darksnowman

UK Ingo --> Zelda film has English accents. U King Hippo --> Little Mac talking smack in New! Punch-Out (99).

Looked to me like VAR was going to chalk it off. So many times the VAR decisions aren't what it looks like onscreen. This could end up 5-4 to Villa.

Gakkers could flourish when Arne Slot's in.

Indeed. Last of the Time Lords, TARDIS stands for... getting those boxes ticked for the newcomers. The Doctor is adopted is news for newbies and myself alike, apparently. Susan and the Rani namechecked to acknowledge people in online comment sections. On the balance of things, I thought the specials were all right. Now it's started, I feel it lacks substance...? It's watchable, at least. Following the Bad Wolf, Cracks of Time template. I am the one who waits for a decent twist-twist whenever this all comes to a head. "Why does everything about you connect to Christmas?" Answer: it's panto. SPACE! babies.

Didn't know Jadzia does voice work!

1-0 in a minute. Looks like I'm watching this one and the next even though they're dead rubbers. 180 mins and I'm done... until pre-season.

Same. Never thought I'd see the day but it came and I've made my peace with it because I know if I bought TotK, I wouldn't "get" it and, ultimately, I'd just regret it massively as I should have known better. The building and swimming up-through-ground mechanics look like they could be fun in a smaller, more restrained game. Make it a third of the size of BotW and I'll take a punt on it. It'd still be humungous. Because I know I can enjoy smaller, more organised open-world games from having played the likes of Immortals: Fenyx Rising, Burnout Paradise and Lego City Undercover this past year or so. I'd like to eventually go back on BotW after looking up some pointers to actually direct me to something to do in that game. If I ever get around to that and successfully come away enjoying it, I could consider moving on to TotK at some time way beyond that. For the time being though, Zelda has sadly joined a list of Nintendo games I'm just not into.

Got some more quality time on this today. Bought a few pieces of equipment (haven't reached a point where I'm overflowing with gold yet) so reading this, I'll stick with purchasing and let the upgrade materials accumulate in the background. Then use them to bolster the raid arena. I wasn't sure about getting all the petals but thanks to Anemona's Third Eye Gift, I've collected them all in at least two areas now and can conceivably see myself hunting down the rest. I enjoy putting her in the lead—which isn't necessary to use her Gift—purely because of the way she skates when you're dashing. It was nice to get outside city walls, the stuff with the doppelganger group was a good laugh (reminded me of Ozzy in Chrono Trigger when they pulled the lever...!) and it was fun to later hack and slash up Mount El Dore for exp aplenty and a nice view from the top. Then a sidequest took me back there so I was happy to lay waste to a portion of it again. Currently, I have a pair of sidequests on the list then before I push it forward again, I'll have a look for more petals and speak again to some characters as I go around just on the off chance it triggers anything. Pretty sure it won't, but just in case. As for Hawk. There are some signs he might be coming around but, like, I don't actually want him to do a miraculous u-turn and lose his attitude because it is funny the way he gets on. I just want to know he's definitely part of the team and he can be a cheeky sod all he wants. Minor quibble: I'd like to set the map so it's always oriented north. Every time I open it, I'm immediately pressing X to get it pointing N. And sometimes I'm in and out of the map screen pretty frequently!

That's the league over now for the Pool. Things severely went off the boil after they all pulled together and performed beyond their limits over the winter months. Amanda would love him in as player-manager. I'm sure they'd rename the club after him, put his face on the kit and whatever else he wants.

Sent the demo to the Switch after @MindFreak mentioned it and only just gave it a try. After you agree to who knows what in the Ts & Cs, you get three levels: first gives you your moves, then it's onto two proper levels. It's a fun game with good movement. Glad there's a demo to be able to get a bit of a feel for it. Some niggles are that you get caught on edges you wouldn't expect to, when you change direction you start from walking pace again, and every time I fell off the level, it felt like a Nintendo platformer would have known I wanted to target an enemy or destructible object or grab the yo-yo swing point rather than speed boost myself into oblivion. Just things that would be smoothed out in a Mario or Kirby. Still, it's fun when you start to get a bit of read on the levels and begin to get some flow going. I'm sure you'd get used to those aforementioned quirks over the course of the full game. I was thinking it might translate well to 2D. Those penguins though. Get them off me!

I know one thing: Ys and good music go together like bangers and mash. I'd love to tap out the high tempo tunes from these games in Theatrhythm. Any Christmas remixes like was shared for Ys VIII? Did you like that Adol in disguise looks like Lord Ike? Still getting to grips with everything that's at my disposal in Balduq, so I forgot one of my people in the Dandelion hideout functions as a catchall shop for every shop I've been to. Mega handy. I think that means I only need to keep up with a handful of people outside the hideout—the landmarks guy, the petal girl, the back alley dealer, and go for frequent baths to give everyone a little HP boost. I suppose the doctor too to refill my jars but I've a feeling I might get a doctor of my own at some point. I want more jars. I'm enjoying getting a gang together at the hideout and it's fun when you see them out and about running their errands. Makes it feel like they aren't holed up at the Dandelion all the time waiting for me to sprint in. I was upgrading my weapons until I realised you can buy new swords and stuff. Still in Ys VIII mode. Not sure now what the best path to follow is: aim to upgrade something to the max or just buy new? I'll just go by the numbers at any given time (and if I have the materials to upgrade versus the money to buy new) but it's a bit of a headscratcher for now because I'm not sure if the benefits of upgrading would be preferable in the long-term. "Web slinging", wall running and gliding around the city is fun in and of itself. No complaints from me.

Good to know. Was wondering if there'd be more quests to go for. Kind of wish you could mix and match yourself a DLC bundle because I sort of just want the rest of the FF tunes + TWEWY and Chrono Trigger.

I was toying with getting some DLC for this since it was on sale recently. Wondering if FF XVI gets its own slot in Series Quests mode or are the tracks just dropped into Music Series?

The gameplay and gothic theme has hooked me in so I'm perfectly happy to explore the Prison City of Balduq, meet citizens, and complete quests on my way to clearing Adol's name in this debacle, but I'd be lying if I said the story hasn't got me intrigued. Going to be interesting to see how it plays out. There was a conversation with Dogi where one of the answers was something along the lines of "Like on the Isle of Seiren" (the Ys VIII location) which was like it read my mind because I was thinking what he was describing was just like the raid battles in Ys VIII. I'm wary of pushing things forward from one chapter to the next in case I miss something so it's great to have a slew of map icons to keep me right... fingers crossed. There's a lot of shops so I hope I'm not expected to check them all every chapter—be good if their wares accumulate for me to happen upon later. It feels like some buttons have been swapped around from VIII but I'm trying to get used to it instead of resorting to remapping the controls in the menu. Because of the Lady Ann voiceover crossover with P5R, I keep viewing the main characters in terms of who their Persona 5 analogue would be. Interrogator = interrogator, White Cat = Morgana, Hawk = (Hawk from Cobra Kai) Ryuji, Doll = Haru, Chante = Leblanc with a sprinkle of Sylvando from DQ XI. Picking and choosing when to view Ys IX as its own thing or with this external baggage certainly adds another layer to it.

128 x 750 or 800 is going to be a lot of Marios.

Unfortunate as that's quite possibly the high point of the film you're snoozing through every time. The "this is podracing!" line towards the end will be lost on you. Against my better judgement, I went to see the Phantom Menace again last weekend. First time since it last did the rounds in 3D. Oh well. Holds it's own in the context of the latest trilogy but that's a low bar if ever there was one. Thought the acolytes was another CGI-fest so for it to be Star Wars Matrix? Colour me interested. I may well give it a look once all the episodes are out. Though I still need to catch up with the last series of Mandalorian and Ashoka so no guarantees. Can sympathise. Some normal names like Luke and Leia would help with this hurdle, imo.

KOTOR was just on Game Trial. I got about 90 minutes into it this past week. Would need more time with it to fully form an opinion because I was far from getting a handle on it. Weird because I thought it was regarded as an all-time great so I expected to be grabbed from the off. Massive download for an old game, too.

You'll say it's outdated if I ask for it to be quantified in bits, so can you tell me how much duct tape's been requisitioned?

Lovely theme, this one.

Viewers in search of drama and twists galore need look no further.

It was a Snooker World Championships for the purists this year.

Indeed. Announcing the announcement would suffice.

It was always going to be 2025 because they are going to retool Mario 35 as 40 for the big launch game.

I think my phone would calve if I try to put a game on it.

Link to the Past icons are available. To be able to get them you have to fire up LttP first. There's a mission for doing so which will net you the 50 platinum points needed to get all five icons.