Zaruboggan

The overview trailer has kinda sold me on it. I'm still hopeful my brother will pick it up physical so that I can save a bit of money, but if not, I guess I'll do the honors.
I guess it's been long enough since Paper Mario TTYDR that I'm up for more Mario RPG after all!

Oh God, Neva is already here? I'm not ready yet!!
That'll be my purchase of the group. Not sure where I'll fit it into the schedule, but it helps that it'll be shorter than its competition (in my case, Dragon Age and Metaphor).

I just love how it plays the end-of-day song from Pikmin when you get in bed. That nearly sold me on it alone.

I'm glad they picked up on that haha
In Granblue Fantasy, it can cost like 95,500 yen to guarantee you get the character you want. That's currently over 650 USD.
Which is genuinely insane. In fairness to GBF, you can get pick tickets for 3150 yen every so often (think more like 20 bucks), but they don't include limited or seasonal characters. Except for once a year when you can get an "anniversary ticket."

And the whales pay it. I have a friend who's purchased a couple "sparks" (the full 95,500), to my great chagrin.

I don't think most gacha games are quite as hilariously overpriced, but I wouldn't really know. They're all glorified PNG gambling with the veneer of a (sometimes actually fun) game.

We've sure come a long way from horse armor, that's for sure.

Anyway, glad they've recognized the West's aversion to paying stupid money for nothing.

Sorry, gang. According to my industry insider, we're in for another 500-day dry spell. That means no Nintendo Directs, no console reveals, and no individual game showcases until 2026!
Better polish up those retro consoles and buckle up for the long haul!

Really looking forward to reading about all the hidden gems!
NL review or no, I think you all know enough about HL to make an informed purchasing decision. I'm relying on you guys to expose me to the real diamonds in the rough!
Please don't make me search through the eShop myself.

I'm housesitting without my PS5, which means no Quidditch, no Granblue Fantasy Relink, and no Warhammer. It also means I can't fire up the Metaphor demo to get an early start. It also means I won't be home for Metaphor's launch, which will leave me with even less time for it before Dragon Age comes out... At least I'm not planning to get anything else until February.

What I did bring is my Switch, and The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, and I'm really excited to continue. I'm headed to Gerudo Town to see what Ganon's minions are up to in the desert. Probably no good, but I try not to pre-judge!

Curious about Wings for Hire, and will be picking up All You Need Is Help when I'm with friends to play it (probably sometime next year).

I'm interested in Mario Party Jamboree and Mario and Luigi: Brothership, but with Metaphor, Neva, and Dragon Age coming out in October, I'm probably not going to get to them...
Even if I took a year-long sabbatical, I still wouldn't have time to play all the good-looking games that come out.

Always wished we got Soma Bringer.
For making one of my favorite games of all time (Xenoblade Chronicles X) and one of my most cherished GameCube-era RPGs (Baten Kaitos), they have my heartfelt thanks!

I wrapped up Emio—The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club last night, much to my surprise. I thought I had at least another five hours to go. I enjoyed the bulk of it, but thought the ending delivery was...interesting.
Tonight, I'll be playing some Element TD 2 with my cousins. After that, working through more Warhammer 40k: Space Marine 2 with my brothers.
I am pretty sure I'll be grabbing The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom and starting that, but I've got a lot of house cleaning I want to get done, and tbh I had emotionally put it off until next week in my head because I thought Emio would take all weekend...
We'll see!

Zelda for me! But I won't be picking it up until I finish Famicom Detective Club (only 11 chapters in right now).

I hope this is enough that Vanillaware can bet the farm again! Such a fantastic developer. Unicorn Overlord, Muramasa: The Demon Blade, and 13 Sentinels are three of my favorite games ever. I just worry when they put all their eggs in one basket with every game. Yes, it gets us a constant stream of stone-cold classics...but at great risk!

Space Marine 2, UFO 50, and Astro Bot, elsewhere.
But I do think today is the day I start The Smiling Man-Emio: Famicom Detective Club.
Just don't quote me on that!

There are several I want this week (Plucky Squire), but I've got Famicom Detective Club, Warhammer 40k Space Marine 2, and Astro Bot to get through before Zelda comes out!
It ain't happening!

@Samalik I bet it will, but by then I'll be long gone lol

Warhammer is decent fun with friends, but maybe that's because we've just been starved for decent co-op shooters that aren't live-service, please-play-me-until-you-die-type experiences.

I really want to enjoy a new Battlefield again. Vince Zampella has worked on some of my favorite shooters of all time, and he's already saying the right things (bye-bye specialists; the new game is inspired by BF3 and 4) about this one, so I'm hopeful.
But I didn't like Hardline, One, 5, 2042, or any of the other Battlefields that have come out since 4 (just in case I'm missing any ). Which is why my group was still playing 4 through 2022.
Of course, CoD has been equally disappointing since BO2 (AW was all right, I guess). I used to look forward to both every year. They used to be some of my favorite franchises...
Forgive me for digressing. The grieving process is a long one!

Just got back from a week-long journey into the mountains with only what I could carry on my back. I've mostly forgotten what it means to be human, but I expect that Famicom Detective Club can remind me.
Might also pick up the new Warhammer 40k game to play with my brothers.

I'd love to pick up Yars Rising, but it might get lost in the swath of September releases. We'll see. I'm still sitting on Emio.

One person's forgettable is another person's treasure, I guess.
I won't say no to giving non-Charizard Pokemon more attention and care, though.

Plucky Squire, Bakeru, and The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, plus UFO50, if it launches on Switch the same time it launches on Steam.

I found it inoffensive, and decently fun for it's duration. But it's the kind of game you forget you played by the end of the week.

Working PAX West, so not a lot of fun on the docket. Might have a few hours to start Emio, but standing around and talking about games for 9 hours takes a toll.

Downloaded Emio last night to play on my work trip, and I'll be getting the dominus collection sometime after my return. Brother's picking up Bakeru, so it's a full calendar!

I thought the indie one was fairly uneventful, but the partner one was good. Looking forward to the Castlevania collection, the various RPGs, Capcom's next Fighting Collection, Tetris Forever, and maybe Star Overdrive.
Neva, Metal Slug, and the Plucky Squire all still look excellent, of course. Hopefully I'll be able to make time to play all of them!

I am absolutely psyched for this. Can't wait to play the Power Stones with my local gaming group! And I always love fiddling around in fighting games I've never played before.

Oof, right between Metaphor and Dragon Age.
I'll be buying it day one (loved Gris), but... Maybe it can be a palette cleanser between the juggernaut RPGs.

I will absolutely be getting this--the only question is when.
Somehow, it ended up that I got Dawn of Sorrow, Brother #1 got Portrait of Ruin, and Brother #2 got Order of Ecclesia back in the day.
It'll be fun actually getting to play all three of them for myself! Though tbh I'm honestly most looking forward to replaying Dawn of Sorrow lol

Neat! I like it when these are announced the day before they air, as opposed to sometimes, when they're announced two days before they air.
Oh, the humanity.

I'll try to sneak in the Emio demo, but it's not looking likely. Enjoy your games for me this weekend, folks!

Yep. Might have to wait until I get back from the mountains to play it, though.

Neat. Always looking for another fun co-op game, and always looking for a good FPS.
I thought 3 was the best of the bunch when it came to gun play, though it's story was weirdly caught up in trying to be serious and heartfelt, failing at both due to being tonally at odds with the game world and series history. Still, while the writing raised some eyebrows, I had more fun with 3 than the rest of the series, so I'm interested to see what shape 4 ends up taking.

It was practically going to launch on the same day as Metaphor, so this actually works in my favor.

I had a lot of fun with Dicefolk, but the rest of the year has way too much in store for me to drop by for another few rounds.

Maybe some multiplayer games (Granblue Fantasy Relink, Helldivers 2, Rise of Nations, Inkbound)?
I'm kinda in the calm before the storm of new releases (like three in the last week of August alone), but also about to be away from home for four straight weekends. By the time I get back, there's be another half dozen game drops I'm interested in.
I don't know how I'm going to be able to play any of them before Metaphor comes out... Especially since my work is returning to the office (an unsurprisingly unpopular decision that has caused warranted turnover), which will lose me two hours of free time per day.

That works out pretty great for me! The launch timing is kinda awkward since I'll be on a work trip, so getting to start in on it early should help.

It's the last weekend of the Olympics, so some volleyball, basketball, handball, breaking, and sport climbing are on the docket.
Played some Granblue Fantasy Relink last night with friends, but that'll mostly be it, since I'm also visiting my grandpa today and hitting the beach tomorrow.

I remember when Naruto got the snappy Path of Ninja RPGs back on the DS. It's too bad more anime don't go for RPGs--if your cast is good enough for a subpar arena brawler, it's good enough for a role-playing game!
I'll be skipping this for now, but eventually I hope to have time to pick it up and give it a whirl.
Maybe after Metaphor...

I think that's a new lowest price for podracing. Might have to go for it.

Watching more Olympics, so not a lot of gaming again. But I did start up Etrian Odyssey Untold and am making slow progress while athletes are doing all the sporting!
I played EO1 when it first came out, but only got to the second floor. I was pretty intimidated by the FOEs so I didn't go anywhere.
But I've played every EO since, so I'm no longer intimidated. If anything, I'm a little too reckless! Love this series!

Used to enjoy getting these in the mail. I dropped off due an overflow of ads and frequently incorrect information (one issue said the Wii U used friend codes) a decade ago.
That marked the end of my physical magazine days, when I could look forward to Nintendo Power, Game Informer, and Play Magazine every month or so.
Oh well.

Looking forward to Emio and Zelda. Might be hard to find the time to play everything I want to for the rest of the year, but I'll do my best!

This year's Olympics have been great so far! History being made in many events.
I didn't really connect with the M&S games, probably because my favorite events either weren't represented or weren't represented well.
I dream of getting a good Handball game someday...
There's definitely a dearth of good sports games that aren't made on a budget or overflowing with micro transaction *****.

Both TVs will be showing the Olympics (we've got slalom replays going on one and live men's volleyball on the other, right now. Congrats to France on that Rugby Sevens Gold!).

So any gaming will be handheld and minimal. I think I'll start up Etrian Odyssey Untold on 3DS, and do some grinding while these athletes paddle upstream.

@Maulbert I've got no issue with dating sim elements in Fire Emblem, but it is not a fundamental component of the series. I can't speak for Genealogy and other releases that didn't make it to the west, but none of FE, FE:SS, FE: PoR, FE:RD, FE: SD, OR FEE: SoV had any dating sim elements whatsoever.
AFAIK, they started with Awakening.

I'm sure I've left enough comments about how much I hate Engage's story, setting, villains, and characterization of old characters. It was a mess from start to finish.
Three Houses started off strong, with a good foundation of world-building...but as soon as the plot got moving, and more specifically, as soon as the villains showed up, it just failed to sustain any cohesion. Edelguard and Those Who Slither in the Dark just sucked lol
And imagine waking up on your employer's lap...

I enjoyed the general character writing in both, but preferred TH's designs.

I have a lot of patience for calendar systems, and generally enjoyed keeping up with the teaching in TH. Somehow, I found the streamlined version in Engage to be so much worse--an awkward in between that would have been better served as a PoR-style menu system or the full-blown social structure of TH.

Gameplay, uh...I dunno. I honestly think the simplicity of Fire Emblem (GBA) is the high-point in that regard. Engage had better maps than TH, and chapter 11 was the game's shining moment for sure. But since nothing exists in a vacuum in videogames, I found it hard to really invest in any map the crappier the stories got over time.
Between the two, I think I had more fun with Three Houses, but they're both pretty low on my list for the series over all.
Which, and I know I've said this every single time Fire Emblem is mentioned, would be topped by the peerless Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn.

Luckily, I got this group when they first came out. The only one I'm missing is the Xenoblade 3 one. So close!

Abathor, when I'm likely to hang out with my friends and family locally. The gameplay's not a match by any means, but it brings me back to Golden Axe anyway.
I was gearing up to finally buy Trace Memory--I mean, Another Code this month, but the announcement of Emio has put that plan on hold. I don't think I want to do two of that style of game in such quick succession.

I'm chillin. I'm not thirsty for an upgrade, but if the games look good and the console doesn't quadruple my electricity bill, I'll be ready.