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1

NWR Forums ID Verification / Re: 2000 reasons you are still a Nintendo fan

« on: July 27, 2026, 02:33:48 PM »

1752. You have a contentious relationship with Paper Mario.

1751. You have a contentious relationship with Paper Mario fans.

These are rookie numbers, y'all. Seventeen years and we're still in the 1700s?

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General Gaming / Re: What are you playing?

« on: July 21, 2026, 09:39:17 PM »

I’ve spent the better part of my summer vacation chipping away at two games in particular, as well as one fairly brisk completion. The quick finish was Detention from Red Candle Studios, who is probably better known for the incredibly ambitious and brutal Nine Sols. Detention is a fairly straightforward horror/stealth game with a much more poignant and political message. I appreciated that aspect of the game even if I found the horror to be somewhat nonsensical. The puzzles were effective, though fairly straightforward, as the game limits the amount of interactive elements so that you really only have a few ways to solve roadblocks and particular things to set your sights on.

The first of my steady progressions is Possessor(s), of which I have not yet progressed deep enough into to understand the parenthetical “s” in the title. It is a platform fighter-inspired Metroidvania by Hyper Light Drifter’s Heart Machine, whose works I have a passing interest and respect for. Hyper Light Drifter is a game that feels decent to play on controller and has lovely aesthetics, and although I have played a portion of Solar Ash, I never invested enough time into the game to feel competent in its systems or confident in my enjoyment. The less that might be said about the Early Access purgatoral Hyper Light Breaker, the better.

Possessor(s) does feel somewhat different from the studio’s previous works in aesthetics, with a very clean 2D art style that does evoke their pixel and 3D color palettes. The game does the things that Metroidvania soulslikes do fairly competently, though there are some platforming challenge rooms and sequences that feel tedious upon re-run and/or backtracking. When your movement does click and you’re performing all of the action commands the way that you need to, the game is very satisfying to look at and move through, but some of its mechanics feel a bit inscrutable and undercooked. In the vein of the platform fighter, you have basic and tilted attack inputs that also work while airborne, while “special” command inputs have a vague retro theme, inventively using a computer mouse or cell phone (...or a baseball, which isn’t that inventive) to execute unique moves. You have a dodge-roll button that is also tied to sprinting, which is a choice that works for the very specific sorts of platforming that the game wants done- there’s no directional air dodge, per se, but rather a “falling dodge” that is used to bypass LASER WALLS.

What’s a bit more frustrating to utilize is the game’s parry mechanic, which seems to have a punishing
“fail state mode” that will stop you from utilizing it again in quick succession if you’ve already failed a parry. I hope this makes sense, but if not, maybe some mathspeak will clarify: Enemy attack + mistimed parry = damage taken + fail state parry that cannot parry. You have to “burn” the fail state parry before you can execute a normal parry again, which just feels… spiteful, I suppose. Having played other games with similar systems and better telegraphed hit and hurt boxes, I find myself a bit frustrated. However, the general narrative and vibe of the game in addition to its more customizable movesets and weapon types have my attention, for the time being. I don’t understand what qualifies it as a Switch 2 exclusive, but I’m not going to harp on it too much.

I’ve also been playing Digimon Story: Time Stranger, which is a game that was reviewed succinctly by NWR, though I feel still warrants a bit of my general verbosity. Having played Digimon World Dawn and Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth, I feel a bit more prepared for the general mechanics of this game than someone who is perhaps more familiar with other monster collecting games, but even so, there are some design choices and a lack of transparency in tutorials that surprised me a bit. I’m going to elaborate on these mechanical choices a bit more in another thread/essay, but I do find that dealing with the general art style and themes of this series means you sometimes aren’t always aware of the type of monster you’ll be encountering, which can make team building a bit frustrating. You may wish to try to capitalize on weaknesses, or you might want to try making sure that you’re always capable of dealing with any threat, but either solution means you are putting yourself at a potential advantage, with the former having far more severe consequences. In any case, this is a game that is built for its protracted boss encounters, and the very generous battle speed and auto battle features are surely proof of this. However, this does mean you might a fair amount of time prepping and crafting proper team builds to combat these major encounters more than anything, and since you are almost always squaring off against heretofore-unseen foes, you may spend two or three bouts simply figuring out the enemy’s weaknesses before you can overcome them. There is a spell called Reverse that is able to literally change the weaknesses and attributes of an opponent, but it feels highly niche and a bit silly to run that on a team member when elemental access allows for more coverage. I’ve yet to see an opponent use Reverse on me, but I can imagine that is will be a likelihood. In contrast to Pokemon, enemies in Digimon games are far more likely to effectively implement specific strategies… though they lack sophistication in moving forward when properly countered.

The game certainly goes places, though its particular acts are segmented into smaller, formulaic scenes that become predictable in their layout, even if the narrative content is pretty unhinged (as one might expect from a game about time travel). Still, this familiarity of structure allows you to anticipate for future encounters by devoting most of your energy to the team-building and monster-raising aspects of the game. These are fairly straightforward, themselves, but can be made more effective through thorough systems and material investments. There are so many Digimon to add to your roster that attempting to “catch them all” can feel daunting, especially when the requirements for making them can feel a bit inscrutable. However, each system has its place and rewards a great deal of patience, and taking the time to raise a Digimon often yields an extremely effective party member. Often enough, that is.

There is one strange quirk of the game, which is that, upon traveling eight years forward in time, "that guy with the shield" is mentioned many times to explain your circumstances, which is so silly. I guess that's one way to avoid IP infringement... but it feels like the only pertinent pop culture reference I've noted from the game. How odd.

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NWR Feedback / Re: Account deletion?

« on: July 21, 2026, 07:11:23 PM »

While a cursory glance into the Simple Machines framework and tech support seems to imply that account deletion is an administrative/moderation feature, that might be enabled on specific versions of the framework that this forum may or may not be running on. While I'm not proud of the digital footprint of my dickishness on full display, I understand that these are the consequences of my actions and that "the internet is forever" is a statement I should have heeded with a bit more gravity.

While I won't bemoan the point, I will entertain the idea of a permanent ban in the next month or so.

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TalkBack / Re: Octopath Traveler I And II To Come To Switch 2 On October 1, With No Upgrade Or Save Transfer

« on: July 16, 2026, 10:57:26 PM »

I happily jumped on the upgrade pack for Romancing SaGa 2, so I’m bummed they’re not offering a similar path for other games.

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General Gaming / Re: The Great(?) Video Game Spreadsheet Project: Year 32 Challenge!

« on: July 02, 2026, 11:58:35 PM »

We're... so back?

Current Weighted Top Twenty (As of 7/2/2026)
VVVVVV - (4.71)
Pragmata - (4.65)
Inscryption - (4.49)
Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 - (4.42)
Crawl - (4.36)
The Swapper - (4.28)
Donkey Kong (1994) - (4.25)
Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - (4.25)
Anodyne 2: Return to Dust - (4.25)
Roller Coaster Tycoon (Deluxe) - (4.23)
Crystal Project - (4.23)
The Last Story - (4.23)
Toree Saturn - (4.23)
Dandara - (4.21)
Mr. Driller Drill Land - (4.21)
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - (4.19)
ARMS - (4.19)
Into the Breach - (4.17)
Skwish - (4.17)
UNSIGHTED - (4.17)
I took about a two-year break from this because my job simply did not allow me the time for whimsy, but I am attempting to inject a bit more of it back into my life.

There is no doubt that there is some degree of recency bias present in my current weighted top 20. Tears of the Kingdom is the best open-world Zelda that exists presently, but that might change in the (not so near) future. Toree Saturn is also the best version of Toree that exists. Smash Ultimate is likely to go uncontested as the most full-featured platform fighter ever. Perhaps if I were to throw the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition of Roller Coast Tycoon Complete into the mix, it might knock another one of these games into oblivion, though that might cause me to rethink what I believe is so full-featured and thorough about those games. There's been a bit of jostling around of the top 20, though nothing so extreme that it should make you worry about my super-precise system of ranking being suspect or whatever. While Kirby's Air Ride has dropped out of the top 20, I did just pick up Air Riders, so... we'll see if it returns in some fashion.

Anyway, hey, its Pragmata stealing the number 2 spot. To me, this is just an excellently-paced game with tons of optional and diverse content centered around its core mechanics, and it makes me want to play some more modern action-focused Capcom titles... but not yet. There's plenty exciting on the horizon, so I have to be efficient about clearing out my backlog, which is another reason I'm back performing for you. I've got some kind words and some beef with some recent plays.
I've talked about my impressions of Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist, Romancing SaGa 2 Remake, Haste, Pragmata, 9 Years of Shadows, and Marfusha in other threads, so I thought I'd instead complain about Viviette, Xenokart, and Lorelei and the Laser Eyes.

Viviette (3.69) - Meh
The precursor to developer DYA Games's Evil Tonight, which is pretty evident due to asset reuse. It's a similarly-themed game in a lot of ways, though its focus is more on survival and environmental puzzles than combat. Its a bit punishing in how it gates its alternate endings, which pads playtime a bit and is a reward for completionists rather than someone who wants to experience the actual gameplay. The adventure-isms of this game are a bit insulting, though, with some items existing to solve specific puzzles but having no use in others despite their obvious utility. Why do I need a hacksaw for one puzzle that isn't also usable in the axe puzzle? Eh. Anyway, it manages a pretty decent mood for a pixel-art horror game but its gameplay being so heavily reliant on environmental puzzles made me glad to finish it. Still sits at a respectable 195 out of 652, so not bad.

Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition Nintendo Switch 2 Edition (3.69) - Liked
Damn, can we just take a moment to recognize that bonkers mouthful of a name? Anyway, this being the only easily-accessible new content I could access from my pre-Xenoblade 3 playthrough meant that this was a pretty brisk run-through of said content. I really do hope that this flavor of mounted travel and dedicated side content finds integration into whatever Xenoblade Genesis ends up being, as Xenoblade has really favored traversal over mini-games. Though this isn't the perfect mounted travel option by far, as those cliff hikes are... intense, but I do appreciate that they took the time to design some specific and novel side-content just for it, and for what its worth, these vehicles do move well and feel diverse. This also makes me hope that Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is getting some form of mounted travel with its new Rare Blade, as Dromarch doesn't really offer any sort of benefit to the player and that game could use a speedier form of traversal itself. In any case, Xenokart is only occasionally difficult as a result of needing to adjust your control of its seven karts to the terrain presented, and might find some longevity as a score-chasing mode. Primarily, it serves as a way to boost your number of Noponstones for rare gear and the like featured in this game's challenge mode. I have not ranked this version of Xenoblade separately from the original Definitive Edition, but I don't think the inclusion of Xenokart does anything substantial enough to differentiate its rating, which is still a 131 out of 652. The fourth-highest Xenoblade title- and I actually like this series!

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes (3.65) - Disliked
Lastly, after sitting on the fence for a long time in regards to starting this game and finally being motivated by the recent Nintendo Switch 2 Edition and Guillame's own mention of it on Radio Free Nintendo, I decided to bite the bullet and start playing- and then finishing- this game. And boy, did it further solidify my disdain for classic adventure game design. I find it odd that developer Simogo should follow up the universally-accessible Sayonara Wild Hearts with a game as user-unfriendly and intimidating as this, however this is not their first adventure title so I suppose I can understand their wont to return to the genre. I don't consider Lorelei and the Laser Eyes a puzzle game, as there are really only a few "puzzles" to be found here. The game's logic is pretty explicitly introduced to you from the very start of your playthrough and it is up to you to exploit its controls and the information it makes accessible to you to complete the experience. I am sure that my playthrough differs from the progression of some other individuals, partially because I went into the game thinking that it was going to be a lot more demanding of me than it actually was. For example, the game offers a series of foundational texts to the player early on in the playthrough that introduce the idea of translating certain numbers and words into other "languages," or symbols. I foolishly thought that this meant I was going to find a clue that would requite translation for some locks later in the game, but it turns out the examples that these foundational texts gave were simply supposed to be regurgitated elsewhere. That's not a puzzle, per se, or at least, it doesn't feel like one.

Really, the game seems to be more of a "password simulator" than anything, which makes sense thematically from a narrative perspective but makes the overall gameplay pretty bland. Some password solutions are so obscure that I felt I needed to be keyed in on the mindset of the developer in order to solve them: one art exhibit offers the password for a keypad but I never made the connection between the two simply because the symbology used there did not mimic the play space of the code input. The game's logic is incredibly inconsistent: sometimes rooms have an self-contained password-solution and input, sometimes you are required to bring information from throughout or across the house to a specific place, so it can feel a bit insulting when an answer is either presented to you immediately within a room ("really? that's all I need to do?") just as often as it is frustrating when a password requires you to hoof it halfway across the large manor (which is further convoluted by gated shortcuts that are painfully easy to unlock upon understanding their "trick," save for one or two examples that absolutely require knowledge from outside of the game to answer) to "solve."

Lorelei's photographic memory- which is a collection of all the documents and such that you have read in the game world thus far- does a lot of heavy lifting, but this also means that the "quiz club" section of the game feels utterly devoid of tension, as you are tasked with a life-or-death scenario of inputting a number that... you can just easily find by accessing your "introspection" menu. The game offers you the chance to do this! If you don't have a document that answers the question, you can just easily back out of these scenarios! Why even have this facade of high-stakes questioning at all? (Note: don't confuse this with the inversely frustrating "maze guy" encounters, which can prevent you from saving before them and can also result in a progress-loss fail state simply because you haven't taken note of every single element present in the diorama scenes that you don't even know if you're going to be asked about. Better to just take stock of every single thing, right? Because every single bit of information in that room will only be used to answer that one question, even if you think you spot a clue that might have utility in another puzzle! That's not clever!)

What's genuinely annoying is that there are a set of complex solutions that require smart synthesis of several elements found in the house, but the vast majority of the passwords are just the same important numbers and names the game has shown you multiple times or a key that you just need to have on your person or that you need to know how to turn correctly, and the rare few times the game hides or obscures these turn sequences can be attributed just as much to a failure of the minimalist user interface as your own stupidity. Telling me that I can rotate an aspect of a puzzle piece is not "giving away" the answer to said puzzle- the puzzle itself is just a lame math problem. You just hid the equation behind a statue. That's not clever.

It is this aspect of adventure game design that I have butted up against in both Viviette and Lorelei that makes me feel, with confidence, that this genre isn't for me. Too often I feel cheated, like I am meant to feel stupid or less than clever for simply not-knowing how a developer wants me to solve a puzzle. At least with games like Baba is You or Picross or The Swapper, the logic is consistent and the scenarios are designed to be solved within that logic or through the discovery of how that logic might be applied to a game scenario. Too many adventure games seem to be designed with the idea that "now, I'll do something completely different that makes sense to me, and the player will have to intuit my new logic." As a teacher, I have patience for when people try and fail to communicate something to me due to a lack of mastery over the language in question. Adventure games feel like an exercise in attempting to learn a language that the developer is actively attempting to prevent me from understanding. And yes, part of the frustration I feel in these games comes from getting stuck, but quite often in Lorelei, my feeling of being stuck came from lacking a gated piece of information because I simply had not played by the specific rules of a specific "puzzle" that I either didn't have access to or was obscured by the minimalist interface. I feel dumb because I should have known better, not because the solution was actually difficult. I actually knew how to get the solution but the interface was bad and its badness prevented me from proving that I know how to do basic math, or pinpoint a square, or some other banal and simplistic task.

...So yes, I did look up about I'd estimate 8-10% of the game's "puzzle" solutions, and for about 40% of those solutions, I said "how was I supposed to know I could do that," with another 40% being "oh, I could have easily offered the solution to this if the interface wasn't so obscure." The final 20% was "oh, I did not notice this detail," which I am okay with admitting and feel neither stupid or smart for having been unable to solve. Hey, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes still manages to land at 147 out of 652. I can absolutely dislike something and still rate it pretty favorably, though in this case it was an all-consuming need to be able to say "yeah I got to the end of this game, I'm not dumb" and an appreciation for the aesthetic trappings of the game that helped me reach the rather dour and decidedly-not-Lynchian conclusion.

...I will probably play and complain about Blue Prince at some point, yes.
Where do we go from here? Well, I'm still chipping away at some larger releases while trying to knock out the smaller stuff from my library. There are some large games in my backlog that I've put a lot of time into and haven't ranked, while others have been started and rather immediately repulsed me out of the gate, which then begs the question of whether or not I'm in the right headspace for a game at a certain time, which also begs the next question of whether it makes sense for me to rank these games immediately after I've finished playing them. I can say with confidence that some of the rearranging of my top 20 comes from the passage of time and my overall uncertainty as to whether some of the scoring criteria truly fits the product in question. Perhaps that's a discussion for another time.

Immediate interests include Metroid: Samus Returns, Blasphemous, Detention, and the soon-to-release Digimon Time Stranger. Oh, and I'm slowly chipping away at Final Fantasy VII (the original), which sucks ass from a gameplay perspective but is really pretty good from an artistic, narrative, and pacing perspective.

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General Gaming / Re: I for one welcome the glorious return of overconfident E3 2006 Sony.

« on: July 01, 2026, 12:19:45 PM »

So this is how physical media dies… with thunderous… oh wait this is actually being ridiculed by a sizable number of people. Enough of a drop in the well? Probably not- money is money, and getting more of it often justifies the means.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Star Fox (Switch 2)

« on: June 24, 2026, 05:04:11 PM »

Is the inevitable sequel that this game gets going to be called Star Fox 2?

I’m here to lend emotional support to all you folks who will be going in on this release. I don’t care a lick about Star Fox and there’s very little about this version that appeals to me other than the bizarre face-mapping for voice chat, but it would be particularly venomous for me to be down on a series as underrepresented as Star Fox. To echo some of the sentiments already stated here, the rail shooter nature of the series has never appealed to me and while I respect something with an arcade flair offering multiple routes, if won’t do much for me if said routes are more of the same gameplay that doesn’t thrill me. Here’s hoping you do get that Star Fox 2 after all.

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TalkBack / Re: Super Scram Kitty (Switch) Review Mini

« on: June 22, 2026, 07:17:41 AM »

I might be insane (okay, I’m definitely insane), but unless they’ve reworked how jumping works in some fashion, you were able to jump from one wall to the other in the original game, which was a fundamental part of the level design. Is something different about that mechanic?

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NWR Feedback / Account deletion?

« on: June 03, 2026, 07:10:33 PM »

Am I blind, or is this a moderator only function? If so, requesting. If not, explain to me the process please!

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General Gaming / Re: What are you playing?

« on: June 01, 2026, 07:55:49 AM »

I suppose I should also add some new content to my ranting.

I completed 9 Years of Shadows in short order. It’s a brisk, beautiful pixel art Metroidvania that seems to have pissed some online community off because of some of its design choices and odd performance quirks. I spawned into a dark room once and experienced a few sound issues but a soft reset and even returning to the main menu often fixed things. Anyway, I thought it had some cool ideas and movement options and didn’t have incredibly high expectations, and so wound up pleasantly surprised.

Continuing the theme, I’ve sunk a single playthrough into Marfusha, a indie tower defense roguelike about being an expendable foot soldier for a corrupt nationalist regime. You know, escapism. Anyway, it was fine, I seemed to get the mechanics rather quickly, in which the game balances currency accumulation with intensifying taxes to maintain a “skin of your teeth” mentality. Despite its predictable gameplay loop, part of the meta progression and challenge comes from deliberately handicapping yourself with lame-duck assists in order to learn about the larger cast of the game. It’s not a masterpiece, but it does what it sets out to do competently.

And lastly, Decline’s Drops is another game touting platform-fighter (i.e. Smash Bros.) style movement in a traditional platforming level design and progression. It delivers on that, though the enemies are hardly complex or challenging enough to warrant the attack moveset you possess. The game features hand drawn character art which is very lovingly animated, as well as a very chill soundtrack that does a lot of heavy lifting in evoking a Smash-style adventure mode.

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General Gaming / Re: What are you playing?

« on: May 30, 2026, 12:30:09 PM »

I finally rolled credits on Hades. As it turns out, when you go to people who have played a ridiculous amount, they can explain all the mechanics that the game itself does a pretty terrible job at communicating.

It’s very frustrating that this should be the gold standard for roguelikes, as its production values feel so far removed from what can be achieved by a studio that would consider this sort of gameplay loop. Also, it’s pretty annoying to see how low effort some of the boons can be, and how the game is bloated to an absurd degree by the favors/items that you can equip. The number of encounters required to boost some of their levels just feels a bit counter to the progression momentum the game can have when you know what you’re doing. Also, the shop system is genuinely terrible and I cannot believe the purchase ratios.

Overall, Hades can’t help but fall into some of the familiar trappings of the genre from which it stems, though one of the most surprising is its lack of variety. The Heat system using number-fudging for the majority of its “punishments” is simply not enticing enough on the surface, and seeing how Erebus gates are shockingly infrequent and generally unrewarding in comparison with the escalating challenge placed upon the player feels much more demotivating than anything. On one hand, I can’t help but come down hard on this game for these reasons because they are aspects that don’t appeal to me, though I can see how they might be enjoyable to another type of player. They are monotonous and incremental in all the ways that people tend to bemoan other types of games, so… when in Rome. But I also find Hades frustrating due to its moments of brilliance buried deep under the muck: the absolutely ungodly amount of voiced dialogue and flavor text, for example, which often feels wasted because these interactions are at odds with the snappiness of the game and genre design. The overall quality of the art, which results in the mundanity/predictable nature of the gameplay experience. There is something of value to be found in Hades, certainly… but I feel that the praise is heaped on all the most problematic aspects of its design.

I am glad to say that I’ve finally “completed” a Supergiant game, which is ironic, considering the endless nature of this title in particular. I think it gets by far too often on its rehashing of Greek mythology, which makes some of the developers’ most tedious writing and gameplay design a bit more palatable. While a part of me would be somewhat interested to see how far I’d have to go for new dialogue to stop revealing itself, I have other games to play and I think that particular aspect of bloat is the most annoying part of all. That I have to keep grinding resources to invest in these relationships that are eventually going to result in more flavor text, which means I have to engage in an endless gameplay loop that has long worn-out its welcome, all for the possibility of some final modifiers to weapons and favors and chambers that really won’t do much to change the experience is why I can imagine people feel that they got a bang for their buck with Hades. But, hot take: I have played more games in the last few years that I like for respecting my time than games which overpromise on the vastness of their content.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Star Overdrive: We Have Immortals: Fenix Rising at Home

« on: May 22, 2026, 03:54:55 PM »

So are half the posts here bots now?

Half is a generous estimate.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 973: Progress is Being Made on Multiple Fronts

« on: May 21, 2026, 06:55:13 PM »

Damn, the bot is out here trying to outdo the episode descriptions.

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TalkBack / Re: Starbites (Switch) Review

« on: May 16, 2026, 03:38:14 PM »

Too bad, I actually thought the character designs were somewhat charming, but I won’t suffer through crashes for character art.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Any idea?

« on: May 13, 2026, 11:06:05 AM »

It saves to the Wii Mode memory, which you can access through the Wii mode memory management. Transfer it to an SD card and I think it should be accessible on another Wii?

Why am I replying to this? It seems like a legitimate enough inquiry.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 974: When I Was Getting Scraped for Horace Showpony, I Wasn't Getting Paid

« on: May 11, 2026, 10:48:11 AM »

I think the point stands. Min-maxing Pokemon requires hurdles that most games pre-Gen 9 make difficult to achieve until late-to-post-game, so I don’t know why you’d attempt it. I also don’t know what sort of comprehensive strategy an LLM would give for any game in particular and I don’t care to give any of them the time of day to find out.

Then again, I’m posting on a dead forum in order to magnify my voice and sense of self-importance via the relative emptiness of the echo chamber, so maybe I don’t have any right to talk about the poisons of the internet.

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TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Announces Switch 2 Star Fox Reboot In Emergency Star Fox Direct

« on: May 08, 2026, 05:26:33 PM »

it sucks to be so down about this, because as Adrock put it, really, everything sucks now. I’m also not really invested enough into Starfox to really have skin in this game. But I really have no interest in playing a game that I already bounced off previously on a few different systems, which I guess just means this wasn’t the announcement for me. It just stands as a harbinger of the times, which is a bit sad.

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TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Announces Switch 2 Star Fox Reboot In Emergency Star Fox Direct

« on: May 07, 2026, 08:46:45 AM »

We can argue semantics and the like all we want, there’s already a narrative out there that this is “the fourth version of Starfox 64,” and whether or not Zero was an original game with original controls and original ideas, that only reduces this to “the third version of Starfox 64.” That Starfox 64 is (admittedly replayable, but not in a way that modern gaming enthusiasts like to think) a two-ish hour experience makes me wonder why Nintendo is so insistent on doing nothing with this franchise. Sure, this will appeal to the Starfox fans that we all know exist, and it’s arguably a shiny new cost of paint for the game for newcomers, but it shocks me that they followed the super dynamic, cartoony sequence from the Galaxy movie with these slightly grotesque versions of these characters.

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TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Announces Switch 2 Star Fox Reboot In Emergency Star Fox Direct

« on: May 06, 2026, 08:26:09 PM »

Andross’s monkey’s paw curls yet another finger…

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General Gaming / Re: 6th Annual NWR Four on Four

« on: April 28, 2026, 05:58:15 AM »

Happy birthday, broodwars! It’s been fun following your April odyssey, and not just because we’re two of the handful of people who still post here.

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General Gaming / Re: 6th Annual NWR Four on Four

« on: April 21, 2026, 05:51:11 PM »

Pragmata is the game I forgot that I needed. While I’ve been out of the Resident Evil loop for quite some time and would be curious if more recent games reflect this mentality, Pragmata very much reminds me of Resident Evil Revelations, a game that I got partially because I wanted a graphical powerhouse for my Nintendo 3DS and ended up adoring because of its pacing, variety, and absurdity. In a similar way, I needed something that felt a bit more premium on my Nintendo Switch 2, and Pragmata’s demo did a great job of selling its potential. Like a good demo, it also doesn’t give away too much of its narrative and gameplay conceits, so starting and playing a hefty chunk of Pragmata over the weekend was a surprise and delight.

While enemy variety isn’t incredibly varied, it’s the thoughtful combination of environmental design and the number of enemies that keeps Pragmata feeling consistently fresh, though the slow trickle of new weapons also helps things also. The great thing about a science fiction game is that the weapons get increasingly cool: you start with a pea shooter, then a shotgun, then a grenade launcher… and you eventually get your railgun, decoy spawner, concussive shield, mini rockets, and autonomous drones. The one thing that feels only a bit underbaked is Diana’s hacking system, which has sorts of strange modal variations and a chip system that is much more random than the loadout prep system would lead you to believe. In my opinion, the game could have leveraged less health packs (especially with the evasive movement Hugh possesses) and more chip slots, though I understand dispersing them throughout the hacking planes might have been too extreme a task.

Jeez, I’m not doing a great job of explaining the hacking. I will say that the targeting system is elegant and allows for much more freedom of action than I initially thought. I was a bit worried that breaking eye contact would reset a hacking plane, but your progress on multiple enemies is saved if you should have to break line of sight due to evasive measures. It’s a bit unfortunate that the D-Pad and the weapon wheel are on the same side of the controller, as switching guns mid-hack can be a bit cumbersome, but I also think the appeal of Pragmata is its clunkiness. Even if you are supposed to be controlling two characters simultaneously, their controller real estate makes them feel like a single unit, and it’s satisfying to get more proficient with their particular quirks. There are a couple of things you can do to make the game feel a bit less flow-chart-y: it can sometimes feel like the gameplay is always “Execute your Diana actions first, then deal damage with Hugh,” but some of the modal modifications you can make to Diana’s side of things can make dealing damage during a hack more rewarding. There’s also some weapons that Hugh possesses that work well as pre-Diana actions, such as dropping decoys, knocking enemies off their feet, and some neater, weird mid- to endgame options. I do think the Right Bumper is unfortunately underutilized in gameplay, which is weird since the Left Bumper is used consistently throughout the game, becoming a full-on contextual attack in the final act. Said contextual attack is also far from a permanent solution, with Hugh having to do some fast shooting in order to properly capitalize on exposed enemies.

While the data logs in the game are pretty light fare and inconsequential overall, the narrative is well-paced, to the point where I am reminded that games don’t have to be these protracted, grind-heavy experiences in order to justify their price. Rather, a game can present a nice, ten to twelve hour narrative and enough novel scenarios to still feel premium. The story is twisty enough to satisfy some, but I found it a bit predictable in its main hooks, with a third act introduction of some context that is hinted at environmentally, but still feels like a late trickle. The nature of the environments you visit never really feel justified, save for the lunum mines that are impressive from a scale and gameplay expansion standpoint. Still, the lack of environmental context is excused by the fun inherent in the scenarios: why do we have a wonky, 3D-printed version of a city being stalked by giant toddler robots? Why am I exploring varied biosphere simulations? Because it’s fun.

There’s a couple of ways that Pragmata pads its playtime and limited environmental space: its chock-full of collectables tucked in every corner, an extensive and sometimes unreasonable set of training missions, and a few progression gates- both literal and metaphorical- that you’ll have to double-back on in order to unlock. But all of these things are easy to access, with a pretty generous scan feature that shows your direct proximal relationship to items in the environments. The map could be a little less obscure, but every location is linear and telegraphed enough that it’s never too tedious to get where you’re going. I do wish you could fast travel between emergency exits a bit more immediately instead of having to return to the Shelter in order to pop up somewhere else in the same environment. The game leans heavily on making sure your initial loadout can get you where you need to go, so it’s somewhat excusable, but its also pretty generous about giving you weapons before and even during enemy encounters. This loadout feature is a core part of the game’s challenge: for half of the campaign (and even after that point, though slightly lessened) you will have to complete a sequence of encounters with a limited set of tools, and whatever scattered extras the game is willing to offer you in a certain arena. The fast travel system works for the forward momentum of the campaign, less so in doubling back.

In some ways, Pragmata is a movement shooter, if only because Hugh’s thruster dodge makes him a lot more slippery than one might expect upon first impression. With the amount of evasive opportunities you are given and how range focused the encounters are, you’ll be zipping around arenas and avoiding enemy attacks on the regular. One of the game’s most intense boss fights pits you against a highly mobile enemy with a number of area-filling attacks, but it all feels as if its in good fun. Verticality is not Pragmata’s strong suit, however, and the few areas that do possess levels often prove a bit more cumbersome than one might hope. You can avoid a larger enemy early on in the campaign simply by climbing up on a ledge that it could very easily surmount, itself.

…I should have just put this in reader reviews.

22

General Gaming / Re: 6th Annual NWR Four on Four

« on: April 15, 2026, 10:51:32 AM »

Man, I wanted to like Haste. The numerous crashes in the latter half of the game have been really killing my vibe, though. Mind you, I was able to stomach the massive framerate dips, which occur even on Switch 2, if only because I thought the core gameplay concept was nice enough. I am regrettably adding this one to my spreadsheet as a DNF, though it starting losing steam before the bugs popped up. There’s just not enough variety in world design or the roguelike item pool to feel that runs are varied or fairly balanced. You either get items that might be helpful if you can survive, or you get health items that vastly increase your survival and can be further exploited via all those other highly circumstantial items way more useful. It’s synergy-based, but anything outside of gaining health is also incredibly risky because they mostly increase your running speed, which means you can run into (and lose health from) obstacles even faster. It doesn’t help that the games narrative is trickled out through dialogue sequences at campfire/healing zones that are long, plodding, and nauseatingly whimsical. I had higher hopes for this game, especially because of the developer’s pedigree.

Onto greener pastures. I know this goes against the 4 on 4 code, but I decided to go back to Oceanhorn 2 while I wait for Pragmata to drop. Of all the 3D Zelda-a-likes that have ever 3D Zelda-a-liked, this one is definitely the most.

23

Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 970: Chekhov's Goat

« on: April 13, 2026, 09:52:28 AM »

Always a pleasure to hear from the good doctor. Lots of fascinating perspective here, I feel we need a yearly check-in with him to see how his gaming is going. He also very naturally brings up several topics that make my listener mail contributions null and void. I was still happy to hear the conversation!

24

General Gaming / Re: 6th Annual NWR Four on Four

« on: April 05, 2026, 11:56:20 AM »

I’m hoping to complete a few games this month, so I’ll throw my hat in here.

While I’ve played the majority of Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven as a Nintendo Switch 2 edition, I am going to try to make my Switch 2 release of the month Pragmata. I’m assuming that it will be more of a replayable, arcade-ish experience based on the demo’s time-trial nature, but we’ll see if it clocks in over 15 hours.

My Switch game for the month (yes, I am going to be semantic about it) is Haste, which I’ve already put some time into since its release on Thursday. It’s a roguelite parkour game from the folks that made Crumble, featuring an inscrutable plot and very nice character art. There’s some things I love about it and some things that irk me a bit, the former being the adrenaline rush of weaving through obstacles at high speeds and getting some silly combinations of items to extend the longevity of your run, the latter being the inscrutable ranking system and very obvious “run killer” terrain, which you need to have enough speed/energy/momentum to just glide past rather than attempting to land.

I am going to try to boot up the old 3DS and sink some time into a smaller game like Drancia Saga or Olli Olli, though I do have a few 3DS games on the backlog worth looking into, such as Ever Oasis or Kirby: Planet Robobot. I’ve already put some time in the latter so maybe that doesn’t count, and the former is a full-length JRPG…

As for my Analogue Pocket, I am going to try out some new games! Specifically, I am excited to give the recently released Dragonyhm a try- I know, a Game Boy Color release in 2025? This one has a nice, nostalgic art style that I think is really the main appeal for me, but who knows.

And finally, if some of you folks can’t get behind the Switch 2/Switch split, I will be trying to beat Black Hole Havoc on the Playdate. It’s a simple breakout-like about matching the size of your “ball” to the “block” you’re trying to clear. The art style is delightfully absurd.

25

TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Announces Changes To Pricing Of Switch 2 Games, Ends Price Parity

« on: March 25, 2026, 05:21:43 PM »

This is a very logical idea but, man, Nintendo is rather blatantly trying to steer things towards the all-digital future.  If I ever get a Switch 2 I already figure that I'm going to have to increase my digital purchases significantly unless I want to just miss out on tons of great games.  Now it will be a question of whether it makes sense financially to not do that.

Now how is this going to affect Game Key Card prices?  Are they going to be the higher "physical" price?  Ironically that seems like that would kill the format.  You can imagine physical game enthusiasts willing to pay a premium but why would anyone pay extra for what is essentially a digital version?  But then if GKCs die to push people towards digital purchases they accomplished their goal.

Of course the true result of this is that physical media is outright killed.  Then the prices go up.  Then games you "bought" become rentals.  I feel this has always been inevitable.  It's just unfortunate that Nintendo is so aggressively putting their thumb on the scale after the Switch 1 was actually a very good system for physical releases.

As someone who just recently picked up my first GKC, I can’t imagine that format will exist for much longer with this idea in place.

Also, it sounds like this is the last generation I will be able to own video games and I’m resigned to that fate.