Kyloctopus

My Top 5 (Excluding Splatoon Raiders because that isn’t confirmed for 2026)

1. Rhythm Heaven Groove

2. Professor Layton and the New World of Steam

3. Meetup at Bellabel Park

4. Neverway

5. DAMON and BABY

Technically, some of these games are just confirmed for Switch 1 for now, but I’d find it hard to believe they won’t have Switch 2 versions.

Also, an honorable mention to Zero Racers on the Virtual Boy finally getting a launch on Switch.

I’ve got Uno: Arcade Edition on Apple Arcade. My friends and I have gotten into it lately, which is nice, because while I regularly check in and use the service, I haven’t really used it for multiplayer games with friends.

Its nice that you can send invite links to friends easily, but some games are prone to failing when starting or partway through.

Also, you’re forced to play with a time limit of 10 minutes or lower and I think 10 minutes is just a bit too short for one game.

It has a few rule variations I couldn’t can’t find in other versions, but I think if you gave me that old DSiware Uno game from Gameloft, that had longplay and a better UI, I think I’d prefer that.

This game is made by Mattel163 and I remember visiting their App Store page when they had just debuted Uno Wonder, a typical stage-by-stage mobile game under the Uno ruleset, with a sort of getaway story. But I was confused why it wasn’t just standard Mattel, and it turns out Mattel163 is a joint studio between Mattel and NetEase, as 163.com is a popular NetEase domain. Its a pretty interesting cross between Chinese and Los Angeles game development. Will stick with it for now and I hope this encourages my friends to try out my Apple Arcade games, including those with multiplayer support.

Still don’t know if this game is for me. Its been a while since I’ve been engrossed in a sim game, especially since I never cared for the original Tomodachi Life. I just don’t think I’m the type who cares to build their own stories that take a while to reach their payoff.

The direct itself was nice though. Change of pace, alot of humour. Told a story, which captures what its like to play the game, rather than just a demonstration of features.

I always liked the community support from the Just Dance team.

They talk about how the upcoming music pack brings an interconnected story around Just Dance, but I never understood why Just Dance needed a story. Other than a few cheeky callbacks, I’ve always preferred that songs bring their own creativity.

Woah. That is so neat. 2026 is the Year of Virtual Boy!

Seems like they’re testing mechanics in Splatoon 3 to work into Splatoon 4. Very weird update. I’ll have to check it out.

A heftier update than I imagined. GameShare and Splitscreen online play. Sadly, my mains didn’t get buffed though.

The first Tomodachi Life that released outside of Japan got revealed in its own surprise Nintendo Direct. It notably had Reggie, Iwata and Bill Trinen all fighting for the love of Samus Aran.

Fabraz knows how to make intense platformers and this looks like a further evolution to their style. Really looking forward to it.

My guess is Talking Flower. But it’d also be neat to see Toadette.

Best of wishes to Tanabe. He’s earned his retirement many times over.

People keep saying these events are easy, but this one took me 5 hours to beat 😭

Just hoping for a Wheelie nerf. Smite that scooter down Sakurai.

While so many people have talked about how Sony really fumbled the bag with giving Netflix full rights to Kpop Demon Hunters, but Sony relationship with Netflix has otherwise been incredibly fruitful to both companies involved. The way Sony has released films to Netflix has helped give their films further momentum. Movies like Venom, Ghostbusters and Uncharted have had alot of popularity through their second launch.

On the contrary, I think the use case for amiibo in Kirby Air Riders is so good that I will purchase duplicates for the sake of my own enjoyment. I’ve already purchased doubles of Kirby/Warp & Waddle Dee/Winged. And for sure I want multiples of Dedede/Tank & Kawasaki/Hop since I main Dedede & Hop Star. They’re toys and I want to see them race and compete against each other (which is why I’m still wishing Nintendo to go the full mile with more Air Riders amiibo after the 5 announced do release).

But also, aside from examples here and there, the features amiibo work in accumulate. The Rosalina amiibo you bought 10 years ago has the same functionality as the new one in Mario Galaxy 1 & 2, alongside plenty of games in between. 10 years ago, people said it was lame that you had to spend $15 on a Link amiibo, so that you could have a Spinner weapon in Hyrule Warriors on Wii U. Now that Link amiibo works in dozens of other games through big and small.

Granted I do think the best use case with amiibo is where they give an entirely different experience or make things easier to share with friends. Good examples being Smash Ultimate, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, the Animal Crossing games, even Street Fighter 6 gets a pass for me (although the cards are crazy expensive).

You should probably pick an opinion whether Mouse Controls are a positive or negative aspect of the game. Otherwise, you’re not helping the reader.

Total hours: 817 Hours

1. Mario Kart World (217 Hours)

2. Splatoon 3 (197 Hours)

3. Kirby Air Riders (137 Hours)

Favorite game: Kirby Air Riders

Notable details:

• This is the first year since 2021 where Splatoon 3 is not my most played game of the year.
• This is the first year where my top 3 most played games all reached 100+ hours (Donkey Kong Bananza also hit 100+ hours for me as well)

Most played by month:

Jan: Mario & Luigi Brothership

Feb-April: Splatoon 3

May: Super Mario Party Jamboree (3 hours overall. By far my least played month.)

Jun-Aug: Mario Kart World

Sep-Oct: Donkey Kong Bananza

Nov-Dec: Kirby Air Riders

I forgot about the creepy Mushroom Kingdom scenes/music from Brothership. While I wasn’t too fond of Brothership by the end, it definitely had some good specific moments that I’ll want to revisit.

NINE HUNDRED CANADIAN DOLLARS FOR THE KANTO STARTERS.

They look nice but jeez…I think I’ll wait for a set with Pokémon I have more of a liking towards, like Lugia.

It is a nice detail that you can change Pikachu’s tail towards your preferance.

I’m still playing Splatoon 3 for the Splatfests. You do notice a pretty large visual upgrade when you visit the city square areas, which are nicely decorated for the ongoing Frosty Fest.

@MamaSymphonia So when are you going to eat that Switch, Mrs. Body-shamer?

Thumbs are longer than people give it credit for. This doesn’t appear to be AI, nor does it fail online AI verification tests.

I love that no matter what functionality amiibo have in a game, there’s always someone complaining why it sucks.

I thought it was too good of a coincidence that Nintendo Today! posted the Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance Nintendo Power cover today.

Really excited to see this available, given the Radiance saga (and the Switch games) are the only Fire Emblem games released in the west that I’ve yet to try.

The multi-colored straps are cool. Nintendo mostly did away with multiple colored straps early on with the Switch 1, save for a few Special Editions.

38 is a pretty big roster, even if you want to discount all the babies, like Baby Waluigi’s debut. Can’t wait to see more of this game

Simpsons already did it. Just saying.

I just started Pokémon Legends Z-A. Its my first Pokémon game since playing Y when it came out

I’ve slacked a bit on Ring Fit over the last couple years, but I have beaten it once. It really is great. Excellent writing, visuals, the RPG mechanics work fairly well. My only big issues is that I wish different exercises were rewarded with better attacks and tracking form can be better (although it is doing more than Fitness Boxing and tracking movements better in the process).

@Vordus In fairness, squats have been the most effective in building muscle and burning calories from my experience. My PT was just as aggressive about squats as Ring Fit can be.

Vince changed gaming in ways so incomprehensibly large. Everything he touched had a layer of brilliance around it, and you can see it so clearly from how he turned around the Battlefield franchise from only a few years after the series’ lowest moment. There are very few names in the AAA space that have practically unanimously earned the gaming community’s trust and Vince was one of them.

This was shown on Nintendo Today! 2 days ago. Its like you don’t even check the app smh.

But seriously, I didn’t know Nintendo was a part-owner of a soccer team. Everyone talks about the Mariners (to which they just placed Switch 2 sponsorship upon their sleeves over last season…I suppose to some success), and this sponsorship looks to be pretty creative (although it wouldn’t surprise me if other Japanese characters also had cute imprintments on team jerseys there)

I’ll go with EU, but there is no big loser here. A bit weird that they both focus on Nana, who is Player 2 exclusively.

What’s that? Air Riders!

What’s that? Air Riders!

Its been nothing but Kirby Air Riders for the last month and I’m not close to being over it. I’ll spend the bulk of my time with Ranked, but I might go through some Checklist challenges as wel.

I’m kind’ve surprised they’d put the work on GRID Legends. Its a bit of an old game at this point. But, I still never played it and I’m interested

Dang. Was hoping to see this come to Switch 2. Seemed like a no-brainer to have it ready for Fire & Ash. No matter, its really neat to see the game continued to be worked on for what almost feels like a second launch

Mega Man 11 for less than $5! And the MH Stories remaster for $10! Good deals going on here.

Nice to see a team confidently say its done as is.

Of course, there are plans to keep activity going with special events, which have so far been pretty fun and I see myself staying with this game for a while.

@Shade_Koopa To be fair, he said the same thing about no longer directing Smash Bros… multiple times.

I love the initial look of this. Looking for something chaotic and goofy with this adaptation

I love looking at these reviews, early or not, but its a bit of a pet peeve of mine that stats typically don’t count December. That’s a pretty pivitol time for people to play games.

Last year’s stats had to withold the large amount of time I played Mario & Luigi: Brothership because I played the bulk of that in December. This month I’ve been spending alot of time with Kirby Air Riders; so much that it will probably be in my Top 3 most played games, but will still probably pale in comparison to my Mario Kart World hours and maybe even my Splatoon 3 hours. But, had the review not logged December, it would maybe hit the Top 5.

😬

I had an okay time with Welcome Tour. It has some interesting curios and games, but alot of it is just pretty simple games based off of mouse controls, some of which seem like they would have felt better with the Wii’s motion sensor honestly. Surprising difficulty in some areas though and I did find the environments and museum atmosphere pretty comforting. Certainly a mixed bag of a game, that doesn’t reach its full potential, but I was appreciative of how in-depth Nintendo wanted to go in teaching people about their system’s internals, which might go some ways into teaching people some basic STEM.

This is the closest we’ve gotten to a video-game Razzies though, down to it happening a day before The Game Awards. So, putting GameStop’s age-old terrible reputation aside, I like the quirkiness going on here;

19hr 33mins of listening this year. Honestly more than I thought.

Top 5 Tracks:

1. Breaking Through (Heart of Gold) - Donkey Kong Bananza

2. Floria Fields - Kirby Air Riders

3. Skyah (Short Ver.) - Kirby Air Riders

4. Clickbait (Splash Sessions Demo) / C-Side - Splatoon 3

5. Emerald Rush #1 - Donkey Kong Bananza

Most Listened-To Game:

1. New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe

2. Pokémon Sword/Shield

3. Mario Kart 7

4. Splatoon 3

5. Luigi’s Mansion

Good to know. I put my Pre-Order in. It’d be nice to know if the Cardboard Model could be used as a Labo lens for Switch 2.

@Ramouz I believe you can receive these events by changing your Switch’s date around. I heard that somewhere, could be wrong.

Give us the Kiddy Kong statue, you cowards!

Would love to see this (or Consume Me) win Games for Impact at at The Game Awards later this week. Love seeing personal stories becoming playable. The audio design in the game is particularly detailed.

I got this day 1 and while I haven’t spent too much time with it yet, I was kind’ve wowed by the UI design. Its very well thought out. Really excited to finally play Device 6.

Never stopped to notice how different the User GOTY is from most, even Nintendo based exitorial GOTY. Judging how it tends to be a Japanese game with a core fanbase…maybe its The Hundred Line’s year?

I came across a weird glitch yesterday, where Dedede’s special lasted for the remainder of the City Trial. My speed was accelerated, but the hammer attack was normal.

Also, I notice some Air Ride stages just appear incredibly uncommon during specific times. As far as I know, stage selection isn’t determinded by time of day, like Splatoon, but it does feel like it.

Manta’s back being a dash ramp now is sweet. I was a bit confused why it wasn’t in the few times I tried.

Awesome. Hoping iOS and Samsung Game Hub shortly follow.