Alexlotl

Well, there it is - the shit-but-rare bit of shovelware people trying to build full Switch sets will be losing their minds over in 15 years time.

Slowly ticking along, but since Pokemon Sword and Animal Crossing entered the house I’ve had to battle to get a go on the Switch! Almost at the end of Chapter 4, the weird robot maid one - just the last battle to go. The game pulls a few tricks on you here, first making it so you can only use Mythra, not Pyra (a fair-enough nudge to make sure you to learn to use her), then secondly making you do almost an entire dungeon (the old factory) without Tora. I remember really not enjoying this second part the first time around - I died a lot, and ended up pretty much just legging it past the enemies to finish the area and get Tora back, then had a rather anti-climactic explore of the rest of the factory once I got to Chapter 5. This time, I figured it was probably another nudge from the developers, telling you to learn to adapt your team. So after thinking about it, I kitted Rex out with new blades - Godfrey for tanking, and Boreas for healing. Both have high defence and give 15% HP bonuses. Then I removed all my Stealth equipment/cores so Rex could hold aggro, gave him more HP boosters, and we were off at the races. It worked great! Didn’t die once, and Nia rarely got aggro. It took a bit longer to beat enemies without a dedicated DPS merchant, but the new mix of elements turned out to be pretty good for blade combos. Explored the whole of the factory before taking on the boss. Still, happy to switch Rex back to pure DPS now I’ve got Tora back. Need to build out the new Poppi form now, although the game giving you another tank driver who can equip three blades literally five minutes later somewhat undermines her.

Had a bit of a Master System fest on the Mega SG. Started off with Wonderboy in Monster World, an old favourite that I’ve never been great at. Inadvertently read all about it on StrategyWiki earlier, so I thought I’d put that into use. Never realised you could buy new health potions from some shops! Was going great guns until the game glitched in the pyramid, sending me into a room of garbled sprite data before spitting me out through a wall next to the boss room. Problem is that the pyramid boss (sphynx) is an utter bastard who you’re not really supposed to fight, but solve its riddle by buying info from a barman. But due to the glitch, I couldn’t get to the bar, and the sphynx battered me. Feel like I’ve got a better idea of when to buy what upgrades though, so despite the sour ending, I think I’ll return. Also had a quick poot on Fantasy Zone (still great), Paperboy (looks and moves well, but the game just doesn’t work without a portrait screen), Final Bubble Bobble (great port!) and the original Wonderboy (another best in class port). What a little powerhouse of a system.

I thought the MD version only needed you to get the big gem on every stage to get to the extra levels, not get them in order? Watch out for the SMS version, there’s a bug in the PAL one that makes it impossible to complete. Fixed in the Brazilian version.

Aww, yuss. Missed last month's thread and didn't realise this was the winner. Absolutely love this game. Had the Speccy version back in the day, then the Amiga, then later the PC Bubble Bobble & Rainbow Islands pack (which I think also got a Saturn release? Rainbow Islands had different, non-copyright infringing music). To join in on this thread, I'll be playing Rainbow Islands Extra, the JP only Mega Drive release. This is based on the arcade semi-sequel which switched around the content for all islands - however, if you nip into the menus you can change the game back to the vanilla version. It's an excellent port, which is absolutely rock hard - I didn't know it existed until I was poking around a smokemonster ROM set last year. Regarding getting the gems in order, I used to be able to semi-reliably do it on the first two levels on the Amiga. You kind of need a plan of how you'll get each monster. I don't think I have the time or patience for that these days!

All of which are things that could easily be addressed in a port. I liked it a lot. People bang on about Fludd making it seem less like a Mario game, but the void levels are the purest 3D Mario ever. I won’t defend the blue coins, though, they were bullshit. I still hope any modern port has VR Missions-style bonus content featuring another 99 void levels. But still just the one tune.

I bought Galaxy 2 second hand late in the Wii's life but never got around to playing it. It would be good to have a chance to redeem myself, there. How will Galaxy's star-bit retrieval work without a wiimote?

The lighting was all wrong for me. Too much bloom, shadows way overdone. Took away the sense of playing a living bit of cel animation.

You want them to completely muff up the lighting and break the aesthetic?

Plus the MD exclusive Rolling Thunder 3, which has a pretty ace soundtrack. I'm hoping the homebrew MD port of the original Shinobi is finished soon.

The Switch has been a flipping lifeline in all this Covid stuff. My wife and daughter are both playing Animal Crossing and working together to tidy up the island and fill the museum, and sending each other little presents and messages. I'm playing a bit of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 where I can sneak it in, and my 3 year old is starting to get to grips with the phoned-in-but-harmless Paw Patrol game. The Paw Patrol game stinks of multiplatform port, TBH. Long load times, and only works with a full controller rather than a single joycon, despite only needing a few buttons. It also bewilderingly doesn't have the official Paw Patrol music, but weird non-copyright-infringing soundalikes - I understand this is surprisingly common with licensed games. Still, it's teaching him to run and jump, and even double-jump - I'll have him playing Revenge of Shinobi before long.

Well done for getting there. Now you never have to play it again! It's interesting that Xenoblade Chronicles was apparently called "Monado: The Beginning of the World" all through development, and the "Xeno" moniker was tagged on by Nintendo at the last minute due to the brand power (ahem, "to honour Takahashi's previous work"). After playing this game, and hearing about the similarly over-ambitious incoherence of the Xenosaga titles, the "Xeno" was a massive red flag for me! Glad I looked past it though, as I love XC1 & 2, and they somehow manage to riff on a lot of the same elements that Xenogears did without being an overwrought mess. I guess you could make an argument that Xenogears/Saga is the Silmarillion to Xenoblade's Lord of the Rings - the lore is still there*, and it's now being used in service of a human story, rather than the humans just being shuffled around to serve the lore. Xenoblade spoiler: I'd love to see you do Chrono Cross, if you haven't already.

Haha, that was my exact reaction to the Episode V thing. Sorry, I'd got mixed up with where you were in the plot - I didn't see you mention the below, which is definitely peak WTF.

Quite fitting, given Xenoblade wouldn't have left Japan without NoE.

I’d love it if they brought some quality of life improvements over from XCX and XC2, particularly: - Quest XP tracked separately to battle XP, and only optionally redeemed. It was waaaay to easy to get over-levelled in XC1 if you did all the side quests. - Gravestones for unique monsters letting you re-summon them at will. - Cosmetic Armour options, so you can choose what a character looks like. The motley of XC1s armour is part of the joy, but sometimes the ladies outfits are a bit much, and having to pick between the best armour stats-wise and one that doesn’t have their tits out isn’t so good. - Break/Topple timer bars. Based on the trailer, looks like they’ve added these. Maybe they’ll finally add some indicator of spike damage too.