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Julius

Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack: N64 & SEGA Mega Drive (& GBA!!)

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I still maintain that Goldeneye is overrated, but Slappers Only, License to Kill is an absolute riot! Pay attention to either P1 (Me), or P4 (@Dcubed) in that first clip.

But my highlight of the night was the point where I was literally laughing to the point of tears.

There's a lot going on in that clip. Naturally, P4 (@Dcubed) trying his hardest not to get slapped by P3 (@BowserBasher) who is just sliding across the floor because the crouch walk animation is hilarious grabs the immediate attention. But you can tell the moment where P1 (Me) couldn't actually play anymore because I was too busy dying of laughter. It's 23 seconds in. Meanwhile, P2 (@S.C.G) walks in on the nonsense 15 seconds in and decides to just sit back and watch. Which is what made me die of laughter in the first place.

You can't make it up, really!

Edited by Glen-i
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Thanks for the games. :D

Yeah... it had definitelty been a while since I last played Goldeneye 007, and the same might have been true for many of us.

It was good to finally play it at a decent framerate though, and it was good to see that the 'Slappers Only' and 'Throwing Knives' as well as the other weapon selections, all went down as well as they could have, if not better, providing plenty of great moments.

If only someone had captured it all, streamed it and highlighted it, so that it could be enjoyed by all...

Here's a link to this week's stream... :peace:

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Goldeneye 007 on the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack - N-Europe Deathmatch! (27/01/2023)

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I don't think any of our other gaming sessions have had so much laughter constantly. I captured the same to highlights from the slappers only round so won't repost them (I mean its exactly the same video basically) and put them on my twitter too.

Have to say, man those controls took a long time to get used to, we've been spoiled by todays standards. I kept wanting to use the stick to move, but we all know C buttons to move and stick to aim is the better controls.

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What the fuck is up with the guards on secret agent difficulty on Mission 5, Part II - do they just keep respawning from nowhere? It seems basically impossible to complete, I can barely get all the other objectives done without getting killed so there's no way I could get Natalya through the barrage of duel-DD44 wielding guards to get to the exit. Is the emulation screwing things up or has it always been that way? Just seems absurdly unfair.

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Grabbed by the Spetznaz, @killthenet? Sounds painful! Pretty sure they'll keep coming once you've alerted them to your presence. Stealth is your friend—it's possible to sneak around and clear the place out then go back for Natalya at the end. 

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Also she was always a pain. Never could do the harder difficulty levels that involved saving her. But yeah, stealth is the best option. Clear guards and then go back for her. 

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I played this game to death as a kid but even I am struggling a bit with the difficulty. It seems like there are often too many hoards of enemies in a small space so even if you kill them, they take that long to disappear that they just soak up the bullets and you can’t get to the others peppering you! 
Add to that the fact that there’s so many instances to be instant killed. Room full of computers? Someone’s going to blow them all up with you stood next to it. 
 

Having said that, I am loving it. Took me a while to get the controls down but what a joy. Still holds up mostly ok too which is more than can be said for other games this age. 

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14 hours ago, killthenet said:

What the fuck is up with the guards on secret agent difficulty on Mission 5, Part II - do they just keep respawning from nowhere? It seems basically impossible to complete, I can barely get all the other objectives done without getting killed so there's no way I could get Natalya through the barrage of duel-DD44 wielding guards to get to the exit. Is the emulation screwing things up or has it always been that way? Just seems absurdly unfair.

You should also be aware that using loud weapons too much will cause enemies to spawn in some levels. Try using silenced weapons, if possible.

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Lucked out in the end and managed to avoid setting off any alarms, I did try being more stealthy but I couldn't get to grips with the throwing knives or get hold of the silenced PP7 so I had to make do with the KF7 so it wasn't exactly subtle.

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As GBA will be included in the Expansion Pack, I'll add the details in here.

Quote

Available at launch (8th February 2023)

• Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 

• WarioWare, Inc.: Minigame Mania

• Kuru Kuru Kururin

• Mario Kart: Super Circuit    

• Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga  

• The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap

Announced as upcoming

• Kirby & The Amazing Mirror  

• Metroid Fusion    

• Fire Emblem

• F-Zero Maximum Velocity  

• Golden Sun     

Other details   

Easy to pick up and play
You can jump into the action whenever you have a few minutes – wherever you happen to be. Save your progress at any time!

Rewind your game
You can rewind your game by pressing and holding ZL + ZR if you make a mistake or just want to retry a section.

Play together
Connect with friends via local wireless or online for four-player co-op and competitive play in compatible games. Easily communicate with friends online using voice chat via the Nintendo Switch Online smartphone app*. You can even pause the game and share screens with each other!

Play the European versions
Choose between North American and European versions with localised text in select titles.

Looks like a great collection of games, and they drop today?! :bouncy:

Edited by Julius

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So... err... what happens with Advance Wars 1 & 2 on GBA NSO?
 

This is awkward...

Edited by Dcubed

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Also... Does this announcement mean that we're now getting Transfer Pak support for Pokemon Stadium 1 & 2!? I mean... these games are kind of mostly useless and unbeatable without it...

Edited by Dcubed

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So... quick impressions.  The colour filter here looks better than for GBC, but I still feel that it's a bit too aggressive.  Everything feels like it's overly tinted blue.  Do hope that they add some options to tweak it (or even disable it entierly) in the future...

Also... rumble support for SMA4 and M&L is IN! Very nice! :D

Japan currently has the same lineup as us.

Edited by Dcubed

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I'm just happy  get to play Minish Cap. I never did get to play that. Plus Seasons and Ages is coming too.

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12 hours ago, Dcubed said:

Also... Does this announcement mean that we're now getting Transfer Pak support for Pokemon Stadium 1 & 2!? I mean... these games are kind of mostly useless and unbeatable without it...

Super Gameboy is the glaring omission.

We'll worry about the transfer pak when Mario Golf and Tennis is on there.

30 minutes ago, BowserBasher said:

I'm just happy  get to play Minish Cap. I never did get to play that. Plus Seasons and Ages is coming too.

It's a nice game to be sure. I played through it a couple of times on GBA but tbh, I don't really have any intention of going back to it again. :woops: I think it's the kinstones...

Hope you enjoy it. There's plenty about it to appreciate. Maybe if you post some glowing impressions I could be persuaded to start a new file. I'm already looking forward to playing the NSO version of Link's Awakening this summer rather than delete another file on the Switch remake, haha.

Edited by darksnowman
remake, not remaster!

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On 09/02/2023 at 9:58 AM, Dcubed said:

Also... Does this announcement mean that we're now getting Transfer Pak support for Pokemon Stadium 1 & 2!? I mean... these games are kind of mostly useless and unbeatable without it...

GameXplain has pointed out that the Japanese YouTube account posted a video the other day of upcoming content and this time around the Pokémon Stadium segment didn't include the "Pokémon cannot be transferred" disclaimer. 

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Thanks for the games. :D

I set the stream up again after the Mario party 2 game, so we have a short multiplayer stream featuring Mario Kart: Super Circuit four-player races and battle mode, followed by an impromptu four-player round of Mario Bros.

Here's a link to this week's stream... :peace:

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Mario Kart: Super Circuit on the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack (+ Mario Bros) - N-Europe Multiplayer (17/02/2023)

Edited by S.C.G
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The NSO sub is coming up for renewal in the next couple of weeks so what better excuse to not continue something like Persona 3 Portable, not get back to something I've left hanging, not buy something new like Theatrhythm and keep ignoring unopened games on the shelf such as Ni No Kuni II, SMT V, KH Melody of Memory, Nier Automata, Life is Strange, Disgaea, etc when there's old games to revisit and decide if I'll keep them around another year. I've even been back on the Fantasy Life postgame but that's now sidelined for this. (Spoilers: of course I'll keep the NSO subscription another year. The real question is if I'll play anything much on it before the next renewal deadline rolls around. :laughing:)

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Recently, I've been getting into Wario Land 3 from the GBA selection but I've opted to meet with the terrible fate that's been calling to me for almost exactly a year now. Majora's Mask.

Still one of the best. Though I'll be open about it: it took a little bit to get accustomed to the controls and camera. Like, just to frame the view I want and line it up to go in the right direction to get the auto-jump I want (the heart piece in N. Clock Town took a few goes to reach, for example :blush:). Feeling comfortable with it again now. I remember reading there's input lag with the NSO games but it's not something I noticed until now with MM. It's something I felt immediately on the file select screen then later playing instruments. Definitely feels like it takes a beat or two for what I select/ press to be reflected onscreen in these situations. It's jarring for the songs but after botching a few due to thinking my button press hadn't been read, I've learned to plough on, safe in the knowledge the game will catch up. I'm relieved to say it's not felt like the movement or sword swings or anything are behind so in general it's pretty much all good on the controls front.

Wii VC was the last time I played MM... when it was a wee bit dodgy on the classic controller no matter what we tried to tell ourselves during those days. :p To be brutally honest, it's a game I worry about revisiting in case it doesn't resonate with me any more, or perhaps I'll discover I was just wrong to hold it in such high regard altogether. Thankfully it seems every bit as good as I remember. What a game. The way the atmosphere goes further askew with the passing of each day and you learn of everyone's individual plight. The way, without trying to memorise everything, it'll get its hooks into you until you randomly glance at the ingame clock to see how long you have left in a level, and you'll know what a character will be doing now, and remember you helped them... then realise you've reset to day one since then so they're with their plight again. :( The way you'll start planning ahead for the next three-day cycle. There's so much crammed into each area. Day 2 rain is a highlight.

I have far from encyclopaedic knowledge of MM, but there's enough buried back there that I'm having a go at picking up a few masks and heart pieces earlier than when I was first discovering and rediscovering what Clock Town and Termina held. It's fun to experience it from a different perspective like this just as it is in other Zelda's when I deviate from what I consider is the "correct" order to do things. 

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Gloomy as it might all be, there's still plenty of wacky things.

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Father and son. :weep: 

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When Majora's Mask first came out, I thought Tingle was an old weirdo. Totally unrealistic. Then on the Wii VC, I thought he was an embarrassment who had let his life go beyond the point of getting it on track. Now, I think he's just a lad following his heart. More power to him!

...And yes, that bird outside Milk Road made off with my bottle. :angry: That won't deter me from taking it down again in a future cycle. 

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Don't go for your bug-catching net, this is not the Good Bee!

Three Days Remain (on my NSO sub). Perhaps I could be going level to level, making a beeline for the four points of the compass to roll credits and consider this done within the time limit, but no matter your intentions, MM will throw a spanner in the works. I can't help but look around, check what people have to say and see if it matches up with anything else I've come across. Like, I thought things were fairly streamlined in the Southern Swamp and up Snowhead (which probably means I've missed stuff...), then I went down to the Great Bay expecting to collect the eggs, knock out the level over there and be off sidequesting with the new item. The game had other ideas. I ended up spending quite some time looking around, getting the eggs, doing the music sidequest, the beavers (!), pinnacle rock, the gold skultula house, there's still a heart piece in a room I'd like to figure out... but if I don't, I don't. I'm hoping to get all the masks but 100% heart pieces and item upgrades isn't something I'm going for. Collecting the frogs is something I'm okay to take a pass on.

So with all that done, I thought I'd left it at a point where I'm ready to head to the Great Bay Temple, but of course, the skultula house reminded me that I need to swing back to the swamp and take another look at the one there as I wasn't equipped for it earlier. That's MM in a nutshell: the main objective is right in front of you, the game coerces you in other directions.

Like, mooching around temples for fairies. Adding this extra layer to the map > compass > new item > nightmare key >  boss and go routine is such a distinctly Majora's Mask thing that has you looking at each room in a new way, especially as you're already against the clock. I remember needing more than one cycle to get them in at least Woodfall back in the day, and that's got me aiming to scoop them all up in the first pass now. Hiding some behind Lens of Truth walls is madness. 

Catching a lift with Cremia and hearing a snippet of how things are for them on the ranch, it's not much but it adds a lot. Things like that and talking to people in the last moments before the moon comes down... great stuff. 

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BTW @darksnowman.  You know you can get rid of that Suspend Menu on-screen instruction from the HUD right?  It's in the NSO N64 Settings Menu.  Has been driving me nuts seeing it in your screenshots!

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Great Bay Temple remains on hold as I went and did the gold skultula house in the swamp. To reach it, I took a death in the poison water and let a bottled fairy revive me so I could press on. :D I racked up 29 gold skultula tokens then getting behind that "green veil" became a head-scratcher. I tried bombing it, burning it, Lens of Truthing it, tried donning the deku mask to see if I could burrow under it. Even tried giving it the Link's Awakening treatment by throwing a pot at it. Yup, everyone who knows what I'm talking about will know how simple and obvious the solution was. :blush: 

With the Mask of Truth, I went on a bit of a run around to have a listen to any Gossip Stones I came across. They seemed to be everywhere until I actually got the mask. Rather than quit back to day one, I ended up back at the race track where I filled my boots this time. On the way back to Clock Town I put that bird outside Milk Road to the sword again for good measure too. Next up, Great Bay Temple? Wellllll... I spotted a rooftop piece of heart in the swamp that I should probably loop back for first... 

8 hours ago, Dcubed said:

BTW @darksnowman.  You know you can get rid of that Suspend Menu on-screen instruction from the HUD right?  It's in the NSO N64 Settings Menu.  Has been driving me nuts seeing it in your screenshots!

Seems I'm not up to speed with the plethora of customisation options offered by NSO! I'm fed up seeing the P1 icon and border in general.

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44 minutes ago, darksnowman said:

Seems I'm not up to speed with the plethora of customisation options offered by NSO! I'm fed up seeing the P1 icon and border in general.

Oh how I wish… :(

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Literally the only reason I played GoldenEye in widescreen was to get rid of that bloody icon

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