Cleared the main game (Episodes 1-3) and some of the Bonus stages. Might come back later to do the rest but not sure.
I liked the game but it has some annoying issues. I mentioned last week how it forces you to replay the same stage multiple times and kills the pacing, but there's also inconsistency in the quality of the stages - I think the slower-paced, more puzzle-focused ones are great, but the more action-focused ones can get very frustrating.
The compact nature of the stages make the camera get "in your way" very often, which can be a major pain when you're rushing to escape enemies or raising lava. Also, these action-focused stages often give you a single chance to get Gems or Pixel Toads, forcing you to restart on small mistakes and adding to the repetition problem I mentioned above.
I've been wanting to replay Atelier Sophie 2 but my backlog doesn't allow me, so I decided to compromise and get this DLC that was sitting in my wishlist.
It's a prologue to the main story, showing Plachta's arrival in Erde Wiege, her first adventure in that world alongside Ramizel and Diebolt, and how she got her Atelier. It also gives small bits of backstory for Plachta and Ramizel (mainly about their relationship with alchemy) that I don't recall being in the main game.
Gameplay-wise you just go around the Atelier, main city, and one (fairly large) area with a boss at the end. Clearing this unlocks this area in the main game and a couple of extra recipes.
Overall it's too short for its cost, but it was a reminder of how good Atelier Sophie 2 is - alchemy and combat are top-tier, the fantastic and colorful world is fun to explore, and it has a great balance of chill/slice-of-life and story moments.
Good progress this week, reached Chapter 12 of 21.
This game gives me very strong TLOU vibes - it focuses on a growing parent/daughter relationship between the two leads as they travel through a ravaged land. However, this one goes for a more sci-fi approach - the father figure is Jude, a courier tasked with escorting a "newborn" android called Philia through forests and ruins of the collapsed human civilization.
The worldbuild is pretty damn good here. There's a lot of details in how humans survive in this post-apocalyptic age, including its dangers like leftover war machines or tribes of humans who have gone feral. But you also get some glimpses at the past - one of my favorite chapters has the duo going through the remains of megalopolis while they figure out the conflicts that caused the collapse of its society.
There's a post in the NSCollectors reddit front page joking that they "love GKCs"... because it's ending all FOMO for collecting and making them save money.
I collect physical games so in my case they're the worst parts of physical and digital combined and I'd rather consider them "digital only" releases... and since I only buy digital games heavily discounted any game announced in this model has a 1+ year delay for me.
It's the main reason I'm not buying a S2 anytime soon... not worth it for the small number of physical exclusives I can play right now.
Definitely getting Katamari, though it looks like it's digital-only so I'll probably wait for a sale. Adventures of Elliot also looks really interesting! It's Switch 2 only so I won't be able to try the demo, but I'll keep my eye on this one.
Absolute shame on Sega/Atlus for not including the DLC on the P3R release. (Edit: Looks like it'll be a full price release, GKC and doesn't include the DLC... Sega/Atlus absolutely trying to milk Switch 2 suckers players).
Agree, though a system update forcing a game update before you can play an offline game that was working before is very unusual and I can understand some confusion around it.
I wonder if these games with "mandatory" updates do it immediately when you go online even if you haven't played them in a while? Because the Switch 1 only updated games if they were in the front screen or you manually forced an update.
If they don't this gets significantly worse - there's no good way (AFAIK) to track which games on have been updated on the Switch, so keeping your games updated is a massive PITA if you have a big collection as you're effectively forced to go "Check for updates" one by one from time to time. But at least for the previous console you could always play them without updating so there was no major harm in having your games on an old version.
but there are some comical dialogues or descriptions
Date's silliness was one of my favorite parts of the game, I laughed really hard at some parts. And as you said it makes an interesting contrast to the darker storyline.
Completed Episodes 1 and 2, and I'm now halfway through Episode 3. Getting all Gems/Challenges/Pixel Toads before moving to a new stege.
I'm enjoying the game, but I really wish it respected your time better. There's no reason to hide the Challenge before you complete the stage once, nor to force to enter again to find the Pixel Toad - all of these should be available on the first run. Having to repeat stages for these also hurts the pacing of the game.
I cleared the first world of Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
Looks like there's three, with the last one being shorter longer than the other two. (Edit: Reached Episode 3 and it's clearly much longer than the others).
Though I don’t think it’s a pure VN, more of an adventure game
Been almost an year since I last played a Studio Key Kinetic Novel, and I've heard a lot of praise for this entry.
And damn, this is one of the best-looking VNs I've seen - there's a lot of CGs and the artstyle is beautiful (check the screenshots on Nintendo's page for some samples). I think only Witch on the Holy Night impressed me more in this aspect (which is a game I should resume... maybe after this one?).
Didn't get very far yet, only finished the first 3 chapters (of 20 or so total looking at the in-game list).
Current side-game. I completed the first "Episode" and I'm around 30% into the second. So far I have managed to 100% each stage before moving to the next.
Can someone explain where the assumption comes from that the sticks are definitely going to drift, just because they use potentiometers? I get that people got burned by the Switch 1 Joycons, but doesn’t pretty much every other gamepad ever (except perhaps a few specialty ones) also use that technology for the sticks?
Nobody really knows. But Nintendo remains silent on the topic, and combined with people looking into the controller and seeing the exacty same technology this raises a lot of concerns.
The fact that they made both Joycon and Pro Controller so much harder to repair also adds to this - one of the saving graces of the Switch 1 Joycons was how easy it was to repair. If we find out in a few months that drift remains a problem in this one it's going to be a far, far worse problem between higher costs for accessories and low repairability.
So while I agree there's plenty of speculation going on, I also think it's an important topic that should be heavily discussed so people are aware of the risks when purchasing the console.
I’ve personally never had any sticks develop drift
You're lucky. I've had two pairs of joycons drift (one of them twice) and also had this problem on both sticks of my Pro controller.
I'll probably buy a Switch 2 at some point in the future, but outside of handheld mode I'll just stick to my Switch 1 accessories which have all be modded with Hall Sticks.
A free DLC map was added to the game and I figured exploring it would be a good way to spend a couple hours. It also includes a short and cute storyline.
This one was great. I'm extremely impressed on how much it improves over its predecessor, feels like they are ten years apart instead of two.
It has some issues - pacing is slow, there's some repetitiveness in the middle of the routes, epilogue drags too much explaining everything in detail - but is still a game I can recommend for anyone who likes sci-fi VNs.
There's some really clever usage of the media, something that carries to later Uchikoshi games (Zero Escape and AI series), a strong cast, interesting mysteries that will have you thinking very hard trying to figure out what's going on, and good sci-fi elements.
I finished Ever 17 yesterday night right before sleeping, so I still have to decide what I'm going to play next. Likely continue going through the VN backlog.
Lula's popularity was also very low and it was a serious concern for next year's election.
We were already seeing some changes in discourse from his government to try to recover from it, and Trump just handled him a perfect opportunity to show some backbone and win back part of the electorate.
Metal Slug meets metroidvania, and it works surprisingly well! The developer really did a good job mixing elements of both games.
It does have some rough edges with the map design and lack of fast travel spots, I spent way too much time running around trying to figure out where I'm supposed to go, but the combat is fun enough to keep it entertaining even during those times.
I was expecting something more intense given the "trapped in a collapsing underwater theme park" premise, but there's a surprising amount of downtime in this one. But I'm not complaining since theses moments are being well used to develop the cast.
The mysteries keep growing, and with less than 24h before the park collapses I imagine I'm getting to the meat of the plot. Let's see if I can get at least my first ending this weekend.
Apologies for the double-post, but this is relevant: Monitors Unboxed posted a comparison video including several handheld devices: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKFYGv0Pb98
Finished Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker!!
Cleared the main game (Episodes 1-3) and some of the Bonus stages. Might come back later to do the rest but not sure.
I liked the game but it has some annoying issues. I mentioned last week how it forces you to replay the same stage multiple times and kills the pacing, but there's also inconsistency in the quality of the stages - I think the slower-paced, more puzzle-focused ones are great, but the more action-focused ones can get very frustrating.
The compact nature of the stages make the camera get "in your way" very often, which can be a major pain when you're rushing to escape enemies or raising lava. Also, these action-focused stages often give you a single chance to get Gems or Pixel Toads, forcing you to restart on small mistakes and adding to the repetition problem I mentioned above.
Finished Atelier Plachta (DLC for Atelier Sophie 2: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Dream)!
I've been wanting to replay Atelier Sophie 2 but my backlog doesn't allow me, so I decided to compromise and get this DLC that was sitting in my wishlist.
It's a prologue to the main story, showing Plachta's arrival in Erde Wiege, her first adventure in that world alongside Ramizel and Diebolt, and how she got her Atelier. It also gives small bits of backstory for Plachta and Ramizel (mainly about their relationship with alchemy) that I don't recall being in the main game.
Gameplay-wise you just go around the Atelier, main city, and one (fairly large) area with a boss at the end. Clearing this unlocks this area in the main game and a couple of extra recipes.
Overall it's too short for its cost, but it was a reminder of how good Atelier Sophie 2 is - alchemy and combat are top-tier, the fantastic and colorful world is fun to explore, and it has a great balance of chill/slice-of-life and story moments.
Playing Stella of the End!
Good progress this week, reached Chapter 12 of 21.
This game gives me very strong TLOU vibes - it focuses on a growing parent/daughter relationship between the two leads as they travel through a ravaged land. However, this one goes for a more sci-fi approach - the father figure is Jude, a courier tasked with escorting a "newborn" android called Philia through forests and ruins of the collapsed human civilization.
The worldbuild is pretty damn good here. There's a lot of details in how humans survive in this post-apocalyptic age, including its dangers like leftover war machines or tribes of humans who have gone feral. But you also get some glimpses at the past - one of my favorite chapters has the duo going through the remains of megalopolis while they figure out the conflicts that caused the collapse of its society.