What are you playing on your Switch 2: Play Harder

While it is a doubler, the two games are very similar.  I don't think there are more than a handful of new monsters introduced between the two, and you revisit all the same areas.  I feel like the best way to play Hacker's Memory is either to play it straight after the original, or leave it several years so you forget it.  Otherwise it feels very... re-heated.

Monster Hunter Stories is a game I have played.


I'm currently playing Bakeru!  I'm all out of 6/10 visual novels, and Bakeru fills the slightly mindless commute-friendly gap nicely.  Just a fun colourful game of beating things up in Weeb Heaven, with an exploratory sideline.

On a related note, I've now played 100 games I'd recommend on Switch!  That's so many more than on any other machine I've ever owned, or even on a Nintendo home/handheld generational pairing.  The Switch is great isn't it? (Yes this does mean a Smurf-style gigapost ranking at some point.)

With things getting busier in my personal and working life I’m not making much time for gaming just now. The only thing I’ve occasionally been chipping away at in the last month is – just like The Balls Man - Bakeru. It’s a very pure, well-designed and solidly built Mystical Ninja spiritual successor that acts as evidence that publishers don’t need to pump hundreds of millions of pounds into making a game that’s varied, interesting and – above all else - fun.
 
On the topic of Bakeru, I recall a few other forumites mentioning that they’d wait for a sale before downloading it. Absolutely feel free to do so, but don’t have any concerns about the amount of content. Bakeru is a surprisingly big game with many lengthy levels, and even as a digital download it warrants it’s high street price-tag. Perhaps I’d argue that it’s a bit too big mind you; as there’s at least one level for all of Japan’s forty-seven sub-districts, I found that as I neared it’s end that the game was repeating a few of its earlier ideas and that the level designs aren’t always unique. Still, there’s racing, shooting and giant robot fighting sections to break things up a bit, so Bakeru never becomes dull.


~
 
Now I’ve completed Bakeru, I’ve moved onto the Switch’s FC 25. It’s not a Legacy Edition and there’s lots of examples of how EA have refined the gameplay to make the tactics more adaptable, to make the training plans and player development more flexible and to make the on-pitch experience to be a bit more realistic. As with FC 24 though, it feels like it’s pushing the Switch a bit beyond what it can comfortably handle. There’s plenty of times where the graphics make it look like it’s running FIFA 2005 on the PSP, navigating the menus feels sluggish, and pre and post-match cutscenes reliably don’t load properly. Speaking of those post-match press conferences, they don’t half ask you stupid questions: “last match, Lewis Miley completed 0 passes, with an accuracy of 0%. Do you feel Lewis Miley can improve on that performance?”. Still, at least FC 25 doesn’t crash your console during transfer negotiations, unlike FC 24 did ‘with an accuracy of 1000%’.

There are 48 Prefectures, which one does it skip?

I'm not sure if it's the one or just a miscount, given that it also features levels set in prefectures such as (checks notes) a big boat.

Agreed with everything Cappa said about Bakeru, it's just a lot (quantity-wise) of good solid varied fun. I can see how it'd feel old before the end maybe (I've hit my second construction-themed level and that's a bit eh), but you'll have had a good time before you get there. I'd love to see you play it actually Buska, or more realistically watch a YouTube video of somebody else playing it and comment on how well each level reflects its prefecture's unique facets or points of interest. Nara for example is a big ol' deer park decked out in autumn colours, and it's quietly lovely.

(I've been playing Zelda, natch.)

Buskalilly wrote:

There are 48 Prefectures, which one does it skip?

East Renfrewshire? I’m not sure, I just read somewhere that Japan has forty-seven districts and thought ‘aye that’ll do, nobody will clock that and correct me on it’.

No, there are literally 47 and I'm full of shit

Having played through two full seasons in the career mode with all its league and cup games, I can summarise that FC 25 on Switch won’t have any reason to go down as one of history’s greatest football games but it’s a perfectly competent kickabout and, crucially, different enough from FIFA 23 and FC 24. More than anything it makes me eager to see what can be done with FC 26 on the next Nintendo console.
 
What seemed to escape the attention of many was the release of Cash Cow DX, the second in a series of three tough-as-nails single-screen platformers that are designed to evoke memories of arcade gaming in the early 1980s. The first one – Donut Dodo – is a Donkey Kong-style belter, it’s one of the best neo-retro games I’ve played. Cash Cow DX – which is a strange mix of Mappy and Sonic The Hedgehog – sadly only exists on the ‘it’s pretty good’ plateau. The visuals, music and level design are all that bit inferior to Donut Dodo, and I’m finding it difficult to get to grips with, even on Easy Mode. Still, it does come recommended. Most of the disappointment simply comes from what Cash Cow DX had to follow.