Amedama

• Genre: Action Adventure
• Spoiler Free Review: There are some mechanic spoilers that are inherently story spoilers.
• Time Played: 17 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It didn't feel too long, but it probably should have been a little shorter by reducing how much certain sections needed to be replayed.
• Soundtrack: It's pretty decent. Some tracks are a little repetitive but it fits the setting well enough.
• Pleased/Disappointed: I'm pretty pleased with this one.
• Why I played: Basically just because it looked cool. I tried the demo and liked it, put it on my wishlist, and it went on a decent sale almost immediately after.
• Did I cry: I think I did choke up a little here and there. Not as much toward the end as I would have expected, but as a game that has you interact with a lot of wayward souls in order to help them pass on.
• Jank: It has a little bit of jank, but nothing that really hurts the game besides the fact you can get stun-locked. Sometimes there is weirdness with dead bodies standing up, and the dialog has not accounted for every possibility.
• Difficulty: Normal, it's probably a little harder just getting started before you figure out everything, you can easily supplement any difficulty by eating to temporarily increase your stats. The hardest parts of the game being when you don't have the opportunity to do so.
• Recommend to others: I don't think it would go super high on a recommend list, and I'm not sure of the audience I would potentially recommend it to, but if you're interested in it, I'd say go for it.

I liked Amedama, it's unique but somehow doesn't do too much to stand out - maybe just because its good, but only good, never really exceeding expectations. In it, you are a soul that can possess bodies of people you have killed. If you have previously killed them, you can later possess them just by hitting them. This isn't like some games with similar mechanics where it is a combat mechanic, but rather something you can only do outside of combat, essentially choosing who you go into each battle as. As a bonus, there are times when the dialog of the game will adjust according to who you have possessed, and as you proceed, there will be times when advancing requires you to possess certain people. 

There is a Groundhog Day element to the story, requiring you to possess more people and go different locations to uncover why things are occurring and uncover the mystery of everything. While I do enjoy the story -Kind-of Spoilers Until Next Paragraph- Ultimately I feel like the payoff and result is rather unsatisfying, it did a great job of creating intrigue, only to have very simple explanations for occurrences, no reason behind certain actions, or simple coincidence resulting in certain outcomes. The ride is great, the destination is... fine. -End kind-of spoilers-

Monster Hunter Wilds

• Genre: Action.
• Spoiler Free Review: I guess it is, but who cares. Here is a spoiler. The story is terrible and the characters are worse.
• Time Played: 32 Hours.
• Too Short/Long: Time is probably right for where I am in the game. 
• Soundtrack: Not that Monster Hunter has always been a contender for sweet music, but I felt it lacked even more than usual in this one. The only time I even remember music playing was the final battle of the main story and it was so damn loud and bombastic, rather than epic and moving.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Eh... I don't wanna say disappointed, but... I guess I am.
• Why I played: I've played most Monster Hunter games, maybe not every version of every monster hunter game, and I never went back for the extra stuff in Iceborne or Sunbreak, but generally speaking I am a fan of the series.
• Did I cry: No, in fact I don't think this game manage to make me feel any significant emotion.
• Jank: Damn does it have some jank when it comes to the UI. Not every Monster Hunter has had the same menus, but this one definitely made the most changes and I'd dare say exclusively for the worse.
• Difficulty: I think the difficulty is about what you'd expect for a Monster Hunter game. Some of the more general aspects of it are easier, since you can get right back into the fights right away, it can feel like less of a slog. By the same measure, the discrepancy in which you take damage is insane. I just feel like I should be able to tank a hit or two without having to heal between each hit.
• Recommend to others: I mean I guess if you like Monster Hunter you'll like this, but I'd sooner recommend Rise or World to a new player who didn't just want to play the so-called "Latest and Greatest". Monster Hunter Stories 2 is still the best Monster Hunter game overall though.

I'm so tired of Monster Hunter Wilds, I don't even want to write this. I'm not necessarily "fully done" Monster Hunter Wilds. I usually aim for more or less 100%ing a game. Or rather completing the bulk of the primary content. I'm conceding a bit prior to finishing the "High Rank" stuff. But I did get the credit roll, and for all intense and purposes I "beat the game". Some people specifically refer to high-rank as "post-game" too, further establishing that the game is finished.

It's not typical of me to stop playing a game at this point though. It's just that as we go into this weekened and I look at what I want to spend it doing, I realize I have a literal zero interest in playing Monster Hunter Wilds. I don't even necessarily have another game lined up, and so I may spend the weekend sampling things until something really catches my interest. I just know I don't want to play Wilds. Which is unfortunate. It's not a bad game. It can be really fun, and there are aspects of it I really appreciate. I appreciate there is a little bit more customization than normal. I appreciate how some of the weapons function in ways that didn't really interest me before. I like the wounds and wound attacks.