darksnowman

Because even if technically inferior, those versions have extra content (though I don't know what). Baffling that they couldn't base the remaster of those versions and still bring it up to a decent standard.

Don't go for your bug-catching net, this is not the Good Bee! Three Days Remain (on my NSO sub). Perhaps I could be going level to level, making a beeline for the four points of the compass to roll credits and consider this done within the time limit, but no matter your intentions, MM will throw a spanner in the works. I can't help but look around, check what people have to say and see if it matches up with anything else I've come across. Like, I thought things were fairly streamlined in the Southern Swamp and up Snowhead (which probably means I've missed stuff...), then I went down to the Great Bay expecting to collect the eggs, knock out the level over there and be off sidequesting with the new item. The game had other ideas. I ended up spending quite some time looking around, getting the eggs, doing the music sidequest, the beavers (!), pinnacle rock, the gold skultula house, there's still a heart piece in a room I'd like to figure out... but if I don't, I don't. I'm hoping to get all the masks but 100% heart pieces and item upgrades isn't something I'm going for. Collecting the frogs is something I'm okay to take a pass on. So with all that done, I thought I'd left it at a point where I'm ready to head to the Great Bay Temple, but of course, the skultula house reminded me that I need to swing back to the swamp and take another look at the one there as I wasn't equipped for it earlier. That's MM in a nutshell: the main objective is right in front of you, the game coerces you in other directions. Like, mooching around temples for fairies. Adding this extra layer to the map > compass > new item > nightmare key > boss and go routine is such a distinctly Majora's Mask thing that has you looking at each room in a new way, especially as you're already against the clock. I remember needing more than one cycle to get them in at least Woodfall back in the day, and that's got me aiming to scoop them all up in the first pass now. Hiding some behind Lens of Truth walls is madness. Catching a lift with Cremia and hearing a snippet of how things are for them on the ranch, it's not much but it adds a lot. Things like that and talking to people in the last moments before the moon comes down... great stuff.

I'd thought it was Xbox games in general that would be coming (in some capacity) to Nintendo. N-E report that it's just CoD. That's a bit less exciting!

Masterstroke from Klopp and the boys. Let's see how they cope if they don't need a second-leg comeback. Right?

Later: I've just lost 20+ minutes thinking about this without typing anything. IT DOESN'T ADD UP. Nope, still nowhere near getting it but then I've not played the Explorers game, and saying a game is "the Chrono Trigger of the series" is conjuring up something I can't figure out how to make work with a Pokémon title. In fact, it seems @Dcubed is the only person making any sense here. Indeed they could do us a favour by announcing some games for the GB/GBA NSO service and forget about remakes. Could even throw in Transfer Pak connectivity with the N64 NSO Stadium games when they're at it.

I'll have to bow to your superior PMD knowledge on this one... because... otherwise... ...otherwise this could keep me awake at night.

So they're confirming Xbox is good to stick it out for another decade. Think that just about seals it for me. I shan't be moving to Xbox until after this deal expires, then. Bring it. You just know there's a pallet of Wii Speaks they're waiting for a chance to repurpose. I thought it'd be for the Nintendogs, Cats + Goldfish settee edition.

They will capitalise on the 3DS eShop closure to port classics like Pokémon Rumble to Switch. Or will they have the courage to put Pokémon Dash up against MK 8 DX? I've no realistic demands or expectations for this, but if there's a great game revealed then count me in. Just wanted to respond to these: Mystery Dungeon Shiren the Wanderer is 50% off! So you can enjoy the real thing right now instead of hoping for another watered-down Pokémonised version! Even you, @EEVILMURRAY. Can't believe @Glen-i didn't mention PMD... Tell me you've no idea what Chrono Trigger is without telling me you've no idea what Chrono Trigger is.

This game deserved so much better. Can't even jest that it's been demastered as that'd be doing The Mummy Demastered an injustice. You can just hear them saying "after the release of the beloved ToS on the Nintendo Switch family of systems, analytics show there is no audience for the Tales of series among Nintendo consumers. It performed significantly below expectations." Despite everything, I still came close to giving it a pity buy. Hopefully not be long until it's in the bargain bin.

Thought this was fairly interesting.

M2 at it again. This time with Cybernator! I remember getting it along with Mickey Mania, Buster Busts Loose and Pop n Twinbee one magical Christmas that I still pinpoint as the moment I stopped being on top of games. The backlog began. Even moving onto the drip feed of the N64 I never went back and got those SNES games properly under control. That's right, I haven't, to this day, been beyond the second level of Cybernator. Sad but true.

The NSO sub is coming up for renewal in the next couple of weeks so what better excuse to not continue something like Persona 3 Portable, not get back to something I've left hanging, not buy something new like Theatrhythm and keep ignoring unopened games on the shelf such as Ni No Kuni II, SMT V, KH Melody of Memory, Nier Automata, Life is Strange, Disgaea, etc when there's old games to revisit and decide if I'll keep them around another year. I've even been back on the Fantasy Life postgame but that's now sidelined for this. (Spoilers: of course I'll keep the NSO subscription another year. The real question is if I'll play anything much on it before the next renewal deadline rolls around. ) Recently, I've been getting into Wario Land 3 from the GBA selection but I've opted to meet with the terrible fate that's been calling to me for almost exactly a year now. Majora's Mask. Still one of the best. Though I'll be open about it: it took a little bit to get accustomed to the controls and camera. Like, just to frame the view I want and line it up to go in the right direction to get the auto-jump I want (the heart piece in N. Clock Town took a few goes to reach, for example ). Feeling comfortable with it again now. I remember reading there's input lag with the NSO games but it's not something I noticed until now with MM. It's something I felt immediately on the file select screen then later playing instruments. Definitely feels like it takes a beat or two for what I select/ press to be reflected onscreen in these situations. It's jarring for the songs but after botching a few due to thinking my button press hadn't been read, I've learned to plough on, safe in the knowledge the game will catch up. I'm relieved to say it's not felt like the movement or sword swings or anything are behind so in general it's pretty much all good on the controls front. Wii VC was the last time I played MM... when it was a wee bit dodgy on the classic controller no matter what we tried to tell ourselves during those days. To be brutally honest, it's a game I worry about revisiting in case it doesn't resonate with me any more, or perhaps I'll discover I was just wrong to hold it in such high regard altogether. Thankfully it seems every bit as good as I remember. What a game. The way the atmosphere goes further askew with the passing of each day and you learn of everyone's individual plight. The way, without trying to memorise everything, it'll get its hooks into you until you randomly glance at the ingame clock to see how long you have left in a level, and you'll know what a character will be doing now, and remember you helped them... then realise you've reset to day one since then so they're with their plight again. The way you'll start planning ahead for the next three-day cycle. There's so much crammed into each area. Day 2 rain is a highlight. I have far from encyclopaedic knowledge of MM, but there's enough buried back there that I'm having a go at picking up a few masks and heart pieces earlier than when I was first discovering and rediscovering what Clock Town and Termina held. It's fun to experience it from a different perspective like this just as it is in other Zelda's when I deviate from what I consider is the "correct" order to do things. Gloomy as it might all be, there's still plenty of wacky things. Father and son. When Majora's Mask first came out, I thought Tingle was an old weirdo. Totally unrealistic. Then on the Wii VC, I thought he was an embarrassment who had let his life go beyond the point of getting it on track. Now, I think he's just a lad following his heart. More power to him! ...And yes, that bird outside Milk Road made off with my bottle. That won't deter me from taking it down again in a future cycle.

"Acquire Stake in Ninty" needs put on the N-E Patreon!

Hope midnight is indeed the case then! I'm not so well-versed in eShop pre-order unlock times—fairly certain the only thing I've pre-loaded was the SaGa Collection and I don't remember what time it became available to play. Apparently the Splatoon 3 World Premiere too. I might pick up Final Bar Line over the weekend if I spot it anywhere. Pretty sure they've said you can upgrade the physical to the deluxe...? Though I might hold off a bit longer to play it by ear on that front to make sure I have all the details. So you reckon this is the way to go? That's another thing I'm not sure the pros and cons of. Normally you bonuses from a demo, not hamstrung.

Do you know for definite off S-E social media or something that it will unlock at midnight? Because... https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Support/Nintendo-Switch/When-Are-New-Games-Added-to-Nintendo-eShop-1655487.html Don't want you sitting up for nothing!

https://www.slashgear.com/1199870/mariogpt-uses-ai-to-generate-endless-super-mario-levels-for-free/ Things being taken to their natural conclusion.

Wario Golf needs to be a standalone eShop game.

Getting these kinds of recommendations and shorts now I've finished it. I thought it was so good I wouldn't be surprised to find out it had been scripted! Can't believe they paint Maddy as a sleuthing genius. Yes, she was onto something, but the logic that got her there was totally wrong!!

Lavos @ 0:48. A demo went live after the recent Direct. It gives you a short and very sweet look at how the game is shaping up. Tl;dr, it can be summed up as Chrono Trigger X Mario RPG. Yet clearly drawing inspiration from these as it does, SoS seems to be very much its own thing with its own identity in spite of the amalgamation. Much more a love letter to RPGs of the past than a heartless rip-off. Combat itself blends Chrono Trigger (no battle transition, attacks can hit multiple enemies if they're positioned close together, combo attacks) with Mario RPG timing and interaction. I was even reminded of Star Fox Adventures though not by the battling. Not sure if it's just for the purposes of the demo—because this is not just a slice of the game; it's very aware that it's a demo portion of it—but when characters are k.o'd in battle, they are just downed for one turn before getting back on their feet. No need to revive. Interesting. Signs point to there being decent depth to the combat not least because I reckon it took me far too long to finish the boss here so there must have been some trick to it that I wasn't picking up on. Btw, the first battle I got into, I thought I was approaching a merchant NPC! Exp goes to the party as a collective, then when you level up you select an attribute to boost for each character like in Mario RPG. Physical attack, defence, magical attack, defence, health, mana points and all that. You can also climb up ledges, hop off things, use your Sorcerer's Ring equivalent to blow blocks around... you can even swim! Sounds like a lot of the usual RPG barriers are removed though sadly, in the demo town, you can't enter any of the homes. Might not matter in the full game but in the demo I wanted to look around, talk to people and get a feel for the place. Hoping for a run button as movement on the overworld in particular is extremely pedestrian. These small niggles aside, Sea of Stars is shaping up quite wonderfully. Walking down the overworld path to get a listen to one of the tracks from guest composer Mitsuda was well worth it. Nice and Chrono Triggery! info gleaned from the dev: game will be breakable in NG+. protip for speedsters: R + A to skip through text. no mini map quest tracking. levelling. if you fall behind, beating more difficult enemies will pull you up; if you try to grind, the exp returns will lessen. the story is designed to be the driving force. if you're up to date with equipment and there's still a difficult battle, they want you to puzzle it out (weaknesses and that kind of thing). earlier in development, enemies would not respawn so exp and levels would have been finite! they will look at movement speed. the overworld area in the demo is one of the largest islands in the game so they understand people might have been eager to move faster to get to the action. they want you to take it in. no missing! no crits! you cannot cancel enemy spells indefinitely because they want you to see the cool spell effects and heal yourself or it'd be boring. ultimate attacks have the production values of summons in other RPGs. Switch will have performance parity with other versions. 60fps, etc. doors will be openable if there's a (inventory) prompt, otherwise houses and whatnot cannot be entered. rainbow conch collectables can be traded for helpful items. possibly even eventually, game-breaking. they don't think anything meaningful was cut or left out. battling (timing, breaking locks, etc) will be tutorialised. (the demo just throws you in) stats can be maxed out however it's "a low numbers game". max level is 30. should be around level 20 when you finish then pick up more levels in NG+. cannot respec. Protip: if there's a fish up back you want to catch, you can swim and usher it down near to the fishing dock! ~10 tracks from Mitsuda: town, boss, something cursed, melancholic... attention to detail with the in-game band. band members will not animate when their instrument is not par of the music. if you talk to a band member who is playing, their instrument will stop during the conversation. sound limitations imitate the SNES. https://seaofstarsgame.co/ If you scroll down to the dynamic lighting section you can turn the dial to see how the lighting renders. Try the demo! https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-games/Sea-of-Stars-2090490.html

Saw this crop up over the weekend. Gale of Dark Chocolate. Funny the associations people come up with! Well anyway. The white supremacists milky bar kids won the splatfest.

It's nice to have them, isn't it? The Para Beetle Challenge and No Time to Dawdle to name two that strike a good balance between difficulty and that need to have one more go. Also cool to see things from other games like Mario 2 and Mario World 1 + 2 incorporated into the Mario 3 style. Fair enough if you've replayed them recently and your views on them hold true in the modern day. Last time for me was summer 2021, during Zelda's 35th-anniversary celebrations. Like, there's good things about them (e.g. the island part, the music in the area that tests your season changing expertise) but overall I think they're both just middling Zelda games. I'll admit that coming out at a time when I'd moved onto the GBA didn't help their case back in the day, but that I didn't come around on them in later years or even when I was riding high on Zelda nostalgia the other year tells it's own story. Funny to read my 2021 comments back because I can barely remember any of those details. Reckon the Oracle games could do with the Link's Awakening Remake treatment, some tweaks, and a good dollop of the secret sauce they oh-so lack. I have Minish Cap in a similar bracket. I mentioned the kinstones, and I like what they do, but for some reason them being random drops doesn't sit well with me! Would have been better, imo, if they were specifically placed pick-ups like heart pieces. Plus the capsule machine and the final boss was a bit of a pain too (I think?). Seem to remember restarting the game because I got stuck somewhere on my first file? I don't mean a glitch. Is there a point of no return at Vaati? These things probably don't even register with other gamers yet for me they counterbalance all the colourful charm that little game is brimming with. First time I played Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga, I ended up starting a new file from the final boss too because I hadn't been taking care of my levels or inventory at all. Could be my fault for expecting Nintendo games to be gimmes with no final difficulty spike and then when one comes, it's too late and I'm snookered. Did a lot of dying and retrying at the final boss in Paper Mario 64 as well as I didn't want to start a new file so I crossed all my fingers and toes and ended up scraping through by the skin of my teeth... years later. Not to muddy this thread with NSO GBA Expansion Pack chat...

They've been sitting on Kamek for ~25 years. Actually, I see he is apparently in Tour, so you'd think they'll bring him over to 8!

Been sifting through and spotted Jenny LeClue - Detectivu is 89% off @ £1.99 until 12/03/2023. Get it. https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Jenny-LeClue-Detectivu-1827950.html#gameDetails

https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Hardware/amiibo-/Line-up/Line-up-932319.html According to that, amiibo are compatible with Prime: Federation Force and Prime: Blast Ball but not Prime Remastered. So you agree with what me and @Glen-i said because Fusion is Metroid 4...!

Yeah, the trolls and Internet pushback will get a rise out of anyone sooner or later. That's great to hear. It must be a joy to have such a well-put-together adaptation of something you hold so dear.