Dr_Corndog

@LadyCharlie I want to be sure I understand you. Are you saying the grifters are accusing the "woke left" of being responsible for the so-called censorship in XBCX?

@mariomaster96 11 people! I just played it a few weeks ago, and it's great!

@sketchturner Hard to answer. I normally view stories in games as motivation for what I'm actually doing in the game, as the stories are usually not very good in and of themselves. XBC has a decent story and XBCX's is a little worse, but the story beats at least helped me understand why I was going to this place/fighting this dude/searching for this whatever. Not sure how well that would work if I'd skipped the stpry entirely.

Still, the XBC games definitely place gameplay above story, so you might still enjoy just battling and exploring the world. The combat system is very good.

It's not Justin Wong, is it?

@Smackosynthesis I'm more flexible on "classic rock" but "oldies" stop in 1970, haha.

Ollie, my man. Classic rock, metal, and prog? We should swap notes.

DKCRHD comes out in 2025, not 2024. (I read that and thought, wow! How did I miss it?)

@Lord Spread the ZombiU love!

He's working on a QWOP prequel.

Will get this on PC eventually so I can enjoy the graphical upgrades.

@Daniel36 Hadn't thought about it but it is pretty childish to sign up for this and then leak it when they asked you not to. And now am I a participant in their bad act since I googled the leaks? Haha.

Two bucks a pop? I'll take it! I'll take twelve!

It's hard to beat the American black box design.

Metroid: Other M and Star Fox: Zero are not stinkers.

MOMSFZ Defense Force awaaaaay!

I'd put Super Mario 64 at number one, but the six games above it are all hard to beat.

Weird to see SML2 as high as 11. I mean, it's all right...

Awww yeah, here we go. Best Rare game on the N64 (after DKR).

@MirrorFate2 I know, I was joking.

Cool, now give us Coldsteel.

Finishing up Origami King, and then maybe getting back in Order of Ecclesia.

I wish I enjoyed these games, but I find them mostly tedious.

The Japanese boxes need to stop using text I can't read.

Went back to it again about a year ago and was having a surprisingly good time. Then I got to the Deborah fight. Hrrmm...

@Ryu_Niiyama I don't see anything worthy of mods, but I guess that doesn't stop some people.

We've got multiple soap operas going on in these comments.

All three Castlevania collections are pure gold.

I'm one of the proud 840,000, and I still have my copy and my Wii U.

Also, 840,000 sales? I might have guessed lower.

NGL, that Ultimate Edition looks a lot better than some premium editions I've seen. Still not dropping $200 on it, haha.

Played it for the first time the other day, and I was convinced the techniques I saw on YT to dodge that attack were impossible. It wasn't just my imagination!

JP > NA > EU. Not that any of them are great.

I've had this on my Steam wishlist since it released there, and with the surprise Switch launch I'm glad I held off till now.

Castlevania Dominus. Looks like I'm part of the popular club this week.

@Yuna-Suzuki I think it was a weekly, but it was pretty stacked for a weekly. The Mac beat Ken's Sonic and a Min-Min.

@Markiemania95 That really only applies to Steve, and he's only slightly better than the other top tiers. The top tier is filled with base game characters like Sonic, Rob, Pikachu, and Snake.

While it's not literally true that every character has an equal chance of winning, Smash Ultimate is a remarkably well balanced game, and low tiers pull off upsets pretty often.

Really reaching on that con, aren't we?

Anyway, these Castlevania collections have all been fantastic. More, more, MORE!

@Uncle_Franklin I have to imagine this game was much cheaper to develop than a new Star Fox game would be. A cheap game can sell far less than an expensive one and still turn a profit.

It is a shame that Star Fox Zero didn't sell well, because it's actually pretty great.

@ocarin Was thinking the same thing. Games like this are better read than listened to.

@Lizuka It's actually very easy to argue. English voice acting would increase costs. Lower costs means lower price.

We got Pizza Tower and Castlevania, so I'm very happy.

@Lizuka I think it's really cool that it's included. Easy way to check out the game if you've never played it, and it's surrounded by so much quality content.

@Anti-Matter You would be the one to express a dislike for Keanu Reeves, haha.

I'm gonna have fuuuuun with this.

Given inflation, I expect to pay more than I did for the Switch, but I'd love the price to be close to $300.

I need to replay Hollow Knight. It's been a while...

@Bigmanfan It's been a while, but I've played TYD twice. I think it's still the best Paper Mario.

@Bigmanfan The complaints you mentioned relate more the game itself than the ones I usually hear, which are basically just ways in which it differs from TYD.

I don't think the lack of unique characters is a problem. I see it as a joke on the fact that the Mushroom Kingdom is inhabited by legions of identical Toads all named...Toad. The Toads also have their own personalities despite looking the same (although this is a lot more apparent starting in Color Splash).

I also don't think the linearity as being an issue. It's not any more linear than a lot of other RPGs (and I do consider Sticker Star an RPG). More importantly, "linear" has become a dirty word in gaming (much like "downloadable content" and "free-to-play") to the point that a lot of people will rail against a game for being "linear" without considering whether that's even a bad thing. A lot of great games are very linear; a lot of nonlinear games could have benefited from being made more linear.

As for the unbalanced combat system, do you mean the boss battles that were a slog if you didn't have the right card in your inventory, but became trivial if you did? Because that is my one main complaint with the game (if you couldn't already tell). Still, the boss battles are a small part of the game, and I found the regular battles with common grunts very fun. I really enjoyed figuring out how to finish each battle optimally using the stickers I had.

I disagree that the game would have been received poorly under other circumstances, mainly because it wasn't received poorly at all. It has a 75 on Metacritic, and it apparently sold well enough to receive two sequels. The complaints are largely from a vocal subset who went into the game expecting something different and ended up unsatisfied with what they got. I do think it would have had better reception had it been untethered from expectations, but there are still plenty of people who enjoyed it regardless.

@batmanbud2 You're welcome to disagree.

Seems opportune to praise Sticker Star, which I only just played after hearing for years how bad it supposedly was. If you pay attention you realize that the complaints tend to boil down to "It isn't TYD" (see the letter above) which, OK, it isn't. But it's a fine game. Better than any Mario & Luigi game I've played, in fact.

Once I was playing MK Wii, having a rough time, and I got annoyed with one opponent in particular. I pledged to make things miserable for this player. On the next race, Sherbet Land, I immediately rolled triple red shells and a mushroom, and hit the brakes.

Miraculously, the entire pack swept by me without disturbing my rotating shells. More miraculously, the last person to pass was my sworn enemy. I had him in my sights.

I let fly the first red shell. Direct hit. I waited until my opponent had recovered from the attack, then let fly the next shell. Direct hit. By this time all the other racers were well out of sight. I fired the third shell. Direct hit. Then I accelerated, used my mushroom for a speed boost, and slammed into my unfortunate prey as I went.

After so many frustrating losses that day, it was very cathartic.

I like the style of the European art, but as you look at it you start to notice the problems. Zero's left eye is way bigger than the right, for instance.

Tough choice between NA and Japan in the end, but I went with NA.

Finally tried out this game and I've been having a great time the last several days. The negative opinions surrounding it say a lot more about the people holding those opinions and their expectations than they do about the game itself.

Belatedly playing Paper Mario: Sticker Star, and it's been tremendous fun. Looking forward to catching up with this series on Wii U and Switch, now.