Anything that is gaming related that doesn't fit well anywhere else
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Ack
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Re: Games Beaten 2019

by Ack Wed Sep 18, 2019 2:18 pm

BoneSnapDeez wrote:Phone number IQ comment.

As much as I love the second gen, I'm getting burned out. Too many of these games in a row is a brain-frying, my dudes.

I think it's time you go play a classic dungeon crawler, my man.
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BoneSnapDeez
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Re: Games Beaten 2019

by BoneSnapDeez Wed Sep 18, 2019 3:22 pm

On the Atari, right??
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prfsnl_gmr
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Re: Games Beaten 2019

by prfsnl_gmr Wed Sep 18, 2019 3:51 pm

Nope. On the Intellivision. That system had the best console RPGs. They actually use the keypad!!!
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Re: Games Beaten 2019

by prfsnl_gmr Thu Sep 19, 2019 10:25 pm

Double post!!!

.....

First 50
1. The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Anniversary (NDS)
2. Reigns (iOS)
3. Castlevania: The Adventure (GB)
4. Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge (GB)
5. Castlevania Legends (GB)
6. Yankai’s Triangle (iOS)
7. Mega Man III (GB)
8. Mega Man IV (GB)
9. Mega Man V (GB)
10. Sin & Punishment (N64)
11. Love You to Bits (iOS)
12. Mega Man Powered Up - Old Style (PSP)
13. Mega Man Powered Up - New Style (PSP)
14. Mario vs. Donkey Kong (GBA)
15. Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis (NDS)
16. Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again! (NDS)
17. Detective Pikachu (3DS)
18. Super Fantasy Zone (Genesis)
19. Fantasy Zone Gear (GG)
20. Fantasy Zone - The Maze (SMS)
21. Fantasy Zone (Famicom)
22. Fantasy Zone (NES)
23. Kung Fu Master (2600)
24. Kid Dracula (Famicom)
25. Kid Dracula (GB)
26. Fantasy Zone (TG16)
27. Double Dragon V (SNES)
28. Fantasy Zone II (Famicom)
29. Street Fighter: The Movie (PS1)
30. Fire Fly (2600)
31. Pac Man (2600)
32. Extreme Sports with the Berenstain Bears (GBC)
33. Fantasy Zone (PS2)
34. Space Fantasy Zone (TG16)
35. Arnold Palmer Tournament Golf Fantasy Zone (Genesis)
36. Mega Man (GG)
37. Konami Pixel Puzzle (iOS)
38. Qix (Arcade/NES)
39. Congo Bongo (Arcade)
40. Phantasy Star Gaiden (GG)
41. Phantasy Star Adventure (GG)
42. Panzer Dragoon Mini (GG)
43. Spartan X-2 (Famicom)
44. BS The Legend of Zelda: The Ancient Stone Tablets (Super Famicom)
45. BS The Legend of Zelda (Super Famicom)
46. Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem! (NDS)
47. Double Dribble (NES)
48. Super Pro Football (INTV)
49. Indy 500 (2600)
50. Tecmo Bowl (NES)

51. Ninja Gaiden (GG)
52. SonSon (Arcade)
53. Wonder Girl: The Dragon’s Trap (iOS)
54. Minit (iOS)
55. Ninja Gaiden (SMS)
56. Surround (2600)
57. Pocket Bomberman (GBC)
58. Shadowgate (iOS)
59. Kuru Kuru Kururin (GBA)


Ack wrote a great review of Shadowgate a few pages back. I won’t repeat it, and anyone interested in the game should read Ack’s review. I didn’t find the game quite as enjoyable as he found it - there were too many hidden objects, the puzzles employed a lot of video game logic, the torch system is still annoying, etc. - but it’s hard to deny the production quality. The game looks and sounds great, and it mostly plays pretty well too.

In Kuru Kuru Kururin, you guide a rotating stick through mazes and obstacle courses. It’s really, really hard. It’s also a GBA launch game, and I played it for this month’s TR.
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Re: Games Beaten 2019

by MrPopo Fri Sep 20, 2019 2:02 am

1. Octopath Traveler - Switch
2. Dusk - PC
3. Forsaken Remastered - PC
4. Tales of Eternia - PS1
5. Resident Evil 2 (2019) - PC
6. Pokémon Trading Card Game - GBC
7. Metro Exodus - PC
8. Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales - PC
9. Project Warlock - PC
10. Magic: The Gathering - PC
11. Ghost 1.0 - PC
12. Call of Duty 2 - PC
13. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - PS4
14. Revelations: The Demon Slayer - GBC
15. Mechstermination Force - Switch
16. Shadow Warrior Classic Redux - PC
17. Lost Sphear - Switch
18. Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal - PC
19. Dragon Quest III - NES
20. Rage 2 - PC
21. Blood - PC
22. Harvest Moon 64 - N64
23. Battlefield V - PC
24. Sigil - PC
25. Shining Force III: Scenario 2 - Saturn
26. Shining Force III: Scenario 3 - Saturn
27. Borderlands 2: Commander Lillith and the Fight for Sanctuary - PC
28. Gato Roboto - Switch
29. Timespinner - Switch
30. Amid Evil - PC
31. Pillars of Eternity II: Beast of Winter - PC
32. Pillars of Eternity II: Seeker, Slayer, Survivor - PC
33. Pillars of Eternity II: The Forgotten Sanctum - PC
34. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night - Switch
35. Orphan - PC
36. Project Nimbus - PC
37. Hardcore Mecha - PC
38. Grey Goo - PC
39. Giants: Citizen Kabuto - PC
40. Wolfenstein: Youngblood - PC
41. Fire Emblem: Three Houses - Switch
42. Metal Wolf Chaos XD - PC
43. Ion Fury - PC
44. Final Fantasy Adventure - GB
45. Astral Chain - Switch
46. Rebel Galaxy Outlaw - PC
47. Blasphemous - Switch
48. Daemon x Machina - Switch

The one sentence review for Daemon x Machina is that it is Armored Core 6 with the serial numbers partially obscured. Your enjoyment will come down entirely to how much you enjoy that sort of mecha action and mecha building. If the idea of figuring out whether getting a little bit more accuracy and reload speed is worth a little less health and defense but a little more bullet and laser defense puts you in decision paralysis then this game is not for you.

The plot to the game feels weirdly half done. The most important bits are presented in game through cutscenes and the mission structure. You slowly learn of a big bad and the plot to fuck over humanity and you stop said big bad in the end. But then there's a level of ancillary stuff that is only expressed through a text-only message system that shows up in between missions. The messages come from the faceless quest givers who post up missions your AI mission control tells you about, and they speak to events that are never properly shown in the main game scenes. It's almost like the writing team wrote a huge treatment before the gameplay team was like "dude, we can't use all that" and then they shoehorned in the messages so the writing team wouldn't start crying at the injustice in the world. The main storyline is not objectional, but it definitely won't light your fire.

But you don't play a game like this for the story. The main thing you need to know is something exploded part of the moon, it rained down on the Earth and created these femto particles which are poisonous to most humans but not to special humans called Outers. Said Outers then pilot giant mecha piloted by femto and fight against rogue AIs that are drawn to the femto (and some of those rogue AIs are ginormous robots). There's three companies that are mining the femto and they give you missions, but with an utter lack of characterization of the three you won't actually notice; the closest you get is that as the game goes on your missions will conflict with missions given by opposing companies. And that's where the fun parts of the story happen.

See, unlike some other Armored Core games this game relies on a cast of fellow colorful mercenaries. One mission you'll be fighting with them, another mission you'll fight against them (because they were hired by the enemies of your contract). There's never any hard feelings (at least until the main plot kicks in) but these provide much of the challenge as the game goes on. They have all the same capabilities as you, so your ability to master the game's systems will determine just how well you do. Fighting enemy mecha (including the AI controlled ones that aren't as good as the mercenary piloted ones) is also the main source of your upgrades. See, whenever you kill a mecha you can loot its corpse for one part; there's a bit of randomization (as only up to four parts are available on loot, but a given body has a fixed total inventory) and the game helpfully tells you if you already have that part or not. This looting and then upgrading (you can convert one part into another one for cash) is where your main upgrade paths are. You'll want to pick parts that best suit your playstyle, as many of them have very different feels from each other, and you will notice it when you swap parts out.

For your offense you get to hold weapons in both hands as well as having a spare weapon behind each shoulder. You then get a shoulder weapon (either a big cannon, a missile launcher, or a healing backpack) and an auxiliary device that enhances your abilities. You have limited ammo but destroying small enemies can drop ammo for you, so for the most part you won't run out until you start regularly fighting mercenary mechas and giant AI robots (though the latter usually spawns small dudes for ammo refills for you). Your main weapons can include rifles, SMGs, bazookas, laser rifles, and swords. The latter are particularly potent; you have a bit of a homing to your dash and later ones can chain across killing several small dudes. Again, find the ones which suit your playstyle, as they all handle very differently from each other. The final way to pimp out your combat experience is by upgrading your character; this is done through a variety of cybernetic enhancements. Some of these buff your mecha, and some buff you (you can get out, but outside one mission where you infiltrate a base you only use it as a desperation when your mech blows up), and several steps along the way gradually replace your fleshy human parts with metal parts. By the end of the game you look like Robocop if you go all in on the cybernetics.

The game is divided into story missions, which you can only do once, and free missions, which can be used to grind cash and parts. Money is always a bit tight but never to an overwhelming degree; you just can't simply buy all the things. The difficulty curve is pretty good, with a couple of exceptions. There are two missions midway through the game that stack the odds pretty bad against you; one is against two enemy mercs with no backup and they have about the same stats as you (a later mission is a three on one but they have drastically reduced health). This is a nasty battle of attrition and some exploiting of enemy behaviors is essential. The second nasty mid-game mission puts you against three enemy mercs with backup, but you are under a very strict time limit and they have pretty good health. I ended up only beating it because I got lucky and got two knockbacks into instant death terrain against them (the second happened a few second out from failure). Once past those it's back to the expected difficulty curve until the final boss. The final boss is massively overtuned with a bunch of nasty attacks that can either chain knock you away or melt your health, and there aren't much in the way of good strategies outside of taking a sword and taking advantage of the fact that when you're in his face his attacks can't hit you. But then he will randomly start spinning and damage you, so you still have to hope his pattern works out well for you and he doesn't just spam the spin move.

Outside that utterly awful final boss it's a fun ride from beginning to end. There's enough variety in mission objectives that you don't really get much in the way of fatigue; they're basically all varieties of "destroy all the enemies" but there's enough subtle difference to keep you engaged. Just don't try to look too deep into the story, because it's a measure of excuse plot. Just enjoy the fact that they got Char and Amuro's VAs to voice pilots who are obvious expy's of their famous roles.
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prfsnl_gmr
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Re: Games Beaten 2019

by prfsnl_gmr Sat Sep 21, 2019 12:23 pm

First 50
1. The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Anniversary (NDS)
2. Reigns (iOS)
3. Castlevania: The Adventure (GB)
4. Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge (GB)
5. Castlevania Legends (GB)
6. Yankai’s Triangle (iOS)
7. Mega Man III (GB)
8. Mega Man IV (GB)
9. Mega Man V (GB)
10. Sin & Punishment (N64)
11. Love You to Bits (iOS)
12. Mega Man Powered Up - Old Style (PSP)
13. Mega Man Powered Up - New Style (PSP)
14. Mario vs. Donkey Kong (GBA)
15. Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis (NDS)
16. Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again! (NDS)
17. Detective Pikachu (3DS)
18. Super Fantasy Zone (Genesis)
19. Fantasy Zone Gear (GG)
20. Fantasy Zone - The Maze (SMS)
21. Fantasy Zone (Famicom)
22. Fantasy Zone (NES)
23. Kung Fu Master (2600)
24. Kid Dracula (Famicom)
25. Kid Dracula (GB)
26. Fantasy Zone (TG16)
27. Double Dragon V (SNES)
28. Fantasy Zone II (Famicom)
29. Street Fighter: The Movie (PS1)
30. Fire Fly (2600)
31. Pac Man (2600)
32. Extreme Sports with the Berenstain Bears (GBC)
33. Fantasy Zone (PS2)
34. Space Fantasy Zone (TG16)
35. Arnold Palmer Tournament Golf Fantasy Zone (Genesis)
36. Mega Man (GG)
37. Konami Pixel Puzzle (iOS)
38. Qix (Arcade/NES)
39. Congo Bongo (Arcade)
40. Phantasy Star Gaiden (GG)
41. Phantasy Star Adventure (GG)
42. Panzer Dragoon Mini (GG)
43. Spartan X-2 (Famicom)
44. BS The Legend of Zelda: The Ancient Stone Tablets (Super Famicom)
45. BS The Legend of Zelda (Super Famicom)
46. Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem! (NDS)
47. Double Dribble (NES)
48. Super Pro Football (INTV)
49. Indy 500 (2600)
50. Tecmo Bowl (NES)

51. Ninja Gaiden (GG)
52. SonSon (Arcade)
53. Wonder Girl: The Dragon’s Trap (iOS)
54. Minit (iOS)
55. Ninja Gaiden (SMS)
56. Surround (2600)
57. Pocket Bomberman (GBC)
58. Shadowgate (iOS)
59. Kuru Kuru Kururin (GBA)
60. Metroid Prime Hunters - First Hunt (NDS)

A NDS launch game! I wrote about for this month’s TR.
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Re: Games Beaten 2019

by REPO Man Sat Sep 21, 2019 12:32 pm

Replayed The Room on my tablet. It's an interesting puzzle game revolving around ornate boxes.
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MrPopo
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Re: Games Beaten 2019

by MrPopo Sat Sep 21, 2019 7:21 pm

1. Octopath Traveler - Switch
2. Dusk - PC
3. Forsaken Remastered - PC
4. Tales of Eternia - PS1
5. Resident Evil 2 (2019) - PC
6. Pokémon Trading Card Game - GBC
7. Metro Exodus - PC
8. Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales - PC
9. Project Warlock - PC
10. Magic: The Gathering - PC
11. Ghost 1.0 - PC
12. Call of Duty 2 - PC
13. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - PS4
14. Revelations: The Demon Slayer - GBC
15. Mechstermination Force - Switch
16. Shadow Warrior Classic Redux - PC
17. Lost Sphear - Switch
18. Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal - PC
19. Dragon Quest III - NES
20. Rage 2 - PC
21. Blood - PC
22. Harvest Moon 64 - N64
23. Battlefield V - PC
24. Sigil - PC
25. Shining Force III: Scenario 2 - Saturn
26. Shining Force III: Scenario 3 - Saturn
27. Borderlands 2: Commander Lillith and the Fight for Sanctuary - PC
28. Gato Roboto - Switch
29. Timespinner - Switch
30. Amid Evil - PC
31. Pillars of Eternity II: Beast of Winter - PC
32. Pillars of Eternity II: Seeker, Slayer, Survivor - PC
33. Pillars of Eternity II: The Forgotten Sanctum - PC
34. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night - Switch
35. Orphan - PC
36. Project Nimbus - PC
37. Hardcore Mecha - PC
38. Grey Goo - PC
39. Giants: Citizen Kabuto - PC
40. Wolfenstein: Youngblood - PC
41. Fire Emblem: Three Houses - Switch
42. Metal Wolf Chaos XD - PC
43. Ion Fury - PC
44. Final Fantasy Adventure - GB
45. Astral Chain - Switch
46. Rebel Galaxy Outlaw - PC
47. Blasphemous - Switch
48. Daemon x Machina - Switch
49. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening - Switch

Link's Awakening is an incredibly faithful remake of the original. The team was given a directive of "start with the original, give it pretty graphics, but don't fuck with anything else." As a result, the base review is "If you liked the original you'll like this, and if you hated the original you'll hate this." So I'm going to focus on the material changes.

The first change is the controls; now you have sword, shield, boots, and bracer permanently bound to buttons. This leaves two buttons for your other items, and it makes the whole thing flow much nicer. It cuts out a lot of menuing that the original had without actually removing any actual difficulty from things. Related to that, you can now purchase back the item you trade for the boomerang, which is nice considering the shovel is needed for seashells way into the late game before you get enough for the sword upgrade. The game has added three faerie bottles that can be used to store faeries. However, unlike every other Zelda game with bottles these faeries will not save you on death; that's still reserved for Tracy's special treatment. Instead, treat the faerie bottles as red potions.

The second change is they added in a bunch more pieces of heart and seashells. There's now enough pieces of heart to get a full 20 with all the bosses plus the one container you get from finishing challenge dungeons (more on that in a second). I finished missing three, and I know of one that I had to pass up and forgot to get again (mostly because I forgot where it was). On the seashell front there's now a total of 50 seashells available, with 40 required to get the sword upgrade. A mid level reward from seashells is a version of the compass for seashells, in that it will sound a tone when you're near one. The 50 reward is something related to the challenge dungeon feature and isn't worthwhile in the least, so it's not hard to have the sword upgrade before the seventh dungeon (and possibly earlier). Combined with the red tunic (the color dungeon returns) and you can do some serious damage by end game.

The final addition to the game is the challenge dungeons. While feature reels focused on "you can make your own dungeons", the meat of that is you being given parameters to build under and then complete the dungeon. This starts off simple, but then gets more challenging; you might have to set particular room features in particular spots on the grid, or work around an impassable barrier, or fill up the entire grid (constrained to a shape), or deal with a challenge when you run it (no sword, time limit). Completing enough of these challenges gives you a heart container and unlocks a final super challenge tier. You slowly unlock these challenges through the game, as the rooms you use to build are based on rooms you visit in the dungeons. The rules of the dungeons are fairly simple; every room exit must be connected to something, you must have enough chests for keys (and the game checks to make sure a dungeon is beatable), stairs must be connected, and opening all the chests gets you the master key in the last chest. The stairs are the only thing that got kind of annoying, as there are some arcane rules around how stairs connect that is not obvious. This is important when you're working on some of the more constrained challenges, as you need to use stairs to get into an area that has very specific tile requirements, so you might only have one or two valid configurations from your inventory. It's a nifty feature, though it's no where near Mario Maker in terms of complexity. The fun comes more in dealing with the constraints of the challenges around creation and trying to create as fast a dungeon as you can (as a long dungeon doesn't give you any benefit).

There's just enough here to be worth playing again for fans of the original, and if you never played the original but enjoy Zelda games you owe it to yourself to snag this, because Link's Awakening is one of the best 2D Zeldas.
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prfsnl_gmr
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Re: Games Beaten 2019

by prfsnl_gmr Sat Sep 21, 2019 9:38 pm

Does it include the extra “color” content from Link’s Awakening DX? Or, is it just a remake of the base game?

EDIT: Nevermind. I see now that you wrote, “the color dungeon returns.”
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PartridgeSenpai
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Re: Games Beaten 2019

by PartridgeSenpai Mon Sep 23, 2019 3:59 am

Partridge Senpai's 2019 Beaten Games:
Previously: 2016 2017 2018
* indicates a repeat

1. Night Slashers (Switch)
2. Bye-Bye BOXBOY! (3DS)
3. GTA4: The Ballad of Gay Tony (Xbox 360)
4. Katamari Forever (PS3)
5. Detention (PS4)
6. Donkey Kong 64 (N64) *
7. OctoDad: Dadliest Catch (PS4) *
8. FlintHook (Switch)
9. God of War (PS4)
10. God of War HD (PS3)
11. Tiny Barbarian DX (Switch)
12. God of War 2 HD (PS3)
13. Starlink (Switch)
14. Shin Gundam Musou (PS3)
15. Battle & Get! Pokemon Typing DS (DS)
16. Banjo-Kazooie (N64) *
17. Super Mario 64: Rumble Edition (N64)
18. Mario Party 3 (N64) *
19. Paper Mario (N64) *
20. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES) *
21. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX (GBC) *
22. The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages (GBC) *
23. The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons (GBC) *
24. Yoshi's Island (SNES) *
25. Super Mario World (SNES) *
26. Super Mario RPG (SFC) *
27. Kaeru No Tame Ni Kane Wa Naru (GB)
28. Final Fantasy VI (SFC) *
29. Final Fantasy IV (SFC) *
30. Final Fantasy V (SFC)
31. Final Fantasy III (Famicom)
32. Mother 2 (SFC) *
33. Mother 3 (GBA) *
34. Hebereke (Famicom)
35. Donkey Kong Country 2 (SFC)
36. Donkey Kong Country 3 (SFC)
37. Donkey Kong Country (SFC) *
38. Wario's Woods (Famicom)
39. Paper Mario: Color Splash (Wii U)
40. Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam (3DS)
41. Luigi's Mansion (3DS) *
42. Paper Mario: Sticker Star (3DS)
43. Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga & Bowser's Minions (3DS)

44. Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story & Bowser Jr's Journey (3DS)

And so wraps up my adventures through the 3DS Mario & Luigi games. To start as I mean to go on, I'll admit that Bowser's Inside Story has always been my least favorite Mario & Luigi game, and I never actually intended to play this remake. the only reason I did is because, while buying the first game's remake on Amazon, I saw this one was half the price I've seen if for anywhere ever, so I figured I may as well snag a deal as an excuse to try this out and give this game another chance for the first time in 7+ years. It took me 43 hours to play through the Japanese version, and I beat both the main Mario & Luigi adventure as well as the both the main and post-game content of the Bowser Jr's Journey side game. The game doesn't keep hard time stats for each mode (confusingly enough, as the first remake did), but I'd wager that the main game took me about 30 hours, and Bowser Jr's Journey took me about 13.

The game's premise is, as the title implies, inside Bowser. Fawful, the vengeful minion of the first game's main antagonist, is back with a plan for revenge all his own, and feeds Bowser a mushroom that gives him the ability to vacuum up things down into his gullet. He then tricks Bowser into unleashing it inside Peach's castle, vacuuming up the Mario Bros and knocking Bowser unconscious. Fawful being rid of his biggest obstacles to conquering the Mushroom Kingdom, he sets to work in his evil plan. Bowser sets out to stop him in the overworld, as the Bros go around Bowser's insides to help augment his abilities. It's' an interesting premise, but one that divides the game into two halves that don't often meet.

Bowser's parts are on the overworld using a top-down view, while the Bros' internal parts are a side-scrolling view. Sometimes there will be enemies or bosses who Bowser can suck up minions of and then the Bros will fight them, but there's no back and forth between the two halves most of the time. The Bros finish their internal fight and then Bowser's part starts up again. Given the Bros mostly fight as they always do, and their side-scrolling dungeons are much more aggravating to navigate than the top-down sections, I always enjoyed Bowser's parts far more. Bowser's fights also go a lot faster, in general, but the combat in this game is a whole other story.

Where the previous remake felt like there were a lot of balancing changes, I really didn't notice that here, at least not in a positive way. Normal enemies feel very powerful, especially for the Bros. You're constantly using Bro Moves to help defeat enemies in a timely fashion, and you wanna fight lots of stuff because otherwise you're gonna start falling behind in power. I remember this being a problem in the original game, and it's just as much one in this game. Where in the previous two M&L games (that being the remake of Superstar Saga and Paper Jam), normal enemies could be taken out quickly with normal attacks most of the time, that is a sure-fire way to make battles take FOREVER in this game. It makes each half's section feel very drawn out, and it makes going back to the other half disorienting as you remember how to do the special move timings again (albeit they are fairly generous). Bowser's special moves require using the touch-screen while his normal moves require the face buttons, and constantly going back and forth between them is really annoying. It's not even like items that restore BP (this game's mana) are that uncommon either. It's super easy to purchase and carry around scads and scads of them, or even just use the ones the game throws at you for free, so there's very little element of resource conservation in how often the game encourages speeding up combat with Bro Moves. The combat is more or less the same as it's always been, but this game's fights last SO long that it really drags down the pace of the adventure in ways that I really can't excuse given the previous two games before this and how they easily could've rebalanced this game to fix that.

The writing is definitely far from its strongest in this game as well. It was a neat idea to bring back Fawful, but he's just not a very intersting villain. He's always steps ahead of the main characters, and it feels like he's leading them around by the nose. It doesn't help that both Fawful AND Bowser are far less entertainingly written in Japanese either. Bowser is much more just a more generic feeling somewhat eccentric villain, compared to how he's flinging around lines in English like "Did someone call for the King of AWESOME?!" That's more a tip to the English localization team than an explicit mark against the game overall though. What are explicit marks I hold against the game, however, are how uninteresting the overall story is compared to Superstar Saga (and being the other remake, this game puts itself in direct competition with that game's pacing, narrative, etc).

The intrigue and back-and-forth between the Bros and Cackletta has been replaced with Bowser's overworld misadventures. Bowser's own adventures are fine (and I remember wishing we'd gotten just a Bowser game with no Bros, back when I played this originally), but they have trouble standing on their own compared to the large, listless Bros sections. Bowser talks, but Mario & Luigi don't, and it's not exactly like they interact with many NPCs inside Bowser's body other than Starlow. She's effectively a personification of Nintendo's love of over-tutorializing EVERYTHING in the late 2000's to early 2010's, and she has very little to her character beyond just telling Mario & Luigi how to approach the latest power they've been given, and there is a LOT of that. Even with the fast-forward button the remake adds to speed it up, there is a LOT more outright talking at you that you are forced to watch compared to the previous two games. It makes the Bros parts constantly feel like the fun being taken away and the overall pace of everything grinding to a halt, and it also doesn't help that the Bowser parts are heavily stacked near the front of the game while the Bros have far more parts in the 2nd half. That's not to say the game NEVER made me laugh, but this is definitely far weaker when put next to the last couple games in the series, where originally it's main point of comparison was Partner's in Time.

Aside from the normal stuff mentioned above, there're the Giant Bowser fights as well as the mini-game sections in Bowser's body. Bowser's parts are occasionally broken up with touch-screen mini-games that the Bros are activating inside his body. Activating super strength, helping him fly, helping him run faster. They're not terrible, but they are far too frequent, and come off as padding out the game's clock rather than varying up the pacing of the other gameplay. The Giant Bowser fights aren't as bad as I remember them being, but they're still not very welcome. It all being touch-screen based and all about holding the 3DS sideways, it is very impractical to hold when playing on any XL model of 3DS, and some of the attacks (especially the ones based on rapidly hitting the screen) have some serious input-detection problems. I'd personally prefer there be none of these at all, but they're not as bad as I remember (however they're still inferior to Paper Jam's mech battles).

As far as general changes to the remake go, there aren't many. There are SOME balancing changes, but they're not super noticeable compared to how Superstar Saga's were. There aren't really many quality of life changes either, as Inside Story already did away with the position-switching of Superstar Saga, and it's mostly down to menu design being tightened up a little as well as the emergency guard and universal jump button features coming back (although it was changed from X in the previous game to now being Y, which is difficult to get used to). There are even some perks that Superstar Saga DX added that were not carried over to this, such as the ability to pick an overworld ability (like the spin jump) via the touch-screen,or the ability to place pins on the mini-map for places of interest (likely because of how both screens are used for movement, one for Bowser and one for the Bros). The main perks here are the updated graphics and music, although I didn't really find any of the music in this game particularly good outside of the Bowser Jr's Journey mode.

Speaking of Bowser Jr's Journey, let's talk about that for a bit, as it's the part of the game I definitely enjoyed most. The premise here is that it's what Bowser Jr was doing while Bowser was out fighting Fawful, and revolves around a similar kind of bildungsroman coming of age story as Bowser's Minions did, but a bit more seriously told this time. It fumbles a bit in the second half, and I saw the outcome of the set-up coming from a mile away (and I usually can never see where a story is going), but it was still a story that was able to touch me with how it was told. It's a fairly thoughtful look at the kind of brat you'd be if someone as self-important yet overly affectionate as Bowser raised you, and Bowser Jr coming to terms with the responsibilities he has to now carry. It lacks the number or quality of comedic moments from Bowser's Minions, but it's still a story I enjoyed. An added perk is that you can entirely ignore the Bros mode to play this, where you needed to beat Superstar Saga to unlock Bowser's Minions' last levels.

It's hard to call it an outright mechanical improvement on the Bowser's Minions mode from the M&L 1 remake, but it's mostly good. It's still the "set up and watch them go" simple strategy game, but with more added mid-fight as well as in the planning stages. You can now actually position your fighters on a 3 x 5 grid, so you can position your troops of the 3 rock-paper-scissors types to best fit the army you'll be facing (as you can reference they're layouts before each battle). There are no longer different commanders, but now 8 different sub-commanders. Bowser Jr can toggle pre-fight between a melee, ranged, and flying character, and he'll get a new 4th attack for each form (but his other 3 are always the same). Each of the 8 sub-commanders gets two abilities of their own to use as well tied to their own resource point wheel, opening up when/how you can use them in battle.

It's got a couple issues like the difficulty curve being a lot harsher than Bowser's Minions due to the more advanced toolset (at least in part, anyhow, sometimes fights are just SUPER hard and you've gotta grind a bit to get ready for them). Another issue is that one sub-commander is very obviously far better than all the others due to one of his activateable abilities, so despite each sub-commander giving a different army-wide passive buff, there's no real reason to use anyone but the best one. Other than that, it's a pretty long campaign (if not somewhat because of the grinding I had to do) that is a great palate cleanser for the main game's pacing issues, although you sadly can't access the mode from the in-game menu anymore. You've gotta back out of the Bros mode to get into this.

As one last note, this game does have amiibo functionality, but nothing remotely close to how the last game had it. You can just scan any Mario series amiibo to get some extra beans to use for passive buffs to your characters. Nothing nearly as extreme as the locked (albeit very simple and unimpressive) battle stages that Superstar Saga included.

Verdict: Hesitantly Recommended. I only paid 1500 yen for this, and I'm glad I did. It seemed like an unnecessary remake at the time it was announced, and playing through it, that's what it feels like too. Inside Story could already be played on a 3DS in its original form, didn't need the quality of life improvements Superstar Saga did, and was far from the strongest entry in the series to begin with (despite it being the highest selling). In early 2019, it does not impress, and the relative strength of the Bowser Jr's Journey side-addition is nowhere near enough to justify buying this at full price. If you're a fan of the original, this is certainly the definitive version of the game, but not by very much. While this certainly isn't a bad game, you've got much better options for cheaper prices in the Mario & Luigi series on 3DS.
I identify everyone via avatar, so if you change your avatar, I genuinely might completely forget who you are. -- Me
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