PWB May

Wii U for €30

holy shit

Ooh yeah if you could keep an eye out, that’d be grand!

Man, all this talk about handheld emulators really makes me want a steam deck 😢

Off the back of those emu posts: I also spent a bit of time looking at the 3DS (to hack) and then ended up with the RG280v because it was a neat box to keep all those 16-32 bit games I never play(ed) on. I ended up selling the pair of Miyoo Mini consoles I bought because they were seemingly hard to come by and now I have a PS5.
One of the most interesting things I've seen from Retro Games Corps recently was a project to turn a usb drive into a bootable emulation platform. He basically walks you through how to have a drive hold all your emulators, games and settings that you then boot from a PC (any PC) and you're away. The way he had it set up it was running up to WiiU and PS3 (though there are PS3 performance issues which were highlighted). Again, this kind project of appeals because there are a handful of multiplayer games it'd be fun to introduce the kids to.

Another Bin - Lost in Random. I'd thought this was supposed to be some kind of 3D adventure game with card battling, which sounds right up my street. But I've played it for over half an hour now and done nothing - watched a whole bunch of cutscenes and occasionally pushed forward to run to the next area. There's no sign of any kind of battle system or indeed gameplay in there, and the storyline and world itself are unappealing. So into the bin it goes.

I wonder if, in time, Game Pass will lead to a change in design philosophy for games like this, as this type of world-building feels very self-indulgent. If I'd paid £15 for the game then I'd grit my teeth and get through it, but as one of a wide range of "free" options on a subscription service, it certainly feels like it needs to do more to drag the player in than make them sit through an hour of non-interactive nonsense before doing anything much at all.

Bin - Trek to Yomi. Fails the Mart 30-minute test by having one of the most uninspiring openings of any game I've seen lately.

Bin - Lost in Random. I'd thought this was supposed to be some kind of 3D adventure game with card battling, which sounds right up my street. But I've played it for over half an hour now and done nothing… So into the bin it goes.

The system works!

OK. I'm now into the postgame for Pikmin The Wild At Heart and this is me recommending this unreservedly if you like Pikmin. I got it in a sale for £7-ish. More than worth it at that price if you don't have enough time to finish it before it leaves GamePass.

Do they have a lot of Wii U gear left over then? Its died off now but for years you could readily get new old stock (or whatever way that phrase is meant to go) for the Dreamcast and I always wondered where that was all being stored prior to flooding ebay and Amazon market place.

I am excited about getting the Wii U set up when the house move all goes through! I still need to get The Xenoblade game too as previously had and sold it.

Want- Jurassic World Evolution 2 is coming to game pass tomorrow. I can't wait to jump into this. I loved the first game. I've seen water and birdcages for dinosaurs added in this one too.

I am a bit surprised at just how relevant Chrono Trigger has become to Chrono Cross despite the fact that people said it's tangentially related.

Spoiler - click to showThe fact that saving the world in Trigger is the direct cause and effect reason for the events that happened in Cross is sorta significant isn't it? Also, you literally see 'ghosts' of Crono, Lucca and Marle as children in the Dead Sea, not too 'important' but that's pretty on the nose.

I'm not saying Trigger is required playing for understanding Cross, I don't think it is (but definitely play it regardless) but I was led to believe there'd be slight references at best, not direct plot threads connected…

I just realised I want all the 'Prinny Presents NISA Classic' volumes that are out on Switch and PC right now:

Vol 1 is 'Phantom Brave' and 'Soul Nomad', Vol 2 is 'Makai Kingdom' and 'ZHP Unlosing Ranger vs Evil DarkDeath Evilman' and Vol 3 will be 'La Pucelle Tactics' and 'Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure'

There's quite a bit of variety in there for people who think these guys just make Disgaea likes. (They also made Labyrinth of Refrain too, which was an excellent game and their best story to date albeit not a specifically great dungeon crawler)

-Makai Kingdom is basically Disgaea with the fun and less of the grind, no item world
-Soul Nomad looks to be some kind of strategy rpg/rpg hybrid? I've wanted to play it for ages
-Unlosing Ranger is a roguelike
-La Pucelle Tactics precedes Disgaea and it's a bit clunkier as a result, but it's got a monster catching mechanic
-Rhapsody is described as a tactics rpg but apparently very easy

Might go back to my Vita save of Disgaea 4 to tide me over because I dunno' if I have time for any of these

Additional Play - Halo 4

Has there ever been a game series with so many entries that's changed so little over time? This is the sixth Halo (there have since been two more) and everything good in it comes directly from the original game. It's still fun, the basic two-weapon system is intact and the process of inching forward checkpoint by checkpoint is still satisfying (Halo's always been very much "hiding behind cover, the videogame" - you never get to do anything heroic in Halo games outside of cut-scenes) but I mean, come on guys. This was the first game by 343i and apart from some new enemies (mostly rubbish, quickly sidelined for the usual crew) and a much worse plot than usual, they turned in a completely faithful cover version. I mean it's fine but also slightly pointless.

I've never understood why Halo is so cherished. It does what it does fine, but it's not like it reinvented the wheel. But clearly, I'm in the minority there.

I like it - it's got a slow, deliberate pace that's quite different to most other FPS games, and the world/story in the first game was intriguing (it's become much less so with each subsequent instalment, to the point where I'm barely following what's going on in 4). It's one of the very few games I play at a harder-than-normal difficulty level by default, simply because that process of methodically chipping away at a level, checkpoint by checkpoint, is so satisfying.

I'll happily play a new Halo game every couple of years, but they are all exactly the same so I could equally just play through one of the older ones again I guess.

Been playing a lot of Apex Legends mobile lately. Surprisedly really good. A few thing here and there that aren't in it from the main game, but some cool new stuff too. Like Playing in third person. Something I would like in the main Apex games to be honest.

Finally managed to beat a Slay the Spire run with the Watcher tonight, using a pretty lucky Mark-and-Defend deck.

I ended up with six Pressure Points cards (five of 'em upgraded by the end!), which is more of them than I've ever even seen in a run before. Thankfully most of them showed up early, so it paid off even before the first boss.

(The Relics weren't great, but they did the job.)

Along the way I've also completed all of her unlocks; I've still got a couple left for the Ironclad and Defect, though.

Some games are just timeless. I constantly come back to that game on the xcloud every month or so.

I played about six games of Slay The Spire and got bored. I do not understand what everyone sees in it.

I came into it pretty soon after getting rid of all my Netrunner cards, a decision I regret more every time I think about it, and it really scratched an itch in that space despite the obvious differences between their core loops.

I've bounced pretty hard off every other roguelike I've ever tried, though.

This one at least doesn't require crazy platforming skills.

Love Slay the Spire, there is a card game of that out soon, should have been out last year but seems to have massively slipped.

Slay the Spire is brilliant. It's perhaps just a little slow-paced though, I often find myself drifting towards Monster Train for a slightly punchier variation on the same theme. If anyone here hasn't tried that one then it's well worth checking out.

I quite like the slow pace of Spire, where I can take my time on card choices and play decisions rather than something frenetic - though I'd also say it can be highly variable depending on the deck. I've had Shiv-heavy Silent decks that cut through enemies like butter and required essentially no strategic play beyond "throw all the knives" (though I will admit it took until at least the second area before I had all the pieces).

I will give Monster Train a look, though - I'd not actually heard of it before.

It's on Game Pass and it's great.

It starts off a lot easier than Slay the Spire so you might win within your first game or two and wonder what the fuss is about. As you progress up the difficulty levels though (MT has 25 Covenants that work in the same way as StS's 20 Ascensions) it really starts to show its depth.

There are 5 clans (6 if you have the DLC) and each has a choice of two leaders and needs to be paired with a secondary clan so there are a lot more combinations to play with from the off. It doesn't quite have Slay the Spire's incredible balance but it's faster and scrappier and in many ways much more varied. It keeps me coming back regularly and is one of the Game Pass games I don't think I will ever uninstall.

Might as well buy it now then, so you're ready for the inevitable day it stops being on there…

This sounds amazing, but I can't see it on the Game Pass app. Has it already gone? I'll check game pass on the Xbox later tonight to be sure.

Edit: it's £24.99 too. I'll have to wait until it's back on game pass (if it is indeed gone).

It's definitely still on Game Pass - it's showing up on the mobile app and the PC app for me right now.

Ah, thanks. It must of been me messing something up on my mobile app. Just checked out some trailers and it definitely my kinda game. I'll be downloading this when I'm back from work. 👍

Slay the Spire is brilliant. It's perhaps just a little slow-paced though, I often find myself drifting towards Monster Train for a slightly punchier variation on the same theme. If anyone here hasn't tried that one then it's well worth checking out.

I think the pace is the problem for me. The first stage takes ages and doesn't really have many interesting card combos. The second stage is fine. Then the third stage (if you get there) is just mopping up with all the combos which got you through the second stage and are now powerful enough that there isn't really any threat. If probably have played it more if I could skip the first stage.

The first stage takes ages and doesn't really have many interesting card combos.

A little bit of customisation out of the gate would be helpful, for sure – even if it's just a "add/remove X cards from this random selection" to get a leg up on building your strategy.