toxicitizen

Ha, I was just thinking it was a shame they didn't get it out for October. I've been waiting for this before touching my copies of 2 and 3. I know what I'll be doing on the 30th!

Also

It's looking very promising and I need something to play for spooky season, so I decided to take a chance on it. I already skipped Cronos: The New Dawn because of Silksong and I was really looking forward to that too. Maybe I'll loop back to it if I finish Silent Hill f quickly.

I just realized I forgot to post this. Got it day one, naturally. It's the reason why I still haven't finished MGS3 or even started Kirby and the Forgotten Lands. 20 hours in and I'm just about at the end of Act 1. It's really good but goddamn, this game can be a motherfucker at times. I considered dropping it a few times already but so far I've been able to push through each time. It helps that bosses rarely bottleneck you, there's usually something else you can go explore instead of banging your head against the wall. Usually. I think I've done just about everything I can at this point, so tonight that fucking boss is basically my only option. At least it's a "fair" boss. The only thing I've encountered so far that I feel is truly bullshit are bosses that can summon regular enemies. As far as I can tell, the actual summons are random so it can really fuck up an attempt that was otherwise going well. Made it to phase 2? Sucks to be you, asshole. This boss just summoned a couple of flying enemies. So now you have that extra bullshit to deal with! I stopped counting how many times I died solely because of the fucking chaos that ensued when a boss summoned a couple enemies that started going apeshit. Only to succeed on the very next attempt because he somehow didn't summon anything (or summoned something more manageable). It adds an element of randomness that really fucking sucks when you're trying to learn a boss' pattern. That's my only real complaint so far. The game is really good once you get used to its difficulty.

Pre-ordered a few things following this morning's Nintendo Direct. I'm particularly happy about the Galaxy collection since I don't feel like hunting down and overpaying for a copy of the previous anniversary collection. And really, Galaxy 1 and 2 are all I need because they're the only two 3D Mario games I still haven't played. If I ever feel like replaying 64 or Sunshine, I can just do it through NSO. I'm a little annoyed that we now have a release date for Prime 4 and still no sign of remasters for 2 and 3, though. I really hope they'll still be coming at some point down the line.

I'm not as hyped for it as I would've expected to be (mostly because it seems to be a very faithful/1:1 remake and I replayed the original somewhat recently through the Master Collection) but it would definitely feel weird to not be playing it day one since it's one of my favorite games of all time.

Donkey Kong Bananza Holy crap, this game is fantastic! Just rolled credits on the campaign, and while I still have to see what's going on in the post-game, the campaign was meaty enough that I feel like I've played enough to post my thoughts now. This isn't just the best Donkey Kong game yet, I actually enjoyed it more than Mario Odyssey. Punching your way through everything in sight is just insanely fun. Nintendo were really onto something with this one. I really hope they'll keep this formula going and make follow-ups that don't completely reinvent the wheel because I definitely want more of this. The bananza transformations are all fun to use and give you some variety in how you can approach things. Near the end of the game, there were some sections that made you use them all together and I really hope there's more of that in the post-game because that was great and the main campaign could've used more of that. The campaign overall is a ton of fun but the last section in particular had me grinning from ear to ear the entire time. I don't want to spoil anything so I'll leave it at that. The soundtrack is also great. The bananza themes in particular are so freaking catchy that I keep wanting to listen to them outside of the game. The only real issue I can come up with is how easy the game is throughout but the gameplay loop is so much fun that I never got bored by the lack of challenge. Besides, I'm sure that's what the post-game is for like with the last few Mario games. So yeah, whenever you guys get around to buying a Switch 2 make sure to get this one. It's a must-play.

Got the new Zachtronics Coincidence game because of course I did. I'm a little bummed out that they didn't do a physical edition with all kinds of goodies like they used to but at this point I'm just grateful that this team got back together and is making games again. Also, SF6 is entering its third year, so naturally I've already gotten more value out of this game than any other game I've ever bought so I'm happy to keep throwing money at it until the heat death of the universe. I do need to get back into it, though. Sagat is coming out in just a few weeks and I still haven't tried Elena...

Super Mario RPG Remake Finished it a couple nights ago. This is another one that does an excellent job of looking and playing exactly how I remember the original. It was really fun to revisit it but it's very much baby's first JRPG, so it didn't blow me away or anything. It was just a fun little game to unwind with for an hour or two before bed. The soundtrack is an all-timer. Not much else to say about it beyond that.

Yeah, I've been wanting to play it for a while since it seems like something I'd really enjoy. It's one of those games that I fully expect I'll be kicking myself for not playing sooner.

Super Mario Odyssey At least, I consider it beaten. I rolled credits about a week ago and then I kept playing until the Odyssey stopped telling me it needed more moons to unlock new destinations. I did the final gauntlet on Darker Side and everything. I'll probably keep playing here and there to get all the moons but I think I'm done playing it as my main game for now. The game didn't make a great first impression, especially coming right from 3D World which is more of a pure platformer. The first few worlds in Odyssey were way too easy and boring. But as I kept playing I saw what the game was going for and started appreciating it for what it was. Especially as the difficulty ramped up to at least a level that wasn't completely braindead. I was shocked by how short the story mode is, though. My profile said I had played "10 hours or more" at that point but it honestly felt more like 6 hours to me. It's been over 20 years but I feel like 64 and Sunshine took me way longer to beat back in the day. As an aside, the playtime log on the Switch kinda sucks, uh? What happened to the super detailed activity log from the 3DS?! Anyway, yeah this game was a ton of fun. I think I enjoyed 3D World more overall but Odyssey was just different enough that playing it back-to-back with 3D World wasn't an issue. Metroid: Zero Mission Holy crap, why did I wait so long to play this game?! I guess it being a remake of the original NES Metroid made me lowkey expect a frustrating experience but this was anything but. It was like playing a mini-version of Super Metroid and it ruled. I especially loved how the game gives you a vague destination to reach without telling you outright how to get there. It doesn't ruin the feeling of exploring an alien world but it also keeps you from needlessly wasting your time looking in all the wrong places. Also, I was surprised by the last section of the game. Somehow in all these years, I had never been spoiled on the fact that this version added an extra zone. At first I thought it was pretty cool but this zone can be kinda frustrating. At one point near the very end I actually thought I got soft-locked because no matter where I went, I kept running into a roadblock but I eventually found a hidden room with the power bombs I was missing and was able to finish the game. Also, not exactly platform-accurate but playing it on the SNES controller was neat. I'm definitely looking forward to playing more classics with the retro controllers.

I'm still very much in the honeymoon phase with my Switch 2, so idk why I spent so much in the Steam sale nor when I'll get around to playing any of these but here's what I got: Best part is I just know I'll blink a couple times and the Atelier series will have somehow released another half dozen games before I manage to play a single one of these.

Donkey Kong Country Returns HD Holy shit, I figured this one would be solid but I wasn't prepared for how much I was going to love it. I've always enjoyed Mario games but the DKC trilogy is the one that I played the shit out of as a kid. So when I first started this game and that familiar music started playing, the nostalgia hit me pretty hard. This game does a fantastic job of feeling and playing exactly how I remember the DKC games. Except for one thing. Maybe this is just another sign that I'm becoming an old man but I found this game challenging as fuck. It was always fun and rarely got frustrating but I don't remember the SNES trilogy being this hard. A part of me really wants to keep playing and go for 101% completion or however much it is this time but I've got way too many games to play lol. Maybe I'll come back to it at some point. I'm also really looking forward to trying out Tropical Freeze as that seems to be the one everyone is constantly giving high praise to. I'm not sure what to expect as DKCR already made such a strong impression (and I kinda want to say is now in my top favorite games of all-time), so I don't want to set my expectations too high for the sequel. Anyway, the last couple weeks have been pretty great. Being able to binge 3D World and this (and put close to 50 hours into Breath of the Wild) was a real treat. I was already planning to take some time off from work in the early summer but timing it with the Switch 2 release was the best move I could've made. Getting back to work on Monday, though, so I won't be able to keep going through these games as quickly anymore.

One of the things that made me want a Switch was how all the classic titles are now part of NSO instead of having to purchase them individually. Having access to all these classic titles at all times means I can go through some series I've barely touched before. I'll probably do Kirby at some point but the main one I'm looking forward to doing is Metroid before playing Metroid Dread. Excluding the Prime games, I should be able to play everything except Other M, which it doesn't sound like I'll be missing much. Anyway, the point is I decided I didn't wanna do the Game Boy version of Metroid 2, so I hunted down a copy of the 3DS remake on ebay. And while we're on the subject of classic games available on NSO. I simply couldn't resist the nostalgia of playing these games with their original controllers, so... I'll probably get the NES ones as well at some point to complete the set but those are actually Joy-Cons, so I'll need a charging stand or something to actually be able to use them.

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury I've been wanting to play this one for over a decade at this point, since first hearing all the praise it got when it initially came out on Wii U. At the time, I only had a 3DS so I settled for playing 3D Land instead. This and other ports from previous Nintendo consoles were a big part of what finally made the Switch so appealing to me. I've been wanting to buy one for at least a couple years but had been holding off because it always seemed like the successor was right around the corner. Anyway, 3D World was about as great as I expected it to be. I love how it feels like an evolution of the old side-scrolling games. On the 3DS version, I had done basically everything including replaying all the levels as Luigi once I unlocked him but this time I'm drawing the line there. I beat the game, then beat the post-game worlds and collected all the green stars and all but 5 of the stamps. The last 5 stamps require replaying all the levels as the other characters and there's an extra 4 characters this time. Maybe I'll come back and do it at some point but right now I have other games to play. Bowser's Fury was a neat little expansion. It's kinda cool how they managed to build a mini open-world Mario game from the building blocks of 3D World, which was very linear. It did feel kinda limited by it but it was still a ton of fun. I basically played through the entire thing in one sitting. I got the first 50 Cat Shines and rolled credits, then took a short break and came right back to get the other 50. I was under the impression that there would be a secret ending after getting all 100 but as far as I could tell it was the same. Bowser just had different hair during the fight... But yeah, not a bad way to spend an evening. And it definitely whet my appetite for a proper 3D Mario game, so I'll probably be playing Odyssey sometime soon.

I call it my "launch backlog".

Getting the Switch 1 version and paying for the upgrade is going to cost about the same so I decided to just go for the Switch 2 version. Also, I guess I never posted all the Switch 1 games I bought in the lead-up to the Switch 2's release. Not gonna get individual pics because there's too many of them but here's a pic of the actual stack: Why, yes, I did go overboard... Oh and I just got a copy of Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity from ebay. I'm holding off on Super Mario Wonder and a few more in case they get Switch 2 versions in the near future but at this point there's only a few more first-party games I'm interested in.

When people asked for Marvel 4, I don't think anyone meant a Marvel-only 4v4 fighter by Arc System Works but you know what? I'll take it. Seriously, this looks so freaking good!

Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny This one is supposed to be the fan favorite but I think I actually liked the first one better. Onimusha 2 is longer, bigger, and more ambitious for sure. Especially in its storytelling. It's probably a better game for it overall but I just really liked how short and sweet the first one was. The story is very minimalistic and it has that Spencer Mansion kind of layout where you're running around the same area for the entire game, going back and forth as you unlock new sections. Onimusha 2 is more linear in that sense: you're going through a sequence of mostly linear areas and while you do revisit some (and even revisit some sections from the first game, which I thought was pretty cool), most of them are a one and done kinda deal. It also kinda tones down the horror more than I would've liked. Hell, horror isn't even the right term. It's really more of a spooky atmosphere, which is something I always appreciate. So seeing even that getting toned down was disappointing. Onimusha 1 is very much Feudal Japan Resident Evil but this one feels way closer to just being a sword action game with some demonic stuff in it. At that point, it's basically Devil May Cry without the stylish combat. It also has a bigger focus on story but it has the story of a Japanese action game from 2002, so... yeah... One thing Oni 2 has going for it is a companion system where you can give gifts to some characters and it affects which story route you end up on. So some sections will play out differently depending on which character you have the best relationship with. I think the sections where these companions are playable will vary as well because I only played as one side-character in my playthrough in that one area but other areas had some chests that the protagonist couldn't open. So I'll definitely be doing more runs to see what else can happen. So yeah, it didn't blow me away as much as the original did but it did surprise me a little bit. I really hope they won't wait another 6 years to remaster Onimusha 3. We're halfway there at this point, two games done out of four. Might as well commit. Unless the new Onimusha is an early 2026 release, there should be plenty of time to remaster Onimusha 3 before it comes out. Jean Reno is down, so that's not an issue! After that they can remaster Dawn of Dreams whenever but imho they really need to get Oni 3 out before the new game.

Onimusha Warlords With the remaster of Onimusha 2 finally coming out this week, I figured I'd give the original a replay since it's really short. I was a little worried that it wouldn't be as good as I remembered but I realized that was dumb pretty much as soon as I started the game. This is a really fun take on the classic RE style of gameplay. It has a few flaws but overall it's still very enjoyable. I'm not sure why I was worried in the first place because I played it for the first time in 2019 when the remaster came out. So, it was already as dated as it's going to get then lol. At the time, I was super bummed out that they didn't seem like they were going to remaster the sequels, so I'm really excited to finally play the second game. Hopefully they'll keep the momentum going this time and will at least remaster Onimusha 3 as well before the new one comes out next year.

Yeah, the DeathAdder felt great at first but it went to shit so quickly that it made me dismiss Razer as worthless junk. The only piece of Razer hardware I've bought since was my Kitsune over a year ago. I don't know if their build quality in general has improved since my DeathAdder but the Kitsune at least seems like quality. I haven't had any issues with it. Although at that price, it better be fucking good lol. My current build is like 90% Corsair and I've beeb pretty happy with it. The mouse I just replaced was also a Corsair but tbh I'm pretty sure a deep cleaning around the wheel with compressed air would've solved the issue. But I already wanted to change it, so it just gave me the excuse I needed.

I've been wanting to switch to a wireless mouse for some time now and my previous one was starting to drive me nuts so I decided now was the time. I used to think my old Razer DeathAdder that started randomly double clicking or not clicking at all was the most annoying thing a mouse could do, but I stand corrected. A mouse that fights you every time you try to use the scroll wheel is much worse! Scrolling down only for the screen to end up going up instead is absolute maddening. Cleaning around the wheel helped a little for a while but the problem would just come back, so I decided to replace it. Loving this one so far, although it's gonna take some getting used to because it's been a while since I've used a mouse this light. My previous mice sometimes even came with extra weights you could slot into the bottom to make them heavier lol.

Got basically everything done in my first playthrough. Just needed to beat the game on Nightmare difficulty to get the 100%. I usually save these for later, I'm planning on going through the entire series on Nightmare at some point. But they already announced a rerelease of this game, so I figured I'd just get this version over with immediately, so that when I feel like replaying it I can just focus on the rerelease. Anyway, Nightmare was easier than I expected. It helps that you can do it on NG+ and transfer a lot of stuff over. I was able to rush through the entire game in about 10 hours, only doing a few side-quests so that I could get fully upgraded endgame gear. I expected the final boss to be the only part that gave me trouble but it turns out my strategy going in was the correct one. I almost got him on my first try and just needed to make a few adjustments to succeed.

Ys X Nordics I have also beaten an Ys game this week. I actually started it last Fall when it launched but I fell off of it after 20 hours or so. In part because Indiana Jones came out and I was super excited for that but I also wasn't really feeling Ys X at the time. That was weird since I usually devour these games. At the time I couldn't really point to any single thing about it that I didn't like (and I still can't) but now that I'm done with it, I kinda see what the problem was. Basically, this is pirates/vikings Ys. The entire game has a Norse theme and you sail around on a ship and spend your time exploring islands and fighting undead monsters. The problem is that, early on in the game, the ship is insanely slow. It gets better over time as you upgrade it but it's fairly tedious early on. I'm speedrunning through new game plus on Nightmare difficulty right now and even though I was skipping all the cutscenes and ignoring most of the optional stuff, the first few chapters were still excruciatingly slow because of it. That alone isn't a huge problem but the best part of Ys has always been running around and killing monsters while listening to that sweet soundtrack. So the ship exploration fucks with the pacing, and since you're exploring islands that tend to be fairly small, you only do the running around killing monsters part for short periods of time. The game also keeps introducing new gameplay elements up until about the halfway point. So when you take all of these things into account, the pacing gets absolutely obliterated in the first half of the game. It gets way better in the second half as you upgrade your ship to be faster, the dungeons become longer and the game is done throwing tutorials at you. Ironically enough, I had stopped basically right when the game was about to get better. Everything I've been playing over the past week has basically been what I want out of an Ys game. It really was just the first half that had pacing issues. So yeah, overall this is a solid Ys game. It's biggest strength is the new combat system. It drops the party-based combat of the last few games in favor of a dual-protagonist setup. The focus is on rapidly switching between them while chaining up skill attacks and precisely timing your blocks to build up a meter that allows you to perform big team-up attacks. I hope they'll keep this system for the next few games because I absolutely loved it and I want to see them iterate on it like they did with the party system. Other than that, it's Ys. If you love the series, you'll love this one.

Finally got my order confirmation from Best Buy, so looks like I should be good. I also got an invite to pre-order from Amazon this morning, so I got another order from them as a backup. Along with a few other things: