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Japan Pro Golf Tour 64   JP release: 2nd May 2000 PAL release: N/A NA release: N/A Developer: Media Factory Publisher: Media Factory N64 Magazine Score: N/A The first – and last – third party game on the 64DD, made by Media Factory. It was available for sale for only two weeks from Nintendo of Japan’s website, with estimated sales between 3,000 and 10,000 copies. The gameplay feels like a more refined version of Seta’s early N64 game The Glory of St Andrews: you hold the stick back to the power level you want while a dot on the golf ball pulsates, then you have to time your swing down for when the dot is at its smallest for the most accuracy. Some sources say that Seta published this, yet the logo on the box and in-game is Media Factory. It’s still possible Seta developed it, or it was based on their engine, but their logo appears nowhere in the game. One annoying thing is that your golfer then gently puts the club down before swinging. It makes the actual swing feel very detached from your actions. It’s a much harder system than the likes of Mario Golf, but isn’t too bad once you get used to it, but it never stops being a faff to use, making the entire game feel dull. Japan Pro Golf Tour 64 seemingly takes a quantity over quality approach, with a whopping 10 golf courses available at the start of the game, and a ton of tournaments and different modes to play through, including a career mode and “Network Competition”. The online features of Japan Pro Golf Tour 64 are really poorly documented, with some places stating that it had online play, online leaderboards, and the like. However, the Network Competition mode could have worked in any regular N64 game. When you open it, you’re prompted with a password entry. Entering a valid password will then load up a specific course and settings. When you’re finished, you’ll be given a password which you would then enter into an external website to submit your score – the game itself never connects online. There are tools for generating and reading these passwords, so the function can be tested out. It did, however, have one major Randnet feature: DLC. Using the Randnet disc, you could download an additional five 18 hole courses, then patch them into the game by swapping to the Japan Pro Golf Tour disk. While the DLC itself is lost, fans have have created a special N64 cartridge ROM for patching it into the game (which should even work with the real physical game on 64DD), using courses from a PS1 Seta golf game as an example, so all features of this game are fully usable. That said, every single one of the 15 courses looks identical. There’s no background details (so no visible clubhouse or landmarks), everywhere has the same trees, and you’re always looking at the same hills in the background no matter where you are. It’s just another example of the game’s quantity over quality. Poor Remake or remaster? The interesting features of this game are only interesting specifically for consoles of the time (although the Dreamcast was already doing stuff like this). The preservation efforts of fans is good enough. Official ways to get the game. There’s no official way to get Japan Pro Golf Tour 64

This Tetris would be utterly demolished by The Tetris Guidelines if it came out today. Also, the music sucks.

Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island is an absolute mouthful of a title developed by Spike Chunsoft and released on Switch at the beginning of this year. It just got a PC port a couple of days ago, but I didn't play that one. It's a roguelike dungeon crawling game that's not quite as well known as it's spin-off, Pokémon Mystery Dungeon. Not many games with that dubious honour, at least Shin Megami Tensei has company. You know? Pokémon Mystery Dungeon? I might have mentioned it a few times. This is Spike Chunsoft's original IP version of their Mystery Dungeon games. Despite my absolute love for PMD, I've never played a Shiren game before. So why not start with this newest installment? The game, shockingly, follows Shiren, and his ferret friend, Koppa. They wander around some vague Japanese setting under a severe drought. They've both had dreams about Serpentcoil Island. This place has many rumours about a great treasure inside a monster's stomach. Shiren decides to investigate and debunk this stupid rumour. However, in between him and this monster is a "Mystery Dungeon" spanning the entire island. The game then abruptly jumps straight to the final boss. Technically, you can win this, and you even get to see the ending if you do. But you'd have to be extremly skillful, and extremely lucky. I was neither, so Shiren was punted back to the beach town at the bottom of the island. He's not one to give up, so he sets off again. He'll get it next time, right? ...Right? He must be playing Dream Drop Distance Because I'm lazy, here's my synopsis on what the Mystery Dungeon games are about, copy-pasted from the Pokémon spin-off thread I did. In order to see the credits, you need to get through a 31 floor "Mystery Dungeon". Mystery Dungeons are places whose layout is randomised each time you enter it. On each floor, you need to find the stairs or exit so you can progress to the next floor. Succeeding comes down to levelling up by fighting enemies, scavenging items along the way, and using them well, and maybe a bit of luck as well. That said, Shiren is an exceptionally hard game. If Shiren runs out of HP at any point, and you don't have a revival item, you're booted out of the dungeon, lose all your progress, all your items, money, and even the levels you gained. Back to square one! Tough luck, try again. (Yes, @drahkon, for once, you can't complain that I called this a Roguelike, it's completely accurate) To really hammer the point, the game lets you see the completion rate of dungeons. The first dungeon? Around 5%. I don't feel so bad that it took me 20 attempts to do it now. A lot of things are against you in this game, you have to juggle equipment (Which some enemies can weaken for the rest of the run), item management (Which some enemies can use against you, even ones you currently have on you), keeping Shiren well-fed, hidden traps. Seriously, everything is out to kill you. But this game seems to have taken a cue from the game, Hades. As you inevitably fail, and traverse through the dungeon again, there's a number of side stories that play out. Seeing them to completion by reaching various points on the map will eventually add new items and events to dungeon spelunking. You're still starting off at level 1, but at least you have more flexibility. The music is pretty good, definitely a more Japanese vibe compared to PMD, for obvious reasons. But I'm still not sick of it, which is good. Amusingly, I recognised a lot of sound effects from Pokémon Mystery Dungeon. It probably originated from Shiren in the first place, but I'm not gonna bother finding out. Anyway, the credits rolling is only the beginning, a veritable ton of different modes and dungeons come along. I most certainly will not be 100%-ing this game, it's far too difficult. But I'll be playing a lot more.

Seeing a weird number of people causing a stir about Jordan having a shaved head.  Not that she would need this to justify the shaved head at all anyways, but I wonder if it's a gameplay mechanic of sorts? Naughty Dog's hair physics are insane so it'd be odd to me if they suddenly went with a protagonist who shaved theirs off...so considering we'll seemingly be trapped on Sempiria for potentially most of the game, if not all of it, I wonder if there's a passage of time (be it through "days" or just story chapters) which sees her hair grow back?  It could totally just be her look, I mean it's a bit more grown out in the photo we see but still very short, but choosing to introduce the main character in this first trailer with a shot where she's in the process of shaving her head before she goes down to Sempiria is a pretty peculiar choice if it's not intentional (I guess maybe a form of otherwise "letting her hair down" or something, so to speak). 

Nah, let’s do a GBA/Four Swords night tonight.