RedShell

Oh wow. Very much looks like my cup of tea, yeah. Cheers for bringing it to my attention. Looks like it's also available on PS4, so I might check it out at some point.

If Nintendo's next system is priced at over £350 at launch then I'll definitely have some doubts about buying one. Can't imagine them going over 300 though as it just doesn't fit with their business strategy, plus I'm pretty sure they'll have been able to put together noticeably improved hardware over the Switch that can still be sold at a profit for around that price or less. Don't reckon Nintendo would be prepared sell at a loss on the hardware, but can certainly see them accepting a lower profit margin than usual (or just to break-even) if required, I mean even that still wouldn't be at all risky for them as they're guaranteed to print money from their software sales and they know it. It makes the most sense for Nintendo to have as many potential customers for their games as possible, so keeping the price of the console low should remain a priority.

Completed the game last night: Anyway, looks like it took me exactly 20 hours for 100% completion, all souvenirs, scoops, secrets and achievements. With the exception of a couple of stages (isometric auto scrollers ) I really enjoyed the game, but looking back on it without my Goemon goggles I'd say it probably won't have quite as much appeal to anyone who doesn't have an affinity to the Goemon series, or an interest in quirky Japanese stuff in general. I'd definitely still recommend it to anyone that's a fan of the 3D platform genre though, as it's a well designed game with lovely presentation and plenty of charm, just know that it's unlikely to be very challenging and the combat controls might be a bit marmite too. (Yeah, the L+R button thing never did entirely click for me, even found myself briefly mashing the X button to try and attack on a few occasions! ) You're also likely to learn quite a lot of funny, pointless or even (at times) surprising facts, mainly about Japan but also various bodily functions, so I guess the game can be considered educational as well. I actually had to look this one up afterwards (Scoop's Trivia #221): Bloody hell! No wonder I never noticed that change.

Lol @ trivia #150 from Scoop: I think Scoop might actually be my favourite character since Barkle in Rosy Rupeeland. Such a stupid yet somehow cool and cute design: They should seriously consider making a Scoop spin-off game. I'm also amazed there's so Scoop plush toy available from the official site: https://www.spike-chunsoft.com/bakeru/merch/ But honestly quite glad too, as I probably wouldn't have been able to resist importing one if there was.

This scene gave me a chuckle: Is Bakeru supposed to be like Goemon or Ebisumaru? Anyway, I've made quite a bit of progress in this now (up to stage 30) and have found all of Scoop's trivia and the 3 collectables in each stage so far. I really like how you can jump back into a level and grab anything that you might have missed the first time around, then quit to the world map but still keep whatever you just picked up. Especially as some stages can be surprisingly large. Turns out there's another thing to collect in certain areas too, which is really fun to search for... Unlike the majority of Scoop's hiding places and the standard collectibles, these can actually be pretty tricky to find, but it's super rewarding when you do. I love how everything that you collect then ends up... While I don't think the game is as easy as some people have made it out to be (I've managed to get Bakeru killed many times already ) there's no doubt that some of the Henge abilities you unlock are ridiculously overpowered! Especially... That thing completely destroys anything in your path! It's meant to be limited by the Henge meter (which depletes while using those abilities) but seeing as enemies also drop an item that replenishes the meter, and you can kill so many of them so quickly, you get to use it for way longer than it feels like you should be able to. Although I have to admit it's great fun seeing numerous enemies exploding into loads of colourful pieces and golden coins! Really satisfying. In a way I'm still getting to grips with the controls though, not entirely sold on the idea of using the L + R buttons for separate left and right attacks. It is kind of interesting, but as I mentioned before, it also comes at the expense of a way to recentre the camera. Have gotten a bit more used to it, but it does seem like I'm spending way too much time managing the camera during gameplay than I'd like. And while separating attacks does provide some cool opportunities for doing combos and other flashy stuff, I reckon it would've also been fine if both attacks alternated automatically and were simply mapped to a single face button in a more conventional control scheme. Plus, my index fingers weren't prepared for this amount of activity. Game is a lot of fun though, I love how vibrant everything is. Some of the stages have so much stuff going on there's a real festival atmosphere to them. My favourite so far has to be... Dig the music on it as well: Another cool aspect is how much humour they've managed to include via the gameplay itself. There are some enemies in this game whose sole purpose is to... I think the game probably has more in common with the 2D Goemon games than Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon. The presentation and humour (while not quite as wacky) is certainly very reminiscent of that legendary N64 game, but gameplay-wise Bakeru is a pure action platformer. Nevertheless, it's an incredibly entertaining and polished experience (you can tell Good-Feel have picked up a lot of their style from collaborating with Nintendo over the years ) and it's proving to be thoroughly enjoyable. I'm really glad that something this quirky and niche was given a chance overseas. Hopefully there's enough interest in it that we'll see more from Bakeru in the future, and perhaps it could also motivate Konami & Nintendo to get together and bring some of the Goemon titles to NSO, would be the perfect time to do so.

Oh no! Not a mobile strategy game. Oh well, I'll definitely still try it. Who knows, perhaps this'll be the one to finally make me enjoy that genre.

I picked it up on PC. Not had much opportunity to play it yet (just the first few levels) but based on the little I've played so far it looks, runs and sounds fantastic! The art style is great, the Goemon vibes are everywhere and there have already been some poo jokes. So yeah, I'm loving it. Only potential issue I can see right now is with the camera control, or rather, the lack of control. It's possible to rotate it with the right stick, but there doesn't appear to be any way to instantly recentre it behind Bakeru. Which is a bit annoying when sprinting as you have to hold down the X button, so no way to move the camera at the same time. Unless I'm missing something. Anyway, can't wait to properly get my teeth into this over the weekend.

So they go ahead and make arguably the best Felyne designs ever (that even get praise from H-o-T! ), bonus Palico armour sets for having MH World save data, but then they don't bring back Prowler mode? Damn it. It was such a unique, flashy and hilarious weapon type to use. Looks like it will forever remain exclusive to MH Generations. Well... I guess it's gonna be Hammer time again then.

Interesting. I've not played it in years, once New Horizons arrived Pocket Camp immediately lost all of its appeal. But anyway, it's cool that they're planning to keep it going for those that are invested in it.

Cool. 👍 I wasn't too keen on this Capcom ID malarkey either. But as you say, it's likely to be a requirement for most (if not all) of their games going forward, so not much choice really. Hopefully it will at least mean cross-progression for everything now as standard though. Yeah, I'm still a bit peeved about my MH Rise save data being trapped on Switch.

Glad to hear you're enjoying Exoprimal @Hero-of-Time! Is the crossover stuff still available? Not sure if it was a rotational thing or not, but the last time I played the game there was a Monster Hunter event going on where you got to take on a Rathalos!

So it turns out they made a stand-alone benchmarking tool for this game! You don't see that very often, should really be an industry standard though. Anyway, it appears that my PC can actually run this at 60fps on high for all graphics settings but two, those being draw distance and hair quality (which I had to drop down to medium). No ray tracing either (obviously ) but yeah, way better than I was expecting and the game still looks fantastic using that setup. Now I just need to figure out when the hell I'll be able to play it.

I wonder if this is in the museum: Fascination, an unreleased erotic game developed by Nintendo in 1974 Dayum, Nintendo. Do a HD remake for Switch!

This game looks incredible! Just a shame it's so demanding to get it looking at its best. Pretty sure my now mid/low end PC has no chance of running this at a decent frame rate while still looking nice, even at 1080p. Will keep an eye out for optimisation vids in the next few weeks though, see just how well it scales down. Already got the replacement soundtrack sorted for if/when I play it though:

Looks really nice. This is the kind of thing that'd be amazing to visit in exactly the same way Miyamoto is in the vid, i.e., with basically no one else there. But once it's open to the general public and absolutely rammed will probably be quite an annoying experience. At least that's what I'm telling myself to make me feel better about never being able to go there.

Yep. Yeah, same thing has happened to me so it's probably a new feature of the latest update. Going to be interesting to see just how crazy they go with new cards in the future, the kind of combinations that are enabled with the latest additions to the pack are already pretty damn ridiculous. I suppose eventually it'll be possible to have every single weapon and passive all maxed out and running simultaneously with all Arcanas active as well or something stupid like that.

A couple of psychedelic screenshots from my most recent runs with the latest version: 😵 And now, to give my eyes a well deserved rest because I'm back to 100%: Arrivederci, Vampire Survivors... until the next update/DLC.

Testing... Nice. Cheers.

I did, yeah. And it was indeed doomed. Hold the phone! I thought spoilers were broken since the forum got updated, they are for me. *frantically clicks spoiler button* ...nothing. Anyway, in regard to the thing I've not had much chance to mess around with them yet. I heard about how crazy it is though, so looking forward to properly checking it out.

Bloody hell! New stage is evil. The thing in the final room of the new stage? The thing that I can't specifically mention because spoiler tags still don't work? That thing?

Just a quick update to my list, before I forget what I've played. Probably have forgotten about a few already. Bramble: The Mountain King Stray Palworld Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (replay) No More Heroes III Dead Rising Stuff completed since my last post: Metal Slug (replay) Prodeus Resident Evil 2 Remake (replay) (did a playthrough on Hardcore difficulty) Paper Mario Castlevania Bloodlines Metroid: Zero Mission Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope Tamagotchi Adventure Kingdom Actually, as it's the most recent game I completed and probably something that most people here will be unfamiliar with, I will write a little bit about Tamagotchi Adventure: Was recently resubbed to Apple Arcade and this was the first game I decided to play, knew nothing about it beforehand, didn't even watch the trailer, so was really surprised when I started playing and discovered what type of game it was... Basically, if someone had told me that Palworld wouldn't be the most plagiarised game I'd play this year I'd have thought they were absolutely crazy, but well, here we are. Yep, Tamagotchi Adventure Kingdom is essentially Animal Crossing: New Horizons! It's unbelievable just how blatant it is. I would go ahead and list all of the "copyright infringements" but it'll be much quicker to just mention the stuff that they didn't utilise, which seems to be limited to bug catching and changing seasons (and I won't be at all surprised if those get added soon). More or less every other aspect of ACNH has been nicked and included in some way in Tamagotchi Adventure. Needless to say, with it having so much in common with AC, I had a blast with the game. It's also this kind of unusual mix between a full-fledged home console title and a more casual mobile experience, there's an energy system in place that limits how much you can do at a time (although it becomes a non-issue with progress) and it features the daily log-in rewards malarkey as well, but then there's also a large map to uncover and explore, loads of characters, quests, items to collect or craft and a story to get through. I ended up at almost 40 hours of playtime to complete the story and obtain the maximum size house available. But there was still a lot of stuff left to be done, and I get the feeling they will be adding more content over time. Oh yeah, there was a Pac-Man event going on while I was playing too, which was cool. You'd play rounds of the classic game (recreated with the Tamagotchi characters ) to gradually unlock Pac-Man themed furniture and clothing items. Anyway, don't know if this game will remain exclusive to Apple Arcade or not, a lot of stuff on there seems to leave and end up on other platforms eventually. But yeah, if that's the case, and anyone is ever in the mood for a relaxing Animal Crossing clone with insanely cute presentation and some quite entertaining offbeat dialogue, then keep an eye out for it. Other games that I've played for a while/are on the backlog/currently playing, which may or may not get completed: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (I actually started this game in 2014 made some decent progress but then forgot about it. Started on a new save earlier this year, made some decent progress but then played everything else on this list instead. Pretty sure I'll never finish it ). Forager Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate Vampyr Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy The New Denpa Men We'll see if I can get through any of those before my attention no doubt shifts over to Bakeru next month.

Woohoo! Great news.

Whatever this is, I'd love for it to feature some form of competitive online mode. Especially if it'll be using the real-time combat gameplay, which the name at least could be alluding to. Think I've waffled on about this before, but imagine every main character plus a ton of NPCs from across the entire series, all brought together for an online version of the Coliseum! Hell, that alone could make for a complete game in itself I reckon. Choose your Yakuza legend... Train them the in the RIZAP gym... Equip gear/movesets... Fight against other players... Earn rewards and climb the leaderboard. Damn, I want that game! It really could. Let's hope it's not. Unless, of course, it's like the game I was just daydreaming about above, in which case I need it even as a mobile title. Anyway, this has reminded me that I still have to get around to picking up and playing Infinite Wealth at some point!

Yeah, I finished it pretty quickly because I've also done a lot of fishing while playing this (at Lv.60 ) and having a higher fishing level makes catching easier/quicker. Regarding bait, I haven't actually found a use for any of the different types at all! So just ended up sticking with normal type the entire time. Anyway, it's definitely possible to complete the event by only using normal bait. As for getting the required fish, I believe it's mostly down to luck (like pretty much everything else in this game ) but I did observe that rare types seemed to spawn more frequently in the northern area of the map. Also, if you're ever in a situation where a normal fish shadow has gone for your bait rather than the rare red or white shadow that you wanted to target, you can just wait until its 1-5 nibbles are over (it uses exactly the same fishing system as Animal Crossing ) and it'll then disappear allowing the rare fish to take the bait instead. I know, right? Well, if you do want to know, off the top of my head the requirements are... SPOILERS bellow, in white text as the spoiler button doesn't work for some reason. Land a critical hit on the first boss. Requires luck as critical enhancing gear is hard to obtain beforehand, you can try boosts as well. Don't allow any Denpa to get KO'd on the second boss. Kill the 3rd boss with a dark element attack. An easy way to do this one is give all your team a dark bracelet. And finish the 4th boss battle within 3 turns. Once you get all the legendary equipment you'll also be able to unlock... ...the last enemy type on stage 1. And obtaining the voucher for it (plus all the others on that stage, obviously ) will unlock the fairy gear, which is a great set to use as it increases voucher drop rate by 100%! Not that it guarantees voucher drops, far from it. But it certainly helps a lot, so I'd definitely recommend going for it ASAP. BTW, if you're ever struggling with any of the enemy voucher drops let me know and I might be able to send some your way, I have quite a few duplicates by now, especially from the early levels. Bronze vouchers only though, as unfortunately it costs jewels to send silver and gold ones. I did that as much as I could, and it can definitely pay off but at the same time you need to be careful as some of the enemies/hazards behind the level doors can be real tricky with a lower level hero/team. I lost some pretty nice items on a couple of occasions due to not being able to clear the stage. It's great going back to them now though with my almost maxed out team, enemies which were a huge threat before get obliterated in seconds! Same here, apart from 1 gold colour Denpa which I got via a rare catch. I highly recommend using 3J to get yourself a golden Denpa as soon as possible though for its +10% gold bonus skill. It's not huge amount (especially as the coin rewards are so small for most enemies) but over time it makes a difference and the cost of limit breaking gets pretty steep later on. I believe that if a gold Denpa unlocks its SP colour the bonus also increases to 20%, but can't be sure as my one unfortunately hasn't. Even so, I'm currently rocking a +39% gold bonus with my team due to various equipment unlocks. Ka-ching! 💰 It does indeed. But I get the feeling it's going to be difficult to get hold of, although perhaps not as much as the stuff in the casino.