BenAV

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.

Keen to play World of Horror at some point and Suika Game is a little bit of mindless fun on the side but it's definitely gotta be Dave the Diver this month. Just finished it the other day and it was such a fun time.

Decided to wait for the physical release here so haven't played it yet but pretty keen to check it out.

They're as far apart from each other as ever now. My view whenever a new Sonic game is announced is that it'll be mediocre until proven otherwise which is pretty much the opposite of Mario which is generally a safe bet if you're looking for quality.

Have never played the series before but planning to give this one a go.

November is pretty late to be announcing release dates for 2023 titles so suspecting we might see them pushed back to early next year or something. Hopefully not too long as pretty keen for Fantasy Life and DECAPOLICE looks interesting.

I usually wait for a sale with eShop games but I've got a real itch to try this one so I couldn't resist and downloaded it not long ago. It'll be the next game I start.

I was never planning to get the game in the first place but if I was, this might have been enough to change my mind. Not sure about other regions but the game is already absurdly expensive here ($99.95 RRP which is $10 more than ToTK for comparison) and they still cheap out on the physical cartridge.

I'm sure glad that I don't care about the series in the first place or I may have had something to be disappointed about. Seems like they couldn't have done a much worse job of making a 'physical' release if they tried. Larger cartridges exist for a reason.

Handheld mode with Joy-Con, same as I play every other game.

I ended up giving it a 9/10. It's very close to a 10 for me but probably needed like one extra world of more challenging courses to bump it up as the game's a little on the easy side. I'd be all over some paid DLC if they wanted to make some.

@msvt It has button controls.

Seems about fair. Just a fun little time waster to play in-between other stuff. Priced fairly for what it is.

Been playing through Chained Echoes which has been a lot of fun. Getting pretty close to the end I think and plan to start Super Mario Bros. Wonder next once I'm done.

Only one I've played here is Loopers. Excellent little VN.

Nothing of interest to me (Edit: oh, except Kingdom Eighties, acutally) but I did laugh a little when I saw Submersibe Simulator.

Guess they must have had a lot of trouble with development if it's still got so many bugs even after taking forever to release. It's a shame as the game has a great art style and looks like it could be pretty fun with a bit more polish. I'll keep an eye on it and maybe pick it up on sale in the future if they can iron out most of the issues.

Love the art styles and the most of the gameplay mechanics look to be right up my alley. If it gets some good early impressions/reviews, I'll probably buy it.

I've got like a billion physical copies and quickly running out of places to store them all so I'll likely consider switching to digital next system but I'd prefer to have the option of going physical if I choose to though. Plus I really want backwards compatibility with my Switch cartridges as there's a lot of games I still need to play and I don't want to switch between two systems all the time.

Well that's a lot better than 62GB at the very least, I guess. Doesn't matter too much to me though as it'll be taking up nothing on my Switch.