Cocoon

• Genre: Puzzle Adventure
• Time Played: Somewhere between 5-10 Hours
• Too Short/Long: Alright for what it is and I'm torn whether I wanted more or if more would have made it felt like it dragged on. I feel like It's probably solid if you do all the bonus stuff.
• Pleased/Disappointed: I'm pretty pleased, it offered a relatively new experience.
• Why I played: I've been hearing a bunch about this game since it came out and some of the mechanics in trailers and such looked pretty interesting.
• Recommend to others: Yes? Maybe? I don't not recommend it. But it's a weird game and until I got around the ~60% mark I had no idea what I was even doing most of the time. But I liked it and if you like weirdo puzzle games go for it.

Cocoon is a weird game. I can't tell if it's genius game design or deceptive game design, but for a large portion of the game I just felt like I had no idea what I was doing. I was along for the ride and the environmental puzzles were my mode of transport. I felt like I was on auto-pilot just going from place to place and I can't tell if it's because the puzzles are just that intuitive or if this is just a walking simulator disguised as a puzzle game.

I want to say it's the former. I want to say there is just some amazing game design at play that combines a unique gameplay experience with zero narrative outside the visual context as you play and intuitive design that has you solving puzzles in the moment-to-moment as you encounter them.

It wasn't until I was probably further than 80% through the game that I had had to stop what I was doing for even a moment to think "How does this work...oh!" and even those moments were short, it often took longer to put the ideas in practice than to consider them.

There are also a couple "action" like sequences with the boss fights, but even those are more about solving and performing the action, so it's not enough to put this game into action territory, but those were fun, and I honestly expected more, but that's not what they were doing for this game. It at least helps break up the game a little bit and act as marker of progression.

It was a pretty good game though. You can put a world inside a world and then put that world inside itself, and that's pretty neat.

OneShot

• Genre: Puzzle Adventure
• Time Played: 8 Hours
• Too Short/Long: Pretty much just right. I would have enjoyed a deeper dive into some of the puzzle mechanics though.
• Pleased/Disappointed: It was pretty good, I was pleased with it.
• Why I played: I had been wanting to play it for some time, it looks really cute. I never got it on Steam, and kept flip flopping on getting on Switch, because technically I already had it from an itch.io bundle. You can't really play OneShot on the Steamdeck... I eventually just caved and sat at my computer to play a game, which took a lot from me.
• Recommend to others: Only if you really like digging deeper into what games have to offer as at face value. This game does some of the grunt work by literally telling you what you need to do at times. I think it pulls off some of it in pretty clever ways. I appreciate it, but it's not for everyone. Thankfully, I think the Switch version builds 100% of it into the game, so it might be the better option for most people.

OneShot is another one of those games that it's better to go in not knowing much... except, I don't think it really matters all too much, I never got the feeling the game was taking itself too seriously or that any kind of spoiler was going to ruin the experience. Either way, I'll err on the side of caution. It's pretty accessible and while it has some fun puzzles and such, more of it is pretty easy stuff presented in the style of old pc adventure games where you have to actually access your inventory and choose an item to use that is a appropriate for the situation, but the vast majority of the game is just going where you need to in order to progress. It's more about the journey than the trials and tribulations thereof. You just have to be willing to think outside the box from time to time.

To that effect, it does it's job and offers some innovative ways of messing with the game. Perhaps my main complaint is it doesn't do it enough? If you play through the "full game", the second half offers far fewer puzzles, only a couple the entire playthrough and doesn't really expand much on some of the introduced elements. I think they could have come up with a lot more clever ideas using some of the tricks they introduced, but overall it's a small game made by a few people, so I'm not complaining. I enjoyed it and it choked me up a bit at the end.

Super Mario RPG

• Genre: RPG
• Time Played: 16 Hours
• Too Short/Long: Super Mario RPG is pretty short for the style of RPG it is, but it feels right for what it is. It never drags, even if there are a couple spots that are a little combat encounter heavy. I guess I would like more, but it's one of the most accessible rpgs, so I feel like it's just right.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Extremely pleased. I mean, I love this game and expected no less.
• Why I played: Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars is one of my favorite games. Also I have receipts of me saying I wanted to replay it about 3 months before the announcement of this remake, so the timing couldn't have been better.
• Recommend to others: I would absolutely recommend this. To everyone. I feel like it's a game everyone should play, without exception.

Super Mario RPG is a remake of Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. I don't know why they dropped the subtitle. Especially when there are other Mario RPGs. I feel like it's one of those title changes that only creates confusion. Anyway, I went in with a bias and strong nostalgia for this game. I don't recall if it was the first RPG I played, but it might be the first RPG I finished. I didn't really get into rpgs until I was 11 or 12 and had internet and I know I played this at least a few years before then. I would have been 9 when it came out and we moved right around the time I turned 10 and I remember playing it before moving.

Anyway, this isn't about when I played it, but that's how much the game is tied to nostalgia for me. Not only did I play it then, but I remember it being one of the first games I emulated, since technically I had only rented it(several times, mind you). I've since purchased digital copies of the game and played through at least one of them, but at this point it has been awhile since I played the game and earlier this year I got that bug in me again.

Star Ocean: The Second Story R

• Genre: RPG
• Time Played: 40 Hours
• Too Short/Long: Generally the pacing is pretty good, until the very end, like the last few hours are tacked on. This may just be me personally.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Extremely pleased. There are so many classic RPGs I would love seeing get this exact treatment.
• Why I played: Star Ocean 2 is an amazing RPG. I feel like back in the day it stood up there with the very best, but in recent years I feel like people have forgotten the praise this game used to get, maybe, partially due to some very divisive sequels, but I have never forgot, and this game does it justice.
• Recommend to others: I would definitely recommend this to anyone who has any love for classic snes/psx style rpgs. It is technically an action rpg, but not in the way modern takes on action rpgs are and definitely accessible to those who might prefer turned based.

Star Ocean: The Second Story R, a remake of The Second Story, and this time, for Real. Years ago they sort of remade Star Ocean 2 on PSP, but it's more like an "enhanced port". They actually remade Star Ocean 1, using a lot of Star Ocean 2's mechanics, engine, quality of life improvements, etc. To go along with that, they did an enhanced port of Star Ocean 2 with new art, new voices and some additional content, but it was still the same base game generally, using mostly the same assets and mechanics.

Second Story R is an actual remake, but still using some of the (previously new) assets and content. It's like them finishing the job, or fully realizing the idea. It's a very true to the original remake in that regard. There are still even more quality of life improvements, more modernization, but it's still at it's core almost the same exact game released 25 years ago. This is a game almost literally built on top of the old game, and I love it. It also goes to show how great this game always was. There are so many aspects that just feel like they're from a modern game that is trying to harken back to the good old days. Well, this is the good old days.

Salt and Sacrifice

• Genre: Action Platformer
• Time Played: 35 Hours
• Too Short/Long: Could be tightened up a bit for me personally, but it's probably right for the intent, which is for you to grind and beat bosses over and over again, which is maybe more fun to do for multiplayer, but I don't like grinding or playing multiplayer games online all that much.
• Pleased/Disappointed: It was fun, but I think I left Salt and Sanctuary with a much higher opinion, even if this game did have some improvements over the last.
• Why I played: I liked Salt and Sanctuary a ton and was hoping for more of that experience.
• Recommend to others: If you liked Sanctuary, I probably would. I would recommend Sanctuary first if you never played either.

Salt and Sacrifice was not exactly the sequel I personally had hoped for. There were some ups and some downs. The ups are the grappling hook and other tools you get for the platforming aspect of the game. In fact, there are a couple little optional areas that really make good use of those tools and I honestly could have gone in for more of those, but like many of these games, those are just thrown in as an extra. I appreciate it being there though.

Instead of one giant metroidvania map, it's broken up into a handful of smaller(but still large) maps with a hub world. Your main goal is to hunt mages, which are just like really tall guys that summon minions and have a gimmick of their own. The way you hunt these mages and with how they structure their multiple levels and hub world, along with the weapon crafting that utilized the parts of the mages makes me believe they took more than a little bit of inspiration from Monster Hunter. 

I think I saw a lot of reception that mentioned multiplayer was the way to go with this one, and maybe that's what I'm missing out on because while I did like it, it was too grindy for the type of punishing game it is. I can see how, like in Monster Hunter, trading the bosses aggro would really change the dynamic of the game, making it a bit less dangerous and a little more about the dance of those mechanics. If there was a single-player only version where your HP was buffed just a tad and crafting/upgrading armor/weapons/items had half the requirements, I think this would have been an A+ experience for me. It was still pretty good though, I just can't help but see where it could have been better.