Messages

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General Gaming / Shocktober 7: NWR 3D

« on: Yesterday at 05:32:19 PM »

It's Shocktober again and time for our slightly spooky version of a "what have you been playing" forum topic.

When does this start?

Shocktober begins right now, and will last the entire month of October, ending after Halloween night.

What should I play?

Anything that falls under the classification of a "scary" game. Survival horror, action horror, a horror-themed FPS, anything with zombies, etc. In the interest of having fun, this can be more of a loose definition of what defines a scary game, and constitute anything that is more-or-less "spooky themed". Here are a few games that will come out this month:

• Castlevania: Belmont's Curse
• Don't Fret
• Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival
• Silver Pines
• Remothered: Red Nun's Legacy
• Resident Evil Remakes 2-4 (switch 2 releases)

You can think of this as another Backlaugust if you want -- You've probably got horror games in your backlog, and it's time to play them. How many games you want to play is up to you, whether that's just one game or a few games. Any platform, doesn't matter. They can be new games, old games. Even horror games you've already beaten long ago and want to replay. You don't have to choose all of your games up front; you can if you want, but it's fine to just take it one-game-at-a-time.

Here are the previous years' threads:
[2025] [2024] [2023] [2022] [2021] [2020].

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: The Switch 2 Storage Crisis

« on: Yesterday at 05:08:50 PM »

I only have Welcome Tour as a digital download, the rest of my games are cartridges. I don't have any game key cards yet, but I will probably get one for Mega Man. So I think my storage it fine. I did end up getting an SD card for Switch because there ended up being a bunch of download only titles but that just hasn't happened yet for switch 2.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: What is your favorite game this year?

« on: Yesterday at 05:05:38 PM »

For Switch 2 I bought Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, Star Fox, Splatoon Raiders, Orbitals, Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave, and the Xenoblade Chronicles. I still haven't played Xenoblade or Orbitals and I'm too early into Fire Emblem, so I cannot fairly consider those. Of the other three I would say Splatoon Raiders is my favorite, but Star Fox is a close second. Both got set aside pretty quickly because of Backlaugust but I have plans to return to both. I think that Star Fox update just dropped so I really should get back into that multiplayer and get those achievements while the community is still there.

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: September 11, 2026, 04:53:58 PM »

I remember really liking Puppeteer. The 3D is what led me to it, not sure I would have come across it otherwise. Unfortunately I picked up the download version and really wish I got the physical version when it was more available.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Nintendo Direct Sept. 9, 2026 Thoughts

« on: September 11, 2026, 04:39:45 PM »

Overall I thought the Direct was well rounded with a little something for everyone. In terms of new game announcements, I thought there were more than the last few. Metroid was probably the game of the direct for me. Thinking of all the games mentioned, here are the ones I plan to pick up (or have already pre-ordered): Fire Emblem, Ocarina of Time, Xenoblade 3, Metroid, Stage Fright, Mega Man. That is more than enough Switch 2 games for me as I juggle my backlog and other consoles. Layton is a wait and see for me. The updates to Mario Kart and Star Fox were also welcome additions. Was Duskbloods mentioned? Why didn't they announce the Zelda movie cast members? In regards to Ocarina of Time, this was in a recent IGN store email

I knew it was going to be big, but I didn’t know just how big. IGN’s commerce team saw roughly as much interest in the Ocarina of Time remake as we did in GTA 6 preorders. This game is going to be a massive hit

"

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TalkBack / Re: Other News From The September 9 Nintendo Direct

« on: September 10, 2026, 07:30:44 PM »

Great to see Stage Fright finally resurface, though I was hoping for a 2026 release. Still it looked great and I am excited for this Overcooked follow up.

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TalkBack / Re: Capcom Bringing New Mega Man Information And Trio Of Resident Evil Remakes

« on: September 10, 2026, 07:26:25 PM »

Glad to see Proto Man making a return to playable. So many amiibo for 2027!

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TalkBack / Re: Metroid Ravenous Announced for 2027

« on: September 10, 2026, 07:22:37 PM »

This was my favorite announcement of the show. The game looks great and including an amiibo with the special edition is an interesting idea.

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TalkBack / Re: Switch 2 Version Of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity Revealed

« on: September 10, 2026, 07:19:58 PM »

Maybe it's the inclusion of the DLC that is driving the cost of the upgrade path?

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TalkBack / Re: Kirby Goes To The World Beyond Next Spring

« on: September 10, 2026, 07:17:17 PM »

After Forgotten Land I expected a new 2D game before something like this. Still haven't had a chance to play that one so this gives me a new deadline. 

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TalkBack / Re: Star Fox (2026) Gets Free Multiplayer Update

« on: September 10, 2026, 07:15:36 PM »

Looking forward to these new levels. I paused this for backlaugust but need to get back in the multiplayer.

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TalkBack / Re: Ocarina Of Time Remake To Launch November 5

« on: September 09, 2026, 09:54:30 AM »

Seems like you still can't preorder. Anybody know what the price is?

$70 physical, at least until Walmart does its thing and then Amazon does its thing. Probably $60 on the eShop.

I saw a $60 preorder option at Walmart just now, but before I could check out it said it was sold out?

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TalkBack / Re: Ocarina Of Time Remake To Launch November 5

« on: September 08, 2026, 10:55:25 AM »

Seems like you still can't preorder. Anybody know what the price is?

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: September 01, 2026, 09:58:26 AM »

Thanks for hosting this year broodwars!

Nice work to broodwars, Khushrenada, and Mop it up for playing so many games. I mentioned some of these numbers to my partner and they said "What, so they don't have jobs?!" 

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: August 28, 2026, 01:05:26 PM »

On Wednesday I beat the main story of Marvel's Spider-Man on PS4. That is right, I went back to Insomniac for another shorter game. I actually don't have a time estimate (or trophy count or screenshot) since I am also on the PSN blackout. I remember picking this game up when I was really overbuying PS4 games. These days I am skipping all the Marvel games. I also was not really that into the recent Spider-Man movies, just watching them for the 3D. However I really liked Brand New Day and this was a great follow up as I really enjoyed this game as well. For a PS4 game it looks great and traveling around the city is quite fun, though I still ended up using fast travel. I tried to focus on just the main mission but did pick up some collectibles along the way. The combat reminded me of the Arkham games by Rocksteady but a little lighter. I think I enjoyed the story and acting most of all. Still probably won't pick up the sequels but I think I will return to this for 100% completion later on.

I am not sure if there is time for another short game or not but I will give it a try if I can.

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: August 23, 2026, 11:23:16 AM »

With the start of school I have been too busy for much gaming. However I still have two games to report.

First, I beat Contra III: The Alien Wars played via the SNES classic. This was my first time beating a Contra game. The SNES classic has save states and rewind making this easy to do but I limited myself to only using rewind to practice parts and then only saving between stages. So each stage was beat, in the end, without rewinding or saving in the middle. That ended up being just the right amount of challenge for me, though I am not sure if I have the patience to beat the game all the way through without saving. All in all it took about 10 hours to play. The game itself has beautiful sprite work and great controls. The stage variety is nice too with stages 3 and 5 being top down and having the objective of destroying 5 alien nests; stage 4 is one of those vehicle riding stages. In the end I did not even see the credits, only the screen shown here and then the game started over in a harder difficulty.


Now I was able to roll credits on Disney's Illusion Island on Switch. I have playing this coop with my partner throughout the summer and was glad we could finish it this month to help pad my numbers. This is a Metroidvania where you cannot attack, only avoid enemies. You can choose the difficulty by choosing how many hearts you have, anywhere from 1 to unlimited. The game is quite generous with checkpoints ultimately quite easy. I think the art style was what sold me, it really is a pretty game. It only takes about 8 hours so it is funny it took us so long to finish.



I have one more game to try and finish this month but it will come down to the wire. 

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: August 23, 2026, 10:59:36 AM »

For what it's worth, the 360 and Rare Replay versions of Banjo-Kazooie have some quality of life updates like notes always being saved when you collect them, so you don't have to collect them all over again when you die. Those versions are much easier and much less tedious to 100%.

Well now! So much for me being able to take some nights off after work and sleep, since Khush is making a serious push on the leaderboard! 

Yeah, I played via Rare Replay and was able to 100% the game without using rewind or save states.

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: August 16, 2026, 10:35:43 AM »

I also have a PS2 era game to report. Yesterday I beat Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando which I believe is the second game in the series. I was playing it as part of the Ratchet & Clank Collection on PS3. It appears I played the first game in 2021 and don't remember liking it as much as this one. I liked the added space shooter segments and the story seemed pretty interesting too. I remembered that you would hit story points where you would have to pay a chunk of bolts to proceed so I was sort of hoarding them. This meant I was not buying as many weapons and therefore not upgrading them. This did catch up to me towards the end of the game. I did luck upon a nice cheese for the final boss so that helped. The average play time is supposedly 13 hours but it took me 16 hours to finish. I was not going after any trophies and so only ended up with 6 of them. I should also mention I played the whole game in glorious stereoscopic 3D. With the month halfway done I am already pretty satisfied with my output here. Also I have not acquired a single new game this month!

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: August 10, 2026, 08:06:14 PM »

Add one more to the pile for me. I wrapped things up with Rhythm Heaven Groove on Switch yesterday. The game has quite a lot going on with single player, multiplayer, and various side modes. I focused on the single player content which is comprised of 16 stages, each of which has 5 levels (4 regular and 1 remix). It is usually easy to clear a level with the "Okay" rating. If you do well enough you can get a medal for a higher "Superb" rating. Later, these superb levels open up opportunities for a perfect run which unlocks a new rhythm game. Of the 80 levels I got 47 medals. Overall this felt harder than Rhythm Heaven Fever on Wii where I got a medal on all but one level. I did try to self-monitor and if a game stopped being fun I stopped playing it.
The credits are shown after clearing stage 6, which is only about 3 hours in. I played for about 9 hours to clear stage 16. I would like to come back and try the multiplayer and some of the other side modes. Definitely recommended for fans of the series.

Sorry about the TV pic, I could not get the image sent to my smartphone from the switch.

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: August 09, 2026, 02:17:26 PM »

2. Kill swarms of enemies under a strict time limit.

I was not a big fan of the time limits. I understand the need for them in Salmon Run, but they were too restricting here. I actually didn't upgrade my health at all until the very end and only really failed missions because of the time limits. I think the power ups could have been a little better too, they really didn't seem to make much of a difference. It was the classic, 5% increase in this area that you don't really notice.

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: August 06, 2026, 03:16:22 PM »

Late to the party as usual, but I am ready to get put up on the leaderboards. I rolled credits on Splatoon Raiders on Switch 2 yesterday. I mostly just moved through the main campaign and it took me about 11 hours. For folks not aware of the game it is like the single player campaigns in the mainline Splatoon games with a few exceptions. One difference is the focus on the gameplay from the Salmon Run. The other is the way the multiplayer is handled. You get one member of Deep Cut as an NPC companion on your team and you can request help from others online. I got stuck on some of the final levels since I was a little under leveled and it actually worked great to have some randos come help me. You can of course volunteer to help others as well though I didn't try it. Overall the game was really fun and I liked it more than the single player modes in the 3 mainline games. There is still plenty to do and I will probably come back and complete it some day.

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: July 31, 2026, 08:36:54 PM »

I am super excited for Backlaugust this year! I have mostly cleared the decks, though there is a game that will just cross the finish line tomorrow. I have been focusing on playing new releases as they come out instead of putting them at the back of the queue. To that end I am planning to play Rhythm Heaven Groove and Splatoon Raiders this month. I also got the switch 2 version of Xenoblade and as much as I want to play that now, it would really hurt my stats. Plenty of other games lined up that I will talk about as I get to them. Time to put Star Fox multiplayer on hold and just focus .

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Nintendo Switch 2

« on: July 26, 2026, 09:48:51 AM »

My Switch play time for Splatoon 3 has been stuck at 125 hours for a while. I am not sure the original cause, but I think it is the only game where it happened.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Nintendo Switch 2

« on: July 24, 2026, 01:03:54 PM »

That said, I know I'm going to be busy the first week of August doing anything but gaming due to the way things have worked out this year so if you want to take on the role of host again, M.K., then you are welcome to do it again. You did great with it last year as I once again flopped hard in doing any gaming or contributing much which wasn't my plan going in at the time. Just reply here if you want the job. Otherwise, I'll still get things rolling.

I am also busy in August so why don't you take the reigns this year!

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Star Fox (Switch 2)

« on: July 24, 2026, 01:01:26 PM »

Okay, I think I get the friends multiplayer now.

The achievements I was referring to come up as "awards" after the match where you earn them but are really just unlocks for the banner and medals. When you go to edit your banner you can see the requirement for ones you have yet to unlock. Once they are unlocked you can't see that anymore, but the order/organization of them allows you to usually figure it out.