Cynas

For sure picking it up day 1! Happy it got a good review, been looking forward to it. Hope it does well.

@Zeebor15 I'm a Kickstarter backer for KoRobo and am excited for both games, but honestly I think I'm a bit more hyped for Misc. Will definitely be getting both, but Misc nails the aesthetic for me and looks like a wonderful passion project. Sometimes fan made games can turn out better than the original.

Super hyped for this one, looks like it'll be a great time.

@Zeebor15 Maybe you're thinking of KoRobo, which is a Kickstarter funded game being made by old Skip devs. It's also heavily Chibi-Robo inspired.

@LavenderShroud No the game you're thinking of is koROBO, which is being made by some of the same team members that made Chibi-Robo. The kickstarter for that was a few months ago, and development only started this year, so it'll be a while before it's out.

Misc. A Tiny Tale was announced a couple years ago (this is just a new trailer for it) and is a fan made game. The developer for Misc is in the koROBO Discord server actually, he mentioned Misc has been in development for 4 years now. Just a coincidence these 2 games have been getting press around the same time.

It's been a while since I played it on the Wii, but I remember the camera and controls were my biggest issue from the game, so I'm sure a remaster would help this title more than a lot of other games out there. I'll probably pick it up on sale at some point.

I got the first wave last year and I love it so much, will definitely be picking this up! The onion crab one looks awesome.

Chibi Robo is one of my favourite series of all time, and I'm actually replaying the Japanese exclusive DS game right now. But this has me worried a bit. It's lacking charm, the animations are stiff, the art style isn't anything special, the UI is kinda ugly, and the character designs are basic. Instead of going for a more realistic style like this I feel like they should have pushed further into a Katamari-like colourful and weird path instead. It would have fit the vibe of the original much better.

They haven't shown anything about solving toys' problems yet, which I hope is a thing. Makes the world feel more lived in and those wacky characters are part of what gave Chibi Robo its charm.

Regardless I'll still probably back this. I've been dying for anything Chibi Robo related for years. I sincerely hope it turns out well.

Not at all what I expected, I can see some people being disappointed since it's a niche genre but I'm happy with the outcome.

@SillyG Physical has already been confirmed luckily
https://x.com/Lbabinz/status/1813563019634598297?t=cl4dKmUZ7gkk-pyHBkzFUw&s=19

@RygelXVIII You're acting as if the entire game is a glorified gambling machine. You can easily play these games without participating in the gacha at all, or if you do use it it's not hard to avoid spending real money. And out of the lot of gacha games out there, hoyo's games are some of the most free to play approachable.

I understand wanting to avoid supporting gacha games since they can be predatory, but don't act like everyone playing them is some mindless gambling zombie that just gets a high off getting new shiny characters. The games behind the gacha model are actually really fun.

I've been having a good time with it, I like the art style and character design, and thr combat is pretty fun once you get the hang of it. I decided to do a "no-pull" challenge on this one, so I won't be touching the ghacha at all.

I love the concept, but I'm just afraid there won't be enough content. The kickstarter description says there's "dozens of items" to discover. You trade crops for items, and crops are grown basically instantly, so it seems like you'll see all the content the game has to offer within an hour or two. I guess the rest of it would be customization, but given the small space and apparently limited amount of items, I doubt that would last long either compared to other farming/customization games.

I think being a tiny doll in a poly pocket world where you farm on the base with you and other residents living on the lid would give more room for content.

@Olliemar28 They were poking fun at the typo I think. It should be 33/40, not 33/10

@MH4 I'm pretty sure it's referencing the first spongebob episode where Mr Krabs says "Do you smell it? That smell. The kind of smelly smell. The smelly smell that smells... smelly."

Personally I would have gone with "Are you feeling it now?" in the headline.

I wasn't motivated enough to finish the base game. I liked the setting and premise initially, but everything drags on for way too long. I thought the story would pick up and the gameplay would expand more once you leave the underground, but it doesn't. If anything it slows down further. I think this DLC would be up my alley and sounds great, but I might be too burned from the base game to go back and revisit the world even with more entertaining gameplay.

@Fulgor_Astral I think Okamiden was alright but it was restricted by the hardware it was on. Controlling the camera on the DS is a pain, part of what was great about the original is the gorgeous art style which is muddied on the DS, and it ended up feeling more restrictive with all the invisible walls everywhere and less freedom of movement. There wasn't much to set it apart from the original's story, setting, or gameplay, so imo it just ended up feeling like an inferior version of Okami.

I think I'd give it a 7. The story is entertaining enough to listen to, but not nearly as gripping as other visual novels out there. The puzzles on the first game felt much worse and stripped down compared to the DS original. Still, there was something quaint about the setting and story (especially the second game) and I wasn't bored while playing, so I'd say I enjoyed my time with it. I kinda got similar vibes as when I played Life is Strange.

My gaming plate is a bit full right now but I'm really excited to try this one out eventually! I've loved all the SteamWorld games, especially Dig 2, so I'm sure I'll love this too. I might end up opting for the PS5 version though.

I'd give it an 8, I loved all the microgames, and it's a fun way to be at least a little bit active while gaming. I also wish there were more collectibles, and I'm not a big fan of some of the changes they made to the museum/mini game gallery, but overall I think it's a really solid entry in the WarioWare series. I've played every minigame and haven't had any issues with the motion controls. The IR camera can sometimes not register properly but usually it works fine, and I'm happy to finally see another game using the IR camera.

I'm also new to this series, but it looked great from the trailer in the direct and I've been hyped for it ever since. Glowing reviews like this are making me even more excited, can't wait to give it a try!

I'm a sucker for buying any Pokemon spin-off, and I love detective/mystery visual novels like Ace Attorney, Danganronpa, and Professor Layton, but I just can't seem to get myself interested in Detective Pikachu. It just seems so bland in comparison, I can see myself falling asleep while playing. Story-wise it seems kind if like the Katrielle Layton game, which was by far my least favourite. Maybe I'll be proved wrong if I give it a go, but based on what's in this review I doubt it

@Vyacheslav333 I'm just saying, it makes more sense for a review written in English to care more about the English option being removed, and to inform the readers as such. Just like I don't expect any reviews written in Japaense to complain about the removal of English audio. I don't see either as a "double standard".

@Vyacheslav333 In this case it's more about the fact that they removed the existing dub than not creating one. A lot of us grew up with the English audio and have nostalgia for it, I don't see the issue with being sad that something we enjoyed was removed. And this is an English review site, so yeah naturally it's going to care more about the English option being removed.

Definitely the highlight of the direct for me. After 13 Sentinels Aegis Rim I'll trust Vanillaware with anything. Looks stunning.

I really hope they significantly revamp 1 and 2 if/when they remake those. 3 didn't necessarily need it since that's the game that made a huge jump with QoL improvements, but it's so hard to go back to 1 and 2 after playing 3 and 4.

@Shiro28 Yeah I noticed right away when playing, it's pretty jarring how long it takes. Here's a good video going over the issues with the remaster:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=9b6LTBwV3wY&feature=share8
At 10:32 they show a comparison of the load times after battle between all the different versions, it's insane how long the Switch version takes. Some of the issues in this video have been fixed since it was posted, but a lot are still present.

I mean, at least they haven't completey dropped it I guess. But it's still ironic that they're working on these patches to try to get the "remaster" on par with the original. With the removed dialogue, lower fps, and higher load times I doubt it'll ever get there.

@Dr_Lugae Some gacha games are more predatory than others, but I would say Genshin is one of the better ones. It has a guarantee system, so you wouldn't have to spend an "endless" amount of money to get a character. It's a max of 90 pulls to get a 5 star, which has a 50/50 chance of being the focus character, and if you fail that the next 5 star you get is guaranteed to be the focus character. On average they release one new 5 star per patch (usually one, sometimes none, sometimes two), and even f2p players can get enough pulls to get 1 new 5 star per patch, so if they play regularly a f2p player can usually guarantee a 5 star they want every other patch. Actually, there hasn't even been a new 5 star released since May 2nd. The company seems much less focused on pumping out as many characters as possible to squeeze all the money they can out of people, and actually takes time to build up a smaller cast of well written characters.

@Magrane It definitely took inspiration from BotW. The game has a similar art style, it's open world, there's gliding, and you can climb up any surface. But beyond that, the game really does have its own identity and doesn't just feel like a cheap rip off. The combat is completely unique, they add a ton of events with a shocking variety of gameplay modes, and the game is much more dialogue focused. Despite being a gacha game, the devs definitely put a lot of effort into it. I can understand why a lot of people avoid gacha games and I respect that, but this one is much better than a lot of other f2p games on the market.

With Ubisoft games I've learned to just wait until they go on sale for $20, since that usually happens in about a year. Been burned too many times buying a Ubisoft game at launch for full price only for it to be half the price a couple months later.

I don't know if anything will beat A Wonderful Life for me, it has such a different feel than other Harvest Moon games.

2nd place is probably Animal Parade for me. That one really surprised me, it's basically a better version of Tree of Tranquility imo. The Story of Seasons games have been good too, but it's hard to feel the desire to go back to them since Stardew Valley came out.

I'm kinda sad Yo-Kai Watch didn't really pick up in the West like it did in Japan. The games are surprisingly a lot of fun and packed with content, especially Yo-Kai Watch 3. It's similar to Pokemon but still feels like it has its own identity. I find Temtem to be too much of a straight clone.

Even with these fixes there's still a handful of other reasons that make the Gamecube version superior. This seems to be just scratching the surface of what needs to be done.

I'll leave a couple of things here I got from amiibo today that aren't included in the article yet:

• From the Smash Bros Zelda amiibo I got the "Princess of Twilight Fabric" glider design
• From the Link's Awakening amiibo, I got the "Trousers of Awakening", so looks like he has his own tunic set in this game.

Been holding off on this until seeing reviews, so I'm glad to see it's good! Will be ordering it soon.

@Selim It's primarily a Playstation series. Other than the spin-off games, the main series games have at least started off as Playstation exclusive. Only recently they've been getting ported to Xbox and Switch.

Ugh this is such a disappointment... Milly's English VA from Origins is one of my favourite dub performances out of any JRPG I've played. Baten Kaitos Origins is one of my favourite games ever, and this has me seriously debating whether I'll bother playing the remaster.

This announcement made me SO happy. Love this series and hope it sells well on Switch.

Normally I'm not a fan of third party controllers, but this one seems like it'll be good quality so I ordered it. Being wireless is huge bonus, and it's nice that it has rumble even though it's not HD. The reviews all seemed great for it, so I'm excited to try it out.

@ketrac Your initial argument was that they offered no value, but for those of us that just that just like to collect the figures, they do offer value. Personally even if amiibos had 0 game functionality and were just figures, I'd buy them. Most quality figured sell for $50-100, so amiibos are still a relatively cheap way to get nice looking figures for games you enjoy. Even for obscure games that would otherwise probably not get any figures.

Your second argument is fine (although personally I don't really care if it's a small cosmetic item), but I certainly wouldn't say amiibos offer no value.

@WizardJ Sports Story and Golf Story are both unrelated to Game Dev Story. Different devs and different genre. Besides similarities in the names, they don't have much in common. Game Dev Story is made by Kairosoft, pretty much all of their games would fall under the simulation genre.

Salmon Run is my favourite mode so I'm glad they're adding more stages soon! Just 3 stages on the rotation was getting a bit dull.

Looks like a fun little project made by a small content creator. I think the creator did a really good job with the video, he definitely has a lot of potential. The final result lacks a lot of polish yeah, but there's still some fun ideas in there.

Hyped for this one! The storytelling in Danganronpa is interesting and entertaining, so I have high hopes for this game.

The music hit me like a wave, almost cried when this came up. So much nostalgia tied to this game, can't wait! Really hope it's a solid remake.

@IronMan30 I've dealt with this before using a different controller than intended on PC games and I've never found it to be too much of an issue. It's easy to get used fairly quickly and for me is just a minor annoyance. At the very least it's something that can be easily patched and isn't a fundamental flaw with the game.

-insert "it's been 10,000 years" meme-

Excited for Waluigi Pinball and Mushroom Gorge!

If they plan to space out the release of the waves evenly until the end of 2023, the second wave should be here any day now. Hoping Maple Treeway is included in Wave 2, love that track.

So hyped for this one! Glad to see such positive reviews across the board. I'm on vacation all week next week so I'll have some time to play too.

I think Odyssey might push ahead now, but for the longest time Shunshine was my favourite as well. It's pretty polarizing to say, but instead of bashing people that love Sunshine, let's just let people have their opinions.

@BabyYoda71 I don't really use Twitter much myself but I'm assuming it's mostly about new characters, especially leaks. Being a live service game it kind of has the edge since it gets major content updates every 6 weeks so it can stay relevant. Still, it's pretty crazy how absurdly popular Genshin is for being a pretty niche adventure JRPG. You'd think it would have lost some steam, but banner sales have been better than ever and even the trailer they dropped yesterday has been floating at #1/#2 trending on YouTube and has already become Genshin's top liked YouTube video.