EarthboundBenjy

I mean... I've played text-only games like NetHack before. Never with kanji characters though! Sounds cool. I hope it doesn't except me to know how to read them though. 😅

everyone who enjoys playing Virtual Console, enjoys the Mini Consoles, enjoys browsing the NSO lineup, who buys retro compilations, who checks out SEGA AGES, Arcade Archives, EGGConsole and all these kind of things etc.... YOU NEED TO GET UFO 50! If you have any interest at all in retro games, UFO 50 is an absolute must-play in my opinion. It truly understands the appeal of playing retro games and browsing a retro library, and replicates it perfectly in a modern package.

where's the option for "I've beaten it multiple times when it was new, and watched countless letsplays over the years, so I don't need to play it again now"

in my opinion, if you have a choice between not including a character, or only including a soulless husk of that character.... you shouldn't bother. If they couldn't do the characters justice, they should not be included. I feel like it's disrespectful to the fans and comes across as pure cynical branding and marketing, and not as a fun treat.

this is a bit of a nitpick but. ... if the goal of Yooka-Replaylee is to "replace" the original Yooka-Laylee by making it basically improved in every way, then I find the title of the game to be a bit of a problem - putting "Replay"lee front and center like that draws attention to the fact that there was originally a previous version. This is all well and good for fans who played the original, but it might make newcomers think twice about jumping in with this version, if the title might give the feeling they're missing out on something.
I dunno. Is their demographic purely just fans of the original who wish it was better? That's a pretty small demographic

I logged in to get this Chien Pao, and to my surprise a Wo Chien was also available. Are they doing all four of them? Or did I miss the other two and they happened already?

don't underestimate UFO 50. It's the real deal. it actually is 50 games in one. and they're all interesting and unique.

i never understood the fact that pokémon pronunciations are debated so much when there is literally an anime episode about every single monster dubbed into every langauge imaginable. If you're unsure, just check how the characters say it. I don't get why there's ever a debate about it.

the only pronunciation that makes sense to contest is Arceus, because early material such as Pokémon Battle Revolution on Wii did have a soft C, whereas nowadays it's a hard C. that's the only one that has changed as far as I know

for someone who has not played this series, is Guardains of Azuma a good entry point?

I will complain about game key cards for the foreseeable future.

It's possible that publishers were not expecting them to have this kind of backlash, and so they went all-in on them, thinking it'd all be fine and dandy.

I'm very curious to see whether the backlash will affect plans for the future. Or maybe Nintendo will start offering publishers cheaper physical options, and we might see a change that way.

Vainger - A mini Metroid style game, with the added ability to flip gravity at any time.
The adventure is shorter than I would preferred personally (it's not as big as Super Metroid), but what is there is very good, and the room layouts are designed cleverly to be able to accommodate the gravity-flipping mechanics, with new mechanics being introduced that interact with it too (such as enemies that only chase you if you're upside-down for example). A very clever little Metroidlike game.

Grimstone - an actual JRPG is in here. It's a 15-20 hour oldschool-style JRPG. The longest game in the collection. It's not a typical fantasy setting though - the theming for this game is "cowboys in hell"... the vibes are super cool. The gameplay is definitely on the grindy side in terms of encounters, as you might expect. Encounters are visible on the overworld, so you can occasionally avoid them if you maneuver carefully. Overall, I really enjoy this game, though your mileage may vary depending on your tolerance for classic JRPGs, because this very much is unapologetically one of those.

Night Manor - a point-and-click horror adventure game. You explore a creepy mansion, picking up items, finding clues, and figuring out which items to use where, in true classic adventure-game style. This game has such a great mood, and the horror elements are played straight. This is just a good point-and-click game too - the puzzles are not too esoteric, and the mystery is interesting and compelling.

Cyber Owls - a game designed as an homage to all the "cool" mascot characters you'd often see in classic games - it's like a TMNT or Battletoads kind of vibe, with a mix of GI Joe for good measure. ...but with owl characters. Each of the four playable owls has their own gameplay style - a beat 'em up, an Operation Wolf style shooter, a Metal Gear style stealth game, and a vehicle section. This game very much captures the "feel" of what so many NES games were like back then, even if the end result is a bit of a messy mishmash of genres. It's fun even though it's silly and doesn't always mesh well.

Ok that's eight games. There's 42 more than what I've mentioned. Go play them yourself lol.

Alrighty. People in the comments want info about the game specifics that this review is not providing.

I've played and beaten all 50 games, so I suppose I'll talk briefly about some of the standouts in the collection. Not going to mention all 50 of course, just a sample platter:

Barbuta - The "metroidvania" mentioned in the review. It is the first game on the list, and is the "oldest"-feeling game in the collection, deliberately designed as an homage to oldschool screen-by-screen exploration mazes that you might find on Commodore or Spectrum back in the day. Think Dizzy, or Jet Set Willy, and the like. This is generally a hit-or-miss game for many fans, as it is slow-paced. It is a bold move for them to put such an "unimpressive"-looking game as the first impression for the whole collection.

Mortol - A sidescrolling puzzle-platformer where you must die in order to progress - you play as expendable soldiers who willingly sacrifice themselves to create a path forward - either by exploding themselves to break walls (Lemmings, anyone?), or by turning into a platform themselves. Your remaining lives will carry on over to the next levels, so don't waste too many people! This is an extremely clever puzzle-platforming game, and each new level introduces new mechanics and stage elements that interact with the idea of expendable lives (for example, lighting oneself on fire to burn a path forwards).

Mooncat - An extremely bizarre sidescrolling platforming game with completely unique controls. This is an artistic game that does not care to explain itself in the slightest. You play as a wobbly thing who seems to be looking for something. It's short and not so difficult to complete, but there are hidden paths to discover that give it replay value. It's difficult to describe here, but the vibes are otherworldly. A standout just for its sheer weirdness for sure.

Rail Heist - This is a stealth action puzzle thing. You play as wanted outlaws on a train, who must avoid being seen by the trigger-happy lawmen as you search for the loot. There are a lot of emergent possibilities and interactions in this game you can use to create your own solutions - you can pick up any crates and barrels lying around, you can punch through most walls, you can stack items to create impromptu stairs, and all sorts of other shenanigans. The lawmen will react to your gunfire sound, which can be used as a distraction . The game is semi-turn based - The outlaws and lawmen take turns being able to move, automatically shooting in their line of fire when it's not their turn. I've never seen a game with this kind of setup before, it's really unique and very fun.

9/10 is too low a score for this game. This is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of game release.

I'm playing Lufia and the Fortress of Doom on emulator.

I wasn't expecting it to be quite as identical to Dragon Quest as it is. Wow. Now I feel bad that I haven't yet played all the real Dragon Quest games before playing a "knock-off" haha.

The reason I'm playing this game is because everyone seems to love Lufia II. So I wanted to start playing this series from the start in order to see for myself.

Overall I'm having a good time though.

@Nabbit01
The main thing that comes to mind is the "quibble race", the horse betting simulation game I mentioned earlier - it's possible to sabotage your opponent's Quibbles by feeding them poison, or boost your Quibble by giving them performance-enhancing drugs. They are not really animals though, they are silly cartoon aliens that run on two legs.

As for animal cruelty...

There is an RPG-style game where an old, one-eyed dog can be selected as a party member, and just like any other party members, they can lose all their HP and need to be resurrected in town.

Two games involve intentionally killing chickens - one game involves placing live chickens next to campfires in order to turn them into roast chickens, and one other game involves throwing chickens into the line of fire of some very trigger-happy gunmen as a distraction.

Again, it's all cartoony shenanigans and none of this is depicted realistically.

@Nabbit01
Dead bodies and blood, and a killer with a cleaver who chases and occasionally jumpscares the player.

It's all pixel art, so nothing realistically grotesque. But it is definitely more intense contentwise than any of the other games in the selection, and it even comes with an in-game content warning when you boot it up.

@Suketoudara
One of the games is simulated horse betting. And gambling makes things 18+ according to PEGI. That's pretty much the only reason why. All the other games are fine, though there's also one horror-themed game that might've made it a 12+ otherwise.

best game best game best game best game best game

i was obsessed with this game last year.
300 hours of playtime. got all cherries. ready to do it all over again on switch!!!!

@iNintendo

The focus of this game is mainly on the story and characters, yes.
There does exist some RPG gameplay stuff in terms of difficult boss fights that require you to think about who equips which items, and which healing items to bring and all that. So I'd definitely say this is an RPG. It just doesn't have EXP in the traditional sense.

Not sure what you mean by "try hard dialogue" to be honest. (though there is a scene where Susie calls Kris a "tryhard" in chapter 3 lol) I guess the style of humour is not your thing? I personally love the writing in this game.

The difference between violence or peacefulness doesn't affect the way the story progresses, but what Ralsei says at the start does hint toward something important coming from it - if you solve everything with violence, "You may not find the result favorable" he says.
There do exist scenes that are different depending on if you are peaceful or violent, though the overall trajectory of the story is not affected. At least so far, with the four chapters we have at the moment.
It's definitely a story thing more than a gameplay thing, that's true.

If you are not enjoying the characters and dialogue, then I guess there isn't much else going on in the game. I'd say, stick around at least until you've tried chapter 2 - I found chapter 2's Cyber World more fun than chapter 1's Card Kingdom personally, so maybe it'll just take a bit longer until you start feeling it. But otherwise, yeah. The game is what it is, and if that's not your thing, then so be it, you know?

oh finally, the spincake bug has been fixed. I was wondering what the deal with that was.

And I guess they added a new method to get the trip ticket too? Interesting - I thought one of the main points of the shadow mantle bonus fight was that it turned off all the TVs in TV World, so I wonder how they changed it so that the trip ticket is still obtainable?

@GoldenSunRM
oh I just meant, put the app on the shop as available for download. so I wouldn't need a separate smart device to run it. ...But actually being able to customise the Switch UI with Nintendo Music would actually be really cool

For some reason it hadn't registered to me until now that there's a new 2D Ninja Gaiden and a new 2D Shinobi at the same time. haha

i don't generally use my phone for anything other than the web browser and text messages, so I honestly wish they would just bring Nintendo Music to the Switch eShop so we can enjoy it on an actual Nintendo device. Why the heck haven't they done this yet?

Hm. ...maybe there could have been the reveal of the rumoured Final Fantasy 9 remake? the presentation was already pretty Square-heavy with the two new HD-2D games plus FF Tactics

in the feedback survey I mentioned:

• I want a hotkey for switching between Sprint and Warp. D-pad left is unused, could easily go there. Having to pause to swap is extremely bothersome
• In the Weapon Shortcut menu, I don't like how I have to press A and then Y to equip a weapon to the Y button, or A and then X to equip a weapon to the X button. I just want to hover over the weapon and press Y or X directly.
• I also don't like how the Weapon Shortcut menu looks completely visually different from the regular inventory weapon menu. Making the player have to familiarise themselves with two completely different menus for the sake of one gameplay mechanic is just unnecessarily convoluted.
• I don't like how ZL opens the map, but does not close the map. I also don't like how the background moves so quickly in the menus and when closing the map, it makes my eyes tired.
• There should be an option to turn off Faie's voice quips. Also Faie keeps saying how she loves the cats, so I said that there should be an option to allow Faie to pet the cats.
• Sprint should break pots and bushes and barrels. Faie should be able to break them too.
• It is unclear how to avoid the boss's tidal wave attack.
• "Request Resurrection" during the boss completely removes the purpose of the challenge. I requested that the resurrections should get more expensive the more you need to use during a boss, and also there should be a prize for defeating the boss without using any resurrections
• The save points that restore your health upon brushing over them would be better if they also restored Faie's cooldowns too - so you can strategically sprint nonstop if you know where you're going. make traversal more fun.
• Let us turn off the tutorial pop-ups please

I dunno if anyone else felt this way but the weirdest announcement of the Direct for me was a Switch 2 upgrade for Romancing SaGa 2 Revenge of the Seven. Like.... huh? Square Enix is doing upgrades after all, then? ...Just not for Octopath for whatever reason? And why this one in particular? It ran pretty well on Switch, the only issue I really saw was with the loading times, which is something Switch 2 automatically fixes anyway. They're not adding mouse mode, they're not adding a DLC area like Kirby, they're not adding app integration like Zelda. ... why is this a paid upgrade??? Why isn't it just a compatibility patch like Pokémon got?

If a game only gets framerate and performance boosts, I feel like it should just be a patch like Pokémon got, not a paid upgrade. I really wish Nintendo set more rigid guidelines to their third parties regarding this. Because it is such a mess, with each game seemingly following its own rules.
Some games like Suikoden I&II have completely useless Switch 2 versions, some games like Sonic X Shadow have only mild performance boosts but expect you to buy it all over again. Some games like Puyo Tetris 2S add silly mouse mode shenanigans, but its mere existence further splinters the online player pool further, because they didn't care to make it compatible with the original version... And now we have a paid upgrade, similar to the ones Nintendo offers for their games, except this one literally doesn't add anything to the game except for a bit better performance. for a game that doesn't perform badly in the first place....does anyone else find this was a really weird announcement??

Also I played Revenge of the Seven extensively earlier this year and have absolutely no desire to go back to it at all. It's got good gameplay but I don't enjoy the way they implemented the time skip feature, it's completely immersion-breaking.

Lol. Getting the Switch 1 version then obviously.

Katamari is my beloved. I hope they've learned their lesson since the travesty that was Touch My Katamari on PS Vita so many years ago. I'm hopeful this will finally be a proper new entry, but I will stay cautious.

legitimately one of the best-designed games ever made. very happy to finally see it on Switch.

it's so cool that they finished the GBA ROM after all this time and then released it on actual GBA with stuff like link cable functionality included. It's certainly a shame they couldn't release it when the GBA was current, but it's great to see that it's no longer lost to time, and I really do enjoy how they released it in its fully-realised form.

This game was interesting for one playthrough but it did not enamour me enough to want to play it again. I also think videogamedunkey way overhyped this one too, which makes looking up discussions on this game online really annoying.

Wow, talk about an essential feature arriving late. The SNES app launched in 2019, right?

Y'know Nintendo, if you want people to forgo emulators in favour of your paid service, you have to provide a service that's better than them. Adding the controller remapping menu 6 years later isn't exactly that.

If this is the uncompromised original PvZ, then that would be amazing for Switch. Legitimately one of the best games ever made.

Back in 2011ish I remember playing Plants vs Zombies on my brand new iPhone.... it was a time before mobile gaming had completely gone to pot, and playing actual good games on a phone was a new thing. ...wow.

Nowadays I think the amazing mobile version was replaced with a microtransaction-laden one. ... ...Mobile gaming is legitimately the worst possible kind of gaming, isn't it.

reset the "days since game has been compared to dark souls" counter to zero

I can understand doing a stupid stunt like this if you just wanted to waste money and "have fun", but to then be genuinely upset that you ruined your game and console is just ridiculous.

I didn't have trouble with Jackenstein, but I did watch some blind letsplays, and some people did die several times to him. I can see why it would be frustrating to keep losing to him because the fight takes a long time (or you could say it is TAKING TOO LONG ). So that's a good change.

Also happy to see the sword tunnel attack hitboxes adjusted, that was just unfair game design tbh. it's still a really hard fight, now it's just a bit less cruel.

I like how this website shows "Release Date: TBA" for some of these titles, as if we were all waiting with bated breath for the announcement of the international release date for these Virtual Boy games.

I know it won't happen in all likelihood, but I'd like for them to add E.T. to the lineup too. The most infamous game in the console's library deserves to be included, and I wouldn't mind giving it a go for curiosity's sake too.

Interesting. Is this the first we've seen of a publisher who was all-in on Key Cards making a regular physical Switch 2 game afterwards? I wonder if Sega heard the backlash regarding Sonic X Shadow?

I only played a little bit of Ys X. I stopped playing around the time they announced Proud Nordics.
I wasn't fully engrossed in the game at that point though. I was kinda getting through the rather lengthy beginning parts of the game, and for whatever reason I wasn't really feeling it yet. The combat system felt kind of convoluted, especially compared to how simplistic Ys has traditionally been. And the boat combat just felt awkward.

The announcement of the upcoming improved version just completely killed my desire to push through.

If the game had been more engaging from the start, it's likely I would have kept playing despite the announcement of Proud Nordics.

It's a shame I feel this way about the game because I really really love Lacrimosa of Dana, and I enjoyed the heck out of Oath in Felghana, Memories of Celceta, Origin, Seven, Ark of Napishtim - basically the whole series. What was it about Nordics that made me feel so meh towards it?

One of the main motivators for me getting a Switch 2 was for Kirby Air Riders. And yet I have no interest in Mario Kart World. Funny, huh? Kirby Air Ride was one of the GameCube's all-time greats. I trust Sakurai to make a great follow-up.

No spincake fix yet huh?

Talking to Topchef in chapter 4 gives you nothing, even after he promised to always replace your spincake.

...if this is intentional behaviour, then surely Topchef should have some dialogue or something to let you know that your free cake deal has expired, or something? Otherwise... where's my cake, Topchef?!?

I just tried this game on emulator. it's hard. it's really really really hard.

At first, you pick a level, and it feels impossible. Just enemies swarming you everywhere, and a miniboss that makes swift work of you. Over and over again. That was my only experience with this game for an entire hour.

Then you finally try enough times so you can kill the miniboss, and you soon realise that there isn't a checkpoint. You have to keep going. You need to make it to the end-of-stage boss before you're allowed to die at a checkpoint.

It takes an insane amount of trying and trying again before you get decent enough at the janky controls to get there. And it doesn't help that the game is a huge fan of pixel-precise jumps too, just for the heck of it, I guess? So even when you do manage to trudge your way through the enemy spam, and manage to kill the midboss with a decent amount of health remaining... you'll just fail the pixel-perfect jump and will be back at square one anyway.

And pretty much every stage is like this??? Maybe some of them have more checkpoints here and there, but... This is one of the most infuriatingly annoying SNES platformers I've played. Maybe only Ghouls n Ghosts can rival it.

So anyway. I played this game for two days straight, and I managed to beat the first 12 levels. There are only 14 levels in the game...

I got up to the semi-final level, Tower of Souls, before I gave up on the game completely. Because this level additionally has a boss rush at the end of it, and I just... didn't have it in me to manage to get through. I looked up a speedrun, and saw that level 14 afterwards is also a boss rush, PLUS the final boss, all in a row. and.............No. not doing that.

Honestly I'm happy to have managed to beat the 12 levels I did. I got decently into this game. But it is asking just way way too much of the average player. I was willing to meet it halfway, but having the boss rushes at the end was going too far.

Normally I like difficulty in my platformers but this game is just plain ruthless.

This is the Zelda game that unfortunately didn't enamour me as much as I was hoping it would. I love 2D Zelda, and I LOVE A Link Between Worlds, but for some reason Echoes of Wisdom was just kinda... good but unremarkable? I don't know what it was, but it felt like the puzzles were less interesting and the world didn't have much going on in it. And the cutscenes were pretty overbearing at times too, those Gerudo can yap for ages. :/

It also didn't help that this game released at around the same time as UFO 50, which was a game that truly got its hook into me. So I was kinda just hurrying to finish Zelda so I could get back to UFO 50 lol.

my opinion on Paradox mons: The prehistoric ones are all really cool and interestingly designed, but the robotic ones are kinda just the samey concept of "pokémon but robot", and unfortunately mostly fall flat for me.

Iron Valiant is the only one I would actually call cool and genuinely a great design. (but maybe i'm biased since i used iron valiant in my endgame team idk)

I remember the game that made us get a HDTV. It was Tales of Vesperia on the Xbox 360. I just couldn't read some of the small text (enemy HP numbers mainly), and the lighting of the darker environments made things blurry as heck on the CRT. I remember loading the game first thing after getting the HDTV and being completely overwhlemed with just how much better it looked in HD on the flat screen.

And that's still the same TV I use now too. Since it's old enough to have Scart and Component inputs, it's great for my retro stuff and my HDMI stuff alike.

...just out of curiosity I would like someone to compare the emulation quality of this version to the MM Legacy Collection version. I remember thinking the Legacy Collection didn't feel right.

I don't know the SF6 characters since I never played the game, and the fact that these figures are so much more expensive than the others makes me not want to get them at all.

If it was Chun Li or some other SF characters with some wider recognition, then maybe I would've got them. But these three.... no. sorry :/

I have this game but never really felt the urge to get very far in it. I dunno. I think the part I liked the most was the title screen theme. When the game actually begins, I rapidly start to lose interest lol.

Sega has always had a problem with shooting itself in the foot over and over and over. And the state of Puyo Puyo 2S and Sonic X Shadow on the Switch 2 doesn't give me any hope that they're gonna be making sensible decisions with their games yet.