Messages

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General Gaming / Re: Shocktober 7: NWR 3D

« on: October 10, 2026, 06:06:57 PM »

As I hinted at earlier, I did revisit Luigi's Manion 3 on switch. I played the game when it first released and by the time the story was rapping up ~14 hours I was a little fatigued with the game and just wanted to be done. So I held off completing the game's primary collectibles (gems and boos) until now. It took less time than I thought (~6 hours/~20 hours total) even with having to relearn the various mechanics in the game. Of course I have already acquired about half the gems but I had only gotten one boo. Fortunately I had a surplus of in-game money and spent it all to have the locations of these collectibles appear on the map. It just tells you which room to look so there was still fun puzzle solving to be had.

I am still left with a few questions. First, there is clearly some sort of internal achievement system with little notifications popping up when you collect all the gems on a floor for instance. However, I could not find a list of these in any menu? Now, there is an album where you can view your gem and boo collections. This also contains a place for rare ghosts. I caught every ghost I found in the game and that row was completely empty. I am guessing there are somehow tied to the multiplayer? Still a really fun game, that surprisingly does not have a switch 2 upgrade.
With a game actually completed I am feeling motivated to finish more while chipping away at Elden Ring and Fire Emblem!

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General Gaming / Re: Shocktober 7: NWR 3D

« on: October 10, 2026, 05:56:01 PM »

Finally closed the book on The Thing: Remastered, and yeah...vintage-era Spoony certainly wasn't lying about how bad this game was.

Where to begin on this thing...well, let's certainly get one thing out of the way: this game just fundamentally doesn't understand John Carpenter's The Thing, which is why it's kind of bizarre that this game had his personal blessing and for a long time was considered an official sequel.

I had not heard of this game before your post. There is a lot of interesting discourse on Carpenter's involvement online, even that he has an uncredited cameo in the game. I am also looking at the Toxic Commando game which includes his name in the title and wonder how much involvement he actually has, especially at his age now.

I really enjoyed the Back to the Future and Ghostbuster games that act as sequels their movie series, but the connection here sounds much looser.

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General Gaming / Re: Shocktober 7: NWR 3D

« on: October 10, 2026, 05:44:00 PM »

Spirit Ashes and Ashes of War (which are tied to weapons) are two separate things.

We might finally be getting to the root of my problems. I think I need to go back and read what the game said about these as I was definitely conflating them.

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General Gaming / Re: Shocktober 7: NWR 3D

« on: October 08, 2026, 02:39:39 PM »

2. You need to have the Spirit Ash set in your active item slot.

I think this is the part I failed to do. I thought since it was tied to a specific weapon using that weapon would summon it. I will give this a try. Thanks.

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General Gaming / Re: Shocktober 7: NWR 3D

« on: October 08, 2026, 02:37:52 PM »

I found guard-follow-up attacks to be a more consistent and reliable strategy, with the understanding that parrying does not necessarily require the same level of endurance-building (the stat, not the concept) as a dedicated shield build.

More specific advice would be crafting fire-pots: as a consistent form of elemental damage that can also occasionally splash onto opponents, they saved my ass far too many times in the early game and become a nice additive form of screwing with enemies in the mid-game.

I try to get that sneak attack to start things off and then just guard and attack. It is much safer since I have not mastered the parrying.

We have acquired a fire pot but they don't seem cheap and since they are consumable I am hesitant to use it. A typical challenging battle will take many attempts and using the fire pot on an unsuccessful attempt feels like a waste. I guess your suggesting the fire pot will make an unsuccessful attempt successful if used strategically?

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General Gaming / Re: Shocktober 7: NWR 3D

« on: October 08, 2026, 10:35:38 AM »

Some more specific advice I'd give is to make sure you thoroughly explore the area you start the game in as well as the southern continent before advancing to the castle up north for your first legacy dungeon and pair of bosses. A lot of early players run to the objective early on and get immediately wiped out by Margit the Fell Omen, who guards the first dungeon.

Regarding Margit, there is an item you can obtain from an NPC named "Patches" if you find and do his quest line in an early cave dungeon IIRC somewhere around the starting area. This re-usable item will lock Margit in place for a few seconds a few times, so it's a handy way to take him down.

As you expect that is exactly what we did. We made a beeline for the objective and started fighting Margit without leveling up at all. After about 100 attempts I was able to defeat him and just figured that was how hard the game was supposed to be. I don't remember if we met Patches or not but will check that out.

While you shouldn't rush to the castle early on, I DO recommend advancing along the critical path long enough to run into this one lady who's hanging out in a shack in the windy area near the castle, as she will give you several useful items including a jellyfish spirit ash I found immensely useful in the early game. The thing just sits there and tanks damage while dishing out poison damage. IIRC, it's around here that you unlock access to Roundtable Hold, which is where you can upgrade your weapons and armor, too.

Don't **** with the many, MANY dragons in the game until you're comfortable with the combat system, and stick to attacking them on Torrent where possible in hit and run attacks.

Several of the chests in the game are trapped and will teleport you to areas of the map. In particular, there's a chest sitting IIRC just down some steps in the middle of a large field in the early game that teleports you to one of the most dangerous late game regions in the game. If you can just run out of the cave and past the enemies the game teleports you next to, you'll regain the ability to fast travel and from there you can make some decisions. That region of the game contains a lot of powerful equipment if you can just avoid enemies long enough to get it.

While you shouldn't rush to the castle early on, I DO recommend advancing along the critical path long enough to run into this one lady who's hanging out in a shack in the windy area near the castle, as she will give you several useful items including a jellyfish spirit ash I found immensely useful in the early game. The thing just sits there and tanks damage while dishing out poison damage. IIRC, it's around here that you unlock access to Roundtable Hold, which is where you can upgrade your weapons and armor, too.

Yes, we met that NPC and have several spirit ashes, but I am not sure how they work. I get how to fuse them to a weapon but how do you activate their special properties?

We also found Roundtable Hold but the blacksmith there just seemed to be the same as the smithing station early on? I bought some more spells from someone there but can't seem to use them? 

Several of the chests in the game are trapped and will teleport you to areas of the map. In particular, there's a chest sitting IIRC just down some steps in the middle of a large field in the early game that teleports you to one of the most dangerous late game regions in the game. If you can just run out of the cave and past the enemies the game teleports you next to, you'll regain the ability to fast travel and from there you can make some decisions. That region of the game contains a lot of powerful equipment if you can just avoid enemies long enough to get it.

Yeah, I definitely got sucked into that trap. It wasn't too bad but I could tell I wasn't ready for that area. Thanks for all this advice it is very helpful. I am trying not to look anything up online so as not too just spoil the game.

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General Gaming / Re: Shocktober 7: NWR 3D

« on: October 06, 2026, 10:54:22 AM »

While I am no closer to wrapping any games up, It seems like a great time to chime in on Elden Ring since there is no way I will finish it this month. I am playing this on PS5 with my partner. All the praise this game gets had me interested but my partner was actually the one that insisted we get it. As Evan_B mentions it is very fitting for Shocktober.

But I have been sinking an unruly amount of time into Elden Ring and I do agree that some of its boss animations and statistics are unhinged and made me resort to cheese too often. That game is macabre enough to feel fitting for the month.

I think so far the art, characters, and environments are my favorite part. There are some very frightening and grotesque beings in the game. I captured a few in the pictures below. As everyone knows the combat is strict and I haven't had the discipline to get good with the parrying yet. At this point I am about 20 hours in and still just focusing on powering up the character with equipment and leveling. It seems like it is just going to get harder from here on out. Any advice is welcome 

...or Melenia from Elden Ring (which is a truly bullshit boss).

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General Gaming / Re: Shocktober 7: NWR 3D

« on: October 03, 2026, 02:51:20 PM »

I wasn't sure how popular or successful Onimusha would be but sounds like it is doing alright. I think Capcom released some positive sales results and it even got a 10 from IGN. I guess focusing on making the combat and boss fights solid covered for the flaws with others as well. I heard from someone on a podcast that they did quit on that final boss. Do you know what your total play time was?

I have really been struggling to finish games ever since August and being in the middle of Fire Emblem is not helping. I should still be able to report on a few I am playing. I am also looking at a Luigi's Mansion game for the month.

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General Gaming / Shocktober 7: NWR 3D

« on: September 30, 2026, 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: September 30, 2026, 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: September 30, 2026, 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.