Glen-i

Seeing as I'm not gonna cover this aspect in the review... I think Mario and Luigi are pretty great. Daisy, on the other hand, is hit and miss, sometimes it sounds like her, sometimes not. Yoshi's new voice is god awful. Sounds nothing like Yoshi! Nabbit isn't even trying to sound like Nabbit used to be, might as well have made a completely new character for that voice. Kamek changed voice... Again! It's not the new one from Mario Kart Tour and 8 Deluxe. Not sure why... Not quite. I'm trying out Local Multiplayer with @Dcubed, and using it as an opportunity to try out Yoshi. You can still jump off of Yoshi, so you can get a boost by having Yoshi flutter jump and the player riding it jump at the apex of the jump. You can cheese a lot of things with that. (I just wish he took damage, he just gets knocked back a bit, ALA Yoshi's Island)

Stock matches tonight at 8pm.

Wait until you find out what happened to Bumper after Diddy Kong Racing!

@RedShell, I just found the thing you spoilered.

Done! OK, not completely done. Just the credits seen, still plenty of things I missed. EDIT: Oh right, if you have the SNES controller, the game is completely playable on it. Something to keep in mind.

Oh, I despise it when a game does this. Irritates me to no end when I want to get a screenshot for this thread, only for the game to shout "NO! THAT'S SPOILERS!" I think I'm capable of taking a screenshot that doesn't spoil stuff, thank you.

I would've helped but I'm already on World 6, so that level was defo not in my immediate memory. Yes, I stayed up all night playing, I'm sorry Wind Waker...

Don't knock it, it runs flawlessly. Also, other players don't have a direct influence on the levels. It makes for a more dynamic game here. I've been having randoms throughout, and it's a lot of fun! Also feels good to help those who struggle a bit, I don't need the spare item anyway.

Oh, so there is an online with friends option! That's cool! Welp, anyone want me to tag along, give me a shout if you see me online.

Yeah, that was pretty tight throughout. Very healthy competition tonight. Luckily, Mario Kartma made them pay for that later.

Woo! Year old bump! Let's goooo! So yeah, finally got this game, and after finishing Shin Megami Tensei V, I fancied something a bit less bleak and stressful. It is a Visual Novel, so plot is kinda important, so I'll spoiler tag it in case anyone is interested.

Player's Choice tonight at 8pm.

That doesn't count, and you know it! They're training exercises. As much as I love Black 2/White 2, and still believe it's the pinnacle of the mainline series, this will forever be one of the big missed opportunities of that game. Especially because it has a feature that lets you link the first B/W game to it. They could've used the Hall of Fame data from the first game to generate a team for you to fight in the sequel, bump them up to the level 90 range, and bingo! You've retreaded the Red idea, but made it much more personal.

Just when you think you've seen it all, what could be the first ever Sudden Death Draw happens!

Bravely Default music was added to Theatrhythm this week, and yes, it's very excellent. Unfortunately, Bravely Second got absolutely nothing! That soundtrack gets a bum rap purely because it's not the same composer as the other games. If I were in charge, I would've done a second Bravely pack, with these four songs. That last one, in all honesty, would probably have to be cut in half. Ain't nobody playing through an 8 minute song!

Time matches tonight at 8pm.

Bit of clarification on a new mechanic. So yeah, it seems to be their take on Dual Techs from Chrono Trigger. That's rad! Wonder if there'll be Triple Techs as well? Can't wait for this to come out on PC!

This is odd. The first game's songs are there, but then it just skips straight to Octopath... Gonna have to assume it's an oversight.

My Switch wouldn't go online on Thursday, so I had to piggyback off of @Dcubed's Switch. Which means split screen shenanigans! Moment focusing on me (Left screen) Moments focusing on Dcubed (Right Screen) Moments focusing on both screens There's so much going on with that last clip. Pure chaos!

Time to catch up on a few smaller titles I've knocked out. Yes, I already talked about Shin Megami Tensei V. But there's 4 endings, so yes, I played it three more times. This is nothing, trust me. You should see the crap I'm attempting in Fire Emblem: Engage! The thing is, I actually had to do one more playthrough, because of that bozo above. The DLC gives you a whole host of extra bosses (And appropriate demons to summon) based on the most infamous ones from SMT III. It all leads up to a super difficult fight with the protagonist of that game. After four playthroughs, and four miserable attempts at beating him, I had to do one more playthrough to completely redo my setup. But I did it. I beat that cheating bugger! And I got immunity to almost every attack. Which is pointless now, because there's nothing harder to beat! Typical RPG Superboss reward... BTW, how many games actually let you fight a previous protagonist? There's Pokémon Gold/Silver, obviously, and Tales of Symphonia 2. What else is there? Anyway, seeing as I mentioned Fire Emblem: Engage... PepsiMan 2 Fire Emblem: Engage: Fell Xenologue is a short extra scenario that was the final part of the DLC expansion pass. The main character, PepsiMan Alear, is transported to an alternate universe where he doesn't win his war against cool cobra/dragon, Sombron. The ones who summoned him are Nel and Nil, two of Sombron's children. The Alear of their world is dead, and the various nations have fallen into disarray. Nel and Nil ask Alear to assist them in gathering the seven emblem bracelets to prevent their world from deterioating even further. The plot here is an interesting take on a lot of the characters, as they tend to have the opposite personailities they have in the main game. It's strangely more engaging then the actual main plot. Which admittedly, isn't saying much. Anyway, the gameplay is what I came here for. In a bizarre move, all 6 scenarios have preset characters and items. Characters don't level up, and the only real options you have are which Emblems to give to each of your units. It's an odd mix of Fire Emblem and Advance Wars, in that regard. This means that strategy is what will win the day here, and it only goes to exentuate how brilliant Engage's gameplay is. It's also nice you finally get a proper Manakete unit to use. Weirdly absent in the main game. (Unless you used Emblem Tiki, which isn't quite the same) Trombone Champ is the world's first trombone based rhythm game. Developed by Holy Wow Studios and released on Steam in 2022, a Switch version was released this year, that's the one I played. You choose your "Tromboner", which look a lot like Mii knock-offs, and proceed to toot your way though a bevvy of mostly public domain songs. You tilt the controller up or down to control the pitch, and press a button to play a note. The thing is, the trombone is an instrument that can sound really nice when played well. In this game, none of the characters can actually play the trombone that well. Amateurish players mixed with surprisingly difficult note charts make for absolutely mangled versions of songs you probably know. This, alongside some proper liberties taken with some songs, makes the game utterly hilarious! The hilarious backgrounds definitely add to things. Even though the controls demand high precision, the scoring system is actually quite lenient, so it never feels frustrating to play. There's also a plot involving baboons mostly. It's all very silly and nonsensical, and I enjoyed every second! Highly recommended. It's around 12 quid, and totes worth it!

Wait, why is James Bond's nephew also called James Bond? What weirdo sibling decided to name their kid after his uncle? It's not just me, is it? That's weird, right?

This guy's relatively new to voice acting. Probably done through an audition process, congrats on landing such a humongous role to him.

Seeing as you can't make it next week, we might as well wait until all four of us are around in 2 weeks to carry on. That's how I see it anyway.

I'm gonna agree with you on this. So I guess that's that. I take it you'd rather get the last two shards with 4 players as well?

I can only hope, but I look at the likes of Banjo and Conker, and it doesn't fill me with confidence. Now granted, Perfect Dark is getting another shot, and I can only hope that Microsoft capitilise on Banjo's incredibly well received Smash Ultimate appearence, so I'm hoping it's a sign of MS being more experimental. There's also the factor of Tony Hawk himself, the guy is absolutely passionate about skateboarding, and after THPS 1+2, he went back to Vicarious Visions to ask them to make a THPS 3+4, it actually got off the ground, but got cancelled once Vicarious Visions were disbanded. Tony has stated in an interview that he was very upset about that. Hopefully, he gets wind of it, and tries again with Microsoft.