Glen-i

Player's Choice tonight at 8pm.

So, no change from playing it with me there then.

Oh good, I don't have to be the nerdy guy who has to correct @Dcubed Specifically, Oracle of Ages. Seasons doesn't have the N64 style Zoras in it.

Anyway, here's a bunch of games I played for the first time. The Legend of Starfy (Densetsu no Stafy) games are 3 platformers for the GBA that only released in Japan back in 2002-2004. They were recently added to the GBA NSO app in all regions, although all the text is still in Japanese. The game follows Starfy, who is neither a star, nor a starfish. He lives up in a floating castle in the sky, but he tends to have the unfortunate tendency to fall from the sky, right into the ocean below. In the ocean, an evil sea slug called Ogura is doing... evil stuff? No idea. Can't read Japanese, I assume that's what's going on. This series is interesting, the majority of the games take place underwater. It sounds awful, but Starfy somehow is more nimble in water then he is on land, so swimming around is very snappy and fun. Also, discount Koopas! Despite the amount of text the games have, you don't really need to know Japanese to get through it... Almost... The first game's tutorials show some buttons, but it's not always clear what it means (The later games have visual demonstrations of these, so it's much better there), and the second game had a couple of puzzles where you needed context from a conversation, so I had to look up a guide for that. Despite that, the games are great, relatively simple to get to the credits, but going for 100% in the two sequels is interesting as the number of levels suddenly doubles, and some of them get quite tough. Shout out to the secret final boss in the third game, which I died to about 20 times, it's a comical difficulty spike that would make modern Kirby games proud Anyway, they're very good games, but if you only play one of them, play the third one, that one is excellent!

OK, I just have to share this. I beat it, barely. For context's sake, that enemy only appears in this room, and in the Pixel Remaster, it's a 1 in 100 chance! Incredibly unlucky! No wonder I lost Mario Party last night. EDIT: There we go, I killed Chaos. Because of that (un)lucky Warmech encounter, I ended up getting 100% bestiary by complete accident. Kinda obligated to do the same on the other five Pixel Remasters here now... Warmech is the rarest encounter in all 6 games, it'd be a waste not to!

Funnily enough, that's a perfect visual metaphor for what Mother 3's plot does to Lucas. That's not a visual metaphor, but it is sick. Anyway, Stamina matches tonight from 8pm.

I think that's it? I never finished Octo Expansion because I get bored with Splatoon. Something about getting all the Mem cakes without asking for help, doing the escape levels without skipping them, and then going back to Locker #8. Whatever that means...

Did you finish everything? I've heard proper horror stories about a particular thing about Octo Expansion...

He did it, he won a game in Mario Party 1! I've said it before, Mario Party 1's Warp Block is an absolute menace! It showed up 6 times today! It wasn't once helpful to the person who had to use it! But @Dcubed's unfortunate moment above was the beginning of his downfall. It all went wrong for him after that.

Right, Mario Party is go! Which one? That's for me to know and you to find out at the last minute! @S.C.G, and @BowserBasher, you in for 8:30?

That's the beautiful thing about it. The environment of Four Swords is so volatile, and pressurising, that everyone will inevitably do something completely dumb!

*Sharp inhale* DUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE! Now that that's out of my system. I'm legit surprised this is the first Pokémon game GBA NSO is getting, because well, it's got an (amazing) remake on Switch already. But if it means el cheapos out there get to play it, that's fine by me. It's by no means the best PMD game, but it's still good, and it's got a better plot then pretty much every mainline Pokémon game (@Hero-of-Time can back me up on that). Word of advice. Cubone is the best starter Pokémon, try and game the personality quiz if you want to be all-powerful. It learns Bonemerang, which is utterly busted in Mystery Dungeon. And if you don't want Cubone, then for the love of unexepected Lucario cameo, don't pick a Normal type like Eevee or Skitty! And if you die, but don't want to lose your items, ask for a rescue. I'll do so anytime, don't even need to be online for it! Oh, and don't mess with the Kecleons, because the Kecleons do not play nice.

Four Swords is the kind of game that can easily make everyone playing look completely idiotic.

OK, what is this conspiracy with all the non-Mii players picking Inkling? Is there a second voice chat group I'm not aware of?

It's set on Isle Delfino! You don't get much more tropical than that! And also, have you been living in London the past few days!?

It's bloody hot! So let's race on the hottest tracks the game has to offer. See you at 8pm.

That's a weird thing to say. Because a lot of said features were implemented in some way in the mainline games. Obviously, seeing battles in 3D is a given these days, but the other stuff was there at some point. The Stadium and Gym Leader Castle modes were merged together in Generation 5 in the form of the PWT (Pokémon World Tournament). A knockout tourney that restricted you to 3 level 50 Pokémon as you face off against every Gym Leader and Champion to date. Hell, the idea of fights against AI with excellent teams dates as far back as the Game Boy Colour with Crystal's Battle Tower. Even minigames that feature your Pokémon were in the DS remakes of Gold and Silver in the Pokéathelon. A series of touch screen action-based games you could play with friends. That said, the irony here is that all those neat things the mainline series got from Stadium have been slowly phased out over time. Even the main Stadium mode replacement (Battle Tower) didn't show up in the latest games. And that bums me out.

The Japanese logo for both games even has that whole "Japanese letter looks like a horse" thing going on.

First things first. I was surprised how much time I still had left to work with here. 100% in less then 2 hours sounds really hard, but studious use of reloading your save if you mess up too much makes it more then do-able. Ironically, because I went back to a previous save a fair bit (Damn that Ridley Missile Tank where you have to race a chain of destructible blocks, even with all the upgrades, that one is hard, and don't even get me started on the last Energy Tank!), this took me longer then my previous playthrough. Gotta take it slow to go fast. Anyway, I'm attempting a 15% run now. Stuck on Mother Brain. Speaking of Mother Brain! Super Metorid Redux is a ROM Hack of classic SNES game, Super Metroid. It aims to bring the mechanics closer to how Metorid games on the GBA play, with heavier jump physics, as well as just general improvements seen in those games, plus a few other things. I love Super Metroid, but I do so despite the floaty jumps, awkward weapon switching, and Space Jump that decides to not work at random times. This mod fixes those issues. Jumping has that same snappiness from the GBA games. Missiles are fired by holding R, then firing. Power Bombs don't need to be selected, just morph ball, then fire a missile. X-Ray Scope has it's own dedicated button, which means you only need to use the select button to swap between three things (Missiles, Supers, and Grapple Beam). It all comes together to elevate the original game even higher. Yes, it makes it easier, but if it means I don't randomly drop a Space Jump for the millionth time, I'm fine with that. BTW, my time for this was 2 hours, 37 minutes, 39 seconds, and I got 77%.

OK, this is neat. The Switch version lets you have a two screen display when playing undocked, much like one of those cocktail tables with an arcade machine built in. 1:40 if the timestamp doesn't work It's completely pointless, but very cool, regardless.

Stock matches tonight from 8pm.

Not even Wii Sports?

Yup, in the SNES version. They fixed it in the GBA version.

Legit, this is the first time I've been even remotely interested in a Gran Turismo game. If the developers had any sense of fun, they'd make this an "Ascended Glitch" and turn into a toggable feature!

You say that, but Lil Gator Game exists. So the impossible can be done.