Reviews, a staple of any gaming website. Whether they help consumers to make informed purchasing decisions or anger the gaming community at large, the act of writing, reading, sharing, and discussing reviews of the latest games is a core part of online gaming culture.

But I'm not here to give you a history lesson on video game reviews. Instead, I'd like to explain how I intend to handle them, as I believe I've come up with a pretty unique idea.

Reviews have always been planned to be a part of my blog, but I don't want to do them the way most major publications do. That is to say, I will not be using a rating scale of 1-10, as I feel that simply slapping a number onto a review makes it so most people won't look any further than the number, and won't actually listen to the nuances of what you have to say.

Not only that, but a number rating is such a surface level way of rating games in my eyes, and lacks the ability to really represent my full thoughts on a given title. It's often much more complex than a 10, 9, 8, 7, etc, can properly convey. Plus, I'm the kind of person that would almost never use the bottom half of the scale unless I find a game egregiously bad. So, why use a system that I won't even use to its fullest extent?

However, I also don't want to force you to read everything I write to get the picture. So, I've come up with a compromise that harkens back to the since deemphasized 'bite-sized content' concept I originally had for this blog.

At the top of every review will be a section I'm calling the 'Byte Verdict'. This is basically a short summary of my overall thoughts on a game that ends in a recommendation. Depending on my thoughts, I may highly recommend a game, recommend it under certain circumstances, not recommend it at all, or any number of other forms a recommendation might take. I want this to be the primary takeaway from my reviews. If a recommendation I make can help even one person make a decision, I'd feel like I've accomplished my goal.

Below the Byte Verdict, I'll provide a short blurb regarding my thoughts on various aspects of the game, divided into a handful of categories. These aren't set in stone, and I may add or remove certain categories on a game-by-game basis, but there's a couple I have in mind that are likely to be constants. Those are: Gameplay, Visuals, Soundtrack, Story, and Content.

The Byte Verdict combined with these blurbs should hopefully provide a good summary of my thoughts, but if you'd like to read more, I, of course, will also be writing out a full, in-depth review that covers the specifics, as well as touching on some spoilers towards the end if there's spoiler-worthy material I feel like discussing.

So, essentially, the goal with my reviews here on The Byte-Sized Blog is to offer readers two different options: a surface level summary of my thoughts and a recommendation in the Byte Verdict, and an in-depth deep dive into everything I want to talk about in the main body of the review.

As an example of what this will look like, I've created a mock-Byte Verdict for Mario Kart World, a game which I have pretty complex overall feelings about that would not be done justice by a basic number rating:

------------

Byte Verdict: Mario Kart World is a bold yet uneven package that shakes up the tried and true Mario Kart formula with tons of great new ideas that sadly don't come together as cohesively as I would've liked. It feels like it's missing something to tie the whole package together that I can't quite put my finger on, but despite that, it's still an absolute blast. The gameplay is more dynamic than ever before, it houses some of the best, most creative tracks in the series, and the new ideas in modes at play help to create the freshest feeling Mario Kart, maybe ever. The blueprint is there for something truly incredible if it's iterated on, but as it stands, Mario Kart World is still a great game that mostly sticks the landing, and, in spite of its flaws and inflated price tag, is a must own title that I would easily recommend to any Nintendo Switch 2 owner.

• Gameplay: The basic Mario Kart gameplay has been overhauled with new mechanics such as a Charge Jump, rail-grinding, mid-air tricks, and wall-riding, significantly raising the skill ceiling and allowing for some of the most insane shortcuts in the series, as well as helping the game feel fresh after 11 years of Mario Kart 8.
• Visuals: As a launch title for Switch 2, Mario Kart World ushers in the next generation of Nintendo with a bang as one of the most gorgeous games I've ever played. The sheer beauty of the game's world is jaw-dropping, especially on a 4K, HDR-enabled screen, and the new Rainbow Road is a particularly stunning highlight.
• Soundtrack: Dare I say this is one of the greatest soundtracks Nintendo's ever composed. Not only is the music for the main tracks exceptional, with special mention once again going to the masterful new Rainbow Road theme, but the hundreds of incredible rearrangements of songs from past Mario games makes the game a love letter to the franchise's musical history. An absolute masterpiece of a soundtrack all around.
• Story: Not applicable, this is Mario Kart, there is no story.
• Content: While there's plenty to do in Mario Kart World, between Grand Prixs, Knockout Tours, Time Trials, Free Roam, and Online, the whole package lacks a certain level of cohesion and structure that would elevate these individual modes that much further. You can still get hundreds of hours of enjoyment out of World, but I just can't shake the feeling that it's missing something that would've made it feel more complete overall.

------------

And there you have it!

I hope this example gets across my intentions with the Byte Verdict and how I aim for it to represent the broad strokes of my thoughts and feelings on a game.

Admittedly, this might not be the greatest example, as I did get a little carried away writing it, but that's just because I've had a lot of time to think about my thoughts on Mario Kart World, and I wanted to use an older game that I likely won't be reviewing in full. But I hope I got the idea across either way!

At the time of writing, I have a handful of planned reviews in the pipeline, being Rhythm Heaven Groove, Splatoon Raiders, and Metroid: Samus Returns. Depending on when you're reading this, perhaps you can go read them right now!

But mentioning Metroid does bring up another point I want to go over.

As it stands, I have three different kind of reviews in mind:

• Reviews, the most simple variety covering the latest games or recent games that are still readily available on current platforms

• Byte Reviews, for titles I want to spotlight, but don't warrant a full blown, long-form, super in-depth write up

• Retro Reviews, basically for covering games from older platforms. From a Nintendo perspective, this will encompass everything prior to Switch, as there's no guarantee they're readily available. So, yes, this means Metroid: Samus Returns will be classified as a 'Retro Review' despite being less than a decade old. That's just the criteria I came up with.

And... that should just about cover everything I wanted to talk about regarding my plans for reviews on this blog!

...oh yeah, one more thing you should probably know. I'll likely be very delayed doing my reviews for new games in most cases, because I'm very slow at finishing games. On that note, you can expect me to review Tears of the Kingdom once I finally finish it sometime in 2030!