SO3's plot twist is utter brilliance because it makes everything that happened in SO2 completely meaningless. More seriously, just found it fun. Oh no a game doing something that isn't 100% formulaic (at least within the genre, blah blah I'm aware the Matrix exists, etc.).
Super Mario World 2 - Beaten. It probably deserves a long rant but I beat it like a week ago and have had limited internet access and time since then. So, in brief!
The good:
-Stage design was very varied and often brilliant.
-Boss design was again, very creative, although I wish more of them were more challenging.
-Nice visuals generally, very much sought out its own style and nailed it. I'm not even the biggest fan of that style in the world but I respect what they did, here.
-Challenge level was overall pretty good. Bosses, as mentioned, could have been a bit tougher, but otherwise, game rarely mails in a total joke level the way pretty much every other Mario game since SMB3 has.
-Raphael the Raven.
The less good:
-Controls suck. This singlehandedly keeps the game out of the elite tier of sidescrollers. This was really driven home, sadly, in the final boss fight, where the boss was non-threatening enough that he wouldn't kill, but you have to jump back and forth between small pillars and Yoshi's controls are bad enough that I was sometimes missing them and falling into a pit. This is excusable early in a game as you get the hang of things, but the fact that it always happened somewhat even by the end indicates to me that the controls are definitely a bit gummed.
-Game could have done with twice as many halfway points. Levels are big, often huge, and I have no problem with that, but I dislike having to go back over five minutes when I die.
Collection stuff was kinda silly (red coins are a stupid idea) but I don't really care. The game also totally lacks any explorable map and I still don't care.
Overall a fun game, glad I finally played it in full, good experience and so on. Not exactly jumping up and down to play through it again, but that's fine. Capcom games await!
FE Shadow Dragon - At Chapter 16 or so on the H3 run.
Xenosaga 2 - About to dive into MOMO's subconscious. Gameplay is sexy, plot is very hit and miss, GS stuff is more tiring on a replay.