Dcubed

Oh dear… So according to this French report doing the rounds (apparently from a reliable source that has delivered accurate information in the past), 343 Industries has effectively been shut down as a primary game development studio outside of ongoing support for Halo Infinite! Translation shamelessly stolen from Resetera… So 343 Industries is now a support studio and future Halo productions will now be outsourced? Fucking hell! What a disaster! Xbox Game Studios is kind of a total mess… 5+ years of constant acquisitions and nothing to show for it outside of Bethesda (which is only just now becoming Xbox exclusive).

Absolutely disgusting behaviour from @Glen-i tonight! I already had horrendous luck, there was no need to kick poor Wario while he was down!! An appropriate summary of this week

Nice. So that pretty much just leaves GOW Ragnarok, GT7, TLOU Part 1, Horizon FW, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and Demon's Souls left to go as far as Sony's PS5 output goes Hopefully they'll go back and start porting over their PS4 & PS3 games afterwards. Would love to see the original GOW trilogy and Ico/SOTC/TLG come to PC!

Sounds like the adaptation has turned out well. Good to hear. I mean, TLOU was basically a HBO show in video game form anyway; so it should've always have been ripe for this kind of adaptation, but it could easily have gone wrong if they started messing around with the source material. By all accounts though, it sounds like it's very faithful to the original game. Hopefully it sparks a trend for other "movie games" to get similarily faithful adaptations

https://www.nintendo.co.uk/News/2023/January/Ask-the-Developer-Vol-8-Fire-Emblem-Engage-Chapter-1-2328361.html We have a new Not-Iwata Asks interview! This time for Fire Emblem Engage! Best thing is that it's coming with three seperate chapters over the next three days! So plenty of interview content to enjoy!

Guy's gonna be composing until he decomposes... and maybe even a bit after that.

Wow! The game uses Unity!? Wasn't expecting that! This makes it the first ever internally developed Nintendo game to use an externally developed game engine! (Yoshi's Crafted World was made by Good Feel, so it's not an internally developed title).

Devil May Cry is like Bayonetta but not as good. DMC 1, 3, 4 & 5 are still well worth your time though.

Fun game tonight, with some fun clips to share... Unfortunately I wasn't fast enough to clip the moment I Fast Blocked in front of Simon and nabbed the Star, forcing him to pay Bowser 20 coins for nothing... Still though, Simon deserved what he got tonight! Utterly despicable behaviour! And to think that I tried to HELP him with that Chance Time!! Simon was in full Mario Party 1 mode tonight It was legit close though! Honestly was almost nothing between all four players tonight! Could easily have been anyone's game right up until the last moment; defo the closest night we've had so far!

Engage is much more different from Three Houses than Sparks of Hope is from Kingdom Battle. It's not even from the same developer.

Oh nice! Their Majora's Mask localisation documentary was excellent, so I'm looking forward to their upcoming videos

Yeah, it's a damn shame. But ultimately, it's a more-of-the-same sequel being released for the same console as its predecessor. It's fundamentally too similar to the original game to have the same level of impact. That and the constant bargain basement discounts of Ubisoft games (including Kingdom Battle) no doubt trained people to wait it out for the inevitable 80-90% off sale.

Hey I did get round to Shadows of Valentia eventually

BOTW is structurally very similar to your typical Ubisoft open world game, going so far as to steal the Towers mechanic wholesale. The "checkmarks" are all hidden, but it's really not all that different. It's still copy/paste busywork. Every encampment is the same randomly generated guff, it just isn't specifically pointed out to you on the map as a checkmark waiting to be ticked off. BOTW's biggest innovation is the Chemistry System... which is legitimately groundbreaking, as are its climbing mechanics. That and the way in which the game is completable right at the very beginning, with Ganon being available to fight immediately at your leisure.

These are such substantial and fundamental changes that I honestly have to question how finished the game was when it first launched. Honestly puts me off the idea of playing the game until it just gets a "complete" release on Switch 2...

HE FUCKING DID IT!!! NEW WORLD RECORD FOR SUPER MARIO GALAXY 2 ANY%!! LIVE ON STAGE!! DURING A FOUR-WAY RACE EVEN!! WHAT A FUCKING LEGEND!!!

Holy shit!! Jhay’s just about to achieve the Any% WR in SMG2!!!! PLEASE DO IT JHAY!!!

Good level design is something that modern non-Nintendo AAA games have basically all but forgotten. Nowerdays? You either have a massive open expansive field of nothing, or you have an oppressive corridor with no meaningful exploration given to you. There is nothing inbetween. Tales of Symphonia is the best Tales of game because it actually had good dungeon level design and meaningful things to do in the overworld outside of battling, something that the series has progressively taken away with every subsequent sequel. Namco have no clue about what people actually enjoyed with TOS, and appear to attribute it entierly to the battle system and character dialogue.

Hey hey hey! Take one last look back at 2022 before going any further! I did a thing.

So it's 2023... meaning that I've gotten in just in time to post about the games I played and finished since June 2022! Yes, really. Yes I am really that slow with updating this thread. Righto! Lets start this epic post with the most verbose of reviews! The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe It's brilliant. Why? That would spoil it. You'll just have to trust me. Portal The surprise release of Portal on Switch was a surprise! Coming out of absolutely nowhere, this is the first new console release of Portal since 2007 and it's easily the best version of the game outside of its original PC release. Now running at a solid 1080p/60FPS (a huge upgrade over the 720p/30FPS of the PS3 and 360 versions), and armed with excellent gyro controls, this is an excellent version of the modern classic first-person puzzler. Based on a simple concept, and on a Digipen student project called Narbarcular Drop, Portal instantly grabbed the attention and the imaginations of millions of players with its initial trailer. The humble portal was a common gameplay mechanic that had appeared in countless games since the dawn of gaming, but allowing the player to make their own portals!?!? Absolutely insane!! Literally game changing! Now you're thinking with portals! A brilliant concept in tow means nothing though without the gameplay mechanics and (most importantly) the level design to make the most of said concept however. Thankfully, the bulk of the game's 2.5 year development cycle went into ensuring that the level design was absolutely top-shelf... and top-shelf it is! Open to player interpretation, but with enough forethought to subtly guide the player in the right direction, Portal's level design is a triumph; I have to make a note here, it's a HUGE success! It's really hard to overstate my satisfaction with it in fact. This is something that I feel that it's sequel (amazingly enough, titled Portal 2) actually didn't manage to recapture for various reasons. The level design in Portal really is just superb, with most rooms offering multiple possible solutions; and none of the player funnelling that plagued its sequel. And Portal also has the perfect runtime too, short n' sweet, with fresh mechanics all throughout that never overstay their welcome. Super replayable, and the bonus challenge stages also add longevity with ever more devious puzzle designs. A perfect example of how important and transformative hand-crafted level design really is to the gameplay experience. Yes, the visual and sound design is exceptional and timeless, yes the dialogue and story is great, and yes that ending song is still a banger; but the real secret ingredient is the quality of the game's level design. Playing it again on Switch was an absolute pleasure, and if you somehow haven't played Portal or Portal 2 before? Do yourself a favour and pick up the collection on Switch ASAP. You'll thank yourself for doing so. No lies detected Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team DX Yeah, this one is really late; but very welcome all the same. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team DX is, shockingly, a remake of Pokemon Rescue Team Red/Blue! Nobody on planet Earth expected it to be the next remake after Let's Go (except for me) and less still could ever have expected it to be so shockingly gorgeous to boot! Now rendered in beautiful HD, with a watercolour art style that somehow actually manages to capture the look & feel of the game's concept art (and inspired more than a little by Valkyria Chronicles), it's a hell of a glow-up from the GBA original! But there's far more to this remake than just a very pretty new coat of paint, because unlike a certain other "brilliant" remake that shall not be named, the gameplay has also been given a hell of a glow-up; with gameplay mechanics taken from Super Pokemon Mystery Dungeon and even Etrian Odyssey Mystery Dungeon! (Wait, what!?). Holy shit though! This might well be the best looking 3D game ever made though! The original Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team was an offshoot of Chunsoft's long-running Mystery Dungeon series; known for its brutal difficulty and owing to its roots in Rogue (the progenitor of the Roguelike genre, shocking I know). The Mystery Dungeon series (particularily the Shiren branch of the series) are stoic and direct descendents of the original Rogue, created after Koichi Nakamura (one of the co-creators of the original Dragon Quest) played and fell in love with the original PC version of Rogue. Starting with Torneko no Daibōken, the Mystery Dungeon series would continue expanding on the original Rogue gameplay concept, while sticking reletively close to the original PC game's core gameplay. While the Roguelike (and Roguelite) genre is now a modern mainstay, particular amongst the indie development scene, pure Roguelikes are actually not all that common; meaning that the Mystery Dungeon series still remains fairly novel in today's modern gaming landscape. However, when it came time to marry the Mystery Dungeon series with Pokemon? That brutalistic difficulty had to change. There was no way that permadeath was going to fly with the Pokemon audience (yes I know about the Nuzlocke challenge, you're not slick!), so compromises had to be made in that regard. The original Rescue Team Red/Blue was not what I would consider an especially easy game, but compared to the previous Mystery Dungeon series entries? And to the genre as a whole? Rescue Team Red/Blue is much more welcoming, forgiving and approachable than its Mystery Dungeon predecessors. So then it's quite surprising that this remake completely throws that out of the window and proceeds to utterly brutalise you! Be prepared to see this message. A lot. Each subsequent PKMD entry has continued to raise the difficulty, culminating in the utterly soul melting difficulty seen in Super Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. And this remake thoroughly deletes the original game's kiddy gloves, because its received a humongous difficulty spike in all respects! Not only are the Pokemon you encounter far stronger than in the GBA original, but the mechanics have also been brought in line with Super Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. That means that Belly now depletes at a lightning pace, Apples don't fully restore Hunger, enemies will now happily throw screen clearing moves at you, Poison damage now hits you for 40HP each time and more! Oh joy! Oh, and that forgiveness from the original game? Where you only lose half your money and some of your items? Nah, you lose EVERYTHING you take in with you now. The gameplay is also significantly more complex than the original game too, with mechanics such as the Wands, items and Mega Evolution now brought over from Super PKMD; while moves and Pokemon typing have been brought up to Gen 7 standards (the latest at the time of PKMD's development; fun fact! This was the last game to have Mega Evolutions!). Don't worry, it's not all stacked against you though! They've also greatly increased your bag's item capacity, and you can now switch out Pokemon while in the middle of a dungeon even! You also now have the new Rare Qualities mechanic, which is a pretty obvious analog to the mainline series' Abilities mechanic. There's also mechanics that are new to the series too, such as the Invitations, and the revamped Makuhita Dojo; it feels like a natural step forward for the series in that regard. Also new to the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series is the introduction of Powerful Pokemon... Oh boy... If you've played Etrian Odyssey Mystery Dungeon, you'll instantly know what these nightmares are... They're straight up FOEs. No ifs, no buts, they're flat out FOEs. They can and will appear randomly throughout a dungeon. They are level 100 and will utterly annihilate you at the very sight of them... Still, at least you have that extra bag space! And they were never heard from again... Everything that was great about the original game is still great here. The music is superb, the marriage of Pokemon battle mechanics and Roguelike gameplay is the most holy of matrimony, the story is great, and the pacing is lightning fast. The new mechanics gel just as perfectly as they did in Super PKMD, and it's a real treat for any fan of the series. My only real complaint is that I wish they introduced more Pokemon from beyond Gen 3. While you do get some additional Pokemon evolutions that debuted in Gen 4? And a few extras? It doesn't go as far as I was hoping, bit of a missed opportunity really. Still, this is a cracking game, an excellent remake of a fantastic game that brings it up to date with all of the latest mechanics the series has to offer. It's the kind of remake that Game Freak used to make in fact, and while there's something to be said for how it loses the approachability that the original GBA game was designed to offer? It's exactly the kind of remake I love, and as a fan of the series? It was an absolute blast! No More Heroes 3 No More Heroes 3 is the 4th entry in the No More Heroes series. That's the most sensible thing that you will hear about this game. Following on from Travis Strikes Again, this game goes completely off the rails immediately and becomes BAT SHIT INSANE, even by Suda 51 standards! Space aliens have taken over the Earth, Bad Girl is no longer a dog & is now your friend, Shinobu gets her arms chopped off and is chucked into cryogenic storage; Jeane is now comically overweight, can fly and now speaks with a thick black african male accent (despite being previously female) and Travis is now a gundam robot that can fly into space. And this is just in the first five minutes! Yes it is If you are coming into No More Heroes 3 without having played any of the previous entries and are expecting to understand anything that's going on? Forget it. If you are coming into No More Heroes 3 having played all of the previous entries and are expecting to understand anything that's going on? Also forget it. I don't really want to speak about anything that happens in terms of the game's story, because it really does just need to be experienced in all of its mindfuckery glory. It is a WILD ride of pure insanity that I absolutely loved from start to finish. If that doesn't sell it for you? Then how about this non-spoilery clip starring Gold Joe? Snap crackle & pippity pop! All of the characters in this game are just amazing. They're over-the-top in the best way possible and it's a hugely entertaining garden of madness from beginning to end. Now for the gameplay. The combat is actually quite a nice step up from NMH 1 & 2 in terms of complexity, while maintaining the same visceral quality that made the original Wii games so fun to play; with the same motion controls intact while using the Joy-cons. There's a much increased focus on combos and while it's still far from the depth of something like Bayonetta or Devil May Cry? It's complex enough to stay engaging throughout the game's run-time. There's also a good variety of enemies on offer, with some being outright infuriating to deal with; and crowd control is a big part of the game's core combat loop. It's not an easy game either, and NMH3 has no issues with killing you on a dime if you can't keep the crowd in check. Now, one umberage that many people have taken with this game is that it lacks the lengthy stages that took place prior to boss fights as seen in NMH1 & 2; with you now instead being placed straight into boss fights once the entry fee has been paid. Personally I didn't really miss their absence all that much, because the boss fights were always the best part of NMH anyway, and this just removes the preamble that dragged things out. As a result, NMH3 maintains a brisk pace that doesn't leave you hanging. What hasn't been removed however are the gloriously stupid minigames that litter Santa Destroy's open world map. And thankfully they're dumber than ever before! From scouring the desert for scorpions, to unclogging pixellated toilets, to collecting garbage cans while avoiding alligators (yes, really), NMH3 revels in throwing middle fingers at the player; and you're either in on the joke and you're howling with laughter, or you have no sense of humour and you're cursing the game's existence. There is no in-between. Only the coolest and most badass jobs await the otaku loser! I was surprised at how solid the game's combat is this time around. Grasshopper clearly put a lot of time and effort into the combat gameplay and it shows; solid 60FPS performance during combat gameplay too! I enjoyed the combat gameplay way more than I was expecting to, it's solid in its own right as an action game; even without the Suda51 flavoured trappings that come along with it. But at the end of the day, you're playing NMH3 for Suda51's trademark madness, and this is Suda51 at his most utterly unhinged. If you are hoping for a true Suda51 experience? You will be absolutely satisfied with NMH3. It is the sequel to NMH1 that NMH2 wishes it was. Save often. Save your sanity. Wario Land 2 THIS is the game that defined both the Wario series, and Wario as a character. You'll notice that my last writeup spoke of the original Wario Land, where I discussed how Nintendo R&D morphed the Mario Land series into what became Wario Land; but this is the big inflection point where it recognisably became the series we know today. Wario Land 2 is the definitive puzzle platformer. Wario is now invincible, lives and health are gone; and the level design is now decidedly non-linear in nature (though Wario Land 3 would take this a step further still, into outright Metroidvania territory). Gone are the Super Mario style powerups in favour of a new Transformations system, where Wario can be squashed, burnt, smooshed and mangled in all manner of horrific ways into mostly helpful new forms that allow him to navigate the world. Don't worry, he's fine The core platforming gameplay is decidedly faster paced than the original Wario Land, though Wario is perhaps not the most graceful of creatures; despite this however, action platforming gameplay takes a bit of a back seat to puzzle solving, as the goal is now to figure out HOW to get through each stage. Wario can now carry & throw enemies around in order to break walls & blocks and manipulate the environment around him; switches and gadgets litter each stage that impede and grant progress. And now the game challenges you to explore stages in all 8 directions in order to find doors, keys and coins (ohhhhhhh yyyyyeeeesssss! COINS!!!) that you'll need to progress. Wario's transformations challenge you to rethink the space around you in order to figure out how to proceed. Stages will also have hidden exits that lead to alternative paths and different endings, and the level design here is strong. Look, these guys make Metroid, they KNOW how to make well designed and interesting levels; and that pedigree is absolutely evident here. Some of the secret exits are utterly devious and will have you feeling like a genius when you figure it out. The level design quality is second to none, and it's the secret sauce that makes the game come together. Add a healthy dose of silly enemies, silly bosses, silly music and you have a sillily good game. Sometimes? You just need to sleep on it... Super Mario Advance 2: Super Mario World (Race with Glen-i) So I got my fancy new MiSTer Multisystem which has an incredible, amazing feature. It allows you to play GBA multiplayer games in two player splitscreen! So of course me and @Glen-i had to try this out... by playing a game that doesn't actually support multiplayer! We decided to have a race through Super Mario Advance 2: Super Mario World: Electric Boogaloo. No Warp Zones allowed. So it starts off with me pulling ahead pretty soon as Glen decides to take the safety strat of going for the Yellow Switch Palace, while I like to live dangerously and decide to skip it in favour of going straight to Yoshi's Island 2 instead. We come to Vanilla Dome and I have a comfortable lead... so I get the bright idea of going for the Red Switch Palace for some godforsaken reason; and then I decide to take the alternate route out of Vanilla Dome and onto Butter Bridge 1. Thinking that I was super smart, I ploughed through the levels on top of Vanilla Dome and head onto Butter Bridge 1... NOOOO!!! I FORGOT!!! IT'S A BLOODY AUTOSCROLLER!!! So now I'm pretty boned, Glen catches up and eventually passes me. We have a close call though in Forest of Illusion however, as Glen forgets the correct path through the Forest Ghost House and Forest of Illusion 3! Allowing me to make up some lost ground. We're coming into Choco Mountain, and naturally we both take the short route through the world map pipe, but tragically I take a death in the Choco Mountain Valley of Bowser level and Glen gains some significant ground. In desperation, I start taking risky strats, taking advantage of the Red Switch Palace blocks in Choco Mountain 4, but alas... another death! All seems lost as Glen moves into Valley of Bowser... Glen goes for the Back Door entrance by going through Valley of Bowser 2, while I decide to take a risk by exiting the level early with the Yoshi Wings and going for the VOB Ghost House secret exit by spin jumping on Boos... But it's not enough. Sadly Glen emerges victorious. All that work and all the Mario bros get is a crappy photo Kirby Nightmare in Dreamland (2 Player with Glen-i) Ok, so this time we decided to play an actual 2 player multiplayer game to test out the splitscreen multiplayer feature of the MiSTer Multisystem and we've never actually played through this one in 2 player before... so we had to give it a go! And it worked perfectly all throughout! The link cable co-op multiplayer works exactly as you'd expect on the MiSTer and it's awesome! The game itself is a 32bit remake of the original NES Kirby's Adventure. It features mostly the same level design, albeit with some minor changes to make things a bit easier here and there, but with vastly improved visuals, and much smoother & faster-paced gameplay. The minigames have all also been replaced with brand new ones, but generally speaking? The remake is pretty faithful to the NES original. It's fast-paced High NRG action from start to finish. So what's different in multiplayer then? Well... you now have multiple Kirbies! (Yes, thanks genius), and that means that the action is even more hectic than ever before! Surprisingly though, despite granting each player a seperate display, both players still need to remain within the same screen's worth of distance; as if both players were playing on one display... Can't help but feel that this defeats much of the benefit of having seperate displays in the first place to be honest... Both players can also hygienically share health through lip locking, and all of the minigames switch to being competitive affairs. Finally, when one Kirby kicks the bucket, they can be brought back to life on the spot by the other player when they move into the next area. Otherwise, it's pretty much the same as the single player mode. Nightmare in Dreamland is a short n' sweet affair that you can blast through with 100% completion in less than an hour; making it a great co-op game! Kirby & The Amazing Mirror (2 Player with Glen-i) Now this one is the big kahuna! Kirby & The Amazing Mirror is fundamentally a 2-4 player co-op Metroidvania game, to the point where even in single player mode you get lumped with 3 (incredibly stupid) AI companions. Me and Glen have played this in multiplayer before, but we had to play through this one again and yes, it's an absolute blast! Unlike Nightmare in Dreamland, this is not a remake of a previous game, but rather a brand new entry in the series. Also unlike Nightmare in Dreamland, Amazing Mirror is not a typical linear Kirby title, but is rather a fully open world Metroidvania game! And even MORE unlike Nightmare in Dreamland, Amazing Mirror allows each player to travel across the world completely unrestricted! The two Kirbies can go to completely opposite ends of the world map and the game keeps track of each player's position in real time! Very very impressive stuff! As far as Metroidvania titles go, Amazing Mirror is a bit of an oddball in that there are NO permanant powerups; in fact, it is entierly possible to go to any location of the world map right at the start of the game. The only restriction in place is the particular copy power that you need to get through any particular puzzle or roadblock that impedes your progress; but as long as you can find the pre-requisite copy power? Yup, you can go anywhere you want, beat the 8 bosses in any order you like, and collect the mirror shard in any order you want. It's a very unusual gameplay structure that manages to eschew the typical linear progression of a Metroidvania game, while maintaining the genre's signature lock-and-key design. This setup just so happens to work really well for a co-op metroidvania title however! We had a lot of fun playing through this one again. Spoilers: He doesn't Pokémon Emerald Rogue This is an incredible ROM hack of Pokemon Emerald that transforms the game into a Roguelite! No, I don't mean Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, I mean a Roguelite! Currently on Version 1.31, this is an amazing mod that takes the core Pokemon Emerald gameplay and has you travel through randomly generated routes, with a limited selection of Pokemon being made available along the way. The goal is to survive through each of the various routes, catching Pokemon and gathering items & money along the way; as you tackle the 8 gym leaders and the Elite Four. Nuzlocke rules are in effect, so if your Pokemon faints at any point? It is dead and it is NOT coming back! You start out in a central hub where you can go out on adventures. Here you can buy permanant upgrades and stuff with the money that you earn from adventures, like... well... a Roguelike! As you venture out on an adventure, you are placed into a world map of sorts, where you are given a selection of potential encounters to choose from; based on vague descriptions of what you might find. The Adventure Map In this pictured example. You have a selection of 5 paths to choose from (This is a VERY generous example! You'll almost certainly never get this in an actual run!). The rock represents a route taken from the main game, where you need to survive through to the end, but you can catch Pokemon, find items and earn money from trainer battles along the way; while the NPCs represent various rest stops that can offer you the chance to heal, buy items etc. The goal is to get to the tile at the end, where you fight the gym leader. Beat them and then you move onto the next Adventure Map. Repeat until you either die, or beat the Elite Four and complete the run! Each Adventure Map has a level cap in place, and Pokemon level up incredibly fast; so there's no real grinding needed, but you also can't over-level. You'll always be at the same level as the gym leader by the end of each Adventure Map. It is very well balanced! And a TON of fun! Each route grants you differing arrays of Pokemon chosen at random; with a hint given on the Adventure Map as to what Pokemon types will appear in each one. Once you're on the route, you're given between 2-6 Pokemon that can potentially appear; depending on the difficulty of each route. A visual indicator is shown on the pause screen, so you can keep track of what Pokemon can be encountered in each route... Here, you can see that three Pokemon have been found, and you are more likely to find Poison Pokemon on this route Each rest stop also stocks different kinds of items. Mart Rest Stops grant things like Pokeballs, Potions, TMs etc that you can buy with the money that you earn from trainer battles and item sales, while Battle Prep Rest Stops sell Hold Items and Mints... wait... WAIT! WHAT THE FUCK!?!? MINTS AREN'T IN GEN 3!!!!! OH HOHOHOHO!!! Oh? Did I not mention? THIS GAME BRINGS GEN 8 MECHANICS INTO POKEMON EMERALD!!! Yes! That means that fairy types are in, Heavy Duty Boots are in, Hidden Abilities are in, Physical/Special split is in! It's all IN!!! Oh, but that's just the tip of the iceburg... This mod is so incredibly polished that you even have the ability to put in specific seeds for races! You can set the difficulty. You can set the level of randomisation. You even have tons of unlockable modes and different types of runs! Your hub ever expands as you unlock more and more additional content! This is a complete game in its own right! And the unlockable stuff? Oh man... Holy fucking shit! I have to mention this one... but if you have any intention on playing it? I strongly recommend that you don't read it... This is the best Pokemon ROM hack I have ever played. It's a completely new kind of Pokemon game that is so incredibly polished that it could easily be a retail title, and it's the most fun I've had with mainline Pokemon since Black/White 2. I cannot recommend it enough to everyone! It's an incredibly piece of work! SO much fun! Super Smash Bros Brawl: The Subspace Emissary The Subspace Emissary is the single player adventure mode of Super Smash Bros Brawl. It is a complete game in its own right, entierly seperate from the rest of Brawl, and I decided to play through the whole thing again. This is essentially a Kirby 2D platformer but with the characters and mechanics of Super Smash Bros Brawl. Based on Kirby Superstar, The Subspace Emissary tasks you to traverse linear stages to progress the story. Most stages are linear affairs that have you jump and fight your way from point A to point B, though some stages are more open in nature and require you to navigate through a maze with minor puzzles to solve. This makes perfect sense, since the original Super Smash Bros for N64 was built on top of the mechanics first founded by Kirby Superstar on SNES anyway, so in essence? This is that influence coming full circle. Yes, Kirby Superstar. NOT Donkey Kong Country! While Super Smash Bros Brawl is a fighting game, it's also a game that has Kirby esc platforming mechanics in place; if not perhaps the most graceful of platforming gameplay mechanics. As such, this combination actually works out surprisingly well! It's not the most complex platformer ever, but it's fun to traverse your way through the differing environments with the varied cast of characters that you find along the way. And the fact that everyone has wildly differing movesets and movement mechanics means that the gameplay remains fresh throughout the adventure; you're never stuck with one character for very long. The level design is functional, if fairly unremarkable, but there's enough variety in characters and enemies that you fight in order to make things fun all throughout. A very unlikely pairing... oh God please kill that thing! The story is basically an excuse plot to justify the fangasm on display here, but it's fun to see the likes of Bowser and Ganondorf working together to take over the world... also Wario is oddly super evil in this game for some reason? It's totally out of character for him! Even though the story is rather trite overall, I can't help but crack a smile at seeing these characters all interact with each other; and it does make me yearn for a proper Nintendo cross-over movie of sorts some day. Be honest, this tickles you in all the right places The boss battles are also really fun, they make the most of the fighting mechanics of Brawl really nicely (I mean, it IS a fighting game after all!); and the unlockable Boss Battles mode was always a mainstay for a good reason. Overall, I had a lot of fun revisiting The Subspace Emissary, it's better than I remember it being. Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia I finally did it. I finally played through Fire Emblem Shadows of Valentia! Been meaning to do it for years and now I finally got round to playing it. The verdict? This game is weird... Fire Emblem Gaiden for the NES is the second game in the series. And while that game was never released outside of Japan? It remains notorious for being a bit of a Black Sheep within the series. Nintendo seemed to have a thing for wild experiments with their NES sequels, Super Mario Bros 2/USA, Zelda 2 etc; and Fire Emblem Gaiden is no different in that regard. As you are probably aware, Fire Emblem: Shadows of Valentia is a loose remake of Fire Emblem Gaiden, much like Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon on the DS. As such, Shadows of Valentia builds upon the original Fire Emblem Gaiden and inherits all of its... esoteric mechanics. In that sense, Shadows of Valentia is an interesting look into the road not travelled by the Fire Emblem series. While the original Shadow Dragon & The Blade of Light was strictly a linear affair that pushed you forward from one strategy RPG map to the next, Fire Emblem Gaiden instead decided to reduce the focus on strategy gameplay and double down on RPG mechanics. Here? You now have a world map, not that dissimilar from other NES RPGs such as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, as well as full-blown dungeons! Yes! Top-down RPG dungeons! With random encounters even! And these encounters play out as stripped down Fire Emblem strategy RPG battles! Naturally, Shadows of Valentia inherits this rather unusual focus from its NES counterpart; only now the dungeons play out in full 3D, with Zelda style traversal and visible encounters in favour of the random encounters of the NES original. Dungeons? In a Fire Emblem game!? It's more likely than you think! The weirdness doesn't stop there though, because Intelligent Systems were determined to reinvent everything about the original Shadow Dragon & The Blade of Light with Fire Emblem Gaiden. Gone is the weapon triangle (though to be fair, this had yet to become the series staple that it eventually became) and gone is weapon degredation! Now each character can only hold one item at a time (this includes weapons & healing items! You only get one!), and magic uses up HP upon use! (What the fuck?). Magic is no longer equippable, but instead it's learnt as your magic characters level up. Weapons now grant skills with continued use (Hey! It did Final Fantasy 9 a decade before Final Fantasy 9!). Archers can now directly attack enemies next to them, and also don't do extra damage to Pegasus Knights unless they have the anti-fliers skill... and that's just the tip of the iceburg! Like the original NES game, Shadows of Valentia has some VERY strange design choices in play here, that make the game play out like no other game in the Fire Emblem series. Oh yeah, did I mention that there's also a stamina meter in place for each character that depletes as they travel through dungeons? (Now THAT one is new for the remake at least, so you can't blame Gaiden for that one!). Mmm, tasty Raw Meat! Who needs a weapon? Another hold-over from the original Fire Emblem Gaiden is the use of True Hit Percentage... If you're not familiar with this particular quirk of the Fire Emblem series, then I'm about to blow your mind. From the GBA Fire Emblem games and onwards? The percentage chance to hit that the game shows you is a LIE! LIES!!!!!!!!!! That 94%/45% chance to hit that you see in that screenshot above? It's bullshit. Total bullshit. But wait! I hear you say! "I've played modern Fire Emblem games, and the hit percentage feels totally accurate!", and you would be absolutely correct! A 94% percent chance to hit feels absolutely correct, it SHOULD hit basically all the time, while that 45% chance SHOULD result in a miss. But is that really the case? That's basically a coin flip for that enemy to hit you. While it feels like it SHOULD miss... going by raw numbers? It should actually hit you half the time, but it doesn't! Why is that? The answer lies in the RNG which, believe it or not, is actually rigged in favour of the player! From the GBA Fire Emblems onwards they use a double roll system, whereby the game rolls a 0-100 dice twice. For the enemy attack, the game takes both rolls and then averages them against each other; if the average of the two rolls is below the displayed Hit percentage? Only then does the game register a hit. The end result is that low percentage Hits will connect less often, and high percentage Hits connect more often. This has the odd side effect of making the game feel more "fair". Shadows of Valentia however? Nah, it goes by the old True Hit Percentage system, just like the original Fire Emblem Gaiden. This means that a Hit of 50% really is a Hit of 50%; meaning that low percentage Hits will connect far more often than you'd expect, while the opposite is true of high percentage Hits (Those 80% Hit chances? Yeah, they're gonna miss all the time!). This also has the weird side effect of making Crits activate ALL THE TIME! Both for you AND your enemies! You will rage as your enemies continuously nail jammy crits on you! NOW all of a sudden the controversial Mila's Turnwheel system makes perfect sense! Mila's Turnwheel you say? What's that? Basically it's a mulligan. In each battle, you have a limited number of times that you can rewind the battle and undo turns! While at first I considered this blasphamous, completely destroying the spirit of Fire Emblem? It becomes a godsend when the game is throwing out random crits at you like it's going out of style! Thankfully dungeons put a hard limit on how many times it can be used throughout the entierty of said dungeon too, so it doesn't destroy the careful balance in place there either. It's a surprisingly well thought out concession to the player; far better than either Casual Mode or the utterly dreadful Pheonix Mode of Fire Emblem Fates. And it's one that I wouldn't mind seeing return in future Fire Emblem games, assuming that it's carefully balanced enough. Oh and speaking of odd RNG mechanics? This game is SUPER stingy with growth rates... This is not uncommon. At all. On top of that? This game is SUPER grindy! It actively encourages and requires you to go out of your way to grind your characters and level them up... Yet bizarrely, the game uses an EXP system that exponentially reduces the amount of experience that you can earn past a certain point... making 20/20ing any character an exercise in pure misery. Unlike most FE games? You do NOT want to attempt 20/20ing anyone, unless you want to spend the rest of your life grinding! Instead, you should be promoting your non-Lord units ASAP; very strange for a FE game! (Also, those promotion items that you usually need? Nope, not here buddy). I told you this game is strange! The map design is also odd. This game LOVES wide open areas with not much inbetween, and you get some outright odd map designs, like one that's basically one big long corridor, and another that's a series of boxes that parts of your army are trapped in. It's... experimental. What IS this!? I haven't even mentioned the Famicom Detective Club style point n' click town sections yet! Yes! Really! This game is bizzare! And yet... I LOVED this game! It's so weird and unusual... and yet it feels distinctly like classic Fire Emblem! I actually think it's a bit of a shame that the series never really explored Fire Emblem Gaiden's more esoteric mechanics further until Shadows of Valentia. It's like a bizzare hybrid of Dragon Quest and Fire Emblem, mixed in with a bit of Famicom Detective Club and Shining Force. It's a game where archers can have a range of 1-8! Where mages can kill themselves by attacking and where Crit rates can totally nullify reduced Hit percentages! While it emphasises the RPG mechanics moreso than the strategy? I feel that the bizzare nature of said mechanics does still lead to strong strategy gameplay here. You can absolutely abuse the crap out of Warp & Rescue to perform hit & run bombing tactics on bosses, you can force enemies to deplete their own HP with magic spells, you can manipulate the AI to come into range of your archers... the essence of Fire Emblem is still here; even in this bizzare and twisted form! And outside of the gameplay? The presentation really is just top-notch. This is the first Fire Emblem game to feature full voice acting across the entire game, and it is SUPERB voice acting to boot! Berkut in particular? CHEF'S KISS!!! Berkut's reaction when he finds out about how True Hit percentage works in modern Fire Emblem The story is fairly simple overall, but all of the characters are just superb, with fantastic dialogue that is massively entertaining all throughout. They do expand on the story of Fire Emblem Gaiden, much like they did with Shadow Dragon, but it's the characters and dialogue that you're really here for; rather than the plot itself. The music as well? HOLY SHIT!! It is fucking amazing!!! I'm just gonna post one piece... the best version of the Fire Emblem theme I have ever heard! (The rest of the soundtrack is just as good, but this gets the point across nicely!) I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Shadows of Valentia, warts & all. I'm glad that they stuck to their guns and kept all of the weirdness that defined the original Fire Emblem Gaiden. It was a real treat to discover this alternate timeline Fire Emblem; where the series decided to focus on the RPG elements of its gameplay. However, we're not done yet... as I also bought and played through all of the game's DLC too! In a word? Disappointing. The DLC is absolutely NOT worth it. It is basically all just pay-to-win crap that honestly left me with a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. I'm glad I decided to save it until after I had already finished the main game, because the DLC basically consists purely of maps to grind money & EXP, as well as the ability to Overclass each character (a new thing where you can Class Up a character beyond the maximum normally offered by the main game). There are also four maps that offer a little bit of backstory before the game's main story started, which actually introduce some varied mission objectives not normally found in the main game, which is neat; but these maps are so slight that I honestly can't recommend the purchase. Sure, it's fun to obtain a super broken character that you can use in the game's final Super Dungeon (a post-game thing that wasn't in the original Fire Emblem Gaiden), but it's not worth the ridiculous £40 price! Horse Armor in Fire Emblem form Thankfully the DLC doesn't take away the great time I had with Shadows of Valentia. As someone who has been left feeling cold by the more modern FE entries? Shadows of Valentia was a much needed breath of fresh air that I massively enjoyed. Well worth the 65 hours I poured into this gem. And with that? We're done for 2022! Roll on 2023... wait? We're already here!? Crud... I need to get a move on in the new thread!

I meant in terms of gameplay, not so much aesthetics. We're seeing the return of pure strategy gameplay, no world map, with varied mission objectives (unlike Awakening & Birthright) and minimal base building stuff (nothing that affects anything beyond the next fight). That's more in line with the Tellius games than Awakening or Fates. Edit: Ahh, didn't realise that Engage actually does have a World Map... Ok, that's more like Fates then.

Right! I've finally 100% finished FE: Shadows of Valentia, so now I can finally get round to my really overdue writeup for the Wave 3 tracks... This track takes place in a 100% accurate recreation of London (I live in London, can confirm it's legit). From Big Ben being everywhere, to Tower Bridge being right next to the London Eye, to feckless dog owners letting their dangerous and violent animals off their leash everywhere? Yup, it's London alright. This track starts off being pretty linear and straightforward, but those with a keen eye will notice the myriad of mini gardens which present curious corner cutting opportunities. Beware of Dog however, as the Chain Chomps all come off their leashes as you move onto later laps! I love it when MK tracks introduce track changes across each lap, and London Loop really benefits from this addition over its original Mario Kart Tour counterpart; likewise, the original music got one HELL of a glow-up in its MK8 form! There's a good amount of shortcut opportunities, some fun hazards to ensure chaos during NE nights and a nice mixture of open and narrow spaces to keep things interesting throughout a race. What's not to like? Overall? This track is a cracking bit of crumpet. Good show Nintendo, toodle pip pip! Boo Lake continues the grand Mario Kart 8 tradition of taking GBA tracks and... uhh... well... this actually bares virtually no resemblance to the original GBA track whatsoever. It's basically an entierly new track, and not only that, it's even an underwater track! Making this the first new underwater track since the original release of MK8 on Wii U all the way back in 2014! (Holy shit, it's been that long!?!?). Like all modern remakes of GBA courses, it's far more vertically orientated than the original, even mixing in a brief anti-gravity section with what must be THE tightest turn in Mario Kart 8 history! Seriously! It's practically a 180 degree turn! It's nuts!! There aren't that many item boxes on the track (just a mere 3 sets of them), but it's such a short track that this isn't really an issue; there's plenty of opportunities to screw over your opponents with terrifying items, or good ol' fashioned NE Shunting. There's lots of jumps and physics changes with drivers going in and out of the water, so there's a lot of action packed into a small space... bit like a GBA really. This one's a real winner. Coming off of the complete reinvention that was Boo Lake, we have the most conservative remake of Wave 3. Alpine Pass has barely changed at all from its original MK7 rendition, save for being made a bit wider. You know what though? That's fine by me. Alpine Pass is a very underrated track that really was the big highlight track for MK7's signature Kite gameplay feature, and that means that it plays unlike pretty much any other track in either Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, or the Booster Course Pass. This is predominantly a flying stage, where you'll be spending most of your time gliding through the air (unless you get shot down of course... then you'll just have to hoof it very very slowly; so don't get hit doofus!), and any time you do spend on the ground is (or at least should) be spent looking for mushrooms that will allow you to cut MASSIVE swathes of grass. They have actually added a couple of extra wind gust pipes over the original MK7 version, allowing you to extend your air-time for longer than before, as well as a small and somewhat pointless anti-gravity section where you go back up the mountain, but otherwise it's very similar to the original. I won't waste too much time on this. You know Maple Treeway and you know that you love Maple Treeway. What is worth mentioning though is what is new over the previous remakes... and the biggest thing is the grand return of the original half-pipe section from MK Wii! Yes! It's back! Gone from the MK7 version, and heavily neutered in MKT, the half-pipe is finally back in all its glory! And that's a significant achievement here, because this is an all-new gameplay mechanic that wasn't originally in MK8 or even MK8DX; meaning that Nintendo went out of their way to program the half-pipe mechanic back into MK8's codebase in order to restore Maple Treeway to its full glory. Oh? And speaking of full glory, the side-path speed boosts that were removed in the MKT version are back too; while the Wigglers now stop you dead in your tracks when rammed into, instead of just letting you pass through them like a banana as was the case in MKT. And if that's not enough? The new music arrangement is an absolute banger to boot. Fantastic stuff! From Paris to Berlin, the sophomore Tour track of this wave has quite the act to follow... Unfortunately, it doesn't quite live up to expectations; because this is a very bland track with nothing noteworthy to note... well, except for the Whomps; another completely new mechanic backported into Mario Kart 8's codebase. Shame it's wasted on such a dull one-note corridor of a track. You see, they've taken the three different variants of the track as-seen in MKT and they've stitched them together into what is essentially a single lap track. The problem here though, is that each of the track variants are basically just a short corridor where you do nothing but drive forward while dodging very light traffic, with no real open areas, path choice or even meaningful turns to speak of! It's the Final Fantasy 13 of Mario Kart 8, only with better music. This was always a great track in Mario Kart DS, and it's just as great her... wait.. wha? WHAT!? WHY AM I GOING BACKWARDS NOW!?!? This is AWESOME! Now, in my last writeup I mentioned how Snow Land's music felt like you were playing Christmas itself? Turns out that Nintendo read my scribbles on here and decided to one-up the last wave, just in time for Christmas! Sadly, the merry theming and the rather lovely visuals belie a rather bland track design. It's another rather straightforward and ho-hum MKT track, with few shortcut outlets and really basic & easy turns to account for the crappy mobile touch screen controls. While the Choo Choo Christmas aesthetics are a triumph? Merry Mountain's actual track design, from a gameplay standpoint, is largely a sack of coal compared to the other presents we got in Wave 3. And for the end of Wave 3? We have the best for last. 3DS Rainbow Road was always a corker and it's still a corker here. Like Waluigi Pinball before it, Nintendo only needed to make minor tweaks to this track, and that's all they did. It's slightly wider now to accomodate 12 players, and they've added anti-gravity to the moon section of this track to make it even more floaty and hard to dodge the flying Chain Chomps; and that's all they needed to do. This track feels like a proper celebration of the fantastic game you've been playing through, and it's a superb way to cap off Wave 3. Special mention also has to go to the amazing Custom Items feature that they also added alongside Wave 3. Nobody asked for it, nobody even considered it, but damn am I grateful that they added it! We've already had some fantastic NE nights that have made use of this new feature, but it really does go a long way towards injecting new life into the old bird and making new Theme Nights possible! Thank you so much Nintendo! (Now fix the gutter ball sound in Waluigi Pinball already!). And with that? Here's my ranking for the tracks of Wave 3...

I actually felt a bit sorry for Simon last night, the game was outright out to get him last night... An appropriate summary of this week

Glen was up too late playing Vampire Survivors lol. Likewise, Hazel won’t be joining in… because she’s currently horrendously addicted to Vampire Survivors and is currently playing that lol. Don't worry, I’ll be joining in tonight… as soon as I finish this run of Vampire Survivors…

Holy shit, why is Vampire Survivors so good!?!?