Messages

151

General Gaming / Re: Games Beaten, Completed, or Played in 2021

« on: January 06, 2022, 04:33:18 PM »

Well I only played the Switch in 2021 so every game on this list was the Switch version or on a collection of classic games on the Switch that contained these games.  Sorry but I won't give review numbers to the games I've beaten since many I can't really decide what score I'd give.  I'd prefer to just give my thoughts if asked about a certain game instead of labeling all of them with a number that might not accurately describe how I really felt.

Games I finished for the first time

Y's Origin
Yoku's Island Express
Jotun   
Owlboy   
Splasher   
Moonlighter   
The Way Remastered   
Wild Guns Reloaded 
Wild Guns (SNES Version) 
Y's VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA 
Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows 
Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment 
Doom 64
Doom (2016)
Doom 3 
Steam World Heist
Cosmic Star Heroine
Blaster Master Zero 3
Onimusha: Warlords 
Hyper Light Drifter 
Guacamelee 2 
Flashback   
Super Hydorah   
Metroid Dread   
Okami HD   
Xenoblade 2   
Astral Chain   
Broforce   

Games I've already finished in previous years but replayed again

Donkey Kong County   
Donkey Kong Country 2   
Donkey Kong Country 3   
Super Mario World   
Yoshi's Island   
Mega Man   
Mega Man 2   
Mega Man 3   
Mega Man 4   
Mega Man 5   
Mega Man 6   
Mega Man 7
Mega Man 8
Mega Man 9
Mega Man 10
Mega Man 11
Shovel Knight: Shovel of Hope
Blaster Master Zero 2
Castlevania 3
Super Metroid

Games I played that I enjoyed, but didn't finish because either I'm not good at the genre or certain aspects frustrated me too much to bother finishing them

Furi
Iron Crypticle 
GoNNer
Enter the Gungeon
Gradius
R-Type (I just can't beat the final fucking boss)   
Crypt of the NecroDancer
Sundered
Lumines Remastered
Superbeat: Xonic
Vasara
Thumper
Joe and Mac

Games I played but didn't finish because they were so boring I couldn't make it more then a few hours before I wanted to fall asleep

Snake Pass
Bastion
Pankapu
Shovel Knight: King of Cards
Transitor
Yooka-Laylee
Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair

152

NWR Forums Discord / Re: Safe Words 18: Another Jamie Oliver Cooking Show. Round 5.

« on: January 02, 2022, 10:12:11 AM »

153

NWR Forums Discord / Re: Safe Words 18: Another Jamie Oliver Cooking Show. Round 5.

« on: January 01, 2022, 04:02:00 PM »

It's New Years Day and I'm coked out of my mind.  It's time to reveal my terrible secret.  I'm a disgusting pervert that has sex with food when it comes out the oven.  That's how I'm always burning me nuts.

You better call security right now because when that rosti is done, you're going to have a major problem on your hands.

154

Nintendo Gaming / Re: What will Nintendo release in 2022?

« on: January 01, 2022, 03:40:19 PM »

I need to just keep my predictions short, trying to put too much keeps costing me points in previous years.

1.  Metroid Prime 4 will finally have a reveal trailer, but then be listed as a 2023 release.

2.  A remake of a previous Fire Emblem game will be released later this year. 

3.  The rumored Toyko EAD Donkey Kong game will come out later this year.

4.  Xenoblade 3 will be announced but will have a 2023 release date.

5.  The rumors now say there was never a Metroid Prime Trilogy HD but instead Retro has been remastering the first Metroid Prime.  There seems to be enough smoke coming from this that I'll say Metroid Prime 1 will be coming to the Switch this year.  Whether it's considered a remake or remaster, Switch owners will at least get to play the first Prime game this year.

6.  Pikmin 4 will finally be revealed.

7.  Good Feel will make a new Wario Land game again.

8.  A new 2D Zelda using the Links Awakening remake engine will be revealed, but will have a 2013 release date.

9.  A new 2D Mario will be revealed this year and will be their big Spring 2013 game.  Nintendo is probably hoping the Mario movie at the end of this year will be a huge hit, and will want the first new 2D Mario in a decade to come out shortly after in March of 2013.

10.  Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD will either be announced in the next few months and be out by June, or they won't come out until at least second half of 2023.  Breath of the Wild 2 will be Nintendo's big holiday title but they don't want to risk any thing similar taking attention away, so if they don't come out at least 6 months before Breath of the Wild 2, it'll be 6 months after.  This is the same reason I believe the rumored Xenoblade 3 will be a 2023 release, since I doubt Nintendo wants another one of their open world games taking any attention from Zelda and if Xenoblade 3 was going to come out in the first half of this year it would have probably been announced by now.

155

NWR Mafia Games / Re: Mafia LXXXVIII: Pikmin Mafia. Sign-up Thread.

« on: December 31, 2021, 09:23:32 PM »

In

156

General Gaming / Re: Deadline December 2021!

« on: December 31, 2021, 09:20:22 PM »

Managed to get one more big game in by the end of the year and even had enough time left to do an indie as well.

Astral Chain

Finally bought the game during the eShop Thanksgiving sale last month, since I had always been interested in it from the trailers.  Finished the game earlier this week and really enjoyed it overall.  Played it on the PT Standard mode but didn't go for S+ like AJBungle did.  I originally was going to go back and replay levels to get higher ranks and get all photo's, but by the time I finished the main story I was burned out.

My biggest problem is the game is just too long for what it has to offer.  The combat is fun, but not as deep as Bayonetta and The Wonderful 101.  It's also lacking in enemy variety, despite the database saying it has over 160 enemies, most are just reskins of existing ones.  By the end of the game I was enjoying the detective and exploration aspects more then the actual combat sections.

Still a nice first entry in a new IP, and would like to see what a more polished sequel would be able to do.  Especially when the game introduces a new element to the combat literally at the very end that I think has the potential to really expand the combat in a future installment.


Broforce

Well I still had a few days left so I decided to play something short in my backlog.  Not much to really say about this.  It was a fun action game and I laughed at all the different things the game was parodying.  The level design does start to feel samey after a while but the last few levels get pretty crazy so the game kept me engaged for the 5 hours it took to beat it.

157

NWR Forums Discord / Re: Safe Words 18: Another Jamie Oliver Cooking Show. Round 4.

« on: December 28, 2021, 11:00:46 AM »

Not trying to be chef-y here so everything looks good to me.  I'll just be sitting in the corner trying to finish more Switch games by the end of deadline December since it doesn't look like there's any problems we need to worry about with this salad.

158

NWR Forums Discord / Re: Safe Words 18: Another Jamie Oliver Cooking Show. Round 3.

« on: December 23, 2021, 09:42:18 AM »

It's cold outside so I'll just stay in my house with all you lovely people at home.

159

General Gaming / Re: Deadline December 2021!

« on: December 20, 2021, 02:02:11 PM »

I just recently attempted once again to get through this game, and I stopped playing at Chapter 4 because I Just reached a point where I kind of don't care anymore. I think the game's biggest problem is the Gacha nature of the Blade system. You pull so many Blades, and if you don't draw a rare Blade or at least one with rare passive abilities, you might as well trash it and try again. Then you have to level them all up through incredibly arbitrary ways. And you might not even pull a Blade that's suitable for the character that pulled it, so you have to use a limited resource to reassign them. And you're constantly needing to equip and unequip them whenever you run into skill checks in the world. It's just too much, and at this point I just don't care. It's not like the story is going anywhere fast, either.

Oh I agree the Blade system is a mess and the developers really didn't think it through that well.  But focusing on the Blades the game gives you naturally was enough for me to get through the main game.  Plus I don't want to spoil much but toward the last few chapters, the story gives Rex 2 Blades that end up being so overpowered that there's no point in him using anything else after that.  I also found Tora to be the much better tank character since he can have such a large amount of HP, and if you keep putting an item that gives him a 25% damage barrier to max HP in his pouch all the time, it's almost impossible for him to die.  Of course the Tiger Tiger minigame to power up Poppi is dumb.  The later levels in that mini game are so damn cheap that it end up being quicker to just replay the first level over and over again since it's the easiest one to gain crystals to buy better parts for her.

It's kind of weird how the game makes a big deal out of Blades and wants you to have a ton of them, but by the end of it, the best ones end up being a few the game gives you anyway.  Unless someone is trying to go for 100% on all side quest, it just doesn't seem worth it to me.

On the story though, yeah your going to be out of luck on that one.  I personally didn't think the story became interesting until the last few chapters, but then the game suddenly shoves a ton of cutscenes and flashbacks down your throat as well.  It's a very badly paced story where you have things moving at a snails pace for much of the game then suddenly things go from 0 to 100 at the end.

160

General Gaming / Re: Deadline December 2021!

« on: December 19, 2021, 01:18:51 PM »

Earlier this week I finished Xenoblade 2 which was the oldest game in my Switch backlog.  I bought it back in March of 2018, but have kept putting it off since the previous Xenoblade game were so long.  Well I finally decided it was time last month and managed to beat it in around 77 hours, which is much quicker then the previous Xenoblades took me.  This time around I decided not to focus on doing every sidequest I could which made things go much quicker.  It also made the main game more enjoyable since I wasn't overleveled as **** and had to actually use real strategy to beat some of the bosses this time.

Of course it's rather annoying that the game didn't do a better job of explaining it's combat system.  The last boss of Chapter 5 kept killing me over and over until I realized my characters were taking damage from touching it and I was like WTF.  Then I go online and read that's called Spike damage and you need to equip to minimize that damage, but the game never once even told me this was a thing before this boss fight.  I guess if I would have done every side quest possible one of them might have told me about it, but come on, that was a rather dick move to do halfway through the game.

The elemental combo system also could have been explained better since the tutorial does a shitty job of explaining it as well.  I found an explanation online that explained it much better then the game did, and it really improved my enjoyment after I realized how it worked properly.

Plus some of the level design is rather questionable.  Some places make it way too easy to aggro a much stronger enemy if you attack some of the normal ones and it gets really annoying after a while.  I found it easier to just run to the boss of area then trying to engage the enemies on the way to the boss since quite a few area's love to cheap shot your ass with either higher leveled assholes suddenly showing up or a dozen regular ones come out of nowhere and attack your characters at once resulting in instant death as well.  I don't remember the first Xenoblade or X being anywhere as bad in this regard, of course that might just be because I was doing way more sidequest and might have just been overleveled in those games and didn't notice it. 

Oh well, other then those issues the rest of the game was a blast.  I'll eventually go back to play the Torna prequel DLC and maybe try more of the sidequest, but I'll stop for now to avoid getting burned out.

161

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Nintendo Switch 2021 Statistics!

« on: December 19, 2021, 12:34:16 PM »

Once again I stepped up my game this year compared to last.

54 games played in 2021 compared to 48 games in 2020.

755 hours played in 2021 so far compared to 655 hours in 2020.  The website is constantly updating since this number was actually at 742 when I first saw the stats earlier this week, so by the end of the year I actually might break the 800 hour mark.

Top 3 games were

1. Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana: 85 hours

2. Xenoblade 2:  77 hours

3. Super NES Online:  74 hours

Most active day was Sunday May 30th where I put 8 hours into Ys VIII that day.

So yeah, it was a pretty productive year.  These numbers will probably be much lower next year since in 2022 I hope to finally go back and finish off my 3DS backlog, since I haven't played that system since Fall 2018.  Still got quite a few big RPG's on the 3DS I'd like to finally do which will probably cut a few hundred hours off the Switch next year.

162

NWR Forums Discord / Re: Safe Words 18: Another Jamie Oliver Cooking Show. Game Launch Thread!

« on: December 15, 2021, 10:40:47 PM »

I'll take Everyday Super Food

For a super dude like me

163

NWR Forums Discord / Re: Safe Words 18: Another Jamie Oliver Cooking Show. Sign-up Thread!

« on: December 14, 2021, 12:05:28 PM »

Got nothing better to do.

In

164

NWR Mafia Games / Re: Mafia 87: Harvest Moon - Seasons of Mafia Town. Year 6.

« on: November 29, 2021, 11:38:31 AM »

Argh! Congrats to the mafia on the win!

I knew it was Insano and Perm at the end, but like RSS said, we didn't get LuigiDude or decide until it was too late. The voting on the last day revealed that it couldn't be both Wah and Insano, with Perm willingly going for LD, it meant they might not both be mafia, but Perm's vote came after the 2-2 tie. Insano was the only one without an alibi, but Perm's aliby was coming up townie, so it was always a gamble that he'd be the godfather.

I was literally in the middle of sending RSS a message yesterday saying I'd vote for ThePerm if you two voted for him as well but then Kush closed the topic right before I could send the message.  RSS sent me the message about going after ThePerm right literally a few minutes after I went to play Xenoblade 2 and I lost track of time.

If RSS had either sent the plan to go after ThePerm just a few minutes earlier, or I waited a few minutes before playing Xenoblade 2, we probably would have won since I told him I leaning toward Insanolord more likely to be a goon then Wah, so Insanolord would have been eliminated the next day.

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NWR Mafia Games / Re: Mafia 87: Harvest Moon - Seasons of Mafia Town. Year 5.

« on: November 27, 2021, 08:51:08 AM »

Well the Panda and Yak hybrid was born this morning.  I'll call it a Pandak.  It has the body of a Yak, but the face and paws of a Panda.  It can survive on the Tomato's and Sweet Potato's I bought earlier.  Once again it's only $100 for a ticket to see it.

Of course now that I was successful in creating such a creature, this is only the beginning.  This town is about to become world famous.  Lots of money coming soon that the rest of you could enjoy as well if you stop killing each other every night.

166

NWR Mafia Games / Re: Mafia 87: Harvest Moon - Seasons of Mafia Town. Year 4.

« on: November 25, 2021, 12:56:02 PM »

Good news everyone, I've successfully crossbred my Panda and Yak to create a new hybrid.  For just $100 a ticket, you and your families can witness this miracle of nature.

167

TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Issues Internal Response To Serial Harassment Of Activision Blizzard Employees

« on: November 25, 2021, 10:50:20 AM »

This is probably prevalent throughout the industry. I can't imagine Activision/Blizzard being an isolated case. I wonder what type of stuff is going on at western companies like Bungie, EA, Infinity Ward, Take-Two, Naughty-Dog, Bethesda, and Ubisoft.  Not to mention what goes on at Japanese companies. If I remember correctly there was a big sexual harassment case over at Team Ninja a few years ago.

Ubisoft got busted last year so its indeed common throughout the industry.  But in Activision's case though they took it to another level where the actual culture at the company was encouraging men to do this stuff.  That's why the harassment at Activision was so much more wide spread then other companies we know about.

Of course with reports that Bobby Kotick threatened to have a former employee killed, it's no surprise this entire company is rotten to its core.  With someone like that running the show is it any surprise the people right below him would have questionable morals as well. 

168

NWR Mafia Games / Re: Mafia 87: Harvest Moon - Seasons of Mafia Town. Year 3.

« on: November 22, 2021, 09:46:53 AM »

I'll buy some Sweet Potato's.  Lots of food I can make with those.  I'll also buy some Blue Rose flowers.  Those will look nice outside my house.

169

NWR Mafia Games / Re: Mafia 87: Harvest Moon - Seasons of Mafia Town. Year 2.

« on: November 20, 2021, 08:52:58 AM »

I'll take a Green Bell Pepper, a Turtle and a Yak.

170

NWR Mafia Games / Re: Mafia 87: Harvest Moon - Seasons of Mafia Town. Day 1.

« on: November 18, 2021, 10:22:14 AM »

I'll buy some Tomato's as well.  Lots of good food can be made with those.

I'll also take a Lobster as well.

171

NWR Mafia Games / Re: Mafia 87: Harvest Moon - Seasons of Mafia Town. Day 1.

« on: November 17, 2021, 10:11:37 AM »

I'll take a Panda.  Everyone loves Panda's and after I've breed a few, will pay me big bucks to see them.

172

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Metroid Dread

« on: November 16, 2021, 02:07:19 PM »

I have a feeling Luigi Dude may also no longer see this game as a hardcore Metroid experience anymore.

Well if you just trying to play it normally, it's still harder then Super, Fusion, Zero Mission and Returns since normal enemies are more aggressive and the bosses can kill you pretty fast if your not careful.  Only the final half of Returns with bosses like Diggernaut, Metroid Queen and Spoiler even come close to what Dread is offering on just a regular playthrough.

But yeah, nothing in this game compares to Zero Missions low percentage runs which still take the cake for hardest 2D Metroid experience that's an official requirement to unlock something.  Or trying to get 100% in Fusion and Zero Mission in under 2 Hours is also harder since there's little room for error.  I don't quite think it's fair to compare it to the Prime games since the gameplay is completely different, but I do agree that the Prime 2 and Prime 3 on their hardest modes are harder games, but that's a challenging FPS gameplay, vs a challenging 2D gameplay.

I do agree that on my second playthrough of Normal to get the under 4 hour reward and my playthrough of Hard to also get under 4 hours it was a much easier experience.  The Slide and Flash Shift are very important tools for dodging that I didn't use as much my first playthrough but used them all the time on my second and that made a huge difference.  Because previous Metroids game didn't have them it's easy for people including myself at first not to really use them since we're not used to them.  But on my second playthrough it became very clear that many of the games more aggressive enemies and bosses kind of want you to use these abilities to dodge.

The other major ability that I didn't realize was as useful was the Storm Missiles.  I though just spamming missiles would be quicker like previous Metroids but my second playthrough I realized just how much more powerful a fully locked on Storm Missile attack is.  This is why the game even tries to teach players by having you fight 2 Chozo Robots at once right after you get this ability.  If you fully lock on to them with the Storm Missles it completely destroys them much quicker then trying to shoot them with regular missiles.  It's the games way of telling players they should be using these for tougher enemies for now on.  Using these made the fight against Experiment Z and the Final Boss go much quicker this time as well.

Still, even though the game is much easier once you fully master what it offers, I'm still pleased with the end result.  Still a very engaging experience from beginning to end that will be fun to replay from time to time.

173

TalkBack / Re: The Actual Problem With The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword's Combat

« on: November 16, 2021, 01:25:06 PM »

Not played it since it was released on Wii, but I wasn't aware that you could climb the shield.

If you lock on to the Moblins and have Fi analyze them she'll tell you climbing their shields is the best way to fight them.  I even found a clip on Youtube where somebody does just that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyHCZCpLgyA

I know people loved to complain about Fi, but as a combat tool she does give good advice on the fastest way to beat enemies.  When the player uses her advice the Moblin in the above clip goes down in about 15 seconds.  If I was playing I could have done that in less then 10 seconds since the player didn't turn around fast enough to start hitting after they first ran up the shield and they ran back a little further then they needed to before climbing it the second time.

Either way it's still much faster then waiting to parry like the author is doing in the gif they posted in the article.

It does show how tricky tutorializing things can be though: how much do you need to hold the hands of players who don't figure out visual cues? One could argue that the hated tutorials that open Skyward Sword are inevitable because some people need the help.

Yeah this is why I can't exactly blame Nintendo for being so cautious in the original Wii release.  Even with all the tutorials and interruptions, there's still things I see people don't realize they can do in Skyward Sword that make the experience flow a lot better.

174

TalkBack / Re: The Actual Problem With The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword's Combat

« on: November 15, 2021, 10:01:34 AM »

Yeah, sometimes you have to do it more than once. But there's no waiting involved. And the writer seems to have been unaware of it.

Aside from the electric blob things, there's not all that much waiting involved in the combat.

Yeah I've played Skyward Sword several times and most enemies die in a few seconds.  Even bosses go down pretty fast once you know their weakness.  This entire articles is complete hyperbole **** that I'd expect from a random Gamefaqs or ResetEra post.  What's next, are we going to get an article next week about how Super Mario Bros is too slow because the author forgot to use the run button.

175

NWR Mafia Games / Re: Mafia LXXXVII: Harvest Moon - Seasons of Mafia Town Sign-up Thread.

« on: October 30, 2021, 06:08:05 PM »

In