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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2026!!!

« on: June 21, 2026, 08:50:06 pm »

27. Super Mario 64 | 1996 | Switch 2 | 6/18:



     Super Mario 64 is about to be 30 years old later this year. It's hard for me to imagine, because that game was out before my time. I didn't have the experience of transitioning from the 2D sprites of the SNES/Genesis to full-fledged 3D graphics promised by fifth-generation consoles, such as the Nintendo 64. I've had an N64, and I have played a bit of SM64 growing up, so I do have some nostalgia for the game.

     All of this is to say: Super Mario 64 is without no doubt a masterpiece, and will continue to be so as long as 1+1=2. I don't think it's a perfect game by any stretch of the imagination. The camera, while NOT as bad as everyone makes it out to be, can become unintuitive when moving on a thin surface or lining up for a jump. Even when using the Mario Cam instead of the Lakitu Cam (I think a lot of people forget it exists), it can still be troublesome. Yet if the camera system of Mario 64 was reworked, we wouldn't get the cinematic moments of the Chain Chomp narrowly avoiding you with its bite in Bob-omb Battlefield, nor the piano coming to life in Big Boo's Haunt. Those moments wouldn't have been as memorable or cherished if captured at any other angle.

     The designers of Nintendo were so ambitious with this game. I can imagine kids bewildered at getting to explore Peach's Castle for the very first time, and discovering all the castle's secret levels in the process. Imagine going from 8 or so worlds in a 2D Mario game, to almost double with 15 in SM64. Sure, there's repeat themes -- two snow courses and two water for example -- and some courses are a lot better than others. But that doesn't matter; you don't have to play every level. I ended up skipping Cool, Cool Mountain and Tiny-Huge Island entirely; not because I don't like them but because I got involved with trying out other levels first. I really wanted to fully complete all the water courses (yes, I like the water levels) and the very first two courses as well cause they are both classics. It ended up being more than half of the 70 stars I needed to finish the game, so the rest of the stars I got were just whatever I felt like getting at the moment.

     There's just something special with the design of Mario 64. Take the 3rd mission in Bob-omb Battlefield for example: "Shoot to the Island in the Sky". You're supposed to walk halfway up the mountain and use the cannon to fire yourself at the tree. The game doesn't tell you this of course, but that's the easiest, most simple path to the star. You can however, also use the cannon that's almost directly underneath the floating island to get there. It's a quicker, but more difficult solution as you get a lot less wiggle-room to line up the perfect shot. If you aim too high, you'll miss the top of the tree and end up sailing towards the mountain. It sucks when you miss, but you end up a lot closer to the easy cannon shot in return. Was this all by design, or is it all one big coincidence?

     Whatever the case may be, it adds more and more to Mario 64's crowning achievement: the freedom. You have the freedom to pick out what stars you want to get, and how you want to obtain them. There's some exceptions to the rule, but you ultimately decide what you want to do. You have an entire arsenal of tricks at your diposal to obtain these stars: the triple jump, the mid-air dive, the long jump, the ground pound. You can combo some of these moves together to get to other areas quicker, or places that may or may not have been available yet by design. It really opens the game up for a high skill-ceiling, and it's ultimately why SM64 is still the #1 speedrunning game in the world.

     There's skips like the backwards long jump up the infinite staircase that anyone can do, lore ("L is Real"), memes ("So Long Gay Bowser"), and theories outside of the game ("Every copy of Mario 64 is personalized"). These are all elements that make this game stand out beyond the game, but never overshadows it; because SM64 is timeless to play. Mario 64 is not even my favorite 3D Mario game, but there's no denying the fact that Super Mario 64 is eternal.

Grade: S

I've played a lot of SM64, especially the DS version (N64 was around when I was a kid, but I had a PS1), but I have never actually beaten it lol

I've started the OG N64 release on a few different occasions over the years but never make it very far, maybe 20 or so stars before something comes up that takes my attention away.

I plan on beating it later this year though now that I have an Analogue 3D. I'd play it now but it's already packed up and shipped back home to Canada as I'm in the process of moving.

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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2026!!!

« on: June 18, 2026, 10:35:08 pm »

11. Prefessor Layton and the Curious Village - A very charming little game on DS, and I can see why it went on to become a long standing series. The animated cutscenes really bring the game to life, despite the kinda shoddy voice acting. The puzzles range from incredibly easy to real mind-benders. One of the cool things about all the puzzles though is they can all be logically solved, so even if it looks like you need to do some algebra or other maths to solve a problem you really don't need to if you look at it from a different perspective. The story is also quite fun, though I was able to "solve" the central mystery about half way through the game, long before it actually started to unravel and reveal itself.

I think I would put this first Professor Layton game just above the first Pheonix Wright game in terms of "DS visual novel/point and click puzzle games", though I feel I am probably in the minority there since Pheonix Wright has such a huge fan following (as evidenced by the characters frequent appearances as cosplay at fan conventions). Though Pheonix Wright was able to keep some of the twists from me until they were finally revelaed, I felt the overall package was better in Professor Layton, and the variety of puzzles helped keep the game more fresh throughout my playthrough.

Overall a solid 7/10, and a game I'll be adding to my DS collection.

2026 so far...: Mario Kart World - Vampire Survivors - Dark Souls 2 - Meteos - Rune Factory - Castlevania Adventure - Pokemon Diamond - Red Dead Redemption - Kirby's Dreamland 2 - Naruto Ninja Destiny - Professor Layton and the Curious Village

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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2026!!!

« on: June 14, 2026, 09:22:36 pm »

10. Naruto: Ninja Destiny (DS) - If a fighting game dev ever needs an example of "What not to do" in your fighting game, this would be it lol

Characters are not balanced at all and they don't try to hide it. Some characters are twice as fast as others with little to no downside. Other characters have supers that will delete 80% of your health bar. And do you know what's cool about supers in this game? They are completely unblockable... Meaning if you time it right, you have a 100% chance of it hitting. All you have to do is knock down your opponent, and when they are stuck in the get up animation you use your super for an unbloackable attack, which on some characters, will take 80% of your health bar. The fast characters don't even need to knock you down. Simply blocking their attacks is enough to get hit by their super, because you will not be able to react due to block stun + being slower (since you can't block, the only counter is to hit them when they use it).

The mechanics are super simplified which I think can be done in a good way but here it leads to some very boring matches. There are no throws, so most games are basically "spam your fastest attack on their block until you build enough meter to use their super, which they cannot block".

It's not the worst game ever. A 3D fighter on DS is pretty cool, and you can kind of turn your brain off and just button mash because all of the combos are just 4 button strings (sometimes just B>B>B>B). But after a few matches that novelty starts to wear off and you realize all the flaws in the mechanics. I'd give it somewhere in the 2-3/10 range. Not the absolute worst game I've played, but still prettty bad.

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Modern Video Games / Re: Nintendo Direct 6.9.2026 thoughts?

« on: June 10, 2026, 09:43:27 pm »

This talk about Switch 2 only having or showing remakes is kinda strange to me, considering the OoT remake was only a 1:38 trailer. The Star Fox trailer was only 0:42, and Switch Sports Resort (is it even a remake? or is it a sequel? I dunno I haven't played the other ones tbh) was 2:27.

But in the same presentation there was a trailer for the new Rhythm Heaven which lasted 2:55, the new Fire Emblem which lasted 2:47, Xenoblade Genesis at 2:34, Dusk Bloods for 1:02, and Splatoon Raiders for 2:59. From a first party perspective, the majority of the games covered were new titles, and they got a bigger time share of the presentation.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the conversation but from my perspective the Switch 2 presentation had no shortage of new first party titles to look forward to. As opposed to the SoP, which only showed off Wolverine, God of War and Phantom Blade 0 (which isn't even a console exclusive, it's also coming to steam and supposedly coming to Xbox at a later date cause it is only a timed exclusive).

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Modern Video Games / Re: Nintendo Direct 6.9.2026 thoughts?

« on: June 10, 2026, 12:00:39 am »

Nothing really both new and exciting for me announced this year all around, just follow-up trailers and showcases to games announced in the past few years that are coming soon.

So while I am quite happy with the selection of games we have in coming months, I kind of worry about what comes after that because nothing really sticks out for me. We'll cross that bridge when we get there I guess, for now it does look like I have a good selection of games to look forward to.

Looks like the new FE will have the same Time Management systems that 3H had, which I was kinda hopping they would move away from and just offer a classic style with chapters featuring some story content, a battle, and some more story content and that's it. All these extra activates were cool for like an hour or two but they start to really pad out the playtime and drag things out. A single playthrough of 3H took me nearly 100 hours I think, while the average for the rest of the series for me was usually between 20-40 hours. I'll still pick it up close to Day 1 I am sure and play the hell out of it though...

OoT remake is cool too and I'm looking forward to it. It's my second favorite Zelda behind BotW, and one of my favorite games of all time. So of course I'm playing it day 1. It being a remake though kinda bumps it down on the excitement though compared to a new Zelda.

Rhythm Heaven has been one of those easy to miss games that are hidden gems since the first title on the GBA. The are always great, but they don't get the attention or fanfare of a Zelda or Mario. I'm looking forward to it though because I already know it'll be a fun time. 

Lastly, FF Resonance looks like it's be a great JRPG to play over the holidays. Apparently its based on the mobile game Brave Exvius, which explains the appearance of characters from various games in the series. I just hope it is done well and doesn't feel like a cheap port of the mobile game. Should be ok though because they said "it has been refined and extensively rebuilt as a full-fledged console-quality RPG experience".

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General / Re: May 2026 - Recently added to collection/recently purchased

« on: June 08, 2026, 07:42:45 pm »

I will say one thing about jp gamecube. those cardboard sleeves are an absolute sin.

kinda tricky to find clean condition ones. and even in Japan so many cube games are missing them on top of that. I ain't saying it's like regular cardboard boxes but it's getting close 

I don't mind them. Sure a lot of them have dinged corners but it's no worse than my average boxed Famicom, Super Famicom, or N64 game.

That they are even comparable to those is my problem. than again prices cheap so all is good i guess, do wish cube had more interesting jap exclusives though.

Yeah I would honestly prefer to collect NA, but I just missed the boat on that so JP it is. When I can get them for 1/2 the price, it's just a no brainer for me.

I probably have like 15-20 NA games back in Canada. I'll sell them when I am back and be up cash + have a bigger collection.

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General / Re: June 2026 - Recently added to collection/recently purchased

« on: June 08, 2026, 07:40:06 pm »

I picked up Soul Calibur II yesterday. It was super cheap and since I'm collecting JP Gamecube already I figured I might as well convert my collection into all JP games so it looks better on the shelf. Looks like it sells for 40+ on Ebay in Canada too, so I'll make a bit of money selling my copy since I only spent ￥1600 on this one (like $14).

I also picked up Zelda 1 for GBA. Just another game for my Zelda collection. I think I might be nearing completing it, there aren't too many Zelda games left that I don't own.

will you also go for the 3 shitty ones on cdi?

Eventually lol. They will probably be the last 3 I pick up though lol

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General / Re: The Mighty Polymega

« on: June 07, 2026, 09:31:46 pm »

If it was FPGA I would get why people would want it, but for emulation yeah I'll stick to my like $60 Anbernic device + my laptop. The novelty of "using my collection" instead of a Rom (which is the exact same thing in the end) isn't something I am going to spend $500+ on.

I do like the Analogue FPGA devices though. I have the Pocket and 3D, and both are my favorite ways to play my physical collections for those systems.

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Modern Video Games / Re: XBOX Games Showcase 2026 thoughts?

« on: June 07, 2026, 09:22:21 pm »

I'd say I was slightly more impressed with Xbox's showcase. So I'd give it like a 7/10. Maybe an 8, because unlike the Sony presentation which featured a lot of multiplatform games outside of Wolverine and Phantom Blade 0, Xbox seemed to have more exclusive games to show off. But it was lacking in new games I am really looking forward to honestly, with all of the games I am actually really interested in playing soon being games we already knew about. Mainly Fable, Halo and Gears. I mean I am interested in Spyro, Clockwork Revolution, State of Decay 3, Castlevania and Metro 2039, but far from "excited". Like I said though the fact that 2 of those games are seemingly only coming to Xbox makes me more interested in finally picking up the console.

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General / Re: June 2026 - Recently added to collection/recently purchased

« on: June 07, 2026, 09:02:53 pm »

 I picked up Soul Calibur II yesterday. It was super cheap and since I'm collecting JP Gamecube already I figured I might as well convert my collection into all JP games so it looks better on the shelf. Looks like it sells for 40+ on Ebay in Canada too, so I'll make a bit of money selling my copy since I only spent ￥1600 on this one (like $14).

I also picked up Zelda 1 for GBA. Just another game for my Zelda collection. I think I might be nearing completing it, there aren't too many Zelda games left that I don't own.

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General / Re: May 2026 - Recently added to collection/recently purchased

« on: June 07, 2026, 09:00:16 pm »

I will say one thing about jp gamecube. those cardboard sleeves are an absolute sin.

kinda tricky to find clean condition ones. and even in Japan so many cube games are missing them on top of that. I ain't saying it's like regular cardboard boxes but it's getting close 

I don't mind them. Sure a lot of them have dinged corners but it's no worse than my average boxed Famicom, Super Famicom, or N64 game.

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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2026!!!

« on: June 07, 2026, 08:47:42 pm »

8. Red Dead Redemption - I started playing this game over a decade ago but lost interest pretty fast. It takes more than an open world for me to be interested in a game, especially after I played Skyrim, which despite all of its flaws was an awesome world to lose yourself in.

My basic problem at the time, which was the same for this playthrough honestly, was that the opening was incredibly boring. Combat is so simple that you can basically just walk up to any fight and shoot everyone. No need to use cover or think about how to engage, just keep walking forward and shoot everyone. If you somehow find yourself in a pinch, simply just slow down time and get autotargeting headshots on everyone. The characters were fine, but the dialogue was stilted and felt forced. One second you are talking about something serious, whether its politics or philosophy, only for you to hit some dialogue gate that forces the characters to instantly change topics to something else. It makes a lot of the more serious themes the game tries to explore feel ham-fisted in, like they couldn't think of a way to have it come up naturally so they just shoved a 2 minute conversation into the story without thinking how it fits in with the surrounding dialogue. Characters just bring up these topics on a whim and end the conversation on another.

But as I played more I started to like it a bit more. It has an interesting cast of characters, including the protagonist John Marston who is somewhat of an opportunist and doesn't hide the fact. He'll do just about anything if he sees it as benefiting his own cause. You aren't really a hero, even though the game does try at points to paint him as one. The story also has enough strong moments to keep you pushing towards that next mission.

Overall it was an okay game in the end. I can see why some people like it, especially if you don't care about the simplistic gameplay and care more about the story. I find it hard to ignore who bad the dialogue is at times but I feel like most people just ignore that aspect for some reason. Fair enough. I'd give it a solid 6/10.

9. Kirby's Dreamland 2 - Wow what a gem on the Game Boy! They clearly learned a lot after Kirby's Adventure and put all that knowledge into making one of the best games I've played on the system. It plays incredibly well, sounds and looks great, and believe it or not puts up a good challenge! Kirby games are kind of known for being incredibly easy, but I died many times over the 7 worlds of this game. Seriously, if you like Game Boy and haven't played this one yet you are missing out! Amazing game, I gladly gave it an 8/10.

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Modern Video Games / Re: State of Play | June 2, 2026 thoughts?

« on: June 03, 2026, 09:48:11 pm »

I'd give the State of Play a 6/10 overall. Okay, but not amazing.

• Wolverine. Looked like good fun. Pretty gory and cinematic. Hopefully the combat has some depth to it and it isn't all QTE and the same combo's / animations on repeat the whole game. It's a game I'll play eventually, but probably not on launch. I'll pick it up when it hits like 50% off.
• Marvel Tokon. Excited for this one but it's a game that has been known for a while so it wasn't like a surprise or anything. Basically a new trailer for a game I was already interested in.
• Rayman Legends Retold. A remake of a great game is cool, but kinda unnecessary in this case. The game already looked great. The new visuals do look amazing but I would have liked a new game instead tbh. I'll play it when it hits a deep discount (like less than $20) or it hits PSPlus or something.
• Kemuri. Probably my favorite announcement. Looked pretty cool and stylish. Need to see more raw gameplay to make any judgements but I'll be keeping my eye on it for sure.
• Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis. Like Tokon this is a game that I am looking forward to but was already announced, so this trailer did very little to make me "more excited" for PlayStation or something. If it is anywhere near the quality of the recent games I'll be playing this one out for sure. Maybe not a Day 1 though, it will depend on what I am playing at the time I guess.
• The Lost Wild. Not a horror fan, but it does look interesting. Depending on how it reviews I might check it out. But it's a low %. It would have to be really good to get me to play it lol
• Phantom Blade 0. Another game that was a known entity before the showcase. You can kinda see where my problem lies with this SoP. Sure its a cool game I'll probably check out but I was already interested in it before this showcase. Nothing new is really being shown to increase my excitement for PlayStation.
• No Rest for the Wicked. Looking forward to the 1.0 release. I usually avoid early access because I want my first time playing to be the full experience. Again though, not a new title.
• Onimusha: Way of the Sword. I've never played an Onimusha game, so I have no idea what they are like or how good they were. But I've been meaning to check them out since this game was revealed two years ago. I'll try to get to them before September to see if this is a game I should play day 1 or not.
• Silent Hill: Townfall. This is the kind of horror game I might suffer through lol Looks super cool and atmospheric. I hope it delivers.
• Control: Resonant. Cool game I am looking forward to but I've seen enough of it already. It's one of those games that keeps showing up in these shows. They don't need to show me anymore tbh, I'm already interested.
• God of War Laufey. Wasn't a fan of the reboot, and haven't played its sequel yet. It repeated enemies so much that it got pretty repetitive about half way through. They even reused the same Troll boss fight over and over. It was cool fighting the troll the first time. I didn't need to fight it 8 more times with slight changes like "now he shoots fire" or whatever. Also, the exploration felt tacked on and completely unnecessary. It just slowed the pacing down when all I wanted to really do was push on and continue the story. But you can't really ignore it cause you get a lot of important powerups and items from exploring. So with that said, my hopes for this game are kinda low.

So yeah overall it was a show that had very little new announcements to make me excited. It was just going over a bunch of games I already knew and was interested in. Kemuri was the only game shown that I could add to my wishilist of upcoming games.

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General / Re: May 2026 - Recently added to collection/recently purchased

« on: May 31, 2026, 10:45:02 pm »

Picked up some really cheap JP Gamecube games over the weekend. Recently I've come to realize I've waited too long to collect GC. I have a small collection of stuff from my childhood but it's not that big (I was one of those kids who would always sell my games to EB/Gamestop in order to buy new ones, so I never had a huge collection of games really until I was in Uni and working part time).

So, much like the gameboys, I'll collect JP for GameCube. Picked up Pokemon Colosseum, Mario Kart Double Dash, The Legend of Zelda: Windwaker, and Luigi's Mansion for about $75 after conversion. Pokemon alone would have cost more than that.

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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2026!!!

« on: May 31, 2026, 10:17:25 pm »

7. Pokemon Diamond - Coming back all these years later has really taken off those rose tinted glasses I've had for older Pokemon titles. I've just played a lot more JRPG's since I was a kid, so I kinda have a better understanding of just how basic Pokemon is and can see it's inability to evolve and learn from the larger gaming landscape a lot more clearly.

Pokemon Diamond isn't a bad game. It's just perfectly mediocre. Pokemon was never known for having a great story or deep characters, but Sapphire / Ruby did take a step in the right direction by introducing an enemy faction that had real goals and reasoning behind said goals. Were they kind of stupid? Sure. Flooding the planet because people disrespect the oceans and harm water Pokemon is directly disrespecting the land and harming all the Pokemon who live on the land (and vice-versa). But there was a kernel of thought put into the story. Diamond goes right back to "we are evil because we want to control the world". Team Plasma's reasoning is barely explained beyond Ghetsis wanting to recreate the world so he can rule it. It's just team rocket with a coat of paint. The game also does nothing to make the characters you meet standout or memorable. Every gym leader will give you a few lines when you challenge them and a few lines when you beat them but that's about it. I couldn't even tell you the names of 5 characters in an RPG I put 30 hours into. And the characters I could name, I couldn't tell you anything about them.

As for the game itself it played it really, really safe compared to previous games. Gen II and Gen III both overhauled the battle system in big ways. Gen IV doesn't change much at all, feeling largely the same as Pokemon Emerald in terms of gameplay. It could be said that Gen IV was the first Pokemon game to be complacent in the way that modern fans have been complaining about.

Overall it just didn't do enough to really stand out compared to its predecessors. I'd give it a strong 5 - light 6 at best.

Gen 4 got me back into Pokemon after nearly a decade of ignoring it. With that said, it's a sad state of affairs when you can safely say you've played pretty much every other Pokemon game once you've played one of them. There is a bit of diminishing returns too when you get into many of the newer generations, which typically include worse new Pokemon and even more simplistic/easy gameplay. Sadly, each new Pokemon gen seems to sell better than the last, meaning Gamefreak has zero incentive to deviate from their tried and true formula. This has pretty much resulted in me being a fan up to Gen 3, with a few games after that I selectively enjoy. Other than that, I don't actually care that much for the franchise these days.

To be fair, I think Gen V is the best Gen by far. They actually tried a lot of new things (It's the first Gen since the first to use an entirely new pokedex so every Pokemon you meet it a new one you have never seen before, new battle types, seasons), I think it put the most effort into making Pokemon look as good as it could for its time (some of the best 2D sprite work of all time imo, and finally animated them) and some much needed QOL finally got implemented (no more single use TMs). And to top it all off, there is an actual story. You actually learn about who N is, what his goals are and his personality. You talk with him multiple times throughout the game. Is it the best story? No, outside of the plot with N it is still super sparce. But they did actually try to tie a larger narrative into the journey like in Gen III, and they did a better job of it in Gen V imo.

I think Gen VII is also when they started to feel more like RPGs, and you actually talk with characters outside of the context of battling. Lillie is a complete character (and one of my favorite in Pokemon tbh) and some of my favorite "gym leaders" (not really gym leaders in that gen but they have the same role) come from that game such as Hala and Acerola. Why? Because they are real characters who take part in the story outside of just being someone you have to defeat. You actually get to know them a bit outside of battle.

TBH at this point I've just come to realize how rosy I was looking back at Gen IV, because before my replay it was an easy 7/10, maybe 8/10. But after this replay, after playing many of the classic JRPGs that would have came before it, I realize just how little impact it had on not only the genre but even within Pokemon. It didn't do anything interesting for the series. I hope the same thing doesn't happen to the other gens as I get to them cause I really do love Gen V especially. It's been in my "top 25 games of all time" list for a while now lol But tbh I haven't played it since high school, and I may also be looking back with rosy glasses at it too.

Right now 4 generations into my Pokemon playthrough my rankings are:
1. Gold/Silver (8/10)
2. Blue/Red (7/10)
3. Sapphire / Ruby (6/10 for Saphire, 7/10 for Ruby it's strange to have separate scores I know but there is a reason behind it)
4. Diamond / Pearl (5/10)