WackerJr

I’m going to feel stupid when I know the answer, but which was the first?

I still didn’t think that Nintendo could get the go-ahead from Disney, so well done to everyone involved in the negotiations. I hope I can get hold of one if these.

That was one of my first thoughts too. The first one had a couple of devious ones that relied on the DS’ features and the clamshell design. Hopefully they’ll come up with a clever alternative.

Last chance guesses, which is mainly an enhanced look at what we already know about: • Princess Peaches Peaches PeachesPeachesPeaches • Luigi’s Mansion 2 • Mario Wonder • Mario RPG • Glimpse at one new Mario Kart course in the final batch. • Baiten Kaitos 1&2 • Silk Song • One more thing: Zelda Wind Waker for 2024 (yep l hope not but expect them to release that and Twilight Princess separately).

Wow, you are absolutely right! Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap (Switch) It really does feel like this was a labour of love for developers Lizardcube, and the hand-drawn graphical style gives it so much more personality and character. I have a bit of a mixed history with Wonder Boy 3. In short, I was conned as a child, by a local company (effectively run by one man) who ran a games swap. I ended up being persuaded to swap my impeccably conditioned Sega Master System games Sonic 2 and Donald Duck Lucky Dime Caper for poor conditioned copies of Wonder Boy and Wonder Boy 3, both missing instructions. Oh, AND on top of that I had to pay for the exchange as well. A few days later I discovered new copies of the games in town, my games unsurprisingly having a much higher value than the ones I’d gotten. After playing Wonder Boy and feeling exploited, I didn’t get into Dragon’s Trap since I didn’t know how to use items and not really understanding the purpose. Thankfully a few years later I revisited Dragon’s Trap, discovered how to use items, and ultimately discovered it to be one of the Master System’s best games! (Oh and even more years later I managed to buy used copies of Sonic 2 and Lucky Dime, play & enjoy them again before recouping my losses on eBay!) The fact that the remake plays the same was fine by me. I had a blast playing this again. It’s only a short game, only lasting a few hours, and yes ultimately games like Shantae have taken the main character-transforms-into-animals-with-unique-skills and improved upon the whole concept, but thankfully The Dragon’s Trap remake has reminded me of when I finally grasped the game and not my frustrating first impression. Oh, and yeh guy who originally conned me, he built his business up into a high street store, and then went bust. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy…

I agree, and put my thoughts in this other thread. Acknowledging his contribution is lovely and the right thing to do, but I thought they could have put together a more impressive video package, representative of his work and the importance of being the voice of one of gamings most iconic mascot and it’s influence. Previews so far for Wonder have been wildly impressive from what I’ve seen and read. It sounds as though journalists have had around a hour with the game in a selection of levels, and so far so positive.

It seemed a nice thing to do, to acknowledge him. At the same time though, it seemed a very strange way of doing it! I liked their little insider reveal that Martinet refers to Miyamoto as “Papa”, and it was touching for Miyamoto to publicly thank Martinet. It was a little awkward mind, to view what could easily have been viewed as a private conversation between the two (if you ignore the clear looks beside the camera to the script) and one can only hope they’ve had proper conversations before this. To me, doing something like this to thank Charles Martinet is a lovely act, and not something a voice actor would usually get. If you were going to do it though, to me a video package highlighting Charles taking over Mario’s voice and then showcasing how he took on more characters and more dialogue, with footage to highlight the sheer volume of games, interspersed with how he’s voiced Mario at events and include within the package the kind comments by Miyamoto (& even a sentence or two from others). That would have been a more fitting thank you (if you’ve seen the types of video packages companies like WWE can put together it gives you able idea of what is possible). But this is Nintendo, and they do things their own way! At least we have the anecdote about how Martinet almost banged his head on the door….

Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy (3DS) I've played the previous games in the series sporadically since Curious Village first came out, and having finally gotten around to playing the 6th(!) installment of the series, I was sadly disappointed with this one. If you haven't already, then read @Dcubed's write-up earlier on in this thread. It's very accurate to my own opinion on the game, but with more scorn, and I appreciated the research into the other Layton games to get a more accurate comparison of the puzzles on offer. There were still good puzzles in there, but such a high volume of ones that relied on moving objects via the touchscreen, as opposed to the logic puzzles of previous games. There is certainly a place for these, but I wasn't expecting such an over-abundance of them. There are additional dlc puzzles, or at least were. Thankfully i downloaded the 365(?) additional puzzles before the eShop was shut down, although these are split into 20 different puzzles, just with varying difficulties, and to be honest I didn't get into these. The story was also weaker than the other games. Hopefully the break before the Switch game will enable Level-5 to freshen up the series a bit, and hopefully research some more puzzles.

For those that have played the game. I’ve never played a Ratchet & Clank game before, but I have both the PS4 Ratchet & Clank remake (via the PS+ free game a while back) and Rifts Apart. Would you recommend playing the original before Rifts Apart? That’s what I was planning to do, but it would be useful to get your opinions? Thanks!

They’re saying all the right things, as people rightly have concerns on a number of areas that Bethesda have fallen foul on in the past, or that similar games (of a much smaller scope!) have, but they haven’t been afraid to address them and reassure people that they have considered them and are ensuring that the game plays well. Whether they’re all talk and no trousers we’ll find out soon enough. I’m still surprised it’s so close to release date. It looks good, it has a great premise, I’m not sure it could possibly live up to all of its promises, but let’s see.

Rainbow Billy: The Curse of the Leviathan (Switch) A game that’s unapologetically friendly and wholesome. If you told me this game has been made by a unicorn I would probably have believed it! The world has had its colour removed and it’s up to Billy to travel the world and restore colour by recruiting various creatures using words of positivity and encouragement. You move between islands on your boat, only being able to travel a set distance before your fuel runs out (to stop you travelling to the end island immediately), and yes, before you ask, your boat is indeed called the “Friend Ship”! It’s essentially a turn-based RPG where each creature you’ve recruited has up to three colours/shapes associated with them. Each turn you select which creature from your group (a random selection from those you’ve recruited are available to use each turn) and which colour/shape you want to use. Each creature you confront is susceptible to certain colours. You can guess or you can reveal some each turn by selecting one of three things to say, with the most encouraging response being the right one every time. In a kind-of similar way to the Paper Mario / Mario & Luigi series. You play a mini-game each for each creature you use. Unlike those series, failing the mini-games mean you deal no damage at all. There’s a slight risk-reward system as you can choose multiple creatures to play in order to ‘attack’ with more colours, with the difficulty of the mini-games increasing as you do. There are a few different mini-games (match the symbols, press the right button combo, an Arkanoid-style game & a few others) although they do get quite repetitive, especially where you HAVE to do it for each attack. Sometimes the encounters force you to follow set rules, such as not being allowed to use certain creatures. These are more fun and creative, but sadly they’re few & far between. While the encounters are a little basic, the most puzzling parts are finding all the various creatures, some involve platforming, there’s switch puzzles, maze puzzles and a few others. Quite a few of these are quite creative and challenging in places. These were the parts I had the most fun with. I played the Switch version, and the game does chug at times, surprising considering the simplistic cartoony graphics, and it is a little rough around the edges. It was a better game than I was expecting, and while I got bored of the encounters, I quite enjoyed the challenge of tracking down all the creatures to 100% the game, although it’s not a difficult game to complete the story without finding everything. It’s not subtle with thrusting its positivity down your throat (I can’t imagine it’ll be top of @EEVILMURRAY’s wanted list!) but I can appreciate the developers putting something a little different out there, and my young daughter enjoyed watching me play and selecting the best responses. It won’t appeal to everyone, and I won’t be going back to it, but I don’t regret playing it.

That’s amazing! Haha! It certainly beats “Bamboozled”, a multiple choice questions game which (besides the latest football scores getting updated, albeit you had to wait for it to scroll through 2 or 3 other pages of scores first! How did we cope before the internet!?) was sadly one of the most exciting things Teletext had to offer!

AI: The Somnium Files (Switch) I’m a big fan of the Zero Escape series, as well as Danganronpa, so the promise of a murder mystery visual novel from Spike Chunsoft was particularly appealing! It was… ok. Not as good as the aforementioned series unfortunately, but the whole premise has potential. You play as Detective Date, who is missing an eye, but with a computerised eyeball in its place, which is sophisticated and advanced enough to communicate direct with Date, and the ability to take on a small bear-like appearance when out of his eye socket. If this sounds weird, it really is! But makes sense over the course of the game and enables lots of banter between Aiba (the AI within the eye) and Date. The majority of the game plays out like your typical visual novel. Use your cursor to click around the screen on items of interest, and read/listen to lots of dialogue, with your dialogue or question choices not affecting the story. While there’s the odd QTE during cutscenes, the other gameplay element is where you enter a dream world to solve a particular problem within 6 in-game minutes. Viewed from a 3rd person perspective, moving around causes the clock to tick down. There are a limited number of objects you can interactive with. Each object gives you a few choices for how to interact with it, each choice will use up a set amount of your time (for example, you find a gun next to a locked door, and can choose whether to try and shoot your way out or use the gun to try and unlock the door). These dream worlds vary in quality, with often only a few objects to interact, and a little on the easy side until later on. There may be a couple of solutions to these worlds, and each cause the story to play out on a different path. I liked being able to select any part of the storyline at any time, to work your way to the true ending. The story is twisting, confusing, and clever, as you’d expect. Date is not the most likeable main character, running the gannet of acting a jerk much of the time, to some tender moments later on. The humour wasn’t necessarily my favourite, with an over-abundance of crude jokes, and too often referencing Date’s particular fondness for adult magazines. It does give a very enjoyable staff credits sequences though! Ultimately, a very mixed bag. I enjoyed the premise of the puzzle sequences, even if the idea was better than the execution at times. It seems odd to say I was disappointed but I’m glad they made a sequel, which I’d like to try this at some point. Especially as there’s no hint of further Danganronpa or Zero Escape games at this time.

I came across this Zelda: Minish Cap and Phantom Hourglass manga in my local library the other day. Is this genuine? I’d never seen it before and very strange to have the page numbers going from right to left (so page 1 is at the back and the final page is at the front). Admittedly my local library has gone up in my opinion, knowing they’re offering books like this!

Ditto. Thanks all. I didn’t even come last in a few races!

I’ll log in tonight and if anyone’s playing then I’ll join a couple of rounds to keep the back of the pack occupied!

The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog (PC) Short but sweet. This Phoenix Wright-lite game starring an ensemble of Sonic characters, like others have said, was the best kind of surprise! More amusing than the animated Sonic series’, with witty writing clearing produced by those with an appreciation of the characters in the franchise and comfortable at poking fun of themselves. Great stuff!

I got around to playing this recently, and like everyone else has said, it’s surprisingly good! Short but sweet. Not difficult, but the writing is witty, and clearly written by those with an appreciation of the characters in the franchise, while not being afraid to poke a little fun at themselves. Good stuff!

Apologies if I’ve missed it here or in another thread… so with the tracks on the final two cups to be revealed I wonder what tracks we’ll get. I expect there’ll be more predictions closer to the time, but for now here are mine: Airship Fortress (DS) Bowser’s Castle (N64) Delfino Square (DS) Dino Dino Jungle (GCN) DKs Jungle Parkway (N64) Rainbow Road (Wii) Koopa Beach (N64) Plus one more new course, that’s not a Tour one. I’ve lost track a little on which courses are remaining mind! 😁

Great stuff on the Pikmin 4 Developer interview. I hadn’t found these before, so really glad I read it on the N-Europe news page. I’m not sure who to thank, but thanks regardless! 😃👍🏻

More Shantae games can only be a good thing! Nice to see, like @Dcubed said, they get closure on the project. For those that worked on it at the time, it must be good to see their efforts get rewarded with the release.

Please, just….. no! 😂

Oxenfree (Switch) I bought this on Switch before I realised it's included as a free mobile game with my Netflix subscription... It took me a while to really figure out what I was doing, as your character, Alex, walks around an island with her friends, and you listen to a lot of dialogue between them. Often, up to three thought bubbles appear above her head and you have a few seconds to either ignore them, or select one in order to respond to the conversation. It's not quite clear for a while how much this affects the story, although it turns out it does affect your relationships and contribute to the eventual outcome. The story turns out to be a creepy horror-esque tale, which I won't spoil. It was clever, but it didn't grip me as much as I'd have hoped. The dialogue is fun, and voice acting really good. There is a LOT of walking between locations though, and this quickly got tiresome for me. The conversations as you trek across the island on your way to you next goal help alleviate some of the time, but as there's no platforming as such, it does become a bit of a slog. I can see why people enjoy it, and I wanted to like it more, but it was a really mixed experience for me.

A shout out to tracking down soft toy images of those remaining characters @Glen-i 😂. Great job! The Mario Kart reveals haven’t been as left-field as Smash Bros, so I’m going to plump for, sadly probably one of the more predictable outcomes, Diddy Kong and Pauline.

Thanks. I hadn’t realised! Yep, I’ll definitely find time for this!