I wasn't gonna buy any new games till Tears came out ... but gamestonk is doing a buy2 get1 free sale and I couldn't resist. Ragnarok, Scarlet and Engage are on their way.

I was once again seduced by a Buy1Get1 sale (for select games) and now have Bayonetta 3 and Brilliant Diamond coming too. Someone stop me.

In good news, the opening hour for God of War Ragnarok was fantastic. They set the bar really high with the epic Baldur fight in the last one, but this one managed to match it without directly copying. And the game looks incredible even in Performance Mode.

Take advantage of sales while you can!

I've been playing Pokémon Crystal a bit recently, buying it on the 3DS before the eShop went offline last month. I was playing Ori and the Will of the Wisps before getting sick, so took a break since it requires a lot of concentration. Very early into it, but have a good feeling it's likely to be even better than the first game. I'll get back into it soon.

Husband bought Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove for $4 off the 3DS eShop before it went offline, and he's been enjoying it. I also bought it but haven't played it yet.

Shovel Knight! Another great game! The main game is good enough on its own but the second DLC game Specter of Torment is just as good. The studios follow-up game Mina was supposed to come out last year but I haven't heard anything about it in awhile.

New poll in honor of Super Mario Maverick

Mario Kart Wii

I vote for Mario RPG narrowly over 64, which I think is "reverse DK64" (not quite enough shit to DK's too much shit). I have started watching the Mario 64 speedrunners on twitch the last month.

Overall - RPG

2D Platformer - World

3D - Galaxy on Switch

Party - 2

Kart - Switch

Smash - Melee

Sports - Tennis on 64

Character in Paper Franchise - Watt

This is a hard question.

Super Mario Bros. 3 is probably my favorite non-3D Mario, but the 2.5D games are probably strictly "better" because they could do a lot more with the level designs.

Mario Kart 8 (Deluxe) feels like the ultimate culmination of the Mario Kart franchise and is "better" than any Mario Kart before it, but is it my favorite? I'd say yes, but nostalgia makes it difficult.

Galaxy and Odyssey are "better" than Mario 64, and I'd say Galaxy is my favorite, but it might not be "better" than Odyssey.

It also feels like Nintendo has, in a way, achieved "peak" gaming in its Mario franchise with the most recent entries. We haven't had an all-new Mario game in the mainline series (3D/2.5D), Mario Kart, or Mario Party since 2017 (2014 for Mario Kart). We've just gotten all-new entries for Paper Mario, Mario Golf, and Mario Tennis. Everything else has been remakes/ports.

And... it's not difficult to see why the mainline series and two main spin-off series haven't had new entries in 6-9 years. You can easily say Odyssey is peak 3D Mario. New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe is peak 2.5/side-scrolling Mario. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is peak Mario Kart Mario. And Mario Party Superstars is peak Mario Party Mario.

It's going to be interesting to see what they do with the eventual new entries in the 3D, 2.5D, Mario Kart, and Mario Party franchises.

I wanna see a Breath of the Wild version of DK64. Or a new 2D platformer DK. Or anything DK. So weird they went this entire gen without anything new from the Kong Kingdom.

So, I'm fany starting to have to time to get my gaymer on.

I wanna buy the PS5 so i can FINALLY plaay TLOU2. Should i really buy it or just loan it from a friend?

In my opinion, everyone should have a PS5 and a Switch. If I was President, I'd make it mandatory.

I already have a Switch so im half way there!

Bought Hollow Knight and Celeste today for a whopping $12. Big indie sale on Switch (and maybe other platforms too).

Nice! Great choices.

I am tempted by Cult of the Lamb at $16 but since I just bought six games over the last two weeks (~$200) and Tears only 3 weeks away, there's no way I'd play it before an even better sale hits.

Opening hour of Pokemon Brilliant Diamond ... eh yeah I feel bad for anyone who paid full price. At $32 it is working fine though. I went with Chimchar for my starter since I, and everyone else in the world, picked Piplup back in the day.

I'll eventually get Brilliant Diamond. Did I ever tell you my husband FOUND Shining Pearl loose on a sidewalk one day? Yeah, crazy. No damage and it worked totally fine.

While I was really sick, I watched some Nuzlocke videos which included Brilliant Diamond a couple times. The graphics are understandably divisive, but I was actually surprised by some of the areas I saw. Nothing spectacular, but also "good" IMO.

It's so weird though that the Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee games (released in 2018) have the best graphics in a main series Pokemon game still to date. Not sure why BDSP couldn't have used that engine.

Metroid Dread, fucking perfect!!

Damn, all Super Mario games are excellent, however my picks are Super Mario World, Super Mario Galaxy 1/2 and Super Mario Bros 3 (SNES version).

Celeste is kicking my ass! I keep thinking I won't have any more deaths than the previous chapter, but I keep blowing it out of the water each time!

Chapter 1 - 65 deaths
Chapter 2 - 96 deaths
Chapter 3 - 379 deaths (...)

It's fun... I like a challenge, but it's really on that borderline of what's too difficult for me personally. Feels good to complete a room that I've been stuck on for a while, but it's happening a ton. Lol. Might turn on the assist mode.

(Doesn't help that I try to get every strawberry I see, have gotten about 2/3 of them in each chapter so far, since they're usually in death prone areas.)

I'd usually give the collectables like 10-12 tries and if it wasn't happening just move to the next level. Celeste is tough but it was also the type of game that made me better at other games. Very rewarding.

Speaking of tough games, the fifth (of six) biome and boss of Rogue Legacy 2 can shove it.

Speaking of not tough games, Monferno rolled through the first gym in Brilliant Diamond . I think you did mention your husband finding it on the ground and me being a smart ass saying something like "that's the perfect price for it." While I would stand by the joke, the game is doing its job of being a simple late-night play-in-bed-if-I-need-to type of game that I was looking for. If it released at $40 there wouldn't have been such a huge backlash against it. I have high quality gameplay in Rogue Legacy 2 and high quality story in God of War Ragnarok so this trio is kinda perfect in the calm period right before we get another huge gamestorm in May/June. Suicide Squad may have been delayed again but damn do Zelda, Diablo and Final Fantasy look like huge winners.

Yes! Great game. Makes me wish I had gotten Samus Returns before 3DS eshop closed.

Random old people in an early town: "We noticed you played other Pokemon Games on Switch here's a Mew."

Me: Thanks!

Game Freak making Legendary/Mythical Pokémon more available has been great. If you can't get them like you got Mew, there's something method in every main series game (Ultra Sun/Moon, Sword/Shield DLC, expected Scarlet/Violet DLC) where you can get all of them from the past.

So... went to Walmart, saw the Switch OLED Tear of the Kingdom Edition... bought it. We were going to pass on any OLED since the upgrade is super minimal; however, my husband still has the original launch Switch which has shown signs of its age (broken kick stand, battery only lasting around 2 hours), so decided to go ahead and do it.

And comparing the OLED to our originals (well, I got the post-launch Switch that is a little better), the screen makes a bigger difference than we were expecting. And it's not just the better display, either, but the size. It's not much larger, but it's noticeable when playing on it. If Nintendo doesn't announce a Switch 2 or new console all together before the Fall, I'll probably get an OLED (the Splatoon 3 and Pokemon limited editions are still available on Amazon for retail, so may get one of them if they're still there in a couple months).

Might wanna save that oled money. Apparently Final Fantasy 16 got banned in Saudi Arabia for having intense sex scenes and that will only be available on Ps5.

Redfall launching as a buggy disaster is equally predictable and disappointing. So much for the idea that Microsoft buying Bethesda would give their studios enough time to fix their games before releasing them. I worry for Starfield. :-/


If Tears of the Kingdom is a glitchy mess thn I will never buy a game on day one ever again.

Funny you mention Redfall now because I was going to post about it, and the entire AAA game situation that's been going on this generation. I haven't played it, but it appears to be, well, a mess. And I've read that Jedi Survivor also has many performance issues too.

Have games just gotten too big/complex to release largely performance issue free at launch in a "short" development window (say, 3-5 years)? Or would even 6-8 years, approx. a generation lifespan, not even be enough to meet the expectations of modern gamers?

I question the latter because I'm seeing so many people demanding more or less the the top end of tech stats for games these days. If a game runs at 30fps, even if it's an otherwise great game, a lot of people are having a cow over it saying it's unacceptable and needs to be 60fps minimum (some are becoming even more demanding).

Do developers/publishers care either way? Are they in this lose-lose scenario? If they release a game with lower tech stats but runs great, gamers complain it's not prettier. And if they release a game with higher tech stats, more performance issues arise and gamers complain it's not acceptable.

More and more people are also saying the Switch is outdated and isn't a serious piece of hardware these days, but... pretty much every first-party Nintendo game still delivers. I've seen some people saying that if Tears of the Kingdom has framerate drops, it's unacceptable, and yada yada.

Umm... Breath of the Wild had framerate drops and is considered one of the greatest games of all time. Can't imagine TOTK not delivering a similar performance. Yes, it'll have some framerate drops when many enemies are on the screen or when in a heavily-forested area with a lot of animated nature like BOTW, but anything more would be really surprising.

I understand gamers being upset buying a $70 game at launch and it has a lot of issues. And I'm not saying the publishers aren't to blame. But this isn't a blanket issue, in my opinion. I think many gamers these days are too greedy and demanding, always wanting the highest-end performance possible. And I also think publishers can be equally as problematic by releasing games "unfinished" at launch and then spend the following months patching it to a more satisfactory state.