darksnowman

I remember doing a maximum turn game on that board. That was a character-building experience.

Yeah but how many times does Link pop back up again after getting killed? From Ganon's point of view, he's this undead, relentless terminator that is hellbent on hunting him down over thousands of years. Maybe never and it's all just various retellings down the years of the events of Skyward Sword. Not that Ganon was in SS so there goes that. I suppose Twilight Princess had the undead, relentless teacher Link. But yeah, since you mention it, Paper Mario's another candidate for this thread. After Thousand Year Door they got experimental (great!) while ditching the RPG foundation (poor!). Maybe the series would have gotten stale if they hadn't done this—we'll never know—but I reckon we'd have enjoyed a once-per-generation Paper Mario RPG with some bells and whistles added each time. Perhaps they're gearing up to give the Mario & Luigi series the Switch treatment... we'd be lucky to get a standalone Bowser's Minions strategy game. Lol. Once upon a time, I might've said New Super Mario Bros. too but it feels so good in Mario Maker that my perception of those games has come around big time. So much so that I wouldn't mind picking up NSMBU in the rare event that I spot it on sale.

Unless he has already, it's time for Moshiri to give Frank a vote of confidence.

Van Gerwen was rattled once Smith got going and his eventual fight back was too little far too late. Great throwing to clinch it in the final leg.

Off the top of my head, you have to at least finish him with the arrows in the first LoZ. So if you get to him without them you're snookered. And I think the arrows are the finisher in LttP too. Though it's a dramatic finish in OoT to deliver the final blow with the sword of evil's bane... once you've softened him up with other weapons and you're done distracting him with the fishing line.

Kinda? Doesn't the end boss twuntage normally hinge on the light arrows? A Link Between Worlds is a great shout. Being handed an opened-up familiar version of Hyrule was a top move. Perhaps if they'd worked up to BotW from there over a few games... Always jumping to the defence of the game makers. Maybe they are older too, less inspired, resting on their laurels. Just look how unambitious they are with the Mario sports games. Again, they had a solid gameplay foundation to build on yet they opt to shoehorn gimmicks in (wrecking the foundation) and skimp on options and modes to play through.

For me, the wrong direction Pokémon has been going is towards mediocrity and beyond. Somehow, probably because it was the early days when it was still fresh and new, I was able to cut them slack for Ruby when they dropped features because they "needed to learn 16-bit." But when they wanted the same concession for Diamond, I couldn't finish it and never went back until Shield... which unfortunately was garbage. Then you think, well, they know the Switch now, just wait til you see the next one... and it's shambolic. It seems like they're always making games that are lacking rather than taking the previous generation and building on it. So as much as I'd like to battle through and fill up a Pokédex again, until they can get the finger out and make a good game, I can cope without. I think you should embrace being free of it. It might feel hard but it's good to be able to take a step back and get some perspective. There's no need to be a slave to these things. We can only hope that some year they'll fluke it and make a good one again. Funny. Nothing was jumping to mind but yeah, you're right, Zelda meets the criteria for me. Just it's fallen so far from my mind I didn't even think of it. I was chomping at the bit for a shake-up after Skyward Sword as much as anyone and it's such a pity that BotW isn't for me. I don't deny that they put a great game together or anything. They did a tremendous job with it, crazy to think how much they bucked the trend and I applaud them for it... just open-world doesn't seem to be for me. I think I like to be able to learn the worlds and areas and secret nooks and there's just no way I can hold BotW in my head. It's one massive non-descript area after another, and it's aimless and boring and far too long, imo. Right now I'm looking forward to a new file in LttP, OoT and MM (not really up for WW or TP Switch remasters tbh) far more than the new game which I'll just get out of obligation and hope that it clicks with me. It's always the hope that gets you! I think there's a happy medium they could strike that'd be somewhere between Skyward Sword and BotW so hopefully they shorten it down and bring things back in that direction a bit... but I can't see it. Games are just ballooning beyond all belief nowadays. This is a sad thread. Pour one out for Duke Nukem.

https://sidebargames.com/PatchNotes_SS_03.html Patch incoming! Haven't been afflicted by any of that but hopefully it smooths things out for others. Funniest thing I've seen is a minecart returning to its starting point as the crow flies, ignoring the tracks entirely. I walked through a wall that I later exploded too. Thought I'd found a secret then when I went on to blow the path up I knew better. Other than that, the number of items left counters don't go down on things, allowing me to buy what I assume is a lot, and there are so many times when I can just keep "checking" something to pick up multiple. Think I lost a tennis point on a ball that was not up but no replays so... ...but if I hit one long, it comes trundling off the back wall and the CPU pops it over and get's awarded two points... I don't think a replay is needed to know that one was a home town call. These comments aged well. The shop upgraded so I can't try that glitch anymore and I've had my one and only crash on hole 3 or 4 of the Britannia course when I pressed R to check the overhead. There's 16 holes of golf available to me now and I'm currently putting myself through tennis school. I can't tell if there's the bones of a good tennis game in there or not because the camera's set to follow the ball instead of keeping the players in frame which gives it an unnatural feel. Can't get any angle on shots but you'd like to think that's something that'll come through levelling...? Early impressions are that a drop shot will win almost every point. Similarly disappointed with the cricket so far–it's just you trying to hit balls that come flying up the screen. As long as you make contact it's a job well done. No runs to worry about. Would love to see some proper matches and competitions but I'm ~8 hours in now and need to be realistic with my expectations. I can go to another area and start questing through it, so at least there are options. The travelling scene looked so cheap because the train wheels were not animated. The monster mini golf has probably been the best thing in it...? That's the kind of thing I'm here for. At least the tennis academy had a variety of drills to go through... which should be the absolute bare minimum of what this game has you doing. Sadly however, it just has you running through a story with some sporting tasks tacted on and if they think I care about the story... Reading it in an Aussie accent helps. You can at least imagine how they would have thought all this bonkers stuff would be hilarious. For me, the gamer, the story just needs to be decent enough to get me rising through the ranks in each sport. Just pepper in the comedy and it'll be memorable. Same for the quests—less can be more if they're good and cohesive. Pity they've gone the throw the spaghetti at the wall route then.

There's a way to out of bounds yourself into a developers' room (like meeting the Dream Team in one of the endings in Chrono Trigger) that's otherwise not accessible via conventional means. Anyone been able to reproduce this? Doesn't seem too hard but I just can't seem to get the box into the right position because either when I reenter I'm not far enough behind it or the game knows to put me past it. Will probably try again because it's by no means a trek to that shop. Got a slybeak frozen in flight there. There was a drawer I could seemingly get infinite 10% off coupons from but after getting up to 99 it cycled back to 1 again in my inventory, then later when I checked my items I had like 11 of them so it seems like the game was keeping track. Other than that, still waiting for the game to fall apart at the seams. My main problem with it is that it's front-loaded with quests rather than sports. I got my first round of golf in. Sadly it was only 7 holes but I'll take what I can get! Good news is that by pressing R you get an overhead view now. This is something that was sorely missing in Golf Story. Yeah, I agree. There's bigger problems here than can be sorted with a performance patch. I did far too much running around talking, figuring things out, trading items and doing quests than was necessary before getting that first round of golf with Lara. Thankfully there's only one thing on my quest list at the moment... not looking forward to populating it again. At least I should be able to replay that first course any time now, fingers crossed. I definitely think they could have ordered/ paced the opening different to get you into the sports tournaments first and build the questing around that.

Overlooking demos and game trials, here's how the year of our Switch 2022 went for me: Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore—At the time, I thought this was a bit of a Fisher Price, "babies first" RPG, but I find myself looking back on it more favourably now. Dicey Dungeons—an end-of-year bargain that I need to get back to. Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition—I suppose on some level it was nice to finally finish the first Xenoblade. Hotshot Racing—Yes! Great stuff! The Last Campfire—Very good. Made me want a LostWinds return. Inside—Very chilling. Great experience. Pokémon Shield—To get the gift code Pokémon. Can't help thinking there'll come a day I'll be wanting to trade them forward... Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle—One of the first Switch games I got and I'm still yet to finish it. Love it. Shovel Knight Treasure Trove—Revisited. Castlevania Collection—Frequently revisit. Makes me feel like it's Halloween! Animal Crossing: New Horizons—They should just put this out as a Game & Watch. There's not much else you need. Kirby & The Forgotten Land—Thought this was GotY material. Look forward to revisiting it. Mario Mart 8 DX—How can you not? Still need to try the latest wave. Bastion—A treat to finally play. GRIS—Excellent. Pikuniku—Decent for what it is. Limbo—Very good indeed. FAR Lone Sails—Very enjoyable. 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim— Axiom Verge—Felt great. A most pleasant surprise. Dragon Quest Builders 2—Slotted back in for an NSO mission and ended up playing for a while. Child of Light—Super. Valiant Hearts—Very touching and heartfelt. Scott Pilgirm vs. The World: The Game—Slow and heavy controls. Later played River City Girls and realised it's the game I expected here. Resident Evil—A true great that I finally get. Paper Mario: TOK—Went back and finished. Missing that x-factor. Fall Guys—Good fun for a couple of rounds. Out Run—Always. The Bridge—Got the old grey matter going. Live A Live—Possibly the disappointment of the year. Super Mario Maker 2—Never far from my mind. Zelda: Link's Awakening—Summer, summer, summertime. Time to kick back and unwind! Down in Bermuda—A nice palate cleanser. Paratopic—Oh so short. Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA—Mentioning this Game Trial as I put 25+ hours into it during the trial period. Really clicked with it! Pikmin 3 Deluxe—So, so good. Must remember to get Pikmin 4K immediately. Alliance Alive HD Remastered—Cool little 3DS RPG. Need to get back to it. Tetris 99 Doom 3—Must go back and see this bad boy out. Splatoon 3—Was intending to get stuck into the 1-player over Christmas. Undernauts: Labyrinth of Yomi—Needs more of my time! Banner Saga—Needs more of my time! Pokémon Unite—Was trying to get Mew. FF X/X-2—Just a quick revisit as I needed a reminder of how good an RPG can be. Zelda: BotW—To try and get in the mood for the sequel. Followed a guide and did the town-building bit. Wasn't too bad with some pointers to follow. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon—Twas getting towards the season. RingFit Adventure—Got back into this for a few weeks. Fortnite—A chill game compared to Splatoon 3. Blaster Master Zero—Very good indeed. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2—Can see myself replaying this. DQ XI S: Echoes of the Elusive Age - Definitive Edition—A brief revisit. Persona 5 R—The prequel to Strikers is here! Resident Evil 5—Seems very replayable. Eiuyden Chronicle: Rising—i herd u liek fetch questz. Panzer Dragoon: Remake—No barrel rolls. Castlevania Advance Collection Virtua Racing Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core Reunion—Great!! Dragon Quest Treasures—Great!! Sports Story—Emphasis not on the sports. Somehow didn't fire up Horizon Chase Turbo this year. I'll be getting back on it to try that update they put out. Of course, I've been on the N64 (mostly Mario Tennis), SNES (mostly Super Tennis and Smash Tennis) and NES (not mostly Tennis) NSO apps... but still yet to try the Mega Drive... the console wars live on on my Switch! Nowhere near as much Nintendo-made gaming as I'd normally expect this year again. I'm wondering if I'm on a path that'll end up leading me to not being satisfied with shoddy old 3rd party ports. Been bitten too many times now with Nintendo's current crop of feature-lite releases, that much I know. Still impossible to say one way or the other at the close of 2022 because a quick new file on something like Mario World on the SNES NSO is all it takes to justify owning the Nintendo machine. Having the classic Nintendo library ready to go papers over a lot of cracks. Low points: Xenoblade (truly thought I could have played 1 + 2 and been hungry for 3...) and Live A Live. High points: playing some games I'd downloaded years ago and never touched (some more to go) and trying to play as I buy with this year's eShop purchases, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Axiom Verge, Resident Evil (played through it twice!!), the Ys VIII Game Trial, Persona 5 R (having a well-earned break from this currently), Resi 5, Crisis Core, DQ Treasures. Demos/ Game Trials to follow up on: Potato Flowers in Full Bloom, Ys VIII, DioField, Harvestella, Jack Move, Anno: Mutationem, Lunistice. GotY 2022: Give this game a Yakisoba Pan. From the first half of the year, 13 Sentinels has stood tall and seen off all comers at ease. In an era where games are overstaying their welcome as a rule, here came a visual novel with real-time strategy stages thrown in that intrigues you all the way until the end. Top art, top animation, top storytelling through the pursue-the-story-thread-of-your-choice presentation style. Top of the 2022 heap! Onwards to 2023 and despite how well I've been keeping on top of them this year, I've still got some eShop purchases like Danganronpa, ToeJam & Earl and whatnot to get off my virtual shelf. Might be nice to get around to some games on the physical shelf too... but with Persona 3 and 4 up soon, 2023 is shaping up to be another 12 months of uphill gaming. Sega Rally 2 when? Keep the PSP stuff coming.

How's Sports Story going for you, @WackerJr and @Ronnie? Have you got to a round of golf or any sports yet?

Chapter 5 cleared, 15% missions completed. I've been out in the field with Sephiroth, I've fallen into the church and started seeing Aerith down in the slums, I've been up the snowy mountains having banter with a fellow country bumpkin who doffed his helmet to reveal the one and only Cloud (!) and I've taken ownership of the Buster Sword. I'm loving getting a pre-FF VII look at these characters. Should hate Sephiroth but I'd be chums with him! Should fall head over heels in love with Aerith however I was initially a bit wary of her during the stolen wallet debacle. Thought Cloud'd be an empty vessel yet there I was enjoying watching the interaction with him before knowing his identity. Most surprised that Cloud already has his hairdo... thought he copied that off Zack and all. Mostly I'm enjoying Zack because it's his way of being that's bringing out this side of these characters. The values that Angeal instilled in him... (I'd be curious about dropping Aerith and pursuing things with Cissnei if this was Persona.) Had to reload my save a lot at the Modeo stealth section. It ended up being too finicky (Sam Fisher Zack is not) so I just fought through and gave up on getting the items. Hope they aren't too vital. Had bother with the chapter 5 boss also. Retried with various materia setups before settling on some HP Ups to see me through. Wish I'd got through that without using a Pheonix Down but he struck me down when I was waiting to get an MP replenish roll from the slots (to cast Cure). Haven't got into materia fusion yet as I'm not sure about the combinations but maybe the time is approaching.

Note to self: consider living off the land and just playing NSO. Won't pretend to understand the backlog chart. You totally gamed the numbers to produce that even split between PS4 and 5. I demand a recount! Needs moar platinums. Kirby and the Forgotten Land woz robbed! Oceanhorn isn't the 1.5? Justice! Sadly accurate for Scott Pilgrim.

Merry Christmas ya filthy animals! Now, where's @Happenstance with a sketch?

Ooooh, good questions. It's closer to taking the first than the second though it's definitely up there on both counts.

I'm looking forward to seeing if they've incorporated things like being able to pan the camera up the course when you're lining up your golf stroke, and hopefully, the other less intuitive aspects of Golf Story have been addressed too. But going by the "difficulties" I had with the orange card, this one's going to have its quirks. You'd think they'd have had ample time to iron out the "indie bugs" from the Golf Story foundation and any new kinks that came up along the way because Sports Story's hardly been rushed out the door—been waiting years for it! I'd like to think it's not too bad but it must be bad enough if they've had to put out a statement on it.

That's a strange article. I feel like these things always wheel out the same poorly performing games and mandate that the next machine come along and smooth everything out. Sure the Switch had bother with the NSO N64 games and those should in no way be taxing modern hardware! So as was done there, I think a lot of the Switch's woes could be solved with a bit of work in the optimisation department and better planning to reign in the scope of those bigger moments that make performance chug. Because even on the next generation of Nintendo hardware, developers will keep taking the piss. Reviewers and commenters do a poor job of drawing a line and saying here's how much the machine is capable of and here are the areas in which games are not properly built for it. The same issues are going to crop up next time around–new hardware is not a cure-all. Personally, I wouldn't like to see a new machine with the new Zelda because I don't like seeing Zelda used like that. Am I ready for Nintendo's next console? Err, the tech inferiority doesn't massively bother me. I've had some goes on souped-up PCs and nextgen consoles but otherwise the Switch is as far as I've been so maybe if I was coming "back" to it my eyes would likely be bleeding out of my skull too. I notice jaggy edges here and there and think "that's a pity" and my eyes get used to it. Load times peeve me more I reckon. I honestly think games are just churned out with little to no care. Games that could have almost been on the SNES or GBA are making me sit through loading screens! Feels like we've gone miles backwards in this regard. And slow down? Man, I kind of like it because I still equate it to the console being pushed to its limits. It's very possible I haven't played the worst performance offenders though... because I do have standards. Granted, a successor with a spec bump and everything that comes with it would be nice but only if I can take eShop purchases forward and the thing has a game card slot built in. Even if it has to be relegated to the dock itself, because I've far too much unfinished business on Switch that I don't need to be an early adopter next time at all. I don't think games are made now with drift in mind you know. I would love to get into the handheld aspect again and enjoy games in all their driftless glory. I think Nintendo has been doing a great job with their consistent release schedule yet I find myself passing on more and more of their stuff these days. I think they've settled into a safe zone. They lost me with the Wii U on the muddy reveal, unclear follow-up information, no killer apps. And unlike with the 3DS, they couldn't salvage it. Nothing to do with the Wii branding. I can only hope they've learned from this and with Reggie gone, I'm sure they won't make the same mistake twice.

Did the opening beach area in Sports Story. Took about an hour which I feel must be well over the odds. You don't realise how much you've come to depend on quest/ activity markers until they aren't there. Then I was totally stumped on how to use the orange card when I eventually got one... I won't mention what did the trick so @WackerJr and @Ronnie can do the same head-scratching I did! (In the end, I fluked it.) Game seems good. Having a run button but no d-pad movement is a weird one, as is the way the camera jumps to whoever speech bubble it is—definitely didn't expect that to make it over from Golf Story. In the hotel, it said "1 left" on the ice but I was able to keep buying. So I did. Maybe it'll be useful at some point.

Got Sports Story. Can't wait to try it out later!

Wasn't a thrashing but it did put paid to this season's tilt at the quadruple.

Aaaand we're back. Hope Haaland is rusty...

Check. She hasn't, she does, she will. It was! Nailed everything. Unfortunate that Sherrock let Evans off the hook big time.

Another strong showing today. That gecko looks fun to move around and Punchuin looks like something they could build a Shovel Knight sort of series out of... or let it vanish like Henry Hatsworth.

I didn't know there was anything to the sword other than it being on Cloud's back in the renders. And never thought twice about upgrading from it in FF VII either... and still don't. That's RPGs for you. Buy everything you can with an up arrow on it then hit that optimise button on the equipment screen and move on to the next town and do it again. If and when you get around to Crisis Core, free your mind of these Buster Sword gripes, and you might well find there's plenty to enjoy. There's a surprising amount of heart to it from what I've seen.

Who in turn so far seems to be a peppy tryhard version of his mentor! Yup, it's gonna be a punch in the guts if/ when something transpires that has me leaving team Angeal. If you're only capable of seeing it in terms of cold, hard numbers, then remember this is a prequel to FF VII, so it's only normal the stats of the big sword here would be superseded as you progress through the compilation. Or something. Crisis Core is infusing the iconic Buster Sword with meaning that has no right carrying over into the hands of the empty husk that is Cloud Strife. And I'm only at chapter 3! If this keeps going I'll be outright despising Cloud (who I'm indifferent about as a character) by the time it wraps up. Way to go CC.