Lurker > andylt

8

It simply does everything Hotel Dusk did but much better.

Thanks for running this! It was fun to participate in and I'm glad we at least got a somewhat interesting winner in the end, even though I haven't bought the SSBU DLC and idk if BK are fun to play as or not...

It's been so long since this contest started I forgot how hilarious it was seeing Link go out first lol. I usually lose interest in the last couple weeks of contests like these when all my favs have gone out, but this was a blast for a long time. Long live Ryu.

You should go back to it! It's a cool level and the seasons add a lot to it.

Speaking of, I didn't do any new levels today but I did spend time in the forest. I found an extra path, saw some of Espurr's tricks, reunited Deerling and Sawsbuck, and got the secret ending area. It's really beautiful to look at! Unfortunately I still don't know how to trigger each season, but the alternate path after moving the Trevenant seems to give me Winter more often than not. Though I don't know what I can do with the Ninetales there... More secrets to discover, of course.

Following on from the winter preview, tomorrow I'll try the snow stage.

I am enjoying reading these, though we appear to have pretty different tastes. I liked CrossCode's puzzles more than its combat!

Guessing 13 sen next

Thanks for sharing! Some of them look interesting, some... bizarre, guess we've just gotta wait and see how they turn out. The fox and frog one appeals to me the most.

Cool topic idea!

pokeyman: Red, Blue, Gold, Silver, Stadium, Snap, Puzzle League, Pinball, TCG, Sapphire, Channel, Diamond, Shuffle, Rumble World, Moon, Quest, New Snap = 17

FF: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10-2, 12, 13, 13-2, 15, T, TCB = 14

Zelda: 1, 2, LttP, OoT, MM, LA, OoA, OoS, WW, FSA, TP, PH, ST, SS, ALBW, BotW, Cadence = 17

Mario: Mario Bros, SMB, SMB2, Lost Levels, SMB3, All-Stars, SMW, SMW2, SM64, SMS, SMG, SMG2, SMO, SM64DS, NSMB, NSMBW, SM3DL = 17

Nothing else comes close to these 4.

Wow I didn't expect them all to be so close to each other! If you include spinoff series Mario flies way ahead with Kart, sports, and RPGs, and if you don't count All-Stars or 64DS to be separate games then it goes down so idk. It's possible I've forgotten some too!

Wow I've played none of these. I'll get around to Village but three of the others are sony exclusive and I don't have a PS4/5 *shrug*

9.1

If anyone reading this hasn't played this game yet, please consider it if you like good twisty narratives and fun characters!

I was worried I wouldn't like this game at first, but the story is really well done and keeps getting better throughout. It's not perfect- there's some side characters that get tossed aside too early (Pewter), and some of the comedy misses pretty hard, mostly the pervy jokes and the like. But overall the central plot is really good, there's a ton of interesting fleshed out characters and the game pretty much sticks the landing with all its major plot threads. The dialogue is great (aside from dodgy jokes here and there) and the multiple routes stuff all works. I had a great time with these characters and I look forward to the sequel!

Well, Elsewhere Forest is a bizarre stage! Not at all what I expected. The foggy framework area is fine but the main draw of this level is its weird seasonal gimmick. I haven't figured out the key to this one yet, I don't know what triggers which season you get and there's a bunch of puzzles that I have no idea how to solve. But the pokemon are good and each seasonal area is nice and varied. Sawsbuck is a natural choice of course, and there's some interesting picks like Kecleon, Bewear and Serperior. Applin is a great surprise (I'm not very familiar with gen 8) though much like Minior it's too small for me to get good shots. I'm glad Trevenant is here, but I have to say it's not very intimidating in this game. Trev is the 'generic' wandering pokemon of this stage, so it doesn't really get a highlight. Not yet anyway, but I haven't got all the stars yet.

I was about to leave this stage but on my last run I saw the Winter theme for the first time, which introduces Gardevoir and Alolan Ninetales. There's clearly a lot of stuff going on here I've yet to discover! I suppose this counts as the Psychic course of the game.

Off to the Illumina stage, and it's Milotic! Gonna be honest, Milo isn't a fav of mine by any means, but this stage is a nice change of pace. Milotic is the first Illumina since Meganium who is friendly and non-aggressive, which is why I feel pretty bad throwing fruit at it all the time >_> The music is good and there's a bigger variety of extra pokemon here than usual. I do have trouble getting good shots because of her body shape and the water aspect, but thankfully the game gives Illumina pics ridiculous point boosts so it's easy to get the diamond ranks. A good course, this is probs the Illumina stage that feels the most replayable.

Our reward is a Turbo boost, which will hopefully come in really handy in all the past areas. We unlock a snowy island which Mirror claims is the final location, but looking at what we still have left to do I'm thinking we have a few more levels to go yet. I still haven't unlocked the other variants of Beach and Reef, and I know from the medals page that there's plenty of types I haven't maxed out yet, and all the Eeveelutions to come. (I imagine Glaceon will be in the snow stage and Vaporeon will be in Beach or Reef, but that still leaves Jolt and Umbreon that I haven't seen yet) Much to do!

Give it to poka

Robin

Ryu is the original and superior contest meme

Nominate:

1. The Forgotten City (assuming it's eligible)
2. New Pokemon Snap
3. Cyber Shadow

The gameplay is very dated, but it's still a fun time. The remake could be years away and it'll likely be an entirely different game, so I say go for it if you can handle the dice-rolling style of combat!

Didn't get to play much today, but I did do the next Illumina spot. Aw yeah Volcarona! Volc briefly crossed my mind when I was thinking what it could be, but I dismissed it as something too unintimidating for them to pick. That'll teach me to underestimate these devs! I've never played BW/BW2 but Volcarona is probs my fav pokemon from that gen, and she looks great here. We even have two of them doing all sorts of beautiful acrobatics!

I'm not usually bothered by the professor limitations but Illumina tracks are so long with only a single (or a handful of) pokemon in them, it is annoying that you can only present one photo at the end of the trip. IMO they should've altered that rule for these courses so you can at least present one of each star category for the main pokemon. This course is actually pretty decent (cool music too) but Illumina levels will always have that black mark against them, knowing that dozens of the photos we're taking are gonna be 100% useless. Still this was a fun time, and we've now unlocked a new route through the lab.

oh there were two ulti posts, I see. ah well!

oh whoops. If I'd known Shonen's post was a save I would've gotten PP, my bad.

farewell bear and bird

Time to tip the scales!

Robin

Ah I missed your earlier post, sorry for making you repeat yourself! I looked back at OG Borderlands and it missed out on the GotY poll entirely, despite finishing second here: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/3724-best-of-2009-best-new-original-title

So yeah I guess I underrated how well the franchise did here, I know it's an action RPG but so is like... Far Cry, which has pretty much no presence on the site I believe.

Looking at the 2012 polls a bunch of great games failed to make the overall GotY poll :( And FFXIII-2 only finished 5th in the JRPG poll lol https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/4958-best-of-2012-best-role-playing-game-japanese

The only nintendo contender in CoD's year was NSMB Wii, and the only FF was The After Years. I think it just got lucky there. Borderlands 2 beating Xenoblade and ME3 is a weirder win for me, yeah nobody played Xeno yet and ME3 had the ending debacle but still... Borderlands? Well I haven't played it so I can't judge >_>

And to be fair to FFXV, 2016 was a weaker year.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6574-best-of-2016-game-of-the-year

I'd vote Stardew from that batch myself!

UF8 posted...

Personally looking forward to Retro Game Aliens and all the enhanced versions of things that were in the Yokaze Night game showcase last month the most I think.

You're always full of games I've never heard of lol, I'm impressed! More stuff for me to look up >_>

The last time Smash bros lost a game of the year poll: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/776-best-of-2001-overall-game-of-the-year

Edit: FFVIII's dominance in 99 was ridiculous, wow: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/38-the-best-of-1999-game-of-the-year

Whew, two great tracks today! First up is the Sands, which has the advantage of being home to several of my favourite pokemon. I love deserts in this series, they don't seem to get the credit they deserve sometimes. Here we have roaming Hippowdon, Heliolisk that look much better in this game than in any other I've seen them in, rolling Sandshrew, Cacnea (a pet fav of mine, though I don't see Cacturne around unfortunately), and plenty more. The little guys are getting tossed around by sandstorms and the bigger pokemon all over this course, poor things! An oasis in the middle helps give this area a distinct structure so it doesn't feel like we're aimlessly roaming over sand dunes. Actually you can probably split this course into four areas which flow into each other nicely.

There are two big guns here who are fond of Sandstorm: Tyranitar, who is appropriately beastly in using Rock Smash and outscaring the Lycanroc, and Flygon! Fly has always been one of my all time favs, and I'm really glad it gets centre stage here. I love the noises it makes, how it flies all around the course after you trigger it, its interactions with the lil Trapinch, everything. Yay Flygon!

The night version of this course adds a cool atmospheric twist in the form of Minior. I would never have thought of this, but it works really nicely. Though I have no idea how to get a good photo of them, they're too small! It's worth it for the vibes regardless, having shooting stars falling down and then ascending back to the sky at the end is great. Also there's a herd of Onixes that makes me very glad this tiny vehicle is invincible. And I'm pretty unfamiliar with Silicobra but it looks cool, I haven't figured out all of its tricks yet.

The second course today is the Volcano, which isn't quite as fire heavy as I expected. First off it opens with Altaria, another 3rd gen fav of mine (love its song here!), and Luxray. The prehistoric theme helps give the course character- I'm not a big fan of any of these three dino pokes but together they work nicely, and I'm growing quite fond of Archeops from how it's displayed here. I like that we slowly descend into the volcano, though I may prefer the external bits overall with the hot spring and jagged mountain edges etc. Inside we have all the usual fiery suspects, but we get cut off at the end because of a collapsed door. Hm, was this intended to be longer, will we get more content here, or is it just some added flavour? We'll see!

In Level 2 we enter a cool looking blue magma room, and unlock this region's Illumina area. Hm, a fire type deep under the mountain... Heatran? They've avoided legendaries so far though... Darmanitan maybe? They could use its zen mode gimmick or something.

This course also gives us a few more starters- I really did not expect Typhlosion, partially because we already had Meganium and partially because they've had trouble animating its fire in 3D in the past lol. It looks good though! We also have Charmander and Zard, and Monferno. Chimchar's line is one of my least fav in all of pokemon, but I'll admit there is something charming about Monferno monkeying around with all these huge badass pokemon fighting for territory. We've now had quite a few starters from the first 4 and 8th generations, but nothing from 5-7. Weird.

Also now is a good time to note, is it just me or does this game have a real lack of middle-stage pokemon? We have Monferno and Graveler here but overall it seems to be sticking to first and third stages.

Next up we have the fire Illumina and a foggy forest area high in the mountains, that one sounds very promising! Great tracks today though.

Piranha Plant

Hm, I feel like a bump.

Bought Overboard btw, look forward to playing that :) And I will of course get Outer Wilds if/when the DLC ever goes on sale.

pjbasis posted...

Resident Evil wears many faces but they're all hot

Uh... I think the RE franchise has a couple less than hot entries myself!

If nothing else, this topic has made me start listening to Devil Trigger again like it's 2018, so thanks for that!

BotW > RE2 >> SSBU

Haven't played the others yet, will be playing Dread soon though! RE2make and BotW are both excellent games fully deserving of a title. Smash is a very good game but I'm not as into it as others are, I don't think it really did anything amazing honestly.

Oh yeah, Illumina levels are way better than the rainbow from the original. I don't dislike them or anything, they're just a bit long for how empty they are and a clear downgrade from the regular levels. And you can only present one of your shots so they do kinda drag on repeat runs!

-hotdogturtle-- posted...

I like Wishiwashi as an Illumina because it pretty much accomplishes what Pokemon S/M was wanted to do with its Totem Wishiwashi but failed due to lack of detail. But true also, the level itself is kind of bad for playing. Not enough visual landmarks to tell where you are, and very few side Pokemon.

Yeah this is a good point, they do handle Wishiwashi well. A shame the level (by design) has little else going on. But it is impressive seeing them swarm together and form the big fish in the darkness.

Kenri posted...

Vespiquen 3* is notoriously difficult to get in the regular Nature Park but is just handed to you in Secret Side Path. So yeah this was almost definitely something they did intentionally lol

Paratroopa1 posted...

I do feel like it makes it almost too easy to get shots of Emolga and a couple other Pokemon but whatever, it's fine.

Lol I'm not complaining, some of these pokemon are tough to get good shots of! It is funny though, the main level has these requests merely hinting at Vespiquen's existence but then the side level has her prancing around in plain sight the whole time. Glad to know my suspicions were right on that one.

The lab level definitely has a ton of stuff I haven't figured out yet, there's more there than I expected considering you're just walking in a circle.

Yeah the eShop lists Advance Wars' date as 8th April. Weird that Nintendo hasn't made a formal announcement, maybe they worry it might need another delay, but it definitely counts as official!

xp1337 posted...

a 2010 game that never got released overseas

despite being in the middle of a continuity heavy series

Ah, I see. How... odd. Did they just skip over it and port a later entry? Lol.

I'm glad everyone else likes Lental Seafloor as much as I do! I spend probably far too long there today as there's so much to do. I can now make Clawitzer shoot water on command, unfortunately for the Qwilfish. I get the boulder broken in Lv2 and I've maxed out the photography level, but there's still so much I haven't figured out here.

I force myself to move onto the Illumina level, which turns out to be Wishiwashi. Ah well, I can't win them all! I was betting that the Illumina were all gonna be ancient pokemon to fit with all the ruins, but gameplaywise Wishiwashi makes a fair amount of sense I guess. The Level 2 version of this track is much cooler as it winds up with me being swallowed whole by the fish! Still it's a pretty empty level overall.

Our reward for facing down the next Illumina pokemon is a new level- the lab! This reminds me of all those fun bonus levels you used to get in the ps1 era of games as a reward for 100%ing everything, but here it's randomly handed to us in the middle of the game. Hey, I'm not complaining! The professor has some secret noises coming from his bedroom (hm...), there's a pokemon hiding under the wood, Sudowoodo is doing its thing (nothing is making it move atm), Bunnelby is playing whack-a-rabbit, and Cutiefly is here! I get a really nice shot of Cutiefly for a request, this is a great little bonus level. I reiterate that this feels like it should be a postgame reward, but I'm happy to see it either way.

*dlc spoilers i think in the next paragraph*

Next up I head back to the Nature Park, and discover the Secret Side Path. Yes, Professor Mirror has created technology that can shrink humans to a tiny size, and we are using it to take closeup shots of Wurmple and a Bidoof's backside. This is fun, Dodrio is a menace as always and there's a nice cameo from Snorlax and Shroomish, though in general I get the feeling they arranged this level so people can have an easier time getting shots of Emolga and Vespiquen lol. I still haven't triggered Vespiquen in the main level >_> It's a nice extra, I wish it had some more new pokemon but then I guess this isn't a full level and the real prize is this track making it into the game at all.

I unlock regular Nature Park Lv3 too, and get the cutest shot of a Bidoof smiling behind me on the dam. There's a pokemon in the dam (surely Bibarel), but it's not coming out :(. Love the detail of one of Dodrio's heads waking the others up, and when it watches the Bouffalant fight it doesn't bother waking them. This game has so much stuff!

Tomorrow I will definitely finally play the Desert, I promise. Probably.

I completely understand and probs agree with that, they could've used that twist to push his personal development or to reveal what the game's trying to say on a deeper level rather than simply stopping the story right there. Hopefully we'll get some kind of continuation in the future because there's so much good swirling around in that game, I'd hate for it to not be explored some more.

Yeah I liked this game but the puzzles got pretty difficult for me and I had to look up more and more as I went along, it can be pretty brutal!

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

I do think it could benefit a lot from the DLC release, but less for the simple closure of resolving plot threads and...I dunno, it just feels like the game is missing something and is just short of greatness. It's a well told story but I honestly don't have any huge takeaways from it.

Yeah this is a good point, it does feel like there's a piece missing in a way, though I'm very fond of all the pieces the game already has.
Agree about the gameplay+narrative integration too!

Bowser won a Best Video Game Character contest on this board just last year, he would absolutely be the most boring winner imo!

I guess I find Robin kinda interesting because of their playstyle in Smash, but as a character yeah they're meh.

I thought Leon's good news was going to be Bug Fables tbh

Wow, from Shulk onwards this has been a disaster for eliminations! Not that I can complain. PP is the only fun choice left, and Robin would be interesting I guess. I just hope it's not a snooze Bowser v Pyra finals at this point.

I didn't include Trails as I looked and saw it was a port of a 2010 game, but I guess that's a big deal for those in the fanbase!

_Keeby posted...

I voted Kirby since Advance Wars wasnt mentioned at all.

Advance Wars has a date of April 8th

Snake5555555555 posted...

My rough top ten right now

I'd never heard of some of these before, Outlast Trials looks interesting and Atomic Heart sounds really cool if it's done well.

'Other' includes but is not limited to: AI Nirvana Initiative, Avatar, Baldur's Gate, DQX Offline, Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising, Evil Dead, Gotham Knights, Hogwarts Legacy, Kerbal 2, Mario+Rabbids, MH Rise Sunbreak, Oxenfree 2, Prince of Persia, Redfall, River City Girls 2, Scorn, Sea of Stars, Slime Rancher 2, Somerville, Sonic Frontiers, System Shock.

Bonus Q: How many of these games will actually release this year?

Sorry for not including your fav in the top 9, there are simply too many video games.

Ha, I was working on a companion topic to this for 2022 games without a date, but there's so many idk if I can squash it down to 9, jeez.

CasanovaZelos posted...

I also have no faith in Starfield actually coming out that day

Well... yeah, I can see it going either way. Weird that they gave a hard date so long in advance though.

Yeah I mainly wanted to exclude games that could easily be delayed out of the year, I thought about including Q2 games like Kirby but we've seen pretty much nothing of it and I figure there's a reason they haven't even given it a month yet.

Surprised Forspoken has no votes, I know little about it but Project Athia was a big deal at one point I thought. Also lol at Starfield, Bethesda does not hold much appeal these days I guess!

I pop back into the other courses for a while- hi Sobble, Venusaur and Blastoise! Looks like there'll be more starters than I thought, and I don't believe for a second that the Charmander line won't be in here somewhere. There's still so many things in the older courses that I haven't figured out yet, agh!

Time to go below the surface. If anyone had any lingering concerns that this game may be pandering to fan favourites, the Undersea course would surely put an end to that. Smash hit beloved pokemon Luvdisc, Lumineon, Cradily and Qwilfish star here, and the only gen 1 type around (aside from the token Karp) is Tentacruel of all things! Wailmer starts a beautiful whale song that I later realise is a taunt at Octillery, Cradily 'dances' endearingly, the Clawitzers have an epic anime style fight against each other, Qwilfish puffs up and deflates, it's all fun. I particularly like that they give Tentacruel a cute dance here, really playing against type choosing that over a more typically 'elegant' pokemon.

As much as I'm enjoying myself, it does feel a bit of a waste that it's just the reef environment again but we're underwater now. The title calls it 'Lental Seafloor' but we're just in the shallows, there's not really much here that couldn't have been on the surface... That was seriously gonna be my big complaint, but then I start Level 3, take a sidetrack, and wow.

I did not see such an elaborate side trail coming- Inkay is here spraying ink! I initially think Chinchou is preying on them, but a repeat run has me see Inkay use Hypnosis on the Chinchou. That's so cool! Lanturn is here, everything is dark, Starmie and Clamperl lie on the sandy sea floor almost entirely covered, a bunch of fish swim frantically away from what turns out to be another Wailord while a couple of Frillish watch from the sidelines, this is everything I wanted!

I could go on and on about this, it's so good. We've said already how neat it is seeing pokemon move in their natural environments, and that goes double for the underwater pokemon that in the main games are only ever seen stood on land, or weirdly floating in the air like the fish do in battle. I don't usually care about Clamperl but seeing it swim away from a Lumineon like an actual clam is amazing. And Golisopods are here on the bottom level training amongst the ancient ruins! They could have easily made this an entire separate course with the amount of new stuff that's in this side path, but I'm glad they didn't. This way it's a really fun surprise that keeps giving. And judging by a couple of cryptic comments from the professor/Todd and the requests, there's more here that I haven't seen yet.

Next up we have another Illumina course, which will wait til tomorrow. Hm, a pokemon on the sea floor that we haven't seen yet... my mind instantly goes to Relicanth, which is an unappreciated pokemon in the same way Meganium is, is pretty large and totally fits the 'ancient' vibe. Either of Clamperl's evos would fit too, but I'll have to wait and see!

Wiki says Advance Wars has a date of April 8th. I considered putting that on the shortlist (I'm anticipating it myself) but I figured a remake of GBA games wouldn't be that popular, clearly that was a mistake! It was difficult picking 9 to narrow this to.

I thought Elden Ring would dominate but I'm glad to be wrong. I'd like Arceus to be great but... my expectations aren't very high >_>

Truly dreadful, but it got so bad that it became hilarious to watch by the end. Still a hard 1.

Sorry Zelda and Ragnarok, if you're probably not coming out this year then you're not on the list!

8, I really dig this game. I think the ending is actually strong, not everything needs perfect closure.
I prefer to ignore the mid-credits sting, the flashback is all you need imo.

Oh and also an 8 for Firewatch, I just beat that and loved the vibes and script. I will say the ending of that one could've done with some more substance, but then it is kinda the point to be what it is I guess.

I love the art myself and think it works great on a cover! This is maybe the 2022 game I'm most excited for, I really hope it delivers.

They clearly have trouble coming up with good names but that doesn't mean the game's writing will be bad, if anything it makes this the true successor to FFT!

R1: 5
DMC5, Kid Icarus Uprising, FFVIIR, NieR, Splatoon 2.
Not too bad considering I've only played one of those 5. Though I've played several of the games I didn't get >_>

R2: 15
a) MP2, SMK, incorrectly guessed Banjo-Tooie and didn't get the connection.
b) I correctly got the theme but got all the games wrong lol. I picked SA2 and for some inexplicable reason I had DKC instead of Mario 64, I knew it was a file select screen though.
c) Nothing at all.
d) BABA YETU (Civ IV)
e) Chrono Cross, mistakenly guessed SSB 64, Wind Waker, got the theme.

R3: 18
Gato (love that you put that one in here), Gumshoe, Shadow, Doomslayer, Groose, Gilgamesh.
I picked Andy instead of Sami. Instantly recognised FFT but I don't know which track belongs to who so I foolishly picked Agrias there. I guessed that the Mewtwo one was a pokemon boss fight so I took a stab with Cyrus. Annoyed with myself for not getting Jecht.

R4: 9
Fludd, Otacon, Sans.
I didn't play WotL but still annoyed I didn't pick up on Delita from the lines. Guessed Travis Touchdown instead of Leon.

R5: 21
Gangplank Galleon (DKC), Eyes on Me (FFVIII), Let's Dance Boys (Bayo), Never Forget (Halo 3), Fire Emblem Three Houses.
Went with Sonic Colours instead of Unleashed (I love you Crush 40 but some of those tracks sound very similar!), and almost picked P3 but I convinced myself the baby babys were wrong so went with SA2 thinking it was a Rouge track.

Thanks for doing this, it was very fun and infuriating! I did better than I expected but I'm annoyed with myself for missing several ones I should have gotten. Although I did luck out on several I haven't even played by just going off of vibes.

The beach is my least fav course yet, I may be missing something here but it doesn't feel like there's very much going on. Nice to see Wingull, Octillery and Stunfisk though, and I didn't expect Alolan Raichu (what are you doing here?!). Also how can I get perfect direction score on Exeggutor when its faces are all looking different ways D: The night time mode of this stage isn't unlocking right now, so maybe it'll all come together later on. I get the feeling those sand lumps are probably Palossands but I'm not sure how to trigger them or get Pika to use the shovel.

Now Reef on the other hand, I loved. WAILORD!!! I was unreasonably happy seeing him splash out of the water and make whale noises lol. Pelipper is also a weird fav of mine, I tend to love the early game birds so this is all going very well for me so far. The flying Mantine are cool (though not easy to photo well), and I was surprised at how... bloodthirsty this level is, despite its chill appearance. Sharpedo attacking everything that moves, Wingull flying away with a Finneon, and a gang of Mareanie gutting Corsola! I know I put Toxapex murdering someone in my list but I didn't expect it to actually happen, jesus lol. Poor Corsola :(

It took me a couple of tries to realise that Sharpedo is actually racing Machamp, not hunting him down. That's sweet. I've unlocked the undersea one but I'm trying to pace myself so that can wait til tomorrow!

that top 5 suspense