A sequel to Dreaming Sarah and Wishing Sarah, Awakening Sarah is a 2D platformer that draws inspiration from Yume Nikki. You traverse dream-like worlds, collecting abilities to explore further into Sarah's dreams.

There are a lot of abilities, an entire wheel of them. Some are more useful than others and there is some overlap, but I don't think its excessive. The few first-person segments are a nice change of pace, but most of the game is 2D platforming.

The game makes use of game boy homebrews in an interesting way - you can find an old portable console that can play a couple gameboy games including Wishing Sarah.

I was planning to pick this up but I was provided a free copy, so I made sure to play through all of it. There were some obtuse achievements at the end, but its not a difficult 100%

A new entry in the Katamari series, levels take place in different eras such as historic Japan or the Ice Age.

I had a good time with this but it may just be a testament of how much I like Katamari in general. I haven't played very much of the second game, so this could be more fresh to me for that reason. Negative reviews decry the physics which I do agree are 'off' and you do tend to get stuck on objects more often, but it didn't bother me while playing. I've mastered the PSP version so maybe I'm not too attached to the standard controls.

There are some interesting levels, and the magnet power is a powerful addition if you use it at the right time. The usual cousins are here as collectibles and each level has crowns to collect. There is some player customization but I set it to something I liked and forgot about it.

There is a multiplayer but I haven't played any of it aside from the single-player variant. Its fine but I'd rather just play the actual levels.

The music seems to be hit-or-miss with people, but I think its alright. It has more J-Pop than usual. I don't know if I did something but after a while every level had the same track assigned to it, and I had to manually choose the music each time.

I still need to 100% it, but all achievements seems pretty easy. Would recommend on sale, or if you're really looking for more Katamari. Probably best playing the other entries first if you haven't already, not that this one necessarily requires it.

Gorgon's Garden is like Hypnospace Outlaw, but you play an abandoned MMO and browse an old forum on a virtual desktop straight out of 2008 - old-school CRT monitor with a reflection and all.

You need to solve some puzzles in order to access further areas of the MMO, the first being to bypass a membership gate using a cracker. This involves browsing the in-game forum, a real authentic experience complete with forum sigs and the usual drama. As someone who grew up on InvisionFree/Zetaboards Nintendo fan forums this alone was real nostalgic, moreso than the first-person MMO.

The MMO itself isn't real deep, reminiscent of Memoirs of Magic but lighter on content. The entire game is 30-60 minutes so there isn't much time for the MMO to flesh itself out before dropping all pretense and delving into a creepypasta.

I was left wanting more, but its a good length for a single-session experience.

The game has an epilepsy warning, but I didn't have any troubles as someone who typically has issues with flashing visuals and can't play games with pixelated filters. There is some body horror and unsettling imagery, but nothing too bad unless you're immediately put off by that.

The Nintendo Switch 2 and Mario Kart World released at a bad time for me, I haven't unlocked everything and I definitely haven't completed all the open world content. Its been a minute since I played it and with everything going on I don't think I got a solid impression, so I want to return to it later (maybe if new content or DLC is released?)

Unlocking characters is my favorite part of most games, but here I don't like how its handled. Some are tied to completing cups, but the rest you have to get transformed into during a race - which will inevitably happen but I like the process of completing tasks to unlock content. Same with the costumes, its just a tedious process of eating each type of food with each character. With all the customization options and an open world, there could be a real satisfying unlock progression.

I think this is a good Mario Kart. Its difficult to follow-up Mario Kart 8 so doing something different was the best way forward, in my opinion. I recently picked up 8 Deluxe and played through all of that, but I could see myself returning to both entries.

This hack turns SM64 into a rougelike deck-builder where you draw cards and use them to perform most moves, like jumping or crouching. There are new moves added as well, like a beta-style jump and a galaxy spin.

Each deck has its own starting cards, giving some varied runs and more challenges as you get further into the trickier decks. The Green Demon deck is a difficult one, spawning a killer 1-up.

Some levels are more challenging than others, and the water levels have been redesigned to not require swimming. There is an extra card pickup hidden in each level, finding those can be real useful as each card has a limited number of uses. When you run out of cards, you're dead.

Things get very chaotic with the final unlockable deck. And you can of course assemble all pieces of Exodia...

The RA set was a collab with authorblues, and it turned out really well. He kept calling himself "The King of BAZR" which was kind of weird, but it was really nice to have one half of the game taken care of by someone else for a change.

This hack is really cool, its not real polished or technically advanced but the concept is very charming. The levels are based on real-life skateparks in Bogota, Colombia - down to representing the graffiti. Unique NPCs are scattered through the levels, providing anecdotes and background on each location.

The skateboard is a reskinned koopa shell and there aren't extra features like tricks or a scoring system beyond collecting coins, but the virtual tour designed by someone deeply familiar with the area is just as cool in my opinion. There are a couple invisible walls due to small flaws in the level geometry, but the hack is a chill enough experience that it isn't much of a problem (unless you're playing the RA set which requires you to beat the whole hack without crashing, whoever's sick idea that was)

If you can tolerate some bugginess, then its a feel-good hack and is worth checking out if you like shell-riding in SM64. There is a developer commentary worth checking out as well.

The highlight of this hack jam is Reality Estate, a single-dungeon Ocarina of Time hack that has you explore a mansion to find items to find more items. The difficulty is fairly low and the puzzles aren't head-scratchers, but its a nice hack that I'd recommend to anyone wanting to play an OoT hack with some combat and a lot of chests.

The other hacks are worth checking out too - Halflight Shrine and Mechanical Shrine are short dungeons, the former being a bit more polished. Return to Stone Tower is a large single room dungeon and is pretty tricky, ending in a tough boss fight as well.

I made the RA set so I could get some DevQuest credit with a zelda hack. Despite having to make achievements for all 5 hacks, I think it came out well.

Oshinui Tune is a short gbc homebrew by megamittz, who also released Inventory Full late last year. You shoot Japanese hiragana to fill in the word "_shi-nu-i", making a plushie. There is a specific plushie you are supposed to make, but you can collect them all. There are different dificulty levels, but none of them are too difficult.

There are some hidden levels, and the final boss takes a demonic turn...

These games have a lot of charm and I'm always looking out for what megamittz puts out next. I picked up some merch recently:

RA: Oshinui Tune, Inventory Full

A 3D recreation of Yume Nikki, this fan project is short with only ~10-15 min of content but its really well done. If you like Yume Nikki and the PS1 then its worth checking this out - it has two worlds, 2 effects, NASU, and a bit more.

What if Pokémon, but no Pokémon? Pokémon Uncanny Version is a hack of FireRed that removes all Pokémon and replaces them with Non-Pokémon - Pokémon-like creatures featured in the Pokémon franchise but aren't actually Pokémon.

You'll encounter Non-Pokémon such as Statchu, the gargoyle-esque creature on statues seen in the Pokémon gyms. Or Mangbug, a creature caught by Red in the early manga.

There are 101 Non-Pokémon to obtain, but you can still encounter some actual Pokémon. Some regular Pokémon are available in order for you to evolve them into Non-Pokémon, but there were a few instances of wild encounters that were missed.

The S.S. Anne is real neat, featuring trainer battles that use exotic Pokémon like Alolan Meowth or newer-gen Pokémon. Most trainers in the hack use Non-Pokémon, however.

The hack is built off of Complete Fire Red Upgrade, so there are a lot of upgrades and QOL included as well. There are two NPCs in the early game that give you infinite rare candies and infinite of almost every other item, so you can just breeze through and casually play if you want.

When making the RA set I wasn't sure how much content to cover outside of catching all Non-Pokémon, but I think I struck a good balance. The hack didn't seem to focus on post-game content, so I only covered the 2nd League Champion. To deal with the infinite items I made challenges on all gyms leaders with level caps, party limits, and no bag items. This isn't so bad since you can rare candy everything up to the level cap, and there is a Move Maniac in Vermilion City, so if you know what you're doing then every challenge should be real easy.

Conceptually this is really cool and I'd like to see a sequel some day.

Made by AlphaDream, Hamtaro: Rainbow Rescue is like Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga but without the combat and a lot more Ham-ha!

The RetroAchievements set for this game was really barebones, and for a DevQuest I decided to add all the missing content. This turned out to be a huge endeavour and I had no idea how much work I had gotten myself into.

Each area is a different chapter, in which you must collect a different color for Prince Bo's umbrella so a rainbow can be made to return him home. You typically play as Hamtaro but there are other Ham-Hams that will tag along and have their own abilities. The game has a ton of minigames, each only playable with a specific character.

Through-out the game you collect stickers of varying rarity - each having a different method of obtaining. Some you get from completing minigames, and some you buy from shops or find in the world. Collecting all the stickers can be a grind, but you get a final sticker as a reward.

What took a lot of effort were the minigames - each one I had to go through and add any challenge achievements I could think of and/or leaderboards. The problem was, each minigame has its own unique memory. RATools was a life-saver for this, but it was a huge task that I didn't know of going in.

I played through the game at least 3 times, so I was very relieved to be done with it. I'm not really a Hamtaro fan but it being AlphaDream drew me in, and I generally like the game and don't regret playing it. Some day I'll play through the RA set again, but not for a while...

A DS Metroidvania, you play as a young girl who awakens in Monster World and must stop the Kid-Kings to restore control back to the Monsters.

You have a monster companion named Chomp who can fight enemies but has a stamina meter. Moving Chomp to the bottom screen (the "sanctuary") lets it restore stamina and consume collected items, boosting their stats or setting off attacks. Giving certain items to Chomp will evolve it into a new form, branching from three different trees: Baby forms, Teenage forms, and Adult forms. Each form has a unique skill, and leveling them can unlock traits that boost stats on every form.

I'm not a big metroidvania-head - so maybe this is common in these games - but there is an excessive amount of backtracking. Constantly you are going to a new place and getting at least halfway through before you reach something you need a new ability for, only for that ability to be 70% of the way back in the last area you were in. So you have to walk back (no teleport, despite having save rooms that would be perfect for this) to the main hub area, then walk through that previous area, then walk back to the hub area and walk back through the new area to proceed past the minor obstacle and progress.

One time I think it was literally a door you needed a key for, or you had to press some button that happened to appear on the other side of the game's world for some reason. Its such obvious padding and the game would be too short without it.

Aside from that, I like the game's visuals and it makes great use of the dual touch screens. I did master it on RA, but the set is lacking and could use a revision. It doesn't cover 100%, which I dug through the game and found out requires exploring every map section and evolving Chomp to every form. Forms are missable if you level a prerequisite form to max before giving the specific item to unlock the next one, so that is worth keeping in mind. I plan to do the revision soon, along with cleaning up all the set's QA issues.

Vib-Ripple is generally considered a "not good" game and its pretty clear why - a sequel to Vib-Ribbon, it forgoes music loaded from CDs for pictures loaded from USB digital camera. The photos are laid onto a flat plane that acts as a trampoline, with hidden "Peta Characters" placed onto matching color regions that you peel from the photo by jumping repeatedly in that spot.

Importing photos on a modern emulator is a tedious process of converting the images and inserting them into an attached vhd file with a specific format that you then load as a usb camera in PCSX2's settings, but it tends to corrupt itself requiring you to start anew with a clean vhd file and re-insert all the properly named images again.

Even with that aside, I don't get the appeal of importing photos. There are specific Peta Characters you can collect only from imported photos, but there is no 100% reward to encourage you to do so. Importing a photo of your homie to bounce up and down on his face to reveal a hidden rugby ball is only entertaining the first few times, at least with Vib-Ribbon you get to play a rhythm game.

There is some rhythm involved - if you jump with enough speed and at the right time you can perform a sparkling jump. This fills the green gauge on the right and rewards extra points. Filling the green gauge will reveal temporarily where the hidden Peta (or enemy) spots are and either heal you or transform you into Queen Vibri if you already have full HP. In the queen form you are invincible and can reveal Peta characters instantly when jumping on them.

Sparkling jumps do act as a more advanced tech, as you are also invincible during this jump and can defeat enemies by jumping on them. This not only clears away threats but also fills the green gauge even further. If you land on a group of smaller enemies you can fill the green gauge instantly, rewarding you for spawning that many and allowing them to stay on the field.

There are 60 photos included but they aren't anything to write home about - there is an entire world dedicated to photos of a Japanese comedy duo but I don't know anything about them and the photos aren't that varied as they always wear the same pink outfits. The unlockable 5th world ends with photos of the staff which is real cool.

Very repetitive and unrewarding, Vib-Ripple is mostly disliked for good reason. It has character and charm but in the end would make for a really good Mario Party minigame. I like it enough but after 100%'ing the base content and developing the RA set, I don't intend to play much more for a while.

Click off this page right now and go play Wonder Trek. I put it at the bottom in case you forget to come back, but it tops everything else here as the best game I've played for the first time this year.

You are a zoologist who is stranded on an island after a plane crash, along with Professor Favreau who acts as a knowledgeable sidekick. You're there to search for the missing Associate Professor Amadeo (and find a tasty Phoenix Egg while you're at it...) but you end up saving thought-to-be-extinct species from poachers. You can also choose not to save them, if you don't want the better ending.

Equipped with a toy hammer (so as to not beat the animals to death with a real one), you must solve puzzles and fight big bosses. The professor follows you around and is at times a nuisance, but making sure he is with you at certain times can lead to further dialogue and might be needed to save some animals. He has a stress level and tends to get lost if you walk too far ahead, only to reappear when he feels like it.

The puzzles aren't real difficult or obtuse, mostly requiring some thorough exploration of the island and examining the items themselves.

The game clearly intends for you to play through it at least twice, the second time rescuing every animal. Its easy to miss out on rescuing one of them (hitting them with the hammer is a surefire way to lock you out of 100% and make you feel like a jackass)

The ending is a real tear-jerker, and the post-game a bit depressing as well. Its still well done, but something to be aware of.

I've been wanting to play this one for a while, and thankfully an english translation finally released this year. Obligatory RA set link. Its solid work too, with images and videos translated too. I think the team has another PS1 translation in the works, but what do I know...