Dogorilla

I picked up two new games recently, Okami HD and the Disney Classic Games Collection, so this weekend I'm intending to make a start on Amaterasu's adventure while knocking out a few levels of SNES Aladdin here and there. This week's news has also put me in a bit of a Pokemon mood, so if I have time I might boot up New Snap or Legends Arceus and try to make some progress on those 'dexes.

@AussieMcBucket Agreed, I don't know how I'll ever have time to play everything I want to!

@AussieMcBucket It's definitely worth a go if you're interested. Probably my favourite Pokemon game since the DS days.

@AussieMcBucket Cyndaquil was a starter in Legends Arceus so I wouldn't expect it to be in this one too, but it is a little odd they've gone for two gen 2s. I think Litten would feel at home in a city environment, though that's another fire type so it wouldn't have solved the gen 2 abundance.

@bransby Ah, I just saw EA FC 25 on the chart listing and thought it was the same game. I should probably have read it properly before commenting

Is it a mistake in the article or is the game formally known as FIFA actually known as 'EA Sports College Football' in the US? I don't know much about football but I don't think that game has much to do with colleges...

That's great, I don't have Netflix but I love stop motion and this looks adorable.

Some of these names were harder to remember than I expected given that I only played the game for the first time last year, but I got 21/24, so not too bad.

I've never used a Switch OLED so while I'd certainly like Switch 2 to be OLED so I can see what the fuss is about, LCD obviously wouldn't be a downgrade from what I have now so I wouldn't really be bothered. That said, I did recently get an OLED laptop and... it looks good, but I wouldn't say it's a hugely noticeable difference from the LCD screens I've used in the past - not to the extent that I would struggle to go back, anyway.

GMTK is a fantastic channel and I'll definitely watch this video, but I agree with those saying the UI gets too much slack. For your most used or recently used echoes the quick select menu gets the job done, and while you have it open you can just press + to access the notebook where you can find every echo in grid form, sorted by type. Yes, it can take a bit of time to find the one you want sometimes, but with the sheer number of echoes available that's pretty much unavoidable.

I wasn't a huge Miiverse user and I'm not clamouring for its return, but I did really enjoy the community feel, the great artwork and the clever integration in some games - all the games mentioned in the third paragraph of this article used Miiverse in different ways, and don't forget Wind Waker HD's messages in bottles!

So I absolutely would like to see Miiverse or something like it on Switch 2, but I'm not sure it would work on a platform with a large userbase (although maybe the 3DS is a counterpoint to that). If tens of millions of people were using it, most of its communities would be flooded with posts and it would be impossible to moderate.

I'm in no rush. I've got plenty still to play on Switch (and a fair bit on 3/DS and Wii/U for that matter). I'm looking forward to seeing what the Switch 2 is capable of, sure, but until then I don't know yet if I'll get one at launch. Depends how long I can withstand the Mario Kart 9 FOMO, I suppose.

Cry Babies Magic Tears: The Big Game for GOTY?

At first I thought the furrier cow was facing the camera and was like a Highland cattle with hair over its eyes, which would have been cute.

I'm a bit surprised by the negativity here. I don't really like his design in the Mario movie and I wasn't sold on the way he looked in the new Mario Kart from the brief glimpse we saw, but I think this 2D art looks pretty good! Not massively different to how he looked before, but his face is a little more expressive and it reminds me of the original arcade game art.

@Smithicus People who complain about 'wokeness' are a vocal minority. LGBT+ representation of all kinds is becoming more widely accepted and we'll only see more of it. There's still a long way to go and some companies are still avoiding this kind of thing for fear of controversy, for example with Disney vetoing the inclusion of a trans character in Pixar's new Disney+ series, but there isn't (or rather shouldn't be) anything political about the existence of trans people

I don't love it at first glance, but I'll reserve judgement until we see him in motion.

@BTB20 Yes, and I'll almost certainly get one for the games because I sold my soul to Nintendo many years ago. But the prospect of buying a new console just because that's the only way to play new games is not inherently thrilling to me. We don't even know what games will be on it yet anyway, so there isn't much to be excited about for me at this stage.

I'll be honest, this does nothing for me. It's bigger and the Joy-Cons are magnetic - OK, great, but what does it offer that the Switch doesn't? I know this is just a teaser and we'll get a proper look at it in April, but right now I don't know why I would want this thing.

New Mario Kart though, that's something.

This is cool, I like having the reviews incoporated into the store. Just curious how the shovelware filter works? I've noticed a few decent-looking indie games that have been flagged as shovelware, and I see some other people have brought this up too.

Congrats on 10 years, Alex!

One of the first things I remember seeing on this site was a song looking back on 2014 in the style of The Twelve Days of Christmas ('In the year 2014, Nintendo gave to me: third-party Zelda, 3DS themes, Bayonetta 2, and a rather impressive E3...' ) which I'm pretty sure was sung by Alex. I can't find it now but it's stayed in my head all these years. And if he started ten years ago this week that must have been one of his very first videos, which I didn't know at the time.

I bought this yesterday without even realising it was a new set. The bitty fragments of diorama you get in the Animal Crossing sets never seemed very appealing to me, but this one seemed worth the low price.

Yes, if I'm playing a game with vigorous motion controls. Predominantly so I don't drop the controller, but also it just feels right having the strap around my wrist, you know?

I finally started Fire Emblem Awakening on 3DS (and I can see from the poll results that I'm not the only one!). It's been a while since I last played a Fire Emblem game and I'd almost forgotten how addictive they are; I can feel myself getting hooked on this one already. Dreading my first heartbreaking death of the game though...

Happy birthday @JohnnyMind!

Weirdly I dreamed last night that Chapter 3 'Part 1' had just been released.

Very binary poll there. My answer is 'probably not, but maybe if I happen to see one for a good price and pick it up on a whim'.

That's the most generic title imaginable for such a bizarre announcement, but I actually really like the look of this!

Between Aardman working on Pokemon and the Crumble Lady making songs for a sandwich musical game, this is a good day for completely unexpected collaborations with British icons.

I don't speak Japanese, but I have a feeling 'Everyone is participating!' isn't quite the intended translation of that Famitsu tweet.

Anyway, yes, Smash Ultimate. Good game.

I've made a start on the Echoes of the Eye DLC for Outer Wilds, it's a nice change of pace from the main game and I'll definitely continue it this weekend - with a slight air of apprehension, I might add, because the game's settings warn that the DLC contains some frights (which can be turned off, but I've left them on for now, perhaps unwisely). The anglerfish in the main game were scary enough!

I've also downloaded Infinity Nikki on PC (not sure how long it will hold my attention as a free gacha game, but it's cute so far) and I'm playing a level of Mission to Snowdriftland each day as an advent calendar.

@TryToBeHopeful I haven't played the NES version myself; I'm not expecting to enjoy it as much as the modern ones, as you say, but it should be fun to try it out at least. I've also just seen the comments saying this will be the first time this particular version releases in Japan, so that makes a bit more sense as to why Nintendo is making a big deal of it.

Kind of weird that this particular addition was announced so long ago (and they're telling us the release date over a week in advance as well) when most NSO releases are just shadow dropped. I know licensing is probably fairly complicated for Tetris and there are definitely people excited to play this (I'll certainly give it a (T-)spin myself), but to a lot of people this isn't going to be the most interesting release given that there are already two versions of Tetris playable through NSO.

No, it's a great game but, well, I already have it. Surely it's time for a brand new DK?

Thanks for this guide (I already found every accessory but this is handy for checking I've got them all) - just thought I should point out a couple of typos that kind of change the meaning of the sentences they're in:

The section on the Curious Charm says it increases the damage you take (should be decreases), and the description of the Spin Brace says it knocks back foes that 'hit you with a spin' (should be 'you hit with a spin'.

Ho-Oh even says its classic catchphrase, 'Pose me'!

I got 18/19, just forgot the Mario & Sonics for the Mario games question. Pretty happy with that, especially as it puts me 3rd on the leaderboard! (Although I can't see myself on there any more after refreshing the page... does it take a while to verify the score or something?)

Professor Layton and the Lost Future
Pokemon Black and White
Bowser's Inside Story
New Super Mario Bros
Dragon Quest IX

I'm not counting Ghost Trick or Ace Attorney because I've only played later re-releases, but those are phenomenal games too. The DS has such a great library there are countless other amazing games I could have included and countless more I've yet to play.

@Asaki That's probably a good plan, some of the old Dragon Quests are really expensive now. I'd also like to have played this one by the time the I and II remake launches ideally.

@Asaki Same here, this game looks great but I've still got Zelda on the go. But maybe once I'm done with that I'll pick it up if I can ignore the siren's call of the backlog for long enough.

@Overzeal Tell me you don't know what censorship means without telling me you don't know what censorship means

This was the first Zelda game I 100%d, which, given how tedious this quest is, says a lot about how much I loved the rest of the game. It helped that I was a child with nothing better to do, but still.

I had no idea about the history of this, great to see it's no longer lost to time!

I really enjoy the new WarioWares as well, it's a bit unfair to write them off so quickly! But they do feel a bit too clean compared to the oddball roughness of the original.

I just got a new laptop, which is not specifically for gaming but I thought I'd test its performance by installing the most recent AAA game in my Steam library, Gotham Knights. It's from a Humble bundle (like most of my Steam games) and I don't know if I'll like it given its mixed reception, but hopefully I'll get round to giving it a spin soon to see how well it runs, and if I actually enjoy playing it that will be a nice bonus.

Apart from that, I'm still ambling through Echoes of Wisdom, currently in the Falon Wetlands.

This is Game & Wario erasure

CUOL is real 2401

@TopazLink Mine's done that a couple of times too, though I think it was before this month. I have just recently been having another battery issue though - it will drain very quickly when not in use if I don't leave it charging/docked - which I hadn't connected with the system update but maybe that's the cause. It's something of a relief if it is a widespread problem caused by the update, as hopefully that means the next update can fix it.

I remember seeing this in an ONM article about upcoming Wii U indie games over a decade ago. Not my thing, but it's cool to see it finally come to a Nintendo console after all these years.

This is gorgeous, and looks like a fun platformer too. Reminds me of DuckTales Remastered what with the cane and the visual style.

This is the funniest thing Nintendo could have done at this precise moment. I'm absolutely not buying a $100 alarm clock but I love that it exists. Never change, Nintendo