More reviews of games I've played on stream. It turns out writing nothing but tweets and technical documents for the past 4 years has completely deteriorated my English abilities. Weird!
Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight (PC)
I'm so glad to have finally played this game after a good 5 years of it sitting in my Steam library. Playing on Hard for my first playthrough was almost definitely a mistake, but the bosses are well designed and balanced nonetheless. The parts in between the boss fights weren't as special, making this game not stick out all that much these days. There are endless incredible indie metroidvania games now, so Momodora doesn't feel all that remarkable.
F.E.A.R. (PC)
F.E.A.R. didn't really live up to the hype for me. It probably would have been a lot more effective had I played it in the 2000s. The time-slowing and ragdolling were fun but didn't feel too special, and the horror was almost entirely lost on me. It's still a fun first person shooter, but I didn't get anything special from it.
Klonoa: Door to Phantomile (PSX)
Wahoo! This wasn't the mind-blowing experience for me that some streamers seem to have had, but overall a really solid game. I prefer 2 for the more puzzle oriented gameplay over the difficult platforming of this one, but the story is really something great and unique. The vibes of PSX games like this are truly immaculate. Even if the success of the remaster relaunches the franchise, I don't see anything as strange or notable as the original games coming out today.
The Sniper 2 (PS2)
True kusoge. I wouldn't recommend playing this without savestates even if you like to suffer. Getting the good end requires incredible accuracy with a nonsensical physics model, which requires constant restarting, loading screens, and console resets. The cutscenes are pretty fun though. The story becomes even less comprehensible if you fall off the path to the good end (which you almost certainly will).
Metal Gear Solid: Ghost Babel (GBC)
I have pretty complicated feelings on this one. It's undoubtedly one of the most impressive games on the Game Boy Color, and the combination of old style Metal Gear gameplay with new style MGS storytelling is fairly engaging. But some parts were just plain frustrating, such as the 45 minutes conveyer belt puzzle. I wish they'd kept this style of game up; I think they could have ended up with something fantastic by the GBA era.