Glen-i

Wait, I seriously won with 3 stocks as well!? I didn't even notice! Too busy laughing at being stuck in that loop.

Gonna reset my Switch

Rathalos and Sheikah secret techniques, name a better combo!

Xenogears pack is out now. 2 new songs, and 1 that was in Curtain Call. It's fine, weird there's only 3 songs, but they're decent songs. Soaring's background doesn't look incredibly dumb anymore. Not sure if that's an improvement.

Stock matches tonight at 8pm.

Look, I'm all for bigging up how awesome this is (Because it is), but it kinda defeats the point if you show it off with a 2D photo! I really don't need to play Octopath again, but it's so tempting!

Going for another sesh tonight. One more before Kirby takes over my Friday evening online N-E segment. @Helmsly, if you're interested, it should be at around 8pm, but time might shift to accommodate Clownferret if he can make it.

You are in for a treat! You get to play Amazing Mirror without having to deal with the brain-dead AI! And you also get to deal with the possibility of you calling everyone for help and being completely blanked because no-one wants to leave where they are! We'll need to figure out which of us will be Player 1, because only they make progress in the file, and consequently gets all the neat spray paints. The others would have to play through their own file separately to benefit from those. Because he's never played it, I suggest @BowserBasher be player 1.

Shin Megami Tensei V is a Turn-based RPG developed by Atlus for the Nintendo Switch in 2021. Best known as that franchise that would eventually get eclipsed by the spin-off series it created, Persona. The SMT games' defining trait is that the majority of your party consists of a constantly revolving set of progressively stronger demons. The game follows a nameless Japanese student whose path back to his dorm is blocked off by a rather grisly murder investigation. Upon taking a detour through a underground tunnel, an earthquake occurs and knocks him out. When he wakes up, and emerges from underground, he discovers Tokyo has been reduced to ruins, with nothing but destroyed buildings and an exorbitant amount of sand. Well, until a group of demons attacks him. This random student is rescued by a Terminator knock-off and given a choice, stay as he is and inevitably get killed, or fuse together with Terminator dude, and have a hope of survivial. He naturally accepts and becomes a "Nahobino", a human-demon hybrid with demonic powers, laser sword hands, and incredibly fabulous hair! It's an SMT game, so inevitably things escalate to literal biblical proportions as you discover the responsibilities and decisions a Nahobino will have to take. The game presents you with a number of choices throughout, and the actions you take, as well your responses to questions, determine your alignment and which of the four endings you get. The gameplay revolves around the various demons you encounter along the way. You can beat them up, but you're going to have to negotiate with them to come to an agreement and help you out instead. There's a staggering amount of dialogue you can see with these demons, and it's easily my favourite part of the series. Demons are prone to asking for bribes and philosophical questions and are fickle to the extreme. But sooner or later, you're going to realise that fusing Demons is a more efficient way. Fusing 2 demons will usually get a stronger one. Thankfully, you can use money to recreate demons you already had in your party in the past, so you eventually get a large roster of demons for fusion fodder. It can get pricey though, making SMT a strange RPG where money is always useful and scarce. Oh... Bugger... Yeah, I didn't have the buffs, he destroyed me The game, like other SMT games is brutal! The game has no qualms with ending your game if you're unprepared, which happened a lot. This isn't helped by being one of those RPG's where the game immediately ends if the Nahobino cops it. It's the other negative I have to say about this game, I don't particularly care for that in a game with multiple party members, especially when there are instant death spells. Unlike Shin Megami Tensei III, almost all instant death spells only trigger if it hits a weakness, so as long as you don't leave the main character weak to Light and Dark, then it's fine. Still a BS way of increasing difficulty, and I don't know why they went back to this after SMT IV ditched it. Also like other SMT games, battles utilise the Press Turn System, where you get extra turns if you hit an enemy's weakness, or land a critical hit. But you can also lose turns if your attacks get nullified or miss their mark. It's a very cool system that rewards good strategic plays, and enemies can use this system against you, so making sure they can't exploit this is the key to survival. The gimmick of this fifth entry are "Essences" Every demon has one, and if you find one, you can use it to teach the Nahobino and demons skills, or change the Nahobino's strengths and weaknesses, so if you're struggling with a certain boss, you can use this to shift your weaknesses around to give you the upper hand. It's a cool feature that allows for a lot of customisation. There's also the Magatsuhi meter, lovingly stolen from Tokyo Mirage Sessions and rebranded, which lets you perform incredibly potent abilities without using up a turn. Which ones you can use depend on what race of demons you have with you. Not even the most ridiculous demon this game has SMT IV was a 3DS game that used 2D sprites to depict the demons in battle. SMT V goes back to having fully 3D models for everything, but despite this, and the jump to HD, there's actually more demons in the game then IV had (Not as many as the 3DS sequel, IV: Apocalypse, mind you). It's honestly quite impressive, and the game runs relatively well. Fast loading times with the only slight framerate drops occuring after you fast travel. It's an absolutely solid game and I enjoyed it throughout, even if it does kinda faceplant on the landing. The music is unnerving and unorthodox, which fits the tone of the game very well. And like most other modern Atlus games, the UI is slick and cool. Not as ridiculously stylish as Persona 5, but still good. Shin Megami Tensei makes for a great alternative to Persona. The turn based battles are great, yet I don't have to deal with the social rubbish Persona forces you through. But as far as western regions go, I'm in the minority here. The credits revealed that Nintendo themselves localised the game to English, which further reinforces the impression that Atlus have no faith in Shin Megami Tensei outside of Japan. It's a real shame, because the 4 games I've played are all very good. Wonder what that vague description could be? The description claims it still powers on. Good ol' Nintendium!

Yeahhhh, @lostmario wasn't exactly having the greatest night...

Another Mario themed building set for @BowserBasher to consider shelling out more dosh on. Who knew getting into Smash got you that premium Lego merchandising?

In that sweep of what I assume are other party members, I could've sworn I saw a literal dragon in there! Can I already be more sold then "Guaranteed buy"?

God, every time someone makes an Ouya joke. I crack up laughing without fail! It's so easy, yet so effective!

Wait, does Sony not have Octopath 1? That can't be right...

Oh, that one's easy! Depressingly easy to answer, but that answer is money. Why risk putting resources into a game that didn't do well, when you can remaster a sure thing, like Metroid Prime? But you're right. Remakes would be better utilised to improve upon games that really need it. An example of the top of my head? Hmmm... I mean, look at how mediocre that score is! Clearly, the game needs a remake to fix all those glaring problems that apparently exist. Shut up! There's no User Score, you're imagining things! Metacritic isn't a totally useless metric for quality!

Probably because the supplier for these control sticks were the cheapest. Every control stick does inevitably drift, but it only seemed to become a serious problem when we started getting controllers that function as a button by clicking it in. So yeah, not only are they the most uncomfortable button ever, they very likely increase wear and tear on your stick. I wish companies would ditch clickable sticks, they're awful. If you really need those two extra buttons, I'd prefer back paddles instead.

Square are to XBox what Atlus are to Nintendo. "Ugh FINE! We'll release it on your dumb console!"

Player's Choice Tonight at 8pm.

I don't particularly enjoy being the doomsayer when it comes to F-Zero (Just ask the N-E Discord), because despite the fact that I don't enjoy the series, a more diverse range of genres from Ninty is a good thing. (Unless it's open world, that's never good) But you see this a lot on ResetEra and the like, people shouting "Metroid Prime and Paper Mario are getting Switch remasters, now's the perfect time for F-Zero GX!" And it's bordering on delusion, because GX is nowhere in the same league as far as success goes. If Nintendo came out and said we don't see the profit potential in remastering GX. People would riot and declare them out of touch, but I'd be in the back thinking "Yeah, I totally get that." F-Zero GX is in the awkward spot of being a GameCube game, a GameCube game that sold poorly for the GameCube. Because of that, a remaster is quite the risk, and you can't really put it on a hypothetical NSO GameCube app, because GC games would take up far too much space digitally. It's why we see other F-Zero games get re-released digitally constantly, but not GX. Now of course, never say never, but I don't believe F-Zero 99 is a litmus test for future F-Zero titles, I just think someone pitched the idea, and the higher ups thought "Yeah, this is a cool new idea that F-Zero hasn't done before". It lines up with the reasoning why Ninty haven't done a new entry for so long. They just didn't have any ideas for new ways for it to go, because "F-Zero, but for GameCube" clearly wasn't good enough.

Wii Music let me make a depressing version of Happy Birthday, and for that, it was worth every penny!

I've caught up with the first 3 episodes of the new Lower Decks Season. I also watched one episode of Strange New Worlds. I don't think I need to tell you which one it was.

Ike doesn't have a Mii character, you're gonna have to take that up with him.

I wasn't entirely sure at the time, because I only realised that you Ganoncided when you both blew up. I remember asking BowserBasher and S.C.G. "Wait, did Red just Ganoncide?" Hilarious!

I knew that was an accident! As for the Mii thing, yeah it bothers me too. No idea why, probably whatever silly reason they don't have a Classic Mode Route for.

Well, we'll finally see whether all those F-Zero fans actually exist, or if it really is just a loud minority Worth noting that Pac-Man 99's player retainership did crater, which is probably the main reason it got taken off.