aniki

New 2D Metroid and an open-world 3D Kirby game announced in today's Direct. Plus a bunch of updates for Mario Kart World, Starfox and Kirby Air Riders, and new versions of Witcher 3, various Resident Evils, and Tomb Raider. It was a pretty good show, even if it was a bit of a slow start.

Also, specifically for Gar, there's a Danganronpa 2 remake with a whole new alternate story mode.

I'm getting a really strong, visceral discomfort from that kid Link, and while I'm not sure exactly why, I think there's something about the big, wet eyes looking up submissively through the fringe, coupled with the pink nose and flush cheeks, that immediately makes me think of a particular style of thirst-trap cosplay makeup that I've seen on Tumblr. (I realise that there's no way I come out of a sentence like that not sounding like a deviant pervert, but truthfully I have not sought any of this stuff out, it's just how Tumblr's userbase is.)

Aside from that, the environments are overly detailed in some places, but weirdly basic in others; similarly Link's clothes and gear are covered in texture and greeblies, but the NPCs in Castle Town were comparatively flat; the over-the-top flashing when Link's sword lands a blow. I did think the running animation when Link was crossing Hyrule Field was really good (the shield looked like it was too big and bulky for a kid his size, which I thought was a nice touch).

I've never had the nostalgia for this game in particular that would make me enthusiastic about a remake, but if nothing else this just generally looks like an Unreal Engine 5 fan project, or one of those DLSS 5 demos. I expect a bit more flair or style from Nintendo.

Has anyone here read and enjoyed any of the Mistborn books, and if so can you please tell me exactly how much of a head injury I'll need to give myself so that I can stop the cold dread creeping in every time I see its cover on my Kindle.

I cannot fathom how a person can build this world and this magic system and these characters, and then proceed to tell a story with such a lack of panache, wit or poetry. It's the most clinical, uninspiring prose I can recall reading in my life.

Any curiosity I have about what's going to happen next is suffocated under a thousand tons of Sanderson's own apparent disinterest in the moment to moment happenings. Someone needs to buy this man a thesaurus and beat him around the head with it until he learns what a metaphor is; even if he deployed them poorly it would be a towering improvement over this bland gruel of a novel.

I really enjoyed it. From the trailers, I'd expected it to be over-stuffed with bad guys and subplots, but it was actually pretty focused (if a little over-explained at points by that tedious AI assistant in his suit).

Stuff I particularly liked:

• The amount of time he was in the suit.
• The cops weren't grumpily hunting Spidey down.
• Every interaction between Spider-Man and the Punisher.

The mutation stuff felt a bit under-baked (and wasn't really resolved?), but whatever.

Headhunter is really janky and cheesy (and has aged like fine milk in many respects), but it's another Dreamcast game worth tracking down. It takes some big swings for the time, and has a great soundtrack.

It won't be a good if you're single-player-only, but Power Stone is worth a look. (The sequel gets a lot more praise, but I never liked how gimmicky its stages were.)

ChuChu Rocket is also more interesting as a multiplayer game, though I remember its single player puzzles being pretty good.

Time has not been kind to its voice acting and storyline, but I still think Silver is worth a look for an alternative to the turn-based JRPG headliners.

Outrigger and Slave Zero did some interesting things for control schemes given the lack of a second analogue stick on the DC pad.

Even at the time, I found Toy Commander's low poly look a bit outputting, and the difficulty spikes are no joke, but there's some interesting design going on nonetheless.

Sega Rally 2 and Metropolis Street Racer are both very good, but horrendously difficult (for my ham fisted racing skills, anyway).