Glen-i

Probably a bit late to mention this now, but if you put the frosting in the right place, it immediately transforms into much better decoration. Basically, the game's way of telling you that you got it right. Even if you splatter it all over the place, it will trigger the decoration if you put enough in the right place. Barely scraped through that with a perfect score. Only 8 seconds left!

The actual gameplay runs smoothly, it's just cutscenes and the lobby area takes a noticeable dip. So, just played the demo. Easy breezy, but presentation values up the wazzoo! (Peach has different running animations for each costume, for example). Also has some pretty devious hidden collectables for the first two levels. So, in other words, it's another Good Feel game with a Nintendo IP. I'm not keen on her voice though. Peach sounds really bored. Which doesn't really gel with everything around her being so glamorous and magical.

OK, all fixed. I should be good to go then. Don't have time to whip up a theme image though, so that will be next week.

Well, I guess no-one is interested (or able) in playing Mario Kart 7, so I'm calling that off. Normal Mario Kart 8 shenanigans tonight. That said, @Dcubed's place is currently without electricity, so we might not be able to join in tonight. So until I say otherwise, @BowserBasher will have to host.

Probably the best advice you'll ever see on this thread.

Sorta breezed through Red Stake with Red Deck. Got that 11th deck now, and it's very good. Quickly got a win on that one. I see what @drahkon means by needing a decent multiplier for the early game when the ante rises faster. It is rough going!

Obviously, the DS could never pull it off, but Scarlet/Violet have Pokémon to scale, so they're working on it. Probably why Wailord isn't in that game.

Actually, they do. The Pokédex mentions it a few times. This is the entry from Platinum.

Less quick thinking, more paranoia when it comes to your clever manipulation of custom stages. I knew something was up, because who the hell would aim that down!? It was the precise moment I attacked you afterwards where I thought, "Cheeky bugger's put a bomb block there!" Cue the desperate break for the ladder!

I imagine that their tiff with PEGI isn't helping matters. Not much incentive, patching a console version if the biggest platform for it doesn't have it available for download. Glad I snapped it up when I did.

Wow, did not expect the Figure Player feature from Smash to show up in this thread! That's fascinating!

Naturally, I complained on the internet, so I pulled it off shortly after. Checkered Deck is very much a worthwhile reward! But that will have to wait, because that's the 10th deck and after a relatively straightforward time with Magic Deck, Nebula Deck is the next big barrier. I didn't think 1 less consumable item space would be so bad, but yeah... It's pretty bad. Still easier then Black Deck, mind. I'll get through it eventually.

But, what if it works!? Black Deck is very much a step above in difficulty. The lack of hands is utterly painful! Don't last long enough to take advantage of the extra Joker slot...

Time matches tonight at 7:30pm.

If you haven't died already, yeah, it's worth going for. Just make sure you're always carrying a potion, just in case. If you have already died, it's not worth starting again at this point.

Seeing as 8 players are the max, 4 would be a good amount. We're at 3 now.

OK, so here we are. Our journey through all the N64 games are at an end. We laughed, we cried, we made boneheaded decisions out of stupid spite. But it's time to figure out how good we all are. Now, S.C.G joined near the end of Mario Party 1, so the scoring's going to be a little weird. Before S.C.G joins, here's how it goes. 1st Place - 3 points 2nd Place - 2 points 3rd Place - 1 Point For the sake of giving S.C.G a fighting chance, he also gets 2 points for each board he didn't play on. CPU Luigi has no bearing on the placings. Once he joins, here's how the scoring goes 1st Place - 4 points 2nd Place - 3 points 3rd Place - 2 points 4th Place - 1 point With that in mind... Mario Party 1 1st Place: @Dcubed and @Glen-i - 23 points 3rd Place: @S.C.G - 16 points 4th Place: @BowserBasher - 14 points Mario Party 2 1st Place: @Glen-i - 21 points 2nd Place: @Dcubed - 19 points 3rd Place: @BowserBasher - 18 points 4th Place: @S.C.G - 12 points For the Duel Boards in MP3, the winner gets 1 point, the loser gets nothing. Mario Party 3 1st Place: @Glen-i - 25 points 2nd Place: @BowserBasher 19 points 3rd Place: @S.C.G - 16 points 4th Place: @Dcubed - 12 points Grand Total 1st Place: @Glen-i - 69 points 2nd Place: @Dcubed - 54 points 3rd Place: @BowserBasher - 51 points 4th Place: @S.C.G - 44 points The Mario Party 1 BowserBasher hate train was too much for him to overcome, even with his solid performance on the other games. So Dcubed clings on to 2nd place. So even though all the boards are done, doesn't mean we have to stop playing Mario Party forever, we can always have a friendly now and again.

We told you it was a good board! The cruel thing here is that @Dcubed lost because he stole a star off of me when it was probably wiser to go for @BowserBasher instead, and then it all went wrong. If he won two more coins in mini-games, he would have secured third place. Ironic that the last Game Guy of this whole affair would make absolutely no difference, considering how devastating it's been everywhere else.

We're on in less then 10 minutes, @S.C.G. and @BowserBasher. I'll open a room momentarily.

Man, you don't mess around! I just had my third successful run. I don't like the Yellow Deck, very little benefit for a perk that fizzles out after the second ante. Green should be interesting, basically been living off the interest, gonna have to change tact.

Curse my informative thread titles! Anyway, moving on. Generation 4, or Pearl, Diamond, and Platinum, are DS games that take place in the Sinnoh region. Weirdly enough, it's not really got a cohesive loacale theming like the previous game. Well, if it has, I can't tell what it is. Now, I've mentioned this before, but this generation was the one that introduced the "Physical-Special Split". This is still the most radical change to the battle system that we've seen as it gave a lot of Pokémon a lot more options as far as type coverage goes. Pokémon that had stats that didn't compliment their typing (Feraligatr) could now utilise those types to their fullest. Turtwig (TUR-twig) is the Grass type's take on a turtle Pokémon. It's a more interesting take, because the "shell" is dirt that's hardened over time. Weirdly enough, in Generation 4, the first couple of gyms are set up in such a way that no matter which starter you pick, they'll do almost equally well. So it's hard to recommend picking it based on the opening hours. So I won't bother. Grotle (GRAH-tul) is yet another middle evoultion that I will not go into. Torterra (tor-TER-ra) gets Ground added to it's Grass typing. A type combination so at odds with each other, that Torterra ends up with less resistances and more weaknesses then if it just stayed as a Grass type. Which is pretty bad when you're one of the slowest starter Pokémon ever. You kinda need good defenses when you're certain to go last. And this big massive downside is why Torterra gets eclipsed by a certain other Pokémon here. Still, there is one thing that saves Torterra from being as awful as Meganium, and it's quite recent. When all the starters were added to Scarlet and Violet, Torterra was suddenly given the move "Shell Smash". Shell Smash is a move that lowers Torterra's Defense and Special Defense by 1 stage, but raises the other three stats by 2 stages. This has been a godsend for Torterra, it hasn't made it the greatest Pokémon ever, sure, but it's actually decent now. It took 5 generations, but it got there. Chimchar's (CHIM-char) butt is on fire... What? You want more!? Well, like the other Gen 4 starters, it's good against one early gym. Seriously, there's not much that differentiates these starters in the early game. I wish there was, but they're remarkably well balanced in those first two gyms. Monferno (mon-FUR-no) becomes Fire/Fighting. Yeah, just like the Fire starter in the previous generation. It's really weird that they went with the same type combination two times in a row. I have no idea why, but the martial artist monkey is quite the popular trope in Japanese culture, so I'm gonna assume Game Freak liked the idea enough that they didn't care about the repeat. Whenever I see Infernape (in-FUR-nape), I immediately think of this. For all intents and purposes, Infernape is essentially a faster, slightly weaker Blaziken. Which makes it better then Blaziken in Gen 4. Which also makes it the best starter in Gen 4 by far. Blaziken would claim that "Best starter ever" throne in Gen 5, but Infernape is the only sensible choice for these games. You see, in Diamond and Pearl, there are precisely 2 fire Pokémon you can use. Rapidash, which kinda sucks, and Infernape. So not choosing Infernape as your starter means you don't plan on using Fire types ever. This doesn't apply to Platinum, that has a much better type distribution, but still, Gen 4's Pokémon choices are wack. Piplup (PIP-lup) is the first Penguin Pokémon that doesn't completely suck. (Seriously, Delibird is one of the worst Pokémon you could ever send into a battle) Anyway, not much to say as far as the mainline games go, but Piplup features in the two PokéPark games as a somewhat major NPC. That's about it as far as spin-off appearences for the Gen 4 starters go. Arguably, the most forgotten generation as a whole. Prinplup (PRIN-plup) is there. That's about it on that nonsense. Empoleon (em-POH-lee-on) becomes Water/Steel, which means Infernape now naturally hits it for super effective damage! You're a pretty crummy Water starter if the corresponding Fire starter can totally floor you. And when you're barely faster then Torterra, you're not going first. It's physical Defense isn't even that good! One Close Combat from Infernape or an Earthquake from Torterra, and you'll quickly wish you chose them instead of this rubbish excuse for a Water Pokémon. Seriously, choose Chimchar. And if you don't want Chimchar, then for the love of Arceus, don't choose Piplup! Because I officially declare it, the worst Water starter in all of Pokémon. Meganium has company at last! So yeah, that's Gen 4. Favourites are very much encouraged to be shared. As a whole, I think these are the weakest starter Pokémon. There's no real standouts, design wise. Infernape is neat, but there's no escaping the fact that it's a Blaziken rehash. Even if I do prefer Infernape to Blaziken. Torterra is a better design then Blastoise though, and that's final!

Not sure whether I should put this here, or in the FF7 Rebirth thread, but oh well!

Probably wouldn't include the Nintendo event stuff, so what's even the point?

After that absolute gazumping of me by 5 people on Kalimari Desert, can you blame me!? Yeah, sorry. Connection issues with 3 Switches on one connection. Anyway, I take it no-one here is actually interested in playing Mario Kart 7 next week? Because so far, it only seems to be DCubed and me who are actually up for that?

OK, yeah, this game is bonkers good. Didn't realise there was a thread, because I looked in the Nintendo board on a Nintendo focused forum like a normal person! Just completed my second run. No straights used, awww yeah! Accidentally used a flush though, so have to work on that... This game is almost as crack-like as Vampire Survivors, which is saying something!