It’s a new year, and you know what that means! More of almost exactly the same as last year as four foreigners in Japan sit around talking about games as if they’re experts on the subject or something. However, while the core format of the show will remain the same, we’re going to make an effort to give you a leaner, less waffly show going forward!

To keep things in familiar ground we kick off the show with a look at the games we played over the holidays. Danny tries out a DS classic courtesy of Ty, while Ty himself finally clears Fallout 4. James reminisces about his glory days as a (digital) extreme sports pro with Virtual Console versions of Waverace 64 and 1080 Snowboarding. Sairus rounds out the segment by finally scratching his Bayonetta 2 itch.

There’s generally not a huge amount of news around this time of year, but we still discuss Japan finally getting a 2DS launch alongside VC releases of first generation Pokemon titles and Sairus continues to gripe about new information for Pokken Tournament. We also have some light speculation about the NX based on recent rumors and analyst predictions.

We also have a look at recent new releases like the actually quite interesting VC edition of Super Mario Advance 4: Mario Bros 3, before checking out the Japanese Sales Charts for the last week.

Finally we check out some reader messages and a little Life in Japan section on how Japan likes to spend their Winter Holidays!

Ake Ome, Koto Yoro! (Happy New Year, please continue to be nice to us!)

This podcast was edited by Danny Bivens.

Music for this episode of The Famicast is used with permission from 8 Bit Weapon. You can purchase their music and shirts from their website 8bitweapon.com

Additional music for this episode of The Famicast is copyrighted to Nintendo, and is included under fair use protection.

The artwork for the show was designed by Tony Losoya, follow him on Twitter @Tony_Losoya