegato’s ability to adapt his level design. The game still offers excellent platforming, tons of secrets to find, and plenty of time challenges to overcome.

Frogun is one of my favorite 3D platformers ever created. It is a simple gameplay concept on paper, but the level design is so masterfully crafted to work around the abilities you gain with The Frogun. It tries to be both a methodical collect-a-thon and a fast-paced speedrun platformer – two extremely distinct genres – and succeeds at them both without a hitch. Without a doubt, this has been the most fun I’ve had 100%ing a game.

Whether you want to explore every single inch of this game, speedrun through it, or anything in between, you will have a ton of fun with Frogun.

Welcome to Rapid Reviews! Here you’ll find brief yet comprehensive reviews summarizing my thoughts on a game in 400 words or less.

A Short Hike is my favorite game of all time, so any game inspired, based on, or even compared to it gets a guaranteed purchase from me. I’ve always been a fan of exploration; being set free in a small sandbox and just figuring out things on your own. This is the case for Ila: A Frosty Glide, a 3D exploration platformer developed by Magic Rain Studios.

The story is quite simple from the get-go. You play as Ila, a little witch looking for her little cat, Coco, in the shivering snowy mountains. To aid her in the journey ahead, Ila has a modern-looking skateboard broom that allows her to glide through the air for a few seconds.

The art style is super cute. It’s very blocky, but not to the extent of Minecraft. It reminds me of Celeste’s art style, but in 3D. The environments are quite varied even if 80% of it is just snow, making it easy to know exactly where you are in the mountain at any given moment.

The platforming is very solid, though it takes a bit to get used to it. Stardust Charges determine how long can Ila glide through the air. The more you collect, the longer you can glide. Most of the platforming revolves around how much Stardust you have to reach a destination. The platforming is solid and curiosity is always rewarded. There were several mountain peaks that felt out of reach, but managing to reach them provided a nice reward in the form of coins or one of many outfits you can equip Ila with.

Progression is too linear for my taste. While you get several individual areas to explore, each area feels clearly segmented. Don’t get me wrong, each area provides fun platforming and plenty to explore, but they feel like individual levels rather than a unified sandbox. It’s not until the very end of the game where you get to really see how the entire world is connected. That realization is awesome, yes, but too late to really be appreciated.

Ila: A Frosty Glide is a really good experience. I think the platforming is solid, and the segmented areas are fantastically designed and fun to explore. It is a very short game and might not reach the same depth as other exploration platformers, but it is absolutely worth your time.

For as long as I can remember, playing games has been a very personal hobby. The vast majority of the games I play are single player, some of them co-op, and just a small handful online multiplayer games. While I might talk with friends about games, or share my opinions online, when it’s time to play, it’s just me, my controller and a screen.

Since moving in together with my wife, things have been very different. Sharing my love for games with her has been a great experience, as we talk about games and now play many of them together. And not just limited to co-op or multiplayer games, as a matter of fact, most of the games we play together are single-player experiences where we share the controller, or delegate certain responsibilities between the two.

And that has been our experience playing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. A game that, despite all its themes of connection and teamwork, is still very much a single-player game. But not to us. Beyond just passing the controller around, we found a fun way to play together by dividing certain parts of the gameplay. And it has become my favorite game to play as a couple.

Everything about Expedition 33 has been said already. The game has had glowing reviews, record breaking Game Awards’ nominations and wins. If you want a review, I invite you to read any of the reviews from these lovely people: Playing this Week, Voletic, Cat’s Controller Corner, Oya’s Game Hub. In other words, the game is amazing and we’ve been having a blast playing and experiencing the incredible story it has to tell.

For the uninitiated, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a turn-based RPG by French developer studio Sandfall Interactive. It is very reminiscent of late 90s, early 2000s 3D RPGs. You explore a vast overworld, and dive deeper into individual themed sections with a story objective in mind. It’s fun, it requires a lot of strategy, and, visually, is one of the best looking games in recent memory.

What makes this game stand out is how it borrows RPG elements from Paper Mario games where, beyond simply selecting an attack, you can perform well timed inputs to increase the damage of your attack. When defending, the game provides multiple options to parry or dodge enemy attacks. It’s so well designed that you could technically finish the entire game with zero damage received (but you would have to be insanely good at the game’s quick time events).

Accompanying these mechanics, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 provides a ton of customization to the way you play in the form of Pictos and Luminas. They can be equipped to members of your expedition, and provide small boosts or special effects to the way they are handled in battle. They range from your standard First Strike which lets you attack first in every battle, to Death Bomb which literally creates an explosion if your character dies in battle, damaging nearby enemies.

You can build pretty smart strategies if you play your cards right. You can equip a Lumina that burns the enemy when attacking, and follow it with an attack that provides extra damage if the enemy is burning. You can equip a Lumina that increases the attack power of your first strike, a weapon that provides a special stance that triples your attack power and a special attack that costs less AP (this game’s version of MP) if the character is in said stance. Hell, I’ve seen people online do strategies that rely entirely on a Lumina that kills your character at the beginning of every battle. The strategy in this game starts way before encountering an enemy, and knowing what Pictos and Luminas you have at your disposal is paramount to success.

There is so much more to this game – upgrading weapons, spending attribute points to increase character stats, spending points you gain by leveling up to unlock abilities – that I could go on for hours and hours about how intricate this game can get with its personalization and strategy. Every single element you customize is necessary to succeed in battle.

My wife and I play this game like we’re drift compatible for a mech in Pacific Rim. We play this game together and pass the controller around depending on the role we organically landed while playing through the first act. I am in charge of battling and exploration, she is in charge of character management. She prepares strategies, weapons, Pictos, Luminas and special abilities. We discuss their effectiveness depending on the area we’re in, and we set forth to battle.

What makes this dynamic interesting is how we both work together as a unit. I have to know the strategies she has set up for each character, and she has to monitor the battles to understand enemy patterns, weaknesses and strengths to adjust the strategy accordingly. Regardless of who has the controller, we’re both glued to the screen, paying full attention to what the other one is doing.

This dynamic feels reminiscent of a tabletop co-op board game. Each has a different role, but the actions taken affect us both, so we plan together, explore together and strategize together, regardless of who’s holding the controller.

There is a special something about sharing a hobby with someone you love. Gaming has always been a very intimate hobby of mine, but sharing games of this nature with her has made every game feel extra special. This is the most fun I’ve had with a game in quite a long time, and it’s all thanks to the fact that it has not been a single-player experience.

And that’s how we play Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Every session is a lot of fun, as we try to piece together the story and provide our own theories of what is going to happen next. I know we could each have a separate file and succeed at this game separately, but playing it together makes it way more interesting. Instead of mindlessly watching TV, we do this. We strategize, explore and make our way through the story. Together <3

20 years ago, Nintendo made the historic decision to change the world by creating the most iconic character in gaming history: The Mii.

Believe it or not, this year marks the 20th anniversary of the Nintendo Wii — a statement that will make you feel old no matter your age — and with it, the 20th anniversary of Miis. These lovely little avatars would become the central interface between you — yes, you! — and Nintendo games for many years. Whether it was playing as yourself in Super Smash Bros., or having your face be the safe file icon in Super Mario Galaxy, Miis were all over the place.

Character creators of this nature had been around for years, but never like this. Miis lived at the Operating System level, giving games full access to all those little creatures in many creative ways. Whether you liked them or not, Miis became another addition in Nintendo’s enormous roster of iconic characters.

A 20th anniversary feels like the perfect opportunity to reminisce about the good times, the bad times, and, most importantly, the weird times in the history of the Mii.

THE RiiSE

It all started with the release of the Nintendo Wii in the Fall of 2006. In an effort to make the console’s UI friendlier to newcomers, Nintendo decided to develop a TV-like experience by having the controller look like a TV remote and have the installed apps be called “channels”. Its OS featured a number of channels for weather, news, and many others that no one really used… with one exception: the Mii Channel. It allowed you to create a personalized avatar of pretty much anyone you wanted. Even if you didn’t have any games, you could at least spend time trying to create a caricature version of your entire family and friends.

Back then, game consoles actually came pre-packaged with games, and what a game Nintendo decided to accompany the Wii on its release. Wii Sports didn’t have your typical Mario or Link; in this game, you — yes, you! — were the star of the show. Miis weren’t optional either, you had to either use one of the Guest Miis — like a boring person — or insert yourself into the game.

This was supported by how easy it was to create a Mii in the first place. Limited options for face parts would have you creating an avatar in literal Miinutes. There was no better feeling than inviting your friends over, having them create a Mii version of themselves in your console, and then beat the living hell out of each other in Wii Sports Boxing. Those were the times.

And it only got better from there. Miis made an appearance in a total of 81 Wii titles. Most of them were limited to just your save file portrait, but a good chunk actually inserted your Mii into the world. Mario Kart Wii, for example, would let you choose your Mii as a playable character and even have you choose from different vehicles based on your weight class. Beyond Mario Kart, Miis appeared as a playable character in pretty much every non-core Mario game. You — yes, you! — could be invited to a Mario Party, or try to swing for the fences in Mario Super Sluggers.

Miis were not limited to playable characters, as many games leveraged Miis for NPCs as well. Wii Sports Resort and Wii Fit would give Miis a place to live in the form of Wuhu island. Here, you could see all the Miis from your Mii Channel have normal lives and interact with each other in the background of all the action, making the world feel alive with your Miis. This island would become a core part of the Mii lore, making several appearances throughout the Nintendo universe, even appearing in Super Smash Bros.

Beyond first-party, several third party games jumped into the Mii hype. One of them was Guitar Hero: World Tour in a Wii-exclusive mode called Mii Freestyle, where you would, uh, just play the guitar to a basic beat with no music (it wasn’t the most revolutionary implementation, but hey, it was there). Another really random one was Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 and 2009 where you could play as anatomically correct human football players rocking a Mii face. And of course, one of my favorite implementations was Sonic Colors, as it allowed you — yes, you! — to run along with Sonic in the multiplayer mode.

Eventually the Nintendo 3DS came out in the Winter of 2011, and that’s when Mii interest (Miinterest) was at an all-time high. Miis became more prominent in first-party titles fully based on them, and one of the best examples of this implementation was the introduction of Street-Pass. This funky little game came pre-packaged with all 3DS consoles. While walking around with your 3DS in sleep mode, you could sync with other 3DS consoles that you passed by in the street. Whenever this happened, your 3DS’s light would flash green, indicating that another nerd was nearby. Upon opening the actual software, you would be greeted by a long line of Miis of people you synced with, each of them offering collectibles for you to trade.

The 3DS era was really good to Miis, with 27 total appearances. But none of them compared to the magic of Tomodachi Life. Released in 2013, this game promised to be all about Miis. It allowed you to populate an island with your friends and family, and just go through some silly shenanigans. Each Mii would have their own room, personality, weird robotic voice, likes and dislikes. While you, as the player, had control to an extent, most of it was just seeing your friends and family interact with one another through this setting. Hell, it doesn’t even have to be people you know; in the deep trenches of the pandemic, I started an island filled with Fire Emblem: Three Houses Mii characters.

Tomodachi Life was one of my favorite games from the 3DS era. It was designed like a mobile app, something you check once or twice a day to see how your Miis are doing. The more you play, the more you would encounter situations that provide what could only be described as a sensible chuckle. The island would grow the more you played; Miis could even get married, move in together and have kids that would eventually be part of your island as well. It got repetitive if played for long periods of time, but its silly presentation more than made up for it.

I could literally talk about Tomodachi Life for days, but I’d like to also mention its sort of sequel: Miitopia. Instead of a silly life sim, this was a silly adventure RPG. Now, I use the term RPG lightly here because it focused more on providing a good chuckle than a decent battle system. It lets you choose every single character in the story, and I mean every single one, up to the most irrelevant NPC. The story might be the same for everyone who played it, but it simply hits differently when Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is also a powerful wizard in your copy of the game.

The Wii U came around a bit after in 2013 and, while Miinterest was lukewarm by then, 18 games managed to feature Miis — though, lukewarm is the only way to describe the entire Wii U era. Miis were still a central part of the Nintendo ecosystem, as the main menu of the console would feature your Mii, your friends Miis, and a bunch of random ones from across Miiverse (more of that in a sec).

The Wii U and 3DS did bring one of the best uses for Miis: Super Smash Bros for WiiU/3DS. It allowed you — yes, you! (are you bored of this yet?) — to go toe-to-toe with several Nintendo and third-party characters. To avoid simply giving a Mii a big knife and calling it a day, they created three separate characters that could have your face: Gunner, Fighter and Swordfighter. Alongside it, a decent amount of customization options and hats for your Mii to wear. And it’s impossible for me to talk about this without acknowledging the announcement trailer featuring Reggie and the great, late Satoru Iwata.

Alongside the Wii U’s launch, Nintendo released its own Mii-themed social media: Miiverse. Though not much of it was Mii-related beyond the name and your user icon, Miiverse was a weird experimental social media platform that existed entirely within your Wii U (and eventually the 3DS). You could take screenshots of your game and share them with your friends, or join one of many communities based on Nintendo franchises. As it often happens with weird, experimental things, it also became the birthplace of several Memes (or rather, Miimes).

Miiverse wasn’t the only weird experimental Mii-themed social media Nintendo tried. Yup, you probably forgot about it but I never will forget the masterpiece that was Miitomo. Launched in 2016, this weird phone app was Tomodachi Life, social media elements and gacha machines frankensteined together to create one of the most Nintendo things ever created.

Similar to Tomodachi Life, you would have your player avatar exist in a room for you to decorate, and clothes you could buy. It had tons of crossover events with the games that were hot at the moment, like Zelda or Splatoon, and you would literally play in gacha machines to obtain items. You could answer prompt questions, visit friends, share pictures of your Mii and leave comments. Everything, and I mean everything, you wrote would be read out by that charming robotic Mii voice.

I could honestly talk about Miitomo for days (leave a comment if you’re Miinterested in a standalone Miitomo post); it was weird, it was random, but goddang, it was charming. But Miitomo came out at the worst possible time, as things at Nintendo began to shift rapidly.

THE FALL

Every piece of Mii started to die in quick succession.

It all started with the release of the Nintendo Switch in March 2017. The famous Mii Channel that had been a core part of 3 Nintendo Consoles for over 10 years, was relegated to an option inside the settings menu, with no way to migrate your Miis from Wii U or 3DS. This change might’ve been insignificant, but it was a sign of Miinterest slowly dying. This small decision would only set the tone for the horrors that would come next.

As the great Wii U flopped into obscurity, Nintendo quickly tried to erase everything related to its failure. They pulled the plug on Miiverse in November of 2017, merely 8 months after the release of the Switch. The entirety of Miiverse —the memes, the jokes, the drawings of Dr. Mario doing urology exams — lost forever1. Even if Miiverse didn’t have that much to do with Miis, the branding was part of it, and now it was dead.

At the time of this writing, only a handful of games on the Switch were using Miis, mostly first-party titles, but more specifically, ports of Wii U games. Sure, you can still use Miis on Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, but the Mii situation in Mario Kart World is depressing. Absent are the Miis from most Mario Party and Sports games, where they once thrived. They will make an appearance here and there, 18 to be exact, but nothing like the golden era.

Shortly thereafter in the spring of 2018, the other shoe dropped: Miitomo was shut down after only 2 years in existence. At this time, Nintendo had purged everything with the word “Mii” in it and the Miiverse (not the social media but the universe where Miis exist) was slowly crumbling and all seemed to be lost.

The final nail in the coffin arrived in the form of Nintendo Switch Sports, successor to the Original Wii Sports, released in 2022. Miis took a backseat for “Sportsmates”, the new avatars that were the center of attention for the entirety of this game’s marketing. Sure, you could still play as Miis, but they felt like bonus characters rather than the protagonist.

And that was it. There was no more Miinterest from Nintendo to continue using these silly little avatars. Miis were only a relic of the past, from an era with experimental motion controls, dual screens and social media. That’s not what the new Nintendo is all about. They have edge now, Miis never did.

All hope was lost… till one day, one curious remake of a 3DS game made its way to the Nintendo Switch…

THE RENAiiSSANCE?

In yet another unexpected Nintendo move, a Miitomia remake came out for Switch, 6 years after the original release on 3DS. Mii fans rejoiced, and all eyes were on this Nintendo remake many people didn’t even know about. How can Nintendo try so hard to bury Miis only to bring them back by remaking one of the best games of all time? Why would Nintendo do this? For who?

For mii specifically.

With the release of Miitopia came an enhanced Mii creation suite like no other Mii maker before. On top of new parts and hair color options, you could now add additional 2D objects to your Mii’s face. This new feature, paired with a free demo of the game, made this game blow up in popularity, as people shared their amazing creative Miis with the world. Miinterest was back, with Miitopia for Switch selling better than the original on 3DS

This must’ve been just an experiment, just Nintendo going for a quick buck with a remake of a 3DS game. Surely they were not testing the waters if there is still Miinterest in the world for new, Mii-centric games… right?

In March of 2025 Nintendo announced a brand new Tomodachi Life game, scheduled to release in 2026.

Over the last 20 years, Miis have gone through a fair share of ups and downs. What we can’t deny is that they are as important to Nintendo’s history as Mario, Link and Samus. For most of the Wii era, Miis, nay, you — yes, you! — were the face of Nintendo. But the failure of the Wii U forced them to change perspective, and with it, a Mii-less world was born. At least temporarily.

It’s too early to know if we’re actually wiitnessing the renaissance of Miis, but Nintendo seems to be taking steps into that direction. With the new creation tools, and a brand-new Tomodachi Life game coming out later this year, Nintendo has re-injected life into our favorite little creatures. If sales are good and fans demonstrate that there is still Miinterest for more of these games, a new era for Miis might be born.

Do you remember Miis as fondly as I do? Have you played Tomodachi Life or Miitopia? Leave a comment below with your favorite Mii experiences!

Open world games are a tricky genre to execute successfully. They’re all about balance, allowing freedom to explore, but some guardrails to guide the player as well. They shine their brightest when the world is actually designed with the player in mind, moving level geometry to give the player direction without making the environment feel like a hallway. I can count with one hand Open World games where every inch of the world feels purposely designed with both direction and freedom in mind. Caravan SandWitch does it so well it might already be a contender for my favorite game this year.

Developed by Plane Toast, Caravan SandWitch is (as you might’ve guessed) an Open World game focused on exploration, scavenging and driving around on your sexy caravan through the desert. The story revolves around Sauge coming back to her home planet Cigalo after receiving a distress signal from her sister who went missing years ago. Upon meeting the residents of her home planet, she learns that someone has been installing signal blockers around the area, and it’s her job to destroy them and return comms to the people of Cigalo, hoping that gets her closer to finding her sister.

The World of Caravan SandWitch

The world building is fantastic. It explores the rural areas of a futuristic sci-fi world, and how people get by without easy access to food, water and money. The story explores the nuances of having big corporations in rural areas of a planet; the benefits of providing jobs for residents vs the damage they cause to the planet, but ultimately it’s very clear that the message is “capitalism bad”.

I love the industrial-desert setting this game takes place in. I’m normally not a fan of desert open worlds, as designers usually opt for making them feel empty and vast for the vibes, which ends up feeling boring (I heard some people talking about a Prime example). Not Caravan SandWitch – despite most of the world being just sand, it gives you multiple biomes to drive through, and several abandoned industrial buildings to explore.

The environment feels like walking through a history museum of an unknown world. The planet used to be leveraged for some sort of mining operation by The Consortium, your typical evil mega-corporation. They built several factories around Cigalo until the mysterious TAARASK incident occurred, so most of the exploration and scavenging happens within these abandoned facilities. It is so cool to learn the primary purpose of these buildings as you explore them, as they all make sense within the context of the world.

For a game of this nature, I was caught off guard by how many NPCs there are and their importance to the story. By doing side missions, you can explore several character’s backgrounds; how they ended up in Cigalo and what they do to survive. The designers made sure to have a very diverse cast from different backgrounds, personalities, races, and orientations, and I appreciate that very much. If you’re planning on playing this game, don’t sleep on the side content it offers, it’s truly one of the best aspects of this game.

I had no expectations for the story of this game, and I was blown away by how deep it is. I was already happy with the incredible world the developers created, but the story that takes place here is worth experiencing. I won’t get into spoilers, but I was genuinely shocked by some revelations in the main story missions.

Kudos to Caravan SandWitch for successfully telling a story in an open world game without constricting the exploration. Open world games of this nature normally deviate from telling a linear storyline because it can limit your freedom, but this game does an incredible job at handling that experience by separating the story into chapters and giving you story missions at an approachable pace.

Exploration is Everything

My favorite aspect of Caravan SandWitch is the balanced level of freedom it provides. The world has an accessible size – you can drive from one end to the other in just a few minutes – and provides you with a ton of places to visit. The entire world is open from the get-go and you can enter most abandoned buildings, but to keep a manageable pace, certain sections within these spaces are locked behind caravan upgrades. It encourages exploration while giving you reasons to come back to areas you’ve visited before. It was a ton of fun for me to make mental notes of places I wanted to revisit as soon as the new upgrade was available.

Caravan upgrades are tied to the story, but you still need to collect necessary parts to build them. You collect 4 different types of components (more of that in a second), and collecting all the requirements for a new part advances the story forward and opens up more sections for you to explore. It’s a gameplay loop that strikes a good balance between freedom, exploration, and continuing the narrative without being boring.

The Caravan is an extension of your character. It controls really well and has a lot of heft to it. You can tell the devs spend a lot of time refining the physics of your trusty caravan, as every hill or bump in the terrain makes the vehicle’s suspension bounce and adjust appropriately. Even the caravan’s speed feels intentionally fine-tuned where it moves at the perfect speed for navigating this world.

And this is how you spend most of your time playing: driving your Caravan across the world, and then going on foot to explore the old ruins looking for components. I was worried that the constant entering and exiting of the caravan would be tedious, but even that felt intentionally designed, since the devs opted to not have an animation for entering and exiting the caravan, making everything faster. Even when being far away from your caravan, the press of a single button takes you to it immediately.

Exploration is everything. Most of what you collect are electronic components belonging to broken pieces of machinery, each with different rarities depending on how well hidden they are: Common, Uncommon, Rare, and Exceptional. Each chapter poses a component quota you have to meet to obtain the caravan upgrade. If you naturally like exploring every single bit of a world, you will have no trouble obtaining the necessary components to continue with the story.

Inside the abandoned buildings, you will find several puzzles to solve. These are so organically designed into the environment that they don’t feel like a video game puzzle at all. Most puzzles revolve around moving energy around a building to open doors, activate bridges or set up ladders to continue exploring. I wouldn’t call them difficult by any means, but they are still very fun to solve. Sometimes the solution to a puzzle requires a Caravan upgrade, but the game still lets you go as far as you can, while collecting components in the process, so you never feel like every place is a dead end.

Something I love about this game’s exploration is that curiosity is always rewarded by rare components, hidden collectibles, or even additional world building. You can find several points of interest that unlock additional optional commentary for Sauge that provide more information on the world, her childhood or even the machinery. With no fall damage, no health, and no combat, it’s all about you driving through the dunes, scavenging for new components, and upgrading your caravan.

Caravan SandWitch is an extremely well designed experience through and through. The world is vast, yet you never feel lost. The map is very reliable, but it’s not a necessity. It gives you enough side content to enjoy, characters to meet, and a bunch of world building. But its best quality is the perfectly balanced open world, guiding the player while encouraging self-exploration. It achieves all of that and more from a gameplay perspective, and still manages to tell a compelling story.

I could sit here and nitpick about the Nintendo Switch port being poorly optimized, but it would be just that, nitpicking. The game is so great that a few dropped frames and blurry textures could never hamper my experience of what is otherwise a masterpiece.

This game has climbed to be one of my favorite video games of all time. If I could imagine one game into existence with everything I love about video games, it would look exactly like Caravan SandWitch.

A game with lost potential frustrates me more than a bad game. You know, a game that has many of the elements required for success, only to fumble in its execution. This often happens when game design is not prioritized; regardless of the story and art direction, a game has to be fundamentally fun to play, and when it isn’t, it leads to cases such as this one.

But let’s start from the beginning.

Frogsong is a cozy, top-down 2D indie game by developer Frogteam Games where you play a small frog named Chorus. They leave their hometown to become part of the Defense Guild in a neighboring town… the only problem is that Chorus is too itty bitty compared to the other frogs from the guild.

The concept of the story is pretty straightforward, but the writing takes it to some interesting places. It centers around Chorus trying to prove themselves to the other frogs in the guild despite their size. The writing is pretty lighthearted overall, but that doesn’t stop it from evoking real emotion in serious moments, even with limited character portraits and, you know, being silly looking frogs. It plants the seeds for a darker, deeper storyline, and actually delivers a very satisfying ending.

One of my favorite things is the artistic direction. I love its visual identity, focusing on hand-drawn characters and environments. Every character stands out in their own unique way, no matter the size. From dark forests to industrial buildings, the environments are varied, and the utilization of color is flawless. And the music accompanying the game helps make these environments and some story elements shine even more. I absolutely love the art style; it’s meant to focus on simplicity, and yet, it manages to have more personality than a AAA over-budgeted video game.

For such a small game, it has fantastic accessibility options. Beyond standard settings for audio and text, Frogsong also provides multiple font options (including open dyslexic!). However, my favorite accessibility option is a tiny bug that joins Chorus at the beginning of the adventure that attacks enemies and finds secrets in the world. This is a novel way to adjust the difficulty organically without even pausing your game, as you can decide when and where to activate it. You are not punished for using it – you can have it On through the entire game if you want – and it allows you to enjoy the game when things get tough.

My one gripe with Frogsong is that, from a pure gameplay perspective, it is extremely bland. Every chapter starts and ends with an interesting narrative bit, but everything in-between consists mostly of empty top-down 2D sections. Sometimes you’ll find a secret or a very basic puzzle, but you could easily get rid of 50% of the map and not much would change.

The game provides no incentive to kill enemies, making the map feel even emptier. Chorus has a little sword, a dodge button, and obtains bombs early in the game… and that is literally it. With limited options for attacks, and the fact that enemies only drop money that is rarely required, you are free to skip 99% of battles.

I would’ve loved to see simple dungeons, basic crafting or even strong/weak attacks to provide variety in combat. But when none of that is possible, exploring other genres to tell the same story would’ve been better received. Visual novels and walking simulators exist for players to experience a story through video games with minimal engagement, and still be fun.

Frogsong manages to successfully tell a good story in the wrong medium. From an artistic standpoint, it has gorgeous visuals and the writing has the capacity to make the player relate and feel empathy for the characters. And that’s the only incentive to keep playing, as the rest of the game is simply not fun to play.

I’m excited for Frogteam’s next game, as I know they have the ability to deliver great characters, a fantastic hand-drawn art style and an engaging narrative, and it’s already looking better designed from a gameplay perspective.

Adventure games can be cozy and Dragon Quest XI is one of them. While Cozy Gaming has become a genre of its own, typically centered on a world with little guidance, combat or objectives, a game doesn’t have to be detached from these elements to be considered cozy. Dragon Quest XI is the perfect example; it might have you venture into a world of monsters and evil, but it has several elements that, combined, turn this into a comforting experience that makes it feel like home. Inspired by Cat’s Finding Comfort in Non-Cozy Games (a great series, you should definitely check Cat’s work), I wanted to dedicate this article to a game I have not finished, nor I will finish any time soon, but has already climbed to be one of my favorite games.

From the very start, Dragon Quest XI gets your attention. It greets you with an outstanding pre-rendered cinematic that introduces the world, the characters, and the expected shenanigans in this adventure. Accompanying it, the most beautiful orchestral rendition of the Dragon Quest theme; its sense of joy and nostalgia literally brought me to tears the first time I listened to it. These two elements help set the tone before even pressing a single button.

Part of what makes this game so familiar is that they never stray too far from a classic RPG. The game’s art direction, battle system and structure follows that of an RPG from 35 years ago. The iconic art style from the late, great Akira Troiyama’s is infused in the DNA of this series, and as someone who grew up watching a ton of Dragon Ball, playing Dragon Quest XI feels right at home.

They never strive to revolutionize the RPG experience, and that’s ok. The Combat system aims for simplicity and familiarity over complex new systems. It’s approachable for someone who doesn’t like to strategize too much, but never too easy that you can mindlessly play it. Grinding is almost never necessary, as just fighting a few monsters between key areas of the game will get you to the right level. It strikes a perfect level of difficulty that never gets frustrating nor boring.

The adventure is as familiar as it gets, as it literally follows The Hero’s Journey. Familiar, yes, but never boring, due to the excellent writing and the cast of colorful characters that follow our unnamed, mute protagonist throughout this adventure. The narrative explores your allies’ motivations for adventuring with you and quite a bit of their backstory throughout the 80+ hour game. Beyond interacting with the protagonist, the party constantly chats with each other as well, making the adventuring party feel like a family too. The overall story might be simple, but it’s still a joy to play through, as it takes the adventuring party through several mini arcs that are easily digestible.

I don’t play Dragon Quest XI like other games; it’s a comfort game I gravitate towards after a long day at work or when I’m too tired to do anything else. I might stop playing for months, and then be presented with a summary of the story so far when I boot it up again, kind of like a TV series. And that’s exactly how I play Dragon Quest XI, for a few hours, every couple of weeks, making every play session feel like an anime episode.

Cozy games are designed for you to feel at home, and typically center around a house, farm or town for you to look after. Despite being an 80+ hour adventure RPG, Dragon Quest XI’s ability to make you feel comfort through familiarity, approachability and (a sprinkle of) nostalgia makes it the perfect cozy game for me.

Have you had a comforting experience with a big adventure game as well? be sure to leave a comment below!

The hedgehog’s out of the bag: I’m a huge Sonic fan. It might not be obvious since I’ve only done like one Sonic review in Substack, but I’ve been a Sonic fan for at least 25 years. While I might not buy and play every single Sonic game, I’m willing to at least try them… even at their worst. This includes several mobile games, like our subject here today: Sonic Rumble.

Announced over a year ago, this promised an online multiplayer experience where you and your selected character go toe-to-toe with other 32 players on several fun challenges to be crowned the best… or in simpler terms: it’s Fall Guys but with a Sonic skin slapped on it.

Fall Guys is a fun game, and having all the Sonic elements should make it a fun game by default, right…. right?

Furry Fall Guys

Right! I’ll start on a positive note by saying that yes, Sonic Rumble is a really fun game. It’s simple, easy to learn, and can be played in quick 5-10 minute rounds. The game consists of matches made up of 3 rounds. 32 players enter, and each round 8 players get eliminated. Your goal is to collect rings in every round, and the total number of rings is calculated at the end to pick a winner. The closer you are to that number 1 spot, the more bonuses and multipliers you’ll get on your Ring Count – the game’s main currency to no one’s surprise.

There are 5 different challenges chosen at random for every round: Race rounds put you in a relatively faithful Sonic stage against other players; Survival rounds usually consist of dodging an enemy or lasers to try and stay on a platform as long as possible; Hunt rounds involve collecting a certain type of object scattered across an arena; Bosses consist of everyone going co-op to defeat a boss, though your involvement to that end goal is ranked; and finally, Ring Battles, which simply consist of collecting more rings than your opponents in a closed arena.

There’s nothing fresh about this game, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It borrows a lot from Fall Guys, a formula that has been proven to work. It borrows a lot from Sonic’s past as well, making the game feel like a trip down memory lane. Most Sonic games are represented in one way or another; even fans of Sonic ‘06 have something to look forward to. What the game lacks in variety for each round, it makes up for in the number of different possible stages you get.

It’s a gameplay loop that really works and it’s a ton of fun. It’s a type of addictive gameplay that has you going “one more round” to try and get the Number 1 spot. The simplicity, the price (it’s free!), the amount of content, and how easy it is to pick up and play makes this a pretty solid, fun game to have on your phone.

But I don’t think you should play it. I’ve spent this entire review talking about the game, but it’s everything outside each match that makes this game incredibly jarring and depressing to play. This game feels purposely built like a Las Vegas Casino.

Gamepay

Every single corner of the main menu screen is filled to the brim with so much noise. There are daily challenges, monthly challenges, crossover challenges, crew score missions, daily free prizes, stickers, emotes, skins, companions and so many other things that don’t matter. It has this annoying habit of giving you pop up screens that remind me of 2005 internet. Just trying to navigate through the interface feels like a flashy, hostile environment.

Sonic Rumble has SIX different currencies and one of them is actual, literal money that you have to use to pay for specific items. The game provides options for getting these currencies without paying, but they provide them in droplets compared to when you give in the big bucks. One of the currencies is Fragments used to unlock character skins that are scarcely given to you via daily missions or a lot of luck on your daily free item. How many do you need? up to 600 for a single skin.

Giving limitations to users playing for free is a common monetization strategy in free-to-play games, these games cost money to make and maintain. My main gripe is how aggressive everything is, overcomplicating the game on purpose to get kids to spend their allowances simply because this ultra rare shadow skin is only available for the next 10 minutes.

I say kids, but honestly? I also don’t have any idea what’s happening half of the time. I’ll be beating challenges I didn’t know I was enrolled in, or getting flashy awards for doing nothing at all. I feel like an overstimulated old man lost at the mall during christmas.

It breaks my heart that Sonic Rumble is such a good game hidden within a Las Vegas casino. There is so much love and care put into the level design, art direction and music; for a game that came out less than a month ago, I’m surprised by the amount of content it has. But there is so much evil on their monetization practices that are impossible to overlook and hinder my enjoyment of a really fun game.

I purposely didn’t mention at the start of the review, but the “lore” of this game is that Dr. Eggman is playing with figures of Sonic & Friends. And yeah, it feels like a game designed by the evil Doctor trying to get kids to spend all their money by pressuring them with limited time items, flashy screens and shiny skins.

As a reminder, here's the Bingo card we're working with. Let's freaking go.

A Game Critics Love but I hate:
Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk has been on a roller-coaster of public perception. Overhyped during its marketing. Mocked by its unfinished state on release day. Got a positive comeback with its Idris Elba DLC and multiple patches, and it seems right now the overall perception of this game is pretty positive.

Maybe hate is a strong word, but after hyping myself up this year to finally play it, I am feeling mostly disappointed in Cyberpunk 2077.

The game feels hostile. The city is very disorienting, making it incredibly difficult to move around. This is only emphasized by its first-person camera, to the point I end up watching the map more than my surroundings. In an effort to make the game very realistic it has a lot of verticality that makes navigation inside buildings a pain in the butt. Outside traversal, the game is not too terrible, but being an open world game means that this is most of what you’re supposed to be doing.

I haven’t rolled credits on Cyberpunk 2077 yet so I don’t know if it’ll surprise me, but at the time of this writing, I still feel a sense of dread before my next play session.

Unconventional Indie Game:
Arranger

To me, an unconventional game is something that really looks to create a new genre or twist an existing genre enough to make it truly unique, and I have to award this to Arranger.

The core concept of Arranger isn’t anything mind-blowing, but the way that concept was implemented is. At a base level, all you do is re-arrange objects in a grid around the world following the level design constraints, a concept that has existed for decades. But the twist here is that there are no “levels” but rather an entire world and a story fully tied to this mechanic. The idea of taking a level-based puzzle and turn it into a whole 3-4 hour adventure is genius.

A <$10 indie game:
Lunistice

Cheap doesn’t mean bad! And Lunistice is a perfect example.

In my review, which you can find on top, I called Lunistice a very solid adventure. The structure is very reminiscent of Sonic games, but a bit on the slower pace, and with some tight platforming. It doesn’t do anything remarkable or innovative, but it’s just a really good, solid platformer that it’s worth your time and money.

Replay a Game:
Watch Dogs

It's very rare for me to replay a game, but playing Cyberpunk 2077 made me nostalgic for another open world hacking stealth/action game: The original Watch Dogs.

I played Watch Dogs on release date and it quickly climbed to be one of my favorite games of all time. Ten years later, I'm happy to report that that's still the case. The stealth gameplay is very good, and when things get hectic you can always opt for a John Wick style of gunplay. The driving was a contentious topic at the time, but it feels like pure perfection playing it right after Cyberpunk.

Even though I believe the direct sequel to be the best one in the trilogy, there is a special place in my heart for the original Watch Dogs.

A Mobile Game
A Little to the Left

Though not originally a mobile game, a port was released this year and it was fantastic.

A Little to the Left is a puzzle game where your main objective is to organize household items in a satisfying way. One common example is organizing a row of books; it can be done by size, by color, by thickness, or sometimes uncovering a hidden design within the book spines. It’s a simple concept, but the puzzles here are quite varied and it will keep you entertained for a long time.

The game was designed with mouse controls in mind, but the feedback you get from a touch screen cannot be beat. Slowly moving each object into place feels much better with the tactile feeling a phone provides. I would choose this over any other version.

A Rhythm game:
Melatonin

I put this category here in hopes of a new Rhythm Heaven game (that actually got announced!), but I've had my eye on Melatonin for some time, and this year was the perfect opportunity to play it.

Inspired by the aforementioned Rhythm Heaven, Melatonin is a chill rhythm game where you press buttons at the beat of an excellent soundtrack. The visuals of this game are fantastic, representing the music and the theme of each level perfectly.

Big RPG:
Dragon Quest XI

Any RPG over 80 hours is considered big for me, and Dragon Quest XI fits that sweet spot perfectly.

I started DQ11 at the start of the year and haven’t beaten it yet, and I don’t plan to finish it anytime soon. It has sort of become my comfort game, when I’m tired of all the action and the shooting and the platforming, something that is simple, lighthearted and enjoyable.

I am planning on writing more about this game in the coming months, but just know that this game has sparked so much joy in me like no other game has been able.

Licensed IP Game:
Star Wars Outlaws

It's becoming more common to find video games from IPs that originate outside the industry, like Spider-man on PS4 or that Indiana Jones game from last year. Star Wars has been a good source of this type of games with varying levels of success. This latest installment from Ubisoft promises that open world experience they are known for, with that Star Wars aesthetic we all love.

This game is really, really good. It’s a refreshing take on the franchise that moves away from the force and the lightsabers, and focuses on more down-to-Tatooine characters and stories. You follow Kay Vess, a scoundrel who happens to be incredibly good at sneaking around, as she gets caught up in a heist to steal from the most powerful man in the galaxy.

The game is open world and (somewhat) open space. It will have you traveling between set areas from different planets, handling your relationships with 4 different factions. It’s not No Mans Sky levels of openness, but it does have seamless transitions between planets which always feels so cool to witness.

Even with my high expectations, Star Wars Outlaws delivered. Fun characters, great stealth, and a killer soundtrack that mimics the source material perfectly.

And those were the games! At least most of them. Life was busy this year (good busy — planning a wedding and getting married busy <3) so I didn't play as many games as other years, but the positive experiences were really positive.

Let's see that Bingo card one more time:

My Substack went places I didn't really like this year. In an effort to have a consistent release schedule, I ended up mostly doing reviews that were easier to write and started a bunch of “series” that didn't go anywhere. I have a ton of ideas for posts that have just stayed as ideas and I want to write them into reality. My goal for next year is to stop doing a formal release schedule and simply post things when they're ready. Let’s see how that goes!

If you enjoyed this silly Bingo idea, leave a like and a comment! And feel free to use my Bingo template or make your own!

But this year I wanted to try something different. To keep things fresh, I decided to list a number of gaming achievements, categories and genres, placing them into a 5x5 grid with an open space in the middle… Hell yeah, brother, it’s BINGO Time!

I created a Bingo card for myself at the beginning of the year and then hid it in my notes app until it was time to dust it off for my end of year review. I’ll talk about each game I played this year based on the condition I fulfilled to stamp it on my Bingo card. I haven’t set any specific rules for myself, but I'm avoiding having one game fulfill multiple categories.

Without further ado, it’s Bingo time.

A retro game:
Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright

It doesn’t feel right to call the first Ace Attorney game a “retro game”, yet it does feel like a constant in the gaming industry, a franchise that simply doesn’t die despite long hiatuses and poor representation from Capcom.

It also feels wrong to call it retro because it has aged really well. As mentioned in my review earlier this year, the concept of a visual novel about lawyers feels ridiculous, yet it has passed the test of time, time and time again. The writing never fails to keep you hooked on the narrative, and the colorful characters will have you laughing out loud during every, er, murder trial.

A franchise I’ve never played before:
Alan Wake

The only reason I dabbled into the Alan Wake franchise is because the sequel intrigues me to death. Every time I saw Alan Wake 2 gameplay I stopped looking, not because I was scared (which I was), but because I wanted to play the game as fresh as possible. I don't play horror games, but this one felt right up my alley.

Though, in the spirit of doing things in order I wanted to play the first entry and get a good feel of the story and the vibe.

And I almost put this in my “game critics love but I hate” category.

Don’t get me wrong, Alan Wake 1 is a good game, but it’s 5 hours too long. You’re pretty much on the same dark forest environment throughout the entire game which gets boring pretty quickly. The game leans more on the shooting than in the horror, and by the time you finish the second episode/chapter, you’ve pretty much seen everything.

The story does a lot of heavy lifting to keep you engaged, but the burden of repetition burned me out 4 hours in. I might keep playing in smaller bursts or watch the rest of the game’s cutscenes on youtube, because I'm dying to try that sequel.

3D Platformer:
Penny’s Big Breakaway

From the creators of Sonic Mania, this 3D platformer had everything to be the star of the show, but it left a sour taste in my mouth.

Penny’s moveset is one of the best I’ve had the pleasure of playing. Most of her moves are tied to her faithful yo-yo, allowing Penny to do a wide array of fun moves. From using it as a unicycle, to holding it in place to act like a swing, the moving options on this game are creative and run as smooth as butter.

And it’s all wasted talent in this poorly designed world. Levels are unpolished, often glitchy, and disorienting despite being mostly linear. The perspective is wonky as well, due to the lack of full camera controls. This doesn’t apply to all levels; some of them are fantastic and I didn’t mind replaying those to challenge myself to get a better score, but that only accounts for a small percentage of the levels.

Played a Game Entirely in Handheld:
Neva

I kinda cheated with this category as handheld is my primary way to play games nowadays, either on my Switch or streaming Xbox games through my phone. So, I’ll take the opportunity to talk about a game that deserves to be talked about: Neva.

From the creators of Gris, Neva is a 2D action-platformer, even though it’s not primarily about the action or the platforming. You follow this nameless protagonist and its little fox-reindeer creature friend named Neva, as they both try to end the darkness that is polluting their land. As you progress through the game, Neva grows and becomes stronger, to the point of aiding you in your sword-fighting.

Just like Gris, it’s more preoccupied on telling a story through the world and presenting you with gorgeous 2D environments — seriously you can screenshot any frame of this game and it could be hung on a museum — and a few simple puzzles to keep you entertained. It’s a beautiful, simple, short story worth every second of your time.

A Sequel:
Rise of the Golden Idol

The Rise of a Golden Idol is not just a great game on its own, but also the perfect way to implement a sequel.

It takes the established formula from the first game and amps it up to 11. While the first game treats the player like an overseeing god, the sequel (and its more modern setting) makes you feel like an actual detective trying to solve a crime. At the end of each chapter, you are tasked with connecting the dots between each of the individual cases, giving you extra context to piece together the overarching story.

A Genre I’ve never played before:
Date Everything

I’ve played visual novels before, but never of this nature.

Date Everything is a dating sim where you are tasked with romancing every thing in your house. Through the power of some special glasses, each object in your house turns into a humanized version. The game is overall very flirty and the humor is on point. It was the perfect chill game to play with my wife, as we both picked our favorite characters and followed along with their storylines.

The core of the game might feel like a parody of dating sims, but I can assure you it’s very well written and worth playing even if you're not into the genre.

Game from an Old Franchise:
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening

Link’s Awakening was an extremely funny and wacky adventure. It plays like your typical 2D Zelda game, but takes things so unseriously. It has ridiculous dialogue and makes constant references to the Mario franchise for some reason. It’s short and sweet and will provide a good chuckle.

This post marks my second year on Substack. It all started with me looking for a place to post my favorite 2023 games while I was moving away from all social media, but then slowly managed to spend more time on the platform, develop a publishing schedule and found several amazing gaming writers (huge shout-out to Alex Antra from Reconnect for making this an easy task). I’ve been enjoying my time writing in Substack in 2025, and I’m very excited for what’s next.

Stay tuned for part two to find out what other games I played and the final results of the Bingo card!

If you enjoyed this silly Bingo idea, leave a like and a comment! And feel free to use my Bingo template or make your own!

As mobile is becoming another pillar in the console ecosystem (again), I’m starting this series called For Here or To Go, where I review a game available in Console/PC and Mobile, and determine which is the definitive way to play.

Today’s order: A Little to the Left (2022)

Developed by Max Inferno, A Little to the Left is a cozy puzzle game. The whole premise is to organize household items that have been creatively rearranged by a careless cat. The game has over a hundred individual puzzles to solve, and tons of DLC to keep you playing for a long time.

The game starts off easy with a simple task: straightening up a painting on the wall. It takes a second, sure, but it teaches you about how to move objects and that solving a puzzle provides a satisfying “ding!” that will become your new friend for the rest of the game.

Puzzle types are varied, you might find yourself organizing books sorted by size, pencils sorted by color, rocks sorted by shape. While some mechanics are repeated, most puzzles are unique, and the result is always so satisfying to see. As someone who loves organizing my material possessions, this game feels made for me; I, too, love to organize my books, video game cases and pens in a neat, satisfying way.

Things take an interesting turn when solving a puzzle prompts a secondary solution. Being presented by a row of books will push you to sort them by size or thickness, but the secondary solutions make you think a bit outside the box; maybe it’s creating a color gradient, or uncovering a hidden pattern within the book spines. Struggling to figure out a puzzle only to find out there are 2 more solutions would normally frustrate me, but it only made me more excited to get more mileage out of a puzzle.

Puzzle design is lovely, but the actual design of the game also deserves recognition. Every little bit of this game feels hand drawn, soft and comforting. The music is the perfect compliment to the art style and the puzzles, with soft lo-fi beats that never get repetitive regardless of how many loops you listen to.

While there isn’t much of a story, the game does have a main protagonist (or antagonist, depending on your perspective): the Cat. It is implied that your white cat is the main suspect of causing all this ruckus, even making a couple of appearances within the puzzles themselves to destroy everything you’ve worked so hard for.

On top of the hundreds of puzzles you have at your disposal, the game also has the “Daily Tidy” mode. It gives you one puzzle per day, usually a re-imagining of an existing puzzle from the main campaign. It encourages the player to play every day by providing gold stars as the incentive. I loved accompanying my breakfast every day with a little puzzle.

So, For Here or To Go?

The game is available in PC, current-gen consoles and mobile. With a controller, most of what you do is slowly move a cursor across the screen with a joystick and press A to hold items and put them into place. I would suggest against playing on console if you can avoid it; joystick movement is slow and imprecise, which causes more annoyance the more objects a puzzle contains.

Definitely feels like a PC-first experience, as moving objects with the mouse feels natural and more responsive. But in my opinion the ultimate way to play is with touch screen controls. The tactile feeling of grabbing objects and setting them up into place feels more satisfying. What you lose in screen size, you gain in a more responsive experience and a better feeling. Additionally, the Daily Tidy feature is much better experienced on a phone than on a console that takes 5 minutes to boot.

The game is great and deserves to be played regardless of the platform, but my recommendation is to take this title To Go.

Did you play A Little to the Left? Where did you play it and what did you think? leave a comment below!

Penny’s Big Breakaway is a game from the white head of Christian Whitehead, critically acclaimed Sonic mod developer and Sonic Mania’s creative director. This man Knows fast-paced 2D platforming like many seasoned devs wish they did. Though, this time Whitehead decided to venture into the third dimension.

It separates itself enough from the Sonic formula, and even if you can still see remnants of the 2D Sonic DNA in here, Penny's Big Breakaway feels entirely original. The easy answer would’ve been taking a stab at the Sonic Adventure formula, but Whitehead decided to keep the game level-based and camera-fixed.

To recap, this is a unique indie 3D platformer from a veteran Sonic developer. This combination of words has me salivating already. From concept alone, this game is already a 10/10 in my book… But does its execution stick the landing? Let’s talk about it.

Penny’s Wacky World

I am obsessed with the weird and wonderful world of Penny’s Big Breakaway. The game takes place in Vanillatown in the planet Macaroon, where everything centers around circus performers.

Emperor Eddie, the leader of this wacky world, is looking for the next big performer for the upcoming Gala, and decides to organize auditions in his Eddietorium. Penny, a yo-yo performer, sees the flier and decides to participate on the audition, but so does everyone in Vanillatown, creating a comically large queue. On her way to be sly and cut in line, Penny finds a cosmic string, which makes her yo-yo become a sentient dog that enhances her performance.

After she successfully cuts everyone in line, her performance is received with thunderous applause! Except for the fact that her new sentient yo-yo decided to eat Emperor Eddie’s clothes, leaving him butt-naked for the whole kingdom to see. As a result, the emperor puts a death mark on Penny, who now has to go on the run to escape an army of police penguins.

Quite a ridiculous plot that gets taken very seriously. I will say that, though quite infrequent, the game’s cutscenes tend to overstay their welcome and contain a tad too much text. Not a crime to have dialogue, but for a game where the story doesn’t really evolve beyond the basic premise, they felt a bit lengthy.

I will also go ahead and say it: I don’t like the Character art style. I think the 2D concept art is fantastic, but I don’t think characters translate well to 3D. It reminds me of those Nickelodeon games from the Gamecube era where they had no idea how to translate Timmy Turner or SpongeBob to 3D.

The game consists of 11 zones, each containing 3 to 8 acts that are absolutely filled to the brim with creativity. There are funny quips and puns in every corner of this world, and the circus theme can be felt throughout the adventure. Every single level is distinct, and original theming and gameplay ideas keep the game fresh throughout.

Rolling around at the speed of a brisk walk

Penny's moveset is unbelievably good, and it's all thanks to her best friend: the yo-yo.

In typical Sonic fashion, the base controls are quite simple. You have your standard jump and double jump, and an attack that will have Penny launch her yo-yo forward. Holding the attack button will keep the yo-yo in place, while pressing it twice in a row will allow Penny to dash forward.

Things get more interesting when you’re in the air, though. Holding the yo-yo in place in mid-air allows Penny to swing, just like a circus performer and its trapeze. Knowing how and when to use these moves opens up the game, allowing you to build ridiculous amounts of speed and even skip entire sections of a level if you’re smart about your button inputs.

Unlike Sonic, Penny is pretty slow on foot. To address this, she has the ability to ride her yo-yo like a unicycle à la Sonic turning into a ball. Using this ability on any slope results in Penny building large amounts of speed, and even getting her pretty high up if she happens to go up a ramp too. You can break most levels by skipping the platforming with some well-placed jumps and acrobatics, and it feels like the game knows this and encourages you to do it.

For better or for worse, movement is very much physics based. On one hand, it’s very fun to jump up a ramp and reach unintended spaces in the level, on the other, the physics-based movement makes things slippery sometimes, leading to frustrating deaths. It’s not always a big deal, but I felt it required a bit of fine-tuning.

Level D-sign

I’ll go straight into it: I don’t like the level design.

It’s not necessarily bad, just inconsistent. It took me almost half of the game to decipher how to play the game. You see, there are hidden collectibles scattered around the level, but the level design is built to encourage you to move as fast as possible. To use some Sonic terminology here, collectibles weren’t always on the top path, which means that being good and fast and precise with your jumps will have you miss key parts of the level. It took me so long to strike that balance between moving fast and look for collectibles.

One of the most baffling decisions was the fixed camera. When the platforming is this precise, not having control of the camera leads to a lot of cheap deaths. In a couple of specific sections, the perspective is so wonky it caused me to miss a collectible placed literally in front of me. I don’t want a fully 360° camera (I don’t think the game is built for this in mind), but a bit of control could’ve made the experience much better. Maybe this won’t be an issue if you enjoy games like Crash Bandicoot, but the lack of camera control really messed up my sense of perspective.

Penny’s Big Breakaway is also broken big time. I typically don’t like to bring these up during reviews unless they hinder my experience, but I would be doing a disservice if I didn’t mention the bugs I encountered during my playthrough. The game had a large number of weird collisions that led to me losing all my speed in an incline or falling through the floor when hitting a wall. If the level design wasn’t frustrating me, the bugs sure were.

I know I’ve had a lot of negative comments to say, but when the level design is good, it’s really, really good. Penny’s Big Breakaway is at its best when the levels are designed for you to go fast, collect everything in your way, and let you feel in control of your acrobatics. I had no issue replaying some levels just for fun, but this only accounts for a handful of levels. Every time I found myself enjoying a level, it was almost a guarantee that the next one would bring me back down.

I’d love for Christian Whitehead and the rest of the Evening Star team to take another stab at this formula. It feels weird to ask for a sequel after bashing the level design so much, I know, but if every level was as good as those handful I enjoyed, my experience would’ve been good enough to overlook the bugs, slippery controls and perspective issues.

*Circus Music Playing*

I don’t normally dedicate a section in my reviews for music (and I should), but Penny’s Big Breakaway’s soundtrack deserves a standing ovation. Unsurprisingly, it was composed by the legend Tee Lopes, a Sonic music veteran in the mod community.

Every single song is memorable and will get stuck in your head. I’ll leave a couple of my favorites below, but I cannot overstate how well the songs compliment every zone, every cutscene, and every boss fight.

Reviewing Penny’s Big Breakaway has been incredibly difficult. The concept of this game appeals to me a lot, but a small number of baffling decisions hindered my experience enough to make me doubt if I should even recommend it. And it’s a shame too, because I have so much good things to say about Penny’s moveset, I just wish I was able to take this character and put her on a different world.

The design, the interface, the soundtrack and many more aspects of Penny’s Big Breakaway are masterfully executed. But at the end of the day, it’s all about level design and I don’t know if this game quite got to the Sonic Mania levels of quality I was hoping for.

It feels appropriate to compare Penny’s Big Breakaway to an actual, literal yo-yo. When it works, it really works and you feel fully in control of your tricks; when it doesn’t, it just looks awkward

From the makers of Her Story comes Immortality, a mysterious game about a collection of BTS footage from actress Marissa Marcel, who has gone missing. It’s more video than game, as most of it is dedicated to watching video clips and looking for clues within.

To talk about immortality, I have to dissect it into two portions: the video and the game.

The video aspect is masterfully crafted. Marissa stared in three movies from 1968, 1970, and 1999, so the scenes are filmed to match that particular time in history. The acting, the production, set dressing, it all works together beautifully. Kudos to the actors, who had to act as other actors acting.

The game presents scenes in various formats. Some scenes are table reads, while others could be fully acted scenes where someone forgets their lines, prompting additional takes. There is enough footage to piece together the fictional movies almost on their entirety, which I found pretty cool.

When it comes to the game aspect, everything changes. The game starts you off with a single piece of footage and prompts you to zoom in at characters or objects present on a specific frame to transport you into another scene where the same character/object exists. But it’s terribly executed. The resulting footage from this process feels very random, and sometimes you get scenes that don’t really match. Zooming in at a glass of water gets you a scene with a glass of wine that has no relation to it.

Unlocking new scenes through this process also takes you straight to that new footage, but to come back to the first scene, you have to painstakingly return to the main menu, look for the precious clip, and select it. Every. Single. Time.

I didn’t know, and I still don’t know, what’s the “right way” to play Immortality. Should I watch an entire scene and then look for people/objects? should I jump from scene to scene at random? Despite the incredible production, is the game aspect so bad to stop me from playing?

Yes, it is. As of the time of this posting, I have not rolled credits on Immortality.

I can only compare this game to a rose. The quality of the production is beautiful, thoughtful and artistic, but trying to play it feels like a fistful of thorns.

I don’t remember how this $5 USD game got into my backlog. Did I see it during a wholesome direct? Did The Algorithm recommended it to me? Did it come to me in a dream? I will never know, but what I know is that I really like this game.

Lunistice is a 3D platformer heavily inspired by PS1-era games. It achieves the vibe flawlessly, not just in art style but in gameplay as well. Take away the widescreen and it could be easily mistaken for a game released in 1998. This is the first game I’ve played where the CRT filter is actually worth turning on.

The story is both simple and complex depending on how much you want to pay attention to it. The simple version is that you play as Hana the Tanuki and, like a typical video game from that era, your objective is just to finish the level. The complex version is that this entire game is a simulation happening within the digitized consciousnesses of a person. Lunistice is very clear about the simulation plot from the get go, but fails to present the player with anything more than that, or even a satisfying conclusion.

Lunistice consists of 7 worlds, each with 2 levels. Most trailers try to present it as a Sonic-like game, but in my opinion it separates itself enough. Platforming is very precise, and the difficulty increases at an approachable pace. Every zone introduces a new mechanics, such as grind rails and Mario-Galaxy-style rhythm blocks.

Your objective is simply reaching the finish line, and that is enough to roll credits, but each level contains 4 hidden letters that spell “HANA”. Upon collecting the 4 letters, an alternative finish line for the level is unlocked, feeling like a glitch in the simulation, with screen tearing and everything, to make you think you’re going beyond the programming. These secret endings unlock some additional lore; nothing too spectacular, but a tiny incentive to explore levels .

And… that’s about it. There isn’t a lot of depth or story here, it’s a relatively short game too, but it is just a really solid platfomer that is worth experiencing. It doesn’t do anything spectacular, but it’s simply a very fun and creative game (with an affordable price tag!!). It might not win any GOTY awards, but it won my heart.

Welcome to Rapid Reviews! Here you’ll find brief yet comprehensive reviews summarizing my thoughts on a game in 400 words or less.

Rev up your giant drill, because you’re in for a treat. Pepper Grinder is a fast-paced 2D platformer developed by Ahr Ech where you take the role of Pepper, a girl who sports a giant drill and a thirst for treasure.

The premise couldn’t be simpler. Pepper ends up shipwrecked and a group of bad guys steal all her booty. Pissed off and ready to kill, she sets out on a journey to find the head of this group, chop their head off, and get her treasure back.

It’s meant to be a fast-paced platformer, reminiscent of games like Rayman (Origins/Legends), with fast movement and precise jumps. Its main mechanic, as you might’ve guessed, is the Grinder, a drill-like object that allows Pepper to swiftly dig through patches of dirt at high speeds. It’s an evolved version of digging mechanics used in games like Ori and Sonic Colors, except it’s used in a lot of inventive new ways.

The game is structured in levels, which allows for one of Pepper Grinder’s best qualities: Theming. Whether it’s climbing on a snowmobile for a fast-paced race, or pouring water on lava to create a diggable surface, each level brings something new to the table, keeping the game fresh throughout.

Each level also contains 5 hidden coins that can be exchanged for extra levels, collectibles, cosmetic changes and more. Getting these coins are a real challenge because of the fast-paced nature of the levels, but are incredibly rewarding.

And speaking of challenge, I have to mention the boss fights. This is where Pepper Grinder’s difficulty spikes significantly. It can take 20-30 tries to beat a boss, even in the first world. The engine is built for platforming first, combat second, so you don’t really get time to practice for an eventual boss fight. It got frustrating at times, but not impossible, and I appreciate a game that provides friendly checkpoints on bosses with more than one phase.

Pepper Grinder is fast-paced, it’s quick, it will give you some kick-ass 4 hours and then it’s going to end. It will leave you wanting more, but that’s a good thing. Developer Ahr Ech made sure that those 4 hours are built to perfection with incredible art, music and level design. It might’ve been short, but it was a hell of a time.

The number of games announced feels astronomical in comparison to other years and independent developers were the star of the show. For every “revolutionary AAA Souls-like experience” there were 10 unique ideas from an small development team.

Even without the inclusion of a classic June Nintendo Direct, there are so many games to look forward to in 2025 and beyond. Too many games, in fact. To make this piece more digestible, I’ll limit myself to one or two sentence per game. If it peaks your interest, I’ve also included the link to the trailer that got me hooked, and the Steam link for you to wishlist.

Unlike last year, I don’t plan on grading the presentations themselves, as most of them were indie showcases and I would feel like an ass critiquing a bunch of independent streamers that put these together.

But with all that being said, here are my favorite games shown in Summer Games Week.

MIX Summer Game Showcase | June 3rd

Becrowned

PS1 horror now is a genre, and this game does an excellent job of matching that vibe. I don’t typically play horror games (I am part of the scaredy cat gang), but this new age of indie horror feels fresh and exciting. [Trailer] [Steam]

Flick Shot Rogues

Dungeons, Dragons, Pirates and… Billiards? This strategy rouge-like ditches grid-based combat for “flicking” your character across the battlefield. [Trailer] [Steam]

Absolum

A hand-drawn rouge-like beat-em-up and other words with hyphens. The animations look soooo crisp and fluid. [Trailer] [Steam]

Autonomica

I’m probably not even getting this game, but this trailer goes places. Looks like it’s trying to rival Fortnite as the “everything game”. [Trailer] [Steam]

State of Play | June 4th

Hirogami

Plays like a Shantae game in 3D, with animal transformations and all, and the origami aesthetics are sublime. [Trailer] [Steam]

(And that’s it for Playstation lol I don’t care about marvel fighting games, sorry)

Summer Game Fest | June 6th

Lego Voyagers

Couch co-op is thriving and this game is another example of it. I’m not normally into the Lego videogame aesthetic, but this game feels like the imagination of a kid playing around with scattered Lego parts. And I love it. [Trailer] [Steam]

Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds

HATSUNE MIKU??? [Trailer] [Steam]

Fractured Blooms

Obsessed with the idea of an anti-wholesome, creepy, bloody farming sim. [Trailer] [Steam]

Mina the Hollower

From the creators of Shovel Knight, this GameBoy-inspired game will kick my ass but I still want to play it. [Trailer] [Steam]

Mixtape

One of my most anticipated games from last year! I’m glad this trailer showed a bit more gameplay, even though I still don't know what this game is. [Trailer] [Steam]

Wholesome Direct 2025 | June 7th

Is this Seat Taken

Super cute puzzle game about putting lil guys in seats while catering for their pet peeves, such as asking for a window seat or not sitting next to a stinky passenger. [Trailer] [Steam]

Squeakross

The best named game on this list. It is a Picross game where the puzzles become furniture you can use to decorate your mousehold. And it’s out now! [Trailer] [Steam]

Big Hops

I am a sucker for a sandbox 3D platfomers in general, and this one in particular feels easy to start but hard to master. I can just tell I will be able to break this one (in a good way). [Trailer] [Steam]

Everdeep Aurora

I’m noticing a trend where I like games where you just play as a little guy. This one’s about a small black cat in a dark, mysterious underground world. [Trailer] [Steam]

Omelet you Cook

Principal Clucker is Coming. [Trailer] [Steam]

Women-Led Games | June 7th

Perfect Tides: Station to Station

Nostalgic Point&Click with a MS Paint-like art style where you play a young adult in 2003. [Trailer] [Steam]

Death & Faeology

I was already down with the dark, gritty aesthetics of this detective game, but the addition of fairies being part of this universe sealed the deal for me. [Trailer] [Steam]

Fallen Tear The Ascension

Always a fan of a fluid, 2D, hand-drawn action platformer with a beautiful art style and character design. [Trailer] [Steam]

Drywall Eating Simulator

Self explanatory. [Trailer] [Steam]

Grave Seasons

Once again, love the concept of a wholesome game on the surface with a hidden, darker tone, and this one plays like an F’ed up Stardew Valley. [Trailer] [Steam]

Danchy Days

I am hypnotized with this GameBoy inspired colorful game. I don’t have much more to say, its bright art style got me like a casino machine [Trailer] [Steam]

Latin American Games Showcase | June 7th

Wander Stars

I can’t stop thinking about this anime-inspired RPG. Just the art direction alone is enough to get me obsessed, and yet the gameplay is also very clever and unique, having you stitch together words to create attacks (e.g., “Super” “Fire” “Kick”). [Trailer] [Steam]

The Shadow Syndicate

The furry version of LA Noire, do I need to say more? [Trailer] [Steam]

Teios’ Journey

Would play this game for the art style alone, but this hand-drawn metroidvania looks fantastic. [Trailer] [Steam]

Colorbound

Immediately became a fan of this color changing puzzle game. [Trailer] [Steam]

Desktop Explorer

These desktop games are becoming a trend, but I found this one in particular quite interesting… and a bit nostalgic with its Windows 95 interface. [Trailer] [Steam]

The Trolley Solution

If there’s something I love more than a puzzle game, is a silly puzzle game, and this one tackles the trolley problem in chaotic ways. [Trailer] [Steam]

Xbox Games Showcase | June 8th

Clockwork Revolution

Before the name reveal, I was convinced this was a new BioShock game. It looks like it has a ton of fun FPS action and interesting time-bending mechanics [Trailer] [Steam]

Aphelion

I just trust everything Don’t Nod makes. [Trailer] [Steam]

There are No Ghosts at the Grand

Straight up a weird first person… shooter? with a lot of mystery, a lot of silliness and absolutely zero ghosts. [Trailer] [Steam]

At Fate’s End

Similar to the transition from Gris to Neva, Spiritfarer’s creator made a 2D action platformer. And it looks AWESOME. Artstlye, Story and combat looks stunning and I cannot wait to play it. [Trailer] [Steam]

And that’s it! I am pleased by the incredible quality of the games this year. The indie scene is alive and thriving.

Other than Sonic Racing, there isn’t a single Big AAA franchise being represented in this list, and I love that. Creativity is stored in the indie developer, and I am very happy many had a space to present their games to the world.

The year was 2006. I just came back home from school, skipped lunch and went straight to the computer (yes, the one computer we had in the house) to watch the recording of Nintendo’s e3 press conference on IGNs terrible media player, where they officially unveil the Nintendo Wii. I was in awe as I saw extended gameplay of Twilight Princess and an exciting new way to play with motion controls.

Fast forward to 2019, where I requested a work-from-home day to watch Nintendo’s E3 Direct live. I was in awe seeing the reveal trailer for Animal Crossing New Horizons and literally cry from excitement seeing Banjo and Kazooie be part of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Watching that presentation in 2006 kickstarted an annual tradition where, for that special week in June, I would stop everything around me to watch E3. I managed to catch 16 events, over 50 individual conferences, thousands upon thousands of World Premiers… It truly was the most wonderful time of the year.

While many made fun of E3, even on its dying breath, its importance to the gaming industry cannot be overstated. It was an event where all eyes were on the latest reveals, trailers and lack of gameplay footage. Even games that didn’t make it big during the presentations had a chance on the show floor. Trust me, I was sold on at least one game from shaky cam videos with no audio.

The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess’s reveal trailer in 2004 was the sole reason I became aware of E3. As a kid, I used to visit IGN.com at least once a day to browse and read the latest news (in a language I didn’t fully understand at the time). Being a casual visitor, it would always catch me off guard how, for one single week of the year, the number of articles tripled, and next to it that iconic letter-number combination: E3

I went from catching the recording after school, to skipping college classes to watch it live. From exclusively watching the Nintendo presentations, to watching every single one. And indeed, I watched every single one: The good ones, the boring ones, and my personal favorite, the cringy ones. Nothing beats watching two grown men with graphic tees and a blazer wiggle their arms at the screen to show off the Kinect. Those were the times.

These moments made this show even better, as BDG said, it was more than a trade show, it was theater. Classic moments like Reggie’s “My body is ready” and newer ones like Keanu Reeves’s “you’re breathtaking” have made their way into popular culture and became part of my vocabulary. Even innocent tech bugs became iconic and will forever be remembered, like trying to see the bottom of the shoe of your Xbox avatar.

Who could forget Ubisoft’s constant need of having a comedian on stage forcing “viral moments” between trailers (I like you Aisha, but this stage was not for you). Every person talking on stage during a presentation was either a paid comedian, a developer struggling with a teleprompter or a CEO trying to connect with young audiences. None of them were good. They were great.

As I grew up, E3 grew too. Between trying to reduce embarrassing moments and tech problems (like the famous broken sword demo), most companies transitioned from a live crowd to a digital presentation. And while the cringy moments were part of the charm, at least it shifted the focus back to the reason we were all there: the games.

Nothing beats the excitement of a crowd reacting to a new game announcement. Seeing the reaction to Metroid Prime 4 fills me with such joy despite being literally just the number 4. Regardless of the final result, the reveal trailer for Cyberpunk 2077 was iconic and I will forever remember it. Even if we go way back to 2004, the excitement during the Twilight Princess reveal trailer will never be matched.

This is what E3 was really about. Regardless of the quality of the games or what was shown, this excitement brought people together. The buzz, the hype, the heartwarming moments that E3 brought to the community can never be replaced.

I am very well aware that e3 was more a marketing event for shareholders, and less for the fans. But as a kid, it was something I looked forward to, every single year. No matter what was happening in my life, I knew that, around June, we would get a barrage of predictions, world premiers and thousands of hours of demos of our most anticipated games.

Summer Game Fest, Xbox Directs and many other lookalikes might still happen around June each year, but they will never match the excitement and charm of the Entertainment Electronic Expo.

Did E3 meant the same to you as it did to me? Leave a comment and share your favorite E3 moments!

Link’s Awakening is a paradox. On one end, it’s the most no-nonsense Zelda game, covering all the franchise conventions to a T. It is also the most nonsensical Zelda game, with weird cameos from other Nintendo franchises, strange enemies and plenty of wacky moments.

Having played the Oracle games, and already knowing some of the things this game is known for, I had very set expectations. And yet, I was caught off-guard by both the incredible quality of the game’s design and the ridiculous moments Zelda’s first handheld game had in store.

Get Serious

I’ll start with the story because there isn’t much of one. Link is drowning somewhere in the middle of the ocean and everything that happens in this game is a dream. Sounds like a spoiler for a big reveal at the end of the game, but it really isn’t. The game is very upfront on telling the player that none of this is real.

Link “awakes” in a strange island and is tasked with collecting 8 instruments to wake up The Windfish1, who is currently sleeping inside an egg at the top of Mt. Tamaranch. And Link… does exactly that. There is no danger looming in the shadows, no final boss threatening to destroy the world. It wasn’t until the third dungeon that I noticed that there wasn’t much of a motive, or a plot. But surprisingly, I did not care.

I was happy enjoying this curious world and solving some fun little puzzles. And that’s the best way to describe this world: Curious. From a high level, Link’s Awakening’s world follows all the typical Zelda environments: desert, beach, grassy fields, mountains, you know them. But it’s filled to the brim with the most unique enemies that have not reappeared in any other Zelda game since. There are plenty of peculiar characters scattered around the world, from a shy old man that gives you hints over the phone, to the infamous hippo model and Crazy Tracy who gives you a special medicine that revives you.

As a Zelda game, it checks all boxes. You enter a dungeon, get a key item, fight a boss, and use said item to unlock access to other parts of the world. There are a couple of side quests, and a huge trading sequence quest that ties back to the main plot. It is Zelda in its purest form and I love it.

Let’s talk about the quality of the dungeons, because they are one of the best I’ve played in a traditional Zelda game. This game adds an additional wrinkle to the traditional dungeon map: Stairs. In certain spots throughout a dungeon, there are stairs that take you to an underground side-scrolling passage that will lead you in a different part of the dungeon. It’s another layer that you don’t normally see in the map, and I love the additional complexity they bring. Plus I love stomping on the Goombas. Yes, Goombas. From Mario.

Get Sillyyy

Mario enemies, Clowns, self-aware dialogue, talking animals, and so much more make this the most unserious game in the franchise. You can steal items from the shop and people will call you Thief for the rest of the game, you get upgrades to your inventory via a dark spirit that “curses” you with bigger pockets that make you “carry more junk”. You can pay 300 rupees to learn a song that revives the dead. Kirby is here.

It clearly is a dream, but at times it feels like a fever dream. If you go back to the shop after stealing something, the shopkeeper will attack you via death ray and kill you on the spot. Obtaining the Fire Rod is accompanied by the text "Now you can burn things! Burn it! Burn, baby, burn!". And these are just a handful of many, many nonsensical moments the game has in store for you.

The general tone of the game is pretty low-stakes and most dialogue is pretty funny like no other Zelda game. This silliness makes this game stand out and be its own thing. And I love it. The nonsensical portions of the game do not detract from the serious moments. Bosses are still challenging and dungeons are still incredible. Quite literally, it’s all fun and games until you enter a dungeon.

I appreciate the existence of Link’s Awakening. It’s the weirdest Zelda has ever been allowed to be, and you can’t erase it from the history books. Despite being structured like the most traditional game in the franchise, it stands out by being the only game where you can wield a Chain Chomp, or attack a Shy Guy.

It’s both the perfect palette cleanser after having so many Zelda games try to break free of the traditional mold, as well as a reminder that you don’t need to have a serious story to drive a game forward, let’s just enjoy some well-designed puzzles and have a silly little time.

I had always been an Ace Attorney fan from afar. Loved the characters and the funny quotes (“Almost Christmas means it wasn’t Christmas!”), but never tried the games. That is until I played The Great Ace Attorney, the latest in the series, which blew me away so much it drove me to play the entire AA franchise, starting with the first trilogy, thanks to many, many, many convenient re-releases re-released over the years.

My expectations were tempered, of course. I was blown away by a 2021 game, how could I expect the 2001 version to be just as good?

Well, it was just as good.

Now, let’s get into the actual review.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is a visual novel about lawyers. It consists of 4 chapters (5 in Trilogy), each covering a murder trial. Ah yes, I often forget the main reason for all these funny characters meeting and interacting, is murder.

Each chapter is divided into two sections: Investigation, focused on exploring the murder scene, capturing evidence and meeting the parties involved, and Trial, where Phoenix defends their client by cross-examining witnesses, and present evidence to call out contradictions in their statements.

It’s not very engaging gameplay-wise, it’s a visual novel about lawyers after all, so it’s all about the story. And it’s really, really good. It can be serious, silly and everything in between when it needs to be. It reels you in with funny dialogue, and when you least expect it you’re on the edge of your seat connecting the dots, trying to figure out the real culprit of a crime, with the extra pressure of doing it during your wrongfully-accused defendant’s trial.

Unlike other detective games, Ace Attorney’s approach is simpler. The end goal is always catching the culprit, of course, but the game pushes you to only focus on taking the next step. Not to prove who did it, but just to poke holes on witness statements, and enough holes will eventually lead you to the truth. And this is where the game shines the most.

It’s a type of narrative that can still be appreciated today and it’s all thanks to Capcom’s ability to create fun characters. The cast is colorful, often punny named, and exceed silliness. The characters are what keeps the game balanced, like a barrier that prevents the game from ever becoming way too serious.

If you’ve ever wondered if the original Ace Attorney is worth playing today, the answer is absolutely yes. It’s a timeless, fun and, exciting story that is worth experiencing today. Despite dealing with heavy topics (re: murder) the dialogue keeps itself pretty lighthearted. I was even surprised to learn many series staples started here. The franchise has evolved plenty over the last 20 years, mostly visually, but it has never lost the identity of its first game.