amphibious_ReViews

Returning to my StreetPass Mii Plaza quest after a multi-month hiatus, I decided I had to adjust my play style for Monster Manor. This game, while initially one of the more engaging choices in the collection, was the primary reason I took a break from StreetPass at the start of the new year. I was consistently spending the most amount of time on Monster Manor with every pass through the plaza, but the gameplay never changed and the finish line always seemed so far out of reach. There is a fake ending about halfway through the base adventure, and if it was a real conclusion, I would have been okay. Instead, my frustration with Monster Manor peaked and my interest quickly started to fade. My restructured strategy felt a little sloppy, but it did speed the game up a bit, giving me the strength to see it through to the end. Monster Manor is an exploration-style game that finds you trapped in a haunted tower. Your challenge is to find the way to the top so you can defeat the master of the m...

Outer Wilds was a game that I built a lot of expectations around. Over the past year or so, I've been upping my consumption of content from the indie game YouTube scene. It didn't matter which creator I was watching, though. One game kept coming up. Often described as a "Metroidbrainia" or a "knowledge-based game," Outer Wilds seemed right up my alley. I didn't want any spoilers, so I always skipped past anything but the most surface-level discussions, yet I was so convinced I would enjoy it that I pre-ordered a physical copy for Nintendo Switch at my local GameStop. While I could have saved money and started playing sooner by buying it digitally during one of the frequent eShop sales, I knew that this was a game I would want to be able to display on my shelf and share with friends. Now that I have finally beaten it, I'm happy to report that Outer Wilds: Archaeologist Edition is one of the most incredible games I have ever played. Boiled down to its ...

I did a good job of coming into Edith Finch as un-spoiled as I could, but I still thought I had a pretty good idea of what the game was about. As it turns out, I was far more un-spoiled than I realized. I was initially drawn to it by the fascinatingly unique collage of gameplay styles and hadn't paid much attention to any mention of the story. However, that is absolutely the most important part of this game, and all the little gameplay shakeups in between just serve to amplify that narrative even further. As heartbreaking as it was, I was so engrossed in understanding the story of the Finch family that I could hardly put this game down. What Remains of Edith Finch puts you in control of the titular Edith Finch as she returns to her abandoned family home in search of answers. As the last remaining Finch, she wants to understand and document the stories of her eclectic kin by exploring a home that was largely blocked off to her while she was growing up. Throughout the house, she'...