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.
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.
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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.
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.
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Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom gameplay demo
Biggest takeaway from Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom gameplay demo this morning… did Link always have such a beautiful flowing mullet?
Kirby’s Dream Land – ★★★½
Sat and put in three 15-20 minute sessions to beat this now that’s available on the Switch. This is the first OG Game Boy game I have ever finished as I never owned a Game Boy growing up. 12 year old Brian would be so jealous.
Nice, very quick and very simple playthrough to see the origins of Kirby. My kids delighted at seeing the green Game Boy graphics but not enough to want to play themselves it looked “too old”.
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💿 Buy the new Kirby’s Return to Dream Land remaster for Switch
Murder by Numbers – ★★★½
Fun story. Mostly good writing. Surprisingly good characters. Plus Picross! Considering they’ve been acquired by Epic and Mediatonic will likely eternally be on Fall Guys and/or Fortnite content development, it’s disappointing that we likely won’t get any more stories like this from them.
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💿 Buy Murder by Numbers for Nintendo Switch
MLB The Show 22 – ★★★★
Got into Diamond Dynasty and building my card collection this year for the first time. Enjoyed that thoroughly without spending any money on it at all (which I know can be a problem for some folks) and without playing almost any online multiplayer modes. I was just building the collection for the sake of enjoying building the collection. Definitely activated the part of my brain that loved collecting IRL baseball cards my whole childhood.
I played it all summer long on Xbox while exercising and got into it enough I bought it for the Switch as well. I managed to put 200 hours into the game just according to the Xbox stats.
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💿 Buy MLB The Show 22 for Xbox
Yoku’s Island Express – ★★★★
Played for about 10 and just finished with close to 100% completion. (Will try to get those last few wickerlings to get there.)
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💿 Buy Yoku’s Island Express for Nintendo Switch