WackerJr

If you enjoy the series then the DLC episode (the longer episode one you mentioned) is worth it in my opinion. It’s a fully-fledged case and I wouldn’t want to spoil anything further about it!

I can’t believe that it’s only today I’ve discovered that Kirby’s Avalanche is Dr Robotnik’s Mean Bean machine! (Just with a very different looking protagonist… well unless Kirby ever decided to suck up Robotnik to take on his appearance of course…)

That’s actually a good consideration on Nintendo’s part since it will seem unfair to anyone purchasing Fire Emblem Fates to not give them any opportunity to finish the story. Plus it probably doesn’t hurt Nintendo to advertise this and mop up any last purchases of the game! 🥸

Super Arcade Football (Switch): A simplified football game with an overhead view that initially gives Sensible Soccer and Super Kick Off vibes. I’ve seen some people recommended this, but honestly for me this was not a patch on Sensible Soccer. In single-player you take over a fictional team from an old fashioned guy who’s not afraid to bombard you with insults. You then essentially have to win every game to advance to the next, although there’s no penalty for losing and you simply replay games. There is a star system for achieving specific feats, such as putting together x passes in a row, or winning by a certain margin. I never worked out what these actually did though, and my motivation for doing them quickly dissolved. I did enjoy the selection of different pitch types and random hazards (meteorites anyone!?), which did add variety to the matches. Sadly it wasn’t enough and, after the initial excitement and discovery of the different pitch types, it really did feel like a grind to play through the games. I wanted to like it, but sadly it wasn’t to be.

Wow, best of luck to the 3 of you! It’s terrifying being a baby into the world, never mind with all of the extra to deal with. Relieved to hear you have a good team helping and they are very reassuring to you both. Is this your first? Really hoping everything goes well for these next few weeks (& beyond of course!).

They say they’ll continue to great multi format games, although I wonder how long that’ll last. Another big-name developer though, and I’d be pretty pleased if I were Sony right now with this deal.

Sorry if this is a daft question, but is the NE Discord available to all or is it simply for NE staff?

No notification for me either. I just lucked out on seeing the thread here and on another site during the 2-3 hour window they happened to be available. I’d assumed, like you, that the ‘notify me’ option would essentially give those people a heads-up of some kind.

Nintendo 64 controllers are, at the time I write this, in stock still on the Nintendo UK store (having gullibly caved in & clicked to purchase!). Thanks @Ealdst 😃👍🏻

These are high on my list too (especially the first, which I never got a proper chance to play) and are surely in with a good shot at being added?

Another World: 20th Anniversary Edition (PS4) Well this has not aged well! A big deal back when it was released, as a cinematic 2D platformer with it’s animation, and leading the way for the likes of Flashback, Abe’s Odyssey, etc. I died over and over and over and over again! The animation actually became a huge source of frustration for me, as you can’t jump or fire you weapon until your stepping animation has finished, and so often this will result in missed jumps, or the quick reflexes or your enemies to decimate you! It cemented it’s place in gaming history back in 1991, but that’s where I’d leave it.

My political knowledge may be poor, but I still absolutely agree with this. Forgetting whether you think the party did a good job or not with things like the pandemic, Ukraine, etc. the PR and public opinion from all the scandals and lies is shocking, and I imagine is what the majority of the general public will remember. As such, surely there are few better opportunities for the opposition to show how they are the better alternative? Even if it’s simply because the Conservatives are shooting themselves in the foot (repeatedly!), but I don’t think they’re taking anywhere near enough advantage of it and doing the opposite PR to win over the public. Whether I’d want them to is irrelevant, but it’s as if they have an open goal but don’t know what to do!

Bring these to Switch was surely one of the most obvious, but correct decisions in gaming! 😃 Especially after seeing these announced for XBox I’m really pleased about this. Now my fun quandary: I bought P5R on PS4 just a few weeks ago. Do I play it now or wait (& pay…) for the Switch release to be able to play it portably as well? 😃

Wow I’d completely forgotten about this! At least I’ll be able to catch up on runs via their YouTube channel. Anyone have any recommendations yet of what I should check out?

Good question! There were so many moments, or elements of characters that I enjoyed. If I had to plump for one I’d go with Nenji Ogata, as I really enjoyed his story and it’s puzzle elements, as well as being one of the Sentinels that did a lot of damage for me in the Destruction stages. Yuki Takamiya & Natsuno Minami were close runners-up for me and I really enjoyed playing their stories. What about yourself @Hero-of-Time?

Just completed it 100% and I think I spent most of my time in a state of ignorant bliss. I was so confused by what was going on, but I was enjoying it! The top-down battles were a nice break from the reading, even if not overly deep. Even Atlus recognise them as accompaniments to the story and being able to change the difficulty of them with no penalty is a nice touch and so you can choose whether you want a challenge or just want to clear the levels. While most of the 2D sections are very linear, there are a few that have puzzles of a sort, and I enjoyed. The characters are all relevant and there was something endearing about them. Despite feeling lost I felt compelled to complete it & I enjoyed it!

Probably a daft question, but does this still come pre-installed on consoles bought now? I assume it is, but just checking that nothing has changed in the past 12 months.

Disney Classic Collection (Switch) Sorry, this could be a long post due to the number of games here… Nostalgia-filled fun (at times), with a whole lot of 8- and 16-bit versions of Lion King, Aladdin & Jungle Book. I played the Master System version of Lion King back in the day and really enjoyed it. Shame that’s probably the one game not included! These games are tough and I needed the rewind function A LOT! A quick run-down of each game in the collection: Jungle Book The weakest games in the collection. * N version (i.e., SNES) - horribly unenjoyable. Really tough, not helped by only a few frames of invincibility when hit, so it’s way too easy to take multiple hits quickly. Rock solid bosses too. * S version (i.e., Mega Drive) - Collectathon platforming where you need to find enough gems to finish a level. A more zoomed out view and clearer graphics help make the platforms more obvious. Still tough but not as hard/frustrating as the N version. * Handheld (i.e., GameBoy) - I believe the handheld version is same game as NES version, just with more basic graphics. Explore levels and find all gems to finish a level, although the small viewing area can make this tricky. Still an easier game than the others and at least the bosses are much more bearable! The Lion King All look and sound good, although the compromise is a slow frame-rate and clunky controls. * The N and S versions are essentially the same. The Nintendo version has more detailed graphics but a more zoomed-in view, making it slightly harder as a result. * Handheld / Handheld Colo(u)r - similar to console games although generally easier apart from it being hard to make things out with the ‘handheld’ graphics. Aladdin By far the highlight of the package with the main games still playable. * N-version - platform-based gaming with more focus on your acrobatic skills than fighting. The lack of recognisable music is a bit odd (considering the others all use the popular Disney tunes as background music) and some artistic licence with the story to create extra levels (do you remember that moment when Apu fell off the carpet & Aladdin had to hunt through pyramids to find him? No, neither does anyone else!). Remember this scene from the movie? Anyone? * S-version - more combat-focused, with great animation. Tough bosses though. Probably the most recognisable game. * Final Cut - an updated S-version, fixing some bugs and other tweaks. Play this over the usual S-version. * Demo version - a nice treat, this a 3-level demo from a trade show. Really interesting to see how this developed into the full Mega Drive game. It’s understandable very rough still, and very tough, with enemies taking a LOT of hits to defeat and characters missing graphics. Glad to see it here still. * Handheld / Handheld Colo(u)r - a much slower and clunkier version of the Mega Drive game. The 2-buttons make weapon swapping slower too. Stick with the Final Cut. Ultimately it’s a neat nostalgic package for those that remember the originals. The games are likely to be too frustrating for younger gamers. I enjoyed the trip down memory lane, but don’t think I’ll be going back to it.

The game may well end up playing & looking much more fulfilled and exciting than the initial gameplay footage, but showing off the footage that they have has created a large amount of uncertainty surrounding the game and it’s quality. There was no pressure to show it off right now, and if this is the beginning of the supposed third phase of Sonic games (2D, 3D & now open-world) then the marketing team have had ample opportunity to make the first footage of the game to be as impressive as possible. A shame it looks to be yet another mis-step. The developers are at least defending all of their decisions, as I’ve seen plenty of news of them doing so, with the most interesting being that they suggest playtesters would score the game at 80 or 90 at this stage. I’m not entirely sure what that really means, and whether they’re being humble, bragging, or solely defensive.

Murder By Numbers (Switch) More than a simple Picross game, Murder by Numbers is essentially a glut of Picross puzzles, interspersed by a fast-paced and witty detective story. The story is light-hearted, doesn’t take itself too seriously, with a few crime-story twists, and starring a variety of diverse and likeable characters. I liked the humour, although appreciate it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, with lots of one liners and references to well known TV and literary detectives, such as Miss Marple and Nancy Drew. It was pleasant to see some diversity & representation within the cast of characters too. While you can ask questions to characters & search for objects, these are very basic and the story sections play out more as a visual novel than a puzzle game. The Picross challenges play how you’d expect, although, even by Picross standards, a few liberties are taken with how closely the solutions actually resemble the object you’re revealing… and I’m used to having to squint to make out images in usual Picross puzzles. The disadvantage to using Picross puzzles as the main gameplay element inbetween story sections is that it does occasionally slow down proceedings. When the story really heats up and things are happening quickly, it can be a little jarring to then have a 5-minute break to do a puzzle before heading back. It’s not the best Picross game, nor the best crime story, but it is fun and is definitely the best ‘Picross-based-crime story’ game I’ve played!

The live action remakes have looked good, but for most I’ve still preferred the animated versions. I’ve never been a fan of Pinocchio (& until recently I never realised just how little the nose-growing when you lie aspect was actually featured!). Still, the character created in “Once Upon A Time” was likeable and heroic, so it is possible. On a separate note, has anyone seen the new Chip N Dale film? It’s an Easter Egg-filled love letter to fans of old-school children’s TV, movies and games! I loved the massive list of references!

Agreed. I’m always partial to a good looking waterfall as well, and the one shown here looked pretty. Shame as I was expect a Sonic Master System-style platforming section when I first saw it. The seagull was a little disconcerting when it appeared and was following Sonic no matter how fast he ran, but I understand it’s just a graphical example to show other creatures and add to the environment at this stage. I hope there’s more variety in environments to come, and to me this still looks a long way of completion, unless it really was designed just to give a basic view, which is highly likely. I’m intrigued by what was shown though and it has potential.

Some great thoughts here so far! Enter another contender: the Atari Jaguar! Apparently 1993 Atari developers thought the future was in controllers that looked like phones! Nintendo showed it was actually looking like TV remotes, so close……

I feel the character will he someone obvious when it’s finally revealed and I’ll kick myself! 😂

I’m delighted to hear this! I hope they really don’t ignore Curse of Monkey Island, especially as that helped to clear up some of the “what the?” plot threads from the 2nd one, but I’m excited to once again play as a mighty pirate and drink me some grog!