Glen-i

Well, silver lining I got is this beautiful story of a guy who used his Balatro skills to win at Poker. Nicked from Reddit

Christmas mod... But good enough!

Hey! No! That is not what determines a Christmas game! The setting has to be at or around Christmas, not whenever you fancy playing it. That's why Bayonetta 2 is a Christmas game.

True greatness takes time, and MS Paint. My insanity deserves a desktop! Anyway, I'll have you know I played 200 hours less then last year! Ugh, what are those weird icons at the top-middle? They don't exist on my Switch! Miitopia is a very grindy game... My Mii continues to be incorrect on the Nintendo website... Then again, they think that TOTK is an RPG, so this pie chart is useless Facinating, you can actually tell when I borrowed @Dcubed's Steam Deck! There's actually two games that came out this year that I'd rate higher, but they weren't on Switch. Still, it's a true GOTY contender, even if some farce won't acknowledge it. And now for my favourite part! How much do Nintendo not get me? Let's go through each of them, shall we? SMTV Vengeance - Kicking off with a big massive slap in the face right from the get go! I'm not stupid enough to pay for a game I've already played on the same console! Unless it's Pokémon, and that series hasn't pulled that trick in years! Nintendo World Championships - NES Edition - I guess this is one of my obligatory Nintendo picks? Not a terrible choice. Not super interested though. Stardew Valley - I don't care for farming sims. Unicorn Overlord - Ehhh... Not really sure. Strategy RPG's are a real crapshoot when it comes to my enjoyment. Probably the best suggestion here. Which is pretty sad. Persona 5 Royal - They recommended this to me last year too. It's not happening. Some crap open-world game Persona 4 Golden - Ah, so they're doubling down? Look, I don't know how much Atlus are paying you. I ain't playing Persona! Baten Kaitos I + II - If they could track me playing GC games, they'd know I tried the first game and didn't like it. Peglin - *shrug* No idea. CTR Nitro-Fueled - Didn't this have lootboxes at one point? I have some standards, thank you.

See, if it was like that, it wouldn't bother me so much. It's the blatant double standard we're seeing that annoys me so.

That's hilarious! I wonder if no-one here thought of asking that because they clearly played; - The original PS1 release. - The GameCube version I clearly don't count, because at this point, you've played this game longer then I have. Yes, the GameCube controller's D-Pad is absolute cack, but I imagine it gets away with it because of the Octagonal Gate it has. Seriously, Octagonal Gates on sticks should be the standard, it's so immensely helpful for countless situations, including games that weren't designed for Control Sticks.

Damn! You get me every time!

Player's Choice tonight at 8pm.

There we go, now they'll reveal the Switch 2.

Hilariously, there's an enemy in the post-game dungeon that gives double the amount of EXP that Liquid Metals do. A lot more common too. You can get three of them, too. Although, that might be a bit unlucky, because they're quite dangerous.

Looky looky! It's me again. Just finished another game 5 minutes ago at the time I'm typing this sentence. Spyro the Dragon is a 3D platformer that originally released on the PlayStation in 1998. That original version was developed by Insomniac Games. As you can probably guess from my above usage of a screenshot instead of box art, I played the remake that is part of the Spyro Reignited Trilogy. That remake is primarily developed by Toys for Bob and released on the PS4 and XBox One in 2018, before getting ported to the Switch and PC in 2019. I played the Switch version. Before I get started, a bit of context of me and my history with the Spyro series. It doesn't exist. I've never played a single Spyro game before this. It sounds mad that 8 year old me would not immediately jump at the chance at playing a 3D platformer where you play as a literal dragon, but I had tried some other PS1 platformers, such as Crash Bandicoot and Croc, and they were awful. 8 year old me had Mario 64 and Banjo-Kazooie only just came out, I was done with trying to find a good PS1 platformer. My stepbrother had this game, I never bothered with it. So yeah, I have no experience with the original game, keep that in mind. That's... oddly specific The game takes place in the "World of Dragons". Guess what? It's full of dragons! Where do they come up with these ideas? Two of these dragons are giving a TV interview where they explain some of the backstory. Gnasty Gnorc, leader of the Gnorc tribe was banished to live in a junkyard for... I'm not sure. It's not exactly clear. While they're explaining this, they can't help but get a bit arrogant, and start insulting him on camera. Gnasty Gnorc happens to be watching and doesn't take the insults well, so he uses a magic staff to trap every dragon in crystal statues. All from the comfort of his armchair. Well, every dragon except Spyro himself. I guess Gnasty draws the line at children. So it falls to Spyro to travel through all sorts of worlds, rescue the crystallised dragons, and recover the treasure hoard the Gnorcs somehow stole in the 15 seconds between the intro cutscene and gameplay. Now of course, this is an excuse plot. I understand that, but something struck me very quickly. These dragons basically rule this world, have a ridiculous amount of treasure hoarded that they don't share with anyone else, banish this Gnorc for arbitrary reasons, and then lord it over him in sheer arrogance. I kinda can't help but think the dragons kinda deserve this? Not Spyro himself, he was harassing sheep at the time. But because I'm playing as him, I have to rescue these dragons, and take back the treasure, which will no doubt be hoarded and not used (They are dragons, after all). To put it simply... This was only reinforced when I got to the final boss. The guy runs away from you! The poor dude's terrified of Spyro! And then after that, if you reach 100% completion, you get to loot him of the treasure he had before this all started. These dragons are jerks! Anyway, enough of me giving too much thought into this. Spyro the Dragon very much falls into the Banjo-Kazooie style of 3D Platformer. The game is split up into multiple levels and the goal is to collect gems and free the dragons. Reaching certain threshholds of each will open up more worlds to explore. Rinse and repeat until you get to the final boss. Spyro has a handful of abilities, apart from the ability to constantly pull the Dreamworks poster face all the time, he can spew out fire, charge forward for ramming attacks, and glide over long distances. That gliding maneuver in particular is quite important. Most of the time, you're looking for a high enough point to glide from to reach far-off places. The game is relatively easy to progress in, careful combing through each world will probably be good enough to beat it, but if you want to go for full completion, the difficulty curve starts to get a bit erratic. Now and again, you'll have to do a flying level. Because apparently Spyro can fly whenever he likes? No idea why he doesn't do it in all the other levels, but these flying levels play similarly to the All-Range Mode sections from Lylat Wars. You have to manuever Spyro around and fly through rings, and destroy targets. This wouldn't be so bad, if it wasn't for the fact that you have a time limit, and said time limit is insanely tight. You have to do all the objectives in one attempt to get every gem. It demands near perfection, which feels at odds with the rest of the game. I swear, the amount of times I had less then a second left... Also, shout out to that one time where the game suddenly becomes Metroid in how much it asks of the player. I honestly thought I had found some kind of unintended method of reaching that platform, but looking it up afterwards? No. That's how you're meant to do it! It's an insane difficulty jump. So much so, Spyro actually complains to the dragon there about how he got trapped in such a difficult place to reach, which got a laugh out of me after many failed attempts. Despite that. The game was good. Which is far better then my expectations were. I wouldn't go so far as to say it was great. It's a bit too simplistic and uneven to say that. But there's a good base here. I'm looking forward to see how the sequels build on this. Not straight away though, I've got other games to play. Don't wanna burn out. Now, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention this, but the developers of this remake, Toys For Bob, deserve immense credit for the exemplary work they did on this. The game looks gorgeous, and it runs pretty much perfectly on Switch. And it's not just a graphical upgrade. Apart from Spyro, all the dragons got a complete makeover, and it's a massive improvement. Same character There are around 70 of these dragons in the game. They only show up for about 5 seconds, spout a line, and are never seen again. I am so impressed at the dedication on show here. The artists who worked on this weren't paid enough. This is a fact. Not just character design. The music was redone as well, I don't think the music is all that in the first place, so the remastered soundtrack could only go so far. But the redone version has dynamic music, which the original game didn't have. I appreciate that kind of thing. There's also the option to have a map on screen, which is very helpful. It doesn't give away where things are, so it hits the balance just right. Add to that more obvious things like free camera movement, and some cool concept art to unlock, and this is an absolutely brilliant remake. Which only makes it an absolute travesty that Toys For Bob were soon sent to be a support team for Call of Duty. A humongous waste of talent. Anyway, here are my final stats. At the top of the screen there.

Oh man, I pretty much hate survival horror, but this can't be stated enough. Resident Evil on that console was absolute jaw droppingly beautiful. It really showed that the Gamecube was more capable then the PS2 in terms of graphics. Also, seeing as @Julius mentioned it. The door animations are such a clever way to use loading times to your advantage. Obviously, this remake didn't do it first, but it's such an effective tool to build tension. Even though I'm sure the HD version could load each room quicker, I'm glad they didn't go for it.

For any of you lurking around this thread, some context: The majority of the time, we leave our character choice to random, and sometimes the stars align and we get a scenario where 2 people are one character, and the other two are a different character. Whenever this happens, we have an unspoken agreement that that match is now a 2 VS 2 fight. They tend to be the highlight, and this one was no different. So if you decide to watch one match, here's Falcos VS Jokers.

Oh man, I pulled out the clutch performance there though. Something just clicked and I got in the zone. All those Classic Mode attempts really paid off there. That mode loves throwing you into matches where you're outnumbered.

In order to not fall into the trap of having to bump this thread once the new year rolls around, I'm bumping it now when it's still relevant. A mad concept! Here are a couple of games I replayed recently. Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling is a turn-based RPG developed by Moonsprout Games and released on PC in 2019, and then Switch, PS4, and XBox One. The reason I replayed it is because it recently got a hefty free update that added features, including a fishing minigame. She's right, you know? The game follows Vi the Bee. She wants to be an explorer, but the local association doesn't accept solo applicants because it's too dangerous. Kabbu the Beetle overhears this, and seeing as he also wants to become an explorer, suggests to Vi that they form an exploration team together. They do, and go off to explore Snakemouth Den, a dangerous cave that supposedly houses a great treasure. While in the cave, they save a moth called Leif from a monstrous spider. Leif has magical ice powers, and is all sorts of mysterious. He also isn't entirely aware of what happened to him. The three of them then go across the land of Bugaria to solve these mysteries. Look at any screenshot of the game, and you'll immediately peg that this game is heavily inspired by Paper Mario. Specifically, the first two entries. It's not subtle. And this applies to the gameplay, as well. Each of the three playable bugs have various techniques that help with exploring the world. Battles are turn-based, and revolve around action commands to fight more effectively. Bug Fables does try to put it's own spin on things, mind you. Paper Mario tends to have Mario himself be the de facto fighter in those games, with various partners he meets along the way taking the role of a second, smaller party member. Bug Fables have all three playable bugs play equal billing, and unlike Mario, who can do most everything, each of these bugs have a specific kind of enemy they excel in fighting. Vi can hit flying enemies and make them plummet, Kabbu can pierce defenses and flip certain enemies over, but can only hit the frontmost opponent, while Leif does more damage to plant-based monsters, and can hit anyone who has burrowed under the ground. You need to think about the order everyone attacks in to fight effectively, because it's not easy to actually raise the amount of damage you do. There's no equivalent of Boot and Hammer upgrades in this game, so 2 damage is pretty much the base damage the three bugs will do throughout the game. We've all been there There are some things you can do to tip the odds in your favour. You can freely change the position of each bug, the one in the front does 1 more damage, but is more likely to be targeted. You can also have one bug donate their turn to someone else, so they can act twice. Handy if a particular bug is not effective for the situaton, but any bug that attacks twice will do less damage on the second attack. Much like Paper Mario, when you level up, you can choose between improving the team's health, Teamwork Points that are used to perform special abilities, or Medal Points, which let you equip more Medals. Badges to you Paper Mario fans, they're badges, and the biggest issue with this game! If you're more of a hardcore Paper Mario fan, you'll likely agree that Badge Points are by far the most useful thing to invest in, and if anything, Bug Fables' equvialent is even more so. If you were to choose to upgrade HP or TP on a level up, the amount you get is so piddly and pathetic (1 HP per bug, or 3 TP), that you may as well go for the 3 Medal Points every time. The max level in this game is 27, and there's no limit to how many times you can choose MP, and the Medals you find are really effective. They're the only reliable and flexible way to improve attack and defense, for starters. Not to mention many other very powerful passive effects. The "Danger Mario" strategy isn't just a fun way to exploit the system, it's basically required in this game. When bosses can get into the realm of 80 HP, you need all the boosts you can get. You can really tell that Paper Mario fans designed this game, but they seem to have forgotten that not everyone who plays Paper Mario is looking to utilise these meta tactics, and Bug Fables ends up punishing those who try to balance things out. If anything, this latest update only doubled down on that. There are new medals, and some of them even come with new mechanics, which means there's even less reason to choose anyhting else. Despite that, the game is a lot of fun. Incredibly inflexible, but play along, and you'll find a enjoyable, and very funny game. A lot of love is in this game, even if it clouded the developers from the bigger picture. Bayonetta is a character-focused action hack and slash game developed by PlatinumGames. It originally released on the PS3 and XBox 360 back in 2010, before getting ported to the WiiU alongside it's Nintendo exclusive sequel in 2014. I played the 2018 Switch version, which is effectively the same as the WiiU one, but not the same as the PS4 and Xbox One version, due to it featuring numerous Nintendo based bonuses. Bayonetta is the last Umbran Witch, a pretty much extinct clan of women who makes contracts with demons in exchange for great magical powers. Part of these contracts means they have to fight angels to feed to demons. Bayonetta has been asleep for 500 years, and she wakes up with no memories, but an inexplicable urge to find "The Eyes of the World" Things get complicated when she runs into another person with similar powers to her. Bayo ends up following this person to Vigrid, a place quite close to Angels. That previous paragraph sounds somewhat serious, but it's not. Bayonetta is an incredibly dumb game, and it plays it up to the extreme. Taking this game seriously is a fool's errand. And let's face it, the plot is not important. What is important is the gameplay. It's a lot like Devil May Cry, but I think it's better, mostly down to Witch Time. If you can dodge an enemy attack at the last moment, then you activate Witch Time, and slow down time for everything except Bayonetta, letting you wail on enemies freely, and get extra combo points. There's something immensely satisfying when everything flows together and you end up looking incredibly skillful, even if deep down, you're likely making some clutch decisions out of panic. Yes, she's dressed up as Daisy. Yes, it's incredibly silly. The Nintendo costumes are lots of fun, they have special mechanics, like Bowser replacing the big fists she normally summons, and the currency being replaced with coins (complete with Mario World sound effects). I can't believe Nintendo OK'd them. I can't believe they're the reason the Link one is more revealing then the original suggestion PlatinumGames made! That said, as much as I enjoy this game, it has some flaws that make it my least favourite of the three Bayo games. The visuals are really drab. Very much of it's time, the whole PS3-era "Realistic is Brown" mindset is in full effect here. There are also some absolutely BS QTE moments that will kill you because they happen so quickly. Not to mention that Witch Time is weirdly inconsistent, some attacks just do not trigger it, and it's never clear why that is. Future games would fix these issues, so Bayo 1 will likely always be my least favourite, but I still like it.

Excuse me!? Speak for yourself! Seriously though, you make an interesting point here. 10 year old me would've probably be floored by that kind of worldwide interaction. Then again, if I told 10 year old me that Banjo would get into Smash in 2019, he'd probably ask why the hell it would take so long. 10 year old me doesn't have the benefit of future sight, and that makes him an idiot.

Stock format tonight from 7:30.

This Tetris would be utterly demolished by The Tetris Guidelines if it came out today. Also, the music sucks.

Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island is an absolute mouthful of a title developed by Spike Chunsoft and released on Switch at the beginning of this year. It just got a PC port a couple of days ago, but I didn't play that one. It's a roguelike dungeon crawling game that's not quite as well known as it's spin-off, Pokémon Mystery Dungeon. Not many games with that dubious honour, at least Shin Megami Tensei has company. You know? Pokémon Mystery Dungeon? I might have mentioned it a few times. This is Spike Chunsoft's original IP version of their Mystery Dungeon games. Despite my absolute love for PMD, I've never played a Shiren game before. So why not start with this newest installment? The game, shockingly, follows Shiren, and his ferret friend, Koppa. They wander around some vague Japanese setting under a severe drought. They've both had dreams about Serpentcoil Island. This place has many rumours about a great treasure inside a monster's stomach. Shiren decides to investigate and debunk this stupid rumour. However, in between him and this monster is a "Mystery Dungeon" spanning the entire island. The game then abruptly jumps straight to the final boss. Technically, you can win this, and you even get to see the ending if you do. But you'd have to be extremely skillful, and extremely lucky. I was neither, so Shiren was punted back to the beach town at the bottom of the island. He's not one to give up, so he sets off again. He'll get it next time, right? ...Right? He must be playing Dream Drop Distance Because I'm lazy, here's my synopsis on what the Mystery Dungeon games are about, copy-pasted from the Pokémon spin-off thread I did. In order to see the credits, you need to get through a 31 floor "Mystery Dungeon". Mystery Dungeons are places whose layout is randomised each time you enter it. On each floor, you need to find the stairs or exit so you can progress to the next floor. Succeeding comes down to levelling up by fighting enemies, scavenging items along the way, and using them well, and maybe a bit of luck as well. That said, Shiren is an exceptionally hard game. If Shiren runs out of HP at any point, and you don't have a revival item, you're booted out of the dungeon, lose all your progress, all your items, money, and even the levels you gained. Back to square one! Tough luck, try again. (Yes, @drahkon, for once, you can't complain that I called this a Roguelike, it's completely accurate) To really hammer the point, the game lets you see the completion rate of dungeons. The first dungeon? Around 5%. I don't feel so bad that it took me 20 attempts to do it now. A lot of things are against you in this game, you have to juggle equipment (Which some enemies can weaken for the rest of the run), item management (Which some enemies can use against you, even ones you currently have on you), keeping Shiren well-fed, hidden traps. Seriously, everything is out to kill you. But this game seems to have taken a cue from the game, Hades. As you inevitably fail, and traverse through the dungeon again, there's a number of side stories that play out. Seeing them to completion by reaching various points on the map will eventually add new items and events to dungeon spelunking. You're still starting off at level 1, but at least you have more flexibility. The music is pretty good, definitely a more Japanese vibe compared to PMD, for obvious reasons. But I'm still not sick of it, which is good. Amusingly, I recognised a lot of sound effects from Pokémon Mystery Dungeon. It probably originated from Shiren in the first place, but I'm not gonna bother finding out. Anyway, the credits rolling is only the beginning, a veritable ton of different modes and dungeons come along. I most certainly will not be 100%-ing this game, it's far too difficult. But I'll be playing a lot more.

It seems I wasn't subtle enough...

Banjo-Tooie it is then!

ANYWAY! Enough about crummy games people say they want, but don't actually want. Trust me, you don't. It's for your own good. @S.C.G, @BowserBasher. DCubed is free, so we have a full room, any particular 4-player game you want to play at 8:30.

Cheap wordplay? That's your excuse?

Ugh, your complete lack of Pokémon nerdery offends me. Growlithe? No, incorrect. Wallace would clearly have a Boltund. It's from Galar, has crazy fast paws, and any inventor would appreciate the free electricity.

Is it even Okami then? This game will have to one up the first and have 8 fights against Orochi, one for each head. Except all 8 heads are there for every fight, and the fights are always the same. The true Orochi experience. That will get you nostalgic!