Final Fantasy's leap to the 6th Generation. I'm just reviewing X. FFX, even today is a technical marvel. While releasing so early in the PS2's lifespan, it visually outclassed all but MGS and Silent Hill. SE has finally provided a rerelease of a FF worthy of store shelves, albeit with one potential deal breaker. But first I should recommend you install Project X, which gives you QOL improvements like cutscene/gameplay fastforward, and the ability to install its texture upres that finishes what SE didn't upres in this remaster. I'd also recommend C3Anderson's texture mods, which are very nice and remain lore and artstyle friendly, which I'm a huge stickler for.

The port is alright. I ran into only 2 crashes in my 64 hours and the autosave feature made them painless. It features most of what you could ask for in options, but don't expect a Croteam options. With X and X-2 we are finally free of that irritating SE launcher as well. This remaster was almost perfect, if not for what happened to some of the characters' faces. FFX had extremely impressive facial animations, that have aged quite well to this day, but somehow it seems Tidus and Yuna's faces have been remodeled, due to loss of some of the game's data. The new models are stiff and lack the fidelity of the original game, but with a decent texture mod they can be made workable, but it's impossible to fully restore the original faces' models. So keep that in mind before you purchase. Emulation is always an option.

As for the game itself, FFX is a huge step forward from the PS1 trilogy technically and in basic gameplay. The battle system has gone from the FF staple ATB system to fully turn based. While I had nothing against the ATB system, a lot of QOL improvements happened to come along for the ride. Party members can be swapped mid battle, not even costing a turn. Equipment can also be changed mid battle. Summons, or Aeons in X's case are no longer just flashy looking spells that do big damage, but are controllable and require strategy to employ.

The Expert Sphere Grid (which this Remaster has available) is a godsend, that gives players much more freedom to experiment. Enemies have been retooled, now requiring the player to employ specific strategies to dispatch them effectively. Braindead random battles are no more, you gotta pay attention or encounters will be trouble. If you don't use Rikku against machina, let Wakka handle flying enemies, let Tidus take on quick foes, or have Auron fight armored opponents, you'll just eat damage like Thanksgiving dinner. Debuffs are necessary for many fights, not just a mechanic you remember during bosses.

Expect a noticeable increase in difficulty from previous games. You should be fine even if you suck, there are tools (like Yojimbo) at your disposal to make this game easier on yourself. While the added challenge makes battles more enjoyable to play, this is a double edged sword. Enemies have very high amounts of HP, making battles very long, and the random encounters are frequent as well. A lot of story heavy bosses can be the more challenging ones, while Project X can provide a fast forward for cutscenes, there is no true cutscene skipping, so you'll be subjected to some serious cutscene rewatching on some of the tougher bosses. There was one boss I straight up one shotted with Yojimbo because I thought the challenge simply wasn't worth the time spent rewatching cutscenes. This has been a persistent problem since FFIV all the way to the 10th game, and even in the Remaster 15 years post release, it hasn't been fixed. The tedious waiting spoils what should be a decent challenge.

As neat as the ability to alter the stats and teach moves to your aeons is, and being able to customize gear, both in my experience require a significant amount of farming. As for the Cloisters of Trials, I could hardly stomach going through them, and they broke the pace of the game. I don't find carrying orbs that Tidus can't hold in both of his hands back and forth very interesting. The big minigame this time, Blitzball, as expected, is a good idea turned into a poorly explained nightmare to actually play. What could have played like a turned based volleyball game (you know, in a turn based game, a format familiar to the player or Hell, just play like Dead or Alive Xtreme) is taught to you 2 hours before you even get to play it in a massive info dump, that has weird RNG elements, and entirely new stats and abilities in play. Luckily after the story related game, it's entirely optional, but required to get Wakka's best Overdrives.

The music is as awesome as you'd expect from a Final Fantasy, but the story leaves a lot to be desired. Tidus's voice direction and behavior makes him a difficult character to like. He also isn't very original, blending elements of Zidane's personality with some of Squall's backstory. He at least is a flawed person which is more than you can say for Yuna, who is essentially just a flawless goddess of a person, who lacks any grit to her character. She has being pigeon-holed by her father in common with Tidus, but I couldn't find the chemistry between the two. The two leads don't really influence one another like you would see in FFVIII or IX. Kimahri is our obligatory turd character that every FF needs at least one of, and for the most part he never speaks which I'm not sure who decided would make his character good. Rikku has a cute and entertaining basic personality, but her character doesn't bring much to the game (beside her tight bod) and she's lazily shoehorned back into plot nearly half way through the game.

The rest of the party fares quite better. Lulu and Wakka have a well written dysfunctional relationship. They bicker and argue all the time, but they are unified by their shared grief, seem inseparable, and privately share what they are thinking to one another constantly. Auron's voice direction and character is pretty well handled, even if we set aside his ridiculously badass design. While Auron is stern, he has a gentle inflection that signals his concern, and a vibe that a young idealism in him has been quashed by life long ago.

Our antagonists are once again interesting personalities on the surface with a ton of screen presence and charisma, that overall feel underdeveloped. Seymour becomes largely irrelevant 60% through the story, exits the story for a while with little fanfare after committing a genocide everyone in the game forgets to care about, then shows up again at the 11th hour to simply offer us another boss fight. Jecht is much better, and becomes endearing over the course of the game, but I usually prefer an antagonist that isn't so distant from the main cast and the player, and gets a healthy amount of screentime.

A simple introspective journey to defeat Sin suffers from a dull ending due to dry utilitarian dialogue and plot twists sucking out the drama from what is otherwise a decent conclusion for Tidus and Jecht and some spiffy well directed FMVs. Maybe the amount of overly epic bosses at the end could be trimmed down to one really good boss so the story doesn't have to jump through hoops to justify them all.

FFX admittedly has a lot of faults, especially in the story and character department. But FFX is a video game first and foremost, and the huge improvements to the battle system, a comfy trek across the world, along with great music and visuals still make it shine as a worthy entry in the long running series.

A Hat in Time is a love letter to the Gamecube. Levels inspired by Mario Sunshine and Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door, art direction reminiscent of Wind Waker, the writing taking notes from The Thousand Year Door, guest composer Grant Kirkhope providing some music, Jontron as a guest voice, there's a lot of love for the 3D Collectathon genre from a bygone era. This game alongside Mario Odyssey, which released 22 days later, brought collectathons back from the dead.

Hat Kid is a pretty adorable design for a protagonist, she can't annoy due to her silence, but still manages to bring some sass to the game. She controls like a dream, with a moveset with a lot of potential, maybe not Sunshine or Odyssey potential, but it still leaves a plenty high skill ceiling while keeping the skill floor quite accomodating. The badges offer some nice character customization and minor game tweaks, such as letting you choose between gibberish voices like Banjo or Zelda, or the standard voice acting. The only voices really bringing much to the table are Snatcher's, the Conductor and DJ Grooves. Everyone else besides the Jontron cameo can be pretty grating. Moustache Girl's voice direction should probably been toned down a bit. If you feel that way the gibberish badge is always available.

Levels are quite varied, especially since Chapter 2 takes place over several different locales. It's admirable a single chapter gets so much production value dedicated to it. Fans of Psychonauts and TTYD will definitely get a kick out of it. Chapter 3, which I think is probably the game's most solid chapter, let's the game's platformer identity shine the most has the stand out character Snatcher, who is basically the cursed chests of TTYD fleshed out into a full character.

You'll see plenty of familiar aspects of beloved classics seeing implementation here, including a Wind Waker/Sly Cooper style stealth level with MGS1 musical stylings, classic 3D hub world that definitely isn't as memorable as the likes of Peach's Castle, Isle Delfino or even Station Square/Mystic Ruins but serviceable, floating abstract levels made of geometric shapes a la Mario Sunshine, Train level harkening back to TTYD, sometimes dreamlike otherworldly settings of the 5th generation, a segment taking inspiration in the sound design and mechanical minimalism of modern horror games. It's the amalgamation of these disparate styles from a bye gone era blended in a single game that gives A Hat in Time its unique identity.

It's constant variety can also be its weakness, as it never really settles into a gameplay groove. It is constantly throwing ideas new and old school at you. It's a more than competent game, but not superbly polished. It's cinematic presentation is pretty barebones. While the music is full of bangers, the sound design is pretty limp. Bosses are in that 3D Mario realm where they play okay but aren't awesome with one exception.

The expansions are solid, two additional levels and a new challenge mode for those wanting to squeeze every hour they can out of the game. Plus the game got the free addition of massive multiplayer lobbies and couch coop and a new protagonist Bow Kid, who I hope we might see again in a sequel. It's an easy recommend from me, a Kickstarter that could that's partly responsible for the revival of the genre that made me love games, an admiration the game itself clearly shares. I'd certainly love to see Hat Kid in another adventure someday.