Solomon_Rambling

I hate skipping content, so I’ll plod through a narrative even if it annoys me. Bish Bash Bots and Ruiner are two recent games I’ve played that seemed to shoehorn a narrative simply to pad out the experience. As such, I think Lunar Lander Beyond would drive me a bit nuts.

@MsJubilee

You’re possibly right! I imagine Aspyr had some internal/external motivator to take out the posters. Otherwise, I doubt they would’ve removed them.

My day is ruined, possibly my entire weekend. I don’t know how long I’ll mourn the loss of these posters of historical and artistic significance. Possibly until Tuesday.

I’m with @Yosher on this one. No matter how minor the change, Aspyr couldn’t win this one no matter their choice.

I would be over the moon if Slay the Princess was announced. The developers are still hard at work promoting the PC release, so the chances are low, but I can hope!

That’s pretty stellar. I remember reading on IGN back in the day that you could unlock an entire new cup if you beat every staff ghost in the Time Trials for Mario Kart DS. Of course, the user-submitted “secret” was fake and later taken down, but I didn’t know that until I spent what was probably tens of hours beating every ghost. I was bummed when I didn’t unlock anything, but to this day, Mario Kart DS is still my favorite entry and represents when I was at my best in the series.

Aww…there goes my hope of him playing Big the Cat…

@nhSnork

Nice! Thank you for the recommendation!

@Diogmites

Ha! You got me! I’m always fascinated by what makes people consume certain media. Thank you for reading my work!

I’ve had a ton of fun with this game, so I’ll be picking up the DLC. It’s not quite as meditative as Vampire Survivors because you don’t get nearly as overpowered in Brotato, but it’s fun to min-max with all of the upgrades you can buy. I would recommend it to others!

The only other “Survivors-like” game I’ve bought is 20 Minutes Till Dawn, and that one is nowhere near as good as Brotato and Vampire Survivors.

@Daggot

Thank you for your detailed response as well! I personally haven’t tried reading as “casual enjoyment,” nor have I really appreciated the art direction of a book. Perhaps I need to invest in a coffee table book…

@Diogmites

And I greatly appreciate your thorough reply! If you do end up getting this book, I hope you have a blast reading it!

This genre of literature has always seemed peculiar to me because I don't know what readers hope to get from it (@Diogmites, perhaps you could tell me more about why such books appeal to you!). I get a book allows the writer to discuss games in more detail than what a Top 10 internet article would allow, and perhaps that's the point of guide books like this one? I guess I'm interested in some larger critique on video games as a source of relaxation, kind of like what Reynolds was looking for in an outro.

I'm intrigued by co-op. If co-op means everyone gets to try the stage but only one has to beat it, I'm all for it. Multiplayer in the main mode has always been a bit funky because beginner players can get stuck on one stage while seasoned players outpace them.

I was also turned off by the physics in Banana Mania, so here's to hoping Sega has fixed that issue in this game.

I enjoyed Dicey Dungeons quite a bit, so I’m up for more dice-based gameplay. Controlling the enemy team’s moves seems interesting as a gimmick, but I’m interested in how long battles will take. Part of what I enjoy about deck-builders like Slay the Spire and Balatro is how second-nature the mechanics become, allowing you to flow between battles quickly.

I’m intrigued to see how these changes affect the game. I binged Balatro for 30 or so hours the first two weeks I had it, and since then, I’ve been burnt out on it. The first few antes seem more dependent on luck which decreased the overall game’s addictiveness. Given that most of these buffs seem to impact those early antes the most, I’m hoping I can get back into the game!

@-wc-

And thank you for your recommendations! I haven’t tried Joe and Mac 2, but it’s on the SNES app, right? I’ll give it a look!

@KateGray

That still sounds satisfying to me. Thank you!

@-wc-

Good to know! I’ll have to put the remaster on my wishlist now. Colony 6 from Xenoblade Chronicles is perhaps my favorite development area in a game.

This may be a weird question: does the manor become noticeably prettier as you progress? I enjoy games where the community/area develops as you play.

I may suggest this one to my partner. She has liked similar games in the past, and this game may tide her over until Stardew’s 1.6 update.

That summer camp sounds pretty darn cool, and I love the idea of helping adolescents publish their work. The actual game seems simplistic to me, but I hope others get a kick out of it.

@Nontendo_4DS

Good to know! I've only finished the first part (plus the intermission, whatever that art show thing was). I'm intrigued thus far, but the game certainly seems to enjoy being abstruse for the sake of being abstruse.

Glad to see another fan of Gorogoa! One of the best games on the Switch!

@Kochambra

I couldn’t have said it any better. Gone Home may have set the standard for walking simulators, but I don’t think another game has captured that nuanced storytelling since. Even if it is developed by many of the same people, Open Roads seems less intricate. @ORolta, would you be able to speak on this?

@OorWullie

Despite all the praise I have for the game, I wouldn’t give Gone Home a 9/10 either. However, I’m interested: did you catch the “wall marks in the cellar” narrative that Kochambra mentioned? I ultimately had to look up what it meant because I struggled to understand it in-game. I don’t really want to give up spoilers despite Gone Home being an old game, but if you did find out that part, what did you think of it?

Even after this review, it’s hard to know if I’d enjoy Open Roads or any other “narrative adventure.” I’m currently working through the Annapurna Interactive Deluxe Limited Edition Collection (Kentucky Route Zero now), and it’s been a mixed bag. I absolutely love What Remains of Edith Finch, Gorogoa, and If Found…, but I thought the Artful Escape, Hindsight, and I Am Dead were poor.

For me, Gone Home was a well-crafted art exhibit of a family at one moment in time, but it’s the sort of game you can only do once (and not even once for some people). Looking around and talking just doesn’t feel sufficient in terms of gameplay anymore, especially because these narratives rarely feel as strong as what we would see from a movie or novel/short story. To justify the narrative’s medium as a video game, the gameplay has to do something interesting. What Remains of Edith Finch may have been a walking simulator, but your actions made you almost complicit in what befell the family. If Found… was basically a visual novel, yet the act of erasing hit home the themes of the narrative. Open Roads sounds like a visual novel (which has its merits as a genre) with unnecessary extra steps, including cumbersome character movement.

If any of that made sense, fantastic. I may still play Open Roads but only because I think it’s interesting to experience a publisher’s full catalog.

I love Hotline Miami, but even Hotline Miami’s developers struggled to recapture the magic of Hotline Miami in Hotline Miami 2. Hotline Miami as a roguelike still sounds pretty cool even if it gets repetitive, so I’ll go into it knowing this Hotline Miami clone is not as good as Hotline Miami. Thank you for reviewing this!

And once more, with passion: Hotline Miami.

I’m still trying to figure out if Jim Norman intends to develop this Nintendo Western fan-fiction or plans to outsource it to Intelligent Systems.

@Astral-Grain

Nintendo Life has updated reviews before? I didn't think they ever did that; the only one I can recall was a "Talking Point" about GTA: the Trilogy. Other than Sandrock, do you know of any others off the top of your head? I'm interested in seeing how the reviews changed.

I’m the type of gamer who typically plays a game once and then moves on. It’s great that some developers/publishers continue to improve their game after release, but it’s a mindset that doesn’t work with my play style. I want to be able to sit down with a game knowing I’m playing the best version of it with its full content. I’m glad people will get to enjoy My Time at Sandrock more, but I personally can’t get behind how the developer/publisher have handled the game.

@Overzeal

If you’re a party pooper, I guess you can call it that. The original goal was to complete every legitimate upload, which they did. Their intention was never to complete every illegitimate level.

I love Hotline Miami and adore any game that reminds me of Hotline Miami. If Oxto is like Hotline Miami, I’ll definitely get it, but there weren’t quite enough references to Hotine Miami in this article or in other reviews to make me think Oxto is enough like Hotline Miami to make me enjoy it like Hotline Miami.

Hotline Miami.

During the days of the Virtual Console and WiiWare, new games came out on Thursday or some day in the week for the US. When Nintendo suddenly changed the release date to Friday, I remember being devastated, as if the change had ruined my life’s schedule. I think I liked the release day being on a day other than Friday because I had something to look forward to after a typical school day.

I’m old now and more mature, so this new change only slightly destroys my life.

Although I loved Crypt of the Necrodancer, it was extremely difficult for me, so I bopped out after I beat a run. I don’t think I’ll revisit it for the DLC, but it’s cool to see the developers continue to support the game!

So you’re telling me people can steal games by just using the internet? And here I’ve been robbing stores for all the games I want to play but don’t want to pay for.

What’s next? You’re going to say I can download a car?

It’s always exciting when a stellar game like this seemingly comes out of nowhere. My partner is enjoying it, and I’ll probably try it out once I’m finished with the deckbuilder I’m playing (Thronebreaker).

I always look forward to a Nintendo Life interview, and this one was a treat. I haven’t picked up any Atari games yet, but this article has me itching to finally grab Atari 50.

I'll have to remember those final two lines by Jim and Gavin. We'll know we're truly at the end of times when Funko-Pops go digital-only.

I will always encourage a physical option, but I'm fine embracing digital-only if I can buy the games I want instead of streaming them. For the Switch, I have a whopping two games on cartridge: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (which I got by accident on launch day because Best Buy put it into my bag without charging me or me asking for it) and the Annapurna Interactive Deluxe Limited Edition Collection.

I heard the Switch successor is actually going to be the third rendition of the Wii. It’s going to be called, “Wii’re Back”.

Seems like a hodgepodge of games, and I reckon most long/replayable games could go on this list. I’d be interested in which staff writers picked which games.

Arena of Valor was my most “addictive” game, so much so I had to take a break from it because I was wasting sleep to play it. “So Addictive You Develop Unhealthy Habits” probably isn’t the cheeriest list, but it would be a unique one.

I knew this game would be too easy for me because I am an adult, without question. I do taxes, make my own dinner, talk about the weather, and do all the other tough adult things. Since this game is not for me, I’m off to buy stocks and drink coffee without sweetener.

But yeah, I don’t think I’ll grab this one. Had it on the GBA and wasn’t wowed by it then, and the demo did little to change my mind.

@Frailbay30

What can reading offer us compared to these hearts I'm hording? If I can get 94 more likes, I'll be a B-list celebrity on this website.

@CammyUnofficial

I think Reynolds' ultimate point is that a quicksave/autosave feature is a quality of life improvement inherent in most games these days. My snarky point was that people are making a big deal over a minor criticism. I'm almost certain Reynolds wasn't sitting at his computer and debating whether he'd assign a score of 8 or 9 based on the save system.

God, the only things more frustrating than a con that says, “Having to manually save is frustrating,” are the commenters that only read the frustrating-manual-saving con and not the review that explains why manually saving is frustrating.

I’m stoked to try this out. Just like with Splatoon 2, it feels like the DLC finally makes Splatoon 3 a proper sequel rather than a deluxe version of the previous game.

I heard the Switch Supreme will have four chips and at least one fish.

I’ll probably snag the game at launch because of how much my partner’s been looking forward to it. It’s funny to me that Unrailed! was such a hit for Alastair because I was relatively disappointed by its roguelike elements. I’m excited to see how the two games compare!

Great article!

@Folkloner

It also seems funky to me that Octopia isn’t a standalone release. My partner enjoys farming sims, but there is no way she’d enjoy the original game. Maybe the developer can separate the games in the future?

My partner has been enjoying Lil’ Guardsman, although her game of the month is probably Roots of Pacha. The only game I have from January is Hidden Through Time 2, which I just downloaded today. I enjoyed the first one and look forward to playing the second one with the family!

I’ve only ever known Taylor’s voice and never knew she was replaced. Makes sense why Ash’s voice felt off in the few clips I saw for later seasons.

I also urge everyone to recognize she made a single comment about PTSD. Even in the original article, that’s the only time “PTSD” is brought up. She certainly wasn’t trying to pull for sympathy or make a point about mental health. As an audience, we don’t know if she was using the disorder as a figure of speech or was just making a passing reference to an actual diagnosis. Even if you have your diagnostic manual out at home, you’ve got nothing to work with to determine whether she has a diagnosis or not.

She made a comment about how tough the ending was for her. Diagnosis or not, pain is pain, and it can do us a ton of good to recognize this for ourselves and for others.

What a feeling. I didn’t expect to ever experience it again. After almost fifteen years, I’m actively looking forward to a Sonic game.

I’m more likely to look up an ending if a game has multiple endings. I generally prefer games to have one ending, maybe an extra Easter egg if you collected every doohickey in the game. I loathe when the ending is determined by a set of arbitrary rules unknown to the player (Disgaea 1) or locked behind a morality system (Bioshock). I may as well read the extra endings because I don’t want to jump through random hoops. Undertale is the exception to this rule and showed how to do multiple endings well.

@Poodlestargenerica

Got it. You and I agree on the importance of diversity, and I can recognize Activision Blizzard's many issues, including the "Diversity Tool" you mentioned. It seems we disagree on how we confront it in this comment section.

At the end of the day, we don't know if Activision Blizzard promoted Faries for diversity reasons. To suggest she was hired for these reasons - I believe - perpetuates rhetoric that claims marginalized people are only promoted due to their marginalized status and not their skills and accomplishments. I know this was not your intention, but several other commenters (here and elsewhere) claim that marginalized people are only ever promoted or given important jobs because of some DEI agenda, insinuating a man/white person deserved the position instead. I recognize I may be preaching to the choir. By all means, let's criticize unscrupulous companies, and maybe we can also entertain the idea that Faries truly was the most capable person to take the role of president out of the applicant pool, regardless of her gender, her race, or the company's agenda.

I don't intend to continue this discussion, but I welcome any other thoughts or opinions you would like me to consider.

@Poodlestargenerica

Before I fully reply, I need to understand your perspective more clearly. I think you're ultimately saying we shouldn't praise Microsoft/Blizzard for promoting a woman of color because they promoted her purely to check a diversity box and to make themselves look better to the public. You're commenting on how large corporations get away with tokenism under the guise of being progressive. Did I get that correct?

Holy geez, what is wrong with some of you? Can a person be something other than white and male without someone claiming that person’s worth comes only from their diversity? Sheesh.

Kudos to you, @Kyloctopus, for acknowledging and basing your opinion on something Faries has actually done.