Gaming Log

Banjo Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge

Completion Date: 1/10/2024

Status: 100%

Time: 6:00

Fairly linear. decent mobile summary of BK formula.

Conker's Pocket Tales

Completion Date: 1/15/2024

Status: ANY%

Time: 5:00

way too much sokoban and maze-like level design. primative attempt at a Banjo Formula. Too hard for a kids game. Finale backtracking through a maze with a time limit is a PiTA

Castlevania Circle of the Moon

Completion Date: 1/17/2024

Time: 3:40

Bosses were a bit too hard. Grind gets a little rediculous half way through, so turned on invincibility. I'm too old to level grind. Art and music is great. Movement controls are a bit awkward

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Completion Date: 1/18/2024

Time: 6:36

graphics are pretty good for GBC. good adaptation of the book. Battle mechanics are pretty mediocre. I think I just don't like RPGs. spamming A to find hidden items isn't very fun

Pajama Sam

Completion Date: 1/21/2024

Time: 2:00

classic children's point and click adventure game. Still holds up.

Metroid Zero Mission

Completion Date: 1/30/2024

Status: 68% items

Time: 3:14

Solves all the problems with the NES version. Excellent adventure game.

Mother 3

Completion Date: 2/8/2024

Time: 20:04

overall excellent. Rhythm battles are great, but felt inconsistent. Lots of personality. Oxygen supply is weird.

Final Fantasy Adventure

Completion Date: 2/14/2024

Time: 9:29

Flawed early-gameboy masterpiece. Overworld design and RPG elements are compelling. Dungeon and puzzle design if flawed. Keys and mattocks being consumables is unnecessary. Combat is a bit janky. Translation is terse. Story seems heavily influenced by 'Castle in the Sky'

Kirby and the Forgotten Land

Completion Date: 2/17/2024

Time: 0:00

Great first 3D iteration of Kirby. Level design is visually stunning, and hints at a deeper mystery in the world. the last chapter really took a strange turn.

Luigi's Mansion

Completion Date: 2/18/2024

Status: E rank

Time: 6:53

Unique mechanic and style. a horror game for kids. Quite short. fairly formulaic.

Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap

Completion Date: 2/20/2024

Status: 14 heart

Time: 15:00

Decent unique art style for a portable Zelda. Shink mechanic is cool, but feels like it had more potential. Feels like there is more filler than other Zeldas.

Dragon Warrior 1

Completion Date: 2/25/2024

Status: lvl 21

Time: 6:40

What is with early RPGs and weird key mechanics? Ultimately lacking and simple. Combat is rote. Grind near the end is unecessary. Some puzzles were a bit silly, but hints were there. Dungeons were just mazes with unecessary sight limitation, this gets tedious with combat.

Donkey Kong Country

Completion Date: 3/3/2024

Status: 48% - final boss

Time: 4:16

essential SNES. Excellent graphics and sound, every level has a new gimmick. A bit hard in spots. 3D isn't as readable as something like Mario World.

Dragon Warrior 2

Completion Date: 3/7/2024

Time: 11:30

Started out strong, but once you got to moonbrooke, and once you get a boat it falls apart. Some of the puzzles are 'mandatory quest item is sitting in random square in massive overworld, only hint is a fragment of dialog'. I was glued to a guide, and it was still bad. Once you have the boat, it's just going place to place. The final grind was crazy bad, I just put on invincibility.

Kirby and the Amazing Mirror

Completion Date: 3/9/2024

Status: 100%

Time: 8:23

A little confusing at first, until you understand the map. Then it's a classic Kirby game. one of the best.

Super Mario 64 DS

Completion Date: 3/24/2024

Status: 80 star

Time: 14:00

Great update to a classic. only flaw is the lack of an analog stick

Final Fantasy 1

Completion Date: 3/25/2024

Time: 12:52

In context, would have been an excellent game, but newer RPGs have gotten significantly better. Combat is decent and progression feels good. Cool over world. Dungeons are attrition mazes.

Wacky Races

Completion Date: 4/12/2024

Status: all 3 cups, gold

Time: 2:30

Decent racing game for gameboy, though aged somewhat poorly. Cool that NPCs have different weapons than the player. Music is pretty sweet, and graphics look good.

Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time

Completion Date: 4/13/2024

Status: lvl 29

Time: 14:44

Peak of the Mario and Luigi series. Battles are engaging and interesting, conversely to other RPGs where battles are often a chore. Bro items are fun minigames. Enemies are well designed. Overworld could be a little better.

Final Fantasy X HD

Completion Date: 4/18/2024

Time: 38:25

Aged poorly. Extremely linear. The best parts were technical acheivements like novel voice acting and cut scenes, that now look dated. The story was very cheesy, juvenile and the emotions and love sideplot felt forced. Battle mechanics are pretty good, one of the best for Final Fantasy. Many other mechanics feel over complicated and unnecessary except post-endgame. The entire spheregrid leveling system is an illusion of choice (except endgame). Equiptment doesn't do much (except endgame). Feels like there is much more depth in the endgame (monster capture, arena, chocobos, celestial weapons, dark and optional aeons) though I wasn't interested in that. Likely would have been more appealing if I was 13 and played it in 2001.

Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon

Completion Date: 4/27/2024

Time: 14:22

The combat, puzzle solving and gameplay is generally better than the first. But the atmosphere, structure and story telling is worse. Overall fun.

Super Mario Odyssey

Completion Date: 5/3/2024

Status: 170 moons

Time: 12:00

The best collectathon. Great control, movement. worlds are well designed. not too long but plenty of post-game content.

Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages

Completion Date: 5/6/2024

Status: 12 heart

Time: 15:35

Solid mobile Zelda. feels similar to Minish Cap. The bosses kinda suck, with multiple forms and tedious actions to defeat.

WarioWare Inc: Mega Microgame$

Completion Date: 5/24/2024

Status: all medals

Time: 13:00

Fun mini time wasters. great for pick up and play. The DS version (touched) is basically the same game, except a bit better. A bit tedious grinding for medals.

Final Fantasy IV

Completion Date: 5/27/2024

Status: lvl 52

Time: 18:58

Great improvement over NES FF games. Felt like a fully fledge adventure. 5 characters was a bit much and slowed down battle. GBA version was a bit buggy. Real time battle system was cool. Got a bit weird in the end. Does every FF game have to end with a face off with an eldritch horror? Tone always shifts in the last 15%.

Mole Mania

Completion Date: 6/26/2024

Status: 100%

Time: 12:07

Probably the best sokoban game, but still sokoban. The life and enemies got pretty annoying at time when you just wanted to solve the puzzle

Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons

Completion Date: 7/30/2024

Status: 14 hearts. linked game

Time: 12:52

More intuitive mechanic that Ages. Some of the boss mechanics (hit with the rod of seasons) are pure trial and error. A lot of features here got pulled forward to Minish Cap

Luigi's Mansion 3

Completion Date: 8/14/2024

Status: B rank

Time: 13:07

Better than 1 or 2. Combat feels good, graphics and environment design is interesting. Multiplayer-first design is cool, though it feels a bit awkward at times single-player.

Megaman Battle Network 3: Blue Version

Completion Date: 8/30/2024

Status: 1 star

Time: 25:22

Combat is interesting, but it felt like they were really padding out the runtime, especially near the end. Lots of scavenger hunts, those stupid cranes that reset progress in the final dungeon, boss rush as part of the story. The final boss is brutal.

Gargoyle's Quest

Completion Date: 9/10/2024

Time: 1:52

A combat platformer with RPG elements. an interesting mix, but a bit hard for my preference.

Super Mario World

Completion Date: 9/18/2024

Status: all castles

Time: 4:34

A classic 2D platformer. controls feel great, power ups are satisfying, levels are interesting. Not surpassed for a long time.

Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga

Completion Date: 9/23/2024

Time: 14:35

Classic comedy RPG with excellent fight mechanics. One of the best GBA games

Pokemon Trading Card Game

Completion Date: 10/9/2024

Time: 21:37

Pretty fun TCG gameplay. A decent chunk of a battles outcome depends on coinflips and draw, though

Kirby's Dreamland

Completion Date: 10/14/2024

Status: normal mode

Time: 0:45

A delightful short-and-sweet platformer. Can be beat in a single sitting. The background and art are creative and imaginative for early Gameboy.

Noobow

Completion Date: 10/15/2024

Time: 0:45

Cute and creative art style and story. Too bad the controls are clunky and the puzzles aren't too interesting.

Pilot Wings 64

Completion Date: 10/19/2024

Time: 5:00

A pretty decent challenge based flight sim. Despite it's clunky N64 graphics, I'm still quite fond of the Little States map.

Crystalis

Completion Date: 10/23/2024

Time: 9:00

It's got some cool ideas and starts off strong, but suffers from the same issue as every NES RPG. The level scaling is slow and sloppy, the overworld is cool but the dungeons are attrition mazes. And near the end there starts to be some unfair puzzles.

Pokemon Pinball

Completion Date: 11/13/2024

Status: Highscore both boards

Time: 5:20

The Ruby/Sapphire version improved this game in almost every way. But this version is still quite fun too.

Super Mario Bros

Completion Date: 11/19/24

Time: 2:00

It's a good start. But in the sequels they greatly improved everything. the controls in the first are a bit sluggish. Without save states, you'd have to really spend a lot of time to perfect this.

Mario and Luigi: Dream Team

Completion Date: 11/24/24

Time: 34:08

This game stretches things out way too much. it should have been 20h, not 34. It has some cool ideas like Mega-luigi battles, but kinda fell flat on execution. It was clear they wanted to lean into the 3D of the 3DS, especially for the bros attacks, but it felt a bit forced. Overall the story was a bit bland, the main antagonist kinda just ran off with the mcguffin while we spend 30h doing shopping and running around. Bosses tended to have stupid long attack patterns where you had to dodge for 2 minutes, that was pretty annoying.

Legend of Zelda

Completion Date: 11/25/24

Time: 4:44

The overworld exploration was compelling. compared to later Zelda's, the dungeons were boring, mainly combat mazes. They really intended you to be writing down paper maps here. The last dungeon would extremely difficult without a guide.

Kirby's Adventure

Completion Date: 12/05/24

Time: 3:00

Short and sweet, one of the most beautiful NES games. Not too hard. great music.

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

Completion Date: 12/11/24

Time: 7:01

Absurdly hard. I used over 300 save states. The game has so much potential, but it's so hard it's not fun. The combat is, in theory compelling. The overworld is interesting. Unfortunately the dungeons are attrition mazes like every NES RPG. This could have been a truely great game if it was an order of magnitude or two easier. A longer sword, larger windows of vunerability on enemies, more enemy variety, more HP or healing, infinite lives, etc.

Mario Picross

Completion Date: 12/21/24

Status: all puzzles (exl time trial)

Time: 16:27

Solid puzzle game for GB. Later versions are a bit more polished, though. Played for a Game of the Month, this is a bit too much picross all at once...

Mario Party DS

Completion Date: 12/30/24

Status: story mode

Time: 6:00

Solid mobile adaptation of Mario Party. Touch mini games are relatively fun.

Pikmin 4

Completion Date: 1/16/25

Time: 13:35

Excellent sequel. love the maps. Music isn't as iconic as the first. Ending is a bit anti-climactic

Final Fantasy VI

Completion Date: 1/30/25

Time: 32:19

Music was great. Story was very Final Fantasy, but had some good beats to it. Battle was solid.

Super Mario Bros 3

Completion Date: 2/1/25

Status: double whistle

Time: 0:00

nan

GoldenEye 007

Completion Date: 2/3/25

Status: Secret Agent

Time: 7:47

Decent James Bond adaptation, but aged poorly. The single player was fine, multiplayer likely would have been much better. while it was innovative at the time, the single player didn't age super well. I liked how the missions were relatively short, almost arcady. The music rocks

Turbo Outrun

Completion Date: 2/7/25

Time: 0:45

It's just a worse outrun. I love the 'road trip' theme. The idea of driving through different locations. But the locations weren't really any different. The original outrun locales were much more varied. The music isnt as good. The boost is an interesting idea but didn't add much. I like the rival idea.

Rad Racer

Completion Date: 2/7/25

Time: 0:46

Derivative of Outrun, but still one of the best racers on the NES. 3D is a weird gimmick.

Wario Land 4

Completion Date: 2/12/25

Time: 4:14

Surprizingly short, but well designed. Each level has a unique gimmick that keeps the game fresh throughout.

Contra

Completion Date: 2/15/25

Time: 0:32

Solid run and gun for the NES.

Pajama Sam 2: Thunder and Lightning aren't so Frightening

Completion Date: 2/16/25

Status: full puzzle

Time: 1:30

Great follow up to the original. easy enough that Charlotte can play.

Super Mario Kart

Completion Date: 2/21/25

Status: 150cc

Time: 3:00

It invented the kart racer genre, but it's the worst Mario Kart. controls are too slidey, items are somewhat hard to use, item boxes are weird, courses are comparitavely boring.

Kirby And the Amazing Mirror

Completion Date: 2/26/25

Status: 100%

Time: 6:39

probably one of the best 2d Kirby games

Metroid Fusion

Completion Date: 3/2/25

Status: 57% items

Time: 3:21

Not quite as atmospheric as Super but an excellent sequel. managed to have some legitimately tense moments. I think it's biggest weakness is it feels quite linear. nav room tells you where to go, solve problem, back to nav room for new goal.

Mario Kart Super Circuit

Completion Date: 3/4/25

Status: 150cc gold

Time: 4:42

Significantly better than Super on the SNES. better course design, handling (though still too slidey IMO), items. I like that you can 'outrun' the blueshell.

Chrono Trigger

Completion Date: 3/10/25

Time: 18:36

The art and music are both top notch, and time travel is always cool. the story gets a bit confusing close to the end. the silent protagonist kinda makes it hard to understand his motivation. It's kinda annoying the side quests are basically required.

Kirby Super Star

Completion Date: 3/18/25

Time: 3:46

It had some good ideas, and I'm sure coop would have been fun (didn't try), but it felt quite fragmented for a Kirby game. and many of the areas were confusing to navigate.

Super Metroid

Completion Date: 3/23/25

Status: 53% items

Time: 4:12

A classic atmospheric adventure. every moment has excellent visuals, sound and design. The pacing feels great, with new powerups being revealed often. The back 1/3 slows down a bit due to Meridia and backtracking.

Final Fantasy VIII

Completion Date: 4/13/25

Time: 38:06

The worst FF I've played. The combat and progression mechanics, the story. Unbelievable sluggish with long scene transitions and crazy long battle animations. The junction system was interesting but broken in many ways. The FMV scenes and mechanical animations were very cool though, probably the best I'd seen on the PS1.

Super Mario Sunshine

Completion Date: 4/18/25

Time: 13:39

Excellent vibe and atmosphere. Strangely hard for a Mario game. The blue coins are stupid.

Rocket Knight Adventure

Completion Date: 4/18/25

Time: 1:24

Decent platformer. looks good, plays alright. harder than it should be in my opinion

Snatcher

Completion Date: 4/23/25

Status: captain rank

Time: 8:18

Amazing they got this to run on Genesis hardware. looks and sounds great. plenty of character. The only flaw is the gameplay of [look, investigate] is not the most compelling at times.

Pokemon Pinball R&S

Completion Date: 5/27/25

Status: catch legendaries

Time: 8:09

The best pinball game there is. Once you know the board, it's fairly easy to aim and keep the ball from falling. Catching pokemon is compelling and fun. a big improvement over the GBC title.

Mario Kart World

Completion Date: 6/9/25

Status: all cups

Time: 6:00

The best Mario Kart, but still Mario Kart. The new modes (knockout, free roam) are a great and fresh addition. Its cool that all of the courses are interconnected.

Switch 2 Welcome Tour

Completion Date: 6/15/25

Status: all stamps and quizzes (missing a few challenge medals)

Time: 8:00

Calling this a game would be misleading. it's more of a digital museum. They have some really cool insights and design details.

Final Fantasy IX

Completion Date: 7/8/25

Time: 28:11

Great callback to the earlier Final Fantasy games. Surprizingly linear. Looks great, sounds great. The magic system kinda sucks. Pretty much all of my complaints of FF8 have been addressed. Why did they give the main character a tail? looks kinda stupid.

Donkey Kong Country 2

Completion Date: 7/11/25

Time: 2:56

Looks great, sounds great, really hard. Still prefer Mario.

Donkey Kong Bananza

Completion Date: 8/1/25

Time: 20:00

Amazing tech to make the world fully destructible. Great collectathon with lots to do everywhere. Music, graphics, gameplay all great.

Kirby Canvas Curse

Completion Date: 8/12/25

Status: story

Time: 5:00

decent touch game, though its hard to control and the Kirby powers are change the behavior making it harder

Mario and Luigi: Bowsers Inside Story

Completion Date: 8/15/25

Time: 20:00

Great light hearted RPG. fun to play as bowser. some of the things like mega battles are cool but annoying, and personally I didn't like the 2D sidescroller part when playing as the bros.

Metroid Prime

Completion Date: 10/21/25

Status: 64%

Time: 9:54

Decent translation of Metroid to 3D. Style, visual FX, sound and design are all great. Unfortunately the combat is only alright. The backtracking and quest to find all of the artifacts is a bit much.

Metroid Prime 2 - Echos

Completion Date: 11/10/25

Status: 68%

Time: 11:28

A great followup to the first. I liked the dark/light theme and tense exploration of the dark world. The bosses were inventive but a bit bullet spongey. A bit silly that they added another endgame filler find quest.

Super Mario Bros 2 (USA)

Time: 1:08

A solid follow-up to the original. I feel like it's often disrespected, but it had solid level design, fun gameplay, great presentation.

Super Mario Galaxy 2

Completion Date: 12/10/25

Status: 70 star

Time: 8:55

Seems like a DLC of the original Mario Galaxy. But still fun, inventive levels. I love the 'tiny planet' idea.

Metroid Prime 4 - Beyond

Completion Date: 12/15/25

Status: 94% scans, 75% items

Time: 10:55

Excellent world building and environments. It feels like walking through a Ridley Scott film. But its entirely unsurprizing. The same powers from the last 3 games, the same story as the last 3 games.

Super Mario Galaxy

Completion Date: 12/20/25

Status: 70 star

A classic. The levels are fun and inventive. the gravity mechanic is unique and whimsical.

Wario World

Completion Date: 01/07/26

Time: 6:08

Distinctly mediocre. It's kindof bland and forgetable. Would be an alright rental.

Kirby Pinball Land

Completion Date: 01/08/26

Time: 1:30

Decent early gameboy pinball game. Too bad there were no powerups.

The Great Waldo Search

Completion Date: 1/9/26

Time: 0:20

Pleayed it for the achievement points. Barely a game. the backgrounds are vaguely entertaining. perhaps for a small child, it will hold their attention for a bit.

Sesame Street Elmos Adventure in Grouchland

Completion Date: 1/20/26

Time: 0:15

Played it for the achievement points. Extremely short, pretty unsurprizing platformer.

Final Fantasy 5

Completion Date: 2/18

Time: 36:17

My favourite class mechanic of the 2D final fantasys. Mostly, the progression is very slow and long term, but the class mastery gives you a short term goal that is very rewarding (2-4h instead of 30h). The sound, graphics, and story are a bit better than FF4, but not as good as FF6.

Mario's Time Machine

Completion Date: 3/2/26

Time: 2:04

A middling education game. the content is alright. it's entirely communicated with text and fill-in-the-blank puzzles. I don't quite understand the point of the 'surfing' section; probably for screenshots

Super Mario Bros 3 (Super Mario Advanced 4)

Completion Date: 3/3/26

Status: double whistle

Time: 0:31

speedrun of the shortest route. World 8 is a bit brutal.

Super Mario World (Super Mario Advanced 2)

Completion Date: 3/3/26

Time: 0:20

speedrun of the shortest route. The best 2D mario.

Mario's Early Years - Fun With Numbers

Completion Date: 3/25/26

Time: 0:20

boring even by educational game standards. I can't imagine a kid being able old enough to control this but the content being engaging in any way.

Mario's Early Years - Preschool Fun

Completion Date: 3/25/26

Time: 0:20

Basically the same as 'fun with numbers' but with slightly different challenges. IMO the challenges are more interesting here, but barely. It's still really bad.

Mario's Early Years - Fun With Letters

Completion Date: 3/25/26

Time: 0:20

Still sucks. Arguably this game makes the most sense, as a kid may have trouble with letters but be able to control the game. All 3 of these games should just be one game.

Super Mario Bros 2 (Super Mario Advanced)

Completion Date: 3/26/26

Time: 1:41

A nicer improved version of Mario 2.

Wario Land 2

Completion Date: 3/31/26

A great improvement on Wario Land 1. The branching story is very cool, and makes it very replayable. The focus on collecting coins with no health is an innovative twist on classic platformers.

Metroid Zero Mission

Completion Date: 4/7/26

Time: 2:57

The definitive first Metroid. The zero suit section is a cool change up on the formula, turning it to a stealth game, and it feels great when you get your suit back and can blast everything.

Metroid

Completion Date: 4/7/26

Time: 2:05

Without a map this is a pretty rough game. It's more of a puzzle that you slowly untangle. All the rooms look very similar. Health is hard to come by, and if you die you only start with 30hp. It's very rough around the edges but have some cool ideas.

DigDug

Completion Date: 4/14/26

Time: 0:15

Seems very easy. Was the arcade version this easy?

Kirby Star Stacker

Completion Date: 4/22/26

Status: super hard difficulty

Time: 2:10

"baby's first falling block game". it's a simple fun falling block game. the cascades are frequent and exciting

Advance Wars 2 - Black Hole Rising

Completion Date: 5/6/26

Time: 24:14

Great strategy combat game for the GBA. The dialogue can be a bit slow and verbose.

Banjo Kazooie Gruntys Revenge

Completion Date: 5/7/26

Status: 100%

Time: 3:46

Quite enjoyable. As a mentioned before, its a great 2D translation of Banjo/Twoie.

Advance Wars

Completion Date: 5/14/26

Time: 7:24

The second one is better, but this one is still great. This one is harder.

Kirby Nightmare in Dreamland

Completion Date: 5/22/26

Time: 1:40

Not as good as Amazing Mirror, but still a solid Kirby game

Donkey Kong Jr

Completion Date: 5/22/26

Status: 5 rounds

Time: 0:20

Fine arcade game, but not as good as the original Donkey Kong, and the jump physics are still kind of wacky without air control