WackerJr

I’ve just seen the Zelda trailer on Nintendo’s X account. Did I miss the announcement of Achievements within the Direct? They seem to have added them to the Nintendo mobile app!

He’s finally back, to kick some hell tail! 😁

Wait. What. Silksong? Just like that!??

GameCube! 😁 Guess there’ll be no Wind Waker HD then.

Ok, let’s move on to new games now please…

Just one? So I can’t mention The Witcher 4 being announced as coming to Switch 2, or Microsoft allowing new Conker & Banjo games to come to a Nintendo console, or Mario smacking the snot out of Master Chief in a new Smash Bros game? A Chrono Trigger remake? Or even a collection of old point & click games (Toonstruck, Monkey Island, etc) to show off the mouse? 😃 Fine, a new 3D Zelda game, but showcasing a realistic Zelda as playable & with abilities similar to what we’ve come to expect from Link (so not just focused on magic) & hinting at a raft of recognisable villains from the series.

I’m so confused by the sandwich talk… 😂 Storyteller (Mobile) I found this to be a charming little puzzler that feels a good fit in mobile (the caveat being the need for a Netflix account), but sadly stops just as it starts finding its stride. If you don’t know it, you’re tasked with filling in pages of a storybook by creating short ‘story mountains’ to correctly represent the story given by the brief title of the page. Each page has between 3 and 8 blank panels. You’re given a selection of 2-3 different scenes (e.g., “Wedding”, “Death”, “Cliff”, “Kidnap”) that you can drag into the blank panels and add to them a few characters from a small selection. The order of scenes and characters dictates how they react, and most pages were about figuring out how to create the right motives. For instance, the “Kidnap” scene has a cage and lever, so adding one character by the lever and another in the cage naturally causes one to become the ‘villain’ and raise the cage trapping the other. To rescue them you’d add the same panel again, but include your ‘hero’, who will now lower the cage, causing both characters to also be angry at the ‘villain’. The story may end there if the title just wanted you to show a rescue, but if the page hinted that you needed a story focused on revenge then adding an “Execution” panel would give a darkly different ending! Of course you could skip the rescue and simply add the “Throne” scene to see the ‘villain’ smugly get the crown instead! The stories are mostly familiar tales, with scenarios based on the likes of Snow White, Shakespeare and Adam & Eve. This helped with identifying what I needed to do (the Evil Queen, or “Witch” in this case, was naturally intent on ridding herself of Snow White “Snowy”). It had plenty of chucklesome moments, often seeing characters react to situations even if they weren’t the right answer, and the game rewards you for doing this by having an achievement system for creating those moments, although there’s no other reward other than sniggering at the various predicaments you’ve created. The whole thing is very short, I finished the main game within a couple of hours. Sometimes the solutions weren’t obvious, but I found it easy enough to ‘trial & error’ my way through the limited number of possible combinations. There is some short post-game content, plus finding all the stamps/ achievements took another couple of hours, mainly because the game doesn’t tell you what levels the non-solution scenarios are found in. (Spoiler of an early-game solution) It was a little repetitive by its nature, but each puzzle being so short meant I could spend a few minutes here and there at a time, and I enjoyed the whole concept. It’s just a shame that there are only a few puzzles more than 6 panels long and it abruptly stops just as it gets more challenging. I hope that they expand on it in future, as I was rather charmed by it. Here’s my 70 seconds-long video review: https://youtu.be/3fnqBEKeC5Q?si=_uTFY-SHZy7EwKF2

This last Direct saw Nintendo announcing they were showing their final game, lots of people ogling the screen, fingers crossed for one of the Zelda HD remakes… and Nintendo in true trolling fashion: Here’s your Wind Waker… Thanks Nintendo. 🤨

It remember it being ok to play. The fairly zoomed in view did make it a little trickier to get an idea of the surrounding areas and less time to react to wherever enemies were. It used the GameBoy Rumble and was one level in particular, I think it was on a boat, where it would rumble every few seconds to indicate… something. It wasn’t until I turned off the rumble that I realised how it added and that I missed it! With those Rare console games appearing on NSO, I do hope we one day see Perfect Dark, Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge and Conker’s Pocket Tales?

Similar situation for me me too. I’ve been finally selling off my old games and systems over the past few years as while I’d love the time to play them again, I’d been saying that for years and realistically it’s never going to happen on their original format. Plus now with modern TVs not having the SCART ports I’m loathe to put in the extra effort to buy additional adapters just so I can maybe one day play them. I’m now up to my N64 games to part with, which probably hold the most nostalgia for me, being the first system I bought myself. With so many modern games to get through though know I need to sell these…

Having managed to get my physical copy, I’m playing through it with my wife, as we loved It Takes Two. At a guess we’re over halfway through and for us Hazelight have hit another home run! As the reviews suggest, it’s excellent! The concept of being able to create scenarios based on fictional stories that the characters have come up with really gives the developers flexibility in creating a mixture of gameplay styles, and they’ve really done that. They’ve managed to create a lot of situations where you need to work together and where you’re each having to perform something different, it’s been very clever and full of ideas. So far the gameplay’s been more varied than It Takes Two, but our opinions have each differed on whether we prefer the story and setting of this or the previous game (so far). I’m hoping we’ve got a long way to go still though, as it’s great!

Thanks, I hadn’t realised that! I may have to track that down! 😁

Yep, we’ve followed up Uncharted 1-3 with Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. Gameplay-wise this follows the blueprint of the the previous games (“if it ain’t broke….”) so there was a lot of 3rd person shootouts, more ‘ninja warrior’ style climbing acrobatics, more perilous situations for Nathan Drake to find himself in, and more adrenaline pumping set pieces. The whole game looks fantastic, whether it be crumbling ruins, expensive villas or Arabic market towns. Even if it’s just to essentially to create a pathway to another area looks impressive and in turn makes locations feel more immersive. Naughty Dog put a lot of effort into the detail of each area. Nathan’s brother is a new character, voiced by Troy Baker (Joel from The Last of Us for those unaware), and the banter between the two is strong throughout. The story brings a lot of focus to Drake’s family and his relationships and for me it was a natural fit to the stories established in previous titles and answered some of the previously outstanding questions. There was a little more focus on hand-to-hand combat (more so with your NPC friends alongside you) and the new grappling hook was just an extra option for traversing the terrain. These were the only noticeable new additions for me, along with some driving sections which felt comfortable to control. To be honest I was happy they hadn’t really changed much, and the set pieces were again fantastic! My wife and I both thoroughly enjoyed another Nathan Drake outing, and it stands to how well the gameplay, dialogue and set pieces were, that we played 4 games back-to-back with a similar gameplay loop and didn’t get bored once. It’s a shame Naughty Dog have suggested that they’ve no plans for any more Uncharted games as I expect there’s still a thriving market for them, or at least there is in our household!

Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection (PS4, played on PS5) Finally, the first game off my pledge list! 😁 I’d never played any of the Uncharted games before this so I can’t compare any to their original releases, but ultimately I had a great time with all three games. I’d heard great things about Uncharted 2: Among Thieves over the years, although was slightly concerned over how well it’d hold up. I needn’t have worried, I thought it was tremendous! Each game essentially breaks itself up into action sequences, traversing the linear path usually via climbing and acrobatic leaps, and the occasional puzzle. This fairly simplistic gameplay loop doesn’t change dramatically across the three games, although certainly becomes more refined. However, the narrative, the story, the action sequences and the set pieces certainly do! The majority of action sequences in the first game were combat-based where you’d hide behind walls and take on enemies in shoot-outs, occasionally finding ways to stealthily take down enemies instead. Uncharted 2 ramps this up, so the action sequences were much more thrilling, varied and cinematic. There were still plenty of combat sequences, although this time the areas you fought in were more diverse and gave more tactical options, such as finding higher ground to get a better viewpoint to take on the increased number of enemies. The biggest improvement for me were the volume of memorable set pieces, from the first moment and then plenty of varied ones throughout taking place (on most methods of transport!). They were astounding in their execution and thoroughly entertaining! Uncharted 3 is similar, although with such a high bar to follow, I enjoyed it but didn’t find it quite as memorable as Among Thieves. Graphically it all looked impressive, as Naughty Dog games generally do. I also thought your AI companion was excellent and genuinely helpful in gun battles, especially in Uncharted 3. They tended to be invulnerable, which I was thankful for with some of my errant shooting (especially when grenades were involved!), but they would take out enemies and move to sensible positions and I never noticed them getting stuck or going anywhere they shouldn’t. I played all three games with my wife, taking it in turns, and we both had a blast. The dialogue was funny and I grew to like the characters and their relationships with each other. I only a had a few minor gripes. There were hidden treasures throughout, but unlike games like the newer Tomb Raiders which indicate how many are in each area and offer rewards for finding them, there was no such assistance here, and the rewards didn’t affect gameplay anyway, so I wasn’t fussed about them. There were a few difficulty spikes along the way too, which made me grateful for the quick loading checkpoints. Ultimately though, I thoroughly enjoyed this, and we’re going through Uncharted 4 now as a result (and as I also got it free via the PSPlus monthly games!).

Now these are the bears I remember! 😂 Dashing, daring, courageous and caring… In fact, being heavily involved in trampolining nowadays I wonder if those Gummi Bears last a more lasting impression on me than I realised…! I didn’t realise Care Bears were making a comeback either! Sorry, gone off topic, I’ll bring it back shortly. I think I’m just excited to finally chalk a game off my pledge list! Uncharted 2 thoughts coming soon!

Great work! It’s been a real pleasure reading your thoughts on each game. One of my favourite generation of games, and it brought back a lot of fond memories and brilliant to read the thoughts of others, who also share memories of them. Really interesting stuff about the prototypes too. Turns out there’s plenty I didn’t realise about the N64 era. Thanks @Cube!

That they haven’t made any reference to games makes me skeptical, no matter how much I’d love to see some from of remake or update. I can see there being some sort of concert or a set of Chrono Trigger tracks within another concert, as the music is great. Saying that, I’ve almost finished my first ever playthrough and, like others, I can’t believe this has been sitting idle while other lesser RPGs get re-releases, it’s fantastic. It’s aged a little, but still plays well today. A few QoL improvements, as well as graphical updates is all it really needs for me.

I don’t know whether it’s selling phenomenally or whether there’s a shortage of physical copies in the South of the UK, but everywhere I look is either sold out or a long delay for the disc version. Amazon has a 2-week turnaround for delivery, my local game ran out of stock today, Argos, Smyths, etc all in a similar predicament in their stores! I’ve managed to get a home delivery from Argos for early in the week. I’m hoping it is selling well, as I loved It Takes Two and the reviews you’ve all mentioned are glowing.

I’ve finally gotten around to playing SMWonder and it’s whimsically fun! It’s been a bit too easy so far and while great that I’ve been able to play this with my wife & daughter in 3-player, I found it played harder as I kept struggling trying to keep track of my character when things got frantic. Each Wonder Flower gives that feeling ‘what the heck are the developers going to make happen now?’ Randomly, and really just me, but I’m loving that some levels unexpectedly invoked fond Sega Master System memories too 😃:

Wow I used to be frustrated at the length of time between many US and UK releases in the N64 days. @Cube you’re making me grateful that there were so many garbage games that never even came to Europe! Thanks!

I agree. It’s one of my bugbears with most modern games, and then even worse when there’s been time to fix things but the issue still remains. It leads to a wider issue as I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s played a game at launch with clear and massive bugs, that don’t get fixed until post-launch.

So 5 months after the digital release the physical version is available, and in keeping with the original release, it’s buggy and needs an update… I understand that the carts were made months ago, so the initial issue the game had were present, but is it common practice to manufacture carts so long before release? Genuine question as I don’t know and if so then surely it leads to issues like this, when on the face of it consumers must surely want to have everything ready to go on a physical cart (more so when a game’s been out for a little shy of half a year).

Pikmin 4 (Switch) A game that really tries to cater for both new and existing Pikmin players. It doesn’t reinvent itself, but Pikmin 4 provides more gameplay, more Pikmin, more pilots, more ‘treasures’, more enemy types, and more luscious garden landscapes! I’m unashamedly a big fan of the core Pikmin games (sorry “Hey! Pikmin” and “Pikmin Bloom”), and everything seemed instantly familiar, almost too much so. Being able to customise your pilot is a neat touch, and then you’re thrown straight into the usual Pikmin routine. Of the new aspects, Oatchi is a welcome addition, albeit quite powerful at times. It’s a pup who acts a companion to your character. I assumed Oatchi would simply be a replacement for a 2nd pilot ala Pikmin 3, but your pilot and Pikmin can leap on his back, it making traversing the ground so much quicker and easier. It can be made into a 2nd pilot, vital for some of the later gameplay, but it’s also powerful in battle and is equivalent to multiple Pikmin when used to carry objects. The above ground levels felt quite relaxed, with explorative environmental puzzles. The enemies here never really felt too threatening and despite the fairly low difficulty of them, I still enjoyed the thrill of opening and exploring new areas. The underground levels were more challenging, restricting the amount of Pikmin and forcing you to battle and find treasures down a varying amount of floors. Many of the new enemy types are located here, with a lot of the ‘boss-style’ ones only appearing as one-offs. Despite the larger volume there were only a few stand out ones for me (my favourites were variations on the ‘Beady Long-Legs’ enemy). I did find that much of the time their threat was somewhat lessened by saving up nectar from previous floors and using it to power up my Pikmin before swarming the boss, who often wouldn’t last long being pummelled by the abundance of powered-up plant creatures. This does lead me to my main gripe - the amount of nectar it’s possible to accumulate to power up the Pikmin. I was able to collect a lot, and it did mean that I could use a similar strategy on many of the enemies throughout, as opposed to tactically defeating them. There were also timed challenges, split between ones with a set goal (e.g., defeat all enemies) or trying to score higher than another character. Getting platinum on the timed challenges was probably the greatest challenge, as you really do have to strategize and prioritise what to do when given goals and only a tight time limit to do so. I enjoyed working out the quickest routes and tactics, even if sometimes things felt a little hectic. New to the series were short night levels. These see you trying to keep your base intact while creatures march towards it. It didn’t feel necessary, but I quite liked it for the variety it provided to the usual gameplay and just breaking things up a little. That they were each fairly short was also good. As I can’t get the spoiler tags to work, I won’t say what unlockables there were, apart from I enjoyed them. I think it’ll prove to be a great introduction to those new to the series. It provided everything I expected, and I did really enjoy it. It provided small QoL improvements too, such as being able to rewind time, a great addition. For a game I spent over 30 hours playing it seems strange to say I wish it was longer, but I do. The challenges and trying to earn medals extended the length of the game. Unlike previous games in the series, I’ve no inclination to go back to this, but I do look forward to the future Pikmin 5, and hopefully Nintendo see the sales figures as making it worthwhile to make. Here’s my 70-second video review.

So they came through! Nintendo have sent me through a black NN3DSXL, along with my original faceplates. They’ve successfully transferred over my account, so I’ve still got my games too (they also threw in some Zelda stickers which my daughter’s happy about!). The only two issues I’ve found, which aren’t the end of the world, are: 1) Some games froze on the 3DS loading screen. Deleting & redownloading them has fixed the issue though. 2) I’ve lost saved games from downloaded titles along with my Wii Plaza Puzzle pieces. A shame but if that’s the only thing then that’s a relief and I have a working NN3DS again! I wasn’t sure if Nintendo were going to be able to help, but great respect to them they’ve really pulled through for me. I’m happy with the outcome. Now, to finally finish Chrono Trigger!!! 😃

I really enjoyed Cubivore on GameCube. It looked bland and uninspiring back actually the simplicity of the blocks made it easy to tell how ‘large’ each creature was and meant it couldn’t be challenged that said creature didn’t look like it’s real-life counterpart, as it quite clearly just gave a suggestion on what the creature was and wasn’t trying to accurately portray anything. Great find in playing an N64 prototype! It’s quite clear I’m a Conker fan, and how this made its way into the N64 in the form it did I still can’t quite believe. It’s very Rare-esque with its humour, just dialled right up! I still recall this having a room full of students in hooked and in fits of laughter when played in single player at my school(!). I can recall very few games getting such a captive audience! I agree with your thoughts on some of the gameplay issues. I recall the camera being frustrating at times, and despite most areas being fairly linear in nature there were a few times I couldn’t work out where I was going. It was so much about the variety and set pieces though. I enjoyed the switch about halfway though as well, where it suddenly got a lot darker. All the time still not for kids, the first half felt more juvenile compared to the humour and tones of the second half. Would love to see this on NSO and a proper sequel at some point in the future.