What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[it290]

Recently played Dead Space for the first time (now on NG+). I thought the game was really great early on, but as the game throwed more and more enemies at me it continued to just make me feel annoyed. Maybe I should have bought more weapons because I felt increasingly underpowered for the fights. The game could have also done with less cutscenes and holdholding. Still its atmosphere is almos unsurpassed, so I'm giving it another go with NG+ to try out the remaining weapons and see if they help.

Honestly your best bet is just sticking with the default gun and upgrading it to the max, you can take care of anything with it.

[Steven]

Assuming you are playing the original Dead Space and not the remake, the Plasma Cutter will carry you through the game all by itself just fine. If you choose to use something different, Line Gun is pretty great, aside from not being able to change to fire vertical shots like the Plasma Cutter.

As for the remake... I never played it so I can't help you in that case lol

Today, after 627 hours of Jurassic World Evolution 2, I discovered that I've been playing the game wrong this whole time. Turns out that the decorative trees are way better at providing forest for dinosaurs than the tree brush. The results of my non-scientific experiment don't have to be scientific to prove it, either.

Behold genetically identical animals with the exact same territory requirements, with decorative trees vs the regular tree brush trees.

Spoiler

Well. Now I feel weird.

[LordHypnos]

I did finally manage to beat the final boss in Oracle of Seasons. It gave me a code that I think will allow me to play Oracle of Ages as a linked game without having to link, which is great. In the meantime I had started Link's Awakening DX, however, so I will probably play through that first. I tried Phantom Hourglass, briefly, but I'm not crazy about the fully touchscreen controls, so I'm not sure if I will bother with that one.

Link's Awakening, however, is a game that I have some history with (the original, not the enhanced DX release). I'm not sure if I actually played it as a small child in the pre-GBC era, but I remember playing through it as a teenager, when I found a Game Boy Pocket and the game in a pile of junk in the basement. I remember greatly enjoying it, and it has been a lot of fun to revisit it (though this guy was a huge pain).

Another one I've been playing is Chip's Challenge, or more specifically the open source version, Tile World. This is one that I remember thinking looked really cool as a small child. I assume it came pre-installed on my family's Windows 95 computer. I don't think I really understood how the game worked back then, but I revisited it much later (probably as a teenager) and played it a bit. Coming back to it now, I definitely enjoy the more complex puzzley levels, but I'm not crazy about like, the maze level (level 10?) or the level I'm currently on (Level 23 Blobnet), which pretty much just involves timing your movements to grab chips to avoid monsters that are moving around erratically in confined spaces.

Revisiting Chip's Challenge, also prompted me to look into some other Sokoban type games, and I've tried the following:

Lab Cat (Pico-8) (link) - This one I played all the way through (it's only 32 stages). The added mechanics in addition to block pushing are very cool, and easy to understand. I would also say the difficulty hit a good point for me personally, but for real Sokoban fanatics it might be kind of easy, I don't really know. It tracks time, though, so it's a good contender for speedrunning.

Little Magic (GBC) - I did not make it far. I don't think I fully understand the weird bubble mechanic here. If anyone knows how to get around this corner, please let me know (hopefully this actually does require the bubble mechanic and isn't some ultra simple solution that makes me look like an idiot ).

Sokoban Dragon (GB/GBC) (link) - A homebrew project. The levels here are actually taken from the "Microban" puzzle set by David W. Skinner. Apparently these are for beginners and children, but I find them quite challenging . Here's the one I was stuck on last time I played. (EDIT: Just figured this one out)

[NYN]

(though this guy was a huge pain).

I just played that bit today on D0T MATRIX. I just jumped and shot arrows, didn't move, found it almost trivial. What was your pain? No bow? Finding the strat for it?

[LordHypnos]

(though this guy was a huge pain).

I just played that bit today on D0T MATRIX. I just jumped and shot arrows, didn't move, found it almost trivial. What was your pain? No bow? Finding the strat for it?

Oh I see. Somehow it did not occur to me that you would be able to damage it with the bow, so I was trying to do it with the Pegasus Boots + Sword (first thing that I tried that worked). I was having to swap between the Boots and the Roc's Feather. He would gradually shift closer to me until I was forced to find a new vantage point to attack him, and if you can't get around the front of him, you're kind of screwed because if you're behind him he will hit you for like 2 hearts when jumping. Also, you need to cancel your forward momentum when ramming, or else you will run through him and get hit, lol (this part wasn't too difficult though). On top of that I didn't have a potion and there are no hearts anywhere near by, so I was stuck doing it from 5 hearts, which doesn't give you many chances to get hit (to be fair, I didn't think to try digging for hearts nearby).

tl;dr I did not figure out the correct strategy

[Gamer707b]

Been in a real 3D platforming mood lately. Played and finished Rachet and Clank Tools of Destruction last week and now I've been playing the Spyro Trilogy Remake. It's hitting all the right buttons for me at the moment.

Not long until Galaxy 1&2 Remaster, only $70 At the last Direct they said the Storybook would have new pages in the Remaster, I guess that justifies the price. I can't remember any kind of storybook in that game, but it seems to be important.

I have to admit I have a soft spot for 3D platformers too and so far I never completed Galaxy 2, so I'm almost tempted. But I don't want to support them anymore and I doubt the game will be playable entirely (or not even for the most part) without motion inputs, which I would prefer. But the Switch has its Joy Cons (if you were crazy enough not to dump yours) so chances are high Nintendo will force you once again to do that wank move with your right hand even for the most basic command like jump or attack. That's how I had to play through Galaxy 1 and I am not willing to do such a thing again.

I am jealous of you never having played Mario Galaxy 2. Playing it for the first time will be unbelievable. I normally don't like motion controls either, but I played it on the Wii back and the day and loved it. Top 5 3D platformers ever for me.

[Gamer707b]

Been in a real 3D platforming mood lately. Played and finished Rachet and Clank Tools of Destruction last week and now I've been playing the Spyro Trilogy Remake. It's hitting all the right buttons for me at the moment.

If you like the R&C games, you really should try Returnal

Gameplay wise, you might be right that it is similar to Rachet and Clank, but I am more a fan of the cartoony graphics, over the top, silly characters and bosses of games like R&C. That is one of the main draws in 3D platformers for me. Got burned out of all the "realistic" looking games years ago. The more video gamey it is, the more I enjoy it, if you know what I mean.

[ryu]

Honestly your best bet is just sticking with the default gun and upgrading it to the max, you can take care of anything with it.

Assuming you are playing the original Dead Space and not the remake, the Plasma Cutter will carry you through the game all by itself just fine. If you choose to use something different, Line Gun is pretty great, aside from not being able to change to fire vertical shots like the Plasma Cutter.

I was mainly using the plasma cutter with about 80% of its upgrades, and found it somewhat weak against enemies late in the game. A huge problem was probably that I had skipped the line gun, which obliterates enemies even without many upgrades in my NG+ run now.

[Sumez]

Oh I see. Somehow it did not occur to me that you would be able to damage it with the bow, so I was trying to do it with the Pegasus Boots + Sword (first thing that I tried that worked). I was having to swap between the Boots and the Roc's Feather. He would gradually shift closer to me until I was forced to find a new vantage point to attack him, and if you can't get around the front of him, you're kind of screwed because if you're behind him he will hit you for like 2 hearts when jumping. Also, you need to cancel your forward momentum when ramming, or else you will run through him and get hit, lol (this part wasn't too difficult though). On top of that I didn't have a potion and there are no hearts anywhere near by, so I was stuck doing it from 5 hearts, which doesn't give you many chances to get hit (to be fair, I didn't think to try digging for hearts nearby).

tl;dr I did not figure out the correct strategy

Oh wow. I had no idea it was even possible to fight that guy without the bow haha.

Gameplay wise, you might be right that it is similar to Rachet and Clank, but I am more a fan of the cartoony graphics, over the top, silly characters and bosses of games like R&C. That is one of the main draws in 3D platformers for me. Got burned out of all the "realistic" looking games years ago. The more video gamey it is, the more I enjoy it, if you know what I mean.

I definitely agree with you here.
On that note, Returnal with cartoony graohics would be fantastic. Or Ratchet & Clank with good gameplay.

[NYN]

Oh I see.

I would not call it wrong, per se. Considering that the Z games are very much key+lock in the overall manner of solving things, you figured out an alternative. Just that it was no fun is a pity.

[ryu]

I played a bunch of Sonic Racing over the weekend (from Sega All-Stars to TSR). The earlier games are still some of my favorite kart games, and it's a real shame they had to fumble Team Sonic Racing so hard. Although I discovered that that last one plays faster and is actually fun on harder difficulties. Not like that fixes the terrible character and course variety. As I do sometimes I'm going to refer to my blog for the full version of this post.

Three more days until CrossWorlds. I'm both looking forward to it and still cautious, because frankly the cross worlds feature is just dumb.

[guigui]

I played a bunch of Sonic Racing over the weekend (from Sega All-Stars to TSR). The earlier games are still some of my favorite kart games, and it's a real shame they had to fumble Team Sonic Racing so hard. Although I discorvered that that last one plays faster and is actually fun on harder difficulties. Not like that fixes the terrible character and course variety. As I do sometimes I'm going to refer to my blog for the full version of this post.

Three more days until CrossWorlds. I'm both looking forward to it and still cautious, because frankly the cross worlds feature is just dumb.

I feel the same about the Sonic Racing series; Transformed is an all time favorite, also a bit cautious about Crossworlds.
It is a shame that first games are not available anywhere on newer platform, hopefully they release some remastered compilations one day soon.

[it290]

Playing Demon's Crest. I own this game on cart, but somehow never got far into it back in the day in spite of the beautiful art (maybe the best looking game on the SNES IMO). Have been playing through collecting all of the extra items and loving it. It'll never happen, but this game could really benefit from a rerelease with the same artwork but a bunch of QoL fixes, mostly because you have to switch crests super often at times and it's a pain going into the menu to do this every time. I kind of wish more games had this sort of design mentality where you have to really explore to get the true ending. It's kinda a linear, proto SOTN in that sense.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Playing Demon's Crest

this game could really benefit from a rerelease with the same artwork but a bunch of QoL fixes, mostly because you have to switch crests super often at times and it's a pain going into the menu to do this every time

The crests are also a bit unbalanced. The Time Crest largely obsoletes everything else due to the defense boost (as you'd sort of expect from a late game one, Demon Fire isn't much stronger and doesn't give you a defense boost). Early on though you get a bit of fun Mega Man style experimentation to play with, figuring out what works and what doesn't. There's some fairly strong combinations to let you tear through the game.

Being able to switch on the fly with L/R might cause balance issues but it'd be exceptionally convenient. The game's a lot easier when you locate the potions and can carry a few emergency heals around with you.

[it290]

Yeah, even just the option to select a primary and secondary crest to switch between would be a huge win. Many of the levels and bosses are designed around switching between two different forms and having to go into the menu every time really kills the pace. There's a romhack out there that lets you switch talismans using L/R but not crests sadly.

I've also been playing Gargoyle's Quest II for the NES and in that game there's much less need to switch out abilities regularly, and even when you do need to do so it's much quicker than in Demon's Crest.

[Steven]

Decided to do my Tales of the Abyss 20th anniversary commemorative playthrough a few months early. I suddenly didn't feel like waiting until December to do it anymore and I finished two days ago. There are a lot of things I could say about this game, but there really are a lot of them and I don't really feel like typing them all right now. What matters is that it's still a beautiful game and it retains that aspect even though it's been almost 20 years, especially if you use the Japanese text, which I do highly recommend. I feel like I understand the game better every time I play it, and this time I did my homework and read some interviews where Fuji-kun from BUMP talked about his process of writing the game's legendary opening song, which helped a bit and further increased my opinion that Fuji-kun is actually a terrifying genius of a human being.

Unfortunately, I have to complain about the only thing that I don't like about this game: it's way too easy unless you play on Unknown, which makes the game tedious and boring. I carried over Tutti from last time, and I honestly think Tutti completely ruins both Hard and even Mania difficulties, with one exception, the hardest fight in the game: the birds in the Colosseum. The birds are easy on Hard, but it turns out that their AI changes on Mania so that all of them mob you simultaneously. Unknown is just stupid, especially if you play the Japanese PS2 version, which I did and you should do anyway if you can because it's easily the best version of the game, even though it's the least complete.

Cut about 7 hours off my last play time despite playing on Hard last time and starting this time on Hard but switching to Mania at about the 25% point and also doing every sidequest in the game except for playing Tales of Dragon Buster, which is boring and not fun anyway. Even on Mania it was too easy, including all four of the secret bosses, although one of those

Spoiler

Replicantis

doesn't even put up a fight and stands there and lets you beat the crap out of it. I also cheated by using a Japanese PS2-exclusive glitch to keep

Spoiler

the Jewel of Lorelei, perhaps/likely one of the most broken pieces of equipment in video game history, far surpassing the already supremely busted Screw Attack,

which made those fights a lot easier than they would have been otherwise. I must say that that cameo battle is absolutely hilarious on Mania, though.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I carried over Tutti from last time, and I honestly think Tutti completely ruins both Hard

Hard is way more interesting as a first playthrough difficulty without any Grade Shop carryovers in most of the Tales games. I only typically use Grade Shop for difficulties above Hard. In Abyss, Hard requires a bit of grinding for some bosses as your physical attacks will struggle to beat boss defenses until really good equipment comes into play, but it's a fun way to spice things up if you've already beaten it on Normal and want to replay it. I wouldn't recommend Hard as your starting difficulty though.

except for playing Tales of Dragon Buster, which is boring and not fun anyway

Aw, I think it's kinda fun, and it's also crazy that it's literally the best port of Dragon Buster ever made. It controls really well.

Even on Mania it was too easy

You don't need to cheat and use the Jewel to be broken either, Tutti already gets you a billion AD skills to play with (things are quite silly with party-wide unstaggerable Glory). Anise actually gets an accessory that lets you get the Jewel effect on her! But Ant-Lion Man's doll head is a nuisance to actually obtain as it's a lengthy and missable sidequest. Same goes for many of the sidequests in Abyss, you basically gotta beat the game once at your own pace then replay it with a guide so you can find the ones you missed (as it's kind of lame to follow a guide on a first playthrough).

[Steven]

I carried over Tutti from last time, and I honestly think Tutti completely ruins both Hard

Hard is way more interesting as a first playthrough difficulty without any Grade Shop carryovers in most of the Tales games. I only typically use Grade Shop for difficulties above Hard. In Abyss, Hard requires a bit of grinding for some bosses as your physical attacks will struggle to beat boss defenses until really good equipment comes into play, but it's a fun way to spice things up if you've already beaten it on Normal and want to replay it. I wouldn't recommend Hard as your starting difficulty though.

I've never played this game on anything below Hard, actually. I think the only non-secret bosses to really worry about on a fresh playthrough on Hard are the infamous Arietta 1 and Kaiser Dist R, which I actually think is worse than Arietta 1 in some ways. Lots of 1 damage against Kaiser Dist R from most characters except Jade, unfortunately, especially if you skip Sword Dancer, and Jade is going to run out of TP quickly from spamming Splash, so you'd better have enough money to buy enough items to help with that. Well... you can always use the glitch to get the Vorpal Sword and stuff early too. That's not very fun, but it will certainly take care of pretty much anything in the first 2/3 of the game lol

except for playing Tales of Dragon Buster, which is boring and not fun anyway

Aw, I think it's kinda fun

Well, it's fine, but by the time you can play it, you're at the best part of the game's story, so it's pretty tempting to ignore side stuff completely and I find that I'm never really in the mood to play Dragon Buster when I get to that part of the game. You do have to play it at least twice (???) to get those two costumes for Luke, of course. I might give it a try later today when I get some time. Maybe I'll like it more now that the game's story is finished and out of the way. More importantly,

and it's also crazy that it's literally the best port of Dragon Buster ever made.

Wait really? That is just... disappointing? Cool? Both? I'm not sure, but I think you get the idea. Isn't the arcade version on ACA? I've never played the original arcade game, but if they made Tales of Dragon Buster better than the arcade version somehow, that would explain it. How do Dragon Buster and Tales of Dragon Buster compare to each other? It's something I've always wondered about but never researched.

You don't need to cheat and use the Jewel to be broken either, Tutti already gets you a billion AD skills to play with (things are quite silly with party-wide unstaggerable Glory). Anise actually gets an accessory that lets you get the Jewel effect on her! But Ant-Lion Man's doll head is a nuisance to actually obtain as it's a lengthy and missable sidequest. Same goes for many of the sidequests in Abyss, you basically gotta beat the game once at your own pace then replay it with a guide so you can find the ones you missed (as it's kind of lame to follow a guide on a first playthrough).

The stat increases from Tutti might be even more damaging on Mania than the AD Skills. The more important late-game bosses in the story going down in 2~3 minutes on Mania is pretty disappointing and I wish they could put up more of a fight. Then of course you put it on Unknown and you do like 1~50 damage per hit and they have like half a million HP and it's like lol no, I really don't want to have a 4 hour boss fight. There is also the option to choose to not use Tutti at all, and I am considering a no-Capacity Core playthrough for the next time I play the game to see how it is without them. I have all AD Skills for everybody except for one person (you know exactly who it is and probably why), so the only thing I'd be missing is the stat bonuses. I have a feeling that a no-Capacity Core run would be at least slightly calamitous with all AD Skills on higher difficulties and completely miserable with normal EXP and no non-level-based AD Skills at all on Mania for sure, and maybe also on Hard, but there is only one way to find out.

Japanese PS2 version has another built-in cheat, though: Guy. He's even more ridiculous in this version than any other version. Should be able to do this even better with higher Agility stat than what he has here. Maybe I'll try again later with the Persian Boots equipped. Sorry for low quality capture. The capture device that I borrowed can't do 1080p at 60 FPS, but it can do 720 at 60 FPS. Still, it's much better than what we had 20 years ago. Youtube sucked miserably then and everybody resorted to downloading slightly better quality videos of this game from Holystar's website instead.

And yeah, Anise + Ant Lion = literal infinite Bloody Howling/Maelstrom spam because she NEVER runs out of TP, and you can get Ant Lion very soon after act 3 starts. She also has massive defensive stats, so nothing short of a hi-ougi to the face will kill her if she has Ant Lion equipped. Normally she should be able to do at least a little more damage than Jade, but somehow she turned out to be not so strong this time, as both Jade and especially Tear (with her pendant) way outclassed her damage output, but infinite Bloody Howling/Maelstrom is extremely helpful against everything in the game even if it doesn't do a lot of damage.

[Starfighter]

Silent Hill f was released today so I had a strong urge to just go buy it, but it's risky business buying new games during the months before my birthday(november) and christmas since my girlfriend is also heavily into video games and often gets me a game or two. And she knows I love Silent Hill... I'll hold off on buying it until after christmas just to be safe.

I'm instead playing Death Stranding for the first time! I picked it up for $10 or so a while back, figured I might as well give it a chance. I'm three hours in right now, which means I haven't done any inputs yet, really... Thank god for new consoles, I can put the PS5 in rest mode at any point (even during a cutscene) and resume right where I left off the next time. From my experience Kojima games tend to be "there might be a 20 minute cutscene around the corner and you better have time to watch it" so rest mode is a godsend.

[Sweatlord_STG]

Been in a real 3D platforming mood lately. Played and finished Rachet and Clank Tools of Destruction last week and now I've been playing the Spyro Trilogy Remake. It's hitting all the right buttons for me at the moment.

Not long until Galaxy 1&2 Remaster, only $70 At the last Direct they said the Storybook would have new pages in the Remaster, I guess that justifies the price. I can't remember any kind of storybook in that game, but it seems to be important.

I have to admit I have a soft spot for 3D platformers too and so far I never completed Galaxy 2, so I'm almost tempted. But I don't want to support them anymore and I doubt the game will be playable entirely (or not even for the most part) without motion inputs, which I would prefer. But the Switch has its Joy Cons (if you were crazy enough not to dump yours) so chances are high Nintendo will force you once again to do that wank move with your right hand even for the most basic command like jump or attack. That's how I had to play through Galaxy 1 and I am not willing to do such a thing again.

I am jealous of you never having played Mario Galaxy 2. Playing it for the first time will be unbelievable. I normally don't like motion controls either, but I played it on the Wii back and the day and loved it. Top 5 3D platformers ever for me.

Thanks, I appreciate your recommendation. But did u mean both Galaxy 1&2 are part of your top 5 3D platformers? Cause Galaxy 1 is such an easy, shallow game. Typical Nintendo, presentation is great, creative ideas, but the difficulty so easy it ruins the entire game for me. Guess I will buy Galaxy 2 digitally for $40 because I'm in the mood for it and don't really want to go through setting it up on an emulator. I guess it will be playable without motion inputs for the most part because it has to be playable on the Switch Lite. So I assume the only gyro or motion thing will be the aiming/mouse like pointer thing.
But that will be my last purchase for the Switch. I already have all other games I wanted for the system and now I will just wait for a few years until they hopefully try much harder again do offer good stuff at a low price, because hopefully things will go downhill for them from now on. People have had enough. I was very curious about the Switch 2 because I thought "they played the remakes & remaster card already with the Switch 1, so they will have to come up with a range of amazing all new games for the Switch 2" - by now we already know what they plan to release, almost up until the end of the first year of the Switch 2 - which is absolutely nothing.
Mario's 40th Birthday - Nothing. They literally said the main thing regarding his 40th bday was the announcement of that upcoming new Mario movie. Sure, I mean Mario is just the most iconic, maybe the most important character of all times when it comes to games. And they did absolutely nothing for the birthday. I'm neither a big Mario fan, nor a Nintendo fan, but I just expected them to at least announce a super amazing new Mario game on his bday. It was the most shocking and disappointing thing ever.
I like games. I'm not gonna visit their stupid version of Disneyland, neither will I purchase their talking flower or play their new braindead Yoshi game made for 3 year olds.
So far their games were way too easy for people like us who have been playing games for decades. But now they don't even make new games anymore. I've never been big on Zelda, their new Mario Kart is trash and now they even had to make Metroid open world.

What are your top 5 3D platformers ever anyway??? I'm curious! Thanks.

Today I want to play Kinder Kong Country. I hope it's good! Never played it before.

[dr0gulus]

Little Magic (GBC) - I did not make it far. I don't think I fully understand the weird bubble mechanic here. If anyone knows how to get around this corner, please let me know (hopefully this actually does require the bubble mechanic and isn't some ultra simple solution that makes me look like an idiot ).

This is one of my favorite puzzle games of all time! In case you didn't figure it out yet:

Spoiler

blow a big bubble in the nook northwest of the heart, then walk around and push the heart in front of it. Then move out of the way and wait for the bubble to pop and push the heart down.

The bubble popping mechanics are incredibly clever, you'll eventually have to set up complicated strings of bubbles of different sizes to push each other around and reach far away squares you can't walk to. Super satisfying once you start to wrap your head around it.

I've lurked this forum for a long time and of all things its a Little Magic post that gets me to register

[LordHypnos]

This is one of my favorite puzzle games of all time! In case you didn't figure it out yet:

Spoiler

blow a big bubble in the nook northwest of the heart, then walk around and push the heart in front of it. Then move out of the way and wait for the bubble to pop and push the heart down.

The bubble popping mechanics are incredibly clever, you'll eventually have to set up complicated strings of bubbles of different sizes to push each other around and reach far away squares you can't walk to. Super satisfying once you start to wrap your head around it.

I've lurked this forum for a long time and of all things its a Little Magic post that gets me to register

Huh, I thought I had already tried that, but I guess not... Maybe I didn't blow it up big enough or something. In any case it worked, thanks!

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

Donut Dodo. Really neat retro single screen arcade game. Great chiptunes.

[Sweatlord_STG]

Anybody got any thoughts on this game? I wasn't sure what to expect because apparently a lot of people don't like it. They claim it had severe input lag, which is funny, because it doesn't have more IL than any other games for the Switch. It's just designed that way that animations have some startup frames to emphasize the weight of DK and to force the player to play carefully and stick to decisions once they have been made, kind of like Makaimura a little bit, meaning that for instance, unlike in something like Contra, you can't change direction a few times once you are in the air, and so on.

I finished the level 2-K today and it took my like 100 attempts. I loved it. Each world has one K level that's a lot harder than the rest of the world.

The graphics are so cartoony and nice, levels are dense and everywhere is so much to do, find, and explore. Difficulty feels just right so far. Very happy about this game.

[ryu]

Tropical Freeze was great on the Wii U. Don't know about the Switch port but the game is definitely worth playing.

Been playing Sonic Racing CrossWorlds and Silent Hill f. The first one really grew on me. Didn't like many aspects at first but am having a lot of fun now. Just still wish there were tracks based on the Mega Drive classics. Silent Hill f is a mixed bag. Sometimes it feels great and gets the atmosphere just right for a Silent Hill game, but then it pulls cheap scares that the originals avoided and sometimes even parodied (like invincible enemies following you while you solve a puzzle, sequences where you are forced to run avoid in panic). The combat felt really tedious at first but I feel like it's growing in me. So far I definitely like the game, but I'm not very far into it yet.

[guigui]

Been playing Sonic Racing CrossWorlds and Silent Hill f. The first one really grew on me. Didn't like many aspects at first but am having a lot of fun now. Just still wish there were tracks based on the Mega Drive classics.

I'd like to try Crossworlds too, price tag a bit expensive now given I'm not sure the game is that good.
How would you compare it to Transformed ?

[ryu]

How would you compare it to Transformed ?

It's a lot more chaotic and feels very hyperactive. In a way I prefer tranformed because it's more traditional of a racer, but CrossWorlds has way more customization and playstyle, character and course variety. Knowing Sega I'd expect this to get a price drop eventually, so just waiting it out might be a good strategy if you feel unsure about the game.

[guigui]

Nice thank you.

Chaotic may sound good to me, as long as you always kind of understand what happens and how to handle it when it occurs again.
I also loved a lot from Transformed for its natural kart racing styles, especially the way you could chain drifts and get big boosts from it. Is it still possible here ?

[Gamer707b]

Not long until Galaxy 1&2 Remaster, only $70 At the last Direct they said the Storybook would have new pages in the Remaster, I guess that justifies the price. I can't remember any kind of storybook in that game, but it seems to be important.

I have to admit I have a soft spot for 3D platformers too and so far I never completed Galaxy 2, so I'm almost tempted. But I don't want to support them anymore and I doubt the game will be playable entirely (or not even for the most part) without motion inputs, which I would prefer. But the Switch has its Joy Cons (if you were crazy enough not to dump yours) so chances are high Nintendo will force you once again to do that wank move with your right hand even for the most basic command like jump or attack. That's how I had to play through Galaxy 1 and I am not willing to do such a thing again.

I am jealous of you never having played Mario Galaxy 2. Playing it for the first time will be unbelievable. I normally don't like motion controls either, but I played it on the Wii back and the day and loved it. Top 5 3D platformers ever for me.

Thanks, I appreciate your recommendation. But did u mean both Galaxy 1&2 are part of your top 5 3D platformers? Cause Galaxy 1 is such an easy, shallow game. Typical Nintendo, presentation is great, creative ideas, but the difficulty so easy it ruins the entire game for me. Guess I will buy Galaxy 2 digitally for $40 because I'm in the mood for it and don't really want to go through setting it up on an emulator. I guess it will be playable without motion inputs for the most part because it has to be playable on the Switch Lite. So I assume the only gyro or motion thing will be the aiming/mouse like pointer thing.
But that will be my last purchase for the Switch. I already have all other games I wanted for the system and now I will just wait for a few years until they hopefully try much harder again do offer good stuff at a low price, because hopefully things will go downhill for them from now on. People have had enough. I was very curious about the Switch 2 because I thought "they played the remakes & remaster card already with the Switch 1, so they will have to come up with a range of amazing all new games for the Switch 2" - by now we already know what they plan to release, almost up until the end of the first year of the Switch 2 - which is absolutely nothing.
Mario's 40th Birthday - Nothing. They literally said the main thing regarding his 40th bday was the announcement of that upcoming new Mario movie. Sure, I mean Mario is just the most iconic, maybe the most important character of all times when it comes to games. And they did absolutely nothing for the birthday. I'm neither a big Mario fan, nor a Nintendo fan, but I just expected them to at least announce a super amazing new Mario game on his bday. It was the most shocking and disappointing thing ever.
I like games. I'm not gonna visit their stupid version of Disneyland, neither will I purchase their talking flower or play their new braindead Yoshi game made for 3 year olds.
So far their games were way too easy for people like us who have been playing games for decades. But now they don't even make new games anymore. I've never been big on Zelda, their new Mario Kart is trash and now they even had to make Metroid open world.

What are your top 5 3D platformers ever anyway??? I'm curious! Thanks.

Today I want to play Kinder Kong Country. I hope it's good! Never played it before.

Grew up playing 2D platformers, but only been into 3D platformers for around 5 or so years, but I would definitely put Mario Odyssey up there with Crash 4, Sonic Adventure, Spyro 2 Remake and maybe Mario 64

[ryu]

especially the way you could chain drifts and get big boosts from it. Is it still possible here ?

Yes, you can even customize your loadout to perform lv 4 boosts.