Glen-i

Yeah, it's very much an "of its time" sort of thing. I can't imagine anyone finding it by themselves. It seems the developers of this remake agree, as there's a Gameplay Tip that hints at its existence, which I can't imagine was there in the SNES version. Anyway, I guess Imperial China is next up chronologically, so that's the one I'm doing next.

Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak is a MASSIVE EXPANSION to the Switch/PC game, Monster Hunter Rise. Much like the Iceborne expansion in the previous game, World, this adds a new "Master Rank" that becomes available for those who have already finished High Rank. New monsters, new subspecies of monsters, new attacks for old monsters, as well as a whole host of new mechanics and abilities for you to utilise, and of course, loads of armour and weapons to make. Normally, I'd write about a game once I had finished playing it, but well, it'll be ages before that happens, so now that I've seen the credits alongside @Mokong, I'm gonna do that now. And for the sake of not repeating myself, I'll just remind you all that Rise is my favourite Monster Hunter game to date. It's a game that wastes no time, has lots of fun movement options, and of course, the co-op aspect is top notch. So I'm gonna focus on the new stuff. After solving the problems with a certain monster in Kamura Village, your hunter gets recruited by the Knight's Order from a port town called Elgado. They have a problem, and guess what? It involves monsters. So you have to brush off your endgame high rank armour that will no doubt become obsolete very quickly and sort things out. It's basically an excuse for more Monster Hunter Rise, and that's fine by me. Also, Bayonetta is involved for some reason. Guess that's why the third game took so long. Yes, that's my hunter on the left. This MASSIVE EXPANSION introduces a decent amount of new monsters to Rise, whether it be returning ones like Astalos, or completely new ones, such as Malzeno (Probably my favourite new monster so far). It even has Espinas from Monster Hunter Frontier, making it the first time a monster from that rubbish MMO has gotten into a proper Monster Hunter game. The music for that monster is hilarious, BTW. One of the new mechanics is the "Switch Skill Swap", which lets you swap between two sets of Switch Skills (Equippable skills that alter your movesets). This lets you quickly swap what you can do to fit the situation. There's also another mechanic that shows up after the credits that adds a neat little twist to hunts which I more then welcome. Now, while the focus of this EXPANSION that is MASSIVE is on the multiplayer, there is some single player content as well. These come in the form of "Follower Quests" where you are accompanied by AI controlled hunters (Bayo above is one of them). Each of these AI hunters specialise in one aspect of hunting, so you can have a lot of variety depending on who you choose to bring with you. It's a cool little change to things that can make solo quests a little less lonely. These DLC expansions are effectively replacements for the rereleases of MH titles we saw in the past, and it's fine by me, seeing as they're cheaper, and don't involve having to repeat content from the base game. It's a welcome change. The only real criticism I have is that there's no kind of crossplay with the PC version, so I can't play with people who moved on to the PC version (Such as @RedShell). Don't get me wrong, I've very much enjoyed playing through the plot with Mokong, but more hunters is always better. (That might be a blessing in disguise, I've heard that a few people have started modding it to cheat recently, which ruins the fun for those who want to play legitimately) That PC version likely means we won't be getting any Nintendo based crossovers as well, which is a bit of a bummer. Yeah, more options for platforms is nice, but I'll miss running around in Samus' Power Suit. The quest name matches what's going on, I guess. Oh right, one of my dogs is Amaterasu from Okami, no big deal.

Finished Prehistory this morning. Would've done it sooner if I didn't run into a super powerful optional boss and grinded for that.

Stamina matches tonight at 8pm.

I'd rather multiplayer games take more of a cue from Smash Bros and it's DLC. Sure, it's paid, but it's justified in my eyes because so much effort goes into it. It also helps that Smash is a feature rich game at launch. Especially Ultimate. Which is why I'd be OK with a future port. Way too much awesome to leave behind next gen.

I don't think it was used in Switch Sports? Ring Fit uses it though.

Yep, that's what I'm doing too. Seems like the most logical way, even though I'm sure it doesn't matter. The complete absence of dialogue in Prehistory is an interesting thing to see in an RPG. Mad to think that this idea came about in 1994. I imagine the relatively short nature of the seven different stories helps with experimental ideas like that.

Got this pre-ordered. Legit more excited for this then Xenoblade and Pokémon! Team Asano's track record so far is just that good!

If it's anything like Shadows of Valentia, no penalty. But you only have a limited amount of uses per mission.

Player's Choice tonight at 8pm.

I've got a few games I need to add to my list, but it's almost midnight, and most of you already know what I think of them. So I'll just say that I completely spaced on Kirby and the Forgotten Land, a game that while absolutely solid, isn't even close to the best Kirby game ever like a lot of people seem to think. It is good, though. There's also Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge, which is the best TMNT game ever. Hell, it's a serious contender for best game of 2022! I'm not big on beat 'em ups, but this one is real special!

Honestly, given the other possibilities? It genuinely could be worse. Could also be a million times better, but still.

How do you mess up naming the coolest Donkey Kong game when the actual answer is so obvious!? After the past couple of days, I'm starting to think the Snowmads were the good guys in this game.

2008 was definitely long after the voice acting honeymoon period ended. To this day, I'm legit surprised that Ash has only ever appeared in 2 Pokémon games. It's surprising how separated the anime and games are.

Well, that's the thing, Nintendo owned the majority of Pokémon back then, they'd totally use the songs if they could. Key word there being "could". Pokémon Puzzle League is on a massive N64 cartridge, the biggest one available, if I'm remembering right. But that was still quite small compared to the discs that you'd see on PlayStation. Almost all that space is used on the couple of FMV's and voice clips. The actual soundtrack suffered as a result, giving the game those super budget MIDI tracks. It was almost certainly a mix of Pokémon suddenly exploding in popularity (PPL is a reskin of Panel De Pon 64, after all) and trying to capitalise on the wow factor of voice acting in games. It didn't matter how repetitive it was, any voice acting was basically a huge benefit to a game in the 90's.

OK, that was way too close on Dr. Mario VS Terry!

Oh wow! That Dedede finish was amazing!

Actually, it's not certain whether that's the case. Like, it's still doing crazy good, but not quite there... Yet.

Stock matches tonight at 8pm.

Ah, but you're not done yet. The proper final boss can only be fought on V. Hard or S. Hard. It's bloody impossible!

I got real confused when I saw the notification that I was mentioned in a thread I've never looked in before!

Well, they said it was coming in waves, so I expect more to come up in the future. I'll keep an eye out on Serebii's site.

Welp, that's me going from interested with Shining Force CD to wanting it with double Lunar.

As if they were going to end on a random drop of Pokémon Puzzle League. Speaking of, I've mentioned before how dreadful I am at these kind of puzzle games? Well, here's proof. Yes, I lost to Gary, the first Gary, on Easy. I owned the original game on the N64!

Spectator Badges are now available for purchase. They're £10 for each person. If you're interested, buy it before it's too late! https://www.pokemon.com/uk/play-pokemon/worlds/2022/registration/ I already got mine. EDIT: Oh right, I should give a shout to @Aperson, seeing as they've shown interest.