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Fine, I'll give this game another go...

Right, bored with Smash. Let's play a funnier game! PlayStation All-Star Battle Royale I've done this theme before, but it's gotten 4 new characters since then, and they're pretty heavy hitters! So yeah, in case it wasn't obvious, every character here has appeared on at least one PlayStation console, and none of them appear on the actual PS All-Stars Battle Royale, because it's forever funny to point and laugh at that game's roster! Mii characters are allowed, but they must be wearing a costume based on a character that has appeared on PlayStation (Goemon, Cuphead, Sans, etc.) There are also a couple of costume restrictions Cloud - No Advent Children costumes Bayonetta - No Bayonetta 2 costumes (Short Hair) Items are either from specific games from PlayStation titles, or are generic enough, you can get away with it. Except the Fake Smash Ball, that's there because I'm making a point. Format - 3 Stock FS Meter - On See you at 7:30!

Added another party member to the team. Dude clearly wanted to join us. I mean, just look at what happened to him when he ventured off on his own... I'm happy to have him on board though. It's about time I had someone who can heal on my team.

Fixed that for you. (Also, the way you phrased that, you wouldn't happen to be aware of the traditional song that's sung at AGDQ when this game shows up there?) But anyway, Banjo-Kazooie is easily one of the N64 greats, even if I do prefer Tooie in almost every regard. And it's great that a new generation of Nintendo players have discovered the game thanks to the one-two combo of Smash Ultimate and NSO. It's a very special game.

Banjo-Kazooie NA release: 29th June 1998 PAL release: 17th July 1998 JP release: 6th December 1998 Developer: Rare Publisher: Nintendo N64 Magazine Score: 90% Banjo-Kazooie is possibly my favourite game, something I utterly love. I play it around Christmas every year and never get tired of it. But why is this? What makes Banjo-Kazooie such a lovable game to play? For starters, Banjo-Kazooie has a lot of character, from Banjo-Kazooie themselves to the worlds, settings and music. Even characters like Colliwobble (a giant cauliflower with googly eyes) has a magical style and charm to it. I think it’s Rare’s love for googly eyes, so much stuff has it, including boulders, blocks of ice and boxes of TNT. The world of Banjo-Kazooie is just alive in a joyful way. Then you have the heroes Banjo and Kazooie. Banjo is a fairly straight character. For the most part he’s kind and gentle and wants to do good. If he was completely on his own, he may be a bit bland, but luckily his trust friend Kazooie lives in his backpack. Kazooie is rude, sassy and will mock anything. Together, it makes for great banter between them and other characters. And all dialogue is text with grunts, which helps make their world remain unique. I really hope any (if there are any) future games keep this as I’m not sure how I’d feel about proper voice acting. Banjo-Kazooie is a 3D collect-a-thon platformer, which doesn’t go overboard on its collectibles. Banjo and Kazooie have a lot of moves crammed onto a controller, but they all work really well. There are some slight niggles, like trying to change the camera while aiming an egg can activate your golden feathers, but the platforming itself feels extremely precise, with any missed jumps never feeling like the game’s fault. The camera also functions fine for the most part, but there’s a couple of areas with some forced angles that don’t work, such as the path to Mad Monster Mansion which is a narrow walkway that can be difficult to see. There are 9 worlds in Banjo-Kazooie. These each have 10 jiggies to collect, 100 notes, two honeycomb pieces (which increase your health). One jiggy in every level will be finding all five Jinjos hidden in each level. The levels will be considered small by today’s standards, but I think that they are ideal. It’s a size where you can search for everything without tedium or growing tired of it. Each world has its own charm. Mumbo’s Mountain is a great introductory world. It’s a great introduction to how jiggies are hidden. Some are out in the open, some given to you by characters, some by activating switches and some by smashing things or just trying to shoot eggs into any hole you find. It sets you up for handling the later levels. It also introduces the important Talon Trot move, which allows you to use Kazooie’s legs to traverse steep slopes, and the layout of the level encourages heavy use. Also here is the first Mumbo Skull. Enter here and you’ll find the crazy shaman Mumbo Jumbo. If you’ve found enough Mumbo tokens, he’ll cast a spell on you and you’ll turn into a termite. These transformations are another wonderful thing about Banjo-Kazooie. They’re not in every level so aren’t overused, but they turn you into different animals (or objects), which is required for certain jiggies. They’re all wonderful to use and are simply a joyous thing to have in the game. After Mumbo’s Mountain, we get Treasure Trove Cove, a beach level filled with crabs. Mambo’s Mountain also introduces you to a pound attack (using Kazooie’s beak), which is used here for enemies and tasks. Flying is also introduced, as Kazooie can use red feathers to fly around the map. Treasure Trove Cove is quite open, with a jiggy that encourages flying around it. There’s also a very scary shark in the water. It’s a really wonderful level. Next up is the weakest part of Banjo-Kazooie: Clanker’s Cavern. It’s a murky underwater level, and looks fairly dull. I do like Clanker – a big whale that has been turned into a horrifying trash disposal monster, but is actually a nice but depressed individual, but there’s a lot of swimming in this level, including a very deep dive that terrified me as a kid. That said, I grow more and more fond of the level each time I play the game. Bubblegloop Swamp swiftly returns to form, especially because of adorable crocodile Banjo. This level is split up into segments, and then croc Banjo can traverse new areas, including a fairly difficult minigame with Mr Vile, sneaky crocodile (although a move from a later level can make this easier if you wish). Then the wonderful wintery world of Freezeezy Peak, a level revolving around a giant snowman. One slight niggle for me with this is that you can’t finish the level initially, so I’d recommend a quick trip into the next level to grab the speed trainers, but it’s only a minor hassle. In Freezeezy Peak you get to climb the giant snowman’s scarf, have aerial fights with aggressive smaller snowmen, turn into a Walrus and take part in races – WAHEEEY! From the snow straight to the sand of Gobi’s Valley. This is one of the more challenging levels, with pyramids, temples and sphinxes holding challenges you need to complete. One of these requires a perfect run with the speed boots, and still takes me multiple attempts each playthrough. That said, there is still a load of fun and charm. Up next is for some halloween fun in Mad Monster Mansion, a haunted house and grounds. Initially, I found this level to be incredibly daunting, but traversal isn’t as difficult as initially seems, and getting around the level is quite fun. There’s lots of rooms to explore and even a toilet to explore. Brilliantly, the toilet itself is also a character called Loggo. Oh, one thing I forgot to mention is that Banjo-Kazooie loves puns. Some people may pretend to groan at puns, but everyone loves them. Rusty Bucket Bay is the penultimate level, with some very tough challenges. The water in this level drains your air much faster than previous levels, so even though there’s a lot of water, you only spend small stints in it. There’s lots of hidden rooms to find, with some fun and cute details hidden in them. The transformation in this level is also super adorable. And last is the seasonal Click Clock Wood. This is split into four “sections” that you open up over time, each is the whole world in a different season, and some jiggies require doing parts in each season, although if you fully explore each season before moving on, you don’t have to go back and forth. It’s lovely to see all the changes throughout the seasons. Connecting these together is Grunty’s tower. Grunty is an evil witch who wants to make herself beautiful (by stealing the beauty from Banjo’s sister, Tooty, who became a staple of all future Banjo games…either that or she was relegated to a missing person’s poster and forgotten about). You explore the tower, finding jigsaws to fill in with the jiggy pieces you collect to open the main worlds. There are also 10 jiggies hidden here, which require you to hit a switch in each level to reveal (except for one, which is given to you at the start of the game). And once you get past all the levels and go to defeat Gunty, it doesn’t go straight into a boss battle (that comes later), instead you have to complete Grunty’s Furnace Fun, a trivia board game where you have to answer questions about the game (or complete some mini games from previous levels). These questions could be about Grunty herself, pictures of places in levels to identify, trivia about characters or identifying sound and music. Music. That’s a very important part of what makes Banjo-Kazooie work. Composer Grant Kirkhope did an absolutely phenomenal job of creating some tunes that you will be humming for the rest of your lives. They also work with the levels extremely well, adding to the magical experience. The music will also vary slightly based on different locations of each level or going underwater, all with perfectly smooth transitions between them. The music to Banjo-Kazooie is simply heaven for your ears, and will put a smile on your face for the entirety of your playthrough. Even other people in your house will start humming the tunes. Replaying Banjo-Kazooie takes between 6 and 10 hours, although this will be a lot longer the first time. It’s a great length for annual revisits and is an extremely well-contained piece of media. You can follow it by its sequel, Banjo-Tooie (as I do every few years), but it works extremely well on its own. The entirety of the game is just full of joy, accompanied by very happy tunes and a sense that everyone working on the game was enjoying themselves. There are two versions of this game, the original on N64 and a remaster version on Xbox. I highly recommend the Xbox version, as the better controller design helps a lot, and the widescreen HD image is much nicer to see. The main other difference between the two is that the Xbox version is easier, as it saves what notes you have collected. In the original, you need to collect all 100 in one go, which I believe was mainly due to memory limits on the N64 and not the original intention. Banjo-Kazooie is my perfect game. Remake or remaster? The Xbox remaster is pretty great, although releasing on more platforms and a few fixes and refinements would be great. Official ways to get the game. Banjo-Kazooie is available on Xbox One/Series and is included in Rare Replay. You can also rent it on Switch via Nintendo Switch Online Re-releases 2008: Xbox Live Arcade 2015: Rare Replay 2023: Nintendo Switch Online (Subscription Only)

Great games, my only win came from the guy that destroys the world. And fun impromptu final match was fun.

So, I hit a massive difficulty spike earlier this afternoon. I figured I must have wandered off the correct path but that wasn't the case at all. A quick search on the internet and this was indeed the correct way and it was a difficulty spike that many players before me encountered. Simple level grinding wasn't going to cut it and so I decided to learn all about the SP skills that @Glen-i mentioned when playing the second game. Once I got to grips with these skills I completely broke the game. There's a skill that allows you to make exp cards that give you double experience points after a battle. There's then a skill that gives you the ability to replicate items, these cards included. Next, there's an ability that allows you to improve/create your own weapons. Finally, another ability is available that gives you the opportunity to fight a super boss at any point in the game. Linking all of these things together gave me some fantastic results. I created two of the best swords in the game. These deal critical hits and also cause the enemy to be dazed. Having these on 2 characters was the first step. Next, I created the experience boosting cards and replicated a whole bunch of them. This took a while as its down to RNG and so a bit of reloading of the game was required but totally worth it. After that, I summoned the super boss, used a card and then proceeded to beat the Hell out of it with my new weapons. The amount of experience I get from the fights in the area I'm in usually give around 1000-1500. This gave me... It took around 3 hours of prep to get everything in order but the results have been worth it. I jumped from level 37 to 80+ in the space of half an hour of battling. I got an exp farm on tap. Love it. With Glen doing something similar in the sequel, it must be a common thing in this series.

Wave Race: Blue Storm HD would make it extremely wet 🌊

Correction @Glen-i, it's called Great and Big.

I think that's literally what I called it too!

Got a heads-up on the theme from Glen-i, enabling me to create an appropriate custom stage for tonight. It's a pretty simple one, yet I somehow managed to crash stage builder while making it! However, this also led to an incredible new gimmick discovery (I'm talking cannon graveyard level silliness ) but I'm going to hold it back for another build and to do some more tweaking, so you won't be seeing that tonight. If all goes to plan though... Mwahahahaaaa!!!! Anyway, see you later for some "all-star" battles.

That's literally what he does! Cracked up laughing when he reached into that pouch and pulled out that comically massive sword! Laughed even more when other characters asked "How the hell did he fit that in there!?"

Oh wait, the weapon names get carried over? Welp, guess Garoo will be swinging "Big and Large" for a bit longer.

Put some more time into Star Ocean this morning. Found this area in my current location. It's a statue that heals everyone with unlimited uses. This means for the next hour I'll be walking around in a circle, getting into random battles and farming XP. I started at level 21 (currently level 24) and will probably stick around until everyone is level 30. I picked up my first extra character. Dude is called Ashlay and he seems decent enough. High attack power and high HP...my kinda team member. I love the character expression when they get hit during battle. They are hilarious. They give the game a bit of personality. Speaking of the battles, the enemy AI is quite clever. Despite being overlevelled, things can still go south for me quite quickly if the enemy manages to surround me/get me in a pincer attack. I always have to keep an eye on my positioning.

It's mostly these. Granted, the Switch has allowed me to play way more of them compared to the WiiU days, but there are still a decent amount of games that only release on PC there.

Oh wow! Haven’t heard of this one before. Looks quite cool and fairly robust for the time! Pretty early attempt in the “Maker” genre too. Surprisingly ahead of its time. I can see why this never made it out of Japan, what with the traditional shooter being a dying/dead genre by this time outside of Japan, but it’s still a shame that it didn’t get the chance to garner a wider audience.

Dezaemon 3D JP release: 26th June 1998 NA release: N/A PAL release: N/A Developer: Athena Publisher: Athena N64 Magazine Score: 82% For the N64’s first sci-fi scrolling shooter, this is a bit of an odd one, as it isn’t a specific game, but rather a creation kit for making you own sci-fi shoot-’em’-up game. The software itself is quite complicated and isn’t easy to use, even with a translated manual and Google Lens – although I don’t think it’s the game’s fault. There is a whole host of editing features, you can modify textures, modify models, modify the level layouts with effects and enemies and even design your own music. There are a bunch if icons and I imagine you can do a fair amount with it once you got used to how it worked. The best I could do was do was some kind of takeaway food (the model is already in the game) shooting above water that moves around in waves. I did try to do a bit more, but I somehow accidentally reset all the custom data. Dezaemon 3D does come with a couple of built in games, presumably made using the creation software of the game as examples of what you can do. This is a vertical scrolling shooter and near the start you come across a boss and an immense amount of bullets, but the detail is quite impressive. The second game changes viewpoint depending on what stage you’re on, with a top down view on stage one and a side view on stage 2. This is rather fascinating software, and it seems like it could do a lot. Remake or remaster? I don’t really know enough about games creation software to see how this sits now of if there’s anything similar available. Official ways to get the game. There is no official way to get Dezamon 3D

That’s Falcon Mk2 unlocked! Just Fighting Comet left to go now…

My adventure begins. Loving the pixel graphics. Only put a few hours into it but it's been a fun experience so far. Found a nice area to grind levels in and so done plenty of XP farming for a while. Early story seems intriguing. Looks like theres going to be some time travel shenanigans going on.

Baby girl #2 due on Monday..! We're both wishing she were here already given how tough a pregnancy it's been. I'll have even less time to visit NE!

I've been watching the new Fallout series on Amazon and it's pretty good. I think its on of the best shows i've seen in a while. I know next to nothing about the games, as I've only played Fallout 3 for about all of half an hour. So I'd say its worth watching even if you know nothing about games series, as it stands on its own feet

There's a beta test for the newest INAZUMA ELEVEN if anyone's interested: https://www.n-europe.com/news/inazuma-eleven-victory-road-worldwide-beta-test-demo-available-now/