Dufniall

I was due a new phone at work so looked around at what is available. We have an arrangement where you can get €250 refunded once every two years. I was thinking about maybe getting a more high-end phone this time around (my previous phones were the Motorola G5S and the Xiaomi 9T), so looked at the Google Pixel 6, Xiaomi Mi 11 Pro, and Samsung Galaxy S21 fan edition. Also took into account some cheaper ones like the Samsung A52s, the Samsung A53 (new release, they advertise with free headphones worth €149, which they sell on their own site for €72...), Poco F3 and Motorola Edge 20. That last one had a cashback of €100 going, so I got the Motorola Edge 20 (sorry @drahkon, hope mine doesn't break down ) as I didn't feel like paying a lot extra as I haven't really felt like I missed out on not having a flagship. Specs are good, 144Hz OLED screen, Qualcomm 778G 5G processor which is very good for a mid-end phone, and the display is nice and big (6,7 inches). I figured I'd like a bigger display to use for Stadia games and watching series. Weird to think that 7 inch is tablet size and now I have a phone of almost that haha. I did have a Moto before (G5s), and like how Motorola uses a very clean version of Android, especially against the numerous Xiaomi apps that flooded my 9T. I dislike the lack of a 3,5m port which is quite common in the market nowadays, and the camera is sticking out quite a bit. One thing Motorola isn't great at (neither was Xiaomi) is software updates, but they promised at least 2 major OS upgrades so I should be set for Android 12 and 13. And by that time I'll swap phones again anyway. Anyway, happy to have the Edge 20, although I do miss my Xiaomi 9T pop-up camera which meant I didn't have a hole in my screen!

They don't have those in the Netherlands unfortunately. And with current Brexit regulations and taxes I think it's cheaper to buy a copy of Brilliant Diamond than to import a box of these!

It is done! After 71 hours, I have caught, registered and got research level 10 on 241 Pokémon. Only Darkrai remains, but he is locked behind a BD/SP save file, which I don't have. Luckily Lord Arceus doesn't count him, and also Team Galaxy neglects him and they decided to give me the Shiny Charm anyway. Time for the verdict! The Good I really enjoyed this game. The fact that I went for Pokédex completion (something I haven't done since Pokémon Sapphire), is an indication that it felt right to keep going, although getting the last bits of research required was a bit of a slog. I really love the setting of feudal Hisui, including the dress style and the idea of the Pokédex being a book. The new region variants are cool, and the Noble battles were surprisingly fun as well. The way the game is structured with regions opening up instead of having just one big overworld didn't bother me and I may even preferred it this way to give it a bit more structure. I enjoyed the side quests, especially the weirder ones like having a Geodude be used as a pickle jar Stuff I want to see in the new game is being able to change moves on the fly. Oh I need a sleep move to catch this Pokémon? Just swap out a move on the go, loved that! The choice of wanting to engage a Pokémon or try to catch them stealth style is something I loved as well and a reason why the game kept being interesting. Side quests also helped a lot! And finally, not having to trade Pokémon was a joy because it meant I could easily finish the game myself. But with the new game being 2 versions again I doubt this will stick. The Bad First of all the story. I can't imagine the reason why I have to be a time-travelling kid chosen by the God himself with a god-infused smartphone. Easily I could just have been a local kid, or the hero who walked with Pokémon who gets frequent mentions in the game. I think I'd also would have preferred to be a bit earlier in the timeline, and you are actually the first person ever to use a Pokéball. Other plot holes remain (like what happened to the Hisui variants? Is this whole adventure just a parallel universe kind of thing? And wtf how does Ginkgo get stuff like microwaves and refrigerators?), and the "threat" and dislike of Pokémon from the community could have been done better. That said, I like how the game has a slightly darker tone regarding mentions of dying in the field, and the fact you get shunned for being an outsider. The lack of voice acting really set me off. Cutscenes are just empty without audio, especially as characters' mouths are moving. Further, the game has some excellent tracks, but takes the BOTW approach to sometimes just leave out music or have a small ambient track in the background. I'm not the biggest fan of having to repeat catch Pokémon (something Let's Go also had), especially without a proper box ordering system. My boxes were a mess and the only viable way of finding something was the search option. Oh, and one thing that annoyed me a lot is the fact that when you face a trainer, experience is given after the whole fight is over. So if half of your team faints, they miss out on all XP. The Ugly Well, because this game is ugly isn't it? Water effects are bad, pop-in is terrible, environments are empty, Pokémon in the distance move at 5fps and the textures on rocks etc. are horrible. But somehow it didn't bother me as much as I figured it would have. Because the core gameplay was just so much fun. All in all I love this fresh take on the series, with a different approach, exploring the lore, craft items and roam the wilds to catch them all. After the good old 8 gyms and a Pokémon league this was a very welcome change of pace! I hope Game Freak keeps these more experimental games in their portfolio, but please hire a bunch of extra guys to polish your games graphically a bit.

https://www.nintendo.co.uk/News/2022/March/Take-a-look-back-at-Super-Smash-Bros-fighter-reveals-with-Masahiro-Sakurai-Part-1-2186634.html Sakurai also gives his opinions on the Smash reveals. Didn't know where to put it but figured this would be a good topic!

Cool, I've recently (re)watched Spirited Away as my girlfriend hadn't seen it yet and loved it, although it gets a bit stretched out towards the end I feel. But the whole first half is amazing. As they are on Netflix we're watching a Ghibli when in the mood, so far we've seen My Neighbor Totoro (first time seeing it) and Howl's Moving Castle (second time for me). I think Princess Mononoke will be next.

First of all, I find it curious how fixed everyone is in fitting a game as either mainline or spin-off. I'd argue that you just have to separate the mobile games and put them in a third category: Nintendo mobile games. Goes for Mario Run, Pocket Camp, Fire Emblem Heroes, Dr. Mario and Tour, all could be classified either as a main series or spin-off with the right arguments but they are all mobile games based heavily on the console main series. Category 3. As for Tour, I feel there is a lot to it where main series Mario Kart could learn from. Most tracks have variations: remixes, reverse versions and trick versions with extra ramps for jumps etc. The game also isn't necessarily aimed at coming in first, it's all about scoring the most points which is done mostly by maintaining combos which would be a cool second mode for a new game. Every cup has a mini mission like beat giant Bowser, drive through rings, get all item boxes etc, almost similar to what the DS had. Next to that there are the plethora of characters and different costumed characters. The main gripe of course is the whole gacha mechanic but if you play it just for fun? You can unlock plenty and obtain enough coins and gems (in-game currency) to get a lot of good stuff. Controls are indeed simplified because of the inaccuracy of touch controls. You can hardly go off course, auto steering is there and tracks are generally wider. But the core gameplay (using items, drifts etc) is all there. But back to Dragalia Lost: I always had the feeling that game was more for Japan anyway, I'm curious how much revenue it generated there. I remember being in Tokyo and there were plenty of Dragalia Lost banners to be spotted:

Humble now also has a Support Ukraine bundle: https://www.humblebundle.com/stand-with-ukraine-bundle For +/- 35 euros you will support the Ukraine cause, and get titles such as Back 4 Blood, Spyro Reignited Trilogy, Slay the Spire, PGA Tour 2K21, This War of Mine, Wargroove and much much more. The games in this bundle are available on either Steam, GOG, or Rockstar Games Launcher for Windows — and some for Mac and Linux too.

That's something I noticed when I started playing Tour. Tracks are definitely wider, probably to cope with the way of control/more items/extra jumps etc they put in these tracks. Anyway, played the new tracks a couple of times and so far they are enjoyable. Sky Garden was one of my favourite tracks, and the remake is good but it doesn't feel like the old 2D track any more. Paris Promenade is fun with the twist in lap 3, and Ninja Hideaway is great as there are so many layers in it. The rest is decent to good. Slightly disappointed that they didn't sneak in a new car or character. And I'm already having that feeling of "alright, I've seen the new tracks". And the wait for the next batch can be a long one. Maybe 2 years is too much of a stretch to spread them out.

Have to declare myself out unfortunately, I have a baby here who doesn't want to sleep, and doesn't want me to play games either!

Was expecting it a bit earlier as well! Ah well, luckily a lot of new music keeps coming out in the meantime. We have a new RAMMSTEIN record coming this april, and right now I'm just playing the new Ghost album Impera on repeat. For a band that leans very heavy on their occult gimmick, they do write catchy songs! And to be honest I love the whole "lore" behind them.

GameXplain already has a comparison video up. Looks like a nice and decent visual upgrade for the Tour tracks. And needless to say the older tracks all got a very thick lick of paint (plus lay-out changes):

A new sale is live on the eShop, focussing on Indie Gems. That's probably the reason they have named it the Indie Gems Sale: Hades -35%, Bastion -79%, Streets of Rage 4 -40%, just to name a few.

Yes, Mario Kart Tour is an absolutely horrible product that should have NEVER seen the light of day!! Still love playing it every day though.

If I'm correct Sunbreak will be priced at €40/£35. I'm guessing we have only seen a little bit of the new content, and there will be a lot more new monsters (or at least variations like Silver Rathalos etc). So on the one hand that is quite an expensive pack of DLC, but on the other hand €40 instead of having to buy Monster Hunter Rise Ultimate for €60 seems fair.

Yeah I finished season 4 recently as well and it was a great series in all. I especially enjoyed episode 9 of season 4, that was a lot like a Castlevania game including boss battles haha. To be honest I wasn't that big a fan of the branching out of the stories in Season 3, it felt a bit as if they were searching which way to go and somehow decided to tie it all up in Season 4.

What am I missing here? Traditions people! Anyway, in for this Friday!

And the Lego x Mario onslaught continues: My brother has two kids, a boy and a girl. The boy is still wild about Lego Mario and recently got Luigi, but the girl kind of stopped having interest. I'm guessing this will draw her right back in, smart move from Nintendo to get Peach involved!

I think the SRP is 40 which is quite hefty, but on the other hand this has more games in it compared to other collections. Still, being a Konami collection means it will hit 50-75% off pretty soon anyway. Still, great collection! I loved Turtles In Time on the SNES, never owned it but I rented it a couple of times. I played Tournament Fighters on an emulator, and I can recall me playing one of the Game Boy games as well although I don't know which one. Having online for a bunch of titles is great as well, will probably pick it up down the line in a sale just for online Turtles In Time.

True, specs-wise Xiaomi has amazing bang for buck. I have the Mi 9T (the one with the pop-up camera) and the specs are great for the price I paid for it. However, it is quite a bloated software version of Android with a lot of extra apps I don't use or need, and my latest security patch is August 2021, so more than half a year old. I think it depends on the user if you want security or better specs in this price range.

Nokia is indeed pretty good again these days. Clean android without much extra software, fairly long update policy. Two new models just released, the G11 (€149) and G21 (€199), both get at least 36 months of security updates. Plus is they have a 90hz screen so that's a bit more smooth to look at. Samsung launched the A13 today, a phone with a higher resolution than usual in this price range for €189. Has the usual extra Samsung software and I'm unsure what their update policy is. They promise up to 5 years "on upcoming A series models" but not sure if these really cheap ones fall under that policy. Chinese brands often have better specs for the low price, but often have bad track records with updating their devices. If you just want to use them for 2 years they are fine, but bas choice for longevity. I think most phones nowadays support 5Ghz WiFi already.

It's the one thing that I've been really missing since 4 Ultimate, these behemoth multistage fights. Would be great if they would make a comeback.

Got the itch.io bundle for Ukraine. Great initiative, and an insane amount of content for a minimum of $10 (gave a little more myself). Also: no client needed, you just download the installation files from the website.

Yes, curious to hear more about Sunbreak! Mostly interested to see how extensive it is, and what price they are going to ask for it.

Curious to see how many hours everyone has on the clock when you finally complete the Dex! I'll try to write up a final thoughts post somewhere coming week.

Seeing as you guys are skipping the demo I'll throw my first impressions in spoiler tags just in case: Edit: just finished the demo (it's actually 2 levels and a boss fight). There is replay value in the demo as well.