Article for Newspaper

Over the course of the past year I’ve spent most of my time playing a lot of different video games. I’m going to review each one that I spent more than 10 hours on and give a basic description, the pros and cons, and finally provide a final evaluation and recommendation. Enjoy!

Games for Switch only (unless you get an emulator):

Nintendo 64 + GBA Emulator for Nintendo Switch

This is available after buying the Nintendo Online subscription that includes the N64 emulator, the Game Boy Advance emulator, and the Mario Kart extra maps. This includes over 20 games from the N64, such as Star Fox 64, Ocarina of Time, and GBA games such as Metroid 4.

Pros:

-nostalgic

Cons:

-Too expensive

-Most of the games are filler except for 3

-Controls do not carry over well to switch controllers

- Waste of time

This is a Nintendo money grab if I’ve ever seen one. It’s around $40-50 PER YEAR just to be able to play late 90s games, most of which are garbage that no one’s ever heard of. Of the actually decent games, the only one I’d consider paying this much money for is Metroid 4 on the GBA, but it doesn't matter anyway because you can just download an emulator on your PC instead FOR FREE. Not only that, you can buy the Mario Kart DLC separately, so this pack is useless: 1/5 -- instant refund for me.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Basically the same as Breath of the Wild except there’s a lot more to do. It’s still open world but you can explore the sky and the underground as well as the surface.

Pros:

-Really fun exploration

-More customizability than BOTW since you can attach essentially any item to any weapon

-More fun ways to solve puzzles because you can build

-Good music, good graphics for the switch

-Fun bugs, no inconvenient glitches

-Bosses are unique and harder (sometimes)

-Cool story

-Rockets

Cons:

-Master sword still breaks after like 4 hits despite all the trouble you have to go through to get it

-The hands that won’t stop respawning

-Say goodbye to getting homework done on time

This was definitely worth my $70. I probably had over 100 hours the first week it was out. Would completely recommend: 11/10

Splatoon 3

CoD for kids, but the 3rd one. 4 v 4 zone control, escort, rainmaker (get special weapon to enemy goal), and [collect-the-most-clams] modes for ranked, paint the most area (turf war) for unranked. New weapons, gear, maps, and campaign. DLC coming soon.

Pros:

-Guns

-Cephalopods

-All the fun stuff in team-based competitive games

-Campaign levels are unique compared to the other two games

-Card game for some reason

-Cooperative zombies (shoot the salmon) game mode that’s constantly changing

Cons:

- Not that many new weapons

- Splatoon 2 was better and now no one plays it

- Too many sea animal puns

My biggest problem with this game is that it doesn’t really add much compared to the previous game which is also on the Switch. It’s just kind of pointless; Nintendo should have waited for the release of their next console. If you want the competitive experience there are plenty of games that are almost identical like Overwatch that have a $0 price tag rather than a $60 one. Despite this, the game makes for a unique experience, for no other game equips your character with a giant paintbrush as a weapon. Aside from my business complaints, it’s still very fun.

This is a solid 7/10.

Fire Emblem: Engage

This is a turn-based, kind of anime-style military strategy RPG. The main focus of the game is the combat system, although there is a story.

Pros:

-Combat is fun +

-Difficulty can be scaled up and down relatively easily by the player allowing for better gameplay customization

-Music is great

-Character abilities and signature moves are pretty cool (most of the time)

-Lots of ways to build your team

Cons:

-Story is garbage and cliched, In fact, I think the hit Hollywood movie “The Room” has a better plot (and maybe acting)

-Cutscenes are cringy and lame

-Most of the character backstory and dialogue is flat and boring except for the characters from past FE games

-Gameplay stays relatively the same throughout the entire game – you never get any item or character that is significantly different from the last, only better weapons or healing items.

This game is a bit in the middle for me. I had a pretty good time with the gameplay and spent at least 75 hours with it, but at the end of the day, there’s almost no replayability. I think I skipped every cutscene after figuring out how stupid they were. There’s a good chance you’ll enjoy this game, but there’s an equally good chance you’ll waste $60, which is not a good investment: 5/10

Cross-platform games, Mainly PC:

Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon

This is a fast-paced, mech combat game.  It’s got Mission-based gameplay with secret items to collect by replaying missions and getting a better rank.

Pros:

-Ridiculously cool – for context, this is the game where you pilot a skyscraper-sized mech suit, wielding two house-sized shotguns and ludicrously large energy rifles.

-Not just guns, but really awesome melee weapons as well

-Superfluid movement and intuitive controls

-Lots of replayability, as some missions only appear after making certain choices, and there are additional missions after completing the game once and twice.

-Satisfying enemy encounters

-Difficult (in a fun way most of the time)

Cons:

-The first mission’s boss is really hard, especially for new players, and as a result can discourage people from the rest of the game

-Difficulty spikes randomly – some bosses are easy, some are hard enough to rage quit over

-Second and third playthroughs are fun, but it can get repetitive if you didn’t collect all the secret items and have to replay the whole game again – like I did

This is a good choice for anyone who enjoys Dark Souls or Elden Ring, as much of the combat styles are similar. I would not recommend this to anyone who has not played many games before, as there is no way to lower the difficulty other than practicing: 8/10

Hollow Knight

2D side-scrolling game set in an underground bug world. It’s Metroid style, meaning that the goal of the game is to explore and collect permanent upgrades in a set order, using said upgrades to collect optional content and progress farther. This is a very fun game but has a high skill cap. The only way to defeat harder enemies is to get good.

Pros:

-Large map

-Hundreds of items to pick up

-Npc quests (rare for Metroidvania games)

-Lots of bosses, all of which are somewhat difficult

-Smooth movement controls

-Cool and flashy abilities

-Very satisfying combat, especially after felling harder enemies

-Astronomically better on PC

Cons:

- Hard to navigate sometimes – game does not tell you where to go and so you get lost

- Bosses are especially difficult as you can only take around five hits before death in the early game

-They still haven’t released the sequel

HK is definitely one of the greats. There’s not much else I can say about this game without spoiling anything, but I fully recommend this, seeing as it has sucked up about 300 hours of my time. In addition, PC players have access to the free modding interface, which is relatively easy to set up. Mods range from cosmetic changes to additional items to full randomizers. Mods alone offer at least as much content as the base game. On PC the maximum price is around $25 through Steam and frequently goes on sale. Easily an 11/10.

Terraria

2D side scroller, generated worlds made of breakable blocks, boss progression but also opportunities for creative mode.

Pros:

- Thousands of unique items, of which there are over 500 weapons and over 70 armor sets

- Class system, which, combined with the sheer number of items, allows players a large degree of freedom when deciding how to play

-Large building + crafting aspect

-Available on all platforms

-Very compatible with multiplayer, especially if playing through Steam

-Difficulty can be scaled up/down, and the normal difficulty is just hard enough that enemies aren’t pushovers, but aren’t DS bosses either.

-Very cheap, and purchase includes TModloader free

Cons:

-Early game somewhat slow

-Game is hard to play without consulting the wiki frequently, as you obtain new items rapidly and have no idea whether they’ll be useful or not

-Not all platforms are on the same update, so cross-play is essentially impossible

This is probably the best deal you could get. On PC Terraria sells for $10 max and goes on sale almost every other week for half that. This game is simply incredibly fun all the time, no better way to put it. The inclusion of TModloader is also great since it allows you to browse, install, and play mods all in one place, and like Hollow Knight, the Terraria mods give over four times the base game’s content, and in some cases, are more fun than the base game itself. Not even sure why I wrote this review since it seems everyone’s already played this. 11/10 for sure.