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I got hit with a 8% hit rate twice in a row. But can I hit a single 83% chance? No.

Had some weird off centre control stick issues at first there, so was having to fight against that for a bit. Went into calibrate and it seemed all good, so hopefully just a blip or something. Anyway onto the fun stuff. I am very proud of that one I'm also very proud of that one too.

Sonic Origins Plus announced. Adds playable Amy and 12 Game Gear games as well as new challenges. Getting a physical release. Do I want a physical copy? I'm not really sure.

I really should write about the handful of games I finished off last year, but I can't be bothered. Xenoblade 3 was my GOTY then, followed by Bayonetta 3. I'll start this post by listing off Metroid Fusion, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, WarioWare inc: Mega Microgames, and The Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap courtesy of the NSO Expansion Pack. All great games that I've no doubt talked about before. Today, I want to talk about... Pepsiman 2 Uh, I mean, Fire Emblem Engage is a strategy RPG and the latest Fire Emblem game. It released back in January and is developed by Intelligent Systems. The game follows Alear (Who I renamed PepsiBoy, because, I mean, come on, if you're gonna give your main character that hair, I'm not gonna take him seriously), a Divine Dragon who has just woken up from a 1,000 year nap, only to find the continent of Elyos is under attack by the forces of the Fell Dragon, Sombron, that half-dragon, half-cobra dude in the pic above (No joke, that's one of the coolest dragon concepts this series has come up with). Alear is tasked with taking his very small army on a quest to gather the Emblem Rings, pieces of bling that allow Divine and Fell Dragons to summon Emblems, recreations of heroes from previous Fire Emblem games, such as Marth and Lyn. The story is well, a bit rubbish, it basically boils down to "Evil Dragon bad, go stab". If you were going in expecting political intrigue like in Three Houses, you won't find it here, do yourself a favour and play Triangle Strategy instead. If you're here for some solid gameplay though, then look no further. The Emblems allow for some great mix and matching with the various roles characters will have along the way. They may seem overpowered at first, but as you progress, you'll soon realise that you really need these bits of jewelery, as the odds are supremely stacked against you later on. So much so, that my scrub self lowered the difficutly to Normal half way through (Appreciate the option being there) I mean, really!? Anyway, that video above shows the Break mechanic. When you initiate an attack with a weapon that has an advantage over the enemy weapon, you "break" them. This means that they can't counterattack against the next unit that attacks them, which can be devastating, so you need to be really careful with who you send to the front lines, especially if you have permadeath mode on. In between battles, you have the option to explore the Somniel, you can talk to the units you've recruited, give them gifts, go fishing, etc. It's a stripped down version of what Three Houses did, but not mandatory like it was in that game. The social aspect is suitably stripped down as well, which is what turned me off from Three Houses. I want to play Fire Emblem, not Persona. Game looks gorgeous, if you haven't noticed already. It's bright and colourful, a great game to christen the Switch OLED I got for Christmas. The music is noticably a step up too. The Solm battle music is a particular favourite of mine. All in all, a very enjoyable FE game. Probably my second favourite after Shadows of Valentia. There's still the extra campaign that the DLC promises, so I'll be revisiting this at some point.

Fixed that for you.

Great to have you back. Player's Choice tonight at 8pm.

For the first time in many moons, and connection shenanigans forbid, I should be able to join this evening's proceedings. I'm no Allen Iverson so the lack of practice should rank me as a novice, so.... erm... go easy.

Thanks for the games. There were some close races this week, a few technical issues, and more than a few projectiles thrown. Though we didn't have enough time for a fourth GP, the three GP's we did get to race, were pretty good. Here's a link to this week's stream... - - - - - N-Europe Get Together! (23/03/2023)

I felt a little disappointed when it disappeared up its own arse when it decided to become But I think it pulled it back. I'm a little disappointed with how they handled... I tried watching In From The Cold, but I just couldn't get into it. It starts off as an ex-Russian spy trying to have a new life, then gets pulled back in. Seems standard, then it's revealed and I couldn't take it seriously after that. Finished re-watching iZombie. Still recommend it to you all! Rose McIver is such a versatile actress.

Great stuff @Cube, really enjoyed your write-ups. I thought I was aware of most Sonic games, having owned some of those Tiger LCD ones, but the sheer volume and array of titles you’ve managed to find is astounding! 👏🏻

Wave 4 arrives 5th of April.

Just finished this week's episode of Mando S3... Anyways, solid episode, even if it's probably the weakest of the season so far for me. I don't need every episode to be the same length, but going from nearly an hour episode last week to just a half hour episode this week really emphasised this episode's pacing feeling a bit hectic by comparison – I don't think there's been an episode on the 30 - 35 minutes range of live-action Star Wars that I've really loved so far (could be forgetting one I guess), and I really do think that's down to how those episodes end up feeling a bit clunky in terms of pacing because of potential cutting room floor casualties. Oh well, again, still solid – looking forward to next week's episode!

So... who else has given the demo a go now? I gave it a quick playthrough on the Steam Deck... Outside of some Proton related graphical glitches it runs very well. And my main PC runs the game like a champ. The game itself though? Ehh... It's very much TLOU RE4 edition, and everything that goes with it. It controls like utter dogshit! Because it's a modern AAA game, it just has to use the right stick for moving the camera and the result is a mess. The camera doesn't follow the player whatsoever and will put absolutely no effort into framing the action for you, happily letting you run into the camera Crash Bandicoot style unless you constantly babysit it with the right stick. This worked ok-ish for RE2 Remake, because that game had a moderate pace and took place in small, cramped environments. With the much more action-heavy focus of RE4? And the wide, open environments like the Village shootout section? This combination is a disaster! I'm constantly finding myself running straight into the faces of enemies that I can't see! They've also greatly reduced the effectiveness of Leon's roundhouse kick. Its hitbox is tiny now and it's nowhere near as effective at crowd control as before... In general, your options for crowd control are hugely limited compared to the original game. The shotgun's area of effect is woefully limited and nowhere near as punchy as in the original game, while enemies are huge damage sponges who can happily take a pistol shot to the face and barely even stagger, often not even giving you the option to follow up with a kick! To make matters worse, they've greatly increased the number of enemies on screen and they've taken away almost all of the i-frames after you're grabbed, meaning that enemies will constantly Wombo Combo you... Oh! Speaking of which, that's clearly very intentional as the game has a very heavy emphasis on combo follow-up attacks where one enemy will grab you and the other will charge to attack you (some of them even being scripted one-hit-deaths!). I see this becoming very quickly infuriating when you're constantly being attacked by enemies that you can't even see! All the enemies having magic magnet hands with massive Plesioth sized hit boxes for grabs doesn't help either. Generally speaking, your guns feel pretty weak and nowhere near as satisfying to use as the original game (also, dismemberment is almost entierly gone now - including the iconic Leon Chainsaw Death from the original where he gets his head cut off... that's gone). Leon's movement also feels clumsy and not as responsive as the original game either. I can't even kick doors open anymore! I'm not impressed with how this game plays at all. There's also a rather nasty potential design flaw in place with the new knife durability system... It's entierly possible to softlock yourself completely. Should you run out of gun ammo and destroy your knife? You're totally screwed. If you end up in that situation and you're in an area where you have to kill enemies to procede? That's it, your save file is ruined, because you can't even kill enemies to get your ammo back. Now I did test this out in the demo and the game does have a pity system in place where it forces item drops to become gun ammo, but it's still absolutely possible to put yourself into an unwinnable state; and that's really not acceptable. Speaking of which, the idea of a knife durabity system runs entierly counter to many of the game's new mechanics anyway! You actually lose knife durabilty for carrying out stealth kills and for killing enemies with them with normal slashes, which makes no sense! You are actively punished for playing well! WTF!? This is a bad idea from a game design standpoint and it will lead to players actively avoiding using the knife (especially since knives now take up space in your attache case to boot!), while also allowing for nasty softlock situations. Finally, the level design is somewhat suspect in the demo... The initial house has been turned into a dungeon basement of sorts and navigation feels unintuitive and confusing. I found myself getting lost for an embarrasing amount of time as I couldn't find the stairs to go up and get out, I had no clue where I was going in a way that I never felt in the original game (or RE2 Remake for that matter); and it's not a good kind of lost either, the way out was just very poorly signposted as I kept running right past it. And I don't know if this is just for the demo, but pretty much the entire start of the game was cut up until the initial Village shootout section, outside of the first house; there's basically no room for exploration whatsoever. The original RE4 is definitely not this linear. As for the game's overall tone and narrative? It's strange in that it seems to want to keep some of the B-Movie esc cheese from the original, but also present itself as a super serious HBO drama. The game seems to want to have its cake and eat it, and I feel that it's not going to satisfy either camp that wants a Prestige TV drama nor those that want something true to the original. And this is just a pet peeve of mine, but I find it deeply unsatisfying that you don't even get to fight the first Ganados you encounter; he's entierly dispatched in a cutscene, and you miss the iconic realisation that he's a regular human and not a zombie... (This also has gameplay ramifications as you're not even given that chance to familarise yourself with the gun controls here before you get into a proper encounter!). Likewise, you don't even get to jump out of the first window either. Already the game's narrative changes rub me the wrong way, and I can already see myself lamenting the loss of the QTE sections that the original game was so famous for... Overall? I'm not happy with the demo... I think I'm either gonna give the game a miss, or I may wait until it's on deep discount.