Krull

Body horror!!! This is why Balatro is rated 18.

Been on my wish list for ever, even back in the PS2 era. Think this is when I finally allow it onto the backlog…

I really enjoyed Triangle Strategy but I don’t think HD-2D brought anything to the table there. In Octopath, you move through these beautiful backdrops and it was stunning. Triangle Strategy is far more static, and it didn’t impress in the same way. Liked it more in Live a Live, but still there’s not the same sense of exploring environments as in Octopath. Yet to play Octopath II or DQ III, but I definitely will. Should work better in those, as there’s more travel, unlike TS and LaL.

Getting stuck in to Nier Automata. It’s a good game, pretty and with Platinum combat - but it’s the music that stands out the most so far. It’s absolutely top-tier.

OG Switch is sooo close to 20 million now. Should get there by the end of the year at this rate. That’s some going!

Don’t love any of them, but none of them are bad, either. Europe is probably the most interesting, mainly because I like the overlapping hand and bat on the side border. Not a fan of the snow globe village background, so I’ll take the clean one.

@dartmonkey Should probably add Arco and, as noted elsewhere, 1000xResist to the list - two of the most highly rated indies of the year. Absolutely not expecting you guys to catch everything, but they’re worth a spot on the list. Arco could make top ten, tbh.

My backlog is so big, I am still catching up on 2021, so I have barely scraped these. But 2024 was really not bad.

The best thing about DK64 is playing Lanky Kong and walking around slowly, waving your long arms in the air. Almost worth subscribing to the N64 package just for that.

@MJF Mail order games… Those were the days! Imagine waiting 1-2 months for something from Amazon now? When that parcel finally arrived it felt like Christmas.

1 - The World Ends With You
2 - Ghost Trick
3 - Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
4 - 999
5 - Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

Strangely, none of these games is from Nintendo. In fact, if I did a top ten, I’m still not sure there would be any Nintendo games. Etrian Odyssey and DQIV would be up there. Never tried the SMT games, though I have both Devil Survivor remakes on my 3DS backlog, and the Radiant Historia remake. Might yet look for Strange Journey too, which is widely regarded as one of the best SMTs.

Great machine. And TWEWY is still one of my all-time favourite games.

@OorWullie A belated happy birthday! Playing DQXI is a great present to yourself. I love that game.

I predicted a 37 from Famitsu, so I was way off. Thought such a beloved classic would get at least one 10, but I guess this shows it really is an old game with some spit and polish. Looking forward to it.

After finally finishing Live a Live this week, I went back to Cave Story and finished that too. So now I want to knock off Metroid Fusion which I’ve already restarted twice in the past because of hardware problems. This time I will see it through.

Other than that, there was a frankly scandalous discount on physical copies of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, so I had to bite. If I’m too burnt out in Metroidvanias, though, I’ll finally do Portal instead.

@Brady1138 Welcome to planet Bob! Titan AE came out four years after Broken Sword, so don’t think there was much IP theft going on there.

If Broken Sword is stealing from anyone, it’s LucasArts - but every P&C was riding thise coattails in the Nineties. Broken Sword is actually pretty good, though, despite that.

Metaphor: Refantazio at 7th is a bit of a sickener. Probably the most eagerly anticipated game of the year for me, with respect to Zelda and, maybe, Dragon Age.

Atlus, I promise you, I will get it day one if/when it comes to the Ultra Switch.

A take-private would probably be a good thing in terms of creativity and freedom - being beholden to shareholders is rarely really healthy (even if it’s good for our pensions) - and regardless, this does not mean Ubisoft is folding. That’s not what this is.

Ubisoft gets too much hate. Prince of Persia, Assassins Creed, Far Cry, Beyond Good and Evil, Rayman, Mario vs Rabbids and the charming sideshows like Child of Light and Valiant Hearts - there’s some outstanding stuff there. And remember, for every one of us burnt out on the Ubi open world format, there’s another wave of players every year who are getting the most refined version of a game you or I probably once liked. If AC was released on something more like a GTA schedule, we’d all be raving about Origins. Let alone Odyssey or Valhalla.

Edit: I’ve not really followed the missteps on Shadows, because the fuss over Yasuke is such a turn-off. But complaints about realism in AC are hilarious. I’m sorry that something has ruined your immersion in the game where you go back into the past - with agency - through your DNA and a machine. Somehow. Never mind. But the cherry blossoms!!!

@CazSonOfCaz I doubt Metacritic has reviews for every PC game ever released. I think a certain number of critics have to produce a review before a game gets an official score - and they’d presumably have to be online reviews too. Doubt they’re trawling through old issues of Crash magazine from the 1980s for the review scores. Though obviously they should. Lazy blighters.

@PinderSchloss 🤣 I know your pain. I had something similar with the “Swedish” in The Umbrella Academy - it was incomprehensible.

@PinderSchloss But but but… Cillian Murphy was playing an American giving a lecture in Dutch that he’d learnt from books in only six weeks. It would have been weirder if Oppenheimer had spoken it with a native accent!

I would love for Monolith to follow in Atlus’s footsteps with a Metaphor: Fantazio-style step in a different direction. Not everything has to be a sequel. That said, it could be a Xeno-something else, rather than another Xenoblade.

But if it is Xenoblade 4, I’m obviously still going to buy it…

Been waiting for this one. Can’t say it’s long overdue - have you seen my backlog? - but may struggle to get to this now.

If the Switch 2 isn’t backwards compatible, I don’t know if I should get one at launch at this stage! But very happy to see Wildermyth at last.

Is it weird that I’m more ready to move on from the Switch than the 3DS? Maybe it’s because the 3DS is weirder and has a more unique feel. The Switch has amazing software, maybe the best console library we’ll ever see, but it’s more of a generic handheld than the 3DS. If the Switch 2 is backwards compatible (and it better be), I’ll retire my launch day machine with barely a backwards thought.

These pretty much all look really cool. Cassette Boy sounds hard, and I can tell Rhythm Rabbit is not for me (I had to turn off the rhythm gameplay of Necrodancer to beat it), but Rainbow Sea, Everdeep Aurora and the new Tako game are all on my radar now. Demonschool looks cool too - but I should probably play the two Devil Survivors I’ve already got on 3DS first!

Want to get a bit further in Live a Live - about to start the kung fu timeline, which is right up my alley. But I will almost certainly get sidetracked again by Slay the Spire. That game is an unmatched time sink

November 28 is still autumn, Taito. It just feels like winter… But this is a good collection.

Started on Live a Live, which I guess I’m doing in chronological order. So currently in the Stone Age, which is like playing a charming cartoon in pixel art. Great fun.

I can only assume watching England in the Euros has actually hurt sales for EA Sports FC. Unusual for it not to be top during a summer tournament.

Don’t get me wrong, I liked vanilla SMT:V quite a bit - but SMT:IV Apocalypse is the better game. Its characters, story and bigger cast of demons and monsters are a more than worthy trade-off for SMT:V’s admittedly great Xenoblade-style environments.

I’ve got both Devil Survivors in my 3DS backlog. One day, Atlus, one day.

This is honestly such a beautiful game on the 3DS, if you have access to that version I don’t know why you’d buy the Switch one. I don’t know if the stereoscopic 3D ever looked better, and I’d really miss it on Switch, regardless of how much HD polishing they give it. Still, a great game and far too good to be left trapped on a dead system.

Side note: I feel exactly the same way about Donkey Kong Country Returns. Those backgrounds are magical in the 3DS version.

Ah, this is such a wonderful and weird game. One of those rare curios that I actually played through twice back in the day. I recall some of the line readings being slightly odd - Twinsen! - but there is so much charm here.

Voting for Golden Sun, as unlike Kid Icarus it wouldn’t make me thing of Ubisoft’s Fenyx thingy, whatever it’s called. As an RPG it already had puzzles, so turning into an action adventure like old-school Zelda would work pretty well. Also, has a slightly different feel to its setting, a bit more Arabian Nights than the old-school fantasy of Zelda or Greek myths of Kid Icarus.

Will the Switch OLED overtake the PS4 before the Super Switch comes out? It’s a big ask, but a Pokemon, a Zelda, a Metroid and a Mario+Luigi might just top the scales. And if they don’t - DQIII HD-2D is the killer app!

I think the Switch has given us something essential every year, even if that game was not always from Nintendo and could be played on other platforms. Even this year we’ve had Balatro and Animal Well, and if Dragon Quest III HD drops, then I will once again buy a JRPG on preorder but not get around to playing it for a year or more (looks at Xenoblade III, Octopath II and Persona 5 still in their shrink wrap).

As for late gen wonders, the PS2 has some absolute snorters. The PS3 came out in 2006. In 2007, the PS2 got Persona 3 (in the West), God of War II and Odin Sphere. The year after that was Persona 4 and Yakuza 2. There was another SMT game in 2009, in Devil Summoner 2.

So I don’t know what the Switch has got left, but expect Atlus to do something, I guess. (See also Radiant Historia - twice! DS and 3DS)

Thought it might finally be time to boot up Skyrim. Got as far as entering a village on a cart and then suddenly having to make decisions on character creation. I wasn’t ready!

I shall get back to it later…

@steruphan I get where you’re coming from, but there are new gamers and, crucially, consoles coming along all the time. Someone with a new PlayBox or XStation is unlikely to go looking to buy a ten-year-old game.

Like you, I probably won’t get it. Treasure Trove was already almost more content than I needed!

Well, I think Shovel Knight 64 sounds amazing - love the idea of bouncing off enemies in 3D, seeing those snoozing dragons and other marvellous designs in another dimension.

But don’t do my boy Plague Knight dirty - he’s my favourite character in the series.

Side note, like loads of others, I’m also more excited about Mina the Hollower, despite still having seen very little about it. Shows how much Yacht Club have become a trusted brand. (Pocket Dungeon was ace)

Square could just re-release War of the Lions and it would be fine. Not sure I particularly care about smeary uprezzed graphics like they did with Tactics Ogre - but the pencil-lined animations for the cut scenes in the original still look beautiful today. Think I last played FFT round about 2017, just before the Switch came out. My second favourite game I played that year, after Breath of the Wild. Probably my favourite Final Fantasy title too.

I voted for Ghost Trick - looks like it failed to break the surface! But Capcom, TBF, has a fantastic back catalogue. I had totally forgotten about UN Squadron - I loved that game.

I might have to get Civ VI at that price even if I never end up playing it… Played the original back in the day. Not sure I have the time and patience for it any more, but know it’s quality.

Tunic, Pentiment, Death’s Door on the other hand… Hard to resist!

EU one looks like some kind of Mega Man Rollerball-style racing game. Which would be pretty cool. I’d play that.

Hot take: not everything needs to be remade for a modern audience. Sometimes it’s OK to just appreciate something on its original merits. Chrono Trigger still looks, sounds and plays perfectly well today. Apart from adjusting the aspect ratio (which isn’t absolutely necessary anyway), it’s fine to leave it as is. Let’s face it, even a light-touch pixel remaster is going to lead to complaints about the font.

Played and beat the original Fallout just last month - loved it. There’s some pretty grim pixel hunting in a dark vault early on that I can’t imagine would be fun on the 3DS, but otherwise it’s still an outstanding RPG. Great world building, setting and levelling up mechanics. Heartily recommend it, even now.

Can’t. Stop. Playing. Slay the Spire.

Send help.

I mean, the answer is obvious. Retro need to take this on, but they’re busy resurrecting Metroid Prime 4 and are up their necks in a first-person 3D engine, so … Donkey Kong Prime. It’s what the people want.

@Edu23XWiiU Glad you said that. I looked at this acquisition, saw Mortal Kombat 1 on Shiver’s palmares, and just wondered: why? Goes to show that reviews on day one have an unfairly negative effect on reputations, when really they were just trying to keep the release date the same as for other platforms, despite it needing more time in the oven.

Elden Ring and Cyberpunk on the Super Switch, please.

Nothing doing on the eShop over here, so I checked out iTunes. Yep, Slay the Spire on sale there - seems like a perfect phone/tablet game. Thanks for the heads-up!

Playing Cave Story at the moment. It is good, but the boss rush at the end - meh. Think I’m like Danny Glover, and getting too old for this shhh…eer wall of consecutive bosses with no save points. Especially on a little 3DS screen.

Here are some perfectly sized games:
Fallout, the original - not only is it a compact single quest, but it’s also deep enough that you can replay it in various interesting ways.
Celeste - good game, perfect length
Cosmic Star Heroine - takes all its lessons from the likes of Chrono Trigger, and carries not an inch of fat
Dragon Quest IV - all the DQ games are long (apart from the first one), but the chapter format of DQIV makes it absolutely zip along.
Child of Light - proves Ubisoft doesn’t have to drag everything out. Wonderful game.
Return of the Obra Dinn - magical, engrossing and disturbing from start to finish

As for the other end of the scale, I love the Xenoblade series, but please get on with it. FWIW, I’ve never found a Persona game too long, as I’ve always enjoyed every minute of the 120hrs or so they take.

@somnambulance Ha, it’s not just me then! OK, I’m probably not buying a half-dozen Squenix games a year, but in my Switch library they are second only to Nintendo.

Also, everyone who slept on Neo:TWEWY is missing out. Great game.

Like thousands of other people, I’ve started playing Fallout. Yep, the first one. It’s exactly what I wanted: a crunchy CRPG with a great levelling system, superb world building, and utterly unforgiving gameplay, in that old school way. If you’re not save scumming, you’re playing it wrong. Might be my favourite game so far this year.

Real headline is that THQ Nordic still expects to be around in August. Brave, THQ, brave.

This looks wonderful. It’s probably only about four or five hours long, but that’s not necessarily a negative. You’d hope, given that it featured in a Direct, that the Switch performance will be perfectly acceptable. Bring it on!