Aperson

Never played Power Paintbrush. I have however, played Canvas Curse Was never my copy though, so no idea if its even something we still have. I have found myself listening a bit to its OST though, it does its job as a best of Kirby OSTs and as the only Kirby game I've actually played is most of my exposure to Kirby soundtrack apart from Smash Bros.

Am I the only one who thought that the combat system in Pokemon Legends Arceus was basically the same one that Final Fantasy X used? A turn order in the top right is pretty much exactly the same as FFX. I think I know what Square Enix's reaction was to seeing that battle system...

I pretty much detailed my entire thoughts on Other M in the video I posted further up this page. Metroid Other M is about an hour into the video. Basically I don't think the story is that great... in the English language version because Sakamoto insisted on being the one in charge of localisation. But his original Japanese script was incredibly nuanced and was meant to have Samus growing as a character throughout the entire thing. What Sakamoto didn't realise was that the English language doesn't have the same kind of nuance that the Japanese language does considering they have multiple words for what we in English would have as one word and the words are meant to express the intent (Ore-sama for instance is considered offensive as it indicates a seflish character). I do go into full detail in the video and playing the game reminded me of a few things I'd forgotten about. I still think its the weakest entry in the Metroid series but its far from the turd the internet makes it out to be as the gameplay is solid overall. It would be even better if it had a more traditional control system but I think that says something about what Team Ninja did that the game feels good to play in spite of a bad control system. You can also tell a ton of budget was pumped into this game given how graphically impressive some of those cutscenes look (space vistas are stunning). Anyway, I've found something to play, Super Castlevania IV. I finally continued my playthrough of that game and have reached Stage 3-2. Curiously Stage 2-2 had a boss but not Stage 3. Odd....

Most of my gaming lately has been solely dedicated to my Youtube series Gaming Anniversaries. For the Metroid series I added to my replay of Prime Hunters with some gameplay of Metroid: Other M and Metroid Fusion. Yes, I went through Other M again, at least up until the hell run. There was a fair bit I forgot about, such as the fact that the game locks the save room doors until you actually save and coming to the realisation that this game was trying to be like Metal Gear Solid. The game over screen reminds me so much of MGS. I posed this video in the Metroid Dread thread but I figured since it covers the whole series and is relevant to what I'm doing here I might as well post it here too. This does mean that actually playing new games or playing games I haven't finished yet has taken a backseat to playing games for these videos and I've still got three more planned. I will try and balance that with getting some more Switch games done and also playing that Ratchet & Clank demo I downloaded a while ago

Oh hey, Nintendo remembered Metroid's 35th anniversary this year! Speaking of the anniversary, I've just released a video to commemorate the occasion, it's another gaming diary/series retrospective.

They came out to Proof of a Hero. The whole thing ended with the Dragon Quest theme.

It WAS the main Dragon Quest theme though. I've only heard it once in the loop so far but they started the entire show with the tune and then went into the main theme. They should definitely play Soulcalibur music during the fencing events though!

There's been a lot of bad organisation on the part of the Olympics. The director of the opening ceremony got fired just a day before the ceremony started and multiple others have been sacked. Nintendo probably didn't want to associate themselves with such a badly organised event.

So in case anyone isn't aware, they're playing a bunch of video game music in the Olympics opening ceremony right now. Here's the full list

Well, Konami have just announced a new game that's coming to all platforms... Looks suspiciously similar to MTG Arena but with Yugioh cards..

Powered through the rest of my Metroid Prime Huntyers replay today. Got past the dreaded Piston Tunnel and that was enough to help me get all the way to the end, scanning everything and... beating Gorea's second phase for the first time. You see, I never actually beat Gorea's second form back in the day. I always got to the final boss and beat it multiple times while repeatedly getting the bad ending. I thought that I had basically beaten the game at that point but I was confused by the fact that there were still some locked features which I had no idea how to unlock. I was also confused by online matches taking place on the Oubliette stage which I'd never unlocked. I would later find out that you were supposed to read the Alimbic Prophecy lore which tells you that you need to shoot the spinny things in the final boss battle in a certain order with the corresponding weapons. But during my proper playthrough I lost the cartridge. This leads into this year when I finally replaced it with a proper digital version. So now I've gone through and got that 100% on Prime Hunters:

I wound up taking a three year break from Dark Souls after getting stuck on Ornstein and Smough originally. I didn't do the second half of the game until this year. Definitely one of the hardest boss battles I've ever had to face. Turns out though that one of the best grinding spots in the game is in Anor Londo. The large knights drops a ton of souls and there's about six in the vicinity of the first bonfire in Anor Londo so if you keep fighting those knights over and over again and rest at the bonfire you can get a ton of souls and that helps upgrade your armour and level up a fair bit. I wound up power levelling to help myself against Ornstein and Smough and it was that moment that sent me down a more dexterity focused build. Personally I think Ornstein and Smough is the apex of this game's difficulty. In the second half of the game you're pretty strong and you have a strong familiarity with the game's systems and how to deal with enemies, added with the ability to warp between bonfires it gives more confidence to exploration. You can be a bit more aggressive against the earlier enemies in the game as you can kill many in the first hit. By this point I think its important to decide what kind of character you want to be. There's about three recommended good builds in this game, a setup prioritising strength and health, a setup prioritising dexterity and movement and a more magic focused sefup. Rounding stat powerups down to a couple of stats will help considerably in the second half.

So, what did we think of Sprint Qualifying? Personally I thought it was pretty good though th current regulations may have inhibited its ability to truly mix up the grid. The real acid test will come from the resulting grid for the full race and I felt like towards the end a lot of drivers just accepted the position they were in for tomorrow.

Replaying Metroid Prime Hunters by way of Wii U Virtual Console. Aiming to get the true ending having never got it before, currently just finished up the second Cretaphid fight on Vesper Defence Outpost. I think when I had the game I thought I had to fight the Guardians but watching Speedruns has changed my attitude to timed sequences in video games so I just straight up skipped the guardians upon spawing back. The escape sequence for that part is actually really easy when you dodge the guardians. The Wii U Gamepad is proving to be just as bad as the DS when it comes to aching hands when playing this game. I still think the aiming in the game is a lot better than dual analogues but its not very comfortable on your hands when playing it!

I'm not even surprised to be honest. A lot of people were going to get drunk watching this final and then seeing three players of African or Central American descent all miss penalties while the two white players scored penalties is going to give cause to someone without too much sense and with the hinges unleashed people are just going to just think "oh, they missed a penalty, they don't deserve to play for England" Personally I think we should ban alcohol but that's a whole different can of worms that I really don't want to get into.

Same. I am so nervous about this evening. Really hope England can do it but I think Italy are probably the slightly better team and come in as favourites. We have the home crowd backing us though!

I'm kind of glad I knocked that out last year! Albeit that was on the Gamecube version. I haven't been playing much lately aside from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate following the Kazuya update. Been clearing Classic Mode with a few more characters and I'm also trying to learn a few more characters in addition to Ike, namely Samus and Greninja. I think Greninja is someone I could try and get used to playing as but the attack variety has seemed somewhat limited. Dash into up air and followed by Side B when they're coming down seems to be the easiest way to do it, the character seems to be based around an evasive playstyle that you can then dash into your opponents while they're attacking to hit them. You can push your opponent off the stage during recovery with Hydro Pump but I haven't quite got that down properly to be able to pull it off. Aside from that I plan to replay Metroid Prime Hunters this week for Gaming Anniversaries. I lost the cartridge years ago and I never got the true 100% ending to the game, so I want to make up for that. I downloaded a digital copy of the game on Wii U in order to replace it, as I figured that the cartridge is long gone and I might as well have some way to play the game even though I can't play multiplayer on this copy.

Didn't realise Summer Games Done Quick was this week. I'll probably catch up with the runs, that Metroid Prime 2 run sounds crazy!

I definintely agree with the whole taking a break sentiment. I took a break of about 2 years or so between dropping Dark Souls before picking it back up again in order to finish. It's a game that's actually hard for most to beat in a single calendar year unless you're really dedicted. I didn't actually beat the Stray Demon myself until the very end of the game when I was grinding for Souls in order to upgrade my armour for the final boss. By that point I was incredibly overpowered and taking enemies down with ease. Granted, my stopping point was a lot later in the game than yours was. I would invest in Blooming Purple Moss Clump for upcoming areas as you'll be coming up on an infamous area in the game next...

Not sure if this has been posted yet on here...

COVID has certainly affected this tournament. I'm pretty sure the intention with holding a European wide tournament wasn't taking in the idea that there might be serious travel restrictions for fans to be able to attend certain matches and it's definitely had an impact. Not least with England getting that extra Wembley game because the previous venue for it was no longer safe. Then again, a European wide Euros was a flawed idea in practise. A romantic one that practically leads to some unfair advantages as we have seen.

No it was accurate. It's called the Group of Death because they all died. I must admit I did sleep through most of the second half of Sweden vs. Ukraine, I was just interested in knowing who England were going to get! That being said, both Sweden and Ukraine look like sides England could beat.

So I was checking out the Tekken music that was added to Smash Ultimate... ...and this is the best song by a long shot!

ProtonJon fans right now