amphibious_ReViews

I was born late enough that all the discourse I heard about EarthBound described it as a hidden gem, so much so that I wouldn't even consider it "hidden" anymore. Fueled by these discussions and a curiosity about the enigmatic psychic kids in Smash Bros., I was excited to give the series a try. However, being who I am, I couldn't start with the sequel when there's a whole NES predecessor I still hadn't played. After multiple attempts over the past few years, I realized that was a losing battle and ended up playing EarthBound without finishing Mother (EarthBound Beginnings). While I'm a little disappointed that I couldn't maintain my motivation in the NES original, I'm ultimately glad I gave up because EarthBound is just so much better. The SNES is an absolute juggernaut when it comes to RPGs, but this game is genuinely unique amongst its peers, truly standing out amongst the crowd. EarthBound is obviously a JRPG, and it doesn't hide that fact f

When The Skywalker Saga was announced, I was excited, but I was a little wary of the possibility of going back through the same levels I've played dozens of times already in The Complete Saga and the original two LEGO Star Wars games. As soon as screenshots and footage started appearing, all of those fears were gone. I still didn't know much about it at the time, but it certainly wasn't just an expanded version of the game I've played to death. Now that I've played it, I can gladly say that the spirit of those older classics remains but the play-experience carves out its own identity, creating something familiar, yet refreshingly independent. The Skywalker Saga marks a major evolution in the Traveller's Tales LEGO formula. The world is still highly destructible, studs are still the main currency, and there is still an intense focus on collectibles and unlockables, but the gameplay itself has experienced a significant shift from the previous twenty-or-so mainlin

Sometimes I'll jump on to bandwagon games, like Fortnite or Among Us , just to see what the fuss is all about, but even at just $2.99, I wasn't fully convinced to bite the bullet on Suika Game. When it arrived as a free trial on the Nintendo Switch Online service, I finally gave it a shot, and my first thought went to how much my wife would enjoy it! She has been thoroughly addicted to both Tetris and 2048 in the past, and Suika Game feels like a blend of the two with added physics. I actually ended up really having fun with it, but my wife liked it even more; so much so that we ended up buying it for her Switch after the trial ended. It may be iterative, but this is one of the freshest-feeling arcade puzzlers that I've played in a long time. Suika Game challenges you to earn a high score by dropping as much fruit as you can into a clear container before it overflows. The trick is that when two fruits of the same variety touch, they fuse into one larger fruit and earn you

I stopped playing Fire Emblem Heroes around the same time I stopped participating in the Microsoft Rewards program. Those two things were starting to take over all of my free time, and I needed some reprieve. While I have a history of gacha-style games latching themselves to my daily routines, I foolishly didn't expect this one to manage that. I've never been able to get into tactics games before, and I assumed the same would apply here. In fact, the only reason I started playing it was for the My Nintendo rewards points! However, the game's story and the greater Fire Emblem lore that it draws upon started drawing me in, and before I knew it, I was hooked. Now, while I'm shelving Heroes, I have a new, genuine interest in trying out some of the mainline games. For an aggressively monetized mobile game to be the thing that finally helped me enjoy the tactics genre, it must be doing something very right. Part of that may be its simplicity. In other tactics games that I'

I started playing Microsoft Jewel 2 through the Xbox app because it earned me Microsoft rewards points that I could use to buy Xbox games. At first, I avoided playing it because I knew I'd have to write a review, but I obviously caved. The Microsoft Rewards program has since been seriously nerfed, so I stopped participating and no longer have much of an incentive to play this generic, yet enjoyable, puzzle game. Thus, I am now facing the consequences. I'm not actually disappointed to be writing a review, I just wish it were about something with a little more spirit. Microsoft Jewel 2 does everything it needs to in order to be a passable match-3 puzzle game, but not much more. The game starts you with a screen full of colorful jewels, a level progress bar, and a set of three challenges. Jewels can swap places with any of their adjacent, non-diagonal neighbors, as long as at least one of the jewels being swapped creates a line of three or more like-colored jewels. That line is th

I don't think 2D Metroid could be in a better place than it is right now. Thanks to the Switch's massive install base and the excellent work done by the team at MercurySteam, Metroid Dread has sold better than any other game in the series, potentially introducing tens of thousands of new players to the series. While there were a few things that kept it behind Metroid Fusion as my favorite entry, the transition to 2.5D started by Samus Returns has been fully realized here, and it's absolutely glorious. I know this kind of game won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I think Metroid Dread is exactly what we needed to make sure that people who might fall in love with the series actually get a chance to do so. Picking up after the events of Metroid Fusion, Samus, still genetically fused with Metroid DNA, and ADAM, now integrated into the ship's computer, receive a distress signal from an unfamiliar planet. Within the distress call was an image of an x-parasite, prompt

I have been thinking about playing the original F-ZERO for a while now, but I keep getting distracted by other games that I have even more interest in playing. I usually prefer to start a series with the first game before any others because it helps me to appreciate the franchise's legacy. However, the surprise announcement of F-ZERO 99 that followed the shuttering of PAC-MAN 99 seemed like too exciting of an opportunity to ignore. While it isn't exactly how I would've planned it, I played the newest game in the F-ZERO series first, just to make sure I experienced it during the height of its popularity. With how much it is inspired by the original, I think I would've appreciated F-ZERO 99 more had I played the SNES classic beforehand, but as it stands, I still had a great time! Following the template of the 99-series games that preceded it, F-ZERO 99 pits you against 98 other players. However, your play area is no longer independent of your opponents where you can only