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

Playing Splatoon 3 for the weekend's Splatfest. Unfortunately, I'm losing a lot.

Pokemon Violet.
Just two more last missions: Beat Cassiopeia and Miraidon.

I just beat Turnabout Academy in Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies. I have been thoroughly enjoying my time with this game so far, and I thought that case was excellent. There was a moment with Athena that came out of NOWHERE and left me pretty surprised for a while. She just turned into quite an interesting character to me after that.

The game overall feels just really good to play. The pacing so far hasn't really dragged, investigations feel very streamlined, and the new mechanics in the courtroom feel great and really shake things up. Blackquill is also a fantastic prosecutor, whose backstory I am very interested to learn about. I'm pretty surprised that people tend to consider this one as one of the weaker games in the series because so far it's been a blast to go through. But who knows, I've still got two cases to go. Perhaps it drops the ball later on. I think so far my only issue with the game has been the confusing timeline of events. I cannot keep the chronology of these cases straight, and Turnabout Academy just made it even worse. Initially, I thought it was a flashback case to when Athena just got her attorney’s badge, but then Juniper Woods showed up and they acted like they hadn’t seen each other in forever… I dunno, it’s confusing. But it’s a small issue in what is otherwise an excellent game so far.

Pokemon Let's Go Eevee - Nintendo Switch
Doraemon Nobita's Brain Exercise Adventure - Nintendo Switch
Pikachin Kit - Nintendo Switch

Happy Gaming! (^_^)

Continuing on with M&L Superstar Saga (nearly 8 hours in and am currently in Little Fungitown) and an interesting quirk I've discovered with the game is that, whenever you're walking up stairs, the game lags like CRAZY until you stop. This isn't an issue when going down by the way, it's SPECIFICALLY going up that causes it.

I'm not sure if it's just a quirk of the emulator or something with the original (and it's certainly not a dealbreaker by any stretch of the imagination), it's just something that I've noticed lately that I find very amusing XD

I've been playing this obscure game no one's heard of called Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. :V

No its funny that I'm such a Nintendo guy that despite having first played a Castlevania when I was like 9 and having played all 6 of the handheld Igavanias that only in 2023 did I get around to playing the most iconic(?) game in the series. Because its not been on a Nintendo.

This is another game where at times, despite I doubt anyone thinking about this for this specific game, you can kinda tell its their first major attempt at this type of Castlevania. Just weird quirks that come up (its way easier to get lost on what to do next than the others, I'm certain about that at this point). But because it has the power of being a 2d game on a PS1 and they just knew how to do this stuff, it still holds up perfectly. I literally just played Circle of the Moon a few months ago, and yet this feels more modern somehow (and not just because of the extra tech behind it). Though it is weird that I don't think any of the DS games had full of voice acting the way they do in this.

also, obligatory video post:

After finishing Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team DX I've moved on to Fire Emblem Engage and some Klonoa on the sidelines. I've been moving through those games farely fast too and I'm enjoying both of them quite a lot. Engage also is my first time playing through a Fire Emblem game.

@Fizza It's been like that in the original GBA version, where you'd go slow when you're going upstairs. I've been forming a habit of jumping before going upstairs to make things a bit faster, lol. And I'm not even into speedrunning.

After suddenly having a lot more free time after my next planned game of 2023 (Super Mario Galaxy 2) hit a....bump in the road let's say, I decided to finally fire up a game I've had on the backlog for about 2 months at this point: Murder by Numbers!

Ever since I beat the entirety of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles back in July 2022, I've been wanting to scratch the narrative-driven puzzle game itch left behind by it all those months ago and I'm very pleased to say that MbN is very much scratching said itch for me right now.

For as brilliant as the idea of combining Ace Attorney and Picross together is, you'd be forgiven for thinking it'd feel very clunky constantly switching from both styles one after the other. However, they managed to make an incredible concept flow seamlessly together by having each one feed into the other: story beats tie directly into solving puzzles which then net you evidence in order to continue the story. It's a very intelligently designed system that appeases both the side of me that loves murder mysteries and the other that can't get enough of Picross puzzles, it's honestly fantastic.

Another thing going for the game as of now are it's visuals: good lord this is one of the most stylish games I've ever played. The character portraits are incredibly detailed in both the neutral poses and the expressions they take on at a moment's notice, giving it an extremely memorable style the moment you see it. This is also helped out tremendously by the MUSIC. I was fully expecting bangers going into this when Masakazu Sugimori (the composer for the original AA) was confirmed to be on-board but GOD: Detective Cross' Theme and basically every Picross level's music especially are incredible.

Other than that, there's not too much to say. I wouldn't say the characters are as endearing as something like AA as of now but they're still really fun to see interact with one another (with highlights being Honor, SCOUT and ESPECIALLY K.C.), everything has a great sense of flow to it and Chapter 1 ended with a great cliffhanger.

Overall, I'm having a great time as of now and I can't wait to continue on with Chapter 2 later on!

Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past (3DS) - I'm 16+ hours in with little hope of slowing down. I picked up my fourth permanent party member recently and am now in the middle of the Faraday scenario. It appears I need to go find some Autonymus character.... I'm definitely still enjoying the title, though I suspect I'm nowhere close to unlocking the class system yet.

Super Mario Sunshine (via SM3DAS on Switch) - I just started this one over the weekend. It's a bit odd, with plenty of enemies not seen elsewhere. I wasn't sure how I'd feel regarding the FLUDD mechanics, but I find them pretty easy to use! I'm already 11 Shines in, though over half of those have been earned in Delfino Plaza. Overall, I do quite like the game....I daresay more than SM64.

And no, I don't plan on 100%ing it. I've heard trying to collect all the Shines and blue coins is an exercise of insanity.

Oh man, Hi-Fi RUSH is as awesome as everyone says it is. It has a wonderful visual style, fantastic music, and a great cast of characters. Some of the humor actually made me laugh a bit, which historically is very rare for me. That's really only ever happened with the Ace Attorney series throughout the accumulated hundreds of hours of me playing those games. It's just one of those rare higher-budget games that actually feels 100% finished on release, with no day-one patches, DLC, paywalls, or anything like that! And it's not even a full-priced game either. I've just been genuinely impressed with its charm, tight combat, and clever writing. Definitely gonna be seeing this one through to the end. It'd be really cool if it came to the Switch, as it's not super graphically intensive or anything. Maybe once its exclusivity with Xbox ends, if it ever does.

@StarPoint it's by far one of the very best games I've ever played. I wasn't even interested at first and only DLd it bc it was on GP. So happy I did though. Huge surprise and such a quirky, fun title I didn't see coming.

Currently I am playing Breath of the Wild. It feels good, I conquered Vah Ruta and I am continuing forward but to be honest I have no idea how to tackle the other Divine Beasts. Vah Naboris is probably the next
one.

@Fizza I've been morbidly curious about Murder by Numbers, but hadn't pulled the trigger yet. This was all the convincing I needed to check this out. I get addicted to Picross and it's so satisfying. Adding in something to do with the info you get from the puzzles sounds thrilling. Thanks!

I've been checking out the GBA library recently added to NSO. I'm enjoying the titles that I missed out on growing up such as Kurukuru Kururin and WarioWare. My Gameboy Advane SP's R button stopped working, halting my progress on Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga several years ago. That and the fact that my hinges broke on my Nintendo DS Lite (not a new story there). I'm excited to be able to attempt that one again as I thoroughly enjoyed Partners in Time and Bowser's Inside Story. Minish Cap I never finished and lost access to (it was my brother's). As an avid Fire Emblem fan, I can't wait for them to add the GBA Fire Emblem as it's the only NA release I haven't gotten my hands on yet.

Got alot of stuff on the docket.

• Tons of Gameboy games on NSO
• chained echoes
• I'm going to try atomic heart tonight
• gta v

Right now the Demo for Kirby's Return to Dreamland. Yep going to be buying it for sure.

As of picking it up on sale, I'm currently playing One True Hero

This game sorta parodies Legend of Zelda and some fantasy RPG tropes while mixing in game elements from Shadow of the Colossus, light Devil May Cry, (there's a character that looks like he came from DMC), 3D Mario platforming, Crash Bandicoot, Legend of Zelda puzzles, Uncharted and Donkey Kong Country? (there's probably going to be a few more once I finish this game.)

This game has a bunch of jank; the attack button is delayed (especially problematic when doing platforming puzzles), the graphics isn't great (more on this later), the combat camera needs a few tweaks, a few annoying enemies like the ones that shoot projectiles and there is a bunch of platforming sections that has you react less than a second which is pretty much a pick up and die type.

But besides that as of this first chapter, the puzzles are satisfying to solve, the jokes that land for about 85% of the time some of which has the main character being dunked on and the tropes it has some heartfelt moments and has the story taken serious when it happens, a forgiving checkpoint system, the animations looks surprisingly good (at least in cutscenes) and as of normal difficulty the health when into combat is forgiving enough so you'll only have to worry about dying at platforming. Also, this dark round bunny looking thing with red pants enemy looks really cute.

Pretty good despite it's jank and will probably be finishing the whole thing.

Naboris is down! The Thunderblight Ganon was hard for me. Next I will try to conquer the lizard on the mountain!

@Zuljaras Thunderblight Ganon is pretty challenging compared to the rest of them! The Divine Beast on Death Mountain is a great one, too. Lots of fun and tricky puzzles