What are you playing?

[PartridgeSenpai]

I started Pushmo World yesterday after I got it on a deal with a My Nintendo coupon. It's really fun, as Pushmo has always been~. I'm not 100% sure that it doesn't re-use some puzzles from Pushmo 1 (some of them look VERY similar, but it's been a while, and they might just have similar shapes/layouts and not be literally identical), but it's been a really fun thing to play on my American Wii U while I watch Twitch or listen to podcasts

I hooked my American Wii U up in the first place to finally get around to playing Paper Mario: Color Splash after owning it for so long (a streamer I was watching mentioned it and I thought I should finally play it when they highly recommended it). Holy crap, this game is VERY good. Like, maybe the best Paper Mario game there has been. The writing has had me absolutely in stitches, and the combat system is a huge improvement on Sticker Star to the point where it doesn't just feel pointless to even engage with it. This is the overhaul that Sticker Star needed, and this game deserves a Switch port SO badly for how damn good it is. I'm hopeful it might get one eventually, as it does have a single-screen play mode, so it'd be a fairly simple port job from a design standpoint (don't need to rework how the player will interface with the game or anything like you'd have to for Pikmin 3, just gotta get what you have working on a Switch).

[PartridgeSenpai]

I started Luigi's Mansion on the 3DS today! It's a beloved game for me on Gamecube, but I'm not the biggest fan of how temperamental Gamecube discs can be to keep, so I decided to pick up the 3DS version while it was on fairly deep sale on Japanese Amazon.

It looks really nice, but still like a 3DS game. This isn't quite the Gamecube version, but the music still sounds very nice~. I'd say the biggest thing that keeps this version an inferior port is the lack of a nice C-stick. I suppose if you had a Circle Pad Pro, this wouldn't be an issue, but the C-nub on the NEW 2DS XL I'm using is as 'meh' to use as it's ever been, and though there IS a gyro feature to aim up and down, it doesn't work brilliantly, or at the very least it's a poor replacement for a genuine C-stick. It's still a quality port, and a way better one than I'd probably expect, and the C-nub is still really useful for turning left and right while using the vacuum to the point where I'd definitely recommend using a Circle Pad Pro or a NEW-model 3DS if you were going to play this.

[prfsnl_gmr]

I’m playing:

Hot Shots Golf 2 (PS1) - I started this for sports month, and I’m going to keep chipping away at it.

Wonder Girl: The Dragon’s Trap (iOS) - Awesome port of the best Wonder Boy game. I will likely finish this tonight.

Ninja Gaiden (SMS) - This is a shockingly good Ninja Gaiden game! I’ll probably finish this soon.

Shadowgate (iOS) - I appreciate that someone reimagined the Apple II classic, but it’s kind of a slog. It looks great, but the puzzles are really, really obtuse. I’m playing it with my son, and we have to consult a guide with some frequency. He really likes it, though.

Dr. Mario World (iOS) - This is my current time waster. It’s really, really good. The best Dr. Matio game I’ve ever played. You can also, as far as I can tell, play pretty much indefinitely for free (if you’re good at video games). I enjoyed the game so much, however, that I threw some money at it as a way of saying, “Thank you, Nintendo!” I will probably send a bit more when I finish the game.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii) - I’m 38 hours into this and ready for it to end...my kids are really enjoying it, though.

[Ack]

I'm messing around with several titles right now:

Menzoberranzan - Still going strong in this 2nd Edition Dungeons & Dragons RPG.

Eldritch - It's a first person shooter with a heavy stealth element where I have to sneak through various worlds, trying to find the exit and avoiding traps and monsters from the Cthulhu mythos.

TimeShift - A late 2000s FPS where the guns feel arcadey, and I can bend time to slow things down, stop, or go in reverse as needed. Enemies are a bit spongy, but the game easily passes my shotgun test.

[pierrot]

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii) - I’m 38 hours into this and ready for it to end...

...Yep.

[PartridgeSenpai]

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii) - I’m 38 hours into this and ready for it to end...

...Yep.

Damn, that game only took me like 30 hours and I was SO ready for it to end like 10 hours before that. Pouring one out for you, friend TwT

[pook99]

Replaying mega man 11 for the second time, remembering why I loved it so much. It is just an incredible game and one of the best entries in the series, I really hope we get a 12 at some point.

In celebration of me getting a new job I bought RE2make last night, I am downloading it as we speak, I can't wait to start it and will probably spend the bulk of my day playing it

[noiseredux]

I feel like whenever I see a blog announce the new games being added to the Switch Online service, there's a whole bunch of negative comments. Sure, it's been a slow drip. But over the past year we've gotten some fairly interesting games. Obviously stuff like your Marios and Zeldas and Metroids are going to be the most 'exciting' announcements. But Nintendo's given us some interesting surprises such as a few imports along with those various SP versions of games. But for me, it's been the weird and more overlooked titles that have made me happiest. Look, I thought Startropics was pretty bad when I finally got to play it, but the fact remains I got to play it BECAUSE it was part of this service that I had already paid a subscription for.

This brings me to Vice: Project Doom, a game I had never even heard out of outside the fact that it was featured on the cover of a 1991 issue of Nintendo Power. But sometimes going into a game with no preconceptions is the best way to do it. And in this case, yup. That's true.

Vice: Project Doom is a pleasantly interesting game. It's got some kind of crazy story played out in cut scenes that feel super early-90's. The bulk of the gameplay is that of a sort of Ninja Gaiden style platformer, except you can switch from using a sword, gun and bombs (the two latter have limited ammo that you can refill). This makes how you approach each level more interesting depending on which weapon you choose. The boss battles are surprisingly cool with some very big and unique bosses. And pattern recognition is the name of the game.

But what's really neat is that there are OTHER kinds of levels that mix things up. There are some driving levels that play out in the overhead sort of like Spy Hunter, and then culminate in boss battles reminiscent of a shmup. There's also some on-rails shooting levels that reminded me of playing Virtua Cop with a controller instead of lightgun. Actually, y'know what? The changes in gameplay actually sort of remind me of the variety of Snatcher.

Anyway, this is what I enjoy so much about the Switch Online library. It's very cool to dig into some forgotten NES game for a night or two. These kinds of experiences make for great pallet cleansers between bigger games. Now hopefully those rumors are true about SNES games coming in time for the first anniversary of the service...

[marurun]

A lot of the early NES titles to make the jump to the Switch on-line service were on the NES Classic Mini. I wonder if the NES Classic Mini (and the SNES Classic Mini) was also, at least partially, Nintendo testing their emulator code against a more robust ARM environment. If they can get it working on a standard ARM core it'll be easy-peasy to roll that stuff out on Switch. I know the 3DS is ARM-based, but it's a more customized overall environment than the Switch.

[BoneSnapDeez]

This brings me to Vice: Project Doom, a game I had never even heard out of outside the fact that it was featured on the cover of a 1991 issue of Nintendo Power. But sometimes going into a game with no preconceptions is the best way to do it. And in this case, yup. That's true.

I still remember that cover! (with the binoculars). And I still haven't played the game...