Jonnas

Sin and Punishment is a really fun game, absolutely worth checking out. I played it just last year! Let's not get too crazy I personally enjoyed Lylat Wars more, it feels more like a complete package. But there's no other game quite like S&P.

Oh dang. I hadn't even seen that, this looks amazing! I went and voted for two games that feel weirdly inaccessible right now: Prince of Persia (the original) and Persona 1. I'm sure I'll come up with more. ... I just remembered Rise of Nations. Brb. Black & White made some waves back in the day. Or rather, the previews made a lot of waves, Peter Molineux hyped the hell out of that game, due to how ambitious and technically impressive it was. As for Black & White 2... it definitely existed, but I never heard much about it. It's basically... like a western version of Doshin the Giant. GOG's whole shtick (well, besides "Good Old Games") is being DRM-free. Every game in their catalogue can be played without a client... or even an account. This does mean that you can even allow other people to play games you bought, on their own machines. Heck, make a copy of your executable, and two people can play in distinct machines. This means that, if your machine runs Windows/Linux, it can run the vast majority of GOG's library without issues. Beyond that, just make sure the game in question can be played without a mouse Disclaimer: GOG does have a client with accounts, achievements, etc. It's called "GOG Galaxy". It is entirely optional, however. If there is any game that depends on GOG Galaxy to run, I'm not aware of it.

Apparently, this happened a couple of days ago, but Dino Crisis 1&2 are now available on GOG. Love to see more games from that era become more readily available. Also love to see GOG on such good terms with a major Japanese developer/publisher.

It should be no different than when games block certain options during certain times or locations (such as blocking a fast travel option while inside a dungeon). If "currently running Pokémon Gen 1", then "block the save state option on the menu". Adding exceptions like that should be trivial.

The techniques Glen-i is talking about are meant for bosses (and while they cheese the main story bosses just fine, optional bosses are a match for the cheese). Luckily, there is an SP move that already deals with random battles pretty well. It's Aika's third move (a better, more expensive version of Alpha Storm), so feel free to aim for that one. Your description of the battle confused me at first. It's not an easy fight at all, but it's very strategy/puzzle based (you can easily escape the lasers unscathed if you know what to do). Then it occurred to me that maybe you didn't equip any secondary weapons, which... would be necessary for that, yes. (Do equip the Little Jack with some stuff at least, there's more bosses to come) IIRC, the items that permanently increase the ship's health carry that upgrade over to future ships, so don't be afraid to use those.

It's funny, the sewer dungeon is infamous in this game, but not because of the actual sewers. It's the boss gauntlet immediately after that stumps people. I mean, what else is he going to do? 10.000 Cutlass Furies?

I love Skies of Arcadia, and I know I'll love reading these updates I know, right? I love Vyse, but Aika's got the "it" factor.

I'm going to properly start my gaming year with an update I haven't done in a while: A Jonnas NSO Update After replaying Streets of Rage 2, I was itching to do other simple beat'em ups. I turned to the NSO for a fix... River City and Kunio-Kun My main contact with River City Ransom, for a long time, was the fact that sprite webcomics from the early-to-mid-2000s often used sprites from this game for NPCs and minor characters. They're very expressive, with surprising variety. I had never touched the game itself until the NSO, though. I first tried it on my own, and the city felt big, complicated, and a bit intimidating. Then I tried it in co-op with a cousin, and it was fun and chaotic. The third time I tried it was these past few days. I no longer think it's too big (despite the NES limitations, I can navigate the alleys just fine), but I did realise I don't enjoy the gameplay much: attacks are a bit haphazard, weapons are kind of just there, coins need to be manually picked up, and the player character slides all over the place like he's Luigi. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad game, it just doesn't really suit my singleplayer tastes. It's great fun in co-op, and you'll have a great time solo if you're into wacky beat'em ups, but I prefer depth and consistency. In racing game terms, this game is Mario Kart, and I prefer F-Zero or Burnout. (I also don't care for the "80s Japanese delinquent" aesthetic, even if the spritework's really good) Since they're from the same series, I tried out Kunio-kun's March Field Day (or something like that)... It's a wild idea, a racing game where you run around the city, barge into people's houses, and such. Couldn't quite figure out how to run properly, and I didn't really like the screen transitions interrupting the race. I feel like it's a good concept, but too big for the NES's britches. I'd be curious to see a modern parkour racing game, though. I moved on to Kunio-kun's Dodgeball (or something like that). It's Japanese-only. I could not make it past the menu. I tried, but I think I deleted my own team...? Look, I don't even like Dodgeball, so I'm happy to give this one a pass. I played these games before that collection was announced, I swear. The Golden Axis Still itching for beat'em-ups, I decided to take a swing (har har) at this well-regarded series, Golden Axe 1 and Golden Axe 2 & Golden Axe 3. The first two games are on the NSO, and I still had the third one on Steam. Going into it, all I knew is that there's a dwarf. It's quite gritty. Attacks are straightforward and aggressive (including kicks and hitting enemies with the hilt), enemies are only soldiers, barbarians and skeletons (with occasional dragon riders), the colour palette is pretty muted... The main inspiration is Conan the Barbarian, and it shows. I did like how each level is preceded by a well-written intro and a doodled map. The first game is very rough around the edges, but is also the grittiest one. The second one is a bit smoother, though it still feels very similar to the first game. The third one adds two more characters, a few new moves for everyone, and new ideas like branching/split paths or fights atop moving vehicles. That said, I really didn't like any of the entries. For starters, I never liked Conan. Second, the sound design isn't very compelling (hits need to feel good, you know?). Third, I don't like that the moveset is limited, and the magic system is boring (press one button to hit every enemy on-screen? Not a fan of that mechanic). And finally (the biggest reason behind my lack of enjoyment), any fun I could derive from combat is undermined by the fact that every single enemy attacks by instantly launching themselves at you: it's obnoxious, and every fight feels samey because of it. Curiously, everything people say about Dark Souls combat seems to apply here: enemies are very strong, attacks are simple, the moment-to-moment gameplay focuses in combat, and each fight is approached slowly and carefully (ideally, at least). You could say Dark Souls is the Golden Axe of 3D games. Tetriminos? More like TetrimiNES And now, something different (that I technically played more in 2024), Tetris (NES). I'm familiar with Tettris, but hadn't played this version before. I had heard that if you finished 9-5 in B-Type, you get an animation of Nintendo characters playing instruments for you. So I tried to do that... but couldn't achieve it. This version of the game is MUCH faster than Game Boy, and my reflexes weren't good enough. It's a brutal version of the game, and best serves veterans and experts. I'm glad I tried it, though. After that, why not try Tetris DX? This one was excessively slow, had way too many options to select, and then the gameplay itself was hilariously broken. Your block moves up if you rotate it too much? Holy smokes, the lack of QC is impressive! This is also not what I look for in a Tetris game, but for opposite reasons as the NES version. Worried that I was Mandela'ing myself, I went back to Tetris (GB). This one hit the spot, it's perfect, and just as enjoyable as it's always been. I also have a newfound appreciation for it after trying out those other two versions, seeing for myself how delicate the balance behind it is. Of note, I'm now very curious about Tetris Forever. Didn't think it would be that interesting to try different versions of Tetris, but it actually is quite fascinating. We'll see if that's ever in the cards. ... And that's definitely how I originally planned to end this post. But then Nintendo was all like, "Jonnas, are you OK?" BUSTAH WORF! Didn't expect to see Fatal Fury on the NSO! Not outside of a potential Neo Geo app, at any rate. I did play this one before. Fatal Fury Special is an updated version of this game, with more characters. You may notice I disliked FF Special, though. Between the 2-lane system and the obnoxious difficulty, I didn't gel with that game. With that in mind, this version is surprisingly better in that regard. The difficulty is above average, but actually manageable this time (watch out for Kim, though, that guy's still a beast), and the enemies rarely go into the other lane. Visually, there's compromises, but it does look good, especially for the SNES. There's no movelist, sadly. Sure, I knew how to do Terry's, Mai's, and Kim's moves, but I have experience with these characters, newcomers won't have that perk. I also couldn't pull off Terry's crack shoot, not sure why. Still, I felt that this version of FF2 is far more playable than Special, so it's definitely something fun to try out. Plus, Nintendo gamers can finally see why Terry's spirit board in SSBU features a moving train.

I was wondering where I had seen that little iceman before, and I couldn't quite place it. The gameplay doesn't ring any bells. Then it hit me: it's a spirit in Smash Bros. Ultimate. It's pretty cool to get unknowingly familiar with obscure games like that.

Lightspeed Rescue was a cool season for Power Rangers. Shame that it got such a poor game. Blowing up cars in order to rescue them sounds hilarious, though.

THEY CHANGED THE *click* INTO A *clack*! MOTHERFU- *ahem* It looks exactly as unimaginative as the rumours claimed. But I am looking forward to see the mouse joy-cons (mouse-cons? Rat-cons? We'll workshop it later) in action. Nintendo is clearly fishing for some PC ports and their respective players. It's all hands on Deck to assert their dominance. Respect for turning a weakness into a strength, too... ...or something.

Man, these Gamecube-focused pledges look like a wishlist taken right out of 2005. Warms my heart to see them. Looking at your pictures... it's Alfred, right? He was part of a Fatal Fury spinoff that never really took off.

Gotta be honest: Tekken 8 sounds like a far more impressive get than RDR2. A fighting game like that HAS to run well, always. Would be a guarantee that there's no stuttering issues with the new console. Right, the reason I posted here, despite not liking to discuss rumours or alleged leaks, is that this translation from Portuguese is quite incorrect. He's responding to a tweet that asked whether Nintendo was meant to announce it this week, but delayed the event for some reason. Felipe responded: "No, Nintendo is still following a timetable they set a long time ago. No changes. No delays." Also, we are mostly taking Felipe's word for it when it comes to this FNAC leak. The photo is using a codename of sorts, and classifying it internally as a "Nintendo Switch videogame". The photo itself does not confirm Switch 2, only that Take Two has some unknown videogame coming out for a Switch.

The game itself kind of sweeps the historical setting under the rug. Which is weird, because the main villain's tragic backstory is a direct consequence of WWI, iirc. I'm guessing, whoever wrote the game did not want to imply that a vampire was somehow a bigger threat to the world than the war, so they were discreet about it. This does mean that, according to Castlevania lore, two frustrated painters were trying to take over the world at the exact same time. That's worth two nickels.

It doesn't. It takes place during WWII. Only the first painting takes place in the Victorian Era. ... There is a decent chance that Super Mario 64 also takes place during WWII. Just saying.

I predict that Mortal Kombat 1 will not be in it. And also, that either MvC2 or MvC Infinite & Beyond will be in (it would be wild if it was the latter). Other than that, SF6, Tekken 8, Guilty Gear Strive, City of the Wolves... and Granblue, I guess. That leaves two spots, so there might be a genuine surprise still. Maybe Multiversus But more seriously, I'm guessing Rivals of Aether II

Oh wow, that's really cool to watch!

The Experimental World review is among my favourites in this entire series. What an utterly fascinating find.

Pledges of all various kinds, formats, and priorities. Love to see it. Oh hey, that was quick! Congrats on having the first cleared game of any pledge! StarFox 64 was a game that somehow won me over last year. Wasn't in the cards, but I finally got all the hubbub. I didn't remember the waterfall from a childhood memory or anything, but I did replay that first level a few times to get used to the controls. At some point, I finally noticed Falco was actually going somewhere when he said "Follow me" Revisiting this game a few more times is definitely worth it. It's definitely the sort of comfy game to play a bit when you just want something familiar. Speaking of comfy action games, my first beaten game of 2025 was a replay of Streets of Rage 2. I picked Axel and just spammed the uppercut all the time. Grand peace of mind.

There goes the hope of seeing this in stores... Maybe CeX

I do love reading about hilariously poor games from time to time. This Hercules game sounds boring as sin, but this was a thoroughly enjoyable review.

Oh dear. I didn't know this. I noticed Sega has been acting real uppity and ambitious for the past year or so (from the announcement of multiple IP revivals last year, to the most recent Virtua Fighter direct, where they seemed unusually committed to make that franchise successful), but this is a step further! We can look at this pessimistically: it's going to crash and burn, just like Ubisoft did. We can look at this optimistically: Sega will manage whatever perks they get, and curate their back catalogue well enough to make this work. It might end up going in more interesting directions. Outside of the NSO, this is the first time we see a Japanese company committed to the concept (I think. Didn't Capcom express some desire to do something similar some time ago? Maybe I'm misremembering something), so they might just take a different path, like a few key partnerships. The Mega Drive NSO is already basically that. 2025 is going to be an interesting year for Sega... It's interesting, because Sega is basically the only publisher in this position: they already have their own subscription app with their properties, but they're not the ones managing it, they're just licensing them. In that sense, their perspective on the market is more privileged than most. Also, didn't they express some disappointment or frustration at the revenue from the Mega Drive NSO some time back? If that's the case, and they're still looking to get into the subscription market anyway, is it possible that their frustration comes from the app not being fully theirs? Whether due to limited revenue, or the inability to fully manage/curate their IPs on their own terms, it's possible that the Mega Drive app may, in fact, be the (Mega) driving force behind this new direction.

So, this is a weird year for Resolutions. I'm already in the middle of a lot of changes (career-wise, personal, health...), so I guess the only tangible resolution I can make is to make sure I don't neglect myself or my needs, so that I'm up to whatever challenge is ahead of me. On a smaller, N-E related note, I want to... reply more. There are days where I feel like all of my engagement in this website is to react to a few good posts, but then I don't add anything. So, I want to give more input, participate more in discussions. This is a valuable corner of the internet, and I want to make it better.

So, I just heard of this recently, but it seems Sega has delisted a lot of games from Steam (and other consoles, but Steam is the most affected), about a month or so ago. It's mostly Mega Drive games, but they also removed stuff like Jet Set Radio, Nights into Dreams, and even the ToeJam&Earl reboot. Now, when it comes to Steam specifically, I'm saddened, but it is something that I kind of expected to happen for a while. Sega were a very early adopter of the policy of "rereleases our back catalogue on Steam", and some of these releases were definitely dated, for good or ill (lower prices for each individual releases, but also barely updated or remastered, and many QoL features were in their infancy). I figured it was a matter of time before they decided to essentially redo their PC retro line-up. What surprises me is how broad they made this. They may have a history of re-selling Arcade, Mega Drive, and Master System classics, but it's the first time I'm seeing them include more modern games (by which I mean, Sega Saturn and later) in the redo. I imagine they might be preparing to release a "Dreamcast Collection" volume of some sorts? A remaster of Nights? Definitely another Mega Drive Collection for sure ("HD Genesis", they might call it? ). All I'm asking for is a proper Virtua Fighter collection. Or include the 3D entries somewhere in whatever collection they release. AndalsoSkiesofArcadia. Until then, it's sad to see such a large line-up leave a storefront all at once. I trust Sega to put them back on the market soon enough, but I don't have the same amount of trust for any other publisher.

Alright, so here's my take on this: you're just letting yourself down on this. You have the choice of playing these games now, or later, right? Let's assume that things with the Switch 2 go as planned, and that they do run all of these games better, even simply as a retro-compatibility perk. Let's even use Pikmin 4 as an example. Choice 1 - You play Pikmin 4 now Step 1: You have a good time with Pikmin 4, despite some rough edges; Step 2: You inevitably replay it on the Switch 2 (short-form or long-form), and have a great time. Choice 2 - You play Pikmin 4 on the Switch 2 Step 1: You wait; Step 2: You inevitably play it on the Switch 2, and have a great time. From a simple pragmatic perspective, both paths lead to the same result. The main difference is that, in one, you don't have to wait (and you even get to see what the first release's shortcomings look like for yourself). Now, I understand priorities are a thing, and what you described can just be an argument to shift priorities around. But it sounds like you're intentionally starving yourself out of principle, and that's more worrying. If you do wait for Pikmin 4, do it not out of some ideal principle of perfection (that you're not even setting for yourself, you're expecting it out of Nintendo), but because there's plenty of good stuff to go around now, anyway. So, something I didn't quite say, is that each game represents a 2025 Gaming Resolution, or a part of it. I won't say what they are just now (I'll let the year evolve and explain them as I cross games off the list), but I will say that I'll retain my two impossible 2024 resolutions: clear the NSO, clear the "Unfinished" games. There are only 3 NSO titles on my pledge, and also only one "Unfinished" game: Bravely Default II. It's key that these two longform objectives make up just a part of my gaming in 2025, just like with 2024. If I overfocus on a goal or two, gaming becomes a chore, and I want things to flow a bit more naturally. That said, I think I can come out and say the specific reason as to why Banjo and BDII specifically are on my pledge: even though the pledge is non-binding, not finishing it has consequences. In this case, two games from 2024 are occupying part of my 2025 pledge, space that could be holding newer experiences or ideas. I removed games from the shortlist to make space for BDII and Banjo, and it is important to remember that for a good while. (I also didn't include Three Hopes. Hopefully the reason why should become apparent soon enough) As for The Surge... I sure hope I can make a good story out of my reasons, when the time comes! EDIT: Oh, and here's one fun thing. I actually played Portal 2 in a single night: New Year's. I no longer remember why I decided to do that, but I will always associate Portal 2 with the New Year. It's a fun one, and I hope you enjoy it. I certainly have thoughts on it (let's just say I disagree with one of the accolades you quoted), so I'm looking forward to hearing your impressions.