Dcubed

Well I certainly made up for my last failure... Kings go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

... if only I could've drawn more Steel Cards...

Very interesting little anomoly of a game... and one of the very few N64 games to use a custom cartridge! I imagine that it must've originally been in development for the 64DD (which also had a built-in modem), before being shoved onto the cartridge format; because adding online play with custom hardware in 1998 is a ridiculously ambitious move for such a small publisher! Speaking of which... Seta are also the developer/publisher responsible for the Japanese only Tetris 64; a game that I won't go into too much detail about here (lest I steal Cube's thunder), but it too came with a rather interesting hardware accessory! Seta really liked using weird and custom hardware didn't they? They were also responsble for Hayazashi Nidan Morita Shogi 2 for the SNES in 1995... which came with a custom-made ARM7TDMI CPU (in fact, it's an earlier version of the same CPU archtecture that would later go on to power the GBA; albeit running on the Ver 3 instruction set, rather than the more advanced Ver 4 instruction set used by the GBA) that that was orders of magnitude more powerful (and expensive!) than the console's own CPU, or any other custom cartridge chipset ever made for the SNES! In fact, it wasn't even emulatable at all until it was finally added to the cycle accurate BSNES emulator in 2012!

Even if you didn’t, it’s still amazing anyway! Bravo!

Holy crap!! I actually managed to beat Small Blind of Ante 12!!! So it IS possible!!! (sadly I died right afterwards as I just couldn’t pull the cards I needed) Anyway, that’s Red Stake defeated with all decks now. Onto Green Stake!

You could include Kameo and Perfect Dark Zero. Both ended up being Xbox 360 games, but they started out on Gamecube. Same goes for Grabbed By The Ghoulies, which went from GCN to OG Xbox. It also helps that it's a genuinely good game; despite the bum rap it gets online.

Can’t wait to spend hours running around giant fields of nothing in order to find the boss battles in my Monster Hunter!

Odd choice of developer. Would’ve figured it’d be Xeen, considering that they made the Trials of Mana remake (which Visions of Mana appears to be based on). We’ll see though.

On a related matter, here’s an interview with the game’s developer going over the development process and some plans for the future…

A sale of $460 million on a company they previously valued at $1.3 billion on original purchase…

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/sega-sells-relic-and-will-cut-240-jobs-across-uk-studios Another 240 jobs lost as SEGA sells Relic.

Oh and here’s another one I just got! (And it’s the shot that clocked Tiny to boot!) Also I’m posting this shot I took earlier on in the game ‘cause funnies…

We doing MG vids? Yeah, we’re doing MG vids. Here’s a nice Chip Shot Montage for you… Also… Why does Luigi look so buff in this game!?

Just started my own playthrough... quite enjoying it so far! The Metroid Dread influence is obvious and very welcome. Level design seems pretty solid and the game exhudes confidence in its gameplay and level design. Playing on the normal difficulty and the game seems to offer a fair challenge, gotten a good few Game Overs so far; I do appreciate how it has the confidence to not mollycoddle the player with checkpoints. I was a bit concerned that the full game might end up feeling too combat heavy, but so far that doesn't seem to be the case; as the combat and platforming is well balanced, and the game doesn't signpost the right direction to go so obviously (unless you choose to enable the hint system of course). All told? Very impressed with what I've played so far Can't say I'm very interested in the story or characters (though the option to play the game in Persian/Farsi language is really cool; and I selected the option immediately), but the gameplay is tops; and that's all that matters. And yes, game does indeed look tits in S3D

Well at least I'll have a version that won't require any sort of silly Ubisoft always online DRM login bullshit I suppose. But yeah... I can't say no to playing this game in S3D, it's gonna look tits! Yup. Jump powerups are always the best!

And as soon as I buy the Switch version, the EGS PC version immediately gets 3D Ultra support for the Spatiallabs 3D display... FFS...

Bloody hell, I never realised how utterly dire the platform was for western-developed sports games... Pretty much nothing of note until 1998, two whole years into the console's life. A console with not a single Baseball or American Football game in the US for two whole years is just utterly dreadful... even the SEGA Saturn had managed much better! Granted, sports games would come eventually, but they'd come far too late. Thank God that the N64 had ISS for Europe, that was its big saving grace as far as traditional sports games go and it was a belter, but it's also only one game and one sport.

Surprised that they aren't bigging up the 4 player multiplayer here. That's one of the game's biggest features, and having another online mutiplayer F--Zero game is a big deal Pro-tip. Make sure you feather the accelerator when making those tight turns, as mashing the A button while turning allows you to turn much more tightly than normal (The attact mode demo actually shows you this trick!). The game calls this a "Blast Turn". Also, pick JB Crystal, it's easily the best car.

Here's another mediocre N64 3D fighting game that got a fun Matt McMuscles video!

Are you sure it’s not a mainland Europe copy? It’s not uncommon for places like Amazon or The Game Collection to procure EU copies from outside the UK and sell them within the UK. It you buy Nintendo games, it’s really obvious when this happens because they denote the intended region of sale using coloured triangles on the boxes. Do mainland EU or Scandinavian copies of PS4/PS5 games have the same PS seal?

Nope, not yet. But the original announcement did say “Early 2024”, so they’re not late yet…

Game is now on sale in Europe. 40% off on the eShop. And now it's mine.

LIke I said before, it's a bit odd that the most powerful console of its generation got the least faithful port. But hey! That makes it worth playing even if you have the original PC release.

I actually quite like how grounded 1080 is myself, there aren't a lot of games quite like it (Games like Snowboard Kids and SSX are certainly much more fantastical) and it comes from a time where Nintendo's internal developers were perhaps more willing to try making something completely outside of their wheelhouse. If you will, 1080 is the Virtua Fighter of the snowboard cross genre; and if you like Virtua Fighter's grounded approach to the fighting genre compared to its more fantastical contemporaries, I think you'd appreciate what 1080 is going for. I can see why Nintendo moved away from making more realistic sports games though, as 3rd parties began filling the gap in general, but it's still a bit of a shame; because 1080 is a real corker of a snowboard racer! But ultimately as a developer, publisher and first party platform holder, I suppose you have to consider the opportunity cost of what you're making. Still. If I had to choose between 1080 or Wave Race, I'd always pick the latter over the former. I do really like 1080, but Wave Race 64 is the best realistic sports game that Nintendo ever made.

Only reason why I can think they decided to make Decidueye a Ghost type is because of its relation to snipers (AKA, the Ghost of The Battlefield). Otherwise, it is a bit random really. Still a great design either way though. First class all the way. Primarina is there I suppose, I keep forgetting it exists; probably because Azumarill utterly crushes it in basically every respect. Also, you know Incineroar is great because it shoots fire out of its crotch. I repeat. IT SHOOTS FIRE OUT OF ITS CROTCH. That's AWESOME!