Glen-i

Dynamax Adventures is the best thing about the DLC, to be frank. It's the kind of thing you'd see in the Battle Frontier, which makes it a lot of fun for me.

Make's Mario Odyssey's Darker Side look like complete cake in comparison, huh? Given that Peach is now as fast as Toad was in the original version, she's easily the best choice for tackling that level.

As far as I'm concerned, it's likely due to the fact that I'm just not used to being able to plonk furniture down wherever I like. It still feels foreign to me.

That's kinda how I knew it was "ark" all along. Because there is no chance in hell that someone would suggest a name and the English localisation willingly go with something that sounds like arse. If it was pronounced like that, the English version would've had a different name. It's similar to Mario 64's stupid debate about whether Mario says "So long, Gay Bowser" when he chucks him. It doesn't matter if that's what it sounds like, it can't be that because there's no way in hell that 90's Nintendo of all people would've OK'd that.

This is Gaming Questions That Don't Matter. My probably futile journey to make sense of all the gaming mysteries that hound me constantly. Some people would tell me to reassess my priorities. I stick my fingers in my ears and shout "LA LA LA! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" This week, we finally look into the Metroid series, one woman's obsessive desire to blow up every planet that isn't hers, and sometimes a space station, just for variety. But we're going to mostly ignore her and focus on Smash Ultimate's prettiest newcomer. I mean, I wouldn't say no. Mostly because I value my life. Before I air my grievances, I'll give a quick lowdown of Ridley's poor life choices. Metroid had Ridley stand in Samus' way when she was trying to exterminate Metroids on Zebes. He got blown up. Metroid 2 didn't have Ridley in it, so let's ignore that. Super Metroid had Ridley come back from nowhere, nick a baby Metroid and do a runner. He got blown up anyway. Now, at the time, we just overlooked Ridley's sudden appearance in Super Metroid. Because it was just a fun game and Metroid lore was basically non-existant. Being killed in a horrible way never stopped Bowser anyhow. But then Metroid Prime happened. A game set in between Metroid and Metroid 2. Ridley's in this one too, except he looks a little different. Simply put, Ridley getting blown up meant that the Space Pirates had to give him some cybernetic enhancements to replace the many bits he lost post explosion. It makes a lot of sense, really. It was a cool way to have Ridley show up in your game in a believeable way. Shame they never really thought about what happens after Metroid Prime... To this day, Ridley's transition from Meta Ridley back to organic Ridley in Super Metroid makes absolutely no sense. No game ever tries to explain why this happens and it bugs way more than it probably should. (Believe me, I've read every Space Pirate Log in all 3 Prime games, absolute zilch) So, how did Ridley regain his organic body? It's a more open question, so no poll this time.

Yeah, I should clarify that I don't necessarily find these changes bad. It's just something I couldn't help noticing after the 3DS entries. That said, when you're in a town, there'll be a blue speech bubble above those who have a side quest and once accepted, the game will then put markers on the map telling you where to go. (These can be turned off, if you want) EDIT: Oh right, the Thief asterisk fight kinda kicked my butt last night. So he has a chance of countering attacks? OK, I can deal with that. Oh wait, did he just counter me because I healed a party member? And he counters with a painful HP stealing move!? That's just mean. I'm sorry... Did he just counter me because I used Default!? And he stole my BP this time!? Holy hell, this is Chapter 1 and it's utterly brutal! Real talk though, every asterisk seems to have counters and it's getting kinda annoying to deal with. It's like everyone is the Swordmaster Job from the first game!

Not me, I've known for sure ever since Pokedex 3D Pro with it's narrator shouting the name of every Pokémon. That app will shock you with how some names are pronounced.

Holy crap! How long have you been keeping that life hack to yourself!?

See, I look at that, and it looks like an utter nightmare to traverse. Remember Lumiose City in X/Y? No-one wants that again.

Is it just me playing this at the mo? I have to give credit to Bravely Default II's character designer for having the nerve to shove a man in his 40's into your typical 18 year old JRPG party. And then double credit to the localisation team for making him Scottish! And not a slight hint of Scottish. Thick heavy accent Scottish! If Elvis interrupts a conversation and starts talking about why Scotland should go independent, I wouldn't question it for a second. It honestly feels like he was meant to audition for some BBC drama and accidentally went into the wrong building. And it's amazing! Anyway, time for some weird things I noticed. Keep in mind that I didn't touch the second demo because it wasn't a separate scenario like the first, so I might be stating things everyone else noticed ages ago. - They actually kept the fetch quests in the final game? That's disappointing, the 3DS games had nothing of the sort. - It's also weird that the world map doesn't let me know when a side quest becomes available, I'm finding myself going back to previous towns because I'm worried I'll miss something. - Why do the dungeons no longer have some kind of map? There was definitely one in the first demo, that's baffling. - Boy, Black and White Mages got done dirty in this game. Their spell repertoire seems to be far smaller than previous games! - Speaking of old jobs. I think I've got the replacement for Performer and a song like "My Hero" isn't there. I might not be able to do my hilariously busted "Double Shield BP Factory" tactic anymore. Apart from that, it's great. The battles are still fun and the asterisk holders still have those deep strategies that force you to adapt or die horribly.

Well, that's on you. But I will say after my first playthrough of Undertale, my view of it was strikingly similar to yours.

Oh, that's easy. Nomura is an utter nutter! You let him loose and you're gonna get crazy.

See that @Hero-of-Time took the easy way out when it came to Undertale. You monster.

Wait what!? Game ruined! Might as well move on! Snap without some form of Charmander Pinball is just not worth bothering with!

Man, PC crossplay would be amazing on this! Which is why it's not gonna happen. I bought one of those 2-game voucher things, before realising that MH Rise isn't actually covered by it... Woopsies! I'm so used to Nintendo having some part in publishing the series that I just took it for granted. It's fine though, I got Bravely Default and 3D World instead.

My issue here is not that it's switching it up, (I mean, the fact that I like Paper Mario: Colour Splash and the original should be testament to that) is that it's changing from something that barely any other gaming franchise provides into something that you see all over the place these days, a big massive world for you to explore that has barely any direction or urgency. It's a case of jumping on the bandwagon and it's just so uninspiring. And to reiterate a point I keep on making, open-world games are just so. Damn. Boring. Skyrim, Xenoblade Chronicles X, Breath of the Wild. I played all three and they're just so mind-numbingly dull. Walk somewhere for an hour desperately looking for something interesting while periodically getting hounded by enemies that you've long since stopped bothering with because it's just not worth the effort anymore. I started Bravely Default II yesterday and it felt so good to leave a town and go for a 10 second run towards the place I needed to go. A dungeon, that's not too big, but still has a few optional routes to go down if I so choose, while I take part in some solid turn-based battles. And then there was a boss at the end where I had to take my setup and see if it worked against what they threw at me. That took me around half an hour, you'd be really lucky to finish the first shrine in BotW in that time. Now, I'm not like @Dcubed there. I think he's overreacting and I don't think traditional Pokémon is dead, so to speak. But I just don't buy that it's somehow ambitious to blatantly ape what's the in thing these days. Especially when your series has carved itself a niche that no-one else is willing to fill.

I'm not going to get into all the gradual changes to the mechanics over each entry, because I already made a thread ages ago doing just that. If you think all Pokémon games are the same, then there's no point in trying to say otherwise.

There's one key difference between Star Fox and Pokémon Snap though. Star Fox encourages you to shoot as many things as possible in one run. The more, the better. Pokémon Snap's scoring system is categorised by Pokémon. You try snapping everything in one go and you'll probably end up with a bunch of mediocre pictures. It's far better to have one Pikachu pic be worth 5,000 points than 20 different Pokémon worth 1,000. The idea is to experiment with multiple runs and see how different Pokémon can be manipulated to get the shot you're aiming for. (Fits the frame, nice and big, in the center, facing you, doing something interesting)

Ooooh, yay... Old games! Old mechanics! Exciting! I could far easily suggest the hundreds of recent open-world games for you to play instead. I could throw a rock and I'll probably hit one somehow. Meanwhile, the only Pokémon-like games I can think of for Switch are Sword/Shield, Nexomon Extinction (which was surprisingly good) and the upcoming Pearl/Diamond remakes. Pokémon has dominated that market for so long that no-one dares attempt to compete with them. Well, apart for the occasional Dragon Quest Monsters games, but good luck getting those outside of Japan! EDIT: BTW, you know why they chose Cyndaquil as the fire starter? Because all the fire starters don't fit into a Feudal Japan setting at all. Cyndaquil's only there because they wanted a Gen 2 starter. How do I know this? Because you can't get the starters from Gen 2, Gen 5 and Gen 7 in Sword/Shield, even with the DLC. They planned that trio for a while.

It's weird, ever since I got my first dose, I've been slightly looking forward to April where I'll get my second, despite hating needles. My guess is it's a feeling of actual progress happening.

We don't really. It has almost none of the trappings of a new generation. (New Pokémon and a new region being the big two) Hell, we don't even know if battles will be the same! @Serebii is listing it as a Gen VIII game and I'm inclined to agree with him until more info comes out.

I don't think there's anything wrong with outsourcing to a small studio to work on something like this. And it's worth keeping that in mind. This is an even smaller studio then Game Freak. Anyone expecting a massive budget game from this is only setting themselves up for disappointment.

I don't want them to go this route though, because Pokémon fills a niche for Monster Collecting style RPG's, if they stopped doing that, what is there for those people who actually like that kind of game?

Yeah, I noticed that in the listings as well. My first thought was "Wow, they're still making that show?" And then I saw an advert for it and immediately thought "Wow, she's still doing that role!?" That's some proper commitment! I was totally expecting a "Home Alone 3" and Tracy Beaker to be recast. A lot of kids shows made these days are chock full of quick cuts and lightning pace. The optimist in me would say that this is due to the more affordable costs of programme making compared to the 90's. The pessimistic side of me would say that they're trying to ape the editing style of your average YouTube personality who won't stop cutting between every sentence! It's probably both.