Guacamelee: Enjoyable Metroidvania title that puts a greater emphasis on chaotic yet controlled brawling and almost puzzle like platforming over world exploration, looking back I can't help but feel it might have benefited from taking on a more linear level based format since warp points were limited, sidequests simplistic and there wasn't much worthwhile to actually find when seeking out hidden paths but it's no big issue really as the game is fun from start to finish wrapping up in a short but sweet experience that gets mileage out of all its central mechanics, well worth checking out especially for its price.
The amount of references could've been dialled back though, the game has strong enough character to stand on its own without them.
Luigi's Mansion 2: I'm not so big on this sequels switch to a mission structure nor E Gadd's occasional interruptions to explain the obvious but otherwise this improves on the original in many ways, I only just got around to trying some of the multiplayer the other day which was more fun than I expected. Incredibly expressive animations, the distinct visual style of this series looks even better with a greater variety of locations and a deep 3D effect, Next Level Games took their time but the results were worthwhile.
Still deep down there' something I just like more about the original even If I feel this one bettered it overall if that makes any sense.
Fire Emblem Awakening: It doesn't top my favourite entry in this series but it's a damn good one all the same, loaded with content and each character is imbued with personality that takes permadeath to even further mournful heights (or actually to a more likely use of soft reset), at the expense of this comes an uneven difficulty curve/game balance where you could be struggling one second only to be breaking the game the next (speaking for Hard/Classic difficulty here) and the main plot is pretty by the numbers stuff.
But now I think about it it's my favourite game i've played so far this year, I think it's set the groundwork to build a much better sequel off of, Awakening looks to have made things as accessible as possible without diluting the core experience too much and hopefully it's paid off and got more people on board, increasing the map types/objective variety seen in previous entries and having a plot as engaging as the characters with all the extra bells and whistles Awakening wears would make something very special indeed.
I can't remember when I finished all the main Village quests in
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate but it was probably this month as well, though I can't call it finished just yet, me and my local multiplayer hunters have only just reached G rank but after 100 plus hours i'll be putting this one aside for a spell, there's only so much armour farming I can handle in such a short space of time. Fantastic fun though, probably my favourite co-op experience out there.
