Mario

Month End Video Game Wrap-Up: December 2024

~ Game Over ~

DEAD OR SCHOOL (PC) – I bought it because the title made me laugh out loud. Much to my surprise, it turned out to be a pretty enjoyable little hack ‘n’ slash. Could use a bit more polish, but it’s just the right difficulty level and I had a fun time playing it.

Ring Fit Adventure (Switch) – I’ve been making time to play this for an hour or so every Sunday for a couple months now, and I’ve finally, finally beaten the game on New Game+ mode. Now to start New Game++! Hopefully I’ll stick with it better this time around and finish it within 2025.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind (Switch) – A brand-spankin’ new arcade-style brawler that came out of nowhere and I purchased immediately. I have no regrets. While it could have used a little more time in the oven, it’s exactly what I both expected and hoped for.

TE Video: coming Soon (January 2025)

A new year is just around the corner, and with is comes a whole new programming schedule! I’m really excited for all the videos I have coming up, and doubly excited for absolutely nobody to watch them! Yay for time well spent!

Urayama (PC) – On Jan 2, we kick off the new year with a Japanese indie horror by a new (to me) developer, Yamoto. While it’s a bit rough around the edges, I had a great time playing it, and I think it’s a fun watch. Even with my commentary.

The Knight Witch (PC) – The last three episodes of this series go up on Jan 6, 13, and 20 respectively. If you haven’t been paying attention to it up to this point… well, I don’t think anything I can say is going to sell you on it.

Mario & Luigi: Brothership (Switch) – Part 8 goes live on Jan 4, with new episodes each following Saturday. I’ve kind of given up hope that anyone will care about this series, but I’m still going to see it through. At least it’s been fun for me!

DEAD OR SCHOOL (PC) – A game I had little faith in when starting, that I came to truly enjoy over time. The first three episodes of this long, long series will air on Jan 9, 23, and 30. Truth be told, at the time of this writing I’ve recorded 15 hour(ish)-long episodes and there’s no end in sight. This bad boy’s gonna be running all year.

Can’t Revert (PC) – Another indie horror on Jan 16, but this one is bad. It’s a very PT-style “walk through the same apartment over and over as scary things happen” kind of game, but with an incredibly overused plot and a bad chase sequence at the end. Still, not the worst game I’ve played recently!

9 Years of Shadows (PC) – Another metroidvania to carry on after The Knight Witch ends, this one starts on Jan 27. It’s a little more of a standard metroidvania, but with a very cool element-switching mechanic and a tenuous link to Greek mythology. I really liked this one, and I hope this series gets even one person to buy the game!

Month End Video Game Wrap-Up: November 2024

~ Game Over ~

Silent Hill 2 (2024) (PC) – Exactly what I want to see in a remake: very similar to the source material, but with lots of tweaks and surprises for veterans of the original. The combat is surprisingly fun (SH combat is usually ass) and the new puzzles are (mostly) pretty darn good.

Can’t Revert (PC) – It’s just like PT, except much less frightening. Also, makes flagrant use of the “bad dad” trope that’s so common in horror games. I had a few good laughs with it, though! There’s a let’s play video of it coming some day.

Peglin (PC) – GD Peglin is back for more…

TE Video: Coming Soon (Dec 2024)

Oh, things have gotten wildly out of control on my YouTube channel! Over the last month, I’ve gained over 50 new subscribers, and videos are actually getting likes now!? Only problem is, the watch minutes aren’t adding up too quick. So I guess bots can like and subscribe now?

Also all my videos are on Rumble as well. But that channel’s not doing so well. Which is too bad, because the threshold for monetization is much lower there.

Anyway, here’s what’s coming up next month (for all the bots that care):

The Knight Witch – Part 5 goes live on Dec 2, and there’s a new episode every Monday. This one isn’t gaining much traction by any metric, but I didn’t expect it to. I don’t think many people know it exists. But it’s a really good game, it’s too bad it’s buried under so many other games.

Another Code Recollection – Part 12 goes live on Dec 5, and unlike The Knight Witch, this one will actually wrap up by the end of the year. However, this series is getting even less attention than The Knight Witch, which I find odd because it’s a story-heavy game, and at least in my opinion, those are the best games to watch let’s plays of. Oh well! *shrug*

Mario & Luigi: Brothership – Part 4 will air on Dec 7. While the first episode did pretty okay (50+ views), part 2 is still sitting at zero as of this writing. Ouch. I really thought there may be some draw, as it’s a new game with big name recognition, but I seem to have been mistaken. I’m honestly not even sure if I’m going to finish the game on-camera or not. But I probably will.

A Pop-Tarts Review – I’m planning at least one for December. I won’t tell you what flavour, but I will tell you that I intend on putting it up on the 25th. There will probably actually even be another one before that, but we’ll have to see how motivated I feel over the next couple of weeks.

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Completionist

You know what’s weird? I didn’t ever write all that much about Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door when it was originally released on GameCube. I did a thing where I critiqued a TV Guide review of the game, but that’s effectively it. In retrospect, it’s a bit weird because I think about TTYD all the time. Mostly because the battle victory theme is what plays in my head every time I achieve a personal victory. It’s a bit of a stretch, but it counts!

Anyway, there’s a new Switch remaster that came out a while ago, which I’ve now finished playing. Like Super Mario RPG before it, it’s unfortunately the same game with a new coat of paint, some localization tidying, a few quality-of-life improvements, and a teeny-tiny portion new content. Oh, and also both games have fantastically re-arranged soundtracks. I would actually argue that the new soundtracks are reason enough to buy and play either game, because they are marvelous.

With the TTYD remaster, I’ve finally put in the effort to actually finish the game. And not like, just get to the end of the story. I did that already back in 2004. No, this time I finished the game. I found all the badges, I collected all the star pieces, I made all the recipes, I solved all the troubles, and I beat all the optional bosses. I truly got 100% and earned the special new badge that turns Mario gold.

And it was not at all worth the effort!

Month End Video Game Wrap-Up: July 2024

~ Game Over ~

Froggo’s Adventure: Verdant Venture (PC) – A cute little game highly reminiscent (like, suspiciously so) of Kirby’s Adventure. Only it’s like seven levels long. Very reminiscent of Whipseey, only it looks more NES than GBA.

Froggo Swing ‘n Grapple (PC) – Simultaneously better and worse than its sequel (mentioned above). Better because it’s about twice as long, is much more challenging, and has more gameplay mechanics in general. Worse because the central “swing ‘n grapple” mechanic is a little too loosey-goosey and doesn’t feel great.

Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars (PS4) – An old-school RPG represented entirely in cards. It’s a bit slow and much too easy, but it’s a Yoko Taro game, so the story, characters, music, and art all make it worth the price of admission.

Super Mario’s Land

You may have seen this already, but this one’s live on Rumble now, and watching it there will (potentially) give me money. So… do the thing??

Month End Video Game Wrap-Up: June 2024

~ Game Over ~

Cookie Cutter (PC) – Got this one in a bundle, and it’s definitely been one of those games that came out of left field and is awesome. A metroidvania with excellent 2D artwork and a very fun brawler-like combat system. Too bad the game is bugged in a way that makes 100% completion impossible!

Mega Man (GB) – All the Game Boy Mega Man games got dumped onto Nintendo Switch Online recently, so I played them all! This one is incredibly basic and there’s not much to say about it other than hey owned this as a kid!

Mega Man II (GB) – My friend owned this when we were little kids, and it was the first Mega Man game I ever beat. That should be a good indication of how surprisingly easy it is. An absolute cakewalk, and not all that fun.

Return of the Video

I don’t know if you follow my YouTube channel at all -and if you don’t, that’s fine- but I took a couple months off from posting anything in April and May. Mostly because I was starting to lose the passion for “creating” video “content.” Putting all those hours into editing just wasn’t feeling worth it for the pithy amount of views I get. But I’m back now! For how long? Nobody can truly say, but I do have videos lined up to at least midway through August, so there will be new stuff going up over there for at least that long.

Here’s a quick rundown of what’s been going on at TE-Video throughout June:

Nintendo Direct 6.18.2024

Honestly, I kinda lost interest in doing these Nintendo Direct play-by-plays a while ago, but this is very likely the last one where the Switch will be the main focus. In that case, I figured why not? Let’s a go!

Mario & Luigi: Brothership – Sweet! I know some people were predicting a remake, and I certainly wasn’t expecting an entirely new game! It seems to have a pretty wide variety of original characters and enemies, which is great! And the series’ art style looks wonderful in true 3D!

Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition – I’m just really not into this. It’s interesting, yes, but I’d honestly rather just play the actual games instead of the parceled-out challenges.

Fairy Tail 2 – Anime nonsense that I don’t care about.