Ready and waiting. Now have to work and sit in meetings for next 8 hours while Zelda:TotK stares at me.
Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is here
TMNT Splintered Fate for Apple Arcade looks great
Great looking TMNT rogue-lite with multiplayer called TMNT Splintered Fate (“splintered”, get it get it?) hit Apple Arcade today (as well as some other good looking stuff) and it looks great. No clue if it’s actually any good but most of the Ninja Turtle stuff (games and otherwise) has been pretty high quality and so is a lot of Apple Arcade releases so fingers crossed. At the very least it’s not free to play.
Need to go find my 8BitDo controller and try it out on my iPad.
Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom hands-on previews
Resisting the strong urge to read/watch all the hands on Zelda: TotK previews from yesterday. Game is just 2 weeks away and after the official Nintendo videos I was already plenty hyped, now it’s all just risking spoiling discovering things myself.
The Pudding: Where in the USA is this?
Fun daily photo location game: https://pudding.cool/games/where/
Today’s location took me 5 guesses to get 176 miles a way (despite having a decent first guess), partially because I totally borked how far 800 miles is on a map. 🤦🏻♂️
(via kottke.org)
Golden Axe – ★★½
I played so much of this (and Sunset Riders) at the arcade at Schlitterbahn and it was so fun with other people while wet and smelling like chlorine and 6th grade. Crazy all those times playing it and I probably never made it more than like 10 minutes/2 quarters in.
Played through this in one quick sitting via Switch Online and turns out playing it at home alone with save states doesn’t quite recreate that experience.
I don’t know if it’s the Genesis version or what but I never figured out exactly what the hit boxes of characters was and/or there’s just hardly any feedback from the game when you’re connecting and the bad guys in Arcade mode are just damage sponges. Either way, doesn’t hold up very well especially compared to the recent Game Boy games I caught up with but maybe I’ll rope my kids into trying it with me sometime and have more fun that way.
🎮 View GameTrack review
💿 Buy a Nintendo Switch Online membership
Kirby and the Forgotten Land – ★★★★
Bought this soon after it was released in 2022 but finally got around to playing it now after enjoying Kirby’s Dream Land on Nintendo Switch Online. Beat the main story and most all of the Treasure Road stages in about 15 hours and enjoyed pretty much every moment of it. With those and Kirby: Star Allies, I’ve now played my first three Kirby games in last couple years and the 3D Forgotten Land is easily my fave.
The graphics are absolutely gorgeous. Everything is vibrant and colorful with an incredible amount of detail. It’s impressive what Nintendo can do on Switch hardware with the right art style, even with packed and relatively open levels.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie – ★★★½
Fantastic looking and tons of fun references. Adequate storyline that anyone whose ever played a Mario game could predict, but good enough for a fun afternoon at the theater with the kids.
Although it is not a nonstop laugh fest, it got several big laughs from my kids, despite the fact that they are more into Minecraft/The Sims than they are into Mario. It is definitely a kids’ movie with references for us “olds,” but it was made lovingly and shows a real understanding and appreciation of the Mario characters and worlds.
Anya Taylor-Joy’s Peach and especially Jack Black’s Bowser were definitely the highlights, but all of the performances were good. Yes, including Chris Pratt.
Special shoutout to the nihilistic Lumalee the Luma who stole the show in their brief appearances.
🍿 View Letterboxd review
💿 Buy the Super Mario Bros. Movie Blu-ray on Amazon
Super Mario Bros. (1993) – ★★
The goomba creature design is the most baffling thing about this truly deranged movie.
I have now watched both Citizen Kane and Super Mario Bros. (1993) in the last 48 hours. Truly, both are pinnacles of cinema.
🍿 View Letterboxd review
💿 Buy Super Mario Bros. on Amazon
Super Mario Brothers: Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach – ★★★½
Watched this with my youngest kid in 4k thanks to the fantastic restoration available on the Internet Archive. Looked surprisingly great and considering it is from only one year after the original Super Mario Bros. for NES there were a number of characters rendered surprisingly close to what they’d eventually look like in games 20+ years later. Definitely bonkers in some places and all the toad characters are certifiably horrifying.
Now I’m looking forward to the new Super Mario Bros movie’s post credit scene revealing the hot anime Prince Haru spinoff.
🍿 View Letterboxd review
🎥 Watch Super Mario Brothers: Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach via the Internet Archive
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins – ★★★★
Super Mario Land 2 was next up in my first time exploration of the Game Boy.
I have played and bounced off the first Super Mario Land before (including on my TI85 calculator in high school) so was surprised how fun and unique 6 Golden Coins was. The level design and enemy design variety is fun and there are so many weird ones that never show up in other Mario games. Maybe we can get a Super Mario Movie post credits scene featuring Skeleton Bee. Lol.
Not super hard (especially thanks to cheesing with save states) and the actual gameplay wasn’t too varied, but still a blast to quickly (3 hours?) play through to see everything including the delightfully ugly tiny pixel Wario.
🎮 View my GameTrack review
💿 Buy a Nintendo Switch Online membership