darksnowman

Informed and favourable. It mentions Skies of Arcadia, when I got that far in the demo, the ships reminded me of it too but also Etrian Odyssey III, despite both these being turnbased.

Oh, nice. Now you bring it up, I remember seeing that mentioned on RPGamer or somewhere last year. You read it? I'll definitely want to give it a look sometime after I get through the game first. Last thing I did was the Ghost Ship. Got gunman Hummel in the active party for a while now. Felt like the conversation at the end of it with Captain Reed lasted longer than going through the ship. Still, a location like that is always welcome. Then, back at camp we got the ability to warp. Which is a bit weird since I've been able to warp around the whole time so I'll have to see what the new implications are exactly. Previously in this chapter, I spent a fair bit of time bumbling around with Dana on her tod. Apparently a door was ripe for the opening in her underground area but for whatever reason when I went to it nothing happened. I looped around the available rooms several times, checking for a switch or something to interact with, then headed outside to see if there were any sidequest icons I could hit to up her virtue and potentially open that door. All to no avail. Turns out (and speaking of warping), you just have to come at it from the "most recent" warp point. Which makes sense once you see it because her objectives are listed at each warp point on her map! Not that getting through that door was required to progress the story, I'm just enjoying the act of playing the game so I'm happy to go wherever there is something to get on with. Next up, there's two or three new sidequests in the camp and I only covered like ~83.3% of the Ghost Ship so I want to see if I can board it again.

Did not think Eastward was going to be an action RPG with a turnbased Dragon Quest game inside it. Seems like a good game, even if it's a bit slow going, at least to begin with. Interesting style, atmosphere and music. Not looking for this sort of thing right now but will be keeping it in mind so that's somewhat job done as far as the game trial goes. Reminded me there's a few other eShop games like Jack Move and ANNO: Mutationem I'd like to get, too. Just wish it had d-pad movement.

You're an artful dodger!

Leg bender on Diaz. Play went on, VAR check cleared. Not even so much as a freekick given.

Ordered some tat since the icon rotation has been cack for the last while. Animal Crossing coasters Mario bag DAL bag Multiplayer poster set GBA poster set Immediate regret that I didn't throw in more to get the balance nearer zero, but at least it provides some breathing room with no more points expiring until May.

I'm having flashbacks to the guy last year. The faithful should be true to form and say he was oh so different on the train up. Hope they start getting those blondes out because I've a hard time differentiating between 2/3s of them. When they took on Miles I thought she might have been a decent candidate but she's disappeared into the mix a bit since those earlier days. Must say I've come around on Harry. He wants that money and I think he's going to get it. He's right to not be chuffed to see them get rid of the stronger mission performers. The faithful are a lost cause—left to their own devices, they vote off each other.

Nice find. They do come through with a good deal now and again. I'm not really up for replaying this any time soon but it's an easy going game you can cruise through on autopilot so it might handy enough to have around.

Have to say, I was starting to think the faithful don't deserve to win it but the cat is certainly among the pigeons.

Seems there was some interest in it here but no discussion once it came out so perhaps it didn't end up being so great like you're alluding to.

If we'd put our heads together we maybe would have wondered if it were them because of the Cold Case game on 3DS.

Saw that Eastward is the latest game trial on the NSO app earlier. Got it downloaded and plan to give it a go at the weekend. I've no idea what to expect.

It was Mario, SotE and Pilotwings at launch with Turok shortly after. I was going to get it too (since everything else was sold out) but no way was I parting with seventy quid of hard saved dough. Put it back in the moneybox for Mario Kart.

Won't make it again. Hopefully next time.

Wonder what features the Canadians have singled out as ripe for the cuttin this time.

Star Fox Armada port incoming.

Noticed some slight weirdness panning the camera while moving at one or two points but nothing excessive. Could be more prominent later if levels become more demanding. But what do I know—I still generally take slowdown as the console being ambitiously pushed to its limits. Or in the case of something like Bangai-O Spirits, a welcome feature.

Controls are L/R, L+R to attack. Hold to charge. It has this sort of automatic lock-on where you'll go for the next nearest enemy when surrounded. You can also, block, dodge and jump. Standard. The only thing I reckon it could do with is a run button, although you can buy a speedup item for 100 coins. There are transformations—the first allows you to become small to access "mouse hole" sort of areas. Transformations use up energy which you get from felling enemies and general exploration. Levels have optional collectibles (5 unchinku facts, 3 souvenir doodads) and three evil disco lantern things you must destroy to unlock the big festival drum exit. You pick up coins, too, which can be used to buy items (you can carry three at a time) and you'll lose some if/when you die. 3,000 for extra health. I died twice from falling off levels into the abyss. First from getting to a spot I couldn't find a way back from, second from dropping off the top of a building to see if I could land on a lower ledge. Auto-revive item took care of a third when the spinny enemies got on top of me. It's not all action platforming; an early level is a car race. Provided the first four levels—the extent of the demo—is a decent barometer, this is reminiscent of Kirby and The Forgotten Land.

Hadn't too far to go to the end of chapter four. Suspicious character introduced. I burned through some healing items on Dana's boss (couldn't get the dodge timing right), then did a swift number on the normal party's boss, which brought the chapter to a close. Hope I was up to date with sidequests by that point. After a raid, chapter five got going with a number of quests so I'm having a bash at them while trying to steer clear of the story progression marker on the map. A night quest on Mount Gendarme is chaos. Like a musou. I remember doing another night quest on a previous chapter and I had to leg it through because the enemies were relentless. Then did another in a vertical area which was a laugh with this speedy movement not best suited to precision platforming. Need to return there for some chests. It seems the story has made Dana forget how to double jump? Either that or I'm misremembering that she could double jump. Want to make a point of fishing more and I'd like crops to fill out the rest of the farm. Still reacquainting myself with the people in the camp to see what benefits I can get out of them.

So much going on with Reading, Forest, Everton but really, lol @ Hendo.

Been on the lookout for this since the game trial. Since then, Ys VIII never quite stopped niggling away at the back of my mind. With no price in sight comparable to what I shelved Ys IX for a few years back (sub-30 if not sub-20!) I didn't wait long into 2024 before placing my order. Like, I knew I wanted to continue it and I knew I was going to enjoy it, so, really I knew it wasn't going to be money wasted—which those 25 hours+ during the game trial could attest to. The funny thing about resuming an old file is what you've forgotten. Was the raid icon the jumping off point I'd left myself from Aug 2022? I couldn't recall how to trigger it. What about replenishing item supplies or getting better gear? Wasn't sure. Side quests? Hmm. I know from missing one so far that those expire at the end of chapters, so as long as I didn't amble into that I'd be okay for the time being. To get back into the swing of things, I went to the immediate area outside camp and got the hacking and slashing underway. It started to come back to me. Felt great. Next, I went through the menus and swapped some moves out. Then, went around and talked to most of the camp (upgrading some gear in the process, need more bottles for healing items) and headed out to continue exploration of the other side of the island and press on with the story. There's been some interplay with Dana, we've found the wee girls father (I took time out to do her sidequest, too) but most troubling is we cannot deal with the Primordials over there. Had to leg it through... while filling out the map, of course. Worried what the next boss will be like if those are anything to go by. Wouldn't say I'm fully acclimated again, but it just feels great to play. It's one of those I don't see the time going by when I'm on it which I think is one of the attributes of a special game you've clicked with. @Ike top tunage.

After tons of online searching (such as how to find out my HR and what are scraps, among plenty of other stupid questions) and discovering various online groups to bounce questions off, I proceeded to take on the two license quests under the village section to boost me up the hub list—albeit marginally. Because village and hub don't feed into each other otherwise, and apparently pursuing the village side is baby mode and not the done thing. Not offline for story and online for communal grinding, then, as I'd believed. Do those quest maidens not compare notes?? Then I threw on the online and incredibly, people joined. If you build it, they will indeed come. Where I'd been ticking them all off before progressing on village, the bare minimum number of quests to get up through the star rankings were done in the hub. On quests where no one joined, it was a 20-30 min slog, but depending on the others, quests were done and dusted in a breezy five. I'd love to be able to OHKO these beasts. It put it into perspective to not see these players join me inside the monster to carve it threefold at the end. On a rampage quest, someone who has clearly mastered the game smashed it by setting out traps and barrels and doing something to reduce the cooldown on the kiln thing. I enjoy the rampage quests but all I pretty much do is set up the stations and then jump into the thick of it with my sword. On this big victory, I at least delivered the death blow despite being a passenger. Eventually came the Narwa encounter in it's very own arena. This was like a proper boss fight from Mario with floating platforms. It was well done but I doubt I'd have emerged victorious without the other three players mucking in—at best, I'd have timed out. I wasn't a complete deadweight but I wasn't far off it because my playstyle of ZL+Xing to victory wasn't designed with flying monsters in mind. After all that (this is the condensed version) the game finally allowed me to take on the other Sonic quest: The Super Shady Look-alike. In keeping with MH, doing it once wasn't enough to let me make all the layered gear, so away we went again. Thankfully twice was nice. All this because I don't know if these Sonic quests becoming "unobtainable" this month means they'll be chalked off my quest list or if it just means the add-on content will no longer download for new players. Everything's clear as mud with MH. Until I see more quests will be unobtainable, it's time to get back to some games with nippier controls.

Got S+ on the Gotta Hoard Fast! quest (2* difficulty). Quite possibly my greatest achievement in Monster Hunter. LOL.

I would say crack it open but I think you've enough willpower to wait it out now for the Switch release. I've several on the Wii, such as Battalion Wars 2, that have suffered the same fate. Be able to retire on these things any year now.

Was thinking the same but since it's got Hero-of-Time's imagination tingling I'm wondering if it'd be wiser to shelf now and play later. My memory of them is sketchy too but I'm sure it'll come back once I get into the games. Would have thought you'd have done your due diligence with the Wii game back in the day, I reckon you'll enjoy catching up with it now.