Jaina

The bit that got me, was the empty hands when passing things. It made some scenes contextually quite strange - there's a scene where a character could, understandably, be giving nothing sarcastically. Hard to tell if that's the case, or if they're just not animating anything in the hands, when the focus of the camera is on the hand with nothing in it moving as if to pass something!
I think they need to go less hard on cutscenes, and keep them as is (with better use of shot choice to have hands out of shot if they're going to be empty etc when supposedly exchanging things), or keep them as they are and use better shots/animate objects, and add some voice acting. It's been strange since gen 7 how intense they are on long cut scenes, without adding some of the aspects that make them work well in other games.

There are some characters who, without voice acting, it's genuinely hard to read emotionally. Are they sarcastic? Angry? Joking? Upset? Who knows!

Aside from that, and some timing issues with how the battle system worked (which I actually really like now I'm used to it), I'm loving the game though.

I have the original. My main complaint with it, is that it doesn't really work as a pro controller, because you don't have two joysticks. If it had two joysticks, it would be my favourite controller just because I could switch between stuff so easily. As it is, I basically just use it for N64 games, or as an extra multiplayer controller for games that don't need two joysticks

Will any of these work for New Zealand?

Every time there's new Banjo merch I get excited, and then I see it's some awful stylised thing like a funko pop I have no interest in haha

@Bobb unfortunately the current government is attempting to undo much of that, and being quite petty with things like changing around the order of names so English. But in general, NZ is more progressive with this kind of stuff than some countries

I wish they'd do a proper rerelease of Chaos Island, but it will never happen lol. An incredible an underratted game, lots of potential if they'd expanded it into multiplayer and more campaigns etc.
Honestly it's one of the retro PC games I occasionally boot up if I can get it working on a PC, like Starcraft, Warcraft 3, Zoo Tycon, and some of the old Star Wars games

This is a wild choice, and one I'm disapointed by but honestly it's a little refreshing? They could pump out a bunch of crap and people would buy it up, but instead they just made it a really solid game on its own.
There are so many outfits and things in the game I don't know how they could even add DLC with that, and so much to do already. Honestly, I think if they did DLC that really felt essential, it would almost have to be a new (smaller) location with a storyline. Or some way to reinterpret a place that already exists in the world. Which is hard on a game of this scale!

@Harmonie Oh totally. As someone going for a full variant shiny living dex I'm sad about the national dex thing, but I understand why they did it. And I do like that gen 9 has backwards capability to gen 8 for pokemon that existed then, I hope that continues!

Not to be that girl, but technically it passed the largest pokedex a while ago. Although you can collect a lot of mons in gen 7, there is no national pokedex after gen 6

@Bluelink45 No, they did it BOTW too

Crown Tundra introduced 898 in 2020... we're at over 1000 pokemon now

I agree with this, I actually kind like the weapon mechanics in both games. I think it's better now though - I did hoard a bit in BOTW because I was more concerened about losing a particular weapon, whereas with materials I can pull something that approximates it anytime now.
The one issue I disagree with is treasure chests being more exciting - when you've got ten opals in a row from the optional chests in shrines, you become a little bit less interested in continuing to do them haha

And now the video is private :/

What are the names in other languages? Surely the ambiguity doesn't work the same way in Japanese for example?

I'm still playing Go, but I played it without spending until after the pandemic started. I got back into it and regularly bought remote raid passes, and then started doing the paid events.
Go Fest this year was underwhelming, and the moves to deter players using remote raid passes and other measures that allowed people to play during the pandemic are really putting me off. Particularly given covid is still rampant in the community.
I haven't spent any money since go fest, I don't even think I've done a free raid actually. My point being - if they're trying to recoup losses from other games in Go, nerfing the things that made some players interested in spending money in it may not work. But I'm sure they have their reasons to think it will increase profits.

This is my first Smash game. When I first got it I mainly button-mashed and used it as a multiplayer game when people cam over. When Banjo came out I bought him and started playing it a bit more, including starting Adventure mode and occasionally playing online.
Recently finished Adventure mode and have less than 100 spirits left to get, and am mainly playing through Classic mode to get fighter spirits. As I'm playing it a lot more and my partner wanted Sora I bought fighters pass 2. I don't really care (or even knew most of) the DLC characters prior to them being in Smash except Banjo, but I've enjoyed playing them. I'm tempted to buy the other DLC fighters just because it'll give me a little more longevity in the game, but the price is steep for the small amount of new spirit matches - it'd be much more tempting if I could get a discount for having already bought Banjo,
I've also bought the Team Rocket and Pig Mii costumes, which were fun. I doubt I'll buy more Mii stuff.

I really don't understand why they would do this to be honest - I was playing the game so much more with the boosted distances, but I just can't play as much now they've reduced it because I can't reach gyms at times when people are there to play them (I'm at work) and I've stopped playing daily because I can't reach a pokestop easily on my commute. The boosts got me back into the game, and I've even ended up spending money in it. I'm sure there's an economic reason for it, but I can't work out what it is.