Fear the Spotlight is great. It’s a pretty focused, mostly puzzle game with some stealth elements. An interesting take on a particular story that doesn’t do anything drastic, but isn’t afraid to play with tropes and themes.

Not much to say about the next three games. Not bad, above average for sure. I really liked the British post-apocalyptic atmosphere of  Hollowbody. Go Home Annie is not only interested in spooky stuff, but in the SCP Foundation itself, much like Remedy’s Control, and that’s fun. I don’t think The Chant is particularly good at criticizing what it wants to criticize, but overall just a solid game.

Sorry We’re Closed does a lot. From its take on survival horror combat (action games where you have to feel powerless), to great visuals, to… dating sim, eh, flavor?.. The story goes places, too. Very good.

Ok, calling PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate a horror game is a stretch, but there are two stages that are clearly horror themed. So, there. It is a twin-stick shooter with an emphasis on physics based puzzles. What happens when you drop water on magma? What if you drop a block on an enemy? Stuff like that. Can be quite challenging, especially bosses, but still very enjoyable.

On the one hand, Alien: Romulus justifies itself by introducing very interesting character dynamics, and that’s the highest praise a movie in a long-running franchise, where it is a sequel, after prequel, after reboot, can ever get. On the other hand, does it? Why is the neurodivergent character an android? Why is there a CGI You-Know-Who? Do you have to throw direct quotes?

I honestly don’t know if I like the movie or not. It is very beautiful, in that “corporate future is terrible” kind of way. Good acting, minus the aforementioned You-Know-Who. But yeah, maybe the Alien series has said everything there is to say at this point.

I didn’t like Howl’s Moving Castle that much. While Kiki is more or less the same, Nausicaä is a clear expansion, the story of  the book and the movie are very different, in a way that reading the book first made watching the movie very confusing for me. What they have in common is that I don’t think they sold the romance that well, if at all. The characters were… eh. I wasn’t on board with the themes.

There is a valid criticism of Miyazaki’s handling of war that I won’t go into here, and Howl’s is a great example for that discussion.

Ponyo on the other hand is simply adorable. In a way, it is a return to My Neighbor Totoro, in a slightly bigger way. And that’s alone is enough for me.

I don’t think I had a choice not to see Secret Level. So I did. The best episodes are the ones where the story has to deal with a game mechanic, so it is very disappointing that most of them chose the same one: respawn. The others just chose to tell the story in a world of a game, and for 10 minute episodes, sometimes even less, they were fine stories. Ultimately, not a disappointment, not by a long shot, but overall just not a memorable anthology.

Star Trek, the MCU before the MCU. Superheroes. Characters jumping between shows. A bunch of actor appearances where you go “that one too?”. Endgame.

My ovearll view on all the old Star Trek shows – at this point I’ve watched The Original Series with movies, The Animated Series, The Next Generation with movies, Deep Space Nine and now finished Voyager, – is that they are important as a cultural step, but also still mostly relevant.

Which is kind of sad, when you think about it: surely we should have fixed a lot of the problems those shows explored by now, right? Nope, some of them are just coming up now, sometimes in eerily familiar ways.

Also, all of these shows, and Voyager is no exception, have an annoying tendency to take two steps forward and one step back. Which, admittedly, still makes them progressive, and, as I mentioned, to this day – there are shows that came after that were worse.

I’m not sure what is worth mentioning about Voyager specifically. It did some cool things: the first woman captain, another interesting take on the human condition via holograms and the Borg, etc. But I can’t really say something like “if you want to explore this particular take on a theme by a Star Trek show and you can only watch one, watch Voyager”. It’s not that unique in my mind. As good all the others.

Sometimes you just want to shoot some Nazis. It’s hard to mistake Medal of Honor: Underground for a modern game, mainly because of the visuals, but it is interesting how it is pretty much a modern military shooter in every other way. From the controls (twin-stick and even aiming down sights, kinda), to the cut-scenes, from the mission objectives, to the variety of those missions (they even had a turret section). And while there are rough edges, it still pretty enjoyable experience!

Divine Divinity is a game from the era when attitude was a valid substitute for humor, message, or even story. So it is a bit surprising that it is very restrained. Not without its eyebrow raising moments, but nothing worth calling out, I think.

Starting with the good, it makes me more interested in what else Larian (I’ve already dipped my toes into some of their games, but no more than that). There’s also the bad: it’s a bit junky and its difficulty is uneven, to say the least: I only finished it by cheating my ass off. Do I regret playing it? No. Can I recommend it? Eh-h-h…

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is in its own subgenre, but it’s basically a beat-them-up. It can be repetitive, but on easy is at least not demanding. It tells the alternative history version of the backstory of  Breath of the Wild, and manages to tour through it’s world, bringing most of the notable characters (with some very surprising choices) along the way. Fan service-y? Sure, but still easy-going fun and a good excuse to revisit this world for the third time.

I don’t need a “it’s a game from a quarter of a century ago” qualifier to say that The Longest Journey is a great game. Because there is not much to qualify. Sure, it’s not perfect, nothing is. But the story is good, the puzzles are logical, it’s still pretty and very charming. Quite progressive in places, too.

Like many fairy tales, Tchia is a bit dark. It’s also a bit junky in that indie way. But overall, a very good game! A sort of  Breath of the Wild and The Wind Waker hybrid. Plenty to do, collect, discover and customise.

A significant element of both Caravan SandWitch and Mika and the Witch’s Mountain stories is how capitalism is ruining it for all of us. In both games you traverse a decently sized open world. You help the community, collect things and find secrets. There are non-humanoid people around, and they both have witches. The same game?

I’m kidding, but there are surprisingly many similarities, apart from the obvious: in Caravan you drive a van, but in Mika you fly on a broom. By the way, this is more platforming with gliding, less actual flying. I know, I was worried too: the ghost of Superman 64 is always looming.

They did it. They did it again. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is fantastic!

OK, the elephant in the room: developers, and Nintendo is no exception, have a tendency to say shit and then either the game doesn’t even have that as a problem, or it goes beyond that and is actually good, progressive, if you like. This is more or less the case here. Well, I wouldn’t call Echoes of Wisdom woke or anything, but as far as I can tell, it never makes a misstep and delivers a complete The Legend of Zelda game with Zelda as the protagonist.

And it is complete, to the point where I can’t even think of what was in BotW/TotK that isn’t here. From dungeons to shrines, from quests to secrets, from horse riding to imaginative and fun world manipulation (“hey, can I do that?… oh wow, I totally can!”).

Obviously, it has its own thing going on with the echoes mechanic, and there’s been some tweaking to make it work in flat-ish style of the Link’s Awakening remake, but it’s all there! And the game is long, too. There are also a few firsts that I won’t spoil. And cats. So many cats!

I think I mentioned somewhere that the Zelda games from Nintendo are my “problematic faves”, and I stand by that: problems ranging from questionable game elements to the firing of a harassed employee. But I think if they keep going in this direction with games (even with ridiculous claims that there needs to be a justification for these changes) and fix other shit, I won’t have to say it so often.