BenAV

Could be okay but the title raises a bit of a red flag for me. They're likely deliberately trying to gain attention using similarities to the 'Tales Of' series which makes me feel like they're not confident that the game can be successful just on its own merits. I'll wait and see what the general reception for it is like though.

I stopped buying Amiibo pretty soon after they started so I only have a few Smash Bros. ones. Even if I had all the rest though, I still wouldn't get this one.

It's no secret that I haven't been a fan of recent Pokemon games and I'm all for other developers trying to create something new and better in the genre but I'm not interested in supporting blatant plagiarism.

Didn't expect to be left waiting as long as we have been for a new mainline game in the series but hopefully now that the first six have been ported to modern systems, we might finally be getting close to it actually happening. I'm sure it'll be worth the wait.

Probably the game I'm looking forward to the most at the moment.

Ended up going with Team Solo as I was playing alone this time around anyway and we were pretty dominant in most of my matches so not surprised that we won. Been on the winning side five Splatfests in a row now which is nice.

This is one thing I'm not too fussed about, to be honest. A bit more would be nice I guess but I'm pretty content to keep using external storage like I have with all my downloaded Switch games.

I prefer to not torture myself so no thanks.

Well deserved. Had an absolute blast playing through it when it came out on Switch.

I'll likely just be getting Another Code: Recollection and maybe the Eastward DLC. As much as I love Ace Attorney, I know all the games way too well to play them again so if I ever pick up the Apollo trilogy it'll just be for collection purposes.

Picked up Astral Ascent earlier which makes up 40/67 of these games that I own on Switch (although I'd only agree on the 9/10 score for around half of those). Most of the others don't appeal to me too much.

Really keen for this game, it looks great and Vanillaware games are usually really fun. I'll be sticking to the standard edition though like I always do. I don't have the space to be buying collector's editions.

1. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
2. Octopath Traveler II
3. Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo
4. Master Detective Archives: Rain Code
5. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

Honorable mentions to Dave the Diver, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Anonymous;Code, Pikmin 4, ghostpia Season One, Wildfrost, Theathrythm Final Bar Line and Fire Emblem Engage.

It's always hard to say what qualifies as 'hidden' but a couple of my favourites from this year which haven't been reviewed on this site as of yet are Wildfrost (roguelite deck builder) and ghostpia Season One (visual novel).

Didn't need to think too much about this one before voting. Has to be Octopath Traveler II.

I was really surprised by just how much better it was to the first Octopath Traveler. First one was pretty good so I went into the sequel expecting another pretty good game but ended up with possibly my favourite JRPG that doesn't have Xenoblade Chronicles in the title.

The user scores here tend to be a bit all over the place so I don't think these lists are worth a lot but it's always a bit of fun to look through and see how out of place some games are. No big surprise at what made the top three though at the very least.

I just finished playing Little Goody Two Shoes which would have to be up there this year for me as far as art styles go.

It's usually either family or solo for me. I'd like to pick Team Solo but I doubt the friends I play with would be having that so probably Family this time around, haha.

Most of the games that I scored 9/10 or higher this year made the list so I can't complain too much. Particularly happy to see Paranormasight get a mention as that's one that probably deserves more attention than it's received.

@Friendly I was originally planning to skip Scarlet and Violet after Sword and Shield but got sucked in by a cheap physical copy. Ended up abandoning the game fairly early so won't be making that mistake again next time.

@Friendly Unfortunately the only lesson they've probably learned is that the games will still sell well no matter how bad a state they release in.

Finally, the long awaited sequel to Reasoning of Courage Nori 3 Balanced Diet.

I played a few hours the other night and had a fun time with it but haven't felt like going back to it since. I didn't have any issues with performance, controls or being able to read the text in the little that I played though.

Tears of the Kingdom is my favourite overall unsurprisingly but I also gave 10s to Octopath Traveler II, Paranormasight, Ghost Trick and Master Detective Archives: Rain Code.

I gave 9/10 to Fire Emblem Engage, Theatrhythm Final Bar Line, Wildfrost, ghostpia Season One, Pikmin 4, ANONYMOUS;CODE, Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Dave the Diver.

Pretty fun year for the Switch overall with still quite a few I need to find time for.

I've played 66 games now if you count December. Lower number of played than previous years but playtime is still up there with 200+ hours each month.

As far as Nintendo Directs go, I think it's a good thing that that pressure to release a presentation at a specific date is gone. I prefer to see them just put out a Direct when they actually have the content ready for it rather than having to scramble one together in June which were a bit hit and miss.

Wasn't expecting more Dave the Diver content so soon but I'll happily take it.

I might pick up Astral Ascent at some point but that's probably the only one from this bunch that interests me.

It's one that I kinda forgot was even coming out and it seems like Square Enix did too going by the lack of promotion and reviews. It's one I've been on the fence for since it was announced so there was an opportunity to potentially sell me on it at launch but for now I'm happy to just wait and see and then hopefully pick it up a bit cheaper later on (the RRP is quite high here).

@UltimateOtaku91 I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing for them to be working on more projects as long as they're prepared to take their time and make sure they're all well polished before being released. They announced them all way too early though and were overly optimistic about the release windows.

I hadn't even heard of this one until now but I did really enjoy Rabi-Ribi when I played it ages back so I'll definitely have to check it out if it ends up being as fun as that was.

I put hundreds of hours into the 3DS game so I'm looking forward to it finally getting a proper sequel but I'm not going to get too excited until we're a bit closer to launch and get a concrete release date. Wouldn't surprise me to see it get pushed back again.

If their aim is 2025 now then I guess we'll probably see it in like 2027. Glad we're getting a new game in the series eventually but personally I'm not a big fan of super early announcements in general.

Not sure if I would play them again or not but it'd be nice to see them get re-released regardless. Great series of games so the more accessible they are for potential new players, the better.

More replayability for this sort of game would have been nice but if it plays well and runs well enough on Switch then that's all I really needed to be sold. I've played and loved all the previous games in the series and this one always looked fun so it would have taken some significant issues for me to skip it.

@Vivianeat I usually mostly get matched with Japanese players and I think the game tends to run a bit better for me when I do so them getting their own Splatfest probably messed with things a bit.

I had two games in a row where we were about to win and I got a communication error which was pretty frustrating when I just wanted to get to Ruler so I could stop at that point, haha.

Didn't have much fun with this Splatfest as I had an abnormally high number of disconnects and stuff but at least the right team won.

Remakes or even a sequel would be pretty neat if they were done well. However I highly doubt that they would be done justice with how the series in general is treated these days so it might be best to just leave them be.

Quite a few quality games there. Already have all the ones I'm interested in though.

Been keenly awaiting it since it was announced for Switch so glad to finally have a date. The physical would be nice but if I can find the time to play it I'll likely just end up downloading it rather than waiting.

I actually had a bit of a hunch that we might be seeing one this week. Felt like we were about due for one as it's been a while and while checking the eShop after last week's update there seemed to be suspiciously few games on sale on my wish list compared to usual. Always keen for some new indie games to play.

After how much they're dragging this out, I hope they're going to give us some concrete dates for these games and not just be like 'sometime in 2024'.

I only ever played a little bit of the original because it was included on the cartridge with Risk of Rain 2 but I'm pretty keen to give the remake a proper go.

I've been expecting it to get delayed for a while. All of their supposed '2023' releases were getting way too late in the year without a solid release date. I'd rather that than have them rush it out before it's ready but it'd be nice to get official word and an updated release window.

Well I guess it's a good thing that they don't even have any franchises that I care about for them to ruin.

@mariomaster96 At this point I'm just hoping that they've been developing it for the next system and are utilising the new hardware to make the best experience possible even if that means a few people get disgruntled that it didn't come to Switch as planned.

I hope the DLC stays around in case I ever decide to go back to the game and buy the rest of the Vocaloid packs.

I considered grabbing Rhythm Festival when it was on sale but the subscription model is a big turn off when I don't play regularly plus it doesn't even have many songs I'm interested in to begin with.

Probably going to wait for a sale as I have so many games to play as is but I'm still pretty keen to play this at some point. Love the aesthetics and most of the gameplay elements appeal to me.

Don't mind the colour combination but not a fan of when they're only bundled together with a game or console. One copy of that crappy game is already more than enough for me.