Dualmask

While I loved most of the first game, the last boss demoralized me after failing to beat its second form several times and repeating that final dungeon one too many times. Still, I appreciated the design of most of the game and felt I didn't need to beat the game to consider it a worthwhile experience.

So I'm thinking I'm going to go ahead and jump into the second game like an abused partner who keeps trying to see the good in the other person...haha.

Besides the technical issues, this game sounds appealing to me. I would want a longer, meatier game that gets a good 20 or so hours out of me for full exploration, but this doesn't sound like a total waste of time, especially considering it has a customizable protagonist.

I loved Symphonia back in the day, but after playing games like Berseria and Arise, and even Vesperia (which is also on Switch), I can't imagine going back to this one. Nostalgia would be the only driving force.

Good for what it was, but it's time to move on.

For some reason I always named my RPG hero 'Rage'. I don't know why, I guess it seemed like a cool name for a mute male hero who's job it was to destroy all evil.

I never played these games, but reading that there were English voices that aren't going to be in it now is kind of a bummer. Still, I tolerated Japanese VO in the Ryza games and others, so I'm sure I can tolerate it.

Yeah, this was the best part of the Direct. Do want, must have, will get...

Never had the chance to play either when I had my Gamecube, so I'm interested. Heard good things.

Looks like I finally have a reason to spring for the NSO expansion pack.

I grew up in the era where cartridges retailed between $70 and $90 for SNES games. This is a mainline Zelda game so it'll be worth it. Hopefully.

I don't care about 'most' this or 'best' that. It looks like a beautiful game with a lovely protagonist with a huge, challenging world to explore and well-animated combat. I'm all in...at least tentatively.

I only got 7. Meh. And here I used to think I was kind of knowledgeable on Zelda things.

Velkhana's not bad. One of my favorite monsters from World, but not as cool as Nergigante.

I haven't hunted in a while, this is interesting enough to pick it back up.

A less challenging shmup sounds like a dream come true in a time when it seems everyone and their mother who makes shmups goes the bullet hell route. I believe a great shmup should be epic and enjoyable, reward skill, but not be impenetrable for people who just want to have fun. Weird title aside, sounds like a great modern shooter.

Fond memories of this one. I had it for both Wii and Vita and enjoyed it heavily on both. For that reason, I don't think I'd buy it again, but it would be nice to have the option.

While they're at it, Dragon's Crown is born for a Switch port. And Odin's Sphere while they're at it; I played DC to death, but my Vita broke before I could get very far in Odin's Sphere.

@YoshiF2 winning the final cup in F-Zero GX on Master Difficulty was one of my proudest gaming achievements...even though I didn't come in first place in the final track, I got enough points to get the top rank. That game was BRUTAL. Even it's story mode was brutal--I never finished that.

I can deal with hard games and I enjoy them to an extent, but there's one game I played that took things a little too far. It was Death's Gambit... I really wanted to enjoy it. It was a nicely made Metroidvania with lots of challenge. But at some point I got a little far and I just kept encountering ridiculously hard bosses that required superhuman reflexes...but dying a lot wasn't the problem. The problem was after a while, the player character starts saying things like "I don't know how much more of this I can take" and 'Death' himself literally LAUGHED at me for dying to a boss a number of times. I was actively pissed at the developers and I rage-quit the game, never to touch it again.

I had more fun beating my head against the wall against bosses in Elden Ring...

What I've always loved about Nintendo is how they innovate in the hardware space. They're the reason console gaming isn't dull and boring. But they have as many hits as misses. For every Switch and Wii, one could talk about the Wii U, Virtual Boy, Power Glove, Super Scope, Power Pad and other neat but ultimately failed concepts. And history has shown Nintendo gets a little...dare I say arrogant after a success. They won't want to do the same thing over and over, even though there is nothing to be gained by NOT making a more powerful Switch-like device. Especially with Iwata gone...

I personally would like a Switch with the specs comparable with a device like the Steam Deck (but somehow with physical media and good battery life too) but Nintendo has also been successful enough with the Switch to take the risk on a completely different path. Heck, maybe they can afford to do both.

Looks good to me. Keep those Metroidvanias coming.

To me this game isn't really worse than Persona 4, just different in some ways. The review seems accurate enough (7 means good, people, and reviews are just opinions). Compared to later entries, it is a bit archaic and it is mysterious that the neutered PSP version is what they chose to bring back when a better version exists, but P3 is still a fine experience in its own right even as is.

This is one of the best RPGs ever. Played the heck out of it on my Vita. It's a great ride all the way through, story, gameplay, and especially the soundtrack.

Silly main character design aside, this sounds like a FE game for me. I skipped Three Houses because it sounded like it was going too far into relationship sim and far away from the combat I was used to (didn't they weaken or remove the weapon triangle in that one too?). Engage sounds more like a return to form that made me enjoy the earlier entries in the series.

Very inspirational. Getting into game dev myself, I often worry that today's players are more interested in big, long experiences rather than something short, linear and replayable like the games I grew up on. I prefer shorter and to-the-point games these days and that's what I find myself gravitating towards what I want to create as well. Nice to know there are devs working in that direction.

Gaming wise, it doesn't feel old to me, but mainly because I pay less attention to graphical fidelity or whatever and more attention to how much I enjoy playing a game regardless of visuals, frame rate, etc.

That being said, hardware wise, after getting my hands on a Steam Deck, the Switch feels tiny and weirdly designed in comparison. I love the weight and shape of the Deck and its button and analog stick placements are borderline perfect for me.

Look neat. I think I might be in the mood for a new rogue-lite after taking a hiatus from them for quite a while.

19. A lot of games that I couldn't care less about tripped me up. Fun quiz though.

Today's market has made supporting physical much more difficult. Availability is a concern, and a physical cart or disc doesn't mean the game won't need an online connection for patches and what not. As much as I want physical to never go away, digital is so much more convenient. Just means I'll never be much of a retro collector.

Of course, digital has major issues, like games possibly being broken or gone forever when online stores close up shop, games are removed for one reason or another or servers shut down. There's also the fact that digital games should absolutely never cost as much as a brand new physical game since there's no manufacturing, store presence or stock to consider, and yet brand new digital games still retail at the same price, which makes it hard to support digital games that aren't indie.

But the convenience of digital can't be beat. I find myself being less interested in going through the labor of switching carts to play games on Switch. If digital games were more reliable and were guaranteed to stay available forever (or could be backed up in such a way) they would be the superior option by far.

I remember being heavy into the Dreamcast original, to the point where I would take the VMU to work with me every day and play the little sailing minigame on it (although I do forget the specifics of that little addition). I never played the Gamecube upgrade, but I do remember not really loving the regular combat (but highly enjoying the ship battles).

The game needs a sequel (spiritual or otherwise) but not a remaster; RPGs have come a long way since SoA. A new game with the same ideas made to keep up with modern RPGs would be a better call.

Hope voices can be muffled somehow. Otherwise looks great.

This is a wonderful article. Thanks for sticking with the original six games that are truly FF to me. I loved the storytelling and characters of IV, and VI's freedom of choice built into the game along without having a central hero made it unique among RPGs even today.

While I have good things to say about VII, VIII, IX and X as well, it was around that point that the series started going in a direction that lost me. I will always have love for the series and FFVI is my favorite game ever, but I don't think the name of Final Fantasy is as legendary as it used to be. Not to me, anyway. More power to the devs for their future plans.

I guess I'll finally take the plunge and get Axiom Verge. I either have or have no interest in the rest of the games on the list.

MH Rise, Blast Brigade and Triangle Strategy were my top three.

Played it a bit on Game Pass, it's as enjoyable as this review says it is, although it just does a lot right without doing anything truly innovative.

I'm probably going to end up buying it for Switch or Steam Deck so I can play it the way it's meant to be played, on a handheld.

FFI, IV, V and VI are GOAT-level games for me, but I have zero experience with the remasters and I have the means to play the originals (or updated versions like Dawn of Souls) one way or another on different devices, so the only way I'd spring for this is if they're all on a cart for Switch.

Nice news overall though.

I own both, and my thoughts basically mirror those presented in the article. The Steam Deck is great, but it's also huge compared to the Switch, its battery doesn't last nearly as long and it doesn't have any physical games. I don't mess with emulators for consoles that are readily available, so I'm fine with sticking with Switch for Nintendo's exclusives.

That being said, there are a lot of games I have on the Deck that I would have bought for Switch if the Deck didn't exist, mostly in the realm of indies. I'm finding less reasons to buy games for Switch if they're not on a cart, so I'm hoping Nintendo has plans to step it up soon.

Elden Ring was getting GOTY mentions when it first came out, and I think it was well deserved. Other games had better visuals and better narratives, but I think among triple A releases, it was the purest game that came out this year IMO.

Great to read a review about this kind of game that doesn't attack people who might be interested in it, and actually seemed to pay attention to the game underneath the content without automatically dismissing it.

Loved the first game. The second one having a female lead is enough for me to add it to my want list.

I really enjoy the Cuphead Show on Netflix, although I felt like the third season needed to grow beyond plots involving the Devil. Felt like they were milking him a lot...I get he's the villain, but it was exhausting.

That being said, watching it made me pick up the game again and sooner or later I'm going to nab that DLC, even though I still suck at the game and have never beaten it, ha.

Personally don't care at all about CoD, but I get how popular it is. It's good to see that it's expanding this way for gaming as a whole.

I just went through the GBA version of the game. It's really great. Although I consider FFVI my favorite game of all time, I think the job system in FFV trumps the gameplay in almost every other game in the series. FFV's story was its biggest weakness, but the jobs are so fun to play around with it's hard to really care.

Yeah, it's not bad. I played through it on Steam and I still boot it up from time to time on the Deck. For that reason alone, I wouldn't bother with the Switch port, but it's a solid game, not the greatest, but inoffensive really. One could do a lot worse.

I get that the review rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, but for me as someone with no real experience with Front Mission games (though I have played a lot of other TRPGs like Tactics Ogre and Final Fantasy Tactics), the frequent missing and random targeting sound like pretty big problems to me. Is it as bad as the reviewer makes it sound? I much rather miss or mis-aim my attacks because of my own poor tactics rather than RNG.

They could have at least went with a different art direction. This almost looks like they just ripped the AW sprites and added a bit of detail to them...

Sounds like yet another wasted opportunity. RWBY is a concept so full of promise and yet ends up a (slight) letdown over and over.

Guess it'll be worth a try on a deep sale.

Yeah, I love MHRise and Sunbreak is a fine expansion, but these updates are not grabbing me the way Iceborne's did. Still glad I bought it and all, but the interest drained a bit faster this time. I don't know, maybe we're just spoiled.

They know exactly what they're doing with that gal's design and I'm all for it. Ryza's games are the first and so far only games in the Atelier series I ever played, and I'm looking forward to the third one. So her design definitely worked on me, not gonna lie.

That's pretty neat. Just about every Switch game should support touch too. It's a handheld with a touch screen at its core, after all.

My Switch is on hiatus for the time being while I focus on finishing up Elden Ring and playing PSO2 New Genesis on PS4 when I need a break from that.

The visuals sound like the biggest turn off, and a heck of a turn off. Between that and the thought of spending the first half of a battle glacially moving one unit at a time until they are almost in range to engage the enemy, and I think this is the kind of game that should have gotten a full remake rather than a remaster. A lot of it sounds great, but the moment-to-moment gameplay and the visuals sound grating.

Maybe on sale...

Yeah, this definitely has those Drill Dozer vibes. A classic I have fond memories of. This game looks like it was clearly inspired but has plenty of its own original ideas too. One to keep an eye on for sure.