Marvel Cosmic Invasion

• Genre: Beat 'em up
• Spoiler Free Review: Yeah.
• Time Played: 4-5 Hours
• Partners: Alice, Taylor, Brandon
• Too Short/Long: Pretty standard for a beat 'em up.
• Soundtrack: I honestly do not remember. Maybe because of all the sound effects of playing a 4 player beat 'em up. There were definitely some of the Marvel queues but overall I think it was just generic video game soundtrack.
• Why I played: I play beat 'em ups and this one was pretty noteworthy, harkening back to the olden days of Marvel beat 'em ups.
• Did I cry: No.
• Jank: At launch there was an issue where the player who paused the game couldn't navigate their own move list menu, only player one could. They fixed that. There were a couple times the game didn't recognize we needed to progress and were worried we were going to have to restart, thankfully falling into a pit helped that through. A couple other minor things like that.
• Difficulty: Pretty normal, and plenty of ways to adjust it. As far as playing in the standard modes it was mostly easy enough, we only failed a level once and there were only a couple player deaths beyond that.
• Recommend to others: Honestly, not really. It was fine, but there are so many other beat 'em ups worth your time more than this one. If you're absolutely starved for beat 'em ups or just too much of a sucker for Marvel stuff, sure, it's fine, but that's all it is.
  

Marvel Cosmic Invasion looks like a pretty cool game and that's the most impressive part about it. It looks cool, it looks new and fresh while also looking nostalgic, but it's a little too nostalgic as it's pretty much a standard fare beat-em up of the 90s, albeit with better hit detection.

There are two attack buttons, guard/dodge, jump/fly, and special. Not too bad, nothing super special, but there is so variety in that some characters are guard characters and some are dash, and some are capable of flying.

Star Overdrive

• Genre: Action Adventure/Racing
• Spoiler Free Review: Yeah - except gameplay unlocks/mechanics
• Time Played: 30 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It's decent, but a lot of the game is contained in optional activities. There is a main quest, and it can be pretty difficult(impossible?) to complete the main challenges without upgrading your board a good bit, but arguably the bulk of the game is optional. It may definitely too feel long doing everything, but too short without enjoying what it has to offer. Or you could just go straight for wrapping up main quest just as you start to feel that fatigue and it it'll be over before you know it. So maybe the mainline stuff is "too short"
• Soundtrack: Absolutely awesome soundtrack. There is a fictional in-game band, Star Overdrive, which sounds like 80's hairband music. There are some other really good tracks for when the action is happening. My one complaint is there is too much "down time", where there is either no music or just ambiance. They should have leaned into it even harder and just had the music go hard at all times.
• Why I played: Star Overdrive is what I call a "Hell Yeah" game. You fly around doing tricks on a hoverboard, fight with a keytar, listening to imitation 80's hair metal, sandskii tethered to a sandworm as you hunt it. 
• Did I cry: I don't think so? It was trying to be a little bit of an emotional story, but the presentation was one of the weaker aspects.
• Jank: Star Overdrive is pretty janky. It's janky in a way a lot of much older games are. It's somewhere between if you gave an early 2000's developer access to modern tools, or simply made a game fully inside one of those online games that has it's entire own programing system to make games within it. Some aspects of the game's physics are cool, but some are just kind of janky. For a "go everywhere" type game, you end up doing that thing where you are like "slide hovering" until you land on a flat service, a lot.
• Difficulty: I think it's mostly the right amount of difficult. It's challenging without being too frustrating beyond the jank - as long as you take some time to upgrade your hoverboard.
• Recommend to others: I'm not sure. I want to recommend it, but I don't know who I would recommend it to, or what I would consider this needing to be prioritized over. It's a good game, but it also isn't a wholly polished game. I'd recommend it to people who are okay with the jank and find appeal in the positive aspects.
  

Star Overdrive overall is a pretty cool game. It doesn't really feel like a Zelda game as it focuses so much on the hoverboarding and platforming, but for easy reference and comparison, I'd liken it a good bit to Breath of the Wild. The structure of the game and the way it handles exploration and puzzles. You have a wheel of "magic/telekinetic powers". Some which are very similar. You get a little ranged shot, you get a telekinesis lasso to move/throw objects and enemies, you get a little bouncy bubble for some pretty extreme platform(imagine free falling skyscraper heights and bouncing back up just as high is actually part of a platforming challenge to get a collectible... often), you can charm/mind control enemies, link objects together, or even just to the ground/wall, and stop time in a bubble for everything but yourself. Some of these even have modified versions for the hoverboard, like a time stop bubble a mile behind you is pretty useless, so the time stop actually works for you on the hoverboard by slowing things down like 80% so you can make tight/sharp maneuvers accurately. Similarly, linking just "links" you to the ground briefly, to pull you forward to act as a boost.

SANABI

• Genre: Platforming Action
• Spoiler Free Review: Not entirely, a little bit spoiled contextually, mechanically.
• Time Played: Can't see yet. I don't know... 15 hours?
• Too Short/Long: It's mostly fine, but I rarely enjoy the "rerun through whole game again" shebang, which this has you do, to be fair it was an abbreviated version that went pretty quick, but still.
• Soundtrack: It has some really cool and atmospheric tracks, it's high points are high but it's mostly just serviceable.
• Why I played: I'll likely give any game where grappling hook is a primary mechanic a shot, but this one is definitely more my style. I kind of forgot why I added to my wishlist for a long time and screenshots didn't do it justice. A friend mentioned playing it(may have suggested it?) and so that bumped it up on my to-play. 
• Did I cry: I got choked up a couple times and thought I was at the end and going to say "Surprisingly, no", but then it got me for a long one.
• Jank: The jank comes mostly from the localization being a little awkward. Sometimes it feels perfectly fine, sometimes it feels weird, sometimes there is a reason it is weird, sometimes I think it's an odd choice for why it's weird. Other than that, there are times where it feels the mechanics or controls are working against you/not exactly how you want, but it's mostly fine.
• Difficulty: It can be pretty difficult at times. Mostly it's not entirely too hard once you grasp how the grappling handles - which I do feel is slightly off, but regardless, it probably didn't help I went the whole game without using the "slowdown time and aim" feature. I noticed it once early on, didn't need it for a long time, forgot about it, had some areas I had more trouble with, then accidentally pressed the button for it and "remembered" it existed in the final moments of the game, by then my muscle memory was already adequate enough to carry me the rest of the way.
• Recommend to others: I would definitely recommend Sanabi to people who like unique takes on platforming action. It's not quite like it, but it reminds me of Dandara, just because of how unique Dandara is in how it handles. Sanabi isn't quite that unique, but you're likely spending more time swinging on the grappling hook, pulling in your line (which does feel Dandara-esque), and running up walls, then you are running along the ground.
  

Sanabi was a good game and overall I really enjoyed it. The story is a little convoluted and takes awhile to get it's point across. It could also do a bit better with providing more of the story throughout the game rather than backloading I think what might be the vast majority of it. Not that some of the earlier interactions aren't necessary to build it up, but that just means it feels a little empty in the middle and the end is a dramatic shift. The pacing is off, is really all I'm saying.

It doesn't specifically have "levels", it's more of a "chapter" game, but each chapter has it's own set of gimmicks, which is pretty fun, so I feel like it's mostly well designed in that aspect. They utilize some aspects more than others, but they usually expand upon things later on and toss a little in later to mix it up. That might also be a part of what the final rerun through the game is for, but it could have been a new area instead of replaying(albeit modified).

There is one thing I don't like graphically, and I jumped right into another game that did it and decided to play something else. The "blank space" of the game is just all black. In a game with some gorgeous cyberpunk style art in the backgrounds, you'd think they could have put some foreground textures up. Instead it's just black space and it makes it feel very... game makery. I think it's mostly a well crafted game, it's just something like that takes a bit away from it's personality and makes it feel like less effort went into it. I know a ton of games do it, but it kind of made me realize I don't like, and am tired of seeing it. It's especially common in twitchy precision platformers for some reason so maybe they're just playing to the genre. But I don't want it. At least just fill it in with some generic metal panels or something.

Mamon King

• Genre: Monster Raising(Life-Simulation?) RPG
• Spoiler Free Review: Yes.
• Time Played: 19 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It's fine but I feel like it could use a bit more content to flesh out the experience a bit. Much of the time was spent kind of repetitively, once I got the hang of what I was doing.
• Soundtrack: It's what you'd expect for the type of game it is, nothing too special, but it's not bad.
• Why I played: I first saw the mish-mash of styles and mocked the game, but a post came up on my radar about how it was the dev's dream game and it caused me to give it a second look - early reviews were pretty positive and it had a decent launch discount, so I figured I'd give it a try.
• Did I cry: Nah.
• Jank: This is a pretty janky game. The visuals are a little janky, the style of the game isn't exactly cohesive - even when it comes to the monsters themselves, some using textures that other don't have. There are the occasionally glitches and needing to restart the game when you get locked out of menus. Nothing game breaking, but it's there.
• Difficulty: It's not too difficult until you get to the end-game stuff. There is a cap to how strong you can make your monsters and the end-game monsters meet that, so some of the last battles are determined with a mix of strategy and luck... well as long as you maxed out your monsters stats because otherwise you lose.
• Recommend to others: I think I would actually recommend it to those who are specifically looking for a Monster Rancher-like experience. That's about it. I don't think it does anything too new or too different to appeal to anyone else other than those who say "I wish there was a new Monster Rancher"
  

It's been a long time since I played a monster raising game, I use to really like them, but I guess the genre is rather niche within the realm of other monster collection and raising games. Like there are plenty of other games you "raise" monsters, but often with an entirely different set up. Like on a farm, where you walk around as your character and manage other aspects of the game. Maybe the Monster Rancher formula is just too narrow of a scope for a modern game, and is generally just meant to be the mechanic of another game. Like I just played Yahtzee the other night, except it wasn't Yahtzee, it was an entirely different, fleshed out game, with a card, and tokens, and victory points, etc. etc. that uses Yahtzee as it's mechanic. Rolling 5 dice, and rerolling your selected dice up to two more times to get the most optimal die.

Playing just Yahtzee just doesn't do it for me, there needs to be more, and maybe that's why that style of monster raising has fallen off. Not that there were tons in the genre to begin with, but between the first couple Digimon World, the aforementioned Monster Rancher, and one of my favorite games - Dragonseeds, there are at least a handful.

Anyway, Mamon King does have some modern sensibilities and feels quick paced and offers a good feedback loop. Despite using a calendar, I didn't hate it, as it works to help you plan for your days so you know what is coming up. Also there is persistent saving so there is no save-scumming, you just have to go wit, which probably worked out better for me because otherwise I would have done it constantly. Though there were two times I still wish I could have done it because it would have saved me a lot of gameplay time where I just kind of had to waste time, and the time wasted could have felt a little less wasted if there was more variety to the game play. I'm always for more mini-games, especially in a game like this that is practically built for having mini-games. Though it's little board-game traversing expedition was pretty neat and well implemented.

Some of the monster designs are pretty cool, but most are... okay. Maybe just not entirely to my taste, but it doesn't exactly make me want to play with more than I did. It lacks any kind of multiplayer, which is fine I guess, but most of these types of games have multiplayer. It's a staple to be able to pit your monster against your friends. Not that any of my friends are going to play this... or any of the other monster raising games I have played historically.

GO THERE

• Genre: Action
• Spoiler Free Review: Nothing to spoil.
• Time Played: <1 hour
• Too Short/Long: It's pretty short.
• Soundtrack: It has some cute tracks, but it's only a few.
• Why I played: I was gifted it for my birthday, thanks Rey pt. 2!
• Did I cry: Nah.
• Jank: It's a pretty simple and straight forward game, not much to jank up.
• Difficulty: A little bit more difficult than SHE SAVE, but only a little, maybe just because of being a little bit more complicated.
• Recommend to others: Still probably won't go out of my way to with this one, but it's also a cute little game and I'll keep an eye on what else the dev may do in the future.

In this game you have to GO THERE. There is where there is a like Tori Gate with the dragonest dragon, but also the dragons are the friends you make along the way. Much like SHE SAVE, it's just a simple boss rush game with a handful of stages, but in this one your character mostly heals and has a piddly little attack, but you gain the friendship of the dragons you fight and can use a couple of their abilities and switch between them in battle as you progress. This obviously appeals to me very much and is even more of an appropriate game to have played on my birthday.

SHE SAVE

• Genre: Action
• Spoiler Free Review: Nothing to spoil.
• Time Played: <1 hour
• Too Short/Long: It's pretty short.
• Soundtrack: It has some cute tracks, but it's only a few.
• Why I played: I was gifted it for my birthday, thanks Rey!
• Did I cry: Nah.
• Jank: It's a pretty simple and straight forward game, not much to jank up.
• Difficulty: It's not too difficult and I only had to retry a battle or two, but it has some challenges after you beat the game that are really difficult.
• Recommend to others: Probably won't go out of my way to, but it's a cute little game and I'll keep an eye on what else the dev may do in the future.

She save, she protect, she attack, she heal. She save is just a little game with very cute/cool pixel art. You play as a girl and do kind of a boss-rush things where you fight big screen covering dragons. I kinda love the idea and it would be cool to see a more fleshed boss, but I also really appreciate the art and the music was cute too. A fun little birthday bonus!

Tensei

• Genre: Arcade Platformer
• Spoiler Free Review: Nothing to spoil.
• Time Played: <1 hour
• Too Short/Long: Too short? I got what I paid for, I guess.
• Soundtrack: There is like an track and it doesn't entire fit the vibe.
• Why I played: It looked neat, and it was a dollar, maybe less?
• Did I cry: Nah.
• Jank: There isn't really any jank, to be fair.
• Difficulty: It's not that difficult, I failed my first run, won my second.
• Recommend to others: Probably not. It's too simple, even for what it is.

There is not really much to Tensei, it's just a game where you jump up along floating islands to try and reach higher and higher heights. There are certain bad islands you can't touch unless you goomba stomp a little volcano, and that's the only real hazard other than your own negligence. It's self-described as a zen game, and that's really all it is. Just something to play to play. I think after enough runs you get like an infinite mode or one without hazards? I'd have to just play to play for a few hours to unlock enough currency to buy the mode, but I got a credit roll as I "beat" a run, and I don't know if there is enough here for me to play for several hours more just to unlock a mode that allows me to play more. Maybe I'll pick it up again to play here and there, it's nice to look at, at least.

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond

• Genre: First-Person Action Adventure
• Spoiler Free Review: Yes.
• Time Played: 19 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It's fine. Ran a little long on my end because I kept going back and forth to check areas over and over and there is no fast travel to do so, and I didn't activate the scouts that help you find missing items until my last pass through before finishing the game. I probably could have cut a solid few hours had I done that.
• Soundtrack: Soundtrack is fantastic. Mostly environmental mood setting type stuff, with a couple exceptions, but they still manage to be bangers.
• Why I played: I mean I play pretty much every Metroid game, but Samus on a motorcycle let's be real.
• Did I cry: Nah.
• Jank: It's a pretty polished game. There were like two times I encountered a glitch. One time where I was stuck/couldn't move and thought I was going to have to restart the game, and another where my scanning UI was popping on and off. They both worked themselves out though.
• Difficulty: It can be pretty difficult. It's not like grueling difficulty, but it can be a challenge and sometimes feel unfairly so when you're just trying to get from point A to point B. 
• Recommend to others: I'm not going to really go out of my way to recommend it, but anyone who likes Metroid/Metroid Prime, or has considered it, I definitely would. It's a really good game, but it's true to form for the series and I don't think is breaking any new ground.

I don't think I really have too much to say. After 18 years, this was I feel like a game that just played it safe. It did new stuff sure, I loved the motorcycle, and it played a little bit with each of the unique mechanics. There is some decent morphball puzzle/platforming and some motorcycle battles to mix it up, but they didn't go too hard, or lean too much into stuff outside the core game play. I think anyone with any fondness for Metroid Prime will be happy to play this one so long as they're reasonable, though some people are just looking to get mad at something.

I remember when Metroid Dread came out, a big complaint was it "uses too many buttons". I even know of someone who rage-quit the game entirely over it. I find it to be an odd complaint because modern controllers have so many buttons for a reason. Though I suppose if you mainly play certain genres - many buttons just become optional. Not to say controls couldn't be simplified or more intuitive, but Metroid Prime 4 definitely also uses all the buttons. I definitely felt it more for this one, and maybe because the more omni-direction nature of the game, but sometimes I would just be hitting stuff and doing the wrong thing. Plus the controls change depending on context too... there are the standard controls, the scan mode controls(not just for scanning!), the morphball controls, the motorcycle controls. There is a lot to do. But I'm not really complaining. In many cases, two buttons would perform the same function - I think this was to help with aiming during combat, and platforming, and stuff like that.

Arguably two things I wished were in the game would have required two more buttons. I wish Samus could dash - just run faster, and I wish she could punch. There are times in cutscenes where she just hits stuff, and the past couple Metroid games had the "melee counter". I really just wanted to smack stuff away that was right in my face. In sections where the bike was unavailable, I wish I could have just dashed or run to trek a bit faster. That would have made up for there being no fast-travel. Usually games like this would have a fast-travel, and this didn't, and I'm okay with that. It's not SO huge it's necessary, and sometimes fast-travel can take away from the experience. If there were tons of side missions and things I was actually required to go back and forth for, then maybe I'd need it, but it's not like it was a super long game anyway. I just wanted to run faster.

Digimon Story: Time Stranger

• Genre: RPG
• Spoiler Free Review: Story-wise yes, content wise no.
• Time Played: 100 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It's not that I think it was too long, but the pacing felt a bit rough. It has you trek entirely through some areas, then trek entirely through them again later. Plus you unlock most side quests at the end of the game, which should you do, will have you trek through each of these areas again. They could have broke it up a bit by having some more sidequests available throughout gameplay and it would have been more fun to go through these areas again if they were identical upon revisit aside from enemies.
• Soundtrack: Soundtrack isn't all that great in my opinion. There are a couple fun tracks, but most of it almost sounds like stock loops and it makes me sleepy listening to it.
• Why I played: I loved Cyber Sleuth, and my biggest complain with Hacker's Memory - at least up to where I played, was it was just more Cyber Sleuth. I had hoped Time Stranger was going to be an entirely new, refreshing experience.
• Did I cry: Maybe a little on a few occasions.
• Jank: Not entirely much jank outside of invisible walls - though they are intentional invisible walls, they still feel out of place when you're not looking at the map. I'd say the jank lies more in some of the actual design decisions and such. Like not be able to look at your digivolution possibilities/digivolve while they're in a farm.
• Difficulty: At first I thought the game was going to have some challenge, earlier battles of the game required me to restructure my party, adjust my movesets, equipment, etc. At some point, it just didn't matter and I used the same digimon/moves the rest of the game. It could be my fault for trying to create the ultimate life form/doing this games version of grinding a little too much.
• Recommend to others: I think I would to people who like Digimon, sure, but I'm more likely to recommend Cyber Sleuth. It's been some time but my memories of it are still fonder. There are places where Time Stranger stands above it in, but it's not enough to take it's place.

Digimon: Time Stranger was alright. I like Digimon a lot and it satisfied an itch for a bit, I'm sure, but it didn't blow me away. I see a lot of posts in either Digimon-centric communities, or anti-Pokemon centric communities, how Digimon: Time Stranger is proof that Digimon is finally beating Pokemon or something.

This is... just not possible. I love Digimon, but Pokemon, as a brand is just something you can't compete with. Pokemon ZA may have it's issues, but it's still Pokemon, and the people I know who played that vs Time Stranger is 10-1. Even if somehow Time Stranger managed to sell better, it didn't "Win". In the time since Cybersleuth since I mentioned it and Pokemon also released it's mainline Sun and Moon games that year, Digimon has released a couple seasons of new anime, also a couple movies/ova type things, and a new card game. 4 "real games", and a whole bunch of service games, most of which are service terminated at this point, 3 remain, though one is China only and the other South Korea only. Overall, 11 games. Which isn't too bad.

Pokemon by comparison has released over 25 games in that same time. Only 1 service game has retired and a far larger percent are "real games" 16 in fact, with 8 of them being mainline games. Pokemon has never stopped airing anime, and their card game has caused retail stores to have to/attempt to enforce regulations on card purchases in the past few years due to it's popularity. It's just not a comparison, these two "mon" franchises aren't even on the same playing field. But I doubt anything will ever "beat" Pokemon at this point. It's too established, too ubiquitous. It's like Star Wars, Lords of the Rings, Harry Potter. It's place in pop culture set.