Glen-i

I'm sorry, I didn't realise I put on Mario Party 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1! It doesn't look like it there, but it really was anyone's game in the last 5 turns. A rarity in Mario Party, it normally ends up between 2 people, sometimes 3. All 4 players though? Insanity. He absolutely didn't deserve it. His first star was a bloody hidden block, and he gambled 80+ coins purely to bankrupt @BowserBasher for no actual benefit to himself. He had over 160 coins, he was golden for the coin star. You can probably tell from BowserBasher's coin count how that turned out... No-one felt sorry for @Dcubed there. In hindsight, I no longer felt bad that this happened anymore.

You would be correct, that's precisely where I shifted to.

Just a heads up for @S.C.G and @BowserBasher. I consulted the dice, and they have decreed that we shall play Creepy Cavern on Mario Party 3 tonight.

Yeeeah. Finally pulled the plug on my Twitter account after that. I'd been putting it off hoping this forum software would update to allow embeds from alternatives, but I'd rather deal with no embeds then being there any longer. Actual insanity.

Fatal Fury 2 is a cool get. NSO really lacks an Arcade style fighter, so it's very neat to have one of the bigger names there, relatively speaking. Obviously, not the biggest, but, well, big enough to be in Smash. indieszero is one of those devs that most people don't realise they've played at least one game of. Mario Party e, of all things was the first game of theirs I've played. With that in mind, Theatrhythm: Final Bar Line is an absolute delight, and you'd really like it, a genuine history trip disguised as an excellent rhythm game/RPG mish-mash. The 3DS entry made Nobou Uematsu cry through pure memories.

Can't say this is PlatinumGames' forté, but we'll have to see.

Was more interested when I was under the impression it all had that stop-motion look to it, but seeing Hazel move around so fuidly just looks jarring compared to the enemies.

Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia is the third Castlevania game that was released on the Nintendo DS. It's an action adventure game that released in 2009. Like the other DS games, I played this on the Castlevania Dominus Collection. Shanoa is a member of Ecclesia, a group of people looking into ways to kill Dracula because the typical Vampire Killer Family, the Belmonts, have been missing for quite a while now. A breakthrough has come in the development of the Dominus Glyph, a magic symbol that can kill Dracula. Sweet! It requires intense training, mind, and that's what Shanoa has been doing. Unfortunately, fellow Ecclesia member, Albus throws a hissy fit because he didn't get to have the Dominus Glyph, and steals it. His particularly bad timing almost kills Shanoa, and it erases her memories and emotions. So Shanoa has to go get Dominus back, with only basic training in the usage of glyphs. Easy, right? Surely, after 3 different Castlevania games I've written about, you get how the basics work at this point. Order of Ecclesia differentiates itself mostly by the glyphs. Shanoa doesn't use weapons, per se, all of her offensive capabilities come from these magic symbols tattooed on her body. You can find these around the world, as well as from certain enemies. It's sort of similar to how Soma gets abilities in the "of Sorrow" games. However, Shanoa can equip multiple abilities at once, allowing you to mix and match for combo potential. Because pretty much everything Shanoa can do is done through Glyphs, everything uses MP, even standard weapon attacks. This sounds awful, but she recovers MP a whole lot faster then the previous games, so it's effectively a stamina meter. This means that magic spells are just as viable as normal attacks (No standing still to use spells helps as well). It all makes the combat super satisfying. Which is a good thing, because the actual level design is a bit of a downgrade. Ehhh, that's more effective in Vampire Survivors... It's fine, but it's really obvious that the game reuses rooms a lot to pad out the world. It's actually kind of ridiculous how much this happens. One particular area right at the end of the game was particularly greivous. No exaggeration, there's one point where you go through the same room layout three times in succession. It's a real shame, because if it wasn't like this, it could've been better then Dawn of Sorrow! Bosses are great, though. Nothing new there, there was even one particular moment, where I accidentally killed a boss with something that doesn't actually do damage. Music is really great, by the way. Probably my favourite soundtrack in Castlevania, I can see why Vampire Survivors used a lot of music from this game now. The game doesn't let me doodle a Kecleon... So hooray! I've beaten every DS Castlevania game now (plus a GBA one). A sight better then this time last year, when I hadn't finished a single one. Here's how I would rank them. Dawn of Sorrow > Order of Ecclesia > Portrait of Ruin

Player's Choice tonight at 8pm.

Monty Mole is playable in two games and now he's series standards? You realise that makes Ninji just as standard, right?

Yes, it is. Doesn't actually spoil much in the base game, which is probably why it was available separately, while the other games extra scenarios aren't.

Ehhh... You're basically asking me if I'd rather be bored or folding into myself out of pure cringe. 2 has some neat gameplay, but it's also got some real low lows. There's some irritating road blocks when it comes to exploration, it takes a very long time for the great combat to actually become great, it runs like an absolute dog, and the plot is just embarrassing, even if it does have a cool payoff. Switch 2 should be able to alleviate the graphics and performance, but it can't fix everything else. I'd still pick 2 over X, but honestly? Tempted to recommend that you just watch a story recap for 2 and go into 3, which is amazing! Although, if you can play Torna: The Golden Country, do so. Plot is a million times better then 2, and it's got the cool combat, and little of the chaff.

It's... Fine. Most notable thing about the character customisation is that Shulk's voice actor is one of the male options, which gave me a good laugh. As for the Skells? Eh. They're pretty rigid, no mix and matching. And as I said before, they're not created equal, so you'll likely end up with the same design as everyone else. Of course, this is going off of the WiiU version, they might have changed that. Xenoblade 1 on Switch let you choose what armour design the characters wear without affecting stats, so it's not impossible that they did this to the Skells.

One of the stretch goals for Mindwave is controller support, which has already been met. Not sure how that would work after watching @Dcubed play the demo (It's mad impressive, they nailed the WarioWare gameplay style), but it wouldn't surprise me if they had the Mouse-con features in mind making this.

I personally think expecting anything more then this for the vast majority of games is setting yourself up for disappointment. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is a good example. That will almost certainly run better through sheer brute force, but games that are hard coded to run at 30 frames aren't going to magically become 60. EDIT: Ah right, @Julius. Probably should clarify. Smash Ultimate already has an online arena. It lets up to 8 people get into one room, the host sets the rules, and people queue up to rotate into matches. People queueing up can even spectate. (Or sit in the "spectator stands" to only spectate matches). It's quite robust, but it only allows one person per console, which is my biggest beef with it.