Jason Schreier
This is simultaneously a joke about pixel hunting, a joke about adventure games, and a joke about the dumb things that players will do in video games. Did you ever think you'd want to hunt for pixels again? And did you ever think that the act of hunting pixels might be fun? Thimbleweed Park somehow both subverts pixel-hunting and makes you want to hunt pixels, which is just about all you can ask for in an adventure game.
This second time around, Final Fantasy XII has surprised me. I can credit some of my improved regard for the game to this remastered version's visual polish and convenient fast-forward button. I credit more of it to the game's innate quality. It holds up. It works well. It functions like no Final Fantasy before it or since.
Like the world of Alrest, there's very little holding up Xenoblade 2. It is dull, dreary, overly complicated, and unconcerned with wasting the player's time. Life is just too short for that—even if you don't live on a sea of sinking clouds.
Ni no Kuni II is a very good role-playing game, one full of satisfying mechanics and fun battles
Although it's a solid, well-made game, it ultimately left me unsatisfied.
Octopath Traveler is a beautiful game with one of the best soundtracks I've heard. The combat system rocks and will hopefully be used in more Square Enix games to come. There are plenty of good ideas in here. But the game is too grindy, too repetitive, too full of structural problems to be viewed as much more than another botched JRPG experiment.
Link’s Awakening is a beautiful recreation of a legendary game, but it doesn’t have much to offer to players who already know the ins and outs of Koholint Island.
There’s unexpected joy in the little moments of Disco Elysium
Final Fantasy VII Remake is not what I expected. It’s a grand, ambitious, beautiful experiment, a bold new take on a game that millions of people remember fondly. It sometimes feels shackled by the weight of two decades worth of expectations, but it handles those restraints with aplomb. I certainly can’t wait to see what’s next.