darksnowman

How has this been overlooked for a discussion thread. Buy it. I've had this collection since the sales at the turn of the year. It contains Circle of the Moon, Harmony of Dissonance, Aria of Sorrow and Vampire's Kiss (a version of Rondo of Blood). Christmas/ New Year didn't really feel like the time for Castlevania so I only dabbled a bit on Circle of the Moon and left it at that until this time of year would roll around. Couldn't remember where I was heading in CoM so I proceeded on to Harmony of Dissonance this week which I've had a great time going through again—the last time was back on the Game Boy Player. It just feels good dashing or sliding around and whipping everything off the screen. They knew how to nail these fundamentals and build from there. Admittedly, the trail went cold at one point but it didn't matter for a good while because I was just enjoying checking around for the next path that would no doubt open up. I think it was during this period, I figured I was on the hunt for the boost jump (for some reason I was expecting new boots) as that seemed to be what the dead ends were telling me... only to come off a ledge at one point with an enemy below, so I instinctively pressed the jump button while in midair... and double jumped. It was a different item entirely that bestowed this ability so I headed back around again, collecting stuff from previously unreachable areas but still nothing really opened up. Ultimately, I ended up squinting through a wall-of-text guide—it was no mean feat to figure out what the last "story" thing I did was—until I read you need to actually equip a bracelet in order to open a door. That had me entirely stumped but at least I was up and running again and never looked back after that. Could have been carelessness on my part because I don't remember a sticking point like this on the GBA. This collection shows you in the border what pickups you've got in whatever area you're currently in, with question marks to let you know if there's anything else. This was very handy and probably helped keep me engaged during that time I was running around looking for where to go next. They could have taken it further and added a menu to allow you to quick check all areas because as far as I could tell, you had to be in the area to see this info. Further QoL could include map improvements to depict why a dead end was impassable which would have cut down on some circling back just to remind myself. Since they already added collectables in the border, I wonder if they could have squeezed the map in too? And with those bracelets, it would have been nice if just having them in your inventory was enough rather than needing to actually equip them because it goes against the logic of wanting your best gear equipped at all times. There's also a nice selection of background images to choose from but these are a bit pointless since the game window covers it. There's also art, box art and instruction books to peruse. Since I had such a good time, I needed to refresh my memory on which was the better received between the double-pack games (Harmony of Dissonance and Aria of Sorrow) because I know one is supposed to be a dud. I'm surprised to see it's the latter by a landslide. Not saying that's necessarily mistaken, just there's not a lot wrong with Harmony of Dissonance bar the couple of niggles I've mentioned. Apparently the music is bad but I dunno, it didn't make my ears bleed or anything. Castlevania just went from strength to strength during these years. I'm already looking forward to an Aria of Sorrow replay this time next year.

Being an N64 owner, it was doom clone central. I thought TWINE was a decent enough successor to GoldenEye. While it didn't recapture the magic, it offered something more cinematic as you point out, and wasn't the complete abomination a lot of people were braced for with the passing of the license from Rare. I knew Eurocom worked with 3D Realms on Duke Nukem 64 so they had some pedigree. And hey, the more value I got out of the Expansion Pak the better. TWINE v TWINE says you, but I'd say it was TWINE v my controller pak. TWINE was the frequent victor in this contest. If only it had on-cart saves.

Can't blame you. I was about to wrap it up for the evening anyway so if I hadn't fluked it I'd have left it for today and the next port of call, after another few unsuccessful tries, would probably have been to knock the online on to see if that offered any clues. I went through the full troubleshooting repertoire of trying to survive/ hold the thing off, looking for hidden blocks, trying to parachute over it, what about getting up into the top corner to let it break the wall. Every other Wonder Seed part has been go-time but this one was a room with question marks in the background so it must be a puzzle room? The flowers speech bubbles were coming through the side of the screen, was I missing a "see-through" square I could escape through or even be pushed through? Even though I brought the elephant I was still thinking the room gives you a mushroom so that must be the key to it. Nope to everything. It's a great, self-explanatory game but unless I've done levels out of order in W4, I missed the training for that. Goomba's expressions while slow-moing to their doom is quality.

Should be glad it only cost about a dozen deaths on the Secret of Shova Mansion Wonder Seed before I uncovered what to do. I'd come back to it with the elephant power up and all at one point. Even checked out the badge descriptions and action guide to see what I could be missing in Mario's moveset... and I was missing nothing. *blows out cheeks* There was no need for it to be that way.

You know you've been playing Castlevania recently when you're trying to crouch and jump down through semi-solid platforms in Mario.

You'd think it's been a quiet season with the lack of threadage. That lot sodded off to Saudi in the summer. Kane gone. Salah kept. The search for a reasonably priced well rated defensive midfielder. From Postecogl-who to loving Big Ange instead. City with an early blip. Does Arteta really know what he's doing with his goalkeepers? Plucky Luton Town living the Premier League dream outside the relegation zone. The Toon Army in the Champos. Emery's Villa picking up where they left off last season. Talk of an Everton points deduction. VAR roulette. Toney serving a betting ban and Tonioli now joining him. If that's not enough, there putting a fixture on Christmas Eve for the first time since '95. And that's just the Premier League!

I was going Ma-Ma-Manbo during one of the Wonder Seed parts in a W3 level.

*gears up for W3 castle/airship/finale* Well that happened.

Feared you might take this one to the cleaners. Interesting to read that it slots in specifically between two episodes in particular as I figured it would just be a boiled-down retread of the series story in general. The helping-each-other-across-time conceit came up in an episode so it's a good call to utilise the idea in a game. It took me a bit to get used to the characters but once you do, it's a good show with some heart to it. Glad to read the game isn't a complete miss.

I still recall getting the Game Boy Bond game from Woolworths one evening for 20 quid. Had to have been 25 tops. Went through it a couple of times. Never thought of it like Link's Awakening... at the time, it was just a game. I remember lots of baccarat? Blackjack? Both? And going through the catacombs with the machete. Think I relied on the machete a lot to conserve ammo. No idea what the general consensus was or what the boys at EMAP Towers said about it but I was riding high on the joys of GoldenEye 64 and had cash in the moneybox.

I'm looking forward to getting this sometime. The Switch has been excellent for providing the opportunity to give all kinds of non-Nintendo games a go.

Had you put in for a different colour?

That's the one, yeah. You could just have said Swablublu or something and I'd still take the reply at face value. Thanks for mentioning the name of the games it comes from too. Does my napper in to see just a generation number in Pokémon discussions. Meaningless to the average Joe Bloggs gamer.

Nice one. Yeah, it's a game to savour so enjoy it. Be interesting to see if you see DKC trilogy inspiration in it. I'm not one to get my knickers in too much of a twist about spoilers, but for anyone that's still getting into this, I'd recommend going easy on buying the standees. I was surprised to feel slightly spoiled by some of those. As for my progress: right at the start of W3. Spin jumping on things has lead to more deaths than in your average 2D Mario. They make em different in the Flower Kingdom.

Are you playing this, @Josh64? It gives me great joy to confirm that...

I'm up into W2. Didn't see reviews or footage outside of what Nintendo showed initially. They've done good. Lots of nice touches. Could have called it Super Mario Smile. Already needed to comb back through two or three levels before I spotted the secrets. Feels so obvious when you sniff them out. Gameplay is great as usual so running back through isn't a chore (and they're so short it'd be rude not to check them out again anyway). Levels so far seem to have their own thing going on rather than just copy and paste platforming through different backgrounds and tilesets. Great to see them unshackled from the Mushroom Kingdom. The new kingdom and enemies go such a long way to making it all feel freshened up. The music reminds me of that lovely tune in AC New Horizons for the fishing tournaments. Get it in Mario Maker 2. I like the personality of the talking flowers. They're pretty funny and add to the wonder vibe. Though I'd like to go back and rub it in the face of the one that didn't cheer for me in the race. Hearing it cheer for the other guy only made me extra determined, haha. But it's cool they aren't just pro the player. Saw slideshow framerate Spikes in the background of one level. Oopsie. Lol at the brutal honesty. I agree it'd be handy if you could toggle damage on or off for all the characters because the elephant has been the deciding factor in multiplayer for me too. I think it was the right call to make it so players don't collide with one another because there's plenty to concern yourselves with already when the level starts tripping out. It's a good laugh.

Picked it up and set it back on the shelf again. The demo of the first one showed promise so I wouldn't mind giving the new one a go. But if the 3DS one is anything to go by, the price isn't coming down because I said I'd get it on sale too. Have you been keeping tabs on the NSO icons? There was a blue bird Pokémon and I haven't the foggiest what it was.

Got it on the cheap but don't expect to play it for years.

It's going down the swanny all right. If people can't do it for themselves, then they need someone to get them offline and out the door a while. Maybe wouldn't bring so much baggage with them when they log in again. But yeah, @flameboy! Hang about! It's fairly chilled out... because if we step out of line, SCG knows who we are. @rokhed00 was ahead of his time but when the banhammer had to be swung, it didn't miss its mark.

Spotted a Hogwart's Legacy Switch carrycase on sale so they must be starting to ramp up for this. You'd hope with all the time it's taken they've put some care into squeezing it onto Switch in the best way possible.

Losing one character really can change the tide in a boss battle. But not always. In Savyna's sidequest I hadn't anticipating her being automatically subbed in for the boss (it was probably obvious...) so what I did was leave her and her deck of pass cards dead in the sand while the remaining pair ground it out. She was miraculously up and about for the following cutscene. Faker. As far as I remember, I only got one or two more blank magnus as the game wound down. I ended up releasing three or four for Zomsa and again for the desert. Think I carried some fish thing until the credits but the pickaxe I released pretty soon after using it in the Tower of Druaga bit. Climbing Zomsa wasn't terrible. The best bit, imo, was when you start to see the boss(es). Be prepared for an exceptionally unfun time if you take the sidequest to go back later. And if you don't, I want to know how you rejected or cancelled it.

Looks like I've finally bought one of Nintendo's 2023 Switch games. Seems great. Thought I'd spied a bit you'd need to come back to with a later badge so I went for a shell jump and hit my head on an invisible block. That'll do the job. Easy there. Not knocking its inclusion.

Haha, yeah. I was putting the search to work. I remember reading this remaster will be coming to PC so you aren't getting off scot-free yet. Keep it in mind if there's a demo.

I like to bish bash bosh bosses and move on but if someone would prefer something more complex, especially in the modern day, that's not unfair. Like, it's a 2D Mario, you aren't playing it for the online.

Handy! Between the Ellie-fication of Mario and saying they wanted to have something in every level to surprise and delight is setting some lofty DKC 3 expectations here. In the article, it says they hope you resonate with what the flowers say and the option to turn off the chatter is in there but they still hope you'll give it a listen. So you know what to do.