Game in Hand

Not sure how a capcom game made it into nextfest demo front page but I guess you do what you gotta do. Probably over exaggerating but the selection of less than quality titles seems a lot higher this year. It definitely took a few days for the good titles to work their way to the top thanks to the steam community digging deep.

I think at this point they could add a 2026 honda civic as a playable character in diablo, and my primary response will still be "Okay... maybe I should go try and see what changes they made to my paladin and sorc?". The warlock is unnecessary pay to fun but I can give credit where credit is due. They made me pay full price for a game I bought 5 years ago and still makes me think path of diablo and project diablo 2 needed my $30 instead.

Some mixed signals in there with the story. But overall a very fun and playful atmosphere borrowing from some very strong themes. Easy recommendation in my books for any Paper Mario series fan.

Seasons greetings friends. I can't remember the last time made a >1hr episode, so bare with me for the mega finale of 2025. A lot of content, a lot of feelings in reflection, a lot of comments, a lot of games. It was a strong year for all walks of gaming. Maybe we can thank GTAVI for being perpetually pushed as studios cracked the whip to get games released early this year. But that's it for me this year, cheers.

Here are some thoughts and sentiments after half a year with my switch 2. While I have at least enjoyed my time playing both new and old games, part of me wonders if we are seeing a bit of Nintendo slip-up in these 1st party titles developed through COVID. Whether it's dividings teams too thinly or following modern AAA garbage practices, I feel like Nintendo turned a new page on monetization. Before we received more out of the DLSS capable, VRR capable, handheld system.

What starts as just bunch of jerks becomes you and your lovable bunch of jerks. Just remember, your choices matter to a bunch of reject villains who are coming together as a team to take on the true evil of the world; unemployment and the rising cost of rent and food. Great looking game from start to finish and well worth the wait ever since playing the demo at nextfest in the spring/summer.

I kept my expectations realistic because like most pokemon games, the thrill is in recapturing the same 60 pokemon from the generation pool and evolving them until you've seen just enough pokemon to know it's not worth it to catch them all. At its fundamentals, the battle system was a good pivot from turn based combat. But the failure comes in polish and finish. It is quite unexcusable this is our intro to pokemon on the switch 2 and really I can only think we got a switch 1 game that was easily dialed up for a bump in vram, ram, and gpu performance. 30 FPS is quite suitable for how bad the animations are in this game and I can only wonder sometimes what they spend their development budgets on. I am not even entertaining the thought of the mystery dungeon DLC, and I think I am ready to move on from buying a pokemon game until a true 10/10 title shows up. Won't hold my breath though...

From over the moon feelings about Silksong, to realizing my half decade of having game pass is soon to end as I enter my final year of game pass ultimate. Soon this podcast is going to be called Dollars and (Common)Sense. The most insane thing to suggest is to continually buy switch 1 version of switch 2 games, using vouchers and discounted egift cards, until Nintendo 1st party titles start earning that MSRP. Can't really say I don't feel these games feel worth more than the 35% off price tag.