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THEY CHANGED THE *click* INTO A *clack*! MOTHERFU- *ahem* It looks exactly as unimaginative as the rumours claimed. But I am looking forward to see the mouse joy-cons (mouse-cons? Rat-cons? We'll workshop it later) in action. Nintendo is clearly fishing for some PC ports and their respective players. It's all hands on Deck to assert their dominance. Respect for turning a weakness into a strength, too... ...or something.

Hopefully the full release of v4.7.20 will be soon so we can get proper integration for BlueSky. I'm on there and I'm reposting all my various All Sonic/Trek/Bond games stuff on there alongside the N64 ones: https://bsky.app/profile/djcube.co.uk And I occasionally post stuff on this account (including @S.C.G's recordings when I spot them): https://bsky.app/profile/n-europe.com I do like that you can use a domain (with verification) for your username. Edit: If anyone is interested, I added BlueSky (and Threads) as fields on your profile.

The only specs that matters: (Based on leaked/rumoured specs)

Right then, after a lot of back and forth over the last few weeks and what feels like dozens of permutations, I have my 2025 Gaming Pledge ready to share. Donkey Kong Country - long overdue, while I have played a few random levels from the game before, I've never played it all the way through or rolled credits on it. Grand Theft Auto IV - in anticipation of GTA VI, whether it launches this year or next, I wanted to get some GTAs under my belt. I had thought about starting with the earlier PS2 games, as I do own the PS2 Classics released for PS4 prior to them being taken down for the Definitive Editions, but IV just screamed out to me more tonally from watching a few trailers while researching for my Pledge. It also gives me at least one less game to get through before VI, and I think getting through both IV and V (which I have hundreds of hours sunk into through Online but only a couple in the story mode) is pretty realistic. Halo: Combat Evolved - no Xbox, but I do have my Steam Deck, and it didn't get much love last year outside of replaying Chrono Trigger. I've played a Halo before at a friend's house (couldn't tell you which) but this feels like a gargantuan hole in my own gaming experiences representing Xbox that I'm going to need to see for myself. Hollow Knight - it was a toss-up between HK and another indie game for this spot, both of which I picked up digitally as soon as I got my Switch back in 2019, but ultimately HK won out because it feels like it's more of a game from my backlog that I feel I need to get to, because so much of what I hear people love about this game is what I love about video games. Would like to get to the other indie, too, but more on that if and when I get to it. NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139... - this has been sitting on my shelf for a good while now, and I've been really getting in the mood to revisit NieR in some way over the last few months, with the soundtrack constantly popping up in my Spotify recommendations. I know very little about this other than the whole need for multiple replays for the true ending and experience, so I'm curious to see how I feel about it. Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch - it's a JRPG with Ghibli charm and a Joe Hisaishi score to boot, I'm more surprised that I haven't got to this yet given my affinity for all of those things. I'm pretty sure this was on my bucket list from way back when I joined this place. Portal 2 - loved the first game even if I did feel a got a bit long in the tooth towards the end, and all I hear is that 2 is bigger, better, funnier and has even better puzzles than the first. And yet another excuse to commit to booting up my Steam Deck. Star Fox 64 - I don't think I've really played many on-rails or N64 games, and for a reason I'll get into below meaning that perhaps some more obvious choices weren't my go-tos, Star Fox 64 has ended up on this list. This franchise was in the middle of dying around the time I got into games and wasn't that big of a name for my generation growing up outside of Brawl, so I'm really curious to see how I feel about it. It's also a great excuse to commit to picking up the NSO + Expansion Pack at long last, and digging out my NSO N64 controller for the first time - which will be my first time using the controller in any way! Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 - I've got great memories tied to THPS from when I was a kid playing them with my cousins, and picked this up at launch back in 2020, booted it up once and didn't really give it the chance to click. I can't wait to spend a quieter weekend with this one. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - and last but not least, the biggest commitment in this Pledge by far. I really enjoyed Baldur's Gate 3 with my friends, and while that's still pending a complete solo playthrough, after my time with KOTOR last year, it was time to commit to another big Western RPG. I went back and forth between this, Cyberpunk, Fallout: New Vegas, Skyrim, Divinity Original Sin II, but ultimately this got the nod because I've got friends who also want to play it after all of us have bounced off the game a few times before, and it's the game I see mentioned most in All-Time Top 10s that I haven't seen credits roll on myself. It's been 7 or 8 years since I last tried to get into it, and I started playing it just last night with a fresh save and a fresh start. Not so much a "goal" but just something I'll be doing, and tangential to The Witcher 3, myself and a friend are doing this thing where we aim to each complete the same game fresh to both of us (TW3); each play a game we recommend to the other (I recommended Shadow of the Colossus last year, while he recommended Days Gone...safe to say I get to recommend a longer game this time around ) with the person recommending having the option to replay the game if they want to; and we also want to play a game we both want to revisit, which this year we've already decided will be Ghost of Tsushima in anticipation of Yōtei releasing later this year. I've already got the Plat and so I don't think I'll be doing 100% of what is available, which means I'm kind of interested to see how the game plays when crit-pathed, similar to how my experiences with Fallen Order and Spider-Man were much different when crit pathing those over the last few years during replays. When making my Pledge for 2025, I decided to have a fresh start, and so haven't included games left over from my 2024 Pledge - though I do still plan to get to those games if and when time allows for it. I also decided that I couldn't have any IP overlap with last year's Pledge, otherwise this list would probably just end up being Mario and Zelda titles, and while I'd like to get to more of those, I see the Pledge more as pushing me to play things which have either languished in my backlog or on a shelf for too long, or to have new experiences - and hopefully any new genres or IP I have got to from last year stick enough for me to want to experience more. Similarly, for some franchises I've been plugging away at anyways, adding them to the Pledge knowing that I already had every intent to play them anyways seemed like it went against my goals with the Pledge. And, speaking of which, that's exactly why a certain game isn't on the list which would otherwise have been a shoe-in - but don't worry, @Hero-of-Time, I have every intention of playing Resident Evil 2 Remake this year after loving the first so much. It's just a goal outside of my Pledge for the reasons above. Picking up NSO + Expansion Pack for the first time, while I don't want to commit to a hard number of games that I want to try get to, there are glaring holes in my gaming experiences when it comes to some of the biggest titles available on the service where I either haven't played them before or have but haven't rolled credits on them, and so while Donkey Kong Country and Star Fox 64 are the only representatives of my intent to get to more games from Nintendo's history - and we're talking some of the BIG name games on there that I haven't rolled credits on, N-E - I will also be aiming to experience some of NSO + Expansion Pack's big-hitters. Similar to H-o-T, last year I aimed to spend less on games, and while I did end up picking some games which ended up shelved or not played at launch, it was much better than it was in years prior. My intent this year will be to only pick up/pre-order games if I have the intent to play them next/at launch. Those games aren't going anywhere, and if they are - such as with limited physical releases - then I'll grant myself an exception where I deem fit. This also applies to games I own digitally and not physically in a way – I love my physical collection, but digital games are only going to be having me pick up physical copies if I find that I love them and want them on my shelves. Having games pile up the way they have - especially with how much I know a mess can impact my mental health and how clean I try to keep the rest of my apartment to combat that - ended up with my shelf looking like this and it causing an insane amount of stress even when just trying to pick a game: So, the morning after the TGAs finished, I'd had enough and boxed up any and every game I knew I wasn't planning to get to or replay anytime soon, as well as anything I had already completed (outside of games I knew I might be planning to revisit or get in a random mood for): I can't even begin to tell you how mentally freeing it was, but hopefully the photos get that across Lastly, similar to last year, I'm still on the look out for more games to round out my personal Top 10, meaning potentially revisiting some games I've already loved in the past, and, ultimately, my main goal for gaming in 2025 is similar to what it was last year: and that's simply playing and experiencing more games than I managed to complete last year (21). Oh, and just to have fun doing so, and not being scared about jumping around a franchise's games if I feel like it, and dropping games like I did with Persona 3 Reload last year if it just feels like the right thing for me to do. That was a lot of yapping, but anyways -- thanks once again for sharing your Pledges @Jonnas and @Hero-of-Time, it was great following your efforts to get through your Pledge games last year and I'm looking forward to seeing how you get on with your choices this year; curious to see if anyone else dives in with us! I'm also very curious to hear how The Surge ended up on that list Jonnas! And H-o-T, Secret of Mana very nearly ended up taking the JRPG slot on my own list, so it's nice to see it still be part of someone's commitments and yeah, I really enjoyed Judgment, but man do the trailing missions suck... Anyways, time for some food and then it's back to playing games (oh, and welcome back @Dufniall!)

A belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all! Somehow the year is now 2025, and you all know what that means...a new Gaming Diary thread to go along with our new Switch Successors™ coming later this year, of course! No doubt it'll be another year of AAA games of high and questionable qualities, a year for new niche and indie titles to be propelled to new heights, and of course, yet another chance to talk about the games we love - and those we don't - with a good dose of respect! And maybe a little disrespect if you're on the level of Star Wars Outlaws, ahem... Once again I find myself asking: does anyone else have any New Year's Gaming Resolutions for the coming year? Perhaps a particular game, series, console catalogue, or developer you're planning to dig into? Or some new and unique approach to how you play? Are there maybe some lessons you'll be taking away from your time spent gaming in 2024 to inform how you spend your time gaming in 2025? As we started off last year, I would also love to make a call out for people to share their List of Pledge Games for the year, if they'd like. Myself, @Hero-of-Time and @Jonnas made pledges last year of different shapes and sizes, and with different approaches to how we selected our games, but I think it's a great way to take aim at a particular set of games and cross them off your pesky backlog. Maybe there's a particular series you've been planning to get into, a sequel you let pass you by for whatever reason, or some little indie darling which has managed to embed itself deep into your psyche which you now have the urge to play. Heck, maybe it's even just catching up on some recent releases from the last couple of years that managed to sail on by! We used Topsters last year to create our lists, and I will be once again this year; to give an example of what your pledge list might look like, here's mine from last year: Whatever the case may be, it would be great to get more people onboard and make this something of a Gaming Diary thread tradition! Your list doesn't necessarily need to be 10 games - 3 and 5 also seem like perfectly nice numbers to aim for too - even if I do think it's a nice round number to aim for, and I definitely found it helpful as a guide to finally get to some of the games I've been meaning to dig out for so long. That's not to say I got to all 10 last year, mind you...but more on that in the 2024 thread later. It's non-binding, of course, and there's no real pressure to it – it's just a good bit of fun to share some of the games you intend to get to from your backlog, and hopefully just gives you that last little push to do so and share your thoughts on them when you're done! I'll be sharing my list later, after I've made my final post in the 2024 thread, as I have one final game that I rolled credits on just minutes before the fireworks started to shoot up at midnight – the pledge list for 2025 itself is something I've spent a good while pondering over the last few weeks, and I think I've finally nailed down, so I'm looking forward to getting it off my chest! Anyways, here's to 2025 and another great year of gaming! N-E's Pledge Lists of 2025 As suggested by H-o-T on Page 3 (on 7th Jan, for my own future reference ), here's a wall of initial pledges by the fine folk taking part this year, as well as the most recent pledge updates* I've come across for each pledge made**. These have been ordered from the earliest to latest pledges shared - but it's never too late to join! *like the pledge itself, my role in updating this is not legally binding, so maybe message me or tag me if you've noticed I haven't updated it in a whlie? I could also be MIA though so in which case...sorry **I'll use the date of the post of the pledge update rather than any other date noted, such as in a list of completion dates that I know others and myself like to use. Just makes it a bit easier for me!! Jonnas Pledged on 1st Jan 2025... Hero-of-Time Pledged on 2nd Jan 2025... Most recently updated his pledge progress on 18th Jan 2025: Julius Pledged on 2nd Jan 2025... Most recently updated my pledge progress on 4th Jan 2025: Nicktendo Pledged on 6th Jan 2025... drahkon Originally pledged on 6th Jan 2025, amended on 11th Jan 2025... Most recently updated his pledge on 13th Jan 2025: S.C.G Pledged on 7th Jan 2025... bob Pledged on 9th Jan 2025... Most recently updated his pledge progress on 14th Jan 2025... WackerJr Pledged on 11th Jan 2025... Cube Pledged on 11th Jan 2025... BowserBasher Pledged on 12th Jan 2025... Dufniall Pledged on 13th Jan 2025... Dcubed Pledged on 19th Jan 2025...

Oh God, I forgot you're that young lol. Anyway, EA put out a neutered version of Mass Effect 3 on Wii U as a full price retail release on the exact same day that they released a Trilogy package on PS3/360 that contained all three Mass Effect games... for the same price. Namco did exactly the same thing with Dark Souls Remastered on Switch... only it was even more transparently a sabotage attempt because they purposely delayed the Switch version for around 9 months so that it would come out on the same day as the Dark Souls Trilogy pack on PS4/Xbone. Nah. Namco have been feuding with Nintendo ever since the late Famicom era. This is their natural state. It all started when Nintendo first usurped Namco as the market leader within the arcades back in the early-mid 80s. Nintendo managed to appease Namco to come on board as an official licensed 3rd party developer for the Famicom by giving them a behind-the-scenes sweetheart royalties deal; which is why so many of their 80s arcade hits came to the console initially... Eventually this deal expired, and Namco were then given the same licensing agreement as every other Famicom 3rd party developer... and Masaya Nakamura ended up going apeshit. From that point on, Namco pulled support completely from the console in favour of the PC Engine (and later the Mega Drive as well). This is why almost every Namco game for the NES/Famicom remained Japanese exclusive, and why the SNES got practically diddly dick all in terms of Namco releases, despite being the runaway winner of that console war in Japan. Not only that, but they also jointly set up a little company alongside Atari you may have heard of... Tengen. Yes, that Tengen. The one that started producing unlicenced carts for the NES (many of which just so happened to be Namco games that were previously unreleased in the US!). They hated Nintendo so much that they committed corporate espionage to spite them. Then when Sony came a knocking with the PS1? Namco basically became a first party developer, to the point where they even switched over most of their arcade releases to PS1-based arcade hardware. Ridge Racer was the first ever game produced for the PS1, before even Sony's own internal development started (which is why it's listed as catalogue No 1 on the Japanese disc, SCSP-00001), a statement of intent if there ever was one. PS1 was as much a Namco console as it was a Sony one. We did get a brief period where Nintendo did manage to patch things up with Namco, when Iwata took over and the Gamecube came out. Very famously, Iwata went out of his way to court 3rd parties and Namco was one of the biggest gets of all (ending what was then, a roughly 17 year long feud with Hiroshi Yamauchi). This lasted until around 2007 or so, until they gave up on Nintendo hardware again... and then came back again when Iwata basically started bankrolling their studios to help develop basically all of Nintendo's games from 2014-2018... including Metroid Prime 4. But that all seems to have fallen apart when Metroid Prime 4's development went to shit. Nintendo then publicly threw the development team under the bus with that video, and shortly afterwards, Namco's support for Switch conveniently vanished (gee! I wonder why?). So while yes, it probably is related to Metroid Prime 4, it's not so much because of Metroid Prime 4 itself so much as it is Namco returning to their natural state. They've hated Nintendo's guts since the mid-80s, and the grumpy old men in charge love to hold a grudge.

Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue NA release: 27th September 2000 PAL release: 8th December 2000 JP release: N/A Developer: Mass Media Publisher: THQ N64 Magazine Score: 9% Like games such as Transformers Beast Wars Transmetals and The World Is Not Enough, this is another game where the N64 and PS1 versions are completely different games made by different developers. Lightspeed Rescue on PS1 is a decent beat-em up, Lightspeed Rescue on Game Boy Color is a decent side scroller, Lightspeed Rescue on N64 is…whatever this is. Lightspeed Rescue looks abysmal. The levels are very simple designs, yet have bad repetition and warping of textures. The camera is stuck in the same position where you can’t see much (even with me having an advantage due to expanding the view into widescreen), and the movement animations are hilariously bad. The levels are sparsely populated and fairly empty, and the people you rescue – who don’t move and are simply in the position specifically chosen by the developer – clip into the floor, because the developers weren’t given the time or resources for such simple tasks as making an NPC stand on the floor. Lightspeed Rescue is also abysmal to play. Power Rangers are known for their martial arts and varied moves, so of course you only have two attacks: shoot sparks forward or shoot sparks backwards. The movement is very simple in that, despite this being made specifically for the N64, you can play the whole game with the D-pad. You slowly run around these levels shooting respawning enemies (with even worse walking animations) that just run into you and disappear, and following the compass until you run into the right thing to shoot or rescue (which is just walking into them). There are very few maps that are re-used multiple times and, other than the brief seconds of laughing at the animation, absolutely no fun to be had at all. The game isn’t just this, there are some other types of gameplay. In driving sections, you move slightly up and down as the level scrolls past at a set speed. Sometimes, you have to shoot objects (the first one has you blowing up cars that are on fire to “rescue people”), drive over objects, or even, in one case, just drive for four minutes. Each driving level uses the same repeating buildings, the same road, and all take place at night. There is a small amount of fun to be had here. If you drive into other vehicles, they spin around and float upwards until they’re out of view. This damages you, but the game is so easy that you can do this a decent amount of times on purpose. Megazord fights are first person, and involve shooting your opponent in a first person view that is terrible to control. Powerups randomly appear. You have standard missiles to shoot, and a power attack that requires charging. If you get close, you’ll do a pathetic punch instead of shooting, so make sure you don’t get close if you don’t want to waste more time slowly depleting your opponent’s health. Incidentally, both your and the enemy health bars recharge. Most of the enemies are incapable of shooting regularly enough to ever deplete your health bar. You do get a whopping two arenas, and this mode is the basis for the multiplayer. The third mode actually looks fairly decent: flying around a 3D city. The controls are rather odd, and it’s only used twice: once to pick up other Power Rangers (you’re never given their names), and once to pick up boxes (some of them are stuck inside buildings). It’s the same map both times as well. Lightspeed Rescue is a game that was clearly allocated very few resources, and was massively rushed. Even the people making the box knew the game was bad, and used screenshots from earlier, very different, builds to try and make the game look better. Worst Remake or remaster? No. Official Ways to get the game There is no official way to get Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue.

Right, I weren't going to join in as most of the games will be playing are just going to be new Switch games, but at the moment there's not a lot I've seen that I'd be playing. So it would have been like two or three. But then I thought I'd include some GC games (as I've been able to play them using Dolphin) so I've been looking at some I never had and am wanting to play them. So I've got 10 here, top row are Switch plus one NSO N64 game, and the rest are GC games. OxenFree II - I picked this in a sale recently, well last year, as I loved the first one and this was like a couple of £ so I jumped on it then but have never got around to playing it just yet. Stray - I remember seeing this somewhere, and thought it was a neat little game and possibly right up my alley, but then seemed to forget about it. Came across it again recently and have now been looking to purchase it as it's usually only around £25 - £30. No More Heroes (1 and 2) - Right, so I picked these up from the eShop a few years ago when I had been given quite a bit of money on gift cards. They were in a sale and I had heard they were decent. I remember I started the first one but as usual with me, new Switch games get released and I move on to them, but for some reason I never came back to this. And I've never touched the second one. So I hope I can change that. Banjo-Tooie - I did actual start playing this on NSO when it came out and I think I've done the first two or three levels. I never finished this when I had it on the N64 (at least I don't remember finishing it) so I am wanting to give it a go again. Hopefully I can get back into it and give it a go. Onto old GC games. I never had any of these so am wanting to give these a go. 007 Nightfire - Of the 4 Bond games on. GC that I could see, this seems to be one of the more favoured ones. So I've put it on the list of games to try. I know nothing of it so will be going in blind. P.N. 03 - I remember seeing this in magazines and liking the look of it. I don't remember why I never got it, maybe it just didn't then get the attention I thought. But anyway, I've forgotten most of what I saw of it, but I've always wanted to give it a go. Eternal Darkness - Another one that passed me by. Well, I did get this as a Christmas present one year from a friend but I don't think I ever got around to playing it. I know there's a lot of stuff that happens which involved the memory card or time and something with a sanity meter, so I'm not sure how/if that still works in the emulated games. Either way, it was supposed to be good so I'm now wanting to get around to playing it. TimeSplitters: Future Perfect - Whilst looking up games I may have missed on GC. I came across this (along with TimeSplitter 2) and thought it looked like a game I'd enjoy. Know nothing of the games so will be going in blind. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds - I was a huge fan of the show but I never knew about this around the time I had the GC. Looked it up and it seems to be decent so I wanted to give it a go and see. So hopefully I'll get around to at least half of these. @Julius just so you can add me to the first post.

@Julius I've also made a gaming pledge, however mine is slightly different. I'm working on going through GameCube games, but for some I'm being a bit loose with completion and stuff (depending on boredom/frustration) as there's a lot to get through. Therefore, I've picked based on the minimum place I want to reach alongside, but also picking 10 games I've not played before that I want to give a full and fair chance to, completing them properly. (And, yes, Jungle Beat will be with the Bongos)

Gotta go fast! Sonic X Shadow Generations - Its been 10 years since I last played Generations... also Shadow. Sonic Superstars - I own this game on two platforms, and have played it on neither. Sonic Origins Plus - I've played these games many times over but I'll play them again. Sonic Frontiers - Not played, and "That's no good!" time to catch up. Sonic Colors Ultimate - Played it once... on the Wii, might check out the DS port too for fun. Sonic Mania - Either in Mania or Plus form, it's the best 2D Sonic game since Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Sonic Forces - Not great in general, but not the worst Sonic title, I'd give it another chance. Sonic Adventure DX - The best version of the original Dreamcast classic. Sonic Adventure 2 Battle - One of the best GameCube launch titles, now with renewed interest. Shadow the Hedgehog - Ow the Edge! Now with extra renewed interest thanks to the recent film, time to watch Maria die all over again.

Thought I would join in the fun this year. 2024 was a pretty decent year, I managed to beat 25 games last year according to my stats, but many of them were smaller games or classic games on NSO. This year, I'm aiming a bit higher. Cyberpunk 2077: I picked up the DLC on sale a month or so ago and have just discovered the wonderful world of modding. I have 3 different save files already ranging from 5-25 hours deep, but I'm thinking of starting again from scratch with a new character as a big update has changed a lot of the systems in the game. Managed to get the game running nicely on my PC after tweaking some settings, so I plan to go through the main game and DLC in one go. Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection vol.1: Picked this up just before I went away for a couple of weeks over the holidays. I'm about 4 hours into the first game and absolutely loving it. Beat it on both PS1 and GameCube and have very fond memories of it, but have never played 2 or 3, so once I'm done with the first, I'll be quickly moving on to them. Fallout 4: Big update last year from MS again perked my interest in this game, and ala Cyberpunk, there are a ton of good mods for this game which can streamline / improve the experience. Been sitting in my Steam account for years, but I never really gave it a fair shake. So this year I will. Okami HD: Hype for the sequel. Played a bit on Wii (around 20 hours) and started on Switch again just after the VGAs. Final Fantasy X: Always wanted to play this after dipping into 7, 8, and 9 over the years. Started a couple of months ago and got 10 hours deep. The plan is to actually finish it by the end of the year. Atomic Heart: Was always intrigued by the setting of this, so picked it up in a sale. First gameplay impressions were not great tbh, but I will soldier on regardless as the story is decent so far. Persona 4 Golden: Never played a Persona game. Dipped into a bit of SMT and reviewed Tokyo Mirage Sessions for the site waaay back in the Wii U days. I bought this on a whim when it was very cheap and I'm loving it. 15 hours in and 2 dungeons down. Loving the setting, the characters, and the story so far. This will almost certainly be one of the 12 I definitely finish. Will probably move on to 5 Royal afterwards, keen to see more from this series. Selaco: Got a few friends on Discord championing this game and I decided to jump in too. Absolutely fantastic so far. Technically, the game is still in early access and only 1 of the 3 planned levels are available right now, but it's amazing what these guys have done on the Doom engine and they are WIZARDS with sprite work. Resident Evil Village: I went on a huge Resident Evil binge last year, starting with 4 HD on the Switch. Finished that in February, then went through 2 and 3 Remakes a couple of times each before beating 4 remake in early December. Had a blast, and RE quickly became one of my favourite franchises. So I'm going to go through VIII to continue that trend. Sea of Stars: Huge fan of The Messenger, so naturally I should give Sabotage's second release a go. Unicorn Overlord: Played the demo for a good amount of time and it really sold me on the game. Love the art style and the setting of this one. Yooka-Laylee: I beat the 2D game on Xbox a couple of years ago, and played it again over Xmas on the Switch. To be honest, I'll probably wait until Yooka-Replaylee drops, but I really want to go through the 3D game after having a lot of fun with the sequel. I have the Switch version, but it runs a bit shoddily, so we'll see what happens with Switch 2 or the remaster being released if I have a better option later in the year.

I haven't posted on N-E for a while but I've been meaning to pick it up again, so here we go! Especially with the Switch 2 being announced and released (hopefully!) this year it will be fun to get back into the conversation again with you guys. My first finish in 2025 is Call of Juarez: Gunslinger that I played on pc and Steam Deck. It's an FPS arcade shooter set in the Wild West, and has you chasing down famous villains such as Billy the Kid and Jesse James. The main gameplay is going through pretty linear environments shooting down baddies with your weapon of choice (pistols, shotgun, rifle or dynamite). There is a skill tree that unlocks stuff like being able to dual-wield guns or increase your ammo capacity. The main gimmicks are a sort of bullet time that slows time and highlights targets, and a meter that when full lets you evade deadly shots. For the rest it is pretty straightforward shooting, with some QTEs thrown in the mix. Once in a while you'll have a duel where you face off against someone in a shootout. Here you have to fill two meters by adjusting your control sticks to increase your focus and draw speed. When your opponent draws you'll have to outspeed him which is easier the higher your meters are. It is a fun change of pace but not the best executed part of the game. The campaign is pretty short, around 5-6 hours which is perfect. There's also an arcade mode that is just plain shooting without a story and going for a high score. Speaking of the story, it is nothing too special, but it is told in an original way. Basically the main character is sitting in a bar drinking and telling his tale while you're playing, and the rest of the bar visitors commenting on that. It leads to some funny stuff, like you're shooting down indians and someone comments "wait, there are no indians there" and the enemies suddenly change back to gang members. All in all a fun game, straightforward, nothing complex so it works great as a palate cleanser between or during other games. It's often on sale on every platform so worth picking it up for a quid or 2.

I've actually got a quick one to add that I just played through today. We're kicking off this year with... Mouthwashing This little indie horror came out suddenly out of nowhere towards the end of September last year, and I figured what better way to kick off the new year with a festive halloween title! This is (mostly) a first person "walking simulator" game, where the narrative is the main focus. There are some very light puzzle solving sections and a couple of surprise sections with some light gameplay of various types, but for the most part, you are walking, talking and soaking in the disgusting mouthwash atmosphere. It is thoroughly a psychological horror experience, with some pretty disturbing subject matter that I can't delve too deeply into for sake of spoilers, but make no mistake; this is certainly more Silent Hill and less Resident Evil in that sense. This inventory menu looks familiar... The game's aesthetic is clearly inspired by Silent Hill 1, complete with PS1 era resolution wobbly textures, dithering and jaggies, and it was pulled off to great effect; giving the game an etherial nightmare atmos that leaves you constantly feeling uncomfortable. Equally, the minamalist sound design really pulls you in and brings particular focus onto specific aspects of the environment and the story it's telling. Like 1000xResist, the game also does a lot with a very small amount of assets. There aren't a huge amount of environments, but the game really takes advantage of your familiarity with what few environments are used to mess with your understanding of the story. Speaking of which, I'm a sucker for games with intentionally disjointed, non-linear and fragmented storytelling, so naturally I really liked the way the story was told here. Really though, that's about all I can say without spoiling anything. Mouthwashing is a game that is better the less you know going in, so I really don't want to spoil anything about the story; because the narrative and atmosphere is 95% of the game's total appeal. But yeah, I enjoyed it. It's sordid, twisted psychological horror told in a way that takes good advantage of the medium. It's also short n' breezy; I played it from start to finish in about 3 hours, so you know it's all germ killer and no tooth filler! Kills 99.9% of all germs!

I have one final update for the year. One of my Backlog resolutions for this year was "Try to clear games I have marked as 'Unfinished'". I have been doing that occasionally throughout the year, and I wanted to have at least one big update dedicated to that notion. I wanted to punctuate it with a particular game that fit the bill: Three Hopes. Well, now the year is over and I didn't finish Three Hopes. But I did clear 4 other games this year that I had previously marked as "Unfinished", and I've been delaying talking about them. Even without Three Hopes, here they are: Dicey Dungeons Dicey Dungeons is a Roguelike Dungeon Crawler where your commands are dictated by dice rolls. Its mechanics are very clever, and this game is quite popular in this forum. When I first played it at the start of 2022, I got frustrated with its higher difficulties (Episode 4, to be more precise), and how much they relied on luck. This year, I decided to give it another shot. I completed the game up to Episode 6, with both the Warrior and the Rogue. This unlocked the Final Episode, which I also finished. I can now mark this game as "Beat". I also tried out the Halloween and Anniversary episodes, which were cute, but didn't leave a strong impression. I still recognize this game's strengths, but there was something I very much disliked. This game just changes the rules with each episode, and each character. I don't even mean that each episode has a different focus, I mean that there are episodes where the "Poison" effect does something completely different. This game's idea of variety is to constantly rewrite the rules, and I don't dig that. The game already had a strong base to begin with, constantly changing the rules of the game (and making most of them part of the main campaign) just confuses my own understanding of it. Like, I don't know about you, but I don't go around upending the house rules of any given board game each time I play said board game. And yet, Dicey Dungeons seems to do that. Other than that, it's a clever Dungeon Crawler with an interesting and intuitive premise, and I just wish it worked under more consistent rules. This game is worth 3 stars for sure. I'm glad I finished it, gained a stronger opinion on it. While I don't love it as much as others do, this is a game I respect for sure. Sushi Striker I originally got this game for the 3DS. It's a very silly game with a very silly premise. I dropped it halfway through because it was getting so long. So this year, I decided to pick it up again and... ...I dropped it. The novelty was fine again for a few minutes, and then I got tired of the abundance of options all over again, and overwhelmed by the remaining length just the same. It's not a bad game, but it is a bloated one. Action puzzle games don't need to be this complex! Another 3 stars, because even games I dropped can be decent or good. Because I consciously dropped it, I am counting this one as "Cleared". Worms Armageddon Worms Armageddon is a classic, and I spent countless hours playing this when I was younger. There was, however, one niggle that I was never able to finish: Deathmatch Mode. I don't remember how far I got, but I definitely never reached the end. I was determined to do so this year. I booted up the GOG version (no way my original CD would still work) and I was awash with nostalgia, as well as that funky feeling that not everything looked as I remembered it. Regardless, I formed a team with my favourite signature weapon (the Super Sheep) and the Brazillian voices I loved, and went to work on that Death Match mode. The last few levels were tricky (4 vs. 10? And the enemy is on the highest difficulty? Oh não!), but I did it! Reached the highest possible ranking, and kicked that age-old regret into the curb. I can finally mark this classic as "Beat". I also thought of doing every mission, but stopped when I reached the Eiffel Tower mission. Funnily enough, I think I stopped at this one too, back in my youth I am perfectly okay with leaving the missions unfinished, though. They're fun, but preventing me from getting a Gold Medal the moment I fail my first attempt is some terrible design. I left that mode be. What else can I say? This game is just as 5 stars as I remembered it, it's a marvel. I will add that I finished this one before the Remastered version was announced back in August. I've been sitting on this list for a while. Coffee Talk Coffee Talk is a visual novel released in 2020, by the Indonesian studio known as Toge Productions. I was originally interested in it from playing its demo on Switch, being impressed by how cozy it seemed, and how it was willing to tackle heavy themes. It's set in Seattle, in an alternate world where creatures such as elves, orcs, and mermaids exist alongside humans, and it's more than willing to use fantastic racism as an allegory for real-life issues. I eventually bought it because I was looking for a neat game for me and my girlfriend to play together, and this one seemed to have a lot of promising stuff that pleased us both: coffee, mythical creatures, social issues, a relaxing ambiance... Sadly, despite all of that, it wasn't a good fit. Felt like we were reading the same book together The search for a better couples game continues. That was the reason I dropped it back then, but I went for another go this year, playing it solo. I quickly found out... this is an excellent game to fall asleep to. Lo-fi soundtrack, cozy sound effects, text that moves at the riiight kind of slow if you leave it on Autoscroll... Heck, even the fact that preparing coffee halts everything to play a 5-second long animation is relaxing. The writing... the more you play it, the more obvious it becomes that it was written by a non-native speaker. Characters talk in ways that feel off, for Americans and Brits alike. It's not bad, it's just the sort of thing you'll notice. There's also parts where the writing is a bit too cheeky for its own good (characters musing about "What if the world was only humans?" or "What if our story was told in a videogame?"), and also, everybody is way too excited to talk and learn about Indonesian coffee. All of these can be seen as flaws, but I respect the intentions, and they do offer the game a unique charm of its own. The gameplay loop is what you'd expect out of a Visual Novel, with the added gimmick that you must prepare specific types of coffee for various characters (and if you don't, that's a character arc that doesn't work out, contributing to a worse ending). The orders are obvious and straightforward at first, but they start getting obscure as the game goes on. Thankfully, every "correct" order is a registered recipe, so that's a valuable clue. I recommend hopping to one of the freestyle modes to experiment with ingredients and unlock various recipes. I eventually finished the story, got all the endings, and then bothered to get every achievement (they're in-game. The best kind of achievements). It's a delightful game. 4 stars. Added the sequels to my wishlist, and I'm likely to get them on my Switch again (being able to play this on my bed was really important for my enjoyment). ------------------------------------- So, that's two resolutions fulfilled (I did drop Fire Emblem Heroes, and I did finish one RPG), and two impossible resolutions that I made very healthy progress on. I still have 105 NSO games to go through (mostly because I haven't touched that resolution in months), as well as 8 games from my "Unfinished" list. Regardless, I am proud of myself for sticking to these goals, and making sure they enhanced my enjoyment of videogames, rather than turning this hobby into a chore. The same goes for my pledge, which was a really fun guide. 2024 was a really fun year for videogames, and I will hopefully be able to do a decent round-up in @Glen-i's totally original thread.

In the spirit of the pledges, I'm going to do a more diary-like approach to talking about them once I reach them. I reached the first yesterday. Skies of Arcadia: Legends So, this is one of the games I've pledged to complete, as with the amount of GameCube games I will be moving on (or skipping to later parts if possible) if a game gets too tiresome or frustrating. I want to give this JRPG a chance. It has quite an action-packed opening to it, but also with plenty of mystery with the strange girl that was kidnapped. While I'm not a fan of turn based combat, I do like the speed of the one here, plus how characters actually move around to fight, without making it a clunky gameplay mechanic regarding moving. It seems relatively simple and easy to understand, with the menus moving at a great pace. If you want to all hit the default enemy with a regular attack, mashing A will set your commands very quickly. Upon reaching your home town, there's something nice about the little communities on floating islands, and I really like how the walls fade away for buildings, and that the insides are actually within the structure and not a separate load, it's all rather charming, unlike generic hero's journey protagonist. When I fist saw him in the into, I thought he was just an NPC (as he was in the lookout's nest). The rest of the cast and NPCs all seem suitably charming, and I really wish that Aika was the main character instead, as she's far more interesting. The first dungeon was simple, but also really nice. I liked the idea of needing to drain the water, and having to alter the level itself helps to make it feel a bit more like a Zelda dungeon than just wintering around and fighting enemies. I am already starting to get fed up with random battles, but I've read something that will help once I've learnt some powers: apparently most random encounters can be dealt with quicky with the special attacks and you can use Z to skip the lengthy attack animations. While what happens to hero boy's village is somewhat predictable, I do feel attached to everyone else to be invested in the story (although I thought it was very strange that he and Aika don't have a conversation upon your return. I like that you can fly your ship around and that - later on - you can stop to just roam around your ship as well. Randomly fighting monsters that appear on your deck is a bit odd, and the time between random encounters can be a bit short. One thing I do like is the concept of the swashbuckler rating, and that making choices and completing side quests will help out, although I guess I'll get to that when the game opens up more. I also enjoy the writing enough to make a save state so I can make the obvious wrong choice to see the reactions before making the right one. I like Captain Ahab, he has a great mix of soft heart in a cold skin and I like that you have to convince him by helping him with his obsession. The second village is also small but sweet, and the moonfish side quest helps to remind you about how....3D... the game is. Ship combat is something I did find confusing, but it does seem to help you out by recommending when to fire or defend. I've just reached the Valua city, with its impressive fortress. I love the setting of the game and most of the characters, and can cope with the combat so far, so I'm enjoying it a lot. Oh, and there's been some Skies of Arcadia related trademark filings recently.

The World Is Not Enough NA release: 17th October 2000 PAL release: 8th December 2000 JP release: N/A Developer: Eurocom Publisher: EA N64 Magazine Score: 88% In order to separate newer James Bond games from GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies was a third person shooter on the PS1 (and wasn’t very good). While the same team made a poor first person shooter version of The World is Not Enough on PS1, EA got a different developer to work completely separately on the N64 version – EA, via Eurocom, were ready to take on the might of GoldenEye, and they did a really good job at it. While TWINE isn’t as iconic as GoldenEye, it’s still a great game in and of itself. It takes on the same structure as GoldenEye – explorable levels with objectives, albeit a bit more linear, and adds in a heavier focus on set pieces and gadgets, such as the walkway level having a helicopter tear apart the level as you progress, before you use a remote control rocket to defeat it. There’s also more focus on stealth, where you have to incapacitate enemies instead of killing them. The gameplay here is a bit trial-and-error, but once you’ve figured out how things work, it’s quite smooth. TWINE is impressive in that it manages to stay strong, even alongside the likes of Perfect Dark. It’s the start of EA’s period of good James Bond games. Fave Remake or remaster? A remaster would be lovely for this game. Official Ways to get the game There is no official way to get The World Is Not Enough.

Put some more time into Grandia. Man, I love some of the scenes in this game. It's a real looker and takes me back to simpler and happier times in my life. I've picked up a fourth party member in Gadwin and he's quite the powerhouse. Dude can take a beating and dish out some major damage. Also, his running animation is absolutely hilarious. I've not needed to do any grinding in a while and so I've progressed the story some more. Story Spoilers

Thought I'd also join in on the fun and make a pledge. It'll be a good incentive to clean some of the backlog. Hope to get at least a couple off the list before the Switch 2 arrives! Nier: Automata - Has been in my Steam library for a while, started it once but never got around to playing it a lot. Having it handheld on the Steam Deck might help! Resident Evil 3 Remake - I played RE 2 Remake last year and absolutely loved it. The modern take on the classic RE formula worked perfect, and I enjoyed it much more than RE7. So next in line is RE3 Remake, knowing it's not as great as RE2 but excited to play it. Pokémon Ultra Moon - My gaming cabinet is a bit of a mess, so I want to move all my stuff that's older than Switch into storage. But before I can do that I need to finish a couple of 3DS games so they can get shelved. One of those is Pokémon Ultra Moon. It's also the only Pokémon generation I haven't played a game from, so also need to finish it for completion goals! Tomb Raider I-II-III Remastered - I finished the first game in this remaster last year, but still need to (and want to!) finish the other ones. 2 and 3 are the games I played a lot when I was a kid, so it'll be fun to replay them in a HD sauce. Command & Conquer Remastered Collection - Another one in my pc backlog, a game I picked up a while ago but never played a lot. Not the biggest C&C fan but I do love Red Alert, so I hope to finish both of them this year. The Witcher III Wild Hunt - The big one. It's been in my backlog for quite some time, but never got around to starting it. I've started it recently but feel a bit overwhelmed by it, also looking at the time it takes to complete it. But the setting is appealing and I also recently started reading the books and I already recognized stuff in the short time I played the game. Time to push through, let's see if I can get this one done by the end of the year. Sonic Frontiers - One from the Switch backlog, picked it up in a sale and played it a little bit but was quite taken aback by the horrible performance. Still, I want to see what SEGA did with open world Sonic. Kirby: Planet Robobot - The other game from my 3DS backlog that I need to finish. Cutting some corners here as I actually completed the story mode last week (and loved it!). But I want to play the Meta Knightmare Returns mode as well. Starcraft Remastered - Another RTS (and another remaster, I've got quite a lot of these on my pledge...) I picked up along the road but never finished. Starcraft is my favourite pc-franchise and I've played this game (and SC2) to death already, but not yet in remastered form. And the expansion Brood War is included as well, which is even better than the main game. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity - Cutting corners again as I'm already a dozen or more hours into this, and I usually play a couple of levels in between other games. So it's about time this gets done and dusted.

I finished off Nintendo World Championship: NES Edition. It didn't take long to grind the coins I needed to purchase everything I was missing. Many people said playing one of the Super Mario Bros. 2 stages was the quickest way to earn money but I found this way was far more lucrative. 60 coins every few seconds. It was definitely the way to go. With the Switch 2 being released this year, I need to try and get on top on my original Switch games. I decided to crack on with Neo Geo Pocket Color Selection Vol.1. I played Metal Slug: First Mission a year or two back but didn't really play around with any of the other titles. This was pretty fun. I loved the chunky sprites on show here, which is something that I love about this handheld system. It's quite amazing how the game plays when you consider there are only a couple of buttons to work with. I went through the game with all of the characters (ending shots below) and unlocked the hidden character and I have no idea who he is. Shout out to Billy Kane who was a thorn in my side in every single playthrough that I done. Dude kept battering with his stick combo and seemed to be always one step ahead of me. I'd rather have fought Geese Howard another round than take on Billy again. Next up... I enjoyed this one a lot more, purely because it allowed you to turn the speed up. The previous game was a little slow and here I was able to crank things up to the speed I preferred. Once again, I went through the game with each of the characters and unlocked all of the secret ones (ending shots at the bottom). The endings are pretty funny, with each of the girls winning the tournament and getting to make a wish but most of the time the wish goes wrong. A neat feature in the game is the ability to unlock items. You can equip one of them to help give you the advantage in a fight but if you lose the battle then you also lose the item. These are obtained by doing certain things in a match, like getting a perfect victory of finishing an opponent with a special move. What I did enjoy when playing through both of these games is the tasks you needed to do to get extra fighters. Remember when a fighting game wasn't sold off to the players piece by piece and you could actually earn extra fighters by doing various things in game? Happy days. Ending screens for both games

By the way as an admin note what I'm thinking going forward is when a direct is announced there will inevitably be a thread about that. From experience those then usually die off after a few days and I'm guessing pre-launch chat will move back here. Then a few days before the release I think I'll create a new thread to start from scratch so we can have a thread about the actual console, rather than having to wade through at least 10 pages before getting to any conversation about the actual console. If anyone strongly disagrees let me know.

I completed it yesterday. My thoughts: The first mainline Legend of Zelda game that features Zelda herself as the main character, while also taking some inspiration from Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom and incorporating aspects of those into a more traditional 2D Zelda, with the style of the Link’s Awakening remake and a map heavily inspired by A Link to the Past. It’s quite an amalgamation of different Zelda concepts, but it all blends together to form a lovely package. As Link falls into a dark void after saving Zelda, Zelda teams up with a mysterious entity called Tri to try and fix these rifts that are tearing Hyrule apart. Together, they have two main powers, Echo and Bind, with the Echo system being the core concept of the game – hence it being part of the game’s title. Zelda can scan various objects and any non-boss enemy (after defeating it) to add it to her collection of Echoes. After this, she can then summon it at will, with a certain number being “active” at any one time – summon another and the earliest one you summoned will disappear. There’s no recharge timer, so which opens up a lot of possibilities for how to use them – in ways, a few too many. Hold right on the D-pad and you get a colossal list to scroll. This was one of the big problems in Tears of the Kingdom and it doesn’t get any better here. It’s potentially even worse as Echoes are the main way you interact with the environment. There’s a few ways to sort, but they really don’t help. What Echoes of Wisdom really needed was to let the player create their own lists. For example, there are a few echoes such as the Strandula, Bombfish, a Carrot and a Wind Cannon which are more or less vital items that you’ll use every so often. If you play around with Echoes, they can end up quite a way down the list, which is not only a pain, but you can also easily forget their use. I would have liked to have made separate lists for attacks, platforms and items. Once you get used to the frustrating system, though, then they really are a joy to use and you can adapt them to suit your playstyle. Some people prefer to summon a few monsters and sit back, while I like to be a bit more active. If you’re targeting an enemy, your Echoes will start off by launching an immediate attack. With the more powerful Echoes, you can keep summoning new ones and have the old one vanish after one hit, making it feel more like you’re more active in fights. But at the same time, the openness of the system is also a bit of a flaw. It’s easy to get stuck into habits (especially as experimenting can make it a pain to scroll the ones you like) and some tactics just work a bit too well. On top of powerful enemies, some platform objects can make it easy to get around obstacles and the beds let you rest and recharge your health, even in the middle of boss battles. I found myself often tanking damage as environmental hazards are quite weak and just sleeping afterwards, a tactic which renders the smoothie creation fairly useless. The dungeons in Echoes of Wisdom take a more traditional, structured approach, with a few instances where you can go through a couple of dungeons in any order. I really enjoyed the dungeons in the game, as they provided some fun puzzles that make use of the Echoes as well as the Bind move, where you can grab and object and move it as Zelda moves (or reverse it so Zelda follows the path of the object). Some of the platform challenges can be cheesed, but there are still some good ones to be found. Bosses are one area where I use another one of Zelda’s abilities: being able to turn into Link for a short time. It starts out as just using a sword, but you add a bow and bombs throughout the game. Their tricks are easy to figure out and they usually don’t last long, but they’re enjoyable. You can use this ability at any point, but outside of bosses I just preferred using Zelda’s other abilities – it seems a waste to just resort to using Link’s abilities. The overworld itself is adorable, being based on the map of A Link to the Past but much bigger, with locations from that game now being ruins. There are a lot of things to find and a lot of people to meet, and the side quests are enjoyable to complete. This is especially important because the rewards for the side quests are dreadful, usually rupees or smoothie ingredients, which aren’t really needed that much. There’s a lot of charm and character throughout every moment of Echoes of Wisdom. It’s in the graphical style, the animations, the dialogue and the many enemy designs. It’s hard not to be smiling the entire time playing the game. There are lots of little details and touches all over the place and everything just works together really well. Despite some flaws and annoyances, I had an absolutely lovely time with Echoes of Wisdom. Everything about the game is adorable and there’s just a wonderful atmosphere. The Echo system does lead to some issues with letting you break the game and resort to some easy options, but the freedom is also amazing, especially in combination with the more traditional structure of the game. If I were to change some things about the game, it would be letting players categorise Echoes themselves, and add a few more accessories and clothing as side quest rewards. Overall, Echoes of Wisdom is an immensely cute and happy game. Gameplay Overworld Dungeons Sound Style Overall

The grind for equipment and orbs wasn't that bad. I've read stories of people trying for days to grind the items they needed. I thought my game glitched during the final boss. I powered up the sword to the Mana Sword but was doing 0 damage. I didn't realise the magic ran out on it and had to keep topping it up. Terrible final boss fight though. It was so basic. Naturally I butchered the thing after my excessive exp and item farming. The last trophy I needed was to max out all the magic spells. It was here, at the end of the game, that I only realised I could put magic usage on to a shortcut button. I'd been going through the menu to cast a spell during the whole game. It's nice to have finally played it but it's not a good game. Take away the need to grind and there is very little to it. It does have a certain charm to it and, as Dcubed said, the soundtrack is pretty great, but overall it's very overrated and in no way deserve the praise it gets. With that done, there goes my first game off my 2025 pledge list. @Julius you should stick everyone's pledges and updated pics in the first post. Would make it easier to see what everyone has picked and how they are getting on with things.

I've settled on my 2025 Gaming Pledge games. It's quite an ambitious list as a lot of these games are quite lengthy. I'll be happy to get through half of them. Dragon Quest Heroes II - After finishing DQ3, I still have the itch for a Dragon Quest game. I adored the first game but never got around to playing the sequel. Now is the time. Dragon's Crown Pro - This is one I started YEARS ago on my Vita. I think I only played an hour or so on it. Grandia HD Collection - I've never played Grandia from start to finish. I dabbled with it a few years back and played the opening segment but that was it. Judgment - This is another one that I started but never finished. I dropped it after get a bit sick of the tailing missions. This is one where I will need to pick up from my old save. I went through the hassle of beating the Puyo Puyo challenges and there's no way I'm going through that hell again! Resident Evil Revelations 2 - Julius playing through the Resident Evil Remake got me thinking how I have never played through this game. I think it's the only mainline Resi game that I have never played. Possibly keep this one for October time. Secret of Mana - This is a game I have tried many times to get into. I'm always put off by the battle system. I fired it up on the PS4 yesterday evening (first time playing this version) and played a little bit of it and have started to get to grips with the systems. Plenty of grinding has been done so far. Tales of Vesperia - Another one that has been on the backlog for years. It requires multiple playthroughs and so I've always put off starting it until I had more time. Trails from Zero - This is my one PlayStation pledge that was left over from last year. I'll attempt it again this year. Wild Arms 2 - Love the first game in the series but I've got around to playing the second. It was never released in this country during the PS1 days and so I never got to play it back in the day. Okami HD - The announcement of the sequel got me thinking how I've had this sat in my backlog but have yet to play the thing. I actually also owned it on the Wii but never played it on that either. As for other gaming goals, I've been thinking more and more about getting rid of some of my older games. I have a bunch of retro games sitting on the shelf that has now been re-released. Things like Pikmin 1 and 2, Baten Kaitos and Metroid Prime all have newer versions, the NSO takes care on my N64 needs and PS+ Classics has started to build up a healthy collection of games. In 2024 I played a couple of Gamecube games that I hadn't touched in 20 years. It was fun playing them again but if I wait another 20 years before playing them again I'll be in my 60's...or even dead. Plus, I do enjoy the QoL features that the modern releases offer, such as save states and rewind. I started getting rid of some of my Dreamcast stuff last year and this year it may be time to start thinning out the old Nintendo collection. I have an attachment to them so it's going to be hard to do but I imagine once I sell the first few games the process will be easier. A lot of my N64 collection is worth quite a bit so I should at least make some decent cash from it all.

With the year rapidly coming to a close, this is planned to be my penultimate post in this year's Gaming Diary thread, and should more or less bring my diary up-to-date. Crazy how fast this year has gone by, but it's not quite time for reflection yet -- let's get to it! Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance | 2013 After a certain cameo in Astro Bot, I moved onto Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, which is one of the most absurd games I've ever played. I'll be honest, its story makes very little sense. If you've played MGS4 - which this game takes place some year after - and feel like you adjusted to just how over-the-top that game got, Revengeance somehow manages to find a whole other level of crazy stupid anime-level shenanigans for you to see play out. As Raiden you'll be sneaking around (occasionally...kinda...) as you'd expect from a Metal Gear game, but with his cyborg abilties, you'll also be making healthy use of flicking around the right analogue stick to slash around your blade as you've likely done at some point as Raiden in earlier MGS titles. QTEs, cyborg soldiers, drones, unmanned Metal Gears...the game will heap on layer after layer of enemy and boss varieties on a world-spanning journey which occasionally touches on the serious topic of child soldiers, and then veers straight off a cliff into the serious deliveries of iconic lines such as "Memes. The DNA of the soul" all the way to the extremes of "NANOMACHINES, SON" and Rules of Nature... It has been several months now since I played Revengeance, and I'm still not quite sure exactly where I land on it. Combat can be electric but it can also be sloppy, as I've hinted at the story goes places (or tries) but does so in incredibly hilarious and cheesy ways which make the game unforgettable for better and worse, and it is interesting to see how and where Platinum decided to try to sneak in some Metal Gear, whether it be in the UI, the way equipment works, or the controls which take a moment or two to adjust to. Above all else, though, I remember the boss fights and the game's Zandatsu and Blade Mode mechanics. The boss fights are the most ridiculous things I've ever seen...and I LOVED THEM. Playing on Normal it becomes apparent that higher difficulties would offer more of a chance to experiment with the game's mechanics, and it seems like there's further depth there to be played around with, but man, I just loved how the game felt to play and how it felt to find a flow. Perhaps this is largely down to how I accidentally found myself approaching the game: while Normal isn't particularly hard, boss fights and some areas had a noticeable difficulty spike, made worse by me not realising I'd unequipped my healing method at the very start of the game and totally forgot it was a thing until I got stuck on a boss at the end of Act 2. Yeah, that's right -- I really got to grips with this game as a result of my own silly mistake, and so very much needed to depend on Blade Mode, which allows you to focus purely on unloading accurate and intricate cuts at great speed, which when coupled with fuel cells allows you to slow time via a mechanic called Zandatsu, where you use Blade Mode to target and attack a highlighted red square for a chance to replenish fuel cells and your health; this, as you might have figured out, was how I spent much of the game healing. Combined with parries and blocks, I went from sheepishly and awkwardly wandering through the first few levels to going through some levels in the mid-to-late game at a breakneck pace, freeing my enemies of their heads and appendages. Oh yeah, that's right, I forgot to mention - this game gets gory as heck because of the physics engine allowing you to very vividly see the results of your fine swordsmanship. Look, this is the weakest Metal Gear game I've played, there's no question in my mind about that...but it's still a dumb fun time. Probably not the greatest introduction to character-action games I could have had, but Platinum still found a way to keep it exhilirating with great-feeling combat and some super fun boss fights, amongst all the over-the-top silliness and corny lines. Totally mark the game down for not featuring my equipped sombrero and poncho in cutscenes, mind you. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth | 2024 Back in 2020, I had a great time blasting through Final Fantasy VII Remake early on into the first COVID lockdown here in the UK, after its street date broke with many question marks in the air about how, what, and when packages and product launches would be handled. Up until the ending I was fully onboard, until it got into some Kingdom Hearts levels of craziness I wasn't expecting going in, and while I came around to the potential avenues the ending opened up going forwards for the VII Remake Project after a few months and viewing it as Square Enix taking some interesting risks - and the game ending up my personal GOTY for 2020, at the time - questions still lingered at the back of my mind about where this was all going. So, how did I get on with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth after the Unknown Journey finally continued this year? Back at launch I played the game's first couple of chapters, and was loving it, but dropped the game due to personal reasons at the time, and ended up not knowing if, or when, I would get back to the game in 2024. I had completed every side activity and quest that I could in the game's opening couple of chapters, challenging the vast majority of enemies I came across, spending over 10 hours with the game before putting it down. This is important to highlight, for me, as when I returned to the game in September, my approach to the game which stretched out the first couple of chapters to a 10+ hour excursion ultimately seemed fruitless, with equipment and character levels quickly falling to a point that they were at or behind the recommended level for main story missions. While this is an action RPG, not seeing the benefit of that early game grind so many other JRPGs utilise so well, I decided to focus instead on treating the game in a more linear fashion similar to what we experienced with Remake, mainly tackling the main story beats and only tackling side quests where they were absolutely necessary (which happened very rarely) as well as the mini-games, because they were a great source of fun to change up the game's pace. What struck me most about this was that I didn't once find myself drastically underlevelled focusing only on the main story missions, often being at or just below the recommend level for any particular main story mission, which meant I ended up with a little more challenge at times and one or two very slight but noticeable difficulty spikes, with combat encounters feeling really well-balanced around being at or just below the recommended level, as it put a greater emphasis on utilising attacks and dodges effectively. I have to imagine this is a result of some weird EXP balancing where it is lopsided more towards main story bosses and missions providing more EXP, with side activities potentially being more about equipment, materia, and item hoarding - perhaps useful for higher difficulties, but feeling totally redundant on a first playthrough, the highest difficulty available at the start being Normal and Hard only being unlocked once credits have rolled for the first time. As a result of many of the side activities feeling redundant or not worth the time investment, then, I came to an even stranger conclusion: this game's open world is perhaps one of the strangest, in that it feels almost entirely optional. I think that's a bit of a shame for someone like me who loves to appreciate a well crafted and integrated open world, and went into this game hoping to find an open world which would challenge some of the great ones we've seen over the last decade, yet I also find myself respecting the fact that it can just become optional, incredibly expensive set dressing if it's not tickling your fancy...and boy is it some of the best set dressing. Dropping the side activities and then just running through some of these enviroments without much of a care in the world felt absolutely freeing and incredible in equal measure, and the game's sense of scale is absolutely astonishing at times. Seeing Junon's cannon from so far away, for exmaple, and then walking around and seeing how it dwarfs Junon and the undercity instilled a sense of awe on the level of some of the greatest open worlds we've seen in recent years, such as in Elden Rings or Tears of the Kingdom. That feeling carries forward in the game, too, with such a great variety of places that you end up going to, and such a varied sense of scale and different balances of nature and manmade structures really hammering home some of the points from Remake and, of course, the original Final Fantasy VII. The earliest example of this comes in the game's opening stages, where you begin to ascend Mt. Nibel in a sequence many who have played the original VII will remember strongly (and, I imagine, fondly), and this adventurous tune kicks in, quickly gathers at speed, and bursts into VII's main theme, before reprising it again in truly epic fashion worthy of the journey you are about to embark upon with this game (Toward Mt. Nibel). It is a jubilant and epic moment I won't be forgetting anytime soon, and is easily one of my favourite moments in the VII Remake Project so far. This leads me to an important point about the utilisation of the VII's Main Theme (original Final Fantasy VII Main Theme, for reference), as while it was used throughout the original game and of course in Remake, it is just as much the overworld theme for that original game as it was anything else; with Rebirth having an open world but not quite an overworld, I was curious to see how the Main Theme would be weaved in, and apparently the answer to that was putting it everywhere and in so many different ways, such as in the Battle Theme, which adapts it into this high octane thrill of an accompaniment, or in more melancholic and softer reprisals, such as that found in With Heavy Heart - A Seabreeze Stroll. The game's score, just like Remake's, feels like such an excellent adaptation and evolution of Nobuo Uematsu's original work for VII, but above all else, it respectfully extracts every last bit of emotion from the original tracks and makes them relevant to whatever seen or sequence they accompany here in Rebirth; it is an obvious choice for the best soundtrack in video games this year -- and yes, it is by far and away my choice for the best video game soundtrack of 2024, once again, against all odds, seeing the team take a 10/10 soundtrack and make it an 11. This is a new game, though, and so what is new and unique about this soundtrack which wasn't around in 1997? Is there a particular song I can point you to? You're damn right there is. No Promises to Keep was composed by Nobuo Uematsu and finally, retroactively, Final Fantasy VII has been given a vocal song of its own that it can compare with its PS1 contemporaries, VIII and IX. Loren Allred lends her voice to the song, and it moved me just hearing a small snippet of it at last year's Game Awards. To perhaps make this a bit too personal for a moment, my aunt passed back in March, and her passing was the personal reason I had to put this game down - and I'm glad I did, as there are a few parts of this game which I think would've been too much to bear back in March. We'd always been very close, with her moving to England to work when I was very young in order to provide a better life for her family back home in the Philippines, and I spent many, many holidays becoming intimately familiar with Bournemouth and visiting my aunts. Ice creams on the beach. Watching X-Factor and Britain's Got Talent on Saturday nights with some Diet Coke in hand. Air Shows and the fireworks rounding out our Augusts for a number of years. She treated me as if I were her own son, and I was very blessed and fortunate to have her as my aunt. I bring this up because, listening back to this song, some lyrics now painfully stand out against the backdrop of the others. I got the chance to see my aunt one last time last summer, as she had returned to the Philippines around a decade ago to spend time with the family she had so greatly provided for. My aunt was a rock, more like the boss of the family as a whole a lot of the time, and she was fierce, but that last goodbye just felt like I knew it would be the last one; there was a heaviness to the air, and we saw her less and less as the trip went on, with this goodbye at her house needing to happen bedside. We'd later, much later, learn it was cancer. Even looking back at photos, the way some shots were framed and coloured, it's obvious that deep down I knew, and I'm very grateful I had that last chance to say goodbye to my aunt. Despite knowing, I think, deep down at the time what was to come, in a way not too dissimilar to what happens to the character who sings this song, my aunt proudly continued to march to the beat of her drum for another 6 months. I miss her. There's no easy way to transition away from this, but I feel like I wanted to share that to be honest about how much I connected to certain aspects of this game. In terms of things I could've been happier with, the game never quite went as wild as I feel the ending of Remake set up, and so while some crazy stuff goes on, there was never a "HOLY WHAT?!" moment that I was expecting the entire time...which made some of their crazier decisions to capitalise on Remake's ending in this game fall a little flat, especially with how they resolve in this partciular game. It produces some incredibly cool moments, but whereas I eventually walked away from Remake respecting Square Enix taking risks, while not particularly bad, I do think the big changes they've made here in line with Remake's ending are the weaker points of the game, whereas the parts more directly adapted and evolved from the original shine brightest; it makes me genuinely question whether the changes in Remake were an example of S-E wanting to take a risk to go somewhere new, bold, and exciting, or if they were fearful of simply remaking and updating the original game's story and systems for a modern audience. Some slightly altered scenes and sequences compared to the original feel like they end up watering down the impact of certain moments (you'll know them when you come to them), and while the heart and soul of VII is well and truly alive and can be found in both Remake and Rebirth, there is an obvious lack of depth in places because of the new story added or scenes altered/omitted; while I am enjoying the VII Remake Project for what it is still and had a great time with this game, I do think it was a glaring mistake by S-E to have this project serve as sequels to a game which is nearly 30 years old and which modern audiences are thus very unlikely to want to go near experiencing, especially because - again, to reiterate - the strongest parts of this game for me are the parts adapted from the original game, and the weaker parts are what has been tacked on and was not part of the original VII. Another nitpick - albeit a much smaller one - that I feel the need to mention because I'm shocked it's still a thing: ATB attacks, synergy attacks, items et al still being swallowed up by phase transitions in boss fights which you can't possibly know are coming up, and so end up wasted if accidentally used at the wrong moment. Sort it out S-E. To speak about more points of praise for the game, though, because there are plenty and they shouldn't be overshadowed by its few shortcomings: the party and its characters are absolutely excellent once again in Rebirth, every single one of them getting moments of levity to balance out their own personal tragedies, with some getting brilliant arcs in this game to really help flesh them out, again improving on the original arcs in the original game. Every character feels perfectly realised and in some cases even improved, with the incredibly annoying Cait Sith going from a D-tier character at best in the original game for me, to an A-tier character, absolutely no questions asked, he's just so damn expressive and at times hilarious in this game. Gold Saucer and its many mini-games were fantastic, and the same goes for Queen's Blood, this absolutely brilliant card game - between this, Pazaak in KOTOR and Sabaac in Outlaws, I think it's finally time to say that I'm warming up to the idea of in-game card games. The combat is absolutely excellent, as it was in Remake, with a much greater sense of balance and variety to boss fights (some of the absolutely best bosses I've faced this year are in this game, which is no small feat considering my love for From Software's bosses and Shadow of the Erdtree) and the newly implemented syngergy attacks for the wider party, a variety of smaller team-ups and then the big team-up attacks very reminiscent of Chrono Trigger's Techs. Seriously, this should be the path S-E take with Final Fantasy moving forwards: this modern take they have on ATB, Action ATB, deserves to be experimented and toyed with more like the original ATB system was across many games, because it's one of my favourite combat systems in an action JRPG, hands-down. While, like Remake, Rebirth is not a perfect outing, it is still one of the best games that I've played this year and absolutely deserves to be talked about as one of the best new releases this year. The music, the party of characters, the sprawling open world, the myriad of mini-games, the best-in-class boss fights, the way that this open world is all tied together with some smartly designed playable segments, the absolute abundance of people in the world and in cutscenes, the sheer scale of it all, the way that cutscenes are framed from a cinematography perspective... Rebirth made me feel more than any other game this year, whether that be in depth of emotion or the breadth of emotions I felt throughout the game, and so I cannot wait to see how the Unknown Journey ends in the trilogy's third and final game. Days Gone | 2019 Days Gone is the definition of swimming in 7s. While not quite as bad as Outlaws, I will once again be pointing you towards my posts in the game's own thread, because my frustrations with the game as I went through it were very much on show: Post 1, Post 2, Post 3, Post 4. In short, the game does some things interestingly or in unique ways, such as with an excellent depiction of a couple which doesn't really border on cheesy but just seems more realistic in how the pair flirt and interact, and I think it's a genuine highlight of the game. Sam Witwer as Deacon was excellent (even if him yelling at the radio felt a bit much, really got to wonder what the direction was for those lines). Pretty cool main theme. The fuel system in the game is unique in that you need to keep a full tank to keep your bike going, but having run out of fuel just once - at the very end of the game - MAN is running out of fuel super annoying, as is the act of constantly needing to detour in order to top up. Hordes of zombies are cool but not really worth yelling about, although I think they'd be really interesting to implement in another zombie IP of PlayStation's - and perhaps this game would have been received more kindly in hindsight if it were somehow tied into their already existing, premier zombie post-apocalypse IP? Just a thought. On the flipside, man, the level of hubris apparent throughout melts the mind. The game constantly feels like Bend trying to prove a point, perhaps that they're better than Naughty Dog or other big open world games, but fails on the basics of what makes a modern game great. Countless and constant loading screens and transitions to black, even playing on a PS5, well removed from this game supposedly being "fixed" means the story shudders along at best, and feels like smashing your face off five walls in a row before you can control Deacon again at worst. Traversing this open world, at times, feels painful. Combat is unexpressive, zombie designs uninspired, hell, I didn't even realise there was a skill tree until 10 or so hours in because the game never pushed back hard enough for me to think I needed to be stronger in some capacity. While the game could have served as a great foundation for future sequels, and sets up a sequel with its ending very similar to The Order: 1886, again, there's even a level of hubris to this throughout which makes it especially hilarious that Bend didn't get to make a sequel (and also notably didn't want to, because of how much of a pain in the ass some of the creative leads on Days Gone were, who have since been let go) because it feels like it sets up more threads than it closes. Fun but forgettable open world junk food. Spider-Man | 2018 Another year, another Spider-Man playthrough (see: replays in 2020 and 2023), I think this is the 5th time I've played the game through to credits? I needed something light and fun when springing back into games earlier this month, and this was my elixir of choice. I returned to the 2020 PS5 remaster of the game to play through NG+ on Ultimate difficulty to get myself back up to 100% trophy completion on the game, and once again had an absolute blast. I blasted through the game just crit pathing it in 8 hours or so, but man, that final 20-30 minutes before credits roll remains brutal and some of the best acting we've had in a game yet, Yuri Lowenthal's Peter/Spidey just going for it and every part of his performance being absolutely nailed. One of my favourite games of last gen, for sure. There's no doubt there'll be more Spidey replays in store for me yet. Oh, and the above is a screenshot by the way - playing through in the Raimi suit feels incredible, and the game still just looks so damn good. Seriously, those guys and gals over at Insomniac are wizards! Resident Evil | 2002 To summarise my experience with Resident Evil, while it took a while to adjust to the game's tank controls after nearly giving up before changing from the analogue stick to the D-pad, and despite some pretty weak boss fights: once it clicked, this was an absolutely brilliant first foray into the Resident Evil franchise for me. The lines and their deliveries are a bit cheesy, and the story itself as presented in the "modern day" of the game is nothing to write home about, but the lore you uncover while exploring is incredible, and you constantly find yourself reading through new notes - left by scientists, or subjects, or manic puzzle designers - in order to piece together the game's systems and Spencer Mansion's history. The story of Lisa Trevor and her parents was particularly haunting. Spencer Mansion and its surrounding locales bleed atmosphere, be it down to subtle and understated pieces of music, the contrast of shadows and the lighting, the brilliant sound design making you wonder about the dull steps of someone - a zombie? a friend? - down the hallway, or the game's brilliant use of fixed camera angles to build tension with you not knowing what might be just around the corner. The Safe Rooms in particular highlight a certain melancholy of safety in a very unsafe place which I feel only Firelink Shrine has come close to for me from other games, and of course their theme only compounds this - in turn, a lack of it at some of the Safe Rooms only leads to further build the tension of the Mansion. Combat, in and of itself, is less about fighting but choosing when and how to fight - do you burn a zombie so that it doesn't come back as a Crimson Head, or save that bit of kerosene in your flask for later, just in case? Do I even shoot or do I just run away to conserve ammo? Where do I run to? With only 8 slots as Jill, what do I bring with me? More guns and ammo means a greater chance of fending off any zombies I come across, but also limits space for carrying around items which may help me solve puzzles to get further and potentially find the next Safe Room, and also increases the likelihood of me using said guns and ammo just by being on my person. There is a constant trade-off and need to evaluate what you're bringing with you, a puzzle unto itself, and even saves are tied to Ink Ribbons which are limited throughout the game - even playing on Easy (which I selected accidentally at the start as my difficulty because the difficulties aren't conveyed very well), there would be times where I found myself needing to push further with only an Ink Ribbon or two left on me, scrounging around and praying for more of them just so that I could save the game, or more shotgun ammo for how much of a safety blanket a fully loaded shotgun and box of ammo made me feel. The true highlights of the game, though, are the puzzles and design of the Mansion itself. The game's progression is generally gated off by needing a certain type of key, and so you can only ever get so far with a specific type of key, hopefully making some sort of progress but potentially needing to backtrack upon finding another key before you can progress further. "Backtracking sounds like it could be a pain" might be your first thought, but the beauty of it is that you are constantly learning the layout of the Mansion itself - and not just the layouts of rooms, but the positioning of enemies, the locations of locked doors, early doors in particular grabbing your attention early on and thus finding a certain type of key or object to unlock them providing their own eureka moment. Learning the layout of the mansion and unlocking and learning about shortcuts pays off dividends, too, as it means you can avoid some fights where you would otherwise be wasting ammo or healing items in order to recover after the fact. The puzzles have a great variety to them, but many are also fairly cryptic, and so there's a great sense of reward in having figured out the solution to a puzzle yourself, especially in those cases where you find yourself remembering something that you'll need to backtrack to. Even in just writing the last few paragraphs, it is abundantly clear how these systems bleed into each other and pile on top of one of another in order to provide a nuance and depth I can honestly say I wasn't expecting going into a Resident Evil game. This game felt so fresh and revelatory compared to so many other games I've played, as it's so far outside of my wheelhouse, making it exactly the type of game I wanted my list of pledge games to help me find and experience. It's not hard to see where the love for the series - and the praise for this game in particular - stems from, here on N-E and elsewhere. Sure, it's a bit aged, and I have to imagine Capcom are strongly considering a remake at some point, but for now? This game, a snapshot of the design philosophies of the earlier Resident Evil titles updated with graphics which still hold up to this day thanks to a smartly implemented combination of pre-rendered backgrounds and character models, is still worth playing today for the feelings of dread and discovery it instills, and for the challenge to continue on that is constantly proposes. It remains an excellent game to this day, and I cannot wait to see what my next experience with the franchise has in store. Games completed in 2024

Taz Express PAL release: 1st August 2000 NA release: N/A JP release: N/A Developer: Zed Two Publisher: Infogrames N64 Magazine Score: 27% At this point in the N64’s life, more and more third party companies were moving away from the Nintendo 64, some didn’t even think that they could even recoup the cost of printing cartridges, let alone development. This is most likely why Taz Express was cancelled in North America, making it one of the few PAL exclusive N64 games. And it’s absolutely terrible. The biggest issue with Taz Express is movement. While Taz is known for just spinning on the spot and moving around with ease while spinning, that isn’t the case here. Instead, you start off slow and have to run a significant distance to build up speed. If you steer more than a few degrees, then your momentum will stop and you’ll have to start again, and even moving from one polygon to another (on a flat surface) can stop Taz dead in his tracks. The biggest issue with this is that Taz can only spin once he’s built up enough momentum, which is required to break specific walls (easily identifiable by the stretched textures). Once you do spin, you lose a lot of control, as Taz wobbles from side to side as you move forward, so you really only want to spin right before hitting a wall. The game makes this an absolute nightmare, and I ended up giving up out of frustration on a part filled with cacti and jump platforms (if you get close to one of these, Taz will decide to walk on them and you’ll be thrown to the start of the section). As the jump platforms teleport between different locations, you have to run without turning much, while also timing it for multiple things at once. You can eat food to spin sooner, but it really doesn’t help much. This game is designed specifically to annoy you. But I haven’t even talked about the main aim of the game. Taz’s wife, She-Devil, has forced him to get a job. I find it interesting that they went with a character that was last used in the cartoons in 1957, instead of tying it in to the much more recent Taz-Mania cartoon. He ends up having to deliver a solitary crate to its destination, and naturally a lot of things get in the way. While holding a crate, Taz can’t jump and he can’t run, so you must slowly walk, and a lot of the game is about clearing the way forward, returning to the crate and slowly walking to the next section. To make it more annoying, you can’t just leave the crate anywhere, as many levels have enemies that will attack the crate while it’s unattended. There are some “safe” tiles where you can store the crate, but I’ve still had crates destroyed while there. If it takes a few hits, you’ll lose a life and it will appear at the last safe tile you used, although there are plenty of levels that avoid placing these tiles, so you have to risk leaving the crate unattended. One level also ends with spilling about 30 other crates that you have to pick up, one at a time, until you get the right one. This adds zero challenge, it’s just there to frustrate you. I found one positive thing about Taz Express: after blasting back to Earth from Mars, Wile E Coyote takes the crate and you have to get it back. Here, the level is a long, mostly straight repeating road, letting you get to a very high speed. Once it gets going, it does a great job at making you feel like Road Runner. I’m not sure if that’s exactly a compliment for a game where you play as Taz, but it was the only fun level. Once you finally finish the game, there’s a plot twist: the crate was actually a present for Taz, containing a costume. This lets you play through the game again, except there are now tiles to use the costume in a minigame. You’ll have to complete the game five times to see everything, which is rather ridiculous padding that Sonic Heroes would be proud of. Some terrible games can still be entertaining to play, while Taz Express has terrible mechanics and is also immensely boring. It’s frustrating to play, and possibly the most miserable N64 game, without even taking account how poorly this uses the main character’s abilities. Worst Remake or remaster? No. Official ways to get the game. There’s no official way to get Taz Express.

Nearly a month into 2025 and I realise I never wrote up games I finished at the turn of the year, before my pledge. Here’s a brief summary of each. Altered Beast (NSO) This was possibly the first Sega Mega Drive game I ever saw being played in person. A friend once showed me their new system and they played a few minutes of this. I thought it looked amazing at the time although I didn't get a chance to play it, but since then I’ve always wanted to try it. Well I finally got that chance as a grown-up with Nintendo Switch Online… and what a disappointment! A side-scrolling beat-em-up with creatures resembling those from Greek mythology, where you constantly play through levels until you collect three spirit balls, released by defeating specific enemies before they disappear. At which point you turn into a creature with additional abilities and take on the boss. It plays like the arcade game, where there’s no way of replenishing your life force, even between the handful of levels. The chunky characters have shonky hit detection and the whole thing was bland, repetitive and dull. Some wine gets better with age, others don’t benefit from aging, but I figure Altered Beast must have begun life as vinegar anyway! A Little to the Left (Switch) A puzzle game about organising and rearranging objects to be more aesthetically pleasing. Presented with a single screen of objects and no instruction, you’re tasked with rearranging items in a way that improves the scene. It could be as simple as straightening wonky portraits, stacking objects in a particular order, or rearranging a cutlery drawer so everything fits. I quickly got an understanding of the logic the developers were looking for, and quite a few levels have multiple solutions. For instance, books on a shelf could be rearranged in height order, but then they could also be arranged so that the pattern on their spines all match up. Both solutions would be correct and it tells you how many possible solutions there are for each puzzle. There are some creative solutions, and thankfully there’s a hint system for each level where you reveal the solution, so I was never stuck for long. Some levels required quite precise control, and I can imagine this feeling much better using a mouse. I resorted to playing in handheld mode using the touchscreen, since the analogue stick controls were frustrating me. A simple premise and perfectly pleasant, but ultimately I found it a bit dull. If only tidying my own real-life things were as simple as the game made it out to be! My 60-second YouTube review of 'A Little to the Left'. The Exit 8 (PS5) A lonely walk through a Japanese subway, which transpires to be a creepy spot the difference game. This first-person walking simulator sees you walk through a small section of the subway, passing posters, doors and a single passer-by on his phone who’s completely oblivious to your presence. Turning the corner at the end you’re presented with seemingly the same section of subway again, complete with posters, doors, and then that same passer-by appears once again! The goal is to look around the corridor and if everything seems the same then walk to the end and turn the corner. If you spot something different (“anomalies” as the game calls them) or something unexpected happens then turn around and head back and exit the way you came in. There’s a single poster around each corner which indicates how many correct ‘exits’ you’ve made in a row, with the goal to get 8 correct in a row. It seems simple in theory, but much tougher in practice. Sometimes the changes are obvious (I’ll only spoil one at the end of this sentence, as most are best left experienced), for instance there could suddenly be hundreds of posters scattered across the floor, while many others are a lot more subtle. With only the haunting sound of your footsteps for company, it is quite creepy. To quote Alfred Hitchcock: “there is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it”. This game encapsulated this for me, as I was constantly expecting something to happen, and admittedly it did make me jump a few times when something unexpected would occur, or I was too slow noticing something! As it turns out, the predominant source of tension was the anticipation of turning the corner and finding the poster to discover if I’d chosen the right exit each time! It’s short as once I’d finished 8 correct consecutive exits I was able to go back and try to spot all the anomalies (playing through it again but the only anomalies that might appear would be either a previously unseen or incorrectly guessed). I finished it all in around 3 hours and it doesn’t hold much value to replay it. However, it is admittedly only around £4, which I felt was reasonable. A decent, albeit brief, experience. My 70 seconds view of 'The Exit 8' on YouTube Platform 8 (PS5) The recent follow-up to The Exit 8 is another horror walking simulator. Again the goal was to spot anomalies, but this time you’re stuck within the confines of a moving train carriage. The main gameplay difference this time is that the exit is always the door at the end of the carriage. The trick each time though is to work out if there’s anything you need to do, or not do, while in the carriage in order to open the door. For instance, the door may be locked but a poster on it tells you to find an anomaly in the carriage, so you explore the carriage and once the usually creepy obscurity is found the door unlocks. Each carriage is seemingly the same, with posters on the walls and a single other occupant who I recognised from 'The Exit 8'. The biggest change is the number of jump scares the game throws at you. The weirdness is cranked up and there are many things that happen, which could send you back to the beginning if you don’t act in time or solve the puzzle. It’s not gory, but by the end of it my heart felt as if it had been bouncing like a pogo stick on a trampoline! Half the time, the carriage won’t have a puzzle to solve, but will still have something odd happen as you walk to the door. I’d love to say more, but it really is best experienced without knowing what peculiarities the developers have come up with. At little over an hour, this was even shorter than its predecessor, but again I picked this one up for cheap and the freakiness was kind of fun! My 60 seconds review of 'Platform 8' on YouTube

I feel like even @Jonnas would be proud of this maneuver. And with how limited the items were, this was inevitable. Also, I nominate myself for coolest loss.

Omori is a Turn Based RPG developed by Omocat that originally came out on PC's in 2020. It then got console ports with extra content on the Switch and PS4 in 2022 (It also was on the XBox One, but that was delisted in 2023, and hasn't come back, no idea why). I played the Switch one. Omori lives in White Space, he's been living there as long as he can remember. It's pretty barren in there, but there is a door that goes to a dream-like world called Headspace. In this place, Omori goes on wacky adventures with his friends, Aubrey, Kel, and Hero. Something's up though, another friend of Omori's, Basil, suddenly goes missing after finding a mysterious photo he doesn't remember taking. It's up to Omori to save Basil from whatever has happened to him. I'm sure everything is going to be okay. This game's plot is... difficult to talk about without spoiling things. It is a heavy game though. The PEGI 18 rating and the disclaimer when you boot it up doesn't keep that aspect secret, really. The EarthBound inspired surrealism is juxtaposed harshly with the psychological horror that is sprinkled throughout. Don't have nightmares I really enjoyed the plot. It has some very cool twists, and maintains a sense of foreboding throughout, despite the incredibly absurd nonsense you see throughout Headspace. In fact, it was so fascinating, I'm actually already doing a second playthrough, because it turns out there's a couple of ways to progress through the game. Won't go into more detail then that though. The gameplay is pretty standard stuff, but unlike most RPG's, there aren't any status effects, at least not in the traditional sense. Instead, there are three emotions, which both raise and lower stats. They also have a rock-paper-scissors style relationship. Happy is strong against Angry, Angry is strong against Sad, and Sad is strong against Happy. And you can stack the same emotion multiple times for a stronger effect. Mastery of the combat system revolves around manipulating the emotions of both the enemy's and your own party to get an advantage. I say mastery, but the game isn't too difficult, really. Alligators and Casinos, that whole connection! I have to give massive praise to the visuals. The overworld isn't much to talk about, but battles and cutscenes utilise a very unique pencil drawing aesthetic, as well as an intentionally small amount of animation frames to create a very striking style. It looks great! Mad props! The sound design is also good, every area in the game has unique battle music, which I always appreciate, and the more scary parts use sound very well. By the way, the final boss song literally gave me chills, but sharing it would be massive spoilers. It's a masterpiece that brings the plot together really well. Omori is one of those indie games that you can tell was a massive passion project. It took 6 years to develop, and you can just feel the sincerity it contains. If you like EarthBound, you absolutely must play this. And if you've never played it, but like RPG's, play it anyway. It's excellent. Perfectly normal behaviour

Started on my first game yesterday. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds. I've done what's basically the tutorial level and the first main level. The controls are definitely taking a little bit to get used to, though I feel it's more there's no targeting button. So when you have a number of enemies come at you at once, your left just either taking hits or running away to then turn your character around and come back at them again. Stuff like that has ended my game on more than one occasion. Seems like there a fair bit of puzzle elements to the game, so far none have been too taxing, just needed to go over things and make sure to search everything. It's not always clear when you have to interact with something that you need to, as there's no button icon that appears or way of know that that object needs it. In the first level you are required to find a key to operate a small digger to smash a wall. Well I had the key and was at the digger. Tried selecting the key and it did nothing. Tried pressing loads of buttons whilst standing next to it but it did nothing. It was only when I stood in one particular spot that it worked, even then there was no sign or prompt to let me know I was in the right place to use the item. Other than those, so far it's been a fairly decent outing. I've yet to play as more than just a few characters so will see how things go later.

This one was quite a surprise. The game is a RPG where the aim is to obtain and evolve your weapons to make progress in the game. You start off with a catcher gun that is used on monsters to catch them. These monsters can then be fed into your normal weapons to power them up. Feed enough of them into the weapon and you can evolve it into something more powerful. You can also increase the base power of the weapon by simply killing monsters with it. Both of these things were right up my street and allowed me to do lots of grinding to become pretty OP very early on. The combat system has you gunning down monsters but you can't just fire a constant stream of bullets. You have a power bar that is pretty much a stamina bar. Each of your weapons has it's own bar and so it's beneficial to carry a few with you so you can swap on the fly when you need to recover stamina for a weapon. Monsters respawn when you exit and re-enter an area. This makes for some fast exp farming if you can find an area that suits you. The story is a bit of a mess and isn't helped by the fact that the translation is all over the place. You essentially work with a demon to try and obtain the ultimate weapon. You clear an area, go back to see the demon and a new area will unlock. You just need to work your way through each of the stages, take on bosses and see the ending. The fun is in finding new weapons, grinding exp and then evolving them to see what you get. It was great coming across a game like this. It's one I've never heard of, it's a breezy RPG at around 5 hours long and it offered a nice change from all the fighting games that are in this collection.

I think instead of mouse-con we go with Joy-ce instead

See, all this talk about Zelda HD remasters. People kept going on about Wind Waker and Twilight Princess HD getting ported, and now BotW? Boring people, the lot of them. This is the actual Zelda game that needs a HD remaster: Thanks to NSO, playing Four Swords the proper way has never been easier, and it's an absolute riot! Trust me on this, this game is wayyyyy more fun then the GBA one, which is very impressive. Put this out there, have online capabilities, make Tetra's Trackers available in all regions. Bam! Best Zelda game! If you're not counting games that aren't on Switch... Smash Ultimate runs great, and it looks great, which makes it a weird choice in the traditional sense of a remaster. The main reason I want it to get a Switch 2 remaster is because it has 89 characters! Even without the licensing hell of some of the third party characters involved, you're just not getting that miracle roster in a new entry. Character cuts in Smash sucks. If there was any series I'd want Nintendo to make a forever game like Fortnite out of, it's this one. Seriously, just look at the trademarks on the title screen. It's so surreal.

What a game and I love the platinum trophy icon. Grandia is certainly worthy of the praise it received back when it released, and the praise it continues to get to this day. The final optional dungeon took some doing. One save point, 10 floors to get through, enemies that hit like tanks and 3 bosses to defeat. How I ended up tackling it was by clearing a couple of floors and then running back to the save point to refresh my SP and MP. As long as I didn't leave the dungeon or get killed, the enemies would stay defeated. After doing all of that I found the end game to be pretty easy. Justin's Heaven & Earth move was completely wiping out mobs and bosses left and right. The rest of the party were essentially there to just provide him with backup. Speaking of the party, I wasn't a huge fan of the final party member. She didn't really add anything to the story and barely said a word when she joined you. I would have preferred Sue or Gadwin to have rejoined the team. The way the story played out was great. It gave you just enough breadcrumbs to follow to keep you intrigued and there were one or two revelations I didn't see coming. I miss this era of JRPGs. I miss the fun of getting to a story point and be treated with a CGI/FMV type cutscene. You knew things were getting serious when one of these showed up. I'm very happy to have finally have played this and it's a game that has certainly aged like a fine wine. With it now beaten, that's game number 2 done from my pledge list.

My journey through Grandia continues. Apparently I'm now on what would have been disc 2. I ran into a spot of trouble with this boss. The thing was doing stupid damage to both Justin and Feena. Also, Justin's attacks were pretty pitiful against it. I decided to reload my save and do some levelling up. I switched the automated battle system from doing regular attacks to doing magical attacks. I think I had neglected this for too long and as such some of my stats weren't the best. I also changed the weapon on Justin to one that was just pure raw damage. After doing all of this I ended up annihilating the boss. I've lost yet another party member but gained another two in Rapp and Milda. This is the only aspect of the game that I'm not a fan of. I'm not too keen on when JPRGs chop and change party members. I prefer to have my main party and leave it at that. I don't mind having some in reserve but having them there and then having them disappear from the game/story doesn't sit right with me. Plus, I'm not huge on both Rapp or Milda. I took on one of the bonus dungeons yesterday evening. You get a shockingly low amount of exp for fighting battles in there, especially for how much of a fight the enemies put up. I decided it was probably best to just avoid what battles I could and run my way through the dungeon and fight the boss. This worked out pretty well. It was still a trek to get to him but at least I had plenty of SP/MP left for the actual battle. I love that between all the battles and hectic dungeon crawling the game allows for quiet moments between the characters. The conversations on the boat between Feena and Justin were lovely and the visuals once again helped enhance these scenes. I also continued to make progress with Neo Geo Pocket Selection Vol.1. There's not a lot to say about this that I didn't say back when I played the original game. It's more of the same really, which isn't a bad thing. It's just a standard run and gun game that allows for multiple path choices and has 2 characters to play as. It was fine. Another fighting game is in this collection. This one probably sits in the middle of the two that I have previous played. Once again, I aimed at beating the game with each of the characters and unlocking any secret ones. The unlocking mechanism is pretty bad in this though. It's all completely random. When playing trough the story mode you will get challenged by a fighter and if you're lucky it will be one of the ones you need. I didn't have an issue with this until it came to unlocking the final one I needed. The dude just wouldn't show up. I actually finished this on Tuesday evening but it took another evening of essentially grinding play throughs in order for him to finally show up. Here they are. I was pretty disappointed with them. They are essentially just colour swaps for some of the main fighters. Still, it was a decent enough game and yet another title from the collection that is off the list. Character Endings

I still need to finish my 2024 write-ups, but in the meantime, to join in the fun: • Chrono Trigger DS - I finally got around to starting this in 2024. It’s taken me a while to get into, but it’s definitely been worth sticking with. Should be finished soon. • Final Fantasy 7 - thanks to everyone who advised me to play the original version (or at least the one on Switch). I’ll be playing this classic for the first time this year I hope. • Super Mario Wonder - I love my Mario platformers & surprised myself I haven’t played this yet! • Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom - I put off buying this so I could get it as a Christmas present 😀. • Astro Bot - looking forward to playing this. • Uncharted 2 - playing through the Uncharted series with my wife. • Astral Chain - it’s spent way too long in my backlog. • Tales of Monkey Island - retro time! Used to love the MI games and I haven’t yet played this or Return to MI yet. • Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D - the adverts for the upcoming Switch remake’s reminded me I haven’t yet played this & I have it on 3DS. • The Great Ace Attorney - Enough time’s passed since playing the Phoenix Wright games to return to some courtroom drama! I managed to sell the majority of my Wii and Wii U games last year and it was quite satisfying. I’m debating what to do with my load of N64, GameBoy and DS games next and thinking I might try to sell these this year too. I’m finally realising that I’m never realistically going back to the majority of them.

I fired up this game this evening. I remember when the original game was first released on the Sega Saturn in Japan. The official UK Saturn magazine was hyping it up as the Final Fantasy VII killer, obviously because that games wasn't making an appearance on the console. They kept raving on about it, only for the game to never get a Saturn release in the West. Ironically, it wasn't until it was released on the PS1 that UK JRPG fans would get to play it. I've not done much on it yet (clock says I've been on over 4 hours but I fell asleep for a while after work, with the PS5 pad still in my hand ) but I am enjoying the cozy vibes of the game. Justin seems to be a bit of a cheeky git and Sue is adorable. I've just been kicking around the first area (Marna Road) to do some grinding. The exp is a bit rubbish but I'm getting plenty of levelling done on my weapons. I keep chopping and changing them in order to unlock some new moves. Doing this has meant I've obtained plenty of cash and have been able to buy all weapon and armour upgrades in Parm. It's a bit of a shame that there are no random battles though and instead you have to walk into enemies. It means I have to concentrate a little bit more when farming exp, as opposed to just being able to walk around in circles using controller. This is my progress for the day. Another thing I'm not keen on is the item limit. Having a character being able to hold just 12 items seems a bit limiting. I've already stashed a load of stuff in the chest at home to free up space. In all fairness, it shouldn't really matter. I'm the type of player who when playing JRPGs hordes items for a rainy day but never actually uses them. One more thing, Sue has that little creature on her head and when she runs she looks like she's rocking the novelty breasts from Blackadder.

Toon Panic NA release: N/A PAL release: N/A JP release: N/A Developer: Bottom Up Publisher: Bottom Up N64 Magazine Score: N/A The most interesting thing about this prototype is that there was little information about the game itself until the prototype was found on a dev cartridge, with only this and a few bits of concept art being all we know about the game. The game itself isn’t particularly interesting – an arena-based fighting game with an isometric view, a style of game that was quite popular in the early 2000s, especially for licensed games. The prototype itself is very early – the singleplayer doesn’t work and only one multiplayer mode does. Here, you’re trying to get control of a hammer to smash your opponent’s crystal. The characters, which are all fantasy tropes (and, oddly, a few have Final Fantasy VIII artwork as a placeholder), just have a few basic moves and they all feel the same. When Bottom Up were downsizing, they possibly noticed that some similar games with licensing were approaching, and saw that this didn’t have much unique to offer. Poor Should it be finished? Not really, we saw this sort of thing plenty of times.

I'm gonna do one of those, too. But I'll be very liberal with it If I don't finish any of those, I don't really care Decided to only pick games that I actually own, because I'm not sure which PS+ sub I'll be subbing to. Mine runs out in two days and I'm not sure if I want to extend Premium. I might go with one month of Essential, so I can play some multiplayer games and then see if there will be a sale in February like last year. Baldur's Gate 3 - The big one! I mean, what else is there to say. I've been meaning to play it since I bought it, but never really got around to it. Not sure if 2025 is the year, though. Citizen Sleeper - Recently bought it, started it and I like it. It's a slow burn, though. Too slow for me right now, which is why it's on the list Flinthook - Released on PS4 in 2017 (!) and I don't even remember if I finished the game once. It's a rogue-lite so...yeah Hyper Light Drifter - I remember buying it on sale ages ago and giving it a try. It never really clicked, but I'm willing to give it another shot Kaze and the Wild Masks - I simply stopped playing this after a while Metaphor: ReFantazio - Dropped it a few weeks ago and haven't picked it up again. Yet! Seraph - I don't really remember this one Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts - I enjoyed what I've played so far, but as with most games in 2024, I just dropped them for whatever reason The Banner Saga - With the joys of remote play on Steam Deck, an SRPG might be a good fit. Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales - See The Banner Saga

Played through two excellent short games Thursday night to kick-start my gaming in 2025. Sayonara Wild Hearts | 2019 First up on the docket for me in 2025 was Sayonara Wild Hearts, which has been waiting to be played on my HDD full of PS4 games for some time now. And holy hot damn, what a game to open up 2025 with. I adored my time with it. Stylish and flashy with its bold colours, incredible variety of gameplay genres it chooses to smartly put to work (first- and third-person on-rails shooter/dodger, bullet hell, drifting, and QTE battles ranging from dance-offs to sword fights), and impressive use of constant seamless transitions, there is much to praise here. The folks at Simogo describe it as being a "pop album video game", which it undoubtedly is, incorporating some great-sounding music which blends with the numerous landscapes you'll be racing, dodging and fighting through, and it is even incorporated into how the game is presented through its use of rhythm and levels being delineated as "tracks" on an album. Story is light - without looking into it all I really gathered was that you play as a girl who has experienced heartbreak and are quite literally tasked with picking up the pieces, which contribute to your score - but that doesn't matter here, because it means that the combination of high-octane gameplay and wonderful, and oftentimes emotive, music really get the chance to take centre stage. And speaking of the music, I've had the album on a loop all day today: it's genuinely great stuff, and can be enjoyed even without the context of the game. Some of my favourite tracks are Begin Again, Dead of Night, Wild Hearts Never Die, Fighting Hearts, Night Drift, and I feel like I need to specifically shoutout this game's rendition of Clair de lune, which is obviously a classic that virtually everyone will be familiar with...and it makes it feel entirely fresh once again just by experiencing it in a new medium and with a new sound. The only real downside to the game's soundtrack is that the game's titular and title screen track, Sayonara Wild Heart - my favourite in the album/game - does not get utilised in any of the levels - which hurt even more after I'd been anticipating it for the full length of the game! This is only an hour or two long, and while I know quite a few here have already played it, if you haven't, I have to scream at you that it's well worth the price of admission to experience. There's also a sense of a lot of replayability being available here, partially because of the game's short playtime, but also as levels are tiered into Gold/Silver/Bronze ranks depending on how many points you finish with, and so there's a sense that you could absolutely spend a good deal of time mastering the game. Additionally, there are some riddles which challenge you to solve them via gameplay, which I thought was such a fun and unique way to push this game's replayability. While I only solved the first riddle myself and replayed some of my favourite levels after credits rolled, I think I'll be more surprised if I don't end up loading this up again by the time 2025 ends, and I can't remember the last time I finished a game this short and instantly thought, while I'm putting it down for now, I don't think it'll be too long before I'm back. That was a feeling I'd quickly become a bit familiar with, mind you... So, for now, I suppose this is less "Sayonara" and more "See ya later", Wild Hearts Star Fox 64 | 1997 After a couple of levels spent adjusting to using the N64 controller for the first time, it is incredibly clear just how well Star Fox 64 holds up nearly 30 years after its initial release. I think this is the first dedicated on-rails shooter I've played through from start to credits (don't quote me on that), and there's definitely a charming and easy to pick-up nature to the game with the focus being on your positioning and, well, shooting. Learning to barrel roll, somersault, and make the most out of the munitions at your disposal (combined with your probably accidentally launching a Bomb by pressing B instead of Left on the C-Pad multiple times if you're anything like me...sorry to the rest of the team for that ) and the way the game's difficulty curve really nicely and naturally increased as I got deeper into the game was excellent the first go-around, where I found myself following the route to the right of the world map from start to finish. Corneria, the two times I took on Team Star Wolf (the first time losing but managing to survive, and the second time being more accustomed to the controls, prescribing some deadly doses of revenge in emphatic fashion) and the final level/confrontation with Andross were probably my favourite levels, but you can bet I was grinning any and every time there was an obvious nod to Star Wars, be it the ship designs, Andross himself, one of the levels being eerily similar to the Death Star II escape in Return of the Jedi... Anyways, speaking of the world map, the first time you see the line going from Corneria to another location, it becomes clear: there are secrets and hidden exits to a lot of these levels, and, naturally, I found myself playing through the game a second time. After a couple of attempts I remembered how to go through the waterfall on Corneria - you read that right, remembered! More on that in a bit - and so managed to start going down a different route, but inevitably ended up back on my initial route the second go-around, and not wanting to look things up or reset anything, just followed it through to the end a second time. Additional opportunities to spice things up like saving members of your team - the experienced Peppy, the sarcastic and cocky Falco, or the long-tongued Slippy with a hilarious axe to grind violently with just about anyone - which has consequences such as having them stick around or need to go in for repairs for the remainder of that mission and the next were excellent, and combined with the various routes you could take through the game as well as the leaderboard, it's abundantly clear just how much replayability this game offers. So, back to me "remembering" how to access the secret exit off of Corneria after a few bouts the second go-around, what's that about? Well, remember how I grew up on and adored Smash Bros. Brawl? Not only did the game have a ridiculous number of trophies to amass which did a great job of introducing me to so many of these characters and their wider franchises, but it also had a mode available called 'Masterpieces', which had short trials available for a number of titles (most of which were available on Wii Virtual Console, which is kind of a genius way to advertise it when you think about it!), some of which were available from the outset and others which could only be unlocked after meeting certain criteria. Me and my siblings unlocked all of these naturally - I mean, we spent hundreds of hours with the game, so that shouldn't be a surprise considering that, looking up a list of the unlock criteria for these, they all seem fairly simple - and would replay the longer trials a bunch, including the opening of Star Fox 64 with a 3-minute timer to boot, Corneria, and we must have figured out back then how to unlock the path through the waterfall given how it came back to me! Also, yes, this does mean I actually played Ocarina of Time as a kid in retrospect - the opening 5 minutes of the Adult and Young Link sections got played by me and my brother a good number of times. Me now having memories of a bunch of Nintendo's older offerings has finally clicked - not really sure how I forgot about it given how many times we played a number of those trials, but thank Star Fox 64 for reminding me of those times! Anyways, with that trip down memory lane behind us and credits rolled twice on Star Fox 64 after having a great time with it - and me not at all being against the idea of coming back throughout the year to try to figure out how to unlock other hidden exits, with its brevity certainly being part of the appeal to do so, similar to Wild Hearts! - the first game from my Pledge Games of 2025 has been completed. Games completed in 2025

A bit later then I would've liked, but time to carry on with my lists. Glen's Best Non-2024 Games of 2024 8. Spyro the Dragon (Reignited version) Every year, I like to point out a game that outright surprised me with how good it was. Spyro the Dragon surprised me with how not awful it was. A Playstation era 3D platform game that seems to at least understand what makes a 3D platformer work. Admittedly, the work done on the Reignited version is exemplary, and it's hard for me to determine how much Toys for Bob are carrying it. But it's working, I'm looking forward to playing the sequels this year. 7. Densetsu no Stafy 3 I played all three GBA Legend of Starfy games this year, but the third game is the one that stands out to me. A very interesting take on 2D platformers where being underwater is far more preferable. It's also just really solid. No Japanese knowledge required for this one. I highly recommend it. Even if it does get surprisingly tough as nails if you go for 100%. 6. Shantae and the Seven Sirens It's Shantae, always a good time. Nope, that's it. That's all I'm saying. 5. Sonic Superstars It's a Sonic game where Sonic is the worst character to play as by far, so you know it's on the right track. It's weird though, it's a good Sonic game, and Vector the Crocodile isn't in it... I'm gonna assume he doesn't want to go anywhere near 2D platformers, which is fair given his track record there. What was I talking about? Oh right! Games! Sonic Superstars seems to show that the right lessons have been learned from Sonic Mania. This game just feels right, you know? Super Mario Bros. Wonder may have been the technically better platformer from last year, but I had more fun with this. And that's what matters most, as far as I'm concerned. 4. Star Ocean: Second Story R Lately, we've been getting more and more old pixel games getting a lovely HD-2D style makeover. This is totally fine by me, because it's thanks to that that I discovered this little gem of a game. It's one of those RPG's where a bit of experimentation can utterly destroy the difficulty, and it doesn't even attempt to dissuade you from exploiting this. It's why Bravely Default is so much fun! 3. Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow Aria of Sorrow may have been my first proper foray into Castlevania, but the sequel is a lot more polished, and the better game for it. A man with impeccable jogging posture goes into an evil castle and proceeds to murder everything inside. Fun times for all! Looking back, I've been on a bit of an older game binge, but my top 2 games in this list aren't old, relatively speaking. I'm also really struggling with what to put on top. So I'm afraid I'm gonna have to cop out here. Joint 1st. Chained Echoes When I think about it, it's kinda weird that I rate this game so highly, I've played better RPG's, even this year. But there's something, I dunno, earnest about this game? Once I learned that the majority of it was made by one person, it's shortcomings seemed more reasonable. Lovely little game. Absolutely recommend it to anyone who likes turn-based RPG's, and not just because it has a playable lizard in it. Although that always helps. Speaking of great turn-based RPG's... Joint 1st. Sea of Stars Sea of Stars is a different kind of indie RPG, a lot more polished then Chained Echoes, but with a heavy inspiration from quite a few 90's classics. That's what makes me struggle with where to put this. I wouldn't go so far as to say derivative, because it has it's own ideas in there. And it is really good. Also absolutely recommend this game. Funnily enough, both of these games are getting some significant DLC in 2025, so I'll likely be returning to them this year. Any 2024 release that you wish you had played? Hmmmm... Not really. At least not as much as last year. Baldur's Gate 3 is naturally still there until it gets a Switch 2 port. However, Astro Bot is the one game that springs to mind, I hope that gets a PC port eventually, I guess it depends on how integral the PS5 controller is. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth has kinda fallen off of my "Must-play" list due to it being more open-worldy then Remake, but with that getting a PC port soon, I'll no doubt try it.

Ok, I realise I still need to write up a few of the games I’ve played in recent months before everyone’s moved onto the 2025 thread. Sackboy (PS5) I wish there were more games like this. A lengthy 3D platformer that’s serviceable in single-player, but really comes into its own when played alongside others. I played the majority of this with my wife and we had a blast traversing the textile levels. Playing as LittleBigPlanet’s woolly protagonist, everything from your own character to the enemies themselves looked lovely and hand-made. The platforming itself wasn’t revolutionary, but did everything well. Linear with plenty of items and secrets hidden just off the path. You primarily have the ability to jump, slap, roll and throw, which allow for neat tricks in co-op such as having to throw a team-mate onto another platform in order to get to out-of-reach items. In our case this lead to many laugh-out-loud instances where one of us was ‘accidentally’ (or so it was claimed) thrown off an edge to our doom. Enough levels also gave us a specific skill or item just for that level, such as shurikens or a rope to latch and swing on certain surfaces. It gave enough variety to keep us entertained. Essentially you just had to reach the end of each level, but each levels was sprinkled with heaps of orbs that could collected along the way. These vary between those that count towards your ranking come the end and those that grant you outfits for your avatar. There are plenty of outfits and also help to distinguish who’s who when the action heats up on screen. When played in co-op it also tells you who collected the most, and the winner of each level gets their photo taken too (which ultimately turns into which other player can sabatage it the most!). I found some of the best levels were the ones played out to licenced music, such as Uptown Funk or Toxic, with the action often lining up with the tune. A little like Rayman’s musical levels, but not so strict in missing a beat forcing you to die. I tried it in single-player and it was ok, but really does excel and want you to play co-operatively, with some levels only available to play with multiple players. It did get a little harder later on too, so while in co-op you all share the same stack of lives, I feel a younger or inexperienced player will enjoy the early levels but will only get so far (or at least that was the experience I had watching my daughter play with her grandparents). As I said at the beginning, I wish there were more decent co-op platformers out there, as this was a lot of fun and something we enjoyed playing together. Link to my 60-second review

Now that I'm back at work, I can now go through my Excel sheet and crunch the numbers. In 2024 I played and completed... 61 PS4 games 54 PS5 games 31 Switch games 2 Gamecube games 1 DS game 1 PS1 game One thing I wanted to do this year was start taking advantage of games on PS+ and NSO. I have both of these services and it's pointless having them if I'm not going to play any of the games that are on offer. This being the case I ended up with... 48 PS+ games being played 13 NSO games being played Another thing I wanted to do was avoid paying full price for games on the PlayStation. The price of a lot of new releases on the PS5/PS4 is just ridiculous. I actually managed to pull this off. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth was bought with vouchers that I saved after Christmas and Astro Bot was bought with Nectar points that I had saved up. Every other 2024 release I bought when on sale. Nintendo games were still bought at launch due to them never really dropping in price and with them being still being a reasonable £40. I did end up still buying a lot of games... 62 games were bought this year 46 of these were finished Not a bad going. A lot of the ones I didn't finish were games I picked because they were on sale but never got around to actually starting. As for my 2024 pledges... I didn't finish them all but did knock out... The Outer Wilds Nioh 2 The last Guardian Ys IX Mario and Rabbids: Sparks of Hope Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity Splatoon 2 + DLC I started the other 3 games ( Tokyo Mirage Sessions, Astral Chain and Trails of Zero ) but ended up dropping them. Astral Chain and TMS I have tried multiple times now to get through but I just can't do it. Trails of Zero I got a few hours in but dropped it. I need a big chunk of time to get through that one as it will require a bit of planning and multiple playthroughs.

Site News: Happy New Year! Gotta Write Fast! A New Year's article featuring Nintendo, Sega, Sonic and Shadow. Sonic Adventure 2 Battle is still peak classic 3D Sonic. There's surely no better time than now to replay it.

First platinum of 2025 has been obtained. I was actually hoping to have this finished yesterday but I ran out of time. This is still probably my least favourite Dragon Quest game. The game looks gorgeous with the 2D HD look but gameplay wise it still falls short of the other games. Also, the new dungeon they added to this version was such a meh experience. They could have done something much better than what they gave us. My thoughts on the game haven't really changed from when I played the older version on Switch a few years back. I had a nightmare with the Mini Medals. I finished everything in the game but I was missing 1 medal. I used a guide to try and find out which one I missed, only to see the guide I was using was incomplete. I rang in the New Year looking for this final medal but my efforts were fruitless. Fired the game up this morning and used a different guide this time. Still took a while to find it but I was very happy when it finally showed up.

Paper Mario JP release: 11th August 2000 NA release: 5th February 2001 PAL release: 5th October 2001 Developer: Intelligent Systems Publisher: Nintendo N64 Magazine Score: 90% Turn-based RPGs are not my kind of game, yet Paper Mario has so much charm, that I can still adore the game. My first experience of Paper Mario was on the Wii Virtual Console, where I remember getting to a lava boss. Paper Mario was originally conceived as Super Mario RPG 2, given to Intelligent Studios after Square went off to make PlayStation games, which turned into its own thing with a paper style. This first game doesn’t do a whole lot with the paper element (it becomes much more integrated in later games), but it does give the game a unique and charming style. The battle system is kept nice and simple, with HP and damage numbers kept low, and not going off to meaningless large numbers in the thousands. You have a jump attack and hammer attack, with badges that provide stronger versions of those attacks (with different effects). It’s also very satisfying to see the attacks physically connect with enemies. Mario also has a partner with him in battle, which provides another attack per round. To help keep things simple, the partners don’t have a separate HP bar, so all enemy attacks are against Mario. But there’s also an added element of interactivity and timing. When you attack, you can perform a quick time event to boost the power of the attack – press A at the right time, tap a button quickly, hold the stick to the left and time letting go with flashing lights. It helps keep you more involved in the battles, and the various badges you unlock and equip can even grant you significantly more damage with the risk of doing no damage if you miss. But what I love about Paper Mario is everything outside the battles. Mario is on a quest to defeat Bowser, but needs the help of seven kidnapped Star Spirits. The world is built like a simple platformer (just with no instant deaths or bottomless pits) with lots of secrets to discover and puzzles to solve. Enemies roam around and walking into one triggers a battle – so no random encounters. One really nice thing is the “first strike” mechanic where if you jump on an enemy or hit it with your hammer, you’ll automatically perform the attack on them before the first round (but enemies can also do that to Mario). Each partner you recruit also has a special ability to help navigate the world. Helping this out is some great writing, with plenty of funny moments. The chapters are also extremely varied in structure, so you never know what to expect yet. Some are dialogue focused, some focused on exploring, some with big dungeons, and so on. Each new area is a wonder to explore and discover what’s going on, with a ton of unique NPCs to talk to, most based on known Mario creatures, but with specific designs and personalities, which all adds to the wonderful charm the game has. While I don’t like the style of combat in the game, Paper Mario is still a lovely experience, and knows how to keep things interesting – like the intermittent Peach sections between each chapter. There’s just an immense amount of charm and joy throughout the entire experience. Remake or remaster? This needs the same treatment as the Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door remake. Official Ways to get the game There is no way to buy a new copy of Paper Mario, the only official way to play is to rent it via the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pak. Re-releases 2007: Wii Virtual Console 2015: Wii U Virtual Console 2021: Nintendo Switch Online (Subscription Only)

I hope everybody enjoyed Christmas. All the best for 2025! 👍

Speaking of NOM reviews. One thing I always gave them mad respect for was for bringing down Wave Race 64’s review score once they got a chance to review the PAL version. IIRC, they originally gave it something like 92% and then bumped it down to around 87% after seeing how shockingly bad the PAL conversion was (keeping the higher score only for the NTSC version). Says it all when even Nintendo’s own official publication is encouraging you to import to avoid their crappy PAL releases