Peekystar
In light of the imminent shutdown of the 3DS and Wii U’s online services, I’ve been revisiting Kirby Battle Royale and Mario Tennis Open over the last few days - as relatively obscure spinoffs with regional matchmaking on a decade-old system, it’s been nigh impossible to find an online match in them for years, but with the shutdown causing people to revisit these old titles one last time, it’s actually been possible to find matches again, and it’s been pretty darn fun.
Much the same as last week for me. Beat Mario Wonder’s final boss; it, and especially the levels preceding it, were absolutely fantastic in my eyes. Also tackled said final boss with the Jet Run badge equipped, because that’s totally a good idea. Just need to sweep the game for collectables and levels I missed now, including every regular desert level in the desert world. Bit odd that they introduce the sand mechanic in the world’s Poplin House, only for all the levels using it to be optional.
Started the Triple Deluxe replay I was thinking about as well; thus far, I’ve bested the first world, affirmed I’m still terrible at the Dedede’s Drum Dash subgame, and had a very stupid (and very impossible) idea about trying to beat the game without the B button. Whilst you can damage all enemies with the Beetle ability’s hover (heck, I defeated the first boss doing just that), it’s a rather difficult strategy to execute, and Hypernova exists, which would dramatically inflate the B button presses every time it appears. Might be more feasible in Planet Robobot, though.
I got my hands on Super Mario Bros. Wonder on Wednesday, going in pretty much blind, and have been having great fun with it so far. I especially like the options you’re given to play with, whether that’s the easy mode characters of Nabbit and the Yoshis, the badges to augment your movement options with, the expert badges to actively hinder yourself with, or putting the talking flowers in German for no good reason. Only real criticism I’ve got of the game thus far is that worlds ending without bosses feels anticlimactic - I get that people didn’t like how samey and/or easy most of the boss fights were in the New Super Mario Bros. games, but in my eyes, it’s definitely a more climactic closure to a world to crush Koopaling #5, even if the boss fight is very easy, than to just be given the Big Wonder Seed in a house.
Once I’m done with Wonder, or possibly before, I might replay Kirby Triple Deluxe. I’ve been doing a few 3DS replays lately with New Super Mario Bros. 2 (beat all the levels and got all the star coins) and A Link Between Worlds (reached Lorule and felled the Theives’ Hideout; haven’t touched it since), and the mood has struck me to play Triple Deluxe again recently. Whether I actually act on this thought, we will see.
A certain NES title that spawned a long-running franchise and half the genre’s name.
Curiously not the first time a classic novel in public domain received a sequel in the form of a Metroidvania videogame.
The 3DS did have a tool that let you transfer digital DSi applications from the DSi onto the 3DS, and same with the Wii U for Wii digital applications. Pretty sure they’re also planning to retain the current Nintendo Account system for the next console as well, so I’d say digital backwards compatibility is just as safe a bet as physical backwards compatibility.
Well then. T’was certainly a Direct; forgive me for the coming wall of text, and if said wall of text comes off as a bit negative at times.
Tragically, the additional Side Order information mostly shoots down my stupid conspiracy theory that it’s a sequel to Paper Mario Colour Splash. Though then again, we still don’t know why the “Spire of Order” is devoid of colour, so it still could be the work of the straw-wielding Shy Guys (no it can’t). Idiocy aside, the fact it’s a rougelike is really interesting to me; I honestly just expected standard, pre-set single player campaigns to be the only major offerings of Splatoon 3’s DLC, akin to such campaigns of the main games and 2’s DLC. I do generally like rougelikes and did enjoy the first two Splatoons, so reckon I’d probably like this as well, but I never bought Splatoon 3 under the pretence it didn’t change enough from 2 to justify existing on the same system, and I’m not shelling out for the game and DLC just to play the seemingly cool rougelike side mode.
I was NOT expecting Trombone Champ, of all games, to make use of the right joy-con’s IR camera - been pondering about how relatively underutilised it is lately, though it’s probably not the easiest thing to actually find a use case for. I suppose that using it as a controller fits with the insanity of Trombone Champ, though, and multiplayer looks like it’ll be absolutely stupid in the best way possible. My sister already owns the Steam version, though, so probably won’t get this one, hilarious as the Switch-specific controls look.
Considering that Mansion 3 is perhaps one of the best looking games on the Switch, Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD looks profoundly manky to me. Really just looks like an upscaled version of the 3DS version, perhaps with smoother models and possibly Luigi’s model snagged from 3, but since its first reveal and furthermore now, it’s always looked more than a little manky. At least the Scarescraper’s still there, though; in spite of never beating the main story of the 3DS original, I played mountains of Scarescraper.
F-Zero 99 looks kinda cool, and given it’s free, I’ll absolutely try it out, even if my few attempts at the original F-Zero via Smash 4 Wii U’s Masterpieces and Switch Online SNES went terribly. The worry, of course, is that it’ll be as short-lived as other 99 games like Super Mario Bros. 35 and Pac-Man 99, which would be a real shame for a series as famously content-starved as F-Zero.
I mentioned the IR camera’s underutilisation earlier, and WarioWare also decided to use it for some microgames. So that’s pretty cool. Don’t particularly like Wario’s voice acting, though; probably a consequence of Martinet stepping back from the role. While what we’ve heard of Mario’s Wonder voice sounds good to me, this Wario voice… less so. Also a bit worried about how I’ll play this game at all; definitely looks like it’s best played docked, but I almost always play with the Switch in Handheld Mode, and my console misbehaves when trying to dock it (i.e: it does acknowledge it’s been docked, but doesn’t display on the dock screen). Could probably make use of my old spare Switch or my brother’s instead, though.
There are only two question mark slots on the character select screen in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, so where are they going to stick the two extra characters they’ve introduced? Are they going to crush them, or some existing characters, into alternate costume slots? That aside, I do fear that given that only 4 Tour nitro tracks (ignoring the RMX courses) aren’t in the Booster Course Pass yet, all 4 will appear in this final wave. While there have been some good Tour-originals throughout the Pass, they’ve been distinctly hit-and-miss, and the city tracks definitely blend together a bit with 12 of them in the game.
The appearance of the characters in the Thousand Year Door remake remind me of Sticker Star’s key art (https://mario.wiki.gallery/images/5/54/PMSS_Mario_Shiny_Album.png), probably only because of the different segments/layers having their own depth to them. Also, the talking sound effects are quite funny to me, likely due to the fact that some are audibly existing sound clips cut apart, and the original game used the same ones for almost every character. Didn’t play the original, though, and having played other RPGs in the past, like the Mario & Luigi games, I feel confident in the assertion that they’re better as spectator sports for me.
All the other announcements, I don’t really care that much about, and would probably just poke fun at if I were to speak on them.
Having gotten it in the Steam Summer Sale, I’m on the verge of achievement completion for Hades - just reached the epilogue of the story after my 100th run, so I only need to get the last Cthonic Companion to get my last achievement.
On the side of the future, I’ve been thinking of replaying New Super Mario Bros. 2 for a few weeks now. Not because of Wonder’s fairly imminent release; I just feel like revisiting the game again. Pretty sure I never even saw all the game’s levels despite getting through the post-game World Star when I first played through the game, so that’s probably a goal I could aim for if and when I finally decide to start this replay.
Huh! That took forever and a half, considering that the Switch and 3DS titles suffering the same vulnerability got fairly quick patches, though I suppose the Wii U was the first of these consoles to be discontinued, so was lowest priority. Good to see that people’s fears that this was just a stealth way of shutting down these games’ online play were misplaced, though.
I like* how the houses in Athens look like toy blocks. There’s a joke to be made here about the Greek economy.
Not sure how I feel about the inclusion of Moonview Highway, though. The Booster Course Pass already has a great many city tracks thanks to all the ones ported from Tour, and Moonview, as a traffic course at night, feels like it fits into the same kind of aesthetic and functional theming that N64 Toad’s Turnpike from the base game does. The music might end up carrying my opinion on the track, though, like how 3DS Alpine Pass’ does.
The Nintendo Network service, that handled online play for the vast majority of 3DS and Wii U games, Splatoon included, was shut down on the 8th of April. So yes, the official servers for Splatoon are dead.