Topic: What Game(s) are You Currently Playing?

Christmas eve gaming, played Sonic Rumble and won two more games during the afternoon. After spending time with my mom enjoying dinner, and watching some Christmas movies, played Jagged Alliance 3, claimed back another sector, while taking the enemy's diamonds for easy money.

What do you get when you combine Donkey Kong, DK Jr., Burger Time, Popeye, and with a pinch of unique original pizazz? Dodonut Dodo And it's a total classic, that perfectly fits in line and even surpasses many of those early 80's Arcade greats that it's clearly influenced by.

Having finished Metroid Prime 4, I've been putting in overtime in Cyberpunk 2077. I'm at the point of no return endgame quest, and held off beating the game to play the Phantom Liberty expansion. And I'm at the very end of that also.

Dove back in to Fantasy Life i and started a new save file on NS2 (had been playing on Switch Lite OLED while overclocking). Put a good 4 hours in today and I'm blown away by how addictive it is. How good it is! I mean, I had already played some but I hadn't gotten as far as I did today. I'm already around Level 20.

I gotta say, Fantasy Life i might be on the level of a Zelda game. Like, GotY quality. Like, absolutely incredible quality. You don't get it. The game is seriously good. And the fact I wasn't expecting that is probably why I'm so taken aback by it.

Finally playing Metroid Prime 4: Beyond - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition on the Switch 1 (yes, the card works without enhancements on the Switch 1), but I haven't played much because I'm on a holiday and I don't have much time to play on the TV, which is how I intend to play it.

Played both versions until I met Miles MacKenzie, and I have to say, he's not the pain the ass the whole internet told me he is.

What I can say is that I played docked on both Switch 1 and Switch 2 (which I don't own, but my sister does).
When I was playing it on the Switch 1, I actually forgot it was the Switch 1 version, it looks that good.
For the Switch 2 Edition, I could try it in Quality Mode (4K, 60fps), but sadly not Performance Mode (1080p, 120fps) nor Mouse Controls.

@HammerGalladeBro
4k 60fps with gyro turned on under CAMERA settings, but gyro disabled under CURSOR settings, is the best way to play Metroid Prime 4 anyways imo.

Mouse mode is good but only if you have the appropriate accessories which push the face buttons out for a natural, ergonomic grip, and a recliner arm mouse pad so your arm can naturally rest while using it.

OK, here's what I've been playing recently...

Super Mario Galaxy - I'm playing it via Super Mario Galaxy 1 + 2, which I got as a Christmas gift. I still love this game... it's still as amazing as I remember it being. I'm at the bedroom dome as of this post, and I'm going for every Power Star in the game.

Kirby Air Riders - Another game that I got as a present. I haven't played too much of this game yet, I only played the Air Ride mode as of this post. But I do like it so far. I did some of the checklist challenges and I'll be sure to check out the other modes, especially the Road Trip one.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons - I'm mainly playing it to save up for the storage upgrades. This update can't come soon enough, lol... I'm looking forward to it.

F-Zero 99 - I played a bit of it tonight, I played some of the frozen courses and I also played one of the new secret courses. Also, is it me, or is not many people playing this game nowadays? While I'm in the waiting screen, I'd get like 20 other players, then the timer hits zero, then the lobby fills up completely with presumably CPU bots. I'd often finish in like the top 20, too... the competition isn't as fierce as I remember it being.

I had a feeling, that my first impression of Fantasian Neo Dimension was wrong, so I bought it, and after playing a little bit, I am glad, that I did.

@JaxonH Thanks a lot for the suggestion here and in Your review on every game you started in 2025. Really appreciated.

Where can I find that mouse attachment? It's gonna be a while before I can play the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition of MP4, but I'm really enjoying my time with it on the Switch 1. I was asking for more Metroid Prime, and that's what I got, haters be damned.

Freddy Farmer

I'm just over half way through it, and already i feel like it has the edge on Donot Dodo, which seems to be Flynn Arcade's Champion or crown jewel. FF is addictive and oh so challenging, packed full of so much charm reminiscent of what we enjoyed back in the late 80's/early 90's.

World 2 'Mines' theme won't leave my mother brain. It's permenantly embeded. lol @9:10

Started Echoes of Wisdom last night and made it out of the first dungeon, I want to say. Overall its interesting especially the mechanics of the game. It seems more puzzled based then combat focused so for me its going to be how long it takes me to figure out the puzzles. One thing I dont like so far is the actual combat. Getting creatures to fight for you seems so slow especially when Zelda has that spin attack that can cutt down bushes and stuff. Still its nice to play a new 2D Zelda game.

@Tasuki I would say the combat is the puzzles. As you go into the game you can experiment and the right combinations can kill things extremely fast. There are also echoes (like various type of spiky things) which you can spam in an enemy's face to act as a sword and projectile items you can use basically as arrows. And a zillion other combinations. It's fun to see how insanely fast some of the bosses can be killed.

@FishyS I figured as much. Right now I have a green blob thing that will fight for me, and a sea urchin. I also create pots, crates and rocks that I can throw at enemies. But it just take some getting use to not being able to take out enemies by an attack.

@Tasuki You can make echoes super fast, so a bunch of sea urchins to the face is actually a decent close-up attack. Doesn't matter if they despawn after they caused damage. You can also use bind on one and whack people with them.

@FishyS Interesting. I havent used the sea urchins yet to be honest. I guess I will have some experimenting to do tonight.

On PC, I've been playing Sonic Rumble for the Godzilla event and played some X-COM: UFO Defense. I find it amusing I'm decent at Jagged Alliance, a game similar to X-COM, yet, I find some difficulty with X-COM, even on beginner difficulty. Mostly because I can't figure out how to defeat a cyberdisc. However, I do enjoy going into X-COM, downing a UFO, and then trying different ways to take out aliens. It's still fun for a turn based battle. Still like Jagged Alliance more for my turn-based strategy fix.

On Switch, I'm loving Sonic Racing CrossWorlds. I think it's cool it transfered over my save from the demo and gave me rewards for trying the open network test back in August. Did a couple of the cups, the first few days, did a lot of online races due to the NiGHTS festival going on.

Playing quite a few things actually. Neva and Cyberpunk 2077. On Xbox gta vice city.

I've been playing Gurumin 3D. There's a 3D platformer type game on 3DS, and I did not know about it until I think maybe the last possible day you could buy games on the 3DS eShop. It's pretty decent so far, has some endearingly not good dubbed voice acting and somewhat funny writing on top of perfectly decent gameplay.

Flora & Fang: Guardians of the Vampire Guarden

Having a blast with this one. Basically a spruced up modern spin on Donkey Kong 3 but with vampire children protecting pumpkins from killer insects in a grave yard. lol It takes a winning formula and just throws in more game play mechanics and yadah yadah, to the 80s' hit arcade game that surprisingly holds up wonderfully today compared to the first two DK games, which just havent stood the test of time.

Apart from Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, today I got a loose Wii disc of Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars, so I'll be playing that as well. For the little I got to play for my first impression, I feel it more similar to X-Men Vs. Street Fighter, Marvel Super Heroes Vs. Street Fighter and Marvel Vs. Capcom 1 than Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Bomb Chicken

Another excellent Indie Gem that's well worth your time if you're fond of the 16-bit era.
I don't think I've played anything quite like it either. Typically I'm not interested in most indie retreads that bank on popular renowned franchises, copying the same game play mechanics we've all seen before but with a different approach to the art style while ever so slightly switching things up.

This is it's own thing, making it a breath of fresh air amongst the cesspool of imitations and metroidvanias.