Overall: Great

• Played: 80+ hours

Great

• Weird, magical appeal that makes it incredibly fun
• Charming art style
• Nook Miles is the best achievement system I've experienced
• Very rewarding feedback loop
• Very simple mechanics
• Overwhelming amount of content and replayability
  • Huge variety of items, characters, and collectibles
  • Unlimited customization and personalization
  • Special and seasonal events
  • Seasonal bug / fish availability
  • Random special visitors
• Museum
  • Incredibly well-designed and magical
  • Bug, fish, and dinosaur facts
  • Bugs and fish look so much like real-world counterparts

Good

• Friendship
• Shareable custom designs
• Stalk Market is exciting
• Terraforming is a good addition, but has some limitations
  • My desert oasis pond has sharp, grassy edges

Okay

• DIY system is awesome, but eventually material costs become meaningless
• Duplicate recipes feel bad
• NPCs talk so much
• Nook's Cranny closes at 10pm
• Once you get in with Big Turnip, other moneymaking methods feel less significant
• Real-world timing can make some things difficult

Bad

• Bulk crafting / purchasing is absent
• Good and desired furniture / DIY is rare
  • Where are the tables?
• Online is so, so bad
• Tools break so often with no indication of durability
• Where did Nintendo fortune cookies go?

Overall: Good

• Played: 16 hours
• Completion: 100%

Great

• Beautiful artwork
• Charming characters
• Focused gameplay
  • Minimal filler
  • Simple mechanics
  • Simple stats
• Unique combat

Good

• Amusing items / flavor text
• Character variety adds replayability
• Cute hats
• Item / weapon variety

Okay

• Inventory management
• Story

Bad

• Character breathing makes some shots feel like rolling dice

Overall: Good

• Played: 22 hours
• Victories: 3
• Deaths: 52
• Cards discovered: 276 / 370
• Relics discovered: 149 / 178

Great

• Card-based combat is awesome
• Classes have unique mechanics
• Relics are unique
• Well-synergized builds are very rewarding

Good

• Easy to pick up and play
• High replayability

Okay

• Choices in the road rarely felt impactful
• Carryover between runs isn't very significant
• Strategy was not apparent in the beginning; I needed a friend's advice

Bad

• Unpredictable loot and events makes synergies difficult to plan
• Fights began to feel boring and repetitive
• Unlucky runs feel like a waste of time
• Art is... uhh...

Overall: Okay

• Played: 5+ hours
• Victories: 1 three-island, 1 two-island
• Losses: 10

I have a lot of locked and unexplored content and might not have given it as much of a chance as it deserved, but the cons noted below really hampered my enjoyment.

Great

• Every battle is a bite-sized puzzle
• Small-scale tactics is unique
• Shove mechanic is very cool, but hard to adapt to
• Excellent spritework

Good

• Easy to pick up and play
• High replayability
• Procedural content feels authentic

Okay

• Choice of battle rarely felt impactful
• Carryover between runs isn't very significant
• Strategy is not apparent to me
• Every battle is played on the defense

Bad

• Though small, battles are very stressful; I never feel like I'm winning, just triaging
• Some turns feel unwinnable, which is frustrating; on the flip side, chancing upon a good solution is very rewarding

Overall: Great

• Played: 10 hours
• Completion: 100% exploration
• Deaths: 400

Great

• So, so beautiful
• Unique art style
• No frame stutters
• Solid pacing
• Focused gameplay
  • No filler
  • Simple mechanics
• Great map
• Rewarding exploration
• Mobility upgrades enable a lot of fun sequences
• Misty Woods had a super cool and unique zone mechanic
• "Dungeon" zones were all very unique

Good

• Unique and charming story
• On-demand checkpoints take some adjusting to, but work quite well

Okay

• Black Root Burrows ostensibly requires a light-producing power to explore, but actually doesn't
• Often unclear whether an upgrade is acquirable with current abilities

Bad

• Platforming is slippery, making the first 1-2 hours very unforgiving. Mobility / health upgrades relieve this
• Some mid-game talents apply to optional abilities I didn't get until post-game

Overall: Great

• Played: 15+ hours
• Hearts: 18
• Seashells: 40

Great

• Very charming
• Tight controls
• Focused gameplay
  • Minimal filler
  • Simple mechanics
• Solid pacing
• Fun puzzles
• Unique art style
• Great map
  • Pins are great for marking places to revisit

Okay

• I got all my cool sword upgrades at the very end
• Some things are obscure
  • Bomb, arrows, shovel are store-bought items
  • Magic Powder stunning green chus
  • Bomb arrows exist?
  • Boomerang trades for shovel? you can buy the shovel back
• Dampe's dungeon builder is subpar

Bad

• Frame stutters on zone changes
• Some things are very obscure
  • Magic Powder lighting torches in Bottle Grotto
  • Walrus seashell in the desert
  • Papahl asks for "vittles" and wants pineapples
  • Non-obvious bombable walls in Turtle Rock non-obvious hint about "rock that rolls"