JasmineDragon

@DarthFoxMcCloud I ordered the Earthmate Edition too. My kid and I have been HM/SOS/RF fans since the Gamecube/GBA days, and I'm pretty confident at least one of us will enjoy RF5 enough to want to own the special edition. I know the game didn't exactly set Japan on fire when it launched, but I'm optimistic since I've liked what I've seen so far. And the same-sex romance options mean a lot to me.

Outing myself here as a total Pokemon casual, is it actually pronounced "AR-ki-us"? Is that how people pronounce it in general? I've only ever seen the name in print, never heard it, and I always read it as "ar-KAY-us" because I generally follow Greek/Latin pronunciation guidelines.

@UglyCasanova Literally all of them said it's a great game. Two of them said it's the best Monster Hunter game.

Ah, the office revenge fantasy. Seems to be a perennial winner, at least on TV and in movies. In my entire life I've only spent about two years working in office environments decades ago, so I can't really relate personally. This does sound fun, though. I'll be watching the reviews.

I like it. Sure, the graphics could be shinier, no mistake. But I was not expecting Pokemon on the Switch to look like a PS5 game.

@OorWullie Eschatos looks really good. I see it comes with two other shmups bundled, too. Are those any good?

I haven't bought any of these yet, December being what it was, but Chicory is definitely on my radar. I was hoping to get Danganronpa physical, but it seems like it had the tiniest print run - prices are already climbing, and I think I might have missed out. I'm overextended now anyway. Fingers crossed for a second printing.

Doesn't look very ergonomical, but that's a really nice-looking mod. It really looks like something you'd buy in a store in some alternate universe. I kinda want one, ergonomics be damned.

@MJF Didn't say there was. It is literally their job to make note of these things. You're reading too much into a throwaway joke. If it really offends you I'll delete my comment.

I've never gotten into Pokemon. Played a little of the card game with my kids before we all got bored with it, played a little bit my kids' Ultra Sun before I got bored, bought Let's Go Eevee and played the first four gyms before I got bored, bought Sword and played about five hours of it before I got bored. I may or may not buy Arceus because of the massive hype, but all signs point to me playing a few hours of it and getting bored. With that in mind, I'm definitely not buying it at launch.

@MJF That was a joke, btw. I have zero problems with moderate cleavage.

@Hunter-D @Krull @Grim @wazlon Thanks guys. Best wishes to everyone.

For the last few days I've been sucked into Surviving Mild Covid. I'm in awe of the design of this world, especially the effects of the day/night cycle. For those who haven't played it yet, nightfall brings increasingly intense fever dreams and night sweats. You can get through the day pretty easily, just feeling tired and achey and frail for the most part, but the nighrs are an absolute horrorshow.

Covid is so much fun, I can barely tear myself away long enough to play anything else. I just can't focus on anything, I lie on the couch clicking away on my phone, drink my tea and Nyquil with an occasional moan, and get up every once in a while to make some food or bring my wife her tea - this game is so compelling, my whole family has gotten into it!

I think I'm getting to the endgame now. Woke up this morning with a clearer head, but my throat feels like I swallowed rusty nails and my body feels extra achey. We'll see how the day goes.

Oh no, not moderate amounts of cleavage!!

I can't wait to play "Heroic Standard" and "Six-Character Roleplaying Game" sometime this year on a platform to be announced.

I especially can't wait to see the comments that say these are perfectly good names.

@Octane_st1m I appreciate the thoughts, and I was the same way over the holidays. Stay safe and hang in there!

I gotta have it. I bid three shekels.

Not offended, personally. Black humor helps people cope with some very unfunny situations, and we're all going to need a sense of humor to get through this with our sanity intact. And before anyone tries to tell me I have no empathy, my entire family is sick right now, myself included, and I'm scared to death but joking about things does help. (And if my avatar didn't clue you in, yes, I am also queer).

And let's face it, we all have a Gramps who thinks "the Reds" have been putting mind-control drugs in the water since 1954 amd no one was gay before MTV came along, and he's shared his opinions loudly at more than one Thanksgiving dinner in the presence of half a dozen kids, some of whom later turned out to be gay. Because of MTV, of course.

I might not get it day one, but definitely early on. Splatoon 2 was fantastic fun, and I'm looking forward to seeing what's new.

@UglyCasanova Seriously, for a grand you can buy a pretty solid gaming laptop, play almost any game on a nice 15" screen and do all the other things that actual computers can do.

I bought a Legion 5 last fall for $1100, very happy with it. Between the Switch and the Legion I have all my gaming needs covered, as well as work and productivity.

@KevinLo9 Eternal Darkness is a masterpiece, but I don't think I want an HD version of it. Not that I would refuse it! But I'd rather Nintendo actually made a sequel to it with some new takes on insanity effects. The Switch can do so many things the Gamecube couldn't, and it would be great to see an Eternal Darkness game designed for it from the ground up.

The original has a subtitle, too, which could be read as implying a series.

Also on the radar, Atelier Sophie 2 and Rune Factory 5 come out in March one week apart. Those two should take care of all your farming, crafting and questionable romance needs for a couple of months.

@NintendoKnight Might be dumb but I feel exactly the same. The title is like a dumb, "ironic" inside joke, and that just puts me off. I'll probably end up buying it anyway as I love tactical RPGs, but in my headcanon the game will have a different name, like it should have in the first place.

Cover art is all right though. TBH this is quite the generic look in fantasy publishing, but it's not that common a look in video games yet, and it's done well.

@StarPoint One of the reasons BOTW had such hideous delays was that they rebuilt the engine from scratch when it wasn't doing everything they wanted it to. People say they delayed it so it could be a Switch game, and sure, that was probably one of the delays, but the reason it wasn't ready in time to save the Wii U in the first place was the delay from building a whole new engine for better physics.

I'm sure it was annoying as hell for Wii U fans at the time, but safe to say all that work REALLY paid off in the end.

@Snow-Dust Same here! Finally an article where I can say "yeah, of course I noticed that".

I mean, I have yet to save Hyrule after owning this game for almost five years, but at least I noticed that puddles dry up. Hardcore gamer over here, yo.

One of my favorite genres, and I'm happy to see it well represented on the Switch. Mario+Rabbids and Advance Wars are both Day One for me. I'm also veeeeeeery interested in Midnight Suns as I'm a big Firaxis fan, but I think I'll go for that on PC (with a chance I might double dip if it has cross-save).

Here's to a year full of headlines about great new games, WITHOUT the words "has been delayed".

@Anti-Matter Look again, Shining Pearl is #5.

Physical sales in general don't mean a lot these days. There's a reason why gift cards are always the top selling gaming-adjacent items on Amazon. Vast segments of the gaming population are moving to digital. And digital is where I think XBox and PS are killing it.

I really think it won't be long before all three console makers drop the physical option altogether. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the next generation of Sony/MS consoles was purely digital, with Nintendo following them one generation later. This saddens me, but I'm not the market they care about.

Honestly I never had any idea who the Madden in "Madden Football" actually was. Also no interest. I mean, I can name exactly three football players, and in every case I know them because of non-football-related things. (Kaepernick, Simpson and Brady, for those who care).

But I mean no disrespect with this. He was clearly an important figure to anyone who had any interest in football. RIP, Coach Madden.

As a regular Lego builder, this is a pretty boring set in my opinion. Very two-dimensional, no interesting building techniques, and not a lot of pieces that you can't find in dozens of other sets. An okay display piece for avid Sonic fans, but not a great set for people who are long-time fans of Lego but aren't hooked on Sonic.

This is one case where the original Ideas submission was a lot more interesting than the final product.

He knew perfectly well when he did this what kind of reaction he would get. That's why he did it. Logan Paul trades in notoriety, like a bad rapper who can't get enough attention with his skills so he courts controversy instead. It's his entire business strategy.

I don't like the guy very much - he gives me major trashbro vibes every single time I read about him - but I'm not going to get too worked up over the fate of 15 Game Boys. It's not like the guy made a table out of the Mona Lisa.

I just started NEO last week. Only a few hours in. It's pretty good so far, and I'm happy we finally got a sequel, but I'm not sure (yet) that this needs to be an ongoing franchise. Honestly, not everything does. The whole entertainment world is full to overflowing with unnecessary sequels, prequels, reboots and remakes, the majority of them pitiful echoes of the original works. TWEWY should not turn into another one of those.

Also, I can't leave this without saying, the music in NEO is freaking amazing. I want that OST.

I'm just not sure how features like having a belt clip and vibrating when a message was received were "quite ahead of their time" when we did have pagers and fully functional cellphones that had beltclips and vibrated when an incoming message was received. That was, like, the entire point of a pager.

I definitely don't see this coming to the West, but even if it did I'm not sure I would want an offline version of an MMORPG. I'm not saying I couldn't be convinced by some good reviews, but it's not something I would preorder.

Like, I will preorder a Special Edition of DQXII the day it's available. This is not that game.

@FlapjackProMax @Anti-Matter I can vouch for Kitaria Fables. I haven't played a ton of it yet, but it's not shovelware. It's pretty good stuff so far.

Dying to get on the Monster Train, but I don't want to buy it until I'm done with Slay the Spire, and I'm not there yet. Once I ascend all four characters I think I'll be ready for a new deckbuilding obsession.

My kids are likely to take over the Switch for some multiplayer games tonight, so I'll most likely be crocheting or playing Civ VI on my laptop. When I do have the Switch, it'll be SMT V and Slay the Spire.

@ThaBEN "18+" is Lego's new branding for the adult collectors' market. That's been on a lot of boxes recently.

I've had my eye on Risk of Rain 2 for a long time, but at that price I can't say no anymore. I also like Slime Rancher. Good sale.

I'm interested since I've never played any of these, but I don't know that I'm interested enough to pay $70 for an import.

@JustMonika Oh yeah, totally forgot about that but it's actually been on my list for a while now. I'm also definitely buying Danganronpa sooner or later.

@JustMonika Thanks for the recommendations, I'll look into them. I have heard some good things about World End Syndrome.

/looks at latest Switch purchases... Kitaria Fables, male MC; NEO TWEWY, male MC; SMT V, male MC. Bug Fables, male MC.

/is confused about why people seem to think male protags don't happen anymore.

I can't see it, is it behind the guy wearing the bright Hawaiian shirt?

@HeadPirate You don't have to put Hugo in ALLCAPS. It's not LEGO.

Also, why would "50 year old Sci-fi geeks" need guidance about what constitutes a good game? Plenty of 50 year old sci-fi geeks play video games.

Lmao at the people trying to act like this is a Nintendo problem. Y'all have heard of Christmas, right? That one day a year when 3 billion people decide to simultaneously call each other, Zoom, Facetime, and set up their brand new electronics?

Lol, "get better servers!" I love it.

Wait, a Kemco game that doesn't feature generic D&D characters on a generic D&D quest in a generic D&D world? Did I just jump universes?!?

@BlackenedHalo Thanks god you don't make them.

50 hours into this game, pop-in has surprised me a couple of times but not once has this ever really impacted my game. Without a doubt one of the top Switch games of 2021, despite not being a technical masterpiece.