Last Game You Finished And Your Four-ghts

Rum Rapture posted a really good review of A Short Hike a few pages back as well.

I don't think I could count all the games I completed in 2020. It must be over a hundred. I definitely completed 64 N64 games (still not done anything with those 20-odd reviews I left unposted) and between Switch, NES/SNES Online and Evercade I'll almost certainly have finished at least 36 more. There was a load of random retro stuff I played too. 

Quite a lot of these were under a 4/10!

Ubisoft are but said elsewhere and watching likes of Sterling, if I stayed on my high horse I'd wouldn't play anything as sure different degrees of being jerks but even Nintendo have been this year amongst others.

Without getting too bogged down in this when there are sub-4/10 games to discuss (as opposed to sub-4/10 companies), that's a very black-and-white view of things.  All companies are shades of murky grey, true.  That doesn't mean UbiSoft isn't the sort of grey you find on an orange in your fridge that's starting to learn to walk.

More importantly, though: Cappa makes a good point.  How come a game you thought was 'awful' gets a score slightly below average, Mas?  (5/10 for Superliminal incidentally is also pretty kind, but we've been through that before.)

oops we're discussing numbers again

It is a bit, I'm just going to balance it out by playing things like If Found... and I always use the charity link on Amazon, all those sort of things

GI Joe and Zombieland both are very much playable games, where I'd give something either totally broken or lazy eg FIFA 21 Legacy Edition lower scores than that

Cyberpunk 2077:

God, isn't it's box art just the worst? Could they have come up with anything more generic than a grubby white man holding a pistol?

Anyway, box art aside this is a good game. Now of course I'm playing this on a powerful computer and I haven't experienced any game breaking bugs, so your mileage may vary, but from what I've played this is a very good game.

Narratively it's a lot like a Victorian city, a Gordian knot of quest lines more tangled than a set of earphones you've found in the bottom of your bag. But this is a good thing. In most open world games, all paths lead a single final quest, an all-imposing narrative conclusion that oftentimes has bugger all to do with the myriad of side quests that radiate outwards from this central point. Some games make reference to the consequences of side quests, games like Mass Effect, but oftentimes side quests are nothing more than an inconsequential market stall, randomly shoved against the presence of the all imposing narrative edifice of the main quest. In other words, most open world games are built a bit like imposing Victorian monuments; Big Ben, Nelson's Column, testaments to an organised central power but with very little to do with the lifeblood of the streets that permeate the city itself.

Well Cyberpunk isn't much like that. I mean, it does have a main quest and it does also have a point of no return, and it even has an imposing tower, but the way that you get new quests feels a lot more down to earth; emergent from the ground up. For example, say you go through a side quest arc with one character. During this arc you'll meet a several new characters and occasionally, some of those characters will hit you up with requests of your own. All of this occurs in concurrence with your gradual accumulation of level ups and "street cred." Moreover, what you do in Night City does affect the ending.

This gives the game an unusual geometry. It's not so much that you go from town to town, gathering new quests at these hubs, before moving onto the next town and the final showdown without so much as a second thought about going back, as you would in a game like Skyrim. There's a more organic, natural, feel here. Of course, you can still stumble across new missions as you travel to different places and all that, but there's something different about the way Cyberpunk is structured that deserves some praise I think. I reached the game's Big Ben pretty quickly, but held off on taking the plunge for a good 20 hours or so because I kept getting new side quests that I wanted to do, all emergent from the path that I had chosen.

This game has a touch of class that the Witcher 3 did in terms of its characters too, all of whom are really well voiced. Unfortunately, within that 20 hour side quest binge before the end, I noticed a bit of a tired formula. The game just doesn't handle romance that well. It's a shame because Witcher 3 did this so much justice, making characters like Yen feel like active agents as opposed to the player's pawns, but here things feel much more like any other game. As in, pick your bride. There's also that uncomfortable thing a lot of games do where once you've romanced a character, they stop having anything interesting to say. Poor form. A lot of the romances are initiated in ways that aren't particularly great either. Not offensive or anything, just ham-fisted.

So character wise, is it up there with the Witcher? No. The main story is really bloody good and I thoroughly enjoyed it. There are some incredible side quests too, some of which are quite thought provoking. But there isn't the same consistency that the Witcher had with its characters. Where the game lets itself down really though, is in some of the gamey bits. The driving sucks, the melee is bad. Stealthy bits are generally alright, there's a good amount of tension although enemies are very stupid. The shooting is pretty good though, and I found myself often forgoing a stealthy approach so I could play with all the different guns I had. Of course the game looks beautiful, and the story is well structured, but beyond the scripted sections there isn't much substance to the city. It's kind of just there; a total air head. I really liked driving, crappy handling notwithstanding, taking in the sights at first, but you'll tire of that at some point.

So with all that said, Cyberpunk isn't good enough to trouble the likes of Witcher 3, or other classics. But it is still very good in its own right. It takes some interesting risks with its structure, and it backs that up with exciting shootouts and an engaging plotline. Everything else just isn't quite there, ranging from acceptable to bad, and so on that basis I would score it an 8/10.

Still worth a go if you're into this sort of game and have the right equipment, but not something that'll be cracking your top 20 list.

Not much to say about Cyberpunk that isn't dumping on CD Projekt Red, sorry!

masofdas wrote:

GI Joe and Zombieland both are very much playable games, where I'd give something either totally broken or lazy eg FIFA 21 Legacy Edition lower scores than that

Yep, you're just much kinder than me (apart from when it comes to 10/10s, natch).

So that’s Ty The Tasmanian Tiger HD finished, a moderately entertaining 3D platformer albeit one that lacks excitement and originality. Though platformers are my favourite genre, I’d always passed on these Ty games when I had the chance to snap them up on PS2/XBox/GameCube for a few quid each. Leave it to me to wait for a remaster that I didn’t really want and then pay a premium price for it…!

It’s clear that there was an audience for this though, as it was born from a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2019. And in all fairness, I could see why a lot of people backed that project. No doubt, Ty The Tasmanian Tiger has some real strengths to its name. Of these, it's it's personality that stands out: it's hard to describe, but it's very Australian. Drawing upon that, the game's setting and character design is fairly decent, and the same goes for its visuals and sound. You’d likely have good memories of all these things if you grew up with Ty The Tasmanian Tiger, I’d imagine. 

There's nothing I really dislike about Ty The Tasmanian Tiger. True, it's controls are twitchy and many aspects of its design philosophy are dated. Sadly, this is one of those 3D platformers that takes a 'more is more' kind of approach, with its needlessly huge levels and stupid volume of collectables. This HD remake should have found ways to better address this, but at least it doesn’t become as bloated as Banjo-Tooie or Donkey Kong 64. 

As a whole, there’s no individual thing about the game itself that drags it down. Rather, it's the fact that you had plenty of better 3D platforming options back when Ty The Tasmanian Tiger was first released in 2002, and the fact that you've got many even better 3D platforming options nineteen years later.

On a scale of Bubsy 3D to Super Mario Galaxy, this sits at Croc 2. 6/10.

I still have recurring nightmares about DK64. An UbiSoft game before UbiSoft games were a thing.



Sam & Max Save the World Remastered is the best traditional point-and-click adventure game I've played.  Not the best point-and-click game outright, dear God no, but the best traditional one.  That's much higher praise than it would have been even a year or so ago.  Point-and-clicks live and die on their writing and their lack of frustration, and Sam & Max Season 1, as it's also known, comes agonisingly close to nailing both counts.

It's relentlessly funny, is Sam & Max.  Sometimes in a laugh-out-loud kind of way, with one-liners and gag moments to rival the best.  Sometimes in a kind of way that'll make you pull a face: a moment at the end of episode 5 springs to mind.  Sometimes in a, 'What the hell's going on here?' kind of way, but never too much: the surrealism never gets in the way of coherence, and never outstays its welcome.  The characters are well-written on the whole, from the creepy cult leader who vomits rainbows to the paranoid shop-owner with his own missile defence system.  Sam, in particular, is excellent, a straight man in a mad world with just enough craze to hold his own.  It's fully voice-acted, natch, and the voice acting is grand almost throughout.  

Sadly, the game doesn't quite avoid the trap of the irritating character that spoils the fun for a bit.  At first I thought this would be Max, the hyperactive psychotic rabbit-thing who accompanies you, but for the most part Sam keeps him in check.  The Soda Poppers, squeaky-voiced partly-grown-up ex-child stars, aren't so lucky.  Their voices grate and their characters are annoying.  Luckily they don't show up frequently enough to ruin things.  Oh, and I haven't mentioned the mostly excellent musical numbers.

As for the gameplay, it's split up into six episodes.  Each one is centred around Sam & Max's street, with one or maybe two other locations.  Each episode's small landmass means that for most of the game, you're never stuck wondering what the hell you're meant to be using on what.  Playing with The Lady, we got through the vast majority of puzzles without consulting a walkthrough: considering our low patience, that says something pretty complimentary about the logic the game employs for its puzzles.  Unfortunately the game loses that a bit on the more expansive final episode, when we did have to resort to a walkthrough because of something the game doesn't want to show you for more than a second.  A shame.  Also, the ending's a bit subdued for such an anarchic story.

Still, for 90% of its run time, Sam & Max is a delight.  I can't imagine it's worth picking up if you had the original on Wii, for all that it's prettier; but it's a thoroughly recommended purchase if you haven't.  (Besides, apparently the remaster recast the shopkeeper, who's black, with a black man, as well as redoing some of the 'edgier jokes'.  This, naturally, upset all the right people.  Contributing financially to pissing off the 'UnCeNsOr MuH vIdEoGaMez' crowd is worth it on its own, wouldn't you say?)

Sam & Max Save The World is probably the sort of game I'd get the same enjoyment from watching on YouTube as I'd get playing it for myself.

~



If you’ve never heard of it, FUZE for Nintendo Switch is basically a coding community for anybody to create their own homebrew games using an asset library. Even though it’s designed to be as simple and user-friendly as possible, the app just isn’t for me because I'm just clueless with that type of thing. However, FUZE Player took my interest. That’s because it’s essentially a showcase for twenty-seven of the ‘best’ games that have been created using the FUZE toolkit. It’s also only 89p - that’s just under 3.3p per game! I thought about reviewing all twenty-seven of it’s games, but in all honesty it’s mostly basic stuff that was likely designed by folk who were making their very first game. There’s a few standouts though:

• If there’s one game that attracted me to FUZE Player, it was Fast Food Dizzy, a remake of the late 80s game by The Oliver Twins themselves. It’s an accomplished and engaging maze-style game that comfortably provides, er, 89p’s worth of entertainment by itself.
  

• 3D Crazy Shooter is essentially Space Harrier, but instead of dragons and monsters attacking you you’ve got random objects like houses, fillet steaks and Christmas trees coming at you. It’s a well-playing game with a likeable personality - good stuff.
  

• In the midst of all the space shooters on here (there’s even a game called Yet Another Space Shooter), Vecroids is my favourite. It’s a geometic shooter with vector graphics - in other words, it’s the Kwik-Save version of Geometry Wars. Nowt wrong with Kwik-Save mind.
  

• Fuzeotron 2020 is a tribute to Robotron 2084, and it’s not a bad one either. So long as the movement and shooting are accurate, you really can’t arse up a game like Robotron 2084. 
  

• FUZE Fit Adventure is a fairly rudimentary rhythm-action game that lets you use the Ring Fit Adventure Ring-Con! If you don’t own that, the instructions suggest that you can “simply jam a Joy-Con down one of your socks”. 
  

Overall, it's entertaining stuff, well worth 89p. 8/10.

It's... very strange to see a revamp of the Dizzy franchise, from the original team, made using FUZE of all things.  Sounds quality though!

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

Sam & Max Save The World is probably the sort of game I'd get the same enjoyment from watching on YouTube as I'd get playing it for myself.

I was actually thinking how you'd get on with it, Cappa, as I put that post together.  I know you often don't care for overly wordy games, but I also know you're keen on good humorous stuff.  While I can't pretend to know how you'd find the humour, I can't imagine you'd hate it.  As for the YouTube thing, I always feel these story beats are more rewarding when you experience/earn them for yourself, but maybe you're not the same.  

Anyway, for people who do like point-and-clicks (Jim?) it's mint.

Sam and Max is the next thing I'm playing when I finally finish Hyrule Warriors, from what I played of Season 1 back in the day I can confirm it's good stuff.

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

“simply jam a Joy-Con down one of your socks”. 

After using the Ring Fit I can imagine this is probably a better option, the leg strap is rubbish.

1st game of the year finished and on Stadia of all my systems, as Figment is one of the four Pro games (Like Plus or Gold) in January which is a decent line up (have been for a while but only so much time).

As Figment is on the short'ish side about 5hrs, it was the sort of pickup do in two sessions game I needed after AC Valhalla. Till Figment come to Stadia, I've not really heard of it but now looking it is on PC, PS4, Switch, Mobile (reviewed okay like 75 on Meta) that be easy to check out this isometric puzzle platformer, which does lean on the it's an indie so emotions but does it in fun way with a musical set in a mind (I got Psychonauts vibes even though I've never played that).

My expectations were low for WWE 2K Battlegrounds. While the previews made it look appealingly colourful and cartoony, 2K Sports’ record with wrestling games is utterly miserable in my opinion. Adding to that, I didn’t think that the game’s developer - Saber Interactive – did a great job with NBA 2K Playgrounds 2, WWE 2K Battleground’s basketball equivalent. Yet I thought that this looked stylised and flashy enough to at least provide some light entertainment, and to be at least worth a look at the twenty quid I paid for it.

If 'light entertainment' is all it set out to deliver, then 2K Battlegrounds just about meets that goal. I like that there’s DNA from other wrestling games in 2K Battlegrounds’ blood. It has a control scheme that’s a bit like a stripped-back version of WWE 2K20, the over-the-top presentation of WWE All Stars, the countering system from WWE Day of Reckoning and the button-mashing elements from basically any wrestling game from before AKI Corporation got the WCW license. These aspects of the wrestling games from the past come together to make for something that can occasionally be quite good fun. The weapons and stage hazards boost that core gameplay in some interesting ways too. For example, there’s an alligator that you can feed your opponent to on the Everglades arena, and a ram you can control to chase and gore your opponent with on the Mexico arena. I’d have loved this type of stuff when I was younger as it’s naturally quite a daft game that’s mostly played for laughs. I think this is the way WWE games should be, and in this sense, I much prefer 2K Battlegrounds to anything that's been shat out in the 'proper' WWE 2K series so far.

However, as a whole I didn’t enjoy it very much. WWE 2K Battleground’s major drawback is its lack of moves and lack of distinct play styles. Besides their signature and finishing manoeuvres, each character only has a moveset that’s exclusively within their own bracket. So, High-Flyers like Kofi Kingston, Shawn Michaels and Carmella all have the exact same grapples, throws, punches and kicks, same goes for Technicians like AJ Styles, Bret Hart and Nikki Bella (!), and so on. Everybody is essentially a reskin of somebody else but with a different finisher. Power-ups that change the gameplay  - such as invincibility, unblockable strikes and lightning bolts that rain from the sky  – distract from this basicness a little bit, but not enough. I remember Acclaim advertising that WWF Warzone had ‘over 300 moves!’ back in 1998: I genuinely don’t think that WWE 2K Battlegrounds even has that many. Due to these limitations with the combat and its lack of variety, WWE 2K Battlegrounds becomes very repetitive very quickly. There’s a permanent waft of unfinishedness that comes from 2K Battlegrounds, and that’s not only because there’s so few moves, but because it’s riddled with all sorts of bugs and glitches and indefensibly stupid AI moments. It’s pure WrestleCrap at times, it needed more playtesting.

Then there’s the issue of its microtransactions. Truthfully, I don’t think they’re as intrusive or in-your-face here as they are in many other modern-day games. That said, if you’re wanting to unlock everything but aren’t willing to pay the money for the additional skills, abilities, outfits and characters that you don’t unlock in the Campaign mode, be prepared to grind for a very long time. Based on it’s currency system, I think you’d need to win around 25 matches to earn enough tokens to ‘buy’ one of the game’s ‘Legendary’ characters like Ronda Rousey or Hulk Hogan. Or you could just pay about £4 to get one of them straight away. Remember, that’s just one example, and know that there’s dozens of unlockable wrestlers in this game. Many characters are cheaper than this rate, but they’d still require a lot of playtime in a game that I’ve already described as ‘very repetitive’. Oh, and Ronda Rousey and Hulk Hogan are both Brawlers by the way. Think about that.

Admittedly, I think you can still eek out enough without having to pay anything above what you’d buy the game for itself. As a base game, there’s still an OK amount of content. It has a decent Campaign mode, there’s several online tournaments on the go at once, you still start off with folk with Roman Reigns, Bray Wyatt and Rey Mysterio, and there’s been free DLC like Goldberg, Trish Stratus and The Street Profits. Not every character is locked behind this paywall so to speak. Still, it’s an aggressive microtransactions system that blocks off a huge chunk of the game. It absolutely shouldn’t be part of WWE 2K Battlegrounds at all.

It’s worth repeating that there’s a fun game in here somewhere. But for me, it needs to be more than it is to be truly worth your while. I’d be up for WWE 2K Battlegrounds 2, but it would need an expanded class system, more varied wrestling, much smarter AI and for those microtransactions to well and truly get to fuck. Until then, this will only sort-of do – and only if you’re into your wrestling games and only if it’s around a tenner. 5/10.

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

There’s a permanent waft of unfinishedness that comes from 2K Battlegrounds

Not played it myself, but I imagine that this perfectly encapsulates the game. There probably is something fun lurking in there, but it was always going to have to review surprisingly well to convince me to give it a go. Money stays in wallet this time.



As for me, I um... I don't think I like this Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity anywhere near as much as I thought I would when I started it.

At first I thought it was really strong. Sure it has it's frame rate issues and that but all the characters are really good fun to play as, it's colourful, has a lovely soundtrack and it chucks more things for you to do than that lonely bloke sprays cash around at a Spearmint Rhino. Despite all of that, it's become clear to me that it just isn't the sort of Warriors game I like.

What Dynasty Warriors 8 does so well is paint a ridiculous narrative, not only through each faction's overarching plot, but over the course of each battle, each filled with it's own twists and turns. There's a jolly ebb and flow throughout each stage and a big part of the game's charm is watching those shenanigans between a stacked roster of cheerily voice acted generals, as you roflstomp the battlefield.

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity doesn't have any of that. It can't. Because aside from a couple of lads from the Yiga Clan, not a single enemy has a whiff of personality. And that winds up being a bit of a problem, because it makes an awful lot of the game feel regurgitated. In the early going this isn't so bad, but by the end I was getting pretty tired of fighting the same enemies with different skins signifying higher difficulties. To be fair to the game, it does have a full cast of critters for you to bash from Breath of the Wild, it's not light in that regard, but it is light in terms of any enemies that aren't just monsters. Compounding this is the repetitiveness of many of the game's storyline missions. Things get more intricate in the later chapters, but so many of the early chapters are simply: 1. Clear opening mini-boss. 2. Another three mini-bosses appear. 3. Split up your team and defeat each mini-boss. 4. reconvene at the final boss. To me, that really underscored the lack of a strong personality compared to the Dynasty Warriors games.

I guess if you're more into the mechanical side of a Warriors game than the spectacle then there's a lot of good going on here. Each playable character feels unique so nobody should struggle to find someone that they enjoy playing as. There is a really strong sense of meaningful differentiation between most playable characters and it's just nice to take another dip into Breath of the Wild's world. I enjoyed playing as Impa, who once mastered brings a lot of controlled chaos and carnage to the table, but it was also nice to see a lot of supporting characters from Breath of the Wild have their moments to shine. I wasn't expecting the main story to win any awards and for the most part it's... fine. If I had one real criticism of it, it's how much of the game Zelda spends feeling useless. There was a chance to tell a respectable coming of age story, but it gets far too bogged down in Zelda mopping around for any of the reflection to land with any poignancy. Also the grunting! Not from Link, you expect it from him, but from everyone else. It's like the cast are possessed by the ghosts of Wimbledon's past. I'm exaggerating, and anime grunts are a real pet peeve of mine, but you won't find a cutscene without them here.

I kinda wish the developers were allowed to go to town with the story, turn everything up to 11, but at heart this game is completely faithful to the source material and I'm sure there will be a lot of folks who are happy about that. I will say to the game's credit there is a lot to do, which is good if it clicks for you. There are also plenty of ways for a player who isn't as into it to level up characters without grinding. The difficulty progression is also pretty reasonable and whenever you get a new warrior to play as the game gives you helpful pointers about their unique aspects. That said, the number of Guardians in the later levels and a sticky camera makes some of the end sections unnecessarily frustrating. Also the latter stages aren't so much interesting spectacles as they are long, in terms of how long you'll take to beat them. The game's length is padded out a bit with some really janky divine beast sections. They are functional and sometimes fun changes of pace, but I think there's a few too many sections with them personally.

So anyway, no doubt my thoughts will go down as some of the harsher ones when it comes to this game and I look forward to reading some more positive thoughts on it. There's some really good stuff in here but it just isn't quite what I'm looking for. 6/10

Interesting.

Have you played much of the first Hyrule Warriors? It does more of what you talk about; interesting characters on both sides and varied armies. It does it by having a really dumb time-hopping fanwank story, so although it's fun to go "I remember that guy!" it lacks stakes and substance. Personally, I was so invested in this world and the heroic characters that I really enjoyed Age of Calamity.

Ultimately, I think we both come down on the opinion that the best Warriors games are based on real history. Seeing real figures of antiquity reimagined as ridiculous multicoloured X-Men is fantastic and of course there are loads of characters with heroes and villains on every side of the conflict.

Interesting I've not played a core Warriors game for years but hear they've gotten worse each year and sort like the FIFA of Warriors games , and ones like Hyrule Warriors are polished as you've got Nintendo watching you.

8XL and the Samurai 4s were a pretty long time ago to be fair. Since then it has largely been spin offs and the rather large misstep that was the open world 9.

The most recent Dynasty Warriors game, the open world one, that's meant to suck. I'm referring to DW8. Maybe if you played every version you'd feel like there's diminishing returns, but I only buy one edition per console generation and I hopped onto 8 quite late so that worked out really well for me.

I haven't actually spent much time with the original Hyrule Warriors game and I can only remember having the occasional dabble in it on Buska's Wii U. Sounds like it's closer to what I like about the games from the sounds of it. Ultimately I agree with your last sentence there Buska. I should probably give those Samurai Warriors games a try one day as I've never actually taken a punt on one of those.

Maybe one day they'll make a Westeros Warriors though

I'm planning to get a Samurai one for my PS4 as I actually know a whole bunch about those historical figures,

Can't agree with the repetitive criticism levelled at Age of Calamity - you unlock new playable characters throughout the game right up to and through the endgame and the characters are very well differentiated. That kept the whole thing fresh regardless of repeating enemy types

Over the in ‘Last Retro Game You Completed’ thread I reviewed a game called Rod Land, a fun single-screen arcade platformer that’s worth a go if you’re into that genre. Despite its high reputation, Rod Land never got a sequel, instead getting a puzzle spin-off in 1992 called Soldam. Twenty-five years later, that was then remastered as Soldam: Drop, Connect, Erase for the Japanese launch of the Switch. It’s made its way to other territories and other consoles now, and based on how much I liked Rod Land’s gameplay hook, visuals and music I thought that Soldam was worth a shot.

I’ve been kind of set on my preferred ‘falling block’ and ‘tile match’ puzzle games for a really long time now – Tetris is my favourite, and I’ll occasionally have a go on Puyo Puyo, Puzzle Bobble, Zoo Keeper and Wetrix. It’s been ages since I’ve been introduced to a game of this type that’s really grabbed my attention. Here’s where Soldam; Drop, Connect, Erase comes in and here’s where it’s captured my imagination.

In the game, players rotate and drop fruits to match colours. You simply need to drop and connect the same-coloured fruit to then form a row and erase them. But to change the colour of the fruit you’ve previously dropped, you need to flank those fruits. If you think about what you do in Othello/Reversi then you’re on the right lines. It reads as being quite dull when I’m typing it out, but it’s honestly a clever twist on a template where I used to think I’d seen it all done before. When it adds more colours to the fruit, it becomes quite strategic and surprisingly deep. While it’s not immediately intuitive – it initially reminded me of a very complicated cross between Panel De Pon, Columns and Magical Drop – Soldam soon became something I understood, and then something that made a lot of sense and became second nature to me. Because of that, I’ve been quite addicted to Soldam, and like all the best puzzles games I’ve been seeing it in my dreams. Its peaceful and upbeat soundtrack has been looping around in my head for the last two weeks as well, it’s just brilliant.

There’s three hundred levels in Soldam’s main mode and fifty levels in it’s challenge mode, as well as the usual offline and online multiplayer options. That’s a good amount of content for a game that’s RRP is £6-odd on the eShop, and even better when you consider that it’s often on sale for half that. There’s not much else to say here – if you’re a puzzle person, definitely give this a look. 8/10.

Ooh that is interesting, I've noticed this for very cheap very often, even for a physical version but didn't expect it to be up to much, might take a punt now I reckon.

It's been a loooooong time since I played a block-matching puzzler that I got on with.  Puzzle Quest has been on my wishlist for ages though, so that probably ought to take priority when I next have a slot free.




In the thread, I said the following: "I finished Sakuna on Wednesday and... you know that thing when you finish a great game and there's nothing else that you're excited to play and the great game's still taking up residence in your head, and find yourself feeling a bit lost to the point where you finish a chore and your first thought is, 'Yay time to play the game!... wait, aww'?  Maybe you don't, it's a very specific feeling.  Anyway, that's where I am with Sakuna and I'd love to talk about it, except no bastard's played it ... so I've taken that feeling out on a Gintendo article draft."

...yep that just about covers it.  That said, despite it being far and away my game of 2020 it's oddly hard to recommend, because I think some people will hate it and (although some cases are obvious) I can't quite tell who.  My Gintendo piece soon might hopefully shed some light on whether it's for you.  It was definitely for me.

I haven't poked my head into the thread yet, but I reckon it'll probably be up my street. I'll add it to my wishlist and wait for a rainy day.

More pertinently though, I definitely know that feeling. I get it with TV shows and books as well.

Good, it's not just me. I've tried to cling onto my Sakuna time by listening to the soundtrack lots. It's a bit silly at this stage.

There's yet dinner.