SlimInBlue

The original Hollow Knight was my favorite game ever a couple years back and it’s still in my top 5, and honestly everything about this final reveal has been exactly what I wanted to see. Team Cherry opening up about everything and learning that it only took so long to make because “oh hey this is fun to develop let’s add x” and so on, the final trailer showing off the game’s strongest points (exploration, combat, movement etc), the Gamescom demo being so well received, it’s nothing more and nothing less than perfect for a HK fan. Have people hyped it up to be potentially one of the greatest games of all time? Kinda yeah, but I have to wonder how much it stems from those who haven’t played HK or aren’t fans of it seeing people get so excited for Silksong. With all the info we need pre-release now (minus a price tag), most of the big HK fans I’ve seen are just excited for Silksong being more of their favorite metroidvania and not looking at it as something that will transcend media itself. And I’m in agreement, it looks like TC made their dream game and with any luck it’ll be my dream metroidvania too, even if it has a somewhat uphill battle for my personal GotY.

I loved the Ori games (even if in retrospect they're very linear metroidvanias now that I have a few more under my belt) but Thomas Mahler has completely turned me off from supporting Moon Studios unfortunately. Even ignoring the less easily verifiable things, like how he and other higher ups would alledgedly bully employees and were in general very unprofessional in the worst ways, the stuff he's very much said publicly doesn't paint a good picture for him either. He goes out of his way on twitter to say "we don't force DEI in our games guys!" even though that's not really something I've seen anyone complain about in regards to their games, so it comes across more as him taking what he may view as a moral high ground which comes across as really gross imo. Back in May he posted in the Moon Discord saying No Rest for the Wicked had been getting review bombed and that and I quote "it's entirely possible that we won't be around in a couple of months to do anything anymore simply because we got review bombed which which leads to people not buying the game", following up with "I wouldn't ask if our business wasn't dependent on it." Once people heard about this and started spreading it, he went on twitter to say "lol look at what news outlets do when they find a discord post and write an article about it" and that they aren't in any sort of immediate financial danger. Regardless of your thoughts on the guy's opinions, he says this kinda ridiculous stuff every few months seemingly just to make sure Wicked stays in the news cycle, and even if he's a fine dude otherwise, that's more than enough to put me off supporting his stuff anymore.

I won't act like I'm that deep into FFXIV yet, I only finished the base patch of Shadowbringers a couple days ago (and it is just as good as everyone says), but as much as I'd love XIV on Switch, I don't have a clue how it would happen. The technical aspect of it is 100% a problem, yes, but we can just hope Nintendo bumps up the Switch 2 hardware to make it capable of running bigger games. I'm thinking more about if it would actually play well on Switch. I started on Xbox in February and moved to PC recently because Xbox requires two subs instead of one (another problem the Switch might have), and they had to make an almost completely new method of using a controller to get XIV competently playable on Xbox. While they could just transfer that over to the Switch, you also have to consider the playability in handheld mode with a screen smaller than they've ever worked with before, which would also make the ever expanding HUD an even bigger problem. I don't think it's impossible and the Switch 2 will hopefully make it a real possibility, but the design changes needed to make XIV playable on Switch are so numerous that I'm doubtful it'll happen for a LONG time. Maybe it's a project they work on post-Dawntrail and release it half a year-ish before the next expansion during that void of patches like they did with Xbox this year.

Not getting my hopes up THAT much, but signs are pointing to "soon". Leth, Team Cherry's PR guy, has been talking to some extent about the release date, namely in comparison to Crowsworn which he's in the same role for, so as more tiny backend updates are made I'm willing to start to hope. That said... I'm not ready to get on the copium again and I want to play more Final Fantasy 14, so Silksong will happen when it happens.
also the hollow knight discord server changed its profile picture to have a fake notification bubble and it made me so hopeful when I woke up this morning, I'm not doing that again

I only started playing Persona around this time last year, but playing an SMT game has been on my docket since I finished the modern Persona trilogy so this definitely has me interested. I haven't heard the best things about SMT5 as opposed to 3, 4 or 4 Apocalypse, but hey it's my first one so it just needs to meet my currently non-existent standards. The new content seems interesting as well, always love when an already massive game gets a huge expansion that lets it absorb even more of my life! And though it sucks for people who bought it already, I can ever so slightly commend Atlus for putting the new content in a bubble separate from the main game. One of my biggest complaints with P5R now is that I need to play the whole game to get to the Royal content which is far and away my favorite story in the whole series, so even if it being a standalone story makes it even more odd that it's not DLC, this is the best we can get for a kinda gross business model. Either way, definitely my highlight from the Direct and a possible pre-order for me.

I played the Phoenix Wright Trilogy over a course of the last week of 2023 on a whim after noticing it on Game Pass, and I didn't expect to like it as much as I did. Not perfect and I wish there was a bit more "game" as opposed to visual novel, but thoroughly enjoyable puzzle games with a great storyline. I then bought Great Ace Attorney because it was on sale, but it's mostly been on the backburner for a variety of reasons. But out of all the AA games I haven't played, these interest me the most. The characters just seem so fun, from Trucy who looks to fit the little sister role perfectly to Klavier who looks like a giant German reference/joke which make me VERY excited as a third year German student. I don't know if any of them will be high up on my list of favorite games or that any of them will surpass Ghost Trick (which is a game I consider to be pretty much perfect), but they're fun journeys and I can't wait to eventually play the Apollo Justice games.

I wish I had more to say than what's already been said here, but yeah, he really didn't expect this? They're very similar concepts and a lot of the smaller aspects are similar as well. Heck, one thing people could easily glance over is when they're talking about AI art they mention that they're incorporating in-universe bands and music which, shockingly, is something Splatoon has been pretty well known for with the idol groups for each game. I won't say only Splatoon does it, but in recent years its the only major series to do so and within the genre it might even be the only shooter to do it. And then the AI artwork bit doesn't help overly, admittedly in such a small context it might not be atrocious but with how Squeenix is still going deeper into the NFT rabbit hole, AI could be a very slippery slope for them after this.
Honestly at this point, more than anything (well not more than the fact I just don't have a PlayStation), I've just put too much time into Splatoon that I just don't feel compelled to switch games. Call it a sunk-cost fallacy if you wish, but I do enjoy Splatoon so I'm fine with it. Also they've said Foamstars will only get a year's worth of updates which implies they don't have the highest hopes for it, so I'd be skipping this one out anyway if I could play it and had interest.

@sleepinglion Honestly the wild thing to me about the Tears/BotW engine is that on my first playthroughs of both, it held up shockingly well in regards to glitches. They do crack open like an egg the moment you start looking for or using glitches, but if you just wanna play the game as intended without glitches you can do so very easily. It isn't completely broken at its core like a Sonic '06 or launch Cyberpunk. There could be an argument that Tears being held together by a thread on occasion is a sign that it could've used a bit more time in the oven, but the last whole year of development was just polishing and I like to think that stuff like this is just a gift to those of us who like messing with janky physics and game engines.

Honestly, despite what some here are saying, I think the fact that a lot of these games have higher skill/difficulty ceilings AND low difficulty floors makes them even better for this list. Sure, True Arena in any Kirby game is a nightmare (pun intended), but that just means if you hear it's easy but think it's TOO easy, you have room to go upward. Tetris Effect, while Tetris is a pretty simple game to understand and play, has its expert difficulty for the Journey mode which has even given me difficulties, and though I may not be at the top, I can hold my own pretty well in modern Tetris. And then one that others and even the article itself has pointed out, Mario Kart 8 isn't too bad offline (can be a bit tricky to hit first place at 200CC when the bots are harder but still relatively simple), but online it probably belongs on the hardest Switch games list. But these supposed "faults" in how easy a game is show an extra layer of complexity/difficulty that the player can choose to engage with or not. It creates a net more accessible game, which in the end I think is what most people really want instead of JUST a harder or easier game.

@N64-ROX I don’t actually dislike Game Pass, I do like it as a demo platform of sorts. Example, Guilty Gear Strive is a game I never would’ve bought because I’m not usually a big fighting game fan, but it’s on Game Pass so I could try it and it turns out I love it, so I bought it and all the DLC later with the Game Pass discount. I’ve played my fair share of games on the service in full, Guardians of the Galaxy, Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order, I haven’t finished it but I’ve finished Halo CE and most of Halo 2 in the Master Chief Collection. I like it as a service, and if I’m not currently interested in buying any more games it’s nice to just pop on a game and see how it turns out. It isn’t perfect, but for what it is, I like it and it’s worth the price whenever I remember to sub. Outer Wilds was really a victim of my attention span more than anything, though Game Pass did play a part in my dropping it at first. In the end it hasn’t really harmed anything, I still want to play Outer Wilds and the only difference is I’ll have to buy it instead of playing it on Game Pass, what a shame I’ll have to own a game I actually want to play rather than renting it!

@Xidnpnlss I figure they just become second nature after you get used to them. In my case, I was just checking it out on Game Pass, they felt wonky, and I just never came back to try it again before it left. I imagine I’ll be more willing to stick it out once I actually buy the game, that’s a bad habit I have with Game Pass of trying a game I’m interested in and forgetting it exists because I haven’t made a real investment into it yet. I do plan to fully play Outer Wilds and I’m sure I’ll enjoy it, just an unfortunate turn of events when I first tried to play it.

The more I think about it, I think one of my biggest gaming mistakes was trying Outer Wilds on Game Pass and giving up after 15 minutes because the ship controls were kinda weird at first. Maybe playing on a console I'm more comfortable with will help out, the game seems like a perfect fit on Switch as well with the time loop set-up. I imagine it is just as good as everyone says, I do enjoy a good story-driven game especially when the player actually feels involved in the narrative. I might not be the best at puzzle/exploration games like this, but I'm sure I'll manage if it is as good as it's hyped up to be. Only problem is I have too many games to play and this'll probably be going in the backlog, I think it'll be higher priority within the backlog but it's gonna wait a little bit regardless.

@Quiet2down I get where you're coming from, and I do follow a fair few small channels just because I'm part of a lot of smaller and lesser known communities, but Jirard I feel really does make content no one else really does at this point. That's not to say it's impossible to replicate, tons of people are completionists and reviewing games from a completion mindset isn't a foreign concept at all, but it's something that Jirard branded himself around and no one else has been able to do to such a scale. Again, I'd love to see someone pop up to fill the gap Jirard will leave and I think someone will simply because so many people are completionists nowadays, but it's hard for me to say Jirard didn't have the niche to himself for years.

There is something to be learned from this: If you want to donate to charity, donate DIRECTLY to charity. Using a YouTuber as a middleman might generally be ok, especially if they're using a tool like Tiltify to make sure they don't touch any donations, but there's almost always a more direct option to donate. Jirard seems to be the exception, but I think people will be a lot more cautious after this. There are good "middleman charities" out there, GamesDoneQuick is one that immediately comes to mind, but even then, you can always donate directly to the charities GDQ supports if you want to be especially safe, even if GDQ does have a good track record. Even if Jirard comes out clean by some miracle, I think we can all still learn from this that directly donating to a charity is the safest option for donating in nearly every case. You know exactly who your money is going to, without anyone in between you and who you want to support. You might not get the same fanfare that you can get from donating during a GDQ or a similar event, but that could very well be a sacrifice you're willing to make to ensure your donation goes where you expect it to.

I really wish this situation with Jirard went down differently, if he had just apologized donated the money when he found out it wasn't donated this could've all been avoided after all. But with the way it's gone down, we can reasonably criticize Jirard all we want, but what's done is done, and the best thing to do is use this as a cautionary tale to learn from. If it evolves into a legal case then we'll have a much bigger issue on our hands, but for now, I hope it remains a part of history that we learn from. My respect for Jirard is gone at this point, which sucks because he does make actually good content. But hey, with any luck someone will come along and fill in the gap, and won't commit textbook charity fraud along the way.

It's the end of an era, once and for all. We'll still have that summertime game showcase as we've seen the past couple years, whether it be Summer Games Fest specifically or everyone else just doing their own standalone events, but it's disappointing knowing that the former biggest week in gaming is just gone. Going to an E3 in person was on my bucket list for a while, as annoying many aspects of it seem (I imagine the demo lines could be atrocious) the overall experience seems like something no other event has been able to replicate. The buzz of all these new game announcements and being able to try them in person along with thousands of others who are just as passionate as you are, I would've loved to experience it at least once. Realistically since that's been gone for 3 years now the big loss here is that the summer events will be spread out and not as condensed, which is kinda annoying but not a huge issue really. But hey, we still have quite a few in-person gaming events (PAX and TooManyGames are the two big ones I can think of in the US) and the publisher showcases still occur, so technically I can't say much was lost here. I just wish we could keep that one week where all of us could come together and just be excited for new games.

I'll be excited for the Fest itself one the topic is announced, but at this point, I just can't get over how great that gear looks! That crown is gonna be used far too much for good reason, the flower crown will look adorable with a lot of outfits, we have a top hat with a monocle (need I say more), and it isn't inherently a reference, but my inner Persona fanboy positively can't WAIT to make a Joker Inkling with that mask. Either way they all look great and are probably the best Splatfest gear items we've gotten at least in Splat 3, maybe in the whole series. And then there's Deep Cut's outfits too, HOOH Nintendo went wild on this one. This'll get me into a Christmas mood for sure!

23/25. I would say I hate that but the fact that a ton of others seemed to do similarly makes me feel a bit better about it….

Nah. We’re all insane, this is just proof of it. I do hate this!

Level-5 making a comeback in the west has been one of the best surprises this year. They have so many great franchises under their belt, from the weirder (but still great) stuff like Yo-Kai Watch and Fantasy Life to the icons that are Professor Layton and Ni No Kuni, they're one of the best third party JP studios out there. A couple missteps brought them downhill in the west for a while, sure, but having even two of those series popular again over here is huge. With any luck we'll get some Yo-Kai Watch ports and localizations next.

@HeadPirate
First, I'm not being manipulated by anyone. I've never followed competitive Smash to any extent and passively follow Splatoon competitive because I like Splatoon a bit too much. This is from reading the guidelines myself and forming my own opinion.
Second, I never criticized the banning of for profit tournaments, although I should've clarified that in my original comment, that one's on me. I'm mostly mixed on that but I can't say I'm against it necessarily. That would be profiting off of Nintendo's IP and that is very legally gray, so it is reasonable that they'd want to cover that. That said, many tournaments as it stands are run by volunteer organizers and at best make the tiniest bit of profit, so it's a bit redundant when it's so hard to profit as it is without just being a bit scummy which the guidelines generally cover (ie, banning pay-per-view livestreams, which is actually a good move in my book).
Third, I DID mention that licenses are looking to be pretty easy to get and that they do a lot to get Nintendo off your back. I never tried saying they were anything other than that.
I do still think some of this stuff makes no sense, stuff like age restricting tournaments for a game rated E10+ here in the US is silly when Nintendo is known for being generally safe for all ages, with the occasional exception like Bayonetta. Again, I don't think these will kill Smash (well, Ultimate specifically, Melee is gonna get hit hard by this especially when you can only get a license for Switch games) or Splatoon, but I do think they'll stunt their growth to some extent. Working without a license will be a huge pain in the butt, and if you can't get a license for whatever reason, you're just kinda screwed. If that happens frequently enough, it could absolutely impact the growth of the competitive scenes, but it won't kill them entirely. And hey, we all know how many people want to play Melee competitively and will ignore any rules necessary to do so, Nintendo will run out of paper for cease and desists within a week if they really enforce this.

Will this kill competitive Smash and/or Splatoon? No, probably not. It'll just make real growth near impossible for grassroots communities like these, especially Splatoon which still has a pretty niche competitive scene. Some of these tournament rules are SO stupid though. We have highlights like:
"Games with online play must use the online gameplay services and/or servers officially provided by Nintendo" meaning there will never be another legal online Smash 4, Brawl, or Splatoon 1 tournament
Most of Q3, including but not limited to sponsored tournaments being banned and outlawing sale of food and drink
"Nintendo games may not be used for Community Tournaments that involve anything Nintendo deems inappropriate" the classic catch-all, if your face looks kinda funny the tournament's dead bozo
"Organisers will make sure that Participants and Spectators are of age according to the applicable age rating of the game used in the tournament" this one is just funny to me, if you're 10 you can watch Splatoon perfectly fine but it's scarring if you're 9!
Yes, as the IP holder, Nintendo has the right to do this. That doesn't automatically mean it makes total sense though! Apparently getting an official Nintendo license isn't too difficult and can be done in bulk (a JP Smash organizer got licenses for their next 10 events within a day), and I assume getting a license makes running a tournament in general much easier and gets Nintendo off your back with a lot of these guidelines.
TLDR, this is a silly update in a lot of ways, but it ain't gonna completely shut down competitive Smash/Splatoon like people are making it seem.

It’s been a wild year with some of the most unexpected reveals, It feels really weird being able to say “man my wildest dreams have actually happened” without a hint of irony. There’s still stuff I’d like, would be nice to finally be able to play Kid Icarus Uprising after all, but the last game high up on my wishlist is Silksong, and I’m still holding out hope that we’re not too far out from more Silksong news so my top wishlist is pretty close to being cleared out. I guess if I were FORCED to pick something, I’d love Persona 3 Reload on Switch, but I have an Xbox and can play that through Game Pass so it’s not like I’m hard pressed to get my hands on it. I will also agree with the whole “give Level-5 have an unlimited budget” thing, I’d absolutely adore a triple AAA Yo-Kai Watch game or a new Ni No Kuni on Switch.
ah how I’ve missed Kate’s unhinged soapboxes, this was a really fun read

@Stamina_Wheel In all fairness, that “small” development studio was also the team that initially took on the PS5 remake for the original KOTOR. This is a remake was the opener at a major Sony State of Play, a remake that who knows how many people are anticipating, and also a remake that’s gone into a light form of development hell after an internal showcase was so bad they had to transition studios completely to Saber Interactive. It can be argued a full remake is different from a port, and while that’s true, LucasFilm trusted them entirely to be able to remake a game as renowned as KOTOR. Regardless of how well they did at it, that ain’t something a particularly small team would be given the reigns to in a majority of situations, especially with the Star Wars license involved.

Personally, I never actually bought KOTOR 2 because I remember the port being iffy at best, but I can’t say I blame people for doing this. It’s a wee bit exaggerated, sure, one $15 port usually wouldn’t stir up this much controversy, but the DLC was a big selling point and just not delivering is at the bare minimum a big PR hit.

I’m more interested in the P4 physical because it’s my personal favorite game, but DANG is that a good way to get P3. You have representation for all three (currently available) versions with the base box art being Portable’s art, the steel book being the vanilla box art, and the slip cover being the FES art. That’s a smart way to do it, not one I would’ve thought of. Not to mention in the SEES Edition we get the mandatory Evoker item and an armband, I wouldn’t buy it for $200 personally but that’s some good bang for your buck with stuff like the soundtrack CD thrown in there. It kinda sucks it’s Limited Run and I don’t like P3 (specifically Portable) enough to double dip, but depending on how that P4G physical turns out, I may very well grab one for myself. Again, it’s my favorite game of all time. I’d love to be able to display my favorite game of all time for anyone to see, plus it’s not like it wouldn’t be worth it since I’d easily have paid $60 when I bought it digitally, still comes out to less than that.

Quite honestly, I'd be happy with more of the same, provided we get some big improvements to the core stuff over 3. I'm admittedly a diehard Splatoon fan, it's my favorite series of all time and my ultimate comfort game, but shooters don't generally have massive innovations from one entry to the next. They're much more iterative than innovative, and as long as that iteration is clearly there, I'd be more than happy. In the case of Splat 4, that'd include some of the obvious stuff like new weapons/maps/single player, but also stuff like better online, bots in private battles, better map design as a whole compared to 3 (none of this Tetris S piece shape, getting a bit old and not good), and if we're gonna keep the seasonal system, a mid-season update with an extra couple weapons and maybe a stage would be very much appreciated once 4 actually exists. Truthfully though, I don't think myself or all that many Splatoon fans actually want Splat 4 at this point. Side Order has been delayed to 5 months from now when it was leaked to be an anniversary thing, the game still has a full year of content left, and right now I think most of us just want that second year of updates to be better than the first. Splat 4 isn't my concern at this point, once we're a couple years into the Switch 2 then we'll talk about Splat 4.

If I want to be FAR too hopeful, technically this does mean there is barely a chance that the Persona 2 duology might get rereleased at all which I’d be ecstatic about since it’s the last major game on my Persona bucket list (sorry P1), but knowing Atlus’s track record and what this announcement actually is? Yeah my expectations of a P2 port are still nonexistent. The fact this is an ancient mobile version of P1 that was only ever Japanese means this’ll probably never get a release over here in the west, which isn’t a problem really but it still means P1 and 2 will continue to go forgotten here. If this were a port of the normal P1, whether it be the original release or the PSP remake, I’d be more interested, but as it stands this stirs nothing but apathy in me.

Echoing what @sketchturner said, $60 seems a bit steep personally. Admittedly I'm not a huge Sonic fan so I might not be able to provide a great viewpoint, but as good as the game looks, I don't know if I'd say it's $60 with an additional $70 deluxe edition good. 2D games can be fantastic, don't get me wrong, Metroid Dread was great and full price $60, Celeste is one of my favorite 2D platformers and even though it's only $20 I'd gladly pay full price for it, and Hollow Knight was my favorite game of all time for years and it's one of the few games I'd gladly pay next/current-gen $70 for (ignoring the fact it's actual robbery to get it for $15). There are FANTASTIC 2D games out there and I will fully advocate that a well-made 2D game is just as good as a well made 3D game, even if someone might personally prefer one or the other, but something about this just sits differently with me.
I fully admit I'm not the target audience, I still haven't bought Sonic Mania and at this point no matter how much I swear it's in my backlog I don't know if I ever will end up playing, so if you want someone's opinion on the price, mine is definitely NOT one to take into account. It just seems odd, especially after Mania was only $20 and resurrected the franchise after the Boom era, and even now without the initial reaction of being out of the "dark age" people still seem to adore Mania.

You know what was previously announced? Silksong. You know what was gonna come out in the first half of 2023 before getting delayed at the last second in May? Silksong.

YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO GUYS AND GALS, GET THE COPIUM READY

@BloodWolfe That's totally fair. Everyone has different standards and there likely are a fair few adult fans who were upset with how S/V came out, you included. But there's no real way of knowing that that's the majority opinion of adult fans because, to put it bluntly, you can't really survey something like that. Your opinion is totally reasonable and honestly one I agree with for the most part, but the likelihood is still that most people aren't as upset as we are about the performance and will continue to buy Pokemon regardless.

I wish I didn't have to say this, but I feel like people forget that we here are the VAST minority. The majority of the several million people who bought Scarlet/Violet and even Sword/Shield are casual fans who might be kids who simply don't notice the issues or adult fans who played the older games as kids and just don't care too much about the performance issues. I don't mean that to sound degrading at all, I'm not trying to say us here are "superior gamers" or anything because everyone has fun with games in their own way. "Casual" fans are just as valid fans as "hardcore" fans. The same goes for kids and nostalgic adult fans. None of that is inherently a problem, but it means that no matter how much the few who are big enough fans to be on a gaming website actually care, we simply can't stir up enough of a fuss for Pokemon Company to truly care. It still sells and as long as reviews generally don't go below a 7/10, it still looks good on paper and that's what matters in a corporate setting. Look at Overwatch 2, that game has been critically panned and is the worst user rated game of all time on Steam, but Blizzard doesn't care because they'd rather have any talk about their game rather than complete apathy. At this point it seems like TPC is taking a similar stance and as much as it sucks, we can't do much about it since most people just wanna play a Pokemon game and aren't too worried about the performance unless it's unplayable.
I realize after writing this that this comment is a mess, but just to be 1000% clear, I'm not saying "casuals bad" here. I'm not saying that I think that situation should be the more "hardcore" fans have precedence over the majority. I'm just trying to state what I see the situation is in the moment.

I don't collect shoes whatsoever, I pretty much only have the pair I wear currently and one old pair as backup, but honestly... those are pretty cool. Maybe I'm biased since it's cool seeing the Tentatek logo on anything in real life, but they're pretty cheap so I think they'd be a nice display item. And considering how many people make models of weapons from the series and that people out there probably make full cosplays of their own Inklings/Octolings, I imagine this would be a great display item with a modded pair of shoes that look like ones in the game. Maybe I'm just too deep down the Splatoon rabbit hole since it's my favorite game series, but I feel like Splatoon is the only game that could put out a real life clothing line that I'd actually buy and wear in public. This kind of thing makes me hopeful that's even the tiniest possibility since it'd feel really silly for this to be the closest we get to an IRL clothing line beyond Splatfest tees.

Mostly gonna be playing Splatoon 3 on Switch thanks to the Splatfest. I still agree with my choice being on Team Love but I REALLY didn’t think about how many mirror matches I’d get, right now I’m sitting at about 50/50 mirror vs real and that’s the worst it’s been for any Splatfest. Still having a good time, just a bit of an unwelcome surprise.
Other than that I’m probably gonna play some Guilty Gear Strive on Xbox. I’ve been getting back into it lately thanks to Evo and I really forgot just how fun it is even though I’m not usually a fighting game fan.
Have a good weekend all!

Props to Larian for making what is apparently a really great game. I've heard nothing but praise for both the first two Baldur's Gates and the Divinity Original Sin games which were Larian's last projects. I'm not too interested overly, I've only dipped my toes into D&D stuff within the past few months but I can absolutely see why a bigger D&D fan would adore this. It's definitely not a game for everyone despite the infamy of those cutscenes, but I'm happy for those who are interested in it since it's apparently such a solid game.

I’ve been interested in going to Pax for a while now, seems like a really fun time and not as overwhelmingly chaotic as E3 was when it was free to the public. Not gonna be for a while though and it’s gonna be a Pax East since I’m not exactly on the west coast. It’s always nice seeing Reggie do stuff like this since he’s somebody that people have tons of respect for and he hasn’t just vanished off the face of the planet after retiring like many executives do.

Peanuts has always been one of my favorite cartoons, would absolutely love if these came overseas. As long as the controller itself is relatively high quality by third party standards I'd totally use it. I'd definitely grab one of the travel cases at least.

I haven't played too much Dead Cells, but it's great from what I have played. It might not be a Metroidvania like the devs have described it as, but even if it's not a great Metroidvania it makes up for that in the combat and roguelike structure. It's fun every time, if a bit frustrating sometimes, and the fact that it has so much content from 5 years of updates with even more coming still means it's gonna stay fun for a long while. I've only played on Game Pass which has probably stopped me from getting into it as much as I can since Switch is my preferred platform (and it seems fantastic for a game like Dead Cells), but it's definitely a game I want to get into and it's something I should really grab on Switch sooner than later.

I’ve been interested in Nendoroids and figure collecting as a whole for a while now, but I don’t know if I really want to start here. I don’t plan on getting into it too heavily so I only really want figures of characters I KNOW I adore, and I’m not too sure how high up these designs of the characters are. If we ever get TOTK Link/Zelda Nendoroids I may be interested, but for $60 I’m not too interested in either of these. The only one I’ve really got my eye on at this point is the Nendoroid of Kasumi from Persona 5 Royal, and that’s mostly because she’s my favorite character in all of Persona. Even then that one’s not out yet so I’m not ready to take the plunge just yet.

Personally the main issue I have with the DLC situation for this game is the fact that it's been like 9 months since Scarlet and Violet released and the most info we have on the FIRST HALF of the DLC is a LEAKED presentation that'll probably have info. I enjoyed Violet when I played it early this year despite its flaws, I thought it was a genuinely good step forward for the Pokemon formula that just didn't get anywhere near enough time in the oven. But after seeing how they've done nothing to improve the game post-launch beyond fixing game breaking bugs and light performance upgrades I was already leaning towards not grabbing the DLC. The fact it's taken the vast majority of a year to put out HALF of the DLC and they're already hyping up the second half before releasing any of it means it's pretty much a guarantee I'm not grabbing it. It doesn't help that I've started getting into other RPG series that are taking up all of my time (see my pfp and profile), but if the DLC had better release timing to actually continue the hype I got from the initial release and if they actually improved the game's performance, I'd be wholly willing to head back and give it a shot. As it stands, Scarlet and Violet are still a really good foundation for the future that's been massively mishandled in every way other than the core game.
I admit I could be looking into this too much and I also admit I'm probably biased in every way with Persona 4 being my favorite game of all time and playing it only a couple months after Pokemon, but even ignoring that I still thought Pokemon was a 7/10 at best when I first played it. Even if I hadn't binged a whole other RPG series between now and then, I still don't know if the DLC releasing this long after playing the game would bring me back knowing they've fixed next to none of the performance issues.

I feel like I'm one of the only people who really likes Challenges, the only problem I have with them are the short timeframes really. Each challenge is a fun spin on the game, some of them completely flip the game on its head with stuff like Sheldon Sampler or the 2v2 mode, and others are just complete chaos like the Trizooka-only mode. It isn't a perfect mode a bit more variety would be appreciated, but each time I try one out I enjoy my time.
That said, still gonna agree that we need info on Side Order. It's one of my most anticipated 'games' at this point and if it keeps up the momentum after Octo Expansion and 3's story mode, Side Order could be a big gaming highlight this year for me.

I out of town for the weekend so I won’t have too much free time, but where I have any I’ll definitely be playing Ghost Trick. Grabbed it recently after hearing all the good things about it, finished chapter 8 last night, it’s fantastic. I went in with no major expectations and now that I’m roughly halfway through it’s probably my sleeper hit of the year already. Also a nice change of pace after having binged Persona all year so far which are VERY long games.
Have a good weekend everybody!

This is the first Splatfest in 3 where I'm actually not sure what team I'm picking right out the gate. My gut wants to go with love since, despite only having experience with the platonic kind, my close friends are some of the most important people and have helped me through quite a bit over the last while. But on the other hand, as others here have mentioned, fame includes leaving behind a legacy and I would like to be remembered preferably for a good reason after I die. But then money can be used to gain fame so that's potentially better option since that gives you freedom on how you become famous... GAH I genuinely don't know what to pick, gonna have to think on this one.
pretty much @Fizza summed it up perfectly with "the existentialism splatfest"

I haven't followed competitive Splatoon actively for a while, but WOW this is huge! It isn't gonna suddenly fix every problem in the competitive community and I'm doubtful that'll happen as long as Nintendo doesn't know how to actually embrace its competitive communities, but I could see this being a big step forward once it's added. Tournaments are easier to arrange so we get could more or each tourney is bigger than they might be otherwise, more people joining tourneys since it'll be more simple, bigger tournaments like the Big House will be a lot easier to handle, the update itself is just a quality of life thing, but it could be a massive QoL thing for competitive.
Again, I have no clue what I'm talking about with competitive, so if I'm mistaken on this feel free to tell me, but from my perspective this seems like a big upgrade to what we have right now.

Shooter bias is anything but surprising at this point, but overall one of the better patches so far. I went in expecting the worst seeing that ink consumption buff on Aerospray and an N-Zap accuracy buff (as much as I love Zap it doesn't need it), and then the rest of it was actually pretty decent. Angle Shooter getting yet another damage buff is nice and 40 damage is actually a reasonable amount, with any luck it'll be barely viable now!

I can't say it's awful, it's not great but it could be much worse, but I DEFINITELY won't call it a game. When the closest it gets to a game is tapping Pokemon when you wake up to fill out the Dex, and then cooking throughout the day which you barely need to do anything for (and yet is still kinda tedious), there's barely any "game" to it. It also just isn't grabbing me that much as someone who's never been a huge fan of filling out the Pokedex, it might be a completely different process compared to the actual games but it still really isn't something I'm all that interested in doing. Is it a good app? Sure. I'm not really the target audience but for what it is it's pretty decent. The microtransactions are horrendous but at least they're barely intrusive at all, I just think it's ridiculous that the monthly sub is $10 a MONTH for some in-game currency when you could get Xbox Game Pass for roughly the same price which, while it's incredibly far from perfect, is still an objectively better value. But regardless of all that, I stand by the opinion that it's not a game. It's a Pokemon themed sleep tracker which is fine, but when it's advertised as a normal mobile game pretty much everywhere, I can't help but think that's a little bit misleading when it's really an interactive Pokedex based around a sleep tracker.

Nice seeing Splatoon 3 continue to be in the top 10. For as niche as it seems to be sometimes over here in the west, it's always cool seeing just how big it is in Japan

The more I look at it this is a wild list, Battlefield 2042 at 5th, FNAF Security Breach in top 20, and Gollum at 36 are a trio of games I’d NEVER expect to see this high up on a sales chart again. Gollum especially, what kind of sale would that have to go on for more people to buy it this week then Resident Evil 4?!

@Vyacheslav333 In all fairness, P5R has also been out on Switch for 3 months longer than 3 and 4 have been so it very well could’ve had more digital sales in 2022 instead of 2023. It was also the only one of the bunch to actually get a physical release which likely didn’t help digital sales. I’m admittedly a bit biased since 4 Golden is my favorite game of all time, but nothing says P5R was unsuccessful.