@manaburn's diary

A cosy fishing game right up until the sun goes down. It builds a lot of atmosphere from very little, and it's short enough that the fishing never wears out.

Harder to love at first than the original, because it asks more of you; the magick system and the heavier weapons take time. Once they click, the depth is remarkable.

Gorgeous and fluid, with some of the best chase sequences in any platformer. The combat is a big improvement on the first game, even if the story leans hard on your tear ducts.

It plays with the way you think about fights, and that stays with you long after. The humour is odd and kind, and the bullet-hell bits are more varied than they have any right to be for something made by such a small team.

Lovely art, and a thoughtful story where choices matter in small, human ways. The lettering changes with each character's education, which is the kind of detail I didn't know I wanted. Slow, and worth it.

Better than I remembered, and I remembered it fondly. The level design has a logic you only notice on a second visit; every shortcut is exactly where you'd hope it would be.

The first half is still the best interconnected world I know. Opening a door and realising you're back at Firelink, from a direction you'd never have guessed, doesn't get old. The second half is weaker, and Blighttown ran like a slideshow on the original release, but the shape of the thing has been copied ever since and rarely bettered.

It borrows a great deal from better games and doesn't always understand why those parts worked. There's enough personality of its own to carry it, mostly.

I came to it years after launch and found a generous, sprawling game about wandering. It rarely surprises after the first dozen planets, and I kept going back anyway.