Topic: BacklAugust 2024! (Forums Are Dead Edition)

[Khushrenada]

Holy crap-oli!

It's over a week into August and it just hit me that normally we should be doing BacklAugust at this point. Ugh! Just a sign of how gaming has really decreased for me even more this year as I put my time into other things. And not posting regularly on here has also had an effect.

So, is there anyone out there that's still playing games and wants to dominate this month by completing a few games? Check on in and make a post about it. Anyone still want to achieve a goal of completing something before the month runs out? Talk about it here. There's still 2/3rds of August left so still time to make something of the month before the summer is almost over.

Last year was the lowest total of beat/completed games at 36. With this delayed start, I'm guessing we'll probably see a final number lower than that but maybe I'm wrong and there's still time to stun the world with a strong gaming finish. Just how dead are the forums one year later?

[broodwars]

I was wondering if we were going to do one of these, and as it so happens I have one to add to the pile already: Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony (PS4), which I just finished a few nights ago.

This one's been in my backlog for years, essentially because the 1st case of this game REALLY pissed me off at the time, both because it lies to the player in a MYSTERY game and because it fridges a potentially interesting female character to further a lesser dude's story arc.

This game...is hard to talk about in this setting, because this game is incredibly polarizing in the Danganronpa fanbase explicitly due to its final case: the game's ending. Maybe it's because I already knew the big twist going in BECAUSE it pissed so many people off (and maybe it's because I knew the main storyline got a mediocre anime conclusion), but I'm actually pretty OK with the ending despite it basically being 3-4 hours of the developers raising their middle fingers at the Danganronpa fanbase and telling them how much they hate them.

No, I'm not exaggerating about that in the slightest. The final case of Danganronpa V3 is the staff airing their grievances with the Danganronpa fanbase, basically calling them bloodthirsty psychotics that force them to make games they didn't want to make anymore.

And then this same team went on to make Master Detective Archives: Rain Code (and a lot of the same staff worked on the Akudama Drive anime), so that sentiment was full of ****.

Perhaps I'm also not pissed off because I found the rest of the game extremely "safe" as far as this series goes. Lot of recycling tropes and ideas from other games, only much less interesting this time with much less compelling characters. As fucking nuts as the final case is, at least the game was doing something NEW and interesting for once.

I'm glad to finally have the game out of my backlog, but it's not a game I like very much. IMO, this series very much peaked with the 1st entry, and it just got ridiculous and "Kingdom Hearts-y" as it went along.

[M.K.Ultra]

Glad to see this is still happening. Thanks Khushrenada for starting the topic. I am working on about five games right now so hopefully I will have something to contribute soon.

[DigitalGreenTea]

Working on Luigi's Mansion 2 HD and Paper Mario TTYD at the moment!
Also might play Super Catboy, that looks like a great 16 high-bit pixel art action platformer.

[broodwars]

Working on Luigi's Mansion 2 HD and Paper Mario TTYD at the moment!
Also might play Super Catboy, that looks like a great 16 high-bit pixel art action platformer.

Funny that you should bring up the Switch version of Paper Mario TTYD, because I just rolled credits on it. Overall, I still like the game, and the addition of the warp pipe room makes this game SO much more playable than the original version (if you did the Troubles or remember General White, you know why). That said, Chapter 3 (aka the Wrestling Chapter) is still fucking awful, and that last boss fight is an utter slog. I remembered it being one of the hardest boss fights Nintendo's ever made, and I still stand by that now after it took my entire inventory to take down. It's just an utter battle of attrition, which gets tedious as you just repeat the same actions over and over again.

Not gonna bother with some of the new post-game boss fights Nintendo added because I really don't care.

[Luigi Dude]

I was hoping to get quite a few games done this August.  I started playing Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition, in the later half of July.  I was hoping I could finish it by the first half of this month and then move on to several smaller games but things haven't worked out.  At the beginning of last week a storm knocked a tree on top of my garage which had me dealing with things that didn't leave time for gaming.  And then at the end of last week, I had an 11 year old cat die, which really made me depressed.  So yeah, this has not been a good month for me.

I did start playing again the last few days so hopefully I'll be able to at least finish Tales of Vesperia by the end of the month.

[broodwars]

I was hoping to get quite a few games done this August.  I started playing Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition, in the later half of July.  I was hoping I could finish it by the first half of this month and then move on to several smaller games but things haven't worked out.  At the beginning of last week a storm knocked a tree on top of my garage which had me dealing with things that didn't leave time for gaming.  And then at the end of last week, I had an 11 year old cat die, which really made me depressed.  So yeah, this has not been a good month for me.

I did start playing again the last few days so hopefully I'll be able to at least finish Tales of Vesperia by the end of the month.

I started playing Vesperia many years ago on the 360, but put it down because of other games going on at a time. One of these days, I'm finally going to get around to playing my copy of the Vesperia remaster...and the Symphonia remaster (though at least I've played the original there)...and Xillia 1 & 2...and finish Graces F's epilogue....and finish Hearts...and play Beseria...and play Zestiria...and play Arise...and play the Arise DLC...

Yeah, when it comes to my gaming collection, the Tales series is my dump stat. They're all so long and so complicated that I never feel like jumping into one of them. Doesn't help that I only particularly liked Phantasia & Symphonia (of which there is only one, and don't you dare suggest otherwise).

[Khushrenada]

I was hoping to get quite a few games done this August.  I started playing Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition, in the later half of July.  I was hoping I could finish it by the first half of this month and then move on to several smaller games but things haven't worked out.  At the beginning of last week a storm knocked a tree on top of my garage which had me dealing with things that didn't leave time for gaming.  And then at the end of last week, I had an 11 year old cat die, which really made me depressed.  So yeah, this has not been a good month for me.

I did start playing again the last few days so hopefully I'll be able to at least finish Tales of Vesperia by the end of the month.

Ugh. My condolences to you. That's an awful one-two punch you received there. I hope things go better for your second half of August.

[broodwars]

Thought I'd get one of the Supermassive Until Dawn clones out of my backlog, so I rolled through The Quarry.

Eh, it's OK. It's certainly better than I've seen out of this team's Dark Pictures series (the blessings of length certainly help there, as it allows the story to have proper build-up the Dark Pictures games don't get), but without getting into spoilers it is really kinda pathetic how obvious this game is at copying not only the Until Dawn formula, but its script as well. Supermassive also REALLY needs to update their performance capture tech, because they seem to have been using the same tech since the (originally meant for PS3) Until Dawn 9 years ago and characters look really super Uncanny Valley now (especially the teeth).

If you're going to hang the fate of your entire game on your tech, then your tech needs to not look as bad as it does here at times.

[M.K.Ultra]

And then at the end of last week, I had an 11 year old cat die, which really made me depressed.  So yeah, this has not been a good month for me.

I am sorry to hear about your cat. I have lost quite a few in my time and it is never easy.

[M.K.Ultra]

With all the excitement of the 2024 Olympic games in Paris I decided to finally get around to playing Mario and Sonic at Rio 2016 Olympic Games on Wii U. This is the second Mario and Sonic Olympics game on Wii U, following the Sochi 2014 game. There is also a 3DS version of the Rio game but I have not played or bought that.

There is a lot to enjoy with this Olympic themed mini-game compilation. The game is beautiful in terms of graphics, both character designs and Rio backgrounds, and the music. There are lots of collectibles (awards, tips, flags, and stamps) that are fun to collect, though there are some gotcha systems in play. I also found the slow unlocking of characters and modes to be rewarding for single player play. There are some options for 2-4 player couch co-op but I have not touched them. The hub for the game is the famous Copacabana beach in Rio and you get to run around and talk to other Mii's, who give you the aforementioned flags and tips. They also give you a fun fact about the country when you get a flag. I actually had a lot of fun collecting flags and learning about countries around the world. The mini-games themselves are pretty solid with nice short lengths and tight controls. My favorite events were probably 4x100m Relay and BMX. There are even some Duel events that take football, rugby, and volleyball and make them less realistic and more like arcade game sports.

When you first start you just play single events using the Mario and Sonic characters until you get five medals and can unlock the tournament mode, which appears to be the main part of the game. However, in the tournament mode you only play as Mii's, so for most of this game I wasn't playing with any of the Mario and Sonic characters   Another strange design choice is the control options. As far as I can tell you have to play this game with the Gamepad for player 1 and then Wiimotes for additional players. But, the controls used for the games are only simple button presses, so none of the gamepad's features (e.g., touch screen) are used. I thought the Sochi game had some nice gamepad use and was looking forward to more of that so that was a little disappointing. 

Once you get enough medals in the tournaments you unlock the Hero's Showdown mode where you can go back to using the Mario and Sonic characters in a tournament style series of randomly chosen events. This was pretty fun and once I beat that and had gold medals in each tournament for Level 1 I considered the game beat (for now). There is still plenty to do, mostly repeating everything at a higher difficulty level, but that will probably happen in 2028 when the games come to LA. Who knows, I might even pick up the 2020 Tokyo game by then  .

[Mop it up]

I've been kinda busy so I'm checking in late I know, but I had gotten around to a game earlier this month. It was a little later than the closing ceremonies of the real Olympics I s'pose, but I've wrapped up Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. I had seen that it contains a story mode so I figured I could play through that to consider the game completed. And I've gotta say...

...I probably shoulda just watched the Olympics instead. The story mode contains way too much blabbering for how little interesting it has to say. I get that I should know what I'm getting myself into with a "story mode" of a game, but the ratio of cutscenes-to-gameplay here is extremely out of whack. It probably averages 15-20 minutes of inane dialogue just to be thrown into an event that typically lasts 1-2 minutes. It sort of feels like playing a visual novel that gets interrupted by a random minigame now and then.

This is probably because it was developed by Sega, but I felt like there was a bit of a disparity in how the story treated the two main protagonists of Luigi and Tails. Tails gets to do the fun stuff like scale Tokyo Tower; snipe Eggbots with a bow; punch Shy Guys in the face; etc., while Luigi is getting absolutely bodied in events like Karate, Boxing, Rugby, etc. Poor guy can just never catch a break...

The game doesn't have much else to offer either, as the only other option is to just play single events individually. No competition modes or anything to tie stuff together, and no extras like a shop. This series has always been a little questionable, but I don't think this one matches up to even previous entries in the series.

I would probably rate this game a Big Oof out of 10.

[broodwars]

Been picking away at this one for a while now, but I just rolled credits on Song of Horror, a particularly unique survival horror game that feels very inspired by Eternal Darkness., albeit primarily inspired by Lovecraft.

This game is extremely intense, especially in the first 2 (of 5) episodes. You play as a series of characters that literally hear a song that should not be heard, cursing them to be eternally hunted by an Eldrich incarnation of Darkness known as The Presence. In gameplay terms, you explore classic survival horror-style puzzle box environments, solving puzzles and obtaining clues. Meanwhile, the Presence AI stalks you. The Presence cannot be killed, and it cannot be stopped. It can only be beaten back temporarily. I realize that's obviously a very "Lovecraft" sort of tone, but I definitely felt elements of Japanese horror as well. Death is inevitable. It's just a matter of how long you can last.

For instance, you may be walking down a hallway, and suddenly it will appear as countless bony hands attempting to rip open a nearby door, whereupon you have to quickly run to the door and slam it shut using a combination of built up strength and timing your slams. Other times, The Presence will start to flood the area you're in with Darkness, forcing you to quickly find a hiding spot and calm your nerves as the legion of hands around you scream. Other times, you might just be treated to a "blink and you'll miss it" jump scare or Eternal Darkness-style hallucination. Sometimes, it'll just park itself on the other side of a door, and if you're not listening at the door to see if it's there, you'll be in for a surprise when you open that door.

Suffice it to say, The Presence delights in fucking with you, and until near the end of the game I didn't find its manifestations too frequent on the default difficulty level, though apparently the encounter rate is obscene on the highest difficulty.

However, there's a distinct twist to all this: every encounter with The Presence is lethal. If you fail a mini-game or you walk into a room where The Presence is waiting, that character is dead. Thy story is over. Turn in your character sheet.

This lends the game a delightful, but exhausting, tension that you just don't see in games all that often...but it did mean I had to confine my playtime to at most 1 episode a night. I also think the puzzles in this game are pretty badly designed after the 2nd episode, so a guide is strongly recommended. This was this developer's 1st game, and it very much shows it.

Overall, I strongly recommend Song of Horror if you're into this sort of thing. The atmosphere is just superb...but it caters to very particular tastes.

[M.K.Ultra]

I was able to get the "Bad End" in Bubble Bobble which I was playing on the NES Classic Edition. I had not played this game before and it is indeed a very playable NES game. The graphics are simple but decent for the NES. The game consists of one screen rooms where you need to defeat all the enemies, typically but spitting a bubble onto them and then popping it. There are 99 of these rooms in the main game and the first 50 or so are pretty easy. They do get more difficult and I found the challenge enjoyable. You get three lives, but you have unlimited continues and you can restart at each room so it is very doable to beat this game without save states or cheats. There are a variety of enemies and power ups to keep things interesting including an umbrella that has you skips over about five stages.
If you are playing solo as I was then after stage 99 you have a cool final boss fight and get the bad ending. If you have two players you can find a secret exit in stage 99 and get about 20 more levels and then fight the boss and get the good ending. I have a save at stage 99 in case I get the opportunity to have someone help with that coop only part of the game.
I just looked and it does not appear that Bubble Bobble is included on the list of NSO NES games. However, you can but the arcade game, which is probably much better, as an Arcade Archives release.

[Luigi Dude]

Ugh. My condolences to you. That's an awful one-two punch you received there. I hope things go better for your second half of August.

I am sorry to hear about your cat. I have lost quite a few in my time and it is never easy.

Thank you, I appreciate that.

Yeah, when it comes to my gaming collection, the Tales series is my dump stat. They're all so long and so complicated that I never feel like jumping into one of them. Doesn't help that I only particularly liked Phantasia & Symphonia (of which there is only one, and don't you dare suggest otherwise).

This is actually the first Tales games I've every played and it's kind of making me not want to play any of the other because of this reason.  I'll save my full thoughts for when I finally beat the game but right now, this game has been going on far longer than it has any right to.  Other games that go on too long at least give new gameplay to spice things up, but this game hasn't done anything to change up the gameplay in over 40 hours now.  I was playing on Hard mode for much of this game, but I've recently turned down the difficulty to make fights go faster because I'm just so burned out.

[broodwars]

Ugh. My condolences to you. That's an awful one-two punch you received there. I hope things go better for your second half of August.

I am sorry to hear about your cat. I have lost quite a few in my time and it is never easy.

Thank you, I appreciate that.

Yeah, when it comes to my gaming collection, the Tales series is my dump stat. They're all so long and so complicated that I never feel like jumping into one of them. Doesn't help that I only particularly liked Phantasia & Symphonia (of which there is only one, and don't you dare suggest otherwise).

This is actually the first Tales games I've every played and it's kind of making me not want to play any of the other because of this reason.  I'll save my full thoughts for when I finally beat the game but right now, this game has been going on far longer than it has any right to.  Other games that go on too long at least give new gameplay to spice things up, but this game hasn't done anything to change up the gameplay in over 40 hours now.  I was playing on Hard mode for much of this game, but I've recently turned down the difficulty to make fights go faster because I'm just so burned out.

If you play another Tales game, I highly recommend Symphonia (especially if your only other Tales game is Vesperia, which is similarly styled). But from what I've heard, don't play the game on Switch. Every other version of the remaster apparently runs fine, but Symphonia on Switch was apparently a REALLY bad port.

That said, I can tell you that Symphonia kinda set the bar of all Tales games being 100+ hours long. IIRC, Arise does buck that trend, though.

[M.K.Ultra]

I've been kinda busy so I'm checking in late I know, but I had gotten around to a game earlier this month. It was a little later than the closing ceremonies of the real Olympics I s'pose, but I've wrapped up Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. I had seen that it contains a story mode so I figured I could play through that to consider the game completed. And I've gotta say...

...I probably shoulda just watched the Olympics instead. The story mode contains way too much blabbering for how little interesting it has to say. I get that I should know what I'm getting myself into with a "story mode" of a game, but the ratio of cutscenes-to-gameplay here is extremely out of whack. It probably averages 15-20 minutes of inane dialogue just to be thrown into an event that typically lasts 1-2 minutes. It sort of feels like playing a visual novel that gets interrupted by a random minigame now and then.

This is probably because it was developed by Sega, but I felt like there was a bit of a disparity in how the story treated the two main protagonists of Luigi and Tails. Tails gets to do the fun stuff like scale Tokyo Tower; snipe Eggbots with a bow; punch Shy Guys in the face; etc., while Luigi is getting absolutely bodied in events like Karate, Boxing, Rugby, etc. Poor guy can just never catch a break...

The game doesn't have much else to offer either, as the only other option is to just play single events individually. No competition modes or anything to tie stuff together, and no extras like a shop. This series has always been a little questionable, but I don't think this one matches up to even previous entries in the series.

I would probably rate this game a Big Oof out of 10.

Cool to see someone else was in the Olympics spirit. Truth be told I had no way to watch the games. I think next go around I will just subscribe to Peacock (the streaming service that primarily shows the Olympics in the US) for the month.

That single player mode does sound interesting, having more of a story than the previous games I have played. I remember seeing some footage of a pixel art mode where the characters where all SNES/Mega Drive sprites. Did you come across that?

[Mop it up]

I remember seeing some footage of a pixel art mode where the characters where all SNES/Mega Drive sprites. Did you come across that?

Yeah, that's the premise of the story mode. Mario and Sonic both get trapped in a portable game system, which is an 8-bit version of the Tokyo 1964 Olympic Games, and they have to win gold medals to escape. Meanwhile, Luigi and Tails are left in the regular world and team up to try to help them from the outside however they can. So the chapters swap back and forth between playing the 8-bit games and the regular events.

If you are playing solo as I was then after stage 99 you have a cool final boss fight and get the bad ending. If you have two players you can find a secret exit in stage 99 and get about 20 more levels and then fight the boss and get the good ending. I have a save at stage 99 in case I get the opportunity to have someone help with that coop only part of the game.

That seems like an odd way of locking the true ending, especially for the time period!

[Mop it up]

I recently wrapped up SteamWorld Build (Xbox X|S) for another completion. For some reason I was under the impression that it was a tower defense game, and while it has a very light element of that, it's largely a simulation/resource management type game. As things progress, it constantly throws in one more resource to monitor on top of all the existing ones, like a juggler who keeps getting handed one more bowling pin. The interesting gameplay was digging around in the mines; personally I would have preferred a game that scrapped all the city stuff and instead focused on being an RTS-digger. Overall, I don't think there's anything wrong with SteamWorld Build, it just isn't for me. I would probably give it a rating of trail-mix-with-too-many-raisins out of snacks.

[broodwars]

Well, my LRG copy of the Grandia HD Collection arrived last Friday, so I figured I'd replay an old favorite with Grandia 2 HD.

I originally played the game on PC 20 years ago, so I was looking forward to seeing how it held up, and in general I think it did...but my complaints with the game now are pretty much the same as they were then: this game feels rushed & unfinished, even by the standards of its time. By RPG standards, the game is rather short at 30-40 hours. Under normal circumstances, that would delight me since games these days never seem to know when to shut up and end, but the game achieves his feat by basically being very empty. This game is so linear it makes Final Fantasy X look like an open world game. Towns are full of people to talk to and houses you can go into, but few have anything interesting to say and there's nothing to find. Dungeons/environments are somehow both exceptionally straightforward and yet extremely easy to get lost in since you don't have a map and areas within stages tend to look extremely similar.

While this game has a story (and it's absolutely bonkers, especially for its time), it was designed around its combat encounters and it would really rather you got back to the fighting as soon as possible. The combat system is still one of the most unique I've ever seen in an RPG, with a focus on time management and planning counters to what the enemy is doing. The player also has a truly exceptional amount of control over character growth, since you dictate what moves characters have access to and how strong they get at all times. I just wish there was more to DO in the game except battle, especially towards the end of the game when both you and the enemies are just spamming the same 30+ second FMV spells at each other over...and over...and over...again.

It's worth noting that I played this game on Hard for trophy purposes, because EVEN ON that difficulty this is still an exceptionally easy game. The developers basically give up on trying to balance the game 2/3 of the way in since it's so easy for the player to get overpowered by that point. Most screens in the game feature a save point where you can full heal & refill your SP/MP for free, and the roaming monsters don't easily respawn. That said, the End Game boss gauntlet on Hard is truly absurd, topped off with a Final Boss that gets basically 3 turns for every one of yours; constantly buffs himself; and constantly spams FMV AOEs. I didn't die to him, but it basically took me an hour to kill him because of the sheer number of moves he got compared to me; the length of the spell animations; and how I at best could only attack him with one party member every round since I only had a 3 person party; 1 member always had to heal; and another had to de-buff the boss as best they could. It was just sheer tedium of chipping away at an impossibly large health bar in what's meant to be a triumphant moment.

In general I still quite enjoy Grandia 2. The story is very simplistically-told and full of tropes (as was typical for its time), but it's heartfelt. It swings for the fences in ways that feel very reminiscent of Monolith Soft's work. The HD remaster does an admirable job of looking exactly like I remember that janky PC version being, complete with the wonky audio bugs and inconsistently widescreen-ed FMV spells.

I might get around to playing Grandia 1 HD at some point, but I remember not particularly liking what I played of the PS1 version of that game and I don't have nostalgic attachment to it like I do the sequel (and even Grandia 3, which isn't in this collection but which I have beaten in the past).

I'm considering knocking out the final 2 Dark Pictures games I haven't finished before the end of the month, but otherwise that will probably do it for me.

[Mop it up]

For my final completion of the month, I've finished Death's Door (Xbox X|S). I first heard about it when seeing a lot of people compare it to Tunic, and the two do have some things in common such as their Zelda inspirations and drab, plain art style. The combat is a little more involved and flows better, but still feels tedious at times with the large amount of hits that enemies and bosses take to defeat. The game is more linear than I was expecting, but there's still a little bit of exploration in each area, which I like. Some of the wacky characters belie the serious and dark tone, though the game does seem to treat the subject of death with a certain brand of irreverence. Overall, Tunic has the more interesting premise, but Death's Door has the better gameplay, making them tough to compare. I'd probably rate the game Breadcrumbs out of Feeding Birds.

[broodwars]

For my final completion of the month, I've finished Death's Door (Xbox X|S). I first heard about it when seeing a lot of people compare it to Tunic, and the two do have some things in common such as their Zelda inspirations and drab, plain art style. The combat is a little more involved and flows better, but still feels tedious at times with the large amount of hits that enemies and bosses take to defeat. The game is more linear than I was expecting, but there's still a little bit of exploration in each area, which I like. Some of the wacky characters belie the serious and dark tone, though the game does seem to treat the subject of death with a certain brand of irreverence. Overall, Tunic has the more interesting premise, but Death's Door has the better gameplay, making them tough to compare. I'd probably rate the game Breadcrumbs out of Feeding Birds.

Yes, I completed Death's Door a year or so myself and had much the same issue: strangely punishing difficulty for the kind of game this seemed to want to be, mostly because of spongy enemy health bars (which get even worse if you go for the trophy that has you beating nearly all the game with the .5 damage umbrella, as I did on my 2nd playthrough). Overall, I do think I prefer Death's Door to Tunic because Tunic has pretty much the exact same issue, but Death's Door has more for the player to do. Combat just flat out sucks in Tunic.

It looks like I probably won't get to finishing House of Ashes and The Devil In Me before the end of the month due to some family stuff going on, but I did accidentally roll credits on something I was picking away at last month: the Side Order DLC for Splatoon 3. I had mostly made my way up the Tower of Order last month, but got stuck on the final boss and his cheap eye beam move spam. Yesterday, on my lunch hour, I decided to do a run just to kill time, but with the main splat gun instead of the Splat Dualies.

To my surprise, I had an exceptionally good run that ended with me conquering the final boss after I got home and rolling credits. I only died once, and yes...it was to those damn eye lasers after getting stuck in enemy ink. I can't say I did anything differently this time. I just happened to have a round where I managed to keep the ink flowing around the boss so he couldn't trap me. Maybe the Splat Dualiers just have really terrible ink capacity.

In general, I hate the main Splatoon Multiplayer (but love Salmon Run). I get why people like it, but to me it's far too limited. It's not really possible for players to play alternative roles where they can better contribute, and by this point in any Splatoon game's life you're only playing against the super diehards who play nothing BUT Splatoon, and it's really not fun getting wrecked every single match as a new player with access to both "****" and "all" in terms of weapons and abilities. And I've had THAT particular issue with every Splatoon game: MP is only fun at launch, when everyone's on a level playing field.

I've also found the SP offerings in the Splatoon games pretty mediocre overall, but the real draw of these games has consistently been the DLC. It was the best content in Splatoon 2, and it's the best content here as you climb a 30 floor tower full of randomly-generated scenarios and floor layouts using your (unlocked) personal pick of weapons. My only real issues with the DLC (besides the design of that final boss) are the boring visual presentation and the limited selection of modes and maps the DLC has to work with. There could just stand to be more variety in general.

I know there's more to this DLC in conquering it with every weapon, but I really don't care to waste hours trying to take some of these challenges on with weapons I truly loathe in the main game, even as the Pallet modifiers change the way they work.

I look forward to the DLC being the best part of Splatoon 4, damning with faint praise as that is.

[Mop it up]

The Splatoon 3 DLC is baffling to me. The setup would be perfect for co-op, so why is it only single-player? There are already several games with a similar premise which have co-op, so I have no idea why they keep making single-player-only DLC for a multiplayer-focused game.

[M.K.Ultra]

For some reason I was under the impression that it was a tower defense game

The first game in the SteamWorld series is a tower defense game named, you guessed it, SteamWorld Tower Defense. The game was released in 2010 as part of the DSi eShop, though later available on 3DS eShop by backwards compatibility, where is looms in my backlog.

Starting to lose hope for a Super Rare release of the Build game as Heist 2 is already out 

[M.K.Ultra]

   I have one more to add the list, that is to say cross off my backlog. I rolled credits on Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope on Switch yesterday. I actually jumped on the first game day 1 and paid full price. Though I enjoyed it, I felt some buyer's remorse when Ubisoft dropped the price to about $20 USD later that same year. Since then I have always waited for a price drop on Ubisoft games. I picked up Sparks of Hope about a year after release for a mere $15. Other folks might have done the same considering the notable under performance.
   I remember reading the NWR review and being skeptical of the grid system being eschewed for free movement. The reviewer was happy with the change and I just didn't buy it. Well I totally agree and just like the reviewer cannot imagine going back to the grid now. I wonder if Fire Emblem will ever make this change?
   Most aspects of the game are improved from what I can tell and the game has been slowly creeping into my favorites of the year list. There is a lot more to do in the over world with some really fun side quests, mini-games, and environmental puzzles. The big dramatic boss fights don't quite hit the highs of the first game but the tactics are fine tuned and the challenge was just right.
   I have enjoyed it so much that I was compelled to get 100% completion and spent about 25 hours working on the first three areas. As the month neared the end I started to make a bee line for the end of the story and was able to finish in time for BacklAugust. I am currently at 8!% completion overall and spent about 34 hours on the game. I plan to continue playing until I have done everything. Not sure about the DLC though. Has anyone played that? Is it worth it?
I was hoping to wrap up The Witcher 3 but made the mistake of starting up the Blood and Wine DLC got more than I bargained for.