Dcubed

That was always tied to not using a Continue in Main Game/Challenge Mode (Which is now gone completely in favour of just having Story Mode). Since there are no lives, there is no longer an unlock system tied to performance. Bananas are just used to unlock stuff now (like in SMB Banana Blitz) and it’s shit; SMB is not a collectathon, but that’s what Banana Blitz turned into. They’re basically turning SMB1&2 into Banana Blitz

The thing is that the original SMB2/SMB Deluxe already had a Story Mode; which removed the lives system and gave you infinite chances to complete each stage! They've literally just removed the Arcade Mode; for no good reason! (You know, the whole main point of the original Monkey Ball; which is, you know, an ARCADE GAME!!). SEGA really have no clue about what made the original games so good.

AAaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnndddd, the game is ruined!

Sounds like it's a bit of a garbage port... especially on Switch. You're probably best off getting it on another platform, or just sticking with the Wii original.

Something @Glen-i didn’t highlight with FF1&2 Pixel Remaster that’s also worth noting is that there are some significant gameplay tweaks with both games as well. Most notably, FF1 features the original magic system from the NES, with all spells being purchasable and no MP system, but removes the Level 50 cap, has purchasable Ethers and has all new enemy difficulty balancing (it’s not the same as the GBA/PSP version - Chaos is an absolute BEAST in this version! Seriously! He’s no joke, and WILL knock you all down!). Meanwhile FF2 allows Toad to be used on basically anything except the final boss (which now gets healed instead if you try it!) and also features all new enemy rebalancing. Stats are also calculated very differently from previous versions in both FF1&2, and there’s lots of small, miscellaneous changes; like the invisible man in Cornelia being gone, and the Peninsula of Power being removed from FF2. So both games play out pretty differently from any prior version.

Sonic Pinball Party is best played in arcade mode. Just unlock the stages and then don’t bother with story mode anymore. It’s a pretty decent little pinball game that is a bit more traditional than the likes of Pokémon Pinball or Metroid Prime Pinball; which is actually pretty refreshing in of itself.

Nope. Not gonna happen. Nintendo is done with value adds to the NSO service at this point as we’re just too late into the Switch’s lifespan. We’re not getting any additional games until Switch 2 launches in 2023.

This is probably what their E3 show would otherwise have been, so I'd expect the big guns to come out here. At the absolute least, I would expect a release date for GOW Ragnarok and GT7.

Ohhkaayyy… Very random Nintendo series to bring back (the last BBA game was released on Wii all the way back in 2007!!), but cool! Wonder if this one was done by Indieszero…

Hi there. There are other stores selling download codes still. The thing that happened last year is that Nintendo put an end to allowing other stores to sell digital games at a discount; so now every store sells their digital games at the standard RRP. For first party Nintendo games? You’re generally best off buying the Nintendo Switch Online vouchers through the eShop and using them to buy your first party downloadable games; you save about £14 for every two games you buy when using them

https://www.gematsu.com/2021/09/sol-cresta-launches-december-9 Sol Cresta comes out December 9th! There’s a voiced Story Mode coming out later as DLC too.

Just finished it myself last night. Write up is coming later.

They’re still available via the 3DS eShop!

Sweet Jesus! That’s horrific! That being said though? I still think that Sonic Spinball’s Options screen is worse…

DsiWare is full of must-play gems! The Art-Style series, Mighty Flip Champs, Four Swords Anniversary, X-Scape/3D Space Tank, Face Pilot, Photo Dojo all immediately spring to mind as must-play exclusives. You really should check out the DSiWare library. The games might be small, but it’s home to some of the best games that the DS library has to offer!

3 more in the bag! One I wasn't expecting to find myself playing right away... speaking of which, that one's... Twelve Minutes is an interactive thriller about a man trapped in a time loop. It was released on Game Pass Day 1 and I figured I'd give it a quick go to see what it was like... I ended up playing it for what seemed like twelve hours rather than twelve minutes! I'm a sucker for a game with a genuinely novel concept, and this game certainly fit the bill. The basic idea is that you are stuck in a 12 minute loop (real-time) and you have to piece together the mystery behind what's happening. Naturally, you'll find yourself repeating the loop over and over; and each time, you pick up new pieces of information along the way that you can then use to question the game's cast and advance the story forward. Ahh don't worry, she'll be back in a few minutes, no biggie. The entire game takes place in a single apartment, consisting of just three rooms. It's a micro world with a limited cast of characters; but what this world lacks in breadth, it makes up for in depth. This little apartment is impressively dense in how it can be interacted with; as you can mess around with all the objects scattered throughout each room. The game then becomes somewhat of a puzzle box, where you have to figure out what items to use at what given time in order to trigger something new and figure out a new lead in moving the story forward. At the start, I found myself really enjoying messing around with all of the various things and seeing what I could do with them and what interactions I could trigger; almost like a micro Metal Gear Solid. Not every object is absolutely needed to advance the story however, as some end up being red herrings and some are just there for fun... I found myself drawn into the mystery and having a lot of fun experimenting with the myriad of interactions and conversation possibilities... however, this does eventually lead to some frustration as you reach the latter half of the story, as you start hitting roadblocks because you aren't triggering JUST the right flags to get the game to do what you want... In general, I feel that the game kind of falls apart towards the latter half of its running time... And in terms of the story? Well it certainly starts off interesting enough... Overall, I enjoyed my time with Twelve Minutes; despite my grievances with the latter half of the gameplay loop and the story. I like the way that the story is told, even though the story doesn't really hold up to scrutiny with even a very basic analytical eye. It probably needed to be larger in scope with its environments & cast of characters for it to really flourish, but I appreciate the attempt to tell a story in such a unique way. Much like Heavy Rain, I feel that Twelve Minutes actually does largely succeed in providing a genuinely novel form of storytelling that can only really be done in the form of a interactive game; and for that alone, I recommend giving it a go (hey! It's on Game Pass for nothing! You might as well!). The novelty of the experience within this neat little puzzle box outweighs my overarching greivances with the game; and in an industry where novel concepts are becoming increasingly rare? Take them when you get them! It's worth the time you spend Next... So my sister played through Metroid Zero Mission recently and it got me in the mood to play it again myself (and no, it's not because I'm stupidly hyped up for Metroid Dread, no! Absolutely not!!). This was just a basic Any% run through on Normal difficulty, no 100% completion or Low% Hard Mode this time around; just a casual playthrough with no sequence breaking... (though I did find myself trying the Early Super Missiles skip, I couldn't help myself!). Anywho, you likely all know the score with Metroid Zero Mission. It's a very loose re-telling of the original NES Metroid, essentially a brand new game that only shares the general location, story and cast of characters and that's about it. The entire gameplay structure and level design is completely new; and it's an absolute blast! Hang on... I DON'T remember you! Metroid Fusion received unanimous critical acclaim when it released in 2002, bringing back 2D Metroid in style on Nintendo's shiny new 32 bit portable powerhouse. However, it also received a lot of critisism from the fanbase for turning its back on the open-ended structure of its SNES predecessor, in favour of a much more linear and narrative focused gameplay structure. While Super Metroid was well known for being highly pilable, where its intended sequence of events could easily be broken and completed well out of the order that its designers originally intended; the same designers decided that Metroid Fusion would take a firm stance against this, in favour of a tightly scripted and focused horror-inspired adventure. To this very day (20 years later!), there is still no known way (outside of memory corruption) to sequence break Metroid Fusion in any form. Metroid Zero Mission is a direct response to the critisism received by Metroid Fusion. In fact, Metroid Zero Mission would go beyond even Super Metroid in terms of sequence breaking, as it is intentionally designed to be broken. Virtually every single item is skippable (the only ones you absolutely need are the morph ball, the bombs, one missile tank, one super missile tank, the power grip and the three unknown items for a whopping 9% completion!), and bosses can be completed in basically any order you like (and some can be ignored entierly!). The game even rewards you with unique gallery images for completing a low% run on both Normal & Hard mode! Yeah, this game was designed for those that loved breaking Super Metroid! However, even when completing the game in the "intended" way, Metroid Zero Mission is still a far more open game than Metroid Fusion was; with Chozo Statues largely only offering vague hints as to where to go. The world is significantly smaller than in Super Metroid, so you aren't all that likely to get too lost regardless though. As such, Metroid Zero Mission has a very fast-paced and breezy feel to its gameplay, where you are constantly making rapid progress; rarely do you go five minutes without coming across some sort of significant upgrade, or stumbling onto a new route, which makes it a great fit for handheld play. Oh yes! I can hear the item acquisition sound in this picture right now! However, despite this being a re-telling of NES Metroid, that doesn't mean that it isn't chock full of new ideas and gameplay concepts... because it is! Ziplines, morph ball cannons, multi-stage bosses, unknown items... This game is a non-stop barrage of brilliant new gameplay ideas and concepts. It's all killer and no filler. This also extends to the presentation as well, as the game incorporates some pretty nifty cutscenes that give the game a pensive atmosphere; something not seen in previous entries in the series. The bosses are also a major highlight, as to be expected from a post Super Metroid Metroid game; they're all really fun to fight and look great on the GBA. I do have to say though that they're all kind of a pushover though; unless you're doing a low% run, you're very unlikely to find yourself really challenged by them (though if you ARE doing a low% run? Oh man... you're in for a ROUGH time!). When did you get so big!? Of course, the biggest new addition to the game is the introduction of Chozodia, an all new stealth section that introduces Zero Suit Samus as a bounty to be hunted. It's a genuinely tense sequence that I absolutely adore, though it ends all too soon... That being said though? The feeling of sheer, overwhelming POWER that you feel when Samus gets all her gear back and starts literally blowing the Space Pirate Ship apart is just amazing! So it's all good. Nintendo have already said that Metroid Dread will be taking specific inspiration from the Chozodia sequence of Metroid Zero Mission; so naturally, that has me hyped to high heaven! That fast-paced breezy feeling I mentioned earlier also applies to the core gameplay controls too; Samus moves like greased lightning in this game, and so too do the enemies. It feels great to play, and as a result? This game is just a blast to play through in a short timeframe (my casual playthrough was around 1 hour 40 mins; which is not a fantastic time by any means BTW!). About the only real critique I have regarding Metroid Zero Mission is that the game kind of ends on a bit of an unsatisfying note. Mecha Ridley is a pretty lame final boss who doesn't put up a tremendous fight (again, unless you're doing a low% Hard Mode run!), and the resulting end-game escape sequence is far from the most dramatic in the series; even the final cutscene feels a bit rushed and unsatisfying. Especially after the absolute rush of getting your equipment back and storming your way through the ship to get the power bombs, Mecha Ridley is a right pushover! Sorry Mecha Ridley, you tried. I'm sure that Nintendo will find better ways to shoe-horn you into future games though. Anyway, that sums up my feelings of Metroid Zero Mission. It's one of the best, perhaps even THE best, classic 2D Metroid games in the series. A casual playthrough doesn't really do the game justice though, as the real fun is to be had when you start experimenting with sequence breaks, 100% completion and low% runs. I'm not up for that kind of challenge right now though; but perhaps I'll return to it for another crack at a low% run some time soon? See you next mission! Finally... So I'm pretty late with this one (no it's not a replay! It's my first time playing through Travis Strikes Again!). I got this game all the way back in 2019, but I never got round to playing it. With the constant barrage of updates, bug fix patches and DLC? I figured it was probably best to just wait until the dust had settled, everything had been released and the game was in a "finished" state before bothering to play it. And with No More Heroes 3 just releasing now? Well, it seemed like the perfect time to finally play through Travis Strikes Again. And right from the bat... HOLY SHIT!! So... yeah! Good thing I played through Killer7 recently! I had NO idea this was added in post-launch and it absolutely blew my tiny little mind! This certainly has some huge ramifications for Suda51's games going forward! Travis Strikes Again is a bit of a love letter to Grasshopper Manufacture's history and to the world of indie games in general. It's a decidedly smaller budget title in comparison to Suda51's previous works, but it had to be... This was the first game that Grasshopper Manufacture made after they bought back their independence from GungHo Online Entertainment, and naturally, they had to make this game with a much downsized team and without the financial backing of Puzzle & Dragons money. Grasshopper Manufacture had to convince Marvelous to not only give them the rights to make a new No More Heroes game, but also get funding for its creation. And it was always obvious from the outset that Travis Strikes Again was an "interim" game of sorts, a test-run to get the go-ahead for a true No More Heroes 3; something that even Suda51 himself admitted was the case. So I went into this game with tempered expectations, knowing full well that it was a much smaller scale title than the previous No More Heroes games. However, what is also important to keep in mind is that Travis Strikes Again marks not only the return of Travis Touchdown... but also the return of Suda51 in the director's chair! No More Heroes 1 from 2007 was the last time that Suda51 had directed a game himself, following which he stepped into an executive producer role in order to allow younger members of Grasshopper Manufacture to take the reins... and his absence has been sorely felt ever since. Even No More Heroes 2, despite being a much more polished title, lacked that insane spark that made the original game so memorable; and instead felt like a contemporary sequel. And the same is true of every single Grasshopper game since the release of No More Heroes back in 2007; despite putting out some perfectly fine games, they have all lacked that off kilter quality that is so uniquely "Suda51". And I am pleased to report that this game absolutely succeeds at bringing back that epherial "Suda51" quality that we have so sorely missed! Fuck yes!! Let's get smelly! After TWO lavish CG intros, you are greeted with seeing Travis shoved into a trailer where he's been bumming it in the woods & wasting his life with video games since the end of No More Heroes 2. Badman is drunk off his rocker, and Jeane the cat has basically doubled in body size since No More Heroes 2; seriously! She is really out of shape! The basic premise sees Travis get sucked into various games for the cancelled Death Drive Mark II console; banned for being known for killing people and doing other nasty things that are spoilers. The presentation immediately gives off a vaguely 60s drug fuelled vibe that is absolutely lovely; and you quickly realise that this game is essentially No More Heroes distilled into a top-down/isometric co-op beat 'em up. The combat has been heavily simplified here from the mainline titles. You've got a light attack (that's essentially an auto attack as you hold down the button), a heavy attack and then a jumping variation of each attack... and that's about it! There's also some equippable skills that add some much needed variety to the combat, each with a cooldown inbetween uses. However, I found that only a real handful of skills were of any real use; so inevitably I stuck with the same 4 skills throughout the whole game more or less, as they were just clearly better than whatever else I was getting. While Travis Strikes Again bills itself as having a collection of 6 unlockable "games", they're not really individual games. Rather they're just stages, which have different theming and some differing mechanics, but generally all play in much the same fashion. You jump in, you beat up bad guys through various waves, you might have the occassional switch to hit or so, you run around to find some sort of object, you bring it to where it needs to go to, you beat up more bad guys, you eventually get to the boss, you kill them and get a new skill chip. Rinse and repeat. DAH NAH NAH NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! Breaking up each stage is a sequence of visual novel chapters called Travis Strikes Back. These chapters give some context to the story and show how Travis gets his hands on each death ball. They're very entertaining and very well written in that signature Suda51 style that brings to mind the writing of The Silver Case; oh! speaking of which... I really loved the VN sequences, the writing is excellent and I found myself always looking forward to reading more about what's going on here. The amount of mindbendingly insane meta bullshit going on as well is staggering! And I loved every moment of it! THIS is the good shit that I miss so dearly from Grasshopper Manufacture/Suda51's earlier works! Warning. This is canon. While Suda51's games are known for being obtuse and obnoxious when it comes to their gameplay (usually intentionally), I usually enjoy their mechanics for their esoteric nature and over-the-top insanity that keeps driving me forward. Here though? The gameplay really is just too basic to keep my interest throughout... and combined with stages that are obnoxiously long (often for comedic effect), it does start to feel like a right slog. While the combat mechanics work fine enough, they just lack the complexity needed to keep things interesting throughout the game's overall length, and end up feeling monotonous; as there just isn't enough gameplay variety here (only Golden Dragon GP really adds some real change-up with the gameplay, and that's still as basic as basic gets). Most stages simply go on far too long, and there just isn't enough variety with the gameplay mechanics or enemy types to keep my interest. As such, I found myself begging for stages to end; as they wore out their welcome well before the end of their running time. The bosses are pretty good, but you'll have to suffer the long slog of standard mooks before you get there. Quite frankly, this game would've been far better if each stage was cut in length by about 75%; get rid of all this fat that bogs down the game and it'd be a MUCH better experience for it. The good bits are worth trudging through the chaff however Travis Strikes Again is absolutely an interim game. It serves its purpose as a revival of Suda51 within the directorial role and a successful prelude to the real No More Heroes 3. It's an absolutely bonkers mindfuck that contains all of the elements that I missed so dearly from Suda51's previous works; and it sets up a bright future for both the series, and Grasshopper Manufacture as a developer. However, it is a pretty weak action game taken out of context; and I can't deny that while it can be fun in small doses, the repetition sinks in quickly and the game does end up feeling like a slog to get through. But it's still absolutely worth dealing with the weak parts to get to the good stuff. I'm really glad to have Suda51 back in the director's seat where he belongs, and to see Grasshopper go back to making smaller and more focused titles again. I just hope that the real No More Heroes 3 does a better job with its combat and gameplay variety than Travis Strikes Again managed. And with that?

Not sure where else to post this, but... Looks like Lost Judgment may well be Nagoshi's final game within SEGA!

Started Psychonauts 2 myself. I didn’t really like the first game all that much, despite the cool theming, as it just didn’t feel good to actually play and really wasn’t very polished. Cool concept wasted on very mediocre platforming. This sequel though? I am VERY impressed with it so far! It feels MUCH better to play than the first game, with some brilliant gameplay ideas and concepts that feel just so much better polished than the first game! It almost feels Nintendo-like with the level of polish on show. Great stuff! The production values are absolutely off the wall as well! Hard to believe that it started as a Kickstarter game, you can really feel the Microsoft Money poured into this game! Really solid 3D platform gameplay here; something very rare outside of Nintendo! Double Fine have really outdone themselves here!

Nope. I ain’t going anywhere near that trailer. Not quite sure why Nintendo seem so keen to spoil everything about this game before release, but I ain’t going near that trailer!

Sonic Heroes feels like a half finished game, not just in terms of polish & technical bugs, but in terms of design as well. The fact that every team plays the same ends up defeating the whole point of having multiple teams. The decision to make the game multiplatform (dropping their bespoke engine in favour of Renderware & having to relearn everything no doubt didn’t help either), combined with a tight development timeline forced Sonic Team to hastly salvage what they could and cobble together something vaguely resembling their original concept. And it really comes across in the final product.

Wow! Nick All Stars is looking legit! They’re doing everything right so far

Damn, that release date really snuck up on me! Just started playing Travis Strikes Again for the first time and all! (Decided to wait until all of the DLC was out and the dust had settled with all of the constant updates & stuff; plus I just played through Killer7 again, so the timing was just right). Speaking of which...

An excellent expose video from Karl Jobst about the rise of Graded video games in recent years. Some brilliant research here that shows how Heritage Auctions and WADA Games are artificially (and illegally) manipulating the video game collecting market with fake auctions & shill bidding (including the recent record breaking sale of Super Mario Bros for $1.5 million), and are artificially raising the prices of all retro games for everyone. Turns out that the guys behind this recent scam are actually the same people who pulled the same scam with the American Coin Collecting market in the 80s! It's a lengthy video (about 50 mins long), but it's a real eye opener! Strongly recommend a watch! In fact, it was such a good documentary video that it inspired a market researcher to break the silence and publicly post data on the true scarcity of CIB, Sealed and Graded NES games (information that WADA Games and Heretage Auctions have deliberatly tried to hide!)

It's not about money; you can't just chuck more people at a problem to fix it. Game Freak isn't Ubisoft! The Pokemon series' appeal doesn't lie in its graphical prowess anyway.

Slight tangent, but it’s also worth noting that the models and animations from Pokémon Stadium 1 and onwards got re-used like mad. Even Pokémon Battle Revolution on Wii was still rocking the same models and animations from the N64 original!