darksnowman

Finally got around to watching the first episode of Andor at the weekend. Initial impressions are that it seems okay, especially after Obi-Wan. Should be able to get through it in the next week or two.

If you wouldn't mind just sitting in the one spot instead of going around the stages...

Went out with a whimper, didn't it. Hard to believe it's gone. I wasn't really thinking much of it until this morning and I can feel the weight of everything that's just not available any more. The dual screens, the 3D, the gimmicks. It's harder to get my head around than I expected. I'm already wondering if one day I'll get a dingy secondhand 3DS to jailbreak and have access to everything that can no longer be bought. Feel like there's a gap in my gaming options now. Yeah, that's right. The updates I was getting were in UTC so shoppers across the globe had to adjust accordingly. Pretty sure Doug had nothing to do with it. Looks like you got sorted anyway. --------------------- I'd been following the weekly sales and held off until the last minute in the hopes of a final clearance that never materialised. Got: Kid Tripp (free) Digger Dan DX (free) Then on Sunday this dozen from what was still on sale: Go! Go! Kokopolo 3D The Legend of Kusakari Fairune 80's Overdrive 4x Japanese Rail Sim 3D () Retro City Rampage DX Stella Glow Mighty Switch Force 1 + 2 Severed was off sale by this time. Sorry @Jonnas. And with that, they stopped accepting my card for payment! So I added a gift card. DKC Trilogy Mario Maker (because it has 100 built-in levels with objectives... but isn't 3D.) Luigi's Mansion 2 Lylat Wars 3D Mole Mania (You're welcome, @Jonnas!) 3D Classics TwinBee (worthy of the classic moniker!) Gurumin 3D: A Monster Adventure — I'd earmarked this as it had been £3 in March but was back to full price by the time I was buying. I got it anyway because unlike Severed, it's not on Switch. Attack of the Friday Monsters! Left me with £1.10 balance which I'll spend on the Switch eShop sometime. Hopefully, they'll start accepting my card again by the time Sea of Stars comes out...? There was still plenty I wanted and while I considered adding another gift card last night, ultimately I put it out of my head. Perhaps eventually they'll release a family of "3DS minis" (but not miniature!) with various selections of games built-in, like a 3D Classics machine, etc? Or the successor to Switch will flip open when undocked? Or something. With Level-5 making a comeback I'm at least somewhat hopeful of a Guild compilation seeing the light of day. Surely the VC stuff will end up on NSO. If they don't and this is where it ends, I'm going to miss the 3D effect. Got a bunch of demos as well then picked up some physical games from the bargain bin today too: Yo-Kai Watch 1 + 2 New Style Boutique 1 + 2 Dillon's Dead-Heat Breakers The boxes need a clean. There are some free themes available! If you open your system the themes icon will have the dot to draw your attention.

RPG Maker Fes - £3.99 Culdecept Revolt - £7.99 Etrian Odyssey Untold - £3.59 Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold - £3.49 Etrian Odyssey IV - £3.59 Persona Q - £3.59 Soul Hackers - £3.59 Devil Survivor 2 Record Breaker - £3.49 Stella Glow - £3.49 Runbow Pocket - £2.19

There's amiibo x Labo VR potential in that. Nintendo is at its best when they aren't doing what people want. Are bells and whistles new Shiekah slate abilities? When prices dropped during the GameCube era I didn't expect them to edge back up. Maybe those discs had their benefits after all!

We're all penning our notice so we're freed up for six weeks...

Legit looking forward to Prodigy: Supernova getting its turn here as if it isn't outright terrible I wouldn't mind giving it a go. That's right! The two-parter where they repackaged the pilot episode. His motivation/reasoning was sound as ever.

From a recent interview. And it seems like they are indeed good friends because...

Thanks for the insight, Doug. Since there've been plenty of "incredibly full, deeply immersive" Nintendo games until now that weren't $70, I'm gonna take it that you want me to believe there's added value here based on how many hectares TotK is stretched out over, especially now it spans from the depths up to the heavens. If that's really how you price these things, and you aren't just trying to wring every last dollar you can out of the fanbase, then I'm looking forward to a Zelda in the $5-10 range. Insider Q&A-Nintendo’s Bowser

Averages usually around an hour and a half. Can feel like hours depending on how long they waste on United.

Been on a free trial week of NSO. It got me online for the Splatoon 3 Big Run last weekend but doesn't give access to the Expansion Pack stuff, so Majora's Mask has had to take a back seat. Still needing that Zelda fix, I started a new file in A Link to the Past. First full replay since the 35th Anniversary year—it's still great; one of the best there is. One thing I noticed was, on the first boss, I quickly burned through my arrows and it seemed to take more hits in general to finish off. This went on to become a bit of a theme, as it seemed like some screens had more enemies than normal and all but about three bosses appeared to take longer to put down than I anticipated. I was never far from using a fairy until I reached the back third. I was online a few times to check and recheck if naming your file "Zelda" ups the difficulty. I was 99.9% sure it doesn't but still... For whatever reason, my instincts were off this time around. Couldn't figure out why I was often running low on magic and/or hearts, which lead to just scraping through against bosses I would have otherwise expected to see to in a matter of seconds. Not bigging myself up here, just always saw the bosses as a chance to go to town with your latest items rather than as a test. Maybe I've gone soft. At least with the eyeball boss I could just stand on the spot I entered the room, slash away with the sword, shoot arrows, and win through, only losing about four hearts. Similar thing with the Ice Palace boss except I went in low on magic for that one, so was lucky to melt the ice and get the fight going—tried various items, bombs didn't help, I'd just enough magic to get bombos off. Next option was to use the magic mirror to warp out and restock! (Realised much later I had a green potion.) The evening I loaded up my save between those levels, I noticed on the file select screen I'd no shield! Sloppy. My own negligence aside, going between the Light and Dark Worlds and feeling things click into place still makes for a great time. When you have an idea about what LttP contains, there's something fun about opting to go direct from one level to the next at certain points, or leaving yourself pickups for later that you might have got then or earlier in a previous file. Simple things like stopping to pull out the magic mirror and flip back to Light World in a suspicious spot is always worth the reward. Felt especially satisfying this time to mow down the first three bosses when I re-encountered them in Ganon's Tower. A QoL update to allow quick donation at the Pond of Happiness is needed. And the Master Sword sleeps again... forever! Five deaths. From one of the GOATs, to one of my GOATs. Had a very merry time going through DKC 3 again. There've always been individual aspects of this one that I can take or leave, but the overall package is so much more than the sum of its parts. The Northern Kremisphere, the Brothers Bear, the little trading sequence, the ideas on show in each and every level, the, imo, unparalleled flow, rhythm and instinctive readibility of the DKC trilogy platforming was perfected here (despite not always being hold right + Y to steamroll to victory). I think it's absolutely fantastic—one of my all-time faves. And yes, the music fits perfectly well. There were some levels (from K3 onwards) that I played through several times to sniff out the bonus rooms. Koin on Krevice Kreepers always takes me a while to figure out. I've already forgotten how to do that one for next time. In particular, I had to comb through Barrel Drop Bounce and Floodlit Fish more times than should've been necessary. I appreciate that the majority of times you check a corner you'll uncover invisible bananas or bear coins—curiosity is encouraged, and there's things to spend those bear coins on. Levels where you're finding the first bonus room between the O and N letters always have me questioning how thorough I was. Then there's the lost world. It builds to a tough but fair crescendo in Swoopy Salvo before tapering off with Rocket Rush. Outside of Krematoa, I think Poisonous Pipeline gave me the most trouble from a difficulty standpoint this time. Though the customary bad bonks on Koindozer Klamber ran it close. Between DKC 1-3, DK '94 and the DKL trilogy, I don't think we realised how good we had it! Looking back, I certainly took the DKL games for granted. Won't be surprised if I have a newfound appreciation for them when they're inevitably added to NSO. 105%. Bust a move, gotta groove. --------------------- Having got my value from the free trial, I'll stump up for another year (+ Expansion Pack) now. Need to finish off that MM file!

Was checking last night for any footy and thought it was hilarious there was a minute-by-minute for this unfolding instead. The list of BBC double-standards that Skysports person reeled off was quality. The clip should be included in this: I see Rishi is saying this Linekar thing is a matter for the BBC, not the government. Come onnnn. Yes, I agree. Though it's not like they depend on the beeb since they all present/do punditry/co-commentate for other channels. Wonder how the Bargain Hunt ratings today were. Liverpool will have been glad they had one less media outlet to explain themselves to. Idiots.

Afaik, game carts are region free but the codes are not, so as said above, you can redeem the code on your JP account but not your GB account.

Thanks for the races. The real-world courses seemed pretty decent this time and Yoshi's Island was like a mini-tour of the game.

Needed a few mins to download the update and update the software. Spectating now.

Third one's player's choice as far as I see!

Don't pick Baby Park; pick Yoshi's Island!

Like they thought they typed "fantasy life iii" in the subject line of the initial internal proposal email and it got autocorrected. Yeah, that's something I'll be keeping an eye on too. I'm hoping the terraforming's quick and basic for the odd request here and there as I'm not really up for designing another island yet.

Revealed in the last Nintendo Direct, there's a new trailer from the Level-5 Vision 2023 event. Yup, this looks like Fantasy Life. There are two new "?" lives so I'm looking forward to finding out what those are, and as well as being able to decorate the interior of your place, you can now place things outside and terraform like AC:NH. I didn't bother with interior decoration very much on the 3DS but as long as the lives and main quest are fun this should be top stuff. So why the i? 1) the island on which the game is set 2) t'Internet as it has online multiplayer 3) individual because you can live life in your own way 4) to be revealed at a later date... They're aiming for a global release this year!

Sweet. Didn't know they got unlocked like that, just knew anyone could play them if they come up.

If anyone goes looking for this and doesn't see it, there's no need to adjust your set because according to wikitroid, you have to go through the game once to unlock hard mode. Apparently, the JP version has an easy mode and a gallery (to view the various end screens after you get them) too. Nifty. In hard mode, you basically get half as much from all the upgrades and enemies deal 50% more damage.

There's more every time I check at the moment. These seem to be the standout additions: 80's Overdrive - 89p (this was always frequently on sale) Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove - £4.04 Does Shovel Knight make use of the 3D effect? If so, I kind of wish I'd waited it out rather than get it on Switch.

Might be on this week. Do you allow random selection for anyone without the Booster Pack/ Expansion Pass? Or...

For anyone wanting to catch up. Featured Titles INAZUMA ELEVEN: Victory Road DECAPOLICE FANTASY LIFE i: The Girl Who Steals Time MEGATON MUSASHI: WIRED Professor Layton and the New World of Steam

https://nintendoeverything.com/nintendo-reportedly-skipping-e3-2023-entirely/ And so it begins. Interesting to read that all three are apparently digging their heels in—looks like it's going to be a long way back for E3. In other news, last night there was a Square-Enix livestream for Theatrhythm Final Bar Line which you can still catch up with and of course last week we had the SteamWorld Telegraph: Special Broadcast where Build was shown off. Some dates of note: GDC 20-24th March Summer Game Fest 8th June - ?? E3 13th-16th June Gamescom 23-27th August TGS 21-24th September