Dufniall

I don't have any plans yet for next weekend so I should be available.

I reinstalled it as well last weekend and have been playing it quite a bit this week. Landscape is indeed a good addition, although it is weird to have to rotate your phone between menus and races. I'm impressed by the amount of courses, parts and characters in this! There's so much to collect which is pretty cool. Too bad a lot of it is locked behind the pipes though. The gacha is still pretty bad and seeing that you really need a lot of different characters and parts to get the highest starting setup (pretty much required to get your stars) means you will have to invest if you want to 5-star everything. The prices are insane, €22-€43 for a kart, an upgrade item and a bunch of rubies? That's just disgusting. But as a mobile phone time waster it is fun yeah. But I do hope they bring a lot of stuff from this over to the next console Mario Kart and give that as much support as they're giving this. The costumed racers are cool, and the amount of karts and parts is astonishing. Bring over these tracks based on real-life cities, and they can even throw in MK Tour's point-based mode next to the normal MK mode. Finally, keep it fresh with online tournaments like they do now (with changing grand prix with a different combination of tracks every time) and with the special races (hit enemies, drive through rings etc) and you would have one hell of a Mario Kart 9.

Sounds like a plan! When would you have time? I'm fairly full this weekend but I may have some room here or there. Mostly on Saturday I think, or Sunday evening.

Nope, two more to go! One tomorrow and one next week according to serebii. Edit: Who here by the way picked up the season pass? The Crown Tundra is dropping tomorrow, and I kind of feel like going back to this but I've barely heard anything about how people value it.

I wouldn't mind another evening of Among Us.

I picked up some turnips for the first time in months so if anyone has a good price this week let me know!

I'm so tempted to get a Quest 2 as I love the VR experience but the price is my biggest gripe. But that mandatory Facebook login is holding me back. I've been thinking about deleting my Facebook, so getting more involved seems like the wrong direction. The fact that they tie your purchases to it means I have to keep it, and their policy makes it risky to set up a fake account. But reviews are good and the pricepoint is very fair. Maybe I should hold off a little bit longer for the HP Reverb G2, although that won't work standalone which is a plus for the Quest 2.

As always, the heavy shipping costs apply. However, the Splatoon keychains, Splatoon postcards and Paper Mario notebooks are all still in stock as well. I thought if I combine these then the €7 shipping costs are acceptable. But nope! You can only use one voucher per shipping. Want them all? Four times the shipping costs (plus the platinum coins). FU, Nintendo.

Timestamped at the appropriate time for Pokémon fans. It's funny that the Pokémon theme song got played on the world's largest metal festival, and it sounds awesome too. For those wondering, the guy is Leo Moracchioli/Frog Leap Studios, and he runs a YouTube channel where he converts pop and theme songs to metal versions. Some are pretty damn good. Sometimes he goes on tour with a live band, as in the above video.

If I recall correct, the shop and inn are both

Time flies by like mad these days, so I wasn't keeping an eye on the deadline (had a full weekend anyway so wouldn't have had time to make something even if I wanted to). Is it an idea to, for the next month, extend the building period? E.g. 2 weeks for building, 1 week for playing and 1 week for scoring?

Someone was selling these games pretty cheap, so I figured what the heck. I'm kind of back into the 3DS anyway with me recently finishing Samus Returns and A Link Between Worlds, so I might as well use that momentum. Plus, Link's birthday is coming up, plus I never played Hyrule Warriors. Played the first two missions of Hyrule Warriors Legends, and it plays pretty decent on a 3DS, coming from Fire Emblem Warriors on Switch. Was surprised by the cutscenes and storytelling so far, and it looks like a lot of fun, and seems to be more varied than Fire Emblem Warriors with regards to cast, environments and boss battles. And if anyone wants to play Tri Force Heroes in 2020, hook me up.

Must have been a weird experience to not have any sense of taste or smell at all. Wish you a fast recovery! It's weird to hear you experience the difficulties with the whole test process. Here in the Netherlands the media are praising Germany how well they are handling Covid compared to us. So that does not fair well for NL. And seeing the numbers rise again and the weird and conflicting measures the government is taking I can see how. Last weekend for example a church held 3 masses for 600 people each. No protection, singing allowed. Apparently they could because "religious activities are a fundamental right and should not be hindered". Fucking unbelievable. It got a lot of aftermath and now the church organizations have agreed to go back to 30 people like every other establishment.

And if a demo isn't enough, Nintendo has also put the Pikmin short movies on YouTube (the ones you could buy on the WiiU/3DS):

Credits rolled yesterday on Super Mario Sunshine with 59 shines. Despite some frustrating bits (and I haven't even tried the pachinko machine yet!) I still love this game and I prefer it over Mario 64. The camera is a lot better, Mario controls and responds better, and I actually like that the game revolves around an island and it doesn't have the average snow/desert/lava etc. structure (coming back to the discussion from the podcast). It amazes me how well the graphics hold up here, the slightly cell-shaded look combined with the vibrant colours make it feel very fresh still. Oh, and I love the a capella Mario theme in the FLUDD-less levels!

Pre-orders are up for some Mario 35th anniversary merch on the European Nintendo shops. Link to the UK one, but they are also available on for example the Dutch shop via Nintendo.nl so I'm guessing every Euro shop has them up: https://store.nintendo.co.uk/super-mario-35th-anniversary/super-mario-bros-35th-anniversary-collection-nintendo-tokyo-exclusive-collection.list

Just wanted to say I played through all of the levels this weekend, and I liked them all! They were all pretty straightforward which I find a good thing haha. Some lovely mechanics as well, like the use of the SMB2 mushroom and the boss battle in Sméagol's level. Also didn't know the squirrel suit was in the game until I played one of the Ninji run levels.

It's available for pre-order now for €39,99. I loved the original one (the 1998 one), although the remaster is of the 2010 game. The last NFS I really played was Underground 2, so I'm curious to see if this is any good. Will wait until it is half price though.

On the one hand nice haul, and if people are willing to buy them above new price well, good for you and good for them. But on the other hand this is the exact kind of practice I hate about market scarcity and the scalping it generates.

Finished a couple of books. First one is The President Is Missing, by James Patterson and Bill Clinton. Actually it is credited as Bill Clinton's first novel, but I have a strong feeling most writing is done by Patterson. It gets praised because it gives insight in the way of working of an American president that only a former president can know. But to me it was just a generic political thriller and the Clinton influence wasn't very apparent. Also finished Japan in 100 kleine stukjes (Japan in 100 small pieces), a Dutch book which gives a good insight in Japanese culture and how it is to be a foreigner in Japan. Told in 100 small chapters filled with anecdotes, a fast but fun read. And because of this thread I've now started His Dark Materials #1: The Golden Compass (so I guess I have the US version because of the title).

First teaser of the Monster Hunter movie: Ehrm, not what I was expecting. I was expecting Great Swords, maybe a Bowgun.

I think it's the graphics that puts most people of. The way I see it is that it is basically virtual Lego with an added story. I never played Minecraft myself (only the "2D Minecraft" Terraria), but if anything this reveal makes me want to try out Minecraft.

Yeah I was flooded in that week with work, and that weekend I left for a week of holiday so didn't have any time to cook something up unfortunately. Funny thing is because of Mario Bros. 35 I remembered that I should play the posted levels as I still want to vote. Noticed it was pretty quiet here so I wanted to play the levels tonight and revive the thread, but you beat me to it!

Gave it a short whirl but I'm not too enthusiastic. The Battle Royale part isn't as obvious as with Tetris 99, and for the rest you are just playing Mario levels with more enemies and a stricter time limit. With 20 coins you can also activate a random item (can be a POW block, mushroom, fire flower) so you can power up in the heat of battle. I haven't made it past 1-3 yet, but that's mostly because I keep falling in pits because the controls feel a bit more unresponsive than I'm used to in Mario Bros. Might be the online part or just my sucky skills.