Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

@Sunsy Good to hear you got your Christmas shopping done, I'll be going out to do some more shopping tomorrow. (Things have been really busy for me lately.) My grandmother should be visiting next weekend too, that'll be nice. Glad you're liking Princess Peach: Showtime, I should come back to that game sometime. For me, I finally finished Mario & Luigi: Brothership. It was a decent game, but I feel it could've been better.

Me too, glad I got to watch Trolls when it was available. I sure can. I still remember that True Colors scene, as well as the Can't Stop The Feeling scene and how Poppy became the queen. That movie definitely ended on a high note. It definitely has a lot of heart. Thank you, I'm sure I'll like Band Together, I'll be sure to post my thoughts in the movie thread. That's cool, I think I heard about that song being made into an animated movie. Didn't it have a dog in it? I've definitely heard of Home Alone, I probably saw bits and pieces of it long ago.

Nice, the Mario costume I had did come with his mustache as well. Likewise with the Luigi one. For Halloween, I just have my regular clothes on these days, lol.

Oh that's good, kinda like how 3DS and Wii U games have digital manuals. Some Switch games have a similar feature built right into them, like how Super Mario Odyssey shows all the moves that Mario can do. (Too bad there aren't any game manuals in NSO's retro game apps... those would've helped for a lot of their games, honestly.) I don't think I knew Sega Channel had a solitaire game, but being a Mega Man fan myself, I definitely knew of that game you mentioned. It's called Mega Man: The Wily Wars, and it's a compilation of Mega Man 1, 2, and 3 with enhanced graphics and sound (plus a bonus game when you finish MM1-3). Think Super Mario All-Stars, but with Mega Man. Did you ever play that MM game on Sega Channel, by the way? Just curious. I did see that other games like Pulseman and Alien Soldier were exclusive to SC, too, here in the states anyway.

Yep, on Nintendo Music, I see there's all the ACNH snow themes and the Toy Day theme, the Merry Mountain theme from MK8D, and the Shiveria theme from SMO. Just a few examples. Good to hear it starts up fine on iOS. Hopefully it'll be all fixed for Android devices. I guess I could clear all my apps' cache more often, since I do know how to do it and it is quite important to do.

That's cool, Interactive Entertainment does sound pretty neat. I don't think I've heard of it since I've always been mostly a console player. Having a magazine on a CD does sound futuristic, in the 90s and early 2000s at least, lol.

I think I would also like Blake Stone more than Wolfenstein for the reasons you've mentioned. I do like futuristic/sci-fi settings. I did try out Call of Duty 2 on the 360 years ago, but I didn't like it that much. Never played Medal of Honor or the other CoD games, and I'm not too interested in those personally.

Yeah... I guess they want to have those demos exclusive to store kiosks or something? It was a good haul for sure, I can get pictures of my new ornaments if you'd like. It's been a bit of a tradition I've had going haha. Best of luck on wrapping up your tree, if you haven't already.

Late replies mostly because I've been enjoying some games lately. Mostly Modern Combat Blackout and Wolfenstein Enemy Territory for multiplayer, and Jagged Alliance: Rage since I picked it up via GOG's winter sale. Been playing those and also enjoying Christmas movies with mom in the evening on most nights.

Week was good though, went out for my monthly pizza trip, and ended up ordering Dunkin' Donuts as a for me and mom as something I wanted to do for the Christmas season.

For me, I stay logged in and sometimes when I come to the site, usually like after a month of staying logged in, the corner says "Guest" and dark mode is turned off. I prefer dark mode, it's easier on the eyes when typing and reading.

Me niether, I want to talk to my friend about when we're going so we can go see Sonic 3 together, so I'm waiting to talk to him. I am excited for the movie, I just hope we see it before I see someone posting a spoiler or something online. At least it doesn't have an early release anywhere (I know of anyway). The struggle of avoiding Trolls Band Together spoilers was real, especially since it came out in Europe a whole month ahead of the US release (this is why we need one release the same day, worldwide).

Honestly, I never heard of Notepad++, I usually tend to use Notepad because it's right there on my PC. If I type anything, I have LibreOffice installed, Notepad is just an easy way to make a copy and pasted note, or just make a simple txt file of something.

Italian food is great, I think tend to get my enjoyment of making it from mom's side of the family. Grandpa was Italian, and because of that it just passed on through mom and me and my brother. I'm actually proud I have my own meatball recipe I made myself.

I remember that incident with the blindfolded player cheating that speedrun. It's been awhile since I've seen new speedruns, but I do remember shortly after starting to play Trolls Remix Rescue, I found someone on YouTube already speedrunning the game. I have the game on both Switch and PC, the the PC version even has an achievement for speedrunning, beating the game in two hours or less. Though, the game took me between 4-5 hours to beat it, however, it is possible to speed through the game. Other speedruns that are fun to watch is classic Mario games.

Maybe, I do know people enjoyed watching the Japanese cutscenes from Sonic Boom more than the US release. I still found it cool because people just didn't like the game, yet they still got enjoyment from the Japanese scenes themselves.

Yeah, the Volition shut down really surprised me. I like their classic game Red Faction on PC, it was actually the first online game I ever played, the old demo supported online play, and I later got the game as a birthday gift. So I was really surprised to see they got shut down. Though keep in mind I haven't played their other games aside from Red Faction and Red Faction II, or if you want to count it, Descent when they were called Parallax Software.

Ok, so Jet Force Gemini. That's one I remember wanting to play, but never did. I remember the old commercial for it, so I must have forgotten about the human protagonists in that.

Yeah, from what I've seen in the trailers so far, Sonic 3 feels like it's going to be faithful to Sonic Adventure 2. That has me excited since Sonic Adventure 2 is one of my favorite games. It was a fun time, we ended up finishing all six episodes. That sounds nice, sometimes I like to do a dinner and a movie. Last time I did that I made lasagna and watched The Garfield Movie. I'm dreading the day spoilers get posted. At least it didn't have an month early release like Trolls Band Together did. The Trolls fandom was on edge last October and November because Universal released it early in Europe. The struggle was real.

Indeed, it makes doing artwork more fun since there's no due date or anything.

Yup, I do. I love collecting Trolls Mineez, whenever I go to Target I always pick up a pack or two. They're like miniature (1.5 inch) figures of the Trolls. There's lots of variants to collect too. They look like this.

I have a bunch I collected within the past year, even got one when I went to one of the movie showings last year. They stay safe in a container, though I like to keep some of the duplicates out by my computer. It's usually characters people like is why they collect, if I didn't like Trolls, I probably wouldn't have these Mineez figures. Plushies are great, I have some of those too, mostly of my favorite characters from animated movies, shows, and gaming. I have a few Pops too, not a lot of them. Mostly Trolls, Smurfs, and a few others as Pops. I still remember Funko when they made show accurate My Little Pony figures, those were amazing.

I'm in the same boat, I usually get the best lighting in the morning hours. It's 3:43 PM EST when I'm typing this, and it starts to get darker early. Within the next hour, the sun will set. Whenever I need to take a picture of what I drew, I have to do it in the morning, or early afternoon latest. I hear you on that, who knew yellow lights could really affect pictures.

Apologies for double post, saw this pop up after I posted.

@MarioVillager92 Hope you have a nice shopping trip, sounds like a nice plan to me. I think Christmas will just be me and mom this year again. I did order some donuts for us over the weekend. We've been wanting Dunkin' Donuts for some time, and I surprised mom by ordering them. We don't get from them often, so it was a treat for us. Yeah, I wanted to play it again, so I did. I'm also playing other games on Switch and PC, so been busy gaming lately.

Indeed. You're welcome, hope you'll enjoy Band Together. Yup, it did have a dog in it. Home Alone is a classic, it's actually on Disney+, I think tonight, I'll watch Noelle on Disney+. Mom and I are trying to watch Christmas movies throughout the month.

Cool. Yeah, I still like to have fun. Though the matching shirt I wear is usually my regular clothes anyway. Halloween I had on a Poppy wig, and the shirt was one I wore throughout the summer.

Yup, except it was mostly text as oppose to being scanned manuals like Wii U GBA Virtual Console games had. I think the Wii U manuals were some of the best digital manuals, it was helpful to pause the game and check on screen when I needed info. Yup, and Solitare was a Sega Channel exclusive too, never had a physical release. Awesome, I'm glad you know the Mega Man game I was talking about. I think I did try it, it's been so long so trying to remember, but haven't played a Mega Man game fully until I got Mega Man II on Wii's virtual console.

I think I was listening to Merry Mountain's music when I was doing chores one day. Yeah, now I wonder if my friend has that issue since he uses Android. I have used the download feature once for a walk, but haven't since mostly because I've been listening to my Christmas playlist when I go for my walk recently.

Yeah, it was pretty cool they had CD magazines back then. I only know about it because I've been reading about classic games I buy off GOG.

Blake Stone is just better than Wolfenstein IMO, no hate towards id Software at all, they helped popularize FPS games, but there were improvements to Blake Stone such as depth lighting, ceiling and floor textures, and an automap which Wolf 3D lacked. I played some of them, Medal of Honor was heavily inspired by actual events of WWII (I played one of the levels, the next thing I saw the event in a history book at school). I have some of the Wii and Wii U CODs, mostly got them for online play at the time. The Wii CODs were impressive as Activision actually ported the games instead of making a "special Wii version" as some developers did during those days.

Thanks, the tree does look great. It has been, I have no new ornaments this year, so nothing new for me to share.

@Sunsy Ah. The site generally logs me out automatically after maybe 10-15 minutes. I never get to go on the site already logged in.
And yeah. Geez, I still remember the era when game releases were months, or even years apart between regions. It happened with Smash Bros Brawl. Japan obviously got the game first in January, and the official site started posting spoilered spoilers every weekday instead of basic game tidbits. The game was delayed twice by that point. Over here in the US, we got it early March. I dunno about other regions.
For RPG games from certain devs, particularly Square, later Square Enix, it was even weirder, as Japan would get the game first, then we'd get it some time later with relatively minor changes, if any, then Japan would get a Japanese exclusive ultimate edition, and later, an "Ultimania" that contained all sorts of insight and stuff. The ultimate editions eventually came out for some games over a decade later, but the Ultimanias are only around via fan translations still..

Mega Man 2 was my first one, and it was on Wii VC. I've since played through all the classic numbered games. I think the collection you mentioned got onto PSP as well?
Also, you finished the Knuckles TV series? Or am I misreading that? Me and my bro lost the streaming service around episode 3. It was kinda a weird experience, which was made weirder because the streaming service often refused to function.
Also, when you said Wolf 3D, I thought "wait, is this person talking about that anthro 3d model of Wolf Link that's been doing the rounds on twitter?"

Mondo busy this past weekend, and work hasn't been much better during the week. I had a lot of family stuff and also ended up babysitting my nephew this weekend, so not a lot of tech time in general.

@Mariotag Thankfully those are my parents' internet issues; I moved out some time ago. Not that my internet was much better for awhile, but I was able to get in on a fiber line that was laid a couple years ago. Beats oversold, slow as heck Frontier Communications. 3 mb/s is rough in this day and age, at least for streaming and gaming. $150 a month seems high for that + a landline, though I know some areas have very limited options. Usually with a monopoly. Shame Crunchyroll doesn't have everything you'd think, at least in terms of known/popular anime since I have heard of Slayers. Haven't seen it though.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on GBA was actually one of the decent turn-based HP games developed by Griptonite Games. I had a lot of fun with that one on GBA back in the day. It's certainly worth a try if you like turn-based RPGs. I wouldn't call it GotY material or anything, but it was fairly decent for what it was IMO.

I think I reached that particular Might crystal by slightly cheesing those yellow crusher/drop platform guys; I'd cause one to spawn on another so we could go higher and climb upward. I'm still amazed I made it. I think trying to get down there from up high may be why I thought it was out of bounds to start with.

I just plain didn't have a lot of PlayStation access as a kid. I had cousins with a PS2, but we weren't there often and they had most of the "normal" games you'd expect (shooters, sports, etc.). They did have the PS2 version of Prisoner of Azkaban that I beat over the course of almost two years of New Years Eve celebrations there lol. I've heard Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is one of the better KH titles. So the KH collections aren't the most comprehensive? Still kind of kicking myself for not buying Re:Coded before it became expensive....

I do appreciate that Smash games are usually less complex than most fighting games. Shame I never had GCN access as I'm sure I would've been less overwhelmed with Melee and enjoyed the smaller roster and characters more. I've heard DK64 has a lot of backtracking sadly.

@Pastellioli I have come across some neat stuff on Pinterest when looking for new site avatar ideas. But I rarely use the site these days.

Honestly, I'm surprised both Donkey Kong 64 and Diddy Kong Racing haven't made it out on NSO yet since they mostly seem like fan favorites. Still not sure how I'd feel about the collectathon elements in DK64 TBH. But I would at least like to try the game even if I may not finish it. Not sure I've heard of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts. A genre switch you say? I don't mind some object creation in games, but I can only get so far with them before I get impatient. At least Smash is indeed pretty easy to pick up...but mastering it is a different story lol.

I also wish Yo-Kai Watch did better in the West, though it's not too hard to see why....which we have discussed before. At least Hulu has it in Japan, but I'm sure the episodes probably aren't English subbed. Unfortunately, while YKW did well in Japan, it didn't have long-lasting status like the Hello Kitty and Pokemon franchises for example.

@Sunsy Notepad++ is a free download and is pretty good for tabbed page viewing and viewing supported code files with proper formatting; I first picked up using it in a basic web development class a long time ago. I mostly use it for note taking but still occasionally do use it at work for viewing basic HTML/Javascript files that are spit out by the application I work on. Regular Notepad is just fine for general text though. I also use LibreOffice since Microsoft decided to move their Office stuff to a sub-based plan instead of outright buying it. /eyeroll

That meatball recipe sounds amazing! To my knowledge, I'm not of Italian descent, but I can certainly appreciate the cuisine lol. Some Italian food is very easy and fun to make too. Especially basic pastas; I actually made some rotini with sauce this evening.

Surprised the site hasn't put up a review for Antonblast yet. Maybe they're waiting for that performance update?

@Mariotag Yeah, I remember finding out Pokemon was available in Japan in 1996, while the US got it two years later. I'm glad more and more video games are released on the same day across the world. Imagine having a game spoiled months before being able to play it.

Nice, I played Mega Man II the most, even though I did try that version Sega Channel had, I didn't sit down to play it until Wii's virtual console.

Yeah I did. I don't have Paramount+, but my friend does. So we actually got together, ordered some pizza, and watched all six episodes. Sorry to hear you lost the streaming service.

I don't even use Twitter, and I have no idea what that is. Wolf3D is short for Wolfenstein 3D. I like classic FPS games like the ones id Software and Apogee made, and that's what that game was shorten to.

@Tyranexx Looks like I have to try Notepad++ one day. Tabs could be useful to manage multiple notes and messages. Ah, nice to see someone else who uses LibreOffice. I remember getting to OpenOffice, then later getting LibreOffice, sometime after I tried Linux. Ended up being a great replacement for Microsoft Office, which sucks it's a subscription now.

It is. Meatballs are usually made with ground beef/pork, a bit of salt and pepper, pasley flakes, romano cheese, an egg, and breadcrumbs. Baked in the oven, then tossed in sauce (I usually use jarred sauce though). One of my favorite things to make. Rotini and sauce sounds great to me.

@Tyranexx Yeah, AT&T was actually disbanded at one point because they were declared a monopoly. But at some point, someone else got them back together again. They're a scummy company that tends to drain money where they can, not deliver good service, and apparently, they were one of the early US internet providers. In some places, though there are other ISPs, they basically just use the groundwork AT&T laid out.

Hmm. You don't a an earlier Wii either? The earlier models of the Wii can play gamecube games. You can tell if it's one, because the compatible systems have ports for Gamecube controllers. Melee was pretty neat, especially for its time. I remember being upset when Nintendo Power picked the OG Metroid Prime over Melee for game of the year.

Slayers was kinda a mix between comedy and fantasy drama. It had its own multiverse, sorta, with 4 universes, 2 of which, including Slayers, have their own anime. That I know of. Surprisingly, I watched an anime that, somehow was able to get the Slayers season 2 intro as an insert theme kinda. (It's called "Give a Reason")

I might end up checking out that particular Harry Potter game sometime then. Thanks!

I honestly dunno how you'd have reached that one by using the yellow crusher things. I think at most, you can summon three of them. And that simply s not enough. Amusingly, you can reach the area in question from the side. I didn't realize this, as I never actually went to that far off platform in the middle tier.

How was the PS2 version of HP: PoA? And, I don't think 358/2 Days was really the best? The gameplay was very different for sure. A sort of evolution of the gameplay from Chain of Memories. What really was striking about it was the story, which, while the movie version in the remixes does tell it, the fact you aren't participating in a lot of the daily life of the characters makes it all hit significantly less hard... Or I just slept while the insanely long video was playing. I forget which. Re:Coded was the opposite. It was built around gameplay evolved from Birth By Sleep, with an incredible ton of extras, partly inspired by TWEWY. Afaik, it is the only KH where you can change the difficulty midgame. Regarding the main games though, the collections were the first time the "full" versions of each of those games left Japan. The legendary Final Mixes, which people would actually mod their ps2, import Japanese copies, and learn a little Japanese just to get the full experience.
DK64 is an interesting mixed bag. I've mentioned it in other responses here. Yes, it has backtracking. And yes, lots of collectables are locked behind specific Kongs. But at the same time, those different characters are put to good use with their abilities. Boss fights can differ a fair bit from the occasional refight due to mechanics of the kong used being different. The unique abilities allow you to explore very different areas of each level, depending on the kong. Things like that were fairly well executed.

@Sunsy Yeah. It was crazy! Pokemon was a particularly special case, as the games that eventually released outside Japan were, iirc, at least slightly different. Plus, while Japan got the different media staggered out a bit at first, we got it all at once over here. Pokemon was just suddenly a thing, anime, games, and all, and there was immense hype. Something I actually saw somewhere is a part of the OG games' success was the devs cleverly hid some stuff in the games (The data for Mew), and basically knew that people would spread rumors and theories on playgrounds and the like. It's actually incredible.
Paramount Plus was a disaster here. Even if we hadn't lost the streaming service...Actually, the reason we did was the person paying for it, with a far superior AT&T internet connection, had a horrible time getting it to function. Naturally, we fared similarly at our place.
The Wolf Link 3d model is basically a mod some ppl have created for LoZ games, based off Twilight Princess's Wolf Link.

@Tyranexx I like your new profile pic. You said that's an alolan Vulpix? Looks cool, pun intended lol. I did figure it was a Vulpix of some kind, even though I'm not a huge Pokemon fan. (Surprising, I know.) Going back to movies, I'll be sure to check out Hocus Pocus sometime, it'd be good to have my own thoughts on that movie. Plus going by the movie's title, it might be a fun one to watch. Agreed on Polar Express, I even went ahead and posted my thoughts on the movie thread, if you're interested.

I think I saw you've finished Echoes of Wisdom, great job on finishing it. I didn't get everything in the game, just getting as much as I can to the best of my ability. I think I got all the might crystals though. Echoes of Wisdom is a good game for sure, although admittedly, scrolling through echoes can be a bit of a chore. Especially when selecting echoes that haven't been used in a while. Great job on also finishing The Missing Heir. I'm all done with Brothership and yep, I'm working through MMBN1. I thought Brothership was a decent game... but I feel that it could've been a bit better. I posted my thoughts on the Games You Recently Beat thread.

All right will do. For somebody like me, it's totally worth doing baby steps when it comes to more extreme (for lack of a better word) stuff like roller coasters lol. Or I can just play things safe. I'd probably start having second thoughts on rides like this anyway.

@Pastellioli Ah gotcha, it's one of those games where the Japanese version has more content, huh? I've seen that happen before haha. Super Mario Advance 4 being one example, where a lot of the e-Reader levels were Japan-only until it came out on the Wii U VC and NSO.

Oh I agree, the rewards in Salmon Run are great. The increasing difficulty happened to me in both Splatoon 2 and 3. And to this day, I've not beaten a King Salmonid in 3. Yeah... I've pretty much been having a love-hate relationship with SR because of how much my teams keep losing. I remember that cracked bar in Splatoon 2's ranked battles, it kind of discouraged me from playing any more of them lol. It doesn't happen in Splatoon 3's anarchy battles though, since those are set up a bit differently.

Ah wow I forgot Steve from Minecraft is a playable Smash Bros. character, I do remember he is pretty hard to play as. Yeah, Hero's random menu options throw me off. I like playing as my favorite characters, or characters with movesets that sit right with me, or a combination of both.

Ah, that is interesting to know about why Banjo and Kazooie look a lot different in Nuts and Bolts. I guess that makes a bit of sense, especially considering that the Xbox's player base is quite a bit different from Nintendo's. Nintendo is more family-friendly than Sega, Sony, and Microsoft after all.

@Sunsy Lol that happens to me as well, having someone reply to me the moment I post, haha.

Thank you. I'm sure it'll be fun. Gotcha, that'll still be nice. That's awesome you got to order donuts, those are delicious. Same here, my free time saw me playing games quite a bit lol. I got nostalgic for Mega Man Battle Network, so decided to play through the MMBN legacy collection.

That's funny you mentioned Noelle since my mom's been thinking of that movie! She wants to watch it again sometime. I wanna watch Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas on Christmas Eve, been making that a tradition.

That's good, and that is actually a good idea you have for Halloween. I guess I've been treating it like any other day haha. Besides watching The Nightmare Before Christmas, and having Halloween decorations up since my mom likes seasonal/holiday decorations.

On Sega Channel, that makes sense. We're talking about the Sega Genesis here, lol! Agreed on the digital manuals on Wii U. I remember that GBA games on the VC let you have the original manuals on the GamePad, that was actually pretty neat. That's fine if you can't totally remember. It's been decades since SC was discontinued after all.

That's cool. I love the theme for Merry Mountain. I remember listening to the New Horizons 9 AM theme while doing some housework. It's a very nice theme actually. Yeah, maybe check with your friend to see if he has that issue.

It is cool that Medal of Honor took a lot of inspiration from WWII events, I think I saw that actually. It's cool that Activision went ahead and made Wii ports of the CoD games too. That reminds me. I remember hearing that Sega was gonna bring over Sonic 06 to the Wii, but ended up making Secret Rings for it instead. There were indeed quite a few games that were made for the 360 and PS3, that ended up having a different version on the Wii.

Good to hear your tree looks great, mine also looks really good. I did have fun decorating mine. By the way, thank you and @Tyranexx for mentioning LibreOffice. I'll have to try that out sometime... I really don't wanna pay for Microsoft Office.

I had experienced something that really bothering and disturbing my feeling when I was in way back to my house from working place.
I saw with my own eyes a poor cat got killed by a car when I was on the street in house complex area.
The cat got bleeding on its head and I saw the cat was really in pain and several minutes later the cat died by bleeding and the car who killed that cat just run away, didn't even noticed if it killed the cat.
I was so overwhelming, horrified and really angry to see the innocent cat got killed by careless driver and I will never forgive that situation happened. Also, it made me hate with the cars for being a killing machine rather than being handiful vehicle.
Back to my overwhelming situation, it was raining when I saw that poor cat died and I was confused how to solve that problem. I saw there was a workshop house near of the accident happened, then I tried to ask for a help to carry the dead cat to safe place and the worker over there was suggesting to bury that dead cat near of their workshop area. The worker made a small hole on the side street that have soil, then he bury the dead cat in the soil he tilled and I said thank you for solving that problem.
Even right now, I still have guilty and really angry feeling for unable to help that poor cat stay survived and really blaming the car as the killing machine and the careless driver should take their responsibility because of killing animal accidentally without noticing.

Hello to everyone! How are you all doing? Hopefully well. Got a ton of replies last night and was trying to respond to them all but I fell asleep. Already working on a festive Banjo-Kazooie drawing and I’m pretty excited to see Sonic 3 on Christmas, but NL reported some people are already spoiling scenes from the film online, so I’ll need to avoid spoilers like the plague on my social media feed and YouTube until I see it. Stinks that the film is already getting spoiled, but I kind of wasn’t surprised because people did the same for the previous two movies, especially the mid-credit scenes. To everyone who’s seeing Sonic 3 in a few days, I wish you all luck in avoiding spoilers!

@Mariotag It hurts when game discs and cartridges are damaged or scratched. I have a GameCube and Wii, but I haven’t used those in a while and the games I have on there are limited. But they were very good consoles to play and use despite the small collection. Though, we got those consoles years after they came out; the Wii was a refurbished version bought from a GameStop after we traded our Xbox 360 in, and I recall the GameCube was purchased from someone else at a donation store I believe, but it’s been a decade since so I can’t remember at all. The only GameCube games I remember having was Mario Kart Double Dash and a Dragon Ball game, but we couldn’t get the sound working on them.

When I did play Banjo on NSO, I did remember a few of the questions in my head, but also used the heck out of the save states feature though I recall that the questions are randomly generated and change, though I also could have used a guide or playthrough to get my answers instead. I’m pretty bad at remembering stuff a lot, especially things that are small pieces of trivia or facts.

I also haven’t played Ultimate in a while, but I picked it up a few months ago to try out online matches and get some of the new Spirits they added with characters from TOTK, Splatoon 3, and Xenoblade Chronicles 3. I intended to complete my entire Spirit collection (or nearly 100% it) but after I got the newer Spirits the Spirit Board didn’t give me anything else new so I gave up. Controlling a metal fighter is easier if their recovery move is easy to control and use, or like you said, a recovery that goes on for long and can be moved around. In fact, a lot of the K. Rool Spirit battles I had the K. Rool CPU would sometimes be hard to attack during recovery because of how he can just fly around the stage. I initially found the CPUs hard to play against but I got way more used to going against them in harder Spirit battles or in ordinary battles where I set their level to 9. I like playing against human players because they give me more of a challenge and they all have different play styles and know what to do, while I feel like Level 9 CPUs repeat the exact same moves and don’t change things up a lot, but unfortunately everyone else I liked playing with got out of Smash after they released Sora and wrapped up DLC development. That’s also an interesting fact about Luigi’s taunt. Thanks for sharing!

It is nice they gave official confirmation on the next console being capable of playing Switch hardware as well as NSO being carried there, but I do wonder if it’ll be like Xbox, where most games are backwards compatible because they got a license to do so while some are unplayable on newer hardware. I do hope that isn’t the case since I find backwards compatibility saves money (meaning you don’t have to buy a remaster or port of the game over again to play on new hardware) and is good at preserving too.

Honestly, I do kind of feel like the modes in Ultimate kind of were, now that I think about it, slightly unmemorable and not super fun. I wish that they kept the Smash Tour board game from WiiU and kept the board game map reserved there instead of using a similar board game map in World of Light because it really made the mode kind of lackluster and unfun to walk around and ruined it a bit, especially given World of Light was supposed to act as a story mode and you probably would expect them to do more with the map there. I did like Home Run and Classic Mode with the references they have during the battles with the fighters and maps (not to mention the stellar watercolor-looking art of the fighters in there) but a couple of the game modes do feel slightly same-y and lack variety with the conditions and rules for the modes. I feel like a lot of the modes are just the same only with just slightly different rules and conditions in place. Wasn’t there that break the target mode that they had in almost every Smash game that was popular but removed in Ultimate?

I do recall hearing a bit about the Fire Emblem stuff and Smash, but I didn’t remember a lot of it. Smash definitely does bring attention to a lot of game series and characters. I knew about a lot of the characters in Smash before, but I haven’t played some of the games they are from, but there have been a few times Smash has encouraged me to try out new games. Smash Ultimate is really what made me interested in playing the Banjo-Kazooie series and I eventually became a huge Rare fan afterward. I would even say Smash helped sell me an Xbox since a lot of Rare’s games are exclusive on there, and at the time Banjo-Tooie was an Xbox exclusive and the first Banjo game was one of the few Rare games that was on NSO alongside the SNES DKC trilogy. Even though I did not know anything about Banjo when playing as him a ton, I just really liked the charm he and Kazooie exuded in Smash, as well as how they were animated and looked detailed but cartoony.

I should have initially clarified that one of the leakers that got caught and stopped posting around the time they announced they were strengthening security was a pretty prominent Nintendo leaker named Pyoro, and he was well known for being correct with his leaks and game hints before Directs. Though before the June Direct he got something incorrect and went on some rant about being wrong (since I recall that was the very first time he got his “leak” wrong) and he seemingly had his sources revealed by accident and left afterward. Though, that moment made me realize that most people just “leak” and ruin surprises for clout and nothing else, so I stopped reading and hearing about video game leaks. When you say teraleak, you mean that big Pokémon teraleak that some people have been discussing a bit? That one sounded crazy and awful, especially since an NL article I read mentioned that some employees had their personal info revealed by the people leaking it and the leakers apparently went into hiding to avoid getting caught. A super scummy thing to do.

I think that happens quite a bit. I hear about some retailers stocking or selling some upcoming games early by accident and someone getting the game and leaking info for it before release. I hear that’s a common way game stuff gets leaked unfortunately, and I’d assume that is the reason why a few Nintendo games got leaked weeks before release.

@Sunsy I think that specific cheated blindfold Mario 64 speedrun became infamous after that insightful video came out and broke down how it was cheated and the signs it was not authentic. Blindfolded speedruns sound impressive, but not when they are being cheated on, but I hear that Mario 64 in general has a ton of cheated speedruns unfortunately. It’s pretty cool that Trolls game has a speedrunning achievement! I’ve never heard of a game that has an achievement that is unlocked by completing the game in a short amount of time, usually the achievements I see in games aren’t unlocked that way.

It is good to hear some people did like Boom, especially the Japanese version.

I haven’t played a Volition game at all, but the shutdown of that studio and the many other ones under Embracer Group was terrible to see. I really hate seeing game studios being shut down, and I think Embracer did a bad job managing their studios after that expensive deal they tried making with another company failed to go through.

I have played some of Jet Force Gemini on the Xbox via Rare Replay, but I thought the controls and shooting was so rough and hard to get used to, though I do like the setting and designs of the creatures and characters. I never really saw any advertisements for N64 games, but I’ve watched a few online and some N64 accounts on Instagram post a few that I’ve caught glimpses of. I can remember this Japanese Diddy Kong Racing ad that was fully 2D animated and the characters looked cute. Some of the most interesting ones were ads for restaurants or food while also advertising the N64 games. I saw a bit of a Mario Kart 64 Taco Bell ad (which became a meme) and a Banjo-Kazooie Keebler ad.

It’s only releasing in a few days, and I’m so excited but I’m going to see it Christmas Day instead, so I will need to avoid spoilers and endlessly scrolling online because I know people will mention some spoilers in discussions about the movie. I’m also not going to watch any reviews until after I see it. It’s nice you liked Knuckles a ton, I never watched it but I watched a review of it and I do know Paramount made the first episode available on YouTube for free, though I didn’t watch it. Sometimes I plan to watch something and I never do either because I’m busy or doing something else. Making lasagna and watching The Garfield Movie is so cool and fitting! I can imagine how fun it was, I just usually eat something like McDonalds while watching movies with my family, but usually I don’t eat anything when I watch movies alone. Trying to avoid spoilers for Trolls 3 for almost an entire month up to its worldwide theatrical release must have been super hard. When movies get released early or have a special screening event for a select few people, stuff is unfortunately bound to get spoiled.

Those look cool. The only kind of figures we really have are amiibos and a buttload Disney Infinity figures, and that one Funko I have of D.va, though my dad and brother have a bigger Funko collection. There are maybe two plushies I wouldn’t mind having of Rare characters, specifically this Banjo and Kazooie and Conker plush (which if I recall reading, was a talking plush that used voice lines from his original voice actor). A site called Fangamer is selling those two and think the two plushes look so high-quality and adorable, but they are both $32 and I can’t imagine how much expensive they”ll be with shipping, so realistically I’d only pick one.

It stinks it gets dark so early, because then I have to rely on a yellow light. I went through a couple of my old sketchbooks from a years ago and they had their pages yellowed ruined; I think the drawings sometimes had a yellow imprint on the other page and it ruined a couple artwork. I am hoping the sketchbooks I use now don’t go through those issues because they have a ton of art in them I enjoy, and it would cause me to have to draw or write over the yellowed spots to hide them. But the strange thing is, those artworks weren’t in sunlight for long and were in a dark place away from any kind of yellow light, but I guess I have to be careful with where I place my artwork to prevent damage to the paper.

@Tyranexx Pinterest has a ton of good art. I am considering trying to find an artwork on there and using it as an avatar picture, but I wanna make sure the artist is credited in my signature if I do so.

I think it would have been cool if they dropped those two along with the Donkey Kong Land releases on NSO. But I am excited to see what games they add to NSO next year. I am gonna guess there will be an N64 game drop likely later this month, but there is a chance they could do it in January; I feel like January is the most likely. I do like hearing that NSO has a better release schedule now, and I think they should keep that up. I don’t mind the collectathon elements in the Banjo games so maybe I won’t mind it in DK64 when I play it, though I’ll probably not 100% it like I did with the first Banjo game.

Yeah, the game had this significant genre switch that changed the gameplay a ton and it’s hard to get used to, hence why it’s the only Banjo game on the Xbox I never completed, and given I took so much time off of the game and can’t remember what I’m supposed to do next, I’m probably gonna start a new file and use a playthrough as I progress. You can play without using a vehicle and instead play on foot, but your intended to play through the entire game in a vehicle or using it, because Banjo and Kazooie are significantly more weaker when not in a vehicle and they also lack their old moves from previous games.

Unfortunately, I do think you are right about the episodes not being English subbed. It’s a shame the games and anime got off to a good start and were a sensation in the early 2010s before losing popularity by the time the third game released. I’d still love to watch the anime again though, I only watched the English dub for the first season and didn’t watch the following seasons for the first anime.

@MarioVillager92 Yes, though the English version is getting really good with the song selection now. A ton of my favorite songs are getting added in January and later in 2025, so I’m excited, though I wish the global and Japanese servers for the game were the same and got content and songs at the same pace, but the English localization being released a year and a few months later is probably why that version gets songs and content slower than the Japanese version. There are also Korean and Taiwan versions of the game that have a few exclusive songs and also get some of the content at different paces, but a lot of the song releases are on par with the English song releases. I didn’t hear about that happening with a Mario game! That’s interesting to hear about.

I think I have played against a King Salmonid, but not as frequently because my difficulty level in 3 was lower, but those King Salmonid battles at the end of some Salmon Run matches were kind of hard to win. I really didn’t like the cracked Ranked mode bars in 2, so I do like what they did for 3 by having the Anarchy/Ranked modes set up differently and having series battles instead and then removing the bar. The bar was very risky in 2, and it did also discourage me from playing some modes to avoid losing my S rank.

Steve is still a cool and crazy character for Smash (I can even remember hearing his reveal trailer broke Twitter and made it unusable for a while) but I am super bad at using his building mechanics well, but there are some competitive players that are crazy good at using him against opponents. I’ve seen Steve players trapping enemy players in a minecart and having them go straight to an exploding TNT block and getting a KO. I just stuck to about 4-5 characters that I’m used to, and avoid playing ones that have complex moves or mechanics. Steve and Kazuya are the only DLC characters I’ve played that I think are super hard to master. Almost all the characters in the first DLC pack I feel are easy to play as, though I don’t have Terry or Min Min in the second DLC pack.

It is interesting, because there was this concept art video I saw for Nuts and Bolts on Rare Replay that had a ton of different art concepts that had Banjo and Kazooie in several different art styles. It would make sense that they wouldn’t want the original designs to look weird since it was the first time the Banjo series had higher quality and detailed graphics. Though, I still like the Smash Bros. design of them more since it does a good job making their OG designs high quality while still looking cute and the same like in the N64 games.

EDIT: had to fix some spelling. The fact I misspelled Xenoblade with a Z is downright embarrassing…

@Pastellioli
I will not watch sonic 3 movie after my bad experience from first sonic movie.
It just SEGA attitude by being edgy on their franchise like you have to be a rebel with controversial actions to be famous or popular.
They really put some chaotic scene at bar from first sonic movie to make like you are great by doing rebellious things and some unnecessary violence.
I don't like their philosophy like that.
I have overheard something from sonic 3 movie that made me turned off.

But, btw I have watched WICKED Part 1 for SIX times within 4 weeks.
It was really really great musical movie with duration 160 minutes.
I watched Moana 2 too but only two times because the storyline was generic (finding the other island, facing with dangers at the sea) and the songs were less interesting than WICKED.
Not really sure about MUFASA due to tomorrow as I have watched Lion King live action 2019 only one time and never watched again.

I have squid
I have kid
Ugh...
Squidkid

@Pastellioli Yeah. Spoilers suck.
So, do you still have the Gamecube or Wii? No sound on those games is nuts. Maybe it's just a cable issue? You might find another type of compatible cable somewhere. MK:DD was a good entry in the series.
Yeahh, I have OG N64 carts of Kazooie and Tooie. I'm a little surprised you came to the conclusion that Tooie is Xbox exclusive, seeing as I own it there. Regardless, I'm not gonna use savestates for that part of the game.
I haven't touched on Ult in quite a while. Have yet to see the spirits from the games you mentioned.
K.Rool isn't just annoying because he can fly around btw. It's also cause the propeller will hurt you if you try to interrupt him from slightly above. Normally, you can edgeguard, and keep an opponent from returning. But some of the more recent fighters make that next to impossible, almost removing what was a core aspect of the games. I personally prefer facing off against actual humans as well. But I have previously practiced against lvl 9 cpus. The amiibo are also notable, as you can train them up.
My own friends are largely moving on with their lives, on in one or two cases, no longer really so interested in being part of mine.
The backward compatibility announcement is nice, but the part where they said "details will be announced at a later date" has me rather concerned. (I think that was the wording at least.)
The modes really are kinda same-y, yeah. Smash Run was better than Smash Tour imo, but it needed more maps. And yes, Break The Targets! It started off with a unique map full of specific challenges for each character in the first two games, then just became a set of 5 individual maps for everyone in Brawl. I forget if it was even in 4. I remember at some point, the gameplay was sort merged with Home Run Contest, in that you whack an explosive into the targets to blow them up. Multi-Man Smash was a staple, originally only a single stage in the OG game's classic mode. But, the fact they removed All-Star Mode, and just made it another multi-man didn't sit right with me, even if I know there was no reasonable way to make a mode in ult where you fight every single fighter in varying groups back to back with damage carrying over, and limited healing. Classic Mode is absolutely a treat again, but the absence of an adventure mode, and instead making a story mode felt kinda lazy. Every prior smash game has had some sort of side scrolling sequence. Whether it's "Reach the Exit" from the first two games, the OG Adventure Mode in Melee, SSE, Smash Run, or the Wii U version's fight with Master Fortress. And yeah. Smash is like, the ultimate advertisement. Even moreso when it was at its peak.

Huh. I remember Pyoro. At least they weren't Midori. That was nuts.
Yeah, the teraleak was Pokemon. Some of the stuff that came out was genuinely interesting, such as the folk tales that resembled something like Greek Myth. Or the Gen 5 to Gen 6 stuff. It might've been in that leak where ppl found out why Ash had to go from the anime too. However, the leakers crossed more than a few lines. Knowing the poor employee who got hacked is almost certain to lose their prominent job is truly upsetting, as well as the fact that ppl got doxxed.

Yeah. It's not just a few games though. For years now, pretty much every major Nintendo release has been spoiled almost precisely two weeks ahead of launch. As well as put on pirate sites.

@Mariotag I think it was a cable issue. I should have clarified it was the GameCube that had audio issues and no sound, the Wii had sound. We do want to get a sound cable for the GameCube, and I do want to play it maybe in the future. I would like to get some more GameCube games possibly in the future, but prices for older games are really expensive now, so I don’t know if I would be able to.

Oh I did know Tooie was originally released on N64. I was talking about how modern ports of the game were Xbox exclusive until a few months ago when the OG version was ported to Switch for the first time, and how the Banjo games swapped to being Xbox exclusive after Microsoft purchased Rare, though I didn’t specify what console version I was talking about. I don’t have the N64 or the NSO Expansion Pack anymore, so I only own the digital Xbox ports of those two instead, though my first playthrough of Kazooie was on the Switch.

I did see the newer Spirits they added for the Zelda, Splatoon and Xenoblade characters show up on the Sprit Board pretty fast, though I only got the Spirits a while after they were added. The Spirits were higher difficulty compared to the other ones. If I recall, the spirits were Deep Cut (Splatoon 3) and Noah and Mio (Xenoblade Chronicles 3) but I don’t recall the name for the Tears of the Kingdom spirit they added.

I have gotten used to practicing against Level 9 CPUs, but I have fought against some of my amiibos and they are super difficult to fight! They give me quite a challenge, especially the Inkling and Peach amiibos I have (which I think those two actually won against me in some matches) though I still like playing against human players. I haven’t gotten any Smash amiibos in a while. I usually defeat the CPUs by doing offstage moves and launching them away from the stage, though it always doesn’t work when I play with amiibos or human players; the amiibos attack back compared to the CPUs (and deal a h good amount of damage) and with human players, one time I was playing with my siblings and cousin, and I tried to use an offstage move against my sister (playing as Byleth) and she actually baited me and got a KO! That was embarrassing for me but funny now that I think about it, since my siblings know I like to use offstage moves a ton. I think what makes playing against human players more fun and less boring is their play styles, plus they are very smart and can also predict some moves or know what moves you constantly use during the battle so that they can counteract them. I would maybe like to get a DLC amiibo, but I haven’t been playing Smash really.

I am hoping the info they release for the backwards compatibility is good. Backwards compatibility was a feature I saw a lot of Switch users requesting a bunch. It still makes me glad they are adding it, but again, I hope it can support all OG Switch games rather than doing most of the library but excluding a few from backwards compatibility.

Gosh I forgot All-Star Mode! I loved that one, I think you fight fighters individually by the year they first debuted and then go to the rest area and restore health before moving to the next fight, right? I liked that a lot, but I kind of didn’t like how Ultimate changed All-Star Mode to a mob Smash mode where you fight more than one of the fighters at the same time. I often lost because the enemies fought in groups and would rack up damage and launch me offscreen, as well as the fact that the healing area was completely removed, so you pretty much have to try your best to retain a low damage count. Yeah, Break the Targets! was changed in Smash 4 to a mode where you launch a big bomb toward targets and try to get a high score (similar to Home-Run Contest like you said), I actually found that one fun and it was disappointing that both target modes were completely absent from Ultimate. I still love Classic Mode with all the game references and stuff in each character route, though I didn’t complete it with each character. I think it would be cool if there was a Smash game in the future that had almost all the mode from previous games, or if there was an enhanced Smash Ultimate port that added in a couple newer modes alongside the modes already present in the original version, but I feel like that would take a lot of work or be too much.

I actually used to keep up with gaming “rumors” I heard online, and Pyoro and Midori were the ones I remembered the most, though the Midori situation was so insane with its events that lead to the aftermath. But, seeing how those two acted I just chose to stop following “rumors” because of how “leakers” don’t have any good reason for leaking gaming material and announcements.

It’s so bad that the teraleak also leaked employee info and the people responsible for the huge teraleak don’t care and are hiding so that they don’t get into any trouble, and they unfortunately said they are planning to continue the teraleak at a later time in one NL article I read. I rarely hear about game leaks releasing someone’s personal info, but unfortunately it happened. It reminded me a bit of the Insomniac Games leak I heard of back last year that leaked a ton of personal employee info. The leak there was motivated by money more than wanting to leak the games online. Hearing about both leaks was super shocking, and I feel bad for any person who gets their personal information leaked online for everyone to see, since that is a gigantic breach of their privacy. I’m pretty fearful over that happening to me and someone taking my personal information and passwords for themselves. I am hoping the employees who were affected by the leak are all ok.

It unfortunately is common for major Nintendo games to get leaked, but I remember seeing Smash Ultimate got leaked a ton, both prior to release and after release. Besides leaks like the infamous “Grinch Leak” and fighter and stage leaks, some songs and remixes from the game got leaked online weeks before release, likely because people were playing copies of Ultimate about two weeks before release. Some music channels were posting it when they shouldn’t have. There was one popular music channel called Dystify Music that posted Nintendo Switch soundtracks, and the person running the account chose to post the leaked Smash songs, but the account got copyrighted multiple times and the person rebuked themselves for choosing to post leaked songs in the first place. Honestly, you shouldn’t even try to spread and post leaked Nintendo content, even if it’s just a few songs and not important content from the game itself.

@Pastellioli
Not every Gamecube games are expensive.
Some of 3rd party Gamecube games are still cheap enough to buy today.

why is Pokémon Blue still not on NSO ?

@Sir_Axeman
I prefer Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu / Reverse for the better alternative of Pokemon red / blue / yellow.
The game have physical release, better graphics, not too expensive currently, I can play it on TV, well... my choice.

@Sir_Axeman With people's game libraries carrying over to Switch 2, I bet Nintendo has saved some things for after Switch 2 cycle. Just like they appear to be saving Mario Galaxy 2, Zelda Wind Waker, Zelda Twilight Princess. If they released all the classics in switch gen, they'd have less filler for the Switch 2 cycle. That's my theory, anyway.

@Pastellioli Ahh. Yeah. Definitely try to find some good GC games for either the Cube, or your Wii. And be sure to enjoy MK:DD with audio! Every little factor helps with a game's charm.

Ah. I see what you mean. Yeah, they started on N64, got a couple releases before bought by Microsoft, and I got Rare Replay... And I don't dare try to afford the Expansion Pak tier.

Huh. So, are the spirits for those games still there? Or did they go away? Also, if there's a Xenoblade 2/3 character I like rn, it's Nia.

Yeah. The amiibo are tough. I remember back in the day, for amusement purposes, at one of the tournaments, a contestant entered his Yoshi amiibo instead of himself. I forget the result though.
And yeah. Human players are the way to go. I had someone I considered a rival at smash. He always beat me. It was during one such match where I was doing well for a while, then sorta fell off. He actually asked me what happened. I think it was that point where I lost my ability to read opponents.

Backward compatibility had better be full! Nintendo should not do anything less in that area than their competition here.

Yeah, All-Star mode was neat, if a bit annoying. I should mention though, it hasn't always been by the year said character got their debut. I forget details, but in Melee at least, the order you fought them in was somewhat random. It'd start with fighting one opponent at a time for a few rounds, then two at once, then a full three, before a battle against 25 Mr. Game and Watchs. Only 3 full heals the whole run. Brawl had it different from that too. Although I see their reasoning, it's still upsetting to see it as a mob smash. So I was right about the target mode. Yeah. It definitely downgraded over the years.
Classic has generally impressed. Since the beginning, Master Hand has been iconic. Melee added Crazy Hand, whilst nerfing Master Hand a bit. Brawl had them stay in classic mode, but did something different with them in SSE. Smash 4 buffed Master Hand once more, and added Master Core, its varying forms, and Master Fortress, which was genuinely neat....if you could make it there.
Giga Bowser actually originated as a new (secret) antagonist in Melee, rather than Bowser's final smash interestingly enough btw.

The leaker situation with Midori was insane. Claims to be a Japanese woman, is actually a male from forget what other country... But that leaker's info is still considered somewhat accurate for Kingdom Hearts 4.

I never heard of the Insomniac Games leak! They're both really bad. At the same time though, breaches of privacy have become commonplace. It's not just leakers or ppl doing things against the law. Most search engines (I gather mostly contracted with Google) record everything you search for, and sell that information. And it's unknown whether that's exclusively to provide you with relevant ads, or if it's more. Microsoft has apparently built functionality into their edge browser that takes a screenshot for them to use, of whatever you happen to have on your screen (not just in the browser) every ten seconds. So it's a huge deal and major issue.

Honestly, yeah. Idk the story behind smash ult leaks, as I wasn't paying full attention, but it does kinda make me pine for an era before digital downloads, and constant spoilers. Amusingly, during Brawl pre-release era, I remember there were these forum driven "Create A Stage" contests. At one point, one person posted an entry that was basically the Wind Waker stage that actually made it into the final game. Crazy coincidences do happen.