How is "The Last Story"? As a huge fan of old Squaresoft, I was interested in it!

I like adding people with large collections. you definitely qualify

as for how I am doing... game-wise, other than probably not having enough time left in my lifespan to finish all my games... decently. as for actual real-life stuff... best not to say.

I hope all is well with you.

I go back and forth about whether I like Flash Man or Skull Man best, but Flash suits me better as an avatar. It doesn't hurt that time manipulation would be my superpower of choice. Never enough time for everything!

WILD GUNNNNSSSSSS! So good!

I strongly approve of your Backloggery theme. Hope you don't mind a Multitap add.

Don't feel ashamed if you get stuck on the seventh dungeon in Oracle of Ages. I think I got lost in it for a good 5 hours before I tapped out and used a guide. It's like the Water Temple, but possibly even more complex, and its a bit harder to figure out what to do given the fact that it's comprised of switch hook puzzles and water level lowering/raising.

Level 6 is an absolute treat though. Amazing music track and a really creative idea. I won't spoil it for you.

I think that my rankings for the Banjo games (and DK64) are

1. Banjo Kazooie Xbox (the N64 versioon makes you recollect notes when you die, Xbox does not)
2. Banjo Tooie Xbox (I guess, a distant second. The N64 version chugs a LOT and makes me very motion sick)
3. Banjo Kazooie N64 (I...guess. It's not super bad recollecting except for the final two levels)
4. Banjo Kazooie Grunty's Revenge (this wasn't TOO bad from what I remember. Never beat it, but I got to the last boss on real hardware)
5. DK64 (I hate this game mostly because of all its bullshit minigames that are half of the collectibles)
6. Banjo Tooie N64 (Motion sickness, go away)
7. Nuts and Bolts (not fond of this much at all, no good at making stuff)

I have not played Banjo Pilot. Diddy Kong Racing is a fun idea, but DO NOT make me collect shit when I'm trying to win a race. Sonic Unleashed has this same problem, mandatory collectibles in a Sonic game is dumb as hell.

Also unpopular opinion probably, but I like Banjo Tooie's final boss way better than the bullshit final boss fight in Kazooie where you can get knocked off by the boss EXTREMELY EASILY and then have to do everything again.

Hahaha, I'm glad you enjoy my mini reviews. I rather like writing them. I can't wait for the new Backloggery because it increases the character limit for game reviews from 500 to 5000. That's a lot more room to elaborate, though I rather enjoy the challenge of summing up my thoughts about my experience on a game in 500 characters or less (I usually hit the 499 mark or go a bit over and have to cut out some filler words).

Oh, yeah! I am an idiot, I installed all of the Ys on my PC and went on to test them to see which one I would be playing next. While I saw that Felghana was the third, Celceta was the next in the timeline, so I ended up testing Felghana with Celceta in mind. Now that I actually played the first dungeon on both, I can say that Felghana seems HARD and Celceta feels Strange! So far I played a lot of Napishitim on PS2 and beaten Origin, 1 and 2, so Felghana feels more like home. But I will get used to the 3D graphics and party swap eventually. Still doing a Claw run on Origin, that is for sure. I imagine it will have something to do with Dark Fact at the end, so I am quite curious.

Regarding Tales of, I have the same feeling, I really would like to get more into it, Beat most of the early titles, up to Symphonia on GameCube, and went downhill from there. I would like to find time to beat Vesperia and Berseria.

Enjoy Banjo Tooie, unfortunately, I do not have a positive memory of it since I played in excitement for Nut and Bolts and that game was such a disappointment. It was a great game, but my brain can only connect it to Nuts.

My opinion so far is mostly positive. The good far outweighs the bad.

What I like so far:

They didn't compromise and make the games "easy". The gameplay and challenge are well preserved. The game feels much less punishing but still just as difficult as before. By "less punishing" I mean you can save at any time and it doesn't take a good 30 seconds to a minute to reload the game if you fail: it's more or less instant. As someone whose biggest pet peeve in gaming is probably "frequent loading times, especially when retrying stages that demand perfection", this is a huge selling point for me, and this is why I tend to opt for remasters and rereleases rather than the originals.

Also, the new graphics are pretty.

What I dislike:

This is probably just my TV settings but the "remaster" graphics are way too dark when entering shadowy areas, and there's no way to adjust the brightness settings in the game. I find myself changing settings often (thankfully you can do this easily by pressing a button at any time), using the "old graphics" as a sort of flashlight feature when I need better visibility. Oddly enough, the remaster graphics look great when underwater, whereas the original graphics are too dark while swimming. Also, the improved framerate doesn't seem to work in the "original graphics" setting so it can feel a bit choppy at times

And the controls take some getting used to, but this is moreso a sign of the game's age. While I like the "modern controls" setting in concept I just don't see it being conducive to how the games are structured. I prefer to stick to the tank controls, but the button mapping sometimes throws me off

For context, I'm used to playing this on a Saturn but now I'm using an 8BitDo Ultimate Wired controller playing on a Steam Deck.

I'm not sure if you played the original games, but if you haven't, you have to go into these with the perspective that they are 3D platformers released in the late 90s, even predating Super Mario 64. They are very clunky and hard to control and demand precision, but that's kinda the point. They have an appeal to them in a weird way. The awkwardness is what makes them work, at least for me. Still, they're not for everyone (A good compromise would be the Crystal Dynamics trilogy)

Haha, it is very overwhelming! And I am very Jealous about Last Story, been wanting to play for years, I remember, many years ago I found a copy in Holland and deeply regret not buying it, pretty reasonable price too.

I am scared to get into the Trails series, I have so many games to play that I am choosing to neglect some series for now, especially RPGs... My Switch backlog, which I really want to beat this year, has only 16 games, but 15 of them are RPGs and very long games, Including 2 Xenos.

Yesterday I quickly tested Celceta and really liked what I saw, same engine as Napishtin and Origins, which I love.

Never got into Monster Hunter at all, tested a few titles but they were never very attractive to me, only ones I am interested in are the Stories.

Congrats on Completing Rayman! Now, don't overlook Rayman 3, quite fun as well adn I hope you get to Last Story to hear your thoughts on it

Holy crap, 15 years! While life took me around the world, I am still here, loving this little community.

I would love to be able to afford a 3DS, but for now, it is intangible, so I am thinking of emulating, even tested some using upscaling and the graphics look incredible... but it's not the same as if I was playing on the original hardware. Maybe someday I will find an affordable 2dsxl.

Vanquish is fun, this month I want to complete my Platinum "Portfolio" with Vanquish and Revengence.
Also want to try to beat Lords of Shadow, since my save has been sitting there since 2019...

I am finally back and progressing on YS Origin, Hugo is a blast to play with. Hopefully, I will manage to beat it before FF7 comes out.

How are you enjoying Celceta? It will be the next on my Ys list

Hi there! I'm doing fine, thanks. Hopefully you're doing well too. I'm eagerly awaiting summer vacation to have more time for gaming.

Luckily Vampire Survivors is such an affordable purchase that even if you didn't like it, maybe it won't feel so bad to have wasted your money. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow was truly a classic that surprised me with its quality. I also played Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia after it and recently I got Symphony of the Night.

Even though I finished 38 games last year, I got 50 new games. That means I failed to reach my goal of thinning out my backlog.
After failing in this objective two years in a row, I decided to come up with a new one for 2024. It's a bit more unusual goal: I'm trying to get to the top of Mt. Everest in Wii Fit U's climbing challenge. I have a Fit Meter I carry with me that measures steps and elevation changes and the data is transferred to the game. I've already finished all the walking challenges and for climbing challenges I only have Mt. Everest left to conquer.

Man, not only we talked about SF4, but we also played a lot of online matches on SSF4DS! At that time I was still living in Australia and only had two games on 3DS, SF4 and Rayman, so I played the hell out of both games. Too bad that I am not in a position to own and maintain a good 3DS library to play all the games I missed, but I am seriously thinking of emulating a few of them that I feel like I have to finish. The Dragon Quests are one, never finished 7 and 8 and that bugs me a lot.

I actually loved the Remake, but I think it depends on your mentality going through the game. If you think, "Oh, this is NOT the FF7 I love" you will probably despise it. But if you realize that we now have 2 FF7s and they are both fun and different in their own way and that you can always get back to one or the other depending on how you want to experience FF7, that is great.
I am really looking forward to knowing what they are gonna do with the story and will probably go back to the original right after finishing it, just like I did when I played part 1.

Gonna start by saying that Rayman 3D made me reminisce over the early days of the 3DS when you and I played loads of SF4! After that unfortunately I skipped the entire 3DS library.

Secret of Mana was incredible, and Santa Claus was when I fell in love with it. So random and amusing. I will jump into Trials soon, after Ys0 and FF7 at the end of Feb.

Are you excited for FF7? Did you enjoy the first part?

The remake on Steam, loving it. Thought about playing it and Ys0 simultaneously but it is definitely a good idea, as Mana has a very slow-paced combat and Ys0 feels like it is on crack. But I am finding the outdated graphics very charming and can't wait to get back to it tonight. If I remember correctly you wrote about it in one of your past articles, right? The only negative I have with the game so far is the lack of cloud save support, and since I usually play in multiple devices, it is annoying to keep transferring save files around. But again, using moonlight just keeps making my life easier.

In regards to FE3H, it is not a horrible game, many say that the social aspect of the game is its flaws but for me was the UI, I found it to be a chore to simply organize everyone's inventory and everything related to party management. Battles were still quite fun and challenging.

With Horizon Chase, my biggest problem was trying to get 1st place in every race before moving to the next, and that was frustrating for me. When I decided to just keep moving forward and come back later with better cars, upgrades, and even better skilled.
I did not have an issue with the music since most of the time I play in bed when my wife and kid sleep, only a handful of times I could actually listen to it and it was very Top Gear.
Regardless of all of that, I had to appreciate it since it is a very high-quality Brazilian game, and the Senna Forever is just a love letter to us Brazilians who grew up watching this hero.

It's been a couple of weeks since I beat Ys VIII, but this music is still in my head, it is just... so energetic!
[Link]

Happy New Year dude! Hope you enjoyed or are enjoying some time off or a little holiday! All 3 contributions were great and are games/series that have been on my list for quite a while, this year I will invest some time on both Ys and Yakuza. If I can beat, at least Ys 0 and Dana I will be more than satisfied, same to Zero and Kiwami.
Amazing Banner by the way!

The other day I realized that I still had my Fire Emblem Three Houses save on switch right before the last battle and decided to beat it... and it was not great. Really hope Engage will be a better FE experience than 3H was.

And I remember the conduit on the early days of the Wii, quite enjoyed as well and I was a big fan of motion controls especially when there was a FPS, was always excited to try them. Quite Enjoyed THe Conduit, heck, I even had fun with Red Steel!

Yeah, I just beat the Golem and need to grind a bit to beat the dragon. Almost done, excited to see what the post game is like. Beyond the issues with it being built on an old engine of RPG Maker I think it's pretty nice overall! Dunno why the went with the newer blonde version of the DQ1 guy, much prefer the original look, but that's just my opinion.

It is a fan game made in RPG Maker 2003, so it's a bit clunky but overall I'm.... liking it? Like an expanded remake of DQ1 with an allegedly quite large post-game, DQ1 with a boat! Just got magic keys and am headed to the West side of Alefgard in my playthrough.

Link to the game: [Link]