#in other news I got the Metroid prime remaster
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They‘re fans. The giant shoulder pad orbs are just really big fans. The Varia suit lets you go into really hot areas and looks like exactly like the power suit because it’s just the suit but with FANS. I can’t-
#toastshark rambles#Metroid#in other news I got the Metroid prime remaster#kinda funny how what normally would be the goofiest feature#(the shoulder orbs)#make the suit actually look cooler#than what it normally looks like
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I feel like people forget just how many Nintendo IPs got proper revives on the Switch, so I made a big fat thread about some
The biggest one in my eyes, a series that holds strong importance to me, is Pikmin. After getting a pretty damn good game on the Wii U back in 2013 the series was propelled into a limbo-like state with Pikmin 4 being "On My Way!" for a decade straight. Mainline wise, nothing, we don't talk about Hey Pikmin. Absolute crickets for awhile and then almost overnight it became THE system for Pikmin games. Pikmin 3 Deluxe, which is way more than just a port, with a bucket full of new content and an alternative campaign, released October 30th 2020. Back to crickets for a few years until all of a sudden, Pikmin 4 and ports of Pikmin 1 and 2 released on the same day of July 21st 2023. All incredible games in their own right, the supreme ports of all, insanely proud Nintendo treats their small fish franchise with such delicate care; if you're using this list as a game suggestions list, check out Pikmin you will NOT regret it.
Famicom Detective Club, which was one damned to eternal obscure Nintendo fanatic knowledge hell, has arose from its grave and is unironically making strong waves. The last original game being made in 1989 and then having "Super Famicom Satellaview Remasters" in the mid 90s, which are damn hard to find proper info on. Other than that, tombstone. Only real thing of note being that it was the first project Yoshio Sakamoto sunk his pen into, other than that it was doomed to niche oddity and a footnote in gaming history. The Switch changed all that, with remakes of the first two games being bundled together and released May 14th 2021. That's not all, a brand new game in the series, "Emio - The Smiling Man", is currently set to release August 29th 2024 as of writing
F-Zero, technically got a new game! It's pennies compared to everyone else's quarters and dollars, but after a 20+ year hiatus its worth a mention. With the last game in the series, ironically called F-Zero Climax, released on the GBA there were crickets after that. Gone but not forgotten, it got the occasional rerelease onto the latest system's virtual console, and it still had a spot in Smash Brothers. Granted if you were me growing up you'd figure that Captain Falcon was just some wack original character, but shit the representation matters. It was like that until September 14th, 2023, when a brand new game in the series with online got announced and released later in a Nintendo direct! Sure it was just a battle royale game, another drop in the bucket with the 99 subtitle, but it counts for this list.
Metroid, the series infamous for its dry spells, has been an oasis of new content recently. The last chronological game in the 2D Metroid series was Fusion, released in 2002, with the Metroid Prime game getting its third installment in 2007. In terms of original games, that was it. There was a remake of Metroid 1 on the GBA, and a remake of Metroid 2 on the 3DS, and there were spinoffs here and there (Metroid Prime Pinball is my GOAT baby); other than that, nothing. That is until the Switch came along, with Metroid Prime 4 being announced within the same year of the Switch's release. It took literally 7 years to get more info about Prime 4 but its with confidence to say that the game is coming out, sometime in 2025. 2D Metroid, long dormant and stagnant and almost two decades without a game got a surprise announcement in a Nintendo Direct; the highly anticipated and teased Metroid Dread, long thought to be a cancelled DS game but emerging in the flesh brazen as ever. Released October 8th, 2021, Metroid is officially back after what felt like centuries of wait.
2D Mario has been stuck in a rut of unoriginality for a decade and a half now. Since the release of New Super Mario Bros for the DS in May 2006, 2D Mario was stuck in a loop of distilling the same damn game over and over, with it getting stripped more and more of what once was in such a short time. It hit a boiling point in November 2012, with the release of "New Super Mario Bros U", the second New Super game to release that year. After that, nothing. People were sick of what felt like the same damn game, sure they were passable but it felt emblematic of everything 2D Mario shouldn't be. Then, almost like an angel from the heavens, came Super Mario Bros Wonder; the antithesis of New Super, it had original concepts in boatloads and felt like a proper evolution of 2D Mario. New concepts in spades, so much extra content, brilliant new artstyle in a new kingdom. It feels like going from store bought freezer pancakes from Walmart to a French chef from a 5 michelien star restaurant making you your breakfast.
The Mario & Luigi series, although a cult classic series, never quite got the mainstream attention it deserved. Even with classics like Bowser's Inside Story, Dream Team, Superstar Saga, the financial backing from the public and internal was just never quite there. After Dream Team (sleeper hit, if you're interested check it out!), it was the beginning of the end with the release of Paper Jam. Reused assets, real basic baby story, padding aplenty, dialogue that hits the senses like pulling teeth (fuckin leave Luigi alone), there's no way this was anything other than a cash grab. A collaboration with Paper Mario too, another cult classic series, it was insulting to both Paper Mario fans and M&L fans. After that, no new original games. Alphadream pumped out two remakes, which are pretty alright, and them they went bankrupt. God bless Alphadream, but the writing was on the wall when they kept making 3DS games long after the Switch came out. It was a dark time, felt clear as light that the M&L series will remain to be past tense and just a footnote in the large conglomerate that is Mario now. Until recently, with the announcement of Brothership; a new spanking game in the M&L series releasing in November of this year.
Genuine generational run Nintendo is going on right now. List could've droned on for easily triple the length, and I might make a sequel to this one day. Could've been even more if i talked about new Nintendo's new IPs or just how much better everything's gotten. It rules we live in this time now, especially after the dark ages of the Wii U.
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opinions on metroid prime remaster? (if you've played it)
Haven't played it. The couple bits I've seen of it seem very pretty. I think when it comes to HD touch-ups like this, sometimes the new stuff feels like it clashes with what made the original feel stylistically interesting (that "Tomb Raider" original trilogy thing looks kinda jarring and bad in most of the footage I've seen), but for the most part this one looks nice. I've heard (& seen for myself) some lighting weirdness / changes in the remake, but I'm lead to believe it's some technical issue related to how lighting was rendered in the GameCube original. (Also I'm half-remembering this and don't remember many specifics.) Can't complain about what I've seen other than that. My wife got it for me as a gift a while back, so I'll give it a try at some point.
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Whats the deal with Bionicle Heroes (Wii)?
Okay so everyone here knows Bionicle Heroes, probably by either the GameCube or Playstation 2 releases. Maybe even the Xbox release (of which all 3 are pretty much just ports with the input graphics changed) or the PC version (mouse and keyboard controls being the most drastic difference). It's many people's favorite (or at least most nostalgic) Bionicle game, competing with or right after Mata Nui Online Game.
The game itself is already quite repetitive - if you're the type to go for 100% completion, you're gonna be hearing the Hero Mode song A LOT. Even the DS version makes better use of unique mechanics by having Hahli use her Kanohi Elda to detect secrets, but that's a different tangent.
When I learned there was a Wii Version I was so excited to play what could very well be the Best version. To preface, I know a lot of people have a stigma against motion controls, but I've always found that the Metroid Prime Trilogy works so excellently with a Wii Remote and Nunchuck in ways that no other control scheme can match! Movement with an analog stick is more precise and comfortable than keys, and aiming with an analog stick is always wonky and imprecise. Mouse is okay, but Prime's pointer controls make those games really slick - just point where you wanna shoot, you can adjust the zones on the edges of the screen for turning your view, I really like it. I play on a close approximation of that style on Prime Remastered, but Joycons even have Gyro Drift so it doesn't always feel great.
So I go into this expecting similar - to be able to point at anywhere on screen and shoot at that. To point at an enemy and have the targeting lasers aim right at them.
Nope. Targeting is locked to the center of the screen.
Despite constantly having your pointer visible, THE ONLY INTERACTION IT HAS WITH THE GAME IS TO ROTATE THE CAMERA. You can't point at anything. Only moving the cursor towards the edges of the screen to turn your view, and whatever is closest to the center of the screen becomes your target.
You can't even adjust these zones.
Prime Trilogy showed me how WiimoteNunchuck can be one of the best control schemes, but I underestimated how it can also be one of the worst. What's the point of having a pointer if you're just gonna treat it as an analog stick????????
Not to mention it's clearly a rushed port of the GameCube release, including any prerendered cutscenes being much more compressed (though including new dialogue in the opener?) and even some missing textures revealing open skybox (luckily just minor stuff).
Like sure, I've got my gripes with every version of Heroes (the dumbing down of the most intense part of the story thus far, turning the Piraka into bumbling fools, you could at least make them intimidating in the part where BALTA TALKS ABOUT HOW INTIMIDATING THEY ARE CMON) but the control scheme makes the Wii version easily the worst. All the DS hand cramps are at least balanced out by the unique content, rahi variety (THEY HAVE FROST BEETLES), etc.
At least it's still got the good soundtrack.
#bionicle#bionicle heroes#nintendo wii#yeah that's basically the issue#every other complaint I could make is one that applies to mostly every other version#but I could never complain about the soundtrack as a whole
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Finally cracked into Metroid Prime Remastered last night. So far it’s been a mix of me whipping through the gameplay because I’m very familiar with enemy behaviours and gimmicks, and me standing around admiring the scenery and geeking out about the level of detail introduced. Played all the way up to the second visit to the Ruins after getting Spider Ball, utterly in my glory, before getting tired and having to stop.
There are some details that I miss, which I'm sure everyone has heard by now (beam lighting is a sore loss with the thermal visor changed to a blurry mess, the doors don’t look quite right, no reflection in the Ruins mirrors did make me a little sad), but some of the work put into visually sprucing up the game had me giggling with delight if not gobsmacked with awe.
Some of the things that stuck out to me were:
Parasite Queen got a makeover; she’s much more plated and creepy now.
Flaahgra got some texture upgrades; its flower is now distinctly fleshy and you can spot a new idle animation through the door rather than the bloom being a static model.
They actually animated Samus doing a proper roll in the Flaahgra intro cutscene, where it had been a brief duck into morphball mode previously. Both are good but the effort pleases me.
Stone and architecture textures look great, more distinct markings on a lot of stuff in the ruins, including a few new decorative textures. (Notably the base of the halfpipe in the Ruins plaza; it looks like they’ve taken some cues from the SkyTown aesthetic for their fill-in decorative textures which is a very nice nod)
Columnar basalt in Magmoor! Which may have appeared in some capacity in the original but it is lovingly sculpted and appears in a handful of rooms, flowing naturally out of the smoother lava-rock formations. Neat stuff.
Dynamic heat-shimmer in Magmoor. For an example, the room just before the first elevator to Phendrana abuts a room with magma in it; closer to the magma there is heat-shimmer, but further away there is not. Again, this may have appeared in the original and I just never noticed, but the effect is much more pronounced here and it looks good
Rain effects remain gorgeous on the visor. The artifact temple’s window has an animated ‘rain on glass’ texture that had me staring at it for a while.
Moving clouds! Notably in Phendrana but other areas may have them as well, the skyboxes have an extra layer so they’re not just static painted images but have some cloud movement to them that looks decently realistic.
The snow-on-stone texture looks great. I don't know how to describe it but it has a realistically wind-scraped look, which adds a lot of life. GC Phendrana had very neat snow-caps on everything, which to be fair has aged well, but the gradient shown by the new textures feels very real.
The Switch appears in the options menu. Maybe this is a silly thing to marvel at but there’s a very detailed model of a Nintendo Switch where once was a GameCube (Or whatever was in he Trilogy version, I don’t actually know.)
Will report more as I go through. Needless to say I am deeply enjoying myself.
#sable talks about games#metroid#metroid prime#metroid prime remastered#updated chozo lore still sucks fite me
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What's your favorite game you played this year?
Pikmin in general hit me really hard this year. I finally played Pikmin 3 in anticipation for 4 after not doing that for, like, a decade for some reason and I really liked it! Pikmin 4 was great too! I also revisited the original 1 + 2 on Switch and they definitely show age (those final caves in 2 in particular, just dire), but they hold up pretty well. Strong recommendations on all those, 4's probably my personal game of the year though!
I hadn't realized the hundreds of hours I put into 2 as a kid would just have my brain reactivate after all these years with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yQJAGtk8X8 playing on loop in my head for hours after every play session and I had to, like, stop playing before bed cuz I was losing sleep, lol.
Also big shout out to J.J. MacField and Night in the Woods; shorter, emotional narrative games that I really enjoyed, but not necessarily for their gameplay.
Also don't wanna inflate your ego or nothing and I've already gushed about it to you on several occasions, but i did really enjoy Retrush! It has it's rough patches, but everything on my list does. Honestly, other than maybe Pikmin, probably the game that I most kept turning off, thinking that I was done, only to quickly start back up until it was 100% done. Which is really something considering it was on PC and not on it's own dedicated device. Very excited to see whatever other projects you get involved in!
My amount of gaming hours this year pales in comparison to last year, more varied though. For some of those lost hours I picked up a new hobby with pixel art and that's kinda related to gaming and I really like it, so special shout out to that too!
Actually, that's pretty much all the games I played this year that I hadn't prior to this year. Another special shout out to Metroid Prime Remastered which was also great and that this is among the years "least favorites" proves I played only winners this year!
...uh, what else did I play, lol... pokemon *anything*'s a given... Shanghai Pocket for the Gameboy Color!!!! (I got this one cuz it was cheap and I liked the cute pixel art you get to see after completing a level. Turns out you can be bad at Mahjongg).
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[Review] Darksiders (PS4)
Meh-siders.
After playing through Darksiders Genesis with my brother, I decided to try out the rest of the series. I’ve been told the other entries are more combat-heavy 3D Zelda-likes, which sounds like something I’d be into. The problem is, for me to really get into something it has to be really good, or interesting, or weird, or bad in a fun way, or hilariously stupid. Darksiders is none of these; it’s simply fine.
Taking place in a post-apocalyptic Earth filled with fantasy demonic guff, Darksiders has you slap your way through demons and angels as War, of the four horsemen (the other three are not seen at all but you get some of their weapons for some reason). There’s a lot of mediocre character action-style battling, some puzzles, and lots of slow walking. War is heavy and plodding, and his dash has huge ending lag so getting around is a real drag, especially when you’re required to backtrack through the connected world.
It has the Zelda (or Metroid Prime)-like accumulation of tools to enable new interactions, and you’re supposed to unlock more combat options. I ended up deciding that most of them were wimpy and the most efficient way to deal with things was to focus on basic sword attacks, which is a shame. Using the tools to solve puzzles can sometimes be cool, like the late-game dip into portal technology, but often they’re just finicky. The platforming too feels unsatisfying, as War has no (or even negative?) coyote time, and his ledge grab only works some of the time.
At those later stages the game’s pace slows to a crawl with long, involved dungeons and a last-minute scavenger hunt, like Wind Waker’s Triforce pieces or Metroid Prime’s Chozo artifacts. This is also the point where the plot ramps up and becomes even more incoherent than it was before; I played through the whole game in the last week and couldn’t really tell you what happens in it or why. The tone is also so dour and self-serious, with every single character just grumbling at each other with no quippy comic relief like Strife to puncture the grim gloom. Even Vernon Wells as Samael is more heightened and so didn’t delight me this time as he did in Genesis.
Being a 2010 game originally, it strongly feels like an exemplar of seventh gen mediocrity. Even with the remastering process it looks dated, it feels bland and a bit clunky, it’s got the underdeveloped upgrade systems and quick time events that you would expect from the time. I wish I could find something to praise about it, but the truth is it’s just a game. It’s competent enough to not be a disaster, but doesn’t excel enough to be anything special. Here’s hoping the sequels pull their finger out.
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okay. I don't have much to say about the Nintendo Direct. There was once again not very much for me,
I dunno man, like it's not like i'm trying to say these games are bad, I know they have their fans, but I'm not going to lie, it's already an uphill battle for me when it's not an IP I'm already familiar with but then almost all of them are genres I don't really care about or they appear to be more concerned with being artistic or telling a story than actually being fun to play...
I already have Metroid Prime and Kirby's Return to Dreamland so I wasn't exactly itching for remasters of those that are likely to be 60 bucks. I'm starting to empathize more and more with people who bemoan remakes when I used to be dismissive of them. Cuz like, now a lot of stuff that doesn't need remakes and could be perfectly fine with simple port jobs are getting remakes...Like I would at least be interested in checking out Metroid Prime if it was a port of the trilogy, but I'm probably gonna pass on the remake of Prime 1. Cool for the newcomers who don't have a gamecube or Wii though.
Pikmin looks cool but i'm a very casual fan of Pikmin. I played a lot of the first game, didn't get a chance to play the 2nd, and only played the third game one time and thought it was just "okay", so I don't know if I want to pick this one up immediately.
I think adding GBA to NSO might finally make that expansion pass worth the price of admission, but I'm still not re-subscribing to even the regular NSO, I just don't like the subscription model, and I can play all these games with no input lag on a CRT anyway, so, cool for people that want this.
Genuinely pleased by the Yoshi's Island and Birdo announcement in Mario Kart but ehhhh, why didn't they show off the other tracks in that wave?
Tears of the Kingdom is still looking like Tears of the Kingdom. If that was Ganon's voice then I'm a little underwhelmed. Ganondorf has always left a big impression on me, so I had the highest expectations for his voice, and it just kind of sounds like they got bootleg Kevin Micheal Richardson to voice him.
Well, thank goodness that I care more about old games than new ones these days, otherwise I would be disappointed. But instead i'm gonna happily play something from my ginormous backlog.
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Oh yeah, was there anything else in the direct that interested you besides the new Layton game?
Of course, overall this was probably one of the bests directs in a while for me.
Professor Layton was, of course, my personal highlight. But some other stuff I was excited about is:
- Metroid Prime remaster
So far I only played Super Metroid, Metroid Samus Returns and Metroid Dread. I always loved the series but I never found the time to really get into it, so finally getting the chance to play a Metroid Prime game are great news for me.
- Splatoon 3 DLC
Always been a Splatoon fan, and Octo Expansion was one of the best DLC experiences I had. The Trailer for Side Order looks incredible promising and I can't wait to play through it. Inkopolis is cool too I guess.
- Octopath Traveler 2 Demo
Octopath Traveler is one of my favorite Videogames of all time. I'm a sucker for a good JRPG and it ticked off all the correct boxes for me. Played through the Demo and I can already say it's even better than the first one.
- Kirbys Return to Dreamland Deluxe
At first I was a bit hesitant towards this game, but by now ive warmed up to it. Unfortunately a bunch of stuff from the Magolor epilogue already got spoiled for me, so I'm still not as excited as I should be about it, but you know what I'm still glad it's coming
- Ghost Trick
I follow a few people who love this game, so I might try it out myself. I heard from multiple sources that it's good, so it's probably worth my time.
- The Legend Of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
I don't think this one needs any explanation. Ive been hyped for this since the very first trailer, and every small news for it just amplified it. Probably going to be my game of the year, but it's way too soon to say that.
There were some other things I was happy to see, but these are the main ones I can think of right now.
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Ok, time for some thoughts regarding yesterday's Nintendo Direct!
Pikmin 4: Nothing too revolutionary, just taking the Pikmin formula and refining/expanding it, like Pikmin 2 and 3 did before it. And honestly, that's not a bad thing! I love the Pikmin games, they're really fun and charming and this one seems to continue that trend. It seems we're getting all the existing Pikmin types in addition to the new Ice Pikmin so that'll be cool. And the new doggo is adorable! I'm really looking forward to this one.
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective: This is a game that I always wanted to play and never got to do it, so I'm glad to see it ported to the Switch! Maybe this will be the time I actually play it.
Sea of Stars: Absolutely gorgeous and looks really fun as well, taking inspiration from one of my favorite games ever. Apparently it got a demo so I'll probably give that a try. I still need to play The Messenger though...
Game Boy and Game Boy Advance added to Nintendo Switch Online: Finally! And now I actually have the Expansion Pack thanks to a friend so I can get hyped about GBA too. The libraries are a bit limited for the time being but that's to be expected. Looking forward to replaying some of my favorites from that era and also try a few classics for the first time. Although the games I'm most hyped about are the ones that were confirmed to come in the future, like Oracle of Seasons/Ages, Pokémon TCG, Metroid Fusion and of course freaking GOLDEN SUN (yes, I'm ready to replay it for the millionth time).
Metroid Prime Remastered: Okay, I wasn't expecting this one, even though it had been rumored for a while. While I would've liked to see the entire trilogy in one package, the first Prime is arguably the best one and also one of the best games ever made. The remake looks amazing and much more polished than just a simple HD port. Seriously, if you haven't played this game before, give it a try, it's a masterpiece, and this is coming from someone who hates shooters (Metroid Prime isn't really a shooter).
Baten Kaitos I & II Remaster: HOLY SHIT. Another one (two?) that I always wanted to play but didn't get when it first came out before it became impossible to find, and never bothered with trying to emulate. I'd love to give the series a chance on modern hardware.
Professor Layton And The New World of Steam: HOOOOOO BOY!!! This might seriously be my favorite announcement of the Direct, even though they didn't really show us anything! I was a HUGE Layton fan during the DS era and I was so sad that the series kinda just died all of a sudden. I'm honestly so fucking hyped for this! Please be good, please be good, please be good!
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe DLC Wave 4: The new track looks amazing! Yoshi's Island was one of the defining games from my childhood so this gets me extremely nostalgic. Also Birdo was a nice surprise! I wasn't expecting characters in the pass! While I don't really care about Birdo in particular, this opens the door for more characters so maybe this means I can finally have my boy Diddy Kong again. Please. It's been so long.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: Honestly I don't have a lot to say about this one. Am I hyped? Absolutely. But we still know so little about this game! What's the story about? How does it differ from BotW? Although, part of me kinda wishes it stays this way. Trailers tend to spoil too much stuff these days, so I'm fine with keeping the surprises for when I actually play the game. Oh, and it's a minor thing, but I hope they bring back Wolf Link and/or a similar mechanic (and not locked to amiibo this time). I just loved exploring Hyrule with a doggo.
Overall a really exciting Direct, and there were also a bunch of other cool announcements that I didn't touch here. Now to work on my backlog so I can play shiny new games without feeling guilty, lol.
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Yooo so little update since it’s been forever since I’ve been on here.
I’ve been in a much better place and have been working on myself a lot lately. I quit my job in February, and tbh it was the best decision I could have ever made. I have enough put back money wise where I will be okay for now and I have a ton of support both from my new doctor and family. I also got unemployment cause apparently if you quit for an “appropriate cause” (my medical condition! Ha!) it’s possible.
Other than that, I’ve got a bunch of insert stuff I’ve been thinking about. Currently I’ve been playing Metroid Prime Remastered so I’ve gotten back into the series, so that’s one insert in particular I’m thinking about dropping in the Metroid universe. I also have had a PiB insert I was thinking about but her story is sorta chill and I haven’t had much in mind for her story wise...
Totes up for collabs or asks again, I’m still slow on here but I wanna try and get creative again.
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Metroid Dread
Completed: 2/26/23 Playtime: 7h30m
After finishing up Symphony of the Night, I had my appetite whetted for more metroidvania. While everyone else went crazy for the new Prime Remaster, I decided to stick with the 2D trappings of Metroid: Dread.
The game is...good, although I'm not sure it worked for me as a complete package. Or rather, I'm not sure if I got from the game what I wanted.
For starters, the game is hard as hell. This can be fun, and I really found some early boss fights fun to learn, but far too often the brand of difficulty the game employed was "you must execute this series of steps perfectly repeatedly." I realized that's just not my thing. I like to be able to either hit the boss when I want, or have the ability to make opportunities to exploit myself.
I was also let down by the map design overall. The game is incredibly knotty, but it still manages to shepherd you down a linear path so you don't have to think too hard to find where you needed to go next. This kept things moving, but it really lost the spark of fun that metroidvanias have given me in the past. I never felt like I learned where I was going or got to recognize portions of the map. Things never folded in on themselves in a way that let me use new abilities to get that secret I couldn't get before. What secrets I did find through my playthrough almost always required some other power up I wouldn't get for hours. By then I wouldn't remember where it was and felt ready to move on anyway.
To cap it all off - none of the exploration ever really feels worth it. Where exploration in SotN yielded me new weapons, familiars, or secondary items, the only collectibles in Dread are more missiles and health upgrades (even then, sometimes just 1/4 of a health upgrade).
There are moments where the game really shines though. The aesthetics and atmosphere of the levels are top notch. Samus' movement is slick. A handful of bosses really worked for me, particularly the Chozo warrior fights and the final boss. I just wish it had built on all the good stuff instead of feeling like I was losing momentum between difficulty spikes.
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My First Impressions of Metroid Prime Remastered... Way Better Than I Thought!
It's been over 20 years since Metroid Prime originally released on the Nintendo GameCube, and many will argue that it's one of the best games ever made. Its focus on exploration, fights, and scanning features combined with the classic Metroid formula definitely makes it a game worthy of that title. It was way ahead of its time.
But its time has come once again! Metroid Prime has been faithfully remastered for the Nintendo Switch with new controls and visuals- and extra features I didn't expect! What do I think after sinking a few hours into it? Read on and I'd be delighted to share!
My story with Metroid Prime goes on quite a few years, and it all started when I was living in my old neighborhood as a kid. The Metroid Prime Trilogy game was always that one strange Wii game my neighbors had. Whenever I saw it, it stuck out amongst the other white cases, notably because it had a Steelbook case. I had played Echoes' multiplayer mode with friends while sleeping over, but that was really it. That is, until I was able to get the game. The neighbors' father had given it to me after they got rid of their Wii system. My mom insisted on paying, but he was kind enough to let me keep it for free.
Alas... as much as I liked the game, I never got too invested. I would always play a couple of hours of the first game, get lost, then stop. I would pick it back up some months later but I wouldn't be able to figure out where I was and where I had to go. It was a shame, as I really liked the controls on the Wii, and I was still interested in the series. I even tried the GameCube version when I got my copy of that, but that didn't help at all, especially with those controls.
Fast forward to these modern times though, and I now own the first game once again on my Switch. I chose to get it digitally, as I didn't want to wait to get the physical copy. And let me tell you... I already had high hopes from what I read about this remaster before, but this still blew me away.
This is a complete graphical overhaul of that original 2002 game, with incredible lighting and textures that I haven't even seen before on a Switch game. And it achieves this without even dipping to 720p or below. It's easily the best-looking Switch game I've ever played. It even feels great to play, too.
For those unaware, Metroid Prime is a first-person shooter/exploration game similar to the other 2D-style games in the franchise. You search a world for suit upgrades while fighting enemies, and each upgrade can allow you to explore a new area. And if you're a bit stuck, just backtrack- there's surely somewhere new you can go to with all those new upgrades. Never think you're done with one area just because you moved on to the next. Scanning enemies for their weaknesses is also a big key factor in this game, and necessary for 100% completion.
There are several ways to play this game now, controls-wise. There are options to go for the classic GameCube-style controls and Wii pointer controls, but now for the first time- you can officially play Metroid Prime in true dual-stick first person shooter fashion. Playing that way with the lock-on ability is a bit broken, but it's the most comfortable way for me to play this game. It was the one thing holding me back from continuing on the Wii (well, that and I just keep forgetting), and now that problem just isn't there.
Metroid Prime Remastered has a few new features and options that I wasn't entirely expecting, either. In the main menu, you're able to view models of enemies and suits and listen to songs from the game, how much is depending on how far you've gotten in it. Something I had no idea would be included at all was the European and Japanese-exclusive narration for certain scenes. These were entirely new to me, and I completely forgot they existed until now. Upon starting my playthrough, I decided to opt for the European narration. From my understanding, it's only in the beginning and end of the game, but from what I heard when I started, it's that perfect early-2000s action movie narration. Cheesy, but very cool.
One thing I did notice, as many others have, is that the bonuses from linking Metroid Fusion have been removed. In the GameCube original, if you linked your copy of Fusion with a Game Boy Advance/GameCube link cable, you could unlock the Fusion Suit (if you beat Prime) and a playable version of the original Metroid (if you beat Fusion). The latter being taken out makes sense, it's literally on the NES Switch Online app, but the Fusion suit would have been a nice inclusion still. Oh well, maybe when Fusion gets added to the GBA app or something.
At the end of the day though, Fusion suit or not, this is still one incredible game. This will definitely hold fans over until Metroid Prime 4 releases. Here's hoping that a remaster of 2 and 3 are in the works- and will be as good as this one.
Thanks again for reading! Been putting this off for a bit, but I'm glad I finished it now.
Next up: Remasters Shouldn't Be Lazy, Broken Ports! Why Have So Many Been Like This?
#metroid#metroid prime#metroid prime remastered#nintendo switch#nintendo#remaster#HD game#impressions
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10 followers woohoo
i now have 10 followers that aren't whatever cheezbot is and my punching bag from discord, and i still find it funny i've interacted more with this one person who will just appear on my metroid posts sometimes usually to argue about lore and someone who i somehow see a new post from every time i check tumblr more than like all of my followers combined, whoops
i guess this is as good a time as any to talk about like my recurring post topics and give an update on all of those with where they're all that, i genuinely don't know if anyone cares about them but i'm going to pretend they do because it makes me feel nice, if you care about any of the following and want to provoke me into talking about them more send me an ask that'll probably do it
i know that in the grand scheme of things this number is meaningless but it means something to me okay let me have this
i'm working on Something Pretty Big for vivlore right now which is why i haven't been posting about it more i promise i'll get to it, it's just... there's a lot to cover which is a daunting task and i'm already trying to cover it all again with my S.P.B. i just mentioned which is a higher priority than tumblr posts
i'm more or less out of ideas for metroid posts besides following up on the metroid menace saga and posts about some joke ideas i've had for intentionally shitty sequel concepts, and it will probably stay this way until prime 4 or a prime 2 remaster drops or i go back and finish super/replay dread or prime 1, i feel kinda bad because i know metroid is why i got most of my followers but yea
i genuinely forgot to follow up on my big pikmin posts about Pikmin: Global Survey and the Sparkly Wraith theory, I still have so much more to say about GS and so much to say about my theories for what the apocalypse in the Pikmin world was (assuming it wasn't the Sparkly Wraith lol), I just haven't really felt like it since I think I'm out of my Pikmin hyperfixation for real now, but I plan on replaying 3DX & 4 soon and the creator of pikmin echo is seemingly back from a several month absence so that may reignite my interest enough to get the engine running on my shit
i have tons of story ideas, tons of game ideas, i just haven't really been in the mood to write them out yet but i promise i've got some really good shit, though don't expect me to follow them up with actually writing/making them, if i'm going to manifest an idea i have it'll be vivlore first, so to the hypothetical person who wanted me to write Alien Exorcist for real i'm sorry but you're out of luck write it yourself
i have a lot more Funny Stories i can tell, i just have to feel like it, or i'll just have to experience more, given that i'm still working through the new games i got for my birthday a month ago so those probably aren't going anywhere
there are a couple other one-offs i meant to make a recurring thing, like Midnight Deranged Thoughts and out of context discord screenshots of my friends and i, that i just didn't, i just need to feel like making follow-ups lol
and there's other stuff i plan on making a series, like talking about my dreams i have for example, i just need to figure stuff out for those and also be in the mood, like i'll have to re-type my notes from my dreams to fit my tumblr post style which will be a pain for the longer ones but the longer ones are the interesting ones i'd be talking about, and that kind of specific problem applies to a lot of my future post series ideas
so uh, yeah, that's all i think, i know that all of the posts i actually put effort into are the least popular ones i do but it's nice to get that stuff off my chest and into the void, i just like writing even if it's not writing writing, and maybe one day someone will find and appreciate my posts idk
tl:dr More Shit Soon I Promise Lol
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Games of 2023
(2022)
I barely played anything last year. Tears Of The Kingdom so wholly swallowed my attention that, once I finally brought it to a close, I just fell of playing video games for a long time, and still haven't quite picked my way back into the hobby. I'll get into it during the write-up below, but it's OBVIOUSLY going to be my Game Of The Year (and in a rare change of pace, it actually came out this year!) so I will be nominating another game as GOTY instead.
This is also the year I became a car mechanic in my spare time after crashing and totalling my beloved Beetle and instead of getting a new car like a sensible person, I decided "well, I can probably fix it". 12 months later, still driving it! And also, still fixing it.
August brought with it an incredible depression out of nowhere during which I lost the plot a bit, but I did write an awful lot of words towards my novel, so I guess that evens things out. Regardless, a combination of all of the above resulted in very few games being played this year! My count is 23, compared to recent years being in the 70-80 range. Makes this an easier read, anyway. To the games!
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Jumpgrid
Hold over from last year, I played a little further but the final few levels are less reactive and more memory tests, which is a real shame. Just remembering which direction to move and trying to time it right isn't anywhere near as fun as frenetically dashing all around the grid. Soundtrack is still legit though.
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Absolute Drift
We gave this one quite the pasting in our livestream chat- safe to say it's not for me. In the hour I gave it, I didn't get even the slightest grip on how the controls work, which seems to be the intent. I'm sure there's a moment where, if you are persistent, everything -clicks- and suddenly it all makes perfect sense, but it didn't come close to happening and the game itself wasn't compelling me enough to keep blindly headbutting it until we got there.
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Thirty Flights
Wendy's no longer offers the 4 for $4 deal. I would still argue their $5 Biggie Bag is a better deal than this, despite technically being more expensive.
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Metroid Prime Remaster
And what a remaster it is! I'd argue the original Prime still looks and plays fantastic and didn't need remastering, but this is sublime and if you missed out the first time around (holy crap it was 20 years ago augugahguaghuhgh) this is a fine way to get caught up. Surely Primes 2 and 3 are on their way as well?
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Black Mesa
Interesting juxtaposition with MP:R here, another remaster of a classic game. This is similarly excellent despite my own cognitive dissonance as described in my BBLC entry. Unfortunately let down by the end sequence- the original's Xen chapter is pretty universally regarded as an awful blight on an otherwise great game and Black Mesa's approach was to... make it five times longer? They actually reworked the whole set up but it still just wasn't quite enough to polish that turd. It does look absolutely beautiful and the soundtrack is breath-taking, but I do wish they had let the environment breathe a little instead of filling it with enemy encounters. Still well worth a look, and a monumental achievement to finally have this game in a fully complete playable state after so long in development.
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Tears Of The Kingdom
I'm sure I don't need to say much here. Game so good I stopped playing games. Masterpiece. Every aspect of it- gameplay, visuals, music, story- masterpiece. Minor spoilers, the music during the final approach towards the final boss' arena had me so worked up I needed 5 minutes to get my head back into focus. It's a fairly common thing for the actual boss fight to feel badass, but I cannot recall any other time previous that just the *approach* made me feel like a hero, bringing to an end a story that had gone on for far, far too long. I don't need to tell you any of this. It's a masterpiece beyond masterpiece.
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Time Gentlemen Please
Adventure game sequel to Ben There Dan That, which I enjoyed oh-so-many moons past, but I couldn't get far here. There's an intolerable lag between every action and movement that drove me spare, which I'm not sure if it's an engine issue or a game issue. I don't enjoy adventure games enough to put up with things like that unfortunately, though I do remember enjoying the first game a lot.
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Final Fantasy 2 (Pixel Remaster) (PC)
Oh man. Without speaking hyperbolically, I think this might be the worst game I've ever played that is technically competent. The game runs nicely, the graphics are lovely, the music is just as fantastic this early in the series as it came to be known for, but by the nine divines, what an absolute pile of stink the actual gameplay experience is. I finished the game with 100% of achievements solely so I never, ever had to pick it up again. An abysmal and frustrating mess of a game that had some interesting ideas and had no clue what to do with any of them.
[20:26] Beebs: You should all buy Final Fantasy 2 on the sale [20:26] spookiott: didn't you hate it [20:26] Beebs: I did and still do and always will [20:26] Beebs: I just don't think I should suffer alone [20:27] Beebs: I'm going for 100% achievements just so I never ever have to play it ever again [20:27] spookiott: yeah, that'll show 'em! [20:33] Beebs: I do not know how they ever got to make a Final Fantasy 3, by rights they shouldn't have [20:34] Beebs: The series should have ended here and everyone involved with it should have been arrested [20:34] Beebs: please buy it.
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Endless Space
As a space-based 4x that isn't Master Of Orion 2, Endless Space caught my attention better than most, but I only played to the end of my first galaxy before moving onto
Endless Space Two: Endlesser Space
which I think hooked me a lot stronger. I found the conquer mechanics too opaque for my liking, with my invading army of millions somehow being annihilated by a defending force that had literally been reduced to zero remaining soldiers, and no explanation of how that could happen or how I could have done it better. I think modern 4x games have leaned away from conquest being the predominant means of victory and as such it's a way to make that victory type less appealing? I don't know. It's a good game, it's just not Orion.
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Fortnite
I played Fartbutt pretty much every day all year, it is honestly a fun game, and if you are resistant to the predatory business practices of the parent company you’ll have a good time. Don’t have much else to say here- getting down to the last 5 players alive and scanning the horizon for any sign of activity is thrilling and it’s a huge adrenaline rush to trade shots with the last one standing and secure the win.
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Diddy Kong Racing
Had a few attempts at this in recent years, this is the one that finally stuck thanks to the Deck. It’s a good racer with some total BS (I literally cheated the final boss with save states to race perfectly and still couldn’t beat him with one character lol) and adds a lot of fun single player content missing from the Mario flavoured rivals. Flying around exploring the hub island is just fun and I’d love to see the concept return in a future MK game. Wizpig theme is legit.
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Master Of Orion 2
You know it and you love it. This year I tried a no-expansion game where I could only settle planets in my home system. I actually won but there was a fun challenge towards the end where two enemy systems were behind black holes that I couldn’t reach- had to manipulate them into a war with each other so they would destroy those systems for me, but also keep one from defeating the other before they had finished the job. It worked out!
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Fire Emblem N-gage
A lot of people really loved this entry. I thought it was fine. Hard mode is way overtuned IMO, mostly because of the bosses, but Normal mode is conversely far too easy. Wish there was some middle ground between the two. The Somniel stuff felt REALLY tacked on, too, like they just put it there so people who had only played Three Houses had something familiar to the monastery, but the dialogue is all repeated and it feels a bit soulless. I thought for sure I was going to marry Celine because, I mean, look at her- but she drinks floral tea which is unforgivable so I married big tiddy goth GF Ivy instead, who already told me she loved me and worshipped me like a god in just our B rank support. Healthy!
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Team Fortress 2
I only played the fun halloween maps this year (surprisingly few of them are fun) and skipped the terrible ones, resulting in significantly less playtime this year than previous. Still didn’t get my thrice-damned hat. I also spent some time earlier in the year trying the Dragon’s Fury, a weapon I never previously bothered with, and it was quite refreshing.
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Star Fox 64
Really weird that they never made another Star Fox game after this one.
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Neopets
It is absolutely WILD that this site is still running, and many parts of it unchanged since 1999. I come back every so often- it's sort of my internet birthplace. "can't take the country out of the girl", so they say. They were giving away childhood dream-item Illusen's Staff essentially for free so I had to get it, and then I just kept sticking around for a bit. It's fun but I think only nostalgia keeps these servers running any more.
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Touhou 19
It's a Vs shooter, so even though you can play as Ran I pretty much bounced off once I had seen the new girls and heard the new music. It's a shame, but vs mode simply isn't what I play touhou for. Looking forward to 20, hopefully next year but probably 2025. New Ran lore though!
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Age Of Empires 2 Ultra Mega Edition
There really is simply no reason at all AoE2 needed to be made into a live service game, but ignoring that festering boil this is otherwise the ultimate way to play a very old and still very good game, with a whole slew of QoL features that I'll never be able to live without now I have them (visible tower range!). It's also compatible with all custom scenarios made in the original so we can still re-live the majesty of JUSTIN TIMBERLAR.sco and all the other very-good-actually scenarios I made as a clueless 14 year old.
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Ys 8: Lacrimosa Of Dana
An unexpected late entry takes this year's GOTY (That Isn't Zelda). The incredible lull I felt after TotK didn't clear for a long time, but at the end of November I fired this up and remembered why I love games generally and Ys specifically. Falcom is an established company that still somehow feels like a doujin circle, and I’m not sure how to explain what I mean by that but I mean it positively. This one’s actually telling a pretty neat story so far too, though I haven’t finished it yet. Can a game I haven’t finished truly be named GOTY? Yes. It’s my blog and I can do what I want. One year there were three winners!
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That’s all for 2023. 2024 doesn’t look to have any big hitters, but the JPRGs are accumulating on my backlog and I’m at roughly the halfway point in writing my book, so time will tell if I manage to beat this year’s meager score.
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Truly New Horizons
We made it, folks. The end of 2023 is upon us. We have a new year upon us, a year that ideally will be full of new opportunities and new possibilities. A year where we can learn new things about ourselves and become better versions of ourselves.
Well, it's also an election year, so any hesitation or mounting dread is definitely understandable.
But as I think what may come next year, I realized a while back that a couple of constants from the past several years will no longer be there. The slate will be much cleaner than it has been in years past without these known quantities coming at some point.
In terms of shows I've followed, both Hilda and The Owl House ended this year to varying results (for me). I went on a while ago about how the former spurred me to watch more animation to see what I've been missing, which has mostly worked out. The latter is one of several shows I've warmed up with and have come to really appreciate from the past couple years.
We might possibly be coming down to the end of The Ghost and Molly McGee, which is another one I've come to really enjoy. Fans will surely keep these alive through fan art and writings, but their absence will be noted.
There was just one movie I was really following since we got the first snippets from years back, being my favorite of the year (shocking no one who knows me) The Super Mario Bros. Movie. You'd think they would have immediately told us about making another one but there is reportedly nothing yet.
Then there was also Nimona, a movie whose previous cancellation made everyone sad but then everyone happy when it turned out to be probably the comeback story of the year alongside Elemental (for me, anyway). I've really fallen off movie watching the past few years, so maybe I can get that back on track next year.
The biggest one: video games! The Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass is over. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom dropped nearly four years after it was first announced. Pikmin 4 dropped after years of wondering whether it actually exists. We got the first 2D Mario in over a decade.
The only MIA from the past six or so years is Metroid Prime 4, which we're all assuming now is being saved for the next system. Aside from a couple of remasters and smaller scale games, it really feels like we're coming up on the end of the Switch's life. That's sure to be another bittersweet day where I'll probably spew a few paragraphs.
There are still several constants. My main show Big City Greens is still chugging along with most of its fourth season yet to air. I've gotten into recent fare like Kiff, Hamster & Gretel, Hailey's On It!, and have shows like the other half of Invincible and the much anticipated season two of Arcane on tap.
I'm sure to play all those Switch games like the remaster of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and Princess Peach: Showtime!. And sure, some of the other new things could provide some good times. I guess having become a fan of the series or something this year means I'll check out Persona 3 Reload. Maybe keeping some kind of blind eye to news feeds and being surprised by some new stuff is not a bad way to do things.
But maybe the biggest constant of all will be the company I keep. Sharing my experience with Persona 5 Royal with someone was perhaps the most exciting thing I did all year. I've begun to participate a bit more in some areas because maybe it could pay off with new connections. Then while nothing is set yet, I'd like to think it's a strong possibility that going to visit someone may be in the cards...
I've shared a bit of myself every day since July with my daily reports, and I'm happy to say those will not be going anywhere. It's interesting to look back at them months later and see what I was doing and wonder how I've changed since then. Another year of doing those is sure to provide more enriching opportunities and guide me with anything I want to do.
Thank you all for reading this year. Here's to 2024!
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