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« Last post by Evan_B on July 02, 2026, 11:58:35 PM »
We're... so back?
Current Weighted Top Twenty (As of 7/2/2026)
VVVVVV - (4.71)
Pragmata - (4.65)
Inscryption - (4.49)
Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 - (4.42)
Crawl - (4.36)
The Swapper - (4.28)
Donkey Kong (1994) - (4.25)
Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - (4.25)
Anodyne 2: Return to Dust - (4.25)
Roller Coaster Tycoon (Deluxe) - (4.23)
Crystal Project - (4.23)
The Last Story - (4.23)
Toree Saturn - (4.23)
Dandara - (4.21)
Mr. Driller Drill Land - (4.21)
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - (4.19)
ARMS - (4.19)
Into the Breach - (4.17)
Skwish - (4.17)
UNSIGHTED - (4.17)
I took about a two-year break from this because my job simply did not allow me the time for whimsy, but I am attempting to inject a bit more of it back into my life.
There is no doubt that there is some degree of recency bias present in my current weighted top 20. Tears of the Kingdom is the best open-world Zelda that exists presently, but that might change in the (not so near) future. Toree Saturn is also the best version of Toree that exists. Smash Ultimate is likely to go uncontested as the most full-featured platform fighter ever. Perhaps if I were to throw the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition of Roller Coast Tycoon Complete into the mix, it might knock another one of these games into oblivion, though that might cause me to rethink what I believe is so full-featured and thorough about those games. There's been a bit of jostling around of the top 20, though nothing so extreme that it should make you worry about my super-precise system of ranking being suspect or whatever. While Kirby's Air Ride has dropped out of the top 20, I did just pick up Air Riders, so... we'll see if it returns in some fashion.
Anyway, hey, its Pragmata stealing the number 2 spot. To me, this is just an excellently-paced game with tons of optional and diverse content centered around its core mechanics, and it makes me want to play some more modern action-focused Capcom titles... but not yet. There's plenty exciting on the horizon, so I have to be efficient about clearing out my backlog, which is another reason I'm back performing for you. I've got some kind words and some beef with some recent plays.
I've talked about my impressions of Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist, Romancing SaGa 2 Remake, Haste, Pragmata, 9 Years of Shadows, and Marfusha in other threads, so I thought I'd instead complain about Viviette, Xenokart, and Lorelei and the Laser Eyes.
Viviette (3.69) - Meh
The precursor to developer DYA Games's Evil Tonight, which is pretty evident due to asset reuse. It's a similarly-themed game in a lot of ways, though its focus is more on survival and environmental puzzles than combat. Its a bit punishing in how it gates its alternate endings, which pads playtime a bit and is a reward for completionists rather than someone who wants to experience the actual gameplay. The adventure-isms of this game are a bit insulting, though, with some items existing to solve specific puzzles but having no use in others despite their obvious utility. Why do I need a hacksaw for one puzzle that isn't also usable in the axe puzzle? Eh. Anyway, it manages a pretty decent mood for a pixel-art horror game but its gameplay being so heavily reliant on environmental puzzles made me glad to finish it. Still sits at a respectable 195 out of 652, so not bad.
Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition Nintendo Switch 2 Edition (3.69) - Liked
Damn, can we just take a moment to recognize that bonkers mouthful of a name? Anyway, this being the only easily-accessible new content I could access from my pre-Xenoblade 3 playthrough meant that this was a pretty brisk run-through of said content. I really do hope that this flavor of mounted travel and dedicated side content finds integration into whatever Xenoblade Genesis ends up being, as Xenoblade has really favored traversal over mini-games. Though this isn't the perfect mounted travel option by far, as those cliff hikes are... intense, but I do appreciate that they took the time to design some specific and novel side-content just for it, and for what its worth, these vehicles do move well and feel diverse. This also makes me hope that Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is getting some form of mounted travel with its new Rare Blade, as Dromarch doesn't really offer any sort of benefit to the player and that game could use a speedier form of traversal itself. In any case, Xenokart is only occasionally difficult as a result of needing to adjust your control of its seven karts to the terrain presented, and might find some longevity as a score-chasing mode. Primarily, it serves as a way to boost your number of Noponstones for rare gear and the like featured in this game's challenge mode. I have not ranked this version of Xenoblade separately from the original Definitive Edition, but I don't think the inclusion of Xenokart does anything substantial enough to differentiate its rating, which is still a 131 out of 652. The fourth-highest Xenoblade title- and I actually like this series!
Lorelei and the Laser Eyes (3.65) - Disliked
Lastly, after sitting on the fence for a long time in regards to starting this game and finally being motivated by the recent Nintendo Switch 2 Edition and Guillame's own mention of it on Radio Free Nintendo, I decided to bite the bullet and start playing- and then finishing- this game. And boy, did it further solidify my disdain for classic adventure game design. I find it odd that developer Simogo should follow up the universally-accessible Sayonara Wild Hearts with a game as user-unfriendly and intimidating as this, however this is not their first adventure title so I suppose I can understand their wont to return to the genre. I don't consider Lorelei and the Laser Eyes a puzzle game, as there are really only a few "puzzles" to be found here. The game's logic is pretty explicitly introduced to you from the very start of your playthrough and it is up to you to exploit its controls and the information it makes accessible to you to complete the experience. I am sure that my playthrough differs from the progression of some other individuals, partially because I went into the game thinking that it was going to be a lot more demanding of me than it actually was. For example, the game offers a series of foundational texts to the player early on in the playthrough that introduce the idea of translating certain numbers and words into other "languages," or symbols. I foolishly thought that this meant I was going to find a clue that would requite translation for some locks later in the game, but it turns out the examples that these foundational texts gave were simply supposed to be regurgitated elsewhere. That's not a puzzle, per se, or at least, it doesn't feel like one.
Really, the game seems to be more of a "password simulator" than anything, which makes sense thematically from a narrative perspective but makes the overall gameplay pretty bland. Some password solutions are so obscure that I felt I needed to be keyed in on the mindset of the developer in order to solve them: one art exhibit offers the password for a keypad but I never made the connection between the two simply because the symbology used there did not mimic the play space of the code input. The game's logic is incredibly inconsistent: sometimes rooms have an self-contained password-solution and input, sometimes you are required to bring information from throughout or across the house to a specific place, so it can feel a bit insulting when an answer is either presented to you immediately within a room ("really? that's all I need to do?") just as often as it is frustrating when a password requires you to hoof it halfway across the large manor (which is further convoluted by gated shortcuts that are painfully easy to unlock upon understanding their "trick," save for one or two examples that absolutely require knowledge from outside of the game to answer) to "solve."
Lorelei's photographic memory- which is a collection of all the documents and such that you have read in the game world thus far- does a lot of heavy lifting, but this also means that the "quiz club" section of the game feels utterly devoid of tension, as you are tasked with a life-or-death scenario of inputting a number that... you can just easily find by accessing your "introspection" menu. The game offers you the chance to do this! If you don't have a document that answers the question, you can just easily back out of these scenarios! Why even have this facade of high-stakes questioning at all? (Note: don't confuse this with the inversely frustrating "maze guy" encounters, which can prevent you from saving before them and can also result in a progress-loss fail state simply because you haven't taken note of every single element present in the diorama scenes that you don't even know if you're going to be asked about. Better to just take stock of every single thing, right? Because every single bit of information in that room will only be used to answer that one question, even if you think you spot a clue that might have utility in another puzzle! That's not clever!)
What's genuinely annoying is that there are a set of complex solutions that require smart synthesis of several elements found in the house, but the vast majority of the passwords are just the same important numbers and names the game has shown you multiple times or a key that you just need to have on your person or that you need to know how to turn correctly, and the rare few times the game hides or obscures these turn sequences can be attributed just as much to a failure of the minimalist user interface as your own stupidity. Telling me that I can rotate an aspect of a puzzle piece is not "giving away" the answer to said puzzle- the puzzle itself is just a lame math problem. You just hid the equation behind a statue. That's not clever.
It is this aspect of adventure game design that I have butted up against in both Viviette and Lorelei that makes me feel, with confidence, that this genre isn't for me. Too often I feel cheated, like I am meant to feel stupid or less than clever for simply not-knowing how a developer wants me to solve a puzzle. At least with games like Baba is You or Picross or The Swapper, the logic is consistent and the scenarios are designed to be solved within that logic or through the discovery of how that logic might be applied to a game scenario. Too many adventure games seem to be designed with the idea that "now, I'll do something completely different that makes sense to me, and the player will have to intuit my new logic." As a teacher, I have patience for when people try and fail to communicate something to me due to a lack of mastery over the language in question. Adventure games feel like an exercise in attempting to learn a language that the developer is actively attempting to prevent me from understanding. And yes, part of the frustration I feel in these games comes from getting stuck, but quite often in Lorelei, my feeling of being stuck came from lacking a gated piece of information because I simply had not played by the specific rules of a specific "puzzle" that I either didn't have access to or was obscured by the minimalist interface. I feel dumb because I should have known better, not because the solution was actually difficult. I actually knew how to get the solution but the interface was bad and its badness prevented me from proving that I know how to do basic math, or pinpoint a square, or some other banal and simplistic task.
...So yes, I did look up about I'd estimate 8-10% of the game's "puzzle" solutions, and for about 40% of those solutions, I said "how was I supposed to know I could do that," with another 40% being "oh, I could have easily offered the solution to this if the interface wasn't so obscure." The final 20% was "oh, I did not notice this detail," which I am okay with admitting and feel neither stupid or smart for having been unable to solve. Hey, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes still manages to land at 147 out of 652. I can absolutely dislike something and still rate it pretty favorably, though in this case it was an all-consuming need to be able to say "yeah I got to the end of this game, I'm not dumb" and an appreciation for the aesthetic trappings of the game that helped me reach the rather dour and decidedly-not-Lynchian conclusion.
...I will probably play and complain about Blue Prince at some point, yes.
Where do we go from here? Well, I'm still chipping away at some larger releases while trying to knock out the smaller stuff from my library. There are some large games in my backlog that I've put a lot of time into and haven't ranked, while others have been started and rather immediately repulsed me out of the gate, which then begs the question of whether or not I'm in the right headspace for a game at a certain time, which also begs the next question of whether it makes sense for me to rank these games immediately after I've finished playing them. I can say with confidence that some of the rearranging of my top 20 comes from the passage of time and my overall uncertainty as to whether some of the scoring criteria truly fits the product in question. Perhaps that's a discussion for another time.
Immediate interests include Metroid: Samus Returns, Blasphemous, Detention, and the soon-to-release Digimon Time Stranger. Oh, and I'm slowly chipping away at Final Fantasy VII (the original), which sucks ass from a gameplay perspective but is really pretty good from an artistic, narrative, and pacing perspective.
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