Jess’s Game Clearing Reviews

Release Year: 2023 System: Switch Date Finished: May 8th Status: Beaten Never “reviewed” a dlc expansion before but here it goes. I did almost everything I possibly could. Got every collectible type thing in the world, completed the Community, every side quest…the only things I didn’t do was fully upgrade the weapons and beat some of the toughest uniques plus things tied to that. Still pretty fun, loved the new party crew, all the fanservice is amazing, and I loved the prequel story. I wish there were some story elements like what happens soon after this and stuff with Moebius that were expanded on even further, but I still really appreciated what we got. Despite wanting to see more this still feels like a phenomenal ending to this saga and I’m incredibly excited now to see where the future goes from here. The ending sequence in particular got me so much more invested in this universe (multiverse?) lore and I *need* to know as much about it as possible. Absolutely recommend buying the ...

Release Year: 1992 System: PC Date Finished: March 31st Status: Completed (As a heads-up, the romhack I used to play the game mainly just added a few QoL features, like item quick swap or making the Ice Palace more manageable. The latter of which being the only real major change, otherwise it’s the SNES classic. Just cleaned up a tad) So glad to have finally played through ALTTP in its entirety. Back in 2018 I got a little into the Dark World and stopped cause Smash Ultimate came out, and I just never went back until now. The visuals have aged beautifully, the sprite work and general style is timeless. And a lot of the music has since become iconic for good reason between the intro jingle, the main theme, the Dark World, Ganon’s theme, and some of the smaller tunes that still stick in my mind. The gameplay loop is classic Zelda and I never tire of it. The dungeons are fun, but for the most part I found them and the bosses to be a let down. I’m sure it’s just due to being the second go ...

Release Year: 1988 System: PC Date Finished: March 18th Status: Completed Boy this sure is a sequel on the NES. Funny how a lot of major franchises that started that far back had some kind of drastic shift with the second game, and Zelda 2 is obviously no different. As much as I love traditional 2D Zelda (it’s probably the format that stuck for a reason), I don’t have anything against the structure 2 tries. It’s more so..the trappings of being an RPG on the NES. Clues for puzzles and objectives can be very cryptic, combat is clunky and unfairly difficult, and the beginner’s traps like fake walls and secrets with little hints for them. The leveling system and spells are pretty fun, though it’s a bit lame that some of the spells are super situational. The music is great, the overworld and palace themes especially being really catchy. Honestly there is some fun to be had with a Zelda taking this route being more of an actual RPG with side scrolling, and I’d love to see a remake and/or a n...

Release Year: 1999 System: PC Date Finished: March 6th Status: Beaten Surprisingly big improvement over the first game, to the point that there’s no real reason to go back to the original when a lot is done better here. Enemy AI and rubberbanding aren’t as bad, so it doesn’t feel like I’m constantly getting pelted by items. And granted I didn’t play the unlockable courses in the first game, but the ones in 2 feel a lot more creative. Or at least they get wilder with their concepts quicker. Plus I love all the cute stories and skits before and after a race. Definitely recommend this one!

Release Year: 1998 System: PC Date Finished: March 3rd Status: Beaten For my own sanity I’m calling “beating” the game here as just getting *a* trophy on all the initial courses. I got 1st for the first 2 and 2nd for the rest, and beat top score for most of the mini games..so I’m calling it there. I feel like I must’ve missed some mechanics or something majorly, or maybe what I missed was just not growing up with the game. I did not have fun most of the time. Weapons are simultaneously incredibly punishing to get hit by and often really hard to actually hit others with. There’s slight homing with some of them but otherwise most of them act like a fucking green shell. Oh and if you shoot a character with the ice weapon they’re an obstacle now you have to avoid. You *can* jump to avoid most of the weapons when they come after you, and there’s a warning for them…but I swear the amount of time they give you to react isn’t consistent. And in general I just don’t have good reaction times soo...

Release Year: 2001 System: Switch Date Finished: February 26th Status: Beaten Seems like it’s become sort of obligatory for people to play through this one after Game Boy NSO was added lol. It’s a very neat concept for a puzzle game, that gets super difficult pretty fast in the story mode. Some of the stages just feel like romhacks with the wild layouts. Challenge mode for the most part feels like the difficulty is kinda back and forth. You never know if you’ll get an easy as hell one, or an utterly brutal stage. Occasionally annoying difficulty aside, very cool game and I hope we eventually get more of the games available on Switch