Up On Star Hill

I've never played Shovel Knight because I'm not all that into 2D Platformers, but Yacht Club got me with the topdown Zelda approach

This game feels like it was designed for me specifically. Old Zelda meets Castlevania meets Dark Souls, all wrapped in a cute artstyle

The game isn't easy, of course, but it doesn't feel like the game hates you as much as Souls games tend to

There is a hub town, which I always love in a game

Despite looking like a 1998 handheld game, it absolutely does not feel as restrictive as an actual GBC game

I love that the game auto-saves on every new screen. This is a great game to play on handhelds because of that

Losing your subweapon after dying early-game is devastating. You can get lab upgrades to fix this, and I'd recommend doing that as soon as possible

I like the Trinket system. Ever since Paper Mario, I have always been fond of equippable perks and am glad Hollow Knight has woke people up to how cool they are

The music is sublime. Catchy, atmospheric, and Gothic, but in a playful way

I love that the cast is half animals and half humans for no reason besides the devs thinking that would be fun

The game is very good at putting fun twists on things, just generally. The shady back-alley guy opening his trenchcoat to reveal a Kuato-esque guy who's the real merchant is brilliant

Let me just gush again about the visuals. Pulling off good-looking, functional GBC-esque sprites and UI is not at all easy

I was always embarrassed that I never fully played MM. I've tried before, but I used to get hung up on the time limit. What helped me this time was the realization that nothing, save for the temples, demands a large, unbroken stretch of time to complete

I love that this game took such a different, experimental direction compared to OoT. I understand that was mostly due to the time crunch, but it's still cool

Darker and weirder is my favorite direction for a sequel to go in

MM really shows that you don't need Princess Zelda, Ganon, or even Hyrule to have a Zelda game that still feels like Zelda. Heck, they probably could have thrown out Link too for this one and it'd still feel like Zelda. Take more narrative risks, Nintendo!

I was playing the PC port, which is easily the definitive way to play, in case you're considering a future playthrough

It didn't occur me to until very recently that none of the Deku in this game are named. We didn't get *any* Dekus with a proper name until Echoes of Wisdom. Crazy

I also didn't realize until this playthrough that MM uses different environments than OoT. MM has: a swamp. a snowy mountain, the coast, and the ruins of an ancient kingdom. It doesn't overlap with OoT at all. Wish TotK could have taken the same cue

I appreciate that this game takes some very minor characters from OoT and gives them a chance to shine. Again, I would have liked TotK to have leaned into different characters like MM did

Speaking of, I love that there is no explanation for what the Mask Salesman's deal is. Interesting mysteries are something I look for in my Zeldas

Great Bay Temple sucks. Unfortunate that both N64 Zeldas take Ls when it comes to water dungeons

Tatl straight up says she hates Gekko. Mentioning that because it made me laugh

Speaking of Tatl, I wish the fandom gave the fairy characters a little more love

It's funny that this game does a better job of exploring time travel than OoT did

It also does a better job of actually utilizing the ocarina of time than OoT

The weakest part of this game is the music. Don't get me wrong, there are still plenty of good new tracks, like Clock Town's theme, the Song of Healing, and the Astral Observatory. More often though, you're either listening to a recycled OoT track or a frankly forgettable new song. Stone Tower Temple is the only temple theme where it sounds like Koji Kondo was actually trying

The developers did their best to design this game around it's time constraints, but it still shows some cracks. Having to fight Wizzrobe four times is tragic

I appreciate that they gave all the returning equipment from OoT a redesign, but man what were they thinking with the hookshot. It's so ugly

The gilded sword and Great Fairy sword are also ugly. What a shame that the best looking sword in the game is also the one you can't keep

When Gomess dies, his scythe stays behind for a bit. For the briefest moment, I thought you might be able to pick it up. That would have been cool

I adore the angular linework of the silhouettes of the characters. It really helps convey that these are supposed to be video game characters in-universe and gives the show it's own look

Making your pilot the beach episode is kind of insane ngl. How are you going to have your MC have trauma flashbacks when her butt cheeks are out

Gobbles having a deep, gravelly voice is odd. Maybe that's the point, but I'm not sure I see the vision

I like how willing Miss Information and Fold are to sabotage each other

They might be my favorite characters so far, very Team Rocket-coded

Of course Vinny is here to voice a character who talks about pizza

I appreciate how often the characters pull out healing items. It's subtle, but I think it does a better job at conveying that these really are characters who have to follow game rules than showing an actual health bar or startup menu

It was 30 minutes! I didn't even notice the first watch

The pacing is a little manic, though I get there's a lot to throw at us initially

Interactive Buddy being referenced in the end credits makes me unreasonably happy

Also, the end credits theme might be my favorite of any Glitch show so far

Overall, I think this pilot is weaker than Glitch's others, but it's not bad at all and I'm still on board for more

The movie kind of doesn't have a plot

This will sound harsh, but the movie feels similar to Rise of Skywalker. Both are manically paced, and both feel less like proper movies and more like a bunch of random scenes thrown together until they had enough to meet their runtime goal

I was basing my expectations around the first movie, so I wasn't expecting high art. Even with those expectations, I wasn't impressed

I will admit, seeing Miyamoto's name in the opening credits did make me a little giddy

A lot of people assumed (rightly, I think) when Fox was announced to be part of this movie that that means Star Fox is coming back. It's hard to argue with that when the movie pauses itself to inform the audience what Star Fox is lol

I don't think I laughed at as many of the jokes in this one compared to the first

Rosalina and Peach's backstory in this movie retcons Rosalina's game backstory? Not sure how to feel about that

Rosalina and Peach being established as sisters is not surprising. It is kind of interesting that they are apparently just made of stardust, like lumas. So Peach isn't human? That's an interesting direction

There isn't a whole lot of Galaxy in this Galaxy movie, which is unfortunate. How do you expect us to care about Rosalina when she's barely in the movie and most of her scenes are of her losing fights?

Honestly I think Fox might have more screentime than her

It does feel like Nintendo is rushing to make a cinematic universe, which is the exact wrong approach. Marvel took it slow which is why the MCU worked

They took Bowser Jr. in such a strange direction in this movie. He's no Bowser either, which does make this movie feel like a step down from its predecessor

I'm glad Luigi got more screentime. I do like how they characterize him in these movies

It's nice that Daisy is going to be in the next one. Here's hoping she gets more screentime than Rosalina got lol

One of my headcanons has always been that Daisy and Peach are cousins, but surely they can't do that if they already pulled the siblings card with Rosalina. Wonder what her backstory will be

On the whole, the movie just didn't make me feel any emotion strongly. I didn't hate it, I didn't love it

I have no idea where these movies will go after this

The junction system is ambitious, and I'll always give credit to a team for trying to keep things fresh, but it is just not good

People hoard items in RPGs so much it's become a cliche. Making spells consumable items as well was a flat-out bad idea

The game gives you a ton of tutorials, but junctioning, growing GFs, and collecting magic still aren't explained well and also aren't intuitive. I had to watch a video explaining the game to fully understand

This was like my third attempt to get into this game

The game's mechanics are easy to completely break once you know what you're doing. I followed a guide that makes Squall OP within the first 2 hours of the game and it doesn't even involve glitches. Forgive me for not wanting to bother with junctioning and drawing more than I had to

Aeshetically, the game's appeal is not as immediate as something like 7 or 9's. Still, once I moved past the intro I was pretty invested.

There are so many segments of the characters just awkwardly waiting around. Why is that

This is also one of the few FF games where the villain is a woman, so that's cool

I honestly had fun with Triple Triad, though it might be mostly because it gives you actual, good rewards for playing

I appreciate how Squall is the complete opposite of Cloud in terms of character design. Cloud has big pants and no jacket, so Squall has a big jacket and tight pants. Cloud is blonde, so Squall is a brunette

The costume design in general is pretty whatever, though. I love Quistis, but her weird detached sleeve things and frumpy orange two-piece dress kill me

The gunsword having a Mario RPG-style action command to boost damage is really fun and it's a bummer that it's the only weapon type that has that

Rinoa pleasantly surprised me. I was (perhaps unfairly) expecting her to be a generic anime-love-interest but she does have her own agency and personality

Laguna was another pleasant surprise. It's refreshing to play as a total loser in an FF game lol

I've always had a problem with how FF7 sets up its plot as eco-terrorists against the evil megacorp that's ruining the planet, and then discards that plot like 5 hours in in favor of fighting the inhuman prettyboy who's in Cloud's head. This is to say that I appreciate that Squall and co are introduced as Garden mercs and stay Garden mercs

I also like that the game sort of has a hub in Balamb Garden. It gives the game an unexpectedly cozy feel

The sequence of Squall rescuing Rinoa in space is so pretty

Speaking of which, space! It's awesome to have an FF that goes there, even if it's just briefly

The final boss was straight up torture, who gave that the okay

I can see why the show's staff said this episode would be divisive and make people mad.

It wasn't until my second watch of the episode that I got the joke behind Caine making a cigarette and milk casserole

Zach Hadel jumpscare

It's nice that we have an official Ribbit render, as well as a new one of Kaufmo

I liked the upbeat music during Jax's... dream

So Jax hitting the button was definitely that "worst thing he's ever done" Goose talked about right

It's just like this show to reveal that there is no Abel, really. C&A probably doesn't even stand for Caine and Abel

It figures that Jax is the most suspicious of Abel and his story

Both Jax and Caine hit new lows this episode. Jax wasn't a surprise, but holy hell Caine, that wasn't cool

I never really expected the show to dive into the mechanics of how the game works or how people get into it, and Abel's lies about it are probably all we're going to get. I'm not upset about this of course, I know TADC isn't that kind of show

The set design in this show is so gorgeous oml. This show nails the "90's abstract CG render" look

The reveal that Abel's locket picture was of a hot dog made me lose it

I guess I shouldn't be surprised but the show looks great. It looks as good anything put out by a legacy studio

Obviously it's not the first grimy class-disparity sci-fi setting, but the evil megacorp having a cutesy Disney aesthetic is so fun lol. I love those corpo-police with the mascots on their helmets

I was surprised by how much swearing this show had. I guess MD not indulging in it and TADC's cartoon censors were more the creator's choice and less a Glitch guideline

Here I am talking about F-bombs when people are getting dragged by their guts lol

I'm happy that Gwen isn't a bad guy, and is portrayed pretty sympathetically.

Andi and Frankie still having a place in their heart for Gwen herself, even if she's the mascot of a terrible company, was very real. Andi giving Gwen her jacket was adorable

Every Gwen sharing the same memories is an interesting angle

There's something heart-warming about seeing easter eggs for the other Glitch shows in a 2D show