So I’ve been pretty busy over here. Yeah I’m on holidays so lots of gaming happening. I want to talk about all of it, but most of it’s not interesting. Oh well, gonna do it anyway.

I finished Spirit Tracks. Expect more about that later. The second-last phase of the final boss was super frustrating, and you don’t want your game experience to have a sour note right at the end. I think I’ll try and finish Mario & Luigi 3, in hopes of one day playing Dream Team, but before I did that I cleared out a few demoes I’d been downloading from the Store (haven’t been any for a while though).

Fractured Soul demo was fun, maybe a little slow-paced but as it went on it started throwing stuff at you more quickly and it became frantic. I like how it made you think in a completely different way. Basically you switch between the top and bottom screens and your actions are mirrored but the rooms are different. Lots of potential for puzzles and action. It was a little simplistic and drab but that’s kind of what it was going for. I won’t buy it but that’s because I buy barely any games. Keep that in mind.

I also tried the Sega Racing 2 demo for 3DS. It’s the same demo as the console one, and everything else seems the same too in terms of content. The problem is, if you set yourself up as equivalent, the glaring imbalance in execution is going to shine through. What I mean is, it’s a very much cut-down console port, and those don’t look good. I also had some framerate issues, which is not a good look in a demo. This thing is supposed to be selling the game to me (previous comments on austerity notwithstanding). Not impressed. Kinda reminds me of the Rayman Origins demo, which is a very inferior package of the same content on console.

Next, iPhone stuff! I played through Random Heroes 2 then deleted it. It was ok, only small improvements from the original. Good little run&gun time-waster. I also appreciated the cameo appearance of a few characters from the developer’s other game, and another indie game. One day I’ll write a post about the Indie Game Universe, I like it. I got my mum into Letterpress after everyone else has given up on it, as is the case with most of these social word/drawing games.

The trial bit of Layton Brothers Mystery Room has convinced me to get the full thing: despite the Layton license being tacked on (the Prof’s not there… so far) it’s cheap, similar to Ace Attorney I assume (that demo’s next on my list) but not supporting Capcom, and fun with good characters. Plants vs Zombies 2 got a soft launch in my country, so I’ve been playing it. Some nice new features, but also as you’d expect some pretty blatant and cynical microtransaction stuff. They hide it well at first, but when your plant list has slots taking up room with plants locked behind real money paywalls, it starts feeling pushy. And after finishing the whole original twice, I can’t find the enthusiasm.

After 100%-ing Banjo-Tooie, I took a step back in terms of release dates and started DK64. Hmm. Well, I’ll save more thoughts for another time, but so far it’s actually pretty enjoyable. It has strengths and weaknesses: eg, poor writing but fun animations, lots of collectibles is good (debatably) but colour-coding them gets tedious. It’s no Banjo, but it has its own character.

I felt like some Smash Bros. 1-player action, so I played Melee a bit the other day. And just today, I did something I thought I would never do. I played Brawl online. The lag was pretty bad, but it was actually good because I had a video stream of and text chat with some of the other players, so we could get reactions and stuff. It’s because I was watching the Metroid Headquarters anniversary charity livestream all weekend, and after they finished all the Metroid games, they played some other games and just kept streaming. Getting the chatters and watchers involved was fun. I even won 2 out of 3 matches! Good times. Weird experience, interacting with relative strangers in such a direct way from across the world.

But I also interacted with people in the same room as me! I know right! I had a good friend over one night, and we played Nintendo Land since he hadn’t used a Wii U before. Plus, it’s just a good party game really. Then I played it again when I went to a new friend’s house. This inspired me again, and I even played it by myself and with my wife the next day, and cleared some things I couldn’t before. It’s quite charming and once you get used to replaying challenges, you can have a lot of fun. It also challenges your skill in a way that seems more suited to old-skool Nintendo than the Touch Generation Nintendo. But there’s still some Super Guide for babies, which was honestly welcome at times. It just has a lot of range though.

Ok I think I got it all out. I’ve had so many differing game experiences over the past couple of weeks that I just had to spit some words onto a pixel. I don’t feel I’ve done much justice to them but that’s why no-one pays me for this. Ok, pip pip.