Honestly, in terms of weirdness that would be a step down from some of the stuff you get up to in this game.

I’m going to agree on this for the most part. I rushed through to the end the day it came out, partially because I was told - correctly, it turned out - that the ending and postgame material are amazing enough to strive for quickly, and partially because the act of finding and learning about each crazy new world made…

Having already hit the end credits of Odyssey, I can affirm having a second broad, spoiler-free review would really not add much. Like Breath of the Wild, a lot of what makes Odyssey as great as it is comes from the element of surprise, from things you both stumble onto and actively seek out. This first installment…

Aria of Sorrow is an incredible game, and I love the way it evolves and plays with the tropes Symphony developed, or jettisons the unnecessary classic-Vania ones it felt the need to keep. I love how it and Dawn make sure every enemy can have at least something worth giving you through the soul system.

Super Mario Odyssey is...so damn good. It’s so damn good! I’ve been playing for about an hour and a half, and I’m seriously in love with this thing. It’s funny, it’s zany, it’s really bouncy and weighty in a way that’s incredibly satisfying. There will be a lot of discussions in the future about the relationship…

Yeah, I definitely think Splatoon was a turning point, and a huge one, just not the only one - it was part of a long five to seven year period.

For my money, the level that really highlights the game’s problems is the goddamn Sand Bird level, where you’re forced to stay upright on a very small bird flying over a bottomless pit. F.L.U.D.D. won’t help you much, being daring isn’t nearly as fun when you’re feeling that sense of anxiety and dread over the course…

Damn, is that review so tantalizing. I’m loving the idea of Odyssey as a massive apotheosis of everything good about the series, and so many of its ideas feel not just like one-time concepts or hooks, but serious ideas bursting from the game at the seams. Take Cappy, for instance - aside from being a somewhat…

Tom Nook really is such an amazing character, and really highlights a lot of the appeal Animal Crossing has. For one thing, he’s a damn highway robber, and the drip-feed of improvements he makes to your house does provide an early goal, before you instead realize you’re weirdly invested in a love triangle between…

In an unfortunate update to my time with Stardew Valley, I’ve just come across a bug as bizarre as it is aggravating. I was playing the cute Atari-esque shooter mini-game in the saloon, when suddenly the game froze - except it still played music, which is weird for a freeze. I was a bit upset at losing the ten to…

It’s nice to read a certain validation of my own flying anxieties, Clayton, although honestly, the only part of it scarier than the flying to me is the airports themselves, all stuffed with people and an endless stream of CNN-blasting TVs. I’m fairly certain I saw more of our regrettable president’s face than you’d…

The notion of two screens feels a lot less unnatural in retrospect that we might expect at the outset. It’s a good idea for allowing multiple perspectives, you can partition information more sensibly in a way that makes maps and inventory look so nice and clear, and there’s an odd kind of theatricality there. Looking…

I think there are a few reasons why Punch-Out!! has retained its popularity and iconography beyond its surprisingly short list of sequels. Firstly, like Gerardi said, it’s incredibly specific in what it is and what it does. Like Duck Hunt or Pro Wrestling, it’s clear about what it is to the exclusion of pretty much…

Fun thing I learned on that MK8OT8TH: we were racing on Mute City, and I saw a Red Shell come by me. I decided to hug the left corner as much as possible while driving as fast as I could, and it actually caused the shell to hit the wall as it homed in on me. So there’s a whole new tactic I can use.

For me, it’s an easy choice: a “tactile sensation,” a feeling that I’m more in direct control of a character (in games about moving characters. Ones not like that, like Ace Attorney or RTS games, have something comparable about how easy or satisfying to move from that perspective). Beyond nostalgia and other bits of…

Also...I think we need to talk a bit about the new Super Mario Odyssey trailer.

Regarding the site, I kind of feel like a comments section is what people make of it, and the Gameological mainstays are people who are more than accustomed to what it’s like on “traditional” gaming sites. I still remember reading IGN for the first time in 2007; they actually had a section just for ogling women. Even…

Last week, I mentioned I’ve been looking for something new to play in the time after I’ve beaten all but Route E of NieR: Automata but before Mario Odyssey drops (well, something other than Picross S, which is, you know, Picross, but not exactly upending the tea table). To be honest, I’m pretty awful at decisiveness,…

I’ve a basic idea of what happens in Route E, though obviously that’s nowhere near the same as experiencing it directly. And I do want to go through with it - it’s a tremendous accomplishment by Square-Enix and Platinum that deserves to be played.

Yeah. I really liked those tiny flashback moments, pointing out how so much of the twists lined up with what you saw before (and this is the part where I wish Kinja had spoiler tags. Or what, if any, words are banned). And it does one of my absolute favorite things, where you get clues from sidequests, like the…