If you're planning to get DQI-III when they Switch, @Tyranexx .... Those are all more grindy, overall, with odd difficulty spikes scattered throughout In 1, you only have the hero, no companions. 2 introduced the party system & 3 expanded on gameplay significantly in several ways
It's essentially a spiritual successor to dkc games. It even adds an element of action which is a nice change of pace. The jet pack adds a nice layer of strategy as well. You essentially have a double jump and then a "dash." Both of which make the platforming in the game very satisfying. The bosses are either way too easy, or sometimes pretty difficult. The good part is that every time you hit a checkpoint in a level, it refills your health. You're going to need it at times. There's little hidden areas to uncover, collectibles to be had, and good for speedrunning. Think it took me about 4 hours or so. My two gripes about the game are as follows.
-Price is kind of high
-the "racing levels" can be very tedious and frustrating. Objects approach you way to fast to move out of the way.
Other than that it's worth the time of any dkc fan. Maybe wait til it's on a sale though.
@BruceCM Trust me, I'm prepared lol. I don't mind some grinding now and again, but the excessiveness of it is why I don't normally play many RPGs that came before the 16-bit era. I definitely want to try I at some point just to see where the series began. III is often highly praised. I'm happy to skip II from what I've read about it.
Borderlands 3 on Xbox One. Took about a week for me to complete campaign. Loved it, even when it has little performance issues. Get my first character (FL4K) to level 50, and my Moze is now lv. 24. I have played that now about 110 hours, and now I think that I could play something else for a while.
.Hack// G.U.: Rebirth, on the .Hack// G.U.: Recode collection (PS4) - singleplayer JRPG set in an MMO known as. "The World" where you take on the role of Haseo, a player who is determined to hunt down a mythical PK (Player Killer) known as Tri-Edge (mythical because it's said his victims fall into a coma in real life, and thus there's no first hand accounts of him) after a friend falls victim to him, and a later confrontation results in Haseo's character being knocked back from level 133 to 1 (all his acquired items are wiped too, so he literally has to start from square one, which isn't supposed to happen when one player kills another).
Pros:
This is definitely one of those JRPGs that's carried by it's story. There's a lot of cutscenes (and reading), revolving around personal character relationships, politics between guilds, and the greater narrative with Tri-Edge that could possibly have real world complications. It can be a bit much at times (it seems like a good long while before you get your first chance to save there's so many cutscenes at the start), but overall I found it all quite interesting.
The main menu is brilliantly intergrated into the world. It's set up like Haseo's PC screen (so it's like what he's seeing irl when not logged into The World), where you can check email, catch up on "real world" news articles (some which even have accompanying videos), and trawl through both official & and fan forums centering around The World. It can be a lot of reading, but it's recommended checking it out as much as possible, as certain threads can open up in game sidequests, and provide new outlooks on what's going on in the main story.
Mixed:
The action RPG gameplay is pretty serviceable, but nothing spectacular. It's pretty easy to overlevel yourself, and if you're even couple levels over an area's suggested level, you probably won't have to do much in terms of strategy (I had a stockpile of items because the only times I had to use any were during the couple times I optionally tackled an area with monsters quite a bit stronger than me, and the final boss). Special "Avatar" fights were actually really fun, but few & far between.
Cons:
There's not much environmental variety. From the game's main town you warp to the various dungeons, and they all have the same Field, Cave, or Japanese Castle aesthetic. The Field motif has a few different variants (day, evening, night, and rainy), but by & large after the first couple hours you've seen everything the game has to offer on this front. There's a method to create randomly generated dungeons as well if you want to take a break from the main story, but with the serviceable combat and samey environments this get's dull rather quickly.
Overall it's carried by it's, admittedly really interesting, narrative. I will play the next game in the collection, but after that I'll probably take a break before I go back to the last two.
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
Links Awakening on Switch. It's already one of my favorite games even before it was remade. The fresh coat of paint made it all the better. The warp points were a nice touch as well. I love how nice and compact the over world is. The dungeon design is great, the bosses are easy but still fun. And the story is pretty cool too. Being in my top 3 games of all time, it's an easy 10/10 from me.
Just finished Planet Alpha. Gorgeous game that is hurt a bit by either the Switch not having quite enough juice or poor optimization (or maybe a bit of both). Gameplay is solid, but nothing special, and even though it’s not a long game, it still felt like it dragged on a little too long. But the world just looks so good, and exploring it was mostly a fun experience. I’d give it a firm 7/10.
WHAT IS IT?
A precision platformer with controls and gameplay reminiscent of earlier titles such as Super Meat Boy and Slime-San where you play as a depressed young woman named Madeline who is determined to climb to the summit of Mount Celeste, which is filled with mysteries and danger. She meets a variety of eclectic characters on her journey and is forced to confront a dark reflection of herself that manifests as a physical entity on the mountain.
PLATFORM
Nintendo Switch
LEVEL OF COMPLETION
Completed the normal levels for Chapters 1 - 8 and collected all the strawberries. Also unlocked and completed the B-side levels for Chapters 1 - 7 (Chapter 8's B-Side is locked behind an extra set of collectibles that are especially hidden with each level, and, honestly, after spending 25 hours over 4 days playing this, I'm a bit exhausted). Didn't complete the recently released Chapter 9 DLC, which I hear is the most challenging part of the game, but I'll come back to it someday.
GAMEPLAY
The game is organized into a variety of chapters. Each chapter will generally advance the story, and is composed of a long series of primarily single-screen platforming challenges. While the game only requires the player to do the bare minimum to navigate to the end of the level, there are a host of collectibles, hidden and open, to collect along the way. Strawberries, the most prominent collectibles in the game, are objects that you usually have to go out of your way to collect. Normal strawberries also you to collect them however you like, but they usually require the player to complete the platforming challenge they were obtained during before the player is allowed to collect them. If you die immediately after having grabbed a strawberry, you'll have to go back and try for it again. Alternative strawberries include ones that are formed by collecting a certain number of items throughout a room without touching the ground, and one with wings that will fly away if you use your dash ability trying to get to them, forcing the player to rely on normal jumps and platforming mechanics to reach them. Each chapter will also have a crystal heart, which often requires extremely out-of-the-box thinking to obtain, and a B-side cassette, which unlocks a harder and often much longer version of a given level as an optional challenge.
Celeste's controls seem simple at first, but there is a ton of depth to the platforming in this game. Most of it won't be accessible to normal players, although the good news is that most people should be able to beat the game in its default difficulty with just normal jumps and dashes.
PRO:
I REALLY like how the game tells you how many strawberries are in each section of a chapter, and lets you jump right into that section to collect what you need. It also seems to autosave after successfully collecting a strawberry, which allows the player to jump in and out of stages at will.
Immediately restarting players at the start of a room when they die during a challenge is central to encouraging them to keep trying at a challenge.
The best levels in this game integrate level design/exploration/aesthetics/theme to create one compelling whole. The Mirror Temple near the middle of the game stands out in this regard.
I really like the way the ending changes depending on how many strawberries you've collected. Very cute.
I was tempted to create a separate section for this observation, since it could be either a pro or a con, depending on the person. The developers of this game seem to have a deep love for Nintendo games, and you'll find design aspects here that reference the Big N's games constantly. Characters jabber in a soft nonsense language reminiscent of Animal Crossing (thankfully, these sounds lack the ear-shredding quality found in another recent Nintendo-inspired indie adventure, Yooka-Laylee. Many of Madeline's abilities recall gameplay from older Nintendo games, be they the Super Metroid-esque wall jump exploit you can perform to conserve stamina, "wave-dashing," or the obviously Cosmic Mario-inspired sequences where Madeline's shadow mirrors her movements and kills her if she catches up.
CON:
Crystal Heart locations are often unintuitive. The one in the second or third chapter (I forget) has you dashing upward by phasing back and forth between screen transitions. It's a clever design choice, but the problem is I don't recall the game ever making a point of introducing this aspect of the design in any way, which makes it feel less like a collectible and more like an Easter Egg. Except late game content is hidden until you obtain these collectibles.
I don't like the level design in the B-sides. It's reminiscent of a lot of Super Mario Maker levels I've played insofar as they rely on repeatedly pulling off a certain series of platforming moves in exactly the same way in a sequence until you clear a room. Like many Mario Maker levels, these platforming moves are forced by covering nearly every inch of the screen that you're not supposed to touch in instakill spikes. It's incredibly uncreative and lazy.
More broadly, there are too many levels, even in the main part of the game, where there's little to no design openness. More often than not, there's only one correct way to clear a challenge, and it even requires identical timing with the jumps and whatnot.
This might seem like a weird criticism, but the way platforms are oriented within levels in this game often feel very inorganic and abstract, as if they were designed for a video game and nothing else. Compare to a game like DKC: Tropical Freeze, where every level element feels like it belongs within that environment, and elements work together to create a coherent environmental picture.
Celeste sometimes teaches game mechanics passively through good level design, but oftentimes it leaves the exact operations of things a complete mystery. The game really doesn't explain its stamina system, for example, and good luck consistently triggering high jumps on springs and bouncy clouds until you figure out the timing that the game gives you no idea about.
STORY/CHARACTERS
Celeste is marginally more engaging than games with similar mechanics and challenges due to how the game structures the levels in such a way that you feel like you're going on an adventure, as opposed to just trying to go from left to right in linear stages. Part of this is due to the light narrative focus. The best stages in this game combine a persistent narrative thread with complex, exploratory level design, which helps to develop the context that Madeline's journey up the mountain is a sort of psycho-spiritual odyssey for her. Not every stage is like this, but these sections help to distinguish Celeste from many of its indie game peers.
Plot-wise, a lot of interesting ideas are hinted at or suggested and then promptly abandoned throughout the game. While this is frustrating in some respects, I do like how the developer keeps the game laser-focused on Madeline's subjective experience throughout. Not every game needs to be an epic, or deeply plumb the mysteries and lore of imagined settings; for better or for worse, whatever bizarre contrivances are hinted at throughout, it's just set design for Madeline's journey of personal growth.
There are a number of colorful characters that Madeline meets on her adventure, and they're fun, but mostly underdeveloped, and are typically characterized by one overriding character trait. As mentioned before, the game is focused on Madeline, so the rest of the characters who aren't Madeline (or her double) end up going fairly undeveloped.
ART/CHARACTER DESIGNS/MUSIC
I'm a bit conflicted here. While the game's environments often make wonderful use of color to offer up vibrant backdrops, the pixel art for the characters is horrible. There's no detail to them at all. I obviously don't expect hyper-detailed WayForward-esque sprites, but this, at least visually, often feels like about a thousand other lazy indie games out there.
The CGs that periodically pop up during chapters and bookend each chapter are frequently adorable and full of personality.
The game is more consistently excellent on the music front. Composer Lena Raine's gorgeous tracks, often piano-dominated, exude a variety of emotions and do a great job of immersing the player throughout. There are some really stellar remixes from other artists during the B-side levels as well. There aren't too many indie games with soundtracks this good, honestly, and it's another element that really elevates Celeste above its peers.
CONCLUSION Celeste is a fun, challenging, and fairly memorable platformer with a strong central narrative, compelling music, and a lengthy campaign that rewards players who persist and attempt to engage with as much of the game's content as possible. Terrible pixel art for the characters, lacking character and story development (not related to Madeline), and some quibbles with the game design drag it down a bit for me, but I enjoyed my time with it.
Forager for Switch
Completion: About 85%
Time spent: 25 hours
This game has a very different feel depending on how far in you are, I found one half far more enjoyable than the other.
At the start it feels like a faster paced Stardew Valley. You’re basically foraging with your pickaxe to collect materials, which you craft into helpful items. There’s a farming mechanic, you have to regularly eat. Earning money allows you to expand the available map. You have a levelling up system tied to a skill tree. The abilities on the skill tree offered quite substantial buffs. This part of the game is a really rewarding loop of gaining stuff, exploring and figuring out puzzles. There would always be something to do and it always felt like you were making progress.
About 15 hours in a couple of things happened. I got an ability which meant you gain exp tied to value of items sold (I believe 1 gold = 1 exp). It also turned out I could craft a valuable item with two materials I had built up an over abundance of. I crafted and sold this and was suddenly awarded hugely in both money and exp. I discovered this naturally by accident. This meant rapid expansion of the map, my abilities and automation. The last one was what killed it for me. I gained an ability which auto collected all crafted items. Also gained a few droids which collected materials while walking around by firing lasers at them. Also gained mining rods which automatically harvested materials. This lead to an explosion of sound effects, things whizzing around the screen, controller rumble and notifications. This was overwhelming and incredibly grating. I turned off sound effects and rumble but the the game was still a visual mess. You do have the option to stop some of the automation but this would have made gaining late game items a massive grind. I did turn off the droids in the end which helped a little. This section of the game is not fun to play on a sensory level and is tediously easy.
There are a couple of things which stay consistently fun throughout however. Like Stardew and My Time at Portia there’s a museum which you are encouraged to fill with found and crafted items. This is fun and rewarding to figure out.
There are also fun puzzles and dungeons. The puzzles can be real headscratchers. The dungeons basically revolve around a gimmick and a newly acquired tool.
What is not fun however is a bug I encountered which has locked me out of about 3 achievements. If you do get this game, do not build on the rainbow island until you complete the puzzle. This can lock you out of completing the puzzle, even if you destroy the buildings you placed. This was patched in the PC version but frustratingly not here.
I wanted a similar experience to Stardew Valley and while it started that way and was enjoyable, it quickly spiralled into an overwhelming mess that was constantly annoying. I think with some balance changes (especially reducing sell prices on bombs and not making lighthouse effects stack) and the ability to turn off the notifications & sounds when gaining items this could be a great game.
@Ralizah Wow that’s a really great review. Do you do this for a living?
I definitely understand the praise Celeste gets. It’s a brilliantly designed game and definitely one of the best in the “twitch platformer” genre that was in vogue for a while.
My biggest criticism of the game actually has to do with the heavy handed narrative. I saw where it was going fairly early on and some of the interludes hammer home the point even further. Maybe I’m just too jaded or something to be moved by the simplistic metaphor the story sets up, but it is the case nonetheless.
@NotTelevision Thanks! No, I just enjoy sharing my thoughts on games I've played.
One can definitely see where the narrative is going if one is acquainted with the various plot devices and tropes in this game. The narrative doesn't really do anything new, persay. But I did feel like it handled themes such as self-acceptance, self-overcoming, self-doubt, mental illness, meaninglessness, etc. fairly well. ESPECIALLY in the context of the genre the game is situated within. I was afraid, based on what I've heard about it, that I'd get something like Super Meat Boy with a hammy, tacked feel-good narrative about overcoming your doubts and whatnot. I mean, that's not completely off-base, but I felt like the game mostly stuck the landing in that regard.
One aspect I liked a lot was the unusual amount of attention that was given to Madeline's shadow self, and the way her relationship with Madeline evolved over the course of the game. Given the mystical nature of the environment Madeline finds herself in and the way their conversations go, my presumption is that, instead of being some non-sentient representation of Madeline's worst traits (like the shadow forms of characters in Persona 4, for example), Madeline's shadow is actually a sort of thoughtform that was given life by Madeline unconsciously as a result of her struggles with mental illness. It's an interesting treatment of a familiar idea.
I played another game last year called Iconoclasts that reminded me of this, because it was a simplistic indie platformer that was trying to distinguish itself with an unusual focus on story and character development. Unfortunately, I felt like that game collapsed under the weight of a complex story it couldn't pace or develop properly, so I think the more intimate and restrained approach Celeste took was for the best.
I beat Link's Awakening for the very first time on Switch not too long ago. This is an excellent remake! It's much easier to play thanks to the Switch having much more buttons. Everything was recreated faithfully, so I could tell there's been a lot of love and care put into it. Oh and I adore the Mario references! Now I have an even harder time coming back to the 3DS Virtual Console version, lol
My only true gripe was of course, the framerate issue. It doesn't make the game unplayable by any means, but it's definitely noticeable. I would've liked true analog control too, but it wasn't a huge issue for me (though the fact that you can't control Link with the D-pad is...questionable). I didn't spend too much time in the dungeon maker either, it just didn't hold my interest for long.
Overall, great Zelda game. It's one of the easier ones so I recommend Link's Awakening for a more chill Zelda experience.
@Ralizah Oh yeah, I beat Celeste too! Though it can get a tad frustrating at times, I enjoyed it as a whole. It's hard for sure, but I thought it was the fun and fair kind of hard. Loved the ending too, it was quite heartwarming
"Give yourself the gift of being joyfully you."
Favorite games: Super Mario 3D World, Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Playing: Hollow Knight
Ask if you want to be Switch friends with me, but I'd like to know you first. Thanks! ❤️
Disclaimer: I spoiler-tagged my discussion of the game's ending. I don't think it matters, because anyone with a lick of sense will see where this game is going after five minutes, but if you're especially sensitive to spoilers, there you go.
Actual Sunlight
WHAT IS IT?
A two-hour long RPGMaker game where you play as an overweight, middle-aged man struggling with depression.
PLATFORM
PS Vita
LEVEL OF COMPLETION
Everything. All the trophies. Actually had to replay half the game to snag the last one, but considering the game's length, it wasn't a massive sacrifice.
PRO
There... aren't any real bugs that I encountered.
The game is almost entirely devoid of typos and grammatical mistakes.
In general, my issues with... almost everything aside, it's fairly well-written.
It's mercifully short.
The occasional CG that shows what the characters look like aren't too bad. Character portaits in text boxes aren't the worst thing in the world, either.
CON
Have you ever been trapped in a conversation with a deeply unpleasant and negative person, but feel like you're sort of obliged to listen and just want to get the conversation over with? That's what playing this game feels like. The bitter rantings of the main character feel like they were probably derived from a first-hand experience with depression, and I've had some similar thoughts myself at various points in my life (I think everyone has), but the authenticity, or lack thereof, of the main character's self-negativity doesn't make it any more entertaining or enlightening to read. You can very easily go on a random social media website and find someone crying about how fat, stupid, and ugly they are without having to pay $5 to experience it (unless you were lucky like me and got it via PS+ one month). There's no grace, art, humor, or insight gleaned from this game. It's just a day in the headspace of a deeply emotionally unwell human being. And, frankly, anyone can vomit out the nastiness supplied by one's inner critic into a short script and call it a day.
Please don't keep mentioning the main character's tendency to pleasure himself while swallowed by feelings of self-remorse, game. It's gross.
I was tempted to call this a visual novel, but it doesn't really deserve that distinction. It's a plain-jane, ugly RPGMaker game with reams of text that scroll by anytime you click on anything in the environment, except that text often has nothing to do with the thing you clicked on.
The irritating, fax machine-esque noises that issue every time text scrolls by in this game is truly appreciated. On the other hand, there's no voice acting, and basically no music, so there's no real reason to keep the sound up, either. But I didn't want to miss audio cues or something important, either. Joke's on me, I guess.
There's a bizarre message that scrolls by at one point when you examine a couple of people outside (as I said before, the text that appears often has no relation to the object you chose to examine) that basically tells the player that, unless they're 25 or older, their problems aren't real or significant. But once you hit your 30's, like the guy in this game and (presumably) the main developer, well, it's too late to turn things around. That's the implication, at least. Might as well jump off of the roof if you don't have a good thing going for you by then.
Oh, the roof. So, there's a grand total of, like, five different environments in this game. One of them is the roof of your apartment building. Its inclusion here is obvious: at some point, the player character is meant to throw themselves off of it. Sensing this early on, and quickly developing a headache from the irritating noises and cloying self-pity in all of the game's monologues (90% of the text in this game, as mentioned, is the main character talking bitterly about himself and his life), I was hoping this game might be the Breath of the Wild of suicide sims, and let me jump straight to the end once I felt like it, but that didn't turn out to be the case. You have to go through the motions and endure the requisite amount of mental self-abuse before it finally sends you up to the roof: and, of course, once it does, it won't let you reconsider or go back.
While the emotions sound authentic, I don't believe for a second that the developer has ever actually even talked to a real therapist. The main character mentions at some point that his therapist tells him to "come back when he has real problems," or something like that. No professional is going to do that; or, if they do, they need to have their license pulled. Depression is a real thing, and mental health professionals take suicidal ideation very seriously.
My biggest issue with all of this is probably that there's no real narrative here. No movement. No evolution. The main character begins as a deeply depressed man who apparently has no interests in life (he buys new video games, but doesn't appear to enjoy them), and ends as... a deeply depressed man who apparently has no interests in life, only, after a five year or so timeskip, he's finally ready to end it all. He has no character arc; no revelations; nothing to connect A to B aside from the necessity of the game needing to be sold as a finished product, I suppose.
There are other characters in this game, during the middle section when it briefly decides it wants to be a satire about corporate alienation or something, but they're introduced, get a few lines of dialogue, and... that's it, really. They're never developed enough for you to care what happens to them. The main character apparently develops a loveless relationship with one of them, but this is hardly even touched on. Nobody here gets an arc or evolves or is ever anything interesting, either.
The words from the title do crop up in the game at one point, but it's part of some off-hand phrase, and it's a bit weird that it became the title of the game. My guess? "Depression Quest" was already taken, and the developer(s) hunted through the script to find some combination of words they thought sounded good together, and settled on "Actual Sunlight."
CONCLUSION
I feel a little bad ragging on this, as I suspect this game is deeply personal for the person or people who made it. This is pathetically low-effort, though. This is the sort of game you might make as the final in an "Introduction to Game Design" course. It is certainly not something the developer should have been selling for actual money. I've played numerous free games that felt like more engaging, complete experiences. This fails as a game; fails as narrative; it reads like a series of blog posts from a teenager who is unable to process their emotions
@Ralizah Actually your description of the game has me a bit interested. Don’t know if I’ll play it, but I like the idea of a video game using this kind of protagonist even if I don’t identify. Sounds like they didn’t succeed in making it all come together though, which is a shame.
As much as I like the escapist wish fulfillment games I most often play, it’s interesting to see one that takes the opposite approach.
Ghostbusters Remastered for switch. It was a real shock how much i liked it. I didn't think it would be all that good, as most games based off of movies are rather meh. But it had all the original cast, 3rd person shooter, Some light puzzles, ghouls and ghosts, an awesome library scene as well as a graveyard scene. The dialogue was really fun and ghostbusters'eque. Story was spot on ghostbusters. If you're a fan of the movies, you like 3rd person shooters, and want to get in the Halloween mood, it's the perfect game for you.
XBLAZE Code Embryo - a visual novel game. It's a side story to the BlazBlue series of games. It might be a cool thing to experience if you're a BlazBlue diehard fan. But for me it was a waste of time, roughly eight hours of my life I'll never get back. 3/10
Nightshade - another visual novel game, this time in the otome subgenre (basically a lady dating sim). Now...compared to XBLAZE Code Embryo, Nightshade was a breath of fresh air. An interesting plot line, good music, good voicework. The story isn't on the level of Steins;Gate: Elite, but I enjoyed my time. 6/10
I find myself warming up to the visual novel genre. Having a hands-free style of game while enjoying a cup of coffee in the early afternoon...it's nice. And now that the PS Vita is dead and buried we can expect publishers like PQube, Aksys Games, Idea Factory, D3 Publisher, and others to begin translating a whole bunch of these games for the western market. Even LRG is getting in on the act by distributing the western release for Clannad.
Switch Physical Collection - 1,540 games (as of January 28th, 2026)
Switch 2 Physical Collection - 4 games (as of December 8th, 2025)
@NotTelevision In fairness, most sites have awarded it pretty decent scores. 6 - 8 range. I stand by my criticisms, but most people who have reviewed it don't seem to share them.
Have you played Hellblade? I'm really curious to get to that. There aren't a ton of games out there that explore mental illness as a serious subject.
Currently Playing: The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy (PC)
I'm halfway through Hellblade on my Switch, @Ralizah .... I do intend to return to that So far, I'd say it's great, especially for the mental health side.
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