Zaruboggan

The video felt pretty vapid to me, tbh. A little corporate slop. An above comment said "whelming" and I think that's pretty accurate, if not too generous.
I hope the next Pikmin game doesn't try to have people walking around. The post-people nature of it is part of what makes the world-building interesting and fun imo.

Absolum immediately and Scurge: Hive for the wishlist. I will keep Ball x Pit in mind, too.

Seems pretty slick! I'll put it on the wishlist for when I'm not bogged down by, uh, everything else.

I never had an N64 at home, so I missed this one, despite playing the N64s of all my cousins for hundreds of hours.
I somehow missed it on all the Virtual Consoles, too. An absolute crime. I really want to have a chance on this one!

I guess I will play it a couple weeks or so later then. I'm quite looking forward to it, after the demo!

Wild blast from the past. I originally saw this one in a game mag, I think around the same time as Sigma Star Saga?
I never got this one, but I find myself wanting to return to those days, so...

Almost absolutely nothing, as fate would have it! I was away, and decided to bring a book (House of Chains by Steven Erikson) instead of a gaming console.
I might still have some time to sneak out some Expedition 33 or Baldur's Gate 3, but that remains to be seen.

Yo, Rounds?!
This is fantastic 1v1 fun! The roguelike card mechanics let you customize your build from match to match, and they can get pretty insane.
My local gaming group loved it back on steam, where mods turned it into 2v2 and added a bunch of wild new build possibilities, but we were hooked before the mods. I recommend it!

Just Pokemon and Kirby for me for Switch 2 until December (Metroid Prime 4). Unless Lumines Arise is surprise released for Switch 2 as well as PS5...

This weekend is Baldur's Gate 3, Borderlands 4, and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
It is the last weekend before I get busy, so hopefully I can make some good progress in each of them. I'd really like to beat E33 before Pokemon Z-A comes out... because I definitely won't have beat it before Ghost of Yotei.

Just Shapes and Beats is a thrill. Berserk was demoing it at PAX West, and I got a kick out of watching families stop by and get addicted!
Supreme co-op game that anyone can pick up and play!

Team Reptile is my freaking JAM. After the Lethal Leagues and BRCF, I'll be all over this.

Now "I got my nails done" will be stuck in my head all day again.
And now I look good, and now I look great...

Last night, I tried the Alabaster Dawn demo on Steam, and lads, this is gonna be a good one. (Developed by the Cross Code people)

This weekend will be the continuation of two multiplayer big boys, Baldur's Gate 3 and Borderlands 4. I started Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 for when those groups aren't available, too.

I polished off Donkey Kong Bananza early in the week, enjoying all the surprises at the end. That credits song rocks.

I also started Chibi-Robo, but I decided to save it for when I'm away from home next month. I'm excited to revisit this wacky world after almost two decades!

I would love a proper BW remake, but first I'd need a proper DP remake, just to be sure they can do remakes right again.
Clearly I'm a big BW fan (see profile avatar). If the remakes can't be given the effort they deserve, then I'd prefer genuine drag n drop ports. Retro Pokemon collections, please.

I've been stupid excited for this one, ever since playing the demo on Steam.
Can't wait.

Started BL4 with my group, and while we're having fun so far, I'm reminded of my problem with looter shooters: when your loot grows stale, everything is a bullet sponge. Shotguns and snipers feel like trash, and the player is paper-thin. Like Outriders, prior Borderlands games, and even Destiny to some extent, the game awkwardly tumbles through feeling great to play, and feeling like a slog, dependent entirely on whether or not you get decent drops.
We're not 10 hours in yet, of course, so that cycle moves along fast enough.

New prices are too much. I got a few when they were $13 or whatever, but $30 and $50 are eye-watering. Sorry, Sylux.
Also, big shame that Pauline's classic outfit was locked behind amiibo.

Time to step it up, IS. I want to be excited for Fire Emblem again, and that means better writing, better world design, better maps, and less chores.
The dialogue in the trailer has already lowered my expectations. I expect I'll get the game, but I swear at this point it's more so that I can have my own opinions about the franchise's modern incarnations, rather than because I actually enjoy them.
Like with the Tales games, it's a motivation that won't last forever.

I'm a little late to answer since I was in the mountains until late last night, but now that I'm showered and once again human, I'm planning to start Borderlands 4, make more progress in Donkey Kong Bananza (1400s!), and try and decompress after catching that Nintendo Direct this morning.
Lots of thoughts on Fire Emblem, Metroid Prime 4, and Pokopia.

@Pandaman Yoops, I totally forgot about the whole Switch specific thing! Yeah, I don't think anything on my list was Switch confirmed...

OH, sorry, but I forgot The Rabbit Haul, a cute farming TD game. Grow crops during the day, and play Tower Defense at night when the racoons come to steal your haul. Flowers act as towers, and there's some town restoration meta game.

I was AT PAX, and I didn't even see some of these!
Granted, I was working, so my time to check stuff out was pretty limited. I'll definitely add some of these to my wishlist.

In the spirit of the article, I'd like to give a nod to a few other titles:
From Shueisha publishing, Anthem#9 is probably one of my favorite games from the show, and not just because I won a T-shirt. Imagine if all the style of Persona menus was a game. Select gems to cast spells and combo them into crazy chains. A roguelike RPG that is less like Bejeweled than I made it sound.
Then there was dodgeball-Dark-Souls Bakudo, plus roguelike FPS bossrush Unyielder.
I also got to sit down with Starlight Re:Volver and Nullpoint Protocol, two co-op roguelikes for up to four players. The former had fantastic music, great key art, and 30- person hubs for hanging out. The latter was a boss rush described to me as "MMO raids without the grinding". I had to play them alone, but have put both on my list.
Song of Maya (I think that was the title) was a cute indie bird game metroidvania made by some passionate people just out of college.
There were a few others that sounded cool, but those are the ones I remember best!

I feel for these devs. Indies have been launching in early access for $30 pretty successfully. I don't think Team Cherry is fundamentally resetting expectations, per se, but people will question "why is this so expensive when Silksong was $20", especially in the same genre.
Even indie devs are doing math. If their sales expectations only put them in the green if their price is at $40, then a nice, beautifully generous $20 Silksong would feel threatening.
That being said, since I'm not an indie dev, you won't see me complaining lol

@sketchturner 50k copies is actually good for an indie game. The million sellers have kinda distorted our expectations for what turns a profit.

I enjoyed Call of the Sea on Gamepass a while back. I think they just announced it was getting a sequel at Gamescon?

Nothing for me this week, mostly because I'm headed into the mountains where no technology will follow. Otherwise, I'm tentatively interested in Daemon X Machina and Silksong.

007 First Light certainly looks like a fun game, but it's kind of what I worried it would be: more Hitman, less 007 Agent Under Fire.
Hopefully someone in the future will make a 007 FPS with throwback split screen MP just for lil old me.

I'm always watching out for the spiritual successor to Super Swing Golf on Wii. I guess until then, I'll fire up Mario Golf 64.

Hm. The story killed my enjoyment of the first game. For that, I only really did the side missions in co-op until my pilot was maxed out. It was fun enough.
Finding out that the story hasn't gotten any better (not really) is too bad, but not surprising.
I want to support games on cart, but there are also too many games coming out to pick up something lacking in any area at $70.
Hm. Might pick it up when the release schedules die down, just to enjoy the co-op.

Out and about for work this weekend, with no console to speak of. I will still be playing some games--I tried The Rabbit Haul (farming and tower defense crossover) and Royalty Free-for-all (smash with royalty free characters like Oliver twist and Frankenstein) so far. Next is co-op roguelike boss rush Nullpoint Protocol. Hoping to get some time to see what Shueisha is up to, too.
Yep, I'm at PAX West.

This article was written for me. Thank you.
I will always pronounce it "eks." Spy Eks Family, Hunter Eks Hunter, Drag Eks Drive, Xenoblade Chronicles Eks--always. No cross, no and, no silence. I don't care if it makes me wrong, because it actually makes me right.
Time for an eksecution of this horrible naming trend.

I'll be beating the absolutely stunning Sword of the Sea, the new game by Giant Squid, the makers of Abzu and Pathless. Thanks to the unparalleled art and another beautiful score by Austin Wintory, it has filled me with all manner of emotions--but mostly awe.

Still continuing our Baldur's Gate 3 playthrough, and getting up to more trouble than we know what to do with.

I'd like to wrap up DK Bananza before my early September trips, too, but that might be too ambitious.

The demo on steam was so fun. I'm super excited to play this whole thing in co-op. Glad it's coming out on Switch at launch.

I enjoyed the side missions in DXM, but the story, and the way it was told, were so dreadfully boring that completing the campaign never appealed to me.
The game's use of color was awesome, and the title screen theme is an all-timer. I also really liked the leveling systems and how it impacted the way my character looked.
But yeah, awful, boring story. If NL is reviewing the game, please kindly let us know how the sequel's plot compares to the original!

It's time to stop being bothered by people complaining, gang. Complaining is the #1 way to instigate change. And it's not into an empty void: this kind of feedback does reach game companies.
Some of them are hoping for what the letter writer is hoping for: that the discontent will just disappear in time. But the feedback, in combination with lower sales, DOES work. It DOES make a difference.
I welcome complainers. They're the ones who make things happen.

Hoping to beat Midnight Walk. We're progressing apace in Baldur's Gate 3, mostly embarrassing ourselves with bad rolls.
I'm hoping to get back to DK Bananza this weekend, too, after a decently long hiatus while I wrapped up some of my other 2025 games.
Who knows what else!

Always wanted to give it a try. Twenty years ago, my parents didn't want me playing M games, so we never picked it up.
Hopefully Nintendo will put it on the Gamecube app so that my brothers and cousins and I can play the splitscreen MP we never did!

Love the heck out of UFO 50. Like the review says, not every game is for every gamer, but when one clicks, it's worth the admission alone.
It's got some fun, thoughtful multiplayer games, if you like pitting your brain against your friend!

This one's a skip for me. I had some fun playing it on PS3, but the devolution of dungeons and grating plot + characters were part of the beginning of Tales of's downward trend.
Guess I'm still holding out hope for Tales of the Abyss to get a multiplayer port. Co-op ToA is as yet a prisoner of the PS2.

Loved this back on GameCube. I'm definitely gonna revisit, just for the warm fuzzies.

I've got a busy weekend ahead, so I'm glad I already managed to polish off Urban Myth Dissolution Center during the week. I like all of its ending twists individually, but maybe not together...
We're continuing through Baldur's Gate 3 and someone just committed to one side of a war I'm not sure I want to be involved in, but that's the fun of multiplayer!
I'm hoping to start Midnight Walk, and I'm likely to hop in for a little more Donkey Kong Bananza. And I know I said I'm going to be short of gaming time, but the console launch of UFO 50 does make me want to get back to that, too...
We'll see!

OPUS: Prism Peak and Tiny Bookshop both look like they're up my alley. I'm excited to play the Mina The Hollower demo, since I missed that on steam, and I'm glad UFO 50 is making the jump--absolutely excellent game.
It was a nice, brisk 15 minutes, so no complaints from me.

Always looking for new surprises, but in the spirit of things, it'd be great to see the following confirmed and/or dated for Switch(2):

Beastieball: Pokemon meets turn-taking volleyball RPG
My Familiar: Pixel noir RPG starring a duck, a goblin, and a sick sick soundtrack.
The Big Catch: Super fun retro 3D platformer I tried out at Pax last year.
Eco Breaker: Mech JRPG throwback.
Agent 64: Spies Never Die: Goldeneye, but made now.
Petal Runner: Adventure with a, let's call it bubble-gum pixel aesthetic.
Threads of Time: Beautiful pseudo HD2D time-jumping JRPG.
Alabaster Dawn: Action RPG from the CrossCode dev.
Absolum: Streets of Rage 4 devs make a beautiful beat-em-up co-op roguelike for 2.
Gecko Gods: Just give my lizard a release date!
And it'd be nice if Mina the Hollower was on S(2) for Halloween. And is the Elechead team's new game (Öoo) (out this week on Steam) coming to Switch?

Hoping to see some sweet indies get dated! There are some really cool projects on the horizon, and I hope they make it to my Switch 2.

Started up Baldur's Gate 3 for the first time. The three of us are having a ball. I'm a huge Larian Studios fan thanks to the Original Sin games, and this one seems only more par for the course.

Making steady progress in Donkey Kong Bananza. I'm on 902 and doing pretty much everything as I go.

I'm hoping to finally get back to Urban Myth Dissolution Center. Now that I've wrapped up reading Memories of Ice, I'm hoping to use the time to knock out more 2025 games. Could start The Midnight Walk but hoping to be good and wrap some stuff up first.

I put Dear Me on the wishlist. Not that the price is too high, just that I am pretty busy with other games right now. I mean, it's only 45 minutes, but still...
I could see the fireside game being fun with the right friend group. I just don't think I'm in that friend group lol

Curious about the new square action RPG. Since I already have P3R, I'm probably skipping everything out of this showing. Which is too bad, but not a huge issue--we're starting Baldur's Gate 3 for the first time tonight, and that'll probably take me until Metroid/Pokemon.
Hopefully a first-party direct comes sooner rather than later.

Maybe Shinobi. My August game will likely just be Sword of the Sea, though.

I expect we'll get a lot of ports. I have other consoles, so those ports will unfortunately be of middling interest to me. Unless I happened to miss out on them when they first came around--in that case, I might be more tempted to have it for my Switch 2!

I hope we'll get some surprises. The Switch got more than its fair share of exclusive games (at least at launch). TWEWY: NEO was switch 1 exclusive at one time, right? SMTV. Monster Hunter Rise. I want to see more of that kind of stuff!

I'd also like for my steam wishlist games to come to Switch 2, so that I can get them on my preferred platform. Absolum, Monsterpatch, Erenshor, Alabaster Dawn, Tako no Himitsu: Ocean of Secrets, Isle of Reveries, Threads of Time, Petal Runner, Agent 64: Spies Never Die...

It's a big list, and I'm sure a lot of them have already been confirmed for Switch 1.

When can Pokemon spinoffs be good again?

The end result and the mess it took to get there are too damn bad.

JP Logo, NA/EU box art.
The JP logo feels unbalanced to me.