Messages

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General Gaming / Re: Rolevember 2026: The Backlog of Time

« on: November 02, 2026, 09:22:43 AM »

Glad to see this idea come to fruition. It also coincides with several RPGs at top of my queue. I am not sure how many I can see credits role on but I will try to report on each and certainly chime in when I can add one to the pile. Here is what is on the menu:

• Elden Ring - as I mentioned in Shocktober I am playing this but limited to coop sessions and only about 25 hours in.
• Mario & Luigi: Dream Team - I started this over the summer but I usually only play 3DS when traveling.
• Super Paper Mario - this one is up for a replay in my queue of Wii games, though I was hoping to go for 100% this time around.
• Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave - the game that just won't quit will hopefully be done in the next week or two. I am about 75 hours in and in the middle of part 3.
• Xenoblade Chronicles - What better time to finally play the first Xenoblade game (I have only played X) now that I have the Switch 2 version.

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General Gaming / Re: Shocktober 7: NWR 3D

« on: October 31, 2026, 04:26:22 PM »

Splatty Halloween forum fiends! Thanks to all that posted and lurked in our annual October games thread. I hope everyone has a fun safe holiday. See you all in the GOTY topic or maybe sooner...

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General Gaming / Re: Shocktober 7: NWR 3D

« on: October 31, 2026, 04:21:55 PM »

Just like last year I have been playing Resident Evil: Biohazard on PSVR. I had even less motivation to jump back in this year since I have been consumed by Fortune's Weave, which I am still not done with. I did manage a couple of play sessions and was finally able to escape the main house.

I also have a working shotgun and flame thrower now . Of course, you just end up in another building, the old house, with another crazy family member, this time the mother. Taking care of her is going to have to wait for next year I guess.

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General Gaming / Re: Shocktober 7: NWR 3D

« on: October 31, 2026, 04:17:57 PM »

The game just does not know when to stop, and that definitely extends to the combat. The combat in Luigi's Mansion was never particularly intricate: you hit the ghost with the flashlight, and then you suck them in with your vaccume Ghostbusters-style. And try as Luigi's Mansions 2 AND 3 might, they don't even really expand the combat system beyond that, and it's just not enough for as much mind-numbing combat makes up the climax of these games. By the end of the final "normal" level of LM2, you're fighting waves of a half-dozen ghosts at once for the better part of 10 minutes. It's just too much for how little there is to this game's combat. The best the game can ever manage to add variety is to annoy the player with ghosts that exist basically to annoy you as you try to get at other ghosts. And it is just so much "fun" to race against a timer to capture ghosts that take turns hiding in furniture and then snipe you while you slowly try to take them out one by one.

Yeah...I dunno. It's been a while since I played 3, but if combat in this series is going to be as prominent as these games make it towards the end, the player needs to have more options. You get upgrades in this game for your poltergust, flashlight, and blacklight, but I had those maxed out before I'd even completed the 2nd mansion, so from that point on money was essentially pointless. It feels like there was meant to be more to the upgrade system than ended up in the final release.

And that final fight with King Boo was just obnoxious, with the way he likes to warp out of the spike ball drop zones just as the balls are about to hit him, not to mention the long chase sequences between phases.

An OK game in the end. It's probably better than I remembered from the 3DS version, though the Switch additions are basically worthless. The game wasn't built with a right stick in mind, so using the vacuum is still best done using the "Aim up" or "Aim down" buttons while strafing rather than even trying to use the stick.

It's been a while since I played LM2 on 3DS, but going back to LM3, the combat is pretty rough on the controller. I found it tough to use the joy-con grip and switched to the pro- controller, which I typically just do to action or platformer games. That must mean the combat was worse using the 3DS controls, but I don't remember that issue?

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General Gaming / Re: R.I.P. BioWare: A Studio Rarely Seen on Nintendo Consoles

« on: October 23, 2026, 11:39:41 AM »

The only BioWare game I have played is the aforementioned Mass Effect 3, which I only picked up because it was on Wii U. With nothing to compare it against I had a good time and really enjoyed the game. I do have a copy of the newest Dragon Age game on PS5 but have not played it yet. With the transfer of EA this did not really come as a surprise but still a sad moment for longtime fans.

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General Gaming / Re: Shocktober 7: NWR 3D

« on: October 19, 2026, 05:25:28 PM »

And Christ, this game still looks absolutely stunning at times. Some of this texture work wouldn't look out of place on a PS5 game. Hell, a LOT of this game looks artistically better than most PS5 games I see, adjusted for resolution scaling. It annoys me somewhat that if Konami hasn't remastered this series by now, they probably never will.

Those top two screen shots do look current gen  Very nice looking game.

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General Gaming / Re: Shocktober 7: NWR 3D

« on: October 18, 2026, 03:38:41 PM »

I was looking over my collection for some spooky games and was reminded of Flipping Death a Switch game I picked up at a time when I was buying way too many games. I tried playing it as a couch coop game but it did not go over well with the group and we gave up on it. Now, about 8 years later I finally got around to playing it all the way through. The game functions a lot like a point and click adventure game and has good funny writing like some of the better games in that genre. The art style is a like a diorama which supports the flipping mechanic where you can go between the land of the living and land of the dead. The game is also nice and short only taking about 6 hours to run through. There were some additional challenges and a set of character cards to collect but I am not sure if I will go back to it for that or not. The main problem is the puzzles. You have some main objective that is reached by completed 5-15 sub tasks, some of which are sequential. These sub tasks are often not explicitly stated and rarely intuitive. You can just experiment with possessing every character and stumble across them or you can use the in-game hints, neither of which are really puzzle solving. Completing the challenges and cards would probably be even worse and just devolve into me using a guide from online. The game has pretty good reviews with NWR's Daan Koopman giving it a 9 so maybe it just didn't click with me.

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General Gaming / Re: Shocktober 7: NWR 3D

« on: October 16, 2026, 06:41:54 PM »

5 more Kleidos Challenges down in Lords of Shadow 2, with 2 left to go.

I have only played the 3DS Lords of Shadow game. Is this one also developed by Mercury Steam?

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General Gaming / Re: Shocktober 7: NWR 3D

« on: October 16, 2026, 06:39:55 PM »

I currently have a playthrough of Horripilant running on my Switch 1 while my Switch 2 is solely for Dragon’s Dogma 2. I can’t imagine I’ll be playing much else this month but I will try to sneak Fatal Frame 5 into the mix. I also have Gloom Gate loaded on my Playdate, which just dropped the first two games of its third season. It’s just horror-themed enough to warrant discussion.

Boot up Fatal Frame 5 on Wii U and you will be doing the four on four challenge during Shocktober!

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TalkBack / Re: Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave Expansion Pass Available, New Story Content In 2027

« on: October 16, 2026, 06:30:16 PM »

This seems a bit overpriced. To me it's worth about $20 so I don't think I will be getting it. Do these DLC passes go on sale?

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General Gaming / Re: Shocktober 7: NWR 3D

« on: October 10, 2026, 06:06:57 PM »

As I hinted at earlier, I did revisit Luigi's Manion 3 on switch. I played the game when it first released and by the time the story was rapping up ~14 hours I was a little fatigued with the game and just wanted to be done. So I held off completing the game's primary collectibles (gems and boos) until now. It took less time than I thought (~6 hours/~20 hours total) even with having to relearn the various mechanics in the game. Of course I have already acquired about half the gems but I had only gotten one boo. Fortunately I had a surplus of in-game money and spent it all to have the locations of these collectibles appear on the map. It just tells you which room to look so there was still fun puzzle solving to be had.

I am still left with a few questions. First, there is clearly some sort of internal achievement system with little notifications popping up when you collect all the gems on a floor for instance. However, I could not find a list of these in any menu? Now, there is an album where you can view your gem and boo collections. This also contains a place for rare ghosts. I caught every ghost I found in the game and that row was completely empty. I am guessing there are somehow tied to the multiplayer? Still a really fun game, that surprisingly does not have a switch 2 upgrade.
With a game actually completed I am feeling motivated to finish more while chipping away at Elden Ring and Fire Emblem!

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General Gaming / Re: Shocktober 7: NWR 3D

« on: October 10, 2026, 05:56:01 PM »

Finally closed the book on The Thing: Remastered, and yeah...vintage-era Spoony certainly wasn't lying about how bad this game was.

Where to begin on this thing...well, let's certainly get one thing out of the way: this game just fundamentally doesn't understand John Carpenter's The Thing, which is why it's kind of bizarre that this game had his personal blessing and for a long time was considered an official sequel.

I had not heard of this game before your post. There is a lot of interesting discourse on Carpenter's involvement online, even that he has an uncredited cameo in the game. I am also looking at the Toxic Commando game which includes his name in the title and wonder how much involvement he actually has, especially at his age now.

I really enjoyed the Back to the Future and Ghostbuster games that act as sequels their movie series, but the connection here sounds much looser.

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General Gaming / Re: Shocktober 7: NWR 3D

« on: October 10, 2026, 05:44:00 PM »

Spirit Ashes and Ashes of War (which are tied to weapons) are two separate things.

We might finally be getting to the root of my problems. I think I need to go back and read what the game said about these as I was definitely conflating them.

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General Gaming / Re: Shocktober 7: NWR 3D

« on: October 08, 2026, 02:39:39 PM »

2. You need to have the Spirit Ash set in your active item slot.

I think this is the part I failed to do. I thought since it was tied to a specific weapon using that weapon would summon it. I will give this a try. Thanks.

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General Gaming / Re: Shocktober 7: NWR 3D

« on: October 08, 2026, 02:37:52 PM »

I found guard-follow-up attacks to be a more consistent and reliable strategy, with the understanding that parrying does not necessarily require the same level of endurance-building (the stat, not the concept) as a dedicated shield build.

More specific advice would be crafting fire-pots: as a consistent form of elemental damage that can also occasionally splash onto opponents, they saved my ass far too many times in the early game and become a nice additive form of screwing with enemies in the mid-game.

I try to get that sneak attack to start things off and then just guard and attack. It is much safer since I have not mastered the parrying.

We have acquired a fire pot but they don't seem cheap and since they are consumable I am hesitant to use it. A typical challenging battle will take many attempts and using the fire pot on an unsuccessful attempt feels like a waste. I guess your suggesting the fire pot will make an unsuccessful attempt successful if used strategically?

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General Gaming / Re: Shocktober 7: NWR 3D

« on: October 08, 2026, 10:35:38 AM »

Some more specific advice I'd give is to make sure you thoroughly explore the area you start the game in as well as the southern continent before advancing to the castle up north for your first legacy dungeon and pair of bosses. A lot of early players run to the objective early on and get immediately wiped out by Margit the Fell Omen, who guards the first dungeon.

Regarding Margit, there is an item you can obtain from an NPC named "Patches" if you find and do his quest line in an early cave dungeon IIRC somewhere around the starting area. This re-usable item will lock Margit in place for a few seconds a few times, so it's a handy way to take him down.

As you expect that is exactly what we did. We made a beeline for the objective and started fighting Margit without leveling up at all. After about 100 attempts I was able to defeat him and just figured that was how hard the game was supposed to be. I don't remember if we met Patches or not but will check that out.

While you shouldn't rush to the castle early on, I DO recommend advancing along the critical path long enough to run into this one lady who's hanging out in a shack in the windy area near the castle, as she will give you several useful items including a jellyfish spirit ash I found immensely useful in the early game. The thing just sits there and tanks damage while dishing out poison damage. IIRC, it's around here that you unlock access to Roundtable Hold, which is where you can upgrade your weapons and armor, too.

Don't **** with the many, MANY dragons in the game until you're comfortable with the combat system, and stick to attacking them on Torrent where possible in hit and run attacks.

Several of the chests in the game are trapped and will teleport you to areas of the map. In particular, there's a chest sitting IIRC just down some steps in the middle of a large field in the early game that teleports you to one of the most dangerous late game regions in the game. If you can just run out of the cave and past the enemies the game teleports you next to, you'll regain the ability to fast travel and from there you can make some decisions. That region of the game contains a lot of powerful equipment if you can just avoid enemies long enough to get it.

While you shouldn't rush to the castle early on, I DO recommend advancing along the critical path long enough to run into this one lady who's hanging out in a shack in the windy area near the castle, as she will give you several useful items including a jellyfish spirit ash I found immensely useful in the early game. The thing just sits there and tanks damage while dishing out poison damage. IIRC, it's around here that you unlock access to Roundtable Hold, which is where you can upgrade your weapons and armor, too.

Yes, we met that NPC and have several spirit ashes, but I am not sure how they work. I get how to fuse them to a weapon but how do you activate their special properties?

We also found Roundtable Hold but the blacksmith there just seemed to be the same as the smithing station early on? I bought some more spells from someone there but can't seem to use them? 

Several of the chests in the game are trapped and will teleport you to areas of the map. In particular, there's a chest sitting IIRC just down some steps in the middle of a large field in the early game that teleports you to one of the most dangerous late game regions in the game. If you can just run out of the cave and past the enemies the game teleports you next to, you'll regain the ability to fast travel and from there you can make some decisions. That region of the game contains a lot of powerful equipment if you can just avoid enemies long enough to get it.

Yeah, I definitely got sucked into that trap. It wasn't too bad but I could tell I wasn't ready for that area. Thanks for all this advice it is very helpful. I am trying not to look anything up online so as not too just spoil the game.

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General Gaming / Re: Shocktober 7: NWR 3D

« on: October 06, 2026, 10:54:22 AM »

While I am no closer to wrapping any games up, It seems like a great time to chime in on Elden Ring since there is no way I will finish it this month. I am playing this on PS5 with my partner. All the praise this game gets had me interested but my partner was actually the one that insisted we get it. As Evan_B mentions it is very fitting for Shocktober.

But I have been sinking an unruly amount of time into Elden Ring and I do agree that some of its boss animations and statistics are unhinged and made me resort to cheese too often. That game is macabre enough to feel fitting for the month.

I think so far the art, characters, and environments are my favorite part. There are some very frightening and grotesque beings in the game. I captured a few in the pictures below. As everyone knows the combat is strict and I haven't had the discipline to get good with the parrying yet. At this point I am about 20 hours in and still just focusing on powering up the character with equipment and leveling. It seems like it is just going to get harder from here on out. Any advice is welcome 

...or Melenia from Elden Ring (which is a truly bullshit boss).

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General Gaming / Re: Shocktober 7: NWR 3D

« on: October 03, 2026, 02:51:20 PM »

I wasn't sure how popular or successful Onimusha would be but sounds like it is doing alright. I think Capcom released some positive sales results and it even got a 10 from IGN. I guess focusing on making the combat and boss fights solid covered for the flaws with others as well. I heard from someone on a podcast that they did quit on that final boss. Do you know what your total play time was?

I have really been struggling to finish games ever since August and being in the middle of Fire Emblem is not helping. I should still be able to report on a few I am playing. I am also looking at a Luigi's Mansion game for the month.

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General Gaming / Shocktober 7: NWR 3D

« on: September 30, 2026, 05:32:19 PM »

It's Shocktober again and time for our slightly spooky version of a "what have you been playing" forum topic.

When does this start?

Shocktober begins right now, and will last the entire month of October, ending after Halloween night.

What should I play?

Anything that falls under the classification of a "scary" game. Survival horror, action horror, a horror-themed FPS, anything with zombies, etc. In the interest of having fun, this can be more of a loose definition of what defines a scary game, and constitute anything that is more-or-less "spooky themed". Here are a few games that will come out this month:

• Castlevania: Belmont's Curse
• Don't Fret
• Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival
• Silver Pines
• Remothered: Red Nun's Legacy
• Resident Evil Remakes 2-4 (switch 2 releases)

You can think of this as another Backlaugust if you want -- You've probably got horror games in your backlog, and it's time to play them. How many games you want to play is up to you, whether that's just one game or a few games. Any platform, doesn't matter. They can be new games, old games. Even horror games you've already beaten long ago and want to replay. You don't have to choose all of your games up front; you can if you want, but it's fine to just take it one-game-at-a-time.

Here are the previous years' threads:
[2025] [2024] [2023] [2022] [2021] [2020].

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: The Switch 2 Storage Crisis

« on: September 30, 2026, 05:08:50 PM »

I only have Welcome Tour as a digital download, the rest of my games are cartridges. I don't have any game key cards yet, but I will probably get one for Mega Man. So I think my storage it fine. I did end up getting an SD card for Switch because there ended up being a bunch of download only titles but that just hasn't happened yet for switch 2.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: What is your favorite game this year?

« on: September 30, 2026, 05:05:38 PM »

For Switch 2 I bought Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, Star Fox, Splatoon Raiders, Orbitals, Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave, and the Xenoblade Chronicles. I still haven't played Xenoblade or Orbitals and I'm too early into Fire Emblem, so I cannot fairly consider those. Of the other three I would say Splatoon Raiders is my favorite, but Star Fox is a close second. Both got set aside pretty quickly because of Backlaugust but I have plans to return to both. I think that Star Fox update just dropped so I really should get back into that multiplayer and get those achievements while the community is still there.

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: September 11, 2026, 04:53:58 PM »

I remember really liking Puppeteer. The 3D is what led me to it, not sure I would have come across it otherwise. Unfortunately I picked up the download version and really wish I got the physical version when it was more available.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Nintendo Direct Sept. 9, 2026 Thoughts

« on: September 11, 2026, 04:39:45 PM »

Overall I thought the Direct was well rounded with a little something for everyone. In terms of new game announcements, I thought there were more than the last few. Metroid was probably the game of the direct for me. Thinking of all the games mentioned, here are the ones I plan to pick up (or have already pre-ordered): Fire Emblem, Ocarina of Time, Xenoblade 3, Metroid, Stage Fright, Mega Man. That is more than enough Switch 2 games for me as I juggle my backlog and other consoles. Layton is a wait and see for me. The updates to Mario Kart and Star Fox were also welcome additions. Was Duskbloods mentioned? Why didn't they announce the Zelda movie cast members? In regards to Ocarina of Time, this was in a recent IGN store email

I knew it was going to be big, but I didn’t know just how big. IGN’s commerce team saw roughly as much interest in the Ocarina of Time remake as we did in GTA 6 preorders. This game is going to be a massive hit

"

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TalkBack / Re: Other News From The September 9 Nintendo Direct

« on: September 10, 2026, 07:30:44 PM »

Great to see Stage Fright finally resurface, though I was hoping for a 2026 release. Still it looked great and I am excited for this Overcooked follow up.

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TalkBack / Re: Capcom Bringing New Mega Man Information And Trio Of Resident Evil Remakes

« on: September 10, 2026, 07:26:25 PM »

Glad to see Proto Man making a return to playable. So many amiibo for 2027!