Jonnas

...Not sure what you mean. That this game is following a different timeline from the original was a given from the first trailer (in Houses, the lords don't meet again until after the timeskip. In here, they're interacting during it). Considering Time's Pulse, there's even a good chance that Byleth herself is responsible for the deviation, whichever that may be. The main rumour going on was that this game was going to feature a "Golden Ending", that is, a singular story that ties everything in a neat little bow, and the lords make peace, and so on. That this was the Revelations route, basically. There was zero indication of this being the case though, it's mostly people just... wanting it to happen. The rumour persisted, precisely because of AoC. "Oh, that game had a happy ending with no tragedy in sight, so they'll do the same here". But that has always been a fallacious argument for multiple reasons (and it mostly boils down to "Zelda and Fire Emblem are distinct franchises aiming for distinct tones") But with the confirmation that we still need to pick a faction and stick to it, the idea of a Golden Ending grows ever more implausible. Good thing too, because that would actually go against the core themes of the main game.

Heck yeah, that was a very informative trailer! Seems our new purple bloke ("Shez") is actually the main character! We only briefly saw their female form, but I already like her design plenty more than F!Byleth; New designs confirmed for Dedue, Hilda, Lorenz, and Mercedes. My opinion of them varies wildly, but the one that fascinates me most is Dedue's beard; Monica confirmed playable!; Flayn was in the trailer. This is not a drill, I repeat, this is not a drill, that's just what her hair normally looks like; New characters shown: red haired Warrior, old man Brawler, and sleazy Wyvern Lord; Class changes confirmed, which should hopefully address @Glen-i's worry about clones; We have the first glimpse of this white God...or Goddess? But not much else. According to info on the website, their name is "Arval"; Golden ending deconfirmed. HAH! Considering the implication that Byleth might be an antagonist (or at least an off-screen presence), my mind is swirling with plot theories. I'm guessing this might be a timeline where Byleth somehow never got to become a teacher at Garreg Mach, but that's the only thing I'm remotely confident in. Well, that, and the identity of those new characters...

...As a reminder, her "excuse" is that Nintendo basically corroborated her story by offering a refund. Unless you mean the Nintendo Store code thing, in which case that's just Julius being a sharp sleuth, as the lady did not confirm it. But honestly, nevermind piracy websites. If this as-of-yet-officially-unreleased game is truly circulating freely online, we'll be seeing spoilers all over the place. As leaks are wont to do. Like when the plot for Last of Us Part 2 and Three Houses got leaked. If multiple copies of any kind are circulating, we'll see Twitter flooded with pictures very soon. If it's just the occasional person to whom this happened, then I imagine those pics will be quite scarcer. I will admit that, if a potential pirate also happened to buy the game this way, then we'll definitely see those pirated copies. But to me, nothing really points towards this girl being one.

Ah, there's the highly specific circumstances behind her purchase/pre-load. Very nice catch. If nothing else, we got some buzz about the game, as well as a snippet of Nell's and Olaf's themes. The latter sounds great, but can't say I much like the guitars for Nell's.

I never pre-load games, so I never noticed anything. I did notice the option for pre-orders was available very early on, even before the first delay. Maybe an option for pre-load was made briefly available at some point as well. Reading more comments about the situation, it seems the version she got is a very early build as well, as it lacks some features seen in more recent trailers (like animated CO portraits during battle, or distinct models for each faction).

I made the "piracy" comment as a joke, as this likely happened by chance. The twitter user says it only works on her Switch Lite, so it's likely that the specific settings she had with her account(s), plus the circumstances with the pre-load and the last-minute delay, meaning this was likely a highly specific/obscure download option that was not adequately locked by Nintendo when they delayed the game. Sounds far more likely that this is an overlooked exploit that a handful of players would be able to accidentally discover. Finally, she claims that 50 quid were taken from her account to pay for the game. That's something we shouldn't overlook. To be honest, if this was the result of piracy, I would assume we'd hear about it from other venues, and with more anonymous folk sharing screenshots. The fact that it's a single Twitter user leads credence to the notion that it's a weird exploit discovered accidentally.

This is some Advanced piracy.

This is a good time as any to remind people that, at some point in time, an Argentinian news outlet legitimately thought that the Monkey Island's Grog was a real drink that teens these days were consuming.

I'd just like to say I really appreciated Glen's review. Triangle Strategy ticks so many personal boxes for me, it's hard for me to properly recommend it, knowing my bias (especially to those who may be undecided). It's great to see that a more casual fan of the genre can attest to the game's accessibility and depth.

Oh hey, I know these Also, I could swear Aztech: Forgotten Gods had already released. Hope it's good, anyway.

Maybe you'll find the option alongside all the unchosen impossible futures in the Dead Sea. Or something. I think that's how Chrono Cross time works. ... I will say, I can think of one boss against whom no amount of grinding would ever help.

You call that a low point? That jazz coffee commercial was the best thing I've ever seen!

I felt like it would fit right as a film, but this works too (though in order to fit really well as a film, we would need one extra episode of setup for Final Season Part 2 ) I've always felt like Episode 5 would've been the best way to end a season, with the following season being made of all the ominous uncertainty and setup. As it stands (with 5 of one, 5 of another), it does feel more like a lull.

Due to a very cheap sale from a few weeks back, I purchased and visited a certain fighting game series on the Switch. Guilty Gear Gotta be Hell. I know it wasn't a question, but... So yeah, I had known about this series (the signature Arc Systems Works fighting game) for a while, and admired the character designs, but beyond a brief experience with a Guilty Gear X Advance rom, I can't say I had played this series proper. And so I went for it. Let me tell you, the 1998 original is super janky. Characters pull super jumps very easily, the regular jumping arcs are weird, the air dashes are tough to pull off... It's like wading through water, these primordial seas of the "Anime fighter" style. Furthermore, once you start attacking, combos and strings come off very easily, which is plenty fun for sure... but also, I found an infinite right away with Sol Badguy, the first character I picked up. Dash Kick into Dash Kick into Dash Kick into... you get it. Crazier even, I could insert Volcanic Viper (his anti-air) into the combo at any point and just continue it. Sometimes, I could combo VV into VV. The kind of wild stuff only a high-paced, late 90s fighting game would allow us to do. I could look into this as an unbalanced, but cheesy and fun classic, but... there is a dark cog - a not very innocent gear of sorts - in this game that ruins it. There are these "Destroyer" moves baked into the game, that allow you to win a round instantly, almost like a Fatality that you can pull off at any time. And I do mean at any time, they require no meter whatsoever. The enemy CPU would sometimes parry one of my moves into a Destroyer and - did I say "win a Round"? It's actually the entire match. I could be dominating the entire time, drop the infinite near the end, and while trying to finish the match, they'd Destroy me and win both rounds. Or maybe they'd open the match with it. Horrible, it's just not fun. There's only one character to unlock in the entire game (beat the Arcade mode without using continues) and I literally couldn't make it, despite having an infinite. So I didn't. A shame, because she (Baiken) looked cool. As a port... there's a lot to be desired. The upscaled graphics into HD don't look good. Most ports of this era either have CRT filters or anti-aliasing features to make them more palatable in modern TVs, but Guilty Gear had nothing. But I'll give it a point for giving us a somewhat comprehensive tutorial (well, more like a manual) in there, which is already better than what most fighting games do. At the end of the day, the music was still pretty good, especially the themes of Millia and Chipp. Might be a good time to bring up the general aesthetic and themes in this series... it's all Rock&Roll culture. There's some Metal, Grunge, and so on mixed in there, but you can see the general sources of inspiration everywhere. Sol Badguy carries a lot of Queen references, Millia was designed to look like an edgy groupie, Testament was taken straight from a Death Metal CD cover, and Axl Low couldn't be more obvious even if he carried around guns&flowers. This is because series creator Daisuke Ishiwatari is a huge fan of all this. The plot at this point was still easy enough to follow. The setting is Sci-fi, there's basic lore about a dormant superweapon about to be revived, and a tournament designed to bring it back. Simple stuff, even when the character endings are elaborate (for example, Sol's ending drops a lot of exposition that's surprisingly easy to follow). My rating: would be fun dumb kitsch if not for the Destroyer moves. They severely dampered the experience for sure. After this, Daisuke worked on a sequel called Guilty Gear X, which refined the fast-paced fights, improved visuals, added new characters, and continued the plot. But it did not come out on Switch. After that, the next game on the series was Guilty Gear XX, which kept moving things forward. But that game, much like Street Fighter 2, kept getting rereleased with slightly improved version after slightly improved version until it culminated on: Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R What we lose in simplicity, we gain in aesthetics Guilty Gear XX was originally released in 2002 for the PS2, and ever since then, due to patches not existing, it kept getting updated via multiple rereleases (there's a wikipedia article just to list them, jesus). The final one - Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R - was released at last in 2012. This is the version present on Switch. From what I understand, there are gameplay systems here that weren't present in the original GGXX, as well as some extra characters. Furthermore, the plot itself is not the same as the first GGXX, but is rather a continuation of it. ArcSys likely decided during one of these rereleases that the plot would just progress like this (maybe the writers, or Daisuke himself, were getting antsy to continue the story, but they couldn't work on a full sequel?). Whatever, I'll judge the game on its own. First of all, game looks excellent. I can't believe this was first made in 2002, this spritework puts the likes of Marvel vs Capcom to shame. The backgrounds are a nice detailed 2D, which are a far better fit than the 3D backgrounds of Marvel 2 or CvS2, and each character has a crazier moveset than the last (which means they're doing cool, creative stuff with their impressive assets). I'd say the only contemporary with better animation is Street Fighter III. Y'know, I-no knows her stuff Anyway, gameplay-wise, Guilty Gear stuck to easy-to-make combos, but this time actually put failsafes to prevent infinites (can't launch an enemy twice in the same combo, for example). Movement is much more polished, easier to grasp, and very similar to the Marvel vs. Capcom series. There's also more complex stuff like Roman Cancels, Bursts, and Faultless Defense for those who want to go deeper (I can definitely see the beginnings of the mechanics that Tatsunoko vs Capcom had). And on top of that, it feels like half of the characters in this game have to deal with a mechanic or two that's exclusive to them (like how Johnny has these coin projectiles that enhance his special moves, or Venom can only throw his pool balls after leaving them around the field). It's got a lot of fun stuff to explore. In comparison with the previous game, this one's tutorials don't really help you in anything. They tell you about the different game modes, and little else. This is particularly bad when dealing with the more gimmicky characters (still haven't figured out how the heck to A.B.A. and Zappa work), who very much would love to have a "Sakurai presents" type of video. The most egregious flaw in all of this is that you need to use Faultless Defense to defeat the final boss of Arcade Mode (the most basic of modes), but the game doesn't tell you it even exists. Despite that, if you just want to play this game for some dumb fun, it's all good. Heck, even Destroyer moves are much harder to pull off now (you need full meter, then activate hyper-tension mode, and then try to land a super move), and they don't take both rounds anymore, so they're very unlikely to piss players off. Roster-wise, this is pretty much an "Everybody's here" scenario. Even Kliff and Justice, who hadn't been seen since the original, are here just to round out the roster. I guess the developers realized at some point that this would be the definite stop for the series for a while. For Single-player, you have Arcade Mode (usual stuff), Survival Mode (usual stuff), Team Battle (3v3, KoF style), Mission Mode (win a tough battle under specific circumstances. 25 of them. Think of Event Mode from Smash), M.O.M. Mode (like Survival Mode mixed with Coin Battle from Smash. It's weird), and Story Mode. Yeah, Story Mode. This last one varies from character to character, each one facing a specific series of characters, each battle separated by Visual Novel cutscenes. It's nice, you know, to have context for the fights, see how each character acts and reacts to one another, get a grasp of their personality and place in the world. These also have branching paths, sometimes determined by picking a specific dialogue choice ("Do I stay out of Ky's business, or do I confront him?"), but can also be made by fulfilling certain conditions, like Destroying a specific enemy, or reaching the end without using continues. As for the Story itself, the setting has gotten a bit more complicated since the first Guilty Gear, involving newly-made factions, non-playable characters (one of which is called "That Man", no fucking joke), and time travel, because why not? If you don't want to go down the rabbit hole, at least each individual character's story is coherent enough to follow. It's a nice system, but it could've been better executed, because it's not obvious at all what you need to do to unlock each path (Sol's Good Ending can only be unlocked by not using Continues, but it's not obvious that this is the trigger), and due to poor writing, it can be downright misleading. As an example, Baiken has a Good Path/Ending where she teams up with a friend who urges her to abandon revenge, and a Bad Path/Ending where she becomes a bloodthirsty serial killer. The trigger that decides it is a dialogue choice where she can tell Johnny (a casanova who's trying to seduce her) to either "Fuck off, I'm leaving" or "Fuck off, I'm kicking your ass". You'd think "I'm leaving" would lead to the least violent path... but no, that leads to the bloodthirsty one. And this is the only choice she gets in her story. Healing only begins after beating the shit out of potential suitors Also, there's a lot of profanity in the script. Justified for most cases, but it can go overboard. It's hilarious to see the cute, bubbly May call her boss/crush an "Asshole" (her voice actor is clearly saying "Baka", which is as innocent as it gets). I suppose it was the mid-2000s, this game's aesthetics did lean more into "edgy", and that was the style of the time. Music-wise the soundtrack still uses the themes it always has, with some better quality, better arrangements, always with a rock&roll focus. I still think the best ones are Chipp's and Milla's, but for the newcomers, I'm partial to Zappa's once that gets going (just like the character, funnily enough), and I think May actually has a new, better theme. One relatively minor thing is that the Switch port is also kind of shoddy. Not from a visual standpoint (the graphics can handle themselves well in HD), but there's QoL optimization that wasn't properly done. For starters, it uses the Playstation control scheme, that is, use "B" to confirm and "A" to cancel (because they were "X" and "O" originally, right?), when they could've just... remapped things a bit. Also, everytime you beat Arcade Mode or achieve any kind of score, the game immediately tries to post it into the online rankings (no question, it just jumps straight into "Connection failed, wanna subscribe to the NSO?"). Finally, and most Guilty of all, the game does not actually suspend when you hit the Home button, it just keeps going while you're on the Menu (I lost a round like this once). Other such rereleases simply have the game interpret the Home button as Pause (so it doesn't Sleep, it's just paused in the background), but GGXXAC+R decided it didn't want to do even that. Despite the multiple rereleases, the series would be dormant for a while as ArcSys' new darling Blazblue made waves in the PS3/X360 space. Guilty Gear eventually came back with a severe aesthetic overhaul with Guilty Gear Xrd (someone must've told them to not call it XXX) in 2014... but that's another story, and not one I think I'll be visiting. Besides, while I respect the series, I can't say I've fallen in love with it. The character designs are strong (hey there, Baiken, Sol, I-No, and Faust), but the aesthetic can get messy and overdesigned. And I prefer more grounded fighting games anyway, when you have too many systems and mechanics, it becomes legitimately hard to follow for outsiders. My rating: super fun and schlocky, but not one I'd want to dive deep into. Still, major respect to those who stuck with it through the 2000s. (As is usual, sprites were taken from Fightersgeneration.com)

Meanwhile, I just found out some brave souls are looking to release a new 3DS game in 2022. I... hope it works out for them.

Bravely Default II is still there! As is Tales of Vesperia. And possibly further campaigns in Three Houses. If we count 3DS, then FE Fates, Mario&Luigi, Radiant Historia, Dragon Quest VI... and a few Game Gear games. Please don't ask me to include my PC backlog

I'm not sure if I'll get it right away. On one hand, it's a game I'd be able to play through fairly quickly because I still remember its general beats. On the other, I got other RPGs to play.

I have...oddly fond memories of Earthworm Jim. The cow running gag in one of the games was the exact amount of nonsense that my child self loved. Also, occasionally Youtube recommends me clips from the cartoon for some reason. Not that I'm complaining, mind you

I actually sent my guess (same as yours) by PM. I thought that was the supposed method. Upon retrospect, the way you did it really was more sensible.

That's a long time since announcement... Was Stanley hiding in the broom closet the entire time?

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of Glen's Disappointed Sigh

I'd just like to add that Street Fighter V was absolutely rushed at launch, but got improved with time, patches, and updates. However, following the recent Street Fighter 6 reveal, a lot of people on the internet (including here on our forums) were still bitter about SFV's barebones launch. In the public mind, a game that was released badly will stay that way, regardless of what happened throughout the game's lifespan. So that part is important too. Also, improving the game post-launch works far better for certain types of games than others. Roguelikes, multiplayer games, and various types of games-as-service are expected to be played lots after launch, so post-game support is expected, with initial flaws being easier to tolerate. But something like, say, Metroid Dread, that you're likely to only play through quickly once or twice, and then only replay sporadically, would not get the same type of tolerance from its fans. So there are types of games for which a weak launch is still a death sentence. ... Anyway, Link's "corrupted Ashitaka" design looks Breath of the Wilder than I expected. Rad.

So, I figure some 2D Platformers were in order. Flashback Flash back... into the future! Yeah, that's right, a AAA game. From 1992. Made by French developers Delphine Software (also known for Another World), I first heard of this game from a cousin talking about it, how it was a technical achievement for its time, and how hyped he was about its release on the PC (or MS-DOS at the time, I believe). He tells me that the animated cutscenes were really impressive, and the game felt immense. So when I saw it with a heavy discount on the Switch eShop a while back, I knew I had to get it, just for the sheer curiosity of it (though I only played it now). Of course, I had looked up what the game was like, and it seemed like an upscaled Prince of Persia (1989), especially with all of the colours in Flashback compared to Prince, but I figured there had to be more. For those unaware, this is a "Cinematic Platformer". In these types of games, you don't have a very precise control of your character, who'll flail around with more frames of animation than what is usually practical for a platformer. Think Oddworld series, or even how Lara Croft moves in the original Tomb Raider games, they'll have long start-ups for their jumps, and equally longer landings. These were very much in vogue in PC Gaming of the early 90s, likely because that fluid animation is quite impressive. I figured what truly made waves was the elaborate cutscenes, coupled with a snazzy, chiptuney soundtrack that feels tailored-made for the Mega Drive. This game takes place in a Cyberpunk style setting, and is clearly inspired by Sci-fi references of the time (got major Blade Runner and Terminator vibes, for example). In a way, this may have been the Uncharted of its time, with how much it resembles a respectable Hollywood action flick. As for the game itself... it has the usual difficulties associated with the genre. The trickiest part is figuring out how its mechanics work, but Level 2 does a good job of teaching you how to play (Level 1 throws you into the wolves, and was not much of a good introduction). You can run, duck, roll, and jump in some limited ways, as well as shoot your infinite ammo gun (amusingly, pistol-whipping is just as damaging as a bullet). What surprised me were the point&click mechanics it has on top of this (another popular genre of the time), for some occasional puzzle-solving and more peaceful interactions with the world. Really makes this game into the whole package, huh? The plot is fairly basic, but enjoyable. The meat of the game is making your way through complex platforming segments with your limited movement, which... actually hold up pretty well, once you adopt the right mentality. It's a kitschy fun romp like that, though the lategame enemies are really annoying to deal with. It's a bit shorter than what I was expecting (roughly 8 hours), but it's the right length. I guess part of what made it long back in the day was the sheer absence of online guides and help (which I definitely needed to figure out some obtuse moments), though I actually found a walkthrough from 1992 (!). American guy who played the game in French, so rare to see well preserved content from that era. So yeah, it was a nice experience. Might be more open to other such games some time later. Rick's Dream Land 2 The box may be misspelled, but we can all see who's centrefold Now back to the 3DS, I recently bought a bunch of VC games, which included this 1995 classic. I hadn't played it (not even on an emulator) since my copy got lost a few decades ago, so this was quite the nostalgia trip. The game is shorter than I remember, but it's lovely. You can ride animals and use the best core Kirby powers. The level design is a bit harder than what Kirby usually does, but that's fine, better even. Kirby can't run in this game, and I think that gives it the best pace it can have, it's a joy to play this. Kirby looks more expressive here than nowadays I remember this being the first game I played where I bothered to search and find all of the collectibles, the optional Rainbow Pieces that unlock the True Ending. Made me feel great as a kid, figuring out these puzzles all on my own. Even now, I still remembered most of them, and relearning the details of how to get them was a big rush. So I completed this all over again and had a blast. Feels great. Wario Land 3 Major game clear! Speaking of nostalgia darlings, this is a masterpiece. And one I weirdly... never owned before now? I always played someone else's copy, or an emulator... Owning this is on 3DS great, I ended up playing it on any off-time. It's the best game Wario has ever starred in. Like in other Wario Land games, Wario controls like a heavier, rougher, more violent Mario. And much like in Wario Land 2, he's immortal, stopped only by attacks that push him back. It works a lot like a Metroidvania divided by individual explorable levels, and in addition to permanent power-ups (because it does have those), there are also items that change the layout in other levels. For example, finding a bar of dynamite in the swamp level causes an explosion at the rocky volcano's base, opening up new level segments there. It sounds so simple, but it's actually fantastic to explore levels that have parts of it clearly sealed off, only to later find something that finally unlocks that pesky obstacle. Level design is some of the best I've ever seen in a 2D game, not just because of the way it is structured, but also because every level takes into account how to deal with Wario's immortality, and how to push him off a platform. It's a paradigm shift, but one that the designers handled with aplomb. And in good Metroidvania fashion, there are even some very cool bosses here! Very creative, too, considering there's always a way for them to kick Wario out and reset the fight. The cherry on top of the cake is that our protagonist is an unrepentant greedy git who plays minigolf with baddies and is in this adventure only for the material rewards. And having his power-ups come from enemy attacks? Grade A+ mechanic, as it gels with both the game's aesthetics, as well as with the lack of a health bar or lives. In a nutshell, it's a lot like a 2D version of Super Mario 64, but with a better protagonist. I beat the final boss a while back, and now I'm spending my time finding the remaining treasure chests and collecting the musical coins. I adore this game.

Just listened to the new tracks and... yeah, the original was already perfect. The new ones come off as "alternate" takes, like from another timeline... Fitting? For now, I prefer the original ones. They sound like they work better as functional game music. But also, there's a "warmth" to them that I didn't hear in the new ones, if that makes sense.

I didn't mean his current absence, I meant that he felt particularly chipper and more relaxed (hence "looser") around December/January. I could swear I made that comment in this thread at the time, but I can't find it right now